THE VEIL

I spent Friday night and Saturday in a spiritual retreat put on by Celebrating Life Ministries. Today I feel like there is a veil between me and the world. The masters speak of detachment and I have understood that idea in my head. And I believe this veil is my experience of being detached – in the world and not of it! The veil insulates me from the addictions of the world that can be addictions to both high and low places. Sometimes the spiritual path has been characterized as one of piercing the veils that stand between us and God. The unexpected thing that has happened as I pierced and went through a veil this weekend is the veil reconstituted behind me as a veil between me and the world. Never noticed that before.

 This is apparently what I went to Phoenix to receive. And I didn’t know I was going for this. It is said that God gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want. Certainly true for me this weekend. Sometimes the gift even comes wrapped with the appearance of something we don’t want. And this was my experience.

I have been in a relationship with a woman and believe that this is a relationship that is meant to be. Friday night she informed me that she believes she is meant to be with someone else. Of course, my first reaction was why, and why now? The Friday night session at the retreat had been powerful and I was on that high! This information sent me crashing down! Also it turns out this was just what I needed for my process at the retreat.

I went to the retreat Saturday morning with a heavy heart! The teaching that day and the night before was about releasing the world and centering in God. It became clear to me that my attachment to this relationship was what I was being called to release. I had put this woman on a pedestal and she had become the altar at which I was worshipping. And I knew this (actually I had known it for some time), and it felt good and I liked it a lot. Please God, don’t make me give that up! Anything but that!

My time on the spiritual path has taught me that the hardest lessons are the most valuable. I knew not to run from this one and that I needed to engage it, and engage I did. I asked God for help to release this addiction to this relationship as I knew I could not do it myself. And today I have that release. I am okay with or without the relationship. It is a preference still and not a need. And I got a bonus! It would seem that I am okay with or without any worldly thing. I seem to be more detached from the world than I have ever known myself to be. Hallelujah!!!! I have a new addiction – the veil which is a manifestation of the grace of God. The veil of the love of God which insulates me from worldly attachment which is the source of my pain. Thank you God for this great and unexpected gift!

THE PAIN OF DISCONNECTION

My PR person wants me to write about pain. Makes sense since the reason I began to expose myself to the world through this website and my writing is because I am a pain doctor and believe I have an important message to communicate about the pathways to releasing pain. What is obvious to me, and might not be so obvious to others, is that all of my writing in the inspiration section here has been about pain and pathways to releasing it. When I wrote about self image I was writing about something that drives chronic pain in many pain sufferers. The same with all of the other topics I have written about. They all point to the main dynamic that drives all pain – the dynamic of connection versus disconnection.

On self image for example, Dr. Sarno’s work is all about how one’s beliefs about themselves are the key driver in the presence or absence of pain in their body/life. When a person believes they have a "bad back" (herniated disc, etc.) because they have been told so by a medical professional, their back pain is often unrelenting. Then upon being diagnosed with TMS and being told they do not have a structural back problem ("bad back"), their pain can disappear with in days to weeks with a return of normal functioning and a normal life. A change in self image is clearly causing a change in body function. Self image then is a key determinant in health and wellness.

The key dynamic underlying all is one of connection versus disconnection. And this is what all of my writings have been about. When a child is born they are part of a whole with no distinction between what is them and what is not them. For an infant, the whole world is "me." Mommy and daddy are part of them from their all connected perspective. So are the floor and the furniture. For the infant all is one (me). Gradually over time that perspective shifts and the infant develops the concept of self and other. And here is where all the problems start. Spiritual teachers have said for eons that we are all one. So the infantile perspective may have been the correct one all along. The struggle in adult life as I attempt to regain a spiritual perspective is the struggle to again see all as one. And as I write, I highlight that struggle in it’s various different expressions.

