You might be wondering if I am ever going to update my blog. I am, but I just have to get through Ruishk and David's 'crisis' with the Church. Anyway, I sometimes wonder if the direction of my blog is the right one. Then, along comes confirmation. I was writing about Carrick on Shannon and I was in one of the Charity Shops in town. A woman was asking for directions to Carrick on Shannon. This is the first time ever that I heard anyone in Cork talk about Carrick on Shannon, never mind looking for directions to it.
I was trying to come up with a sentence that showed the different uses of words. I chose 'will' and wrote the following. "Hello, my name is Will. It is my will that you will do what it says in my will." That afternoon in GF, I treated a young American who's name was Will.
As the title says - there is no such thing as random. We are always in the right place at the right time.
08 July 2012
Blessing 26 September 2010 ex?Peace!
Everything depends on what we look for. All words and images are of the 'ego'. (Ego is that part of mind that believes that it is separate from mind). Every idea has a range of interpretation. How we interpret an idea depends on the thought system that we have learned. The following words are my mantra or my prayer - Love, Light, Life, Peace, Joy, Truth, Power, Strength, Free, Safe, Open, Holy.I offer them to you and to everybody, many times each day.
Choice 13 January 2010 ex?Peace!
The emphasis is on choice. We always have the ability to choose how we look at what is going on. Even though I do not always achieve it, my goal is always peace. When I find that I am not in peace, I just watch the screen or scan through my body. I usually find that I recover my peace within a few moments.
Round and Round - 9 January 2010 exLJ
From one plane to another - thoughts going round and round. The part of us that can't see what is really going on finds it difficult or nearly impossible to trust the part that does. And, thus, has a real problem with letting it take control.
How do we undo decisions that we had no part in making. For that matter, how do we undo decisions that we feel completely responsible for. Our parents had sex and we were conceived and later we were born. The society, the religion, the social class, the bodies we were born into, we had nothing to do with. A few questions arise
"I" is a declaration of separation. We believe that we are each separate and that we are separate in our own bodies. And from this belief springs nearly all the concepts that we use.
There is only mind, always and everywhere present. To mind, the whole universe, past, present and to come is freely available. So to go back or to go forward, to go here or to go there is simply a matter of tuning into the state we want!
Always!
How do we undo decisions that we had no part in making. For that matter, how do we undo decisions that we feel completely responsible for. Our parents had sex and we were conceived and later we were born. The society, the religion, the social class, the bodies we were born into, we had nothing to do with. A few questions arise
- who or what is this "I" of which we speak?
- how do we know that we have no part in our non-decisions?
- how do we know we were completely responsible for those decisions we think we made?
- can we go back? Can we really go back?
"I" is a declaration of separation. We believe that we are each separate and that we are separate in our own bodies. And from this belief springs nearly all the concepts that we use.
There is only mind, always and everywhere present. To mind, the whole universe, past, present and to come is freely available. So to go back or to go forward, to go here or to go there is simply a matter of tuning into the state we want!
Always!
07 July 2012
Constantly, Constantly, Constnatly 7 January 2010 exLJ
I was tempted to make the third Constantly "Constantinople" but that would have been misleading as this post has as little to do with Constantinople as it has to do with New York, New Delhi, Beijing or Cork.
We are constantly changing - round and round. Constantly framing impressions. Our view frame is surrounded by a frame of reference that is made up of stored images. Surrounded implies a 2-D matrix, but it may be just a continuum like a circle. A first impression is never a first because it is always compared with some previously stored image.
Constantly watching people's behaviour. Constantly judging their behaviour against some socio-moralistic code. This code was learned during our formative years and persists through most of our lives. The judgement is made instantly and then the tolerance factor comes into play. Tolerance is based on the idea that we are all learning. But it always comes after the judgement. So! How can we drop the judgement? Or maybe the question should be - How can we drop the ego?
