Ok, Ok. I know that this can all sound a bit religious when I start talking about things like prayer. But if you bear with me you'll come to see that prayer really has nothing to do with organised religion, or supplications of unworthiness before a distant God who hands out favours at whim. Indeed, real prayer is the opposite of these things. So please indulge me for a moment and forget everything you may have learnt about praying from some sick idolatrous religion.
What is Prayer?
Prayer is communion with Grace, much the same as meditation, contemplation of the divine, self inqiry, sacred dance, intentional chanting and a dozen other forms of spiritual practice. Prayer can take a great many forms, but what tends to distuinguish it from other practices is that it usually takes the form of a 'conversation' with whatever the person recognises or conceptualises as the divine. Many people view prayer as asking for some sort of favour from God. A situation in which the little powerless human being begs the big powerful deity for some sort of intercession in their life. If this were true, you could imagine that the big G would be pretty busy attending to the needs of billions upon billions of lifeforms.
Such prayers seem to go unanswered, because the basic premise of them is flawed. For Grace to intercede in our creation of our lives would be a fundamental denial of who we are, an affirmation that what we are is something less than an expression of the divine creative life force. If such prayers were to be answered, it would give valididty to our concept of ourselves as small, powerless and dependent. Grace will never affirm such a misconception, will never support such an insanity. The purpose of grace is to bring us back to awareness of the truth of who we are, to help us beyond this injured identity and rediscover our divine self. A loving God would no more seek to make his/her children dependent and powerless than a loving human would.
True prayers never go unanswered, because they occur in recognition of our right relationship to Grace. This is the recognition that we are not separate to the divine in any way. A real prayer begins with the recognition that we are believing something that is causing us suffering. Perhaps we have projected our power onto something seemingly outside of ourselves, or become trapped in an illusion of separation, grievance and powerlessness. Whatever the reason, the form of a real prayer is deceptively simple. We are asking grace to restore us to right perception, to help us clear our minds of the illusions that are causing us to suffer.
There are many ways to ask this question. Some of my favourites are "please help me see with the eyes of God", or "What would love do in this situation" or "Show me the errors in my minds viewing of this situation" or "Help me to see what is for my highest good in this situation". Prayer doesn't always have to be in response to suffering either. As people develop their relationship with grace many simply make it a daily practice to pray. This can look like "show me how to live this day in peace" or "help me to find grace in each moment" or "show me how I might live my day closer to love". Answering these questions are the function, the very purpose of grace. Grace is the gift that helps us to find the truth and recover from the ilusions of sinfulness and powerlessness and prayer is one of the most powerful ways that we can connect with grace.
As much as a loving and responsible parent would not encourage dependence in their children, nor would they turn a deaf ear or fail to offer appropriate assistance. The paradox of prayer is that all prayers are answered by grace, it just may not look like we think it should. In the movie Evan Almighty, one of the main characters prays to God for a more loving, closer family life. After all hell breaks loose, threatening to disrupt their family life altogether, she unknowingly encounters God (as played by Morgan Freeman) in a roadside diner. He challenges her with the proposition that if you were to pray for a closer family do you think God would send you warm fuzzy feelings, or the opportunity to create closeness through offering love and support in difficult times. It's not often that I look to hollywood for spiritual wisdom, but this seems to me a perfect example of the way irresponsible prayers are answered.
When we pray we are engaging in a partnership with grace, not giving our power to it. Attempts to give away responsibility for our life usually result in situations that provide us with the opportunity to reclaim that responsibility. Grace partners us by giving us the opportunity to grow, heal and rediscover the reality of our divine self. If it were to do these things for us it would be a partner in our disempowerment. Graces ultimate answer will always be this, that you are whole, complete and powerful. That you have always been whole, it is only in your mind, and the illusory reality you create with your mind, that these dark dreams of brokenness can exist. They are but shadows that never affect the true reality, the reality of love. However, until we are ready to hear this answer, grace will always allow us the opportunity to experience our delusions, and offer us the opportunity to give them up. The choice, as always, is ours. Free will, it's a bitch.
Prayer isn't hard to do. It requires no rituals, no incense, no special words or scented oils or fancy buildings. In fact, Jesus instructed his disciples that "they would be better to pray in a closet than in a church". It requires nothing except a sincere willingness to let grace show us the truth. But don't take my word for it, give it a go.
together we rise
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
"There but for the Grace of God" - Forgiving the Unforgiveable
Because of the nature of my studies at University I'm continually being exposed to information about the some of the worst aspects of the human condition. Wide spread violence and exploitation, child abuse, political indifference, and planet destroying corporate greed just to name a few. Like most people I find myself horrified, despairing and teetering on the edge of hopelessness on a regular basis. Unlike most people I lack the luxury of turning to an episode of the simpsons and tuning out. These are prescribed readings, and read them I must. Sometimes I get angry, and sometimes I start judging the perpetrators of these crimes against decency, these deceivers and users who commit unspeakable acts.
In those moments it is often difficult to find grace. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I wish to not experience those feelings of horror, I would be worried if I did not feel this way. Being shocked and appalled by dreadful crimes, feeling empathy and concern for the victims, is how I know I'm human, how I know that grace is alive inside me. It's the judgment that takes grace from me. To be angry at the commision of these acts is healthy, but to condemn the perpetrators is for me to commmit an act of violence (if only in my mind) in return. I become in that moment a perpetrator of lovelessness.
Please don't think I'm taking the righteous high ground here. Believe me when I say that I do this all the time. I do it driving down the road when someone cuts me off on the roundabout, or at the supermarket when someone blocks the aisle. I do it when I hear the news, or witness another politician trying to obscure the facts behind political double speak. I do it every time I pick up a newspaper and see the bias and manipulation in today's media. It seems that to judge is merely part of the human condition. The trick, I think, is in what I do next. Sometimes I just keep judging, which seems to feed on itself and engorges until I finally notice that I'm feeling absolutely miserable. Sometimes, the fortunate times, I remember the old saying - "there but for the grace of God go I".
I notice that my judgement is always righteous, always containing somewhere within it the idea that there is no way I would commit such a crime, or do something so stupid, or act with such carelessness towards another. Of course the truth is quite the opposite. I'm guilty of carelessness and stupidity on an almost daily basis, and I've many acts in my past of which I'm not proud - some of them criminal. I've been hurt by others, and I've hurt others in turn. To err is human, or so the saying goes.
