Sometimes it's difficult to realize that you have a choice in everything you do.

The movement of life may at times seem chaotic but it is not. It moves like a gigantic wave and we are caught atop it. If we try to direct the wave, we find ourselves in constant battle with it. If we learn merely to survive in the wave's wake, we become victims of it. But we do have another option: We can grasp the rules of the wave's movement and learn to surf it skillfully.

Fred Alan Wolf was born in 1934. He is a theoretical physicist and writes on the subjects of quantum physics, consciousness and their relationship. Fred does surf the wave of mainstream science; his work is a blend of verifiable science with metaphysics and his integral approach is certainly making an impression on everyone who is aware of it.  Fred's work is a breath of fresh air in a room filled with stale perceptions and over-baked egos.

As Fred points out:

Reality is not just the physical world; it's the relationship of the mind with the physical world that creates the perception of reality. There is no reality without a perception of reality.

 Fred explains how my perceptions create reality. There are many realities to choose from, based on the perception of my consciousness. I can and do live in different realities and I am in a battle with one, a victim in another and a surfer in yet another. I float in and out of focus and experience and observe my self in these realities but tend to want to believe there is only one, because I have been conditioned to think that way. Science only accepts the verified facts, everything else is unexplained theory. That means that other aspects of my consciousness are not a reality for they can not be explained, touched, smelled or seen by science, yet they are the foundation for the science that does not accept them by its own standards.

 I do have a choice in everything I do. I can believe what I want to believe and I begin to experience those perceptions. I can move my focus from one consciousness to another and surf a wave of non- physical life. My thoughts are my surf board and I choose which wave to ride with my perceptions. The waves of probabilities are endless and I ride them freely and with conviction, although there are moments when I loose my balance and fall into another reality. That is the nature of consciousness. It is action that grows from diversity and the experience of living in an ocean of realities.

When I remember I can choose different realities, I begin to express them and my perceptions constantly change. I am able to experience more than one reality in any given moment and embrace them with both my inner consciousness and my ego. The wave becomes more than one, it's a multiplicity of waves and I surf to the beach of awareness where another consciousness is waiting to get on the board.

Love of fear which world will I choose today?

I know which one feels the best,

but somehow I find myself wrapped in the arms of fear.

I feel my body being tied in knots

and my mind runs through a minefield of negativity.

It's hard to stop this world from swallowing me in the sea of despair.

I look around me for help but all I see is my reflection

with eyes filled with fear.

I was reading some of my notes this morning and found the words of Barbara Ann Brennan,

who wrote the books: Light Emerging and Hands Of Light.

Barbara was a research scientist for NASA,

and has been studying and working with the human energy field for many years.

She has dedicated her life to healing and love.

She talks about fear in her book Light Emerging.

Here is an excerpt from that work:

When you fall into fear and doubt, use one of these four ways to deal with it.

1. Express it to the appropriate people, to transform it.

2. Replace it with a positive statement, to transcend it.

3. Find the tension in your body where the fear is,

And infuse it with the rose of unconditional love.

4. Pray for help and surrender. Let go.

 Help always comes within 15-20 minutes.

The fear will change into another feeling.

What changes is your state of consciousness,

Not necessarily the outer situation.

I also found the words Of Emmet Fox, born in 1886 in Ireland.

He was one of the new thought spiritual leaders, of the early 20th century.

He had a large influence in the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous.

He says this about love:

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer;

No disease that enough love will not heal;

No door that enough love will not open;

No gulf that enough love will not bridge;

No wall that enough love will not throw down;

No sin that enough love will not redeem.

It makes no difference how deeply seated the trouble,

How hopeless the outlook,

How muddled the tangle,

How great the mistake.

A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all.

If only you could love, you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.

What shall I be: Fear or Love?

I think it's an easy decision.

My thoughts and emotions guide me to that choice.

My spirit whispers love and I begin to shout it.

 It takes unity and awareness to make me the expression of love.

I feel the energy and vibrations of my inner consciousness

and I experience the oneness of Love.

Every now and then that outer world of fear comes knocking on my door, and I accept it, and release it in forgiveness.

I breathe in fear and breathe out love.

That is the lesson I'm here to learn.

My journey becomes what Emmet said it would be, a world filled with the power of love.

Her pure and eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,

that one might almost say, her body thought.

That is John Donne's work in:

Of The Progress Of The Soul, written in 1611.

John had an interesting life in London, writing poems, sonnets, songs, satires and sermons.

He became the Dean of St. Paul's in 1621.

We overlook the fact that our body thinks, we usually give credit to the mind and brain, for that function.

 We forget about the millions of cells and molecules that think consciously about how we function day to day.

They keep us on task. It's so automatic, that we take it for granted.

Our bodies are an outward representation of how we are functioning inside; we can see how we really think, by looking in the mirror.

For some, that is not an easy task.
I know there have been many times when I looked at myself, and didn't like what I saw

. Perhaps my weight was more or less than I wanted it to be.

 My face looked wrinkled and drawn.

 My clothes looked like they belonged to someone else.

All this and more made me feel bad about who I thought I was.

 I wanted to change, so I looked for outside help, a fast fix for my weight, a cosmetic touch up for facial lines.

 I wanted to look like someone other than what I was on the inside.

 The fix had to be done externally; I had no thoughts about what was happening within me.

 I didn't connect my inside well being with my outside appearance.

 I had written it off as old age, bad genes, and some evil doings that I had no control over.

