"Forget the Rules and Play By your Heart"

It is not passion that abandons us. It is we who abandon passion, mostly in the name of “reason”. But in reality, it is not truly reason, but is more like our fear of being taken by passion into the depth of life, which is ironically that very place we dream we could always live from. Perhaps we fear losing it once again, and going through the pain of our separation from it. Perhaps we fear being led astray by it, into the slippery slope of recklessness and foolhardiness. But are these fears truly justified? First it may be necessary to define what we are taking about when we say “Passion”. I believe the correct definition is: any emotion that is intensely felt, fully embodied, and has the power to effortlessly drive our actions. It is that emotion or group of emotions that make us feel alive in the moment. It is the opposite of “numbness”, numbness being that state of borderline apathy that many of us sometimes fall into. Our culture, western culture that is, has placed an immense value on intellectualism, and often looks down upon the emotional aspect of our humanness. We simply are not a touchy-feely culture… In fact, the mostly derogatory connotation of “touchy-feely” evidences our aversion to emotional openness and fearless display of affection. Don’t get me wrong, I love our culture too, but let’s call a Spade a Spade. Our culture just isn’t a Heart-centered one, at least relatively. But because most of us have kept our emotions well alive within us, we crave that closeness that is only human, all while we shield ourselves from it. Our environment gives us little encouragement for the expression of these beautiful feelings in our public interactions. This calls for the radical and courageous, yet light-hearted defiance of the norm which the status quo has given into, and thus perpetuates. I’m not saying we should fake it and/or willfully make a mission out of displaying affection in public, for instance. But I also think that we should take the time to give into those almost sacred moments of loving affection and let our actions towards each other fully reflect it, regardless of where we are standing. I believe it is more a question of allowing our emotions to flow through us and guide our actions, than any kind of deliberation based a philosophy or ideology. Intuition, which can be understood in this context as a kind of knowledge that has its source in our emotions, is mostly what I am talking about here. So please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we should act solely based upon our emotions, that would be folly. But acting without taking into account emotions is also folly, in fact in its extreme, it is borderline psychotic! We may believe we are being objective, but our so called objectivism is biased by the fact that they do not incorporate the existence of our natural emotions and their importance, thus relevance in our affairs. Often enough, emotions are either viewed as a source of pleasure to be milked like a cow, or just a nuisance to us in the way of living our perfectly planned life, as suppose to the energy in motion that it truly is. E-motions are really at the heart of what we create, and they inform our lives whether we like to admit it or not. Ignoring our emotions only leads us to live in two ways. Either we become completely numb, unresponsive, and thus dead, or we become deeply fearful, overly reactive, in a continual state of fight or flight, and thus lost in anxiety. Most experience these states of being to varying degrees at different frequencies. But once our innermost nature with its longing to feel alive has had it, we always rise out of it, to face whatever it takes to see that juice of life flow within us again. We all benefit from getting ever more acquainted with the emotional side of our humanness and it's connection to our very soul. The more familiar we are with it, the better we become at understanding the veritable role it plays in our lives, whether we are conscious of it or not. It helps us gain an increasingly truer perspective of the purpose of our "good" and "bad" feelings. I believe that today many people in our culture are rising from their apathy, breaking away from their fear and facing life head on. Fully embodying and working through any emotion that emerges within them, they are ready to harness the power of feeling. Because the essence of life in lived through our emotions, and they inform our outer reality by serving as a guidance system to what is good for our soul, which allows us to create a path for ourselves in this world, a path that allows for the most freedom and joy to fill our experience. If allowed, the powerful force that passion is can “break our mold” and allow us to melt our conditioning and egoic self-construction’s and conditionings into the free-flowing essence of who we really are. Gives another meaning to “Castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually” ;-] As I was writing this, I once again opened a mini chocolate dove bar; in the foil wrapping was a message that “by chance” fit right into the topic of this post. It said “Forget the rules, and play by the heart”. It made me think… it is when we play by the heart that we are flowing along the rivers within us, and they will lead us to the living sea of joy… eventually. =]

"Break the Mold"

