Rainbow

Hi,

 

I had an interesting experience last night. I lie on my back for a while resting as the witness before I roll over and sleep, and last night became aware of a blue light. The light gave way to waves of color moving through my experience… red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet..all the colors of the rainbow.. and then an experience of my body being a rainbow of light… this was all spontaneous.. don’t think it lasted too long..  gotto love the colors of K Ma :) those new New Balance’s must have triggered something..lol.. “Beam me up, Scotty!!”

Love

Bruce…

Nowhere to go

 

I see the edge and fall again and again. Just open with love and compassion, and as I write this, the mind says 'how' and wants to grasp onto love and compassion as the way. This is another trip down the dualistic road, trying to hold onto the way, the mind wanting certainty through grasping onto the higher way, yet the way is by its nature ungraspable. There can be no grasping, so holding, no interference for the way to shine.

I dont know, and I know I dont know, and the ego throws up its fearful hands as it recognizes it really really has no substance and no power as  its facade is finally seen through.

The heart is vibrating. Simply not stirring up the thoughts, and not setting 'not stirring' as the way. Not to interfere with this moment, not to take hold of this moment, yet also not setting ‘detachment and non-interfering’ as the way. I don’t know how it’s supposed to be; there is no ‘it’ to become, only  being. There is no way, there is no gate, yet the paradox is that this “no gate” is the gate. There is no entrance to a deeper more fundamentally reality than the stories of the mind, there is no way to wake up from the dream, there is only seeing the dream blowing on past yet no one to see the dream.

Nothing to hold onto, nowhere to go, no path to follow, and with no path to follow, opening to all paths. Opening to all possibilities. In having no way to follow all ways become possible, all light becomes a path to be walked down.

I had a recognition yesterday that I desire to give life to others, to myself. The path doesnt feel like its so much about me any more, about my growth or awakening or transformation, although when contraction happens, then the work is done which is simple opening, welcoming, accepting, taking opposites. How can this path be about giving life, renewal, easing suffering in others? Even this sentance is tricky; the mind sees its tendancy to grasp onto the ‘way of service’, seeking for certainty in identifying with ‘the way’, yet this is also a trap, a return to duality. The way is to feel the hearts desire, allow it to be there, allow it to burn, and trust for right action at the right time, including knowing that right action may be commitment to a path, committing to a way. All ways are possible. The way just cannot be held, the way cannot be owned, possessed, or used to give security in even the smallest form. Yet this doesnt mean that I need to live in insecurity. Insecurity is felt into, loved, embraced, and surrender allowed to happen, and the return of the way is the return of radiance, itself surrendered, seen for what it is, seen for a trap of its own wellbeing.

And with nowhere to go, and not knowing anything, living happens again. The grass is green and the sky is blue, just as it was before the search for awakening started. There is no complexity, its just like this. For a long time there was searching for the right color of the grass, and now the grass is simply the color it is, depending on the light, or on the seasons. Today its green. Or  chop wood carry water. Doing the work. Doing what is required for life. I heard an interesting quote.

“The Divine is the possibility of possibility”

As opening deepens, possibility emerges. That which was closed becomes open. That which is unseen becomes expectant with unknown potential. If the small self kicks in with it’s self centered contracted limited dentifications, the way is to open, feel, embrace, love. It feels as though the enlightenment drama is over, then maybe its not. Perhaps more burning will happen tomorrow, just like there was an hour or two of slight burning this morning. It feels as though the self-obession is coming to an end, that the journey of the separate little contracted self has moved into  autumn and there arent many leaves left on the trees. I heard another quote..

“The separate I is just a memory.”

 

Rambling on again. Nowhere to go. Just keep walking.

Love

Bruce

Psalm 139

A lady came up and read this at church this morning… The theme is that God is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere present. God knows us, God is with us, and his greatest gift is to allow us to know him..

 

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

Faith

I read this in a book by Paulo Coelho as I was cleaning up this morning, and starting to feel OK again…

 

“The Warrior of the Light does not always have faith.

There are moments when he believes in absolutely nothing. And he asks in his heart “Is this effort really worth it?”

 

But his heart remains silent. And the Warrior has to decide for himself.

 

He looks for an example and remembers that Jesus went through something similiar in order to inhabit fully the human condition.

 

“Take this cup away from me,” said Jesus. He too lost heart and courage, but he did not stop.

 

The Warrior of the Light continues despite his lack of faith. He goes forward, and in the end, faith returns.

 

Love

Bruce

Unfolding heart..

Hi everyone,

 

I went to a new bible study course on the story of the prodigal son. This came about after meeting someone at the garage where my car was being fixed, we had a good connection, and he called and invited me to a six week course..

 

What came out in the first session was the role of the second brother, who stayed home, tried to be good, yet didnt care about the fathers heart, wanting his wealth and status more than he wanted to honor the father. It came clear how even though God has my number, I still have a couple of selfish agendas, and it struck me what it was to desire the kingdom of God more than anything thing else, to desire the heart and emptiness  through the way of letting go as the only desire that matters and what it means to be true to that.. and feeling so much clarity in this recognition.. feel it ties in with my dream on the weekend of more heart surgery, and the heart now being pure and with that purity comes clarity.. and the deepening these few days into what emptiness and the unseen actually means as the primary lived reality, and the clarity from that living..

the more you let go the more the heart opens and reveals .. :)

 

profound.. simple.. beautiful..

 

Rumi again..

 

“We have a huge barrel of wine but no cups.

Thats fine with us. Every morning

we glow and in the evening we glow again.

 

They say there’s no future for us. They’re right.

Which is fine with us”

 

love

Bruce

Run and Run..

I found this poem by Rumi.. about pushing the limits in Love, about the irrational adventure.

 

“A lover doesn’t figure the odds.

 

He figures he came clean from God

as a gift without reason,

so he gives without cause

or calculation or limit.

 

A conventionally religious person

behaves a certain way

to achieve salvation.

 

A lover gambles everything, the self,

the circle around the zero! He or she

cuts and throws it away.

 

This is beyond

any religion.

 

Lovers do not require from God any proof,

or any text, nor do they knock on the door

to make sure this is the right street.

 

They run,

and they run.”

Kiss the ground

 

This is from a friends blog… :)

 

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Rumi

Love

Bruce

Holy Defects

 

This is a Rumi Poem I enjoy.. called "Your Defects"

"An empty mirror and your worst destructive habits,

when they are held up to each other,

thats when the real making begins.

That's what are and crafting are.

A tailor needs a torn garment to practice his expertise.

The trunks of trees must be cut and cut again

so they can be used for fine carpentry.

Your doctor must have a broken leg to doctor.

Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested"

 

Another friend send me these words.. for me this means that I trust Presence, which is my True Self and subject, to intelligently heal, transform and bring wisdom, more than I trust my mind and its habitual stories.. and the more I trust Presence, the more it becomes my only foundation and the more I recognize its nature to be Love, which is what I was always seeking..

