Category: Spirituality

FEAR NO MORE:

I go without fear.I go without ego.My past is no longer in power.My past is no longer in control.When we move, when we think,we are moving towards ourselves.Our knowledge is there,our thoughts are all one.Our being is aware,our seeing is beyond.I do no…

You either choose to help others, or you don’t choose to help others… THERE IS NO IN-BETWEEN!

I want to tell you a PROFOUND STORY that I’ve barely told anyone. Many years back in Hamilton, ON – the place I reside in. Each year they hold a gathering festival at the pier. Every year there’s; booths, food, trinkets and live music.

This one year after hearing a great Canadian band called “The Tea Party”, I was walking with some friends down the grass hill when I saw a large group of strangers hovering over something happening.

My curiosity got the best of me, so I too like many others hurried to see what all the commotion was all about, come to find out that people were watching 6 guys absolutely pound on some young teenager on the ground that you couldn’t even recognize anymore.

The Lion in my instantaneously yelled “hey, what in the world are you doing!” and ran up to those individuals harming the teenager and one by one started throwing them off him.

I didn’t care to be a hero, I wasn’t scared for my life since they could have turned onto me next, but it was the right thing to do.

Once they all cleared in a hurry, I knelt down and seeing this poor kids face, hardly could recognize what he looked at, I placed my hands on his face to stop the bleeding and kept saying to him, “It’s going to be alright, you’re going to be just fine. Listen to my voice; you’re going to be just fine.”

The paramedics showed up and said “weren’t you afraid of getting hurt?”, “I said no!”, then they said “What about diseases like AIDS touching his blood”, I replied, “If saving a man’s life has consequences, then so be it, I’m ready to deal with those consequences”.

The hardest part for me was that when I got up, I saw a man with his 7-9 year old child watching the whole thing happen.

I immediately went to the man and said, “Is this what you’re trying to teach your son? To just stand there and watch?”… The man replied “what is it to you?”… “I held up my bloody hands and started veering towards his son, not to hurt him, but so that he understood that this was wrong, someone just got hurt”… The man quickly felt fear in his eyes and understood my message and turned the other way to leave without saying a word.

In life, when presented with moments like these, you have two choices, you can either watch someone get hurt, or you can be the better person and help others so they don’t get hurt.

It’s your choice!

The Buddhist Chain – Find more stories and images on my Facebook page.

Namaste
Martin R. Lemieux

WAKE UP CALL FOR HUMANITY!

WAKE UP CALL FOR HUMANITY!

If we were to dispassionately take stock of the year 2015, there might be a general consensus on  two major developments that have stood out,...

Take this Simple Step to Know your True Self

The tiny seed of Truth is found in every human being. Similarly to the seed of a tree, the tiny seed contains great potentials. If the spiritual Seeker protects and nourishes that tiny seed, it will grow into the mighty tree of Truth. But it can only protect and nourish it, if it’s aware of its existence. How can the spiritual seeker realize this and how can the Truth be revealed?

 The world of the forms and shapes
A lot of people are unaware of that, and they try to find the Truth outside themselves, in the world of forms and shapes, wishing to make forms eternal. So the modest little seed in us stays dormant, waiting for better times.The better times come when the spiritual Seeker realizes that all the external shapes and forms are transitory, so they turn their attention from the world of shapes to the internal world. Under the effect of turning inward, the small seed begins to sprout, and it starts slowly growing. I revitalizes the spiritual Seeker, and a deep desire arises in them to see the flower that the small seed may become.

Then one of the spiritual Seekers may try to use the little sprout to decorate his/her ego with it. Another one says: “Look, there is a lily of the valley growing in me! But I want to be a rose!” In their effort to become a rose, their attention turns back towards the shapes and forms, so the gentle sprout dries and the seed falls asleep again.

