_Today in meditation, I sought grounding.  I desperately want something to hold fast to that is solid and doesn't move.  As I entered into meditation, I felt unstable, like I have nothing solid and unmovable.  I pictured the earth in my mind and it is a ball floating in space.  If all that I know of solid is connected to a ball floating in space how can I have or be or even understand the idea of "unmovable"?  The concept of infinity occurred to me.  In finite, that is the opposite of anchored or grounded or unmovable.  Unmovable, is infinity

__forever moving or is it forever anchored--I don't know.  I do however know that it does not comfort me in looking for stability.  My mind raced with the idea of infinity though.  It occurred to me as if I was learning about infinity that everything and everyone must be infinite in our own realm of understanding.  Because everything must have an opposite for us to understand it, it stands to reason that anything or anyone who has ever existed must either now exist or not exist.  In order to exist or not exist the opposite is necessarily true.  I know, nothing new here but in the pursuit of getting an anchor (something to hold on to) this is just disheartening.

I want refuge from my own thoughts.  I want to have something to hold on to and boldly proclaim "This is where I take my stand.  I will remain here and not be moved!"  I do not want to consider ideas that will challenge my beliefs of God or Love or Possibility.  I envisioned a giant Redwood growing beside a fast moving river.  The tree is rooted deep in the ground.  I held to the tree.  with everything in my being I embraced the tree and when any thoughts tried to approach me they were washed away in the river and all I thought of was the tree.  I became one with the tree.  I wept with fear, with knowledge that the tree will not last forever, here.  For now this is all I have , For now, this is my refuge.  I am sure there is more and I will return to my refuge to my meditation and hopefully I will find some answers.

With Love and Light,
Cliff

_____  I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post. . . my meditation practice has not actually been much better than what is reflected here either unfortunately.  Recently however, it has started back up.  I am not really sure why I stop (or pause as it were) when I feel I get so much from meditation.  This is something I will look at.  In any case, The last couple of days have been the crux of the New Year introspection.  The time when I take inventory of my life and really try to figure out what is mine to do this year 2012 Anno Domini.  Consequently, tis is what I have been questioning as I go into meditation.  The answer came to me very clearly after several days of meditation.  I was a bit down on myself for not having lived up to what I feel my potential is.  In fact, I was beating myself up daily with the old familiar questions of why haven't I done more?  Life is getting shorter everyday. . .What occurred to me in meditation is that I was simply reminded of what I already know but so desperately needed to be reminded of:  I need to do what is in front of me right now.  I have both short and long term goals every year but I get so caught up with doing the long-term goals, I lose sight of the short term goals.  Then, the long term goals start feeling overwhelming and when I reflect, I don't feel much if any closer to the long term goals and then I have wasted so much time being overwhelmed working on goals that are huge that I start retreating into a cave and not thinking any more because I do not want to deal with the fact that I am not meeting my goals.  I am exhausted just writing about it. . .This year, I am going to do what is in front of me.  This means I will start focusing on my short term goals.  I will take little steps and complete them well.  I was reminded of a passage in the Bible, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' (Matthew 25:23).  It occurred to me that this is true with most thing in life.  If I take of all the things immediately in front of me I am able to move on to the next thing in life which is usually bigger and more meaningful or profound or lucrative.  It as Lao Tzu says "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  One little step followed by the next is the only way to get there.  This is my new years resolution, I will be faithful and focus, taking one step at a time.  I will bear in mind the ultimate goals but I will celebrate the intermediate victories.  I will focus and be faithful to my truth.

Love and Blessings. . .Happy New Year!

The theme that is staying with me. . .I have come to realize that reaction is not a choice at all.  Again, we are all doing the best we can with what we have to work with.  Seems more often than not I am reacting rather than living on purpose.  I guess the ideal situation is to acquire the tools such that my reactions are automatically "on purpose" without having to pause and give it thought.  I will work on this.  In the mean time, I know that I have to pause, silently acknowledge my purpose, then make a decision that carries me further down the path to my purpose.

