The Secret of Life

Equanimity

'They ought to make it a binding clause that if you find God, you get to keep him.' - from Valis by Philip K Dick.

In the novel Valis, Horselover Fat, the thinly disguised alter ego of science fiction writer Philip K Dick, had a peak experience which he spent the rest of his life trying to make sense of. Yet the more he sought to find his way back to that experience, the further away it seemed to become.

I understand how Dick / 'Horselover Fat' must have felt. A few weeks ago, I posted rather smugly here about being 'in the zone', about the 'connection to joy' I sometimes experience. The postscript is that the following day, this connection was gone, and I have rarely felt so far away from getting it back.

This should not have come as a surprise to me. I've blogged about a similar experience before. On that occasion, I described what it's like to be 'in the zone' rather well, I think, even though I say it myself:

' The other day, 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.'

Yet a few days later, sure enough, I had lost that wonderful connection again. I was 'outside the garden' again - and I didn't know how to get back in.

What I concluded in that previous post, and which I have just discovered again now, is that I couldn't find my way back because I so much wanted to do so. My very wanting was pushing it away.

This shouldn't really come as a surprise to any of us. It's the cardinal rule of what has become known as the law of attraction. I first came across it in Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God Book One . All of us who have read about the law of attraction know about it, but we tend to forget it because it's the awkward bit. It's the tricky sub-clause which means that for much of the time, the law of attraction doesn't actually work the way we want it to.

As 'God'/Walsch puts it: 'You will not have that for which you ask, nor can you have anything you want. This is because your very request is a statement of lack, and your saying you want a thing only works to produce that precise experience - wanting - in your reality.'

So just when we think the law of attraction isn't working, it's actually working very, very effectively thanks very much - it's just not quite what we had in mind when we expressed our needs in the first place. What's happening is that when we want something, we are indeed attracting exactly that: a condition of wanting. The more we want, the more we push it away.

My recent experience of feeling very much connected in to the universe, then losing that feeling and very much wanting it back, yet now feeling further away than ever, has confirmed to me what a powerful mechanism this is. Whatever we want to manifest in our lives, we have to lose our attachment to it first. Otherwise, we're just pushing it away.

This applies to whatever we'd like to see in our lives, whether its a new car, enlightenment, or world peace - the mechanism is the same. If we don't lose the attachment, we're working against ourselves.

It's important to understand that, in contrast, it's fine to have a vision - and to use this vision as an incentive to take the action we need to achieve it - but if we get stuck in wanting something, if we resist not having it, that's where we run into trouble.

It's the same with however we're feeling, whether it's being out 'of the zone', sad, or angry, the more we want to feel differently, the more we reinforce that condition of want. It comes back down to my favorite word, acceptance, though for this post - just to ring the changes - I thought I'd use a related word 'equanimity' instead, just because I like the way it sounds.

Now I look up the definition of 'equanimity', I see that at first sight it's not exactly right. Apparently, it means 'evenness of mind, especially under stress'. So it isn't really right - and yet it is. It actually highlights the enigma which lies at the heart of all this. I'm talking about evenness of mind while feeling angry, evenness of mind while feeling sad or even depressed. Is such a thing possible? Well yes, it is. It's all about calmness in the eye of the storm. It is possible to feel these so-called difficult emotions and feel OK about them. It is possible to feel sadness and equanimity at the same time.

And you know what? When we can do that, when we can be OK with these feelings, the sting goes out of them. It's actually our resistance to them which makes them feel so heavy - and which keeps them hanging around. Because the added bonus is that as soon as we stop pushing these feelings away, as soon as we stop wanting to get rid of them, they're much more likely to go away of their own accord.

None of this is new to The Secret Of Life. I covered it in the Ultimate Truth series of posts - and it's no less the Ultimate Truth now than it was last year. It's just that I don't read my blog as much as I should so I keep forgetting it. So now I've reminded myself, I'm reminding you. Because this is really it. This is the secret. Be OK with what is, however you are feeling, whatever is going on, and you have taken the most important step towards freedom.

As ever, I look forward to hearing what you think about this post but Typepad is still playing up. So if you have a problem posting a comment, please email me using the link near the top of the sidebar and I'll post it on your behalf. I'm hoping to go away for a few days next week, so please be patient if I take a while to respond.

 

These may also be of interest:

The Ultimate Truth

How to Have It All

The Door to the Garden

How Does it Feel to Win a Million?

My New Year Strategies For Spiritual Development

Well, I seem to be keeping to my New Year's Resolutions so far. This may not seem all that impressive, only a short way into January, but it's good going for me. I've normally forgotten them by lunchtime on New Year's Day.

What I decided this year was to put some of the useful stuff I write about in this blog into action for a change. All too often, I'm all full of bright ideas when I'm writing, but they slip out of sight when I switch off the PC.

This year it's going to be different. I'm going to be different...

There are two main simple strategies I'm putting into practice. Simplicity is important, I think, for actually doing stuff. Anything too complicated tends not to be there in the front of your brain when you need it.

