Loneliness and The Metaphor for My Current Life
The metaphor I've been playing with for myself recently is "a finger on the hand of God/Spirit." (I'm not even sure just what I believe about "God" or "Spirit", by the way, but this metaphor has been an interesting vantage point from which to view the current circumstances of my life and ponder the true nature of reality.) If one finger is flailing around in its constant efforts to control and push its one finger agenda, how can he possibly be aware of, let alone in sync with, what the hand of God is doing...? (let alone the arm or body!)
If I can let go and truly surrender my will and trust--ie, "be still" or "just be" long enough--won't that enable me to truly feel/sense/see what the divine hand is doing and be "in the harmonious flow" with the divine plan as it's unfolded? Better yet, won't that also allow me to relax, stop efforting and struggling at life, and just sit back and enJoy the divine ride downstream, with the current (rather than trying endlessly to "get there" via pushing the river or trying to swim upstream against the current)....
...and when I see the tip of my finger has been brought in contact with something or someone in the world that's "itching," I'll then exert effort to kindly flex and wiggle my metaphorical fingernails (my gifts/skills/love/compassion) until the itch is suitably scratched. Or, perhaps there's no itch at all, but I merely respond to what life has brought me today by being as authentically "mySelf" as I can in relation to this person or situation I find before me.
Carolyn Myss says that, "Becoming conscious is the capacity to enter into and live with the mystery full time." So, how far can I go...how much can I "take my hands off the wheel" of my life...and let go into the mystery as it unfolds...before I freak out and need to go running back to (the illusion of) being in control of my life again...?
Buddha/Jesus, weren't they highly conscious souls...both with "magical powers" and living in the flow and spirit of the divine mystery, rather than trying to exert their own will upon it? If God/Spirit/My Higher Self were to provide me a divine signpost to light the way to my path/purpose within the higher scheme of the divine agenda, what would that signpost be...? Well, if I were to ask the Damselfly, it would say to me, "What would you like it to be, Rich?" To which, I'd reply, "Joy and Magic and Passion and Excitement."
Talk about Simplicity! Living in this way, there's only ever one question, one most ask in any situation, "What words/actions in this moment *feel* most joyful/exciting/magical to me?" Then, life reduces, simply, to following the magical path of my joy/excitement...and summoning the courage to say "No" to all other decisions/actions...while, of course, trusting that "the fate of one is the fate of all".... Ie, by each of us following our own highest path, we will become our perfect "shape" to fit beautifully in with all the other "puzzle pieces" of the "divine collage" as it unfolds....
(Now, I'm not saying that my answer has to be anyone else's answer...nor theirs mine. But, if we truly are free to create our own reality, this is the one I'm about inviting/creating now: Joy, Magic, Passion, Excitement. Quite frankly, I've really become painfully _bored_ living the fear-based life of control and effort and struggle and worry and perceived lack...which is the other reason I've really become disinterested in "general life coaching"...since I think I've finally defined my niche as a coach: Working with people who really no kidding want to make their lives about awakening the magic of co-creating the absolute highest reality they can possibly imagine...co-creating with the Divine Intelligence, that is...with me serving as a sort of mid-wife or facilitator.)
Do you think it's magical to have such an atrocious set of challenging and disheartening circumstances go down for my recent Puerto Rico trip, yet to be largely "untouched" and even somewhat grateful, as if I were protected/blessed by the belief that this is *exactly* the experience I was meant to have? Not only did the Divine Intelligence very clearly say, "Rich, I don't want you in Puerto Rico and I don't want you with Carmen"...but in the process, She also taught me that I don't need to dive in so far, that I could accomplish the same by just dipping my toe in a bit (saving time/energy and moving me faster toward wherever that open door awaits me)...to see if that path is an closed door...or an open one as evidenced by the magical synchronistic flow with the emotional backdrop of joyful excitement.
Another gift of my Puerto Rican ordeal: I also managed to practice stepping "back into myself" to try to find the receiver/experiencer of what was happening (as John Astin suggested to me when I asked him about depression at the "Gift of Silence" gathering at his house last month), saying to myself, "Wow, look at this that "the awareness" or "my spirit" gets to experience...how does it feel, smell, taste, sound...?
I've already declared my intention with the name of my website/business...and how else am I going to awaken unseen magic but by truly listening to a higher will/intelligence and making space in my life/mind/energy for that divine magic to work through me? How far can I let go and trust and surrender my free will to God/Spirit's higher will...ie, how fully conscious of the divine magic can I become by entering into and living with the mystery full time?
I really don't know. But, I think that the only real limiting factor is my fear (and the limiting beliefs/assumptions that come out of that fear). And, aren't almost all fears just "fear of death" in the end?
The Abraham teachers of Abraham-Hicks say, "The Basis of Your Life is Freedom; the Purpose of Your Life is Joy." And what if the only thing that really needs to change to experience that are my fear-based/limiting beliefs? (So much easier than trying to change the external world, circumstances and other people!)
In my heart, I REALLY long to feel and be one with Spirit/God/Higher Intelligence...I really, more than anything else right now, want to experience the divine light/presence.... And, how can that inner knowing be wrong?
