This blog is for the readers of The Daily Now, a newsletter of quotes by Eckhart Tolle, Michael Brown, and Nisargatta and edited by Jordan Shafer. Readers are invited to share their experiences of these teachings. This a moderated blog and entries that are not in the spirit of the teaching may not be accepted.
Jordan,I have heard MB say “everything is divinely orchestrated”.My question is, does [everything] include all suppression and numbing of the emotional body [feelings] and those feelings never being brought to awareness and never being integrated? Because we know that many or most people go to their graves, never having put much awareness on their emotional body and never having integrated their feelings of fear, anger or grief.
To partially answer my own question, from my experience, everything is divinely orchestrated and I would add unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes. The mind does not understand it all. Some call it karma. But the idea of karma is difficult to grasp because the idea of individual free will [which would make one responsible for one's acts], is hard to reconcile with the idea that everything is divinely orchestrated. Anyway me [thinks] i’m on some kind of mind trip right now so I’ll go back to feeling. Namaste
hi larry. i too grapple with the concept of a divine orchestration that would include any kind of human suffering whether it be emotional suppression, disease, murder, etc.
but ofcourse like you pointed out, this is all mental and our puny little minds could never grasp the whole of creation! Instead, it picks out certain little tragedies or things we label “bad” and then tries to understand how they fit into the totality of the universe.
i think it was eckhart who pointed out once that the mind tries to understand the whole of the cosmos by agonizing over tiny little details…and from that tiny little vantage point, one cant possibly see the big picture.
i think it was jeannie zandi who likened the universe to a forest. we walk into a forest and it appears messy and chaotic, but our deeper sense “knows” there is an incredibly intricate, incredibly orchestrated order to nature.
so when we drop out of the mental, we “feel” this divine orchestration and can even witness it in nature; but our mind will never understand it.
i’m beginning to realize this is because the mind thinks it itself separate from the totality and thus always tries to figure out it’s place in it, as separate from the whole.
but when we are still and drop out of the mental, we FEEL that we are not separate, but ONE with this vast, and incredibly awe-inspiring creation that is bigger than any mental concept could ever imagine.
May the peace that passes all understanding be ours this New Year! We are so much more than our mind wants us to believe. Namaste.
I see MB like everyone else as part of the divine orchestration. When MB urges us to become aware of are emotional body and use that awareness to integrate our feelings, those who have the potential and willingness to do this will do it. Those who dont, wont. It is all part of the divine orchestration. I like this quote. ” Always remember deep in your heart that all is well and everything is unfolding as it should. There are no mistakes anywhere, at any time. What appears to be wrong is simply your own false imagination. Thats all. But we live in a universe of Absolute Reality, self-contained Consciousness, where there’s perfection, perfect life, perfect bliss, perfect being. That perfection knows nothing about wrong and right, good and bad, happy and sad. It knows only itself as perfection. And you are that. Nothing else exists.Nothing else ever existed. Nothing else will ever exist. There is only the one Self and you are That. Rejoice!”
What if we are a part of the Divine that orchestrates? And we are also the ones with free will who orchestrate our life? I think the idea of God orchestrating my life makes God separate. And to me that is an illusion. Kat
My daughter Traci introduced me to the Daily Now and I have enjoyed reading it for several months–since March of 2008. I’ve enjoyed reading the blogs and thought today I would offer my thoughts and join the conversations. Happy New Year.
As “Being” each of us are part of the divine orchestration — there is no separateness here. Beings inherently posssess free will but the choices flow from conscious being (no mind) in perfect harmony with the divine…streaming into the vast ocean with hardly a ripple. And what is free will? the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies..that is apart from the world of form. The unconscious being (identified with mind) however can only make choices that are not free but are enslaved by the delusions of the collective unconscious world around–YET even so this too is part of the divine orchestration. There is no thing a part from it. The unconscious being’s free will choices still flow with the divine orchestration but their streaming into the ocean does however cause quite a ripple!
Whether awakened or not, we Beings are not separate from God (the divine, Light of Consciousness, higher Being or whatever label we use but we Beings are divine AND human –creator is not separate from creation.
I concur with MB “everything is divinely orchestrated”. Peace.
I wanted to follow up with this post from Larry, which I’ll carry over from last month:
“Tom, you said you have OCD. I had OCD. It was for me, a great opportunity to feel the feeling [usually fear] I was trying to cover up with obsessive-compulsive thoughts, but especially the ritualistic performance of certain acts. When you have OCD the fear is so close. The acts were magical ways to controll the fear. What I did was to simply refuse to perform the acts. I allowed myself to feel the fear. It was the fear of my own death. It took some courage but I’m glad I did it. I no longer have OCD and all the fear behind it. Peace”
This is a perfect example of sharing from his own experience. He is not giving advice, which is important – in essence I am hearing him say,”This is my experience of what I understand you to be describing and I offer my experience, as it may be of use to you.”
A couple of questions:
When you faced the fear by ‘feeling’ it, did it get more intense at first?
How did you find the courage within to face the fear in the first place?
Q: From Larry, “…does [everything] include all suppression and numbing of the emotional body [feelings] and those feelings never being brought to awareness and never being integrated?”
Answer: Yes.
But Traci says it better.
From Kat: “What if we are a part of the Divine that orchestrates? And we are also the ones with free will who orchestrate our life? I think the idea of God orchestrating my life makes God separate. And to me that is an illusion. Kat”
Sounds like the mind has found a way to work out the dilemma of free will and divine orchestration.
