The ‘news’. (observations from within a spiritual life of awareness)

The subtext of my blog’s title is included in this post’s title. I use it to highlight ‘observations’ because this post is about my observations. And I feel strongly about those expressed below.

Media news reporting, like sharks, go into a feeding frenzy around their subject of the moment. Note I do not use the words ‘the subject’ which would imply it was of import to me. It is the media news subject, not mine. While I have no regular experience of these feeding frenzies in countries other than my own country (U.K.), the North American continent and parts of Europe, I feel certain it happens in all countries where news media are free to roam at will.

Last night my wife came from the room where she was watching T.V. and said ‘Kathryn’s got cancer’ and went out again. My action on this was to ask God what He wanted of me, at this moment, from the information given to me. The answer I received, and am still getting, is ‘nothing’. My heart went out, not to the Princess of Wales, but only to another human being who will have bouts of physical, mental and spiritual suffering. That’s it, end of story.

I checked news pages I could get to from my laptop and there it all was unfolding, a frenzy. This morning it is the same. Is it not monstrous? Is it not unfair and wrong to turn a spotlight onto a human being and their human family’s suffering? I am not angry or upset at what they are doing, I am angry and upset they do not see the reality of what they are doing. And that transmits to those who hoover up this whirlwind over human being’s suffering. The ooh’s and ah’s, the wailing and gnashing of teeth and then demanding more and more information. Regrettably, I can imagine some long-lens weirdo trying to get their camera into this human being’s suffering and then selling it! Excuse me, but that is a sickness more dangerous than cancer.

Evidence of most people being asleep to reality is highlighted at frenzy time. There is no awareness, awareness, awareness. In the main, it is driven by self, greed and ignorance.

The investigation, and to some extent media intrusion, is valid to right wrongs and protect freedoms, but the monstrous feeding frenzy of the 24/48 rolling news cycle is wrong. This never-ending search to fill airtime, airwaves or paper with something or someone to talk about and tear to shreds is, in my opinion, an insult to God and decent living. It can only be policed by the perpetrators waking up and seeing the reality of what they are doing.

That’s it. Written at +/- 08:30 U.K. time.

My day? Keeping myself to myself and behaving, as best I can, to how God would have me behave to others.

Blessings

Prayer and Abandonment.

In recent days, Prayer and Abandonment have spent time in my thoughts and considerations. I will write my thoughts on Prayer first.

It seems to me there is a great deal of prayer asking God for something or telling God what to do.
I think prayer within a Church of England Sunday service includes some along the lines of ‘Keep our King safe’; Keep our Royal Family safe; Look after our leaders, and so forth. Then there are private prayers of the kind to keep ‘my family safe’, to keep me ‘free from sin’, to help me in ‘my endeavours’. Along those lines, anyway.
Then I think of prayers telling God what we want. Help my daughter/son into this job/role or whatever; help my ‘team’ win on Saturday. That kind of thing.
It also seems to me people who are in the spiritual world, or at least have one foot in it, pray at set times. Usually, as they get up and as they go to bed (keep me safe while I sleep).
These observations may be totally, completely erroneous and if so I apologise to the world outside, but I think they have some truth to allow me to write on with my considerations.

First, can I bring to your mind words I have a great deal of time for:-
If you always do as you’ve always done – you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
People keep praying, and praying, and praying in a set format, at set times and never consider changing that. Never stop to consider ‘What am I doing, what am I saying?’.

A great old lady taught me an invaluable lesson some 22 years ago. My father was very ill and dying when I spoke to this lady and said, ‘I have been praying to God for Him to place His hand on my father’s brow and take the pain away’. She shouted at me (and I use capitals to emphasise the volume and passion) ‘YOU CAN’T PRAY LIKE THAT – YOU’RE TELLING GOD WHAT TO DO!’.
You see, I was wanting it my way (as usual). My motive was ‘self’. It brought me up hard and since that day I learned the valuable truth of A.A. Big Book page 59:-
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
On my spiritual journey, ‘praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.’ has been the only prayer. And then listening for, and to, what I am told. And I fall down on the listening. Boy, do I.

