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Enlightenment via Nightmare …

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Ephemeral pile of silken katags (ritual scarves) softly flying, being offered, Lamdre, Tharlam Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal
Creative Commons License photo credit: Wonderlane

Watching and questioning my inner thoughts is a process I apply daily to my personal reality. It is a process that allows me to make peace & realign with Reality in regard to my own innermost struggles (like the one I described in my previous post triggered by a recent nightmare). I have come to see inner struggles for consciousness as an essential part of clearing our way towards a more peaceful state of mind. This way of understanding struggle helps us dispel the need to blame or judge ourselves, or others, for our uncomfortable state of being, and instead frees us up to explore the messages, opportunity and gifts that our struggles offer.

For instance, when I was dealing with the low-frequency residue left over from the nightmare I'd awakened from, seeing struggle as a valid part of the process allowed me to operate from a place of self-acceptance, so that, rather than shaming myself for having such “unevolved feelings,” I was able to focus on identifying where I was still living out of victim UNconsciousness instead!  I was able to explore what my nightmare had come to say to me.

That process of witnessing my nightmare, instead of trying to deny, or get rid of it, allowed me to explore its message. As a result I was able to see that my nightmare was a much magnified version (obviously it had to be big to get my attention! :)) of my own tendency to rail against Reality. I saw how I was living out of a story of lack that had me believing that limitation was just “the way it is,” and the repercussions of believing that story were being played out in vivid technicolor for me to see through my nightmare. (How grateful I am that I was given the opportunity to deal with it first on the inner plain, through the dream world, rather than having to experience it in waking life!

I suddenly could see the lack of appreciation to, and the lack of faith in, Source that my limited belief system portrayed! Such an attitude, based on fear,  could only generate more scarcity and stress. I could see that my nightmare had come to give me a vivid reminder that I needed to adjust my internal fear-based whining from, “what am I doing wrong that's keeping me from experiencing more abundance?” to a focus on gratitude for the abundance that is present, right-NOW in my life!

Suddenly I laughed out loud as an image of myself as a four year old child whining about not getting what I wanted came to mind. I realized that I was still doing a similar sort of demanding from Source that as a child I'd done with my parents: “I don’t want blueberries! I want oranges! This is not what I want! Why can't I have more that this? Why did he get more than I did?” etc. etc.

And again, I felt the heat of embarrassed realization in recognizing how belittling to Source such an attitude of ingratitude is! It was as if I was saying, “Yeah, yeah, I see what You, Source, have done for me so far, but it's not enough! I know that you've given me the wealth of a lifestyle that is abundant beyond belief, BUT I want more! And it needs to be the way I want it NOW or else it means You don't love me – or maybe it means that I am bad, or wrong, and therefore undeserving. So FIX me!”

This awareness, brought to me by a nightmare, allowed me to adjust my attitude, so that I could open my heart again, and be restored to inner sanity and balance. My boot camp “nightmare” experience allowed me to reconnect with gratitude, and I feel deeply thankful today for the opportunity my nightmare offered me, and for having the tools to take advantage of that opportunity to walk into my own inner darkness and turn on the “light” again. Story-free, even for the moment, and I return again to a natural state of ‘enlightenment!' 🙂

(Enlightenment: those times when consciousness infiltrates our inner darkness and lifts the fog produced by our limiting, mind-made, and misery-making beliefs and stories that otherwise block us from receiving the Light of Source. As we clear the inner density, we bring more of the light of Source in so that others can literally see the Light of Consciousness pouring through, and around, us. We are, in that moment, enlightened.)

It is possible.

Blessings, Lynne

 

the-universal-limiting-core-belief-from-which-all-humans-suffer

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yoga sunset
 photo credit: stevensimbox

I had an encounter with Source recently that literally brought me to my knees. I arrived home late after a long day of work with much on my mind. I was eager to get home to where I could sit down and sort through my thoughts with my husband, Daniel. Apparently, however the Universe had other plans for me that evening because when I got home Daniel’s car was gone. Inside I found a note from him saying he wouldn’t be home until late that evening.

