Being Normal…

I had for years led a turbulent existence.

Moving from place to place and seeking out teachers and teachings hoping enlightenment would spell an end to my troubles.

In a recent conversation with a friend, I stated that finding my life becoming increasingly normal was both scary and exciting. I had for years led a turbulent existence. Moving from place to place and seeking out teachers and teachings hoping enlightenment would spell an end to my troubles.

It was after seeking ended that I noticed the troubles were still there. Old issues started appearing and slowly but surely, I started to deal with them. Life started to improve. I also noticed my communication of this reality became simpler and more focused on the ordinary and everyday existence of our lives. Something about an ordinary existence was so much clearer and simpler than the expansive and ecstatic utterances of my past. As life became even more ordinary the subtleties of existence started to make themselves apparent to me. Going further into this ordinariness, the need to speak a certain way was seen as redundant and almost an impediment to effectively communicating this reality of who we are.

Seemingly ordinary experiences such as going shopping or mowing the lawn felt so much more alive and I started looking at my life and realising that had I just dealt with my problems than maybe this whole journey may not have been needed. The term spiritual bypassing came into my life and I realised how incomplete our understanding of spirituality was and how we in the West are chasing the big enlightenment experiences, and yet sometimes it can be as simple as tidying your room.

That a complete teaching is practical and focuses on the ordinary and the extraordinary and then collapses the apparent separation to reveal it is all one reality. That whether we are on the mountaintop or whether at home washing the dishes that it is the one reality and that there is a myriad of ways to realise this. This seeing everything as it is allows us to fully engage in living instead of waiting. That what we spiritually bypass offers us the greatest opportunity to realise ourselves. That when we chase the big ecstatic experiences the answer may well lie in the pile of dirty washing and if we were to accept that our search could be over.

Life is infinitely simpler now.
I have travelled and loved and lost.
I have had my heart broken and screamed at my very maker.
I have been high, and I have been as Oscar Wilde stated, “in the gutter looking at the stars” and yet as beautiful as this adventure was, I have now found something so much more.

Life in all its form is beautiful and yet terrifying. For those of you who have dedicated your lives to truth. I say look around you. That which you are fleeing from may in fact be the answer. That broken relationship, that reminder from the debt collectors, that impossible situation may provide more of an understanding into your true nature than any holy man or holy book.

If you would but stop and see.

The Beloved

The Beloved

from “Reflections (Musings of a mad man in a sane world)”

Oh, my most perfect beloved

Only you are

Why then do I sin?

To talk of two in love

This most grievous of sins

This most heinous and hateful of sins

Eliminate this sin

I am tired

I wish for there to be silence

With no one to ever know it…

Reflections

In presenting this work. I present my love, my joy, my brokenness, my insecurities, my pains and my mistakes.

I am not perfect and yet your love and trust in me has elevated me to heights I never imagined.

For that then this book is dedicated to each and every one of you…

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Reflections (Musings of a mad man, in a ‘sane’ world) is available on Amazon as a print edition or ebook for Kindle.

The Inward Journey

Rumi stated

“The wound is where the light enters you”

In this article, I would like to discuss how this statement can be used to help us take the inward journey. The term going inward has become somewhat of a cliched saying in spiritual circles. At the risk of sounding cynical the term is bandied about by armies of seekers. Yes, we know that what is sought is inside us and that we have to look inwards and yet even with this knowledge, so many continue to seek outwardly while masquerading to themselves and others that they are on an inward journey. So, they are supposedly on a journey when in fact not a single step has been taken. And as ideas and teachers of self-realisation become more mainstream, why are so few waking up.

Honesty

The first point I’d like to put forward is that of honesty. If you really want to go inwards first get honest with yourself. Exactly why are you undertaking your spiritual practice. Is it because you enjoy seeking or the sense of purpose it gives you or the community it provides? Why exactly are you trying to wake up. I remember myself wanting to be enlightened as I felt that was the cure all to my problems. It was when I got honest with myself that I wanted to know what the teachers I had met knew that as I have stated so much of my seeking dissipated. After all, if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t there to do seva or fake humility. I wanted to know what the teacher knew, and that thought was freeing.

Your task is not to seek for love,

“but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it”

Trajectory

Which brings me to my second point. Are you a true and sincere seeker or are you spiritually bypassing? Spiritual bypassing is defined as

"Tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks" (wikipedia)

I believed, like many, that enlightenment would lead to unending bliss and a resolution of my problems. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The truth of the matter was that I was avoiding grieving over the loss of my father and the break up of a relationship as well as depression. Had I indeed just faced my unresolved issues I wonder if I would have even pursued enlightenment.

I remember an incident with my first teacher who told me to get a job. I didn’t fully understand then the wisdom of such a simple statement and instead by sitting with other students in the school, I convinced myself my teacher meant I had to work for the school and further its aims and teachings. When the teacher returned a year later and asked if was working. I replied no. It was only recently that I realised that had I taken that simple instruction that my life would have taken a different trajectory.

