Pathway to Enlightenment

I haven’t posted any sort of writing on my blog for a little while now.  This is for 3 inter-connected reasons.

Reason 1:  I don’t have much left to say.  Well, this isn’t entirely true.  I still have much to say, but I have come to a maturing point in which I no longer need or desire this blog platform to express anything.  This so-called Experiment in Spirituality has answered the questions I set out to explore at the beginning, basically one calendar year ago.  As such, I no longer am driven by my own narcissistic desire or impulse to write out my struggles.  Even though I didn’t know it, this blog site, while easily viewed by anyone, really has been an internal exploration for myself, and for my own benefit.  And I have gotten to a place now where I just do not need to write out and think about the daily occurrences.  This blog has served its valuable purpose, and I now no longer need it like I once did.

This year of writing has answered all my burning questions, and revealed to me so many essential, simple, natural and critical things that drive a good life, and maybe can lead to enlightenment too.  But enlightenment has ceased to be my goal.  I’ve learned how to make each day a brilliant expression of life and of love, and that is the treasure I will now take forth into the rest of my days. 

One year ago I wrote the following on my “Experiment Explained” page:

“I will study, practice, and chronicle each of these disciplines for the course of one calendar year (to begin with) to find out how each helps me grow as a person, how each fosters my spiritual growth, and how easy or hard it is to incorporate these practices into my already hectic life. 

I have to know: how much personal growth can I accomplish – even in just one year?  How hard is it to stay committed to spiritual disciplines in the busy lives we all lead? Can a regular guy like me make meaningful strides towards enlightenment? What will my friends and family and colleagues think of my efforts?  How will my worldview change?  What will drop out of my life to allow time for these disciplines?  These are vital questions and it’s me in the Petri dish.”

Well, all the disciplines I chose helped me grow as a person, and all helped foster my spiritual growth.  I see now that it didn’t necessarily have to be these disciplines; they are just the ones that happened to call to me and mean something to me.  I learned that it is very hard sometimes to incorporate these practices into my life, particularly on a day-to-day basis, but on a one year basis, it was actually pretty easy.  A year has gone by, and they are all a natural and fundamental part of my daily existence.

How sweet is that?

I know I said I didn’t have much left to say, but what I will spend the next 5 weeks writing about is all that I have learned that, in my mind, constitutes enlightenment, or perhaps more appropriately now, enlightened living.  I hope to condense my thoughts into simple, easily remembered lines, boiled down to their very essence.

Reason 2: I haven’t been writing much lately because I have been completely and whole-heartedly entranced specifically by two of my chosen Disciplines: Real food, and Study.

Through study, I have come across some websites and some books that have changed my personal well-being and health more than anything else has in my entire life.  In a sentence, I have realized, through these wonderful websites and books (which I will share), that eating a heavy grain-based diet has been keeping me sick, including my never-ending sinus infections, my low energy, my skin breakouts, my poor sleep, my achy and sore body, my mood swings, etc. 

I have been off any sort of wheat or grain product for about 5 weeks now, and the transformation in how I feel is nearly indescribable.  But I will try to describe it in a separate blog posting – ok, my next blog posting. 

I have met the enemy, and it is wheat.  And his allies are corn syrup, soy products and vegetable oils.

To start with, check out www.marksdailyapple.com, and www.wheatbellyblog.com .  Each of these guys has also written books, which are featured prominently on their blog sites, and I cannot recommend highly enough to check them out. 

In fact, I dare you.  I dare you to spend some time reading these blog sites, and finding the books (not hard to do as both are best sellers currently), and if you can still continue to eat wheat products and other processed food products, then, I don’t know . . . .the reality is, you won’t be able to.  After you have spent 15 or 20 amazing hours pouring over this mind-blowing information, you will feel, as I now feel, that a huge curtain has been lifted from over my eyes, and I can see clearly again. 

Reason 3: I haven’t been writing on this blog site, but I have been writing.  Oh yes, I have been writing.  I have been overrun by short story ideas, and that so that is what my fingers and the keyboard have been busy with.  This makes me so very happy.  Creative writing is my ultimate form of expression, and, after years of stumbling along and encountering road blocks (sounds similar to my spiritual experiences of the past), I finally feel free to write for fun and for my own self-satisfaction.  We’ll see what comes of this.

In Canada, this weekend is Thanksgiving weekend.  My wife, child and I are travelling home to our parents places, out in the countryside, and we will be very thankful for all that life gives us.  Every moment is a miracle and every breath is a gift. I hope you are in a place in your life journey so that you can see this and experience this wondrous thing too.

