For the past 3 weeks the quote from the Buddha which I have started this post with has been constantly in my mind. 'Hold fast to nothing, or no thing' what could he have meant. For Buddhists the theory of attachment is central to Buddhist philosophy. This is clinging onto things or events that are pleasant and avoiding things or events that are unpleasant. However a thing or an event is not pleasant or unpleasant of itself. It is the interpretation we put on it that determines whether we view it as pleasant or unpleasant. It is the view we have of it that dictates whether or not we pursue and cling to it or avoid it (could be anything). But this view is not real it is only an interpretation. The point of view we have about things, is not real but we treat it like it is real. My point of view is not just my point of view it's the Truth. It's the way life REALLY is.
This clinging onto a view as reality and not simply as a view is what I believe Buddha was speaking about when he said 'hold fast to nothing'. Why 'nothing' because 'no thing is real', everything is based on interpretation. When we cling to something that is not real, we suffer. We suffer because we are making real what is unreal. By not 'holding to anything' we are recognising that what we think of as real is not so and in this realization is freedom.
I would assert that it is this clinging to points of views as Truth and not interpretation that is at the root of the intolerances in the world. What would the world look like if there was a mass giving up that points of view are the Truth- the way things REALLY ARE. For one, there would be more tolerance as people saw the lunacy of clinging to something that is not real. There would be an ease and freedom as the suffering that comes with making something that is unreal, real disappears. Buddhism speak of a concept called Avidya or ignorance, but this is not ignorance in the way that it is normally understood. This is an ignorance that distorts the nature of reality. I assert that the point of view is the source of this ignorance. The source of the ignorance is being convinced that the point of view is real.
The power of the point of view and the importance of 'not holding fast' cannot be underestimated. Our point of view gives us the life that we have. My point of view has given me the life that I have. My point of view is that I am a spiritual teacher and what I have pulled towards me have been spiritual teachings and realizations. But I am clear that this is only what my point of view has pulled for because it supports the point of view that I put in place when I was a young girl. The point of view comes first and then comes the experiences to support it.
Yet I am human and I operate in the world. How is it possible to function in life without having a point of view? The point of view is expressed in opinions, judgements. To be realistic, as humans we will always have a point of view. The important thing is to manage it. What this means for me is to take the responsibility for my point of view as just a point of view. My point of view is no more or less important than anyone elses' it is only a point of view.
This insight is coming at just the right time for me. I am sure at the launch of my book next week that there will be many points of view coming at me. I can remain unattached and free only if I remain vigilant to the notion that everything that is said to me and that I say is.....only a point of view.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Finally....my book Journey to Self...has gone to the printers
Finally after a 2 year period my book 'Journey to Self' has gone to the printers. Events moved very quickly after I saw that my obsession with wanting to control everything meant that I hadn't progressed the book because I wouldn't have been able to control what happened after it was published. I have given all of that up and in its place have created the possibility of freedom and ease. The result...is that I am launching the book at the Columbia Hotel in London at 7pm on Thursday 6 November (nearest tube Lancaster Gate). This is just so amazing. It has all come together. If I look back to when I had the insight about my obsession with control it was around the time of Manuel Schoch's death. I have written in an earlier blog how I considered him to be my teacher because of his combination of mysticism, psychiatry and expertise in neuroscience. Since he has died I have felt his presence so strongly.
What has been a strange co-incidence is that I am having the launch for my book in the Columbia Hotel on Thursday and then on Sunday in the same hotel at 10am there is going to be a memorial meditation service in memory of him for all of his students in London. This is a strangely comforting co-incidence for me. The suddenness of his death has still left me shaken. I had planned out a future where I would learn from him and perhaps in time be able to read Auras like he could and make a difference to people's' lives. I realise now that there is no-one else but me to do this. There is no-one else coming. I don't mean that in an arrogant egotistical way but only that each of us is responsible for the life we create. This can appear harsh to any reader who is finding life a challenge at the moment but the minute that we can take the responsibility for what is happening, then shift is possible.
I am so excited about launching my book. I will be sharing the platform with my friend Wai who has given talks around London. Wai is an amazing guy who has done detailed research into the brain and mysticism. He has quite an astounding hypothesis which is 'Everyone is God' and has written a book on the subject. It will be an honour and privilege to be sharing the evening with him. He is also bringing his video equipment so that some of the talk will be available on 'You Tube' so it is all so exciting at the moment. Yet I know that none of this would be possible if I hadn't given up wanting to be in control. I see my identity used my fear of the consequences of losing control as a way of keeping me less than self-expressed. Since I had this insight my verbal self-expression has been so powerful. I can tell it in how I can command the English language in a way that I couldn't before. I am sure that the state of Enlightenment is pretty close to giving up control. When we have no need to control life or the way it goes then this must surely be Enlightenment.
