Deeper into addiction

I am recognizing deeper into what I am addicted to. I am addicted to information. Reading, thinking, reading, thinking. When does it all end? I guess my prison IS right here in the midst of continually seeking. The idea that I am trying to give up control of my life seems absurd when all I am doing is seeking more information and then thinking, thinking, thinking. What am I doing but STILL trying to perpetuate this illusion of control. What else do I need to know? If I need to know something it will come to me. But like any addiction, it could be tricky to drop. I need another detox. I guess this detox is to just to allow. Stop reading and thinking. Try only writing and being and doing. I've got all the information I could possibly need right now. I should be asking the question of myself when I catch myself in seeking mode. What am I seeking? What do I need to know? There has never been an answer that didn't come to me of its own accord when I needed to know it.

The fear of being truthful

"the core of this fear is that most people know intuitively that if they were actually totally truthful and totally sincere and honest, they would no longer be able to control anybody. We cannot control somebody with whom we have been truthful. We can only control people if we tell half-truths, if we shave down what is true. When we tell the total truth our inside is suddenly outside. There's nothing hidden anymore." - Adyashanti

Worthy of contemplation

"Every man is tasked to make his life, even in the details, worthy of contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour." - Henry David Thoreau

The time has come

Ok, so I am putting it out there.

The time has come for me to really do something to move forward. It is time to set an intention regarding what I am going to do with myself. I have had a wonderful time and have had a pretty good break. I am so blessed to have had the support, encouragement, and patience from the people around me.

I am ready to see what the next phase of this journey is going to be. My intention is to figure this out in the next 2 weeks. Today is the 22 of Feb, so by the 8th of March I would like to have a decision about what I will be focused on. I've been a little scattered and I have had a good rest, but I am ready to keep going. I have a lot of energy inside to give. I am ready to put aside my fear and dedicate my life to the selfless and focused task, whatever that may be. I hope it is adventurous, maybe involving travel, possibly involving communication or teaching. But who knows? I am open for whatever is to come. The idea is to expand myself to the possibilities rather than bringing them down to me and what I think is best. Will it be this blog going to the next level or perhaps something I haven't even considered? I know enough now that the choice isn't really mine. I am leaving it up to the universe to take me where it wants me to go.

I am going to take Joseph Campbell's advice as part of his Hero's Journey and dedicate about an hour a day for the next 2 weeks to open myself completely up to this process. The idea is make my intention known and be guided to take this journey. The way it works I think is to be open, breathe, not make any demands, be humble, and the answers will come.

Thank you to all who have supported me in this effort. I may or may not be posting between now and 3/8, but by 3/8 I hope to have an interesting post to share...who knows maybe even sooner! 

You have to spend energy to earn it

Ok, so I have to admit I have fallen off the wagon a bit. I have allowed my attention to become absorbed a bit too much again with the internet, a tiny bit of TV, and this really cool new phone that I have been messing around with.

However, it is a good thing. It is always a good thing. When you throw out the idea that anything is ever wrong, a new world of possibilities opens up. So the reason it is a good thing is because it allowed this idea to come of needing to spend energy to earn it. I have alluded to this a little bit in previous posts, but it is coming full circle for me now.

So, since I have been doing silly things like allowing my laptop back in my room and fooling with this smartphone I have totally noticed a sharp decline in my energy level. This is compared to the surge of sustained energy I had for awhile after really giving up all things electronic. But I thought about it briefly and then let the answer come. The other thing to point out is that if you want answers to specific questions just release them and then wait for the answer...it will always come. Not much thought necessary. Which is a good thing for me because I'm kinda dumb.

Anyway, the answer came and was completely obvious and unsurprising, but helpful nonetheless. You have to spend energy to earn it. If you are a passive receiver through spending too much time on the internet, watching t.v., or becoming wrapped up in an electronic device, your energy is not being generated. Perhaps this isn't a surprise to anyone, but it helps to have this in my awareness. That's why just getting up and doing something...anything is the way to get energy and inspiration. Just do whatever you can do. Clean the house, write, go somewhere. That's why our culture is addicted to things like caffeine and energy drinks. We sit around not doing much, wonder why we don't have any energy, then gulp down some kinda go-go juice to get us moving. Well, you don't need that. You just need to remember that you have to spend energy to earn it. So start spending!!

There is a caveat to this: your state of mind while spending. Don't ignore this because it will also suck away your energy the same way t.v. and internet does and furthermore lead to frustration and stasis. If you are doing things that you aren't happy to do or can't figure out a way to do happily, then something is telling you to stop and do something else. 