I defined my purpose for my life a while back. . . maybe when I was 29sh.  I was taking a course called "The Enlightened Millionaire"  or something like that.  At the same time I was reading "As a Man Thinketh" by James Allen.  My purpose I defined as "I will make a lasting and positive difference in the world and in the universe."  In this spirit, I have defined supporting goals that will promote my success with my purpose.  One specific goal has served as my primary goal to my purpose.  It is a project that I have had rattling around in my head now since the time I first consciously defined my purpose.  As one might expect, the idea or project has matured and evolved substantially since the inception.  I wonder if the reason I have not realized it is because it has served me as an ideal and maybe a reason to live.  Maybe, I am afraid that if I manifest the idea, I will lose my ideal and thus lose my reason for going on?  Irrational fear, I still have every reason for going on, I know.  Maybe I am just trying to make an excuse for not manifesting my project?  I don't know. . .Anyway. . .

Meditation:  I spent time in silence noticing my breath (spirit), heartbeat, the silence between my breaths.  After the silence,  I noticed much about my purpose and living on purpose.  Choosing consciously rather than reacting.  I considered how I am often reacting and doing the best with the automatic tools I have.  Something that came to mind was my diet and the choices I make with food.  Choices. . .reactions?  I get hungry and I eat. My reactions of late however have been less than stellar.  I have been eating stuff that I consciously know is not serving my purpose with my body.  My purpose with my body is to be healthy, strong and lean.  Had I stopped to consider my purpose and in fact chosen to live on purpose, I would have made different choices.  In reflection, it seems I have been operating out of reaction the last couple of months . 

Loosely interpreted, I have not been exercising my free will or living on purpose.  It makes me a little sad when I am not on purpose.  It seems I have so little time with this life and when I am not on purpose, I lose some very precious time.  I know I am doing the best I can with the tools I have, I just hope I can collect the tools that make me a little more efficient in serving my purpose.  But I digress. . .

Back to the meditation.  I have not been meditating much recently because it seems my focus has been poor.  I am not sure why I perceived poor focus but, the remainder of my meditation, I spent in forgiveness.  Forgiving those where I made up a STORY of being a victim and forgiving myself for making up those horrible stories. . .

I love you and there is nothing in the world you can do about it!

In meditation this morning the words from a poem "Master of My Own Destiny and Captain of My Own Soul" sang to me.  I have been contemplating the possibility of free will for some time and have come to a conclusion that free will only exists where we are operating free of any other influence.  In other words, if we are acting in response to any outside stimuli, we are not acting of free will. 

I will attempt to explain this drawing from previous meditations below.  One of my foundational beliefs I listed is that we always do the best they can with the tools they have to work with.  No matter what action that we as humans take, we take that action by drawing from the tools we have to work with at the time of making the decision then we act on it. 

When we are acting in a reactive state, we do not have a choice of what we do.  We simply draw from the tools we have assembled throughout our life then act based on the mental tools available at the time of the decision.  Consider the process a person with normal mental faculties exercises in a reactive situation:

1. Something happens: for this example, we will say you break something at a grocery store.
2. You React:  look around-nobody saw you do it--Consider the options:  a) tell someone so it can be cleaned, b) don't tell anyone, c) something else.
3. Immediately, you draw on all of your ideas and postulations based on experiences (personal witnessed, otherwise learned)  about what will happen if you take any of the actions you consider. 
   
4. You then make a decision.

You may argue that YOU made a decision and therefore you had free will.  This is not the case though.  You did make the decision but you made the decision solely based on your knowledge and experience at the time you made the decision.  These are your tools that you had to work with.  With these tools, you actually had no choice other than the choice you made.  That is not free will.

Free will exists only when one is acting proactively and on purpose.  Both, proactive and on purpose, are necessary conditions to truly act of free will.  "On Purpose" has a tricky caveat too.  I want to give another example here.  This morning I decided to take action to finish a project I was working on for my business.  I thought, that is free will.  I am making a conscious choice to proactively act on purpose.  The purpose here is to forward the success of my business.  Unfortunately, upon closer examination, it occurred to me that it is not a pure form of purpose.  That is, when I reflect on why I am working on my  business that I am working on, it occurs to me that I started this particular business because of circumstances.  I happen to be in a particular place at a particular time and recognized that a business like the business I am currently working on would probably succeed.  Ergo, I started this particular business, and found that with some minor changes and evolution, I was right, the business succeeded. 

