JerryAndJeff

We are taking on the first aspect of the Shivapuri Baba’s threefold discipline. The first, bringing order into our external life. We will work with the second, bringing order into our minds and emotions and the third, the spiritual discipline down the line.

Can we bring order to our lives? Can we notice what we are doing throughout the day, can we eliminate everything in our life that is unintentional and disorderly? A tall order, but this is what Baba proposes before moving on to the second discipline.

We take this on for 55 days, until our next meeting on March 25th. In everything. In the food, we eat, not eating too much or too little, in our life, no harmful activities in it, insuring each thing we do be intentional with the overview of creating order. Another way of looking at this is we’re trying to dwell in a nonreactive world within.

This theme takes courage. The courage to have the intention to transform our negativity. When we see negativity arising in our bodies; Tension, tightness, stress, pain, we put the energy of that into sensing our body.

When we catch our minds in negative imagination, retribution, worry, anger, ill will, resentment, etc., we put the energy of that into sensation of our bodies.

When we see our emotions in strong dislike, fear,  judgement, aversion, doubt, all the rest, we put it into sensation of our bodies.

And then, when the sensation is strong, we come into the presence of our mind and our emotions as best we can. If we lose it and go back to the negativity, we just come back and keep transforming. We have the courage to do so. And we don’t get down on ourselves for not being better.

Can we come to experience Sympathetic Joy, the genuine feeling of happiness and joy for another’s good fortune and success. Very different from envy and jealousy.

Can we have the audacity and boldness to let go of our negativity and allow it to be a strong reminding factor. Good work for this time of year.

Not a small part of our work is returning to our inner life and presence in the moment. Waking up, remembering. It’s more than just recalling, it’s working so that something alive within remembers for us. This is our work over time.

When we do wake up to this other part of our being, we feel alive again, freedom and relaxation in our bodies, a natural presence, living breath.

Sometime we have to stop trying to find an escape that is external to us. Something that changes the subject, distracts, feeling better, but dependent on externals. Whatever it is! That can work on a temporary basis, our work is finding the solution within.

We come back to sensation. Sensation in our bodies. As Mr. G said, “For sensation in man is the growing part of his inner cosmos. The ray of creation inside extends from free attention to sensation. No growth of being will take place without a corresponding growth in sensation.”

Working with transforming our negativity, developing our inner life, depends in part on our body becoming more conscious, present, not just our minds or feeling.

I-Am in our heart center with strong Sensation of our bodies. Deepening this. Over time this becomes a felt presence within. 

We stop looking outside ourselves, for more stuff. We work within. On transforming our negativity and having inner presence, with sensation and our feeling center. We can feel that presence within ourselves, deeply at times. It is alive, a reminder of our natural being.

We depend on change in order to live, so we need to acquaint ourselves with the fact that everything is inconstant and inconsistent. Pleasure isn’t for sure; pain isn’t for sure; happiness isn’t for sure; stillness isn’t for sure; distraction isn’t for sure. Whatever arises, we should tell it: Don’t try to fool me, you’re not for sure.

But beneath the surface of our perceived limitations, suffering, and unhappiness, does lie a purer nature. By connecting with this essence, we can blossom into compassion and skillful action, interacting with others and the world in a more free, open, and fluid way. In a word, our work is finding this within.

By seeing our sense of craving and grasping, and finding a way to be with it but not in it, the sense of self also diminishes. In this way, we can see the sense of self as something conditioned rather than a fixed, certain, continuous self.

Our search for happiness is not about looking at life through rose-colored glasses or blinding oneself to the pain and imperfections of the world. Nor is it a state of exaltation to be perpetuated at all costs; it is the purging of mental toxins such as hatred, negativities and obsession that literally poison our minds and self. Prejudice isn’t caused by something. Our fragile happiness depends on things happening a certain way. But there is something else: a happiness not dependent on conditions.

Can we let go of negativity, our need for it, it’s hold on us. Do I have the courage to live without it?

Our theme is working on negativity. Working seriously with it; ill will, bitterness, hostility, aversion, negative thoughts and opinions, judgement, unnecessary physical tension.

First, don’t believe everything you think. A life-changing realization is knowing that you don’t have to believe your thoughts, they are just thoughts.

A powerful aspect of awareness arises from the fact that the awareness of an experience is not the experience itself.

It’s important to not always push away experience we do not like, but to allow ourselves to be. What we resist persists.

All of us want things to be otherwise at some point. We wish for different choices, different stories, different results. Yet there’s enormous strength—and infinite possibility—in learning to love what is, instead of what ‘should’ have been. One way to do this is to learn to allow, accept, to attend with presence.

Our fragile happiness often depends on things happening a certain way. But there is something else: a happiness not dependent on conditions.

Ideally our hearts harbor no attachment or aversion, because attachment is one kind of suffering and aversion is another.

Do we have the courage to let go of our negativity and be a person without it? Can we relate to ourselves as a person without negativity?

We are never more than a breath away from the home we share with the entire universe.

