Author Archives: Ancient Seeker

Find Harmony in Self

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All the tragedy in the world, in the individual, and in the multitude, comes from lack of harmony.  And harmony is best given by producing harmony in one’s own life.  Meenakshi Sharma

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.  Thich Nhat Hanh

It is lack of love for ourselves that inhibits our compassion for others.  If we make friends with ourselves, then there is no obstacle to opening our hearts and minds to others.  Pema Chodron

When we accept that we alone have the power to determine whether we live in harmony, then we’ll understand that it is our choice whether we mostly accept peace and joy, or pain and despair as themes in our lives.   Maya Gentry

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.  Maya Angelou

The trials on the road to world harmony are no greater than the courage of those who accept the challenge.   Carl Lewis

We Are All Deserving

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A woman expressed her anger at people who voted for Trump.  I responded, “People are struggling and they want someone to get them out of their struggles.” She very angrily said, “well, they should work hard.  You can’t just want something.  You have to go to school and do well in school.  You have to do what you’re supposed to do.  We have all worked very hard and that’s how we got to where we are.”

This woman has a well-off father who provided her with a head start in life.  She’s married to a professional who earns an upper middle-class income.  She comes from a background and a family of means.  Everyone thinks they’re working hard wherever they are and that they deserve whatever they have.  If other people would work just as hard, they would be successful like them; but, those others simply like to complain.

My simplistic viewpoint is as follows: Some people are born at the top of the mountain and yes, maybe they are working hard to stay there.  Other people are born in the middle of the mountain. They are trying to get to the top and yes, that is hard work.  Some people are at the bottom of the mountain, but at least they can see the mountain and see others trekking up and down the mountain.  Maybe they share tips and suggestions with others who are climbing or who have come down and are going back up.  They all know the mountain; therefore, everyone shares tidbits, suggestions, networks, referrals, and so on.  Who you know counts for a lot.

Then there are people who are born in a pit with very steep sides.  They exist at the bottom of the pit, or halfway up the pit.  Maybe they got to the top of the pit, but they’re exhausted and are just trying to stay at the top and not slip back down.  People in the pit are probably working much harder than the people at the bottom of the mountain because at the bottom of the mountain they’re not slipping back.  They’re on flat land.  People in the pit go up a little, but the sides are steep.  If they lose their grip, or they get tired, injured, or somehow lose their resources, they slide back down.  It becomes a cycle.  They slide down, then struggle to get back up.

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We Make the World

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Healers are spiritual warriors who have found the courage to defeat the darkness of their souls.  Awakening and arising from the depths of their deepest fears, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.  Reborn with a wisdom and strength that creates a light that shines bright enough to help, encourage, and inspire others out of their own darkness.  Melanie Koulouris

Being a candle is not easy.  In order to give light, one must first burn.  Rumi

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.  Wayne Dyer

Whatever we focus on or give energy to is what presents in our life.  Feed what you want to manifest.  Maya Gentry

When a child learns to walk and falls down 50 times, she never thinks to herself: “Maybe this isn’t for me.”  Unknown

See the light in others and treat them as if that’s all you see.  Wayne Dyer

Anything that costs you your peace is too expensive.  Unknown

Our awareness moving as our thoughts, desires, feelings, and senses generates an experiential reality or world around us. We are the authors of this world.  Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. With our thoughts we make the world.  Gautama Buddha

Neighbors and Trash

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Knowing what to do and putting it into practice are two very distinct concepts.  For me, implementation remains a continuous and, sometimes, frustrating process.

Case in point:  I continue to grow through my neighbors.  In this post, we won’t even get into the loud music, the roaring cars making screeching circles (“donuts”) in the street, the drugs, abandoned and stripped cars, etc.  Today we will deal with trash only.  I have tried to speak to my neighbors and their guests nicely and explain why I don’t like them to throw trash in front of my house.

I’ve told them: “You’re not doing this only to me.  You’re not respecting yourselves.  This is your neighborhood, your community.  Is this how you want to live?”  It’s like my outer calm infuriates them.  They curse and discard more trash, most likely mirroring my inner turmoil.

