Category Archives: PathPosts

Deep Cleaning

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Deep cleaning my house has been very slow.  It’s taken months.  I’m finally getting to the point where I’m vacuuming my very filthy carpet.  As I vacuum, I think about things.  It’s been a trying time.  There are so many things that I need to do that I can’t do: maintenance my car.  I have deep cracks in my ceilings.  In my bedroom, the ceiling is bowed.  According to the Internet, this signifies that I immediately need to call a structural engineer.  But I can’t afford it.  I’m hoping that the issue is not the foundation.  I’m thankful to get through each day without my ceilings falling in.

I think, “why why why is my life like this?”

The thought came to me that I was the one who wanted to change my life, to turn my life around.  If you want to learn a sport, to become healthier, or to become proficient in anything, there are certain things that you have to give up.  You have to give up refined sugar, sitting in front of the television all day, drinking and hanging out every night, especially when you’re “of a certain age.”  Even though, to me, giving up income is not the same as giving up ice cream or cookies or TV, it still is, in a sense, a giving up of something.

The intent that I expressed to change my life has somehow overridden my desire to have instant money.  Left to my own devices, I would continue to do the things that have caused me to gain weight, to sit all of the time, to be unhealthy, to be unhappy and stressed out of my mind.  The Universe, responding to my intent, stopped and blocked me and said “no no.  You’re not going to do this.  You’re going to do THIS.”

My solution would be to win a million dollars.  This would solve all of my problems.  I don’t know why I can’t win the lottery when others have.  Apparently, that’s not in line with my intent.  Perhaps that outcome would change my life, but would not change me, which is my ultimate intent.

The path that I used to take seems to be closed to me right now.  Perhaps in the long run, looking back, I will see that it was a good thing that it was closed because otherwise I would continue to do the same thing.  It was easier to get and go to a miserable job every day to obtain money.  That’s what I’ve done for the last 25 years.  It’s been a good way to pay my bills.  If I could do the same thing that I had been doing, which is to be able to get a job quickly, then I would be working right now.

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Looking Back: Connecting the Dots Part II

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Dot Six

In 2013, everything seemed to fall apart.  I had been off work since 2010 and used savings, retirement, and credit cards to pay my and my mom’s expenses.  I had never had a problem finding work; but, after my mother’s passing in 2012, I could not get back into the job market to save my life.  I started work/trade at a yoga studio for classes.  After only a month or so, I was fired!!  Can you imagine?  I couldn’t even keep a free job!!

The next day, I broke my foot.  Now I had no money, no job.  I was immobile.  No swimming, running, bicycling, yoga, showering, walking without crutches, or sleeping comfortably.  Every month I would return to the doctor who would tell me that the bone was not healing.  I was in a boot for seven months!  I wanted to kill myself.  While I was going through it, all I felt was struggle, pain, and horribleness.

Looking back, I realize that I moved to another level.  My journal entries are critical because I wouldn’t remember the details today if I had not documented every emotion, thought, activity, and insight and every angry, hopeless, fear-filled, enlightened, relieved, and joyful moment.

Reading A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield lets me know that I am not the only one to experience a succession of difficulties, mistakes, fear, painful patterns, and dissolution that comes from not having the life I desire, expect, and feel that I should have because of my ego-centered reasons: I earned it, I’m a good person, I’ve done the right things, other people live well and prosper, etc.

As part of my spiritual practice, I used to recite a Tibetan prayer in A Path With Heart:

Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion may be truly fulfilled.

After awhile, I disposed of that prayer.  I had had enough difficulties and sufferings.  Time to move past that.  I couldn’t even remember where I found that prayer until I started re-reading A Path With Heart.  It must be time for me to become reacquainted with it.

Sometimes, going through life’s challenges, we are growing exponentially and can’t see it.  Looking back, the growth that I experienced during 2013 and 2014 would not have been possible without the seeds that were planted between 1994 and 1998.  Those were the years that I got off of my first treadmill and resumed an inner focus that began when I was 19.  The next 15 years were my experiential, living-life years.  That period made me find my dormant seeds and start watering them.

