Category Archives: developing awareness

I Am The Way I Am Because

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, higher education, life worth living

Spirit shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.

He tells me that I am the way I am because
that is the way I am.

The only question that seems to make any sense is,
So, why am I as I seem to be?

Your original nature has been modified
by experiences and reflection on those experience,
resulting in a personal interpretation, or
misunderstanding of the causes and consequences
resulting from previous experiences.

We learn from experience, and yet, some of us
learn quicker than do others.

Pain and pleasure seem to be necessary components
of our learning how to live in this World; and to
discover what works, or seems to, and what does not,
in different situations.

We learn that consistency of response is
inappropriate. What works with one situation does
not seem to work in another. We must also,
He tells me, learn to measure the quality of our
response to any given situation.

What ever made me think that living should be
easy? Perhaps that’s why the way I am is, or
seems to be, confusion, personified.

Form as a Temporary Ilusion

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, Life-long learning continues, The essence of all is within us

Spirit shares His understanding of timeless wisdom with me.

He suggests that I let Life lead me where it wills to.
To resists is wasting my precious time, or at least my
temporary share of Cosmic energy.

We are each alone together on a journey of discovery.
Life is a treasure chest that has somehow dumped itself,
and scattered its precious contents of adventures and,
at times, even hidden them, but not without leaving
subtle clues, or not so subtle hints at where and how
to find what’s meant for each of us, alone to find;
our inner self, the perfect complement to what we now
seem to believe we are.

How would I recognize this inner me?

It will be as if looking into a magic mirror that
reflects only your essence, without form. The essence
is real and timeless; the form is no more than
a temporary illusion.

Messengers and Teachers

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, higher education, intelligent spirituality

Spirit shares gems of wisdom with me. Why? I don’t know,
but I’m glad he does.

He tells me that I’m not the one who’s directing His
traffic, nor is He directing mine, except …

Except what?

Not what, but how and why? We each serve a higher
purpose than our own.

I’m free, He tells me, to choose to listen to Him
and the teachings that He would share with me,
or not to listen. He’s a messenger and the teachings
He shares with me, for whatever reason, are far
beyond a one-to-one personal correspondence. they are
also meant for whomever cares to hear them and to
consider their value. They were never, He repeats,
designed for me, alone.

Why me at all?

You seemed to be ready.

Can you be both a messenger and a teacher of the
messages you share with me?

Is a teacher not as a messenger to his or her
students?

Yes. I see. The teacher must first have received
the messages she or he now shares with students.

Yes.

A Personal History Book

Posted on by under A spirit teacher tells me that, developing awareness, Finding our unique way, intelligent spirituality, Life-long learning continues

Spirit shares words of wisdom with me that seem so deep and yet expressed in words simple enough even for me, a simple seeker
and slow learner, to almost understand.

He tells me that knowing is not a matter of faith. We know
that wounds hurt for we have experienced their pain, both
physical and emotional wounds.

Physical pain is felt through our physical senses while
emotional pain is a mental state and is often learned and
developed through habit.

How do we learn emotional pain?

It’s a socially acquired skill.

If you offend me and I feel distressed, then I have learned
to feel distressed, and you’re not the cause?

Yes.

Who taught me?

You taught yourself.

Then, everyone would feel offended for the same reason?

Not necessarily.

Why?

You couldn’t offend me.

Perhaps you’ve developed immunity to offence.

There are other labels.

Such as?

Tolerance, patience, understanding, compassion, …
The list goes on.

You didn’t include awareness.

Yes.

Why?

The examples I provided each require a certain depth
of awareness.

The problem with that approach, or at least one problem,
is that it would seem to require a certain detachment
from the emotional state of the offender, as well as
from oneself.

Why would that be a problem?

It would suggest a certain lack of sensitivity.

Not necessarily so.

Please explain.

As we become increasingly aware of the path, then we can
listen to what some might call offence, calmly, and feel
compassion for the distress of the other. As Confucius
might say, “No blame”.

How is that possible?

As we develop an ever more clear vision, we can see in many
more directions than one.The present arrived from the
past and we each are as a personal history book that
those who have eyes to see can read, and we all can and
will develop eyes that see, sooner or later, and from
a unique perspective.

I’m not ready for that quality of insight, yet.

Yes.
aught me? urs

Reason Does Not Express Itself

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, Finding our unique way, higher education

I may never know why Spirit chooses to share His understanding
of spiritual philosophy with me, but I hope I will be eternally
grateful to Him for helping me to understand His deep thoughts
in a form simple enough for me to learn.

The wisdom He shares with me is not His, alone, He tells me.
He claims that all that He has learned has been shared with
Him, as it was with those who taught Him what He now shares
with me. It belongs to everyone who cares to claim it.

Problems arise, He tells me, when the knowledge we each absorb
from whomever or whatever source is filtered through and
modified by our unique understanding, that has necessarily
developed through personal experience.

