Gaia Community: lakshmi's Blog

Blame - what if blame was part of the 'illusion' as well?

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:59:02 -0000

What would life be like if 'blame' in the human psyche did not exist? Or at least in my own. :0)

My conditioning was full of blame and I am just hanging out with the possiblitly of absolutely 'NO BLAME". What if there is no blame for all the so called wrong doing and horrible things that go on in the world? Wars, rape, injustices, violence, pollution: all of it... what if there is no blame?

If I see someone making a parking lot out of beautiful farmland I get upset.
But is I realize that that person is most likely doing it for their reasons and they feel fine about it. I create suffering inside myself if I want them to stop destroying the land. That is simply my opinion. Is it a cop-out how I am letting go of the suffering I feel inside by saying they are not to blame?
It definately feels freer and lighter inside. The sticky, painful thoughts around that situation for example just disappear if I let go of the horrible blaming, raging attitude that they should stop what they are doing. They are simply living from a diferent perspective than me and who am I to say that their actions are wrong?
What if in all the wars, violence, rape, pollution there is no blame? Just people doing what they think is the best and often from a totally unconscious perspective of life. That is a judgement on my part, but it seems that much of humanity is living in a trance state and not really wide awake to life. If they were truly awake to the Love or Truth of what they ARE, then would all the so-called violence and injustices would stop? I guess I believe it would... even though it still an empty belief.

As I notice the inner violence/rage/resistance insdie here towards life, self and others, something happens. In those teeny tiny moments of deely noticing/letting go, a huge energy of spacious LOVE seems to appear.
It is like allowing the LOVE arise that appears to be underneath all the'shoulds' of how 'I' think life should be.

What is better - live from the perspective of LOVE or from the mode of blame and rage at how things 'should change' or rage how a person needs to change etc?

I

Om Swaha...

Human Being Human or Human being Spiritual?

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:09:14 -0000

Human Being Human….or Human being Spiritual!

March 31, 2008 — yeslakshmi | Edit

The LOVE which i have flown all over the world to sit at various teacher’s/guru’s feet is available right here - in everyone I meet, in my children, husband, students…. the distinction between human and spiritual is falling away…..

This is a note to my Self from my Self.

Yes to BEING HUMAN! Ever thought about the words ‘Human Being’ ? Who picked the word ‘being’ to go after ‘human’ ? I think they were smarter than most notice. How about meditate on the words ‘human BEING’ instead of a some sanskrit mantra some teacher thinks is going to give you salvation. Is it possible that the answer could be truly SIMPLE and already right here in our human-ness? DO we have to go to India (which i have done 3 times) on a spiritual quest, get sick, recite mantra, practice meditation, pranayam , asanas, rituals etc for year s on end… ultimately loosing site of the original goal….. just continuing to slave away at what i think or believe is important…….

How about starting where YOU ARE rather than for years trying to ‘get somewhere’, or be something else - that someone has told you you should strive for…. or fit a mold you read about in a so called spiritual book…or believe they all are smarter, know what is best, are holier and more pure and worthy than you and follow and imitate them as if you are a frigging grovelling idiot ?

I think i began treading the so called spiritual path due to not wanting to feel the pain that was threatening to explode inside…. I suppose there were other reasons.. but avoiding life i now realize was a big part of my ’so called spiritual life’. You might think i sound kind of cynical or something… but it is more that i just don’t buy it all anymore….

I used to divide my life into - this is spiritual - that is not…. seems like…. I’m discovering what it is to BE in this human form….. if that makes any sense…. a big huge laugh…….Ok…. more is falling away and opening up.

It seems that as the fear drops away to simply feel and notice all that I’ve feared, love and compassion appears. Being spiritual is not separate from being human anymore….. meditating because I was trying to not feel the pain inside or because i was escaping into a trance state to help me not feel what is here is not the answer for me anymore. I know it is believed to be the answer for many, but I am discovering that the more human i allow myself to be, the more I drop into all that is feared, the more love appears.

In trying to be spiritual - I discounted or ignored what was truly here. Only for my whole life. What a hoot to discover. What a relief…. the jewel really always was here, is here…..

A tender flower delicately blooming, spreading open its petals… completely…simply…. expanding - discovering Love….Space Simply Being Human.

New eyes opening.

"LET EVERYONE BE AS THEY ARE." Adyashanti

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:03:20 -0000

Adya said this to me almost 4 years ago at the end of a conversation with him. I am continually learning what this means. After he said this, he brought his hands together in a pranam and said "bless you heart'. What a gift to have teachers that guide us to the Truth within.

