There are many paths

winding down rocky shorelines,

leading to a vast lake

called Awareness.

Quiet coves weave along its banks,

touching the calm and soothing waters

of understanding.

I have met a lot of people who have shared that they have something burning within them. “I don’t know what it is, but I am just constantly driven in my spiritual path. As I’ve grown older I’ve gotten more perspective on it, but I still don’t understand what it is. I don’t understand why it is there, and why it is so strong.”

This powerful drive is not limited to spiritual pursuits. We can feel the same burning, the same obsession, in art, music, poetry and more. So what is this thing?

At the far end of Lake Awareness is a waterfall. It channels eternity, and cascades downward in a silver stream, dropping a million miles to Earth. Far below, the power of that immense sliver of awareness thunders into our bodies, a pulsating presence, steady and relentless.

There are a thousand things we are aware of in our normal, everyday lives, things we take for granted. But on the other side of everyday awareness lies eternal awareness. In this realm we are much less familiar with the territory. We are so unfamiliar with the eternal dimensions that many of us wander around in the dark, bumping into walls saying, who am I, why am I here, is there a light switch, a door?

In normal life we effortlessly engage in routines that establish a facile approach to living. In the eternal realms, however, we are ignorant and clumsy hikers, stumbling and scrambling to find a foothold, scurrying around blindly, looking for some way to become oriented. Which way is true north in eternity, we ask, clawing in the darkness.

It’s an inner north. We don’t associate that steady inner presence with what it truly is - an umbilical, forever tethering us to forever. It is the fire of awareness, burning her eternal, unquenchable flame. Do you feel it?

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Each minute I live, is less time left in this particular body. It is a steady, dripping depletion.

I turn around and look, and glance at the trail of blood my life is leaving behind. Squinting, I wonder… Is my blood staining the ground, only to be washed away by the rain of time? Or, will it heal and create new life, perhaps become a life-changing transfusion?

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They may not admit it, but I have never met anyone who doesn’t know THAT feeling. It is an inner thing, like a gulp - the same kind of gulp that forms a lump in the throat when we’ve been found out. But this lump usually forms deeper than the throat, felt instead in the chest, the solar plexus or the gut.

It usually creates anxiety, and it happens when we are challenged. Sometimes the challenge is not all that deep, but inevitably, if you keep going deeper and deeper inward, you are going to encounter it. Got a tough change or improvement to make? It’s always there. Getting bit by the same thing over and over? It will easily defeat you. And typically, when it flares up and exposes itself, the recoil occurs. “I’m outta here,” we say. Placed there like a traffic barrier, its presence detours us from going further down the inner road.

Putting on a happy face on the outside, but life’s not quite right on the inside? This inner recoil is one of the greatest problems we face. And we nearly always deny we are recoiling.

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If you want to measure the value of a person’s life, look at the affect of their life on their world, on the people in their life. Look into their close relationships. Look at how they make other’s feel about themselves.

There is no need to wait until we die to stand before the so-called Seat of Judgment. It is all happening right now, in plain view.

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There are basically two kinds of project managers. The first type tends to have a more limited world view than the second type.

The first type of project manager (PM) believes they need to know how to do everything relative to their job. This PM may or may not be okay with delegating to others, but even if they delegate they always believe that they have to know how to do every job and task. Focusing on every detail can be a good and productive attribute, but it can create habits that get us lost in the details.

The second type of project manager tends to view the world from a higher perspective, an approach that allows them to delegate freely and quickly, giving them the space to step back to both monitor and adjust to the bigger picture. They may not know how to do every piece of their project, but that does not bother them. They see others as being valuable and necessary, and they are far more focused on getting the project completed than on who does what.

Sometimes, the first type of project manager will feel superior to the second type because, after all, they can do ‘everything.’ Judgemental approaches like this can limit the first project manager from growing, and confine them to a certain world view that is not as widely inclusive as it could grow to be. Such judgment also tends to make the first type of project manager resistant to the help and teachings of the second type of PM. Consequently, the second type of PM may eventually tire and move on, fatigued over others telling him or her that the better perspective is always the lower perspective.

These attitudes are also true in our own life and purpose. Lost in the details, the majority of us lose sight of the big picture. Yet there are experienced people who have the skills to step back and see the bigger picture, a picture that is inclusive of the continuity of eternity, inclusive that a bigger picture is, indeed, unfolding.

Spiritual seekers often lament that they don’t know where to turn. Turn toward the more seasoned teachers. If you can’t find them, search. If you seek, you will find. Be relentless, be demanding of your church, your minister, your instructor, teacher or guru. Don’t settle for the lower perspectives, but rather insist on your right to be taught how to connect to the very Center of all things, to the very Center of You.

If you haven’t had deep experiences it is because you are inexperienced. Demand the experience itself.

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Can we hurt a Giver? Of course, but we tend to not even think about that. In the presence of a Divine Giver, we are usually all about taking, so deep is our need, hunger and selfishness. But a Giver is human, something that we tend to forget as long as we are getting something.

We are all ‘for’ the Giver giving when it is coming our direction, which is our twisted version of being ‘for’giving - which is really all about being ‘for’ getting - and we wonder why we are so forgetful. We are very quick to tell a Giver that they must give ‘no matter what’, and very slow to be concerned over their heart, their health and their needs.

