Connection

Today I focused on making a strong loving, healing, accepting and compassionate connection with people, plants, birds and even my neighborhood, in general.  In most cases there were immediate and phenomenal results, changes in behavior.  I suspect there will also be long-term changes.  I could feel the strong loving, healing, accepting and compassionate power/energy within and around me and simply directed it at the entity or entities that were my objective, some would say that I “blessed” them.  I was reminded of what deCastillejo said; “Whether he knows it or not his own receptive allowing will affect all those around him; rain will fall on the parched fields, and tears will turn bitter grief to flowering sorrow, while stricken children dry their eyes and laugh.".  I am clearly not the source of that power, but I can allow it to pass through me.

What is Divine

The question of what is Divine or Divine inspiration has been on my mind for the last week or so.  There have been miracles of healing or acts of love and connection that are relatively obviously due to some sort of Divine intervention.  There are other, more complicated, situations.  For example, let’s say a person becomes addicted to heroin and, as a result, that person is abandoned by friends and family, loses their job, becomes homeless and almost dies.  Then that same person goes through some sort of intervention, begins recovery and starts assisting others in the recovery process.  I would say that love or the Divine was involved in the recovery process, but the whole sequence was necessary to bring the previous heroin user to a loving place.  Similarly, in my case, as with many others, pain and disability have led me to a much greater connection with God as well as a life of service and love.  The question that I come to is “when does the Divine intervention/love begin.

The Role of Spirituality

Today I was talking to a colleague about the fact that topics like non-medical healing, connection with all thing, the location of consciousness, the significance of spirituality in overcoming addiction, existence of the Divine, etc., that I talk to clients about are decidedly not mainstream and that various people and entities (like my licensing board) would not like it.  In fact, many people seem to consider the ideas a threat, which they are not.  The main reasons that I talk about them is that the clients obviously want to and I frequently have direct experience with the concepts.  In my opinion, the power of love, connection, spirituality and the Divine (however you define it) are a vital part of life, individual development and overcoming addiction.

Being Disabled

Yesterday my previous internet provider charged me for services, as if I hadn’t cancelled my contract with them, so today I called them up and had a very pleasant conversation with a staff member who cancelled my account and sent me an e-mail confirmation of the cancellation.  The individual I spoke with was very polite, cooperative and patient, a pleasure to deal with.
Approximately two weeks ago I had called the same company in an effort to cancel my service.  I spoke with an individual who was very dismissive and who evidently did not respond to my request or even record that I had called.  My thoughts during that previous conversation were something like “here we go again!”, since I had encountered the attitude many times before.  I must have been in a good space spiritually and emotionally since I also felt some amusement and a realization that my request would probably not be fulfilled.  I suspect that he was responding to the fact that my speech is very slow and not at all clear.  His assumption was that my brain operated in much the same way and so I was not worth listening to and probably would not remember the call anyway, an assumption that I am now very aware of and do not make whenever I speak with another.

Instant Gratification

It is important for me to realize that virtually nothing I talk about or the spiritual practices that I do lead to a feeling of instant gratification, a point that was made to me by one of my clients.  The reason that my realization is important is my understanding of why most people do not seek the deep sense of fulfillment I have found.  The fact is that knowing the love, peace and serenity of the Absolute or the sense of “I am”, requires discipline and practice.  Knowing God also requires giving up the attachment to worldly things since, as St. Augustine stated “we cannot serve two masters.  But a man does try to serve two masters if he seeks both the kingdom of God for the great good it is and those other temporal things.”.

Quiet Day

Another “split wood and carry water” sort of a day, very “meat and potatoes”, to use a more contemporary phrase.  I exercised, paid bills, did a bit of reading, did some cooking, watched the crows in my backyard and felt peaceful.  The house we have moved into presents few challenges, unlike our previous home, which is ideal for right now.  Fewer daily challenges means that we can direct more energy towards being of service, promoting our own well being and connecting with God.  Speaking of connecting, I also spent a good deal of time in quiet meditation & contemplation.

Subconscious

One of the questions from others (and myself!) that I frequently encounter is how to bring the subconscious more into consciousness, one of the things I continue to work on.  It is quite apparent to me that I know things in my subconscious that I do not know in my conscious mind, things like some aspects of the future and a greater awareness of what C. Jung called the “collective unconscious”.  I can access the subconscious in part by using the Buddhist and Zen practices of deep meditation, or allowing thoughts and ideas to surface through intuition.  At present, I use both techniques and am getting better with practice,

Connection

I work with many people who are struggling to find or strengthen their spiritual connection and, as a result of that connection, be able to know and accomplish things like communication with plants and animals or deep meditative awareness of the Absolute.  These things are certainly possible, but they require discipline, focus and practice.  In my case, I learned of being connected to all things, then read of the abilities of St. Francis or Rolling Thunder and noticed the way that plants and animals responded to me when I approached them with love, humility and respect.  I took all of these factors, put them together, worked on my communication and listening skills and have had a fair degree of success at connecting with plants and animals.  I have used a similar collective and integrative approach with various types of connection, and had high degree of success.

Experiencing the Absolute

I gather that most people know of and have experienced brief glimpses of the Absolute or God place, that feeling of peace and tranquility, a feeling that everything is and will continue to be just fine, a feeling that some would experience as the love and grandeur of God.  Some have the experience through music, some dance, others through excursions into nature.  My initial experience was on the side of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina and now I have the experience regularly, during meditation, I also tend to carry that feeling with me during the day, though I get distracted at times.  I agree with the mystic, St. John of the Cross, when he commented that “He should learn to remain in God’s presence with a loving attention and a tranquil intellect, even though this seems like idleness to him.  Soon he will find little by little that a divine calm and peace with a wondrous, sublime knowledge of God, enveloped in divine love, will be infused into his soul”.  It’s a wonderful feeling in this up and down, transient world we live in.  I have learned that, with practice, it is possible to achieve that sense/feeling through meditation.

Gratitude

Today, I felt a lot of gratitude for where I am emotionally, spiritually and physically.  Physically is the most challenging since I am still disabled, have a speech impediment and am getting older.  My gratitude as far as the physical comes from the fact that my physical challenges have led to a lot of spiritual and emotional growth, and also the fact that it could be (and was predicted to be!) A whole lot worse.  I am still relatively active, my balance and coordination seem to have leveled off, for the most part, and my jaw control is improving, slowly.  Also, I continue to surprise myself as far as my emotional and spiritual advancement over the last several years.  I owe a lot to the various holistic disciplines and practices I have developed, coupled with the prayer and meditation I do daily.  I also owe a lot to the tremendous amount of help and support I have received and continue to receive.