Enter Eternity Now

"Listen to this, please. Only what you get from this class can you take with you after death. Only what you acquire in this room can you take with you into eternity and in case you didn't know it, you don't have to wait until you die to enter eternity. You can do it right now if you understand. You can be in eternity RIGHT NOW! Then, physical death has a completely different meaning to you because you're not identified with the physical body. It is not Position A: I am alive, as opposed to Position B: someday I'll be dead. If you identify with life, you will be afraid of death. A always fears B, but makes B necessary in order to survive as A. What a peculiar contradiction. Living in Oneness with yourself, therefore in Oneness with the world, with the universe, being above time, has no opposite. Therefore, there is no life as opposed to death, no death as opposed to life. There is a state, which is eternal, which is right now. Right now, as we're seated in this room and by the clock (man made time) it is 10:00. Your physical body can be seated right now, at 10:00 in the morning, and be in time in this world. Something that is not your physical body, which is you, which you can understand, can be in eternity. So, we live in both time and eternity. If you live in time alone, you will be afraid of the opposite of life, which is death. People who think they are leading exciting lives are afraid of the B position, which is the end of their exciting life. Right? Understand? There is another kind of life which has no opposite to it at all, but is an excitement with a capital "E" in which you do not exist. Thought can never be aware of eternity. The absence of thought IS the awareness of eternity.
Thought is in time itself and it can think about catching the bus at 9 o'clock or cooking dinner at 5 o'clock, but it can't understand something which is above time. But, in the physical body, we need both to catch the bus at 9 o'clock and to understand that, when the excitement of catching the bus in order to go to the party, when that is over, then we're not concerned with the ending of the party or anything because we are not involved in it."

A talk given by Vernon Howard, 10-8-77

Food Love

It was the holiday meal. We were sitting around the table eating when my daughter stated that she could taste her mother's love for her in her cooking. I kept that with me and a few days later, during a solo breakfast, I realized how right my daughter was. I have dined in some very fine restaurants, but they are nothing in comparison to a meal prepared by my wife at home. Even a meal whipped up in a hurry is more enjoyable than a $100 plate. I am realizing more and more the taste of true effort. When someone diligently places themselves completely in the effort, it can be tasted. Why shouldn't this be true in everything we do. Pass the potatoes please.... r

Sometimes

Sometimes life, as I know it, pulls real hard. Sometimes it even hurts and doesn't make sense. I often hurt others too. I like to fight. I like to push back as hard as I can. I like to pout when I don't get what I want and I like to blame others. I can be like this for a long time, but you know what? I can NOT be like that too. I can be quiet and still. I don't HAVE to rush everything. I can sit with nothing to do and not entertain my thoughts. I can leave the books closed. I can NOT try to fix everything or feel responsible for things not working out. I can choose to not cry. I can be tired. I can let whatever that wants to happen, just happen. I can breathe easy and not work so hard at life. I can feel empty and not be afraid. r

Amends

If you write or say something that is wrong, your conscience will come tap you on the shoulder suggesting you immediately make amends. You already know this, don't you? Truth is telling you a correction is in order. If it is right for you , but wrong for your neighbor and you know this, then it is wrong for you too. We must live harmoniously in this way and you can do your part. Don't expect your neighbor to comply, just do your part. Keep your side of the street clean, quietly, don't preach. We can tell who the preachers are, they are the loudest! Volume and fear go together. Test it before you spread it. Read something, write something, but most importantly understand something. There is no reason to pass anything on, just choose to be different. Change your ways quietly, to yourself. That is what you want to be, that is what they want to see. Hint: Never apologize to someone to save yourself. You have no right to harm another for your misbehaving. Simply find away to stop the unwanted behavior. That is truly the best amends to make. A change of one's self. R

Intended

God created me to experience His conscience,
and laid before me a selected few,
to assist,
should there be any misconceptions.
Oh! the few, the wonderful few...

A consciousness that exists,
Before and after the body.
Before and after all thought.
Before and after all feeling.

