life experience
Walking Consciously Through The Dream
Life spins on its axis much too fast to form an accurate opinion, but not fast enough for you to interpret logically. The life you ‘think’ you are living exists in a realm of unimaginable chaos, before you are capable of determining what you decide it means.
Although you invest quite a bit of time, effort, energy and mind power trying to decipher the meaning of various circumstances, the actions of people, the cohesiveness of situations, the illusive events have changed position before you arrive at any coherent explanation.
Formless and indistinguishable, the oblique form-filled existence rests in motion, but not in the way you comprehend the word ‘rest.’ As it continues to spin, the tilted, spiraled form materializes into something of a more recognizable shape, but the something you observe is totally different from what it actually is. By the time your eyes fixate on any semblance of it, it has already moved into another direction altogether.
You cannot look at it directly and live. You see it out of the corner of your eye, as it passes by. How foolish is your mumbo-jumbo chatter! You are altered by the mere observing of it, as it is altered by your observing. It spins, it spins, and it spins. While at the same instant, you are spun into the identical manifestation you are so futilely trying to examine.
Life, and you along with it, constantly attracts, repels, repositions, and then releases. The form created and destroyed in the process reveals its circumvented boundaries as the life you perceive you exist in. In other words, life is so distorted and smeared from your mere observation of it, through your subjective eyes alone, that the comments you make regarding ‘your circumstances’ are no more than an “empty brass clamoring symbol.”
Dragging A ‘Knapsack Of Irrelevance’
Reading for a client recently revealed her toxic work environment, and how one co-worker in particular was making things very unpleasant for her at the office. It reminded me of a short-lived, but very unpleasant working situation I found myself in years ago.
I was scheduled to work with a woman for a couple of weeks who had an extremely negative attitude and was having a profound effect on me. I shared this unpleasant situation with my boyfriend at the time, and his view was that I was just carrying around a ‘knapsack of irrelevance.’
I was so upset! How could he even think that? However, he did give me some food for thought when he then also said, “Just consider how you will think about this situation in a few years from now. How much will it matter then?”
Well, that did help to put things into perspective. And guess what? Just as he predicted, I forgot all about it until this recent reading with my client! Yes, he was correct. After all the years, remembering that brief work situation made me realize that it never had any major relevance or importance to my life. Stressing and worrying about it was indeed just a waste of time and energy.
I met this particular ex-boyfriend in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He was very well-versed in the twelve steps and other tools helpful in achieving and maintaining sobriety. He also gave me an Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlet, which I have to this day, which reads:
Accountability Is Healing, Not Shaming
I could have never come this far in life all by myself, even with the help of Spirit. I needed, and still need, other skilled humans with a spiritual practice and evidence of their own balanced life, to help me see myself and my life in a way my wounded mind and psyche could have never comprehended on its own. Those mentors also gave me tools I didn’t even know existed, or if I did, I couldn’t put them to good use without their help. My spiritual teacher saved my life, more than once.
Yes, for our own sake we all need to be willing and able to receive assistance, instruction and guidance. When you are wounded, and especially when you are so wounded you don’t yet even know how wounded your are, because you have never examined your life and all you know are your wounds, Spirit can open a door for you. However you need to have the courage to step into the discomfort and do the work. And Spirit sends us humans to help us with this healing process.
Whenever we are introduced to new ideas, or encouraged to experience new feelings, it sometimes feels ‘abusive’ or ‘intrusive’ simply because we are often terrified of the unknown. This is true for most people. One may also feel distressed when a skilled therapist or spiritual teacher is, with your permission, showing you how to break down that ‘titanium wall’ you built to protect yourself from unhealed internal wounds.
It may also feel unsettling, when you allow yourself to be more open and vulnerable with a skilled teacher or healer, because in the past vulnerability led to pain. So, now you have control issues that you think are keeping you safe from harm, but are in fact only strangling you.
Love Is All You Need
A popular Beatles song was written circa 1967 by John Lennon, as part of the anti-war movement, with a very simplistic set of lyrics about love. “Love is all you need,” proclaims the song. Simple, yet often so elusive to so many of us.
Love is also a “many-splendored thing,” according to the Andy Williams classic. Yet, it is also complex set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that we have learned. Either through witnessing, training and personal experiences, which loop back into our behaviors. It is a dynamic process. These beliefs and emotions are then ‘translated’ into feelings. Feelings of attachment, affection, trust, respect, and commitment.
Love is also a topic of discussion, research and vital part of life dating back through all time. Throughout human history priests, philosophers, poets, artists, musicians, and scientists have all contemplated the mysteries and meaning of love.
