Loving Awareness

Status: The measure of value we present

Posted by matthew on November 11, 2010  |  1544 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2010%2F11%2F11%2Fstatus-the-measure-of-value-we-present%2FStatus%3A+The+measure+of+value+we+present2010-11-12+00%3A48%3A44matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F%3Fp%3D154

One of my loves is the theatre.? I’ve studied acting, clowning, and improvisation, and I’ve performed onstage for years, everything from bedroom farce to Dracula to Shakespeare.? I love it because it brings me to a heightened state of aliveness.

My love of acting has little to do with the adulation that comes from the applause for a good performance, but it has everything to do with acting’s relationship to an inner exploration.? In acting, you explore your very identity.? You explore creation.? You explore going within yourself in order to be someone else.? You find other beings and energy inside yourself. By doing this, you expand yourself – and expand everyone else who watches.

All of the other actors I know who value this aspect of acting as I do are also very spiritual people.? We may not write inspiring prose and we may not belong to any congregation, but we see a temple in the exultation of unhibited emotion.? Having surrendered within to our many selves, we’ve received a firsthand glimpse into the oneness that we all share.? And through all this, we’ve learned incredible amounts? about ourselves through the intricate tapestry of our most visible measure of ourselves: relationships.

It would be too much in this one post to recount the many lessons in the playfulness that is theatre, so for now I’ll focus on one critical element any actor learns quickly: status.

Status as a Flow of Energy in Interactions

It may be unfashionable to mention status in the politically-correct culture of the “land of the free”, but we are all influenced by it on some level.? We know when we are speaking to an “important” person.? We are affected by this knowledge.? The energetically sensitive feel how energy naturally flows to the “higher status” person.? There’s always a reaction to this.? Sometimes the effect is on our emotional reaction, from admiration to resentment.? Sometimes the effect automatically creates a dynamic in the relationship: subservience or combativeness.? Not everyone reacts the same way, but everyone feels it.? We react to it even more because we’re not supposed to notice it.

Education, on the level of status, has made us blind.? We’re supposed to believe that the homeless person living in a cardboard box is a human being with the same value and perfection we have, but I have yet to see someone interact with a homeless person on that level.? In my experience there’s disgust, aversion, or pity – all signs of the perception of status and the flow of energy from it.

In this competitive world, the cultural model is built around status.? It governs the intrinsic framework of relationships.

Most of us notice status but don’t think of it consciously.? We want to “succeed” but in order to do so we must go up a rung on the status ladder.? Being “successful”.? Owning a house, or a nice car.? Being respected by others.? Showing mastery in something and being able to come across well at social events.? Academic success.? Even spiritual mastery is subject to the concept of status — the idea of “ascension”, or “old” souls being somehow better, are perfect examples.? Being accepted as “enlightened” is very high status.? But we don’t think of what status truly is, and especially not what the ultimate expression of status is.

Exploring Status Yourself

One exercise in theatre is to “play” status.? Everyone is awarded a different number between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest status.?? I invite you to play this at a party; it’s great fun and a wonderful tool for growth.

Number one, the lowest status, takes as little space as possible.? Shame is the sea in which this status swims.? It’s as if you were homeless and were just waiting to be rounded up.? You make little eye contact. Your motions are hesitant. You are beaten before you even begin.

As the status scale increases, there’s increasingly less shame and an increasingly strong, proud, engaging bearing.? Yet while going up the scale, you’re always in a state of comparison.? You notice your relationships with others: who is lower status and who is higher?? You need to please the ones with higher status.? You give in and give them energy.? Life force flows to them, leaving the lower status empty. At the same time, you must protect your place from those “lower” than you are and maybe even get some energy from them. Yet you remain ever vigilant against them, happy when they appear to be in their “place.”

As an aside, it is for this reason that it’s no accident that it’s those on the lower status of society that are most angry towards illegal immigrants.

What is interesting in this game, and is the reason I’m mentioning this here, is what happens at the top of the spectrum. These are the people with ultra-high status.? If you’re close to the top, you know you’re above most of the world, but there’s still insecurity and full of comparison.? There is still someone above you, somewhere, somehow. You are still comparing. In our society, this might be the ultra rich — they know they have status, but they are still in competition and are looking for some way they can finally feel above it all.

At the very top, however, is a paradox: the ultimate status is with those who move beyond it. ? To these people there is no such thing as status.? The person with the “highest” status is unconcerned with games of comparison or worthiness.? They know their value.? They see their importance.? It is indisputable.? There is no question and no game.? They can be who they are without any reluctance, guile, or mask.? They can relate to others as they are. They can be in torment and doubt, and yet still be they are, without shame, and know it has absolute value. ?It is as if they were born into unspoilt royalty.? Life is full of bounty and beauty, and there is no question that the universe finds them full of value and their desires welcome.? This is true status.

Why do I mention this?? Because it is inextricably linked with the western spiritual quest.? There are thousands upon thousands of blogs on personal growth and advice giving.? In my experience, very few of them give from a sense of complete fullness.? Instead, there is a desire to feel good from having others appreciate the inspiration and insight.? (One of the reasons I stopped writing for a time was because this impulse was very strong within me.)? This is status: the more others appreciate you and give you applause and energy, the higher your status.

And yet, part of this is the problem of Arrogance: when you gain energy from putting forth something that is not fully who you are, not from true vulnerability, then you keep yourself from the highest levels of status and worth.?? By trying to raise your status out of lack, you entrench yourself as “lower status”.

