What arises from taking on responsibility....

I walked to work today through the park. It was cold but yet there was a freshness about the experience. I walk with my head held high connecting with the sky and the trees. I was struck walking by the number of people I met who were walking with their heads down. I wanted to stop each one and make them aware of the beauty that was all around them if they lifted up their heads. I guess that like me when I meditate their heads were full of thoughts about how to get through the day. This is a joke on the part of the design of human. Giving time and attention to thoughts will never bring relief from them. To get relief and peace one has to go out of the mind and thoughts. To think that by continually examing and analysing our thoughts that one day we will sort everything out is to be caught in the cruellest joke. It is like the mind that is in essence a thief, becoming a detective to catch itself, the thief. It can't be done because of the illusory nature of the mind. So to get peace come out of the mind and connect with nature. Then in that space of no thoughts the peace and calm that is our natural essence and way of being can arise.

I called my manager for my assisting agreement. I explained that my agreement on Saturday had broken down. I took complete responsibility for it and requested training for how to be effective on the phone speaking with graduates. It was great. There was no pent up tension, no rant about how hurt I had been. None of that was important. What seemed important was to put in place measures to ensure that I would have the training so that I wouldn't upset somebody else to the degree that they would complain about me. I was explaining to him why when I was first being spoken to about my attitude on the phone that I couldn't understand what was being said to me by my supervisor. I couldn't get beyond hurt and angry to take responsibility for what I had done. On Sunday morning I saw exactly how the way I had been on the phone with the lady who told me she was stressed had caused her to complain.

I explained to my manager that when I see things then I will take responsibility. I won't take responsibility for things that I don't see. Then he said something that made me think. He said 'why don't you try taking on responsibility even though you don't see it'. He went on to explain that he was leading a seminar session a week ago and the person who was to assist him called on the day of the seminar to say that she couldn't make it. He said 'I took full responsibility for the breakdown'. I didn't understand this and I said 'why are you taking responsibility for somebody else's lack of integrity, the person said that she would assist you and then broke her word, that's not your responsibility. He replied 'I didn't contact this person, I didn't even know her name, all I knew was that I would have someone to assist me there'. This made me think. Is it possible that every time someone doesn't keep their integrity to me it is because there is something in the way I have been being with them that makes them break their word. This is a big thing to consider and was hugely confronting for me.

I have said that my game is Mastery. This involves me being alert and aware to messages that come to me from the universe via others. Was there something in what he said for me to take on to be the Master that I want to be. In the past I have always thought I have no responsibility for how someone takes what I say. I only have the responsibility to ensure that what I say comes from an open and sincere heart. To suddenly now be responsible for how someone receives what I say is a different ball game. It will require me to be more sensitive to the reactions of others to things I say than I have been in the past. To listen more and to check in with them that they have understood what I have been saying. Also for me to ensure that I have understood what they have been saying to me. This is going to require a whole new and deeper level of communication from me.

I came home and cooked some dinner. I called my mum to find out how my dad was. He is doing well but still needs to have help. I worry about how my mum will cope when he is finally discharged. Speaking to her last night I felt the old familiar feelings of guilt that I should be there to ease the burden a little. It's the uncertainty about what the future holds for him that is worrying her. My friend from when I was in college in Ireland rang and I was talking to him about this and the options. I was just musing about the awful day when he might have to go into a nursing home and how terrible it would be to have to make that decision. He explained that now it was not the decision of the family to put a parent in a home. This is because of how in the past children put their parents in a home when there was no need and then the law allowed the children to inherit the farm. This is shocking. But it explains why people have said to me that my dad is of that generation where he remembers these things. But I would hope that he would know that this is something that his family would never do without having explored absolutely every other option. I don't know where this blog entry is going or why I am writing this. I think that what I am trying to highlight is the depths to which the design of human can stoop. Acts like this are of the personality and not of the soul. They come about through a lack of awareness.

I read a little more of the Course in Miracles. For many years I have been dubious of those that claim they have mystical visions of Jesus, Mary other deities. It is claims like this that make books sell. I have felt uncomfortable with this and haven't understood why. I have accepted this discomfort and acknowledged it. Last night I read in the Course of Miracles that a vision always involves a perception. The paragraph speaks about the difference between perception and knowlege. Perception and miracles go together. They are different to knowledge and revelation which also go together. The former only happen in time. The latter are timeless.

Perception and miracles happen in time. Knowledge and revelation do not. Things that are subject to time are not reliable and therefore don't last. This is why people that claim to have visions can't say that they are lasting and permanent. Perception is temporary. Knowlege is certain. Once we see correctly we know. Knowing depends on seeing proper. When our perception is correct then we know with a certainty that makes the need for further questioning unnecessary. Perception involves a continuing need to question. These few sentences from page 40 sums it all up 'How you perceive at any given time determines what you do, and actions must occur in time. Knowledge is timeless, because certainty is not questionable. You know when you have ceased to ask questions'.

What is the fundamental error in our perception. The error that is resulting in us not seeing properly and thus not knowing? I believe that getting in the way of our knowing is the perception of separation. We perceive and thus believe that we are separate from others and from the creator. It is our perception of separation that has resulted in us seeing others as strangers and thus being afraid of them. Correct seeing is recognising which is to know again the unity that underlies the appearance of separation. To see this is to know and to have revelations and insights that are not dependent on time or any visual forms in the mind.

I chatted to the guy from the gym last night and it was nice and relaxed. We seem to think in similar ways on lots of things. I think he's far more sensitive than he shows himself to me to be. I managed to re-establish the easy friendship that we have. This took some time and sorting out on my part. To be clear and honest with myself that I could be OK with him as a friend and not give him mixed messages. We will see whether this works when he comes around on Sunday afternoon. But after the phone call I felt relaxed and happy. I went to bed in that same mood and today unlike yesterday morning I was alert and bright eyed wiling the day to start when my mobile alarm clock went off at 4.30am. I don't sit down to meditate anymore because I know how frenetic my thoughts are without putting myself through it. The strange thing is that they are never this frenetic when I'm writing this blog or walking through nature. Could it be that I am only aware of a fraction of the thoughts that are there when I am not sitting meditating. When I sit down to meditate and force myself to be still that the full intensity of the thoughts in my mind make themselves known. I have a knowing that is not dependent on meditation. I love the unpredictable of when and how insights come to me. I wouldn't like to make them dependent on meditation......


I am envious of people that say they meditate and it helps them. My cousin said something like this before she went to a social event that she felt could have been stressful. I read her words 'I meditated before I went and it was fine'. All I get when I finish a sitting meditation is frustration and a disbelief that I can have the insights and intuitions I have with the kind of mind I have. Interestingly none of my insights or intuitions come to me when I am meditating. Most come just as I am sitting quietly, looking out of the window in the early hours of the morning. I have noticed recently that the minute I finish my blog entry that sentences come that seem to be more powerful and perfectly formed than what I had written in the blog. At first this used to frustrate me, now I just accept that this is the way it is. It is an example of the one-pointedness that is necessary for progress on this path. Dogged determination and courage are the key qualities for this path.

So now I must get ready to go to work. It is a stressful place these days. I spoke about the way we see others as separate. Nowhere is this more obvious than in my work place. There is a tension around that I can't put my finger on. My friend comes to speak to me, checks that I am OK, gives me a long look and walks away. It's like any kind of conversation other than surface is risky. When we see others as separate we set up an us/them division that breeds fear and insecurity. If we could only undo the wrongness of this fundamental error then how much happier the world would be. I feel that the shift from human to spiritual will involve some recognition whether this is through science or some other means that the perception of separation is an illusion. I hope so much to be alive for that day.....