And love is more than just a feeling between two people. We can have a love for country, nature, freedom, animals, opera music, or cold beer! And anything else that resonates with our heart.
The challenge for many of us in life is the rollercoaster of chasing love. As humans, we seek companionship, community, a sense of purpose. We seek to love and be loved. And we take many actions and steps towards our own definition of love. Yet, it is a dynamic, elusive, ever-changing target – one influenced and even manipulated by the many facets of human desire and emotions. Also, the sometimes harsh realities of life may take away that which we loved so much.
The Karma Of Animal Cruelty
Our cats, dogs and all the other wonderful animals we call our pets are like tiny buddhas. We receive wisdom from them in so many ways. They never use words to convey anything, only feeling. If we are in-tune with them, and watch their behavior, we get a sense of how they are feeling.
Venturing into the Akashic record, to read for my clients, I have come to understand that much of our karma is based on how we not only treat ourselves and other humans, but also our fur friends and every other living being on this planet.
And in my experience, karma seems to bear an especially heavy weight when it comes to the animals. To my knowledge, those who abuse and mistreat animals will pay a severe price for it in their spiritual growth and soul evolution. In fact, many people return in a next life as the very animal they hurt, and will experience the same, or worse infliction they put upon that animal.
Animals are creatures of God, messengers of Love. They are here to teach us how to co-exist with each other with compassion and unconditional love. They show us how to share space, heal with touch and communicate telepathically. Some cat owners, for example, will tell you how their cats begin to circle around them and purr whenever they are meditating, or engaging in other forms of spiritual practice, which heightens their energy frequency and spiritual awareness.
Letting Go Of Those Old Branches
As winter arrives, it is always a time of reflection for me. Winter storms are so bittersweet. They are beautiful, but they also can be very destructive. In a winter storm last year, I have observed some of the strongest, oldest trees losing their branches. Those large branches were the first to snap. They looked so strong and have weathered so many storms, yet they could not withstand the wind.
As I analyzed the results of that winter storm, the realization came to me that the smaller, more supple branches had the ability to bend with the strong winds. The large, majestic branches, however, had become rigid over the years and broke easily in the powerful, icy wind.
The same principle could apply in our lives. How well we handle a challenging situation will depend on our ability to remain flexible and adapt. A very strong, experienced person may appear on the surface to be able to move mountains and handle most situations with ease. But if that same person is unwilling to listen, refuses to compromise with others and cannot remain open-minded, they will most likely be doing a lot of ‘snapping’ when facing adversity.
If we can ‘bend’ to at least agree to disagree with others, and keep a more flexible, adaptive attitude in difficult times, it makes life a lot easier to maintain harmony with the world. If tunnel vision is how we choose to see life, it is impossible to see that others may also be right sometimes, or have a better solution. When we become rigid, stiff, closed and inflexible, it becomes harder to see the bigger picture and to have a more peaceful approach to life.
When we are rigid and think our way is the only way, it is also hard to make and keep lasting relationships. In a group situation there are always people that see the opposite side any situation for a problem. Sometime these people may play devil’s advocate. They listen to each point of view to arrive at a compromise.
Seeking Spirituality
During the years of private study with my teacher, Adyashanti, he used to speak a lot about belief systems and spiritual practices. I learned from him, among other things, that to believe something, as opposed to having a direct experience of it, are two entirely different things. If you believe something because you’ve been made to feel guilty for being a non-believer, or merely because you think it’s the ‘right’ thing to do, it’s likely that this belief will be challenged throughout your life.
However, if you have a direct experience that is of a spiritual nature, you’re more likely to remember it and the impact it had on you, and you are more likely to truly believe as a result. The direct spiritual experiences we have, whether through meditation, dreams, or psychic and paranormal phenomena, are the ones that help us grow as an individual and bring us into alignment with our soul.
Why is this? If you think about it, we are bombarded with information every day that our minds must either believe, memorize, and somehow apply. Our authentic state, soul or higher self, has a direct, intuitive knowing that doesn’t come from this information or thoughts triggered by the external world. This kind of ‘knowing’ comes from within. When we have moments where our ‘everyday mind’ is out of the way, either through a psychic vision, spiritual experience, dream, or simply a quiet, meditative state, we come back in touch with this original ‘inner knowing’ or ‘beingness.’
Some call this ‘enlightenment.’ According to my teacher, Adyashanti, and from my own direct experiences, true enlightenment is not something that can be learned, rather it’s the ‘unlearning’ of all thoughts we’ve taken in.