Right-Livelihood, What is It?

Over the last couple weeks I have been experiencing a tremendous deepening of my connection with my spiritual self's wisdom. I have long believed that surrender to the highest inner wisdom of the "God within" was the only way to fulfill one's potential in life, but only recently have I begun to live that truth, embracing Spirit as the master of my life. I find lately that I am often dwelling in a state of constant surrender, asking, "what do you want of me?" instead of "what do I want right now?"

However, I still have to apply my intellect to sort out and apply the instruction I am given. Spirit doesn't tend to say things like, "I want you to quit this job and apply for this one. And no more wine. Stick to apple juice." At least it doesn't say those sorts of things to me, anyway. Instead it gives images, impressions, feelings and flashes of insight. It is up to intellect to figure out how those things fit within the physical realm we act within. And that's where the confusion comes in when I wonder if I'm doing the right thing at the right time, and if not, what would constitute the right thing to most fully actualize Spirit's highest goals for my life.

For a couple years now my online technology consulting work has seemed blessed; it flowed so naturally and I became so good at it so quickly. When I decided to do the work primarily for non-profits (NPOs) it seemed to my intellect that it would of course be a combination that was even more favored by Spirit. But then the transition has been like slogging through mud. It keeps almost happening, but not quite happening.

At the same time, just yesterday I heard from someone I did a spiritual healing session with years ago, who tells me he has adapted a part of the work I once did with him, creating a daily practice he calls "The Way of the Heart." He says that doing the 5 min. practice several times each day has brought him his life partner, and that it has done the same for several other people he taught it to. It was the centering intro for my work, not the focus, so no soulmates with me. Still, it makes me think about doing sessions again.

He wrote me to ask if I would review the book he is writing about it, and when I gave him some clarifying feedback, he asked how I had come up with the original method. Within my search for the answer to his question within distant memory, I delved more deeply into the heart of the work I once did than I have in several years. Doing so renewed my love for the work, and my recollection of just how profound a difference I was making in people's lives.

The reason I had stopped doing it was the "business" aspect of the work. What got hard for me was that I'm not much of an entrepreneur in general, but particularly when I am having to promote myself as having such nebulous abilities. My technology work is more concrete, and so doesn't feel as much like a promotion of "me," so trying to sell my value in that regard doesn't feel as vulnerable as trying to sell my value with healing work.

When technology clients say, "We've worked with many consultants, and Indigo is the best we have found; she did wonders for our business," and these people are leaders in their industries, well that feels like very strong affirmation and I'm confident other companies will want me to do the same for them, and expect I can. Spiritual healing work is very different from that. After a few years, I just didn't have it in me to keep up the effort of maintaining a separate healing room (at considerable extra expense above my personal living space needs), keeping promotional materials in circulation so that clients could find me, and then "closing the deal" and scheduling the sessions. It all felt like a burden, rather than a gift.

Writing to Forest and explaining the content of the full ClearLight Nature/Bliss Therapy sessions brought back the reason I had created the method in the first place, as well as my confidence in just how effective it is. It truly does restore people to an experience of their spiritual center as their "I" identity. And it leaves them with guidance they can use to help maintain that, even as familiar habits and life structures pull them back towards their old norm.

Then today I read an article by Dave Pollard called The World Changing Story, which essentially asks the question, "If our current civilization is collapsing in on itself, as it appears to be doing, what part of our path forward do you want to be?"

In reflecting on how to answer, I realize that I also see the current way of life as unsustainable, but am split on how I fit into the effective human response. A part of me is concerned with financially supporting myself so that I am not a victim of the worst of it. (e.g. The difference in experience of catastrophe between the poor and the wealthy during Katrina was significant, and I'm still far closer to the poor pole than the secure one.) Another part of me wants to ease people's suffering in immediate ways -- sort of salve and bandage the wounds -- hence my desire to work with non-profits as a tech consultant, helping them be more effective in their service work, and my creation of the Phone Buddies peer counseling community.

Still another part of me sees a spiritual solution. We need as many people as possible attuned with their Buddha Nature/Inner Wisdom to guide us out of this. Intellect won't manage it. This leads me to want to go back to doing my spiritual healing work, which was focused on exactly that "re-centering."

So how do I balance these 3 wants? Is it Spirit's desire that I do incorporate all 3 into my life, or is it pointing me towards just one now? Was the previous support for the technology work only meant to last for that period of time, and is it now time to refocus on offering spiritual healing work and trying to help as many people as I can before X happens? Is it the intermediate work of helping non-profits with technology that is not supported, and I am meant to support myself financially by offering technical assistance to well paying corporate clients so that I can offer the spiritual sessions for free and easily afford the space to conduct them in? Or should I do nothing, and simply wait for something to walk right up and lay itself across my lap, as opportunities did when I lived in Bali?