Stay tuned for my series of wrap up posts.  I have learned infinite lessons over the last year, and if my writings even help only one other open their eyes even just a little, that would send me off happy and satisfied.

Ok.  It’s turkey time!  (Gravy too.)

After I stopped experimenting / messing around with Holosync CDs to “assist” with my daily meditation, I found it to very difficult to go back to my old, traditional, time-honoured method of sitting on a cushion, quietly, in the dark, with a single candle for focus and company, with my eyes generally closed, and my breath as my focus. 

I had every intention to go back to this way of meditating every day, and it just didn’t happen.  A few nights I fell asleep early with my daughter, only to awaken hours later, still in my clothes, and desperate to go back to sleep.  Other nights – I guess I just did something else instead.  And once a few days past, the guilt of not following through with a daily ritual/exercise quickly vanished and it became exponentially easier each day to not bother with meditation.  This is the slippery slope that we all succumb to once in awhile. 

So it goes: falling off the wagon happens, even to those with the strongest will and discipline. And it happened to me.

But it wasn’t for naught.  I noticed something that I want to share.  I noticed, after a few days of not meditating, I noticed that “feeling” fading away, how can I describe it? – that connection to God and to the world and to humanity and to life . . . that magical aura that is a natural product of daily meditation that bonds One with All . . . that feeling that puts a smile on your face and helps you realize that everything is OK and that all is actually well and good . . . that feeling unassumingly slipped away.

Without meditation, that connection, which is clearly a living entity that must be maintained to be sustained, the connection faded away.  In its place, that old and tired and familiar disconnect returned.  As the good one faded away, the inevitable one returned.

When this happened, it felt as if I’d lost my Mojo . . . things were just not working out the way they were before . . . I felt I was all of a sudden tripping over myself and screwing everything up . . . My place in this world was faltering, as if all of a sudden I was now doubting myself and who I am and what I want in this life.  No other factor changed except I halted all meditation. 

And these are the moments in which our Shadows come to life to seize the opportunity to undermine and wear us down, to cast doubt and turn us against ourselves. 

At least I’ve come far enough to see all this for what it is, and to know what I have to do to get my Mojo back, so to speak. 

My butt will be back on the cushion henceforth.  Everything else is superfluous. 

I’ve been having a reoccurring dream. Last night was about the 5^th time I’ve had it.

It’s not a complicated dream; all I’m doing is running, on and on, running over glorious landscapes, across open prairies, along lakeshores, down forest trails and through mountain valleys.  In these dreams I’m joyously happy, I feel free, and I don’t ever get tired; the autumn sun is shining on my face, and I’m smiling, my body strong and my head held high. In these dreams I feel playful and leap across boulders and race with the wind.  That’s it, that’s my reoccurring dream, except for this:  at some point in the running, I arrive at something unseen and I stop and kneel down with reverence. I have not yet seen what or who I kneel down to, but in these dreams, I’m definitely running to kneel before a presence.  The presence, I can tell is happy I am before it, and I know I am happy to be there too.  I can tell I would run a thousand miles a thousand times to make it to this spot, this spot in which I kneel down with such veneration. 

I think about this a lot.  When I’m stuck in traffic and float off into a daydream, I think about my running dream.  Sometimes, when I sit on my cushion to meditate, my thoughts drift away to my running dream.  In some ways, it reminds me of what I wrote in the past, with my experiences with the Tibetan meditation music, which also takes me to a dream spot, the one where I envision myself on a plateau ledge, looking down upon a lush valley, in the early morning light, practicing a Tai Chi or some body movement like it. 

I don’t truly know what this recent reoccurring dream means.  Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but deep down in my heart I believe it does. 

To run, and to be happy while running, means a person is completely immersed in the present moment, joyous to be moving, elated to be alive, and expressing fitness, vitality, energy and well-being.  If a person is running, but isn’t smiling, it is because they are stuck in deep thoughts about the past or about the future.  That person is not Right Here, Right Now.  Simple. 

The running dreams are a translation to where I am now in my life: immersed in the present moment (more so than at any other time in my life), joyous to be moving, elated to be alive, and expressing fitness, vitality, energy and well-being (again, more so than at any other time in at least my adult life). 

I just can hardly wait to discover what or who it is in my dream that brings me so suddenly to my knees with reverence (although I have a suspicion that I already know!).

