Moving On

Well. This has been a long time coming, I know! But it doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything.
I have been starting a new, bigger, brighter blog here at
How to Happiness. This is a sight about practical ways to gain more happiness.
Although I am very involved with my spiritual development, what I know is how to clear negative and unnecessary emotional baggage. I have done so much of it myself, and have an empathy and understanding for those caught up with life dramas and negative thought patterns, because I have been there. But having cleared a lot away, I have now come to a place where spirituality actually has some room to grow. It is creating that room/space that I want to pass on. So, that is where I am now.
Except when I am working on my spirituality! I am meditating twice a day now, and I am very lucky and blessed to have little enlightened moments regularly. Just this morning I felt myself to be a small shining light out in the universe, part of the Supreme Consciousness - or whatever!
I should probably get back here to share my spiritual moments, they are fun and exciting, and I am always looking to share (in fact, it is one of the things that holds me back from great meditation - always trying to work out how I can explain it to someone else!) But right now, time is short, and I have a lot of emotional baggage clearing to share!
Buy for now. Paula

Happiness

I know we are all looking for more happiness. How could you ever have enough? But, what I have learned from Buddhist teaching is that with happiness inevitably there is also unhappiness. Certainly, being aware of that can cause a slight dampening of spirits in connection with that happy making item, event, person. However, a slight reduction in intimate connection with this sensation Happiness, can actually be a good thing.

When we can stay at least just a little aware of how our emotions can change and fluctuate, see that what can make us happy can become something that makes us sad, or unhappy, then we are able to stay more even emotionally. Certainly the highs are fun, but the greater the high the lower the low. If we stay more evenly emotionally keeled, we are able to enjoy a stable, contented, peaceful existence.

Recognising how quickly the bad emotions pass helps to relax us when those times come, to accept, and not resist what is life just now for us. With that, very often the bad dissolves, or passes quickly. Resisting the bad emotions causes greater unhappiness for ourselves than the original emotion ever would have. Certianly, resistance exaggerates, and elongates our unhappiness.

Alternatively, recognising that we are happy now, but this too shall pass, may slightly dampen that happiness. But when the time for that happiness fades, we can accept and adjust more easily to the change in lifes tone.

If we can access the quiet, peaceful nature of our true selves, whether happy or sad, we always have that basis of peace to gratefully bask in.

Meditation Practice

For a long time I had lost my meditation practice. Years ago I would daily practice a chakra meditation. However, I found having young children made meditation hard. They were always wanting you, or you were always cleaning up, or preparing food, and then you were just too tired.
When I read Eckhart Tolle, I stopped even thinking of meditation. He doesn't talk a great deal about a meditation practice. More, he tends to support just present living - all the time! If I could live presently all the time, I am sure, I wouldn't need to meditate. However, in this I am still a novice.
So, recently, I have taken up regular meditation again. I am trying to meditate twice a day. My kids are a bit older now, and when they are home, I can negotiate 15 minutes away from them. They are accommodating, too, because Mummy is so easy to get along with when she meditates!
I am finding this regular practice so beneficial. Within that meditation time, I explore the sense of Stillness, Space, and Silence. The peace, the oneness with God, and the aliveness of my body. In short, I am getting intensive practice into Eckhart Tolle's Now twice a day. With that, I can get in touch with those sensations more easily during the day. I am regularly reminded to seek out that space within me during the day. I am more peaceful, and I feel the Now more strongly for the practice.
I would urge all who want to try to connect with that spiritual self, Being, God, to try to make a place for regular meditation practice and see what it can do for your spiritual journey.

Communication Frustration!

What frustration is this??!!

Trying to communicate with others in another room of the house. Calling out, "I can't hear you", "what?" and other obvious and irritating time wasting statements.

A friend (Bree) made a rule - "I am not going to answer you if there is a wall between us."

I am making that rule now (and I'm going to try to keep it!) and see if I can limit the irritation and frustration of the whole house conversation.

Meditation and Kids

So - I'm crying. I've just blown up at Samantha, I'm crashing around the house, and thinking this is just IMPOSSIBLE!

I was given a book about meditation - I have several, but this one has pretty pictures - after putting out a question for meditation direction. The book has inspired me. I have meditated for the past three days morning and night. I am thinking, yesterday I was able to stay more present, and conscious. I'm feeling good!

Then Sam gets up, moaning and groaning, growling and grizzling (yes - my sunshine child!) This is the second time she is doing this 'stage'. I try to stay patient and calm - more moans, and grizzles and foot stamps. Then I loose it. And now I write it - I see. Her pain body wants and needs my pain body, and I have graciously given it to her.

I have a friend who says, let's get Eckhart Tolle down here to take care of the kids, and we'll go up the mountain for a few days. Let's see how peaceful and calm he is when we get back!

I think parenting can be really hard.
Mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mummmmmm!!!! How on earth are you supposed to stay present?

All you can do is let the past misdemeanours go, and get on the horse again.

If I EVER get to a point where I can always stay present and calm during the kids drama I will KNOW I have reached enlightenment. But then, I wont even be excited about it, will I?! I'll be too enlightened to allow my ego to gloat.

A blessing.

May the sun bring you new energy by day,

may the moon softly restore you by night,

may the rain wash away your worries,

may the breeze blow new strength into your being.



Apache Blessing

(Due to some sort of error, I believe to be a part of the Blogger system, I cannot upload pictures to accompany my posts at the moment - my apologies)

Soul Questions

Lately I have had some questions about SELF. If we follow Eckhart Tolle, then I understand that we all need to find stillness, and access Being, the One, perhaps God, the Universal Life Force. A Oneness that links everything in the universe, big or small. It is the infinite, and eternal. At our essence, that is who we are.

But. Doesn't that make us all the same, in essence. Clearly, we are not all the same. Another tried to explain that it is the way that essence flows from you, that is your unique Self. I worry that I want a unique self for Ego purposes.

Then I picked up a book that has been sitting on my shelf such a long time, neglected, waiting for the right time to appeal to me. And so it is here. The book is by Sue Minns, called Bodies and Souls - A down-to-earth guide for the human experience. The book had been purchased after it had been highly recommended to me, but had never grabbed my attention. I wasn't ready, I guess.

Sue Minns differentiates between the Soul and the Spirit. The Spirit being that described above, while the Soul is "our essential natures, the very hearts of us, our natural talents."

She says, "The Soul is like a snow flake, a totally unique, individual particle. Spirit is the cloud that formed it, and from which it fell." Sue describes the Soul as the element of us that senses our human experience. "Each individual Soul is like a sensor-cell for All That Is."

And finally this feels like the answer to Self. Soul explains for me the difference between stillness, and the vibrant life sensation that I can have when really seeing a beautiful flower, or am awe struck by a magnificent tree, or that pull toward another person that does not make rational sense at all, or when I take the time to really taste what I am eating, and listen to the sounds of my life.

Lastly, Sue writes "You are unique! Not a clone, not a robot, not a carbon copy. Listen to your soul. It gives you permission to be - it requires you to be - fully present as a shimmering representative of the Great Creative Spirit. Throw the rule book out of the window; give your soul some time; dare to be different. You might even hear laughter as your soul - on behalf of its Creator - begins to live through you."