 

"How quickly the tranformation occurs when i can see what is underneath negation of what is.....
For i am very secure in the truth that love is the foundation of all that is true, sane, and enduring....Now
i needed to see that hatred was the foundation of all that was unreal, insane and illusory....that which never was.... 
I hope this is not too heavy but wanted to share if for the deeper i grasp it the greater the liberation and opening....."

 

Love

Bruce

Silence

 

Two friends sent me two poems this week.. the first is from the Tao Te Ching, the second poem came with the picture above..

The most yielding thing in the world

   will overcome the most rigid

The most empty thing in the world

   will overcome the most full

From this comes a lesson -

   Stillness benefits more than action

   Silence benefits more than words

‘Rare indeed are those who are still

Rare indeed are those who are silent

And so I say,

   Rare indeed are those

   who obtain the bounty of this world’

 

 

Silence II

Silence is not a lack of words.
Silence is not a lack of music.
Silence is not a lack of curses.
Silence is not a lack of screams.
Silence is not a lack of colors
or voices or bodies or whistling wind.
Silence is not a lack of anything.
Silence is resting, nestling
in every leaf of every tree,
in every root and branch.
Silence is the flower sprouting
upon the branch.
Silence is the mother singing
to her newborn babe.
Silence is the mother crying
for her stillborn babe.
Silence is the life of all
these babes, whose breath
is a breath of God.
Silence is seeing and singing praises.
Silence is the roar of ocean waves.
Silence is the sandpiper dancing
on the shore.
Silence is the vastness of a whale.
Silence is a blade of grass.
Silence is sound
And silence is silence.
Silence is love, even
the love that hides in hate.
Silence is the pompous queen
and the harlot and the pimp
hugging his purse on a crowded street.
Silence is the healer dreaming
the plant, the drummer drumming
the dream. It is the lover's
exhausted fall into sleep.
It is the call of morning birds.
Silence is God's beat tapping all hearts.
Silence is the star kissing a flower.
Silence is a word, a hope, a candle
lighting the window of home.
Silence is everything --the renewing sleep
of Earth, the purifying dream of Water,
the purifying rage of Fire, the soaring
and spiraling flight of Air. It is all
things dissolved into no-thing--Silence
is with you always.....the Presence
of I AM

- Elaine Maria Upton

How to move God

 

What are you willing to cry out for? I found this by Amma today.

“Amma gives a lot of importance to praying with our whole being. Here is a quote from Amma: "Children, no other sadhana (spiritual practice) will give you the bliss of divine love as effectively as sincere prayer. You don’t have to undergo any academic training to love God. You don’t have to be a scholar or a philosopher to worship Him or to call out to Him. Just call out, but let the call come from your heart. Just as a child cries out for food or to be fondled or cuddled by his mother, call out to Him with the same intensity and innocence. Cry and pray to Him. He must reveal Himself. He cannot sit silent and unmoved when somebody calls Him like that."

 

Love

Bruce

The peace of Christ

I went through another layer of inner healing this last week, as the Christ in me healed deep beliefs of not being worthy and not being good enough. As the healing approached, I was feeling uncomfortably compelled to take action in the world to change my external situation, trying to avoid facing my inner truth.

I dreamed I was being operated on my spiritual doctors, and literally for 4 days after, felt as though I was recovering from an operation. I was exhausted, slept a lot and felt foggy, as though on medication.

And then after, I began to feel a renewal of Christ’s love in me, and around me, shining through everything. The love is with me tonight as I write. Today at work I was no longer caught in the mental stories of pressurizing myself to start a business, or live my purpose.

In the peace of Christ, I was complete. This is a supreme gift. The Prince of Peace.

It is such a blessing to know that His healing, and his peace and love, awaits, if we could be willing to surrender our stories and our desires to take charge of our lives, and  to stop obsessing about our lives. This is freedom.

 

Love

Bruce

Release

Everyone wants to expand in love, goodness, success and wellbeing. Often what they are looking for is a way  to release an inner tension of dissatisfaction through doing or becoming or having something.

The awakened way is to see that that inner release comes first. When there is an inner release of tension, there is a sense of the self relaxing and expanding, and a natural love and happiness shines out.

This happiness and love has always been the center of your being, just obscured through holding on and inner attachment. This inner holding on creates the illusion that happiness is lost, and needs to be regained, yet happiness and love is never lost.

What is required is to surrender to love as the essence of your being.

Just let go. Its that simple. And if you cant let go, then simply learn to stay present to your mind and your body, and sooner or later letting go will happen.

God in action..

I spoke to an old friend last week, someone I wondered about, yet haven’t spoken to in almost twenty years. She is married with 3 children, and her oldest child has severe epilepsy and brain developmental issues. What was almost a near perfect life has been invaded by suffering. She told me how one has to question the existence of a loving god, when innocent beautiful children are born into a life of suffering.

I have been wanting to write this post for several days, yet a part of me feels I have no right to write it. I have had my own suffering, pain, loss and disempowerment, yet this is nothing compared to a chronically debilitating illness. I have not had to raise an innocent child who was born into seizures. I don’t know the ‘why’ of suffering on the blameless.

What struck me from my friend was her willingness, in the face of suffering, to love her child, and to find joy and blessing in the gift of the child, amidst the question of God’s existence and the feeling of separation from Spirit. I felt her heart as a mother, and saw her courage and her bravery. I came across this quote by another friend yesterday.

“So often I have remembered what the Divine Mother spoke to Amma, "You have not been born to just experience bliss and peace, but rather to give comfort and solace to humanity. Use your Divine gifts to bring relief. That will be the real worship of me, who resides in the hearts of all beings as their essence".

Through my friend’s choice to respond to the suffering of her child with Love, I saw God in existence, in action. In John 16:7, Christ talks about the Holy Spirit as ‘the Comforter’. What is the spirit in her that responds to suffering with love and care? What is it that responds to suffering with outrage and heartbreak? How can an impersonal world be filled with a desire to comfort and solace? Even if my friend could not see it, her life and response, to love and not to reject, had to be evidence of a loving God, seeking to bring light into suffering.

Shining Light

I read the words of Matthew 5 last night..

⁴"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

 

These words jumped out at me, and I lay thinking about our responsibility as Christians, to let our highest good into the world. As Christians, we are lights in the world, powered by the Holy Spirit, to bring glory to the father. In the Lords Prayer, the lines are “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. How are we bringing Gods kingdom into the earth?

