thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
do we gain clarity about what we really want? Clarity and certainty come from our true Self, so our part is only to create the space in our life to step back and give it welcome. We each have our own pet ways of creating a little space. Maybe it's a long soaky bath, a walk in the woods or chilling out with soft music in a comfy chair. The important thing to remember is that our part is so little - only to give our true Self welcome. Attempt more and we take away the little that is asked.Here are a few words from the book, 'A Course in Miracles' that may be helpful by way of 'setting the scene'. If you find the religious connotation of some words off putting then by all means substitute for your own. Some would rather use the words Source or Truth than God. Words are just symbols; it's the meaning they convey to you that's what matters. So use these words or something similar if they help, or no words at all. The form of this asking is not important, only your intent and you're willingness to get out of your own way so that you are open to receive. Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what Truth is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget with wholly empty hands unto your God. Is it not He Who knows the way to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between your Self and your God to be quietly removed forever. God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive. But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality acclaimed as well.Im never been big into meditation myself but this next exercise is a type of meditation that is particularly powerful and effective at what we are attempting to do here. The process is simple. If you do not find it easy at first, don't worry. You can't help but benefit, even the first time you try it. We find it difficult enough to break old thought patterns and replace them with new ones. What we are attempting to do here is to break old thought patterns and allow no new patterns to replace them. The more frequently you attempt this, the more completely you will find you are able to become immersed in it.Again, there
are words here that attempt to point to Universal Truths. If you find them irritating or offensive then just substitute with words you feel more comfortable with.Envision an hour glass, sand in the upper half, floating in a clear, cool pond which is nestled in a beautiful meadow lush with wild flowers. The rim of the glass and sand is just level with the surface of the pond. The hourglass is a metaphor of your mind, completely filled as the sand symbolically illustrates. It is so full that the water of the pond, representing the Universal Consciousness, the stream of your fully conscious Self, can only ripple across the top.As you watch the sand slowly drain away, allow your mind to open up space as you see the sand slowly going down and more space being created until the sand is all gone. As the sand has been draining away, the water from the pool of Consciousness just naturally fills the space. Its flow has a very gentle, peaceful, loving feeling. It is this feeling that reassures you that simply because the sand thoughts have drained out doesn't mean there is nothing left except a void. But more appropriately, this space is filled with this flow of feeling that is totally cohesive and not fragmented and into which you can just allow yourself to become totally immersed in it, you know that what is happening is that you are allowing your Divine Mind to embrace you.Allow the feeling that being in this fluid is like being in the womb of your Divine Mind. This feeling, if you hold it and allow it to give you a sense of nurturing, will encourage you to see yourself as being born into the Divinity of your natural Self. While you are engaged in this process, you won't be receiving answers to any specific questions but the very act of experiencing yourself being in this womb of Divinity will open up the feelings that will allow you to recognize those problems that you are working on for what they really are, and they will no longer seem fearful to you.Hold no expectations. Allow the process itself to unfold for you and allow yourself to be open to the experience of that unfoldment. Enter this process in total trust, absolutely total trust, that what your Divine Mind represents for you will be known to you in ways that require no questioning. It will become a process of Knowing.When we start allowing ourselves to step back and experience our Self it soon becomes apparent that what we are relaxing into is far more tangible, real and trustworthy than anything we have every experienced in the physical world. Remember that whatever we feed with our attention grows in our awareness so the key is to just give ourselves permission to savour and enjoy these moments of experiencing our true Self. This we can do anywhere and anytime.Our monkey mind will give us 1001 reasons why we haven't got time, why we need to think about our 'responsibilities', and will
