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Night and Day

When you see the sun, do not think about it--experience it. When you see the moon, do not think about it--experience it. When you see what is in this moment, do not think about it--experience it.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily

Bumpy Ride?

There are many things we don't control in this life and some of them are going to fall on our feet and make us say "ouch!" Everyone stubs their toe once in a while or has a bad hair day or has an argument with someone else.

These things can make us feel as if our journey into self is for naught, as if we have made no progress whatsoever. Oh, wait! Take a few breaths, relax just a bit and let go. There it is...

The natural self is not going to disappear on you. It may be relaxing under a dark cloud you have temporarily dragged over the top of it, but it will always be there. When the cloud has been released, the natural self will be there with a warm smile and ready to move on.

And, return...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily

All We Know...

The false world is insidious. It is like a massive social virus, traveling from person to person at lightning speed on a daily and even moment-to-moment basis. We embed its perspectives into our cultural fabric. And then it becomes a de facto reality, as there is little to tell us otherwise.

Without the connection to the natural self in the natural world, nature can seem vaguely familiar, but yet alien. We find ourselves shifting our focus back to our schedules, events, duties, wants, time; we reinject ourselves with the virus of the false world and reinvigorate the false self with these abstract perceptions.

The natural self and the natural world are quieter and more subtle. But with one experience, one taste, one quiet moment of awareness, your life changes forever.

We see. We allow. We become.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily

In The Morning...

In the morning, start with stillness.
In the afternoon, return to stillness.
In the evening, relax into stillness.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily

Argh! The False World Is Driving Me Crazy!!!

Perfect! If you can recognize the way the false self clings to abstraction about the world and in so doing misses the world, you are nicely on your way... This recognition is an important part of the process of becoming the natural self.

Now, ask yourself this: If you can see the abstraction as abstraction and not real, what part of you is doing the seeing???

The natural self.

We recognize and move on.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily

The Essence of The Moment Is...

in the moment naked of our reactions, expectations, fears or any other abstraction. This is where life is, not in the drama we have created that we think is life. The experience of the moment is not in our reaction to it and abstractions about it...

So what is in the moment?

In the moment lies our connection to the rest of the natural world, our unaccessed potential and all of the things that arise from finding the nature of the moment in every moment. This is what is meant by being "in the moment."

Observe this today by returning again and again from abstraction to the perceptual mode of the natural self.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality

Change Directions...

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
~Lao Tzu

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality

The Path of The 842-Page Report

You are sitting in your beautiful home, a home deeply rich with all the elements of your self. You see something out on your lawn. Distracted, you walk outside to see what it is. When you get outside you forget what you are doing, you see the house and go to the front door to see who lives there. You knock on the door, but no one answers (why does no one answer?) Further confused, you take a picture of the house and walk around the neighborhood asking people what they know about the house and who lives there. Unfortunately, everyone else in the neighborhood is also distracted because they can't figure out who lives in the houses they are each standing in front of.

The police are summoned and they attempt to look through the bushes and into the windows with flashlights to see if anyone is home. They call for backup and a team is sent out to the house with scientists and technicians of all sorts. A camera crew arrives from the local station and reporters gather on the lawn trying to come up with ways to describe the situation, and though there is not much to describe as nothing much is known yet, they manage to come up with lots of empty words about the matter. Meanwhile, the scientists and technicians are busy measuring the house, testing the outer elements of the house, writing down lots of stuff and entering it into computers. They apply very sophisticated tools and manage to gather enough information to approximate what the house might look like from the inside, but they really can't be sure and tell the sheriff that they just won't know anything more until they can manage to get in the house. They promise that when they do get in the house they will take many pictures and many more measurements and they will be able to put together a much better approximation of the house and who might live there.

Stymied, the sheriff calls the governor, who dispatches a much more comprehensive team of forensics experts, profilers, psychologists, professors of studying things, a couple minor politicians, some religious leaders and a few lawyers. This group sets up on the front and back lawns in a carnival of giant tents with limousines and catering trucks coming and going. They set up committees, hierarchies, conferences and events. At the same time, a team of specialists has set up a ring of sensors around the house to use ground-penetrating radar to get a look at its lower structure. The press has gone national, so there is now the constant thrum of helicopters overhead and Geraldo has arrived to do the first part of a series of exclusive interviews with anyone who has any information about the house or who might live there.

