The Endless Project of Improvement

Sometimes meeting with defeat is a quicker way to awaken than experiencing success. Sooner or later, during the journey of spiritual awakening, the project of self improvement comes to a dead end.

From what I gather, reading and listening to those who abide in awakened awareness, enlightenment does not turn out to have anything to do with becoming faster, smarter, sexier, or even healthier. It is not about perfecting the personality or glorifying the body. Several well known spiritual teachers who were thought to be enlightened have died of cancer. A Course in Miracles teaches that whether it's a sick body or a healthy body, it's all a dream, taking place in one mind which has forgotten reality, a mind which has divided into many pieces, all of which are sharing a collective dream of believing they are separate selves.

Trying to perfect one's body, character, personality, and professional abilities, and making efforts to advance educationally, all have their place in this dream world. Some of the actors and actresses in this movie appear to engage in that sort of thing. Within the dream world, the little self can often be improved to some degree. We may dream we are learning to take better care of our bodies, focus on affirming thoughts, and find more mature ways of relating to one another. With our imagination we may envision new possibilities, then work at developing special skills and technical prowess through perseverance and practice. We may then appear, in the dream, to invent things with our intellectual cleverness and express our unique selves creatively. Developing self will and self-discipline are part of the arc of maturity. As an individual, you may be able to go pretty far into heightened self-awareness, service-oriented work, and the having of transcendental experiences.

Some individuals may appear successful, in worldly terms, for a period of time, perhaps a whole life time. They may be given (and take) personal credit for successfully manifesting health, wealth, material abundance, and fame. Others may appear to be victims of circumstance, unable to move ahead––no matter how hard they appear to try. Paradoxically, they may be making more spiritual progress than those who are deemed "successful". 

Sometimes things seem to be going well and you feel as if you have gotten a handle on improving your own life and the world. Then, out of the blue, you are prevented from doing whatever it was that made you high. You can't go out running, you're flat on your back. You can't afford to fly off to the spiritual pilgrimage you've made for years. You can't think clearly because you're feverishly hallucinating and fatigued. Sometimes grace comes in the form of pulling the rug out from under your individual feet. What life brings you is the opportunity to surrender being in control of the project of getting somewhere, of making life "better". Others seem to be allowed to get on the next bus and carry on with their journey of self advancement, but you're apparently not allowed to leave the depot. At some point in life, perhaps the majority of your personal effort to improve your circumstances is stymied. Ever your earnest efforts to become a more wide awake, aware, enlightened individual brings you to a road block. A dead end. A sense of defeat.

It may thoroughly suck at the time, but feeling stuck and out of control can be a high-speed course in awakening. Whether it happens gradually, or suddenly, the incapacity to improve your circumstances and self will give you the opportunity to see life differently. Perhaps from an aerial view.

If we float up above the maze of goal-setting, dream-following, effort-expending, project-doing, future-based behavior, we may see that this maze has no out. There may be a long run of apparent successes, the experience of seeming to get somewhere without being blocked. But eventually, if you play the game long enough, the 50/50 duality of this world becomes uncomfortably apparent. Try manifesting what you want, as hard as you care to try. You'll most likely appear successful––some of the time. The other times you won't. And if you get what you thought you wanted, come talk to me in a year and tell me if it lasted. You may come to the same conclusion I did, again and again, that the little me did not have a broad enough perspective to see what she really needed, or to anticipate the full consequences of getting what she wanted, much less what was in the best interests of everyone else. She could not make anything happen that resulted in lasting peace, joy, contentment, or security. All phenomena change in this dream world.

Life has had the grace to confront me again and again with situations where I felt helpless to alter my outer reality, no matter how hard I tried. Being squeezed and stuck at times helped me surrender into a different view of life, one which could symbolically be described as floating above the maze, recognizing its no-way-out-ness. I stopped trying to manifest abundance or health or a partnership that would last. It's not that I've stopped believing in the importance of self-discipline and taking responsibility, it's that there is a much bigger integration going on. I notice that for every high there was a low, for every success a failure, for ever passion followed an equal degree of pensive frustrated stuckness when I was prevented from following it, for every moment of personal success and pride an equal and opposite wave of chagrin and anxiety. For every "ah ha" of discovery about why things were as they were, an inexplicable exception that landed me back into not understanding.

