DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU “THINK”

This can be radical to the way we have been taught to be in the world; to not care about thoughts in a world where what we “think” is given so much importance.  If someone were to come up to you and say “I don’t care what you think” you might become offended as if it is a personal attack and yet … you are not what you “think” and we are going to take a look at how this is possible.

Let’s use the thought “I am wonderful.”  First, do you have any idea where it came from?  If you do not know where it came from then how can you take it personal if someone else doesn’t “care” about it.  You cannot be the thought “I am wonderful” if you didn’t create it, but was only aware of it.  Now, if you can slow down enough to put the attention onto what is “Aware” of the thought “I am wonderful” you can you begin to see something here that you didn’t before.  You can see that if you are Aware of the thought, you cannot actually be the thought.

You may now see that you are not the thought “I am wonderful” and since you aren’t sure where it came from … let’s come from the Awareness of the thought and look at the thought itself “I am wonderful.”  Who is the “I?”  If one is not the thought, but one is Aware of the thought, who is the “I” referring too?

The more this is looked at … the less power the thought “I” has in making you believe that you are what can be thought.  If the thought “I” is seen as false then the word “Who” becomes revealing.  The thought “who?” does not need you to care about it; the thought “I” does.  “Who?” clears the thoughts to the revealing of what is Aware of the thoughts.  “I” creates a sense of an individual and separateness from what is Aware of the thought “I.”  

All thoughts that come can either be clung to by keeping the “I” thought as real or dissipated by replacing “I” with “Who?” which clears all thoughts and leaves only the Awareness of what is actually happening.

For today, do not care about what is thought.  Watch them come and watch them go.  When you see a thought that says “I am so wonderful” question “who” to that “I” not expecting an answer, just as a referencing back onto the thought itself.  “Who is so wonderful?”  “I am.”  “Who am I?”  Let the circle be there, the circle leads one to discover that it cannot be understood; it has to be left alone.  This is where the watching/Witnessing comes in, you simply watch all of the thoughts come and go and if you are believing a thought is real, question it with “who?”  To whom do these thoughts come?  The impetus at first will always be to say “I/me” but you are not a thought “I/me” so use it as another opportunity to drop the thought “I/me” and be empty in “who?”  Eventually, it will apparent and when someone says to you, “I don’t care what you think,” you will agree.  :o)

Namaste.

PRAYER & STILLNESS

(I AM is not a thought)

The following is in response to a question raised in Western Religion Philosophy Class at College of the Siskiyous.  Weed, CA.

Prayer

“Prayer has been an essential part of Christianity since its earliest days. Prayer is an integral element of the Christian faith and permeates all forms of Christian worship. Prayer in Christianity is the tradition of communicating with God, either in God's fullness or as one of the persons of the Trinity.”  (Wikipedia, 2013.)

Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with Prayer, though at it’s premise in the way most seem to use it, perpetuates two lies; one that there is something that the one praying is separate from and two, that things can be some other way than how they are.  They are both actually the same thing.

Prayer is actually saying that the one that is being prayed to … isn’t doing a good enough job and could do better.  It would be just as wise to begin to accept things how they are and the possibility (the very real possibility) that you don’t know how things are supposed to be.  Then you begin to grow out Faith (which does not require any prayer) that everything is perfect and unfolding perfectly and always has, even though you may not understand why or how it is unfolding.  If you still require “prayer” then possibly one might pray to begin to know this … to begin to have Faith that this is so.

Things cannot be any other way than how they are, if they could they would be.  That seems pretty easy to see (as long as you are willing to stop telling a story of how things should be and just begin to experience them exactly as they are).  If something is going to be some other way, just watch … it will … things are constantly shifting and changing and if one begins to stop listening to the thoughts about how things should be and begins to pay attention to how they are … the mind begins to become quieter and quieter.

