Go your own way, all else is straying' - mindfulness HOW, WHAT?

"I am sick of it!" everyone gives me a different explanation."
Orion looked at Arthur, refilled his cup and sipped hot cinnamon tea.
"Everyone is different," he said.
Arthur looked at the master in frustration.
"Yes, everyone is different," he repeated, and that's why everyone gives a different explanation for 'mindfulness?'"
"Yes," Orion watched his visitor.
They sat in his cave in the great Oriander cliff,   outside windriders circled in the breeze coming in from Umi-Jabour, the great desert, created by the technocrats over three thousand years ago.
"But they all say their definition is the only way."
Orion shrugged, sipped tea, and watched  the sea of sand, the circling windriders.
"Learning to walk, no one can do it for you. Once you can do it, it's easy and you are the expert."
Arthur chuckled, "yes, that's true, So what do I do ?"
"Keep learning."
Arthur took a deep breath, "How did you learn to walk ?"
Orion shook his head, smiled his upside down smile, "I tried and tried."
Orion glanced at the small picture of his teacher the back of the cave, "my master told me to feel the ground, to listen to the sounds around me ....and I listened and I followed. And I became more and more heavy and  focussed on the physical world. It didn't help me, didn't work for me.. I thought it was my fault."
He smiled, "but one day I saw. My master was teaching me what had worked for him. He needed that way, but it didn't work for me."
Orion drank from his cup, poured some more from his teapot and leaned back.
"So what worked for you master?"
Orion shook his head, "so you can copy my path ? Don't."
Arthur smiled, "I guess, yes, sort of, I want to hear your story,  I need to try something."
Orion nodded, "I to copy someone until I realized it wouldn't work for me.
Then  I tried something else."
"What ? "
Orion smiled, shrugged, "so you can walk my path ? Ok do it, if you like. But let it go one day and do YOUR thing, 'Go your own way, all else is straying'." 
Arthur nodded slowly, "Tell me more, please."
Orion sighed, smiled, " ..- you will tell your students the same thing one day.
I played with my awareness:  I realized how much I was focused out of myself.
I decided to feel, to become  aware of my feelings, my breath at the SAME time as I lived my daily life."
"Oh," Arthur looked disappointed.
Orion took a small rock from a pile on his right side, looked at it and threw it out of the open cave. It would fall three hundred yards. He listened for the impact, but the whistling of the windriders, and the  sounds of the wind rushing  from the Sea of Sand, smothered it.

He looked at Arthur: "as you listen to me, as you  look at me, at the SAME time, feel inside,  FEEL, -- what do you feel ?"
Arthur was silent for a while.
"Terror. It feels bad."
"Yes, that's the first gate."
"Oh."
Orion smiled.
"What's the second?"
A wry grin was the answer.
A keen cry from the outside brought their attention to the windrider soaring past their cave. The wings of her glider almost scraped the rock.
Arthur rushed to look up, watch and resumed his place on the cushion.
"She made it, only just."
Orion nodded.
"You knew?"
"No..." Orion stood up, walked to the very edge of the cave, looked down, the three hundred yards. "If you like to try something: imagine what your goal will be, feel it, let the images talk to you... " he turned and looked at Arthur with a crooked smile, "I've probably said to much already".

.....to be continued......->

The Windriders' meditation - 2

"I tried it!" 
Orion nodded, pushed a cup of hot cinnamon tea and cloves across the table towards Elantha and looked at her without seeing her. If she was accepted by the guild, life as windrider was perilous, lonely and set apart from others. 
"a beginning..." Orion said and smiled, the corners of his mouth going down.
The cave in which they sat was carved into the face of the great Oriander cliff,  running for thousands of miles east to west. Windriders practiced in the breeze coming in from the desert, circling and driving like giant birds. 