The first thing is to deal with some of this great big well of negative emotions inside me. Goodness knows, I've been writing here about dealing with these emotions for long enough, and I have been acting on some of my advice. But it's a big issue for me - as I think it is for most of us, if we're willing to face up to it - and I really need to start doing more.

The hard bit is remembering what's really going on when those unwanted emotions well up inside you, when you get all annoyed or whatever particular emotion is bugging you today. That's the time when it's easy to lose the plot entirely and start getting all caught up in the drama of the situation. And you feel so unspiritual: 'like I've done all this new agey stuff all these years but I'm still like a bear with a sore head when some idiot does something I don't like. I should not be jumping around shaking my fists with steam coming out of my ears at this stage in my spiritual development! It's not fair!'

But it's a question of remembering that when this happens, it is part of our spiritual development: a very important part. These emotions are coming up to be released. I've written about this in more detail, including the various techniques for release in my recent post Letting Go, but the crucial ingredient of my New Year's Resolution is to remember to make the right connection in my head about what these emotions are all about.

When emotions came welling up, the old Simon used to get sucked into the drama of whatever situation had triggered them off, thereby stoking them up even more. If he thought about spiritual matters at all, he would reflect on the unfortunate contrast between the calm, joyful, advanced being he wished to be and the raging inconsolable madman he actually was. Which made him feel even worse...

But when these emotions well up now, the new Simon makes the all-important connection and thinks 'Ah-ha! There is work to be done! These emotions are coming up to be released!' and starts to put the appropriate techniques into action.

The last few days, since I've been doing this consistently, I've felt some really massive energy begin to shift within me. As a result of this, some emotional blocks to doing stuff are starting to fall away at last.

The second prong of my New Year's Resolution is to be in the moment more, instead of spending so much time in my mind. Once again, this is something I've written about a great deal here at The Secret Of Life - and most recently on Harmony's blog - but actually doing it for any length of time (like for more than a few moments) has proved more difficult.

For some reason, something seems to have shifted now, and I'm managing to close down my unnecessary mental chatter for longer periods of time. Partly I'm doing this by stringing along my ego, working to appease the very part of me that keeps those internal thoughts droning on in the first place. I tell the 'little me' inside what a wonderful achievement it will be if I can only switch off my mind for the next two minutes, or until I get home, or until I reach the next lamp post - or whatever suitable marker is in the offing...

It seems to respond well to these challenges and goes along with me at least some of the time...

It's great when this happens: when the chatter drops away and you feel the power of the moment, when you're really present in the now. There's sometimes peace, sometimes joy, always stillness. If you haven't yet connected with this, you may find it's easiest to experience when you're out in nature: out in the country or in a garden. You can read more about it in Eckhart Tolle's books. I particularly recommend the concise, very practical volume Practicing The Power Of Now.

To help stabilize this state, I'm also using a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technique called anchoring. I've picked a word that describes best how I feel when I'm like this: 'joy', which I then repeat to myself when I'm in the present moment and also when I want to get back there. After a while, the mind begins to connect the word 'joy' with this state and so in time simply saying - or thinking - the word 'joy' brings me back there.

A bonus effect is that saying the word 'joy' when I'm in the moment is also a good way to keep the mind occupied. Whereas it could easily drift back into its usual internal monologue, it is too busy instead with its allotted task of repeating this word. (The best way to outsmart the mind is to tie it up in one of its own tricks...)

I don't remember to use these two techniques all the time, but by keeping them simple and, I think, moving them up my subconscious list of priorities, I'm putting them into practice more and more. And the more I use them, the more they are becoming a habit.

To summarize, the two strategies are:

1) Realize that emotions coming up are an opportunity, not a setback: use the techniques to feel and so release them.

2) Switch off the mind and be in the moment. Use the NLP anchoring technique to help to stay in this state and return there.

This strategy is already starting to pay off. I've spent the whole of today 'in the zone', the first time this has happened for ages. I don't know how long I'll stay like this - it's not usually more than a day or two - but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Each time I reach this state, it's subtly different. The all-important connection to joy is there if I pay attention to it, but this time the natural focus is much more on a kind of inner stillness and calm fluid action. The internal dialogue is largely silent - naturally silent, I'm not having to force it right now - and the internal critic, in particular, is keeping its trap shut, which is a cause for celebration in itself. There's a kind of quiet confidence about everything I do. It never occurs to me that I won't be able to do whatever I choose - though admittedly I haven't tried sky diving or bungee jumping yet. My actions seem to flow and be easy. When I've done one thing, I move on to the next, and whatever I'm doing, it always seem to be exactly the right thing for me to be doing right now. There's no self-doubt about it.

These aren't extraordinary things I'm doing: I've done the ironing, written some letters, repaired my glasses, written this blog... How does that famous saying go?  'Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.' That seems to be how it is shaping up in this latest mini-taster of progress I'm having. 2009 feels great so far. And it's still only January...

(P.S. If you're a blogger you may be interested in The Quote Effect, an interesting new project by Davina of Shades of Crimson. This is your chance to contribute three favorite quotes from your blog for inclusion in Davina's upcoming eBook. There are more details here.)

