Well 'space' was the first topic to come up, 'surrender' was a close follower and while watching Jet Li in 'Hero' tonight, the scene in which the 2 love birds Broken Sword and Flying Snow fight and Broken Sword drops his sword at the last moment at which point of course he is stabbed by Flying Snow... She says to him "why didn't you fend off my sword?" and he replies "so that you'd believe me." Of course what followed when she knelt behind him after he had died and told him she was taking him home now and pushed the sword right through him and into her was even sadder *sob* but rolling with the "S" words it brought up 'sacrifice'.... All of which are applicable and relevant to me right now. Who knows how long each one will end up, so I may break it into 3 different posts, lets see how fast I can type, only got 8 hours in a shift! LOL (luckily the post time of these posts goes off the start time and not the finish time hehehe)
Space, the final frontier... Eckhart Tolle talks about Space as being that in which other things exist, or the space that allows something to Be... A nice way to describe it, the space which allows something to Be. Of course generally when we think of space it conjures up thoughts of emptiness doesn't it, so giving someone space means giving them an empty place, but when you consider that space, in the context of something which allows something to Be, you would have to be talking about unmanifested Energy, or God, at which point Space becomes nothing but Love, and Love is anything but empty, but Love will always give you space in which you can Be...
My God, but when I look at what I've learnt in the last 4 mths I think it's more than I've learned in my entire life to this point, those stepping stones in life are just always there at the right time in the right place huh? Who knows where you'll find the next one, hidden in the mists of time, but hell you're always thankful for the ones behind you, and the one you're jumping on right now, well, I guess, that one is the single most important one since you're balancing on it LOL. The things I believed before, I now KNOW to be true. I know of the interconnectedness of all things, I know how to still the mind enough to recognise the ego, heck just today, I heard it SHOUTING at me, like a completely different person in my head, "ARE YOU CRAZY??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!" LOL, I know what that Space is, that Space is within me too, I can take refuge in that Space, that Love, I can turn to that when I feel puny and like I'm sinking, and that Spaciousness just lets me Be, and the Love lets me have Peace, and the ego finds it harder and harder to be heard. I've also learned how hard it can be to make space for someone in your life, and yet in other respects, how completely easy it is. Perhaps it's as simple as having learnt to recognise Space that it seems natural to try to ensure there is some there, maybe it's just all about timing LOL. Certainly opening your life to make room for someone else is a beautiful thing to do, it sort of reminds you that you are not a 'whole' on your own, everything is connected.
So I guess I've given myself space to just Be, and I've learned how to do that for others too... I've learned what unconditional Love is.... sucky to the ego at times, but it's all that is left when you strip the ego away, no conditions, no expectations, just a plain and simple I Love You no matter what and the Space in which that Love exists. I guess that Space, that Love, that's home... I've been led home and for that I'm eternally grateful, home is, afterall, where the heart is.
Surrender! (heck these aren't taking long at all!!!) I have a tattoo on my wrist in Chinese calligraphy that in it's most simple translation equates I guess to "surrender". Hadn't actually thought of it as that before, but when I was thinking about what surrender means, then I guess it does in fact mean that. How can you fight what is??? You can't!!! What is, IS, and it's going to be that no matter what you do, so why would you cause yourself pain or anguish or anger and hatred about something that very simply is??? Surrender to what Is, surrender to the Love in which that which Is is found! Labeling it good or bad, right or wrong, will do nothing to alter what is, only how you perceive it to be, I prefer the least painful perceptions thanks!!! I've had enough pain and suffering to last me a lifetime! Now I like to alter my perceptions, it may not be what I would choose for myself if I could control things, but heck it is what is in front of me, so accept it, accept what surrounds that situation as that which is within me too... accept the fact that all is connected, surrender to that and make your peace with what Is. As ET would say "anything else is insanity".
It makes me feel a bit like someone working a 12 step program, but where I've always believed God helps those who help themselves, I understand now that while that is true, there are things you CAN surrender - control, ego, fear based things. The universe is unfolding as it should, you can bash your head against the brick wall trying to stop it, or you can yield to it, surrender to it, go with it and who knows, maybe you'll find out that what the universe had planned for you far exceeded what you'd hoped for anyway!
And that brings us to the last of the three... Sacrifice, the surrendering of something for the sake of something else.
Life is so short, so precious, this experience of 'form' so vibrant so 'alive' that it seems like a crime to waste any part of it, but sometimes for the Peace of another you need to make a sacrifice.
A lot of parents or even animal owners say it's easy eh... I'd lay down my life for my children or animals, and yes, when we see a threat to the safety or well being of a loved one it's a pretty easy call to make! When you love them enough that you put them first without thought of return or reward knowing you are saving them from a physical harm. Is it harder to contemplate when there is no physical harm being threatened? Hell yes! Particularly when we are asked to be the sacrifice right? Far too easy for the ego to fall into victim mode and make a story out of the situation that you can then identify with... Poor me! But how can you do anything but what is asked if Love is involved?! How can you not want what is best for the other person, how can you not willingly sacrifice whatever is asked of you? Like a lamb being led to slaughter, there is no real choice in it, you surrender to it because you see the truth of it. In doing it for their sake you are doing it for yours. Having discovered the Love that we are, how can you contemplate withholding that from another? No conditions means freeing them to do what they want to do whether we like it or agree with it or not, it means Loving them enough to allow them to Be. Funnily enough when you get to that point you realise it doesn't cost you anything, any sacrifice for another doesn't take that Love away from you, that Love you have for them doesn't depend on being reciprocated, and that Love will not be diminished unless you (your ego) allows it to be.
Sure, we can make a story out of it, something to identify with, something to give us the right to feel hurt or the bigger person, or whatever, heck, we sacrificed our happiness for them, or our love for them, but if we can tell a story honestly, if we can do it from total Love, we can say we sacrificed our ego for them... I reckon we are the winners then! :o)
Everything comes with a gift in it's hand for us, it is up to us to identify that and take hold of it... Appreciate the gifts you receive and Love those who have sacrificed things of their own that we may get them, whether they are aware of the sacrifice or not.
Lots and lots of learning, lots and lots of making sure I stay in Love, I guess while I may want things to be different, I can't complain when I keep finding gifts can I?!
I hope you all can find Peace and Love, that you can all recognise that you have within you the space to Be, and that you can surrender your ego's to the God/Love that you are.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Musings on Real Love
What is "love" to you personally? According to Richard Bach Love is the most mangled word aside from God, and I must say I have to agree with him! Both words should be a signpost to something that in reality cannot be explained by words, but the words now are cheap and nasty, thrown around so often without thought that they mean nothing compared to what they COULD mean!
I guess that has a lot to do with us being such a verbal species doesn't it... we have to be able to explain something to someone else, and if they don't get what we mean, if their level of understanding is not equal to our own, we have to dilute what we want to say until they can grasp the concept at least enough to participate in what we are talking about. We also learn to say without feeling... how often do we say "I love you" to someone or something and not FEEL what we say? We pay lip service only. I've noticed this a lot when talking to animals about how their owners feel about them. The owner could say it 10 times a day, but if it is lip service only what is it the animal "hears"? Nothing! FEEL it and let them hear it through that energy.
The word love now has 3 very different levels of meaning, the first two based very much in the realm of ego... the love of the lovable, love of something because you get something from that, and lastly the Unconditional Love, worthy of it's very own capital letters!
on page 3 of 17 on one site I went to and searched "love quotes" I finally found something talking about more than an egoic love and it's by my beloved Rumi the sufi poet...
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it" - Rumi
And there lies a huge truth and even more, and more again hidden in the layers you could stip away of that one sentence.
Ego has constructed many barriers against Love, for the Unconditional Love denies ego of it's sense of self. That Love is infinite and eternal and that Love is WHAT WE ARE! Don't seek it outside of yourself, don't seek it in someone else, just remove the barriers of your ego, remove your fears, your doubts, remove your thoughts that say anything but, shut the ego up and FEEL it for yourself. That Love that allows everything to simply BE as it is, that Love that expects nothing, demands nothing, doesn't judge and doesn't label. Can you do that? To anything? Can you Love yourself like that? Do you place expectations on yourself and others? Then it's not unconditional is it...
Do you love beautiful things? Or do you Love things and they are then beautiful in the light of that Love?
Do you love another person because their love for you gives you value? Or do you Love yourself, perceived flaws and all and then have the freedom to extend that Love to another?
Do you put conditions on your love? I will love you if.... I will love you because... Find something innocent, find something pure, a new born baby, a puppy, a flower open to the sun, a bird in flight, just look at it, feel the awe, feel the joy, feel the Love, there is no "I love you because..." there is only I Love you. In things of innocence, in pure things, the Love that is manifested in form, that is in everything we see or touch is mirrored back so perfectly. If you quiet the mind, remove all labels it wants to put on things, you will feel it ripple through your heart and soul, you will feel it disturb the mind, for a split second you will be lost for words, there you have touched the Love that is already within you. There in that moment you have rediscovered the Love that is your birth right, the Love that is your greatest gift to yourself and the world.
