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THE PRICE OF ADMISSION: A PRIVILEGE

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 28, 2009 at 8:00pm

Charlotte Joko Beck, in the book Everyday Zen is speaking about earning the integrity and wholeness of our lives every day, by every act we do, every word we say.And she speaks the words:"From the ordinary point of view, the price we must pay is enormous -- though seen clearly, it is no price at all, but a privilege. As our practice grows we comprehend this privilege more and more."*** ***** ***

Nisargadatta Maharaj http://www.abideinself.com/

Posted by Cullen Anderson on November 27, 2009 at 7:03am

A cool free film about Nisargadatta Maharaj http://www.abideinself.com/

THE BLESSINGS IN FORGIVING

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 26, 2009 at 11:30am

© 2009 Howard McQueen(Revision 2 | 11.28.2009)The deep wounded-nessoozes its pain.This viral infection in the human mindgives rise to projections of blame,and the courtroom drama unfolds.Our parents, teachers, nuns, the Pope,someone, Hell,even the Omniscient Onemust be brought to justicefor this hell-hole breeding groundof pain and suffering.The small, contracted mehunkered down in survival mode,circles around the drain,dazed by this constantly changing surface world,its perpetual erosion,trying again and again to hold on to some semblance ofconstancy-of-homeand a sense of security-in-identity.Triggered again and again by all this change,We find it easy to blame,then learn to sedate or redirect the pain andwe habituate to the semi-conscious, stuck energetic pattern“the story of me and my unconscious,self-absorbing, debilitating and dis-empoweringbeliefs and reactive habits.”We keep handing over the reins,empowering the wounded mind to manufacturea vast array of “thinking” personality disordersand associated dramas.Yes, this manufacturing can go on and on,till death shuts down the mental manufacturing of our fictional falseness.ORWe can choose to step into our heartand access the keys to forgivenessand real-eyes that life is the grand, macro lesson in inheriting painand surrendering to lifethe inherited infection of ignorance, the veil of confusion.In surrender and forgiveness, we summon Graceto wash completely cleanall the evidence we have amassed and habitually clingi.e. about the world handed to us by our parents and eldersas being this perpetual sentence of unrequited loveIn choosing to forgive ourselves, unconditionally,we find the keys to giving ourselves the unconditional lovewe have forever tried seeking outside ourselves.Grace enters us, to subsume and transform us,and we then radiate a healing, integrated spacefor the entire Human race.And a new virus, rooted in the Heart,gathers its own infectious momentum,and begins to spread and unfold ...*** ~~~ ***

Pay It Forward With A Smile and A Kindness

Posted by Cullen Anderson on November 25, 2009 at 9:23am

Pay it Forward ~ A Reminder Hello Lovely People

Today, please have a think about you can do today that can help somebody else.... Even if it is just a simple smile, it can make such a difference to somebody who is feeling sad, or somebody who has forgotten how to smile. See how many people you can smile at today, and see how many people smile back <3 Be The One That Makes A Difference <3 Have a lovely smiley day all my new facebook friends <3Sending lots of love & smiles to you <3 Alison Hamlin-Hughes 'Ambassador of Smiles'

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted by Trey Carland on November 25, 2009 at 3:45am

I hope you all are enjoying the change of the seasons. As the leaves fall, the sky gets larger, the nights grow longer. The stars seem brighter and more prevalent, and the outside world becomes more still as the birds and insects disappear. An exciting change is in the air. Thanksgiving is also upon us. This is one of my favorite holidays because it serves as a reminder to look at all there is to be grateful for. I am grateful for my family and friends, for their love and support. I am grateful that I have come to see how much love there is in the simplest act. I am grateful for this beautiful planet we inhabit. I am grateful for technology that has enabled me to connect with so many people from my past and present. At the most basic level, I am grateful that I exist. What a miraculous gift! How is it even possible to express enough gratitude for my pure existence? I am also grateful for all of the great teachings that have come into my life, which have led me to appreciate all there is. Everywhere I look I can see things to be grateful for – if I look close enough. I would like to encourage all of you to look at all of the little things there are to be grateful for as well. Many of us have mixed feelings about coming together with friends and family over the holidays. Some are eager to reunite, and some are a bit reluctant (or a combination of both). It can be a time of stress when it comes to preparations that need to be made. We want everything to be just right. We love it when things go our way. But things don’t always go the way we want, which causes stress. I encourage you to recognize when this happens and be grateful that things are always going exactly the way they are supposed to, whether it coincides with our plans or not. Gratitude is the greatest stress reliever. If the casserole gets burned, or the turkey gets overcooked, or someone forgets to bring dessert, be grateful. Things have gone exactly as they are supposed to and you’ve been given a great opportunity to realize and appreciate that. If disagreements happen among family members over politics or other family matters, another opportunity for growth has arisen. Once you realize that life could be no other way than it is right now, true forgiveness can occur. When we forgive, gratitude is a natural byproduct. This gratitude stems from not having to bear the heavy burden of resentment and anger. If we recognize that we are acting out of anger or frustration, we can then forgive ourselves and experience the gratitude of being forgiven. As I was writing this, an Eckhart Tolle quote crossed my path. “Forgiveness happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self (ego). Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life – to allow life to live through you. The alternatives are pain and suffering, a greatly restricted flow of life energy, and in many cases physical disease.” To truly forgive is to rid yourself of the burdensome weight of the past. Holding on to the past – whether that be 5 minutes ago or 5 years ago – will only lead to more suffering. To forgive and forget is to bring attention back to the only moment we will ever have: Now. Be thankful for Now by recognizing it as the one thing that matters. Happy Thanksgiving, Trey

Quotes about JD Hazelworth's "That Which Always Is"

