Nowhere To Go

   

 the last four months have been one long, living, breathing catharsis and i'll be damned... i am experiencing results.  at first there was so much painful searing in my heart that i thought it felt like it was going to kill me.. found myself pleading to the stars above to release me from this pain!!  crying, searing pain, more of the same each day with only a few moments of peace and mostly that came when i was reading this book and a course in miracles.  then the process lead me back to being aware of my thoughts from an observer standpoint.  feeling the searing pain, listening to these thoughts that were wanting me to believe that something outside of myself was the genesis of my pain.  when we look at the way someone is treating us, we believe that their behavior and actions are why we feel good or bad, happy or sad.  that if this stranger i'm waiting on at work would be polite i wouldn't feel irritated or pissed and collectively we support that thinking.  we collectively tell our stories to one another more often than not we receive a validation that our emotional state is justified because of external circumstance.  "i'm angry at (my lover, husband, wife) because they were flirting with this other person, texting them, sharing an emotional bond that is supposed to be between us" the friend would respond with "that is so inappropriate, what kind of person does that if they are committed to you?!" and you feel justified that this feeling inside yourself that is angry, jealous, insecure, and afraid is because this person you love and trust is doing something you don't like, that has hurt you and created the internal feelings.

     when in truth the feelings inside us, are already there.  for most of us they began as young children and have been running the show ever since.  so that's what started happening is that every time my mind wanted to tell me a story as to why i was feeling the way i was, i was able to start getting real, moving deeper within myself to accept that in fact the FEELINGS had pretty much always been there..  so then what?  how do i stop listening to the thoughts in my head (the stories) and then stop believing the feelings that are telling me i am broken, i am not ok, life will never work out, i will always be forgotten, no one really cares, i've been abandoned by life and all these people, i'm afraid, i am unlovable.. ?  for me i started just trying to figure out what do i like?  what do i want to do?  what makes me happy all by myself?  what thoughts make me feel good and happy?  how do i create an internal happiness that will allow me to not be thrown off kilter by how someone does or doesn't treat me?  how do i become free?

     i slowly started changing, working my ass off with releasing, being committed to wanting a completely different relationship with myself and life...  before i knew it something within me started to transform.  situations that before would have set my thoughts off on a rampage, they stopped happening... i began to recognize the absence of things that used to go on internally.  situations where i could observe the experience, tell the other person how i was feeling or what my truth was, yet not needing them to "make me feel better" by responding a particular way, let go and move on.  in this practice of letting go of the ego mind and attachments it is discussed that we can't renounce things, shut down or shut off because that is in opposition to being free and happy and LOVE.  to truly live with an open hand and an open heart we develop a deeper more meaningful relationship with ourselves, in turn it does allow us to let people be themselves and we can be free to be ourselves.

     one of the hardest things i had to let go of is how can someone love you one day be connected and loving and then abruptly do an about face detach, act coldly with no explanation and if you ask them or mention it they make it about you.  how do you get to a place where you can really see that their behavior has nothing to do with you but everything to do with them, not take it personally and continue to be the LOVE you are in TRUTH?  what if you can view the behavior of this other person from a stand point that they too are reacting to the stories in their head and life, they too are attached to everything needing to be a certain way for them to be happy, they too are believing that it's you that causes their pain. welcome to the planet ya'll and as humans with the much fucking bigger picture in mind.. i'm not sure we have even been born yet in our evolution.

     i still have a long way to go yet i am here to shout out that it does work if you really want to be free... i cannot imagine what awaits for me as i garner more time in the experience of true LOVE and freedom!! OH and like i said at the beginning i thought the searing pain was going to kill me... it did in a way.. i had to die to how i had been living to come back into the awareness that i am (as we all are in TRUTH) LIGHT & LOVE.



