Duel of the Fates

Please forgive my absence from the blogosphere (is that still a thing?) but I have been having, and am continuing to have, an ancient and epic battle raging in my consciousness.

I have taken to calling it "Darth Adamant." It is my "Inner Sith," my Ego, my selfish, separate self, locked in a spiritual combat with my True, Universal, Inner Being. This Duel rages even as I type this. It creates my world, it informs all my decisions, it makes me feel, in a word, unstable.

This is just a part of it. A trial. A challenge to overcome. I can and will prevail. I must. If I fail, I die. If I succeed, I die. Either way, what bliss?

Okay, that was a little dark humor, partly from the Addams Family movie sequel. This is the Ego's way of changing the subject. I parried that last riposte, Darth. What else you got?

The key to overcoming the selfish separate self is to become aware of it.

I am, slowly, becoming aware of it.

It is not going down without a fight.

But the key, I have heard, is not to fight it, but to LOVE it.

I have a bad feeling about this.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.

Good morning!

The ancient Hawaiian tradition of Ho'oponopono, especially as reimagined by Ihaleakala Hew Len and publicized by Joe Vitale, is an exercise in Total Responsibility. In other words, the practitioner takes ultimate responsibility for every single thing that happens in his life, whether it is perceived to be caused by him or by an outside circumstance. The idea here is, if it appears in your life, you must have invited it through your thought, emotion, or action, or it would not appear in your experience at all. This is a common thread in all Law of Attraction teachings, and psychologically, it bears some weight as well. How we experience everything that we experience depends greatly on our point of view of the experience.

The way in which someone practicing Ho'oponopono (which in Hawaiian means "to put to rights; to put in order, correct, amend, rectify") deals with this great responsibility actually involves forgiveness and acceptance. "I'm sorry," "Please forgive me," "I love you" and "Thank you" are expressions of these feelings, and are used extensively in the process. Hew Len is known as the psychologist who made such an impact on a hospital psych ward by saying things like "I'm sorry" and "I love you" that over time, patients began acting and feeling better, to the point where the ward itself was eventually shut down because so many patients had been released. And the truly amazing part of all this? He never visited the ward. He looked at patients' charts and records, and said the mantras TO HIMSELF, finding those parts of his own psyche that could relate to the patient he focused on. In healing himself, in other words, he healed the world around him. This is a true and documented story, and can be found here.

Ah, hard to see, the Dark Side is.
-Master Yoda

These last few weeks, I have been drawn into the Dark Side. My ego became strong, through arrogance, alcohol, and self-indulgence. Luckily, I noticed the change; my outside world became less tolerable, more aggravating. My "external forces" seemed to be turning against me, which put me on the defensive. And my own sense of self-awareness was quietly (as it only can) chiding me, "this is not who you are, you know...." Thankfully, I could still quiet my mind enough to hear it.

The ancients knew that the outside world reflects the one within, like a projection onto a screen. My world was reflecting a deeply negative image, which of course I had been creating, in my selfishness and arrogance. To heal, I must forgive myself.

This is a really hard thing for many people, including myself, to do. Forgiving others seems easy, but how many times have YOU said the words: "I'd never forgive myself if...?" Forgiveness does not mean forgetfulness. But it does require LETTING GO. I've never been good at that, personally. But it is one of the greatest things one can learn; when I have been able to fully release a thought or an emotion or even a physical thing or person from my life, my life has always instantly become more beautiful, more peaceful, and more promising.

So, to anyone I may have annoyed, offended, or angered these past few weeks, (whether you read this or not) I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. And much more importantly, to those of you who have annoyed, offended, or angered ME, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. And finally, to myself, who annoys and is annoyed, who offends and is offended, who angers and is angered, to myself I say, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.

When I forgive myself, I become free to forgive others. When I love myself, I am free to love others. All are one. We are expressions of the One Being, manifesting as many individual beings. The Golden Rule is an attempt to show people this Truth by experience. Love one another as you would be loved, because you and the other are in fact, One. Whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, you do TO YOURSELF. Jesus' teachings (among many others) point to this constantly, and to make it easier to understand and accept, they externalize the Oneness into the figurehead of God and/or Christ, because most people, trapped in ego identity, cannot comprehend the vastness of such an idea as collective Oneness. I myself forgot it while in the grip of my Inner Sith (my ego). But thankfully, it takes only a moment of awareness to make a shift.