Spirit, speak more clearly; my intellect is not succeeding in sorting out your cryptic instructions.

Addendum 8/09: As is often the case, as soon as I clarify the question, the universe sets about creating the answer all around me through the circumstances of my life. I was letting myself get lost in other people's ways of relating to life, within which I will never find peace because it is simply not my viewpoint. I am not a person with a story that looks forward, only one which is revealed looking back. Fortunately for me, by then it no longer matters, and so I am not confined by my stories. I don't know who I am or what I am doing in this world. I know I have many opportunities to be of use because I have taken advantage of each opportunity to be of use in the past, even the ones that were rejected as unworthy of a developed intellect by so many others before me. What that adds up to, I don't need to know, unless I'm looking for a good party-talk answer to the question, "What do you do?" I can't live my life for good party talk. I guess they'll just have to be satisfied to hear that I am an unlimited being at play within the ocean of being, motivated by love, and satisfied by this moment.

Dare to be Perfect

In the previous article I talked about self-love and how self-love is essential in order for us to feel the sense of security we need to relax into the present moment. We cannot be fully present if we think mental vigilance is needed to guard against impending threat, and we cannot stop expecting threat if we believe there is something bad about ourselves that deserves to be punished.

Hopefully you have been sitting each day in meditation on self-love and are beginning to see some progress with your reprogramming. Now I want to extend the focus of the discussion to also include another aspect of your journey of self-healing and your embrace of full self-love.

"You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become identified with the mind. Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations." - Ramana Maharshi

You are perfect. Your life is perfect.

By perfect, I do not mean, "very good, great, almost got it, just one more thing to fix." By perfect, I mean, PERFECT, as in no where to go and nothing to do that will provide any actual improvement. That heaven you've been looking for, that promised land? This is it.

Right here, right now, this is what you've been searching for. You have been a drop of water immersed in a great ocean and looking everywhere for a glass of water. Finding no glass, no outer shell to delineate where the water begins and ends, you say "it must be somewhere else." And so the hunt goes on.

This is it. It's here now. There is nothing to achieve to improve upon what is. Your life is already perfect.

It can be very attractive to live in search of a better moment. To embrace what is can seem like a tremendous let down. Yet once you accept the perfection of this moment, you won't stop going to work. You won't stop bathing and become a homeless vagabond with a begging bowl. If you don't feel drawn to that, then it is not your soul's intention, and so the path of surrender will not carry you there. (Though it could happen if you keep resisting whatever IS happening.)

If what feels good to you is physical comfort and mental stimulation, then when you surrender the future to the future, and accept that you are on a path that not only is perfect in every step, but also perfect in its destination, then you will increasingly find yourself in a life situation that has all those features that make you feel good. Ramana Maharshi felt utterly at peace living in a loin cloth and lived in a cave at one point, but if you are not drawn to the simplicity of that, it is not what surrender will look like for you. You don't need to ward it off. Just clarify what you do intend.

Maybe right now there are some very concrete things that are undesirable in your life. You don't like that you are sick and don't want to be that way anymore. You don't like that you don't have a job. You want that to change. And so on. I for one would like to live in a home with more rooms so I could entertain without having people walk through my bedroom to get to the bathroom, not to mention wishing I had more clients for my bread-and-butter tech consulting business so that I wasn't always living on "just enough to break even" within a very modest lifestyle. I'm not saying to pretend you like things you don't like or that you don't want things that you truly do want.

When I say your life is perfect right now, I mean this moment is a perfect opportunity for the highest peace, joy, love, and sense of well-being that is humanly possible. This moment holds just as much potential for that experience as any other moment ever could. You could have all the things you desire and none of the things you loathe, and still not feel contentment in your heart. Or you could be just as you are, with a mixed plate of bitter and sweet before you, and yet dwell in a complete state of bliss. You could, but do you intend to?

If you are like many people, you are suffering under a wrong belief that if you give up your war against what is, you will be forever deprived of the things you want and in fact sink deeper and deeper into poverty, obscurity and lack. You will be loved less, fed less, praised less, and happy less, if you don't keep grasping and fighting and climbing with all your might.

Or else you give up. You're exhausted, can't do it anymore, who needs it. You accept that not only is your life imperfect, it will never be perfect. Who are you to have the audacity to believe you deserve a perfect life? Who said you even deserved a single perfect moment within this life?