supply us with plenty of negative feelings about this stuff; but the choice is ours. At the end of the day this is the basic decision we must make to be happy and no-one else can make it for us.We can come back to this point time and time again until we finally choose to accept ourselves as you really are, and when we do we also realize that this is the most responsible thing we ever did. Not only for ourselves but everyone else in our life too. So maybe we can start by just enjoying a few minutes retreat into our Self when we happen to remember - on a bus, the few minutes waiting for our little ones to come out of school, driving to the office in the morning. The more we try it, the more delicious and compelling it becomes, until it is our everyday default 'way of being'.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 6 A short cut to Perpetual FlowSome day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity we shall harness the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world man will have discovered fire." ......Pierre Teilhard De ChardinHere's a little story from my past to illustrate the power of allowing ourselves to be defenceless and connect deeply with one another.I started my first business in my late teens after leaving home at 15 with just a basic schooling. I was determined to make my own way in the world but in my early twenties, with the business growing a lot faster than my capabilities, I thought it best I got myself some sort of business education. That's how I came to be sat at the back of a room full of business men listening to a lecture by John Wareham on the 'Secrets of Corporate Head Hunter'.I listened intently not because the material was so interesting (it was), but because I had to. You see, the lecturer was afflicted by the worst stutter I had ever heard. I started to really admire this man who had the balls to talk at a lectern for three hours in front of mostly seasoned leaders and industry captains with such an impediment. He must have sensed my empathy and in the break he came over to chat.He had seemed to be far older and wiser than his years (he later told me he deliberately groomed himself to appear this way), but close up I realized he couldn't have been that much older than I was. As we talked and made friends I think we both sensed that, although we were from totally different backgrounds, we connected as two young men striding out into the world of business on nothing more than a wing, a prayer and a few ideas. 'Bottle' and 'bare faced cheek' were our weapons of choice.Later that year, just after Christmas, John sent me a letter telling me about something that had just happened to him. This is the story -It was five o'clock on the Friday before Christmas
and he was standing in the Grand Central Station at the bottom of the escalators that cascaded a slow motion cargo of jaded executives down and out of the Pan Am building. He'd been there all week and I'd seen him every night. He faced the descending throng and, catching any eye that would look, he would softly intone "Merry Christmas" or "Hello". Only that. He wasn't soliciting or proselytizing or selling records. Just saying "Hello" or "Merry Christmas"."He's crazy", explained a woman behind me to a friend."Crazy", I said, turning. "Is it crazy to say 'Hello'?""It is in New York", she answered.He was in his early 30's, had shoulder length blond hair and a modest beard. He stood about five-ten, was neatly dressed, in corduroy trousers, a shirt and a jacket. He might have had some beads around his neck but I didn't think he was from California. It was his voice, however, that caught my attention. It made a beautiful, soft, mellifluous sound as he said "Hello" and "Merry Christmas". Sometimes both.I was leaving work and my wife had met me. "He's there again", I said."Who?""Just a fellow saying 'Hello'"Riding the escalators down on that Friday before Christmas, I was both fascinated and sad on his behalf. Almost everybody avoided his eye and darted off. One or two people looked at him warily. Nobody said 'hello ' or 'Merry Christmas'.I decided to say "Hello" but was past him with the Christmas crowd before I could stop. "I'll just go back and say hello to him", I said to my wife."Don't look into his eyes", she cautioned. "These cult people can get you if you don't watch out." I laughed at her naivete.I walked to him from behind. "You're not Father Christmas?", I said.He turned, caught by surprise. "I beg your pardon?""You're not Father Christmas?", I said again. The joke falling a little flat and me with it."No no", he said."And you're not a Moonie, or a Hare Krishna, or anything like that?""No", he said. "I'm the son of God".It was a matter-of-fact statement; not pompous; not strange; not, the way he said it, odd at all. But still I was vaguely disappointed at the prospect of a conversation with just another Grand Central cultist."Not really", he said; as if seeing my thoughts, "no more than you are; we're all the son of God, aren't we?""Ah yes", I replied, slightly relieved by his non jealous tone. "That we are"Then I looked into his eyes, and from that moment I just haven't been able to get him out of my head.It was as if time ceased in those eyes. They were like two deep black pools. Deep black pools that I was swimming into. "Can this be real?" I thought, as I stood there transfixed by two infinitely deep dark shimmering lakes.It was like looking into my own unconscious or catching sight of a million darkening reflections in two barbershop mirrors. I was suddenly quite lost as his soft mellifluous voice masked all the sounds of Grand Central Station. At that moment