There is something in the air… and it’s always been there. =]
Let’s call it a “Natural Mystic” as Bob Marley sings it. We can connect with it, and from it we can inform our actions and thus numinously shape our life. In the process we may find our lives becoming more intertwined and connected with that of our greater community that is the entire world. Through our spiritual awakening we simultaneously expand in our awareness of the socio-economic and political structures which have a disempowering effect on the human spirit. We become less likely to adhere to socially accepted means of dominating each other and instead look to ways of freeing each other from the cleverly built intellectual framework of competition and power struggle that it is based upon. It is somewhat like a prison, this intellectual approach to the world which most of us have learned to adopt as a truth. It shuts us off from a more real inner reality that guides us at an archetypal level towards the healing and wholesome shaping of our outer reality. But for this to be possible, we must first “break the mold” which has been unconsciously built, in a haphazard and often detrimental manner.
Yesterday as I was writing this blog, I indulged in a delicious dove chocolate bar mini square, and the little message inside the foil wrapping informed the title of this post. It said “Break the mold”. But I think it is not so much that we need to break the mold, but more like we need to Allow the mold to break… and I have a feeling that my next post may be about how that happens.

New Rules of Engagement?

Yes I missed two days! You’ll have to forgive me though, I was at a wedding… and it was sublime! However my absence has got me thinking, perhaps writing a page every single day is a little too much of a commitment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still goin for it… But before I wave the finger of reproval at myself, I think it would be reasonable to allow a mere 2 days of absence after which I will have to concede with myself that I have indeed begun to descend into recklessness. I believe that’s fair enough, right? That said, I think I’m gonna cheat a little here and count this post towards my “daily” quota. But I’ll try to make up for that tomorrow. ;-]

The Intuitive Journey

I’ve always had this intuition, this instinct that life could be lived from a deeper level, than the physical and even mental level. In fact when I was younger I naturally lived from that place, which can perhaps be described as the emotional realm of existence. It is from this subtle world of feelings that I navigated my external reality. Thus I would find myself knowing things that I had no idea where they came from. I would simply have that feeling of knowing and would take it for granted that the knowledge which became available to me in that moment must be true, which it always was. But as I grew up, it occurred to me that such intuitive knowledge was not well received in the society I was living in, unless it could either be proved, or supported by more grounded knowledge. This led me to seek to expand my intellectual capacities, and my mental depth. I began to look up to those people who had accumulated knowledge through education and rigorous memorizing of widely accepted facts. I still believe that this intellectual journey into the noosphere, and its exploration was of tremendous value to me. But I have now arrived to a place in my journey where I am going back into the opposite direction. I am going back home, and with my accumulated knowledge of how our reality works, I have a clearer understanding of why it makes sense to navigate life intuitively. It is because intuiting which I see as the mental expression of instinct, is the act of allowing and receiving inspiration from within, ultimately from the source. With the repression of the feminine archetype, I believe we as a society have also suppress our capacity to intuit. We have mistrusted it so much that we have lost touch with our sense of what is our intuition and what is simply our imagination. This is the sense I seek to regain, but I seek to be conscious of it happening this time, so as to consciously work with my intuition, and develop a feel of what it is like which will stay with me. I’ve learned that we are all intuitive at varying levels. And our ability to channel our intuitive abilities into our everyday life depends greatly on how much of it we are open to and how often it informs our actions.

(I’ll probably edit this more a bit later on. But... “It might be authentic”)

Love is the Alpha and Omega

"I am the Alpha and the Omega"
Its meaning is found in the fact that alpha (Α) and omega (Ω) are respectively the first and last letters of the Classical (Ionic) Greek alphabet.

But what is LOVE? Not romantic Love, although the most sacred and sublime kind of romantic love works along the same principles as the LOVE that encompasses it...
Seek the highest possible definition of LOVE that you can imagine. Don't worry if it doesn't sound like it's possible to embody on this earth. We can all embody LOVE to varying degrees. Of course it is not easy, the various obstacles in the way of realizing this worthy goal, all together, represent the crux of the human struggle toward higher spiritual growth and fulfillment. But in the end, the most "enlightened", the most "awakened", the greater souls amongst us, are those who will embody it the most. Because it really is what we are all reaching towards, and the more we embody it, the more people will recognize it, from deep within, through the quality of our presence and the quality of what we manifest in the world around us. We all have different obstacles to reaching this common destination of unconditional Love for all of existence. We all carry a burden, our cross, so to say... Jesus said he carried his cross for the sake of mankind. Through this ultimate sacrifice, the message that the icon that is Jesus was delivering, is that to way to ascension, to becoming reborn as a being of light, is to forgive all and love all unconditionally. I see this as a great metaphor that tells us what to work towards, and hints at the process of transformation as well as what we can expect to rise as upon our realization. As we expand to greater capacities for LOVE, we are metaphorically reborn and rise many a times, so that we get closer and closer to the ultimate goal of Unconditional LOVE to all of existence. We are like individual suns, burning through the dust and residue of our inner darkness, so that, along with others on the same journey, we may shine enough to burn more of the darkness that surrounds us. Our paths back home may differ, yet they are all but different rivers heading back towards the ocean of LOVE that they originate from.

