The Angels – Search your hearts. What is it you would most like to feel here upon this earth? Take a moment, shut your eyes, breathe and ask the question, “Dear heart of hearts, what would you most like to feel here upon this earth, right here, right now?”
You might hear your heart say it wants to feel safe, loved, abundant, free, alive, worthy, peaceful, healthy, comfortable in the body, or a variety of other wonderful loving feelings. Trust whatever comes up inside of you. Continue reading
Well, as opposed to so many other articles with such a blatant click-baity title, I’m not going to string you along here. While there are many secrets of zen, I’ll give you the answer to this one right now, right in the second sentence: Stop Wanting It.
That’s it. Want nothing. Choose what shows up instead.
This is the very essence of zen. It is what is meant by the “surrendered state“. Do this, and persist in it long enough, and you will most likely find some incredible things unfolding in your reality, very possibly including those that you formerly really, really wanted. The irony? It won’t matter, because you won’t want them anymore! You’ll surely enjoy them while they last, but the terrible need you had for them to give you fulfilment will be gone, and you could honestly care less if they showed up or not. Continue reading
Lena Stevens – surrender is a word that tends to trigger a definition of failure as if we are surrendering to the enemy and as if we have failed in something we believed in and have been striving for. Our definition of surrender for the month is a giving up, a release of a stance, position, or belief that we have stubbornly held onto for way beyond its useful and practical life. It is time to let go of what should have been, could have been and what ought to be in the future. It is time to surrender our anger, our resistance, our judgement and our need to know.
surrender is an act of power that takes the reins away from the false personality and hands them over to essence. Surrender is letting go of the attachment to being “right” and the attachment to drama and suffering. Surrender is letting go of fear, giving up the need for control, and finally releasing emotional wounds, shame, guilt and resentments we have been carrying around for eons.
Seeing the truth is what will inspire us to finally give up our stubborn positions. It takes courage to surrender but once we see the truth of something that has been hidden, and we can face it with courage, surrender becomes the obvious choice.
surrender offers freedom. If you are feeling stuck in your life, there is probably something that needs to be surrendered. When you resist change, and many of us are probably resisting the changes we see happening around us, you block the flow of energy. Resistance is born of fear and is certainly an aspect of stubbornness. Resistance also takes a great deal of energy, like pushing against the tide. It will exhaust you to the point of collapse and despair if you don’t consciously give it up.
Frank M. Wanderer Ph.D. – As spiritual seekers we sooner or later need to face an expectation–almost a commonplace now–to accept what is actually happening to us, surrender to the circumstances, since this surrender will be the foundation of our spiritual development. The question may, however, arise in us, whether that surrender and acceptance may really constitute the foundation of our spiritual development?
The acceptance of what is happening to us in a specific moment means that we are able to say yes to the things and circumstances that actually appear in our life. Acceptance, saying yes may, however, have two different backgrounds. One of these backgrounds is that when we internally say no to what is happening to us, but our behaviour and reactions suggest that we in fact say yes and accept what is happening to us or around us. There may be several reasons for that: we are compelled to do that, a sense of impotence, or cold calculation, a belief that acceptance and surrender will help us in our spiritual quest. But the pretended acceptance and surrender will only lead to further suffering and unhappiness. Continue reading
“We can help so many people, if we just step out of the social norm of progress and work, and stop caring so much as to what others think of us.” – A Barker
Spirituality in the West has been severely distorted; being a marketplace of trinkets, self-help gurus, healers, a huge variety of spiritual practices, substances and so on.
Somehow this culture has taken something very pure and simple and turned it in to something commercial, something competitive and into that which it is not. Our western mind is moulded into wanting to attain something and some people on the spiritual path have spent their entire lives trying to attain, only to be as stuck and bound as they ever were.
It’s this very desire to attain something, this wanting to reach a ‘higher state of consciousness’, which is what keeps people bound and seeking. By definition, to be a seeker, you have not yet sought, and therefore those who are always seeking do not find. One of the great Tibetan Buddhists Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche who played a crucial role in bringing Buddhist teachings to the West during the Chinese occupation has this summary to say about awakening/meditation/enlightenment in Meditation in Action:
“Meditation is based on three fundamental factors: first, not centralising inward; second, not having any longing to become higher; and third, becoming completely identified with here and now.”
So in context with the rest of the chapter this is in, he is referring to our ego, or our idea of who we are, the “me”, the “I”, has no solidity to it, and not to uphold the belief that it exists. He denounces the striving to become better or higher – as pure consciousness cannot be increased or diminished. Nothing about healing, nothing about crystals or chakras or ascension or needing to strive or to take certain substances… just to be.