Blogs

Blogs in the Spotlight

I Ching Meditations

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Adele Aldridge.

Are You Still A Liar?

Posted on May 25, 2013 by digna.

You Don't Need to Return to Battle Trenches

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Brenda Hoffman.

Children Born With Advanced DNA

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Eva Ilean (Admin).

Along with full attention.

Posted May 26, 2013 by Izabella Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ( Site Owner )

In a multitasking society, simplifying is radical. Rather than do two things at once in an attempt to cram more into our limited time, we fully engage ourselves in one thing. If it’s worth doing at all, then it’s worth doing with the whole ourselves.

Only the unnecessary can be a true waste of time. If the action is necessary, but somehow undesirable, then doing it with full attention makes it less undesirable for several reasons. First, full attention connects the task with our inner work and helps build our presence and our soul. Second, full attention enriches any experience. And third, full attention puts more quality into what we do. The same applies to the unnecessary but desirable, like entertainments: full attention makes those even more enjoyable.

Along with full attention, we practice full intention: intending to do the action as we do it and being the one doing it. In this way we own what we do, we take responsibility for it. “I choose to do this and I am doing it.” By such full intention, we avoid half-doing things and avoid the resentment that comes with doing what we must but would rather not do.

Another dimension to this issue arises when we feel overwhelmed by how much we need to do. As we do one thing, we fret about all the other things crowding our agenda. By inwardly slowing down to focus on the task at hand, we usually get it done quicker and better than when we’re rushed and distracted by thoughts about other tasks. Rushing costs us our center. In rushing toward the future, we leave ourselves behind.

But even if our plate is not overfull, to actually do one thing at any given moment does require a clear intention and a focused attention. Distracting thoughts, impulses, and sensory impressions continually vie for our attention. It proves impossible to block all that out. Instead we focus on our chosen task, while letting all the irrelevant and pseudo-relevant items in our stream of awareness pass by. By relaxing into such letting go, the would-be distractions cannot hook us. We stay here in this moment, doing what we do.

So we have these two main aspects of doing one thing a time. First, we choose one thing to do. Second, we do it, while focusing on it, intending it, remaining with it, and staying free of the irregular but continuing flow of distractions. Being in contact with our body and being in presence make it possible truly to do one thing at a time. These practices offer a more stable platform in the present, a place to stand and withstand the stream of sensory impressions, a place from which to focus on our task.
~~~
For this week, practice doing just one thing at a time and staying fully engaged in it.

But there is nothing to fear.

Posted May 26, 2013 by Izabella Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ( Site Owner )

At some point in our spiritual journey, we may experience the misplaced fear (or hope) of abandoning our personality. We practice with the grand but impossible idea that everything we normally take to be who we are has to go. That includes our usual drives, cares and concerns, our patterns of thinking, reacting and interacting, our desires, hopes and dreams, our pleasures and our pains. We may think that spiritual development means ridding ourselves of our entire persona. Fortunately this is not the case. It would be an insurmountable and ultimately a failed and unnecessary project.

A kernel of truth, however, does underlie this notion of banning our personality. That truth leads us toward transcending our usual self, transcending our personality, a process very different than destroying. It is a question of where our center of gravity lies, where we are, who we consider ourselves to be, and who uses or owns our personality.

Closely entwined with our personality, sits our egoism, the self-centered attitude that drives and feeds on so many of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. In the process of spiritual work, this is what diminishes. But there is nothing to fear, because our ego is just an illusion.

To loosen the grip of egoism on our personality, on us, we gradually see that the subjective “self” that ego supposedly is, the “self” that ego builds up and defends, does not in fact exist. This liberating insight in no way diminishes us. Rather, it enlarges and frees us into a greater world, where our intentions derive from a more objective reality attuned not just to our own needs, but also to the needs of our family, our society, our planet, and the Sacred.

In the spiritual path, the relocation of our center of intention goes hand in hand with an increase in the quality and quantity of our inner energies. Personality runs principally on the automatic, programmed energy and to a lesser extent on the sensitive, responsive energy. The conscious energy, the foundation of presence, opens us to a world that transcends our personality without destroying it. The personality remains in the automatic and sensitive energies, while we learn to live more in the conscious energy. We become more than just our personality.

So as our self-centered egoism weakens and is left behind, our personality stays intact, providing a ready vehicle through which our higher intentions can act and through which we can enjoy our inwardly enriched lives.
~~~
For this week, notice the automated, programmed patterns of your personality in action. See what transcending it would mean.

More loving way of life.

Posted May 26, 2013 by Izabella Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ( Site Owner )

Like a fish in water or a human surrounded by air, we overlook the obvious even when it’s crucial. The same situation confronts us on the path of soul development. We live in a state of non-presence and do not recognize it as such. When my thoughts ramble, when I eat without tasting, when my body moves without me being in that movement, when sounds enter my ears without me listening, when sights enter my eyes without me seeing them, when my mouth speaks without me being the speaker, when my body experiences or acts without me being the experiencer or actor — for all of this I take no notice. This is my unremarkable, ordinary, programmed and patterned mode of living, or rather half-living, my life. Such a life lives itself with little true humanity.

Nevertheless, another possibility awaits us: a deeper, more joyous, more meaningful, more productive, and more loving way of life. For that, we need to live in presence. To be aware of the sensations in our body, to be in conscious wholeness, to be the one who does whatever we do, to live kindly and mindfully, to live as attention and intention, to collect and organize our inner energies through meditation, to add to the sacred through prayer — all this and more belongs in a truer life.

