SELF-AWARENESS

 

Edition 2 Issue #13

  

April fool’s edition 2015, as the fool I am not, I differed  publishing from Wednesday the 1st April, 2015 and changed to today April 2nd, 2015 for this formidable posting, you would think I could come up with a funny anecdote, something hilariously trivial, or a trick of some kind as it is also the 13th issue of the year. 

But alas no!  Addiction and dependency (be it chemical, or other such as food, sex, exercise…) are serious issues and I am writing to help those in pain and suffering, or for those maintaining, and wanting to know more on the desperation of addiction and how to move from lower levels of consciousness to freedom in Higher level consciousness, communing with the Universe or ‘SOURCE’ of all there is on a continual basis.  I am writing for the explicit purpose to help those reading these words to achieve Enlightenment, and to lift up their consciousness to be, not only meaningful beings, but to live a purpose driven life where we can all be of immense service to mankind and the evolution of the human condition. The power is within each and every one of us to enable the Divine Spirit to live through us.

 

Remembering we have a “daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our Spiritual condition”. These are words taken form the book ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ and relate to the need for constant Prayer and Meditation, or conscious contact with a Power Greater than ourselves (however we perceive this power, Universal Mind, Source, Energy…). 

 

Read more…

 

 

TRANSFORMATION

 

 

Happiness will follow the transformative action of complete surrender to ‘a Power Greater than ourselves’. This transformation is the start and the first step to the road of Enlightenment; the Red Road if you will.  The freedom to let go of the things we hold onto which stand in the path of our journey to the “Sunlight of the Spirit”.  The things we live through and through and manifest in our daily lives, the bad habits we have acquired from our parents, caregivers, circle of friends, gangs and whomever inspires and influences us.  The path to self-awareness is to first discover there are some bad habits we are holding on to.  There are destructive thoughts and behaviors, which we are expressing, or thinking that stand in our way of the “Sunshine of the Spirit”.  Or stand in the way of manifesting the life we want, the life we deserve. We know there is enough abundance in this world for everyone, yet we limit ourselves by our false beliefs, by our false limitations created by the conditioning or our childhood and adolescence.

It is through self-searching, and complete release, where we will achieve a level of self-awareness will release us from the conditioning we have accepted as real.  We need to completely give ourselves to a new way of life, a new way of thinking where we accept the limitless abundance of the Universe, and know this is free for the taking for those who have released the limitations consciousness created though self-doubt, through the habit of belief in limitation. We need to re-program the database, which is our mind, to re-program the default settings to the truth. The opportunity is now, to manifest the higher purpose in Universal consciousness.

Image by author  © Copyright 2015  All rights reserved www.beyondthe12th.com

Image by author  © Copyright 2015  All rights reserved www.beyondthe12th.com

 

Becoming self-aware is a process; we can begin meditation and carefully look inside. In the 12 Step process we engage in inner-work which releases the bondage and damage of past beliefs through a process, including but not limited to, making amends to those we have harmed, making amends to our inner selves for the conditions of the past of which we had no control, forgiving ourselves, and others for the things happened in the past.  Completely accepting the things and events of the past have no control on our present and on our future, completely releasing these past events and actions and releasing the pain body.  This complete release, or inner-work, allows us the opening to be self-aware and as we develop and evolve we, in the 12 Step programme, retain a ‘Sponsor’ or mentor who will tell us honestly what we need to hear to develop a better self-awareness and hence come closer to Enlightenment and being a meaningful, purpose driven member of the human race, of society, if this is what we are searching for, or just being able to properly relate to others, without jugging and constantly evaluating others.  When we are in judgement we are limiting our ability to listen, to properly relate to others.

 

RELEASE

 

In the above paragraph I spoke of forgiveness and releasing from the past beliefs: we achieve this release through self-awareness. “Yesterday’s gone! There is nothing you can do about yesterday!”  I recall hearing this so often from my dear deceased friend Scott Swan. And how right he was, is: yesterday can only affect us if we live in it. LET GO OF YESTERDAY! Yesterday’s GONE! There is nothing we can do to change the facts, but there is so much we can do to change our awareness, become self-aware and be careful of our thoughts. When I am self-aware I can better pay attention on the way I feel, now, the way I think now, the way I compose myself in the present moment.  In self-awareness I can control my emotions, I can understand to not take anything personally (read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom By Don Miguel Ruiz)

 

Developing positive mental attitude through self-awareness is like accepting, and receiving, freedom.  It is building emotional intelligence, something on a scale of 1 to 10, I personally scored probably a big ‘0’ when I finally sobered up at the age of 47.  Totally lacking social and behavioural skills, I was emotionally dead, emotional empty from almost 35 years of intense substance abuse and deprecating, demoralizing (mostly self-deprecating especially at the end of my using, as I constantly put myself down and believed I was useless, I was a piece of shit, I was to amount to nothing!!!) behavior.  This type of behavior was a conditioning, first from m family of origin, then from gang affiliations as I lived by a code.  Within this ‘Code’ of behavior and thinking, everyone who entered into my life was there to serve my purposes. I know today this is the first premise of abuse. Although I prided myself on treating my ladies well and never abusing them, I now know that words are dangerous and I was emotionally as well as mentally abusive to every single person who was in my life, because I used then. I used every relationship, whether I just met you informally, or you were a close friend: you entered my life to serve my purposes. And that was it!

