The Nature of Nature

 I went up the hill today with my friend Ed to my favorite resturant in Silver Plume Colorado - just above George Town.  Very pleasant day.  


Something about a feeling of symmetry - being in the Mountains and in undisturbed nature.  The symmetry, I think that is found in nature is in what appears at first glance to be the lack of it.  


I have become conditioned to see a row-house as symmetrical with all the other row-houses, yet everything about the row-house is structured to hold back against nature.  In nature everything though appearing disorganized and haphazard is actually an exact expression of all of the universal creative forces effecting it - an expression of the unbiased truth out of which I arose.  I think this is what I resonate with - so many aspects of myself breath with, harmonize and are affirmed by nature.

Un-affirming Affirmations

I attended a ritualized meditation – by that I mean; now the meditation begins – now it ends.   Now we walk in silence – and this is how we meditate as we walk.

There are certainly benefits to quieting the mind – but in my experience, the very intention to quit it contain all elements that disturbed it in the first place.  My understanding is that a ritualized anything disconnects me from  unfolding reality.  How could I prescribe the infinite aspects of my own resolve?   I can only stay open to what is arising now – allowing the truth of it to teach and direct me.

I meditate as I become aware of something to meditate on.   Stillness for me is facing my fears – allowing what is arising from within, rather than limiting or directing my thoughts.   “Peace”, as my teacher said ”is total involvement.”

Affirmations are often, for what we perceive to be lacking and our affirmation is only our best approximation of what we “think” we need from infinity - so it is already biased.  If I affirm abundance, it is because I experience a lack of it.  If I affirm I am “here now” it is because I experience myself being somewhere else.  Is affirming presence, facing my blocks to presence or butting up against them?

While my ritualized affirmation, “I am here, now” has a way of focusing my attention and removing distractions, it actually reinforces my experience of not being present – to say it another way:

 If I were living in the present, I would have no reason to affirm it.

For me, affirming anything distracts me from the now that is arising and my awareness of why it is as it is.  From awareness comes wisdom and understanding – experiencing my Divine self and knowing how to relate to life.

You could argue with much evidence that affirmation works and I would have to agree.  Humanity knows all too well how to bias and warp reality. 

Sharing

Please share an awareness, fear, or injury others can respond to too support an evolving understanding of self.

Sharing

Terry                                                                                                                                12/29

The guest professor felt like women's equality has been achieved better in the workplace than in the home, that we all fall into gender roles at home without thinking.

DL Hoefer

It seems all conditioning is a great conundrum.  I have to impartially observe myself performing a conditioned response to gain awareness of its triggers –  it's difficult because I have become the conditioned response I am reacting to and I am the triggers for the conditioned response in others – all indistinguishable from the social structure I emerged out of – so where do I find a place to stand to look at it impartially?  

What comes to me as a write this is that the place to stand has to be a new place that has not yet been conditioned – arising from this moment of being.  This new place in my experience comes from being as truthful with myself and others as I know to be.  If I'm not being truthful I'm simply reinforcing old precepts.  Being truthful creates an evolving contradiction between what has existed previously and my arising self.

It seems to me the only way awareness will gain a foothold - or any social change for that matter, is for each of us to realize that we have no choice but to be truthful with ourselves and each other to have any sense of who we are, and what we are about  – or even to experience this very moment in which we live.

Sharing

show details 11/18/10

Terry

my boyfriend disclosed an affair - I am taking it hard, I have to move out, my part time job is coming to a close, I feel sad anxious etc

the thing that helps is getting out, making new friends, interesting things to discuss, read about

more about the consciousness raising efforts or what ideas are they trying to bring to consciousness, if you have time

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Dl Hoefer  to Terry

show details 11/18/10

It seems I do today - appointments cancelled.  Most of what I'm seeing in the consciousness movement appears to be a variation of what the social structure has always done - visualize what "I" want and through various kinds of effort – manifest it.  My problem with this is if I'm not THERE now, how do I know what THERE is?  How do I know how to get THERE from here?  And once I manifest what I want, does it give me what I invisioned? 

There is a lot of talk about engineering spiritual evolution,  spiritual evolution is not something that can be engineered – it's impossible to try to be a certain way and experience it at the same time  How would a chimp know to turn off development of its jaw muscle to allow the cranium to expand?  How could we have consciousness without a larger brain and without a larger brain, how would we know to wish for one, or for consciousness for that matter? 

