Loving Awareness

The Most Important Being in Existence

Posted by matthew on March 5, 2009  |  87No Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2009/03/05/the-most-important-being-in-existance/The+Most+Important+Being+in+Existence2009-03-06+04%3A47%3A59matthew

It’s been a long, long time since I wrote anything here.  Quick update:  yes, this illness is still going on and there are many times I can’t write, and some times I find it hard to speak.  It’s also intensifying the inner journey and transformation.  So it’s not a bad thing.

I haven’t written much anymore, but I have written a few things at a blog with Karen on the Polaris Rising site.   This is there too.  Please check it out!   So on to the writing…

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Here’s another confession I have: I dislike affirmations.  Like the following:

I am important.  I am the Most Important Being in Existence.

This is so because of the oneness of All That Is.

What’s there to disagree with?  It goes to the heart of what humility is, what false humility is, and addresses that the perception of separation is what creates problems in the first place. It’s not about arrogance, but about letting go.

The problem is that it’s nice in theory, but the execution of getting to truly know this has its own problems.

My first taste of affirmation was as a teen.  I was in a fairly screwed up family dynamic — the pushy, British stiff upper lip Borderline Personality Disorder mother (not to use labels or anything!) — and being expressive, I showed my pain.  This was uncomfortable for those around me, so I was sent off to healers who of course focused entirely on me.  One of them, a rebirthing therapist, actually helped — doing rebirthing (conscious, connected breathing) gave me an experience of what it was like to feel intensely without too many labels.  Yet another thing she did was to send me home to do affirmations.  30 of each one, handwritten on paper.

Lines.

All of them were positive, like above.  All of them sounded good.  Yet they also felt like punishment.  Like what teachers made you do when you did something wrong.

That’s just how it was introduced to me, of course.  But it’s also the essence of what an affirmation is.  It is the intellect telling the heart and body to learn something.  “Hey, you!  There are problems here!  Learn this so the problems can go away.”

But how do you learn about the oneness of the universe and the importance of Who You Are, if you treat parts of yourself as separate from others?  By shouting a command from my mind, I was treating my heart as subordinate, as the one making mistakes.  And of course my heart retreated.  Nothing likes to be given orders like a punished child.

There are, of course, ways to talk to the heart.  And to the body.  Ways in which speaking and listening become the same thing.  Talk without words.  Desires without expectations.  Paulo Coelho calls it “The Language of the World”, the universal language.  It’s the same language that enabled Siddhartha in Herman Hesse’s book to understand the universe from the sound of a river, by understanding it through this language.  It’s the language of the trees in the wind when your mind stops and just observes and feels.  When the mind feels and the heart thinks, and you are completely present in your body.  It’s the language of Being.

So now, when I tell myself “I am important” the sense of the affirmation above, I deeply listen to the reaction of my heart.  I’m not telling myself to do anything.  I know I’m not mistaken or wrote in the perceiving that I’m unimportant, or even the times that it seems like this statement is a complete falsehood.  I am opening myself up to Truth, which means opening myself up to my heart as well as all the reactions that come.  It’s the big-T “Truth” that encompasses all the little truths, such that my heart feels pain when I really let in that possibility.

So now a conversation with my heart may look like this:

I am important.  I am the Most Important Being in Existence.

Are you sure?

No.  But I know it’s Truth, and I want to live it.

I know it is too, but I’m here to make sure you know it.

Is that what all this confusion and pain and believing the opposite is about?

Sure.  You have to what’s not the truth before you can see the truth for yourself.  For ourselves.

Even in this conversation, it is implied that my heart is something separate from who I am, and that’s obviously not the case.  But that’s part of the journey of life here: we experience something as separate so that our mind can grasp just a little part of what the universe is.   It’s not equipped to see too much.  But this helps us look at the little truths with more passion.  The truth of the dandelion swaying in the wind.  The truth of childlike wonder in running through a summer’s sprinkler and pointing it toward others in play.  The truth of our own hearts.  The Language of the World.

That sort of exchange is more of an affirmation of life than any exercise from an external source can be.

The bottom line is no one can truly know their importance, in an ultimate sense, until they also know that they are the universe.  That is the nature of Being.

I love you, you’re perfect, now change. Happy Valentines day!

Posted by matthew on February 18, 2008  |  781 Commenthttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2008/02/18/i-love-you-you%e2%80%99re-perfect-now-change-happy-valentines-day/I+love+you%2C+you%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%84%A2re+perfect%2C+now+change.++Happy+Valentines+day%212008-02-18+16%3A56%3A38matthew

Happy (belated) Valentine’s day all! Sorry for the lack of posts, but I am going through my own transformations and there are times for silence as well. (I actually wrote this on Valentine’s day, but got around to posting it now)

For this writing, I’m going to focus on a particular dichotomy that is pretty universal amongst our relationships and in ourselves. This is the conflict apparent in the following two statements.

