Life

Today I just performed my normal daily activities and was an example of being grateful, unattached, present and flowing free through life. I serve as an example to the seen and unseen entities I work with and contact. I certainly have daily challenges, more than some, less than others, that add texture to my passage through life but I live with them and am grateful for the rest. Today I went to a recovery meeting, exercised, talked to people I mentor, cooked and ate — not bad. "The happiness we discover in life is not about possessing or owning or even understanding. Instead, it is the discovery of this capacity to love, to have a loving, free and wise relationship with all of life. Such love is not possessive but arises out of a sense of our own well-being and connection with everything." (Kornfield)

Meditation

Tonight during meditation I was focusing on that powerful, overwhelming feeling of unconditional Love when the words I read from Richard Pries many years ago flashed through my mind: "Nothing [worldly] matters very much and very few things matter at all". I identify that wonderful feeling of Love with God and eternity. I just sat with that awareness and feeling for a while. I find it very comforting that the various forms of money, power and prestige which I encounter daily have little or no long lasting value. When going through my day I sometimes ask myself "would I care about this if I were on my deathbed", especially if some trivial thing seems important to me.

Lack Of Understanding

Today during my meditation and contemplation I was continuing my exploration of my lack of understanding I began to write about yesterday. As I stated, I do not understand the spirit world or reality in general. I am, however, aware of my very human tendency to make believe that I understand something if I can label and categorize it. This is a very dangerous tendency since it can result in stopping my open exploration and discarding things that do not fit my categorization, thus distorting my view. For example, I have used and heard others refer to "old souls" as a categorization when I understand that there are only differences in souls regardless of age. These differences result from different experiences and result in different understanding but do not fit nicely into simple categories. "My personal experiences as a medium have proved to me that God exists, heaven and the Other Side exist, souls are immortal, we can communicate with souls, and we will be reunited with our love ones on the Other Side. I’ve also come to understand there is no hell, although there are multiple levels on the Other Side and reincarnation." (Mark Anthony)

Reality

It is clear to me that I do not understand the spirit world or reality in general and I am not sure that matters beyond knowing that my present concept is not correct. The reason this comes up for me is that I want to be as effective as possible in my dealings with spirits. At one point in 1988 I was removed briefly from the space-time continuum as I knew it, thus making it obvious that my concept was overly simplistic and incorrect. Similarly, other people and I have had out-of-body experiences, making it clear that consciousness is not necessarily connected with the brain or any other part of the body. I wonder if I need to know more but also assume that if needed, I will be shown. "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". (Lawrence LeShan)

Meditation

Tonight I had an especially strong meditation and connection with the Loving and healing presence I know as God. I focused on being within a bubble of Love. I reflected on the fact that I am so much more than I ever thought I could be and so can everyone else. I make daily efforts to pass on what I have discovered and I encourage spirits to do the same. "The unending yearnings of the human spirit are satisfied by nothing that can be measured, seen, heard or touched. To focus selfishly on anything in the created order is to be restricted and thus to fall that far short of full freedom." (Thomas Dubay, S. M.)

Connection

We had a meeting of our reading group today and the topic was community and connection, that wonderful feeling of presence and being connected to everything and everybody in a group. Some spoke of it as feeling "home". Since it is a Quaker reading group that feeling was talked about as being present during meetings for worship or Quaker business meetings. When I spoke I commented that I had experienced that feeling in a variety of settings. The feeling of community is open to anyone who is willing to put their own ego aside and have the necessary discipline to love and respect everyone.

Speaking Gently

The last few days have been an exercise in having people angry at me and not taking it personally, which I did reasonably well, though I like it better when I get a positive response. I am often in a position where people ask me for advice and sometimes they do not like what I say, even when I speak gently. For example, I made several suggestions to someone regarding some potential changes in their behavior at recovery meetings. They responded by getting angry at me, saying "I don’t want to" and deciding to stop talking to me. When I respond to someone I make certain that I am avoiding any personal agendas and that my words are loving and "increase the integrity of the universe, then I speak and let it go.

War Or Love?

Today it is clear to me that war, aggression and killing never "increase the integrity of the universe", those actions are never a loving response. It is also clear to me and I communicate to the spirits I work with, that I do not know what that loving response would be but we agree that war is not it. I believe that using quiet meditation, getting past the fear and anger response and listening to "that small quiet voice" we can arrive at a loving, functional response. As I have learned in my own life, that requires discipline and patience but it works.".... We shall never succeed in stopping war until we have a human society permeated with persons who practice a way of life which removes and abolishes the grounds and occasions of war, and at the same time matures and ripens a spirit of mutual understanding and personal cooperation. (Rufus Jones)

Near-Death-Experience

Today I watched a movie (Let Their Be Light) about an atheist professor who experienced a conversion and transformation because of a Near-Death-Experience during which he was in the tunnel, saw his deceased child, saw a powerful light and felt intense, pure love. The love he felt was much stronger than anything human. He attributed what he saw and felt to Jesus Christ. During my own N.D.E. I felt the same love but saw no visions. The love I was bathed in was much stronger, more pure and unconditional than anything in my human experience and I was told "this is what it feels like to be dead". The love I felt was freely given and I felt no tendency to attribute it to any specific source and,.in fact, I felt that the name used did not matter — the love did. People use many different names and have many different cultural backgrounds and none of that mattered — the love did.

Self-care

I was tending toward becoming a "human doing" rather than a "human being", meaning that I was beginning to emphasize doing things and accomplishments over spiritual well-being. This is a common trap that I have fallen into before. I usually don’t do much since it takes me so long to do things and nothing is easy. I also usually spend several hours meditating, contemplating and just sitting. I had cut back on my meditation time in favor of doing more, a pattern that does not work for me. Time to meditate!