the heart of reality

Sometimes when I am unable to let go of feelings and situations it is because I am holding onto thoughts.  The thoughts keep the feelings in place.  Thoughts such as "Why does it have to be this way?" or "Why can't so and so just be nicer, or calmer, or smarter...?" or "When am I going to change?" keep us from accepting and dealing with reality and allowing the feelings to pass.  

A good practice is to hold our thoughts lightly.  This can be hard to do because we hold on to our thoughts in order to keep our lives in order so we feel comfortable, in control...   Letting go of thoughts can leave us feeling vulnerable.  Adya says that

"Beyond this...void of not knowing, there is something greater: the heart of reality... The heart of reality is a vast expanse that we actually live in.  What if we began to relate to each other from this place where we know that our thoughts aren't ultimately true, but we're still going to use them?  We're still going to communicate aren't we?" (falling into grace, p. 85)

He goes on to say that we would still tell each other our stories knowing that they only approximate truth.

If we accepted that our thoughts only approximate truth "Can you imagine how much more lightly you'd hold your mind, the next thought in your mind, the thought that tries to convince you to struggle? What would happen if your mind were disarmed?  What would happen if you suddenly realized that happiness, peace, love and freedom weren't going to come from your mind?" (falling into grace, p. 85)

During this Independence Day please join me in freeing ourselves from the confines of the (limited) mind and the psyche.  Watch your thoughts but do not attach to them.  Feel the feelings without attaching meaning to them and allow them to move through you.  Deal with what is right in front of you.

God is our Source of happiness, peace, love and freedom.  Those states are already within us. We just need to remove the blocks.

Happy 4th of July!

God and I are One

Recently I was experiencing some negative energy that was not moving through me. Nothing that I did helped me to let go of it.  I tried feeling through it, witnessing it, letting go of thoughts that were contributing to the feelings...   I prayed about it and asked God to guide me.

I then decided to focus on my heart.  As I breathed into my heart and reminded myself of my intention to live with an open heart in each moment regardless of what was happening in my life the negative energy began to pass.

Different tools work for different situations.

In each moment I will choose to do whatever it takes to let go of that which blocks me from being aware of my connection with God.

God and I are One.  My heart's desire is to be fully aware of this Oneness and to live as God intends for me to live.

Thank you for reading this blog and sharing this experience with me.  Peace to you!  

tuning into an inner expansiveness

In chapter 5 of Falling into Grace, Adya talks about being present with feelings and letting go of the conclusions that we draw about what is, what was (what should have happened that didn't or what shouldn't have happened that did), and what will be as a way to free ourselves of suffering.  Living in the present moment can feel uncomfortable however, and Adya suggests the following:

"In your willingness to pause during a moment or difficulty, to take a few breaths and tune in to all that is there, you may notice that a comforting presence starts to arise.  It's by allowing yourself to feel and experience this presence that you can open yourself more and more to what is revealing itself in this moment. Even if it feels frightening, there is an underlying sense of well-being that is always with you and fully available even if you don't feel well."  (Falling into Grace, pp. 117-118).

Adya goes on to say that this presence is the "foretaste of another state of consciousness."  (It is the neutral Self that Michael Singer would label as the Observer or Witness.)    

"By giving your attention to it, by becoming aware of this inner presence and stillness, even in the midst of activity, you make yourself more and more available to the dawning of this vast expanse where you can awaken out of the belief and experience of separation.  You realize yourself to be a deep well of awareness-an inner expanse that's always there.  You just have to open to it." (Falling into Grace, p. 119.)

My intention this week is to give myself permission to stay present with whatever I am experiencing, let go of thoughts and conclusions about what is happening in my life, and tune into a deeper presence in the stillness of the moment.

embrace the moment

This week I've been noticing when I am feeling stressed and I have been saying to myself "I give myself permission to fully feel this."  Somehow this statement helps me to really accept what I am experiencing.  I stop resisting the feeling.

There are many stressors throughout each day and there is a tendency to skip over many of the little ones or try to handle the situations instead of being with the feelings.  For example, worrying if the weather is going to be good for the beach party on Friday might prompt me to check the weather forecast instead of sitting with the feeling.  I can't control the weather.  I can't predict the weather.  When I stop resisting the feeling I am free to actually deal with the situation instead of having to deal with the discomfort about the weather.

