All Comments By Paashi

 Wondering if the contentment found in solitude comes from complete acceptance of myself and allowing the partial and wholeness to blend together.
 

 On first reading, I resonated with "we participated with numerable other players and causes and this is what emerged --------absurd heroism."  

But I find myself tied in the paradox of parts nestled in the whole that is constantly expanding. Can the parts have an existence removed from the whole.  Human imagination keeps emerging to deal with the minuscule and vastness and absurd heroism at core may be individual and  collective responsibility inherent in our imaginations.  Our evolutionary development has both an inner and outer awareness and so we find ourselves grappling with both micro and macro aspects of our world.

I want to excavate the essence of LOVE in myself and find words expressing it ,beautifully warm and heart expanding and yet-- this elusive, shy role of my soul feels  just a touch away when pursued consciously.  And yet it is always there-- quite an enigma
The mundane act of just being in the many roles of human journey brings in the fragrance of love.  
In my sixth decade, it is the recognition that love is the quiet presence of self which is yearning to overcome the illusion of separateness.  IIn 2016 --- to my evolving with others in the game called LIFE or as this posting says-- LOVE!

In Thich Nhat Hanh poem,  Real names for me are the states of consciousness that are arising in all living beings at various stagesof evolutionary life.  Acceptance of this creative dance of life through the lens of compassion is where we are being pulled towards.  This helps while struggling with the presence of egoic tendencies  in self and others while marveling at the goodness and wonder present around us.

 Silence, reflection and objective awareness expand the container.  When I get still and allow objective reflection, something expands--- the need to justify myself through the ego lens gives way to simple acceptance of events. The pride, should I say the limited false pride of having a free will begins to come into perspective and self compassion expands the heart to see the beauty of awe and wonder of all things.  The energy field becomes quite visceral at times and the state of separation opens to wholeness of existence. 

I read this twice to allow the gap between grasping the meaning of our  lives versus sensing it as parallel states of being. to sink in.  Practiced stillness allows me  to sense the veil of separateness that perpetuates the mistake of immense proportion that Jacob Needleman is writing about.,  For today, I will be focusing on " Materialism is a not a sin, it's  a mistake". 

When the  capacity of my mind is overloaded with the wonder of conceptual awareness of  the Cosmos and its vastness, and mindful vipasana has allowed acceptance of this wonder, I keep my earthly sense of wonder alive through sensory experience of nature walks, wild flowers, and other life humming around in nature. Watching wonder in the eyes young children also nourishes the wonder of discovering life playing its creative dance of curiosity.

My circle of trust is the awareness that is drawn to wholeness of life doing its dance.  It's the urge to break through the fog of separateness while simultaneously honoring our unique soul prints.  Being in the presence of trees  with sunlight streaming through the canopy by myself or with others , allows my shy soul to make its appearance.  

I sense when we use   the analogy of the story to understand  our perception of what is reality, it  helps us to comprehend our collective existence.  This  comprehension  feels  as LIFE looking at its own innate structure while simultaneously birthing,  evolving and deepening the  story  in the womb of eternal creation.  Infinity  appears to be the nature of the Eternal story with myriad themes in various dimensions.  It feels the simple beauty is that we are the writers and participate in various parts of the story: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action , resolution, revelation and catastrophe.  Each story of everyone and everything collectively seems to be working towards a play  of cosmic proportions. The human consciousness as the player and audience has been witnessing and participating  this play constantly. Our contemporary story is asking for compassionate  participation with expanded awareness of our interconnections. These abstract reflections are being put into practice by us to the extent we understand the deep integral connection of the parts to  the whole.
 
 

Personally, I'm trying to accept the challenging situations as integral part of existence.  We all have our share of experiences that bring about varying degrees of suffering.  This acceptance does lessen the anxiety to avoid pain and gives energy to build resilience around the situations both personal and impersonal.

 My thoughts , emotion and occasionally action flow freely when the I'm not confined with the give and take practicality of everyday life.  when the heart is un constricted and in a natural state of being part of the wholeness, then the flow of life moves freely towards others.

 Parenting is equivalent to gardening. Nurturing and guiding my offspring through childhood to adolescent brought experiences of arrogance in the sense that I was capable of raising well adjusted and capable and caring adults.  Humility set in as they  faced the challenges of adulthood--- careers , relationships, health and their own parenting roles.  

Working with the soil  provides the therapeutic benefit equivalent to  contemplating the personal experiences and the larger collective global paradigm shifts.  

The silence of the dark moist soil with its life giving nutrients, invisible to the human eye is quite enough to feel the spiritual in the density of the earth.

 I too am letting go off the guilt of not being crazy busy in the holiday season and cutting back on DIY projects and allowing the energy to be and not pushing it to meet the commercial energy of the holiday season.

 In my sixth decade the fog around constant doing is beginning to lift through accepting core faith that the human condition is evolving and yet every moment, situation, presence needs to be honored  as is. One of the ways this is taking place, is mindfulness and grateful heart practice aligning when I connect with breathing as the abundant gift.

 My thanksgiving pledge for LIFE, to AWAKEN  to the sacred in the mundane moments of life flow along with the awe and wonder of the COSMOS by accepting moment to moment grace of existence.  

Thanks for this reflection..... I feel a present moment connection to the energy your written words are expressing.  The Agape state is the nourishment of   Beingness.  May we all evolve towards it moment by moment.  I too only experience it in brief flashes of awareness. 

Aah  ....the ever present Witness!  It is patiently waiting to cradle us, when we allow ourselves to merge with its pure essence

 I'm reminded of  another passed down wisdom which loosely translates to:  It is dark under the lamp that radiates light all around.  I would like to contemplate that our journeys are the light  that awakens our awareness and so the external and internal begins to align.  The inner spiritual  space and the  psychologically conditioned shadows of the personality both are part of the journey to alignment with the totality of existence  to the extent collectively and individually experienced by all.

As I read and reflect on the seed question ,,,,,,in this moment, wholeness is the awareness of moving from the mental analysis state to allowing grace to be held in pure awareness of wholeness which leads to  experience truth, beauty and goodness.  I'm opening up to:  There is nothing wrong at the core level of all beings that needs fixing--- it is the learning, developing, and evolving of spiritual intelligence from a state of humbleness

I practice intentional awareness of seen and unseen  connections in life experiences as  a whole and the moment to moment ease during states of overwhelm.

 The generative response to Intentionally created chaos in an organizational setting versus naturally occurring chaos will depend on the individual's mental and physical strength.

 My parents both in their eighties are handling age related changes very differently.  My father gets overwhelmed with  emotional reactions and  views events as chaotic while my  mother has a receptive response and allows the family dramas to play itself out.   Aging does decrease the generative potential of creating order from chaos.
From the article I sense, practicing and overload of Information chaos in a business setting has the adrenaline rush for young players playing the team game.
 

 Caught in the grip of chaos in my mid-twenties, my brain physically  went into circles of  ever-expanding dark space and the mind shut down but the inner resilience of the heart held on with instinctive impulse to stay anchored in the present moment.   This whole experience lasted less than an hour.  Reflecting on it now, three decades later:  the generative force embedded a core sense of cellular level strength that has been with me through quite a few crisis.  The beauty of our evolved  human organism and the human spirit have the potential to generate inner order and adapt to create external order both individually and collectively.