When we just look at a blank scene there is no judgement triggered. We are just looking. When we look at a scene with a pattern, our pattern recognition triggers an association with a previously learned pattern. This is the same with behaviour patterns. In both cases we maybe looking for what's wrong, what's out of place. The problem arises more so with behaviour patterns because we wind up judging the person exhibiting the behaviour pattern, rather that trying to understand the pattern and not reacting to it.
Our behaviour pattern recognition system develops by watching and imitating the behaviour pattern of our parents, other adults and older children around us. So we develop a core pattern that we regard as the right one because it is based on all we know and is based primarily on mother's pattern. If not mother, it is based on the primary care giver's pattern. The pattern is associated with the images we have stored. Our first impressions of other people are based on a comparison with our primary image and our core behaviour pattern.
The stored images we have little control over because we had no ability to decide if we wanted to store them in the first place. In infancy we are busy gobbling up the images and impressions of our childhood environment. We have no discernment, no capacity for sorting, we're just soaking them up or absorbing them.
Much later we try to look at things, scenes or images without pattern recognition and that it is very difficult or almost impossible. The pattern recognition system has become dominant. However, closing our eyes and watching the screen has become one of my key ways for overcoming the ego. It does not have the movement problem associated with watching scenery or people-watching. Open-eyed stillness is difficult because something moves and our eyes and our attention becomes focussed on the movement. We start trying to figure out what's going on and sooner rather than later we're back in pattern recognition mode and it's inherent judgemental risks.
Constantly going round and round. All time and space is based on movement. No movement, no time, no space. In the Flower of Life scheme of things it is the projection of mind outside itself and it's subsequent movement which leads to all creation. It's all based on movement in egoland. The earth rotates and dances round and round with the moon. And in turn goes around the sun, which travels around the galaxy with the solar system in tow. On the surface of the earth all is movement. And within everything there is always movement.
But to our ego-centred view it appears mostly still. Even though we have rediscovered that earth/moon go around the sun, that the solar system goes around the galactic core, all of our thought systems are centric. There is a theory that the universe is omni-centric, that every point in it is at the centre of things. Maybe our egos aren't such ejiits after all.
In ego-centric terms each of us is at the centre of the universe, even if we regard this personal universe as a very small part of a much larger whole. Within our own sphere of influence we play a major part, even though we know that in the grand scheme of things our part is rather insignificant. When we look at the big picture we are inconsequential.
But there is no big picture, no ego based view that can see it all. To get to see it all we have to move outside ego and return to mind. And when we return to mind we cannot take any of the ego based stuff with us. So now we have a real problem for ego. Everything that we use, to think, to see, to hear, to speak, to do is all based on an ego system of symbols, words, language, images and sensations which are only representations and are not real.
We are constantly changing - round and round. Constantly framing impressions. Our view frame is surrounded by a frame of reference that is made up of stored images. Surrounded implies a 2-D matrix, but it may be just a continuum like a circle. A first impression is never a first because it is always compared with some previously stored image.
Constantly watching people's behaviour. Constantly judging their behaviour against some socio-moralistic code. This code was learned during our formative years and persists through most of our lives. The judgement is made instantly and then the tolerance factor comes into play. Tolerance is based on the idea that we are all learning. But it always comes after the judgement. So! How can we drop the judgement? Or maybe the question should be - How can we drop the ego?
When we just look at a blank scene there is no judgement triggered. We are just looking. When we look at a scene with a pattern, our pattern recognition triggers an association with a previously learned pattern. This is the same with behaviour patterns. In both cases we maybe looking for what's wrong, what's out of place. The problem arises more so with behaviour patterns because we wind up judging the person exhibiting the behaviour pattern, rather that trying to understand the pattern and not reacting to it.