Being Ourselves

Here's a lovely, empowering quotation I found on Angelbaby's site:

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through me into action because there is only one of me in all time. This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist in any other medium. The world will not have it. It is not my business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is my business to keep it mine clearly and directly and to keep the channel open."

    Martha Graham
    US choreographer and dancer (1894-1991)

I wish you all a very happy New Year! I shall be keeping this quotation close to my heart. Here's to all of us being ourselves, fearlessly and joyfully, in 2009...

 

These may also be of interest:

To Simply Be

Your Perfect Offering

Your Perfect Offering

At this time of year, it's easy to find ourselves rushing around in a mad dash to get everything done before Christmas, so maybe it's a good time to consider if we're being too hard on ourselves. Next time you're struggling to complete some task and make it exactly right, it's worth bearing in mind that the world is an imperfect place. It's meant to be that way. Indeed, if everything was perfect, we wouldn't even be here. Science has proved it.

For the earliest example of this inherent imperfection, we need to go back to the Big Bang, when the universe was created. At that time, scientists now understand, equal amounts of matter and something equal and opposite called antimatter were created. Except that as nothing is perfect in the universe, there is a slight flaw in the statement I just made. It should have read: "almost equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created". In actual fact, it now turns out, there was a tiny deviation of one extra particle of matter for every 10 billion particles. So slightly more matter than antimatter was created. This is an example of something called a 'broken symmetry', and the physicist Yoichiro Nambu has recently won a Nobel prize for his work in this field.

This particular broken symmetry is very important, because what happens when matter meets antimatter is that they cancel each other out. First you have stuff, now you don't. Poof! So just after the Big Bang happened, a lot of this canceling out took place. A lot of matter met antimatter and disappeared. Which means that... if there had really been equal amounts of matter and antimatter, everything would have disappeared. It's only because of the broken symmetry, the imperfection, that any matter remains at all. Otherwise, we - and the universe - wouldn't even exist.

But the importance of imperfection doesn't stop there. The human race, and every other race of creatures on this planet - with the possible exception of the amoeba :-) - are also a product of imperfection. Our race hasn't evolved in a smooth, orderly progression, but by throwing up random genetic mutations which occasionally suit the prevailing conditions better than their 'normal' parents and therefore thrive. These successful mutations then pass on their genes to subsequent generations, causing the species to evolve accordingly. People who have physical characteristics which differ from 'the norm' may often suffer ridicule at the hands of their fellows, but the fact is that without such examples of 'imperfection', evolution wouldn't have happened - and we'd still all be one step down from a barnacle.

So maybe we should bear in mind the beautiful imperfections of our world in our daily lives. And maybe we don't need to give ourselves such a hard time by dotting every 'i' and crossing every ''t. Maybe we don't even need to get all our apostrophes in the right place's. We may still want to do our best in life, but that may not require 100% perfection in very task we do.

I recently read an article by Bob Cox which suggested that we should ask ourselves: "have I achieved 90 percent of what I was aiming for with this project?" If the answer is yes, then maybe we'll be wearing ourselves out unnecessarily if we take it the extra ten percent. Maybe our efforts would be better applied elsewhere - or in giving ourselves a well-earned rest.

This idea has to be interpreted with care, of course. I'm not sure how applicable it is to brain surgery, for instance, and if I was working on a murder mystery, I wouldn't want to stop writing when I was 90% of the way through the book. But when I got to the end, I might choose to leave it at two revisions instead of three...

Some might consider the figure of 90% perfection to be too low. They might prefer to go for 95%, or even 98%. But the general principle remains the same. If you're trying to make it perfect, you're probably wasting your time. You're more likely to wear yourself out than achieve perfection - and the chances are that no one else but you will notice the difference anyhow.

So next time you knowingly leave off a task when it's less than perfect, there's no need to give yourself a hard time. Instead, rejoice in the fact that you are perfectly in tune with an imperfect world. As Leonard Cohen puts it in his song: "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

 

These may also be of interest:

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

Being Ourselves

Letting Go

I'm becoming more and more aware of how important it is to really feel - and so release - our suppressed emotions. I've described in a previous post, A Sun-Filled Room, how important this is for spiritual transformation. Put simply, we have a natural connection to joy, to bliss, to our true nature, but this connection is clogged up by all our emotional debris.

We have this debris because over the years, we've learned not to feel our emotions. Events have come along but rather than allow ourselves to fully react, we've pushed it all down inside. We've been taught that we shouldn't cry, or we shouldn't lose our temper - and we have gone along with this.

Yet these emotions are crying out to be released. This is why the same old things keep coming along to annoy us. We're attracting these things to us, begging them to push our buttons so that we can release the great well of emotion within us. But time and time again, we keep pushing it all down again...

Which is why the world is in the state it's in, with domestic violence, road rage, even monks now brawling in church! Small things come along to annoy us, and a lot of the time, the way we react is totally out of proportion to whatever has happened. This is because we're not upset for the reason we think we are. The truth is that this new event has connected with the great reservoir of hurt we hold inside us. It's not really losing our place in the queue today that's annoyed us. It's the buried memory of that ice cream we didn't get when we were five - or of the lover who left us a couple of decades later.

