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A number of years ago, Dov Glock and I did a lot of very intensive work with men in groups. We learned a lot about what it meant to be a man, and a big part of that meant coming to terms with our own fathers and how they had affected us and the way we functioned in the world. One of the things we encouraged men to do was to write a poem for their father as a way of capturing the essence of this difficult but very meaningful struggle to understand and articulate something that is very, very hard to express. Here is mine from that time. I got to read it to my dad in front a large audience one day with Dov standing behind me and my mother in the crowd a few years before he died. I had pretty much forgotten this existed till another good male friend of mine published it on Facebook last year for my 60th birthday. Thanks for the reminder David.....Ashanti
FATHER
Into the crisp cutting of the morning the son rises,
Fighting off the long shadow of the night’s inner journey,
I stop to re-kindle the fire burnt way down
In its own struggle through the darkness.
My heart, feeling blackened like the small embers I am fanning
Contracts against the power of the breath,
Fearing that it might leap into flames, igniting the tree
And possibly consuming the entire forest.
I stand, adult now, living at the edge of the sea, like a long thin reed,
Or the solitary leg of a silent Heron,
I am rooted with dangerous thinness in my chosen exile.
Heat.
I was like gasoline near my father’s inner fire,
Explosions came out towards me with increasing danger.
Where was his passion?
Drowned in his decisions of responsibility –
His spirit, struggling to stay alive, was nearly lost
To the water of fire, which the false soul craved.
It served to keep the rage far enough hidden to remain constantly dangerous –
Did this come from his father too?
I needed to create demons around me to explain him!
My requests were simple – stop hitting me, don’t leave me,
Show me the way – but deafened by the roar of the fire –
Neither of us heard, we both forgot ... my chest scarred over.
This at least was hot – then for years I lost him.
Both of our fires receded, caught deep in the darkness of a winter’s wood,
Each of us frozen, silently crying out.
But we did not hear ourselves, let alone each other.
We would need some healing fire, but the frozen numbness became more comfortable –
It has a death-like perfection.
That too is addictive.
Finding myself in this darkness, the thing I fear most
Is the demon of fire now in my bones, this body rage
That is well beyond reason.
To find my passion, to break the cycle,
I must face the chaos and descend.
Somewhere along the path he came back to me,
Before the irreversible crisis of death had its final separation.
Together we form a crucible of learning.
Just what we learn is a matter of courage and choice.
To perpetuate the soul-eating distance between us
Would be cowardice.
Only one risking heart needs to break through the
Covering ice.
My container is now strong enough to let our shared fire burn safely –
The gasoline is now just the ordinary wood of my soul.
I’ll let him know it’s safe
And wait for him
At home.Ashanti Fraser – Gabriola Island, 1988
***************
RECONSIDERATION - THE PAST IN THE NOW
When difficult or challenging events from the past arise many people have a tendency to either be overwhelmed by the feelings that come or they try to ignore them, often by repeating the mantra, “Be in the Now”. Neither strategy brings resolution, and by that I mean, there is no integration of the experience into our understanding and being (no re-solution).
Every time something re-surfaces in the present from the past, it is an opportunity to see something now that we could not, for whatever reason, see then. If we hold the past as fixed and sure, then any new information will rattle our foundation and cause us to feel afraid and vulnerable. However, if, in the midst of our fear we remember that any view we have of the past is incomplete and that new information is being offered that will enable us to have an expanded understanding of past events, then not only can the past be seen more clearly and completely, but we can know ourselves more deeply and fully now.
So, when something comes up from the past, you are offered an opportunity to take another look. What can you see now that you could not see then? See if you can shift your focus from being totally inside your younger self (even if the event just happened yesterday, you were younger then) to include an awareness of the fuller context and the other people involved. It’s kind of like watching a movie, where you pretty much know you are safe in your theatre seat (barring a few heart-stopping moments, perhaps) and you can see what’s going on more clearly for everyone, yourself included. You feel with/for the characters, sometimes more than one at a time, and you can see things the characters cannot. I am not saying this is an easy thing to do. But if you hang in with yourself, let yourself remember and feel all that was going on in the past situation, you can also experience compassion and an ever deepening understanding of yourself and the other people involved. All of the feelings that arise are important to allow to pass through you; sorrow, anger, resentment, joy, fear, disappointment, love, whatever, but without getting lost in them, just like you can when you watch a movie. Your feelings are important. They help you to re-connect with the past experience deeply which can allow you to see things more fully. But without a clear focus on what you intend by looking at the past, your feelings can take over the reins and cause you to lose track of a great opportunity for truth and clarity.
