Tag Archives: intent

Readers of Infinity: The Pragmatist’s Way—One Step At A Time

March 25, 2013 Jan Leave a comment

Today, I asked Jeanne: What message is most important for us to receive today? Here is her answer:

Are you ready for the energy of spirit? - Photo by Jan Ketchel — Are you ready for the energy of spirit? – Photo by Jan Ketchel

If you open to the world of energy you must be prepared for it. If you wish to invite intent into your lives you must be shored up with practical knowledge of how the world really works. You must be a strong pragmatic adult, but you must also be innocently open so that your experiences of a new reality will not be dismissed or denied.

In order to prepare, one must work hard to stabilize the self in the world you now inhabit. Determine within your own lives, My Dears, what this means to you and how you intend to go about it. Some things to keep in mind as helpful goals and objectives are the following:

Choose a path that will work for you, that is resonant with your inner spirit. This may take a while, but if you listen to your heart you will know when you have found it. You may even already be on it and not even know it. Keep in mind that life itself, your daily life and the life you were born into, is part of this greater path. The spirit’s path may be as simple as walking in nature or communing with a pet. It may suggest meditating, listening to music, breathing, dancing, just sitting quietly in calmness. In spirit will you know this path, for your spirit will be the communicator. Your spirit will take the path. Your spirit will guide you and speak to you of having found the way. This path will lead to others as you take it, each new path an off-shoot, but always resonant and connected to the original path—simply the next step. In spirit communication will you know where to go—your OWN spirit, by the way, not through or with someone else’s spirit. I speak only of your own inner spirit. No one can really make the connection with this inner self, except you. Someone else may provide structure, and this is good. The best guide is a good listener who will help you hear what you are saying, will point out the obvious, and will ask you what you want to do next.

Study the reality you are in... - Photo by Jan Ketchel — Study the reality you are in… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Know your present reality well. Study how it works and how you respond to it. Notice your habitual patterns of behavior, your tendencies, and your patterns of abuse, reaction, complacency, and inertia. Notice how you attach and how you reject. Notice how you allow and disallow; how you follow and refuse to follow. Know your strengths and your weaknesses, your inflations and your follies. Above all, be perfectly and ruthlessly honest with the self. Notice how quickly you lose all that you gain. Do not be discouraged, just keep going.

Absolve the self of so-called sins. With compassion for the self and others move forward. With love allow yourself to take your journey, even while you allow others to take theirs. Be responsible for those in your care and learn from them. Whether they are lovers or foes, whether you are duty-bound or acting out of love and compassion does not matter—they all have something to teach you.

Be impeccable in how you treat others. Treat all beings equally, with love, kindness, and compassion, with respect and understanding that all are on journeys of evolution. All are great. All are fallible. Even you. Even the most lowly creature and the most profound of scholars are innocent beings—some aware, some not, and which ones are aware you may never know, so treat all equally.

Guide those in your care with gentleness and awe, awe for their journeys. Be non-judgmental, even as you wish to be free of judgment from others yourself. Allow the self and others to fail, this is how you learn. Allow the self and others to struggle. Allow the self and others to go off the path when necessary so that the way back may be discovered. Allow the self and others to embrace results and advances, but do not get caught in inflated ideas of the self. Encouragement is always good.

Maintain a positive outlook. If you are naturally pessimistic, find out why and what that means to you and use it to your advantage. This same kind of examination for all energy types must be explored. Find out what energy type you are and use it as both your challenge and your catalyst. Find out where your talents lie and use them until you find some new ones.

Each day dawns anew... - Photo by Jan Ketchel — Each day dawns anew… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Always advance. Even if you cannot see the road ahead of you, know that it’s there waiting. Each step into the darkness is just like a step into the light—in both cases you are blind. Allow your inner vision to guide you. Hold fear in check. Hold the big baby inside you in check. Hold the ego in check. Find your way through practical navigation of the life you find yourself in. This is where you are. Begin there. Look around and discover something that you did not notice before.

