Monday, March 10, 2008
In love with life
Fall in love again each moment with life. Breathe in the rich, new wondrous possibilities that are continually being born.
Realize what a grand opportunity exists in even the smallest of matters. Today is a day like no other, and you are magnificently blessed to be a part of all that it encompasses.
The wind blows, the sun shines, night falls, and some days bring brutal cold while others offer stifling heat. There is beauty, there is tragedy, and there is exquisite fulfillment along with bitter disappointment.
On the surface, life is filled with much adventure, activity, change, confusion, excitement, joy and frustration. Underlying it all you'll find abiding peace and goodness that can never be denied.
You have the unique, unmatched good fortune of being you, right here and right now. Take a brief moment to realize and remember who you truly are.
Then look out at the vast expanse of possibilities that surrounds you. And dive lovingly into it in your own special way.
-- Ralph Marston
Monday, March 10, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Awareness
Osho Zen Tarot
7. Awareness
------------------------
Awareness
Mind can never be intelligent - only no-mind is intelligent. Only no-mind is original and radical. Only no-mind is revolutionary - revolution in action.
This mind gives you a sort of stupor. Burdened by the memories of the past, burdened by the projections of the future, you go on living - at the minimum. You don't live at the maximum. Your flame remains very dim.
Once you start dropping thoughts, the dust that you have collected in the past, the flame arises - clean, clear, alive, young. Your whole life becomes a flame, and a flame without any smoke. That is what awareness is.
Osho A Sudden Clash of Thunder Chapter 1
Commentary:
The veil of illusion, or maya, that has been keeping you from perceiving reality as it is, is starting to burn away. The fire is not the heated fire of passion, but the cool flame of awareness. As it burns the veil, the face of a very delicate and childlike buddha becomes visible.
The awareness that is growing in you now is not the result of any conscious "doing", nor do you need to struggle to make something happen. Any sense you might have had that you've been groping in the dark is dissolving now, or will be dissolving soon. Let yourself settle, and remember that deep inside you are just a witness, eternally silent, aware and unchanged.
A channel is now opening from the circumference of activity to that center of witnessing. It will help you to become detached, and a new awareness will lift the veil from your eyes.
7. Awareness
------------------------
Awareness
Mind can never be intelligent - only no-mind is intelligent. Only no-mind is original and radical. Only no-mind is revolutionary - revolution in action.
This mind gives you a sort of stupor. Burdened by the memories of the past, burdened by the projections of the future, you go on living - at the minimum. You don't live at the maximum. Your flame remains very dim.
Once you start dropping thoughts, the dust that you have collected in the past, the flame arises - clean, clear, alive, young. Your whole life becomes a flame, and a flame without any smoke. That is what awareness is.
Osho A Sudden Clash of Thunder Chapter 1
Commentary:
The veil of illusion, or maya, that has been keeping you from perceiving reality as it is, is starting to burn away. The fire is not the heated fire of passion, but the cool flame of awareness. As it burns the veil, the face of a very delicate and childlike buddha becomes visible.
The awareness that is growing in you now is not the result of any conscious "doing", nor do you need to struggle to make something happen. Any sense you might have had that you've been groping in the dark is dissolving now, or will be dissolving soon. Let yourself settle, and remember that deep inside you are just a witness, eternally silent, aware and unchanged.
A channel is now opening from the circumference of activity to that center of witnessing. It will help you to become detached, and a new awareness will lift the veil from your eyes.
Always enough
Friday, March 7, 2008
Always enough
Instead of striving to get where you wish to go, simply allow yourself to be there. All that is, is available to you in the moment you're in.
As long as you're trying to understand something, you will fall short. Let go of the desperate need to understand, and you'll find that the understanding is part of you already.
When you think you lack something, that blocks it from your awareness, your experience and your life. Instead of filling your thoughts with what is missing, focus on what is possible.
Relax into the limitless abundance of now. There is always enough, and it is all here for you to allow.
Life's overwhelming richness is mirrored in every little detail. The only thing separating you from that richness is the wall you imagine to be around yourself.
Allow the goodness, the possibilities, the value and joy to fill your life in this moment that is now.
-- Ralph Marston
Always enough
Instead of striving to get where you wish to go, simply allow yourself to be there. All that is, is available to you in the moment you're in.
As long as you're trying to understand something, you will fall short. Let go of the desperate need to understand, and you'll find that the understanding is part of you already.
When you think you lack something, that blocks it from your awareness, your experience and your life. Instead of filling your thoughts with what is missing, focus on what is possible.
Relax into the limitless abundance of now. There is always enough, and it is all here for you to allow.
Life's overwhelming richness is mirrored in every little detail. The only thing separating you from that richness is the wall you imagine to be around yourself.
Allow the goodness, the possibilities, the value and joy to fill your life in this moment that is now.
-- Ralph Marston
Thursday, March 6, 2008
In Plain View
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Hidden in plain view
The most valuable secret of success is that there is no secret. Success comes not from seeking to uncover some exotic hidden formula, but rather through persistently following through on opportunities to create value.
The best shortcut to achievement is to avoid looking for a shortcut. Simply get busy and do the work required, for that is the quickest way to reach the goal you've set.
The most effective way to handle what must be done is to do it. Procrastinating, agonizing, complaining and avoiding will only prolong the task and add greater difficulty to it.
Life is not always easy, and wishing for things to be easier will usually make them more difficult. The time-tested strategy for making life truly easier is to go ahead and work through each challenge as it comes along.
By so doing, you grow stronger, more capable, more effective and more experienced. You put yourself in position to live life on your own terms.
The route to success is no secret, and is in fact hidden in plain view. Use every opportunity to make a difference, and you'll go precisely where you choose to go.
-- Ralph Marston
Hidden in plain view
The most valuable secret of success is that there is no secret. Success comes not from seeking to uncover some exotic hidden formula, but rather through persistently following through on opportunities to create value.
The best shortcut to achievement is to avoid looking for a shortcut. Simply get busy and do the work required, for that is the quickest way to reach the goal you've set.
The most effective way to handle what must be done is to do it. Procrastinating, agonizing, complaining and avoiding will only prolong the task and add greater difficulty to it.
Life is not always easy, and wishing for things to be easier will usually make them more difficult. The time-tested strategy for making life truly easier is to go ahead and work through each challenge as it comes along.
By so doing, you grow stronger, more capable, more effective and more experienced. You put yourself in position to live life on your own terms.
The route to success is no secret, and is in fact hidden in plain view. Use every opportunity to make a difference, and you'll go precisely where you choose to go.
-- Ralph Marston
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Vibration of Fear, a Feeling of Powerlessness
-- by Esther and Jerry Hicks
Question: What causes my fear?
Abraham: Fear is the feeling sensation that is present within you when you have both a desire and a belief that contradicts it. Fear is a response to the state of your vibration. You are a vibrational being, and every moment offering a signal. Your vibration could be called thought, it could be called memory, it could be called fantasy, it could be called imagination, it could be called Energy. In other words, your vibration could be called, "As I stand in my now, and I think about the present, or I think about the future, or I think about the past -- all of that is thought. Whatever it is I'm perceiving is causing me to offer a vibration, and that vibration is being answered or matched by All-That-Is.
So when I feel fear, what it always means is, I am offering a thought that you might call desire and a thought that you might call belief that are contradictory. The presence of fear always means the presence of resistance. The presence of resistance always means not allowing the Energy of desire to flow through me--always, without exception. Same with confusion; same with vulnerability; same with anger; same with unworthiness; same with guilt. All negative emotions mean the same thing. You just call them different things because they play out differently in your experience -- but they all mean the same thing.
The vibration of fear is usually a very strong vibration, which usually means there is the presence of a very strong desire within you. Often, when you feel fear, it is because you have a belief that contradicts basic elements that are natural to you. Your natural instinct, from your broadest Nonphysical perspective, is to know your power. Fear is a vibration when you feel powerless. Your natural instinctual Nonphysical vibration is to know your worthiness, know your rightness, know your value. And the feeling of fear is always when you are contradicting that thought.
We would want you to say, "Quite a bit of the time I feel fearful or vulnerable or limited, and what that feeling means is: I'm in that moment holding a desire that contradicts my past thought, or my beliefs..." Remember that a belief is just a thought you keep thinking, it's just a habit of thought. It's just sort of the way you've always thought it, and so it is the way you are now thinking it.
And so, as you are feeling fear, all it means is, "I've got a desire that my belief is not agreeing with. Now, what thought feels better about this? I've got hold of this stick, where my desire is here, my belief is here. What thought feels better?" And as you just softly talk to yourself about that subject, reaching for the thought that feels better, what happens is you shift the Energy.
It's like the teeter-totter on the fulcrum, and it's clearly down here, and you would like it to be up here. And so, you reach for the thought that feels better, and you reach for the thought that feels better, and you reach for the thought that feels better...and it doesn't look like anything's happening. And then, all of a sudden, one more time, you reach for the thought that feels better, and there it goes! The fear is gone without even knowing it, just by reaching for the thought that feels better. There is so much reward in just feeling better in your "now". Because, so often, you're wanting to reach for the thought that feels better because, "Whoop-de-doo, this is big time good fun!" In other words, "I want to get there! I would like every effort to take me there. I would like every thought that I think, and every time I go to a workshop, and every time I make a little bit of effort, I would like it to take me there!" And it's irritating that it doesn't take you there, to that manifestation.
We want you to not get so hung up on the manifestation, and start taking pleasure in the incremental relief. Pleasure in the fact that this feels a little better. Pleasure in the fact that you can actually, with your own will power and your own determination, choose a thought that feels better.
It is Unnatural to Not Feel Good
We offer an analogy, about the cork bobbing on the body of water. It's up here floating, floating, floating. And in our analogy this cork is bobbing in the place of Pure Positive Energy. When you take hold of the cork and hold it under the water, that's what negative emotion is. You're not allowing the natural quality of the cork, you're doing something that does not allow the cork to do what it usually would do. You're holding it in an unnatural place with your attention to this thought of something that you do not want.
But when you withdraw your attention from it, and you let go of the cork, it bobs right back up there. It is natural for you to be in this pure positive place. It is unnatural for you not to feel good. But what happens in your physical environment where you've been trained by other humans who didn't feel so good either, is that you've come to accept the way you feel as being the natural way that you feel.
And now, through meditation, or through consciously reaching for the better feeling, you set higher standards. Until then it becomes consciously uncomfortable for you to dip into the lower Energies. You will never be at a place where you won't feel negative emotion. Nor would we ever want you to be at that place, because that would be like shooting Novocaine into your fingers so that you don't feel anything hot or sharp. You say, "Well, it sure is a lot better now that I can bang my hands on things. You know, I can shut my hands in car doors and it doesn't even bother me any more. I feel no pain." But it's not good for your fingers. Pretty soon you have flat, little flabby hands flapping around. You've destroyed your hands, even though it was painless.
And so, that's what that fear is. It's sort of an acquiescence. It's submission to a vibration that's not natural to who you really are. And you're awakening now to those higher standards.
Take mood checks and ask yourself, what is my mood? Well, I'm feeling fearful. And then ask yourself, well overall, do I have reason to fear? And as you reach for the more general statement, you recognize, you don't have anything to be fearful about.
We think what you're doing is sort of very specifically, channeling the worries of a larger mass consciousness. You are susceptible to Energy. And so, for example, if you were living in a retirement community where there were many people who were feeling vulnerable about their money, or feeling worried about what their future would provide, and you are sensitive to Energy, you could very well be picking up on the consensus of the group around you, even though it has nothing to do with who you are.
But you must have a little spattering of that within you, or you could not be finding harmony with that greater consensus. Every thought that has ever been thought exists. And then, by Law of Attraction, those thoughts coalesce, so that there are pockets of Thought Forms. And so, very often, just driving from city to city, if you are sensitive to vibration, you can feel different Energies in different cities. Well, what we are wanting you to do, is get so good at setting your own Tone, that it doesn't matter what the fluctuations of Energies are around you, you are always holding a steady course.
Question: What causes my fear?
Abraham: Fear is the feeling sensation that is present within you when you have both a desire and a belief that contradicts it. Fear is a response to the state of your vibration. You are a vibrational being, and every moment offering a signal. Your vibration could be called thought, it could be called memory, it could be called fantasy, it could be called imagination, it could be called Energy. In other words, your vibration could be called, "As I stand in my now, and I think about the present, or I think about the future, or I think about the past -- all of that is thought. Whatever it is I'm perceiving is causing me to offer a vibration, and that vibration is being answered or matched by All-That-Is.
So when I feel fear, what it always means is, I am offering a thought that you might call desire and a thought that you might call belief that are contradictory. The presence of fear always means the presence of resistance. The presence of resistance always means not allowing the Energy of desire to flow through me--always, without exception. Same with confusion; same with vulnerability; same with anger; same with unworthiness; same with guilt. All negative emotions mean the same thing. You just call them different things because they play out differently in your experience -- but they all mean the same thing.
The vibration of fear is usually a very strong vibration, which usually means there is the presence of a very strong desire within you. Often, when you feel fear, it is because you have a belief that contradicts basic elements that are natural to you. Your natural instinct, from your broadest Nonphysical perspective, is to know your power. Fear is a vibration when you feel powerless. Your natural instinctual Nonphysical vibration is to know your worthiness, know your rightness, know your value. And the feeling of fear is always when you are contradicting that thought.
We would want you to say, "Quite a bit of the time I feel fearful or vulnerable or limited, and what that feeling means is: I'm in that moment holding a desire that contradicts my past thought, or my beliefs..." Remember that a belief is just a thought you keep thinking, it's just a habit of thought. It's just sort of the way you've always thought it, and so it is the way you are now thinking it.