After some time, a mountain of data is collected, analyzed and interpreted and an 842 page report is produced outlining seven different theories about the inside of the house, which is read by the sheriff word for word at a nationally televised press conference. He proudly exclaims that no effort was spared and every intellectual resource available was brought to bear, with thousands of hours spent trying to understand this situation. But, sadly, the sheriff concludes the press conference on a somber note. Despite everyone's best intentions, the sheriff says, all we may ever know about the inside of the house and the person who lives there is what is in the report. And the 842 page report is left sitting on the lawn (along with the odd bit of trash from the celebratory parties held after the press conference) fluttering in the wind.

Completely dazed from the ordeal, you find yourself at the front door and realize it is not locked...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality

Underneath

A leaf blower whines a few doors down in the too-early morning light; a small plane drones overhead seemingly forever; a truck lumbers down a nearby highway. And in between those sounds is the stillness of the natural world. Underneath those sounds is the stillness of the natural world. Regardless of those sounds, the natural world sits untouched, brimming with quiet energy.

Despite the protestations of the false world, the natural world waits for you and me to awaken to it, never disturbed, always ready to speak through us, to lead us, to provide us with our source of connection and all things.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Caught on Camera...

Once we have identified the false self and/or the false world in action, the picture is taken and we know who we are not. In the false self we see expectations, judgment, roles and limitations (among other things) and in the false world we see ideas, rules, lines, ideals, lists, available paths and control (among many, many other things).

And in that moment of recognition of one or both of these false entities, we immediately have access to the natural self. It is the natural self that witnesses these false realities.

And thus the door is open and we move through it into the flowering of the natural self.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Caught on Camera...

Once we have identified the false self and/or the false world in action, the picture is taken and we know who we are not. In the false self we see expectations, judgment, roles and limitations (among other things) and in the false world we see ideas, rules, lines, ideals, lists, available paths and control (among many, many other things).

And in that moment of recognition of one or both of these false entities, we immediately have access to the natural self. It is the natural self that witnesses these false realities.

And thus the door is open and we move through it into the flowering of the natural self.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

In the Body...

The natural self does not perceive through abstraction like the false self, so it is important that you be conscious of your whole body.

Physically, the natural self is the entire body.

Make sure you are breathing with your diaphragm so that your belly distends when you breathe in. Check in with your body randomly during the day to see if you are holding tension in your shoulders or somewhere else and release that. Eat more consciously and eat more healthful ingredients and note the effect on your ability to sense your body, as well as release tension and (perhaps more slowly) trauma.

Listen to it. Listen through it.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Where Is The Sun?

Perhaps if we embraced the changes of the seasons instead of hiding from them we would be less likely to acquire conditions like Seasonally Affective Disorder (SAD)...

But where is the sun? It's fairly low down toward the southern horizon for us in the U.S. Days are shorter; nights are longer; shadows lengthen and their angles go almost sideways; it is certainly cooler or colder than at other times of the year; some animals migrate, while others nest, having already prepared themselves for this change. Growing plants slow almost to a halt without warmth and sunlight; leaves fall away, allowing the weak sunlight better access to the ground.

And then there is a moment when everything falls silent... and the Sun is born again and the process unfolds itself into dynamic new configurations of growth and movement.

Where are you in that process?

Peace,

Anton Elohan

What Is Your Story?

Go ahead--write it down. Get it out into the open so you can see it the way you tell it to other people. Spit it all out and tell yourself everything about why you are who, what and where you are.

Now, quickly burn that bad boy before it enslaves someone else!

So, now that we have that out of the way, who are you really?

Peace,

Anton Elohan

My Dog Knows...

more than we do, apparently. I just realized exactly what that look is she gives me every once in a while. It's a test. She knows the difference between the natural world and the false world and she is asking me if I recognize it.

You know the look... It kind of says, "Are you stupid?"

Of course pets and other captive animals can become badly twisted by us attempting to force them into a false world they fully know is false and come out the other end pretty unhappy animals, but most just watch it all go by with a slightly sarcastic look usually aimed at the back of our heads. "What a waste of brainpower!," they seem to be saying.

