Declining tolerance of minorities and our own dark side

28 January 2012 By

Last night I saw a new version of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance. It was the second time and on this occasion I was much more aware of the light/dark struggle theme. The dark forces of Don Dorcha were extremely menacing and threatening, and their dance was very militaristic. It had me thinking of fascist murder squads in the 1920′s and 1930′s and more recently in post-war oppressive regimes around the world, where certain forces believed in using para-military, organised brute force to quell and keep subdued their opponents.

I was reading recently about the rising level of intolerance towards ethnic minority groups in Europe, unsuccessful attempts to get Mein Kampf published in Germany, hostile attitudes towards Muslims, hostility towards the long-term unemployed and “benefit cheats”, the background of international tension in the Middle East, and the still-present threat of economic upheaval and recession despite some recent easing. It seems, not surprisingly, that the anti-minority prejudices increase with recession. No doubt someone has devised a chart to measure it.

As times get more difficult, the them-and-us mentality can grow, an intolerance of people different from “us”. Thus did 19th Century liberalism get swept away by the trauma of the First World War and then economic dislocation in the 1920′s. Of course “us” can be very varied too, but that gets missed. What is particularly sad, in my  view, is how some of us sink to this after decades of increased integration and globalisation in cultural attitudes. However it serves as a reminder to those of us who care about fundamental principles like respect and love for our fellow humans not to let such attitudes get entrenched in our society but to persist in challenging them.

However, for the self-reflective there’s another thought too. What goes on “out there” is at some level a reminder of what goes on “in here”, and it is always worth pausing to reflect on how much such developments mirror our internal process, or at least a little disowned bit of it. We should ask, what part of me am I being reminded of in what occurs “out there”?

Also, ethnic attitudes are another manifestation of separateness and isolation, our ego tendency to be split off from the One. Such is the human experience at the ego level. Then the challenge is to see God in the person whom we experience as so different from us.

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A moment of joy

8 January 2012 By

Sometimes there’s plenty to say – and sometimes there’s not much. And sometimes there’s nothing to say.

Silence can say it all.

And in the silence one can just be very present in that “all”.

This is probably going the rounds, but it came to me today.

One of Michelangelo’s masterpieces, which you can look all around, simply holding down the mouse (“click and drag”) as you twirl the arrow around. You can zoom in and out with the buttons on the bottom left. It takes practice! I found myself drawn to the central point of the ceiling itself, probably very much as visitors do, but without the pain in the neck.

So, maybe you could have a look, and as you do that, just allow yourself to be very present and aware.

A moment of Being.

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Becoming aware that materialism isn’t enough

6 January 2012 By

In making intentions for 2012, did you include anything about your spiritual self? It’s perhaps curious that vast swathes of our society are still heavily engaged in the pursuit of the material, even as the evidence of its dysfunctionality mounts. You might think, well it’s not surprising given our need for survival. And this is exactly the point. While we live in survival mode, we’re heavily engaged in ego. Yet our evolution is arguably taking us to a point where we need to awaken to who we really are. As the point gets closer, the contradiction increases in severity and hence we feel the pressure.

One way I often notice this contradiction is where people say they want contentment, peace, and well-being and yet complain about their highly pressurised lifestyles. Why therefore do we continue to put up with it? Isn’t it time it changed? “Oh, but I can’t help it,” people say, as if they are caught up in it. One might also suggest they don’t want to, yet.

Well, we could sell up and go and live in some wilderness or mountain-top, but it is possible we’ll take the same issues that are blocking us with us. “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water,” goes the Zen saying. We will still need to support ourselves.

There’s something closer to home to address, which needn’t necessarily mean undertaking a revolution in lifestyle. That is to look at the egoic drivers that sustain our drivenness. This is not about changing the external situation, and we might still do that. It is to look within and explore and understand, so as to manage differently, the inner processes that keep us stuck.

