2015-07-04

Freedom From Emotional Distress

There appears to be a “storehouse” of sorts within the subconscious mind.
From that storehouse there appear to emerge various emotions that seem to affect our behaviour and limit our potential for greater expression.

I have actually experienced in the past that when there is anger for example, to say "I am angry" misses the point.
It adds stress. “I feel angry” is observing from a different centre and thus opens up
the possibility of releasing the hold that a particular emotion exerts on us and thus the release of stress.

Identification with anger or other emotions is demonstrated in phrasings like “I am angry”, or “I am sad”, and so on.
Such statements carry the same identity impact as saying: “I am anger”, or “I am sadness”, etc.

When you identify with an emotion the “you” that was before the anger manifested is no longer there,
and the alternate personality of "anger" makes its appearance.

This was a real eye-opener discovery for me, and it actually led me to an understanding of identity
and freedom from "suffering" emotional distresses.

It seems to work the same way for love, hate and any other of the so-called "human emotions",
which are energetic manifestations in a sense.

The manifestations of emotion can be thought of as energetic movements or movements of thought energy through the body.
If we identify with the emotion as a characteristic of who we are, by making or thinking statements
such as “I am angry” or “I am sad,” then we suffer the stress (or distress) that those emotional states
can impress on the body. One might see this as emotional energy "possessing" the body
- similar to Eckhart Tolle's concept of the "Pain Body".

Is it possible to be free of emotional distress?
Certainly! If we do not identify with emotions as expressions of our character or as a reaction to some arcane
survival urge,
then we can look at the emotion as a feeling that we are experiencing.

First, acknowledge that the emotion is present and has an effect on us in some way,
either pleasant or unpleasant.

Second, do not resist the expression of the emotion, since that would be futile in any case
and the most likely outcome of resistance would be increased distress and suppression,
with future stress on one 's physical and/or mental system. Non-resistance implies acceptance.
That does not mean that you have to like what you are experiencing, but you are not confusing the issue
or making it more complex by resisting and wishing the emotion out of existence.

Third, allow yourself to feel the emotion as clearly as possible. This is what you are feeling.
This is not you, and it is not something that can harm you in any way.
It is just a feeling that you are experiencing.

Fourth, ask yourself if you COULD let this emotion or feeling go freely from you.
Ask yourself “Could I release this feeling of anger?” (or lust, or hate, or whatever it happens to be).

Fifth, ask yourself if you WOULD let this emotion go.
Ask yourself “Would I release this feeling?” It does not really matter if your answer is “yes”, or “no”.
If you are skeptical or unsure then you will likely answer “no”. But the fact that you have given this emotion
your consideration and attention at all will have some effect in at least a partial release.

Sixth, ask yourself WHEN? “When would I be willing to release this feeling”?
Most people usually find themselves answering “NOW” to this question.
This initiates the action of release immediately.

The emotional “baggage” that we carry is the main cause of many of our problems in life.
This emotional baggage can also be a great source of stress on our physical system leading to various ailments.

The releasing process is a tool that can be added to one's way of living.
After a bit of practice the releasing process happens automatically if we are giving attention
to releasing that which is inhibiting our progress in life.

Emotional baggage is not always released instantly. Often one has to “keep at it”,
feeling the emotion and confirming our desire to release it. This process becomes automatic.
After sufficient conscientious applications an intuitive-like process of releasing activates
whenever you notice that an emotional distress of any sort becomes an inhibiting factor in your life experience.

The above steps for the release of emotions and the subsequent improvement of personal emotional state,
health and movement towards happiness is taken from a system of “Releasing” initially taught by Lester Levenson.
His story is a remarkable journey of healing and achievements of success, happiness, and much more.
The course Lester Levenson designed has developed into the “Sedona Method”
which is now taught world-wide. Lester handed down his system of releasing to Hale Dwoskin
who has evolved the system to it's present state.

Coming across Hale Dwoskin's book “The Sedona Method” has provided me with many meaningful glimpses.
I am truly grateful for the unselfish sharing of people like Lester Levenson and Hale Dwoskin
who help people deal with the difficulties that they encounter on their journeys in life.

