Now is the Only Reality That Exists

Almost every person on this planet spends most of their life living in a fantasy land of their own making. There are very few people that have even the vaguest idea of what the true reality of their existence is really like. This has been the sad story of an unconscious humanity for the entire span of our tenure on this planet.

We engage with the world every day of course. We have conversations with others that are based in the real world of the here-and-now. We go to work each day and come home each evening and we are largely conscious of this as we do it. We are always involved in some activity in the real world, whether it is sleeping, eating, going to work, visiting friends or relatives, cooking the dinner, going shopping…all of these things are based in the real world of our senses and we are aware of them as we engage in them. So how can it be that we live in a fantasy when our memories and moment-to-moment experience of the world, gives us all the information that we need to prove unequivocally that the world we that we live in is real and solid and indubitably, not a fantasy of any kind?

The reality is that yes, we may well be physically engaging with the world and consciously aware of what we are doing, but we are mostly, not on the whole present or mindful at the moment that we are engaged with that reality. Our engagement tends to be marginal and reliant on an initial and momentary repeat mental-visit as we physically go about whatever activity we are involved in. It is a partial and perfunctory involvement with life.

Whatever we are involved in; we are mostly unconscious of it most of the time. Our minds are on the whole busy with other things and ignorant of the activity that it has propelled the physical body into motion to deal with. Think about what is going through your mind at any moment of the day, regardless of the task you are performing. Possibly you are reminiscing about the lovely romantic meal you had last night whilst you are doing the washing up, or you are thinking about what you are going to do that evening as you get ready for work. Maybe you are thinking about the shopping trip you have to do later as you rush to get the kids ready for school or you are wondering if you made the right decision over that new pair of shoes you bought yesterday as you decide what outfit to wear for the day. Perhaps you are thinking about what you would like for lunch later whilst you complete some task at work or maybe you worry about whether you will get that job you have an interview for tomorrow as you get ready to go to bed. All of these types of thoughts are familiar to all of us and we have them whilst we engage physically with the world in tasks that although they might be triggers for the thought process, are in all other ways, entirely unconnected with the thoughts themselves.

Whatever the subject matter of our thoughts, they are almost always set in the context of the past or the future. We spend most of our lives in this state – looking back to the past at things that were and now are no more, or projecting into the future and looking at things that have yet to exist or may never exist, in the way that we envisage them.

Stop yourself from time to time and watch your thought process and you will see the truth of this. We all do it. We spend our lives in an unconscious state, only peripherally aware of the reality of the world and of the nature of the existence that is going on around us at that moment in time. We are unconscious to the nature of reality for almost the whole of our lives. Only rarely do we stop and fully engage with the moment as it happens, that is, being fully present, not peripherally present. Fully present means engaging the mind and the senses totally in the moment. Being aware of everything in that moment, not partially involved in some past or future experience.

Staying totally present in the moment – being fully and utterly aware of the nature of reality at the moment that it is happening, is no easy feat. The reason for this is that the majority of the time the present reality is pretty mundane or boring. How interesting is it to chop vegetables or to vacuum the carpet? To wash your hair or to iron a shirt? Not much really. Our lives are dominated by mundane things that it is hard to stay consciously focused on at all times. Our minds get used to the mundane nature of the here-and-now and decide to have as little to do with it as possible and go off searching for more interesting things to ponder. There are plenty of other things in the past or the future that are much more worthy of note to our minds way of thinking. In allowing this, we not only abdicate responsibility for our own thought process, we create a situation where it becomes incredibly difficult to stay totally aware of reality as it happens to us. Our minds get up in the morning and do their daily thing of finding something else to think about. To stay present in reality, we need to retrain our minds and bring them back under our control.

Most of us are not taught to reign in the mind and to train it to do our bidding. So how do we start to live in the present moment as it is happening to us? It is not really that difficult; though it can be incredibly dull.

