Staring at Infinity

One of the ‘mental laws’ that can be found working in the world is referred to as the law of correspondence which states that ‘as without, so within’.  If your desk or you bedroom are in chaos, it means your mind can be chaotic, and you probably find it hard to order your thoughts.  A precursor to this mental law is a spiritual law which says, ‘as above, so below’.

Have you ever stared at the night sky and found yourself staring into infinity with a sense of awe and wonderment?  If you haven’t, try it tonight.  Find a quiet spot and simply look out into the vastness of outer space.  Several poets, down through the ages, have been inspired to record the profound feelings and inner awareness this contemplation upon the unlimited seems to invoke.  Why is this?

As you stare into the boundariless, infinite space, with no limit or end in sight, it is simply reminding you of your own inner space.  If you would learn to meditate and thereby turn the eye of attention and awareness within, you would rediscover, ‘as without so within’.  You would realize outer space is but a reflection of inner space.  As you practice this meditation/contemplation you would necessarily need to let go of thoughts/images/memories that are pre-occupied with the details of wordly life, and as you did, a spaciousness would begin to open within your own being.  You would gradually become free of any sense of self-limitation.  You would no longer become ‘trapped’ in past memories or projected worries, just as astronomers tend to get trapped in the study and analysis of particular constellations or planets.  You would hear and be deeply refreshed by the ‘all pervading’ silence of your own being.  And then there is the stillness -the absolute stillness that exists in both outer and inner space. This stillness within your being is a stillness that contains such a deep inner peace that once tasted, can free you from the cravings for anything that seems to bring you peace in the outer world.

To some, the night sky may appear to be just a dark and empty black mass above, containing many mysteries.  After a while, they tend to find looking at outer space a little boring and uninteresting.  They find little upon which to focus.  There is no stimulation, and they crave stimulation.  They will find it hard to turn their gaze within until the mental noise of their craving is quietened.  

Outward focusing is a habit of busy eyes - our two physical eyes, which then keep our minds busy with thoughts and images of the world.  This is why, at the end of each day, both eyes and mind are tired.  That’s when the night sky offers one of the most undiscovered forms of relaxation – staring at infinity.  Look up tonight.  Rest your gaze on the blackness.  Allow yourself to stare out into the infinite universe.  Feel your eyes relax, and your mind unwind, as they become free from the details of the day.  Allow your eyes to become still and your mind to be silent.

 Then turn your gaze inwards and allow your inner eye to rest its gaze on the infinite and unlimited nature of your own being.  As you do, behold an awesome inner sight and realise that the wonders seen ‘without’ are nothing compared to wonders that you may find ‘within’.

 

Question:  What is an unlimited state of consciousness?

Reflection:  The outer is a reflection and a projection of the inner – what do you see around you that reflects or projects what you feel within you.

Action:  Take 10 minutes tonight and lie under the stars and gaze upwards into the darkness – allow your mind to be free and empty but don’t force it in any way – watch for the feeling of spaciousness expand within you  – embrace any sense of awe and wonder that emerges within your awareness – relax your body and your being … and be still.

Kicking the Habit

It is the most common daily mental activity. It is the greatest misuse of mental energy. It is a complete waste of time. And it may even kill. It’s called worry.

It’s good to worry isn’t it? Worry shows you care doesn’t it? It means you are cleverly anticipating the future.. yes? No, no and no! Worry is anxiety based on fiction. It is ‘fantasized catasprophising’. It is a series of negative thoughts which disempowers the natural creativity of your consciousness, and it may eventually sabotage your physical digestive system. Why does worry thinking affect our digestive processes in particular? Perhaps it’s because when the fantasy of the catastrophe is held up against the light of reality, it is revealed for what it is, complete unreality, and is therefore hard to swallow! However, as we invest our belief in our home made stories of the worst possible outcome, we stimulate the overproduction of certain chemicals in our bodies.

Winston Churchill once said near the end of his life. “When I look back on all the words I have read, I remember the story of the main who said on his death bed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life that never happened”

So what is worry? It is the regurgitation of a negatively perceived past projected into the future. It is the dredging up of memories of hurt, rearranged into an imaginary tale of conflict or loss still to come.

And yet despite most people acknowledging worry as a waste of time and energy, it is still one of the most common lessons we learn from our parents. The prevailing myth, which is handed down from generation to generation, is ‘it’s good to worry, it shows you care’. Which of course is nonsense! Worry is fear and care is love, and fear and love are polar opposites. If you stop for a moment and become aware of why you worry about someone else you may also find it is motivated by selfishness – you are really worried for yourself. You are worried about how you will feel if something bad happens to someone else. In fact you are already feeling it!