Watch animals and note their behavior in the context of the natural world, not as we expect them to act in the context of the false world. Yet another clue right in front of us...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Just Ten Minutes...

Shoulders relaxed, spine straight, eyes close as you take a deep breath and exhale... Focus on the space between thoughts, but do not push those thoughts away... Allow sounds, thoughts and feelings to be just what they are and nothing more... Continue your focus on the space between them as your awareness becomes only what is real and not what your false self wants to make real... Relax into the moment without abstraction, judgment or fear.

This is the real you. This is the natural self. Just one step to the inside...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Snowfall...

Curling inward you nestle into the warm taproot of the natural self as the snow calms the natural world and the false world alike.

Rhythms slow, your own breathing becomes apparent and your connection first deepens and then rises into consciousness.

As your consciousness expands you release back into the natural world your expression, your gift.

And your gift becomes our gift.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Strip Off That Metaphor!

The winter solstice is a natural event--the last day of shortening daylight, the end of the natural yearly cycle and beginning of the next. The next day is the first day in which the length of daylight becomes longer than the previous day every day until the summer solstice, at which point it reverses again and the days become progressively shorter.

Most living things on this planet have developed cycles that correspond with the effects of this massive global cycle. Plants and animals alike prepare for the coming cold as the days shorten, even slowing their internal processes down radically to conserve energy in an environment where new energy is much harder to find. And then the reverse takes place at the winter solstice and life begins to seek new energy sources, with that very act of seeking contributing to the general upswelling of activity and energy. Sunlight becomes more and more plentiful and we seem to be living in a revival or renewal of the recently quiescent past.

This yearly event has deeply impacted life in almost all forms on the planet and has woven its way into human cultural fabrics of all colors. But we have isolated ourselves from feeling that impact ourselves with metaphors, morality plays, technologies, lifestyles and general disconnection from nature.

What would it be like to actually experience this cycle full on with no intervening veils? What would it mean to us to be a part of nature instead of an occasional witness to it?

So, instead of making a new year's resolution, just listen and watch. Let in the new energy that feeds things and makes them grow. You are a part of it if you choose to be and that energy is there for you as much as anything or anyone else.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Strip Off That Metaphor!

The winter solstice is a natural event--the last day of shortening daylight, the end of the natural yearly cycle and beginning of the next. The next day is the first day in which the length of daylight becomes longer than the previous day every day until the summer solstice, at which point it reverses again and the days become progressively shorter.

Most living things on this planet have developed cycles that correspond with the effects of this massive global cycle. Plants and animals alike prepare for the coming cold as the days shorten, even slowing their internal processes down radically to conserve energy in an environment where new energy is much harder to find. And then the reverse takes place at the winter solstice and life begins to seek new energy sources, with that very act of seeking contributing to the general upswelling of activity and energy. Sunlight becomes more and more plentiful and we seem to be living in a revival or renewal of the recently quiescent past.

This yearly event has deeply impacted life in almost all forms on the planet and has woven its way into human cultural fabrics of all colors. But we have isolated ourselves from feeling that impact ourselves with metaphors, morality plays, technologies, lifestyles and general disconnection from nature.

What would it be like to actually experience this cycle full on with no intervening veils? What would it mean to us to be a part of nature instead of an occasional witness to it?

So, instead of making a new year's resolution, just listen and watch. Let in the new energy that feeds things and makes them grow. You are a part of it if you choose to be and that energy is there for you as much as anything or anyone else.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Strip Off That Metaphor!

The winter solstice is a natural event--the last day of shortening daylight, the end of the natural yearly cycle and beginning of the next. The next day is the first day in which the length of daylight becomes longer than the previous day every day until the summer solstice, at which point it reverses again and the days become progressively shorter.

Most living things on this planet have developed cycles that correspond with the effects of this massive global cycle. Plants and animals alike prepare for the coming cold as the days shorten, even slowing their internal processes down radically to conserve energy in an environment where new energy is much harder to find. And then the reverse takes place at the winter solstice and life begins to seek new energy sources, with that very act of seeking contributing to the general upswelling of activity and energy. Sunlight becomes more and more plentiful and we seem to be living in a revival or renewal of the recently quiescent past.

