The Most Powerful Beings on the Planet

 I received a message today from the most powerful beings on the planet.

Their message was this:  Stop killing the forest elephants for their ivory! 

No they were not aliens from another planet or dimension, nor were they elves or other magical creatures.  They were simply the most sentient and powerful beings on the plant. 

They told me the truth.  That is, perhaps unfortunately for us, we are really only the 3^rd most sentient beings on the planet.

The whales are at the top, elephants are second, and we are a distant 3^rd. 

I asked impolitely at first, “What the f—k are you talking about?  Who is this really?  And what are you doing in my head anyway?” 

They explained that they are always in our minds.  All this wisdom we hear is really just their whispering the truth to us. 

And I thought I was just talking to G-d all this time! 

(this whale conversation will be continued…)

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So now to make some people really angry with me!

(Oh Heretic of New Age thinking!)

Was I channeling the whales?

We have the deepest source of wisdom within us.  It is the same Source that we all share. 

I understand it feels absolutely to be the truth when you are channeling your G-ds, demons, past lives, future lives, ancient beings, extraterrestrials, angels, etc. 

But, maybe spend some time thinking deeply about this process.  I don’t want to take anything away from you (Oh, well, maybe really I do).  

Helen Schucman had no choice but to write “A Course in Miracles.”  Jane Roberts had to channel “Seth.”  Jane Thomas has to channel the Pegasus Group.  David Spangler has to tell the world what he has learned though channeling “John,” and many listen.  I had to write “Conversations with Dog,” not too many listen.    

Many people out there channel, without advertisement. 

Jon Klimo wrote a book reviewing channeling.  He found very interesting similarities within the topics of those who channel.  These topics usually concern the realization that we are all part of one Source, our bodies are only a corporal part of the higher Self, which is part of All-that-is.  The individual higher part is sometimes referred to as Spirit or Soul.  

He also notes that we need to do the work to overcome our “negative programming, our debilitating self-images, and our limited world view (Klimo, page 46).”  This leads to self-empowerment and allows us to access whatever we need from a benevolent Universe. 

I agree. 

I just like to throw a heretical, curmudgeonly, sometimes science laden, worldview around and maybe have them land into someone’s mind-body. 

Maybe by thinking more deeply, you can let go of an intermediate, the one who is channeled.  Perhaps, that intermediary really might be getting in the way of truly accessing the deepest wisdom.  We all have access to this deep wisdom.  Our animal minds usually get in the way. 

Oh, go ahead and do your channeling.  

Just make sure you leave the world in a better place than when you found it. 

And stop killing elephants!  

Wordless Wednesday

Conscious Relationship Part 5 – Understanding Yourself and Your Partner

First make sure you have read blogs: Stranger in a Strange Land Parts 1-4.  Make sure you know how your personality engages with your partner’s. 

Read books about personal growth and relationships (see my bibliography in the first Conscious Relationship blog post).  Think about attending a couple’s retreat.  For an example of what can happen to a couple when they don’t communicate watch the movie, “Hope Springs.”

For understanding how levels of development can affect intimate relationships see Martin Uciks book “Integral Relationships.”  He has recommended readings for couples at different levels. 

http://www.integralrelationship.com

Don’t believe what I write, or what anyone else tells you, unless you check in with your deepest wisdom, meditate on it! 

Grow to a place where you can say to yourself, I deserve a wonderful loving relationship.  I would rather be single forever than accept anything less. 

Expect honesty, loyalty, and respect, I can’t say this enough. 

Miscellaneous thoughts:

If you don’t have a partner, act AS-IF.  You are waiting for one, so, make sure you have a double bed, queen-sized is better.  Keep at least 2 pillows on the bed.  Don’t display pictures of past relationships. 

Make a list of what you would desire in a partner, then, maybe, throw it away.  Put out the intention into the Universe.  There is someone out there for you!

Keep yourself clean and well groomed.  Easy on the perfumes and colognes. 

Make yourself desirable.  Make yourself interesting.   Read books, listen to music.  Learn how to dance, play an instrument, or do art. 

Ignore the media that tells you how you should look and what you should wear.  Maybe get rid of your TV, or keep it hidden. 

Put yourself in situations where you will meet someone attractive to you.  Inner beauty is more important than outer beauty.  Outer beauty will fade, inner beauty grows.  Do you love their voice?    

Join a hiking or biking group, meditation group, reading or writing group.  Doing things that interest you will put you in places with someone who has the same interests.

Once you connect with someone, go easy.  Learn the rules of dating and courting (just don’t ask me what they are, I wasn’t very good at them.  The Universe has been generous to me). 

