20th September

Put on 2 videos today one asking when did you stop and did nothing for 10 minutes? Absolutely nothing and just watch your thoughts. The second one showed how best to do it which had a mixed reaction some liked it others were more critical. After a break we read a paper on paying attention.

Another important justification to master paying attention is to have effective communication. This skill requires the ability to stay present and listen as well as noticing how you are being affected by listening. When you respond, effective communication requires that you pay attention and be certain that your thoughts are clear and make sense. Lastly, effective communication happens when you pay attention and endeavor to notice how your information is being received, or not.

In summary paying attention consciously is essential for:

• Noticing all that is happening. Choosing the most resourceful options. Making intelligent and compassionate decisions. Having effective, clear and powerful communication. Trusting your non-rational inner resources of intuition, inspiration and inner guidance. Discerning what is true or false. Separating facts from fiction and knowing reality from fantasy. Knowing that falsehood, fantasy and hallucinations are produced by your mind. Knowing that observing reality and the apprehension of truth depend on being Self-Aware.
  
  

16 August 13

Interesting morning we first watched a business and health coach on how to love money and health by feeding the roots rather than studying the fruits. Made sense we do have a financial thermostat. We do copy our culture or parents unless we reject these and do the opposite. Most of us thought it was typical American the way it was put over but the message was good. After a stop for tea and biscuits we looked at the following.

Black hole: Human beings are currently filled with the mind; there is no room for life. When you turn it off, you empty yourself, and life naturally rushes in to fill the void. You become like a black hole, and life pours into you from every direction. A black hole does not let anything out; a spiritual being reflects it all back out.

Center of the universe: When you experience life equally from all directions, you experience natural life, true life.

You become the center of the universe, because that is what you truly are. The universe is infinite in all directions, so no matter where you move, you will always remain in the exact center.

You may be saying that this is a good way to look at it, but it is more than that, because it is the truth; it is the only true way to look at the big picture of life.

When I walk, I am not just walking on the street; I am walking through the center of my own personal universe.

Religions were right; we are at the center of the universe. Galileo, Kepler, and Copernicus were also right from the mind’s perspective, but from your own perspective, the only perspective that really matters to you, you are at the center of the universe, and that is the only place you can be in an infinite universe.

First step: When you realize that you are the center of the infinite universe and always will be, you realize how special you are. You are always at the exact center of life. All life that comes to your center is just for you and no one else. You are living in your own unique universe where everything is just for you.

Living with the awareness that you are the center of everything is the first step people take to becoming a spiritual being. This is because it is the easiest thing to do. You can do it with your mind the way it is, and with other people around.

Most people can do it right away. Try it right now, and you will see it is true. You will see you really are the center of the universe. You will see that life really is coming from every direction, and no matter what you do, that never changes.

You have to let it all out instantly, or there is no room for the new life to come in. The more life you allow in, the more you have to reflect back out to others. You become completely full of life; your cup runith over.

As John Lennon says in song, “you can radiate everything you are.” You can be everything and reflect everything to others.

You will become the present. You will have presence. Great actors have what is called stage presence. They become life itself, and the audience can see it. Movie stars need presence, at least while they are acting. If you want to see someone living in the present, watch a movie. Presence is created by living in the present and reflecting the present to other people.

The mind barrier: The very mind that has made seeing the truth possible is now the only thing preventing us from taking the last step, the final step in human evolution. People are living as their false, mortal mind-self, and they should be living as their true, immortal spiritual-self, or the exact opposite of the way they are living now.

Your mind is like a door or gate, and the truth is the key to that door. The truth causes the mind to begin to change its relationship with you; it turns the mind from your worst enemy to your best friend.

You have to turn the key. You have to open the door. No one else can.

The mind is no longer you; it is just a small part of you. It is no longer your master; it is your servant. It has to do the exact opposite of what it has evolved to do (control). That is why it takes the truth and some effort to get free of the mind.

It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man. Albert Einstein

The way: You just have to do one thing; learn to recognize what is true (life) and what is not true (mind). Then give your life to just what is true. If you do this, the false illusions of the mind will no longer control your life, and you will be free. Think about it until you understand the truth completely, and then just do what the truth dictates.

True life really is that simple, but most people cannot see the truth now.

The mind is more powerful than the spirit in this world.

The mind is a dominate force: The mind will always infect a person living clear of the mind. A spiritual person cannot cause a person living in the mind to stop living in the mind, but a person living in the mind can cause a spiritual person to activate their mind. The mind is a form of energy; the spirit is like a void.

Great spirits are always opposed by mediocre minds.

Albert Einstein

The mind has the upper hand in this world. It is the way it is, so you have to be alone or with other people that know the truth to live without the mind. Thus, it will get easier to live clear of mind in this world as more people learn the truth. Your mind and other minds will do everything to keep you out of the present and knock you off the path. Your job is to just let the mind do it, watch it, and see it for what it is, and it will gradually get weaker. It will get easier to stay on path.

Living with less evolved people: Imagine you were the only modern man in a world filled with cavemen. That is how a spiritual being feels living with mankind.

The craziest people are running the asylum.

Minds beget minds: Schools, family, work, social groups, religions and political parties are all minds creating other minds in their own image. Other minds are like an infectious disease; the closer you are to them, the more they infect your mind. It starts with the closest, most influential people around you, such as friends, family, and superiors at work or school.

The truth stops violence: The truth makes people happy and secure. Only unhappy, insecure or fearful people fight. When the truth and life is revealed to everyone, everyone will be happy and secure, and this will stop all conflict.

Spiritual beings could not win in the past, but the times are changing, and thanks to worldwide communication, spiritual people can win now.

The collective unconscious: In the last few generations, we discovered two invisible forces: electricity and electromagnetic (radio) waves. No one believed they existed a few hundred years ago. In this generation, we are going to discover and confirm a new invisible force that I call the collective unconscious mind. It is the force of nature, or part of the force of nature, that gives us continuity from one life to another. Without it, there could be no evolution.

The collective unconscious is not alive. It is just a part of our minds, an extension of our minds, not a separate life form. The collective unconscious is something like gravity that connects all of us. Religions call it the Holy Spirit.