Eventually, it becomes as natural as breathing. It is living it. It becomes a two-way, constant communication pathway throughout each day. ‘Hiya Lord, how am I doing?’; ‘What shall I do about that?’; ‘What! You mean you want me to…. No way!’ And so on. My error is I let the world creep in and retune the band wave and tune God out.

Do I believe and have faith (two entirely different concepts) God the Father; God the Son; and God the Holy Spirit an actuality; is real? (for those of a non-Christ-based faith, use your conception of God). Yes, I do. Do I believe and have faith that God and Son are Master and Lord? Yes, I do. Do I believe and have faith God knows the ‘hairs on my head’ (Matthew 30 24-31). That’s the mystery, and it will always remain so at my human level that God sees and knows the past, present and future from sitting outside of time and space.

So what the heck am I telling Him what I want and what to do!!! All I have to ask for is what is it the Master and Lord want from me today, just as in Downton Abbey, Mr Carson (the Butler) only needed to know what the Earl of Grantham (the Master) wanted that day and then went and obeyed his wishes. What’s so difficult about that?

God’s at my shoulder now (never goes away, I just don’t listen) as I write this. Like a good Master watching over His servant. Simples eh!

But people keep doing what they’ve always done, and so never get anything different (like growth). Fear of losing something they have and fear of getting something they don’t want. Everything’s only ever down to those two fears.

Swiftly on to ‘Abandonment’.

I read the other day (my Bold):-
Abandonment never produces the consciousness of its own effort, because the whole life is taken up with the One to Whom we abandon.
Beware of talking about abandonment if you know nothing about it, and you will never know anything about it until you have realized that John 3:16 means that God gave Himself absolutely.
In our abandonment, we give ourselves over to God just as God gave Himself for us, without any calculation.
The consequence of abandonment never enters into our outlook because our life is taken up with Him.
(Oswald Chambers – My Utmost for His Highest)

If I truly look at the consequences of abandonment, true abandonment to God, it fills me with fear.
Do we pay lip service to the ‘Let Go and Let God’ saying? Or is it only a trite statement that used to be pinned up on A.A. meeting room walls? (If it still is, as the God word doesn’t seem to be in A.A.’s vocabulary any more)

When I wrote earlier (above) What! You mean you want me to….No way!’ The ‘No Way! Is real. For me, living the daily spiritual life hasn’t been one of total perpetual quietness of heart.

I’m repeating the words from A W Tozer I used on the 6th of March:-
“Millions call themselves by His name, it is true, and pay some token homage to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honoured among them.
 Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is ABOVE, and his true position will be exposed.
 Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time.
Those other things will be exalted above.
 However the man may protest, the proof is in the choice he makes day after day throughout his life.”

I wrote, I failed. And I do. I’m not a saint, but I think today I am a spiritual being having a human experience. As they say, ‘A Saint is a Saint until he thinks he is’ (or something along those lines). The point is that as soon as you think you are a saint – you aren’t.

Just pondering now as I write. Please excuse me for writing as I do now, but as I look at Mr Putin, as I look at President Biden, as I look at King Charles, as I look the Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury (Primate of all England), as I look at Pope Francis – as I just look!
I see people who sit on the crapper each day having a good strain as I do; who ‘If I cut you do you not bleed’ and it’s red just like mine. So why do we deify them?

Just a thought.

Here endeth today’s epistle 🙂

Blessings.

Another step…

I am being judgemental of people, their actions and behaviour. God is the only one that can judge, not me. All I see is the physical outer body and what it is doing. I cannot see into their inner heart, mind and soul to understand why.