The following is from a recent post comment, and is from one of my teacher’s students. The insights shared here, while talking specifically about our teacher, are applicable and true of any Divine Giver.

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Because I have worked with Sensei as well, I can shed a little light on the issue “I was going to ask if you had further thoughts on being careful with a giver. Can somebody take more than is given and hurt the giver?” I have seen it first hand, in fact I do it regularly.

Sensei gives 24/7 and his students, including me, take from him regularly without giving back. That is somewhat to be expected when you start out because you are clueless. But the more towards center you move, the more responsibility you have. Now you KNOW, and you can’t act like you don’t.

When you do act like you don’t (know), you are hurting your giver. It is extremely painful when the giver gets slapped in the face with their giving. When you see the truth and know in your heart of hearts it is the truth, and you turn your back on it, you hurt the giver. So (the giver has) to dig even deeper to find another way to show the truth so it is better accepted. It is exhausting to the giver, yet they do it anyway because their purpose is giving.

Can you take more than is given? I know you can take and take and take until the giver’s energy is sapped. Then they need down time to recharge. But they do recharge and just start giving again. However, if you don’t advance, they may elect to focus their giving on a more worthy acceptor - someone who gives a little back, someone who will run that circuit that has been discussed [in previous posts] and bring back something of higher value than what they started with. Even if it is a smidge, it is [or may be] enough to recharge that giver.

As Mark has indicated, Sensei can be very direct - very direct. But he is also ecstatic when you get even the smallest improvement and showers you with praise - it is worth the discomfort of the directness. I don’t mean to speak for Sensei, but this is what I have observed.

- Gretchen Coleman at Erronia

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Guest contibutor Gretchen Coleman shares a short story, “Application Denied,” and also discusses how we conveniently refuse to take responsibility for choices we don’t remember.

Choice is surrounding me right now. My family was discussing choice last night. Then this morning I was scanning an article in my snail mail about the leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, lung disease and stroke) in the US and how they are largely preventable, but our lifestyle choices are directly responsible for the majority of those ailments.

Choice – what a powerful word that is. It is akin to freewill which is the greatest and worst gift we are given by our Creator - greatest because we get to choose, worst because we have to choose. Do you understand that you are where you are in life because you chose to be at that point? Talk about having to take responsibility! All of a sudden there is no one to blame but yourself.

They say we choose our friends but can’t choose our family. Who are They? The Unaware. This is just another platitude for those who don’t want to take responsibility for their choices. We do choose our family.

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Application Denied

Earth Candidate Number 1 is up in heaven, having just completed training on how to overcome what he didn’t overcome his last life and about to apply to come back to earth for his next go at it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Spiritual advancement is stuck in hyper and hypoglycemic highs and lows, in a constant shift from euphoria to depression and all points in between - except, that is, the center.

In the world of controls and engineering this ‘overshoot and droop’ is recognized to be caused by bias and error. In controls design and programming, these are known, surmountable effects, yet we distort them in our spiritual language using outdated terms like sin and wrong, confronting bias and error from a perspective that completely negates the potential effects of simple engineering solutions.

Trapped within the consequences of inane platitudes, sugar-coated traditions and outgrown ideals, we worship the highs and lows of ‘finding’ fulfillment first here and then there. Our salvation lies within the plain language and application of universal principles, yet we stubbornly cling to the addictions of familiar terms and approaches - even though we know they don’t work.

Spiritual blogs can be particularly tormenting, especially the ones that Read the rest of this entry »

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I find it really hard to do certain things that are very easy - so I call them difficult. It could be something simple like fixing a broken faucet, improving myself or becoming more deeply aware. One is no different than the other, because the mindset between them is consistent. Plainly stated, with my kind of thinking it is very easy for me to call many such things impossible; it is very easy to give up and just coast.

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leadership and responsibility

It is flawed logic to argue that we have all of eternity to “fix” this mess we are in on earth. This argument - and that’s what it is - assumes that at some point in the future we are going to fix things. The assumption, however, is flawed, because each time we reincarnate we must overcome successively stronger weighted tendencies - as we become more deeply set in our conditioned reflexes.

The job gets harder the longer we put if off. Global warming makes the case: putting our heads in the sand eventually extends us beyond critical mass - to a point where things can no longer be fixed. If we don’t find ways to better illuminate the path, it will stay dark here; we will keep living in the dark… forever.

The light-headed optimist glibly responds in chatty rhythm, “I really don’t have to be all that worried. Heaven [the other side] is so full of light, and that’s where I’m going; I’m leaving this darkness behind!” This is a naive, egotistical and immature point of view, because it can be just as dark for us over there as it is for us here. Only our immediate circumstances are escaped by death.

“Oh, but I am in the light here,” comes the predictable response. “I am growing everyday, and I’m becoming more one with the universe.”

Light IS in everything, but we are talking two different games here. It’s like a newly minted sailor walking up to the veteran captain, and, upon surveying the churning sea, saying with a forgivable chirpiness, “Wow, sir; the ocean is really big and dangerous - but, I know that we’ll make it, sir, and we’ll be fine. You want to know how I know that, sir? Because of all my training and my really great mental attitude!” Read the rest of this entry »

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