Every extension of knowledge arises from making the unconscious conscious. Friedrich Nietzsche

In other words, when you get your mind out of the way, you become conscious of what you were not conscious of before. You become conscious of something beyond the mind. You can make contact with the universal mind of life.

The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why. The truly valuable thing is the intuition.

Albert Einstein

Inspiration: The word means “breath of God.” It is where ideas, art, poetry, movies, philosophy, music, inventions, revelations and all new creative things come from. It manifests in many ways, such as talent, intuition and insight.

Intuition: Intuition and inspiration come from the same place. They are both manifestations of the collective unconscious. When asked where they got the idea for something, creative people will say they were inspired, they dreamed it, it just came to them in a flash, etc. All new, creative things come from outside our own minds. By definition, they have to come from outside your mind to be truly new. Paul McCartney was once asked where his songs come from. He answered: “I don't know; they seem to come out of the air.”

When real music comes to me - the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses understanding - that has nothing to do with me, cause I'm just the channel. The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium... those moments are what I live for.

19th July 2013

Smaller group than usual but very enjoyable discussion and on watching a short film we all agreed that the message might be true the messenger was not sincere and was more interested in selling his book. A second video about the Bankers who rule the world was well received and popular feeling is that it may well be true.

1. The treasure house is within you. Look within for the answer to your heart’s desire.
2. The great secret possessed by the great men of all ages was their ability to contact and release the powers of their sub conscious mind. You can do the same.
3. Your subconscious has the answer to all problems. If you suggest to your subconscious prior to sleep, “I want to get up at 6 A.M.,” it will awaken you at that exact time.
4. Your subconscious mind is the builder of your body and can heal you. Lull yourself to sleep every night with the idea of perfect health, and your subconscious, being your faithful servant, will obey you.
5. Every thought is a cause, and every condition is an effect.
6. If you want to write a book, write a wonderful play, give a better talk to your audience, convey the idea lovingly and feelingly to your subconscious mind, and it will respond accordingly.
7. You are like a captain navigating a ship. He must give the right orders, and likewise, you must give the right orders (thoughts and images) to your subconscious mind, which controls and governs all your experiences.
8. Never use the terms, “I can’t afford it” or “I can’t do this.” Your subconscious mind takes you at your word and sees to it that you do not have the money or the ability to do what you want to do. Affirm, “I can do all things through the power of my subconscious mind.”
9. The law of life is the law of belief. A belief is a thought in your mind. Do not believe in things to harm or hurt you. Believe in the power of your subconscious to heal, inspire, strengthen, and prosper you. According to your belief is it done unto you.
10. Change your thoughts, and you change your destiny.
Review of highlights
1. Think good, and good follows. Think evil, and evil follows. You are what you think all day long.
2. Your subconscious mind does not argue with you. It accepts what your conscious mind decrees. If you say, “I can’t afford it,” it may be true, but do not say it. Select a better thought, decree, “I’ll buy it. I accept it in my mind.”
3. You have the power to choose. Choose health and happiness. You can choose to be friendly, or you can choose to be unfriendly. Choose to be cooperative, joyous, friendly, lovable, and the whole world will respond. This is the best way to develop a wonderful personality.
4. Your conscious mind is the “watchman at the gate.” Its chief function is to protect your subconscious mind from false impressions. Choose to believe that something good can happen and is happening now. Your greatest power is your capacity to choose. Choose happiness and abundance.
5. The suggestions and statements of others have no power to hurt you. The only power is the movement of your own thought. You can choose to reject the thoughts or statements of others and affirm the good. You have the power to choose how you will react.
6. Watch what you say. You have to account for every idle word. Never say, “I will fail; I will lose my job; I can’t pay the rent.” Your subconscious cannot take a joke. It brings all these things to pass.
7. Your mind is not evil. No force of nature is evil. It depends how you use the powers of nature. Use your mind to bless, heal, and inspire all people everywhere.
8. Never say, “I can’t.” Overcome that fear by substituting the following, “I can do all things through the power of my own subconscious mind.”
9. Begin to think from the standpoint of the eternal truths and principles of life and not
from the standpoint of fear, ignorance, and superstition. Do not let others do your

thinking for you. Choose your own thoughts and make your own decisions.

21st June 2013

Ten of us today, first of all we watched a video showing the unknowable external world and the mind dimension. This left everybody confused and unwilling to accept that reality. My feeling is that there is no external reality at all. This non dual experience is all there is.

