IF YOU WANT TO REAP A HARVEST, START SOWING (WHAT YOU WANT TO REAP)....

If you want to live in a kinder, more compassionate world, start quietly sowing seeds of kindness. If you're sick of niggardly behaviour, stop practising separation.

Acts of kindness are steps into the unknown. The beauty of them is that they can be as small or as large as you feel comfortable with. No matter what they are, genuine acts of kindness increase feelings of wellbeing in both the giver and the receiver. They are an act of Connection, satisfying one the most basic of human needs.

One unexpected act of kindness, one word of encouragement, can brighten someone's day, and will be paid forward to others you'll never meet. It could even change a life forever. You never know, and that's the glory of it. 

 

What's even more extraordinary about giving kindness is – a) Kindness works best when you do it selfishly, for the feeling of freedom and space it gives yourself; and – b) it need not cost you a cent. 

 

I wanted to visit a friend who was due to have surgery in a small private hospital in the Adelaide seaside suburb of Glenelg, not an area I know well. I caught public transport to the main street, thinking there would be signage on the streets to the hospital. Alas, I was wrong about that, and got hopelessly lost. I stopped a young couple who were walking their dog and asked for directions. They didn't know either. After wandering for another 10 minutes a car drove up behind me and honked. It was the young man I'd spoken to earlier. He'd gone home, looked up the map, and come looking for me. He drove me to the hospital. I don't know his name, but his kindness made the day for both of us.

Have you ever been in line to get coffee and the person in front of you pays for your bill? It makes you feel pretty great, doesn't it? And it makes you want to pass that feeling on to someone else, like I'm doing with you now. The pond-ripple effect of just one small act of kindness can make a positive difference in so many people’s lives! Today, I'm asking you to take the time to do something nice for someone else, and the happiness will continue to spread. Join me by doing something small just to make someone’s day that little bit brighter. 

 

[Slip Into Spring/The Harvest – Bill Whelan – 5:01]

When you think about a random act of kindness you can do today, remember these 3 things: 

 

1) Anyone can make a difference. 8-year-old Katelyn Indelicato heard about a local man who was shot and paralysed as an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting. She wanted to help him any way she could. She emptied her own piggy bank and raised money to pay for a physical therapy session for a complete stranger who was going through a tough time. “Anyone can make a difference,” Katelyn said. “You can be more than what you are right now. You can do more than what you’ve already done.” Can't you?

12 years ago my daughter had collapsed with undiagnosed pneumonia and was near death in a coma in Melbourne's St. Vincent's Hospital. I drove from country Gippsland in the motor home I owned at the time and was desperately looking for a parking spot. Found one! In my highly disturbed state, though, I misjudged the manoeuvre and wiped a wing mirror off a very expensive 4WD. Flustered, I was struggling to write a note for the owner when he turned up. He took one look at his vehicle, a second look at my face, and said quietly, "Are you going to the hospital?" I nodded. He said, "Forget this. Go."

I've not seen him since, but I doubt I shall ever forget him, and what he did for me that day.

2) A single small act of goodwill has the potential to make a huge difference. In 1963, Edward Lorenz presented a hypothesis to the New York Academy of Science: A butterfly, he said, could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, in turn moving more molecules of air—eventually capable of starting a cyclone on the other side of the planet. He was laughed out of the conference, his hypothesis preposterous. More than thirty years later, The Butterfly Effect was found to be authentic, accurate, and viable. 

Just like the flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a cyclone, an act of kindness by one person can make the world a more liveable place. How many times in your life have you received an unexpected “Thank-you” note for something kind you hardly remember doing? Not often, I'll bet. You can change that today. A short note or email to say “Thank you” to someone you met recently can engender a tidal wave of good feelings that may be out of all proportion to the original act. That's the multiplier power of Gratitude. And you can start it all by yourself. 

3) Don’t forget to pass it on. It feels so great when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you, doesn’t it? Pass that feeling on by doing a good deed for someone else because kindness is like a snowball that’s rolling down a hill. Each unselfish act or word is another snowflake that greets the others… creating something much larger than itself in the process. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: I think the world has quite enough arseholes who blatantly seek some payoff for their “good deeds”. You can multiply your kindnesses exponentially by making absolutely sure that as few people as possible know what you've done. If the kindness you're giving cannot possibly be repaid, try to organise it so that the receiver will never know who the kindness came from. I'm not entirely sure how this phenomenon works, but maybe by keeping yourself anonymous, you throw the focus of what you've done onto the deed itself, rather than the doer.