Could it exist now?
During the body,
During the thought,
During the feeling?

Should I chance this existence,
perhaps, with devoted investigation?
To consider all I see as necessary,
To evolve into something new.

As still as a wall,
And as quiet as cattle,
Letting those unclaimed ropes,
Be tossed and dangled.

r

A Re-read

The Self-Imprisoned Bird and a Great Secret of Change

Posted: 08 Apr 2009 12:03 PM PDT

By Tom Russell

Several years ago my wife and I were in Colorado for a speaking engagement. We had an afternoon free and visited the local zoo, sauntering back to the exotic bird section. There we saw a circular fence, probably 18 feet high and some 60 feet across. It was very odd to us that the fence had no top to it.

We observed a rare bird over in a far corner. I reasoned that the keep¬ers must have clipped its wings so it could not fly away. Then suddenly the bird went into full flight to a tree on the other side of the cage. Obviously I was wrong. The bird’s wings were fine.

I found a zoo attendant and asked him why the bird didn’t fly away.

“The reason is very simple,” he said. “This bird was raised in captivity. When it was young it was placed in a cage with a top on it. Every time it tried to fly away it would hit the ceiling. Now, the bird never tries to escape. It is convinced the top of the cage is still there.”

What limits do accept without knowing it?

The cage probably seems tranquil, even cozy, to our self-imprisoned bird; likewise, our familiar mindsets seem right and natural. Though change to a happier, more productive life draws interest, change unsettles cherished routines. The familiar lurks in the background to lure us back to the familiar, back to the cage.

Could it be that authentic inner life success, success as a human being, grows out of a willingness to feel uncomfortable or wrong for awhile, not right?

The Alexander Technique provides an ideal example of how change at first feels wrong. At the turn of the previous century F.M. Alexander pioneered a practical method for postural improvement. Today it is part of the core curriculum at Juilliard’s School of Music, allowable as therapy in England’s health care system, and widely practiced around the world by professional performers and self-awareness enthusiasts. One day a mother brought her young daughter to see Mr. Alexander. She suffered from severe postural misalignment. Mr. Alexander helped the girl find a vastly improved posture, but when the session concluded she ran to her mother and said, “Mommy, look what he did to me. He bent me all out of shape!”

Though the young girl’s physical muscle patterns objected to the change, don’t we have well-worn mental patterns of at least the same intensity? How do we break through this resistance, so the changes we want in our lives really come about?

Daring the Wrath of the Familiar

After any decision to modify our life, even something as simple (and productive) as the resolution to watch less Television, frazzled feelings, an inner ache, a confusion and/or emptiness soon surface. The cage wants us back!

Why do we go back, often without much of a stand at all? The answer is not really fear of change, I’ve found. The answer is fear the change might cause more upheaval than we can handle. Picture our self-imprisoned bird hearing gunshots outside his cage – gunshots from hunters poised to pick off any creature that flies free. The shots though, are blanks, duds, not real bullets though they sound like it. The guns look real and even smoke after a “shot.” So the bird stays put out of fear of consequences that can never exist.

Dare the wrath of the familiar patterns, and what happens? Things get worse for awhile. Does this upheaval have real power? Millions read that it has no power, but that’s about all most people do. Unless we risk it, and do so over and over again, we’ll never know from ourselves.

Society, in almost every sphere, teaches by words and deeds to seek happiness, seek comfort, and do what “feels” right. Yet, the truly right never feels right at first. It feels wrong for awhile. Think of the power of this nugget of wisdom when applied to your life! No, the glamor and wordiness of popular self-enrichment programs goes lacking here, and the simplicity of this nugget may have more power than presently realized. Wisdom sprouts from principles applied.

A Fictional Twist

Let’s get back to our self-imprisoned bird. In addition to the bluffing hunters and their popguns, let’s add another twist. Imagine we have other birds in the cage with our friend — perhaps his parents, his school teacher and his religious instructor. If our friend makes some feeble yet sincere efforts to test the top of his cage, what will be the reaction of his fellow birds? Probably words like “Who do you think you are?” and “Why aren’t you happy in here, like we are?” But if our friend keeps trying, and if he gets more daring, moving from one inch above the imaginary boundary to perhaps twelve, well, hold on. The elders swing into action.

