Eliminating Mind Chatter

What is internal mind chatter, or better known as, your internal dialogue? Most here are intimately familiar with it, but for those new to self help work, the internal dialogue is simply the mind-chatter that goes on in our heads at all times - the little voices that run lists, create inventories, make pronouncements (judgments, observations, questions), and in general "sing the world into being", as the Aborigines call it. Everything we experience is commented upon by the internal dialogue. "He's handsome," it observes. "Got to go to the post office today," it says, over and over, as if to remind us lest we could possibly forget. "Big tree." "Did you feed the fish?"

The problem with the internal dialogue is that it is what maintains your 'fixed attention' of the consensual reality. It keeps the agreements and strengthens them by never allowing you to examine your own I-Am from within the place of Silent Knowing. And that, of course, is why it is necessary to learn to stop the internal dialogue - to be able to actually find the awareness and attention point of the higher/core self which is otherwise drowned out by the chatter. What I have personally found to work best, at least for starters, is simply this:

1. Make a commitment to doing the exercise listed below for at least 30 minutes every night. If night time doesn't work for you, commit to the time of day when you are most "in touch" with your spirit.

2. Sit in silence and simply observe your inner thoughts. Do not attempt to analyze, categorize or stop the internal dialogue. Just listen to what it is saying. Do this for a minimum of 5-10 minutes, calmly accepting that this is the beginning, and that no attempt is being made to effect change at the present Now. You are simply observing & listening.

3. At a certain point, which may happen almost "in a flash", or might require several attempts to really observe, it will become aware to you that there are two "minds" at work. There is the self doing the speaking (the internal dialogue), and there is the self doing the observing. What you will further experience is that the "speaker" does not really like being watched, and once it realizes this is happening, it will almost seem to turn to you with an inquisitive gaze, rather like a dog caught whizzing on the floor. :-) Point is: it has just become aware that it is not alone, and just by virtue of being "caught in the act", there is a tendency for it to become more circumspect. It begins to observe itself, and this is where the real beginning can occur.

4. Once you have observed the twin selves (speaker and listener), it becomes possible to further realize that the listener is actually the higher self, and that when shifting to that higher awareness, (coming to "Awareness" rather than simply existing at the lowest common denominator of mechanical progression through life), you begin to experience for the first time the place of silent knowing. From there, once you learn how to shift to the place of higher awareness at will, the internal dialogue ceases to be a problem.

This is a technique that will yield very rapid results - not to entirely STOP the internal dialogue, but to give you direct awareness and experience of the twin-mind phenomenon, and as a result of that awareness, to consciously shift your attention to the infinitely more Aware higher self by choice. And, like any serious spiritual work, this is not a technique that will be mastered in a single sitting, though I've found that many actually do have a real "Eureka!" experience just by virtue of being able to experience "observer" and "observed" simultaneously.

The trick of this technique is that it does not rely on force or any direct attempts to silence the internal dialogue. It only requires the commitment to do it, and the gentle but ruthless task of observing oneself without judgment or fear.

Kristopher Kelley

Tips For Starting The Wim Hof Method

Here is a list of five pointers or tips for starting the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona and figured I’d post them here on my blog, as they will assist you during the process of beginning the WHM (Wim Hof Method.) If you think about it, you can use these pointers for just about anything and everything in your daily life if you put your mind to it! Give these a try and see how they work for you. 

Avoiding 

Whatever you avoid, like taking cold showers, meditation or performing breathing exercises, somebody or something else has to pick up. Emotions are energy in motion. If you don't experience them, then the energy either goes into your body and is stored there or it goes out into the world. Why would you make others experience what you, yourself, are avoiding? Avoided and unresolved issues are stored in the subconscious (and the physical body, IMHO) and we have to tackle these issues directly if we want resolution. I can assist you through the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona if you would like me to. Just contact me on this page and I will get back to you as soon as I can. 

