I have been a spiritual seeker for many years. I have studied the works of many spiritual adepts. I mean, over 30 years worth of study.
I have gone once before through a period where I wasn't teachable. I couldn't go to church because every pastor seemed un-meaningful to me. I wasn't inspired. What they were saying was fake, not a deep enough truth. All I could grasp for years was A Course in Miracles and the works of Paul Brunton.
I ran many many miles. Why was doing 22 marathons a year so important?
Then, I started working on my own spiritual writing project. It was conceived as an app for addicts. I continue to slowly type what I have already written. My own writing inspires me. I don't know where this work will end up, but it continues.
Along the way in the past three years, I met the works of Abraham Hicks. This information helped me to improve my connection with my inner being. This information helped me get out of my corporate job and into a semi-retired life.
In semi-retirement, Starbucks has somehow captured me. I can't explain what is almost addictive about working at Starbucks. I look forward each week to another set of shifts, yet each shift is difficult to get through. Working at Starbucks is not easy. We rush almost continuously. Driving home, I feel good. I have a load of endorphins from six hours on my feet.
Along side my app for addicts, I got the brilliant idea to write a novel. Because I am writing a novel, I need to learn how to be a writer. Because I need to learn how to be writer, I have been reading books on that topic. This morning, I was reading such a memoir from an author which was dull. So dull a tedious, I couldn't do more than skim it. I wasn't at all gripped by the story of her life.
I teetered on the edge of giving up my own writing. What would make my novel gripping so others enjoy reading it?
I'm not at the place which Abraham Hicks describes as "alignment" or "in the vortex." Further, I can't seem to get there from here.
So I stopped to meditate. I prayed for an intuitive thought, inspiration or decision. I took stock of my life now. I love running and being in the forested parks available to me here where I live. I love my sober life and AA fellowship. I am captivated by Starbucks. I have two writing projects for which self motivation is needed. I still want to know my higher self more and more.
And so I decided. Pull yourself together and go on from here. I'm again in the place of "unteachable." Which means total trust in whatever intuitive thoughts I receive. I will walk forward each day. I want to succeed at being a writer, no matter how long that takes. I want to be sober for life and go to the Big Meeting sober. (This thought brings me to tears it is so meaningful to me). And, I will continue to seek and listen to my Higher Self. That pursuit will never end.
And so?
I am no longer trying to find something out there, from some other spiritual author. I am finding it within.
Get the clothes out of the dryer. Go to the grocery store. Got to an AA meeting. Go running. Meditate again.
Showing posts with label transcendence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transcendence. Show all posts
Monday, May 20, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
Spiritual Economy
You are used to material dollars and cents, and the continuous worry about having enough. Now consider spiritual wealth and the spirit economy. Tap into a new type of wealth and abundance. The only requirement is belief, which you might not have to begin with. You need only have enough belief to try, and then you will find inner abundance. If you have inner abundance, you won't care how much outer abundance you have. You will be free.
What stops you from spiritual abundance is negative beliefs about yourself: self loathing and self denigration. Go under these habitual negative thoughts and find the real essence of your being. Everybody has unconditional life itself. Feel life for a moment. Life will show you into the spirit economy.
Currently, people make it big in the dollars and cents world if they can find an idea which causes others to have a dopamine reward, and then they go to work selling that idea. Today's people love dopamine more than people 50 years ago. Maybe our society has developed and leveraged dopamine. Today's human brain wants dopamine more than ever and has access to more dopamine rewards than 50 years ago.
Take a look at a graph showing opioid overdose deaths by year, or opioid addiction rates by year and realize: dopamine addiction rates mirror that graph only a quantum leap higher. Everybody in the world is dopamine addicted. Everybody in the world wants to participate in the dopamine economy: getting more and more brain hits. Dopamine feels good.
Is there any way to feel good aside from dopamine?
Yes, in the spiritual economy. Feeling good because you touched the source of life itself which lives inside. Tap into a source which is not in the material dimension of reality. You've heard about meditation? You heard Jesus say to leave this world? Is your church a dopamine producing gaggle fuck with no real meaning?
At some point in your life, you will want to have truth. You will want to know what it all means. You will have to look within. The mother lode is within. True feeling good is sourced from within. You will have to be quiet and look inside.
On another note, ultra monk runs! (sorry about the wobbly video)
What stops you from spiritual abundance is negative beliefs about yourself: self loathing and self denigration. Go under these habitual negative thoughts and find the real essence of your being. Everybody has unconditional life itself. Feel life for a moment. Life will show you into the spirit economy.
Currently, people make it big in the dollars and cents world if they can find an idea which causes others to have a dopamine reward, and then they go to work selling that idea. Today's people love dopamine more than people 50 years ago. Maybe our society has developed and leveraged dopamine. Today's human brain wants dopamine more than ever and has access to more dopamine rewards than 50 years ago.
Take a look at a graph showing opioid overdose deaths by year, or opioid addiction rates by year and realize: dopamine addiction rates mirror that graph only a quantum leap higher. Everybody in the world is dopamine addicted. Everybody in the world wants to participate in the dopamine economy: getting more and more brain hits. Dopamine feels good.
Is there any way to feel good aside from dopamine?
Yes, in the spiritual economy. Feeling good because you touched the source of life itself which lives inside. Tap into a source which is not in the material dimension of reality. You've heard about meditation? You heard Jesus say to leave this world? Is your church a dopamine producing gaggle fuck with no real meaning?
At some point in your life, you will want to have truth. You will want to know what it all means. You will have to look within. The mother lode is within. True feeling good is sourced from within. You will have to be quiet and look inside.
On another note, ultra monk runs! (sorry about the wobbly video)
Sunday, May 6, 2018
The 5th Lap
This is a race report about the Trailracingovertexas race Wildflower 50k in Bastrop State park, May 5, 2018.
But what is the 5th lap? It is the lap you can't believe you did and what you get from that.
But first, overall, a very successful trip. This weekend was my first camping trip with my Honda Odessy. Here is a picture of the back with my cot installed:
This worked pretty well. Not perfect. Improvements are needed, but for a first try at camping, it was a huge success. I also say that this van is very comfortable for long drives.
Next was volunteering at packet pickup. I met a lady who was 67. For her 65th birthday, she walked 900 miles of the Appalachian trail by herself. Wait. What? You did that? I was impressed. I didn't know 65 year olds could do that by themselves.
The following day was race day. How nice to be right in the park! The weather was clear and a little cool, to start at least. Although there were many runners, and the race started immediately uphill on single track, the whole conga line thing didn't bother me. It was dark so I wore my head light. I made it through the darkness without tripping!
Once we could see, it was a beautiful park with lots of green. Not that much shade as forest fires took out most of the trees.
The big challenge for me was that this was a trail race in hilly country. I live in a city that is totally flat, so the ups and down plus the rocks was all new to me. The audacity of me thinking I could do 50k on a trail! So I spent the first 2 of 5 laps thinking I would quit. It was going to be hot after all, and surely my quads would collapse on me. Somewhere during lap 2, I thought, "this is what it means to be fully alive." During lap 3, I knew I would do lap 4. No heat related illness was felt which means I took enough electrolytes and drank enough fluids. Win! During lap 4, I knew I would do lap 5. What changed about my mental condition? Was this my doing or the work of my higher consciousness? Despite all those quitter thoughts, it was very easy for me to get back out on the trail for the final lap.
Having some mental gift to get back out and finish a race is a transcendence. It is also wealth and abundance beyond money. A rich experience, especially if it brings meaning to your life or knowledge of what you are made of, is worth more than money in the bank. It is abundance already in your possession. I mention my learning because I am still struggling with the idea of early retirement. Logically, the money is in the bank; but breaking my father's rules and spending instead of saving is still difficult mentally and emotionally. Going away from my lucrative but boring day job to pursue interests which don't pay that well seems to scare me. Living my life at a different vibrational order of being is new. These are the gifts of meaning and self esteem gained by going out on the 5th lap.
Well, I did finish the race:
But what is the 5th lap? It is the lap you can't believe you did and what you get from that.
But first, overall, a very successful trip. This weekend was my first camping trip with my Honda Odessy. Here is a picture of the back with my cot installed:
This worked pretty well. Not perfect. Improvements are needed, but for a first try at camping, it was a huge success. I also say that this van is very comfortable for long drives.