The Wound Is Where The Light Enters

This leads to my final point and an explanation of the above words of Rumi. The quote states the wound is where the light enters. Sometimes the wound can be a relationship breakdown, financial worries, weight issues or any manner of issues which plague us during our lives. Our conditioning has made us turn away from the pain that comes from these issues but isn’t this indeed the wound that offers us an opportunity to go inwards. The light enters and illuminates for us a path to who we truly are. In this light what we are not is seen through and the pain if we would accept it is transformative. Burning away the false idols of our conditioned beliefs. We are then able to able resolve our issues as we face them bravely and see they are not real. That the stories we have told ourselves are not real. That we are the answer to what is sought. To quote Rumi again:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it”

This is what it means to go inwards. To shed the stories, traumas and ideas we have covered ourselves up with. The masks we so skilfully change as we travel through life. In going inwards and meeting honestly, bravely and authentically these barriers we may conclude our search with the knowing that we are what we have always sought and the blessing is that even as we travelled inwards regardless of what happened we carried the answer with us because the answer is us.

Musings Of A Mad Man In A “Sane” World

They ask that I speak

They tell me others will listen

I have been shunned for so long

That I am no longer sure

Speak they say

People will listen they say

I sit quietly

With memories of days gone by

The ridicule still fresh in me

The wound still raw

I sigh

Words start to tumble forth

Welcome then friends

To the musings of a mad man in a “sane” world…

Reflections

In presenting this work. I present my love, my joy, my brokenness, my insecurities, my pains and my mistakes.

I am not perfect and yet your love and trust in me has elevated me to heights I never imagined.

For that then this book is dedicated to each and every one of you…

---

Reflections (Musings of a mad man, in a ‘sane’ world) is available on Amazon as a print edition or ebook for Kindle.

Trusting life, trusting what you are.

..we are not a single drop but the ocean entire…

We are conditioned to do, to rush and yet our natural way of being functions with such efficiency
that everything we need or desire or wish to do is totally taken care of. Some of the greatest insights
in history have come from a place of trusting and inspiration and yet even though we know all of this
on a theoretical basis, very few trust that life will provide.

So, we have ever increasing numbers of people enslaving themselves. Whether it is in that job they
hate, that relationship that no longer serves them or any number of ways which dims their own
personal power.

Why then do we do this?
I recently had the pleasure of meeting an incredible woman. We conversed on a range of topics and
our conversation consistently kept coming back to the idea of conditioning. What interested me was
whether generational conditioning patterns that no longer served us could be eradicated. During
the conversation I used the following phrase:

“Your blood will betray you”

It was said in the context that we cannot escape what we are. If we are from say a good family, it
doesn’t matter if we end up in the worse neighbourhood in town. Our breeding, our conditioning
and who we are will always come to the fore. This made me wonder are we then destined to
continuously live our stories and those of our families. I concede that this doesn’t hold in all cases
but in this situation it was the most relevant statement to make.

“what could I have done”

One night during our conversation in a moment of insight she cursed and followed it with….

Going back to the conversation. This woman was a practising stoic and it was evident in all aspects of her life and yet she displayed a certain flamboyancy which was also evident in her. Even though it felt like she was trying to hide it.

One night during our conversation in a moment of insight she cursed and followed it with the following statement

“what could I have done”

Our conversation had concluded and yet a new one had formed in my mind. Can we be truly free of our conditioning or are we destined to be enslaved to it. What was interesting was the insight this statement provided.

I feel the goal is never to be totally free of our conditioning as there are certain programs which support us and, in the rush, to be totally free, we can wrongly believe we have to reject a lot of what makes us.

And yet there are aspects which carrying through generations have enslaved us. Programs which can prevent us living a life of meaning.

How then to balance this and to be free of negative conditioning and yet enhance the conditioning which helps us

In accepting our contradictions and allowing them to be and allowing them to arise as they do. We find great freedom in what we are. We are able then to see what supports us and what can be let go. What can be enhanced and what can be changed. This living in our openness lets us look at this existence impassively and make the necessary changes. Each designed to allow us to constantly reveal ourself to ourself. Healing then occurs as only when we are truly aware of our true nature can we be free of what no longer supports us. It also allows us to live in an empowered way. Being able to at every instant to be in the moment. We can then make sense of our stories, our reactions, our thoughts and feelings and see how each instant is constantly pointing to itself and how at any instant our stories, conditioning and reactions are an invitation to awaken and rest in our true nature.

That even when I was seeking, I was that which I sought

And even in journeying I was right here and now

So, what was the conclusion of the woman I met. A flamboyant woman who is a stoic, what a contradiction and yet what a gift to the world. In embracing our entirety, we realise we are everything and this knowing and the humility that arises helps us realise our true nature - that we are not a single drop but the ocean entire…