 I wasn't aware that my thoughts create how I look physically.

There are people who have been born with special characteristics that distinguish them from the pack, and they learn to deal with that in their own way.

 Many of these people are shinning examples of how we should think about ourselves.

 We only need to look at the Special Olympics and other events, to see that we can project our wellness to all, in spite of physical defects.

 These special people have chosen to grow from that contrast and become grander versions of their inner consciousness.

 They are living examples for us to learn from.

 All we have to do is connect the dots.

But what about me; How do I project my wellness?

 By external pick me uppers that are short-term solutions?

Or do I look within myself, reconnect to my cells and molecules and think myself to feeling and looking good.

 It doesn't mean putting undue stress on my self by trying to be or look like something I'm not.

 It does mean, being aware of who I am, and what it takes for me to feel good about me.

No else is inside of me, except the energy that creates and keeps me functioning in physical form.

 How I use that energy will be the difference between wellness and disease.

 How I channel that energy through my body with my thoughts will be the surgery I need to make me happy.

 It is always there for me to use, I just have to be aware and connected to who I am; to my truth.
Within all of us is that desire to be who we are.

 It only takes a thought to become that desire.

 It only takes a thought to make your body think.

 It only takes a second to change your thoughts and drink from the well of internal beauty.

Mother to Son

Well son, I'll tell you:

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it,

And splinters.

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor-

Bare

But all the time

I've been a climbin on,

And reaching landin's,

And turnin' corners,

And sometimes goin' in the dark

Where there ain't been no light.

So boy, don't you turn back.

Don't you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it's kinder hard.

Don't you fall now-

For I'se still goin', honey,

I'se still climbin',

And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin Missouri. He was a poet, novelist, lyricist, dramatist, essayist and social activist writer. Most of his work is at his alma mater in the Langston Hughes Memorial Library on the campus of Lincoln University as well as at the James Weldon Johnson Collection within the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. On February 1, 2002 the U.S. Postal Service added Langston's image to its Black Heritage series of postage stamps.

Langston's poem above may not be his most famous work, but it certainly has an unforgettable quality to it. He explains in simple terms how physical life can be hard, cruel and miserable if I accept those words to describe it. The lessons in life are in the action taken, whether it is a struggle to perform a simple task or a challenge to make sense of a personal crisis. Every action is a step on the stairway to awareness; the awareness that I am more than one thought, one body, one spirit. I am the catalyst for all I experience and I set the course of my life through my perceptions and choices. There is no luck, or magic in the process of experience, I am the master of my probabilities.

There is a blueprint that is the foundation for my journey of choices. My inner consciousness is the director of the drama I call life. My ego is the main character and it often forgets its lines or makes up new ones in order to act in an unrehearsed way. The director allows the changes and I experience another segment of expression that feels like a foreign film. The more I ad lib and change my part the more I forget the original script and I find myself living an entirely different play. I try to direct and perform at the same time and my expression becomes one of frustration and discontentment. My daily experiences are like the broken stairs; with tacks and splinters and broken boards. There are no lights except a dim flicker around the corner in my mind. At some point the director comes out of the corner and an intermission begins.

How and when I return to the original play is my choice. How I climb the stairs on the set of life is one of many probabilities I will experience. They are many stairs and an unlimited number of ways to express each step. By remembering who my director is and by allowing his actions to be expressed through me the ego, the stairs become a magnificence stairway of learning. Each step is another lesson and I accept all of them and continue to climb. I climb and learn and then do it again and again in order to remember who I am.

I am the director, the actor, the stairs and the lesson. I am the Mother and the Son who keeps climbing in the reality I call being human.

My stature is my Father's part,

Life's earnest from the cradle;

From Mother I've my sunny heart

And fancy for a fable.

Great-grandpa had an eye for girls,

At times in me it itches;

Great-grandma fancied gold and pearls,

An urge all through for riches.

These parts make up a man like me

And can't be separated,

So where's originality

In what a chap's created?

Goethe was born in Frankfurt Germany in 1749. That poem was written in 1812 and it asks a good question: What do I create on my own, if I judge my self on family history alone? That brings up another question. What family do I credit for this chap being human?

Goethe explains the physical attributes that influenced my structure and life style, but certainly I made the choice to accept them as my own. It seems my family tree is much more extensive than I realize when I remember who I really am. I do have a physical family that influenced my personality, but I also have a family of consciousness that is the foundation for how I perceive and grow in this material world of splendor. Not only do I have an immediate family to trace and discover; but I have families of consciousness to remember and unite with physically. This reunion is the shift in awareness that is taking place in the now age of enlightenment.

Just what is a family of consciousness? How does this family influence me? The first step in realizing what this family does is to recognize what I am. I am a consciousness that manifests itself physically in order to grow and expand in a universe that does the same thing. I am connected to the energy that is the foundation for my universe and any of the other universes I can comprehend. This connection is what could be called a stream or collective consciousness that flows through all life. It is more than a stream, but for lack of a better word, I can use stream and imagine what it may be like.

Within the stream there are many clusters of consciousness. I can associate the families of different birds and plants as a metaphor for these clusters. Each cluster focuses on different growth tools and I can be part of one cluster or a group of clusters depending on my cycle of awareness. I can interact with these families or clusters while I'm physically focused but usually have no idea I am doing it.

Each family has a specific intent and expresses itself physically in some form. The human clusters have the intent to grow by focusing on family, teaching, athletics, artistry, mysticism and so on. In the plant and animal world different clusters express themselves and I see the diversity that these clusters represent by how they manifest in size, color, shape and uniqueness.

