Among people there are none who do not eat and drink, but there are few who really appreciate the taste.

 

Confucius the Chinese social philosopher wrote that over 2500 years ago. The message that I am too busy to really enjoy anything is a fact. I'm always doing something and am not aware of the total impact of my actions. I absorb a little from each daily experience, but I am so hell bent on going to the next experience the full flavor of living is lost my in the unconscious act of completion not in the actual performance. I am constantly motivate by my belief that more is better and less is failure, so I hurry to complete each task instead of savoring the taste of the meal of knowledge that is placed before me.

 

Ancient China had the same issues as I experience. In fact one thing about history is that it is a mirror of my future and it is placed on the plate of my now. I have the knowledge to understand Confucius now, if I believe and take the knife and fork of responsibility and begin to taste and savor the situations I find my self immersed in. It is my duty to examine each experience for the lessons they hold within them. Everything that is put on my plate of awareness is there to learn from and to digest so I can expand my mind. There are nutrients in every disaster, in every storm and in every death. It is my responsibility to appreciate them for what they are, because I am the one who created them.

 

That truth is not easy to swallow when I bounce from one end of the table of emotions to the other expecting someone to tap my in the right direction and solve the mystery of my clogged taste buds. I become a ball of fear that hits a wall of anger and expects some other ball to feel the pain. I feel my course is covered in destiny and the work of an emotional creator who can pick me up and place me on another table if he chooses. Constantly at the mercy of my belief system I never taste the food of physical living and blame my situation on predestination. I was meant to be a pawn, not a king on the chess board of physical life.

 

All of that changes when I change my beliefs. Jane Roberts explains how I can do that:

 

Imagination plays an important part in your subjective life, as it gives mobility to your beliefs. It is one of the motivating agencies that helps transform your beliefs into physical experiences. It is vital therefore that you understand the interrelationship between ideas and imagination. In order to dislodge unsuitable beliefs and establish new ones, you must learn to use your imagination to move concepts in and out of your mind. The proper use of imagination can then propel ideas in the direction you desire.

 

Social change is and will be an experience that I must taste with new beliefs. Using my imagination I can change my system of economics and political justice from a leaking ship to an efficient cruiser. As I change the collective consciousness changes and the world I experience is a tasteful one.

 Cato the Elder the Roman Statesman said it this way:

 

Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.

 

It's time to be a wise man. It's time to use my imagination and change my beliefs. It's time to shun the mistakes of fools and taste and savor the lessons within their actions. I am the wise man and the fool. I live my physical life through experiences. By tasting the flavor of greed and control I learn the lesson they hold within them. I then imagine a different experience where expansion comes in unity of expression and the awareness of diversity in truth. No longer a fool I become a wise man that experiences each moment and accepts the taste and flavor of them as my own creation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a multicivilizational world the constructive course is to renounce universalism meaning imperialism, accept diversity meaning international pluralism, and seek commonalities which are a healthy universalism. By recognizing and honoring the many important differences between cultures and by honoring those things that we have in common as human beings we move towards a healthy world civilization. This effort would contribute not only to limiting the clash of civilization but also strengthening civilization in a mix of higher levels of morality, religion, learning, art, philosophy, technology, and material well being and many other things.

 

Samuel Huntington born in 1927 wrote those words in his 1993 book Clash of Civilizations. Huntington is a professor at Harvard and has written several important works concerning political order and changing societies. I can relate to clashing civilizations all I have to do is watch the news and see that drama unfolding around the globe. It seems that culture is the issue and the first thing noticed in others is the differences, not the commonness we share. Wars are waged to satisfy the urge to control and conquer the differences rather than blend and honor our similarities. A controlled state of democracy is the means to unite cultures and therein lies part of the problem of achieving what I call peace.

 

Rather than focus on the political aspects of the situation maybe I should examine the human conditions that create the turmoil that exist in this reality. It's no secret that the world is divided along cultural lines and the question is how I unite the lines in my mind so that they connect in a free flowing sense of unity. All lines need not be straight to create a work of art; all thoughts need not be thought at the same moment in order to be the same. It's easy to identify what I'm not and throw it in a basket of fear and try to control it. It's an effort to face what I think I'm not and realize that those thoughts are tainted by my ego. What I observe in others as negatives are usually the traits I wrestle with my self. The contrast created is real in order to experience the expansion.