 Engineering consciousness is forcing consciousness back into a chimpanzee skull and asking the chimpanzee what it wants.  I keep coming back to my original understanding – if we desire awareness we have to face our fears – not develop expansive intellectual models and spiritual practices around them.  In a sharing group a lady confided that by observing the uninhibited spontaneity of children playing in her church, she was able to identify the inhibitions within herself – holding her back from the joy of life – and as I remarked, an immeasurable amount of awareness being kept at bay.  Identifying her inhibitions she was able to let them go – experiencing this same freedom she had observed in the children.  

I think supporting each other in embracing and exploring our fears is the source of all awareness. Becoming relative to our fears, self centeredness gives way to openness, caring, inclusiveness – treating your children as I do my own – this is the natural state.  I cannot face my fears if I am creating fears with my untruthfulness.  I cannot have myself if I am not being consistent with you. 

Sharing

Terry  to DL Hoefer

show details 11/19/10

thank you very much

Please feel free to get back.  I was feeling very unsupported a few weeks ago - then looked within myself at all the aspects of myself that had never been supported and allowed what had never been allowed to be to be.  It was amazing.  I suddenly felt supported and support now seems to engulf me.

this is how I am feeling at the moment, could you talk about how you shifted?

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DL Hoefer to Terry It seems to me that freedom comes from allowing awareness to all the various aspects and evolutions of my fear.  To become relative to fear, I have to make it my friend:

show details 11/19/10

I was going through a period of sadness I couldn't shake.  I stayed open to it, embracing it if you will – looking for the maturity to spend the rest of my life with it if I must.  There was nothing to do – anything I did to feel better only reinforced the sadness – my evasion only made the underlying issue stronger.  Think about this to see if it isn't true for you?  Then one day a sales girl gave me a very sincere smile and I saw the cloud I was holding over everyone in my life.  That perspective allowed me to hold the sadness and the wellness – it enlarged my consciousness if you will.  

I received a photo of a young woman who I know has been loved and supported from childhood.  When I looked at her photo, I couldn't find a singly inhibition in her expression.  She seemed wholly undamaged and joyful - enthusiastically embracing life, and it occurred to me that if this young woman lost her family today, life would continue supporting her just as it had until now.  I thought to myself.  I don't feel supported - so it is as though I had lost my family – what is keeping me from being that orphan child who has only known support?  

I went inside myself and reflected on all of my inhibitions – given to control and limit me.  I saw their source and  and felt them as deeply as I could.  Feeling them as deeply as I could was my way of fully identifying with what they were and how they had been working in my life - acknowledging as apposed to reacting.  Taking the time to see them as clearly as I could allowed me to know within myself their invalidity - and then I was able to simply let them go.  It was frightening because I had actually come to believe in my inhibitions.  What I am sharing is not a technique so much as facing fear and allowing awareness – caring more about what is true, than how I feel or what I want.  

As I let them go I could see how I had been holding life back through them – not holding life back I felt immediate support.  My experience since that time is that I am that orphan child.

The Source of Understanding

What is supported in the social structure is how we think and what we do – nothing about it supports knowing who we are – autonomous self direction. 

Is it any wonder then that many people feel disconnected from themselves that they fight against feelings of low self esteem and that depression is the leading mental health problem? 

Also, if there is no support for knowing ourselves, how are we to respond morally and ethically – the knowing that comes from knowing what we are about, that we cannot go against without going against our self? 

Society creates moral and ethical rules to live by, but rules and laws are not morality, their existence only demonstrates the lack of it. Compulsion to do the "right" thing is in itself immoral.

An essential aspect of knowing who we are is being able to relate intimately with ourselves and each other. Intimate relating does occur in our society, though it is rare – often limited in scope and incidental.

None of our social institutions actively support intimate self-exploration. You can't find it in the law, religion or even the family - how could you, when knowing who and what you are is not what is wanted?

You could say, what about psychology? I would have to agree self-exploration does occur in therapy – though it is typically structured and goal directed - exploring oneself with the motive of achieving some end, biases the results – and there is little if any intimacy in therapy – vulnerability shared between parties. 

Without intimacy it is impossible to mature – the wisdom that comes from being in the moment, moment by moment with ourselves. 



This site is dedicated to supporting intimacy with ourselves and each other in a secure environment for the nurturing of maturity, wisdom, and awareness.

When you share what is meaningful, it resonates with what is meaningful in me. Hearing how your sharing relates in my life or the lives of others adds awareness, meaning and value to everyone participating.

Let us open a dialog in which who we are can be explored. We may not like who we are – so much more reason to look. 

When we see what we are, we begin to see why we are – that none of it has anything to do with who we are. We stop trying to become and begin to be.  We stop reacting – reinforcing our own self image.

Understanding ourselves is the source of all wisdom, awareness, personal value ... Awareness itself becomes the total solution.