Listening – the difference between intuition and chit chat

“Listening to Spirit”

How do you know the difference between intuition and chit-chat?

No one can tell you what your intuition sounds like or looks like or feels like. Only you can figure it out. Sometimes it’s so strong and unmistakable, almost like a burning bush. Other times it’s like a gentle breeze that you could miss if you are too active.

When I decided that I wanted to follow inner guidance, but could not distinguish between Spirit and self, I figured I would just follow everything. For a long time that led to wild goose chases, and lots of frustration. I would evaluate my choices after they came into manifestation. When I started to do this it would take me 6-12 months to even realize I needed to evaluate the choice. It took me 3 years to get down to 1-2 days. I noticed, through my evaluations, that guidance from self almost always required me to push and force. While guidance from Spirit had me moving through life in a dance. The contrast was remarkable.

When I started to squeeze my evaluation time, I asked for clarity up front. I wanted to know at the moment the choice presented itself whether it was coming from Spirit or self. I made a concerted effort during my meditations to remain in Spirit. Upon exiting, I requested that I remain in tune with Spirit throughout the day. When I made this shift, clear, complete instructions started to come through.

Something else happened. Even if I came up with a path that was self based, Spirit would step in. I would begin to question the source of the choice. For example, when I started my current job, my mind was running amok with actions it wanted taken based on wounded pride. Based on my mental and spiritual states, I would follow some and not follow others. I knew, all the while, that these were all self-based decisions. When I finally started to ask what the whole deal was about, Spirit stepped in. I’m sure it was there all along, but I refused to hear it. I was hell-bent on being in pride.

So how did I even know which was which? My self was frantic, frenzied, agitated. I was feeling antagonistic, and like I was in a battle. The decisions that I made out of that space led to more anger, and more tension. Spirit was calm, clear, even rational. The decisions that I made out of that space led to harmony, and joy. They led to win-win solutions.

Everyday we go through life facing decisions. Some simple and seemingly insignificant, others are life changing. When you are constantly aware of your connection to Spirit, you will notice clear answers coming from within. Some may be difficult to follow at the time. They will help you to stretch and grow. Others will be in the natural flow of where you are at the time. But always, you can tell when a choice is presented from the Spirit that dwells in you and when a choice is presented from the conditioning you have received from the outside. The good news is that they are not always mutually exclusive. Better than that, is that as you align yourself more with Spirit, they will be one in the same.

Choosing a path

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda

What will I be doing tomorrow? Where will I be? With whom will I be? While I can’t predict the future, of course, I do know that the answers to these questions to a great extent depend on what I do today, on decisions I make about which road to get on right here, right now. There is, of course, no right or wrong road, and we may end up going down several different roads for different aspects of our lives, but we do have many decisions to make.

I do like Castaneda’s idea of paths having heart, though, for that gives us a very important criterion for choosing the paths that will take us into our futures. To me, the idea of a path having heart means that the path is one that will lead me to compassion, to love, to caring, to the better parts of myself. If a path has no heart, then it will be empty and barren, and while it may lead me to a certain outcome, I will learn very little there and I’ll be able to share little of who I am.

We choose paths every day. Today I will choose certain paths in certain relationships, in my job, in my personal life, in my education. And if I can look at those paths closely and objectively, I can make a difference in how my tomorrows turn out when they become todays, for if I’m on heart-filled path, it will bring out the better parts of who I am. And that, to me, is the most important part of anything I do.

A further thought:

If we are spiritual beings on a human path rather than human beings who may be on a spiritual path, then life is not only a journey but a pilgrimage or quest as well.

Jean Shinoda Bolen

Create your own life and then go out and live it.

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there… to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be but when you lock eyes with them, you know at that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

And sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, willpower or heart.

Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck.

Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity….. all occurs to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere, safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet affect your life. The successes and downfalls that you experience can create who you are, and the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them because they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and open your heart and eyes to little things.

Make every day count.

Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen.

Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high.

Hold your head up because you have every right to.

Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you.

Create your own life and then go out and live it.

Mindfulness, thoughtfulness and patience from Hesse’s Siddhartha

I found an old copy of Siddhartha. The first time I read it was over 40 years ago!

Hesse began writing this novel in 1919 in the nightmarish aftermath of World War 1 and his wife’s overwhelming schizophrenia. This was Hesse’s effort, like Siddhartha’s, to meet the fear of impermanence and find a true path. Thirty years later, Siddhartha, published in English in 1951, resonated with seekers of the Beat and post-Beat generations, who knew in their bones that the time were changing. But what about the book? The story is simple, the language plain as befits a fable, maybe a bit preachy, overladen with teachings. Siddhartha is both spiritual biography and fiction. This simultaneously interests and discomforts.