It can be difficult to do this on your own, so you might want to talk it through with someone you trust. This will give you the opportunity to talk about what happened, about how you feel about it, what you remember of your thoughts and feelings at the time of the event, how you see things now, what you know now that you did not know then. At the same time, their presence and attention can remind you it is not happening now. Remember you are looking for a more whole view of the past experience in this moment. And, if you are really going to re-consider a past event, it helps to recall that to consider means to view carefully, to treat with respect and esteem.
Through re-consideration, the past is truly re-membered, brought home, integrated into the present by the person you are now. You cannot change the events of the past, but you can improve upon your understanding of them and this shifts your relationship with them. ‘Then’ only defines you ‘Now’ if you try to hold on to yourself as you understood yourself then. Find a way to see yourself and the situation then, from here and now, and your then and now and your future, too, will be experienced more fully and expansively.
Additional note for people who are looking to reconcile with religious doctrine….
Repentance is akin to reconsideration but it takes things a bit further . According to Wikipedia, one definition of repentance is “a change of thought and action to correct a wrong and gain forgiveness from a person who is wronged. In religious contexts it usually refers to confession to God, ceasing sin against God, and resolving to live according to religious law.” However, some religious scholars believe the original translation of the concept of repentance is ‘to look again,” (reconsider) and that to sin means “to miss the mark” (mis-understand or mis-behave). With these translations in mind, repentance can be seen as ‘an intentional opening to deeper understanding of past events or old beliefs which often results in increased compassion for self and others which, naturally, affects future actions.’ It logically follows that, if you truly see things differently, you will act differently. But understanding comes and goes and old habits are sometimes slow to change, so it can take a while for understanding to hold and for behavior to come into alignment.
***************THE SPACE BEFORE WAKING
Question: “Could you tell me more about that space when waking up that we talked about in the Open Door last weekend?”
As for the ‘space’ before waking...When you go to sleep you are entering into a significant let-go in which the grip on everything that you have accumulated around yourself is wonderfully and naturally loosened. In this way what you no longer need can depart, what is still useful can rest, relax and rejuvenate to remain close by and what you now need can begin to make its way to you.
With all the changes that take place during sleep you literally do not know who you are when you wake up. The person who went to sleep is not the person who is waking up. Not a complete stranger, probably, but not totally familiar either. Instead of investigating the person who is waking up we generally recall our memory of the person who fell asleep and take that as our self. How crazy is that? To really know who is waking up we would have to let ourselves be and notice who we are now...now that we have slept some, now that we have dreamed what we dreamed (note this is not the same thing as recalling our dreams), now that we are feeling the light on our face, not the darkness, now that we are embarking on a new day, not letting go of a completed one. This is the deep rejuvenating nature of sleep. It is not simply a time for our bodies and day-time minds to rest. It is a very active and transformative time.
So, if you are interested in an opportunity to re-orient yourself in the present a great way to do it is to become aware of the moment when you are first waking up, the last moment when you haven’t been tracking yourself in the usual way and you don’t know who you are. Of course, these moments are occurring all the time, but it is relatively easy to catch a glimpse of yourself during this significant transition that happens every single day. The same kind of gap occurs at night when you fall asleep and it is possible to become aware of that ‘moment’ as well.
