Open-Secrets

Category: Perceptions

  • Attachment & the End of the World

    Grief, Sorrow & Loss – Working through Attachment

    The other night, I reengaged a piece of work and exploration that had begun about 8 to 10 months ago. At that time, I was reviewing the manuscript for A. H. Almaas’ new book, Diamond Heart V – Inexhaustible Mystery (release date 7/12/11).

    A. H. Almaas Inexhaustible MysteryChapter Titles:

    Poor in Spirit
    Guest Comes at Night
    Sinking Your Boats
    Suffering and Cessation
    Absolute Absence
    Beyond Consciousness
    Here’s Looking At You
    Living with Truth
    Basic Fault
    Christ the Logos
    The Pattern
    Attunement to Reality
    Divine Sport

    Reading through the initial chapters in the book, I began to experience a deep sorrow and a sense of impending loss. As I inquired into my experience, I became aware that the sense of loss had to do with the loss of the world. This quickened my curiosity as I wondered how/why I was going to lose the world.

    As I stayed with the experience of the course of several days, I realized that something significant was beginning to shift in me and that part of the change would be a loss or transformation of my known, historic self. The sense was of change so profound that my relationship and knowledge of my known world would radically shift – the world I had been born into and grown up in would disappear.

    My heart was very sad – I love the world I know. I do not want to lose it. Ah, attachment. I am attached to the world as I know it. My heart is attached to the world, it’s beauty, magnificence, richness and wonder. The world is full of my dreams and hopes and aspirations. How will I find wholeness, fulfillment, completeness if I lose the world? How will I be able to lead a full, rich, realized life if I lose the world?

    The person with those thoughts and desires and hopes is what needs to be seen through. He is what needs to disappear. His known world, the constructed worldview with all of it’s history, issues, future orientation and reified knowledge is precisely what is obscuring the world in its pristine nature.

    This exploration had faded to the back burner over the past several months, but the other night it resurfaced in more depth, subtlety and poignancy. An ocean of tears. An innocent heart. A belief that the future will result in the loss of personal love.

    Coincidentally (or not), I just happened to attend a group last night that was reviewing a DVD from Almaas’ Wisdom of Life & Death retreat. The session being reviewed was titled – Cherishing the Moment and to my “no surprise” it directly addressed many of the elements of my continuing exploration.

  • Geneen Roth – Lost & Found

    Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money

    Geneen Roth Lost and FoundGeneen Roth’s new book will be released on March 22. I pre-ordered mine on Amazon yesterday. You may recall that Geneen was one of Bernie Madoff’s victims, but instead of playing the victim role, Geneen took a serious look at her situation, what got her there and did what she always does – started looking into the depths of her psyche and behavior to understand herself better.

    As she was exploring her patterns an beliefs, she managed to release her best selling book to date: Women,Food & God. The book took off like a rocket, hopefully helping her to reverse some of her financial misfortune.

    I’ve been looking forward to her new book ever since she told me she was writing it about a year ago. Here’s what the publisher says about Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money:

    When Geneen Roth and her husband lost their life savings, Roth joined the millions of Americans dealing with financial turbulence, uncertainty, and abrupt reversals in their expectations. The resulting shock was the catalyst for her to explore, in workshops and in her own life, how women’s habits and behaviors around money-as with food-can lead to exactly the situations they most want to avoid. Roth identified her own unconscious choices-binge shopping followed by periods of budgetary self-deprivation, “treating” herself in ways that ultimately failed to sustain, and using money as a substitute for love-among others. As she examined the deep sources of these habits, she faced the hard truth about where her “self-protective” financial decisions had led. As in all her books, Roth relates her personal experience with irreverent humor and hard- won wisdom. Here, she offers provocative and radical strategies for transforming how we feel and behave about the resources that should, and ultimately can, sustain and support our lives.

    I think Geneen Roth is taking her work and writing to a whole new level.

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  • Nonduality – Oneness, Existence and Me

    Nondual duality

    • If it’s all one, where am I?
    • Am I here or not?
    • Do I have choice?
    • Am I separate from you?
    • Who’s speaking, thinking and breathing?


