Playing With The Oneness

I remember a passage from a book I read a while ago called the Thirteen Circles (www.the13circles.com). One of the characters, Lemora, goes out into the early morning to sense the Oneness, to hail it, to be a part of it. But what does this mean? How does one begin to attenuate the Oneness?

I feel it now. I envision her going out into the morning knowing that she consciously enters into the fabric from which all is made and knowing herself to be a part of that fabric. There is no real need to go in and out, every moment, every breath, every particle is part of the same stuff.

I have been reading a book on Ancient Egypt (‘Imagining The World Into Existence’ by Normandi Ellis) and it recaps some of the creation myths. Atum resided in the Nun the darkness, the emptiness. Until Atum created Re, the light, he did not consciously recognise that he was God. It was the light of Re that allowed him to see who he was. Once he saw that, he began to explore himself.

Many of us are as Atum was within the Nun. We have not experienced the light to view our own true natures. Yet when we do we begin to seek that reconnection, we begin to sense that we are both a part of and are of the divine.

We can explore this in a myriad of ways. I find the more I follow one seemingly unique strand of thought or experience, it eventually leads me back to intertwine with all the others. It is like a DNA double helix, with multiple strands that twist and spiral upwards until all threads join. 

The more I sense this, the more I am able to live it. I am coming to realise that much of my feeling of separateness was of my own making. I would sit with people and be convinced that they did not think like me and so I was different, I thus stood apart. This gave birth to a distance that all parties then lived.

Recently I am not focusing on the distance. I can be myself without it hinging upon the expectation of another’s response. Anyone can teach.

By doing this I am amazed at the response of many random people. Those whom I would have previously written off as different leave me in wonder at the things that they share which I can relate to. Instead of putting up a wall, I have begun to open up a space and people are walking in.

Recently I was told that my seeking to connect shines through. I had never really thought of it as seeking to connect, especially to people.  Although I have always been seeking more of what I instinctively felt to make up our world.

But in retrospect it is true that I have been seeking socially too. I never wanted to be trapped within a particular social grouping, to be caught within one specific model. I needed to explore. I wanted to access and relate to people from all ages, cultures and backgrounds. Yet throughout all my life I believed myself to be a loner.

Someone recently told me that people see our gifts before we are aware of them. That seems to be true.

People reacted to the peace they said I generated whilst the last thing on earth I felt I possessed was peace. Talents that I never thought I possessed and would have denied as part of my makeup suddenly became natural. It is as though who we are exists in a huge cloud around us and all we have to do is step into it. But first we have either to recognise its possibility or at least not shut the door on it.

For everything that exists and has ever existed resides alive within the fabric of the Oneness. I had a vision when I was a teenager that stayed with me always. I was in a very black time of my life. I did not know how to live and whether I even could manage to continue living any more.

Just as I had seen people as separate, I saw God as separate and felt abandoned by something that would not answer to my suffering.

I went into the hills in Provence and sitting there, looking out, I imagined that fine spider webs of light connected each point I saw to each other. Every leaf of every bush, of every tree, every blade of grass, every stone, every twig, everything was touched and interlinked by these fine threads of light.

It was only recently that I began to understand the power of this vision. It left me with a feeling that had buoyed me for many years. I got to see now that when I had thought I was most abandoned in silence, I was always being spoken to. I was given little moments to keep me going which would later inform greater understandings.

Now I can sense the energetic network that enrobes, embodies and is generated by us all. It comes to mind easily. I can connect to it. Now I see that I did not perceive a picture apart from myself, I was an integral part of it too. It was this felt but below conscious understanding that had really buoyed me.

I do not need to seek the divine apart from others, or apart from myself. It is in us all and around us all.

We are an ever-expanding conscious universe within the consciousness of the Divine.  

Accepting Our Different Realities

Yesterday I read something that really stood out for me, it was in Seth, “The Unknown Reality” by Jane Roberts. In it he mentioned how a couple actually lived different realities. It was not that they perceived the events differently, the events themselves were actually different.