My deepest gratitude to all that give us the space to Be That Which WE ARE in all of our Human-ness if there is such a word. Or I could say.... my deepest gratitude to my teachers, friends, and family that give us the space to acknowledge whatever arises and hold us in Love when things present themselves that we've hidden from for so many years.

My deepest gratitude for 'something here' that gives acknowledgement for all the pain I have hidden and run from the last 35 years...

wow.... i've talked about hellish experiences and stories of childhood for all these years, but never was connected to the feeling sense of it all.... Just up in my head... which is ok as well. It is how i survived. The body is releasing, opening....... so much held in, no blame... just a letting go... ahh yes! as i say in my yoga classes......

perhaps when all is met within, the stories loose their force to consume our attention?
Let myself be as I am! Let myself be a human and stop trying to be some supper spiritual blah blah blah concept of something other than what I am...!!!!! What am I without all the conditioning?

received this wonderfully timely quote today in an email.

“Stop being who you think you are, and be who you Are. Let yourself know what you already know.” — Adyashanti

Dishes and Laundry are like thoughts, they never stop or go away!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:54:31 -0000

Can we treat the dishes like an honourable guest?

The more I resist the normal household duties, the more heaviness and inertia come in.

Oh, I think I'll just go and have a nap rather than do the dishes for example. But this doesn't make the dishes go away, which is what something inside thinks it wants. It just makes the resistance/suffering grow bigger. Just like the pile of dishes that grows every day of not dealing with them! Just as everything we try and hide from inside grows bigger and will continue to influence us consciously or not...... until we stop, take notice and let BE.

If the dishes for example can be done or not done in the space of a 5 year old playing with bubbles and the miraculousness of IT all......noticing the energy of joy that underneath in the clean dishes or dirty.....or I could put it this way......let a 'doing' without the sticking to the 'thinking commentary in the head happen.....or let a 'doing' without believing the continuous commentary in the head......

What do you think.....is that enlightenment? hohohohoho

My sadhana (spiritual practice) often is to notice the resistance to the dishes , drop into it physically in the body, feel the energy inside and get to know what it is all about. Let IT inform me. The part (or habit or movement of energy) that has been addicted to pain and suffering loves the resistance and attempts to keep it going by letting the pile grow bigger.

If i stop and notice.... what is not resisting the dishes? Hang out in THAT!
I've noticed if I do the dishes with something inside sticking to the thinking thoughts that are usually judgements, or wishing to be somewhere else kind of feel = suffering.

If I simply do the dishes then all is ok. It is like the 'me' isn't' doing them. If the 'me' commenting is in the driving seat, then the energy of resistance or suffering enters in.

If i wait until the energy comes to do them rather than forcing the issue....than all is ok. Even feeling the resistance is ok. Can't even resist the resistance as it is often HERE.

I've discovered that if I do the dishes when the energy is simply present to do them... it is different than believing that I have to do them right now....

There appears to be kind of a free feeling inside, when i am not stuck in the resistance of dishes, dinner, laundry etc. Believe it or not when doing the household duties lately, I've noticed a real laughing space of peace - . Can't say always... but moments are peeking through more often. When there are no distractions it becomes like a meditation. Meditation on dishes or no dishes! Is there any difference?

And then..... not even labeling dishes, negative feelings, patterns as distractions, or bad...just what is arising...

For me the important thing seems to be to STOP and NOTICE! Do I want to live with suffering/resisting inside driving every living moment of life or freedom in the driving seat? WOW!!!

Thoughts/feelings/patterns come up and can be noticed without the 'stickiness' more of a 'oh what is this? Thoughts, feelings, conditioned patterns pass through or get stuck like a huge pile of dishes that grows and the more the 'I' takes ownership, the more pain.....

yahoo! the sink is clean today!

off to learn how to downhill ski ...ahahahah theres an interesting place to see fears emerge - as i'm screaming down the hill in snowplow!!

New Year's Resolution

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:43:24 -0000

Nothing about you has to change.
The only thing that has to change
Is that you stop trying to change.
Then your true nature can spontaneously come forth.

•
My being and your being is the same being.

•

Think this: what if there was no such thing as a true thought?

©Adyashanti

I opened up this morning a beautiful pamphlet of Adya's called 'Emptiness Becomes Love' and the above quotes spoke to me.

May you recognise the Truth that is born in each moment

Happy New Year whatever that means for YOU.