This yearly event has deeply impacted life in almost all forms on the planet and has woven its way into human cultural fabrics of all colors. But we have isolated ourselves from feeling that impact ourselves with metaphors, morality plays, technologies, lifestyles and general disconnection from nature.

What would it be like to actually experience this cycle full on with no intervening veils? What would it mean to us to be a part of nature instead of an occasional witness to it?

So, instead of making a new year's resolution, just listen and watch. Let in the new energy that feeds things and makes them grow. You are a part of it if you choose to be and that energy is there for you as much as anything or anyone else.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Gift of Time...

is the first thing that meditation brings us. We begin to see the difference between what is real and what we imagine is real and all sorts of things begin to drop away, such as fear, dismay, prejudice, anger, resentment, worry and unnecessary suffering. And suddenly, after years of feeling that life is compressing in around us, we have time to move, time to breathe, time to relax, time to explore, time to listen, time to learn, time to grow, time to give.

And the second gift is...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Gift of Potential...

The Gift of Potential...
is the second thing that meditation brings us. With more time in every moment (less time being frittered away being distracted by the false world) and no longer being tethered by artificial limitations, you have access to your potential in full.

Whether spiritual or personal (or both), your potential lives inside the natural self. If you have not learned to identify as the natural self yet, your potential tends to show up only through the tiny cracks in the false self; otherwise it is freely flowing when the natural self is your main orientation.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Gift of Connection...

is the third thing that meditation brings us. As you allow the false self and the false world to drift away, your access to the natural world becomes progressively automatic. And in that access is the connection to everything else, the experiential nexus point of spiritual truth, the flowing river of energy that feeds you in every moment, the font of expression that is the natural world speaking through you...

All of these elements are dynamically connected, creating a whole that is vastly greater, richer and more meaningful than the sum of its parts. And you are the channel through which it flows.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Gif of Engagement and Participation...

is the fourth thing that meditation brings us.

For many of us it is difficult to even imagine engaging and participating in a world we don't understand, a world unfulfilling, a world filled with disturbing contradictions... But when you have found time, potential and connection the landscape changes and moving out into the world to participate seems less dangerous and more of a joy! Indeed, engaging and participating creates an interactive meal that brings a treasure of flavors and a bounty of fulfillment.

But you don't have to have fully awoken to achieve this. Participation is the trigger that brings meaning to the journey as it is being experienced. You can do it right now and start to feel the effects.

Don't be scared... Participation can start with just touching a plant, allowing yourself to be who you are when you look in a mirror or smiling at a stranger. It is the act of allowing, acknowledging and appreciating the world as it is (not as you thought it was).

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Gift of Compassion...

is the fifth thing that meditation brings us.

Compassion arises naturally as our connection reaches out to everything around us and we recognize that we are all (people, plants, earth, waters, stars, etc.) simply aspects of the same thing. This is not an intellectually-based realization, but an experientially-based one. We can approach our connection intellectually, but we can not actually experience it until the intellect has let go of its intention to understand abstractly.

Compassion is not merely a heightened version of tolerance. It is experiencing everyone and everything as your self and seeing your self in everyone and everything.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Fear and Hope--The Movie of Our Lives

When it comes to ways to hide from our natural selves and to keep us locked in place, there are many, many options. Fear, for instance, comes in many colors and styles. We can run, hide, tremble, lash out, stand our ground, cooperate or face death in our fears. We can be active or passive, but fear creates a cold shadow of doom that stops us in our tracks.

But there are more insidious traps we can choose. Hope, for example, seems so helpful and filled with potential. But hope is really a way to hide while wishing something would come and save us.

We end up with our own acting class of strategies of achieving no change at all, of hiding from our own fulfillment. We provide ourselves with a Hollywood-style disaster movie of our own lives. There are scripts, acting, drama, entertainment, special effects, horror, hope, betrayal, revenge--everything we expect.

What would we be without that movie? What exists if that movie stops? What if the movie was just a movie and when it ended we walked free into the light of reality?

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Knowing vs. Knowledge...