 

Experience as Jane Roberts explains, is the product of the mind and the spirit; conscious thoughts and feelings and unconscious thoughts and feelings. These together form the reality I know. I am hardly at the mercy of a reality that exists apart from me or is forced upon me. This fact makes me realize that I am connected to the physical events, material occurrences and the thoughts, expectations and desires that give birth to them. Every obstacle has a reason for being; even the wars and disasters exist for me to discover the circumstances behind their existence.

 

My conscious thoughts are a great clue in solving the clash of civilizations. I'm not as familiar with my thoughts as I think I am. All too often they are clogged with the mud and sludge of distorted beliefs and I block the creativity of my inner consciousness. What exists physically exists first in thought and feeling. By altering the messages I send to my own body, I can change what I express to other cultures. My conscious thoughts sit on a foundation that accepts all cultures and beliefs. Instinctively I want to expand my capacity for joy and move beyond the barriers that I have built within my own thoughts. When I refuse responsibility for my own thoughts I find myself at the mercy of people and events and try to control them by forceful acts that are destructive.

The world is a picture of my expectations. The clash of civilizations is the materialization en masse of my individual expectations.

 

It is my responsibility to change my beliefs. Life is my creation and my thoughts translate my expectation into physical form. The world is a reference point and I can consciously project thoughts that conform to the truth within me. When I begin to change, my physical world does as well. I find the similarities that exist within all life and respect them. I express a healthy acceptance of diversity and learn from it. I acknowledge differences in beliefs but do not judge them. My world becomes a melting pot where all life lives in harmony by recognizing our connection and forgiving our ignorance.

 

The clash of civilizations is a drama that can be changed. It can be called the blending of consciousness when I begin to apply that name to my reality. It only takes a thought to start a belief. It only takes an expectation to become a world. It only takes a world to make me expand and connect to the other aspects of my consciousness and call them brothers and sisters.

 

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http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Paper

 

I was walking on white paper.

However far I went, there

I remained, between the print,

Making no attempt to read, of course,

Part of the paper itself.

 

She was correcting proofs

With red ink. At a puff of wind

The paper stirred, and I saw

That she badly needed

A haircut. Miserable.

 

"I'll bring you fame!" I cried.

Then continued to walk

Until before me, I saw a book,

Unopened. A fossil. I stepped

Over it and, without a glance, moved on.

 

Shinkichi Takahashi's work can be translated in numerous ways. Writing in the Japan in the 1920's and 30's was an expression of the restlessness not only there but around the world as well. Dadaism, a form of artistic revolution, had developed around 1916. It was a form of protest against a Western Culture that had chosen war as their expression of power. The Dadaist used incomprehensible artistic and literary methods to shock or bewilder the public into accepting the value and essential goodness of humanity. Dadaist works forced the observer to question accepted realities and acknowledge the role of imagination and inner consciousness in this reality. Dadaism lead to the Surrealism movement of the 1920's. Takahashi's work is a combination of these two art forms. His work has a quality that extends beyond the boundaries of this reality and it intermingles with other aspects of consciousness in a free flowing expression of multidimensionality.

 

Reading his poem White Paper is a trip through the world of imagination and imagery. It opens a door of knowing within me that I closed long before I remembered what the door was used for. I locked that door and hid the key in the basement of my mind, because it was evil and I had to believe that only one reality existed in order to be saved from the curse of damnation. While the door was closed I watch and listened to a world that found peace in killing, love by manipulation and happiness by controlling. I was lost in a mystery where life was a limited commodity that had an expiration date clearly marked on its forehead.

 

Takahashi helped me find that key and I opened the door that released my imagination and creativity in this reality and underneath those priceless gifts I found the treasure of life. It was neatly wrapped in the white paper of my inner consciousness and I immediately began to walk on it. I walked in between the print and found other worlds, other lives and no hint of death. I began to read the print and I started to remember the paper as well as the print. I slowly felt the presence of a red marker I had left behind the door, but now it was a yellow highlighter that gently stroked the channels of my mind.

 

As I moved across the paper within me I saw my ego as it sat waiting patiently for a haircut on the doorstep of time. I called to it: "I'll make you one again," as I danced across the yellow lines of unity. I continued to dance as another door opened and a book, a fossil stood before me. The cover was perfect and the pages new; there were no sign of use anywhere. I slowly stopped dancing and began to read what I had written and immersed my self in its wisdom. The book was filled with white paper and page after page waited for me to read and walk through them. I opened the door of consciousness and my external awareness expanded in the process.

