Signs that you are becoming more aligned with the Divine:

• Ambition, vital desires (based on wounds/conditioning), vanity, the need for attention - to be “liked” or “desired”, the notion and pressure to “become” something/someone, any comparison/competition with others, or even “dislike” of others all fall slowly away, as do any triggers and reactive behaviors.

• A deep and embodied sense of peace and trust, of faith and “being taken care of” (as in trusting the flow of life), knowing that any challenge that will come up serves as a deeper lesson for the purpose of a true awakening.

• It is the end of fear and blame, the death of ego-identification, and re-birth of the real “I AM” – embodied spirit (soul individualization) – expressing itself uniquely through “you”, connected to all that is.

• Will-full doing dissipates, to be replaced by an embodied responding to what is – and what life brings – that is uniquely tuned to your soul lessons and talents; it guides you from an embodied inner place without expectations and attachment to outcome.

• Goal setting and ambition are replaced by a quiet aspiration with intentions but without expectations or need to control.

• Making choices and decisions don’t stem from a thought process anymore or any head-centric analysis of “should” or “shouldn’t”, but emerge from a gut-level of nonverbal intuitive knowing, deeply tuned in with your soul and the Divine.

• Life becomes like a dance in the river of life as we don’t fight the current anymore, being in the “zone”, locked into the rhythm of life (Tao), aligned with Divine Will.

Contrary to popular beliefs, this awakened state is not a constant feeling of “bliss” or ecstasy (even though there can be peak experiences like that), nor is it a “feeling” of love or happiness. It really transcends anything we usually experience in ordinary consciousness states that are related to emotions and feelings. Ultimately, it transcends the duality of pain and pleasure, happiness and suffering. There is a deeper, silent contentment, a grounded calmness and sense of peace, not depending on any external circumstances… a sense of slowing down and simplifying.

It’s a place of true freedom. Thoughts may still come and try to attach themselves, but it becomes easier to detach from them – to release from believing in them or identifying with them. This sense of deteachmment is, however, not an intellectual form of dissociating, but an embodied recognition of one’s true nature in contrast to the illusion of thought (and who we “think” we are).

One recognizes that the mind is just a tool, a servant, but not be looked upon as the master/guide. It’s not about demonizing the intellect either, for it needs to go through its own transmutation to become an instrument for the Divine, accessing higher knowledge (Gnosis) beyond the five senses. We can also still “use” it in practical ways to live out our daily routines, since we didn’t just “check out” of our existence here on Earth; on the contrary, we are more involved with reality – more embodied and fully-embracing of life – and whatever this dance may bring in full conscious participation with the rhythms of life, we will participate in…without attachment and will-full doing. 

My beautiful stranger ... I LOVE YOU!

I pulled a thorn from the fence of 

His garden, 

and it has not stopped working 

its way into my heart.

One morning a little of His wine 

turned my heart into a lion hunter.

It’s right that this separation He 

helped me feel 

lurks like a monster within my heart. 

Yet heaven’s wild and unbroken colt 

was trained by the hand of His love. 

Though reason is learned and 

has its honors, 

it pawned its cap and robes for a 

cup of love.

Many hearts have sought refuge 

from this love, 

but it drags and pulls them to its own refuge.

~ Rumi 

(THE PULL OF LOVE )

From The Pocket Rumi, 

Translated by Kabir Helminski. 

(Shambhala, 2001)

One thing that is a very common misconception, is that when you have been freed of the character there is a belief that the character no longer goes into contraction. That there is no longer distress that is happening from that point of reference. But this is not the case. It is just that you are freed from the illusion that you have anything to do with that. Thus there is a living in unbroken joy. Even at the times when the appearance of the character appears to be in misery - it's just that you are no longer in misery because the erosion of opening and closing has eroded enough that eventually there is just nothing left.

You know when rock is eroded into sand, every granual of sand it looks the same. It loses it's uniquness.

Rocks are all unique. But the sand is not unique at all. You do not notice a grain of sand you notice the beach. The thing about a beach is that everybody is drawn to the beach. When you step your foot in the sand it yields to your footprint. It yields to your weight. To lie on it feels so beautiful because all such individual expression has been worn into nothing.

What can injure nothing? What do every-changing states - what relationship does that have with nothing? Something known as you struggles to be nothing and it is a holy struggle - but eventually it wears itself out. And you, like the sand, yield to everything. And everything comes to lay upon you. The thing about the erosion process - is that it is inevitable. If there is small rock and it is on the beach on the shoreline - the erosion process is inevitable. In the play of time the rock is eroded - in the perfect time.

