Be the Limitless Ocean

Any child can tell you God is in everything, but what does that mean?
Feel yourself as the ocean.
Imagine yourself as a limitless ocean.
Waves arise in the ocean, but the waves are still the ocean.
Waves are vibration.
Waves are sensation.

There is no solid world.
What we see is created inside our eye. Inside our mind.
What we hear and feel arises inside and is projected outside.

Go back into the place of comfort, seeing yourself as this ocean.
When waves arise, know that this is simply sensation.

Try the practice of labeling each sensation as hearing or feeling or seeing. (These first three senses are plenty for beginners, although you could also do taste and smell.)

Some sensations will be a blend. For instance, anger may be labeled “feeling” but also “hearing” because you tell yourself the story of why you are angry.

When you do the labeling of feeling, hearing, seeing, don’t jump into the story.
Simply label it and let it go.

These are the sensations we will release when we die.
It’s good to practice observing and releasing them now.

You can say, “Oh that’s something I’m seeing,” without doing anything more about it.
…

Question: Can our Ascended Masters help us on other planes?

They are no more connected to God than you are. Say you have a dream and this wonderful Being appears, hits you on the head with a stick, and you see beautiful lights. And you say, “Wow, I just had an amazing spiritual experience.” Then you put this Master high above you, and even that stick becomes important, and you think you need all this. But you don’t. You have the whole ocean of existence in you all the time.

We tend to transfer all wisdom and bliss onto that master, when we actually have access to it ourselves. It’s available all the time. It never leaves.

It’s not my bliss. It’s just as much your bliss. You don’t need me to get it for you.

Sometimes we are like the fish who can’t find the water surrounding and filling them.

It’s all One, this ocean. It’s God, alone.

Tap into this perception.

Be alone, be the whole ocean.

As scripture says, “God is One – there is no second.”

 

These are words from Isaac, an excerpt from Chapter 28 of Volume 1 Walking the Bridge: with a Fearless Heart
(Thanks to pixabay for this photo.)

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Rosh Hashanah: Freedom for You

Our teachers say that on Rosh Hashanah the seeds of the entire year to come are contained in that day. So you’ll want to focus your attention, elevate your thoughts and actions, put your best foot forward on Rosh Hashanah.

In the world before this one, the world of Tohu, there were extremes: you were either extremely happy or extremely sad or angry. There was no middle ground.

Later our current world came into being, the world of Tikkun, which means repair. This world of Tikkun is all about balancing the extremes and finding moderation.

Many modern people believe that our consciousness is located in the brain. They say the best we can do is to strengthen our ego. But when we see our consciousness exists outside the brain, in realms beyond this one, we realize our capacity for growth and change is unlimited. We are capable of unlimited expansion.

Our ego is really a packet of habits. If you carefully observe yourself, you may find your habitual reactions pop up consistently with their correlating situations. Our automatic reactions are ego-habits.
(We may innately feel driven to gain affection or control or safety.)

The way we look at things, the way our attention goes – these also are ego-habits.

We want to expand. Our soul always wants expansion.
But to expand, we must dismantle our ego.
Take apart that packet of habits.

It’s easy to become complacent and to think we are stabilized. We may think we have attained all the growth we need. Yet there is always some stagnation, some place in our life where we have bogged down to some degree. You’ll find it in that subtle area where you’ve told yourself time and again, “This habit doesn’t serve me well. This habit limits me.”

It will be difficult to say no to that habit. You have built up years of following that habit. It has an energy all its own. It gets triggered without your thinking about it.

You must be firm if you are going to stop the automatic flow of that energy. It wants to roll right through as usual. But you do have the choice to allow it, to say yes or no to it.

Saying “No” will not be easy, especially the first few times.

Remember, your only work is to say no this one time, in this moment.
Do not think of all the future times.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with that.
Simply be Present.

Look at the habit: Is it good for me? No.

Choose. Make your choice wisely.

This will be painful. After all, that habit has become You. This means death to part of you. Pain is part of this, but so is freedom.

The freedom you feel in releasing that habit will bring great joy and growth.

More than anything else, we all want freedom and expansion.

 

These are Isaac’s words. This is an excerpt from Chapter 25 of Volume 2, Walking the Bridge – With Balance.
Thanks to Flickr for this image of blowing the Shofar at Rosh Hashanah.

Returning, Soaking in the Divine, and Ho’oponopono

Question: Isaac, please say more about how to focus on our connection to God?

The “teshuva,” “returning to God,” is constant.
We are always doing our best to return to God.
Saying “I’m sorry, I love you” is a practice that helps with this returning.

