enlightened?

I have been wondering for years what enlightened means and why the definition is so elusive.   Or maybe it's rather the experience that's so elusive, not the definition.  Sure, easier said than done.  And explaining or defining it doesn't mean I can do it.  I can't.  The closest I have come to even getting a smidgen of a glimpse of comprehension is by dropping into wordless space - here a previous post on it. 

I think enlightenment means experiencing the world as non-dualistic, not for seconds or glimpses, but forever. When I'm able to do that for a few seconds, it seems that my experience happens all at once instead of consecutively.  I am in the experience, I am the experience - there is no separation between the experience and me.  It's what people achieve for short moments when they meditate.  All impressions of a moment - sounds, tastes, feelings, sensations, sights - are all there at the same time. 

If you sit quietly and become aware of all impressions on your senses simultaneously you'll get it.  It's intense, and it leaves no time for pondering the past or the future - it's all Present, it's all Now. There is nothing to add, nothing to do.  It is, and it's timeless.  

reset and reboot

Two days before this year is over I find great comfort in the idea that I get to try again, do it better, do it differently, try something else - a bit like the movie Groundhog Day.  Next year is another chance, a chance for a do-over, a chance to redefine myself, a chance to try something else, a chance to catch my breath and start anew.

The beauty of a circular understanding of time - according to indefinitely returning seasons, years, or cycles - is that we always get another chance. Our humanly understanding of time has changed as our consciousness has evolved.  We now combine a circular and a linear way of seeing time.  All natural processes are circular, while our modern industrial processes are linear - they cannot be indefinitely repeated the way the seasons return over and over, or the way the moon phases repeat themselves endlessly.  Our concept of time has evolved accordingly.  We see history as a linear process that begins with the Big Bang and goes endlessly into the future, or our life that begins with birth and ends with death.  At the same time we experience our life as a succession of Christmases, or summers, or school years, or birthdays - markers that repeat themselves, at least until this life is over.  That is comforting.

What are your dreams for the New Year?  Your hopes?  Your ambitions?  Are you planning any do-overs?  Something completely different?  It's never too late! 

how to manifest

Visioning boards, intent, and lists are all techniques for clarifying what you want and helping you to manifest it.  Ideas move into the physical via thought crystalization.   A very effective and very simple technique to accelerate this manifestation process is to write down what exactly you want to manifest.  Writing is a crystalization process; it literally condenses thought.

An easy example is a shopping list. You just scraped the last bit of jam out of the jar, and the thought pops up in your head that you need to buy more jam.  Chances are you might forget if you don't write it down, hence the usefulness of a shopping list.  Next time you go to the supermarket you buy that jam you wrote on your list.  Lo and behold, you come home from the supermarket, unpack your bags, and note that you have manifested the jam.  And it all began with a simple thought, the thought that you were out of jam and needed to buy more.

You can actually not manifest something you cannot precisely formulate. If you can't define it the universe doesn't get it.  Fuzzy thinking brings forth fuzzy outcomes (hence, no jam if you forget about it), clear thinking and precise writing help to manifest exactly what you want.  When you write down an idea you want to manifest and read it back to yourself out loud you'll hear if it sounds clear, and reflects exactly what you want to manifest, whether it's jam, a new car, or a new life.

I keep a visioning box on my night table and periodically drop little notes in it with things I want to manifest.    Then I forget about the box.  Every once in a blue moon I open the box and go through the papers.   Usually I notice - with a bit of surprise - that some of the ideas have actually manifested.  What would you like to manifest in the new year?

I love your coat!

The other day I crossed paths with a woman at the supermarket, or should I say lady, who was well dressed (no sweat pants or jeans), wore nice shoes (no sneakers), pleasantly subtle make-up (no just-got-out-of-bed face), and thoughtfully done hair (no quickly tied up pony tail to get the hair out of the way).  

It showed that she cared, not only about herself but also about how she appeared to others.  She stood out because she was different from all the other shoppers, in a positive way.  I smiled spontaneously when I saw her.  Her encounter also made me aware of how much my own behavior, my demeanor, my appearance influences others.  Every time I wear this very colorful checkered coat several people smile at me and exclaim spontaneously, "Oh, I love your coat!." 

I have come to the realization that I have to put out what I want coming back at me.  If I want generosity to come back to me I need to be generous.  If I want kindness to come back to me I need to smile at people more.  When I wear that coat I put out joyfulness and I get it right back.  What do you want coming back to you?

Please also revisit a recent related post, "giving is good for your health."

conquering negative thinking

Always seeing the glass half-empty can send you into a perpetual negative spin and eventually leave you depressed.  Yes, for self-preservation purposes we are evolutionarily wired to react faster to negative than to positive news.  However, it is important to realize that dwelling on negative thoughts keeps you stuck in the past and is self-perpetuating.            

How to get out of that vicious cycle?  Psychotherapist Lesley Alderman explained in a recent article that it is important to actually acknowledge your negative thoughts in order to move on, rather than suppressing them.  The first step to any self-improvement - wanting to change a behavior or pattern - is always to become aware of what you're doing.   Many depressed people actually deny that they are depressed; they don't realize that they keep producing unhelpful thoughts and are on a hamster wheel of negativity.  That is fooling yourself, burying your head in the sand.  Without interior work there can be no improvement. 

If you believe that everyone is out to get you, that people don't appreciate you, that you're alone, that there is a lot of negativity in the world, that things are not going well - maybe it's time to take a big long beautiful breath and acknowledge that you are the one who has been producing all these negative thoughts and beliefs.  If you are ready for change, if you are ready to think positive thoughts, uplifting thoughts, go see a funny movie and make a conscious shift - housekeeping of the mind needed.

are you wealthy?