Try to forgive yourself whenever you feel not-good. You'll be surprised at the result, if you succeed.

Father Knows Best, Should Know Better

Good morning.

I haven't written here in a while, because I haven't really felt very awakened lately. Things are getting better in my outer world, but my inner world is currently in turmoil.

I got a job, after nearly six months of unemployment, and it is better than I hoped for. It's very challenging for me, but I haven't been challenged in a job for a while, so it's welcome. My feelings about money have relaxed, and I'm getting more of it now; I haven't decided yet which came first (actually, I know my feeling changed before I even got the job).

On the day of the holiday of Father's Day this year, like most years, I did nothing but sit in solitary discomfort at the whole idea of Father's Day. I don't really understand it the way most people do. I have no image of "Father" on which to base the object of my paternal affection. Even my mother's dad, the greatest man I ever knew, could never be "Father;" he was already Papa. I have a father, though it has never quite felt like it.

Today, the Monday after Father's Day, a coworker asked me if my father was still alive; I said yes. He asked if I talked to him yesterday, I said no. He then said my name to me in a tone that spoke the unspoken meaning behind his use of it: "shame on you."

I knew, from past interactions with this person, (we've worked together before) that he had good reason to feel the way he did, and even to admonish me for not staying in touch with my dad; he's had some problems in the past getting his own kids to stay in touch with him. I get it. But I found myself getting increasingly distraught as the day went on. Not angry, only, though there was some of that. Nor was it mostly guilt, or even pain, but a combination of all kinds of negative emotions, all tied to various thoughts which all shared a common theme: my history (or lack thereof) with my father.

I won't get into very much detail in this medium; this is a weblog, not a diary. Suffice it to say, I've seen the man maybe a dozen times since I was 5 years old, and not a single one of those times was at his initiative; I have always had to invite him (in the cases of my graduations) or seek him out myself. I had other "father figures," but I never had much use for them as "dads".... I guess I couldn't bear to replace him, in spite of all that. But I did allow myself to love my stepfather as a dad when he came along. Then, I lost him, too. That story is too gruesome to tell.... Let's just say, I grew up real quick in high school (and I would have no trouble seeing Thestrals).

I reconnected with my dad a few years ago, but even that has not continued. I found out from him what his reason was for staying away: He knew my mother had it under control, and he felt that he would only get in the way by being around. If he only knew what good just being in my way would have done me. I do love my dad, just to be clear. And I forgive him his mistake. At the same time, he hasn't stopped making it.

So I let another Father's Day go by unobserved. I could have tried to contact my dad, but he hasn't got a phone, and it leaves me bitter to call the only other place I know he's likely to be or to get a message, the saloon. I wanted to tell my coworker all this, and so I did tell him this last fact. As soon as I did, I felt worse. I thought it would shut him up, and it did, but it did not help. The vicious spiral had begun.

I spent all day at my new job with my mind basically disengaged. Instead of focusing on work, I was unfocused, with the many various dad-related thoughts and the accompanying negative emotions that only served to keep them coming. Like, "I'm glad I never had kids, I don't know how I could ever be a good dad myself..." and, "I do know my dad's not going to be around forever, and I really SHOULD try to get hold of him...."

And my whole day got worse. I made a couple of mistakes I shouldn't have made. I got a huge, ugly mark on my pants, which I just washed yesterday. At lunch, every traffic light was red, even though all last week they were all green. Pretty much everything I saw today reflected my repugnant mood.

Then I came home and started writing this. My hope is that, with this venting, (and the EFT tapping I might do later) I can let this pain go, too. But you know, a big part of me is not ready to let it go. It's like it informs my identity. It's MY pain, I earned it. I know that's insane, but I know that it's part of my ego, and I will be ready to let it go soon. And either way, tomorrow will be better. At this moment, though? ...I don't know. I don't feel like it.

I really should know better.

The Sun is Rising....

Good Morning!

