The Door To The Garden

I didn't intend to go quite so long between posts as this, but things have got in the way. I mentioned before that I was going to spend more time gardening over the summer, so you might assume from the title here that I'm going to entertain you with stories of all the blissful afternoons amongst the shrubbery that have kept me away from blogging. But as so often in life, it hasn't been quite like that.

There has been time for a bit of horticulture in between the traditional English summer raindrops - not to mention the gale force winds that ripped the honeysuckle off the side of the garage - but in fact my protracted absence has had more to do with unscheduled health problems than to undue time spent dawdling over the bedding plants.

I mentioned a while back that I was going to be consulting a specialist clinic about my CFIDS. Tests have now been carried out and I'm duly imbibing a host of noxious concoctions to start to put things right. Which means that I'm now in one of those 'worse before you feel better' situations, with which all of you who have consulted an alternative practitioner will no doubt be only too familiar. On top of which, I think I may have contracted a stomach bug, though with everything else that's going on, the truth is that it's difficult to be sure.

I've been ill for about twenty years all in all, so you'd think I'd have got used to it by this time. But my condition is variable, so I experience different degrees of feeling ill. There are times when I've managed to organize my life around the condition so well that I pretty much forget about it altogether. But these last few weeks, I've found myself remembering how I was at my worst, and tapping into some of the trepidation, helplessness, and sheer mind-numbing frustration which went along with that.

In other words, I've been arguing with reality. I've been feeling ill but wanting to feel well, not just at some time in the future, but right now, this moment.

If I'd read my blog carefully, I'd have known this wasn't a good idea.

It's fine to imagine a healthy body, to conjure up dreams we would like to bring into being, but to wish for the present moment to be something other than how it is is like banging our heads against a wall. And that's what I've been doing.

It's funny - when you're down there, when you're doing that, it's often difficult to see that you have any alternative. I found myself wishing I had some complex routine of spiritual practice to which to turn to help me to find a way out of it. There's something to be said for Dharma, I think. The only thing I do every day is meditation, which isn't always enough to knock me out of that old familiar human condition of raging against what is.

But then, the other day, I suddenly found my way back. I found the key and turned it in the lock and emerged into that wonderful garden where struggling ceases. The tension inside me faded away and I felt an energy flowing through me, as though everything I'd been raging against was now a part of my own power instead. It was as though I had been struggling against the river of life, but now I had turned and allowed it to carry me forward.

All of this was familiar enough. I've now experienced it numerous times and have written about it here on the blog before. The key, too, was familiar to me. I've written about that too, over and over again. And yet, as always, to take that key and feel it turn in the lock and actually emerge into the sunlight of the garden came as a wonderfully welcome surprise - as though it was happening to me for the very first time.

Regular readers may have guessed that the key I used was acceptance: that I simply accepted the way things were, including how I was feeling, instead of raging against it and demanding that the universe be other than it is.

I feel I should scream this from the rooftops. Simply accept this present moment, really accept it, and you hold the secret of life in your hands. That is all you need to know about enlightenment, all you need to know about anything. Once you accept What Is, in this one moment, right now, then all the tortuous ego dance of 'what if', 'if only', 'I really have to' and 'I shouldn't have' can finally fall away and leave you free to live your life as it is, in the glorious wonder of the present moment.

It really is that simple.

At least, when you're there in the garden, it seems to be that simple.

And yet, curiously enough, when you're here on the other side of the door, it doesn't always seem to be quite so straightforward.

I spent that whole day 'in the garden', 'in the zone', feeling the universe moving through me. And just for the record, no, I didn't make a miraculous recovery. Yet feeling as relaxed as I did, I felt a lot better, and the remaining discomfort no longer seemed so important.

But now, several days later, I am outside the garden again. I have found my way back to the door and am holding the key in my hand. But I can't seem to quite turn it in the lock. You know how it is with keys sometimes. You need to have the knack. Just jiggle the key a bit to the right, or a bit to the left. Or pull up the handle of the door while you're trying to turn it. Every key is different.

But right now, I no longer seem to have the knack of opening this particular door.

I know that the key is acceptance, but I can't quite seem to quite manage it. I tell myself I am willing to accept what is. From time to time, I even seem to do this. But I am still outside the garden.

