It is time now to take all the lessons you have learned—all the tools and techniques, the discipline, containment, and limitation practices—and not only put them into deeper practice, but to step back and take a clear look at all that you have been granted in your life. Look not at the self with pity or sorrow, nor with self-adoration or inflation, but look upon the self as a journeyer upon a journey. Look upon the journey of your life as a journey of fulfillment, a journey that is showing you just what you need and how to get there.
This is a time of acceptance, for everything is now in place; the only thing missing is your awareness of this. All of you who reside now upon that planet are in a unique position to personally and collectively grow. The big question is, are you fully aware of this? Are you totally alert to the truth of major change being in your own hands?
You are the energy and the catalyst to change. You are the carrier and the deliverer of your own change in circumstances. You are the power and the provider of power. By your very existence you hold all that you need in order to grow, to take yourself to a new level of understanding, and to reach fulfillment.
Life’s journey is, as you already know, a step-by-step process. Today, though you may awaken in a bit of a fog, will become a day of clear skies, meaning clear head and clear insight into the self, if you allow it to be so. If you accept your journey and yourself as transitioning—at all times being pushed to evolve—you will awaken to many truths about the self and the world around you.
Channeled advice and vision is ancient knowing coming to guide you, full of long-ago learned truths that have fallen by the wayside in modern times. But it is guaranteed that most of you will discover your true identity and your spirit’s yearnings explained quite nicely in these ancient truths that in fact lie waiting within all of you.
Do not be afraid to channel your own truth and your own spirit. Do not be afraid of the changing self. Accept the rightness of this changing self as you confront your deepest truths, both your past and present truths. Make a determination of how you wish to proceed, knowing all that you now know, and go in that direction. You will, if you are ready, go there anyway, for your spirit will guide you. Your main task is to accept the offer. Much life is in store for you if you do.
Dear Jeanne and Infinity: What guidance do you offer us today?
Though the outside world carries on, often swirling in mayhem and offensive acts of cruelty, ignorance, and greed, do not get attached. In such times, deeper meaning must be sought and such deeper meaning will only be found within.
Each one of you upon that earth must turn inward and investigate your feelings, motives, and desires. You must discover what drives you, what rules you, and why. You must constantly investigate the self—not just check in briefly, but with full-fledged commitment to the inner process—for the times call for a conscious turning inward as the only means of survival and growth.
“What do you mean, survival?” I ask.
Survival of the human species must catapult to a new thought process, for survival must extend beyond physical survival to survival of all that is at the root of being human: compassion, kindness, love, and the expansion of and awareness of these tenets as being of utmost importance now.
As human beings face their infallibility and their fragility in the face of disaster, natural and otherwise, they must grasp at a deeper meaning for their existence. Beyond the constant necessity of survival in the reality of the world you live in lies a far greater meaning, and this must be probed. That is, survival of a new consciousness in the awakening to a greater understanding of all that you experience.
Are you sad, distraught, fearful? If so, the answers to your dilemmas are inside you. Even if you are happy, contented, and at peace, so are you also tempered with disturbance, for balance is naturally sought, and so deep inner work must not be forgotten. In order for the human population to evolve, acceptance of both the shadow self and the light self, as they act out in your own life or in the world around you, must be allowed.
Even in the darkness there is light...
You live in the times of dark and light. You are the dark and the light. Knowing that you are both the darkness and the light combined must be the central truth of your deeper inner work. Accept your truths: I am the darkness and the light. Pay homage to the powerful forces within and make your decisions on how to live, act, think, and pray based on these blatant truths.
Reality has always been what it is now, and that too you must accept. Your perception of it, and what you do next, is of utmost importance.
Ready to shift? It’s in your power to do so.
As always, ask your deeper self to guide you along a new path of acceptance of greater truth, insight, and action. All you have to do is accept its hand, always extended in your direction, always asking you to take it and move in a new direction.
Change begins and ends inside you. Find the shift you need by accepting the truths of your life and move on from there in a new positive direction. And remember, even as you face the darkness there is always light.
