the witness

(photo courtesy pixelstar)


A kind-hearted, well-loved woman, married to a good husband, with three healthy, young children, is told she has a brain tumor and only months to live.

Perhaps she goes to church, but is not terribly religious. Perhaps she is open to the spiritual, but frankly and understandably has had to devote her time to herself and her family and hasn’t had the energy to consider all the mysteries of life.

Her heart broken, she wearily and fearfully comes to us and asks: Why do bad things
happen to good people?

Obviously, any such moment requires the utmost compassion and will draw upon one’s personal knowledge and relationship to the person.

The only rule is: follow our heart in that moment.

Perhaps the person is asking for another world view. Perhaps the person is seeking to understand our personal belief system, in which case we must share our understanding as honestly as possible because it is in the truth of our belief that trust will be earned.

In such a situation there are no more solutions to be suggested.

Talking about karma and the cycles of nature and faith in the seemingly unfathomable, in the face of the knowledge that loved ones will be left behind and lifelong dreams unrealized, may be too simplistic and even hurtful.

Even if we ourselves are absolutely secure in our belief in the perfection of all life and that death is not an ending, but a renewal, perhaps the most poignant allowance we can give another is to tell them that we do not understand why such things happen. But that they most certainly do.

But perhaps the best that can be said is to say nothing at all, but just to be present for the person, to bare witness to their anger and anguish, to allow them to vent and rage, cry and accuse. In such a case the true gift one can offer is non-judgment.

Allow the moment to be what it will be. Allow the words and pain to flow. They have already been to the problem-solvers and know all the possibilities. They don’t need more facts. They don’t need solutions. They need to be heard. Their pain and fear and anger needs to be honored.

Very few people in our world offer the act of grace to another of simply holding one’s hand, remaining silent, and being fully present without judgment.

It is in such a profound moment that one comes to the deepest awareness that life simply is.

Perhaps the most powerful words we can say are that regardless of the why and the why not, that we will be there for that person in every way that is possible for us. That if they should ask, that we will walk beside them; that we will do our best to clear their path ahead; that we will hold them deeply and dearly in our heart; and that we will always honor their life by we ourselves trying to live up to their example of honesty and courage – and humanity – in the face of the unexplainable.

Ultimately and finally, we must let the person have their experience, however it manifests.

Rather than answers, perhaps the most helpful thing we can say is: I don’t know.

And I am here for you.

Love and healing asks nothing else.

crossroads

(photo courtesy richard_b)



today I will embrace the absolute uncertainty of life and open myself wide to the infinite opportunities the Universe will present to me to achieve my highest purpose effortlessly, unexpectedly and miraculously.




(in gratitude to chuck & patti leviton, synergy seminars)

the blueprint

(photo courtesy lusi)

Close your eyes, place both your feet firmly on the earth.

Take a deep breath in through your nose, exhaling through your mouth, allowing your body to relax. Continue doing this.

Straighten your spine, draw your shoulders back and relax all the muscles in your body. Relax your jaw, relax your stomach muscles and just be in your body.

Focus on a memory of a very positive nature, or simply think about anything that brings lightness, joy and happiness to your heart. Try and remember more occasions when you felt aligned, at peace and filled with the joy of life, where every human being you laid eyes upon, you loved, and the world was such a beautiful place.

Feel the memories of the feelings stirring in your heart chakra, feel it stirring in your belly until it fills your entire physical body.

Now to imagine a blueprint. It can be a standard set of blueprints, or blueprints in the general shape of your body. We are now going to encode this blueprint with information. All the information will be charged with the feelings of lightness, joy and positivity that you have tapped into.

Begin by programming this blueprint with some of your fondest and most positive memories. And you can do this in any creative way your imagination indicates to you.

Now begin programming your blueprint with all the words that stir positive, light and happy feelings inside of you.

Now begin programming in the images that evoke the same feelings of joy, happiness and lightness.

Focus your concentration now on your immediate family and your close social group experiencing positive, joyful, loving interactions. Program all of this into your blueprint.

Move your concentration now to acquaintances, perhaps your work colleagues. See all of them experiencing joy, happiness and freedom and programming it into your blueprint.

Extend this to strangers you may see on a regular basis but have never spoken to and expand beyond that – your community, the province you live in.

Move it to embrace the country you live in. Expand this vision to the continent you live upon. Now extend it to the rest of the world.

Draw your concentration back to your blueprint. Take note of all the information you have programmed in it, and if there is anything you wish to add, do so now.

Allow your feelings and your emotions to inspire what you wish to add to your morphogenetic field, for it is the intensity of the emotions and of the feelings that root the intensity maintained within the information within your blueprint.

Take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, imagine the blueprint you have created finding its resting place within your energy field and the collective body of Mother Earth. Imagine roots extending from the core of the blueprint you have created. See these roots penetrating Mother Earth’s body, moving to the center of her body. See these roots being cemented within the core of her body.

Take another deep breath in, and as you exhale, take a few moments to acknowledge what you have created. Know that what you have done is real, and will impact on your life in a positive way, because that is the information that you have programmed it with.