Devotion is devotion to everything. It is not devotion to waking up. It is devotion to the Beloved. And the Beloved is the expression of every single thing. Everything. The thing about it is the individual is not capable. But it is the wisdom that wears the experience of something into nothing. And then what is discovered is that the nature of the Self is in complete surrender and yielding, to Itself. Love is in complete yielding and surrender to Itself. True Power is in complete surrender and yielding, to Itself.

MASTER PLAN

Sometimes you don’t need 
to have a Master Plan.
You can trust in your Not Knowing instead.

Sometimes you just need
to take the next step.
A small step.
Into safety.
Or into the wilderness.

Trust. Breathe.
The great Master Plan unfolds
with each tiny step you take.

LOVE!

Who can deny
the miracle of finding each other
in this maze of 7.6 billion humans?

Who can understand 
just how amazing
this is?

Kismet. Destiny.
A field of possibilities.

I see the Beloved
in your eyes,

I watch the Beloved
in your embrace,

I feel the Beloved
in your touch,

You and I
and the Beloved,
One.

VINCENT by Ashe Vernon

" When they talk about the tortured genius,
somebody always brings up Van Gogh—
how he swallowed yellow paint because
he wanted to put the sunshine inside himself.
How his psychosis was probably
the result of lead poisoning.
They call him a miracle, but what I see is a man
who was so sad, he found a beautiful way
to kill himself.

They say, “it’s awful isn’t it?” They say,
“It’s always the talented ones who go before their time.”
And me, a nine year old kid
who’s always been told they were so
talented
wonders when I am going to die.

We study them in school, the tortured artists.
Look at all the poets who killed themselves
what would their work have been without their depression?
It’s it beautiful, isn’t it sad?
As if depression is a parlor trick—
pull it out at parties, impress all your friends.
As if depression isn’t seeing how long
you can go between showers
before somebody notices or
pizza rolls for dinner three nights in a row
and then nothing the night after,
because going to the store is an impossibility
that you have not yet gathered the courage to conquer.

It is the least beautiful thing I’ve ever seen
and we call it the mark of an artist
to stand in the center of an ocean
and see nothing but desert.
To be seated at a feast, but still
swallowing sand.

Depression is the yellow paint, the yellow paint,
The yellow paint, the yellow paint—

Art is a coping mechanism.
Van Gogh is good because when he had nothing,
he had paint. When he was empty, he had paint.
When the world was awful, he had paint.
When he hated himself, he didn’t hate the paint.
He whitewashed over his own masterpieces,
because it was never about being famous,
it was about doing the one thing
that made sense when everything else didn’t.

And they say, “without his illness, we
never would have gotten all—this.”
because they value his art more than his sanity
because god forbid you lead a happy life
and leave nothing to remember you by."

Unbounded

It is such an impossible task to describe the recognition of the Self, the Beloved, in everything. The recognition of that to which the devotion is so wildly alive and the realization that it is infusing and animating absolutely everything. Meaning that the appearance of the individual is no longer an experience of the individual, but the experience is relationship with the Beloved. Not a concept - a realization of what is. And then the flavor of all relationship is the flavor of pure devotion. And it just builds upon itself.

The appearance of everything that seemed separate - this is dispelled. And the beauty of the Union is what is felt. And it is all immersed in this infinite ocean of Pure Love. Just to feel the boundless nature of the heart. The nature is so simple, it is so joyous, it’s so beautiful.

And then there is this reverence - for absolutely everything. You can no longer find yourself and yet you are in complete devotion and surrender to that which cannot be spoken. Sense of doership falls away - and yet at the same time - you are in complete submission to the Wisdom out of which the whole dream arises from. And the heart is so unencumbered and alive. And it is all just Love meeting Itself. Love receiving Itself, Love yielding to Itself, Guiding Itself. Taking care of Itself.

The habit of living out of a point of reference just melts away as the relaxation into the omnipresent nature of the heart is fallen into more and more. It is the nature of your purity. Pure humility - it is the nature of your purity. Unending reverence is the by-product and the flavor is the love that is eternally everywhere.

Her dark hair Fell over her face Hiding her Apart from Emotional eyes She reached out Slowly Touching him Placing the palm of her hand Upon his heart Beneath was the beat Of him And Beneath her She stood upon the realisation This was love...

