10.28.07
Posted in Spirituality, Thoughts at 2:05 pm by Administrator
Finding something to concentrate on is up to you. It needs to be something that you are interested in and that can absorb your attention. Let this be a concept or idea that, if you could, you would like to know or become. This could be a form of the divine, a state of surrender, or oneness with all things. Or you could simply focus on your self. Once you have your point of concentration, summarize it in one or two words. For example, if I wanted to know my self, I would pick the words, “my self”. Easy. Right?
Now, schedule a time once or twice a day to reflect on your chosen idea. Don’t change the idea, stick with your original choice. Find a quiet place where you can sit up straight, close your eyes and turn your attention within. Know that this time of the day you are dedicated to nothing else but contemplating your chosen idea and strengthening your mind. (Because that is what this will do, get your mind under control.) Once you are firmly established, sitting up right, with your idea of contemplation in your mind, give your attention to your breathing. As you breathe in, feel the breath coming in to your body and hear the word, “my”. As you breathe out, feel the breath leaving your body and hear (and feel) the word “self”.
As you do this, don’t be mechanical about it. Just repeating words and breathing won’t do much for you, other than calm you down a bit. If you really want to strengthen your mind and know what you are contemplating, when you hear and feel the words in your mind as you breathe really focus on them. What do they mean? When you say “my” what is it that you associate with that. When you “self” what is that you attach to your “self”. (Here is a helpful reminder: Anything you can think about imagine to be associated with your self, is not your self.)
Two things are occurring here. One, you are strengthening your mind. Thoughts, emotions, sensations, memories, etc. will break your concentration, but you gently bring your awareness back to your breath and contemplation. With each day and each session of practice your mind grows stronger and you can maintain your contemplation longer. So don’t give up. Look at it like training. If you are weak physically you may need to change a few things to get stronger. 1) eat right. 2) take some time to exercise often. Eating right one day or exercising once a month won’t do it. It needs to become part of the routine of your life. Think about the things that are important to you. You probably take some kind of action that involves these important aspects of your life daily, or at least often. What is important to you is reflected in your regular daily routine.
After you have sat silently for a while just breathing and contemplating, disregard the breath and let go of the contemplation. Just sit silently observing all that passes through your being. Observe the silence, and also observe the distractions as they rise and fall. When your scheduled time is at end, get up and go about your day as usual.
During times when you are simply living and not contemplating, yet you find your self day dreaming or worrying about something useless, use that moment to remember what it felt like to sit in the stillness after your contemplation, and take a moment or two to reflect on your object of contemplation. This will further train you to keep your attention focused and your mind strong.
Note that strength of mind does not indicate strain or force. It is more like a habit. Most people are in the habit of letting thoughts run wild and directing their energies outward. With practice, such as the one above, you are merely changing your habits. Instead of wasting energies and depleting your life force on useless thinking and worrying etc, you learn to remain connected to the source of all things. That becomes your natural state. A person who has done this would feel just as weird having millions of distractions running through his/her mind as a person who would think it strange to not have to think at all.
So the only difference between a “master” and someone who isn’t is really the habit of how they live and what they identify themselves with. A master identifies with the source of all things. Someone else identifies with the things in life that come and go, and feels that as the things come and go, so do they. One knows and is the source. The other is still the source, but has no idea what they really are. The latter could be likened to a person who has lost a precious necklace and is worried to death about where it might be, when really it is still around the person’s neck and they’ve just forgotten. The former never forgets where the necklace is.
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10.26.07
Posted in Spirituality, Thoughts at 3:45 pm by Administrator
You are the source of all things. Any thing which can be observed is an experience. The experiences in life are supported by you. When I speak of the “you” I’m not talking about your personality, body, mind or spirit. I’m talking about the real you, the you that is eternal and changeless, the you that is beyond conditions and conceptualization.
This “you” cannot be described. All that can be said about it, is what it is not, and that is really no way to understand something. To fully grasp your real self requires that you be it. Since you are it all the time, no effort can bring this about.
So what’s the problem? If you are your self all the time, why bother trying to “be” your self? That in itself is precisely the problem. People spend their time trying to be themselves or to find themselves. You are your self. So there is nothing you can do to be it, nor is there any secret map directing you to its location. This whole matter isn’t really about being or finding, it is about knowing. Confusion is the problem. On one hand there is confusion about what and where you are, and on the other there is the confusion about how to go about getting settled in the knowing of your self.
Many theories and practices have risen to help with this dilemma that affects humanity. Most of these fall under the umbrella of religion and spirituality. Let me throw out the idea that although religion and spirituality is very helpful for the beginner, the source of all things goes beyond these two sources of conditioning.
Part of the process of fully knowing your self requires the shedding of beliefs when the time comes. When we are children, it is alright to think as children. As we grow up we learn that certain actions and systems of thought no longer work. So, hopefully, we evolve, learn what does work and apply the changes to our life situation.