You have that Love already, you don't need to seek it, you ARE that Love already, you just need to learn to recognise it again, in yourself, in others, in 'things'. Everything is perfect just as it is, nothing needs to be changed or added. Nothing needs to be altered or adjusted, whatever it is you are perceiving IS that Love already, that perfect, omnipotent Love. It will be that whether you love it or not, whether it satisfies your expectations or not. It IS that Love already, not judged, complete, unconditional, as are you...
How do you truly explain the lack of demand this Love has, how can you truly explain the freedom finding this Love gives you? So hard, and so the word is already mangled and mutilated, but the truth of it is there no matter what.
You ARE unconditional Love, whether you feel it or recognise it or not. Do not seek it, it's like looking everywhere but at a mirror to find yourself, but learn to still the judgmental mind, learn to quiet the ego and rediscover that Real Love for yourself! Live in that Love and allow yourself to be a mirror that others are able to look at and are able to feel 'special', whole, invaluable and perfect just as they are.
My Love...
I sought you, My Love, for many years, despairing of ever finding you.
I sought you in many lands, knowing you had to be somewhere.
I sought you in many faces, praying I would recognise you.
I sought you, My Love, because I knew you were my One and only.
I sought you because I needed your Love.
I sought you because I knew only you could save me.
I confess I became disillusioned after time
I confess I became disenchanted as I toiled through deserts
I confess I became disheartened when the faces I looked into were empty of you
I confess I became discouraged and vowed to seek you no more in despair.
It was then, when I stopped looking, I found you.
It was then, when I was still that I saw you.
It was then, when I was quiet that I heard you.
It was then, when I had no expectations that I felt your Love.
Now I know My Love
Now I know your name
Now I know your face
Now I know I Am in Love.
"Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain."
~ Sharon Salzberg
I guess that has a lot to do with us being such a verbal species doesn't it... we have to be able to explain something to someone else, and if they don't get what we mean, if their level of understanding is not equal to our own, we have to dilute what we want to say until they can grasp the concept at least enough to participate in what we are talking about. We also learn to say without feeling... how often do we say "I love you" to someone or something and not FEEL what we say? We pay lip service only. I've noticed this a lot when talking to animals about how their owners feel about them. The owner could say it 10 times a day, but if it is lip service only what is it the animal "hears"? Nothing! FEEL it and let them hear it through that energy.
The word love now has 3 very different levels of meaning, the first two based very much in the realm of ego... the love of the lovable, love of something because you get something from that, and lastly the Unconditional Love, worthy of it's very own capital letters!
on page 3 of 17 on one site I went to and searched "love quotes" I finally found something talking about more than an egoic love and it's by my beloved Rumi the sufi poet...
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it" - Rumi
And there lies a huge truth and even more, and more again hidden in the layers you could stip away of that one sentence.
Ego has constructed many barriers against Love, for the Unconditional Love denies ego of it's sense of self. That Love is infinite and eternal and that Love is WHAT WE ARE! Don't seek it outside of yourself, don't seek it in someone else, just remove the barriers of your ego, remove your fears, your doubts, remove your thoughts that say anything but, shut the ego up and FEEL it for yourself. That Love that allows everything to simply BE as it is, that Love that expects nothing, demands nothing, doesn't judge and doesn't label. Can you do that? To anything? Can you Love yourself like that? Do you place expectations on yourself and others? Then it's not unconditional is it...
Do you love beautiful things? Or do you Love things and they are then beautiful in the light of that Love?
Do you love another person because their love for you gives you value? Or do you Love yourself, perceived flaws and all and then have the freedom to extend that Love to another?
Do you put conditions on your love? I will love you if.... I will love you because... Find something innocent, find something pure, a new born baby, a puppy, a flower open to the sun, a bird in flight, just look at it, feel the awe, feel the joy, feel the Love, there is no "I love you because..." there is only I Love you. In things of innocence, in pure things, the Love that is manifested in form, that is in everything we see or touch is mirrored back so perfectly. If you quiet the mind, remove all labels it wants to put on things, you will feel it ripple through your heart and soul, you will feel it disturb the mind, for a split second you will be lost for words, there you have touched the Love that is already within you. There in that moment you have rediscovered the Love that is your birth right, the Love that is your greatest gift to yourself and the world.
You have that Love already, you don't need to seek it, you ARE that Love already, you just need to learn to recognise it again, in yourself, in others, in 'things'. Everything is perfect just as it is, nothing needs to be changed or added. Nothing needs to be altered or adjusted, whatever it is you are perceiving IS that Love already, that perfect, omnipotent Love. It will be that whether you love it or not, whether it satisfies your expectations or not. It IS that Love already, not judged, complete, unconditional, as are you...
How do you truly explain the lack of demand this Love has, how can you truly explain the freedom finding this Love gives you? So hard, and so the word is already mangled and mutilated, but the truth of it is there no matter what.
You ARE unconditional Love, whether you feel it or recognise it or not. Do not seek it, it's like looking everywhere but at a mirror to find yourself, but learn to still the judgmental mind, learn to quiet the ego and rediscover that Real Love for yourself! Live in that Love and allow yourself to be a mirror that others are able to look at and are able to feel 'special', whole, invaluable and perfect just as they are.
My Love...
I sought you, My Love, for many years, despairing of ever finding you.
I sought you in many lands, knowing you had to be somewhere.
I sought you in many faces, praying I would recognise you.
I sought you, My Love, because I knew you were my One and only.
I sought you because I needed your Love.
I sought you because I knew only you could save me.
I confess I became disillusioned after time
I confess I became disenchanted as I toiled through deserts
I confess I became disheartened when the faces I looked into were empty of you
I confess I became discouraged and vowed to seek you no more in despair.
It was then, when I stopped looking, I found you.
It was then, when I was still that I saw you.
It was then, when I was quiet that I heard you.
It was then, when I had no expectations that I felt your Love.
Now I know My Love
Now I know your name
Now I know your face
Now I know I Am in Love.
"Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain."
~ Sharon Salzberg
Musings on Heroes
Hero -
noun, plural -roes;
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.
4. Classical Mythology .
a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.
b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability.
c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.
We spend our whole life watching them fly across a screen, with super powers, always "more" than we are, always there in the nick of time to catch us as we fall, to save us from the evil villian, but really, what is a hero?
A hero to me is the one who lets you fall, the one who is there beside you as you go splat, the one who knows that your biggest gains will be from picking yourself up again. To me a hero is one who will open your eyes to the fact there is no evil villian but the one your own fears have made. Now THAT in todays society is a brave act! In our society at the moment we like to play the blame game don't we... There is no taking responsibility for our own actions any more we blame everyone else for our shortcomings, from our parents to teachers, to government, employers, even the non performing hero is likely to be turned into a zero if he doesn't live up to our 'save us from having to take any responsibility' games we play.
How many of us would even recognise a Hero that is saving us only from ourselves? How firmly are our blinkers on to the fact that we are the villian, our own worst enemy that we are wanting to be saved from? And if a true superman existed to save us in the nick of time, how long would it be before we blamed him when he couldn't get there in time to save us from the position we had put ourselves in simply because we were now prepared to take stupid risks knowing someone would get our asses out of the fire before it was all too late? How long would it be before our lack of true gratitude, our lack of true respect due to the lack of responsibility we should be taking, would turn that hero against those he was trying to save? How long before that crutch, became a wheelchair, became a coffin?
Lets face it, while we can blame someone else for our failings we will continue to die a little, we certainly won't be Living, Loving or growing!
So where is the hero that risks disdain, abuse and contempt in order to help you learn? He is the one who is there DESPITE the disdain, abuse and contempt you heap upon him, the one who will ensure you DO get up again after hitting the deck, even if it means kicking your butt until you get up yourself! The true hero is the one who comes from a place of real Love, who knows what you actually NEED better than you do and will help you get through it, maybe battered, maybe bruised, but wiser, more complete as a person, and perhaps, just maybe, ready to be a hero yourself...
So come on, hands up.... who wants that job? There is no wonder there is a lack of heroes out there huh? Takes a special type of someone to put up with all we heap upon them and still come back for more!
To my heroes.... I thank you from the bottom of my heart xxxx
noun, plural -roes;
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.
4. Classical Mythology .
a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.
b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability.
c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.
We spend our whole life watching them fly across a screen, with super powers, always "more" than we are, always there in the nick of time to catch us as we fall, to save us from the evil villian, but really, what is a hero?
A hero to me is the one who lets you fall, the one who is there beside you as you go splat, the one who knows that your biggest gains will be from picking yourself up again. To me a hero is one who will open your eyes to the fact there is no evil villian but the one your own fears have made. Now THAT in todays society is a brave act! In our society at the moment we like to play the blame game don't we... There is no taking responsibility for our own actions any more we blame everyone else for our shortcomings, from our parents to teachers, to government, employers, even the non performing hero is likely to be turned into a zero if he doesn't live up to our 'save us from having to take any responsibility' games we play.