 

It's my choice to walk through time on the white paper of one reality and never read the print that explains the walk. It's my choice to use a red marker and cancel anything that does not conform to the accepted way of walking by a fragmented society. I can look and never read the book that I consider a fossil and travel through life looking for a haircut, when the book explains how I can do it my self. It's my choice to believe that war and fear turn into peace and love when all I think about is the fame I receive from the kill.

 

Takahashi opened a door for me and now it is channel of connection. I am aware of every page in the book and I'm reading page one, as I glance at page two. I see no end to the book or my walk through the vastness of consciousness.

www.shortsleeves.net
http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are not poor. We are just without riches,
We who have no will, no world:
Marked with the marks of the latest anxiety,
Disfigured, stripped of leaves.
<br /> <br />

Around us swirls the dust of the cities,
The garbage clings to us.
We are shunned as if contaminated,
Thrown away like broken pots, like bones,
Like last year’s calendar.
<br /> <br />
And yet if our Earth needed to
She could weave us together like roses
And make of us a garland.
<br /> <br />
For each being is cleaner than washed stones
And endlessly yours, and like an animal
Who know already in its first blind moments
Its need for one thing only…
<br /> <br />
To let ourselves be poor like that…as we truly are.
<br /> <br />
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote that poem around 1909 and like most of Rilke’s work it is filled with images that haunt my imagination. His work is considered transitional because his themes tend to put him between traditional and the modern poets. But Rilke’s work is more than transitional; it’s transformational. He captures the essence of humanity and lifts it into another reality and then releases it in this physical time in order to open my blocked passage ways to understanding other aspects of my consciousness. He uses words to take me back to the beginning of my journey and asks me to start it again using an open mind and the gift of freedom. He asks me to feel more than my external senses feel, so I can begin to enjoy the beauty that rests within me.
<br /> <br />
I found this poem in his Book of Hours and it almost jumped out of the book and landed on this paper on its own. The message within it is as timely now as it was one hundred years ago, in fact it explains the drama that humanity experiences living the definition of poor or rich, weak or strong, by believing in ego motivated thoughts. My measurements of these illusions create perceptions that keep me a state of fear and anxiety. I find the garbage of lies and deceit clinging to me, because my mind is a trash can filled with fragments of truths that are the thoughts of others; I hold them inside of me as beliefs, until they begin to rot.
<br /> <br />
The shift in consciousness is a trash collector. All of the useless debris that has accumulated in my mind is being emptied in the landfill of awareness. The concepts of poor, rich, weak and strong are emerging from this dump as recycled life. I am able to sense my self as a washed stone completely clear of the mud and dirt that has buried me in a mound of fear and aggression.
<br /> <br />
My world is poor but rich, because it is a flowing stream of abundant appreciation. Yesterday’s stage of lack has dropped off the cliff of tainted beliefs and is absorbed in the dust of my new city. A city where I take responsibility for what I create; a city where poor and rich are flowers that bloom in the same garden and compliment each other; a city where weak and strong ride in the same vehicle and wear the seat belts of understanding. My city is an Earth city filled with natural awareness. Like roses, my community blossoms into magnificent colors of consciousness that use each thorn to enhance its beauty.
<br /> <br />
My city is the city of the now. It contains the Fountain of Youth and the Holy Grail. It has unlimited paths to nowhere, where all things exist in tranquility. It is one with nature and my material possessions are useless toys because I have the mountains, the valleys, streams, rivers and oceans to claim as my badge of wealth. Creating my recycled city is a dream, a fairy tale, a myth that becomes reality when I believe it already exists.
<br /> <br />
Rilke lived in such a city, but commuted to the city of illusions in order to help collect its trash. He continues to be of service and pick up bits and pieces of dreams and makes them as they truly are…poor but filled with the riches of conscious awareness. When I allow my self to be poor like that… my riches become my only reality.
<br /> <br />

www.shortsleeves.net
http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/

 

The bamboo shadows are sweeping the stairs,

But no dust is stirred:

The moonlight penetrates deep in the bottom of the pool,

But no trace is left in the water.