And how you feel afterwards can be your test of your authenticity. Arseholes give themselves away when they whine something like ....."After all I've done for him/her!!!" If you feel any hollowness, you'll know your seeds were sterile, and you've got some self-awareness to work on. If you feel a buzz of aliveness, you'll know the seeds you've sown will germinate, grow and yield a harvest.

I know of no better feeling than that.

WHO'S DOING IT?

What's happening for you? Whatever is happening, regardless of how you feel about it, is just happening. When a thought about what's happening jumps in, though, and we shrink our self to engage with the thought, a bodily feeling follows and, Bingo! We take it personally and emotion (thought-in-motion) gushes. And then we credit or blame someone else for that emotional geyser, and everything seizes up.

You might as well get used to the Ruthless Rule of Reality – We make ourselves feel. Our parents, our children, our enemies and even our friends will continue to press our hot buttons until each of us realises what it is in us that we won't go responsible for, yet. Much to our annoyance, these people keep showing us what's got us bushed and, I'm sorry to have to tell you, they're not going to change until we do; that's how much they love us.

The first step out of any blind alley you're in is to get that you (as in “ego”) are the sole cause – mark my words here – the sole cause of your own suffering. As Byron Katie said more than once – “Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. Offence is never given; it is only taken. If no offence is taken, there is no offence. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power.

Question: When a thought is thought, who is the thinker? When a feeling is felt, who is the feeler?

Answer: There is no thinker or feeler. The thought we call Ego (because that's all Ego is) – the thought thought itself. The feeling felt itself into awareness. When the bag of thinking called ego jumps on board the thought/feeling, thinking “I am the thinker and feeler of this”, then suddenly the thought is thinking us, the feeling is feeling us, and we have forgotten what we are and become the victim of our own mistaken identity: we are neither the thinker, nor the thought, neither the emoter nor the emotion. We are an awareness of the thought being “thinked” and the emotion being felt. It has nothing to do with who-we-are, unless we get suckered by ego into thinking so.

The existence of any conflict in our life is entirely down to thoughts that create a fear for one's life. Mind, which is a bunch of thoughts, thinks “Without this thought I can't survive”, and suddenly you're off the freeway and into the wilderness. A ditch awaits you.

What is happening is just happening. What you're thinking and feeling is just happening in awareness. But when you let your “I” or “Me” jump in and get involved (try and stop them!) suffering arises.

By the way, you cannot stop a thought or a feeling arising. Try it! The more you try, the tighter you will spasm onto them. No one has ever been able to control his thinking or emotional reaction. Suppress or cover-up – maybe, but control – no, although some people may tell the story of how they have. I don't like their chances of living a healthy old age.

Around age 12 I got badly electrocuted and learned a valuable lesson about energy that's not flowing where it belongs. I learned that the harder I tried to let go, the harder it spasmed my muscles into a tighter grip. I had to relax and wait for the energy to let go of me. I learned that day to relax, remember what I am, drop trying to rid myself of the thoughts and feelings, and meet them instead with kindness and understanding. Then they let go of me.

I know I keep quoting certain people, but they say what I know so much better than I can. Like Byron Katie – “You are your only hope, because we're not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, delights, excites, attracts or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we're aware of it or not. The whole world is about you.”

Life is good,

Life is kind

Life is very beautiful....

All that appears to be, to me

Is arising in me.

“I” is not the body,

“I” is not the mind;

“I” is the Aware Presence

Within which these things I do find

Author Unknown

HEALING - ANOTHER WAY

Nothing is real -- unless you think about it. Pain, anger, and frustration let us know when something's gotten out of whack. Is it the thoughts, or the thinking about those thoughts? 

Thoughts are just thoughts, like cars passing in a busy street. They're not a problem until you step out into the traffic. It's the thinking that's the problem. Thoughts just pop in and out – around 50-80,000 of them every day. Most of them fly right on through, but some we latch onto and start thinking about. Then we either believe what we think about, or we question it: there's no other choice actually. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Noticing what sticks and what we let go with detached curiosity always leaves us as wiser and more loving human beings.

Uninvestigated ideas and thoughts-in-motion (emotions) just arise in awareness all by themselves. They have no validity or potency until we believe in them in the moment. Byron Katie, in her book, “Loving What Is:” writes“A thought is harmless, unless we believe it. It’s not the thoughts, but our attachment to the thoughts – making them “ours”, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years on end.”