We could, for example, look at what fears we hang on to, what beliefs about ourselves and about life, what attachments we have to keeping our dysfunctionality in place. The sad thing recently has been how few people have been allowing themselves to go there. Yet the contradiction is getting worse and human suffering is going through another phase of materialistic self-flagellation with the economic crisis, and at some point vastly more people will stand up and say that our current ways of life are not serving us.

That’s when it’s going to get very interesting. How about 2012 being the year when we will be playing a big part in that?

Our The Power of Awareness program is partly about helping people raise their awareness of their life style and what they most want – and about how to get there.

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Experiencing the power of love through music

23 December 2011 By

The power of love.

This cd, called “ Wherever You Are“, was released on 19 December. It is a song sung by a choir of military wives and partners of British soldiers serving in Afghanistan, led by Gareth Malone. The words are taken from correspondence between troops and their loved ones back on the bases in the West Country.

The song was sung at the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance on the Armistice Day commemoration in November 2011 before the Queeen and subsequently has been recorded. It was featured in a BBC TV series about the Military Wives Choir, following the inspirational Gareth as he started up and built up the choir.

I found this incredibly moving. The song itself is beautiful but it needs putting in context. Whatever your thoughts on the merits or otherwise of war, armies and the conflict in Afghanistan, here were a group of women who regularly would experience their husbands and partners going away on service, into danger, and therefore they would live not only with their prolonged absence and their need to hold the family together but also in the background, the possibility that their partner might return injured or even not at all. These women would often be used to staying quiet, keeping out of the way, suppressing how they felt in the cause that is the military’s. At last, with Gareth’s choir, they found a voice, and what a moving experience it was to observe. Thus the words of the song have great poignancy.

However, for me, those words speak also to a higher truth, one that is so important to express this Christmas, the power of love. “Wherever you are my love will keep you safe…My heart will build a bridge of light across both time and space…Our hearts still beat as One…Light up the darkness my wondrous star.”

Love transcends all and unites all. This is a time to remember That.

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When meeting who you are not

4 December 2011 By

When we encounter people we don’t seem to get along with, or situations occur that we don’t like, it is often useful to ask what it has to teach us. Here’s one way of looking at this that I was reminded of today.

I love this mind-teaser of Neale Donald Walsch: “In the absence of that which you are not, that which you are, is not“* It take ages to puzzle over unless you are aware of the context, which is also the point of what he is saying. Neale’s point is that when you declare yourself to be someone or something, such as a new experience or understanding of yourself you’ve come to after doing some personal work, what you then get is what you are not. You get to experience your polar opposite for example. He says that in order to know ourselves, we need to experience what we are not.

So such people that we are not getting on with are yet more reminders of what we need to learn about ourselves. And until we get the lesson, we’ll keep encountering such people. Ditto of course with repeat situations.

So, when you go work tomorrow, or when you next encounter others, ask yourself what this person is reminding you of. In what way are they different to you and how do you tend to define yourself in relation to them.

*See eg in Applications for Living, p. 278, UK ed., Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1999

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Seeing perfection in what seems imperfect

19 September 2011 By

When things are messy and it feels like it’s all gone wrong, it can be very hard to get that it’s also just perfect. Seeing perfection in the midst of adversity goes right against our belief system. It could be that despite what’s going on for you right now, where you are is perfect.

Usually our belief is that we’ve “got to get it right”, “be better”, in other words live up to some imagined external standard which is more likely one we’ve internalised. Of course, there may be people in your world who want it to be better than it is, and usually we need to deal with that, but what I’m getting at is where we are dissatisfied with something according to our own standards. It’s just “not good enough”. The inner driver here can be one of perfection, and we put ourselves under great, if not enormous pressure. To be less than perfect is a failure. So we can be very self-critical, about what we do, what others do, or don’t do, and also about ourselves, finding fault with ourselves even.

So, when things “go wrong”, we give ourselves an extremely hard time, and probably others too, if not directly then in our minds.

To see the perfection in imperfection requires a shift of awareness, a letting go of judgement, and an understanding that everything is perfect. This can seem like a complete contradiction, given the above.