Take another deep breath in, and as you exhale, draw your consciousness back into your physical body, concentrating on the time and place you are currently in.

So It Is

(channel unknown)

love vi (from Rumi)

(photo courtesy nevit)



Look at Love...
how it tangles
with the one fallen in love

look at spirit
how it fuses with earth
giving it new life

why are you so busy
with this or that or good or bad
pay attention to how things blend

why talk about all
the known and the unknown
see how unknown merges into the known

why think separately
of this life and the next
when one is born from the last

look at your heart and tongue
one feels but deaf and dumb
the other speaks in words and signs

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once

the wolf and the lamb
the lion and the deer
far away yet together

look at the unity of this
spring and winter
manifested in the equinox

you too must mingle my friends
since the earth and the sky
are mingled just for you and me

be like sugarcane
sweet yet silent
don't get mixed up with bitter words

my beloved grows
right out of my own heart
how much more union can there be

-- Rumi

(translated by Nader Khalili)

Balancing Breath

(photo courtesy tigressblu)



This is an easy practice to balance the energy of all four bodies:

Relax and move into a meditative state. Breathe deeply a few times.

On the inbreath, breathe in slowly through the nose to the following mantra, 'spoken' silently: I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA.

Imagine the breath filled with light as it enters through your nose and continues into your heart center and from there spreading out to every cell of your body. This balances the physical body.

Hold the breath in as you 'speak' the same mantra, imagining the light spreading outward appx. three inches and filling your etheric body (which is a duplicate of the physical). This balances the etheric body.

Exhale the breath -- out of the mouth -- to the same mantra as you imagine the light spreading outward about six inches and filling your emotional body.

Hold the breath out as you 'speak' the same mantra and imagine the light expanding outward about three more inches filling your mental body.

Then repeat the entire cycle of four breaths for a total of twelve cycles.

Namaste'

Light

(photo courtesy deziner02)



Light, as we know it, is power, is heat, is illumination. Directed light can cause movement. Focused light can even penetrate solid matter. Light is also a carrier, a facilitator, if you will, of other aspects of itself, which we call frequencies.

So it is with spiritual Light.

Light is what we are. Light is the true Divine Clay of which we are made. Move inward through our buildings and our bodies and we will come to molecules and then atoms and farther into sub-atomic particles and farther into sub-division after sub-division after sub-division of energy. We will arrive, ultimately, into spiritual Light.

The physical world as we know it is Light in its most dense, compacted form.

Divine Light is the cup, and the water within, and the hand holding it.

In general spiritual terms Light and Love are interchangeable. Not love as we all too often experience it, not as an emotion, or a sentimentality, but love as energy -- Divine Energy.

Love, like Light, is creation. Love/Light is cohesion. Love/Light brings things together and holds them there joyfully. All that is not Love/Light, ultimately, breaks apart.

When we demonstrate love to ourselves and to our fellow humans and to our planet, even in its all too often inadequacy, we are using the same energy that holds atomic structure together. We are using the very same creative energy the Divine uses to spin the universe and grow a rose: We are creating Light.

True Light, like true Love, is truly not for the faint of heart.

present tense prayers

(photo courtesy oscar mota)



something to consider as you meditate on your own prayers and mantras is to put them in the present tense. the old energy way of praying is to ask for something in the hopes that you're a good enough person to receive the prayer's blessings.

the new energy way (actually the only energy way) of prayer is to speak from a place of gratitude that your requests have already been answered: Why wouldn't they? As Yeshua says, "Ask and you shall receive." Period.

certainly, there can be a positive energy gained by the accumulation of all the millions, or billions of people who have joined their energy to a certain prayer, or mantra, but there can also be an accumulated energy that comes from a place of fear, or lack of self-worth as the prayer, or mantra is uttered.

here are two examples of well-known Christian prayers in their standard texts:
and tense:

the prayer of Jabez

Oh, that You would bless me indeed,
and enlarge my territory,
that Your hand would be with me,
and that You would keep me from evil,
that I may not cause pain!

Amen.


the prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

how about trying this instead, or in combination:

the prayer of Jabez

Thank You for blessing me indeed,
for enlarging my territory,
that Your hand is with me,
and that I am safe from evil,
that I cannot cause pain!

Amen.

the prayer of St. Francis


Thank you Lord, for making me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, I will sow love;
where there is injury, I will pardon;
where there is doubt, I will bring faith;
where there is despair, I will bring hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
thank you for granting that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

"Spiral"

(photo courtesy dolphin22)


There's a reason the mountaintop
is at the end of a winding path,
and not a straight line.
The climb would be too hard
and too frightening
with no place to rest
and no time to look out over the world.
A straight line is terrifyingly efficient -
and terribly uninteresting.
Yes, you'll get there faster,
but why?
What story will you have to tell anyone you should meet at the end?
And if we're not our stories,
then what are we?

I want to hear your story.
But take your time.

Don't Think! Know.