I am not charging people who come to the launch on Thursday evening. The book will be available and if people feel moved to buy a copy then that will be great. I won't charge because I don't know what the key is to raise the powerful energy that rests at the base of the spine. My message is that it is this energy which when raised results in the shift of consciousness from human to spiritual. My message is that it is a process that must be done slowly and gradually if the experience of the rising energy and the corresponding expansion of consciousness is to be integrated so that the consciousness can continue to operate in the world, albeit at a more elevated level.
What has been a strange co-incidence is that I am having the launch for my book in the Columbia Hotel on Thursday and then on Sunday in the same hotel at 10am there is going to be a memorial meditation service in memory of him for all of his students in London. This is a strangely comforting co-incidence for me. The suddenness of his death has still left me shaken. I had planned out a future where I would learn from him and perhaps in time be able to read Auras like he could and make a difference to people's' lives. I realise now that there is no-one else but me to do this. There is no-one else coming. I don't mean that in an arrogant egotistical way but only that each of us is responsible for the life we create. This can appear harsh to any reader who is finding life a challenge at the moment but the minute that we can take the responsibility for what is happening, then shift is possible.
I am so excited about launching my book. I will be sharing the platform with my friend Wai who has given talks around London. Wai is an amazing guy who has done detailed research into the brain and mysticism. He has quite an astounding hypothesis which is 'Everyone is God' and has written a book on the subject. It will be an honour and privilege to be sharing the evening with him. He is also bringing his video equipment so that some of the talk will be available on 'You Tube' so it is all so exciting at the moment. Yet I know that none of this would be possible if I hadn't given up wanting to be in control. I see my identity used my fear of the consequences of losing control as a way of keeping me less than self-expressed. Since I had this insight my verbal self-expression has been so powerful. I can tell it in how I can command the English language in a way that I couldn't before. I am sure that the state of Enlightenment is pretty close to giving up control. When we have no need to control life or the way it goes then this must surely be Enlightenment.
I am not charging people who come to the launch on Thursday evening. The book will be available and if people feel moved to buy a copy then that will be great. I won't charge because I don't know what the key is to raise the powerful energy that rests at the base of the spine. My message is that it is this energy which when raised results in the shift of consciousness from human to spiritual. My message is that it is a process that must be done slowly and gradually if the experience of the rising energy and the corresponding expansion of consciousness is to be integrated so that the consciousness can continue to operate in the world, albeit at a more elevated level.
Monday, 20 October 2008
The death of an Avatar.....and a good friend....Manuel Schoch R.I.P
I received an email on Saturday evening to say that Manuel Schoch had died. He was not ill. On 9 October he felt unwell, went into a coma and died peacefully on 10 October. It has had a devastating effect on me. Manuel was a swiss psychiatrist, neuroscientist and a mystic who could read auras ((is an electronic field around each of us that has a record of every event that has ever happened and our response to it). I first met him when I was working as a volunteer for Alternatives in central London when he came to give a talk. I knew when I heard him speak that if there was anyone who could explain what had happened on that meditation retreat in Devon in 1998 that it would be him.
I had myself convinced that the lack of sight in my right eye meant that my brain was in some way compensating which was the reason for the experience. When everyone had finished speaking with him I went up and explained briefly about what had happened and asked him whether the lack of sight in my right eye was the reason for the experience. All the time I was speaking he was looking at me intently. When I finished he said very slowly 'what happened to you has nothing to do with your eyes, I see it, it has nothing to do with your eyes'. I was so lost for words that all I said was 'no' and he said 'no and then he continued 'if you keep looking for explanations you will lose what you have'. Still bewildered I thanked him and left but was resolute that this man was going to be my teacher. Since that talk I have been unconsciously his student. My deepest regret is that I didn't sign up for his year long consciousness raising training course. I reasoned it by saying that I was in the middle of another course and I would do it when it came around again - now it's never going to come around and I have lost that golden opportunity.
I have often written about my distrust of so called Gurus but after that first talk I knew that he was my teacher or Guru. His combination of scientific rigour and only speaking about what he had direct experience of inspired me to live that way also. Not making claims for anything other than my own observation and experiences. Manuel was a gentle, humble and authentic man. His ability to ease people's pain and suffering by reading their auras and taking them back to pivotal points in their lives where something had happened that contributed to their current suffering was to be in the presence of a Master at work. The ease and gentleness with which he would restore them to their own power was so humbling and inspiring to see.