                                                            Nowhere To Go

     Here is a mistake that most people make in their relationships with others.  They try to build a steady nesting place in the ever-moving stream of life.
     Think of someone whose love you desire.  Do you want to be important to this person, to be especial and make a difference in his/her life?  Do you want this person to care for you and be concerned about you in a special way?  If you do, open your eyes and see that you are foolishly inviting others to reserve you for themselves, to restrict your freedom for their benefit, to control your behavior, your growth and development so that it will suit their interest.  It is as if the other person said to you, "If you want to be especial to me then you must meet my conditions.  Because the moment you cease to live up to my expectations, you will cease to be especial."  You wanted to be especial to someone, didn't you?  So you must pay a price in lost freedom.  You must dance to the other person's tune just as you demand that other person's dance to yours if they want to be especial to you.
     Pause now and ask yourself if it is worth paying so much for so little.  Imagine you say to this person whose special love you want, "Leave me free to be myself, to think my thoughts, to indulge my taste, to follow my inclination, to behave in ways that i decide are to my liking."  The moment you say those words you will understand that ou are asking for the impossible.  To ask to be especial to someone means essentially to be bound to the task of making yourself pleasing to this person.  And therefore to lose your freedom.  Take all the time you need to realize this. 
     Maybe now you are ready to say, "I'd rather have my freedom than your love."  If you could either have company in prison or walk the earth in freedom all alone, which would you choose?  Now say to this person, "I leave you free to be yourself, to think your thoughts, to indulge your taste, follow your inclinations, behave in any way that you decide is to your liking."  The moment you say that you will observe one of two things:  Either your heart will resist those words and you will be exposed for the clinger and exploiter that you are; so now is the time to examine your false belief that without this person you cannot live or cannot be happy.  Or your heart will pronounce the words sincerely and in that very instant all control, manipulation, exploitation, possessiveness, jealousy will drop.  "I leave you free to be yourself: to think your thoughts, indulge your tastes, follow your inclinations, behave in ways that you decide are to your liking."
     And you will notice something else: The person automatically ceases to be especial and important to you.  And he/she becomes important the way a sunset or a symphony is lovely in itself, the way a tree is especial in itself and not for the fruit or the shade it can offer you.  Your beloved will then belong not to you but to everyone or no one like the sunrise and the tree.  Test it by saying those words again: " I leave you free to be yourself..."In saying those words you have set yourself free.  You are now ready for love.  For when you cling, what you offer the other is not love but a chain by which both you and your beloved are bound.  Love can only exist in freedom.  The true lover seeks the good of his beloved which requires especially the liberation of the beloved from the lover. ~ The Way To Love

The Eye of the Needle

 

  Is it possible to look past the external world and see the light in truth we are and all others are?  is it possible in the seeming chaos of the world to stay connected to the divine light we are in truth?  to move through just what the 5 senses experience and stay awake, connected and mindful of the presence of the 6th sense in each of us?  the external world a playground offering delights and excitements that feel good.. yet hold all the trappings of discontent and lack.  creating a relationship with oneself that becomes a center that is unfaltering to our own capacity of real happiness, true joy.  the strength of the ego mind and it's will seems daunting.  the very notion that what we see or want in our lives to makes us happy: people, places, the right career, the house, the car, the status, the power, the money is logical in the outer world.. and EVERYONE else is doing it.  each person priding themselves on what they have, what they have that is different from others... these ideas are based in ego pride and are not real happiness.  for if they were REAL happiness and love why would we need any of it?
     the easiest example is romantic love.  when someone sees another person and without knowing them decides that there is something so attractive about that person they want to "be" with them and fall in love.  deciding that they must have this person and their love they become whatever is seen as necessary to obtain this desired person.  however, we only have so much energy and pretending to be something we are not fully in truth to get the attachment of our desires, in time falls away... all the other parts of oneself begin to seep through.  the ego mind and will grows angry if it doesn't get what it needs to feel happy and loved, and it begins to attack the very precious love it desired so completely.
     i see this all the time and i have done this.. i have been living in a state of being that i felt a void somewhere inside myself and not knowing it was searching for my happiness outside of myself, placing demands on others and circumstances to be a certain way so that i could stay in a state of being that i "felt" happy.  when in truth the happiness i have been searching for is i want the void in me to be healed so that i don't need anything or anyone to be a certain way for my happiness.  my example recently to a friend is this.. a flower doesn't bloom with its color and fragrance and if it isn't adored for it's beauty decide "that's it, i've had enough of giving away my beauty for free and it not being appreciated so i will no longer blossom and be a flower" nor does the sun shine down on us and if not given attention for it's beauty and blessings decide "no more!  i won't give of myself if you aren't appreciating me the way i deserve"  so why as humans do we display this behavior if we are truly being the happiness and love we are in truth?
     if we are really seeking happiness and love we must venture within, likely to painful uncharted territory to begin letting go of the idea that we are not already connected to everything and that we are whole in truth and we are light and love and if we become the sun, the flower we are in truth life becomes a symphony of being love and happiness in every moment with everyone.  easier said than done.  because there is something still so gratifying to dislike and judge others and ourselves.. what would we do without this identity... oh right! we would just be happy.
    


