We need our body to know consciousness

 Awareness depends on the vehicle of the body - we are not in it, but awareness requires it. Electricity needs a vehicle to be known (in shape and form) Free energy - how would we perceive it?

How can “we” even speak of it!

Dear Mom, please make yourself small.

This is it. This is what I have been experiencing for all these years.

I have said it in other ways. I have shared it with friends and my therapist. I have been working for a decade on “boundaries’, and learning to “keep my opinions to myself” so that I don’t step on toes or offend.

And all the while - I have felt diminished, reduced, silenced, stifled, unappreciated, invisible, irrelevant; to the two young women that I most want to influence and be appreciated by. The two I gave  my entire self to in this lifetime.

Its heartbreaking - its ambiguous grief.

The message finally came through my mind succinctly - the familiar feeling in my gut after yet another slap down. I finally realized what my daughters are asking of me - “Mom, please make yourself small so we don’t feel intimidated by you”. Diminish yourself so we don’t feel diminished in your presence.

It makes sense - I was “Mother”, so at one time they did feel small around me. As a single mother, and primary (only) parent figure -I was the chief, the command center, and the center of their world. Super Mom, Uber-Mom -Mega-Mom. The one who made it all happen.

But now, being strong women themselves; having a strong mother presents a problem. I have spent the last 10 years trying to reduce myself, shrink myself, make myself more digestible for them. I didn’t recognize this is what has been happening. This is an awakening for me.

Who needs misogyny when you have the entire cancel culture behind this bullshit. Cancel parents, cancel wisdom, cancel the elders, and definitely-Cancel Mom. 

I remember my eldest mentioning how she found it easier to be with her dad, the more “low-maintenance” parent. The one who just asks to have dinner, small talk and goodbye till next time. What a privilege.

I am left wondering, how low can you go? Low maintenance meaning no maintenance? Like left me to raise them alone because I left him? So low that he didn’t do any of the parenting in spite? No opinion because he has never has thought deeply about anything having to do with them or their lives which is why I left him in the first place. No investment of himself at all. Completely superficial dad. That low?

I have been a feminist since 9 years old, when I heard the song “I am Woman” and realized men had all the power. If I have to diminish myself in my relationship with my daughters, then I have missed the mark; a cruel joke indeed.

“Don’t’ give any unsolicited advice” has morphed into, “don’t have any opinions, don’t share your thoughts, don’t take up space”.

And this muzzle is reserved particularly for women, and no one more so than Mom. No one gets the same amount of ire.

I am no longer willing to do it. I am no longer going to make myself small for their comfort. They are adult women, they have their own inner work to do to resolve their adolescent position toward me.

At 63 years of age - I am done trying to squeeze myself into an acceptable size to avoid making others feel comfortable, especially the two women who are born of my very own flesh and blood.

If they can’t celebrate me, if I can’t be myself, I don’t want to be there. I don't wish to have superficial relationships. I don’t want to be in a room that doesn’t appreciate who I am and what I have to offer.

The Way Back Home to My Self

 It seems the more I searched, the more lost I became.

The more I listen to the voice of gurus and sages, the less I can hear my own voice, know my own knowing.

It appears I am further away from a truth I recognized within myself, the truth that motivated the search in the first place.

The quiet, uninformed knowing. The Self in form - this form. Not exclusively, but this is the garden that is here, this is the garden to tend to, cultivate, nourish.

I wish to find my way back to my Self. To follow the path back - perhaps like the story of The Alchemist, and Siddhartha - traveling far - only to return home, to ones Self.

I seek the purity, the innocence of the yearning, before the information came - before the "pointings"

I had a similar experience with. photography - there was a natural inclination, a joy, an eye - then I went to art school - and learned from experts - the knowing - and that dissuaded me from the passion. Thankfully, I have continued to enjoy shooting - this is natural for me.

There had been the influence of Jesus in the formation of the idea of spirit, and then Jonathan Livingston Seagull - this is true. There were the early poems written as a child, the knowledge that somehow, vanity was antithetical to freedom, this was there. The recognition on the beach, that what mattered ultimately was peace, and may that peace be found in natural things, nature, the sun, the ocean. There was the moment of heroin, and noticing, that I was still present - the knowing, that I would not become an addict - because I was still there - watching.

Then there was the recognition, again in that same ocean, pregnant with my second child - that nothing anyone thought or did to me could rob me of my self - that I was always safe and at home with myself. 

And teachers and books and guides along the way.

And now - now - now - the time is here, now - to return to my Self, unaccompanied. Not exclusive - separate and part of the whole. One with the whole. 

 Simply to walk my path. Others to walk theirs. 

I am grateful for the recognition of beauty, the natural compassion and empathy in my heart, for the ability to string together words, the natural lightness of being that is here at the base of my self.

I am - so blessed - so grateful, so cared for. 

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

Om

I find but keep looking

 I know it all - I know the truth. And yet, the idea that it is not personal, that it is not individually experienced, alludes me. Individual does not mean exclusively.

It is known here - this experience of conscious awareness - and it does feel contained, but not limited, to this body. It feels this consciousness is housed in this body and it is experiencing life through this unique form which provide it with unique experiences - this is the shape consciousness took here. 

So I know myself as this shape. To claim to know consciousness as itself, feels arrogant, like that can only exist as a concept in the form.

Can I wave know it is the entire ocean - in essence? Can a flower know itself as the soil it came from and will return to? No - we may know that we are born from consciousness into form, but that is a concept - not knowable. 

The ocean is still and the ocean takes shape. When it is still the water is one body with less definition. When it is rough, we see more forms. The forms are illusions, it is all water.

But in the form itself in the moment of the form, the form knows itself as…

Non duality and Me

 

My core question is how do we reconcile this ideosycratic, embodied, experiential sense of self with the no-thing separation concept (at this point a concept). I know it is all One - that is obvious, but the relationship between that truth and this incarnate self leaves me not knowing "where I stand" or what is my position in relationship to the One reality.

I have been a spiritual seeker since a child, was involved with an Ouspensky school (cult) for a few years as a young woman and most recently, the Advaita path with a guru for the past 8 yrs, and THIS is what has been stuck in my craw - as I spoke to in my prior question. This comes after just spending 2 weeks with my guru and sangha - and getting as direct a transmission as could be hoped for - yet coming back to my life disenchanted because I was "still" unable to fully realize the "truth of what I am" as pure Being - because I haven't know where to put the rest of this "I" which is more clearly known and actually appreciated and honored. This incarnation matters, the past is not irrelevant, it is a movement, a process, an evolution. A never ending symphony of creation! As a mother, the idea that my relationship with my children is not "real" or that the experience of birthing and raising them is irrelevant to "who I am" - I simply cannot swallow, as much as I have chewed! This is confirmation, and now I know - that it is time to step away from the path I have been on, and toward this new view - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovjhc3Aijqk

In response to radical non-duality https://substack.com/home/post/p-178199573

1. “Meaning love and care still appears” - meaning is in context. There is no meaning with one who determines it.
2. Pain, loss and grief appear - where are they experienced as such?
3. Is there experience without an experiencer?
4. The story of separation understanding itself - is the story of separation an entity that can understand itself? That’s dual
5. 
   
6.  “People still feel” So people are separate than persons? 
7. Responsible sharing makes this clear??? Who is determining what is responsible? There is discretion, by what or who?
8. What is universal love without meaning?
9. The words you and me point to a difference between.

This is my very first post. Not sure there will be much more than this, but I needed to get it started. To see how it will look, how it will be once I get the engine running. I need to get my engine running.  Good. Done. And Post