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Looking Back: Connecting the Dots Part I

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Dot One

When I moved to the East Coast as a young adult, I found my element.  New York and Washington, D.C. matched an energy that could not be totally expressed in my hometown.  Everything that I pursued manifested.  I was assertive and confident.  I felt powerful.  Whatever I decided to do became easily within my reach.  I flowed.

Dot Two

Then I made the decision to return home.  Six months after I began my new job, I knew it wasn’t for me.  But I stayed.  I was devastated to realize that I didn’t want what I had put so much time, effort, and expense in obtaining.  Now what?  I felt lost.  I didn’t know what to do.  During my fourth and last year at my firm, I spent almost a month in Hawaii.  There, in peace and free to think, I made the decision to be a writer.

Dot Three

I mostly wandered for the next year.  Tried to find myself.  Meditated.  Explored.  I travelled.  I tried to start my own legal practice.  I kept getting thoughts that this was to be a period of rest and rejuvenation and that I wasn’t to worry about future income.

At one point, I asked God, “What is my destiny?”  I went over my past and asked why I had gone to law school and accepted employment at a corporate firm.  It hadn’t seemed to accomplish much.  The answer I received was that law school and the firm enabled me to return to California.  I wouldn’t have come any other way because I wanted to retain my income.  California was where I needed to be in order to be with my father during his last year of life, to resolve my differences with my family, and to move beyond where I was on a spiritual level.

I then asked, “Why did I start my estate planning business?  The answer was that I needed to get away from the firm.  I needed a reason to leave.  In addition, it was practical, as I would need to plan for the distribution of my own estate and my mother’s when she passed.

Reading this many years later made me realize that most of what appears externally is not the essence, the reality, the why of what is occurring.  If we could see the larger picture, we wouldn’t worry and become fearful and despondent.  We would know that all is for our good and everything will work out ok.

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Recharge

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Last week I spent four days in Sequoia National Park, courtesy of a dear friend.  I woke up every morning, ate breakfast, and spent the entirety of each day walking on different trails.  Much of the time I was by myself, surrounded by nature.  Thinking I would have a lot of quiet time, I brought my laptop and journals, planning to write and get a head start on a few Ancient Seeker posts.  Total waste of energy and space.  Our phones did not work.  There was no wi-fi, no cellular, no internet.

After walking all day, my friend and I talked nonstop until we went to sleep; then, woke up for another day of hiking for me and retreat activities for her.  On our last day, we hiked together.  For both of us, it turned out to be the most beautiful hike of our trip.  I was filled with immeasurable gratitude for being in the midst of a modern day Garden of Eden, complete with black bears with which I learned to share paths.

It took me a week after returning home to turn on my computer and that was only because a friend wanted to Skype.  I didn’t feel like doing anything.  I didn’t post Ancient Seeker.  After a few days, I became depressed.  I didn’t know what was going on, what was wrong with me.  Prior to the trip, I had been eating healthfully and exercising; afterwards, I began to stuff myself with ice cream and buttered popcorn and chips and pasta.  What was going on?

A week after my return, I hit rock bottom – again.  I’ve had many rock bottom episodes throughout the years, where I feel like I cannot take another step.  I cannot continue to live like “this.”  I feel tired and hopeless and cannot see any way out of this mess.  Nevertheless, as I lay down to sleep, I remembered Job and didn’t want to complain as he did and express my frustration with God.  As long as I remained awake, I repeated my mantra: “I praise God.  I thank God.”

When I awoke, I felt like meditating.  I love my meditation room and feel so blessed to have it.  As I sat this morning, I left outside my worries about the mortgage, very much needed repairs, financial concerns, and other life challenges.  Right this very moment, the walls have not fallen.  I can walk, kneel, bow, praise, and be thankful.  I can sit and feel the infinite magnificence of the Eternal.

