Horizons Magazine
Andrea de Michaelis, Publisher
Photo taken 2005
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JUNE 2005
Our 13th anniversary in print, cultivating dual awareness, practicing the presence,
transcendental forms of meditaiton, returning to center.
Hello and welcome to the June 2005 issue of Horizons Magazine. This is our 13th Anniversary of being in print *YAY US* "Us" I say, although since 1997 it's just been me putting the magazine out on my own. As much as anyone EVER does ANYTHING alone, I mean *smile* I never thought, as I was growing up, that I would turn out to be a publisher, although I'm not surprised I turned out to be a writer. I early on became enamoured of the idea of being an amanuensis, which www.m-w.com defines as a manu, a slave with secretarial duties: one employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscript. A slave in the idea of a slave to the Will of the Divine. Ok, I was going through my Joan of Arc martyr phase back then. Hey, I was a teenager and it was the 60's!
When it comes to putting Horizons together each month, that's how I feel each time. That I am putting together a package, the details of which have been dictated to me from a guidance higher than my own mind. The way I discover articles and writers is always very synchronistic for both of us, and I've made some awesome friends who live amazing lives. So, Happy Anniversary to everyone out there who's been reading us for 13 years!! We couldn't have done it without you!
I've got some favorite quotes from inside this issue of Horizons Magazine:
Patricia Crane: "What if - you could accept yourself and be happy with everything in your life exactly as it is right now? Wouldn't that be a relief? You could stop tying up your energy with worry and judgments, thus accessing more positive energy for the things you really want to accomplish."
Louise Hay: "It's our thinking that creates our lives and all our experiences in it."
Sonia Choquette: "Listen to your inner voice. Learning to trust your vibes is possible, but if you want to see a real difference in your life, you must make it a habit."
Paula Ryan: "Not being present "in the moment" doesn't mean the experience doesn't exist. It merely means we're not manifesting the whole, entire experience. We're merely manifesting a surface level of experience. And if we're not fully valuing the moment, we're not getting full value out of the experience."
Kumuda: "The shift into greater awareness is generally a gradual process. It's not so easy to completely turn off one part of your mind and turn on another. One helpful technique for moving into the elevated perspective is to cultivate a dual awareness. With an approach of spiritual awareness, everything becomes grist for the mill of even greater awareness and spiritual happiness. With dual awareness, you can remember your supremely contented inner Self, even while acting in accordance with the outer circumstances of your life."
Cultivating dual awareness is a subject close to my heart, and I asked Sharon Janis (Kumuda) if I may excerpt that chapter from her Secrets Of Spiritual Happiness, so you'll find it in this issue. Even if you are not a meditator, or contemplative by nature, you have already experienced different types of dual or multiple awareness. You may just not have called it that.
Examples of mundane dual awareness: You're infatuated with someone new and you're going about your daily doings and although you are performing all requisite tasks, in the background you are musing over your new love. In other forms, this is also called practicing the presence. You look at everything with new eyes: what would he think about this or that or her or him or this situation or that scenario?
That's a form of dual awareness most of us can relate to. We see ourselves a little prettier in the mirror and we feel happier on our way to work, and we don't mind the long day because we know we will see "him" in just 5 hours and 23 minutes. We think of what has happened at work, and of how we will spin the tale to our beloved once we get home. We want to have the place clean and something fragrant in the oven for him, and inspiring background music playing. We think of all sorts of ways to please him, what might he like best? Continually practicing the presence of... the beloved!
Another example of dual awareness is usually less fun: A loved one has just died, and you are going about your daily doings with the underlying knowing that you are experiencing things that your loved one will no longer experience. You relate to ordinary every day things in a new way, asking "Would she have enjoyed this? What would she have to say about that?" In almost everything that you experience, your mind will want to refer if back and relate it to the one who has just passed. That is also practicing the presence. "Look at those two laughing over there. Don't they realize my world will never be the same now that (blank) is dead?" Every song reminds you. Every redhead reminds you. Every piece of junk mail reminds you. You feel torn between wanting to hold on a little longer, and wanting time to pass really quickly so you can get these feelings behind you. Continually practicing the presence of... the one who has died.
