True Nature, Perennial Philosophy and Plotinus

    An ancient Greek philosopher - usually attributed to Socrates - advised, "Know thyself."

    The Bible quotes God commanding, "Be still, and know that I am God."

    A bit of context might actually prove very practical:

    “The term 'perennial philosophy' was coined by Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) and refers to a fourfold realization:
    (1) there is only one Reality (call it, among other names, God, Mother, Tao, Allah, Dharmakaya, Brahman, or Great Spirit) that is the source & substance of all creation;
    (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego;
    (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and
    (4) that peace, compassion, & justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, and violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality.
    The great sages & mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time and culture. It is the universality and timelessness of this wisdom that makes it the perfect focus for the spiritually independent seeker."
    Rami Shapiro. “Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent.” SkyLight Paths, 2013.

    “Plotinus (204-270CE) was one of the most profound ancient Greek philosophers. He was not engaged in thinking about the deepest questions, he had deep spiritual realizations. He was an awakened being, and that determined what realizations he came up with on the conceptual level. 

    Plotinus said that at the root of all life, of the universe, is the One. The One is the transcendent reality.
    He didn’t call it ‘God’ he said ‘the One,’ and the One is transcendent to space and time. So the One does not exist in space and time, it is transcendent. And this One, which would be God but not in a traditional sense, the One emanates, there’s an outflow from the One.
    The One emanates, and it emanates first of all, what is called in ancient Greek, Nous. Nous … is Spirit or Consciousness. So there’s an outflow from the One, which has no location in space or time. At first this outflow is Nous, Consciousness, Pure Consciousness, or Spirit.
    Then in the next stage, the first forms arise. The form that arises out of Consciousness is the Soul (Psyche in Greek) – not only the soul of human beings, but the soul of different life forms. So the One emanates Consciousness, and then Consciousness takes on a form.
    Then the next stage of emanation after that is Mind – the human mind, the ability to think. We’re getting further and further away from the One.
    Then the next stage is the Body – physical bodies. And it is the farthest away from the Source.
    So the entire reality is an outflow from the One, which at first is Pure Consciousness, then it assumes form as Souls, then it assumes Mind – human beings come in but also other minds, and then it becomes the physicality of the world which is the furthest Consciousness can get away from itself is the Material World, but ultimately, it is still one with, all emanates, flows out from the One. And Plotinus came to this realization not through thinking, but his own self-realization.
    So it means that you are an emanation! Your consciousness, even your body is an emanation of the One. If you are able to realize yourself, the essence of you as Consciousness itself, by being still, awareness replaces thinking, then you move back on your journey to the Source. Thinking subsides, so you’ve already gone beyond the level of thinking, then you move deeper towards the Source. You sense your connectedness to the One, or at least to the first emanation of the One which is Consciousness itself. And that is God realization, not through any concept.
    All you have to do is become still, and realize that stillness within you is Presence itself, the primordial emanation, in the same way that the Sun emanates light, the One emanates ultimately Consciousness and transmutations of Consciousness. So the first emanation is Consciousness itself.
    Perhaps you can never reach the One directly, but you can reach the first emanation of the One which is Consciousness itself, as your own essence. That’s an amazing thing. I’m talking about it, but the words are there to point you beyond words & concepts.
    So the world is an emanation. The forms that arise here go through continuous transformations & transmutations, but the important thing is that you can realize the essence of who you are!
    Know thyself as this primordial emanation of the One that is you in essence. And you thought you were a person in this world with little problems!"
    Eckhart Tolle “Timeless Wisdom Retreat” in Greece & Online 2024

     Shamans, mystics & saints had directly experienced their true nature for thousands of years before Plotinus, but each of us can only truly benefit by directly experiencing our true nature for ourselves.
    So, can we practice being still & silent, and get to know directly - beyond words & concepts - that we are Divine?

Old Man of the Glen

Taken in Scotland by Fortunato Gatto • Winner, Plants and Fungi

Italian photographer Fortunato Gatto often goes to the Glen Affric pine woods of the Scottish Highlands west of Loch Ness. According to analysis of pollen in the sediment, this forest has stood for at least 8,300 years. The beard lichen on a gnarled birch tree indicates that air pollution is relatively low here.