I remember on one training day a lady stood up and explained that she had been suffering with ME for almost 10 years. Manuel looked at her aura and asked her when she had been travelling around India. She said that it was almost 10 years ago. He said 'how was your health when you were in India' She said that she had been sick. He was able to see that some of the virus she had had when she was in India was still in her system and this is why she had been suffering from ME. He gave her the name of a friend of his who was a virologist. I was inspired by that. In the days and weeks that followed I often thought of that lady and wondered whether or not she had been freed from the ME. A year later I was at another of the training days run by Manuel and I began to speak to a woman. I shared with her this experience and said that I wondered how that woman was today. She started to laugh and said 'that was me'. I couldn't believe it. This animated woman was nothing like the woman who had stood up the last time. This woman was full of the joys of life, was lively and happy.
Manuel was based in Zurich in Switzerland but had a centre in central London. Following that first talk at Alternatives I always went to his talks when he came to London. After each one I came away inspired feeling that my consciousness had expanded and with an excitement for what is possible for human being. I did a couple of his weekends of consciousness raising and it was so powerful. I had complete trust in this man and his motives that I surrendered myself fully to what he was teaching. However, what I wasn't aware of when I was doing this training was that that I was still fearing losing control so I wouldn't let myself go so deep in the meditations, so unsurprisingly, achieving the profound depths of consciousness expansion was limited for me at this time but I trust that this is the way it was meant to be. I could listen to Manuel speak for ever and never get tired or bored. His background as a neuroscientist and psychiatrist as well as being a mystic meant that for me he was the ideal grounded teacher.
A year ago I wrote to him. I explained that I didn't want a Guru but a teacher or guide to study under, that he inspired me like nobody I had ever met before and asked if he would accept me as a student. I never received a response to the email but the next time he came to London and I went to his talk I felt he knew that it was me who had written him the email. At his talks he never asked for people's names, he said everything can be read in the aura.I remember at one talk he said 'the only thing that stops us seeing other realms (people who have died) is the anger and aggression we have towards ourselves'. This statement irritated me because I didn't think that I had any anger or aggression towards myself! I said 'I don't have any anger and yet I don't see other worlds'. He looked at me, smiled and said 'you don't have any anger against yourself' and I said 'no'. He then said 'you have so much anger towards yourself that it is making me do this' and he staggered backwards and sat on his chair'. He then started to ask me about certain events that had happened in my life where I had decided that 'I wasn't good, I was bad' and out of that decision made from something that happened when I was 5 came all of the anger and aggression I had towards myself'. He said 'if you could let that go, you have no idea what you could achieve'. That conversation shifted and expanded my consciousness and that is only 1 of many conversations I have had with him.
His death is a huge loss not only for me but for the world. He was a young man who was married with two children. His role of expanding consciousness to enable the shift that is coming will be unparalleled. Since his death I feel his presence keenly. All day Sunday I could see his smiling face. I want to finish this blog entry with a sentence that embodied who and what Manuel stood for. He was firmly convinced that '“The question is not how much love you get;
it is how much love you give.”
MANUEL SCHOCH.....REST IN PEACE...MY DEAR FRIEND AND TEACHER
I had myself convinced that the lack of sight in my right eye meant that my brain was in some way compensating which was the reason for the experience. When everyone had finished speaking with him I went up and explained briefly about what had happened and asked him whether the lack of sight in my right eye was the reason for the experience. All the time I was speaking he was looking at me intently. When I finished he said very slowly 'what happened to you has nothing to do with your eyes, I see it, it has nothing to do with your eyes'. I was so lost for words that all I said was 'no' and he said 'no and then he continued 'if you keep looking for explanations you will lose what you have'. Still bewildered I thanked him and left but was resolute that this man was going to be my teacher. Since that talk I have been unconsciously his student. My deepest regret is that I didn't sign up for his year long consciousness raising training course. I reasoned it by saying that I was in the middle of another course and I would do it when it came around again - now it's never going to come around and I have lost that golden opportunity.
I have often written about my distrust of so called Gurus but after that first talk I knew that he was my teacher or Guru. His combination of scientific rigour and only speaking about what he had direct experience of inspired me to live that way also. Not making claims for anything other than my own observation and experiences. Manuel was a gentle, humble and authentic man. His ability to ease people's pain and suffering by reading their auras and taking them back to pivotal points in their lives where something had happened that contributed to their current suffering was to be in the presence of a Master at work. The ease and gentleness with which he would restore them to their own power was so humbling and inspiring to see.
