Memorial Day 2011

    On Memorial Day in the US we honor those who have died and/or served the rest of us by fighting those who would threaten our freedom.  And we are grateful for their service and sacrifice on behalf of the rest of us.

    And when do we give honor to ourselves for the wars we wage within ourselves against programs, ideas, belief structures and feelings that hinder or obstruct our freedom and threaten to take us down or keep us imprisoned?

   There is an ancient wisdom teaching which states, "As above, so below; as within, so without."  If this is so, what does my life show me?  Is there harmony, peace and abundance in myself, my body, my relationships, my work, my finances? 

   As I scan through my life I see holes.  I see battles that have been fought for years still being fought.  Is this going anywhere?  Is progress being made?  What is the purpose, the goal?  Are they battles for territory, to uphold principles, or for survival perhaps?  I believe these battles, though they may look like they are about external circumstances, at their core are the results of our desire to achieve states of inner peace, love, joy, self acceptance and freedom.  And the challenges can seem recurring and endless.

    In my practice I have seen several people experience repeated blows to their heart that I thought might have been to much for them.  Yet the next week they return with a new outlook or some other evidence of soul growth.   I never cease to be awed by their presence, their ability to face what is, move through it and into a new self perception resulting in positive changes in their lives and relationships.

   So this day I honor all of us in the battles for personal freedom from tyranny, myself included.  We are worthy of great honor and respect and love for the resilience we demonstrate in the face of these challenges coming from both within and outside of ourselves.

Significance

All my life I have sought to be seen by others as significant according to the current world's definition. In this definition the requirement for significance is to have made a major public contribution in the eyes of some large group, or to be on the top and visible in my profession, to be seen as an expert, to hob nob with others so titled, etc. Your definitions may be different but whatever they are our belief is that we need accomplish them, to be them in order to be significant. This left me with a deep feeling of never being good enough, never measuring up. The belief itself sets up a competitive mindset versus a collaborative one. It also feels like a never ending task similar to trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.

But I've come to understand that this belief is coming from a cultural mindset based in rationalism and materialism. I first learned about cultural mindsets when I was a foreign exchange student in high school. Cultural beliefs are like the ocean one swims in without realizing the environment you are in. It's familiar and natural to you so you don't question if it is healthy or not. It is normal ... unless you experience another culture where the norms are different.

The rationalistic, materialistic mindset goes against thousands of years of man's experience and intuitive living on this planet. In fact, it teaches separation from a universal energy field and Consciousness and thus any oneness of the All That Is and spiritual nourishment derived from the Oneness. This separatist mindset says the universe and all in it including man is like a machine, although an exceptional one, though still finite, alone with no access to any higher planes of consciousness. Everything that is known is known through reason, not intuition. This Newtonian mindset insists that everything must be proven through external, objective evidence. I have felt it as an oppressive energy throughout my life without knowing what it was.

But we live now in the era of quantum physics and the awareness of a participatory universe. Science has discovered the wave/particle phenomena - when an observer looks at a wave, energy, it changes into a particle returning to wave when observation ceases. I am free to change my focus. I can stop looking at the conclusions of old Newtonian science as the only truth and release myself from the old structures I took to be reality. These old structures are familiar territory but not the ultimate truth. In fact, they are at abouton the same level as the belief that our world is flat.

So my job is no longer to waste time trying to prove my significance but to get on with being now. This requires simple acceptance of myself and everything in my life as it is right now. The act of acceptance releases the contraction and restriction in me that comes from beliefs about what I "ought to be doing" and "what I should have, be, done by now in my life."

Acceptance is an ever deepening process happening in layers, requiring renewed choice as each layer presents itself to my consciousness. By doing this process I am free to contribute what is mine to bring to the Whole, the cosmic pot luck!

This understanding has been a key to my returning to blogging.