Our Best is Needed

    "The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that's happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to really hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.” Ram Dass

    We can easily remember Ram Dass' words with the help of these two short phrases:

    In the wonderful TV series, "New Amsterdam," Dr. Max Goodwin's response to even the most challenging situations was to ask, "How can I help?"
    And if we can't help, then: "At least do harm."

 

    What do we value most in a human being? What are the best attributes of people we most admire? 

    Decency, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability, kindness, acceptance, humility, courage & nurturing stand out for me.

 

    Aren't these the very same characteristics that lie deep within us all? These attributes - sparks of the Divine - we all potentially or actually manifest under optimal conditions, when we feel sufficiently safe & brave enough to lower our hardened defenses, and be authentic - our true Self? 

    We can easily differentiate between feeling rigid with fear, guarded, aggressive, enraged, versus when we feel safe, relaxed, glowing with an open-heart & open mind. 

    BUT what's really valuable is learning to recognize how we habitually remain armored, at least somewhat tight & hyper-vigilant even when there's NO "clear and present danger" AND how this constantly corrodes all our perceptions, thinking, speech & behaviors. 

    ONLY by repeatedly recognizing & releasing this default survivalist, separate-self, adversarial illusion are we able to gradually stop sabotaging our own quality of life, and the quality of life of all those around us.

    What clues do we have, that we're lost in the default survivalist, separate-self, adversarial illusion? We feel physically tight, strained, anxious, impatient, 'time poverty,' 'empty' or 'lacking' something, desperate to 'keep busy,' competitive, aggressive. OR we may feel 'lack luster,' no energy, no interests, no plans, hopeless, down. OR we may feel constantly anxious, afraid & upset by a wide variety of things, and assume that it's these that are making us sick. But fear of living AND fear of dying are common. Meditation teacher Ezra Bayda calls it the "anxious quiver of being."

    Becoming clearly aware of what's really going on, here & now occurs only in stillness, not by "keeping busy" chasing after stuff, nor running away from other stuff. Perhaps that's why we fear to, and rarely stop & look carefully. Our compulsive activity - like furiously riding a rocking horse - gives the illusion of "getting somewhere." HOWEVER, intentionally being aware of what's really here & now gradually tames our fears, and intimately engages us with the awesome mystery of Reality.

    “When I change the level of my awareness, I start attracting a different reality.” Santon Saint Pierre, French philosopher

    Living in the default survivalist, separate self, adversarial illusion feels bad & harms myself & everyone around me. 

    I CAN learn to detect this default way of being, repeatedly let it go, relax, open my heart-mind, and ALLOW my true nature - decency, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability, kindness, acceptance, humility, courage & nurturing - to shine, which radically changes EVERYTHING - our perceptions, thinking, speech & behaviors. It's a lifelong adventure.

     

Passenger - "When We Were Young"

What Can We Do?

    “I’m often asked, ‘So this is all very fascinating about hemispheres and your analysis of how we got to be where we are. But it’s pretty important isn’t it? What are we going to do about it?’
    I think people can easily become overwhelmed by the thought of the scale of, for example, the ecological crisis that threatens, but almost the most helpful thing of all is that you can begin in the inner temple, which is you. You can begin with the one thing you do have control over, which is what you do, how you think, what you value. And that can be done here & now, and doesn’t involve persuading other people necessarily.
    If we start to ensure that we are at least aligning our own lives, with the things that are deep and important, then a lot of things will follow instinctively, and they won’t need to be formulated in the way that people want to formulate. ‘Well, I think what we should do is change the curriculum, and we should …’
    Those things are important, but once you begin to see the world differently, you begin to act differently, to prioritize things differently, and different things follow effortlessly because it is a stream. A stream that is currently blocked in us, and it’s a stream that can become unblocked.”
    Iain McGilchrist — Aligning with the Creative Impulse of the Universe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCtPDS5AVSo

Carefully listening to this 66-minute Iain McGilchrist interview in its entirety is imho time very well spent.

 

 

He Had to Say Something ...

He did not wax poetic
He spoke plain
With turning words
Mirroring
Death
Birth

Morality First, in the Middle, & Last

     "We awaken out of ourselves and our self-centered position, but awakening is often incomplete. The awakened state offers such power of position and mind that if it is incomplete any residual ego will be forced to the surface. Then, all hell may break loose. If the ego refuses to acknowledge the tension that remains, it can rationalize everything it does as 'crazy wisdom,' a very dangerous term. If, however, ethical behavior has been a central theme throughout our spiritual journey, we will continue to reference our conduct during the uprooting of the sense-of-self. The egoic state is a conditioned state, which means it draws from its storehouse of responses. When not harming ourselves and others becomes the conditioned way we live, then this theme will also be played out as our conditioning is being surmounted. As our conditioning decreases and wakefulness increases our innate response not to harm begins to take over. When our spiritual journey is tied tightly to nonharm, we are less likely to harm in the beginning, middle, and the end. 
     Another component of this is the understanding that awakening is the journey to complete sanity. We know sanity when we see it, and we should encourage that intuitive response forward rather than succumbing to the power and influence of any teacher. If it feels off, it probably is. We are such a doubting culture that we think. “Who am I to doubt someone as wise as my teacher.” Dropping the doubt, who are we not to? 
     It should be noted that awakening does not carry the skill of personal interactions along with it. Just the contrary, if we were untrained in personal relationships in the beginning, we will be untrained when we awaken. We ascribe so much to awakening that we believe everything that is uttered, every interaction undertaken, all arise from some pristine state of being, when it is more likely occurring because we have not learned the competencies of how to live."

       Rodney Smith, author of Awakening. A Paradigm Shift of the Heart. Shambhala, Boston, 2014. being interviewed: http://blog.shambhala.com/2014/03/12/rodney-smith/