That is how the spiritual Seeker has been playing games in the world of forms and shapes for a long time. It is true that the game is so beautiful and relaxing. The spiritual Seeker will soon have favourite games and toys, as well as favourite playing partners. The more beautiful and better toys the spiritual Seeker invents, the more powerfully they will insist on them.If they do not cling to the toys, they will cling to their partners in the game or to the game itself. By playing these games, the spiritual Seeker will be trapped in the world of shapes and forms, and the modest little seed will sleep forever. When the spiritual Seeker gets tired of playing, and during a brief rest turns inward, there is still the danger of treading on the gentle sprout during the next game.

Some spiritual Seekers gather extra strenght during the time they spend in the internal silence, and with renewed force they abandon themselves into the busy world of the forms and shapes. In the internal silencethey find a means that extends their power and efficiency in the world. Naturally, it means that they will be lost even deeper among the forms, which sooner or later brings them new suffering, perhaps even worse than the previous one. Then they turn inward one more time, and the whole cycle starts all over again. 

This process may be repeated infinitely in the life of the spiritual Seeker. Still, the process does have its benefit, as the Ego may become tired of it after a while, give up the effort and fall into the silence. Only the deep-rooted desire for the flower remains in the soul of the wanderer. Then they realize that the real flower bed for the little seed is the silence, the non-action, staying in the alert Consciousness, free of concepts. In this internal silence the small seed develops into a beautiful flower. The world of forms and shapes loses its significance for the spiritual Seeker. Only the Existence remains as the only reality.

Turning inward

The spiritual Seeker’s turning inward is therefore a precondition for the germination of the small seed. Turning inward may be interpreted differently by different people, according to their own conceptual knowledge. In general, turning inward means that the person’s attention is diverted from the world of forms and shapes towards their internal world.

In this interpretation, there is a subject who is watching and an internal object (breathing, thought, concept, a conceptual image of God etc.) that is being watched. Here the intensification of the attention is equal to the increase of the duration of the attention. The little seed begins to sprout in the internal silence.

The next level of turning inward is when the attention is not focused on inner objects, but on the Consciousness sensing it. E. g. when somebody is watching his/her own respiration, after a while their attention will be shifted from the act of breathing (which is something outside the subject) to the subject itself (the Consciousness watching the respiration). One is only able to perform it lastingly when their concentration ability is sufficiently strong, trained by watching internal objects.

In this interpretation, intensifying attention means that the spiritual Seeker submerges into this Consciousness to an increasing extent. After a while they realize that the Consciousness they focus their attention on is not yet the Self (at that point a lot of the spiritual Seekers lose their way), but the Ego (the I-concept, body awareness). The little seed is now growing and becoming more powerful.

As the power of attention increases, the spiritual Seeker begins to seek where the Ego is emerging from, and what nourishes that Consciousness. That is how they finally return to the source of the Ego, which is the Self(the witnessing Presence, the absolute Consciousness). Now the little seed is in full bloom, presenting the spiritual Seeker with its wonderful scent, which is the pleasure of Existence itself.

The point is being a witness

When the seed is in bloom, the roles of the personality of the spiritual Seeker, their reactions, the work of the mind continue to exist, but the spiritual Seeker no longer intends to change them. The spiritual Seeker does not want to be performing better or to obtain a better role. 

They plainly watch their own reactions. They no longer identify with the roles and allow the quality of their reactions to determine their self-image. They learn to laugh at themselves. As Witnesses they see and recognize that the Ego is nothing but a bundle of conditioned patterns of behaviour and emotion, and as such, it does not have any particular reality.

Intensity is Required for Awakening.

The spiritual Seeker realizes that for awakening, that is, for the sprouting and blooming of the little seed requires intensity in the Now.What is that intensity provided by? The intensity is provided by the recognition that the spiritual Seeker does not identify with the body-mind complex, but with the conscious Presence of true life. Once this recognition permeates the entire self of the spiritual Seeker, then the intensity necessary for Awakening is ready and provided.


(C) Frank M. Wanderer, 2013-2016
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NEW WAKE UP BOOK
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