Troubles are Transitory

We are so often reminded that things are temporary. This is true when people and things we love pass out of our lives, and we have no difficulty comprehending this fact of life. Why do we not regard troubles as equally transitory?

Why?

There are times in everyone's life when he or she feels compelled to ask, "Why?" At such times some turn to Spirit for an answer. It is probably true that the great majority of us who engage in spiritual practices first embarked on the Path in search of an answer to some question that ultimately resolves into "why?" Those questions include "Why am I here", "Why do I have these feelings," and the granddaddy of all, "Why did this happen to me?"

Eventually we realize that the question "why" belongs to our human side, to the mind and the small self. It is the mind that sees events happening in the world and needs to understand their causes. Only the mind is attached to concepts of causation and its implicit corollary, fairness. It is the mind that asks, "How can God/Spirit/the Universe do this to me," and that believes "goodness" should be rewarded, or that the Universe is an orderly place in which individual circumstances can or should be correlated with individual behavior.

The mind, which is supposedly the rational part of us, maintains these beliefs in the face of all experiential evidence to the contrary. We see "bad" things happening to "good" people, and vice versa, every day. We all do our very best to be "good" people yet sometimes "bad" things happen to us. We even think these "bad" things are punishment for us not being "good" enough. All this is due to the mind's need to connect every event with a cause that can be understood by the narrow logic the mind has developed, and with its corresponding need to judge persons and events as "good" and "bad".

When united with Spirit in meditation, it is possible to realize that separateness, good and bad, causation, and even time itself are artifacts of the mind and the physical universe. What we perceive as our individual selves and our lives are no more separate from Spirit than waves are separate from the ocean. There can be no good and bad souls where all souls are merged in Spirit. From the perspective of Spirit as the unified field of loving energy spanning all dimensions, individual events in the physical universe lose their significance and lines of causality fade. The foreground loses focus and eventually is seen as unreal against the background of Spirit. Nothing but isness remains. Then all questions meet their answers and are annihilated in the joy of unification with All That Is.

And so it is.

Namaste!

Living Without Ego

In the preface to "The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi", Arthur Osborne says of the Maharshi's teaching that "those who asked whether they should renounce the life of the world were always discouraged from doing so. Instead they were enjoined to perform their duties in life without self-interest."

What would it be like to go about your daily activities without self-interest? Ultimately the goal must be freedom from the ego. How would life be different without ego? By ego is meant not just egotism, selfishness and the like, but all manifestations of the small self, eventually even the awareness of separateness. Would it really be possible to perform one's duties in life as a pure manifestation of the greater Self that is the Universal manifestation of All That Is?

A beginning would be to simply practice awareness of the presence of ego and its influence on your actions.

All Healing is Self Healing

The Teacher said,

All healing is self healing. You may use whatever modalities you like; they may have effect in accordance with your intention. But complete healing is not a matter of manipulating local energies, but of cleansing the spirit of the illusions that the subject and the healer are separate beings and that either is separate from God. If you practice Pranic Healing to remove unhealthy energies, on an esoteric level you should actually be seeking to peel back the individual personality and lay bare the Spirit behind the mask. If you focus your attention exclusively on particular ailments or particular parts of the body, you may produce temporary relief from symptoms, but you may actually do long-term harm by reinforcing the illusions of identity and separateness. Therefore, your principal focus should be on greater awareness of the unity of your energies with those of your subject, and the unity of both in God. Do not visualize a perfectly functioning limb or organ, but rather a soul in perfect union with the Universe. The soul I speak of is yours and it is your subject's; it is the soul of all beings. You cannot treat your subject fully without also treating yourself, because you and your subject are one at the level of ultimate reality.

You will know the degree of your success in achieving proper focus by the effects you observe in yourself and your subject. True healing is complete healing. Your subject may have sought you out because of a particular symptom or condition. But you should observe changes not only in that condition, but in your subject's overall wellness, and your own. If you feel your energy has been drained from you after a treatment, it is because you have focused on transferring energy from your illusory self to the equally illusory self of your subject. Rather focus on the awareness that you are both manifestations of an infinite field of energy that provides you with limitless vital resources. You both should feel energized, lighter, and more fully alive after a treatment. You may find that any pains you may have been feeling in your own body are no longer present. You or your subject may also experience the relief of painful emotions, or the release of buried emotional pain that initially manifests as tears. It is this sense of wholeness that is the sign of a successful treatment.

