Love BEING — Reflection 11.27

            Love is the conscious sense of being in partnership with my own essence. I am a being. Also, I am Being Itself.

            Yes, you should love yourself no matter what, even the ego you. Love the divine consciousness within you and the divine consciousness which created you. Love Being, which is your existence.

            The essence of all people is the joy of being. The essence of all people is life celebrating being alive. What if you tried to feel this inner essence? Just try to feel It, without the condition that It do anything.

Photo by Anni Roenkae on Pexels.com

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The Why

This morning, I ran another 11 miles to count for my Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee. There are less than 100 miles to go. I\’m looking forward to finishing. I can hardly wait to finish so that I no longer have this commitment hanging over my head. Oh, sure, I go running alot without a virtual race commitment. And I am finishing this virtual race at east 7 weeks before the deadline. But because it is a \”race\” I\’ve felt compelled to do as many miles as possible, between 5 and 15 every day depending on whether I work or not. I still get around to lifting weights 2 or 3 times a week, but I have ditched exercise machines for doing miles. I think that the exercise machines offered some advantages which I am missing while engaged in the race. They were working some different muscles, were non-impact and were high intensity. But I feel compelled to get miles done first.

Why is that? 

This map shows me at mile 527, 83%; though I\’ve run another 11 miles since this map was updated.

Aside from running miles and working at Starbucks, I\’ve been attempting to build momentum for my writing project. Just writing this blog is writing.

I\’ve also made a little progress on Jean Paul Sartre\’s \”Being and Nothingness.\” I like this alot: 

\”Consciousness has nothing substantial, it is pure \”appearance\” in the sense that it exists only to the degree to which is appears. But it is precisely because consciousness is pure \”appearance\”, because it is total emptiness (since the entire world is outside it)–it is because of this identity of appearance and existence within it that it can be considered as the absolute.\”

Or these phrases:…\”The percipi referred us to a percipiens, the being of which has been revealed to us as consciousness\”….\”the immanence of self in self\”…

For one thing, I encountered the word percipiens within the first 4 pages of this book and could not grasp what was meant, but now I do. 

For another thing, whether Sartre meant it or not, the descriptions of consciousness as nothing substantial and pure appearance seem to help me know and deeply feel my own higher consciousness. My total existence as a being and an appearing existence seem to make sense to me and I feel very good pondering and allowing these abstract notions.

Brummerhop Saturday

You\’ve seen this before: Brummerhop Park. I jog an odd figure 8, getting 0.36 miles per lap. Today I jogged 30 laps. But before I did that, I ran 90 minutes at 11:30/mile in El Lago. So I got 7.85 miles at race pace and 10.6 miles at heat stress pace. Brummerhop park has good trees and there were some clouds; but still a sweat fest out there today. I drank 70 oz of liquids but still lost 3 pounds. Such is summer in Houston.

Overall, an awesome way to spend Saturday morning.

But I am a DNS today. I had signed up for a 25k trail race. But on Friday night the race director sent out an e-mail about 50% of the course being ankle deep in water; and massive mosquitoes. I thought about this. 150 runners doing one or more laps would really churn the place up. I had no desire to walk slowly in mud for even one lap. So, another race fee bites the dust.

I am doing really well with my running; but it is unfocused. Marathons #47 should get done next weekend. I do hold two sets of airplane tickets to go to 2 marathons. I\’m not really sure of my interest in just doing marathons for the sake of counting them.

My lust for Sri Chinmoy and self transcendence running seems to have worn off. In June, my marathon trips will also provide a visit to the convent I used to belong to. That is on my mind. 

I\’m not too old to be a runner. But a reason for why I do this needs renewal. I liked my laps in Brummerhop today; but I wasn\’t existentially engaged. Every morning, I sit with my spiritual books and become existentially engaged. Then I go to work and lose it. Then I come home and regain it. Running used to bring it. This morning\’s fast run brought ideas for a work project. That\’s nice; but part 2 of the run was mental nonsense. thoughts running all over the place. None of them interesting.

I\’m struggling with myself.

I need to meditate in silence. Let go. Be satisfied with just being. That is the problem; having taken the ego\’s toys, I am left with dissatisfaction. Just being doesn\’t give my ego anything.

Remembering my Parents

Many people write essays about their parents and in retrospect, their parents look good. Mine don\’t; forgiven but not saints. What follows is my opinion, my judgement, or my beauty and love; depending on your perspective.

I will be 50 on Monday. When my dad was 50, I wasn\’t even born. When my mom was 50, I was 15. I hated her guts; not just because it was a teen age thing, but she was a drunk. My mom drank every night, usually through a black out. She was mean in her drunkeness. I hated both my parents and did not value them. Looking back, I have no wisdom that I got from them. They did not teach eternal truths or character values.

