Standing Still and Shinning

"Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind

be free.  Stay centered by accepting

whatever you are doing.  This is the ultimate."

ZHUANGZI

It is challenging to accept what we are doing, when we are doing nothing.  We experience guilt or maybe shame with our culture's demand for productivity.  It is out right embarrassing when we are asked what we have been doing and we do not have a concrete answer. 

At a small gathering this weekend, I was enjoying a conversation with a relative who reads authors I consume.  Everything was comfortable and pleasant until she very directly asked me, "So what have you been doing?"  I must have had an anxious look on my face so she attempted to clarify, "What does your day generally look like?"  I felt really intimidated for no reason at all as I knew this lovely person was just conversing. 

After this conversation, I made a mental list of all the thoughts flooding through my mind:  low self-esteem, unworthy, fear of criticism, lack of worthiness and the list unfortunately goes on.  "This is truly ridiculous," I said sternly to myself.  I promised I would reflect a better image during the very next exchange. 

The next  social conversation occurred shortly after the last.  It happened to be one of the hosts, and I complimented him on his very interesting home and expressed my desire to look through all of his bookshelves lining the living room.  As I listened to his response, I learned that he was a published author, a philosopher, wrote every single day, never got rid of a book, and reads two books in different foreign languages simultaneously.  Besides being a world traveler, he is a very cerebral and personable fellow.

The situations we beckon into our lives is always of an interest to me and I delight in finding the message in each one.  I had failed to appropriately identify my life style, reprimanded my self  promising to do better, and then had a one sided exchange with an extremely competent man.  I believe the only words I managed to mutter were, "Thank you for having me in your lovely home."

So what these two experiences teach me is important.  What I really do in my private time is really of no importance to anyone else, but me.  My day needs to be pleasing to my self in terms of using Divine Spirit's gifts and guidance.  If I am following Spirit's lead and truly believe whatever it is I do is important, than nothing else should matter.

I thankfully discovered my comfort zone before I had to leave.  I stayed in the midst of others being fairly non-verbal and just holding light.  This is what I seem to do best ... standing still in the light, shinning.

The Small Space Between Inhale and Exhale

"Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment."

Chogyam Trungpa    

The other day I heard a person telling a friend, "I drove by one of those storage places and wondered if I should rent a unit for my ego."  Of course I was extremely entertained by this and it brought laughter into my day. 

 

The eternal question is, "How can I silence my ego so I can hear Divine Spirit?"  In order to truly hear the Divine, we must silence the ego.  We can all create a system to leash this beast.  A woman who has a meditation practice told me she pulls in an extra chair next to hers when she meditates, and instructs her ego to sit in the chair until she beckons it back.  I wish it were that easy for me. 

 

My morning ritual at times looks very similar to Swiss cheese ... lots of holes.  My ego sounds like a bee buzzing in my ear.  When I wake up, ego encourages me to sleep just a little longer.  When the coffee is brewing, ego tells me I really don't need to do my stretches.  While I am exercising ego encourages me to cut short the number of stretches I do per body part.  When I am doing my morning commune with nature, ego is reminding me of all I have to do inside.  Ego tells me to for go lighting  the candle and essential oils are not needed.  On and on until I finally force my self to maturely say, "You are not the boss of me!" 

 

Marianne Williamson asks why we are angry with our body for excess weight when we are the ones who choose the food?  It is ego encouraging us to eat the forbidden fruit (in this case, ice cream) and we choose what we eat, not our body.  Her book, A COURSE IN WEIGHT LOSS displays how ego is frequently our automatic pilot. 

 

THE NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle is also an excellent book to bring  awareness of how to hold our selves accountable disregarding the ego.  His concept of the pain body was a revelation to me.  A pain body slumbering while I feel profound.   The pain body waking up demanding to experience more pain, and my rose colored glasses change to lenses of inferiority and smallness,  hiding my own self-worth. 

 

Take a deep breath in  and hold it.

Experience the pause.

Gently breathe out.

Experience the pause.

 

Repeat this series several times and one begins to experience the silence in which Spirit will commune.  This small pause between inhale and exhale gives us a taste of what can be ours if we would only mute our ego.  When ego no longer controls our mind, we can connect with our heart and form decisions or actions based on loving kindness for all concerned.  Just by learning to stretch a small pause into a spiritual reunion, our lives become blessed with peace and calm.