The families are like a rainbow that blends together and forms the diversity and beauty of physical being and I am free to choose how I want to express my self within this rainbow of awareness.

 I can understand this belief better if I say consciousness is one enormous iceberg that has different points of ice above the surface, but is all connected below the surface. I create a point above the surface and grow and expand within that point. I choose to express myself with mannerisms and style that suit my quest for expansion. Within the structure of the iceberg I can change my point and focus and interact with the clusters that are interwoven in the iceberg.

I am in a constant state of change and growth and I move from one family to the next without ever realizing how I become what I experience. But now a shift is taking place. The iceberg, the rainbow, the families are moving. Being connected, I am moving along with this energy and sense the presence of this ever-present source in my daily activities. I feel the power that living in the now brings me and am grateful for the opportunity to express my self in physical form.

I come from a family that is rooted in love and I am a chap who wants to share the essence of my relatives humanly. 

You have three choices: keep on fighting, ignore each other, or make up and be friends.

That idea has been said many times over the centuries, yet somehow fighting takes control of a situation and doesn't stop until there is nothing left but broken hearts.

It seems I have been conditioned to think that fighting is the solution to all my problems. I fight over little things in order to maintain control over people and situations. I fight over elections and the right to die or the right to live. I fight in sports arenas, at work, in churches, on the radio, on TV and in the movies.  I watch nations fight and destroy and judge the winner and loser by the destruction that follows. I live to fight but die a little each time I do, for my natural state of being is love. I made my choice to separate from my natural state so I can fight, hate and abuse the world around me, all in the name of justice. I fight within myself; gripped in the vice of fear I battle my thoughts in order to survive. The price I pay for that choice is a life of separation.

There is always another choice in all the probabilities that appear in my daily life. I can ignore the things that bother me and cause me pain. There's no sin in not focusing on unwanted experiences. Avoiding a certain person or place does solve a lot of stress and discomfort in every day living momentarily. I don't have to hide from anything to ignore them; I can just change my thoughts about them. My thoughts will lead me where I want to go.

If there is a person or place in my world that is causing me discomfort it's not about them, it's all about me. I see something in them that is something I don't like about myself. By avoiding that lesson I will continue to experience the discomfort in some way until I solve the issue within myself. So it's OK to not focus on an issue, but it will appear again and again until I face it and move through it, not by fighting it, but by embracing it.

Friendship is the art of accepting my self; accepting the flaws of human existence that are part of my physical journey. I see these flaws in everything and react to them by letting fear take over. I find myself locked in a world of hate. Hate becomes what I see around me and I fight to get it out of my life. By fighting it, I bring more of it into my life.

 Friendship or self-love is the answer that I search to find. Each annoyance is there for me to remember who I am and where I came from. Every time I surrender to pain and allow it to flow through me and accept it with love I change that pain into what I am, a friend.

Friendship begins with me. When I unite my ego with my inner self I become that friend. I am able to spread that friendship and treat everyone and everything with respect and gratitude. I may not like it at first, but I accept it knowing it is a lesson for me to learn. The dislike becomes the love that surrounds me and I move another step closer to becoming a grander version of myself. Friendship is the gift I give to myself; it is a gift of unity and appreciation. It is love and All There Is.

Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice

Ogden Nash born in 1902 was an American poet and is best known for writing pithy and funny light verse. The New York Times said: Ogden's droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry.

It's funny how I think that my possessions are less important than someone else's. I find myself apologizing for my taste in the pleasures I seek to own. Almost automatically I compare and judge myself based on what I see others doing and saying. I feel uncomfortable with what I achieve and unworthy of any praise and merit that comes my way. In other words I really don't like myself very much, and I totally forget about loving myself in my current state of existence. I live in a world that never has enough and is never good enough. I am always apologizing for living in a state of ego consciousness.

Wit fully Ogden explains that's my choice and I create the experience of not good enough and live it. I need not explain my choices but if I do, they should be expressed with truth not the empty ramblings of a fragmented ego.

My conscious thoughts create my world and the people that frequent it. I also am creating with an ego that is self serving and that separate self lives only in the physical world I call reality. The conscious self is connected to the inner self but that connection gets short circuited by the ego at times and I find myself saying and doing things that are completely foreign to my truth. That's called separation of consciousness. I function as a single disconnected self in a world that is filled with connected consciousness.

Consciousness is energy and my ego is energy that attracts and vibrates on its own frequency. That frequency is filled with static and the world I think is the right channel is not tuned into the right waves of energy. I experience a station filled with static and call it music. My life is a series of waves that hit the shore of an illusion and I call it real.

  Everything around me vibrates. If I am uncomfortable with my world, all I need to do is change my channel, change my thoughts and my vibration changes. When I am vibrating in a state of focused consciousness no apology is needed for my choices and none is expected. The creations and possessions that manifest around me have consciousness of their own, and express themselves in an innate form of connected consciousness. I am in sync with my creations and appreciate the value of each form of energy unconditionally.

When I allow my inner consciousness and my focused consciousness without the aid of my ego to make choices, I feel the energy of the life force that is in all matter, and in all my possessions as well as in my friends. There's a sense of value fulfillment in every choice, even in the choices that produce some form of contrast I'm able to experience and express my self without apologizing.