The Globe and Mail

Canadian Wildlife Photography Contest 2024

Basics

    “What is the greatest wonder in the world?
      Every day men see others called to their death, yet those who remain live as if they were immortal.” The Mahabharata

    “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Krishnamurti

    “Whenever I tried looking outside, instead of in, I’d be crushed by an overwhelming heaviness and sadness until I remembered again. It took quite a while for me to see that most of what goes, among so-called adults, by the name of depression isn’t a disease or defect at all.
    On the contrary, it’s a perfectly natural response to the pull of the divine which is always disturbing and disrupting and disorienting – straining to reorient us towards a totally different dimension. And it’s those who seem best adjusted ((most 'normal')), armed like tragic soldiers with their psychological theories and fanciful facts, who are most helplessly trapped in their strange delusions.”  Peter Kingsley “A Book of Life.” Catafalque Press, 2021.

    “Spirituality is the indefinable urge to reach beyond the limits of ordinary human existence that is bounded by unconscious forces and self-interest, and to discover higher values in ourselves and to live them consistently in our relationships and roles. It involves developing practices that aid us in rising and expanding, perhaps beyond the merely good to the transcendent, in the process of looking inwards rather than outwards for our own morality and guidance. Above all, it means becoming a more loving and compassionate human being, in thought, word and deed.” Maya Spencer MD “What is spirituality? A personal exploration.” 2012. https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/sigs/spirituality-spsig/what-is-spirituality-maya-spencer-x.pdf?sfvrsn=f28df052_2

     “Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” Jean-Paul Sartre

    “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Rumi

     “I can nourish myself on nothing but truth.” St. Therese of Lisieux

    “There is a voice that doesn’t have words. Listen.” Rumi

    There have always been among us people who perceive much more & process what they sense far more deeply than the average person. "Sensitive - The Untold Story" a 2015 documentary on Prime suggests that about 20% of people (and over 100 species of animals) fit this category. Artists, serious meditators, mystics, saints & other spiritually-inclined folks may also overlap with this 'highly sensitive people' (HSP) category.
    An important brain function is as a reducing valve to prevent us from being overwhelmed by the shear volume of data surrounding us. This appears to be diminished in HSP, and the resulting frequent overwhelm may inspire them to be more curious & deeply introspective.

    “To imagine that some little thing - food, sex, power, fame - will make you happy is to deceive oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

    “Our yearning for Truth actually comes from Truth.” Adyashanti

    “As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there.” Nisargadatta Maharaj 

    “The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Even if death were to fall on you today like lightning,

You must be ready to die without sadness and regret,

Without any residue of clinging for what is left behind,

Remaining in the cognition of the absolute view,

You should leave this life like an eagle,

Soaring up into the blue sky.”

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

 

Leonard Cohen - In My Secret Life (Live in London)

I Am

    How our two arms relate to each other is a wonderful, readily accessible model for how we ARE related to each other and to all of life, without deluded thoughts of difference, judgment, separation, jealousy, competition, fear, hatred. Ultimately, there really only is our natural peaceful, kind, collaborative Oneness. 

    “one of the great sages of India, born in 1879 ... Ramana Maharshi taught that the ‘Self’ or real ‘I’ is a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness, not an experience of individuality. He said the individual egoic self was a fabrication of the mind that obscures the true experience of the real Self. He maintained that this universal Self is always present, but the self-limiting tendencies of the mind must cease for one to be consciously aware of it."

    And from her own spiritual journey, Melinda Edwards reflects on the 'Dance of Identification':
    “When our attention in daily life is placed primarily on our personality – on our ideas about who we are; on our likes, dislikes, and tendencies, on the past and the future – we mistakenly think that the personality and body are who we are and we lose our innate connection with spirit. As we open to our difficult emotions, these contractions of thought and personality begin to unwind and our deeper nature begins to reveal itself. Our contractions, discomfort, and suffering are our own personal beacons calling us back Home.
    When there are glimpses or experiences of Love or Truth, and later the identification with the individual ‘me’ and the natural suffering that accompanies identification returns, often the mind turns That which is real into something to be attained again, something that someone else has that I don’t have, something that I must try to get and keep in the future.
    The mind projects Love and Truth out ‘there,’ separate from what I am. Projecting enlightenment as ‘out there’ – on a spiritual teacher whom we may think is realized or ‘has it,’ or into the future as something to be attained – only delays our own coming Home.”
    Melinda Edwards. “Psyche & Spirit. How a Psychiatrist Found Divinity through her Lifelong Quest for Truth and her Daughter’s Autism.” 2024.

