Conversations with Nana

Below is part of a series of spontaneous writings that began in 2009. Each one begins with the following: “We are vast, of many voices. We speak to you of what is.”                

Our name is a thought, which you would not know, so some call us Gabriel, or Michaela, or other such names. It is all the same to us. We will come when called.

You ask who we are. We are all one. Life is all one. Some say we are a mighty force but that is only because we have to get your attention. We use the windstorms or lightening because most people do pay attention to the strong elements, but as ourselves, we are but light and thought. Even with thunder and tsunamis, we can barely get through sometimes. Your people mistakenly think we are guardian spirits, but we only observe. We are the light on the path, the voice of reason, that is all.

You ask if our existence proves there is a God. Assume nothing. God does not need proof. Angels, as you sometimes call us, only prove there are people in need of light. Your reality is what needs proving. If you are asking this question, then no answer will convince you. God lives in the experience of God.

Belief is for people’s minds. If it takes belief in order to have experience, then so be it. Some say belief without experience is called faith. Faith is like hope. It is the absence of, it is the before. Faith and Hope are based in expectation. If people want to cling to faith and hope for comfort, so be it. But divine reality is only love. There is no expectation in divine love.

Not everyone can do or think the same thing but there is room for everyone. Not everyone looks successful but everyone succeeds. Life is a series of successes, otherwise there would be no life. God is in everything and everything is the experience of God.

If people need or want rules, so be it. In darkness, people will follow the light once they become aware of it. If people want or need to keep returning to a body of substance, so be it. It is all love.

Religion is a vehicle, not an answer. But if you need answers, religion serves that purpose. God is the experience of God. Love is what people need to experience God. When you have love, you will know what God is like.

According to the Jewish story, Adam and Eve started in Paradise, where they received everything they needed and probably much more. In other words, they needed nothing, not even God. God was asking for a relationship with them, but rather than push for full involvement, he set forth only one stipulation to serve as a bond. Having everything wonderful already placed before them, it must have been hard for the couple to appreciate the depth of emotional pain that disappointment can bring. Thus, whether through feisty rebellion or just ignorant indifference, willfulness prevailed and they broke the bond. Imagine their surprise when the formerly generous God suddenly had a bad reaction. What they probably saw in themselves as youthful curiosity was relabeled as disobedience, and they were expelled into a land where they had to work for everything, for any sustenance or comfort at all. God cursed them with work.

God could easily have killed them on the spot, and started over with new models, but the point of the story is that he not only wanted a relationship, he wanted it with them. He did not want to be invisible to match their indifference, he wanted to tame them and keep them around. And so he devised a plan of punishment that carefully reflected what they had lost, a prototype of shaping consequences to fit the crime. God was the barking dog or the hissing cat, striking back while hoping in return to be touched.

The idea of reconnection is a major theme in Judeo-Christian religion. How to convince the cursing god that you love him in spite of the curse – that there is nothing he can do to you, deserved or undeserved, that will squelch that love. Job and Jesus are the role models here. The New Testament Jesus accepted the curse of God but lived in the blessing and made it his mission to convince others that they were the sons of God – already loved and blessed and embraced. They need only to allow their vision to see that they already lived in Paradise where no effort was required.

Like the Old Testament Job, many of the Christian saints have approached God in this “way of the cross.” They are willing to take on unreasonable hardships to prove to God their ability to “take it.” Because whatever God dishes out – or allows – is seen to be an expression of the other, positive part of God. God’s victims can only know of his good side because they have already experienced the blessing, at least once. On the other side of the curse is the blessing, which is just as connective, as powerful, and as meaningful, more so because it holds love, comfort, joy – all the wanted things in life.

What is desirable is a permanent positive connection. Otherwise, those who embrace the tyrant’s curse without any hint or hope of relief or reward are most likely merely masochists, pessimists, or depressives, the mentally ill of the congregation. The cursed world becomes secure to them because it is familiar. No previous blessing is recognized or remembered because it is out of the safety zone of the known. Those who live this way become the hissing cat – they curse God and deny his positive presence, while longing to be touched. They rely on devils to explain their misery, deny his desire or ability to intervene, sometimes deny his existence – his potency – altogether.

There are only two ways, one or the other, to make a positive permanent connection. One way is to detach oneself from the struggle – not to become indifferent in a way that breaks the connection – but to become a witness of one’s own life, to observe and allow without ranking or rancor or praise. To allow, let be, let go, accept dispassionately and/or readjust or repair without agitation. In this way all life becomes the blessing because there is no struggle, no desperate activity, only the flow of peaceful observation. Detach and accept.