How many of us would even recognise a Hero that is saving us only from ourselves? How firmly are our blinkers on to the fact that we are the villian, our own worst enemy that we are wanting to be saved from? And if a true superman existed to save us in the nick of time, how long would it be before we blamed him when he couldn't get there in time to save us from the position we had put ourselves in simply because we were now prepared to take stupid risks knowing someone would get our asses out of the fire before it was all too late? How long would it be before our lack of true gratitude, our lack of true respect due to the lack of responsibility we should be taking, would turn that hero against those he was trying to save? How long before that crutch, became a wheelchair, became a coffin?
Lets face it, while we can blame someone else for our failings we will continue to die a little, we certainly won't be Living, Loving or growing!
So where is the hero that risks disdain, abuse and contempt in order to help you learn? He is the one who is there DESPITE the disdain, abuse and contempt you heap upon him, the one who will ensure you DO get up again after hitting the deck, even if it means kicking your butt until you get up yourself! The true hero is the one who comes from a place of real Love, who knows what you actually NEED better than you do and will help you get through it, maybe battered, maybe bruised, but wiser, more complete as a person, and perhaps, just maybe, ready to be a hero yourself...
So come on, hands up.... who wants that job? There is no wonder there is a lack of heroes out there huh? Takes a special type of someone to put up with all we heap upon them and still come back for more!
To my heroes.... I thank you from the bottom of my heart xxxx
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Musings on Inspiration
World English Dictionary
inspiration (ˌɪnspɪˈreɪʃən)
— n
1. stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc, to special or unusual activity or creativity
2. the state or quality of being so stimulated or aroused
3. someone or something that causes this state
4. an idea or action resulting from such a state
from L. inspiratus , pp. of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in- "in" + spirare "to breathe".
I have been wanting to write a bit lately but I get stuck for topics, I tend to try them on for size and then reject them or get stuck on them, so much easier if someone just gives me a topic and I'll make something fit or get inspired LOL. I was given a list of 5 or so 'topics' and one of them was "inspire"... I was intrigued as to where this might start and finish so thought I'd ponder it on a night shift and explore it.
What or who inspires me and what is the inspiration for? Heck going off that definition, inspiration for me would cover doing housework, LOL, that's an unusual activity for me, but I guess that in itself is actually quite fitting because I HAVE found myself inspired to do some lately!
Authors inspire me, and a couple in particular inspire me to LIVE... Eckhart Tolle would have to be an obvious one lately, Murat Yagan of the Kebzeh tradition another, and Richard Bach (author of Illusions, one of my all time favourite books!) would be a third. They all certainly inflame me, certainly stimulate me, and arouse in me the NEED to do this, the NEED to move on, to overcome the obstacles, to be more, to break free from the illusions of ego and not only find the truth, but to LIVE that truth. Not only do they inspire but of course by way of the books, they guide too, they don't just light you on fire and that's it, you're on your own, but you are guided through to an outcome of that particular desire, which is fine by me, I'd rather recreate myself than the wheel and find my creativity there.
How do they inspire? I guess so much is dependent on where you are in your journey. I must confess timing appears to have much to do with it, something read once years ago meant nothing compared to what it means now. I guess you have to be in the right place at the right time, and perhaps then the inspiration will come, in reality, from anywhere anyway! For me, with these guys, I was very ready to move on with working on myself, and all three are so different in styles, but I guess all three of them were recognised as telling the 'truth' as I believe it. Something about each of them, just touched the core of me and screamed "this is it!!! Listen up!!!" Each of them makes me want to push the limitations I've place on myself, each of them makes me want to be the 'more' we are all capable of being when we realise the truth of what we are.
That of course then sets me on a path of development that allows me to find inspiration in all sorts of other places. A chance quote read on FaceBook, a belief in me that someone important to me has, I am inspired to be 'more' do 'more' and I do believe so far, that this being 'more' has as little ego in it as I'm capable of getting right now, particularly when it is to do with a belief or expectation that someone else may have of you. A fine line being walked there and you have to be aware as much as you can that it's being attempted or done for the right reasons, and I know if the changes or creativity I'm being inspired to do are to be lasting it has to be for the right reasons, it has to be done for me first and foremost.
Working on from there of course, all the above things have led me to exploring the Force, the Awareness, the Creator, recognising it in things, in people, conversing with it and feeling not only what it is, but what I am! So now my inspiration is that Awareness that I can find in the keyboard of the computer I'm typing on, it was felt in the river, the trees, the birds when we stopped at a river today driving home, it is found in a loved one by my side. It is felt as Peace in my soul, it is seen in the depth everything gains, it is acknowledged as the lack of separation between everything, it is inspiring because I want that all the time!
I really don't want the insecurities of ego, I really don't want to the pain that thinking from ego brings, I don't want to live in fear, I don't want to doubt myself and others, I don't want a fear of the future, I want that Peace in my heart, I want that Love in my life, I want to know that nothing matters enough in this world of form to disrupt those things. I want to be able to allow others to BE, I want to be able to allow MYSELF to be, I want these things to be unshakeable, so I use whatever inspiration I can at the time, whichever one resonates most strongly at the time, to secure that Peace and that Love, and I try to remember to be gentle with myself... I'll slip up at times, ego will interfere, it may cause me to doubt any number of things, but it finds it harder and harder to do so, particularly with the things I've found to be true through experience now. It can't make me doubt the Peace and true Love that I've experienced, although it may try to make me doubt I deserve that, it can certainly try to make me fear a future without that, but then that stems from a whole 'nother story so lets just leave it with saying, I'm more and more onto that ego!
So that is what inspiration is for me right now, I'm sure as my journey progresses that will change. All pretty selfish stuff LOL, but hey, can't even serve as a good example if I can't at least get that stuff right first right? Let alone create something others will appreciate!
inspiration (ˌɪnspɪˈreɪʃən)
— n
1. stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc, to special or unusual activity or creativity
2. the state or quality of being so stimulated or aroused
3. someone or something that causes this state
4. an idea or action resulting from such a state
from L. inspiratus , pp. of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in- "in" + spirare "to breathe".
I have been wanting to write a bit lately but I get stuck for topics, I tend to try them on for size and then reject them or get stuck on them, so much easier if someone just gives me a topic and I'll make something fit or get inspired LOL. I was given a list of 5 or so 'topics' and one of them was "inspire"... I was intrigued as to where this might start and finish so thought I'd ponder it on a night shift and explore it.
What or who inspires me and what is the inspiration for? Heck going off that definition, inspiration for me would cover doing housework, LOL, that's an unusual activity for me, but I guess that in itself is actually quite fitting because I HAVE found myself inspired to do some lately!
Authors inspire me, and a couple in particular inspire me to LIVE... Eckhart Tolle would have to be an obvious one lately, Murat Yagan of the Kebzeh tradition another, and Richard Bach (author of Illusions, one of my all time favourite books!) would be a third. They all certainly inflame me, certainly stimulate me, and arouse in me the NEED to do this, the NEED to move on, to overcome the obstacles, to be more, to break free from the illusions of ego and not only find the truth, but to LIVE that truth. Not only do they inspire but of course by way of the books, they guide too, they don't just light you on fire and that's it, you're on your own, but you are guided through to an outcome of that particular desire, which is fine by me, I'd rather recreate myself than the wheel and find my creativity there.
How do they inspire? I guess so much is dependent on where you are in your journey. I must confess timing appears to have much to do with it, something read once years ago meant nothing compared to what it means now. I guess you have to be in the right place at the right time, and perhaps then the inspiration will come, in reality, from anywhere anyway! For me, with these guys, I was very ready to move on with working on myself, and all three are so different in styles, but I guess all three of them were recognised as telling the 'truth' as I believe it. Something about each of them, just touched the core of me and screamed "this is it!!! Listen up!!!" Each of them makes me want to push the limitations I've place on myself, each of them makes me want to be the 'more' we are all capable of being when we realise the truth of what we are.
That of course then sets me on a path of development that allows me to find inspiration in all sorts of other places. A chance quote read on FaceBook, a belief in me that someone important to me has, I am inspired to be 'more' do 'more' and I do believe so far, that this being 'more' has as little ego in it as I'm capable of getting right now, particularly when it is to do with a belief or expectation that someone else may have of you. A fine line being walked there and you have to be aware as much as you can that it's being attempted or done for the right reasons, and I know if the changes or creativity I'm being inspired to do are to be lasting it has to be for the right reasons, it has to be done for me first and foremost.