Our behaviour pattern recognition system develops by watching and imitating the behaviour pattern of our parents, other adults and older children around us. So we develop a core pattern that we regard as the right one because it is based on all we know and is based primarily on mother's pattern. If not mother, it is based on the primary care giver's pattern. The pattern is associated with the images we have stored. Our first impressions of other people are based on a comparison with our primary image and our core behaviour pattern.
The stored images we have little control over because we had no ability to decide if we wanted to store them in the first place. In infancy we are busy gobbling up the images and impressions of our childhood environment. We have no discernment, no capacity for sorting, we're just soaking them up or absorbing them.
Much later we try to look at things, scenes or images without pattern recognition and that it is very difficult or almost impossible. The pattern recognition system has become dominant. However, closing our eyes and watching the screen has become one of my key ways for overcoming the ego. It does not have the movement problem associated with watching scenery or people-watching. Open-eyed stillness is difficult because something moves and our eyes and our attention becomes focussed on the movement. We start trying to figure out what's going on and sooner rather than later we're back in pattern recognition mode and it's inherent judgemental risks.
Constantly going round and round. All time and space is based on movement. No movement, no time, no space. In the Flower of Life scheme of things it is the projection of mind outside itself and it's subsequent movement which leads to all creation. It's all based on movement in egoland. The earth rotates and dances round and round with the moon. And in turn goes around the sun, which travels around the galaxy with the solar system in tow. On the surface of the earth all is movement. And within everything there is always movement.
But to our ego-centred view it appears mostly still. Even though we have rediscovered that earth/moon go around the sun, that the solar system goes around the galactic core, all of our thought systems are centric. There is a theory that the universe is omni-centric, that every point in it is at the centre of things. Maybe our egos aren't such ejiits after all.
In ego-centric terms each of us is at the centre of the universe, even if we regard this personal universe as a very small part of a much larger whole. Within our own sphere of influence we play a major part, even though we know that in the grand scheme of things our part is rather insignificant. When we look at the big picture we are inconsequential.
But there is no big picture, no ego based view that can see it all. To get to see it all we have to move outside ego and return to mind. And when we return to mind we cannot take any of the ego based stuff with us. So now we have a real problem for ego. Everything that we use, to think, to see, to hear, to speak, to do is all based on an ego system of symbols, words, language, images and sensations which are only representations and are not real.
05 July 2012
Lessons Bloody Lessons, Enthusiasm - 17 October 2007 exLJ
I've been thinking about Lessons Bloody Lessons and decided that the title is a bit misleading. It's a throwback to a time about 5-10 years ago when I thought I had learned enough. And I got really mad, raging mad about the idea of always having to learn more and more lessons and that they would never end. So, I suppose, now that I've realised that I've always had this really cool internal teacher (the Holy Spirit in Christian terms, the Buddha Within in Buddhist terms) and that I can learn my lessons when I'm ready, it's not so bad, really.
The key word in learning from life and enjoying it while you do is "enthusiasm". Whatever you're doing be enthusiastic about it. If it's a boring job, what we call a real chore, then learn to do it on auto-pilot, and put your enthusiasm into thinking about what you really love. It could be something from the past or the future, it could be a place you'd love to be or have been. It doesn't matter what we think about as long as we are enthusiastic about it.
Jim Green maintains that when people become enthusiastic about anything they can actually warm up a cold room. And equally well if other people are knocking the idea they cool the room down. He told me enough stories of his experiences with this to convince me.
The students were complaining last night that the room I was teaching in was cold. I was roasting. Maybe it was because I was moving around a bit more than them, or maybe I was being more enthusiastic about the subject than them. Anyway we did a few exercises and they all warmed up.
In the Way of One course with Tantra Maat and Richard Waterborn (An Tosnu, Carrigaline, 1996) she explained that enthusiasm can be interpreted as "in Theos I am" Theos being the greek word for God.
The key word in learning from life and enjoying it while you do is "enthusiasm". Whatever you're doing be enthusiastic about it. If it's a boring job, what we call a real chore, then learn to do it on auto-pilot, and put your enthusiasm into thinking about what you really love. It could be something from the past or the future, it could be a place you'd love to be or have been. It doesn't matter what we think about as long as we are enthusiastic about it.