Posted by Cullen Anderson on November 25, 2009 at 1:22am

You cannot think your way into awareness. You are awareness. It just gets pointed out. ~ John Wheeler So long as the play, the dream, seems real for the seeker, then the bottom line is that with some pointing to what is actually REAL, AND some pointing out what is NOT REAL, the suffering can end. ~Charlie Hayes If I asked you, ‘What is wrong with right now, without thinking about it?’, what would you say? You have to pause for a moment and realise that if there is no thought there, there is nothing wrong. ~ “Sailor” Bob Adamson It would seem that reality has moved into the mental realm and reality is known by what is thought about it – and not by what it is. ~ John Greven Give up all questions except one who am I? ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Realization is to get rid of the delusion that you have not realized. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi Enlightenment only becomes available when it has been accepted that it cannot be achieved. ~ Tony Parsons You can never find mind through the mind. Go beyond it, and find it non-existent. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations. ~ Alan Watts A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. ~ Gautama Siddharta A fella ain't got a soul of his own, just one great big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody. ~ Tom Joad, The Grapes of Wrath

REBIRTHING: RESURRECTING SELF

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 20, 2009 at 9:00am

© 2009 Howard McQueenThe Human experience can be seen as a cycle, or a series of cycles. To the extent that we become conscious of our cycles (like the seasons) we can honor our connection to ourselves and be in rhythm, rather than in opposition or resistance. Here is a first cut model for the human life cycle, narrowed in scope to a single incarnation.Consciousness again chooses to inhabit form,and there is movement towards being born.The womb of an earth-bound mother is now our home.We drink in the vibrations, the sensations, deeply imprintingon the full spectrum of mother’s emotional, mental and physical nutrition.An amniotic warm sea, tinged with nurturing,spiked with our mother’s external world drama and experience.We are pure, wide-open vulnerability.We are accepting the downloading codification of this life’s deep grooves of destiny.Then there is birth,transition to the outer worldwe are completely transfixedwe emote in response to this alien world of fluxing energies.We are, through repetition, encouraged to form sounds,taught words: our name, ma ma, dada.Encouragement, reward, hold me close, let me synchronizewith my ma ma – this is such a strange world.And one day, our parent becomes frightened for our safety.They share this fear with us and we become afraid.Or they become triggered by our reckless absorption and joy in the world,and vent their anger and rage at us.They, or other circumstances and events, traumatize us.We experience fear, we shrink, we collapse, we evacuate.And in this collapsed space, we call upon our mind to “make it all safe”.Thus begins the contrived birth and manufacturing of the entitywe know as our ego.In our youthful obsession to avoid fear,we hand over the reins andour ego obliges, in acceptance,with almost a wry, condescending smile,Ha, caught this one, once again!.Our authentic power is transferred to the ego,that gets busy spinning up stories of subterfuge,subversion, diversion and delusion,and the ego pulls out of its hat,the fruits of its laboring for us - Viola: custom tailored-to-fit armor,our own chain mail.The ego says “leave it all to me, I’ll shape and form appearances to insure your safety."“Lean into me” says the ego. "I’ll support you where all the adults have failed, betrayed and abandoned,or deeply misunderstood you."And then begins the wholesale onslaught of society's Conditioning and Domestication.The educational institutions pour twelve years of mental facts and antiquated information into the child,then, for some, graduation and four or more years of additional education.The sacred rites of passage, well, they were forgotten, passed over.Then you are twenty-one and proclaimed an Adult,ready to fit-in, conform, join the machinery, be absorbed by the technology,aka, rev yourself up and really, by God, "live the Dream".The government institutions sell the ego a sense of security,if only you conform to being a good citizen, and wear our brand of pride and nationality.The religious institutions sell salvation,if only you conform to their code of conduct, behavior and morality.The politicans sell democracy and packaged freedom,If you only buy into their bi-polar two party disorder,Then they sell packaged fear, turmoil and economic disorder.And those institutions of free enterprise sell you their capital consumerismif only you worship the acquisition of material things.Wealth rents and buys the politicians, who sell you your vote.Just repeat after me " ..." is the formula for conditioning.The ego uses all this commotion and expectation as kindling,and we are now brightly lit up with inauthenticity,a raging wind-whipped out-of-control bonfire of vanity and insecurity,completely turned upon itself, swallowing its tail, consuming itself.All these institutions construe with the ego to lay down templates that encourage "the good life": you marry, have children, be productive, own lots of things and live a life worshiping the cultural gods they bless and consecrate.And it all kind of fits and works out,till one day,things start falling apart,and your life becomes filled with mounting stress and sufferingand deep inside, you begin to feel that you’ve led yourself astray.And you gain a glimpse into the truth of your ongoing abandonment and betrayal.So now, for some, there is the backtracking,the undoing, the uprooting, the in-light-in-ing,the unbecoming and letting go of all the false evidence,the darkness and smoky veil drawn within.There is the reconnecting to the abused, orphaned inner child,the dismantling and disempowering of the egoand its stranglehold.You awaken to become parentre-parenting,learning to be impeccable in giving your child what it has always needed,No more fantasy or delusional thinking that someone, some institution,or something external is supposed to fix us or do for us what we must do for ourself.Now there is a rapid waning of pretence.Bye bye old dramas,adios to the manipulations of pleasing others,to gain their attention to get what YOU want.And the emotional bodybegins to heal from within,and you become whole-sum and whole, again.Then comes the rebirth of that which is true and authentic,and the tides of tears are restored.There is joyThere is liberationThere is freedomIf at first only for brief moments,But the taste,the vibrational feel,the connectionIs undeniable and the felt-ness is indelible,triggering the remembering of that which is eternal,your birthright, your keepsake.The rest is giving in, surrendering, letting your attention and intention remain trueto what desires to awaken and emerge from within the deeper essence of you.It is called love, unity, connection, compassion, trust, peaceThis is what we really breathe in,It is this conscious, loving intention that we breath out into this world.We are stepping up now, in greater numbers, to lead by example.We are living in our Heart and our language and intentions are bornfrom the heart.This Love transforms ALL things.It is your presence, your present for uncovering and resurrecting your SELF.***This is my interpretation of the human condition. We are challenged to fill ourselves to the brim with this world of attachments to things, only to detach and die, to shed our skin, again and again, to all these experiences and connections. Life offers us constant support to accomplish this journey and our conditioning offers up an equally deep well of resistance. This conflict places enormous internal pressure on the human operating system. And, as I see it, the rapidity of change is increasing, as is world-wide economic dysfunction. From my vantage point, these are escalating invitations to connect to the heart and live from the intuitive guidances offered from the heart. Holding on to the old infrastructures of ego-centric striving and living are becoming increasingly toxic, as they manifest separation and obscure unity and community.- Howard McQueen (Nov-21, 2009)In some circles this process of re-birthing could, in my humble opinion, be labeled Christ consciousness, Buddha nature, ...