I am sitting in my car waiting for my wife to come out of an appointment she doesn’t enjoy attending. Furthermore, I try and support her, but it’s her issue to overcome if she wants. While waiting, I am watching the morning movement of people. It is 08:30 and so the off to work and school people are passing around me. And I ponder….how many of them have given a moment to a spiritual thought? How many are striving to seek the truth and wisdom in their lives? How many are in the treadmill of pain with no idea of how to exit it or that there even is an exit!?

Not many.

But here ‘I’ am again – it’s not about them. It’s about me. The considerations and questions above in themselves are judgemental. I must return to the ‘now’; to this moment; the only thing I possess. ‘Wash the bowl’. A term to enable me to return to not only the moment but to the simplicity of life; the little things.

Now much later at home….

When earlier in the day writing in my car the words ‘how many of them have given a moment to a spiritual thought? How many are striving to seek the truth and wisdom in their lives?’ I searched my mind for a quote I had once noted and now home I have found it. It’s by A. W. Tozer:-
“The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.”
I don’t think people see there will be a judgement. It comes down to the question I used a while ago, ‘Either God is or God isn’t; what is our choice to be’. If you answer ‘yes’ everything else flows from that. Genesis must be true (albeit that I think the words are understood and looked at in human time not in God’s time of which there isn’t any. He exists outside time and space and so ‘a day’ could be a billion years). King David, David the Great (If I forget thee, O Jerusalem let my right hand forget its cunning) is truth. Jesus existed by coming into the world (not from it). And so on. My experience points me to I can’t have one without the other. And I think there is too much ‘complicated faith’ with deep theological writings and hot air and not enough ‘simple faith’ that the Bible is a fact – now – today – been played out with God’s engineering and permitting. Taking us to Revelations.

Sorry, I know I once wrote this is about my experience and not the work and words of others however some words of others have struck me so much with the truth and this is another by A. W. Tozer:-
“Millions call themselves by His name, it is true, and pay some token homage to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honoured among them.
Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is ABOVE, and his true position will be exposed.
Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time.
Those other things will be exalted above.
However the man may protest, the proof is in the choice he makes day after day throughout his life.”
I put myself to this test and FAIL. So let’s take the chip off all our shoulders. Simple faith, without complication, is lacking, is lacking in me.

I throw something else in here that I think is linked. It is putting God and Religion into the same box; the same container; like they are mutually exclusive (or is it inclusive – who knows who cares, I hope you get what I mean). My experience has shown the following words of Anthony De Mello to be true:-
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”
I have found as soon as I consider from inside my formative ‘religion’ of the Protestant ‘Church of England’ I am fenced in, ‘us and them’ starts to rear its head and I get distracted from the goal of God.

Let me KISS – keep it simple, stupid.

Let me take the next step in grace, even if I don’t have any vision. Let me see God and be with God in actions as simple as washing up the dishes; having eyesight and hearing; being able to move of my own accord. Also, to see deeper into nature. Oh, I can take that for granted!

As simple as my Lord washing His disciple’s feet in John, Chapter 13. It contains love and service; humility and leadership, and sooo much more.

And all this from sitting in our car waiting….

Blessings

Love……and other things.

Why is it I find it hard to live, really live, a spiritual life?

Why is it hard to have ‘perpetual quietness of heart’? I have it. I experience it. Furthermore, I have achieved it.

And then it melts away, as snow in June.

It seems to be as waves rising and then falling away; peaks and troughs; periods of a still ‘River of God’; periods of a stormy ‘River of God’.

Maybe I have answered my questions in the above. I can see a desire, I want to control my life! I want to manipulate ‘me’ into perpetual quietness of heart because I want it and when there for ‘me’ to ensure it stays there.

But I am not in charge. When I run my life, it gets a tadge (informal – A small amount; a bit.) wayward!

