Dream navigation

"Do this.

Do it that way.

Come here,  

go there,...."

I fit into normal life  and flow with  it.

And as long as I am  happy to be a  part of the river and flow along all is fine.

But one day  I want to do something different, I want to change the river, flow in a different direction, do different things.

But I'm in my river, where I grew up all  my life. .

Now things get interesting.

How do I change my life  ?

"Don't be silly, the flow you are in too strong, and you are looked after, all is fine, you are comfortable, - go back to sleep and 'flow....'" I have said to myself  

And  for a while  I  did,  I went back to sleep.

But I am more than my mind, I am  a child of the Universe, and there is a whole Universe to  explore, infinite worlds,  which  call me.

Sitting fearfull in my comfortable cave,  becomes harder and harder as the sounds  and smells  of the summer outside call to me.

I want to follow the deep urging inside me.

I can no  longer flow with things as I did before, I now want to go a different way.

I have tried going to sleep but it does not work anymore.

So,  I try to change things.

I complain a lot.

         It doesn't work.

I fight with the flow.

         It doesn't work.

I carefully build a new life, step by step.

That does work, but it's very very tedious and slow, and I get exhausted.

It must be my fault, I am  defective, I need to fix myself.

I  spend a few decades doing that.

          it doesn't work.

"Say YES, accept."

the Guru tells me.

I do that.

I feel better. - for a while.

but soon I'm asleep again....

but the ache to move, to grow, to see the wonderful world out there.... wakes me up.

I am awake, I long to move, to leave this flow to move in other flow. to feel the flow of the wind on my skin, to fly like a bird, to soar and dive and sail and turn - to float and glide over the forest.

I look up from my river to see the bird fly above, I've never noticed them before. I never really looked up before.

Try as a I might, I simply can't leave the river. I'm too heavy, I'm afraid and I don't know HOW to leave.

"There is a million  steps between you and them", my friends tells me, "we are safe here, float with us..."

And I do.

For a while.

Then I turn over on my back and I look up, I see them fly high above us, soaring and gliding on the wind.

Do they notice me ?

Is there even one of them who wants to float here with me ? Like I want to fly with them ? Up there ?

I dream of flying like them, floating up there, on wings, gliding in the rising air, smelling the flowers of the forest.

I can almost feel the air rushing past me,  the call of my friends flying beside me.

I CAN feel the air on my wings.

I AM up in the air.

Far far below me, is a river, flowing through the forest. Fish swim in  it, and I see a flash of silver, as one of them jumps out of the water turns over and looks up.

I remember now,  once upon a time, a long time ago, I floated in a river, swimming with my friends.

"We navigate the Universe by dreaming"

when fear strikes -- it speaks with forked tongue

when I'm afraid of something, I think it's the thing I'm afraid of, which is the problem. 

But it's not. 

Fear, itself, the feeling of fear is the problem, not the person, not the situation, not the thing (unless it happens to be a hungry Tiger on the footpath :-)  - That's a different kind of fear... ) 

Fear says: "hey this person, Hey this new idea, they are the problem ! 
Fight them, and you will be free of fear! 
Is it a deal ?" 

And if I fight in order to be free of fear, am I not really just fighting to feel different? fighting for myself ?
I don't even 'see' the person, the idea, I'm afraid of, I'm just fighting to 'feel better'. 
I haven't left myself, no matter what beautiful reasons I tell others to justify my fight. 

Fear is a liar.
One I too often believe.....

why is mindful so hard ?

When I try to be mindfullness, I usually lose it within ten to twenty seconds....

Why is being mnidful so hard ?
I don't need convincing that it's a good idea.
I just don't make it for more than 20 seconds, or a minute.

"Ah Grasshopper, it is like meditation, you need to bring the 'monkey mind' back to the moment, gently without judgement and just continue to meditate."

Hmm.... yes, master, that's what I've been thinking too, BUT.... BUT... I thnk there is more to it than that.

When we are being mindful  we often try to hold a fixed posture.
We assume that being mindful is a static fixed way to hold our mind and feelings like holiding a fixed posture in our body.
We can't do that, just as we can't hold a physical posture for a long time.
We are made for motion and movement.

"Good point grasshopper,..."

what if mindfulness is switching our mood, our level of awareness, our .... how to say it, ... 'register' or 'octave' ?
We don't even have good words to describe changing our mode of consciousness that makes it something that is sustainable for the whole day, not just for 20 seconds.

Unless I change 'mode'  or 'mood' or however you put it, .... unless I do that, being mindful is just ONE MORE THING TO  DO  in my already busy and stressfull life.
I just pile on another straw onto the overloaded camel.