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  • Cowboy Up to Yoga

    Cowboy Up to Your Feminine Side

    Cowboy Up to YogaI used to work with a bunch of guys who were raised to believe that men were meant to be strong and unemotional – unless they were cussing and angry, which were acceptable expressions of male superiority. In fact, I was one of those guys. It’s hard not be with all of the conditioning thrown at us.

    I guess growing up in the 50’s & 60’s we had two choices depending on our sex – macho or Barbie. I never met a guy in my youth that wanted to grow up and be Ken. The thing with conditioning is that we rarely question it in a deep way. The deeper the conditioning, the more it feels like an unquestionable part of us. It can be hard to imagine a life outside of our norms. In fact, a large part of our mental activity is always being spent in maintaining the status quo.

    I started taking yoga classes this week as part of my new direction toward health & fitness. At 60, I decided I would commit myself to actualizing some goals I have been paying lip service to for too many years. One goal being more flexibility for this aging body.

    Yoga is interesting. There’s a constant reminder from the instructor for strength and relaxation at the same time – yin & yang. Unlike my conditioning which mostly emphasized the yang and diminished the yin.

    Of course, that created a lot of problems that are still being sorted out. As I watch young boys and girls interact, I see the conditioning is still as active as ever. I was observing some high school students interact the other day in a couple of different situations. The boys were being inconsiderate and callous towards the girls and the girls were all a giggle and accepting of it.

    All human beings are born with a range of emotional ground that far exceeds where most of us find ourselves as adults. We move, emotionally, in a very constricted range of experience – like a 60-year old body that hasn’t been stretched regularly through the years.

    Laying on the yoga mat and moving through the poses brings many opportunities to me:

    • Working on increasing flexibility
    • Developing focus and concentration
    • Attending to the moment and letting the daily mind go
    • Embodying strength and relaxation in the same moment
    • Allowing the superego to take a 90-minute break

    Men seem to be greatly outnumbered by women in yoga classes – which also seems to be the case in personal growth work. I think that says a lot about male conditioning.

    Cowboy Up Your Curiosity

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  • A Healthy Dose of Optimism

    Optimism Greets My Day

    I woke up today (Friday, April, 23, 2010) at 3:45am – not an unusual occurrence. I was feeling better, emotionally & physically,  than I had in several weeks (long story). Sent my sister in Petoskey, MI a quick text and then off to my meditation chair to begin the day.

    A great meditation was had by all – what’s that mean? Well, my body was more relaxed, my mind more settled and focused, my sense of me was more fluid and transparent, and reality seemed light & playful – if I may be so bold to say so 12 hours later.

    Some quick work on the computer and then it was off to my Friday morning BNI (Business Networking International) meeting in Pleasanton, CA – where I do my best to get referrals for people that want to buy or sell homes in Danville, San Ramon or Pleasanton, California.

    I’m about halfway to my BNI meeting, driving down I-680 from Danville to Pleasanton, when I realize – I’m feeling optimistic!

    This kind of surprised me – to the point where I had to ask myself what is optimism? Here’s what the dictionary says:

    op·ti·mism
    –noun

    1. a disposition or tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.
    2. the belief that good ultimately predominates over evil in the world.
    3. the belief that goodness pervades reality.
    4. the doctrine that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds.

    Well, I didn’t have my dictionary handy, only my experience that my mind was associating the word optimism with. So, I checked in with my experience to see what was happening that felt like optimism. Two things dominated my experience: 1) a sense of openness and 2) a perception of the good everywhere.

    It seemed impossible to look anywhere and not feel optimistic. And you know what? Twelve hours later, optimism is everywhere. I’m running off to the gym feeling very optimistic – about nothing in particular, but everything in general!

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  • Seeing Things

    Seeing Things the Way They Are

    Self Image See

    I know I’m not seeing things as they are. I am seeing things as I am.
    Laurel Lee

    Curiosities

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