SUICIDE ...

(Click for today's Vitamin)

This morning during Meditation the topic came up to write about suicide.  This is not an easy topic to talk about, well it is easy to talk about but maybe it is not so easy to hear, we shall see.  Today is the 11^th anniversary of my significant other, of nine years, Mark’s death.  It is not surprising that this would be a topic of discussion, but it is surprising in that it showed up.

All “suicide” stems from one thing.  Suicide stems from the belief in the “I” thought.  Without an “I” there is no one that would commit suicide.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t know how powerful thoughts can be.  I have attempted suicide on a few occasions so I do know how dark it can get and how strong a belief can become.  I am not belittling the power of the mind.  What I would like to do … is shed some LIGHT on it. 

Let’s take this slowly if we can.  Thoughts of suicide appear when one is paying attention to thoughts and not who they ARE.  You are not a thought, if you were, you couldn’t pay attention to it … you would be it.  So when someone attempts suicide it is because they have placed the attention on a “thought” and in turn created it into a belief and then believe the “belief” is true.  It is usually something about themselves and/or the circumstance they “think” they are in.  Suicide wouldn’t exist if everyone would just wait to see what happens, instead of just assuming they know what will happen.

So let’s give an example of how a “thought” becomes a “belief.”  Let’s use warts (heh) as an example.  If you have ever had a Plantar’s Wart, you know that it starts out small (like a thought) and then over time it gets harder (like when you keep paying attention to a thought) and then eventually it is so hard that you have to get it cut out or nitrogen to remove it (a belief becomes solidly believed and suicide seems the only option). 

So if you can see this … if you can see the thought become solid and believed in, then you also can see that the undoing of the belief is the undoing of Suicide.  One does not have to kill the “I” thought and killing the body will not kill the “I” thought.  How sucky is that if you thought you were going to be done an over with (which you will) and you just find yourself without a body but still thinking you exist.  There is a good book on this, I am not saying it is the Truth (you don’t need to take it literal) but it is a good pointer and can be helpful in seeing things from a different perspective.  It is called “Stephen Lives.”

So it is not about killing the “I” thought, it is beginning to see that it is not real.  Only you can stop paying attention to the thoughts, the quickest way to begin doing this is to look and see who is watching the thoughts.  You can’t be the thought if you are watching the thought, so who is watching?  This will take some practice because you have been watching the thoughts for so long and you believe them to be true.  Look how strong beliefs are; if we didn’t have them, there would be no war, there would be nothing to fight over, if you didn’t believe there was something to fight over.  And how do you begin to see that there is nothing to fight over, by beginning to STOP and take a look, honest look around you and see if anything that you believe or are thinking, is actually happening, or are you just “thinking” about it.  If you are just “thinking” about it then it is not real, it is your imagination and you must wait and see what shows up.  Stop assuming you know what is going to happen, you don’t.  So begin to start waiting to see what will happen, you might be pleasantly surprised.

So if you are having thoughts about suicide and how awful everything is, you may want to at first, get some help with the emotional part of it, that can be assisted by certain medications and I am not saying that everyone should be medicated, but sometimes it does help just to get you to a place where you can begin to see that thoughts are not real.  So there are benefits to medication, but watch yourself, make a plan not to be on them more than say three months, and do the work.  Self-investigate.  Do this with the question “who am I?” and write down everything that comes and if it is something that you can change or alter then it is not who you are, do a process of elimination until there is nothing left (no beliefs about who you are, all that is left is who you Are, without beliefs).  Continue to bring yourself/attention back to the moment you are IN.  Not the one you are “thinking” about, the one right in front of your face.

Please feel free to write to me privately.

There is also a movie called “The Bridge” that you can watch online by clicking that link, it is well done and can offer, again, some insights.

ALL THOUGHTS ARE LIES

This is a pretty radical jump for some, though the more one is willing to look at it as an actuality, the more it can be Seen.

Let's use an example of when you first meet someone.  You may say "hello" and your first thoughts are "what a nice person" but you have only just said hello.  Then you look at their pants and there is a rip and you think "oh they must be poor" then they say something that you don't agree with and you may think "oh well we don't have anything in common" and then they might tell you something else about their life and you think "oh I love this person."

This happens all the time doesn't it?  Don't you find yourself flip flopping between

good thoughts and bad thoughts about everything that appears before you?  But thoughts only have the meaning that you give to them.  Only you can say what thought you think is good and what thought you think is bad about anything that appears before you. 

What you are being pointed towards here, is that no matter what you think...it is a lie. 

Thoughts are lies, because they do not reflect Truth.  Truth cannot be thought.

Once this is Seen you will begin to experience each moment as it actually is, not how you think it is or how you think it should be.  This happens by no longer believing what you think is true and being willing to be wrong about what you think about anything and everything.

How can you verify that anything that you just read is True and not just more thoughts (which they actually are however, they are thoughts that Point to Truth)?  You can do this by beginning to watch your thoughts.  As you pay attention to what you think, you may begin to see that "thoughts" cannot be in the present moment, they are always about the past or the future.  To be in the present moment you cannot think about it, because each thought moves you out of the moment you are in to describe it to you.  Like if you are looking a tree, you are just seeing it, but the moment you think "oh the tree is brown" it is about what you have seen not what you are seeing.  This may not be clear at first, however it will be if you continue to watch your thoughts, paying attention to what you think, but not believing it, because even when you say the tree is brown...what is brown?  Really isn't that just a word we picked out of any combination of letters to agree that when we see what we "think" is that color we can share the experience of the color, but how do we even know our eyes see the same color, when all we are actually doing is agreeing on a word about a color.  This may seem complicated at first but it becomes very, very simple, when one stops believing and eventually even paying attention to the thoughts and begins to just SEE.