Working on from there of course, all the above things have led me to exploring the Force, the Awareness, the Creator, recognising it in things, in people, conversing with it and feeling not only what it is, but what I am! So now my inspiration is that Awareness that I can find in the keyboard of the computer I'm typing on, it was felt in the river, the trees, the birds when we stopped at a river today driving home, it is found in a loved one by my side. It is felt as Peace in my soul, it is seen in the depth everything gains, it is acknowledged as the lack of separation between everything, it is inspiring because I want that all the time!
I really don't want the insecurities of ego, I really don't want to the pain that thinking from ego brings, I don't want to live in fear, I don't want to doubt myself and others, I don't want a fear of the future, I want that Peace in my heart, I want that Love in my life, I want to know that nothing matters enough in this world of form to disrupt those things. I want to be able to allow others to BE, I want to be able to allow MYSELF to be, I want these things to be unshakeable, so I use whatever inspiration I can at the time, whichever one resonates most strongly at the time, to secure that Peace and that Love, and I try to remember to be gentle with myself... I'll slip up at times, ego will interfere, it may cause me to doubt any number of things, but it finds it harder and harder to do so, particularly with the things I've found to be true through experience now. It can't make me doubt the Peace and true Love that I've experienced, although it may try to make me doubt I deserve that, it can certainly try to make me fear a future without that, but then that stems from a whole 'nother story so lets just leave it with saying, I'm more and more onto that ego!
So that is what inspiration is for me right now, I'm sure as my journey progresses that will change. All pretty selfish stuff LOL, but hey, can't even serve as a good example if I can't at least get that stuff right first right? Let alone create something others will appreciate!
Happy Easter!
hope you've all had a fantastic weekend so far, have just gotten home from visiting Christchurch for a couple of days. You know those days you literally just want to crawl into bed? Yeah well that's me right now, and just about to head off to work for the night shift. I guess I'll rely on doing some musings shortly to help keep me awake and bring me some sanity, but right now, really wishing I could just crawl into bed and hide from the world!
Hope you all enjoy your family time, and those here in NZ give some time to remember our Soldiers past and present on ANZAC Day on Monday.
Keep all that chocolate away from the furry crew, they really do NOT need it!!!
Hope you all enjoy your family time, and those here in NZ give some time to remember our Soldiers past and present on ANZAC Day on Monday.
Keep all that chocolate away from the furry crew, they really do NOT need it!!!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Musings on what God would say...
I thought tonight I would do it a little differently :o) I had thought of a topic while in the shower tonight but promptly forgot it again so have gone with this instead... a conversation between the Creator in whatever form it takes for you and a Human Being in the grips of ego...
God Says...
"Why do you break My heart?"
"It is not me doing anything to you, I have my own problems!"
"Why do you bring Me such pain?"
"I'm not doing anything to you! I have enough pain of my own!! What makes you think I would want to pass that on?"
"Why do you continue to hurt Me so?"
"Why do you say such things? I've told you it's not me, I don't know what you're talking about!"
"You have taken things that are not rightfully yours and now you hold on more tightly to them than what is yours by right. What is worse is that you don't even truly want what you have taken and yet now it is in your possession you cling to it as if to stop the owner returning and reclaiming what is theirs!"
"You have me all wrong, I would take nothing from someone else, I would do nothing to cause them pain, my intentions are good, why do you accuse me of this?!"
"You have picked up fear, you are holding tightly to insecurities, you have clothed yourself in anger, sadness and pain, be aware these are not yours, you have no right to these, let them go! Put them down! Claim no ownership of them!
"You turn to Me with these things and you place the blame for them at My feet, you say it's not your fault, you deny responsibility for picking them up, yet no one gave them to you! No one said to you 'here take these, I have crafted them specifically for you,' no one offered them to you as gifts, and yet you have them in your possession!
"You say you do not cause Me pain, you say you do not break My heart and yet you do these things to yourself with your ill gotten gains. Do you not see we are the same? Do you not see My Light within you? Do you not realise you are a part of Me? As you hurt yourself with your fears, you twist a knife in My side. As you blame everything and everyone else for your state of Being, My Being shudders under the onslaught of your violence. As you hold on to the pain of your Unconsciousness your heart bleeds and Mine breaks for the suffering you cause yourself, for what you do to yourself you do to Me.
"You say you would never hurt anyone and that your intentions are good and yet you bully yourself, you have no tolerance for yourself, you judge and condem yourself and your own actions or lack thereof. You are never good enough, you never have enough, you ridicule your own dreams and bemoan your lack, and with all of this you slap Me in the face and you tell Me I Am not enough for you.
"Like a willful child seeking attention, you cause yourself pain, and cry out for help as you turn away from that help. You say it is not you doing it and yet the part of you doing this is of you and you are of Me and thus we are One and now I must watch you suffering, and now I must feel your pain. Because you are the most precious of my Love I gave you the greatest gift of all, I gave you Will, and now I must watch you use that as you claim ownership of these things as if a common thief.
"They are not gifts for you! Put them down! Use my gift of Will to choose to return these things to their rightful heir, use the power of your Will to recognise what it is you have done and rectify this. Take off the mantle of pain you wear like a fine robe, take off the crown of unconsciousness, put down the sorrow, the anger, the jealousy. Let go of the fear, the despair, the anxiety!"
"I didn't know! I didn't see! Where shall I leave these things? Who do I return them to? You know I don't want them if they are not rightfully mine! But what is truly mine? What will I have left if I give them away? "
"Lay them at my feet for they are Mine. You have separated them out from the Whole, experienced them and now they get returned to Me. There is no requirement for you to take possession of them again, but my loved one, due to your Will, I know sometimes you will be a thief in the night and want to claim these things again for yourself. And you will hurt yourself, and you will hurt Me and when you've had enough of that pain, of that self destruction, I will again tell you to return them to their owner, and in that moment again before releasing them, you'll again ask, 'what will I have left if I give them away?' and I will tell you that you already have everything you desire and you always will. If you desire it you have Love, if you desire it you have Peace. If you desire it you have Joy. If you desire it you have dissatisfaction. If you desire it you have pain. If you desire it you have loss. I have already given you Everything, should you desire it, it is Yours, and All I have ever given you is Love..."
Nothing that comes and goes is you.
"I'm bored." Who knows this?
"I'm angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.
~ Eckhart Tolle
God Says...
"Why do you break My heart?"
"It is not me doing anything to you, I have my own problems!"
"Why do you bring Me such pain?"
"I'm not doing anything to you! I have enough pain of my own!! What makes you think I would want to pass that on?"
"Why do you continue to hurt Me so?"
"Why do you say such things? I've told you it's not me, I don't know what you're talking about!"
"You have taken things that are not rightfully yours and now you hold on more tightly to them than what is yours by right. What is worse is that you don't even truly want what you have taken and yet now it is in your possession you cling to it as if to stop the owner returning and reclaiming what is theirs!"
"You have me all wrong, I would take nothing from someone else, I would do nothing to cause them pain, my intentions are good, why do you accuse me of this?!"
"You have picked up fear, you are holding tightly to insecurities, you have clothed yourself in anger, sadness and pain, be aware these are not yours, you have no right to these, let them go! Put them down! Claim no ownership of them!
"You turn to Me with these things and you place the blame for them at My feet, you say it's not your fault, you deny responsibility for picking them up, yet no one gave them to you! No one said to you 'here take these, I have crafted them specifically for you,' no one offered them to you as gifts, and yet you have them in your possession!
"You say you do not cause Me pain, you say you do not break My heart and yet you do these things to yourself with your ill gotten gains. Do you not see we are the same? Do you not see My Light within you? Do you not realise you are a part of Me? As you hurt yourself with your fears, you twist a knife in My side. As you blame everything and everyone else for your state of Being, My Being shudders under the onslaught of your violence. As you hold on to the pain of your Unconsciousness your heart bleeds and Mine breaks for the suffering you cause yourself, for what you do to yourself you do to Me.
"You say you would never hurt anyone and that your intentions are good and yet you bully yourself, you have no tolerance for yourself, you judge and condem yourself and your own actions or lack thereof. You are never good enough, you never have enough, you ridicule your own dreams and bemoan your lack, and with all of this you slap Me in the face and you tell Me I Am not enough for you.
"Like a willful child seeking attention, you cause yourself pain, and cry out for help as you turn away from that help. You say it is not you doing it and yet the part of you doing this is of you and you are of Me and thus we are One and now I must watch you suffering, and now I must feel your pain. Because you are the most precious of my Love I gave you the greatest gift of all, I gave you Will, and now I must watch you use that as you claim ownership of these things as if a common thief.
"They are not gifts for you! Put them down! Use my gift of Will to choose to return these things to their rightful heir, use the power of your Will to recognise what it is you have done and rectify this. Take off the mantle of pain you wear like a fine robe, take off the crown of unconsciousness, put down the sorrow, the anger, the jealousy. Let go of the fear, the despair, the anxiety!"