I am saying it now, and I invite you to listen to the words of many who have come before me who have said the very same thing. They said it about you and about themselves, and they were right about both.

"This that I have done, you too will do." - Jesus the Christ
"When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky” - Buddha
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. " - Buddha

Note that there is a difference between acknowledging and embracing the perfection that is present versus striving for perfect outcomes. Perfectionism is the endeavor to create perfection in ourselves or situations or things. What I am talking about involves no endeavor, and indeed not even any creation. I am talking about a surrender to the force of creation our intellects cannot manage, and a willingness to call its creation absolutely perfect.

Breathing in, we drink deep of what has been created for us. Breathing out, we pour ourselves into it and let the drop disappear back into the ocean, as the mind empties into silence. Breathing in and breathing out, you are perfect in this very moment. Dare to envision your life as a series of perfect moments, each one worshiped fully as it arose, and I assure you that in time this truth will be fully revealed within your external circumstances as well.

As above, so below. As within, so without. Your decision to proclaim lack or perfection as reality is so powerful that all the Universe will obey it.

Buddha is quoted as having said that in terms of our human experience of life, it is what we do with our minds that will determine what we experience: “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

My life is truly perfect right now. There is still plenty of room for improvement in areas like wealth, social life, even health, and I spend some time each day clarifying my intentions around what I want to experience in those areas, but I also experience this moment as perfection. Nothing needs to change before I can relax into this moment and give it my full attention without any resistance. I can "be here now," because there is no war with the present moment.

I do not write all this to you because I want you walking around thinking, "I'm perfect." I do want you to know that, but only so that it will then be possible for you to relax into this moment and let the future take care of itself.

Your bliss exists in only one place and time, here and now. If you refuse to find it here, you will never find it at all. I invite you to see perfection. I invite you to dare to embrace your perfection, and the perfection of your life. And I invite you to do it right now.

Namaste

What have you been looking for that is so much more rewarding than what is here right now? Is it a dream of accomplishment you seek - affirmation that you are valuable and needed? Is it for the world to love you more, this time enough for you to actually feel lovable? Do you need the roar of the crowd to feel it, or is even that not enough? Is it the security and freedom that you believe more money will buy? Is it the promised impenetrable bliss that enlightenment is said to provide?

Are your distractions from your present moment experience more of the variety of entertainments or defenses? Are you grasping or pushing to get away from here -- to get away from "right now?"

I ask these questions because I see myself in all of them. As I sat in meditation at the Buddhist center yesterday, all these questions kept arising in my mind. In short, "Why exactly is it that I keep chasing after something in my mind instead of appreciating what is here within my experience right now?"

I am a smart woman. I know full well that happiness can only be had as an experience. The thought of happiness is the basis of hope, but actual happiness is better than the hope for future happiness. Unless there is dread of future suffering that is stronger than anything else within one's awareness. And I think that is the root of the issue for me. You should look within yourself, within the lessons of your life, and see what the root is for you. I share more on mine now, in case we are alike in this way.

Having identified this root, I next seek out the genesis of the root so that I know how to uproot it and make sure it never takes hold again. Seeking this, I recognize the programming of my childhood and early adulthood. I was programmed for self-hatred. The world often tried to convince me that I had no value -- because I was a girl, because I was black, because I was poor, because... fill in the blank. Society rarely comes right up to your face and speaks those words, though sometimes some of us have even experienced that.

Actually it is easier to be defended against it when it does say it plain. It's when the lesson comes from people's behaviors and the situations they thereby create, that the programming is particularly effective. You never even realize a lesson is being learned. You simply embody and then repeatedly re-create the beliefs that are carried by the lesson. There is more that is taught like this than merely self-attack, but that is the lesson I particularly want to focus on now. It is the one that leads to this ever-present anxiety about what lies behind the next corner.

Within us all is a sense of justice. I believe this in an inescapable human trait. That is why criminals always do stupid things that eventually get them caught. A part of them wants to get away with it, but another part wants to be punished, because they are convinced they deserve it. I tend to agree with the criminals that they deserved to face the legal consequences of their behavior, but what about you? You have never shot, stabbed, robbed, beaten, swindled or otherwise preyed upon those around you. Why do you deserve to be punished?

If you protest, "No, I know I don't deserve to be punished," then go back to the start of this article and begin again. Now, tell me, why is it that you believe you deserve to be punished? What is it about you that is so bad it must face pain and suffering in order for all to be right in the world?

