A NEW FRACTAL

DISMANTLING

Although I have listened often to Spiritual Enlightement: the Damnedest Thing, today I heard for the first time the bit about the dismantling. At least, the concept that if one dismantles the ego or whatever it is, all that's left is the awakened state. I guess I need to revisit Byron Katie's work.

Namaste

LITTLE TO REPORT

Although I continue to do the proverbial eat, breathe, and sleep spirituality I have noticed little progress with little to report. I continue to read, meditate when I feel called to and meditate when I walk Sadie. I still find that the mind becomes naturally quiet during the evenings, and I think that for the most part, I am at greater peace with life than I have ever been.

In a previous post, I made reference to cooking crabs and I am wondering if a lot is going on and I am progressing towards awakening, but don't notice because like the crab in the pot, the heat is increasing gradually and I don't feel anything happening. It is very difficult to remember how I was a few months ago. I remember being horribly depressed, twice, especially when I finally got that I have absolutely no control over my life. That was a devestating realization, but I have rallied and come to terms with it: most of the time. At least I realize that it is pointless to resist and try and fix what is, even though I sometimes forget, but soon remember and relax into life's happenings and circumstances.

This morning while reading a number of pages of An Extraordinary Absence, I did a double-take when I read Jeff Foster's comment about movement: "The eyes open, and I am looking out the window of an airplane. London Gatwick Airport is there, and I am that. The eyes blink, and Amsterdam obliterates London. I become Amsterdam, and this plane hasn't gone anywhere. The scenery has changed, that's all." (p. 87). This is similar to my experience as mentioned in a previous post.

Because for the most part I don't trust my realizations and still seek an authority figure to validate them, I am always encouraged when this actually happens: an authority figure confirms something that I have realized. I think that in this sort of work, healthy skepticism is good, but I could be a little extreme in my skepticism about my own insights and should probably point the torch of skepticism at other people's insights. Anyway and the point is that Jeff Foster confirmed that one doesn't move: yes, the scenery may change, but that is the extent of it.

It really is a very odd sensation to be driving 55 kM along the highway and have the scenery whizzing by and sense that one isn't going anywhere. In the quote, I think that Foster is referring to the non-dual experience of being. At least, that's what I think when he states that he becomes Amsterdam, etc. And I suppose that that is what I feel when I perform the exercise of being aware while I am supposedly in motion: that I am somehow embedded in whatever surrounds me and although my senses interpret movement, that part of me that is embedded does not.

Namaste

Holographic Universe

I have been listening to an oldie: discussions with Michael Talbot on his work "Holographic Universe." I really don't know. On the one hand, I want to believe what he said; on the other hand, I am skeptical. His work was something in the order of Lipton's work (The Biology of Belief). I don't think Talbot has any peer-reviewed research papers; nor do I think he conducted scientific experiments. Most of his information seems to be borrowed from other researchers, some of whom worked decades ago at a time when people believed whatever seemed plausible and without proof. As Talbot died of cancer at a very young age, he apparently didn't master the business of mind over matter that he talks so much about.

Having written this, I am able to validate some of his ideas based on experiences in my own life. While I do not understand how one can order the body to do one's will and have it obey, I have done this successfully on a few occasions, and witnessed my father go into remission from cancer when he announced that he had no intention of getting his affairs in order as recommended by his doctor. At present, I am struggling with a cough which is the last stronghold of a cold I recently had. I keep telling this cough that I have had enough of it, that I have got the message about keeping my peace when I need to speak my truth, and that the cough must go. It hasn't. Every day, it is incrimentally better, but it is still with me. One night when I was feeling particularly feverish and exhausted, I managed in the space of a thirty-second tirade against my lack of good health, to turn the cold around. Up to this point, I had been attempting to accept the cold, not resist it, and allow it to be what it was. In that tirade, I seemed to have at least switched off the fever because the aching joints relaxed and became comfortable and normal instantly.

Much of what Michael Talbot said had to do with physics and trying to find a relationship between science and spirituality. I wonder if he was a Theosophist? I liked that he reminded me that things like tables and chairs are energy fields that the eyes and mind are interpreting as solid objects. I will need to re-listen several times and see what more I can glean.

Talbot has me thinking about what Adyashanti and others of his level of spiritual development say: when everything falls away, what is left is all there is. Why I keep thinking this, I don't know, but I am beginning to grasp the significance of this claim.

Namaste

BACK FROM INDRALAYA

I spent the end of last week at Indralaya on Orcas Island taking a "heal yourself" workshop with Robyn Finseth. What was most interesting about this weekend, apart from hanging out with clairvoyance and spiritual people, is that I learned that I am more intuitive than I thought. This then begs the question: how much of what I feel and think is generated by me and how much is coming from external sources? Okay, so if we are all one organizm, obviously I am not picking stuff up from an external source. But what I am referring to is all the stuff that I am picking up from a source that I feel disconnected from.

I also realized that my daughter is clairvoyant based on descriptions I was hearing from people in our forty-strong group, and on what she has described to me. When I picked up Sadie from her I told her this and she was fascinated and now wants to go to Indralaya to talk with people that are experiencing some of what she is experiencing. How wonderful is that?

And it also explains a columnar shimmer of green that I once saw crossing the road above the culvert beside Fillongley Park. This must have been a woodland spirit. I asked many people about this object and nobody had a clue. So one more mystery solved.

I also went to camp with a cold and two ulcers in the back of my throat. The cold is now a cough and the ulcers are nearly gone so I can almost swallow pain-free. I threw away a partially full tube of Sensodyne cool mint gel as I figured I had hit the motherlode of sulphur. There is always more sulphur as one gets to the end of the tube than at the beginning. I chucked it immediately I noticed a third ulcer starting to form and that ulcer didn't get any worse, thank goodness.

Meanwhile and to support my spiritual growth, I am not doing much of anything as I am feeling a little lost with it all and not certain which direction to turn or which spiritual practice to adopt. I continue with meditations, contemplations, readings, audio books, and I seem to have developed an aversion to TV although I did try and watch a movie last night.

Namaste