Next was volunteering at packet pickup. I met a lady who was 67. For her 65th birthday, she walked 900 miles of the Appalachian trail by herself. Wait. What? You did that? I was impressed. I didn't know 65 year olds could do that by themselves.
The following day was race day. How nice to be right in the park! The weather was clear and a little cool, to start at least. Although there were many runners, and the race started immediately uphill on single track, the whole conga line thing didn't bother me. It was dark so I wore my head light. I made it through the darkness without tripping!
Once we could see, it was a beautiful park with lots of green. Not that much shade as forest fires took out most of the trees.
The big challenge for me was that this was a trail race in hilly country. I live in a city that is totally flat, so the ups and down plus the rocks was all new to me. The audacity of me thinking I could do 50k on a trail! So I spent the first 2 of 5 laps thinking I would quit. It was going to be hot after all, and surely my quads would collapse on me. Somewhere during lap 2, I thought, "this is what it means to be fully alive." During lap 3, I knew I would do lap 4. No heat related illness was felt which means I took enough electrolytes and drank enough fluids. Win! During lap 4, I knew I would do lap 5. What changed about my mental condition? Was this my doing or the work of my higher consciousness? Despite all those quitter thoughts, it was very easy for me to get back out on the trail for the final lap.
Having some mental gift to get back out and finish a race is a transcendence. It is also wealth and abundance beyond money. A rich experience, especially if it brings meaning to your life or knowledge of what you are made of, is worth more than money in the bank. It is abundance already in your possession. I mention my learning because I am still struggling with the idea of early retirement. Logically, the money is in the bank; but breaking my father's rules and spending instead of saving is still difficult mentally and emotionally. Going away from my lucrative but boring day job to pursue interests which don't pay that well seems to scare me. Living my life at a different vibrational order of being is new. These are the gifts of meaning and self esteem gained by going out on the 5th lap.
Well, I did finish the race:
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Plotinus Beauty
This morning, I was studying Plotinus' Enneads 1.6.2. I put together these pieces.
Beauty - something, a quality seen, heard, or sensed or felt and known. We think: beautiful.
Beauty - "...all the loveliness of the world which comes by communion in Ideal Form."
"...minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of the beauty that derives from Soul."
"This, then, is how the material thing becomes beautiful - by communicating in the thought that flows from the divine."
Plotinus leaves the door wide open for the spiritual aspirant. Step through the door. Touch the thought that flows from the divine. This communion is more that what is found in church. Turn off the TV. Put down the drink. Stop. Listen.
Not everyone is a spiritual aspirant. But, if you hear the call:
1. answer it.
2. Reduce the world.
3. Take up a practice.
4. Balance your worldly needs with communion.
I have had a long term interest in self transcendence. Another way to express that is to become beautiful; as in communicating in the thought that flows from the divine.
Somewhere, I heard about the book "Into the Silent Land" by Martin Laird. It is about Christian contemplation. It is the sort of book where you can read one paragraph and then shut your eyes and let your spirit soar. "...Our greatest need is to be silent before this great God....A spiritual practice is not a technique but something that disposes us to allow some thing to take place....God is already the ground of our being. It is a question of realizing this in our lives....why most of us spend our lives ignorant of this...."
How blessed I am to have entered the spiritual path. I admit it seems to have reduced a family live or sexual relationship or co-habitation. This causes me to see the world differently: not as me and my family but as us.
I simply boil the beans and rice.
I go running. I am actually in training. I own tickets to Calgary and am entered in the 2014 Calgary marathon. My body is different now that before surgery last September. I am up to 10 miles. My task now is to get the weekly mileage up. I think I can. It is wonderful to jog around Seabrook and also El Lago. Now I will go do that.
Beauty - something, a quality seen, heard, or sensed or felt and known. We think: beautiful.
Beauty - "...all the loveliness of the world which comes by communion in Ideal Form."
"...minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of the beauty that derives from Soul."
"This, then, is how the material thing becomes beautiful - by communicating in the thought that flows from the divine."
Plotinus leaves the door wide open for the spiritual aspirant. Step through the door. Touch the thought that flows from the divine. This communion is more that what is found in church. Turn off the TV. Put down the drink. Stop. Listen.
Not everyone is a spiritual aspirant. But, if you hear the call:
1. answer it.
2. Reduce the world.
3. Take up a practice.
4. Balance your worldly needs with communion.
I have had a long term interest in self transcendence. Another way to express that is to become beautiful; as in communicating in the thought that flows from the divine.
Somewhere, I heard about the book "Into the Silent Land" by Martin Laird. It is about Christian contemplation. It is the sort of book where you can read one paragraph and then shut your eyes and let your spirit soar. "...Our greatest need is to be silent before this great God....A spiritual practice is not a technique but something that disposes us to allow some thing to take place....God is already the ground of our being. It is a question of realizing this in our lives....why most of us spend our lives ignorant of this...."
How blessed I am to have entered the spiritual path. I admit it seems to have reduced a family live or sexual relationship or co-habitation. This causes me to see the world differently: not as me and my family but as us.
I simply boil the beans and rice.
I go running. I am actually in training. I own tickets to Calgary and am entered in the 2014 Calgary marathon. My body is different now that before surgery last September. I am up to 10 miles. My task now is to get the weekly mileage up. I think I can. It is wonderful to jog around Seabrook and also El Lago. Now I will go do that.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Business Transcendence
Here I am in Pittsburgh again; on business. I have spent the week leading 2 groups of guys in Hazard and Operability Studies. At the same time, I am always pondering my own spiritual path. I have always continued my studies of A Course in Miracles; and now mixed with the philosophy of Paul Brunton. The 2 philosophies are worded differently but the spiritual principles are the same. Therefore, I am a believer in certain ideas, but not in any religion.
My spiritual ideas are related to identifying with spirit instead of body. My path is of ego transcendence; joining the universal Self and letting go of the small self. this topic comes up no matter what I study. Brunton does a good job of explaining how the world is my thoughts but also a universal world with other people in the same thought field. But it is not a sound bite. I'm not going to try and explain 25 years of spiritual study in one sentence.
I also think it is time for the ordinary spiritual people to hold to their truth. We are members of ordinary society, not monk or nuns or famous authors or teachers. We are the transcending identities within normal society. We know the truth and we live it to free others. But our teaching is quiet. Our teaching is our presence. Embrace.
I came to Pennsylvania on Saturday and ran a half marathon in Erie on Sunday.
If you read this blog, you have seen my foot x-ray.
Two weeks ago, I decided that I was tired of having my achilles impaled on a sharp point of bone and went to an orthopedist. Surgery is scheduled for....OMG.....next Friday!
I have pondered over and over, why do I run. Then, why does my heel hurt. Metaphysically, the heel surgery can be a point of transcendence just as much as the daily miles. 6 weeks on crutches will be worth it. It is a death and then a resurrection; not to the same body but to a different state.
Brunton:
1.
"I don't detect the Overself because it is beyond my consciousness.
Being universal, it can't be experienced familiarly. But this principle
is a permanent element within me. The general principle of Thought can
be indirectly supposed. I have thoughts but the general principle is
Thought."
2.
"The world I perceive is a product of my thoughts, but my illusion of
the world is not solely mine. Each mind is confined to its own
sensational world but each sensational world is rooted in a common
mental ground provided by the World-Mind, the Overself, the general
principle of Thought. "
3. " If Jesus was a man of sorrows, it was not because of what they would
do to his body, but because of what they thought in their minds." "When
we identify the I-thought, which always arises first, with the
body-thought, which always arises second, we turn the scale of values
upside down and limit the larger factor with the lesser one. Through
this initial error we not only strengthen our sorrows and increase
grief, but also fill hearts with unnecessary fear. But when we become
conscious that we are conscious and that this is the most direct thing
of our experience, we have reached the momentous turning-point of
understanding the difference between both thoughts. For the making of
this miracle--and it is nothing less -- clear to our own understanding
itself puts us on the right path to achieving it."
My spiritual ideas are related to identifying with spirit instead of body. My path is of ego transcendence; joining the universal Self and letting go of the small self. this topic comes up no matter what I study. Brunton does a good job of explaining how the world is my thoughts but also a universal world with other people in the same thought field. But it is not a sound bite. I'm not going to try and explain 25 years of spiritual study in one sentence.