We really need to release all this stuff. But how do we do it?

The bottom line is that we need to allow ourselves to really feel these emotions when they come up, not push them back down again. We need to remember that they are coming up in order to be released.

We also need to realize that when we get all hot and bothered like this, we're not being un-spiritual. Far from it - we need to understand that this is an important part of the process of spiritual transformation. A vital part. But we do need to have techniques we can use whenever these emotions arise. Otherwise, the opportunity to release them is going to be wasted.

My friend Sue Ann of Always Embraces Always teaches a very simple technique to use at such times. She says: "Just breathe and embrace the feelings. If you need something to keep your thoughts entertained and occupied while you do it, then concentrate on the breathing. Just let the feelings come up and out." I think this technique is particularly useful because it's so easy to bring to mind when emotions suddenly surface.

If you find that the feelings stick around, you may like to try another useful technique, which I found on Phil Bolsta's blog. It was developed by Dr Ibrahim Jaffe and it's called Awareness Release Technique. (You may recognise Phil's name in connection with his book, Sixty Seconds, which I posted about recently.)

Previous posts at The Secret Of Life have featured other strategies:

How To Deal With Difficult Emotions features Nick Roach's technique for dissolving emotions.

The Ultimate Truth 3 describes another breathing technique which I call 'the welcome breath'.

Emotional Freedom Technique has links to online tuition on this popular tapping technique.

Ten Words That Can Heal The World deals with Ho'oponopono, which I have also found to be very helpful in dissolving emotions.

The Quantum Light Breath is a very powerful breathing exercise which can help to release emotions.

Releasing emotions can sometimes require forgiveness - of others and often ourselves - so I'd like to draw attention to another recent post on Phil Bolsta's blog, this one featuring Eva Kor, a holocaust survivor who has forgiven her Nazi tormentors. Do take a look. It's the text of a wonderful, moving speech which Eva recently gave. She is proposing an addendum to The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

She explains: "I want every human being to know that they have the human right to live free of emotional pain, and they can accomplish this by taking back control over their lives by forgiving their enemies, and even forgiving themselves for their past mistakes, which is the hardest thing to do."

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

I'm always interested to check my Stats and see what people who come to my blog have been searching for. Sometimes, I'm afraid to say, it's clear that it's all been a terrible waste of time. I can only send apologies to those who were lured to my earlier post on The Taste of Tomatoes in search of gardening tips - and to those who ended up at my recent offering, Between One Moment And The Next, in a futile search for details of camp sites in the north of England. As to those come searching for something closer to what I'm really on about here, I always hope that they find something really useful here at my blog - but I rarely have chance to find out. It's usually my fellow bloggers and a few friends who leave comments - Googlers rarely do, and my Stats don't provide me with any contact details so that I can get in touch with these people to say "Hi!" This is all well and good, of course - from a data control and privacy point of view - but just occasionally I'd really like to know.

The other day, for instance, someone came here after a Google search for "what Eckhart Tolle says about worry" and I really hope they found what they were looking for, because what Eckhart says about worry is one of the most liberating things I've ever learned from him. I did cover the subject in my earlier post Making Plans, but the 'worry' bit wasn't exactly headlined so they may have missed it.

Never mind: better late then never. So - ta da! - here is my official "what Eckhart Tolle says about worry" post, specially for the next person who comes searching for this on Google - and for you, of course, especially if you've been feeling the burden of these uncertain times.

The gist of what Eckhart says - and pay attention here, because this could change your life - is that worry isn't important. Worry seems to be important but it really isn't! Worry serves no purpose whatsoever, so you may as well just forget all about it. Seriously.

Does that make you feel better? It certainly makes me feel better. I've spent my life feeling that when I have a problem looming, I have to worry about it. I have a duty to worry about it. If I don't worry, I am being irresponsible.

In actual fact, the opposite is true. You have a duty not to worry. You have a duty to lift that burden from your shoulders and focus on enjoying your life instead.

So allow that burden to lift right now! Does that feel better? And this is the way you can live your life from now on...

This doesn't mean to say that you don't have to deal with any problem which may come along. You still have to do whatever may be needed. But you don't have to worry yourself sick about it!

All you have to do is to ask yourself if there's anything you can do about the problem. If there's no action you can take, that's it. Put it out of your mind. Worrying won't serve any purpose. And what you have to remember is that you have a responsibility not to worry. Why? Because worrying will sap your energy. When this impending catastrophe happens (which, by the way, it probably won't) you will be far better able to deal with the aftermath if you haven't worn yourself out with worry in the meantime.

On other occasions, there will be something you can do about the problem. If you need to take action right now, that's simple enough. Just get on with it! Then worry won't get a look in, because you'll be too busy doing. You'll be in the moment instead of in your head.

If however, the problem is less urgent, than the best thing to do is to allocate an appropriate time to decide what action to take. This may be right now, or later today or, if things are less pressing, it may be a week on Tuesday. Until then, you can turn your attention with an easy mind to the other things in your life, whether they be duties or pleasures, all in the safe knowledge that you are not shirking your responsibilities with this worry holiday of yours. Quite the opposite. Because the only thing that worry achieves is to sap your precious energy.

