Last night I listened to Arun Gandhi, Grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. I have been Incredibly blessed to have had the privilege of sitting with a bunch of wonderful teachers and everyone has deeply touched my soul. He is a Peace Farmer and oh Yes, a seed has been planted Deep in my soul that I will tend and nourish so it grows and flourishes.
The phrase that comes to mind with his grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi, is “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. What does BE the change you wish to see in the world look like and feel like? It is a phrase I have read and heard often and then what? How easy is it to go to events and listen to all sorts of superb speakers and then come home and actually DO nothing, put nothing into action. You don’t always need to rip up your entire life and change Everything, sometimes the simplest little changes make profound differences. The biggest Change I have noticed in my life has been since I started a practice of daily meditation. I have been doing a particular meditation practice for 6 years and now practice daily. If I can ever recommend anything to anyone it would be – introduce some form of meditation and or mindfulness into your daily routine. However, I have never been one to just sit around and just meditate and send beautiful healing. I add in action. Since I was a teenager I have been an activist in various guises. I have been on marches and pickets and signed petitions and written letters and all of that. I have been out on strike many times and the last strike was over pay conditions in solidarity with colleagues who have to resort to using food banks to get by. I used to be in just about every pressure group I could find and especially all the environmental NGO’s. I was so incredibly passionate that somehow we really Could change the world. I read report after report about the doom and gloom in the world and saw how the challenges and horrors were so incredibly massive. I found I couldn’t turn a blind eye from the horrors, I had to know what was going on. I have learnt not to get attached to what is happening but I still witness. But I have Never given up hope. Throughout all the destruction and violence I still am a Massive optimist. I have an awareness of the speed of extinction of biodiversity, the destruction of the great rainforests, the shrinking of the ice, level of pollution in our oceans…. I have an awareness of the levels of child labour, exploitation, domestic abuse, trafficking, homelessness, poverty, raging civil wars and the current challenges faced by those fleeing their homelands…. But I STILL see the Beauty in this world. I see resilience everywhere, I see kindness and I see hope. I see tiny plants that push and struggle and Burst through the concrete of our streets with their vivid green glory and I see this replicated in the hearts of people that are bursting open and blossoming. On one level, it sometimes looks like How could I Ever affect change, what on earth can 1 tiny insignificant person do?! It’s easy to be overwhelmed with All that is presented to us. It’s easy to give up before we begin. But I Never give up. This is a favourite story: Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions. Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?” The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.” The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.” The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!” adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977) I have in the past beaten myself up because I thought I had to be like other people to effect change, that I had to be a particular therapist or teacher or some fancy speaker or or or…. Who knows or cares if that will ever be my path. Keep it Super Simple, I am Profoundly aware that the magic of this life is in the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday, the small random acts of kindness. You never need do anything particularly flash, it’s about showing up moment to moment and doing whatever you can the only way you can. You might never know the effect you have simply by smiling at a stranger in the street. All my life it felt like I was Searching, Searching for Something, Not knowing what, not understanding why I was searching, just eternally frustrated searching. Just frantically looking under every single boulder, in all sorts of spiritual books, a whole myriad of workshops and teachers and and practices and techniques and even to incredible mystical beings, angels, Ascended Masters….
I experienced Pain, MASSES of it, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, karmic, past life, and because that wasn’t Enough for me, I felt the trials and tribulations of other people, I mean absolutely Everyone and even animals, plants, elemental energies Right on to the Pain Body of Gaia Herself and yeah it just Kept ripping me apart!!! I was So very Intimate with the experience of pain and suffering! It Seemed Unbearable and Endless and I was so very lost in an identification with suffering and this was my lot but hey I was used to it and I could handle it! I was usually Beyond Exhausted with this experience. I wanted a way out, some relief, some rest, some gentleness, some soothing. I could feel this bottomless pit in me that couldn’t be filled with anything that I tried to offer it and it just swallowed Anything external into the black void. And so finally it became So painful that i just let go, opened my hands, surrendered, gave myself to Source and tumbled headlong into the dark Silent Void. This Void is where I wildly avoided for years in search of only heavenly light beings and angels. This Stillness within is the most real, authentic place and to me it is so black it shimmers with light. It can not be described at all, it can Only ever be experienced. I am at Home here, This is where I find All I ever wanted in the Absolute Infinite Nothingness. I have been off work for 4 months for one reason or another (the "Story" is Completely irrelevant) But in that time 2 significant things happened: I walked in Nature pretty much Every day which has healed my Body, Mind and Soul and I have dropped deeper and deeper into my experience of Profound Stillness and Silence in this Rich Void space. This Simplicity plus the gift of 4 months to really rest so very deep has been the Most humble blessing and I am so very touched to have been able to experience this. Someone said something at one point to sit and drink my tears, drink from this endless ocean. I remember a scene in a Harry Potter film where Dumbledore drinks