I also think it is time for the ordinary spiritual people to hold to their truth. We are members of ordinary society, not monk or nuns or famous authors or teachers. We are the transcending identities within normal society. We know the truth and we live it to free others. But our teaching is quiet. Our teaching is our presence. Embrace.
I came to Pennsylvania on Saturday and ran a half marathon in Erie on Sunday.
If you read this blog, you have seen my foot x-ray.
I have pondered over and over, why do I run. Then, why does my heel hurt. Metaphysically, the heel surgery can be a point of transcendence just as much as the daily miles. 6 weeks on crutches will be worth it. It is a death and then a resurrection; not to the same body but to a different state.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Self Transcendence
So inspiring, the amount of miles completed at the 3,100 Mile Self Transcendence Race, which ends in 6 days:
And here is why my foot hurts (Haglund's deformity):
Today is my Friday and next week is business travel. Almost as soon as I get back, I go to a race in Wyoming where I'll also see a friend.
I am ready to do slow walking in the Houston heat. I actually love doing this. Very meditative.
And here is why my foot hurts (Haglund's deformity):
Today is my Friday and next week is business travel. Almost as soon as I get back, I go to a race in Wyoming where I'll also see a friend.
I am ready to do slow walking in the Houston heat. I actually love doing this. Very meditative.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Surprising Progress
Wow. I've spent so long seeking enlightenment. But now I feel like that is a non-issue.
Here is an example: Since 2006, I've followed the 3,100 Mile Self Transcendence Race ( http://3100.srichinmoyraces.org/ ). I've tried to seek self transcendence by doing miles and miles. Today, when I was reading the blog, I realized I'd rather be engaged with my life. that is, I'd rather be actually doing my job at work than endlessly running around a block.
So that is weird for me. I guess that reading Merton helped me to let go of the past. Or I realize that all is spiritual and there is no need to suffer. Just allow it.
Not that I am stopping running or stopping my Course in Miracles study; but that I appreciate the path laid before me.
I'm just a marathoner. I'm a professed engineer.
This morning, I had a 3 mile run around El Lago in the early morning darkness. It was hot a sweaty and I loved it. What more could a person want?
I have a closet full of brand new Asics Nimbus running shoes. What more could a person want?
I'm holding airplane tickets to go to 2 running races. What more could a person want?
I don't need to fast, run a hundred miles, sit cross legged for days, follow a guru. Just have Being.
That is what I have Being; my most valued possession.
Here is an example: Since 2006, I've followed the 3,100 Mile Self Transcendence Race ( http://3100.srichinmoyraces.org/ ). I've tried to seek self transcendence by doing miles and miles. Today, when I was reading the blog, I realized I'd rather be engaged with my life. that is, I'd rather be actually doing my job at work than endlessly running around a block.
So that is weird for me. I guess that reading Merton helped me to let go of the past. Or I realize that all is spiritual and there is no need to suffer. Just allow it.
Not that I am stopping running or stopping my Course in Miracles study; but that I appreciate the path laid before me.
I'm just a marathoner. I'm a professed engineer.
This morning, I had a 3 mile run around El Lago in the early morning darkness. It was hot a sweaty and I loved it. What more could a person want?
I have a closet full of brand new Asics Nimbus running shoes. What more could a person want?
I'm holding airplane tickets to go to 2 running races. What more could a person want?
I don't need to fast, run a hundred miles, sit cross legged for days, follow a guru. Just have Being.
That is what I have Being; my most valued possession.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Got Being?
If you know you have Being, then you don't need anything else.
It is the weekend. Dr Hot Dustin has worked some miracles on my left calf and ankle. Even fang is not bothering me. There will be a few miles tomorrow and Sunday, plus cross training. But not too much since I have a marathon in San Antonio on the 4th.
It is so freaking good to NOT be in massive pain all.the.time.
This evening, I am cross training plus TRX-ing. What a great way to do intervals.
I think about generating spiritual energy, and the sense of endlessness flows through me.
Drink plain water.
Eat bread.
Juggle the kettle bells.
Endure transcend love.
83 hours including 187 miles so far in June. The goal for the weekend is to get to 90 hours.
It is the weekend. Dr Hot Dustin has worked some miracles on my left calf and ankle. Even fang is not bothering me. There will be a few miles tomorrow and Sunday, plus cross training. But not too much since I have a marathon in San Antonio on the 4th.
It is so freaking good to NOT be in massive pain all.the.time.
This evening, I am cross training plus TRX-ing. What a great way to do intervals.
I think about generating spiritual energy, and the sense of endlessness flows through me.
Drink plain water.
Eat bread.
Juggle the kettle bells.
Endure transcend love.
83 hours including 187 miles so far in June. The goal for the weekend is to get to 90 hours.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Turn Around Saturday
I have time this morning. I always have more time than most people, but today I have an additional period.
Today's spiritual thoughts from A Course in Miracles Ch 27:
Accept the dream He gave instead of yours.
Rest in the Holy Spirit. Hear His Voice.
Choose a happy wakening and the joy of life.
Dream your brother's loving kindnesses.
This part centers on the secret dream, underneath the illusion of reality.
I woke up this morning before the alarm and wondered why no one seems to know the Holy Spirit. But as I write this, I know that I do know; when I switch to my deeper non-ego consciousness. Giving up the ego thought system, I see my brother's innocence and kindness. My dream is much happier.
Well, I would say that since moving to Texas a year ago, my dream improved dramatically.
Today it is raining and I go to work later. So I think I'll work out on my ex-machines.
I mentioned yesterday about the spousal relationship to Jesus in the theology of the consecrated religious. But the explanation mentioned "...in the deepest level of one's reality, to be betrothed to Transcendence." Now this is the part I relate to. Somehow this betrothal surfaced into my conscious mind. I have pursued it from both an ego level and a spiritual level. Since before going to the monastery, in fact since my trip to Jerusalem when I was 22, my life has been seized by Christ and reordered. Since leaving the monastery, I have become counter-cultural in ways that affect my daily living to the smallest detail. I cannot go along with the degradation of the human person which our society seems to support. I just can't let go of this and put up with the friction it causes me.
I am speaking of Love who is the most important relationship I have.
Today's spiritual thoughts from A Course in Miracles Ch 27:
Accept the dream He gave instead of yours.
Rest in the Holy Spirit. Hear His Voice.
Choose a happy wakening and the joy of life.
Dream your brother's loving kindnesses.
This part centers on the secret dream, underneath the illusion of reality.
I woke up this morning before the alarm and wondered why no one seems to know the Holy Spirit. But as I write this, I know that I do know; when I switch to my deeper non-ego consciousness. Giving up the ego thought system, I see my brother's innocence and kindness. My dream is much happier.
Well, I would say that since moving to Texas a year ago, my dream improved dramatically.
Today it is raining and I go to work later. So I think I'll work out on my ex-machines.
I mentioned yesterday about the spousal relationship to Jesus in the theology of the consecrated religious. But the explanation mentioned "...in the deepest level of one's reality, to be betrothed to Transcendence." Now this is the part I relate to. Somehow this betrothal surfaced into my conscious mind. I have pursued it from both an ego level and a spiritual level. Since before going to the monastery, in fact since my trip to Jerusalem when I was 22, my life has been seized by Christ and reordered. Since leaving the monastery, I have become counter-cultural in ways that affect my daily living to the smallest detail. I cannot go along with the degradation of the human person which our society seems to support. I just can't let go of this and put up with the friction it causes me.
I am speaking of Love who is the most important relationship I have.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Middle Class Hero
I am the everyday un-illuminated, the New Age un-enlightened. I am the group that sought God in every possible way, from conservative right Christian to pseudo-Buddhist to channeled entity to sweat lodges, vision quests and labyrinths. In the convent, I sat for hours adoring the Blessed Sacrament. Post convent, I fasted for extended periods of time and then ate only raw foods. As far as I know, Revelation didn’t happen.
What I am I is a mature American woman, single, professional, white, educated, vegetarian, long distance running, health freak. I have been in pursuit of God since an unfortunate (or fortunate) trip to Israel at the age of 22. But my actual life has mostly been about going to work in order to have money and staying straight emotionally. I’ve not succeeded at suburban family life, nor at weirdness pretending to be wisdom. The heroes of my cultural heritage are the ones that retire young and live comfortably. Since the American economy no longer plays that game for us, I am one of many who will not retire young, if ever. The crumbling of the United States is just enough to show us its false unfounded delusions of grandeur.