Do a reality check several times a day. Say: Okay, where am I? And then decide what to do next based on your reality and your spirit’s intent. Don’t know your spirit’s intent? Don’t worry—just follow the path that opens before you. Eventually you will know that your spirit’s intent is to evolve. Just what this means for each of you will be unique, and how you discover it will be unique as well. How you experience it will be unique. How you grow will be unique.

If you are truly ready for the journey of your spirit, or even if you don’t know if you are ready but you hear the call, I suggest you pay attention. Heed the call and begin your journey with one step today. It will be the first step on a journey of greater fulfillment. One step at a time is the pragmatist’s way.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Are We All Just Living The Same Life?

February 6, 2013 Jan Leave a comment

We're all in the same golden universe, aren't we? - Photo by Jan Ketchel — We’re all in the same golden universe, aren’t we? – Photo by Jan Ketchel

A year ago, during this first week in February, I was at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. A dear relative lay dying. She had asked me to be with her. I got there at 9:20 in the morning. “Let’s do it,” she said, and then she closed her eyes. She didn’t open them or speak again. She died at 9:20 that night. Nonetheless, she was energetically present, in full awareness the entire time.

I sat beside her during those twelve hours, whispering in her ear, both guarding her energy and guiding her to take her journey. Many doors opened for both of us that day. I sat on the threshold of each door as she passed through. Our lives intermingled. Sometimes I was the person in the bed dying and she was guarding and guiding. Sometimes she was my mother, my father, my child, my sister, my brother, my lover. Sometimes I was her daughter, her mother, her father, her sister, her brother, her lover.

We lived through many lives that day, easily flowing in and out of them, reliving experiences and relationships, without attachment letting everything go. As each door opened we said our goodbyes at the threshold, fully aware that we had done this so many times before, with exactly the same intent and awareness, unafraid of death, knowing that it led only to new life and new adventures. Finally, I sat back and told her it was time to go the rest of the way alone. I would be present to witness, but it was time for her to take over. She had done her life well, her journey here was done, she could leave anytime she was ready. I kissed her one last time, let her hand go, and sat quietly beside her. Shortly thereafter, without a backward glance, she leapt into the light of new life.

Even so, I have a sense of her energetic presence in my life still. Though we completed many relationships in this world on that day, we began a new relationship too. Since her passing, I have continued to honor her each week on her death day; for all that she gifted me, for who she was, for taking her journey like the strong, independent being she always was, for continuing to guide me. I feel her energy the same way I feel Jeanne’s energy—Jeanne, a being who did not know me in this world, who nonetheless connected with me in the same fashion as someone who did know me well and who I knew very well too.

I hear from people all the time. People report that my experiences are their experiences, that my life parallels theirs, that my story is their story. I have thoughts coursing through my head that belong to the petty tyrants in my life, thoughts that I’ve long ago detached myself from, yet they return unbidden, asking for my attention. I wake up and find that I have dreamed the same dream as Chuck, that we hear words spoken when neither of us has opened our mouths. We often hear music playing in our house, old-timey music—a jukebox playing jazz, swing, the blues—when there is no one else in the house and no music being played. I have walked through glitches in the universe and experienced scenes from the past, sometimes as a participant and sometimes as an observer. Like a spy, I have entered parallel universes in energetic awareness and returned awed and shaken.

I am you and you are me. - Photo by Jan Ketchel — I am you and you are me. – Photo by Jan Ketchel

And so, I wonder, are we all just living the same life? Are we all dreaming the same dream? Are your thoughts my thoughts? Are all experiences in constant flow, being relived again and again? Are the air molecules that we’re breathing in and out today the same air molecules once breathed in and out by dinosaurs and wooly mammoths, Buddha and Jesus, by Lincoln and George Washington, by Carl Jung and Carlos Castaneda? This is an interesting question that has been circulating for some time now. Are we all the same energy, the same being? Are we all living each other’s lives?

When I once asked Jeanne how she was able to use her energy now, how she could be in so many places at once, helping so many people, she described it as being like an exploding roman candle, like fireworks bursting, one candle opening into many other candles, sparkles of light and energy, an endless array of energy free to go in any direction. Intent, she said, was the catalyst.