• I love you fully and completely.
• I really don’t accept ___ about you.

(one example for the latter might be “I don’t accept that you want to back away from any issue that may cause pain or conflict”)

Again, this is very common – in fact it’s the stereotypical “I love you, you’re perfect, now change!” motto. This isn’t a symptom of a neurotic mind; it is part of being human. The question is, how do we work with this instead of trying to be a romantic Jesus by denying what truly goes on?

As Walt Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself” : “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. ” Most of us recognize this in ourselves to some extent. Part of us wants to relax under the sun, and another part wants to fix up the home and do “valuable work”. So how to bring this unity into our lives?

Paradoxically, both within ourselves and in relationships, we always move towards a more loving direction when this contradiction and lack of acceptance is allowed and not resisted. It is by loving that we aren’t all-loving beings that creates the room for it. We’ve all heard that you cannot love another more than you love yourself. What I’m saying is you cannot love anything more than the permission that exists to not love it. This sounds complicated, but isn’t if you think of love as total and unconditional acceptance. It is a totality that includes its opposite.

In relationships, when there is no freedom to not accept parts of the other, then when this occurs (and it will occur, for we are not Buddha yet), it will remain silent and denied. This denial, like all denials, shows up as tension, lack of trust, maintaining an image of what loving behavior is, and so on. That disowned part of Self atrophies. It thinks: “If she really saw me for who I am, she’d see I don’t love her for who she is, and therefore she wouldn’t love me because what I profess to be is different from what I am.”

The above two statements occurred for me recently, and I voiced them. The effect was very freeing. By saying “I don’t accept ____ about you”, I was in effect saying I don’t love all of you yet, but I want to. Oh, how I did want to – but I wasn’t there yet. It created a space for both of us to be human, warts and all. The paradox again is that without that space, there’s no love anyway.

The problem with romance in our culture is that it is rarely a true and deep connection based on reality and the present moment. It’s a pie in the sky dream. We learn romance from Hollywood movies and high schools, where the ideal of love is more important than any real emotions occurring. It’s more important to strive for that ivory pedestal of an ideal relationship than to bring every bit of one’s Self forward to the relationship.

Unfortunately, there simply is no shortcut to truly loving with our whole being. And yet the paradox is that the love is already there. All the relationships I’ve been in, extremely dysfunctional ones included, have always had that deep love at the core of my being, connecting to their own deep love within them. We all already know about Love if we go deep enough inside ourselves; we’re only learning to bring it up through all the surface personality layers so we can live it.

It’s even more essential to give ourselves this inner space and freedom. We can think in terms of the law of attraction if we want; we can use affirmations; we can proclaim that we love ourselves unconditionally. But unless there is room for not loving ourselves – for the hate, non acceptance and harsh desires to be someone else – then there will not be love, for there is no room for it. This is of mindfulness – a space of simply watching what arises naturally, without any attempt for control or change. The essence of mindfulness is spaciousness.

I wrote this on Valentine’s day and it’s traditionally a time for romance. Let’s make it a time for love as well. Welcome all of your Self, and welcome all of whomever you interact with. It’s only when you welcome hatred – not to cultivate or flame, but simply in giving it mindful space – that we make room for love to work its magic on it. There’s always room for that.

What is enlightenment?

Posted by matthew on January 16, 2008  |  7016 Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2008/01/16/what-is-enlightenment/What+is+enlightenment%3F2008-01-17+03%3A28%3A18matthew

The following was a question received from Mary which is wonderful and brings a lot of common ideas out into the open:

Question: I’ve come across the topic of enlightenment so often lately that I’d like a clear perspective on it. I find the idea confusing because it seems to be a worthy aim for the spiritually focused, yet it is said that those who say they are enlightened are not, and others say that it is better to work for personal maturity rather than enlightenment. Others say that it’s no fun being enlightened, while others say it’s pure bliss. So what is it really? How to get there, what does an enlightened life look like in our here and now life?

The concept of enlightenment, I find with some humor, is one which is filled with much non-enlightened thought: that is, thought based in separation and “ego”. Firstly, the concept is a label for an experience decidedly without labels. It is an experience of utter freedom – but whatever thought you have of what enlightenment is will always be accumulated from others. It is again, something someone else tells you is a better way.