“Vygotsky theorized that very young children don’t think silently to themselves the way adults do — at first they only “think” by speaking out loud to their parents, siblings, or caregivers. Later, this develops into “self-talk” (if you’ve ever been around young children you may have noticed them mumbling to themselves when they’re alone in their rooms). Later still, self-talk internalizes, and becomes inner speech (what adults experience as thinking — or at least one type of thinking).” (Moyer. 2013)

This is what is being pointed to.  You weren’t born thinking.  You were born in Stillness and came into a world of noise “thinking.”  You “learned” to “think” prior to thinking/thoughts there was only the natural state of simply “Being” Aware of everything in Stillness.  This is how it is right now, begin to stop paying attention to the thoughts and begin paying attention to the Stillness.

On Stillness

“The Jesus Prayer or “The Prayer” has been widely taught and discussed throughout the history of the Eastern Churches. It is often repeated continually as a part of personal ascetic practice, its use being an integral part of the eremitic tradition of prayer known as Hesychasm meaning "to keep stillness"). (Wikipedia. 2013.)

Not surprisingly, this Prayer is popular in the East, but not in the West.  The East has been immersed for thousands of years in the practice of placing the attention on Stillness, not the thoughts.  Thoughts are given a great deal of importance in the West, because it is what most identify with as “who they are” as part of or sometimes the entire identity/personality, however, if this is really honestly looked at.  How can one “be” a thought? 

When one becomes ready to let go of the thought “I” … Stillness (in a sense, rushes in and fills all of everything) then there is no room for the thought “I” there is only Stillness … just like when you were a child and you didn’t “think” to exist … you just existed in Stillness.  That is where one returns (though has not ever left), they release the thought “I” back into the Stillness from which it appeared.  No “I,” no problems (who would have them), no prayer needed in Stillness, one would not be still to pray for something.

This does not mean that the world stops, you just begin to experience it from a place of Eternal Stillness.  The mouth will still move (for some) the body will as well, there will look like there are problems but there will not be anyone there for the problem, there will just be a watching of all of the movie playing out, which also includes people praying for things in the movie. 

Another way of seeing this is like going to a movie, you sit there in Silence (which is not Stillness but it is a close in the world pointer).  Sometimes you have a “thought” that you would like the movie to go some other way than how it is going.  However, you cannot change the movie just because you *think* it should be some other way.  Most people should be able to see this analogy.  This is how it is with life and prayer … life/the movie is playing out for your entertainment (feel free to ask “who’s”) and “prayer” is like the “thought” in the movie theater … it doesn’t hurt anything to have it but it doesn’t change a dang thing either.  :o)

Cited

Wikipedia, (2013). Prayer.  Retrieved from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer,_meditation_and_contemplation_in_Christianity

Wikipedia, (2013). The Jesus Prayer.  Retrieved from: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer

Moyer, J.D. (2011) Sytems for Living Well. “Why I Pray as an Atheist.”  Retrieved from:

http://jdmoyer.com/2011/07/25/why-as-an-atheist-i-pray/

ON MUSIC AND THE HEART...

Response to a question posed in Music Class...

Why would Europeans feel that Native American Music is Primitive?

Maybe they thought it was primitive because they use the intellect over feeling or inner-knowledge which cannot be learned but can be known and this leads one when they don't understand something to just categorize and stamp a label on it and call it "primitive" but if life is a timeless experience (which it actually is) "primitive" is a lie.  Yes music has become "fuller" but the energy is still the same.  What song and music comes out of ... does not change.  So it is always the same energy pushing forth what comes through, it may seem more advanced because it is more complex in technique, but it is still the same simple energy it has always been.  However, Thomas Edison was able to see and capture what others were attempt to change.  If it were primitive we wouldn't still desire to hear it ... it would be extinct like the dinosaurs.  However, since there is still a message to hear in it...it is still here.  What we don't understand we attempt to change or destroy.

