wise words

"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings?" ~ Diogenes (pupil of Socrates)

Those of you who have been in my seminars may have experienced your feelings being hurt, and heard me talk about that. We protect and defend our feelings as if they were our reality. They aren't. That's good to remember.

Intuition is not the same as feelings that are generated by the mind -- by thoughts. For example, you believe someone insulted you (and maybe they did) and you feel hurt. Whatever that person did, belongs to that person. Your reaction belongs to you. Your feelings are not based upon anything real. They are based upon what your thoughts are telling you to feel.

If a teacher is willing to tiptoe around you so that your feelings are not hurt, then the teacher is of no real use to you. Don't you want someone who will tell you the truth? Don't you? Doesn't it take so much energy to protect and defend your precious feelings? Wouldn't you rather use that energy for what is important and valuable?

Nature is alive with its own spirit, nature spirits, and God

Do Trees Communicate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSGPNm3bFmQ 

https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other?language=en "A forest is much more than what you see," says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrrSAc-vjG4

moment...by...moment...we move towards awakening...

Change

"It is very difficult to change---and no change is possible as long as life and imagination are the source of meaning for you." ~Maurice Nicoll

Hello from Kevin

I opened the classroom today and immediately felt like sharing. So often I think I do not have the time, that something else is more important, but I seem to have time for other things, like stopping for coffee at my favorite coffee shop, parking the car, going in, chatting with people, spending my money. Or browsing the web. Or flicking on the TV.

Why don't I make at least as much time for my spiritual work? Good question! My answer today was: Make time now. Forget about the times I don't! That keeps me neither here nor there and prevents me from doing my spiritual work today.

I've been noticing how my mind tells me, when I am in a negative state, that it will never end. I have read this in our school, and I can say, it is true. Every time I am feeling bad, without energy, low, my mind wants to tell me it's no use; why don't I just give up; everyone is better than me; I am a lost cause; I have made too many mistakes; it is too late me. 

Whew! These are the quality of thoughts that are running my life! That have been running my life for years. And I have not been aware of them. It is like digging up the basement under a house that is full of poisonous gas that has been seeping through slowing killing that one who lives in that house -- --which is me.

Now I am becoming aware of those thoughts, but not so aware as I could be. I don't keep the spiritual sentry awake at the door of my mind and so before I know it, negative thoughts seep in like the poison they are and begin to poison my day. I become heavy and despondent. It is hard to get through the day when I am full of this poison. And when I go to sleep with these thoughts, they wake up even fatter--like your poem says, Indira.

Right now I am going through this phase of negativity taking over. I am learning about it. I can see the thoughts, whereas before I didn't even know they were there. I blindly believed them. I am watching the effect they have on my mind, emotions, and body. Especially, I notice what happens in my body, how I do not want to move--I'd rather sit and do something mindless, like play a computer game or sit and feel sorry for myself. I do not want to do the things that are healthy for my body, like go to the gym or take a walk.

Negative thoughts are powerful things with powerful influences, very harmful influences, when I let them take over. I know that becoming more aware of my negative thinking is positive, even when it feels negative. I know that as the light gets brighter, more negativity is revealed. I know I am not so different--I mean, my ego nature is not--I am just becoming more aware of my darkness, and so it seems worse. I know all of this from our school. At least I know it mentally--it has not yet reached that internal knowing. I am still on the edges. It is not the deep inner knowing you talk about, Indira.
So today this is what is going on for me. I am relieved I stopped by today to share this. I feel something lifting already--a little more understanding reaching me.
 p.s. I like the changes you make in our open classroom, Indira. It is true I get used to one look and do get attached to some of them and hate to see them go. So I find it amusing that I open one day and everything is different. It is a great teaching. I dig that everything about our school is used as a teaching.  It really does make the school seem like a living thing, and I think it is. It is alive with the energy of the angels and I can feel that to be true. Very cool.

Conscious Awareness

Dear Students, ...in our last few email messages, we have been offering you a brief review of your first lesson, Conscious Awareness. This lesson gave you the basics. We can all use these basics, whether we are on lesson 1 or lesson 91. The best and most successful way to approach Truth is as if we know nothing. If we are full of our own knowing, how can we have an empty place to receive new words of wisdom? All the great teachers and scriptures have taught us to be humble on our path.

“…unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…” Matthew 18:3

What does this mean to you? So often we cannot hear scriptures because we come from religions that have done our thinking for us. Try reading with an open mind and an open heart. Then your intuition will kick in and enlighten you.

It really is clear and simple — when we approach Truth heavy with ego, thinking we already know, how can we hear inner guidance? How can our heart be open? How can we receive? The first and foremost important quality on the spiritual path is receptivity. We must be open to receive. Each moment. Now. Are you open and ready to receive now? Otherwise, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven….
….the kingdom of heaven referred to here is not a place you go when you die, although that is what many religions would have you believe. It is a place here and now. It exists for you here and now. It is Truth. Most of us enter this kingdom gradually, step by step. Each time we receive a spiritual Truth, another candle is lit in the darkness of ignorance. We take another step closer to wholeness.

So ponder all of this. Don’t just read these words and forget them. Read them with an open heart, as if you were a little child. Receive them into your heart. Let them stay with you and enlighten you. See how they apply to your daily life — your daily moments, moment by moment. The kingdom of heaven is available to you. Now. It always is. Each moment of Truth received becomes a moment of enlightenment. It is entering the kingdom of heaven, moment by moment.

all my love,
your fellow classmate & humble teacher

Say NO! to painful thoughts

 

When you stop looking outward and blaming others for your inner pain, you can heal more quickly. You can become consciously aware of the negative thoughts that persuade you that you must continue to suffer for something that happened yesterday or might happen tomorrow. You can say NO! to those thoughts. You do not have to allow them entrance into your psyche, your private place, the most sacred penetralia of your mind that belongs to you and you alone. No thought has the right of entrance unless you permit it.  - Lesson One, Conscious Awareness

From Lesson 1

When you mindlessly believe what you have been taught or conditioned to believe, you are letting others do your thinking for you. This keeps you imprisoned by other people's thoughts. It takes courage to think creatively, to think ‘outside the box’ in ever-evolving circles, curves, swirls, mandalas, and lines that expand into infinity—and finally, to realize there is no box at all.

Be willing to be courageous! Be willing to give up false ideas of lack, loss, fear, and limitation! Be willing to live your True Magnificence!

Be Where Your Body Is!

A Holy Man once said to a woman, “Stop thinking. This body needs you. When you are thinking and thinking, you are away. You are outside your body.”

Do it now!

Research shows: When you procrastinate, you might feel better in the short-term, and you will suffer in the long-term.

Divine Love

Everything is contained within a vast awareness that holds you, even when you disappear in deep sleep. Even in life. Even in death. This awareness is not different from love. This love is not a love you can give to anyone, because it is not yours. You belong to love. Love does not belong to you. Divine love is pure awareness. Human love is a tiny reflection of divine love. Just as stars disappear in the light of the sun, so does human love disappear in the light of Divine Love.

From Lesson One of your first Lesson (with one of my oil paintings)

School 101

Now here is a way to start the day