Worrying

Here’s an exercise .

Imagine for a moment your life without worry. Just for a moment, look at everything that you have, everything you are doing, your plans for the next few days, weeks, month, but look at it without the element of worry in it. Don’t worry about money or security or whatever you worry about. Just look at your life at this moment with only the worrying removed.

How does it look? Oh, and by the way, don’t worry about not worrying, you can reintroduce worrying back into your picture in a moment. But for right now, just a few minutes, think about your life as if there was nothing to worry about.

How does it look? How do you feel?

When I do this, I realize how good I have been at creating a very nice life for myself. I get to meditate a lot during the day; we have a nice apartment in a cool neighborhood, in a very cool city. We go for a long walk everyday with the dogs down to the waterfront, sometimes stopping to have a drink overlooking the marina. We eat out a lot because Kim is blogging about Vegan food in Portland. We have plans for traveling to visit family in the next month and more.

Now comes the amazing part. I have been able to manifest all of this very cool life… all the while worrying about it at the same time.

Now I wonder what would happen if I didn’t waste so much time worrying and spent more time creating. How much more productive could I be without worry taking up so much of my time? Worrying doesn’t seem to be particularly destructive or dangerous; it just takes up so much valuable creative time. How much more wonderful stuff would be happening in my life if I didn’t waste ANY time worrying?

Choice

It seems to me that we have only one real choice in life, and that is to either accept or reject what's happening to us at this moment. If we reject it we are functioning primarily in our mind, obsessed with thinking about what is wrong. We are judging this moment to be insufficient in some way. We are angry about something or someone, disappointed, wishing we had more or less of something. Just thinking constantly about how things should be different.

When we are doing this, limiting our experience to only what is running around in our heads, our field of opportunity and influence is also limited.

When we are accepting of this moment however, we are participating much more in Reality and less in our perceptions and judgments of it. When we say I accept this moment, it is an opening of our awareness to what is going on right now, in us and around us. Even if we start from "But I don't like what's happening in my life," you can look at any bodily sensation that may be a result of not liking this moment, and experience it without thinking about it or judging it. Accept all of your feelings. Move from thinking about your life, to feeling it. Accepting bodily sensations and looking right at them is no longer thinking thoughts that are fueling your discomfort. You begin opening yourself and engaging in what is going on inside and outside of you. Experiencing living instead of only thinking about it.

Once we are outside of our judging mind and feeling inside our bodies, we are participating in this moment. Thus we are more open and available to whatever energies are active around and through us. The Present is the only place that anything really happens. It's the only place Reality is. Acceptance is like telling God "I'm not complaining about your beautiful manifestation anymore." That opens us up and allows Love/Acceptance to flow out of us. And God is like a mirror in that everything that comes out of us comes back to us.

Remember, we are always one with Divine Love. Thinking can fool us into believing we are not.

I Think, Therefore I Am

Who we are as a separate individual at any given moment, is a thought. It is a thought about a desire, a fear, a memory. It might be a memory of painful experiences which creates a thought about fearing getting something we don't want or not getting something we do want. But all of our beliefs about who we are as Rick or Sally or Johnny are just the thought (or memory thought) that we are having at this moment. Always at this moment. Nowhere or no when else.

Thoughts are like clouds; they can obscure the blue sky of who we truly and always are, but don't eliminate it. No matter how many thought clouds we have, the sky is always blue.

The more attention we can put into our experience of this moment and let our thoughts float through without identifying or attaching to them, the more this energy of who we always truly are can come though. One of the results of doing this is its effect on our subsequent thoughts. When we watch our experiences of this moment and let our thoughts come and go, one of the thoughts that begins to show up naturally, and I believe, by design is Trust.

We can't know with any certainty what is going on to create this reality that we all experience. So it makes sense that we also can't know what is going to happen in the next year, week or even the next minute. But the more attention we put into the only reality that really exists, this moment, the more we begin to trust the energy of that reality to influence our lives.

Trust cannot be thought or wished into reality, it must be experienced as an element of the energy of this moment. Then trust will be its own reward. But it will also allow the creative energy of this reality, (which brings flowers in the spring and apples to an apparently barren tree) into our experience. That might take the shape of inspiration or just plain relief from worrying.