One of the key principles of quantum physics is that the thoughts we identify with, latch onto and believe determine our version of reality. Early in the 1900′s they proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt with an experiment called the Double Slit experiment, a rather nasty piece of investigating science in which a lot of cats died. But they found something remarkable. They discovered, and were able to prove (thanks to the unsuspecting cats) that the determining factor of the behaviour of energy ‘particles’ at the quantum level, is the awareness of the Observer....... the spectator affects the game more than the players.

Who or what, though, is this spectator? Is it you? Is it me? Our individual consciousness? Almost, but not quite, although we do have a palpable secondary effect. But there is something else...... Human consciousness – that thing we've always mistakenly assumed is “I” and “Me” – think of it as a multi-sensory and feeling camera, and there is a camera-person looking through the viewfinder – through our “I” and “Me”. Whatever that watcher is, it is unlocatable, unseeable, inscrutable. But it is there. Simply aware. And that is who we truly are.

Thus the fusion of all thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and intentions that “I” hooks onto, which I will call the Human Consciousness for simplicity’s sake, is perpetually informing a Quantum Consciousness that exists within every cell of us, and around us at each moment of our existence. That is who we really are, and that never goes away, no matter what happens. In the operating theatre, I am out to it – totally out of it – for 12 hours while they work on my heart, but all that while I still Am. Awareness doesn't go off duty – ever.

Another Way of seeing it........

I think it is absolutely clear that we must start to consider ourselves as something other than just a physical body, a mind, or even a spirit. To limit our awareness to this traditional perception is a bit like being at the seaside and seeing only the waves, and ignoring the ocean which gives them form, substance, and to which the waves return when they lose their form as a wave. Just as the ocean is “waving”, Awareness is “Barrie-ing”, and “you-ing”, and “tree-ing”, and.... and.... and.....
 

A thirsty desert bird was desperately looking for a drink of water. All he could find was some water in the bottom of a discarded jar. But he couldn't reach it; the neck was too narrow. He needed a new approach, or he would die. Suddenly he got an idea. He started picking up stones and dropping them into the jar until the water level rose to where he could get at it and drink his fill.

Some things just cannot be changed. In which case, maybe you need a new approach. Maybe if you stop believing everything you think about and feel about, it becomes much easier and more effective to shift away from your present fantasy of “What-I-am” // to seeing yourself as that Awareness that organises and manifests itself in every thought, feeling and form that arises within this awareness. To put it another way, be the pure awareness temporarily experiencing this level of reality through all its creations, including what we call “I”, “you”, “me” and “those”.

 

New quantum science evidence is clearly illustrating that Awareness is non-local and is independent of the brain. This means Awareness doesn’t need the brain, or the body for that matter, to exist. But it's a lot more fun to have these things, preferably in working order, to give us something entertaining to think about.

 
But we take the fun stuff too personally and get sick. The first step to healing is to allow the possibility that we are not who we've always thought we are – the body, mind and feelings we inhabit. We are that which created, and is thoughtlessly aware, of all that stuff -- we are a creation of the infinite energy all around and through us. 

 

Consider also that we can consciously tap into this energy that we are, to promote healing in our body and mind, to become a more happy, healthy, vibrant and creative being. As soon as we start to connect to the infinite energy of creation and our own true nature as formless energy, then we start to become aware of these same energies passing throughout our body. This recognition begins healing. All we need to do is see it. There's nothing else to be done.

Byron Katie writes:-

“If you put your hand into a fire, does anyone have to tell you to move it? Do you have to decide? No: When your hand starts to burn, it moves. You don’t have to direct it; the hand moves itself. In the same way, once you get that an untrue thought causes your pain, you move away from it.” Naturally.

HOW TO GET EASY WITH UNCERTAINTY

For Jared..........

and anyone else faced with Uncertainty...... 

How do I get easy with the uncertainties that come with just being alive? Big question, huh?

[How Can I Be Sure? – Daryl Braithwaite (A) – 3:33]

There is a cliché that goes “We live in uncertain times”. It's hardly an observation of great daring – it's my perception that, throughout our history (personal and cultural) we have always live in conditions of uncertainty.  Certainty is a fiction; it exists nowhere. It is an addiction of the human ego. Parented as it is by Uncertainty and Ignorance, the ego seeks to hide its bastardy with brash displays of hollow "certainty". The level of righteous energy and control we seek to exert on situations and folks around us is directly proportional to the levels of our own refused Uncertainty, Anxiety and Grief that underpin the condition. 

The popular response to The Big Question is to avoid uncertainties and risks. That's a common and futile human reaction; it flies against nature and comes with a hefty price tag -- your vitality and aliveness. Dodging uncertainty goes against the flow of evolution; it leads to virtual death, because it guarantees that only stale eyes and ideas will be brought to the table.