 

As you might know, this is a Zen thought which is expressing the notion of a meritless deed. It's the art of doing yet not doing; the act of seeing but nothing is seen. As a Western thinker I have hard time embracing this notion, unless I really focus on what is being said rather than judging it by who said it. My beliefs get in the way and I discount anything that does not fit into my accepted way of looking at life which is through my five senses and my untrained emotions. I allow my emotions to drive me to a secluded area in my mind and I hide under a rock of fear. After all, I have spent a lot of time learning to be ignorant, why should I throw it all away on some illogical notion that I can do something without doing anything. Society calls that dysfunctional not enlightenment.

 

Changing my beliefs is a monumental task. In fact there are so many aspects of beliefs within the beliefs, that my basic belief may not change but I change how I look at that belief. One example is my religious belief. I believe in religion as a tool for assisting me in understanding my spiritual needs, but I can change the religion I believe in, and from this change my thoughts create and manifest another me. I may look the same but I am different, because my choices and perception have changed. I did not see the bamboo shadows sweeping the stairs of my mind, but they did, and the dust of my basic belief did not stir. I still believe in religion.

 

I believe that opposites exist. I am constantly offering myself examples of opposites in my physical reality. There are opposite axes on earth, opposite forces in nature and a language that is filled with opposites. There is cause and effect, and a self and a reality, which are all created by my own consciousness in order to create and expand my awareness in this dimension of life. But in other dimensions no opposite exist, none are needed because the moon penetrates the bottom of the pool and there is no trace in the water.

 

As D.T. Suzuki writes:

 

Ignorance prevails as long as the will remains cheated by its own offspring or its own image, consciousness, in which the knower always stands distinguished from the known. The darkness of ignorance cannot be dispelled because it is its own self.

 

My beliefs form a duality wrapped in ignorance and my ego rises as the executor of my belief system. It is part of my consciousness but in the process of enlightenment it acts freely and wants to be by itself, in order to remember that I am creating my physical world through my choices. Becoming my perceptions I am an individual who is always in motion, ever changing, and never stagnant. This process enables me to allow my consciousness to open and accept this reality, the creation of it, and realize it is but one reality in many.

 

So the Zen thought is expression of another reality. The language I use to create this reality is a belief. Once I accept a belief it becomes a truth, and once a truth is actualized it becomes part of me and compliments my existence. All beliefs are connected; all truths are connected in consciousness. By letting go of strongly held narrow minded beliefs I widen the room for other aspects of my self to merge with them and I expand in consciousness.

 

 I become the bamboo sweeper and the stairs; the moonlight as well as the water. I expand in awareness and my ignorance changes to knowing.

 

As Suzuki explains:

 

To him, thus knowing, thus seeing, there arose in me insight; the emancipation of my heart became unshakable.

 

Enlightenment is a belief in non-believing. It is the dispelling of ignorance and the awakening of another aspect of my consciousness. In this process I remember that ignorance is the logical inability to know, but from it comes all knowing.

 

I Am The Dust That Does Not Stir

The Water That Is Still

And The Offspring

That Prevails.

www.shortsleeves.net
http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growth means overcoming our own personal resistances. Our usual conventional condition may be a form of collective developmental arrest. All of us harbor enormous but usually unrecognized potential for growth. Spiritual practices are the tools that make this growth possible

 

Roger Walsh M.D., Ph.D expressed those thoughts in his book Essential Spirituality. He's telling me that there is more to me than meets the eye, which is what every religion and sage has taught through the centuries. But I have a hard time changing my conventional thoughts about my self. In fact I resist any kind of change especially when it comes to my own belief system. That's my code of ethics; it's the law of righteousness; it's the judge and jury of evil. It's reality and there's only one reality.

 

I write about growth and expansion but never really explain it in conventional terms because the growth that I am experiencing along with the human growth I see and feel within my body, is the post conventional movement of my consciousness. It's hard to identify with it because my conventional belief system acts like the great wall and keeps my attention on just one side of the wall while there is another reality, which I am a whole part of, living and experiencing the wonders that it contains. I jump over the wall in my dreams and connect to aspects of this transpersonal reality and it acts as a foundation for my conventional experiences, although I forget that fact. I have to die in order to live in this reality; or that's what I'm taught to believe so I create that myth and live it.

 

William James one of America's greatest psychologists put it this way:

 

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half-awake.