I would suggest sitting with the feeling of discomfort that wanted to answer that question. Dig deeper into that and then check back and let us know what you come up with. j
“When you faced the fear did it get more intense at first?” Definitely!
“How did you find the courage within to face the fear in the first place.
For the first 20 years of OCD, I did not know it was a mental disease. I believed there were these whimsical gods or super beings that could and would punish me usually with a slow painfull death [like cancer], unless I did what they told me to. I would get an idea like touch the door 100 times or you can’t leave. To me, that was how they [talked] to me. Sometimes it would go on all day making it pretty hard to live let alone get any thing done. I became interested in mental illness. I started reading books and learned of OCD. I also was seeing a psychologist before I knew about OCD. The [gods] told me if I told him about them or what they made me do, they would punish me. Once I read a book on OCD I realized the [gods] were most likely not real but I still was not positive. It took a few more years to tell him and when nothing happened, I began to disbelieve in their reality. At this point I was so tired of being their slave. Maybe thats why I took the big chance and told the psychologist. After that I decided to fight by refusing to do what they [told] me to do. Even though I knew they were not real,but [just a thought in my head], I felt real fear everytime I said “NO’ I wont do it. Over the next few months I started hearing less and less from them utill [they gave up] so to speak. Another major thing that helped more than I can say, was my felt spiritual connection to the Divine. Namaste
After reading what I just wrote, I realized what an incredible story the mind will invent to help suppress a feeling like fear. The mind; the great inventor of stories. Peace
“Our fear is the fear we have of our own rage.”
I’ve done “The Presence Process” and love mb’s work. This is still not clear to me either. I seem to get most of the other things teachers say, but just can’t get this. If insight apprears on this please share!
Thanks to you and this column
OK JVS, I have sat a bit with the discomfort and the only thing I know now is that I don’t know. I “thought” I knew but there in lies the problem. Thanks for the awakening question. I feel frightened and ashamed to “not know”. As for MB”s fear of our own rage, I get that or rather feel that as well. Kat
If MB is saying one thing some fear is their own rage I agree. If he is saying the only fear we have is of our own rage, I dont agree. I used to be afraid to loose control into rage because I was not allowed to express rage under threat of being beaten. I was also afraid my parents would abandon me if I expressed rage.
I wanted to add something about individual free will. The great majority of people believe they have free will. They believe they are the choosers and the doers and they will argue they are right. I dont think many of these people have asked themselves [who has free will?] The answer is almost always,[I have free will].The next question is who or what is this I that has free will? In other words who or what am I?
And then really look, at you. Find out who that is. The closer I look at me, the more I realize there is no core me. There is only a bunch of thoughts, beliefs, feelings and ideas [and most of those were taught to me by someone or through experience] but there is no me. No solid core me. Only impersonal consciousness. Peace
Larry, thanks for sharing about OCD. Your comment about the mind’s knack for creating a story such as OCD to suppress a feeling such as fear really strikes a chord. My story usually is that I won’t be able to get it out of my head, for the rest of my life!, that I didn’t perform a ritual. The increase in my OCD coincided with the deterioration of my relationship, which I valued highly, especially for the sense of family it provided. Now that the relationship has just ended, my OCD is more intense. I would love to learn from this.
I take rage to be intense anger, powerful beyond all “control”. Another wise teacher, Faye Mandell, (also published by Namaste-her excellent book is “Self-Powerment”) models our emotional needs on “time-space” axis, and the Present moment (I Am) is their junction. The “up axis” represents our need for control, and is expressed in our conceptual language as “others”-our job, our kids, spouse, mortgage, etc., etc. When we “leave” the present moment and focus on others, we feel frustrated; if we don’t heed the message of frustration and allow it to guide us back to the only place of true control (here/now) it moves into anger. The very need for control, when not acknowledged, leads to a state of being truly “out of control” (rage), thus the fear we have of this state. For me, the wonderful piece that MB’s work has provided is a means to do this “inner-child” healing work, and discover it to be another facet of the non-duality understanding that Nisargadatta shares. See Mandell’s book for fuller explanation.
To clarify further, from my experience, when I’ve felt rage, and directed it towards “others” the fruits have been very bitter; I think this is one source of the fear-we know it is not the “other” causing our anger, but our condition of being broken-hearted is so painful that we externalize it.
When I see [I] dont have free will because [I] dont really exist as a seperate solid core me, I notice there is a feeling of loss of control. I can see that many need to feel in control of their lives and themselves. Telling them they don’t have free will may cause them fear. The illusion of control keeps their fear repressed. For some reason [I am not sure what it is], I trust the universe, I trust the divine. I trust it more than myself, as I see myself as dream character,an illusion. Namaste
Tom, now that your OCD is more intense, your closer than ever to experiencing the underlying feeling. Since it got more intense after your breakup maybe thats the universe giving you a gift. You said you wont be able to get it out of your head, for the rest of your life [I think you mean if] you dont do a ritual. What wont you be unable to get out of your head? Can you tell me? I think thats important. I still dont how your OCD manifests. I understand a relationship is very important to you, but now I think it’s time to work on the OCD. Like I said I got over mine by refusing to do any rituals. I fought it and beat it.