As it turns out, because the business is actually a reaction to circumstances, in application, it is not De-facto on purpose.  Now, if the situation was slightly different and my passion and goal was to provide the service I currently provide in my business.  And, I had actively sought out a way to provide this service and found this very same path, I would be on purpose and thus acting from free will. 

Motive then is also fundamental in defining free will.  For example if I acknowledged that initially, the business was reaction and not free will then define my (true, non-reactive) purpose and take action within the business as a means to an end where the end is now ultimately a self-conceived purpose (passion), the action then could be defined as proactive and on purpose and an action of free will. 

I suspect most of us are acting out of reaction in most parts of our life. . .billiard balls randomly bouncing around life's table pretending and believing we have pure free will.  You may say there is an element of freedom, where I chose to start my own business, another might have made a different choice but the truth is that because it is all a reaction, I was drawing from the tools I had to work with at the point I chose to start my business so that fails the test of free will to.

The good news is that I believe free will does exist.  When we practice self exploration through meditation and contemplation and we acknowledge our passion then proactively and on-purpose act to realize that passion regardless of anything else, then we have free will.

Plenty of room for debate there

That is a worthy goal, a goal worth living a life for, worth taking risks for.  That is my goal.

With Love and Light


  

Seems I learn more and more from my little boy.  He seems to just believe the things he prays for.  He knows somehow that all of the things he thanks God for everyday are just true.  in some ways it seems like experience and life seems to challenge our ability to just believe.  At times, I do get that glimmer of just believing and knowing it is true.  When I do I desperately try to embrace it and hold it close to my heart.  It has become a little easier lately with meditation and have my little ray of sunlight running around here whose example I can follow.  Also, things happen that sometimes just seem they must be more than serendipity.  God IS good all the time. . .

I didn't sleep so well last night and it seems when I do not sleep well, I am scattered and my mind races.  Not in a good way. . . SO as I meditated today, I just wanted to get my sea legs steady so I could chart a course.  I am finding the meditation repeating the words, "All is Perfect, All is Beautiful.. . .I am Perfect, I am Beautiful" is an awesome meditation.  It really allows me to see the truth of those statements and get centered.  So centered I am.  My course for today and tomorrow is charted and I am ready to stay the course. 

A Theme that has occurred to me repeatedly now after meditation is to hold the course.  Evelyn brought the Bhagavad Gita to me the other day.  She was showing me how it reflected the idea of God being the unchanging and perfect while we, and everything we see or have concept for, are relative.  For any of you who may not know the Bhagavad Gita, it is a Hindu scripture.  Specifically, it is a dialogue between a mortal and God.  It is very interesting to read but the part that drew my attention this time was a discourse about different types of people.  It defines people into three types.  The first is the group of people who hold God foremost in their decisions and activity.  It says these people have a singular goal which is to serve God.  because they have this singular goal, they are able to make quick and concise decisions and do not waste time and mental energy going between decisions and deciding the best course.  These people are happy and successful because of this singular course and goal.  The second group is the folks who primarily pursue worldly  goods.  Because these people have many goals (or gods?) they are seeking to serve, they expend much of their energy and time chasing more immediate satisfaction.  They are largely scattered (less focused) and consequently less successful and less happy.  The last group is the group of people who work from a place of just getting by.  In not so many words, it says this group is lazy.  They have few to no goals and just try to go from day to day.  They are the least happy as they have no direction and no goals to base decisions on.  They are lost in a sea of nothingness. 

I am working to make it to the first group, that seems like the place to be if any of these groups actually exist. . .currently, I think I am vacillating between Group 1 & 2, unfortunately more often in 2.  I decided that I will start woring on this in a micro sense.  As I have mentioned, I have a little boy and he loves cars.  One of his favorite cars is one that you pull back and release and it will start driving off in the direction that it is pointed.  Thing is, it often gets off course and I have to walk beside it and pick it up and point it back on it's course to get where I originally pointed it.  I think that is now what I am going to try to do with myself.  In the morning when I meditate, I will set a definite goal (point myself in a direction I wish to go) and I will constantly keep a check on myself through the day and if I am not on course, I will just redirect my thoughts and actions to get back on course.

