Tag Archives: Quotes

Peace

3 Ways To Be At Peace Now

IMG_0992Today driving back to Chicago from my parents’ house in the suburbs I was particularly cautious because of the dark flurry-filled highway.  Night was fast approaching on my drive home and by the time I reached the city streets there was no longer any sunlight to aid me.

When I had stopped at a light on Lincoln Avenue I glanced out the car door window.  Suddenly I realized it was not a low-visibility snowy evening, but a crisp clear night.  At this I instinctively prompted the wiper fluid.  Lo and behold I had been unnecessarily struggling from something I had expected even before I got in the car, a night where the air was filled with snow, which would be difficult to drive in.  The night air was as clear as it had been on any cold cloudless night in Chicago and I just did not realize all I had to do was clean the windshield.

Just as I needed to clean the lens through which my highway journey was viewed, any successful moment starts with clarity of mind and perspective.  I had been feeling stress during the week about situations with my cold apartment and a blown fuse, and the prospect of work that had to be done.

Every time I thought I was making some progress, something else would come up and require my attention.  As I began to flounder I realized that before anything could be done, like decisions, work, and planning, I first had to relax into a state of peace and perspective.  My actions were not yielding positive results.  The results were expressing the energy with which I had produced them. 

So before you try to fix a situation so that you can be at peace, remember that the only way to create the success you want is to first be at peace and then go about doing whatever it is you have to do. You need to go beyond the mind to untangle yourself from the thoughts that are creating the dis-ease.

When I arrived home I received a “Present Moment Reminder” email from Eckhart Tolle stating the three things you can do to become peaceful at any given moment, “Wherever you are, be there totally.  If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options:  remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally,” Eckhart Tolle.

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You

The Greatest Mystery

What preconceived notions do you have about yourself and others?  What assumptions do you make about other people? Today I am reminded by Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities that we are each an unfathomable mystery.  When you let go of the need to know who you are, and who others are, you become open to experiencing the majesty and wonder of the reality of our existence.

By Peter Spero

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spirituality

What is better than happiness?

PHOTO BY PETER SPERO

What is happiness?  Why does it seem so elusive?  I think the fleetingness of the goal called “happiness” is due to happiness being attached to outer circumstance.  Things and experiences cause the high-energy feeling of happiness.  Since life often doesn’t go according to plan, and happiness is dependent on a favorable experience, happiness disappears when a less than desirable situation arises.

There is good news for the feeling of happiness though.  Happiness is an outer reflection of a powerful state of being.  States of being cannot be dissolved, they are unalterably present, but can be obscured and covered up by layers of identification with thoughts and feelings.  The state of being which happiness pales in comparison to is joy.  As Tolle and many other teachers maintain, states of peace and joy, which are our natural states of being, are always available within, regardless of situation.

When I received this week’s “Weekly Words of Wisdom,” I felt like Swami Satchidananda was offering permission to be happy.  Allowing yourself to enjoy a situation helps to uncover the state of joy within.  When Swami Satchidananda talks about joy and happiness it is clear that regardless of terms, and even though he talks about Yoga practice in particular, that the truth towards which he points is the key to a higher state of consciousness available in all of life’s situations.  Experiencing life from the state of joy is a profound spiritual lesson:

“You forgot to be like children. You may think that spirituality means to be serious, morose; that you can’t smile or laugh. That’s not spirituality. Your spirit should [be] filled with happiness, joy, dancing, singing, and dancing. Don’t be gloomy. That’s not the kind of spirituality we want in the name of Yoga. You should always be exuding happiness and joy—a positive spirit. Work itself should be a play. The Yoga practices should be playful and uplifting. There’s nothing overly serious about it all. God created the world as a playground. Allow the joy to come out. What is serious in this? We all come, gather together, live for awhile, and when the time comes, say goodbye and go. Within that period, can’t we be happy? God bless you. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.” Swami Satchidananda

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Peace

What’s stress got to do with it?

BY PETER SPERO

A lot of commercials on TV this time of year talk about how to relieve “holiday stress.”  Stress is a symptom of a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment. 

Have you gone too far ahead into future thoughts, or slipped backwards into thoughts of the past?

The dysfunction that manifests as stress may be a sign that the present moment has become a means to an end, as Tolle often points out in A New Earth.  This can happen easily when the present moment contains planning, cooking, organizing, and preparing for an event that in some cases involves many people.  This can also occur if an event is viewed as unfavorable and you are waiting for it to be over.  Yet, truly successful ends are dependent upon successful means.  Meaning, that the present moment experience creates the experience of present moments to come.

If the holidays create stress for you, give your mind a break from thoughts of past and future.  Holidays are reminders to enjoy the experience of the present moment; signifying its importance and wonderment available not only during this one present moment experience, but at all times.