My culture does not have a class of wise ones.
My problem is that my story is not a hero’s story. I have done what is heroic in other people’s stories, but in mine it is ho hum. I am done with the pseudo-Buddhist bullshit and the romance of suffering for Christ.
Before I went monastic, I fit in. Post monastic, I scorned society. I did not settle for a life of fitting in with ordinary social groupings (and everyone is encouraged by psychology to fit in somewhere). My scorn turns out to be pure ego. It is not based on any real advantage. I don’t have a special place in anything to justify my position. I just don’t want to be like “them,” to be contaminated by their corrupted food, overeating, television programming or useless conversations. But I am not special either. So I have sunk into nothing.
Nothing can be made of nothingness. I’ve tried that too; the romanticizing or spinning of nothingness into a prized position, close to God. Recently, in a brief interlude of difficult emotions, I came to the truth. I suddenly realized that I am in a valley, not the inhabitor of mountain tops at all. It is a delusion to think some sudden discontinuity in reality will save me. Not even A Course in Miracles, which offers a way out, has transported any of its followers in THIS lifetime.
So I guess I will go running, lift weights, collect my paycheck, eat tofu, drink coffee and quietly grow. That is the blessing of my life: I do keep growing.
What I am I is a mature American woman, single, professional, white, educated, vegetarian, long distance running, health freak. I have been in pursuit of God since an unfortunate (or fortunate) trip to Israel at the age of 22. But my actual life has mostly been about going to work in order to have money and staying straight emotionally. I’ve not succeeded at suburban family life, nor at weirdness pretending to be wisdom. The heroes of my cultural heritage are the ones that retire young and live comfortably. Since the American economy no longer plays that game for us, I am one of many who will not retire young, if ever. The crumbling of the United States is just enough to show us its false unfounded delusions of grandeur.
My culture does not have a class of wise ones.
My problem is that my story is not a hero’s story. I have done what is heroic in other people’s stories, but in mine it is ho hum. I am done with the pseudo-Buddhist bullshit and the romance of suffering for Christ.
Before I went monastic, I fit in. Post monastic, I scorned society. I did not settle for a life of fitting in with ordinary social groupings (and everyone is encouraged by psychology to fit in somewhere). My scorn turns out to be pure ego. It is not based on any real advantage. I don’t have a special place in anything to justify my position. I just don’t want to be like “them,” to be contaminated by their corrupted food, overeating, television programming or useless conversations. But I am not special either. So I have sunk into nothing.
Nothing can be made of nothingness. I’ve tried that too; the romanticizing or spinning of nothingness into a prized position, close to God. Recently, in a brief interlude of difficult emotions, I came to the truth. I suddenly realized that I am in a valley, not the inhabitor of mountain tops at all. It is a delusion to think some sudden discontinuity in reality will save me. Not even A Course in Miracles, which offers a way out, has transported any of its followers in THIS lifetime.
So I guess I will go running, lift weights, collect my paycheck, eat tofu, drink coffee and quietly grow. That is the blessing of my life: I do keep growing.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Marathoner's Sacred Journey...
...is to a place beyond the ordinary world, to an alternate reality without limitation. The marathon validates and vets the heart of the athlete. 26.2 miles in this world is a quantum leap in the mental world and a matter/anti-matter shift in the spiritual makeup of the mind. To get to the finish line is to solve the impossible equation with imaginary and irrational numbers; to enter a Fourier transform which resolves the noise into harmony.
Everyone wondered why all these workouts, miles, and low-fat meals mattered. But the person returned from the marathon changed. They paid the athlete's price and returned with the athlete's perception. Nothing was ever the same again.
Can a marathon heal the psyche? Can a marathon enlarge spiritual consciousness? All things are possible....
As you might guess, I am going in a marathon on Saturday: Fallasburg Park, Lowell, MI, 26.2 miles. It is not my first marathon. In fact it is my third this year. Yet every marathon shifts my consciousness and I return different.
I am tapering. I am letting go of the workouts a little, sleeping some more, laying in the glycogen. I'm setting my intentions. I'm freaking glad to go to Michigan and escape this nasty heat wave that Kansas City is having.
Everyone wondered why all these workouts, miles, and low-fat meals mattered. But the person returned from the marathon changed. They paid the athlete's price and returned with the athlete's perception. Nothing was ever the same again.
Can a marathon heal the psyche? Can a marathon enlarge spiritual consciousness? All things are possible....
As you might guess, I am going in a marathon on Saturday: Fallasburg Park, Lowell, MI, 26.2 miles. It is not my first marathon. In fact it is my third this year. Yet every marathon shifts my consciousness and I return different.
I am tapering. I am letting go of the workouts a little, sleeping some more, laying in the glycogen. I'm setting my intentions. I'm freaking glad to go to Michigan and escape this nasty heat wave that Kansas City is having.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Lethargy in the Backwaters of Summer
“Ever since humanity was able to recognize a divine existence within themselves they have been trying to seek it out, and bring it forth from within. It is never easy to establish a constant inner oneness with this divinity, as so much of our outer nature tries to deny and negate even the very existence of this part of us that lies within. The very nature of our bodies and minds is to only to accept physical lethargy and try and ride the mental merry go round that really leads us nowhere.” http://perfectionjourney.org/2010/08/02/every-step-brings-me-closer/
The perfectionjourney blog is a daily reflection on the 3,100 mile race, which is winding down this week. Several men have finished. Two or three runners have been running every day, but not enough to get to 3,100 miles; maybe only 2,900 miles!
My workout was again disconnected from the world today. I spent the last couple of months looking forward to the Lunar Trek. Now that is over. I am signed up for some more races, but they aren’t very much on my mind. Maybe I haven’t recovered my energy. Maybe it is too hot to think. Maybe I have really shifted to a new reality and I don’t yet understand what it is about. Maybe my desire for inner oneness has claimed my running life, and running has disappeared over the horizon, beyond where the ego can perceive.
The daily volume keeps being driven higher. I keep working on the weights. My diet has shifted a bit. The increased protein has added a couple of pounds. I am silent. The noon-day devil circles, looking for an opening.
I ponder inner peace. I realize that keeping my hands off worldly goals and glorious plans is necessary for the contemplative life. The Holy Spirit must make the decisions. All things are for spiritual progress and not ego satisfaction. Peace is really quiet. Peace is and un-ripple pond. A person can work out in peace; but for me at least, as soon as there is an agenda, ego worry enters.
The contemplative life is a tricky thing. It must be wanted more than anything else; or the ego will sneak in and hide it. I must be willing to keep it consciously; no matter what else is going on in my life. I must be contemplating the Holy Spirit’s work in my life, not allowing ego agenda to creep in and take over unconsciously. It shouldn't be that God is so hard to remember; but for those of us with egos, remembering God must be a conscious project.
I lay on my bed in the evening and seek God. When I workout, I put a thought of God in my mind and keep it there.
The perfectionjourney blog is a daily reflection on the 3,100 mile race, which is winding down this week. Several men have finished. Two or three runners have been running every day, but not enough to get to 3,100 miles; maybe only 2,900 miles!
My workout was again disconnected from the world today. I spent the last couple of months looking forward to the Lunar Trek. Now that is over. I am signed up for some more races, but they aren’t very much on my mind. Maybe I haven’t recovered my energy. Maybe it is too hot to think. Maybe I have really shifted to a new reality and I don’t yet understand what it is about. Maybe my desire for inner oneness has claimed my running life, and running has disappeared over the horizon, beyond where the ego can perceive.
The daily volume keeps being driven higher. I keep working on the weights. My diet has shifted a bit. The increased protein has added a couple of pounds. I am silent. The noon-day devil circles, looking for an opening.
I ponder inner peace. I realize that keeping my hands off worldly goals and glorious plans is necessary for the contemplative life. The Holy Spirit must make the decisions. All things are for spiritual progress and not ego satisfaction. Peace is really quiet. Peace is and un-ripple pond. A person can work out in peace; but for me at least, as soon as there is an agenda, ego worry enters.
