All Comments By Sidney Dekoven

Thank you, Kristin for sharing your inspiring story. Your honesty and sincerity shines through it. Love, Sidney

Well, I like everything you say, David, and usually do, However I do believe that it is possible that a fully awakened being living completely in the present, carries no residue at all over from his/her current experience. That that is what Moksha means ot call it Liberation or Enlightenment without quotation marks, And yes, for the 99.999% of the rest of us, well, we do the best we can.  Sidney

Today I saw that much of my fantasy life revolves around the desire for fame, renown, glory. I imagine myself stunning an audience with my conducting a symphony I composed for example. What sees this is not the fantasy but my true self or knowing awareness. I ask myself: which is more precious, the fantasy or what sees it. No contest. What sees is far far more precious. I think the fame fantasy will diminish now it is in the light. 

I have found that I can be both happy and in a negative mood at the same time. AND is better than or. It seems like a contradiction but on a higher level it is not. AND resolves so many problems. The opposites exist together on a higher level. Black and white thinking is the cause of so much unnecessary trouble. I resolve to stay happy AND there are many difficulties in the world.  

 In a spiritual group I'm in, there is one person that when we look at each other there is nothing between. It happens after one of us has shared a personal spiritual insight. We then look at each other openly with surrender and love. It is a very beautiful moment of 2 souls connecting and becoming one with nothing in between. The gazing into each other's eyes may last only a few seconds but a circuit has been closed and love has found expression on this earth.

 When I stopped believing my thoughts, The whole wold started opening up for for me. I gained a positive attitude and anything became possible. Truly anything is possible if only one gets over the feeling of unworthiness. I believe the greatest barrier to enlightenment is this feeling of unworthiness and the attendant belief that I can't do it . It's too big. Beyond my capacity etc.  

 Yes empathy is like "I feel your suffering inside of me too", but maybe with a period after it. Whereas compassion is also "and I am available to relieve your suffering as best I can."I see the suffering of all beings laboring under the illusion of "I' or beset by the endless thought stream for I see that in myself. When I am able to, I try to guide that person to see more light. That "I" is really an illusion and that thoughts cannot disturb one if one does not give them the power to.

 I love the last part that being deeply interested in something you are in communion with it. And that this is not difficult. How wonderful to hear that. I have always had difficulty understanding what K. means when he says the observer is the observed. But here he says that in deep interest the observer and the observed are in complete communion and that gives me an understanding I did not have before. 

Lately I see love as an attitude, a choice. When I put on a smiling, happy face, that dispels any negativity in my system and I'm open to send love to all of creation. Maybe it's just tricking the negative egoic mind into believing that I'm happy but it works. Water is a miracle in all forms, raindrops,rivers , tears occupying 70% of the surface of the earth. I think, Love, the greatest miracle of all occupies 100% of the universe. Anything is possible when one opens oneself to Love. Perhaps the greatest  Love of all is to , As Christ said, Love those that despise you. For it is then we forget ourselves. And Meher Baba said : when we forget ourselves completely, we find God.   

It is difficult for me to serve and at the same time I can see the enormous benefit of it if I can do it. The obvious benefit is to those we serve but there is an even greater benefit for our true selves. For service diminishes self- will and takes one out of one's false sense of "me" to put it in one way. Small services are my best chance right now. Helping someone across the street, even smiling at a baby can give one an idea of the benefits of service. Ghandi's life was a life totally dedicated to service.   Although he is sometimes not depicted as such, he was probably one of the most joyful beings ever to have lived.

 We.ve got to learn to forgive and one way is by seeing ourselves in our persecutor(s). Being Jewish, I've had a particularly difficult time having compassion for the Nazi's but just as the poet sees himself as also the pirate rapist of a 12 year old girl whose heart has not yet learned to love , so too can I see myself as both the persecuted one and the Nazi who "knows not what he does". Forgiveness and compassion are necessary not just for those we forgive but maybe even more so for ourselves for we cannot spiritually unfold with bitterness and hatred in our hearts. 

 Thank you so much David for your reply. I will contemplate on the story(s). So nice to communicate with others on the spiritual path-----Sidney.

 About a week ago, I was just lying in bed with my eyes closed but I could not fall asleep, when what I would call  waves of awareness passed through my being. It only lasted a few seconds but I feel the experience has changed me forever. A shift from my identity as a personality and body to just awareness. I call it grace because I did nothing to deserve it.  My task as I see it is to lose the attachment to my name, Sidney, and all that is associated with it while still functioning in  my daily life with awareness.