He Went Away Sad 1 of 2

     what do i want?  if you had someone 18 inches from your face asking you over and over and over "what do you want!" for an entire minute.. what would that reveal.  all kinds of answers many of which completely valid, yet after scratching the surface long enough, when it starts to get raw... you might find yourself dropping down to the basic statement of "i want to be happy"... because when we say things out loud over and over from a place of listening to our thoughts we can actually hear the truth.  we are in search of happiness, a belonging, a connectedness, an awareness of not lacking, we just want to feel LOVE as much as possible because LOVE feels safe, it feels like HOME.
     people have all kinds of dreams or callings, desires, wants... and most of the time all these things we want or are called to, these dreams.. they are simply us in search of happiness and fulfillment.  on so many levels we require that our lives look and feel a particular way in order for us to "be happy" and mostly it looks like staying really busy because to spend moments alone with no one around, no music, no phone, no internet, no television, to just be alone in the grass or dirt somewhere would allow us to hear the stirrings of our soul.. and in that moment we may question everything that we have attached to thinking it will be or sustain our happiness.  "i need people to drive a certain way, i need strangers to treat me a certain way, i need people to be more (fill in the blank) i need my family to behave, think or treat me a certain way, i need my lover, my partner to act a certain way for me to be happy, i need to make a certain amount of money to buy this kind of car, this kind of house, to pay for these things, to go on this vacation... i need politicians to be this way, my employer to value me like this.." and all of these things may be logically supported by ourselves and even our society, however if we can sit with ourselves alone, long enough might it be revealed that we want happiness and LOVE to fill us all the time... no matter what is happening around us or as we are perceiving other peoples actions. 
     when Dee died it was the moment i could hear the truth that had always been inside me.  i can be filled with deeply felt LOVE, that in one of the most heartbreaking moments externally, i was simultaneously feeling LOVE and happiness.  LOVE resides in all of us and we can tap into the awareness of truth as to what we are and not allow the external world to dictate if we are going to be happy and experience LOVE or not.  thank you jason wright for being the human to tell me "internal happiness and freedom are not dictated by external circumstance".  if i am looking out at the world of humans and realize that EVERYONE is just searching for LOVE and happiness as i am... it allows me this freedom... i don't have to get caught up in how someone is behaving or what is happening other than seeing that likely they are reacting to an unconscious fear that they aren't ok, that life isn't making them happy right then and i am able to continue to just BE LOVE.. easier said than done.  i wonder what it would be like if people could touch upon this awareness.. what would look different in our world.  would people stop allowing money, power and status to drive their decisions... maybe one day but it doesn't really matter if it changes or not because LOVE isn't in things needing to be a certain way to be LOVE, viktor frankl was a great example of that TRUTH.
     see for me i've spent over 22 years believing we are star dust... i believe we are energy and conscious energy, moving, flowing out of nothing and everything, existing simultaneously.. i believe that when we leave our physical bodies and world that consciousness continues, i don't believe in religion, i don't believe in God as a masculine figure, i don't believe that we end with this life... so i guess that's why getting caught up in so much busy-ness and distraction is silly.  life is raw, dirty, gritty, succulent, passionate, graceful, filled with laughter and knowing.. it is exactly what we are looking for.. to KNOW we are part of the symphony, we have not been forgotten, we aren't broken.  each of us a star burning brightly being the LOVE we are looking for in everything that changes, goes away or diminishes.  work in progress having a good time !!

