tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-292288252024-03-12T19:25:59.377-04:00Patricia Bralley: Seeing for My SelfA scientist's attempt to understand her experiences in four decades of meditation.Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.comBlogger496125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-69613095043338284152021-03-07T11:37:00.000-05:002021-03-07T11:53:23.764-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kBt1k52XH_o/YEUAZr62RLI/AAAAAAAABeo/20HPTPVdd7Ivtlt84u7b2KOwSHXDOF7IACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/Ancestor%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1602" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kBt1k52XH_o/YEUAZr62RLI/AAAAAAAABeo/20HPTPVdd7Ivtlt84u7b2KOwSHXDOF7IACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Ancestor%2B2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 18.0pt;">The
Space Between Stories<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">As
scientists we see into Worlds both macro and micro.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
as storytellers we step into New Worlds of our own creation.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
think that’s qualifies as progress and maybe even valuable<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">during
this time that we’re in.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">What
time is that?<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Charles
Eisenstein calls it “The Space Between Stories.”<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">What
he’s pointing to is the fact that our foundational myth of 10,000 years (The
Story of Separation) is crumbling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a
new myth (The Story of Wholeness & Connecting) - while stirring - has not
yet really arrived.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Like
that trapeze artist taking the leap - we’re left in between - suspended in air
yet hurtling forward.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Yee
Gadz!<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Will
the next bar be there to meet us?<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Will
our next foundational myth provide the archetypes and answers we need?<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">It
will if we create it step by step.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">We
need to create a whole new collection of stories: of Ancestors, of Spirit, of
our Inter-Connectedness.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">SO,
I’m working on that.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
while FaceBook is nice, I want something longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I’m reviving this old blog to share
better stories.<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Today’s
art exercise: “Ancestors”<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
checkout Charles Eisenstein’s “<a href="https://charleseisenstein.org/courses/space-between-stories/" target="_blank">Space Between Stories</a>.” </span></div>
Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-87885167270060619332021-03-05T09:03:00.002-05:002021-03-07T11:50:36.400-05:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-diljdX2G148/YEI4nSp0xgI/AAAAAAAABcw/jkhgI8hA4u8fUrgk4Liqyp7uYkeJH7aUACLcBGAsYHQ/s919/Tlaloc%2B5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="919" height="309" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-diljdX2G148/YEI4nSp0xgI/AAAAAAAABcw/jkhgI8hA4u8fUrgk4Liqyp7uYkeJH7aUACLcBGAsYHQ/w377-h309/Tlaloc%2B5.jpg" width="377" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Tlaloc</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">One day he had been sitting
in an armchair in his backyard<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Studying an ancient scripture<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">When he remembered an urgent
errand.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Setting the manuscript down
he drove into town.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Black clouds blew in without
warning<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Rain would soon follow<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He feared for the fate of the
scripture<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Until he remembered:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Rain is a Living Presence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The storm now upon him<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He prayer to the rain<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Explaining the precious pages<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Asking they be spared from
destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Arriving home after the
cloudburst<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Everything soaked <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Except armchair and scripture<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He said to himself<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe it hears me<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Never mind if that’s silly - <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m going to speak to the Rain.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">On the summit of a mountain
in Mexico<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Stands a pyramid known as El
Tepozteco<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He wondered, What gods were
honored here?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He was told Quetzalcoatl and
Tlaloc<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Names which meant nothing to
him<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So be climbed the mountain,
scaled the walls<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And lay down on the
ceremonial platform<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">With some apprehension.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Did he have the right to be
there?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Was he being disrespectful?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Was this the place where priests
with obsidian knives<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Cut out still-beating hearts?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">He closed his eyes and hoped
for the best.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Jaguar appears circling round
the pyramid<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">His tail held straight up<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Suddenly wheeling, he says<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So, you want to meet Tlaloc,
eh? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ll take you<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Get on my back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Jaguar leaps bounding into
the air<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They reach the sky and tear
through it as if it were paper screen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They find themselves in
another more colorful world<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Under a different sky<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The cat tears through this
too <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They enter a third world<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The cat keeps on running
through sky after sky.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">In the thirteenth world Jaguar
comes to a stop.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Below can be seen the worlds
they passed through<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Neatly stacked like the steps
of the pyramid.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Turning around, they see a
young man<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">With long blond hair, blue eyes
and a halo<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">His palms facing forward<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">From the center of each
spouts a stream of blue water<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Flowing down through the
worlds below<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Eventually forming the waters
of Earth<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Where fish swim and plants
flourish.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Hello, I am Tlaloc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Then how come you have blue
eyes and brown hair?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">You see me as a gringo
because you are a gringo.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The people who built the
pyramid saw me differently<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I look different to different
folks<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But everyone knows me<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I am the Rain God, Tlaloc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Now tell me -<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">What do you know about rain,
about water?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Water is the element that
supports movement and stillness alike.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So many movements <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Our joints move in water<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Our food is digested<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Our sperm swim<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Our brain thinks<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The surging of water moves
our souls, our willpower, our ambition.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">When the water in us comes to
rest<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">We know peace<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">We plunge below surface
appearance<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">There are eternal moments
between breaths<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Between thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Suddenly he felt timid<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Giving a lecture to a god -<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">How am I doing?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">That was very good!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">You should be telling people
these things<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And there’s more.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Look at the way man squanders
the water<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">How they pollute<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">People don’t realize it’s the
very blood of their veins<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">For most water is just a commodity
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">bought and sold<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Something that comes out of a
faucet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">And Rain is a nuisance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They treat me as if I had no
feelings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Naturally, I treat them the
same way<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Tell them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">They need to know.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">A found story by P. Bralley,
from Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan<o:p></o:p></span></p>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-24445461549118465872014-08-02T07:30:00.001-04:002014-08-02T07:52:01.526-04:00Sickness is a Defense<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0a1660;">Sickness
is a defense against the truth…</span></strong><b><span style="background: white; color: #0a1660;"> The aim of all defenses
is to keep the truth from being whole. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong><span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.acim.org/Lessons/lesson.html">ACIM, lesson 136</a><o:p></o:p></span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong><span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This from the BATGAP interview I was
listening to as I did my yoga on the floor, carefully as my sciatica was sending
electric jolts down my left leg.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sickness is a decision when you’re
afraid of love and you want to prove you’re little and tiny and frail and not
Christ-like or Buddha-like. You actually
decide in your mind for a symptom.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David
Hoffmeister, <a href="http://batgap.com/david-hoffmeister/">BATGAP 1:15:00</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The tingling
leg symptoms have replaced yesterday’s migraine, which I assumed was the result
of several day’s intense scrutiny of county zoning and building regulations. I’ve spent hours sitting at the computer in
preparation for an upcoming contract discussion, if not dispute. All that sitting also seems the obvious reason for
the flare-up of sciatica. And yet, Lesson 136 is an invitation to consider the
issue from a different angle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd already noticed that as I studied out the issues of the contract, tasks that needed doing,
dropped responsibilities, failures, blame, missed deadlines, false deadlines, I also began to see people trying to do their best, simple miscommunication,
opportunities to learn, and greater clarity emerging. Could a frustrating mess also be a blessing? It seems likely. </span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd noticed that in the beginning there was anger,
fear (?) that I really couldn’t name, an anger that became a deep burning energy
that deeply shook my body and was totally without emotion.
And then the burning died out, as if all the fuel had been consumed. What remained was the silence and the
spaciousness… even as the migraine arose. </span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then, the electric leg… and then these words: </span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Sickness is a defense against the truth. … when you’re afraid of love. </b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They rang a
bell! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, I find
it hard to believe that a herniated disc can be “cured” through simply an attitude
adjustment. It has to go deeper than the words and nice belief. Then, perhaps if I truly let love
overtake my being, something will relax inside, hormones change, inflammation diminish,
calcium channels close or open, and my leg will feel better and my migraine won’t
come back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am reminded
of this recent video I saw <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152586220165120&set=vb.135622170119&type=2&theater">posted on FaceBook</a> (and which I hope translates to
this page!) Perhaps in the end, what
works and doesn’t work simply does rest upon your point of view.
</span><br />
<div id="fb-root">
</div>
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>
</span><br />
<div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152586220165120" data-width="466">
<div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore">
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152586220165120">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/artsartistsartwork">Arts, Artists, Artwork</a>.</span></div>
</div>
<span style="background: white; color: #0a1660;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-78994471555943295672014-07-29T12:32:00.001-04:002014-07-29T12:32:24.187-04:00Leopard Leotards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bWzjB9EgyoE/U9fMDtqRy5I/AAAAAAAAAkQ/72ngSPW6MDw/s1600/leopard+leorads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bWzjB9EgyoE/U9fMDtqRy5I/AAAAAAAAAkQ/72ngSPW6MDw/s1600/leopard+leorads.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other morning, as I was sitting on my back deck, I was
suddenly struck by the pattern of shadows on my leg. Just like that, I heard the first line of the
poem below. So, following once more in
my tradition of boldly sharing my “bad poetry,” here we go. I also hope it helps span the gap between
relating personal experience to descriptions found in text books.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Me in my leopard leotard
of wholeness<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The weight of light
and shadow on bare skin<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>reveals the super
supple:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Silence gulping,
“Brahman eating”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>as I sip my morning
coffee.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>How to move without
tearing these finest of silk stockings?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Oh, that I might rip
a hole in wholeness!<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A hole in wholeness -<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Impossible, I know,
and yet the tear is felt in every cell<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>and the very Silence.