I've also noticed that it is always from a place of hurt that I hurt others. It is when I feel myself as powerless, victimised, threatened and unloved that I lash out at those around me. I believe that this is always the case, that hurt people, HURT people. So when I witness these crimes of indifference and viloence I find myself faced with a choice. Do I judge and condemn, or do recognise that the perpetrator is in pain and needing the experience of grace, of love and compassion? Or I could ask it another way. When I commit acts of lovelessness, do I wish to be judged and condemned, or would I like others to recognise that I'm in pain and in need of grace and love?
To Forgive, Divine.
Forgiveness is a word often used and often misunderstood. Forgiveness is not 'letting someone off the hook', and is not achieved by taking the moral high ground. If we tell ourselves that we are forgiving someone, but inside we are still full of anger and judgment, then we are actually fooling ourselves and committing what 'a course in miracles' calls a double condemnation. First we condemn them with our judgement about how bad they are, and then we condemn them again, through putting ourselves in a position of moral superiority by 'forgiving' them.
True forgiveness comes in the recognition that they are just like us. The understanding that they are acting from pain and trauma, just as we sometimes do. True forgiveness is the realisation that this person has lost touch with the truth of who they are, and become caught in an illusion of sinfulness, powerlessness and unworthiness. True forgiveness is looking past the actions of the wounded ego to the god self inside and offering them the love they need to heal. Most of all, true forgiveness is rediscovering who we are, learning to look with the eyes of grace. In true forgiveness we are transformed, because in seeing through the illusions of their pain ridden mind, we learn to see the illusions of our own. the opporunity in forgiveness is the opportunity to say 'Thank you for giving me the chance to rediscover grace, in a world beset by the illusion of sin".
The reality is that we all do bad things, and it doesn't matter how severe or mild they are. The act of murder is in fact no more or less violent than the act of a harsh and unloving remark, because they are sourced in exactly the same place. All acts of lovelessness comes from a disconnection between us and grace. Every crime against another is a crime against life, and every act stems from the belief that what we are is something less than the child of a loving God. Every judgement is a condemnation to hell, because its intent is to say that the other person is somehow unworthy of love, of grace, of forgiveness.
But what about those who commit the truly unforgiveable crimes? Those who abuse children, destroy entire species, commit murder on a massive scale? how can there crimes be no worse, no less forgiveable than ours? How indeed. Well, these people didn't get to where they are by themselves. The child abuser was themselves abused, which means that someone else dit it to them, and a whole bunch of other people failed to protect them by turning a blind eye, and an entire society failed to heal them when the early warnings signs showed up. It means that hundreds of people chose to allow their suffering to continue, chose to take care of themselves with total indifference to the plight of another.
Similarly, the CEO who's company destroyed a precious habitat did not do it alone. He was trained and conditioned towards greed, fear and carelessness from an early age. He was lauded and applauded for his ability to compete, to be stronger than others and indifferent to their pain. His shareholders demanded of him that he produce ever greater profits so that they might make money without having to work for it. His society required him to be succesful in order that he might be loved and rewarded. No one is born a child abuser, or a conqueror or a serial killer. They are made that way by a world full of lovelessness and the illusion of sin. They are shaped and moulded by the family and the society they came into with 360 degree innocence and trust. They are created - by US.
So when I find myself looking for someone else to blame, some other soul to condemn for the pain and the blood of this world, I have a choice to make. Do I add one more blow to the lovelessness of the world, one more burden of pain for them to bear on my behalf, or do take this opportunity to bring love and healing. Do I take revenge, or do I offer forgiveness. Do I convince myself that I could never be that person, or do I recognise that given the same life experience as them, I would be the one standing condemned, by me. There but for the grace of God, go I.
My ultimate choice is this, do I create even more darkness and perpetuate this cycle of suffering, or ask grace to show me how I might become the light that ends it. We'll, sometimes I do the former, and sometimes the latter. When I remember, when I stop for a moment and seek in myself the understanding and compassion that I would hope others would offer me, I discover that there truly is no crime greater than another, no unforgiveable sin, for they are all the one thing, the acting out of the terrible pain that comes when we believe that we are separate from grace. Revenge, punishment and condemnation are not the solution. They are what caused the problem. In offering others forgiveness, in choosing to see the grace that is who who they truly are, I give them the opportunity to forgive those thigns that were done to them, and myself the chance to learn who I truly am.
In the Kahuna teachings of the Hawaiian people there is a very old tradition. When faced with a person who has committed great harm, the shaman/healer would walk up to them and say simply this, over and over again. "I'm sorry, please forgive me".
Now that's grace.
In those moments it is often difficult to find grace. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I wish to not experience those feelings of horror, I would be worried if I did not feel this way. Being shocked and appalled by dreadful crimes, feeling empathy and concern for the victims, is how I know I'm human, how I know that grace is alive inside me. It's the judgment that takes grace from me. To be angry at the commision of these acts is healthy, but to condemn the perpetrators is for me to commmit an act of violence (if only in my mind) in return. I become in that moment a perpetrator of lovelessness.
Please don't think I'm taking the righteous high ground here. Believe me when I say that I do this all the time. I do it driving down the road when someone cuts me off on the roundabout, or at the supermarket when someone blocks the aisle. I do it when I hear the news, or witness another politician trying to obscure the facts behind political double speak. I do it every time I pick up a newspaper and see the bias and manipulation in today's media. It seems that to judge is merely part of the human condition. The trick, I think, is in what I do next. Sometimes I just keep judging, which seems to feed on itself and engorges until I finally notice that I'm feeling absolutely miserable. Sometimes, the fortunate times, I remember the old saying - "there but for the grace of God go I".
I notice that my judgement is always righteous, always containing somewhere within it the idea that there is no way I would commit such a crime, or do something so stupid, or act with such carelessness towards another. Of course the truth is quite the opposite. I'm guilty of carelessness and stupidity on an almost daily basis, and I've many acts in my past of which I'm not proud - some of them criminal. I've been hurt by others, and I've hurt others in turn. To err is human, or so the saying goes.
