Here and Now...What's Happening?

[Marianne]

Hello Village!!

I just spent 16 hours in a car, from Tennessee to New Hampshire. It's good to be on the ground again. And this thread, it's so amazing. Ulli, I saw your post about the gathering storm and sent some calming energy, added to the others and I see it's gone pfftt now, yah!

I haven't had a chance to read everything, but thanks to everyone, and Nora, I love your Lammas post. I thought about today being Lammas but didn't do anything except acknowledge it silently. So I am going to settle down and read every word of your post.

The babies are asleep, but I went in and peeked at them. Owen sleeps like a log, but Cam fluttered his eyes at me when I pulled up the covers he'd kicked off. Tomorrow we're going to the beach in Maine for the weekend and celebrate Owen's 4th birthday.

Love to all, I missed you.
JB

[Carmody]

Posted by Flash (here)
Oh dear (Winnie the Pooh tone of voice), Carmody and AnotherBob, it seems has if most of us will never reach the target, for either lack of stubborness or lack of many many lifes. So I'll accept my reincarnation faith.... ah!

So why try - and here is program number one working on me. lol

Sincerely, it does appears like this at times, numerous ones.

Well, I think it is time to go for a good night sleep... better mood tomorrow.

One of the things that one should not do at the beginning stage, is inform people how difficult it MIGHT be, as they might use that excuse to never start.

Mine was difficult due to a combination of things.

It will be a different and individual path for other people.

i've been taking on some pretty darned rough rides.

two lives back, it was the civil war, as an unwanted officer in an unwanted group that was used as a sacrifice group, in the beginning move in any given battle. At the same time I was forced to shoot and kill young men I did not know, in order to save the young men that I did know. All under the umbrella of conscription. All for a cause I did not believe in. 'nam before 'nam... with your own neighbors, to boot.

Next life was the slave on a slave planet, basically, one with no future, on a downward spiral, not even any clothes and sometimes we just slept in the fields. Beaten regularly and basically died stubborn and defiant, but..beaten down, ultimately..to death.

Then this life. It has it's rough spots. It's pressures.

[Guest]

I keep seeing 11:11 everywhere......
clocks, computer, cellphone..... and then
today was at the local health food store and my change was
$11.11...... I looked up in astonishment at the cashier, she laughed
and everyone behind me in the line laughed......

Thank you JB and it sounds like you are having fun -enjoy the beach.

Ulli so grateful the storm dissipated.


Love


Nora

[Marianne]

Carmody, have I ever told you how much I appreciate what you do for us? I don't even really know what you do, but I know it's something extraordinary.
So thank you from my heart.

[another bob]

Posted by Flash (here)
Oh dear (Winnie the Pooh tone of voice), Carmody and AnotherBob, it seems has if most of us will never reach the target ....

Hiya Flash!

Everyone will come through. Just understand that You are that which you are trying to reach. Already. Always. It's just a matter of recognition.

So why try - and here is program number one working on me. lol

Why? Because there is no option. When you finally realize that there is no option, then you become available to an Awakening Grace.



Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now, but for your being more interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgments and appreciation. Discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen and you need not search for truth; truth will find you.

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

[another bob]

Posted by Anchor (here)
This exchange reminds me of something that has been on my mind these past few weeks. A lot of peoples health suffers in later years - just when the real possibility for years long study, experience and awakening could bears fruit.....because well you cant teach an old dog new tricks can you.
Devious.

Hee's an interview with the contemporary mystic, Bernadette Roberts, which touches on the issue:


Q: You mention in 'The Path to No-Self' that the unitive state is the "true state in which God intended every person to live his mature years". Yet so few of us ever achieve this unitive state. What is it about the way we live right now that prevents us from doing so? Do you think it is our preoccupation with material success, technology, and personal accomplishment?

Bernadette Roberts: First of all, I think there are more people in the state of oneness than we realize. For everyone we hear about there are thousands we will never hear about. Believing this state to be a rare achievement can be an impediment in itself. Unfortunately, those who write about it have a way of making it sound more extraordinary and blissful that it commonly is, and so false expectations are another impediment - we keep waiting and looking for an experience or state that never comes.