Actions Speak Louder than Words

Ok, so I read and I write and I talk. While all this is well and good and necessary, it doesn't amount to squat unless it means I actually DO something.

"A little less conversation, a little more action please" - Elvis

So, I realize that my reading and writing process is winding down and if I want it to count for something I need to figure out how this will translate into me doing something. So, I know the specific things that I will be reading and taking notes on in the coming week, however my process needs to be different. Rather than taking lifeless notes, I am going to write the notes as an action plan. In fact, if it can't be translated into action, I may as well not even take the note.

I am a little annoyed at myself for not doing this all along, but you live and learn. In the process of trying to change your life, you actually must do SOMEthing. Anything. Failed attempts are infinitely greater than a non-existent attempt.  So, from now on, if it something inspiring doesn't include a way for me to carry it out, it should just be thrown out with the rest of the useless garbage. I need to get Nike on my ass and JUST DO IT!

What is true?

What is absolutely true? If you think about this honestly you may discover that nothing is true. And if it is true, maybe only true for you and quite impossible to prove. Can you think of anything that you are absolutely 100% sure of?

And when I say true, I am talking personally, and directly verifiable. What is the point of anything unless it is something that we can experience first-hand?

Necessary Discontent

If my recent posting have sounded rather vitriolic it was on purpose. But don't mistake it as me being pessimistic. I know it all sounds very pessimistic, but this is a necessary discontent. What I am exposing is what someone has to go through to wake up. What has happened is that we all have tricked ourselves (through the pervasiveness of fear) that things are all ok. When we start to feel a certain discontent, we start to push it down or make excuses and fall back asleep for a little while.

It's like we are fish swimming comfortably in the water where it is nice and warm and then because of external circumstances or something happens inside to push us near the surface of the water so that we can breathe fresh air, break free and become something different. But then fear comes along and puts the kibosh on finally breaking the surface of the water and we swim back down again without realizing what else is possible.

We have to actually cultivate our discontent so that we stop fooling ourselves. Finally get fed up with this low-level, mediocre status quo that human beings are content to live with from day to day. Wake up and finally see that we can't waste our time while we are alive doing things that are unsatisfactory. Stop pretending that there is this other horizon that we can get to someday. Because while we wait for that someday to come we fall back into the same patterns. Accept mediocrity and mindless distractions on our way back down to the bottom of the dark ocean.

So my vitriol has a purpose. A highly optimistic purpose of propelling myself out of the depths of the murky water and breaking the surface. I am angry at myself for being so foolish for so long for placing blindfolds over my eyes and living a fear-based existence. So this is it, come hell or high water I am envisioning something better, something honest, something to get excited about.

Thinking you exist is the core error

Why would thinking that I exist be the core error? Ok, picture this, "you" are driving along the road and some "other" person gasses it out of a parking lot into the street and cuts you off and almost causes an accident.

Now, because you think that this other person is separate from you rather than simply an event happening in your perception, you have now separated yourself from that other person by thinking all sorts of nasty things. "What a fucking idiot"  "How could he just pull out right in front of me?"  and on and on in your attempt to create a "you" and an "other."  Look at this situation rationally. Is this not something that simply happened in your awareness? Think of how many things that you made up along your way of justifying all this anger at someone whom you have never met.  Nothing is ever more than an event occurring in your awareness. It is only the silly things that we make up and tell ourselves that causes all of these "unwanted" emotions.

Don't overlook the fact that I have placed the word unwanted in quotations. I do this because I am asking if those emotions are truly unwanted? To take a simple event in your awareness and spin it into some kind of you vs. the world scenario. You did that. All the other person did was pull out in front of you. So are the emotions of anger, frustration, etc unwanted if you have completely orchestrated the entire event of unpleasant feelings on yourself?

Now take this scenario and apply it to EVERY circumstance of your life. There are no exceptions here. You and You alone are responsible for how you feel. And when you drop the preposterous notion of separation do you see how foolish you have been.

Our One True Talent

I have been going on a bit about how I am discovering more and more how unintelligent I truly am and how little to no talent exists within me. And when I say "me" I mean as this illusory separate being of myself, distinct from the world. How is distinction even possible?? How is separation possible?