I worked on a reservation in Arizona for 3 years for a telecommunications company that was separated into two companies, one that was run by the Tribe (Salt River Pima) and they owned the switch for the phone and internet to run off of and offered it to those that lived on the reservation and the other company was run by a group of men and women that built out the switch maintained it and sold it off the reservation (on U.S. soil ... which was always funny that I would leave the country ever day but still be in the Country :o).  

Sometimes it was challenging to get the two companies that were in the same building to function, the Reservation had their way of doing things and the other company had theirs.  The people from the Reservation tended to work much more slowly and took longer to learn things, but they did eventually, but it could be frustrating for the employees of the other company that were looking to progress and sell so they would have to slow down and pace themselves.  What I watched and learned while I was there (and I got frustrated sometimes too and I have Native blood but was not raised in it), I got to see that the people on the Reservation weren't trying to "get" anywhere.  There was no ultimate goal except to do what they were doing.  I really really appreciated this coming from a society where you were always trying to get to the next best thing.  

I also saw how the people on the reservation did start to learn and do things more rapidly and efficiently and had higher self-esteem from their workings with our company.  Everything Serves.  So there was a lot that went on in that company that wasn't so quickly seen, but in a way it was a small microcosm of Pilgrims coming to Native Land and the merging of the two.

I wrote the following journal entry yesterday and it seems related to what is being spoken about.  And although it may seem a bit far fetched (maybe not) at some other time it may not.  It is not edited so please excuse the typos and formatting and run on chatter :o)

2013 06.10 10:42am – So I am having flashbacks (which haven’t happened in a long time) while reading “An Introduction to America’s Music” for MUSIC class and it is speaking about “Fools Crow” who is a main character of Indian decent that is summoned by a realm to take a religious journey which flashes me to 1997, when I had the dream that said “YOU ARE GOING TO SCOTTSDALE ARIZONA” and I didn’t even know where that was and within 6 months was living in Arizona and within a year working in Scottsdale.  I have not ever thought of it as a religious (don’t like that word) journey.  I just thought I was a weirdo that had a dream that there was not option in listening to because I was told to.  It wasn’t an option … it was like an Earth Shattering event. 

So the book goes on to speak about this Indian who had visions of the future to come…which again flashed me to 1998, when I had the visions of the Earth Changes, and how everyone I love would die because New York would be underwater.  And how I wrote to Mom and was telling her to let people know and the only one that really took me with any seriousness about it was Pete, who moved to Colorado or at least I thought he heard me and Mom also.  That is when I found Gordon Michael Scallion (ha! I haven’t looked him up in 1000 years but his website is now called the Matrix Institute of all things my favorite movie  :o) 

I have not ever felt the need since then to spread the news, but I did have a very strong pull to leave AZ after a while as there was always an image that it would be ocean front property but that there wouldn’t be much water to drink for a long time and there would be flooding. 

Fool’s Crow goes on to teach people to make peace within themselves…sounds familiar on this experience I am having…since the only thing I am drawn to is Pointing to That.

Fool’s Crow goes on to say many things about being virtuous and next life stuff that I don’t have much interest in (ha that sounds badly too) but what does interest me is that he mentions that generations to come will know the way it was (which comes also to me in flash and in this music class and in all the Native people I keep coming across including Wayneji).  He speaks of the Below Ones, The Underwater People and the Above Ones and I have had flashes of all of them also and can almost recall living underwater and also eliminating the fear of Aliens in understand … the only ones I have not been in tune with is the Below Ones…I have read about the Lemurians at Mt. Shasta but have not felt a connection with it and have not ever wanted to go underground…don’t care for caves even though I love cave time.  Don’t mind the fear of drowning (though I don’t like it) but I really don’t like being buried alive and the pressure on the body and the lungs and the intensity of feeling cemented in which has come up a few times on Psychedelics.  Water I can handle and it is quick usually but earth is not as kind.

They say Indians were headed for extinction, but from what I can tell in myself you cannot extinct the DNA cause it flows in this blood and it is like having memory bank storage that reveals itself in perfect timing and all the culture is still there, it just isn’t tapped into until the moment arrives that it is … nothing can be lost.  All is recorded. 