I've also noticed that it is always from a place of hurt that I hurt others. It is when I feel myself as powerless, victimised, threatened and unloved that I lash out at those around me. I believe that this is always the case, that hurt people, HURT people. So when I witness these crimes of indifference and viloence I find myself faced with a choice. Do I judge and condemn, or do recognise that the perpetrator is in pain and needing the experience of grace, of love and compassion? Or I could ask it another way. When I commit acts of lovelessness, do I wish to be judged and condemned, or would I like others to recognise that I'm in pain and in need of grace and love?
To Forgive, Divine.
Forgiveness is a word often used and often misunderstood. Forgiveness is not 'letting someone off the hook', and is not achieved by taking the moral high ground. If we tell ourselves that we are forgiving someone, but inside we are still full of anger and judgment, then we are actually fooling ourselves and committing what 'a course in miracles' calls a double condemnation. First we condemn them with our judgement about how bad they are, and then we condemn them again, through putting ourselves in a position of moral superiority by 'forgiving' them.
True forgiveness comes in the recognition that they are just like us. The understanding that they are acting from pain and trauma, just as we sometimes do. True forgiveness is the realisation that this person has lost touch with the truth of who they are, and become caught in an illusion of sinfulness, powerlessness and unworthiness. True forgiveness is looking past the actions of the wounded ego to the god self inside and offering them the love they need to heal. Most of all, true forgiveness is rediscovering who we are, learning to look with the eyes of grace. In true forgiveness we are transformed, because in seeing through the illusions of their pain ridden mind, we learn to see the illusions of our own. the opporunity in forgiveness is the opportunity to say 'Thank you for giving me the chance to rediscover grace, in a world beset by the illusion of sin".
The reality is that we all do bad things, and it doesn't matter how severe or mild they are. The act of murder is in fact no more or less violent than the act of a harsh and unloving remark, because they are sourced in exactly the same place. All acts of lovelessness comes from a disconnection between us and grace. Every crime against another is a crime against life, and every act stems from the belief that what we are is something less than the child of a loving God. Every judgement is a condemnation to hell, because its intent is to say that the other person is somehow unworthy of love, of grace, of forgiveness.
But what about those who commit the truly unforgiveable crimes? Those who abuse children, destroy entire species, commit murder on a massive scale? how can there crimes be no worse, no less forgiveable than ours? How indeed. Well, these people didn't get to where they are by themselves. The child abuser was themselves abused, which means that someone else dit it to them, and a whole bunch of other people failed to protect them by turning a blind eye, and an entire society failed to heal them when the early warnings signs showed up. It means that hundreds of people chose to allow their suffering to continue, chose to take care of themselves with total indifference to the plight of another.
Similarly, the CEO who's company destroyed a precious habitat did not do it alone. He was trained and conditioned towards greed, fear and carelessness from an early age. He was lauded and applauded for his ability to compete, to be stronger than others and indifferent to their pain. His shareholders demanded of him that he produce ever greater profits so that they might make money without having to work for it. His society required him to be succesful in order that he might be loved and rewarded. No one is born a child abuser, or a conqueror or a serial killer. They are made that way by a world full of lovelessness and the illusion of sin. They are shaped and moulded by the family and the society they came into with 360 degree innocence and trust. They are created - by US.
So when I find myself looking for someone else to blame, some other soul to condemn for the pain and the blood of this world, I have a choice to make. Do I add one more blow to the lovelessness of the world, one more burden of pain for them to bear on my behalf, or do take this opportunity to bring love and healing. Do I take revenge, or do I offer forgiveness. Do I convince myself that I could never be that person, or do I recognise that given the same life experience as them, I would be the one standing condemned, by me. There but for the grace of God, go I.
My ultimate choice is this, do I create even more darkness and perpetuate this cycle of suffering, or ask grace to show me how I might become the light that ends it. We'll, sometimes I do the former, and sometimes the latter. When I remember, when I stop for a moment and seek in myself the understanding and compassion that I would hope others would offer me, I discover that there truly is no crime greater than another, no unforgiveable sin, for they are all the one thing, the acting out of the terrible pain that comes when we believe that we are separate from grace. Revenge, punishment and condemnation are not the solution. They are what caused the problem. In offering others forgiveness, in choosing to see the grace that is who who they truly are, I give them the opportunity to forgive those thigns that were done to them, and myself the chance to learn who I truly am.
In the Kahuna teachings of the Hawaiian people there is a very old tradition. When faced with a person who has committed great harm, the shaman/healer would walk up to them and say simply this, over and over again. "I'm sorry, please forgive me".
Now that's grace.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
What a Shame
In my last blog I promised to talk about the process of recovering from a state of toxic shame, which is how John Bradshaw (psychologist and author) describes the common state of distorted identity that separates us from our natural grace. In his book 'healing the shame that binds you' (see my picks) he talks about the difference between our natural healthy feelings of shame and unhealthy feelings of toxic shame, which is poisonous to our wellbeing. Natural Shame is the feeling that arises in us when we are thinking or acting in a way that is against our innate values. This could be that we are behaving dishonestly or destructively to ourself or another, or it could be that we are failing to live up to out potential in life. All of us have feelings of natural shame which guide us in living a fulfilling and responsible life.
Toxic Shame is the result of other peoples values, negative messages and expectations being imposed on us. This is done (usually not deliberately) by parents, teachers, society, religion, media and peer groups. Very few of us in the modern world escape the traumatic effects of toxic shame in our lives. The effects can vary greatly from a mild lack of self esteem to serious mental disorders and behavioural problems. The majority of people are somewhere in the middle, usually suffering under the burden of addiction and self limiting beliefs, but able to function well enough to survive and begin a process of recovery.
Toxic shame creates what Bradshaw calls a 'shame bind'. This is a no win "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation. If we comply with the imposed values and expectations we feel ashamed because we are not living our true values and potential. If we do not comply we feel ashamed because we are acting against the imposed values. Either action leads us to pain, forcing many people to live a life where they are constantly trying to reduce the risk of shame though a complex balancing act of self limitation. I call this emotional fence sitting. Of course the problem with sitting on fences is that you end up with a sore arse.
What this leads to is a state where we often dissociate from shame all together, to avoid the experience of this painful and seemingly unresolvable emotional state. In the milder cases this leads to a sort of emotional numbness that results in living a passionless and neurotic life, often leading to depression and apathy. In severe cases it manifests as psychopathic and other pathological behaviours like violence, criminality, drug abuse, excessive promiscuity and so on. Bradshaw calls these two ends of the spectrum living shamefully or shamelessly. Whichever the case is, recovery involves a process of undoing the imposed state of toxic shame and rediscovering the gift of natural shame in ourselves.