And here is where our true talent lies as individuals. This all-encompassing power to completely and utterly confound and confuse ourselves with the sole, and ridiculous goal of pretending that we are all separate entities. How is that even possible? How have I fooled myself for all these years!!??!  That is true talent. How in the world does anyone think that he or she exists?

I realize now that this is something that has been bubbling within me for many years and I have just been continually calling on this masterwork of deceit to fool me. What used to bubble up inside me was this idea that life was barely worth living. Like there was just a barren wasteland of existence and somehow I was just barely treading water. Living one-inch ahead of myself. That one inch was the only thing that kept me going, that living life was just barely a better choice than not living. And I would have moments of rage saying WTF am I doing? WTF am I living for???  And perhaps at the height of this grating against meaninglessness and purpose, I took a sleeping pill and charmed myself back into ignorance. And this, my friends, was my only talent.

The way I did this was through a hodge-podge spirituality. All peace and love and everything is beautiful. This talent is like going to the most putrid of all garbage dumps and arranging the toxic waste in a particular way and then convincing myself this is all lovely and treasured. What a bunch of shit! Some talent!  A talent that turns shit into pretty-shit. One big fucking oxy-moron.

The fact is that I never got real. Never woke up and took a look around and realized that what I was pretending was good and beautiful was dull, monotonous, petty, superficial, and nonsensical garbage. And those adjectives are a fitting description of modern day human society. Modern human society is a piece of fucking shit and we all stand around and hold hands and pretend that this heap of trash somehow, in the right lighting and appropriate sanitizing spray actually is tolerable.

Are you KIDDING ME!!  Our life here in the USA revolves around these holy things: eating, fucking, being mindlessly entertained, quarreling, and for many a variety of substances we can breath, snort, inject, or snort. And THIS ladies and gentlemen is what we call life. Yeah, a beautiful trash-heap of bullshit. And THAT is our talent. Making all of this tolerable, livable, and for some, "worth living"

The Heirophant

I have been looking through and studying my old tarot cards lately. A big help has been from my friend Silver Crow's book called "The Metaphysical Tarot Workbook."

I recently came across a card called The Heirophant and started delving into the meaning of what this card represents. To quote Silver Crow, in his workbook, The Heirophant "represents all the stubborn traits and mindless adherence to outworn ideas that human consciousness seems to need to bog itself down with...our obsession with putting limits and boundaries on The Spirit of God that resides within us."

This is interesting and important to me on this journey into Human Adulthood. Realizing my stubbornness, realizing my tendency towards self-congratulation, my "intelligence."  Thinking about my own intelligence kinda makes me laugh. I guess I have always considered myself "smart" but now I am realizing how dumb I actually am. What is being smart anyway? The only thing that I can claim maybe is a good memory and the ability to string words together that "sound" intelligent. Is that what we consider smart? What seems more and more clear is that the only smart thing is realizing how ignorant I am. How I think that I can put labels on things or know what a person should do to improve her life. I used to enjoy dispensing advice, but now I don't feel qualified. Or if I do, it's coming from somewhere else and I just need to get out of the way.

I can't lay claim to my clever ideas, inspirations, talents because they aren't mine and never were. Artists talk about a "muse" but what that really is happening is they have sufficiently opened themselves up to something much bigger. To claim that you are actually the source of talent and intelligence is what The Heirophant so cleverly does. Putting limits, acting puny in something called "individualism." Seems so gross now. So old-fashioned and boring.

The Heirophant also symbolizes our collective resistance to change. Why do we resist the one thing that can actually give our life some pizazz, something fresh? Oh yeah, thats right: fear. Boring old, worn to the bone, fear. Puke, puke, puke.

How can we be content?

How can we be content with the mystery of life? Why do we accept so much information from all of these outside sources (science, religion, media, whatever) and just shrug our shoulders and say, "ok."

Are people actually just ok with not knowing about life? Not knowing what the hell is going on? I am asking a lot of questions here without answers, but the mind boggling part is this: how are we just ok to live our lives either accepting meaninglessness or buying into some childish dogma that can't stand more than 2 minutes of scrutiny?

We actually haven't even solved the chicken or the egg question for ourselves, but we live as though the answer is obvious. But is it? We are nothing more than mindless robots programmed into believing all kinds of things. For instance, nutrition. I have been a hard-core vegetarian turned voracious meat eater with absolutely no change in the feeling of my well being. Who knows if anything that people say is good for us really is? Or what is bad isn't good? If we do experience some sort of relationship, which came first, the symptom or the belief that there could be a symptom?

