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Nothing and Everything

Thanks again Adya

When Spiritual Seeking Becomes Accepting

I have challenged myself not to continually look for the spirit in things and just go with the flow of life this week.  This challenge is about stopping my reading, listening and watching spiritual teachings over and over.  I have committed to just being in life. I have time and again reset my mind to "This is it!"  What is here in front of me right now is mine to engage in or not...  If I choose not, that is still a choice.  From this practice, I have noticed a few things.  First, many of the emotional issues I thought I had solved through seeking came rushing back at me!  I found myself declaring:  "What the heck was all that seeking for?!"  Then I returned to the moment in a silent place.  This place is peaceful but not neglectful or judgmental.  It merely allowed the emotional response to be what is and then returned to the present frame of life.  The amazing part was it was done without direct effort and making it happen.  I didn't force myself to follow my breath or do any amazing techniques.  It was a soft gentle return with the subtle knowing of what was virtual truth vs where reality is...  Falling into the silence has helped me engage in life from a different place of me.  It's still me, it's just not attached in the same way to outcomes or making things happen in a particular way at a particular time.

The strange thing is that life still happens and moves forward without the weight of how I have to make it happen or move it forward.  Don't misunderstand, it's not like I'm doing nothing.  It's quite the opposite I'm still doing stuff (writing reports, discussing solutions, playing with the kids, disciplining the kids, work etc..).  I'm just not attached emotionally or energetically in ways that cause a great deal of stress.  If I were in the same situation even just a year ago I would have been paralyzed to do anything but make up a lot of drama in my head.  Yet, life feels more in charge and influential then ever.  I am trusting it and experiencing the process of this chapter of my life.  What's next?  I do not know.  Yet if I'm going to think anyway:  "It's going to be amazing..." is what I choose to think.  In the end, it really is all amazing...  even the very idea of critical mind is amazing and bewildering.  Just, Let it be, Let it be...

Superego, Ego and peace

The place of ego is where we get caught in our everyday wants and desires...  "I want a cupcake.  I want more chocolate.  I want a nice day outside."  Our superego passes judgement:  "What no cupcakes!!!!  What kind of bakery is this anyway?  No cupcakes...."  Together they form our dance between what we want and what we believe "should" happen in our lives or how our lives "should go."  We end up talking and talking to ourselves as though we have numerous different personalities that all have some antiquated value.  "Well, a bakery without a cupcake is like a tire shop without tires!"  We laugh or suffer based on how we attach to these beliefs.  When we identify strongly with our thoughts we suffer the consequences.  The consequences most often come in strong or persistent emotion, such as anxiety, fear, sadness, stress and despair.  Worse off when we start behaving based on these attachment we can destroy relationships, stay stuck in despair and relinquish ourselves to a life of self declared mediocrity.  Worse than that we can just be dead to life and experience tremendous suffering, pain and turmoil and on and on and on.

We can see through our own belief that we hold some sort of ultimate truth in our thoughts.  It does not seem to be true that all the answers to how life should be are contained in the mind.  There is no perfect bakery that bakes everything everyone wants.  There is no perfect way to live our life.  There is only life itself and that is where perfection lies.  How we engage in it determines the direction it will go.  Peace comes from the wisdom to engage in what is already here from the stance of "this is it!"  What is in front of me right NOW is reality.  What happens in my head is mostly ego, superego and is technically unreal.  What happens emotionally is most often tied to what's happening in the head. When we let go of the chatter of the mind and focus on the truth of the moment, the mind tends to be more silent and more helpful.  In this state the mind becomes an important tool for creating solutions and seeing through problems. It's the process of discernment...  What is real vs what is unreal.

See life as it is moment to moment to moment and embrace it.  Go into the moment with your mind, heart and gut free of attachment.  See what happens...  Oh yes, this is simple and as complicated as you want to make it. This took me 7 years to experience and I have more to go...