From my journal:
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Friday, June 3, 2022
Dear Holy Spirit,
I am listening to a podcast by Ram Dass. (Ep. 199: The Continuity of Consciousness)
“Somewhere between not enough and more seems to be enough.”
At least a few moments go by before i have a thought about Joel — that’s progress. I have heard nothing from him since last Sunday evening when he sent email saying he was on the floor in his bedroom and could not get up.
Ram says the concept ‘I am meditating’ is still “rush collecting.” He continues:
You have been born many times and many times you have died and each time you have died you have struggled against death. You have said: “Why me? Save me. Heal me! Do whatever you need to do, doctor: Transplant, freeze, do whatever needs to be done. Cut. Mend. But keep me here.”
And you hold desperately to the bed sheets and you struggle against it. And then you’re dead. And then a voice says to you, “Hello.”
And then you say, “I guess I didn’t die.”
And the voice says, “Oh, to the contrary, you are quite dead.”
Time and time again, death after death, you have rejected that voice, and stayed in what the Christians called purgatory. You stayed in a state of confusion between births.
(Ram Dass uses the term ‘veil of illusion’ — I’ve never heard that. I’ve heard the other side of the veil but I’ve not heard it said that it is the veil of illusion.)
2/5 of the population of America have had transcendent, mystical experiences. That is 40 million people. Of those 40 million people, a sampling shows that 85% said, “It was the most powerful experience of my life and I never want to have another one.”
For only some of the people, when they see through that veil, they are able to utilize that new awareness… And when you are really ripe, that one millisecond changes your whole life from now on — that lifetime. And when you are really ready, that one moment makes you say, “From here on all I wish to do now is to get free.”
Now, when you have started to awaken in a particular lifetime, and then you die, you say, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,” and then you are dead and somebody says welcome and you say I guess I didn’t die and they say yes you did and you are confused and then that moment of that previous birth when you awakened comes to you and you say, “Ah, right, this is what that was about.”
(I have the awareness that suffering is grace.)
Up until that time, you’ve been seeking to optimize pleasure.
A birth is like a process of getting you straight or cleaning you up or awakening you…. You are part of a far more interesting game which you begin to be aware of in terms of your own identity….
The meaning of every act in life starts to change. You look at all of it as process for awakening, for cleaning up your game. You don’t begrudge your history — no matter how neurotic it has been — for it has in it the stuff which has created the space you are in at this moment which allows you to hear right now.
(I notice that I am trying too hard as I am chopping vegetables for quiche and then I hear, “Let the tool do the work.”)
That may be the lesson of the power washer. No amount of stress or strain enhances the work. I hear that the central message again and again as I continue. No amount of effort forces sleep. No amount of worry produces peace. No amount of effort produces clarity. One cannot TRY oneself to anything.
My mind recognizes that we can aim. A – I – M. Already is (or always is) mentality.
Peace already is like the sun is always shining. Peace always is. Love always is. Light always is. Nothing we can do “makes” it.
I realize consciousness is also a tool. I feel fluttering in my heart as I write this sentence.
My blood pressure continues to be quite high, although I have had two readings over the past week and a half that would be considered normal.
I am on Zoom attending the year-end “intensive” right now. Perhaps additional insight is to emerge during these five days. This morning’s Thought for Today from Aaron is quite interesting for me:
Whatever it is that you’re praying for, be it health or well-being of yourself or for a loved one or whatever the prayer-intention may be, that innate perfection is always there. If you approach it from a place of fear, you keep manifesting the distortion. When you come back to the place of love, you center yourself in love and invite others to take hold of the strands with you and pray with you from that same place of love. Energetically they’re weaving together with you, weaving together a tapestry of healing with you, of growth, of love, of joy. So this is the power of prayer.
I find it fascinating that I had just written the string about always there. Plus, when I first started my practice in Healing Touch, I named my business “Tapestry” with the tag line weaving together the threads of body, mind, and spirit. Also on the card: For when you are ready.
I am ready.
From my journal:
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Saturday, June 4, 2022
Dear Holy Spirit,
Very much aware of anticipatory stress. I am willing. I ask Alexa to play Karen Drucker’s “Morning Prayer: I will surrender to my greatest highest good.”
As I listen, I am aware of a sensation in my left jaw and my right thumb. I look up the Louise Hay meaning of thumb and it is about intellect and worry. The affirmation is “my mind is at peace.”
I look online and find the five hindrances. One is restlessness and worry. Uddhacca, defined as a mental factor characterized by disquietude, like water whipped by the wind.
I imagine my body as a wide container where the energy is allowed to bounce around freely like a pinball machine. As I am sitting with the sensations and allowing them to bounce around, the sensations settle on their own.
Joan is online from the hospital, where her husband, Bob, is in very serious condition. I have the precious memory of John’s and my experience of being held in this sangha’s awakened heart while he was in the hospital with the TIA during the Emerald Isle retreat in April. A profound awareness washes over me that if one was to complete the transition back to non-physical, this is an ideal place to do that.
From Gratefulness.org: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. (Mary Oliver)
Perhaps a perfect image to remind me is Midnite’s purple petunia plant. Every one of these variations arise from one plant.
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