This resonated with me. Often people especially when married or together seem to exhibit a gulf in their understanding. They can hold to conflicting versions of an event and become infuriated that the other does not see it their way. But what if the supposedly same event each live, really is different?

I have often heard the saying: “there’s his version, her version and then the truth.” But I am coming to believe that there is no overarching Truth. There is only that which is valid for each person.

If we stop trying to persuade each other of the validity of our truth above anyone else’s, we can open up to a more profound communication and a much less conflictive one. This easily applies to all social relationships.

We live very different lives. Our lives are even made up of seemingly concrete sense perceptions that differ. What I physically see in my version of reality, you may not see in yours and vice versa. This does not mean that either vision is flawed.

We have spent so long in homogenising our versions of realities and I feel that we have done so out of fear. There seems to be a consensus of what reality and our experience within it should consist of, but it seems to become incrementally more limited as we progress. More fear seems to creep in.

There needs to be a common denominator that we communicate upon, a base through which we can reach other. However, there is a tendency to bulldoze out variety in favour of sameness.

The sameness, however, does not bring unity. I feel that it brings more fear. We attack what is different, we place blame, we feel threatened and our insecurity mounts.

It creates a conflict, because by not accepting the differences, we find ourselves at odds with it. We feel we should all be working from the same page and yet our experience tells us that we are not. We cannot accept this due to our beliefs and so greater disappointment and frustration is created.

What I have been experiencing is that the more I respect and honour the variety and difference, the more I apprehend and am overawed by the Unity inherent it all.  

In a homogenised view of reality, my potential will be limited, as will my view of others potentials. The more I loosen the grip on what reality should be, the greater expanse I have to tap for my gifts.

We can see this playing out in education. If I only look for and credit those who have a propensity to be scientists, I will not see the artists. The same occurs in my version of reality, if it is small and limited, only that which fits will be recognised. But what about all the gifts that lie beyond that scope? How could they flourish were another version given the chance to be possible?

If I can begin to accept that we are often living different realities that at times overlap and intersect, I can actually go further in relating and honouring another person. Instead of focusing on where they do not fit with or even replicate me, I can respect where they come from.

My reality is a product of my understanding and I communicate from this point. As my understanding shifts, so does my reality and so does my form of communication. I used to feel that if I spoke to another about their beliefs then I had to be true to myself, even if that meant being at odds with them. It was really about prioritising my model over theirs.

I see now though, that when I communicate, I can be true to myself through my intent, but I have the freedom to change my words. I can symbolically describe things that another can relate to, I can use the points of their model, though it does not have to be my current view.  My words can become a symbol of love as I seek the language that can most reach another person in their chosen reality.

I believe that part of humanity’s path at this time is to see how far we could go from our connection to the Divine. Once we were as separated as possible, the creative adventure is for us to explore the variety of ways to reconnect with that Source. As we reconnect, we get to tap the great love and the inspirational Oneness available to us.

Perhaps we are playing this out in microcosm with each other. We are seeing how separate we can become to each other in order to discover the love that exists in the journey of reconnecting?

By recognising the differences we actually honour the multitudinous pathways back available on this journey.

As we seek to reconnect in this way, we birth a whole new set of realities.

The Space in Between

How difficult it is to take up the space in between. I feel that many flee from this place. It is a very scary process to enter into the space where you begin to take leave of what you knew and yet where you are going is still unformed. You enter into an emotional no-man’s land.

Our beliefs create our reality and the space in between is the point where we experience the process of changing old beliefs for new ones.

By changing beliefs we change our lives. So the discomfort and unknowing we experience is in the space between two lives, it is at the threshold of the new potential life.

The other day I bumped into a friend who now has five children. She said that she wanted more and that she was sad that her husband did not concur. She said that she missed the time of motherhood. She did not want it to end.

I understood her. I understood how one could feel lost. When you live a period of time where you fill a certain role, where you relate to and define yourself in a certain way, it is saddening and confusing when that begins to change.