The contemplative life is a tricky thing. It must be wanted more than anything else; or the ego will sneak in and hide it. I must be willing to keep it consciously; no matter what else is going on in my life. I must be contemplating the Holy Spirit’s work in my life, not allowing ego agenda to creep in and take over unconsciously. It shouldn't be that God is so hard to remember; but for those of us with egos, remembering God must be a conscious project.
I lay on my bed in the evening and seek God. When I workout, I put a thought of God in my mind and keep it there.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Spirituality Engineer Style
I am in a hotel in Boise Idaho. I slept in!
Here is my morning reflection:
I think of each person as an energy bundle which manifests as their life and activities. The vast majority have an average energy manifestation. If you integrate the energies, you might get more or less a bell curve. If you take the Fourier Transform, a spiritualized filter, you get an entirely different picture. The transformed spiritual filter is the truth of the Son of God (us) and what God created (love). The untransformed picture (humans being afraid, angry, prideful, selfish, cruel, sick and dying) is what the tiny mad idea I call ego made as its domain apart from God where it could rule instead of God. The point of a spiritual life, and dedication to transcendence, is to see the transformed picture and live with a spiritual consciousness. It is a different way of being alive which is much happier and extends its joy to others.
I look at myself and see differences in my health, fitness, philosophy, socialization, etc., from most other people. I see that in the un-integrated untransformed world, my energy rests off the peak of the bell curve, at one end of it. This dissociation from the norm feels like friction between me and others as my behavior doesn’t fit in with normal life. People want others to fit in with them; hence peer pressure, hence the uncomfortable feelings. I do not worry too much any more about how I feel. As I recognize that my life is a symptom of transcendence and as I actualize the spiritual consciousness in the world, the whole thing becomes happy. And then God lives both in the transformed picture and the untransformed ego picture through me. I become a bridging thought, a flow path. I live on a wave length which shifts the whole energy curve.
In the final analysis: this energy is Jesus. This light is the Christ, the holiness and spiritual innocence which lives in all of us and which I strive to see.
Here is my morning reflection:
I think of each person as an energy bundle which manifests as their life and activities. The vast majority have an average energy manifestation. If you integrate the energies, you might get more or less a bell curve. If you take the Fourier Transform, a spiritualized filter, you get an entirely different picture. The transformed spiritual filter is the truth of the Son of God (us) and what God created (love). The untransformed picture (humans being afraid, angry, prideful, selfish, cruel, sick and dying) is what the tiny mad idea I call ego made as its domain apart from God where it could rule instead of God. The point of a spiritual life, and dedication to transcendence, is to see the transformed picture and live with a spiritual consciousness. It is a different way of being alive which is much happier and extends its joy to others.
I look at myself and see differences in my health, fitness, philosophy, socialization, etc., from most other people. I see that in the un-integrated untransformed world, my energy rests off the peak of the bell curve, at one end of it. This dissociation from the norm feels like friction between me and others as my behavior doesn’t fit in with normal life. People want others to fit in with them; hence peer pressure, hence the uncomfortable feelings. I do not worry too much any more about how I feel. As I recognize that my life is a symptom of transcendence and as I actualize the spiritual consciousness in the world, the whole thing becomes happy. And then God lives both in the transformed picture and the untransformed ego picture through me. I become a bridging thought, a flow path. I live on a wave length which shifts the whole energy curve.
In the final analysis: this energy is Jesus. This light is the Christ, the holiness and spiritual innocence which lives in all of us and which I strive to see.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Give Me Your Blessing Holy Son of God
Before I went to the monastery, I lived in the main stream of society. I wanted to join with my social group and be one of them. I sat around discussing others and expressing my opinion about this and that, eating whatever and watching TV, cheering for football teams.
Then I discovered contemplative prayer. I began to notice more consciously what exactly I was thinking and make decisions about it. I began to see social functions, entertainments and behaviors as distractions from the spiritual.
I went to the monastery. The cloister took me out of modern society and the main stream of life. The monastic formation provided additional education in contemplation, and time to sit and ponder my thoughts and emotions. The unconscious could no longer hide from me. Contemplative practice is a delving into the dark depths and they become conscious as light is shined on them. The more I did this, the less I was controlled by the unconscious.
I got out of the monastery with this one idea: Love is the predominant mode of existence. I continued my contemplative practice. I tried to re-join secular society. For awhile, it seemed that I was successful in re-joining and gaining an honored place among the people. Until I began to a) question the Church and the Bible, b) start additional health and alternative spiritual studies and c) moved to the country.
I became an outsider, once again outside the main stream of society yet not in a religious cloister, a non-religious solitary. I was free to look at society and ponder it apart from religion. I found my emotions to range from anger, fear, hatred, arrogance, annoyance, incomprehension and pity. I saw magnificent spirits behaving in disgusting and very small ways. I didn’t want to be so judgmental and opinionated, but that was how I was. I knew I was no better.
Then, I moved again. I now lived once again in the middle of my former society, even working at the same location as I did before the cloister. I can’t re-join society because I don’t agree with its norms.
Just this morning, I had this imagery of how I perceive at this point in time. It comes on the heels of my experience volunteering at an ultra-marathon. As an aid station volunteer, I enabled some humans to go through the transcendence experience to get beyond the merely normal runner and be ultra runners.
Namaste. I prostrate myself at your feet holy Son of God (all of us). I view society as a muddy swamp. Most of the people dance around the swamp, slinging mud at each other, laughing at each other, fighting, eating rotten fish, and slowly rotting in fetid waters. Yes, I have said what I think out loud. I am somehow on the side of the swamp as I quit participating in society. It is terrible of me to sit and look back. I don’t know exactly where else to go. I contemplate the swamp. I talk to God about my opinions. I wish I could have loving compassion without judgmental pity.
The only way I’ve found is to realize the swamp is an illusion. The swamp is not the holy Son of God, the truth of what God created, but my ego’s projected insanity. From this realization, once I accept it in my heart, it is possible for me to shift my perception and seeing from the dark swamp to the spiritual light beyond the swamp. I look beyond my ego’s mad illusion to the gently glowing spirit of the Son of God, innocent and loving as holy light. Believing the swamp I see with my body’s eyes is an illusion, I can consciously choose something different. I can switch to looking with my inner eyes and my spiritual mind. I divorce the ego and join my spirit. Thus, my reality is transformed. I see with the spirit that the Son of God is light and love; and live accordingly.
Love is the predominant mode of existence.
Peace.
Then I discovered contemplative prayer. I began to notice more consciously what exactly I was thinking and make decisions about it. I began to see social functions, entertainments and behaviors as distractions from the spiritual.
I went to the monastery. The cloister took me out of modern society and the main stream of life. The monastic formation provided additional education in contemplation, and time to sit and ponder my thoughts and emotions. The unconscious could no longer hide from me. Contemplative practice is a delving into the dark depths and they become conscious as light is shined on them. The more I did this, the less I was controlled by the unconscious.
I got out of the monastery with this one idea: Love is the predominant mode of existence. I continued my contemplative practice. I tried to re-join secular society. For awhile, it seemed that I was successful in re-joining and gaining an honored place among the people. Until I began to a) question the Church and the Bible, b) start additional health and alternative spiritual studies and c) moved to the country.
I became an outsider, once again outside the main stream of society yet not in a religious cloister, a non-religious solitary. I was free to look at society and ponder it apart from religion. I found my emotions to range from anger, fear, hatred, arrogance, annoyance, incomprehension and pity. I saw magnificent spirits behaving in disgusting and very small ways. I didn’t want to be so judgmental and opinionated, but that was how I was. I knew I was no better.
Then, I moved again. I now lived once again in the middle of my former society, even working at the same location as I did before the cloister. I can’t re-join society because I don’t agree with its norms.
Just this morning, I had this imagery of how I perceive at this point in time. It comes on the heels of my experience volunteering at an ultra-marathon. As an aid station volunteer, I enabled some humans to go through the transcendence experience to get beyond the merely normal runner and be ultra runners.
Namaste. I prostrate myself at your feet holy Son of God (all of us). I view society as a muddy swamp. Most of the people dance around the swamp, slinging mud at each other, laughing at each other, fighting, eating rotten fish, and slowly rotting in fetid waters. Yes, I have said what I think out loud. I am somehow on the side of the swamp as I quit participating in society. It is terrible of me to sit and look back. I don’t know exactly where else to go. I contemplate the swamp. I talk to God about my opinions. I wish I could have loving compassion without judgmental pity.