When I get too serious about situations I say to myself, “This is just for fun!”  Figuring out what will snap you back to the present, where all joy resides, can be an enjoyable and infinitely fruitful learning experience.  This Thanksgiving let yourself experience the space from which all there is to be thankful for emerges, the present.

Ten Things I’m Thankful For (In No Particular Order):

  1. My health.

  2. The ability to walk and the use of my arms. (Ok I said two things here, but they are both under the general category of working extremities).

  3. Food and the ability to digest food.

  4. The five senses.

  5. Being alive.

  6. Consciousness.

  7. The experience of love.

  8. The eternal present.

  9. Other human beings. (My family, friends, co-workers, people I haven’t met yet, you).

  10. The planet earth and how I get to live on it.  (Thanks to the movie Gravity for really solidifying my love of planet earth).

The more you are thankful for, the more you end up having to be thankful for!  Where does your gratitude gravitate this Thanksgiving?

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consciousness

“In silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.” ― Rumi

By Peter Spero

Opinions are mind candy.  Candy can be enjoyable in moderation, but in excess leads to discomfort, illness, and cavities.  Facts can exist without the added sugar coating of an opinion.

When used in moderation, opinions can be useful tools for action in alignment with the reality of the present moment.  Identification with opinions, which is to the ego as spinach is to Popeye, creates a veil of thought over all perception.  Present moment reality becomes obscured; you can no longer see the depth of the lake because of the billows of sand just beneath the surface.

There is an easy way to settle the sand and see clear through to the bottom of the lake.  Identification with opinions can be dissolved merely by noticing the opinions as they arise.  Once you can see yourself thinking, you no longer are your thoughts.  What will the world look like from this new perspective?  “When the  soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about,” (Rumi).

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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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Ego

The 6 Thoughts That Are Keeping You Unhappy

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“Whenever there is unhappiness in the background of your life (or even in the foreground), you can see which of these thoughts applies and fill in your own content according to your personal situation:

‘There is something that needs to happen in my life before I can be at peace (happy, fulfilled, etc.). And I resent that it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe my resentment will finally make it happen.’

‘Something happened in the past that should not have happened, and I resent that. If that hadn’t happened, I would be at peace now.’

‘Something is happening now that should not be happening, and it is preventing me from being at peace now.’

Often the unconscious beliefs are directed toward a person and so “happening” becomes “doing”:

‘You should do this or that so that I can be at peace. And I resent that you haven’t done it yet. Maybe my resentment will make you do it.’

‘Something you (or I) did, said, or failed to do in the past is preventing me from being at peace now.’

‘What you are doing or failing to do now is preventing me from being at peace.’” (Tolle 114)

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar?  Seeing them without content lays bare the structure of the egoic mind that does not recognize the present moment, living in the phantom past and future.  Shining the light of your own awareness on the voice of the ego is the beginning of its end.

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Inspiration

“In the moment of seeing, of noticing that your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, you are present.” – Tolle

Wind Tunnel

The first day of teaching for a new year of the after school program always leaves me thinking, “what just happened?”  Now sitting on a comfortable couch at home, I see the pull to hang on to the day.  To stay in the stress, to worry about what it will be like tomorrow.  But when I think about how I felt about the new year of programming this morning, before it at all began, I know I wasn’t worried at all.  I didn’t feel stressed about the prospect of the next class.

Even though the day has a magnetic pull, I can see that feeling like I did this morning would be a much more enjoyable way of being.  I can also see that feeling present and without worry didn’t effect the reality of the experience as it actually occurred.

Worry or not, the outcome is always the same.  The moment always comes to pass.  This is the moment where I have the opportunity to choose again.  Instead of succumbing to the attraction of holding on, I can choose to put down the thoughts of past and future, and return to the only place I will ever be, the present.

How do you feel when the day is done?  If you ever find yourself reliving the day over again in your head, create an experiment out of putting the day down, and allowing yourself to just be where you are.  After all, the only way to see if it feels better than a previous way of being, is to experience it.

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Inspiration

“There are no dark nights of the soul; there are only dark nights of the ego.” – Robert Holden

Shift Happens!

I saw this posted on Dr. Wayne Dyer’s Facebook page, and loved the clever way the words pointed towards the truth! When I experience pain, there is that still small voice at the back of my consciousness reminding me that suffering is created by the ego.  My true self is still whole; nothing can be given or taken away from being.  When in pain reminding myself that my attachment to the situation is causing the suffering, and that the situation already is how it is regardless of my reaction, a small space opens up around the pain that allows healing to work its way through.  To paraphrase Tolle, suffering is ego created but is ultimately ego destructive.  To say it another way, no matter what you are going through a world of greater peace and joy is perpetually blooming in the midst of the ashes.

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