I and the Moment Are One

Cloudy skies and the sun paints the edges of the clouds in silvery golden light.  My consciousness stretched out wide again, I’m opening to whatever thoughts may come.  I am not disappointed for they do come but not in their usual frenetic cacophony but more of a peaceful swirl of curiosity and questioning.  As I notice the motion of them inside, just one begins to rise to the surface:  What do you believe in?  I let the thought linger in the present and reflect upon it without trying to think too much about it.  From my studies in psychology and consciousness I could tear apart most things I believe.  But I don’t give much credence to my beliefs as I see them for what they are, thousands and thousands of thought forms existing within my head as untested hypotheses or provisional truths stated or derived as fact from the outside world of my own perspectives.

There is a feeling within me growing in response to my own question and I relax and let it culminate into conscious cognition.  It comes then, the response:  I believe in this moment.  For in this moment, there is both nothing and everything from the microcosm to the quantum whole of all of reality.  And then I wonder a little more as I let my thoughts gently float into and out of my awareness.  More questions than answers I presume as a measure of my learning and another becomes more clear:  How do you know that this moment exists at all?  I consider these questions and answers reflect in the form of feeling rather than thinking and the swirling then stops.  The thoughts now still have me reaching with my senses again.  I can only seemingly know a moment by the way I sense the moment, by the way I am present in that moment but that brings me no further certainty that it exists definitively outside the scope of my perception.

I’m not the first to wonder of such things and I certainly won’t be the last.  But I like this mental meandering of sorts and its accompanying ever-expanding feeling and so stay with it a bit more wondering where it will lead me.  I trace with a glance, a bank of clouds moving a little faster and lower on the horizon than the larger and darker ones nearer the sun.  I watch the city come fully awake and am wandering amongst a concrete jungle.  So many thoughts beg for attention and I quell them focused on one breath in this moment.  This moment to me is very much like a wave on a sea.  When we are in the midst of a moment there is no before or after, there is no past or future and there is no worry or care.  I like how that feels but it doesn’t answer my question or address my seeming belief in the validity of a moment.  Perhaps a moment isn’t a moment at all but a collective of moments woven by chains in hours and minutes or days and years.  I cannot say with any definitive certainty, for who am I to say anything definitive or certain about anything even my own measure of consciousness? I think I am awake and driving my car down the busy highway.  I see that there are buildings and people walking.  I see there are other drivers driving and still I can’t decide so with certainty that they exist.  I perceive something but a perception, like belief, is not a fact.  It seems so, both – perception and belief.  They seem like truth but time and time again are we proven wrong by science, experience or our own first hand observation from a much higher level of consciousness we may find ourselves momentarily engaged in.

I think the moment is as others have described and being fully present within it is like a surfer on top of a wave, there is no more waiting for it to come or considering it after, there is only the ride in the moment it has become manifest.  To think about those moments awakens a part of our experience that takes the pure and pristine beauty of a moment away.  Every moment is precious whether here, gone or yet to come.  All of time is an expression of our own perception and I’ve had these experiences where time has stopped or sped by extraordinarily fast.  Does it stand on its own outside of my experience?  I could easily argue both yes and no.  Did yesterday exist?  In my perception it did at least as my perception of my own memories tell me.  Will tomorrow exist?  Maybe. I don’t know if it will.  Does today exist?  I think that it does as I hear the wind chimes outside playing a wind facilitated beautiful tune, while the leaves shiver and shake in the sea breeze and I hear the birds singing as well.  But I must admit that each of these things is filtered through the perception that is the way I see the world.  Who is to say that I am right?  What if I’m wrong?

How does one master true understanding then of anything when all we think we know is based only on perception or belief?  I believe in this moment, I thought only moments ago.  But there are other moments I believed in too and now they are gone except in the confines of my conscious memory.  What is more real in my consciousness, that which stands before me or that recalled from memory?  If I go with feeling alone there is no answer and my feelings seem to react the same to memory or “real-time.”  But what is real-time but a moment in motion?  I cannot say even what a moment is or whether it truly exists or doesn’t but I exist as I observe it.  Am I separate at all then, in my consciousness from this moment?  Am I separate at all then in my consciousness from my perceptions or beliefs?  Again, I could answer both yes and no.  But something doesn’t sit right with the feeling within me.