The only way I’ve found is to realize the swamp is an illusion. The swamp is not the holy Son of God, the truth of what God created, but my ego’s projected insanity. From this realization, once I accept it in my heart, it is possible for me to shift my perception and seeing from the dark swamp to the spiritual light beyond the swamp. I look beyond my ego’s mad illusion to the gently glowing spirit of the Son of God, innocent and loving as holy light. Believing the swamp I see with my body’s eyes is an illusion, I can consciously choose something different. I can switch to looking with my inner eyes and my spiritual mind. I divorce the ego and join my spirit. Thus, my reality is transformed. I see with the spirit that the Son of God is light and love; and live accordingly.
Love is the predominant mode of existence.
Peace.
Friday, April 23, 2010
A Season of Contemplation - Rainey Friday
So let us get clear: my goal is to experience another plane reality; one different than the ordinary material one experienced by most people. My goal is to move to an extreme of the continuum; and see the heavenly lights. Mystics and metaphysicians, monks and witches, have all told us of other planes of reality. Even Jesus lived in another world.
I wasn’t born in Tibet as a man who could enter a Buddhist monastery. I wasn’t born in India with access to a guru or a yogi who could teach me his secrets. I don’t have access to a Sufi. I am an American woman, living in a mid-western city, who was raised without one shred of spirituality. But in the course of my life, I became determined to attain “enlightenment.” Given the circumstances of my life, I totally believe that God has provided the means.
Currently, I am a process safety engineer in the pesticide and herbicide business. My job is to help keep the nasties inside the plant. You can see, I am not engaged in any sort of touchy feely new age career. I am single and daily becoming less and less a participant in the social life around me. One way I hope to attain knowledge of another plane of reality is to stop participating in the ordinary one. Thus, I provide space in time and thought for “something else.” I don’t spend my thinking time on family or religion or TV or eating or sex. I spend it on contemplation. I am a physical fitness fanatic and long distance runner. As an extremely fit and slightly underweight 51 year old, I am living in a body which is distinctly outside the norms of my peer group and society in general. I am a student of A Course in Miracles. Through the Course, I hope to re-program my thinking in such a way that I remember God.
The reality of God is the reality I seek. I totally believe that a God of love would not be inaccessible or unremembered. I totally believe that it is human ego programming which takes us out of a reality of love and deludes us into thinking the material reality is real.
I got up this morning at 3:35 and spent an hour on spiritual study. This morning, I pondered several passages from the text for The Course:
“The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt…Adam's "sin" could have touched no one, had he not believed it was the Father Who drove him out of paradise. For in that belief the knowledge of the Father was lost, since only those who do not understand Him could believe it. (ch 13)
This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see. Yet you will not realize this until you accept the eternal fact that God's Son is not guilty. He deserves only love because he has given only love. (ch 17)
It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But remember that to choose one is to let the other go. Which one you choose you will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on which you value more. The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery - it is all the same. For you can never choose except between God and the ego. (ch 17)
Only the Thoughts of God are true. (ch 17)
Every special relationship you have made has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your mind so completely that you will not hear the call of truth. (ch 17)
The holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven. It is a picture, too, set in a frame. Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the frame at all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your attention on the picture. The holy instant is a miniature of eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you think it was a picture. Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it represents. For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity and set in time for you. (ch 17)”
My spiritual pondering continued for another hour and a half as I did my workout. This morning, I did my workout on machines. Yes, it was pouring rain. But also, I am working on strength using the ex-bike. The treadmill is somewhat softer on my legs than road running and I welcomed a long but non-damaging workout.
I could see myself being more interested in fitness than the glories of racing accomplishments. I have no goals and my running is divorced from grandiosity. I am attempting to use running as a spiritual tool.
My contemplation today at work is on defining critical operating parameters. It seems that I am the only one at the site to understand what these are. So I have been pulled off all other work and assigned to defining critical operating parameters for all of our processes.
This weekend, I will continue my experiment in solitude. In solitude, I cannot hide from the blackness within. There are no distractions from who and what I think I am combined with The Voice which tells me the truth of my Being.
I wasn’t born in Tibet as a man who could enter a Buddhist monastery. I wasn’t born in India with access to a guru or a yogi who could teach me his secrets. I don’t have access to a Sufi. I am an American woman, living in a mid-western city, who was raised without one shred of spirituality. But in the course of my life, I became determined to attain “enlightenment.” Given the circumstances of my life, I totally believe that God has provided the means.
Currently, I am a process safety engineer in the pesticide and herbicide business. My job is to help keep the nasties inside the plant. You can see, I am not engaged in any sort of touchy feely new age career. I am single and daily becoming less and less a participant in the social life around me. One way I hope to attain knowledge of another plane of reality is to stop participating in the ordinary one. Thus, I provide space in time and thought for “something else.” I don’t spend my thinking time on family or religion or TV or eating or sex. I spend it on contemplation. I am a physical fitness fanatic and long distance runner. As an extremely fit and slightly underweight 51 year old, I am living in a body which is distinctly outside the norms of my peer group and society in general. I am a student of A Course in Miracles. Through the Course, I hope to re-program my thinking in such a way that I remember God.
The reality of God is the reality I seek. I totally believe that a God of love would not be inaccessible or unremembered. I totally believe that it is human ego programming which takes us out of a reality of love and deludes us into thinking the material reality is real.
I got up this morning at 3:35 and spent an hour on spiritual study. This morning, I pondered several passages from the text for The Course:
“The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt…Adam's "sin" could have touched no one, had he not believed it was the Father Who drove him out of paradise. For in that belief the knowledge of the Father was lost, since only those who do not understand Him could believe it. (ch 13)
This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see. Yet you will not realize this until you accept the eternal fact that God's Son is not guilty. He deserves only love because he has given only love. (ch 17)
It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But remember that to choose one is to let the other go. Which one you choose you will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on which you value more. The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery - it is all the same. For you can never choose except between God and the ego. (ch 17)
Only the Thoughts of God are true. (ch 17)
Every special relationship you have made has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your mind so completely that you will not hear the call of truth. (ch 17)
The holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven. It is a picture, too, set in a frame. Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the frame at all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your attention on the picture. The holy instant is a miniature of eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you think it was a picture. Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it represents. For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity and set in time for you. (ch 17)”
My spiritual pondering continued for another hour and a half as I did my workout. This morning, I did my workout on machines. Yes, it was pouring rain. But also, I am working on strength using the ex-bike. The treadmill is somewhat softer on my legs than road running and I welcomed a long but non-damaging workout.
I could see myself being more interested in fitness than the glories of racing accomplishments. I have no goals and my running is divorced from grandiosity. I am attempting to use running as a spiritual tool.
My contemplation today at work is on defining critical operating parameters. It seems that I am the only one at the site to understand what these are. So I have been pulled off all other work and assigned to defining critical operating parameters for all of our processes.
This weekend, I will continue my experiment in solitude. In solitude, I cannot hide from the blackness within. There are no distractions from who and what I think I am combined with The Voice which tells me the truth of my Being.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Exodus
This is a picture of me somewhere on the course of the Olathe marathon last Saturday.
.
My thought today from my early morning run: Exodus, exiting from slavery to freedom. That is the point: migration from one state of being to another one. And that is my life's plan.
.A Course in Miracles is a guidebook to exodus: from the ego reality to the real world. Running is an exodus: from sedentary prison to freedom.
.
I am leaving society bit by bit. Each bit that I break away from the ego goes off into the desert for further purfication, and eventually crosses the Jordan into the real world.
.
I know there is a larger consciousness. I intend to migrate my thinking from the ego consciousness to the larger one. I do this by a) denying the ego any reality or power or truth; and b) by sitting quietly with an open mind listening to the higher Voice of God. In my migration, I take my mind and I sit, bodiless, on a small white cloud in a world of light. There, on my cloud, I am able to be quiet. I am in the presence of that higher consciousness; yet it is quiet. I just do this. I don't know where it will lead, but it is certainly not of the ego world.
.
I visited with my trainer today. She is the closest thing to a spiritual guide I have. She gave me some new exercises and a method to build speed muscles without doing running intervals. Sweet!
.
It is the weekend. I spend the weekend alone, running, doing work work, getting groceries, reading, meditating and reflecting. The solitude is time in the desert. It is part of the migration.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
What is Long Distance Running?