Spiritual Freedom

Independence Day

Today is Independence Day in the United States, and across the country speakers will be paying tribute to the ideal of freedom. Most will understand this in a social or political sense: as a reference to the freedom of the nation as an independent state; or to the individual freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. It’s worthwhile also, however, to reflect on the greatest freedom of all, which is the freedom of the spirit. This is a freedom that, while sustained and protected by political freedoms, can flourish and grow even in their absence. Indeed, there are many inspiring stories of the power of Spirit to achieve freedom even while enduring oppression, persecution, and torture.

My purpose today is not to pay tribute to those heroic examples, but to examine the ways in which spiritual freedom is accessible to each of us in everyday life. Before discussing the many ways in which spiritual freedom manifests, I want to say a few words about the tools we use to achieve it.

Tools of Spiritual Freedom

Meditation

Meditation is the doorway through which anyone seeking spiritual freedom must pass. There are many forms of meditation, but all have in common the goal of calming the small mind of the small self and allowing the Big Mind or the Higher Self to come forward. In other words, it allows the individual to become aware of his or her oneness with all that is.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is, in a sense, a way of carrying your meditation practice with you at all times. It means being aware. Specifically, it means being aware of what is happening in your mind and body. It is essential to the ability to express the attitudes and qualities of the Higher Self in your daily activities. Mindfulness also means being aware of those attitudes and qualities to which you dedicate yourself during meditation, but which tend to slip out of your attention under the pressure of ordinary life. Your mind is always reacting to stimuli from the environment. Between stimulus and response, there is always a fraction of a second in which you have the ability to choose the response you will express. The mindful person will always be on the lookout for the opportunity to guide his responses into the path set before him by the Higher Self. As Rabbi David Cooper said, "there are few, if any, fully enlightened people, . . . but there are untold numbers of enlightened acts."

Love

Love is the pervasive presence of God in the Universe. Through meditation, you become aware that Love is available to you at all times and in all places. By incorporating Love as the fundamental value of your own life, you become a manifestation of God’s Love and evidence of the oneness of all things. The knowledge that Love is everywhere, that you are never without Love, becomes the bedrock on which your spiritual freedom is built. Knowing you have Love, you know you have everything.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is inseparable from Love and is its inevitable consequence. However, Forgiveness is also one of the steps to becoming aware that Love is everything. It is such a powerful tool for achieving spiritual freedom that it must be included here. Forgiveness cuts through many obstacles to the attainment of spiritual freedom, including anger, jealousy, and resentment. Developing the ability to forgive anyone or anything -- including especially yourself -- is literally the equivalent of growing angel’s wings to fly above the barriers to freedom that the ego erects for itself. By practicing Forgiveness, you internalize the principle that all beings deserve Love.

Surrender

It seems paradoxical to say that surrender is a tool for the attainment of freedom. Yet the ability to practice surrender is essential to that end. The Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr asks for "grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed." Surrender means the acceptance of what is. Not in the sense of passively accepting the dictation of an impersonal Fate, but in the sense of being mindful. Many people spend far too much energy in denial. Even if we intend to work to change our conditions, we cannot do so effectively until we recognize what those conditions are. Surrender is therefore a practical tool for establishing a baseline against which our progress toward spiritual freedom can be measured.

Surrender also means the acceptance that everything in the Universe proceeds according to God’s Law. How could it be otherwise, when God is all that is? This is not fatalism or belief in predestination, because the Law dictates consequences, not actions. The Law presents us with choices at every step. Because each of us is an individual manifestation of God’s Love for itself, we also are a part of the Law and are able to use our knowledge of it to attain spiritual freedom.

Aspects of Spiritual Freedom

What then does spiritual freedom consist of? If freedom means the ability to act, what actions evidence the presence of spiritual freedom in your life?

