A Copy From VJewel
I woke up this morning finally realizing that what I am feeling is unhappiness. It seems like I have been unhappy most of my life, most of the time; and more especially right now.
Then I read VJewel's entry and decided to post it here (with modifications), both for myself and to share with my friends. It encapsulates most of what I've been writing about in my own Journal lately. It's a good reminder for me for how to seek more happiness; instead of unhappiness. It helps with the reality awareness, which I need today. Thanks VJewel:
THIS IS BASICALLY FOR ME...WHEN I TYPE/READ IT, IT SEEMS TO SINK IN MORE AND MORE!Life never brings me what I expect. If it did, I wouldn't learn anything. Inevitably, my expectations must be disappointed, so that I can reach out to a deeper and wider reality.Every lesson that comes to me seeks to awaken me, not to punish me. As long as I think that God or the Universe is trying to punish me, I will be unable to accept my lesson and learn from it.In truth, each lesson seeks to lift me up. If I am propped up, it may dethrone me before it inspires me, but its goal is always to uplift.Of course, my lesson and my interpretation of the lesson are always 180 degrees apart! I simply cannot understand my lesson at the ego level.The lesson always takes me beyond ego. If I am looking for ego-enforcement, I will not get it from God...Yet I make my faith in God on getting sufficient ego reinforcement..No wonder I get frustrated....As soon as I think I am free of my old conceptual limitations, I get yanked back into the fray.Learning my lessons takes a great deal of compassion for myself. I need to realize that it isn't easy for me to change how I perceive reality. If it was, I wouldn't need a lesson to practice it. So...I need to be patient. I need to go at my own pace. There is no hurry.
Most of my lessons are not achievement-oriented. They are perception-oriented. I don't need to change myself, change others, or change the world. I need to change my perceptions of self, other, and the world. I misunderstand my lessons if I think they ask me to be something I am not or give something I don't have to give...If fear comes up, they ask me to walk through it. If something is a burden to me, they ask me to lay it own..Whatever the lesson, it is perfect for me! It asks me to make exactly the adjustment that I am able to make. It never asks for more than I can give.So trust becomes a factor. The more I trust my lesson, the more I cooperate with them and the better I learn them....Instead of being suspicious of the unknown, I welcome it. I see how it expands me and makes a deeper place for love to dwell.Obviously, this is not as easy as it sounds..When I have pain in my life..I automatically tense up. I resist the pain. I fight the pain. I complain about the pain. Rarely, do I accept the pain and ask what message it brings. My tendency to resist pain is a attack against me. So I try to exorcise it. But that just deepens the pain. Through experience, I lear that the way out of pain is not through resistance, but trough acceptance.It is an awesome paradox. The only way the pain dissolves is when I am no longer invested in its going away. As long as I am trying to get rid of it, the pain persists. The pain is not a punishment, but a communication. It tells me that something is awry. It asks me to make some kid of adjustment. I asks me to come to a new awareness. In the same manner...every lesson asks me to open my heart and mind in a new way. Old defense mechanisms that are no longer needed for my survival must be surrendered. Inch by inch the territory claimed by fear must open to love's embrace.It is a gradual process. I am not asked to open up all at once. As long as I'm making progress, I am cooperating with my lesson.That does not mean that I do not encounter resistance. I do periodically. My goal should not be to try to get rid of resistance but to notice when it comes and when it goes. That way I begin to understand how my thoughts, feelings and beliefs influence my life.More and more I realize that it is not what happens in my life that matters, but how I react to what happens. By placing emphasis on my reactions which I can influence, I empower myself to deal creatively with the many challenging situations that life presents me. I am no longer a victim of unsavory forces outside of me, but a protagonist, positively influencing the outcome of events by maintaining an attitude of trust, hope and faith. Indeed, whenever something happens that distrubs my peace, I realize that my attitude toward life has taken a nose dive. When I take the time to look within and lift up my heart, I see a more graceful and cooperative world around me.Contrary to our old programming, the events in our lives are never fixed. And the ever mean what we think they do. Everything is in motion, including our thoughts and feelings. Thus, if we really want to understand what is happening in our lives, we need to "be with" the situation for a while. Once I have taken the time to sense what is happening, I have a better chance of responding to it appropriately.The worst thing we can do with a lesson is to decide what it means right way. We need to be with the situation without judging or interpreting it. We need to feel it, get a sense of it, see how it moves as our thought and feelings change. This is a process of listening within.When we sit with a prolem situation, we don't try to analyze it or figure it out intellectually. Doing that is trying to address the problem from the same level on which it exists. It doesn't work......We need to sink down into the body and ground ourselves. We need to move out of our "thinking mind" into or "feeling mind." The Feeling Mind contains the whole situation. It does not select one piece at another's expense I doesn not seek to choose, for choice would only aggravate the conflict. It just reaches out to contain all the aspects., all the polarities, all the contradictions. It embraces the situation as a whole without judging it, It just lets everything be fully present in consciousness.When I am fighting my lesson, it is my enemy. When I am accepting it, it is my friend. I always establish my relationship toward my lesson and the relationship I establish determines whether I resist that lesson, or learn it and move on.A teaching that does not allow for lessons to be learned experientally is not a spiritual teaching, but a form of indoctrination. Lessons are always learned by opening the heart and opening the mind. They have nothing to do with rigid concepts and moral absolutes. They are always experientail.So.....our lives are laboratories for learning. Our mental and emotioal experience is a classroom in which we can learn to blame or to bless, to reject or accept, to control or to set free.
