Tag Archives: inspiration

consciousness

No internet no TV make Katie something something…

SimpsonsOne of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons involves Homer being caught in a situation in which he is utterly without beer or television, and subsequently goes mad.  The past couple of days I have humorously found myself in such a position.

I have no internet access and no television.  As soon as the repair people can make it over to my place they will find out what is wrong and fix the problem, but for now I have neither.  Moreover, I realized a couple of days ago that I am out of cellphone data, leaving me without internet more completely than I otherwise would have been.  So how am I even writing this post?  I’m staying late at my place of work where the internet is gloriously plentiful!

Going without internet and TV is not a problem, but as I have discovered, my ego feels differently.  Last night when I realized that there wasn’t any quick fix to the issue I immediately became stressed.  I started to think about all of the work I had to do that I couldn’t get done, and all of the essential tasks that I had planned on completing which require the use of the internet.  (I am also a big TV fan but I find that a lot easier to let go of).

My boyfriend taught me a great lesson in not perpetuating stress when he left me to myself for a moment and decided not to become stressed out by the situation along with me.  It is so easy to take on the emotions of others you are close to, but it also creates more of that which is causing the pain.  Along with this great reminder of how to stay present even when those around you are taken over by thoughts or emotions, I also found out how attached I was to these luxuries.   I had become identified with my outer circumstance.

I showered and listened to Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, which I find always snaps me out of identification with form, the ego.  The more present I became, the more I smiled at my ego.  In the calming hot water it became easier to see that the voice in my head was attached to the situation and to the idea that my needs were not being met.

A great teacher recently talked to me about seeing the world as God, or the universe, sees the world.  This means looking at the world just as it is, with complete acceptance.  I didn’t know how I was going to get directions to all of the places I had to visit today.  I didn’t know how I was going to email myself a lesson plan, or write on my blog.  But when I took a moment to look at my situation without demanding it be a certain way there was no longer any stress, there was no longer anything to worry about.  As the invaluable quote, which I often use to comfort myself in times of stress or worry, from the movie Gravity states, “no harm, no foul.”

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consciousness

The Mind Magnet

By Peter SperoToday I noticed a constant pull within me to scroll through various things on my phone.  I would put on my makeup, and then check my email.  Get dressed, scroll through Facebook.  Sit down on the bus, surf the web.  The magnetic pull of my phone started feeling very obvious so I decided to put it away and not use it.

Then I was looking out of the bus window and I started thinking about what I had said in a conversation last night.  My mind then jumped to what I was about to do at work.  Back and forth, my thoughts fluctuated between past and future.  I noticed sitting there on the bus that just as the phone had a magnetic pull towards it, so did my mind.  I decided to let go of the past and future thoughts and let myself be in the moment I was living.

A few seconds passed and once again I was reliving an event, and making up scenarios about future events.  I noticed.  I let it go.  I was back on the bus, staring out of the window looking at the rain and a little taco stand in a parking lot.  Even when I had brought myself back into the moment I could feel the pull of my mind on my attention.  It was magnetic.

By Peter SperoDo you ever notice that your mind keeps pulling you in even when you make a conscious choice to be in the present moment?  Do you ever come back into the actual moment you are experiencing and realize you had been wrapped up in thoughts for a long period of time?  Have you ever had the experience of listening to someone, and at the end of the conversation realize you had no idea what they were talking about because you were thinking the whole time?

If you answered yes to any of the previous questions, congratulations!  You are aware of your thoughts!  For many, they never realize they are wrapped up in thinking, because they have been completely taken over by the mind.  The mind is living through them and they have no idea that they are not the voice in their head.  To notice that your mind has a magnetic quality that is constantly pulling you in is the flowering of your consciousness.  You have separated who you are, the one who notices the thoughts, from the thoughts themselves.

While it may seem that there should be a fix for this, a solid solution for the magnetic mind, the solution is already arising if you can notice when you are thinking.  That is your awareness gaining strength.  Each time you recognize you’ve been pulled into thoughts, and out of the present, you have given yourself an opportunity to operate from the only place of true power, the only space where anything actually happens, the present moment.

The more often you gently take away attention from the mind and place it on your surroundings, the easier it will become, and the more the infinite intelligence of consciousness will guide your actions.  In this way the highest potential contained within each present moment has the opportunity to manifest in your life.  Being present now creates a miraculous future.

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consciousness

Dark matter, the key to the universe?

By Peter Spero“About one-quarter of the cosmos is comprised of dark matter — five times that of the ordinary matter that makes up everything we see. Dark matter is often defined by what it isn’t: something that can be seen and something that is energy.

Scientists are pretty sure dark matter exists, but they are not certain what it is made of or how it interacts with ordinary matter. It is considered vital to all the scientific theories explaining how the universe is expanding and how galaxies move and interact.”
Read more: Search for Dark Matter Comes Up Empty So Far | TIME.com

The idea of “dark matter” makes me smile.  What makes up most of the universe, but cannot be seen, and isn’t energy?  What is vital to all of our ideas about the universe and how things within the universe interact?