Stagnation

When energy is blocked or can't move, it stagnates. In your body, the restricted energy goes into adjacent muscles and organs and causes illness. In your personality, restricted energy flows into the patterns that you are least aware of and they run. In groups, restricted energy flows into the people whose attention is weakest and they are flooded. When energy stagnates, change and eliminate the configuration or pay the consequences. Once again, I can assist your mind and body with the process of energy stagnation and the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona. Using the WHM, I can work together with you to clear out all your personal history and stagnation. 

Momentum

Consistently performing the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona builds momentum. Momentum doesn't just go away. It has to go somewhere. When attention is not present, momentum flows into old patterns and powers them. The more you practice the WHM and the longer you practice, the more important attention becomes. There are no vacations when working out unresolved issues. This is where a bit of motivation comes in on my part in assisting you. We must keep going…FURTHER! 

Rhythm

Respect the rhythms and ‘feelings’ of the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona. Wim is always speaking about ‘following your feelings.’ This is important with the WHM as it may be dangerous if you don’t pay attention or follow the rhythm. When you are tense and on edge in your Wim Hof Method work, just chill, relax and rest. When you are relaxed and open, push deep into the training you are working on, push deep into your own cells of your body. Glass doesn't bend; it breaks. Water doesn't move until you open a channel. Once again, doing the work of the Wim Hof Method ‘opens the channels’ within your mind and physical body…if you just practice how to relax, and then perform WHM exercises and such. 

Old ways (Habits)

Once you see through a pattern using the Wim Hof Method, once you see what you've been doing, thinking, behaving, you can't go back. Ignorance may have been bliss, but you aren't there anymore. This means you can’t use your old excuses anymore, or use your old patterns and behaviors as a crutch anymore. Thus, you need to be prepared to live your (new) life without the old thoughts, actions and beliefs. This will take some practice, but if you complete at least one full week, but no more than a month of the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona, this should clear out most of the old ways, habits and beliefs. If not…well, that’s what the training is for! If not, I’m here to assist as well, both mentally (motivation!) and physically, with tips on the training. 

Hopefully this short blog post will entice you to begin or to continue on with the Wim Hof Method in Prescott Arizona. It’s a marvelous mind-body healing technique, yet it’s not just theory. You actually have to DO it! If you don’t know where to begin, contact me. This information is provided below.

Kristopher Kelley 

warrior.of.lite@gmail.com

(928) 273-8666

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing. 

It doesn't interest me how old you are, I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. 

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow, have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. 

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine and your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. 

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic or to remember the limitations of being human. 

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. 

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore to be trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty everyday, and if you can source your life from its presence. 

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon...YES! 

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done for the children. 

It doesn't interest me who you are or how you came to be here. I want to know if you can stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. 

It doesn't interest me what or where or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. 

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in empty moments.

Oriahe Mountain Dreamer

Death Is An Advisor - Memento Mori

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have." ~ James Baldwin

Death is the key to life. Death defines life, gives it shape and meaning and context. Without a clear and honest relationship with our mortality, we live in a state of endless spiritual sprawl, a soupy gray fog that creates that hellish illusion of life stretching endlessly in all directions.

We’ve homogenized our lives by hiding the parts we’re afraid of, and in so doing, we’ve removed all sense of urgency from life. We have taken death out of life and that allows us to live unconsciously. Death never left, of course, we’ve just turned away from it, pretended it wasn’t there. If we wish to awaken - and that’s a mighty big if - then we must welcome death back into our lives. Death is our own personal Zen Master, our source of power, our path to lucidity, but we have to stop running from it in a blind panic.

We need only stop and turn around and there it is, inches away, staring at us with unblinking gaze, finger poised, every second of our lives. That finger is the one true thing in the dream-state, and it will, for a fact, come down.

Death-awareness is the universal spiritual practice. What we have sought in books and magazines, in teachers and teachings, in ancient cultures and foreign lands, has been breathing down our neck the entire time. It’s not just another mood-making spiritual technique that you dabble with for a few weeks and blame yourself when it doesn’t deliver. Death always delivers. Death is your only true friend, the only friend that will never abandon you and that no one can take away. It slices through every lie, ridicules every belief, mocks every vanity and reduces ego to absurdity. He’s sitting with you right now. If you want to know something, ask him. Death doesn’t lie.