If you have been following along with me on my journey of awakening so far, you may have noticed that the blog's background is no longer black, but a dark blue. It was a purposeful choice; that's what happens just before dawn.

After nearly 6 months of unemployment, I finally have a j-o-b. It's in a field that I enjoy, the hours are fine, and the benefits will be great. I'm happy.

But there is still a long way to go. My Shadow Self still likes to poke at me, feeding me doubts ...{{you can't handle this job}}...{{it's too much stress}}...{{you're gonna screw something up, just watch}}.... But that doesn't bother me. I recognize the voice now.

The Shadow Self, the Ego, the Opponent, the Pain Body, Satan, whatever you like to call it, always sounds the same. It tries to keep you from making change. Its greatest mission is to keep itself alive, and it does that by keeping you in darkness. It feeds on fear and doubt and pain. It withers and dies under the Light of Consciousness and Wakeful Presence, so it has developed terrific stealth skills; it will even make you believe it is YOU, so that you don't look too closely at it. It will make you think it's your best friend, whilst simultaneously sabotaging your life. It loves chaos, hatred, and dominance, and can manipulate its victims into doing almost anything, for the price of "pleasure," accompanied by pain and panic that it will never cop to. It is powerful, but not as powerful as Presence.

Wakeful, Mindful, Dutiful Presence, Non-judgmental, Loving Presence, is the only weapon we have against this Adversary, but thankfully, it is the only one we'll ever need. Presence immediately weakens it, creates space around it. It wants to isolate you; so, you must isolate it instead, secure in the knowledge that you are One with the Light, and that isolation is an illusion. The Shadow disappears when you shine the Light upon it.

We always have these two voices, and we always have the choice of which one to listen to. When you learn to recognize the difference between the voices, and to recognize which one is really YOU (it's Presence, if you hadn't figured that out by now) then you are one step closer to Waking Up!

The road is long. Let's keep moving.

Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT - Why I Know It Works

Good morning!

So, it was just a few days ago I was feeling really horrible. I'd been unemployed for five months, living with my mother, who had just finished venting her frustration with me for the last two hours. I felt worthless. I felt unworthy. I felt insignificant and undeserving of the relief I craved.

I was sitting alone on my bed, trying to feel, trying to cry, but I felt so rotten I couldn't even do that. It was the kind of self-loathing that cripples; it was as though my very soul had been severed.

I had read about EFT, and even messed around with it a little, but I didn't apply it on a regular basis, by any stretch. I decided I had nothing to lose by trying it in that moment. So I started tapping my hand, saying, "Even though I feel worthless, I accept myself." I went through the rest of the tapping procedure, really allowing myself to feel that unworthiness. When I was done, and I took one deep breath, my body - not me, I couldn't control it if I had tried - immediately began to WEEP. I cried for maybe a minute, maybe less, and then, I was done. I felt better, and I felt a little bit relieved.

The real miracle of EFT did not become obvious to me until a few days later. For I realized in a rush of understanding, that I not only did NOT feel worthless, I felt worthwhile. It felt like a new feeling, as though I had never felt that way before, and I really have to wonder if that's not absolutely true.

I know that the instant I stopped weeping, I had released all of the negative energy that I had held onto for so many years, that was causing me to feel unworthy and worthless. All that's left is a feeling of freedom and power, which has only grown since. I feel, in a word, HUMAN, for the first time in my life.

Now, I'm a tapping fool. Like they say, "Try it on everything." One of the best resources to learn more about EFT is thetappingsolution.com. You have nothing to lose except your pain.

My Own Worst Enemy

Good morning.

A sequoia lived for 400 years. It lived through 400 winters, 400 springs, 400 summers, and 400 autumns. Each season bombarded the great sequoia with rain, wind, lightning, heat, deathly cold, storms of every flavor. For 400 summers, it grew, and for each one of 400 winters, it slowed to almost death. Every spring, though, 400 times, it reawakened, to be clobbered again by the elements of nature. What finally killed the mighty tree? Beetles ate it from the inside.

Like the 400-year-old sequoia, Man can handle ANYTHING the external world hurls at him, but his vital weakness lies within himself.

