OPINIONS
The following are opinions that community members desire to express to you for your consideration. If they move you to act, please do so. If you differ with what is expressed, feel free to open issues for debate and/or submit your own opinions for the consideration of the community. Where possible keep focused on expressing your understanding of an issue/topic rather than attacking what others express. Trust that the members of our community have enough understanding and intelligence to evaluate what is expressed, feel what their hearts/souls tell them, and act accordingly. Just express yourself clearly and let your information flow from your heart. Those who are meant to hear will indeed hear and be moved to interact.
Doing Without Attachment to Results
This morning, I finished reading the Bhagavad Gita once again. This time the words carried a far greater meaning than ever before. I could see myself as Arjuna, asking such questions because I had personally reached a place where I was ready to know the answers. I could also see myself as Krishna ... for the answers he gave were known to my own SELF as well. With the exception of experiencing the magnificent form of Krishna in the manner that he presented himself to Arjuna, all else that was expressed I could relate to personally. More and more, I am finding this to be true of nearly all that I am moved to read.
For several weeks, I've been considering what the bottom line impact of my efforts for Beyond Imagination and for The Search for Center Newsletter have been. Overall, it is not clear that the results have indeed been worth the effort expended. Thus far, in over three weeks, most of the sections from last months newsletter have been accessed fewer than a half dozen times and at least one of these was by me. Effectively, that means it is costing me over 10 hours of time per month per reader to produce the newsletter. That seems to be a heavy investment for such little return. After seven months, I would have expected that the quality of material in the newsletter would have found an appropriate audience. That the readership is what it is provides feedback from spirit that my expectations are somehow incorrect, that this expression is intended to reach a self-selected few.
In the end, it matters not. All that is important is that I express what spirit moves me to express. This alone is my reward. What outcome results from my actions is not for me to decide, that is for spirit herself to determine. My error was being too attached ... looking for signs or proof that the world or a large audience enjoyed and approved of what would be expressed through me. Now, I know that such matters not. My test was to DO regardless of the apparent result, and to keep doing whatever spirit moved me to do. At this point, even if I alone am the only witness to what I must do, that is sufficient. If others bear witness as well, that is great too. Whether this be few or many is for spirit alone to determine.
Further, as the ONE, it is but other parts of Self that I greet in such manner. It is the I AM that expresses through us all to the I AM that is the other as well. The few contacts that the newsletter has brought into my life have shown me clearly what this means. Though I have not yet met these others in person, they are as close as my very heart ... and I am grateful for their friendship and their love. In them, I see the reflection of whom that I am stronger and more clearly than I see elsewhere.
In this life, I came to be one of the instruments through which spirit plays her eternal song. I am not of this world, but it is within this world that spirits expression must occur. Such has been the plan of consciousness all along. Spirit enfleshed has always been the sole aim of this game of life. It is the only goal, the only objective worthy of the pursuit of the I AM.
Doing without attachment to the results of the action, whatever these might be, is the way the Masters play the game. This is the way of Right Action. One does what must be done because such is one's dharma. One does not prefer action over inaction, nor inaction over action. Rather, one acts when such is necessary, and one refrains from action when such is necessary. And, one does whatever spirit moves one to do to the very best of one's ability. Such is how spirit expresses in flesh. To do without thought of reward or result, for the sole reason that such be one's duty to spirit; such is the way of Right Action. It is to the ONE SPIRIT alone that I bow, and that spirit is expressed through each of us.
The past two years have provided an incredible learning experience for
me, especially with respect to understanding how spirit
manifest through us to do her works in the world. I'm still
working with issues of how my will can be molded to be the expression of
the ONE will of spirit. For me, this has been
a major lesson. Coming from a basic disposition of being a hermit ... and
a strong-willed one at that ... with a fair share of ego and sense of self-importance
... this has not been the easiest thing for me to learn. Yet, while I can
be stubborn, I am not dense. My HEART is clearly in control in my life,
and it knows the source from which it springs.
Doing things because one must do them is my standard operating mode, not because "I" decide that such must be ... but because I have no other choice in the matter. I must do as spirit dictates through me. She is in control in my life. It is her activity that drives me to do what I must do. I would not even think about having a choice in these matters. I fully trust that she knows exactly what she is doing ... and in particular knows exactly what she would do through me. My only choice is to allow what must be to happen in my life. That is where my free will gets exerted ... and to a large degree, it is not truly free anymore, for there is only one right choice of action. My mind may not know and may not be able to reason what that right action is. However, my experience is that my HEART is not fooled or touched by indecision. It knows what is right and reveals it through my intuition as long as I am open to hear what spirit would say.
I know not how to relate this experience to others. This is not something one can realize via mind or thought. We can communicate about it only when there is a common experience to which our words and thoughts can refer. Without this common spiritual experience, there is no basis on which to reach agreement of understanding.
