Utility Of Pain

During a session this morning, I was openly admired for my abilities, knowledge and who I am and, I have to admit, I am pleased as well.  Not surprisingly, the admiration and my positive feelings were nicely balanced out by being considered a bit of a nuisance and an idiot later the same day!  The response later in the day was by service people largely in response to my speech impediment, which is a nuisance to me too.  At any rate, my abilities, knowledge and who I am are partly a result of what I have been through in this life.  I have been faced with numerous very hard choices, experienced extreme pain and had to accomplish seemingly impossible things in order to avoid suffering, pain and death.  In short, I have grown through adversity.  I have also witnessed the benefits of adversity in numerous other people.  It would seem that adversity and pain, while very unpleasant, are also beneficial.

Linear Time, A Convenience

It is clear to me that the linear time I mentioned yesterday, the notion that events happen within a definite and predictable cause-and-effect sequence, is just a transient convenience of the physical body, not a necessary reality.  As various mystics and spiritual leaders have mentioned, the true Self and eternity are timeless, unborn and never die.  I have been briefly “jerked out” of the space-time continuum, an event I found quite traumatic, but also very illuminating since, before then I did not know it was possible.  Personally, I enjoy the notion of linear time, it works well in this body, but I also find it comforting to know that it is just a matter of convenience.  Like L. LeShan said in Alternate Realities "Reality is only partly our invention; it is also partly our discovery.  Our task is to discover how much and in what areas which is which; and then to determine how much new freedom this gives us and what we can do with it".

Linear Time

It looks very likely that we will be moving soon and that my spiritual routines like the sweat-lodge and my daily communion within the hot-tub will be disrupted.  This change could readily be a source of concern for me but, during meditation, I have been assured that it won’t really change anything.  I think in terms of linear time and within linear time, moving could be a problem.  However, it has been made clear to me, though I do not understand completely, that linear time does not apply and that a temporary change makes no difference.  Understanding is not required.

Beyond Words

I had the opportunity to talk with several people about love/God based behaviors and attitudes that I describe on my website. Things like true power, perfectionism, selfless love, duality and the Absolute.  As I pointed out today, almost all of the information was gleaned from past mystics and spiritual leaders, very little was original.  To me, it is quite remarkable that each of them had encountered the same truths during their own meditation.  They each knew the value of the love/God based way of life, a way of life which they could not adequately describe using words.  Essentially, we could only talk around it using metaphors and analogies.

Acting Out Of Love

Today I had the pleasure of connecting with various people who were all learning to act out of what I call the God or love part of themselves.  Most of them were also intimately familiar with acting out of their dark sides, having each done that for many years.  For several of them, I have helped them make the shift, a wondrous experience for me.  I lead a life of being of service to others, so watching and participating in others acting out of love is very meaningful for me.

God Part

Having allowed it to dominate my thoughts, feelings and behaviors for many years, I am very much aware of my shadow or dark side, that part of me that is hurt, angry, extremely self-centered and fear-based.  More recently, I have also seen that part expressed in other people.  As far as I can tell, we all have it.  Also as far as I can tell, we all have, what I call the “God part’ as well.  The God part is that seed in each of us that is loving, empathic, other directed and knows that we are all connected.  I have learned that by nurturing the God part, I can lovingly embrace both parts, while acting on the God part.  Living that way is a lot more enjoyable, for me and those around me.

The Miracle of Recovery

Thanks to meditation, contemplation and rest, today I felt emotionally and spiritually strong and connected, not at all the way I felt yesterday.  I find it impressive that on the one hand I can know God, that life is eternal (not dependent on the transient, physical body) and that everything is in divine order, while, on the other hand be stressed out by relatively trivial life events.  All I can conclude is that earthly drama and events are very compelling.
I went to one of my recovery meetings tonight.  While there, I looked around the room in amazement at the fact that I was in a room full of drug addicts and alcoholics who were clean and sober and talking about their own feelings.

Life

It is important for me to admit that for much of the day today, I was struggling to maintain any sort of connection with the Source/God or the peace that comes with “I am”, and I felt pretty challenged and overwhelmed by life.  It took me a while to realize through meditation and contemplation that I had taken on too many earthly concerns and, in addition, was having unreasonable expectations of myself and Maria.  I altered my attitude and expectations and am now feeling connected again, a good example of the spiritual utility of discomfort as a corrective event.  I suspect that if my spiritual strength, which is very good, were better, I would not get pulled into the earthly concerns.

Meaning In Life

I have been tense for several hours today until a few minutes ago.  My tension was due to several life events being up in the air, meaning unresolved, the main events are buying a new house and selling our existing one.  Feeling tense is highly unusual for me, any more, and I do not enjoy it.  My relief came when someone I know well expressed gratitude due to the support and love he has experienced over the last year.  I suddenly realized, deeply, what M. Williamson said, that “Money, of itself, means nothing. Material things, of themselves, mean nothing.  It’s not that they’re bad. It’s that they’re nothing.”  As she points out and I remembered, love and relationships do mean something.

Spiritual Growth

I was struck today, during my guidance of others, by how much I have grown and changed during the twenty-eight years of my recovery.  I realize now that I have been very carefully and purposefully molded by various guides and teachers, both physical and non-physical.  Molded to become a loving, compassionate, understanding guide/teacher myself.  My strongest support and guidance has been non-physical, as a result of asking for support and guidance during meditation.  Getting guidance from an outside source feels very different from accessing my own intuition, though both occur during meditation.
In addition to being a teacher/guide myself, I usually stress the importance of having a strong and trusting relationship with a teacher during the growth process, in order to promote growth and avoid the many pitfalls.  I realize, though I don’t understand why, that most people cannot access non-physical teachers, the way I do, so a physical teacher is important.