When the History of All Time opened up on the back porch of MU in one instant … less than a millisecond (whatever that is) everything was seen and Known about life on Earth…it was so fast and instantaneous that the mind could do nothing…it was helpless to the information and it took a great deal of time (not really but in Earth years it was) to process. 

It is not that I can remember everything that has happened but I know the information is there and available for accessing.  Like I know I could fly a plane if I had to because the information is there.  Do I know how to tap into it…no.  But I don’t need to know… if I am supposed to know…then I will and that is the gift that was given in the History of All Time moment.  Doesn’t mean it will make me better at Math because if I am supposed to suck at it that is how it goes… but I do know that I already Know every bit of Math that could ever be thought up, because there is no such thing as time and so all of everything has already happened and simultaneously nothing ever has.

I am beginning to wonder if my Indian both American and India run much deeper than I can intellectually understand and why I have so many challenges with white men and an underlying anger.  Reminded again of last year when Wayneji said to look into this.  I had thought it was because of my father, but I am seeing now that it was not…it was a deeper line in history of White men doing things that at the time seemed cold and destructive.  I also am aware of the White in me…that on my mother’s side there is a long White line and they were not bad people, but had been immersed in many things that they may have had to turn their head away from or had done themselves for their own survival.  This would be the attraction of my mother to my Father who he seems to have much more of a lineage of Black, Indian both kinds and German keeps coming up (which would account for his background in Science and becoming a Scientist … which I only assume he was from stories he told of working at Bell Labs and seeing the video telephone back in the 70s that we couldn’t even imagine having in our homes and yet I spent the last 10 years video conferencing for QT with my Family all over the world.)

Also no wonder I am drawn to transcription, which is also in the Native and White, blood … Thomas Edison Invented it and used it in recording the Natives both with audio and video.  I imagine Thomas Edison was a user of psychedelics probably mushrooms and peyote.  Don’t take these substances lightly … they are not a party drug though they can be introduced that way…best to revere them as scared so that they can reveal to you the Gift that they are.  A white man like Thomas Edison would be necessary for the information to come through because his brain would have been prepared to formulate and use the information through his education…not just his but the education of his DNA.   That information could not be used on a Native American because they didn’t readily have that part of the brain activated to receive it.  It’s not a level of higher or lower…just information and the ability to access it.  Like you can some “apps” on an Android phone but not on an Iphone and visa versa.  This is what I got to see early on in the business world.  People didn’t get more money because of anything other than that they had information and Dave Chappelle said as you move along in the world you see that life is made up of only two things “Soup” and “Information” and that the more you move up the better the soup and information gets.  Yummers Dave Chappelle, Yummers!

So I would say they saw it as primitive because they did not understand it and maybe it has seemingly taken a long time for it to finally come around to be appreciated and seen for what it is ... a true Gift.

THOUGHTS

(Click Photo for "Ask YourSelf")

Those thoughts you have that go by all the time, one after another, bringing all kinds of other thoughts and reactions and sensations, have nothing to do with Reality.  This is not something that you can take someone’s word for (although taking someone’s word for it, at first, is a great helping hand in beginning to see for yourself), you must be willing to investigate whether or not, thoughts have anything to do with Reality, or do thoughts appear after the fact.  It is not only possible, but actual, that everything you think, is after what happens, even your arm moving or your eyes reading this, is after the fact of it happening.  The body registers the information and then the brain receives it and thought appears and this is all very instantaneous, yet still behind the action.

Why would you want to begin to see that thoughts have nothing to do with Reality, because then you will begin to see that you are not the thoughts.  This will lead to beginning to ask, if I am not the thoughts, then who am I?  Or “if they are not my thoughts, who’s are they?”  Did you ever wonder where a thought comes from or do you just blindly follow them?  The funny thing is…the blindly following is even before the thought.  Awareness of this, will begin to shed light on a darkened state of mind.  Until someone turns the light on, no one even knows they are in the dark. 

