Your donations are our thanks .
We appreciate you!

Horizons Magazine

More about Andrea

JANUARY 2001  
Car accident, activating inner plane activity, being in the world and not of it

Hello and welcome to the January 2001 edition of Horizons Magazine. By now we've
all been convinced that the New Millennium didn't really begin last January 1st so indeed
January 1, 2001, is the real beginning of the New Millennium. Of course it all depends on
which calendar you're going by, too. We get attached to the idea that our western calendar
of twelve months of 28-31 days each is the only true calendar. When I learned about the
Mayan Calendar, it threw out all my prior ideas of timekeeping and gave me a brief respite from my attachment to "my" calendar as the only one there was. I've since learned a lot about being attached to methods.

Since my car accident the end of September, I've been remarkably and steadily on the mend and have learned some exciting new lessons from that adventure. One big a-ha was learning how attached I was to certain ways of doing things, particularly when it came to my daily practice. For years I'd been used to starting my day, in the early pre-dawn hours, writing in my journal and ending the day typing my thoughts into the computer. I'd spend sometimes half my day journaling or recording my thoughts. After the accident, typing or even writing was out of the question for the first couple of months and even now I'm dictating into a tape a friend will transcribe for me. This wasn't the first time the Universe saw fit to remove my familiar crutches and kick me out of my familiar nest.

Back in 1984, a year after I'd moved to Brevard County from Miami, I was getting ready to move out of my townhouse on Lake Washington Road and into my newly built home, I had all my things packed in boxes ready to move after the closing on my house. The boxes were unmarked and one box looked like another, whether it contained teddy bears, small appliances or jewelry. I was one week before my homeowner's insurance started, which left me for one week without renter's insurance.

You guessed it! My townhouse was broken into while I was overnight in the Bahamas (on business believe it or not!) and not only did they get all my jewelry, tvs, stereo, etc, they got about 15 years' worth of my notebooks and writings, which I'd been slowly putting on mag card. Remember mag cards? Imagine the dismay of my burglars to have loaded dozens of boxes of notebooks with no earthly value? hahaha So I figured God thought my attention was better put in the present than on what I'd written in the past, plus he knew I'd go crazy trying to convert from mag card to pc.

Aren't we funny creatures? We have a thought (or an epiphany) and we record it. Then we spend the rest of our life protecting what we've written and moving it from place to place, like a priceless Faberge egg, although most times keeping it hidden away. We think back to the time when we had such insights and produced such good writing. We lament that those times are no more. All this we do rather than just getting back to the business of sadhana, or spiritual practice, which is what produced the epiphany in the first place.

I often find myself getting caught up in "processing" my words, uh, "my" words. Like, "what if I forget this neat thing that I know right now that makes me understand everything in the world?"

I often find myself with the feeling that, "right now, this very second, I suddenly know the answer to everything, and I understand everything, and I know why the world is the way it is, and it is so obviously and wonderfully intact with amazing integrity. Yes, integrity, I finally understand the meaning of that word," and then the next moment you aren't in that head space or state of consciousness anymore, so you forget what you knew, but you remember that you knew it . You remember how powerful it felt to have all the answers, how much fear was removed from just that glimpse into the fact of the perfect order for everything and everything, indeed, in its place. So the more I can, at times of confusion, take myself back to that place, back to that feeling of comfort and security and utter knowing, make myself remember the feeling I had, my bodily feeling and my mind feeling, the closer can come to once again having another epiphany or insight.

To me, these epiphanies are so totally gratifying that yes, sometimes I want to share them with others, but more often it seems so irrelevant whether I share them or not, the mere fact of my having them in some way enriches and nourishes others as well. It's like on which level are you most willing to work? When you are really connected to Source and have a daily practice, then your inner plane activity is such that you need little external input or validation. You know what you know and you know that you know it. You don't need to convince anyone else of it, you just know that by your coming to know and understand it, you are paving a pathway for others to come to the same knowing in short order. That's what the global mental plane is all about.