"I didn't know! I didn't see! Where shall I leave these things? Who do I return them to? You know I don't want them if they are not rightfully mine! But what is truly mine? What will I have left if I give them away? "
"Lay them at my feet for they are Mine. You have separated them out from the Whole, experienced them and now they get returned to Me. There is no requirement for you to take possession of them again, but my loved one, due to your Will, I know sometimes you will be a thief in the night and want to claim these things again for yourself. And you will hurt yourself, and you will hurt Me and when you've had enough of that pain, of that self destruction, I will again tell you to return them to their owner, and in that moment again before releasing them, you'll again ask, 'what will I have left if I give them away?' and I will tell you that you already have everything you desire and you always will. If you desire it you have Love, if you desire it you have Peace. If you desire it you have Joy. If you desire it you have dissatisfaction. If you desire it you have pain. If you desire it you have loss. I have already given you Everything, should you desire it, it is Yours, and All I have ever given you is Love..."
Nothing that comes and goes is you.
"I'm bored." Who knows this?
"I'm angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Musings on Forms and the Formless
or the Manifested and the Unmanifested :)
Have had a great start to the weekend, with plenty of Eckhart Tolle, plenty of acceptance, a little kink in the serenity so I had to decide, was I going to say something about it, or accept it.... I decided what I wanted to know lay within the realms of ego so decided I was not going to ask it at all, it was not ultimately important and then had it answered a couple of hours later anyway LOL. I also had a couple of epiphanies (I like that word!) The first one came about with a what may need a little back ground explanation... The person who I have been working the Eckhart Tolle stuff with (let's call him Bruce to protect his identity - oh hang on, his name IS Bruce LOL) has since I found my acceptance been losing his own peacefulness (timing is always great for these things eh, I REALLY needed to have found my Peace for this, just as he still needed his while I was doing battle with my pain body ego prior!) It has been noticeable to me, and I've just been keeping myself centered and tried to be encouraging with the Tolle stuff without antagonising etc, knowing he'd find his way out the other end just like I did.... however while he was living more in the realms of the "mind" or ego it had been really hard for me to sense that "Awareness" or God in him, which prior I'd been able to recognise so easily! So anyway, the last few days, I'd been aware of the shift back in him to that more centeredness which I must say was a relief LOL and this morning I was trying to sense that Awareness again. I started with it in myself, pretty easy, took it then to outside of myself, pretty easy, and then pushed it that little bit further to find it in Bruce and all of a sudden it was all linked together!!! There was no separation between us or what was between us by way of space, it was one of those "OOOOOH! WOW!" moments, unfortunately the "OOOOOH!" distracted me from what I had sensed and it dropped away again, but it was really incredible for that brief moment of time! No separation.... all One... to believe that is one thing, but to experience it is a whole 'nother thing!
So having lost that Oneness aspect of it but still sensing that Force within myself I asked where it was in Bruce, why I couldn't find it as easily in him when he was caught up in his own mind, and it answered that is WAS Bruce... I guess I'd been thinking of any of us as "Godly" when we were conscious and living egoless and as "human" when we were caught up in ego and mind... I'd put an additional separation and judgment in there and was reminded that that Intelligence that is the Creator and Creation IS that creation! Not just a part of it, but it IS our personalities and our ego's as well, not just the "best bits" of us! A silly thing to have to be reminded of I guess, but a good reminder! And of course helpful in being able to find/recognise that Force that I was trying to sense in others.
Later watching some ET (Eckhart Tolle is just too long to type out every time!) DVD he was talking about time and how fleeting it is. How if we could watch a sped up recording of anything for 3000 yrs we'd see how even the most solid thing in this world of form decays and simply crumbles away and how this should help remind us not to identify with the world of form (as in be ruled by it and identify so completely with it and 'Time'). However I got something else out of that.... much like the young cat I reported about 6 mths ago and his take of ego being for the purpose of giving us some separation so we didn't lose ourselves in the "whole" again later, I got from this "forms" being temporary compared to the Source that is the formless, that we are here, manifested in form to experience what the unmanifested cannot... The God Force, the Energy that is both Creator and Created, is infinite and thus I guess, in majority it is unmanifested (non physical) energy.... a non physical energy has nothing to 'sense' does it? And yet here we are, experiencing a purely physical dimension, experiencing touch, taste, sight and sound, all of which can ONLY be experienced by this Source through us! Each sense is precious, and more precious because time is so fleeting... once we return to the Source Energy, we will no longer have the capacity to touch, to feel a loved ones face, to see them with eyes, to hear their voice with ears. Oh yes, we'll KNOW it, as the Source KNOWS it, but it knows it without having experienced it like we can as a manifested individual. It only knows it through us! How precious a gift, be have this tiny piece of time and form to do with what we will.... to experience what we can particularly in a physical sense... to the unmanifested Love is all that there is, to us there is Love coupled with touch, with sight, with pride, with lust, with all manner of things that only WE can bring into the equation, what a gift for us, what a gift we are to the Source.
Everything in our world is so temporary and so very very precious and yet the loss of it is nothing to be mourned, it will not cease to exist afterwards, it is not reliant on our memories, it is and will always be a part of the Creation and the Creator, an experience of expansion, glorious and vital and oh so important! Pay attention to what your senses give you, pay attention to what your eye falls on, what your ears hear. Pay attention to what your skin feels and to what you taste, let it be a miracle even if it's just once in a while, the experience of our physical senses is as I see it a vital part of what we can give to the Whole, of our gift back to the Creative Energy, something it cannot have without us being present, and something it receives so much more if we are AWARE when we are experiencing it...
Can you tell that really struck a chord with me today? LOL
So a wonderful start to the weekend, I love learning new things, I don't care if that is ego based LOL, I love it! That new knowledge, that new awareness, the newness to experiences it brings. I hope you guys can find some 'newness' too, to "see the world thru a childs eyes" as some famous person once said LOL.
Have had a great start to the weekend, with plenty of Eckhart Tolle, plenty of acceptance, a little kink in the serenity so I had to decide, was I going to say something about it, or accept it.... I decided what I wanted to know lay within the realms of ego so decided I was not going to ask it at all, it was not ultimately important and then had it answered a couple of hours later anyway LOL. I also had a couple of epiphanies (I like that word!) The first one came about with a what may need a little back ground explanation... The person who I have been working the Eckhart Tolle stuff with (let's call him Bruce to protect his identity - oh hang on, his name IS Bruce LOL) has since I found my acceptance been losing his own peacefulness (timing is always great for these things eh, I REALLY needed to have found my Peace for this, just as he still needed his while I was doing battle with my pain body ego prior!) It has been noticeable to me, and I've just been keeping myself centered and tried to be encouraging with the Tolle stuff without antagonising etc, knowing he'd find his way out the other end just like I did.... however while he was living more in the realms of the "mind" or ego it had been really hard for me to sense that "Awareness" or God in him, which prior I'd been able to recognise so easily! So anyway, the last few days, I'd been aware of the shift back in him to that more centeredness which I must say was a relief LOL and this morning I was trying to sense that Awareness again. I started with it in myself, pretty easy, took it then to outside of myself, pretty easy, and then pushed it that little bit further to find it in Bruce and all of a sudden it was all linked together!!! There was no separation between us or what was between us by way of space, it was one of those "OOOOOH! WOW!" moments, unfortunately the "OOOOOH!" distracted me from what I had sensed and it dropped away again, but it was really incredible for that brief moment of time! No separation.... all One... to believe that is one thing, but to experience it is a whole 'nother thing!
So having lost that Oneness aspect of it but still sensing that Force within myself I asked where it was in Bruce, why I couldn't find it as easily in him when he was caught up in his own mind, and it answered that is WAS Bruce... I guess I'd been thinking of any of us as "Godly" when we were conscious and living egoless and as "human" when we were caught up in ego and mind... I'd put an additional separation and judgment in there and was reminded that that Intelligence that is the Creator and Creation IS that creation! Not just a part of it, but it IS our personalities and our ego's as well, not just the "best bits" of us! A silly thing to have to be reminded of I guess, but a good reminder! And of course helpful in being able to find/recognise that Force that I was trying to sense in others.
Later watching some ET (Eckhart Tolle is just too long to type out every time!) DVD he was talking about time and how fleeting it is. How if we could watch a sped up recording of anything for 3000 yrs we'd see how even the most solid thing in this world of form decays and simply crumbles away and how this should help remind us not to identify with the world of form (as in be ruled by it and identify so completely with it and 'Time'). However I got something else out of that.... much like the young cat I reported about 6 mths ago and his take of ego being for the purpose of giving us some separation so we didn't lose ourselves in the "whole" again later, I got from this "forms" being temporary compared to the Source that is the formless, that we are here, manifested in form to experience what the unmanifested cannot... The God Force, the Energy that is both Creator and Created, is infinite and thus I guess, in majority it is unmanifested (non physical) energy.... a non physical energy has nothing to 'sense' does it? And yet here we are, experiencing a purely physical dimension, experiencing touch, taste, sight and sound, all of which can ONLY be experienced by this Source through us! Each sense is precious, and more precious because time is so fleeting... once we return to the Source Energy, we will no longer have the capacity to touch, to feel a loved ones face, to see them with eyes, to hear their voice with ears. Oh yes, we'll KNOW it, as the Source KNOWS it, but it knows it without having experienced it like we can as a manifested individual. It only knows it through us! How precious a gift, be have this tiny piece of time and form to do with what we will.... to experience what we can particularly in a physical sense... to the unmanifested Love is all that there is, to us there is Love coupled with touch, with sight, with pride, with lust, with all manner of things that only WE can bring into the equation, what a gift for us, what a gift we are to the Source.