What happens when you come home from visiting some Holy Place? What happens after the retreat? What happens after the chanting and meditation with the group? How much is your inner well-being dependent on a place, a group, a practice? Practices have their place in the grand scheme of things, otherwise they would not appear to exist. There is merit to refining one's willpower and focus. But at some point in, it may become clear that the one doing the practicing is what feels so very cumbersome. The seeker starts to reek. The self-improvement Project Manager feels burned out. After months or years of dedicated efforts to heal the self, old wounded patterns still arise. No matter how far you think you've come, there you are, still in a state of suffering and incompleteness. The yearning for completeness may become stronger and stronger, motivating you to try many new ways to find it. Reading more books, attending more workshops, flying to faraway places to meet famous spiritual teachers. All of this may keep one's hope up for a while, but as long as there is still a distance between the guru and the grocery bagger, the sacred place and the parking lot, there is still a niggling sense of lack somewhere in the background.

If your character has access to the guru and the book and the workshop and the air fare that's fine, that's in your character's script. But if you don't have the free time or the health or the money to travel, don't worry. Be glad. For everything you need in order to awaken is right here in your daily life. Where you live now and what you are going through may be far from fun and easy. But it is just as good a place as any to realize what is really true and what you really are. No one and nothing is preventing your completion.

There is a limit to what can be accomplished by and as a "self". After a while, it is apparent that trying to completely attain perfection as an individual is as impossible as painting an entire floor while remaining in the room. Eventually, the self that thinks it is in charge of the project is what is in the way of completing the project. Evolving consciousness is one thing, enlightenment is another.  Evolution––and devolution into chaos––happens over and over within the dream. Enlightenment is more about waking up from the dream.

Being Presence

"As long as you are unaware of Being, you will seek meaning only within the dimension of doing and of future, that is to say, the dimension of time. And whatever meaning or fulfillment you find will dissolve or turn out to have been a deception. Invariably, it will be destroyed by time. Any meaning we find on that level is true only relatively and temporarily." pg. 263

"In other words, not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come." pg. 265

 A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle

~

Fresh from a memorial service for a friend, my heart was wide open and awareness felt expanded. The gathering was more of a celebration than a lamentation. She was dying, so she helped to plan the service. She chose the caterer, the menu, the musicians and dancers, and the program of songs to be shared. As we who are still embodied danced, sang, ate, and shared testimonials, I reflected on her life and the community she influenced. She was an icon, to me, of wholesome living. She expressed her creativity fully though writing, singing and dancing, leading the way for many other people to join in. She dared to explore a wide variety of occupations, some very physically demanding and intimate with the natural world such as fishing, farming, and gardening. She grew an organic garden for her family and raised free-range poultry.  Every time I saw her, she glowed with a sincere smile. The caring lilt in her voice at times lifted me from discouragement into renewed hope and faith that things could get better in my own life when I was most uncertain of that. She was encouraging, and down to earth, a dreamer, but also very practical. She was intimately involved in life, not living on the edge but diving deeply into it.

~

In some places in the world, just surviving is the challenge. No one goes to work out at a gym when they have to carry water for miles in heavy vessels balanced on their heads. When the basic needs of survival are met, however, and there are resources to spare, a huge emphasis may be placed on developing and improving the body and mind. The project of getting in good shape may become a personally chosen focus, rather than a byproduct of some necessary survival activity.

Where I live, many people work out regularly at the gym and outdoors, practice various forms of yoga and meditation, spend "quality time" in nature, and sing and dance until they glow, for recreation, health, and personal expression. Many people I know have the opportunity to explore trends in healthy eating on the micro and macro level, buying expensive nutritional supplements in health food stores and growing their own organic gardens full of dark leafy greens.

On the level of the mind, my community offers vast possibilities for intellectual and creative exploration. Whether in local college classes, free programs through the libraries, or online study, people with even a modest income and a modicum of free time may peruse a vast web of information. Even those of us who fill unglamorous service roles in a seasonal tourist industry (such as cleaning at inns) may also be writers, artists, philosophers, and former world travelers, with resumes that may seem to represent more than one lifeline!

I am grateful to have had all these rich life experiences and a mind-expanding education, but for me, the focus has changed dramatically over the past decade. I used to be deeply concerned about whether or not I was living up to my full potential. Was the work I was doing expressing my creativity and talents? Was it making enough of a difference in the world? How could the impact of one small person's actions make the world a better place when there were new problems of gargantuan scale cropping up daily?