He Went Away Sad 1 of 2

 Has it ever struck you that you have been programmed to be unhappy and so no matter what you do to become happy, you are bound to fail?  It is as if you fed mathematical equations into a computer and then failed each time you pushed it to turn out lines from Shakespeare.
     If you wish to be happy the first thing you need is not effort or even goodwill or good desires but a clear understanding of how exactly you have been programmed.  This is what happened: First your society and your culture taught you to believe that you would not be happy without certain persons and certain things.   Just take a look around you: Everywhere people have actually built their lives on the unquestioned belief that without certain things - money, power, success, approval, a good reputation, love, friendship, spirituality, God-- they cannot be happy.  What is your particular combination?
     Once you swallowed your belief you naturally developed an attachment to this person or thing you were convinced you could not be happy without.  Then came the efforts to acquire your precious thing or person, to cling to it once it was acquired, and to fight off every possibility of losing it.  This finally led you to abject emotional dependence so that the object of your attachment had the power to thrill you when you attained it, to make you anxious lest you be deprived of it and miserable when you lost it.  Stop for a moment now and contemplate in horror the endless list of attachments that you have become a prisoner to.  Think of concrete things and persons, not abstractions... Once your attachment had you in its grip you began to strive might and main, every waking minute of your life, to rearrange the world around you so that you could attain and maintain the objects of your attachment.  This is an exhausting task that leaves you little energy for the business of living and enjoying life fully.  It is also an impossible task in an ever-changing world that you simply are not able to control.  So instead of a life of serenity and fulfillment you are doomed to a life of frustration, anxiety, worry, insecurity, suspense, tension.  For a few fleeting moments the world does, indeed, yield to your efforts and rearranges itself to suit your desires.  Then you become briefly happy.  Or rather, you experience a flash of pleasure which isn't happiness at all for it is accompanied by the underlying fear that at any moment this world of things and people that you have so painfully put in place will all slip out of your control and let you down-- which it never fails to do sooner or later. ~ The Way To Love

a long pause....

this entry does not have a passage from The Way To Love... even though it is absolutely related to The Way To Love... i needed less in the way of boundaries for what i want to share.


     I remember the moment I fell in love... and then i don't remember it at all... because it happened over and over and over.  that first moment when someone felt like family and i hadn't even known them through any details of their life only through their presence, the moment they opened up and i had only hoped that they even existed,  the moment i touched them and realized i had complete freedom to be me in ways i never had before, the moment when they confessed deep secrets and all i heard was  truth.... it happened so many times in so many ways that at some point all it made me feel was fear.  the fear that i could lose, might lose and then would lose this love.  the kind of love that fills quiet moments, the kind of love that exists just lying next to someone, the kind of love that coming home from a long day to the cleaned dishes offered, the kind of love that says everything and nothing just by looking into someones eyes, the kind of love just touching someone, the kind of love i could spend alone with on an island somewhere, the kind of love i feel when i rest beneath the stars with grass beneath my body.

      the fear that these moments are so precious... the rest of life seems to diminish in its light somehow, the fear that without this love you will be nothing, you already have been and are nothing, you are all these problems, issues, flaws, you are broken somehow and feel displaced from everything you experience around you, you are an outsider to what others have pleasure in, you are forgotten already, replaceable.. all these ideas that we aren't connected to love.

     it all broke down.  it all fell apart.  moments where i became my worst nightmare.  i found myself without myself... clinging to the idea of love and fear.  i found myself behaving in ways that are NOT who i am in truth.  i woke up one day and realized i had replaced myself with the idea of being alone and unlovable WITH the very LOVE that awakened my spirit so unconditionally.  being "abandoned" became the reality.  i found myself in a place of sickness that i had only known by its feeling inside me... admitting i had felt it in me somewhere like a mustard seed, almost my entire life.  the wake up call that all the pain i felt in my heart was there for longer than i care to remember.  it was there long before i had been gifted this shared LOVE.  i guess some people don't relate to this at all.  some people might have a much easier, simpler experience.  not me.  i have been blessed so much... in knowing the road less traveled.

     can i say i'm sorry for losing myself....  so long after... realizing that in the face of true love i diminished back into all these old ideas of what i am not.. fear, pain, loss.  when the bottom dropped out i was left with this searing pain.  that pain brought me to the ground, and a new strength that others had seen but i had not known.  a pain so deeply rooted that the only way to break free was to learn how to fly.  the willingness to run and jump off the cliff was more powerful than the idea i would ever return to the lives i'd lived and who i'd ever been half heartedly prior.  instead it seems like saying THANK YOU for being the LOVE that allows me to break free.  in all that LOVE and FEAR and PAIN... LOVE loved me so much they let me go.

      LOVE touched me and then LOVE let me go... so i could discover the truth of LOVE... within me and this life... all the sunsets, flowers, trees, stars, people... all the blessed moments that make up a short time here in truth.  allowing myself to explore all the creativity that flows through this vessel that is "me".  i want to LIVE in a way that when i am leaving this world alone i can breath into the light with no fear.  I AM the LOVE i've been looking for... we all are.  Blessings to all those who help bring us here... we are all in love with the dying.   may you know you are star dust... may you know that this life is temporary and there is truth to stand for and all else to learn from. 