Everything in our world is so temporary and so very very precious and yet the loss of it is nothing to be mourned, it will not cease to exist afterwards, it is not reliant on our memories, it is and will always be a part of the Creation and the Creator, an experience of expansion, glorious and vital and oh so important! Pay attention to what your senses give you, pay attention to what your eye falls on, what your ears hear. Pay attention to what your skin feels and to what you taste, let it be a miracle even if it's just once in a while, the experience of our physical senses is as I see it a vital part of what we can give to the Whole, of our gift back to the Creative Energy, something it cannot have without us being present, and something it receives so much more if we are AWARE when we are experiencing it...
Can you tell that really struck a chord with me today? LOL
So a wonderful start to the weekend, I love learning new things, I don't care if that is ego based LOL, I love it! That new knowledge, that new awareness, the newness to experiences it brings. I hope you guys can find some 'newness' too, to "see the world thru a childs eyes" as some famous person once said LOL.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Musings on the Ego...
It's always interesting how well timed signposts are in appearing if we are aware of them...
Here I am quite happy with how my acceptance learning is going, and in the space of a phone call I become aware just how much ego is still involved and how there are still little things the acceptance isn't 'honest' in yet... Nice thing is I have become aware of it without feeling a negative attachment to it, so I can now add that to the list of things to be 'conscious' about to ensure that I catch the ego before it does its little digs, before it makes its oh so subtle judgments, so all good! Onwards and upwards and glad to know I'm not the only one going to benefit from me becoming aware of this!
So rolling on from there I guess tonight will see me musing about ego and how I notice mine, how I deal with mine when I'm aware of it or made aware of it and how crafty I've noticed it can be trying to slide on in there!
Ego! Gotta love it! It gives us our identity, it ensures we have enough individuality that once we return to the Source, to 'God' that we aren't simply swallowed by the infiniteness of it, but are able to maintain that separate, or individual consciousness within that.... through our experiences, our learning, our personalities, our egos we are able to keep that sense of 'self' once we are returned to the Whole. That's my take on it anyway! So in that respect it's all good! I know I'm a part of the whole, a part of the infinite but the ego in me is more than happy to hear that all that I go through here, all that I "am" here won't just disappear once it's finished, I won't be a single drop of water, swallowed in the infinite ocean and diluted until you can't find that one drop again afterwards, I'll be a single drop that is aware it is a drop in an ocean and thus hold itself as complete within the completeness!
However what was to serve a purpose AFTER this life, has taken us over in this life, what should be a valuable tool, so that we can experience a sense of self outside of the all encompassing Source, has mutated somewhat through our own allowance of it to a wee monster who does not want to give up that individuality again! Ego is fear of being swallowed by the whole and losing its sense of self, so it fights, sometimes tooth and nail to maintain it's sense of individuality... if you're Aquarius like me you can see it in the contrary nature, where we will take the opposite stance to anyone, no matter whether it is what we believe or not, just to be different LOL.
Ego is the "I'm right and I'm different to you so you must be wrong", ego is the "I'm better and bigger and stronger than you, because then YOU might get swallowed by the ocean, but I'll have a chance of surviving", ego is fear.
Now Eckhart Tolle has a fantastically simple way of dealing with the ego and that is to simply be aware of it, to watch it. Of course you have to recognise it first right? To start with it's pretty simple to recognise, you'll be stunned once you start looking at how UNsubtle it is! But once you become more aware of it, once you start taming it, you may be quite surprised at what a fast learner it is! It becomes very subtle, it sneaks in under the disguise of a motive of Love until somehow your attention is brought to the fact that the motive of Love has a judgment attached, or a slightly superior attitude, or a gloating, or any other number of emotions that when stripped back bring it back to an ego based "I will survive" type of emotion. Sneaky little buggers they are!
So tonight I was made aware of my more subtle ego still playing its games, which is lovely because now I'm aware, I can watch it again, observe it and settle it back down like a fussing baby when it should be sleeping!
It is very much easiest when starting out to think of the ego as a separate identity, then you don't get pulled into the guilt or the blame game, where you judge yourself for 'not knowing better' for failing to recognise it etc etc, all just more ego based pain/fear based stuff.
I guess for me personally it helps to work on leaving judgments behind when I remind myself that 'God', the infinite Source of everything is a very pure, very unconditional, very neutral Love. That Love that will sit back and let you make your own mistakes, it will not try to protect, it will not judge, but it simply allows you to be, and that includes making and learning from our 'mistakes'. So if EVERYTHING is made up completely and utterly from the energy that is Love, then nothing can be judged as bad or wrong can it! It may be vibrating at a different frequency, we may perceive it as a negative for whatever reason, but ultimately it is a manifested form of Love, so it cannot possibly be "bad". That would go for the ego too then right? The ego is not bad. The ego is not out to get us or those around us, the ego is simply a form of Love that is vibrating at a slightly different frequency now, and is out of synch. Much like the Laws of Gravity, a bigger object with attract a smaller object, subjecting a little Love to a BIGGER Love will bring that little Love up in frequency until it is back in synch, so we subject the ego to the light of Awareness, the presense of Love, to 'God' if you can accept that term. We watch it, without judging, we simply observe it and observe in it the Awareness, the Love. Like alchemy it transmutes from a base metal, from a common sludge, to the purest gold, more precious than anything, bringing great value and worth with it. The Ego is a part of who and what we are, we don't want to cast it out, we don't want to destroy it! It is us! But we want to make a fine wine from it instead of it being the vinegar it is when it tries to process itself without Love.
So my ego tonight was found to be a judgmental one and on more than one level! My ego wanted someone to have reasons for doing something that fitted MY perception of what was 'right', I was judging not only them (or rather wanting to not be able to judge them because they conformed to what I wanted!) but I was judging MY reasons as the best ones, lets face it, I am of course, always right!!! (Aquarius remember?! LOL) I now have to consciously be aware of the ego, because although the reasons behind it are ultimately seen (by me!) as good ones, wanting someone to be the best they can be, they are still judging and setting people up for failure, and setting myself up to be disallusioned when they can't live up to my expectations! I, without ego, can and will accept their reasons as THEIR reasons, I accept their journey as not identical to mine even though they may be similar, I accept that I can control only one thing and that is myself and my thoughts and my Love, and that when I can control that there is no NEED to control anything else, all else is free to 'be'... so I turn my awareness to the voice in my head, the one that justifies, the one that makes excuses, the one that tries to place blame, the voice that is fear and pain based, and I watch that voice, I watch it with Love, that is the "me" part of the "I Am", that needy little voice is the Kelley-Anne part of this Being, and with a bit of careful observation, and with a lot of awareness, that part of me will be serene, that part of me will be at Peace, that part of me will be Love with a sense of self and will no longer be able to or try to hurt others or myself to protect it's identity.
I have no doubt my ego hasn't finished teaching me yet, I get the feeling we're not quite out of the common sludge stage just yet! But we are progressing, I am no longer unconsciously letting it run my life and cause me the pain and misery it has in the past. I'm no longer unconsciously letting it sabotage myself or those that I love, I no longer honour the ego by buying into the past or the future... all I truly have is right now, this very moment, and I will honour that as the only truth I have. What I say right NOW makes a difference, what I do right NOW is important, because anything else is pure illusion, is simply either no longer exists or has not yet existed! It is all illusion outside of this one glorious moment, each Now contains within it the infinite, each Now has the potential to be ANYTHING, do you honour that potential or wish it away for the illusion of a future or a memory of the past and buy into the ego....?
Here I am quite happy with how my acceptance learning is going, and in the space of a phone call I become aware just how much ego is still involved and how there are still little things the acceptance isn't 'honest' in yet... Nice thing is I have become aware of it without feeling a negative attachment to it, so I can now add that to the list of things to be 'conscious' about to ensure that I catch the ego before it does its little digs, before it makes its oh so subtle judgments, so all good! Onwards and upwards and glad to know I'm not the only one going to benefit from me becoming aware of this!
So rolling on from there I guess tonight will see me musing about ego and how I notice mine, how I deal with mine when I'm aware of it or made aware of it and how crafty I've noticed it can be trying to slide on in there!