The inverse of death-awareness is equally important.  Learn to practice death-denial awareness.  Anytime you find yourself sitting on the couch watching TV, shopping in the mall, or trying to find amusement in some pointless book or idle pastime, remind yourself that this is exactly the habit you want to break.  Try to catch yourself in all the situations throughout the day when you are not awake, not aware, going through the motions of your life in a virtually somnambulistic state.  Remind yourself constantly:  This moment, right now, I am in the sleep-state.  This is the mindlessness I’m addicted to like a drug.  I am an opium addict living in an opium dream.  This is the coma; this slow oozing of my life down the drain.  Right now, my life is slipping away.  

Another powerful thing about the practice and cultivation of death-awareness is that it provides an accurate barometer of your own spiritual sincerity, though you may not want one.  Anyone can go sour on mainstream religion and adopt a less orthodox belief system to replace it, but how many people are really sincere in their spiritual aspirations?  

Probably everyone thinks they are, but are YOU really?  Are you willing to go wherever this leads?  To do whatever it takes?  Thousands talk the talk for one who walks the walk.  The practice of death-awareness separates the walkers from the talkers.  We can use this as a spiritual self-diagnostic to determine, once and for all, if spirituality is something we’re serious about or if we’re just tourists.  Most are just tourists, but which of us are sincere and which are dabblers?  

If you want to answer this question for yourself, here’s your chance.  Your relationship to your own mortality tells the tale.  Everyone is either facing toward it or turned away from it, it’s that simple.  Toward or away.  If you can’t face the most fundamental fact of your own existence, what can you face?  This is ground floor, entry-level awakening.  It doesn’t get any closer or simpler than this.  

If, based on the posts in this thread, your life does not undergo major restructuring over the next few months, then you have your answer; you’re a tourist with no real desire or intent to wake up.  What you do with that knowledge is up to you.  Maybe you don’t want to know the answer to this question, but if you don’t want to know, then you know. 

Kristopher 

Intuition and Your Spiritual Guidance System

INTUITION AND YOUR SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM

QUESTION: 

“To be honest, I don’t care about enlightenment or god, but I want to live the best life I can and a part of that is to try to find a way to live with sickness, death, violence and all those bad things I can’t control. There are so many theories, belief systems and ideas floating around so where to turn? Where to start? And some spiritual teachers say there is nothing to do which may be true but is not helpful at all.

So my questions is, where can I find my GPS-system to guide me? Where do I look for direction? It can’t be a book or an external authority. My best answer so far is intuition. My own feeling (not really an ordinary emotion like fear or anger, etc.,etc.,) of what is the next right step.”

ANSWER:

The “best life” you can live is the one you are already living.

There is no “better” or “best” version out there. THIS is all there is.

That your current experience of life is filled with confusion (competing theories, ideas and belief systems) and suffering (sickness, death and violence) does not mean that the quality of your life is poor.

A “good life” is not one that is free of pain and confusion. That is an EASY life.

It sounds to me like you are conflating a good life with an easy life.

Why should life be easy?

I can give you many strategies for living an easy life. I can tell you numerous ways by which you can quite easily live with the sickness, death and violence in the world. Or I can show you ways to completely resolve the conflict between the various beliefs and theories out there.

In fact, as we speak, millions of people across the world are using these strategies right now – and quite effectively. Ignorance, apathy, magical thinking, spiritual bypassing – these are tried and tested techniques for living with suffering. And as for resolving the conflicts between various beliefs and theories – its easy, just pick one belief system and brainwash yourself thoroughly.

But a “good life” is rarely ever an easy one. Because it is one that refuses to accept things at face value - to turn away from doubts, discrepancies and inconsistencies. In fact, it is oriented towards delving deeper in an effort to get to the marrow of experience. To savor living.

Encountering doubt, conflict and irreconcilable differences not only become inevitable – they become NECESSARY. If you do not feel uncomfortable with the suffering in the world it means you are either ignorant or are numbed. Suffering should feel uncomfortable – just like the smell of shit should stink.

Suffering stinks and I hope you never lose your sense of smell for it.