The Eye Of The Needle

What can one do to attain happiness?  There is nothing you or anyone else can do.  Why?  For the simple reason that you are already happy right now.  So how can you acquire what you already have?  If that is so, why do you not experience this happiness which is already yours?  because your mind is creating unhappiness all the time.  Drop this unhappiness of your mind and the happiness that has always been yours will instantly surface.  How does one drop unhappiness?  Find out what is causing it and look at the cause unflinchingly.  It will automatically drop.
     Now if you look carefully, you will see that there is one thing and only one thing that causes unhappiness.  The name of the thing is Attachment.  What is attachment?  An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.  An emotional state of clinging is composed of two elements, one positive and the other negative.  The positive element is the flash of pleasure and excitement, the thrill that you experience when you get what you are attached to.  The negative element is the sense of threat and tension that always accompanies the attachment.  Think of someone gobbling up food in a concentration camp; with one hand he brings the food to his mouth, with the other hand he protects it from neighbors who will grab it from him the moment he lowers his guard.  There you have the perfect image of the attached person.  So an attachment by its very nature makes you vulnerable to emotional turmoil and is always threatening to shatter your peace.  So how can you expect an attached person to enter that ocean of happiness called the kingdom of God?  As well expect a camel to pass through the eye of a needle?
     Now the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness.  But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness--it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness; and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.  You will say, "Can't i keep just one attachment?"  Of course.  You can keep as many as you want.  But for each attachment you pay a price in lost happiness.  Think of this: The nature of attachments is such, that even if you satisfy many of them in the course of a single day, the attachment that was not satisfied will prey upon your mind and make you unhappy.  There is no way to win the battle of attachments.  As well search for water without wetness as for an attachment without happiness.  No one has ever lived who has come up with a formula for keeping the objects of one's attachments without struggle, anxiety, fear and, sooner or later, defeat.
     There is only one way to win the battle of attachments: Drop them.  Contrary to popular belief, dropping attachments is easy.  All you have to do is see, but really SEE, the following truths.  FIRST TRUTH: You are holding on to a false belief, namely the belief that without this particular person or thing you will not be happy.  Take your attachments one at a time and see the falseness of this belief.  You may encounter resistance from your heart, but the moment you do see, there will be an immediate emotional result.  At that very instant the attachment loses its force.  SECOND TRUTH: If you just enjoy things, refusing to hold the false belief that you will not be happy without them, you are spared all the struggle and emotional strain of protecting them and guarding them for yourself.  Has it occurred to you that you can keep all the objects of your attachments without giving them up, without renouncing a single one of them and you can enjoy them even more on a nonattachment, a nonclinging basis, because you are peaceful now and relaxed and unthreatened in your enjoyment of them?  The THIRD TRUTH and FINAL TRUTH: If you learn to enjoy the scent of a thousand flowers you will not cling to one or suffer when you cannot get it.  If you have a thousand favorite dishes, the loss of one will go unnoticed and leave your happiness unimpaired.  But it is precisely your attachments that prevent you from developing a wider more varied taste for things and people.
     IN the light of these three truths no attachment can survive.  But the light must shine uninterruptedly if it is to be effective.  Attachments can only thrive in the darkness of illusion.  The rich man cannot enter the kingdom of joy not because he wants to be bad but because he chooses to be blind. ~ The Way To Love