American Zen

Posted by Bill Walz on November 19, 2009 at 4:39pm

AMERICAN ZENBy Bill WalzZen is waking up out of the unconscious patterns of our lives and into heightened presence, awareness and clarity - then, living life right here as it is. Nothing special, and, oh, so special.I teach and guide people in a way of living that draws on the wisdom and skills of Zen Buddhism, yet is thoroughly contemporary. I call it American Zen because America is the contemporary culture in which I live and teach. It could be European, or Asian or Latin or African because Zen doesn’t have to be bound to a culture. It is a way of approaching life that transcends culture. Likewise, while Buddhism is a religion that originated in Asia, I have always found it a little off-putting that Buddhism is often practiced in the West continuing to emphasize its Asian trappings and rituals. The Asian trappings and rituals are not Buddhism. That said, to absorb fully a statue or picture of the Buddha can be an experience of wholehearted presence, an example of the clarity, peace and calmness that communicates a great deal about Buddhism.Buddhism is about living life in an “awakened” manner, which is what the word Buddhism means, and this awakening is not about some theological dogma, but about seeing and living life naturally, vitally and skillfully, not caught in the shallow experience of life only as a backdrop to all of our hectic activity and thinking about life. Fundamental to the teachings of Buddhism, the phrase “be here, now,” is often applied, and to me, here and now means just that. Not there and then, in some other cultural and time perspective. Buddhism, and its Zen expression, is really much more a philosophy of life and a psychology of the Human experience than an anachronistic religion. It can be applied in any cultural, historic or even religious context. American Zen then is the development of the concept of “here and now” to its full transformational potential within the cultural context of contemporary America.Central to Zen, but not as some ritual, is meditation. Meditation is the practice of deepening our capacity for relaxed, yet very alert awareness. It opens us to profound conscious contact with the present moment where our lives are actually lived, while gaining in insight as to how our psychologically conditioned minds create a very artificial and limited relationship with life. It is about learning how each moment has its own uniqueness, but that we miss this uniqueness projecting our own concepts of self and the world onto the moments of our lives.Zen is then about learning to bring the openness and focus we experience in meditation into everyday life. The practice of sitting meditation is a powerful practice for learning the mind and opening into discovery of who we are at our deepest level. But for our sitting meditation to achieve its full transformational potential, the consciousness achieved in the sitting must then enter our ordinary everyday life as mindfulness, the practice of knowing with a deep presence what we are doing as we do it. This connects us powerfully to life as we live it.If all our neurosis is created by the conflicting messages we get from family and society about who we are and what is right and true, then Zen seeks to liberate us by instructing us to experience life directly, and to, as one Zen exhortation instructs, to “show original face”. This means to live in a manner emerging from capacities within us that are natural and fundamental rather than solely acting out the influences and conditioning of family and social experience. In this way, Zen is a psychology with powerful transformational capacity. It opens us to experiencing life anew, with immediate, open curiosity and wonder, getting out of the mazeway of our minds, greatly freed of neurotic thought and emotion.Simplicity, naturalness, presence, connectedness and compassion are hallmarks of the Zen life. Zen is a living philosophy, a way of experiencing life in freshness and wisdom. It is not meant to be an arcane religion, but it is meant to awaken spiritual connectedness. In that way, Zen is the experience and expression of life as a sacred dance, here and now. Even the simplest of acts and experiences is imbued with the wonder of the sacred. Zen is the experience of the sacred in us encountering and entering the sacred in the World, transcending the experience of separateness, for the sacred cannot be divided into “me” and “other”. Zen is meant to awaken us into the spiritual dimension of life while living our ordinary secular lives.American Zen, then, is American life, done with a Zen twist. The traditional Japanese Zen instruction that Zen is in “chopping wood and carrying water”, means it is to be found in the simplest of life’s tasks when those tasks are approached with relaxed alert awareness and a sense of sacredness. American Zen, then, is chopping wood and carrying water modern American style. It is about walking in nature or just down the street, driving your car, washing the dishes, eating a meal, gardening, sports and recreation, doing your job, interacting with people. The Zen is in being very present, very aware and reverential, not distracted, as you do whatever you do. It is about embracing Life just as it is, not insisting that Life meet your conditions for happiness. In Zen, you become increasingly aware that you are Life, that you are Nature. You no longer feel separate, dissatisfied and afraid.Zen is waking up out of the unconscious patterns of our lives and into heightened presence, awareness and clarity - then, living life right here as it is. Nothing special, and, oh, so special. Stop being trapped by your past story of who you think you are, and begin living vitally in the present. Open your mind beyond the limits of its family and social conditioning into life’s full potential, which allows life to be markedly more meaningful, satisfying and manageable. Then, just live life, wherever you are. Only now, life is saner and has a joy, spontaneity, spirituality and peacefulness that is lacking in the typical conventional modern experience. Right here in America, living American Zen.