Ego! Gotta love it! It gives us our identity, it ensures we have enough individuality that once we return to the Source, to 'God' that we aren't simply swallowed by the infiniteness of it, but are able to maintain that separate, or individual consciousness within that.... through our experiences, our learning, our personalities, our egos we are able to keep that sense of 'self' once we are returned to the Whole. That's my take on it anyway! So in that respect it's all good! I know I'm a part of the whole, a part of the infinite but the ego in me is more than happy to hear that all that I go through here, all that I "am" here won't just disappear once it's finished, I won't be a single drop of water, swallowed in the infinite ocean and diluted until you can't find that one drop again afterwards, I'll be a single drop that is aware it is a drop in an ocean and thus hold itself as complete within the completeness!
However what was to serve a purpose AFTER this life, has taken us over in this life, what should be a valuable tool, so that we can experience a sense of self outside of the all encompassing Source, has mutated somewhat through our own allowance of it to a wee monster who does not want to give up that individuality again! Ego is fear of being swallowed by the whole and losing its sense of self, so it fights, sometimes tooth and nail to maintain it's sense of individuality... if you're Aquarius like me you can see it in the contrary nature, where we will take the opposite stance to anyone, no matter whether it is what we believe or not, just to be different LOL.
Ego is the "I'm right and I'm different to you so you must be wrong", ego is the "I'm better and bigger and stronger than you, because then YOU might get swallowed by the ocean, but I'll have a chance of surviving", ego is fear.
Now Eckhart Tolle has a fantastically simple way of dealing with the ego and that is to simply be aware of it, to watch it. Of course you have to recognise it first right? To start with it's pretty simple to recognise, you'll be stunned once you start looking at how UNsubtle it is! But once you become more aware of it, once you start taming it, you may be quite surprised at what a fast learner it is! It becomes very subtle, it sneaks in under the disguise of a motive of Love until somehow your attention is brought to the fact that the motive of Love has a judgment attached, or a slightly superior attitude, or a gloating, or any other number of emotions that when stripped back bring it back to an ego based "I will survive" type of emotion. Sneaky little buggers they are!
So tonight I was made aware of my more subtle ego still playing its games, which is lovely because now I'm aware, I can watch it again, observe it and settle it back down like a fussing baby when it should be sleeping!
It is very much easiest when starting out to think of the ego as a separate identity, then you don't get pulled into the guilt or the blame game, where you judge yourself for 'not knowing better' for failing to recognise it etc etc, all just more ego based pain/fear based stuff.
I guess for me personally it helps to work on leaving judgments behind when I remind myself that 'God', the infinite Source of everything is a very pure, very unconditional, very neutral Love. That Love that will sit back and let you make your own mistakes, it will not try to protect, it will not judge, but it simply allows you to be, and that includes making and learning from our 'mistakes'. So if EVERYTHING is made up completely and utterly from the energy that is Love, then nothing can be judged as bad or wrong can it! It may be vibrating at a different frequency, we may perceive it as a negative for whatever reason, but ultimately it is a manifested form of Love, so it cannot possibly be "bad". That would go for the ego too then right? The ego is not bad. The ego is not out to get us or those around us, the ego is simply a form of Love that is vibrating at a slightly different frequency now, and is out of synch. Much like the Laws of Gravity, a bigger object with attract a smaller object, subjecting a little Love to a BIGGER Love will bring that little Love up in frequency until it is back in synch, so we subject the ego to the light of Awareness, the presense of Love, to 'God' if you can accept that term. We watch it, without judging, we simply observe it and observe in it the Awareness, the Love. Like alchemy it transmutes from a base metal, from a common sludge, to the purest gold, more precious than anything, bringing great value and worth with it. The Ego is a part of who and what we are, we don't want to cast it out, we don't want to destroy it! It is us! But we want to make a fine wine from it instead of it being the vinegar it is when it tries to process itself without Love.
So my ego tonight was found to be a judgmental one and on more than one level! My ego wanted someone to have reasons for doing something that fitted MY perception of what was 'right', I was judging not only them (or rather wanting to not be able to judge them because they conformed to what I wanted!) but I was judging MY reasons as the best ones, lets face it, I am of course, always right!!! (Aquarius remember?! LOL) I now have to consciously be aware of the ego, because although the reasons behind it are ultimately seen (by me!) as good ones, wanting someone to be the best they can be, they are still judging and setting people up for failure, and setting myself up to be disallusioned when they can't live up to my expectations! I, without ego, can and will accept their reasons as THEIR reasons, I accept their journey as not identical to mine even though they may be similar, I accept that I can control only one thing and that is myself and my thoughts and my Love, and that when I can control that there is no NEED to control anything else, all else is free to 'be'... so I turn my awareness to the voice in my head, the one that justifies, the one that makes excuses, the one that tries to place blame, the voice that is fear and pain based, and I watch that voice, I watch it with Love, that is the "me" part of the "I Am", that needy little voice is the Kelley-Anne part of this Being, and with a bit of careful observation, and with a lot of awareness, that part of me will be serene, that part of me will be at Peace, that part of me will be Love with a sense of self and will no longer be able to or try to hurt others or myself to protect it's identity.
I have no doubt my ego hasn't finished teaching me yet, I get the feeling we're not quite out of the common sludge stage just yet! But we are progressing, I am no longer unconsciously letting it run my life and cause me the pain and misery it has in the past. I'm no longer unconsciously letting it sabotage myself or those that I love, I no longer honour the ego by buying into the past or the future... all I truly have is right now, this very moment, and I will honour that as the only truth I have. What I say right NOW makes a difference, what I do right NOW is important, because anything else is pure illusion, is simply either no longer exists or has not yet existed! It is all illusion outside of this one glorious moment, each Now contains within it the infinite, each Now has the potential to be ANYTHING, do you honour that potential or wish it away for the illusion of a future or a memory of the past and buy into the ego....?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Musings on Acceptance...
A quiet nightshift is a good time to contemplate things, or just get going in the Now and NOT think... I find I usually do a long winded email that is definitely a contemplation thing so thought I'd actually jot down some thoughts as just that this time, rather than directing them at a particular person for a particular reason. Problem is what to muse over! So many topics, so few hours and still work to be done, so lets pick a relatively simple one... Acceptance...
I guess to me acceptance is just letting something "be" and to be honest it is a pretty new lesson learnt or being learnt for me. Funny though, I can't actually pinpoint what if anything stirred up that learning! However I do know I've gone from impatient, fighting what is happening, worrying, living in fear of an unknown future, made even more precarious because someone else is involved and we all know you can't control someone else, feeling like I was going mad, in the grips of ego, pain body and god knows what else, to like having a switch flicked, and simply flipping over to accepting what will be will be, accepting that I can't control time, others, and to a huge extent what happens around me, the only given is I can control what happens within me. I can control MY attitudes, I can control my reactions, my actions, my thoughts and my feelings. And although I use the word "control" here, I haven't had to 'control' anything, that acceptance has come so peacefully, there is nothing left to control. Things may still be uncertain, but it no longer matters. In fact I feel rather neutral about everything, there are no highs or lows, no real good or bad, everything just 'is'. To be honest it feels so neutral I get the feeling I'm either missing something or not doing it right! LOL. Having said that it is a lot nicer to live daily here than with the pain body and ego that was in control only a matter of a couple of weeks ago!
I'm not sure if internally I could describe it as being at "peace", there is still enough uncertainty around things that although it doesn't really bring me disquiet, it lurks. At times I feel like I am about to get nervous butterflies, I realise that and realise it's the uncertainty factor, so ego and a fear of the future. As I realise this it dissolves away again to this very neutral state of acceptance again, which although lovely feels like there is something missing. I'm expecting acceptance to come with a positive 'emotion' rather than a lack of any emotion I suppose, but hey! Early days and I'm sure if I stop and examine what is going on inside the Peace and Joy are still there, like the sun behind the clouds, it's just that I'm not recognising them at the moment.
So the lack of 'positives' aside, this feeling has given me a lot of freedom! Every moment is participated in. I may prefer to be in bed and sound asleep, but I'm not and that NOT being where I'd prefer doesn't bring me any negative feelings or thoughts at all. I'm here, I'll make the most of it. I'll enjoy the music playing in the restaurant, enjoy some time to contemplate, I'll get my work done and be ready to greet the new morning with a tired smile.
Funny thing is I keep expecting this feeling to fade, to disappear, that the impatience, and negatives will make there way back in, so far so good, they haven't! I guess being aware of what I've found serves very simply to keep it in place. If I hadn't recognised what it was perhaps the ego and pain body would have had an easier time sliding back in past it, but that awareness, that recognition of it serves to keep my attention on it and it holds in place that much stronger.