 

Jesus was a social revolutionary, challenging the sin and power structures of his time. He would retreat in prayer, regain his strength, then go into the world, preaching, teaching, healing, doing Gods work to transform the earth. At the school I teach at, there is little spirituality, yet today I was encouraged when a group of students asked if they could use my classroom to pray for a sick student. This gave me hope, hope for them to become leaders, to become social revolutionaries, to choose life, honor and respect instead of lawless self-interest.  They can do this by being lights, by letting their goodness shine out while they praise their father in heaven…

In Christ’s name

I have been thinking about this line from John 14:13 recently “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

This verse is a call to radical surrender. How much do I really trust God to allow him to do everything? How much do I still feel I need to take the bull by the horns and make things happen? How much do I want to be glorified, to look good to others, to accumulate possessions to feel secure?

As I go deeper I begin to allow God to do more and more, to trust that its really Him, and not me, that makes things happen.

 

To God be the glory, great things he has done. Hallowed by thy name (not mine), dear Lord :)

Already free

 

“There is a great secret that beings throughout time have announced, the secret of an extraordinary treasure, the treasure of the nectar of eternal life. It is the nectar of pure beingness, recognizing itself as consciousness and overflowing in the love of that recognition.
If you imagine yourself to be located in a body, then you will move that body from place to place, searching for this treasure of nectar. But, if you will stop all searching right now and tell the truth to yourself, you will know what is known in the core of your bones. You will know what these great beings knew and attempted to describe. You will know it with no image of it, no concept of it, no thought of it. You will know it as that which has eternally been here. And you will know it as yourself.”
– Gangaji, spiritual teacher

Divine Tears

 

Why is the journey to the Divine Union such a painful journey? because, in the words of a Persian song,

The ego will not go with laughter and with caresses

But must be chased with sorrow and drowned in tears.

But love is more powerful than all our evasions, than all the walls we have erected around ourselves. "

From Love is a Fire: The Sufi's mystical journey home.

Dhyana Meditation

This is from a good friends blog, and originally from Llewellyn Vaughn Lee, a Jungian Analyst/Sufi Teacher :) I have been doing the practice consistently for a few weeks and it has many positive levels :)

Dhyana meditation connecting heart and mindfulness . .

" The heart meditation that we practiced was developed in India, where it is also known as dhyana meditation:For the heart meditation, as long as the body is relaxed the physical position does not matter: one can sit or even lie down.

The first stage in this meditation is to evoke the feeling of love, which activates the heart chakra. This can be done in a number of ways, the simplest of which is to think of someone whom we love. This can be God, the great Beloved. But often at the beginning God is an idea rather than a living reality within the heart, and it is easier to think of a person whom we love, a lover, a friend.

Love has many different qualities. For some the feeling of love is warmth, or a sweetness, a

softness or tenderness, while for others it

is peace, tranquility or silence. Love can also come as a pain, a

heartache, a sense of loss. However love comes to us, we immerse

ourself in this feeling; we place all of ourself in the love within the heart.

When we have evoked the feeling of love, thoughts will come, intrude

into our mind—what we did the day before, what we have to do tomorrow. Memories will float by, images appear before the mind’s eye. We have to imagine that we are getting hold of every thought, every image and feeling, and drowning it, merging it into the feeling of love.

Every feeling, especially the feeling of love, is much more dynamic

than the thinking process, so if one does this practice well, with the utmost concentration, all thoughts will disappear. Nothing will remain.

The mind will be empty. The state of dhyana is a complete abstraction of the senses in which the mind is stilled by the energy of love within the heart, and the individual mind is absorbed into the universal mind. The actual experience of dhyana rarely happens during the first practice of meditation. It may take months, even a few years, to reach this stage. And once we do begin to experience dhyana we may not realize it. The initial experiences of dhyana usually last for just a split second—for an instant the mind dips into the infinite and just for a

moment we are not present. There may be little or no consciousness

that this has happened; the mind may not even be aware that it was absent. But gradually, the mind disappears for longer and longer periods; we become aware that our mind has shut down. The experience can for some time seem like sleep, since sleep is the nearest equivalent we have ever known to this mindless state.

The experience of dhyana deepens as the lover is immersed deeper and deeper into a reality beyond the mind. More and more one tastes the peace, stillness, and profound sense of wellbeing of a far vaster reality where the problems that surround us so much of the time do not exist—a reality beyond the difficulties of duality and the limitations of the world of the mind and senses, into which, for a little while each day, meditation allows us to merge. Dhyana is the first stage in the

meditation of the heart. It is, as Irina Tweedie described it, “the first stage after transcending the thinking faculty of the mind, and from the point of view of the intellect it must be considered as an unconscious state. It is the first step beyond consciousness as we know it.”(6)In dhyana, the heart is activated and the energy of love slows down the mind. The mind loses its power of control and individual consciousness is lost, at first for an instant and then gradually for longer periods of time. The lover becomes absorbed, drowned in the ocean of love.

Then in this state of unconsciousness a higher level of consciousness, or samadhi, begins to awaken. The evolution of dhyana into samadhi happens “by easy degrees,” as “the highest stages of dhyana are gradually transformed into the lower stage of samadhi, which is still not completely conscious,” and this less-conscious state leads in turn to the higher state of samadhi, which “represents a full awakening

of one’s own divinity.”(7)

The experiences of samadhi cannot easily be described. They belong to a level of reality beyond the mind, to a dimension of unity in which everything is merged, where the mind, operating as it does by making distinctions, cannot get a foothold. In samadhi we begin to experience our true nature which is a state of oneness: we are what we experience. Gradually we glimpse, are infused with, the all-encompassing unity and energy of love that belong to the Self and

underlie all life. And this oneness is not a static state, but a highly dynamic state of being that is constantly changing. Also our experience of it changes: no two meditations are the same and our experience becomes deeper and richer, more and more complete. On this plane of

unity everything has its own place and fulfills its real purpose. Here the true nature of everything that is created is present as an expression of divine oneness and divine glory. In the outer world we

experience only a fragmented sense of our self and our life. Here everything is complete and we come to know that everything is just as it should be.

What do you want?

Matthew 6:33 ‘Seek ye first, the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you’

In the Spiritual walk, do you want something from God, or do you want God?

Will God alone satisfy, or will what you want from Him satisfy? Does being stripped of everything, your money, your family, your culture, your health, and  having only the Love of God, scare you or seduce you?

As God draws us towards him in the supreme act of Love, He wants us to want Him, not the things He can give us.

In this way, God is a jealous God.

Burning

At prayers this evening I was feeling the hunger for new vision, to be captivated by something new. A speaker came up as I was thinking that, and said he felt God saying that we need to get fresh for God, to go beyond the habits of our words, and find new purpose.

I came home and wrote this short poem, called ‘Ignite’.

Ignite me.

Burn me, oh Lord.

Raise your fire within.

Brand with me your torch so I burn, burn

with your light, for your light, by your light.

Ignite me, oh lord.

Let your angels speak your Holy Vision.

Set fire me to with your Holy Vision,

releasing me into service of

‘Thy will be done, thy kingdom come’.

How I hunger to burn with your light,

To act guided by your compass.