The other way is to embrace the curse, not with suffering and tempered despair, but with a joyful, laughing approach to what must be just another of God’s playful nudges, his sporting way of keeping your attention. Soon you realize that the curse is just a very small slit in the pie chart of blessing. There is only 100% blessing, disguised in various forms. God’s sport may be challenging, but it is not harmful in the meaningful sense. A parellel here might be the image of a pregnant woman facing the coming pain, yet already identifying herself as a mother. The Good News that Jesus taught is that we are blessed, period. If hard times seem impossible and you wail and curse and collapse in despair, it’s ok, go ahead. Your wailing has disturbed nothing in the plan; you are still loved, still being blessed in each moment. It is exactly for this reason that at times you pray for surcease, but to no avail. If you could only see the blessing as the mystics do, you would flood with joy.

This blessing – the positive embrace of God – is getting you exactly where you really want to be – within the constant presence of love. And the Good News is: you don’t have to see it that way. It just is – like the air you breathe. Whether you believe one thing or another about oxygen doesn’t really matter, does it? Apologies, remorse, guilt, denial, ignorance, arrogance, knowledge – nothing changes the fact that you need and get air every day that you live.

May 22, 2010

To see the humanity in all others:

You are just as much human as I am. We both fail and succeed in equal measure. It is in being human that we act the way we do.

To see the divine in everyone:

You and I are equal parts of the whole. You house the divine fire, you are God come to me. This is Jesus on the road. This is the  Buddha in disguise.

To forgive self and others:

You are doing your very best at every moment. You are only trying to survive. Your worst and best is part of me. There is nothing to criticize. All that is past I forgive. All that is present I forgive. All that is to come I forgive.

To develop gratitude:

How you are and who you are, no matter how difficult or full of grace, is helpful to me in my growth and learning. You are my teacher, generously helping me to learn certain lessons. I thank you for all the time and energy, positive or negative, that you have expended in my direction.

To live freely:

I dismiss my expectations about each person. I release everyone. All are free to be who we must be and to act the way we must act. I accept everyone’s past and relinquish any past actions we shared. I accept everyone’s future and surrender any part I may play. I accept everyone just as they are at this moment.

August 6, 2008

Below is part of a series of spontaneous writings that began in 2009. Each one begins with the following: “We are vast, of many voices. We speak to you of what is.”                

You ask about belief in God.

You believe in the idea of God. It’s a comforting thought, and it provides quick answers for a lot of life’s paradoxes and contradictions. But, your belief is not really the meaningful point. The bigger meaning is when you have experience of God. It’s the experience that makes God personal.

Know that there is one Source. For example, a waterfall is a source for a stream which is a source for a creek, a creek is a source for a river – ever flowing outward until the essence, the water, comes full circle back again, as in evaporated water is source for clouds which are source for rain which is source for ground water which is source for the waterfall, and on and on, folding back into itself and flowing out again.

There are no actual words for Source. Thus everything becomes metaphor.

It is a kind of energy, as active as electricity, as dominant as sound, as generative as light. Source is the current running through everything. As pure energy, the question of personality simply doesn’t come up. As the Jewish story says: “I am who am,” or “I am who I am.” Energy just is. Any unpredictability is not volitional, the one doing the predicting is simply inept.

Whatever the Source metaphor is – a pulse of electric current, or a sound vibration, or illuminating light, or maybe all three, or something other – it energetically reverberates, like rings in a pool. The rings are Source manifesting itself, over and over again, farther and farther out, beyond awareness. Just as river water is waterfall water is cloud water, everything is Source. With each manifestation, a new shape or shade or tone appears, all degrees or refractions of Source, including all life, including you.

You ask of a personal God.

Some of the reverberations – for example, some of you,  - seem brighter, or clearer, or more charged than others. You try to understand by using phrases such as, “old souls,” “enlightened,” “self-realized,” “chosen,” “saints,” “blessed.” Others seem dimmer, opaque, disrupting, and you say, “limited,” “ill,” “misinformed,” or even “evil.” But, think of the water metaphor: with a creek one can imagine a river but never an ocean. When an ocean is encountered, it is set apart as different, unique, and special, not just another source of water. The manifestations you perceive as each other take on individual characteristics, like disguises. Your ultimate work is to learn to see through the disguise, to recognize the Source in such a way that all becomes one in your mind. To see this truth does not discredit the saints, nor uplift the sinners. To see the truth of the universal Source is to uplift your own worth in your own eyes, to realize what you really are.