“Most people think that spiritual enlightenment is a total transformation. It is not. . . . . Nor do we spiritually grow by simply acquiring spiritual knowledge. We are required to live that spiritual knowledge.

Self-realisation, spiritual enlightenment, Awakening, call it what you will, is about knowing who you are . . . not the intellectual knowledge. Knowing Self is a spiritual experience; having the knowledge of Self is an intellectual one. . . . I want you to see that it was not my spiritual knowledge that achieved anything on my spiritual path; it was my total commitment. I made most of the mistakes it was possible to make, except for one; I persisted. Quitting my path was never an option.

I truly expected that my spiritual path would entail my climbing to the top of a mountain of truths until, when I reached the pinnacle, I would step into enlightenment. In reality, I went into the deepest pit of pain and despair, and there, beaten, I surrendered. I learned that spiritual enlightenment is not an acquisition; it ‘is’ a surrender. When I let go of Michael, I let go of identity; identity holds hands with separation. Not that I was aware of any of this while in the process; that was just torment and intuition and being in the moment as I fumbled my way through the ‘letting go’ process! ! When I let go of identity, no longer identifying with identity, I was overwhelmed by the realisation of Self, of my holistic connection with All That Is. You cannot do this as a technique, for there is no technique. You cannot learn how to do this, for there is no ‘how to.’ You cannot chase or capture or in any way contrive to become Awakened – it is all a surrender of self to Self. Take heart, dear reader; you too are on ‘your’ path. All you need now is to live consciously, to be aware and to Love yourself.”      An excerpt from a forthcoming book by Michael Roads, now 74 years old.

I read this in Michael Roads latest newsletter and had to share it for two reasons. 

First, because it confirms in my own mind and in my own heart that I am on the right path.  I am on a path with heart, a path that is right for me to realize who I am and to realize enlightenment.  Michael Roads is certainly an enlightened individual – read any of his many books and you will find that out for yourself.  He too struggled through his own spiritual endeavours for most of his adult life, but he never gave up, he remained wholly and fully committed to his pursuit, as am I.  It will take as long as it takes, and I’m okay with that.

And second, this excerpt from his upcoming book has had me thinking about the “business” of spiritual enlightenment, and of the many “gurus” that are out there, peddling their wares.  I believe a true spiritual guru is one who – before anything else – constantly throws the responsibility back to each of us to be our own guiding light home.  That is how you know if a spiritual teacher or guru is legitimate, real, honest and is not harbouring a hidden agenda, usually to milk you of your money.  A truly enlightened individual doesn’t want your money, they want you to wake up and take responsibility for your life and your well-being because they know it benefits all of us. 

This is especially true in times when we are most vulnerable and are trying are hardest to give the responsibility away.   “Just take me under your wing,” we say to these so-called gurus, “show me the way; show me the steps to become enlightened.”  The true gurus know it doesn’t work that way.  The shucksters will take your money.  The true spiritual teachers will guide you and teach you and help you find it all out for yourself.

I used to lament that I did not have a guru to show me the way in my life, nor was there ever any inclination that a guru would ever be in my life.  I was always on my own.  Now, thanks to this year of dedication to Spiritual Disciplines, and this year of writing about it on this blog – well, now I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. 

I have accepted responsibility, and it a funny way, it has set me free.

I’ll close today with a poem, not written by me, but which is nothing if it is not the Truth.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

I have been seriously missing-in-action on my own site the past while.  But this summer has been wonderful – exceptional really, so I make no apologies.  Every day is sunny and warm, with no bugs or mosquitoes (if you’ve ever been to Winnipeg you will understand why this is a BIG DEAL).  We have so many house projects and side projects that need to get done before winter, but all we can think of to do with our spare time is go to the park, or go to the pool or splash-pad, or go to the beach, or go to a patio, or go to a friend’s place for a BBQ, or just sit in the grass and watch the sun set.  So, with options like these, everything else can wait. 

I’ve been passing out each night before 10PM, with my daughter Elena, each of us wiped out, exhausted, tanned and happy.  She even asks me that as we lie beside each other in the dusk of the bedroom: “Daddy, you happy?”  I say, “Yes, Elena, I’m very happy.  I’ve never been so happy before.”  She says, “You happy?  Good.  I happy too.” 