WHAT WOULD OUR LIFE EXPERIENCE BE LIKE ...

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 18, 2009 at 8:31am

(C) 2009 Howard McQueenWhat would our life experience be like if we were to:- Rest the mind and allow all of its manufacturing operations to wind down.- Fully felt and acknowledged all the stored/stuck emotions we have hidden away.- Treated our body as the sacred, organic vessel for the remainder of this brief incarnation.What would our life experience be like?Perhaps you would care to share you sense of these possibilities with me - Howard@mcq.com

A Contemporary Buddhist Psychology

Posted by Bill Walz on November 17, 2009 at 9:55pm

A CONTEMPORARY BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGYBy Bill WalzWestern clinical psychology focuses on the personal experience and history of an individual. As such, it explores a person’s distortions and confusions in perceptions, thoughts, emotions and behavior. It examines a person’s sense of self in relationship to their internal mental experience and their social interactions. Collectively these experiences comprise the personal egoic identity, a person’s sense of self-in-the-world as a separate entity in existence, seeking to find safety and significance.While this is a very valuable study, it struggles to be a complete enough model to bring truly transformational psychological healing. Might we rather examine how true psychological healing would harmonize the individual egoic dimension with a realm of mind that is deeper, yet one largely neglected by Western psychology – awareness itself. We need an awareness-centered trans-egoic psychology.For this, one effective approach is to bring the wisdom of ancient Buddhism into a modern context. While Buddhism is recognized as a religion, or a philosophy of life, it is, in a certain sense, an ancient-culture trans-egoic psychology. It is possible, borrowing from this tradition, to develop a completely modern trans-egoic psychology that honors the best psychological insights from both the ancient Buddhist and the modern clinical worlds.When looking at Western and Buddhist psychology, the principle difference between them is in the model of mind. Western psychology is basically two-dimensional. It recognizes the conscious and sub-conscious dimensions of the egoic mind, while Buddhist psychology, in addition to recognizing the egoic realm, also recognizes and emphasizes a higher and deeper realm of pure undifferentiated awareness. These realms of higher and deeper awareness are seen in Buddhism as the realm of our true, unconditioned self, as well as the realm of universal consciousness and interconnectedness. This psychological perspective holds that it is only when these ego-transcendent dimensions of mind are experienced as the primary sense of self, rather than some vague metaphysical backdrop, that harmony and wisdom can be brought forward as the guiding consciousness for healthy egoic functioning.Buddhist psychology and Western psychology both agree that the egoic experience is the product of conditioning, both bio-genetic-neurological and experiential. The difference is that Western psychology operates solely at this level, limiting its therapies to modifying the egoic mind’s most dysfunctional aspects through medication and emotion/thought-structure and behavioral counseling and interpretation. It can relieve grosser incapacitating symptoms, but does not offer a real cure. It is a mental illness model; it does not have a model for true mental health, while Buddhist psychology doesBuddhism recognizes the egoic dimension of mind to be a superficial, limited and deeply flawed mental representation of reality comprised of a matrix of concepts conditioned or programmed into the individual by genetic pre-disposition, society, culture, family and personal experience, creating, in a sense, an artificial reality. As it is superficial, limited and flawed, when ego is experienced as the primary dimension of mind and the seat of the self, humans suffer from a distorted sense of self-in-the-world, leading to distorted psychological, social, even spiritual functioning. In the non-scientific, metaphorical manner of Buddhism, this realm of mental representations or forms is referred to as “little mind,” while the realm of the unconditioned higher consciousness is referred to as “big mind,” the mind of all-inclusive awareness.The little egoic mind exists within the big mind of clear awareness that is the unwavering witness to our experience. Our problems stem from the little egoic dimension, with all its conflicts and contradictions, being experienced as the primary, even the only, dimension of identity and reality. Little egoic mind is the mind of condensed fragments drawn from the limitless reality of life-as-it-is, creating the experience of personal separateness in a universe of separateness. It is so limited that, in Buddhism, it is referred to as the mind of “illusion” (samsara), life-as-we-imagine-it. Since it is a severely limited representation of the total integrated potential of life, it is deeply flawed in its representation. As this perspective is basic to modern life, we are faced with the situation, then, that we all are, more or less, crazy.Western psychology then, is designed to address the “more” end of the spectrum, to help people stay within social “norms”, many of which are so arbitrary and limiting as to be crazy themselves in the bigger picture of human potential. The frame of reference for egoic little mind is always the mental forms of “me” and “the world-as-I-project-it-to-be.” It shapes what is possible in perception, thought and emotional/behavioral response to what has already been conditioned into a person as possible. As these perceptions are fraught with all the contradictions and conflicts inherent in the cross-purposes and confusions of their influences, which in turn, have been shaped by the egoic purposes of the forces that created them, it all adds up to a feedback loop that makes for insane people in an insane world, unconscious of the possibilities for real sanity.A contemporary Buddhist psychology is based in the Buddhist observation that we have sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions, but we are not these sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions. We are much more. These mental phenomena are but psychological tools for conceptualizing, experiencing and engaging the world. We are, at our essence, the clear undifferentiated awareness within which the perceptions, thoughts and emotions of the egoic mind arise and pass – here – in this contemporary modern life. It is the mind of awareness that can access the true nature and potentiality of Life – much larger than the limited perspective of conditioned ego.Such a psychology, of course, is also sophisticated in understanding and working with egoic mind, but it makes clear that who we are in our essence is not contained within the limits of our egoic mind. It is a psychology that holds that the ego’s conditioning can be transcended. It is a liberation from the confines of ego, about being a fully realized human being. It teaches that a person can essentially be healed of psychological dysfunction by shifting the sense of self from a locus solely in the egoic personality into primarily the transcendent dimensions of mind. It teaches that we can observe the distortions of the conditioned mind and make appropriate corrections from a dimension of perceiving wisdom deeper than thought. This realization is what Buddhism calls, “awakening.” Egoic identity is experienced as useful for social and utilitarian purposes, but no longer held as a person’s existential core.Healthy ego is important. This is not an either-or proposition. Ego is what makes humans unique and gives us the ability to engage the world creatively. It contains our faculties for language, ideas and invention. It is our capacity to live in the abstractions of human society. But in a Buddhist trans-egoic model, when awareness and connectedness replace ego and separateness as the centerpiece of mind, the dysfunctionality of egoic experience can be greatly transcended. Egoic content can also be reconditioned through mindful perceptions and responses into a more effective, accurate and personally secure self-in-the-world.Ego can now let go of its defensiveness, its need to dominate, to be right and significant. It can let go of its personal story of conflict as the measure of its importance. It can let go of its wounds. It can rest and heal, divesting itself of the life-long build-up of energy hoarded for its self-protection. It can relax. This allows for an authentic personality to shine through that has depth, ease, presence and effectiveness. The mystical Zen concept of “being nobody,” which means being fundamentally empty of identity in the neurotic conditioning of ego, then becomes comprehensible as a viable, highly effective way of being in the world.“So, challenges the Zen master, “Show me your original face.”From this orientation, the egoic dimension can also be reconciled with the higher and collective dimensions of mind that connect us to spiritual experience. This melding opens for a person the capacity to live from a wisdom and sense of connection within life. Instead of tampering with the parts, this psychology returns the person to their origin in healthy wholeness, nurturing the development of a vibrant, sane and wise personality.Thought and emotion can now work effectively for us. Confusion evaporates, and we are no longer the prisoner of our thoughts, emotions and behavioral reactions. We become a more liberated and aware person living with an intuitive grasp of the appropriate role for ego in our lives. We become truly “awake” in our lives, experiencing with clarity our multi-dimensional reality of ego and awareness as the truth of who we are.