If I throw out all of my thoughts and just be, I am content, sensing an ever expanding existence of consciousness of the big “C” kind.  Is that the Moment?  Are we creating them, the moments?  Do they exist in our memory, our souls or our Spirits or are we sitting in some etheric movie theatre somewhere…Elsewhere watching some form of educational movie we call life?  From a momentary experience I suppose it doesn’t matter whether when I am asleep I dream or I perceive myself awake even if by other standards I am still very much asleep.  My logical mind grasps for the themes, the patterns and the constants and there is only one and that one is most easily expressed as “I.”  Anything in this world or the next may follow that one tiny little letter in our very short alphabet that has meaning beyond that which 100,000 dictionaries, encyclopedias or academics of all sorts could define.  We can all describe a piece from our learning and from our respective perspectives but how much closer does that bring us to understanding a Moment?  I think the Moment is aligned with I.  I and the Moment are one in a way that may make no sense at all.

But it’s fun to toy with my thoughts as the leaves glow brilliant green on the trees and the clouds give way to cerulean blue skies and every single line and angle in my perspective is etched in both dark and light.  Now, in this moment, I have found yet again a tiny little space of peace in having no answers but questions, curiosity with coming knowledge and feeling.  What would a moment be without a feeling?  That, I suppose is a question for another time. 

May you find joy in your life’s moments for all are truly precious in whatever manner you perceive them to be.  May the light brilliantly shine upon the dark shadows of all of your perceptions and beliefs.  In time illumination comes for those who know it will and already has.

© J.L. Harter (photo/words)

Courtesy of the Journal of Metaphysics and Connected Consciousness.

And We

Darkened landscape silhouettes

7 Silver Birds sent speeding skyward

One each minute that passes

The rising sun lighting their bellies

Making them appear as sparkling stars in an early morning sky

The rays of light begin reaching

Into a new day only just begun

And I find I’m reaching too

For what I cannot say

The golden pink sunrise

Takes my breath away

It matters not the road I’m on

Still I drive

Something within me stirs

As the silhouettes dissolve

In glowing orange shadows

More metal birds now in flight

And with them my thoughts soar

Let them get to where they are going, I think

Let us all arrive safely

After this amazing journey in life

With our hearts full of laughter

And blessed lessons learned

So the dream continues

Unfolding as it will

And we, with it

 

© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

The Toxicity of Gossip: A Heavy and Dark Path From Which to Learn

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We don’t think about it very much but perhaps we should.  Engaging in or propagating gossip is toxic for both the bearer of it and the receiver.  I hear gossip constantly and while I understand it deeply at a psychological level, I have to tell you that there is something within me that sinks and cringes whenever I hear it.  Now, having said that, I think there is a difference between momentarily venting when you’ve missed those Nano seconds to seek true understanding and have taken something into self and engaging in something wholly unhealthy due to pure psychology.  The Oz Principle, by Roger Conners talks about giving yourselves a moment to vent below the line, realize you are just venting and then bring yourself back above the line.  With Senn-Delaney (the culture shaping firm) concepts, which I also love, they acknowledge that as humans we react at a certain level in the negative when under stress but can bring ourselves back up to a level of curious which is neutral.

I wish more of the populace had exposure to these principles and guides so they would better understand why we operate the way we do.  I have to admit that I love these two specific sources of understanding that I’ve mentioned.  I also have to say that we can go deeper with our understanding by just cutting straight to the heart of a few things about life:

1.     No matter what we go through, we are going to experience something only from our ego’s very limited perspective.  That limited perspective is formed by our environmental psychology and its resulting conditioning.

2.     The ego seeks to protect itself first and foremost so will deny it’s part in any wrong doing, make assumptions and seek revenge if it feels in any way threatened by its conditioning even if passive-aggressively.

3.     The level to which you are affected by or engage in any of these things depends upon your own personal growth and development.  Everyone operates at a different level, please understand.

4.     We seek these experiences on purpose to learn from and hopefully some day, transcend.

At some point when we tire of the toxic engagement and stop doing the same things we’ve always done just to receive the same result, we may seek understanding instead.  Once you understand that your perspectives and assumptions are not truth, you’ve just lost half of anything there is to gossip about or become ensnared with.  When you reach for understanding and take the next step, setting boundaries for your own level of engagement, you realize you neither have to engage in the toxicity of gossip or take it in to you (as Mooji might say) when someone brings it to you.