    “The ‘I am’ is the awareness before thoughts. Dwell in your sense (direct experience) of ‘I am.’” Nisargadatta Maharaj - Adyashanti on the Teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2zqUTP17js

     “As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there.” Nisargadatta Maharaj

     “The question ‘Who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer; the question ‘Who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.” Ramana Maharshi

     “Each of us is on a spiritual journey, whether we realize it or not. Our inner and outer experiences offer us opportunities to become increasingly aware of the Love that resides within us, beyond the veil of reactions, personality, and circumstances.
    As our consciousness evolves, we become more attuned to the subtler dimensions of being and our interconnectedness with everything. Ultimately, individual consciousness merges with the Oneness that underpins all of existence, where there is no separation at all – no ‘me,’ no ‘you,’ no other. Oneness is the fundamental fabric of all existence, the essence of what we all Are.”
    Melinda Edwards. “Psyche & Spirit. How a Psychiatrist Found Divinity through her Lifelong Quest for Truth and her Daughter’s Autism.” 2024.

"Within us all is vastness
that stands like a massive mountain in the center of our life,
a timeless tower of strength, anchored in the formless ground. We are here to bridge the worlds of formlessness and form, planting germinating seeds of light,
of infinite value and beauty,
folding our wings into narrowing space,
seeking to remember ourselves as pristine wholeness,
as primordial oneness, differentiated here on Earth.
Can we surrender our attachments?
Can we co-create the sublime access within the divine,
the divine within the human.
Know that you are loved, even behind the walls of your fear
and vulnerability, life will both crash and polish,
so that we can shine in our full radiance as beings of light
waking from our living dream
as one being
fully alive
and present
together."

David Lorimer

 

 

Thank you Jill & Ron

🙏

From Choppy Waves - To Still, Silent Depths

    From our usual (left-hemisphere-dominant) perspective, Mystics sound strange, unreasonable, even disturbed. One famous mystic's quote - which in light of today's escalating wars in the Ukraine & middle East, and rapidly-worsening environmental crises - comes across as counterintuitive & wildly optimistic:

"All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well." Julian of Norwich (1342 – 1416) English Christian mystic

    We have many clues to why mystics see things so differently than we typically do:

    “So long as one is merely on the surface of things, they are always imperfect, unsatisfactory, incomplete. Penetrate into the substance and everything is perfect, complete, whole.”
    Philip Kapleau. “The Zen of Living and Dying. A Practical and Spiritual Guide.” Shambhala, 1998.

 "Without the arising and subsiding of thoughts,
there is a naturally limpid, pristine state,
like the unwavering evenness of a limpid ocean.
Free of the occurrence of or involvement in thoughts,
free of hope or fear,
you abide within the state of naturally occurring timeless awareness,
the true nature of which is profoundly lucid."
    Longchenpa

    We usually conflate "thinking" with "reason," our "internal dialogue" ("self-talk") AND EVEN our actual identity - who we are!! But then we can also be poets, musicians, artists, meditators, mystics & saints. It's as if we are two very different people, depending on HOW we attend to our environment, others & ourselves.
    WHEN we assume that we are separate individuals, competing to survive alone in a hostile, chaotic, meaningless dead world, our attention becomes narrowly focused on trying to control our (mostly uncontrollable) material environment. This is left-hemisphere dominance. In this mode of attending, which is almost universal in our present day, stressed-out, materialist society, we lock into quick & dirty black & white thinking for survival & pleasure, dismissing & disregarding anything complex, subtle, or nuanced, like spirituality & mysticism.
    On the other hand, WHEN we're able to use BOTH hemispheres of our brain in a BALANCED way, then we can control what is controllable AND are able to enjoy life in context of the BIG PICTURE, and thus experience Oneness with other human beings, animals, plants & the cosmos (Universal Consciousness or Self) in a kind, loving, collaborative manner.