So it is worth looking at the understanding of perfection. From a divine perspective, all is complete, at one. When all there is is love, everything is just right just as it is. You love all of it, and all of yourself. Then it all feels perfect, and imperfection is unimaginable. For example have you ever been so utterly in love that somehow everything was well with you and with the world? People do have these experiences. This is Who we really Are.

When things are perceived as imperfect, we are comparing something with an absolute, sometimes a seemingly unreachable standard. So we are making ourselves separate from the divine, a good old ego game.

So, as you go about your day today, maybe catch yourself giving yourself a hard time (and others) about things “not being right”, breathe deeply and let go of the thought, and allow the possibility to be present that wherever you are, is just perfect, just as it is. All is OK with the world, and with you. It is only your understanding that is currently stopping you seeing that.

In our forthcoming program, we teach how to find your inner perfection, your own inner peace.

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Wanting to be at one

17 September 2011 By

This week I have been writing about desire and how it can very effectively block our connection with our spiritual self. The question will inevitably arise, if desire doesn’t serve us, what about wanting to be connected spiritually. Isn’t that a contradiction?

First of all, I remember hearing that my guru’s guru, Swami Muktananda was asked about the desire for enlightenment. “Ah, you can keep that one,” he said. Wanting to be One with God was for him at the essence of his sadhana.

I made the point earlier that it can be helpful to think about attachment, about where you get attached to wanting, and therefore whether you hold on to thoughts of wanting, such that you are attached to them and feel unable to let them go. The practice of non-attachment is all about not being driven by such things, about becoming the witness of thoughts and feelings that don’t serve you, and about letting go. Common examples are being attached to wanting money, or success or being loved by someone.

In addition you can reflect on whether the way you think about desire is serving you. There might for example be a significant difference between on the one hand the desire to create the things in your life that are in line with your purpose, your values and intentions, what inspires you and what works towards let’s say your higher purpose, and on the other hand a constant hankering after a big house and expensive clothes which might make you look good in the eyes of others. The first might have a consistency and integrity in it, underpinned by strong ethics, while the second might be ego-driven and motivated by let’s say how you want others to see you, a quite different standpoint.

This is where self-enquiry is useful. Who are you, and how are you manifesting That Awareness? As we enquire within, and explore our motivations in Awareness, we can more and more make distinctions between thoughts that are ego-driven and those that are not. Here we can make self-checks: where am I coming from here? The power of self-awareness is to learn to spot when your desire is ego-driven. In time, you might find you’ll get a tug within, as if your higher Self is asking you, “Does this serve you?” With self-awareness, you can more and more notice those ego-driven desires that don’t serve you. You can learn to spot them and to let them go.

We teach people to develop the tools of Awareness in our program, The Point of Awareness.

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Loving other people and confusing love with wanting from them

16 September 2011 By

One useful piece of self-awareness work to do with desire is to look at what we want from others, particularly our partners. As we’ve been exploring this week, desire as an ego function has deep roots, relating to a perceived lack of love and a disconnection from the Whole. This particularly plays itself out with those we are close to.

Have you for example felt you wanted more from someone than they were prepared to give? Did it seem that whatever they gave was “not enough”? Similarly have you found people wanted more of you than you were prepared to give? Have you found others to be a syringe or a sponge, sucking energy from you or seemingly draining you of energy? Do you know of people who are very “needy”? These are examples of people wanting from others.

In relationship, this can act as a cycle, going round in circles, with each piece of wanting, if at least partly met then being replaced with yet more of the same.

One person in the relationship who is the “wanting” one is in a sense “out there” probing the other person, who in turn is closing in on themselves to protect themselves from the needy one. They are likely of course to be replaying earlier relationships, eg with parents, but the drama is continually acted out until perhaps one or the other says “enough” and refuses to participate further in the game.

In other ways too the game can go on, such as when one feels the others does not love them “enough” or doesn’t feel loved at all. People can play all sorts of deadly dramas around love, and of course go elsewhere to get what they feel they don’t get from their partners.