And so, as you are feeling fear, all it means is, "I've got a desire that my belief is not agreeing with. Now, what thought feels better about this? I've got hold of this stick, where my desire is here, my belief is here. What thought feels better?" And as you just softly talk to yourself about that subject, reaching for the thought that feels better, what happens is you shift the Energy.
It's like the teeter-totter on the fulcrum, and it's clearly down here, and you would like it to be up here. And so, you reach for the thought that feels better, and you reach for the thought that feels better, and you reach for the thought that feels better...and it doesn't look like anything's happening. And then, all of a sudden, one more time, you reach for the thought that feels better, and there it goes! The fear is gone without even knowing it, just by reaching for the thought that feels better. There is so much reward in just feeling better in your "now". Because, so often, you're wanting to reach for the thought that feels better because, "Whoop-de-doo, this is big time good fun!" In other words, "I want to get there! I would like every effort to take me there. I would like every thought that I think, and every time I go to a workshop, and every time I make a little bit of effort, I would like it to take me there!" And it's irritating that it doesn't take you there, to that manifestation.
We want you to not get so hung up on the manifestation, and start taking pleasure in the incremental relief. Pleasure in the fact that this feels a little better. Pleasure in the fact that you can actually, with your own will power and your own determination, choose a thought that feels better.
It is Unnatural to Not Feel Good
We offer an analogy, about the cork bobbing on the body of water. It's up here floating, floating, floating. And in our analogy this cork is bobbing in the place of Pure Positive Energy. When you take hold of the cork and hold it under the water, that's what negative emotion is. You're not allowing the natural quality of the cork, you're doing something that does not allow the cork to do what it usually would do. You're holding it in an unnatural place with your attention to this thought of something that you do not want.
But when you withdraw your attention from it, and you let go of the cork, it bobs right back up there. It is natural for you to be in this pure positive place. It is unnatural for you not to feel good. But what happens in your physical environment where you've been trained by other humans who didn't feel so good either, is that you've come to accept the way you feel as being the natural way that you feel.
And now, through meditation, or through consciously reaching for the better feeling, you set higher standards. Until then it becomes consciously uncomfortable for you to dip into the lower Energies. You will never be at a place where you won't feel negative emotion. Nor would we ever want you to be at that place, because that would be like shooting Novocaine into your fingers so that you don't feel anything hot or sharp. You say, "Well, it sure is a lot better now that I can bang my hands on things. You know, I can shut my hands in car doors and it doesn't even bother me any more. I feel no pain." But it's not good for your fingers. Pretty soon you have flat, little flabby hands flapping around. You've destroyed your hands, even though it was painless.
And so, that's what that fear is. It's sort of an acquiescence. It's submission to a vibration that's not natural to who you really are. And you're awakening now to those higher standards.
Take mood checks and ask yourself, what is my mood? Well, I'm feeling fearful. And then ask yourself, well overall, do I have reason to fear? And as you reach for the more general statement, you recognize, you don't have anything to be fearful about.
We think what you're doing is sort of very specifically, channeling the worries of a larger mass consciousness. You are susceptible to Energy. And so, for example, if you were living in a retirement community where there were many people who were feeling vulnerable about their money, or feeling worried about what their future would provide, and you are sensitive to Energy, you could very well be picking up on the consensus of the group around you, even though it has nothing to do with who you are.
But you must have a little spattering of that within you, or you could not be finding harmony with that greater consensus. Every thought that has ever been thought exists. And then, by Law of Attraction, those thoughts coalesce, so that there are pockets of Thought Forms. And so, very often, just driving from city to city, if you are sensitive to vibration, you can feel different Energies in different cities. Well, what we are wanting you to do, is get so good at setting your own Tone, that it doesn't matter what the fluctuations of Energies are around you, you are always holding a steady course.
Daily Motivators
(3/4/08) The Chorus of All That Is:
You are part of a greater whole. Without you, the whole cannot fully express itself, and without the whole, you are desperately empty.
You are vitally and uniquely important. But that does not make you more important than others. Your thoughts, ideas and actions have the power to transform. But that doesn't give you the right to overwhelm.
Instead, it gives you the obligation to serve. It gives you the opportunity to contribute to something bigger than yourself, something that gracefully encompasses all you are.
By so giving, you enlarge your own life and the world around you. By so giving, you create real value and meaning, and experience profound fulfillment.
Sing your own song, with a passion that comes from the center of your being. And delight in how beautifully it resonates within the chorus of all that is.
-- Ralph Marston
(3/3/08) The Future Is Bright:
The future is bright. Because the future is created by positive people.