Consciousness: The Bridge Between Science and Religion
Science and religion often seem poles apart–and in many ways they are. But I believe the two can, and will eventually, be united, and their meeting point will be human consciousness.
That we are conscious beings is the most obvious fact of our existence. Indeed, all we ever know are the thoughts, images, and feelings arising in our consciousness. Yet as far as Western science is concerned, there is nothing more difficult to explain. Why should the complex processing of information in the brain lead to an inner personal experience? Why doesn’t it all go on in the dark, without any awareness? Why do we have any inner life at all?
This paradox–the undeniable existence of human consciousness, set against the absence of any satisfactory scientific account for it–suggests that there may be something amiss with the current scientific worldview. Most scientists assume that consciousness emerges in some way or other from insentient matter. But if this assumption is getting us nowhere, perhaps we should consider an alternative worldview–one found in many metaphysical and spiritual traditions. There, consciousness is held to be an essential component of the cosmos, as fundamental as space, time and matter.
Interestingly, expanding the scientific model to include consciousness in this way does not threaten any of the conclusions of modern science. Mathematics remains the same, as do physics, biology, chemistry, and all our other discoveries about the material world. What changes is our understanding of ourselves. If consciousness is indeed fundamental, then the teachings of the great sages and mystics begin to make new sense.
Those who have penetrated to the core of their minds have frequently discovered a profound connection with the ground of all being. The sense of being an individual self–that feeling of I-ness that we all know so well but find so hard to define–turns out to be not so unique after all. The light of consciousness that shines in me, is the same light that shines in you–the same light shining through a myriad of minds.
Some have expressed this inner union in the statement “I am God.” To traditional religion, this rings of blasphemy. How can any lowly human being claim that he or she is God, the almighty, supreme being? To modern science, such statements are nothing more than self-delusion. Physicists have looked out into deep space to the edges of the universe, back into “deep time” to the beginning of creation, and down into “deep structure” to the fundamental constituents of matter. In each case they find no evidence for God; nor any need for God. The Universe seems to work perfectly well without any divine assistance.
But when mystics speak of the divine, they are not speaking of some supernatural, supreme being who rules the workings of the universe; they are talking of the world within. If we want to find God, we need to look into the realm of “deep mind”–a realm that science has yet to explore.
When it does, it may find it has embarked upon a course that will ultimately lead it to embrace spirit and–dare we say it–God. To the scientific establishment, rooted in a material worldview, this is anathema. But so was the notion of the solar system four centuries ago.
Nondual Psychotherapy and Working Through the Separate Self Contraction 
        Many therapists have awakened to similar insights as mine:  they have moved beyond the illusion of the separate self.  Hence, there has been a swelling growth of nondual therapists practicing nondual psychotherapy in which the illusion of the separate self existence is challenged as a pivotal part of therapy. Prendergast (2003) pointed to transpersonal psychologists who mapped out nondual awareness as a rarely experienced state at the pinnacle of self-realization.  However,  a new generation of clinicians and teachers are beginning to see how accessible nondual awareness is in psychotherapeutic work with clients.  Nondual awareness is at the heart of countless pathways to enlightenment through disciplines including Hindu Vedanta, most schools of Buddhism and Taoism, mystical Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. It refers to the understanding and direct experience of fundamental consciousness that underlies the apparent distinction between perceiver and perceived. Transpersonal therapists embracing the nondual tradition can simply rest in presence as Prendergast (2003) made clear:
They realize, at least to some degree, that they are not limited to being a “therapist” (although they may function in that role), or even a “person.” Their locus of identity is either resting in or moving toward unconditioned awareness, or Presence. The result is the emergence of a natural simplicity, transparency, clarity, and warm acceptance of whatever arises within themselves and their clients. Since they increasingly do not take themselves as some “thing,” they also do not take their clients as objects separate from themselves. They understand that there is no separate mirror and someone mirrored; there is only mirroring. (p. 3)

Prendergast (2003) further observed that embracing nondual awareness adds a depth dimension to existing schools of psychology. Psychotherapy typically involves working within the horizontal dimension; the evolution of phenomenal life in time and space. Nondual awareness refers to what is formless and exists outside of time and space thereby adding a vertical dimension. In addition, Prendergast (2003) observed that it is not so much that nondual therapists integrate being but instead are absorbed by it, and thus presence is enhanced, the effects of which can be contagious, “When we are in the Presence of an individual who has awakened from the dream of “me”, we can sense an unpretentiousness, lucidity, transparency, joy, and ease of being”

17 May 2013

Eight of us today and we started with an old video made for the BBC of Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) a German philosopher best known for his book, The World as Will and Representation, in which he claimed that our world is driven by a continually dissatisfied will, continually seeking satisfaction. They all thought he was too sad burdened by his experience attending an English school. His philosophy too bleak to be helpful but he did hint that the nothing contained an inexpressible something. Being perhaps. After some delicious cakes baked by Janet we went on to read the following. This they all enjoyed   

What Are We Trying To Fill?

April 3, 2013 by Elina

If you are human, you probably know that we have been conditioned to want to “fill” all the time. Emptiness often scares us. When our life falls apart, a common reaction is to quickly want to fill it up again, or rely on waiting for the future to find fulfilment there. When our lives are stable, when we have what we so-called “wanted,” we still can feel a void after a short while. Or when there isn’t much content in our present moment; we often try to fill it up with thoughts like “I’m bored” and reach out for something to do. So what’s the issue?

If we recognize ourselves in this first paragraph, let’s admit it: part of us feels “unhappy”. By that I mean the part of us that needs filling is somewhat unfulfilled, or else it wouldn’t need filling! If you are completely at peace within yourself and nothing could bring you down, then this article isn’t for you! But I know I’m not 100% there, so in a way I’m writing this for myself and anyone else feeling that certain aspects of themselves need attention. It’s okay to acknowledge moments when we feel unhappiness or lack. It isn’t “bad”, it’s just an emotion that is shedding light on what we need to acknowledge and investigate only for the purpose of freeing ourselves more and more.

Have you noticed how this “unhappy” self prefers thinking about life’s content, rather than experiencing life itself? This is an important realization, because it brings to our awareness that instead of living life in a state of inner freedom, we often “invest” our well being and sense of security in external content, other beings or thoughts of what would finally make us feel complete. We sometimes mistake this for love or purpose, but the core of it is actually attachment: the fear of separation.

The fear of separation seems to be a core wound within humanity’s collective subconscious because of all the years we have believed we were everything but one with Love – everything but whole. We began to see ourselves as a separate, weak individual that needs to be filled by something to have substance or value. Great experience! But quite illusory. We have forgotten who we are: a spiritual being at one with all of existence, having a human experience.

Since we’ve forgotten all about our true nature for quite some time, fear arose in our minds. “We can die! We can be lost forever! We need stuff to feel alive, someone to feel connected.” So there you have it: our “unhappy” self feels disconnected from being and therefore must feel like it’s doing or at least gaining something. It wants to survive. It is programmed to avoid feeling emptiness because it felt threatened by it, it knows it cannot exist there.

So what does this “unhappy” self have to do maintain a life of its own? It creates stories – whether it be miserable stories or comforting stories – for YOU to identify with them. Without us identifying with these stories and choosing to believe them, they simply come and they go.

“We are identifying with what is passing so fear comes. We are trying to make steady and permanent what is by nature impermanent.” – Mooji

This is about getting back to LIFE, the very core is this moment, the aliveness of who you are. Forget about content for a second and breathe in life! 

We can tell the mind to relax now. We are safe. Why? Because we don’t need to be! Sure, our bodies and minds are impermanent, but we are the BEING within the body, the consciousness experiencing itself through a physical vessel. The mind is simply the awesome tool through which we explore and create within the playground. We can be pals with it, but we don’t need to completely identify with it until we forget about our own being!