I remember on one training day a lady stood up and explained that she had been suffering with ME for almost 10 years. Manuel looked at her aura and asked her when she had been travelling around India. She said that it was almost 10 years ago. He said 'how was your health when you were in India' She said that she had been sick. He was able to see that some of the virus she had had when she was in India was still in her system and this is why she had been suffering from ME. He gave her the name of a friend of his who was a virologist. I was inspired by that. In the days and weeks that followed I often thought of that lady and wondered whether or not she had been freed from the ME. A year later I was at another of the training days run by Manuel and I began to speak to a woman. I shared with her this experience and said that I wondered how that woman was today. She started to laugh and said 'that was me'. I couldn't believe it. This animated woman was nothing like the woman who had stood up the last time. This woman was full of the joys of life, was lively and happy.
Manuel was based in Zurich in Switzerland but had a centre in central London. Following that first talk at Alternatives I always went to his talks when he came to London. After each one I came away inspired feeling that my consciousness had expanded and with an excitement for what is possible for human being. I did a couple of his weekends of consciousness raising and it was so powerful. I had complete trust in this man and his motives that I surrendered myself fully to what he was teaching. However, what I wasn't aware of when I was doing this training was that that I was still fearing losing control so I wouldn't let myself go so deep in the meditations, so unsurprisingly, achieving the profound depths of consciousness expansion was limited for me at this time but I trust that this is the way it was meant to be. I could listen to Manuel speak for ever and never get tired or bored. His background as a neuroscientist and psychiatrist as well as being a mystic meant that for me he was the ideal grounded teacher.
A year ago I wrote to him. I explained that I didn't want a Guru but a teacher or guide to study under, that he inspired me like nobody I had ever met before and asked if he would accept me as a student. I never received a response to the email but the next time he came to London and I went to his talk I felt he knew that it was me who had written him the email. At his talks he never asked for people's names, he said everything can be read in the aura.I remember at one talk he said 'the only thing that stops us seeing other realms (people who have died) is the anger and aggression we have towards ourselves'. This statement irritated me because I didn't think that I had any anger or aggression towards myself! I said 'I don't have any anger and yet I don't see other worlds'. He looked at me, smiled and said 'you don't have any anger against yourself' and I said 'no'. He then said 'you have so much anger towards yourself that it is making me do this' and he staggered backwards and sat on his chair'. He then started to ask me about certain events that had happened in my life where I had decided that 'I wasn't good, I was bad' and out of that decision made from something that happened when I was 5 came all of the anger and aggression I had towards myself'. He said 'if you could let that go, you have no idea what you could achieve'. That conversation shifted and expanded my consciousness and that is only 1 of many conversations I have had with him.
His death is a huge loss not only for me but for the world. He was a young man who was married with two children. His role of expanding consciousness to enable the shift that is coming will be unparalleled. Since his death I feel his presence keenly. All day Sunday I could see his smiling face. I want to finish this blog entry with a sentence that embodied who and what Manuel stood for. He was firmly convinced that '“The question is not how much love you get;
it is how much love you give.”
MANUEL SCHOCH.....REST IN PEACE...MY DEAR FRIEND AND TEACHER
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
It all makes so much sense.....now
Suddenly the impact of the way I had been being is showing up everywhere. My fear of the consequences of not being in control has been the reason that I have not been playing a bigger game with everything I have experienced. I have often written in this blog about the inner conflict I have always felt between the desire to stay small and not stand out and the push from something deeper to be more than I know I can be. I had put this down to the identity not wanting me to play a big game and in a sense it is. What I realise now though is that the identity (the self that has been constructed from the decisions we made to events that happen to us) used the element of fear in relation to control. Up to now this was hidden from my view.
It was this covert operation by the identity that kept me in my small and limiting world playing only those games where I knew that I would have complete control. It accounts for all of the inaction in my life to date. I see so clearly now that for those requests that were made of me or ideas I had about sharing my experiences on the spiritual path, hidden from my view was the fear 'if you do this you're not going to guarantee to have complete control' and then totally beneath the level of my awareness I wouldn't continue what it was I had started. This explains to me why all through my life I have started so many things that I didn't finish. It had got to the stage that I didn't want to start anything because I knew that 'something' would happen and it wouldn't get finished.