Yes, and there is the pain, is it not? There is the tear, and the agony, and the why, and the not fair. There is that wounded child, a little bird that was ripped from its shell too soon. And I cry with you. And I cry for you. And I cry out to you, "Please stop."

Stop punishing yourself for the crime you never committed. Stop accepting your programming as truth. Recognize that all you believe is something you were taught, and that now, as an adult, it is your responsibility alone to conduct your reprogramming.

You must program yourself for love, or you will not be able to settle into the peace that is here within this moment. You will not be able to surrender the future to the future until you no longer believe that assuredly some great harm awaits you there -- a harm you must take action or expend thought to ward off now, instead of simply being present with what is.

Breathing in, think, "I love myself." Breathing out, think, "I embrace what is." Breathing in and breathing out, over and over, we proclaim and attend to the truth, and thereby create a new mental habit, one that works in harmony with our peace instead of obscuring it.

Notice that I say, "obscure," not "prevent" or "interrupt." There is nothing that ever prevents or interrupts your peace. Your peace is eternal, ever-present, and unshakable. Your peace is right here right now, as it always is. But are you present with it? Do you take it for granted, or do you worship it with the full holy awe to which it is due?

If there has ever been a small infraction by you that might warrant any suffering, I would say it is this. That you do not exhibit the proper gratitude for the sacredness of your life. You fritter away the moments thinking about the past or the future, regretting this, wanting that, warding off some other thing, and meanwhile moment after moment of life comes and goes unacknowledged by you with so much as a nod. You should be on your knees.

The greatness of who you are in this very moment is so awesome, so beautiful and radiant and powerful, you should be on your knees.

I bow to you. I salute you. I embrace you. I thank you for coming to Earth. And I do it all, now.

PeacePrayer on Twitter

I left out the opening hashtag in the above title because my blogging software makes a url out of the title and browsers don't handled hashtags in urls properly (unless they are there to signify a location on the page). Really this article is about #PeacePrayer which is a Twitter meme that could make a real difference in your life and in our world.

The idea is this: every day each of us committed to fostering peace within our lives and within our world will make our first tweet of the day one that comes out of a vision of peace. We will then tweet whatever we think of and include the #PeacePrayer tag within it.

Method for Generating a Vision of Peace

Some people can just sit down and see a world at peace at will, but for most people that is an elusive vision. We know we like the idea of peace, but don't know what that would actually look like. By a vision of peace I don't mean a theory on the features of peace; I mean a clear mental image of people existing in a state of peace and going about their lives in that state.

In just 9 breaths you can generate a clear vision of peace like so: Sit quietly and focus your attention on your breath. Once you have that focus, imagine a light surrounding the entire planet, but invisible to everyone. See all the pain, fear, anger and sorrow that millions carry within them every day as if it were clouds within their hearts and minds. Then as you breathe in, watch as the all-pervading light sucks the clouds out of every heart and mind around the world. By your third breath, see each person completely cleared.

Then for 3 breaths, as you breathe out watch as the light pours itself into each person's heart. By your third breath, see that this light has radiated out from each person's heart to fill their entire being.

Now sit for three breaths simply witnessing the world at peace, filled with the light of love and surrounded by a world of well-being. Do you see many smiling faces? What are people doing? Watch and enjoy. Then open your eyes and write whatever comes out, adding #peaceprayer at the very beginning or very end.

Three breaths with visualization on the in-breath, three breaths with visualization on the out-breath, three breaths with steady visualization of peace on both in and out-breath, then write. That's it.

Timeframe

I would like to start by working on simply the remainder of this summer. If you feel you can commit to being a part of this meme for the rest of this summer, please retweet (RT) the original tweet that brought you to this page. That will be your affirmation of your participation.

At the end of the summer we can converse about whether we want to continue, and if so for what period of time.

I look forward to reading your #peaceprayer tweets. I know there is great wisdom within you. I also know that you cannot create what you cannot first envision. We must all be able to imagine a world at peace if we are ever to live in one. Let this be one step we take together in that direction.

Update 10/4/09 - Though summer has ended, consider taking the time each day to clarify your vision of the world you would like to contribute towards building. We don't have to tweet about it, but let us keep clarifying and empowering our visions.

Fellowship for Good - Kiva Invites You

I have been a Kiva lender for a few months now and am glad I joined every time I get an email notifying me that one of the two Ghanaian women whose business I supported has repaid part of the funds, which I will then be able to make available to other borrowers. Normally I don't do more than read the email and smile to myself at how easy Kiva has made it to share a chance at the prosperity my birth in a rich nation has given me direct access to.