    "There’s some very nice research which shows, at least implicitly, that our thinking begins ((in the right hemisphere)) at a pre-linguistic level which is a sense of a gestalt, in other words of a shape or form, an analogy, a metaphor of something, that our thinking is embodied in a, if you like, nonverbal, visual, or kinesthetic way, bringing all our senses to bear.
    And the next stage is that we allow the left hemisphere’s language centers to process that in language. But that’s only an intermediate step.
    In order to understand it fully, whatever has been made explicit, then has to be reabsorbed or taken up again by the right hemisphere’s global understanding and made sense of again in context.”
    Iain McGilchrist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7BHJHkufY .

    Most of us are unknowingly completely lost in, hypnotized by, & identified with the internal dialogue (self-talk) - as if in 'arrested development,' at the noisy, most obvious, intermediate phase of the thinking process (mentioned above). Meditation teachers & mystics consistently try to help us release our obsession with mind chatter, COMPLETE OUR THINKING PROCESS, and THUS be able to embody our far wiser, silent, witnessing Universal Intelligence. This is often compared to shifting from the choppy waves on the surface to the deep silent still depths of the ocean.
    More on "self talk": http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=self-talk and http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Weber .

    Self-inquiry is an advanced spiritual practice specifically to dis-identify from all those sticky phenomena which cause unnecessary suffering but are actually transient, and do not represent who we truly are: wise, silent, witnessing Universal Intelligence. More on "self-inquiry": http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Self-inquiry
    I HIGHLY recommend the first 23 minutes of Helen Hamilton's : “The Shortest Path to Freedom!” to help you shift from mere intellectual understanding (& flipping back & forth between peace & suffering) to directly experiencing Self (progressively deeper, more stable peace & joy) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiyxRc9CMlY

 

Heart - Art by Jean-Pierre Weill from "The Well of Being"

Grief, Catastrophe, and the "Big Heart"

    I've written numerous blogs about both the damaging (eg PTSD), as well as the beneficial effects (eg Post-traumatic Growth) of trauma on individuals: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=PTSD and http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Post-traumatic+Growth .
    Yesterday I came across a fascinating book about the beneficial effects of trauma on large groups of people: Rebecca Solnit. “A Paradise Built in Hell. The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.” Penguin, 2009.
    And call it synchronicity, just today I received this wonderful essay (below) in my email from Zen teacher Henry Shukman:

Grief, Catastrophe, and the "Big Heart"
Henry Shukman
henryshukman.com

    "I occasionally hear from someone who has suffered a catastrophic loss or challenge. Or a series of them. Sometimes I quickly feel unqualified to respond, because they can be about severe losses I have been spared so far. But then I realize — wait, I've lost people as close as close can be. As a parent I've lived on the harrowing edge. And all of us are subject to the ills that flesh is heir to.
    As the Buddha put it in a sutra: four great mountains are rolling toward each one of us, that will inevitably crush us: old age, sickness and death. (The fourth mountain, 'rebirth,' is kind of irrelevant to us unless we happen to have a reincarnationist worldview.)
    We all live on the perilous edge. We may think we don't — and there are ways of heaping up apparent bulwarks against the uncertainties that surround us, but none of them can work for long. Death and loss is a truth we all have to face. The point of practice, some say, is to face it and make our peace with it before it comes.
    If we do that, then we are free to live. That's the claim the practices sometimes make — that once death is no longer a menace to us, we are able to live fully and freely. Death, where then is thy sting?, as old scripture puts it.
    A realist might say: accept it. Accept your own temporariness. You are a bundle of systems and conditions that inevitably must change and come apart.
    Zen, the deep realist, says: Wait, what actually is this experience we call life anyway? And who exactly, truly, am I? Examine this experience, examine your sense of self, and you will find that there really may be no one to die, and nothing to lose.
    This discovery, if thought about, if pondered intellectually, may or may not be much help. But how different it is to make this discovery personally, in the deepest depths of your own being.
    Then the discovery is profoundly liberating. It's liberating in an almost inconceivable way. It frees us from our most basic assumptions and preconceptions about life and identity.
    But that's not all it does. It also blasts open our hearts. It's as if it opens us up to one single, whole, all-inclusive heart, that is somehow right here in the midst of every moment of our life.
    What is this 'big heart'? Some teachings say that all things are made of fundamental consciousness and this consciousness is intrinsically loving.
    Some experiences suggest that all things are made of a single fabric, and that fabric is one, just one, and therefore all things are secretly unified already, and to get the merest taste of that oneness is to get blasted by a great love, the love of utter belonging.
    And some say all things are made of nothing, you included, and that all things are empty, so that all things are erupting from nothing and appear just as they do, and act and interact just as they do, while never ceasing to be, in reality, nothing. And to discover this personally is a kind of triple blessing.
    Namely — first, you find you are inseparable from all else. Second, you find that you are utterly open and free. And third, you emerge along with all of your experience right now, as a kind of surge of infinite energy.
    Whether that big heart is a single consciousness, or a single fabric, or an emptiness, a nothing, an unnameable source of everything, these are just three views of what it might be. I assume they're all correct and real. And I know some argue about that (I've done so myself at times). And I also assume that they are by no means an exhaustive list of its attributes. I assume in some way they are all also wrong, that they are just attempts at suggesting the unnameable.
    I also assume one day we'll actually understand all the above much better than we do now, and perhaps have language for it, and that it itself will teach us how to speak of it, as more of us discover it, and as this kind of human experience is subjected more and more effectively to scientific investigation.
    On top of that, we will find better and better ways of discovering it for ourselves, and living in contact with it.
    Right now, we are already privileged to be living in a time when many different methods and approaches to it are becoming accessible globally, and we will likely get better at matching person and method, as time goes by.
    But what does all this have to do with harrowing losses? Well, this big heart — it's the ultimate healing, the ultimate solace. First, it can definitely be a comfort just to hear of it. To hear that this world may be one big heart experiencing itself. Second, I've heard from people who in times of catastrophe found an unfamiliar peace, a radical acceptance, a sense that there was some way in which all was okay, or perhaps a spring of warm love opened in their heart — as if something that was a face of this 'big heart' showed itself, just when it was most needed.
    That doesn't mean there isn't grief or rage or fear. It just means that an access to a wider, larger, deeper love is sometimes touched, tapped, opened up, when it’s most needed. And that can make all the difference.
    But also, if we are touched and struck by this reality — of an all-encompassing 'singularity' — then the grace of that reality can wipe away all our worry and fear, by showing us that truly we have nothing to lose, truly we are right now being given the boundless gift of experience and consciousness, and yet, at the same time, somehow, they can never be taken away.
    Zen says: We are all traveling in a single boat. And we are all living under the shelter of the 'shadowless tree.' Somehow, against all appearances, we can't fall out of that boat, and no matter how we may sometimes feel, we can't lose the shelter of that strange shadowless tree."
    Henry Shukman henryshukman.com

    “Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance – second only to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole.” Iain McGilchrist

RELATIONSHIP

        Our most important relationship is with our self-concept. It makes ALL the difference WHEN we can recognize & embody intimate creative Oneness with everyone & everything, Universal Consciousness or Self (pantheism / panentheism) - TRANSCENDING the common stage when we reduce our self to an accidental, meaningless, meat machine, separate from everyone & everything else, competing against everyone & everything to survive, headed for inevitable decay & decomposition (materialism).

    Below, my transcript of Helen Hamilton's valuable talk about this critical shift from concepts to integrating mature spirituality as lived experience, "Running on Empty?" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cly6vNwIUyc Within ((double brackets)) are my comments.

    “You may have found, as I did, that if you had some measure of clarity about what you actually are – that you’re indivisible, formless, that you are before birth & after death, still here, completely everywhere, omnipresent – to whatever degree you’ve seen that, it can have this effect on your relationships that they begin to, some of them for me began to become more full of friction, more problematic & challenging to navigate than ever before. In fact it was really the opposite of what I thought would happen.
    I thought I’d have this seeing, you know naively like I guess we all do, and everything in my life would magically start looking perfect in this way. But it really wasn’t like that. It was more a question of having to really apply what I’d seen about myself to my relationships. So even theoretically, we can know that in any relationship there isn’t really two. There is the one being that is expressing itself as two human beings, in whatever relationship that is, whether it's a friendship, a romantic relationship, family friendship, a boss and an employee. Whichever way it’s showing up, it will have this particular dynamic to it.
    And one of the things that wasn’t really obvious to me was that I would be asked to make a shift over in the way I functioned in my relationships from how it is as a separate being, to how it is as the Self, as the awakened condition itself, as the noumenon, the silence, whatever you want to call it. And it wasn’t obvious immediately how to do that, because even theoretically we know, or actually know that we’re not separate to this other being in the relationship. But how do we come to allow the Self to express itself fully as this relationship? The Self experiencing itself as a relationship can be an ever-deepening intimacy between yourself and this other being instead of what we tend to experience as human beings is this kind of back & forth, both of you wanting something different, and you end up making some kind of compromise. It can be a much deeper intimacy than that.

