Pure Potential

(Photo of the Prayer Flag Ceremony by Anne Jablonski.)

In order to get off the treadmill we've got to allow ourselves to be pure, to wipe out all our old, stale habits that aren't serving us any more, even as we are tempted to continue operating from our usual faulty stance. We're going to have to allow pure potential to unfold, and we can't do that when we have preconceived, necesarily limited notions about what is ocurring.

Sometimes it can feel like we're stuck to our old patterns like glue, like we can't possibly let them go. It's important to remember that unlimited potential is never predetermined. It's important to feel freedom.

We must remain pure -

like a baby,

like a new born,

we must be that innocent.

And then we will find our wings and fly.

Miraculously Connected

Notice people you have a mysterious bond with today: maybe it's a friend who keeps going through similar experiences at the time as you are, maybe someone just "appears" who understands your situation exactly, maybe it's someone you can sit across the table from at a meal and not say a word, but know exactly what they are thinking, maybe it's someone whose mind you know long distance.

Be grateful for the connections. They remind us we are never alone.

Places That Scare Us

That's the title of a Pema Chondron book - The Places That Scare Us; I've always loved that title for it's rhythm, similar to another favorite - Where the Wild Things Are. Come to think of it both those books are about fear and how it paralyzes and harms us, preventing us from moving into our potential.

I don't like to admit I'm afraid. It's a defense mechanism, I know, especially since the root of my fears is complete abandonment, that somehow I'll be left behind, whether by colleagues at my teaching job because I'm stymied by new technology that looks scary to learn, by publishers willing to back new book ideas ("really - you liked that idea, I'm not sure I can actually write it to its full potential") or by friends, lovers, even close family I feel I can't possibly deserve. There's a tension there; if this really is heaven - and it is heaven where we are now - a place filled with explosive love, creative ideas swirling around, and technology that connects us all - then it is our own sense of not being worthy, not being capable, not being open enough, that prevents us from going through those pearly gates.

WE ARE GOOD ENOUGH - right here, right now, as we are, and the battle against fear is just part of the action, part of our own mental drama. Yes, it looks scary out there - there are conditions that look like disease, cancer, insanity, and human threats to our peace, but the truth is the most earth shattering challenge to our potential is in our heads. Let's be tender with ourselves then. We are already enough.

Focus

It helps to be conscious of our goal here. The ego loves to abuse our thinking minds to distract all of us.

Everyone has their own pet distractions. For me the number one distraction is scheduling. I tell myself what I am doing is useful - that I am planning for future joy, but really the idea that I can independently plan on a calendar how and when I'll allow myself bliss is ridiculous. It feeds my need to feel in control, and leads to hours upon hours of scribbling dates, making plane reservations, canceling those reservations, organizing e-mails and writing notebooks, setting up when such and such is going to happen.

Movement toward truth doesn't happen that way - it is a synergistic flow that occurs when we let go into the the larger plan, life, instead of trying to force it.

It's a comfort to know that when the scheduling bug bites I am on the edge of true fulfillment; the planning is the ego's way of saying, "Hey, you need me!" The ego knows when we're about to slide into bliss and dump it, so it screams like an angry, spoiled child, putting out a smoke screen about this future that will never arrive.

My second mental distraction from Truth is to create false drama. This one is really evil because it takes interactions with other people that are based on love and perverts them into a conflict. Drama is the way the ego destroys love - the love that is the goal in the present where the ego cannot exist!

The way to get past these distractions is to remember that goal, and instead of deciding to plan when we'll get to it later, to turn to it with a sense of peaceful surrender right here, right now.