Even before conception, life was impossible without risks. Several million sperm cells and only one gets the cigar!? Was that supposed to cheer us up with the thought that, after that, everything else should be a breeze?

 

There are few cushions or guarantees, and all of us face decisions, daily, that could turn out badly. We're encouraged, and in some case legally forced into an insurance industry that's based on a blatant principle of engendering a climate of Fear of Loss, then making promises of Security in return for your money, then paying out less than they take off you. Even on Sunday we don't escape the barrage of positive blather -- we get to sing hymns lauding "Blessed Assurance"...

 

At every level of our life we take daily leaps of faith, large and small. We lean our trust against others, hoping they'll do the right thing. We count upon predictions and trends that could slam into reverse at any moment. Risk is simply another word for Uncertainty and Insecurity, and it has been shown many times that uncertainty and insecurity increase the chance of a stress response. Risk is unavoidable, even in the most reclusive life. 

How you choose to handle risk will be vitally important to your emotional and physical well-being, peace of mind, comfort, your stress level, and your success – whatever that means to you.

Psychologists have shown that it is impossible to remove emotions from decision-making. Therefore, to handle risk well, you must not only inform yourself thoroughly on those in whom you invest your self, you must equally take into account your own pattern of psychological reactions to uncertainty, opposition, paradox and ambivalence. 

 

[Blithe Bells – Aust. Chamber Orchestra (A) –]

The good news is that, if you know yourself well enough, you can make risk your friend. Here are some guidelines for you:

1. Know your prevailing ambient anxiety level, know what triggers sudden surges, and be honest about it.

2. Be patient with your emotional reactions.

3. By all means be rational, but don't be fooled that reason or positive thinking can defeat risk or the resulting anxiety. It cannot. Logic and reason are but a part of the equation. Do something irrational for a change -- welcome uncertainty as an invitation to look at he situation freshly, with new eyes, from another perspective.

4. Gather as much useful information as possible.

5. Take in other points of view, and put them straight into your "Maybe" file.

6. Don't trust the crowd. The crowd nearly always gets it wrong. Never underestimate the pervasive popularity and alpha-power of stupidity.

7. Don't believe that trends and odds are anywhere near the same as certainty.

The parts of yourself that you might like to get more familiar with are those parts of you that are patient, rational, gatherers of information, not swayed by what the rest of the group thinks, and psychologically at ease with who you are.

Here's a meditation that you may find as revealing as I do – Assume each of these following experiences I'll give you to recall is an answer to a question you've temporarily forgotten. See if you can find the forgotten questions for yourself that have been answered by each of these experiences as they are with you......... now this is entirely for you and, rest assured, you cannot be wrong.....

• Living with the family I've got. Your experience of this is your  answer. What might the original question have been? ( eg. How do I get to experience pride and a sense of accomplishment?)
• In the middle of this relationship.
• In the middle of abundance.
• In the middle of scarcity = What do I experience? What was the question that might have led to this experience?
• In the middle of knowing.
• In the middle of not-knowing. 
• In the middle of sex – your experience is the answer. What might the question have been? (What does it feel like to......?)
• In the middle of feeling.
• In the middle of not-feeling.
• In the middle of freedom.
• In the middle of restriction.
• In the middle of experience.
• In the middle of all that is.
  
• In my middle.
  

Notice, as you went through this list with me, any question/answers that came up more than once, as the source question of more than one of the answers you just recognised. There might be one originating question that leads to several experiences. Similarly, you will also find multiple questions that lead to one experience. This is a marvellous way of getting to know your true self, and what has motivated you and led to your current circumstances, state of mind and mood.

At first glance, it's hard to see how risk could be anybody's friend, which is why there has been such a push to remove the human element. "Rational risk" seems preferable to the kind of risk that keeps people up at night and promotes a nagging state of anxiety. Far better, it would seem, to turn risk into a matter for the number crunchers. The rise of computerised risk assessing testifies to the popularity of Quantified Risk. But at the same time, Rational Risk has proved to be a dismal failure. The complex financial instruments that led to the economic collapse of 2008 were devised with the input of physicists and mathematicians, who supposedly had reduced risk to a sliver. What they didn't count on, and still don't, is human ego. Human jealousy, greed and rivalry intervene, along with other psychological factors - denial, competitiveness, temptation, self-importance and over-reaching. Irrational forces toppled the whole rationalist scheme - as it was bound to do. D-u-u-u-hh!

The psychological downfall of those who misjudge risk is writ large in the current political and economic debacles we find ourselves in. Now is your opportunity to look into yourself to see the factors that even the most prominent figures are prey to. What are your stakes in this....?