Worry thinking is simply a learned habit, an addiction that is fed by a toxic daily diet of bad news, unfortunate events and tales of personal traumas of others. Don’t Worry Be Happy was the title of a hit song a few years ago. For many that is not easy, as worry has become a mental/emotional drug and just saying ‘be happy’ is a threat to that drug. Besides, many people think they are quite happy… worrying! Do you?

Worry is also a subtle avoidance of now. It is an escape into a negative future so that the reality of the present does not have to be fully faced and dealt with now. And yet, we can only find peace here and now, we can only live with love here and now. We can only be fully present and available for others in the here and now. Worry is absence. To be free of the worry habit we may have to ask ourselves why we don’t want to be here now, why do we broadcast our run to the future and proudly stake our claim to be prophets of doom and clairvoyants of gloom?

 

Question: What percentage of your thoughts are worry thoughts and what percentage actually happen

Reflection: Don’t Worry Be Happy – what is the difference between worry and happy – make notes

Action:  At the end of the day today make a simple list of all things you worried about, then next to each item write down what you will actually do.

What’s Your Passion?

Is there anything in your life you are passionate about?  What is your passion?  Are you sure it’s real passion?  Passion is another of those concepts whose meaning has become grey at best, totally blurred at worst.

Most people learn to think passion is good.  In fact some believe if you have no passion you have no life, and you might as well be dead.  Few go on to say exactly what they mean by passion and so the word passion tends to be loosely and vaguely mixed with a variety of concepts including love, anger, suffering and enthusiasm.

The most common meaning attributed to passion is ‘a strong sexual desire’.  In the classic ‘love’ stories it is that heated moment, usually around midnight, when physical feelings and strong emotions take control in the name of ‘making love’.  Actually ‘making love’ is, in itself, a misnomer, as love cannot be made, it already is!  But this kind of passion is not love it’s usually just lust, and lust is not love.  Lust has been more accurately described as, “the selfish pursuit of the fulfilment of a physical desire”.  If we are to call lust passion, and lust is not love, then passion is not love.  And if lust is just another addiction that means passion, if it is lust, is rather unhealthy. 

Some confuse passion with anger.  They justify their anger towards some perceived injustice as a demonstration of their passion and they even say, “Of course I’m angry, it’s because I am passionate about this issue, it shows how much I care”.  But care is not anger, and to call anger passion is more likely to be a way of avoiding self-control because the presence of anger means there has been a loss of control.  So passion is not anger, anger is anger!

In biblical times passion was confused with suffering.  As a theological term, the Passions of Christ refer to his sufferings subsequent to the last supper and crucifixion.  But is passion a form of suffering?  Surely suffering is suffering and, at an emotional level, it will be based in some form of loss. And whoever heard of passion meaning loss? 

In all three examples of possible meanings of passion there is one thing in common, passion is being perceived as an “intense emotion born of desire or loss” which, if not resolved, will end in even further disappointment and sorrow. 

If true passion is not physical stimulation, not anger and not emotional suffering, what is it?  Beyond the physical and the emotional there is the spiritual.  Perhaps we may find the real meaning of passion in the territory of spirit.   The root meaning of enthusiasm lies in the Greek term ‘entheos’ which describes the natural, unhindered energy of spirit.  It means to be filled with the ‘energy of God’ or divine energy.  When our core energy, our spiritual energy, moves through us and out into the world in a natural, creative way, we experience and feel what is known as enthusiasm.  We all know this experience.  Think of a time when you were being creative.  Notice your enthusiasm during the process.  Notice your enthusiasm as you talk about your creative experience to others.  And notice your enthusiasm to return to create some more.  All artists know this kind of enthusiasm and it means they have found their ‘passion’.

We are all artists as we all get to create our own lives.  We do this by creating thoughts, decisions and building relationships with others.  So why do so many of us lack enthusiasm in life, why the lack of ‘a passion’ for living.   Because we learn to miscreate!  We create desires, anger and sorrow instead, and it’s these miscreations that kill our enthusiasm.  They destroy our passion for living, and participating fully in our own life. 

As you can probably see, finding your passion in life, and therefore living enthusiastically, requires a degree of self-awareness and self-understanding not normally learned in most peoples lives.  It means realising life is a creative process in itself, and the energy required to fulfil that process is unlimited in supply within your own heart.  When discovered you will know enthusiasm, you will be enthusiastic and others will see and feel someone living their life ‘with a passion’. 

 

Question:  Which of the three road blocks mentioned above do you find drain your enthusiasm – the desire to be physically stimulated, an attack of the ‘angries’ or the wallowing in the occasional suffering (poor me?)

Reflection:  When was the last time you were genuinely and consistently enthusiastic?  Recall on the feelings and the dynamic of the experience.

Action: No matter what you do today, attempt to be enthusiastic before you start and during the process.  Then stop, reflect and see what gets in the way