Freedom From Attachments

Great spiritual teachers have always taught that we must release our attachments to worldly things in order to become free. As long as you believe a particular person or thing is essential to your happiness – or even to your existence -- you are a slave to that person or thing. This does not mean you should not enjoy the people you are close to, your favorite pastimes or your personal belongings; it means only that you should recognize that your happiness is independent of these things. Since all things and all beings are one in God, you cannot own them anyway. Clinging to the illusion that you can possess a person or thing only guarantees eventual unhappiness when it is lost. Surrendering that illusion sets both of you free. Meditation on oneness is a way to empower yourself to release attachments.

Freedom From Desire

Desire is an attachment to something you don’t have. Or perhaps you have it, but you don’t believe you have enough. Either way, desire enslaves your mind and prevents you from being free. Desire is inconsistent with surrender, and so impairs your ability to see the world as it is. Desire prevents happiness, because it implies that you need something you don’t already have in order to be happy. Meditation on the presence of God’s Love at all times and in all places loosens the grip of desire and allows you to release it.

Freedom Of Choice

When you banish attachments and desires from your Universe, then you are free to choose the path you will follow, or to follow no path. You can be happy as you are, particularly if you practice the tools of Love and Surrender. Or you can use those tools and others to break down any barriers that stand between yourself and your happiness. You can choose your surroundings and your companions. You can choose the ethical rules that you will follow in living an upright life. Most importantly, you can choose your attitudes and the ways that you react to the things that happen around you. You can choose to be happy knowing that Love abounds and Love is sufficient to your joy.

Freedom To Trust

The ability to trust is a great freedom. It frees you from fear and anxiety. Trust is the knowledge that you will not be hurt by the actions of others, or of the Universe. By sending out vibrations of trust you increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. Knowing they are trusted makes those around you want to deserve that trust. Trust instructs the Law to bring you outcomes that support your happiness. Trust also describes the knowledge that, whatever the outcome, you will emerge free and happy. Trusting that Love is the foundation of all that is enables you to see the positive elements in any outcome. Trust in yourself as a perfect manifestation of Spirit gives you the understanding that nothing can harm you in your essence.

Freedom To Be Well

Illness of body, or mind can be a prison. Pain and discomfort can block out the realization that you are living in the midst of Love and Joy at every moment. It is easy to become attached to one’s illness, since it seems to make your own needs the most important things in the Universe. Illness can also be attractive as an excuse for indulging in behaviors we would otherwise consider unworthy. It is one of the main tools used by the egoic mind and body to try to reclaim the attention we have taken away from them in our focus on Spirit. By directing our attention to themselves, they seek to distract us from Oneness.

The antidote for the negative effects of illness is, first, to practice Surrender, and recognize it for what it is: a temporary condition of body or mind that does not affect your essence that abides in Spirit. Forgiveness can then be brought to bear in order to sweep away any underlying causes in the form of fear, attachment, or guilt. Practicing self-Love enables you to see that the illness is not a part of you, but rather a stain that can be cleansed by shining the Light of Spirit upon it. Mindfulness assists in each of these practices.

Great teachers instruct us that illness is not an attribute of Self. This is evident once you realize that the body and mind are not the Self; it is attaining this realization that is difficult. Meditation on Oneness leads eventually to the understanding that the Self is perfect, eternal, and united through Spirit with the Love that is all that is. It is this awareness that finally releases us from all limitations and brings perfect Freedom.

And so it is.

Change your thinking, change your life

One of the most often repeated sayings in the New Thought movement is, "Change your thinking, change your life." Often this is said in explaining the Law of Attraction. It is also a fundamental principle of Religious Science as taught by Ernest Holmes. It has been said that if you keep doing what you've always done, you're going to keep getting what you've always gotten. The same is true of thoughts -- if you keep thinking the same way you always have, then your life will continue along the same track it has always taken.

If you have been plagued by negative thinking for a long time, it is very difficult to change. It's also difficult to internalize the understanding that negative thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. A person who always expects the worst is likely to get it. When he does, he is likely to see the outcome as validating his expectations, when in fact it was his expectations that created the outcome. If he can find a way to break this vicious circle for once, and give up his negative outlook even temporarily, he may learn the truth that what you put into the Universe is what you get out of it.

