Fog as a pointer to the eternal

 I listened to Eckhart again this morning on Touching the Eternal. It was a beautiful foggy morning. There’s just something about fog where you feel the mystery and the wonder of something that is formless. For me, it really is the best example of what eternity is or what the formless dimension is, even though, in and of itself, fog is a form of weather. But taken outside of that context and just accepted as it is, obviously, fog is formless.

I had several moments while walking with Eckhart (by which I mean that I was listening to one of his many books or seminars) in which I really felt like I was touching the eternal, when words kind of dissipate and you just feel the aliveness and joy and peace of this moment. When I allow myself to accept this moment as it is right now, I begin to feel joy well up inside me, because I’m not naming everything I see. I’m not labeling everything I feel. I’m just in this moment. I allow myself to simply be. And I allow this moment to take whatever form it takes, rather than reacting to it and fighting against it and being angry that something isn’t the way I think it should be or judging the circumstances around me or the people around me. Instead, I simply accept whatever happens right now. 

This is where eternity is, right now. Life can only ever happen now. Spirituality is being in this moment, living in the now. Heaven is now. God is now. There is no other time in existence but now. This is liberating when we can really grasp it. I know these are just words, and words are just forms, and forms are temporary pointers to the eternal, formless, God, consciousness, awakening. The words and language I use are only pointers to the eternal. And they can be turnoffs for many people if I don’t use the right language, say with my family, if I don’t use Christian language, then they will be turned off and they can’t hear the message or see the pointers which would direct them back to God and connection with spirit. But when I allow myself to just be in this moment, right now, when I see that life is now, when I understand that God is now, when I understand that time only ever exists now, when I go into that quietness and stillness now, I feel an incredible sense of freedom, of life.

I’m beginning to recognize that as long as I keep having these imaginary conversations in my head with other people who are not there, then I’m still dealing out of my ego self or the ego. Whenever I try to prove myself right or try to convince others that my way of thinking is the only way to see or view the world, then it’s still ego at work in me.  Or, as Saint Paul would’ve called it, it’s still the carnal mind at work in me. Paul was right when he said the carnal mind is hostile to God and cannot even comprehend God. He said spiritually discerned things cannot be discerned by the carnal mind. Tolle wouldn’t call it the carnal mind, he would just call it the ego self. No matter what we call it, it’s still  an illusion.

On another note, I was able to walk 4 miles in just over an hour, (yes, I’m a very slow walker) so my pace was picked up today and that is good news for my potential future trek in Ireland and Scotland with my younger sister in the summer of 2022.

In doing this, I recognize that as long as I hang some kind of future hope or significance or sense of self on a future version of me and my body, my mental state, my spirituality even, then I’m not truly being in this moment. At the same time it’s okay to have goals as long as I don’t identify or hang all of my sense of identity in those goals. For example, if I only think of myself as worthwhile if I am a certain weight and worthless if I’m not that weight, then I’ve kind of lost the plot. Even if I make being awakened or enlightened a goal, then that is the ego at work, because I somehow want to prove myself better than or superior to other people. So again, it’s not bad to have goals.  It’s only when I make my identity out of that future version of myself that it gets convoluted and it gets off track.

Spiritual enlightenment and family…

 I have nothing and I have everything.

I have a few days from today to practice being in this moment, accepting this moment as it is, to really embrace the spiritual practice of recognizing my own reactions to this moment, to recognizing what Eckhart Tolle calls the “pain body”, which is an amalgamation of all of my emotional responses to “triggers”, usually from family members. 

I am going to be around my family for a whole week, and it’s a great opportunity, I say laughingly, to put into practice this “living in the moment”, in the now. Tolle says that I don’t need more time and yet at the same time, this is the paradox.  I do need more time. I need more time to practice being in the now.  

On the one hand, I don’t need more time, because the only moment that ever exists is right now continuously unfolding. And yet at the same time (but that’s such a crazy word), I need more time and I don’t need more time. I need more time until I realize that I don’t need more time. I want to practice being in the moment and especially recognizing that ego self, that part of me that reacts negatively to others, that reacts negatively to whatever form this moment is taking, that is triggered by the pain body or the pain body that is triggered by things my family members say or do or how they respond to me, how I interact with them, and how they interact with me.  

The main reason I want to practice being in the now is so that I won’t be a stumbling block to them and to their own spiritual development.  Oh, my egoic self would love to try to feel better and try to say that I am somehow more spiritual than they are, that I am more enlightened than they are. But the reality is that it’s just another part of my ego trying to feel better about self, some false image that I put up in my own mind of who I am and who I think they are. And that’s just another form of judgment. So I guess the key over the next two weeks is really to be the observer of my own mind and my own reactions to everyone and everything around me. The spiritual practice I need is to pay attention to the complaining voice in my head, the judgment in my head, the critical voice in my head about others and myself, and to also be aware of when I’m being triggered, say by my sister or something the kids may say or something my mother says or whatever. I mean, obviously, family is the biggest trigger for our pain bodies. 

