Last blog entry.......

This is going to be my last blog entry. I have heard from the publishers that my book is going to be published in the new year. I still have much work to do on getting it ready for publication. For that reason I am choosing (not deciding), choice has power, deciding hasn't, not to continue writing this blog.

In the time I have been writing it I have demonstrated what the journey from human to spiritual means for me and its three stages. Know THY SELF, Know THE SELF~ and Know THE ONE - and have given ways to progress through these three stages. Anything else I would write would only be a variation of one or other of these. I consider that this blog has served its purpose in that it has shown a way to transform from human to spiritual. All the rest is faith and practice.

I would like to say a sincere thank you to all who have been reading it over the last few months. I wish each and every one success on the journey. The greatest fun is in the journey because transformation is seen in the journey not in the end result. The end result is that you just ARE, pure awareness, no separation of consciousness, no witnessing just BEING. So have fun with the journey, don't make yourself wrong and aim for what is definitely possible as written about by the ancients sages and prophets down through the ages......

When being straight....hurts...

Today I crossed the line between being straight and getting personal and as a result I hurt a work colleague. What I am learning is that being straight is not as comfortable as being generous was. I have to take responsibility that although my intention was not to hurt what I said, did hurt. I have written that my intention through this blog and with everyone I meet is to make a difference. How does one do that if one is 'nice' all the time. Yet it is not making a difference to hurt someone and when I saw that I had I immediately said I was sorry.

I'm a bit confused now....so that's all I'm going to write for now....

The power of sharing......

I went to my spinning class this morning in spite of deep stiffness in the tops of my legs caused from lifting heavier weights at my bodypump class on Sunday. I was struck by the contrast between the integrity I have for these classes and the 'have to' attitude I have about going to the gym just to use the equipment. One is a joy and an ease the other is a burden. I arrived into work and the minute I turned on my computer the guy who identified the literal way I am started to speak to me in the way I know is going to result in some kind of incident where he will show how literal or gullible I am. Sure enough, there were some biscuits around and he said that he had bought them. I looked suitably impressed as you do until I saw my female work colleague hyperventilating with a serious look of irritation on her face. I knew then that it was her and not him who had brought them in. He didn't care though, he had achieved enough to show my gullibility and was thrilled to bits. This seems to be his only reason for coming into work these days. Well he had better watch out because I will set the guy of the gym on him!

I am trying to make light of it but it is another reason why work is so stressful for me these days. Being literal in a political environment is to me like God's idea of a joke and how I have managed to get as far as I have given this quality is truly amazing. But then again it is only recently that I have been aware of just how literal I am and as ignorance is bliss I didn't know I had this quality. When you don't have a label for something then life goes on and flows. The minute we label anything we restrict any potential. This is why I am still reluctant to seek a formal diagnosis for Asperger's. I don't want to give myself this label because there is a danger that I would use it in a non-empowering way.

After work I met a friend. She had emailed me to ask me to meet and I felt sure that I had emailed her back to say that I could meet on Friday night. For some reason I felt compelled to look at my personal email before I left work.. To my amazement she had taken it up wrong and thought I meant this evening. I knew that she didn't have a mobile. I quickly finished up everything and ran out the door to meet her. I was at the venue where we were to meet on time! which again was good given the time I left. I feel a responsibility for this friend because it was as a result of me sharing with her what I had got from the training I speak about in this blog that she registered and did the weekend for herself.

On the Sunday evening of the training when she invited me up to her last session I couldn't believe the transformation. She looked happier and more alive. When she saw me she threw her arms around me and said 'thank you for telling me about this'. I know that I write that sharing and inspiring people to access their own power is never about me and how it makes me feel but the feeling I had that night when I saw her so happy was unlike anything money can buy. She has since gone on to complete the curriculum for living.