Hi All,
I have been told that my “niceness” is a sign of suppressed anger and so have been very interested in what MB says about it. (the “nice” being about this fear he addresses) from “alchemy of the heart” “Once we allow ourselves to sink into our suppressed fear, without attempting to change it, we inevitably discover what we most fear. Our greatest fear is of our own anger and the rageful consequences of allowing ourselves to express it fully. We are afraid that if we allow ourselves to openly express the extent of our rage, we may destroy this whole earth!” (page 152)
The next page talks about why I am angry ( and by the way, this all has a tremendous ring of truth for me) “We are angry because we had our heart broken” “We all entered this life as Unconditional, vibrational beings, and the process of entering a conditional emotional, mental, and physical experience is heartbreaking for an Unconditional being.” “We are now angry about our unseen shift from presence to pretence” ” We are furious at addictively being incarcerated by consistently doing the “right” thing and the “expected” thing to make it in the calculated and pretentious adult world.” Here it is ” We are exhausted from “playing it safe” and having to come across as “a nice person” so we do not “upset anyone” or “cause unnecessary conflict”
“Within us there is a child bound by order, control, sedation, expectation, judgement, and self denial. Our anger is this child screaming for air and sunlioght from within the dungeon of our forgotten heart.” “Whenever we self medicate, we are practicing internalized child abuse.”
Wow, thanks for the opportunity to go through and write that, I think I got it. This is day 4 of my second trip through PP, I love it.
Regarding MB’s quote of: Our fear is the fear we have of our own rage.
This fear of our own rage is egos way of using the mind and emotions to keep us from facing them and seeing the illusion that they really are. Our mind, which is the ego, tells us that we’ll destroy our self (Self) and/or someone else if we face or “be” with our rage. Most people don’t understand how to be with the mental and emotional states that surface in their lives. This creates creates the fear we have of our rage, because we’re not connected to Self.
When you ask about whether we have experienced crying as a way of releasing our pent-up emotions, I start to think of the Frank Sinatra song MY WAY. He sang that he shed some tears but then again too few to mention. And then I think of a very small toddler who in a fit of frustrated rage that she isn’t allowed to be all that she or do what she wants to do is crumbling into sobs caused by the feelings of helplessness. I believe it was then that I realize with real eyes as MB would say that rage was unacceptable if I wanted to be loved. I guess I am wondering now—is the emotion of anger/rage covered up sometimes by tears? And if so do tears dissolve the anger or only drive it further underground?
Kat
Our fear is the fear we have of our own rage
What seems to have hit me from these responses, and which assits, is that if I substitute the word “loss of control” for the word rage it resonates more.
“Our fear is the fear of our own rage” When I read that sentence I interpret it as meaning if our own rage did not exist there would be no fear. If I was falling to my death because my parachute did’nt open, I would not feel any fear,unless I was feeling intense rage at the person who prepared the parachute or rage at the makers of a faulty parachute. But what if I saw it as an accident just like any accident. If I was falling to my death or driving to my death because of an accident, would I feel no fear because I was not feeling rage at that moment? The answer is NO. I would be feeling fear and [not] be feeling rage at that time. I have experienced feeling rage, where I saw myself destroying the world, [during a feeling session],but I was not feeling fear at the time. I was feeling rage and power. I also know one’s own rage can cause one to feel fear. It is just [ONE] of many feelings, things and situations that can cause fear.
When I began feeling therapy I did not know of MB but there were other people doing it like John Brashaw and others. The reason I wanted to do it at first, was because I realized I had not cried for 10 to 15 years. I felt I was shutdown and numb. My life seemed unreal because I had no strong feelings about anything. In a period of 2 years, It’s hard to believe how much I cried. I would sit outside on a bench and cry for 30 minutes to an hour 2 or 3 times a week. I dont know what people thought, but I could’nt and did’nt want to stop. It felt wonderfull. I was open and mourning my lost childhood. I am not sure I can explain the word [open] but when you are open you can start crying anywhere, anytime. MB is right. We need to cry. We need to mourn. Peace
MB “The tears we did not cry as a child must run from our adult eyes to return us to peace”.
Yes, I have had much experience with this as an adult. I suffered much pain as a child and was forced to suppress the pain. The internalized sadness which was never allowed to be expressed then turned into anger, resentment, and fear. This internal volcano if you will, went unchecked on into early adulthood, spilling out onto others and continued to grow more fierce while I pretended outwardly it was not so. When as an older adult in my late 30’s early 40’s I came to a spiritual awakening.The brewing volcano within my being was so vast, so large, so fierce…fear of my own rage that MB refers to was most certainly present. When the space to allow these pent up emotions opened and I surrendered…the tears fell over and over and over and over again. These tears turned into heavy sobs of sheer anquish. Then as the sobs subsided, the tears began to wash the pain away and were as healing balm, soothing oil, and cleansing water to my entire being…then “ah yes, the peace–the inexplicable peace completely engulfed it all”. This process took about 3 years to completely dissolve and distinquish the internal volcano. For three years I would cry almost daily. Today I am “tendered” and allow tears to be an expression of all that I feel: love, joy, peace, compassion…sorrow and so forth.