And if you're still not convinced that you don't need to worry, here's something else to consider.

It seems that your subconscious mind has more resources than your conscious one. This means that it will probably arrive at an effortless solution to your problem while you're busy focusing on, say, the gardening or watching a movie. So, when a week on Tuesday finally arrives and you sit down with a pen and paper to think things through, you may discover that the problem is already solved. We're very good at working things out on auto-pilot... as long as we don't allow worry to get in the way.

*  *  *

 

A few useful links:

I covered some other aspects of this subject in my earlier post, Making Plans.

You can find various Eckhart Tolle links here

Some recommended books by Eckhart Tolle are:

The Power Of Now
Practicing The Power Of Now
A New Earth

 

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You may also be interested in a guest post I've written for Harmony's excellent blog, Golden Zen. It's called Stop Thinking.

This may also be of interest:

Your Perfect Offering

Alignment

My Dad is 88 and hasn't got much memory left. He spends a lot of his time trying to work out what he's supposed to be doing. I reassure him that he doesn't have to do anything: that he is safe in the home for the elderly where he lives, where they see to his needs and cook all his meals for him. But he can't seem to quite understand this. 'Are you sure I don't have to go out to work?' he asks. 'Yes, quite sure,' I tell him. He looks unconvinced and peers down at the book in front of him, where we write down the things that we do on my visits, searching for 'the answer'.

Perhaps, after all, there is one thing that my Dad still has to do, and I suspect he has been doing it all his life: to teach me. He has always been a worrier, and in him I see my own worries amplified. For I, too, have been searching for 'an answer' - and feeling very frustrated not to find it.

It seems to me it is a Christian idea - though doubtless shared by others - that we all have certain God-given gifts which it is our obligation to discover and make use of. More recently, this idea of finding a life's purpose has also appeared in self-development books. I have always found the concept appealing, though I have started to believe that it can also be a trap.

I used to think it was writing, this thing that I had to do. I have been driven to write since an early age and used to berate myself for writing for fanzines instead of buckling down and writing that novel. So eventually, I buckled down and wrote that novel. And another. And another. I wrote two adult fantasy novels, of a type which turned out to be out of fashion, and a children's fantasy novel which was described by an editor as being 'original but too weird to publish'. I regard having written a fantasy novel that is 'too weird' to be a certain kind of success, but unfortunately it is not the kind of success which makes money or gets readers.

What I found very difficult about all this was that I very much liked what I had written. Clearly, I needed to do better to get published, but how would I know when I was writing something better if I liked the stuff I had written which wasn't good enough? I obviously needed to upgrade my internal critic, but I wasn't sure how to do that.

So, I decided I would write something else entirely. I wrote a spirituality book. And I did what I always did: I gave it to a few likely victims people to read, listened to their feedback, and revised the book accordingly. All of which took me a year or so, by which time my ideas about spirituality had moved on so far that it didn't feel like my book any longer. I had intended to self-publish it and market it online, but I no longer had the heart to do that. I still liked a lot of what I had written but the book's angle was all wrong. It just wasn't the book I would have written if I'd written it today. I could revise it of course, but that would take me a while. By which time...

I should have been pleased, of course, that my spiritual development was moving so quickly that my writing couldn't keep pace with it, but all I felt was frustrated. Here was I with this amazing natural God-given talent for writing (ironic smiley inserted here) and not making proper use of it! What is more, if I didn't find a way to use my writing, I would feel I had failed in my life's purpose, that I had let myself - and the universe - down in some way. And yet what could I find to write? I could no longer think of anything that would 'work'. I was already writing this blog, of course, but my readership here is not exactly vast. (You are reading it, of course, which is what is really important, but we'll get to that a bit later...)

And yet, if I didn't write, what else should I do? My current state of health dictates that everything I do has to be done in short bursts punctuated by rest/meditation breaks, which kind of cuts down the available options.

I couldn't see any way out of my state of frustration.

Or could I?

A week or so ago, I decided to take a look at some of the helpful stuff which I and others write on this blog and came across a quote by Helen about asking for help. So I decided that is what I would do.

But I didn't sit down and explicitly ask for help in finding my purpose in life. I remembered what Joe Vitale had said in The Missing Secret about the importance of aligning your will with that of your higher self, something which is also implicit in a lot of what I've written here myself at The Secret Of Life.

So I asked for guidance to align my will in that way: to put aside my ego-driven desires and declare myself open to whatever the will of the universe might be, to whatever my higher self might have in mind for me.

And the wonderful thing is that I got some assistance in this.

I held various suggestions in my mind one by one and waited to see if I got a reaction. I'll explain exactly how I did this later. One thing came over very strongly: that I should be with my wife Chris. And something else which came up is that I should carry on doing this blog. The idea of writing another book did not get a reaction, and nor did another creative project which I had in mind.

Humph.

Naturally, I queried this reaction. The idea of being with Chris was all very well, but it wasn't very 'grand'. It didn't seem to involve any fame and fortune, for instance. This was me, Simon, we were talking about here, and I had always kind of thought that I had some sort of well, you know, 'destiny'. Was the universe sure that it hadn't got me muddled up with somebody else?