Enlightenment - Simply Resting

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 23:14:20 -0000

Don’t Miss the Stop Sign written by Mukti

Enlightenment is consciously being that which is entirely unmoving and yet moves all things. In order to know what is unmoving, consciously, one must end all investment in movements of mind and attend to what is always and already stopped.

When one no longer invests in movements of mind, the searchlights of your attention withdraw back to source. Abiding as source is true stopping.

This return to source—whether by letting energies withdraw and recede from outer attentions or by tracing movements of mind back to their origin—is the way Home.

Often in spirituality, there are teachings that assert the need to focus attention on given objects of perception. You may have been taught to focus your attention on a goal, a mantra, your breath, the third eye, the hara, or on sensation, but it is the very assertion of focus and the assertion of the focuser, the “me,” that keeps you forever at a seeming distance from the root of attention: your Self as pure Awareness.

In your natural state as Oneness, there is no need to focus in order to discover yourself—any more than point A can know itself by focusing on point B. Point A can only know itself by letting all focus, attention, and searching subside back to its origin.

This is an open invitation for a simple resting, a return to the ground of being you have always known. ©Adyashanti

Mukti's website is www.muktisource.org

Mukti is coming to Ontario, Canada in September 2008! Info will be posted in the Spring at www.yogaforlife.ca as well as her website.

Pecan Puffs: My Grandmother's Enlightened Christmas Cookies

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:25:59 -0000

Here is my daughter who loves these cookies. Her big brother took this picture. She had just had a make=-up lesson from the big girls at dance class.

My Nana used to make these over 40 years ago and I admit I make them every year for the family.

Her old cookbook describes them as RICH and DEVASTATING and it is true. They are also very easy to make. I challenge you to meditate on the flavour of these! Also.... when you are rolling out the cookies.... only roll one at a time..... there.... another Christmas meditation for you....hohoho!

If you are going to eat white flour, these cookies are worth it.!!!!
Since I am immersed in the baking of cookies and wrapping presents, thought I'd share this recipe. I love the simplicity of the recipe and I usually triple the recipe and they turn out just fine.

Enjoy!

Makes about 32 1 1/2 inch cookies.

Beat until soft:
1/2cup butter
Add and blend until creamy:
2 tablespoons white sugar
Add:
1 teaspoon vanilla
Measure, then grind in a nut grinder or I use a cuisinart:
1 cup pecans
Sift before measuring:
1 cup unbleached white flour

Stir the pecans and the flour into the butter mixture. Roll the dough into small balls. I use a heaping teaspoon for size. Place them on a greased baking sheet. Bake them in a slow over 300degrees for about 45 minutes. Roll the puffs while hot in :

totally decadent Confectioner's sugar (icing sugar)

Holy Grail

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:25:36 -0000

Dear Journeyer,

Have you made love to empty
and soulless things for too long?
I know that you get a little crazy
when you have not paid attention
to the Heart inside you heart
and like a man in the desert
dying of thirst
you see things
that aren't really there.

If your heart is thirsty for Love and God
then turn around now and
go back to where you came from
back to the simple ground of your origin
inside the inside of this
flowering and Radiant Emptiness. © Adyashanti from My Secret is Silence.

Hey, we are all questing for the holy grail in our own ways don't you think?
Honestly, I'd probably be dead now if it wasn't for all the so called spiritual seeking.

Even though the seeking didn't 'get ' the me' anywhere...hohohoho....it kept the body alive. As well as created a huge ' spiritual ego'. (that is not what i had consciously intended) Humbling.

The spiritual search can still be an escape like drinking alot of beer and tranquilizers...it just doesn't wreck the body. I've come to see that much of what I've done in life are things that numb life....whether so called spiritual or otherwise. Everything is meant to give us temporary relief from feeling ourselves and really being here..... wild eh!!! We're becoming 'One' with our escapes. Even a good movie helps us forget our life for a few hours. I love movies - I do it all the time myself except when I don't.

Its all over the world.... look for yourself.......check it out......what do you spend your free time 'doing'? Do you blob out in front of the TV every night for hours 'letting the TV think for you because it is the only thing you can think to do to get a break?"

What do you want a break from? What do I want a break from?

My thoughts, feelings and the pain inside?

When we start to suffer, it tells us something
very valuable. It means that we are not seeing
the truth, and we are not relating from the truth.
It’s a beautiful pointer…it never fails. © Adyashanti from My Secret is Silence.

It is like I have lived most of this life on some level trying to escape it and the world supports the escaping.