What is going to substitute your version of yourself? Who are you, for example, when you are no longer a mother who nurtures the baby inside them and then cares for them in a particular way? To give another example, who are you when the career you have no longer successfully defines you or your work is no longer satisfactory?

I have three children and I made a very final decision not to have more and it was very difficult. It was not that I necessarily wanted more, which I didn’t, but it was a change in identity.

I was stepping out of a phase of my life in which I related to myself in a certain way and marking a definite turning point. I even felt for a while to be in a period of mourning. I was no longer the person I had been and I did not know what this signified for the future. 

In my case a great part of it had to do with my relating to creativity. In a way, by stopping the physical creating part, I stepped into another relationship with my own creativity. It was a step further along in claiming responsibility for my creativity, physically independent of others, of claiming my own power.

When we step into the space in between, what happens? The first thing that springs to mind is discomfort, anxiety, sadness even. We feel the need to define ourselves and in the transition we find ourselves between definitions.

I suffered a lot as a child because I could not easily define myself nationally. I was  an Iraqi living in London who had never lived in Iraq. I could not pass as British and I was not really Iraqi. I was a person in between.

For a long time I regretted and mourned not being able to belong. But I see now how important it was and why I chose to come into this experience. Every time I got close to belonging, to adopting a replete cultural model, I broke it down in order to break out again. 

Who I was, was not served up to me easily and this naturally loosened the external cords enough for me to start seeking who I was from within myself.

A few years back, when I started awakening everything speeded up. Nothing was familiar any more. I was getting pieces here and there but had no idea how or if they would ever fit together. I remember asking: ‘how long is this going to go on for?’ The answer was, as can be imagined, very unsatisfying. ‘It varies.’

It was simultaneously exciting and terrifying. There was great discomfort involved. I did not know who I was, where I was headed or what was coming. These are not easy sensations to live with.

But it did all begin to loosely come together. It all settled down. It was beautiful to see how seemingly disparate things were now making a part of a whole. I started to see a greater picture.

Ideas that had shocked me and seemed so far out of my way of being and seeing the world, with no effort, became familiar. A framework was created to start building upon. I settled down into it.

It was a process and there is much to learn through the process itself. Though I became comfortable with the bulk ideas I continued to shift with my beliefs and each shift seems to open up a void and its corresponding sense of discomfort.

When I speak of “void” I mean an empty space, without the negative emotional connotations the word “void” may conjure up. In a way it is a highly positive space purely because it is space.

It is only when there is space that something else can come in. If I fill it up constantly I leave no room for anything new. If I talk constantly, I cannot listen.

But what I am discovering mirrors that which the physicists are discovering: that there is no empty space. Recently I was approached with a project. I had no idea how I would flesh it out or whether I was even interested. But as I worked at it ideas began to flow and they came from the space around me.

I had the clear sensation of how I could place my consciousness outside of myself or rather let my consciousness go and draw from the space. I had no expectations of what was in the space, but it flowed and the result was fascinating for me. It was combining my interests and learning in ways I could never have foreseen. 

This has been the coming together of many thoughts I have been having. It has been becoming clearer to me that I need to let go more. I have been very driven, especially on my spiritual path, but in part I have been driven by fear.

I feared that if I stopped driving things, seeking the next point of learning in books for example or experiences from within mediation, then it would stop. In many ways it had much to do with control. I was not comfortable to take up my space within the space.

I am coming to realise that just by being it will come to me. The more I step into the space, the more I actually become.

Big Choices from Little Actions As Told Through the Fruit Juice Carton

I believe that big changes can come from little actions. I have seen this repeated again and again in my life. One small decision especially one that steps outside the box, can trigger a chain of events that literally changes my life. Much of my life has followed a string of these microcosm to macrocosm decisions.

The other day I was walking and a young man was walking a bit ahead. Someone had left a fruit juice carton on the pavement. The man walked by it and then kicked it.

I thought: “How funny!  What a good analogy of how energy attracts like energy.” The person who left it there did something careless, something that showed a disregard, big or not, for the place they live and the people around.

