Feeling Love

Do you feel love?
Do you feel loved?

Is there a difference?

We can only feel love if we are open to feeling it.
Are you open to feeling love?

If you aren't, what is it that gets in the way?

If love is the tendency towards openness, flow, radiance, energy, expansion, life, light, joy...
then what blocks love must be the tendency to oppose those things:
closedness, stuckness, hardness, darkness, stagnation, compression, heaviness, inertia, passivity...

How do we find love?

The feeling cannot be gotten directly, if it is experienced as absent.
The feeling/experience can be our goal, but the feeling is not the means whereby we "achieve" or "get" it.

We must stick to principle, relying on our clear intentions, well-directed and appropriate thoughts.
We must stop thinking/doing the thoughts/actions which block love,
and instead aim our thoughts/actions in the direction of the goal.

Then, with trust in the means-whereby and faith in the processes of the Self,
We wait patiently, with calm acceptance of the present conditions, for the fruits to ripen and love to bloom.

Some people are fortunate to feel the joy of love most of the time.  Most of us, however, experience periods of dryness, times when joyful love is not felt.  In times like that, the following thoughts may prove helpful:

• I am aware that I am unhappy, not feeling love.
• I am free to feel unhappy and loveless.
• I know that happiness and love are possible.
• My goal is to enjoy and feel the happiness that comes with experiencing love.
• I am blocking love.
• I am stopping.  
• I am not blocking love's joy, light, and flow.
• I am open to love.
• I am allowing love to flow through me.
• I am allowing myself to feel love.
• I am not expecting an instant result.
• I am waiting, allowing, trusting.
• I know that love is here, now, within me and all around.
• I am open to experiencing love.

Pure Thoughts of Light

It is possible to stop the habitual way of thinking, which tends to be chaotic, dispersed, and heavy,
in order to allow for a new way of thought, which is simple, positive and uplifting.

Curious and open, I am allowing the habitual way of thinking to slow down and become centered.

Empty mind-body.
Thinking the not-thought.
Quiet, peaceful, calm.

Noticing the breath.

Inner quiet.

Allowing ease and flow.

Through the eyes, allowing the Light to enter.
Through the pores, allowing the Light to enter.
Through the breath, allowing the Light to enter.

Pure Light, within and without.
Pure Thought, shining out.

Light, free, centered, unifying.

Smiling, breathing.

Being
Me.

The Goal

There are so many possible goals in life, and so many possible starting points.  They are infinite, really.

Sometimes, my specific goal is small and limited.  Maybe I just want the pain in my shoulders to go away.

But what if I realize that the pain in my shoulders is connected to Everything?
Why not take it ALL into account?  I want the big picture.  The whole thing!  The One Goal that includes all possible lesser goals.

Maybe I'm greedy, maybe I'm ambitious...but yes, there are times when I want it all.
Does this ever happen to you?
I think this is a natural, normal -- even desirable -- part of being human.

So where do I start when I have the vision of such a grand and mysterious Goal?
I laugh, because anywhere will do.  It's all part of the All.
With consciousness and a clear purpose, I can start from anywhere, and get where I want to go.

If I feel that I want to "get" somewhere or something, or "change" something, I am obviously perceiving the lack of the All, the lack of Infinite Joy.  I feel separated from It; other than It.  Yet, as soon as I am aware of my smallness/limitation (here, now), then I can also become aware of the Goal, that Infinite All.  This is the first step: having the end in mind.

But what is this Goal, exactly?
Ah, there are so many words for it....

The All, The One, Mystery, Infinitude, Being, Energy, Light, Freedom, Power, Joy, Love, Peace, Beatitude, Beauty, Bliss, Life, Truth, One, Absolute, Consciousness, Perfection............

Some people call this God or Heaven, some people call it Nirvana or the Void.
Some people have no name for it at all.
Sometimes it even seems like nothing.

Yet, whether it has a name or is nameless, there is an eternal yearning for IT.  To yearn, to aim, to wish, to desire...this is human.  Why? Because the human starting point is inevitably limitation, and this consciousness of limitation leads to a desire for limitlessness and completion....to unite with and become the All...this is to realize our inherent freedom, the grand, ultimate purpose of our existence.

Practical exploration:

• Right now, I feel limited, not free, tight, diminished, not whole, unintegrated, pain, suffering, etc.
• I am aware that there is another possibility, something more, something "better", to aim for.
• I wish for the Goal because I know that the Goal IS, and I want to have/be It.
• Because I know It, part of me must actually be aware of It, and that part that is aware must Be It.
• I know that this Being part of me is the part that leads me to the Goal, so I will focus on It.
• I am free.  No matter what I feel like, I know that my essential being Is Being Itself, and It is free.