The paradox of this wanting to be more spiritual, of wanting to be different than I am, is that that in itself is a trap. Because ultimately who I am as spirit or as a spiritual being, is already enough. The Buddha said that wanting or desire is suffering. This always wanting more, to be more, or for life to somehow be other than it is, is a trap. It’s an illusion. Why? Because ultimately, who I am is already enough, who I am is enough now, the only moment in time that ever exists.

So when I start to feel overwhelmed, especially by wanting something different in the future or fearing something in the future, my challenge is to remember to come back to now, to be in this present moment, to accept life as it is unfolding in me and around me.  I guess my challenge is really to continue to live in this moment, to be fully present right now, and to be able to accept whatever happens in this moment, to be the spaciousness for my own family to be who they are without judgment, without negative reaction from me.

I’m listening to Eckhart Tolle in Touching The Eternal. In it, he says that now and life are synonymous. So my challenge for the next two weeks and, obviously, for the rest of my existence in this physical form, is for me to recognize what I’m being resistant to, the form that life is taking now.  I need to recognize when I’m being open to it. It might sound utilitarian or even self-serving, and in a way it is, but when I am open and non-resistant to the form that life takes in this moment, “good things” and I put “good” in quotation marks, “good things” come to me. And maybe it’s not so much that good things happen, as much as it is that I am open to the beauty and the wonder, the mystery and the magic and the phenomenon that is life unfolding all around me. Michael Singer says it’s much easier to practice not being closed than it is to practice being open spiritually. I think he’s right in the sense that it’s easier to recognize when I am in a negative state of mind than to try to make myself be open. So maybe for now my practice will go back to the simple “just stop judging”, stop being reactive to this moment, stop resisting what is and just accept this moment.

Can I recognize when I am resistant to this moment?  Can I recognize fear or desire? wanting perhaps for it not being this way? or can I recognize when I am accepting of this moment and the form this moment takes?  Am I in the surrendered state or the unsurrendered state of consciousness?

So the question I have to ask myself is, “Can I stay in this moment, this one moment that is eternally unfolding, the eternal now?”  It’s mind-boggling to think that I’ve spent my whole life worried about past, present, and mostly future that I’ve generally ignored now. And yet, now is the only moment in time that has ever existed, that can ever exist, that perpetually exists.  The form of this moment might change. Life is continuously unfolding, but only ever in this moment, now. Now is eternity. Eternity is now. Now is the only moment that ever exists and continues to exist.  When I embrace the form of this moment, I become who I already am.  When I surrender to life as it is in this moment, I become who I already am, and I am enough. 

Suffering comes when I am resistant to the forms this moment takes.  This is why Michael Singer called it the “Surrender Experiment”.  This is how we find peace even in the midst of chaos, of something horrific or unpleasant.  Am I complaining?  Am I railing against the form of now?  Am I judging what I think “they should” or “shouldn’t do”?  Am I complaining in my head about the weather?  Constantly complaining about others?  As Singer says, “Why am I disturbing myself about this?”  Because complaining makes me feel like I am right and the others or this situation is “wrong”!  The ego feels great, reinforced when it is “against something”, then it looks for the next thing it can complain about!  Discomfort or suffering can be my greatest teacher, if I accept it as it is!!!! This is the peace that passes all understanding!!! This is the going deeper into spirit.  Suddenly, there is space around that discomfort and there is an enormous peace.  Can I feel the pain or discomfort of being around family and allow it to be as it is?  Without complaining?  Without making a story in my head about this situation or that person or about myself?  But really be at peace in the midst of discomfort/ family conflict/ emotional reactivity ?   Can I allow my family members to be in their chaotic, suffering state without getting sucked into their ego drama? Can I watch what arises in the now? The discomfort? The anger? The pain? And not react????

Now is the eternal, unchanging one consciousness.  It is the essence of who we are, eternal presence.  That’s why I can never find my best self in the future. 

LOL: can I explore the timeless now over the next few weeks??? Ha ha ha.   Ram Dass famously said, “If you think you are spiritually enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”  HA HA HA!  

Can I allow this moment to be, without judging or complaining, but making space for it as it is? 

Can I allow the Holy Spirit to speak to my siblings in their own unique way?  Rather than me trying to use poor words to try to convince them of my “truth”?  Can I be led by the spirit, not project or rehearse my arguments?  Can I drop this fighting mode?  Can I unconditionally love and accept them?  I can only do this if I stay focused on the now.  

I feel peace and joy and sadness all at once right now.  I weep over the beauty of these moments and insights shared with Tolle.  Everything comes out of vast stillness.  If I want to be love for my family, I must embrace the stillness of this moment and allow my family to experience that in their own way, without judgment from me.