The best way to begin to take back control of your own mind and thus to encourage it to stay present in the moment – in now, is to bring it to bear on whatever activity you are engaged in at the moment. It doesn't matter what it is, simply bring your full weight of consciousness to have an awareness of the activity. If you are digging the garden, notice how the soil feels under the pressure of the spade, smell the earth as it is turned, feel the pressure that you place on the spade. The tensions in your body as you exert the effort to turn the soil. Fell the texture of the spade's handle. Notice the sound of the spade going into the earth and any other sounds that might be around you at the moment: the passing of an aircraft, birds singing, a neighbour in their garden nearby, the sounds of passing cars…try to be totally present and aware of everything that is going on at that precise moment in time. Whatever the activity, we can all make the effort to try to be totally aware of the moment as it happens in this way.

The more that we engage with this type of activity, the more we are able to take back control of our mind and live in the present moment. We can actually start to live the life that is going on around us at the time that it is happening. We start to be fully aware of our lives and can take pleasure in it in a way that we were not previously able too – it becomes richer and fuller and more meaningful and we start to develop a truer understanding of life that had previously eluded us. The advantages of living life as it happens are numerous and profound. Life takes on a quality that we did not know was possible.

If we are engaged in thoughts of the past too much, we live in a world that is not only gone and dead, but conditioned by our own particular perspective on it and so it is not real. If we spend too much time living in the future, we spend our time living in a world that has yet to come – if it comes at all, that will again, be conditioned by our own particular perspective on it and our own conditioned view of the world.

Training the mind to be conscious of the world in the moment can be a long and arduous task, but the rewards are great. But does engaging with this practice give us a true and accurate perspective of the world? Do we start to fully see the world for what it really is? In part yes, but not fully.

Living in the moment allows us to experience the world as it truly is at that precise moment in time, from the perspective of our conditioned understanding and response to the world. It is real and there is no alternative to it – but it is a reality based on our perception of it and how we relate to it and 'read it'. What we are not aware of is a reality that is devoid of conditioned understanding. So even though we may be present in the moment, what we perceive of the world is based on all that we have previously learnt about it. When we pick up a knife to chop vegetables for instance, we bring to that moment, all of our learning and experiences of other knives. We relate to the object through this lens of our own making and so we do not actually have a true experience beyond the conditioning that we gain from our own experiences and from the information given to us by others. So even when we are present in the moment, our perception of reality is distorted by the past.

How for instance, do we see a tree for the first time every time we look at one? When we look at a tree, we bring to that moment, our knowledge, understanding and experiences of all other trees we have ever come across. We believe we have an understanding of that particular tree because of what we bring to it, but in reality we have no idea about that particular tree. To begin a relationship with the world as it truly is, and to see it afresh for the first time every time – to strip away our knowledge and experiences, we need to maintain as often as possible the practice of living in the moment – of not dwelling on the past or the future. In this way, we maintain a real and living relationship with the world and not one that is part fantasy and part peripheral engagement. We can begin to develop the ability to see beyond our conditioning and to see the world as it truly is.

Of course the object of this exercise is not to delete from our minds all of our conditioned responses to the world – these serve us in a multitude of ways and are what we need to help us to function in the world effectively. We do not want to reach a point where we have no concept of what a road or a fast approaching car means as we step off the pavement because we have stripped away our memories of the past and thus the tools we need to survive. The purpose of memory is to help us to survive and live fully in the world – it is not to provide a fantasy release from the drudgery of the moment.

What we do with our mind is key to our happiness. Our minds control our reality. How we relate to every aspect of our reality creates the world around as we perceive it. If we truly want to experience reality, the first step is to begin to train the mind to live in the moment. This is after all, the only place that reality exists.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve

http://humanity-healing.blogspot.com/2009/06/now-is-only-reality-that-exists.html



 

Words Limit Us

By Vaughan Wynne-Jones

Fake it til you Make it!

By Vaughan Wynne-Jones

 When we talk about taking control of our lives and creating our own reality, one of the terms that is bandied around frequently is "Fake it 'til you make it.". There's a lot of confusion over the meaning of this. It doesn't mean lie to yourself, nor does it mean pretend to be something you are not.  Like many things in language, it is simply a useful quick way of remembering a complex concept.
 

 The concept is important, because if we are to change our realities to that of Love and Joy, we have to re-train our brains - and emotions - to respond differently to past events, and to the world around us. And in order to understand how we do that, we have to understand what goes on in our bodies when we encounter a person, event or memory.
 

