BEING II

Last night I wasn't tired so I decided to ignore daylight saving time and stay up until my usual bedtime which would now be 1:30 to 2. It shouldn't matter I am not on anybodies schedule. Yet, when Jamie got up about sevenish and the dog jumped off my bed, I only had about 5-1/2 hours sleep. I stayed in bed for another hour but it wasn't good sleep. Time as the clock reads is a powerful thing. I don't want to go through the rest of the year looking at the clock and seeing it read 11:43 and saying to myself, oh it is really 10:43.

When doing the chores it is a combination between the Sun time and our clock time. Towards the end of Winter I was giving water to the sheep at about 9 AM [CST]. With the increasing light it is time to go out earlier anyway, so I split the difference and go out at 9:30 [DST]. When we were on our seven year sabbatical, living off the land, I don't think we paid much attention to clock time. We did the chores when the Sunlight dictated. Time is one of the greatest illusions, yet we let it rule us.

I was going to write more about being. Wow! It is such a simple concept, but how do you write about it? The artist and creators among my readers experience it when they are totally focused and their minds are clear of all thought. They are just observing what they are creating. One doesn't have to be an artist to experience this, it can happen fixing a car or weeding a garden.

It happens when we are totally present. There is no past and no future. What some refer to as emptiness and others vastness. Our minds are absolutely peaceful. When we know peace we can know love.

When we are in the present, without past or future, we can appreciate the concept of Oneness; love is a given and all negativity drops away. Decisions made in this state of mind benefit all.

The goal of most religions, especially the Eastern traditions, is to reach this state of bliss using meditation and other exercises, physical and mental.

Regardless of spiritual belief, meditation is helpful and watchfulness becomes a necessity.

By watchfulness I mean paying attention to the mind; learning to become alert to when some form of negativity obscures our perception. When our egos are engaged our minds attract fear thoughts and thoughts of judgement. These thoughts may be based on feelings of unworthiness. The ego loves to be concerned about the future and fear of future possibilities is always there. We can declare an end to the suffering the ego causes. We can't take on the ego. We can't fight it. We won't win that battle. We can put it in its crib, pull the blanket up under its chin and tell it we don't need it just now.

We don't want to scare it into rebellion. No, no! We just want to quit taking its suggestions that the world is a scary place. Treat your ego as if it is a terrified child that needs reassurance that everything is okay; know that it speaks only of illusion that is based on fear.

Everyone of us has unresolved issues, perhaps we feel unworthy. We may regret behaviors we have exhibited. We may have difficulty forgiving ourselves or others. As long as these thing exist they are going to arise in our consciousness and they may take over our thought processes before we realize it. Watchfulness is catching this process before it becomes too embedded.

We are taught to give up the past. Some of us may be able to just do it. Most of us, even with the strongest of intent, find we need to go through a process because things keep coming back. We think we have forgiven ourselves, but then regret returns another day. If this happens about the same issue over and over, it helps to go deeply into it, feel all the feelings there are to feel. Look at it it in detail. Know that if the same thing happened today it would be different. We would not hurt ourselves or others like that again. Forgive.

We need to declare an end to suffering. A loving Universe does not desire it. Suffering is created by our separation. We often don't recognize the state of our mind as suffering when we are not at peace. It is. Love and Peace are our natural states. Let's talk about this more, perhaps Friday.

Love and peace, Gregg