Another example of dual awareness is when we, say, break a leg and suddenly, that is the new reference point. Talk about dual awareness! Now you are aware of what an effort walking can actually be, and now there are some places you just can't go easily on crutches or in a wheel chair - like climb a tree or swim in the ocean. During your day, you are not only going about your regular routine, but relating it all back to the pain or disability of your injury. This is also practicing the presence. I remember in 1984 I had my leg in a cast up to my hip and it was like having a Siamese twin. All day at work, it was propped up on the chair beside me. In the car, it was crowded at an uncomfortable angle, plus I'd had to trade cars with someone who drove an automatic for the 6 weeks I had the cast on. Showering was a trip! I had a plastic lawn chair in the bottom of the tub. I had a black plastic garbage bag tucked into my cast, and duct-taped to my leg. I'd lie in the chair and use the hand held shower thingy while I bathed one-handed. What fun! There was nothing I could do for 6 weeks that I wasn't aware of having a dual awareness. My yoga practice took an amusing turn for 6 weeks. Biking was out, and walking was too tiring. I couldn't even trudge thru my woods, which in 1984 were still very wild and overgrown. My life for 6 weeks was my leg, my leg, my leg. Continually practicing the presence of... my leg!
I had a sense of dual awareness the first time I fasted. It was in Miami in 1973. I was 3 or 4 days into an 11 day fast and I had a heightened sense of awareness in everything I did. I would go to work and do my work all with a sense of having a secret inside me, that no one knew was happening except me. The way I processed the idea of food at that time was also different. I saw how food- obsessed our society seemed to be. The Tibetan Buddhists call it the Realm of the Hungry Ghost.
Just as physical pain can be very distracting, so can emotional pain. In addition to grief, some people still feel the anger and blame, shame and resentment attached to past events. That's another form of dual awareness that we've all witnessed and experienced. That is also practicing the presence. There's also a time to STOP practicing the presence: when you're practicing the presence of something you don't want to ever have in your life.
But we can choose what we decide to practice the presence of. We can decide to cultivate dual awareness that isn't limited to emotional highs and lows, such as infatuation, emotional or physical pain. We can cultivate The Witness Consciousness. Deepak Chopra talks about The Thinker Behind The Thoughts. When asked how to foster spiritual awareness, Chopra replied: "By teaching a person the ability to have a quiet mind, to stand back and witness the whole thought process. With that ability comes a major insight: I am the thinker and not the thought. That insight, at a deep level of awareness, is enough to cause a change in one's consciousness, and a spontaneous change in one's biology. Pay attention to your self outside the realm of your experiences."
In fact, that is what transcendental forms of meditation are all about. Taking your consciousness within, in order to transcend the physical and emotional world around you. To sit quietly and follow your breath, releasing thoughts as they come and go, until you feel a shift begin to take place in your awareness. You might feel that unmistakable inner click of recognition and connection. You may feel nothing at all, yet experience a glimpse as though from a high place, high above all the ordinary, mundane shufflings of the material world below. A new viewpoint begins to emerge, a new insight is gleaned, the path before you is made more visible, the crooked places are made straight. The way you see your every day life changes and you begin to feel more purposeful. You begin to detect progress where before you weren't so sure. You begin to see evidence of your internal order in your external world. After all, the fruit of meditation is the ability of one-pointed application to the duty in hand in the course of daily living. The fruit of meditation is realizing that your "bad habits" are simply self-imposed burdens that you choose to discard when you are ready.