What if I STOP and turn around.

Your intrinsic nature is still as pure and clear
as it was before you ever took this birth.
If you would just turn your attention away from
the various trance-inducing states created
by your mind and realize the intrinsically
innocent and pure nature of the unseen seer,
you would at once experience a great relief
and freedom. © Adyashanti from My Secret is Silence.

True honesty - True Truth - Satya- is radically intense. Oh my God, on a relative level , how often every day do you not speak the truth out of fear or don't even listen inside yourself to the Truth that is being quietly whispered to YOU? Radical Honesty.

Is most of humanity afraid of really BEING alive?

Maybe we can simply notice and drop into the great relief and freedom that is already HERE underneath everything.

This blogging thing for me - is like teaching myself. As I write, it helps to come to the space of 'great relief'.

Thank- YOU and my deepest Gratitude to 'the great relief ' .

Hey what if instead of calling IT the Holy Grail back in time, they had called it

"THE GREAT RELIEF" ?

Buddha- Clown

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:47:51 -0000

“In the heart of a human being,

emptiness becomes love.

When we touch that Source,

instantly the love is present.

Literally, the divine becomes human

and the human becomes divine. ” © Adyashanti

This picture says it all. Adya has it at his retreats usually. A person in the US. drew it, I am sorry I don’t know the name of the artist. But deep gratitude to YOU - whoever YOU ARE. © the artist.

Here I go repeating myself. But hey thats the nature of the human mind isn’t it! All these years as a ’striving yogi’ I always thought and believed that the human-ness we were supposed to get rid of, suppress, hide from, you name it. My God just don’t express it!

……………poof!

What JOY ! Touch the Source……….

……..What a relief!

Check it our for yourself!!!! even for 1/4 of a second!

Perception Story

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:33:14 -0000

I love the teachings of a Jesuit Priest who appears to have been 'awakened', by the name of Antony DeMello. All his book are fantastic. He taught using stories.

Here is one of his stories I read this morning:

"An active young woman showed signs of stress and strain. The doctor prescribes tranquilizers and asked her to report to him after a couple of weeks.

When she came back he asked her if she felt any different. She said, "No, I don't. But I've observed that others people seem a lot more relaxed."

.......

Great story about how we perceive life through our conditioning and aren't really getting the big picture.

Similar is dandelions. Last spring at the cottage I was taking pictures of the first signs of spring. We are taught that dandelions are bad and we call them weeds. I decided that first year of juicing dandelions in the spring that because there were so many of them at my house that they were a gift to be enjoyed. Abundantly health giving properties in dandelions. Perception - weed or flower? What do we choose..... ?

I could ask How do YOU perceive YOU? Are your thoughts about you true?

Can you perceive You without any thoughts about YOU?

I write these questions - as I ask them inside here. Spiritual Inquiry....... WOW!

Spiritually Seeking What?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:43:00 -0000

I am finally getting or ‘grocking’ the story about the beggar who for his whole life was sitting on the street waiting for people to give him money. Always he was waiting for the gold to appear in his begging bowl, always thinking that he needed more $ and a lack of something. A stranger/holy man came along and told him that he was sitting on his treasure all along. He said oh no you are mistaken!…. He eventually looked under the box he was sitting on and there was a pot of gold, all along it had been there, he just didn’t look! I just probably destroyed that story, but it went something like that.

In terms of this life here. A few years back I started to have resistance to being ‘called’ a spiritual seeker. I had so much ego/energy/life tied up with being a spiritual seeker = phew! Made me feel better about myself. I hid behind the mask of a spiritual seeker, from myself and others.

What is THAT which I have been seeking? Is That which is seeked to be found in a new book, a technique, a teacher’s words, a teachers’ presence, a teachers gaze, the teachers’ grace, the teacher loving me and me feeling that, satsang with a teacher or basically somewhere else than whatever is going on here?

“Don’t imitate your teacher or your guru.

Find within yourself that power which moves him. ” written by Adyashanti

That which is seeked; can we buy it at a store, get IT from someone else, ‘get’ IT at all? Why do we think we can ‘get’ it?
Usually spiritual seekers are looking for something as if an object is to be obtained. They (I) believe (d) if they purify themselves of whatever is bad, wrong, impure, then they will have earned the enlightenment, peace, truth, consciousness or whatever they were seeking. I was taught this and I believed this for many years. So many books are coming from the angle that something is wrong or there is a problem that needs to be fixed and the author sets out to show us how to fix ourselves and make ourselves better human beings.