Sexuality is at the core of everyone’s essence. The only thing that sets us apart is that some people suppress it and some people express it. It is at the core of everyone’s essence because oneness is at the core of everyone’s essence. Inherently, we all possess the same desire to find unity, not only in and of ourselves, but also in and of each other. It is evidence of our inherent goodness. It is evidence of the purity of our desire for harmony and for love.

We cannot condemn sexuality without condemning ourselves at our deepest, most intangible levels. We cannot condemn sex without waging war with ourselves and with each other. We cannot condemn sex and ever hope for sex to become a healthy, healing part of our society. If we condemn sex, we are condemning our most sacred spiritual act to the dark and often sadistic world that exists behind the curtain of the “18 and older” signs we post on the wall. All we will know is the temporary adrenaline high of mutual masturbation. Our souls will forget how to touch one another through the unification of our bodies.

Every person on earth deserves to know the rapture of sex that is fuelled by love. Every person on earth deserves for love to open him or her to a world where no boundaries exist; to the act of sex in its most exalted form. It is possible to find enlightenment through sex, because the very nature of sex dissolves the ego. The ego cannot exist in its light. You cannot tell the difference between yourself and your lover. Death means nothing to the man or woman who lives in a state of love and love’s various natural expressions.

Love is the universal language. All beings in existence understand it. And sex, is the body’s response to that understanding. We are compelled to combine ourselves with one another. We are compelled to touch eternity through one another through sex. And what a sweet taste it is, when in every inch of your lover’s body and in every glance that passes between you, genesis is spun. How sweet it is to allow yourself to open up to the degree that you can feel the earth rotate beneath you, when the whole of existence has stopped and the present moment is the only moment. Their skin in a pervasive slide over yours, learning the notes to a melody of flesh, hunting the nectar that is lying beneath the surface of your ability to control; your bodies arcing into one another, desiring to conceive of the feeling of union, writhing to the pulse of two unified heartbeats. You are not even two people anymore. You are one.

My beautiful stranger!

"I’m waiting for you, trusting that you will find me without losing your way. 
I don’t know your name. 
I don’t know your face. 
All I know is that someday our paths will cross; 
you will stumble into my life or I into yours, 
and life will seem just a little bit brighter.
I wish I knew who to look for.
What if I let you pass without saying a word?
No, I don’t think I will.
Somehow I will know."

And I know now... how happy I am that
you exist! not in my thoughts 
but for real... living in this world...

My beautiful  stranger!

My life is one of Ease and Grace
no one is bestowing that upon me
it is so because
I choose it to be.

The angst of the past
has always been because
I was analyzing, resisting,
or attempting to change it.

For me,
the fight is over
with nothing to fight against
nothing to fight for.

I AM the one creating this life
no longer resisting things
simply flowing with life
as it presents itself.

Any inclination to interfere
is based on the past, not the present,
I know everything and every person
is evolving in this moment.

I can look at others
and bless them,
truly bless them on their journey
without the need to interfere.

Thus,
Life flows with ease and grace
I attract the sweetness of life
because
this is the life I choose to live.
*
~Sharon Lyn Shepard~
"message from my inner wisdom"
www.sharonlynshepard.com 

My Beautiful Stranger...

You are revealed.

Breathe in me the way to love You,
That I may learn to faultlessly love You.
Pour me the wisdom-wine
By which I become intoxicated with You.
Whisper in my ears of silence
The way to be with You always.
Speak to my wandering senses
And lead them back to Your sanctuary within.
Call the marauding mind and counsel it
How to retrace its steps to Your Home.
With Your silent eyes, just look at me,
And I will know where to find You.

You may hide behind the ocean,
You may hide behind delusion,
You may hide behind life,
You may hide behind dualities,
You may hide behind theological conundrums,
You may hide behind unanswered prayers,
But You cannot hide behind my love,
For in the mirroring light of my love
You are revealed.

~Paramahansa Yogananda

A NEW DAWN: THE END OF CO-DEPENDENCY

You cannot save anyone.

You can be present with them, offer your groundedness, your sanity, your peace. You can even share your path with them, offer your perspective. But you cannot take away their pain. You cannot walk their path for them. You cannot give answers that are right for them, or even answers they can digest right now. They will have to find their own answers, ask their own questions or lose their own questions, make friends with their own uncertainty. They will need to make their own mistakes, feel their own sorrows, learn their own lessons. If they truly want to be at peace, they will have to trust the path of healing that reveals itself step by step.