Unexpected Length... and Sentient Characters

I don’t really feel like writing today, but I’m committed! I want to write for at least 15 minutes straight a day, and this blog will fulfill my quota. So you see, it’s all about me and my blog, and my desire to fulfill a quota! =)
But what do I talk about for the rest of these 14 minutes and 17 seconds? I don’t know but I’ll just keep writing. (and by the way I count, editing as part of my free flow writing. Maybe that is something you would wanna know, I dunno?)
Lets begin with a story… Lets see… Three words: cow, mirror, juggler.
Once upon a time there lived a juggler. He was very good at what he did. But he has no audience, because he lived in a farm, faraway from civilization. He kind of liked it that way. People always want something, and they are not easily pleased even when you give it them. So he preferred to hang around his farm animals.
“Hell, the farm animals are my audience, they watch me juggle all the time.”
(Narrator: Yeah I know, but I’m the writing the story here, so... shhh…)
*The juggler shrugs*
Anyhow, as I was saying before I was interrupted by our… protagonist, the juggler loved the company of animals. He swore that his animals were entertained by his performance, especially one cow who would come up close to him every time he juggled. It was the cow with the black spot that seemed to form a heart.
“Well almost like a heart, but that’s debatable... Its kind of like one of those ink blots psychologists use to read peoples minds. I can't believe people went for that!”
(Will you be quiet… please! Just remember, I made you up, I can just as well make you, you know… disappear.)
“Okay, okay… gosh, no need to get violent about it!”
So where was I... oh yeah, The cow with the..
“But hmm, excuse me…”
(Yes!?)
“Can I just say one last thing?”
*the narrator sighs*
(Fine, what is it?)
“Can you put a woman in the story? You’ve only been writing about me for a few minutes and I am already feeling really lonely”
(I see… I understand. You and me are sort of alike, you know? Well listen, I will do my best to think of a way to create a partner for you. Some kind of soulmate, right? How does that sound?!)
“Great, thank you! Make sure she is beautiful, intelligent, creative minded, but most of all, that she knows that you exist and are the source of every thing that happens in both her life and mine”
(That seems to be an odd request, but to be honest, I’m flattered... Request Granted!)
Okay, now back to our story about the juggler who is technically a farmer, because that is how he survives, but whatever… He identifies more with being a juggler!
So the juggler, noticing the cow’s interest in his juggling, decided it must be more intelligent than the rest of the cows. Maybe it even thinks, and has feelings. I cant keep this cow with the same ones that will end up on my dinner plate! “No, this one is special and I shall let it roam where it pleases, even in my own home, because… Holy cow! It just has to be a holy cow!” I’ve heard people send prayers to this cow every time they got surprised or were in awe at something. And to think this cow is in my very own farm!” the juggler thought to himself. So he let the cow out and it began to roam. Soon it left the whole farm area, and the juggler not wanting to interfere with a holy cow’s journey, decided perhaps it was time he go on one himself. So he followed the cow, all the way past the wild pastures, all the way to a seemingly deserted road. Then the cow stopped. So the juggler stopped too, and watched. He watched as every once in a while a car would drive by and stare at him and his cow. Some seemed amused, some seemed perplexed, others simply stared right back at the road, without ever changing their facial expression. The juggler began to wave at any car he would see pass by and see who would wave back. Only one out of perhaps four did, and that reminded him why he preferred the company of animals. Until one woman passed by in a truck, she slowed down, smiled at him and gave him a subtle wave, before she sped back up and was on her way. She had beautiful long dark hair that blew with the wind and although he only saw her for a few seconds, he could see her eyes. They were gorgeous and seemed to be like a wildly beautiful kaleidoscope with a spectrum going from green to brown. He hoped he would see her again. “But what are the odds of that happening, she will probably be miles away in just a few hours” he thought.
So he decided to go back home to his farm and wonder what life would be like if she had just stopped her truck that day and hung around with him. THE END
“What? Nooo! Booooooo!, this story sucks!”
(Hey give me a break, I’m tired of writing, its already fourty five minutes since I began, and I had only planned on writing for 15mns)
“Yeah but you cant just end it this, way. You promised me! You... You said you understand! Besides you didn’t even use the word 'mirror' yet, the story cant be over!”
(Okay…)
And the juggler picked up a mirror on his way back to his farm. The End
“You know what, you are a heartless narrator”
(That kind of made me feel bad… Hey look, I’m not heartless, I just am busy and cant go on writing now… I’ll… I’ll finish writing about your story some other time, how’s that?)
“I don’t believe you will, but I guess I can only hope”
(No really, I’ll keep you in mind. Lets call you… Maxim. No, Max… just Max. See, I couldn’t forget about a character I gave a name to, could I?)

