Befriending Ourselves - Matt Licata

At some point along the way, each of us will be asked
to revision the ideas that have accompanied us to this
moment in our lives.  Although at times the call arrives
quietly and slowly, as a whisper guiding us into new
territory, for many it comes as an unexpected visitor,
erupting in the night as we find ourselves in transition,
confused, angry, heartbroken, uncertain, or depressed.
However it arrives, it is a reminder that even our most
sacred identities and beliefs tend to become encrusted
over time, worn-out symbols of a living reality no longer
so alive.  Somehow what was clear only days or even
moments ago lost its meaning and is no longer able to
accompany us into the next phase.

[.....]

To see our pain, confusion and struggle as an intelligent
communication from the deepest parts of ourselves is a
radical approach... To suffer consciously is an ancient,
sacred art lost in our time, replaced by a well-intentioned
solar self-help industry designed to take us out of the 
darkness and complexity and into consistent joy, flow,
happiness, and bliss...

[.....]

True healing is not a state in which we become liberated from
feeling, but freer and flexible to experience more fully the
deeper, more complex, and more nuanced dimensions of the
psyche... to touch the fullness of what it means to have taken
birth here....in the universal human experience.

[.....]

This exploration [of befriending ourselves] is not oriented in
transcending our vulnerability - fleeing into a state of power,
untouchability, and control - or safely hiding in some protected
spiritual cocoon where we've risen above it all.  It is not taking
refuge in spiritual concepts.  It is in knowing that in any moment
life will reorganize and rearrange all our constructed spiritual
identities and fantasies...

[.....]

We will never feel fully alive through embracing only those
feelings, images, and parts of ourselves that our families,
societies and [religious] authorities claim are worthy and
valid, but only through the courage required to embrace the
entire display, to befriend it all, and to transform the raw
material of our lives into the luminous expression of
wisdom and love in all its forms...

Matt Licata

Excerpts from the Introduction to his book:
A Healing Space:
Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times

~

Photo - from the Internet

 

Inner Myth - MacIver & Campbell

We each have an inner myth guiding our lives.  That
myth guides us without us knowing it.  It grows out of
all the things we've learned, the things we've failed at,
out of our insecurities, out of the triumphs we
experienced.  It is also affected by the spiritual current
that underlies our lives - the mythical journey that is seeking
to manifest in our outer life if we'll only pay attention to it.
It is the seed that is wanting to grow into a tree, the call 
waiting to be answered, but risky.  That path is risky.

What is the inner myth guiding your life, unknown to you?
What mysterious figure, what spirit entity of wisdom and
kindness might you invite to accompany you, guide you,
on your journey?

Rod MacIver
Heron Dance

~

Joseph Campbell says myth opens the heart and the imagination
to the wonders of the universe and the mystery of existence.
He says myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the
human life.  He says that myths can teach us how to live a 
human lifetime, not grounded in ancient religions, that support
our personal quests for wisdom and happiness.

From the 4 Ways that Myth Can Change Your Life,
According to Joseph Campbell.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Mysterious Man with the flat hat
and long robe in the curtain... :)

~

What stories do we tell ourselves,
and what beliefs do we live by
that may be outdated now?

 

A Deeper Reality ? - a meandering...

Photo by Johannes-Plenio on Unsplash
Johannes Plenio website

 "I turn everything over to 'The Universe'!
The Beautiful, Beautiful 'hidden' Universe..."

These were the words I wrote in my journal late one
night recently, listening to the Deep Quiet within...

I used the term "Universe" because it is free of
religious persona, identity, and association;
is free of concept...

then came:

In the "hidden" Universe everything is all OK!

But why did the word "hidden" emerge?

What is this "hidden" Universe?

More words came:

The "hidden" Universe is behind matter reality;
the spatial intelligence behind
manifest existence...

(Maybe some of you already know this...
But it felt new to me that night.)

I didn't get the sense it was the universe of microbes,
or DNA, or ghosts, or aliens, etc.  But the "Universe" that
is behind the manifest Universe;
an animating universe of Source Energy...

I felt a vibration in my body resonating with the words...

~

The thought arose that maybe I've been trying too hard 
to "spiritualize" everything -
that is - impose a certain "spirituality/or belief onto life
circumstances, which has caused stress in the system...
Like there's some kind of "spiritual" standard that I'm 
supposed to live up to, like self-sacrifice, duty, obligation,
being responsible, etc.  That I'm not being "spiritual" enough,
or doing it "right";  that it's something I have to earn by "doing"
something; but I am unable to live up to the "spiritual" standards
others have set.

