Tuesday, May 15, 2018

I KNOW WHO I AM 6

(My mind was going in many directions as I sat with our work on Sunday—here are some of the teachings that came out. I just did not find a way to tie them al up I a nice little package—[and maybe I am not supposed to.])


When we speak of creating illusion or falling asleep into an illusion, we are not just speaking to each one of you as individuals. There are many levels group consciousness—nationalities, religions, levels of education, classes, race, gender, etc. all of which are “agreed” upon levels of distinction. 

There are also those “agreements” that affect us as a species. To be aware of these all we have to do is look around. Having more stuff is important; the rich have more say than the poor; we can only be safe if we are in charge; our enemies are those we cannot trust (and they are everywhere), etc. All we have to do is to take a look at the condition of our planet, and what is going on with it to get a sense of what we are creating.

Now the predicament is that many of us will find ourselves disagreeing with many of the above ideas and claim that, “I don’t’ believe that; I don’ feel that way. My values are much different than that,” and so on.” But you see what is happening here; we are creating a new form of separation. 
Perhaps not on a conscious level, but if there is anger or fear in me then I am creating and perpetuating anger and fear.  Without consciously realizing it, I am contributing to duality that I am objecting to.
*********
We’ve mentioned this before that all of us are very aware of our “cycles” of waking and sleeping/awareness and unawareness. The specific area we are exploring right now is our awareness of our Divine Nature. I realized that sounds a little abstract so maybe I could word that differently. How about “being in touch with my capability to love unconditionally, to love without judgement. We all recognize we have this ability, we just forget we have it quite often. 

Because we have been taught to perceive ourselves in limitation, unconditional love is usually not our first response to most human encounters. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Most often our response is judgment, which we are learning is simply another form of fear and separation. Because we think of ourselves as separate we respond from that perception.

**********
Each one of us is working out our own practice of awareness of the truth of who we are. As we do this we begin to realize that we are not doing this work just as individuals, in fact we realize our individuality is simply another perception of  limitation. By raising my vibration of the thoughts I hold onto and the actions I perform,  I raise the vibration of all beings.
So here we are asleep/awake/aware/unaware/remembering/forgetting. How long do I need to be doing this; how many times? Seven times/seventy times seven times?

We keep doing this until we do not need to do it anymore. 
Although that sounds pretty exhausting, it is not a new paradigm. 

There have been and continue to be “way-showers” those who have gone beyond the personality self and at the same time used their personality self as a lens, a filter, for the expression of their divine nature. You know the list, Jesus, Buddha—
Many of the “gods” in the Hindu pantheon were once human in form, eg. Krishna, Vishnu. According to tradition, they surpassed or went beyond their human nature, their personality selves, to claim their worth-to claim their truth as an aspect of the Divine.

There’s a wonderful little parable from Richard Bach’s Illusions, I would like to share. 

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.
But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."
The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"
And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."
But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.


All of us have learned how to walk; some of us have learned to ride a bicycle, others might have learned other feats of skill or achievement that required extensive repetition.
When we learned to walk, we never asked (in exasperation),”How many times am I going to have to do this?” We just did it as often as we needed to, knowing it was going to work,

Well, here we are on this spiritual path of Awakening—and here are two aspects that require our attention. One is: knowing that being awake, being in “conscious contact,” being in a state of conscious unconditional love is not only possible, but is also our birthright (we are worthy of it)—so, we KNOW and and we are WORTHY—-hence the title of this book. 
Second, being dedicated to the practice of cultivating awareness. Much of our awareness will come about when we “wake up” again and realize we have been asleep, have been in a state of unawareness. We do not condemn ourselves for our forgetfulness, we rejoice and are grateful for being awake again.  
This practice is a CONTINUAL ACT OF SURRENDER.
*************
Interesting question this morning—I will paraphrase—“Why are we seemingly drawn back to the dark side of things?” Reading murder mysteries, watching horror movies, revisiting old memories/incidents of fear or guilt, many different ways of doing this.

SOME REASONS:

The most obvious one for me is simply that the mind, by its very nature, is curious. It sees a wet pant sign and has to touch it. The mind is continually exploring. It doesn’t even Edd to label exercises as good or bad, they are jus experiences.

Many of us are “used to” being in a state of victim consciousness or depression or guilt or hame or unworthiness. It might not b pleasant, but it is familiar. We are drawn to the familiar.

Another reason has a bit more meat on its bones. Carl Jung identified an aspect of the mind he named the Shadow. The shadow is that area of the mind that “collects” all those thoughts and behaviors that we are told are unacceptable. All of the “no-no’s”, those thoughts or feelings we are not supposed to have. So when we do have them, which we do, we deny them and throw them in the shadow bag (remember the Biz bag?), where we hope they will stay hidden and inactive. However that is not what happens. The shadow has a knack of showing up at the most inopportune times; our attraction to the “dark side”is and aspect of the shadow coming into our consciousness. 
This can be a good thing, when a behavior or feeling show up, even unwanted ones, we have the opportunity to heal them. Once “a monster” is unmasked we usually find out it is never as bad or as powerful as we might have imagined.

