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 🙂