But if I had to put my finger on the primary obstacle, I would say it is having wrong views of the journey. Paradoxical though it may seem, the passage through consciousness or self moves contrary to self, rubs it the wrong way - and in the end, will even rub it out. Because this passage goes against the grain of self, it is, therefore, a path of suffering. Both Christ and Buddha saw the passage as one of suffering, and basically found identical ways out. What they discovered and revealed to us was that each of us has within himself or herself a "stillpoint" - comparable, perhaps to the eye of a cyclone, a spot or center of calm, imperturbability, and non-movement. Buddha articulated this central eye in negative terms as "emptiness" or "void", a refuge from the swirling cyclone of endless suffering. Christ articulated the eye in more positive terms as the "Kingdom of God" or the "Spirit within", a place of refuge and salvation from a suffering self. For both of them, the easy out was first to find that stillpoint and then, by attaching ourselves to it, by becoming one with it, to find a stabilizing, balanced anchor in our lives. After that, the cyclone is gradually drawn into the eye, and the suffering self comes to an end. And when there is no longer a cyclone, there is also no longer an eye.

So the storms, crises, and sufferings of life are a way of finding the eye. When everything is going our way, we do not see the eye, and we feel no need to find it. But when everything is going against us, then we find the eye. So the avoidance of suffering and the desire to have everything go our own way runs contrary to the whole movement of our journey; it is all a wrong view. With the right view, however, one should be able to come to the state of oneness in six or seven years - years not merely of suffering, but years of enlightenment, for right suffering is the essence of enlightenment.

Because self is everyone's experience underlying all culture, I do not regard cultural wrong views as an excuse for not searching out right views. After all, each person's passage is his or her own; there is no such thing as a collective passage.

~Interview with Bernadette Roberts

by Stephan Bodian (www.stephanbodian.org).

http://www.spiritualteachers.org/b_r..._interview.htm

[another bob]

Posted by Carmody (here)
One of the things that one should not do at the beginning stage, is inform people how difficult it MIGHT be, as they might use that excuse to never start.

The most important thing at the beginning is to get the aspirant to understand their prime motivation for embarking on such a path in the first place. If they are clear about what is really driving them, then the rest will be rather straightforward. The problem is, folks usually hear some rumor or read some enthusiastic testimony, and figure, "Hey, I'll give that a try!" Then, as soon as they start to get a good look at what they have been up to all their life, they freak and rush to go back to drugging themselves to sleep as fast as possible. LOL!


Q: People who have a yearning, or at least a curiosity, about awakening may wonder how they can find this freedom we are speaking of. "What do I do?" "How do I get it?" These are common questions.

Adyashanti: There are two important elements as far as I am concerned, maybe three. Number one is, before you get too involved in teachings and teachers and conforming to the way you think things should be spiritually, connect with the raw yearning at the core of your own being. Basically, this means, "What do I yearn for more than anything else?" For most human beings there will be conflicting yearnings, but see what the core yearning is in you. The very deepest core yearning is your red carpet to freedom. It is the place that you follow. You follow backward into that yearning. This is something that most spiritual students don't take the time to do. They just jump into the teachings and start imitating and doing practices that they don't understand. They miss that the divine call is in their own heart right from the very beginning. That's the really important part.

Once you hear that call, the other important question is to ask: "Who am I really?" "Who am I really, truly, after all is said and done, who am I really?" To get into the unknown of that. The fact is that when someone asks, "Who am I?" the first thing they notice is that they don't know, and they usually run from the fact that they don't know. It is this running away from the fact that they don't know who they are that is the cause of so much suffering. So, simply to ask who am I and not to know, then to rest ever deeper in the fact of not knowing. It's by resting in the fact that you don't know who you are that you come upon the direct experience of who and what you actually are.

[Carmody]

Posted by another bob (here)
Why? Because there is no option. When you finally realize that there is no option, then you become available to an Awakening Grace.



Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now, but for your being more interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgments and appreciation. Discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen and you need not search for truth; truth will find you.

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

Yes, that is the tactic I used in this life. I removed all options, I purposely put myself in the position where there was no other way or place to turn.

[another bob]

Posted by Carmody (here)

Posted by another bob (here)
Why? Because there is no option. When you finally realize that there is no option, then you become available to an Awakening Grace.



Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now, but for your being more interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgments and appreciation. Discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen and you need not search for truth; truth will find you.

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

Yes, that is the tactic I used in this life. I removed all options, I purposely put myself in the position where there was no other way or place to turn.

In fact, Chogyam Trungpa noted that, until one realizes that they have no other option, they will never quite take the practice seriously enough for it to have any profound effect in terms of transformation at the necessary level.