<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Paradox is simply
That: here, there and everywhere.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Which is different
from “not knowing” or even being “lost.”<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>I remain the Queen of
Contradictions and Conundrums.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Don’t look to me for
answers<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>but good inquiry can
be quite useful <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>until it’s not<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>not when god gives
morning coffee,<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>cicadas humming their
Samaveda <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>thru the perfect summer
air <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>as my Retirement
unfolds<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>and leopard leotards
appear<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>out of Absolutely
Nowhere.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It took a big effort to haul myself out of the silence of
the leotards and pick up pen and pad.
That effort in itself shattered the direct perception. But, it was so paradoxical the mind couldn’t
let the issue drop. I recalled Harri
Aalto recently emphasizing that one can indeed see the Absolute – a seeming
impossibility and contradiction. I also
immediately recognized these leotards as a version of Wang Liping’s practice
with his reflections and shadows. I
couldn’t recollect exactly how the story goes, so I looked it up:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>One day the Wayfarer
of Pure Serenity took Wang Liping to a small reservoir, where he had prepared a
large plank. The Wayfarer had Liping sit
cross-legged on the plank, then eased it out into the water, where it gradually
came to a stop in the middle of the reservoir.
Liping sat on the plank in a state of silence… [When] the Wayfarer was
sure that Liping had reached the right state, he disturbed the surface of the
water with his hand, sending a wave of ripples toward the center of the
reservoir. When the ripples approached
the plank, Wang Liping’s reflection in the water was shattered; he himself just
felt a shudder in his heart… When the
ripples had passed, the surface of the water again became smooth as ever, and
Liping’s body and mind returned to their former quietude… <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The young apprentice
told his mentor all about the sensation he’d had on the water, finding it quite
beyond his understanding. … [Through
cultivation] the yang celestial soul and the yin earthly soul in his body had
both been strengthened and sensitized.
From the ordinary point of view, shadows and reflections are unreal,
things have form but not substance… From the Taoist point of view, however,
these “unreal shadows and reflections with form but no substance” also have
ethereal force, which can be felt by the body on contact… This is why Liping’s body and mind stirred
when his reflection was disturbed in the water.
When one gets to the “middle three realms,” shadows and reflections are
no longer insubstantial forms; now they have form, they also have
substance. This is the principle
underlying the practice of curing illness by working on people’s shadows, as
Wang Liping later learned from his mentor.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Liping_(Taoist)">Opening the Dragon Gate</a></i>: The Making of a Taoist Wizard, translated by
Thomas Cleary<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Interestingly, once you compare these experiences, you
realize that both Wang Liping and I found it “quite beyond” our
understanding. This is confusing and new
territory of what’s normal. It’s not what the mind is used to. There are new rules and possibilities. Or, to site Nisargadatta:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A good measure of
spiritual maturity is the degree to which one can appreciate paradox and
ambiguity.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Settling into this maturity comfortably requires both
experience and intellectual understanding. … to wit, the effort at bad poetry as
I try to get the words precise. I hope
it helps.<o:p></o:p></div>
Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-77283915594372990642014-01-05T09:53:00.001-05:002014-01-05T09:59:04.965-05:00Metapatterns <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>To me, a metapattern is a
pattern so wide-flung that it appears throughout the spectrum of reality: in
clouds, rivers, and planets; in cells, organisms, and ecosystems; in art,
architecture, and politics…<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<a href="http://metapatterns.wikidot.com/members:tylervolk">Tyler Volk</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most revolutionary time I ever had intellectually was in
1974 sitting with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for one week of what he called “Vedic
Studies.” He was going to explain
consciousness from a non-dual perspective.
In the front row he had a bunch of PhDs: physicist, chemist, biologist,
mathematician and an artist. He told
them, “Now stop me when you think of something.” The experts did stop him when they thought
of a parallel between Maharish’s explanation of consciousness and some branch
of science. Day after day they did that,
until my mind began to freak: “Why!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why were there so
many parallels between consciousness and what I thought of as “Laws of Nature”?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I finally hypothesized that it was because all of Creation
was based upon Pure Consciousness (consciousness as Absolute -not the
consciousness generated by the brain) - and what we saw as Creation were
actually, inevitably, “Patterns of Consciousness.” I viewed this as a working hypothesis as my
mind just couldn’t really swallow it. Trained in biology and chemistry I was a
materialist. Or, to paraphrase my niece
a generation later, “I don’t see how any college graduate can believe in
God.” And while perhaps I’d have said I
did believe in God, that didn’t necessarily translate into all Creation being
created in His image.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, I made a hypothesis and have been collecting
examples, bits of data, ever since.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, now it’s 2014 – forty years of watching – and I have
just discovered the work of Tyler Volk.
Since 1995 he’s written about Metapatterns. I think this is the science supporting what I
called patterns of consciousness. What
precipitated this discovery of Volk’s work?
I am trying to understand Geomancy as practiced by <a href="http://www.markopogacnik.com/healing.html">Marko Pogacnik</a>. And in my poking around this week I came
across a rather surprising pattern.
These correlations are always so surprising to me and always seem to
evoke a sense of wonder and why!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To begin: I was
looking are Plant Hardiness Zone maps – those maps that tell you what plants
can be planted where. I was interested
in what healing plants grow where.
Somehow in my Googling I came across a map that displayed the
differences in the 1990 USDA hardiness zones and the 2006 arborday.org
hardiness zones. T<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiness_zone">his map shows wheretemperature changes</a> are occurring across the United States. This is one way of visualizing the evolving
global climate. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VUp78KPyWjw/Uslwl8hgCTI/AAAAAAAAAhE/SMTOVTPyVtY/s1600/hardiness+changes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VUp78KPyWjw/Uslwl8hgCTI/AAAAAAAAAhE/SMTOVTPyVtY/s400/hardiness+changes.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What surprised me was
how this map of the U.S. reminded me of the pattern seen in developing embryos.<span style="background-color: white;">A
classic image in biology is that master gene expression establishing
developmental gradients</span><b><span style="color: #660000; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span></b><span style="background-color: white;">Below
is </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;">a fruit fly embryo revealing the distribution of maternal
proteins in anterior/posterior axis. The A/P axis is set up by a protein called
BICOID that is expressed in an anterior-to-posterior gradient.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_f-vSJrm4HY/Uslw3v5SNZI/AAAAAAAAAhM/fesxTz7h_fU/s1600/bicoid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_f-vSJrm4HY/Uslw3v5SNZI/AAAAAAAAAhM/fesxTz7h_fU/s400/bicoid.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.15pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 6pt 0in 7.5pt;">
When I was in college a favorite phrase among biology students was, “Phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny.” That was just the smart way of saying it
looks like evolution of the species follows the same pattern as developing
embyro. Here that pattern seems to
extend to global climate… Why? Just
chance?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>I define metapatterns by saying
where they are found and how I use them. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b>But what <i>are</i> they? And are they out there
(patterns sensed) or in here (patterns imagined)? <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
Tyler Volk<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: #F4F4F4; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">AH! Here is the inside/outside question of
consciousness! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: #F4F4F4; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">It all
depends upon ones point of view regarding Consciousness. Is it Egoic or Wholistic? You’re your definition of consciousness state
that it arises from the complex organization of the brain? Or, does Pure Consciousness express itself as
a Creative Intelligence (CI) arising from the VOID? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: #F4F4F4; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Egoic
separation says the patterns lie outside and are observed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: #F4F4F4; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Wholistic
vision realizes that CI repeats itself throughout layers of complexity and
scales of size: physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, sociology, geology,
astrophysics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: #F4F4F4; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Experience
seems to suggest to me that both viewpoints are valid.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-80627671226429636062013-07-28T06:30:00.001-04:002013-07-28T07:41:38.710-04:00Sticky Stages <b>The apparent shift from the sleep state to an awake one is actually quite subtle. There's no real line, except that there is! This subtlety is the reason that after an initial glimpse there can be so much trailing oscillation before we reach a real grounding, or stability, within Nondual awareness. </b><br />
<b>There's no such thing as "permanent" enlightenment, which is purely a mind-constructed idea that could only happen to a somebody, but there is certainly ongoing enlightenment, which has nothing whatsoever to do with a human being. Ongoing enlightenment--also known as abiding awakening--is unshakable and boundless.