 Every person, object or event in our life creates a unique chemical signature in our body - which allows us to recognize it/them again when they next appear in our story. This process is an extension of the ego, in many ways. The ego is there so we can tell the difference between us and the world around us. This is a handy thing to know when we go hunting. If we didn't recognize which parts of the world that actually part of our own body, we might start chewing off our own hand when we got hungry...
 

 Now let's say you meet someone you like for the first time. Their unique chemical signature gets generated in your body, and receptors in your cells get a little initial 'kick' from the neuropeptides that are produced.
 

 If you fall in love with that person (in the classic, Newtonian sense ;) ) then each time a cell divides, more of the receptors on the new cell are aligned to receive that chemical signature, and since there are a finite number of receptors on a cell, less are available for other things. This is why people in love often find other aspects of their life unimportant, where they held higher priorities before. In fact if you were able to take a cell, examine the receptors and identify how many receptors responded to a particular stimuli, you would have a pretty good idea of where a persons priorities lay in that moment.
 

 Now, at some point the relationship may go south, and the other person may decide to go their own way, for whatever reason. Now since a significant proportion of the receptors in the cells of your body stop receiving the chemical 'hit' they have been expecting, you start to go through withdrawal, like a heroin addict. So what do you do? You think about the person a lot; perform an internal post mortem on the relationship; go over every detail of the experience.
 

 If the addiction is strong enough, you will look for signs of them in your life - asking friends how they are doing, seeing things that remind you of them - maybe a favorite restaurant etc...in your head you may have feelings of bitterness, resentment, perhaps betrayal, sorrow and loss.  So how did the emotional state and view you used to have become so changed into something else?
 

 Well, what is actually happening is your body is fighting the withdrawal by generating the somatic equivalent of methadone - it is attempting to placate the cells that have become addicted to that person by generating a synthetic experience of that person.
 

 In other words, you are delaying the withdrawal process. This is not healthy because now you are creating new cells that are in a sense twisted caricatures of their former selves, and over time that manifests in actual physical problems. So what's the solution? How do you get rid of the addiction faster, so that you can move on?
 

 Well one method people use a lot is another relationship. But that is setting yourself up for more withdrawal down the road, and you haven't addressed the underlying issue. A better method is new experiences - coming out of your cocoon and finding new ways to interact with the world that force new cell production with many varied receptors...and most important of all, Love Yourself. Nurture yourself. Many people have a hard time loving themselves, because it seems egotistical, arrogant - even a little elitist. But really it is the most wonderful thing you can do for society and those around you.
 

 It is starting to become clear as we learn to create our own realities and clarify our intentions, that the energy that moves through as and operates the Universe in which we live, can most easily be tapped into when we extend into the world as the essence of Love. We can most easily manifest what we truly desire when we start from a place of Love. This means, fundamentally, that we have to love not just ourselves, but every other being on the planet. When Love is your foundation, all things become possible. And Love begins with you...
 

 Something that has worked well for me when I feel down is to visualize my higher self with arms wrapped around me, telling me everything will be okay and just looking after me, and loving me.
 

 But in order to get to a place of existing simply as Love, we have to stop old patterns of behavior, and that brings us back to the whole fake it 'til you make it thing. Sometimes it sounds like a shallow concept - we don't like to use the word 'fake' when we are evolving ;)
 

 But look at it like this: Basic Hebbian theory states that  'neurons that fire together, wire together'. Once your brain has become hard wired to generate neuropeptides for a specific person so you can feed your cell's addiction, it is only your 'will' that allows you to break down that configuration. The connection of wired neurons is an electrical charge. To disconnect them (and tear down the factory you created to support your addiction) you have introduce a new thought process, or stop the existing one, so that the electrical charge holding the old connection in place is overwhelmed by the new connection, and the previously wired neurons break free.
 

 A very good friend taught me a technique which has helped me immensely in the past. When you feel your thought process taking that spiral into bitterness and sorrow over a lost love/possession/card game, say out loud (or in your head if not alone) "You have no power of me, {name}!" And keep saying that until the thought stops. If you have a mirror handy, smile into it when you say this.
 