But the universe seemed very sure that it hadn't made a mistake. Being with Chris and writing the blog: that's what I was to do. That was my 'destiny', for the time being at least.

Hmm...

I might have been rather more disgruntled if it hadn't have been for the other things which happened during this process:

1) I experienced a feeling of overwhelming love and compassion.

2) I received healing for my neck, a long-standing problem which had been giving me a great deal of trouble in recent weeks. Since that time, it has been a lot better. I have been lucky enough to receive a great deal of healing energy over the years, but I have never previously experienced anything quite so directly 'hitting the spot' as this.

So overall, I was very happy with the outcome, thank you very much, and any misgivings I had began to fade away as a clear picture began to emerge of what I had discovered.

It seemed to me that the idea that I had some 'grand destiny' to fulfill had been a weight around my neck. Was it any wonder that I had such pain and discomfort in that part of my body? What I was being told was that I didn't have to succeed in these 'great achievements' after all. It was my ego that had laid them upon me, not the universe or God or my higher self or anything else. There were other things which were more important than these grand designs, like simply being a good husband to Chris.

It also seemed to me that the emphasis on 1) my marriage and 2) this blog was telling me something else. It was encouraging me to focus on my spiritual development. Relationships are a great way to work on self realization, because what they are about - ultimately - is recognizing the divine in each other, and so helping us to find it in ourselves. This blog, too, is a guiding hand in this process: hopefully, in some small way, for some of you, but certainly for me, for it allows me to develop my understanding of such things and to maintain my focus on the spiritual part of my life.

It also came to me that I no longer have to think so much about how many readers I get. If people are meant to find this blog, they will find it. It is as simple as that. You have found it after all, and as I have said, that is what is really important. If I only speak to one person, that is enough. Thank you for being here to read this.

Perhaps, too, at some stage, I will find a larger audience. Perhaps I will return to my books and find a way to get them 'out there'. Or perhaps I will write others. But now is not the time, and I think I will only return to such things when I have learned to get my ego out of the way, when I have found my way back to sitting down to write them because that is the thing to do, not because I have some grand vision of a 'me' that I have to become.

To be like that would only to be like my Dad, vainly searching for the thing that I have to do. He and I must both find a way to peace.

There is more I would like to say here, to discuss the feeling of compassion and healing I received for instance, but this is already a long post, so it will have to wait for another time - or perhaps for the comments section.

But one thing I do want to add as a postscript here - as promised - is to say a bit more about the way in which I communicated with the universe or my higher self or whatever it was that gave me all that useful information. This is particularly important because it is something which you may like to try for yourself. I have certainly found it useful, even liberating. Perhaps it will open a similar doorway you.

So, when I held each of those ideas in my mind (my relationship, the books, the blog etc.) and waited for a reaction, how did that come exactly? Did I hear a disembodied voice? You may be relieved to learn that I didn't. What I used was a process I developed some years before, after reading some material by a guy called Bob Scheinfeld.

What Bob suggested was to develop a process of communication with your intuition by simply asking for this to be done: to ask for some kind of physical sign meaning 'yes'. So what you do is sit down and ask your intuition (or your higher self or the universe or the quantum field or God or whatever you think the source of deep inner knowing within you may be) for a sign meaning 'yes' to allow it to share its wisdom with you. Then you sit there and wait for the sign to come.

(It's a long time since I read that book of Bob Scheinfeld's, so apologies to him if I've got his teaching here all scrambled, but I hope I've captured the gist of it.)

I seem to remember that when I first tried this, it took a few weeks for my sign to emerge, but when it eventually came it was a kind of vibration around the eyes. My eyes are very sensitive, so perhaps it is not surprising that this should have happened. Nowadays, the sign is a rather more general vibration or energy, sometimes with flashes of color. So when I put forward each of those ideas, I waited to see if that energy would come. If it did, it meant a positive reaction. If not, then negative.

I'm not claiming that this process is 100% reliable, and it's as well to test any ideas a number of times to see if you get a consistent reaction. I still feel rather surprised that I usually do...

I hope that this doesn't seem too weird. If so, then I'll just trot out the usual mantra: give it a try and see if it works for you. It's really rather similar to the idea of kinesiology, as promoted by Dr David Hawkins and others, which gives you a strong muscle reaction for 'yes' and a weak one for 'no'. The idea is that you are tapping into some deep well of truth within you. It is allowing you to partake in a part of that truth.

 

These may also be of interest:

How Much Do We Really Know?

To Simply Be

Ten Words That Can Heal The World

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the audio program The Missing Secret by   Dr Joe Vitale. Vitale was one of the contributors to the phenomenally successful video about the law of attraction, The Secret. As you might have guessed from the title, The Missing Secret promises to fill in the missing bits you didn't get in The Secret, the bits that meant that the law of attraction didn't work as well as it said on the wrapper.