</b>
<br />
Fred Davis, <a href="http://awakeningclarity.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-journey-after-awakening-guest.html">Awakening Clarity</a>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/idXH2wztpmI" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
This is REALLY good to know. Got it/Lost it has to come to an end at some point. ...ha,ha - just as spiritual egos need to disappear.Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-13551686761407909212013-05-09T05:48:00.002-04:002013-05-09T05:54:32.810-04:00Dog, Cats, and Powerless HateThis is fun and worth a listen:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="252" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ph7RPhXSnug" width="448"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
At times it feels almost like an exercise in Tapping to release beliefs. But, I also just enjoyed his take on dog energy and cats and hate.Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-86614792361988631322013-03-17T08:06:00.000-04:002013-03-17T08:08:40.490-04:00The "Sacrifice" of Oneness<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MDEcfMedjWc/UUWxCSAsetI/AAAAAAAAAJg/MH5qaVbSCOI/s1600/sautee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MDEcfMedjWc/UUWxCSAsetI/AAAAAAAAAJg/MH5qaVbSCOI/s320/sautee.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Landsong fire circle, Krishan Bralley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The world you see is
based on "sacrifice" of oneness. It is a picture of complete disunity
and total lack of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid
that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can
never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall. Each part must
sacrifice the other part, to keep itself complete. For if they joined each one
would lose its own identity, and by their separation are their selves maintained.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">ACIM, Chapter 26<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So here were more words that went straight into my
heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes it is good for your
heart to break. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only then do I become
open and defenseless and ready to receive the influx of love I’ve been
resisting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a moment, these words
made it imperative for me to see the world in a new way, to see the Oneness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps they’ll resonate with you too.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i>A Course in
Miracles</i> states as its goal, in many ways, a shift in perception, a
different way of seeing. </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The <i>Course</i>
calls this different perception by various names -- the eyes of Christ,
spiritual vision, salvation, Atonement, true perception, and forgiveness. The
entire goal of <i>A Course in Miracles </i>is but this. For example, the
introduction to the Workbook of the <i>Course</i> states unequivocally, </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">"The purpose of
the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different
perception of everyone and everything in the world."… <o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All of our experience
is tied to our perception and perception is not a fact but an interpretation.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Daan Dehn, <a href="http://www.miracles.org.nz/percept.htm">commentary on ACIM<o:p></o:p></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Perception is not a
fact, but an interpretation</i>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That is not simply ACIM or non-dual philosophy but also
physiology and hard science.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And where does all this take me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I scan the ACIM texts and from time to time come across a
phrase that churns me, evokes some deep response that I cannot really
understand and turn away from in discomfort.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I find many of them have to do with healing and highlight my
resistance to something obviously of beneficial.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is
Healing Certain?<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Healing
is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and
keep the illusions. Truth demonstrates illusions have no value…<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet what if the patient uses
sickness as a way of life, believing healing is the way to death? When this is
so, a sudden healing might precipitate intense depression, and a sense of loss
so deep that the patient might even try to destroy himself…<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Healing
will always stand aside when it would be seen as threat. The instant it is
welcome it is there.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Manual
for Teachers, Section 6</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I recall a <a href="http://patriciabralley.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html">comment on BATGAP</a> that anyone who meditates
diligently for years and has not awakened is harboring some uninvestigated
ambivalence – in short, they don’t want to wake up.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think of Adyashanti explaining how many people awake and
go through a loss of all will power.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I think of Evie and others working their hearts out to
heal their cancers.<o:p></o:p></span>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-30960245086202768912013-03-13T12:58:00.001-04:002013-03-13T13:03:10.488-04:00A Required Course <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bcoj3_1pXdc/UUCvaN-K8qI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/8PxvgJOPEpQ/s1600/JUmp+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" psa="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bcoj3_1pXdc/UUCvaN-K8qI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/8PxvgJOPEpQ/s320/JUmp+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Jump</em>, by P Bralley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For some time now, I have been uninterested in posting anything here. Something seems to have broken inside, which I actually take as a good sign. However, I find I really want to share these words:<br />
<strong>This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><strong>This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:</strong><br />
<em><strong>Nothing real can be threatened.</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>Nothing unreal exists.</strong></em><br />
<em><strong>Herein lies the peace of God.</strong></em><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Course_in_Miracles">ACIM</a><br />
<br />
My nephew, when he was little, one day suddenly realized, <strong>“Life’s a lot of work! Why do people do it?”</strong> To this day, his words are something of a family joke.<br />
But, isn’t this what <em>A Course in Miracles</em> is saying? It is required. <br />
Your only choice is if you want to accept the challenge now or later.<br />
<br />
<em>When</em> will I remove the blocks to love’s presence?<br />
And how - <em>How</em> to let love in?<br />
I find I can only aim at discovering what deeply moves me. And then, <em>resist nothing</em>.<br />
Today, it was these words.<br />
“Read ‘em and weep” … because then, I open up to Love. <br />
<br />
<strong>Love will immediately enter into any mind that truly wants it. </strong><br />
<em>Truly</em>? Why not go with that?<br />
<br />
<strong>You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe.</strong><br />
A Course in Miracles<br />
<br />
And less you think this is simply airy-fairy and not for the practical, gritty challenges of life, let me introduce you to two remarkable women:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://helenashealingcircle.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/where-life-is/">Helena</a> – who should by now be dead from rectal cancer.<br />
And <br />
<a href="http://corinnaborden.com/category/miracles/miracles-miracles/">Corinna Borden</a>– who has refractory Hodgkins lymphoma.<br />
<br />Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-82937404961029815762013-02-07T16:00:00.000-05:002013-02-07T16:32:36.969-05:00A Krishnamurti Millisecond <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0-QwPlnMCHI/URQUgsOtiCI/AAAAAAAAAI8/wCf75aphViA/s1600/Day+2+Experiment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="218" jea="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0-QwPlnMCHI/URQUgsOtiCI/AAAAAAAAAI8/wCf75aphViA/s320/Day+2+Experiment.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asemic Circles, by P. Bralley</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I’ve mentioned that I have migraines. Curiously, over the past few years they’ve changed. They have gone from seemingly an obvious physiological pathology that sometimes gave rise to a spiritual experience to the exact opposite: a spiritual experience that makes the body sag as it tries to biologically support “the vision.” And sometimes, there is just this weird in-between state. My vision gets altered and I feel a little headachy and definitely nauseated. Not at all your classic migraine, but for lack of a better term, I just call it a migraine. <br />
<br />
My doctor always asks how they are going (not that his by-the-book-medicine understands a thing about the spiritual) but, to give him something of a reply, I explained to him that something happens to my vision: I lose the ability to process vision in the normal manner. I don’t get the flashes of light or bizarre distortions that are ripe within the migraine literature. Rather, my vision becomes “disconnected” from the normal higher processing center.<br />
<br />
It has become very obvious to me that vision is a process composed of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_agnosia">a hierarchy of processes or functions</a>. Most basically, the retina picks up light and the signals are processed in to a flowing image. We “see” the world around us and then at another level this image gets processed further. Another level of brain activity gives rise to meaning, interpretation, linguistic labels, and ultimately the logical interaction of “me” with the world I see. <br />
The migraine disconnects this level of interpretation and labeling. When it happens at work, I call it quits and just go home. Last Saturday, it happened while I was driving up to the mountains for a family weekend. My reaction was, “No, no, no – not now!” I rubbed my eyes and rubbed my neck and tried to “reconnect.” <br />
<br />
It’s with this background of “spiritual migraines” that I came upon this Blog entry by Nicole Taras, a psychic by profession, and was fascinated by the new angle Nicole provides my understanding. Her disconnect involves the sense of hearing and she calls it a <em><a href="http://www.relyingonjoy.com/">Krishnamurti Millisecond</a></em>:<br />
<br />
<strong>It happened while I was watching a video talk by Krishnamurti. </strong><br />
<strong>Krishnamurti is fun to listen to for me because he always, only, talks about “reality” on the very deepest level which cannot be talked about or understood intellectually so he is constantly frustrated by students trying to understand what he is saying intellectually… </strong><br />
<strong>In any case, during part of his lecture, Krishnamurti became very frustrated about this and said sternly, “Just listen. Don’t try to listen. Don’t try to understand. Just simply listen to what I am saying...” (that may not be a direct quote but that’s how I remember it)</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><strong>He went on talking and I decided to listen without focusing on the concepts or trying to gain any sort of knowledge, or get anywhere further on my spiritual path by having listened. </strong><br />
<strong>For probably less than a second, I just listened. It felt as if some sort of filtering or resistance system that I live in constantly had turned off and for that millisecond life was allowed to just be without me slowing it down or counting it out in terms of a process of time before acknowledging it, organizing, categorizing, making concepts, understandings, perceptions, judgments — I saw that my normal processes of perceiving myself and the world around me acts as a filtering system which slows life down and breaks it into categories or measurements of time that I can then count and comprehend...</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><strong>The best way I can describe what listening was like is that it seemed like a flood of openness...but even a flood is too small...it was just being open and with no</strong> <strong>idea in the world of a closed comparison…</strong><br />
<strong>the question I am stuck with is – how would it even be possible to actually go about living in this state of mind (if that’s what you’d call it)? In hindsight, I’m left with the concept of just how vulnerable it is to not have the filters on. </strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><strong>Krishnamurti says that once you have seen things as they really are there is no going back to the old way of being — I definitely am not there yet — he does not believe in a gradual awakening because that implies time and a goal, somewhere to get to — but my path appears to be gradual. </strong><br />
<br />
Yes. My path seems very gradual. <br />
I poked around Nicole’s website and the more I read the more relaxed I became. There’s a sweetness that resonated with me. And before I knew it, my vision was disconnected once again. I wouldn’t call this a migraine. I’d call it witnessing, but then I might not even call it that. Witnessing presents a “radical duality” that by definition establishes a here and there. I'm noticing that disconnection with my vision is a dropping off of differentiation, labeling, dividing. There's a soupiness or ocean that disorients my normal vision. (Perhaps the habit of vision/nervous system is to WANT to label and dissect.) And, of course, I can see all the cups and pencils and notebooks same as anyone. But, as the vision changes and the relaxation arises, mostly I am aware something dropping away leaving behind a Wholeness - or at least a chunky soup as we all swim about within the same warm pot of ...what? Wow! What?<br />
<br />
Or, as Nicole summarized:<br />
<strong>This moment, along with other milliseconds of sudden conscious shifting in my life helps me see (little by little) my mind with more perspective and with a deeper trust in my Oneness with God.</strong><br />
<strong>Well, I hope that makes sense to somebody! </strong><br />
<br />
I think it does, at least to me! Thank you, <a href="http://www.relyingonjoy.com/">Nicole</a>.<br />
<br />Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-4468024093686909642012-12-19T14:41:00.002-05:002012-12-19T14:47:14.008-05:00Intentions<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You can have a group of people hang out with the same teacher, or perform the same mediation practice, and their outcomes will be determined by their individual intentions for participating in the common practice. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I haven’t found a more influential factor of a practice’s outcome than one’s intention for performing that practice.</span></strong><br />