The essence of compassion part 2

Posted by matthew on January 2, 2008  |  6621 Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2008/01/02/the-essence-of-compassion-part-2/The+essence+of+compassion+part+22008-01-03+02%3A13%3A40matthew

The topic of compassion is of course very close to the purpose of this site – it is an aspect of Love. However, this was instigated recently by the “Spread the Love Now!” project of Wade of The Middle Way, Kenton of Zen-Inspired Self Development, and Albert of Urban Monk.Net. This site, as the “About” page shows, has two writers, and we thought we’d each contribute something to this. So there are two articles about compassion, one for each of us. This topic is, after all, central to the purpose of this site – why else would we call it Loving Awareness?

If you haven’t read the previous entry on compassion by Karen, please do so. I’m (Matthew) going to add to it, starting with the first comment as a basis question – on the subject of child abuse. It’s a very good question, and representative on most people’s initial response to thinking of compassion in terms of awareness and acceptance, rather than having a duty to do something to solve a problem. I realize this is a touchy subject, and that what is written here may be controversial because of the massive cultural pain that exists. However, bringing compassion to such a painful area brings a huge amount of clarity to how it is applied in the world.

The Law of Attraction Part 2 – Beyond Abraham / Hicks

Posted by matthew on December 16, 2007  |  582 Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2007/12/16/the-law-of-attraction-part-2-beyond-abraham-hicks/The+Law+of+Attraction+Part+2+-+Beyond+Abraham+%2F+Hicks2007-12-17+00%3A30%3A43matthew

Much has been said about the “law of attraction” elsewhere, particularly relating to channeling from Abraham/Hicks and The Secret. This is our own channeling on the subject from entities on the causal plane, recorded live, and really addresses some of the disempowering aspects of what is commonly known.  Press play below to listen to part 2.

 

 The Law of Attraction Part 2 - Beyond Abraham / Hicks: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You can listen to this via iTunes via this link:

 

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We did not do a transcript for this, but would love feedback. Do you prefer having the transcript? Are there non-personal channeling questions you’d like to ask? Any general topics you’d like? Disagreements. Any suggestions, feedback, questions to channel, or ideas to write about are completely welcome. You can use the following form if you’d prefer to send something privately, or use the comment feature!

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Interconnectedness of being

Posted by matthew on December 7, 2007  |  6014 Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2007/12/07/interconnectedness-of-being/Interconnectedness+of+being2007-12-08+06%3A08%3A38matthew

If you look at life like a poet, seeing beauty in the simplest things, you do not need to go anywhere to find beauty. You can see that within manure, a flower is waiting to be born. It is not in the future as an abstract concept; it is there now, in its fullest potential. Within an acorn lying on the forest floor is a magnificent flowering tree. If you listen closely, you can feel the tree whisper to you from inside the acorn, with its majestic tranquility. Within a storm inflicting damage on a community is also the breathtaking beauty of sun squirming its way through the clouds to a new dawn, bringing new energy and a re-creation of what we thought was perfect, but has new perfection to expand upon us.

This potential also works with emotions and relationships. Within a storm of a relationship where there is deep division and conflict, there is also a great empathy waiting to unfold. This is because there can be no compassion without understanding, and to find understanding we must experience. You cannot have empathy for someone’s violence without having experienced the urge to lash out yourself. And it is through empathy, or love, that we transform the world. Peace does not come from imposing rules of peace; it comes from living peace. This applies within relationships and activism equally.

The interconnected nature of the universe applies to me in particular in my own journey. This being is within me:

Feeling the weight of someone’s body on top of me, I shut off. How could this happen? How can I let this happen? I shall never trust the world again. I shall keep kicking until I no longer feel a weight on top of me. I shall never trust myself again. I shall never trust the world again. I hate being a child, for helplessness is the worst of all evils.

This being is also within me:

The child breathes contentedly in utter trust, feeling the warmth and support surrounding me. I am helpless, but within that helplessness comes the ability to invite help. Everything I need is here now. In utter vulnerability, I let the world touch me and the fullness of it brings utter joy. My helplessness is a gateway to feeling the love around me. I trust completely.

The two beings are of course one; they are me. Within the vulnerability of a childlike state is also the ability to be traumatized, and within the ability to be traumatized is the ability to heal, learn empathy, transform the world, and live a life of Love. Nothing needs to be done to “transform” one into the other; they are both inseparable. They are me.

 

In thinking about healing, we usually focus on the loudest voice. The hurt child screams loudest and we rarely hear anything else, so we think that’s all there is. We lose awareness of the joyful child that is present in the moment and has never left us. And it is awareness that transforms – not counseling, medication, or even diving into the pain – but simple awareness. It is through awareness that all aspects of ourselves are reconnected and integrated. It is how compassion is learned; seeing how interdependent we are.