When you are waking up, do your best to simply notice yourself right then rather than orienting yourself to your memory of yourself. You might want to notice, over the course of the day, that you have this habit of identifying yourself with a memory of your self. For example, say you had the thought, “I just did something really mean” then you likely begin to treat yourself as if you are mean, and get busy feeling bad and guilty. But the one who was mean has already been replaced by the one who is aware of the meanness and, one who is aware of a meanness responds differently than one who is mean. If you watch yourself you will begin to notice that, your awareness is before you are usually aware of it, if that makes any sense. When you notice this habit you are well on your way to becoming aware of yourself being aware rather than remembering some relic from the past.
In otherwords, you will become aware of a gap/instant/flash where you are and then there is the moment when you notice yourself exactly as you are and then there is a moment when you describe yourself to yourself. Most of the time when people wake up the first thing they are aware of is describing themselves to themselves, “Oh, I’m so tired, I feel good today, I am stiff, I didn’t get a good sleep and in this process they are immediately identifying themselves with their bodies and their minds and missing their real identity entirely. In other words, most people mistake their description of themselves for themselves.
So on waking, try out the practise of asking yourself, right away, “Who Am I?” and don’t fill in the blank. Just wait and notice what arises. The waiting is important because it is in the waiting that you can become aware of the following gaps:
the gap before you are
and then
the gap between you arising and you noticing yourself
and then
the gap between you noticing yourself and you describing yourself to yourself.
So don’t panic if you have the thought, “Nothing is arising.” Rather, get to know No Thing intimately by investigating it as openly and with as much curiosity and wonder as possible.
OK, I could go on and on but I am going to stop here because this could well be way more information that you were looking for already. Let me know if this is helpful and, if you have any other questions, just ask. Otherwise, run the experiment for yourself over several mornings and be patient. Commit to doing this every morning for say 30 days and see what happens. Set your intention as you fall asleep at night and have faith that you will make progress if you persist. Seek and ye shall find, Knock and the door shall be open, Ask and it shall be granted. This is true. At first it’s like catching a glimpse of a shooting star, or trying to recognize a particular drop of water in the ocean, but if you persist the sightings of your real self become more frequent and lasting.
Have fun!
SarahWhat to Remember When Waking
In that first, hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other, more secret, moveable
and frighteningly honest world in which everything began,
there is a small opening into the day which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you live, wholeheartedly, will make plans enough for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To become human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world is to live your true inheritance.David Whyte
'"We should ask ourselves in our most profound intimacy: What is there before the thought appears? What is there when the thought disappears? What is there before the body goes to sleep and before it wakes up? When we observe closely, we will find not the absence we took for granted, but a presence, a presence that cannot, however be objectified. It is too near, it is our nearest."
Jean Klein*******************************************************************
THOUGHTS ABOUT CHANGEDear Sheila::I keep coming back to our short conversation about change in the kitchen last Thursday.
I was so very excited by your observation that you are becoming more and more aware of new things about yourself--aware of how change is happening in and for you. It has been my experience that the times in my life that have been periods of easiest and most profound change have been when I have been simply noticing and allowing changes that are already occurring rather than forcing change to happen because I think I would be a better or happier person for it.
We are constantly changing and adapting and we are never going to be able to fully comprehend the various factors that are operational or motivational in our lives (in large part because it isn’t all about us) nor the diverse and mysterious ways in which we perceive and come to know things. I remember having the thought, one bright summer day on a sand-dune in the southern US, “I am walking like a pregnant woman,” weeks before Nikki’s conception was confirmed by medical tests and without ever having had the experience of being pregnant before. There was just something I noticed, in the way my body was naturally moving, that was different and somehow I knew the significance of that change.
I have a growing suspicion that the decisions that we think we make through logic and often with much angst are just final realizations or acknowledgments of a change that has already taken place without our conscious awareness. Often these changes come as a shock, but they needn’t. The ‘decision’ to leave a job or a spouse or partner is just the belated recognition that you have really already withdrawn your life energy from your employment or your relationship. By the time a letter of resignation is submitted, the real change has already happened and what remains are just the details of working out a leaving date, replacement and the final paycheque. The part of us that is actually making choices in each moment is far more sensitive to ourselves and our environment than we can comprehend and responds to an infinite number of factors that are outside the realm of our personal understanding. It is also able to move with great speed and assurance; to instantly drop a habit or pattern that is not life-affirming and always willing, even eager, to consider or try something new.