And why not?  Why shouldn’t I be happy?  Over the course of this crazy little experiment/journey, I’ve just. . . . let so much “stuff” go . . . . I’ve learnt some things, no doubt, but more than anything I’ve just been able to “let go” . . . . it’s not even easy to articulate – all my life, and certainly since my brother died, I’ve carried so much garbage, so much emotional baggage on my shoulders, I’ve put so much pressure on myself; it did nothing but weigh me down, slow me down, cause me to doubt myself, to become my own worst enemy, trapped in a prison of my own creation.

So what has changed, you ask?  How have I managed to get to this point? 

Wiser persons than I have written and said that one can either go through and process and deal with all the emotional baggage, etc. that one carries around, which takes as long as it takes – maybe even a lifetime; or one can let it go and just go on past it.  I seem to have been able to just leave it all behind and go on past it.  I have given this a lot of careful thought, and I believe this has happened for two important reasons:  one – I have never given up on myself or my insatiable desire to better myself as a person, no matter how many times I stumbled and fell.  Get up, re-group, and press onward.  Toward this end,  I have remained committed to my suite of chosen Disciplines, for better or for worse, despite the onslaught of life. And two – I believe this is because I have learned to live and breathe the mantra, Be Here Now.  With this attitude colouring my existence, I’ve quietly allowed the past to rest, flowering its mound with all the forgiveness it has needed; and I also no longer stress out about the future, accepting that it will be as it will be. 

I don’t even know when this all happened, nor am I completely sure how; gradually it just unfolded as my new reality, all while I spent my time devoted to my family, on my cushion counting my breaths and letting thoughts float away in metaphorical bubbles, while trying hard to stay true to a path of real food and nourishment, and revitalizing exercise and yoga, while studying and writing and humbly and honestly attempting to live a good life and be a good person.  These are the ingredients.  Go figure.  Conscious awareness each moment to better body, mind, heart and soul.

I see now that “Pathway to Enlightenment” is just a long and complicated way of saying “Life”, or “Living”, or “Knowing and Appreciating Being Alive.”  My pathway to enlightenment is my life.  And your pathway is your life.  All that’s left is to get on with it, consciously, with awareness, and with honesty and humility and joy.  There it is.

I have been using the Holosync CDs for some time now, for 30-60 minutes every day.  For those that don’t know what this is, basically its binaural beats and sound waves that induce different waves and states in your mind.  There are many different binaural meditation CDs out there for a person that is interested. After trying this product for a period, the notion that one can experience meditation “deeper than a Zen monk at the push of a button”— well, I don’t buy it.  There are many things that bug me about the entire process but I’ll just share two that bug me the most:

1. It feels so lazy.  I can barely even stay awake half the time.  I just sit there and listen to rainfall and soft flutes and before I know it drool is hitting my chest.  What’s the point?  That’s not meditation, not to me.  I feel it completely disrespects the entire multi-millennium tradition behind meditation.  I have come to feel so guilty while listening to the Holosync CDs that I now sit on my cushion, with a candle burning in front of me, while counting my breaths and maintaining traditional meditation poses.  I work hard to stay focussed while the earphones are on my head yet I always feel “dirty” afterwards.  So my conclusion is this: I am consciously working towards peace of mind and heart; I don’t want to find a shortcut, or push an easy-button, or get something for nothing.  Life just doesn’t work that way and there is no such thing as push-button enlightenment: I know that success and the spiritual path really are hard work, take time, and don’t have any “secret” shortcuts.  I have given this product an honest try, but I’ll be going back to the traditional method of sitting on my cushion, with a candle flame, while focussing on my breath and just letting my thoughts be recognized and then released.  If this is in fact a slower method, well, at least it feels honest and true.  Besides, I know I’ve had great success with the traditional methods, as many of my past posts on this site can attest to.
2. Bill Harris and his employees bombard your inbox with emails and material constantly with their promises of easy enlightenment, and their carefully crafted hype, all while instilling an underlying fear that you will never become enlightened unless you use their magical product.   It’s all rather pushy and in your face, which has my “spidey-sense” warning me that their first objective is my money, not my spiritual well-being or my personal growth.  Fair enough.  But not for me.

Frank Forencich runs a great blog that I love to check out periodically called Exuberant Animal.  He’s also written a couple of excellent books.  I encourage you to check out his site and his books.     

A recent post of his, entitled The Long Game (you can find this great post HERE), is so very much in-line with my own thinking as I mature and develop over time, that I just had to share it with you.  Our addiction to instant gratification is one of the primary ills of the world today.  I truly believe this.  We want it all NOW.  And then we want some MORE.