Namaste.
may the tears i cry for “my” peace
may the cradling of my innerchld
submit the feeling of being/getting cradled around any child
it is very interesting
that a little baby came into my life
to be cared for each night
so i did cradling outside the same time when i did it inside
i felt lots of guilt
that let me do many things
i was not responsible for
but felt i was made responsible
i often was made guilty for whatever from whomever
once i saw the guilt kneeing before me
telling me i am THE LOVE
when i finally took it into my heart
tears began to run
and my body became “tall”
Kat, earlier you wrote ” What if we are part of the Divine that orchestrates our life? I Think the Idea of God orchestrating my life makes God seperate. And to me that is an illusion.” What if the Divine is orchestrating it’s [own life], not yours? And you, who believes you are someone named Kat, is really a manifistation of God. Or you are God dreaming it’s a seperate person named Kat? I see awakening as realizing you are not who you think you are. All this time you believed it was you and your life, it was really God and it’s life. There is only one conscious being. One feeling behind what you said could be [and this is only my idea which may be wrong], the fear of the ego/mind wanting to exist and on a deep level knowing it really does’nt. Namaste
ET: “No, and you see how beautiful, powerful, intelligent, and deep that state is…of not labeling.”
in this context, is labeling the same as naming?
as a child i remember wondering “why is a door a door? why isn’t a chair a door?” in other words i distinctly remember thinking, well why can’t i call a chair a door and whats the difference? maybe it was my child’s way of trying to figure out language…and the crazy world i was in.
but isn’t labeling (or naming) useful if only for communication and convenience sake? of course, language can obscure meaning as much as it reveals…yet, there is a kind of power in words – spoken (as vibrations) and written (as symbols) – but i also feel ET’s point in not getting lost and/or transfixed in them. hard to not fall into that.
i am a visual person, so with these last few posts of ET quotes about not labeling, magritte’s “this is not a pipe” painting in his treachery of images series of paintings came to my minds eye…ET seems to be taking magritte’s point a step further–i.e. not only is the image of a pipe not a pipe but the object of “pipe” is also not a pipe, we just call it that. lol. hmmm…
if i am feeling ET correctly — is he saying that we have been conditioned to let the ‘label’ get in the way or takes the place of the actual experience (of whatever)? therefore, if we de-condition (re-train?) ourselves to drop labeling we can have direct experience with (whatever)?
in trying to express my feelings i am sounding way more intellectual about this than i mean to. i’m stopping now.
traci, thank you for your kind and helpful response to my question last month.
namaste,
~mf
Vermarian,
Your words are very powerful and moved something deep inside my heart. Thank you very much, I appreciate you.
Every person that’s writing, and not, brings a great energy of community to this blog, I appreciate you each and every one.
Very well said Larry—I am going to sit with your words a while. Of course I am only aware of me as Kat when I am thinking. But for a very brief moment every so often I am not. Then ego fear comes in and I am Kat again. Kat or whoever. Hey ET that’s the label with which I am known by others and myself.
Even though my name is part of it, it’s more than that. It’s the experience of me or I. All day the mind says or thinks I,I,I, Me,Me. I Look intensely at that I, that me I say I am, to see who or what it really is. When I look, taste, or experience this I/me deeply It’s found there is no solid core me. It seems there is just consciousness. Everything else is just thoughts, beliefs, Ideas, taught by apparent others or experience. Peace
JVS, “all there is is now. Destiny implies future” I agree all there is is now but now includes what we call the past, the present, and the future. From our limited point of view, all we are usually aware of is the present, but the past and the future are also happening now. I realize the way most of us see time, this is not logical. The way I see time is like a foggy road we are walking on. We only see the part of the road we are on, [present]. But we know the the whole road exists now. past, present, future.
Problems arise when one keeps the now away by constantly remembering the past or imagining the future. I realize the way I see time is only my point of view. Peace
Larry,
you said
“we know the the whole road exists now. past, present, future.”
sometimes i get knd of “forelorn” in the moment…
it seems as if i exist in a spiral…
just as an example:
i went by car 970km in 7,5 hours and i know that i also slept 3 hours on a parking place within these hours
this is nearly not possible as my car is not a “spaceshuttle”…
the other day it took me nearly one hour to go 15 km…
life is such a wonderful experience
as
i always know i am cared for and carried,too, within a deep joy and peace…
may you all feel this deep love that surrounds us all ways…
Happy New Year to All!
Vermarian, did you write the first poem you posted? Are you a poet? Well, I found it inspiring. Thanks for sharing!
Peace,
Jose
Jose,
thanks
i am glad that you found it inspiring
all i write is written by me – hahaha….
but then there is a question
as we are connected
may those thoughts be thought by many…or all?
feeling the resonance by what pops up within one of us….
it was so
when i read the essence by michael brown
i can show my diaries from the last years
and you will read mostly the same but written in “my language and in german…”
this is why i feel at home with his books
peace begins with me
(may be therefore i am anti aggression trainer???? merging the learnt tools with shamanic tools)
sending the joy
from a blue wintercold sun-day
YES
to be shared
Some say that laughter is the best medicine.
Some say that laughter is the antidote to sin.
Some say that laughter is a waste of good time.
I tell you laughter is fully Divine.
This planet has a bunch of serious folks; they just don’t get
the Cosmic Joke.
And some spend their lives in hot pursuit of what they call a
Cosmic Truth.
But I heard a joke in the Heavens above,
laughter is Truth.
And the punch line is LIEBE.
