Love

I am in love. Maybe for the first time in my life.

It started a few months ago.

How did it feel? I felt my whole rib cage bursting open, and there it was, open wide, like the arms of a mother a child feels pulled to run into.

It felt wonderful. I never wanted it to end. It was dreamy. It was energizing. Then the object of my love did some things that bothered me. He spoke badly of others, sounded belligerent, and other ways of beings that were not easy to swallow.

I cried. I pained. I questioned the wisdom of opening myself up for hurt.

He was short with me, and then he was sweet. I went from heaven to hell, over and over and over.

Upon meeting personally, I added lust to my burning love. “Unrequited love” I whispered to myself.

Vulnerable… that is the state love has put me. A constant buzz in my head… the kind of buzz you hear under water: it is the sound of quiet.

I began to appreciate, savor, love, my open chest, my abundantly flowing affection.

Then it occurred to me that love could be demanding, selfish, but not MY love. That I can turn that demanding nature of love and demand towards me, of myself, to be the best, do the best, be the most I can be.

Allow myself to live in that permanent state of love, while diligently bettering myself. For who? For him? Maybe a little bit. But really, really, really, for me.

Thank you Love. I really appreciate the energy you have given me.

Make a decision… but which one? Hypnosis to the rescue

I called Steve Meade, excellent hypnotist for a session. I wanted help with choosing a niche for my future internet marketing endevours, because at the moment I am being tugged into 5 different directions, which means I am not advancing in any of them with only one fifth of my heart and energy available for each.

Steve and I had an hour long conversation, and set up the session for today… and I am writing this just a few minutes after having come out of the mental state of deep relaxation and focus… what a trip.

At the beginning I had difficulty breathing I was so scared of having to choose. I am not comfortable choosing. Choosing has never worked out for me. It feels forced, and I almost never make a good choice.

Finally, I was captivated by the image Steve asked me to put myself into, my favorite beach.

My favorite beach is a place where I was last 43 years ago. It was a time in my life where I was the happiest, the most confident: confidence of youth. I just had graduated from high school, and was accepted to architecture school where the overapplication ratio was 21 to 1. There were 96 spots, and over 2,000 applicants.

I aced all the exams, and I felt smart, powerful, beautiful (and I have pictures to prove that it was more than just a feeling).

So there I am, on this beach in Yugoslavia, sitting on a beach chair, half reclined, the water is green-blue, the sun is dancing on the gentle waves, the sounds of the water streaming down on the rocks is like crystal giggles, an occasional bird crying out. My mom is sitting to my right with a fishing rod, and across from the beach a small island with rich vegetation is beckoning. I see a storm hut there, and the beach there is sandy… The sun feels liquid, gently finding a way into every nook and cranny, a golden warm caress.

I am contemplating swimming over to the little island and back, just to feel the silky water on my body dissolving in the sun.

But, oh no, Steve is asking me to concentrate on the horizon. Where is the horizon? I see a little horizon to the right of the island, so I start to concentrate on that, it is far, it is vague, and it is not where I want to go. But that is what he asks me to go to, and he says a path arises from the water leading me there.

Hm. How about going to the island first, and maybe from there I will be able to see small islands, rocks, maybe pebbles that will call out to me to go to, and I can break up the “trip” to delicious and attractive bits… allow the path to choose me, instead of the dreaded heady choosing.

And in my imagination that is exactly what I do. As soon as I fully “own” and “love” my little island another one starts to beckon and love me away, choose me, and I am passed, loving hand to loving hand, all the way to heaven.

As far as I can see, this model that emerged from this hypnosis session is in harmony with my “human design,” with being a quick-start (conation), and with all the successful choices I have ever made in my life… choose to accept an invitation.

Thank you Steve. you are a master hypnotist, and I am very happy with my result. Thank you, thank you.

Freedom

I went to sleep at 4:30 am last night. I was reading a book that was fascinating, riveting, and I could not put it down until it came to some conclusion. Then I got up at 8:30 this morning to finish it. The conclusion was even more stunning than the whole book.

The book, The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a documentary thriller about viruses that come out of the African rain forests and kill people, like aids, like ebola and its different strains.

