a different dimension of being

I am currently focused on 3 spiritual practices:  letting go of judgment, observing and letting go of the thoughts and feelings of the psyche, and grounding in the silence through meditation.  I plan to blog about each of these practices over the next week or two.

Judgment.  I am becoming more aware of the the judgments as they arise.  Any satisfaction that I might have obtained from judging in the past (judging someone as ignorant, for example, so that I can feel better about myself), is now being over-shadowed by a sense of distaste for doing the judging.  The judgmental thoughts keep me from getting close to others.  Self-judgments do not serve any worthwhile purpose.  Judgments interrupt any inner harmony that I am feeling.  They keep me from accepting life the way it is showing up, therefore they are a set-up for struggle.  When I am judging I am listening to the neurotic roommate that Michael Singer talked about instead of being open to the guidance of Spirit.

Letting go of judgments is like trying to remove wallpaper that has been glued onto a wall for a long time...every once in awhile you come across a strip that peels right off, but often the paper does not want to budge.  Peeling it back requires persistence and patience.  When I am having difficulty letting go of a judgment I set the intention to relax and let it go.  I ask myself "Is this judgment worth closing myself off from Love/shakti/the energy of Spirit?  Do I want to poison my inner environment with this negative energy?"  Michael Singer suggests putting our focus on the point between the eye brows (the third eye) and letting go from there.  He says that our energy will always go to the highest point.


This quote by Adyashanti points the way to an inner freedom that exists on the other side of our judgments, pre-conceived thoughts, and expectations:

"As we begin to meet life as it is rather than as we think it should be, as we let go of our need to control and continuously interpret our experience, we start to open to life in completely new ways.  We become deeply grounded in silence.  The nature of this silence is a lack of conflict with life, and the more we open to this state of nonconflict, to this state of inner stillness, we begin to fall into grace of a different dimension of being---a dimension rooted in a deep intimacy with our own lives and with existence itself."  (falling into grace, p. 135)