there seemed to be only the two of us standing in the middle of nowhere. Everything, everyone had disappeared. I heard his voice but didn't see him."All religions have there truth", said the soft mellifluous voice; then he grasped my hand with both of his and held it a moment. "Merry Christmas, my friend, Merry Christmas"Gradually I became aware of the people about me again. Receding from the darkness of his eyes I held his gaze for a long moment, now able to focus on his whole face. It was gentle, friendly, alive, sympathetic.In that instance I sensed his own awareness and delight of having made contact with a face from the descending throng. More than that, he saw that I recognised his gratification. It was one of those rare, fleeting, curiously magical moments: a fluttering candle in the dark caverns of Grand Central Station, that daily crossroads of a million lives where no one ever meets."And to you", I said, now drawing away, trapped once more within the catatonic tempo of the city that never wakes; conscious that I must hurry to my wife, dinner and a Broadway show."That fellow had the strangest eyes", I said to her."Told you not to look", she laughed. We both laughed.But that night, in the theater, I just couldn't get him out of my head.Immediately after the holiday break, I took the escalator down from the Pan Am building to Grand Central, as indeed I do every night.He wasn't there and he hasn't been back since.But I just haven't been able to get him out of my head.The point I'm trying to make in recounting this is that connecting with each other changes us profoundly, whether with strangers or those close to us. We cannot truly connect with each other without being more aware of who really Are, without our egos shrivelling just a little, and without feeling the warmth of our true nature. Then, in this new found ease and clarity of mind, our true creative Self is able to shine through a little more clearly.Maybe there isn't my Presence and your Presence. Maybe Presence is all there is, and so the feeling we get in the company of someone who is courageous enough to lower their mask and allow more of their real Self to shine through, is simply Presence recognizing itself through us.In the rush of our busy lives we mostly trample on this flower of connection. In our pursuit of happiness and success we forget to look at the key in our own pocket. All it takes is the willingness to be defenceless, to let our masks slip down just a little so we can recognize each other's true nature. This is the shortcut - the simple, easy stepping out of Plato's cave into the sunlight of our own genius and to where the real fun begins.These connections we are making, when we appreciate them, can be miraculous. We don't have to sit crossed legged in an Ashram or on a mountain somewhere for years of quiet contemplation to curb our
wayward thoughts and our overactive monkey minds. We don't need to become an ego archaeologist or visit a therapist or re-examine the crime scenes of our life to find our peace and power. And we certainly don't need to look for someone claiming to be the son of God or spend our lives looking for our 'soul mate' to have a truly happy and creative life. The treasure we seek is inside, and we need no-one's permission to claim it but our own.The way to heal the world of its problems is to let ourselves be healed. A clear, untroubled mind is totally compelling and infectious. Ideas that are shared grow stronger and truth spreads like nothing else. As we become willing to recognize our true Self we create an opportunity for others to recognize and remember this Presence within them selves. Every contact we make, whether it be with a person, an animal or simply a flower gives us another opportunity to be still and recognise the presence of our Self, to let the mind that thought its self separate and powerless be healed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 7 A miraculous way of getting things doneTao abides in non-action'Yet nothing is left undone.If kings and lords observed this,The ten thousand things would develop naturally. ......Lao Tzu We've been brought up to believe that to have a successful and happy life we need to work hard, be disciplined, organized and focus on our goals; but we rarely ever stop to consider that there might be a better and easier way. We do our best to manage or eradicate the 'negatives' in our busy lives such as lack of focus, procrastination, being stuck, and the stress of dealing with all the interruptions and lack of balance but we don't really ask ourselves why these negative feelings are there in the first place. We seem to take as a given the idea that success takes effort and dismiss the 'miraculous' as being from the world of fantasy and myth.Resistance or Flow? Pick one.Behind our good intentions to manage our lives and many of the 'time management' and 'getting things done' type of techniques is the subtle yet debilitating belief in powerlessness - that things happen in our lives that we have no part in creating, that we must wrestle what we what in order to make ourselves safe and happy, that to get into flow we must block out a period of time without distraction or interruption. When we organize our lives in this way it's as if we are telling the universe to 'get out of my way' because 'I know best'. Then we wonder why we get stressed, have to expend so much effort to get what we want, deal with unforeseen circumstances and life often seems to be against us. We battle against life and then wonder why its such a struggle - talk about a self fulfilling prophecy! Remember the attention principle we looked at earlier that whatever we give our attention to we get more of. Well, by the same principle and