So being mndful for a whole day, without draining myself, without criticising myself for not being mindful, has to do with  entering a different mode of operation.

Sometimes you get nto a very gentle, relaxed  mode, and still get things done.

"Yes."

How do you get there ?

Personally I  try and remember that state, and I try to hold onto it, enter into it.
Whatever I'm doing I try to feel that state, and pull it towards me.
Maybe that's how it work?
I don't know.
I guess there is no fixed formula. It's not like a catching a train: get on here and get off there..
It's a different path for everyone.

That doesn't really help much does it ?

"It helps grasshopper, it helps.
Actually that is what I end up doing, I drop into a different 'mode' as you put it.
But I never thought of it like that.
I just tried and tried and tried and somehow one day I popped into a different mode, for longer and longer each time....

So I guess I  left the static posture idea, but I  didn't think of it like that.
You put it very well."

I would give up if I didn't find this way of seeing it, master.

"Ah, you young folk, always ready to give up."

Ah master, you old folk, you lived in in a world where you could spend years, mastering awareness and mindfulness, finially entering a different level of awareness and acquiring the abiilty to move your consciousness into different levels.

"Yes we did, you are right.
And that world is goine. ☺"

Now I know about changing 'mode' of being, I know what to look for during the day......
Wish me luck ...:-0

Two different worlds

Yesterday I understood something about myself.
I was just here doing stuff, but I couldn't feel any purpose.
I was drifting around the place.
Lost.
I felt lost.
Why ?
I didn't really believe I would ever achieve my life's purpose.  Hell,  I didn't even know what it was.
I couldn't even tell myself what it was.
Everything I thought of as worthwhile, my inner critic shot it down in in flames.
I was going through the motions.

Oh, but don't you remember that reality confirms your beliefs, whatever they are, they will be confirmed and become self reinforcing.

Yea, I remember that, - I told other people that reality was like that.

Well how about applying it to yourself ?

As in ?

As in believing you have a purpose and that you will achieve it.

What just believe it and I have it ?

Kind of.

That's crazy.

Reality confirms your belief.

Yea, that's what I told others.

Tell yourself.

Hmm......

(A short while later)

Oh, it's called 'Faith' isn't it ?

Yep, that's what some call it.

I feel something different now. 
I don't have to be in charge of my destiny, I can trust a greater power that it will all work out somehow, even though I have no idea how.
Yes.
I don't need to know, in fact I can't know all the steps.
I am a part of all there is and all there is has manifested me .

Something like that.

What do you mean 'something like that ?'
Do you know more or better ?

No, I don't.

Why say "something" then ?

Any expression of 'it' in words, any attempt to encapsulate 'the truth' kills it.
We can only approximate it.
The minute you think you 'got it nailed down' its gone, you have a corpse.

Hmm.... yes ... I get that.
This blog article is my attempt to 'catch it'.
I knew when I started the article it wouldn't really ever hold 'it', but I did it anyway.

Yep, I thought so.
That's what we do.
Do it anyway.

*******************

When I look back on my feeling yesterday, i was in a place where I looked for my purpose, couldn't find it, didn't know it, couldn't express it.
So i didn't believe I had one.
I tried to get used to taht.

And what happened ?

I felt crap.
It was like getting used to a missing leg and arm.

Yep.

And as I told you, I remembered the bit about 'Faith' about 'something being real only if you believe it to be so' which makes no sense to the rational mind.

Yes you told me all that.

The strange thing is: when I'm in the 'rational mind frame' I don't see my purpose, I can't express it.
So i get down.
I feel crap.
For no rational reason, but I feel crap.
I drop into pain and feeling the pain.
Then at the level of the pain, i  enter the world of feeling.
In the world of feeling things that didn't make sense in the world of mind, make a lot of sense.

Things like what ?

Stuff like:
Believing that I will get my life's purpose done.
That even though I don't know the steps of "HOW", I will get there, I will get there.

Yes, that sounds like you got a grip on what is going on.

My rational self doesn't know how to digest food, how to beat the heart, it all just happens.
I grew up from a one cell egg in the womb, I will go back to dust, and yet some part of me, of the 'i' is still there.
Other parts will go to dust.
It's a FEELING, level of being, which still includes mind and logic, but mind and logic are not the only citizens in that world.
The trouble starts when mind and logic do a 'coup de'tat' and try to seize total control, then they kick out 'feeling' and everything else.

Yes that's what I noticed too.