Desensitization is a coping mechanism that people use to deal with the feeling of becoming overwhelmed by the sensory inputs in their environment. Life is too intense for them and so they learn to “dim” it in order to engage with it.

But a dimmed existence isn’t what you are looking for, is it? Rather it’s the opposite. Its one in which you are able to engage with life in its full intensity.

A life fully lived.

Such a life requires us NOT to desensitize, but to do the opposite – to become increasingly sensitive and intimate with it. We begin to feel things more intensely – sensations, emotions, thoughts – even conflict, confusion and suffering.

However, sensitivity and tolerance tend to be inversely proportional. So, those who have a high immunity or tolerance to their own suffering (or that of others) also tend to have less of an awareness or sensitivity towards that suffering. Whereas, people who are sensitive towards that suffering also feel the negative impacts of that suffering more acutely.

Seekers tend to be of the more sensitive kind. They often begin seeking because they have felt something about their own existence acutely enough to be motivated to find out more. Yet, they also tend to feel the impacts of suffering more acutely for the very same reason.

Therefore, seekers are driven by dual motivations – to discover truth AND to alleviate pain.

The problem is that these two goals exist at cross-purposes. I often say to people: “the truth isn’t going to feel good.”

And so, there is this fundamental conflict at the heart of every seeker. Two competing motivations struggling for dominance. For the majority, the desire to relieve suffering wins out over the desire for truth. This is why you see so many spiritual paths presenting “liberation from suffering” as their highest offering.

Non-duality, in particular, attempts to package its offering as a 2-for-1 deal – offering both truth and peace within the same solution. Its strategy is to simply get rid of the “separate self” eliminating the very root of suffering, thereby revealing the truth of reality.

But a self can no more eliminate itself than a knife can cut itself or a single hand can clap. And so, the REAL effect of non-dual teachings is one of total desensitization. Where the self, rather than being eliminated, becomes utterly sedated. And the resulting experience of life – while perhaps reduced in conflict and suffering, is also a greatly dulled experience bearing little resemblance to truth.

As I’ve already said, there are many ways to live with confusion and suffering – and absolute self-denial is one of them.

So, before I answer your second question, you need to ask yourself:

“What is it that I truly want? Truth or peace?” And I want you to work on the assumption that only one of them is possible. That you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

In other words, truth may not be peaceful. And peace may not be truthful.

Which is it that you choose?

If your choice is peace, above all else, then you do not need my input. There are literally hundreds of teachers, writers and gurus out there (many of whom you are already aware of) who will do a much better job than I ever can of showing you a technique to achieve greater peace of mind.

However, if your choice is truth – then you have to be willing to forfeit “peace” as an expected outcome. That is not to say peace is forever going to be withheld from you. You may very well feel moments of great peace – but these may not endure. Or you may feel no peace at all. The important factor here is that peace, if it occurs at all, will be just a by-product – a side-effect that cannot be predicted and will never be the primary focus.

Is that what you want?

If that is the case – then your initial query of “finding a way to live with suffering” becomes a moot point of consideration. You will either figure it out or you won’t.

This brings us to the next point that you brought up about the “internal GPS system”. Most people are simply guided by pain-pleasure responses. And so, they orient themselves via external markers that elicit such responses. Driven by a desire to alleviate pain and to find peace/comfort – they pursue those objects, people and experiences that bring them a sense of ease, security and comfort.

But if those are NOT the primary factors that you want your life to be guided then the question becomes – what is?

If pain and pleasure are the dual coordinates used by those who are oriented by a need for peace – then what are the coordinates used by those guided by a desire for truth?

What is that faculty within us that orients us towards these new coordinates?

You hit upon it when you mentioned the faculty of intuition. You called it “not really an ordinary emotion” – and you are right, it isn’t.

But what is intuition exactly?

The simplest way I can define it is – intuition is our compass for aligning with life. In other words, it is not so much a sense of what is the “right thing for me to do” – it is more the sense of “what does this circumstance (life) require of me”?

