In meditation today, I found some things.  I found truth, peace, healing and love.  The truth I found was that I am ready.  I am finally ready to do what it takes and accept what comes.  Finally I am to the place Isaiah was when he received his commission: Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”  In keeping with my latest revelation, as I went into meditation, I sought to understand my existence as a thought within the mind of God.  As a thought, I am an instrument to manifest an idea(l).  It follows then that the desire that I have that drives me and that I can only interpret as good is, in fact, God's idea, not mine.  I am the instrument to manifest.  It all makes more sense then.  That is why it seems that heaven and earth move when any one of us make a decision and are firm in our decision.  In reality it is God's idea and our individual commitment that sets the future in motion.  If God is with me and in fact, I am an idea within God's mind, who or what can be against me.  Here am I, send me.  I'm Ready!  In acknowledging that I am ready, I found peace.  A gospel song from my childhood came to mind that applies for me now.  The lyrics say, whatever it takes Lord. . .that is what I am willing to do.
I found after some time, I did not want to come out of meditation.  My understanding of Myrtle Fillmore's healing experience came to mind.  As I understood, she asked her body for forgiveness and gave every part of her body love.  I too did that (for my body, not Myrtle's).  Currently I have a broken foot and I asked the bone and my foot for forgiveness and I just radiated love everywhere around the break.  Then I went through my entire body and asked for forgiveness and radiated love.  Here I found healing.
Still, I did not want to come out of meditation. . .I saw the child in me and a time when I didn't want to go to school in junior high and I just recognized my little boy and said "oh, that is what it was like for you."  From there, my higher self just reviewed my life and comforted the little boy, the teenager, the young man, the boyfriend, the husband and the father.  My higher self noticed what they judged as failures and shortcomings.  He acknowledged, sympathized and forgave them.  Here, I found more healing and love.
Finally, it was time to rejoin the outside.  I decided that my hands getting cold was the sign that I couldn't spend any more time here, in the place of the most high. . .As I left my meditation, it was a new world that I came back to.  A place that is more honest, more peaceful, more healthy and more loving.  As I regained my place in the physical world, I heard that still calm voice "Be still and know that I Am God."

With Love and Light,
C

I experienced The most fascinating emotion today.  I was laying in bed after and decided to meditate.  Mostly because I am in a class at my church that encourages meditation and I have not been very diligent about my daily meditation. . .I suppose I should preface a bit too by sharing something else I recently picked up at a workshop with David Friedman.  David has a book called the "Thought Exchange."  The gist of his workshop is that in order to move past a mental block, one must recognize and embrace the sensation that one feels when they are at the threshold of passing through the mental situation.  An simple example, as I understand, may be if you are thinking of approaching a potential mate (for lack of a better word) and you get nervous and your tummy gets knotted and whatnot.   David says that if you just act as the observer, and you notice the sensations going on in your body then just let them be, you will eventually get through them and they will not substantially effect you when you experience them in the future.  So next time you consider approaching a potential mate, you will have the feeling, notice it, and it will not substantially effect your action.  Well, that is it in a nutshell. 

 So, back to my experience. . .As I was laying on the bed and relaxing into a meditative state, I experienced all of the usual things I experience when I settle into meditation.  I noticed the thoughts passing through and just let them go and noticed the sounds in my environment.  There was a bird chirping outside the window and my little boy would occasionally giggle or screech for no apparent reason.  As I fully relaxed, I noticed a feeling in my chest.  It was a very familiar sensation, one that I normally suppress or ignore.  The curious thing about it was that the sensation usually only shows up when I am confronted with a situation that evokes emotion.  I had never noticed before but this time I did:  the sensation I was experiencing was a sensation that I notice both when I am feeling elation and when I am feeling like I want to cry.  In any case, the feeling was welling in my chest.  I decided to just be with it and notice what it was like.  I didn't so much play the part as the impartial observer that David suggested but I just let the sensation flow through every part of my body.  I could feel tingling in my arms and legs and heat and cold everywhere.  Before I knew it, I was laughing out load and and in a split second I was crying out loud.  In one moment tears and simultaneously laughter.  It was confusing and freeing.  It was as if I had found a truth that I could never tell, never explain.  It was a high like I had not experienced in my existence.  The experience was both anchored and fleeting.  Or maybe just anchored but I feared it would leave me.  I don't know even now.  When I finally stopped, I felt unexplainable, something I cannot describe.  Maybe it is my tao?  Lao Tzu said

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

That is what it feels like.  I don't really want to try to describe my experience to anyone because I am afraid it will take from it.  I suppose that is the good of an anonymous blog.  I can both tell someone and not tell someone at the same time. . .

Some thoughts I was experiencing prior to my crazy mixed up emotions above was along the path of God creating man in his own image.  I was considering that in concert with some ideas from quantum mechanics that I have been reading.  One concept from quantum mechanics is that the universe exists as a single energy field.  A series of experiments have proven that the consciousness of an observer can substantially effect the outcome of controlled experiments.  Seems somewhat easy to extrapolate from that the consciousness effects what is observed and that somehow we are indeed all connected by something.  Some in quantum mechanics believe that we are all connected because we are simply ideas within the consciousness of God or Source.  During my meditative state, I was contemplating the connection between, as the Bible says, being created in the image and likeness of God and being a part of God's consciousness.  being "created in the likeness of God.  I wonder if that means God created man to have consciousness like God has consciousness?  It makes sense that we are thoughts in the mind of God in the sense that we give life to our thoughts and we also let them die.  Our thoughts would not exist without our (individual) consciousness giving them life.  Also, some of our thoughts have long life, some short, some have long painful experince of dying (when we don't want to let them die) and some die very quickly and painlessly.  Also, the thoughts do not perpetuate themselves, our consciousness perpetuates them.  It might be compared to the heart and breath that sustain life.  We do not perpetuate the heartbeat and breath, those things perpetuate each of us and when they stop, we stop (individually) stop.  When a human holds a thought, it exists.  It may exist passively in the back of one's mind (and probably we have innumerable thoughts existing somewhere in the back of our mind) but we birth new thoughts and let old thoughts die all the time.  Perhaps, that is what is like with God Consciousness too.  And perhaps that is what is meant by being created in the image and likeness of God. . .

Until next time, try being with your sensations, it is really Awesome! 

With Love and Light. . .

_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. . .