It seems at first to parallel the life of Buddha, then diverges and becomes, perhaps, the life of a Buddha. It would be a stretch to say there is a plot. Rather, the novel moves through a sequence of relationships –with Siddhartha’s boyhood friend Govinda, who becomes a disciple of the Buddha; Gotama Buddha himself; the courtesan Kamala, who schools Siddhartha in sensuality but sees that he is sadly unable to open his heart; the merchant Kamaswami, who teaches him the ways of commerce, simultaneously leading toward material wealth and spiritual poverty; the saintly old ferryman Vasudeva, his closest companion; Siddhartha’s unnamed and prideful son, child of Kamala, who flees his father’s righteousness; and, at last, the river itself, all-accepting, ever-flowing. Siddhartha’s understanding is tempered and shaped by each encounter. Each is incomplete, each leads to suffering, yet the reader sees that wholeness is always nearby. But it takes all of this book, all his life, for Siddhartha to see this himself and mysteriously transmit it with a kiss to his oldest friend and fellow seeker, Govinda. Is Siddhartha’s message particularly “Buddhist”? Maybe not, but it has surely led many thousands in that direction. Hesse, speaking through Siddhartha, calls his path “yoga-veda,” or the yogi’s way.

Doctrinal purity is impossible, but each of us can choose to live a meaningful life. I would say, to borrow from Sulak Sivaraksa, that this is Buddhism with a small b. From reading about Hesse’s life and his deep involvement with psychoanalysis, it strikes me that this novel is the first meddling of psychology and Dharma, a melding that today is often found in Western Buddhism. One can see the ferryman Vasudeva, with his infinite ability to listen, as a scantily clad proto-analyst. In the middle of the book, Siddhartha is asked several times to explain what he has learned from his years as a mendicant and seeker. He says, “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” This means, I believe, that Siddhartha can use his mind and senses, he can practice patience, and he can endure hardship — essential capacity for the practice of spiritual life. No one of these qualities is sufficient for awakening, but the ability to wait, to be patient, to accept and release each moment is key.

I find that mindfulness, thoughtfulness and patience are at the root of a compassionate life.

Finally, this is where Siddhartha arrives and embodies his own name, which means “one who has accomplished his aim or purpose.” From ferryman Vasudeva, from the river, from his own trials and reflections, Siddhartha learns to listen — and his innate wisdom flowers: “It was nothing more than a readiness of the soul, a mysterious knack: the ability at every moment in the midst of life to think the thought of unity, to feel and breathe unity.” Hamlet says that “readiness is all.” In the face of impermanence, this is my watchword. Between the writing of Siddhartha’s “Part One” and “Part Two,” two years unfolded as Hermann Hesse worked his way out of depression and became “ready,” receptive, able to find his way to the novel’s end. I admire his intention, dedication and skill.

May we all get ready and wake up.

Trust, trusting ourselves

In a world in which we are exposed to more information, more options, more philosophies, more perspectives than ever before, in which we must choose the values by which we will live (rather than unquestioningly follow some tradition for no better reason than that our own parents did), we need to be willing to stand on our own judgment and trust our own intelligence—to look at the world through our own eyes—to chart our course and think through how to achieve the future we want, to commit ourselves to continuous questioning and learning—to be, in a word, self-responsible.

Nathaniel Branden

Trusting ourselves–what a concept that is! In a world in which there are hundreds of people every day in our media, in ads, and in our personal lives telling us that we should trust their judgment and do as they say, it’s quite a novel concept to trust ourselves and to trust what we learn and what that learning means to us. But you see, we have to live our own lives and make our own ways through this world, so it’s up to us–and only us–to determine who we become and how we interact with the world, its people, and its nature.

We all were given intelligence, and we all have our own unique conscience. We were given our own sets of desires and wishes and wants, and we were given our unique gifts that will allow us to make the best of our lives if we use them to their fullest potential. We choose the values we live by, and we choose how we treat others. Far too often, though, the criterion for our choices is simply, “Well, that’s how everyone else does it.” This criterion, needless to say, doesn’t take into account our uniqueness or our own judgment. It’s an easy way out of having to make decisions that may be fairly difficult to make.

But those are the decisions that make you who you are, and that help you to become the person you’re meant to be. If you don’t make them, you’re standing in place or treading water, however you wish to look at it. That’s not fair to you as a person, and you deserve to be treated fairly, especially by yourself.