Another effect of toxic shame is the impact it has on our self concept. Typically people who are suffering from toxic shame binding have an 'all or nothing' view of themselves. In their own minds they flip between fantasies of being either super human or totally worthless. There is no permission in their self esteem to be somewhere in the middle, another human being who, though no better than others, still has their unique and valuable contribution to make to life. This is a dreadful bind to be in, a belief that if I'm not making superhuman achievements (which are impossible) I'm completely useless and unloveable. Wow, what a setup for feelings of failure and self hatred. Again, this can vary in severity from unrealistic goals and over achievement behaviours to total life paralysis where no action is taken.
Toxic shame is most evident in the extraordinary incidence of addiction we find in our society. Pretty much everyone is doing it. We are addicted to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, adrenalin, television, work, romance, video games, sex, food, sport and so on. All addictions serve the same basic purpose, numbing out our uncomfortable feelings and stimulating our bodies into an excited state that overides the pain. They are coping mechanism's, self medicating practices that help us to survive until we can discover the will and resources to deal with the toxic feelings underneath. In themselves, addictions are not the problem and need to be treated with understanding and compassion. If we beat ourselves up for our addictions we are simply adding to the shame and worthlessness we feel. A kinder and more effective approach is to recognise the addiction as the symptom of our distress, and use it as a gateway to the healing work we need to do.
Undoing toxic shame is rarely easy, and takes courage and determination. The worst thing to do is trying to do it alone. Toxic shame does it best to hide from others, and healing it requires that we expose ourselves to the loving presence that we are unable to provide for ourselves when we are shame bound. This can be through a therapist, a support group, a twelve step program (which are designed exactly for this purpose), a spiritual practice or any number of healing programs and workshops. Ultimately, we are exposing ourselves to the opportunity for grace to enter into our heart and heal our illusions of wrongness. It's not easy work, and it requires that we give up our attempts to avoid, deny and hide the shame that we feel, but the freedom and joy it brings far outweighs the pain we have to go through.
Shame off you.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
EGO is not a dirty word
I've made several references to the idea that our 'distorted ego mind' is what separates us from the awareness of grace. In many schools of thought the poor old ego is blamed for pretty much every moment of suffering we experience. I want to clarify that the ego is not actually at fault for the current human condition, it's as much a victim of the situation as anthing else. The problem is what happens to distort the ego when it emerges in a society that actively works to disconnect it from reality.
What is the Ego?
Sigmund Freud first gave us the modern conception of the ego. He divided human consciousness into three segments called the Id, The Ego and the Super Ego. The Id represents our instinctive and unconscious nature, our feelings, instincts, passions, and drives. He speculates that the id operates on the pleasure principle, seeking instant gratification for our various hungers, desires and impulses. He then posits that the Id is kept in check by the actions of the Ego, which operates on the 'reality principle', meaning that it adjusts our behaviours to the situation in order to avoid the problems that can occur if we were simply to act on every impulse. The Ego is partly in conscious awareness, and partly unconscious. Freud recognised that both the Id and the Ego were engaged in the same job, that of serving our interests and maximising our chance of getting our needs met. No problem so far.
Then we discover the Super ego. Freud allocated this the role of our conscience, that which constantly and critically examines our behaviours and thoughts against a 'moral' standard and try's to make us behave within the constraints of this ethos. This seems to be where the problem arises, the Ego ends up as the meat in the sandwhich, trying to serve two masters who seem eternally opposed to each other. The Id pushing for gratification and the Superego trying to constrain it with guilt and shame. It's unclear to me whether Freud believed that the superego was a natural and unavoidable development in consciousness, but I have come to believe that the presence of the super ego is a distorted emergence leading to what I'm calling the 'distorted ego mind'.
Freuds conception of the Id as being basically selfish and irresponsible, and therefore in need of constraint, seems to me to be essentially flawed. Certainly our passions drive us towards gratification, but our feelings also inform us of our limitations and our other needs. We come to organically understand that all of our actions have consequences and that those actions that are destructive also hurt us. It is through this that our Ego evolves in it's strategies for meeting our needs and naturally tempers the urgings of the Id with awareness and responsibility. One might say that they are are perfect team, with the Id supplying the destination and the Ego planning the journey.
The Super Ego on the other hand seems to be the result of imposed messages given to us by others, who wish to control our development and move us towards a destination of their choosing. Many modern cultures, particularly those who are being heavily influenced by religions, seem to be contructed to separate us from our natural relationship with the Id. they teach us that our instincts and our organic nature are not to be trusted. This leads to a situation where the Ego, in it's attempt to adapt to the prevailing environment, becomes dissociated from our innate faculties of feeling, desire and instinct. In doing so it becomes dissociated from grace, which is the source of these guiding and motivating forces. This leads to the emergence of a false 'self concept', an insane identity struggling to maintain itself in an insane world, and defend itself against the urgings of our true self (which it now believes to be the enemy).
This separation from our natural self leaves our ego floating rudderless in a sea of external messages. Without access to our feelings and instincts we are vulnerable to the manipulations and demands of others. We can no longer feel the right path for us and are constantly trying to make sense of a world map drawn by other hands. We are trying to navigate life without the benefit of our natural emotional compass. If we also accept ohter peoples conceptions of the divine, rather than trust our own innate relationship with it, we are sailing in a world where we cannot even see the stars for guidance.
The irony of course is that it is by complying with other peoples conceptions of 'The will of God' we become separated from our innate relationship with God's Will in us. Perhaps grace speaks to some through burning bushes, but for most of us it is through inner listening that we discover the truth. In fact, finding true grace requires of us that we reject these imposed mesages of sinfulness and shame to reconnect with our own being. We need to reconcile our Ego to our Id and remove the ever critical super ego from the throne of our consciousness. Jesus of Nazareth said that "to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must become as a small child", which is a lovely way of saying that we need to find the innocence that we once knew, before we were overcome by the impositions of others.
Ego really is not the problem. It is what happens to distort our ego that causes our suffering. Fortunately, through communion with grace this distortion is gently and irrevocably healed so that we can once more live in the flow of the true power and beauty of our being. This is a process that John Bradshaw calls 'recovering from toxic shame', which I'll be talking about in the next blog.