It is my experience that life and its circumstances are constantly nudging us towards wholeness, love and compassion EVEN WHEN IT DOESN’T LOOK OR FEEL THAT WAY. When we see new leaves on a tree we feel excited and wax poetic on the beauty and wisdom of nature. When we see leaves curling and dying in preparation for winter but in advance of the cold and snow, why are our hearts not just as full with wonder and appreciation that the tree knows perfectly how to ensure its ongoing life?
It seems to me, the greatest service we can extend to life-affirming change is to recognize and have faith in the newness that is growing in us, to take delight and to not impede it; to realize that we are naturally and with a profound sensitivity to ourselves and everything around us, taking the evolutionary steps that will enable us to be deeply happy without impeding the ultimate happiness of others and to be a blessing all around. It seems to me that we come to faith through experience and this is why I was so excited by your internal experience and awareness of this mode of change.
I hope it is clear that I am not suggesting a passive approach to life and our constant evolution. It’s more of a different understanding of the source and nature of growth and how we can experience change as a period of ease, grace and assurance rather than stress, striving and doubt.
So, there you have what was stimulated in me from our brief conversation.
Namaste,
Sarah**********************************************************************
CHANGE HAPPENS
Change happens…in fact, change is the essence of life and the pace of change is increasing at an astounding rate. Difficulties, stresses and diseases result when we fight the force of our life with our desire to remain where we are not fulfilled. Try to imagine a flower refusing to become that which it's seed promises, or the river refusing to flow toward the sea. That is how unnaturally we behave when we refuse to aspire to our potential and when we resist our return to ourselves.
As babies, we have no mental idea of what we "should" do to meet our potential; we don't think of what we should eat, who we should associate with, what skill we should develop next. We simply respond to what existence offers to us. Before our world is interpreted for us, we are not aware of any limitations. When we begin to walk, for example, we fall down, but we are not defeated. The transformation from infant to toddler is an astounding phenomena and uninterrupted, this rate of change could easily continue and even accelerate.
But instead, we stop being fascinated by life and become afraid of it. We use our fear to try to control what wants to happen. And all the understanding and analysis of the sources of our fears and the possible consequences of our behaviors will not serve us in this experiment of life and the experience of ourselves. The only alternative seems to be to feel the fear and to live life anyway until the fear fades away again in the remembrance of who we really are.
It is hypothesized that as children, our fears of abandonment and possible death are real, given how vulnerable and helpless we appear when we are young. But whether that statement is true or not, it is simply time to grow up.
Growing up requires desire, discipline and a sense of humor. The desire to truly experience and live your life to the fullest, immediately removes you from the paradigm where things happen to you and places you in a state where you welcome and are grateful for everything life offers; where you realize that nothing is against you.
What separates us from this joyful state of being are the beliefs and attitudes that we hold about ourselves, other people and the world at large. It takes discipline to become aware of the conditionings and false behaviors we have, to begin to experience life for ourselves as it is in each moment and to challenge the beliefs we hold that unnecessarily limit us.
And a sense of humor is certainly recommended. For if the path of awareness and consciousness isn't fun, why bother?
For many years we have seen how people repress their thoughts, feelings and movement and we have recognized the energy required to hold against our experiences in life. But it's more immense and powerful and impossible than that. We have been trying to fight the inevitable, but life will not be conquered. We may win the battles, never the war. Events and circumstances are continually nudging us from our complacency and comfort. And, when friendly invitations to grow and transform ourselves are offered and ignored, the messages only become stronger and more insistent. We always have a choice about how we respond to the world and its events. It is much easier to volunteer for change than to wait for conscription.
If you stop trying to hold yourself constant, you will just happen naturally and freely. The world is nothing like we have been told. It is time for us to experience it directly for ourselves. This is possible by living fully in each moment without resisting what is. When you actively invite change and new experiences and keep opening to whatever wants to happen in your life without condition, the results are seldom what you would expect. But don't take our word for it.