Please understand, that gossip, assumption from skewed perception, victimizing thoughts and revenge all come from a wounded space of the armor that is our own egos as well as the ego's conditioning.  Just understand that and realize you don’t have to do anything about it.  The ego judges its safety and security by the level at which everyone else is perceived to reside within.  The ego does not, however, perceive the truth.  Thankfully within you there is the alternate experiencer who bears witness to all you see, hear, feel and engage in and seems quite separate, the observer (as Eckart Tolle and many other luminaries write about).  From that watcher or observer, if you will, stems true feeling once you learn to tune in and listen to it.  Your own inner voice is no voice at all…but is rather a very wonderful inner guide in the form of feelings (sometimes physical ones if need be) that exists as part of your being.

The next time you engage in gossip or receive it, I want you to pay very close attention to your solar plexus area or your heart area…does it feel a bit tight?  Does it feel like it’s sinking?  Does it feel like there is something not quite right like fear, dread, anxiety, or even a faster heart beat? Provided you do not suffer some form of sociopathic tendencies, you’ll notice that feeling and that feeling is a message.  That message is trying to tell you something – that something is either to stop blaming, victimizing, comparing, contrasting or trying to make yourself better at the expense of someone else you have most likely inaccurately perceived, or you are sensing what someone else is bringing you is just truly toxic and no good for you.

I dislike gossip.  I do not like how it feels.  I am a human being also and if I miss that Nano second to grab understanding instead of the ego’s perception, I’m going to need to vent my emotion just like the next person.  The only difference is that I find even as I begin to speak, my own body starts to tell me I’m wrong.  It starts to tell me through feeling that I’m not seeing the whole picture and so what I have judged may be inaccurate and that I may be missing an opportunity to get calm and centered and seek truth through real understanding rather than assuming my own assumptions are facts.  What I begin to understand is that my emotion is based on an illusion and so, may not be necessary.  That emotion must be understood better before acted upon.  Emotion based on assumption cannot be fact until validated.  Assumption, if left unchecked forms belief. Belief engages egoic emotion.  Before long this process leaves you with a mess of anxiety, anger and hurt feelings.  Understanding that belief is untested hypothesis, assumption is only deduction from information without the facts validated and that you can free yourself from generating or taking in toxicity is one of the key modes of self-actualization.  When we face these egoic emotions, the better cause of valor is to stop all action and go for a walk, breathe in and breathe out – repeat until the egoic emotion stops and we recenter ourselves in normal reality whatever that is for each of us.  Then, with a calm and cool head, go validate the facts and respond accordingly with  a compassion for self and understanding for others (this does not mean be a doormat - this means seek the truth and respond in a healthy way for you and others).

So, we are human in form at the moment.  We seek out interactions from which to learn.  We grow when we understand the life lesson presented over and over again.  Gossip is an opportunity to learn.  You can hear it and not let it in.  You can stop yourself from engaging in it by being accountable and honest with yourself about assumption and perception.  If you can do this, you can learn to operate from a healthy space of compassion.  This is an optimal state from which to learn and live positively in a way that helps you create and learn differently.  It takes change to learn and grow. Why not shift your own perspectives into a higher gear and steer clear of the one thing that will drag you down like cement shoes?  One more thought I’ll leave you with, if you, like me – tend to be the receiver of gossip, instead of taking it in, ask questions about the assumptions others are making.  The payoff of gossip is not worth anything the ego might think it will gain.  Just food for thought.

Blessings of higher love, compassion, healing and understanding beautiful dreamers!

 

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©  2015 Jaie Hart

Soar

Squander not away the hours

The minutes or seconds of this life

Seeking egoic gratification

The secret to life

Or one of them actually

Is that the ego is like a puzzle

That once put together can be understood

And then ultimately, transcended

Like a rocket then, you’ll soar

To ever higher and higher sights as yet unseen

Visions and dreams never imagined

Then have the potential to become your reality

Find you not an ounce of solace

In any equality seeking endeavors

Know in your heart that equality exists

At a level most cannot even comprehend

Find the kindness within the heart of you

Let that be your one and only true guide

And with that beautifully dawning wisdom

Will you find the Source

Your Source

Of Truth

©  2015 Jaie Hart

The Old Country (St. Patrick's Day)

I dream of the old country,

Not with nostalgia, but in fear of the grip it had on me while I was there;

Always the traveler, always lost-always looking for directions...

I surrendered myself to you and your ways.

And it was always you, not them, not us but you,

Not as a host but as a jailer, holding me against my will,

Drowning in your hospitality and your rain,

Soaked to the bones with your desire,

Tricked again by your magic..