Ultimately it does not matter if you see this, because life happens in spite of what you or anyone thinks about it.  That is the good news.

TEAM OF ONE (Less Than Actually)...

"You are all alone surrounded by all the help you will ever need."

 ~Wayneji

The other day I put up this article (that I will cut and paste below) and put it on my Facebook page.  I received a comment from a friend of mine that got me thinking about the word/meaning “Team.”  And so I am going to put down what came up around that.

Here is the article:

“Mark used to say to me that sports was his Spirituality and that if I paid attention I would Hear and See it too. It took quite sometime to really start to see what he was pointing to. The other day I was at Family Smiles in Yreka and Kathy was making my mouth piece and I picked up a sports illustrated magazine that had LeBron James on the cover and since I really like LeBron I started reading it and I got to the last two paragraphs of the article in the picture here...and thought what a beautiful way to describe another human being, in this case being LeBron and I Hear the Spirituality that Mark would point to. :o)))))”

One of the clearest ways to see that one is on a “Team” is to first See and acknowledge how utterly and completely alone one Is.  You can spend years attempting not to See this by searching for a “team” to be on.  But if you are willing to go into the Core of Aloneness, then the window/door opens up to see that there is only One Team … one can ever be on and you are on/in It.  Everyone is on it and no one can be kicked off and so that really begins to allow one to see that we are all working together on the same Team…beyond all appearances, beliefs, dogmas, religions, there is only One Team and we are all on it.

Funny enough, over this last weekend I repeatedly attempted to watch a movie called “Cloud Atlas.”  It is a 3 hour movie and things kept coming up and I kept having to restart it.  I still currently have 45 minutes left of it to watch.  However what I have seen of it is a great pointing to what is being shared here.  That we all keep showing up for one another.

The sayings “you are only as strong as your weakest link” or “wherever you go there you are” are Great sayings and stand the tests of Time because they are True Pointings however, these sayings have been misconstrued because not many venture deep enough into the “unknown” of their Self.  They don’t go all the way to the Core of Being to discover that there is only One (actually less than One…less than Zero…but this is the limitation of words and only can one Know…through Self-Discovery). 

If one does not go to the Core of Being and discover that there is only One (less than), then they believe they are separate and although believing one is separate doesn’t get them off the Team (the Team of One)…they do not believe they are on it because it appears that there is more than One.

There is another saying, “You are all alone, surrounded by all the help you need.”  This is the closest pointing to the Truth of the True Team you are on.  Everyone has had their moment of being all alone.  Feeling they have no one to turn to, no where to go, no one that would understand…these moments are great gifts in revealing what cannot be seen or understood by the mind, because if you can look back on any moment that arrived to reveal to you that you are all Aone…you can see that something showed up for you.  Something did Hear you.  Someone did understand.  Otherwise you would not be reading this right now.  And if you went all the way…to the Core of Being…then you Know who always shows up :o)

One is wise not to run from the “fear” of being Alone…because it is your True Natural State and it is the fear/running from that that keeps you from Knowing who you Are.

Once you see that there is only One (less than) then you know that everything that is happening is perfect because there is only One player Playing…looking like many.  This is called in sports “In the Zone.”  Where one becomes Aware that they are not doing it…it is being done through them.

I was (and still am by loyalty) a Chicago Bulls fan…I was a big fan back with Jordan and Pippen and Grant, Rodman and I remember hearing them speak about being in the zone…there is also a pretty good book on it called “Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. (by Phil Jackson) 

Life has all different ways to show you that you are all alone and surrounded by all the help you need.  Sometimes one is called to being physically alone.  Like there are times for me out here on the Ranch where I am completely alone (seemingly and ultimately).  This morning is a good example.  I got back late last night from bringing a friend up to Ashland and I overslept.  I went out to see the chickens and they were all ruffled and clucking…I was an hour behind schedule.  If I don’t show up for them…they don’t eat.  They begin to experience that they are all alone…though they are surround by one another they are all alone in their ability to get food and so I show up and fed them and there is a “team.”  That is what I was seeing this morning that my showing up is part of their “team” they then go on to lay eggs (which I don’t eat but I bring to those that do) which continues the team…everyone is helping each other, they help me by giving me a reason to get up and seeing the girls brings me joy (pun intended) so again all part of the team.  It is the same with the horses. 

Being on the Ranch  continually Reveals being all alone and yet being surrounded by all the help one needs.  Since I am about 10 miles from the nearest store, it can seem like one is very physically alone out here, yet it is in those moments that the Awareness of the impossibility of being alone and yet simultaneously being completely Alone appears.  It is a paradox of the Greatest of Gifts.

The owners of the Ranch are currently away and so ultimately I am by all appearances alone out here which leads to a deeper awareness of Trust / Faith that everything that is needed will appear.  And certainly from my times being physically alone…that has revealed itSelf.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t fear at times…like when it snows and I don’t know how I will get the car out or if I  can shovel it all to get to the animals or whatever the fear of the moment is…if the water freezes or it floods…there have been many fears that appear, but as those fears have appeared (being here) has shown me that everything does show up and if it doesn’t the worst that will happen is that this body will die, and it will anyway, when it’s time comes and so even that fear gets faced.

At the end of the day and at the beginning, the best one can do is face the fear of being alone, do not run from it, but let it come to you, the fear of not having enough, the fear of losing, the fear of not being good enough, the fear that you are not supported or taken care of.  And truly the only actual fear, which is the fear of death.  When these fears begin to be faced, not run from but just allowed, then you will begin to see what has been Carrying you all along and worry/fear may still show up for you, but you won’t care.