Thus far, it is only with those touched by the fire of spirit that I feel such affinity. Those who are aware of being part of the great I AM, the ONE, are my brethren ... for we are but cells of the same body of consciousness, the ONE body that is CONSCIOUSNESS herself. Recently, I have found that I am not so ALONE as I was feeling. Many others have gone before me, touched the fire of spiritual realization and attempted to bring their realization to the world, that spirit might be expressed more fully in this world. Paramahansa Yogananda, Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Krishnamurti and a host of others have for nearly 100 years brought the spiritual wisdom of the East, of the spiritual masters of India, to us in the West. These great teachers have pointed to the ways of Yoga that lead to the supreme union with Spirit that becomes the obsession of those consumed by the fire of spirit of those who realize the Self, the part of the ONE that they are.
It is curious that we have reached the century mark of such teachings and that I would just now be moved to find them that I might receive comfort in finally finding others who have ventured into the lands that consciousness herself has moved me to explore on my own. The reason for this is clear. It is as if I had to find a new path into this unknown territory. How could I be a wayshower if I had not first been an explorer of this high country of the spirit. My basic nature is such that I would not have accepted a path that had been created by another. The RAM in me would boldly go forth head first and butt it's way wherever it might be moved to wander.
There is a great new joy in finding for certain that others have for untold centuries reached these exalted realms and charted so clearly what they found. In fact, there is a sense that I am but rediscovering that which I had experienced before ... perhaps very long ago. It is as if I have returned because there is a job that must be done that I must do. YES, something within me has known this much of my life. I've always had the sense that I was in someway special, different from all others that I have encountered in very basic ways. It was as if I always knew that I was spirit, experiencing and expressing whom that I am, the I AM in this body that I occupy.
This understanding was innate. It was inherited when I was born ... it was not developed in the course of this lifetime. This life has been a continuous unfolding of the Self that I AM. It is curious that to date, consciousness herself has been my only teacher. There is a statement from metaphysics that rings in my head, "when the student is ready, the master will appear". For whatever reason, my experience and realization has been that for me personally, both student and master are ONE.
Interesting. I have never been moved to express this realization before. But, as I see it now, such is indeed the case. Spirit herself, my Self has been my only Guru. It was for me to approach the light directly this time and find it for myself without the aid of another. My reason tells me that this is because the light had already been lit within me, prior to my birth in this existence. When and where it might have been lit is unknown to me. However, without a doubt, 1993 was when the flame burst forth again in this lifetime ... and since then the fire has indeed been an all-consuming inferno.
As of this point, all that I was prior to the events and experiences of 1993 is lost in a past that no longer exists for me. I was reborn of spirit ... and that birth is a one-way passage from one world into another that was non-existent for me prior to that time. I am still Wayne, but the "I" that I AM has changed dramatically. It was not through my personal intent that the transformation occurred. Consciously, I had no awareness that would have even let me imagine what I experienced. Yet, at a deeper level, I know that some part of me created it all ... down to every last detail.
Where did I get the presense of mind that allows me to experience life in the manner that I do? If not from my environment and upbringing ... and surely not from my genetic makeup alone; then, from where did such knowingness and awareness spring forth? The well spring of my soul is that rich, the ties to spirit so great that I simply knew. There was never any sense that I should even begin to doubt the manner in which I experienced life, and the manner in which my consciousness expressed. It mattered not that it was unlike any others that I was to encounter. There was always a depth of trust in Self that knew no bounds. This has grown to an equivalent depth of trust in SPIRIT, in the ONE CONSCIOUSNESS that is the source of all awareness and experience.
I ramble on .. to what end I know not. As I type this I an watching a movie, occasionally looking down to the keyboard to see that this stream of thought is being captured correctly. It is as if there are two distinct channels operating concurrently. The two are very much independent. Both can be completely immersed in what they are doing without impacting the other. Even as these two occur, I sit back further and observe both activities happening before me. I am the awareness that observes these other two operating, not the limited awareness that is engaged in either of the two activities. Even now this third presence is considering what it means about the nature of reality and the nature of consciousness that I can be engaged in this manner at this time and be aware of what I am aware.
I've never read of such experience elsewhere, nor has another spoken to me of experiencing reality in this manner. Because of this, I have no reference points by which to assess how my experience relates to that of others. I speak now because consciousness so moves me to express. It is as if there is a strong force that desires that these words be given voice, that others may see by my example the variety of means through which consciousness may be enfleshed.
Judge these to be the writings of a madman if you will. If indeed such words flow through such vehicles, then let me be mad with spirit for the remainder of my days. For, out of such "madness" is the genius born that permits a brand new expression of spirit. And, at this time, in this place, such a new expression is indeed required.
How can such statements be pronounced with such boldness? ... as if there is no doubt as to their truth. It is because they come forth from the I AM which knows. They come forth from the ONE light that is the source of all such expression. Whether they come forth clearly or not is another matter; one that is not for me to judge. For that, you must look within yourself ... and see what vibrations and chords are struck. It is for your soul to recognize what of I speak, for it is the very same source that speaks through you. It is when the outer and the inner agree that true understanding has finally occurred. Until such time, no true communication has occurred.