I wake, have a morning reading and prepare myself for the day. I step out of my door and my preparation ….. poof, gone! On one side of me as I travel the day is all that is good in the world and on the other all that is bad. And I walk a wavy line between the two. A motorist bursts down our nearby 20mph safety zone ignoring all signs and a moment later I can observe an act of kindness and courtesy. Quietness comes, and quietness goes.

How to retain the quietness? Good question, and I will keep walking towards the light to find it.

Two sentences from my memory seem to apply to the world I am of (as against ‘in’):-

The ‘what can I get away with’ attitude degrades us all!
Money has such a corroding effect on people.

I will have read them somewhere, but I do not where, so I can’t credit them. Too good for me to have thought up. On the test of truth, for me, they pass.

On to firmer ground within my experience of ‘love’ (although the above writing is entirely my current experience).

I wrote in one piece a while ago something like my wife and I are like two intertwined plants. We are in the same soil and nourish each other, but we are still separate entities that do not have a dependency on each other. She is who she is and is free to come or go as she sees fit. I do not own her, nor does she own me. While together, our music plays.

I read the following in a novel by Bernard Cornwell (I think!!). I liked it and noted it down, as I’m apt to do:-
‘Love is wanting for the other person what they want for themselves. It is never seeking to change them. It is seeing them in the morning and in the evening and being glad that they are alive.’

It is required for true love to be unconditional.

I would love her/him if only they would…… a condition, a control being applied. In my experience – not love. I fell foul in my one previous marriage of attachment, that state of clinging coming from what I thought was true that she was necessary for my happiness. From my observations, it seems most couples have a misguided, brainwashed, unaware concept of love. They live it as lust and attachment (and ‘lust’ not totally in its sexual context).

There was someone I knew who I perceived as not being a good person, but I have to love them unconditionally. That is hard. I look to 1 Corinthians 13. All verses I suggest are a description of Unconditional Love, and they contain a huge amount of emotional discomfort in me if the statements made are turned into questions because I don’t live up to them. To anyone reading this, go ahead yourselves; have a look. Turn statements into questions, then answer the questions. Can sure bring up things which need addressing in me.

I like the way C.S Lewis put it:-
“Now we cannot…discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing).
Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good.
Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder.
But in another sense, it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home.
All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, “You must do this. I can’t.”

That’s what I say – I can’t. You must.
(Lack of power was my dilemma)

I’m sure unconditional love as a topic will crop up again soon but for now….

I would like to leave you with some words by Kahili Gibran. Pain comes to me in my life sometimes, I would like to have closer contact with my daughter who I rarely speak to or see. And today I can understand why, but the pain can still come as I want it my way; my happiness depends on her; creating an attachment and falling foul of my own writings. The below brings me some solace.

On Children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Blessings

Listen……and Go.

Some thoughts have occupied my mind during the day.

My retired Pastor friend’s words I copied to the end of the 27th entry is one. The contemplation has been between how I have attempted to ensure I used open concepts and words so alienation doesn’t take place, and my friend using ‘Lord’.
My thinking, to now, has been to use ‘I AM’ for God and ‘Yeshua’ for Jesus, so the names become ‘open’ and don’t bring out preconceived notions; so an open mind can be had to have a new experience. But I suspect I have been both too clever (meaning a smart ass, not intelligent) and disrespectful to, well, God!

I try and work through as many of my thoughts, contemplations and considerations over spiritual and temporal issues myself. I attempt not to refer to the ‘theological opinions’ of others. In the past, I did look and became bogged down by highfalutin words, arguments and hot air from those of a grandiose disposition. So here, you get ‘me’, well most of the time because I do have guides and mentors (written and verbal) that I respect because of the simple truths which are spoken, and can be felt in the heart.