[Carmody]

Posted by another bob (here)

Once you hear that call, the other important question is to ask: "Who am I really?" "Who am I really, truly, after all is said and done, who am I really?" To get into the unknown of that. The fact is that when someone asks, "Who am I?" the first thing they notice is that they don't know, and they usually run from the fact that they don't know. It is this running away from the fact that they don't know who they are that is the cause of so much suffering. So, simply to ask who am I and not to know, then to rest ever deeper in the fact of not knowing. It's by resting in the fact that you don't know who you are that you come upon the direct experience of who and what you actually are.[/I]

It made me think of this one:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HlXKJmDqfhE

[meeradas]

Posted by another bob (here)

Posted by Flash (here)
Oh dear (Winnie the Pooh tone of voice), Carmody and AnotherBob, it seems has if most of us will never reach the target ....

Hiya Flash!
Everyone will come through. Just understand that You are that which you are trying to reach. Already. Always. It's just a matter of recognition.

Flash, you might wanna take one or two looks here [if you haven't already]

[posted in the village before, initially borrowed from an older AlkaMyst thread]

[Carmody]

Oh yes, I've mentioned it in passing but not really clearly elucidated a lucid body control astral 'body leaving' technique I found useful. The act of getting out of the body with lucidity can be a bit tricky to navigate.

It involved a form of meditation, with eyes open. Some might call it a hypnotic.

I had a near perfect situation, regarding backdrop. What it was, is a park that was a literal block away from where I was living. That park had an outcropping of rock that was pure exposed bedrock, and quite a few good clean spots to lie down on the rock. Now, I'd head there in the evenings, and lie on the rock, out of the city's edge lights and mediate opened, staring straight into space. No insects or people to distract. In those times, I'd do my best to move to the meditative state of slowed time and then feel the earth turning and basically ..'fall' into space. To feel the entire world, all it's scope and flow, in space and the universe. To see the stars, the entire sky in as much of my visual field as is possible. No markers in the eyesight of any kind, but space, dimensionally felt, in scope and size, as a moment of now flowing connection. The body's falling fears would try to awaken, but after time, they could be calmed, easily and naturally, as a process of learning.

This, I found, tremendously sped up the capacity to separate cleanly into the astral state, at the appropriate times. And with that sort of backdrop of self training, it indicated a certain capacity in lucidity.

It was when doing that one evening I saw a red violet shooting star type UFO. A dual spiral, reddish-violet, it was. And shooting stars don't do perfect spiraled pairs.

[Jenci]

Tricky one this is. How do you convey the message that our true nature is not exclusive and is available to everyone of us and yet few people will stand doing what it takes to realise it. It's a paradox where both statements are true.

For me personally I know that it was people like Carmody saying how difficult and painful this path was that made me look at what had happened to me. My awakening had been blissful and had taken me right out of all my life's suffering.

Of course, I had not awoken but I had thought I had. I had latched onto stories of how wonderful awakening is and confirmed my experience to be that too. But something changed and I started paying attention to all the stories that gave unpleasant descriptions of this process. I started paying attention to all the things that I didn't want to hear or know about it.

Where I had earlier been lifted out of all my life's suffering, something then dragged me back full-force right back into the midst of that suffering but this time is was more intensely felt than ever and was not just this lifetime's pain but others too.

I don't like to put people off the simplicity of realising what they really are but the irony was that it was these types of stories which made me question my own delusions about spiritual awakening.

During this time I heard someone say "give me liberation or give me death and I don't care if it is either" and I totally understood that because it was exactly how I felt. So much for awakening and feeling better !

When I got to that point, I realised I had no choice.

Jeanette

[Flash]

Thank you Carmody, Another Bob, Meeradas, Jeanette and Marianne too for your comment on Carmody which I agree with 150%. All your kind words lighting the path are velvet to the heart. And your videos, all of them.

I most probably am at the crossroad actually where the choice is gone. I am taking the time to go in/hopefully dive in, not worrying about survival and daily necessities - I'll borrow if necessary - this has been one of my main trap. Releasing all the tears I have been keeping in since childhood, taking off the dams and letting the rivers flow. (gosh I am bad at expressing feelings, myself, in English - this is not flowing)

And the last 15 years that have been extremely hard, a mix blessing having had the greatest heart opening at the same time through love for my daughter and with her for life.

Thank you all.

I wish I could copy the whole thead to bring it with me for a month in retreat.

Once I saw that I was, I am, I will be in a very firmed experiential way, encompassing eternal way.

