Addressing the Basics

I find that I need to always remember the basics of recovery and the human condition in general while also addressing the loftier issues of my mystical connection with the Source or my communications with spirits. By the basics I mean dealing with things like the fears or lack of control I wrote about yesterday. The basics also include things like my need to pay attention to self-care, exercise, eating carefully, keeping my weight down and getting enough sleep. Today after exercising and eating my oatmeal breakfast, I began watching a movie which I then shut off realizing I needed the silence of contemplation, meditation and working in the garden. "It [inner silence] is to establish an inner peace, an inner harmony, which will allow us authentically to contribute to the establishment of an outer peace and an outer harmony in the world at large."

Fear

For the last few days I have been dealing with my credit card company on fraud issues and the resultant payment issues with my e-mail account. I am not dealing with either very well. I find that because of past hurt and frustration I am uncomfortable when my attempts at being in control are thwarted. These situations, though trivial in many ways, have ignited fear in me. I need to recognize the difficulty, trust, take the next right action and be at peace. As Jack Kornfield wrote "As we stop the war, each of us will find something from which we have been running -- our loneliness, our unworthiness, our boredom, our shame, our unfulfilled desires." He also wrote "To love fully and live well requires us to recognize finally that we do not possess or own anything---our homes, our cars, our loved ones, not even our own body. Spiritual joy and wisdom do not come through possession but rather through our capacity to open, to love more fully, and to move and be free in life."

Growth

I agree with the many spiritual leaders who have commented something to the effect that the purpose of living is to learn to give and receive love. Personally, I have gone through some major and very unenjoyable events in my life which have ultimately taught me about love. For example the deaths of family members, divorce, an unpleasant childhood or my disability. In the case of my disability the medical profession made it clear that they could not help me deal with it or to recover so, in desperation, I turned to God and love. I found love to be a powerful healing force which I do not understand but continue to use for myself and give freely to others, a win-win situation. "And if the light one has becomes temporarily dimmer, the light one seeks is brighter still and is to be found at the very heart of the darkness of the unconscious." (John Yungblut)

Mystical Experience

Each night in the "wee" hours, when I get up to pray, meditate and write in this journal, I experience what Jones calls the "transcendent reality" which I have come to know as God, a wonderful gift. I also have that experience often when I work with others or meditate during the day. The feeling can best, though inadequately, be described as a very intense, all encompassing feeling of unconditional love together with a sense of Presence. I consider the feeling to be a force that I use in healing work or selflessly connecting with others. "Without needlessly multiplying such testimonies for data, we can say with considerable assurance that mystical experience is consciousness of direct and immediate relationship with some transcendent reality which in the moment of experience is believed to be God."(Rufus Jones)

Perspective

Because of my connection with the force I call God, I view everything that happens on this earthly plain through a filter of love and with one foot in the eternal, a view which changes my attitude about life events dramatically. That view is the source of yesterday’s comments. I have also had the experience of having a person standing in front of me, berating me while I felt nothing but love and compassion for that person. I felt that he was just another flawed, angry and hurt individual, like myself, so I wanted to hug him and help him — very strange, but also accurate. "We simply do not know. Scientists discover and theologians affirm; but faced with the mystery of life and death we know almost nothing. We can learn from the experts, but our experience may not fit their theories and it is our experience and our experience alone that we should trust." (Claremont deCastillejo)

Growth

I look back over history and note that, as a species, we have mad a lot of progress in terms of acting in an ethical way or in accordance with the three questions I describe in my book; would I do this in front of God, or whatever you call that power/force?; is my name really on it or is it really my responsibility?; will this increase the integrity of the universe, or is this loving? Basically, overall, we treat each other and the earth in a more loving and respectful way. I also note that we have a long way to go. I like Benjamin Friedman’s comment, that "When material progress falters........people become more jealous of their status relative to others. Anti-immigrant sentiment typically increases, as does conflict between races and classes; concern for the poor tends to decline." I have hope and will do everything I can to help us move in a loving direction.

Strength

The subject for tonight’s recovery meeting was "strength", which caused me to reflect on the challenges I have faced and my own growth. I have heard it said that "you don’t know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have" — Very true for me. I have been presented with several situations I didn’t know I could deal with, particularly through my disability and my work with spirits. I am confronted with challenges, ask for guidance and work through them — growing in the process. "Trouble or suffering of any kind does not come from God. It is an indication that there is a lesson to be learned by us, and the trouble itself furnishes us with the very opportunity that we need in order to learn that lesson, so that such a thing need never happen to us again." (Emmet Fox.)

Lens of Love

Today, as I do often, I spent time just sitting and contemplating my own thoughts and actions. The amount of time doing this and the time of day vary but I sit, fill myself with a loving feeling, get with God and sort through my activities. When I do that I generally find myself to be silly, often mistaken, well intentioned and delightfully human. Today I encountered a lack of patience in just being present and listening. If I do the same procedure without getting into a loving space with God I tend to find the same behaviors to be pitiful, weak or irritating. I much prefer looking at myself and the world around me through the lens of love.

Love

For thirty years now I have been leading a life based on Love and the force I call God and that approach has transformed my life, the lives of many others and I am not done influencing. I really enjoy watching and feeling the impact of love on the other people and myself. I know it to be very practical and I continue to wish I understood it better and could predict outcomes — but then I smile knowing love does not work that way. "If you can rise above the fear in your life and live the love within you, and if I can rise above my fear and live the love in me-----if that drama is reenacted enough times by enough of the world’s people-----then we will pierce the cosmic darkness and tip the world in the direction of light." (Marianne Williamson)

Growth

I have had several opportunities to present other people with the option and challenge of expanding their thinking beyond their previous teaching and experience, much as I have been challenged numerous times. The results in myself have usually been initial resistance followed by growth and incorporation of the new information. The responses from others have been quite varied, all the way from wondrous excitement to stubborn resistance. I recall once being invited to participate in a workshop to write questions on cultural awareness for national mental health tests, which I welcomed since I had recently learned how little I really know about cultures other than my own. I wrote a question about a Navajo woman troubled by dreams and visions who would have been considered psychotic in this culture or normal within hers. All of the answers except one had to do with treating her as psychotic which were the answers that most people selected. The correct answer was to treat her as normal and help her talk about her dreams and visions. Fortunately, there was one Navajo man in the room who knew this was the correct answer. The others did not agree. "If we can resist the compulsive pressure of our logical thinking, without relinquishing our precious heritage of lucid thought; if we can hold our ground with our own hardly won ego personalities, yet bow our heads and say, 'Thy will not mine be done'; if we will but notice the reactions of our bodies; and heed the behaviour of the world towards us; if we can learn to listen to the voices within and to the whisper in the wind, with trust as well as with discrimination, we may be able to follow the road where the Rainmaker walks." (Claremont deCastillejo)