End of the Line
Well, that was the last of the rambling tales so far. If you want to read more, when I was in Seattle in 2002, I wrote a short story Quest for Freedom (about 45 pages), that you could read if you want something else to read. As far as I know only three people other than myself have read it, so your comments are welcome.
Click here to see the last of my rambling tales (so far). These tales were started in 2002 (Yikes!), so there are a lot of them by now. You can go straight to the first if you dare. Another way cool short story that I really enjoyed is Martin the Cobbler, Martin Schumaker, or Where love is (just different names for the same story) by Leo Tolstoy. When I read it, I was in a difficult time in my life and it really meant a lot to me. What do you get out of it? Here is another big one, Ashram Lessons. I wrote it about ten years ago, so it has a lot of the foundations of my thinking (and it is not necessarily very current). It is about 90 pages, so you should be really interested to get it. Also, it is formatted for WordPerfect 5.1, so reading it these days can be problematic as most people don't have WordPerfect available to them. It prints out quite nicely if you are able to find a version of WordPerfect. I recently (November 2005) had a series of thoughts.... It is inevitable that anyone seeking enlightenment will eventually realize that absolute and total enlightenment is not possible as long as there is anyone who is still suffering. Their suffering is caused by the illusion of a separate existence while bliss springs from the truth that there is only the one with no separation possible. The realization that all beings are extensions of the self causes those with true understanding to work joyfully, energetically, and ceaselessly to aid others. Another thought I had (June 2006) was ... God loves us with unconditional love, but God is keenly aware of the boundary between unconditional love and co-dependency. It is through our own self effort that we create our own heaven on Earth. And (October 2006) ... While people normally choose comfort, what we really love is challenges and challenges are some of God's greatest gifts to us. And (November 2006) ... While we certainly should not sacrifice our values or principles for the sake of comfort or pleasure, it is appropriate to choose comfort and pleasure when there is no such conflict. Indeed, the normal inclinations of the body and our environment are often useful guides to how we should lead our lives. September 2007 in reference to the Prison Project training ... Pause before you speak. It is not so much the words themselves that have power, but the feelings that go with them. Focus on your intentions, develop the feelings, and the words will sort themselves out. At a Sufi dance in Salem on New Year's Eve (Dec 31, 2007) they asked to comptemplate and send a prayer to the universe and mine was 'Be an expression of God's love'. If that seems pretty vague and nebulous to you, it does to me too. Who is the subject and who is the object? However, that is what came up to me and was the prayer I sent out. I really don't know more so you will have to trust your inner guidance on that one (and after all, God being omni-present is pretty nebulous anyway). They also asked for us to contemplate what we can do bring about our prayer (as a resolution) and I was more specific there, but that is written in my personal journal (mostly meaning it will never be read again) so you will have to guess about that. However, if I meet you in 2008 you could well be the target of my resolution.... ;-) As an exercise in Syda Yoga contemplation in February of 2008 I added to my prayers for 2008;On June 24, 2009, I thought that of all the practices of Siddha Yoga, the one which came most naturally to me was seva, selfless service. It seemed so natural, just helping out as I was able, but it was also very rewarding. I soon discovered that seva has a wonderful effect; the more devoted you are to giving purely, the more you receive in return. The blessings which filled my life from my seva filled me with gratitude and strengthened my resolve to repay the rewards through even more devoted giving, seva. Of course, trying to repay the blessings of seva through more and better seva only leads to a wonderful and never ending spiral of ever increasing giving and blessings in return. The result is bliss; a life of service is a very sweet life indeed.