The three paragraphs quoted below are particularly poignant.  I like his approach because it emphasizes effort over a lifetime, that is, for the rest of your life, with equal focus on your body, mind, heart and soul, all with the purpose of having fun and feeling alive.  What else is there?

 Please click the link (again, HERE) and enjoy this read. 

“Long Term Development (LTD) is a serious study, but it also includes a high level of playful exploration and lighthearted fun. High performers focus on the material and come at it from every angle that they can think of. They grind away at the problem with sets and reps, repeating the process over and over again until they get it right. But they’ll dance with it too, turning it over, around and upside down. Many settle into a rhythm that oscillates between freedom and discipline, between gravity and levity, between broad and narrow. . . . . .

LTD also includes (and develops) a sense of resilience, the ability to bounce back from setbacks, injury, illness and humiliation. Genuine creativity demands risk and risk exposes us to failure and folly. Every true creator has stumbled and crashed, but the sense of commitment and resilience brings them back into the process.

LTD is powered by optimism and by dreams. The young athlete, student or artist falls in love with an idea and wonders “How can I do that?” “I want that experience.” “I want to feel that in my body.” Ultimately, you’ve got to be in love with the process. If you’re not in love, you need to find another art.

Way back on Day 60, I listed a few fundamental principles that I made up on my own to define some of the things I am learning as I frolic along on this spiritual adventure.  Here are a few more I’ve discovered in my writings that I want to share.  Let me know if you agree with me or not. 

1. Life is a mystery.

You know this as a Truth.  Life is a mystery, and the mystery is not ever going to vanish or change in your human life.  Therefore, we must live with this mystery, which will always be a mystery; you are not going to figure it out, and therefore all that is left is how we approach this Truth.  I suggest that rather than spending your life in a struggle to figure it out . . . . . just let the “need to know” go.  This is what the Wise Ones call “relaxing into the mystery.”  This should be THE goal of your life and of your efforts here on earth while you are alive. 

Stop paddling so hard for once and go with the flow of life.  Just try it; see what happens.  Pull in your paddle and just pay attention instead.  Try being AWARE, consciously aware.  Sure, it’s easy to say, but what does it mean?  How does one get there?  I cannot articulate the answer to this well enough.  No person on earth ever has.  Otherwise we’d all already know how.  Personally, I believe the answer is as unique as you and I are.

All I can say is, if you’re reading my blog, you are probably the kind of person that MUST know, and you are probably already doing some of the things you need to be doing to someday get there. You’ll figure it out, maybe when you’re 36, maybe when you’re 96: it doesn’t matter when you figure it out so long as you are kind to yourself, and you are patient and committed.  In fact, if you are these things, it will surely happen sooner than you think.  Learn to focus your mind and your efforts on the things you want, or the way you want live, or whatever – AND THEN TAKE ACTION.

2. Life is miraculous.

Once you learn to relax into the mystery of life, you begin to see that life is indeed miraculous.  I don’t know how birds fly, or why strawberries taste so divine, or how long a billion years is, or what goes on out there beyond the stars, or why 90 minutes of yoga feels so great, or what drives me to love my little girl more than anything – including my own life, and I no longer even care to know.  Life is miraculous, and it becomes more miraculous every single minute of every single day.  It becomes an elixir of delirium. 

When you learn to relax into the mystery of life, you do not “give up” wondering or learning about things in our world.   The opposite is what actually happens.  When you move to this new perspective, everything changes, the world changes, you change, and to cope you grow into a new way of thinking, acting, and seeing.

These days, I want to experience everything, I want to know and discover everything, I want to travel everywhere, I want to taste and smell and touch and see and hear and connect with EVERYTHING.  Talk about being ALIVE.  This is NOT how it always was, believe me.  

3. Life is infused with Spirit. 

Call it God or Creator or Spirit or whatever you want, it’s the source of the mystery, it’s the energy of life, and it is as much a mystery and more as any of it.  You have to learn to just accept that too.  Trying to discover what infuses life is the storied history of humanity, and the handful of people over the ages that have figured it out and tried to describe it and communicate it to the rest of the world have failed.  I am sure what they say and what they write is True – the failing is on our part, not theirs.  Until you experience it, you cannot understand it. 

The key to this lies in the paradox – by giving up trying to discover God or label a Creator or come in contact with Spirit with our senses or some other such means, just giving this quest up, one can experience Spirit everywhere, and the experience never stops expanding.  It’s a paradox, it’s a mystery, and it’s miraculous.   But until you “get it”, you don’t get it.  That’s what a paradox is. 