The reason intuition is often so under-developed in people, is because it is actually very hard to follow through on it for three reasons:

-  Intuition isn’t always logical (makes rational sense)

-  Intuition doesn’t always reduce suffering

-  Intuition does not earn the support/validation of other people

If you reflect on it – these are three factors on the basis of which most people make decisions in life. Does it make sense? Does it make me feel good? Do other people validate and support me?

But it is often the case that intuition does none of the above. It may make little sense from a practical or rational standpoint. It can cause more anxiety and stress, often because it makes such little sense. AND few around us seem to understand or support it.

Like any muscle in the body or faculty in the brain, the less you use something (and by “use” I mean you put it to the test in real world scenarios) the less that faculty is allowed to develop.

And so, the only way to actually DEVELOP intuition – is to take a leap of faith and learn to follow through on it. Over and over again. And sometimes, things will pan out for you. Other times they won’t. But fear of pain and failure cannot be obstacles if your real motivation is truth. To hone your intuition (the only truth detector you have) you have to be willing to allow yourself to be guided by it and to learn from all experiences that result – positive and negative.

The reason I can tell you this, is that after two decades of following my intuition – I now trust it far above any other faculty of intelligence I possess, including reason. Because my reason (though I highly value it) is limited to only those variables and factors in my environment that I can “see” and “make sense of”. Whereas my intuition is tuned into the totality – both seen and unseen, the sensible and the absurd, the known and the mystery.

And whereas in the past I would have struggled to follow through on my intuitions – now I do so more effortlessly. As a result, what my faculty of reason qualifies as “right” or “wrong” – or what my survival instinct projects as “good” or “bad” – do not have the ultimate power to dictate my choices and actions. I don’t ignore these faculties by any means – but the ultimate power lies with my intuition. And it may be that my intuition leads me down a path that aligns with my reason and my survival instinct. Or it may lead me on a path that completely negates them.

Yet, there is no longer ever a case in which I act in a manner that directly contradicts my intuition in favor of logic or survival.

Now, there are certain caveats to what I’ve talked about here that should not be ignored.

Precisely because intuition can be such a powerful guidance system – there is a tendency for people with an underdeveloped intuition to overestimate it.

Because, how do you know you are not just following your own egotistical motivations parading as “intuition”?

That’s another trap people in New Age circles often fall into. Their “spiritualized egos” tend to rationalize every selfish whim or fancy as “intuition” – whereas in reality they are still very much operating from the pain-pleasure format that everyone else is on.

So, here are some of the features of intuition that may help you clarify where the motivation is emerging from:

Intuition is never ego-based. It is not designed to make a person’s ego feel enhanced in any way. So, if a decision or choice is making you “feel good”, “feel happy” or inflated in some way– this may not be based in intuition. An intuitive decision has more complex impacts than that. It is often a sobering experience – it can fill us with doubt and make us feel “smaller”/ humbled in comparison to the life circumstance we find ourselves in. An intuitive choice rarely makes us feel “safe” but rather it accentuates the uncertainty of the circumstance.

This is why intuition requires “faith” to follow through on. Not the kind of intellectual faith that belief systems require. But a faith in life itself. Intuition doesn’t promise a pleasurable outcome for you. In fact, it may (at least temporarily) even lead to great discomfort, anxiety and fear. So again, the feel-good factor may be altogether missing from the equation.

Intuition will almost inevitably be accompanied by feelings of doubt – often overwhelmingly so. It is rarely ever clear cut. It is not always rational. It can even seem morally ambiguous. In fact, when we follow through on it, it is rarely with a sense of certainty or confidence that we do.

One of the tell-tale signs of intuition is that it almost never manifests as an internal dialogue. It does not present an argument. It does not attempt to convince. It barely ever says anything at all. At most it may appear as a single statement, articulated out of the blue and gone before it is fully registered. More commonly it manifests as a deep-seated feeling of intention or sense of inevitability which can easily be drowned out by the noise of the thinking mind.

Intuition is not the voice of the thinking mind.

If you are thinking, it’s not intuition. It may be your mind attempting to rationalize an intuitive feeling – either in support of or against it. But it is not the intuition itself. That arises from a much deeper place.

The way to tune into intuition is through awareness. Sensitivity. Intimacy.

The very qualities that also make you vulnerable to pain and suffering.