A man without vision is an empty shell.

Ignite me oh lord. Set the days on Holy Fire.

Bringing me back to life

One of my favorite songs is from Cade Del Mar, “A man called Adam-Easter song”. In it are the words “I put myself in your hands completely. You’re bringing me back to life”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzCM-rC3d6Q&feature=PlayList&p=4D97454FA471F5CA&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=14

I love this song. When I get caught up in myself, I have learned to stop, slow down, remember that Christ supports me if I would only trust and let go of my way. Christ came to give life, and give it to the full. When I stop and let go of my way, and open to God’s way, the sign that the opening is authentic is a feeling of life.

This is the miracle of spirituality, one of the central teachings of awakened living. The self-contraction can be held in loving awareness, in an embrace of gentle compassion and self acceptance, and slowly openness returns. Life returns. Possibility returns.

This is beautiful. This is the miracle of surrender, the fountain of life.

Awareness liberates.

Who do you say I am?

Matthew 16:12-16 “When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

¹⁴They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

¹⁵"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

¹⁶Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,^[a] the Son of the living God."

 

Who do you say Christ is? Not what you heard at church, not what you have always believed, but right now.

What if the most powerful, loving, intelligent, creative force in the Universe was sitting in the room with you. Would you pass off some glib answer? Or would you recognize your infinite smallness and fall on the floor, humbled into eternity?

Would you casually keep watching TV and live tomorrow as you did today?

Somehow, I know that if what I say He is doesn’t shake me to the core and shatter me open with fresh death and rebirth, then I have forgotten what it means to be in relationship with God, and I have fallen back into relationship with my pride.

Just think. What if you knew God was really in the room with you. Who would you say He is?

If I say He is God who suffered and died for me, does my heart reflect this truth, or am I a liar?

Disciples

Today I thought about spreading the kingdom. What came to mind were the words of Christ from John 13 vs34-45

“34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Love is the kingdom of Christ.  I see Christ established on this earth when we live in healthy relationship. We encourage and support each other. We hold each other to our highest truths. Our hearts are open and we live our lives in service and honor of a greater truth, of The Way of Christ.

In the kingdom our small self-centeredness, our pride, will have gone. In the kingdom I see us open, Gods love pouring into us, Gods love pouring out of us, and this flow creating life for us and those around.

My inquiry is simple, yet the answer is nothing less than the complete dissolving of my separate self.  “How do I love like Christ?”

In this is the miracle. If I can allow my little human self to get out the way (which is all Christ is asking), I am released into Love, I am released into discipleship of Christ.

The non-duality of Good and Evil

 

 

This is a repost from my friend Marci Mattes blogsite.

By David Loy

If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Because it emphasizes mindfulness of our thought processes, Buddhism encourages us to be wary of antithetical concepts, not only good and evil, but success and failure, rich and poor, even the duality between enlightenment and delusion. We distinguish between the opposing terms because we want one rather than the other, yet the meaning of each depends upon the other. That may sound abstract, but such dualities are actually quite troublesome for us. If, for example, it is important to live a pure life (however I understand purity), then I need to be preoccupied with avoiding impurity. If wealth is important for me, then I am also worried about avoiding poverty. We cannot take one lens without the other, and such pairs of spectacles filter our experience of the world.

What does this mean for the duality of good versus evil? One way the interdependence of good and evil shows itself is this: we don’t feel we are good unless we are fighting against evil. We can feel comfortable and secure in our own goodness only by attacking and destroying the evil outside us. And, sad to say but true, this is why we like wars: they cut through the petty problems of daily life and unite us good guys here against the bad guys over there. There is fear in that, of course, but it is also exhilarating. The meaning of life becomes clearer.

We all love the struggle between good (us) and evil (them). It is, in its own way, deeply satisfying. Think of the plots of the James Bond films, the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones films. In such movies, it’s quite obvious who the bad guys are. Caricatures of evil, they are ruthless, maniacal, without remorse, and so they must be stopped by any means necessary, We are meant to feel that it is okay – even, to tell the truth, pleasurable – to see violence inflicted upon them. Because the villains like to hurt people, it’s okay to hurt them. Because they like to kill people, it’s okay to kill them. After all, they are evil and evil must be destroyed.

What is this kind of story really teaching us? That if you want to hurt someone, it is important to demonize them first – in other words, fit them into your good-versus-evil story. That is why the first casualty of all wars is truth.

Such stories are not just entertainment. In order to live, we need air, water, food, clothes, shelter, friends – and we need stories, because they teach us what is important in life. They give us models of how to live in a complicated, confusing world. Until the last hundred years or so, the most important stories for most people were religious. Today, however, the issue is not whether a story is an ennobling one, a good myth to live by, but the bottom line: will it sell?

The story of good and evil sells because it is simple and easy to understand, yet from a Buddhist viewpoint it can be dangerously deceptive. It keeps us from looking deeper, from trying to discover causes. Once something has been identified as evil, no more is there a need to explain it, only a need to fight it.

By contrast, Buddhism focuses on the three unwholesome roots of evil, also known as the three poisons: greed, ill will, and delusion. In place of the struggle between good and evil, Buddhism emphasizes ignorance and enlightenment. The basic problem is one of self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?

In a passage from the Sutta Nipata, Ajita asks of the Buddha, “What is it that smothers the world? What makes the world so hard to see? What would you say pollutes the world and threatens it most?”

“It is ignorance which smothers,” the Buddha replies, “and it is heedlessness and greed which make the world invisible. The hunger of desire pollutes the world, and the great source of fear is the pain of suffering.”

Because this view offers us a better understanding of what actually motivates people – all of us – it also implies a very different way to address the problems created by ignorance and desire and violence: not a new holy war against evil, but a less dramatic struggle to transform our own greed into generosity, ill will into love, and ignorance into wisdom.

David R. Loy is Professor in the Faculty of International Studies at Bunkyo University, Japan, and a Zen student. His most recent book is A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack (SUNY Press, 2002).

Washing the self away.

There is no escape from the self. Stop trying to escape into the future of an idealized self image and realize there is nothing you can do under your own power to attain happiness. Any illusion of being special is an illusion.

 

I heard the testimony of a humble man on Tuesday. Wednesday I felt disconnected from God and felt the pain of my resistance. Today I woke and connected into the bible not knowing what I would find, simply seeking understanding. I was drawn to the Gospel of St John, and I read with a type of Ignatian Visualization, trying to feel into  the events of the time, imagine them, smell them, trying to feel Jesus. There is a good likelyhood I would have been one of those who did not recognize Him, one of those who turned away from Him and did not believe Him.

 

As I read I was struck by the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet before the last supper. He said to Peter in John 13:12-16 “When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should wash another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

 

I spent much of today with the intention to connect to Christ, his teaching, his message, knowing that I did not know and I was willing to learn.