She had asked for his help, 'but does she know what she is asking?' he asked himself. 
Yet, she had asked him.
"Yes, I know what I'm asking." 
Orion looked at her, surprised.
"Is it that obvious?"
She nodded, "master, you are like an open book."
Orion sighed, "I know, I know" 
"Windriders vanish, the desert takes them, it is lonely --- they are different."
"I know," she looked at him intensely, "I KNOW. I am different already."
Orion sighed, looked out at the great desert Umi-Jabour, the Sea of Sand, "let's get started. What do you do in your meditation?"
"Breathing in, breathing out, - awareness." 
"And ?"
"That's it."
"Does it bore you ?"
"Yes."
"Add to it then. Go deeper, play." 
"Is that ok ?"
"Is that ok ?" Orion let out a long breath of frustration, "of course! Who teaches you this fear ? ....your heart... let her speak..." he shook his head. 
"...a necklace of beads ?"
"Yes, that will do. Keep it dynamic, movement, and add to it the things you want it in your life..."
Elantha nodded, she was familiar with those ideas.
Orion looked at her for a little while, "you are practicing now?!"
"Yes," she smiled.
"You can keep it going while we talk ?"
She nodded.
"Good." 
"What's next ?"
"breath, intent, awareness, .... breath, intent, awareness...."
"breath, intent, awareness...." they repeated the last incantation together. 
"Flow with it, don't fix it." 
He smiled, and added, "that's all, that's it." 
"In that case, I'm sure there is more to it," she smiled a challenge at Orion.
She was determined, she was older than any who had joined the windriders, and she was of the Aesinth, a people with all black eyes, no whites. They had unpredictable abilities. 
Orion, poured himself another brew of tea, from a pot he made for himself, the scent of cinnamon and cloves was very strong.
"Please let me try that?"
He poured a little in a cup for her. 
She wouldn't like it.
Elantha took it, drank, said nothing as she watched the circling windriders. 
Her face broke out into bright smile, she nodded, pushed her cup back to Orion. 
He filled it. 
"What is the next step?"
Orion remained silent. 
There was only the sound of the wind soughing up the cliff, three hundred yards up, over countless cave openings like Orions. 
They sat in silence for an hour. 
Meditating. 
In a voice barely audible above the wind, Orion spoke, "follow the heart lines of intent," he looked at her, "always".
Elantha closed her eyes. 
An hour passed. 

The Windriders' meditation - 1

"I practiced meditation for years, more than ten years....and still....the windriders don't accept me." 
Orion leaned back listening to Elantha's litany. 

Windriders rode the winds of the desert Umi-jabour, from thermal to thermal, over the great Sea of Sand.  They were the lifeline and communications blood of the Morai. 

A week, even three weeks, they had to stay aloft, fly, and sleep at the same time. 

If forced to land, - only a few would ever get off the ground again. The heat, the cold, the vastness of the desert had swallowed countless windriders over the centuries. Even of the most experienced, sometimes simply vanished.

It was an honour to be accepted into the guild of windriders. 

One that Elantha had sought for more than a decade. 

"I am one of the best windriders," she looked at Orion," and then out to the desert. 

Orion nodded. 

"But...", he smiled. 

"But they won't take me," she looked down, "...I know why. I can't meditate like they do." 

"They have lost many..." Orion whispered. He was thinking of the bright eyed Jason, lost in the great storm of 3649. No one had survived that one, none returned. 

"I know," Elantha sighed and stood up, looked around Orion's spacious cave. She bowed to Orion and went to leave.

"Please wait," Orion, waved for her to resume her seat on the cushion opposite him. 

"I'm still sad about Jason," he looked Elantha in the eye, "but I have no right to decide for you."

"You haven't decided for me... I ...." 

Orion held up a hand, smiled and sighed deeply. 

"In all the years you told me about your practice, you moved from normal consciousness to deeper levels of meditation, right ?"

"Yes."

"And you're very good at meditating."

Elantha nodded. 

"What the windriders want from you is something else," he looked into the eyes of his student. 

The knowledge he would give her now would change her life, perhaps an early death. 

"they need you to meditate and be fully awake at the same time, for every moment, for every breath, for as long as it takes to reach safe haven."

"Simultaneous awareness ?"

Orion nodded, "the names don't matter, dreaming, meditation, awareness, whatever you want to call it." 

Elantha looked disappointed, "I tried that."

Orion shook his head, let's talk tomorrow..." 

are we tuning into robots ?

"I can't take it anymore."
'Cafe P' was full, every table on the footpath was taken.  I had just fought my way through the hubbub and found Madame P  sitting at a small table between a window and a Steinway piano.
She looked at me, motioned to the chair opposite her and sipped a strange smelling tea saying nothing, just looking at me.
"I mean: Are we supposed to just follows  rules and policies, like a machine ? Are we all supposed to be human machines, is that it ?"

My Cuppochino arrived.
Still she only looked at me, scanned the tables on the footpath, the steps of Parliament house across the road and smiled at me.
"What do you think ?" I pushed her.

She took a deep breath and said "Yes".
She poured herself another cup of that tea, the scent of Cinnamon and Cloves wafted across the table.
"Happy now?", she smiled a challenge at me.
"No !  -- Come on, everything is reduced to indicators and standard decisions. Where is the humanity ? Where is the caring ? No room for that anymore...." I let out a deep breath.
Elbows on the table, cradling her hot cup in both hands, breathing in the steam, Mme P waited for me to finish.
I continued, "my mum's sick. In the hospital they just do tests with machines, read the numbers and push her down this path or that path. It's all standard protocol. She is on a conveyor belt.
'Enter here, pay there, go left, right, left, depending on the results.... die or exit over there.'  Even the doctors can't do anything. "
Mme P nodded and looked at me like I was made of glass and she could see everything.

