Waking up as a little boy the excitement for the day’s adventure pumped through my veins and lit up my eyes. I’d look out the window at the bright sunshine, the hay fields, and the expansive blue skies and magical clouds. Once out in the freedom of the day, with no responsibilities, I’d hop, skip, jump, and run with joy, wonder, and excitement. Somewhere along the way, I began to remember and learnt about cause and effect.

Suddenly, some limitations came into existence. Continuing to grow and mature, I learnt to reason and apply my own critical thinking to situations that may or may not happen. I was creating a new reality within the context of my mind and my past experiences. The horror!

Now, with another level of awareness that has developed, the spiritual awareness, it’s like walking the tight rope between this world we live and work in, and the uninhibited freedom of a child at play. There is something more to this experience of life. We are not just conditioned beasts of labour and love. We are not just confined to living a life sentence in suburbia. There is, and always was, so much more available to us. It exists everywhere, including suburbia, at work, in the mundane, at the most extraordinary and ordinary. The only way I can explain the discovery is to dance.

One day hopeful, the other day destitute, one day in love, the next day hateful, one moment playful, the next moment serious, and one day success, the next day failure. We’re constantly moving and changing. The only constant is the silence, the stillness, the quiet place deep inside where spirit connects spirit. We feel it in the closest moments of intimacy with family or significant others. It is experienced in the greatest profound moment of joy and all words, all senses, all comprehension has escaped us. There is nothing left to figure out, there is only to forget.

Everyday we would do well to forget many of the happenings of our yesterday. No bias, no fear, no limitations, no expectations, just wonder. Wonder and curiosity accompanied by joy and love. This intrigues me greatly. How would tomorrow look? How would my world interact? This ideal leads me to believe that more is available for all of us. As an idealist, many things I say may seem unattainable. This is the peak possibility, of that there is no doubt. While the ideal is beautiful, any measure or occurrence of that ideal is welcome; a grain of salt to flavor each day for a fantastic experience of life. Each day, I need to be that grain of salt too, and dance!

Let’s talk about God, baby.
It’s all about You and Me.
There’s always more to see.

God is simply a word of convenience. I use it regularly for that simple purpose. Unfortunately, the word literally robs the fullest extent of possibilities. How can a word have so much power as to steal away the magnitude of what it represents?

Propaganda, egoism, war, religion, culture, politics, greed, corruption, power, fame, and I’m sure a host of other human sins could easily be that trigger. So much has been done… In the name of God… ignoring the vast nature of whom they took for granted. And God didn’t care. I’m sorry if this seems offensive.

I’ve found that something of this magnitude which represents so much more than just a human being on one planet in an entire Universe — and then maybe more — could not possibly be concerned with having to care for a system of Life that functions exactly as it should. In other words, things work exactly how they are supposed to work.

God, Life, Creator, Source, Universe, Existence, Light, Love, Energy, Allah, and I suspect some others, all lead to and refer to the same thing. A mystical force, unseen by the naked eye, often times felt and experienced in a way that is very personal and internal, that transcends and is spoken about in all corners of the world, all cultures, all languages, and has done so since the beginning of time.

What is it? An experience of something far bigger than we are, that creates and gives life, that we are a part of, and that there is still so much more mystery (knowledge) to gain, explore, and acquire before we may ever come close to having a definitive answer. And even then, I’m sure it could be challenged.

It is not a creature of feeling in the way you and I are; it is far bigger than that and encompasses that life-force-energy that drives our sexual and creative urges at their highest peaks, and most likely it experiences / delivers / creates / something, of that force on its’ own accord every second of our up-and-down experience. How?

The simplest answer, the easiest to untangle, is to broaden the concept in our own mind and sum it up with simple words that represent so much in our understanding and experience. Everything that is good, from our experience, represents a fraction of insignificance, in relation to the enormous nature of that entity, easily represented by Existence and/or Universe. Exactness, at that magnitude, doesn’t require precision for our mind to grasp.

Rather than disputing this, I say embrace this common, tribal root level worldwide belief, or better yet, understanding. To help keep the mind open, try not to make it any more difficult to explain than the experience of the wind. To not yet be able to see it, other than through its’ force. However, if it be force, recognize that mysterious force that always sustains and guides life.

Isn’t there something mystical about it?

By the way, my recent experiences suggest this is in some fashion true. In particular, overcoming the quibbling nature of what the differences are that have been dividing everyone for so long, I let science open a way of integrating this idea. This allowed me to accept more, experience more gratitude, see more opportunity, ride the challenging waves, and so much more. The weirder part is how much more exact, and almost perfect everything seems to be. It’s just weird, okay?

Just some thoughts….. nothing hard and fast.

Lee

Need I say more?

Dealing with the turbulence that comes often with changes, I can lose my cool, lose my patience, lose my calm, lose my mind, and even lose my way. This happens as the physical calm of routine vanishes and the mind enforces new routines and both the mental and physical aspects of our experience need to adjust. Fancy explanation for the jitters. So what the heck can you do to weather the storm while the transition is underway?

What did I say already? Hang on!!

Duh! Seems like pretty loopy advice, doesn’t it? Oops, sorry about stating the obvious. Hang on? Hang onto what? Well, as I’ve come to see it, hang on to the present moment. Every time I freak it seems to be when I start worrying about tomorrow, how it will work out, whether I’ve got the chops for it, and on and on. Whenever I catch my emotions and thoughts embarking upon the freight train of worry, I’ve got to haul out the Stay Calm Conductor to delay that train.