the poison, it kinda felt like that and it felt an unending task. I Knew this was my medicine but it was Not easy. At times seemed to feel like Hell and I cried More tears. I felt So incredibly Worse before I even began to feel a little better. As I dropped deeper into my experience, All the “stuff” I’d been holding on to kept surfacing through my nervous system and None of my meditation sessions were in Any way peaceful but I know the power of what was happening so I Just kept with it and didn’t identify with Anything the mind was giving me. I couldn’t look away. I just had to Witness Everything moving through and not resist or stop it just let it move out. I just had to keep present, keep open, keep noticing and surrendering absolutely everything back to Source, holding Nothing. So What was going on. Every single “Story” or “drama” that popped up was Just the attachment to the illusion of my though that I am EVER separate from Source. This creative, incredible mind constructed Idea of Separation and that lie brought Such incredible storms and tears in All their guises. I bought into the illusion that maybe other people find freedom but I wouldn’t or couldn't or that you might experience it Some day if you are really lucky and work hard and travel to weird places in India and sit for months and years with other people who are “Enlightened”, and you have to say funny words, do weird rituals blah blah blah…. All these experiences were separate from the mundane, normal life of working and doing the dishes and all that. Even the word “Enlightenment” or “Awakening” became a mind trap and don’t start me on the word “Twin Flame” and the seduction and attachment to That energy that I whipped up and then the Whole Divine Feminine thing and the Goddess energies and all that…. All of that is not true. Every distraction and excuse under the sun was just an illusion to postponing my peace, thinking it was in some Future Impossible space and time. This period of time was an invitation to me to Stop and Rest. It’s challenging for this active mind, body and soul to Actually Stop so the slow down was not always comfortable as my mind got in the way. But I did and Do find more and more and more sublime Surrendered being. You need Nothing - no practices, no texts, no sage, no incense, no candles, no altars, no Deities, no mantras, any of it. These things may be ‘nice’ but they are Not the expereince. There Truly is Nothing to do, Nowhere to go, Nothing to fix. It’s felt like I was invited to step out of the way and Give myself to LOVE. To let LOVE Take me, Have me, Swallow me Completely into the place where there is NO separation. My human dance Still seems to be one where I forget, remember, forget, remember but Right NOW, I remember there is no separation and All I have Ever been is LOVE and that is All there Ever is. I notice how much I have held on to, how many beliefs, ideas, concepts, judgements...... All these Things that I Thought made me who I am. Stretching into Stuff - possessions, material items, all with memories and connections. All this detritus gave me a sense of identity, a separation from oneness or the totality as I was different through all these labels such as name, occupation, all the rest.
Seriously - WHO CARES!!!!!! I have been So ridiculously Blessed to have had the opportunity to connect with a Wide range of yummy souls lately. I have NO interest in how everything is separate, it Just doesn't turn me on. I Don't care what anyone is called, where they are from, what they do, any of that, it Just doesn't matter. I have been aware of Many times when someone has perhaps asked me what school or University I have gone to so they can make a judgement of what that means in social class and educational attainment and how that refers to them and their beliefs. Who cares if I Ever went to school, who cares if I am bankrupt or a millionaire. I Always feel the divine spark in each soul and That's where we meet. At the moment I have been ramping UP my meditation practice. I spent yesterday with 2 Incredible teachers and a bunch of Beautiful souls and had THE most Delicious day of Surrendered Freedom. I need to be round these people as much as I can to remind me over and over of the simplicity of my practice and the benefits of actually doing it. I DIVE into dissolve more and more and more and then I forget and come back to the mind and then I remember again and come back to this moment and the dance weaves and flows and bends and is so familiar. Layer by layer by layer by layer the onion is stripped and Yes this May indeed be a lifelong adventure but so much of the outer mud and crusts have fallen and the sweetness that keeps being revealed of the More of life is so very shocking in it's incredible beauty. I am falling Wildly in love with my relationship to the Silence, with the Beloved. Yes I have been Falling in love with Myself after So very very long not even being in my body and That continues but my Love affair is with the stillness. This place that I experience FREEDOM. Words don't matter, I get ALL of the things I wanted, Peace, Love, Joy, Contentment, Magic, Compassion, Freedom all from my practice of returning over and over and over and over to the present moment. And NOTHING in my life needs to change for me to experience this, not my bank account, not my address, not my job, not my relationships....... Nothing. I don't need to do something now to experience peace at a later point, there is Only NOW, my experience of Divine Bliss is NOW. My practice is Ridiculously simple and Incredibly profound. I know to some people it is too simple and their minds cant accept the simplicity but hey This works for me and the benefits are Massive. This practice has saved my sanity and my life. I have seen how I experience a Lot of rest and comfort and peace in my bath and then at some point I have to get out the bath again and there has been beliefs about a difference in my experience but actually I Can rest in a big warm cosmic bath All the time. Today I feel like a cosmic jellyfish, all my pain and suffering has been gently puled out my body and I feel warm and soft and transparent and iridescent and open and incredibly Loving and at such surrendered peace and freedom. I Really enjoy being a jellyfish. It Really doesn't matter what my technique is, copy no one! Find Whatever it is to help you find your freedom your way, walk your path your way. Find your way to Freedom. DISSOLVE D I S S O L V E D I S S O L V E D I S S O L V E D I S S O L V E D i s s o l v e d i s s o l d i s s d i s d i d |
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