To me that sounds a lot like space, or rather, consciousness: that which can be pointed to by explaining what it is not (things), and that which is the platform in which all things arise.

Space is not a thing.  If you go looking for it, you will find no-thing.

The awareness that is looking for this key component to the universe is itself the key component, the space of knowing in which all things can be known.

Even if this sounds silly in comparison to all of the scientific jargon surrounding dark matter, I find that letting my mind be blown away is truly enjoyable.  It is in that spirit of enjoyment that I share this video, in which Peter Russell talks about these issues in science, and tries to find words to that which cannot be spoken:

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Waiting

Eckhart Tolle Tells A Joke

Today I watched the following video of Eckhart Tolle telling a joke.  It is pretty funny, but if you do not want to wait around just skip to 2:49 where Eckhart actually makes the joke:

I had to laugh when I saw this.  I realized at the beginning that nothing was actually happening and so skipped forward.  I just did not want to wait.  The joke is truly amusing because waiting for something to happen is a universal experience.  It does not matter how many years you have been meditating, you know what is being referred to when you hear the word “waiting.”

I wait for the bus, I wait in line at stores, I wait for food to cook before I can eat it.  There are a million other ways to wait, but it all comes down to that familiar experience of waiting.

Then there are more personal things we each wait for.  Those might be waiting to grow up, waiting to make money, waiting for a dream to come to pass, waiting for love, waiting to feel happy, waiting for what we want.

A helpful question to ask is, “What am I waiting for?”  The answer may surprise you!  Waiting can be habitual and turn up in a myriad of ways.  Answering this question also makes it easier to see that the condition of “waiting” is more accurately “psychological waiting.”  We wait for things with our thoughts and emotions.

“When this happens, then I can start enjoying my life again,” or, “when I’m finally secure, then I can start working on what I really want to do,” or, “after work is over, then I can relax.”

Like many, I wait for things all the time, but waiting can be a helpful reminder to become present.  When you find yourself just waiting for something to happen, (if you use the internet you know what I mean), use it as a reminder to become present and narrow your life down to your immediate experience.  Use all of your senses to perceive your surroundings.  As if by magic, you are no longer waiting!  You are experiencing life.

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spirituality

When The Going Gets Tough

HeartSometimes the days when you feel the least connected can be the most fruitful.  Part of the practice of being present is staying present even when you’re feeling out of sync.  There are days when I notice the voice in my head getting frustrated with the smallest things.  When I experience a day where a stranger sitting too close to me on the bus gets to me, I find it is a good opportunity to explore where the negative energy is coming from.

Occasionally the thoughts in my head give rise to negative emotions.  But more often than not, I first experience a low-level of unhappiness or discomfort emotionally that ends up giving rise to negative thinking.  Watching yourself, when you are reactive or irritated, builds the power of your presence even more powerfully than when you are watching yourself have a positive experience.  Spiritual growth happens in these uncomfortable moments.

The mind will often try to solve discomfort and in turn create more discord.  Noticing this as it happens is a crash course in awareness.  The strength of your own presence creates powerful roots of awareness during seasons of discontent.  This means that no matter what outer and inner circumstances you witness throughout your life, you will have the anchor of your own presence guiding you and working all situations for your good.  This doesn’t make negative energy any more comfortable, but it gives it meaning through the valuable lessons gleaned from it.

Eckhart Tolle provides an amazing free online resource for spiritual awakening and learning about presence.  You can sign up for this free online “UnCourse,” as he calls it, here:  https://www.eckharttolle.com/uncourse/register/.  Whether you are experiencing times of joy, or discord, the opportunity for a more awakened consciousness is always readily available.

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Ego

9 Unconscious Ways The Ego Takes Over Your Life

Reflected LightThe ego needs a lot of things.  Without wanting, the mind made self loses steam, and your true self beyond the voice in your head begins to emerge.  Finding out the nature of your true self beyond what your thoughts are attached to is one of the greatest adventures of being a human.  But how can this actually be done?

To the mind, it appears that there is nothing beyond itself, because it only recognizes things.  Space is incomprehensible to a thought whose meaning is always attached to some-thing.  Yet, space is our home.  We are consciousness, that which is aware and watching.  We are the space in which all things arise.  When you balance your life with space you have access to the power that created the universe.

In Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth he offers pointers to help create more inner space, and diminish the egoic mind.  One of these pointers is to become aware of patterns that operate in your life which attempt to inflate or repair the egoic sense of self.  The list of these patterns literally makes me laugh out loud, because I have seen each one operate in my life at one time or another.  Experimenting with letting go of these patterns whenever you become aware of them can at first feel uncomfortable, but then give rise to a powerful feeling of spaciousness and peace.  The true self then has room to emerge.   I hope reading these “ways in which people unconsciously try to emphasize their form­-identity,” as Tolle puts it, is as amusing and enlightening to you as it was to me:

  1. Demanding recognition for something you did and getting angry or upset if you don’t get it

  2. Trying to get attention by talking about your problems, the story of your illnesses, or making a scene

  3. Giving your opinion when nobody has asked for it and it makes no difference to the situation

  4. Being more concerned with how the other person sees you than with the other person, which is to say, using other people for egoic reflection or as ego enhancers