A psychiatrist-healer in Hawaii (Dr. I. Hew Len) used this phrase to release the suffering of patients in a mental institution. He understood fully that the world was his mirror, and if anybody was suffering, that suffering was part of him. In this way his work healed a multitude of people.

“I’m sorry, I love you” is a practice given by the kahunas of Hawaii. It is full forgiveness for self and others, which returns us to God. (This practice is known as Ho’oponopono.)

Question: It seems difficult to go from “I’m sorry” to “I love you.” When I was on a yacht in a stormy sea, surrounded by black water, fear filled me. I prayed every prayer and used every technique, everything I have learned for many years. Nothing helped. I could not let go of the fear.

In these cases we simplify everything to: “God, help me!”
It boils down to just that. Ask for help directly.

As a young person, when I suddenly felt electricity going up my spine and I’d never heard of such a thing, it was frightening. I had no clue about it. Not only that, but it brought me into a Void of Nothingness where I was just a tiny point of consciousness. It was frightening to have the ego swallowed up, totally lost in Nothing.

Under such conditions you can get religious in a hurry: “God, help me.”

You know, everything we’re learning here is not about words and prayers and techniques.
It is about soaking in the Divine Presence.
It really doesn’t matter if you hear or understand a single thing we say here.
It’s enough just to be here, sharing in the vibration.
You are learning to soak in it.
That is the real learning and the real blessing.

 

(This is an excerpt from chapter 10 of volume 2, Walking the Bridge: with Balance.)

 

Return to Unity this month of Elul

Words from Isaac (Chapter 29 of Volume 1) –

In the month of Elul now, I approach my Beloved and my Beloved approaches me, nearer than at other times of the year.
We are Returning.
Turning our attention to the Divine.

We need to make an effort, make repairs, make apologies, make peace.

Imagine standing in front of mirror with your arms crossed. You’re waiting for the person in the mirror to make the first move. So you stand there. You wait.
You have the illusion that you are separate from this person in the mirror.

Nothing’s going to happen until you begin.
Don’t just stand there and wait for the Divine Beloved to make the first move.
A mature lover knows they have to make the first move, or everything dies off.

When we have difficult times in this world, we know the divine pipes are clogged above us. We need to go way up high to open them.
So we raise our vibration. We lighten up.

When you feel attacked or feel troubled, do not engage in the conflict.
Instead turn to silence and rise higher to the world of unity where nothing is wrong or right. No judgments on anything here, in this upper world.

Thoughts float around, ready to take form in creation. But these thoughts carry no charge, no opinion. This place is only the birthplace of thought.

Some people might say you’re avoiding the issue, like an ostrich puts its head in the sand. No. This is different.
You are going to a world far above this one, where nothing is wrong or right.
You put yourself out of the race, out of the conflict.
You move out of Duality into Unity, union with All.

(Thanks to Wikipedia for this image from high above our plane.)

 

How to use a Spiritual Spotlight part 2

Your attention, your spotlight, is your most prized possession in that theater. (See Spotlight part 1 for the metaphor.)

First your attention makes things known.
Second it gives life to those things.

Who is the spotlight director?
Your will.
You get to choose whether you move the spotlight or not.
It’s your willpower.
If I give you a slice of cake and ask you to eat only half of it, can you do that? This is the same thing.
When you’re meditating, can you shift the spotlight according to your will?

When we aren’t using our will consciously, then our attention automatically goes to our chronic desires and fears. These are particular to our own ego.

Our attention is always and ever a spotlight. The spotlight of our attention keeps giving life to the same desires and fears. Every time we turn toward them, give our attention to them, they get reinforced. They get more life. This is how the ego keeps itself strong. It constantly shores up the old familiar patterns – this fear, that desire. It maintains a platform of continuity, which gives us our sense of identity.

It’s very common to become afraid when we get deeper into meditation.
As a person moves their spotlight away from old patterns, they’ll say, “I can get so far, but then I’m losing myself, and it’s frightening.”
Yes, it is frightening. Absolutely. You’re losing your identity.
You’re pulling away from those very patterns and structures that have always defined “you” and who you are.
It takes a lot of courage.
You may need to quit for awhile and come back to it later. That’s okay.

When we apply this spotlight metaphor to practicing meditation, then, we see how the first group of aggressive actors represents all our worldly concerns. Whether it’s your finances or family or health or spirituality – all of these are pressing needs. They’re like actors grabbing the spotlight, trying to steal the stage. They feel so important. Yet this arena is where we first practice diverting the spotlight of our attention.