Why do we act like lambs headed for the slaughter? Living...or being lived for some other larger machine without really taking anytime whatsoever to wonder. Even for a minute...what is real?  Thoreau said, "man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried." So little has been tried. So LITTLE has been tried! We know almost nothing through self-verification. How can we be content with that?

More about breathing

Why is breathing relevant to this blog? Well, if you have read some of the recent posts, you will see that the assertion is that you are completely responsible for the experience of your outside world and that it begins on the inside. The outside circumstances are only relevant according to your reactions to them. Until your thinking is smacked up, flipped, and reversed, you will continue the same old patterns. If your breathing is poor, your internal world isn't going to be at its optimum state. It's that simple, but you have to make the effort to begin by breathing right. I found this video that talks about proper breathing and this dude has some excellent advice. Check it out!

It's like this:

Alone in a forest, being chased by a big bad wolf, the faster you run, the faster the wolf runs, until suddenly, out of breath, exhausted, overwhelmed, you slump down behind a tree- only the tree turns out to be a wall with a light switch. You flip the switch, the lights go on to reveal a mirror, your reflection- you in a wolf costume.

Resistance is Futile

What are spiritual teachers on about when they talk about how we are limited beings, about seeking freedom, and waking up? We are all being boxed in by imagining ourselves victims of the world and how we somehow have to figure out where we fit in, how we can get our needs met, how we can experience joy. Most of this whole thing is determined by how we perceive other people. We are looking at a world where other people are going to give us a job, pay us a wage, bring us joy, and keep us not-alone . This is all because the biggest fear of the ego is of meaninglessness and being alone and ultimately of not existing at all. So the ego has created this vast network to make us completely convinced that A. We are not alone B. That we are at the mercy of external forces and C. We are limited by external forces and have little control over our lives.

Fear is the glue that holds this big network together. We have to be willing to completely reverse our attitudes about the world and our place within it. We all get to a point of being fed up with how things are working in our lives and we seek things to try to cope. But these coping strategies are really just ways that we waste our time. Addictions and things that distract us from looking directly at the truth are common (drugs, internet, TV, porn, etc.) Also practicing a particular spirituality is also likely to be a distraction. Let's all meditate, find peace, look up to a guru, blah blah blah. These are all ways that we can keep the ego safe and warm and in its comfortable home. Looking outside instead of inside. Looking at the world as a place where other people and circumstances control us is exactly how ego thrives. If you want to make a change, this is where you begin, by looking at how your ego is working to create exactly the conditions that you want rid of.

If I have characterized fear as something that we should fight against, resist, etc., then I apologize. Resistance is futile. Resistance is exactly what the ego would have us do. J. Krishnamurti hits the nail on the head talking about the best way to approach the issue of fear:

"It is not that you must be free from fear. The moment you try to free yourself from fear, you create resistance. Resistance in any form doesn't end fear. What is needed rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance is understanding fear; that means to watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it"

If you want to change you have to make it the number one focus of your life. What could be more important? Recognize how you avoid fear. How do you distract yourself? How do you resist? All of this is knowable if we stop and look. Look at how you have enabled the ego. How you have enabled the outside world to determine the course of your life?

It's all YOU

"The white light of consciousness hits the prism of self. If the prism of self is gray and murky with ignorance, choked with fear, contaminated with ego, then so becomes the universe that radiates  out from it. It's that simple. As the prism becomes free of such flaws then the whole universe changes with it. It resolves into clarity, becomes brighter, more playful and magical. Because we are the lens through which it is projected, we are participants in its shape  and motion; co-creators of our own universe." -Jed McKenna

Fixing a Hole

"I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go"
-The Beatles

For the majority of my life I lived with an emotional sieve. Events and people could bleed my emotional energy straight through and it was if I had no say in the matter.

As a society, it seems we have simply gone along with the idea that there are emotions over which we have no control. Many feelings are a "natural" human response to life's ups and downs. Well who are we? Three year-old toddlers living in adult bodies??

A prime advantage of being human beings is that we can wake up to our situations and think about how we spend our emotional energy. It takes thought and focus to grow up emotionally and we can actually decide how and when we want to experience our emotions.

Contrary to popular belief, worry, anger, jealousy, guilt, frustration, anxiety, and any other unpleasant feelings can be placed under our control. This is not through the act of emotional suppression. Believe me, I've tried it and it doesn't work. Our emotions need to be spent when they arise, but the focus should be channeled more effectively. You must make the decision that you are not interested and no longer will put up with the feelings that make you feel bad. Direct your anger and frustration towards the feeling itself rather than what you perceive as the external cause of the feelings. The external event is completely irrelevant, unless perhaps you enjoy having your energy sucked out or get a kick out of handing your power over to other people and situations.

