Getting back to Now

Focus is all about right now, whether I am in meditation or concentrating on what I need to learn. I know I’m ‘doing it right’ when I have sense of peace and I lose track of time; it’s a feeling of doing the right thing at the right time where things flow, and I find the energy and insight to complete my task well.

I say ’doing it right’ because when I’m in the zone everything feels right, but in reality there is no right and wrong; there is, however, easy and hard. This would be an instance of ’easy’. ’Hard’ occurs when things don’t flow so well - when there are a lot of distractions that creep in and derail my efforts to accomplish something, be it a task or a state of mind. In this instance it’s a process of remembering what my intention is and returning to the task at hand…and sometimes not getting swept away in frustration. On these days success is measured by the number of times I return to the task, not necessarily in what I accomplish.

Getting back to now, it has not always been easy to see. I found myself wound up in my past and my future almost all of the time and had quite a challenge really understanding what now is. Even recently my perception changed again and I understand it in a way I didn't before. The implications of now runvery deep, and keep everything very simple.

Past and future only exist in the now through thoughts and memories. As I have realized the truth of this, I have also been able to see now expand from a fraction of an instant between past and future, to the space between breaths where life begins anew, and to the moment before thought where, from the infinite chaos of purest potential, a thought arises and is realized. In that moment before thought, we choose.  

Life is awe inspiring.

Resistance is futile

I am reading journal entries from last summer, around the time I really started to accept that there were some things about my life that I could no longer deny, and around the time I got some help in dealing with my experience so I could come to terms with my self.

The themes so far are

1. Feeling okay and like I have things under control
2. Feeling like crap and as though I have no control
3. Feeling pretty good about my commitment and action to get things under control
4. Something happens to indicate that I have no control over what is happening
5. Feeling directionless, lost, generally quite useless, and feeling as though I am just taking up space on the planet.

I had spent a long time training myself and successfully practicing that life is what you make it and that thoughts manifest. I had a good life that started to fall to shit (in some respects) and I thought I could stop it. 6 months later I am knee-deep and only just realizing that I have no control over a good part of my life at this time. Every time I think I have control, I realize I have none. Perhaps it is time to accept that I have none. Perhaps I am being propelled down a path because I must go down the path.

I am clearly in a transition, a big one. I am struggling with a sense of urgency to do something and at the same time, I don't really know what to do. So, while I struggle wth focus and a sense of direction, I am also spending a lot of energy trying to stay neutral until I figure out what I want. Transitions are times of pure potential; it’s mind-boggling, but it is time to unboggle the mind. What’s the best way to maximize pure potential? Set goals! I set some. I set a bunch. I managed a few…the ones that only involved me…fitness goals and whatnot; others? Not even close, despite taking the steps, fruition never occurred. The only explanation I have is that they were not goals in sync with something about me. It seems to me that sometimes the plan is bigger than I can see and, when that is the case, resistance is futile.

Does thought cause?

I am thinking about looking for work. I need to do it soon, but for a long time I just haven't  been able to focus on what I want in terms of career growth. Though I know, in general, I don‘t expect to get what I want by accident, so I need to find some focus before I begin. I probably won’t have to sustain it for a long time, but my experience indicates that it is necessary.

Used to think that making things happen my life was about understanding causal relationships. The consequences of my actions. Now I am not so sure. It doesn’t seem causal anymore. Before thought there is pure potential. It seems to me that it’s not so much that the act of thinking that creates reality as much as that the act of thinking is creating. That’s it. There is nothing else; you think/create and it is, not sequentially but simultaneously. There is no causal relationship.

It also seems to me that it is not my awareness of something that makes something exist or not exist. If I am unaware of something about myself or my life then for me it does not exist, but for someone else it could... as plain as day… and perhaps be very annoying. My awareness of something does not determine its existence, only my experience of it. If that is true then there is no causal relationship. I think / create and then I either experience it or I don’t…partly depending on whether I create consciously or not. Is it then my belief that brings it into my realm of experience? Does it need to be believable? Do I make it believable by consciously creating and then establishing the steps I need to take?

Lately, I have had the feeling that I have set the bar too low. Part of me believes that these are the steps I need to take, but that I can take them fairly quickly. Then I look at the steps and question the necessity of some of them, and I wonder why, at particular stages, I did not imagine more for myself.
Part of me also believes that the big things take longer and take more energy. What if that is not true?

Life à la carte

It seems to me that we create our lives in every respect. As disturbing as that can be, and as disturbing as that was for me, as it came with the awareness of a huge responsibility and a good dose of guilt, it is pretty incredible too. Once I got past seeing the burden, I started to get glimpses of the entire realm of possibility. It is life à la carte; I have figured out that I can have what I want, when I want it! The catch seems to be that some of the items are like lots at an auction. You get what you want but you also get some things you don’t want. Perhaps this is, in part, a function of not fully envisioning what I draw into my life, but often it seems to be part of whatever lesson I need to learn. It can be unpleasant, but growing pains are.

But, I digress. I think that one of the reasons it was, and still can be, such a challenge for me is that accepting the possibility that I can be different involves accepting change. I have gotten quite good at accepting change when things are shit, but when things are going well it is not so easy. Why would I bother when things are going well? Because I have to. Things change. Everything changes. Change is probably the only constant in life, and even when everything is going well, things change. Accepting the realm of possibility means allowing things to flow in and out of my life. Hanging on to something, even if it is something good, means

1. It hurts more when it goes away

2. I have not allowed my life to get even better, and

3. I have focused my energy on the small picture and have not prepared myself for the next (good) thing to happen.

Basically, in this state, change happens to me and loss falls into the range somewhere between painful and shocking; I am at the whims of others and at the mercy of the forces in my life that I do not understand. However, whether I understand them or not, I have the recurring experience of discovering that I have more control than I give myself credit for. Creating is not just within my power, it is my responsibility. Even if I don’t take on the responsibility and consciously create, I still create. There is no escaping it. Inaction and inattention have just as much of an impact as action and attention, the difference being that I find myself one step behind and reacting instead of initiating. It is the difference between never knowing what to expect vs. things turning out to be what I expect.

I have realized that all things begin in the time before thought. Everything comes from somewhere. Thoughts seem to be the point of creation, but it begs the question as to where thoughts come from. I can’t say that I know, but I can glimpse that space before thought. Thoughts don’t just happen, we create or choose them from the entire realm of possibility. That space contains or is all things and nothing at all. It is pure consciousness, pure energy.