Wealth can indeed not always be measured in dollars and cents.  As a matter of fact, I suspect that many rich people may actually be emotionally poor.  Money can't buy happiness, nor meaning, nor friendship or love.  You can be very rich money-wise, but emotionally starved.  Grinches have no joy.

You might enjoy your wealth in a different way - wealthy emotionally, rich in experiences and memories, enjoying abundant sunshine, warmth in your heart, abundance in other areas of your life.   You might enjoy the wealth of information available on the internet for free, abundant health, rich foods, a supportive social network, a big heart, a radiant smile, contentment, ample space, immense pleasure, a bountiful harvest, an expansive mind, or a generous disposition.

The definition of wealth can be so much broader than the dollars in your bank account.  Think about what you give (and I don't necessarily mean the material stuff), not what you have.  Are you generous with your time, your attention, your advice, your help, your compassion?  Because that's the way to enrich other people's lives.  You are wealthy if you have generous people in your life, and to attract generous people you need to be generous yourself.

invisible magic

The invisible aspect of our life frames and informs the visible or material aspect, the one you can touch, feel, smell, hear, and of course see.  But the more shallowly we live, the more we rush, the less we reflect on this unseen part because we lose awareness of it, and with it the ability to shape the material part of life consciously.  Then you end up getting lived.

Meaning, love, or empathy are all invisible.  Yet they are what make life bright and satisfying, fuzzy and feel-good - you know, meaningful. Anxiety, fear, and worry are also invisible.  They, of course, also inform how you perceive and interpret the world.  While pesticides, radon, and most air pollution cannot be seen, and neither can the micronutrients, trace elements, and minerals in our food, those can all be measured with our modern scientific methods, while the others are more elusive, they can't.  How would you quantify meaning or worry?  You can't, it's qualitative.

But the invisible is just as real as the visible, even though our current science has no good way of dealing with it.  The invisible reflects in, and informs, the visible, even though you can't see it with your eyes, smell it, touch it, hear it, or feel it.  I'm sure you can agree that love is real, that abundance is real.  When you have love in your awareness, the world appears loving; when you have abundance in your awareness the world appears abundant.  To live consciously with the invisible you need to awaken, to dig deeper, to slow down and reflect.  Then you become aware of how it influences your visible reality, how your thoughts, your fears, your exuberance all alter your reality, actually create it, in a profound way.   

presents or presence?

I suppose you expect presents for Mother's or Father's Day, for birthdays or the upcoming holidays.  But do you really need more stuff?  Indeed, some stuff is nice and can temporarily make you feel good.  We equate presents with the conveyance of love.  But is receiving stuff really equal to the love and appreciation we ultimately crave? 

Presence instead of presents, true presence and undivided attention, expressing appreciation for you as a person, is ultimately so much more meaningful than stuff.  Presence speaks to your emotions, and feeling emotionally supported and appreciated, feeling truly heard, is the best present.  A heartfelt visit with your elderly parent or aunt or grandmother, or neighbor, is probably ultimately more meaningful to them than some quickly dropped off tchotchke.  True presence and attempting to connect, and emotionally support, your teenagers, is so valuable in helping them navigate a challenging time in their life.  Your college kids home for the holidays, your grandchildren visiting and spending time with you, your grown kids dropping in for an unexpected visit, an surprise visit from a dear friend - those are the things that truly warm the heart.  Presence, being in the present with the other in appreciation, is priceless.

 Also take a look at a previous related blog post - less gifts more love.

giving is good for your health

Having just finished Lynne McTaggart's new book The Power of Eight, which compiles ten years of research on intention experiments, it becomes evident that giving is more health inducing than receiving.  Time and again, the author observed, with skepticism at first, how participants in her intention groups healed more so when they sent healing intentions than when they received healing intentions.  Wow!  Goes so much against our grain of thinking.

Research had already shown that volunteering is good for you, and that a good social network promotes longevity.  But Lynne's experiments now indicate clearly that, "it is better for your health to do the giving," and that, "giving also appears to be central to longevity."  She also refers to what psychologists call the "helper's high," feeling great when you do good.

Over the decade her research was conducted about two thirds of her participants healed as a byproduct (if that is a way to express this phenomenon)  of engaging in sending regular healing intentions to others.  Just wow!  So, instead of wishing or praying for your own healing, or having others send you healing thoughts, looks like an easy way to heal is to send healing thoughts to others.  Give in order to get!  That takes a shift in thinking.  

a pregnant pause

A pregnant pause..........is a metaphorical pregnancy that builds tension, in communication used to  build suspense.  In expanding the notion beyond communication it becomes a moment full of possibilities, full of as yet unrealized creative power. 

All creative processes are preceded by such a period - when ideas are churning, perhaps somewhat chaotically, awaiting order by the creator.  The pregnant pause may be understood as the quiet before the creative storm, or the perhaps somewhat random accumulation of information and materials from which a new creation will be born.  This period feels full of energy, full of impatience about the tension between the lack of order of all the accumulated ideas or materials, and the desire to build artistic order from it.  The intriguing thing about the pregnant pause is that the outcome is as yet unknown, yet is full of potential and possibilities.

It's not about the destination but the journey, as you know.  The pregnant pause is the time before the journey actually begins.  It's the point when you revve up the engine but have to hold back until it's time to start.  Winter is a pregnant pause before spring's burst of growth and unfolding.   Standing in in my kitchen in the evening, contemplating my dinner supplies and knowing I need to make a meal from what's in the fridge, is a pregnant pause.  I can create any number of meals from the many available ingredients, it's up to me to decide which ingredients to use, and what to make with them.

Culturally we are somewhat in the midst of a pregnant pause, a tumultuous time full of change, chaos, possibilities, chance for reconfiguration and redefiniiton, an incredibly creative time full of potential and possibilities.  What is your dream for the future?