Trust has a way of snowballing. As inspiration and creativity come, so do the resources we need to fulfill the destiny of the Source of that energy.

Watch for it and find it.

Meditation

God is always present. God is the substance of all of Reality. We are an expression of God as individual beings. Our awareness is God's constant gift to us, and if you watch closely you will realize that you are always conscious. You have no control over being conscious. Even in deep sleep we are conscious but since there are no objects or thoughts, our mind doesn't remember. When Jesus said. "I am the Light", and "I and my Father are one", he was speaking to this. He realized that he was an expression of pure Divine Consciousness.

So if it's already here, why don't we feel it. Some say that God pretends to forget in order to explore life as an individual with 5 senses and free will, and totally free to interpret or misinterpret these experiences. That also includes the freedom to dwell in the past or future. As a result we worry and live in fear. This has brought us to our current state of affairs, believing we are isolated and alone. Who we "think"we are is totally contained within our bodies, and the world is all out there, unknown and potentially hostile.

Meditation is the way to break down this barrier to seeing who we really are, who we already are but don't remember. So if God is the substance of our consciousness, of our very Being, every sensation and perception is Divine. We may have temporarily separated ourselves, at least believing we are separated, but that is an illusion supported by years and generations of thinking that it is true. Misinterpretation of our experiencing is the main problem, so the solution is to examine our actual experience and see what happens.

Start by finding a quiet spot and give yourself permission to not think about anything. All of the details of your busy life can wait for 20 or 30 minutes. Begin with the idea that EVERYTHING that you are experiencing is an expression of God. Even your thoughts are a misinterpretation and can lead to doubts and frustration. "What do I think I'm doing?" "I'm sure I'm not doing it right, nothing is happening." Etc. When these thoughts intrude, and they will, just dismiss them and come back to feelings.

Every sensation that you have is Divine Consciousness so you would not be experiencing anything if God was not living through you at this moment. Consciousness requires no learning or effort, but we do tend to take it for granted. So we want to be intentional with it. Start by examining the sensations inside your body. Pay particular attention to sensations that you usually associate with "me." This will probably be behind your eyes, or in your throat where you talk to yourself and to the world, or sometimes in your chest or gut. As you let your awareness cruise these areas, you will begin to notice that you don't really live IN those sensation but someplace slightly removed. You are actually looking AT the sensations that you used to identify with as "me", and not from them.

This free floating Experiencer is you true identity, the light of awareness that sees everything without judgement our interpretation. Since it's not identifying with any specific sensations, it feels totally calm. Continue to observe with an open receptive attitude. The Divine within you cannot be communicated with with your mind or with words. Only through your own open consciousness can an assurance that is beyond explanation reach you.

Be patient. It takes practice. And remember, you are not learning something new or looking for anything. Instead, you are allowing your true Identity which is always already here.

Healing

For a long time now, I've been getting the feeling that I need to put something out there. I've put it off for a long time because frankly, it scares me. I'm afraid of what people who know me will think. But it has reached the point where not doing it may hurt me more than what other people think. So here goes.

Everyone who knows me, knows me as a spiritual seeker. I've been mining the depths of what it means to be a human individual and what our relationship is to The Divine, to God, Spirit, Source, Consciousness. For the past few years I've been meditating everyday and have come to a very comfortable relationship with...all of the above. I particularly like the term Consciousness because it implies the magical, mysterious relationship to God inherent in our our everyday awareness. More on that later.

What I've been afraid to go public with is that throughout my life I have had some success with Spiritual Healing. By that I mean both healing the spirit and healing the body through Spiritual means. I seem to have reached a fork in the road where I either go public, or risk losing the gift and the opportunity. So as of today I offer help to anyone who feels that they need it, and hasn't found it in their life so far. Asking for help is THE major requirement on your part to receiving it.