IS IT TRUE?

Here is another quote I love;

“The problem is that most people seek out

religions of all sorts as a way to relieve themselves

of the burden of finding and verifying the truth

for themselves-as if they could ride piggy-back

to enlightenment on the shoulders of some religion

or what some enlightened guy in the past said. Adyashanti from My Secret is Silence.

How can Truth, consciousness, peace, love, enlightenment, divine- whatever you want to call it be obtained like an object????? IT seems that as a seeker something believed that ‘it’ could be obtained. WOW! That was a misperception!! At this point, this perspective here has shifted big time. As these are non physical ‘things’ they are not to be bought at the local Wallmart when i ‘get’ enough money or obtained by going to 5000 retreats and doing a million hours of sadhana. It seems that the mind or the ’seeking’ energy has been trying to grasp or hold That which it can not be held or grasped! Doesn’t seem like the sticky, clingy energy of the egoic mind will ‘get’ IT, as the Space is from this limited perspective at the moment, beyond or underneath all the stickiness and untouchable.

Here is another poem that speaks to to me . I guess I am a a bit dribbly today….. I do so love Adya’s poems and one liners. Forgive me.

Before you start to meditate, ask yourself a question:

Is it true that peace and silence are not here now?

With you intention to move towards quietness,

the first step we take is away from it

because we assume it’s not here already.

I’m off to clean the kitchen and make dinner….. my real sadhana….is this ‘doing’ spiritual? Perhaps it is what is underneath all ‘doing’. Maybe the question could be WHO is doing the doing that needs to be noticed or realized?

WHO/WHAT IS THE SEEKER? What does the seeking energy feel like under all the stories I tell or believe?

Enlightenment: Guess What I haven't Tried Yet?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:30:08 -0000

Sat down one night after teaching a yoga class in the Fall of 2006 and this came out. Fasten your seatbelts if you decide to read my reflections on my 30 years of being spiritual seeker…….another warning, there is a subtle or not so subtle occasional vibe of a kind of happily exploding rage……:)

What haven’t I tried yet?

A bicycle trip changed my life……. Be conscious when I die’ the prison psychologist said to my brother and I. That made something go ping inside of me… only goal in life for the past 30 years. I have tried everything to become conscious except one thing.….. be a better person, purify my body, change my emotional patterning, dive deep into past conditioning and rip it apart piece by piece, therapy of all sorts, change my reactions to people, get rid of this anger, that grief, never get angry at my kids, be a more patient person, understand this and that. I had to earn enlightenment with austerities of all sorts. Don’t eat this, eat that, sleep this long, get up at 4am, do this many hours of asanas, pranayam, meditation, study and I’ll get enlightened.

If I think this or that thought - I am unspiritual. Oh.. all the inner judgments. Practically every thought is a judgment in some way. Believed that people who meditate long hours are more holy than being a mom. I challenge anyone who thinks of themselves as spiritual and hasn’t had children of their own - to have a child of their own - get them up and ready for the school bus day and in day out. What is your definition of spiritual now?

Wear white clothes only as they are pure and colours are not.
Don’t wear leather shoes as I became a vegetarian of course. Sat and mixed all sorts of meditations at once, hey why not do it all at the same time - I thought. Blew a few circuits. Pretty funny. Sex and no sex. Save ojas or not. Raise my kundalini, go insane. Think I’m bad and wrong for even existing. Believing so called enlightened yogis coming to the west with the air of mystery. Teaching no sex and they all are having sex it turns out. Hey maybe they are enlightened, I’ll never know, they just didn’t fit into my belief about how an enlightened person ‘should be’. Believing beliefs – that’s what causes wars. Can’t enlightened people have sex for Christ’s sake? Why did I believe everything? Maybe if I read this book, that book, I’ll find the secret to life I have missed. Go to this teacher and that. If I look like you, walk like you, eat the same food, can you give it to me? Keep spine straight, don’t sit with bad posture - God forbid, how unspiritual. You can’t be enlightened if you eat meat, have poor posture, smoke drugs or cigarettes, drink alcohol and have sex. As a result I don’t smoke, do drugs or drink alcohol, though I did indulge in a few of those things. Didn’t give up sex for long.