So as Ogden says everything is not terrible and if I think it is then I should be pulling myself off that shelf of ego loneliness and let another self fill me with the bicarbonate of self love and the aromatic spirit of inner peace and let my inner consciousness speak for itself consciously.

When I was a child, I used to visit the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco. I would spend hours fascinated by the carp, who lived in a very shallow pond just inches beneath the lily pads, just beneath my fingers, totally oblivious to the universe above them.

I would ask myself a question only a child could ask: what would it be like to be a carp? What a strange world it would be! I imagined that the pond would be an entire universe, one that is two-dimensional in space. The carp would only be able to swim forwards and backwards, and left and right. But I imagined that the concept of "up", beyond the lily pads, would be totally alien to them. Any carp scientist daring to talk about "hyperspace", i.e. the third dimension "above" the pond, would immediately be labelled a crank. I wondered what would happen if I could reach down and grab a carp scientist and lift it up into hyperspace. I thought what a wondrous story the scientist would tell the others! The carp would babble on about unbelievable new laws of physics: beings who could move without fins; beings who could breathe without gills; beings who could emit sounds without bubbles. I then wondered: how would a carp scientist know about our existence? One day it rained, and I saw the raindrops forming gentle ripples on the surface of the pond.

Then I understood.

The carp could see rippling shadows on the surface of the pond. The third dimension would be invisible to them, but vibrations in the third dimensions would be clearly visible. These ripples might even be felt by the carp, who would invent a silly concept to describe this, called "force." They might even give these "forces" cute names, such as light and gravity. We would laugh at them, because, of course, we know there is no "force" at all, just the rippling of the water.

Today, many physicists believe that we are the carp swimming in our tiny pond, blissfully unaware of invisible, unseen uni- verses hovering just above us in hyperspace. We spend our life in three spatial dimensions; confident that what we can see with our telescopes is all there is, ignorant of the possibility of 10 dimensional hyperspace. Although these higher dimensions are invisible, their "ripples" can clearly be seen and felt. We call these ripples gravity and light. The theory of hyperspace, however, languished for many decades for lack of any physical proof or application. But the theory, once considered the province of eccentrics and mystics, is being revived for a simple reason: it may hold the key to the greatest theory of all time, the theory of everything.

Michio Kaku born in 1947 is an American theoretical physicist specializing in the string theory. He is also a best selling author and teaches at NYU and the City College of New York. As you can see from this excerpt from one of his essays he does think outside of the box of one reality. In fact his world contains thoughts and ideas that at first glance are re-runs of Buck Rodgers or Star Trek episodes. He believes there is much more to me and the world I call normal. There are countless universes and life forms that exist at the same moment I call now and his work is beginning to bring that into my focus.

Michio carp story is a good one, I do swim around my pond of existence unaware, I feel something within me that I can't explain and I discard it as a ripple in my memory. I try to conceal it, I even try to swim away from it but it stays with me. How can I be something other than a carp swimming in a pond filled with diversity? I must be what I was taught to be or I am considered strange or even sick. Perhaps there is something beating on my memory, but I take a pill to forget and continue to swim to the beat of uniformity within the mystery of physical life. Then one day my thoughts pull me out of the pond and I begin to feel and sense in curious ways. I'm alive in another universe that is filled with everything and I awaken from the dream I call my reality.

My life is a continuous series of experiences that happen simultaneously in the spacious moment of this loving universal ocean; I become one with it and blend into the rhythm of the flow and tide of eternity. No longer fearful of the hook of death I move through the sequences of my life like a whale or dolphin gliding freely and joyfully in the wake of infinity. I am connected, aware and free to experience life in other forms and remember them. Dreams are another dimension of expression and I am guide by each message within them. The ripples become visible worlds filled with diversity yet connected in consciousness.

The energy of my source is pulling me out of my golden pond and depositing me in an ocean of abundance and joy. I watch my old pond dry up and it begins to trickle into the ocean of awareness and peace and I see another ripple and begin to dream again.

When goodness is lost, there is morality.

When morality is lost, there is ritual.

Ritual is the husk of true faith...

Therefore the masters concern themselves

With the depths and not the surface.

Lao-Tzu wrote those words over 2500 years ago. I certainly understand the message; all I need to do is read the headlines about the state of ethics that has developed in our financial and business sectors and realize that morality is lost in a world of rituals. The never-ending quest for power and wealth has eroded one society after another through the centuries, but it seems like the lesson within this experience, is a hard one to master for the human ego. The cycle of decay within the physical establishment of finance and politics is a reoccurring ritual of pain, suffering, anger and judgment.

The concern for well being is a surface one and as Lao-tzu explains that road is filled with nothing but blind faith in a system that has been tainted by truthlessness. When I realize the system is not real in terms of morality, the first emotion I experience is pain, then anger and then judgment. I want satisfaction for the crimes committed against the system I established as truth. I want to throw stones at those who represent me and who I believed were working for me. I want them to suffer for my choices and that will make it all right.

 As Mohammad said:

All actions are judge by the motive prompting them.

 Judging is what I do best when I see how easy it is for some to ignore ethics and morality for the sake of riches. I forget that I am the one who put the system in place in one way or another. I am the one who bought into the quest for material gain and physical comfort. I did have a choice to do things differently, but the call of riches has a deep voice and a strong arm. I find my self lost in the sea of depression and my boat is filled with holes and I'm sinking in my own guilt.

The lesson in all of this is first: I need to be aware of my choices and how I perceive reality. Second: I need to address every situation by doing no harm to anyone or anything. And Third I need to forgive; my self and then all those who took part in the unethical acts.