 

During prayers at church tonight, our church leader said he felt the spirit of Christ the strongest he had felt it in 20 years. One of the elders mentioned Christ the servant. Driving home, my mother told me that in biblical times, the lowest servant in the house had the job of washing the dusty feet of travelers.

 

I remember when Christ first presented himself to me in my dream states. He came washing my feet, preparing me for the Masters Chamber. That vision takes on increasing depth and texture through time. Today I saw it as Christ recognizing me as His disciple long before I was fully committed to Him. Yes, I am honored, but Christ’s words are demanding. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

 

My resistance these last few days has clearly shown me how I am not really willing to be the lowest servant in the house. My resistance is wanting to trust myself more than wanting to trust God. Tiffany’s and Sparrow’s posts have shown me this recognition from a different angle.

There really is no escape here. Nowhere to go. Nothing to be. Nothing to aspire to. Accepting the lot of the lowest servant; its liberating to know your place. Enter meditation and offer whatever arises to Christ, as it arises, allowing Him to liberate it.

It seems that those with true belief in Christ are those with true humility. The greatest belief is the most authentic humility, as in this lowest place, there is no trust, no power in the small self. All trust and honor comes from the Master. To serve His way is the only way.

 

I trust the Holy Spirit will continue to show me my pride, and by  the Grace of the Divine, remove it.

Love

Bruce

The Man Watching

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

Collective Transformation.

I am drawn to the way of the shared heart. I see the shared heart as the way of the future.

Currently we live in a world dominated by individualism, exploitation, a worship of materialism and divisiveness. Fear based, greed based and power based psychological structures, which served our survival for so long, are beginning to threaten the survival of the human race.

Success has often  been characterized as the ability to be immune to physical threat and the fortification of self through material gain.

We see divisiveness in racial tension in South Africa, revolutions and civil war in Africa, tension in the Middle East, the Iran situation, American politics and most religions, to name but a few.

Humans just don’t seem to get along and revert so easy to factions, of ‘we are right and they are wrong’ or ‘lets get and keep what we can no matter what the cost to others’.

The way forward must be a way in which we can all feel safe, blessed and live our dreams and happiness. The questions are ‘how do we begin to do this as a culture?’

How do we work together, with God and with Love, to create a new future?

The answer is spiritual. The promise of spirituality is that there is a creative, abundant, infinite source which supports life, if we can align ourselves with it. This is not a way for rampant egoic accumulation to get what it wants. This is a way that is open to us humans if we can transform our fear, greed and sense of separation and live according to the way of the heart, interconnection and enough for all.

So, how does this become real? Not everyone can go and spend ten years getting enlightened. We need a real and immediate path forward, that offers a full hearted engagement with the world and a provision of what will make us happy and fulfilled. How do we begin to do this? How do we begin to immediately live this new spirituality? And how do we do this in community, not as an island?

I believe the answer is simpler that it appears.

• Simply create a heartfelt vision (which I will share how to do at the end of the article).
• Feel into the vision being real  using the body, not the mind.
• Share the vision with others who support it.
• With feeling, bless and feel into the visions of others.
• Feel into your own vision and the visions of others as a daily practice (20 minutes a day).
• Keep your vision and that of others in mind throughout the day.
• Keep a sense of lightness, ease, surrender and non-grasping, trusting the vision is bought through Gods power, not your own.
• Act appropriately.
• Wait for miracles.

Doing this in core groups of ten to twenty people, committed to each others highest potential, will begin to show the power of God to provide for us what we need to actualize our highest possibilities.

Studies have shown that prayer is effective for sick people. We spend so much time praying for problems and sickness to be gone. Lets shift the prayer energy to pray for God-guided success and bring in a new culture where happiness and abundance is bought through relationship to God and surrender of the way.

 

Love

Bruce

Setting a heart vision

• Write down a page of what you desire. Feel into the heart as you do this.
• Look at it and rewrite it the next day, refining it. Take out what doesnt fit and add in what does.
• Do this every day for up to a month. This will create a clear heart felt vision which becomes your target to go forwards, and which you hold in mind through the day.
• Without the clear vision its easy to get sidetracked and not make progress.

Choose life

Something which has come clear the last few weeks is the seemingly simple question "Do you choose life or death?"

Particularly in relationships. Do your relationships make you feel drained, tired and keeping you hanging in waiting for a promised land, or do they free you, liberate you and release you into your highest possibility.

You can also look at relationships with money, time and health. With these, the key to life is to first understand why you resist. Release the struggle and life will flood in.

I feel the best judge of character is the kind of people you hang out with.

And if you are in situations of disempowerment? Start to ask yourself how this is your mirror and why you are choosing this.

The only think stopping you stepping out of disempowering situations is fear.

Gods love is stronger than any fear and will provide for you. Stay connected to the Light.

Love

bruce

Non-dual prayer

I been fascinated by how to pray effectively. I spent last weekend with Uncle Dave, and he gave me some tips, about knowing that it is already done. Some friends suggested I explore Gregg Braden, and his teaching is that prayer is a feeling. One has to feel the end result.

Braden used a verse from the bible to illustrate his point. In the NIV version, John 16:23-24 is “I tell you the truth, my Father will give whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete”

When translated from the orginal Aramaic, the verse reads “Ask without hidden motive, and be surrounded by your answer. Be enveloped by what you desire, that your gladness may be full. So far, you have not done this, and your prayers have not been answered.”

What does this mean to be enveloped by your desire, to not be separate from it, even when its not yet tangibly real? And how do you do this without faking it, without ‘trying to believe’?

My question is how to pray effectively. The ability to effortlessly hold a vision (a mental visual) has been emerging strongly recently. I know prayers must be heart felt. The prayer must be in present tense. How do you pray knowing you have it, when you don’t have it yet? I have long struggled with this sense of separation from my vision, not knowing how to bridge the gap in an authentic way.

Today I rested in the feeling of the heart center, opening, feeling gratitude. As I stayed connected to the feeling, I allowed a visual of what I wanted in my life to form. Usually there would be a sense of ‘me doing it’, and that feeling of me doing it would be coming from my mind. The visual and I would appear separate in time and space, and appear held in place by my mind. Today I stayed with the heart feeling, and allowed that heart feeling to fill all of my experience. I imagined the visual of what I desired resting in my heart, made of heart energy, pulsing with heart energy. The vision was connected to the heart. I was the heart. I felt into the sensations of the vision being real. The mind dropped and the vision and the heart and I were one. It seemed obvious. The future and the present were one experience. In the non-dual state of all embracing love and unity, the vision was embraced and felt, and experienced as real and part of me.

The key is to ask “Are you praying from the heart or the head”? Prayers from a mind locked in duality will continue to entrench the divide between current and desired reality. The mind can’t pretend or fake non-duality; its very nature is separation and division.