When first undertaking the task of spiritual growth and self-realization most people have the idea that there is a power or force beyond them that if they appease or worship approptiately will do the work for them. This is alright at first. It carries the proper intention, that to go beyond former conditioning. As the person grows and becomes firm in their worship of this “divine other” the life begins to change. The original intention of growing to spiritual maturity begins to sprout. The person may begin to think of things differently. They may question the way they’ve been living. All of this is the self becoming clearer and more knowable.
Sometimes people don’t like this change. They fight it and try to remain fixed in their way of thinking and living. Here is where problems first arise. To know your self requires and openness to change and development. Because even though you are always your self and you are never lost, there is the wrong identification with what you are. So the changes that occur are actually the realignment of your attention with what you really are, and not the things you observe.
The difference between a person who knows what they are, the source of all things, and the person who doesn’t, is that the first person doesn’t get caught up in the observable world and think that when change occurs, something has died. The first person knows that they are eternal. They experience that eternal being in all changes. Changes come and go, the self remains. The second person is not fully aware of this eternal nature of their real self, so when things change, they freak out. Why? Because they are confused. They think that which they observe is what they really are. It’s a hallucination really.
There is also the confusion that what you are is something that can be observed. Examples to this effect are love, peace, or similar pleasant states. Remember, that which rises will also fall. In the beginning it may be helpful to imagine that your true nature is eternal love or eternal peace, but really peace and love are conditions. If they can come and go, they are not real. Enjoy them so long as they are useful, but be open to going beyond them.
You exist free of conditions, and you are the source of all things. If you want to know what all this means in experience rather than conceptually, good for you. Thinking about things can only take you so far. Eventually you will need to start embodying what is understandable with the mind. Then it goes beyond the mind.
To do this, one practice common to all authentic “enlightenment” traditions is most helpful. (Now why did I put quotes around enlightenment? Because it is just a word. It’s good for a reference point, but don’t get too hung up on what you think it might mean.) This is the practice of concentration. Learning to fix your mind on a thought or idea, strengthens the mind. When the mind gets stronger, thousands of random useless thoughts no longer invade and run wild. When this occurs, the mind can in time be fully silenced and you can then more easily know what you are without interference.
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10.10.07
Posted in Spirituality, Thoughts at 6:13 pm by Administrator
(Continued from Yesterday)
**Note: This section are simply notes for the talk.
Living abundantly is a relative idea. Everyone may have a different concept in mind when they think of what it means to live in abundance. Some might think it means having enough to pay the bills, others might think it means be healthy enough to be able to take a walk outside, one person might think it means having enough money to build an arts center to help enrich the culture of the world, and some might think it means having good friends. Whatever it means to the individual doesn’t matter. Learning to function in abundance requires the same formula.
1) Decide what it is you want to have more abundantly in your life.
2) Take some time to have a self honest discussion with your self about if you are really ready to commit to the changes you may be called to make in order to experience it. As demonstrated by my own example this is very important, because one of two things can happen if you don’t. One, you won’t get what you want because you don’t make any changes affirming your choice, or two, you will get what you want and if your not paying attention when it starts to come into your life it may overwhelm you temporarily.
3) You may also want to take a look at how much you might secretly pride yourself on suffering by not having enough, and how you can endure on so little better than others who have more. As I mentioned earlier, I was somewhat prideful on this point and after much studying the subject of prosperity and applying what I have learned I realized that having more money and more free time by doing what I loved would allow me to be of much greater service to the world. I would be free to travel and give talks, work with people on a donation basis. I would be free to do my work without the worry of if I had enough money to pay my bills. That is what abundance is really about, having the full support of the universe so you can do what you came here to do. Making it hard on yourself by maintaining a sense of lack doesn’t get you points on the score board, it just wastes your time.
4) Once you have a clear idea and you have committed to a course of action, imagine what it would feel like to have the abundance you desire. By this I don’t mean you have to affirm it constantly and force yourself to think about it always. Think about a person who’s always had lots of money or good health. They don’t think it’s strange that they have lots of money or good health. That’s just the way it is. You need to start living as though what you want in your life is just the way it is, which is nothing special and nothing to be groped for. People who always live in abundance vs. those who do not, think differently than someone who is not, but it actually goes beyond their thinking, their BEING is actually different.
5) Then go about your life doing what you know is necessary to support the realization of your goal. Now keep in mind, just because you want something badly doesn’t mean you innately know how to experience it. It may require reading books, finding out how others accomplished what you want, etc. You need to get the methods in your consciousness so that you have the proper tools to make your dreams possible, and believe me…ANYTHING is possible.
6) Remember, “There is nothing wrong with you that changing your self completely couldn’t fix.”
Now all that I’ve discussed so far relates to the relative objective world, the world we can experience with our senses. It is helpful to remember the source of that world when aspiring to live a life of abundance. If we are not centered in the source of creation, nothing in creation will ever satisfy us and so abundance will just be a painfully unattainable concept. To fully become conscious and accepting of all the resources available to us as we traverse the seas of life requires that we learn what we are at the core of our being. By learning that we are one in God and one in the self of all things and beings nothing which is meant to be ours will ever be denied us.
