Dare to Care

With so much turmoil and suffering in the world, and 24-7 news availability making sure we know about all of it, it's easy for anyone to start shutting down emotionally. You may not even realize it is happening. It's like boiling the frog slowly, so that it never realizes there is a crisis and that it needs to jump out to save its life.

Your open heart is the path to your spiritual unfoldment. The awakened heart IS what it means to be awake. Therefore, anything that causes you to close your heart is a direct threat to your spiritual health. You must respond with action and not wait for things to get bad enough that you are noticing impairment in your day to day life. By then you have already lost so much.

There is a meditation you can easily do in just 5 minutes each morning to re-attune yourself to the path of awakening. Just sit with eyes closed and begin to imagine all the fear and worry people are feeling in their lives right now. Maybe start with people you know personally and the worries you know them to have, or start with the things you worry about yourself, but make sure you expand your awareness to realize that all around the world people are worrying about what is going to happen in different areas of their lives. This worry eats them up inside and dulls their ability to feel joy. Really imagine this until you can feel the feeling of their worry within yourself. Then imagine all their worry being consumed by a beautiful bright light, vanishing out of existence in a flash.

Then begin to think of other feelings of suffering people live their lives buried beneath. The anger, the sadness, the guilt -- imagine each one being liberated into light all around the world. (Perhaps note to yourself that this light is real, all-powerful, and all-pervasive. It is always present, and is in fact your own essential nature.) In the end, spend another minute watching as each person the world around shines their inner light brightly, no longer being dulled by the clouds of fear, anger, grief, shame and the mental confusion these turmoultous inner states cause.

When you are done, rise and go about your day with the conviction that you will be a beacon of light in the world, living your own life free of these conflicting emotions and helping those around you to do the same. Remember to notice each person you meet as an individual and greet them with an open heart. Be well.

Midlife Suicide Rises - A Loving Response

The NY Times published an article today on the rise of suicides among the "mid-life years" populace over the last few years. The article is worth reading and so are the hundreds of readers' comments. Having read the comments, I posit the following in summary and response:

Many people cite different versions of fear or dread of what is to come as the rationale. There are various reasons why people fear/dread their futures after 45 or so, but I think that the bottom line is that there is a belief that things are only going to get worse, so why not quit while one is ahead.

If we look at our lives in terms of our physical and economic realities, that is often true. Things are going to probably get worse and then end in extreme suffering for many people. The only way suicide doesn't make sense is if we decide we are going to be something more than our physical condition, whether in terms of health or possessions.

As the song goes, "the greatest thing you could ever learn is to love and be loved in return." When it is enough to have the chance to be in this world as a localized expression of an infinite love, exchanging love with other parts of itself in the form of other "bodies," then life is worthwhile regardless of your aches and pains or financial insecurity/decline. Then you look ahead with an expectation of always being surrounded by love, the love you give definitely and probably also love you will receive in return. There really isn't anything else worth living for.

Oh, and if you say you don't have anyone to love because you are estranged from "too busy" adult children, didn't have children, are divorced, are widowed, whatever ... don't have family.... Well walk out your front door and love the first person you meet. Love every single person you meet everywhere you go. Love the cashier at the grocery store, even if she doesn't seem to be doing anything to be worthy of your love. Love all the people who are unworthy of your love. Love fearlessly and relentlessly.

If you're pressed for time and or can't get out much, join the Phone Buddies emotional support community I started last year at www.Phone-Buddies.com and build ongoing relationships with other people who want to exchange loving and supportive connection. If you have more time and mobility, contact your local volunteer center and connect with organizations that could use your help. Whatever you do, find some way to connect with others in a loving way... and enjoy the ride!

Grieving for the Caterpillar

Dr. John Sarno has written eloquently about the psychosomatic nature of most back pain, as well as quite a few other physical maladies. (If you haven't read his work yet, I want to strongly urge you to do so, particularly if you do suffer from any chronic conditions.)

As I was reading his explanation of irrational, yet universal unconscious rage in his book "The Mindbody Prescription" I began to ponder a question he raised but did not answer: "To varying degrees, I believe we all harbor repressed rage, that to do so is normal for our time and culture."

The obvious next question is, "Why would it be normal for our time and culture for everyone to be harboring unconscious rage?" As I searched within myself for the answer, I realized it is not just within our time, nor likely limited to our culture. I believe there is an existential issue at the heart of this rage, and that its source is the catch-22 the ego is trapped in, which I will speak more of in a minute.

Does that mean there isn't also rage at how one was mistreated in childhood, passed up for a deserved promotion at work, or forced to care for ailing parents? No. There is that too. And I believe Dr. Sarno has truly helped a lot of people release physical ailments that were created in the mind as a part of its effort to repress the socially unacceptable expression of the wild rage that can be initiated by any of these events.

However, as I peel the onion, I find all of these to be several layers away from the core. The heart of the matter to me is the common factor among all people who suffer. We suffer because we are identified with the ego, which by its very nature is suffering personified. And the only freedom from suffering we can ever know, is if we ourselves disappear.

Now talk about injustice. How could anything be more unjust than that? Let me say that again: The only way that lasting peace and happiness can ever exist within your life is if you aren't there to experience it. You have to die in order for joy to be born.

I want you to sit with that understanding for awhile. If it hasn't brought you to tears yet, you don't really quite understand or believe it.

Your ego identity is the source of your unconscious rage. That rage would be there whether X ever happened to you when you were Y years old or not. Who you think you are not only does not truly exist, the belief in its existence and your identification with this false self as being "yourself" is the one and only true source of suffering in your life.

You have lived so many lifetimes thinking that you were a caterpillar but dreaming of flight and feeling cursed to crawl along on the ground with an inner knowing you were meant for something more. You are, but that is not because you are a grounded caterpillar. It is because the caterpillar was just a delusion. You are a butterfly.

Grieve your lost self identity. Grieve the pain of consciously facing the fact that everything you ever thought you were was actually the very prison you always hoped to one day walk out of a as a free being. Grieve the sun that will never shine on your free face, the dance of freedom you will never dance, the knowledge of your great self that will never be found. Grieve, for the only freedom that is real is the freedom from you.

Goodbye, caterpillar. Your time has reached its end and joy will go on in your absence. This is the true, inescapable nature of things. I understand your pain, your resistance, your rage -- and yet, it is what it is. Goodbye.

Hello, butterfly.

Grateful

I'm so glad that:

I live in a place and time of such prosperity.
I'm healthy.
I have found a spiritual path that works for me and a teacher I trust to help me along that path.
I have a loving and encouraging family.
My blood clots when I get a booboo.
I can stay in the sun as long as I want without ever burning.
I started volunteering when I was very young, so see service as a normal part of life.
I like who I am enough to do things that are good for me.
I can move people with my words.
I like the way I look.
My friends and family are genuinely kind people, and not just to certain people, but in life in general.
I know the secret to happiness.

(tip: One part is thinking about life in terms of what one appreciates, when "storying" life, and the other part is resting in equanimity, when the mind let's go of it's attempts to write a story about who we are and what our lives mean.)