Our fires are dampened, our drafts are checked; we are making use of only a small part of our mental and physical resources.

 

Psychologists agree that human development proceeds through three major stages: preconventional, conventional and post conventional, also known as prepersonal, personal and transpersonal. I am born unsocialized at the prepersonal stage and have no sense awareness of the conventional society I have entered. Then I'm gradually introduced to conventional beliefs and modes of knowing by family and friends and I enter the conventional stage. I am immersed in that reality. I feel comfortable and safe in the conventional worldview and accept my self as whole. But conventional awareness is a stepping stone, not a stopping place, where I remember other aspects of my consciousness.

 

Psychologist Jean Houston explains it this way:

 

To die to one story, one myth, in order to be reborn to a larger one... Development involves giving up a smaller story in order to wake up to a larger story.

 

In order to move into the third stage of awareness I must examine my belief system and realize that change is the only constant I experience in physical life. Growth is hard to accept at first but the temporary discomfort is worth the price of admission.

 

Sri Aurobindo India's 20^th century sage wrote:

 

This is why it is so difficult to explain the path to one who has not tried; he will see only his point of view today, or rather the loss of his point of view. And yet, if we only knew how each loss of one's viewpoint is a progress and how life changes when one passes from the stage of the closed truth to the stage of the open truth...a truth like life itself, too great to be trapped by points of view because it embraces every point of view and sees the utility of each thing at every stage of an infinite development; a truth great enough to deny itself and pass endlessly into a higher truth.

 

So the transpersonal stage of growth does require me to expand my conventional beliefs about my self. Once I believe there is more to life than physical manifestations I begin to experience other realities and enter the transpersonal stage of growth. That is not the final stage; it is only the final stage that science has identified. There are many more stages that I will experience but moving from the conventional viewpoint to the post conventional is the first step on the path to freedom and expanded awareness. It is the first stepping stone to real happiness and joy. Life is for the experience and for the joy of expansion. Joy is growth, a change in awareness and being. I wake up everyday and want to be happy; perhaps it's time to look for this happiness where it can be found; within my consciousness. Believing in my transpersonal stage opens my mind and energy that has been held behind my wall of conventional beliefs pours into my experiences. I feel happy and my sense of well being explodes in my expressions. I become more than one self and begin to live as my real self.

 

The 20^th century Hindu sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj tells me;

 

All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are of longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well... Desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is the choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing... food, sex, power, fame... will make you happy is to deceive oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy.

 

Moving from conventional beliefs to transpersonal experiences is the path I have chosen. There is no time or special place where this change will happen, but it will happen at some point on my journey. Happiness and joy are waiting for me patiently beyond the wall of dualistic conventionalism and smiling at my progress. I think now will be where I pick up the hammer of awareness and knock a hole in the wall and smile back...

 

 

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As a general statement, a thing absolutely passive is unthinkable, unless it is a state of absolute nothingness without any kind of content in it. So long as Enlightenment is the outcome of a most strenuous spiritual effort, it is a positive state of mind in which lies hidden an inexhaustible reservoir of possibilities; it is a unity in which a world of multitudinosity is lodged. Noisy goes the small waters, silent goes the vast oceans.

And this release means going back to one's original abode. The insight therefore is to see unity in multiplicity and to understand the opposition of the two ideas as not conditioning each other but as both issuing from a higher principle; and this is where perfect freedom abides.

 

When the mind is trained enough, it sees neither negation nor affirmation applies to reality, but that truth lies in knowing things as they are, or rather as they become. A mind really sincere and thoroughly purified is the necessary preliminary to the understanding of reality in its suchness.

 

D.T. Suzuki born in 1869 wrote that statement in one of his essays in 1927. Suzuki educated in Japan was fluent in English, German and French. He understood Western thought and the beliefs that manifested from the political and religious conditioning inherent in its society. The work of enlightenment in the West is the task of religion and it has been defined as the single road to salvation. I am judged as a flawed entity waiting for death, so I must conform to the man-made laws of redemption in order to achieve any kind of reality outside of this collective form of brain washing. The thought that I can experience any form of unity outside of these narrow walls of faith is heresy, and I am marked as a lost soul who has no chance to enjoy the ultimate goal of multiplicity.