1. Denying that there is a problem with your choices and decisions.

2. Freezing, or flipping out in the face of crisis.

3. Your inability to deal creatively with anxiety.

4. Your fixations on winning. Obsession blinds you to process -  you adopt the thought that "the ends justify the means. The rules don't apply to me – I'm above criticism."

5. Competitiveness - refusing to lose, no matter what it takes, or who it takes out. Destroying any opposition or dis-agreement. “If you aren't for me, you're against me.”

6. Over-attachment, making the crisis and controls personal.

7. Over-controlling, focusing on irrelevant details while losing sight of the big picture.

8. Obfuscating. Looping and distracting attention away from what's really going on.

At the risk of over-simplifying, these psychological blind spots can be overcome by asking every day, "How am I doing?" I don't mean this in the sense of how you are performing, or did I win that one, but rather how do you feel about what's just happened? Do you rest easy? Can you look others cleanly in the eye, without having to stare them down. Do you detect signs of stress or anxiety? Is joy emanating from you, or do you look as if you've just sucked too hard on a pickle? If so, what are you doing about it? 

We're not talking about psychoanalysing yourself. We're talking about being aware, and being in touch with yourself. Your psyche is constantly changing; change is the only constant. Being able to stay in touch and in harmony with your self is a huge benefit if you want to keep up with the shifting scene. When you are flexible, open, and alert, you are becoming the master of risk. When you're defensive, aggressive, fearful, jealous and closed, you will be toppled by your own excesses. Bank on it (pun intended).

In the end, risk becomes your friend when you have enough self-awareness and humility to be comfortable with change, uncertainty, and unpredictability. These are inescapable aspects of life. They're what make it interesting. Otherwise, we might just as well have stayed home in heaven. It's up to you whether risks create stress inside or the very opposite - out of uncertainty can come excitement, creativity, new solutions, discovery, and the fulfillment of your inner potential.

I earned this wisdom back in March 2009 on a 7-hour bus trip from Bangkok to Surin City. I had sold up everything I owned, packed a few belongings, and flown to Thailand to start a new life with someone I deeply loved. Suddenly I felt more utterly alone and vulnerable than ever before in my life. And this is what I wrote ==

[Rufiyaa – Phoung Anh]

ON THE BUS -- BANGKOK TO SURIN (March 2009)

[Post Script: I had absolutely no idea when I wrote the notes below, that these experiences would turn out to be a vital dress-rehearsal to surviving the physical and transformational upheavals immediately following open heart surgery just 12 months later  There are no accidents......]

I am a stranger here.
Leaving the country of my birth
At age 66, I have come to live in this beautiful land,
But a country that has no niche with my name on it...........
I feel like a homeless tourist,
Welcome (up to a point)
And alien.

I have no control;
I am suddenly so very ordinary
And lost.
I feel my physical and mental well-ness
Being stretched and stressed with such rapid and drastic changes in locale.
My mind's reaction is to search for and attempt to restore
Something familiar --
To retreat from this landscape
To a country more familiar
Into rituals of familiar normality.
But I can't;
There's no-where to escape to.
I feel isolated, fearful and un-well.

I can feel myself creating this moment.
In this strange country I must accept whatever comes in the next,
Moment to moment
On its terms, not mine. I have no authority here.
Here, barrelling though picture-card rice paddies
Populated by alien people
Whose lives are filled
With their own concerns,
Notions of my self-esteem and meaning
Have no currency whatsoever.
They have lost their former power
To define and control this experience.

There's something I can do, though
And I'm doing it with all the focus I can muster --
I'm sensing into the the energy of each new locale --
The air-plane, the stopover terminal at K-L,
The Bangkok customs hall,
The bus station booking counter,
The lunch-stop markets.......
And maintaining a sense of balance in each place,
Observing and assimilating "How it's done here",
And being appropriate to that.
Balancing at that level.
Making it deeply OK to be shifted and swept off my feet
By the unfamiliar currents and eddies of a new environment,
Going along with the flow,
And creatively harmonising with it as much as I can.

Surrendering to just this much;
Until I have no more resistance.

When the current slows and allows,
I open up carefully like a newborn babe,
Exploring new and strange sights, sounds and smells gradually
Allowing uncertainty, fear, sadness and loss
To rise and fall --
And allowing a new energy to flow over and through me,
Dissolving the old boundaries between "Will"" and "Won't".

I've been blessed at just about every check-in counter along the way
With fellow-travellers who seem determined to do it the hard way,
Hanging on for dear life to their “shoulds”,
Bristling with self-important "Won'ts";
People who resist the way it's happening for them.
Thank you. You remind me that's not the way to do it.