One of my better Aha moments

It’s no secret that I’m in a wonderful space right now. All you have to do is look at me, I am loved, I am happy, I am content and it shows.

My life has changed and things I’ve done or looked at all somehow seem new. I have found the key to living in the now…just knowing something wonderful will happen before each day is deemed complete. Of course, my perceptions of all things has changed …just seeing a sparkle in Bruce’s eye sets my heart to dancing…I am literally bubbling over with joy…it’s amazing and yes, intoxicating at times…but rather than talk about how I’m feeling…let’s talk about how it all came to be…what’s different this time….

Upon some reflection, me! Yes, that’s correct. I am different…and perhaps that is where we all need to begin, with ourselves. When we can get down and dirty with all of our emotions – even those we hide deep inside- and take the time to sort through the garbage, toss it out, but remember the lessons…we take a big step towards finding who we truly are.  Painful yes but oh so necessary.

Sure, we all have our faults or those things that crush us inside, but we also have the capacity to provide compassion within…to love ourselves so that we may love others. For if we are in turmoil or if we are empty inside how can we ever have the ability to care deeply about anyone? Or even if we find we can love…..how can it be fully when we aren’t whole inside? Yes, the truth of it all, in my opinion, is to learn to nurture our own spirits, minds, bodies…our completeness….we must first love ourselves fully in order to love another completely and without any preconceived conditions or stipulations. Just free, intense, unconditional love.

Through the process of learning self-love, we will also learn how we as individuals want to be loved….what makes us genuinely happy. Not all of us would be happy with a self-assured smart aleck, or a confident, muscle bound beach bum, or a conservative, self made millionaire….sure personality, looks, and money all play a part in our relationships but each of us has a need for a varying degree of all of these qualities.

Myself, I base someone’s standing upon loyalty, playfulness, and yes, their own self-confidence. I’ve shared before about my abandonment issues so it’s natural for me to desire trust to the nth degree….and yes, that only develops over time…with tons of patience….. I love to have fun… I’d be the first one on the beach with a pail and shovel building sand castles so Bruce would have to play– no doubts about it…I missed too much of my childhood doing other things so perhaps that is why I find joy playing now.  I tend to surround myself with creative, highly intelligent, and powerful people and I am very adamant about my friends and activities…so my better half has to be confident enough to know that special place in my heart is owned only by their spirit. Sure, there are other qualities I need, but these three seem to top my current list and all were missing from my other relationships.

This is where I am right now.  I have come to know and love me.  I am a whole person now.  When I met Bruce he didn’t complete me, I was already complete.  He compliments me.  We “fit” in oh so many ways.  He accepts and loves me, just me.  And me, well, I love him, when I’m with him I feel all the warm squishy feelings of a teenager, my heart races when I hear his voice, my skin comes alive when he touches me and my spirit soars.

Which takes me to my last thought…what’s different when we learn to love this time? Again, me, you, us! We have past experience to know where we don’t want to be, how we don’t want to live, and what is not going to make us happy. We now have self-love and are not willing to settle for less than we want or need. Given those circumstances, once we find that someone seems to me we sure have the ability to love completely and unconditionally. What could be greater?

Thank you Spicy Man!

Using negative angry feelings

If we face our unpleasant feelings with care, affection, and nonviolence, we can transform them into a kind of energy that is healthy and has the capacity to nourish us. By the work of mindful observation, our unpleasant feelings can illuminate so much for us, offering us insight and understanding into ourselves and society.

Thich Nhat Hanh

More often than not, we’re taught to “banish” unpleasant feelings, because of course, they make us feel bad. So let’s get rid of them, get them out of our lives and out of our minds and out of our hearts so that we can live healthy, positive, pleasant lives.

But what if there’s something to learn from those unpleasant feelings? What if the fear that we’re feeling has a deeper message? What if the discomfort we have when we’re in the presence of a particular person has something to teach us about our own prejudices, biases, or instinct? Ignoring the feeling and trying to push it away will do nothing to help us to learn whatever it is that the feeling is trying to teach us.

It would be much like going to a class and disliking the content, and thus never reading the text because we didn’t like it. We may avoid more unpleasant feelings of dislike by avoiding the text, but what have we learned? Of course, we’ve learned nothing, and we’ve made an obvious choice to learn nothing.

Unpleasant feelings can be a part of who we are. When they’re caused by something specific, they can be a part of us for as long as that something is a part of our lives. But what can we learn from them? How can we face those feelings and accept them and actually learn to care for them, no matter how unpleasant they are? Until we find out how we can do so, we may be losing some of the most important lessons of our lives by trying to banish the unpleasant feelings just to feel a bit better in the moment.

