Author Archives: Ancient Seeker

Refusing to See Reality

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There are two ways to be fooled.  One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.  Søren Kierkegaard

Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos.  That is the way we all see . . . each other in life.  Vanity, fear, desire, competition – all such distortions within our own egos – condition our vision of those in relation to us.  Tennessee Williams

Why did we become blind, I don’t know.  Perhaps one day we’ll find out.  Do you want me to tell you what I think?  I don’t think we did go blind.  I think we are blind.  Blind but seeing.  Blind people who can see, but do not see.   José Saramago

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one’s own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.  Sheri S. Tepper

To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.  J.R.R. Tolkien

It is the curse of the powerful to be blind to their own faults.  Robert Fanney

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.   Nikos Kazantzakis

Are We Blind?

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Volubilis nuno de matos

I had recurring dreams, the interpretations of which repeatedly stated that I “was not seeing what was before me.”  I was confounded, sad, and confused.  What was I not seeing?  I couldn’t figure it out.

The memory of these dreams re-surfaced when I was around people who, in my view, clearly were not seeing what was very apparent to me.  I saw myself in them.  I was so dismayed by the message my dreams were sending me that I had a strong desire to become aware of what I wasn’t seeing.  I wanted to cure my blindness.

In my quest, I read, listened, meditated, attended workshops and seminars, and saw a therapist.  I had no proof that any of this would help me to see, but I was willing to try anything.  I was open to whatever was available that might open my eyes, my ears, my heart, and my mind and allow me to see the clear manifestation of reality.

Most people are adamant that they perceive the reality of what is before them.  They become angry if another interpretation is presented.  This anger disguises a lack of openness.  It is a tell-tell sign of resistance to knowing truth.  One can disagree with the expressed opinion of another.  However, an intense emotional reaction to that expression indicates that an arrow has hit its mark.

For example, someone might say with concern, “You look tired all of the time.”  Perhaps the comment could have been more skillfully made; however, you blow up and scream, “Why are you always so critical?”  You could have laughed it off.  Your response may indicate that you believe there is something about you that is worth criticizing.

When I react with intense emotion, I ask myself, “what is the truth within me that my reaction is pointing to?”  I may need to develop better ways to react to my stress and that of others.  How can I stay calm in the midst of turmoil?  What techniques can I learn and practice to enhance my inner and outer peace?

Sometimes the issues are deeper.  Many of us don’t want to evolve.  We don’t even recognize our resistance to growth.  Human beings have an inherent need to move beyond our present circumstances.  The inability to do so expresses itself in unconscious mannerisms – commenting enviously on the upward mobility of others, sensitivity to benign comments, irritation at inconsequential incidents, general feelings of discontent with no known reason, mental and physical fatigue, and the aforementioned intense emotional reaction.

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Live the Life You Love

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Almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.  Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose.  You are already naked.  There is no reason not to follow your heart.   Steve Jobs.

What I know is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.   Oprah Winfrey

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.  Maya Angelou

Love what you do and do what you love.  Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it.  You do what you want, what you love.  Imagination should be the center of your life.   Ray Bradbury

Love the life you live.  Live the life you love.  Bob Marley

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones that you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.  Mark Twain

Following Your Passion 1

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passion renatadomagalska deviantart

The path leading to your desires is not always clear.  How do we even find our passion?  Even if the passion is identified, the road may be full of twists, turns, and obstacles.  How do we keep going?  How do we persevere?

The phrase “follow your passion” is like the goal of “being happy.”  It is an intangible that has no clear guideline for how to achieve it.  It is the “how” that challenges most of us when we think about the intangibles of life.  We want to love what we do.  We want peace, joy, contentment, love, and success – and we want it now.  But, becoming anything is a process.  It takes adherence to techniques, to the development of skills, to retraining the mind.  Some would say that our consciousness needs to change.

Because of life’s stresses, we may not remember what it feels like to have passion.  Neverending obligations and responsibilities form the content of our days.  We have an idea of what we would like to do, but take no steps toward implementing it.  Is it because we have become fearful of trying new things?  Is it because we can’t foresee instant results?  That’s what a j-o-b brings.  We are conditioned to get a paycheck every two weeks.  When pursuing our passions, we might not see “success” for years, especially if “success” is defined as money, recognition, or status.

“Following your passion” is generally associated with making money.  Numerous self-help books tell us that we should be able to make money by doing something about which we are passionate.  This focus on compensation may blind us to what is inherently joyful.  We will constantly think, “How will I make money from this?” instead of “I love doing this so much, I want to do it as often and as much as I can.”