Martin Luther King said:

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them a new self-respect; it calls up resources and strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally, it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.

Kings message of nonviolence is a core belief that exists within every individual. That is my first choice. All I need to do is remember it and practice it.

The commitment to do no harm is expressed in the words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:

Harmlessness is a most powerful form of yoga and will take you speedily to your goal. That is what I call... the Natural Yoga. It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love.

Yoga means unity. It is practiced to unite my body, mind and inner consciousness. When I am in sync within my self I am a form of Natural yoga and express it all my actions.

The act of forgiveness is made clear in the words of Jesus:

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye,

But do not notice the log in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your neighbor,

Let me take the speck out of your eye,

While the log is in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye,

And then you will see clearly

To take the spec out of your neighbor's eye.

So there it is. The answers have been with me for centuries all I need to do to experience ethics and morality is to practice them my self. When I remember the words of Buddha I begin to change my world:

Speak and act with a pure mind

And happiness will follow you

As your shadow, unshakable...

Set your heart on doing good.

Do it over and over again,

And you will be filled with joy.

Sometimes

I go about pitying myself

While I am carried by

The wind

Across the sky.

That old Chippewa saying is a powerful thought. I get so caught up in the drama of daily life; I forget that I am being carried through life by the energy of the wind. This engaging energy I call the wind; this invisible force that cleanses and clears the path in nature is part of the same energy that clears my path, when I allow it to circulate through me.

If waters are placid, the moon will be mirrored perfectly. If we still ourselves, we can mirror the divine perfectly. But if we engage solely in the frenetic activities of our daily involvements, if we seek to impose our own schemes on the natural order, and if we allow ourselves to become absorbed in self-centered views, the surface of our waters becomes turbulent. Then we cannot be receptive to Tao.

There is no effort that we can make to still ourselves. True stillness comes naturally from moments of solitude where we allow our minds to settle. Just as water seeks its own level, the mind will gravitate toward the holy. Muddy water will become clear if allowed to stand undisturbed, and so too will the mind become clear if it is allowed to be still.

Ding Ming-Dao the Chinese philosopher explains how the energy of my internal wind changes me. When I allow my inner consciousness to guide me through the daily contrast I experience I express myself in synchronicity and I become a mellow breeze that touches all the corners of my world with gentleness. My perceptions of physical life are manifested and experienced in harmony with my inner world of multidimensionality and I become a product of its beauty.

The art of blending my ego with this inner breeze so that I can be smooth water and mirror my other forms of consciousness is an act of acceptance. Switching my brain off and turning on another station in my mind is not learned behavior in physical form, I have been taught to believe I must fight, push and control in order to complete my human journey with full honors. I must be a separate being who manipulates in order to delegate and who takes rather than give, conquers rather than unify.

How then do I achieve this mellowness? How do I act but not act? How do I love and accept myself completely?

Like the wind that becomes a breeze I do it naturally. I stop the pushing for, I quit the up against, and I give up the better than and allow my self the luxury of doing nothing but being. Being a spirit first, and then accepting my journey of remembering as a school of growth. In spirit I have no form, no material possessions, but I have the connection to create all I seek to experience in joy, not in self-pity. I am carried by the wind across the sky and I become a mirror that reflects the nature of All There Is.

I am the calm water of remembering and I am the moon that shines in its own image.

When there is no vision the people perish.

That's an old Jewish proverb and I think at this point in this time/space experience that thought is actually a reality for a species that believes science, politics, and religion are the cures for my dis-ease. As Einstein said:

The present fashion of applying the principles of physical science to human life is not only entirely a mistake but has also something reprehensible in it.

Sir Arthur Eddington the great astronomer put it this way:

The mental and spiritual nature of ourselves, known in our minds by an intimate contact transcending the methods of physics, supplies just that...which science is admittedly unable to give.

The fact that there is more to me that this body, mind and spirit is making it presence known in my now. Old methods of dealing with everyday life are jumping off the cliff of reason and landing in a pile of broken dreams and empty promises. The art of taking more than giving is becoming the goose that laid the exploding egg of egotism. I see a world filled with holes and create a life that is filled with disappointment, anger and frustration. I'm trapped in my own net of greed and can't get out without using another act of fear that puts me in a state of more dis-ease. This cycle continues until I wake up from my dream of separation.

Reaching and touching my spiritual nature is my birthright, but I seem to forget that in the mist of all the physical noise I create. I forget I have an inner eye that sees with an intuitive awareness and recognizes the truth of my being. My quest on this journey is to open that inner eye, so all I see physically is a landscape of value fulfillment and learning. I accept my self as more than human and realize that through my inner eye I experience a physical world that compliments my thoughts rather than confusing them.

Lao-Tzu wrote about it 2500 years ago:

Those who are open-eyed are open-minded,

Those who are open-minded are open-hearted.

Perhaps now I will open my inner eye and allow my self the opportunity to see the challenges that face me as lessons and an awakening. Perhaps now I will be able to put science, politics and religion in perspective and realize I have created them in my own image. Perhaps now my perceptions will change and I will use my inner consciousness instead of my ego to make choices.

Thomas Merton the 20^th century monk explains what opening my inner eye can do for me:

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths where neither sin nor desire can reach, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way there would be no reason for war, for hatred, for cruelty... we would fall down and worship each other.