THE SOAP OPERA OF SEEKING

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 17, 2009 at 11:22am

© 2009 Howard McQueenDon’t worry over seeking absolute truths.Better to cease cherishing the personally held opinions.When your sensibilities are challenged and you are offended,watch the courtroom dramas unfold.Try dismissing the courtroom and go work in the garden.The soap opera is energized when you feel injustice beginning to plot its revenge.Fear, anger and grief are the combustible fuel for our journey.Know you will either burn up from the inside outor harness these trapped energiesin the service of love and evolution.

CHOOSING TO BE VITAL OR STALE

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 17, 2009 at 5:52am

© 2009 Howard McQueenDo we choose to become vitalor do we choose to become stale?Every day presents these choices.Do we give in to the gravity of forced habitor do we choose to skate out at the edge,where the ice is thin.Do we keep doggedly pursuing our single grains of treasure,continue stroking that which brings us pleasure,or do we surrender to the callings of our heartand become pathless,before we become formless?For too long the ripe fruit has hung on the tree,for too long I’ve held on to securityand it has slowly been embalming mein my tiny held comforts.I sense the gypsy calling to be freedthe ancient fragrant rose unfolding,the stone tumbled in its rivergrows round, smooth and polished.I sense ecstasy and delight in these choices to let go,connecting to the vital mystery, entering the unknowing flow.

TIMELESS LOVE

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 11, 2009 at 8:00am

© 2009 Howard McQueenIn the twelfth century on the Saharan caravan, I whisperedHoratio, I shall always love you.And in the fifteenth century, on the Rialto bridge, I pressed my body into yours and whisperedRegina, I will adore you throughout eternity.This love affair has been going on,often ever so secretly,for thousands of years.And, here we are, finding ourselves againas we progress from 2009 into 2010and on this new day,I proclaim, to all of youWe are of One family,One life form,vibrating and radiating through billions of faceted faces.We are bound by love,We are bound and destined to loveeach other.All other behavior is but drama,Our dharma for having momentarily lost our way,the ignorance stemming from misplacingour authentic rites of passage.Our human rites of passage have been recovered and resurrected,waiting now for others to practice and come on board.This is the time to be courageous through the heart.Much must be released and undone,all these toxic habits and beliefs to which we have clung,for so very long.Thus the Great Cleansing begins in earnest, againAnd I proclaim yet again:I love you my brother and my sister,my father and my mother,and my lover,Do not forget this!We are beginning our pilgrimage.we will greet each otherAnd we will exchange the secret handshakeOr speak the sacred phraseOr exchange the kiss of awakeningOr shed the bittersweet tears of releaseAnd we will remember why we chose to againIncarnate and share our sublime love.