Our culture would have us believe the knowledge is the only pathway to truth, but knowledge is just collected information, abstractions about truth--at best. Whether it is knowledge of science or knowledge of scriptures, it is suggested that copious amounts of information are necessary to discover truth. But the absolute best knowledge can do is point at truth, and the more knowledge, the longer the path to truth.

Knowing, conversely, is a direct experience of truth. It may arise from following knowledge to where it may point, but not by holding knowledge. When knowing is present, knowledge falls away.

But knowing can also arise (and perhaps more easily so) by simply listening to the natural currents running through us and around us. These are the dynamic structures of truth.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Decompression or No Compression?...

When we fail to create space and time in our lives by allowing the false self to control what we believe we are capable of, we compress ourselves down into what seems to be a fixed position without choice, power or control (all being aspects of the same thing). And then when we do find time by accident, we often think of it as our opportunity to "decompress" and find only time in that gap, failing to build the skills we need. Sure, we relax for a moment, but then we move back into our compressed positions and wait for the next gap.

Time is more like atomic structure, with us believing that atoms (and time) are fixed and hard, while the reality is that atoms (and time) are almost completely space. There is abundant time in every moment if we can become conscious of what the moment is really composed of and how the moment unfolds. We can then note that not much at all is really going on in each moment except our belief that it is clogged up with activity.

If you have ever watched a high-level martial artist you may have wondered how they can move so quickly and so accurately in such small moments of available time. Their perspective, however, is very different. To them time is more open and fluid. This is not a position of the leg or fist, but of the mind.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Abstraction as Flawed Teaching Tool...

If you have read my book Finding Fulfillment with Intuisdom--or even enough of the blog entries here--you should already understand that abstractions are what the false self and the false world are composed of. As well, you may understand that when you identify with the false self in your moment-to-moment experience, your perceptions will be guided by the process of either taking in abstractions or abstracting reality in order to perceive it. This is the entire experiential plane of the false self; there is no room for anything else. And since the natural self and the natural world are entirely without abstraction, the false self cannot perceive it and therefore acknowledge its existence.

The revered Indian teacher Sri Ramana Maharshi taught when possible with only a penetrating silence. But he soon realized this modality did not reach enough students and developed more abstract methods to expand his reach. This teacher appears to be one of the very few relatively modern teachers who understood the nature of abstraction deeply enough to treat it with the care and respect such a dangerous tool deserves.

Any teacher aware of this problem will be faced with a difficult dilemma. How do we teach when abstraction is most of what the student experiences and knows as real? This very post, for example, is abstract. It is composed of a bunch of words (abstractions) that attempt to point at something that is not abstract and cannot be abstract for direct experience.

Many, many modes of teaching personal development (including much of what would be treated by psychologists--at least in the Western world) and spiritual development utilize extensive models and abstract references and tools to attempt to guide the student. However, many of them seem to leave the student at some level of an abstract perceptual mode by not releasing the abstractions at the end of the process.

All abstractions (including visual, auditory and even emotional in many cases) are only pointers, whether they are used directly to teach or experienced through meditation or other practices. In the case of teaching, the teacher must take care to release the student from the abstract pointer after the student has touched the natural self. In the case of learning, the student must take care to allow the abstractions to dissipate and return to the natural self.

Throughout the known history of teaching spiritual development we can find references to images, beings and metaphors that were apparently found useful at the time, but have managed to become concrete or at least failed to resolve back to non-abstract form. It is difficult to imagine, for instance, that Maya was more than a teaching tool to someone so profoundly awake as Buddha. And yet from a far reach of time and from the culturally-provided perspective of the false world, these abstractions remain solid and without much of their former utility.

As you follow paths with such abstractions, take care that you seek the root of each abstraction provided, the source, the non-abstract, the direct experience.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Value Ghosts

We are born to find our value within, but we are trained to seek it without and the odyssey stretches on and on. We seek and seek under rocks and stones, we beseech our loved ones. We demand, we pry, we cry. And when we find a morsel we also find it gone again at the slightest wind. For these values are like ghosts, shimmers and reflections of something, but something with no apparent source, something we cannot control, something that comes and goes as it wants, not as we need.