It felt like a physical force.
That's how I know awareness is a kind of force.
Maybe one day it'll be 'discovered' and then we'll be allowed to believe it officially ?
"Go on," I said, "ask me", I smiled at her.
Mme P nodded slowly, "so what's your question ?"
"Forget it, I know your answer."

Mme P chuckled and shrugged, "You're right, it's been the trend for quite some time".
"So what do we do about it ?"
Mme P shrugged, looked at the busy tables of her cafe outside and back at me, "you tell me".
"I don't know."
"Same here."
"Noooo. You always have something to tell me, some way to make sense of it."
"Things have been going this way for some time, and one day they won't."
"Arrgghhhh.... ", I couldn't believe she fed me such banalities.
"That applies to everything," I let out a deep breath, "so we just sit here and do nothing, is that it ?"
"Are we following procedures now ?" Mme P looked into my eyes, "or would you like standard sympathy and commiseration protocol 101 ?", she chuckled.
"Oh."
Mme P pushed her chair back at an angle, crossed her legs and leaned back looking out at the crowded tables of her cafe.
"Why?"
"Why what ?"
"The things you complained about ?"
"I wasn't... Ok I was.  You mean why are we turning ourselves into robots ?"
Mme P nodded, sipped from her tea and gave the tiniest of nods.
"We don't trust our humanness, its subjective, unreliable and unscientific.  Everything has to be repeatable, predictable."
.......... to be continued....
Jan2018.





























References:
- Steemit asks if humans are becoming robots

How to be in the NOW --o-- (very practical steps)

"The NOW, the NOW, .... everyone tells me to be in the NOW !"
Felix put his cup down and looked at Orion.
"..but HOW ? How do I get into the NOW ?
I am running around like crazy, I have a 101 things to do and all I get is ONE more thing to do: be mindful of everything else. Geezz. 
I don't get it."

Felix exhaled, leaned back and shook his head.
Orion looked for something on his right, then held up a fresh pot of tea, a question on his face.
A spicy cinnamon and clove smell pervaded the cave.
Felix nodded and pushed his cup across the table.
Orion looked at him: "Oh my god, I should be doing the accounts but I'm surfing the net, I should be doing a thousand things and its all too much and I'm trying like crazy but I'll never get there.... arrragghhhh. 
Is that about it ?"
"Yep that's about how it goes," Felix smiled for the first time since he had entered the master's cave.

He stood up, walked over to the ledge. The dusty wind from the great sea of sand, Umi-Jabour, blew strongly and whistled on its way up the cliff face where Orion's cave lay. He looked down, four hundred meters below him , rocks and white bleached twigs. The bones of those who had fallen.
Why was Orion the only one who didn't put in a window or a guard rail ?
He turned and faced Orion, "I'm sick of it. Sick of living like that." 
Felix returned to his cushion, and the cup of steaming spicy tea, "how do you do it ?" he asked Orion, "you are the Abbot of the oldest tradition and you are always calm.  
Are you just good at keeping it all inside ?" 
Orion chuckled, "no, if I kept it inside I would have exploded long ago." 
"So what do you do ?" 
"Be honest." 

"About what ?" 
"About the moment you are in NOW." 
"I am here with you." 
"And you feel pulled to finish the work you promised Arthur, and you are in a hurry because you left your post to come here and talk to me and you don't want anyone to find out." 
"Uhhmm.... yes, yes, exactly."
"That is the condition you are in NOW. 
How can you be here," Orion tapped the table with his cup,"if you don't include all ?"
"Because I shouldn't even be here taking time to talk to you !" 
"Ok so include that too... that's part of the NOW." 
Orion leaned back looked out at the vast sand dunes stretching to the horizon and thousands of miles further on. Eagles soared past the cave.
"My master used to tell me, "acknowledge your condition in the NOW and you will have peace."
He looked at Felix, "I used to sit where you are now," he smiled, "and I used to argue with him even more than you."
Orion rarely talked about his master, Felix waited quietly, hoping he would say more.
"He used to tell me:  It is not your problems themselves,  it isn't the conflicts in your life, and it isn't even the misunderstandings which create this turmoil in your soul, it isn't any of those things.
Can you guess what it was ?" Orion looked up at Felix.
"... not facing the situation I am in NOW ?"
"Yes, true, but there is more.  What does 'not facing' mean? "
"It means.... not looking at the truth.... running away."
"Exactly, ...... but ....  running from ?" Orion looked at his visitor intensely.
"The problems and conflicts ?"
Orion shook his head, "can you go deeper ?"
"Myself."
"Exactly, running from ourselves."
Orion chuckled.
"Do you run from yourself ?"
"If you mean, distracting myself and never staying still ?"
"Yes, that's it. Good way to put it."
Orion narrowed his eyes and smiled, "Let's go even deeper: Why do we run from ourselves ?"
"Fear ? It would have to be fear."
"Yes. And what are we afraid of ?"
Felix looked out at the desert. Some of the windriders were training in the afternoon breeze.
"We fear ourselves."