A NEW WORLD.....ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
Imagine that you live in a world where anything is possible and nothing is against you. Everything that happens assists you in fulfilling your potential and there are no limits. Although things are important, nothing is serious. In this world, life is a series of games that you create and the only point of each game is for you to remember and embody who you are. There is nothing to learn because what you learned a moment ago is no longer useful. In fact, what you think you know is most often in your way of seeing the next moment clearly. So, you just keep opening, moving, watching and responding in each moment. Every time a thought comes in from the past, you watch it and don't attach to it so you can see clearly what is actually happening now. Rather than being a static object, finite and concrete, you are just a flow of energy. Doubt and anxiety melt away. Sound like fun? Perhaps a little looser and freer than how you are living now?
The only thing between you and this New World are the beliefs you have about what is possible. You have been given all kinds of faulty information and much of it has been accepted without question, examination or experimentation. This conditioning process has been so effective that you now create your reality based on these restrictive pieces of outside information and repetitive and fairly limited personal experiences.
Very few of the messages you have received are about awareness, aliveness, growth, excitement, creativity, freedom and experimentation. They are mostly about safety, security and comfort, belonging, not rocking the boat and not causing too much distress to people around you. As a result, the choices that you make are primarily directed towards keeping yourself safe and secure and not upsetting anyone else. You are not free.
Basically you live in a prison which was originally maintained externally, but once you are a young adult, you create that prison yourself, again and again, out of the belief that you know something about reality. There have been many good experiments about this.
A natural scientist put a pike fish in a large aquarium with a piece of plate glass in the middle of the container that the pike could not detect with his vision. Small fish that the pike would naturally feed upon were placed in the tank on the other side of the glass. The pike has a predatory lunging motion and for a few days he tried to strike at the prey he could see only to bump his head into the glass plate. After about two or three days, he gave up. Then they took the glass plate away, and he never ate any of those little fish. He had developed a belief about reality that didn't shift despite the new situation and new evidence.
A lot of the limitations that you have about yourself and what is possible are constructed in exactly the same way. Most of what you are limiting yourself with has nothing to do with what is actually going on right here and now. From the inside of your belief system, which we might lovingly and non-psychiatrically refer to as your neurotic character structure, all your energy goes to keeping the existing belief system together. It is who you think you are. You then create a reality outside of yourself that matches what you already believe. But, are you a pike or a person?
Getting outside of your existing box is what awareness is all about. You can do it anytime. Begin now.
BEING MORE ALIVE AND LOVING
Our minds cannot comprehend 'being together' and 'being free' at the same time. Within the dichotomy of the mind, it can be only one or the other, never both. As a result, most 'relationships' become a battle of wills, both internal and external. Partners try to balance commitment with freedom and parents struggle with sacrificing themselves to fulfill obligations to their children. Compromise replaces life and a good compromise is when no one is really happy.
You can never really be with another person unless you recognize that you are always free to be elsewhere. This can be a difficult concept since it seems to imply a degree of irresponsibility. In fact, we are talking about the ultimate level of responsibility and honesty to the people around you. It requires an awareness and sensitivity that most people are not currently accessing or practicing. If you are truthful with yourself and your loved ones, when it is appropriate for you to be together, you will be together. When it is appropriate for you to be apart, you will be apart. Simple.
As you read these words, your mind is already in catastrophe. You envisage the break down of the family and much resulting chaos. But this is already happening. The way we are 'loving' each other is not working. We need to reconsider our values and our options.
"I love you." For most people these three words carry an implication of commitment and obligation, which has nothing whatsoever to do with loving another person. Current ideas and beliefs suggest that sacrificing yourself to your partner or your child is proof of your love. But this kind of bargain does not serve anyone since everyone is required to pay in order to be loved; everyone is diminished by this agreement.
If you truly love someone, you want him or her to be totally, completely and utterly true to themselves no matter what the consequences. This is their due and this is the optimum situation for you, too. Stop trying to be perfect and simply be who you are. Then the message that you offer to each other might be closer to "wake up" than "go to sleep". You will be saying "live your life, be independent and true to yourself " rather than "depend on me, do what I say and live a life of obligation".