For all the world of hiding places for this value, we miss the closest one. We miss what is closer than the tip of our noses. We miss what is hiding deep inside, but only hiding because we are not looking.

But if--IF--we turn our gaze inside and find this vast treasure and behold its enormous power, the outer world becomes what it was all along. We no longer blame the world and all things in it for our lack of self-control, our failure to find lasting love, our potential untapped, our connections weak and ephemeral, our joy unknown.

When that sun rises the ghosts are gone forever and we can begin to live and love.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Resolution or rEvolution

A typical response to our failure to move in positive or meaningful directions during a calendar year is to make a "New Year's resolution". The idea behind this is that we create a defined goal that we reach toward in the upcoming calendar year.

These kinds of resolutions are normally based on who we perceive ourselves to be, especially in negative tones. They create a "counter" to that self image that ostensibly builds a pathway by creating a difference between who we think we are to who we think we should be. But both of these of self images--past and future--fail to account for who we might be if we unlocked what we don't yet know is inside us.

I'm going to offer a different suggestion...

Spend the early part of this upcoming year letting go of everything you think is you (perhaps with simple meditation--nothing analytical) and spend the rest of the year letting your natural self unfold and express itself into the world around you.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Language of the False Self

Rumi said, "silence is the language of God; all else is poor translation".

And this is what he meant:

The natural self speaks, hears, teaches and learns without language. It knows by being an integral part of its surroundings.

Whereas, the false self is bound to the limited dimensions, limited experience and limited potential of language. Where those aspects end its universe ends. It speaks, hears, teaches and learns about things, but can never experience those things.

We become our natural selves by allowing them to emerge, not by defining them or explaining them. And thus ends this abstraction and begins the opportunity to become the natural self by releasing the words used to talk about it.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Blame By Any Other Name Is Just The Same...

When we were children blame often meant pointing the finger at someone else to avoid our own guilt. As adults the notion of blame doesn't change much, though it does mellow just a bit to often mean making unconscious excuses for our own shortcomings, to in one way or another fail to accept responsibility for the consequences of our own actions. This is slightly closer to the truth, but it misses the mark enough to not be very useful.

At the end of this logic we come to rest at the notion that we have to become conscious of our own failings and either change ourselves or to "take it like a man," to "own up." The most telling version of this notion is illustrated in the phrase, "commit the crime, do the time."

But in personal and spiritual development the guilt is really in the act of blaming, not in some "crime" we have committed prior and are now avoiding with the blaming. In this world we are the judges who decide we are doomed by things outside of our control (even if those things include our own behavior or characteristics). And yet, ironically, we are the ones who end up punished by believing we have no control!

Part of what confuses us is that we can blame in a myriad of ways that we don't recognize as really the same thing, the same act of self-disenfranchisement. A list of blame targets would start with the behavior and failings of others (the old standbys), as well as sheer bad luck; but, it would also include our own expectations, self image, lack of discipline, or any other personal failing we feel we cannot control

In the end, blaming is just a coping strategy to deal with believing we have no control and then not moving forward (being fulfilled, growing, developing love and compassion, etc.) because of that perceived lack of self control (a self-fulfilling prophecy). And "taking responsibility" can be translated as simply allowing the world to be what it is and recognizing that the time we spend pointing elsewhere is time we cannot spend being alive in the fullest sense.

And we start to see that very quickly as the first layers of blame abate through practices like meditation. Even before we get very far and find all of our blaming targets, we start to see the nature of blaming and feel the pressure releasing and the space within us opening.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Let Both Blame and Forgiveness Evaporate Into Irrelevance…

(This is really a follow-on post to yesterday's, so you may want to go back and take a look at that one to give this one fuller meaning)

Many people (teachers included) extol the virtues of forgiveness. But there are serious problems with the notion and practice of forgiveness.

The first issue is that forgiveness is a bandage for blame in the same way faith is a bandage for a lack of connection; it doesn't release the issue--it attempts to cover it up. A ghost of the original wrong (perceived or otherwise) is still there. If you can say you "forgive" or "forgave" someone, the original wrong still exists in a shell form inside you. It's kind of like pardoning someone after they were convicted; it's helpful to some degree, but it really doesn't do the full job.