That now said, my opinion is partisan ‘religion’ is not what God intended. There’s a little saying I remember which goes ‘There is only one God – and it isn’t me!’ What your conception of the one God is, is yours, and look to God; not at the fingers pointing the way (religions)!
But what am I now going to use in this Latin script as a name for God? I went to my Bible for ‘I AM’ and ‘Yeshua’ so I went back there again, keeping my Pastor friend’s word in mind. I settled upon John 13:13 (NASB):-
You call Me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord’; and you are correct, for so I am.
However, in the King James Bible it is:-
Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
God, Master, Lord, Holy Spirit.
Jesus was born into the world; not of it. (A good sentence for consideration.)
I have three separate Powers, but yet only one Power. It is a Trinity beyond my comprehension. God, who took on human form as Lord Jesus, and this/their Power in the form of the Holy Spirit. (Another consideration – if God and Jesus are one and the same, when Jesus died for three days did God also die for three days? My answer is ‘no’ because the consideration is in terms of what the human mind perceives, and God is WAY beyond that! Anyway, just a thought.)
Decision? From now on it will be God, Lord and where necessary, Holy Spirit. And if minds snap shut at their use, then tough.

Another contemplation has been the first of the ‘The Beatitudes’, Matthew 5:3 (NASB. Heck knows why, it’s just been there!
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
My experience of me is I can read but not see, and I can read but not feel.
In this case, for the first time, I saw and felt the depth of meaning of ‘poor in spirit’. The destruction of self (centredness); humility (the absence of self – not the belittling of self). After the past few days and events in my life, there is the realisation I am nothing without God.

And the last thing to occupy my thoughts – John 16 v31 (NASB)
Jesus replied to them, “Do you now believe?“
The disciples had got all fired up like at a Trump rally and shouted ‘Now we believe.’ But the Lord asks, ‘DO YOU now believe?’ Like the Lord knows something (which He does) and they don’t.
So I looked at myself, DO I now believe? (In God; The Lord; The Holy Spirit) or am I just playing at it? I have found if I rely on self, me, I produce what the Bible terms ‘tribulations’ or I just term it cock-ups and chaos. Or, put another way, I have to ensure I can bring to mind with sufficient consciousness my faith in God. Everything I do must spring from the habit of referring everything back to my Lord and Master. He is the Father, I am His child and must evidence childlike faith. Am I walking the walk, or only talking the talk?

My parental upbringing seems to have instilled in me a desire to do the right thing and be seen to do the right thing. Try at all costs to avoid making errors of judgement that can lead to physical, emotional and social problems. And this makes it all the harder to let go and let God.

If you just listen to God and go and do what He says, you could easily be ridiculed.

But I’m going to choose now to Listen…. and Go and to heck with the ridicule.

Blessings
p.s. At this moment, 20:26 on the 28^th, I listen and hear I’m being told to shut up for a while.

Never let the sense of failure corrupt new actions.

There is a wonder that I see in my spiritual life, but can ‘I AM’ and ‘Yeshua’ really expect me to live it out in the details of my life? If I answer ‘no’ my spiritual life becomes nothing because I impoverish Yeshua. I bring Yeshua down to a human level, so I can make that Power understandable to a human mind. I make it so my belief says Yeshua cannot go to the deepest within me. That makes a mockery of the Power that knows the ‘hairs on my head’.

There is a great paragraph in the Big Book of A.A. (We Agnostics, page 53):-
When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?

Great question. Possibly the greatest question to be answered; along with the question ‘Who am I?’.

So, 24 years ago, I answered an unequivocal ‘yes’, God is. Well if ‘I AM’ is, the rest should flow – should, but it sometimes doesn’t, as my recent experiences show. And I find my answer as to why in another Big Book quote from ‘There Is A Solution’, p.24:-
We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago.
The answer is that I was unable to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force my faith in ‘I AM’ and ‘Yeshua’ of a second ago!!. My faith that ‘I AM’ either engineers or permits all events. All is down to ‘I AM’. (No, surely they can’t mean ‘ALL’; No, not ‘ALL’ – yes ‘all’)

However, from a position of being ‘stalled’ I had to make the first move. I am having the experience of ‘I AM’ not giving me the Power to overcome life, but of ‘I AM’ giving me life as I overcome. Taking the first step back to ‘I AM’ and ‘Yeshua’ after moving light years away in a single second.