 The power I have within me is what Merton calls God's eye. It is an unending flow of consciousness that is filled with connected perceptions. This act of perceiving is not a passive act but an ongoing state of mind. Roger Walsh in his book Essential Spiritually explains perceptions this way:

The range of perceptual possibilities is vast and extends from what can be called paranoia through pronoia and transnoia. With paranoia we are consumed with anger, project it outward and see a hostile, terrifying world filled with people conspiring to attack us. With pronoia we see love and kindness within us mirrored by the people around us, who seem eager to help in whatever way they can. With transnoia the world and all people are perceived as expressions of the transcendent and as part of a vast plan to awaken and enlighten us.

The inner eye opens my range of perceptions and even in midst of turmoil and chaos I am able to be in the state of transnoia. I don't ignore the issues but I accept them for what they are: tools to expand my awareness and to reconfirm my true being.

Confucius said it best with these words:

When walking in the company of two other men I am bound to be able to learn from them. The good points of the one I copy; the bad points of the other I correct in myself.

So in this time of leaking banks, exploding dreams and distorted truths it's up to me to be the change I want to experience. I can use my inner eye and change. I can learn from each human experience and be discerning. I can follow my bliss and be who I am.

Kalu Rinpoche the 20^th century Buddhist sums it up this way:

You live in illusions

And the appearance of things.

There is a Reality,

You are that Reality.

When you recognize this

You will realize that you are no thing

And being no thing, you are everything.

I have the vision I need and I will never perish using my inner eye. It is the eye of the now.

Wisdom is radiant and unfolding

And she is easily discerned by those who love her,

And is found by those who seek her.

She hastens to make herself known

To those who desire her...

To fix one's thoughts on her is perfect understanding...

The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction...

The multitude of the wise is the salvation of the world.

That description of wisdom comes from the Book of Wisdom or the Wisdom of Solomon which was written sometime in the first or second century BC. The author was thought to be King Solomon although in recent times that has been debated by some. The original text was written in Greek but in a style patterned on that of Hebrew verse. No matter who the author was, it is obvious that wisdom was a topic that filled their thoughts.

As I watch the events unfolding around me, the fear and anxiety that have taken control of the financial system and politics in general, it's hard to find a spec of wisdom in any of the clouds of doom that circle around this mess. It seems the solution to this situation is not based on wisdom but on greed. Wisdom is no where to be found in the equation, but what does surface is a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of the word.

It appears the system is based on misunderstanding, selective knowledge and biased intelligence, not on wisdom.

As Lao-Tzu reminds me:

Knowledge studies other,

Wisdom is self known.

Knowledge informs me, wisdom transforms me. I certainly have been informed about the inter workings of the system, but the transformation of the system is nowhere to be found. I have knowledge, but wise is something I must become. It appears I put my self through an extraordinary amount of pain in my quest to be wise.

Intelligence is the ability to learn, understand and think clearly and logically. It is an important ingredient in cultivating and expressing wisdom, but I have a hard time learning some lessons, especially when my ego is immersed in money. Money puts intelligence in the trunk and drives away with my ability to think and understand what is happening in my world. I bang on the trunk and yell at the driver to free me, never realizing that the trunk is open and I'm the driver.

When the early Greeks pondered and philosophized about wisdom, two distinct interlocking elements were identified. First wisdom has a visionary or understanding aspect and a practical or applied aspect. The visionary aspect comes from seeing deeply and clearly, penetrating below surface appearances to recognize the complexity of nature and life. This ability comes from my inner consciousness and my ability to focus and concentrate. This act extends knowledge and enlightens my investigation. By investigating I am able to identify important principles for my well being and I develop a mode for practical living. The visionary aspect of wisdom explores my life, mind and the nature of my reality. I realize there is a better way to live and an awakening takes place.

Practical wisdom is the skill of living and responding to what I create around me. I am connected to my inner consciousness and appreciate my innate knowledge. I am connected to my natural law, my natural ethics and natural lifestyle. These are rooted in and are harmonious with my awakening to the fundamental nature of my inner reality.

Wisdom brings my innate morality to the surface. I comply with my inner principles and live in harmony with nature and society. I directly react and expand in the unity of consciousness that is the foundation for all life.

By forgetting these two ingredients of wisdom, my ego creates a justifying morality that is the root for experiencing pain and suffering. I wear my morals and ethics pinned to my shirt and take them on and off when I feel threatened or angry. They are disposable and I recycle them in a compact system of judgment.

Wisdom is transpersonal and compassionate. It incorporates consciousness as a unit, within a unit. By tapping into my wisdom I can promote and foster external transpersonal ethics, and an innate morality. I motivate and inspire a sense of harmony and compassion in my thoughts and action and my wisdom is radiant and ever present.

Confucius said a noble man embodies these ideas. I begin to live in harmony with all life. I am able to address the contrast of everyday life and accept it as a tool for growth. I use my knowledge and intelligence to connect and unite me with my inner consciousness. I begin to assess the external system and look for wisdom instead of justice. When I find wisdom, I find another aspect of my self and the world becomes a place of growth, acceptance and peace.

As the good book explains, wisdom is a sincere desire for instruction and fixing my thoughts on her is perfect understanding and the salvation of the world...

Let us be still an instant and forget

All things we ever learned, all thoughts we had,

And every preconception that we hold

Of what things mean and what their purpose is.

Let us remember not our own ideas

Of what the world is for.

We don't know...

Simply do this:

Be still and lay aside all thought

Of what you are and what God is;

All concepts you have learned about the world;

All images you hold about yourself...

Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught,

Nor one belief you ever learned before from anything.

Forget this world, forget this course,

And come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

That meditation comes from an ancient Christian text. The thought of releasing all the congestion I have accumulated in my mind is worth exploring. Why not forget all the senseless fears and useless anxiety and allow my self to just be now? Why not clean my blackboard of broken dreams and useless judgments and start fresh now? As the old saying reminds me I am my worst enemy and get myself locked in a dungeon filled with cobwebs made by a guilty mind. Why not forget all of that?

In order to be still and lay aside all thoughts I need to recognize the power I have within me. I am a miner searching for a vein of gold but I never go into the mine where the gold is, I wander around the outside of the mine and keep digging there, because I believe the mine is too dark and threatening and my tools are old and broken. I dig a hole and find some rocks that look like gold and build my world around them.

There is great value in being ignorant. I can look at my self in a simple way when I accept the fact that I don't know why I do what I do. That's a gift. I can open my mind and empty all the pride and judgment, the anger and frustration, and start with thoughts of wonder.

As Lao-Tzu said:

From wonder into wonder, existence opens.

With an empty mind I can begin to fill it again with new imagination and images. Images of a world filled with trees that leaves bloom in awareness; filled with lush mountains with pure streams of knowledge peculating from the source of wisdom. I jump into the stream and float in its energy and taste the essence of who I am. I create a world within another world and appreciate my abilities. I exist to expand, and expand freely. I am empty but filled with wisdom. The ever-present God is in knowing who I am. There is no separation just an emptiness that is filled with everything I need to be me.

The now me finds great comfort in nature, in silence and solitude and from appreciating my self. The art of connecting to nature is a natural one.

 As the Christian St. Bernard said:

What I know of the divine sciences and of the Holy Scriptures I learnt in woods and fields. I have had no other masters than the beeches and the oaks. Listen to a man of experience: thou wilt learn more in the woods than in books.

Mother Teresa explains silence this way:

It is in the silence of the heart that God speaks.

Silence is the language that God speaks and I listen. When I empty my self I can hear her voice. I open my mind and let the vibration take me home. The place I never left. A Taoist thought explains:

In stillness the mind becomes clear.

In clarity it becomes bright, and this brightness

Is the radiance of the Tao within.

A Zen master explains the road to knowing this way:

The more you talk and think about it,

The further astray you wander from the truth.

Stop talking and thinking,

And there is nothing you will not be able to know.

When I forget the useless and remember the emptiness, I enter another world. I change from a human with useless tools to a spirit filled with the emptiness of my source. I become one with nature and speak from my heart in silence.

The greatest victor wins without a battle...

But as long as there be a foe, value him,

Respect him, measure him, be humble towards him:

Let him not strip from you, however strong he be,

Compassion is the one wealth that can afford him.

These thoughts from Lao-Tzu hit me square between the eyes. In everyday situations there is always some foe ready to battle with me over some simple concept or idea. Then of course there are the foes I design myself, the sickness and metal anguish I create and never realize I am doing it. My belief system is so automatic that just like breathing; I can perform an act of anger or judgment and consider it normal behavior. I live in a world of self created foes in order to learn who I am.

The real irony in my thoughts and actions is that I feel it is my right to fight everything and almost everybody. I forget that there is really no foe; there are only the distorted values of my own beliefs. The foe is a mirror held in front of me to learn something at that moment in the now.

If one day I decided to be aware of every thought and action I performed that day, I could understand how I create the reality I experience. There are many daily acts that are natural such as breathing, walking and other automatic responses. Then there are acts that I do, based on a belief system that I consider gospel. This exercise is a form of meditative awareness where I examine my emotions and motives behind my speech. Do I try to look good, belittle someone, or defend my self. Do my intentions come from a desire to help, inspire or heal?  What are the beliefs behind my actions? Do those beliefs make me happy?

Just by meditating this way for a short period of my day, I can begin to understand how antiquated beliefs create the foes that I experience in physical life.

Buddha began teaching with the words:

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world...

It is good to control them,

And to master them brings happiness.

But how subtle they are,

How elusive!

The task is to quiet them,

And by ruling them to find happiness.

By becoming aware of my belief system, I have the ability to change it if all I experience are foes and sickness. I can change my mind by focusing my attention on me, and by valuing and respecting my self. I begin to develop compassion internally and then am able to express it physically. I give up the urge to battle for I realize I am the foe as well as the victim. I measure my self and know that the strength of any foe is a composite of beliefs that need to be examined and from that connection other choices can be made.

Whenever a sick or dying person would wander into Mother Teresa's center she saw Christ in his begging disguise. If I considered every foe and form of contrast the same way that she did, my world and everything in it would be a victory without a battle. It would be an awakening of self love and new beliefs. I would have all the wealth and all the compassion to live each moment in the now and appreciate the lessons that awareness brings me.

As Chuang Tzu said:

The true person sees what the eye sees,

And does not add to it

Something that is not there.

When I see my foe as myself and believe it, the victory is all mine.

 Hal Manogue

http://www.shortsleeves.net/

http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/

Wherever you are,

Whatever your condition is,

Always try to be a lover.

That short but powerful thought was written by Rumi 700 years ago. Love as I think of it in physical terms is a measuring stick for happiness. I'm either in love with something or out of love with it and my life takes a different direction from my choice to be or not to be in love.