I started sweeping the trash in my yard out into the street because I’m so tired of daily picking up other people’s liquor bottles, condoms, cigarette butts, fast food boxes, and other rubbish.  It would take me less than 5 minutes to pick up the trash and then it would be gone.  But the way I do it, it lasts infinitely.  Because I sweep it out into the street, I still see it every day in front of my house.  When it rains, it becomes soggy and glued to the asphalt.  Other people see the trash.  I guess they feel that it’s a dump, so they also throw their debris there.  I then have more trash.  Wet gooey trash.  The situation worsens.

So I started thinking: “what is going on? Why must I live like this?”

My first mind, the part that gets irritated, says: “These people are wrong!  I have a right to be angry and respond accordingly!  Why can’t I have decent and considerate neighbors?  Why do I have to live in a crappy neighborhood?”

The observing and objective part of my mind says: “And??  Pick up the trash and move on instead of letting it linger.  Every time you see the trash you get angrier and angrier.  There are other things to get angry about.  This is not one of them.  Stop thinking about what bothers you.  Think about what you want and how you would like things to be.”

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Meditation

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Sleep is the best meditation.  Dalai Lama

We tend to think of meditation in only one way.  But life itself is a meditation.  Raul Julia

Some people awaken spiritually without ever coming into contact with any meditation technique or any spiritual teaching.  They may awaken simply because they can’t take the suffering anymore.   Eckhart Tolle

Meditation makes the entire nervous system go into a field of coherence.  Deepak Chopra

Become slower in your journey through life.  Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‘hurry sickness.’  Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes.  Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.   Wayne Dyer

Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity.   Voltaire

Meditation Works For Me

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When I was 19 years old, I read a book called “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment” by Thaddeus Golas.  Since then, I’ve read it again at various times in my life.  This book motivated me to change my vibration level by meditating.  Over time and changing circumstances, and most likely because of my Christian background, I began to use meditation as a means to secure necessities and desires.  Coming full circle, I have returned to my original intent to change my vibration and energy, to increase my awareness, and to go deeper into understanding.

Many years ago, I received an awareness that, no matter what happened, I was to remain seated within a circle.  I didn’t fully comprehend this at the time.  Looking back years later, I saw that I ran away from intense challenges or ran aggressively forward in confrontation.  Never did I sit quietly in contemplation or acceptance.  Over time, I grew tired of banging my head against the wall.  I grew weary of and exhausted from conflict, resentment, and pain resulting from judgment and condemnation – whether mine or that of others.

Now, I primarily meditate to center myself, to connect to that which is Eternal and Infinite, and to access within myself joy, peace, harmony, and understanding.  I now fully understand what it means to stay seated within my circle.  Not only do I meditate, I find time to be still, to read, to listen and reflect.

I practice various forms of meditation.  I prefer to sit in silence.  Sometimes, however, I cannot stop my thoughts and my mind races with worry, fear, and anxiety.  In these situations, I use guided meditations.  On occasion, I fall sleep with selected meditations playing in my ear.  I believe in the adage, “Thoughts held in mind produce in kind.”  From personal experience, I know that – regardless of the reason, rationale, or justification – unproductive energy will materialize in my life when negativity of any kind emanates from my thoughts, speech, and behavior.  So I’ve got to keep my mind focused on the positive by any means necessary.

Meditation, whether silent or guided, helps to calm me.  It helps me to hold onto my faith while I’m going through the fire.  One morning, I awoke agitated, upset, and overwhelmed with panic and dread.  I had no desire to do anything but lie in bed with the covers pulled over my head.  I decided to mediate.  An hour later, I experienced a peace that I carried throughout the day.

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Make the Life That You Want to Live

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I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.   Georgia O’Keefe

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you.  Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.  So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.  Neil Gaiman

It’s your place in the world.  It’s your life.  Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.   Mae Jemison

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.   Ferdinand Foch

I have not always chosen the safest path.  I’ve made my mistakes, plenty of them.  I sometimes jump too soon and fail to appreciate the consequences.  But I’ve learned something important along the way: I’ve learned to heed the call of my heart.  I’ve learned that the safest path is not always the best path and I’ve learned that the voice of fear is not always to be trusted.   Steve Goodier

You can get what you want or you can just get old.   Billy Joel

When I quit my second job, my father told me a rolling stone gathers no moss.  I told him, “but a rolling stone gets to places.”  After many years, he agrees with me now.  Dichen ‘Di’ Dicden

Transformation is a Process

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During this time of transition (which has been ongoing for six years), I have received numerous comments from friends and family about what I could and should be doing to secure income.  The general theme is “you’re not doing all that you could.  You could be doing more.”