RESCUING & REPARENTING THE INNER CHILD

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 6, 2009 at 8:30am

© 2009 Howard McQueenCan we find, in every moment of our life,the sweet gratitude for just being aliveto experience whatever the moment brings?Including, but clearly not limited to all the moments held in our past. Such as:• the unconscious person who crashed their car into us• the parent or guardian that sexually abused us• the ex-spouse that mistreated and then abandoned us• the young children that mocked and made fun of us when we were young• the supervisor that did not treat us fairlyAll those times when we failed to live in our heart and used manipulation and aggression on others.The world according to how humans currently treat each other can be filled with callous and sometimes brutal behaviors.I was at lunch yesterday sitting in the bar area. Sports commentary was on audio and the TV facing me was silently broadcasting Jerry Springer and then Maury P???. This was like a silent picture show, so the highly charged emotional human characters were appearing as in a well-rehearsed, outrageous drama. All the characters were inflamed, there faces contorted. This was a cathartic circus!If we were only to take the time to peer below all these symptoms, what we will uncover is the frightened inner child posing as an adult, wildly trying to protect and defend itself from the inflammation of cruelty, intermittent rage and non-acceptance from elders, and parents and guardians exceedingly inconsistent in their application of unconditional love. The child in most of us adults does not feel that the world is a safe place to exhibit joy or to keep the doors of the heart and mind open to innocence and discovery.Intellectually, some of us adults can understand this dilemma.Emotionally, most of us adults are just beginning to grasp the tools that we can wield to assure our own inner child that the world is safe "enough"[1]. It starts with uncovering the suffocating and numbed child within. This child is allowed to cry out in deep fear and despair, its long heralded protests for having been abandoned, silenced, kept at bay.The frightened child holds on to a set of emotional-mental stored vibrational fragments. Some reflect feelings of being unconditionally loved and accepted. Amongst these fragments also exist inflamed poisons of fear, anger and grief that erode and undermine all sense of safety.Our innermost adult emotional navigator is this frightened, highly insecure child. Our ability to nurture, create and sustain authentic relationships with others is locked and buried away in our child, the child we essentially abandoned in order to conform to making our way in the world of adults. We abandoned our child seeking the presence of innocence and joy and instead clothed ourselves in pretence and in-authenticity to become adult. Were we to look at the rites of passage that supported this transformation, I believe most of us would acknowledge an absence of reverence or sacredness.When we look at the behavior of how adults treat adults, we can come to appreciate how thin the veneer of self-love, self-compassion, self-respect. Without deep reserves of appreciation of self, without the constant, vigilant practice of honoring self, we are lost in the reflections of others and flaming the projections of our worst childhood fears, angers, grievances and grief.THE INNER JOURNEY: RESCUE AND REPARENT THE INNER CHILDAs things have been revealed to me, we have this huge human / humane mission to bring our awareness and commitment to rescuing and re-parenting our inner child.Until this becomes job number one, we as a species will continue to have our lives ruled by the six year old frightened and insecure child, permanently installed as emotional navigator, actor guild and director. Give that child (now adult) power and money and the child behaves like the politician, or the wealthy egomaniac.I could go on and on in developing this theme (and over time, I will).In the mean time, perhaps some of you may want to communicate your own feelings ...Howard@mcq.comCheers,Howard McQueen[1] Of course, the external world can never be completely safe, so there is this acceptance needed to trust and allow whatever experience to guide and shape us, during our brief visit on this earth

... TULIP FIELDS OF ZANDILAND (Part 3)