Thought getting a university degree would prove to myself that I wasn’t stupid. Didn’t make any difference. Funny that it took 17 years to complete. Give myself good marks for persistence. Persistence this is what I have had for 30 years! Take this vitamin or mineral, magic water, fasting, essential oils, and juicing. Never got into raw food, though in my early seeking years I fasted long and regularly, smoked pot, drank, ran a lot of miles, practiced yoga at least twice a day, played tennis and had a job – all on the same day. Hahahaha. Had boyfriends for as long as I could stand them. Those were the days. What fun!!!

I believed that person or that book. I believed another persons beliefs and judgments about me before I believed and listened to myself. I never honoured any feelings inside especially when someone else had their own opinion. Should I do this or do that? I was always wrong no matter what. God can’t be right here, inside of this insane form, I am too impure. Thought I would get enlightened in this life for sure. Truly felt that until I started to read all the books that said it takes many lifetimes and one must be pure of all negativity and basically be rid of all human emotions and desires etc. Now I see that I had an impossible idea of perfection as an enlightened human being inside fueling much of my life. I see that perfection is a man made concept that we accept and believe on some unconscious level. Tried to be perfect not knowing there is no such thing – only an idea inside someone’s head. I projected perfection on to teachers and perfected projecting onto teachers. Wanted to be like them rather than discovering how the hell am I anyways or who the hell am I? Only the gurus were allowed to be enlightened. We are all supposed to be followers for ever because they are supposed to know everything and it is disrespectful to wake up ourselves. Some unwritten taboo. What would happen to my relationship with teacher if I woke up? God forbid. I’ll just keep pretending - better than being honest.

Always resonated with “Be still and know I am God.” Makes me weep when I stop.
I was Christian in a mystical way, then a Christian mystical yogi, than a Hindu Christian yogi, then definitely a Hindu yogi, then in India as a rebellious westerner yogi, wondering what is this hindu stuff all about, feeling hypocritical. Chanting mantra, kirtan, ran yoga retreats. Thought all these things would get me ‘there’. Started to forget why I was doing all this in the first place. Became a habit. I don’t even know what enlightenment is, how could I even recognize it. Obviously my ideas and beliefs about it were wrong. Not good enough for anything or anyone. Got to get rid of my ego - all the while creating a huge frigging spiritual ego. All sorts of variations. The ego of belittling the self. I have great conditioning in this arena.

Enlightenment- a pie in the sky, in the so called spiritual world. What the fuck is IT anyways? Trying to live up to other peoples concepts of how I ‘should be’ and they are living up to someone else’s made up concepts. Concepts keep the world of so called personal hells carrying on. Talk about fuel for the spiritual ego. My God. Hilarious. Look outside for all answers. Always looking out. Always discounting what is here inside as wrong. To say No or Yes is like pulling teeth. Big resistance depending on angle of my perception. Most of life fuelled by ‘NO’. Mind blowing to really see this. To say Yes when the pattern of No is so big inside has been an interesting process. To say No when something inside is screaming it and the conditioning is afraid to say it because of self judgment and believing I have to keep everyone happy and make sure everyone likes me. Fucking hell really. All self created. All self created……

Have you noticed that absolutely everything is temporary in terms of doing spiritual practices? If you fast, do asanas, meditate, study this or that, move energy this way or that way, go on this retreat, it is still all related to the conceptual world that DIES and or changes form. Temporarily you’ll feel good after doing asanas, meditation, eating a so called ‘pure’ and tasteless diet. Isn’t it the temporary form that is affected by all of this doing? The conditioning comes back. We crash back into our humanness after our temporary ‘highs’ or retreats from life. Believed that only the old forms of spiritual paths are best, new ones are deluded. It is all a huge misunderstanding. Talk about ego eh! Being what I thought was a spiritual person on some deep level - I thought I was better and more holy than people who didn’t practice the same practices as me. Was I ever deluded! Its all ego for Christ’s sake….just different expressions of same across the board ignorance.
Funny isn’t it!

Isn’t God BIGGER than fasting, asanas, meditation, nationality and Death of the Body? Isn’t God bigger than believing this is the way to worship God or that way is the way to worship God? Does God care? WHAT isn’t affected by all this DOING? What is underneath all of the doing? The spiritual practices are on the surface of being. Re-arranging the temporary forms of existence – not saying it is bad, just saying it is not IT. What is not temporary? Don’t want to be stuck in man made forms anymore…. save me …….What is not man made? What is not thought up by humans?
Is GOD affected by any of the so called spiritual practices? I resonate with the word GOD. Maybe it is my church background, even the minister couldn’t answer me when I asked him to prove to me that there is a God.
I resonate with the words ‘ Divine’ , ‘Spirit’ and ‘Love’ and ‘Joy’. Despite seeing the hell on this planet created by man made religions - I appear to have a very devotional nature. I resonate with the form of Hanuman in a deeply and surprising way lately. Gratitude is my teacher. The altar of the Heart is my new resting place when it all stops and I take notice. The Alter of the Heart has always been here.