And once mind and logic try to seize total control, and deny feeling and intuition and all the rest of life, then life becomes a battle, a duality, a fight for survival.
It's 'me against them'.
I, the mind and logic, have to run the whole show.
But that is not reality.
The rest of the Universe is still there.
So a dictatorship of mind and logic creates pain.
And since feeling has been banished, into the jail of the subconscious, pain is not acknowledged.
It can't be.
But it's still there.
So what happens ?
Pain is allowed back in through the backdoor of pseudo reason and rationale.
Pain is projected onto  something, someone 'out there' and then its labeld 'bad' and 'enemy' and then the battle begins.
You get more duality.

Psychology calls all that "projection".

Yes, that's it. 

The rational mind likes to be 'in charge'.
It doesn't say that in so many words.
If you ask the rational mind "do you want to be in absolute control?" it will say "of course not, it's not even possible."
But because the rational mind has denied (can't understand) feeling, those feelings don't go away, they do what they want.
The heavier ones come up.
That's usually fear and anger.
Fear and anger then direct the mind, and the mind not able to understand or accept feelings, makes up "reasons" and "rationales" that it can accept, for those feelings so it can act on those feelings.
Not realizeing that the true motivation comes from outside the mind i.e. those feelings of fear and anger.

Why do you say the 'rational mind likes to be in charge' ?
How can you say that ?

How can you say a fish likes to swim, and a  bird likes to fly ?

Ok Ok, I get it.

You can't solve a problem at the same level of the problem.
A fish who lived in water all his life can't conceive of air and flying or earth and walking, if it insists that there is nothing but water in the universe.

There are two worlds then.

Yes, many more but let's just talk about those two.

The world where reason and logic are the dictators, and claim absolute control, and the world of feeling and faith.

yes.

How do you move between the two ?

You have to 'want' to move.
Nothing can force anyone.
No amount of reason of evidence can convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced.

You mean the fish that doesn't want to leave the water ?

Yes.
The fish doesn't have to leave the water, he just needs to acknowledge that there are a limits to the ocean.
But it's more than that.

What ?

Free will.
Respect.
If the fish doesn't want to leave the water or even swim close to the limits you can't force him.

Ok.
So let's say someone wants to move between the worlds.
How does it usually happen ?

Pain and or imagination.

Huhh ??? What do you mean ?
We talked about how the dictatorship of reason and logic creates pain. That's one way.

So given enough pain people will change and see the truth ?

No.
They still have free will.
To be forced by pain is not free will.
It's like someone holding a gun to your head and asking you to say that you freely choose to give them all your money.

Hmm.....
I guess that's where the idea of 'hell' comes in.

I guess that's one way to see it, yea.

Ok, so what's the other way, you said 'imagination'.

In our fish and ocean analogy: if the fish is curious, and imagines something different than just ocean  then he will check out the limits of the ocean, discover that there is a bottom, and top and sides to his ocean.
And the idea of something 'other' than his world comes into his mind.

I see.
I have heard about worlds created from imagination.
The act of creation is imaginative.

Yes :-)

facing dragons --

What IS INSIDE me really ?

Most of my life I did not dare to look.

Lots of darkness probably.

I peeked a few times, then slammed the lid down hard.   

“It’s dangerous…. There be dragons !!!”

It might be too much to handle.

"Darkness is only the name we give the unknown, grasshopper.”

“Yes master. But I’m still afraid of the dark.”

“Then bring light to it.”

“Easy for you to say. I can pretend, but I’m still afraid of the dark, no matter what you say. I can’t help it.”

“Why not do it anyway ? You love doing things you are not supposed to ? You love rebelling, so why not rebel against your fear ? ”

Wow, that was clever. He got me there. I did love rebelling and doing things I wasn’t supposed to.

“How ? I can’t just light a candle and walk into it can I ?”  

The master looked at me, and said nothing for the rest of the day.

Then over tea, as we looked out over the desert sunset he continued as if no time had passed.

“The candle of consciousness”.

“Hmm…..”

I’ve avoided this all my life because …..because, well, …  it was hard and unpleasant and I didn’t want to know about the  dark side of myself.
Other people had dark sides.   
The world had a dark side.

I worked hard to fight the darkness out there in the world.

But me ? a dark side ?
“Ehhh he he …. well ok, yea I guess I’m not perfect…. there’s probably a bit of darkness in me here and there.  But hey, who’s perfect?

There are great battles against the darkness to be fought out there in the world, no time to sit and look at my own small darkness….”
Right ?

I knew the master would not agree.