So I'll find myself a flat rock.. and get in touch with whom is running the dreambus, hopefully .

And if not, at least the dams will be opened.

PS: you felt right on Carmody, I had thought of using hypnotic like situations in nature, I think it could work with me (even self hypnosis).

[ViralSpiral]

A retreat for a month? I'd say that's an excellent choice when there seemed none. How lucky? Wished it were me. Looking forward to your report.
Who's driving the Dreambus is bookmarked, and I have watched it a few times. I do know who is driving my bus. The driver refuses to wear a uniform though. Sings LOUDLY and keeps looking back, checking on and chatting to the passengers

Posted by Jenci (here)

During this time I heard someone say "give me liberation or give me death and I don't care if it is either" and I totally understood that because it was exactly how I felt. So much for awakening and feeling better !

When I got to that point, I realised I had no choice.

Jeanette

Loved that. And since I tend to look on the brighter side of life, this immediately popped into my head.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rZVjKlBCvhg

[Flash]

I have not been working for few months already (or very little, not enough to pay the bills) because I cannot come to term to push myself anymore.

Physically I can, I am not in "burnout" although I worked a lot in the past, I just cannot come to term to push myself anylonger for survival and needs. This cannot be it, life cannot be this. I can't go further on that path.

So yes, a month retreat after 2 months without real work, and I have no f.. idea what will happen in September. A real jump. All I know is that I need time, et de la douceur, tellement de douceur (softeness, ....)

I even managed with my daughter so that she would be fine, we had to be creative. She feels and understand somehow - she truly is a wonderful being with her young 15.

I am not the reporting type, so I will see.

Thanks

[meeradas]

Posted by Flash (here)
This cannot be it, life cannot be this.

Know exactly what you mean.
You're one step ahead of me.

[ulli]

Posted by Carmody (here)

Posted by another bob (here)
Why? Because there is no option. When you finally realize that there is no option, then you become available to an Awakening Grace.



Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now, but for your being more interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgments and appreciation. Discard every self-seeking motive as soon as it is seen and you need not search for truth; truth will find you.

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

Yes, that is the tactic I used in this life. I removed all options, I purposely put myself in the position where there was no other way or place to turn.

Because I always operated in fields where there were no precedents, always in new, unmapped territory, and usually on my own, I discovered one thought which helped me through the worst fears. Being Capricorn I have that faint Asperger syndrome, an addiction to order and recognizable patterns, which I believe most Capricorns have, certainly the ones I have talked to. So there is this fear of chaos. Yet order and chaos must follow each other, alternating, if there is to be motion and change in life. So fears must be faced, and those moments where one can't find the way back must be lived through, and consciously. How else did I move house 45 times? Changed career every ten years?

Once in 1984 on the way back to Barbados from Peru, I was informed in Caracas airport that the airline Viassa had folded while I was gone. ( as happened again earlier this year with Redjet)
There no more flights to Barbados fom Venezuela. I had no credit card then, and very little cash, and I was on my own, with my then five-year-old son waiting in Barbados for his crazy mother to return.

So that's when I remembered God, and what I had learnt in previous situations:
the greater the chaos around me, the closer was the divine Hand.

Time to let go and let God. Complete surrender to the All-knowing, Almighty Source of All that is.
This is not the old church God, but the One hat had made Itself known to me in 1977, and despite my frequent amnesia attacks I managed at the right moment to remember HimHerIt.

Those were always Here and Now anchoring points, the stillness in the eye of the hurricane, the moment of the Zen guy eating a strawberry, as he is about to fall down the cliff face with the tiger on guard on the upper edge.

[ulli]

When I awoke this morning I discovered that I no longer have to go to the weather site to check on the latest satellite images of the Atlantic.
The image I posted right here in the thread gets updated right here in the thread.
It's alive!
And so is that storm. It has formed another circular pattern,
although still not quite as menacing as it looked yesterday morning.
Everything will be ok.
No fears to face at this moment, although that, too, is subject to change.
Flash and Meeradas, you both are surrounded by potential, I can see it. Can you?

[Belle]

Thank you all so much for this conversation...perfect timing for me. You see, we've just lost everything...and have 37 days to find a place to live for 2 adults, a cripple and 2 dogs with no money for "first, last and security deposit" for another place. Cause and effect from an action/inaction my husband took over ten years ago. Hopefully, this is the last of it .

Am standing firm in the "eye"/"I"...

Positive thoughts and prayers would be appreciated.