The book says that the viruses that are on the border of alive/not alive are millions or billions of years old parasites and that their behavior is entirely selfish and they come up as a reaction to the elimination of the rain forests and the overpopulation of the planet by human parasites.

I nodded as I read it. Human beings, like viruses, like parasites, only care about their host a little bit, but for the most part they only care about themselves. They use their environment to make more of themselves, whether that destroys the host or not.

I don’t have a TV, but from time to time, when I am forced to check my yahoo mail online, I am exposed to the “news.” I always regret that I watched any of it, it is all very depressing.

Yesterday I saw the story of this mother of a 13-year old with Hodgkins sarcoma,  who didn’t want “traditional” (aka money hungry, it is good for my doctors’ pocket book) medicine, and now the police force is after him. And hearing the tone of voice of the anchorwoman who completely agreed with the judge that she didn’t have the right to decide, blah, blah, blah.

Jim Humble discovered a new use for an old substance, sodium chlorite, the cheap desinfector that has been used for ages to clean floors, walls, water, but after his unusual inspiration can be used to kill parasites, bad bacteria, fungus like candida albicans and viruses inside your body and even inside your cells. He calls his activated sodium chlorite the “miracle mineral supplement” because if he called it anything else, he would get killed. Literally. He is also forced to live out of the country.

So what the heck am I trying to say, and why is the title of this post “Freedom?”

Good question. Let’s get to it.

Freedom. Here is what the dictionary has to say

1: the quality or state of being free: as

a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action

b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence

c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care>

d: ease, facility <spoke the language with freedom>

e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom>

f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use <gave him the freedom of their home> 2 a: a political right b: franchise, privilege

synonyms freedom, liberty, license mean the power or condition of acting without compulsion. freedom has a broad range of application from total absence of restraint to merely a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated <freedom of the press>. liberty suggests release from former restraint or compulsion <the released prisoner had difficulty adjusting to his new liberty>. license implies freedom specially granted or conceded and may connote an abuse of freedom <freedom without responsibility may degenerate into license>.

In my mind freedom is a lot less complicated. You can have or lack freedom from something, and you can have or lack freedom for something that you want.

One of human beings’ slavery is wanting and desiring for the self alone. In that regard we are a lot like the virus that has 7 protein molecules, no brain, no signs of aliveness without a host. I we talked and I told you that you behave like a virus: your whole life is about getting what you want and you don’t care about anyone else, you would be very offended. Right? But chances are that I would be right, very high percentage of the time, to a very high degree.

You see, I think that human beings evolved to have the three levels of brain, and free will, to be a lot more intelligent than we are at this point of human development. I have read that Kabbalah says that there is a need for only 10 human beings reach the level of consciousness concurrently (I mean living at the same time, arriving there and being there at the same time) for a critical mass where all of humanity suddenly evolves, in spite of themselves, to the higher consciousness where live isn’t about “what’s in it for me” but about “what’s in it for you”.

And in spite of the fact that hundreds of spiritual teachers, gurus, disciplines are around, there hasn’t been any time in human history that there were ten individuals at the same time who arrived to this level. Because this level is really like being pregnant: you can’t be a little bit pregnant, almost pregnant, somewhat pregnant. You are either pregnant or you aren’t.

But as long as human beings aren’t even interested in the “symptoms” of being a slave to selfishness, there is hardly any chance for us to get to that level.

According to Kabbalah we have some 240 years to straighten out our acts by out own volition, or method number two, the learning through suffering enters the picture, where you either learn or you perish.

Some 2,000 years ago there was a famous Kabbalist, Rabbi Akiva who had 25 thousand students. Many of those studies day and night, and were thought to be on a high level of connection, a high level of consciousness.

But when a deadly plague came, like the Black Plague, or the Aids epidemic, only five of them survived. Rabbi Akiva had a rude awakening: he realized that all the knowledge in the world doesn’t elevate you, unless you base your whole life on the basis of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Which is what’s missing… and with it freedom is missing, and slavery reigns “supreme.”

shall I get rid of the bad or shall I pile on the good?

Get rid of the bad or take superfood? bandits or preachers

The age old question of any spiritual or self-help movement is: shall I get rid of the bad or shall I pile on the good?

If you look at health advertisements, the main line is: take stuff to pile on the good.