To do this, we give up the results of all our actions to God or whatever we conceive the highest power to be. We accept that all our actions, our successes and failures, are God working through us, God working as us. By doing this we give up our attachment and our fear, because then God’s will is directing his creation flawlessly. God knows how to take care of God’s creation. In times of inner reflection we can simply be as God is. If we don’t know fully what God is we can ask, and to take it a step further we can ask what our relationship is to God. With the repeated contemplation and intention to fully know our relationship in God the realization comes that we are fully one in God and that all our needs are provided. We are able to see our selves clearly and act appropriately in God. This is the true meaning of abundance. Once God is realized, there is nothing more to have or do except be as we are directed.
***Closing Meditation, opening our heart and minds to the infinite and knowing our complete connection to the infinite resources in the universe. And accepting that there may be things to learn and do for us to properly manage those resources.
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10.09.07
Posted in Spirituality, Thoughts at 2:38 pm by Administrator
Sunday Talk (Rough Draft)-Delivered at the Unity of Shepherdstown in Shepherdstown, WV on October 14th, 2007 and the Unity of Kanawha Valley in Charleston WV on October 21st, 2007.
Living in Abundance
When Rev. Anne Murphy at the Unity Church in Shepherdstown recommended that I focus the Sunday lesson topic of “Living in Abundance” I thought that it was a fantastic idea. For the last couple of years, Melissa and I, as well as many of my friends, have been focused on living a life of financial freedom. We’ve read the books, taken classes, learned “the secrets”, and even started to take action. However, as the time drew nearer to develop a talk on the subject, all that I had learned started to break down in my mind, and an extreme form of doubt set in and I had no idea how I was going to be authentic in giving this talk, and here is why.
As a few of you know, Melissa and I will be moving to Asheville, NC in December. She will begin her work in the public health field after graduating with her master’s degree from WVU and I will be focusing on creating the Asheville branch of Center of Spiritual Awareness, a Kriya Yoga meditation center. Now all of this sounds well and good, and did to me too for the last year and a half that we’ve been planning it, but somehow as the stress of moving seven hours away from the place I’ve lived all my life and the cost of moving and the cost of purchasing our new home with a ten percent down payment all balled up into one, I started to lose my faith that this was really a good idea. In fact, even though at the core of my being I knew this was the best thing in the world for both Melissa and myself and I had the blessing of my spiritual teacher in the endeavor, I was really starting to think this was a totally insane endeavor.
Now the reason this would’ve been easier to give, say a year ago, was because a year ago I was feeling pretty secure in my financial abundance. Even though for many years of my life after leaving my parent’s house up until recently, my income was just a couple thousand dollars above the poverty line, I was able to pay my bills, not go into debt, save lots of money, eat well and even afford a few well-appointed musical instruments along the way. To me, I was feeling very much in the flow of abundance. I didn’t even need a super stressful high paying job to achieve it. So in my mind, abundance had nothing to do with the amount of money I made, it had to do with how I managed it and how I lived within my means. I still hold that this is true, but my mental outlook was somewhat prideful on this point, and that was a block to prosperity. We’ll get more into that later.
The difference between then and now is that although I was still in the flow of grace the world around me was changing and I was being called to take more responsibility in life and it scared me to death. I was being called to move far away to fulfill what I knew in my heart was my true calling. I was being called into joy and into service. I was being called to do what I was sent here to do, yet it required me to tap into the grace of God that had grown so strong in my life, and I was unwilling to tap into that for fear it would run out and leave me high and dry, and that was the mistake I was making. That was my mind feeding me a line of bull and I was listening. As I let the weight of this move, which is really a total blessing, stress me out without need. I was looking at everything that could go wrong, rather than focusing on everything that was so right about this change.
After having a heart to heart talk with Melissa about all the turmoil I was experiencing about how I was perceiving the situation, and the doubt that had risen about my inability to speak on this matter I began to understand what was really happening. God was giving me exactly what I had asked for, as God does for all of us.
I’ve known for a very long time intellectually that if I want to change some circumstance in my life two things need to occur. One, I need to change. Two, I need to start doing things differently. So really, all that was occurring was right in line with that understanding. The information I’d been absorbing about learning to be financially free and all the inner work I had done was manifesting. My life WAS changing. Yet I was staying the same and that incongruence was causing the unneeded pain and stress. For the last two years I had been telling the universe I’m ready to be provided for in all ways. I’m ready to accept my value in this world. I’m ready to do what you created me to do! And like clock work the universe responded.
So the moral of my personal story is, if you want to strengthen your prosperity consciousness, be ready to ride the wave that will carry you to your destination. Because it WILL come, and freaking out just as your beginning to get carried to the destination does not help at all! Take some time to really understand what might be required to make the changes necessary to achieve your goals. Many people can talk about the changes they want to see in life, but few are willing to make the changes.
(To be continued…)
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