Grace be with you.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Grievance as Opportunity
In the last blog (Grievance VS Grace) I explained what grievance was, and alluded to the idea that when we find ourselves in grievance we are actually facing an amazing opportunity for growth and happiness. Let me explain that a bit further. Sadly, most people on planet earth today are not walking around in a state of the awareness of grace, or the happiness that comes with that. Nor are we spending most of our time utterly miserable. The general status quo is one of a low level state of suffering and unconscious complaint. Most of us manage this with a range of stimulants (caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol) and distractions (tv, reading, radio) that keep our true state at an unconscious level. In this way life limps along from one shade of gray to the next with just a few moments of either joy or misery breaking the surface into our conscious awareness.
It is these moments (when we are paying attention to our internal state) that are the doorways to reconnecting with the grace that transforms our life. One well known teacher of grace by the name of Papaji once made the comment that "it is hard to wake up from a pleasant dream", meaning that in those fleeting moments of joy and comfort in our life we lack the motivation to seek a deeper experience. It is our suffering that makes us question the status quo. It is misery that provide us the motivation and the opportunity to discover something more. The trick is to learn to recognise these opportunities for what they are, rather than trying to minimise and avoid them.
These moments of grievance, stress and suffering usually involve some sort of emotional pain, physical discomfort and psychological disturbance. It is however important to understand that these things are not actually the cause of the suffering. Our suffering and stress are the result of how we respond to these events, how we are being 'with' them. When we are living in the belief that we have the power to meet these events and resolve them, there is no suffering, just a natural move to action. When we believe that we are powerless in relation to them, we suffer and resist. From this context there are a number of ways in which we can view these moments as opportunities.
(1) Reclaiming Power & Transcending Limitation.
Whenever we are suffering we are in the grip of a delusion of powerlessness. We have forgotten the truth of who we are, which is Human Beings (def: Hu-man - God Manifest). Instead, we have bought into an identity of limitation that has us at the mercy of the world. These moments of suffering give us the opportunity to question our own minds and rediscover the truth about ourselves and our true power. One of the most effective methods for doing this has been given to us by an extraordinary teacher of Grace called Byron Katie. You can access her work for free at http://www.thework.com/
(2) Resolving Trauma
In future blogs I will be talking in more depth about the nature of human trauma, but for now I'll define it as 'undigested emotional experience'. When we have an experience that we are unable to naturally 'process out', whether because the situation is not safe or because it is simply overwhelmingly intense, the emotional energy gets locked in our body. Our body mind responds to this trauma much the same way it would to a foreign object in a wound. It isolates it from the surrounding energy by contracting around it and diverting our psyche away from it. This usually results in chronic tension, distorted behaviours and self limitation to avoid re triggering the held trauma. If we wish to become once more healthy and fully alive, we need to release this trapped trauma and resolve the event that caused it.
The Grace within us wants us to be whole and happy, and tries to achieve this by recreating situations that are similar to the ones that caused this original trauma and pain. Thus much of our suffering is repetitive, the same emotional triggers over and over again, until we stop resisting the experience and embrace the opportunity to finally free ourselves from this old trauma.
(3) Rediscovering Grace
The king of all opportunities is this one - the chance to reconnect with the grace inside us and discover who we are beyond our limited and sick identities. All suffering arises from the disconnection that occurs between our ego mind and our natural state of grace. If we can learn to recognise suffering for what it is, it becomes the signal that tells us to reconnect. It informs us that we have become lost in a dark delusion of being separate from God. In that moment we can respond by seeking the grace inside us in whatever way works for you (prayer, meditation, centering, breathing, gratitude, etc) and once more discover the joy that exists in every moment.
The great part about this response is that it naturally incorporates all of the others. When we once more become aware of grace all our delusions naturally dissolve. When we reconnect, our traumas naturally begin to heal and release with an ease that is remarkable.
Nobody wants to suffer, that's why we try to avoid it and numb it with addiction and distraction. Unfortunately, these things do not resolve it but only extend it into the future. It is through embracing the opportunity which our suffering presents that we can become truly free. The opportunity to surrender to the grace and the truth inside us.
Blessings
It is these moments (when we are paying attention to our internal state) that are the doorways to reconnecting with the grace that transforms our life. One well known teacher of grace by the name of Papaji once made the comment that "it is hard to wake up from a pleasant dream", meaning that in those fleeting moments of joy and comfort in our life we lack the motivation to seek a deeper experience. It is our suffering that makes us question the status quo. It is misery that provide us the motivation and the opportunity to discover something more. The trick is to learn to recognise these opportunities for what they are, rather than trying to minimise and avoid them.
These moments of grievance, stress and suffering usually involve some sort of emotional pain, physical discomfort and psychological disturbance. It is however important to understand that these things are not actually the cause of the suffering. Our suffering and stress are the result of how we respond to these events, how we are being 'with' them. When we are living in the belief that we have the power to meet these events and resolve them, there is no suffering, just a natural move to action. When we believe that we are powerless in relation to them, we suffer and resist. From this context there are a number of ways in which we can view these moments as opportunities.
(1) Reclaiming Power & Transcending Limitation.
Whenever we are suffering we are in the grip of a delusion of powerlessness. We have forgotten the truth of who we are, which is Human Beings (def: Hu-man - God Manifest). Instead, we have bought into an identity of limitation that has us at the mercy of the world. These moments of suffering give us the opportunity to question our own minds and rediscover the truth about ourselves and our true power. One of the most effective methods for doing this has been given to us by an extraordinary teacher of Grace called Byron Katie. You can access her work for free at http://www.thework.com/
(2) Resolving Trauma
In future blogs I will be talking in more depth about the nature of human trauma, but for now I'll define it as 'undigested emotional experience'. When we have an experience that we are unable to naturally 'process out', whether because the situation is not safe or because it is simply overwhelmingly intense, the emotional energy gets locked in our body. Our body mind responds to this trauma much the same way it would to a foreign object in a wound. It isolates it from the surrounding energy by contracting around it and diverting our psyche away from it. This usually results in chronic tension, distorted behaviours and self limitation to avoid re triggering the held trauma. If we wish to become once more healthy and fully alive, we need to release this trapped trauma and resolve the event that caused it.