How can what is necessary be a problem?

Not in itself.

How, then?

The problem arises when we seek to share what we know
or think we know, with others.

But, surely we need to share …

Yes, we need to share our unique understanding, at least
with those who seem to be aware of …

Can awareness be shared?

In the story of Buddha and the rose, the rose expressed
something to the teacher that he wished to share with
his followers …

And only one student responded with a smile at the beauty
of the flower.

Yes. Th others were all aware that it was a beautiful rose,
but were …

Trying to rationalize what message it was meant to teach.

Yes, appreciation of beauty for its own sake requires
emotional maturity.

Beauty express itself and reason does not?

Yes.

velops when we seek to share what we know

Worlds Within Worlds of Rules

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit guide shares a precious gift, developing awareness, Finding our unique way

Spirit tells me that happiness is not
different things to different people,
as some might believe it to be.

Happiness is a feeling of contentment
that harmonizes both intellect and
emotion.

Can it last?

Nothing lasts.

But, is it a thing?

What?

Happiness.

What else could it be?

A state of mind.

States and minds are things.

But, people seek happiness.

Where? How?

Wherever and however they seem to think
it might be found.

It can never be found.

Then, is it possible to become happy
or contented.

Yes.

How?

Develop a satisfied mind.

How?

Live by rules of your own choosing.

How to know if I am choosing
the rules I live by?

Who else could choose them?

Most social rules were created before
I was born.

So what?

I didn’t choose them.

Do you live by them?

Some of them.

Why only some?

Some are required.

Why?

They are designed to create order where
there might otherwise be chaos.

Such as?

Traffic laws.

Yes.

What does that mean?

Traffic laws are a form of general rules
designed to benefit all members of specific
societies.

What rules would benefit individuals?

Whatever would benefit a group can only be
effective if it is followed by individuals
within the group.

So, the personal and the general are as one?

Yes and no.

How so?

Group rules apply to everyone to whom
they apply.

And personal rules?

Personally chosen rules are selected from
general rules.

Worlds within worlds of rules?

Yes. Our personal rules should be chosen
above and beyond those we accept.

Who el

A Calling, I Guess

Posted on by under a sense of community, A spirit teacher tells me that, developing awareness, Finding our unique way, self-transcendence

Spirit tells me that we have been climbing
our mountain; our chosen way of life is as
a mountain.

But, what if I didn’t choose my way of life?

How would it be possible not to have chosen?

It may have chosen me.

How would that have been possible?

I was born into a particular family, within
a particular culture, in a particular
community, at a particular time, possessing
particular attributes.

And then what?

I became part of that family and culture.

And then?

And then I seemed to grow beyond …

Beyond what?

Beyond the comfort zone of them and myself.

And now?

I seem to be on the outside, looking in
to a place I can never return to.

Yes. Would you return if you could?

No. I seem to be where I am and moving
even further away from where I once
needed to be.

Is it a choosing?

No.

Then, what?

A calling, I guess.

Yes, but you choose to respond.

Yes.

Beyond the comfort zone

To Serve Comfort Needs

Posted on by under A spirit teacher tells me that, developing awareness, Finding our unique way, higher education, Life-long learning continues

Spirit tells me that there is more to life
than material existence can ever offer,
for it is as the lowest step on a ladder
to ever-higher levels of existence.

Peaceful co-existence can never come from
focus on form alone, while ignoring essence,
and all form possesses, or contains, essence.

Even a chair?

Even a chair.

What essence could a chair possess.

Purpose, or potential purpose.

To serve comfort needs?

Yes, Life itself serves comfort needs.

How?

By expressing itself within all forms
of life.

But, not all forms of life feel comfortable.

How do you know?

I’m a form of life.

Yes.

I don’t always feel comfortable.

Why?

How could that be possible?

How could it not be possible?

There’s something you’re not telling me.

What?

Perhaps we each define comfort differently?

As a quality or as a variable?

I could feel less comfortable?

Yes.

Yes.

A Tree of Compassion

Posted on by under A spirit guide shares a precious gift, Attitudes can be seen, developing awareness, Finding our unique way

Spirit asks me what I will do to celebrate
my recovery.

I haven’t fully recovered, yet.

Do you expect to?

More or less.

Then, it is time to plan to celebrate.

How will I celebrate.

You could give thanks to the Universe.

I do, now.

How do you express your thanks?

In action?

How else would it be possible?

What would you suggest?

You could plant a tree.

Where?. My small garden is crowded, now.

Is your heart also crowded?

What kind of tree could I plant in my heart?

A tree of Compassion.

Compassion for whom?

And what?

How can I feel compassion for …

Go on.

For Life?

Is that not possible?

It would include myself.

And?

To feel compassion for myself would require
separating myself from myself.

Can you do it?

Separating the actor from the role she plays?

Yes. Separating essence from form.

It wouldn’t be easy, for me.

I didn’t promise easy.