Tell your lover how much you love them.  If you don’t love them, if you don’t feel loved, find someone who does really and truly loves you, and you can love, with radical acceptance. 

Keep yourself in the best physical shape you can.  Connect this brain-body closer to Source.  Body exercises can include, aerobics, core exercises for your abdomen and back, use light-weight where you can do at least 10-15 repetitions, do stretching (I like yoga!).  

For Mind exercises, see Integral Life Practice for ideas, you don’t need to buy the modules, invent your own!  And, the book is only $15 on Amazon. 

http://www.kenwilber.com/personal/ILP/MyILP.html

George Leonard and Michael Murphy wrote, “The Life We are Given.”  This is another program for brain-body growth. 

Remember the brain and the body are not separate.  When you change one you change the other.  Maybe the body is the temple of the mind.  Maybe the mind is the temple of the body.  The same chemical messengers are active in the brain and in the body, including neurokines, chemokines, and cytokines .

Exercise and meditate together.   Cook together. 

Find out what turns on your partner.  Listen guys, sometimes it is folding clothes and cleaning bathrooms.

Be romantic.  It is said that men trade romance for sex and women trade sex for romance.  Not necessarily true, but some truth resides in statements such as this.  Buy flowers.  Send loving messages by email or text, be appropriate.  Remember that everything digital is forever. 

The heat of initial love and lust usually changes over time, 3 months, 3 years, and so on.  Make dates.  Reserve time with each other. 

Oh, and, did I mention this before, have lots of sex.  

Conscious Relationship Part 4 – Negotiate Behavior and Learn How to Fight

 To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “There can be no freedom without responsibility.”  Be honest, loyal, respectful.

As they say:  Show up, pay attention, tell the truth (as far as you can see it), don’t be attached to outcome (see yesterday on Attachment). 

Monogamy, finances, frequency of sex, all good topics for negotiation.  

Learn how to fight:

1- Remember that you love this person, be nice. 

2- Speak from the “I” not the “you.” 

Begin with statements like “I feel.”  For example “I feel angry when you leave your clothes all over the bedroom instead of placing them in the hamper.  I feel like the place is cluttered and dirty, so that is why I am picking up after you.” 

If someone discounts your feelings, it is time to leave. 

But, they are not obligated to change.  They may say back to you, “I like to live more loosely, it is too restrictive for me to always place my clothes immediately in the hamper.” 

Can you compromise on this?  Is this a “deal-breaker?”  Are you both so stuck that you can’t compromise?  Perhaps he or she can pick up their clothes once per day? 

They are obligated to respect you and listen to you. 

But, they don’t have to listen to you right this second.  They may need time to cool down, they may be flooded with emotion.  Negotiate a time for dialog. 

Negotiation is tricky.  Remember during dialoging that you both love each other.  It likely not possible be totally satisfied with everything about your partner.  

Finances may be the most argued topic.  One person’s frugality is another person’s label of being “cheap.”  Are you a spendthrift?  Do you go deeply in debt? 

Don’t hide your flaws from your partner.  They will find out someday.  If you don’t like something about yourself, get some therapy.  Become mindful. 

Have lots of sex.  Negotiate timing and frequency.  Err on the side of more rather than less.  Sex often is an indicator of a healthy relationship, but every couple has different needs and wants.  It is said that the frequency of sex increases with the number of males in the relationship.  Keep these in mind when negotiating. 

Ask your partner what they love to do, try doing this with them sometime!

Ask for what you want, love what you get. 

Know your bottom line.  

Conscious Relationship Part 3 – Attachment

 Once at a retreat at IMS (Barrre, MA) a question was brought up regarding the Buddhist concept of “no attachment.”  The questioner asked, “how can I not be attached to my children.”

Yani Postelnik had the most beautiful answer. “You hold your children like a butterfly in your hand.” 

I can’t remember the rest of the discussion.  But, I have sat with this image, and feel the deepest truth within. 

You hold everything like a butterfly in your hand, your children, your partner, your job, everything.  You don’t hold it too tight, you would crush it.  You let it fly away if it needs to do so. 

You hold everything with the love of your heart and the warmth of your hands.  

Conscious Relationship Part 2 – Radical Acceptance

 First, a confession.  I was married for 27 years.  I got divorced about 10 years ago.  I now have a new life partner for the past 8 years.  We got married about a year and half ago, after about 7 years of living together and owning a house together.

Took me that long to let go of my fear of ever being married again. 