I resonate with the teachings of Adyashanti and am so deeply grateful for Adyashanti. Why not be open to what is here, here, here and here. Look at the leaves on the trees how still they are. Hanging in the air oh soooo still. Thousands and thousands of leaves on one tree - just being.

Wake up or bust, become awakened, become conscious, get enlightened. . 30 years I have been struggling to be conscious. Do this , do that. A professional seeker. All the time hiding behind everything going on outside and everything going on inside. Always really simply afraid to meet what is really True…..no blame, just habits of humanity. Can’t do this anymore. …..breaking free, coming out of the self created prison, not knowing, no clue, afraid, don’t know ‘how’ the mind pattern says… hahahahahahaha.
WHAT TRASH ! ALL OF IT!

A small green shoot peeking up out of the dirt, so rich, a big sky above, not knowing, IT blossoms into an exquisite flower. I’m going outside to play.

Can you figure out what I haven’t tried?

………….on the morning I started to write these words a very quiet voice inside said from behind… GIVE UP. A voice I had never heard before from somewhere very very deep. Who or what said that. A louder voice said I can’t give up how ridiculous what a failure. …I’ve been listening to the louder voice my whole life.

Wait a minute….the one thing …. I have never tried is ……GIVING UP…..reeeeaaalllly stopping all of this doing. Don’t even know how to give up.
STOP.
Afraid to STOP.

Truth Soup

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:25:33 -0000

The following is a story by Antony DeMello in his book, "The Song of the Bird".

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the name of the shop: THE TRUTH SHOP.

The salesman was very polite. What type of truth did I wish to purchase, partial or whole? The whole truth, of course. No deceptions for me, no defenses, no rationalizations. I wanted my truth plain and unadulterated. She waved me on to another side of the store.

The salesman there pointed to the price tab. " The price is very high, sir, "he said. "What is it?" I asked, determined to get the whole truth, no matter what it cost. "Your security, sir," he answered.

I came away with a heavy heart. I still need the safety of my unquestioned beliefs.

Isn't that a fantastic story!! We all want enlightenment but do we REALLY want enlightenment and WHO is it that WANTS IT? There is that question again!

How about the autumn leaves? They are supposedly dying, but look how beautiful they are and then they float effortlessly to the ground in all their glory! Can we surrender like the leaves in autumn?

I don't know.... do you think life is just one continuous creation? Maybe us humans are just the creations and playthings of the Source of it all and we aren't the bosses! Humans seem to think we run the show!

Talk about creativity, check out these red maple leaves!!!!!

I think that is hilarious!!!!! what a hoot! Man can't stop an earthquake or a volcano errupting. Man doesn't make the trees grow, the flowers blossom forth, the leaves change colour! *or maybe with all our global warming we are affecting the earth... but not in a way our human minds would call positive. Perhaps man isn't so all knowing and blah blah blah..... wasn't the earth better off before humans started to destroy it with their beliefs that they could make something better?

okay I'll stop, i can feel the rambling coming on.... got to go get my child at the bus!!!!! you fill in the rest......

Being Yoga

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:23:32 -0000

I appear to enjoy rambling and love to ask questions that silence this thinking brain......

What in life is not learned?

What is not a thought?

Can LIFE be experienced or lived without perceiving IT through words, ideas, beliefs, concepts, names?

What is relationship without thoughts made up of words, made up by humans? Who is having a relationship?

What is IT that experiences LIFE?

Can we come to know IT without using theories, books, teachings, teachers, traditions?

Who/what comes to know or INTO knowing?

Can we live without the energy of 'DOING' running the show? Or at least notice it!

Check out what the energy of 'doing' feels like inside... check out what 'doing something for an end goal feels like inside compared to playing a game with a child for example with no goal, just pure enjoyment.

What if we just STOP absolutely all 'doing'?

Even to say 'I do yoga'. Sure that is true in the relative sense, but how about deeper than that?

BE YOGA!

this was me playing....thanks for the indulgence.......

Enlightenment?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:20:39 -0000

My God all these years I had assumed I knew what enlightenment was and strove towards it or so I thought in my blindness.

but the whole world sure thinks it can!