You’re just ‘shouting for silence’ he would say, he doesn’t like the idea of fighting to make the world a better place. He’s old, should get out more, see the world, but I can’t tell him that.

So I didn’t say anything to him for the rest of the evening.

-> 10 years later:

Well it took me a long long time and then  I DID look and at some of the darkness in myself, ....yep, pretty dark, pretty bad.
I looked at my darkness, without judgement (as much as I could).
I did the watching and observing without rejecting what I saw, without clinging to what I saw.

I let the light consciousness shine on the unknown areas in myself (i.e. the darkness), and tried not to force any result.
I did all that for a few days and then forgot about it.

The next day something surprising happened.

I felt love, connection with myself.

I felt love for myself.

Like wtf ?

I’m used to feeling crappy deep down, because I know I’m definitely not perfect. No one’s perfect and all that jazz… .

I had not expected feeling love, not for myself, and not for others.

I didn’t deserve love.

I wasn’t perfect yet, the love had come too soon.  

But there it was.

I felt love, for myself, for others.

Oh.

Why didn’t I expect it ?

Well because I dare only expect things I can control.

Oh I see: And because I don’t control it, I can’t expect it.

I can’t force the feeling of love to come, so I don’t count on it, I forget about it.

It is outside my controlled reality.  

Therefore I don’t think about it at all,

and I forget about it.

I only believe in my own will, and myself…. “Isn’t that pretty lonely ?”

“Yes, come to think of it, it is.”

In my culture, in my world, we reject anything we cannot control, or at least we don’t count on it, we might be ‘prepared for it’ like one is prepared for a disaster.

But life is relationship, and relationship is being with ‘the other’.

The other that is other, BECAUSE it is not me, is not under my control or knowledge.

Yet we fear ‘that other’ - and at the same time we yearn for it.

“Why yearn for it ?”

“Because in ‘the other’, ‘the new’, ‘that which is not I, and yet is I’ there lies love, relating, meaning and all that truly makes life worth living.”

In a machine, all is known, controlled and as it should be.

Do I want to relate to a machine ?

Then why do I try to make others into machines, control them, reduce them to narrow paths of the known ?

Fear.

Why ?

What do we fear ?

Why do I fear the bright light of life ?

...the adventure ?

....the joy…. ?

….the unknown, unpredictable …?

“I fear all that, for the same reason I fear looking inside myself…”

We make laws, erect walls, defences, surveillance…. to defend ourselves from what ?

“From ourselves.”

“That is ridiculous, Master. Afraid of myself ?”

He said nothing, just looked at me.

I knew, he would not argue, with me if I didn’t want to see the truth.

“Same darkness, isn’t it? “ I looked up at the Master.

He smiled.

……..

“Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.

It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.

Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

from: "Sisters Of Mercy"

by Leonard Cohen.

Pathwork  Lecture 141: To the extent that deliberate destructiveness is unconscious and therefore cannot be given up, happiness cannot be embraced. When you comprehend the deliberate destructiveness and in what form it exists (not necessarily in action, but perhaps predominantly in hidden emotions, which can only lead to indirect corresponding actions as well as to vague thoughts and half-conscious wishes), when this is concisely crystallized in your consciousness, then you will immediately understand what blocks you.

what separates me from a direct experience of life ?

A monk and his teacher are walking in the teacher’s garden. The monk asks his teacher to explain a quote from the fourth-century teacher, Seng Chao, “The whole universe is of one and the same root as my own self.” The teacher points to a flower and says, “Most people see this flower as if they were in a dream.” The dream the teacher refers to is the cloudiness of our mind that separates us from our direct experience of life.  --- from Judith Blackstone, "the enlightenment process: a guide to embodied spiritual  awakening."

 I read this stuff before.
 I know it all.
Right ?
 Well, so I thought.
But no.
When I judge someone,   when I see them in terms of 'they are for me, or against me',   then I am NOT seeing the real person.
 When i see the person as an object, a wheel in the machine...i deprive myself of a direct experience of life.


When I see life in terms  of abstracts, and  generalities, I get bored.

Does my level of boredom tell me how much I live in abstracts in my head ? 

.

What is possible ???

This photo is the first working transistor 1947 
It's in a lab its only just working a little.
If someone showed me this and said:
"This is just the beginning, from this thing here, will come a revolution that lets people talk over distance, around the planet, for almost nothing, guides planes, controls machines, calculates numbers, makes artificial intelligence possible.... lets you talk on video phones....

"You are crazy..." is what I would say.

But that is what happened.

What else can happen.... ?
How do you know what a simple little idea can lead to....
and how do you know that some 'great idea' is really going nowhere?