Musings

This is from a couple of days ago. My Internet was down all weekend, but it's fixed now. I spent yesterday reading The Collapsing Tower and gaining new insights from there, so thoughts have changed... and it's all good.

-------------

A couple of years ago, I attended a level 1 Reiki course taught by Kirsi Voutilainen. That weekend was a watershed experience for me in more ways than one. It was perhaps my first time connecting in person with such deeply spiritually-oriented people who understood that there was so much more to life than what meets the eye; who had gone through incredible inner transformation and were committed to continuing that work; who clearly saw both the disease and the beauty of our world, as well as their causes and implications; who knew why they were here: to transmute the energies of the old world into those of the new, a harmonious and balanced Earth that called to their hearts from the future and drew them toward itself as co-creators of it. Healers. Old souls. Lightworkers. Spiritual warriors. Kirsi was one in whom I saw these qualities. Another was Markku, a star child and survivor spirit of the previous generation to mine. He and I have maintained contact and I consider him a real friend, though we've only met once.

No human relationship is without its issues, of course. With Markku I tend to feel like I'm being seen and appreciated for all that's best in me. But there's a lingering anxiety that if he could see me in totality, he would be sorely disappointed with all my failures to measure up to that "best." Now I know this is not the case, it's a totally irrational fear, but it's there and it brings a level of caution to my interactions with him lest I somehow offend or disappoint. This is a pattern that has shown up in other relationships too, but it particularly comes to the surface with this one. It's the dark side of my diplomatic streak and the ego's desire to be liked and win the approval of others. The antidote, I guess, is just to be more aware of it as a falsehood and have the guts to be more real. Which means operating from a deeper, truer place, free of even such a deep-seated fear. Courage to BE what I am, as I am, even if it means revealing my own lack of the qualities ego would wish to display as if it owned them. Ego cannot own the qualities of Spirit. All it can do is to stop getting in their way.

What it comes down to, again, as with everything else, is the Work. Cultivating the connection with divine truth. The God-Self. Recognizing the fears and desires and weaknesses of the flesh, accepting, forgiving - and choosing to follow the way of Spirit whenever the choice is clear.

I think it's safe to say we become more like that with which we identify ourselves. What we define, we limit. That's the literal meaning of the word, isn't it? To define oneself as solely a separate being - a mechanical consciousness built on inherently unconscious matter, a collection of programs arising from a Darwinian process of adaptation for survival - is tragically limited. But such a view is not hopeless for the open and searching mind. There are many ways to grow beyond those limits, to find real meaning and joy. Whichever path is most naturally suited to their needs and proclivities will open up to the individual thus seeking.

On the ultimate, fully transcendent level, we are all identical with the One. As individual souls, we embody some particular configuration of the archetypes into which the One differentiated itself for the purpose of the functionings of the universe, an incarnation of itself. Like cells in a body, we contain all the information needed to create a whole new body. But in order for the body to function optimally as it is, each cell has to perform its own particular function, some infinitesimal portion of the workings of the whole.

Around us, we see a great sickness. Human cells divided against other cells, filled with the toxic waste of their own dysfunction. The body is not threatened. It knows exactly what it is doing. It is healing itself. The methods at its disposal are legion. The toxins will be purged and transmuted, one way or another. Cells that are beyond help will die and be recycled. Balance will be restored. This is not some random process. It is part of a natural cycle. The crisis we observe is entirely under control. It appears threatening only to the extent that we lack the connection to the whole and its divine perspective.

Some of us are here to demonstrate what happens when disease takes over. Others are here to help the rest return to wellness. In healing ourselves, we facilitate the healing of others. These two processes are closely linked. From the point of view of the whole, anyone in the process of healing themselves is helping to heal the whole. And the source of healing is always within.

For myself, when asked what I want to be, probably the answer I most resonate with is "an angel." I want to channel the energy of heaven for others. The power, the love, the wisdom. That's a high calling, I suppose. One that I'm far from fulfilling yet, in more than a flawed and partial way. Still hamstrung by ego. But that's just as it's meant to be. One doesn't bring heaven to earth without first having roots in the earth, taking part in its pain and struggle, going through one's own little piece of hell and rising out, learning what it takes to transform the darkness, integrating it and transmuting it through the light.

I face my own laziness, cowardice, stubborn resistance. My lack of trust in the only thing worthy of all trust. The power of appearances would have me shrink in fear of what's to come, collectively, as well as the karmic results of my own past choices. But I know that the point is to break out of the past, to learn from it and do things differently. Come what may. It will work out exactly as it needs to, for my own learning and for the overall good of the whole.

At the Reiki course, I spent a moment reading an "angel board." An oracle. I asked about my purpose. The answer it gave was "Support." As far as I can tell, that's probably about right. In relation to others, in whatever capacity I'm able. In relation to myself, though, the "why am I here?" Hmm. I really think it's because I chose this. I volunteered. I wanted to take on the biggest challenge in the world. To be born on Earth, to forget who I am. To play the game called Being Human, and another one called Remembering. I must have been one heck of an optimist when I signed up. Multiple incarnations, all the karma that goes with them. Jeez, what a mess. But what else you gonna do, right? The world's a playground. You might as well get dirty, get into trouble, get lost for a while in the things you imagine. As long as the appeal is there. When you're done, you go home again anyway.

George Ure talks about "decoupling" from the system to survive and thrive when it breaks down. That would be nice. I like to fantasize about living in a self-sustaining way, somewhere closer to nature, apart from all the insanity of urban society. But I don't see it happening, not now. It's the economics, just infeasible with the means I've got, which is no means at all, as far as money is concerned. Besides, what about my schooling? OK, sure, in a perfect world, I could go be an apprentice and not have to go to a corporate-world-adapted institution for massage therapist training. But I digress. The point is that disengaging from society at large isn't an end in itself and I don't want to take it to the extreme. In fact, I'm too disengaged as it is, from the standpoint of being a useful human, helping others, contributing. Just another thing to angst over... or to simply understand and do something about. And I have been, a little. So that's good.

What I would really like is to spend more time with people. There's a lot of thresholds to that, though... So... I'll take my human contact as it comes, and initiate it when I feel moved to do so by the force that animates me...

0 comments: