Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
           -- Soren Kierkegaard

----

I think he may be right. I think anxiety, perhaps severe, is one of the fields of razor wire you have to crawl through on the way to freedom. 

Simply because freedom is kept *out* with fear, so there's no way around it. 

Run into god

From my friend Signalroom:


Today I was walking up the dirt road
and suddenly, for no reason, began to run.
I was running to enter God more fully.
This was my experience --- my lungs
nearly burst in pain, my heart
Pumped harder in response --- so much
love happened. It rained --- increased life --
Love, I was seeking God -- meaning -- something --
but that simple run made a furnace of my 
chest, and through the wall of my lungs
I entered the Impossible, happy.
He smiled broadly within my cells.
Today life got bigger :)

"Fear-based beings"

In my studies in recent years (centering around non-duality), I’m learning that change-resistance comes from Fear, and about how Fear is a *much* bigger component of us than we are aware of. You might virtually call us “fear-based beings" rather than “carbon-based beings”.

In Jed McKenna's second book, it is said that all human emotions are really variations of Fear, like white light going through a prism and appearing in different colors, though still having the same source. 

Judging

"No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt because of all the doubting underneath."
-- A Course In Miracles lesson 151

The wounds of others

"When we are aware that our partner has emotional wounds, and we love our partner, we certainly don't want to touch her wounds. We don't want to push her to heal her wounds, and we don't want her to push us to heal our wounds."
- The Mastery of Love

Jesus by Chopra

"Jesus", a novel by Deepak Chopra. The story of Jesus' own path to enlightenment. Warmly recommended. Obviously very contagious, as any novel about any profet is bound to be. We humans tend to believe things strongly donchaknow?

Mystic Moon

Read a couple of interesting stories about the Weird World we live in, here.
 While some teachers like Arten and Pursah might say strange phenomena like crop circles etc etc are just distractions to keep your attention fixated on the universe, I feel that on some level they can be helpful, to show you that the universe is not physical, but subject to the mind (and Mind). That is a big part of the journey, even though ultimately yes, you have to say: "heck, it's all illusion anyway, no part of it is more important than any other part".

I want everything

"My parents are always saying to me: 'go to college, Bruce, get a little something for yourself'. What they never understood is that I want Everything." - Bruce Springsteen

The World You See

The world you see holds nothing that you need to offer you; nothing that you can use in any way, nor anything at all that serves to give you joy. Believe this thought, and you are saved from years of misery, from countless disappointments, and from hopes that turn to bitter ashes of despair. No one but must accept this thought as true, if he would leave the world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways.

Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this.

A Course In Miracles, Lesson 128

Lesson 129 starts:

Beyond this world there is a world I want.
This is the thought that follows from the one we practiced yesterday. You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for, you will only be depressed. Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace.


[...]
It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end.

Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible; where love endures forever, hate cannot exist and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all things you really want, and know they have no ending and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time? Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood. 


===
I find it interesting indeed that J speaks of a world beyond the world, and *yet another* realm beyond that… As if any of us would not find the first one to be more than we had ever dared dream of.


"This is the world of time, where all things end.”

It is funny how we usually don’t think about that. Perhaps because it’s so universal that we take it for granted.
If you manage to amass a fortune, it’s very hard work to hold onto it against thieves, taxes, inflation, expenses... If you marry miss Universe, in twenty years she’ll probably have lost her looks and her cheer. If you win Olympic gold, next year somebody else will be the winner.

Kissing by the waterfall

Another real life story from my friend. - Eolake

---

Yesterday around noon I went up to the waterfall behind our houses. The air was sparkling yesterday, we had had a big rain the day before, and finally, a sunny day . . . . The Falls were THUNDERING, just pounding, and the sunlight coming through the woods and through the water was just gorgeous. There were rainbow colors coming through the water! I thought I was on some kind of drug, but no, it was Reality, fresh and clear. There was a father with his two sons playing around up there, it was cute. I sat on a huge boulder directly facing the falls and swung my legs over and just stared at the power of water. There was even a thick ice formation, still turquoise, behind the falls, and the sun shooting through the ice, then through the curtain of water, I tell you, it was stunning. I turned my head briefly and saw, down by a huge cave-like rock, two women kissing. They were very attractive, in their 20's, and they looked VERY in love . . . I noticed the father up ahead was trying not to look at them, lol . . . When I saw them I thought, "hmmm, well, okay." Then, the next thought "lesbian" entered my mind, bringing a kind of heavy, dark mist. An unease, a shame.

Immediately Awareness came to the forefront, a spotless Mirror, and the thought dissolved instantly into the pristine fresh atmosphere of the waterfall, of the father and sons, of two people kissing . . . . Suddenly I was filled with such huge JOY, as if Christ Himself were smiling and the ONENESS of LOVE in our midst. I was caught up in what felt like a smile of the Universe. Not a judgement abided in this space. Not a single thought, label, fear or shame was present. Just total joy at us all together, in beauty, in love.