“Remember how spacious, creative and free you felt as a child at play? That is the space of no-mind, the space of being.” – Your Soul

I’m writing this as a message to myself and all of you, to remind us that we don’t have to escape “the void” anymore. The void is beautiful, it is our own presence. We can relax in our presence and sit with whatever we are feeling whether it is comfortable or not. We often are afraid to go within because we might find old baggage along the way that we are reluctant to let go of. We might feel like we are “losing” ourselves. But in truth, we are simply letting go of what we are not. We can now stop trying to control everything by thinking it through. No matter where the flow takes us, it will lead us to the perfect environment for us to acknowledge and dissolve our own limitations and create space for this higher dimension of consciousness to shine through. It is time to get back in the driver’s seat, not by taking control, but by letting go of the one that is trying to control everything and “fill” what needs no filling in the first place! Once we do that, it literally feels like you will be taking your first real breath of fresh air in a long time.

19th April 2013

Only five of us today with most off on the group on walking holiday. But nevertheless there was  a lot of discussion about many things including politics. We looked at a video of a banned TED video on one man's interpretation of reality. Then we looked at this a compilation of views.

Are You Always Racing To The Next Moment?

April 4, 2013 by Elina

If you are like me, you may be faced with choices which represent an uncertain future. Big whoop, life is uncertain and that’s the whole point of the adventure! That’s what the heart says, but often times, the mind is used to want a guarantee of something that “makes sense” before taking a step, or try to overanalyze with “shoulds and shouldn’ts”. Am I too impulsive? Should I take my time? Is it going to work? I didn’t plan to take this move! Or maybe nothing is presenting in your life and you’re freaking out about being stuck here forever. The thinking mind may try to take charge, but whether or not you are in the process of making choices, remember this:

Step-by-step, moment by moment. You don’t need to know what the next step is going to look like before taking the first one, you don’t need to know anything about the future because it doesn’t exist. It is to be created moment by moment, and is always aligned with what you need for your evolution anyways. All you need to is be in the moment of whatever step you are taking NOW, and be fluid with whatever new options will present when the time comes. Stress and tension is nothing but the unconscious state of wanting to escape or rid ourselves of the moment we are currently in, or cling on to our comfort zones because of a scary movie we play out in our minds of how difficult the future may be. Anticipation is also a form of stress, but we instead attach a positive polarity to the end goal and therefore become so focused on the “grand prize” that we forget all about accepting and living fully in the present.

Forget about future thinking, past dwelling or obsessive anticipation; you’re making it all up. Here & Now is the only place you’ll ever be in, so why pretend you are not? Why live in an imaginary “there” when you are here?

Learning to Hope by Daisaku Ikeda

Optimists and pessimists inhabit different worlds, reacting to the same circumstances in completely different ways. Dr. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, identifies three characteristics of pessimistic thinking. He describes these in his fascinating book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.

The first is permanence. This means regarding temporary, passing events as lasting and unchanging states. For example, your boss berates you about something. You react by thinking, “I really hate her,” and you go on from there to think of all the things you don’t like about your boss. Your boss’ reprimand is a single, passing event, but you turn it into something permanent, by thinking, “She’s always like that. She’s not going to change.” On the other hand, the optimistic person thinks, “The boss is in a bad mood today. She must have something on her mind,” limiting the event to that day and not extending it any further.

The second characteristic is pervasiveness. When one thing goes wrong, a pessimist thinks that everything is bad. This is like thinking that you can’t handle any school subject just because math is hard for you. When someone points out a mistake to a person with this attitude, they think, “I’m no good. I can’t do anything,” and become dejected instead of simply thinking that here is something that has to be fixed. Individuals like this think that their very worth as a person has been denied. A single spot grows into a huge black cloud filling their mind. They lose confidence and make more mistakes, creating a downward spiral.

The third characteristic of pessimism is personalization. That is, thinking that anything bad that happens is your fault and anything good must be credited to other people or to chance. For example, when an optimistic athlete or team loses a game, they think, “You win some, you lose some” or “The other team was really on top of their game today.” They don’t simply blame the loss on themselves. But when a pessimistic athlete loses, they think, “I’ve lost my concentration, I let so many good ones go by,” or “With hitting like that, we’ll never win.” When two teams are of the same level in ability, explains Dr. Seligman, the optimistic team is more likely to win.

Of course, we can’t lose sight of reality and, in an extreme version of optimism, cheerfully blame everything bad that happens on others. However, pessimism causes us to criticize ourselves needlessly.

 When I met with Dr. Seligman during his visit to Japan in 1997, I expressed my thoughts on his views. The mind, I noted, is a wondrous thing. As Milton wrote inParadise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.” Buddhism teaches that the quality of our lives ultimately depends upon our state of mind. Buddhism is a psychology of hope, and hope is my favorite word. Nodding in agreement, Dr. Seligman leaned his large frame toward me and said: “Optimism is hope. It is not the absence of suffering. It is not always being happy and fulfilled. It is the conviction that though one may fail or have a painful experience somewhere, sometime, one can take action to change things.”

According to Dr. Seligman, optimistic people are more likely to succeed at work and in personal relationships. They are healthier and live longer. He notes that the impact of our attitude on health becomes more pronounced from the mid-forties on.

Dr. Seligman’s theories are based on the idea that people can change. By changing our way of thinking, we can change our lives. During our discussion, Dr. Seligman commented that psychology after World War II was mostly concerned with those who had profound psychological problems. He explained, however, that he aspired for what he called a “positive psychology”—one that gives people courage, hope and strength.

Dr. Seligman confesses that he himself was a pessimist by nature; he had to learn to be optimistic. When he was only 13, his father suffered a series of debilitating strokes that left him paralyzed. His father lost all hope and plunged into a terrible sense of helplessness. He remained in that state until his death several years later. Seeing this, Dr. Seligman says he decided to investigate what it is that makes people feel powerless and whether there might be some way to overcome these feelings.

Perhaps because he was originally motivated by these sad events, Dr. Seligman’s scholarship is imbued with a warm humanity, the noble aim of helping others. His “psychological revolution,” based on a deep confidence in the positive potential of human beings, has been called by some the most important development in psychology since Freud.