I’m aware how intent works; that it’s available in both positive and negative form, for both giving and taking. We might set a conscious intent to be more open, kind and loving, or we might unconsciously set an intent to retreat, to be depressed and angry. Perhaps we’ve tapped into someone else’s intent. We might be living a universal intent, a political intent, an energetic intent not our own. We might be caught unaware by intent that is flowing through the universe that is negative or downright evil.

As I sat beside my dying relative last year, I very strongly experienced the intent of energy as it flows through the universe, falling now here and now there, giving and taking, yet always moving on to new experiences. And so I sense that now again, as I ponder where we are now, as the world continues to progress in the direction it is going. If my personal experiences are anything to go on, I believe that we are all the same, that indeed we are one being and we’re all having the same experiences. We live them over and over again until we don’t need them anymore. When we finally take leave of this earth for the last lifetime, and our energy rejoins the source from which it came, we discover that we are not who we thought we were. Our individuality that we are all so attached to is, at that point, revealed for what it is: a myth. Our ego is not where we reside; our energy is.

And yet, that being said, it’s of the utmost importance how we choose to live our lives. How we choose to live every day of every life, no matter who we are, is critical—because our choices impact all of us. If my energy is also your energy, if my breath is also your breath, if my thoughts are also your thoughts, then the responsibility lies heavily upon me to make sure that what flows out of me is good, healthy, positive, healing, and loving energy. If my experiences are your experiences, it behovs me greatly to make sure that I resolve my internal difficulties—my anger, my pain, my negativity and my judgments—so that you need not suffer. If my intent is to spiritually evolve then that too is your intent. It’s this kind of energetic awareness that is so badly needed now. I believe it’s how we can all be part of a changing world.

These are just some of the thoughts I woke up with today, thoughts that have been circulating through me for a long time. Did they come from you? Wherever they came from, they’re out there, and they flow through others as well. If more of us pay attention to them, quell those old negative voices that say, “Oh, that can’t be true,” and just let it be true for even a little while we may offer someone else the opportunity to not just sit on the threshold to new thoughts and ideas, but actually dare to leap—with full awareness—into a new and changing world too.

Letting your thoughts flow through me,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Redeploying Intent

January 11, 2013 Chuck 1 Comment

Transition time: the Moon and Venus at 5 a.m.

Every morning as we awaken, if we pause for a moment, we can observe the process of our transition from one world to another. In that moment we stand between worlds, between the world of dreams—of higher vibrational energy body states—and the world of ordinary reality, the one that our dense physical energy body wakes up in and prepares to live the day in.

We might also notice how we call that waking world to us, what the Shamans of Ancient Mexico refer to as calling the intent of life in the human form. That intent is stored in the habits and beliefs we enact as we enter the day. As soon as we awaken, our internal dialogue awakens too and begins its spin, reminding us of who we are in our human form.

“Oh yes,” it might tell us, “I am a being who is afraid of people in authority.” Or it might suggest, “I am a being who is afraid to lose my job,” or “I am a being who doesn’t feel attractive,” or “I am a being who must clothe over my flaws,” or “I am a being with physical ailments that I must create tension around to feel present in my body.”

It’s possible that our internal dialogue may produce the following as well, “I am a being who is tired in the morning,” or “I am a being who must stay anxious in order to remain focused,” or “I am a being who must rush around and worry,” or “I am a being who is sad and lonely.”

Once we’ve established our link with the intent of who we are in human form, our internal dialogue is geared up to remind us incessantly throughout the day with its repetitive mental thoughts of who we are and who we are not. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico say that every ounce of energy we have is given over to upholding the intent of who we are and how we define this world, so much so that all the possibility of perceiving or conceiving of life beyond the structure of that intent is completely screened out. Our intent to uphold who we are and what this world is comprised of is completely sealed off by the gatekeeper of the mind, constantly chattering away, repeating the same old phrases.

We see an exact replica of this internal dialogue in our digital age. The speed and constancy of our hunger for nonstop digital input into our central nervous system to define and know our world is matched only by the incessant internal dialogue inside our minds that nonstop feeds us our stories of who we are and what our world is made up of. We’ve become terrified of a pause, a gap, a movie that streams too slowly, calmness, aloneness, a quiet moment with no input, a gap that just for a moment throws us a glimpse of another world.