4. Life is about the journey.

So long as you are alive, you are entrenched within the Journey.  The only way out of the journey is by death.  So stop trying to “get somewhere,” and just appreciate where you are.  The lessons of life are infinite; look at your life, and, whether you are rich or poor, in pain or in good health, beautiful, tall, short, smart or otherwise – it doesn’t matter: the lessons of life are infinite.  Learn the lessons of your life that are to be found in your own journey.  The answers to YOUR life are to be found in YOUR journey that is YOUR life.  Just stop reading for a second and ask yourself this question:  “How am I doing, right now, right here in this moment?”  How did you answer?  Are things good?  Are there things you would like to change? 

5. Balance Principle

Our lives should focus on balance and we should always be cognisant of and striving to get back to balance.  “The idea that there is no such thing as something for nothing is the real meaning of the Law of Attraction–things are always balanced. You get back in equal measure, in one way or another, what you put out. Hoping to get something for nothing is a sign of magical, pre-conventional thinking,” says Bill Harris.

I agree with this.  If your only hope for infinite love and blissful spirituality, or for joy and peace in your heart, or for wealth and an easier life, or whatever it is you crave, is to wish and hope and pray, and nothing else, then it is not going to happen.  It takes dedication, it takes hard work, and it takes persistence – BUT IT IS WORTH IT.  Just keep your mind’s eye upon the pendulum of your efforts – not too much either way – BALANCE – and you will figure it out, in time, and in the right time. 

The supreme skills of humanity, the skills that have made us great and the skills that you need to figure “IT” out, are so rare these days it seems – patience, humility, honour, a strive for a balanced – and good – life, dedication to a lifetime of effort and achievement: there is no end game to spiritual pursuit – except death.  So try every second to live a good life, and practice spiritual endeavours – the ones that you like to practice, not the one’s you have to force, and the Universe will balance with you and your efforts, and you will get back in equal measure – this is a Truth.  Just keep in mind, what you get back in equal measure may not be what you expect, or what you think you want or need, but it will be reciprocal.  There are no mistakes in the mystery of life. 

I have fleshed out another 10 or so such principles that I will share in the coming weeks.  This is enough for today.  Let me know what you think.  I love to hear from you.

Tomorrow morning, I am off on a little vacation again – a road trip to Chicago, Chi-town, with a few good buddies to Lollapalooza, which is a giant outdoor rock festival. 

Life is miraculous, indeed.

We left the City Friday morning and are now out in our hometown, the place where my wife Jaime and I each were raised, and where our parents still reside, the little town of Roblin.  I wouldn’t classify this trip as a vacation so much as it’s a retreat, back to familiar soils, where we have been sleeping too much, eating too much, staying up too late, laughing a lot, and otherwise forgetting about clocks and blackberries and whatnot. 

We have been out here now for 4 days, and staying another 7, and it has been a time of highs and a single low, mostly on my account.  The low came shortly after we got here.  I got up on the trampoline, and like a fool, started with some trick jumps and silly manoevers as it was making my 2 year old daughter Elena bust out with deep belly laughs.  But I did something to my fragile spine, for I have been hardly able to move since.  I’m a dum-dum, and I certainly should’ve known better.  Now I’m paying the price for that one, and my wife and my sister are trying to put this humpty-dumpty back together for the umpteenth time, but with minimal success so far.  So I’m achy now, but that’s ok, this too shall pass.  Instead of mountain biking, I’m reading books and playing toys and games with kids. 

The wonderful highs have focussed around meditation (which I currently have a lot of time for), particularly my experiences with the Holosync guided meditations on CD.  I’m not far enough along in this program yet to provide a meaningful review (perhaps in a month or so I will do this) but I do want to quickly share one experience.

Last night, whilst meditating late at night in the dark, listening to the Holosync CD with headphones on, eyes closed and doing my best to just focus on my breath, I was revisted with the image of the seedling that exploded into growth in my mind’s eye on Day 172 – Seedling, only now it was no longer a seedling, but a healthy little sapling, stretching upwards, and with many small leaves and a few white blossoms. 

I was overjoyed to see and experience this again.  Unlike the first time which only lasted a brief second, this experience lasted for several moments and I could spend a little time envisioning and recording what I was seeing/experiencing.  The sapling’s roots and stem appeared strong and vibrant, maliable and flexing, not at all rigid.  I could sense that it could not be broken by any external forces; I sensed it could only be broken by me. 

