Whole Living Today

Thanks Billy.

Being human. Duality. We all battle the dualities of being human, trying to find balance. The ups and downs, the highs and lows, the light and the dark, the love and hate, the rights and wrongs… Judgements. Guilt. Ours and those placed upon us. And the need for forgiveness… to be human.

The Double Life
~Don Blanding 

“How very simple life would be
If only there were two of me
A Restless Me to drift and roam
A Quiet Me to stay at home.
A Searching One to find his fill
Of varied skies and newfound thrill
While sane and homely things are done
By the domestic Other One.

And that’s just where the trouble lies;
There is a Restless Me that cries
For chancy risks and changing scene,
For arctic blue and tropic green,
For deserts with their mystic spell,
For lusty fun and raising Hell

But shackled to that Restless Me
My Other Self rebelliously
Resists the frantic urge to move.
It seeks the old familiar groove
That habits make. It finds content

With hearth and home dear prisonment,
With candlelight and well loved books
And treasured loot in dusty nooks,
With puttering and garden things
And dreaming while a cricket sings
And all the while the Restless One
Insists on more exciting fun
It wants to go with every tide,
No matter where… just for the ride.
Like yowling cats the two selves brawl
Until I have no peace at all.

One eye turns to the forward track,
The other eye looks sadly back,
I’m getting wall-eyed from the strain,
(It’s tough to have an idle brain)
But One says “Stay” and One says “Go”
And One says “Yes,” and One says “no,”
And One Self wants a home and wife
And One Self craves the drifter’s life.

The Restless Fellow always wins
I wish my folks had made me twins.”

 

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected
turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,
gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?
perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, seperate, in the evening…

Rainer Maria Rikle (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

While cleaning up my computer today, I came across a newsletter that I had saved over a year ago. The following article is written by James Ray. Visit JamesRay.com

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“Relationships are a gateway to enlightenment.”

It is easy to be enlightened when sitting in your living room alone. But time and time again I realize that relationships (romantic and non-romantic alike) act as a mirror for your potential areas of growth.

“If you think you are truly spiritual and enlightened…go spend a week with your parents.” - Ram Dass

Unless a person is really filled with Power and Consciousness, all relationships (particularly intimate ones) are severally flawed and dysfunctional. Time and time again I have had the opportunity to dance with my own devils in intimate situations with another. More often than not my ego has attempted to convince me that I am really conscious and awake while the other (the “unenlightened female” in a particular situation) is unconscious and thus the problem is a result of her not me :o).

The ego can play tremendous trips on you, even in the name of Spiritual pursuits.

“There are only two emotions in the world…love and fear.”
- The Course in Miracles

It seems that most relationships (particularly in today’s world) become love/hate situations (or love/fear). More often than not, intense love can be followed by emotional attack, anger, accusation, or complete withdrawal of affection, and this is considered normal.
Another common approach is avoidance of relationship - most often practiced to avoid pain, but this is not an effective strategy. Experiencing many “failed relationships” (if approached through awareness), can do more to enlighten then years in seclusion.

True love has no opposite. Think about that one.

If a relationship moves from “love” to anything other than love, it was not true love to begin with - rather infatuation. Many passionately dive into a new- found “love” only to realize that their “perfect infatuation” has turned into a perfect monster.

Typically we begin to see all the weaknesses and shortcomings in that person that mysteriously did not appear before. Actually each person offers the other an opportunity to observe their own weaknesses and where they have the possibility of growth.

A perfect relationship will only be achieved by two people who are passionately pursuing Consciousness and are open and willing to grow.

There have been several occasions in my own life in which I come out of a relationship followed by a long period of being alone. In my experience these times have been incredible times of increasing Power and Consciousness; and then invariably the Cosmos has sent me the perfect mate to test the depth of my true mastery. Unfortunately, in many cases the intellectual understanding has outshined the practical mastery.

“The things you don’t like in others is often the darkness in yourself that you refuse to face.”