In the half light, under the cracked fanlight and street lamp,

Whipped by the wind and enveloped by the fog,

Is that the sunrise over the hills? Barely discernible like a ghost by the grave,

Or my soul, the departed, faithfully leaving me behind in the dark?

I dream of you now, won't you please let me go..

Loosen your grip, you loveless hag, barren countryside

and naked trees, no love no comfort, no way home.

I dream of the old country, and hope I awake,

I was born far from here, my dreams have been stolen,

The soft rain, thank God, is washing my soul clean,

The clouds form and close in over me,

Free from my memories, I slip quietly away.

The Old Country, no country, no land of mine, no return, no...

© 2015 Dr. Liam Leonard  (photo copyright as noted).

 

Shinning the Light on an Often Misunderstood Kind of Personal Confession

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A wonderful soul set off a series of thoughts within me some time ago that everything within me railed against.  Several years and life lessons later, I think I only begin to understand.

As I was driving into the storm clouds this morning looking for the rays of light spilling out in every direction, the words came to me once again.  Only this time with them understanding came as pure inspiration from appreciating life just as it is.  

The concept is simply this:

When another person cites to you each of your failings and shortcomings, arrest any need you may have for a defensive reaction or action.

Instead, stop all thought and endeavor to listen very carefully with an open mind and heart.  For in such a moment thou art in fact receiving the Holy confession of the other person either in whole or in part.

Hold a space of loving compassion and give them the gift of having their voice heard.  This act takes nothing from you but can give you everything if you seize the opportunity.

With loving compassion and kindness, thank them for their courage and their honest expression.

Now, look deeply within your own being and see the truth for within your rising feelings towards the other person are you in fact giving also your own Holy confession.

Hold a space now of compassion and love for self in true appreciation for your own courage in feeling the layers of lies and false belief being freed from your soul.  Realize you both are being given an opportunity to be free.

Within every encounter and every exchange - both teacher and student are perfectly and beautifully born.  Teach and learn.  Learn and love.  Be silent and feel and you will begin to understand.  Blessings.

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© 2015 Rev. JL Harter (photo and words)

A Life Lacking Authenticity = A Long, Dark and Lonely Road

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What is it within us that keeps us tied to someone else’s ideal of who or what we should be?  I think within us lives a primal fear from days long gone of being eliminated from the pack, shunned or otherwise humiliated for being authentically who we truly are.

I was reminded of these thoughts yesterday while out and about.  A simple thing no one but my partner and I noticed, but there was a woman walking down the street.  She wore brightly colored clothing that did not match.  It was partly cool ethnic, partly hippie and partly beach casual.  Absolutely nothing in her attire was in sync;  not the style, not the colors and certainly not the mixed prints.  She was a beautiful woman I thought, maybe somewhere in her forties.  My partner commented on her dress and wondered about it.  I let my senses go out and feel for what it might be that gave her the inspiration for her choice in attire.  Now mind you that I can only filter through my own perception of this reality I experience but what I felt was a spirit true to herself.  I didn’t sense mental illness, lacking awareness of fashion, drug-induced ignorance, color blindness or anything else.  I saw a soul comfortably walking her own way.  And you know what?  I respected and appreciated it so much.

Admittedly, I am a recovering co-dependent people pleaser.  I have lived most of my life trying to be what every one else thought I should be from an A student, to a star team player to a perfect wife and mother.  None of these things could I ever measure up to for long in the eyes of another.  Eventually I’d fail to live up to an ideal and oh the wicked lashing I’d get then.  Not from those with the expectations of me but from my own mind.  That, in my opinion sitting here this morning, is the absolute worst. 

Somewhere along the timeline of my life a feeling grew inside of my core that could no longer be ignored.  I was tired of working so hard for an unachievable perfection that I nearly imploded and in that moment was true perfection born.  I began to question why on Earth would I ever endeavor to be anything other than who and what I actually was?  I realized that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, my choices, or my desires for my own life, (except for the minor point that I had no clue what any of that was).

As I look back on my life I see so much of the authentic real person within me who tried so hard to fight its way out of my ego’s seemingly forced invisibility.  There is such a thing as an inverse ego.  It is a very fragile one as are most wounded egos.  But something within me kept begging for cognition, awareness and the desire to throw away invisibility and anyone or anything that required that of me.