Another person walked by and the carton acted as a signal to awaken and draw to itself a similar energy. It was another energy of carelessness and disregard, sparked with a touch of anger. Small things and not seemingly significant, but I saw how one attracted the other.

I noted it and was about to go into my house. Then I stopped. I realised that by noting it and internally laughing about it I was superiorly gloating in my own way. What else could I do?

If it was an energy that was “negative” and drawing to itself more of its kind, could I add something else to it? I turned back and picked up the spilt carton. I brought it in and put it in the bin. I felt humbled in the act.

I consciously imagined that just by touching this carton I was contributing something to its energetic manifestation, adding to it a contrasting energy to what it had just experienced. I was energetically shifting the balance.

What is the world I wish to be creating and contributing to? I know what it feels like and it is a feeling, a sense I connect to in meditation and in my inner quiet. But in order for it to move from the place of quiet meditation I need to take it into action.

I don’t know if any big changes externally came from my little action. But it underlined for me my commitment to what I am working on and the multiple ways I am given opportunities to express and manifest it.

It also led me to the knowing sense that I can “do” something. Energetically I can reach out, and with intent, add another dimension, another possibility to what is currently existing.

I was once told that the more conscious we become, the less we are afforded the luxury of mindlessly not doing anything. We are presented with choices and we have to choose. We can choose to do nothing but we do that consciously now.

It can seem trying and a bit exhausting at times, but I also see it as freeing. It adds a whole other magical component to my life. Minute events, can thus take on great significance when I turn my conscious mind to them. There seems to be no limit to the depth that can be explored from each moment. 

Changing Beliefs Through Tracking Conscious Thought

For over a year I have been actively working with the idea that my beliefs create my reality. But in order to do this I have first to discover what my beliefs are. According to Seth in ‘The Nature of Personal Reality’ (Jane Roberts), one way to go about discovering this is to become aware of your conscious mind. What is going through your head every day? What are the thoughts passing through?

I suffered from depression for years when I was younger and it was characterised by a deep self-hatred. I would look in the mirror and literally spit out “I hate you,” with all the disgusted ferocity in me.

I have come a very long way since then, but as I became more and more aware of what goes through my conscious mind I was very surprised. Often when I look in a mirror I find fault. I pick on something, some bit of my tummy sticks out that it shouldn’t, meaning I need to do more exercise or eat less, which I jump to admonishment over. Or maybe my hair is wrong. Maybe I have a tiny spot on my chin. Maybe I simply don’t look good.

I have become so used to doing this that it flashes through my head without me even being aware of what I am thinking. But what is the message I reinforce to myself throughout the day in these flashes? Basically I am repeatedly telling myself that there is something wrong with me, that I am not good enough.

This lead me to the belief I hold that I am not good enough. I have been aware of this for a while, but I hadn’t been aware of how I was reinforcing it and actively seeking out data to consolidate it. I can’t shift this belief overnight, but through exploring its roots and working to act differently in waking life, I can begin to work through it.

Now, when I look in a mirror the thoughts still flash, but they give rise to other thoughts too. Through my thoughts I am gently trying to rebalance the picture. I try to look at myself with love and acceptance and send that to myself as well.

In the film ‘What the Bleep Do You Know?’ there is a scene of a woman, who having been angry and self-hating for so long, makes her peace. She draws beautiful and loving messages all over her body. I haven’t got that far, but I try to think them!

I do believe, though that just sending positive messages doesn’t change the whole picture. My experience to date tells me that I need to work through things. I need to feel them, accept them, discover where they come from, hold open another possibility and only then do I get to move through and on.

If I just try to override it with intention without acceptance and exploration I basically come into direct conflict with what I hold. But it is a fine line. My tendency has often been to go more into exploration, which can sometimes lead to compounding the issue I’m dealing with, by overly focusing on it.

So I think it would be safe for me to say that in order to work through things, first I have to accept what I feel. Then I have to explore what the beliefs I hold are and where they come from. If I want to change them I can use my imagination to sense out what the other possibilities are. I can start to feel the opening and by holding that, I create a new space for myself to walk into.