To your essence, what is of value is the experience of being loving, rather than being loved, because loving is the expression of your true nature. You current beliefs about love are in the way of your natural loving. When you start to allow your loving to emerge you will see that it has nothing to do with anything outside of you. It is unshakable; it is not dependent on anything outside. Your loving cannot be impacted by external forces and, therefore, it is not dependent on being loved in return. You will also see that there is no formula for being loving. There are no inherently loving or unloving acts. Everything is contextual, relational and momentary. Being loving requires awareness, sensitivity and the willingness to experience everything that life has to offer. What could be more alive?
HEAVEN OR HELL?
There is a story about Jesus wandering in India and coming across a group of very poor people at a well one day. He noticed that they all looked very unhappy. They reported that they were so tied up with the struggle of their daily existence that they did not have time for happiness. They thought they would have joy in heaven. Jesus responded, "My brother, man, your thoughts are wrong; your heaven is not far away; and it is not a place of metes and bounds, is not a country to be reached; it is a state of mind. God never made Heaven for man; He never created a Hell; we are creators and we make our own. Now cease to seek for Heaven in the sky; just open up the windows of your hearts, and, like a flood of light, a heaven will come and bring a boundless joy; then toil will be no cruel task." *
So this is it...you can be in heaven or hell in any moment. You create each moment. You always have a choice about how you see things and it is your beliefs and ideas that create either heaven or hell whenever you experience it. You can be free at any time. Every moment could be heaven.
The idea that most people carry deep inside of them is that they are separate from the flow of existence and from what is happening around them. This sense of disconnection is what underlies all the worries, anxieties, misery and suffering that you experience and see. Even though it all seems very "real", an incredible illusion is made up out of the crazy ideas that have been taught to you by others. What you think of as "reality" is what is keeping you away from the naturally vibrant state of your existence.
In each moment you have the choice to believe what you think you already know, which is usually built on a grid of fear and contraction, or of living from a totally different place. Think of it. Let yourself feel it. You could believe that you are a wonderful part of the flow of existence, that everything is exactly as it should be, that anything is possible and that you are perfect just as you are. Then the "default settings" in your inner computer would shift from fear to love, from believing that good and bad things happen to you to realizing that everything that happens is for you. We create "realities" based on these deeply rooted and often unconscious belief systems. Freedom simply means knowing that you have a choice. If you are in hell, you are putting yourself there.
Be as aware and awake as you possibly can be in every moment. Let that be your priority. A big part of waking up is finding ways to put aside, and not be so controlled by, your conditioning. You might, for example, imagine that an angel is sitting just behind your left shoulder, ready to love, guide and support you at any time, without judgement. No matter what technique you use to free yourself, your life will begin to "happen" and there is not very much that you have to do about it except stay open!
Now these ideas will drive your mind crazy, because it is unable to understand them and it wants to control your life by an act of will in order to keep you safe. But this approach is not working and is not necessary. You don't have to fight anything because this is not a battle. When you relax and get less attached to your willfulness and need to control, you will discover there is no need to judge yourself, others or any experience. You will find that there is an incredible appropriateness to existence.
You don't have to hold yourself so tightly together. You can just flow. And, if all of a sudden, something bumps you around and your mind says, "you see, you can't just let things happen", you don't have to believe it. If your partner has an affair, or somebody dies or the roof falls in - whatever is happening is happening for you. It is happening anyway. Your willfulness or resistance doesn't stop your partner from having an affair or anyone from dying. You often don't have much control over the actual events in your life, but you do have control over your responses to them. You don't have to live in such a high state of alert. It is killing you.
As you let go of your willfulness, you may find that you still have preferences. You might really love a certain type of coffee or ice cream but it's just a preference. And if you really open to existence, then those kinds of playthings are usually around.
As they will their way through the world, most people are living in a rather profound state of resentment and disappointment. When you are open, you are greatful for everything that happens. So when your partner has an affair, or you lose your job, instead of getting all bent out of shape, you could be saying, "Thank you. Thank you for creating an experience for me that I might not have had any other way." It's a gift. You are being set free. Probably you did not want to go to that job anymore anyway.
