June 27, 2024

In an old journal recently, I came across this beautiful short suggestion or invitation. It isn’t dated and I also can’t tell if it’s something I took down in meditation or if it’s a thought I gleaned elsewhere. So I’m not sure whether to credit it to Wisdom as I know it, or to someone I heard or read.

It seems too good not to share though, and I’m sure you’ll find it as helpful as I do for dealing with all the residue rising in us and in the world right now.

“Let this year be the year in which you let everything you deem unworthy of your Enlightened mind – every thought of scarcity, every sense of unworthiness, every fear or trauma – let them all simply rise to awareness and transmute them through your own love of self and through your honesty. Accept what is there and don’t pretend to feel otherwise, for the wisest are always the humblest.

Take a deep breath into the body and let go of the old regret or fear, or the old bones you chew whenever they rise up in your mind. And as your exhaled breath is leaving your body, realize there is nothing worth holding onto any longer if it keeps your own peace and happiness at arm’s length.

Become fully committed – fully – to the experience of happiness. Do this in the same way you’ve been fully committed to the unhappiness and limitation, to the failures, fears and lack that have always filled your thoughts and continue to bedevil you to this day. Cease to dwell on them and commit to dwelling on the goodness that is all around. Having recognized honestly and humbly what is there, firmly reposition your mind from the one to the other.

When doing this, give Creator full permission to sweep that old basement clean, knowing this: there really is nothing down there worth defending, hiding or protecting. There really isn’t. Be honest about what is/was/has been. Then, let it go in your cleansing breath, giving permission for the purification to be that simple.

Repeat this whenever necessary and keep letting it be that simple, cleaning out all those old thoughts and feelings in the basement that your mind stores down there and keeps rummaging through. “

What a terrific invitation, excellent advice and a great metaphor for the housecleaning that’s going on because of the energetics of these times.

Here’s to a year of “spring cleaning” and the fresh lovely home we will each be at the end of it!
Big hugs,
~Mayet

June 20, 2024

Article Highlights:

• 7 Big Myths
• Are you enlightened?
• Enlightenment Defined

I was looking in my archives recently and came across this article and for some reason I found it really interesting right now. I’m not sure exactly why it seems timely right now but I thought I’d rerun it this week and see what you think.
~XOMayet

~*~*~*~*~*~

Dear [subscriber:firstname | default:subscriber],

There’s so much nonsense around the topic of Enlightenment that once in a while I like to clear my head about it. Somewhere over the course of lifetimes of monastic and religious experience our heads got filled with ideas about it, some sound, some conflicting and others downright strange. Many of our ideas about it approach the mythical. I think it’s useful, therefore, to look at a few of those myths.

Seven Myths of Enlightenment

Myth One: Whatever Enlightenment is, it’s in the future. It’s not something you are now.  Wrong. In fact, it’s possible to be enlightened and not even know it. For instance, if you aren’t a new age person, you might not even realize there’s such a thing as enlightenment, but you might be enlightened anyway. This will become clearer as we continue our exploration.

Myth Two: You have to be incredibly advanced and mostly perfect to win this tag.  There are many gurus who are, or were, highly evolved but carried some pretty unfinished business so things got messy in their personal world. They had some harsh problems as a consequence.

Depending, an enlightened teacher might be taking on less or more unfinished personal lessons at any given time. Personal growth and the learning of the Soul don’t stop as one achieves higher embodied states.

Myth Three: Eventually something mysterious and big and strange happens and after that everything is completely different.  For some, there is a defining moment, for others, many such moments, but for most people, especially now, it is arrived at incrementally. This can leave one wondering and waiting. Enlightenment is not a phenomena of moment. That’s why it can happen without special notice.

Myth Four: Enlightenment gives you superpowers.
See number 3, enlightenment is not about phenomena. Spiritual superpowers – called Siddhis in Sanskrit – are not enlightenment, they are an entirely different matter.

The Guru of my New Delhi doctor friend told me that her Guru could drink poison without harm. She asked him many questions about this. It certainly wasn’t a matter of blessing it, raising it’s frequency, and drinking away. He told her that at the right point, his teacher gave him a special mantra and began new instruction with him. It was some years before his old beliefs about the physical broke down sufficiently for him to drink poison without harm.

The superpowers rarely come by instantaneous magical experience. They are usually applied practices that require dedication, training and focus over time. It is usually a more advanced practitioner who has the ability to focus and commit in this way. And who is receiving the most direct inner guidance for such a challenging task.

The Guru told my friend that when all was said and done, it was valuable for the discipline and practice but it was not a practical ability, he wouldn’t necessarily choose it again.