as Carl Jung observed, whatever we resist persists.The idea that 'flow' comes from being disciplined and focused is a myth. Flow comes from non-resistance a still mind from letting all things be exactly as they are. It comes not from managing the events in our busy lives or resisting negative feelings or emotions but from a willingness to be open to receive - a quiet, effortless, playful, open receptivity to the guidance, the support and the gifts that our intuition and the universe long to give us. We don't need to manage our days in flow we receive instead of plan. Our intuition knows exactly what we need in every moment and every situation when we remain present and attentive. If there are plans to be made then we are told.Even the achievements of the ones we think of as the most successful and happy amongst us on this planet, pale into insignificance against what we are capable of when we learn how to consciously and effortlessly shape each day and create our hearts desires by harnessing the power of the Love within us. The term 'self development' becomes a meaningless concept when we recognize and access the perfection and the power that are an immutable part of who we already Are.Scientists have been telling us for some time now that when we look really closely at matter all we find is energy and it is us, the Observer, that calls the tune that this energy appears to dance to. When we see how easy it is to create an abundance of flow, creativity and joy into our lives, then there is nothing left to organize and manage. All of life bends to support us when we choose to step back and let our own Self shine because, I believe, this is life's only purpose.Trusting the power within us.Life delights to set us free from our fearful illusions of separation and powerlessness. When we step back and let our intuition guide us, instead of being hostage to the egos limited thought system, we are choosing to call life friend - and that is what it becomes to us. When we allow the Love within us to nourish us and shine upon our world then everything in the world reflects that Love back. As an effect it can do no other. No-one and no-thing is missing that we need, no-one meets by chance and we can't help but be in the right place at the right time.We've already looked at how power lies in our intent, and although it appears that we have infinite choice, in reality the choice is always between these two: To remain hostage to our everyday thinking mind that seems to tell us what to think and is grounded in illusions of limitation and weakness. Or, radical Self-acceptance; to let our attention return to where it came from and allow our true Self to run the show. What do we want to give our attention to, fearful illusions or the Love that we Are? That's the choice. The world
is simply a reflection of that choice. It's the best of teachers.Life just wants us to be happy, to teach us what we really want as opposed to what our ego has us think we want. If we ignore life then maybe it has to knock a little harder next time to help us hear, but that's never a bad thing. When we do step back and allow all things be exactly as they are, we can recognize that our Will and life's purpose are the same thing - to restore to our awareness our natural, loving and miraculous creative abilities. Instead of resisting what seems to be happening in our life we can choose to let every experience be a vehicle to bring us closer together and deeper into our natural and permanent flow state. We can choose to let ourselves be changed. Or, more accurately, we can let who we think we are be changed.Here's a way to do this: Letting all things deeper into FlowLife shows us all the ways in which we hide our light, deny our genius and rationalize our erroneous belief in powerlessness. You could call it a process of disillusionment helping us replace our fearful illusions with the recognition of our own love and power. Once we see this, the trick is to allow ourselves to become defenceless - not to avoid any 'negative' feelings or event but to seek the gift of learning in each of them. Turn to them, see what it is that they have to offer us and accept the gift. Then we are free to move on wiser, richer and untroubled, having resolved 'the problem' at its source once and for all.Insight comes from allowing ourselves to fully experience whatever feeling presents itself without a need to enact it, deny it or tell a story about it; - just to be still and let it flow through us. When we allow ourselves to be defenceless and sink deep into the direct experience of the feeling without an agenda or need to resolve anything, insights reveals the lessons, and these lessons are the stepping stones to a life of endless flow, creativity and healing.We can find plenty of good advice about how to overcome procrastination and maintain focus on our goals but all of them are based on the mistaken assumption that these feelings are inherently bad and to be avoided. When we try to overcome any of these states we are passing up the gift of learning that they always bring. In the drive for efficiency and order in our lives we pass up the myriad of blessings that come our way when we allow all things to be exactly as they are and simply pay attention to them. This attentive defencelessness is how we allow life to take us deeper into our natural flow state by highlighting and healing ever thought that still holds us back.Choosing miraclesThere may be times, perhaps when we are stuck in the heat of an argument, or when we are feeling overwhelming emotion or