But you cannot heal them. You cannot diffuse their fear, their anger, their feelings of powerlessness. You cannot save them, or make things right for them. If you push too hard, they may lose their own unique way. Your way may not be their way.

You did not create their pain. You may have done or not done some things, said or not said some things, triggering pain that was already inside them. But you did not create it, and you are not guilty, even if they say you are. You can take responsibility for your words and deeds, yes, you can grieve over a past, but you cannot erase or change what happened, and you cannot control the future. You can only meet them in the here and now, your only place of power. You are not responsible for their happiness, and they are not responsible for yours.

Your happiness cannot come from outside of you. If it does, it is a dependent happiness, a fragile happiness that will turn to sorrow so quickly. And then you will get caught up in a web of blame and guilt, regret and persecution. Your happiness is directly related to your presence, your connection with your breath, your body, the earth. Your happiness is not small, and cannot be removed by fear, or anger, or the most intense shame. Your happiness is not a state, or a passing experience, or even a feeling that others can give to you. Your happiness is vast, ever-present, the boundless space of the heart, in which joy and sorrow, bliss and boredom, certainty and doubt, loneliness and connection, even fear and longing, can move like the weather, like the rain and the sunshine, all held in the hugeness of the sky.

You cannot save anyone, and you cannot be saved if you are looking to be saved. There is no self to save, no self to lose, no self to defend, no self to make perfect or perfectly happy. Let go of every impossible ideal. You are beautiful in your imperfection, outrageously perfect in your doubts, loveable even in your feelings of unloveability. All these parts have been given, all are parts of the whole, and you were never less than whole.

You are breathing. You know you are alive. You have a right to exist, feel what you feel, think what you think. You have a right to your joy and a right to your sorrows. You have a right to doubt too. You have a right to walk your path. You have a right to be right and a right to be wrong, a right to this giant happiness that you knew when you were young. You are breathing, and you are inseparable from the life force that animates all things, knows itself as all beings, discovers itself in every moment of this impossibly wondrous existence.

Your self-worth is not tied to what others think of you. It is tied to the moon, to the infinite expanse of the cosmos, to comets blazing towards unknown destinations, to the forgetting of time and the love of solitude and this unspeakable gratitude for each new dawn, unexpected, given.

- Jeff Foster

She is love.

She always wanted to love

To be love

And to be loved.

From the depths of her Being.

Not with force.

Not with manipulation.

Not with control.

Not having to compete for it.

Nor having to beg for it.

Not having to bargain for it.

Nor having to lower herself

Nor to make more of herself

But to just be loved

For who and what she is.

So often people would tell her how beautiful she is

But then she did not want to be loved

For her outer beauty but for her INNER beauty,

For her SOUL.

She so prayed for the partner who would finally love her

Not just for sex

Not just for show

Not for any other reason

But that he wished to be with her-

Not to overshadow her

Not to use her for his own agendas

Not for anything else

But because with her

He found a nesting place

A true homecoming

For his heart and soul.

In this lifetime she was wiser

She had hopefully overcome so much

Of what tripped her up in other lifetimes

When she so often, without her consent,

Became a pawn in the games men played,

Where they did not honor the soul in her….

In so many lifetimes when she stood up for what she knew was truth

She paid the highest price for doing so

Yet, she could not have done any other.

In this lifetime that call for the highest truth

Is greater than the sum total of all of her.

She cannot live a lie

Nor can she lie to herself.

She is love.

She knows that she cannot hurt nor harm another

Without harming and hurting herself.

She is wise.

That wisdom has come over many lifetimes,

Even to those where she withdrew

And where she vowed not to return

Until such time as humankind would finally be ready

To have the balance restored

Between the Masculine and Feminine.

Yet she knows that first this has to be deep within herself,

For if she not balanced

She cannot project this balance and radiate it forth.

She is love

And loving does the inner work on herself,

Cleansing and clearing,

Releasing what no longer serves her highest soul growth and good.

She is love.

For she cannot be other than love.

And lovingly,

Wholeheartedly

She serves.

Even if this means walking her path alone.

For in truth she is never lonely

But surrounded by angels, archangels, Ascended Masters

And whole cosmic hierarchy.

She is love.

She is nothing else but love.

And forever Love

Is true to itself.

And if her Beloved

Finally finds the way home to her

He will find the waters of love

Washing over and within him.

For the Power of Love

Is greater than any other force

Yet needs to be steeped in Wisdom

For if one is wise

One will be given the keys and codes

To all of life

Loving and living.