 Initially, you may find anger there instead, and that's ok (for a while) because it means that you are triggering a reaction in your head that says 'You know what? I'm tired of feeling like this!'.  Anger has its use in personal growth. All emotions have a purpose or we wouldn't have them. The key is to not over-use or abuse them. So let the anger give way, it's just a temporary tool.Gradually, you will come to a place of Happiness and Joy, Acceptance and Love.  Cells that store the emotions we previously felt begin to be broken down and replaced with new healthy ones. This process can be sped up with laughter, orgasms and tears. In my experience they usually happen in that order if I end up at the wrong dive bar...
 

 So think of "Fake it 'til you make it" as meaning to recognize that you are rewiring your brain, replacing cells and making your body, mind, heart and soul healthier. Understand that you have to encourage that process sometimes, nudging it along a little by saying things like 'You have no power over me' even if you don't feel that way, or smiling though your heart is weary, because tomorrow it will feel better, and the day after that even better...
 

 You can forgive, let go, accept and love. But you have to stop with the cell methadone program in order to do this. Recognizing that you are feeding an addiction by swirling those negative emotions around in your body, is the first step to doing that.
 

 The above is an excerpt from "Quantum Spirituality - Being a Better Human", by Vaughan Wynne-Jones, due for release in Fall 2008.
 
 Copyright (C) 2008, Vaughan Wynne-Jones all rights reserved.
 Article may be reproduced providing appropriate credit is given.
 

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Vaughan Wynne-Jones is author of Being Human - A Guide to Metaphysics and various articles on spirituality. If you have any questions about this article or wish to publish it elsewhere you may contact him via MySpace. Parts of this article are included in his new book, Love & Gratitude, A Guide to Quantum Spirituality, due out in Fall 2009. Potential publishers contact vaughanwj@gmail.com for more information.

If it takes the whole brain to produce one thought, it also takes the whole universe to perform a single action. Like a neuron, electrons and atoms seem to be independent, yet a change of electron spin at one extreme of the universe will be mirrored, instantly and without sending signals, by a paired electron billions of light years away.

So the “binding effect” is cosmic as well as personal; it exists “in here” and “out there.” The net result is that you are an activity of the whole universe, an insight that sounds abstract, but just as a single thought requires your brain to perform a huge number of unseen calculations, so Karma performs unseen calculations to produce you.

As we now can prove, change and stability coexist in the brain; without both it couldn’t operate. When you remember an old birthday, you can call it “my” thought, but you feel no personal connection to synapses and dendrites or the firestorm of signals passing over them.

Brain cells work by totally predictable means involving exchanges of electrical charges between sodium and potassium atoms and simple oscillations between positive and negative electrical impulses. Somehow that mechanical stability produces free, creative, unpredictable thought forms.

The rishis asserted the same about Karma. It is infinitely flexible and infinitely inflexible depending on how you look at it. Unknown forces are free to reshape you without your knowledge. They do it all the time, since none of us has the slightest awareness of how our brains move from thought A to thought B.

This opens the question of how much choice we exercise over our next lifetime. The coexistence of opposites is a paradox, and unless we solve it we have no control over the afterlife; we are just caught in the meshes of a machine that can produce any outcome according to its own whims.

Adapted from Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2006).

May 1, 2009

May Day (Beltane)

Maia

Theme: Sexual Prowess; Playfulness; Wishes

Symbols: Braided or knotted Items

About Maia: This Roman goddess, whose name means “mother” offers all who seek it fulfillment and renewed zest. Maia gave her name to the month of May. She is the queen of the flowers, and today was one of her festival days, celebrated suitably with an abundance of blossoms. In later times, Maia became strongly associated with Bona Dea, whose name literally translates as “good goddess”

To Do Today: As a child, on this day I left bundles of wildflowers anonymously at neighbors’ homes. As a random act of beauty and kindness, this still hold merit today and certainly honors Maia.

                In magical circles people customarily braid wishes into the ribbons of the Maypole and leave them there to germinate and grow until fall. To do this yourself, find three strands of blue ribbon and braid them together so they meet five times, saying

                “Tis the month of May, for ___________(health, love, money, or whatever I wish today.

Ribbons of blue, help my wish come true.

Braided within, the spell begins.

Bound to and fro, the magic grows.

When in Fall untied, this wish is mine!