I had been crushed by IT events up to and including today! Apart from the hacking, the new laptop purchase had a major fault and after some hours of telephone calls and web chats, it was to be returned for a full refund. I printed off the return label and then spent hours finding the correct drop-off point only to find nothing happened on the tracking facility from the 23rd. Wailing and gnashing of teeth; moaning I’m £600 down; wanting to go and kick ass. I was unable to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force my faith in ‘I AM’ and ‘Yeshua’.
Then this morning, the 27th, an email confirming the package was received and recorded on the supplier goods tracking facility, so back in their hands and a refund will take its course.

So for these episodes, the wonders I see in my spiritual life had NOT been lived out in the details of my life. Worry had meant my view of God had been diminished. I had failed, but I must never let the sense of failure corrupt new actions. I have forgiven myself for not having quietness of heart. Furthermore, I have accepted this turbulent episode and seen I was making projections of outcomes and that I was not in the present moment – the only moment I have.

What do I see now? I see the outcome as being exactly as ‘I AM’ wanted it to be. I’m now sitting writing on a new laptop which my wife says should last me to my ‘end’ (which, bless her, might come sooner rather than later!). A laptop from a local shop where I can ‘kick-ass’ for any issues. With Windows 11; 16GB RAM; 1TB SSD; with good old familiar Mrs Google for company (well DuckDuckGo and some other ‘tweaks’) all on a 0%, 24-month payment plan. So why did my ego take me down Linux and another email provider only to go belly up; creating storms and stalled spiritual life? Why did I go a wriggly route from the old laptop to the new laptop instead of a straight line?

I could not bring to mind with sufficient consciousness…….. (must learn that lesson)

Blessings
My long-term friend (a retired Pastor) in a reply to an email wrote:-
I had a thought the other day, ‘old age is a blessing’ and we should perhaps positively confess that more, instead of moaning about all the negatives that come with it. If the Lord, (and the Bible says Jesus decides when a disciple goes home), gives us years, we should seek to know what He wants us to do with them.
I liked that, and I thought I’d share it.

And I had a thought. It might mean little to anyone reading this who is not familiar with the U.K. but I’ll share it anyway (even if just to get a name in):-
We could easily put massive fear into Mr Putin by sending out to Ukraine our finest 1st Battalion YORKSHIRE WIVES Panzer Division. Led by Nora Batty and Ivy.
(Oh how the gentle comedy of Last of the Summer Wine pleases me.)

Where am I…..(both a question and a statement).

If I feel far from God, and I certainly understand, I am the one who has moved!

The question, ‘where am I?’. I don’t know. I cannot locate myself in the human world or the spiritual at this very moment of writing.

This is a very peculiar feeling.

The statement ‘Where am I’. I am sitting in my house, using a laptop, and I have had an enjoyable lunch. That is about it.

I’m stalled, dead in the water.

Dead in the water of the River of I AM

I AM is not going to take action to move me. I don’t believe I AM would. I have to take the first step as though there was no I AM.
Immediately I do I, I AM will be there.
‘Arise, shine’ – Isaiah 40:1

There has been an inordinate build-up of ego. I must keep in mind:-

“She blooms because she blooms, the Rose:
Does not ask why,
nor does she preen herself
to catch my eye.”

Blessings to all and one foot forward…..

Rage……

There was a U.K. television series entitled ‘The Royal Family’ in which the characters were prone to use the phrase ‘my arse’ at the end of comments. The main protagonist I suggest (but do not say for certain) was a lead character played by Ricky Tomlinson. (You can find a compilation of the use on YouTube.) Well, I am going to use that phrase now:-
Perpetual quietness of heart – my arse!
The subtitle of my blog is, ‘Contemplations and observations from within a spiritual life of awareness’. And boy, have I been ‘aware’ recently.