Dr. Seligman emphasizes the need to become aware of the explanations we make for events, the unconscious dialogue we conduct within ourselves when we run up against some kind of problem. We tend not to notice the quirks in our own thinking because over the years they have become habitual.

One method Dr. Seligman suggests for people to become aware of these thought habits is to write down what we are thinking to ourselves when we encounter some minor frustrating situation. If we find that we tend to react to events pessimistically, we can practice “disputing” our own negative beliefs to overcome that tendency. For example, let’s say you rang and left a message for your friend to call you, but he doesn’t return your call. People with pessimistic thought habits will explain the situation to themselves by thinking, “He must be ignoring me.” When the conversation is just between us and ourselves, we seem to be ready to believe the worst. This is why learning to objectively dispute your own negative beliefs can be helpful: “As a matter of fact, he’s always been nice to me. He wouldn’t ignore me. He said he was having a busy week.”Or you could try saying to yourself: “Even if he is ignoring me, what about it? I can’t be perfect in everything and not everyone is going to like me all the time. Whatever others may think, I’m doing my best. I’m going to give myself credit for trying at least!”

Dr. Seligman says we should practice this kind of optimistic thinking, inscribing optimistic phrases in our minds. Prayer or meditation can also engrain positive habits of mind. Once we have acquired the skill of being optimistic, it’s a lot like learning to swim or ride a bicycle.

15th March

Low numbers today just six of us but we covered quite a few things starting with an image of a ballerina turning round and round first one way then the other but it depended on who was looking as our brains changed the direction without any clue as to why for we all saw the change at  different times.

I told the good news that beingness or being in the now reduces the cell's telomeres reduction giving us a longer life.

Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would scramble an organism's genetic information to cause cancer, other diseases or death.

Yet, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell no longer can divide and becomes inactive or "senescent" or dies. This process is associated with aging, cancer and a higher risk of death. So telomeres also have been compared with a bomb fuse.

Afterwards we watched a video of a neuroscientist who died and flew away on a butterfly into the stars in a field of love. Sounds good to me - we then discussed the possibility that the universe is struggling to understand itself through us and maybe behind all of us the watcher is the same just the ego mind is different. No need for a creator, it just is, and is baffled as we are. Something to think about.

After our break for tea and biscuits we read the following a mixture from various web sites.

The Mirror

Two weeks ago, I noticed a small advertisement in the local newspaper. Someone called Gangaji was speaking in my town. I had never heard of Gangaji. I didn’t even know how to pronounce the word. Apart from the vaguely spiritual context of the ad, I had no idea what she represented, let alone what she would say.
Gangaji was radiant. I have rarely seen anyone with such love and compassion. Once, when a woman in front of her was fighting tears, she did not try to fill the silence with words, instead she just smiled at the woman. It was a huge smile, wider than a dawn, and it was the right smile.
Unlike the woman in tears and the other three who went forward, I did not volunteer. I had no desire to be a centre of attention and no burning question. I was there to listen. But Gangaji clearly thought otherwise; when there was no one else on the stage, she looked directly at me and beckoned.
“You have a question,” she said.
I was startled. I looked around at my neighbours, back to Gangaji, and said, “Who? Me?” (Okay, call me slow on the uptake.)
“Yes, you,” she smiled. “Would you like to join me up here.”
“Okay,” I said. I went up there, I sat on her right, I talked with her in front of the crowd.
I did think of a question to ask her, which she answered. But that’s not what stayed in my memory. It’s what followed. I was so captivated by her presence that I said, “I know what I want… I want the look in my eye to be like the look in your eye.”
To my astonishment and the crowd’s amusement, she chuckled, produced a mirror (!!!), and thrust it in front of my face, forcing me to look at myself.
“But you do have that already,” she said. “See for yourself.”
No, I’m not planning to parade as the next Gangaji. In fact, as I left the stage, I was puzzled. Her manner suggested more than stage playfulness… there was serious intent there. What was she really saying to me? What was the point? Well, now I have to laugh at myself. How could I have missed it? It took my friend Tom Newnam in Philadelphia, to take off my blindfold with an email. His words, summarised: What you saw in Gangaji is not only who she is, but also who you are.
Of course, of course. In admiring Gangaji, I was primed to see—in her—the best in myself. We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are. We don’t see people as they are; we see people as we are. She didn’t say that in words, but it’s what she was telling me. More to the point, she made me feel it.
Could there be a finer illustration of the second universal truth: that your life is your mirror. How extraordinary that she actually held up a mirror. How subtle, how playful, how mischievous. (And how startling… did she have that mirror ready?)
Had you or anyone else expressed the same desire as me, she could have made the same reply.



Turn it around. When 100 people look at you, they each see a different version of you: the version that best reflects them, their beliefs and aspirations. It’s not you that affects them, but their version of you. Not one of those 100 versions is the real you. So who is the real you? You’ll only find the answer by looking into the looking glass that is your life – yes, that life which seems to happen to you, but is really created by you. In this incarnation, your life, and everything and everyone in it, is you. Literally. The universe is not objective, it is subjective.
On the face of it, that stretches credibility. You could, for example, be in a coal mine one day and a cruise ship the next; so you might ask, How could I change so much overnight? But your physical surroundings are only the shallowest reflection of you. Instead, look to your relationships, the events you attract, and the attitudes you take with you from one place to another.
Here’s some Sufi wisdom,
Once upon a time, somewhere between the mountain peaks and the shores of the azure sea, there was a village in which there dwelt a Sufi master renowned for his wisdom. One day, a stranger entered the village, and immediately looked for the master to ask advice. He said, “I’m thinking of moving to live in this village. What can you tell me about the people who live here?”
And the Sufi master replied, “What can you tell me about the people who live where you come from?” “Ah,” said the visitor angrily. “They are terrible people. They are robbers, cheats and liars. They stab each other in the back.” “Well now,” said the Sufi master. “Isn’t that a coincidence? That’s exactly what they’re like here.” So the man departed the village and was never seen there again. Soon, another stranger entered the village, and he too sought the Sufi master for advice. He said, “I’m thinking of moving to live in this village. What can you tell me about the people who live here?” And the Sufi master replied, “What can you tell me about the people who live where you come from?” “Ah,” said the visitor in fond remembrance, “They are wonderful people. They’re kind, gentle and compassionate. They look after each other.” “Well now,” said the Sufi master, “Isn’t that a coincidence? That’s exactly what they’re like here.”
You do, most comprehensively, take your mirror with you wherever you go. You want to find yourself? You don’t have to go anywhere. You want happiness? You don’t have to wait. There’s joy to be had, even in the difficult times.
I have Gangaji to thank for the reminder. And also for the moment when she looked around at the audience during a silence, and said softly, “It’s all so very simple.”
“I have known good and evil,
Sin and virtue, right and wrong;
I have judged and been judged;
I have passed through birth and death,
Joy and sorrow, heaven and hell;
And in the end I realized
That I am in everything
And everything is in me.”
(Hazrat Inayat Khan) 