"Why?"
Felix shrugged, "that's as far I got. I could never figure out the reason.
"You are almost there."
"Because there is a terrible thing within us ? is that it ?"
"Yes," Orion's smile was wide and happy.
"Is there ? Is there a terrible thing within us ?"
"What do you think ? "
"Yes, I think so. We need to keep a lid on it, keep things orderly and have rules and regulations, otherwise chaos will break loose."
"So then we really should run from ourselves, shouldn't we ?"
"I know, you have a better answer, " Felix knew the master well enough.
Orion leaned forward, "tell me, if we are basically terrible and fake, we have every reason to run from ourselves. Don't we ?"
Felix nodded, "ok, but what if we aren't ?"
"Yes, good point. If we aren't then we are running from a phantom, an illusion, a bogey man."
"So are we or aren't we terrible ? Is the real me really corrupt and terrible and needs to be restrained by civilization ?"
Orion shrugged leaned back and sipped more tea.
Felix likewise leaned back against the cave wall,"you won't tell me, will you?"
"There is no point."
"Why ? It would help me tremendously to know the answer."
Orion shook his head, "no, actually it wouldn't. You would walk out of here and think you knew something, and think you had the truth."
"But I would !" Felix said louder than he intended.
"No, you would have my truth, not your truth."
Felix sighed and rolled his eyes.
"I'm not playing word games," Orion smiled and stood up.
"Surely there is one truth, about this question."
Orion pushed at wall behind him, it was a long dividing wall that could be pushed into the rock behind.
"There is one truth about everything and that is:  It is your truth, and your's alone.
That is the only truth that matters in this case.
Find it.
If you really want peace, find it."
Felix stood up and followed the master into the next room, a great hall. From the ceiling hung three large gliders.
Orion unfastened one of them from its suspensendors in the ceiling and gently guided it to the launching rail.
"How ?"
" The same way you get into the NOW.
That same path leads you to find the truth of your BEing."
Orion strapped himself in and grabbed the line that would open the sliding window of hangar.
He looked at Felix, waiting for him to speak.
"You mean 'acknowledge my inner reality in the NOW' ?"
"Yes exactly,  and you will have peace."
"What if I find I AM terrible, and it is true that I am a corrupt cesspool of  evil ?"
"That question is why most of us humans don't want to know."
"But you know."
"You have to know for yourself, deeply fully beyond what anyone else says. That is the path to your true self, to your BEing."
"I'm not sure."
"That is fine.
It is honest. Acknowledge it.
You can only find yourself if you really truly want to know the truth, no matter what it is, and you are determined to face it, regardless."
"If I want the truth within myself above everything else ?"
Orion smiled, "and if you don't,  -- yet, --  then be honest... about that.
You cannot force yourself to desire the truth above all else, until you DO desire it genuinely from the depth of your soul."
"When, how can I ..... ?"
Orion shook his head, smiled and pulled open the door.
"It's a wonderful day to fly.... take the first step, the others will follow.... "
His glider shot forward and down, unclipped it itself and flew free into the evening breeze coming in from Umi-Jabour.
- Tengra Ngiam,
  Xylantheum.
  13.11.2017




The above was inspired by the writings:  Love: Not a Commandment, But Spontaneous Soul Movement of the Inner Self  ---  in the Pathwork Lecture series number  133
Especially this article below (from Lec133) was seminal:
The acknowledgement of the immediate now is still not sufficiently understood and is often overlooked by the majority of my friends. 

Whenever you acknowledge the truth of each moment, you will be in peace, regardless of how much disturbance and unreality still exist in you as conditions to be gradually eliminated. 
                           Fully acknowledging your condition in the now must give you peace. 
So please understand and do not forget:  It is not the problem itself, nor the conflict, nor even the misconception which create turmoil in your soul, but it is your running away from yourself. 
                        Your not being in the immediate now, your fighting and struggling against it in an unconstructive way, causes so much soul-hardship.