...... I'm learning a lot today
About transformation.”

Handling the unknown can be a bit like going to live in a new country --

Get out and around, get familiar with the layout,

Allow yourself to get creatively lost in strange surroundings.

Learn the language,

Smile "Hi" to the locals,

Get to know the new rules, the customs, and "the way it's done here",

And be respectful and appropriate to them.

Expect some stress,

Our minds usually tolerate only so much

Before resisting the unfamiliar.

That's just how minds are.

Practice extending the threshold of your tolerance.

As you get older, take it from me – you're going to need it.

Make it OK to be shifted and tossed around

By the currents and eddies of change.

Drop every urge to fight the flow.

It's just culture shock

Make it OK to open slowly

And explore everything gradually.

There's no need to rush.

Surrender to each new experience,

And gradually get into harmony with it.

(Unison is not required – create a harmony that is pleasing to you).

Wherever you find yourself,

Sense the energy of each new space;

Strike a fresh sense of balance.

Allow times of uncertainty, fear, sadness or loss if they crop up --

Such feelings are common and natural responses to radical change.

Make them OK. Allow new energies to flow over and through you unimpeded.

Allow old boundaries to dissolve.

Allow the fullest possible flush of new freedom

To sweep you up.

Now is the only available time

To be stretched and re-shaped

By the powerful forces of what is

As yet unknown.

You need only three items in your travel kit --

• Willingness to venture
• Openness to experience
• An elastic personal integrity.

With these three willingnesses, you can be whatever you choose. All you have to do is decide your destination for today and embrace the journey. You don't have to make Uncertainty and Risk your closest allies, but life is a lot easier and much more memorable if you do. Shoulder your belongings, and put one foot in front of the other. The path will open before you. It always has, hasn't it? It always will.



Namaste.

[The Tender Trap – David Bridie (A) – 5:05]

KARMA

Have you ever said, or thought to yourself “Lets get out of here. This place (or this person) has bad karma.” We're referring to those feelings we get somewhere in our body about the good or bad energy emanations felt to be generated by someone or something.

Karma also means bringing upon oneself predictable, inevitable results, desirable or not, either in this incarnation or in another. And by "another incarnation", I'm not talking about some future lifetime – I've been to the threshold a few times and I really don't know about that: I'm talking about the many reinventions we experiment with and go through in this lifetime. If you put your hand on a hot stovetop, it burns us in this lifetime – not in some future fantasy.

According to Buddhism, human inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture", but also to Karma. In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. In Karmic culture, we ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.

 

Karma has been defined as “A continuous, present-time acting-out of an accumulated, uncompleted past”, a past that lies hidden under a blanket of pretending, deceiving, and a wall of smoke, mirrors and distracting – Don't look at me, will you just look at that!!??

I prefer to use the term “consequences” because it comes with somewhat less religious provenance and aroma of moral “punishment” than the word “karma”. But this is semantics. What I get is the we are both cause and consequence, living person-ally in a continuous ebb and flow of of cosmic causes and consequences. None of us lives in a vacuum. We are part of the bio-organism that we live in. Science presently confirms that not one part of a whole can change without affecting the whole. This means there is a flow-on from everything we say, do , think and feel (or not, as the case may be). And, whether we believe it or not, are aware of it or not, the effect is immediate. We live in a milieu of action and reaction, action and interaction. And this Law cannot be manipulated without causing further consequences.

Bottom line? Ignore or dismiss the flowback effect from your choices and decisions at your peril. If you spit in the wind, it lands in your face. 

Be aware.

[I Chose You – Paulini (A) – 3:35]

DON'T COMPETE -- CREATE.

Why can't we have a world that works for everyone? If this is your experience, perhaps I can answer it for you with a few intensely personal questions that may start you rolling again on your journey of self-discovery :-

What is it you're attempting to accumulate? Is it money? Affection? Respect? Loyalty? Security? Power? Possessions? Knowledge? Wisdom? …..

Why? What's the poverty you're trying to hide?

Does someone else HAVE to lose in order for you to gain? From my experience, only if you're lazy, lack imagination, or there's something seriously out of whack in your psychology and social skills. In any case, you can never truly have anything you take from another because you're always expecting to lose what you “know” you don't deserve. You're well on your way into a lifetime of chronic dissatisfaction, anxiety and disappointment.