Being concerned about how my kids are going to do on their final exams may cause me to tell them to study (which may or may not be the best thing to do) instead of staying centered and deciding how to handle the situation wisely.  If I don't accept that there is inner discomfort about their final exams, I will be acting in ways that take care of my discomfort instead of acting in ways that take care of the situation (e.g., my kid's study habits).

Most of us experience inner discomfort often throughout each day.  If we don't accept the discomfort we will be trying to make it go away...in essence we are reacting to our discomfort instead of reacting to what is right in front of us.  This is what The Untethered Soul is all about.  

In my personal experience as well as in my work with clients I have found that one of the best ways to let go of feelings is to stop resisting them.  The nature of feelings is to move through us, but we need to stay with the feelings in order for that to happen.

Stay tuned for my next blog post about how this state of acceptance leads us towards an awakened consciousness.

taking the struggle out of letting go

Adyashanti says the following about meditation:

"In order to let everything be, we must let go of the effort to control and manipulate our experience-which means letting go of personal will.  This cuts right to the heart of the egoic makeup, which seeks happiness through control, seeking, striving, and manipulation."  (The Way of Liberation, p. 20)

"As you gently relax into awareness, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade.  Silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free from any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition." (The Way of Liberation, p. 22)

I find the above quotes to be useful in meditation as well as in daily life when I am trying to let go.  Some situations are difficult to let go of and this can lead to an inner struggle...not wanting to have the thoughts and feelings but being unable to let them go.

Having "an attitude of open receptivity"  means I give myself permission to have the thoughts and feelings no matter what they are...I do not try to control my inner experience...I let whatever is present be as it is.  Then, as I gently move my awareness to the neutral observer (or to the experiencer) I find that the thoughts and feelings move through me.

Practicing this in meditation has helped me to do it in my daily life (off the cushion as they say).  It takes some effort to stop and do this when discomfort arises but what could be a more valuable use of one's time than transcending the limited egoic self?

Self

A quote from page 136 of The Untethered Soul:

"If you are willing to let go, you'll fall back and it will open into an ocean of energy.  You will become filled with a light that has no darkness, with a peace that passeth all understanding.  You will then walk through every moment of your daily life with the flow of this inner force sustaining you, feeding you, and guiding you from deep within. You will have thoughts, emotions, and a self-concept floating around in inner space, but they will be just one small part of what you experience.  You will not identify with anything outside of Self."  

Please join me this week in letting go of identifying with the false self.  It is not you.

Surrender to your Highest Self and let it guide you.

taking the journey to peace

If you have a copy of The Untethered Soul, check out the last 2 paragraphs of Chapter 14 Letting Go of False Solidity on pp. 136-137.  Here are a couple of lines:

“If you want permanent peace, permanent joy, and permanent happiness, you have to get through to the other side of the inner turmoil. You can experience a life in which waves of love rush up inside of you any time you want.  It is the nature of your being.  You simply have to go to the other side of the psyche.  You do that by letting go of the tendency to cling.  You do it by not using the mind to build false solidity.  You just decide once and for all, to take the journey by constantly letting go.”  (TUS, p. 136) 

 

Letting go of the false self that we have built is scary.  The reason we have built this self-concept is to give us a (false) sense of security (i.e., delude ourselves into thinking that we are in control of what is happening in our lives in order to avoid feeling fear or vulnerability).

The way to get to the peace that passeth all understanding is to witness the false self and let the pain/fear pass through. 

I am ready to dive into this kind of letting go.  I’ve been noticing when my mind rationalizes and tries to make sense of happenings in my life so that I can feel comfortable.  If I am not alert I will habitually do whatever leads to feeling comfortable on the inside.  Sometimes I try to think my way through situations in order to avoid feelings of pain.  I may take a comment that someone else has made and try to make them wrong in my mind so that I feel better.  At other times I try to figure out how to fix things so that I can try to prevent whatever the unwanted situation is from happening in the future.     

I find it helpful to remind myself that God is in charge.  Whatever the situation is I give it to God and I bring my awareness back to whatever thoughts and feelings I am holding onto and let them go.   

Instead of looking for inner comfort, I am retraining myself to accept whatever I am experiencing and when that is uncomfortable I say to myself “Good! This is my false self that I am bumping into.  I see it, I feel it, and I choose to let it dissolve.  This will help me get to the other side which is where I want to be…living my life as True Self.”