    So it began to become clearer to me that I was still dividing myself from this other being, separating myself from this other being in the relationship, with what I actually wanted from them. All of my relationships when I looked, as I began to examine them, I was looking for something from that being. In all of my relationships I was looking for approval – from my parents, my siblings, my children. I wanted to feel worthy, loved, safe, valued, appreciated. These are pretty much everything that everyone is looking for.
    When I thought I was a separate being, it really worked mostly, for the most part, that I would play my role in a relationship, and the other person would play their role, we both learned what we wanted from each other, on some subconscious level. If you give me some sense of being like, I’ll make you feel safe. It’s kind of what we’re all doing with each other. If you’ll approve of me, I’ll approve of you. I’ll validate you, if you validate me. (('transactional relationship'))
    I’m not judging a class. It’s just the way our separate sense of self works. It feels incomplete. And it’s always looking for something. ((sense of 'lack,' 'emptiness')) And even in my relationship with my work, I was looking for validation. I was looking for worthiness. And you can say well everybody’s looking for something. And these mechanisms will work relatively well as a separate being, but as you begin to wake up more, you might begin to find that they’re breaking down, this trying to get something from another being. And really, we might have to relearn all of our ways of being in a relationship. ((ALSO our relationships with food / drink, digital devices, & all other distractions / addictions we use trying to escape our sense of lack / emptiness.))

    So for myself, I had to ask, what I was trying to get from this person, and maybe, what are they trying to get from me as well? So if I’m approaching a relationship, still functioning from my old way of being in this relationship, where I’m asking another being, - of course we don’t really say this verbally do we, ‘I want you to make me feel safe.’ Or, ‘Please make me feel loved.’ Or, ‘Make me feel accepted.’ Or, ‘Please like me, and then I’ll feel better about myself.’ But, whatever it is we’re seeking, we don’t really say it verbally, but our whole behaviour, our whole way of being, even the reason for the relationship can be to get something out of it. And again, there’s nothing wrong with that at all, except it doesn’t really work does it? We’re asking people to give us something when they don’t have what we’re asking for anyway. It’s hard for someone to give us approval & recognition when they’re looking for their own sense of worthiness too. They’re looking for a sense of security from their relationships too. They’re also coming to this relationship with you with a list of things they would like to fulfill by you. And so most relationships tend to settle into this push-pull, very gentle, sometimes not so gentle tug of war – ‘I’ll give you what you want if you give me a little bit of what I want.’
    All of that began to break down in a spectacular way. Relationships that had been fairly harmonious, began to become very unharmonious, let’s just say. And it forced me to stop and take a look at what am I asking for from this being?
    And if you have a relationship that isn’t functioning so well in your life right now, you can stop and ask yourself, ‘What am I looking for from this person?’ Maybe you know what that is. And the two staple ones that everybody wants is to feel loved, to feel safe, and you can throw in worthiness into that too, and feeling valued, needed, approved of. And if you can’t quite figure it out, you could ask yourself, ‘When this relationship’s going well, how do I feel that I don’t feel when it’s not?’ Sometimes that gives us a clue. ‘If this relationship disappeared out of my life today, what would I seem to lose in that?’
    So recognizing what it was that I was looking for, it began to become clear that I was asking for something, on an energetic level, from a being that didn’t exist. They’re not separate to me, not outside of me. They are my own Self.
    The more clearly I began to see that the more this mechanism of push-pull began to really break down. So I had to find a different way to get whatever I was seeking from someone else. It really took me some time to figure out, that I had to allow this to come from the inside out.