What are the oddes that you exist, as you, today?

It is the probability of 2 million people getting together (about eight times the population of Southampton) each to play a game of dice with a trillion-sided dice. They each roll the dice and all come up with the exact same number – for example 550,343,279,001

Answer Zero

Carl Jung said, there is no coming to consciousness without pain. We need, it seems, the experience of pain and suffering in order to go beyond it. Mindless creatures do not experience emotional suffering as we do… simply because they have no ego-mind with which to do so.  Many animals, of course, have a level of conscious awareness that allows them to experience a wide range of emotions – more than some (damaged) humans in fact.

February 2013

We watched short video of Louise Hay now in her eighties but still alert and full of hope for the future still encountering the odd boulder in life's pathway.
After a discussion about this and an exploration of what is the thinking process and as to where it takes place we stopped for tea and biscuits.
Afterwards we read this article on giving up other people's business.


LET GO OF CONTROL: HOW TO LEARN THE ART OF SURRENDER
This is a contribution by Dr. Amy Johnson
“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” ~Proverb
I’ve noticed that things go much more smoothly when I give up control—when I allow them to happen instead of making them happen. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at this.
Although I’m much better than I used to be, I’m a bit of a control freak. I often use perfectly good energy trying to plan, predict, and prevent things that I cannot possibly plan, predict, or prevent. For example, I wonder if my baby is going to get a proper nap when we travel and, if not, just how crabby she might be. I think through her travel and napping patterns, attempting to figure out exactly what we’re up against, as if her sleep is something I can control.
I also think about the weather a lot when out-of-town guests are visiting. I spend my already-limited time planning for every possible weather/mood combination when considering our itinerary.
Like most humans I know, I spend a lot of time in business that’s not mine. The baby’s business, my friends’ business, Mother Nature’s business.
As a recovering control freak, there are three things I know for sure about trying to control things:
1. We try to control things because of what we think will happen if we don’t.
In other words, control is rooted in fear.
2. Control is also a result of being attached to a specific outcome—an outcome we’re sure is best for us, as if we always know what’s best.
When we trust that we’re okay no matter what circumstances come our way, we don’t need to micro-manage the universe. We let go. And we open ourselves to all sorts of wonderful possibilities that aren’t there when we’re attached to one “right” path.
3. The energy of surrender accomplishes much more than the energy of control.
I suspect it’s slightly different for everyone, but here’s what ‘control mode’ looks and feels like for me:  My vision gets very narrow and focused, my breath is shallow, adrenaline is pumping and my heart rate increases.
My mind shifts from topic to topic and from past to future very quickly, and I have little concentration, poor memory, and almost no present-moment awareness.
In surrender mode, I’m calm, peaceful. Breathing deeply, present in the moment. I see clearly and my vision extends out around me, allowing me to (literally) see the bigger picture.
So the great irony is that attempting to control things actually feels less in control.When I’m micro-managing and obsessing over details, I know I’m in my own way.
 The Art of Surrender
Surrender literally means to stop fighting. Stop fighting with yourself. Stop fighting the universe and the natural flow of things. Stop resisting and pushing against reality.
Surrender = Complete acceptance of what is + Faith that all is well, even without my input.
It’s not about inaction. It’s about taking action from that that place of surrender energy.
If letting go of control and surrendering not only feel better, but actually produce better results, how do we do that?
Sometimes it’s as easy as noticing that you’re in control mode and choosing to let go—consciously and deliberately shifting into surrender energy.
For example, when I become aware that I’m in control mode, I imagine that I’m in a small canoe paddling upstream, against the current. It’s hard. It’s a fight. That’s what control mode feels like to me.
When I choose to let go and surrender, I visualize the boat turning around, me dropping the oars, and floating downstream.
I’m being gently pulled, no effort necessary on my part. Simply breathing and saying, “Let go of the oars” is usually enough to get me there.
Sometimes it’s a little harder to make the shift from control to surrender. Here are a few questions that can help:
1. What am I afraid will happen if I let go of control?
When you pinpoint the fear, question its validity. Ask yourself, Is it true?
2. Find out whose business you’re in.
Your business is the realm of things that you can directly influence. Are you there? Or are you in someone else’s business? When we’re trying to control things outside of our own business, it’s not going to go well.
3. Consider this: Would letting go feel like freedom?
It almost always would. Let that feeling of freedom guide you toward loosening your grip.
A Friendly Universe
Einstein said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”I believe in a friendly universe.
Being receptive and allowing things to happen is a skill that can be practiced and improved upon. It helps to believe in a friendly universe—one that is supporting you at every turn so that you don’t have to worry yourself over the details.
We can always choose to do things the easy way or the hard way. We can muscle through, or we can let go of the oars and let the current carry us downstream.
There is a peaceful, yet focused energy that accompanies holding the intention of what I want, but not forcing myself to do it. That energy is magic. I’m still a work in progress, but I’m allowingit to become a habit instead of making it a habit.