Are we able to listen to the deep part of ourselves. Are we able to open to it, even for a bit. Without either false imagination or spirit world meanderings.

Our consistent inner talking and emotional wanderings take us away from our inner and higher self. The inner talking is nonstop and incessant.  We allow this inner talking to be who we are. In the saying that ‘intolerance is pride’, some of our inner talking is about, ‘I know best’, ‘I know how to improve that, or that person’, being worried about the others ego and behavior. On and on and on. We are often cursing a moment rather than blessing it or having gratitude.

How can we listen when our inner talking is all about opinions, judgments, how ‘that is not as good as it should be’, that keep us away from our inner self. One of our aims is to see directly without thoughts, comments and opinions.

Can we be quiet enough to enter our inner refuge. We don’t do this by trying to stop our thoughts.
“Our spiritual life depends upon knowing that we are both consciousness itself and wholly flawed and human—our practice is to learn to love both.” Again, we do have to develop a real inner life that is substantial, that we can contact. And we have to stop the stupid negativity towards our personality and how we are. And the inner talking about it.

Then ideally when alone, silent, as empty as we can be, we open and listen to our inner self, a higher intelligence within, a deep acceptance of both who we are and our higher part.

In remote, southern India, in the state of Kerala near Tamil Nadu. On an Ashram that is incredibly quiet and peaceful. Listening. First outward listening, to the wind rushing through the ubiquitous palm trees, waves of sound, an orchestra of evocative, pulsating vibration. Listening to sounds of birds I have never heard, sounds I have never heard, a wake-up call. Now attempting to listen more deeply, to the silence behind the sound. Can I hear the larger picture, can I hear the whole that is greater than the parts. Can I attempt to connect by listening?

We are entering a new time and bearing the future is one of our aims. This will require a change of our consciousness, as well as cultivating a soft heart and true hope. A presence beyond sleep and wakefulness. Sitting in genuine three centered consciousness and ending our internal war with our personality. We work into an unknown future, but with resilience, building a community of hope, a love of life.

This is summed up well by this quote from Madame.
“What is difficult to understand is that without conscious effort, nothing is possible. Conscious effort is related to higher nature. My lower nature alone cannot lead me to consciousness. It is blind. But when I wake up and I feel that I belong to a higher world, this is only part of conscious effort. I become truly conscious only when I open to all my possibilities, higher and lower.
There is value only in conscious effort.”

And again summed up simply by Jack Kornfield.
“Our spiritual life depends upon knowing that we are both consciousness itself and wholly flawed and human—our practice is to learn to love both.”

Our theme is listening. Actively listening, first of all to ourselves, to the sounds of the world around us, to others. The first step is perhaps listening to the silence.

Listening means to be fully present and attentive, not just to words spoken, but deeper meaning, emotion and underlying messages being conveyed. For this, we need an open heart and mind, being present, free of ill-will in the moment

To listen to ourselves and others without judgment, eager to hear, we cannot be thinking about our response or what we are going to do next. Can we learn to become a listening presence for what wants to emerge.

Perhaps somewhat on a deeper level — Can we work with intention and at the same time be free of ambition and the pose of wisdom. Can we give up our own angels, our precious ideas, break the staff of our need.

The temptation is the repetition of our life’s triumph, (or inadequacy) vs the true journey of the soul. At times we may need to sacrifice past strength and triumph.

What does this have to do with genuine listening? Important to see this.

Perhaps we can glimpse objective cognition, which Jung called the central secret, that is, distinguishing the ego from the higher self. Which is ours and which is not ours.

Good morning. The reality of our work is the expression of the now. Not an imaginary reality we hold in our minds, not our ideas of the work or ideas about changing our selves, just this, right here and now.

Our work is about embodying a finer energy, becoming sensitive to a finer material. This requires a strong and active attention.

Can we become sensitive now to a life in us of another quality. If we are situated in this, we don’t have to make a ME of everything that happens

We go into the street and keep something of this energy alive in our life. We bring our conscious attention into the world. I do not need to get something. I need to open to a larger attention now.

Don’t allow your negativity to become pervasive habit, where contempt and intolerance become malignant.

As the song states, “We’re too old to rock ‘n’ roll and too young to die”.

Hope” is the thing with feathers
By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Mr. Bennett:
“Group is a home, heart
Strength, an energy source
At a high level it is self-sufficient.
The means for “to presence of group” is not within human hands – it does descend from above and from within (essence)
It relates to both a need and to the dharma pattern inherent; it does not depend on the outside.
Personality cannot belong to a group – only to a hierarchical structure. (authority) or a chaotic tense “grouping”
There is a special kind of sharing in Group – every cell is responsible, caring for every other cell.
The Work is Essence.”

We are working deeply with our negativity. To quote a bit of what we listened to from JGB:
“To replace all negative attitudes towards the existing world by a feeling of confidence and love towards the new world which is being born, towards the still unborn child that is the future of human-kind.

To arouse in oneself constantly this love of the future of humanity. Every time one observes in oneself some kind of negative attitude, take this as a reminder that we human beings live on this earth in order to serve, particularly to serve the future. And to serve with love, with hope, with confidence, that it is possible for human-kind to be born again.

