My life is a continual extraction from “group mind” and “small self thinking” and movement into the great expanse of the unknown and unlimited. I had a quite wonderful awareness this week that relates to this, in a typically mundane way. It will seem obvious after I describe it to you – but that is how so much of the spiritual enlightenment process actually works in my experience. 🙂
I was feeling “so so” not great, not terrible, just plugging away at my day job but with this nagging background noise of “I want to feel better! This is not good. This is down, I want to be up!”
So I stopped what I was “doing” and sat with myself. I changed my computer desktop background to show this beautiful photo I took of a Hawaii sunrise, to which I have added the Instrument Panel as created by my friend Lola Jones. (You can download a free copy of it for yourself at the end of this post.
Low and behold when I located myself on the list of emotions, I was actually “above water” and not down in the dumps as that little voice in my mind was saying. It occurred to me that “easy going, slightly bored, acceptance”, was a darn good place to be! I realized that my small self, the inner kid, the monkey mind – whatever you call that inside voice that yammers a lot – can only see up or down, good or bad. She can’t discern the simple pleasures of life – she thinks that only a state of fireworks is good. She thinks if I am not at a 10, then I must be down at zero.
This actually cracked me up! One because it makes perfect sense – duh. And two, how easy it was to miss my actual enlightenment! Remember those great teachings, “chop wood, carry water” and “be here now”? Well, that is what I was doing – only my small self did not recognize this as spiritual enlightenment. I was laughing out loud wondering how many people have enlightenment (and its accompanying bliss) sitting right there in the chair with them without realizing it? I am sure I have lots of good company, and that leads me to one last teaching I have loved for years:
“As I receive pleasure, so the universe receives pleasure through me.”
And off I go now, as “my work is done” for this moment!
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