In our fictional twist here, the elder birds each have a rope. Taking turns as needed, they toss the rope up to our friend just as he infringes on his make-believe boundary. Our friend catches the rope and the elders pull him down; however, one day, ah yes, one day our friend refuses the rope. He makes it up five feet over the “ceiling” and terrified, plunges back down. The elders go berserk. How will they stop this renegade who now dares to refuse their ropes? Stop him for his own good of course since it’s dangerous out there!

Finally the great day comes. We knew it would. Our friend refuses the rope yet dares to leap high enough to unravel his mental ceiling. He shatters forever the make-believe boundary. He holds out his wings to catch the natural currents, lifting him higher and higher. The vast sky of the whole earth welcomes him.

Why Others May Fear Your Change

Yes, others (especially those closest to you) indeed feel threatened by your changes. In their mind resides a carefully constructed picture of you. They have you pegged. When you act outside the settled picture, it unsettles them.

Some may think these points at least somewhat cynical. But are they? We can discern the attempts of others to control, to disapprove, to hint at what we “should” do, and we can see it all without a touch of hostility. They are free to live their own life and think their own thoughts, and so are you! And it’s rarely necessary to tell them anything about it. Your new found love of the sky is sacred and blooms best when kept to itself.

Where Real Freedom Resides

Hence, it is indeed vital to refuse the ropes thrown from our environment. They abound. In fact, the evening news could be viewed as one giant rope tossing session. Yet, our inner domain, the place of our own thoughts, dwarfs environmental influences. Does anyone really treat us worse than we treat ourselves? Worry, guilt, fear, jealousy – aren’t these ropes tossed within our own mind? And don’t we cause our own punishment by catching them?

The more we inwardly observe these inner rope tossers in action, the more we see there is no real need to try and stop them from doing what they do, which is to toss ropes. There is only a need to let these tossed ropes fall to the ground inside, unclaimed! If we simply refuse to catch them, the life at hand charms us with joy and vigor.

The day of freedom, then, is not the day when the rope tossers disappear. It is the day we know their ropes have no power other than what we grant when we catch them. Oh yes, not only will these inner rope tossers get upset, it is likely they’ll stage a riot! If you deny them energy, they might fade away! So they brazenly claim that YOU are fading away. No, they are fading away. You have reclaimed your life now, and YOUR life has nothing to do with THEM.

The Royal Life is Yours

We find ourselves increasingly feeling good with an abundance of energy and zest for life. The simple things, like the next breath or the next conversation, recover their delight. You dared to break through by daring to feel uncomfortable, even disoriented, over and over again, as you came smack up against more than a few self-created barriers.

Like the childhood fairytale Humpty Dumpty, “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” Nothing has the power to convince us to pick up those ropes back up, just in order to prevent the cage from rioting. “Oh, don’t hit me” is gone and in it’s replaced with the bold, “Is that the worst you can do?”

When a resolution turns us in a new direction, so much genuine good flows from daring to feel uncomfortable, or wrong, or whatever you want to call it, perhaps even for days or weeks. Knowing in advance this is going to happen, and even intensify as you continue to make your stand, is the great secret of change.

My first mentor was an old Osteopathic physician. I met him when I was just 18 and he was 80. We chatted (as he called it, though he did all the talking) from time to time for several years. Dr. Chester C. Chapin perhaps said it best, “Tommy, it won’t hurt you to hurt.”