Another thought
Examine how we create a persistent alienation from ourselves, from others, and from the world by fracturing out present experience into different parts, separated by boundaries. We artificially split our awareness into compartments such as subject vs. object, life vs. death, mind vs. body, inside vs.. outside, reason vs. instinct ...
The result of such violence, although known by many other names, is simply unhappiness. Life becomes suffering, full of battles. But all our battles in our experience - our conflicts, anxieties, sufferings, and despairs - are created by the boundaries we misguidingly throw around our experience.

21 Dec 2012

Eight people attended today two suffered from ill health and other reasons. We first looked at a video that tested our awareness and we all failed miserably to realize that the participants were making many changes of clothing in very different colours. We failed to notice that even the back screen and the tablecloth were changed dramatically while studying a simple colour change card "trick" Slightly chastened for that experience we then watched two young well qualified MD's talking about reality, dreams and mystic experience. After a break and Janet's cakes we read the following and then discussed what we felt was true.

 Breaking Free of Belief
 For awhile I lived a very comfortable religious life. I believed I had some sense of experiencing God. Experiencing God was that warm fuzzy feeling one felt during worship, or maybe praying with others or during a good sermon. That was the extent of what I felt experiencing God amounted to. I was perfectly comfortable living out taught beliefs. There came a time after I had incorporated meditation into my spiritual disciplines and began to really encounter the presence of God within that I no longer found these taught beliefs and doctrines fitting in with my sense of what I was beginning to feel was true. I struggled to find ways to incorporate them in the new paradigm I found myself merging into. I tried rationalizing and twisting them almost beyond recognition in order to conform. But it was to no avail. The pursuit amounted to being as futile as trying to jam the wrong puzzle piece into the wrong space. They just wouldn't fit. The struggle to believe in my presupposed ideas based on the doctrines I was ascribing to and their conflict with the truths I was receiving was becoming the source of my undoing. This process was suffocating me spiritually to the point where I was ceasing to find life, light and meaning in my beliefs at all. I could just see walls, like those of a prison, hindering the full view of which I had only caught glimpses of through moments of meditation. Walls, that had to come down. I realized I wasn't after hollow doctrine. I was after truth and thirsted to experience that truth first-hand. I wanted God, not man's words about God, to reign in my heart. Contemplative prayer and other forms of meditation allowed me to realize that that was truly possible. I would, however, have to let go of all that I once held dear in order to find the greatest treasure of all buried within my soul: God Himself. I would have to sell all of my land just for that one field where I knew the treasure to be buried and then spend the rest of my efforts in separating dirty ego from divine Self in discovering it. Imagine God being like a powerful river swiftly flowing. It was as if I was relying on people's interpretations of the river and merely viewing it from a portrait that they had painted of it. And then, still more, reviewing charts regarding the facts that defined it. Memorizing the rules that determined its nature and the outlines of its topography and where one could swim, where one couldn't and who was allowed to swim. The problem was, there was no swimming going on at all. It's as if I stood by the bank one day realizing the beauty and reality of the river and decided that rather than studying it from afar it'd be tons more fun to just jump in and let it carry me away, becoming one with it's flow and rhythm. My experiences of meditation up to that point had gotten my feet wet. Now I wanted to saturate my soul as well. I wanted no more barriers between myself and God and at last decided it was time to strip myself of the dogma that clothed my sense of what was real spiritually and take the plunge into the swift waters. Doing so has released in me the sense of merging into the great I Am and given me glimpses of what it's like to live in the great We Are. Not fully, but enough to know it's possible. There are still rocks I reach out and cling to in desperation, as I feel truth sweeping me in its current and my own inner insecurities resisting it, trying to slow it down because it's all so much to process in one experience. There are a lot of analogies that use the illustration of the river to symbolize truth, reality and God. Just the other day I was having a conversation with a friend regarding the truth and how it cannot be contained ... only experienced. The book I'm currently reading, The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts, illustrates this idea perfectly. "You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To "have" running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God." For so long I hadn't just tried to "capture truth in a bucket" but I allowed it to be served to me on a platter. Served to me in the form of other men's words and visions about God without experiencing my own. I had to learn to surrender myself to God and the process of understanding unhindered by labels and superficial rules. I had to trust my own inner voice and not the voices of others. I felt my subconscious beckoning me to cease my struggling and to flow with the current and not resist it. For God is the current itself, the ever changing flow of what Is. Alan Watts talks about 'the law of reversed effort' and how when we struggle against the water we sink but when we stop struggling we float. Finally, when I stopped struggling to cling to my preconceived notions of belief, trying to fit them in to interpret my experience, I rose to the surface of the water I had been submerged in and my spiritual lungs began to fill up with the air they so desperately needed.

 Posted by Jessica

M  Zen master Shunryu Suzuki once said, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few."  I began my pursuit to discover God's truths with my ideas and philosophies bound in a neatly wrapped package. I figured I would go about learning and discovering God but within the confines of certain parameters. My search for encountering and exploring the Divine has burst open that package and dispelled my once held myth that God could ever be categorized. I feel more a beginner now to the process than I did from the very beginning. And I'm okay with that. To me it confirms that my compass is pointed in the right direction.

 "Seeing" Truth

When you realize that all that appears and exists to be your mind, there is no path of enlightenment apart from that. When samsaric existence is freed in itself, there is no awakening state to accomplish apart from that. Once you realize this, samsara and nirvana are not two.

16th November

Just nine of us today and after twenty minutes of catching up we settled back to watch a short video on young people waking up to spiritual truths. A bit new age but still interesting are we all awakening up to the same call to rise above the physical reality?

An atom's nucleus occupies less than one thousand million millionth (10 ) of the atomic volume, but contains almost all of the atom's mass. If an atom had the size of the earth, the nucleus would have the size of a football stadium.

Know that Life is simply our classroom to learn who we truly are as Spirit beings and how to operate in the Divine POWER that was birthed with us as us.

All of the sages of old came to teach us this very truth about ourselves.  How we can manifest our greatness through our thoughts, feelings and beliefs.  To LIVE YOUR POWER you must first begin with knowing that you are the Divine manifest in human form here to experience life in all its glory through your eyes and actions.

Remember, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz? She had the power to go home all along. Well like Dorothy you have the power all along to BE that which it is you dream to BE.

SO HOW DO YOU GET THERE?