What does this say to you? For most people that means, that is what they should do. Look at the proliferation of superfoods, acai, etc. and tell me if this isn’t so.

But “who” is directing the main line? Who’s voice is trumpeted through all media? The Light or the Opponent? Of course it is the Opponent, the darkness, the ego part. But why would the ego part be so interested in you thinking that all you need to do is add some more goodies to your life, and everything will be all right?

I am going to use a little story here to drive the answer home. Imagine a that 100 righteous men are locked up by 100 bandits. The bandits beat up the righteous men every night. The light of the righteous men is dimmer by the day. The world is getting darker by the minute. This is your life: your health, your wealth, your relationships… I am not talking about an imaginary scenario: this is your life!

You have a choice: will you send in troops to strengthen the righteous men or will you send in troops with weapons to get rid of the bandits? Will you try to offset all the bad stuff you do and think with some good acts, or will you kill off the bad stuff?

Eating superfoods is like trying to fatten the righteous men, they will die from the daily beatings anyway. But the sellers make an incredible profit in the meantime.

The smart answer is: decimate or kill off the bandits.  i.e. stop doing what is killing you and what supports the darkness.

And this is what Kabbalah teaches, exactly. Its whole foundation is to make choices, moment to moment, to stop feeding the ego and listen to the soul. You can’t do both. At any moment, you are either in light or in darkness.

When you are hurting others, indulge, or feel jealousy, greed, anger, however justified, your world is all dark. Every moment you share, your world is all light.

Just like stealing money and giving 10% of it to charity wouldn’t make your world light, overindulging in bad stuff and then taking a multi-vitamin is all dark. Superfood are great when you have already stopped what’s killing you.

You need to cut out the bad, like the bandits in our story.

I wish I had known this before. I am paying the price now.

But you see, it’s never too late. Killing the bandits takes a moment. Even if it is your last.

Feel Well To Do Well Part 3

drownI spent 1-3 hours with a very negative person for seven months in the very near past. I hated about 60-70 percent of every conversation. My attitude was that there is an opportunity lurking there, and I’d find it. That attitude was encouraged by my teachers.

At the end of the seven months I noticed that my financial situation had started to go south when I started that relationship. I was now at a point when I was not going to be able to pay my rent…

A normally hidden thought at that point surfaced in this person’s speaking, and I realized that they were my enemy, and a downer all along. They were in it for what was in it for them, and made sure there was nothing in it for me. They didn’t like me, didn’t care for me, compared me with themselves and they always came out on top, thought it unfare that I would make more money than them.

In that moment of clarity I saw that in those seven months I had handed over the control over my thoughts and life to this person, and it was time to take it back.

I also noticed that it had been a pattern in my life. I could see that there was my desire to “lift up” other people, even if they weren’t particularly interested. I call that caretaking in another post of mine… (Studies show that when a higher vibration person tries to lift up the vibration of another person, instead of the desired outcome, the lowest common denominator wins. Other studies show that in sado-masochistic relationship the real control is in the hand of the masochist, not the sadist, like it seems on the surface.)

You notice that you are not energized by the relationship. You notice that your health, your energy level, your self-love, your connection with your purpose is getting weaker and harder to maintain.

In hindsight the same thing happened with my male cat. He wanted food, he wanted shelter (when he wanted it), but he didn’t want me. He didn’t choose me.

When I look at my relationships (male/female) I see the pattern: it begins with me relentlessly pursuing a stable and steady connection where I am the contributor/giver, thus I have the upper hand. They begrudgingly protecting their right to maintain independence. I increase the pressure. At some point we are best friends. I continue the domination with giving and giving and giving. At some point I catch myself, and break off the relationship.

That’s been the movie of my life. Quite disgusting, if you ask me. And makes for a lonely, unfulfilled life.

Luckily to me, this time I had my eyes open and my fingers pointing at myself. This time I have taken 100% responsibility for my part in this mess.

This fact, having taken responsibility for my role as a director/writer of this movie, I have given myself a chance to write and direct movies that are more fulfilling and satisfying than this repeated nightmarish ego-driven script.

Since the awakening and breakoff, my financial situation is looking up, I am more in touch with my soul’s desire and things unpredictable and delicious are starting to show up in my space.