The Grace within us wants us to be whole and happy, and tries to achieve this by recreating situations that are similar to the ones that caused this original trauma and pain. Thus much of our suffering is repetitive, the same emotional triggers over and over again, until we stop resisting the experience and embrace the opportunity to finally free ourselves from this old trauma.
(3) Rediscovering Grace
The king of all opportunities is this one - the chance to reconnect with the grace inside us and discover who we are beyond our limited and sick identities. All suffering arises from the disconnection that occurs between our ego mind and our natural state of grace. If we can learn to recognise suffering for what it is, it becomes the signal that tells us to reconnect. It informs us that we have become lost in a dark delusion of being separate from God. In that moment we can respond by seeking the grace inside us in whatever way works for you (prayer, meditation, centering, breathing, gratitude, etc) and once more discover the joy that exists in every moment.
The great part about this response is that it naturally incorporates all of the others. When we once more become aware of grace all our delusions naturally dissolve. When we reconnect, our traumas naturally begin to heal and release with an ease that is remarkable.
Nobody wants to suffer, that's why we try to avoid it and numb it with addiction and distraction. Unfortunately, these things do not resolve it but only extend it into the future. It is through embracing the opportunity which our suffering presents that we can become truly free. The opportunity to surrender to the grace and the truth inside us.
Blessings
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Grace VS Grievance
The book "A Course in Miracles" explains that what takes us away from the 'awareness' of grace (because we can never be truly taken away from the reality of it) is a Little thing we do that it calls GRIEVANCE. Essentially, this means that we look at our reality and judge it to be 'not right' in some way.
Grievance can take a great many forms, including complaint, self pity, believing that we need to change things, and trying to take control of events. It can also be found in a great many of the 'new age' philosophies like positive thinking, creative visualisation, 'creating your own reality' and some of the resurrected older philosophies like spell casting. Even the act of praying can be a form of grievance if we are asking the divine to make our life different in some way. That isn't to say that these things are necessarily based in grievance, because we do them naturally all the time. Most everybody finds themselves daydreaming possibilities for their future and motivating themselves to action with bright imaginings of the things to come.
However, usually when people sit down to consciously try to apply these techniques they are doing it because they have decided that something in their world needs to change, that something is not right. So, what's the problem with grievance? Well, this is a classic example of the distorted egoic mind trying to make itself the boss in life. Its attempting to usurp the role of the natural faculties of feelings, intuition and inspiration, which are the ways that grace guides us in life. Through our natural sense of attraction, desire and excitement we are guided to follow the path that is right for us. Through our natural feelings, aversions and pain responses we are guided to avoid that which is harmful to us. When we are aligned with these natural events, we have no need for grievance, no need to resist our reality, because we are able to 'gracefully' respond to it.
It can be hard to tell the difference between grace and grievance because grievance often takes these natural signals and uses them as evidence for its attempt to take control. For instance, if I am in a career that is unfulfilling to me I will feel naturally dissatisfied and want to move towards something else that attracts me more. My distorted ego can take this and turn it into a 'problem' which it has to sort out, rather than allow the normal flow that would bring graceful change. When this happens I have stopped responding and started reacting to the situation, I have stopped trusting in grace.
Tricky isn't it? Do not worry though, 'A course in Miracles' also offers us the sure way to tell the difference, what it calls the test of truth. It states that the truth will always leave you feeling fearless and peaceful. In other words, you can always tell when you are in grievance because it always carries a sense of stress and suffering with it. From a place of grace we know ourself to be powerful and creative. From a place of grievance, we believe ourself to be vulnerable, powerless and at the effect of life.
The obvious question now is how do we return to a state of grace? the first step is to recognise that we are in grievance, and to understand that the suffering we are going through is not because of the situation, but because of the way that we are seeing it. To echo the words of Echarte Toll (in his book 'A New Earth'), "the minute you can recognise that you are insane, you are just a little bit saner".
The second step is to recognise that grievance give me an opportunity to bring love present to my reality. Grievance is the act of resisting reality, which denies the situation the energy that is needed to continue it's natural evolution. There's an old saying, " what you resist persists". I believe that this perfectly defines the effect of grievance. When I judge and resist my reality I am attempting to create distance between it and me. I do this because I believe that reality has the power to threaten and harm me. While ever I believe myself to be less powerful than the situation, I negate my natural creative resources and give my power away.
The completion of that saying is "what you embrace, evolves". When I meet my reality with love, I transform the consciousness in myself that is bringing that reality into being. I rediscover my power and I am once more aligned with my natural resourcefulness and creativity. From this 'grace place' I organically come to understand the lessons and opportunities being presented, and to heal my perceptions of self limitation. When I respond with love I once more recognise that I am the power in this situation.
If the above ideas make sense to you this naturally leads to the question of "how do we respond with love"? There are many forms of love, but one of the most powerful for me is an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is a funny thing, the more I do it the more I realise just what I have to be grateful for, which leads me to do it more. I had a very strong experience of the power of gratitude about ten years ago. For over 12 years I had been working in hospitality, of which 11 were spent in a state of grievance and resistance. I hated my job, seeing it as demeaning, unchallenging and beneath my potential. For 11 years I had been unsuccessfully trying to get out of it.
One day I grew tired of constantly complaining to myself and decided that it wasn't really all that bad. I was well paid, worked hours I mostly enjoyed, was making a valuable contribution to other peoples enjoyment of life, and wasn't harming anyone. I resolved to appreciate my work, to be grateful for what it gave me. That day turned out to be my last shift in hospitality. Two days later I found myself working in a completely different field and my life underwent radical change in every area, without me doing a thing. After fifteen years of struggling to 'get out' I discovered that I had to 'get in' before any thing could change. I finally stopped resisting my reality, and it rapidly evolved in directions as yet undreamed by me.
In my next posting I will talk more about how grievance gives us an opportunity to grow, heal and find fulfilment. For now, I'd like to finish with the invitation to see what happens when you stop believing those thoughts of grievance and limitation and meet your reality and yourself with a choice for gratitude, which is another word for an attitude of grace.
Together we rise.