My good friend Dana Lisenbee told me this parable today, because I needed desperately to hear it. The last few weeks have been, for me, a downward spiral into my own self-loathing. I thought I had licked it; I was mistaken.

Now, I am consciously using my mind to be aware of what it is doing to itself, and to me, as a whole person. I'm using EFT whenever I feel negativity creeping into my emotional matrix. The only way to get positive is to feel your way there. EFT helps transmute the negative feeling into something positive. Negative emotion becomes trapped in the body; by tapping on certain acupressure meridian points, and feeling the emotion fully, the body can literally let go of the trapped emotion and you can move on from there. It's a technique I've known about, and used a little, but I'm beginning at last to understand just how powerful it can be. (learn more about it: thetappingsolution.com)

Another cool thing happened today: I saw the movie Revolver (2005), with Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Andre Benjamin, and Vincent Pastore, written and directed by Guy Ritchie, produced by Luc Besson. It was exactly the film I needed to see today. It's ostensibly about chess and con games, but it's really all about the ego. But it goes roundabout the subject for 104 minutes of total mind-warping, violent confusion. I highly recommend it. You'll definitely have to see it at least twice.

The ego feeds--thrives, even--on negative emotion; in fact, it may even be fairly accurate to say that the trapped negativity is an ingredient or component of the ego itself. The ego is chaos incarnate, a constant adversary of the True Self. Its greatest trick is convincing you that it IS you. The ego is a shadow that thinks it is the light, wants to be the light so badly it hurts, but it can never be. It then uses the pain, makes you feel worthless, hopeless, helpless, until the light is almost invisible, and all seems to be the shadow. But there can be no shadow without light. You are the light; the shadow that is ego is not who you are. The pain is not who you are; you are Unselfish Love, which is the Source of All Light.

Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him. I'm feeling better today; the Force will guide me. All I can do is feel Better Now. Small moves. I can do it. I am worthy, and I do deserve it.

Supper's Ready? Or, A Day Passed Over

Can't you feel our souls ignite?
Shedding ever changing colours
In the darkness of the fading night
Like the river joins the ocean
As the germ in a seed grows
We have finally been freed to get back home

There's an angel standing in the sun
And he's crying with a loud voice:
This is the supper of the mighty one
Lord of Lords
King of Kings
Has returned to lead his children home
To take them to the new Jerusalem
-Genesis, "Supper's Ready"

I have had this 23-minute epic song stuck in my head for the last two weeks, like a massive prog-rock earworm. So when the news came about the Last Supper being dated wrong, I found it more than apropos.

First of all, WHO CARES? A date 2000 years ago may have been wrong. Well, darn it, one day in 2000 years ain't a bad handicap, really. Especially considering the number of times that calendar has changed. Yet people do care, and those people won't like what I'm about to say.

The reason people care about this is, at some point after the stories were written, there were some who thought that the allegorical stories were literally true, even though they were obvious rewrites of other allegories, particularly those of Joshua from Exodus and the Persian Godman Mithras. Later, the government adopted the literal view, and volumes were written to support it, including out and out forgeries set amidst the rest of the stories, in order to fill in the gaps. After that, there was no hope left for the allegory. Wars based on the belief in the literal, historical "truth" of these allegories have ravaged the world for the last 15 centuries.

This isn't about debunking the myth. In fact, the very word "myth" has been perverted, in the interest of literalist dogma. Myth used to be powerful; it was poetry, with layers of truth laid one upon another. Now the word is synonymous with "falsehood." This is unfortunate, because there is nothing false about the myths in the Bible, except for historicity.

The Myths of the Ancient World were guideposts to the Ultimate Truth--that God is within each and every one of us--and through them, we can Awaken to that Truth Within. Taken literally, the mystical nature of this Truth is all but lost.

Awakening involves broadening the mind. Whether the stories of a man dying and returning to life are literally true or not (regardless of when they were written--in the case of Mithras, 200 years before Christ, and including many of the same events and motifs as the Jesus stories) there is no denying the stories' emotional and spiritual benefits. Millions of people have been inspired, with or without the significant allegorical symbolism.

...I guess my point is, instead of arguing over whether it's literally true, we ought to focus on how each of us connects to the stories in our own lives and hearts. The rest is just details.