Part of what fueled my efforts was fear. I feared that without my intensely urgent participation to make a difference, the world would slide even further into chaos and darkness. There was a battle to be fought. Sitting it out was a sin.  I feared that if I did not work to my full potential I would be guilty of not trying hard enough, and would suffer regret at wasting my "one precious life." I feared reaching the end of my life and looking back and seeing that I had not lived to the fullest–whatever that meant. There was an urgency to develop myself, to become something more complete, to build up experience and someday, somehow, earn a sense of having "arrived."

Self development and selfless service also got linked to health. I held the belief that if I lived my life to the fullest, expressed my creativity with a passion, worked diligently to process whatever inner emotional homework came up, focused on positive thinking, beamed a positive attitude, worked hard to eat well and stay fit and help other people and the world through doing meaningful work, the reward would be good health. My friend was a shining example of all of the efforts above. But, as we who are still embodied found out, even such people can die, in middle age, of cancer. She was a year and a day younger than me.

Several well known spiritual teachers, who were thought to be enlightened, have died of cancer. In this world, things happen to individuals. Our individual selves want there to be ways to control life, ways to maneuver through life with the least amount of pain and suffering. But sometimes even when you "do all the right things" your time in a particular body is shorter than that of someone who doesn't.

~

What struck me most about the memorial service for my friend was that the room seemed infused by her presence. She seemed to be nowhere in particular–yet everywhere at once. Another close friend of mine, a teacher, died several years ago, also in middle age. Her presence also feels real when I tune into it. When I hear a sparrow chirping I remember her poetry about sparrows, but there's a more immediate timeless sense of her being able to hear this particular sparrow's song right now. When we are "in love" with someone, doesn't it sometimes seem that the essence of that person is everywhere, all around us? We seem to "see" them in the vast blue sky, the sunset whisps of cloud, the way light slants through pines. We can't put our finger on where, exactly, they are, they simply seem to be everywhere, like the paper that a watercolor painting is painted upon. No matter where you look in the painting, the backdrop holding it all together is there. Love opens us to the awareness of Being that both expresses through and transcends the physical. We become aware, we remember, that we are–that everyone IS–this presence. 

Having someone you know die can be a great gift. Becoming so ill you almost die can also be a great gift. Losing a career or a relationship or a home or a lot of money can be a gift. Anything that rocks your sense of proportion, that pushes you to see beyond what you thought was real, can be a gift. It can help you see what is still there, even when what seemed to hold your world together disappears. Anything that acts as a still point to the persistence of doing, planning, becoming, and trying to get somewhere else, anything that even momentarily stops some self-driven agenda in its tracks.

It has been a relief, for me, to discover and know for sure that I don't have to learn any more in order to become a "better" person. I no longer worry about whether or not I am living up to my full potential. I am as at-ease ironing sheets for three hours as painting or teaching a creatively inspired social studies class on global awareness. Day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, much richness of experience has been accumulated. I still hedge on the side of eating more kale and fewer cookies, but I enjoy both just as much, one is no longer consumed as compensation for the guilt of the other. I am aware, when I love someone, that our time in this physical form is limited. What a wonder it is, to meet you as this! The game of Being Presence while testing out inhabiting this particular form! Now that there is no longer a goading fear of not being enough, no urgency of need to work on perfecting the body and mind, there is even more delight in the ordinary moment. Typically a lot gets done in an average day, but the quality of living it no longer has the strain or weight or rush or seriousness that it used to. I'm already here, now, as Awareness, as Presence. Everything flows from that. 

From the Perspective of Healed Perception

9/11/14

From the perspective of healed perception nothing needs to be healed, because the whole world, with all its dramas, from personal to global, is sensed to be a sort of dream. And yet there is still a singular person in which this awareness ripens, so there is a sense of being a person in a body whose character speaks and acts and interacts with other apparently separate beings. It is like still being a character acting in a play but there is a constant awareness that is dialed out like a wide focus lens, recognizing that there is a movie being projected or a play being acted out.

From the perspective of healed perception there is no more toxic inner body chemistry of angst and anger, the cessation of fomenting over issues beyond one’s control, no more speaking in tones of righteous indignation, for each part of the dream that is the world is also seen to be an aspect of oneself. One Self. 