Thank you Jeanne and Infinity! Most humbly channeled by Jan.
Dear Jeanne and all of our guides in Infinity: What message of guidance do you offer us today?
Time to look up from your path and take in the wider view...
Stay connected to the bigger picture. Continually pull back out of the debris and details pointing to your inner work and your processes of growth and remind the self that there is a bigger story. You are on a journey, appointed a path of constant transition and transformation. Decide how you wish to traverse your path. It is appropriate to notice all that lies at your feet, but it is equally important to notice the sky above you and the horizon beyond you.
Take time each day to thank the self for taking the journey you are on. If you are lost in feelings so deep that you feel incapable of taking another step, you must quickly look up and regain your larger perspective.
It is only in constantly monitoring all aspects of life that one will gain the necessary tools to take the journey with full attention. Full attention means being aware of life’s journey as deeply meaningful, every part of it. Full attention means being aware that everything you have experienced in life so far and all that is to come is deeply meaningful. Full attention means shifting thoughts often, reminding the self that you are a transformational being on a transformational journey—at all times.
Full attention means accepting where you are right now as deeply meaningful and letting go of old ideas of the self so that you may discover the meaning for this moment in your life as a transformational being. Full attention means being aware that each moment is significant; each thought, feeling, emotion, regret and hope is significant in your transformational process. Full attention means never letting the true self be smothered by circumstances beyond your control. Instead, full attention requires mature presence of mind in constant balance with each moment and all that you must encounter in each moment.
A moment in time is infinite, containing infinite possibility. Full attention means grabbing onto that infinite possibility and allowing it to take you on your next step of your journey.
In full attention to all the details of life, as well as to the bigger picture, one has the opportunity to proceed along the path of transformation. Finally, while full attention asks for balance, it also asks you to accept the truths you now face. You must accept the truths of the self as they arise in order to move on into that horizon of infinite hope and possibility.
Like stacks of stones accept your truths as solid facts and then move on...
If you are stuck, caught somewhere along your path, you must come to your own rescue. Lift your head, look around you, accept your reality—the truths that batter you—and in so doing relieve yourself of the burden of them. With your eyes shifted in a new direction, take up your journey again and feel your way forward. Keep in mind that each step requires your full attention because each step you take is deeply meaningful and necessary.
Only you can discover just what meaning you are to discern from each step of your life’s journey. And only you, in full attention, have the power to transform your life as you proceed along the path that opens before you.
This is a week of commitment to the self, to life’s journey, and to taking it with your full attention and with awareness that you and every step, choice, thought, idea, truth and feeling you experience are deeply meaningful, revelatory, and absolutely necessary.
Begin today by lifting your head and looking around you, way beyond your normal circumstances and your normal point of view. Look far beyond your present life and your recent thoughts about the present self. Look at the sky above you and accept that you belong there in that life at this time. It’s up to you to take the journey to find out why.
Full attention means knowing that there is a reason for everything. Begin with knowing that you, a transformational being, are that reason. Accept your reality and then, in full attention, take the steps to change it. The power to change your life, to transform your reality, is in your hands.
Thank you Jeanne and our guides in Infinity! Channeled by Jan, most humbly and with love to you all as you journey onward.
If we face it squarely, the fate of the world today hinges on the balance of who can raise the most campaign finance funds to better entrance the electorate in its favor. It’s truly a sporting event; the competitive driver dominating America, and consequently the world. How dissociated could this daily dynamic be from the true needs and true reality of the precariousness of the world’s survival? What kind of mentality seeks the brink of destruction to gain the competitive advantage?
We are all in the grip of the predator...
When the shamans say we are completely at the mercy of “the foreign installation,” this is what they are talking about. A world mentality in the grip of a predator. That predator cares only for its own gluttonous appetite. It cares nothing for the true needs of the human animal, the human race, the human planet. All it seeks is more gluttony, more to feed its own insatiable appetite, and we are all collectively and personally held in its grip.