Yes, you are all equal manifestations of the same Source, called by different names and called upon for different reasons, always present within Source, just as Source is always present within you.

As Source awareness increases, some, again, need to define or label it as a special condition, for example, self-realization, enlightenment, mystical union. These names are not significant. All journeys are back to Source.

Source awareness eliminates guilt, shame, despair, condemnation. You learn and you teach, you do your work and accept your life as meaningful just as it is. Take joy in the awareness that you are one in many forms.

3/5/09

Below is part of a series of spontaneous writings that began in 2009. Each one begins with the following: “We are vast, of many voices. We speak to you of what is.”                

 You are seeking a state of being or a state of mind. First you must determine what that state is, what it means to you now, and what it will mean to you once you are living it. Then comes the practice:

 Lesson # 1 is Be.

Be in this moment only. The past is over and the future is a fantasy. This moment is all there is. Practice being here in this moment until, eventually, this moment is all there is. To be fully present is how to:

Slow down time for full enjoyment and satisfaction.

Make death no longer imminent until the time of death.

Remove fear of what will happen in the future.

Put aside the pain of what has already taken place.

Place regret in its historical context, and not carry it with you.

Be fully present and attentive in the presence of another.

Defeat addictive behavior, which is mindless.

Avoid making promises you may not be able to keep. A promise is only a wish.

Lesson #2 is Listen.

Listen with your mind free of everything but one goal, to understand. Listen with your intuition as well as your intelligence. To listen well is how to:

Practice empathy.

Understand how something came to be.

Create trust.

Honor the person who wants to be heard.

Understand the purpose of your connection with another person.

Eliminate isolation for you and for the other.

Help ease another’s emotional pain.

Know another.

 7/4/09

Below is part of a series of spontaneous writings that began in  2009. Each one begins with the following: “We are vast, of many voices. We speak to you of what is.” 

There is the underworld, which is a prison or a trap, such as, addiction, greed – individual and corporate – cruelty, chronic indifference to others’ suffering, anything that takes control of your time and free spirit, etc. This is the world so many live in but believe they don’t. They think that whatever is the guiding thing that controls them isn’t as bad as some other controlling thing, therefore they think they are freer than someone caught in something else. People say, “At least this is not that.” The point is not about the level of goodness or badness, or how much physical damage is done, but rather about living a life controlled by a force other than oneself.

Next there is the visible world, which is where you live every day, what you think you see, your material perceptions, livelihood, ambition, plans, etc. – not necessarily a bad place, just life as you know it without your realization that everything here is illusion. If you don’t know it is illusion, then you are just as trapped in prison as in the underworld. The underworld and the visible world are mixed together so subtly that most don’t see the connection. You say, “Everything would be fine if it weren’t for this problem,” when the truth is that nothing and everything is the problem.

Thirdly, there is the overworld, seen with what you call the third eye. It is a part of life as you know it, but you tend to think of it as the ideal rather than what is – the actual. It is not visible, such as a house, or food. Rather, it is a knowable state: love, peace of mind, gratitude, generosity. You can recognize this world through your emotions and physical reactions, which, unfortunately, make it seem inconstant. The overworld is constant; it is your condition that fluctuates. Your fluctuating perception of the overworld is what makes scientists shake their heads in amusement, claiming perception is all a delusion, a brain chemical temporary state. The idea that you think you have momentarily seen something real is all part of the delusion, they tell you. And, without understanding what they are really saying, they are right. Simply change the word delusion into illumination. The overworld is like living with the lights on. It is available to you anytime, right now, for as long as your stamina allows you to participate. The key is stamina, which like any body building program will tell you, can be increased – in this case by meditation, nature, prayer, nourishing reading, the communion of other like-minded people, and your own unique formulas.

The overworld is like an archway, an open entrance or foyer to the other world, which is constant, forever, enduring. The other world is the real one where you can live right now, as you are, not after death, or conversion. Now, this moment. This moment. This moment. Grab one. It might take a few tries to get it, like the brass ring at the merry go round, but when you take on this moment, time, as you know it – moving, advancing, leaving only artifacts and memory behind – stops.