 

By accepting these beliefs I tie myself to an anchor and throw part of my consciousness into a cloudy sea of duality where the righteous fight and kill the evil that I have created by my separatism. I do battle with different aspects of my own consciousness and call it war, and I experience what I believe in, which is salvation of the good and damnation of the bad. As Suzuki points out both of these possibilities exist within me and by fighting what I have created, I experience and express my self as a human who forgets the meaning of the word unity.

 

In a world of religion where unity is a selective process, I find nothing but judgment and duality. When I begin to change my thoughts about religion and the politics that are created by its rules, I open a door of knowing that has been closed by my choice to believe in the illusion of separatism. Religion is not the problem I experience; it's my thoughts about it that control its behavior. By changing my thoughts, I can still believe in the power of religion by unconditionally accepting the unity I have within my self. In order to do that I must be able to explore the reality that exists in the unknown world I call my consciousness.

 

In today terms that means using Eastern tools of thought to reconnect to my own self or groups of selves; meditation, yoga  and other means of Eastern channeling, are the new age terms for prayer; the prayer that religion talks about and teaches without the need to try and control the outcome. The result is a connection of self to self and I become aware of other aspects of my consciousness that have been waiting for my awakening. This is the enlightenment that Suzuki talks about; it is an awareness of being multidimensional and free from the dualistic mode of knowing. In order to experience this union however, I must create the separation I experience first, for they both come from the same place, which is my own consciousness. By accepting that fact I am able to express my self in unity and live all the truth that it contains. I can still call it religion, but it now becomes my vision and my own intention of expression.

 

My mind becomes trained and the negative and positive unite in the field of nothingness where I find other realities and modes of knowing. I find my self living this Eastern thought:

 

Having insight into all the world,

In all the world as it really is,

He is detached from all the world

And without compare in all the world

 

I can do that and call it religion; I can do that and call it prayer. I can do that and call it the voice of consciousness, but I'm unable to do that until I free my self from the chains of separation. By uniting my focused self with my other selves consciously, I begin to experience this world filled with other realities, other dimensions, and other aspects of my own conscious families. I change and I detach. I change and I experience insight and the awareness of my inner senses. I change and I become a mind that is really sincere and thoroughly purified in my own consciousness and suchness. I change and become absolutely passive in my own nothingness and enjoy every aspect of it.

 

Birdsong From Inside The Egg

 

Sometimes a lover of God may faint

In the presence. Then the beloved bends

And whispers in his ear, "Beggar spread out

Your robe. I'll fill it with gold.

 

I've come to protect your consciousness.

Where has it gone? Come back into awareness!"

 

This fainting is because

Lovers want so much.

 

A chicken invites a camel into her henhouse,

And the whole structure is demolished.

 

A rabbit nestles down

With its eyes closed

In the arms of a lion.

 

There is an excess

In spiritual searching

That is profound ignorance.

 

Let that ignorance be our teacher!

The friend breathes into one

Who has no breath.

 

A deep silence revives the listening,

And the speaking of those two

Who meet on the riverbank.

 

Like the ground turning green in a spring wind.

Like birdsong beginning inside the egg.

 

Like the universe coming into existence,

The lover wakes and whirls

In a dancing joy,

 

Then kneels down

In praise.

 

Rumi wrote that over 700 years ago. Coleman Barks translated it into English in his book The Essential Rumi. When I found Rumi over twelve years ago, this was the first Rumi book I purchased. I immediately read it from cover to cover. I continue to read it over and over again because I find something to think and write about every time I pick it up.  To me, Rumi's words are like the camel being invited into the henhouse demolishing my thoughts of separation and I find my self experiencing a different dimension of knowing. I am like the rabbit with my eyes closed in the arms of a lion who nurtures me instead of tearing me apart. He is a friend who breathes spiritual awareness into me because somewhere along the way I forgot how to breathe it my self.

 

A new universe, a new song, is coming into existence. Like a whirling Dervish I wake and dance to the sound of its silence. While dancing I remember that this song is not new, it is the birdsong I sang before I was born. Inside the egg of consciousness I listened and danced in unity to the beat of oneness and experience the peace of spirit. I am filled with the gold of awareness and shine in its image.