From the perspective of healed perception it no longer makes sense to judge other people because it is clear to see that all of the content that is held within the silent still fabric of awakened awareness is One Self. There is no longer a belief in or a bubble around a separate “you” that can be contained or defended or contaminated or kept safe. From the perspective of the Field of Awareness that Permeates Everything, there is compassion borne of the deep recognition that there is no “other.”

Within the individual person that consciousness can be experienced as serenity that doesn't suffer. At the same time there is a deep empathetic compassion that is felt. Awareness, like an invisible energy, moves unflinchingly through everything and everyone. So all manner of feelings may float through awareness. Awakened awareness is not only the bliss of feeling love pouring through the still-human heart, it is also the experience of living with a heart that doesn’t shut down and feelings that don’t go numb when awareness registers pain and suffering––although the awareness of pain and suffering may actually seem to increase the voltage of loving energy that is felt to course through one’s human heart. The awakened heart is not reliant on maintaining boundaries around itself to only allow in nice happy tender loving feelings. It is not maintained by mental effort to "think positively". It doesn't rely on one making efforts to ignore or subdue the so-called negative energy. It registers pain and pride and ecstasy and shame and malice and rage, and the most tender feelings of maternal nurturing, and the romance of the new lovers finding each other to be the Beloved. But at the same time, there is a knowing that all of what can be sensed is part of the story of the dreamworld.

From the perspective of healed perception there is earnest regard for thew suffering in the world, but no weighty seriousness urgently aimed at fighting against or fixing anything, for all of the drama is understood to be happening within a dream.  The individual no longer experiences the anguish of wondering if she is doing enough to save the world, nor if she is being creative enough, nor if she is maximizing her true potential, nor if she is manifesting her deepest desires, nor if she is successfully reaching her goals and living her life to the fullest. 

Once the tantalizing fable of just being one individual ends, there is, initially, relief. There is a sense of being freed from the suffering of believing that one is only that individual, with limited time and limited capacities. Time no longer hurts. Ideas such as “Will I have time to do enough?” stop meaning anything. From the perspective of healed perception, there is no longer the weight and tug and pinch of wondering what to do about any of it. 

There is only, obviously, what is going on right now. And that is enough, and there is no need to try to figure it out and make an escape plan or a self-enhancement plan or to try hard to focus one’s intention or to “hold” an intention over time. Whew! What a lot of work that was! There is just showing up, now, which is what is happening, and things in the dream drama continue to happen, and the little individual is held almost as if still because she is no longer resisting the streaming stream of happenings. When she is no longer stuck in the mindset of being only a limited separate individual person––a person who is trying to forgive or trying to be positive or trying to be courageous when feeling anxious, laboring under the dicey idea of trying to make anything better in an idea called “the future”, burdened by the task of trying to figure out why any of it is happening, living as though her intellectual capacity meant something important, believing that she is in charge of inventing her life or saving the world––when she is simply being Aware Now, then she finds that every day is infinitely more simple than it ever used to seem. 

As for her body, which still appears to be acting within the world, all that she needs do is attend to the present moment, the ordinary moment, the cutting edge of the mystery as it appears to be revealed. Not knowing what will happen next is not a source of concern, it is a relief to not be straining toward trying to know or control that any longer. Perpetually at the edge of the known and the unknown, suspended between the obvious and the mystery, the old tension of trying to predict and control (and make up for) is replaced by a sense of vitality, an aliveness that permeates the body and the atmosphere in the room. 

Each day is perfectly full, not overwhelming. She finds that life, or love, or the spirit of life and love, or some mysterious eternal intelligent Presence which Is animates the body and uses her voice. Inevitably, her body and character are used to convey healing. At the end of the day she appears to have done much that would count as being creative and saving the world, except that it came with no sense of personal striving or straining. There is often a deeper sense of satisfaction and fulfillment than there ever was before, for there is a sense of having been used fully and completely. No longer believing herself to be in charge of setting things up, she is brought perfectly into alignment with everyone she is supposed to meet and help, at exactly the right moment, and she is used optimally to bring help and healing and comfort and solace and insight and creativity and compassion to the world. 