For me, to be naked these days, is to be utterly free of judgement.
No good or bad, no right or wrong, just Life presenting itself as it is. Reality here is alive, almost sexy, visceral, strengthening.
Ever-new.

Honestly, I'm glad somebody had the sense to be kissing in that
stunning place ......

love,
Laurie

NFTL wins awards

Never Forget To Laugh has already won two awards. I wouldn't be surprised if they keep coming.

The Joy of newness

This was written by a friend of mine who is going through amazing, though sometimes turbulent, spiritual changes (by all reports, real breakthroughs are often very turbulent). It expresses some of that which I'm going towards/searching for, and which I can feel is out there. - Eolake

---

Where have I been? I feel like I have been far far away.
Perhaps in thought-heaven. But the mobility is coming back,
all the senses opening their windows again, like women in Italy leaning out, great simple beauty, I can hardly believe it.

Truly wanting to be here. Smelling things as though for the first
time. This is not bliss. This is not excitement. Wood held by fire is not excited. But what LIFE! Where before I was dead, now I am alive. That's almost all I can say. I have almost returned to the joy of my second-graders when they are let out of school.

It is like tasting clover honey after living in Sweet n' Low land.

I feel the deep need to grow herbs. I was making salad dressing tonight, chopping garlic, thyme, squeezing lemon, the scents were
wild. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, I mean, what is special here?
People have been cooking for centuries. Only I feel like a child who has come back home to the earth, to real food, scents, sounds.
It is all registering as love. When I was a child I felt at home on earth, I was ecstatic to run around in the green grass in Spring.
It is like that!

A friend just broke up with her boyfriend. We went to the wine-tasting, something I had always avoided. Wine tastings. Today, the oysters,
the taste of a new wine, flirting with life, no more afraid of the
energies of male and female. Now, it is originating within, and being mirrored without... The server, the wine store owner, lifted my spirit with his humor. We were laughing despite her earlier despair. I bought a bottle from Israel, a Pinot Noir I had never tried. I thought it fitting for Holy Week.

Alive from the dead, Jesus moving beyond the churches. This is the true Easter, for me. Having already burned to ashes in the Void,
by a great miracle of Grace finding oneself like a little girl, only only mature now and free and adult, droplets of creative juice returning like old, old friends. "I thought you were gone forever!!" Tasting new life in everything, like a wine, like a friend.

Great great gratitude. eminent and creative. Thank you my Lord.

Laurie

Too many problems...

"No one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.

All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance."

- ACIM, Lesson 79

Having new eyes

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes”. - Marcel Proust

"The Universe Is A Dream"

Thanks to Lenore for pointing to this comic book which explains the Course and non-duality in visual language.

Lonely paths

Nobody can tell you if what you're doing is good, meaningful or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is. 
-- Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 5, 08-22-04

Courtesy

"There are ways of treating others in which only consistent courtesy, even in very little things, is offered. This is a very healing habit to acquire."
-- ACIM, urtext

Advanced communication?

I’ve always taken for granted that humans probably have the most advanced communication in the universe. 

But I’ve realized how ego (species) centric this is. Quite apart from the likelihood of other races in this and other galaxies being far more advanced than ourselves in all ways (it’d be weird if they weren’t), we can even speculate that some animals may have communication we couldn’t understand even if we had a translator, because their minds and concepts and perception apparatus may be totally different. 

Hell, even plants or microorganisms may communicate on advanced levels. 

Or there may be minds in the hearts of suns or gas giants, or living in space between galaxies, or in spaces we don’t know about because human-visible light doesn’t show them. 

And of course, communication implies spiritual progress towards enlightening. 

(Thanks to Arthur C. Clarke for stories which inspire such thoughts.)

Thoughts about pain

It is my current theory that Pain is energy phenomena surrounding the flickering back and forth between an Inside viewpoint and an Outside one. (Inside The World that is. Which is an apparent “outside” Source.)

If you have only one of those, there is no pain. Of course, the inside one alone is not possible, because there’d be no life, the world being illusory.

The more aware one is of both viewpoints, the greater the awareness of the pain is (but not the pain itself, that diminishes proportional with the shift towards the outside viewpoint).

I guess body pain is symbolic of the “real” one.

BTW, body pain is a Forgiveness Lesson, because suffering makes the Ego more willing to give up its fortified viewpoint. If all seemed well, it'd have no reason to change its mind.

Time and Purpose

I think you may like the post and quotes I have just posted here (on my mainstream blog).

Depression has a truth to it

Jed McKenna maintains that Depression is virtually a required stage to go through if one is to arrive eventually at awakening and happiness. Because the idea of happiness divorced from Source is nonsensical.

ACIM digital editions

I recommend the digital editions of the Course. I have the Kindle version, and it's perfectly executed.
It is excellent that the publisher, Foundation for Inner Peace, is going with the times, despite all the work and money it must take. Many other movements still only have their works available on paper, mostly for fear of copyright issues, specifically the fear that many people might get copies for free. In my opinion this is counter-productive. Experience shows that widely available digital editions (even free ones) aid sales, not hinder them.