There's a lot of this sort of stuff around, so I didn't have particularly high expectations when I listened to The Missing Secret. It therefore came as a pleasant surprise to find that it's a sensible, honest and comprehensive guide which happens to echo a lot of what I said in my own series of posts on the law of attraction, The Heart Of The Secret, and which provides exhaustive information on the various techniques you can use to defuse the problems which can get in the way of success.

I still have reservations about the practical use of the law of attraction for those of us who aren't either a) naturally positive people or b) enlightened - and to give him his due, Vitale pretty much accepts its limitations himself. But if you still want to give the law of attraction a go (and why shouldn't you?) then I can't recommend The Missing Secret too highly.

But what really excites me about this program is the third of the six CDs. This covers a Hawaiian technique with the unlikely title of 'Ho'oponopono', which in my opinion has implications of far greater importance than the kind of creature comforts we so often associate with the law of attraction. It has the potential to literally heal the world.

Vitale first came across this technique when he heard about the work of the Hawaiian psychiatrist Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len, who was in charge of a hospital for the criminally insane, the inhabitants of which were generally considered to be beyond cure or redemption. Eschewing all orthodox methods, and without even speaking to the patients himself, Dr Hew Len apparently used the Ho'oponopono technique to cure all but two of the patients to the extent that they could be reintegrated into society. The hospital was eventually closed because it was no longer required. Perhaps surprisingly, this remarkable and heartening chain of events appears to be well corroborated.

The version of Ho'oponopono used by Dr Hew Len was developed in the 1980s by Morrnah Simeona and is based on an ancient Hawaiian practice. Its underlying concept takes the law of attraction to its ultimate conclusion. If we do indeed create our own reality, then it follows that we create everything in our world, even (for instance) the things we hear about on the radio. It entails taking total responsibility for whatever there is in our life.

Yet this isn't about a pointless guilt trip. It is all about healing what has happened. At the heart of the technique, there are four simple phrases: "I'm sorry", "Please forgive me", "Thank you" and "I love you". Through these phrases, the healing (or 'cleaning') can be achieved.

The first two phrases are about expressing regret and requesting forgiveness for whatever in us has created the circumstances we wish to heal; "Thank you" is said in anticipation of the forgiveness we know will be forthcoming; and "I love you" reestablishes the original, natural relationship with God - or 'the Divine', as Joe Vitale and Dr Hew Len prefer to call It. If you have a problem with either of these words, you can of course substitute a word of your choice: the universe, consciousness, the quantum field, the source, whatever you'd like to use instead...

The Missing Secret has a section which repeats these phrases over and over again so that you can play them in the background whatever you are doing; while Vitale himself likes to keep repeating 'I love you' as he goes about his day, which is a powerful exercise in itself. Alternatively, you may prefer to use the phrases to work on specific issues. In earlier posts, I've talked about dissolving away negative emotions using both Nick Roach's approach and my own welcome breath. I still use both of these, but I find that Ho'oponopono usually works even better. I focus on the emotion and then repeat each phrase in turn until the energy changes and the emotion dissipates.

I suggest you try using the phrases in various ways and find out what seems to work for you. If you are drawn to the technique, then do investigate The Missing Secret and/or Joe Vitale's book Zero Limits (which is all about Ho'oponopono) to find out more. Or if you are within traveling distance, consider signing up for one of Dr Hew Len's seminars on Ho-oponopono, details of which which you can find on his web site.

Of course, you may be asking why you should believe a single word of any of this stuff. Given its unlikely nature, this is a fair question. I guess it comes down to the same as everything else on this site. Just give it a try and see what you think. Judge it by its results or any gut feeling you may have about it. I'm impressed by Ho'oponopono because it helps to dissipate my emotions, and I sense a feeling of power when I say the phrases. But you really have to try it for yourself...

You may also be wondering exactly why you should be expected to take responsibility for all this stuff on the news that you never thought had anything to do with you. You may not buy the idea that this is the ultimate consequence of the law of attraction. You thought that the law of attraction was all about getting a nice new house and that sports car you always wanted. You weren't aware of the little-known sub-clause that, along with the house and the car, come total responsibility for worldwide war, famine, earthquakes, crime, anti-social behavior and bad TV.

But the way I look at it is this: if we are all truly One (as I have argued on this blog), all part of a single field of energy, then of course we share responsibility for everything that happens in this world. If we are all interconnected, then collective responsibility follows.

But even if you don't believe in this spiritual stuff, if you prefer to ignore quantum physics and insist that we are all entirely separate from each other, then perhaps you will be willing to accept that we are nevertheless united by chains of cause and effect. Other people are affected by the way we interact with them, and this in turn affects the way they behave with others. Bearing in mind the widely held belief that there are, on average, only six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on the planet, it can be argued that the way we act has an important effect on the world in which we live.

All these actions are stored in memory, and for most of the time - in our current state of consciousness - it is these memories which shape events in our world. It is memory which elects governments, which makes those governments fearful of others, which promotes and prolongs war - because of who did what to whom in years gone by. And if we look in our hearts, perhaps we can come to understand that the emotions which arise within us when we come into conflict with others in our daily lives stem from the same source as those which cause others to kill, abuse, and exploit other people across our planet.

