I woke up this morning understanding the parable of the Buddha and Mara. Someone suggested to me that I am going through an initiation and that is how it feels. These last weeks have contained a lot of physical discomfort, stressful situations, a death, extreme exhaustion and fogginess, illness, poison oak, a fall, a serious accident to someone close to me and so on. The last time I fell for the buttons being pushed was in San Francisco 2 1/2 weeks ago when my GPS would not work, my directions were no longer viable, I lost the car I was following, I could not see well in the dark and four teenagers were giving me conflicting instructions. I thought my nervous system might start to sizzle it was so over-amped. Yet it is only since then, only recently that I have noticed a strange new phenomena. It is this powerful neutrality to what arises. Can’t sleep, oh, well, body on fire with intense itching, ok; excluded from something important, all right, no income, fine. Need to do tons of wash with the poison oak, washing machine leaking, not feeling flush to get new one, no problem. I feel a bit like the Buddha while Mara gives it her best shoot, firing continuous stressors, irritants, obstacles at me. Each time my response is the same, I love myself, I reassure my inner child all is well and I stay grounded within. It is the craziest thing, like I just can’t get excited or take anything personally. I watch myself with amazement, who is this calm woman and what did she do with Savannah? The sense of arrival keeps growing, of being grounded in the truth of my own Identity, rock solid. A major expense arose, I was neutral and it just literally evaporated, went away. It is like being in magic land.
Yesterday I found myself thinking, hey this hasn’t been so bad, could have been a lot worse this ascension journey. WHAT!?!?!?!?! **&^%$###$%^&^&@@@%^*(*^% After years where I really wondered if I’d survive in tact, come on. I feel the need to get certain things down before I forget my own history because I feel that is what is arising, a new great forgetting that totally serves us, like the forgotten pain of childbirth, soon we may not remember the extreme challenge of this journey.
How did this transformation occur? Simple, I learned to feel safe in my body. How did I do that? Simple, stopped judging or criticizing myself, started loving myself no matter what arises. How did I do that? That is the million dollar question. All my blogs point to the moon but none of them can show you the exact way. Each of us must find our own way. I can tell you this, the simplest thing I have found is to say, “I love you” a la Matt Kahn TrueDivineNature.com Now, like everything on this journey, even that comes with a potential paradox, misunderstanding that was a whirlpool I fell into for years but more on that later. My desire, as always, is to reduce suffering and provide pointers to joy, a place I have not fully arrived at but one that beckons us with open arms.
I know many of you feel like you are being bombarded, trapped, lost in the fog. Keep loving the one that feels that way. I realize now I did not need to strategize my way out, I just needed to let go of the bank and let the river, the Mystery carry me. This is the way Home. I know it is super challenging to trust at that level when everything seems to be going wrong, It is hard not to see oneself as defective, wrong, broken. It is not easy to keep the faith, but ah, so much easier when we do so. Know the crazed energies are only releasing the obstacles to our greater reality. Lean in, sheltered by your own heart.
Some information on Buddha and Mara I relate to:
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: “When he faces Mara he faces himself and his own destructive capacity. But he’s not the warrior trying to do battle with those qualities. He has discovered his own capacity for equanimity. He has become like the top of the Great Himalayan Mountains; the weather is passing over him, storms are raging around him, and he sits like the top of the mountain impassive, not in a trance state, you know, totally aware of everything. So he frustrates Mara.”
http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/enlightenment-part-2/
In noticing how the deepest pain inevitably leads to your most profound spiritual discovery, I invite you to support the end of violence by acknowledging any discomfort as a catalyst of your highest evolution. As you take the time to face what is unresolved in your heart, waves of high vibrational energy are sent throughout the field of consciousness. With each wave entering every energy field, it inspires those who use violence to avoid their soul’s journey to come out hiding and surrender at last. This is the heart of transformation. ~ Matt Kahn
Major thankies for the blog post.Much thanks again. Really Cool.
You are so welcome. I am delighted it served you. Thank you for bringing me back to this post. I literally just wrote about feeling I finally have accessed the end of the rainbow and it is all through doing exactly as I wrote here. The interesting thing is now I am forgetting how challenging it used to be. Now generally things are quite smooth in my life. As I reread this post, I have so much compassion for my younger self still being tossed and turned so continuously. I send her my love knowing in the quantum field she will receive it and it will ease her pain. I also salute my future self where miracles will unfold with even more regularity than now, knowing she is sending me her love as I surf some of the challenges that still “appear” to be there in this now moment. It was so helpful to read of how different things were just 29 months ago, truly is so supportive of me now so thank you!