We see this collective reality nanosecond by nanosecond in our rapidly communicating world wide web—a web expressing its own gluttonous desire for more; more speed, more rapid response—far outpacing the human nervous system, compromising our human biological balance. The hunger for more and for new is insatiable. But is it truly human? Where is the human in this? Answer: The human is held in the predator’s grip.
In Carlos Castaneda’s journey in infinity, he encountered a young girl caught in the predator’s grip. His heart went out to her and he gave all of his energy trying to free her. The predator had wisely tricked him, found his weak spot, drained him of his energy, and now held Carlos Castaneda in his grip as well.
Who is that young girl that so captivated Castaneda? She is us, all of us, our human self held in bondage by the predators’ mind, that foreign installation that the shamans speak of. Last week I illustrated this dynamic in Barking Meditation. The predator’s mind is the mind that spins the drama, spins our emotions, and drains our vital energy. We are all prey to the machinations of what the Buddhists call the monkey mind, another name for the foreign installation, that doesn’t give a hoot about our true needs or the true reality of our human animal. It’s no different than the daily world spin we are fed to agitate us, hypnotize us, and funnel our energy and funds in this or that direction.
We are all victims—even Chuck could not avoid the predatory poison ivy! *
How do we defeat this predator? How do we free ourselves? Here are some hints:
1. Mindfulness Meditation. Learn to take awareness away from the predatory mind, refuse its tales of worry and woe. Keep awareness present on now, on the body, on the truth of the heart, on what is truly real.
2. Suspend Judgment. The predatory mind’s greatest hook is judgment: Good or Bad. It structures our lives, our feelings, and our actions around judging ourselves as good, bad, worthy, unworthy, lovable, unlovable, lucky, unlucky, etc., etc. Once the judgments set in, they generate the feelings that stir up our energy, which gets sucked from us throughout the day and throughout our lives.
No judgment! No blame! Only facts and truth matter! Facts and truth generate right action and freedom. Judgment binds us in its sticky web, a web from which we may never escape.
3. We Are All Victims. Accept that we are all, in our true humanness, victims of the predator’s grip. We are all the innocent young girl of Carlos Castaneda’s journey. But let’s learn from Castaneda’s mistake. If we allow ourselves to be consumed by the sadness, despondency, and hopelessness of the little girl in her captive state, we, like Castaneda, will lose all our energy and be rendered helpless victims, caught eternally in the predator’s grip.
4. Use Our Awareness. We must acknowledge the truth of our bondage, but guard our energy to free ourselves. We do have awareness, an awareness that the predator goes after but can’t fully consume. However weakened, however impoverished we become, we must garner our awareness to not attach to the machinations of the mind and all its false apocalypses. Instead, we must use our awareness to calm ourselves in mindfulness and instead engage in Awe: awe of the majesty of pure being. This is a path to freedom.
We must use our awareness to free ourselves from judgment to arrive at truth and right action. We must avoid identifying with the desperation of our captivated selves. We, as beings of awareness, are the beacons of hope, our one advantage over the predator. Let us not squander our energy on self-pity. Identifying with the true pain of the victim is not freeing, it’s draining. Acting on behalf of the truth of our victim state, through a process like recapitulation, is the road to freedom.
Keep Practicing...
In conclusion, mindfulness and suspending judgment are the weapons to truly freeing our innocence. Facing the truth of our bondage, with awareness, and taking action on our own behalf allows us to finally take back our true humanness from the gluttonous grip of the predator.
To free our innocence and reach a state of awe, to finally experience the majesty of pure being, takes practice. Practice often, now and every day. Forgive the self of everything.
Rescue is imminent!
Stalking beyond the predator’s grip,
Chuck
* See also Jan’s recent blog re: poison ivy as mindfulness practice!
“Death is a twirl; death is a shiny cloud over the horizon; death is me talking to you; death is you and your writing pad; death is nothing. Nothing! It is here, yet it isn’t here at all.” *
What would I do if my parachute didn't open?