     

    

the extra mile 2 of 2

   the extra mile 2 of 2

  "Is there a way out?  Yes,  You are not going to be able to change your programming all that quickly, or perhaps ever.  And you don't even need to.  Try this:  Imagine you are in a situation or with a person that you find unpleasant and that you would ordinarily avoid.  Now observe how your computer instinctively becomes active, insisting that you avoid this situation or try to change it.  And if you stay on there and refuse to change the situation, observe how the computer insists that you experience irritation or anxiety or guilt or some other negative emotion.  Now keep looking at this unpleasant situation or person until you realize it isn't they that are causing the negative emotions.  They are just going their way, being themselves, doing their thing whether right or wrong, good or bad.  It is your computer that, thanks to programming, insists on your reacting with negative emotions.  You will see this better if you realize that someone with different programming when faced with the same situation or person or event would react quite calmly, even happily.  Don't stop until you have grasped this truth:  Observe all of this from the outside so to speak and see the marvelous change that comes about in you.
     Once you have understood this truth and thereby stopped your computer from generating negative emotions you may take any action you deem fit.  You may avoid the situation or the person; or you may try and change them; or you may insist on your rights or the rights of others being respected; you may even resort to the use of force.  But only after you have got rid of your emotional upsets, for then our action will spring from peace and love, not from neurotic desire to appease your computer or conform to its programming or to get rid of the negative emotions it generates.  The you will understand how profound is the wisdom of the words: "If a man wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well.  If a man in authority makes you go one mile, go with him two."  For it will have become evident to you that real oppression comes, not from people who fight you in court or from authority that subjects you to slave labor, but from your computer whose programming destroys your peace of mind the moment outside circumstances fail to conform to its demands.  People have been known to be happy even in the oppressive atmosphere of a concentration camp!  It is from the oppression of your programming that you need to be liberated.  Only then will you experience that inner freedom from which alone all social revolution must arise for the powerful emotion, the passion that arises in your heart at the sight of social evils and impels you to action, will have its origin in reality, not in your programming or your ego."  The Way To Love

     The other night I spent time with someone I have known for a few years in these years our relationship has gone through many changes.  The dynamic between us had most recently shifted to an unknown space.  Our interactions a little awkward at first, like who is this, what is this, then remembering an old friend and finally being in each others company enjoying the energy and moment.  After several hours, they were going to go and I felt this fear... had i had enough time or connection, or it was supposed to be a different kind of connection something more like it used to be, or a scenario that would make me "happier".  I ended up listening to the fear and the result was a painful ending to the evening.
     It wasn't until the next day I was able to see that it had been just perfect and lovely the way it had been.  In truth it was just a moment with someone I love unconditionally.  I didn't need to worry about when the next time would be that I would have such shared fun with this person, or if i would see this person again any time soon or at all for that matter.  Rather, to remember the love that is in me that i get to carry into every moment of my life and journey with each interaction, each enjoyed gazing at the sky or into a loved ones eyes; take the love with me wherever i go.
     It seems when I have had days in a row where i live with an open hand and heart, inviting wonderful experiences into my life i am able discover how abundant my life is by being in the moment.  All the different people, places, new adventures and conversations, new ideas and creativity flows.  It's when we get trapped in our programming, our ego, our thoughts, the fear... that we start to create conflict within ourselves and our external world when it has nothing to do with what someone else is or isn't doing in truth.
     A small example is when a lover brings flowers to their beloved and they are both so delighted by the gesture in that moment of shared love.  Then when in a state of feeling low or a feeling of discomfort or fear the lover might think "remember when you were brought those flowers and how good you felt, how much you liked it?  Well if your lover would bring you flowers again it would make you happy." and it is believed that if something outside ourselves would just keep doing certain things we would be happy.  Then there is an expectation that if flowers aren't brought it is a display of lack of love and now someone is expected to do or be a certain way for the others happiness.
     Getting to the place of recognizing alone... has been and is painful yet everyday is different and recommitting each day to this practice has been born of the deep desire to be free of attachments.  Remembering that no matter what other people do it should not dictate my happiness and that I can redirect my attention, experiencing peace and happiness no matter what happens in the external world.  That i no longer have to let the people, events and things in life make me happy I get to be my own happiness to share, what freedom!!