Running for many miles, I feel myself trudging forward; whether into a bitter ice laden winter wind or through the salty sweat and dusty roads and biting flies of summer. In these moments, after the freshness of my legs has worn off and dreams of racing glory have been left hours behind, I find myself in my simplest form. The ego's grandiosity and posturing are diminished. My body is showing signs of wear and tear from the long slow plod. I am just as I am. There are no dreams. There are periods of thoughtlessness.
It is in the time of thoughtless silence that I need to be awake. Not that some enlightened euphoria will descend, as the emotions of the event are ego possessions. Not that I will suddenly perceive the presence of Jesus or the aura of the forest, as the celestine world is also an ego treasure.
The thoughtless silence is an egoless state of slackened perception where peace is possible and a wordless existence is realized. Yes, this is God Himself. But God is not an ego feeding proposition and how my ego hates me for seeking the nothingness of peace. Having no rewards that can be put into an ego language, the Ineffable cannot be described.
I am invalidating the many stories of enlightenment I've read and sought on the premise that if the ego can conceive of it, then it is not true and doesn't exist. If the ego can conceive of it and desire more of it, then it is yet one more in a steady stream of ego delusions which trick us into thinking we are really here. Beautifully attractive to the point of addiction, the hunger for more is a sure sign the presumed enlightenment is an ego aggrandisement. The ego preens over it's victory over your spirit and becomes obsessed with topping the achievement.
The deep solid quiet of real peace is the only thing I can experience which is beyond ego and close to God.
And so I bundle up and head out into a bitter wind, hoping for nothing.
It is in the time of thoughtless silence that I need to be awake. Not that some enlightened euphoria will descend, as the emotions of the event are ego possessions. Not that I will suddenly perceive the presence of Jesus or the aura of the forest, as the celestine world is also an ego treasure.
The thoughtless silence is an egoless state of slackened perception where peace is possible and a wordless existence is realized. Yes, this is God Himself. But God is not an ego feeding proposition and how my ego hates me for seeking the nothingness of peace. Having no rewards that can be put into an ego language, the Ineffable cannot be described.
I am invalidating the many stories of enlightenment I've read and sought on the premise that if the ego can conceive of it, then it is not true and doesn't exist. If the ego can conceive of it and desire more of it, then it is yet one more in a steady stream of ego delusions which trick us into thinking we are really here. Beautifully attractive to the point of addiction, the hunger for more is a sure sign the presumed enlightenment is an ego aggrandisement. The ego preens over it's victory over your spirit and becomes obsessed with topping the achievement.
The deep solid quiet of real peace is the only thing I can experience which is beyond ego and close to God.
And so I bundle up and head out into a bitter wind, hoping for nothing.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Solitude Explained
I am a solitary because I want time. I want time for spirituality and running. I say “solitary” because I have disengaged from society and individual relationships. As a result of sitting in long periods of silence and inactivity, facing my ego’s negativity, and exposing myself directly to spiritual intervention, my attitudes, ideas and opinions are differentiated from society; and becoming integrated with “something else” I call the COMPANION.
I want to live in deep embrace and partnership, one consciousness with the COMPANION. I have wanted this since I was 22. Seeking the oneness is why I’ve done everything else: daily spiritual study (for all those years), learned silent sitting, integrated running into the meditation, used wholistic food and fasting to attune my body to the COMPANION’s vibration pattern, disengaged from society (TV, entertainment, holidays, religion, politics, 12 Step groups, etc.), daily reflection and discussion with the COMPANION.
Ten years ago, I was removed from society totally by going to live in a monastic cloister, for almost 4 years. A Benedictine contemplative community is a group exercise, not solitude; but it does disconnect one from ordinary life.
Five years ago, I became a solitary by default as I lived and worked in the country. I was intentional about solitude and contemplation by this time. Alone for long periods of time, I had to consciously process guilt, hate, anger, shame and fear; or go back to society and avoid these emotions by being busy. Everybody has these but they are usually covered with busyness. We don't recognize that the routine frustrations are evidence of a mountain of hate lying just below the surface of consciousness. Solitude gives you knowledge of that mountain of negative ego emotion.
When you have stayed in solitude and processed the ego emotions for long enough, you become mentally different than the people who never did it; inhabiting a different world as it were. After some time of processing, it becomes impossible to go back. My worst problem with solitude is realizing that I am unable to rejoin society and no one wants for follow me into true embrace with the COMPANION. I’ve had people question why anyone would want to give up their life like this.
So, given the situation, I must find the COMPANION and fully enter His consciousness. To fully embrace and engage a spiritual life and spiritual world, I must fully let go of the ego world and ego emotions and any hope of finding satisfaction in anything other than the COMPANION. The COMPANION is with me always, but I must turn to Him and listen to His Voice; instead of looking back at society and listening to ego.
The COMPANION heals my guilt, hate, anger, shame and fear; if I give it to Him. I begin to live in a world of peace, joy and love, God’s reality. This new world is freedom from ego and reception of God’s gifts. My function becomes a) being an icon of God’s reality, b) projecting God’s reality and c) mirroring God’s reality.
The COMPANION has more to teach me. I am now an urban solitary, beginning a life of acceptance and faith in the COMPANION alone. My journey is still one of emptiness, inactivity and letting go of ego emotions.
Everyone has a path to oneness with the COMPANION. The COMPANION does not belong to me. Everyone walks their path and does their own work, whether they know it or not. The way out of the ego world is much quicker for those who intentionally engage in their process.
This morning, I got up at 6, did spiritual study for an hour (including writing this), cleaned the house, and sat down to type what I wrote. Now, I think it is almost time for running.
I want to live in deep embrace and partnership, one consciousness with the COMPANION. I have wanted this since I was 22. Seeking the oneness is why I’ve done everything else: daily spiritual study (for all those years), learned silent sitting, integrated running into the meditation, used wholistic food and fasting to attune my body to the COMPANION’s vibration pattern, disengaged from society (TV, entertainment, holidays, religion, politics, 12 Step groups, etc.), daily reflection and discussion with the COMPANION.
Ten years ago, I was removed from society totally by going to live in a monastic cloister, for almost 4 years. A Benedictine contemplative community is a group exercise, not solitude; but it does disconnect one from ordinary life.
Five years ago, I became a solitary by default as I lived and worked in the country. I was intentional about solitude and contemplation by this time. Alone for long periods of time, I had to consciously process guilt, hate, anger, shame and fear; or go back to society and avoid these emotions by being busy. Everybody has these but they are usually covered with busyness. We don't recognize that the routine frustrations are evidence of a mountain of hate lying just below the surface of consciousness. Solitude gives you knowledge of that mountain of negative ego emotion.
When you have stayed in solitude and processed the ego emotions for long enough, you become mentally different than the people who never did it; inhabiting a different world as it were. After some time of processing, it becomes impossible to go back. My worst problem with solitude is realizing that I am unable to rejoin society and no one wants for follow me into true embrace with the COMPANION. I’ve had people question why anyone would want to give up their life like this.
So, given the situation, I must find the COMPANION and fully enter His consciousness. To fully embrace and engage a spiritual life and spiritual world, I must fully let go of the ego world and ego emotions and any hope of finding satisfaction in anything other than the COMPANION. The COMPANION is with me always, but I must turn to Him and listen to His Voice; instead of looking back at society and listening to ego.
The COMPANION heals my guilt, hate, anger, shame and fear; if I give it to Him. I begin to live in a world of peace, joy and love, God’s reality. This new world is freedom from ego and reception of God’s gifts. My function becomes a) being an icon of God’s reality, b) projecting God’s reality and c) mirroring God’s reality.
The COMPANION has more to teach me. I am now an urban solitary, beginning a life of acceptance and faith in the COMPANION alone. My journey is still one of emptiness, inactivity and letting go of ego emotions.
Everyone has a path to oneness with the COMPANION. The COMPANION does not belong to me. Everyone walks their path and does their own work, whether they know it or not. The way out of the ego world is much quicker for those who intentionally engage in their process.