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Enjoy more from SuperWisdom: Seven Vital Secrets for a Rich and Purpose-Filled Life, by Tom Russell
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Fools Gold

I googled a question about climate for those who suffer from physical illness and this was the first one I came across:

I am a 50 yr old FMS sufferer on disability retirement, along with a whole alphabet of other conditions who just finished my second bout with pneumonia (during the summer/fall season) after having received the pneumonia vaccine in 1997. I live in southern California, and I am relocating to Washington state because of all of the pollution. I can't afford health insurance, so I go to the county for my medical care, which is horribly hit-and-miss. I can't take the heat of southern CA., due to the fibromyalgia (and bi-polar disorder), but I am concerned about the rainy weather (which I love, by the way) in Washington, because I also have osteoarthritis. I don't suffer from hay fever allergies, thank God, so I think this would be a good move. Does anyone know what would be the best climate for my circumstances?

...and this was the first reply,,,,

That's a tough question to answer. If at all possible, a long visit to the area you are interested in would help you make that decision. Moving is such an ordeal and expense! I have serious osteoarthritis, which has disabled me. So... ability to move about in a snowy area with a cane, walker or scooter should be part of your decision-making process. When I was 50, I knew I had to get out of the ice and snow of upstate NY. I'm 64 now and I'm soooo glad I no longer live there.

Do you have friends or family you could stay with for a month or so during the winter to get a real taste of what it would be like to live there?

On certain levels, there is nothing wrong with getting the help you need to get well, but to think that your inner happiness has anything to do with how the body feels or where the body is, is a grave misconception and a very misguided mistake. Are you aware that you too, are doing this?

You Are Not Your Physical Body

"Yes, even if you don't as yet see clearly, that you're not your own thoughts and feelings, begin to try and see it. Begin to separate the thoughts and feelings as they go through you. You are really not them. You have heard this before, but you had better go into it much deeper. You are not...your identity does not consist of anything that you think whatsoever. It consists of nothing you think. It consists of nothing you feel, furthermore, you are not the physical body... to get the third part in there. You identify with the physical body, but you are not the physical body at all. You have called it yours, so you are quite familiar with it. It's not you at all. If you were your physical body, there would be no eternity. You would die with the body. Do not identify with any of them. This is what keeps us in terror. When my body dies, I die. See what you're afraid of? You have identified with all these things that are going through you, including the physical part. That is why you fear death. You know that the body goes and you're afraid that when it goes you go to. What goes...is all your misconceptions.

A talk from Vernon Howard 01/16/77

Free Thinking

Dogmatic theology is that part of theology dealing with the theoretical truths of faith concerning God and his works, especially the official theology recognized by an organized Church body, such as the Roman Catholic Church, Dutch Reformed Church, etc. At times, apologetics or fundamental theology is called "general dogmatic theology", dogmatic theology proper being distinguished from it as "special dogmatic theology". However, in present-day use, apologetics is no longer treated as part of dogmatic theology but has attained the rank of an independent science, being generally regarded as the introduction to and foundation of dogmatic theology.

The term "dogmatic theology" became more widely used following the Protestant Reformation and was used to designate the articles of faith that the Church had officially formulated. A good example of dogmatic theology is the doctrinal statements or dogmas that were formulated by the early church councils who sought to resolve theological problems and to take a stance against a heretical teaching. These creeds or dogmas that came out of the church councils were considered to be authoritative and binding on all Christians because the church officially affirmed them. One of the purposes of dogmatic theology is so that a church body can formulate and communicate the doctrine that is considered essential to Christianity and which if denied would constitute heresy.

I have provided you with a definition as to the dogmatic practices of society. None of these so called, "scholars," are proponents of independent thinking. Listen! There is NOTHING in the universe that is cosmically identical, yet man in his fearful quest for answers, tries to herd society into these insane doctrines (as to how one should live and think) and that, should you choose not to comply, be considered (openly and secretively)a heretic, lost, or even worse, evil. Emerson stated it best, "be not like dumb driven cattle." Free thinking is your only chance. Research and experimentation is your only way out. Run Forest, Run........