(Interesting to notice that I'm definitely changing: I used to long for respect/approval, success/prestige, money/toys, women/sex, love/relationship, etc. And, with years of effort and sacrifice, I experienced all those things! Yet over and over, like glass after glass of salt water in a spiritual desert, each failed to quench my existential thirst for more than a relatively brief bit of time...and just left me thirstier and thirstier after each hard-earned glass.)
So, I'm trying to align the priorities of my actions/choices with the magnitude of my heart's desire for "something truly magical". I've been asking myself my entire life, "What is my life really worth? What would I be willing to trade it for it? For what would I give my life, even die for?" Well, I think having my life infused by magic via a conscious, genuine, continuing experience of connecting with a Truly Higher Intelligence is one thing I'd be willing to put my life on the line for.
Who knows, maybe death is just a portal to inconceivably higher dimensions of being, cleverly cloaked by our mortal fears? Yet, each time I've let go and truly faced death there was some divine intervention (sometimes truly magical as in the case with Jenn astro-projecting into my car from a dream thousands of miles away to help me get home safely that night I blacked out behind the wheel years ago driving from San Francisco to Palo Alto). This also felt like I got to see the hand of God at work. It said, pretty clearly, "No, Rich, I still want you there in the Earthly dimension."
It seems, now, that what Spirit/God seems to be wanting is for me to experience loneliness. Or, is the equation I'm learning really that "loneliness" = "freedom" + "fear" ? With some basic math, that becomes "freedom" = "loneliness" - "fear"? (Finally, a practical use for all that algebra I studied! ;-) And does "union with God/Spirit" = "freedom" + "consciousness"?
Mother Theresa said, "I know God would never give me anything I couldn't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." Love that.
If there's one thing I learned from sitting in silence for 10 days at the Vipassana retreat last year, it's that every experience (which is just a set of sensations) is temporary...like bubbles arising in a glass of soda which float to the surface of consciousness, stay there for awhile, and then pass away, making space for next bubble to arise....
So, I know this lonely period of "letting go" is temporary...and that I can make it through it. Then, for what higher purpose could it be that I'm meant to be experiencing such a profound amplification of aloneness, both personally and otherwise (coaching, teaching yoga/meditation in the juvenile halls, both bands I'm in, technical contracts, several close friendships, etc. all fading away simultaneously)?
If I were to look up the hand to see the movement of God's arm, would I find the arm is moving the hand/finger away from these other things/people since it's the shortest path to Him from where I am now (perhaps, even, in direct response to the desire in my heart)? Or that it's the best path to some other divine experience that I can't even conceive of now--one which my Higher Self, aware of the whole picture, already gladly paid the price of loneliness for...?!?
If I can let go and truly surrender my will and trust--ie, "be still" or "just be" long enough--won't that enable me to truly feel/sense/see what the divine hand is doing and be "in the harmonious flow" with the divine plan as it's unfolded? Better yet, won't that also allow me to relax, stop efforting and struggling at life, and just sit back and enJoy the divine ride downstream, with the current (rather than trying endlessly to "get there" via pushing the river or trying to swim upstream against the current)....
...and when I see the tip of my finger has been brought in contact with something or someone in the world that's "itching," I'll then exert effort to kindly flex and wiggle my metaphorical fingernails (my gifts/skills/love/compassion) until the itch is suitably scratched. Or, perhaps there's no itch at all, but I merely respond to what life has brought me today by being as authentically "mySelf" as I can in relation to this person or situation I find before me.
Carolyn Myss says that, "Becoming conscious is the capacity to enter into and live with the mystery full time." So, how far can I go...how much can I "take my hands off the wheel" of my life...and let go into the mystery as it unfolds...before I freak out and need to go running back to (the illusion of) being in control of my life again...?
Buddha/Jesus, weren't they highly conscious souls...both with "magical powers" and living in the flow and spirit of the divine mystery, rather than trying to exert their own will upon it? If God/Spirit/My Higher Self were to provide me a divine signpost to light the way to my path/purpose within the higher scheme of the divine agenda, what would that signpost be...? Well, if I were to ask the Damselfly, it would say to me, "What would you like it to be, Rich?" To which, I'd reply, "Joy and Magic and Passion and Excitement."
Talk about Simplicity! Living in this way, there's only ever one question, one most ask in any situation, "What words/actions in this moment *feel* most joyful/exciting/magical to me?" Then, life reduces, simply, to following the magical path of my joy/excitement...and summoning the courage to say "No" to all other decisions/actions...while, of course, trusting that "the fate of one is the fate of all".... Ie, by each of us following our own highest path, we will become our perfect "shape" to fit beautifully in with all the other "puzzle pieces" of the "divine collage" as it unfolds....