Whether within one’s Self, in relationship, or in society, there is a great interdependency. The pain cannot be without the joy and compassion. A pauper cannot exist without the ultra rich. There would be no destruction of the rainforest without all the world participating in its consumer patterns. This is not simply the link of cause and effect; it is a deeper connection on the level of being. You are the environment of the world, you are the disparity of wealth, and you are both the joys and pains that exist in you and without you.  Invite this in; it is the gateway to living a live filled with peace.

 

Emotions as beauty itself

Posted by matthew on December 2, 2007  |  5912 Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2007/12/02/emotions-as-beauty-itself/Emotions+as+beauty+itself2007-12-03+04%3A41%3A45matthew

For this post, I’ll include more of my personal journey: that of dealing with emotions. I’ve always been someone who has had had very intense emotions to deal with, especially those related to my past sexual abuse. Because of this, many emotions have come at any and all times, without apparent “reason”: at work, in relationships, light social times, and with family. Without any visible reason or sense, at least in the immediate context, it’s easy to hold judgment about strong emotions in our culture. It can appear to make others uncomfortable.

This isn’t particular to sexual abuse; it is quite common to anyone sensitive and emotionally open, dealing with pain in any way. Emotions are emotions. They don’t make sense. If they did, they would be thoughts, not emotions. The heart has reasons the mind knows not of, and never will. Our need to make sense greatly depends on how allowing we are of the emotion. A grand sense of joy flittering like butterflies across our hearts when we see, for example, kittens playing with string for the first time, won’t require much sense. And yet, when it comes to “negative emotions”, such as pain, fear, anger, self-hatred, or a mix of them that could be called inner conflict, we often simply don’t allow them to come forward as naturally. We want reasons, explanations, labels, and hopefully a way to protect ourselves against them appearing again. This is the illusion of control reasons give us.

To me, how this manifested was a desire to expunge all the emotions. They obviously caused problems, so it made sense to want to get rid of them. I thought of them as a water well containing nothing but poison stored there from all the past pains in my life. So I tried to “get it out” as much as possible, whether it be via counseling, venting, punching pillows, or even meditation and trying to transform myself in that manner. Eventually, things would be “clear” and I would be more “balanced”. Of course, things didn’t work that way, because implicit in all these actions was a fundamental lack of love for those emotions – which creates even more negative emotions to vent. The perception that there was something wrong with me created more problems. The never-ending process continued. Thinking there was something wrong with me because I had pain simply created more pain.

A different way of looking at them instead is what was channeled to me recently by Karen Murphy.

At this time, perhaps you would like to think of your emotions, instead of something you need to get out and express, think of them as art, as a creation that you are constantly perfecting. They’re not finished yet, but you see their beauty in whatever state of creation they are in. You don’t need to share it even, because they are so beautiful. Bring this creation, all the beautiful colors that you know, and all the love you have inside you, for you love this creation. It is the most beautiful creation you have ever made, and you derive great satisfaction from the process of creating it. Take your time. Use visuals if that helps. Look around you. Find elements of what you see that perhaps might be included in this creation of yours. You will know it when you see it – anything that needs to be included. Have fun with this process, for it is yours. It is the first thing that’s truly belonged to you.

This brought up much tears in me, because it went to the heart of who I am: an expressive person with an intense of love of beauty and art. And if I do not see myself as a work of art, then of course there will be a lack of love for Self. Corresponding to this was indeed a visual image of moving and surreal color, much like the movie “What Dreams May Come.” We see art and beauty in Van Gogh, Dali, or other artists who express darkness or “craziness”. After all, it’s on the page and there are skills involved. However, there is an implicit dismissal of the skill involved in simply allowing emotions to come to fruition and expressiveness in this society. There is tremendous skill in this. We see this in movies, on the stage, of an actor being very true with emotions, but it is easy to discount this in ourselves. This is not the same as being able to pick the right words and expression of them. It lies simply in being those emotions, in allowing them fully.

 

As I reach new levels of allowing of my emotions, I’m encountering vastly new perceptions of my life and my past, and even hidden memories. Finally remembering who crawled into my bed at night, the helplessness, shame, impotent kicking, and a split of consciousness that persisted into adulthood. There are, of course, many emotions connected to this journey, much like any prisoner might feel after coming into sunlight after thinking a cell block was home for many years. There is frustration, there is helplessness, and yes, there is self-hatred. I’m finding this isn’t a contradiction in any way to loving myself. It has its own beauty; a disconnected aspect of myself that’s screaming from years of being walled away. There is beauty in goth designs, and there is intense beauty in these emotions as well. They are a valid journey home.