The difference between the programmed life and the truer life is sometimes stark and sometimes subtle. But for this difference we need to acquire a taste. All of us live both kinds of life. Can we distinguish between them, in any given moment? Can we know which mode we are in now? And let that knowing prompt us to move from the half-life to the whole-life?

The taste of non-presence can be bitter, dull, or even sweet, but always has a layer of superficial emptiness and never truly satisfies. The taste of presence, on the other hand, adds a dimension of richness and depth to any experience or act. The practice of presence helps us acquire the taste of presence. And by contrast, the taste of presence helps develop our taste for recognizing non-presence.

These tastes consist of a nuanced inner sense of the qualities and levels of presence and non-presence. This sense enables us to recognize our inner state for what it is, especially in comparison with other possible states. Spiritual practice gives us the tools to move toward a higher state. But a finely-honed taste for presence and non-presence can help guide us through our inner landscape, help us know which tools to use and when.

The taste of non-presence can be our great ally in the spiritual path. For through it, through discomfort with our programmed-response, minimal-awareness mode of pseudo-living, we acquire the heart of longing that draws us toward the sacred, toward presence. The taste of presence, the self-evident rightness of true living, motivates our inner work in lesser states.
~~~
For this week, whenever you remember, develop your taste for presence and non-presence by noticing whether and to what degree you are present. And let that taste increase your motivation, your heart for the practice of presence.

We waste energy in many ways.

Posted May 26, 2013 by Izabella Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ( Site Owner )

Leaks in our spiritual vessel limit the benefit of the practices we do to increase our supply of inner energies. We waste energy in many ways, such as allowing harmful emotions to run rampant through us and indulging in physical excesses like overeating, smoking, and drinking too much alcohol. Another basic, often unrecognized waste of precious energy occurs through unintentional, unnecessary bodily tensions and fidgeting.

Habitual muscular tensions prey on us in repetitious patterns in our forehead, around our eyes, lips and mouth, shoulders, abdomen, or anywhere else in our body. Of course some tensions are required: we could not stand or walk or perform the myriad movements of life without using our muscles. But many tensions clearly serve no useful purpose and do squander our energy: hunching our shoulders, contorting our face, tightness in our belly, etc.

A second mode of energy waste through muscles is the repetitious, purposeless movement of fidgeting. Examples include playing with pocket change, drumming our fingers, playing with a pencil, moving a foot back and forth while sitting, chewing on something inedible like a pencil or the inside of our cheek, scratching when there’s no itch.

If we try to contain our tensions and stop fidgeting by inner force, the energy released will find another wasteful outlet. Nonessential tensions and useless fidgeting often result from some destructive emotion looking for release. So instead of trying to bottle them up and thereby piling on yet another kind of tension, we take a different approach.

When we notice unneeded tensions or fidgeting, we just relax into presence and let them go. In that relaxation we conserve the energy that was being wasted and allow it to enter our being and enhance our presence. The key to this method lies in not attempting to relax the tensions or stop the fidgeting directly, but rather to relax our self when we notice tensions or fidgeting. Relaxing from the inside out allows the tensions and fidgeting to subside naturally and effortlessly. We put down an inner weight and breathe a sigh of relief.
~~~
For this week, notice your own unnecessary muscular tensions and fidgeting. Relax yourself to relax the tensions and let the fidgeting calm down. Allow the energy to stay in your relaxed being.

Through our spiritual development.

Posted May 26, 2013 by Izabella Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ( Site Owner )

The core purpose of prayer, and all spiritual practice, may well be to open a channel through which the blessing of Divine potential can flow into this world. Spiritual practice, if continued beyond presence and beyond the level of pure consciousness, gives us access to the world of Divine potential, the sacred luminosity. That creative light carries the seeds of all healing, goodness, beauty, wisdom and kindness, qualities so sorely needed on the global scale of this Earth.

No single person, group, lineage, or religion has a monopoly on the Divine potential, whose overflowing love offers a means toward resolving the difficult issues confronting us all. No sensitive person ignores the terrible poverty, violence, and environmental damage on our little planet. And in facing that, we face our apparent powerlessness. But we can each play our personal, constructive role in the drama of this planet. That role can include both outward service and inward action.

Through our spiritual development, as our being grows and our will purifies, the world of Divine potential opens to us. When we turn toward the sacred, that potential pours vividly through us, as a high spiritual energy, into the life of this Earth. We can even direct it to where the need is greatest. Herein lies our secret hope, both for ourselves and the whole community of life.

The inner act is simple and direct. Bring yourself into your best state, perhaps through meditation. Adopt an attitude of devotion to the Divine. If it helps, use inner words of prayer or a silent chant or melody, something that touches you deeply. By engaging your entire being, turn the whole of your attention, your heart, and your mind toward heaven, the effulgent world of Divine potential.

Not far but near, it awaits you just beyond consciousness. Neither outward nor inward, neither right nor left, neither up nor down, that realm of sacred luminosity resides outside space, time, and direction. But through you, it can enter to help this troubled world and, in the process, transform your soul.
~~~
For this week, practice turning toward the realm of the Divine potential. Draw down its blessing. Send it where it is needed.

Displaying 1 to 5 of 4561