In disconnection we are in pain. It may be physical pain expressing as a pain syndrome or other illness. Or emotional/spiritual pain expressing as mental unrest/illness. The answer then is to reconnect – to ourselves, to others, to nature and to God. And my writings are about the ways we can be disconnected and the ways to then reconnect, which are the pathways to releasing pain. So come with me on this healing journey if you will!

GOD

Well, there’s a big topic and quite appropriate for a Sunday morning as I finish my Sunday morning walk. My first 1.5 mile walk as I continue to reclaim my youthful vitality as if I continue to stare death in the eye. And that is another topic entirely. And that walk is certainly a testament to some power greater than little old me who only one month ago was basically a couch potato. So for those of you mired in the quicksand of anything in your world you do not like, know that your turn around is only a moment away!!!

So back to God – the most confusing and hotly debated topic on the planet. I was in a workshop yesterday with Swedish mystic Anette Carlström. She told us that there are only two things we have to remember! And as she further stated, that makes it kind of simple. Most of us can easily remember two things. Well, things just got a lot easier where my/our pursuit of God is concerned!

First, we need to connect with God. Fortunately, this is pretty easy also as it turns out. Scriptures tell us that if we take one step toward God then God takes a hundred or a thousand steps toward us. So God will do most of the work in making this connection – that’s a relief! Really then, all I have to do is diligently seek God. I have to make God a priority in my life. And the God we are seeking doesn’t have to be named God – any name will do. This is a personal matter and we are very much seeking a God "of our understanding." So we each have a personal God, and even better still, God lives in us. So tell God hello in the morning and goodnight in the evening and spend some time with God in your own way during the day. Anette says 3 minutes twice a day is a great start and then grow the relationship from there. God went walking with me this morning!

Now that we have a relationship with God the Almighty, that power is at our disposal to use as we might see fit. Of course this is very much a collaboration with that almighty power and the power has some rules about its use. Sorry, God is not the cosmic Santa Claus or genie in a bottle. A great use for this power, according to Anette is to use this power as our ally to face and transform our inner suffering. Not generally the first thing most of us think of doing although in the Bible, God was used to cast out demons. And what we are talking about here are our inner demons. To find our inner suffering we just need to pay attention to when we are suffering – feeling less than fully joyful and alive. This can feel like sadness or fear or anger or any variation or combination of those emotions. So when we feel those things instead of running from them, which is our typical response, we can face them instead. And when we face them, they process through and out of our system, leaving us in our natural state of peace and joy.

Anette describes this facing of our inner suffering as sitting and boiling in it, much like an egg being boiled. Not a very comfortable situation.  And this is where God comes in. Most humans can’t take much boiling. After a few seconds we are ready to run and we typically do, and the job of facing and integrating these emotions/demons never gets done. No wonder we live in a world that at times appears to be full of demons – IT IS! And now we know who they belong to – YOU AND ME! Instead of running then, we can do the work of processing the emotions and the good news is God the Almighty is with us to help us! So as we are tempted to run we could instead call on our friend God (after we have created the friendship) and ask for help to face out inner suffering. And as we call, God rushes in and we clean up our emotional mine field instead of adding to it. This clean up occurs as we sit and face the emotions (boil in them) for as long as it takes for them to clear. For strongly attached emotions it could take multiple sessions. And with God as our ally we are now strong enough to boil as long as necessary.

 So two easy steps:
1. Know God.
2. Use God to face your inner suffering.
Easy to say and harder to do. And the good news is this process gets easier the more we practice it! And the reward is far greater than we can imagine! Inner peace instead of inner turmoil! Who doesn’t want a bunch of that.

So I spent yesterday with 25 spiritual warriors in search of God. And I have God in my life more than ever today! And I feel better than ever. God is real and palpable to me today more than ever before! I am in bliss as I write this! Was in bliss on my walk. Plan to have a blissful day! I am on a road less traveled by and it is making all the difference! Join me if you will! There is room for all!