Prayers from the heart are feeling based. Feeling is a non-dual experience. You simply feel before the mind judges. Feeling is immediate knowing, without an opposite. So the trick is to feel the prayer and the vision, born of love. In this prayer there is no division between you and your desire. Feeling into the prayer as though its already answered, is what it means to be 'surrounded by your answer, and enveloped by what you desire.

love

Bruce

Lovers

This made me think of those hearing the call of awakening...(and, like me, sometimes not liking to be too disturbed..lol..).. its a little poem by Rumi..

:)

O lovers, lovers it is time
to set out from the world.

I hear a drum in my soul's ear
coming from the depths of the stars.

Our camel driver is at work;
the caravan is being readied.

He asks that we forgive him
for the disturbance he has caused us,
He asks why we travelers are asleep.

Everywhere the murmur of departure;
the stars, like candles
thrust at us from behind blue veils,
and as if to make the invisible plain,
a wondrous people have come forth.

Clear Vision

In an earlier post, I wrote about what Uncle Dave (a master spiritual healer) taught me about prayers. He also gave me a couple of other useful creative tips.

Setting a vision is the first critical step in getting what you want in life, yet if you are anything like me, you have had trouble at times figuring out what you really want. Maybe you were caught between different options, doubt or you just weren’t sure if you could do what you wanted because you didn’t have the resources. And if you aren’t sure what you want, you will get mixed results.

Uncle Dave gave me a great method for getting clear on what’s most important. Simply write down what you most want to do or create next in your life. Try and write down about a page describing it. (You probably won’t feel much as you write this)

Then, come back to it the next day, and go through what you wrote. Edit and change it if necessary, until it’s what you feel you really want. (don’t use any negative words).

Keep doing this for up to a month, until you have clarity combined with a felt connection to your heart. This is your true motivation. A heart connection tells you that this vision will give you life, whereas fear based vision takes away life. This will help you get past the layers of doubt and fear that the mind throws up. And don’t worry if you can’t see how this will come true yet.

He said we are powerful creators and the heart is the seat of life-giving creation.

The relationships you have in your life are the most powerful indicators of whether you will be successful or not. Relationships that give life and support you empower you, and relationships that take life away disempower you. Uncle Dave said that you must only share your goals with people who will support you, and be impeccable with your speech.

Creation

I spent the weekend with my uncle Dave, a charismatic Christian, the leader of several churches, and with powerful healing gifts.

We were chatting about prayer, and how come so many prayers seem be unanswered, for Christ says in Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." Dave said that all his prayers are answered, and are often answered quickly.

He said that when you pray your heart must be in it. You must say your prayers aloud and say them confidently. And once you have said the prayer, never say anything that doubts or contradicts it as this will break the power of the prayer.

So, for example, if you pray for healing, then it must be your will. You must say, 'Father, I desire healing. Let me be healed' and not 'If its your will, then let me be healed'.

Once you have said it, never say something like 'I am still sick' or 'I wonder if the prayer worked'. Dont cast any doubt. Say something like 'Thank you God for receiving my prayer and I know you have acted on it" And be careful who you tell. If others say negative things about your desires their prayers can influence yours.

He said the battlefield is in your mind. There you must turn all thoughts towards success of what you want, and when you speak, everything you say must affirm what you want. You can use this for anything you desire which you want to bring into your life. Even though you may not see the results you want in your life, the prayer is first answered in the spiritual realm before its bought into manifestation. Negating the unseen result with doubt or the opposite will block it coming in..

Love

Bruce

Blessed Easter

Namaste,

I went to church tonight, and I felt the message of death through suffering and rebirth into innocence. We read Psalm 20. May your trust in the LORD ever increase.

Psalm 20

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.

² May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.

³ May he remember all your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
Selah

⁴ May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.

⁵ We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.

⁶ Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.

⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

⁸ They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.

⁹ O LORD, save the king!
Answer us when we call!

Shakti-Shiva breath

The breath is one of the master teachers. Its the secret to life, and has always been with us.

The in-breath is surrender, allowing in, opening, bringing in new life. The out breath is a release of stored air, a clearing away of the old. The in-breath is Shakti, feminine, welcoming in, getting fuller. The out breath Shiva, masculine, going towards, emptying, releasing pressure.

One is receiving, one is giving back. If you really wanted to breathe, and you contracted all your chest and stomach muscles and didn’t let them move, you would soon start to get desperate and panic.

Its the same with manifestation. When there is something you desperately want, the tendency is for the energy to freeze, to tense up and to try and ‘make it happen’ or ‘force the issue’. You think you will be able to relax once you get what you want. Imagine if you did this with breathing, and only allowed yourself to breathe once you had the air inside you? You probably wouldn’t get very far.

So, you can take the dynamics of the breath and use it to bring anything you want into your life. First, relax (especially when you are all contracted). Second, imagine what you want effortlessly coming toward you and into you on the in-breathe. Third, imagine energy being released on the out-breathe, going out into the universe to find what you want.

Do this for all situations. To manifest, the formula is (intention + energy(emotion) + visualization). Just as breathing-in and breathing-out are both parts of breathing, so relational exchange (energy coming in and energy going out) are both parts of manifesting.

The key is to be relaxed. If you are tense, you freeze the movement of energy, you create blockages, and you are unable to create what you want. Creation is both receiving and giving. Through surrender the female receives the male and gives the him what he wants. Through his purpose the male gives the female what she wants.

If you feel tense, simply feel the tension fully on the in-breathe and imagine yourself releasing it on the outbreath. Dont try and make the tension go away; this will only strengthen it. Allow it be be there until it self-liberates.

Slaying the dragon

I Love these two quotes – thanks, Sparrow.

“The answers are found in living the questions at risk”. Rilke

“Burning your way to center is the loneliest fire of all. You will know when you are there, when there is nothing left to burn." Alice Walker

Friday was the culmination of a long and repeating cycle. The karmic wheel spins around and around until finally we see how to finally climb off. We may have been dragged across the tar and split our guts and patched up a few times before the chains that were binding us to this merciless (or should I say merciful?) cycle are unlocked.

I have always been drawn to the myth of the Hero’s journey as a masculine archetype for the human quest for freedom. I relate best to this simplified version.

‘A young man lives in a village that is terrorized by a dragon that lives in the nearby mountains. All the villagers live in fear of the dragon, and are afraid to leave the village, and if they do, they don’t venture far beyond its walls. Sometimes the dragon swoops by, and takes a sheep or a goat in the fields, or even swoops into the village, killing a child or setting fire to a house. The villagers stay together for safety and security, and together they can repel the dragon if it attacks.

The young man feels stifled by the routine village life and desires his freedom. He wants adventure, and wants to travel away from the village. He knows he will have to overcome the dragon that stands in the way of his freedom, so finally he builds up the courage and goes off to kill the dragon.