We constantly long for change, yet we grasp at the familiar. The truth is though that our internal dialogue keeps us stuck, as the world we currently uphold seduces us to believe that faster delivery of information or quicker connection is all we need to experience our unrealized potential. But, in actual fact, this is our world swinging us to the Rajas pole, our world of ordinary reality on a manic speed trip. Inevitably, the great revving up then alternates and swings us in the opposite direction and we crash, as we ride the pendulum that Jan wrote about in her blog this week. But the truth is that even this bi-polar swing remains safely locked in the boundaries of ordinary reality. How could it be otherwise when what we hear in our heads are the same mantras repeated over and over again.

As I have often written, don Juan Matus states that to truly travel in the unknown we must be extremely sober. Sobriety bears the tension of the pendulum swings of this world. In sobriety we offer ourselves the opportunity to avoid the lure of the extremes. The seduction of the extremes is transcendence—the opportunity to achieve a spiritual experience—a going beyond life in the mundane, with the boring repetition of our stuck patterns. It’s a trap, however, and that trap is called addiction—the use of excess to offer the opportunity to glimpse beyond the mundane, beyond ordinary reality. Such excess may result in death through the recklessness of daring or the suicide of depression.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest a real alternative to breaking the patterns of the mundane, offering an opportunity to truly discover and live our unknown potential: Redeploying Intent.

Just as we semiconsciously and automatically call the intent of this world to us each day upon awakening and monotonously repeat it to ourselves throughout the day, we can consciously call a new intent and engage in repetitive practices to fully realize and reenforce that new intent. That new intent might be to dream lucidly, to peer beyond the known self into the un-recapitulated self, to heal the body, to experience fulfillment, to unite with the divine—the possibilities are endless.

All that is really required is that we soberly state our intent in words, that we repeat it often, letting it become our new personal mantra, a new personal prayer. In stating our intent incessantly, mindfully shifting our attention away from the ever-present internal dialogue that has so far controlled us, we offer ourselves the opportunity for real breakthrough and lasting change leading to fully realizing our greater potential.

Each one of us can make room for the realization of our personal intent. To do so, we must take back our energy that is currently entwined in the habits and beliefs of our incessant dialogue, ridding ourselves of the gatekeeper of the mind by disrupting our familiar habits, routines, and mantras. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico never look in the mirror to break themselves of attaching to self-importance. Perhaps that’s something to give up, only using a blurry mirror to groom or shave.

Take an energy inventory. How do you personally spend your time each day? What is your incessant dialogue? What activities steal your energy? Cut out the unnecessary, particularly activities connected to upholding self-importance, i.e., constantly checking Facebook or some other digital drain, or that mirror. Enjoy the pauses afforded as energy accrues, recouped from habit.

Engage in something new and creative... — Engage in something new and creative…

Engage instead in physical activities and practices, such as simply walking, yoga, meditation, martial arts, dance, tensegrity, playing an instrument, or something else that shifts attention from the internal dialogue to bodily awareness. You will be supported by the ancient intent implied in many of these practices, as well as the creative that always seeks engagement.

Finally, I suggest embracing the sober not-doing of knowing that your intent will be realized. Have no attachment to the outcome of the realization of your intent, simply intend it, with the clear certainly that it will be realized. And then, as Carlos Castaneda was so fond of saying: See what happens!

Intento!
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Intent Of The Creative

January 2, 2013 Jan Leave a comment

I am intent, no matter what comes to interfere... — I am intent, no matter what comes to interfere…

As Jeanne suggests in her Monday Message, the New Year is really but a marker allowing us Earthlings the opportunity to measure the passage of time, but if we are willing we can use it to change ourselves. This involves using intent, but it also involves utilizing the creative energy of nature inherent in all of us. A decision to move in a new direction is a creative act, but if our intentions are to have lasting effect we must be open to the wisdom of infinitesimal movement rather than broad sweeping jumps. In small but intentional, focused movement we support our intentions to change. In paying attention to what comes to guide us, whether from outside or from inside, and determining how best to use such guidance, we energetically and creatively propel ourselves along our path of change.