How can someone who has never experienced positive outcomes adopt a positive outlook? The first thing to do is to examine what you consider a positive outcome. Are you a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty person? If you are always looking for something to complain about, you are always going to find it. On the other hand, if you are always looking for something to be thankful for, you will also find that. So even without changing a thing in the "outside" world, you can change the amount of enjoyment you get out of life by changing your focus.

There are a few things you can do to help with this change. First, you can consciously affirm the presence of good in your life. Make a mental inventory of things you are (or should be!) grateful for -- in other words, count your blessings. Be generous in this exercise. Don't let the words "but" or "except" creep into your thinking about the good things in your life. Just look on the bright side for once -- you've already given the dark side too much of your attention for too long! Later, when you are ready for more advanced techniques, you will affirm the good that is not yet tangible but nevertheless is just around the next corner.

Second, start watching your thoughts. Don't try to suppress any negative thoughts that come to you; just try not to react to them at all. Detach yourself from them and allow them to fade and vanish. Without your attention, they will. Become aware of how often you think about past unhappy events, compared to how often you enjoy happy memories. Be aware of the attention you are giving to the unpleasant aspects of experiences you are having today, right now, and of how many opportunities for even a moment's pleasure or happiness you are passing up. Notice how often you have gloomy thoughts about the future, and how often you generate positive expectations. Don't react or try to force your mind into a different way of thinking; just observe.

Once you have gotten into the habit of watching your thoughts, then try to discern where the negative ones are coming from. Is there a place in you that always seems to see clouds where there could be sunshine? Focus on this place for a time, not in such a way as to encourage or develop it, but simply to see how it operates. Knowledge is power, and knowledge of yourself is power over your Universe. Look also for the parts in you that seem to generate mostly positive thoughts and feelings. Why aren't they getting the same attention as the others? Shine the light of your love on these fertile fields, and count the beautiful flowers that spring into view. The things to which you give your attention are those that will flourish in your life.

There really is no such thing as a dark force. There is only love and the absence of love. You don't have a demon inside you making you think negative thoughts; you just have some places that haven't been exposed to the sunshine enough. There are places within us where we store pain. Disappointments, losses, abuse and mistreatment hurt us, and most of us have tucked away the pain from those events in various nooks and crannies of our psyches or our anatomies. When you have a negative expectation, ask yourself why, then observe the thoughts that come up from your subconscious. They may seem to be random, disconnected ideas, but noticing them may give you some clues to the buried pain tangled up in those sore muscles and that wounded ego. The more you learn about yourself, the easier it will be to release that hidden pain and free yourself from the pall it is casting over your life.

Once you feel you have gotten a handle on what is going on inside you, then it is time to start gently shaping your world by shaping your thoughts. When you have a positive thought, encourage it; turn it over in your mind, enjoy it, watch it develop and grow into a bright spot of happiness. When you see a negative thought coming, allow it to move right past. Don't try to shove it back down where it came from; that will just prolong the process of ridding yourself of those unwanted ideas and feelings. Just don't give it your attention and it will wither to dust and blow away.

While you are doing all this inner work, try to do the same with the world around you. Greet every person you meet with warmth and love. Look for things to be glad about, and shrug off those less-desirable things you would have obsessed about before you began this self-rescuing program. Above all, don't take on any new pains that you can avoid. If friends are in trouble or in pain, offer them sympathy but don't allow yourself to take on their suffering. That is their karma to work out, not yours; you have plenty of your own. On the other hand, share your own happiness with others, and allow them to share theirs with you. You'll find that happiness is not diluted but is multiplied by being shared. It's well known that changing your behavior can change your attitudes. Changing your outward interaction with the world will help you change yourself inwardly as well.

There's so much more to be said that hundreds of books have been written on the subject. If you'd like some recommendations, write me and tell me your story. I'd love to hear from you.

Namaste

Why are we so interested in the personal lives of celebrities?

The ego is constantly comparing itself to others. It is jealous of everyone, but particularly of attractive, wealthy celebrities. It takes pleasure in the misfortune of anyone, but again, especially celebrities. The ego does not understand that it is reinforcing its own unhappiness by focusing on the misfortunes of others.