 

The shift in consciousness is about this birdsong. It's about waking up from fainting in the presence of God and coming back into awareness. The ability to wake up is within me. It is an innate gift that I ignore in my ignorant illusion called physical life. I want too much and seek the golden treasure of fame and fortune only to find pain and poverty. I search for the meaning of life and never realize I am the meaning and the experience that I seek. I wander from one thought to another and never realize that my beliefs restrict the search within my self. External spirituality becomes my mission and my ego sits on the riverbank of fear waiting for the next steamboat of logic to take me to it; one boat after another boat docks and I get on each one and find them empty and filled with holes. My profound ignorance is dipped in the waters of man-made salvation and I shiver in the coldness of its uselessness.

 

Just like the chicken who invites the camel to the henhouse, I begin to invite my inner consciousness to participate in my search for my self. This camel demolishes my old beliefs and I find my self naked in its presence. My ignorance becomes my teacher and I begin to feel other aspects of my self and accept them. I become the rabbit riding on the back of the lion and I kiss my self for the reunion. I am the beggar who now gives instead of takes; who loves instead of hates. Just like the ground turning green in the spring wind I sense a group of selves that exist in this beginning universe of the egg, and I experience them simultaneously.

 

Sometimes I faint in this new universe which is not new at all, but I always wake up and begin to dance again. I whirl and the joy of being one again overshadows my fainting and forgetfulness. I grow from each fainting spell and little by little I become the bird I have always been; the bird that sang inside the egg and danced at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

At fifteen, I set my heart upon learning.

At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground.

At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.

At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.

At sixty, I heard them with a docile ear.

A seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.

 

Confucius description of maturing motivation is a powerful message. The ordinary pleasures and pastimes of the physical world are tools I use on my journey through time, but maturity brings them into perspective. There will always be things that attract me. Things create feelings of power, fun and pleasure, but the lesson I am here to learn is to accept them without craving them. Confucius expresses that concept using linear time as a measuring stick. He helps me remember that physical life is a playground and the path I have chosen to expand my consciousness and the awareness of other aspects of multidimensionality.

 

I do understand it's easy to find things that seem to make me happy and then hang on to them fearing that without them I lose my power and identity. Money, sex, another person; all of them become my captives and I protect them at all costs. I build a world around them, a castle, with a moat of fear surrounding it and use every thought I can imagine to keep this world real and stable. I build walls lined with dreams and hopes and a floor that shines with greed and pride. The roof is covered with anxiety and the rooms are haunted by my past. Little by little I lose my self in this fabricated existence and lock the doors of my mind and wait for happiness to join me.

 

As Buddha explains:

 

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

 

My thoughts about the pleasures make them what they are.

 

Jesus said:

 

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

 

Craving money, I work; craving fame I act; craving happiness I lie. I convince my self I need attachments in order to motivate and define me. I lose my self in the woodshed of my own thoughts as the tree of lift stands before me. Unable to identify with my inner self I am restless, fearful and alone. I suffer from a kind of homesickness and can't remember where home is. I wander through my phony castle until it begins to fall apart around me. At seventy I find my self sick, defeated and I wait for death. Death is the wrecking ball that finally destroys my illusion.

 

 

Confucius teaches from experience. He allowed himself to make a commitment and he grew, not just in age but in awareness. He transcended the cravings and his heart recognized the freedom of transformation.

 

I don't need to follow Confucius time table to be enlightened. I can do that now by believing I can. By asking my self simple questions, simple answers will follow.

What is really important in physical life? What really matters?

What would I be better off doing more of? What would I be better off doing less of?

 This kind of mindful meditation will allow my eternal perspective to answer. I feel my self from the inside out, rather than the outside trying to get in.

 

The 18^th century Jewish sage Rabbi Nachman said:

 

Consider what you are doing and ponder whether it is worthy that you devote your life to it.

 

In the light of eternity my cravings and the silly fears I create are rather insignificant. I can change my focus and still enjoy the pleasures of physical life, by following my bliss. I can begin each day with this Tibetan meditation:

 

I dedicate this practice to my awakening in order that I may serve and awaken all beings. I offer my benefits of this practice to the welfare and awakening of my self and all beings.

 

Age is not a prerequisite for enlightenment. I can begin now and reap all the rewards it holds for me. I find my true nature, my true home. The physical world becomes just one world in many dimensions. I exist simultaneously in other realities and begin to understand the nature of my existence. I remember that craving is an illusion. I create it order to find what I'm searching for.

 

Rumi sums it up this way:

 

Why should I seek? I am the same as he.

His essence speaks through me.

I have been looking for myself.