Those who are negative make a lot of noise about how bad things are. Those who are positive quietly and steadily make a lot of real improvements and contributions to life.
There are always problems and there are always challenges. And there are always people willing to transform those challenges into great opportunities.
Those who have the courage, commitment and discipline to follow their own best dreams, bring the rest of the world along with them. Those who choose to do the best they can with what they have, create a better life for everyone.
For every high-profile guru of doom who wails about how hopeless and unfair life is, there are millions of others working tirelessly to make life better than ever. For every frightening crisis that is breathlessly reported, there are millions of real, meaningful success stories that don't get noticed, but that do have enormous positive influence.
Negative people obsess over the past while positive people work their way eagerly toward the future. Life gets better and better when you choose to make it so, and the future is bright indeed.
-- Ralph Marston
You are part of a greater whole. Without you, the whole cannot fully express itself, and without the whole, you are desperately empty.
You are vitally and uniquely important. But that does not make you more important than others. Your thoughts, ideas and actions have the power to transform. But that doesn't give you the right to overwhelm.
Instead, it gives you the obligation to serve. It gives you the opportunity to contribute to something bigger than yourself, something that gracefully encompasses all you are.
By so giving, you enlarge your own life and the world around you. By so giving, you create real value and meaning, and experience profound fulfillment.
Sing your own song, with a passion that comes from the center of your being. And delight in how beautifully it resonates within the chorus of all that is.
-- Ralph Marston
(3/3/08) The Future Is Bright:
The future is bright. Because the future is created by positive people.
Those who are negative make a lot of noise about how bad things are. Those who are positive quietly and steadily make a lot of real improvements and contributions to life.
There are always problems and there are always challenges. And there are always people willing to transform those challenges into great opportunities.
Those who have the courage, commitment and discipline to follow their own best dreams, bring the rest of the world along with them. Those who choose to do the best they can with what they have, create a better life for everyone.
For every high-profile guru of doom who wails about how hopeless and unfair life is, there are millions of others working tirelessly to make life better than ever. For every frightening crisis that is breathlessly reported, there are millions of real, meaningful success stories that don't get noticed, but that do have enormous positive influence.
Negative people obsess over the past while positive people work their way eagerly toward the future. Life gets better and better when you choose to make it so, and the future is bright indeed.
-- Ralph Marston
Jumping Over The Past
by Gloria Wendroff
"... What I desire to the exclusion of all else is that you be happy, and be happy with yourself, your beautiful self, as you are, without your doubts and faultfinding.
... The world will tell you to atone and repent. I do not. I tell you to leave all that behind and move on. Say so long to it. You are not who you were yesterday, that is, who you thought you were yesterday.
I tell you to forget the past because it was only a blip anyway. It is no longer. It actually never was. You can see that it is past, and yet you have not reconciled to yourself that the past is behind you. You do tend to keep the past in front of you as if it were a shield or a placard or notes for you to memorize. You do like to keep the past in sight while it really behooves you to abandon it. It matters not whether you are grateful for the past any more than it matters if you feel intimidated by it. Get past it.
The past is no more than leaves that have fallen. Do not even rake up the leaves of the past. Just leave them where they lie. The past is not for posterity. It is meant to be jumped over. Drop it off the cliff of your mind. Say Sayonara to it.
Be My simple child who comes to Me today the same way a child brings his mother a dandelion. What you offer Me is yourself, and I am so pleased with what you offer Me. When you offer Me yourself, you offer Me love, and that is exactly what I offer you."
"... What I desire to the exclusion of all else is that you be happy, and be happy with yourself, your beautiful self, as you are, without your doubts and faultfinding.
... The world will tell you to atone and repent. I do not. I tell you to leave all that behind and move on. Say so long to it. You are not who you were yesterday, that is, who you thought you were yesterday.
I tell you to forget the past because it was only a blip anyway. It is no longer. It actually never was. You can see that it is past, and yet you have not reconciled to yourself that the past is behind you. You do tend to keep the past in front of you as if it were a shield or a placard or notes for you to memorize. You do like to keep the past in sight while it really behooves you to abandon it. It matters not whether you are grateful for the past any more than it matters if you feel intimidated by it. Get past it.
The past is no more than leaves that have fallen. Do not even rake up the leaves of the past. Just leave them where they lie. The past is not for posterity. It is meant to be jumped over. Drop it off the cliff of your mind. Say Sayonara to it.
Be My simple child who comes to Me today the same way a child brings his mother a dandelion. What you offer Me is yourself, and I am so pleased with what you offer Me. When you offer Me yourself, you offer Me love, and that is exactly what I offer you."
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