Paul Townsend has some great thoughts, and he uses the phrase "Return to center". Paul writes, "If you want to build maximum momentum towards your goals, you must take your wild mind and harness its power. Continually come back to the center during your idle moments. and you'll find that all your activities are full of idle thoughts. Your center - your breath, becomes your companion and advisor.
Learn to distinguish between productive thoughts and idle thoughts. During productive thoughts you are doing something, making a decision, or designing something in your mind. During idle thoughts you are simply dazed by some irrelevant physical or emotional sensation. Replace that idle rambling of your mind with a focused center.
Experiment with different centers. Try combining a goal with your breath. For example, each breath you take brings you closer to your goal. The more breaths you watch the quicker you'll arrive at your goal. This is one of my favorites. Do all your normal activities. You should not be away from your center for more than a few minutes. It's difficult at first because you're kind of doing two things at once. Not really. You're switching back and forth. You, your soul is in control of your mind, and your soul willfully lends itself to the activity at hand, but always resumes the reins. It's like any other habit. After enough repetition it becomes automatic. You'll know you're there or getting close when you see your mind wander and as your mind flutters about in its little orgy of sensation you suddenly hear those reins snap. It's your center calling out to you. When this happens you know you've found your groove. Continue. Strengthen that experience and soon you'll begin to see the many positive effects of your new mind power. You have dreams and goals. I'm here to tell you that finding and keeping your center is the way to get there. Everything else is a diversion.
Your main objective is to keep your mind from running wild and becoming a victim of sensation. Once you make some progress with one center, experiment with others. Personally, I switch centers often. Once you have a few centers at your disposal, you'll notice that given the choice, for any situation, one will work better than the others. Soon you'll learn which centers are most appropriate for what situations. Sometimes I find myself using more than one at a time. Or more accurately switching back and forth in a harmonic or musical fashion. You'll have fun with this. Try experimenting at restaurants or other public places and see if you can discern the effects of your unspoken center on the strangers around you."
I like the idea of the exercises suggested by Paul Townsend above. Being a 12th house Aries, I like to give myself all sorts of personal disciplines to do in my spiritual practice. Plus I get secret pleasure out of knowing in a group of people that I am on some level doing my discipline, performing my sadhana, and no one has to know it but me.
I am also a fan of Practicing The Presence and love the book by the same name by Joel Goldsmith. It is easy to Practice The Presence wherever you are and in whatever you do. It just takes practicing in your imagination. Let's go back to the first example above: You're infatuated with someone new and you're going about your daily doings and although you are performing all requisite tasks, in the background you are musing over your new love. So, say the new love is your Divine Beloved, whatever name you might use for that. How well might you clean that house if you knew that your Divine Beloved was going to be visiting? And how tasty might that dinner be if your Divine Beloved was going to be eating it? And you don't mind the long day because you know you will see "him/her/them/it" in just 5 hours and 23 minutes. You think of what has happened at work, and of how you will spin the tale to your Divine Beloved once you get home. You think of all sorts of ways to please him/her/them/it, what might he/she/it/they like best? Continually practicing the presence of... the Divine Beloved.
Finally, as this issue goes to press, Central America has experienced the first hurricane of the season. Everyone who is reading these words can take a role as a vision keeper. We can hold the vision that this storm season will pass easily and smoothly. We can envision the storm and breathe it into our meditation, and offer it on the outbreath up to God. We can breathe in all the fear and anxiety of the people who don't yet know how to connect with their Center, their Source, and breathe it on the outbreath up to God. I always pray that others might feel, in their times of stress and duress, how I feel in my times of peace and calm and security. I do that as I pass an ambulance, or a car accident. I send a blessing their way, I say a prayer for their peace and for them to feel the presence of loving arms around them. I pray for them to feel peace and calm and secure and in good hands.
And that's usually how I feel all the time. Peaceful and calm and secure and in good hands. Guided, purposeful, motivated. I love that about my life. It really is good to be me. And it's my bet that it's good to be YOU, too!
Enjoy our offering this month. Hari Om.