 

Look for next week’s edition on “SENSITIVITY”.  And be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive it directly you won’t miss a beat.

 

 

Duality of Being

 

EDITION 1 Issue #7

 

 

 

What is “Duality of Being”?  We will identify this with an easy to grasp example from the Bugs Bunny[i] cartoons where the character has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other.  Remember seeing this?  Well this is what your head is like when you are torn between two thought processes, the good and the bad.  Angel and devil…. Which one do I listen to?  Usually it’s the self-serving, ego driven thought process leads to self-satisfaction, or relief from pain.  Anything which gives short term pleasure with no regard for the other people in my life; for me it’s the easy answer, the easy solution is the one which will be self-gratifying and self-serving.  Often-times to the detriment of family, or friends, people around at the time of the decision and those I love the most suffer from my selfish, ego-driven thought process.

 

Relief from self

 

How do we find relief from the self-serving, ego-driven thought processes lead us to the feelings of being torn between good and bad?  Stevie Ray Vaughan (written with Doyle Bramhall ©1989 In Step (Epic EK-45024) used under “Fair use”) sings about being;

 

 “Caught up in a whirlwind can't catch my breath,
knee deep in hot water broke out in a cold sweat
Can't catch a turtle in this rat race,
feels like I'm losin' time at a breakneck pace”

 

And I can so relate to these words, so well defining my thought pattern of being caught up in the whirlwind of my lies and manipulation.  The crazy, insane things I did, and do, to get my way, to get what I need.  They further describe the ego generated insanity with:

 

“Afraid of my own shadow in the face of grace,
heart full of darkness spotlight on my face
There was love all around me but I was lookin' for revenge,
thank God it never found me would have been the end
I was walkin' the tightrope steppin' on my friends…”

 

Especially rings out to me is the part “heart full of darkness spotlight on my face” in my self-serving ego-driven selfishness i.e. “spotlight on my face”, my heart is full of darkness because I am taking away from any gift Grace would offer me by separation, separation from the Universal Mind, or Great Creator.  Separation (look for our blog on “SEPARATION” in a February 2015 issue) from GOD and any Love of fellows, Love for my family and friends sorta disappears when duality of being pulls me to the bad side, or tips me over the rope to the evil being my ego wishes to keep me in.

Photo by author © 2014 beyondthe12th.com

Photo by author © 2014 beyondthe12th.com

 

Teachings

 

Where in the Teachings of great leaders do we see insight into the relief from duality?   When Jesus spoke and told Satan to “stand behind me” (Matthew 16:23) could he have been talking to ego-mind? (Don’t miss the issue on “EGO-MIND” end January 2015. To be sure you get this directly to your mailbox, SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Don’t miss out.)  Could the Christ Jesus have been relating to something we all have to one extent or the other?  The ego-mind which drives us to self-destruction through self-serving, self-satisfying temptation when he speaks out to do the things of real men which would in fact be the God driven acts or thoughts which will be “doing the right thing’?  Doing what will benefit the whole and my brother (read sister too…) instead of the self-gratifying, so easy choice which takes only my needs into consideration?  Could this great teacher have been relating to this when he call for Satan to get behind thee?  Therefore if we work on the premise there is no hell, there is no Satan aside from our self-destroying ego centric thought pattern.  Driven by ego-mind which looks to destroy the real self, the soul which has direct connection to Universal Mind, the connection is constantly interrupted by these conditionings of egocentric, destructive thinking: Duality of being!

 

 

Relief

 

Relief from this duality and ego is what we need to continually work on, to bring ourselves to be one with God, or good.  To be ONE with creation, with life as it was meant to be lived and what our Soul is searching out to reconnect with.  We achieve this through Prayer and Meditation.  Our ‘Big Book’ of alcoholics anonymous tells us we have a ‘daily reprieve’ from our alcoholism, interchange, our self-serving ego-driven thought pattern (read insanity!), we can maintain this daily reprieve through and contact with a power greater than ourselves –which I chose to call GOD – this Power which is fundamentally omnipotent and omniscient (read - is all Powerful and is everywhere at once and always) This Power which is there at the tip of our finger to grasp whenever we actually reach out for it.  The power of choice grated us by this Great Creation allow us the Grace of God, we don’t need to do anything to deserve it, to win it or to be worthy of the Grace of God.  We do however need to reach for it.  Reach for the Grace of God, as it is there for us at all times but we actually have to do something to take it.  Prayer and Meditation are fundamental in this journey to Enlightenment.  This is there for you.  Believe this! Take it! IT IS YOURS FOR THE TAKING! It is YOUR DEVINE RIGHT! Take it NOW!  Open you HEART and accept the gift from the Universe, it is yours for the taking, believe it!

 

 

Look for next week’s edition on “INSANITY”.  And be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive it directly you won’t miss a beat.

 

 

[i] ™Looney Tunes