This morning, I got up at 6, did spiritual study for an hour (including writing this), cleaned the house, and sat down to type what I wrote. Now, I think it is almost time for running.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Reflective run on a chilly foggy sunny morning
2009 Olathe marathon: cancelled due to snow. 2009 Frisco 50k: 5:24. 2009 Maryville marathon: 3:57. 2009 Psycho Psummer 50k: sprained ankle and DNFd. 2009 Heart of America marathon: 4:30. 2009 KC marathon: injured and DNS. My 2009 success rate for races is 50%. 50% of the time, I do the training, prepare and plan, but do not achieve a finish.
Aside from racing, I’ve logged tons of miles in 2009. Running kept me sane this summer as I logged 16 to 20 miles a day instead of obsessing about unemployment. In fact, running that much on a daily basis has been a dream of mine for a long time. Some people were unemployed and hiked the Allegheny Trail. Some people were unemployed and worked on their hot rods. Some were unemployed and took motorcycle trips. I was unemployed and ran a personal multi-day ultra marathon; a private self transcendence race.
I almost always feel tons better after a run. Airing out my mind and body brings me joy. Racing holds a self importance factor for me. I admit it. There is some ego involvement with my racing which sickens me when I stop to think about it. Running by itself brings joy. Racing brings worry and egotism. I get ideas like running two marathons in two weeks so I can join a club called “Marathon Maniacs” and have a swell t-shirt declaring my status and causing envy when I wear it to races.
The thing about racing is the fussing it adds to my life. I fuss about the weather, when to go to packet pickup, where to park on race day, how will I relieve myself before the race, what will I wear, if I win an ag award will I stick around to pick it up, how quickly can I get home after the race, etc, etc. When I think about a race, I immediately start fussing. As I ran this morning, I thought about whether to run the Springfield marathon. I immediately began a succession of fussy thoughts beginning with one that would ruin next week’s long run because it would become mandatory training instead of something I want to do for joy.
It was a blessing to run this morning, however slow. After my run, I saw a friend of mine. She too was in the doctor’s office on Friday getting her foot x-rayed. But she came out with a boot, instead of a golf ball of gauze like me. Today, my toes are wrapped in Compeed to protect their sensitive bruising, but otherwise they are not too bad.
Without any plans for a race, I still think about strapping a fuel pack on my back, stuffing my pockets with Gu and heading out for 4 or more hours. I love long runs, especially in the winter. As I think of myself jogging down a long road into a blustery north wind, all concerns of the world fade and the timelessness of the run occupies my brain. All my brain cells stop firing, the synapses become quiet and they all gaze down the long road into the wind.
For some reason, LSD holds a romantic fascination for me. I like how my legs feel after at least two hours of running. I like how my legs feel after four hours of running. Yes, they hurt, but it is a fascinating sort of hurt. One time last summer, I ran a 31 mile training run. That afternoon, I lay on the bed with ice packs on both knees and both ankles and red splotches up and down both legs from the heat. It was one of my finest and most memorable moments.
Am I whining about racing because yesterday didn’t work out? Is it a good time now that I am not officially entered in anything to take my inventory and decide what is important. What adds true value to my life?
I am convinced that I can eat below a calorie minimum 90% of the time (or more); so calorie burning isn’t mandatory to counter the excessive calorie eating. I have a great weight lifting routine which I think is important for longevity. I drive around my neighborhood and find ways to add an extra loop or mile to a run. Running is my thing. I hope to have a personal multi-day ultra sometime this winter.
Next Saturday, I will probably be doing a long run, but I hope not for any particular reason. I may even go running again today!
Aside from racing, I’ve logged tons of miles in 2009. Running kept me sane this summer as I logged 16 to 20 miles a day instead of obsessing about unemployment. In fact, running that much on a daily basis has been a dream of mine for a long time. Some people were unemployed and hiked the Allegheny Trail. Some people were unemployed and worked on their hot rods. Some were unemployed and took motorcycle trips. I was unemployed and ran a personal multi-day ultra marathon; a private self transcendence race.
I almost always feel tons better after a run. Airing out my mind and body brings me joy. Racing holds a self importance factor for me. I admit it. There is some ego involvement with my racing which sickens me when I stop to think about it. Running by itself brings joy. Racing brings worry and egotism. I get ideas like running two marathons in two weeks so I can join a club called “Marathon Maniacs” and have a swell t-shirt declaring my status and causing envy when I wear it to races.
The thing about racing is the fussing it adds to my life. I fuss about the weather, when to go to packet pickup, where to park on race day, how will I relieve myself before the race, what will I wear, if I win an ag award will I stick around to pick it up, how quickly can I get home after the race, etc, etc. When I think about a race, I immediately start fussing. As I ran this morning, I thought about whether to run the Springfield marathon. I immediately began a succession of fussy thoughts beginning with one that would ruin next week’s long run because it would become mandatory training instead of something I want to do for joy.
It was a blessing to run this morning, however slow. After my run, I saw a friend of mine. She too was in the doctor’s office on Friday getting her foot x-rayed. But she came out with a boot, instead of a golf ball of gauze like me. Today, my toes are wrapped in Compeed to protect their sensitive bruising, but otherwise they are not too bad.
Without any plans for a race, I still think about strapping a fuel pack on my back, stuffing my pockets with Gu and heading out for 4 or more hours. I love long runs, especially in the winter. As I think of myself jogging down a long road into a blustery north wind, all concerns of the world fade and the timelessness of the run occupies my brain. All my brain cells stop firing, the synapses become quiet and they all gaze down the long road into the wind.
For some reason, LSD holds a romantic fascination for me. I like how my legs feel after at least two hours of running. I like how my legs feel after four hours of running. Yes, they hurt, but it is a fascinating sort of hurt. One time last summer, I ran a 31 mile training run. That afternoon, I lay on the bed with ice packs on both knees and both ankles and red splotches up and down both legs from the heat. It was one of my finest and most memorable moments.
Am I whining about racing because yesterday didn’t work out? Is it a good time now that I am not officially entered in anything to take my inventory and decide what is important. What adds true value to my life?
I am convinced that I can eat below a calorie minimum 90% of the time (or more); so calorie burning isn’t mandatory to counter the excessive calorie eating. I have a great weight lifting routine which I think is important for longevity. I drive around my neighborhood and find ways to add an extra loop or mile to a run. Running is my thing. I hope to have a personal multi-day ultra sometime this winter.
Next Saturday, I will probably be doing a long run, but I hope not for any particular reason. I may even go running again today!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Thoughts on Thoughts
Life is thoughts. My life is my thoughts. My body is my thoughts.
I am always thinking.
My entire life (what I do and say and think and react to) is based on rules I learned from others (ie. other's thoughts). I am a product of others, not an individual. I am not a person, but thoughts. None of the thoughts are mine. They are thoughts I've collected from others and made into my life. Eating. Weight loss. Running. Work. Religion. Money. All relationships are collections of thoughts. My decisions are based on thoughts I’ve learned. None of this really matters. None of this is true or real. My life is just thoughts. I am the decision maker regarding the thoughts.
Sometimes I think thoughts which produce conflict for me. Why do I persist in having these thoughts and doing what they say? How do I make decisions? I have not admitted to myself what it is I really want.
I am sometimes sickened by others; either because I don't want their thoughts or because I know I already have their thoughts.
As a solitary and in solitude, I have a chance to filter the incoming thoughts and release un-wanted thoughts. But, I see I continue to hang on to conflicting thoughts. I hope some day I give up lying to myself.
God is a thought. I don't know if it/He is a true thought or not.
I am always thinking.
My entire life (what I do and say and think and react to) is based on rules I learned from others (ie. other's thoughts). I am a product of others, not an individual. I am not a person, but thoughts. None of the thoughts are mine. They are thoughts I've collected from others and made into my life. Eating. Weight loss. Running. Work. Religion. Money. All relationships are collections of thoughts. My decisions are based on thoughts I’ve learned. None of this really matters. None of this is true or real. My life is just thoughts. I am the decision maker regarding the thoughts.
Sometimes I think thoughts which produce conflict for me. Why do I persist in having these thoughts and doing what they say? How do I make decisions? I have not admitted to myself what it is I really want.
I am sometimes sickened by others; either because I don't want their thoughts or because I know I already have their thoughts.
As a solitary and in solitude, I have a chance to filter the incoming thoughts and release un-wanted thoughts. But, I see I continue to hang on to conflicting thoughts. I hope some day I give up lying to myself.
God is a thought. I don't know if it/He is a true thought or not.
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