Love, especially for ourselves, isn’t a thing or something to gain, or anything to ingrain into our minds through writing a million affirmations or reading thousands of blogs. It’s a perception – an awareness. Shifting how we look at something, especially ourselves, creates transformations. In fact, every transformation is precisely a change in perception. There is nothing but this, because there is perfection in everything, including intense pain. In the case of emotions, my experiences have created a subtle yet powerful difference in my experience in them. There is wonder in these emotions, simply as an expression of what is. The simply perception of beauty in utter vividness is, in the present moment, more loving than a thousand affirmations.

The Void

Posted by matthew on November 11, 2007  |  537 Commentshttp://www.loving-awareness.org/2007/11/11/the-void/The+Void2007-11-12+06%3A39%3A52matthew

The following is channeled material we recently brought through:

 

Question: There is a concept across many traditions of inviting or surrending to “The Void”. What exactly is “The Void”, and what is the process of surrendering? What can be gained by it?

A simple way to describe the Void would be absence of all expectation. In other words, a total acceptance of what is. Not what could be. Not what should be. Not what might be – but simply what is. We have noticed that the concept of accepting what is is paradoxically simple, yet inherently complex. It is difficult for the human, caught up as you are in the illusions of life as a human, that is, possessing a body, interacting with others and perceiving things simply on a physical basis, to consistently recognize that there is so much more, and yet at the same time so much less than what it is they perceive. To be completely immersed in the Now, then, requires such a large degree of trust that one has no need to manipulate reality to become anything more than what it is.

The void, then, is again the absence of all expectation and a complete immersion into all that is the present. This “all” must include, of course, all your dreams, desires, pain, love, and humanness. So a complete acceptance of all these things takes place for one to take place in the Now. Simple, yes? Yet when you consider each element, each one seems to bring with it so much more, so many issues, so many requirements of your time and energy and thought, that it seems impossible to divorce yourself from those in order to reside completely in the present. We remind you, then, that there is no need of course to separate yourself from all that you are. There need only be the joyful expansion of your perception to embrace all that you are into this one present moment.

Surrendering, then, to this absence that also includes everything requires, as we said, an enormous degree of trust. You must trust yourself. You must trust your perceptions. You must trust that you are not truly separated from any part of you. And you must trust that this joyful expansion can actually take place. We invite you, then, to dip one toe into the Void this time with us.

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Place your awareness, if you will, on a spot located on your forehead between and above your eyes, often referred to as “the third eye”. To enhance sensitivity you may likely massage this area. While breathing comfortably and deeply, bring your awareness then to this spot. And as you do so, notice how it grows. It grows to encompass all that you are, all that you ever have been, and all that you ever will be. Notice too the sense of love and acceptance that comes simply with this noticing. Embrace all your former selves and all your future ones. Breathe them in and allow them to take stronger presence within your present self body. Trust that all these selves hold for you the information you most need to know right now. You may or may not ever be consciously aware of this information, yet it is yours at this moment. Breathe in again and let out that breathe, letting go of any expectation of what any of these selves bring you. You feel it leaving your body. Place your hands over your heart, and seal in that awareness to hold within you forever.

By regularly exposing yourself to the Void, you increase your conscious awareness of your own trueness and all the potential that lies within you at all times. In other words, by learning to surrender you become a more complete and whole person.

It is often implied that the fear of death is the basis for all fears, and that it is by experiencing a form of death that true transformation can occur. How does the Void relate to this fear of death and the transformation referred to?

The concept of death is indeed a frightening one to most people. We would say that it is no accident that there are parallels between the concepts of death and the Void of which we speak. In each case, that spark within you that is You is always maintained despite outer transformations that are taking place. In the case of what you refer to as death, it is simply the physical body that transforms. Everything else about you – your hopes, desires, dreams, and memories – are still retained, and always are a part of the You that you are in this life. There is an aspect of death to the transformation that occurs when one surrenders completely to the Void, but again, that inner spark of You-ness is always retained despite external transformation. The transformation that occurs when one surrenders to the void is not one that is necessarily physically apparent. Yet it is one that allows the fullness and completeness of you to emerge as if to play.

 

It is the fear of transformation itself, then, that is the root of the fears of death and the fear of surrendering to the Void. It is natural to attempt to hold on to what one has been, for that is all one knows. However, if you alter your perception so that you can embrace all that you will be, your fears of transformation, whether from death or from surrender to the Void will be eased.

 

If you have questions you think would be good to get channeled answers for, please leave a comment!  Thank you!