In this moment you have discovered the IS, where there is no life, death, birth, suffering, loss, grasping to keep the ecstasy. The ‘Is’ is the always present tense but without the tenseness. The ‘Is’ is God, ultimate reality, connectedness, attunement, alignment, being, oneness. These are foolish words, really, to try to catch a glimpse of what is right t/here all along. You are trying to talk about something that cannot be talked about, like a child trying to explain nuclear fission. It is the trying to talk about it that is the delusion. As long as you are talking about it you are not in it. Talking, thinking, explaining is like hitting a child to teach him not to hit others, or going to war to end all wars. There is nothing to say. You will know it when you get there and you can only guess until that time. Anyone who has glimpsed or, especially, lives there, is like the guru at the peak of the mountain when you finally arrive at the top and ask what is the meaning of life, that maddening person who only smiles in return. You think your arduous climb deserves an answer; you think have a right to know because you want it so much. In that state, you are trapped in the overworld just as much as another is trapped in the underworld.

9/12/10

Below is part of a series of spontaneous writings that began in 2009. Each one begins with the following: “We are vast, of many voices. We speak to you of what is.”                

This story begins at the beginning and the end and the middle, depending on your point of view. It is the story of who you are. In order to explain the mystery of you, we must talk about something that has no language and no rational explanation. Even our metaphor, which seems reasonable at the start, will not fit, as you will soon enough see. But for your sake, we will use the language of light to try to explain. Remember, nothing we say in words will be correct in the mystical sense, so there is no creed or religion to make it into. Just follow along.

There is light, strong light, the strongest light. Every particle within the light, that is every particle that is the light, represents an entity or being, which, you would say, is all of creation. The light is one mass and the light spreads itself in time and space, everywhere. As the light travels out, it’s strength is not less, but less noticeable, which you would say makes it dimmer and dimmer until you find what appears to be it’s very end.

The very edges… – here the metaphor starts to fail, because the word ‘edges’ implies something on the other side, but we are presenting the idea of nothing but light. From here on requires some mental creativity on your part. The farthest particles can vaguely recognize a glow beyond them, but they cannot explain it, nor do they know that the far away glow is actually in time and space – themselves. They attempt various explanations, and those entities who… Again, words are failing. Unfortunately, your language separates you from your non-human parts, so that you have a limited conception of mind. For example, in your world, a person is a ‘who’, but a rock or plant is not. We will use ‘who’ for everything because the word creates a certain idea that we wish to foster in your thinking.

Those particles who find similarity in their explanations and beliefs about the distant glow, will band together in affirmation of their beliefs. The affirming groups, however limited in their reasoning, are valuable because they represent the beginning of knowledge and later wisdom. Some will move from one believing group to another, comparing and questioning. Some will not move from their original path, not recognizing the light at all. The particle is a beam of the strong light, essential, not separate, without division, and yet each particle produces it’s own beam, it’s own trajectory. When something (we say something here to remind you of the totality of life of which we speak) moves away from the farthest edge of itself, it is moving closer to the stronger part of it’s light, and it becomes stronger. It is still spread to it’s very end, but it’s light is no longer as dim as before. The other beings who encounter the changed light, will recognize the change and either accept without understanding or reject as wrong. The changed one will soon enough encounter others with a stronger light and they will band together in their new condition and attempt to explain themselves.

As so it goes, with variable speeds of gaining strength along each one’s path of light. This is important: the projected beam is unique to that particle, it is the path of that entity and none other will work for that entity. The path is singular, individual, and equal to all others because they are one thing in time and space, a projection of the light source. Eventually, at whatever speed it accepts, an entity may travel it’s path right to the source, which means that even the farthest reaches of the trajectory is as strong as the source. This is our explanation of the Messiah, or Avatar, or Saint, and other names you have created; this is the promise of Jesus to return, or of Krishna, who says, from time to time I will come to you when you are in great need or crisis. The strong, or stronger, light of these entities is perceived by those farther out in time and space, and because of formed beliefs, their perception fits the expected image. In our reality, it is all one connection, one source responding to itself.

This is our limited explanation of how some beings seem higher or lower than others when you make comparisons. Our message to you is not that you believe our explanation, which is no more true than any other metaphor. The hope of our message is that you realize there is only one path for you, your own, which has existed in all time and space. Imitations, comparisons, pretenses, merely slow you down, and in the worst cases, can lead to despair. Your path will take you where it will, your only obligation for movement is to stay on your path and puzzle it through, by study, questions, discussions, and especially by listening to the light within, even if you don’t understand it’s source.