~.~

2015-06-14

Life's Challenge - A Journal Musing

One of the most difficult, maybe THE most difficult challenge for people in modern society,
especially in modern society,
is the challenge of accepting their allotted place in life, in the sense of allowing the being of what is.
For example, if it is raining you cannot change what is happening,
but you can certainly change your attitude towards what is happening and thus remove your suffering it.

This is not to say that there is no possibility of changing to a totally different situation in life.
However, the challenge of accepting one's allotted place in life does include a much deeper understanding
of one's relationship to life. What are we in essence?

No matter what place one currently occupies in their experience of life,
it appears to be the most difficult challenge to realize that their control of life,
or more accurately,
to understand and accept that their control of life experience is a figment of imagination.

Nobody can control what is meant to be experienced.
To experience literally means “to go through”.
So the challenge is to go through the various challenges that life offers.

To confront those challenges is to miss-state and to misunderstand what this is all about.
One can only meet the challenges and learn from them,
or meet the challenges and flow with them to the outcome that life offers.

To 'fight' the challenge or try to make it conform to one's “personal” liking is to struggle,
and ultimately to suffer defeat of one's “personal self”,
and then to have to face the next challenge anyhow,
until we have mastered what needs to be learned.

Can we really understand this? Probably not with the limited potential and capacity
of the intellectual faculty which strictly relies on thought/mind.
However, we can come pretty close to an inward “knowing”
which translates as a feeling of confidence and trust (essentially the meaning of faith).
This trust and confidence in life feels more than personal. It feels like “home”.
The parable of the “Prodigal Son” comes to mind.

Back to the challenge. To let go. To allow the being of what is.
To feel such deep trust and confidence in the very life that we are experiencing
that one can let go of the idea that everything in life experience must be controlled,
or at the idea that one should plan out “their” life to the greatest “personal” advantage.

In the “letting go” resides the innate knowing that all will turn out,
and in fact already is and always was, as it should be.
One could say that this "letting go" is a surrender of "personal self"
to "ultimate reality Self", which is a win-win scenario.

Perhaps the first thing one might want to learn from experiencing life is that
there is nothing personal about life in a separate sense.
In other words it is not about you versus another person or persons.

However, Life is very personal in the sense that we are in It, all together as a unity,
not separated in any fragmented way. Life is holistic.
Fragmentation is only possible in the domain of thought and intellect.

All of this implies that total surrender to that which you already are in totality.
This is the ultimate message of life experience.

But what are we?
What are you?

That is the real challenge of life;
to find one's true place and understand the journey of life experience.+




2015-06-02

An Observation About Thought

Whatever we may think of now, is actually of no virtual value.
It is just a malleable thought.

We can and usually do give certain values (judgements)
to thought, and there are communally valued thoughts and ideas;
but all is subject to change.

All of this confirms that thought, as also any THING, has no inherent value
(i.e. no value in itself), other than the value that we attribute to it.

That is not to say that thoughts cannot sometimes be very useful,
but thought will always be subject to change.

The key in bringing some sanity to our life experience lays in seeing
that all human thought and perception is fallible, and thus
it is wise to remain open to a deeper meaning beyond the experiencing
of the world of thought and sensation.

In such cases true "value" and ''meaning" is not the result of thinking,
but may be interpreted and conveyed via thought, in which case the
interpretation may not translate well in terms of thought for various
reasons (which I may discuss on another occasion).


2015-04-18

SUDDENLY RETIREMENT

I am thankful that over my life experience
I have been able to acquire a good understanding
of my relationship to situations in life
through many glimpses here and there. 
 
This solidified as an inner confidence and understanding
of the power of living in harmonious presence with life,
where personal hopes take a back seat
to understanding the reality of experience.
 
At age 53 I found myself suddenly in retirement.
This was really sudden.
In the 1990s many of the large corporations
were cutting their expense budgets and staff
at an alarming rate,
and it was my fortune to be included in that activity.
 
Reality in action.
I was experiencing it.
I was retired.
Though I will tell you that this
was not totally unexpected. 
 
For years I had been envisioning (perhaps day dreaming),
an early retirement and being free
to pursue what I understood to be the creative nature
resident within every individual.
 
As it happened, within one year of this sudden retirement
I had brain surgery to remove a tumour the size of a plum
from my brain.
I saw the MRI pictures,
I read the doctor's report
and agreed to the 8-hour surgery. 
 