All training is learning how to use a muscle. If you don't use that muscle then the potential is not utilised. This training is no different. I was sad last night to see that much of the vibrancy and aliveness that I saw the last time we met has been taken over by the old way of being where everything for her was always 'too hard'. In my new way of being straight without being aggressive I talked to her about the importance of not looking at the glass as being half empty but as half-full. Thoughts and attitude are phenomenally important for producing the kind of life we have. I do accept though that it is particularly difficult when you are in a job that you hate, live with people you don't feel comfortable with and want a relationship that is not happening.

Listening to her last night I was filled with the desire to make a difference to her and give her a much needed break. To make a difference to her not for me to feel good but just to make a difference. I live alone and am going to Ireland for Christmas so I offered her the use of this flat so that she could have some space from the people she lives with to create the kind of 2008 she wants for herself. I put this option to her and immediately her whole energy changed and she became more alive. She saw the possibility for the space she craved. This small act which costs me nothing has made a difference. It matters that it made a difference for no other reason than it made a difference. I was also straight with her and said that I have made a choice not to live with anyone and so the use of the flat is only for Christmas and she understands this.

When I came home last night I was restless. Thinking of what else I can do to make a difference. I saw how alive I was when I forgot about me and went totally into her world. This evening I have my seminar session and I am going to put my hand up and share with the others about this. I used to never put my hand up to share because I hate going to the top of the room and speaking into the mike. But with this seminar maybe because it is smaller I don't find it so bad. I don't do it very often and when I do and sit down afterwards my inner voice goes on a rant with thoughts like 'you didn't mean to say it like that, and 'they didn't understand you', but I push through this and participate.

The last couple of times I put my hand up to say something and wasn't picked. This is quite uncomfortable to have your hand up, the leader looking around and not picking you. But I think this is why they do it. The first time it took me all my courage to put my hand up and I wasn't picked....aagh...complete disaster, humiliation, irritation, inner rant that went something like 'that's the last time I'll put my hand up'. But then I looked at it all dispassionately as an observer and just laughed. Each time now I put my hand up and am not picked all of those uncomfortable feelings of irritation and embarrassment lessen. This is another aspect of this training to share without any thought of 'me or my feelings'. Picked or not picked it doesn't matter, it's not significant and the feelings around it are irrelevant. Through this training I am learning not to be led by my thoughts or feelings but to be led by integrity.

The integrity to make a difference just to make a difference not to feel happy or think good thoughts about myself....it's not easy but the rewards are becoming more and more visible and obvious both to me and those around me.....

The first Christmas card of the festive season

I arrived back from lunch today to find an envelope that looked distinctly like a card left on my chair. Confused I picked it up and wondered what it could be about. I couldn't believe it when it was a Christmas card, the first one I have received. Yesterday in my blog entry I wrote how there is no ego involved when something matters. What I realised today is that when something matters I have integrity around it. This blog matters. Not for any particular reason it just matters. That is why I am up in the early hours of the morning to write something, to be integrity because it matters. I had a shocking realisation yesterday that the reason I am not in integrity at work is because to me it is not important and does not matter. When something does not matter there is no integrity around it. When there is integrity around something it works. Integrity is the state of being whole, complete and perfect and it shows itself whenever I do what I said I would do in the way that I know it should be done. This is to act with complete integrity and as a result whatever I am doing works.

I am not in integrity at work. Yes, I turn up on time and put in my hours but I don't do my work to the best that I can do. This is for one reason and one reason only and that is because it doesn't matter to me, it's not important. This wasn't a comfortable insight and realization. I've had a vague idea that increasingly where I am working is not right but I always blamed the nature of the work. Now I see that the issue is solely to do with me and my integrity around it. It has nothing to do with the nature of the work or the people with whom I work. The responsibility for my lack of integrity rests solely with me. When there is no integrity there is also no responsibility. If something doesn't matter to me then if someone talks to me about my responsibility to it, then it just goes over my head because responsibility can only be understood within the context of integrity. Integrity and responsibility go together like hand in glove.