How different now is life. My game to have an event to share my experiences of the spiritual energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine is well on track now. I have a room booked for 6 November in London and people are showing up to be on the team. I have a commitment from the publishers that the book will be ready for this event. For the first time in my life...there is no fear of losing control and when that fear of loss of control goes what is left is freedom and velocity. Since I had this insight life has speeded up so much and instead of being fearful of it I am so excited about the unpredictability of it all. Nearer to the time I will give the details of exactly where the talk is going to be if any reader of this blog would like to come I would be delighted to see you and know that you had come as a result of this blog.
Many years ago when I was researching the phenomenon of the rising energy from the base of the spine (I don't particularly like the label 'Kundalini') but to make description easier I will refer to it as this from here on) I had contact with a woman who had been doing a lot of research into the phenomenon in terms of the trigger factors for the experience, the age range and other fascinating work. I am creating that this woman is going to be at the event putting a research context around the experience. I describe myself as a spiritual scientist. I know that what happened to me affected my brain, the shift of consciousness that characterises this event happens in the brain. I have read accounts of people who have this experience having flashes of past lives and seeing deities and other such forms. I would assert and this is only an assertion I do not know it is the truth but, I would assert that it is the touching of the energy when it rises to awaken usually dormant centres in the brain that results in flashes and visions. The challenge is not to be taken in by them but to watch them like a witness and let them go. When the energy returns to rest in the heart and the heart awakens the brain activity quietens down and then the activity is strongest in the heart.
When I think back to certain posts on this blog and how I have written that I thought I was autistic and was going to pay to have a diagnostic interview when the truth was that my identity had imposed a way of being on my consciousness that was so restrictive and limiting that it caused me to believe that I was autistic. This is just so amazing to me and probably to any reader who has been following this blog since I began to write it. I could feel stupid about those posts now but the truth is that I don't. This blog is an honest account of spiritual transformation as it is happening for me.
It was this covert operation by the identity that kept me in my small and limiting world playing only those games where I knew that I would have complete control. It accounts for all of the inaction in my life to date. I see so clearly now that for those requests that were made of me or ideas I had about sharing my experiences on the spiritual path, hidden from my view was the fear 'if you do this you're not going to guarantee to have complete control' and then totally beneath the level of my awareness I wouldn't continue what it was I had started. This explains to me why all through my life I have started so many things that I didn't finish. It had got to the stage that I didn't want to start anything because I knew that 'something' would happen and it wouldn't get finished.
How different now is life. My game to have an event to share my experiences of the spiritual energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine is well on track now. I have a room booked for 6 November in London and people are showing up to be on the team. I have a commitment from the publishers that the book will be ready for this event. For the first time in my life...there is no fear of losing control and when that fear of loss of control goes what is left is freedom and velocity. Since I had this insight life has speeded up so much and instead of being fearful of it I am so excited about the unpredictability of it all. Nearer to the time I will give the details of exactly where the talk is going to be if any reader of this blog would like to come I would be delighted to see you and know that you had come as a result of this blog.
Many years ago when I was researching the phenomenon of the rising energy from the base of the spine (I don't particularly like the label 'Kundalini') but to make description easier I will refer to it as this from here on) I had contact with a woman who had been doing a lot of research into the phenomenon in terms of the trigger factors for the experience, the age range and other fascinating work. I am creating that this woman is going to be at the event putting a research context around the experience. I describe myself as a spiritual scientist. I know that what happened to me affected my brain, the shift of consciousness that characterises this event happens in the brain. I have read accounts of people who have this experience having flashes of past lives and seeing deities and other such forms. I would assert and this is only an assertion I do not know it is the truth but, I would assert that it is the touching of the energy when it rises to awaken usually dormant centres in the brain that results in flashes and visions. The challenge is not to be taken in by them but to watch them like a witness and let them go. When the energy returns to rest in the heart and the heart awakens the brain activity quietens down and then the activity is strongest in the heart.
When I think back to certain posts on this blog and how I have written that I thought I was autistic and was going to pay to have a diagnostic interview when the truth was that my identity had imposed a way of being on my consciousness that was so restrictive and limiting that it caused me to believe that I was autistic. This is just so amazing to me and probably to any reader who has been following this blog since I began to write it. I could feel stupid about those posts now but the truth is that I don't. This blog is an honest account of spiritual transformation as it is happening for me.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Still reeling......from the impact...
I am still reeling from the impact of discovering that I what I had considered to be 'the way I was' is only the result of a decision I made when I was 11. In response to something that happened I decided that I had to control life in order to survive. How this played itself out was in my obsession of always having only one way to do things and getting angry and upset when I didn't get my way. The anger and upset masked the fear that I wouldn't be in control and then the consequences would be disastrous. It was fear about the consequences I had made up that weren't real that dominated and dictated how I have been being in life.