I was prepared; there seemed to be a synergy with life.
I was home 2 weeks later
but my balance was impaired,
one eye was misaligned causing permanent double vision.
But, I was retired.
 
I tried to re-enter the labour market but it was not to be.
I reviewed several "home business" enterprises and even invested in one.
My heart was not in it.
I took an I.Q. test and was really surprised to find out that
the score was 141 overall.
The highest score was 156
in the element of logical abilities.
The lowest score was in spelling at 133.
This gave me a tremendous psychological boost.
 
Soon I began to realize that I was not really "retired"
as the world understood it.
I was retired from the labour market.
I was not retired from life!
 
Now it was time to look at those "day dreams" that I had
when I was a "working Joe".
I had taken astronomy at university.
Now I bought a large and complex astronomical telescope
and began to study the wonders of the universe through the eyepiece
and I wondered if my experiences were similar to Galileo's.
 
I enjoyed playing classical pieces on my newest classical guitar,
and took out the violin I used to play in a symphony orchestra.
Although I did not pursue the improvement of my oil painting skills,
I did continue with my photography and darkroom skills but this time,
it was to learn the new methods of digital imaging
and computer processing of images.

 
Focus on living life made all the difference.
It can be a “rich” retirement at any age.
 
I have been retired from the labour market for 15 years now.
Money has never been a problem because
I have never made money the major focus of life experience,
and I wisely started to save and invest early enough (about age 42).
We, my spouse and I, understood that
it was a wise investment to put most of our financial resources into the mortgage.
 
As a result, the second house we bought was completely paid off about
two years after my retirement.
We now live in our seventh home, still mortgage free.
 
So, what of retirement?
To me there is no such thing.
There are only new experiences, new adventures.
One of them happened to have the label “retirement”.

~.~

2015-04-13

CALAMITY

Published 1987, 2013 
 
CALAMITY, you are a devious nature.
You entice, you enslave.
You press so incessantly and confuse the soul.

Can you not see that we have had enough of you,
and need no more?

You are no mystery to me.
I see you in your feigned innocence,
as you start to prowl the chambers of thought.

You present arguments and excuses
to justify your existence.
You tell me that I cannot live without you.

But I do not buy that!

I can see that you are the offspring of your ancestors.
Your antiquity is obvious, and now
what purpose you may have had,
has come to an end.

You thought that you could find a dwelling place in me -
to build your pride, and increase your stature,
and shout out "This is the way it should be!"

Your world is not for me.
I parted company with you,
and now I am free.

And now that I see you for what you are,
You shake and tremble,
revealed before my piercing glare.

And then you fade away
in hopes of appearing on a better day.
But your hope is limited
and cannot grasp the way I go.

Calamity, your work is done with me!
I have changed
and am not what I was before.

"Change!", you shout.
"I can change!", you pretend.
But this change
you will never comprehend.

You and your brothers are a mischievous lot.
You offer false hopes and stir up desires.
Your change is directed by what was before,
which is more of the same in another decor.

Time is your hope, and
time is your limit.
Your days are numbered, and in time
you are finished!

There is a source that is beyond the realm of time.
It declares no limit:
and for you, it will always be undefined.

Oh, Calamity! I know you well.
No longer do I feel your sting:
You have been totally disarmed,
and all that remains is a shell.

Your selfish nature has been revealed,
and soon others will know -
There is another way, a different world -
A place where you cannot go.
_oOo_
~Wladicus~

2015-04-06

= YOU =

(Sept. 7, 1992 – Lyrics)

When you hold me tenderly love
And I feel so warm in your arms –
You touch my lips, you fill my heart
With a joy – you smile
And I embrace you.

Many years I waited for you
Tears and dreams so empty so blue –
And then you came, you filled my heart
With a joy – you laughed
And I laughed with you.

Time is gone when I am with you
Every moment something is new –
You lift me up, you fill my heart
With joy – you dance
And I just watch you.

As you dance among the stars
I reach out and ask you
How am I to follow you?

Take my hand, you whisper to me
And I see a gleam in your eyes –
It lights the stars, it fills my heart
With joy – I laugh
And you laugh with me.