Adam Blanch
Grievance can take a great many forms, including complaint, self pity, believing that we need to change things, and trying to take control of events. It can also be found in a great many of the 'new age' philosophies like positive thinking, creative visualisation, 'creating your own reality' and some of the resurrected older philosophies like spell casting. Even the act of praying can be a form of grievance if we are asking the divine to make our life different in some way. That isn't to say that these things are necessarily based in grievance, because we do them naturally all the time. Most everybody finds themselves daydreaming possibilities for their future and motivating themselves to action with bright imaginings of the things to come.
However, usually when people sit down to consciously try to apply these techniques they are doing it because they have decided that something in their world needs to change, that something is not right. So, what's the problem with grievance? Well, this is a classic example of the distorted egoic mind trying to make itself the boss in life. Its attempting to usurp the role of the natural faculties of feelings, intuition and inspiration, which are the ways that grace guides us in life. Through our natural sense of attraction, desire and excitement we are guided to follow the path that is right for us. Through our natural feelings, aversions and pain responses we are guided to avoid that which is harmful to us. When we are aligned with these natural events, we have no need for grievance, no need to resist our reality, because we are able to 'gracefully' respond to it.
It can be hard to tell the difference between grace and grievance because grievance often takes these natural signals and uses them as evidence for its attempt to take control. For instance, if I am in a career that is unfulfilling to me I will feel naturally dissatisfied and want to move towards something else that attracts me more. My distorted ego can take this and turn it into a 'problem' which it has to sort out, rather than allow the normal flow that would bring graceful change. When this happens I have stopped responding and started reacting to the situation, I have stopped trusting in grace.
Tricky isn't it? Do not worry though, 'A course in Miracles' also offers us the sure way to tell the difference, what it calls the test of truth. It states that the truth will always leave you feeling fearless and peaceful. In other words, you can always tell when you are in grievance because it always carries a sense of stress and suffering with it. From a place of grace we know ourself to be powerful and creative. From a place of grievance, we believe ourself to be vulnerable, powerless and at the effect of life.
The obvious question now is how do we return to a state of grace? the first step is to recognise that we are in grievance, and to understand that the suffering we are going through is not because of the situation, but because of the way that we are seeing it. To echo the words of Echarte Toll (in his book 'A New Earth'), "the minute you can recognise that you are insane, you are just a little bit saner".
The second step is to recognise that grievance give me an opportunity to bring love present to my reality. Grievance is the act of resisting reality, which denies the situation the energy that is needed to continue it's natural evolution. There's an old saying, " what you resist persists". I believe that this perfectly defines the effect of grievance. When I judge and resist my reality I am attempting to create distance between it and me. I do this because I believe that reality has the power to threaten and harm me. While ever I believe myself to be less powerful than the situation, I negate my natural creative resources and give my power away.
The completion of that saying is "what you embrace, evolves". When I meet my reality with love, I transform the consciousness in myself that is bringing that reality into being. I rediscover my power and I am once more aligned with my natural resourcefulness and creativity. From this 'grace place' I organically come to understand the lessons and opportunities being presented, and to heal my perceptions of self limitation. When I respond with love I once more recognise that I am the power in this situation.
If the above ideas make sense to you this naturally leads to the question of "how do we respond with love"? There are many forms of love, but one of the most powerful for me is an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is a funny thing, the more I do it the more I realise just what I have to be grateful for, which leads me to do it more. I had a very strong experience of the power of gratitude about ten years ago. For over 12 years I had been working in hospitality, of which 11 were spent in a state of grievance and resistance. I hated my job, seeing it as demeaning, unchallenging and beneath my potential. For 11 years I had been unsuccessfully trying to get out of it.
One day I grew tired of constantly complaining to myself and decided that it wasn't really all that bad. I was well paid, worked hours I mostly enjoyed, was making a valuable contribution to other peoples enjoyment of life, and wasn't harming anyone. I resolved to appreciate my work, to be grateful for what it gave me. That day turned out to be my last shift in hospitality. Two days later I found myself working in a completely different field and my life underwent radical change in every area, without me doing a thing. After fifteen years of struggling to 'get out' I discovered that I had to 'get in' before any thing could change. I finally stopped resisting my reality, and it rapidly evolved in directions as yet undreamed by me.
In my next posting I will talk more about how grievance gives us an opportunity to grow, heal and find fulfilment. For now, I'd like to finish with the invitation to see what happens when you stop believing those thoughts of grievance and limitation and meet your reality and yourself with a choice for gratitude, which is another word for an attitude of grace.
Together we rise.
Adam Blanch
Monday, July 7, 2008
Who's the Boss?
Grace doesn't surprise me anymore. I see it all the time, in a thousand moments a day. What does surprise and fascinate me is how we as human being are able to make ourselves blind to it. Despite the riot of wonder and amazement that is everyday reality, so many of us manage to get from sunup to sleep without ever leaving our self created world of suffering and fear. It's exhausting, requiring a constant state of fixation on thoughts of problems and paucity.
From what I've observed, the mechanism of this fixation goes something like this. We imagine a big bad world full of struggles, enemies and difficulty which is set in opposition to poor little us with our limited powers and inadequate abilities (also an imagining). Then we go about trying to figure out how to overcome them and meet our needs, despite the fact that we've already decided we probably won't succeed. Holy shit, no wonder half the population is on Zoloft.
So, a little reality check can be helpful. I'm told that the conscious mind, which seems to be the part of us that is doing all this imagining, can process up to seven plus or minus two (7 +/- 2) pieces of information per second. Not bad really, faster than your average computer. However, they have recently built a computer that is capable of doing a pettiflop, which sounds like a bad experience from a high diving board, but is actually the ability to process one trillion pieces of information per second. Wow, this seems pretty impressive, until you realise that it is still an order of magnitude below what the human brain is doing. In other words, our noggins are doing ten trillion processes per second.
So, if our conscious mind is doing between five and nine processes per second, but our brains are doing ten trillion processes per second, what's going on in the unconscious? Well, heaps and heaps. In every second your brain is managing to keep you breathing, sweating, digesting, balancing, and assimilating gigabytes of visual, audial and sensory information. Just keeping you from falling flat on your face requires the monitoring of thousands of biofeedback signals and the movement of hundreds of muscles - a constant program of incredibly sophisticated adjustment. In every second you are literally doing thousands of actions, without having to pay attention to any of them.