The first time he gets beaten horrible, almost killed. The dragon is far stronger and craftier than he could ever have imagined and fights using methods he doesn’t understand. Wounded and broken, he crawls away and retreats. As time passes, his strength comes back, and so does his desire for freedom. He tried to learn from his failure, and when he feels he is ready, he returns to fight.

Again, the dragon is powerful and strong, and weakened by the fight, the man again retreats, fearing for his life. Again, he retreats, heals, recoups his strength, and this time he finds God. He realizes he can’t win the fight alone, and surrenders to a higher power, higher guidance and higher strength. He learns what he can, and when ready, heads into battle, knowing the Lord is his strength, and finally he overcomes the dragon. The dragon, in its death, releases the treasure it has been jealously guarding, enabling the man to now use this as he sees fit.

As I write this, I am amazed by Shakti’s ability to perfectly create the events that are needed so we can fight our dragons. I also write this with respect and gratitude for all the souls that are and have been a part of my journey.

I felt the call to freedom when I was in my mid twenties, a young Master’s graduate with a professional qualification from the top university in South Africa, a job with good benefits and a solid career track ahead. Where I was, was nice and safe, yet also boring. I wanted more money and more time and the freedom to be myself. I was also starting to read spiritual books, which I loved and I was inspired by the teachers of enlightenment.

After two years, some synchronicity bought me in touch with L. L. was a transgender freelance computer programmer, and I was attracted to her lifestyle, with the money, life and freedom it offered. We connected easily, she offered to teach me how to program, and so I left my job, bought a computer, studied code for six months and started working with her.

L. was highly intelligent, her intellect was her power, she had dependency issues and many of her relationships were characterized by dependency of different forms. L. was prone to anger and often dominating. After about a year of doing ok, we undertook a large project intended to make us a lot of money. L. was in charge, and I was still an apprentice. We stopped earning money and worked on the project. I was starting to want to leave the relationship, as there were many negative patterns, broken promises, changing goalposts, shifting deadlines, lack of financial support, financial pressures, and other forms of loss. I was too afraid to leave, as I felt isolated in Cape Town away from my family in Durban, didn’t want to ask them for help as they had their problems, and I didn’t know how I would survive as a programmer if I left. I didn’t have the confidence to leave, I was broke, and the promise of a financial payoff kept me in. I prayed for God to get me out.

Things came to a head on Xmas eve, we had an argument, and I got up and walked out. She told me that if I left I would never come back and I would have nothing. I left anyway. I was in crisis, broke, afraid, shattered after months of working up to 16 hours a day on the project, dealing with family death, heartbroken from unrequited love, and vulnerable. My quest for freedom had backfired and instead of being in a cyle of life, I had been defeated by a cycle of loss and pain and sucked dry.

I left for Taiwan shortly after, and began to study inner transformation as a way of understanding my role in what had happened, with the goal of getting clear on my purpose, aligning my motivation, and making better choices in future. After 4 ½ challenging years of transformational practices in the east, I felt ready to return to South Africa to work as a transformational and life coach. I was back to fight the dragon and find my freedom.

I was drawn to Johannesburg, where I soon ended up renting a room from J. J. was a successful coach/spiritual teacher/trainer, a powerful dominating woman, prone to anger, and like L., fiercely independent. Secretly I thought she could help me attain my goal of becoming an established and successful corporate coach. I had more support this time from other people than when I was with L., yet a cycle of loss also began. There were opportunities to step out and to do other things, yet I was committed to my path, and not being able to see how things would work out and not having faith in God, I tried to keep control. At the start of the time with J., my kundalini awakened with the first shattering spinal sweeps and continued energetic challenges. There had been precursor activity for a year or so, but nothing like this and I had hardly known anything about Kundalini before this occurred. As my money ran out, my fear began to dominate. I finally ran out of money, hit crises, and was offered a job back in the East with my old company.

I returned to the East for another three years. This time was better; I lived in a nicer city, I had a really nice job, good friends and wonderful girlfriends. I went through an intensive healing process with the kundalini, dark night after dark night, bliss after bliss. After every high I would be plunged back down into difficulty again. The stability of my job was a godsend, providing me what I needed to manage this. Every full moon, K. would rise and knock out more of the emotional dirt. During that time I had many spiritual experiences, a dawning of the recognition that I could trust God, and an emerging connection to Christ.

Conditions seemed right to return to SA in September 2009. I went on a type of retreat for a few months, the result of which was a commitment to follow my path as a spiritual/personal growth teacher, and not retreat into regular employment. This was a difficult step, as I don’t have the luxury of savings or a passive income, and no real means of financial support. There were many synchronicities that supported this decision. I managed to hold a few small workshops, and I did a little bit of coaching. December, Christmas day, I experienced the inner birth of the Holy Child as a result of the inner marriage of the Sacred Male and Sacred Female, mistakenly thinking that purification was finished and the major hidden attachments had been released.

In January, an old acquaintance came for a visit. P. is a spiritual and yoga teacher, conscious, intellectually formidable, power-driven and easily dominates in conversations. Like me, he is also trying to emerge with the expression of his purpose, and is trying to use his purpose to support himself and his family financially. I spent a few days with him and gave him clear feedback on an area of blockage in his life, the result of which is that he felt he had a major breakthrough, and wanted to create a business with me. He lived in a different town, and so we communicated on skype each day. He had a history of being a successful entrepreneur, and I felt our skills were complimentary. Feeling that he was sincere about the breakthrough he had made, and not seeing at the time that the breakthrough was cognitive, not embodied, I overrode my concerns and began to work with him. I felt that I could handle his personality, and work with him, not react against him.

We created a ten week course designed to compare the differences between ego (scarcity) and spirit (abundance) consciousness, help people identify their talents, and create a realistic business plan to express their talents, yet also in alignment with the principles of spiritual abundance. Working with P. was challenging, and we eventually produced good work. We began to move into the phase of selling the course and marketing it on the internet, yet a similar pattern was repeating itself. We were working long hours. I wasn’t getting any other money. I was feeling increasingly pulled away from my vision by P. He kept on changing the goalposts, the vision kept on changing, the potential rewards kept getting bigger, deadlines kept getting delayed, and I was starting to feel weakened. Again I was in a cycle of loss, of life being taken away, holding on for salvation through material gain, being pulled into dependence by a power-hungry figure. I was aware of this, staying present, not sure what to do, praying for blessings for everyone.

Two weeks ago, my car was stolen. I prayed for blessings on the thieves and thanked God for the perfection. That week I had shadow dreams of a powerful and dangerous enemy. The culmination was a dream at the end of the week..

I am with Father, and he takes me fishing in a boat. He catches a big fish for me, and we head back to the harbor. Along the way a beautiful woman dressed in bright yellow clothes climbs onto the boat. I find her extremely sexy and seductive.