She is love.

~Judith Kusel

Have you forgotten how beautiful you are? How powerful, how magnificent, how strong.

I had.

This morning, despite the vigorous strides I took as I climbed the hill to the lookout point at the lighthouse, I was feeling deflated. I was feeling less than beautiful, less than powerful, less than magnificent, less than strong.

And then I saw it. The crystal clear turquoise expanse of the ocean.

I sighed in awe. I felt aroused by its wildness. I laughed as its foam encased a graceful surfer. I was starstruck by its power.

I engaged with it for a very long while.

I love the water. I love how the water makes me feel.

And then I smiled. I remembered.

I am water. I am made up of exactly what I am looking at in amazement right now.

If I see awe, wildness, beauty and power in the ocean, am I not that too?

As I walked back down the hill I was lighter, less burdened and more serene.

It’s not the first time I’ve discovered my true reflection in nature. And it’s not the last time I’ll lose it in the noise of the world.

But it was a timely reminder of where to go when I’m a little lost. Where I’ve always gone when I’m feeling stranded, judgemental or less than in any way.

My beauty was not returned to me in a jar or in a treatment or even in a compliment by another.

My beauty was returned to me in a mirror that I didn’t need to see my face in.

My beauty was all around me.

If you want to find your softness, bite into the juicy flesh of a new season fig.

If you want to find your lushness, lie in the thick green grass of a summer field.

If you want to find your magic, fall asleep under the sparkling stars in the sky.

If you want to find your voice, listen to the roar of the ocean.

If you want to find your mystique, bathe in the luminosity of a full moon.

If you want to find your creative source, make love with complete surrender.

If you want to find your openness, watch the delicate petals of a rose unfold.

If you want to reignite your fire, watch the morning sunrise.

If you want to be blown away by your magnificence, watch the evening sunset.

If you want to connect with your heart, open it to all that is around you and breathe.

This morning I breathed in the water, the air, the fire and the earth around me. In that breath I merged with all that is me already.

If I am bewitched by all of this, I am bewitched by me too.

Have you forgotten how beautiful you are?

~ Sharon Sztar

https://sharonsztar.com/have-you-forgotten-how-beautiful-y…/

The super moon...

So I read a lot about the moon and the eclipse today, being charged with new energy, and how what we focus on will manifest.

All my wishes are summed up in three words : my beautiful stranger !

I wished for a happy future for you, full of laughter and life.
I wished for your bright smiles and peaceful moments...

I wished for myself too... that somehow you'd share some of your pictures
so I could save them and look at your lovely face. (giggle)

In short, I wished for and focused on LOVE!

Talking to my beautiful stranger

I can feel this love dancing around me.
And I wonder if you can see it?
Sometimes it feels like you know how I feel about you.
This makes me laugh and feel a little shy.

I just hope that if you do know...
That I love you so...
it makes you smile
it makes you laugh
it makes feel good about yourself
it makes you shine like the sun.

it should just be your strength
it should be your refuge
it should be your peace.

I love you!

There's a path from me to you
I'm constantly looking for,
so I try to keep clear and still
as water does with the moon.

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is: Suffer the pain.

Each moment you call me to you
and ask how I am, even though you know.
The love I answer you with
stirs like wind through cypress.

Your presence is a river
that refreshes everyone,
a rose-garden fragrance.

Don't worry about making doorways
between individual lovers when
this flow is so all around.

Some souls flow like clear water.
They pour into our veins and feel like wine.
I give in to that. I fall flat.
We can sail this boat lying down!

Humble living does not diminish. It fills.
Going back to a simple self gives wisdom.
When a man makes up a story for his child,
he becomes a father and a child
together, listening.

You don't win here with loud publicity.
Union comes of not being.
These birds do not learn to fly,
until they lose all their feathers.

~ Rumi
from Say I Am You,
the John Moyne, Coleman Barks translation.

Happy New Year to my beautiful stranger!

"And some souls will awaken you to things
you didn't even know were sleeping deep within...
When he first saw her, he knew she was the one.
When she first kissed him, she knew she was in love.
When he first touched her, his entire life changed.
And when she laid her head on his chest,
and he looked into her eyes,
they both knew...
they would love for an eternity."

May you always smile
and always be the love that you are!

Wishing you many moments
of quiet smiles, tight hugs,
presence of loved ones
and the ability to perceive beauty
in every day!
You rest in my heart!