This is a very hard thing that I am proposing to you, because in all of us negative habits are so ingrained. In the very midst of feeling compassion, one finds oneself finding fault, judging. This is a disease that overcomes mankind and we are all infected by it.

It is a technical matter. It is not a matter of thinking “it would be nice to be like that”. It is a matter of knowing how to bring oneself to that place where our attitudes are under our own control, where it is possible for us to say this, and not that.”

So how to do this. This is more than working with ‘world 24′ energy, where we see our negativity and we try and do something about it.

As stated on Saturday: We dwell strongly in our awareness and not identify with the content of the awareness. If it is my attention, it is not the other attention, which transforms. We connect with another attention, energy, intelligence, by simply being in our awareness and not identifying.

This is an inner shift.  Dwelling in stillness so another current can flow. By not identifying and being in awareness, we relate to higher energies, come under another influence.

Not opinions, ideas, thoughts, stories, emotions, techniques, beliefs, not thinking about the work. Only this active awareness.

What we bring is our intensity of attention, capacity to stay in our attention. And not identify with anything. That’s all. We come back to this strong attention and awareness that is not identified, over and over again all day long.

Our theme remains Sacrifice. Remember our sacrifices need to be invisible, “A sacrifice that is seen to be a sacrifice, is not a true sacrifice”.

“Sacrifice and struggle work in opposite ways. When we struggle, separation comes first and choice or decision afterwards. In sacrifice we decide to separate ourselves from something that we are attached to. We separate from something in our present moment.”

We have spoken about Help and how receiving help is indispensable to our aim. Can we connect ourselves to a source which is outside of our present moment, be open to help, aware of its necessity in our lives. Its presence during the course of our day. Help comes in many forms and when we least expect it.

We have connected at the end of our meetings through Mr. G Web Exercise. Let us do this together each day at noon or whenever we remember. To establish our connection through a web, through the energy of our work together.

To continue our recent discussion: Cultivating empathy is far more challenging without first believing—or seeing—that we are each essentially the same as all other beings.

And to paraphrase what has been said with a sentence from Rumi—’Don’t look for water Be Thirsty’

The quality of courage we have is the hearts capacity to open to things in life no matter what they are. Whatever comes – that is the path.

JGB:

Here are some rules I have found useful in the practice of sacrifice.

1. Any desire for reward the creeps into sacrifice destroys its value. 

2. Be intelligent in your choice of objects to sacrifice.

3. Do not sacrifice at the expense of others, unless you are able to make it up to them.

4. A half hearted sacrifice is not much of a sacrifice.

5. Sacrifice what is precious to you in this present moment.

6. Never bargain over sacrifice.

7. Do not be fool-hardy and attempt sacrifices that you will regret.

8. Measure what you can bear. This is the measure of what you are.

9. Search yourself for attachments and ask yourself whether you are ready to sacrifice any of them.

10. Right sacrifice is made for a good reason, but not for a good result.

11. Keep your sacrifices hidden from others, or if this is impossible contrive to make it seem that you did well out of them.

12. Sacrifice must not be the result of struggle, but of decision. It is a decisive act that is made in a moment and there must be no hesitation or second thoughts once the decision is made.

There is a word, Dukkha in Pali, Duhkha in Sanskrit, that is considered the starting place of the path in Buddhism. It is the condition we find ourselves in, a state of Dissatisfaction. It is so deep we often do not see it. Dissatisfaction with ourselves, others, the world, the way things are going, the future, the weather this day, how others treat us, give us our do, pay attention to us, and so on. The suffering of change and craving. Unease!

Every moment of mindfulness is also a moment of equanimity. It is not a disengagement from the object of awareness but rather a full and complete engagement with it.

Our Theme is Dis-satisfaction. Seeing it within ourselves, its depth. What changes when we recognize it.

There is a need to be very active, intentional and very receptive and open. Both are essential. What reconciles these, what enables these to be genuine?

Seeing our nothingness. Having remorse, understanding that our aim is humility. Not knowing.

Not knowing can bring about openness. Engaging without an expected outcome, being willing to be wrong. Ultimately to open to Conscience within.

Our ego gets in the way of everything. For some folks, this manifests as avoidance, hiding, feeling inadequate.

And of course it’s opposite. I want everyone to know about my high experience, or I have always something to teach everyone, or to show my great understanding of the work, etc.

Self-importance, egoism, pride, can manifest in wildly different ways. Can we manifest from a place that is real, less separate, less hiding or showing me. This is where the reconciling force comes in, has to come in.

If you  feel not up to snuff at times, down, there is the blessing of being nothing. Transform that by letting go of the negative side of it and seeing the favor of it. Self-pity, feeling sorry for oneself, depressed at oneself and all of that, keeps us from connecting to a deeper reality that is a gift. For all of us, be nothing and be ok. As stated, our most difficult emotions can sometimes be our most profound teachers.

We can come to a non-interfering attentiveness.

Coming to meetings on a regular basis enables.