(photo courtesy mad-ame)

We all understand that the human brain is a pretty amazing creation; just consider all it can do as you drive a car: contemplate speed and distance, adjust gas flow, consider braking possibilities, steer, scan the horizon, listen to music from the radio, listen to a conversation on a cell phone, eat a sandwich, talk, guess at the future, remember the past, all while keeping the human body humming along -- pretty much all at the same time.

We have relied on the brain for eons and it has brought us far, but as we enter the new world being birthed around us, this miraculous information processor will fail us.

Simply put, as the frequency of the planet continues to raise, too much information and stimulation will be coming at the brain too quickly and it will crack under the pressure.

We are already seeing the first stages of this with road rage, school shootings, drug use, alcohol abuse, fragmenting relationships, nightmarish headlines of seemingly inexplicable violence, and just the ever-increasing tension, stress and nervousness of modern life.

All of these events can have their 'logical' explanations, but they are all born out of the pressure-cooker of a planet becoming smaller and smaller as life becomes faster and faster.

And ultimately, for all the magnificent accomplishments of the human brain, it serves primarily two purposes: to keep the body running and to protect us. Even the inventions that sprang from the human mind that brought great joy and health and an easier life to billions, came from one desire: to protect the body, and itself.

And that desire can only come from one place: fear.

And fear, by its very nature, is a limiting force. And so the human brain will never be able to fully escape from its own prison.

So what is to be done? Continue to celebrate and nourish the human mind and be grateful for its abilities to keep us safe and move us forward, but we must stop relying on it in this new era.

Instead we must develop and rely on our intuition. Our 'gut' reactions. Our feelings. We must switch the focus of our daily intentions from the brain to the heart. And I mean this literally.

The human brain will always be trapped in a three-dimensional world. But the human heart -- our intuition -- only exits beyond space and time. The human heart 'knows' without limitation. It can process and understand information beyond the speed of light. And it always -- always -- knows the correct path to take.

The human heart operates without fear. It doesn't understand fear because it knows that fear is an illusion. An illusion of the brain.

In the coming days, months, and years we will need to have access to a greater and deeper awareness to guide us through the coming transition gracefully.

What separated those who went back into the World Trade Center towers after the initial attacks and those who stayed out, or stayed home? Those that went back inside were operating from their mind. Those that did not were operating from their hearts and feelings.

The brain only offers decisions that make sense to it, sense in a three-dimensional world: in order to get to "C" you have to first go through "A" and then "B". But the heart always knows the shortest path and thinks spherically. It knows that sometimes the best way to get to "C" is to go to "R" and "Z" first.

Of course, to follow the heart and our intuitions requires faith, something the brain can't comprehend. The brain only sees faith as fear and something to be protected against. It sees faith as the illusion, when in fact, faith is as true an energy as light and heat.

Faith is not a concept. Faith is real. It is power. And it is the only thing that will get us through the coming times (and, of course, I am not talking about religion, which is fear-based).

How to strengthen our connection to the heart and our intuition? Stay in love as much as possible. Stay out of fear. Stay away from judgment and criticism -- not just because they are good practices, but because they may well save your life.

Imagine beautiful, powerful, radiant Light coming from your 'gut,' just below the navel. Imagine that same Light coming from your solar plexus (below the rib cage). Imagine Light coming from the center of your heart. Imagine brilliant Light coming from your third eye (the pineal gland, about two inches inside the brain behind the root of the nose). Imagine Light coming into the top of your head.

Imagine this Light ALL THE TIME, if only for a second or two. Just become aware of it and you will be opening and strengthening your intuition and your connection to your Higher Self.

Practice ESP. Wonder who is on the phone before you answer it. Take a moment in the grocery store and 'feel' which aisle you want to go down first.

And always -- ALWAYS -- listen to that still, small voice whispering inside you to turn left rather than right. Even if it doesn't make sense -- especially if it doesn't make sense.

And know that sometimes that guidance will seemingly get you lost, or not have been as effective as you'd hoped. But also know that your Higher Guidance is testing you as well to see if you will follow it against all logic. Your Higher Guidance wants to know you will follow it down the (seemingly) wrong grocery aisle so that it knows you will follow it out of the building moments before the earthquake.

Praise the mind, but place your trust in your feelings and intuitions, and you will be able to navigate all storms perfectly.

Be Still And Know I AM GOD

(photo courtesy queveal)
this is one of the simplest and most powerful meditations you can practice:

find your most relaxing, focused pose. center yourself. breathe deeply several times. then speak out loud, or silently: "Be still and know I am God."

however, the true power comes from the way and intent with which you say it.

command "Be still!" until every cell of your body is paying attention to you.

speak "and know," or simply "know" with deep conviction; the deep conviction of absolute fact.

don't speak "I am," but "I AM;" the full and complete presence of the Divine within you. You as a direct manifestation of God. Speak these two words with the authority of God within you.

finally, end with "God," but not as you just intoned "I AM," but with utter simplicity and truth and joy and love.

namaste',
Bradley

with enormous gratitude to "The Impersonal Life" by Joseph Benner