According to Ho-opnopono, all actions arise from one of two sources: from memory or from inspiration. The answer it presents is to heal or 'clean' those memories, to clear away those centuries of accumulated grievances, passed down through the generations, once and for all: to clear away the collective karma of the human race, so that all that remains is inspiration, connection to source, connection to love...

I have written before about the way in which our emotions get in the way of our natural connection to joy. Well, here is more of the same, yet for 'emotions' read 'memories', for it is memory from which those emotions spring.

Remember the four simple phrases: "I'm sorry", "Please forgive me", "Thank you", and "I love you". They can be used to clean away those memories and reestablish our connection to joy.

Find the best way you can to use them. They are ten words that can heal the world.

Related links:

Dr Joe Vitale

The Missing Secret

Zero Limits

Dr Hew Len: Foundation of I

 

These may also be of interest:

A Sun-Filled Room

The Heart of the Secret

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.

 

These may also be of interest:

How Does It Feel to Win a Million?

A Taste of Enlightenment?

The Taste Of Tomatoes

I recently attended a workshop run by Sally Chaffer, in which she introduced us to the spiritual experience of eating strawberries. Now, this may seem more like recreation than spiritual development, but it was all about mindfully eating strawberries: being aware of their appearance and texture as we held them in our hands, smelling their fragrance, and then eating them slowly a bite at a time, giving ourselves a chance to enjoy their luxurious taste.

I have to confess that this is very different from the way I normally eat: gulping things down mindlessly as I focus my attention on something else entirely.

I'm not sure how I came to eat like this. Was it because I would get into trouble with the adults if I didn't eat up my dinner, so I learned to eat as quickly as possible lest my appetite dwindled away and left me stranded half way through the green beans? Or is it because some primitive survival instinct kicks in and prompts me to eat up my food before some competitor grabs it away and I starve to death?

Whatever the truth of it, Sally's approach to eating is much more fun. And as you might have guessed, she was using the strawberries as a practical exercise in being in the moment, illustrating the advantage of focusing your attention on what you're actually doing, instead of being somewhere away in the past or the future, missing the experience of actually living your life.

If you happen to live within traveling distance of Leeds, UK, you may be interested in attending one of these workshops of Sally's. The next one is scheduled for 19th July. She titles the workshops Inner Peace Now! and you can find some details about them here. (You may recognize Sally from the comments she leaves here at The Secret Of Life - I've written more about my experience of her workshop at Sue Ann Edwards' blog.)

That experience with the strawberries reminded me of something which happened to me several years ago. A friend offered me an organic tomato she had grown, inviting me to taste it and see what I thought. Biting into that tomato was a real revelation. There was a sweetness to it, a subtlety of flavor, which brought me very vividly back to my childhood. It was a long time since I had tasted a tomato like that.

"Wow!" I said. "That's what tomatoes used to taste like!"

My friend smiled, clearly pleased at my reaction.

But afterwards, something unexpected happened. The next time I ate a tomato, just an ordinary non-organic tomato I bought at the supermarket, I tried tasting that one as well. And you know what? That tasted pretty good too. Not as good as my friend's tomato perhaps, but I could still detect that same sweetness and subtlety of flavor. And gradually, as I tasted more and more tomatoes, I realized that tomatoes generally tasted pretty good now, a lot better than all the tomatoes I'd tasted for many years. And I soon realized that this had nothing to do with the tomatoes themselves. It was all to do with me. It was simply because I had started paying attention as I ate. Tomatoes had really always been this good. It was just that I hadn't been focusing on what I was eating. I had been biting into something which my mind had labeled 'tomato' and then dismissed from my attention. Why go to the bother of tasting those things, my mind had been saying, I know all about them already!

But now I knew better. Now I had experienced the benefit of actually tasting the tomatoes, of being present while I was eating them.

Of course, I had failed to extrapolate this fully and bring the same degree of attention to all my eating, but it's never too late to start. And there may be more benefit involved than simply enjoying the taste. Some people believe that eating mindfully improves our digestion and allows us to extract more nutrition from our food. This seems to make sense. Why shouldn't our digestive system operate more efficiently if we're paying attention while we're using it? So many other things do - why not our stomachs?

Mindfulness can also be helpful in losing weight. Compulsive eating doesn't tend to be mindful eating. It tends to be something we do while we're thinking of something else, perhaps focusing on whatever problems have led us to eat compulsively in the first place. Or perhaps what's happening is that we're focusing on what we're going to eat next: eating a biscuit while our mind is on the biscuits that are still in the packet. Or worse still, on the packets that are still in the shop, just waiting there to be bought...

If compulsive eating is a problem for you, you could try eating mindfully for a change. Focus on that biscuit. Enjoy its taste, its texture. You may then derive more pleasure from eating that single biscuit than you did from all those packets you slung mindlessly down your neck.

And then: who knows? That one biscuit may be all you really desire.

Postscript: My blogging platform, Typepad, has now introduced more flexibility in typefaces, so I've taken the opportunity to increase the font size. I find this a lot easier to read. Do you agree, or do you find it too large? Any feedback is welcome!

 

These may also be of interest:

Taking The Lid Off

Feeling What Is