LOVE LAUGH LIVE
and live in laughing love
and love the living laugh(ter)
and laugh for loving life
in response to mf’s blog regarding labels i agree with him completely. labeling is part of life and is necessary for communicating in this world of form. however, eckhart is reminding us that labeling something doesn’t really mean we grasp it or fully understand it. he is reminding us how little we really know about an object besides the label we give it to make us THINK we understand it fully. he is inviting us to drop out of the mental and observe objects with that sense of awe and wonder we had as children before we labeled everything. there is so much to life beyond the words we give to describe it.
when my mind starts racing these days trying to “figure things out,” i try to be the witness and let the thoughts and emotions come and go without trying to understand them or identify with them. it can be a struggle, but when i disidentify with the thoughts and emotions, peace is restored and later the answer i was struggling for suddenly just comes, in a time of peace and rest and acceptance of what is rather than when i am mentally grappling with something.
i find for me that patience is a huge part of this presence work. it’s a difficult lesson for me because i dont like sitting in a place of confusion very long and the ego tells me i need to hurry up and get the answer!
Speaking about labels I used to play this game. I did it at the time because it was fun or seemed funny. It seemed to help me seperate a label from the object it represented. I would use any label. For instance, when I think of the word [tree], I see a tree in my minds eye. What I do is say the word tree [out loud] over and over, faster and faster and soon the word tree has no meaning. It just seems like a funny and meaningless sound. This can be done with any word that has meaning. Even the word [word]. WORD
Nis “I am doing my part in trying to help people to know themselves as the only cause of their own misery. I guess on some level this is true but I see everything as the divine expression or as MB stated earlier everything is divinely orchestrated. I know they are talking about war and it’s ensuing misery but try telling a 5 year child who has a catastrophic disease,” you are the only cause of your own misery.” Talk about adding insult to injury or in this case adding guilt to misery. And yet even Nis saying this is the divine expression. It seems obvious that in this [reality] everything exists in pairs of opposites. Good and bad, right and wrong, light and dark, war and peace. The mind can not understand it but there is no-one to blame. Namaste
hey larry — we used to play that game as kids…saying the same word over and over again until it lost all meaning…then wondering why can’t we call one thing something else? and somehow sensing that most of the time it didn’t really matter what something was called (not always though — i don’t agree that words never matter). i stopped doing it because it made me feel disoriented. in light of encountering ET and MB’s work i wonder what was that feeling really about? i feel you in your second post, too.
my name has been a source of amusement(now) in this area. my first name is considered long in the states (marie-francoise) and i didn’t even know what it was until i was nearly in my teens and got a good look at my birth certificate. also, it’s french so is often mispronounced. growing up, my foster family (sorry if TMI) called me by first half of my name but still not correct: maria. teachers called me maria (if they ever said my name) and my mom called me marie. in high school, as part of my still on-going personal reclamation project, i was briefly known as only ‘francoise.’ i didn’t have the nerve to call myself by my full birth name until after i married and moved to europe. it was a hard decision for me to make. unconsciously i was afraid of what people’s reaction would be (i had also changed my last name to my husband’s which i quickly changed back to my own name-but i won’t get into that!). it was a big deal to use my total name for the first time in my life but it was an even bigger deal when i returned to the US. people don’t want to say it and always ask me if they have to say the whole thing, etc etc. it’s always a big production.
it used to annoy me quite a bit, ‘this whole can i call you something more convenient/comfortable for me thing’, but now i try to be more philosophical/detached about it. after all, its only a name, a label, but it isn’t ME. and if i sense something underneath the asking or if it really bothers me i just say no, you can’t call me something else you have to call me by my name. saying no when i mean no, yes when i mean yes(MB)…
cue shakespeare…
namaste,
~mf
traci:
patience. yes. i gotta work on that one too…or not work on it…
It’s funny, but in Traci’s last blog she referred to mf as him, and for some reason [maybe it was written once], I always thought mf was a women. I was almost going to write something about it, but then it seemed to superficial [maybe like this blog]. By the way mf, I think your birth name is pretty. L
MF – your blog made me think of why my name/label is now Windy when my birth name is Winette. I haven’t used my real name since I was about 18 years old when my first employer — cigar smoking, heavy set, reminded me of Lou on the old Mary Tyler Moore series, said something like: “Winette” (of course didn’t pronounce it correctly more like Why…net-tee) who in the world gave you that name, that’s too difficult, I will call you Windy…and there it started.
I’ve never returned to my name — this one incident made me think/feel that my name was stupid, difficult and not very pretty.
Never really gave much attention to this until your blog.
Funny how something as simple as this incident changed my identity and now I move and breathe without identifying or at least am moving in that sphere of awareness.
Winette
My birth name is Lawrence. My mother and all my relatives always called me Larry but either is just a name. A way for others to identify me, as (this form, this mind, this pesonality, etc). I dont really relate much to the name or any of the other stuff. It feels like I’m completely willing to die to or forget this identity. I don’t believe I’ll remember it after the death of the body anyway. It feels like I want to surrender this identity,(this I) to the Divine. Namaste
I admit after I read my last post, the ego experienced some fear. It said what about me. What about poor me. It wants (me) to believe that it is what/all I am. Poor little Larry. But I know better, through experience that I am not Larry. But [I AM]. Love and Peace
MB “The more we awaken, the more we laugh”. I can say the more I was able to feel fear, anger, and grief, the more I could feel joy, love, compassion. I notice I can laugh more also. I believe MB sees feeling your suppressed emotions as a big part of awakening. At least a lot more than most other spiritual teachers. I believe doing feeling work helped bring me to a spiritual awakening. Before I did feeling work I was not interested in spirituality. I thought people into spirituality, gurus, etc, were a little off. I remember seeing people chanting Hare Krishna and thinking, how strange they looked and seemed. I might not agree with their beliefs, but I no longer see following any spiritual path as strange. I believe feeling work helped put me on this path. Now it is my main interest. Everything originates from the spiritual and is the divine expression. Namaste
i began the feeling work with filling my cells with joy
every morning and every evening
and every “time” when i was remember by a thought of…
it was like filling a glass with water
all the things that filled the cells went outside when the joy became more and more
it took about wo weeks and then my cells began to “spring” with joy when i told them
hey dears we will fill up!!!