{{{{Yup, you see it... WElcome To My BrAIn... }}}

Feeling Our Way Through Life.

“Things happen for a reason.” That is what they say… And I believe it. But the question is “For what reason?” Could it have something to do with a divine plan?
Well isn’t this Self that many of us are looking for, the divine itSelf? So if we find the Self, we have found the divine, right? And if we are the divine at this highest level of being which is the Self, then it follows that we are the makers of the plan. Ah! so now the question arises as “how do we become this highest level of being, called the Self?” Did you ask yourself that question too? Way to be one step ahead of me ;) Well, the way is in the moment, my friend. In every moment of our life we actually make choices that shape our lives. Everybody knows that.... But what most don’t know is that these choices can happen at ever deeper levels, from choices of what action to take, what belief to act from, what thought to entertain, to what feeling or emotion to flow with. There is, so to say, a guidance system, which functions as simply as following the most empowering, loving and reverent feeling that is available in the moment. That feeling could be anger, hope, romantic, curious.. whatever is the best amongst the choices available, fear and despair being the lowest. By following one’s feelings in such a way, we find ourselves in what I like to simply call “a flow”. We thus experience more and more of the living force which the Chinese like to call Qi or Chi, and the Indians like to call Prana, or the Force as they like to call it in a galaxy far far away… The hard part is being aware of every moment, just as it is occurring. Even when we are in the midst of some experience that usually carries us away into our habitual conditioned responses, it helps to be still within, so as to become aware of one’s own choices in the given situation. This is what makes meditation such a great daily practice for anyone. After a while one develops an affinity to higher and higher states of feeling, thus higher states of being, which are identified by the level of inner peace and sense of authenticity they provide. One could say it is what grace feels like. Thus what is happening on the outside is not as important as what is happening within you. Because in the end, even if things make sense, and look good on the outside but do not resonate well on the inside, we feel like something is not quite right. Many of us have gotten used to feeling like something is not quite right, to various degrees. When we feel that all is right, we have attained that level we could call Grace. And Halleluyah! Right? But until we have developed the affinity to flowing, to feeling our way through things, we will be brought down by the programming of our past conditioning to a state lesser that where we could be and need to be. And the programming is really good! It is so good that sometimes we may feel that grace within, be in that place of peace and love, and yet move out of it because our external world does not validate it, because maybe we think it would make us “crazy”. But if you think about it, what is insane is to compromise authentic inner peace and well-being to conform to some outer structure, social or otherwise. Instead why not just remain in this higher state of being and watch the external world eventually conform and align with this inner state made of a higher, and more beautiful Truth.

An Uncertain Beginning

I am going to start writing the morning pages again. They don’t have to be morning pages, I believe. They can be "anytime of the day" pages. I will simply write whatever I feel like writing. The only idea is that I make sure that I am paying attention to my emotions as I write. Also I’d like to pay attention to the flow. Am I stopping to think? How often am I having long spurts of interrupted inspiration? What is happening during this time? What is getting me distracted from this flow? As I was writing this, it occurred to me that I could make it into a blog. But will writing this as a blog distract me from the purpose of writing authentically? I don’t think it will…
“A blog about what?” You may ask. Well, a blog about simply being, I suppose… I don’t know what this blog is about… But I have ideas.... I have some rules that seem to be coming to mind. For one, I want to make sure anyone can read it. Which to me means that what I write needs to be both tasteful and true. “Do you mean, no fiction then?” You may ask. Absolutely not! There is going to be lots of fiction, I would like to imagine. But I will endeavor that everything I post may come from the heart.
I hope this turns into something interesting. =]