Then I read VJewel's entry and decided to post it here (with modifications), both for myself and to share with my friends. It encapsulates most of what I've been writing about in my own Journal lately. It's a good reminder for me for how to seek more happiness; instead of unhappiness. It helps with the reality awareness, which I need today. Thanks VJewel:
THIS IS BASICALLY FOR ME...WHEN I TYPE/READ IT, IT SEEMS TO SINK IN MORE AND MORE!Life never brings me what I expect. If it did, I wouldn't learn anything. Inevitably, my expectations must be disappointed, so that I can reach out to a deeper and wider reality.Every lesson that comes to me seeks to awaken me, not to punish me. As long as I think that God or the Universe is trying to punish me, I will be unable to accept my lesson and learn from it.In truth, each lesson seeks to lift me up. If I am propped up, it may dethrone me before it inspires me, but its goal is always to uplift.Of course, my lesson and my interpretation of the lesson are always 180 degrees apart! I simply cannot understand my lesson at the ego level.The lesson always takes me beyond ego. If I am looking for ego-enforcement, I will not get it from God...Yet I make my faith in God on getting sufficient ego reinforcement..No wonder I get frustrated....As soon as I think I am free of my old conceptual limitations, I get yanked back into the fray.Learning my lessons takes a great deal of compassion for myself. I need to realize that it isn't easy for me to change how I perceive reality. If it was, I wouldn't need a lesson to practice it. So...I need to be patient. I need to go at my own pace. There is no hurry.
Most of my lessons are not achievement-oriented. They are perception-oriented. I don't need to change myself, change others, or change the world. I need to change my perceptions of self, other, and the world. I misunderstand my lessons if I think they ask me to be something I am not or give something I don't have to give...If fear comes up, they ask me to walk through it. If something is a burden to me, they ask me to lay it own..Whatever the lesson, it is perfect for me! It asks me to make exactly the adjustment that I am able to make. It never asks for more than I can give.So trust becomes a factor. The more I trust my lesson, the more I cooperate with them and the better I learn them....Instead of being suspicious of the unknown, I welcome it. I see how it expands me and makes a deeper place for love to dwell.Obviously, this is not as easy as it sounds..When I have pain in my life..I automatically tense up. I resist the pain. I fight the pain. I complain about the pain. Rarely, do I accept the pain and ask what message it brings. My tendency to resist pain is a attack against me. So I try to exorcise it. But that just deepens the pain. Through experience, I lear that the way out of pain is not through resistance, but trough acceptance.It is an awesome paradox. The only way the pain dissolves is when I am no longer invested in its going away. As long as I am trying to get rid of it, the pain persists. The pain is not a punishment, but a communication. It tells me that something is awry. It asks me to make some kid of adjustment. I asks me to come to a new awareness. In the same manner...every lesson asks me to open my heart and mind in a new way. Old defense mechanisms that are no longer needed for my survival must be surrendered. Inch by inch the territory claimed by fear must open to love's embrace.It is a gradual process. I am not asked to open up all at once. As long as I'm making progress, I am cooperating with my lesson.That does not mean that I do not encounter resistance. I do periodically. My goal should not be to try to get rid of resistance but to notice when it comes and when it goes. That way I begin to understand how my thoughts, feelings and beliefs influence my life.More and more I realize that it is not what happens in my life that matters, but how I react to what happens. By placing emphasis on my reactions which I can influence, I empower myself to deal creatively with the many challenging situations that life presents me. I am no longer a victim of unsavory forces outside of me, but a protagonist, positively influencing the outcome of events by maintaining an attitude of trust, hope and faith. Indeed, whenever something happens that distrubs my peace, I realize that my attitude toward life has taken a nose dive. When I take the time to look within and lift up my heart, I see a more graceful and cooperative world around me.Contrary to our old programming, the events in our lives are never fixed. And the ever mean what we think they do. Everything is in motion, including our thoughts and feelings. Thus, if we really want to understand what is happening in our lives, we need to "be with" the situation for a while. Once I have taken the time to sense what is happening, I have a better chance of responding to it appropriately.The worst thing we can do with a lesson is to decide what it means right way. We need to be with the situation without judging or interpreting it. We need to feel it, get a sense of it, see how it moves as our thought and feelings change. This is a process of listening within.When we sit with a prolem situation, we don't try to analyze it or figure it out intellectually. Doing that is trying to address the problem from the same level on which it exists. It doesn't work......We need to sink down into the body and ground ourselves. We need to move out of our "thinking mind" into or "feeling mind." The Feeling Mind contains the whole situation. It does not select one piece at another's expense I doesn not seek to choose, for choice would only aggravate the conflict. It just reaches out to contain all the aspects., all the polarities, all the contradictions. It embraces the situation as a whole without judging it, It just lets everything be fully present in consciousness.When I am fighting my lesson, it is my enemy. When I am accepting it, it is my friend. I always establish my relationship toward my lesson and the relationship I establish determines whether I resist that lesson, or learn it and move on.A teaching that does not allow for lessons to be learned experientally is not a spiritual teaching, but a form of indoctrination. Lessons are always learned by opening the heart and opening the mind. They have nothing to do with rigid concepts and moral absolutes. They are always experientail.So.....our lives are laboratories for learning. Our mental and emotioal experience is a classroom in which we can learn to blame or to bless, to reject or accept, to control or to set free.
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