This requires courage.

Courage because you are vulnerable. Courage because your conditioned mind cannot understand it. Courage because it feels uncomfortable and uncertain. And courage because no one in the world can validate it for you.

Not a parent. Not a friend. Not a teacher. Not a leader. Not a guru. Not even your own rational mind.

Life alone can provide you that validation via a sense of alignment with its own movement. And that alignment is experienced not as a feeling of pleasure, nor as a sense of intellectual “rightness” – but rather as a sense of underlying perfection, of wholeness – an overwhelming feeling that “all is well and as it should be”.

Nothing is missing. Nothing is amiss. Even in the midst of great suffering or hardship.

Free flowing spontaneity. Of thought. Of speech. Of action.

"Witness the disappearance of thought. This directive will stop the mind. Thought will cease. The witness is nothing but a descriptive thought arising that 'I am seeing'. The actuality is simply 'seeing is happening'. There is no 'I' that sees. SEEING that simple fact is enough. It may appear 'for the mind' as a small opening, a glimpse of pure open cognition happening. It is not a small opening, it is actually the vastness of presence-awareness, which has no size, small or large. It has no dimensions at all. The 3 Dimensional world appears in THAT and is THAT. Everything appears in the SEEING. The mind believes in a point of view and adds a story of 'me' the seer. It is just words appearing. Thoughts appear and disappear, yet they have no substance whatsoever. See that. Know that." Gilbert Schultz

Kristopher 

Surrender

Usually, when we think of a ‘warrior,’ someone drawing a line in the sand, making their last stand on earth, we think they are committing themselves to an all-or-nothing battle: Here and now, on this spot, live or die. That's the kind of ultimatum many often describe. They make it sound like a fight, like put up yer dukes...but it's really not.

It's the end of fighting, the end of a lifelong struggle.

Drawing this line doesn't mean battle stations, red alert, DEFCOM one and all that. It’s not that kind of battle. It means we have to lower our shields, not raise them. That's how easily and effectively we are undone, and it's because the enemy is within, running the show, redeploying all of our mental and emotional resources against us.

Instead of adopting a warlike posture, we must, counter-intuitively, lower our shields and defenses. This seems confusing until we understand that we are both the protagonist and the antagonist in this conflict, both attacker and defender.

This is the paradoxical nature of the struggle. We can't win by fighting. The very 'thing' that fights, that resists, is the 'thing' we seek to overthrow. Only by vanquishing self-importance can we prevail.

Only in surrender can we find victory. This is the part so few get, and fewer get beyond.

This is the part where everything starts sounding all sagely or Zen like, but that can't be helped. If you want to say that all religions and spiritual teachings share a core truth, it can only be this: Surrender is victory.

Yet, this isn’t the end.

It’s only the beginning.

Once we surrender, The Real Work begins.

Kristopher

Catching A Cold

This post is a little different from the rest, but feel it's needed here. This post ties in with impeccability and many other teachings of Wim Hof and others. This post references clients, but it is for all people in general. 

I often hear clients comment that they've 'caught a cold.' Really? As Tohei Sensei is famous for saying, "Why catch a cold? I throw them away!" BTW, I've not 'been sick' in over seven years and have never had the flu. I don't have a super-immune system, I have just focused on abundance of health, not dis-ease.

When, through insecurity (fear) and a feeling that there 'isn't enough,' we try to hold onto or cling to what we have, we begin to cut off this wonderful flow of energy. In hanging onto what we have, we fail to keep the energy moving and we don't make space for new energy to come to us.

People get sick because they 'believe' on an inner level that illness is an appropriate or inevitable response to some situation or circumstance, because it in some way seems to solve a problem for them or get them something that they need, or as a desperate solution to some unresolved and unbearable inner conflict.

If we are suffering physically in some way, it is a message that there is something to be looked at within our consciousness, something to be recognized, acknowledged, and changed.

This, above, is what I spend time on with clients using EFT Tapping, the WHM, inner silence, recapitulation and many other techniques. Seems to work like a charm!