    So I began to ask, ‘What am I looking for from this being?’ and ‘Can they really give it to me?’ ‘If they don’t have it, even if they did exist as a separate being, and there really were two beings in this relationship, could they really give it to me if they’re also running on empty, if they’re also trying to get everything they need from the outside in, from their relationships, from their work, from their parenting?’ ‘If everything that we’re doing in life is really to get us something, on some level, that we don’t feel we have, can we get it that way?’
    And as I sat with this more and more this other question began to appear, ‘Why am I so sure it’s not already here?’ So if I’m looking for safety, a feeling of security from a relationship, it must be because I don’t feel safe now. And if I don’t feel safe now, can any amount of trying to get it satisfy me? And it just felt like I was getting these scraps of what I needed, these tiny amounts, just enough to survive emotionally, but didn’t leave me feeling fulfilled. And maybe you can identify with that, can recognize that in your own life.

    To this question, ‘Why am I sure it’s not here?’ began to become really important. Whatever it is I’m looking for, why am I so certain that it’s not here? Why have I spent my entire life trying to get it from the outside in? This is really quite shocking, quite fundamentally shocking for me, the realization that for my entire life … I never really experienced the true unfolding of a relationship, because my behaviour & everything was aimed at trying to please people so that I got what I needed from them.
    And we can be doing this in any relationship, any at all. People even try to do it with their spiritual teacher. It goes right across the board. Right from when we were children, looking for certain things from our parents, siblings, our friends at school, and on and on it goes. I’m looking for something from our education. When I get my education, then I’ll feel a way that I don’t feel now. When I get the right job, when I have a family, when I get a car, and on and on it goes, and then eventually, when I wake up I’ll feel this way. When I realize the Self, I’ll feel this way that I don’t feel now. Again, it’s all based on this assumption that what I want isn’t here right now. I began to see clearer that if I assume something is missing from my experience in this moment, because my body and mind aren’t experiencing that right now, I assume it’s missing. But maybe my body and mind aren’t experiencing that right now because I’m assuming it’s missing, not the other way around.

    So I began to question, ‘What happens when I start from the recognition it must be already here?’ Can I turn my relationships inside out? Can I allow what I want to flow from inside out? What’s it like, when I come to my relationships, feeling already fulfilled, worthy, safe? What’s that experience like as a human being? And what does it do to the other person in the relationship when I do that? When there’s more than enough for myself and for the next person in the relationship? Whatever it is they’re looking for from me, they can have in abundant supply. They can have as much as they want because there’s an endless supply here. It began to transform everything, everything!

    First of all, my relationship with myself – what is it like when I don’t need anything from myself; when I’m not demanding anything from myself; when I’m not withholding approval & love from myself until I reach some stage or something happens; I’m not withholding it at all; when I just allow it to come from the inside? What is that like?
    You know confidence & kindness to yourself, and love, and the simple recognition that there is no good reason ever to withhold love & approval from yourself. If you don’t like yourself, how is the rest of the world going to like you? If all of this is a mirror of you, if you are everywhere, and you don’t like yourself, you won’t give yourself love, it’s going to be very hard for anyone else to show how much they already love you. And even if they do, you somehow won’t be able to accept it or receive it or even see it. It will be momentarily seen, and then kind of blocked from memory. So what are you looking for? And is it true it’s not already here? And what happens when you walk into a room with another being and this push-pull tug-of-war collapses, because you don’t need anything from them? Maybe for the first time ever, you don’t need anything.
    It could be as simple as switching to this question, ‘Why am I sure it’s not here?’ My whole life I’ve run on this assumption that it’s not here, that I have to get it. Can that be true for you, the infinite being, the Self if you are omnipresent, infinitely powerful? Then is it really true that you are lacking anything in this moment?

    We have all experienced not having enough approval, recognition, worthiness, safety, security. Maybe it’s this simple assumption that it’s not here. And what happens if you start from now, with this question, ‘Why am I so sure it’s not here?’ And, ‘Can I be a source of it?’ rather than trying to get it from other beings, which makes them on some level, unconsciously, energetically, stand back from me, and need to defend themselves against my asking somehow on some level, because they don’t have enough of what we’re trying to get from them anyway. ((MORE about becoming the source of love: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=source+of+love))

    What happens when I become abundantly flowing with this love in my energy, kind of silently saying, ‘Have all that you need, take all that you need,' because the more you take, the more is given, the more is supplied. And this simple thing, just changed every single relationship that I had. And it allowed me to just be with somebody for the first time, to really meet someone for the first time. You know even sitting with spiritual teachers, watching satsangs, things like that, I never really met them because I was so desperately trying to get something from them the whole time, as I’m sure we all are. But finally, to rest as the infinite source of everything, where it’s coming from. You are where it’s coming from, and pouring out into the world, showering everyone that you meet. And it changes your entire existence.