For a goodly number of days my heart has not been quiet. It has been rocked by perpetual noise. It has not been a still pool of water with a smooth, reflective surface; more like a violent whirlpool lashed by wind and rain. Furthermore, it has had its highs and lows of ‘storm ego’ during that time, but there has been a storm nonetheless.

I try, as I have noted before, to only write my experiences and the solutions I have come to, rather than knowledge from others of experiences. The solution I picked up to utilise during this storm was that of ‘subject – object’. This came from an investigation of that great question, ‘Who am I?’.

During this storm, I was able to step back into the position of ‘subject’ and watch the ‘object’ (the storm) as if outside of it. Had I seen the storm coming as I observed as ‘the watcher’? The knee-jerk answer is ‘No’, however if I looked beyond the surface I could see many streams of life coming together to cause this storm. I should add now that as I write this note, the main storm has passed, only little ripples remain.

Let’s look at one stream, probably the main one (the rest been tributaries I think). Now before I look, let me write of three important teachings given to me many years ago by a great man who I had the privilege to have the company of many times.
The first:- ‘when your heart whispers to you, listen carefully – listen very carefully. It is I AM whispering’.
The second:- ‘If you’re pushing against a door, and it will not open or is hard to open, chances are I AM doesn’t want you to walk through it; but if it swings open, well, that’s the way I AM wants you to go.
The third:- ‘What’s your motive?’

Back to the storm’s stream. I wrote in my last post, ‘Don’t know where it has come from….’ the following as a p.s.:-
(p.s. to worldly matters – over the past few days I have been wrestling in the engine room of this, the laptop I use. Not got the right spanners to make it better yet but hey ho worry is lack of faith. So maybe no posts for a while, maybe. Phew, they say.
Some time ago I saw the reality of MS Windows and Google and their domination, control and intrusion in, and of the world and decided I would not be bound to them. I sought out a Linux operating system, and I am closing on an objective of having and using only free and open source software (for example, LibreOffice)
No attachments; no fear; no coercion; flexibility and as best freedom as may be.)

Well, ‘No attachments; no fear; no coercion; flexibility and as best freedom as may be’ – my arse!

All gone out the window – baby, bathwater and bath! (from a British saying)

I am now back to Windows and Google because I was hacked! Yep, new email was compromised. There had been ‘me’ finger pointing and opinionated with ‘aren’t I good’. Am I not a saint at the top of my security and privacy conscience tree? This is what has caused the storm. I hope I have been much better at dealing with it than I would have been in the past (care – ego coming up again) but I understand as ‘the subject’ the ‘object’ of ‘fear’ much better. There are only – only – two types of fear:-
Fear of loosing something you have and want to keep.
Fear of getting something you don’t want.
(I think we will look at these in more depth in another post).
While raging inside, externally I kept calm. It’s nobody else’s fault, why take it out on others. Handle it logically, make a list of actions and follow the process to get back on course – keeping in mind the lessons.
Fear underlay my rage as I saw loss as potentially financial; loss of face; loss of time; loss of quietness, and so on.
Getting something I don’t want? Extra work. Probably more when I take it into consideration.

Let’s go back to the three lessons. As I looked deeper after the storm, I saw right at the start my heart had been whispering to me ‘are you doing the right thing?’; ‘is this really necessary?’; ‘if it ‘ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. When these were there, I should have listened. Then pushing against a door. It didn’t all go smoothly. The switch to an alternative Google provider had issues, I didn’t get what I had expected. The switch to Linux was great at first but then, as said in the p.s., the engine needed looking at (stiff door). And ‘what’s my motive?’ If you rephrase that as ‘what does self/ego want’ then it became obvious. Like Mr Sinatra – I did it MY way. I wanted it the way I wanted it. Humility (absence of self) had gone out the window.