<a href="http://batgap.com/rose-rosetree/#comments"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Peter’s comment at BATGAP</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Peter’s comment, which I love, brings to mind a story of a local meditation teacher who one day, aggravated with her students told them, “You do just enough to feel better.” Meaning, they wanted to simply do the bare minimum and escape into the feel good airy-fairy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Why do you bother with your spiritual practice? What is it that you really want? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Community? Stress relief? Self improvement? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Has it become mere habit? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or, has it slipped beyond any personal choice, to become a force beyond yourself?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I find it rather presumptuous to assume that I know why anyone meditates. And I find it useful to periodically look into my own motivations, because, as Peter points out, intentions have a direct effect upon outcomes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was with Adyashanti this summer I noticed that he spoke of three practices: Meditation, Inquiry, and Contemplation. I liked seeing this as it seemed to bring some new balance, order, and perspective to terms that float around inside my head. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Now, he is </span><a href="http://www.adyashanti.org/library/The_Way_of_Liberation_Ebook.pdf"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">giving away a booklet entitled</span></a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> “<em>The Way of Liberation</em>” which you can download for free for a while. It’s a really simple, straightforward explanation of these three practices. I love the sparseness of the language, like his Summary of the Teaching:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Be still.</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Question every thought.</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Contemplate the source of Reality.</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">There it is: meditation, inquiry, contemplation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">If your intention is liberation, it’s good to know the bases.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In <em>The Way of Liberation</em>, Adya begins by suggesting you address your aspirations (intention by any other name…) and he states it almost as a warning:</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">To clarify your aspiration means knowing exactly what it is that your spiritual life aspires to, not as a future goal but in each mo¬ment. In other words, what do you value most in your life—not in the sense of moral values, but in the sense of what is most im¬portant to you. Contemplate this question. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Do not assume that you know what your highest aspiration is, or even what is most important to you. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Dig deep within, contemplate, and meditate on what the spiritual quest is about for you; don’t let anyone else define your aspiration for you… </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Very few people have Truth or Reality as deep values. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">They may think that they value Truth, but their actions do not bear this out. </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Generally, most people have competing and conflicting values, which manifest as both internal and external conflict. </span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Where am I going with all this? I am not sure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But, more and more I understand how important it is to truly value what is true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">What is it that you REALLY want?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was reading The Seven Story Mountain recently. In this autobiography, Thomas Merton said something that simply stunned me as if I’d never before heard truly heard such a teaching. He said:</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">If what most people take for granted were really true – if all you needed to be happy was to grab everything and see everything and investigate every experience and then talk about it… I would never have entered a Trappist monastery</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Question every thought. Question all assumptions and the rules that get drummed into you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I don’t want to miss out on Life and yet, I do not even know what there is to miss and how best to use my time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">A friend and I compare notes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I worry that I will waste my life by not being engaged enough with others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I fear I am too content to sit upon my back porch and watch the sky.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then my friend worries that she will waste her life by always being addictively too busy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">There is no such thing as a path to enlightenment… What you can do is to remove any and all illusions, especially the ones you value most…</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Adya, <em>The Way of Liberation</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I read these words this morning at the breakfast table and made these notes upon the page margin:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">How do I recognize illusion?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I feel resistance to what is… when I feel separation… </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">What illusions do I most value?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am in control… I exist as an individual, born and will die…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Are not illusions my most persistent thoughts?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I could do better… I’m not loved… I am a silly mess… I have failed… If I were enlightened all my problems would be solved…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I hope you will ask yourself a similar inquiry. I found it somewhat surprising and it began an opening of perspective until I heard a voice from the radio behind me shouting:</span><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Are you crying?</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Are you crying?</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s no crying! </span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s no crying in baseball!</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Tom Hanks, <em>A League of Their Own</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Library of Congress is inducting this film and these words into the National Film Registry for its contribution to American culture. Somehow, that seemed just perfect, just perfect and the end of any commentary I might offer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Meditate, Inquire, Contemplate. My intention is upon discoverying what’s true, despite all appearances.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WQLotwAomVc" width="560"></iframe>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-59280322565215295152012-11-17T10:44:00.001-05:002012-11-17T10:55:43.911-05:00A Lover's Tale<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One day, one of God’s
lovers goes to the home of his shaikh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The shaikh begins to speak to him about love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Little by little, as the shaikh speaks, the
lover begins to melt, becoming more and more subtle until he just flows like a
trickling stream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His whole physical
being dissolved in front of the shaikh, until there was nothing but some water
on the floor.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Just then a friend of the shaikh
enters the room and asks, “Where is that fellow who just arrived?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shaikh points to the water on the floor
and says, “That man is that water.”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This kind of melting is as
astonishing transformation of state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
man lost his density in such a way that he became what he originally was: a
drop of liquid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally he had
arrived at human form from water, for as God has said: “We created all of life
from water.”<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This lover merely returned to
his original essence, the water that is the source of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so we may draw the following conclusion:
A lover is that being by whom everything is brought to life.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A story attributed to Shaikh Ibn al-Arabi,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as told by Kabir Helminski in <em>The Knowing
Heart</em>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I read this story and broke down in tears and as I mopped my
face dry a whole new appreciation for what tears represent came to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They reflect our opening to our true essence,
our Beingness, our Love.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And immediately a song arose from somewhere deep in memory, just
this fragment, out of context and yet so fitting:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We lay down and wept<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And wept for thee Zion<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We remember, thee remember<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thee remember, thee Zion</span></span></b><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<br />
</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was grieving heartbreak and yet there seemed to be some hope
within the song, which to my surprise was sourced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_the_Waters_of_Babylon">not in psalm but rather science fiction</a> and American Pie.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JsqSNIR5DsU" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And after humming for some time<a href="http://movieclips.com/icda-the-wizard-of-oz-movie-im-melting/"> another classic</a> came to mind
regarding love and water, evil and melting:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’m melting!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m melting!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>... Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful
wickedness!<o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes, who would have thought?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Enjoy your tears and melting heart... 'cause we are each our own wicked witch and we do not die so much as melt back into our original essence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-42969609638446983382012-10-20T13:22:00.003-04:002012-10-20T13:41:11.236-04:00What’s the Point?<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I never know what’s
going to happen next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to roll the
dice.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A mathematician, explaining the Chaos Game<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fractals… They’re all
over in biology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re one solution
that natural selection has come up with over and over again.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">NOVA, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemPnZn54Kw&feature=related">Fractals the Hidden Dimension<o:p></o:p></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A good friend has spent the past few weeks on jury duty – a death
penalty, double murder trial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been
a hard, very emotional period for her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But,
she’s approached it as happening for some reason and so she tends to look upon
the trial as an opportunity for growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her husband, on the other hand, feels things simply happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trial is an odious even she has been
pulled into and there is no reason for the disasters that befall us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our task is simply to survive the pain and
move on down the road. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His philosophy
has uncovered my friend’s own doubts regarding her spiritual beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">His doubts also reflect statements I sometimes hear from
nondualists:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no reason or
ultimate cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things simply happen.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think we all wrestle with this question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes we simply voice it as, “Why me?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I find one answer to this question through the
science of Chaos Theory and Fractals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
simple and very graphic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fractals are
beautiful complex patterns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each pattern
is defined by an equation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The equations
are meant to be solved repeatedly with each iteration generating a point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When these points are plotted graphically,
their location pops up randomly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
from this random deposition of points upon a piece of paper that the beautiful fractal
pattern eventually emerges. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can watch this
process for the pattern called a Sierpinski Triangle <a href="http://youtu.be/GCkJ2EufQuY">here</a>. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can view an emergence of this pattern in 21 seconds <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50S05hgwADE&feature=endscreen&NR=1">here</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">[The game is following these rules:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Number the vertices of an equilateral
triangle 1, 2 and 3. Start with a random initial point in the plane and plot
this point. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Randomly pick a number: 1, 2
or 3. From the initial point, move half the distance towards that numbered
vertex. This point is plotted and becomes our new initial point. Repeat this
process thousands of times.]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Fractal geometry is
the geometry which describes the chaotic systems we find in Nature.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scientifically speaking, Life and the
Universe itself are complex systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such
systems are Chaotic in behavior and Chaos Theory presents these simple,
defining features of every chaotic system:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>1. Chaotic systems may appear to be random but they are not.