    What would your family relationships be like, even with your romantic partner, if you didn’t even need them to tell you that they loved you - if you just loved being in love with them, and they felt so completely loved by you, that neither of you needed anything from each other at all, and it was simply about being with each other? And what if all of your relationships were like this? When you came into a relationship already full, what would that feel like?
    Maybe you can get a taste of it where you are that wellspring, that infinite supply, and everybody around you then begins to feel that you’re no longer asking constantly for their energy – please give me this. And they’re no longer defensive then in their energy because they don’t have to guard their limited resources of what you’re trying to get. Of course none of those are doing this consciously, it’s just the ((‘transactional’)) way we’ve been taught to function in relationships, thinking we’re a separate being, cut off from the source of all good things like this.
    So what are you looking for and why are you sure it’s not here? Just because you aren’t experiencing it in this moment, doesn’t mean it’s absent. What happens if you challenge that assumption? Can you really get it from somebody else anyway? Has that ever really worked in a consistent way? For me it was like driving to the nearest petrol station and putting just a pound ($2) of petrol in my car, just enough to get it over the red line, and then I’d drive to the next petrol station, do the same thing, and the same thing, the same thing, just running on empty the whole time.
    Instead, coming out into the world with a full tank, and you can never take anything out of it without immediately being replenished. Apart from the obvious benefits of that, you feel alive, passionate, fulfilled, complete, worthy, loved & loving, compassionate, all of that. ((Such 'heart openings' last longer & longer, and can endure greater & greater challenges)) People begin to recognize that they’re safe with you then, because you’re not demanding anything. You might be the only person they know that isn’t asking anything from them, and they can finally relax. Maybe for the first time in a very long time they can finally relax. They might not even know why, they just feel kind of nice when they’re with you somehow. It’s one of the best things about awakening, being able to turn your relationships from trying to get everything from the outside, into being the inside out source and supply.

    That line in the Bible, ‘God so loved the world that he sent his only son …’ – this is it in action, isn’t it? This is it in action. You want to intuitively pour this love and this infinite supply out to everyone you meet. What would happen if just everyone here now in this meeting did this, and each of us inspired one person to do it, to fill themselves up so full, to not tolerate any idea that there can be anything missing from your experience right now? Identifying what you’re lacking right now, and demanding to see that it’s already here. Staying with that, until your body and your mind begin to experience it. But first, if we’re asking for love, I’m sure it must be here right now. I’m determined to allow it to come from the inside out. First, you’ll notice that just as a sense of relaxation in the body. It might be very subtle at first. Because you stay with this over two or three days, you begin to feel very, very different. And everything around you begins to change as well, because every human being can sense everyone’s aura energy. They might not know they’re doing that. When they touch upon something or someone that is so radiantly full, they know it somehow. It’s like a drink of water after you’ve been dying of thirst. It’s like a warm fire when you’re freezing.
    Just this simple thing allowed me to integrate, to live this. And I really hope I’m inspiring you."
    Helen Hamilton: "Running on Empty?" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cly6vNwIUyc

 

    “what I have discovered after many decades of religious practice (is) that the religious life isn’t about truth as much as it is about relationship. Or that, perhaps, truth and relationship are one and the same. ...
     We all need time to sink back deep into the soul and try to remember who we actually are.” Norman Fischer. “When You Greet Me I Bow. Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen.” Shambhala, 2021. 

    “By giving up our attachments in life, we open ourselves up to more opportunities, more spontaneity, and more chances to cultivate deeper connections with others.” Lama Tsomo

 

        "The thoughts change
         but not you.
         Let go of the passing thoughts and
         hold on to the unchanging Self."         Sri Ramana Maharshi

"We are all connected 

in a great cosmic web of being. 

Our individual actions and choices 

have a ripple effect on the whole."

Jean Houston

 

 

Helen Hamilton: "Running on Empty?"