So I ask myself: what is wrong? What I am not accepting? Is it the way I am feeling? Or is it something else?

And I have come to the conclusion that it is something else.

What I am not accepting, right now, is that I am standing outside the garden.

And I won't get back in that place until I do.

Comments

[Sally]

Eckhart would say that the real "key" is to accept that you can't accept this at the moment.
Stop resisting the non acceptance ......and see what happens!

[AngelBaby]

Oh boy, have I been there before. It is so easy for us to say just turn the key and the door will open but when you are there, well ........... it is a different story. I once had a great man tell me that sometimes it happens so we take the time to rest. Maybe that is what you need to accept. I don't know if it is but I had to accept that before I could move on. You see, I am disabled too.

Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby

[Andy D]

What a fantastic opportunity! Experience the resistence fully! Don't try and 'fix it' or remove it simply face it fully and experience it fully.

[Liara Covert]

Nothing compares to the feeling of gardening in the great outdoors and inhaling the magic and miracles. You will find precisely what you need exactly where you are.

[Sue Ann Edwards]

smiling...

Sometimes things just 'come' to me...

As I read your post, I truly admired your hard head. (I've got one, too) We're not dumb, just dense. Of course, that's what density is all about, huh?

It comes to me to ask...

have you accepted being ANGRY yet?

[Robin]

Hi Simon - it's funny how we have our ups and downs in our personal growth and healing path - we just think we've "gotten it" and then we have a new challenge.

Good luck with it all!

[Simon]

Sally and Andy - Many thanks for your advice! I already knew it of course - and I've even written about it here on the blog (in my Ultimate Truth series of posts for instance) but it seems to be in the nature of spiritual development that we need to keep on being reminded.

Seeing these two pieces of advice side by side - Sally stressing the need to accept (even the fact that you can't accept!) and Andy challenging me to experience what I'm feeling fully - emphasizes the fact that the two are one and the same. In order to fully accept something, we *have* to experience it fully. Indeed, now I think about it, perhaps our tendency to live in our minds instead of truly experiencing the present moment is a symptom of our disinclination to fully accept what is.

[Simon]

Hi Angelbaby - Thanks so much for sharing this. A lot of current spirituality material suggests that illness is simply a bad life choice. If we sort out what's going on in our mind, then we'll feel better. This is something else I need to get round to doing a post about, because I think it's an oversimplistic view of things.

It seems to me that illness often - perhaps always - has a 'meaning' to it. A downturn in someone's condition may have a physical meaning - as Angelbaby suggests, it may simply indicate a need to rest - but it may also be of spiritual significance. As Eckhart Tolle says, if you can accept the unacceptable, this provides an opportunity to say a big 'yes' to the present moment. This is what happened to me in the above post when I accepted the way I was feeling. This allowed me to 'enter the garden'.

Sue Ann Edwards has suggested to me that my illness has allowed me to 'go inward', and indeed were it not for the illness, it is very unlikely that I would have started this blog. I wonder if the same is true of you, Angelbaby? Were it not for your disability, would you be writing your blog? Would you have the connection with the source of love and support which you clearly have?

[Simon]

Thanks to to my dedicated commenter, Liara! You are quite right about gardening. I love it! All the time, whatever we're doing, we're collaborating with the universe to bring our experience into being, but most of the time, most of us don't realize what's happening. When we're gardening, however, the marvelous partnership is revealed. We plant the plant. We water it. The universe does the rest.

How does the saying go? 'You're closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on Earth.' Especially when you've got soil on your fingers...

[Simon]

Sue Ann - I am always impressed by your psychic powers! You speak about my 'hard head'. Well, feelings of heaviness in the head are part of my symptoms. You go on to ask me about anger. You know when I first saw your comment? When I stormed downstairs after a shouting match with Chris. Spooky, eh?

But thanks for asking. No, I think there are many things in myself that I haven't accepted yet, and my outbursts of anger are one of them. But I think I'm going to feel a lot lighter when I do...

[Simon]

Robin - Yes, what you say is exactly right. Even when we remember the various techniques we've learned, it can still be a problem to put them into practice in the new situations which life throws up for us. New events can seem so all-important, that everything else gets lost.