We’re meditating, and these pressing worldly concerns arise. We practice shifting the spotlight away from them. Eventually, with discipline and repetition, we quiet them.

But what happens next? The second group of actors bounce onto the second stage.
Now we begin to deal with the more subtle part of ourselves. Our dreams.

Now there are many more actors to deal with, compared to the first group of actors. Here we see not only dreams, but every painful memory we have shoved into our unconscious. Lots of old issues.
All of that comes out, and your spotlight is on it. It takes awhile to deal with everything we have spent our life avoiding. It’s not easy. It’s difficult. But it can be done.

If you reach the third stage, and the mirror is rolled out in front of you, perhaps you see it only for a moment. This mirror is like that pond we talk about. The pond may have ripples or stillness. Perhaps your mirror has some waves in it. Like a wavy funhouse mirror. The waves make your face look fat, then skinny. But with more practice of letting go, you can make your mirror quiet, like a lake of still waters. A perfect empty mirror.

Does the mirror have anything to say?
No. This is one way you can recognize it.
It has no words. No speech to give.

Now the spotlight can fill that mirror and shine back upon you, enlivening you more than you ever thought possible.
You recognize this light is you – your soul, looking at you.

In the East they call this “Samadhi.” Self-realization.
This is a summation of all the spiritual teachings the world over.

But again all of this is dependent on your ability to control your spotlight, your attention. The actors grab attention, but you need to move the spotlight away from them.

Learn to let go in the middle of the story. Don’t wait until the actor finishes talking. If you wait, you’re already lost. Let go. Shift your attention as soon as you notice yourself settling into the actor’s speech.

Some spotlight directors will direct their light on a speaking actor for so long, they think that they are that actor. They don’t know they have the power to direct the spotlight. They just see an actor all lit up, and they presume that’s the whole show here. But it’s not.

I am not the actors.
I was so lost in the story, I thought I was the actors.
Not so.

When you are in that second stage, where the dream actors and the flying elephants sail in, you may feel sleepy.
This is natural because usually when you have been in this state of mind, you were asleep. Ordinarily we let go of our will and fall asleep as dreams arise.
But when meditating you need to stay alert.
Keep control of your spotlight. Let the images and the actors arise as they do, but don’t let any one of them be in the spotlight for any length of time.

You are maintaining consciousness. You are awake even in the dream state.
If you have ever experienced this, know that you are getting closer to the third stage, when the big mirror will be brought before you.

I want to underline the importance of letting go in the middle of every scenario in your mind. Don’t let the actor finish its big speech.

Remember the spotlight of your attention does two things.
It makes things known, and it literally gives life to those things.

 

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Thank you, Isaac!
This “how to meditate” excerpt is from chapter 12 of Vol 2, Walking the Bridge – With Balance.
(Gratitude to pixabay for the images which we combined here.)

 

How to use a Spiritual Spotlight part 1

Imagine a theater with a stage. In the back of this theater stands the person with the spotlight. The theater director instructs him in how to do his job. Actors and objects will appear onstage, and each of them will want the spotlight. Whoever and whatever gets the spotlight is extra-enlivened in that moment with the light shining upon them. This light brings life to those whom it illuminates.

The spotlight guy’s job is to direct the spotlight upon each actor when it’s their turn — when the story calls for their role. But as soon as they start hamming it up, he must divert the spotlight away so it is no longer shining on them. Without the light, they are more subdued.

The first group of actors taking the stage are extremely boisterous. Each of them tries to steal the spotlight, to grab more attention. They go crazy to get it. If the spotlight director does his job properly, then every time they start stealing the show he removes the light from them. This slowly causes the actors to relax and not fight so much for attention. Over time they become more peaceful.

When they are more peaceful, here comes the second group of actors, and they are not only more numerous than the first group, but more amazing. This group includes things like flying elephants. This is the dream world. The spotlight director may be entranced, but again he must do his job, and every time one of these actors stays too long in the spotlight, he shifts it away from them. They are even more skilled at grabbing attention. But over time, with appropriate handling of the spotlight, even this large group will become peaceful and less competitive. Eventually they stop fighting each other.

When the spotlight director has been able to subdue both the first stage and the second stage of this scenario, he will come to the third stage. Now a very large mirror is brought out, center stage. It has nothing to say. Not hamming it up, not begging for attention. It is simply there.

The spotlight shines upon the mirror. Now the spotlight director is having a brand-new experience. This is the first time he is actually seeing the light. He’s been standing behind it and has seen light only upon the actors. He may have thought the light was coming from the actors, but it wasn’t.