I had a wonderful meditation.  I was focused.  My mind wandered very little.  I felt that I went deeper than I had in months.  I felt joy.  I felt connection.  I saw the trees of Sequoia again, not visually, not in physical form, but with a seeing that was through some other type of eyes.

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Are You on a Treadmill?

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Sometimes we get on a treadmill and can’t imagine how to get off.  We don’t even know that we should get off.  A lot of it has to do with our family/religious/societal conditioning.  Most of us are not living according to our own true nature.  We have incorporated time-honored tenets into our day-to-day living:

  • “You don’t get anything worth having without struggle and hard work.”
  • “You always need to be busy and productive.  Doing nothing is unproductive and will lead to ruin and disaster.”
  • “Taking time for and giving to yourself is selfish.  You must always be doing something that gives to others and puts something back into society.”

Most of us have never been taught to look within and discover ourselves, to discover our needs and desires separate from those imposed upon us by our parents, our neighborhood and community, our ethnicity, our church, and any other status external to our own individualized inner being, which is the essence of who and what we are.

At a very young age, we are given a plan that is responsive to entities outside of ourselves: go to school, mind (or kiss up to) the teacher, and make good grades in order to go to college and get a good job.  The instinctual reliance by children on their intuition and on their feelings is gradually replaced by the need to please, to fit in, or to accomplish.  Always becoming, never just being.  Knowledge is for the purpose of becoming a lawyer, a doctor, something more than the parents, something to give the child the “advantages” of life.

Knowledge is not advocated simply for the sake of knowing and learning to be more aware of where and what you are right now.  Knowledge is not taught as a way to productively and consciously manipulate a universe that consistently responds to our every nuance.

Societal circumstances cause many adults to relinquish their dreams and give into a conditioned reality.  It becomes too hard to “fight the power.”  Many parents are trying to grow up themselves.  Not being taught to search within for answers, some turn to alcohol, drugs, sex, work, and dependencies on other people to find solace and satisfaction.  This behavior is then passed on to the next generation until someone decides to stop the cycle and find another way.

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We Are All Responsible

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One morning during meditation, I was feeling bad about all of the pain in the world and asked “Why?”  What did Native Americans do to deserve such annihilation?  What did Africans do to become slaves and colonized?  What was the cause of such pain and degradation of peace-loving, Spirit-loving people?

Of course, there are numerous hypotheses, the main one possibly being that the cause is human nature.  From the very beginning, humans have killed one another for power, control, possessions, retribution, punishment, emotions, and survival.  Nevertheless, as we presumably evolve away from our animalistic characteristics, can we become consciously aware of ways in which we contribute to nurturing the very base level of our existence?

It came to me that we create devastation in our world and contribute to it every day by our thoughts and behavior.  Unchecked anger, hatred, bigotry, jealousy, resentment, worry, anxiety and other unproductive energies contribute to a force that feeds from and integrates with beings and systems with like vibrations.

In an episode of the Star Trek television series, the crew attempted to get rid of Jack the Ripper, who was thought to have died centuries earlier.  They discovered that “he” was actually a universal force that received its energy from the negative thoughts of everyone on the Enterprise.  The force would enter a body and make it perform harmful acts.  When others reacted in fear, anxiety, and anger, the force became more powerful.  Ultimately, the crew realized what was giving the force its strength.  They began to focus on happy thoughts.  Laughter drove the force away from the ship and into space.  Unable to find an entity like itself to which it could attach, the force dissipated.

My meditation was interrupted by a handyman hired by my apartment complex.  When I opened the door, the man spoke to me while looking at certain parts of my body.  He never looked me in the eye.  When I resumed my meditation, all I could think of was my anger towards this man.  It took quite a while for me to return to my meditative state.

Calming myself, I saw that the same way I allowed myself to be taken away from my meditative peace was the way that I allow myself to become uncentered throughout each day and throughout my life.  I start out on one path and, then, allow people and events to detract me, to spoil my day, to make me ungrateful, angry, resentful, or irritated.  I realized how easily negative thoughts come to my mind and how, instead of passing them through, I nurture, revisit, and build upon them.  I was able to see how I then attract certain energies to me, not necessarily the energies upon which I am focusing, but the type of energies in various forms.  A small hole can be just enough to let in a flood.