To identify our passions, it may help to remember our childhoods.  When I was in high school, I held almost every student government position.  I volunteered in various areas of community service.  It was a natural progression for me to choose to work in a congressional office as a college intern.  This turned into a full time job that I totally loved.  At no point prior to that employment did I think, “My perfect job would be to work in Congress” or “I am passionate about politics.”

I organically evolved into that position as a result of participating in activities that I totally enjoyed.  My interests led me to endeavors that ultimately led to a paid position.  My beloved first job exposed me to new passions, which encouraged me to venture into new and uncertain environments.

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Change, Practice, Flow

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Bright Horizons Julia Di Sano

No more will you fear conditions or circumstances seemingly outside of you or beyond your control.  Now you know that all that can transpire in your experience is occurring within your consciousness and, therefore, is subject to its government and control.  Joel Goldsmith

Meanwhile, if anyone did dare to ask, the answer would be: I considered giving up.  I thought God was no longer listening to me.  I often had to change direction and, on occasion, I lost my way.  Despite everything, though, I found it again and carried on, because I was convinced there was no other way to live my life.   Paulo Coelho

At certain moments you need to have discipline, and in others you need to just be guided by life.  You have to balance your willpower with the capacity to relax and enjoy and go with the flow.  There is a Zen proverb that says, basically, if you want something, step aside and let this thing come to you.   Paulo Coelho

Tomorrow, and only tomorrow, will I take another step. . .  Until one day, without warning, the road stops testing the traveler and begins to treat him generously.  Paulo Coelho

Just as an acrobat flies easily through the air with no apparent effort, success, when it comes, seems the most natural thing in the world.  Paulo Coelho

It’s a funny thing.  The more I practice, the luckier I get.  Arnold Palmer

Improve Your Technique

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Change lucid light deviantart

When I have time to fully devote myself to a spiritual path, I become financially destitute.  When I work, I become so exhausted and stressed that I don’t pursue a spiritual practice.  I become mentally and physically depleted and unhealthy. This seesawing back and forth seems endless.  I need to make money; yet, I haven’t been able to make it in a way that is nourishing and honoring to me and others.

This morning, during swim team, I did speed intervals.  After the first set of three timed swims, I was exhausted.  I came in even on the second swim; then lost two seconds on the third.  During the second set, I decided not to focus on speed, just technique.  I felt that I wasn’t going very fast.  I wasn’t using much effort.  Yet, I came in 2 seconds faster than my best time in the first set even though I thought I was swimming more slowly.

I told my coach, “This doesn’t make sense.  How can I go faster by swimming more slowly?”  He responded, “When your body is streamlined, you diminish your drag and go through the water more quickly with less effort.”  By the last swim of the third set, I beat my time by four seconds!  This was amazing because I wasn’t killing myself trying to go faster.

As with swimming, struggling to manifest income is creating a drag.  I must relax and focus on my technique.  I am practicing tapping into the Universal Consciousness that has abundance flowing to me without my having to struggle for it.  I don’t want to exhaust myself anymore.  When I tie into the Universal Consciousness, I receive communication according to my capacity and in a language that is understandable to me at that present time.

Improvement involves practice.  When I am learning a better technique, swimming is not as enjoyable.  It is tiring.  My muscles are weak in the new ways in which I want them to work.  My body and my brain want to return to the old ways.  It’s easier to do as I have always done.  Sometimes I don’t want to go to swim team and listen to my coaches encourage me to change.  Change is hard.

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Do Your Thing

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Passion Sabina-D-Antonio

Find something you enjoy doing so much that you’d be willing to do it for nothing . . . and you’ll never work a day in your life.  Ronald G. Wayne

Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.  Tina Fey

There is no passion to be found in playing small and in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.   Nelson Mandela

It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires.  It must abandon itself to its master passion.   Rebecca West

Follow what you are genuinely passionate about and let that guide you to your destination.  Diane Sawyer

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars and to change the world.  Harriet Tubman

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right.  If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.   Steve Jobs

Chase your passion, not your pension.   Denis Waitley

A Passionate Life

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Passion HeArts Gallery drawneartogod

I identified very strongly with the Grey’s Anatomy character Christina Yang.  She always chose herself, except within the first three seasons when she chose Dr. Burke.  But that was because she admired him.  Although a junior resident, he gave her special opportunities to learn advanced heart surgery skills.  He provided a path to her continued expansion.  More importantly, Burke was like Christina.  He had a passion for infinite growth.  He had confidence.  He took risks.  He was exceedingly skilled and knowledgeable.  Christina couldn’t help but love him.  He was a male her.