The other issue is that forgiveness seals in the guilt of the "offending party" and absolves the forgiver of any internalizations or distortions or even being a party to the problem to begin with. Forgiveness actually places all blame on the other party. In a very strong sense, forgiveness is like a second-hand compliment.

So forgiveness is really doing no one any favors, least of all the forgiver.

What we need to bring to bear here is a practice of letting go without pushing the issue one way or the other. We let go in the same way we let go of a sound or a thought. When we let go of our attachment to things (which almost always means attachment to abstractions about things) who is really to blame, the original intent, the acts themselves, damage done and repercussions fade away into irrelevance and the journey continues.

Practice helps.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Truth Is Simpler Than That...

In the last several posts I have waxed on about concepts and illusions we take on as part of the false world in an attempt to show you the structural aspects of the various traps. But in so doing I run the risk of engaging your intellect to the point of forgetting that following a trap in any fashion (unconsciously or consciously analytical) leads you away from the utter simplicity of the natural self, which does not experience the world around us in that way.

The natural self is a dynamic component of the natural world, and when the mind is free of the abstractions of the false self and false world, it becomes alive with the energies that are the life blood of the natural world. This is achieved by releasing our constructions and relaxing back into our most natural state.

We note our distraction in the moment and we release it. Rinse and repeat.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

The Different Faces (and Phases) of the Natural Self

As we approach the natural self it appears blank, dark or empty. This is because we first perceive it through the lenses of the false self, the self that needs abstraction to perceive at all.

This is a critical perceptual problem for not only students, but people in general. They simply can't see beyond the false self when perceiving as the false self.

But once we practice just long enough and with just enough guidance and discipline to keep our focus between the abstractions the false self keeps throwing up on the "screen" of our consciousness, we begin to take note that the abstractions are abstractions and not the reality the false self perceives them as. And then the blankness that lies between them begins to take on a subtle meaning as at least a larger context in which to consider the false self as a concoction of the mind.

From there the abstractions of the false self begin to dwindle and decrease in strength and impact. Their integration with one another begins to disintegrate and their projections of a false self and false world start to unravel. And the perception of nothing that covered the natural self begins to fade and in its place is first a silence and calmness.

And the journey continues...

Peace,

Anton Elohan

A Different Post--A Post On Differences...

A simple note on mental health, art and discrimination:

A recent conversation with a new friend, Patrick Connors, a spoken word poet and officer of the AAMH, gave rise to this post.

As my mother is an artist (www.jeanvincent.com), I have had art around me most of my life. I came to feel early on that art (in any form) is a most fundamental and natural expression of self and regarded myself as an artist of sorts from an early age (up through the present).

There seems to be a strong connection between individuals who feel inherently different from the norm-whether that be through birth, process or circumstance-and a need to have a way to express the parts of themselves that make them different or perceive differently. This is not usually a call for attention or egocentric flim-flam, but a truly natural and authentic outpouring of self; a contribution of soul, as it were, to the world-a gift to us.

Being different does not have to mean being wounded by our differences, as painful as they may be. (If your difference causes you pain, make sure your pain is not really the pain of others who want you to be like them and are sad that you are not.) Art is sometimes seen as an instrument for healing the painful differences we determine (or someone determines for us) to need mending, but we can bypass the need for healing if we go directly to being, and art is a powerful context for that.

Art is just another name for self expression and artists are brothers and sisters with all who are different, all who cannot be captured by sameness with any style of cage. When we discriminate against difference, we discriminate against what gives the world flavor, texture, form, temperature, color, nuance, passion, heart and love. When we discriminate against difference, we discriminate against the authenticity of self. When we discriminate against difference, we discriminate against treasure and meaning. When we discriminate against difference, we discriminate against the spirit and font of life. When we discriminate against difference, we discriminate against all of us.

And when we recognize this, we start to let the differences in our selves rise to the surface and beyond. We start to allow what is in and blocking us to release. We start to allow what is in us that is us to flow freely.

I dedicate this post to http://aamh.us/. Please visit them and participate with your natural self in the natural world.

Peace,

Anton Elohan

Tags: spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality spiritual development natural self meditation daily spirituality spiritual development natural

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