• The neck is.  I leave the neck alone.  I let the neck Be.  Being is Freedom.  The neck is free.
• The head is aware of forward and up.
• The back lengthens and widens into bliss from the heart.
• The limbs extend into Infinitude.
• All of me expands into Infinitude and touches the One, the All, within and without.
• I am filled with the Joy of Being.

Happy New Moment!

I write this on New Year's Eve, 2011.

So, today the end is upon us once again -- the end of another year, that is.  It's just another day meeting another day, another minute following another minute...so why do most of us find the particular moment when one year ends and another begins to be so significant?  Why do we feel that this moment is something worth celebrating?

The transition moment from one unit of time to another happens every moment.  But New Year's Eve is the only such transition moment that we, as a people, are aware of at the same time.  I think this sense of shared awareness of time (and space, because we also become conscious of the timezone we're in) is what makes this moment extra-special.

Becoming aware of time and space and our relationship to it is a very powerful thing; and becoming aware of this together unifies us in a powerful way.  We become more aware not only of time and space, but of all the other people in the world who are also aware of time and space -- at the same time, in the same world.

• Awareness of time.
• Awareness of space.
• Awareness of self.
• Awareness of others.
• Mutual awareness of time - self - other.
• Connectedness, sense of belonging, unification.

These are very potent ingredients for happiness, joy, and the unifying experience of deep love, just waiting for us to be open to them through our awareness of the latent goodness there.

People tend to celebrate New Year's Eve with other people, perhaps with the desire to heighten the joy inherent in this transition moment -- the timeless instant between moments -- by sharing it in the physical presence of others.

But it is the actual awareness of the above ingredients that is so magical, and this is not dependent on the physical presence of any other people at all.  The Joy of conscious awareness is something that happens within each of us whenever we open up to it, and it is available at each and every moment.  The magical transition between moments, the space within time, when the beginning meets the end, is eternally available, just waiting for us to notice it.

So, I wish all of you a happy new year, but especially...
an eternally Happy New Moment!

Play your Heart-Music, here, now

for Musicians (that is, Everyone, 


because we all have Music inside
and we all have a concert to play
for all of life is a performance, a play
and a most glorious one at that
filled with everything there is
playing all Infinitude):


there is no beginning to it, and there is no end to it
it doesn't start when you walk onstage and end when you walk off


realize:  you're already making Music inside you here, now
and you will continue making Music inside you afterwards, here, now


just because here-now might be on a stage with an instrument and notes makes no difference
because it will still be here, now


so make Music for me, for you, for All, for Love...here, now---NOW
sing your heart out inside, with smiling joy and light
because you love and are loved


and all is well, here, now
and all will continue to be well, here, now


what is a concert? what is a performance of any kind, musical or otherwise?
nothing but letting Music sing from the heart, here, now


I love to hear your Heart-Music
here
now
always


because
I
love
you...


and I love you because
I love your Heart-Music...


and who am I?
not other than you...


and who are you, who are we?
not other than Heart-Music
singing Itself from within

habits of thinking about feelings

round and round...
back and forth...

words on top of words...
feelings on top of feelings...

there is no relief, no peace
until I stop.

angry about being angry,
disgusted about being disgusted,
frustrated about being frustrated,
confused about being confused...

delighted about being delighted,
excited about being excited,
happy about being happy...

why not just experience the feeling
and then stop the habit of thinking and feeling something about the feeling?

why not stop to fully experience the feeling
without placing a label on it,
without judging it, interpreting it, or trying to ascribe meaning to it?

something that might be anger? no problem.  just a feeling.
something that might be sadness?  no problem.  just a feeling.

happy? no big deal.  just happy, just a feeling.
loving? no big deal.  just loving, just a feeling.

letting feelings be simple
is much simpler.

not knowing what they all mean
is just fine.

just to be here, just to experience what is
as it is
when it is...

this is enough.

loving the space between

as I teach, I see two people meeting
as I live, I see multiple objects coming together
as I breathe, I am aware of an inside and an outside

always, there is a space between
which lives and breathes and grows
like a tree spreading in all directions

can we work on the space between?
can we connect to that space and grow from it
just as we connect to one another?

the hands may meet a physical being
but what is it they must pass around and go through?
isn't there always always always just a little bit of space between?

I would like to learn to love this space,
this time-space which constantly presents itself
sometimes all too obvious, sometimes nearly nonexistent

I am learning to love this living space between
even as I love the objective "other" that I can see
living on the other side of nothing