How does she know how to do all of this, without getting burned out or putting time and effort into planning it out or training for it or learning how to understand how to do this better? It is so simple. She just shows up. Whatever is happening is what is supposed to be happening. She accepts that fully, so there is no doubt, no disconnection from the flow. The thought that something is wrong–that someone should not be going through whatever they are going through, herself included–is no longer is believable. Though the future is only an idea in the present, visions may appear, like "coming attractions" videos of the movie she is in, which turn out to be accurate as ordinarily and matter-of-factly as the way one might catch a glimpse of a distant landscape as the road goes over a hill.

There is rarely the tightened belly that the old identity felt when awareness was collapsed down into being just an individual believing it was an individual only. What remains of the sense of being a separate self has a deep regard for the mystery, and a relief at being not in charge, (or not trying to be in charge any more, for it never actually was in charge.) 

All of the roles the individual still appears to be playing are a residual feature even when awakened awareness is constant, but the beliefs that once made those roles seem to be the whole of one's identity are no longer intact. Any emotion may arise within those characters, but they wash through the body/energy/mind like a light show, no longer taken as truth. Though there are various sources of pleasure, nothing truly “makes” her feel happy or sad anymore. Awareness is clear that this is a character going through acting on a stage. Yet the character is in situations where she appears to become happy and sad. There is not less sensation, if anything there is more. Awareness senses the heart swells and heartaches of others around her, how seriously they take things, believing that it is all very real and that they are only those little bodies. How huge the waves of loss look from that point of view! 

Contemplating lovers, she feels a swell of joy. Seeing how all things are temporary, she cherishes even the simplest pleasures. Contemplating the people whose house and city are being bombed, black smoke filling the blue sky above their heads, she senses the anguish and choking. Contemplating each subject in the drama she can intuitively sense the beliefs that are being unconsciously held and played out, the roles that are being played in the drama. She knows that no matter how much change appears to happen in the physical world, there will never be an end to the the ups and downs. 

There is relief in realizing that there is no need to become any stronger, wiser, or smarter, no longer the urge to try to explain why things are the way they are based on a past, nor is any effort made to use current events to predict the future. Rather, there is an earnest attentiveness that beholds everything as it is, and wisdom seeps through this attentiveness. Actions take shape, and often life appears quite ordinary, but there is often the sensation of delighting in the split-second timing of perfection as well. At peace with the moment, a brightness permeates everything.

No Belief Necessary

Just as belief in the sun, and knowing what word to call it is not necessary to feel its warmth, belief in such things/concepts/entities as God, Jesus, Buddha, Nirvana, and Heaven is not necessary to experience enlightenment. The awakening of awareness leading to complete liberation is experienced directly. It could be experienced by someone who never heard any of those words, who was deaf without a translator, and illiterate, not able to be taught in words or to access language through text in any form. 

The journey of awakening develops in as many individual ways as there are individuals. There are, however, some similar phases or revelations which many people have a tendency to experience, so it is not unusual or without value for people who have become spiritual teachers to refer to these in words. Parables and analogies are often offered. Writing a poem about a sunrise is a way to point at the experience of having witnessed a sunrise. 

If the tone of a teacher’s description ever invites you to “believe in” anything, it is not because belief in anything is ultimately necessary––in fact belief in many things seems to fall away with awakening! A plant doesn’t need to “believe in” sunlight for its leaves to go about the process of photosynthesis. It doesn’t need to know the word, or to understand the chemical equation, either!  A spiritual teacher may invite a student to temporarily “believe” that there is something analogous to sunlight in order to help the student’s separate-identity-centered experience of reality to expand a little, to help put it in contact with that which is already happening but which the student is not consciously aware of. “There is such a thing as sunlight. Your eyes are still closed, but see if, for a moment, you can feel it’s warmth penetrating your skin.” That is the nature of many spiritual teachings. That which is being taught about is not hidden from the student any more than the sun is being hidden from the person who is standing eyes-closed outdoors on a bright summer day. The teacher says, “Trust me, there is a sun, and it is real, and you are standing in it. It is all around you and penetrating you with its warmth and light.” Once the eyes are open, there is no need to “trust” that the teacher is “right” or to “trust” that the sun is “real”, the realization of truth is experienced directly.