and so JOY became a compagnion
when there was a moment (mostly more than one moment!!!) where anything else was popping up
i accepted it as it was (this also took about twoo weeks of more and more awareness
then breathing joy into the cells
and the anything else was allowed to go where ever it really belonged to…
and the more joy
the more peace filled the feeling
joy into every cell
interesting that the names come up
so they did in a talk with my sister
who now insists to be called by her whole name
i changed into a combination of all my names
ver-onika mari-a an-na
vermarian
that carries the message(=essence) of all the three.
i only had to breathe joy into my cells and the anything else
when my son was born we didn’t give him a name right away. for approximately two weeks or a little more he was just known as ‘baby’ or ‘baby boy’. as in ‘how are you baby?’, ‘who are you baby?’, ‘hold the baby’, ‘aren’t you the sweetest baby boy in the world’ etc, etc…i would look into his eyes, especially after breastfeeding, and ask him ‘well, what’s your name? ‘who are you?’, ‘what do you want to be called?’ he would just look me in the eye, laugh/smile (or was it gas? lol). then we had to hurry up and complete his birth certificate (or who knows how long that would have gone on!). we named him and gave him the middle name of an ancestor on my mother’s side…his last name is hyphenated. like mine, his name is pretty long.
a few years later, when he was about 3 or 4 his name came to me. i asked him if he wanted to change it but he was already quite attached to what we’d been calling him. its ok, it doesn’t really matter anyway.
namaste
Both ET and Nis are saying the same thing. They dont exist. No-one exists. It looks like everyone exists but that is an illusion. Every individual seen is an illusionary dream character. Each character is being played by the Divine/Consciousness/God. Thats why Nis says he isn’t really doing anything. He has no motives. Nis does not exist. Or ET says it looks like choices are being made but they are not because there are no individuals to make choices. ET does not exist. None of us exist as these forms, these minds, these egos. God is living through the seperate someone you think you are. Allow God to live through the someone you think you are. The someone you think exists, because God is doing it anyway. Someday you will realize who you really are. Namaste
I haven’t been contributing much lately, but I am enjoying what I’m reading. I find that it helps me look deeper within as I read the posts. Thanks to all who are contributing. Jordan
i’m realizing lately that i am searching for a career to make me happy and i’m beginning to realize more and more that the idea of a “perfect job” that’s going to give me a sense of wholeness and completeness does not exist.
the more i’m becoming the witness the more i am able to notice that i am equating my career with my identity and that there is deep mental attachment here that says finding the right career will equate happiness for me.
i keep thinking that if i just find the right career i’ll finally be at peace and feel good about myself.
and i’m noticing the same goes for my search for spiritual enlightenment…i keep thinking that if i could just hurry up and get it “right” and follow the teachings properly and stop identifying with my mind, all will be well!
but this means i keep postponing my ability to find peace by projecting it into some future moment when i have the right job or have mastered a certain teaching! as eckhart points out, the only portal into being is NOW, is this moment.
the peace that passes all understanding can only be attained by accepting your life as it is NOW. not by judging and labeling your life and thinking it needs to be different in order to be at peace. true joy is here NOW and nothing need be changed in order to get it. changes can be made, sure, but unless you first surrender to what is, and stop deriving your sense of self from the world of form, no change will ever make you happy.
these concepts are of course easier to put down on paper than put into practice, but i think the more i become the witness and bring them to focus, the less likely i will fall back into the trap of self-seeking through form, and can re-enter the timeless, changeless realm of peace that is unaffected by the ups and downs of the world of form.
Traci,Thank you. Over the weekend the theme that kept repeating itself to me was to “invest my energy in what stays with me” form, of course, does not. The rewards of the inner journey, accessed through present moment awareness, felt perception, intuition, have been providing value for me that seems beyond all of that.
MB says that to the “world” it may not look like we’re doing much, that we’re being “meek”, then he goes on to say that the meek shall inherit the earth.
What prompted me to write was to say that I now see so clearly that it is this journey, not the destination, even “that” destination that gives us the life worth living. I so appreciate that the interest and number of people awakening to this idea is rapidly growing. That I can come here and feel the energy of my fellow travelers is priceless to me. Thank you!
To Michael Brown: OM EYE GOD!
A Pome by me:
The locust’s
Fight with himself
Is not to shed the shell
But to make supple and new
The old and familiar
Which falls away
Despite his vigorous protest
ricky
long ago and far away
Ooo Rick what a beauty there!
Jordan I love the N.M. quote, “First get to that state and then ask the question,” and your bridging!
Thanks all for the enjoyable reading- mf, how lovely to hear about how you named your little boy. So sweet.
Thanks all!
From the book: “I Am That” – Talks with Nisargadatta Maharaj
Awareness Is Free
Q: If I become anything I think myself to be, and I start thinking that I am the Supreme Reality, will not my Supreme Reality remain a mere idea?