Toward the end of 2010, one of my current practices is to open my heart and silently / secretly express my respect and acceptance for everyone I encounter, not just the clerk who checks out my purchases, but also the person behind me in the line. It is my belief that everyone has an interesting life if you have the interest, everyone has their trials, their fears, their glories. I am trying to pay attention to everyone who makes up the fabric of my life, especially the people who are too often invisible, not friends or even enemies, but still worthy of love and acceptance. I believe that it makes my life richer. In the summer of 2011 at the FUUSA meditation group I came to understand that compassion without wisdom creates misery and suffering, while wisdom without compassion leads to cold indifference. It is only through the correct balance of wisdom and compassion that we can develop our connections with those around us and fill our lives with joy. In late 2011 at the FUUSA Silver Bay Retreat, Phil had mentioned that he thought of me as a stoic person which didn't fit as I think of myself as a joyful person, not suffering pain in silence (and misery). However, it led me to a think of a variation of Hamlet by Shakespeare, 'Neither pain nor hunger causes misery or joy but thinking makes it so'. At the retreat, in one session we were asked what we want to believe in. My hopeful belief is 'We are all eternal beings and this is just a wonderful playground where we can play in safety.' In early 2012 I became unemployed and a dear friend wrote that she was praying for me and that I find Jesus (which might have aggravated me in the past). On contemplation, my response was something like: I am happy to be in your prayers. It is beneficial to all beings when we wish each other well. I am not worried that the spirits which speak to me are true, anything which brings peace and satisfaction through kindness and compassion can not be false (I measure the truth of things by their impact on things). I believe that the real teachings of Christ have that effect, but that some people misunderstand them and find fear, anger, shame, and even hatred (big misunderstanding). However, you seem to understand clearly and I am happy about that. You are also in my prayers though my prayers tend to be pretty simple, just wishing you well (peace and satisfaction through kindness and compassion) which benefits me as well as you. In February of 2013 at the Unitarian meditation group we contemplated a section from a Buddhist book and I was struck by a particular passage, 'implicit in any anger is the seed of compassion' (that is my recollection of the passage and likely slightly mangled). After I considered it for several days, I realized the truth of it; anger is not a simple emotion, but rather is the underlying pain / grief masked by judgement, blaming the offending party. Rather than repressing anger, which by my own experience is counter productive, we can instead avoid anger by stopping the judgment process; blaming is always a waste of time and damaging to all involved. As discussed previously we can instead focus on developing helpful emotions like compassion and forgiveness, whatever we need most at the time. There is also the insight that if we feel anger, we are, in fact, recognizing the choices and motivations of the 'offending' party even if in a negative and judgmental way. We don't get angry at lifeless, non-sentient, powerless entities. In our anger there is indeed the recognition of our shared state of consciousness and respect for the importance of the choices made by others. That is indeed, the seed of compassion. Toward the end of 2013 I was talking about the boundary between unconditional love and co-dependency with a friend and realized that while I have several thoughts about this which I have never included here:Each person needs to experience the consequences of the choices they make. To try to protect them from the effects of poor choices is to rob them of their freedom and their chance to grow and develop, though it is probably worthwhile to mitigate (but not eliminate) otherwise fatal consequences.
In our lives we mostly choose comfort, but what we really need to thrive is challenges. Not to worry though, the universe will surely provide us with what we need, i.e. challenges (but would it be wiser to choose minor challenges for ourselves).1
All deep seated prayers are surely answered, though just as the genies of legend whose wishes always went awry, your wishes will surely get morphed from what you want to what you need.Early in 2014, I had an insight.
To see another person truly with all their quirks and foibles and with love and compassion is a great gift to both. To see the kind and loving core of a person without being distracted by their temporary obscurations benefits the seer, of course, but also benefits the person seen, allowing them the possibility of seeing themselves with love and compassion not withstanding any quirks or foibles. By allowing others to see their temporary failings (but still with love and compassion), it allows them to consider addressing those failings though it is hardly necessary.
While the power of seeing a person truly is readily apparent, there is an interesting twist. Unless we have struggled with all the fears and desires that trouble those around us, we really can't have the full depth of love and compassion to see them truly. Each and every one of our struggles with our own fears and desires allow us to really connect with those around us.From my blessed experience with the dish crews at the Ithaca Dance Camp in June of 2014 it occurs to me:
We each can create a beautiful life shaped in whatever ways we value. However, to have more than an ordinary, mundane life we need to form and hold our intentions. It is the countless decisions and choices we make that shape our lives and only by regularly refreshing our intentions can we make our lives the sort of creations we choose.In July of 2014 I came to a new realization which is in its own tale but an excerpt is:
The idea of something being selfish is itself harmful because it is based on the underlying, false premise that there is a separate and independent self. All choices and actions are selfless simply because there is no self.In June of 2015 I was talking with a woman who was raised Muslim, but had problems with Muhammad. That got me to thinking....
My thinking is that the three, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad all were trying to express the same message. Oddly enough Buddha lived first but had the most refined audience and his teachings seem the most refined to me. Muhammad was the most recent but his audience was the most crude and so I find his teachings the most coarse. However, if you read Muhammad's scriptures seeking jewels, wisdom that will help you improve your life rather than looking for errors to disagree with, it soon becomes apparent that Muhammad's message was the same as the others. Listening / reading sufis may help you appreciate Muhammad which would be good. Having angst against Muhammad only harms you (though I do expect that many of his teachings won't be very helpful to you and you can let them be, they weren't really meant for you).Well, that is all there is for now. If you want more right away, I guess you will have to look within yourself for more rambling tales.
Click here to see the last of my rambling tales (so far).
In December 2009 I realized that I no longer remembered all the rambling tales I had written (so as to refer to past tales rather than just repeating the same thing over and over) and started this reference to all of them. Yikes there are a lot!This page was last updated on February 15, 2015.