We realize that seeing all entities as equal in the light may be a difficult concept to understand. There are two possible explanations. Given that time and space are eternal and cannot be destroyed, entity advancement may be a matter of biological evolution. All life is in a process of evolving, so that plant life, for example, may simply be more distant on the path at this time. The second explanation, which may seem more immediate, given that there is no language for eternity, is that each entity is perfect in itself.

10/20/2009

Terrorism is a way to disrupt a society through unpredictable frightening occurrences, keeping anxiety and social withdrawal alive. Terrorism is to create a situation where the terrorized people become their own enemy because of their own fear. The terrorist receives permission from a higher power; he/she is a true believer who has blind faith that his cause is just.

Terrorism creates a direct hit, causing physical pain and most often death. The terrorist is making a clear and public statement, regardless of masks or subterfuge. Of course, some people die in the act, but killing everyone is not the goal. The goal of terrorism is to implant fear and doubt, to cause the automatic social machinery to slip a gear, derail, and eventually to change course.

Think of the Klu Klux Klan in America. Their goal is not to kill all non-whites in the U.S. Their goal is to frighten them into submission, or better, (wishful thinking) into voluntarily leaving the country en masse. The US government has yet to designate them as a terrorist organization. Rather, they are defined as “an extremist right-wing secret society” (Oxford American Dictionary).

Think of the al Quada terrorists. To kill all Westerners would be impossible and unnecessary. Their intention is to disrupt the economy, maim the social confidence, to bring evil materialism to its knees. The number of deaths is not as important as the unpredictability; the names of the dead are inconsequential. Terrorism presented this way is a stereotype, a quick Cliffs Note reference to make a point.

What makes terrorism efficient is that its practitioners are part of a network rather than an organization. Each base of operation is called a cell, like the individual cells in our bodies. They hold the same ideals, the same goals, but leadership beyond the cell members is only for inspiration, a booster shot of courage, not a dictatorship. Cell members not only act voluntarily, without payment, they also act somewhat independently of each other. Bringing down one sector does not affect the operations of the others; there is no toppling effect, no collapse in hierarchy.

To say we are fighting terrorism is like saying we are fighting serial killing. Removing one psychopath does not affect the others. Instead of creating wars to end terrorism, we need to create new inspiration, new ideals within ourselves so that the terrorists will have no easy target. So, really, we are not talking about a war, but an internal revolution.

2/15/09

An acquaintance sent me a joke recently with this question: “I think this is funny, but is it offensive to gays?” The joke was about an irritable passenger annoying a male flight attendant to the point that he lost his professional reserve altogether and subsequently used the word “bitch.” The joke included the caveat that the flight attendant was “obviously gay.” Here are some things to consider:

1. If you have to ask if it’s offensive, it probably is. Or, you are so hopelessly behind the times that you no longer can trust your own peers to be of a like mind, in which case, it probably is.

2. If you are a heterosexual telling a joke about homosexuals, it’s probably offensive to at least some people on both sides of the coin.

3. Any use of the word bitch will probably offend some segment of women, especially those who are tired of being globally stereotyped.

4. Where human beings are concerned, there is no such thing as being “obviously” anything. Is a person with cerebral palsy obviously retarded because he is spastic? Is a woman who wears stylish clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics obviously a ‘bimbo?’

5. It is incongruent to say ‘flight attendant, wait person, etc.’ in the same story as ‘obviously gay.’ Organize your thinking one way or the other, for consistency’s sake.

6. Try telling the joke without relying on any stereotypes. If its still funny, then the new version is probably not offensive.

7. If at any time, you wished the actual joke were printed here, you have missed the point.

—5/15/12

Miercoles:

Accidental sneeze:

dust, no doubt, or pollen  –

it’s that time of year

Jueves:

Drippy nose all day -

Half a toilet paper roll.

Best to take a pill

Viernes:

Weak, eyelids burning,

no vigor, no zip-ah-dee

Shoulders ache, head hurts

Sabado:

Jaw hurts, feverish.

Oh for someone to bring

A cool cloth, a pill

Domingo:

Crackly, graspy cough

sneezing rips at lungs and breath.

Take another pill

Lunes:

Stuffy but dripless

Racking, rocking and rolling

My way through the day

Martes:

Better when I rest

Start making tomorrow’s plans

But first, take a pill

6/29/09