Now for the first time he is seeing the bright light itself, directly. Not only that. For the first time, he is enlivened by the light. Suddenly he feels more life, feels more alive, because the light is shining on him, giving him life.

It dawns upon him that all the “life” onstage was never coming from the actors, but from the spotlight that was shining upon them. The whole story out there happened only because the spotlight illuminated it, nothing more. It appeared the actors were running the story. They weren’t. Without the spotlight, they would have been lifeless. As the spotlight shifted from point to point, It made life happen. It ran the story.

Let’s take this metaphor and apply it to the practice of meditation.

The spotlight is our light of attention. Energy flows wherever our attention goes.

You know if you have a potted plant in your home, and you turn your attention upon it, two things happen. First the plant is seen and becomes known. Oh, I have a plant here. But also in a subtle but powerful way, your attention toward the plant makes it thrive.

Or you see it with children. They like to perform. “Look at me! Look what I can do!” More than anything else, children crave your attention. The child is performing, and if you glance away, they say, “Hey look! You’re not looking!” Children know that when you give your attention, you also give your love. When you place your eyes upon what you love, life-giving energy flows toward it.

We tend to think our attention is only about seeing and knowing.

We seem to forget that attention gives life.

Sometimes we neglect to give our full attention to people around us,. Maybe we keep reading while sort of talking to them. They feel the neglect.

Your attention, your spotlight, is your most prized possession in that theater.

First it makes things known.
Second it gives life to those things.

Who is the spotlight director?
Your will.
You get to choose whether you move the spotlight or not.
It’s your willpower.
If I give you a slice of cake and ask you to eat only half of it, can you do that?
This is the same thing.
When you’re meditating, can you shift the spotlight according to your will?

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With gratitude to Isaac, this “how to meditate” excerpt is from chapter 12 of Vol 2, Walking the Bridge – With Balance.
(Thanks to pixabay and wikimedia commons for these images below.)

The Energy that Fills Everything in the World

Isaac told the story of an earnest man on his way to see the Maggid of Mezritch, but the sun was setting, and he had to choose to either stop and pray outside of town where robbers lurked, or to keep going into town without praying. He listened to his conscience and stopped, walking a short way to do his prayer in privacy. Meanwhile his faith in coming to no harm conflicted with his belief that robbers might get him.

After his prayer, he returned to the road to discover his wagon and horse had been stolen. But at least he had his life. He was okay. He hurried into town on foot and went straight to the Maggid.

There he complained that his wagon was taken, and how unfair that was, as he did the right thing and offered his prayers. The Maggid didn’t usually use his second sight in such worldly matters, but he wanted to give the man some comfort, and in fact he could see exactly where the wagon was. So he told the man where to go, what the landmarks were, to find his wagon. He even said it hadn’t been emptied yet. All his possessions were still in it.

The man went to the place described, and there stood his wagon. The robber was amazed and didn’t even put up a fuss. “How did you find me?” he asked.

The man told him, and the robber wanted to go see the Maggid. So the two of them returned to the Maggid.
The robber expressed his amazement to the Maggid, but then asked, “You’ve been given this gift of sight, but isn’t it to be used only on holy pursuits?”

The Maggid replied that he did use it almost exclusively on the study of Torah, but occasionally he looked around the world to find lost things.

At the beginning of the Torah, on the first day God said, “Let there be light.”
On the fourth day He created the sun and all the lights in the sky.
Sages realized that these are two different kinds of light. The first-day light is the light of God, the energy that fills everything in the world. Whereas the light of the sun is earthly. Sunlight casts a shadow, and shows the light and dark, the duality of our world.

But the first-day light is holographic. It fills everything. And every bit of the world is inside every other bit. This is the meaning of holographic: each piece contains the whole of everything. This is how the Maggid was able to find the lost wagon. He just tuned in deeply to examine the hologram.

This energy, this first-day light is nonlocal and holographic. Everything is actually inside of you. Let’s say a holographic plate reveals a 3-dimensional picture of an apple. When that plate is broken, every fragment of it also reveals the same apple.

Time and space always arise together. That’s duality.

The larger part of you doesn’t exist in the time-space dimension. The larger part of you is formless. You are formless. You aren’t the person you think you are in this body.

When Isaac was in the Yeshiva, he liked to do his morning prayers with a quiet community of elders. In particular he observed the deep devotion of one man who was so very soft and gentle in his ways. Just watching him was an education. The man was filled with the light of the first day.

How often we forget about that holographic divine light.

 

This is an excerpt from Chapter 27 of Volume 1, Walking the Bridge – with a Fearless Heart, available in print or eBook. (Thanks to pixabay for this fantasy pic.)