It’s roots are metaphorical, reaching deep into my heart for it’s nourishment.  Much the way plants take carbon dioxide and turn it into the oxygen we need to live, so too does my sapling feed off the sorrows and other negative emotions I carry in my heart, and leave behind bountiful peace and joy. 

The spot where I feel this sapling growing in my own body reminds of the spot where Elena points to on her body when I ask her where she is.  “Right here, Dada,” she says, tapping the centre of her torso a few centimetres to the right of her heart.  That is where this sapling has taken root and is now flourishing. 

I am happy this is happening to me.  Someday this sapling will be a beautiful, towering tree, perhaps to bear fruit for others nourisment, perhaps to be a refuse for others from a storm, and perhaps to be a quiet, joyful haven to find respite with a sunny-day snooze or a picnic.  The metaphors are endless.  Perhaps it will be all these things for me too.  Perhaps it already is. 

Well, please take care, and please, waste not a moment of your time.  I’m off to fire up the BBQ for some lunch, then my wife and I are taking a gaggle of kids to the town pool for the afternoon. 

May you too begin to see beautiful things in humble places…………

“Anything is one of a million paths.  Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions.  To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life.  .  . Your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.  I warn you.  Look at every path closely and deliberately.  Try it as many times as you think necessary.  Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question.  This question is one that only a very old man asks.  My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it.  Now I do understand it.  I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart?  All paths are the same: they lead nowhere.  They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush.  In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere.  My benefactor’s question has meaning now.  Does this path have a heart?  If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use.  Both paths lead nowhere, but one has a heart, the other doesn’t.  One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it.  The other will make you curse your life.  One makes you strong; the other weakens you.  .  .  . And the next thing, the path without heart will turn against you and destroy you.  It doesn’t take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing.”   Don Juan Matus, speaking to Carlos Castaneda, “A Yaqui Way of Knowledge”

I have no regrets about anything.  While I haven’t had the time I wanted over the past few months to write of my experiences to this blog, I’ve still kept on with my Sacred Disciplines.  Only writing (and reading/studying) was sacrificed.  I’m not angry or disappointed that my job circumvented this little blog experiment of mine.  I have come to believe there are no mistakes.  There are no mistakes because there are lessons in every experience to a person whose eyes are open.

I took the time instead to be a “hometown tourist” on my own site and read my own writings, and had a lot of fun doing so.  I’ve also realized some important points about my personal spiritual journey that I want to summarize and share before moving on.  This isn’t everything, and it’s by no means a conclusive recap – it’s just some odds-and-ends observations I’ve written down here and there while browsing my posts.