Wear a flowery shirt, skirt, or tie today to welcome Maia and brighten your day.

Info taken from 365 Goddess by Patricia Telesco


For more Beltane articles please visit our website at WWW.PaganNews.com

April 22 2009

Festival of Ishtar (Babylon)

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Ishtar

Theme: Love; Fertility; Passion; Sexuality; Moon

Symbols: Star; Moon; Lion; Dove

About Ishtar: In Babylon, Ishtar encompasses the fullness of womanhood, including being a maternal nurturer, an independent companion and inspired bed partner, and an insightful advisor in matters of the heart. Having descended from Venus (the planet that governs romance), she is the moon, the morning star, and the evening star, which inspires lovers everywhere to stop for a moment, look up, and dare to dream. Saturdays is Ishtar’s traditional temple day, and her sacred animals include a lion and a dove.

To Do Today: Babylonians gave Ishtar offerings of food and drink on this day. They then joined in ritual acts of lovemaking, which in turn invoked Ishtar’s favor on the region and its people to promote continued health and fruitfulness. If you’d like to connect with this fertile energy but have no bed partner, a magical alternative is using symbolism. Place a knife (or athame, a ritual dagger often representing the masculine divine or the two-edged sword of magic) in a cup filled with water. This represents the union of yin and yang. Leave this in a spot where it will remain undisturbed all day to draw Ishtar’s loving warmth to your home and heart.

If you have any clothes, jewelry, or towels that have a star or moon on them, take them out and use them today. Ishtar abides in the symbolism. As you don the item, likewise accept Ishtar’s mantle of passion for whatever tasks you have to undertake all day.

Information taken from Patricia Telesco 365 Goddess book

April 21, 2009

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Taurus Begins (Various Locations)

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Tauropolos

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Themes: Work; Patience; Stregth; Courage;

Symbol: Bull

About Tauropolos: No goddess could better represent this date other than Tauropolos, The Cretan Bull goddess whose name literally means “Bull Lady” (and that’s no bull!). Teaching us the virtues of diligence and the rewards of hard work, Tauropolos also has a strong connection to the fields (the plow) and the hearth, where food from the fields gets prepared.

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To Do Today: The Cretans were well known for having bull-leaping festivals that honored this goddess, probably as a fertility rite and test of one’s bravery. Oddly enough, this is how we come by the saying “seize a bull by the horn!” So, if there’s an area of your life in which you want to really seize the day, try this simple symbolic spell. Find any image of a bull (in a magazine, carved out of tone, or in some other form). Put it on the floor, and put a symbol of your aspirations on the side of her image across from you Says,

                Tauropolos, prepare the fields for success;

                Help me now to do my best.

Leap over the image and claim victory!

If you can’t find a bull images, any harvested item may represent Tauropolos instead. If you choose this option, be sure to consume the food later. This way you can internalize this goddess’s tenacity, persistence, and fortitude, and then apply them toward successfully achieving your goals.

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Information taken from Patricia Telesco 365 Goddess book

Furukawa Matsuri (Japan)....



The Tennin....

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Theme: Protection, Anti-theft
Symbols: Drum; Feathers
About the Tennin: These semi divine beings are a kind of angel in Buddhist transition. They like to make music, and their singing voices are as lovely s their stunning visages. Art renderings show them wearing feathered robes and sprouting wings a bit like oversized sylphs. On this day they joined their voice to our celebration and wrap us in wings of safety.
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To Do Today: Follow Japanese conventions and go through your home or entire town making as much noise as possible by banging pots, blowing horns, ringing bells. This protects you from the threat of thievery and unwanted ghostly visitations, as will singing sacred songs that draw the Tennin’s attention and aid. A flurry of lantern lighting (or in our case, lamp lighting) often accompanies this activity, to shine a light on the darkness and reclaim the night with divine power.

To remember the Tennin specifically and invite their protective energy, put a lightweight item (like a silk scarf, a sheer curtain, or something else with diaphanous qualities) in the region that needs guarding. Put on a CD of vocal music (or sing yourself), and they will come. To protect yourself, carry a feather in your purse or wallet.
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Pretty awesome huh?
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Information taken from Patricia Telesco 365 Goddess book