They are deterministic </b>with equations ruling their behavior. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>2. Chaotic systems are very sensitive to the initial
conditions making them very unpredictable. </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A very slight change in the starting point can
lead to enormously different outcomes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The famous Butterfly Effect and the difficulty
in predicting weather are examples.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>3. Chaotic systems appear to be disorderly, but they are
not.</b> Beneath the seemingly random behavior are a sense of order and
beautiful patterns. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The orderly systems
predicted by classical physics are actually the narrow situation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And thus, in the Chaos Game we find that the picture that is generated through this random process is not random
at all. And I think this is exactly how are lives are. We may not see the reason for the situation that we're in. But, that does not mean there is no intelligence or reason underlying the surface appearance of events.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chaos and order are deeply, deeply linked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I view them as different sides of the same
coin.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You can call this phenomenon an expression of the Laws of Nature or the
intelligence of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think
it just depends upon whether you are coming from your head or heart, and your ability to look deeply inside yourself, deeply inside the universe.</span>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/R6NnCOs20GQ" width="560"></iframe><br />Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-9215608032152880522012-10-09T16:29:00.001-04:002012-10-09T16:34:54.363-04:00If You Listen<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/173967210/" title="Light Cone 1"><img alt="Light Cone 1 by Seeking Tao" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/60/173967210_f7f3ac8231.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/173967210/">Light Cone 1</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/">Seeking Tao</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
If you Listen you will go mad.<br />
(I told myself these exact words)<br />
And they rang like poetry.<br />
<br />
I have been reading poets trying to find just the words<br />
The perfect words<br />
The perfect fit as nothing feels quite right<br />
Except that one first line which surely isn’t mine<br />
Someone must have said it. But they didn’t. I did.<br />
<br />
I found this one. Perhaps the rhythm caught me, for I didn’t understand what he was really saying<br />
Famously and Beautifully, under the Theme of Fire (surely they mean burning), <a href="http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/E/EliotTS/Notintense/index.html">T.S. Elliot:</a><br />
<br />
<strong>Not the intense moment<br />Isolated, with no before and after,<br />But a lifetime burning in every moment<br />And not the lifetime of one man only<br />But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.<br />There is a time for the evening under starlight,<br />A time for the evening under lamplight…<br /><br />Love is most nearly itself<br />When here and now cease to matter.<br />Old men ought to be explorers<br />Here or there does not matter<br />We must be still and still moving<br />Into another intensity<br />For a further union, a deeper communion<br />Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,<br />The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters<br />Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.</strong><br />
<br />
Well, perhaps I am beginning to understand a thing or two as the poem improves the more I read along its lines, until I realize how close they come to YES!<br />
And they sound finer than Lock Kelly's BBQ, highlighting fire and not so much the burning flesh.<br />
So many ways to say it, a Google brought me this:<br />
<br />
<strong>These inner voices are just crap. These are just fragments of your mind; they have no value at all...These are all your fragments. And if you go on following them you will go crazy…<br />Remember, God has no voice except silence. He never says anything. There is nothing to say; there is no verbal communication. But that silence, that utter silence, gives you clarity, gives you light, makes you capable of moving rightly. Not that it gives any directions, not that it gives you any maps, not that it supplies you any guides – nothing of the sort. It simply gives you eyes to see your path.<br /><br />And then you start moving in life with eyes. Ordinarily you are moving blind. A blind man needs guides, a blind man needs voices, a blind man needs maps. A man who has eyes needs nothing. God comes to you as silence. God is silence. Remember it: only trust silence and nothing else – otherwise you will get trapped by the mind again and again. And to be trapped by the mind is to be in misery. To be free of the misery is to know what bliss is, is to know what benediction is.</strong><br />
<a href="http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Osho/osho/osho_listening_to_inner_voice.htm">Osho</a>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-33501703844988443922012-10-04T15:40:00.001-04:002012-10-04T15:44:16.279-04:00Different Qualities of Awakening<strong>There are different things that are seen, different things that are experienced in different types of awakenings… They all have to do with a shift in your essential identity. If it doesn’t have to do with an essential shift in your identity then what you’ve had is a spiritual experience, not a spiritual awakening…</strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>Each of these windows has their own illusions that you awake from… Awakening on the level of the mind, you realize that you are the spacious infinity of consciousness – lovely! And, you can still be an emotional basket-case… you can still be a total mess as a human being… It’s common to be awake on the level of conscious mind and still be emotionally guarded. Awakening on the level of the heart you become unguarded in your emotional body… emotional vulnerability is different from intellectual [vulnerability].</strong><br />
Adyashanti, Different Qualities of Awakening<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PeSezeHLvY4" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
And then there is the belly too. <br />
<strong>After a certain level of clearing, the Self moves forward to absorb the “gut” as Adyashanti put it. The divine continues the decent into the world. The core identify, long sitting sub-conscious becomes conscious. This is the core of what Tolle calls the “pain body,” the driver of the drama and the ego. It is a root fear that has been holding our story. Once seen, it can be released.</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><strong>This process Loch Kelly called the BBQ, when these core drivers are seen and cleared. In the process, the sense of person or “I” dissolves. There is no longer a “Fred” or whatever name you go by. We also notice there is no longer an “inside” and “outside.” This is always a unique experience. Again, the experience can be quite short or take a little time, depending on the work that remains.</strong><br />
Davidya, <a href="http://in2deep.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/the-journey-part-2/">The Journey, Part 2</a><br />
<br />
I’ve been feeling this BBQ for some time now. It’s uncomfortable. And it’s OK … but uncomfortable! And mostly, I just don’t care enough to write about it here. Sometimes I make notes. But, then there’s no will to carry. Through. (or brain) There’s just this pull inwards into silence and watching the body, the cellular “stuff”: the earth, air, fire, water - just be vaporized. <br />
<br />Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-44251408318058692392012-09-01T08:46:00.003-04:002012-09-01T09:07:30.264-04:00Resistance is Futile<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: How do I let go? <br />
A: You can't, you won't, you don't.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Adyashanti<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My friends and I for some time have taken it as gospel that
resisting only causes suffering – so stop it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let it go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what I am finding
these past few weeks is that resistance is totally beyond my control.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It resides in my tissues as attachment - my entire love of
Life as I have known it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a
gripping in my belly and even a hint of letting go evokes terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am having pretty uncomfortable days. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My friend’s response to my complaints was, “What did the
sign say? Resistance is futile!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">She was referring to a sign Adyashanti used to post at his
retreats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, she wasn’t sure of where
the phrase originated.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, as a joke, I found this clip from Star Trek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I myself did not recall was how intertwined the
phrase is with my all-time favorite hero, the iconic warrior with great heart,
John Luke Picard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And too, I had no idea that the phrase refers to an epic</span> struggle between separate
self and Oneness. It indeed embraces mythic roots.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WZEJ4OJTgg8" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Resistance is futile.
<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You will be assimilated.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your life as it has
been is over.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wow!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is just
what my body tissue is resisting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Intellectual understanding doesn’t touch it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The awakening of belly letting go is
preverbal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so the teaching goes:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How do I let go?<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can’t. You won’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I cannot stop thoughts arising in meditation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor can I will myself to cease
resisting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is my experience and it
is backed-up now by neuroscience:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was conscious of a
decision to press my right finger down and you’re saying that six seconds
earlier my brain had already made that decision.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[Yes.]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In your case, up to six seconds before you
make up your mind, we can predict which decision you’re going to make.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Neuroscience and Free Will video clip<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N6S9OidmNZM" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Resistance<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> is</i></b> futile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Still, apparently, I resist right until the moment that I do
not. That moment is beyond my personal control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m getting this understanding with my body these days.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can feel how cellular my grip is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And yet, from time to time, I notice the role of mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I notice how my mind can quiet as some intellectual
reassurance dawns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The intellect gets soothes and immediately there is relief: terror
in the body is not as painful as a herniated disc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let the discomfort simply burn.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">None of this struggle is absolutely necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or more precisely:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You have no control
over that… It’s something you realize when it’s pretty much done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You look back and go, “What the hell was all
that for?”</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…It’s not necessary [to
struggle] and if you can hear that…if it can actually be totally let into your
system…which usually it doesn’t…<em> it need not be difficult</em>.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Adyashanti, on Effort<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3nO7V3EM74s" width="420"></iframe><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What I notice is that in going over the classic teachings, every
now and then, some little word does get truly in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It brings tears of relief and letting
go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The resistance in the tissue
dissolves or is instantly just gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-92181388738682843362012-08-10T09:59:00.001-04:002012-08-10T10:25:35.163-04:00I Never Sleep: Part 3<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/169176280/" title="Ripples, II"><img alt="Ripples, II by Seeking Tao" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/54/169176280_0035da4f32.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/169176280/">Ripples, II</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/">Seeking Tao</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
I’ve edited this down to make easier reading and the points clearer. Hopefully, I have not changed Ramana’s meaning! Click here to get the <a href="http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Enlightenment/Ramana_Samadhi.htm">unedited version of Raman Maharishi on Samadhi</a>.<br />
<br />