And so each year at this time we set our New Year’s resolutions. From my own experiences in setting resolutions, I already know that stating my intent alone has power, but if I really want to see and feel the change on a deeper and more immediate level, I know I must be attentive. I must become the creative process and all that it brings me, fully embracing every aspect of it.

If we look at nature’s intent we receive guidance, for nature has unbending intent, set so long ago it simply moves along at a steady pace. It is repetitive, and yet it is evolving as well. Nature does not look back nor is it given an opportunity to pause and reflect, it simply does its thing. We on the other hand, such brilliant creatures that we are, get stuck. We come up against things that nature never has to contend with. We come up against what we carry within us and what comes from without, seeking attention and attachment.

I consider such inner and outer interferences as tests, tests of our intent to change. In constantly restating our intent at the same time that we turn back to investigate our past—something that nature cannot do—we can track where we’ve been. We can study how we’ve attached in the past to inner and outer attachments and influences, and see how we’ve faltered or progressed. For instance, if I set my intent to follow the Middle Way, the path of balance in all aspects of my life and keep this intent uppermost as I go throughout my day, I will immediately begin to see what comes to both thwart and guide, for that which comes is both.

In alignment with the Middle Way, I am aware that everything that comes my way will offer both the opportunity to attach and the opportunity to detach, offering tests and guidance alike.

For instance, I decide to give up sweets in all forms because sugar pulls me off my intentional path. It interferes with my inner balance. But wouldn’t you know that the house is full of sweets. There is a beautiful carrot cake in the refrigerator that houseguests brought over the other night. I love carrot cake! I know that if I eat a piece of it I will have to suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be deep, especially now that I’ve decided to shift away from sweets. If I decide to leave it alone and let others eat it, I will have, for the moment, averted my first test of fortitude, my first test of detachment.

Change requires patience and discipline, but it also requires monitoring—that we remain aware on many levels. We must pay attention to how we have attached in the past so that we can learn how to detach as we walk our newly intentioned path. A decision to detach from an old habit or world means learning how to detach from an old self—for this is really all that we are contending with, ourselves and what we carry inside us.

Nurturing a new self requires constant attention. Moving along on our path of intent requires that we are constantly alert in a new and changing world, for that is what we are seeking to manifest as we set an intent to change. We are asking ourselves to live in a new world of our own creation. And such creation has its own energy of intent. Once set in motion there is no stopping it, for the intent of the creative is constant movement. Once set in motion we can expect the energy of creative activity to be in our lives. And although, as I mentioned, nature—even our own inherent nature—is programmed to move forward, we human beings must constantly stop and investigate ourselves if we are to really progress. To simply jump ahead and be something that we have not nurtured will not stand up to the test of time. If we are to really change, we must allow the intent of that change to carry us forward, infinitesimally.

As we take our steps each day now along our new paths of intent, we learn that we are our own biggest tests, that we carry within us all the attachments that we will ever need, that all we really need to do is go inward and ask our deeper selves what is right as we take our new path. Energy will appear out of nowhere seeking attachment; it’s how it works. It’s almost as if in setting our intent to change our energy is suddenly viable, tasty and appealing to others who may be lacking in energy. Suddenly we are wanted. That energy of attachment might come in old friends calling for contact, people we have not heard from in years suddenly manifesting. What do we do? What does it mean that they call us? Are we supposed to grant them something, is there something we have to offer them?

We must first determine if they are part of our new intent to change or if they are one of our tests of detachment? Usually, I turn inward, sit with my own energy and ask it if it wants to engage in an old world. I ask it if there is something I still need to get back there. I question if it’s right for me to use my energy in the past or if it’s better to turn forward into the new light of the New Year’s intent and detach with compassion and love, offering the new me an opportunity to take an infinitesimal step forward.

Sometimes it’s best to visit in the past to really understand why we are drawn there, to determine the truth of why we are being called back. Or can we state our new position in life and be accepted? Will our old friends understand that we have changed so much already and that we do not exist as that old self or in that old world? Do they understand what it even means to set an intent to change and evolve? Have we gone beyond certain people, not rejectingly so, but factually so?