This dance with your own darkness is where the battle begins. This battle is never truly with the other person. The Warrior fights the battle internally with his/her own demons; and while difficult in many cases - this battle is potentially the greatest gift.

I have learned as much or more about my self, my own ego weaknesses, and my own needs in a relationship as I have learned sitting in the Alps with my teacher.

For true love to flourish you must disidentify with the ego and its incessant thoughts and begin to transcend and live in a state of Consciousness, Beingness or Presence.

To do this you must become the observer of your thoughts and your behavior. Once you move to the point of observation (in other words you observe the thoughts and emotions that arise), you no longer are identified and/or owned by them.

Increased consciousness does not mean that you will no longer have the feelings and thoughts - you will. The ego survives on these things and will create them even to the loss of your own happiness. But with increased consciousness you can allow these egoic thoughts and feelings to arise, observe them happening, yet not be attached or defined by them.

As long as we are in human form, the ego will play the game. The Path of Power is playing the game full-out but not being owned by the game. This “full-out play” occurs in an increased state of Consciousness where you are no longer dependent on the outside world to create your state of being. You can still appreciate and enjoy the fullness of the physical world (in fact, that is why you are here), but you are no longer identified by it. You can have fun manifesting and creating and experiencing all the things that we are here to experience, but your essence it as ease.

Eckhart Tolle does a masterful job of defining the difference between your “life” and your “life situation”. From the moment you enter the physical plane you subject yourself to distraction. Every thing is a distraction as well as an opportunity to transcend - this is your “life situation”. But true Being, Power, Consciousness, is changeless and complete - this is your “life”. Power is increased and Consciousness expanded to the degree that you constantly define yourself by your life not your life situation.

Remember we are human beings, not human “doings” or human “havings”. True beingness is tested by distractions such as cars, houses, income, and relationships (life situation). To the degree that you allow yourself to be defined by toys, trinkets, and others, you no longer are accessing your true identity or Beingness. There is no place where this is more apparent then in relationships.

Relationships (like all externals) are a distraction. Since we are only male and/or female in this physical form we will always be physically incomplete. Therefore we continue to be attracted to the “other half” of our form. Yet your true identity is fully male and female…Consciousness is totally complete.

The Journey and objective of the Spiritual Warrior is to play the game of life, observe and participate in all the distractions, while remaining rooted in Infinity. Easier said than done…but this is exactly why you are here and why the earth plane is such a wonderful place to grow.

So begin relating and growing. Allow those around you to show you who you truly are. I guarantee it will accelerate your Power more rapidly than any monk assignment will ever do. Get in the game! After all…that is why you are here.

Light Speed,
Your Spiritual Warrior coach,

James

“The transformative relationship is a shared journey toward meaning.”  ~Marilyn Ferguson

Our relationships with other people are the first steps out of ourselves and into the world. Every relationship that touches our lives presents us with opportunities for learning and adding something to the lives of others.

As we recognize our interconnectedness with other people, we begin seeing the far-reaching effects of what we do. A smile freely given, a loving word spoken or an angry one held back — these are the simple ways we make powerful differences in others’ lives.

Together, we journey toward finding and understanding the meaning in our lives. Together, we discover that we are not so different from one another. Together, we find the strength and support that none of us has alone.

Whether or not we recognize it, we are responsible, one to another. We affect each other profoundly, every day of our lives. When we consciously and deliberately take responsibility for ourselves in relation to others, we can transform ourselves, our relationships, and, ultimately, the world.

From Green Spirituality: Reflections on Belonging to a World Beyond Myself by Veronica Ray

“Love cannot be born of mere determination: through the exercise of will one can at best be dutiful. Through struggle and effort, one may succeed in assuring that one’s external action is in conformity with one’s concept of what is right; but such action is spiritually barren because it lacks the inward beauty of spontaneous love.

Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself.

Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love.

True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the fee and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.”

From leaves from the tree: thoughts from Meher Baba