An example of discovering beliefs through tracking thoughts comes to mind. A while ago I realised that when I was with my children, I constantly had thoughts going through my head that I wanted to be doing something else. I wanted to be writing, I wanted to be reading or studying. But I was so used to these thoughts, I didn’t even realise I was having them and had never stopped to look at them.

What did they mean and what did they say? I realised that what they were saying was that being with my children was not enough. Why was that? Why did I feel it was better to be writing, than being with my children?

In meditation it came to me. Since small my mother always told me to be financially independent, to work, not to be dependent as she was. There was great fear involved in this too, if I didn’t do this, I would end up being at the mercy of others. Behind this also, was the lack of value in the role of the mother.

In the end I never really became financially independent through work and that has tormented me. I never got a proper career and that tormented me too. I have always written but I have no external commendations to justify that to myself within my beliefs of what a proper career should be.

As I meditated I understood that what was arising was my belief that being a mother was not good enough. This was the reason that when I was with them, I was mentally trying to seek another form of work. My thoughts were saying: “I do (I am) more than this and I probably should be doing it.”

And so it was preventing me from being present with my children. It was creating a conflict that gave rise to irritability and frustration, which if manifested, would in turn give rise to guilt, and so it went on.

As I understood what was happening I also understood that I had a choice. Was being a mother good enough for me? The answer was yes. This does not mean that being a mother is all that makes me up, but when I am present as a mother then I can be that without seeking to be elsewhere.

I understood how this had blocked me. I loved my children and wanted to be with them. I knew in my heart that being with them was good enough. I did not have to carry something any more that was no longer mine. I felt much freer and my relationship with them changed. I became more present and I think they felt it. I, for the most part, laid down that inner silent back and forth conflict.  

As with many beliefs they do not stand alone. This belief about motherhood as I touched on it, relates to my concept of self and self worth through my beliefs about work. As stated, I believed that to hold my head up high to others I had to be able to define what it was that I do. I somehow yearned for a “real” job, which others could understand and ultimately put a salary on. The fact I didn’t have this, for many years, made me feel lesser.

I became increasingly more aware of this belief in recent years. I have been working very hard in exploring self and where the opportunity arises sharing it with the aim to help. But the inner exploration has been work. I spend a lot of time and energy on this. But I could not define it as “work,” in the career-sense.

Someone once mentioned to me that I wouldn’t think of a Tibetan monk who dedicates to prayer and meditation as not doing anything. That was true. Also true that I wasn’t a Tibetan monk! But I started to see that I was unfairly judging myself.

The more I opened to the realisation that I am “doing” something. I am actively working and working hard on a daily basis. But it is so off the scale of what is usually acceptable. I am working through thinking. I am working through meditation. I am working in dreams. I am working through connecting with another energy, opening to it, grounding it and having it come through my daily life. But if people ask me what I do, what do I say?

Over time by being aware of the belief and my intention to change it, the need to externally define myself is lessening. The more I work on myself, the more settled, solid, strong and sure I become.

At times I felt it unfair that I couldn’t get recognition for this work. But I know now that this is part of the journey I have chosen. It is to become strong enough in myself to hold my own certainty.

I am not alone in this. The more I open to the energy available in this kind of work, the more help and support I get. I am guided, taught and encouraged. Daily life is a mixture of signs that allow me to feel a wonderful sense of connection.

As my belief has begun to change about work, so has my experience. Avenues have opened up in myself and in the world around. Possibilities are arising that I would never have considered. This blog is one of them.

Had I stayed stuck in my belief about what work should be, I would have remained in conflict. Wanting something that didn’t resonate with me. It was clearly linked to the belief about what makes for success in life and though I didn’t agree with it I still held the belief.

This is opening now and I am realising that there are no external limitations to what I could do with my work for example. It does not have to follow conventional channels. It can find and create new ones, but only if I believe that can be so.