He Went Away Sad 2 of 2

   
 the other side of the hurricane has passed over me now... there is a stillness and the slow rebuilding of a new life has begun.  I have no interest in living my life the way I had been for so long.  My life manifested a set of circumstances that to most people (including myself) would seemingly justify feelings of fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, insecurity and depression.  The temptation to follow this view of reality is so ingrained the challenge has been to follow these ideas to the core and discover that the pain i have been experiencing has been within me all along, long before the external situation existed.  this feeling of not being happy has been with me as long as i can remember because i was looking for something in the world to make me feel whole or happy.  that is the part of me that needed healing, it isn't about changing the circumstances of my life but to heal that within me which has been what created my experiences of pain.
     my true love and i had broken hearts when we met, the love we shared was real, our love so deep, so bright well it was too intense and heavy for our broken hearts to handle and it burned us.  the relationship became toxic, yet something in us said hold on but we had to let go if we were to heal.   immediately the universe brought him to another woman and i had seen her coming in the last couple of months we were together and it had been the focus of my sickness... i was afraid of losing my love even more, i was attached to the idea that without him i would not be happy.  the feeling that i could be left behind so quickly, disposed of, that he was giving her all the love and attention that i had been receiving was so overwhelming that it was what brought me to my knees.  a pain so searing that all i could do was look for real freedom, nothing i had ever done to get myself out of pain would work... i had to dive head first into the waters below.  what i have found is that my mind wants to take me to a place where it is okay to look at the external details of the "stories" in my life to justify the pain and sadness i am feeling saying "see!! look this is why i am not happy!" and yet if i look at what is happening i am able to see that none of it has to do with me and my experiencing happiness. 
     me being happy has nothing to do with anything external, me feeling freedom and being the LOVE i am has nothing to do with external circumstance looking the way i want it to or need it to... my attachments only bring happiness for brief periods of time and then i need another fix of some sort to be happy again.  one little step in front of the other i find myself in a place where i am grateful for the exact way in which everything has happened and yes my mind still steps in to try and run me back into attachments and ego mind and all i can do is continue exercising a new awareness and practice that allows me to remember "I am not really attached to you at all.  I have merely cheated myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy." ~ The Way To Love
     i am beginning to experience what it is to let go of ideas and attachments and discover what it was i was looking for all along.. true inner happiness.  being open to each moment and what the symphony has to offer... enjoy being a vessel for LOVE to flow through me in each moment in my life.  when i realize i am my moon, my sun, each twinkling star, i am my own sunset and sunrise, every beautiful butterfly, every song that open my heart, every kiss, every passionate embrace, every thunderstorm, every hurricane i am able to stay open handed to life and the world and everything in it and know that my happiness is always found in me, not outside of me.  it allows me to see people as they are in each moment and not attach them who they were before to me, instead being able to see them for the light in truth they are in each new moment and enjoy it.  i have also been able to see that LOVE is shared, it never goes away, never dies it just isn't always looking back at you through the same set of smiling eyes.  open hand, open heart. 
    

He Went Away Sad 2 of 2

     And here is something else to ponder: Each time you are anxious or afraid, it is because you may lose or fail to get the object of your attachment, isn't it?  And each time you feel jealous, isn't it because someone may make off with what you are attached to?  And almost all of your anger comes from someone standing in the way of your attachment, doesn't it?  And see how paranoid you become when your attachment is threatened- you cannot think objectively; your whole vision becomes distorted, doesn't it?  And every time you feel bored, isn't it because you are not getting a sufficient supply of what you believe will make you happy, of what you are attached to?  And when you are depressed and miserable, the cause is there for all to see: Life is not giving you what you have convinced yourself you cannot be happy without.  Almost every negative emotion you experience is the direct outcome of an attachment.
     so there you are loaded down by your attachments- and striving desperately to attain happiness precisely by holding on to the load.  The notion is absurd.  The tragedy is that this is the only method that everyone has been taught for attaining happiness- a method guaranteed to produce anxiety, dissapointment and sorrow.  Hardly anyone has been told the following truth: In order to be genuinely happy there is one and only one thing that you need to do: get deprogrammed, get rid of those attachment.
     When people stumble upon this self-evident truth they become terrified at the thought of the pain involved in dropping their attachments.  But the process is not a painful one at all.  On the contrary, getting rid of attachments is a perfectly delightful task if the instrument you use to rid yourself of them is not willpower or renunciation but sight.  All you need to do is open your eyes and see that you do not really need the object of your attachment at all; that you were thinking that you could not be happy or you could not live without this particular person or thing.  Remember how heartbroken you once were, how you were certain you never would be happy again because you lost someone or something that was so precious to you?  But what happened?  Time passed and you learned to get on pretty well, did you not?  That should have alerted you to the falseness of your belief, to the trick your programmed mind was playing on you.
     An attachment isn't a fact.  It is a belief, a fantasy in your head, acquired through  programming.  If that fantasy did not exist inside your head, you would not be attached.  You would love things and persons and you would enjoy them thoroughly but, lacking the belief, you would enjoy them on a nonattachment basis.  As a matter of fact, is there any other way to really enjoy something?  Pass in review now all those attachments of yours.  And to each person or object that comes to mind say: "I am not really attached to you at all.  I am merely deluding myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy."  Just do this honestly and see the change that comes about within you: "I am not really attached to you at all.  I have merely cheated myself into the belief that without you I will not be happy." ~ The Way To Love