Co Dendency

Relationships and the Modern Disease of Co-dependency
By Tom Russell

Despite marketing claims and shameless promises to the contrary, your life puzzle can never be provided to you ready made. Your puzzle comes together only through research and experimentation. Consider the depth of these two words!
What fits for you may not fit for someone else. Dogmatist scoff at this but inner life scientists know it to be so. Cosmic energy never creates a duplicate.
Certainly relationships can be classified as a big piece of the puzzle. Here we find fertile ground for enrichment and enjoyment. However, what lies at the core of most relationships in our modern world? Not enrichment and enjoyment, but co-dependency.
Consider the massive control mechanisms existing in dysfunctional family structures, education, news programming, government propaganda, churches and spiritual groups, entertainment and music, etc, etc, etc.. While originally thought to apply only to “enablers” in the orbit of an alcohol or drug addict, extensive modern research reveals co-dependency to be perhaps THE disease at the root of our madhouse society. What structures in the environment support the confused, unhappy, unfulfilled, bored and shaky self?
Co-dependency researcher Anne Wilson Schaef defines the pervasive disease this way: “Co-dependency is an emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules – rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.”
Ms. Schaef shares many challenging and fascinating insights including:
* “We live in a society whose institutions are built upon and exacerbate some of the chief characteristics of the addictive process . . . Many of our love songs are about addictive love and are based on its assumptions – suffering, possessiveness, cling-clung relationships, and externalizing our identity (that is, needing someone outside ourselves to establish our identity). Our culture teaches our teenagers to aspire to such relationships! They are taught to want someone who cannot live without them and through whom they can find their identity; they are taught to see suffering as noble and accepted.”
* “Co-dependents will usually get back into the disease when they find themselves talking about others in a way that they would not be willing to talk about them in person, and when they do this to build up allies and justify themselves.”
* “For me, one of the most challenging aspects of the disease of co-dependence is that it is so common and so ordinary. Of course, this is also one of the aspects that makes it so insidious. We know how to operate in it better than we know how not to. Ordinary as it is, co-dependence is unhealthy, however, and it will kill us, so we had better learn to recognize it and heal ourselves from it.”
I have found co-dependency to explain much in our modern day swamp. It is a major part of relationships, and relationships are indeed a major part of the life puzzle. SuperWisdom resources to take your inquiry further, if you choose:

• SuperWisdom podcast on Ms. Shaef’s book The Addictive Organization
  * SuperWisdom podcast on Memes and Why We Cant Stop Thinking

Leave Yourself Alone

What you do is not that important, as long as it follows simpleness and decency. Worrying about what you do or shouldn't do, now see, that is your detriment. Let go of false morality and don't let men influence what only your heart can know. Just for today, leave yourself alone, just leave yourself alone. R

'Just Chillin'

You say that you are drifting, but you are not drifting. You are secretly waiting for the next new thing to come along so that you can grab hold of it and string it out as long as you can. You will exhaust yourself identifying with it until it beats you down. You will come running back time and time again, dreaming and scheming until you drop. As long as you entertain this "I" thought you will continue the downward spiral. What great things has this "I" thought done for you? Why do you continue to nurture this "I" thought? You continue to nurture it because you can't sit still. You feed it because that is what you do and you haven't found out how to change. If you could change it you would, but you don't because you falsely identify with it. You are asleep to it. You can't change because you are not in command of yourself. You are commanded by others, of groups, of philosophies and thoughts. You are not in command because the "I" thought that you constantly defend, is not real. Yes, that is right. It is not real, but you can't see it, you won't see it. From dawn to dusk it entertains and punishes you and you let it. You let it, because you do not know else what to do. Your studies and even your prayers are about the "I" thought. Everything you do is about the "I" thought. Your words and your actions are about the "I" thought. When will you sit down and take a good look at yourself and see that this whole life you call you has been a big illusion? It is still a big illusion.. You can't change from what you know. What you think you know has fooled you. "How is this," you ask? Look at your secret despair. It must be something new, not different. "There must be a way out," you say. There is and it is a thousand times steeper than you think... It is quite simple. Start by looking and watching for the "I" thought, do it right now and in the next few moments. R