A quick look at tributaries. In the outside world, short-tempered with other road users; lack of patience when queuing; not forgiving of others poor service. I’m sure I showed lack of serenity in other areas as well.

I’m about pooped now, writing all that. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it’s my observation from within my attempt at a spiritual life.

Blessings to all.
p.s. I’m going to somehow work in some names to my blogs e.g. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin etc to see how the web crawlers pick up my posts and bring some ‘awareness’ to those brainwashed and asleep 🙂

Don’t know where it has come from…..

The Spirit of I AM; The Holy Spirit; Chi; the wu ji wisdom found in the Tao; use any name or description of your conception of the Power personal to you.
I liken this ‘spirit’ to breaths of air or currents in water (e.g. The River of I AM).
You can neither see the breaths or currents nor hear them. You feel and sense them, but you do not know where they have come from; nor do you know where they are going. But breaths of air and currents of water can move you, and you feel them, and you believe them.
I do the same for the Holy Spirit. No idea where it comes from; no idea where it goes next. I only move with its feeling within me.
Or, as they say – ‘Go with the flow’.

And for consideration:-

All I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with I AM, not on a self-willed determination to be spiritual.

Blessings

(p.s. to worldly matters – over the past few days I have been wrestling in the engine room of this, the laptop I use. Not got the right spanners to make it better yet but hey ho worry is lack of faith. So maybe no posts for a while, maybe. Phew, they say.
Some time ago I saw the reality of MS Windows and Google and their domination, control and intrusion in, and of the world and decided I would not be bound to them. I sought out a Linux operating system, and I am closing on an objective of having and using only free and open source software (for example, LibreOffice)
No attachments; no fear; no coercion; flexibility and as best freedom as may be.)

Shalom

“Likes” and “Dis-likes”

Changes in how I view the world have caused the abandonment of liking or dis-liking a person, place or thing. Or using these words in verbal or written form where possible. Why? It’s about what these words do to emotional stability; what they evoke inwardly.

Some years ago I became close to someone. Not in a ‘live together’ emotional way just ‘friendship’. We went to many events and occasions together which we had a common interest and membership of. It did not start out that way. It started as someone taking over a mentoring role to me. As years went by I think people kind of expected us to be jointly at events etc. and for a while I was accepting of that and enjoyed the expectation of people. I could say I ‘liked’ and maybe admired the person, even allowing for their strong and sometimes argumentative and hurtful words being used to me and others. I thought it was just par for the course. After what seemed like a long time, our paths started to diverge. I had started to look at direction and at a path that was different to this person and separation became greater. As I did so scales fell from my eyes, and it took me a while to realise I had been in the hands, spell, grip (insert what you like) of a psychopath. I had been very carefully and long term, groomed, manipulated and used, even heavily financially. Boy was this person clever. It took me a while to fully research and comprehend the traits of a psychopath, but once seen there was a lightbulb moment. Suffice to say some others had seen it for some time, but not me.
Here is the point from an awareness and spiritual stance. I used to ‘like’ this person, and you would assume that after the lightbulb moment I would ‘dis-like’ them. That thought puts the person in either of two camps. Separates with a clear division of like or dis-like. I cannot be that way now and do not see it that way. There might be subtleties of like and dis-like, strengths if you will, but they would still divide. There is only one reality in awareness.
Now I feel my view of this person as only a ripple across the quietness of my heart. A disruption to positive energy. I look upon it as my music of life not been in tune with their music of life.
I neither ‘like’ nor ‘dis-like’; neither ‘love’ nor ‘hate’. The person just ‘is’.

For me, this is seeing reality and not trying to give names to it so my ego can deal with it. It is not closing the energy flow through my heart and holding it in but seeing and recognising the disruptive energy, watching it and letting it flow through and out of the perpetual quietness of the heart.

So I don’t do ‘I like someone or something’ and I don’t do ‘I dis-like someone or something’. I only see them, or it, as it is, without judgement.

Shalom