Today, for the first time I followed some of the links in the email to return to the Kiva website to have another look around. I'm glad I did, as I discovered the Kiva Fellows program, which allows people like you and me the opportunity to go to Ghana, Peru, Ukraine, etc. to work with the local Kiva field office which selects businesses for the program and guides them to success with their businesses.

Here is an excerpt from the site - Kiva Fellow Core Responsibilities:

The Kiva Fellow is an integral part of the Kiva Team, acting as Kiva's eyes and ears in the field and helping to extend limited resources to maximum effect. Kiva Fellows fulfill tasks set out in a Work Plan, defined by Kiva along with the host microfinance institution (MFI).

1. Facilitate Connections between Kiva's Borrowers and Lenders
   Your journal entries, business postings and blog entries will help build the rich content that bridges our borrowers and lenders and makes Kiva's model work!
   • Interview no less than 15 businesses per week to assess loan impact, verify data, and gather information for journal updates
   • Develop innovative ways to facilitate connections via creative journaling, YouTube video and other means
   • Write a blog entry every two weeks on the Kiva Fellows Blog
   • Promote awareness of the host MFI and its programs to the Kiva lender community
   • Promote an understanding of the Kiva lending community to borrowers

There are two more items on the list, and it is recommended you visit the Kiva site for complete details. I highlight this first one here because it reveals an answer to a dilemma I confronted years ago when trying to help an African orphans support non-profit use online technology to grow their international support base. I kept trying to impress upon them how important it would be to have a blog that included entries from recipients so that people who donated money could get direct feedback about the difference their contribution was making in the childrens' lives. I even set up the blog for them and posted the first entry, but they simply never got themselves to a point where they could post anything themselves.

Kiva probably faced a similar problem, and solved it by having westerners who would be there in the field, posting the information on behalf of those who received services. It may seem like a small thing, and you might wonder both why it would be so hard for the local people to do it or why it would be important enough to send people half way around the world to do for them. I still don't know why it is such a seemingly insurmountable hurdle for local agency staff abroad to do the updates, but I can definitely say as a financial supporter myself that those updates mean a great deal to me. They are the human proof that there was a good reason for me to skip those two dinners out with friends to send the money I had worked for and earned to someone I have never met and will never meet. Those updates provide the motivation to keep on giving, so that others too will benefit based on the experience lenders had with those who came before them.

The next deadline for Kiva Fellow applications is coming up Oct. 1 and that trip will be departing in early February. If you do decide to apply, please come back and share insights about your experience in the sidebar comments.

As someone who has traveled and lived in financially impoverished countries, I can definitely attest to the life changing impact such an experience has on you. Though I never went as part of an official program, I always sought out and found opportunities to make a contribution to the lives of those around me beyond simply paying them a good price for whatever products their family business sold. I never saw myself doing the 2 year, government sponsored Peace Corp program, but the 3-6 month non-profit based Kiva Fellows program could be a great fit for anyone who sees economic independence as a key part of self-actualization for people around the world, and who wants to be a part of helping that happen.

The Right Kind of Independence

Yesterday was the 4th of July, an American holiday celebrating our liberation from Great Britain so that we became a separate country instead of a collection of British colonies. It is sometimes referred to as Independence Day.

Some friends of mine at a barbecue yesterday kept greeting people with "Happy Inter-dependence Day," and I definitely find that more appropriate a wish given what is needed in the journey ahead if we are to survive as a species. We need to recognize our interdependence and begin working together for the common good, instead of trying to climb over each other's bones for a personal "win."

Yet a deeper interpretation of the word "independence" offers a promise for even greater human triumph than that which social interdependence could bring. The independence of which I speak is freedom from the tyranny of a mind that criticizes everything you or anyone else does, is impossible to keep happy for long, and which seems to feel it has something of value to say about every little moment of your life.

Do you ever find yourself thinking, "My head hurts. I need to get some sleep. I need some peace and quiet. But these thoughts keep running through my head, on and on?" Do you ever tire of the constant judgment flowing through your head? Wouldn't you like to be free of all that?

Well I sure would, and that is what I want to invite you to cultivate in your life. May you find independence from the tyranny of your chattering mind. May you be at peace. May you close your eyes in just a moment, take a deep breath in, think "I accept myself" as you breath out, then pause on empty and allow your mind to go blank. Then breathe in again as such, and begin the cycle again. May you do this over and over for the next 10 minutes, and opening your eyes, find yourself immersed in an all-pervading clarity and peace.

Be well.