I ponder something I read in the local paper recently. A man went skydiving to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday. Strapped to his instructor, he had never jumped out of an airplane before. They jump and begin the free fall. As the instructor pulls the gear that will release the parachute that will bring them safely to the ground, he is knocked unconscious, struck in the head by part of the gear it is surmised. The chute does not open. The two men, strapped together—the unconscious instructor and the novice—plummet to the ground, the twisted parachute totally useless, while the rest of their party, floating in the air around them, watches helplessly. They both die.
I feel deeply for the families of these men who died, for the rest of their group, devastated by this tragedy, and yet I cannot help but think about death as I contemplate this scenario. As the shamans are fond of saying, we are all beings who are going to die. If I know that I can die at any moment, don’t I want to be prepared, aware at all times that death is constantly stalking me?
I experience the shock of tragedy as I read of these deaths. I feel the pain of facing death in this manner, a most challenging scenario. And yet, I know it is really no different than any other death. In the scenario that I describe, the novice is with an expert and yet suddenly, at a most critical moment, the instructor, the expert, is suddenly unavailable. The expert is unconscious, the novice alert, yet he has no recourse. Death is certain. The novice, left on his own, must face his death. Yet, in the end, I must face that it will be the same for all of us. Whether our death is sudden and violent, whether it is slow and painful, or calm, coming in our sleep, we will all have to face our death alone.
I shift my thoughts to the teachings of the Shamans and the Buddhists, who spend their lives preparing for death. We can elect to spend our lives in avoidance of death, in worry of death, in fear of death, or we can spend our lives in acceptance of and preparation for death, not in a morbid way, but with awareness of its inevitability and its evolutionary potential. This is what the Shamans and Buddhists do. They understand the role of the instructor and the novice, the aware self constantly training the novice self, in waking life, sleeping and dreaming life, at all times learning how to remain aware no matter what scenario they find themselves in. They know that at some point there is always the possibility that the instructor will become unconscious and the awareness of the alert novice must take over and carry them through.
“When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can cling to.” **
I wonder. Perhaps these two men had prepared themselves well. Strangers though they were, perhaps they came together that day fully aware that they would die together. The reality is, that’s just what happened, they died together. Did they know? Now I must turn and ask myself: Am I preparing for my death every day, with awareness? Am I doing enough, saying enough, living and dreaming life to the fullest?
If life is indeed illusion, if this world as we perceive it, does not really exist—as the Shamans and the Buddhists, as the metaphysical thinkers, mystics, and quantum physicists alike declare—can I work to free my attachment from it more fully? Can I detach from this world that I live in, while simultaneously fully using it to train my awareness to be alert at all times?
Detachment, as I understand it, is not a negation, dismissal, or refusal to fully live life in this world, but a total living with awareness, keenly aware of the illusion, while taking full advantage of every moment to learn what that really means. Detachment is being curious, open, thoughtful, unafraid of that which is different or makes us uncomfortable, like contemplating death everyday. If death, as don Juan Matus explains to Carlos Castaneda in the quote I use to open this blog today, is nothing but part of the grand illusion, then death is now. As illusion, “it is here, yet it isn’t here at all,” as he states.
Will my parachute open today?
This idea is quite challenging, but if all that we perceive is illusion, then so is death. Death asks us to contemplate the self as nothing more than a novice skydiver, come to take the leap. Life asks the same of us, for we are all spinning and twirling to our deaths all the time. Are we aware of this?
I ask myself: Can I prepare myself to greet the inevitable, so that when I am in the same predicament as the man who dared to skydive, facing my own death, I will remain fully aware that I am leaving one illusion and about to enter another, even as the solid ground of this earth-time illusion comes rushing up from below to meet me with its solidity?
There really is nothing to cling to.
Contemplating the grand illusion I find myself in today,
Jan
*/** Both quotes are from A Separate Reality, as presented in The Wheel of Time, don Juan Matus talking to Carlos Castaneda.