Enlightenment is just seeing things

Yeah, the only problem is that we need to realize that we are 'seeing' through our

conditioning and the colour of everyones glasses are different. Wow to truly 'see' things as they are!

The Big Huge Lie - re: The 'Doing' of Spiritual Seeking!

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:16:43 -0000

The Big Huge Lie – re: the ‘Doing’ of Spiritual Seeking!

Do you know what the big lie is?

I’ve been taught to believe as a spiritual seeker ….that I must purify my mind, body and heart before I can ‘earn’ peace. Peace or enlightenment must be ‘attained’ by the hard work of doing many practices and being ‘good at them’. I was taught that only a few chosen special people can become enlightened or awake and they of course were ‘perfect’ in all ways.

IS THAT TRUE?

If you think yes, then I challenge you to prove it with your own understanding and experience and not by something you heard, read or were taught. Check it out for yourself.

Parts of me still believe the lie, so I have to keep meeting those parts as they arise. Just stop believing all the thoughts! Oh my God, the freedom! It is possible?
….it feels like something becoming unplugged and all the energy tied up in a certain belief kind of explodes out quietly as I write this…. leaving JUST THIS.

Ok, obviously I haven’t stopped believing all thoughts as I am still writing…..

Been taking knitting lessons these past few weeks….. funny… as I knit and knit a sweater rather obsessively…..parts of the ‘me’ inside are unraveling…. Unraveling layers and layers …of seeking and learned survival modes of relating to life’s situations and the ways I relate with people. Some layers fall away and feel like a humungous ahhh yes! others… are like having to have a tooth pulled….. it needs to be pulled out to stop suffering, but I’m so afraid to go to the dentist!!!!
I find it interesting, though at times unsettling, to see the origins of suffering/ thoughts/feelings stuck inside of the belief systems that still have a hold on how I relate to life and the people in it. Intense…A lot of stuff I honestly would prefer not to remember, but it feels really good to let things drop away.

For thousands of years the teachers have been preaching to us to perform austerities of all sorts and the process will make us better, more spiritual, more likeable, nicer, happier, peaceful etc.

What if they were all wrong? I mean really wrong!

What the heck is ‘spiritual’ anyways? I realize I have been believing other people’s ideas about what is ‘spiritual’ and have been for many many years, trying to live up their ideas that had become my own. All uninvestigated thoughts, just taken to be true because someone said them or wrote them down thousands of years ago. Wow! So cool when I started to investigate, really look.

What if we don’t have to fast, do yoga, meditation, be a vegetarian, have 30 years of therapy, get rid of all emotions that aren’t positive, be angelically calm and always smiling never sad, never angry, actually get rid of any kind of emotions and always be in a high state of bliss and love, have bliss and love divinely emanating from our whole being like the smell/aura of cigarette smoke around a smoker. Oh my God, I have spent thousands of hours ‘doing’ stuff I considered would ‘get me somewhere’ else other than here. The somewhere else was a better more improved so called enlightened ‘me’. I thought. There is that believed thought again!

I’ve noticed that all beliefs are just thoughts that are sticky. Something inside us, thinks the thoughts are true and turns them into beliefs. Really cool, to investigate into that stickiness itself. Check it out for yourself. What is this sticky or clingy energy?. Where is it in the body…? Who/what experiences it?

Beliefs are what cause all the wars! Has there ever been a war that wasn’t due to beliefs.
Even all the words I’ve just written here…. they can’t be believed. Good, bad, right, wrong… it seems that all beliefs whether so called positive or negative create suffering. Now the yogis use the word’attachment’. They say don’t be attached to your thoughts, feelings, people, places, basically anything…They taught people like myself that it is bad to be attached to people and things for example. For years I listened to that kind of teaching without really investigating what actually does ‘attachment’ mean. I misunderstood all these years and tried to fit myself into box of other people’s ideas….. WOW. No Blame…
Man, I think the spiritual people can become the most judgemental, repressed, angry, fundamental a..holes around. Did I write that? How unspiritual of me!
Guess ultimately I am talking about me - life is all a projection eh? Why do you think I started out on the so called spiritual path? Because on some level i was trying to hide from the hell inside. I wanted to be free of all the humanness that I encountered here. Big misunderstanding…..

Why can’t we just let ourselves be as we are and let others be as they are? Uninvestigated thoughts/beliefs that’s why! How about unlearning them all…. There is the freedom under it all.

So, despite all the rambling I just did, did you figure out the big lie?

The big lie is that we have to DO ‘something’ in order to become something. Is it True?