Human v Spiritual

Woke up this morning at 7am bright eyed and alert. I lay there for a little while connecting with the trees and felt such deep contentment. What is it that wakes me up like this. It is like something wants me to wake up. To begin my day. I was so relaxed lying there. There were no thoughts just a vast expanse of peace, ease, harmony. Then one word came into my mind 'meditate'.

Obediently I got out of bed and lit my candle and sat on the stool. It was no good. How can something that seems easy be so difficult. My mind goes from no thoughts when connecting with nature to overwhelming thoughts when I close my eyes. It remains confusing to me this difference. And yet tomorrow at some point I will find myself doing the same thing - sitting on my stool once again attempting to meditate. Why am I going against my own experience.

My experience of meditation says that it doesn't appear to be of benefit to me. All of the books are categorical in their assurances of the benefits of meditation. There have been a few times when I have finished the meditation in something of an expanded state, but for the majority of the time I have got up thinking - 'that was difficult' and without any confidence in its benefits. But what is it that I want. If I was any more calm and flowing with life I would have to be dead. I say I don't want visions of saints or ascended masters because I am wary of any visions that are seen via the mind. So what else is there? I guess what I am looking for is what is called the state of meditative absorption, that state of samadhi or no thoughts. But I can have that lying in my bed looking and connecting with the trees, why am I so attached to having it sitting on a meditation stool...looked at in this way it doesn't make sense. For some reason I think that the state of meditative absorption sitting on a stool is in someway better, more powerful than the absorption of my consciousness into the vast expanse of nothingness that I achieve lying awake and alert in bed.

I showered and got dressed and turned on my computer to get my messages. To my absolute delight there was an email from my cousin saying she is flying over to stay with me for a few days next Tuesday. I was touched. I love this cousin. She has both an inner and outer beauty and has a deep closeness to the sacred that I resonate with. She also has the most vivid dreams which I love to read about. I envy her this because dreams are something that I do not remember. I know I have them but I never remember them. Anne remembers them and when she tells me about them I can see how filled with meaning they are. And the meanings are always appropriate to where she is at. She is also skilled at interpreting her dreams and as a result can follow where her own spiritual journey is going. This is so good. I often wonder if I could remember and interpret my dreams whether or not I would have recognised that I was on this spiritual path. I only realised it when I had given it all up and then had an experience which convinced me of the need to return. Hence why I write this blog.

Today I received a phone call from a woman who had the same operation as me done by the same surgeon as me. In contrast to me she suffered so much pain. She said to me that the speed of my recovery was 'miraculous'. This got me thinking. The spiritual path is all about surrender. This is no easy task and will be fiercely resisted by the ego. To surrender means to give up all control. Not to cling to either pleasure of pain but to move gracefully between the two knowing that both are necessary for human experience. For this operation I did two things. I surrendered to the universe and as a result there was no fear. I knew that it was the right thing for me to do. I also created the possibility of fun and freedom from the first morning of the operation and everyday since. There were only a few occasions when I allowed this possibility to weaken and when I did I suffered.

Everything in life is a creation. Yes, there is the law of karma where we reap what we sow and nothing can get around that. But even then when karmic events show themselves we are the creators of our own response to it. We have choices in how to respond. Always the choice comes down to do I respond from my ego personality or from my Soul. One response involves defensiveness and justifications, the other acceptance. There is nothing else in life only our own creations and even those should not be made significant. The further I progress on this path the more of a game I see that it is. What is important is the game not the players, the game uses the players like chess pieces. Like the different chess pieces which move in different ways people have gifts and insights that are brought to the world in order to move the game onwards.

I had to go out and post some documents for my parking permit. My car was repaired after the crash and returned. Then I discovered that my parking permit was out of date. I got everything ready to go to the post office. There is no mistaking how everything shifts for me when I get out into the fresh air. I haven't got the words to describe the joy there is for me in being out in nature. I have written more than once that for me nature is the form of the Divine and among the myriad forms of nature I see the Divine reflected and it fills me with awe and wonder. To be able to appreciate nature brings me one step further to appreciating the Divine. My perception is particularly heightened when it comes to nature.

It rained for much of the day here in London but in my heart there was sunshine...