Of Course Rumi is using the word love as a metaphor for appreciation. If I am grateful for the experiences created by my thoughts no matter what they might be, then I am in sync with my inner self which is vibrating in a stream of complete love.

Saint Paul tells me:

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Well, that's not the simplest advice to follow. I find my self locked in an emotional tunnel of politics and greed and it's hard to give thanks for that situation. I'm caught in a hurricane of daily conflicts and I find no love in any of those experiences. In fact, I usually find the opposite and create a hell of sorts by my focus on them. Physical life is filled with drama and pain and love is a fleeting moment of joy between the walls of suffering.

Where do I begin the thankful process? How do I get in a frame of mind that creates appreciation and love? What special assistance do I need to change my life from a dirty laundry basket into clean sheets of gratitude; where I can find the strength to overcome my lack of joy and happiness?

My physical life is my creation and I can choose how to experience it through my beliefs. I can dig into the mine of love within me and start to bring it to the surface of this reality. All the tools I need have been taught and practiced for centuries, but somewhere along the line of life I cut them off and threw them in a closet marked senseless. There are basic beliefs in the process of reconnecting to the love I am, but I must choose when to pull them out of that closet and begin to use them.

Appreciation has benefits. The act of being thankful for my food, saying a form of grace opens a door of gratitude. There are so many elements that go into a meal, so many people involved in producing that energy, perhaps all I need to say what a Zen master would say:

Innumerable labors brought us this food.

We should recall how it came to us

That thought creates appreciation and love not just for the food but for all energy that supplies it. A taste of unity in the substance called food. Then there is the exercise of being thankful for others, even those that cause me the most pain. When I look long enough I am able to find some reason to be thankful for them as well. After all, they are my greatest teachers and with just that thought I change my belief about them.  Forgiveness dissolves anger and fear, and jealousy melts in its embrace.  Confucius said: Love your fellow man, but he didn't say I had to sleep with him or be around him constantly, he just said love him.

Buddha tells me:

Don't look for bad company

Or live with people who do not care.

Find friends who love the truth.

His message is another lesson in choices. Vibrate with energy that creates a feeling of joy, find people and create experiences that express joy and fun. In that vibration I am able to give my appreciation freely. St Francis said:

Grant that I may not so much seek...

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

That's another thought I have heard all my life. By giving I get more of what I give. That's a great way to meditate. I can say:

As I give, so shall I receive.

I will receive what I offer now.

That thought reminds me that whatever I am giving I will get back in some way, so I choose what I experience by what I believe. That exercise makes me think twice about what I offer both verbally and physically.

So love, joy, happiness and appreciation are in my belief structure. They are innate gifts ready for me to open physically. I choose when and how I will change my external experiences. By choosing love all I see is a manifestation of that energy.

Roger Walsh PH.D offers this meditation to bring me in focus with my inner well of love:

I offer love to everyone

I offer happiness to everyone.

I offer peace to everyone.

To everyone I offer healing.

I offer rest to everyone.

Rumi and Roger are saying the same thing. In love I am always a true lover. In love I offer rest, happiness and peace to everyone. I guess it's time to open that closet and come out and be aware and appreciate not just the light of connection, but the darkness of the closet as well.

After a long hard climb up the mountain, the spiritual seekers finally found themselves in front of a great teacher. Bowing deeply, they asked the question that had been burning inside them for so long: "How do we become wise?"

There was a long pause until the teacher emerged from meditation. Finally the reply came: "Good Choices."

"But teacher how do we make good choices?"

"From Experience," responded the wise one.

"And how do we get experience?"

"Bad choices," smiled the teacher.

I found that little story in the book, Essential Spiritually written by Roger Walsh. As you can see the questions we have are usually sitting right on top of the answers we search for. With some mind cleaning and conscious awareness anything I fear gradually disappears. Self reflection fosters good choices, although at times the river of the collective consciousness carries me to the strait of bad choices where I find my self caught in the backwash of egotistical drama. Immersed in this pain I discover that I am the one that created the dis-ease by my belief system.

As I travel on this journey of remembering I realize I create my own philosophy using my beliefs about the nature of life and what it offers me. I then experience what I think about and I express a message by my actions. Gandhi said that his philosophy was:

Renounce and rejoice. Renounce or let go of attachments and rejoice in the freedom and delight that a life from cravings offers.

Gandhi's said his life was his message; simplicity and service were the foundation for his philosophy. By making the choice to believe something foreign from the collective accepted thought, he brought about a change in consciousness. His message opened the eyes of the people so they could review their lives and choices. In this process of inner reflection I find my innate philosophy and begin to practice it. An old Jewish saying explains this awareness:

Those who ponder upon their conduct bring much good to themselves.

So it's up to me to bring the peace I want to experience in this reality. It's my responsibility to accept my self and foster good choices. It's my innate ability and mission to be wise and flourish in well being. Confucius tells me:

If on examining himself a man finds nothing to reproach himself for, what worries and fears can he have?

In self examination I find the answers to all my questions. I'm able to dissect my choices and see why and how I am living life. I'm able to mold my self into an enlightened, peaceful human whose life is a message of freedom, awareness and appreciation.

Lao-Tzu said:

Those who know others are wise,

Those who know themselves are enlightened.

In life I make bad choices in order to learn something about my self.  The choices that I make affect the collective consciousness. When the collective thought has lost balance, a new scale appears. The nature of consciousness is to expand in action and awareness.

 As I become aware of my innate philosophy I expand in wisdom and my world is enlightened by my actions. I am my choices and I change them by believing in myself.