 I try to stay away as much as possible from a lot of verbal advice or discussion, because I understand our mind's obsession with ideas. Instead, most of what I will be saying is meant to lead your mind to the limits of it's understanding, to trust; trust what it CANNOT understand. The power of healing comes from our "knowing and feeling" that we are not separate from The Divine. Unfortunately we don't feel that and the fear that comes from feeling disconnected causes suffering. Because we ARE all connected, (ask a physicist about that on the physical/scientific level) when you reach out for help you access a channel between us through which healing energy can pass, even if you don't feel it.

So, if you like, you can email me at rickvburg@gmail.com and we'll talk a little about it, or you can just think about asking for help through me. Reach out in your mind. Understand that it is not Rick the personality which is capable of healing, but my access to healing energy all around us. You are probably feeling alone and isolated and not accessing it on your own. Sit quietly when you can and listen to your body; take inventory of bodily sensations and embrace every feeling as much as you can. Most suffering comes from some form of resistance. If you are in pain, I understand this can be very difficult. Do the best you can understanding that even pain is communication.

God is Love. God is also the Reality or Substance of the whole universe. So Love is the substance of all there is. Acceptance and "embraceing" are a kind of non-judgmental loving, and the more we accept the more we are opening ourselves to Love.

And Love heals.

Gratitude

I was going to write about my exploration of thinking today but that will have to wait. This morning I had a great realization about gratitude and want to share it.

I have always had a bit of a problem with the Law of Attraction and its insistence that all you have to do is "feel" like you already have what you want and that energy will attract what you want. A lot of peoples interest (and mine too) in the Law of Attraction seems to be around money or the lack of it. It has been very difficult to maintain the feeling that I have plenty of money when I don't. And it seems to me that spending money as if I already had enough as part of the "feeling" of already having enough, is a little careless.

At the same time, I have always believed that gratitude and appreciation are very powerful tools for achieving happiness and peace of mind. When I feel down, I often look around and list the thing I'm grateful for.

Now I believe that the Universe wants us to be happy. (By the way I use the terms Universe and God interchangeably but  the Universe has less baggage in preconceived beliefs associated with it.) But just giving us what we desire doesn't guarantee that we will be happy. Take money for example. There are some very rich, very miserable people out there. And we've all heard stories about people who won a huge lottery and are now unhappy and wish they hadn't.

So maybe the Universe understands that in order to be happy, we need to evolve into beings who appreciate life in general with all of it's ups and downs, and not just the fleeting gratitude when we have our desires fulfilled. And maybe if we are grateful for just being alive and for having everything that we DO have, then we might make different choices that lead us towards what we want. I can get behind the Law of Attraction now that I see it as being like two magnets that are drawn and move towards each other rather than me just trying hard enough to "feel" like I already have what I want.

If I feel grateful for Life then I am already happier. I can still desire "stuff" but my happiness is no longer dependent upon that particular desire being fulfilled. And if the Law of Attraction IS true, then my gratitude makes it more likely that I'll get what I desire.

Cool!

Who am I now?

So if what is experiencing these experiences can't be seen, has no objective qualities, who am I? Who or what is experiencing all this? Something is. As I look for the ME that is more than just a sensation in my body, I can't find it. If the feelings that I usually associate with me are merely sensations in my body that "I" can look at, what is this "I"?

I seem to BE the seeing that can't be seen. I am just awareness that is shining on all of these sensations and emotions.

So as this awareness shines on these sensations that used to be me, in my chest, throat, and head, I notice that these feelings are just perceptions and really are of the same quality as the sensation of the chair under me, or the computer resting on my lap, or for that matter the sound of the birds outside, and the taste and smell of my tea. They are all perceptions.

Now that the sensations that I used to identify with as me have been demoted to perceptions without a perceiver, it seems like experiencing is just happening. There is just awareness like a light coming out of nowhere, illuminating everything. I feel connected to everything, a part of everything I experience. When this is happening, the sensation now in my body is one of peace and happiness. When I see another person, the experience is compassion. And when I look around, the experience is beauty.

So how do I make this last?

Oops. Now I'm no longer exploring experience but thinking about another time besides the present. I'm thinking and worrying about how to make this experience last into the future and not exploring. Exploring experience only happens in the "now".

So is thinking what keeps me from peace and happiness?