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Growth Periods

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Everything happens for a reason.  It may be better to call crises “growth periods” because, when we get through them, we will surely have learned something about ourselves, our relationships with others and to the Universe.  Deepak Chopra, in his Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, states that every single problem in life is the seed for an opportunity for some greater benefit.

Looking back, I can see the lessons.  I can see the growth.  Sometimes, looking forward, all I can see are circumstances that will cause me to experience extreme anxiety.  Is it possible that I manifest in my life that which I fear the most?

Part of a poem by Henry Van Dyke reminds me that, despite all signs to the contrary, I am in control of my future:

We build our future, thought by thought
For good or ill, we know not
Thought is another name for fate
Choose then thy destiny and wait

 

The more quickly we learn the lesson of our present “growth period,” the sooner we will move on to our next stage of evolution.  The trick is to discover what the lesson is. Catastrophic losses of health, wealth, and loved ones are external phenomena that can point to something within that needs to be explored.  Perhaps your life needs to change.

We always have the opportunity to change, but don’t for whatever reason.  So life takes matters into its own hands.  It can stop us cold and say, “Will you look at me now or do you need something more drastic?”  It will keep trying to get our attention until we take the time to complete this point in our schooling and graduate to the next level.

What will it take for you?  The loss of everything in a fire or earthquake, the abandonment of friends and family, financial destitution, cancer, loss of physical mobility?  Some people go through intense trauma and still don’t advance to a higher potential.  The Universe is patient.  It has time for you to stay in that class for eons if that is your desire.

Each and every one of us has a cross to bear.  What looks good on paper or on smiling faces or inside of a gleaming Mercedes-Benz or silk dresses or three-piece suits does not always express the true story within.  Many have material things and great health, but are not balanced spiritually.  They aren’t in tune with their inner selves.  Each of us has personalized learning lessons, some of which can be experienced with material success and health and others without.

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We Are Here to Manifest

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During my meditation, I felt that the reason I am in my body, that we are all in our bodies, is to manifest.  That is the body’s purpose – to serve as a vehicle to bring forth.  That’s why we have so much power if we can only be aware of and utilize our potential.  We are born into material form in order to continue the creative process of the Universe.  Our powers of manifestation increase in accordance with the expansion of our awareness.

With limited awareness, I have created from anxiety, fear, resentment, stress, and unhappiness.  Now, my consciousness is expanding.  I am becoming more aware of who I Am, my True Self, the Essence of me.  I Am overwhelming abundance, health, joy, love, peace, and all that is beautiful and right.  My life is fulfilling its highest potential.

Right now, the Universe is providing an opening for me.  Openings occur throughout our lives at different times for each of us, depending upon many factors (birth date and time, season, astrology, karma, stage of evolution, causes not yet known).  Sometimes, we are not prepared for these openings and can’t take advantage of them.  We have not grown sufficiently.  We don’t perceive an opening at all.  We see an illusory closed or blocked door because we are so acclimated to rejection, limitation, oppression, and denial.

Over twenty years ago, I had continuous dreams, the repeated interpretation of which was “Failure to see what is before you.”  This was so frustrating!  Why couldn’t I see?  What was in front of me?  Today, I understand more clearly.  I am better prepared for the current opening.  As a result of my many trials and tribulations, I have lessened my dependence on the external.  My inner perception is more astute.  I have worked diligently to remove obstacles to my energetic evolution, clearing channels of Flow to and from me.  I am becoming more in tune with the natural order of the Universe, with what is my natural state of Being.