Posted by Howard McQueen on November 3, 2009 at 6:53pm

Tulip Fields of Zandiland (Part 3) 11/02/09(C) 2009 Howard McQueenDecision made. Head towards the windmill.The weather is like a perpetual early summer morning, the ground exudes a natural warmth. My feet and toes sink down into the loamy earth about three inches. After taking a few steps I look back and my initial indentations in the soil have almost disappeared. Mmmmm, more unusual terra behaviors. An inner voice says “you won’t be able to find you way back” and I stop to reflect, then realize that I really have nothing to return to, other than the memory that this specific place is where I first awakened. There is not anything to demarcate this spot from any other spots in the tulip fields – wait, my crow’s view memory is jogged and I see that I am at the intersection of three patches of red, orange and yellow tulip patterns, each pattern is the shape of a one-sided butterf’y wing. I mentally jot down R-O-Y Butterfly wing and this will have to do for my awakening address. I start stepping forward again towards the windmill with the slightest tinge of a growing anxiety.I notice that there is a concentration of clouds forming just above the horizon. Patterns and silvery shapes are emerging. The distant horizon shifts, becoming my much more immediate foreground in my sky now, and I watch the soft shapes of silvery cities rapidly assembling themselves. My peripheral vision of everything else is shifting into a shadowy grayscale. My body is becoming cool and slightly numb. I feel like I am being flooded with anxiety and memory fragments are rudely jolting my mind.My view shifts and I can tell that I my eyes are closed and that the view screens are now the insides of my eyelids. My stomach is intensely cramping and my naval radiates excruciating pain. My body is tightly doubled up, in fetal position and I am now wildly hallucinating visual images. Something queues me to remember that this is a stored memory in my mind from an age of time when I was perhaps five.I witness my awareness of self as a small child. I am experiencing my sense of my little body evaporating as I run wildly into the refuge of my mind. I sense a deep fear and foreboding arising, and it feels like I am being enveloped in a thick, sticky black as night molasses. It is oozing all over me and is now rising up above my chest, rapidly flowing over my ears, mouth and throat. I panic and start to black out, but not completely. A dim awareness is still present. It has a quiet voice which is whispering to me, “what you are witnessing are classic signs of your stored trauma. You are being asked to witness and relive a deep fear, something profound enough to cause you in your childhood to loose consciousness.” And then it says “try feeling your body”. And I do, and I see that my body is completely numb, deeply shut down as if it is experiencing shock. The inside of my eyelids now light up, and it seems that I am looking into brightly backlit kaleidoscopes, playing fantastic shifting images and symbols.I again see images of the silvery super-fortress city, and at the center this castle is forming. It is a grand kingdom, a mental super fortress in the sky. My mind is urging me to transport there. A platinum moped flashes into my kaleidoscope vision and I am urged to hop on to escape the imposing fear of my …FATHER. Ohhhh noooooo, not me daddy, noooottttt me …I feel another wave of numbing anesthetic coldness course through me and I relax, even more deeply.I am an adult, perhaps mid 50 sitting in a loving communications group session in Asheville. I am speaking about the flash rage I first consciously experienced from my dad, when I was about five. At lunch, I had spew-vomited across the table on him and then with my childish abandoned hilarity, laughed at the insanity of the moment. I watch my dad’s face contort and turn a deep beet red. I see the veins in his neck swell and pop out. I see this angry mask, once his face, pull tight, like he is preparing for the fight of his life. He stands up and rushes at me and …One of the facilitators gently speaks up. She is inviting me to witness my annihilation by my father. What? I look around the room and almost everyone is in deep meditation, except the two facilitators. They both indicate that this is a completely safe place for me, so I close my eyes and take the invitation, and I begin to feel the sensation of being back handed, repeatedly, by my father. In my imagining, I wince, and then the beating escalates. This beating is not from a form I would know as my father. My dad has transformed into a big black alpha male gorilla-ape, beating me merciless to the point where I begin to swoon. There is complete silence and darkness. Then, the scene shifts and I am lying, face up in about eighteen inches of gentle, warm lapping surf. My broken and bloody body has drifted over a shallow coral bed and has been caught in the coral. I can somehow see myself, all battered and torn, and surprisingly, this actually brings me consolation. I sense I am nearing my death, but do not despair, as there is this feeling of acceptance – resignation and with that, a relaxing. I hear sea gulls nearby. I feel the nibble of minnows already beginning to snack on what meat and flesh remains of me. The sky is this luscious inviting vanilla and there is now this profound sense of peace. I know my letting go is imminent now, and the world will take over and begin reclaiming the broken vessel that was mine to inhabit. And I sigh once more, looking out at this incredibly raw, tropical paradise and deeply breath out and then I do, finally, fully let go …There is an unwavering stillness and silence.My eyes are closed and they are very moist. There is a translucent light, like sunlight diffusing through white, raw silk drapery. There is a gentle warmness. I feel hands wrapped around the top of my head and neck, gently rocking and massaging me.“Come out of your head dear child” is a felt message, coming to me without any voice, more of a musical lullabyThis vibrational voice brings a raising of the veil of anesthesia. I taste clarity.I have the sensation that there are hands around my head, pulling me gently through warm water. My imagination flashes to the form of a long tadpole-snake, wiggling and slithering. Wow, if I were to have a body behind this head, it would be gracefully flowing and undulating behind me. I don’t feel any of my skeletal structure to confirm this. What I do sense is being surrounded by a vast Oceanus of life, an amniotic Oneness with what I am swimming in. I feel a teeming connection to ancient life forms, to images of mammals resolving as squid, dolphin, whale, seal, sea lion, otter. My head breaks the surface of the water and something, an aperture? Opens. A great spurt of spent air is exhausted and a rapid deep inhale is made, and I dive deeply back under. Blowhole in the top of my head, wow.I feel the mother of the sea cradling me, caressing me to her bosom, birthing me through this amniotic seascape. I feel the vast ocean as an overwhelming felt presence of gratitude and my heart opens to take everything in …“The world is a much safer and infinitely richer place than living in your self-constructed mental super fortress” the voice says again. And then it says, you’ve been taken through a rapid evolution of life in the seas, and now it is your turn again to again come alive, in this bipedal body. You are coming again to the shore, that millennia ago life crawled from. Take hold of this solid ground that you are again choosing to walk confidently upon. We creatures of the sea love you. We count on you to bring conscious awareness to life above the water line. Bless you. Walk tall and confident in the radiant light as well as your cast out shadows that brought you to us again. Now, take a deep breath and relax before you open your eyes.I comply and follow my breath inward and then out deeply and I open my eyes and find that I have to blink several times as everything is seemingly out of focus. Another deep breath and this begins to bring some focus. Mmmm. I am staring at a close up of something round, slightly indented, a bit hairy, smudged with loam. It is a … hairy naval? Wow. I breathe again and hmmm, the naval rises a bit towards my face and then it recedes in synchronization to my breath. I realize that could perhaps be my naval?I cast my eyes down and to my surprise I see in rather dim light, something like a chest. Disorientation catches me by surprise and my mind tilts slightly. I close my eyes and breath deeply for several breaths. The voice within says “everything is always based upon perspective and orientation. Sometimes when things are turned topsy-turvey, we can see new beginnings.”My head is upside down. Right. Now, still not opening my eyes, I send out feelers to bring sensation and feedback from my body. Ahhh, my body is no longer cold or numb and it responds with a flood of feelings, including tingling in all my extremities. I will my fingers to gently massage my head and I become aware that it is my hands that are holding my head, upside down. My breathing is shallow and my chest feels deflated and compressed. An inner felt presence resonates and flows through my body, bringing with it warm, channeled energy from my central heart core.