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Spiritual teacher Matt Kahn talks about a love revolution! You can find Matt on YouTube if you want to hear him speak. He believes that if every person on the planet woke up today and said to their own heart, "I Love You," that all of our planetary problems would end in that instant! Fukishima and other toxic sites immediatly cleaned up and poverty, hunger and war all things of the past! My brain says that sounds a little far fetched. My heart, which I have told "I Love You" this morning, knows that he is most likely correct!

 So is love that powerful? I believe we all know it is. We all know that when we experience love everything seems right in the world. Think of the experience of being in love! Most people love to be with babies and house pets. I believe it is because of the ease with which we can experience love from those sources.

A country song talks about "looking for love in all the wrong places." So where do we look for love? As Matt Kahn suggests we can start the search inside ourselves. We can always love ourselves, not that it is always easy. It has been said that we can, fake it until we make it. So even if self love isn’t easy or comfortable we can do it anyway. So look in the mirror today or just look at yourself in your minds eye and risk telling yourself, "I Love You." It can’t hurt and may help more than you can imagine!

Once loving has started inside then we can share it. I believe you can’t share what you don’t have. So cultivate that love inside then let it out. As you meet someone on the street you might not feel comfortable telling them you love them and you can think it in your mind. You can tell them with your eye contact. This is especially important with the ones that we find difficulty being with. Let’s let love transform our difficult relationships. Many have written of the transformations seen with this approach. Let’s love the slow driver on the highway ahead of us. Hard for me and I plan to do it today!

SELF IMAGE

Me?

Self image is a roller coaster
I’m good, I’m bad
 Incomplete, or am I whole?
All of this nonsense can’t be true!

I have parts it seems
and they are not me
And the me that is me
defies definition

Ineffable I am
Just like the creator
Yet persist in my folly
To know what I am

Like a symphony orchestra
I make beautiful music
The sum so much better
Than the parts might suggest

Standing further back
The parts less defined now
The interaction is clearer
And magic is revealed

The coaster is optional
It’s terror a choice now
And when I am conscious
I exit the ride!


SELF IMAGE

What do I see when I look at myself either in a mirror or from the vantage point of the observer in the corner of the room watching my life as if watching a movie? The truth is that I see lots of different things. And if I stopped at the seeing all would be well. There is no harm in seeing a thing no matter what it is. However, I do not stop there. I go on to judge what I see as good or bad. And therein lies the problem.

And as human beings we are wired to find the "bad," or a better word would be dangerous things first. This is a survival instinct which once served us well and is part of the reason human beings still populate this planet. Once upon a time, seeing the dangerous things before they saw you meant you got to live another day. Today however the situation is not the same and our life and death situations are few and far between. Yet our focus on the negative possibly dangerous things persists and we look at those things as if life and death are in the balance.

So back to self image – what do I see? Again lots of things and I focus on the negative. One of my obvious negatives is that I am fat. I could pretty that up – in India I would be a hefty man – sounds better somehow. And the fact is I am fat. I have been for many years now. And I judge myself harshly in this regard. I know, there are many good reasons why I created this body. Actually it has served many wonderful purposes beyond the scope of this discussion and I still see mostly the negative. And because I have time on my hands since I am not in a life and death situation, I have time to add shame into the mix. "What’s wrong with me? How could I have done this to myself?" And then I go on to believe others must see me this way as well.

So my negative self image is alive and well. And it could lead me into all sorts of negative self behaviors if I let it. Could lead me to eat more and increase my weight. That sure would be helpful! Could cause me to give up! These types of thoughts are certainly the types of thoughts out of which a suicide could arise (and just for the record I am not suicidal today).

Thank God I have choices. My recent choice has been to just be with my pain (as discussed in my recent blog on Being) and not let it define me. I also choose not try to run from it. Then I choose to know the beauty of my being on all levels without allowing the minor imperfections to draw my focus. I know this (whatever "this" is on a given day) is my current situation and I choose, "Where do I go from here?" Around my weight, my recent choice has been to drop some off and use my dislike of my fatness to fuel that process. And I sit here writing this morning after my one mile walk which is my sixth such walk in the last seven days. YAY ME!