Since I have given this up. Or more specifically now that this way of being has been exposed for what it is...a way of being that was given to me by a decision I made in the past and has transformed itself I feel an ease and freedom that I have never truly felt before. In the past I have felt a kind of freedom but nothing like what I am now feeling. I have created the possibility of being freedom and ease in the space of this transformation and that is truly what is now showing up for me. The other amazing thing is how easy meditation is now. Before this I have often written about how my mind is usually quite empty of thoughts but the minute I sit down to meditate I have thought assault about absolutely everything under the sun to the point that I had stopped meditating and had taken on being mindful. This is having keeping a constant alertness and awareness to everything that is going on.
Since having this insight about control my meditation is so different. What I now see is that before I was afraid to let myself go, to lose control in meditation like in every other area of my life. I no longer am afraid to lose control and my meditations are so much deeper. For one I can sit now for an hour and not feel the time in the way I used to do in the past. I am emerging from my meditations with deeper insights. The fear of losing control is gone and in its place is a deep abiding peace and calm when meditating. Meditation has gone from something I felt I had to do to be a good spiritual person to something I now look forward to and want to do. Meditation no longer holds the fear of losing control that it had. And yet, it wasn't the fear of losing control which had the power over me but my fear of imagined consequences which I now know would never have happened. It was this fear that was keeping me locked in my small, limiting and controlling world.
The construction of the identity which gave me this controlled way of being is not personal, I am clear about that. It is part of the game which I have written about in this blog. If there is only ONE and that ONE splits itself to play a game all there is is the ONE which has split itself up many times to play a game. The purpose of the identity is to keep the real nature of the ONE hidden. I am aware that the last couple of sentences can read as cryptic but I am trying to convey how the construction of a human being into 'identity' and 'possibility' or 'ego and soul' is the construction of a game which is played out within the human frame.....
My insights into things are coming much quicker and faster now because control is not a factor. My interactions with people are relaxed and fun because I am not trying to control anything. If I'm not trying to control anyone or anything and I can be with whatever is, as it is, and not resist the what is for what I think it should be, then I am free. This freedom is hard won but when it is won life is different. For me these days, the leaves are much brighter, the kaleidoscope of coloured leaves takes my breath away and my consciousness gets absorbed and the thinking analytical mind stops. To look at our way of being not as who we truly are but as a construction of the identity and to transform it is to live a free life.... So today ask yourself....'who am I being' not 'what am I doing' at different points during the day.....and have fun with it....
Since I have given this up. Or more specifically now that this way of being has been exposed for what it is...a way of being that was given to me by a decision I made in the past and has transformed itself I feel an ease and freedom that I have never truly felt before. In the past I have felt a kind of freedom but nothing like what I am now feeling. I have created the possibility of being freedom and ease in the space of this transformation and that is truly what is now showing up for me. The other amazing thing is how easy meditation is now. Before this I have often written about how my mind is usually quite empty of thoughts but the minute I sit down to meditate I have thought assault about absolutely everything under the sun to the point that I had stopped meditating and had taken on being mindful. This is having keeping a constant alertness and awareness to everything that is going on.
Since having this insight about control my meditation is so different. What I now see is that before I was afraid to let myself go, to lose control in meditation like in every other area of my life. I no longer am afraid to lose control and my meditations are so much deeper. For one I can sit now for an hour and not feel the time in the way I used to do in the past. I am emerging from my meditations with deeper insights. The fear of losing control is gone and in its place is a deep abiding peace and calm when meditating. Meditation has gone from something I felt I had to do to be a good spiritual person to something I now look forward to and want to do. Meditation no longer holds the fear of losing control that it had. And yet, it wasn't the fear of losing control which had the power over me but my fear of imagined consequences which I now know would never have happened. It was this fear that was keeping me locked in my small, limiting and controlling world.
The construction of the identity which gave me this controlled way of being is not personal, I am clear about that. It is part of the game which I have written about in this blog. If there is only ONE and that ONE splits itself to play a game all there is is the ONE which has split itself up many times to play a game. The purpose of the identity is to keep the real nature of the ONE hidden. I am aware that the last couple of sentences can read as cryptic but I am trying to convey how the construction of a human being into 'identity' and 'possibility' or 'ego and soul' is the construction of a game which is played out within the human frame.....