I recall a great one liner from Chris (the radio announcer in the TV show Northern Exposure: “We all want to be Obi-Wan-Kenobi, but there is a bit of Darth Vader in all of us.”    
That’s it for now.
PEACE


















































(My mind was going in many directions as I sat with our work on Sunday—here are some of the teachings that came out. I just did not find a way to tie them al up I a nice little package—[and maybe I am not supposed to.])


When we speak of creating illusion or falling asleep into an illusion, we are not just speaking to each one of you as individuals. There are many levels group consciousness—nationalities, religions, levels of education, classes, race, gender, etc. all of which are “agreed” upon levels of distinction. 

There are also those “agreements” that affect us as a species. To be aware of these all we have to do is look around. Having more stuff is important; the rich have more say than the poor; we can only be safe if we are in charge; our enemies are those we cannot trust (and they are everywhere), etc. All we have to do is to take a look at the condition of our planet, and what is going on with it to get a sense of what we are creating.

Now the predicament is that many of us will find ourselves disagreeing with many of the above ideas and claim that, “I don’t’ believe that; I don’ feel that way. My values are much different than that,” and so on.” But you see what is happening here; we are creating a new form of separation. 
Perhaps not on a conscious level, but if there is anger or fear in me then I am creating and perpetuating anger and fear.  Without consciously realizing it, I am contributing to duality that I am objecting to.
*********
We’ve mentioned this before that all of us are very aware of our “cycles” of waking and sleeping/awareness and unawareness. The specific area we are exploring right now is our awareness of our Divine Nature. I realized that sounds a little abstract so maybe I could word that differently. How about “being in touch with my capability to love unconditionally, to love without judgement. We all recognize we have this ability, we just forget we have it quite often. 

Because we have been taught to perceive ourselves in limitation, unconditional love is usually not our first response to most human encounters. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Most often our response is judgment, which we are learning is simply another form of fear and separation. Because we think of ourselves as separate we respond from that perception.

**********
Each one of us is working out our own practice of awareness of the truth of who we are. As we do this we begin to realize that we are not doing this work just as individuals, in fact we realize our individuality is simply another perception of  limitation. By raising my vibration of the thoughts I hold onto and the actions I perform,  I raise the vibration of all beings.
So here we are asleep/awake/aware/unaware/remembering/forgetting. How long do I need to be doing this; how many times? Seven times/seventy times seven times?

We keep doing this until we do not need to do it anymore. 
Although that sounds pretty exhausting, it is not a new paradigm. 

There have been and continue to be “way-showers” those who have gone beyond the personality self and at the same time used their personality self as a lens, a filter, for the expression of their divine nature. You know the list, Jesus, Buddha—
Many of the “gods” in the Hindu pantheon were once human in form, eg. Krishna, Vishnu. According to tradition, they surpassed or went beyond their human nature, their personality selves, to claim their worth-to claim their truth as an aspect of the Divine.

There’s a wonderful little parable from Richard Bach’s Illusions, I would like to share. 

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.
Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.
But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."
The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"
And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."
But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.


All of us have learned how to walk; some of us have learned to ride a bicycle, others might have learned other feats of skill or achievement that required extensive repetition.
When we learned to walk, we never asked (in exasperation),”How many times am I going to have to do this?” We just did it as often as we needed to, knowing it was going to work,

Well, here we are on this spiritual path of Awakening—and here are two aspects that require our attention. One is: knowing that being awake, being in “conscious contact,” being in a state of conscious unconditional love is not only possible, but is also our birthright (we are worthy of it)—so, we KNOW and and we are WORTHY—-hence the title of this book. 
Second, being dedicated to the practice of cultivating awareness. Much of our awareness will come about when we “wake up” again and realize we have been asleep, have been in a state of unawareness. We do not condemn ourselves for our forgetfulness, we rejoice and are grateful for being awake again.  
This practice is a CONTINUAL ACT OF SURRENDER.
*************
Interesting question this morning—I will paraphrase—“Why are we seemingly drawn back to the dark side of things?” Reading murder mysteries, watching horror movies, revisiting old memories/incidents of fear or guilt, many different ways of doing this.

SOME REASONS:

The most obvious one for me is simply that the mind, by its very nature, is curious. It sees a wet pant sign and has to touch it. The mind is continually exploring. It doesn’t even Edd to label exercises as good or bad, they are jus experiences.

Many of us are “used to” being in a state of victim consciousness or depression or guilt or hame or unworthiness. It might not b pleasant, but it is familiar. We are drawn to the familiar.

Another reason has a bit more meat on its bones. Carl Jung identified an aspect of the mind he named the Shadow. The shadow is that area of the mind that “collects” all those thoughts and behaviors that we are told are unacceptable. All of the “no-no’s”, those thoughts or feelings we are not supposed to have. So when we do have them, which we do, we deny them and throw them in the shadow bag (remember the Biz bag?), where we hope they will stay hidden and inactive. However that is not what happens. The shadow has a knack of showing up at the most inopportune times; our attraction to the “dark side”is and aspect of the shadow coming into our consciousness. 
This can be a good thing, when a behavior or feeling show up, even unwanted ones, we have the opportunity to heal them. Once “a monster” is unmasked we usually find out it is never as bad or as powerful as we might have imagined.

I recall a great one liner from Chris (the radio announcer in the TV show Northern Exposure: “We all want to be Obi-Wan-Kenobi, but there is a bit of Darth Vader in all of us.”    
That’s it for now.
PEACE




























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