It reminds me of the old joke about the Blonde (gender unspecified) who was always wearing earphones. Finally one of his/her coworkers got curious about what she/he was listening to and took them off his/her head. The blonde immediately dropped dead, and when the coworker put the earphones on they heard "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.....". I'm allowed to tell this joke because I'm a blonde. Political correctness notwithstanding, its a good illustration of two things. One, it's a good thing we don't have to think about our basic body processes. Two, English really needs a gender neutral pronoun to deal with the modern age.
Jokes aside, if you think about what is really going on in your personal reality each second it becomes a little absurd when you conscious mind pops up and says "I'm in charge here". In the time it took you to read this your brain/body has performed millions of actions, and your conscious mind is still somewhere back there going "ooooooh ten trillion, that a really big number". The idea that we are in charge of anything at all is so ridiculous it's laughable. Yet this is the idea that most people go through their day with. "I have to take charge, to sort it all out, to solve this problem called life".
The bad new is that we really can't. We (our conscious mind/ego) can't even make ourselves breathe properly, let alone manage the untold trillions of actions we need to perform each day. If we can't even manage to keep ourselves running, how are we to handle the innumerable complexities of what's going on outside our skin. The truth is that life is simply beyond our control and our understanding. Seven plus or minus two just doesn't cut it.
The good new is that we don't have to. Life looks after itself the same way our body does. We exist within a field of infinite intelligence, and it's got it sorted. If we are smart we eventually learn to give up, to stop trying to take control of our life and let our life take control of us. Personal growth is not an action of becoming something greater that we currently are. It's an action of allowing our greatness to make itself known. If we are smart, we learn to stop fighting with ourselves and start cooperating with that which is trying to emerge. If we are smart, we learn that we aren't as smart as we may think we are.
The conscious mind has it's place, and is indeed intended to make choices and decisions, but if those choices are against the natural flow of our being it really doesn't work. It's useful to think of it like an iceberg, the visible emergence of a far greater weight of intelligence below the surface. The problems occurs when we think that our conscious mind is somehow separate and dominant, that it's in charge of things. The reality is that the iceberg will always go with the flow, following the deep currents of life. If we think that we should be going in another direction, then we simply create an experience of frustration and stress for ourselves. If we trust what is beneath the surface and concentrate on enjoying the journey, life becomes an adventure in curiosity and learning, not a pointless struggle for a control that is simply unachievable.
Well, that's how I see it these days. Grace doesn't surprise me anymore, but the things we do to fight it leave me amazed.
Peace be with you.
From what I've observed, the mechanism of this fixation goes something like this. We imagine a big bad world full of struggles, enemies and difficulty which is set in opposition to poor little us with our limited powers and inadequate abilities (also an imagining). Then we go about trying to figure out how to overcome them and meet our needs, despite the fact that we've already decided we probably won't succeed. Holy shit, no wonder half the population is on Zoloft.
So, a little reality check can be helpful. I'm told that the conscious mind, which seems to be the part of us that is doing all this imagining, can process up to seven plus or minus two (7 +/- 2) pieces of information per second. Not bad really, faster than your average computer. However, they have recently built a computer that is capable of doing a pettiflop, which sounds like a bad experience from a high diving board, but is actually the ability to process one trillion pieces of information per second. Wow, this seems pretty impressive, until you realise that it is still an order of magnitude below what the human brain is doing. In other words, our noggins are doing ten trillion processes per second.
So, if our conscious mind is doing between five and nine processes per second, but our brains are doing ten trillion processes per second, what's going on in the unconscious? Well, heaps and heaps. In every second your brain is managing to keep you breathing, sweating, digesting, balancing, and assimilating gigabytes of visual, audial and sensory information. Just keeping you from falling flat on your face requires the monitoring of thousands of biofeedback signals and the movement of hundreds of muscles - a constant program of incredibly sophisticated adjustment. In every second you are literally doing thousands of actions, without having to pay attention to any of them.
It reminds me of the old joke about the Blonde (gender unspecified) who was always wearing earphones. Finally one of his/her coworkers got curious about what she/he was listening to and took them off his/her head. The blonde immediately dropped dead, and when the coworker put the earphones on they heard "breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.....". I'm allowed to tell this joke because I'm a blonde. Political correctness notwithstanding, its a good illustration of two things. One, it's a good thing we don't have to think about our basic body processes. Two, English really needs a gender neutral pronoun to deal with the modern age.
Jokes aside, if you think about what is really going on in your personal reality each second it becomes a little absurd when you conscious mind pops up and says "I'm in charge here". In the time it took you to read this your brain/body has performed millions of actions, and your conscious mind is still somewhere back there going "ooooooh ten trillion, that a really big number". The idea that we are in charge of anything at all is so ridiculous it's laughable. Yet this is the idea that most people go through their day with. "I have to take charge, to sort it all out, to solve this problem called life".
The bad new is that we really can't. We (our conscious mind/ego) can't even make ourselves breathe properly, let alone manage the untold trillions of actions we need to perform each day. If we can't even manage to keep ourselves running, how are we to handle the innumerable complexities of what's going on outside our skin. The truth is that life is simply beyond our control and our understanding. Seven plus or minus two just doesn't cut it.
The good new is that we don't have to. Life looks after itself the same way our body does. We exist within a field of infinite intelligence, and it's got it sorted. If we are smart we eventually learn to give up, to stop trying to take control of our life and let our life take control of us. Personal growth is not an action of becoming something greater that we currently are. It's an action of allowing our greatness to make itself known. If we are smart, we learn to stop fighting with ourselves and start cooperating with that which is trying to emerge. If we are smart, we learn that we aren't as smart as we may think we are.
The conscious mind has it's place, and is indeed intended to make choices and decisions, but if those choices are against the natural flow of our being it really doesn't work. It's useful to think of it like an iceberg, the visible emergence of a far greater weight of intelligence below the surface. The problems occurs when we think that our conscious mind is somehow separate and dominant, that it's in charge of things. The reality is that the iceberg will always go with the flow, following the deep currents of life. If we think that we should be going in another direction, then we simply create an experience of frustration and stress for ourselves. If we trust what is beneath the surface and concentrate on enjoying the journey, life becomes an adventure in curiosity and learning, not a pointless struggle for a control that is simply unachievable.
Well, that's how I see it these days. Grace doesn't surprise me anymore, but the things we do to fight it leave me amazed.
Peace be with you.
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