Friday 9 November 2007

The peace that follows when resistance goes.....

After I finished writing the blog this morning I felt an immediate release of tension. I was free of something that had driven my behaviour since childhood. I walked again to work through the park and at one point the sun was shining through the brilliant yellow and brown leaves and the beauty of this sight completely took my breath away. I had one of those moments where my consciousness expanded and I couldn't tell where I stopped and that beauty began. The power and intensity of experiences like this is what makes them so special for me.

I arrived into work happy and met a couple of friends for Friday breakfast. There was a good atmosphere iin the office. I was also aware that all of the tiredness that I had written about a couple of days ago had totally vanished. I was bright eyed and totally awake and alert. What had changed? I didn't have any more sleep. What was different was that the resistance I had been fighting was gone. I was free and as a result no longer tired.

I was a little apprehensive at work today. I can't shake the feeling that there is something coming for me from work. I have no evidence for that it's only my feeling. I have a sense of waiting for something. I had a couple of stressful hours as I battled with putting a document together. Not for the first time I asked myself why does it take me so much longer than the others to do left brain tasks. This was putting a table with rows and columns into a document. It's not rocket science but nothing about it comes intuitively. I went down for lunch not feeling the happiest and decided to have a hot lunch so I queued up with the others. When I reached to the top of the queue the guy who was dishing out the food said 'let's look for a nice piece for you'. I was simply amazed and just looked at him. This was so unexpected and had never happened to me before. I take this as a message from the universe that even if there's all sorts going on in my head that out there in the world, I continue to be looked after.

It is magical how that little act of kindness that cost nothing shifted everything. This is the power of unconditional kindness It is powerful because it is pure. The pure in heart will always be powerful because purity has no trapped energy. Purity is free to create. I finished my lunch and returned upstairs to work. Maybe it was because it was Friday afternoon but I found it difficult to concentrate on anything. At 5pm I shut down my computer and came home.

It was such a beautiful evening walking home. I didn't have any thought in my mind except the connection with the sky and the trees. Once home I started my reading of the Course in Miracles. The first sentence that struck me said 'everyone teaches and teaches all the time. This is a responsibility you inevitably assume the moment you accept any premise at all, and no one can organise his life without any thought system'. Once you have developed a thought system of any kind, you live by it and teach it.

This says to me that as humans it is inevitable that we have a thought system. It is part of the structure we created when we split ourselves off from spirit. This thought system then becomes something that we defend ferociously. It is true because it was made by us and in that sense it is real. But in the overall scheme it is unreal that is why it has to be defended so fiercely. The way to be free from this is to recognise that yes, I have a thought structure and there is nothing wrong with it, but I also recognise that it only a thought structure that has as its products thoughts. My thought structure is not the Truth. It is not a true reflection of the world. It is only a reflection of the world as I think it is.

To shift thinking like this is to heal the separation that occurs between ego and spirit and to return what was split to wholeness. It is also to create a huge expansion of consciousness to enable awakening. No awakening is possible while there is a split in the mind. Awakening comes when the split is healed. All it takes to heal the split is the decision to recognise that thoughts are not reality. They are just what they are and that is simply thoughts. We have them, we are not them. The same goes for feelings. If I was my feeling I wouldn't be able to observe them. I often say I feel sad. If I was this feeling there would be no separation. The fact that I can see my sadness as separate means I cannot be my sadness. Given this why then should I let feelings rule my life. I can't control feelings and they are not who I am so why give them any power. Like thoughts they are there to support to give an illusion that there is something that is stable and enduring.

In a couple of weeks I am going to do a two day consciousness training course with a man called Manuel Schoch. I first met him when I worked as a volunteer for Alternatives many years ago. Alternatives is a popular mind, body spirit organisation in London. Manuel came to give a talk and it so inspired me that I have attended most of his talks when he comes to London from Switzerland where he is based. What I find to be trusted in him is that he is a neuroscientist, psychiatrist and mystic with over 30 years experience in these fields. He says nothing that he hasn't seen from his own observations. He also reads auras. I can't see auras but I believe them to be the invisible energy layer that is around each of us and it shows where a body and mind has experienced trauma.

I was inspired at one of his workshops I attended when this woman asked him to read her aura because she had ME (Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) for many years and wanted to know if it would ever go. He looked at her carefully and then said you have had this for 10 years. She said 'yes'. Then he said 'around that time you were travelling' and she said 'yes, I travelled to India'. He then said 'you got sick in India' and she said 'yes, I was very ill'. Then he said 'I see in your aura some of the virus that you got in India, I have a friend who deals with this, come and see me at the end and I will give you his details, tell him that Manuel sent you'. This woman was understandably over the moon and I had the greatest of respect for this little man who was stood at the front of the room. With all his knowledge and experience and mystical experiences he oozes shyness and humility and he inspires me.

As a volunteer for Alternatives I have had many opportunities to meet lots of spiritual teachers. While there are some genuine ones out there, there are also a lot of opportunists and clever marketing people. On this path it is so important to be able to discern someone authentic from someone who has seen a gap in the market and gone for it with some therapy or theory. In every talk Manuel has given at Alternatives, he has never accepted any payment. He came early to join us in the opening ceremony there was before the start of every talk. To me he is honest and authentic. With all his knowledge and experience he hasn't written loads of books. Here's a good website that gives a broad overview. It's well worth checking out.http://www.sentientpublications.com/authors/m_schoch.php I will ask Manuel directly at this training whether or not I have Asperger's and I will trust what he tells me.

He knows me because when I had the first experience of energy rising from my spine in an office setting on a Saturday morning, I spoke with him about it. I raised the possibility that it happened because of the overactivity of the right brain caused by uncorrected lazy right eye. He looked at me keenly and said 'what has happened to you has nothing to do with your eye'. I promptly dismissed this because it would have meant giving up my attachment to my theory. At tht time this was something I didn't want to do because if it wasn't this, then there REALLY IS SOMETHING!...woa scary big time.

So on November 21 and 22 I will ask Manuel about the possibility of Asperger's. Last night sitting quietly and thinking about this I realised that I want a yes, or no, so that then I can be responsible or not. If it's a no then I am responsible for my life and how it turns out. And if it's a yes, then I'm not responsible and nothing is my fault. It is the fault of the syndrome I didn't even know I had. Nothing could be normal for me because of the way I am.

But is this absolving myself of responsibility because I can now label myself a powerful way for me to be in life, absolutely not. But I've just realised that this is what has been going on. All my life I've been looking for ways to avoid taking responsibility. Asperger's is just the latest way! So now I have seen it I have a choice, I can keep on going the way I have or take responsibility for making things happen instead of looking for ways to have the responsibility taken away from me. I see it all so clearly now. Through writing this blog and letting everything come freely it is something else that was hidden from my view that is now revealed. It has come up for me to look at, get the impact on me and those around me from not taking responsibility, not to make myself wrong for it; it is just the way it was and now to create a new responsible way of being that will create real and lasting transformation in the world.

Today I have my assisting agreement and am far more understanding now of the training that is being given to me. Up to now I was resisting it because it was forcing me to be responsible and I don't do 'responsible'! I find all the layers of 'human' utterly fascinating. I know that there is a game being played out through me and I am all up for it. It is the continuous game of discovery and creation which moves the consciousness of humanity along. I will die but the game will continue.......

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