I'm in a new world now... — I’m in a new world now…

We must, if we are truly changing beings, constantly remind ourselves to readjust our compasses and realign with the world we really want to live in. More questions will always arise as we are tested in our New Year’s resolutions.

At the same time that I turn inward and notice my energy, I remind myself of my creative energy, that which drives me to seek both the Middle Way and the experiences of the world I have been creating for myself for the past ten years or more. As I contemplate this creative changing self, I realize that my entire existence in this life has prepared me for this ultimate creative endeavor, and so I find that I cannot stop. My spirit is driving me forward now, as our spirit’s intent is what really pushes us to constantly change, not our mind’s intent, though they must work hand in hand, for we are human. And this is the Middle Way, the spirit and the mind working in alignment with the greater intent of our soul’s desire for growth.

And so, as the New Year really begins in earnest, as my intentions to deepen my spiritual path are given an opportunity to manifest a little bit more each day, I accept what comes to thwart and guide me. And if I happen to take a tiny piece of carrot cake, I will know that it is part of this process, that I will learn something necessary about myself from my decision. But then I will be like nature and move on, realigning with this process of creating my new self, once again on my path, for that is my intent. This is not a selfish endeavor, but a deeply spiritual endeavor, for I know that by my intent to constantly realign with my soul’s intent, I am influencing the energy of the intent of all soul’s to evolve.

Taking one more intentional, infinitesimal step along the Middle Way, and wishing you all good intentions for a very Happy Changing New Year,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Completion Of Compassion

December 28, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

“There is a state of mind which does not change, despite anything that happens in life. With that state of mind you can live with all the conditions of life. You can live with a good partner or a bad partner, prosperity or poverty, disease or death, in a discotheque, on a beach, a hotel, everywhere, because nothing affects you. You are where you are, firmly rooted in your own self, but at the same time you can interact with everyone. You can even fight, but still not be affected.”

“Nothing being more important than anything else, a warrior chooses any act, and acts it out as if it mattered to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts, he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern.”

The first quote is from The Five Koshas, a talk given by Swami Satyananda Saraswati on June 9, 1984, and the second quote is from The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castaneda. These two quotes that flow seamlessly together, reflect the consistency of the knowledge of ancient India, as revealed in the Upanishads, and that of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico as articulated by don Juan Matus. Both traditions pierce the illusional nature of reality and cut to the heart of enlightenment: detachment.

Detachment knows that all things are equal, all things are part of the same interdependent whole. To grasp or attach to anything is to enter maya—fragmented reality—or the world of ordinary reality.

In everyday pragmatic terms, the guidance suggests being mindfully present, mindfully engaged in every situation with equal presence. Nothing is greater, better, or more important than anything else. The banal and the profane are as significant as the saint. Being locked away in a prison or lounging on a beach in the Caribbean are equal opportunity employers for the soul seeking liberation. Engage in life, treat each moment, each being, with equal appreciation. Choose with whom you journey, but know that this is but your predilection, as no life is better or more significant than any other.

Choice matters. Yogic science teaches that choice is the seed of manifestation, or what is known as karma. The secret of liberation from karma, however, lies in detachment. It’s not about being good, or moral, because choices that grasp at life in any form fixate and attach life to that form. Shamans, like true Yogis, free their energy from attachment to the world of ordinary reality, from fixation on the maya of this dimension, through this same process of non-attachment. Though they engage in life impeccably, they are ready to leave in an instant without looking back.

To leave without looking back is to have achieved complete love and compassion for all whom we are leaving behind. This detachment is the acceptance that life is complete and it’s okay to truly flow with the changes that death invites. Unless we have arrived at the completion of compassion, we will resist the changes and stay where we are in some form, until we are ready to flow with the deeper nature of reality.

When enlightenment and total freedom are the intents, only unconditional, all-encompassing compassion will be the path. Compassion requires absolute detachment. Anything excluded from our compassion actually generates attachment and becomes the seed to bondage in another life, where we are challenged to continue working it out. This was the wisdom of Christ’s guidance to “love thine enemy.”

All-encompassing compassion is the vehicle that releases all karma attached to this world and frees the soul to journey onward, into the finer energetic dimensions of its infinite journey.

With compassion,
Chuck

Riverwalker Press