It’s like fish at the bottom of the sea, they do not know they are in the dark, if you went down there and said to them…”hey…fishes…you are in the dark” they might say… “what the hell is dark?” how would you describe it to them?  However, if you took one in your arms and started swimming north, up and up and the dark became lighter and lighter, until the fishes eyes burned and it said “oh…I see…it is so warm, it is beyond warm, it is behind kind, I didn’t know what cold was until now, I don’t know how to explain this, but I know how it feels.”  And then you start to go back down and the fish doesn’t understand why would you bring him back down to the darkness and you explain that the Light would obliterate him because he comes from the dark, but as he now Knows the Light … Knows where all are going and that it is not out or in or north or south or up or down but it is IN everyONE, that the fish can now point to it with others that are in the dark and Lighten their load.

So the fish goes back down to the deep sea and it is not easy to tell those that have not seen something, something which cannot be explained but can be Known and yet he starts and he begins to help move the other fishes that Hear him up slowly into lighter gentler waters and as they move up others move up with them and they all begin to see that what once so dark and scary and unknown, is not that at all.  That they have been in it all along, they only thought they were in the dark.  But the Light was/is always Here.

Thoughts are like Dark waters, you can share with one that they are not in Dark water but only paying attention to Dark water, but the only way for one to See they were in Dark water, is to begin to stop pay attention to the thoughts.  Not trying to stop the thought…just not paying attention to them.  One must begin to pay attention to what is before the thoughts, what thoughts appear In, the space between thoughts…this space right here (       ).

If you are one that is ready to begin to stop paying attention to the thoughts, then get in touch with me. 

  ~Joysters

LIVING WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS...

(click image)

In a world where there is instantaneous everything, for most, living with unanswered questions can be a beginning step in the discovery of who you are.  Many may ask the question “who am I?”  And then like with all things of the world, expect an immediate answer and not only immediate, but one that is completely understood and explainable.  However, this is not the domain or way of the Truth of who you Are.  Even this writing will mislead you. 

The way of the Truth of Who you Are, is filled with twists and turns and paradox, inconsistencies and incongruent (ness), hypocrisy and ludicrousness.  It is not a straight road … except it is.  How do you tell someone you are on a road to nowhere (now here)?  You don’t, but your life being lived will reflect it and those that are paying attention will begin to see through you, that it is true. 

So next time you need an answer to anything that comes up, take a pause, don’t be so quick to find the answer.  See if you can hold out and see whether or not the answer shows up in a way you could not have predicted.  This is the fun of beginning to See.  You begin to See that everything you have ever needed shows up.  But you overlook it when you are searching for the answer, you don’t get to see all the many ways it comes … because you are looking for something specific.  When you put your search down for an answer, it allows for all possibilities to that question to arise … it’s like opening a box and then just leaving it open … not looking inside, just leaving it open, you might even begin to allow the possibility that you don’t even know what a box is … this is not becoming an idiot, it is seeing that we have labeled everything to the point that we actually don’t know what anything is, we just assume we do because it has a label…that is actually being an idiot as opposed to allowing for not knowing. 

So just for today, be the box with the open top and allow that you don’t know who or what you are, but you are interested.  And wait and see.

FEAR OF FEAR ...

February 18, 2013

We have been trained to believe that what we “think” and “see” are real.  Not necessarily what we actually see, but what we see on TV or through the Internet.  But how often have you actually seen, what they say happens on TV … in your reality?  You can spend your whole life afraid of things that will not ever happen to you.  All that you are afraid of is a belief that it could happen to you.  But come on … take a look at your life … honestly … you’re alive right now somewhere reading this … didn’t everything work out?  Honestly, hasn’t your life worked out for you, everything has worked out and you are now in the moment you are in, with a whole day ahead of you to be surprised by what shows up.

The fear that arises from what we “think” and what we see on TV or read or hear on the Internet is not really fear.  

It is fear of fear.