My insights into things are coming much quicker and faster now because control is not a factor. My interactions with people are relaxed and fun because I am not trying to control anything. If I'm not trying to control anyone or anything and I can be with whatever is, as it is, and not resist the what is for what I think it should be, then I am free. This freedom is hard won but when it is won life is different. For me these days, the leaves are much brighter, the kaleidoscope of coloured leaves takes my breath away and my consciousness gets absorbed and the thinking analytical mind stops. To look at our way of being not as who we truly are but as a construction of the identity and to transform it is to live a free life.... So today ask yourself....'who am I being' not 'what am I doing' at different points during the day.....and have fun with it....
Thursday, 2 October 2008
My street fight.......with myself
'It's like having a 5 year old in charge of customer delight team, you make people wrong and force outcomes' these were said to me by my coach a couple of days ago and they left me reeling. Let me set the context a little. I have written in this blog about the team management and leadership programme I am doing with Landmark Education. The whole of the Landmark technology is aimed at uncovering how we as human beings have been put together. It is an ontological study into the nature of being. I consider myself to be quite advanced in understanding and using this technology and through using it I have identified the inherent conflict between the identity or ego and the possibility or soul. The technology has accelerated my spiritual transformation quicker and more intensely than anything else, yet it is not promoted as a spiritual programme. It is promoted as 'education' but how it has been playing out for me is as a spiritual programme.
For a long time now I had been aware that I have only one way of doing things. When I first began walking the path of spiritual transformation and enlightenment I was so focused and had unwavering faith that the state of enlightenment was possible in one's lifetime and I was going to get it. I saw one way and that was the way it was going to be. My way was very much about reading and then taking myself on at every stage. People used to say to me often 'you are too hard on yourself' but this purgative and totally obsessed with one way was what I took on. The trouble with this is that it was also the way that I was in life. There was only one way to do everything and when it didn't go my way I made people wrong and I forced an outcome to get what I wanted.
This training is a year long and I am currently in quarter 2. All last quarter my coach who was different (coaches change every quarter) used to say to me 'it's 'Mags' (this is what I like to be called ) way or the highway'. Every time he said it I could feel irritation but I had no idea what he meant. Last quarter I thought that this single-mindedness and commitment to having things one way (my way) was how to succeed, so I put up with this coaching and remained irritated instead of taking it on.
This quarter I took on the accountability for the customer delight game. This is a game where I have a team and I promise to grow and expand transformation in the world. This takes the form of registering people into the Landmark Forum which is the first access to Transformation. I can be authentic about this because of how powerful I know that first weekend to be. I have a team with me who I empower and manage. But something has not been working. I have not been the leader to my team and as a result there have been so many breakdowns and the game is losing. The comments from my coach followed after a team conference call that I led. One of the most important qualities on this path is courage. The courage to take on a comment of the kind that was made to me and not to defend or dismiss it. Recently I had been aware that I was very one-sided to the point that I wondered whether or not I had some autistic tendancies. I have written about this concern in an earlier blog. To me it would have accounted for the ease with which I write and understand spiritual Truths and how I get upset when there is change of any kind or when I don't get what I want.
I took on what was said to me and I thought back to my life and where this obsession with having my own way had come from. Each night before I slept I said to myself 'I am committed to having a breakthrough with this'. I knew deep down that there was something hidden from my view and that if I could get at it that it would make such a profound difference to my way of being and my way of being in the world. Somehow I knew that I am not autistic but that I made some decision when I was young which has given me this way of being and I was determined to get to what that was.
Sitting at work and gazing out of the window from my desk on the 8 floor and getting absorbed in the beauty of the different coloured leaves on the trees I suddenly had a flashback of when I was 11 and we were leaving London as a family to go on our annual holiday to Ireland. I was sitting in the car waiting to leave when my mum said 'that's it we are not coming back to London'. I was so shocked that I ran out of the car, into my best friends house crying saying 'we are not coming back'. She immediately ran into her mum, who ran out to my mum in the car and asked 'is this true, you are not coming back'. My mum said 'no, we are, it's the usual family holiday'. She then told me to get into the car and we drove off'. We never returned to London and at some point I made the decision that I had to control my own life. This was why there has been only one way for me, it is the only way that I can control life and what happens. The impact that this way of being has had on my life has been immense. Seeing only one way has been so limiting. The minute this realization came to me I felt the most amazing ease and lightness. There is more than one way, I can now allow people to contribute to me without fearing a loss of control. As a result of this insight I have created the possibility of being generous and it feels real to me. It's not a possibility that is created over the obsession of control because of my fear of what will happen if I don't have control, it is a real possibility of generosity.