I spent years then trying on new things to see if it felt right and good and in the process, did the best I could to raise my children the way I thought best despite the frustration of the expectations of others, despite the lectures and the “you oughtta’s.”  I became a self-made success nearly in spite of myself and that’s kind of funny to me.  By sheer force of will I reduced all barriers to mere rubble so-to-speak and I forged a new path if even in pure darkness and eventually as the twists and turns of my life completed themselves, I came to the tiniest glimmer of light from deep within.  I no longer question who I am and have come to learn that I need not worry so much about what others think because they don’t define me, I don’t define me.  The part of me that would try to define me is only my ego and it is incapable.  So, I have learned that I am of two minds in a very interesting and psych-spiritual-philosophical way.  I see myself getting caught up in things and I pull myself out with rational thought and a true sense of authenticity but usually not unscathed.  But those scrapes, bumps and bruises from exploration have taught me what I am not by process of elimination.  Some of you may identify with that process of learning.  It is a very interesting path to say the least!

I rebel against the idea of dictates towards me now near automatically.  I work very hard to quiet the voice inside my head that tries still to tell me who and what to be and well, how to do it even.  I grapple and struggle with that voice that says, “No, you’re wrong, you can’t do that and you’ll never make it this way or that way.”  I struggle with that voice because I see its true origin – again, malware in the psyche.  It’s not mental illness per se.  This is more environmental psychology – along the lines of the natural effect of living in a perfectly imperfect world with individuals who did not understand a human being’s true potential.

Every single soul on the planet does the only thing they know how to do…even when they are doing things morally judged as wrong, mean, horrible, awful, insulting, demeaning, etc.  We all have choices to make in life; including how to manage the effects of our own very personal environmental psychology.

Walking your own path in life can sometimes be a lonely experience.  When you refuse to conform to societal norms or enforced conformity for the ease of others, life takes on a new meaning and the challenge that arises becomes an invitation to climb.  And by climb, I mean climbing out of the pit of other’s ideals of who you should be and embracing the true authenticity within you, accepting yourself exactly as you are and loving yourself despite any lingering traces of a voice whispering negative thoughts to thwart your progress.  The lonlier path truly is complacency, sleepy conformity and ignoring your own true inner feelings and spiritual urgings.

Being authentic means you have found your true inner voice and it will no longer keep quiet.  You can recognize the true inner voice by the way that it speaks to you so that you can feel the purity of the flow within you.  This is the voice you can begin to recognize as the higher part of the self guiding you up and out of the lower designs of the ego.  The ego is not to be destroyed mind-you, but rather understood and then transcended.  Old paradigms of thought and outmoded methods of activity can be overcome when you grab hold of those few precious nano seconds between judgment, emotion and action.  The span is so short from a human timeline perspective that if you remain asleep and unaware that such times are a gift in which you can step out of normal reaction and into, instead, understanding and thoughtful response, you might miss a beautiful opportunity to truly see yourself just as beautifully as you are.  It is absolutely amazing the way you can truly feel living life honestly from a place of authenticity.

Why does this matter, I often write in my posts.  I want you to think for just a moment about why this matters.  If you live the life someone else designs for you – even if that design comes from your own ego spurred on by environmental psychology and unconscious malware, this is a recipe for a very unhappy and unfulfilling life.  I don’t want that for myself certainly and I don’t want that for you either.  I can pretend I am a teacher of sparkling and impeccable thoughts and actions but that would be a lie.  I teach from the heart by real experience that I have been through, that I grapple with and that I succeed at if even painfully sometimes.  I like to find meaning in the ugliness and take it as a personal challenge to find some shred of beauty in it no matter how long and hard I must contemplate, reflect and adjust my sometimes-myopic vision.

This is one incredible ride…life.  It is meant to be lived from the heart and soul of you. When you can determine that which most prevents you from living life in joy from the truest center of your being, everything changes from the mundane to the extraordinary.  You become (once again) extraordinary and the thought of that makes me smile.  Blessings for your journey beautiful dreamers.  Find that thread of authenticity fighting within you for conscious cognition.  Give it a tug with a smile on your face and be willing to deal with all the stuff that falls out.  It’s that “stuff” that you must wade through and clean up to get to the good stuff in life.  Be fearless and courageous.  You were born of the stuff of the stars that shine so very brightly.  Live your life like you mean it straight from the heart.  Much love and light always and in all ways. And, So, It Is!

 

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© 2015 Jaie Hart (photo and words)

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my books.  You can find them at http://www.jaiehart.com or Amazon Kindle and even in Nook.  Bless!