Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label truth. Show all posts

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Sensible and Balanced


A few days ago my friend Dan said I was "...sensible and balanced, as always," in response to a comment I'd made about my work ethic. I kept coming back to what he said for several days and came to some realizations. As probably a lot of people do, I realized that I walk around some days thinking I'm not as sensible and balanced as everyone else. We constantly compare ourselves, almost unconsciously, to others. That applies to sensible and balanced, as well. We try to be those things based on how we see it supposedly in others. We're comparing our authenticity to a carefully crafted façade. We're gauging our truths on the false projections others want us to see. It's part of that weird conditioning society has put on us. We walk around thinking we've somehow not lived up to "the standard" if we don't have or do certain things in a certain way. This is categorically false. Being sensible and balanced helps me see that and as my friend Dan said, "...which isn't always comfortable." Indeed.


This entry's image was AI-generated.  

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Deeper Meaning in the New Year


On these first few days of 2024 I'm being flooded with all sorts of different emotions. I can be sad one moment then hopeful the next. Through it all there's a sense of a deeper self trying to touch something. Something "more," something more deeply meaningful. It feels like something I've been in communion with before but my current self has lost its way from it and is trying to return to it. I get the sense that whatever this "it" is, it's expansive. I can at moments feel myself a part of it. In a flash of an instant I can feel myself everywhere and part of everything. 

I went to a friend's house for a small New Year's Eve gathering, but I'm feeling unfulfilled from the experience. I felt as if I belonged somewhere else that night. Marking the passage into another year feels like something that should be done outdoors beneath the expanse of the sky and the Universe. Noisemakers, funny hats, and glasses of champagne feel trivial and insulting to what the moment truly means and is. Somehow it seems cheapened by the way we celebrate it. When I imagine celebrating I picture myself alone on a beach or in an open field being one with my surroundings. The sky and nature spread before me, offering itself to me as I am to it.  

There is something more I'm meant for. I feel it as true as anything in my heart and soul. I don't have very long on this planet. None of us do. I need to connect and find the deeper thing or things I'm trying to connect to. I don't know what "it" is, but I know it's there. I feel it calling me through my kenshō moments, the dream snippets I have that take me other places, and the flashes I have of being someone totally different in scenarios I know I've not experienced as the person I am now. I've come to believe that a lot of my actions are me trying to get there, but the actions are misdirected. I've been using the wrong things to accomplish the right goals. 

Interestingly, this all comes back yet again to the strange yet comforting feeling of a need to pull away from certain people, places, and things (PPTs) even more. I can feel my deeper, inner self wanting for something “more.” Some more meaningful thing that the “superficial” world can’t provide. An almost indescribable feeling of my inner essence self needing to commune more deeply with the authentic and shun the superficial. I sense it to be some sort of larger current I should be swimming in that has larger and deeper harmonies. It’s almost clear in flashes of understanding that some activities of my past (drinking, smoking, sex, indulging in food, etc, etc) were attempts of the “surface self” to capture that harmony. These, as my friend Dan says are nothing more than red herrings. Incorrect activities for the correct sensation, so to speak. 

As he has said, "I think when we're in a heightened state of awareness, we are especially susceptible to the negative influences of others. We need to keep our distance." He is so correct and I would add "other things" to that statement as well. I think being more of an empath than the average person is what causes some of that. I see under the surface of things much more than most people. I don’t just skim the surface like they do. I can "feel" the more, and that's what calls me. 

I'm finding more and more anything that stimulates my brain, the endorphins, or other "feel good" hormones is worth the effort. That excludes things like drugs and alcohol of course. Those are false arousals of the mind. They do more damage than the temporary euphoria most mistake for the real thing. My friend Dan refers to them as "wonders inisde." An interesting and most accurate phrase. I find the internal journeys are much more fun. Sleep and dreams are good examples. Some evenings I can't wait to get to bed so I can start dreaming. And moving throughout the next day with the influence of those dreams on my mood and outlook feels incredible. It's like I've been able to shed the skin of mundane traps of an everyday, ho hum existence and walk within a new, deeper perspective that nourishes my deepest inner self. 

Maybe that's what this is exactly all about. Finding clarity of mind more stimulating than anything else. Putting my mind to work in true and meaningful ways it enjoys. 

This entry's image was AI-generated.  

Friday, May 5, 2023

The Full Moon and the Cosmic Family Tree



I woke up around 2am and found the brilliant full moon watching me through my window. I felt like somehow we were having a very private, intimate exchange going on. It's been patiently waiting for me to wake up. Our unspoken exchange was an acknowledgment and appreciation for one another.

“I’m here watching over you. You can go back to sleep now. You’re safe and everything will be okay. I promise.”

"Thank you."

I not only realized but could feel a profound truth in that moment. The moon and I, as well as every grain of sand on every beach, every tree, every bird, every bacterium, every molecule in the Universe, we are after all relatives. Each of us born of the same stuff. We are siblings on the Cosmic Family Tree. I fell back to sleep comforted in the knowledge that we are all truly One.

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

A Life Truly Lived


"A life that is being truly lived is constantly burning away the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of the individual."
— Marion Woodman

Monday, January 17, 2022

Messages From the Hypnopompic World


There are two states of consciousness I love and pay attention to. One is the hypnagogic state, the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep. The other state is the hypnopompic state which is the opposite, the transitional state from sleep to wakefulness. During each of these "threshold consciousness" states several mental phenomena such as hallucination, lucid thought, lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, and even auditory hallucinations can occur. For me both states are very important to pay attention to. Some of my most clear and profound thinking comes during the hypnagogic state, and even more so during the hypnopompic. 

That said, this morning around 4.15am while deep in the hypnopompic a simple statement entered my mind. "Live your truth." Of course I know there wasn't anyone beside the bed whispering in my ear. Nor was there anyone from some kind of spirit world planting notions in my brain. The mental clutter from yesterday and the clutter of today had yet to muddy the mental waters, so clear and simple thinking was able to come to the fore. I realized in that hypnopompic moment the simplicity and profundity of that statement and how many levels it moves in. There is the overall truth. The basic character and code of beliefs by which I strive to live each day. There is also the "temporary" truth, the one by which I live moment to moment as situations present themselves and the overall "code of conduct" applies itself. Examples of that could be holding the door open for an elderly person entering the store, being patient with my dog, Rufus, if he happens to pee on the kitchen floor, etc, etc. 

I hadn't considered the micro applications of living one's truth until this morning's hypnopompic revelation, only the macro ones. I've always been aware of the big picture but I've never realized these principles can exsit on a micro, minute-to-minute, second-to-second levels as well. As I drifted back into REM sleep I realized how fully I am living my truth.

Moral of the story: Pay attention to things that go on in the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states. There is much to learn there.  

Monday, May 19, 2014

Something To Ponder


When someone tells lies or is being deceitful with another, who is really being lied to or deceived?