So existence is here and is giving you all the information that you need at any given time. If you live without too much willfulness then existence just comes and says, "Here, take a look at this" or "Let go of that" and it is quite simple and you do it. "Yes" to this. But your mind, your neurosis, wants to control it all and if you can allow yourself to be living in a "yes" then it all begins to flow and it is just moment to moment and you simply begin to happen. You begin to live your essence as opposed to the constructed reality of the mind. Life gets to be a lot more fun. You just follow the more natural energy that is there in all of us underneath the prison of our conditioning. You don't have to will it. Heaven or hell? It's your choice in every moment.
* The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ" by Levi p.63
UNDERNEATH IT ALL
There is a wonderful version of an old Sufi teaching story that addresses the state of illusion that most people are living in. One night at three in the morning, a drunk walks out of a bar. There is virtually no traffic in any of the four lanes of the highway right in front of the bar, just wide-open spaces leading in either direction. The man is so inebriated and dull from his evening of drink that, even though he has four wide open lanes choose from, he bumps into the single stop sign at the entrance to the freeway. In his drunken state he walks straight into the one obstacle that is in his way - in the vast expanse of possible space he finds the thin bar that supports the stop sign and bangs his head right into it. He stuns himself, backs up, shakes his head and then takes another run for it and once again bangs right into the signpost. This happens five or six times and after the final collision, in great despair, he grabs onto the stop sign and screams into the darkness of the night, "It's no use! I give up! I am surrounded!"
The bottom line of all paths of awareness and spiritual growth is to dedicate yourself to "waking up" from the conditioning that you have been getting since you arrived on the planet. This conditioning has happened on some basic levels and is very, very strong. From the moment a child is born, we begin to feed it information. Most of it is craziness. We feed it fear-based information about food, sex, money and relationships. Think about it for just a moment. Think about the information that we give to children. Is it any wonder that the 'computer system' ends up with the program that it is in constant danger and believes it has to continually fight to survive?
If you begin to be more honest and curious about yourself, you will notice that much of how you see yourself and the world is nothing other than what someone else told you. You have not really tried to find out very much for yourself. You are locked in the prison of your conditioning; you are trapped by these beliefs but will cling to them like the drunk to the stop sign.
During the course of your life you have constructed a personality or an identity out of this jumbled morass of mis-information. Fortunately, this construction is only covering, but has not destroyed, who YOU are underneath it all. To come out from under this conditioning, consider the possibility that YOU are not in danger (at least not the danger that you think you are!). If YOU do get into real danger, YOU will respond appropriately. YOU don't have to live in such a state of alert. If you can drop your conditioned beliefs about yourself and the world, then you can live in awareness rather than anxiety. If you start telling and living your truth, it will set you free.
What goes hand in hand with freedom is responsibility, which is neither duty nor obligation. Responsibility just means that you have an ability to respond - you have the ability to respond differently than your conditioning dictates. As you read this article, your conditioning is going to try and link these words back into what you already know. That is the function of the conditioned mind. It gathers new information and fits it into the original context of understanding. This mind can only re-create what it already knows. It is a very sophisticated computer that has been mis-loaded with all kinds of damaged software programs. It is taking new experiences and information and it is trying to place everything into its existing grid, trying to keep you safe. From this, it creates a "reality". Basically what you are doing is creating futures out of pasts and very seldom do you experience anything new. The conditioned mind can't do it. It is terrified of the unknown and, in its current state, is incapable of being in the present.
Now, the mind can do many things, and when we begin to access another kind of intelligence, the mind can resume its proper function. The other kind of intelligence is not about creating realities out of past experiences. It is about becoming aware of exactly what is happening in any given moment and allowing yourself to simply respond. It's not about how you think it is going to be, or thought it was going to be, or were told it was going to be. What we are talking about is getting clear enough so that you actually see what is going on, without the normal filters you have to protect you from your experience. Try entering each moment without any conditions. This requires courage, but remember, you are not the machine you have been conditioned to be. You are much, much more.