This takes practice and determination to plug up the emotional energy holes. For me it is still a work in progress, but I see the results clearly. Situations that used to make me angry or jealous wash over me and sometimes cause me to laugh instead. Get angry at your anger. Get frustrated at the frustration. This emotional energy gets channeled towards the feelings that you don't want and sooner than later you will see how ridiculous and childish you have been. You can't force people to act like you want them to or get yourself worked up enough to make people become better drivers or have better manners. You CAN decide how you respond to these situations and stop the perpetual motion machine of madness.

"Life is very short, and there is no time for fussing and fighting my friend" - The Beatles

All is Truth

O ME, man of slack faith for so long!
Standing aloof- denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as
inevitably
upon
itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does.

(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately-But it must be
 realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And the universe does.)

Where has failed a perfect return, indifferent to lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the
meat and
blood?

Meditating on liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there
are really no
liars or
lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return- And that what are called lies are
perfect
returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is
compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of truth- but that all is
truth
without
exception
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

-Walt Whitman

Caveat

There is a caveat to the previous posting that I am compelled to share. The idea of frustration and appreciation isn't quite as cut and dry as I portrayed it to be. It would seem as though I am saying don't ever get frustrated. The fact is that there isn't much benefit to suppressing emotions. In fact, the opposite could be true.

There is healthy frustration. It is even the kind of frustration that could lead to disgust. But it is central to the idea that I expressed when I am talking about how there is no 'you' in you. We should be frustrated and disgusted by the fact that we keep insisting that there is such a thing as an "I." Because it is that very misperception that leads us to all of the feelings that we generally don't want. Getting frustrated at the fact you get frustrated is generating energy that will help you bust through that kind of paradigm.

But the only healthy frustration is directed inward at the feelings that you don't want and the beliefs that have left you in an unsatisfying life. This inward frustration is NOT like self-blame. The self-defeating thoughts like, "Oh I shouldn't have done that" or "oh no maybe I said the wrong thing" aren't going to get you anywhere. I am talking about getting utterly fed up with the fact that things in the outside world have some sort of power to influence your emotional state of mind. It boggles my mind that I spent the majority of my life simply accepting the fact that an idiot on the road could shake my state of mind. That I would continue to allow a pattern of jealousy to take control of my feelings. That I would worry about the most inane things or that I would even worry at all. These are the types of things you should be sick of. Let them disgust you, rather than getting hung up on the external event that gives you the bad feeling. Look at the feeling itself and decide how you are fed up with it. Reupholster the interior of yourself.

Trying in vain to change the exterior environment by giving attitude or acting prideful will keep you on a hamster wheel rolling towards the nowhere destination of "I."

No such thing as "I"

What are you? This is kinda the ultimate question. The question that we really don't want to ask because the truth is a bit uncomfortable. But the fact is, "you" as an entity in isolation don't exist. We all speak in terms of "I."  I went to the store today. I am angry at her. I don't like eating squid. The only use the "I" has for our purposes is for communication. Otherwise it's a myth we perpetuate. A limiting myth. There is no you in you.

We exist in a soup of external and internal influences and yes, perhaps there is a body that moves, a mind that thinks, but there is no you. There is no me. We misinterpret all of the things that we are doing as something that I do or he does. But the fact is, it is all just happening. You have nothing to feel guilty about and you have nothing to be proud of.

The only thing that maybe we are able to do is decide to feel frustration or appreciation for our circumstances. Frustration is a state of low energy and therefore low energy (unfun) things happen. Appreciation is the function of high energy. If we actually do have a role to play it is from either of those 2 standpoints. If you feel frustrated, try appreciating. It's that easy. There is no other power or control of which you are capable.

When we truly have looked within to see that there is not any sort of "I" lurking inside, the notion of feeling anger, blame, envy, or other yucky stuff towards someone else seems utterly absurd. There is no separation. You are everything. To send any other kind of energy away from yourself other than love, acceptance, joy, appreciation or other fun stuff is only, I repeat, ONLY hurtful to you. Because you ARE everything that you see, feel, taste, smell, hear. So let's stop the insanity.

"You got the power to let power go?"  - Kanye West