My first reaction was to throw a mini temper-tantrum inside my own mind about how “he’s never around when I need him,” but I questioned that negative thought and quickly brought myself back to reality where it occurred to me that perhaps Source wanted to speak to me alone, with no outside interference for the evening.

So I got myself settled in at home and then headed to the water-garden out back while there was still enough daylight to see the late summer sky and listen to the birds and katydids. I slowly began to stretch and unwind my body through a series of standing yoga poses, all the time asking for clarity on the mental angst I was in the midst of.

Standing with my arms above my head in an uplifted version of Tadasana (standing mountain pose) I suddenly started receiving vivid images of myself. Snapshots taken of myself over previous and most recent days cascaded into my awareness to powerfully illustrate exactly how I'd been causing my internal angst.

I saw vivid examples of how I had been creating misery for myself by demanding myself to be different. I realized that I had been falling for what I’ve since come to call “the universal-limiting-core-belief-from-which-all-humans-suffer”; this one belief, it seems to me, is the one that we are all addicted to in one way or another.

To believe on any level that “I (it, they, he, she, we, life) should be different” is to fly in the face of reality, to set up war against the way things are, and therefore can only bring grief, disappointment, and inner rage in its wake.

Wow! Who do I become when I believe that I should not be the way I am? Who am I to demand that I should indeed be different?

I've come to see this universal, wide-spread and highly contagious belief as a spiritual virus! One that we suffer often from – as I was that day- and that can only bring us certain suffering. How wonderful to have permission to question it …

“I should be different?” … Is it true

I've got more to tell you about that evening in the garden … it's to follow soon.

Blessings, Lynne

An Ongoing Relationship With Mom

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The day after I returned home from Mom's funeral, we made contact.

It happened like this: I was in my morning practice, when suddenly I saw her clearly in my mind's eye. She was strong & healthy, her eyes were clear and piercing. There were no signs of debilitation whatsoever.

We carried on a mental dialog. She told me she was ready to continue her work and asked if she and I might collaborate. She then proceeded to tell me what she could contribute: organizational skills, editing & enhanced writing ability, the ability to intuit when to speak up & when to hold silent, and more.

It was such a relief to realize that my relationship with my mother continues in the way it always has – I know and relate to her in my mind!

She is just as alive in my mind as she has ever been! I love it that she is now free to come and go whenever and where ever I want without having to lug a worn out physical vehicle with her. Her physical body was definitely holding us back from getting together more often simply because we both tended to rely on the physical as our means of getting together. Such a notion limited us greatly. Now I see her as free to travel and she DOES love to travel! Now she can be with all her family, as spread across the states as we may be, whenever we want her there! All we need to do is close our eyes and SEE her!

Since that morning she and I have been conversing regularly. I have called on her help a few times and felt her lend a hand.

What a wonderful gift to realize I don't have to give my beloved mom up just because she dropped a body! We are blessed creatures, us humans, indeed!

Blessings,

Painful Life Events Offer Opportunity for Refinement

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lucernaio della torre dei lamberti
Creative Commons License photo credit: 1la

When we have no frame of reference for understanding hardship we feel like a victim to it. We see painful events as being “bad times” that we must struggle through, feeling isolated and at the mercy of outside forces. We do not understand that the painful event we experience was needed to penetrate and begin to bring down the tower of false beliefs that we have erected between us and Universal Source. Instead we tend to look for someone or some thing outside us to blame for our problems. When we resist, try to eliminate or control the outcomes of our difficulty, we strengthen our false beliefs.

But once we understand how the Universe uses painful situations to expand us we view these same situations that we earlier felt victimized by as opportunities for closer connection with Source. We come to understand that the function of life's challenging times is to refine us, by helping us see what false beliefs stand between us and Source. Thus we are better able to harvest the gifts of insight that come through challenging times. We come not only to expect life challenges but to turn eagerly to them so that we can glean from them the wisdom and clarity they bring.

When we participate in this life process there is no thought that this or that shouldn't be happening. There is only the knowing that what is happening isalways and only for us.

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