Ralph Waldo Trine stated, “Power becomes manifest in us to the degree that we open ourselves to the Spirit of Infinite Power.”  Thus, when I become attached to specific material things that I want and need, or definitive outcomes, I realize that I am diminishing the infinity of my potential.  I am asking for a trinket when what is available to me is beyond my present comprehension.  When I find myself attached to a thing or circumstance, I immediately change my thoughts to “Whatever is for me is already mine.  Not my will, thine.  I now manifest all that I need and desire.”  I focus on what is universal, even multi-dimensional, and monitor expectations based upon what is presently appearing.

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I Feel a Shift

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I have had an intense urge to deep clean my house.  I have been cleaning window sills; floor baseboards; walls; sweeping ceilings; dusting books, photo albums, dolls and figurines; orange oiling everything wood.  The amount of dust and grime revealed almost reduced me to tears.  Why did I wait so long?

My office will be the culmination of my efforts.  Here, I will have to get rid of years of files, including those of my mother who passed four years ago.  While preparing her final taxes, I had to take deep breaths and step away several times before I finished.  Over the years, bit by bit, I have gotten rid of her clothes and other personal effects.  Now, I am ready to at least move to the garage for later shredding documents that evidence how she lived and handled her life.  This is a very daunting task; but, space has to be made to accommodate the new.  I have to move on.  I am ready to move on.

I feel a shift.  Like a cloud has lifted.  Energy has been cleared.  A new door has opened.

Recently, my dreams have emphasized the color brown.  In one, a brown person was dressed in brown clothes and a brown hat.  My dream book stated that brown represents the earth, spiritual death, and degradation.  Initially I thought, “That’s not good.”  After a few days of thought and meditation, I had a different reaction.

Earth represents the material.  Spiritual beings in the body must manifest the material to survive and to nurture and please ourselves.  A human body must have material sustenance and live in physical abodes.  Perhaps the meaning of my dreaming the color brown is that the manifestation of my desires and intentions is imminent.  I am about to move beyond barely surviving to abundantly thriving.

Perhaps my spiritual death reflects an evolution from caterpillar to butterfly.  I am breaking through my casing and radically transforming into something greater.  The old me is dying, dissolving, to give birth to the new.

In a past journal entry, I noted that, during meditation, I received an awareness that the removal of cherished circumstances from my life is to enable me to see the One Light.  While I was surrounded by superficial light, I refused to see the One Light.  I wrote: “it is only in darkness that you become more aware of light.”

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I Have Enough

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I dreamed that I was in my car trying to park in the bus terminal in order to purchase a bus ticket.  A transit authority official told me to move my car.  I turned right onto the next street to look for another place to park.  There was a hotel, but no parking whatsoever on either side of the street.  Then my car disappeared and I was trying to park my bicycle, but I didn’t have a lock.  A woman from the hotel came up and told me that it was ok for me to park my bike across the street in a partially enclosed bus stop with a bike rack.  So I put my bike there.  It was about a block downhill back to the terminal.

I finally got to the ticket machine.  From there I could see my bike.  I kept trying to put a $5 bill into the dollar slot.  It kept being rejected.  The $5 bill returned faded.  I looked up and my bike was gone.  I woke up stressed.  My immediate thought upon awakening was, “You always make everything so difficult” or “You always do things the hard way.”  Something like that.

I sat in meditation thinking about my dream.  My interpretation was that I had a car, yet I was unsuccessfully trying to buy a bus ticket.  Then the car disappeared and was replaced by a functional bicycle.  I put the bike aside, didn’t secure it, and continued an attempt to force money into an unaccommodating receptacle.  Finally, I had nothing – no car, no bike, no bus, and money that didn’t work.  The question was why, when I had sufficient transportation, was I trying to secure less than what I had?  That search itself expressed a denial of what already existed.  Accordingly, it all went away.

The dream was trying to tell me that I already had what I was seeking.  By denying my sufficiency, I was affirming lack in my life.  Denial is wanting more without acknowledging and giving thanks for what is.

Not knowing who we are and what we have causes us to constantly focus on other than.  Causes us to look for a bus while a car is taking us where we want to go.  Causes us to not value and secure what we have while we persistently covet something more and different.

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