M: First reach that state and then ask the question….
i must admit, i first felt fear and doubt arise after nisargadatti’s quote today.
my mind said, “what if we really arent one and at peace at our core and that we are only trying to convince ourselves of this and it’s nothing but another idea?”
but when i disidentified from this thought and the fear and i took a pause in stillness, i realized that the path to KNOWING who you really are is attained by NOT thinking…so obviously this state cannot be an idea because it is apart from thought altogether!
whew…i was a bit confused and fearful there for a moment!
“M: First reach that state and then ask the question….”
He is saying that it is a different paradigm, which means that the contributing information will be different. There’ll be a new dimension that wasn’t perceived before; therefore, until you reach that ’state’ you won’t even know which question to ask.
+++++++
“when i disidentified from this thought and the fear and i took a pause in stillness, i realized that the path to KNOWING who you really are is attained by NOT thinking…so obviously this state cannot be an idea because it is apart from thought altogether!”
Traci, thanks, j
James- great post from Jan. 4.
Am starting my new Earth-Shattering Self-Help book “Why Be Here Now When You Can Put It Off ‘Till Tomorrow!”
Michael: EYE YAM
ENTOMOLOGY; a study of the origin and history of words through the vehicle of Free Association (aside; the best thing about free association is that it doesn’t cost anything) in which one allows InSex to crawl about the personal Collective Consciousness which creates the Illusion that you really know where this stuff came from.
Not mine, I wish it were:
HOLY WAR: “My imaginary God can beat up your imaginary God.”
I’m creating bumper stickers for fun and, hopefully, Prophet.
Some origionals:
MORE ON
CAUSE MOS’
Count Dracula; Life Dies, Then You Suck
And 2 personal favorites that I did not create:
My Karma ran over my Dogma
Seeing this one really brightened my day when I was pissy and blue–JESUS LOVES YOU
but everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.
Ma Nasty, (Rickalese for “Piece”)
Ricky T
“I am not concerned with people’s desires and fears.”
JVS: How could that be?
He answers it himself in the following statements:
M. “Were I to think myself to be a body known by its name, I would not have been able to answer your questions.
Were I to take you to be a mere body, there would be no benefit to you from my answers.”
Ego (egoic mind) = bodily consciousness/bodily(gender)identity.
The “Self” is transcendent of (includes, yet goes beyond) the body and bodily (gender) identity. Within it (The Self) is the whole spectrum of Being. So long as we are caught up in bodily/gender identity, we are caught up in dualistic thinking/perception and the separated/divided experience attendant with it.
Thus, the statement: “I am not a body. I am free. I am as God created me.
Nis “I am not concerned with peoples desires or fears.” David made this statement clear. The only thing I would add is Nis doesn’t believe He or other PEOPLE exist. There is an illusion, (and a very convincing one) that many people, things, phenomena, really exist much like a night dream. When one wakes up what happens to the people, places and things in the dream? Nis is not concerned with peoples desires or fears. He or what speaks through him is concerned with getting people to realize as people you dont exist. Your dreaming so transend your desires or fears. They also are only a part of the dream. Namaste
When one is aware of him or herself doing something in a dream, one believes in the reality of the drempt self. Upon awakening, one sees one is the dreamer. Night dreams are a reflection of what is. Namaste
i’m not sure Nis is saying people dont exist; we do exist as a form, just like a rock or tree. our bodies are our “outer shell”, or form.
however, our form is not the absolute truth but only the relative truth of who we are. when our form dies, as all forms do, the core of who we are, our absolute truth as the creator itself, continues being as the eternal one-life of which we truly are. for without the creator, no form can exist.
the key problem i believe nis, mb, et, and others are bringing to our awareness is that we take ourselves completely to be our form. we have forgotten our essence as the ocean and identify with ourselves as an independent stream that is cut off from it’s source, the ocean, the absolute.
we dont want to completely deny our form but more importantly we dont want to forget our essence. and yet we have forgotten our essence as formless and timeless and that is the ultimate cause of all our suffering. it is in our complete attachment and identification to our form and all other forms, which are by their very nature impermanent and thus always going to lead us to suffering if we rely on them for our sense of self.
once we realize our ultimate dimension as the One, we can enjoy our form, and other forms…while they last. our ultimate sense of self rests in our timeless essence rather than the impermanent forms of this world which never last and thus can never create permanent happiness.
MB: “Unconditional love is not money…”
JVS: Do you suppose that is why people are so happy when they win on a game show, they think they’ver won unconditional love?
No, I don’t think so. The happiness is due to the belief that they won because God/Universe whatever outside of them is showing they are OK by letting them win. In other words they are worthy of God’s love who like mom and dad punishes or rewards their behavior.
Afterall, our parents are our first gods and that and reward and punishment are seen as evidence of being loved.
Kat
Wow, I would love to go to the retreat in the Pacific Northwest, but my location and finances will not really allow me at this time. I am located in Chicago and was wandering if anyone knows of any retreats coming up in the Midwest? Would appreciate any information. Thanks
Ever notice in our culture (USA) how closely “God” resembles Santa Claus? (This is a serious question.)
rt
Kat,
Wouldn’t you agree that God’s love and unconditional love are the same thing. No?
On the other hand, Santa’s love is the epitome of ‘conditional’ love. So not sure about that one.
rt, what are some examples?
j
I would say that all love is God’s love in greater and lesser degrees of conscious awareness.