1) The first step is to understand that you are more than just someone here to exist through what ever happens to you. Take control of your life by first knowing that you make the decisions either consciously or unconsciously to live the life you are living.

2) Align yourself with your true nature! Know that you are the miracle of birth, the living manifest power of Spirit in the flesh, here to live a life that only you can live. You are here to give to the world the dreams that can only be manifest through You! Know that your life affects people in so many miraculous ways. It’s why we grieve so much when someone that has touched us makes their transition.

3) Understand that all of life operates according to Universal Law. Example: Gravity – it is a law in the Universe. We can’t see it but we know it works and we abide by how it works to use it effectively. You don’t jump off a building because you know gravity exist and you will fall to your death. Understand that the Law of Attraction as mentioned in the book/video “The Secret” is one of many Divine Principles to be embraced to exercise your POWER to manifest your Dreams.

4) Be totally open to a new awareness of L.I.F.E. (Live in Full Expectancy) and do not fear it shaking out people, places, thoughts and things that no longer serve you. It will loose concepts and belief systems that you felt strongly about, thoughts you have believed in error for decades due to religious dogma or erroneous thinking. Allow them to fade away as you embrace YOUR POWER. It is called New Thought for this very reason. (In Christian terms it is referred to as being born again, the renewing of your mind.) It IS the re-birth of a new consciousness. Be fully open to it as you learn new information and find new realizations leading you to higher levels of awareness.

5) Practice moving negative thoughts by allowing them to fly out of your mind like a flock of ducks flying over head. Don’t fight the negative thoughts, allow them to pass through. Release them as freely as they come. It is when you shoot the duck you own the meal. That is how the negative thoughts get stuck in mind causing great damage. Practice positive thinking and feeling good.

I so want you to FEEL ALIVE and know that the very Spirit that lives with in you is filling you with LOVE, PEACE, JOY and ABUNDANCE in every moment. Know that you are here to Live a L.I.F.E. (Live In Full Expectancy) filled with all the good that you have dreamed of.

Know that you have the POWER living right inside of you to BE the POWER that is YOU! LIVE YOUR POWER! LIVE IT! FEEL IT! BELIEVE IT! BE IT!

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him/Her to be,
and whatever your labours and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. 

19th October

We started by discussing have we free will and then listened to a short video where Richard Dawkins an atheist, and vice president of the British Humanist Association summed it up by quoting Hitchens "I have no choice" We watched a video of a guru with turban and flowing beard who pointed out that Descartes was wrong when he said "Je pense donc je suis" I think there for I am. It is obvious that he was therefore he could think. After a break we looked at a paper on being in the moment.

17th August 2012

Eleven of us today met to listen to a young Canadian student studying under a guru speaking of an approach to enlightenment by asking Who Am I? Without forming ready answers such as my name my history or what others think of you.
This led to much speculation and inward thought. We never got around to reading the prepared paper but if we had this is part of it.


Beyond all experience is the one experiencing.
To anyone who declares themselves enlightened, I would ask, “Who is enlightened?” The answer is “I AM.” And then only silence remains. Pure consciousness is your true nature. The I AM Presence is your true nature. It is silent. It is eternal. It is impersonal.
But that does not mean that you cannot also exist at the personal level. I do not mean to imply that life at the level of mind should cease. That is not possible, nor desirable. What is possible however is that you become so awake and deeply grounded in the present moment and the awakened state of Presence that you never lose your connection with the present moment, even when you do venture into the world of the mind. In other words, you no longer believe in your thoughts, memories, ideas, beliefs and opinions as the truth. You are no longer identified with any of it. You recognize that life at the level of mind is simply play. It is sometimes happy and sometimes sad, because it is a world of duality. You relax and accept the dual nature of the mind and the world of experience within time. You are no longer for or against anything. You have transcended judgment. Life is accepted fully and so too is death. Joy is accepted fully and so too is pain. But you are so deeply grounded in the moment of now, that you no longer get caught in the movements of the mind and its world of thought and emotion. You are deeply grounded in Oneness. You are able to return to silence and Presence at will. In fact, silence and Presence is always there as the foundation of your existence, and your sense of yourself.
It is time for humanity to awaken at a collective level. Enlightenment can no longer be for just a select few, who no longer participate in the world. If there is to be an awakening at a collective level, we will have to learn to function within the world. This means that we will have to find a balance between the timelessness of the fully awakened state and the world of time.

20th July 2012

Eleven of us today. I was going to show the law of attraction but found another video about a similar practice that predated it by at least two decades. We watched as those attending a seminar were instructed to let go all negative grudges and emotions just as a child who realizes that no one is aware when they hurt themselves dismisses the injury when normally they would be inconsolable.

We accepted that the mind even when producing thoughts that we don't want should be seen as ourselves and accepted. We need to expect the world to react to us as a friend to accept what it offers.
We then read an article of interest.

Beyond the Ego
However, there is a method of healing our inner discord and transcending our insanity: through 'transpersonal' - or spiritual - development. The whole purpose of transpersonal development is to transcend our intensified sense of ego, to blunt its walls of separateness and quieten its chaotic thought-chatter so that we can begin to experience a new sense of inner content and a new sense of connection to the cosmos and to other beings. This is what the practice of meditation aims to do: to generate a state of inner quietness in which the ego fades away. And this is what happens when we dedicate our lives to serving others rather than following our own selfish desires: separateness begins to fall away as we develop a heightened sense of compassion, a shared sense of being with other people and other creatures.
As we transcend the intensified sense of ego, we begin to see the world as a meaningful and harmonious place. We become able to live in the moment and accept ourselves and our lives as they are, without wanting. And we also move beyond the social insanity of warfare and oppression. Since there is no discord inside us, we no longer crave for wealth and power, and now that we are no longer separate, we have the ability to empathise with other beings, and so become incapable of abusing or exploiting them. When the ego is transcended, all of the madness of human behaviour fades away, like the symptoms of a disease which has now been cured. That is the only true sanity, and perhaps the only way in which we can hope to live in peace and harmony on this planet....


We finished by watching a video "Where the hell is Matt" a very inspiring short video.