<strong>Question: What is samadhi?<br />Ramana Maharshi: The state in which the unbroken experience of existence-consciousness is attained by the still mind is samadhi… When the mind is in communion with the Self in darkness, it is called sleep… Immersion in a conscious or wakeful state is called samadhi. Samadhi is continuous inherence in the Self in a waking state. Sleep is also inherence in the Self, but in an unconscious state. </strong><br />
<br />
In TM, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi taught that wakefulness during sleep was a test for self realization untroubled by the biased mind. That is, you cannot fake it. Having this established was a hallmark of Cosmic Consciousness. In a recent conversation with a friend I mentioned that by objective criteria I might conclude that my experience is what Maharishi called Cosmic Consciousness. My point was to explain that recently I was laughing to myself, “How very disappointing.” I can laugh now. But for a while, the disappointment was quite sincere. Why? Because the mind still holds so many beliefs and troubling thoughts that I am really still quite a Bozo. Adyashanti has a nice talk he gives about <a href="http://patriciabralley.blogspot.com/2008/03/clown-buddha.html">Buddha seeing his reflection as a clown</a>. <br />
<br />
Here’s a version of this feeling from <a href="http://liberationunleashed.com/Article_Awakening_vs_Liberation.htm">Ed Musaki</a>:<br />
<strong>Nirvakalpa samadhi, [is] a temporary unicity state of mind where the thinking mind does not function, and no longer imposes an artificial order on the perceived universe… However, after experiencing this state literally thousands of times, I was deeply disappointed that I was still the same person after meditation was over. I was not transformed. I did not have any great knowledge. I did not feel any smarter. I did not feel enlightened. In fact, I felt like a failure because I had experienced all these Samadhis, but they had not convinced me…</strong><br />
<br />
My friend, Joel’s, comment was wise:<br />
<strong>Yes, CC is a disappointment. It's dualistic. But it is really a first step. Don't get hung up on mechanics. It happens spontaneously, effortlessly. Just look in a restfully quiet way. There is no witness! Only experience. The witness must and will disappear. Then there is only life. Drop all your concepts and just look.</strong><br />
<br />
Ramana’s next comments speak to this situation nicely.<br />
<strong>Question: What are kevala nirvikalpa samadhi and sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi?<br />Ramana Maharshi: The immersion of the mind in the Self, but without its destruction, is kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. In this state one is not free from vasanas and so one does not therefore attain mukti. Only after the vasanas have been destroyed can one attain liberation.</strong><br />
<br />
So maybe, what MMY called Cosmic Consciousness can be equated with kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. Those beliefs and troubling thoughts, those lingering conditions keep the mind “up and running.” To say that Duality remains is to say the ego remains with a sense of separateness. Vasanas keep activiating ego. There is the phrase, “the mind silences.” Yes, I’m awaiting that, for the vasanas to dissolve. I’m awaiting Liberation which is a non-duality.<br />
<br />
There is a new site that I like called <a href="http://liberationunleashed.com/index.html">Liberation Unleashed</a>. Their premise is that awakening can be achieved quickly through direct inquiry into seeing “no self.” However, post this liberation they have a support system for clearing out the troubling thoughts, the vasanas. They suggest Byron Katie’s <em>The Work</em>. This is great, all fine and good. But, it is muddying the terminology.<br />
<br />
<strong>Question: When can one practise sahaja samadhi?<br />Ramana Maharshi: Even from the beginning. Even though one practices kevala nirvikalpa samadhi for years together, if one has not rooted out the vasanas one will not attain liberation.</strong><br />
<br />
How curious.<br />
Kevala nirvikalpa samadhi at first seemed to be a state, or at least a noun. Now, it is spoken of as a practice or a verb! Well, nouns make me think of objects and consciousness is not an object. Verbs make me think of the ever changing Relative and impermanence. That seems very fitting also. Maybe it’s that the Relative is actually a gerund –both a noun and a verb. In fact, conceiving the Relative/Life as noun-verb seems to be just another way of stating the classic:<br />
<strong>Emptiness is Form. Form is Emptiness.</strong><br />
<br />
There’s a similar condensing of state and practice in two definitions I came across the other day. The first term has Hindu roots. The second is from Zen.<br />
<strong>Turiya: the experience of pure consciousness. It is the background that underlies and transcends the three common states of consciousness: the state of waking consciousness, the state of dreaming, and dreamless sleep.</strong>Wikipedia<br />
<strong>Dzogchen: the natural, primordial state of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition.</strong>Wikipedia<br />
<br />
Soon, I will be seeing my Taoist Teacher, Wong Loh Sin See. I was going over a question he asked me at our last visit: “Are you meditating?” Back then, I was doing qigong, more exercise than meditation. He encouraged me to actually sit. I did that for awhile and then slipped back into qigong. More recently, after experiencing a rather intense collapse of the witness, I realized I was always “meditating.” If indeed meditation is the activity of soaking in pure consciousness, then that was happening at all times. Sitting was not required. Looking closer, to my surprise I discovered that all of Life, all Creation, was always, and simply, only the act of meditation. <br />
<br />
Meditation is <em>all </em>that’s going on! Meditation is Creation rising and falling. The state is indeed the practice. At least, that’s how it appeared to me for that afternoon. Realizations come and realizations go. What do they come and go in? The Self, and <em>I am meditation.</em>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-22000751645336368662012-08-06T11:58:00.002-04:002012-08-06T11:58:42.324-04:00I Never Sleep and Fighter PilotsIt turns out that fighter pilots accelerated to speeds that induce loss of consciousness can wake up through these same layers of light, bodily sensation, and no thought that I described in <a href="http://patriciabralley.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-never-sleep.html">I Never Sleep</a>. That kind of surprises me. Perhaps losing consciousness is simply losing consciousness and it doesn’t matter if that is precipitated by gravity draining blood from the brain or simply laying your head upon a pillow at night. Curiously, when the thinking brain falls behind and can supply no reason for the body’s sensations, the fighter pilot researches say that the brain then makes up a reason. I first heard this explanation of brain playing tricks on you from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He said the relaxation deep in meditation will start the body normalizing. Sensations, feelings arise for no external reason. Maharishi explained that we then experience “a mood on an abstract basis.” He went on to explain the mind cannot stand this lack of decent reason and so ascribes the sensation to some memory close at hand. “Ah, my friend is coming for a visit.”<br />
<br />
Here’s RadioLab’s description of this research. <br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="54" src="http://www.radiolab.org/widgets/ondemand_player/#file=%2Faudio%2Fxspf%2F91527%2F;containerClass=radiolab" width="474"></iframe>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-14417120952394450272012-07-26T15:21:00.000-04:002012-07-26T15:39:55.663-04:00I Never Sleep<strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">From the point of view of Consciousness, there is no experience of a dark, blank nothingness. Rather, there is only the ‘experience’ of itself, which means only the presence …of itself. This is neither deep, dark, blank, or asleep. It [is] dimensionless, present, luminous, alive and awake.</span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Consciousness is not the opposite of un-consciousness. For Consciousness there is no ‘off.’ It is always ‘on.’ ...What is considered to be deep sleep from the point of view of the waking mind is ‘wide-awakeness’ for Consciousness. </span></strong><strong><br /></strong><strong><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Now, with that as background, we can look more closely at the question as to whether identification remains at a subtler level in deep sleep.</span></strong><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Rupert Spira, <a href="http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/deep-sleep-death-and-reincarnation-rupert-spira/">interview</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I think most people have had the experience of waking up the morning (or maybe days) after a disaster, a death, and for a moment you’ve forgotten. You’re simply there awake, until that first thought arises and with it the pain that sleep momentarily erased returns. Apparently, there are other versions of this story.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Recently, I’ve noticed the transition from being deep sleep to lying there in bed awake with a clarity that’s usually not there. What I notice is a buzz (and no thoughts), a luminescence (and no thoughts), and then fear (and still no thoughts), except its rather intense fear and thus physically uncomfortable. My mind quickly presents a list of reasons. This week they’re financial. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But, the process is kind of strange when you think about it. Why would I wake up gripped by fear for which there is no reason? (I here equate reason with a label, or a thought.) I think identification, attachment to beliefs, must remain deep inside me. My body must be listening to unspoken fears. How else could the sensation arise?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Thankfully, not all mornings are like this. Sometimes I notice that, “Oh, I was asleep.” And with that thought comes the understanding of Consciousness as presence, alive and awake: Even though I was asleep, I was awake all night. It was this experience that actually first attracted me to the video, I Never Sleep</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And so, as the fear hit me this morning, I was reminded onceagain of the images. Rupert Spira so artistically presents the transition from deep sleep into waking. It doesn’t help my belly wake up any easier, but it’s something nice to share. It’s not your usual Advaita lecture.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="252" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/m5je83VbUpk?rel=0" width="448"></iframe>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-40257606328260604582012-07-04T09:29:00.001-04:002012-07-04T10:08:48.829-04:00When I was a Young Man<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/5137479017/" title="Bralley kids Christmas Card 1954"><img alt="Bralley kids Christmas Card 1954 by Seeking Tao" src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4089/5137479017_6bc0fecbe4.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/5137479017/">Bralley kids Christmas Card 1954</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/">Seeking Tao</a> on Flickr.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">This morning as I sat to meditate, or simply just to be,
since I had no intention to even close my eyes, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my body seemed to want to settle and I thought
I’d give that a chance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To my surprise, my mind became filled with these <a href="http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/biff-rose-lyrics/molly-lyrics.html">old Biff Rose lyrics</a>:</span></span><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I was a young
man<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I ran away from home<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I went to join the
circus<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I went to see the
cotton candy world<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And make me lots of
money<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On my own<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For Molly oh my
pretty Molly<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She's waitin' all
alone<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Someday soon I will
return to her…<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, he never did, not in<a href="http://biffrose.bandcamp.com/track/molly"> the song</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (Please listen to the whole song)</span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">But, yesterday, my brother "made him lots of money" and
retired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I find it very moving to
see the broad sweep of his story: the searching, seeking, and the coming home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His son-in-law said, “Woo Hoo! Hard work does
pay off!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, the journey wasn’t all
about the money. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not even always couched
in terms of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The journey was and is about love.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">We all leave home and join the circus, in
one way or another, hoping to prove our worth, hoping to prove to ourself and others that we have earned and deserve
love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of us eventually make it home and others seem to
get lost along the way.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">It starts out all for Molly, in her many forms: parent, partner,
child, friends, and self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What an amazing
discovery to realize, “She loved me all along.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At least, that is one thing I have learned through sharing in my brother’s journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s what I’m learning in my own rather cash
strapped journey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: small;">Real love is unconditional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> That's the first lesson I learned from my brother. (What better definition for the very word - my brother.)