Living in the NOW

The present moment is never intolerable. It is always what is coming in five minutes or five days that makes people despair. The Law of Life is
to live in the present, and this applies to both time and place. Keep your attention to the present moment, and in the place where your body is now. Emmet Fox

As I live more and more, I’m slowly learning how to live in the present moment. I’m learning what it means to truly be in the right here, right now, rather than thinking about the past or wondering about the future. In my life, this is one of the most important things that I’ve ever learned, for my days are much fuller, much richer, as I learn to see, to notice, to feel, and to appreciate all that’s here in this world with me in the now.

This is one of those concepts that I used to wonder what people meant when they talked about it. After all, I am alive right now, so of course I’m living in the moment. But even though my body’s here, where is my mind? Where is my attention? What am I focused on? And if I’m focused on something other than right now, how can I take advantage of all the gifts and possibilities that the right now is offering me? My body is here, and if I can keep my attention here, also, I can get much more out of the present moment. Not only that, but I can give much more to the present moment, also.

I had a friend once who almost always talked about the past, mostly about her high school years. At times it was very difficult to be with her because it seemed that she was actually living in the past, and no matter what we might be talking about in our current lives, the conversation always would turn to her past. It got to be kind of sad, for I could see that people started to avoid being with her–she chose to focus on parts of her life that she knew but no one else was familiar with, and no one was really interested in constantly reliving her past with her.

Right now. What powerful words those can be if we recognize them for what they are: truly the only time we have for sure, and every single right now is the most important moment of our lives, for it’s the only moment in which we can act and make choices that will affect our future right nows.

A further thought:

At the level of mind, you exist as a collection of memories from the past. The mind is like a curtain which acts as a barrier between you and the reality of the present moment. When you are in the mind, you are somewhere in the past. You are not in the reality of the present moment.

Leonard Jacobson

Adding change to my life

Today’s world needs change, alteration, renewal, and corrections of errors. It needs new ideas, new approaches, methods, plans, procedures, and new ways of doing things. Maybe you should think of going — literally or symbolically — to a circus today, where you’ll see stunts you never dreamed possible. The novelty and originality there may stimulate what you need more of in this life. Have the daring to take a flight for the idea you believe in! Wilferd A. Peterson

So much of what we do in our lives, we do by rote. We do much of what we do because it’s “tradition” or because it seems safe and risk-free, or simply because that’s the way we’ve always done things. This way of approaching our lives is fine if we live in a cage and have no options, but for free people who are trying to forge their individual ways through life, it’s no way to live. Life is about risk and trying new things. So many new things get pushed our way all the time that there’s never any real reason for us to continue to do things over and over again in the same ways.

When we get caught in ruts, we stagnate and we don’t allow ourselves to learn. This year’s flowers are much different than last year’s were, no matter how much alike they seem, and this year’s life for us is full of new opportunities and potential, if only we take the time to look at what we have available to us in new ways so that we can discover the exciting possibilities that are there for us.

I used to have a friend who impressed me with the way he looked at the world. The only way that I could explain it was that he didn’t just look at things and situations head-on; rather, he walked around them, under them, through them, and looked at them from many different ways. And his view of them always differed from the “standard” view, the one that most other people shared. I want to be like that. I want to learn about things by seeing the possibilities in them.

I want to make my life rich by trying new and different things without having preconceived notions of what outcomes should be. I want to be daring enough that at the end of my life, I’ll be able to say to myself “No matter how it turned out, I feel good about my life because I was always willing to take chances and to learn more about life than I would have if I had done the same things over and over again.” If I’m able to take my leave of this planet with that idea as part of who I am, then I know that I will have contributed also to the lives of others. ~~~~~

A further thought; If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. . . Søren Kierkegaard

Awakening

The Awakening
Author unknown

A time comes in your life when you finally get…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on. Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

You realize that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you…and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are…and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

Your stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and everything isn’t always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself…and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties…and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you’ve outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with.

You learn that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop manoeuvring through life merely as a “consumer” looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don’t know everything, it’s not you job to save the world and that you can’t teach a pig to sing. You learn the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that your body really is your temple. You begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin to eat a balanced diet, drinking more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest. And, just food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you deserve, and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You learn that no one can do it all alone, and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is fear itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

You learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people…and you learn not to always take it personally.

You learn that nobody’s punishing you and everything isn’t always somebody’s fault. It’s just life happening. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You lean that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Then, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than your heart’s desire.

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.

Finally, with courage in you heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.