The central part of this letting go of my fear was that we were both able to practice radical acceptance. 

I learned much, being married, getting divorced, having a transitional 1-year relationship, and now being in this most amazing relationship. 

Over the course of time I will discuss some topics from my first blog on Conscious Relationship in a little more depth.  See that first blog for an annotated bibliography. 

I make no assumptions that what I learned will be of use to you. 

For me, radical acceptance is the complete acceptance of your partner as they are right now.  You don’t have to like everything about them.  But, you must love the whole package.  For me this is central to living with another at the highest level of relationship. 

There is a simple, but not always easy, corollary to this.  If you can’t love the whole package, it is time to leave the relationship. 

Making your partner into a “project” is not acceptable.  If you think that they will change for you, think again.  You are only setting yourself up for failure, and overt or passive-aggressive fighting. 

You also understand that they, and you, will change over time.  Change means that you may need to renegotiate your acceptance of your partner. 

For example, if she or he becomes a born-again something, can you still accept them as a life partner?  If they no longer want a monogamous relationship, is that acceptable? 

If they take up a hobby you hate, such as shooting guns (you are such a liberal heretic!), can you accept that without (much) complaint? 

You don’t have to like it.  You just have to accept them. 

Or not.  

Enlightenment Part 3 - Acting “AS-IF”

 AS-IF in Guided Imagery

There is a wonderful technique called guided imagery.  You can train in this technique and use it as a clinician to help others.  You can also learn to do this on your own. 

Some guided imagery is used as recordings that you listen to, for instance those that can lead you to relaxation.  Some good ones are located here:

http://www.osuhealthplan.com/online/guidedimagery/

I am more interested in the imagery that helps you to solve problems.  These are techniques to help you to dig deeply into your unconscious, and to bring the dark into the light (de-light!).  These are powerful techniques that can be used with a skilled guide, but, they can also be done on your own. 

Marty Rossman runs a training institute for guided imagery:

http://www.academyforguidedimagery.com/about/index.html

One method I really like is used to access inner wisdom, or probe a topic that might be bothering you.  You place an imagined “part of yourself” in a chair sitting opposite of you and have a conversation.  The part can be “Your Greatest Loving Wisdom,” or it can be a part of you that you don’t like.  Examples might include, “The Critic,” “The Emotionally Incontinent Self,” or “The Addict.”  

I won’t go deeply into this technique here today.  I have another topic that relates to this technique. 

Some individuals say, “I can’t bring up any images.”  The answer to that is, “That is OK.  Imagine AS-IF you could bring up an image of the part of yourself that you wish to be in dialog.”  

It seems to work just as well.  Interesting! 

AS-IF with Money

I’m always talking to myself.  I tend to get lost in the future.  My monkey mind often says, “If someone donated 1 million dollars to the university to give me a Chaired Professorship, I would restart my research into consciousness,” or “if someone donated 10 million, I would start a Department of Consciousness Studies,” or “with 50 million I would start an Integral Medical School.” 

This is a very human condition.  A study was done that asked people, “how much money would make you happy?”  It didn’t matter if you made $20,000 a year or $20 million a year, people invariably picked a number that was twice what they were making now. 

In the future I’ll write a piece on dissatisfaction.  For now, I want to discuss thinking about money AS-IF.  Ask yourself, “what is preventing me from doing what I thought I would do if I had “X” dollars?”  Can I act AS-IF I had this money?  Can moving in smaller steps get me to the same place? 

I don’t have the answer to the money question.  I still like the easier method of really having the funds to do good more work.  But, perhaps, this is something I need to work on! 

AS-IF for Enlightenment

I think you are getting the idea now.  Ask yourself, “how would I act if I was already fully enlightened?”  As we discussed previously, enlightenment is always with you.  It is the baseline functioning of your brain-body.  You just cover it up with thoughts of the past and thoughts of the future, obsessions with money, sex, unhappiness, and so forth.  Acting “AS-IF,” can be a powerful tool for dropping the monkey mind. 

So, join me in the AS-IF club.  Take some time today to walk around and talk to people AS-IF you were already fully enlightened.   What would that feel like?   How would you act? 

Perhaps, follow the 3 Commandments I wrote about yesterday:

            1-There is only one Source.

                        2-Love everything.

                                    3-Enjoy yourself.

Don’t tell anyone you are trying to act like the Buddha or Jesus, that won’t work very well. 

Just drop your worries about the past and the future, and act AS-IF. 

Find your self, becoming Self.  Feel that part of Self more grounded to the earth and more transparent to the world, walking and resonating with the winds of gentle change.