When it comes to self image then, the process is clear to me. Whatever part of me I might focus on in any given moment, I need to remember that it is a small part of me and not the whole. I then can choose to step back and see the beauty of my whole being and rejoice in that rather than letting some small flaw define me. From that place, a full range of possibilities are open to me and I can choose to be the best me I can be in that moment and move forward into another beautiful day! I no longer have to let the lows take me too low or the highs take me too high (I have talked here about deflation that can occur from self image – inflation can be just as problematic). I, at last, can get off of the self image roller coaster! Man I am tired of that ride!

WHY AM I HERE?

Some believe our birth or incarnation is deliberate. Others would call it a random event. If deliberate, then there may well be a very good reason why I am here. That question, it seems, causes quite a bit of angst for me and my fellow men and women. So what is the answer? Why am I here?

 Maybe part of the problem is that we try to answer this question by thinking. Logically, in this time of rationalism, we default to the processes of the mind for our answers. Philosophers and spiritual teachers suggest there may be another organ of the body where we can go for answers. The heart, they would suggest, does more than pump blood. In fact, it might be the highest source of knowledge. In our common speech we have the saying, "Let’s get to the heart of the matter."

The answer to this question may need to be felt out instead of thought out! Our feeling may hold the key. To get to those feelings a question that gets to the heart of the matter is, "What breaks my heart?" Our heartbreak in the world may be what we came here to work on. So sit with that question when you get a moment and see what comes to heart instead of what comes to mind! This process may not come easily as we go against the way we usually look for answers and break years of mental conditioning about the value of our mental processes. So give yourself the time you need to feel this answer to what seems to me to be a very important question.

BEING

I had been consistent in my blogging. I was putting out two new posts each week. And the first post this week went out right on time. Then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday came and went and I had not received the inspiration that I had come to count on. My second post of the week was late and might not happen at all. I could feel my anxiety rising!

Somehow I did not feel ok in this situation! Why not, I asked myself? Of course, I was feeling the pressure to do. And not from an external source, from within. Just being wasn't enough for me! Much has been written about man's inability to just be and I was confronting that inability in me. We are called human beings and sadly in this ultra competitive world we have become human "doings," moving from one task to the next. As they say, we no longer have time to stop and smell the flowers. We feel incomplete unless we are in action – doing, creating, producing!
So I took a breath and began to talk myself "off the ledge." "It's ok, an idea will come. It's ok if there is only one post this week. I am ok just being. I don't have to be doing all the time." I began to feel better! And I found my new blog topic!
 Once again I have been able to see the human condition through the lens of my experience. I have come to know more fully the unrest in me and my fellow men (I can't be the only one, lol) caused by the pressure to do. We have learned early on that doing will get us the love/approval we seek from others and ourselves. Then we live our lives performing like circus animals. The problem is this becomes, for most, a never ending cycle of performance after performance. Like the hamster in it's wheel, we run endlessly and get nowhere! Our reward for this endless running is exhaustion and then an early death! At least, we finally can stop running.

Of course, there is a better way. As I return to sanity and in light of new understanding I have choices to make. I can monitor and relax out of my endless state of doing. I can choose to be ok just being, knowing that my efforts do not ensure happiness. Happiness will come from loving myself just the way I am and wherever I am, whether that brings the love and approval of others or not. I can know my worth without the need to list my accomplishments. I can choose to just be and know my sufficiency from that place, whatever it may look like.

I think this is why I like meditation so much. Meditation is certainly, when practiced with the right mindset, a practice of being. This is also why I like to share the practice of meditation with others. More information on meditation can be found on the Meditation Page of this site.

It is the doingness of our lives that causes our unrest and it's manifestations – chaos, disease, disconnection, etc. Being, best practiced in meditation, is the cure for what ails me/us on all levels – physical, mental, and spiritual.