Life coach, Stephen R, Covey once wrote: The key to life is not accumulation. It is Contribution. But for as long as we live in duality and feel separated and powerless, we so easily get hooked up in parent thoughts of Lack and Loss, and games and rackets of Jealousy and Competition. For some personal reason it does not occur to us that, despite all evidence to the contrary, we have the power to create what we want for ourselves. We are awesomely powerful at creating what we DON”T want; how is it that we so vehemently refuse to trust our ability to create heaven on earth?

Out of that ignorance and contrariety, we re-enact the same old strategy of, by fair means or foul, stealing from others what we won't give ourself. Individuals, families, groups, tribes, and nations get caught up in “I”, “Me, and “Mine”, and go hammer and tongs to “grab it while I can get away with it.”

“Don't compete, create”. Freeing words! Byron Katie, in her book Loving What Is: writes “As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything else is responsible for your situation, it is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.”

Wouldn't a life of creating be more fun and satisfying than continuing a life of impotence? 

Sit with these magic words for a while – “Don't compete, create”.

[That's the Way It is – Celine Dion – 4:02]

SICK & TIRED? THEN STOP.

Why is there so much unhappiness in the world? The short answer – because you and I put it there. The world we see and hear and smell and touch is our world – our creation. “Wrong!” you cry. “It was here before I was born; I grew up in it!” Hmm. I wonder about that. “It was here before I was born” is an assumption, an assumption that's worth exploring, but on another day. For today's purposes it doesn't matter whether or not our world was here before we became aware of it. What matters for today is that if we don't like our world, we don't have to stay in it. We can swim out of this unhappy backwater into clearer streams that are going somewhere.

All Unhappiness is caused by a thought with a feeling attached to it. The feeling wallops itself and the parent thought in two directions -- home into your cellular memory and out into the world's soup of social consciousness. Whatever we pick up from our environment, we amplify it, carry it and add it back where we got it from. We give it life. In this sense, the thoughts and feelings we hook into are using us to survive themselves. They're parasites!

It's little wonder to me that we so readily pick up on ways and means to be unhappy. We're literally drowning in them. Unhappiness and dissatisfaction seem to be the international currency of bartering and negotiating for what we want, and think we can't get unless we can manipulate someone or something else to give it to us. You can blame your ego for that.

Well, how is unhappiness working as your means to get happy? Not well, huh? Sounds like an exercise in futility. Sounds like it's time for another way.... Take heart from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “Man's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.” So here we go...

Firstly, it's absolutely counter-productive to turn your back on what and where you are right now. You don't have to like what you've become, but its a lot easier if you can relax that far. It's far better to celebrate everything you've done so far, good and bad. Every bit of whatever you have lived up to this point has been essential to get you to this point of change. OK? Nothing has been wasted.

It's counter-productive to resist. “Sailor” Bob Adamson writes: No matter how hard and long you try, you cannot negate yourself. I can attest to that; I've tried it. I adopted beliefs like “I'm not good enough”, and “I'm guilty”, and “I'm an embarrassment” (amongst heaps of others) – 70-odd years of solid, energetic negating myself, and yet one constant stayed true – “I am” – still. How could I have missed that for so long? “I am”.

How about you? With what self-beliefs and ideas have you tried to limit or write yourself off with. Good. Now, have they successfully negated you, or are you still here and is it still now? Of course you are. So negating yourself is futile. Splitting and separating yourself is futile. Conflicting is futile. Because that which you are remains untouched, eternal and empty/full.

Am-ness, Here, and Now....... The Holy Trinity.

Sailor Bob continues - The thought “I am” is not what you are, but it is the closest you will get to what you are with the mind. I call this bit of mind my Aware Ego. My Aware Ego is where I write and broadcast from, because I need my ego-mind to communicate with you. “I Am” is close. But not It. That's why I say you will never get to what you are with the Mind. And I cannot take you there. The closest I can get is where we are now, and I can point you to it. Crossing the threshold between Aware Ego and pure Awareness is up to you. Keep saying to yourself, "What is it that is aware of this?", and click to that space where words fail.....

So, given that Mind is not going to get us there, how do we bale out of Mind? Figuring out how to get out of the mind is just more mind stuff. The only way out of the Mind is a full stop. The searching is pointless. Stop. Stop everything. Stop and just be with that sense of Am-ness that remains. Now that you've stopped, are you still here, are you still now, are you still present, and are you still aware? Good! Go to and merge with that aware presence. Then turn and see how the world looks and feels from there.

This has been another Postcard From Out Here. I'm Barrie Barkla.

[Stop This World – Diana Krall – 3:59]

SYMPTOMS -- ILLNESS OR WELLNESS?