Consistent suggestions include: becoming an Uber/Lyft driver, renting out parts of my home, and accepting low-paid clerical positions.  Always, there is an implied criticism that I’m not willing to take positions that I feel are less than my capabilities, qualifications, and potential.  I express what I feel are valid defenses to the well-intended offerings; however, after these conversations, I often feel drained, deficient, guilty, and self-condemning.

To rebalance, I take the time to be still, to meditate, to read and listen to guidance that reflects what I believe and know to be true.  As Joel Goldsmith advised, “unless we are careful to retire often into the sanctuary of our inner being, the stress of daily living will deprive us of the power of the spiritual sense that possesses us.”

I actually like my life.  I don’t relish existing in financial instability.  My truth is that I am in the process of changing.  Thirty years ago, I made a critical decision not to follow my heart’s desire, but to do what seemed more practical at the time.  This led into years of choosing money first and foremost over what would grow me into the person that, at the time, I wanted to be.

I stopped being authentic.  Because I placed myself in environments that were diametrically opposed to my intrinsic nature, I was often surrounded by people with whom I was incompatible.  Tension, conflict, and neverending stress became the norm.

Most people who tell me what I could and should be doing are not themselves leading lives of joy, contentment, and fulfillment.  They are like I used to be: working in conditions that cause them to be mentally and physically unhealthy.  Their jobs allow them to survive, but not thrive.  The acceptable standard is doing whatever is believed to be needed to make it through.

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What Got Me Through

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There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.   Nelson Mandela

Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you . . . yet, someone survived. . .  You can do anything you choose to do.  Maya Angelou

Strength does not come from winning.  Your struggles develop your strengths.  When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.  Arnold Schwarzenegger

You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life.  But I say, “Nothing happens to you.  It happens for you.”  See the positive in negative events.   Joel Osteen

In my deepest darkest moments, what really got me through was a prayer.  Sometimes my prayer was “Help me.”  Sometimes a prayer was “Thank you.”  What I’ve discovered is that intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through because I know my support, my help, is just a prayer away.   Ivanla Vanzant

There was a special kind of gift that came with embracing the chaos, even if I cursed most of the way.  I’m convinced that, when everything is wiped blank, it’s life’s way of forcing you to become acquainted with and aware of who you are now, who you can become.   Jennifer DeLucy

We All Are Going Through Something

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I’ve been coming across stories about people who have overcome very intense life challenges.  I don’t know if I’m more disposed to notice because of my particular situation or if the Universe is trying to let me know that, as difficult as I think my life is, there are many people who are going through much worse than I am.  Obviously, I know about the refugees and people in the Middle East who used to be middle class and are now in constant war.  Their whole lives have been devastated.  I know all about that.  I know about other people who are suffering.

But, sometimes I think of those people in an abstract way.  For any number of reasons, I move on to the next news item.  However, when I hear about someone’s personal story, it more deeply affects me.

In the October 2016 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about a man who got hit by a bus and lost part of his leg.  He didn’t let that stop him; he got a prosthesis and went on to be a successful triathlete.  During a competition, a van that wasn’t even supposed to be on the road ran into him while he was leading a pack of able-bodied bicyclists.  The accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.  This seemed totally unfair.

In the beginning, he became depressed, lost his way, and abused drugs.  By the time Gilbert met him, he had found an inner peace and joy that went beyond his physicality.  He told her, “Don’t waste your pain.”  That really struck me.  Whatever you’re going through, don’t waste this experience.  Use it as an opportunity to grow, learn, and develop your connection with that which is beyond your circumstance.

There is a comic book series about women who have been victims of acid attacks.  I Googled a real woman, not a comic book character, who had commented on the books. Her particular story involved her rejection of a marriage proposal.  The suitor got together a group of his friends and they poured a bucket of acid on her while she was sitting in her car.  65% of her body was instantly burned.  She’s been through 40 surgeries.  She talked about how hard it is for victims to take that first look in the mirror.  Usually, these women were very attractive before the attacks.

This was 10 years ago.  She’s now 28, still a young lady.  She talked about how the support of her family enabled her to make it through.  Each day, she struggles to pursue her dreams.  She’s now studying to become a fashion designer.

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