Thanksgiving

Light lotusThank you THANKSGIVING, thank you family, thank you friends, thank you pets, thank you everyone who provided food for us, thank you Native ancestors for the holiday itself, thank you Mother Earth for fertile ground and good shelter, thank you Sun for sustenance and light and thank you Divine Source for the consciousness to enjoy and appreciate all.

Thank you THANKSGIVING for the daily practice of gratitude, perhaps the most valuable and successful spiritual practice I know.

Out of Sync

This is why I need this blog because one day I’m in the groove and then I’m right out of sync in no time later. Why did the ouster of the Zuccotti Park occupiers drag me down so? I feel a general malaise that fogs my mind and makes me really wonder what kind of state we live in. It looks like a police state out there now, the park is ringed shoulder to shoulder with riot police and multiple barricades. But it is my job only to manage my inner state and not that state out there that is wild and crazy with people pushing and shoving, grasping, arguing, complaining and insisting that they are each right. How can we ever succeed in resolving this duality out there? I personally do not think that we can. So I’m not going out there to try, I instead am going to focus all my attention in here and look very carefully to see where it is in my own mind that I support that duality of discord.

I am blessed, we are all blessed with great teachers to help us in these “interesting” times. Today I finished a lovely book, “Angels in My Hair” by Lorna Byrne and I was reminded to employ my angels to resolve any problem that drags on me or anyone I wish to pray for. Excellent advice. In times when the problem seems insurmountable this is a great time to employ our angels and pray. That focused and yet surrendered practice creates abundance of inner space for our consciousness to shift thus allowing our reality to shift with it.

Again I was emailing my niece, Gillian and she reminded me of the Bhagavad Gita, a book I have read three times and love. It is perhaps the best guide to dealing with and understanding duality and conflict ever written. I am ready to read it again. The most valuable advice I remember from the book is to, “perform inaction in action and not action in inaction”. Which I take to mean do everything with a clear mind devoid of noisy thought, judgement and justification and don’t get so tangled on thinking that you can’t do anything. This is how the whole book started with Arjuna collapsed in a puddle of fear when he perceives the battle is about to begin.

Finally, because this is a heavy day and I need a lot of support to lift my state I am going to practice my mastering alchemy lessons and do some exercises to contemplate my own attachment to the drama outside as well as some exercises to sever the tendrils of those attachments.

I keep thinking about that quote by Einstein I referred to a couple of posts back: “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” I am working on that and have been for my entire life and it is working for me. Byron Katie said something a couple of weeks ago when I saw her at a talk. She said that she had an epiphany where she saw that we are all one mind, that we share one mind, that our thoughts may not be ours but are all floating around in one mind and we get washed with them and then think they are ours or something like that. It struck me how amazing and true that is. So if I change my mind then the whole of one mind is now changed.

So this is how I will deal with the seemingly insurmountable problem of the injustices of today – I will change my mind by introspection, self-examination, diligent practice to recognize and root out self-destructive thought patterns and I will be HAPPY even when I am feeling low. Because the truth of it is that legions of angels support us all, our God (whatever you call THAT) loves us unconditionally and gives us the gift of absolute free will, we are made of star stuff and we live in God’s back garden so what is the problem.