Two of my favorite books, A Course In Miracles, and Gary Renard’s writing about it in The Disappearance of the Universe, and another book which uses more psychological than religious vocabulary, Take Me To Truth: Undoing the Ego, by Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira offer many words: labels, concepts, ideas, and explanations for the reader to entertain. Ultimately, these writings are designed to take you to experiences that are beyond words. Some of the theoretical framework offered is to appeal to the self-organizing mind that imagines itself to be a separate entity struggling to live in a world which seems to be chaotic and in need of managing and interpreting. These teachings speak in language meant to appeal to that level of awareness in which one seems to find oneself stuck. 

As a student experiences changes of his or her perception, the need for those explanations or ideas may fall away completely or come to be seen as only temporarily useful scaffoldings. Part of the quality of the awakened experience is comfort with residing in “not knowing” as opposed to having a sure mental grip on anything. Part of the weight that is lifted as “enlighten”-ment is realized is the weight of all the beliefs, stories, and explanations that one thought one needed to maintain in order to be a good person, a smart person, a wise person, a spiritual person. Mental efforting, especially to try to manage one’s experience, dries up or goes by the wayside. It turns out there is no need to try to maintain a set of beliefs or any particular explanation or understanding of anything. There is no need for the project of maintaining a separate self that thought it needed to do these tasks in order to be safe, or realistic, or effective at making the world a better place. As reality sets in, as awareness of the sun is fully opened to, there is no more searching for such answers, explanations, or directions, because the belief about needing them is resolved. 

There may, however, be dawning awareness, revelatory awareness, “ah ha” moments. The person experiencing a sunrise with eyes wide open may read the sunrise poem again and think, “Ah! Now I see what they were talking about!” Upon experiencing healed perception there may be moments of realizing, “Oh! This is what people are calling God, Christ vision, Buddha Mind, Nirvana, Heaven.” And frequently, upon realizing the glow intimately, directly, experiencing it beyond words, one may find oneself feeling drawn, or guided, or inspired to write a poem (or a book) or speak out in such a way as to point the way for others to see. 

Coming Home Through Acceptance

Acceptance of all as it is right this moment 

is not the same as giving up or getting stuck.
It's a method of finding your sea legs

amidst the ever changing elements of life.

To desist in struggling against what is 

(as if it should not be happening)

uplinks your small intelligence 

with a vast universal intelligence.

That's how to be the most available

to have good come through you.

From the perspective of a seemingly separate individual 

there is no way to perceive what is for highest good of all, 

no matter how hard you try to figure that out in your mind.

But if you take the plunge and join with the all

by accepting everything right now as it is

(which can feel like surrendering into not-knowing)

you'll find that you are able to play your small part perfectly,

relieved of the illusion of being the fixer, the healer, the judge.

Paradoxically, by operating from this surrendered perspective

what appears to come through you 

may heal more than you ever could have planned or imagined.

~

There have been moments of revelation when my head tipped back and my mouth opened into a Cheshire Cat grin and a belly laugh cavorted out through these lips in a spontaneous expression of joy and relief, realizing how much easier it is to not be mentally bound up in trying to control life. Suddenly I am simply "being lived through", there is no effort, just a wide open, surrendered, yet vitally alive feeling in the middle.

In order to grow up and be mature and successful in this world, we are taught to develop self will, self control, self discipline. This is important in order to develop an interior consistency, a unified operating system on the micro level. Independent initiative and goal setting is not a bad thing. But being able to call the shots is not the ultimate freedom. There is a radically different freedom that is only found through surrender and acceptance. Acceptance of all as it is, and most specifically, all of yourself as you are.

Sooner or later one will realize that no amount of effort to improve oneself or the world results in enduring security, success, or satisfaction. Whatever has been shored up will spring a leak, whatever assumptions have been made there will be unexpected changes, whatever roles have been established there will be alterations. Plans will change, people will change, no program is set in stone. One comes to see the endlessness of the improvement game.

With the relinquishment of trying to improve anyone or anything or any aspect of the self you appear to be, there can be access to a still point in which a deep alignment with everything and everyone takes place. I'm not saying this is easy or comfortable to get there. Getting to that may entail facing every bit of resistance your small self can muster. It may feel temporarily boring to stop trying to become anything. It may feel downright scary–as if, by stopping, you are laying yourself bare to be caught up with by something unknown and frightening which you have been trying to outrun. There is a hunch that if you stop planning and trying and scheming and dreaming that you may die.

Practicing acceptance and surrender into the present moment is given a lot of lip service as a "good thing", a spiritual thing, but in fact it can feel sort of like dying. Not in a dramatic way, more of a death into the ordinary. The mind scrambles to find more than "Oh. Just this." If any aspect of you resists, there will still be tension. It may feel as if you had been trying hard to get "home" but are now abandoning the journey, therefor risking the possibility of never reaching some better life that you were meant to live. But as more aspects of your seemingly separate self take the risk to surrender, the tipping point may come when the release of personal control is felt as true freedom.

When you are not bound up in being busy trying to attain anything or become anything (especially some preconceived idea of what "better" looks like), then you are releasing the breaks and going into neutral. Be open to being surprised. Life has a way of meeting you perfectly exactly where you are. When you are not trying to be any more than you are in this moment, not trying to compensate, not trying to bargain with life or anyone in particular, not fearfully struggling to improve anything in the world, then life can meet you perfectly in this moment as you are, and there will be no gap of disconnection, no disjunct between your little self and everything else. It's all one flow, and your part is clear because it is just this, now, completely whole.

Experiencing that is not the same thing as making the mark, attaining the goal, winning the game, or getting anything in particular under your control. In fact, part of the relief is the absence of all of that mattering. It has nothing to do with arriving into any sort of permanent arrangement, with nailing down stability in a career or relationship. But there is vitality, and flow, a sense of celebration, and possibly the feeling of being deeply penetrated and enfolded by love. You may suddenly find that things once out of reach are now given onto you, equal to or better than your most special secret dreams. New horizons of possibility open up unexpectedly. And the darnedest thing is, the way you feel inside may be more "at home" with yourself and in the world than ever before.

Opening the Heart in This World As It Is

"Growing up, in worldly terms, does entail building up defenses;

growing up spiritually means letting them go." ~ Rogier F. VanVlissingen

Yesterday I encountered an image (on facebook) of a new born baby and a half. Possibly (probably) due to the influence of depleted uranium introduced into that area of the world by my country during a war. This baby had other body parts emerging from it, another set of legs, and entrails visible, barely enclosed in a transparent sack. What struck me were two things. One, the uniqueness of that body, the unpredictable strangeness of such a sight, a one-of-a-kind mutation that my eyes had never before encountered. And two, what struck me equally, was how there was no flinching to be felt in my heart or belly. Not that I'm implying that flinching–in pain, sorrow, anger, devastation– would not be a valid response, especially for the parents and hospital personnel. My response, up close and personal, might have been different. But overall, something in my response to what used to horrify me and make me feel anxious and depressed has been changing. 

Does this change have to do with setting healthy boundaries, learning to separate what's mine from what is someone else's problem? Partly, perhaps. Does it have to do with learning how to maintain my separate bubble of well-being in spite of what goes on in the world around me? Partly, maybe. Does it have to do with numbing down feeling and pulling away so that traumatic things are no longer registered by my sensory apparatus? Hardly. 

Here's another picture, symbolic this time. Picture a capital U. On the descending side is learning to grow up in worldly terms, which involves building up one's defenses. The ascending side represents growing up spiritually, in which one experiences a dissolving or falling away of those defenses. 

Psychologically speaking, it is normal and natural to pull away from what frightens us, what causes us pain. The first time a toddler touches a hot wood stove might be the last. There is sudden learning about what is safe. The stove is impartial and impersonal. Learning about one's physical environment and how to navigate it safely, if we can control some of that, is valuable on a practical level. Physical and verbal abuse might be a lot less easy to get away from, and teach one to not trust other people. Even in a life with no such abuse, it is common for most people to learn, from more subtle negative experiences, to shore up the belief that it is not safe to keep one's heart open at all times. We learn to practice conditional loving as part of growing up, in order to try to not be hurt. Being somewhat defended is part of most people's personality profiles.

What is at the very bottom of the U? A turning point, at which one recognizes that any time one's heart is closed it hurts oneself. No matter what the reason, no matter how many valid excuses there are to remain defended, eventually the awareness comes in that opening the heart is going to help more than staying closed down, shut off, and pulled away is going to solve anything. (It's not as simple as a one time revelation, I'm pointing at a general trajectory.)