“Your body-mind-emotions are interfacing now in much more obvious and interactive way. This is to assist you become more aware of yourself as a multi-dimensional being. It will also help you heal yourself much more rapidly. It works something like this: When your stored emotional baggage surfaces, these hi-jackings will become much more obvious in disturbing your physiology, giving you instant access to cause and effect.”Intellectually this is making perfect sense, but I sense I need a concrete visual and felt example to bring the concept home. The inner felt presence suggests “indeed, you will. Slowly begin raising your head with your hands, remembering to breath and then begin engaging your neck and back muscles – but very, very slowly”.As I do this, I open my eyes and my vision begins to pivot from my naval, down to the ground and then I am slowly seeing the horizon and really now feeling my neck and back muscles and the beginnings of feeling my spine and rib cage. Over the next several minutes I am able to raise my head directly above my shoulders and it now stabilizes with the assistance of all my muscles and tendons welcoming me with a warmth and deliciousness I’ve never known before. Or, am I just remembering how in touch I was with my body when I was a young child?I am now being shown a slow motion replay on the inside of my eyelids of what my body just went through. I am watching what looks like a miraculous contortionist Circ de Soleil act with my body unraveling and re-inflating. This cannot be my body, I’ve always been stiff as a rail.The inner voice replies “This is the work-in-process you. You are rewriting and revising your DNA. The oceanic voyage you traveled through reawakened in you the stored multiverse of ancient life form DNA you share with all creatures. Your body is now a dynamic composite of all life, capable, at this time, of modest realignment and transformation.What you just experienced was the result of your stored emotions of fear/anger/grief surfacing and hi-jacking your awareness. Most of the human species believes this store of emotions exists only in their past, but in reality, this energy is stored within your energetic emotional body, with your physical body providing the storage and container. Your revised programming now expresses these emotional disconnects in ways that will allow you to become instantly intimate with. Whereas in the past, you chose to escape into the mind, what you will now be triggering is a brief deformity of the body and then the increased awareness to reconnect to the body, feel you emotional disconnects, heal yourself and have the feedback of the body realigning to assist you in this process. As you master the skills to place your awareness back into the body and reclaim your cast-out emotions, you will honor the emotional-mental-body wounded-ness you are carrying with you and you will integrate this and heal yourself.You are currently activating and rewriting about twice your DNA. Most of this is being done through increased activation in the right brain, however, considerable bandwidth connectivity is also occurring between the right brain and your heart. As you learn to control your shift into unconscious stored pain and back out again, all of these will become very natural to you.My memory of my father and my annihilation is a cooling lump in my chest, like an almost fully melted ice cube.“Would you like to begin healing this emotional-mental-physical illness?” Yes, I say, and I immediately know that this is done by surrendering to my heart and using the gift of forgiveness. My inner voice begins and I am speaking these words in unison “I forgive myself for buying into the emotional and mental pain that has covered this planet and being passed down from generation to generation. I forgive myself for blaming my dad for passing down his inherited pain to me, and I forgive myself for passing this pain on to others, infecting them and their lives.” And the resonance that is returned from speaking this blessing carries the words “this world was never out to punish or persecute me. This was part of my indoctrination into this world and the grip that fear/anger/grief has on the emotional and mental bodies of almost every human. This pain is an ancient survival energy, easily tripped and re-armed in childhood, waiting to be born and cripple its host again, to infect the innocence and open heart of all young children. It has been essential that you become infected and struggle with this disease. Only recently have humans been activating their awareness and invoking the ancient rites of passage to bring integrative healing. You are welcomed into this interim rite of passage.”Interim?Yes, the you and your experience in this world is phase-shifted so as to co-exist with the you in the world you have awakened from. When you have been fully indoctrinated in this world and have completed your healing, the awakened and healed you will be introduced back into the world you came from. Enough questions for now, however. The answers will come to you naturally through your experiences here.What have you learned thus far?That if I become lost in my stored, emotionally charged memories, my body will contract and collapse, reminding me that I’ve left my body and have taken up refuge in my mind.Yes, exactly! What else?Until I honor and experience the stored emotional energies through feeling them fully, I will continue to sabotage my body.Indeed.Is there anything else you can share with me?Yes. Before long, you will meet others like you. There will be many experiences, each stirring up latent emotions in you and you in them. Your quest will be to relearn how to become intimate with yourself, while you are also being intimate with another. This will be the most challenging work you have ever undertaken.Unbeknownst to me, a phase shift occurs and the me back on the conventional earth experience is sitting in a Satsang. My right brain is being teased and activated. I sit and marinate in these feelings. Later that night, I put into words these feelings and write poetry that actually surprises me, as it is a slight departure from what normally rolls out of me. I wonder, what really is going on under the hood of this me that is opening up to so much that was once hidden?YUMMY IN THE TUMMY OF LOVE© 2009 Howard McQueenI am feeling more than just a little bit giddybeing in the presence of Lovewith all of you.It stirs up song, holding hands, hugging and kissing, waltzing,giving in, completely and totally,to the service of whatever needs doing in Love’s kitchen.There is no rhyme, reason or meaning to be had from Loving.It is a luscious, in-light-en-ing, in the body experiencing.It is rubbing the love-of-self balm all over your insidesuntil you quiver and tingle on the outside,and all your cares of self wash away in jubilationand celebrationwhilst being swept into a giddy reverence,a sacred sweaty river dance,in the full moon lightexpressing loveunconditionally,irreverently,boldly,quietly,giggling sometimesand sometimes slack jawedand speechless at the profound liberationfor witnessing love and joy bloomin another,even if but fora few seconds …We children-of-love, we don’t discern seconds,we live in the timeless envelop of love and joy.And, in our reckless abandonment of all the rules, regs, policies and procedures,we are a beacon, encouraging others to come home to roost in the sweet innocence of play.Love demands that we let go and completely surrendereverything false:Pride,age,shame,blame,all habits,including the manufacturing of revenue;and the baked in mis-representations and gospels of our culture.All this held-in-evidence, Love cleanses and sets on fire,Inviting us to put everything personal asideand just glowand quiverand be completely vulnerableand cluelessand Innocentand blissfully ignorant;empty of answers to all the wrong questions.Like “what’s going to happen to me in the future”or“what will others think of me”.Love invites a pure, clean letting go of the future,Love removes all bookmarks and road-blocks stored in the past.We are invited into the complete unknowing of the momentto die and be carried by the universal vibration and current of Love.Love asks everything, the complete 100% of you.Will you surrender to the embrace of Love and give it all up?The world is re-forming, awakening in youthe invitation to step into “making it all up,a fresh beginning, a starting all over again”.It just might be the yummiest undoing of your life!~ ~ ~;-) Dang, Love done come up and just plum swallowed me whole!!!(to be continued …)

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Note: this page contains paid content.

Note: this page contains paid content.