Love is</span> simply given, not just by God or Spirit, but often by those around
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems we’re always given a second
chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we’ll need it! </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because, apparently, we have to make the journey and hopefully we’ll
come full circle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And there are songs
along the way that say it better than the words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my meditation there was another lyric
preceding the words from Molly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That tune is lost in the
fuzziness of past transcendence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But,
perhaps they were from this song:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="252" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/l_6xIUrJa3k" width="448"></iframe><br />
<br />
And yes, I know this is incredibly and unrepentedly "SO the 60's" ... let's just call it roots :)<br />
<br />Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-14322090248593790582012-06-15T06:52:00.002-04:002012-06-15T07:04:13.461-04:00Microbiome<object height="232" width="424"> <param name = "movie" value = "http://www-tc.pbs.org/s3/pbs.videoportal-prod.cdn/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" >
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<div style="color: grey; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-top: 5px; text-align: center; width: 424px;">
</div>
Watch <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2245886699" style="color: rgb(78, 178, 254) !important; font-weight: normal !important; height: 13px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank">A New Genetic Map That Could Make Your Skin Crawl</a> on PBS. <br />
See more from <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/" style="color: rgb(78, 178, 254) !important; font-weight: normal !important; height: 13px; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank">PBS NewsHour.</a><br />
<br />
<div align="left">
<strong>We're outnumbered ten to one by these microorganisms and yet less than 10% of them have ever been isolated and studied.</strong><br />
Eric Green<br />
<br />
I really am excited by this. It's worth getting past the ad and listening to the interview. This is going to change how medicine is practiced in the future. Understanding the metabolism of these bacteria is like discovering a new organ(s) in our bodies.<br />
</div>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-52783889483426268852012-06-14T10:22:00.001-04:002012-06-14T10:39:05.734-04:00The Human Microbiome<div style="font-size: 0.8em; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/479100108/" title="Petri Plate 5"><img alt="Petri Plate 5 by Seeking Tao" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/170/479100108_3ac87e1f0d.jpg" /></a><br />
<span style="margin: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/479100108/">Petri Plate 5</a>, a photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41128216@N00/">Seeking Tao</a> on Flickr.</span></div>
<strong>The human body contains about 100 trillion cells, but only maybe one in 10 of those cells is actually human. The rest are from bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms.<br />The human we see in the mirror is made up of more microbes than human.</strong><br />
NPR reporter Rob Stein and Lita Proctor of the National Institutes of Health<br />
<br />
So began <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/06/13/154913334/finally-a-map-of-all-the-microbes-on-your-body">the radio report</a> on the results of the <a href="http://www.genome.gov/27549115">Human Microbiome Project</a> the first catalog of the bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms that populate every nook and cranny of the human body as reported by 200 scientists in some sixteen articles published in four journals.<br />
<br />
The definition of a human microbiome is all the microbial microbes that live in and on our bodies, all the genes, and all the metabolic capabilities these microbes bring to supporting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora">human health and also human disease</a>. The scientists had taken samples from 200 healthy adults in 18 different sites both on and in the body.<br />
<br />
The factoids of the findings are truly amazing:<br />
10,000 different species annotated, 8 million different genes, that’s 300 times the number of human genes by the Human Genome Project.<br />
There were discoveries of entirely new species which have the scientists speaking in terms of opening new territory – a rainforest with new butterflies or mammals… except they’re speaking of bacteria. Those foreign little buggers that we mostly try to sanitize away.<br />
<br />
Well, all this info, however stunning in the moment (and I got very excited yesterday), isn’t all that new. Because, you see, the symbiosis in the human body is actually quite fractal, the pattern repeating on different levels, in different ways on subtler, more microscopic levels. <br />
<br />
I think of Evie fighting cancer. Well, actually her Hodgkins tumors are composed of only about 10% cancerous cells. The cancerous Reed-Sternberg cells recruit a host of immune cells that symbiotically support the cancer. And in turn within each of these human cells, both benign and malignant, respiration occurs in small organelles – the mitochondria – that are descendents of swallowed-up bacteria that symbiotically created the cells we know today as "human".<br />
<br />
When I discovered this fact about mitochondria back in 1969, I shivered with a thrill. I’ve quoted Lewis Thomas before because the impact went so deeply into me and he expresses his own feelings that so well echo mine:<br />
<strong>there is the whole question of my identity… It is a mystery. <br />There they are, moving about in my cytoplasm, breathing for my own flesh, but strangers. They are much less closely related to me than to each other and to the free-living bacteria out under the hill. They feel like strangers, but the thought comes that the same creatures, precisely the same, are out there in the cells of sea gulls and whales, and dune grass, and seaweed, and hermit crabs... Through them, I am connected… This is a new kind of information, for me.</strong><br />
<a href="http://patriciabralley.blogspot.com/2006/09/truth.html">Lewis Thomas</a><br />
<br />
And, I guess until a deeply non-dual awareness is established, I shall continue to be shaken to my core by such incontrovertible evidence that the boundaries I draw around myself are actually quite arbitrary and ultimately rather artificial.<br />
<br />
<strong>It seems that experience is a very dualistic affair. Experience, we are taught early in life, has a personal inner observer who gets in touch with outer objects through the means of the senses, and communicates through language to other inner observers. There is an impassible barrier, we are taught, between in and out. …<br />This subject /object duality is perhaps the most fundamental duality of all. How you see yourself affects how you see the object of your experience. “What you be” determines what you see.</strong><br />
Greg Goode, <a href="http://awakeningclarity.blogspot.com/2012/01/dr-greg-goode-how-to-stand-as-awareness.html"><em>How to Stand as Awareness</em></a>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-54985444206513737042012-06-11T13:34:00.005-04:002012-06-11T14:56:04.541-04:00Into the Great Silence<strong>When we discuss akedia, we are discussing the mystery of why people fall out of love.</strong><br />
<a href="http://didymus.org/">didymus.org</a><br />
<br />
Miek Pot was interviewed recently on Conscious TV. The episode is entitled Into the Great Silence and it perked my ears up because Silence has so very often crashed upon my consciousness heralding a shift. Miek Pot tells her story of discovering this Silence, which she equates with God, upon entering a<br />
Carthusian monastery. This was the women’s version of the monastery of the Grand Chartreuse that was the subject of the 2005 documentary film, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence">Into Great Silence</a>. The Silence in that film was so powerful that many people simply fled the theatre within the first few minutes. And while I squirmed at first, I stuck with it and discovered beauty.<br />
<br />
But, as I listened to Miek Pot describe her experience this morning I was stunned for a different reason. When asked, <strong>Let’s talk about “the demon of the eleventh hour.” </strong>Pot replied: <strong>Akedia… someone hanging around, but formerly, I didn’t know the name. But, in the monastery I learned to give it a name. It is something that is with me in my actual life again… Life is boring. There are no changes [or] new things. And then, Akedia is coming. Akedia is different from depression. Depression is something you know like a mental illness, while Akedia is more a no caring. It is a hardening of the heart. It’s like indifference.</strong><br />
<br />
Akedia! I leaned forward and tried to listen more closely to what exactly she was saying. Acadia? Could that be right? Acadia? A demon called Acadia? No!<br />
<br />
<strong>This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,</strong><br />
Since I was a young girl these words have meant Acadia to me. But today when they came to mind I was only confused since they are from the poem, <a href="http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/library/digitalcollection/Evangeline.pdf">Evangeline</a>. I puzzled over their link to Acadia having long forgotten the next lines:<br />
<br />
<strong>This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it </strong><br />
<strong>Leaped like the roe…</strong><br />
<strong>Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers…</strong><br />
<strong>Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?</strong> <br />
<br />
No. Today I heard Acadia and then was told, “It’s not depression.”<br />
<br />
I have been asking myself about depression for some time now. “Is this depression?”<br />
And always I have concluded, “No.” It seems like something else; some not quite integrated way of being in this largely “life of solitude” I have fallen into. I wonder if I need to make more friends, find a partner once again, do volunteer work – do something, anything to not feel this discomfort of somehow missing out on Life, of somehow not connecting. And yet, I know all those supposed solutions do not hold the answer and offer no appeal. Basically, I simply want to sit – and yet, I don’t. Still, I feel the answer lies inside myself. I know I must go deeper and find happiness within. I know I cannot pull away from feeling ANYTHING. Whatever arises, I must feel it and accept it. I must come to peace with everything. <br />
<br />
And so, when Miek Pot says that it is a hardening of the heart, I know she is correct. And I know she is describing things from something of a different angle and I want to understand. I think of the anonymous comment someone left at one of my blog entries. It urged me to cultivate devotion to God… even if that seems a dualistic activity for someone into nonduality. I think of Adya telling me of the flaming heart putting an end to the isolation of the witness.<br />
<br />
So, I Googled this new word, unsure even of the spelling, and found:<br />
<strong>Acedia: Spiritual torpor and apathy; ennui. </strong><br />
<strong>Acedia was originally noted as a problem among monks and other ascetics who maintained a solitary life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but distinct from depression. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one's duties in life... </strong><br />
<br />
because one no longer cares. Suddenly, I was reminded of Adya’s comment in his interview at BATGAP. He mentioned that there’s a “dirty little secret” in non-duality in which people can become “spiritual shipwrecks.” They get lost in the not doing and the not caring. Maybe, this is just another flavor of what’s been called <a href="http://www.innerbonding.com/show-article/748/addiction-to-spirituality.html">spiritual bypassing</a>. But, as in comparisons with depression, there is a notable difference.<br />
<br />
<strong>Acedia is essentially a flight from the world that leads to not caring even that one does not care. </strong><br />
<strong>For Aquinas, acedia is "sorrow about spiritual good in as much as it is a Divine good." </strong><br />
<br />
<strong>The demon of acedia holds an important place in early monastic demonology and psychology. Evagrius of Pontus characterizes it as "the most troublesome of all" of the eight genera of evil thoughts. Evagrius sees acedia as a temptation, and the great danger lies in giving in to it.</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>Aquinas's teaching on acedia contrasts with his prior teaching on charity's gifted "spiritual joy" to which acedia is directly opposed. As Aquinas says, "One opposite is known through the other, as darkness through light. Hence also what evil is must be known from the nature of good." </strong><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia">Wikipedia</a><br />
<br />