I'm up early because I'm going to my usual cycle spin class. I have integrity around this in that I get up and do everything I need to do to be there. Because of this, the class works for me and is whole and complete and perfect. It's not a case of having to 'do' spinning but a case of 'being' spinning which comes from the fertile ground of integrity. Without integrity nothing works. Yet integrity does not give power, just the foundation for power. When I do what I say I will do then I have power and life is much simpler. When I put something in my diary it stays there. On those occasions where I have ended up cancelling something to fit something else in and thus been out of integrity it's all gone a bit pear shaped and I've ended up wishing I had stuck to my original plan.....

Now I'm off to my spinning class which I use as my morning meditation. I've stopped the 'doing' around things spiritual. I realised that transformation is like the plant that is sitting on the top of my fridge in the kitchen. It doesn't matter how often I water and feed it, new shoots will only appear when the time is right. It is a natural process. Finally I have woken up to the fact that this is also the way it is for humans. Yes, a certain amount of reading and studying is necessary but there comes a point when it is when all the doing is let go and what emerges is the being. The mind with its emphasis on doing and understanding will never produce the shift of consciousness which characterises spiritual awakening. Wanting to understand is simply wanting to control the process. When the desire and need for understanding is not there, the consciousness is fully awakened. Awareness is no longer directing consciousness it has transformed to that state of Sunyata or emptiness.....

When something matters there is no ego......

It was a very long day yesterday with the result that I have overslept this morning. This leaves very little time to write this blog entry. I have learned something very important that I want to share. The journey from human to spiritual is one of transcending the ego personality with its values of me and mine. The ego is subtle, when it's operation is discovered at one level which hides to emerge later in another more subtle form. It starts its life being open about wanting everything for itself and this takes the form of materialism. Then somewhere on the journey the consciousness wakes up to the fact that materialism for its own sake alone does not bring about the holy grail of enlightenment and the corresponding peace, joy and clarity.

This revelation is a shock to the ego and it sees that the game in the way it was playing it is up. The effect of this revelation on the person is that he/she may seek some kind of spiritual/religious path. This is all very well. However, there is one aspect of this path that the ego can use for itself and beneath the veneer of 'making a difference' is going all out to sabotage that intention. It uses the very valid and real concept of 'making a difference'. This is an admirable thing but the ego tends to get in there and it often becomes all about 'making a difference because it is important FOR ME' The moment the 'me' gets in there, that's the ego once again functioning more subtly to sabotage the path. The ego will say 'for me'. This is why it is very important to watch onself and one's feelings when there is the experience of making a difference to another, whether that is the acknowledgement that comes when you do something unconditionally for another, or you are the source of a person transforming their whole life. Making a difference matters, simply because it matters, not because it matters to me, and will make me feel good.

This is important to write about, ponder on and understand because it doesn't matter how pure the intention is where there is even a hint of 'me', that is the presence of ego and the whole purpose of the ego personality is to hang onto its identity at all costs. It never gives up its resistance to the inevitable evolutionary shift from human to spiritual. By being aware and vigilant over oneself the 'me' and 'my feelings' this journey can be greatly accelerated.

I understand now why many of my conversations with people speaking about this journey of transformation were not effective in inspiring people to take this on for themselves. It was because I was acting from the ego personality. I wanted people to do this for themselves because it made me happy. With this as my intention of course all of my actions would not be successful. There is something inherent in the design of human which works to sabotage everything when there is a sniff of 'me and what's in it for me'. This is both a source of amazement and frustration. What it seems to suggest is the only thing that works and is effective is complete de personalisation, a complete separation from the ego personality to allow the spiritual quality of the soul that has no 'me or mine' to emerge. With the soul, making a difference to people's lives and to life itself matters for no other reason or feeling than it matters. That's it, there's no reason, it just matters.

All of the other stuff about 'feeling good, powerful', this is just the involvement of the ego personality and if it's included in the main intention of making a difference will act to distort it. It seems a tough call but making a difference has nothing to do with me and how I am feeling. Something matters for no other reason than it matters. Manuel would say it is the effort of trying to describe/explain justify why it matters that kills the action or more precisely takes the energy which would produce that 'making a difference' with some kind of tangible result.