Now, here is the retrospect part where I let them off the hook: because of watching them, I have a tremendous compassion and empathy for all people. In them, I saw extreme degradation of the human soul. I knew it was also my soul. I knew we were all degrading our souls by our petty lives. I felt divine sorrow, as if I was God himself lamenting over my lost children. I remember seeing my mother with my human eyes, swaying in drunken sluriness before me. I remember seeing with the eyes of my heart, the unactualized soul behind the drunk. I watched my father doze off on the couch after yet another dinner time emasculation administered by my drunken mother, or his terribly wounded pleading as he asked me to explain the drunk. In them, I could see their divine essence, trapped and crying out to me. The divine soul that I saw was not at all physically visible. It was just a thing I knew in my heart, as I hatefully looked with my human eyes at these impoverished people. When I see soul degradation today, in others or myself, I feel pain and sorrow. I work spiritually and metaphysically to undo the situation.

We, all of us, do things to degrade our soul and cut off the spiritual communication with God. [I say \”our soul\” because my real life is not my own, but God\’s; and everyone is the same creation of God. I say \”my ego\” because egos are separated from God and only pretend to exist as stand alones.] The real pain I feel in compassion and empathy is the tragedy of what we, all of us, do to hurt our selves and trash our divine dignity. My compassion and empathy come into play all the time: as people, we do things which are extremely little, puny and ego oriented. We do almost everything and anything to please our egos. We buy little trinkets, waste our time on TV, chase after money and cheap thrills, and over-eat our lives away; wondering why we are never satisfied and don\’t know God. The message of all spirituality is that God is within. While I participate in littleness to a great degree, I also resist the tendency, and practice turning in to the inner divine.

As a child, my parents certainly played a huge role in un-dignifying me; stripping me of any semblance of human dignity. I came out of childhood without a scrap of self worth; and maybe never even heard of the concept. In fact, I was an achiever; but I never thought of that as a message that I was a good person. I thought I had managed to fool all the other stupid people into believing I was good. I thought that I was really rotten but good at hiding it. I kept pleasing people and getting approval; and then thinking they were stupid because they approved of me. Nothing satisfied me.

A good deal of my adult life has been spent in finding and healing my human dignity, our soul. I haven\’t drank for over 23 years. Getting sober was the start of the journey. I\’m sure that the only point of my life and my spiritual journey has been the finding of our soul. For sure, the reconnection to God is the main focus of my life.

A Course in Miracles, the Bible, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist writings, all of these are treasure troves. In them, I mine for true wealth, true connection with God and all that is. Since the age of 22, even before getting sober, I spent hours everyday meditating on some holy writing. And after listening to the words of the writing, I listen to the words of the Silence. I want to hear what God is saying to me. And then I go to work. And then I go running and lift weights. I drink distilled water, learning to enjoy it more than anything else I could put in my mouth. I listen to the Silence, learning to enjoy it more than anything else I could put in my head. All the while, I am strengthening the sense of our soul, allowing it to live instead of my ego. Our soul is my human dignity. Our soul is my heart. Our soul is my reason for being. When I am done with my ego delusion called human life, I will exclusively be this magnificent soul, that always was and always will be and is not my own. I really only exist in the heart of God.

Monday January 12 is my 50th birthday. Stop back by and leave me a comment!

Sunday

Running Mania is still lost to me. The webmaster has not replied. I still don\’t know why I can\’t get into that web page. I miss them.

Where do I start with everything else? Yesterday I had a vision. Today I felt depression. I do somewhat deserve to be raked over the coals. You should say, \”Spirit Flower, it has only been three days since surgery. Of course that incision hurts if you try to bend your arm too much.\”

Let me go back to yesterday\’s vision. Early in the morning, as I drove the 30 miles to a nearby town to get my organic groceries, I heard an interview with the author of a book about Tiger Woods. His point was that he had experienced failure in his career, and decided to follow Tiger around for his 2008 season to see what he could learn from a winner. By 10 am, I suddenly had that book in my hands and I rushed home to begin reading it.

I read for a little bit and then got up to vacuum the living room. I happened to remember to check the bag and decided to change it. Within a few minutes, I had deftly installed a new bag, using only one arm. I vacuumed, and then laid back down with the book. One of the first things that struck me was an INTUITIVE vision. In the book, it talked about the crowds of people who cheer for Tiger. I suddenly had an INTUITIVE vision of angels and spirit guides and all the host of heaven surrounding me and cheering me on. My victory was that I had not ignored the thought to change my vacuum cleaner bag; instead taking action. The main thing that differentiated me from thousands of people was that I did not ignore the intuitive information. Tiger and his adoring fans had provided a symbol that my intuitive spirit had jumped all over; and which I had not ignored. The whole host of heaven loves me, cares for me and goes wild with joy every time I manage to get off the bed. That I can think like this at all is a major victory for spiritual work. I\’ll never be a world class golfer, or runner, or engineer; but as a spiritual practitioner, I definitely do the work of a world class mystic.

The secret of my soul\’s being is found in this little thing: I changed the vacuum cleaner bag.

Now today, I got up at 5, did my morning spiritual study and went to Kansas City for an 8 am mass, which I left early in order to run 5 miles before a 10 am fellowship meeting. Then, I came home and continued to read the Tiger Woods book. For whatever reason, I was thinking about the large supply of drugs I have in the house. I had a bunch of pain killers left over from last March, but still took a prescription for another bottle. I did not get the pain killers for pain or even addiction but because I think I may want to kill myself some day. Don\’t be alarmed. I\’ve thought this for most of my life.

I am alive today mainly because I did not decide to kill myself. I have no reason to be alive or to kill myself; unless I believe some theological notion I read in a book that says, \”I\’m here learning how not to come back,\” or \”I\’m here because I know the secret and I\’m helping everyone else.\” It is possible I\’m alive because it is not up to me; but up to my inner source. I last went through this life or death decision making process last June. At that time, I concluded that my life was optional but that I had decided to make the most of it.

Now here I am reading about Tiger Woods and thinking about how I have no reason to live. I have enough drugs in the house to kill myself. I have enough running shoes in the house for about 9 months. I have enough fruits and vegetables in the house for a week. I go to work to earn a paycheck, not because of any thrilling accomplishments. Even if I was as successful as Tiger Woods, I don\’t think I\’d want to stay alive just to either win another tournament or to get another multi-million dollar paycheck.

I sense the heavenly host surrounding me. They are holding their breath and crossing their fingers. What will be the outcome of my current introspection? I won\’t decide to take some old men\’s word for it and adopt the Church\’s catechism as my reason for being. I tried that already. I won\’t decide to get involved with service work. I tried that already too. Will I stay alive \”just because,\” and continue to live a meaningless existence? Or will I throw my heart over the bar and continue my spiritual work?

I choose the latter: hope or faith. I might spend the next 6 weeks wondering why I am alive. It is awesome to me that I even allow myself to consider the question consciously. For now, I drank a cup of coffee and went out on the back porch to ride the exercise cycle, walk on the treadmill and then lay on the living room floor to do 150 abdominals. After that, I make some fresh juice. All seems fine. The question is shunted aside for now.

The Heavenly Host ROARS!!!!!!!!!! Cheering out the wazoo.

Defiance, My Outstanding Characteristic

Why do I write this blog? There is a little peer pressure as some people actually like what I write. Other people like that I do write because they are happy critiquing my spirituality. I don’t write because I’m trying to teach any one. I am not a teacher. I write because I am enamored with myself. I write because I like to read my own blog. From ACIM:

“…everyone is seeking escape from the prison he has made…”

Last night, I made it into position for evening study and meditation. I realized that I exerted my spiritual will over my slothful will. I had to overcome a tiny barrier to get away from the computer or my book, and sit at the table to study, meditate and listen to my Spirit Self. In the morning, spiritual practice is habitual, but in the evening it requires the force of my will. Ultimately, the force of my will is what initiated the prayer and meditation all those years ago.

Is it my will? Or is it My Will? I am distinguishing here between my small normal ego consciousness and my larger spiritual consciousness; and not saying My Will is God, but just a transcended level of consciousness. The fact that I seek to transcend at all is due to My Will, that higher consciousness which is beyond my ordinary human selfishness, fear, hatred, anger and guilt. My truth is My Will.

I often wonder why I ended up in partnership, essentially committed unequivocally, to My Will. I say partnership, but I almost mean slave or bond servant. My Will wants what is best for me more than I do; and exerts pressure on me to serve its demands. I am a tool to My Will. My life belongs and is owned by My Will. I see so many who are asleep. So many do not fight society’s conditioning and programming and seek to go beyond materialism and religion. In AA we say, there but for the grace of God go I. In every single truly sober alcoholic, there is this force of My Will that somehow leaked out of the drunkenness and forced that person into complete non-negotiable sobriety. In AA’s Big Book, it says defiance is the outstanding characteristic of alcoholics. But of course! Who could get permanently sober without defying not only the drug itself, all physical and mental cravings and the bulk of society who thinks it’s ok to have “just one.”

I view most of society’s programming and conditioning as addiction. However, somehow, My Will leaked into my drunkenness and I struggled to achieve consciousness, to wake up.

I started this reflection wanting to express gratitude for my defiance. Sitting here now, I realize: I am not my Creator; I am not My Will and have no choice in the fact of awakening; awakening will happen. I can only hinder My Will by periodically getting ego drunk through the temporary choice to defy My Will. So there you have it. I can resist My Will temporarily; but ultimately My Will is intent on awakening and I really belong to It.

Fire and Humility

Last evening, as I sat at my table in silence, gazing, I realized that my spirituality does not make me better than other people. I became conscious that at some level my ego hoped that spirituality would cause me to excell or be revered (ie special to God and worshiped by others). I am less successful at life than many many people. In fact large quantities of unspiritual people are hugely successful. I can barely get through a day. I am usually terrified of work and filled with hatred. Somehow, this reminded me of the seventh step of humility from the Rule of Benedict: I am a worm and no man. I love it when I voluntarily grovel in the dust. It is much easier (emotionally) to consciously be still and not compete or think I\’m better.

This morning, I was once again pondering my spirituality. Once again I was wondering how some people have the Oneness experience and others of us have the slow growth experience. I worked at stopping my thinking and not expecting anything. I realized that the muddiness of my exterior life will never go away. My problems may look different than other people\’s but the muddiness and futile attempts to fix them is the same. Nothing in the ego world can be fixed. Nothing, not a new job or a relationship or money, will ever make the mud go away. It will only always be muddy. A thought went through my head, \”There must be an inner fire, a blazing essence, which is Christ, which is everywhere and in everyone.\” I cannot see the fire. Its emotion is subtle knowing. I know it. The fire is the God Presence, Love. Seeing the fire in others and all around me is my new attitude which is grateful and doesn\’t fight the mud.

And so here I am at this muddy place where I work. I look not to outward things to satisfy me. All I find out there is problems. My problems are (metaphysically and directly) of my own making. I want them. I make them. I don\’t know how to quit; but fighting them doesn\’t help. It is so much easier to just swim in the mud than to try to fix it. In fact, loving the mud is my best chance for happiness!

This evening, when I go running in the pouring rain, I will be thinking about the fire and humility.

Before I went to the monastery, I \”worked\” AA\’s 12 Steps. After I went to the monastery, I was always fascinated with Benedict\’s 12 steps of humility. To me, it is worthwhile to keep these in your pocket or on the wall at work. It is so much easier to be humble than proud. Here is an excerpt from each:

• The first degree of humility, then, is that a person, always keeping the fear of God before his eyes, should avoid with the utmost care all forgetfulness, and be ever mindful of all that God has commanded…
• The second degree of humility is, that a person, loving not his own will, delight not in gratifying his desires…
• The third degree of humility is, that a person for the love of God submit himself to his superior in all obedience, imitating thereby the Lord…
• The fourth degree of humility is, that if, in this very obedience, hard and contrary things, nay even injuries, are done to a person, he should take hold silently on patience, and, bearing up bravely, grow not weary nor depart…
• The fifth degree of humility is not to conceal from one\’s Abbot the evil thoughts that beset one\’s heart, nor the sins committed in secret, but to manifest them in humble confession…
• The sixth degree of humility is, that a monk be content with all that is mean and poor, and, in all that is enjoined him, esteem himself a sinful and unworthy laborer…
• The seventh degree of humility is, that a person not only call himself with his own tongue lower and viler than all men, but also consider himself thus with inmost convictions, humbling himself and saying with the Prophet: \”I am a worm and not a man…
• The eighth degree of humility is, that a monk do nothing except what the common rule of the monastery or the example of the seniors direct.
• The ninth degree of humility is, that a monk restrain his tongue from speaking and, maintaining silence…
• The tenth degree of humility is, that one be not easily moved or quick to laughter, because it is written: \”The fool lifteth up his voice in laughter.\”
• The eleventh degree of humility is, that, when a monk speaks, he do so gently and without laughter, humbly, gravely, and with few and reasonable words…
• The twelfth degree of humility is, that a monk, not only in his heart, but also in his very outward appearance, always show his humility to all who see him…

This Blog Reality

This place right here, this blog, is an awesome place to be. I am alone; an ego talking to itself. I am with my God; an existence in communion with the Universe. What could be more wonderful? Here, I don\’t have to worry about being judged: so what if I didn\’t interpret the meaning of a Text correctly. Here, I cannot judge: no one else is here. Here, I can freely muse and pray. Here I am free: able to release conditioning and programming and be what I really am.

I am not a girl or a boy. I am not a friend or spouse or enemy or daliance. I am neither rich nor poor. I am not of any race. I have no religion. I think I am human, but I do not know what that is. I have words and a language. I have a history: look there is a long scar on my right arm. I do not know what that means or what having a body means.

But I have mentioned \”my God.\” It is this idea which needs to be probed. Is it my knowledge? Is it memory? Is it wishful thinking? Is it the last vestage of society\’s programming? Here…it is possible I was never born and can dismiss what I see and say. I can dismiss it and just be silent and still.