• This “Experiment in Spirituality” has ceased being an experiment.  The experiment has transformed into the catalyst for the metamorphosis that is occurring within me.  I don’t just feel the change; I am the change.  This whole experience has made me more “aware” of life, of who I am, and of what I desire from being alive.  The metamorphosis occurs because of conscious interaction, a give and take between me and the Universe.  That is the only way. 
• Is this it?  Is this all there is to life?  Yes, this is it.  This is life.  Make the most of it, because we are alive, and we won’t always be.
• Despite tragedies, etc. in my past (which hinder and plague all of us), I am not really sad or angry very much anymore.  I have come to a certain state of maturity:  I see that I’m already happy, I’m already a success in life, with many friends and a good career, a lovely home and a safe country, a beautiful, loving wife and daughter, many hobbies, my health, etc.  I’m blessed.  My life hasn’t changed – I changed.  That is all that has happened.  I’ve changed.  And I see now that I am blessed.
• I used to think “enlightenment” meant unravelling the secrets of the Universe, and developing “powers” (whatever that means) and understanding eternal life in this lifetime.  I suppose there are people that understand these sorts of things to varying degrees, but I don’t think or know or care anymore if anyone on earth is actually enlightened.  What does it matter?  Personally I feel that enlightenment is really about being aware in your own life; awareness creates choice and awareness creates freedoms.  How do you want to live?  What are your fundamental beliefs and do these beliefs drive how you live your life?  Are your beliefs faith-based, experienced-based, factually-based, or some blend of these and other elements?  Who are you? Really – who are you?  Do you know?  Do you even care?  Figuring out answers to these questions (and many more) is about awareness, and that to me is enlightenment.  This takes hard work and it takes time, most often a lifetime.
• In reading my posts, I realized that I do have various transcendental experiences that, to be honest, I don’t really enjoy very much.  I used to think I wanted to go down that path once, but not anymore.  I no longer want/desire “powers”, the sort of powers I’ve read so often about, such as divining, or traversing realms with spirit guides, etc.  I do not want liberation from being a human, or from the human condition.  What I want (and no doubt am learning, by the way) is how to fully live and love life and being alive in any and all ways that I can.  That’s it.  Any other path is not a path with heart for me.  And letting all that other stuff about mystical powers go has done nothing less than give me wings.
• There are many, MANY things I do not – or ever likely will – know the answers to about life and the Universe and existence, and finally . . . finally I am totally OK with that.  I am 100% fine with this now.  This, I see, is a key piece of any transformation.  It has allowed me to stop “questing,” and to just be an “aware being”.
• The end for all of us is death of our physical life.  We all die, as in: we are no longer alive in this world.  Coming to this understanding has been a HUGE milestone for me and my development.  It has lightened my soul.  I don’t know what happens when we die, and frankly, I don’t believe anyone else does either.  I have read A LOT over the last 15+ years (so many books – sigh), and that is my conclusion.  But so what?  I am here now and I am alive.  That’s it.  Once you realize this – I mean once you really come to comprehend this, as in, BLING! the big blinding light goes off over your head and a giant smile spreads across your lips – when you realize this, when you realize you are alive now, and all there is to do is use YOUR time, then you become free to let everything else gradually drop away, and all you want is to live a good life and make this world a better place for the generations to come.  This becomes the Big Picture, and the details of how it happens are left up to you.
• I am deeply motivated not only by what sort of world I am giving to my child, but also by what sort of child I am giving to the world.  This single sentence drives SO much of how I live and what I do each day.  I love my child, I love my wife, and I love my friends and family.  This is my choice.  I choose to live this way, and it doesn’t just happen on its own – it takes effort, it takes energy, and it takes an infinite and radiant heart.  You can never stop working at this.  But it is worth it.  That is what Conscious Relationship means.
• I love my readers.  My blog doesn’t reach a very large audience, but to be honest, I don’t think there really is that large an audience of like-minded people.  I hope there is, but maybe there isn’t.  But the ones that do read are kindred kin to me, and like water droplets, we always find ways to be attracted back to one another. 
• I said on Day 1 that I intended to experiment with various forms of meditation, including audio CDs.  Well, I am currently giving Holosync a test drive (Google it if you are curious).  It hasn’t been very long, but so far so good.  I think it’s a good product.  In time I’ll share my impressions and my experiences.  I will say it is easier – much easier – to sit and listen to a CD for 30 minutes than it is to sit and count my breaths and stare at a flame for 30 minutes.  But is the benefit the same?  I’ll let you know what I find out.

For so many years I wished and searched for someone to show me what to do, what path to follow, not only just a teacher, but in books I read, websites, seminars I attended, etc.  I longed for someone to tell me “this is how it is, this is the path to take,” but I realize I’ve now given that up.  Nothing has replaced it.  I’ve simply struck it through; I’ve put the notion onto a pyre and let it float away.  I’ve realized I can empower myself, and that this is only the beginning.  I’ve only just scratched the surface.  The lost little sheep I was eight months ago is a distant memory, a stranger I wouldn’t recognize.  I am now living in awe of our cosmic connection, our quintessential One-ness.  This is all only just the start, and that has me very excited.  I am awakening to LIVE, not just to EXIST. 

You can too.  Honest.  Start now.

Life does flow when you are aware, and that makes me very happy.

It’s true.  Coming back to writing is like returning home from a long voyage.  It’s sweet and familiar; it’s nurturing, it’s home.  As I click the keys, striking letters to translate thoughts, there is no other place I’d rather be.

Tonight is Sunday.  We just closed our Emergency Coordination Centre on Friday, at the end of the work day, after 110 days of continuous, around the clock operation.  This is totally unprecedented.  The longest event in the past was about 40 days, and that seemed a marathon at the time.  The flooding in our province is not over, but the situation has stabilized in all regions, thanks to this heat wave that is now upon us. 

I’m excited to get back to my blog.  The hiatus was inevitable and necessary.  Work and life can get in the way of spiritual and other self-betterment pursuits sometimes, and the ridiculously long hours I’ve put in over the last while created a priority challenge.  I did not stop practicing and living my Sacred Disciplines, but something had to give, and that something was regular writing.  Let’s hope that never happens again. 

I know it’s not really Day 209, but I’m just going to continue the count from where I left off.  It’s not the count that matters, it’s the spiritual adventure I’m on.  So with that . . . . onwards!