The following day I had news my car was found, and I would be able to get it back (as of writing, the process is still underway). The day after, I had a recognition that I been disowning my masculine drive for the joy and satisfaction of reaching goals of freedom, and was being pulled into a mode of passivity while someone else did what they wanted. I began to feel into power that had been disowned, and my navel area began to get hot. The area stayed warm for a week, and if I bring light attention to it now, it easily warms up again. I began to feel strong, ready to go into battle.

That same weekend, my sisters were putting a lot of pressure on my mother, trying to get her to force me to follow a conventional life. My mother is supportive of my path, and is currently providing a roof over my head through allowing me to use a small apartment she owns but is not staying in. My sisters, who have a difficult relationship with me (I am okay with them) have no understanding of the spiritual path, and have strong feelings against me not being totally independent, even though this is the first time in 16 years I have stayed at home.

I had an intuition that the time with P. was finished, yet spent a week wondering if this was right to leave the partnership. During the week after the dream of the girl with yellow clothes, I noticed a clear shift in my ability to be assertive, put up boundaries, communicate clearly, and to feel capable of going it alone. I had clear insight that the situation with P. was exactly the same as the situation with L., and with J. Identical dynamics were present, each time I had ended up projecting my power onto an untrustworthy figure and was headed for victim status. The pattern was a generational pattern of power imbalance, and in my family, my oldest sister had (and still is) the power Matriarch. My entire life I have always felt an underlying sense of not being able to achieve what I really wanted and a sense of being held back and prevented from acting. I have acted under willpower and in the face of my fear, always committed to my highest potential and through determination, often been successful.

I was no longer blinded by the shadow and its covering of fear built on the myth of being separate from God. This time I was able to see it clearly, and through the grace of Shakti and the trust in Christ, an increased ability to control my mind and a lot of past healing of fear, I could choose to leave. Even though there was potentially large financial reward, I told P. that I was leaving, and I walked away. I had to walk away from the pattern, walk away from P.’s issues of dependencies and his web of relationships.

I was amazed at Shakti’s ability to create the exact same dragon three times over ten years until I finally learned how to win. The dragon was the same but the players were different. It reinforces the idea that opening and surrendering to life will show you your karma which needs to be overcome before you can have true freedom.

This has been an excellent lesson. We are our relationships. Who we hang out with is the best reflection of who we are.

I have felt clarity and peace about the decision. The last four days Shakti has been healing and adjusting my body, and today I feel a return to clarity, although tired. I am not too sure what will happen now. There is a sense of the dragon having being finally understood, and the treasure of my power regained.

Love

Bruce

Abundance is an exchange of value

 

The paradigm of scarcity is that abundance is the endless ability to accumulate and to consume. Through understanding how to manipulate natural laws or the unconscious behavior of others, clever scarcity consciousness manages to get what it wants. Scarcity is built on an underlying assumption of deficiency, which stems from its perceived disconnect from Spirit, and so fullness and completion is mistakenly tried to be gained through worldly experience.

Abundance is built on a different principle. Through the recognition of the connection to Spirit, abundance experiences a sense of being able to unlimitedly create. New ideas are created, love is created, action is created, knowledge is created, and this is created through a unique synthesis of you and Spirit.

This sense of unlimited creative potential is manifested as a willingness to contribute, in love, knowledge, skill and so on. Abundance is so full that is desires to give of itself. Abundance experiences itself in relationship and knows that it is deeply connected to all that is around, and seeks for the healthiest expressions of this relationship. In this relationship, abundance is also deeply committed to others experiencing the joy and confidence of abundance, and wants to connect to others who are expressing abundance consciousness.

There is a trap of ‘I am full so I can give you to and you don’t need to give back to me’. This is the trap of scarcity, and by not requiring others to give back, this enables them to stay the victim and it creates a cycle of dependency. If someone cannot afford your services, then its okay to do an honor agreement, where they commit to paying you back in the future, when they have the rescources.

As you open into the expression of abundance, you naturally want to connect with others who are in abundance. You want to honor them and bless them for the gifts they are giving you, and in the marketplace, you really want to pay them for what they do. Likewise, you understand that getting paid fairly for what you do is a natural expression of abundance consciousness towards you.

Standing firm for your value is a powerful expression of your self worth. Again, you must be careful. You must have something to offer which will impact people’s lives for the better. You must desire to contribute. You can’t ask for lots of money so you can pacify your underlying feelings of scarcity.

Giving and receiving become different faces of the same action.

Why is a personal philosophy important?

Philosophy: The most basic beliefs, concepts and attitudes of an individual or a group (Mirriam and Webster Dictionary).

Your philosophy is a combination of your personal philosophy and your cultural philosophy. We all have a philosophy; the most important question is whether our philosophy is serving us or not.

Knowing your personal philosophy is critical, as your philosophy determines your focus, and your focus determines your actions. Finally, your actions determine your results. If your life is working well and you are content, there is no need to change your philosophy. However, if you are not happy with how your life is, then you may need to re-examine your philosophy.

Historically, life didn’t change much from generation to generation. Even up to 20 years ago, life seemed fairly stable and predictable. The last 20 years have seen an explosion in the rate of change in human life on planet earth. The internet, a change in economic structures, political and social upheaval have made life uncertain.

Trying to live life with a philosophy inherited from your parents and culture about a world that existed twenty or thirty years ago is going to be problematic, as the world that your philosophy was designed for doesn’t exist any longer. As the rate of change speeds up, unexamined philosophies will become increasingly and more rapidly obsolete.

Furthermore, many of our inherited philosophies were built on underlying assumptions that there were limited resources, that the world wouldn’t change too much, that we had to fight for a limited piece of the pie, individualism, that we had to work nine to five to earn money and that we were disconnected from God. Many of our philosophies were built on ideas of scarcity and struggle.

The philosophy of abundance is that there is enough for everyone if you can learn to contribute using your talents, that abundance is achieved through relationship, that the world is always changing, and that we are not separate from Spirit or each other.

If you want to live life in your own unique way, and if you want to bring the dreams of your heart into reality, you will need to choose a philosophy that is suitable for modern life. You will need to choose a personal philosophy that includes values of openness, abundance for all, creativity, embraces change, and is open to spiritual guidance as a means to navigating the increasing complexity of today’s world. Because let’s face it; the world is so complex and changing so fast that it’s impossible to keep control.

In choosing your philosophy, you have to bring your old philosophy into awareness, and replace it with the new philosophy of your choosing. If you have a unique dream and unique talents, you will have to choose a philosophy that supports your dreams. For example, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you may choose to believe

· I have the ability to make as much money as I want

· I have the ability to turn my talents into a profitable business

· There is enough for everyone to be abundant if they follow the dreams of their hearts.

Once you choose a personal philosophy that empowers, rather than limits you, then you simply begin to act in line with your new beliefs. Choosing your new philosophy is a miracle that will take time, patience, self awareness and self love. It’s done by having a vision, and then changing one thought at a time, one action at a time to align with your vision.

J

Bruce