Myth Five: The ego leaves when you are enlightened.
In fact, the ego is all about enlightenment. It likes the idea A LOT! It can’t wait to access all that power. It’s very keen to have one or more of those juicy superpowers too.

Ego is an interface built into the experience of being human. It’s useful and necessary for our own advancement. We tend to fear it and want to squash it because it has capsized us more than once.

Eventually ego matures, if one works with it in the right way. It gradually becomes a useful tool for advancement, but can erupt and try to control the show even then.

That’s why humility is recommended – it’s an antidote to ego. Though we all know that teachings about humility got a little twisted passing through various theologies, humility is still a hallmark and NorthStar for the enlightened because ego is a fact of life as long as you have a body.

Myth Six: Bad things don’t happen to enlightened people. Enlightenment is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. This is a bitter pill to swallow and some readers might feel discouraged hearing it. Others will disagree. That’s fine. I don’t want to be anyone’s ultimate authority. Part of enlightenment is having a courageous willingness to accept responsibility for your life and beliefs.

Still, I want to say that it’s my observation that enlightened people do have problems. They have marriages that need to change, feelings that require attention, grief that comes their way, illness that happens, conflict with others, challenges, and thoughts and feelings that might be judged undesirable.

The difference is they undergo these from a unique primary perspective – these experiences are all part of their enlightenment, not signals of a lack of it. They have an overriding commitment to meet these in a more enlightened way and are more open, adventurous and determined to learn what this might mean.

In some ways, in fact, enlightened people may have more challenges and problems because deeper shadow is a result of greater light. As well, the enlightened person moves, within themselves, to a more global level of feeling and work, stepping up to more advanced world goals and problems. That’s why enlightenment isn’t for the faint-hearted.

Myth Seven: All enlightened people are happy, jolly Buddha’s.  Well…. not necessarily. Some are quiet, some are strict, some are more critical than others, some are ill, some are difficult, some are extroverts while others are more introverted. Enlightened people come in all shapes and sizes, all personality types, all races, genders and belief systems. Not all enlightened people are even spiritual! Some are activists, some are cowboys, some are just living an enlightened life without notice, dogma or song-and-dance.

It all depends on what’s your own particular cup of tea. And what it looks like for you will probably change over time.

Having busted a few of the myths about it, let’s now come up with a simple and useful definition of enlightenment that helps us advance our understanding around this.

Enlightenment is a greatly increased commitment and ability to express the truth of the light that one, in fact, already is, for the benefit of one’s life and all life on this planet.

Enlightenment is an advancing horizon that develops infinitely into ever expanding connections to the greater truth of who we most truly are, the truth of the light within our being. It is at once a practical and definable process as well as a mystery beyond words.

What is expressed? Light, yes, but in many ways. This includes frequencies and lived qualities such as personal peace, increased joy, inner harmony, quieter mind. Each of these is a spectrum, lived by the enlightened one to the best of their ability, with greater and greater balance. That’s why enlightenment is also a practice, a way of living.

If you are on the path of enlightenment (and you are) then you are in your own particular and unique stage of enlightenment. Welcome and congratulations.

So. Are you enlightened? Ramana Maharshi, a wonderful Eastern Mystic and Guru, an enlightened one, said, “The greatest obstacle to enlightenment is getting past your delusion that you are not already enlightened.”

These are the times you came for; living the light is what you said you’d do. We should gather and celebrate with a huge coming out party!

On the path together,
~Mayet

June 13, 2024

I shared a phrase with you recently with 3 other phrases, I think, “The energy of life is a force of goodness.” I wanted to share the rest that came along with that in the same rumination. Here’s it is in full:

The energy of life is a force of goodness. When you start to experience this, life becomes beautiful. This is what is called God at work in our lives, or Source.

This statement is not about having faith in what it says, it’s a hypothesis that gets tested in your own experience of asking again and again, What if? What if? If you ask this – bringing your creativity and imagination, your sense of wonder, your anticipatory curiosity – you vibrate to the energy of this statement.

You begin to be in the act of living this hypothesis into being in your life. You’re not just passively believing in something because it’s been taught, but creating an actual intuitive resonance you can work to verify via your own experience.

In our minds we are often imagining less than desirable things occurring. Have you paid attention to how often that’s happening in your mind about your relationships and circumstances – and about the world around you?

That’s a form of asking, What if? And following it with your imagined answer. Doing so supports the continued development of the (and your) world as it is. I think that’s a tasty morsel to consider as I go forward, don’t you?

That’s my musing for today. As I go, feel the warm, playful hug I’m giving you right now.

Sending you love,
~XOMayet