  5. Trying to make an impression on others through possessions, knowledge, good looks, status, physical strength, and so on

  6. Bringing about temporary ego inflation through angry reaction against something to someone

  7. Taking things personally, feeling offended

  8. Making yourself right and others wrong through futile mental or verbal complaining

  9. Wanting to be seen, or to appear important (Tolle)
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You

“Be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” ― Henry David Thoreau

Joey and KatieThe most vital component to your life’s purpose is being yourself.  I don’t say this to be kind or encouraging, but as a matter of urgent importance.  While you many never see it, you being yourself is changing someone else’s life.  Without you being who you truly are, the world is missing its only chance of you.

So who are you?  It is easier to start with who you are not.  You are not a bundle of thoughts.  You are not who you think you are, or who anyone else thinks you are.  You are not the name, weight, and hair color on your driver’s license.  Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, what is left?

You will know who you are by witnessing yourself free from these thought-made selves it is so easy to get attached to.  You don’t have to try to be who you are, and you definitely don’t have to “figure it out.”  Who you are emerges when you untangle your identity from your thoughts and circumstances.  Allowing yourself just to be in the world, experiencing life as it is, and following your own joy in whatever way it expresses itself, will show you yourself more truly and miraculously than your mind could have ever thought up.

I love this video.  This little girl is so inspiring, not because of a particular skill, but because she is being herself.  And what happens when you are who you are, without trying to be what you think you should be in the eyes of others?  People notice you!  People think you are doing something amazing!  You bring people joy!  You don’t have to be the best at this or that.  You only need let your true self act, and it will be better at whatever it does than any amount of practice could produce:

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spirituality

Don’t Go There…

A lot of things get to me.  If you’ve read past posts on this blog you’ll know a handful of those things.  Did someone say bugs?  Being “rubbed the wrong way” is a common human experience.  Someone says or does something that really gets you angry, or brings up past pain.  Then there are the smaller annoyances that easily damper our mood.  A few examples spring to mind: traffic, cleaning up after people, being ignored.  

One of the most prominent downers for me is tone of voice.  When someone speaks to me in, what I perceive to be, a negative tone of voice I easily feel hurt or offended.  Michael Singer, author of The Seat of the Soul, calls these our “thorns.”  What, if any, is the purpose of these thorns?  How do you get rid of them?  

The first step comes from realizing that, no matter how truly disturbing the situation is, being disturbed is in no way helpful to you.  Feeling disturbed doesn’t change situations.  Solutions arise when you feel free and spacious within, when your energy is high and can find like pathways to match its own positive frequency.  This doesn’t mean ignoring your feelings.  On the contrary, it means relaxing and allowing yourself to feel the negative energy fully, letting it pass through your awareness until it dissipates.  What are your thorns? This conversation between Michael Singer and Oprah is infinitely helpful in learning what to do about our thorns:

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consciousness

Can you go a day without judgement?

FlowersThis morning I listened to Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success as I was getting ready for work.  Chopra talks about accessing the field of potentiality, the space in which your highest dreams have the opportunity to manifest, and how to access this space.  One of the prescriptions he gives is to go the day without judgement.  Along with other tools, such as meditation, going without judgement creates space for the highest potential of any moment to arise.

I made the decision as if it was easy, “Sure I can go the day without judgement!”  Which within ten minutes turned into me becoming aware of how often I was judging the world around me.  I first noticed it standing at the bus stop.  I saw a guy park his car “way too far” from the curb, and as I was thinking this thought, I realized I was already judging!  In conversations with friends and coworkers, I began to notice how often I voiced my opinion.

I wasn’t just noticing negative judgement, I also noticed that I judged things all the time in a positive manner.  I would see a tree and think, “What a beautiful tree!”  I would look up at the sky and think, “Such interesting clouds today.”  Negative or positive, I found that I was constantly in judgement.

This experiment was anything but a failure, it truly helped me see how often I was judging the world around me instead of perceiving it as it really was.  Tomorrow I’m going to try again and see what happens.  I invite you to join me in going one day without judgement, just to see what it’s like!  Let me know how it goes, I’d love to hear your story!

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You

A Personal Message From Humanity To You:

You Are Here!Congratulations, you made it!  Every small act, intention, and detail of the universe all worked together for your being here.  The cells that formed you came together specifically to manifest you.  Existence needed you to be here as yourself.  And you made it!  The entire world is a different place because you exist.  The way you experience the world changes all of our experiences of the world.  This is how much you matter.  You are important.  You are on purpose.  When you experience a victory, we all win.  When you are full of sorrow, we all weep.  When you express yourself as you truly are, you give each of us the gift you were meant to bring to our existence.  When you look on the world with love, acceptance, peace, and joy, you are providing the opportunity for everyone else to experience that world.  Everything worked together perfectly for your being here, and is working perfectly for your existence as yourself.  Congratulations and thank you for irreversibly impacting the whole of existence.

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