The word "action" actually brought up another thought from the Bhagavad Gita that has been marinating in my mind.  It says that we are all acting all the time.  Intellectually, I know this, but it is good for me to be reminded.  The truth is, I spend a lot of energy every day as I suspect, most do.  If I just focus this energy, I know that I can be wildly successful.

So calling up thoughts from a previous meditation, the fact that
1) my goals are God's goals so I do not have to accomplish everything and have every detail figured out before I start;
2. I Am always in action;
3. I Am on God's team; and
4. I just need to keep correcting my course.
If I can If I just keep correcting my course when I am off, know that I am always acting and focus the action, and know that I am on God's team serving God such that I keep going taking even the smallest step, doing my part, and trusting that God will take care of what seems overwhelming or unknowable, then I am on my way, right. . . .

Baby steps first I guess.  When I wake up tomorrow, I will set my goal for the day and let you know how it goes.

Love and light, C

In meditation, I simply opened up to understanding I Am.  I think I AM closer. . .

So, if you know anything about football, you probably know that the quarterback is the person who gets the ball at the beginning of each play and decides what to do with it.  Sure, there is a plan usually with what the quarterback will do but when the play is set in motion, the quarterback makes the best decision with all the information available at that second.  What follows is that the ball is either handed off to another player, passed to another, or the quarterback runs. 

The football analogy occurred to me this morning during meditation.  God was my quarterback and I was the guy who God was handing the ball off to.  It occurred to me too that God probably has a pretty good team and if I believe that and run with the ball, probably, the team will protect me.  It seems though that I often go head on with the opposite team and sometimes get knocked down.  Now, I thought, who the heck are these other guys and why are they trying to knock me down?  In my analogy is this Satan's team?  The answer came pretty quick though.  The other guys are my own challenges and insecurities.  After all, this is all happening in my head and really, all the players are aspects of me.  The guy I seem to be unable to get past so I can get the ball to the goal is a giant player named Fear (of being foolish) I think.  The meditation this week though seems to be giving me some good yardage though.  I am pretty sure I am 1st and ten now.  I think I am almost ready to take the ball again. . .

I am not sure if it is a profound insight or just noise running around in my head.  I have been fussing with all kinds of notions lately.  Chaos has occurred to me as beautiful.  What I mean is that those things or systems or hair that seems chaotic and I can make neither rhyme nor reason of, has made me feel somehow safe.  Maybe it is because I can just let those things be.  As soon as I conclude that it isn't mine to reason for it, I just let it go and it feels good.    The "Tao of Pooh" comes to mind: "Why does a chicken?  I don't know why. . .  coddleston coddleston coddleston pie."  Things just are as they are and that is all.  There is more to my chaos theory but It just hasn't come to me yet. 

I AM. . .doing this.  I have a habit of thinking that I should be doing this thing or that in order to meet some imagined goal.  When I find myself not doing this thing or that, in pursuit, I beat myself up.  For some time, particularly with a project I have obsessed about for years, I find myself in this pattern.  Today, it occurred to me that the idea for the project came from the Infinite Mind and I simply took the idea and formed it.  The important concept here is that, in some sense, God gave me this idea or more exactly offered me the idea.  For the longest time, I thought that it was my idea and I had to do something with it.  Today, it occurred to me that it is not mine, it is God's idea and I can choose to serve God in the quest for the realization of the idea if I want to.  I am pretty sure I am not God's only resource. . .Don't get me wrong, I still very much want to serve God to manifest a new reality and specifically this particular idea but I experienced a shift today in the way I see it now.  When I think or act on the idea now, it will be to serve.  I understand that I am not God's only resource and this Is God's, not mine.  I know now that I am not alone and that when I do start working on this and creating, I will have access to all of God's resources because I am serving.  The implications here are phenomenal!  Now, all I have to do is what I can do.  I no longer have to have every detail figured out before I start.  I start and keep moving and God will provide everything else because it is God's project.

I choose also to carry this concept into the rest of my world.  All of my work and my business is God's.  I am serving. The work that comes into my business is, for practical intents and purposes, a Divine assignment and I choose to do it the best that I can to serve my God

With Love and Light.