... And I embrace you,
......And I dance with you,
.........Dance with you ...
.............with you ...
................you ...

.................../\
................../..\
..................\../
...................\/
 


2015-03-16

What and Why?


What do we believe and why do we believe it?
What do we think and why do we think it?

Do we think or does thinking happen, like breathing?

Try to stop breathing – and after you can hold your breath no longer
… the breathing resumes. Do we breathe or are we breathed?

What is meaning other than the meanings that we personally confer
upon the objects of our attention?

What is of value other than what we imagine to be of value?

Consider this carefully.

Who are you if you remain at the mercy of what you call your thoughts?

Can you see beyond the limitations of those conditioned impulses?

The truth is there at the core of what you are – the very heart of being.

 

2015-03-07

You and Reality

Approach each new day
As if it were the very first day
Of your awakening
From sleep.

Open your eyes,
And sleep no more.

Give your total attention
To each new day,
As if you had no idea
Of what that day holds in store for you;
Because you really don’t know!

Let it be a surprise,
And you will see everything
With fresh eyes – like the seeing of a child
But with greater maturity.

You may have things planned out,
Meetings to attend,
And things to do:
But do not judge what is to happen
Beforehand.

You have access to a wealth of wisdom:
But any prejudgement
Will deny you access to it
When you most need some insight.

What is of true value
Cannot be counted on your fingers.

Meet each new day
With favourable anticipation;
From an inner space
Of innocence.

There you may truly meet
Yourself
For the very first
Time.

But it will be
A timeless
Experience.

Then anything that you touch
With love and attention
Will manifest most
Auspiciously.

You
Are the witness
Of manifested

Reality.


Self-enquiry and Happiness

It appears that almost anything that humans
pursue in life has some connection to
at least the idea of happiness if not
happiness itself.

So what is this happiness that we all seem to seek?

That state has been described as "The Kingdom of Happiness",
which is phrased very similar to "The Kingdom of Heaven".

So why is it that so many people in the world are
seeking this state or "Kingdom of Happiness"
but they are not really finding it, or experiencing
that happiness without certain limitations?

Are we looking in the wrong places?
Is there some technique involved that we are not aware of?
Do we have a totally wrong idea of what happiness is all about?

Are VALUE and sharing component parts of this happiness we seek?

Some people find happiness but it is temporal, it does not last long,
or it is conditional - certain conditions have to be met or fulfilled
to maintain a state of happiness.  This might be referred to as
relative happiness.

Relative happiness always seems to be offset by periods of time
when a state of unhappiness predominates.

Can you have one without the other,  or are we looking at this
happiness business in the wrong way?

I am sure that you have heard something like this:
"Oh, if I only had X or Y then I would be soooo happy."
And then when X or Y is obtained, happiness is there for a while,
but gradually that happiness begins to fade.  Now a state of
unhappiness sets in.  Why does that happen?

The above is a little example of the kinds of things that help
an individual raise their state of awareness by bringing attention
to how they perceive certain aspects of their life experience.
This is an example of self-enquiry. 

Careful, and targeted self enquiry is the most productive
approach to personal development and much more.
Perhaps you would like to give it a try. 

The enquiry is not done to find definitive answers but to discover
how you think, what you think, why you think what you think and
how it all adds to personal growth and direction in one's life
experience.

This is one of the earliest steps in the Mastery of Self.

Real Value


Much of the sorry state of “people’s lives” and the world today is due to
a materialistic interpretation of life.  Pointing this out does not speak
against earning money, providing for loved ones and the needy and making the
best contribution one can to life, of which he or she is a part. That is wisdom.
Any other approach is foolishness.


It is not long before we end our sojourn on this planet and then what?
What value have you experienced and shared with your loved ones
(including neighbours, which is the rest of the world)?


The things of value in life are not measured by money or popularity
or personal importance of any sort.  Who or what you really are is more
important than any thoughts that promise glory and phantom values.


The “heart” of you is of incalculable value.
It is a treasure to discover – the very purpose of life one might say.


When the “heart” of you awakens, life reveals a new dimension.
A simple breath of sweet air can bring a feeling of ecstasy.
Normal everyday encounters reveal a new perspective regarding value.
Caring for a baby,  raising a child or sharing the joy of every precious moment of
experience are “light years” beyond the manufactured values of materialism.
The wealth of “heart”, the very substance of life – money cannot buy it.
Love is not a thing of the marketplace.


