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#4226 -
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Canela Michelle Meyers
Excerpt from: “Right Here, Right Now Meditations – Satsang Invitations for Expanding Awareness”
“Here is Where You Have Been Going To
This invitation is one of acceptance of where you are: relaxing open and letting go of any apparent goal to reach - recognizing and experiencing where you are as where you have been going to up until Now.
Living in demand always has some sort of goal about an apparent future, or an attempt to move away from an apparent past. Instead, relax open to Now. Whatever needs to be healed from the apparent past, as well as whatever is coming to you from the apparent future, will arise within and without of you, here now.
There is no place to get to, there are no issues that have to be looked for to be healed, just relaxing open to yourself now, as completely as you are able, and whatever needs to happen, will. You do not need to look for it, simply give it the space (by relaxing open) to arise, then tend to it; be with it as is appropriate. Life becomes a tending to What Is, rather than a struggle to get somewhere.
Support the strengthening of your ability to relax open to who and where you are Now by practicing it.”
More excerpts here:
http://www.canelamichelle.com/supporting-awakening
http://spiritualauthorscircle.com/canela-michelle-meyers/
Here are the dates for Canela's European Satsang Events with a link for more info.
Paderborn, Germany
Satsang Meditation Intensive,
Sat. June 25th, 4pm-8pm
Contact Alexandra: +40 160 93 53 6777
Geseke, Germany
Satsang Meditation Intensive
Sun. June 26th, 12-4pm
Contact Alexandra: +40 160 93 53 6777
London, England
Evening Satsang Meditation
Friday July 8th - 7-9pm
Satsang Meditation Intensives
Saturday July 9th & Sunday July 10th, 12-5pm
Contact/Info: Ralf Marzan Tel 0207 2471692
http://www.canelamichelle...com/schedule
A woman who uses the name Differential is confessing her awakening on Dr. Robert Saltzman's forum:
http://robert.ismouton.org/topic/577
Alright, so. Let me see if I've reasoned
this out correctly.
An identity is nothing but labels and qualities. I am quick to
irritation, this is part of my identity. I like beef. I prefer to
dress in black. I like aggressive music, puns, and I've a history
of ruining people's day for kicks.
However, these are all attributes that are attatched to me. They
are not, in and of themselves, me. There is a difference between
identity, and the self. The self is aware of the identity: The
fact that it is your identity (linguistic syntax
does wonders here) implies that the identity BELONGS to you, but
it is not in fact you. It is your identity the same way that this
is your keyboard, or that these are your keys.
This brings me to my second point - technically, my first. Way
back, Hexi slapped me around a bit and got the whole ball rolling
with the Ego.
The ego is simply the psychological shield that exists to protect
your self-image. Self-image, I can assume, exists solely as your
perception of your identity. The ego thus protects the link
between self, and identity - it is the guardian of their
relationship and nothing more.
So I have excluded the ego and identity as being seperate from
the self. That leaves what? One's nature (genetic
predispositions) is simply part of their identity, since it is
one half of the concoction that results in motivations,
preferences, likes and dislikes. One's nurture is much the same -
the way one is raised constructs one's identity as well.
This leaves three things: Awareness, thoughts, and actions.
Awareness I've been told is the self. It is, clearly, the
closest-to-home part of the trio.. After all, I am aware of my
thoughts and percieve my actions. The actions I take are the
result of my predispositions and training, yes. But I have yet to
distinguish them from my awareness.
Thoughts, again, are simply something I am privy to through
awareness. I witness the thoughts in my mind. But I don't know
where they come from. In Hexi's words, I am simply an eye
floating over a highway watching the individual cars - not
knowing where they come from (the subconscious which prompts the
conscious thoughts) or where they are going (I have no idea where
memory fits into all of this.)
So, to explore that line of thinking...
Since I am merely awareness - not the body, identity, ego,
thoughts, or actions attatched to that awareness - then it stands
to reason that I am the means by which I acquire
knowledge. Knowledge that then embeds itself into my identity
through nurture, which presumably effects my subconscious and
fuels my thoughts?
This begins what I can only assume is a
nurture-subconscious-conscious-Nurture Cycle.
Basically, I experience the acquisition of knowledge. This
knowledge goes to wherever it goes (where does it go, anyawys?
What part of this collection of elements we call Differential
stores that information?) and somehow, mysteriously, crams itself
into my subconscious. That subconscious then prompts my conscious
mind to have a thought. That thought is likely a reasoning, a
connect-the-dots of the newly-acquired knowledge's implications.
That thought then grants new knowledge which funnels back into
the unknown subconscious, which prompts more thoughts. Lather,
rinse, repeat.
That cycle endlessly perpetuates itself from the day I am born to
the day I die. And none of it is within my control, as we've
already established: It is in my nature to nurture myself. It is
in my nurture to heed that nature, and as such I have no 'choice'
but to function this way.
This also has several (important) implications that I believe,
once I've fully adjusted, will massively improve many of my
'issues'.
—practical applications of the revelations—
As stated above, it is very important that I am not the only one
who works like this. This is a revelation about existence, not
about the self. Everyone around me is just like I am: Products of
reality, functions of their own lives. Not free-willed,
decision-making people with their own thoughts.
Joe is just a guy who does what his nature+nurture do, is privy
to whatever thoughts his concsious mind notices. Those thoughts
are not the result of him. They are just a part of
reality that his awareness alone is privy to. That is to say, he
did not think 'damn that bitch is ugly', but more accurately, he witnessed
the thought 'damn that bitch is ugly.' It's no different
than being the only one who saw a peice of paper on the ground.
Thinking is no different than looking at pictures. It is an
instance of becoming aware of something, and nothing more.
This is a very important revelation, for myself. I hope it is
correct. If it is, then I now have very little reason to be
afraid of judgement. Now, I know that to begin with, judgement is
a very silly thing to be afraid of, particularly from an
objective perspective like the one I have so long strove to
maintain and pride myself on.
This is where we harken back to nature/nurture - I was raised in
a community where judging was like breathing. Where it was
considered good to judge each other. I watched marriages
fall apart, I watched very real social concequences unfold on the
innocent because of these judgements. The church was a brutal,
viscious place to be raised - I never knew a life without
judgement. And that judgement had a very real concequence to me
at the time: Eternal, soul-burning agony. Quite litterally.
That terrified me. I still to this day have that gut reaction to
actually being judged. It's one of the reasons I mask myself from
everyone - they can't judge my real identity if they don't SEE my
real identity. And, over the years, that mask has become a
particularly important part of my comfort and feeling of safety
for that very reason.
I have since managed to shed the beleif in Hell. But the instinct
to flinch from judgement is still there - because people were
still judging me, that was all I needed to feel threatened. I'm
sure this plays quite nicely with what I suspect might be PTSD
from the rape, but that's a story for another time.
The point is: If a man sees a picture of me, I feel no flinch. If
he witnesses words painting me in a poor light, I feel nothing
either. The flinch comes specifically from the judgement itself.
But, if the judgement is no more than a picture on the wall being
witnessed by the individual, then I am no longer being attacked.
Instead someone is simply seeing a damn picture or reading some
damn words. It means nothing anymore. The judgement has lost all
it's power.