Our thoughts go out into the Universe and make up the "stuff" from which we draw ideas and inspirations, and thus create our experience day by day. Once you activate inner plane activity, you're in contact with an entirely subjective array of co-workers. Together, to varying degrees, you begin to do the work you came here to do, through thought power and good intention.

Of course, it's one thing to talk about spirit guides and guardian angels and getting this message or that message, and that happens all the time. What I'm talking about is that group of servers who work on the inner planes, without acknowledgement or recognition, with no thought of self, with thought only to the uplifting of their fellow man. Those who awaken each day asking, "How may I serve?" Those who look for quiet opportunities to help others who cross their path every moment of every day. Those who are content to be in the background, pouring forth love, no matter what presence is before them, and knowing that we are indeed all One. Those who offer kind words to others, and who stand up for those in need. Those who are indeed in the world and not of it.
How do we be in the world and not of it? We're in the world and not of it when we sit and read magazines like this, even though the tv and the radio are in the same room with us. How many of your friends would be bored to tears by reading spiritual texts for hours at a time? Yet you choose to do so because you have found the peace and deepened understanding which it brings.

Being in this world and not of it means having conscious reactions to whatever happens in life. It means getting stuck behind a tractor going 15 miles an hour for 10 miles of crowded 2 lane road and really enjoying the chance to drive slowly and relax and enjoy the scenery you usually have to fly past at 60 mph. Being in this world and not of it happens when you turn off mainstream society's input as to what is useful and appropriate for you, and begin prayer, meditation and self inquiry to get your answers. It means listening to the media and acknowledging that everything reported goes through a biased filter of sensationalism and partial truths that may or may not be true and useful for you. Including what you're reading right now *hehe*

Being in this world and not of it means deliberating scheduling time to be alone, in the silence, without talking or listening. This is not something you have to report to friends and family, it's just something you do. It's like when you're serious about dieting, you don't tell anyone you're on a diet - that sparks interest - you merely decline food with a brief, "thank you, I don't want that now.'

Being in this world and not of it means viewing your life as a mission of servitude cloaked in various delightful opportunities, and having faith that if you act always with integrity, the best will come to pass. Being in this world and not of it means knowing you are divinely guided in all that you do and if you will but step your self aside and act always from the heart, expecting the highest and best life has to offer and be willing to accept with gratitude whatever is placed before you, you will experience Grace as never before. Being in this world and not of it means accepting every thing and every person as a blessing in your life and treating them as such. It means loving those that despitefully use you. And you can love them quietly. That isn't something you have to announce you're doing. No one else needs to know that you are going about the business of forgiveness and lovingness all day long. It can be a secret that you have. I always feel mischievous when I have a secret. Especially when that secret is that I'm in love with all of Life and every One I know and even last month the fallen Chinese tallow leaves were all in the shape of hearts, confirming to me that indeed, Love was in the air.

It's easy during the 'holiday season" to feel love for strangers and neighbors we don't normally connect with, because we're all joined at that time, for a combined purpose. We're all "in it" together. We're all "keeping up with it" or "putting up with it" but we're doing it all together. Well, just as one candle can light an entire room, so can you, just you, one person in a room of co-workers, set the tone for the work day for everyone. You can be cheerful, always looking for the best, being quietly productive and really getting into your work. Making the most of your lunch and breaktimes. Getting to know those you work with and finding out what makes them tick. Or even better, what makes them happy! Then you've got a little secret that you can work to the advantage of everyone

My New Year's resolution is - to paraphrase a popular song - to open up in sweet surrender to the luminous LoveLight of the Lord and see what there is in store for me. To have my own ideas and projects in mind, but to accept whatever opportunities for change come my way. Email me at HorizonsMagazine@aol.com and let me hear your New Year resolutions. Or just write and tell me what has been going on in your life. What excites you the most, what thrills you, what books you've been reading and what you think about your life. Enjoy our offering this month. I love you all. Hari Om.