A wacky analogy springs to mind. You learn to shoot. You practice on a fixed bulls eye target, and you get that down to a fine art. Bulls eye every time. Then you start shooting moving balls on the top of spouts of water. Eventually you master that too. At last - you really know how to shoot! So you go out into the world to put your new skill into action.

And the first thing you have to shoot is your pet dog.

OK, so it's a bit of a strange analogy. But that's how putting acceptance into practice can often seem.

Thanks to you all for your comments!

[Sue Ann Edwards]

smirking...

It really is no spooky power Simon. It really is quite simple. The same Spirit is within each and every single one of us. We are all One, in Spirit.

Spirit also always knows us the best, the most intimately. So all I did was ask Spirit and that's what I described as 'coming to me'.

I have simply learned how to listen. And with this hard head of mine, sometimes, a lot of times, a message has to be repeated and quite loudly, too.

Keep in mind, in order to break our habits, we have to repeatedly substitute one pattern for the other, over and over until a *new* habit is developed to replace the old one.

We're not *dumb*, just *dense*.

Smiling

[Sue Ann Edwads]

ps.. There is a 'cross in the heavens' right now, an arrangement of magnetic fields, that is figuratively crucifying you right now. THAT'S why you've been experiencing what you've been experiencing and why I've been keeping a 'mind's eye' on you, lately. Just look at like I was a tool, standing right next to you, ready for your use in any way I can be of aid.

{{{{hugs}}}}

[Sue Ann Edwads]

oh yea....

Boo!

[Helen]

What a beautiful realization that Acceptance is the key to happiness. What I do instead of force myself to feel acceptance is simply ask the Universe to help me allow myself to feel acceptance. It usually works. Helen

[Simon]

Hi Sue Ann - Thanks for your lovely messages. I really appreciate your support! And I think I understand what you mean by 'denseness' now. I have an image of a large crane with a wrecking ball, thumping away at my head until that hard shell of old patterns is broken away.

[Simon]

And boo to you too!!

[Simon]

Hi Helen! Welcome to my blog - and thanks so much for leaving this message! My first impulse was simply to respond with my own experience: that you can never force acceptance, that I believe it is always an available option, yet the way to achieve it is sometimes hidden. It almost seems to be a question of 'aligning' yourself with it, like the cylinders of a combination lock suddenly clicking into place. When it happens, it's always so easy, as though nothing could be so obvious, so natural, so inevitable... Yet perhaps the first step is the most important: to have the desire to open the lock in the first place.

And then I decided to act on *your* experience, Helen: to ask for help. I received in response a wonderful wave of love and a feeling of energy on the crown of my head. So thank you so much for sharing your experience with me. It seems like I should ask for help more often...

[Helen]

Hi Simon:

Thank you so very much for your comment. Asking for help is the answer and if you need support in anyway please leave a message on my blog (www.theloveyourselfcoach.blogspot.com and I will get right back to you.

No man is an Island and we are all here to help each over. Helen

[Simon]

Thanks Helen!

[Sue Ann Edwards]

It really is a wonderful suggestion Helen has shared. I had forgotten. I used to us it all the time. Anytime I didn't like the way I felt, I'd ASK to see the experience or situation from Spirit's eyes. And that Vision would come with Understanding with it. Once understanding sinks in, everything caused by our illusions disappear. it's these illusions that we all wrestle with. Like Hercules, lift the serpent up into the air!

[Simon]

Thanks for this contribution, Sue Ann - I seem to remember that you have suggested this to me in the past. Which really takes us back to one of the main ideas which has emerged from this post: that we may have proven techniques to aid our spiritual progress, we may even write about them in our blogs, but we don't always bring them to mind when we need to use them!

[Grace]

((( Simon ))) Hi there! I'm so sorry to hear that you have been experiencing such physical challenges. Can I send Reiki to you???

Your post here was incredibly powerful and something I've been working on myself. I don't know how many times I've reminded me of these words by Byron Katie says, "When you argue with reality, you lose - but only 100% of the time!"

LOL Loving What Is....and sending you thoughts of wellbeing and peace, Simon. It's good to have you back amongst us :)

[Simon]

Thanks for your lovely message, Grace - and that's a great quote from Byron Katie! I'm thinking of using some favorite quotes to fill in the gaps in my sidebar. I've a feeling that might be among them...