Real fear is when something is actually happening.  Like a car is coming at you, that is real fear and the body will more than likely jump out of the way or freeze like a deer in headlights, but that would be an actual “feeling” of fear, experience of “fear.”

Fear of fear, is when you are afraid that something may or may not happen because of something you “think” or from something one-step removed from your realty (i.e., like TV or Internet news/talk).

One of many huge Gifts that has been received from reading the “Autobiography of Mark Twain”, is that he shows (since it was written over 100 years ago) that things do not really change. People are still scared of the same things that happened or were thought of 100 years ago. The newspaper stories from back then are not much different than now, there was still corruption, unemployment, murders, abuses, scandals, wars … everything that is happening now … was happening then … it just looks different because the faces and names have changed. This was/is a huge gift to see … because when one is willing to see to stop and take an honest look, you begin to see that things just happen.  There isn’t actually cause and effect, but life happens and people (you) comment on it.

This is a simple practice to begin to see that the above is so, just begin to watch and see if you could do something any other way than how it is done.  At first, it will seem like you can, that you can make your hand move or your mouth speak but if you are diligent in your watching/Witnessing of life and “you” in it … you will begin to see that action happens and then it is thought about and you will see the hand raise and see the thought as well “I raised my hand” but you will begin to intuitively know that the hand raised a split second before the thought to raise it or saying it was raised actually occur.  You have to want to know this but if you do, you will soon see that you are not the one moving the hand.  When this is seen then you begin to question, “If I am not moving the hand, who is?”  Which leads to the ultimate question, if I am not who I think I am:

“Who am I?”

You will begin to start worrying about it less and watching/Witnessing it more and more.  You begin to wait and see what happens, instead of saying what will happen. Life will reveal itself to you. It always is and has anyway, you just *thought* it was the other way around.

When you are honest … you see that everything has always worked out, this will continually reveal itself to you, as each problem (seeming) arises you will begin to relax more into watching how it resolves itself and you will watch your role in it rather than believing you are the role.

It doesn’t mean that you will or will not like how it works out, but it will work out and not just for you but for everyone.

Turn off the TV and Internet every once in awhile and go outside and breath the fresh air, look up at the sun, check out the stars and put your feet in the grass, the soil or the ocean.  You can take a break from all the drama of the world. It will still be there when you want it, when you want to be afraid or scare yourself, turn it back on or find that friend that always has all the bad news to give you. :o)

However, if you are starting to see the cracks in the stories of how bad it all is, then go out and look at the day and smile at it. It’s all for you.

BEING CLEAR...

As one begins to become less and less attached to the thoughts about “who they think they are” they become more CLEAR.  Clear is like being empty, but empty is not empty, when it is CLEAR.  It is a challenge to use words, but let’s say as you become more “empty” of who you think you are, it doesn’t make you less of “What You Are.”  So you actually become more clear; and the fullness of who you are Shines through.  When you are full of “who you think you are” it is like a grey film that covers the Clarity of who you Are.

An example would be if you have a glass of water (imagine that “you” are the glass of water) and it has lots of particles of minerals in it, lots of them, thousands of them (which represent the thoughts of who one thinks they are), the glass of water will look black and murky.  But as you begin to question who you are, by asking “Who Am I?” and seeing a process of elimination appear, each thought (mineral/particle) that is removed makes the glass of water Clearer.  Eventually you get down to the last thought (particle/mineral) which is “I” and as that is removed (vanishes) the water is Crystal Clear.

If this analogy comes through as intended, you will see that not having an “I” thought doesn’t take away from you, it leaves you as you are, in a state of Clarity, in Clear Water, so you are empty of the thought (mineral/particles); but full of the Self (Clear Water). 

It seems that many think, when they hear in spiritual circles, to be “nothing” or “empty,” that it is hollow and scary.  But it is Lightness of Being, it is Clarity and it is Clear and it is Fullness, the Fullness of Being Empty!

You Are THAT! :o)

Cheerio!