In Santa’s love, we get rewarded/punished for our behavior. In
“The Razor’s Edge” the realization the main character comes to is
“There is no pay-off.” Good/Evil are just manifestations of different levels of being/BEING.
RT
Nis ” Is not life a stream of surprises ? For who? Everyone. I am not sure what he means. For me sometimes there are suprises or accidents sometimes no. From my limited vantage point,what I experience as a surprise could be exactly what was supposed to happen. “everything is unfolding as it should” Robert Adams.
As far as Nis saying he or others did not exist as bodies or people, that may be right. I deleted this but I thought he said “nothing is what I am.” On the other hand it is something I do believe. I also believe trees, rocks, socks, and anything that is called matter does not really exist. Every thing is consciousness and consciousness is empty. Even quantum physicists using electronic microscopes, have so far seen that matter including the human body is made up of 99.999999
percentage empty space. So far there are only theorys on what makes up the part that is not empty space. If and when they invent an ultra electronic microscope I believe they would see the body and all matter as pure space. Peace
This matter of matter being an illusion includes the idea that nothing is happening. Phenomena, time, and space, all illusion. It’s called in the east and now in the west Maya. It’s from Hinduism and means the illusory world of the senses. It is also a belief of Buddhism. If your living in the material world, I believe you should follow the laws of materiality. I guess that means things like dont step in front of a moving truck, etc. It is just knowing that the only thing that exists is the One Self (still, empty, consciousness) and YOU ARE THAT right now. Namaste
MB: “Unconditional love is not money…”
JVS: Do you suppose that is why people are so happy when they win on a game show, they think they’ver won unconditional love?
i don’t know. i wonder — i have a friend who won quite a bit of money recently on the game show “who wants to be a millionaire’. she was/is very happy, paid off some bills, helped her mom and was able to buy a house. i think, but am not positive, that she follows ‘the secret’ and other manifestation techniques (for want of a better word). she’s also a life coach. so, she might be feeling that winning the money was an outer manifestation of her inner wholeness or balance — and is that not similar to what MB says in the Presence Process? maybe she has accepted something on a deep level and her winning the money is one way it mirrored her inner state. or maybe she has mistaken the money for unconditional love…you know, i might ask her! i’m curious to know what she will say.
Jordan: Wouldn’t you agree that God’s love and unconditional love are the same thing. No?
i sense that this question would be hard to answer, if to paraphrase Nis, you have not achieved (correct word?) the state in which to receive the answer. e.g. if you are raised catholic, god’s love is VERY conditional. so conditional you can never really get it. so, on one level first you’d have to examine if unconditional love really exists (since i doubt most people have ever received it-at least not knowingly) and whether it can with the god you were taught to believe in, and possibly go from there.
namaste,
~mf
Wouldn’t you agree that God’s love and unconditional love are the same thing. No?
On the other hand, Santa’s love is the epitome of ‘conditional’ love. So not sure about that one.
rt, what are some examples?
j
My present faith which is my present thinking says that God is unconditional love. My childhood God whether parents or religion taught me was that God not or laughinly with conditions. So unconditional love like the idea of God is simply a concept and as of yet not an experience. And until we were told that Santa was fiction, Santa existed in our thoughts and punished or rewarded us each Christmas. It seems that all we think is true or false is conditioned belief. As for painful marriages,. I think some people believe by staying with their partner they are showing unconditional love. Comments? Blessings, Kat
Understanding is the booby prize.
Kat—
I don’t know how my parents labeled what they were doing, but I’m damn glad they did (do). He’s an engineer, and she’s an artist. And they’re from a way different era (both 87). Imagine a lifetime of that communication, given those parameters…
Anyway, their staying together has produced great value for me, and, I think, them. Myself, I’ve been married 3x, and would like to find a true partner.
Just noticing…
rat
“That is the dilemma; we are trying to ‘understand’ this teaching, trying to ‘understand’ the Now, but once we ‘get it’ it’s past, gone.” JVS
The dilemma is resolved by realizing that not only did we “get it” but it “got us.” We are “it” and “it” is us. And it is in that Oneness — that oneness with the Oneness — in which we find and know our True Self and True Nature and the Nature of everything and everyone. Past and Future is a fiction and an illusion. There is only the Present and The Presence. The Now. We are it, we are in it, and it is in us. and is us.
The Dual is solved, re-solved within the Non-Dual. The Non-Dual has been here all along. It is our “self” (our egos) that has thought itself as separate and divided and thereby confused and conflicted. by it and because of it.
No longer are we caught in the dual because we realize it is (and we are) One. And we can now deal with /play with the dual in a non-dual way — now knowing its (and our) True Nature.
We are and it is Transformed and transforming, in it, with it, as it, by it.
It is the dance of Spirit and the spirit of Dance.
It is the play of Spirit and the spirit of Play.
David, your last post was—it touched my heart. The now isn’t understood, it is lived. I feel now in the oneness and the oneness in the now. There is unconditional love, bliss, and joy in that feeling. Peace to all/one.
What is unconditional love? That all of us and the divine, [the beloved] are one. Love to all, [to the ONE].
M: ” Reality is good and beautiful, we create the chaos.” JVS: Would it be the same to say that the ‘mind’ creates the chaos?
I’m not sure what Nis means when he uses the word (WE). I think he is speaking about the mind and the illusory sense of self. Not who (WE) really are. For we are not these minds, these bodies, (These LIVES.) I am not (my life) which is almost every experience I’ve had in this illusory body/mind. Namaste