~

So I, for some innate reason, turned that night to what I call
"The Universe"
- and gave it all up:
"spirituality";
the struggle about what I should "do",
about my current life circumstance;
my sense of obligation, and my fear-filled mind
about what might happen,
and started trusting that everything would be alright...

Again - a full body vibration...

My pen kept writing:

The "spirituality" that we practice is "flat."

(but what did that mean?)

With the introduction of the word "hidden" the "Universe"
became/felt dynamic and full.  And I had the sense that "worship",
or belief in one figure or religion is like - obsolete - because
that is an earthbound construct!  "Spirituality" is an earthbound
construct!  The Universe is much "fuller" and has no need for
"spiritual" constructs.  "Spirituality" keeps you constrained,
confined, limited.

What have I come across here!?

Can this be true?  - I wrote...

It was as if I suddenly realized that I had been focused on the
wrong things all these years.  "Spirituality", deities, personas,
and concepts like "enlightenment" and "awakening."
Flat concepts and constructs.

Somehow I *felt* that there is a much fuller range of Reality
...behind everything seen...

And with that I felt a vibration go through my body again...
And knew that my experience here is just a blip in a bigger
Universe, and maybe doesn't exist at all!

This reality, in some sense, is like living on a flat screen TV
with events taking place on the surface.  But there is depth to
"The Universe" that is multi-dimensional or more holographic;
and empty of anything contrived.

~

Maybe I was given a glimpse of a deeper Reality.

Maybe...

I don't know.

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 22, 2023

~

You are detaching, the old is over and the new
is yet to come.  The Soul has cast its moorings and
is sailing for distant places.

Remember the instruction:
Whatever you come across - go beyond.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Johannes-Plenio on Unsplash
website

 

Wandering Without a Trail...

Wandering without a trail,
my focus on finding The Truth
is realized as a self-made illusion.

Not needing to find yet another belief system;
no longer a need for a specific path
cut by others; not the illusion of 
future "enlightenment" through practices,
disciplines, or self-control...

Finding comfort in loosening the
constraints of  the "spiritual cocoon"
that I wrapped myself in for so long;
even the mantel of meditation
has become too heavy and is unraveling -
becoming frayed - like an old prayer shawl.

Reborn from the Chrysalis of my comforting beliefs,
finding freedom in Just BEing ME,
without suffocating concepts of dogma or doctrine,
or a defined "spiritual image"; instead, 
rediscovering myself...

Breaking free from the "spiritual" constructs;
the scaffolding of beliefs and ideas about
"spirituality" that propped "me" up;
caught in spiritual ideals and identities,
unable to fly...

Freed now from the cage of my own making
I can breathe, I can LIVE
intuitively, being moved from within,
listening for what calls to me...
discovering freedom in being open to where life goes,
as I wander without a trail...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 18, 2019

~

Photo - taken by my father 1952/53

~

"our grasp of truth.....may not last forever.

Hermann Hesse

 

Fantasies We Live By - Terry Pratchett

"You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

Really?  As if it was some kind of pink pill?  No. Humans
need fantasy to be human.  To be the place where falling
angel meets the rising ape.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little - ?"

Yes. As practice.  You have to start out learning to believe
the little lies.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty.  That sort of thing.

"They're not all the same at all!"

You think so?  Then take the Universe and grind it down to
the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and
then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.
And yet (Death waved a hand).  And yet you act as if there
is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some...
some rightness in the Universe by which it may be judged.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point -"

My point exactly...

Terry Pratchett
From Hogfather

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Surrender - Frank Ostaseski

Surrender is not the same as letting go.
Surrender is more about expansion - we expand into a
spaciousness, a boundless quality of being that can include
but not be contained by the previously limiting beliefs that
once defined us...  In surrender we are no longer enslaved by
our pasts.  No longer imprisoned by our former identities...

Surrender happens when we stop fighting.  We stop fighting
against ourselves.  We stop fighting against life.  We stop
fighting against death.  Resistance ceases to occur.  We no
longer put up any defense.

Surrender is deeper than letting go.  Letting go is still a
strategy of the mind occupied with the past.  It is an
activity of the personality, and the personality is primarily
concerned with perpetuating itself.  Letting go is still me

making a choice.  Ego cannot surrender.

Surrender is effortless, easeful non-doing of our essential
nature without interference. We are simply aware - and
often happens when we are exhausted...
[from all the distractions and fighting and resistance.]

Frank Ostaseski
From - The Five Invitations

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering