The Park Bench

Another window

The caterpillar changing and trying to figure out how to get out of the "oh so familiar skin" feeling is starting to appear.  The struggle is only against myself.  The environment is pristine at the moment.  People have been so kind and SO generous.  The internal connection to the Divine is ever present, so what is this veil? It feels like some aspect of the story, but what is after the story?  More trips to the surrender pile.  Do I throw myself on the pile as well?  Have I become attached to the story of transformation?  I felt that point of offering to spiritually die yet again.  The response was a stillness instead of a splintering.  Patience?  Being?  The park bench?

Another Veil--Breaking Free Of My Story

How many more veils?

Digestion, wrestling with the "new" me in my old stomping grounds, walking in the depth of new awareness, breaking the ties to who I thought I was, picking up the threads pulling me forward into the new truth, trusting, faith, following the bread crumb trail that lead me out of the forest into the light of myself as a spark of the Divine...

Breaking free of my story is the dipping into the vat of boiling oil to debride the story from the truth.  Absolute Love and Truth are the facts.  The rest is the story. 

Pain and Bravery

We all have pain and we all have a story.  Some appear to bare more than others...  Believing this soul will find a less obscured connection to the Absolute Love of the Divine.  Blessings and gratitude for your strength to shine the light of awareness on all of our paths to consciousness.

Prominent Pakistani acid victim commits suicide - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/prominent-pakistani-acid-victim-commits-suicide-063149605.html Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus had endured more than three dozen surgeries over more than a decade to repair her severely damaged face and body when she finally decided life was no longer worth living.

Square Peg Dissolves

While sitting in silence, the corridor widens, the doors retreat, inner peace expands, and the square peg (me) fits into the round hole.  The drive to do disappears, the egos grasp on action diminishes, and the familiarity of the truth of the self is front and center.  The journey to know the inner self has been arduous but remarkable.  The path now to the outer purpose is awkward.  Everything is a reflection of the inner and outer experience.

More Perspective

Spent a day wearing my horse sales cap and looking for places to move my horse closer.  It felt like I was in some odd corridor that I remembered from the past, but I was viewing it all from a new perspective.  Numerous opportunities to understand the new perspective.  Interesting to proceed on the old path without attachment.  It as if I am going to the ashram to sit in whatever arises.  Watching myself from somewhere outside as my human shopping cart moves through the motions.  Continuing to cast the line out giving the universe an opportunity to take hold when and with what the next step of the design is.  Starting with the "familiar" that is now unfamiliar.

A Very Rough Draft.

Rain but no monsoon

The two to three hours at the gym is like my walking/digesting period only it is relatively quiet and empty when I go at night.

The reblogging is finished, so I printed the material out in "book form."  Surprising how many errors you miss on a screen no matter how many times you look at it.  It was like looking at a color copy of a diary.  I learned a lot in the process and I was able to sit with some teachings that I hadn't completely digested.  My initial thought was to go through the process privately, but I find that the biggest part of the "new me" is transparency.  No matter what angle I examine my life path, being open and accepting to every aspect of living appears to be the only way not to collect lint.

While I was in India, I experienced the concern of the disciples for the privacy of Gurudev and the ashram, so I place this writing assignment in the awareness of the public.  I am sending a rough draft to Gurudev.  The action is not to receive his blessings, but to stay in line with transparency and respect.  It is an organized bundle of my experience and nothing more.  I continue to live in awe and humility of what I learned.

The next step would be to find an editor, so the language and concepts become more coherent. (Within 6 hours of printing the very rough draft, one appears to have shown up?)  There is already a graphics expert willing to jump in and make it look beautiful--if the project gets that far.

As I sat with the copy in my hand,  there was nothing on my agenda list--only gratitude and a very deep sense of inner peace.  The rest is in the hands of destiny.

Puddle

To best describe my new "status," I would say a puddle.  It is as if I have been shown this world of the formless, I know that I still live in a form, but who am I really?  I know who I am not (or at least getting a glimpse of that with the ego separated), but who am I really.  Yes, a spark of the Divine, but how is that to manifest.  A current piece of the work is to show up in a "familiar" environment and learn about my perceived self in this environment, but start to wonder who I could be without the past history.  Do I  continue with the role I was playing and be at peace that I now understand.  Or does this open the door to outwardly manifesting something more in line with my true nature?

While continuing to read, watch videos, speak to others on the path in English, I keep revisiting the profound gratitude for this new awareness.  As I hear "people in the know" speak about their connection to the Divine, I understand now.  My understanding for humans capacity for life and depth of being has been significantly expanded--more volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica added.

One of the pieces I keep marveling at is not having fear of the two-legged, but to embrace their diversity (and mine too.)  Living in the truth meter of my heart resonance, I do find it interesting to hear the politicians campaigning.  As individuals, they most likely started with a heartfelt purpose that lead them towards representing other two-leggeds, but where in the process does the whirling energy of the masses, greed, and ego begin to corrupt the inner truth of the individual.  A living science experiment.  

Selfseeds Walking In Northern California (short video) www.Selfseeds.com

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Selfseeds Walking in Northern California …

Selfseeds Walking At The Marina (short video) www.Selfseeds.com

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Selfseeds Walking At The Marina (short vi…

Benefits Of Being In A Body

Thank you to the photographer for sharing this photo.  Little did I know the significance it would hold for me as I matured on the path.  Love and gratitude.

www.Selfeeds.com and this blog don't always overlap, but today I was sitting with the significance of being in a body while finding my way back into the "routine" of living instead of seeking.  Rereading what I have learned this past year is proving invaluable for solving some of my own challenges and helping to create a framework for the "how to" of living without internal pain.   I had blogged about being a radioactive human and handing out packets of "Selfseeds" on the corner with my goat and horse, but I am starting to understand how I got there and not just the experience of it.  The path is ingenious and I continue to marvel at the grace, wisdom, and teachings from the Divine Genealogy.  Now I live in a perpetual state of humility and pranam to the feet of the Masters!!

Selfseeds Blog:  http://selfseeds.com/blog/?p=717 

After diving into the crucible of the self and sitting for hours in the interior self, I wasn't sure how living in a body and navigating the exterior world was significant any longer.  But now I see that it is the testing ground for the transformative work.  Once I understood that my destiny wasn't to live as a recluse in a cave somewhere, (I think I might have done that a few thousand lifetimes ago), I started to examine how and why I would integrate back into a "normal" lifestyle. The constant flow of  interactions gives me remarkable feedback for how I am proceeding down the path of stabilizing in the internal peace.  Are there challenges in my daily process that try to engage my ego in an unskillful way?  Are there more facets of my "self" that need examination and cultivation for the surrender pile?  What better way is there to keep deepening into the work than to challenge it by living in the turbulence of the Earth Theater.  Navigating the surprises and challenges presented on a regular basis are becoming part of an adventure story instead of a pain producing spiral into despair.

Enjoy the following article, but I would like to add that it doesn't have to be Buddhist Meditation to be real, but any meditation, stillness, or introspection.

The Purpose of Buddhist Meditation Is to Be Real
Huffington Post
I often say when I teach meditation, "We meditate not just to be calm, but to be real." Meditation has become quite popular in the West, and Buddhist teachers abound, but I wonder if we have yet learned this profound lesson well enough. ...

Lewis Richmond

The Purpose of Buddhist Meditation Is to Be Real

I often say when I teach meditation, "We meditate not just to be calm, but to be real."

Meditation has become quite popular in the West, and Buddhist teachers abound, but I wonder if we have yet learned this profound lesson well enough. The Buddha himself, beginning his spiritual pilgrimage, studied with many meditation teachers. For the most part, these teachers taught a type of meditation designed to induce calm, even trance. The young Siddhartha mastered all these techniques. He was so good that some of his teachers urged him to teach with them, but he was not satisfied. He had an intuition that these meditation practices, while deep, were but a temporary respite from the primal suffering of human existence, and that once one emerged from trance the suffering was still there. He left these teachers and vowed to look deeper.

As meditation is finding its way in the West and looking for authentic cultural roots, we are bound to re-enact Siddhartha's own search, re-discover his own disappointments and illuminations. As Kalu Rinpoche, one of the young Tibetan teachers (he is in his early 20s) said recently in a public gathering, "Dharma is reality." I thought this was quite profound, especially coming from one so young. He went on to explain that most religion, including Buddhism, offers an escape from reality, rather than a transforming insight about it. But Dharma is not like that. It is about what is true and real. Buddhist meditation is ultimately a way to discover that truth.

Once a student said to Suzuki Roshi, "My meditation is no good; I'm thinking all the time." o which Suzuki replied, "What's wrong with thinking?"

Suzuki meant it as a deep question. What is wrong with thinking? Is all thinking wrong, or just some thinking? Is thinking during meditation a bad thing? The sixth ancestor of Zen, Hui Neng, specifically taught that to empty the mind of all thoughts during meditation is not a Buddhist practice. Thrangu Rinpoche, a living Mahamudra master, once said (in the book "Pointing Out the Dharmakaya"), "sometimes you have a really bad thought when you meditate." And to stress the point he added, "No I mean a really bad thought!"

When the laughter subsided he went on to say, "No problem. Just keep meditating."

There is nothing wrong with meditating in order to calm the mind. All of us can use more calmness in the midst of a busy life. In fact, without some calmness in meditation it is impossible to see anything clearly or distinguish what is real from what is illusion. Once we have attained a stable, calm mind, we can then go deeper. We can, as Zen Master Dogen famously said, "study the self." Who is this person that is meditating? Where do these thoughts and feelings that rise and fall originate, and where do they go when they subside? Why do I suffer? Why do other people suffer? What is the cause of that woe? How can it be convincingly assuaged?

These are the questions that Siddhartha asked as he continued his spiritual quest, continuing to probe deeper, until he was satisfied that he had gotten to the bottom of his inquiry. That is the real treasure that Buddhism has to offer, and it may take us a long time in the West to bring this treasure to full fruition.

It is possible. The Buddha was not a god or a super-being, but an ordinary human being just like us. If he could do it, we can do it. People in every generation have the same opportunity as the Buddha had to see behind the curtain of illusion to the reality beneath.

Each of us can be Buddha, which means being awake to what is real.

The Acid Test For Transformation

Where I grew up

As I reconnect with the pieces of my life in America, I witness the effects of the teachings from India.  The uncertainty and "scratchiness" of being around humans of all walks of life are gone.  I can be in the herd, outside the herd, alone, etc. and feel the depth of connection as a spark of the Divine.  It doesn't mean that we aren't an odd group with unfathomable actions and thoughts, but we are all tethered together whether we like it or not.

The acid test of my recent lessons was visiting my mother.  She is a reclusive, quiet being who has affected me by the unspoken--a glance, the space in between words, and the selective words of disapproval.  I just couldn't ever figure out how to get her approval even with top honors in everything that I pursued.  It was a mystery.  This silence and uncertainty inspired the inward questioning and seeking while in my early twenties--a dull and aching pain.  Was it hers or mine?

27 years later, I understand. Both of our "stories" and what they triggered in the unspoken conversation.   Going to visit her was like heading to the Incinerator Walk, but from the deepest levels of my human presence.  Did all the "work" and teachings from the Divine hold true even under this test?  Before going to India, I had experienced one visit that was seamless, but was it luck?  And I am not sure that I was breathing.

At 83, she takes care of the house and yard without any help (remarkable.)  The yard is on a half acre with lots of trees/plants and the house is 4 bedrooms.  Telephone, internet, driving, and television are not part of her life.  Reading and caring for the yard/house are the focus.  Looking over the photos from the past 6 months and discussing our shared interest (new for me) in photography was a good start.  We even moved on to discuss world issues, humanity, religion, and philosophy, but it was as two beings carrying on a discussion of discovery.  There was a genuine connection unfolding that was not disturbed by 47 years of lint.

"This stuff really works!"  How lovely to find no edges while being in all facets of humanity.  It is the place of peace that Gurudev had said was possible.  Are there words beyond gratitude, grace, Absolute Love, and Absolute Truth that can express the depth of my thankfulness.

While driving home at midnight, I decided to drive through some of my old stomping grounds and stopped for a slice of pizza in Berkeley.  While waiting for the pizza to cook, I talked to the beggars outside as easily as talking to my friends and family.  The truth of the thread continues.

Maple Tree where horses would hang out.

Reblogging

Perfect homework assignment; reblogging the blog into a book form.  Thank you Divine Genealogy as a place to start while reentering the western world.  As I move through the process, a continuous flow of gratitude and grace moves through my heart and mind.  There is a lot that I didn't remember or understand, since I was living it.  As I revisit the lessons, I sink into the personal reality of it all.  Whether it was the initial blogging or the current reblogging, my hope is to transmit the truth and love that pervaded it all.  Touching Absolute Truth and Absolute Love from a living, descended Master have provided the undeniable markers for how to move towards The Divine.  Words and the mind are a very limiting and unsatisfying medium for sharing the almost paralyzing, exquisite nature of the experience.  Only the deepest aspects of my true nature can bathe in the vibration and light of this intensity, but that is Home.  Debriding the layers of mud and lint that the ego creates as obscurations are the pain.  The path is not fun, easy, or clear.  It is the absolute surrender to the unknown that is the process.  Moving to India and what followed was the first big step into the unknown and returning to the US with a new perspective was the second big step into the unknown.  "Let Go"  are the words that are constantly reminding me of how to move on the path.


Seeing friends, watching events from around the world, and observing myself in this environment are all providing insight into the transformation and the work ahead. As in India, there is no waiting or wavering.  Diving head first into the fire is the only way to keep moving through the rolodex of tests and examination of lesson opportunities.  The move back was like turning a piece of meat over on a grill--one side for India and one side for America.  The fire and the grill are the truth.  The internal pull to stabilize into the new awareness and go deep is still with me.  It is remarkable to be thrown into so many facets of humanity and not have fear of the two-legged now--not to mention the amazing new tool kit to recognize what they are talking about and at what depth.  The unfolding continues.

Synchronicity of the Saki Bowl Lives On

Starting to understand the transition was a distraction of sorts, but nothing has really changed.  Nothing at all...

Until man loses himself in the vision of God, he cannot be said to live really.                         Bowl of Saki, March 15, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan: Man wrongly identifies himself with the physical body, calling it 'myself.' And when the physical body is in pain he says, 'I am ill,' because he identifies himself with something which belongs to him but which is not himself. The first thing to learn in the spiritual path is to recognize the physical body not as one's self, but as an instrument, a vehicle, through which to experience life.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/IV/IV_23.htm Every soul seeks after beauty; and every virtue, righteousness, good action, is nothing but a glimpse of beauty. Once having this moral, the Sufi does not need to follow a particular belief or faith, to restrict himself to a particular path. He can follow the Hindu way, the Muslim way, the way of any Church or faith, provided he treads this royal road: that the whole universe is but an immanence of beauty. ... Therein lies the whole of religion. The mystic's prayer is to that beauty, and his work is to forget the self, to lose himself like a bubble in the water [like a drop in the ocean].    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_6.htm As life unfolds itself to man the first lesson it teaches is humility; the first thing that comes to man's vision is his own limitedness. The vaster God appears to him, the smaller he finds himself. This goes on and on until the moment comes when he loses himself in the vision of God. In terms of the Sufis this is called fana, and it is this process that was taught by Christ under the name of self-denial. Often man interprets this teaching wrongly and considers renunciation as self-denial. He thinks that the teaching is to renounce all that is in the world. But although that is a way and an important step which leads to true self-denial, the self-denial meant is the losing oneself in God.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VIII/VIII_2_7.htm There is a [Hadith] which says: 'Mutu kubla anta mutu', which means, Die before death. A poet says, 'Only he attains to the peace of the Lord who loses himself.' God said to Moses, 'No man shall see me and live.' To see God we must be non-existent.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_26.htm

The Wheelbarrow Is Back To Work

And why did I think that returning home would warrant a "softening" of the lesson plan?  The real work of completely letting go appears to be the task at hand.  More trips to the surrender pile with my trusty wheelbarrow.  I continue to laugh at myself.  What was the point of everything I learned if it isn't to apply the teachings in every situation.  I did sign up for that idea--internal peace in any situation.

While pairing down the blogs to the bare bones, I am noticing that they are paralleling my current process of applying the teachings instead of becoming aware of them.  The Divine Lesson Plan is always available if I keep my heart open.  It is clear that I am a fish out of water, so there is nothing to lose by diving into the letting go.  And with huge amounts of grace, the support team is still holding the field.  

The Truth Of Returning

(Thank you for the photo...)

Two weeks have passed and I am experiencing a lot of different emotions in the reentry process.  What has been distracting while sitting in such abundance?  I wanted to put the "Sue is the doer" outfit back on.  I have existed with that outfit for 47 years and only recently see clearly that Sue needs to be the receiver and executor of what is in the design.  Is that possible in an environment with such high living expenses and pressure for material being?  One of Gurudev's last teachings was not to confuse issues of societal demands and personal divinity.  Living in America underscores that need for "separation." When he gives advice, I have no doubt about the wisdom, but the understanding and application often takes me a while.

I have been casting my line out into the job market daily while I look at three other developing business opportunities that feel more true to my nature.  As bills come in, taxes due, and other expenses present themselves, I have tried not to resort back to fear.  It is a familiar tugging, but it is tugging on a new rootedness in the divine.  Before, the giant boulder or limit to change was fear and now fear (ego) is wanting to pull on the giant boulder of presence in the divine.  "Let Go" are the words constantly ringing in my ears.  I still have the same people holding the rope as I dangle over the ledge.  The challenge is to let go in the familiar environment.  No tricking the Divine Lesson Plan.  The sense of inner lint-disturbance was setting off the lint detection alarm.

Jai Guru!! 

Born This Way Foundation Youth Empowerment Movement

Born This Way Foundation

Answer Lady Gaga’s call to action. Join Born This Way Foundation today

I felt inspired to create something in support of the Born This Way Foundation youth empowerment movement.  After looking at the resulting clip, I realized that empowerment is needed for young and old, two legged and four legged, dark and light, Eastern and Western...  (Usually, I would ask for permission to use all of the photos, but in this case I just went with the flow.  Please don't hesitate if you want me to edit something--modern technology makes it relatively easy.)

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Selfseeds Lady Gaga

The Dilemma

Interesting to hold such a deep sense of love and peace within, but be surrounded with so much unrest and violence as portrayed in the media's view of the world.  My life has been a path leading to the top of the hill. As I stand at the top of the hill looking inward, there is only a vibration of Absolute Love.  As I move my awareness outward, there is only a vibration of Absolute Love, but there are obscurations separating the Absolute Truth from being exposed.  How to move back into the stream of obscurations with such a different sense of reality than what is portrayed.

Gratitude For The Trees

Perspective

While driving out to visit one of my teachers who lives in the exquisite beauty of the Redwood Trees, I stopped to take some photos--one of my new found passions from this year.  These trees are so massive and so tall and so wise that it is hard to do justice to their true nature in a photograph.  It was as if I was at the feet of the Nature Guru and I found myself offering myself in pranam on their bed of needles and leaves shed from living as a forest.  So much gratitude for their presence in my life as a key part of a childhood companionship, as a living example of inner stillness, and as teachers unfolding the universe's state of interconnectedness.  Another coming home in a sense.  The same tears, the same outpouring from my heart, and the same sense of truth/wisdom that speaks volumes without words from the energetic field at large.

Something that I have always appreciated about forests in America is the unruliness.  They are wild forests.  Not manicured and cultivated from years of civilization, they are still raw.  I saw a lot of amazing trees in India, but they were often alone and not living in the presence of their tree family.  Experiencing a tribe of these ancient beings is breathtaking.