Kristopher

Responsibility And Realization

I often hear people express a desire for deeper understanding. Why is it that some people seem to have understanding, and some don't seem to have so much? It might seem unfair. But you know, in daily life, we have a kind of proving ground for realization. Or we could say, a proving ground for the responsibility of realization.  

Many people in the world don't have enough food to eat. But in America we are so fortunate that we end up worrying about whether it's organic or not, or whether it is ‘cage free’ or not. But someone in Afghanistan would take it any way they could get it! This means they are grateful for the privilege of food. They are not snooty about it at all.  This is something that is important for us to keep in mind, even though we have plenty.  

In the same way some people have work, and some don't, especially over the past several years. The people that were around during the Depression (like my parents) in this country know that there are times when nobody has work. Or very few people have work. I mean it is not just the money, but work is a very valuable commodity. Work and love: the most wonderful things to have in your life. And yet, at times there are things that are challenging or difficult in our work. At least, as I observe it in my world, there are often people who seem to think that things are just not going the way they would like. Therefore, they are not grateful for the work and end up losing the opportunity. They don't see it as a privilege. They are so used to there being plenty to go around. It has no rare quality for them. And so, they throw it away unthinkingly.  

Clearly, it is the same way with relationships. If you do not appreciate the relationship you have, you soon will lose it. I am not talking about just spousal relationships here, but any kind of relationship.  

There are many small things that go with maintaining your daily life. And there are opportunities for each one of us. And often these opportunities are just out there and someone will pluck one and take it as their own, and own it, and do it. The cubic centimeter of chance, as Carlos Castaneda described it. This is something that is an opportunity for you to be grateful for. But the down side of this situation that we all find ourselves in is when we are not grateful for it, and don't see that it is a privilege, a privilege to have this opportunity. Then it is taken from us, and we don't get more.  

This is true in relationships and it is true in work. And these areas are just proving grounds. This is nothing yet. We are, in this, not even into the meat of it yet. These are just introductory. So, if you cannot handle the heat in regular everyday living, if you cannot be grateful and live your life for the privilege that it is, then you will never be given any deep level of realization, because the responsibility is a thousand-fold.  

You know, it might seem like, "Oh boy I would like to have bliss consciousness, some kind of rapturous realization that I could carry around with me all the time". But it's not like that at all. I mean it is a tremendous responsibility. Every little iota, and speaking from my own experience, every little iota that is given, it is made clear that there is a responsibility that goes with it. And if you don't see it as a privilege in the deepest part of your heart and are grateful for it and honor it, then indeed it will be taken from you, sooner or later. And you certainly won't be given any more. You won't be moving on, at least not until that issue is relived and appreciated for what it was.  

So, if you find yourself in your life, not moving ahead in financial, physical and emotional realization, then of course the same thing has to be true on a deeper, more spiritual level.  

I hope that this doesn't seem vague in some way. Because it seems very clear to me. Of course, we all make mistakes. We all fall down. We all forget things. We all forget to be grateful. It happens to me all the time. But, constantly remembering what I am writing about at this moment, bringing that back to your consciousness over and over again during the day, then it doesn't matter that you make mistakes.  

Then you will recover. Then you don't become bankrupt like the USA will soon be if someone doesn't take some action. If a company or a country becomes bankrupt, it already made the same mistake of forgetting to be grateful over and over, until finally all the money is gone. It doesn't happen with one fell swoop; never from a single event. You fall down once you get up again. I mean the way you progress is by making a mistake and learning from that, so of course that is not the end of things. Making a mistake means that you forgot to see this as a privilege. You forgot that you had been given a gift. Whatever you are engaged in that is a gift to you to be grateful for, and for you to honor, no matter how difficult. And if you do, then you will see things that you could never have seen in any other way. And you cannot tell others about them, actually. Because the only way you can see them is to get through that fire of difficulty to the other side. And it is that struggle that produces the substance, or character trait that we know of as maturity.  

These are just things that have sort of been washing over me lately, and naturally when that happens to me, then you get to hear about them too. I hope that you will think about this. I know if you think about it right now you can see how it played a part in your life this very day, today. Because this, in fact, is all that happens every day.

Curtis Sensei Lecture via Kristopher Kelley