Jim Green maintains that when people become enthusiastic about anything they can actually warm up a cold room. And equally well if other people are knocking the idea they cool the room down. He told me enough stories of his experiences with this to convince me.
The students were complaining last night that the room I was teaching in was cold. I was roasting. Maybe it was because I was moving around a bit more than them, or maybe I was being more enthusiastic about the subject than them. Anyway we did a few exercises and they all warmed up.
In the Way of One course with Tantra Maat and Richard Waterborn (An Tosnu, Carrigaline, 1996) she explained that enthusiasm can be interpreted as "in Theos I am" Theos being the greek word for God.
Lessons Bloody Lessons, Human Beings - 10 October 2007 exLJ
So, having said that we are here to have our learning experiences, we'd have to learn what it means to be a Human Being.
How many people do we need to cover the complete range of human experience? Even hough we are all unique human beings, there are patterns that repeat themselves over and over again. When I was in UCC a fellow student claimed that we only need 200. Suppose that he hyper-underestimated and that we really need 20,000 or even 20,000,000.
I don't think that it's anywhere near this number, but for argument's sake we'll take a number somewhere in between, like 80,000 - the population of a reasonably small city. But, there are 6.4 billion of us, that's 80,000 time 80,000. So why are we doing it over and over again? Maybe we are a very stupid species and can't learn from each other. Maybe we are being led astray like in the Pied Piper of Hamlin story.
As human beings we have been given access to the complete range, from here to eternity, from hell to heaven. We've got it all. But we have convinced ourselves that we are limited. That we are limited to the perception range of our bodies, or the extended range we get by using technology (telescopes, microscopes...).
There is only one mind and that mind contains the universe, the whole shebang, lock, stock and barrel. The quantum physicists may be referring to this one mind when they talk about the quantum vacuum. There are absolutely no particles in it. Yet it has the potential to become galaxies, super-galaxies and whatever else they call the bigger and bigger collections of stars.
As Will Shakespeare once said "All the world's a stage..." And we are all actors on that stage. We are not only the actors, we are the producers, directors, scriptwriters, key grip, gaffers and so on. We are also the audience. So, no matter how you see your part in this play. It's your part. Make the most of it. Learn to enjoy it. Have fun with it. Play with it!
How many people do we need to cover the complete range of human experience? Even hough we are all unique human beings, there are patterns that repeat themselves over and over again. When I was in UCC a fellow student claimed that we only need 200. Suppose that he hyper-underestimated and that we really need 20,000 or even 20,000,000.
I don't think that it's anywhere near this number, but for argument's sake we'll take a number somewhere in between, like 80,000 - the population of a reasonably small city. But, there are 6.4 billion of us, that's 80,000 time 80,000. So why are we doing it over and over again? Maybe we are a very stupid species and can't learn from each other. Maybe we are being led astray like in the Pied Piper of Hamlin story.
As human beings we have been given access to the complete range, from here to eternity, from hell to heaven. We've got it all. But we have convinced ourselves that we are limited. That we are limited to the perception range of our bodies, or the extended range we get by using technology (telescopes, microscopes...).
There is only one mind and that mind contains the universe, the whole shebang, lock, stock and barrel. The quantum physicists may be referring to this one mind when they talk about the quantum vacuum. There are absolutely no particles in it. Yet it has the potential to become galaxies, super-galaxies and whatever else they call the bigger and bigger collections of stars.
As Will Shakespeare once said "All the world's a stage..." And we are all actors on that stage. We are not only the actors, we are the producers, directors, scriptwriters, key grip, gaffers and so on. We are also the audience. So, no matter how you see your part in this play. It's your part. Make the most of it. Learn to enjoy it. Have fun with it. Play with it!
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