I love the way that all of the teachings I have learned from the different sources come together for me in this way. I am so grateful that I have the consciousness that can make these links. Once again I stress that the links I make I don't consider to be the Truth, only ideas to be considered.......

It's very late so I must go and get ready for work...

A fantastic Sunday......

I woke up early feeling so great. This discovery of me and generosity and my new way of being straight has given me a natural high. I showered and got ready to go to my usual gym class. Not having heard from the guy from the gym for most of the week didn't dampen my mood. I knew that he wasn't well and in my new mood of generosity was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt!

He was there, class went well and then some of us went for coffee. Before going to the gym I had been reading more of Manuel's book and I was struck by his emphasis on NOT DOING anything to achieve enlightenment. Not even meditation! He uses the example of the apple tree and says when the nature of the apple tree is to produce apples then all the meditation, spiritual exercises to make it produce those apples quicker will be useless, apples will be produced when the time is right through a natural process. The nature of us as humans is transformation which is similar to the apples of the tree. In time and through a natural process the human will transform to the spiritual. When I read this I felt huge freedom. Transformation is natural and inevitable because of the design of human. So all this doing to achieve a state of enlightenment is empty and meaningless. It is similar to the caterpillar changing into the butterfly, when it happens the caterpillar no longer knows itself as the caterpillar it has transformed into the butterfly. So all of its wishing when it was a caterpillar to know itself as a butterfly is not possible. When we transform it is largely unconscious. The enlightened person is the one who does not know he/she is enlightened.

It was a lovely evening walking around London. I'd had a phone call from the guy from the gym and he came around and we watched a DVD. Poor guy still wasn't well though. I was more relaxed with him because I have really taken on the fact that life is for living and not taking seriously and so at the moment I am having fun and it's great....

Being straight....is a great way of being....

I woke up this morning still thinking about how my strong personality quality of generosity limited me from being straight. I immediately created the possibility for me to go beyond this by being straight with everyone and everything I did today. I got up and showered and waited for the plumber to come to replace a leaking radiator. Waiting for him meant that I couldn't do my usual Saturday cycle spinning class in the gym which I was a bit upset about because this class in the morning is my way of meditating. I have given up on the formal meditation because of the relentlessness of my thoughts whenever I do it. I also realise that meditation is a form of doing and as the transformation from human to spiritual is about 'being' have chosen powerfully not to make formal sitting meditation a regular practice.

The plumber was meant to come between 9am and 10am. It got to 9.50am and I could feel the familiar build up of tension and irritation. I decided to call him to see where he was. He explained he was on an emergency job. I was straight. I explained that the radiator needed was too heavy to get on my own and requested that he go and get it from the hardware shop on his way over to mine. To my surprise and delight, he agreed without any hesitation.. wow...the power of just being straight. When my personality trait of generosity was running me without my awareness I would have been hesitant and manipulative....not any more I was straight and it was great. I also explained to him that I had a prior commitment which meant I had to leave my flat no later than 1.30pm and requested that he come before that. He also agreed to this as well.

An hour later the doorbell went and it was the plumber, armed with the appropriate radiator. When I opened the door I couldn't believe it when I saw my neighbours son cutting my side of a hedge that separates the two houses. This is the same young boy who helped me out when I was hobbling down to the garage to get a paper when I was recovering from an operation on my foot. I was so grateful to him. It was a cold morning, he didn't have to do that. I told him this and his face just lit up and his cutting took on a new intensity, so much so that I have very little hedge left now! but that is not important. What is important is what showing gratitude and appreciation to another at whatever age can produce. This is the magic.

The plumber explained that he would need help to change the radiator and would come on Monday to do the job. After he left I went out to the young man outside and with a brush began to sweep outside to spend some time speaking with him. I came inside for some money to give him. I had wondered about doing this ever since he had gone to the garage for the paper and I hadn't given him anything. I don't like for young people to equal helping with getting money yet on the other hand here he was cutting my hedge and sweeping outside my house so fair is fair and when I gave him the money which wasn't really very much his eyes once again lit up but not with greed but with the greatness that comes with being appreciated.