The ascent I've begun up the right slope of the U has entailed a reversal of much early learning. I've been given, by life, by grace, many instances of discovering that it is possible to open my heart in spite of what is happening. Deactivating the conditioning can be very intense. There is encountering what used to be taken as an excuse to close the heart, and then choosing to be willing to not shut down in anger, blame, fear, or numbness. To allow, to accept, to stand in the fire of strong feeling, to experience pain while staying open. (I'm not talking about being abused nor advocating that anyone "turn the other cheek" physically.) I'm talking about feeling whatever feelings come up when I encounter things beyond my control to change, those things which used to regularly make me feel out of control and hopeless, broken hearted, despairing. It's not that I don't still feel my heart breaking sometimes, I do.

Open hearted unconditional love is NOT the same as wearing rose tinted glasses, in fact it's closer to the opposite. The journey of spiritual maturing is more about taking those glasses off, one encounter at a time. What is it to be in the world as it is without withdrawing into the defense of self-protection, the defense of closing down and pulling away? Or the defense of getting angry and lashing out and fighting back, blaming the world for making one "have to" shut down one's heart? What does it feel like to allow the frozen, rigid, calcified, traumatized aspects of ourselves be melted back into awareness and rejoin aliveness?

It requires a hell of a lot of courage. But each application of courage releases more awareness to be employed in loving. Rather than searching for light in the darkness, waiting until there is proof that it is worth risking, one opens up one's own heart to let the light of love shine into the world anyway. As one grows in trust and willingness to let love in and through one's own very tiny vulnerable little self, at the same time this love is melting that sense of separate selfhood back into the all. Far from shutting down and pulling away from life, it is a re-emersion back into all of life. A gradual loosening of the boundaries of "me" to include "the rest of the world." If there is the willingness to participate, if we surrender to that inner yearning that longs to love unconditionally, then in spite of previous "lessons" we remember that opening makes it easier, not harder, to live in this imperfect world.

Welcoming Grace

"There–but for the grace of God–go I" no longer feels quite accurate to say. If we are all one, there I am starving. There I am in a cage. There I am being a tyrant. There I am as an elephant. There I am in every situation a being appears to be in. (Happily this also implies that I am courageously piloting a rescue helicopter, brilliantly playing cello, and able to do a back flip–yay me!)

As for being the character Emily, in this not so flexible body, I do not believe that this little individual did anything "right" to "earn" a warm place to sleep or a computer to write on. Nor did anyone else do anything "wrong" to "deserve" less. I am not specially blessed by some deity who believes I am more worthy of grace than someone else. Good God, no! Grace is not bestowed upon one but not another! What kind of loving presence would operate like that? Only a crazy one, invented in the image of the ego, by the ego.

I no longer appeal to a deity to take care of me or anyone else as if not asking might result in being forgotten, or as if a significant number of votes were required to sway some deity's decision. As if we were all children competing for one very busy (and distant) parent's attention. A parent with limited resources. I no longer pray like an alien in Toy Story hoping The Claw in the arcade game will Pick Me. "oooOOOOOOooooooooo!"

Grace is not something that only comes quixotically or when called in the right manner. Sometimes it may appear to show up when we pray for it, but that is more about us being willing to be on the lookout, not us succeeding in getting it to pay attention. Grace is everywhere, at all times. Grace never goes away somewhere else, leaving us without it, any more than Love does. We simply forget to open our awareness to its presence. We may be setting conditions as to what forms we are willing to recognize it in. We may be limiting how we allow it to influence our reality.

Sometimes grace is difficult to recognize, such as the grace of not being given what you think you want because, ultimately, it is not what you really needed, after all. There were times in my life when I was so physically and neurologically compromised that I prayed to be released from this body. Other things happened instead, among them some dissolving of the identity who seemed to be suffering. Instead of just feeling better, but basically staying the same, there was more conscious awareness.

Grace is here to support our awakening. If we are willing to entertain that notion, we are more likely to recognize the presence of grace in our lives. Waking up can involve a lot of busting of assumptions. For me, anyway, a lot of busting of what I thought was true and real, in order to find out that it was illusory, or at least only relatively true. This is not easy to go through. It's usually after the fact that I can look back and declare, "What grace, to discover truth instead of having my illusions shored up!"

We don't need to hope and wait for grace to pick our number. Grace is in our lives as we speak. We might ask ourselves, just how much do I really want to be aware of it? If some problem has become a fundamental part of my personal identity, how willing am I to open up to the answer Grace may be offering?