The difference between me and Christina is that I didn’t identify within me something about which I was so passionate that I would give up everything.  My passions were externally focused.  I sacrificed all for my jobs, my family, and my mom.

Because my passions were for other than me, my efforts frequently ended in disappointment.  I facilitated the needs and desires of others.  Yes, I enjoyed what I did and gave; but, my accomplishments ultimately benefited them more than me, which was predictable because I supported their dreams and goals.

Grey’s Anatomy was the first television series in which a key character left and I wasn’t mad at the producers and writers.  The season of Christina’s departure explored all of the possible life-changing scenarios that Christina could have chosen.  The one that I wanted for her was to stay with Owen and have babies.  In her vision of this choice, she was pregnant with their second child.  Owen was immensely happy while she regretted giving up the possibility of her greatness as a world-renowned surgeon.

Every possible ending that fans would have wished for Christina involved her compromising her passion and dreams for herself.  In each, she was happy for and pleasing to others, but unfulfilled and unaccomplished in the ultimate manifestation of her gift.

In the season finale, Christina was offered and chose a position that allowed her to be unlimited in her potential.  Importantly, it also showed how much she knowingly gave up – proximity to the man she loved, her best friends, and the opportunity to be reasonably successful in an environment surrounded by supportive co-workers.  She could have settled and been beyond ok by most standards.  Instead, she chose to reach for the stars and follow her unflinching passion.

Christina chose the means and opportunity for limitless mobility.  She chose the power to determine and actualize her destiny.  That is my desire for myself.

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Living This Life

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Grass With Dew

We believe in the eternality, the immortality, and the continuity of the individual soul, forever and ever expanding.  Ernest Holmes

In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.   Robert Frost

From where we stand, the rain seems random.  If we could stand somewhere else, we would see the order in it.  Tony Hillerman

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.  Isaac Asimov

Our own life has to be our message.  Thich Nhat Hanh

I knew everything happened for a reason.  I just wished the reason would hurry up and make itself know.  Christina Lauren

Very little is needed to make a happy life.  It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.  Marcus Aurelius

We’re all going to die.  We don’t get much say over how or when.  But we do get to decide how we’re going to live.  So do it.  Decide.  Is this the life you want to live?  Is this the person you want to love?  Is this the best you can be?  Can you be stronger?  Kinder?  More compassionate?  Decide.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  And decide.  Dr. Richard Webber, Grey’s Anatomy, Season 10

No Rhyme or Reason

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allowing publicdomain

I am moving closer to my goal of letting go and letting life because I don’t see any rational reason for recent occurrences.  The artist Prince died and there doesn’t seem to be an acceptable reason for his premature death, or for the passing on of many others who provided much joy, inspiration, and innovation to the world.  Prince was a genius, a philanthropist, and a supporter of just causes.  He didn’t seem to have any type of psychosis or mental issues.  He performed up to the time of his sudden death.  He was a good person.  Why did he leave this realm to which he so positively contributed?

Two days after Prince died, I went to the memorial service of an associate.  She lived a wonderful, spiritual, and giving life.  She was very well loved by everyone.  She appeared to have everything and lived “right.”  Why her?

I look at Steve Jobs.  All of his money, status, and technology couldn’t save his life.  Why?  Wouldn’t the world continue to benefit by his presence?  There are people who abuse their bodies and/or other people every single day.  Defying all odds and statistics, they live long and sometimes prosperous lives.  Sometimes, I think that Earth is hell and the ones left behind haven’t done whatever we’re supposed to do to make it out.  That theory doesn’t make sense, however, because many people are living joyful and fulfilled lives in this here and now.

I look at people whose lives I might have chosen for myself.  I think, “their lives are so great.”  Then I learn that they are going through life challenges that I couldn’t imagine bearing.  Maybe they lost their homes, loved ones, and every single thing they own in a fire, earthquake, tornado, landslide or war.

Some people have financial abundance, but undergo health challenges.  I have to accept that I don’t know why things happen.  There doesn’t seem to be anything that one can do to avoid suffering.  You can be this great wonderful person who everybody loves.  You can be a genius.  You can be a zillionaire and still have insecurities and childhood issues that you can’t seem to resolve.

I’ve been around long enough to see that there isn’t a simple explanation.  There isn’t an answer that says if you do “this,” you will have an absolutely perfect, pain free, and struggle free life.

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