The idea of the ‘evolved person’, the manifested man, the enlightened one, is also intrinsic to the highest status.? The manifested person is at the highest status, wherever he is.? He could be among nobles or beggars — it doesn’t matter.

My ‘ideal’ of how to live within status is the ideal of living in the highest status and treating every other thing in the Universe as also in that status.

Imagine this for yourself.? You are at the highest status.? Everything supports you and naturally gives you energy without depleting itself.? The universe responds naturally to you.? And yet you interact with everything as equals.? You see the smallest blade of grass as also of the highest status.? There is nothing to defend against, no lack, and even no status.? There is only plenty.

In short, the ideal is to live in beingness — fully vulnerable as who you are. This is the ultimate expression of status.? Think of Siddhartha by the river in his old age. He shows his perfection as he is whether he is surrounded by adulants or insects.? It is an expression of completeness.

Many people on a western spiritual path use the greeting ‘namaste’ without really considering what it means, but it is another way to express this ideal. Your highest nature welcomes and greets the highest nature of that which is around you. You welcome and embrace all that you are, and you treat every other thing in the Universe as reverentially as your own highest nature.

So I say to you all:???????? Namaste

I now ask you: from your own deep honesty and vulnerability, what is the truth of how you view your status in relationship with the world?

Outer authority on the path of finding your own

Posted by matthew on May 26, 2010  |  147No Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2010%2F05%2F26%2Fouter-authority-on-the-path-of-finding-your-own%2FOuter+authority+on+the+path+of+finding+your+own2010-05-26+20%3A19%3A07matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F%3Fp%3D147

In the last few months, I’ve seen more of just how much power I give away from myself.

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

Posted by matthew on February 18, 2008  |  782 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2008%2F02%2F18%2Fi-love-you-you%25e2%2580%2599re-perfect-now-change-happy-valentines-day%2FI+love+you%2C+you%27re+perfect%2C+now+change.++Happy+Valentines+day%212008-02-18+16%3A56%3A38matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2008%2F02%2F18%2Fi-love-you-you%25e2%2580%2599re-perfect-now-change-happy-valentines-day%2F

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 â???? for the hate, non acceptance and harsh desires to be someone else â???? 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 â???? not to cultivate or flame, but simply in giving it mindful space â???? that we make room for love to work its magic on it. There’s always room for that.

Slavery in our lives – Martin Luther King Jr day

Posted by matthew on January 21, 2008  |  7316 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2008%2F01%2F21%2Fslavery-in-our-lives-martin-luther-king-jr-day%2FSlavery+in+our+lives+-+Martin+Luther+King+Jr+day2008-01-22+04%3A03%3A43matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2008%2F01%2F21%2Fslavery-in-our-lives-martin-luther-king-jr-day%2F

In the United States today is Martin Luther King day. This man, through the work of millions of other people, has come to symbolize human rights and a desire to end slavery’s legacy in all forms. He understood, as do others, that slavery still exists in different forms even now. It exists as institutions, it exists in economic forms, and exists in the minds of people. This last part is rarely mentioned.

So what is slavery?

To expand the idea of what slavery is to include both the world and internal states, I would redefine it as the following:

Slavery is the state of living with no perceivable choices.

Letting go

Posted by matthew on January 8, 2008  |  64No Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2008%2F01%2F08%2Fletting-go%2FLetting+go2008-01-08+11%3A15%3A53matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2008%2F01%2F08%2Fletting-go%2F

You may have noticed that amidst the bustle of the holiday season, it’s easy to forget the turning of the seasons. Beyond gift giving and family, we have a fundamental connection as living being to this earth, and its movements move us. The wintry season with long nights, hibernation and repose, offer us time to reflect, re-evaluate, and release. Without dark nights, we would not awaken to a day that is new and transformed from those in the past. Letting go is emphasized by nature in this season, and listening to the nourisher of life on this planet provides deep nourishment in itself.

Trusting Perceptions and Higher Communication

Posted by matthew on December 26, 2007  |  636 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F12%2F26%2Ftrusting-perceptions-and-higher-communication%2FTrusting+Perceptions+and+Higher+Communication2007-12-26+16%3A21%3A49matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F12%2F26%2Ftrusting-perceptions-and-higher-communication%2F

One of the most fundamental aspect of any growth or spiritual path is the trust in one’s own perception. There is no question it is an incomplete perception; so long as you have a body, you will not see even a minuscule fraction of the totality of the universe, or that of your Self. But it is still your perception. It is your link to your soul. It is the basis for all growth, for if you rely on someone else’s eyes and intuition, you are not living your own life, discovering your own Truth, but are being a guinea pig for other’s experiments with Truth. As J. Krishnamurti said,

“All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.”

Interconnectedness of being

Posted by matthew on December 7, 2007  |  6015 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F12%2F07%2Finterconnectedness-of-being%2FInterconnectedness+of+being2007-12-08+06%3A08%3A38matthewhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F12%2F07%2Finterconnectedness-of-being%2F

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 â???? not counseling, medication, or even diving into the pain â???? 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  |  5915 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.loving-awareness.org%2F2007%2F12%2F02%2Femotions-as-beauty-itself%2FEmotions+as+beauty+itself2007-12-03+04%3A41%3A45matthew1561948290

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 â???? 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.

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.