It's funny how others perceive things though. I had a comment made to me today (after no sleep last night) that I will think my judgments are OK when they're not due to the lack of sleep. I had to stop and examine what I thought of that for a second, and realised very calmly that no, I'm quite aware that I'm sleep deprived, quite aware of what that means in terms of driving, working, functioning, but that there is nothing I can do about it and I will continue to function until it can be rectified. It did make me aware that the acceptance I have found is far reaching. I took nothing personal from the implication that my ego would convince me I was 10 foot tall and bullet proof. I took no offence at an imagined slight (which, heck a month ago, if I was sleep deprived I sure would have!) I was simply aware that others perceived me differently to how things actually were. Judgments... I guess that's it isn't it... with acceptance there are no judgments, not for anyone else and not for yourself. Oh sure, I catch myself thinking a half formed thought that is ego laiden, but I am tending to catch them before they are completely formed, or thought about, or spoken out loud, or acted on, and hey presto, just like that as soon as they are observed for what they are (ego!) they just dissolve away again!
Amazing how simply it works, but what triggered it?! I do pride myself on "learning" but this almost feels like someone helped me cheat and get the answer without figuring out how to get there! Not that I'm complaining, just somehow feels like I've taken a short cut! I guess in reality there is no reason why I can't work backwards, from this state of being and do my learning that way, besides I still need to dig into it and find the positives rather than abide in this neutrality, which is sure helping and serving a purpose, but it does feel like something is missing.... or is that just a trick of ego too? "There must be something better than this!" ego, never satisfied LOL. Actually having reread this I can pinpoint when it happened, and it was actually a time when I described it as having "the rose coloured glasses taken off" in relation to how I perceived someone else. Oh, I know in truth what they are, they are God! I know in truth too, that although I can see that God Force in them so strongly that they are still human, still have ego involved, still learning their own lessons just as I am mine, but I really SAW it a couple of weeks ago, and at the time a couple of things said I allowed to hurt me, but when I sat down on a night shift and did my contemplation email and examined what had happened and how that made me feel etc, I realised then that everything had changed, like with a snap of the fingers, in the process of examining it within me and typing it out to share it, that switch was somehow flicked.
I guess I'm happy to report that there have been little tests for this acceptance too, just little day to day things, conversations, situations, sleep deprivation LOL. Nothing has been able to ruffle my feathers, nothing has caused me fear or anger, rather I can look at it all very impartially and realise what I can or want to contribute and then put it forward if it is warranted. I feel very zen like :o)
One thing it does make me very aware of is just how many judgments are made by others, nearly everything we say or do is some type of judgment, either that someone else is wrong, or if agreeing with us, then right, either way it is judgment which of course occurs because we see ourselves as separate from that which is around us. But that is a whole different topic perhaps for tomorrow night. Although I could quite happily disappear off onto tangent after tangent I have to abide by clock time and do some work too! Although it is exciting to just get out what is in my head, to examine it, to perhaps learn something more about it just by the act of observing it enough to describe it, I do run the risk of getting carried away by it and ignoring my other responsibilities.
So for now, I will accept I should save this and go and do some of my duties and if I have time later, perhaps a tangent can be entertained then.
Before I go though, I have just found a couple of quotes on Acceptance that ring true and one of them perhaps describes what I think I'm feeling! "Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance" (Unknown author) and that I guess is it! Serenity, no desire to change anything, 'Unaffected by disturbance; calm and unruffled' that is a good adjective I think for how I feel :o) The other quote is "
WOW! Where did the last 3 months go?!
Time sure does fly when you are busy! So much has happened in the last 3 months, a quick over view just to catch you up and then on with the show!
Pete and I have separated, Marcus and I are still living on the property with the critters, Marcus will be 5 in 10 days time and then off to school, so I've been sourcing "work" to help pay the bills and getting ready to try to take on a mortgage to buy Pete out of the property... So I'm now doing Saturday and Sunday night shifts at a flash Hotel in town as a "Night Manager" certainly cuts into the weekend but it was very handy as Pete is having Marcus every weekend anyway and those 2 nights with collecting the eggs on the weekend is covering the bills OK.
Then I decided to go truck driving! So have done the first truck licence to drive up to 18 ton trucks, done the forklift, wheels, tracks and rollers so I can play on the machinery too, can do the next truck licence after the 18th May (so I can play on the 6 and 8 wheelers etc) and then 3 mths after that I can do the trailers licence too. I rocked on up to the local Transport company that I've had do a bit of work for me so they knew my face, asked if I could just hang out and work with the guys there and learn what I needed to learn while Marcus was just around the corner at kindy, they were fantastic enough to say yes, sent me out on my own in the truck on the 3rd day and are now paying me too, beautiful people! Go Renwick Transport Ltd! LOL. So I'm having a ball driving the trucks etc, Marcus gets to come with me some afternoons after I pick him up from kindy, he waves furiously at all the other trucks we see trying to get them all to wave back LOL. A bit short of hours at the moment, it's grape harvest time so they have a few extra drivers around and it sort of cuts into the hours I could work, but once Marcus is at school and I have the next licence I should be in a much better place to put the hours in and get the hours work that I need to be able to chuck the night shift in!
I have been actively working Eckhart Tolle's stuff and although there have been some hiccups along the way, I am learning so much and really am thrilled to bits with where my learning is right now.
The person I was discussing all the Power of Now stuff with has been a "complication" albeit a lovely one as things have developed there and I seem to have bounced from a rather empty marriage into a very full on relationship and we don't even live in the same town, can be a bit hard, but that too has forced me into some full on learning and working the Power of Now stuff so I can stay centered and grounded and all the rest of it.
Thankfully the communication work has been reasonably quiet because I've been EXHAUSTED!!!! Although I have a couple here that I need to get done NOW, although of course after only 4 hours sleep in the last 2 1/2 days it just doesn't end up happening! I refuse to short change the animals I talk to and their people by only giving it 1/2 my attention, but I must get to bed on Monday at the same time as Marcus (6pm LOL) and catch up so I can get these babies done!
So everything has changed and is still changing and life can feel a tad surreal right now.
Because the communication work has been a little quiet and I've been actively applying Eckhart Tolle's teachings I've been "communicating" more with that Presence or God Force as I've been doing it and learning to release the ego etc and last night on night shift I decided to make use of some of my time there and examine some different things that I'm working thru and just jot them down.... so for lack of anywhere else to put these musings I'm going to throw them in the blog!
Pete and I have separated, Marcus and I are still living on the property with the critters, Marcus will be 5 in 10 days time and then off to school, so I've been sourcing "work" to help pay the bills and getting ready to try to take on a mortgage to buy Pete out of the property... So I'm now doing Saturday and Sunday night shifts at a flash Hotel in town as a "Night Manager" certainly cuts into the weekend but it was very handy as Pete is having Marcus every weekend anyway and those 2 nights with collecting the eggs on the weekend is covering the bills OK.
Then I decided to go truck driving! So have done the first truck licence to drive up to 18 ton trucks, done the forklift, wheels, tracks and rollers so I can play on the machinery too, can do the next truck licence after the 18th May (so I can play on the 6 and 8 wheelers etc) and then 3 mths after that I can do the trailers licence too. I rocked on up to the local Transport company that I've had do a bit of work for me so they knew my face, asked if I could just hang out and work with the guys there and learn what I needed to learn while Marcus was just around the corner at kindy, they were fantastic enough to say yes, sent me out on my own in the truck on the 3rd day and are now paying me too, beautiful people! Go Renwick Transport Ltd! LOL. So I'm having a ball driving the trucks etc, Marcus gets to come with me some afternoons after I pick him up from kindy, he waves furiously at all the other trucks we see trying to get them all to wave back LOL. A bit short of hours at the moment, it's grape harvest time so they have a few extra drivers around and it sort of cuts into the hours I could work, but once Marcus is at school and I have the next licence I should be in a much better place to put the hours in and get the hours work that I need to be able to chuck the night shift in!
I have been actively working Eckhart Tolle's stuff and although there have been some hiccups along the way, I am learning so much and really am thrilled to bits with where my learning is right now.
The person I was discussing all the Power of Now stuff with has been a "complication" albeit a lovely one as things have developed there and I seem to have bounced from a rather empty marriage into a very full on relationship and we don't even live in the same town, can be a bit hard, but that too has forced me into some full on learning and working the Power of Now stuff so I can stay centered and grounded and all the rest of it.
Thankfully the communication work has been reasonably quiet because I've been EXHAUSTED!!!! Although I have a couple here that I need to get done NOW, although of course after only 4 hours sleep in the last 2 1/2 days it just doesn't end up happening! I refuse to short change the animals I talk to and their people by only giving it 1/2 my attention, but I must get to bed on Monday at the same time as Marcus (6pm LOL) and catch up so I can get these babies done!
So everything has changed and is still changing and life can feel a tad surreal right now.
Because the communication work has been a little quiet and I've been actively applying Eckhart Tolle's teachings I've been "communicating" more with that Presence or God Force as I've been doing it and learning to release the ego etc and last night on night shift I decided to make use of some of my time there and examine some different things that I'm working thru and just jot them down.... so for lack of anywhere else to put these musings I'm going to throw them in the blog!
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