I came in and got ready to go to my assisting agreement. I arrived there and once again there were very few notes left for me to do and no obvious list of numbers to call. Recognising that I was in danger of once again creating trouble for myself by being upset I gave it up and thought 'right instead of being upset, what can I create for myself for these 3 hours that I am going to be here'. I created the possibility of once again being straight. What is so different this week to last week is that I didn't understand how to be straight. I didn't understand this because I hadn't identified that generosity was such a strong personality trait that I hadn't realised was running me as strongly as it was. That is why last week I had to ask those who I called to tell me if they felt I was coming across as manipulative because 'generosity' was still running the show. This week it wasn't. This week, I am straight and I know exactly what that is like, it's not aggressive, it's simply straight.

As a result of this new straightness and directness I had one graduate register with me for a forthcoming seminar on sex and intimacy which is starting in April. Speaking with her was like speaking with a mirror of myself in that for many years she also was a Buddhist and also like me struggles with intimacy. This is the beauty of this agreement, what I share and what is shared with me during this agreement. I know that this is the power of the agreement. It is not about getting graduates to register for different seminars but is about the transformation that happens when we share ourselves. Out of that and naturally will come the registrations as people see just what the work makes possible for them. For me, this discovery about my strong personality trait of generosity has been so deeply buried that it is only now that I have seen it. And seeing is not traumatic or life changing, it's just a seeing that allows it to transform from what was a weakness to a strength. In this transformation more energy is released to move onto the next thing.....aagh....it's like being on an emotional roller coaster but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Seeing this trait of generosity also means for me that when I do branch out on my own that I will be an astute business woman because generosity won't be running me. I have seen the impact on this over the years I have done word processing for a builder. I have seen how he charges such a lot for the work he does, yet I have always been so reasonable with what I have charged him. I have been unreasonably reasonable. My generosity has been to the forefront. I haven't charged him the going rates because this trait of generosity just wouldn't allow it. I see in this transformation from generosity to straightness so much potential for me and those around me for the future and as a result it is looking so bright.

I finished my agreement and was so happy when I said a cheery goodbye to everyone. I came home and immediately called up some people to ask them to come to my seminar on Thursday night. I shared about this discovery about my generosity and how I had transformed it so that it now empowers me and doesn't limit me and out of those conversations one woman has confirmed that she will come on Thursday evening. From what I said she sees something that is possible for her and that is what this work is all about for me. It is not about me but me enabling others to see what is possible for themselves and taking that first step to make it possible so that in time the race of human will have transformed to the spiritual as the design of human becomes revealed and dissolves.

I must take a minute to write something topical and also controversial. This is about the furore which has arisen in Sudan of the English primary school teacher who named a teddy bear Mohamed. Where I ask is the human essential quality of reason. Emotion has taken over from reason and the moment this happens any expansion of consciousness to enable spiritual awakening is shut down. Emotion kills this entire process. Spiritual awakening happens when there is an inner shift. It tends to happen when we become present to the impact of being a certain way. That impact is the catalyst to transformation. When the people who are baying for the blood of this English teacher get the impact of this action and how it prevents them for having any direct spiritual realizations or experiences, then and only then will the inner shift happen. Until then it is the mind and not the heart that is running the show. Spiritual awakening is not possible when it is the mind and the emotions and not the heart that is running the show.

Reason is the one quality which cannot be abandoned on the transformation from human to spiritual. Reason looks to the facts of the situation. She is a school teacher teaching young children. The children request a name for the teddy based on the name of a boy in the class (as I understand it from my reading). The teacher agrees and sees no harm in this and suddenly it's the crime of the century...hello....isn't there something totally unbalanced about this. I get sad when I read about things like this because the spiritual baby gets thrown out with the religious bathwater and this saddens me. Religion is about beliefs and so must always be defended. Spiritual is about faith which needs no defending, it's there or it's not. To throw one out with the other is to deny to the consciousness the greatest experiences it can have in the form of human......