(Now, I'm not saying that my answer has to be anyone else's answer...nor theirs mine. But, if we truly are free to create our own reality, this is the one I'm about inviting/creating now: Joy, Magic, Passion, Excitement. Quite frankly, I've really become painfully _bored_ living the fear-based life of control and effort and struggle and worry and perceived lack...which is the other reason I've really become disinterested in "general life coaching"...since I think I've finally defined my niche as a coach: Working with people who really no kidding want to make their lives about awakening the magic of co-creating the absolute highest reality they can possibly imagine...co-creating with the Divine Intelligence, that is...with me serving as a sort of mid-wife or facilitator.)
Do you think it's magical to have such an atrocious set of challenging and disheartening circumstances go down for my recent Puerto Rico trip, yet to be largely "untouched" and even somewhat grateful, as if I were protected/blessed by the belief that this is *exactly* the experience I was meant to have? Not only did the Divine Intelligence very clearly say, "Rich, I don't want you in Puerto Rico and I don't want you with Carmen"...but in the process, She also taught me that I don't need to dive in so far, that I could accomplish the same by just dipping my toe in a bit (saving time/energy and moving me faster toward wherever that open door awaits me)...to see if that path is an closed door...or an open one as evidenced by the magical synchronistic flow with the emotional backdrop of joyful excitement.
Another gift of my Puerto Rican ordeal: I also managed to practice stepping "back into myself" to try to find the receiver/experiencer of what was happening (as John Astin suggested to me when I asked him about depression at the "Gift of Silence" gathering at his house last month), saying to myself, "Wow, look at this that "the awareness" or "my spirit" gets to experience...how does it feel, smell, taste, sound...?
I've already declared my intention with the name of my website/business...and how else am I going to awaken unseen magic but by truly listening to a higher will/intelligence and making space in my life/mind/energy for that divine magic to work through me? How far can I let go and trust and surrender my free will to God/Spirit's higher will...ie, how fully conscious of the divine magic can I become by entering into and living with the mystery full time?
I really don't know. But, I think that the only real limiting factor is my fear (and the limiting beliefs/assumptions that come out of that fear). And, aren't almost all fears just "fear of death" in the end?
The Abraham teachers of Abraham-Hicks say, "The Basis of Your Life is Freedom; the Purpose of Your Life is Joy." And what if the only thing that really needs to change to experience that are my fear-based/limiting beliefs? (So much easier than trying to change the external world, circumstances and other people!)
In my heart, I REALLY long to feel and be one with Spirit/God/Higher Intelligence...I really, more than anything else right now, want to experience the divine light/presence.... And, how can that inner knowing be wrong?
(Interesting to notice that I'm definitely changing: I used to long for respect/approval, success/prestige, money/toys, women/sex, love/relationship, etc. And, with years of effort and sacrifice, I experienced all those things! Yet over and over, like glass after glass of salt water in a spiritual desert, each failed to quench my existential thirst for more than a relatively brief bit of time...and just left me thirstier and thirstier after each hard-earned glass.)
So, I'm trying to align the priorities of my actions/choices with the magnitude of my heart's desire for "something truly magical". I've been asking myself my entire life, "What is my life really worth? What would I be willing to trade it for it? For what would I give my life, even die for?" Well, I think having my life infused by magic via a conscious, genuine, continuing experience of connecting with a Truly Higher Intelligence is one thing I'd be willing to put my life on the line for.
Who knows, maybe death is just a portal to inconceivably higher dimensions of being, cleverly cloaked by our mortal fears? Yet, each time I've let go and truly faced death there was some divine intervention (sometimes truly magical as in the case with Jenn astro-projecting into my car from a dream thousands of miles away to help me get home safely that night I blacked out behind the wheel years ago driving from San Francisco to Palo Alto). This also felt like I got to see the hand of God at work. It said, pretty clearly, "No, Rich, I still want you there in the Earthly dimension."
It seems, now, that what Spirit/God seems to be wanting is for me to experience loneliness. Or, is the equation I'm learning really that "loneliness" = "freedom" + "fear" ? With some basic math, that becomes "freedom" = "loneliness" - "fear"? (Finally, a practical use for all that algebra I studied! ;-) And does "union with God/Spirit" = "freedom" + "consciousness"?
Mother Theresa said, "I know God would never give me anything I couldn't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." Love that.
If there's one thing I learned from sitting in silence for 10 days at the Vipassana retreat last year, it's that every experience (which is just a set of sensations) is temporary...like bubbles arising in a glass of soda which float to the surface of consciousness, stay there for awhile, and then pass away, making space for next bubble to arise....
So, I know this lonely period of "letting go" is temporary...and that I can make it through it. Then, for what higher purpose could it be that I'm meant to be experiencing such a profound amplification of aloneness, both personally and otherwise (coaching, teaching yoga/meditation in the juvenile halls, both bands I'm in, technical contracts, several close friendships, etc. all fading away simultaneously)?
If I were to look up the hand to see the movement of God's arm, would I find the arm is moving the hand/finger away from these other things/people since it's the shortest path to Him from where I am now (perhaps, even, in direct response to the desire in my heart)? Or that it's the best path to some other divine experience that I can't even conceive of now--one which my Higher Self, aware of the whole picture, already gladly paid the price of loneliness for...?!?
posted by Rich at 1:47 AM
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