Hum. I found this all quite interesting. But, the real lesson here, I think, goes back to the Silence and how many people actually fled the theatre not even wanting to deal with it on film, let alone real life: <strong>Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven …</strong><br />
The polarity is too great. Intuitively, we know that more is required of us than we are willing to give. We become afraid and we contract. We either freeze or run away.<br />
<br />
At another site I found this explanation of <a href="http://www.didymus.org/falling-out-of-love-acedia-akedia-and-spiritual-apathy.html">Akedia as one of the Seven Deadly Sins</a>. (I have taken liberties with ellipsis… and yes, this is a very Christain explanation involving “sin” – a word I like to define as “that which separates us from God” and thus a useful concept for the serious non-dualist.)<br />
<br />
<strong>The pattern of sin we are going to discuss today is very different from the other patterns of sin we have discussed in previous weeks… Other sins treat something bad as a good thing and run after it… </strong><strong>But are all sins defined in terms of things we do? </strong><br />
<strong>What about sins that are problem because of things we don’t do?</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>Because our culture is focused on action, we are very quick to look at outward actions and pass judgment …[but] When my sin lies in the fact I don’t act, there is no outward action to give me away. </strong><strong><br /></strong><strong>No one will see that my heart was wrong and this led me to refuse love’s claims…</strong><br />
<strong>The early church believed that not acting because one refused to do what love asked of us was the deadliest and most dangerous of sins. </strong><br />
<br />
<strong>They called this sin akedia (“indifference,” “spiritual apathy”). </strong><br />
<br />
<strong>When we discuss akedia, we are discussing the mystery of why people fall out of love</strong>.<br />
<br />
Wow, The Mystery! – now, there’s a word that keeps coming to my mind these days. I find I do not feel I can really understand anything these days. Last blog I wrote about these spiritualize migraines where my vision becomes uncoupled from thinking. It’s almost like a sensory version of Life becoming more and more “ungraspable.” The mind cannot hold onto vision. The mind cannot grasp hold of Life in the way it once did. It no longer makes all that much sense. Someone is here and then they’re not. How can that be? What does a Life mean? What is its weight? And can you waste it? Do I waste it? <br />
Who am I, anyway? <br />
It is a Mystery.<br />
And now, there is this mystery of why people fall out of love - And that is called akedia.<br />
<br />
Falling out of Love. Refusing to do what Love asks of us.<br />
How is that possible? For is not Love another word for God? - which is just another word for Silence and The Mystery. The impossible is happening and how is that possible?<br />
<br />
<strong>It’s a hardening of the heart. It’s like indifference. For me when it comes, it is for me to find a way to go into my heart and it’s by my [inner] child… and then all that hardening, that indifference… falls away, collapses. And then, I am in my heart and acedia is away.</strong><br />
Miek Pot, Into the Great Silence<br />
<br />
<embed base="http://admin.brightcove.com" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashvars="videoId=1658302484001&playerId=1321306269&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" height="330" name="flashObj" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" seamlesstabbing="false" src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1321306269" swliveconnect="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="389"></embed>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-55816130277743200992012-06-09T07:00:00.000-04:002012-06-09T07:08:08.302-04:00What is Pain<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In order for there to
be pain, there also has to be something else, a story, resistance, or fear…<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There’s the sensation
and then there has to be an idea about it…<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When the sensations
are strong you can suffer with even a little bit of story.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://endless-satsang.com/">Nirmila<o:p></o:p></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For years now I’ve had bouts of migraines, but during the
past year they have gradually changed into something I’d not even label as a
migraine if I’d hadn’t seen the gradual evolution of the symptoms.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What began as head splitting pain, nausea and vertigo has
become a painless slight nausea shakiness and rather transcendent buzz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many ways it feels as if I have jumped up out
of a deep meditation and my body feels shocked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Something happens to my vision. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first, cloudy or blurred seem descriptive but
then I’ll realize that’s not it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More
accurately, it seems as if the process of vision, seeing, has become uncoupled
from a neural circuit that usually processes visual information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually, what I see goes through a loop that
adds a story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see something and then
think about it with words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During these
migraines now, I simply see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I am at
work following written instructions, thinking things through becomes an almost
impossible task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I go home and fall
asleep immediately.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think that this shifting in quality of the migraines has
been caused by the calcium channel and beta blocker medication I take for high
blood pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as the shift has
become more pronounced it has seemed less and less a physical phenomenon and
more and more like some spiritual experience, some adjustment that allows life
to be lived with a bit less story.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We all experience pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here, Nirmila finely draws out the mechanics of its arising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May it help us all live with less pain in the
future.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hFfNoJc3RuQ" width="420"></iframe>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29228825.post-48031904774994734422012-05-19T07:40:00.002-04:002012-05-19T08:57:15.421-04:00Mistletoe and Healing<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was not until I
had spent some time in Järna that I began to understand that it is possible for
buildings to have a nurturing or healing quality. This understanding occurred
through my experiencing calmness in this place, through my sense of ease.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://antroposofi.org/vidar/healthcare.htm">Gary J. Coates,architect</a></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And it was not until I came across this video on mistletoe,
that I was brought back to something I’d noticed long ago: that simply sitting
and being with a homeopathic medicine can nurture and calm my soul.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I realize now, this is a version of Adyashanti’s teaching
and admonition: If you want to become enlightened, hang out with enlightened
people, or enlightened mountains and trees and lakes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The past few weeks I have been like a woman possessed to
find a cure for cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not for the
entire world, but simply for dear Evie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have come to believe that just as every individual awakens in their
own particular manner, each cancer survivor, each person who makes it after
Statistics and Medicine have said there is no hope – each person who heals finds
a way forward uniquely for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It may be Qigong, it may be some other renegade molecularly based
therapy… but in each case, it becomes their own revelation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, this unique path is based upon a
universal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Something moves from deep inside.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Something moves from Silence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is a beautiful video about mistletoe and the love and
attention people put into transforming this plant into <a href="http://wissenschaft.mistel-therapie.de/index.php5?lang=1">a medicine called Isacador</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never knew such care is
taken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This video stopped my frazzled
searching cold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It returned me to a
centered silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, I want to
share it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But don’t click on it grabbing for transcendence. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Simply rest a moment in the feel, the images, the yin and
yang and weave of plant and sky and people.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Take it as a work of art – not as medicine.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And if you still want more (as I did) continue on along to
visit the medical clinic at Jarna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
community now comprised of 3000 people living lives centered on the philosophy
of scientist and mystic, Rudolph Steiner.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="252" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/d3yHlFy0g-0" width="448"></iframe>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Architects<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gary and
Susanne Coates <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://antroposofi.org/vidar/healthcare.htm">provide this description</a>
on Jarma in Journal of Healthcare Design, vol. 8, 1998: (I’ve edited it for
brevity)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What if we had an
architecture whose forms, surfaces, materials, character, moods, and so on,
were derived from the same principles that underlie the forms and processes
that we respond to so positively in nature itself? What if we had an organic
architecture that was truly functional and spoke to the needs of the whole
human being? This is what the architect Asmussen offers us Jarna.</span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Asmussen is now an
extraordinary 82-year-old man. He rides his bicycle from the apartment in which
he lives through a beautiful garden landscape to the office in which he works.
I have seen him turn compost heaps eight hours a day, on a Sunday, just to
relax. He's Danish by birth, was educated in Denmark, moved in 1939 to
Stockholm just before World War II began. He met his wife there and he has lived
in Sweden ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I should have
mentioned before that Asmussen has followed the impulses of the Austrian
scholar, scientist, artist, clairvoyant, and spiritual researcher Rudolf
Steiner (1861-1925), who founded anthroposophy, which is both a body of
knowledge covering the whole of life and a spiritual path for the direct
attainment of such knowledge. The entire community of which Asmussen is a part
and for which he has designed comprises people, organizations, and initiatives
that have been inspired by the ideas, writings, and research of Steiner.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I noticed an
attentiveness to all different kinds of details at the clinic. </span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The sewage treatment
garden is one of the most beautiful aquatic gardens I have ever seen. It
comprises seven ponds in which communities of plants and other organisms digest
the human wastes of the college.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The care that is
lavished on the chickens, who live in beautifully designed wooden houses
surrounded by sculptures created by students, gives some sense of the care with
which Vidarkliniken itself is designed. Even the plants are thought about and
cared for in a way that is most uncommon. Once we saw one of the gardeners
planting flowers around a manhole in one of the vegetable fields and asked him
why he was doing this, and he said, "Well, I got to thinking about the
carrots and the cabbages and how they put so much energy into making food for
us that they don't have enough energy left to make flowers, so I thought I
should plant flowers for the cabbages and carrots to enjoy." <o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When this kind of
attention is given to all the beings and processes in a landscape, it becomes a
living environment that quite literally radiates those same qualities back to
people.</span></b><br />
<br />
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</div>Pat Bralleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12057484201453654459noreply@blogger.com4