Thus do we continue to act out the separation/connectedness drama, in our relationships with others.

It is however perfectly possible to find love within ourselves and thus not to depend on others for love. The latter is arguably not love but need, although presented as love. However love can exist independent of one person. You can find it in yourself, in other people in general and in all things, as an essential force of the universe, at its core. This is one of the beautiful outcomes of the spiritual journey. And you can still also enjoy being in love with a special person!

To learn more about how you can find this essential love, take the Connecting to Inner Peace program.

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Desire is reminding us of our disconnection from the Whole

15 September 2011 By

We’ve been exploring the function of desire as an interrupter to our enjoyment of life. It’s a curious one, since we probably frequently think that if only this issue was resolved or that event happened, or that person did something, or stopped doing something, all would be well. Except that life isn’t really any different. You might get a short-lived pleasure in the resolution, but after a while the old issues reappear.

One classic example of this is when people win the Lottery. Studies have shown that people generally haven’t in the long term found their lives to be any better, and for some it’s been worse. The likelihood is that the malaise that has driven the search for something to “be better” hasn’t been fixed. The malaise reappears, unless the underlying cause has been addressed.

I referred in the last posting to deficit need, the “hole” inside and the sense of love been missing. There’s a deeper aspect to this too. Spiritually, we could also say that what is most missing for us is our separation from the whole, God, Spirit, Life or whatever you want to call It. It’s this deep, profound, but only dimly glimpsed sense of disconnection from All That Is.

People often say that when they re-gain this connection, in whatever form that might be, they report that they have “come home.” It can be a very emotional experience, tears of great joy, a profound relief, and an outpouring of love. And this love is not of the needy kind, but one where everything thing feels right and complete. There’s also the report of those that have experienced “awakenings” such that life is never the same again. One thing that stands out here is desirelessness. They are no longer seeking. Particularly they seemed no longer concerned by money matters!

It begs an interesting question as to what role the things we seek are actually playing in our lives. Would they actually be symbols for us of this sense of a gap between us and the unity of consciousness?

So, try this out. If you find yourself hankering after something or somebody, breathe, let go and think instead of being at One. Let go and let God.

Thus one aspect of our program Connecting to Inner Peace is exploring what being connected to/disconnected from the Whole means for each of us and how we can re-discover our sense of unity.

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Desire is a clue to the deep hole inside

14 September 2011 By

Our ego watch topic for this week is desire, wanting, and unmet desire. I wrote earlier that we can eat our hearts out over unmet desire. It can gnaw away inside.

Can you remember as a child wanting a particular toy, say, and not being able to have it? Yes, I know, there are those children who always get what they want and households get full up with vast amounts of unused toys, but that outlook didn’t figure in my childhood. There was this thing called deferred gratification and it was supposed to be a distinguishing feature of certain sections of our community and beneficial for our development! Anyway, you might have felt frustrated or unhappy about not getting what you wanted, which can perhaps tap into something much more profound. This sort of childhood experience can log itself in the system.

I mentioned earlier that there are deeper aspects to desire.

There’s a belief in there somewhere about not being able to get our needs met, that we don’t get what we need unless we strive for it. In there is deficit need, that there’s something missing in me and “out there” has to satisfy it, a need that is never actually finally satisfied.

If you go back to early childhood, many of us probably felt we didn’t get the love we needed. Our parents may have tried their best with what they knew, but so many children when very small make decisions based on life experiences that were not what was actually going on. So, we might for example interpret a parent’s words, look or action as not loving us, being there for us, or caring “enough”. So children often grow up with a sense of not getting enough love, attention, care, support or whatever. Inside there’s a deep sense of something missing, but not necessarily a conscious one.

Thus people may for example feel a deficit need, which never gets fulfilled, until they learn to heal the hole inside.

Our program Connecting to Inner Peace is specifically designed to help people find the intrinsic love within that people feel they are missing and which can help people make their lives whole once again.

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