“Halt!!!” he hollers, and the emotions and thoughts ready to run amok are put back into park, sent out to pasture, and I use whatever mind-trick my imagination can creatively use at any given moment. Hang on to the present moment, to NOW…. there is and never will be any other time. This is the place that you win the battles that eventually help you to win the war.

Funny side thought. Some people get critical when I use negatively charged words (like fight, battle, war) and yet that is exactly what we do within our own mind, between each other, and around the world everyday. Maybe if we could come to terms with that on all levels – namely the internal battles we all face – maybe then we could start securing peace around the world.

The conflicted craziness that observes our current cultural and societal reality tears at the heart and mind from time-to-time. Today, being pointed to one of Einstein’s writings, I picked the following that resonates with a strong value I hold dear.

The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

Reading further, his lifetime having witnessed the worst of man’s nightmares and tragedies, including his own hand involved with creating a force of such destructive power, Albert Einstein shares a perspective that he holds passionately. He is not alone.

“This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor… This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!

In American Beauty, Kevin Spacey narrates his story. Upon his death, his narration describes a perspective and overwhelming sensation that life is so beautiful that it causes his heart to feel ready to burst.

For some reason, reading the following excerpt, I feel as though this is a piece of the mystery shared by Einstein that has also given me experiences of similar nature.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man… I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”

I’ve struggled for years with religions, new age, spirituality, and whatever the Truth is supposed to represent. After years of toil, exploration, delving through the inner and outer as described by Einstein in his own reflections, I’ve reached much the same conclusion. I believe today we have access to more insight from science than was available to him, though I suspect his intimacy with the subject has him standing on far more solid ground with faith and the art of living faith than most in society today.

There is always so much more…

Lester Burnham, narrating his observations after death in the final moments of the film, American Beauty, says,

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there is so much beauty in the world.

Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.

You have no idea of what I’m talking about I’m sure. But don’t worry, you will some day.

Do you have the courage to let go, to flow, and to grow in gratitude?

Remember that each person and event may possess a precious gem hidden inside. Make a conscious effort to find it. Challenge yourself and discover what is good about every relationship. Practice looking at the world through the eyes of the Divine, whatever that may be for you. Allow your imagination to perceive the spiritual or evolutionary potential in every person and experience.

Look with the eye of a loving parent or companion upon the people and things you come into contact with. Make a conscious decision to approve of and delight in even the quirky developments that make the world turn. No one can be perfect at such unconditional acceptance, and yet the practice will sweeten your day to day life. Your magnetism will increase and more loving people may enter your life. The whole world will benefit as this becomes second nature to you.

Quotes

“Love cures people—both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” ~ Dr. Karl A. Menninger

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to enhance all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

“We do not wish to be better than we are, but more fully what we are.” ~ V.S. Pritchett

“The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.” ~ Mark Twain

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” ~ Mark Twain

“These then are my last words to you: be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.” ~ William James

“I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind, and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.” ~ John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.” ~ William Falkner – Nobel Prize Banquet speech after recieving the Nobel Prize for Literature (10 December 1950)

“To accomplish great things, you must not only act but also dream, not only dream but also believe.” ~ Anatole France

In summary, the acknowledgement

• that we are spiritual beings (meaning more than meets the eye),
• the power of love, the effort to master love and pain to be endured in loving,
• our journey through life to truly discover who we came here to be,
• the nature and truth about the value and importance of humankind’s inter-dependence,
• our unique power as creative-beings to have more creative power and ability for our future than we truly realize….

Now you may have noticed a couple of quotes, mainly from Mark Twain, demonstrating a darker side to man. That is important in the list as well; without the awareness and acknowledgement of our darker side, we are never truly free from it’s prison. It is in embracing your darkness that you can erase the shadows by exposing them to the light. Love yourself, accept yourself, forgive yourself, and subsequently empower yourself.

Struggling with ‘where to post’ content from the old site onto the new site, I find myself torn between the blog versus creating a static page. The blog won out.

About Visualization

When we were young children we would dream without censorship. This gave us a creative edge and an ability to absorb, learn, and create at amazing rates. Becoming bogged by the stresses and worries of life, as adults we lose that edge. Practicing visualization, or meditation of your own choosing, develops a trust in Life, that essence of state-of-mind closest to that of a child. This trust and faith clears the obstacles to your creative freedom.

Try a Simple Beginning

Read the following description of a simple experience of visualization that I sometimes use. Get as much of an idea of what you want to experience and how much you can absorb, remembering to ground yourself. Then proceed with your own journey. There is no right and wrong, there is only the beginning and the growth.

I close my eyes and close my mind to the reality we have come to accept. I enter the state of Being; a state of feeling / sensing a void and energy. The energy that I am and am a part of.

Relaxing into this new reality of quantum physics, allowing my sensors to experience existence on an energetic level, I become infused with the knowing of connection to a source of existence beyond my self-identity. I am a part of it, it is a part of me.

I am no longer a fish alone in a big sea, I am now part of that big sea; I am that big sea. The big sea is there for me, to protect and support me as I place my intention on being supported in my life, goals, and circumstances.

I imagine my day yet to be created, thereby forming the building blocks for a new reality not yet manifested on the physical plane, accepting the support of the universe to co-create my life purpose.

The connection infuses the body with increased levels of energy, increased levels of sensitivity, and increased awareness. The openness prepares my mind to embrace the coincidental encounters of the day, yielding new opportunities for my benefit.

The sensitivity experienced, translates to a bodily sense of sensuality and eroticism; strange but true. Until I began increasing my sensitivity to the spiritual through meditation, I would have laughed. I now encourage you to bring this richness to your life.