What I have gone through realizing this is an example of my own street fight with myself. The only thing that makes us different from each other are the decisions we have made about the things that have happened to us in our lives and what we have made those events mean. For me, I made that event mean that if I didn't take control of my life that the consequences would be disastrous. This gave me a way of being that was bossy, domineering, single-mindeded with the view by my mother that I was always a child who 'got your own way'! Take all of this away and there is absolutely no difference between us. It is our choices and our interpretations about life that give the illusion of difference.
I am so looking forward to beginning the first day.....of my new transformed way of being. A way of being that is easy, light and not significant. What is weird for me is that I have constantly written about the importance of surrender and yet up to now the reality for me was that I was obsessed with control. Experience makes words and meaning and come alive......
For a long time now I had been aware that I have only one way of doing things. When I first began walking the path of spiritual transformation and enlightenment I was so focused and had unwavering faith that the state of enlightenment was possible in one's lifetime and I was going to get it. I saw one way and that was the way it was going to be. My way was very much about reading and then taking myself on at every stage. People used to say to me often 'you are too hard on yourself' but this purgative and totally obsessed with one way was what I took on. The trouble with this is that it was also the way that I was in life. There was only one way to do everything and when it didn't go my way I made people wrong and I forced an outcome to get what I wanted.
This training is a year long and I am currently in quarter 2. All last quarter my coach who was different (coaches change every quarter) used to say to me 'it's 'Mags' (this is what I like to be called ) way or the highway'. Every time he said it I could feel irritation but I had no idea what he meant. Last quarter I thought that this single-mindedness and commitment to having things one way (my way) was how to succeed, so I put up with this coaching and remained irritated instead of taking it on.
This quarter I took on the accountability for the customer delight game. This is a game where I have a team and I promise to grow and expand transformation in the world. This takes the form of registering people into the Landmark Forum which is the first access to Transformation. I can be authentic about this because of how powerful I know that first weekend to be. I have a team with me who I empower and manage. But something has not been working. I have not been the leader to my team and as a result there have been so many breakdowns and the game is losing. The comments from my coach followed after a team conference call that I led. One of the most important qualities on this path is courage. The courage to take on a comment of the kind that was made to me and not to defend or dismiss it. Recently I had been aware that I was very one-sided to the point that I wondered whether or not I had some autistic tendancies. I have written about this concern in an earlier blog. To me it would have accounted for the ease with which I write and understand spiritual Truths and how I get upset when there is change of any kind or when I don't get what I want.
I took on what was said to me and I thought back to my life and where this obsession with having my own way had come from. Each night before I slept I said to myself 'I am committed to having a breakthrough with this'. I knew deep down that there was something hidden from my view and that if I could get at it that it would make such a profound difference to my way of being and my way of being in the world. Somehow I knew that I am not autistic but that I made some decision when I was young which has given me this way of being and I was determined to get to what that was.
Sitting at work and gazing out of the window from my desk on the 8 floor and getting absorbed in the beauty of the different coloured leaves on the trees I suddenly had a flashback of when I was 11 and we were leaving London as a family to go on our annual holiday to Ireland. I was sitting in the car waiting to leave when my mum said 'that's it we are not coming back to London'. I was so shocked that I ran out of the car, into my best friends house crying saying 'we are not coming back'. She immediately ran into her mum, who ran out to my mum in the car and asked 'is this true, you are not coming back'. My mum said 'no, we are, it's the usual family holiday'. She then told me to get into the car and we drove off'. We never returned to London and at some point I made the decision that I had to control my own life. This was why there has been only one way for me, it is the only way that I can control life and what happens. The impact that this way of being has had on my life has been immense. Seeing only one way has been so limiting. The minute this realization came to me I felt the most amazing ease and lightness. There is more than one way, I can now allow people to contribute to me without fearing a loss of control. As a result of this insight I have created the possibility of being generous and it feels real to me. It's not a possibility that is created over the obsession of control because of my fear of what will happen if I don't have control, it is a real possibility of generosity.
What I have gone through realizing this is an example of my own street fight with myself. The only thing that makes us different from each other are the decisions we have made about the things that have happened to us in our lives and what we have made those events mean. For me, I made that event mean that if I didn't take control of my life that the consequences would be disastrous. This gave me a way of being that was bossy, domineering, single-mindeded with the view by my mother that I was always a child who 'got your own way'! Take all of this away and there is absolutely no difference between us. It is our choices and our interpretations about life that give the illusion of difference.
I am so looking forward to beginning the first day.....of my new transformed way of being. A way of being that is easy, light and not significant. What is weird for me is that I have constantly written about the importance of surrender and yet up to now the reality for me was that I was obsessed with control. Experience makes words and meaning and come alive......
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