Author, Murdo McBein wrote in “Beyond the Himalayas” -- Sickness is the symptom, showing that your bodymind has lost its natural rhythm. The struggle to regain natural rhythm is the disease.

Dis-ease considers itself, and is treated in general by the medical and psychiatric professions as separate from the whole being. That separation would make Hippocrates – the father of medicine – gyrate in his grave! OK let's ask him – “What is illness?” Illness is energy invested in a faulty assumption, energy heading in the wrong direction, energy out of harmony with the whole being.

Consider this – one of those faulty assumptions I'm talking about is that your symptoms ARE the disease. They're not. Symptoms are messengers and messages of something untoward going on. So why do we go on an all-out offensive against friendly messengers. How about looking instead at what the signs might be pointing to? 
 

Furthermore, I posit another possibility to you – that the symptoms may be signs, not of what's wrong, but good news of the body and mind healing itself of what's wrong. The disease has already happened; the feeling of illness is the body recovering. Health is not the absence of disease: disease is the absence of health/whole-th. Symptoms are signals of the presence in the bodymind of something unhealthy that your bodymind is healing all by itself. Why don't you find out what is awry, and give your bodymind a bit of assistance, but don't shoot the messengers! Well, you're not encouraged to, are you? Why not? Could it be that, whatever disease you've got, there are probably more people getting rich off it than there are people like you suffering from it? If cancer was cured tonight, there'd be a lot of people lining up at Centrelink tomorrow.

Who was it who said "Heal yourself!"? Try switching your consciousness from one of trying to cure your unease/disease/discomforts, to one of being healed BY them. Stop going to war on the body healing itself! Then watch the medical industry turn itself inside out over that one!

Suffering is the bodily, mental and emotional fallout of conflicting thoughts, feelings and values skirmishing with each other. Mind thinks that if it doesn't oppose whatever refuses to fit in its existing pigeonholes, something dreadful will happen. Byron Katie, writes in her wonderful book Loving What Is: -- “You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer".” 

The ensuing melodrama is a concocted story playing in your mind, creating uncomfortably perverse energy flows through your bodycells. You feel sick. Wake up. Become aware. Notice the conversations taking place between your story and your body. Ask yourself “Why do I go on needing this story? What beliefs is it supporting? What good is all this argy-bargy doing me? What goodies is it getting me that I think I can't live without?”  

When you end your story, you begin living your life as it is. When what-is becomes more important to you than what you thought should be, suffering ceases, and healing begins. When you argue with what-is, you lose. Every time.

Healing cannot begin until every scrap of pretence, deceit and delusion is cleared away. Become aware, and begin telling the truth, at least to yourself.

[Heal the Pain – George Michael – 4:41]

IN PRAISE OF HOPELESSNESS

Yes, I mean what I say in the title, and, No, I'm not feeling especially sadistic today. I just can't bear to see worthy people suffer any longer, lost in needless Hope......

I invite you, just for a minute or two, to look at "hope" another way...... 

HOPE – can fuel the spirit and torment it – Hope can lead and mislead.

Hope is an activity of the ego. I feel it as an optimistic yearning for a desired outcome that we identify our spirit with. There's something warm and milky about Hope. Maybe weaning time has come? 

We cling to hope probably because once upon a time we hoped for something and, purely by chance, it came our way. So we put it together in that moment that “hope will get us what we want”. It hasn't worked since (maybe except sometimes), but our egos are never too fussed about being effective – just right, no matter how futile its conclusions, opinions and beliefs may be.

Hope is both a feeling and a way of being in the world. Hope arises from expectations, and is fueled by a parent thought that comes from a ground being of Loss or Lack and Insufficiency. If where you're going to is where you're coming from, there's little wonder that Hope begets more feelings of Missing-Out.

In a fictional gospel according to Judas, one of the Beatitudes could well be “Blessed are the hopeful, for they shall be lonely, but never be alone”. Hope does get you plenty of companions, all waiting for the Lucky-Break bus and agreeing with you that “while there's life, there's hope”, but that's about all. As such, hope is ultimately self-defeating.

There's a covert element of holy manipulation in hoping, too. Dishing out Hope has long been a favoured ploy of kings, bishops, and others who would like you to comply with their agendas. Well, good luck with that one.

If you come from hope, you will produce – yes, more hope, more expectations, and a permanent gap between you and what-is. Hope gets in between you and what you want and, like the carrot on the stick, keeps what you want tantalisingly out of reach.

There's more, much more to life than Hope. 

(I hope you get it.)

[I'm Always Chasing Rainbows – Aust. Girls' Choir _2:07]