Materialism is the short-sighted view of life. It is limiting and virtually meaningless in  itself.  Whatever meaning it does have is given to it by the thoughts of those enslaved by the misdirected promises of materialism.

What is the “stuff” you are made of, and what thoughts command your attention?
Or have you caught a glimpse of your heart – a glimpse of who you really are?

 
:)

2015-02-08

The Phantom I

What is this phantom
that claims to live a personal reality?


What is this ego,
so full of self-importance,
this phantom mired in its own doo-doo,
and demanding that the world
should conform to its desires
of what truth should be?

A passing blip - no more,

in a sea of infinite energy -
Not even that,
and yet the world makes so much of it.


In doo-doo veritas -
but with it goes the aroma
which accompanies that sort of progress.


Release that old man -
Phantom be gone!
Et voilĂ  - in veritatis amore!


And the phantom has been vanquished
once and for all, for in that vast and abiding
love it could never have really existed.


2015-01-26

Why Wake Up to the Reality of Yourself?

Never mind what the so-called experts say, or what anybody says about
what you should do with your experience of life!

It is YOUR experience.
If it “sucks” then maybe you haven’t had a good look at the reality you
are creating for yourself.
 
Never mind what someone else says.
Look deeply within the chambers of your own maze of a “thought machine”.
What are you thinking most of the time?
Why are you thinking it?

Why do you need self-improvement?
Do you really need self-improvement?

 
OR, do you need to start to know yourself better?
To know what turns you on;
or what turns you off, when you are not aware of it?

Is it quantitative or qualitative self-improvement that you need?

How often are you aware of what thoughts are triggering your actions,
your behaviour?
Would it be helpful to your evolution as a human being to actually
become more aware of what goes on in the mind at any moment;
especially at those times when you are confronted with
critical decisions?

Would it help you with your job, or your business, if you found out
what is impeding the raising of your awareness?
Might it be possible to experience a metamorphosis of the reality
you experience if you understood what this awareness was all about?

Questions are important. Self-questioning, self-enquiry.
Questions indicate the QUEST in life that you are on.

If you do not take the time to question, to look carefully at
“what makes you tick” then what you do in life, what you
experience, and your expectations may all appear as hap-hazardous
events over which you seem to have only fleeting command or
no control at all.

Have a look – a deep look at this manifestation of life that you call
YOU. It may lead to a new understanding of what you really are!

No one can live your life experience for you!


2015-01-11

The Nature of Fact

The Nature of Fact


Winning a Nobel Prize or the appearance of noise “snow” on a CRT
is not conclusive of anything.
Nobel Prizes are given based on opinions of people. Having opinions
of any sort, even if every person on Earth were to have the same
opinion on a matter, does not preclude that the expressed opinion is
a fact. It becomes a “fact” in terminology or name only based on
dominant opinion only.

To know for certain that the Big Bang is the source of the “cosmic
background noise/radiation” one would have to have been present
at the event and had several other people witness the event and
its effects on the cosmic environment and then track that several
billions of years to confirm that the cosmic background noise was
indeed the result of a so-called “big bang”.
Then, with common agreement, the witnesses could call their experience
a fact (for them at least). 


Therefore, all of this can be truly, and CORRECTLY called THEORY.
Physics, in the main, deals with theoretical proposals of how the universe
APPEARS to work. When an anomoly contradicts a theory years later,
then theory is often CHANGED to accommodate the understanding
which is current at the time. (e.g. “The Flat Earth Theory”,
or the “Earth Centric Theory”, or the thoery of what an atom looks like -
atomic model, etc.)

We must be careful about jumping to conclusions which we call “fact”.
We often assume that we know so much, but in actuality we know much
less than we assume. Formal education is a source of information and
the honing of skills to apply information usefully. However, education by
itself does not lead to true knowledge. To KNOW something – anything,
one must be free of opinion, or conditioning about that thing. We have
often seen throughout history how assumed ideas in any area of life have
led to enormous miscalculations, dogma (including scientific dogma), and
sometimes shameful results.