Highway Robbery! Rude Awakening!

Have you gotten a speeding ticket when you were not speeding?  Highwaymen steal from travelers… there’s a long history of such activity.  Have you ever been falsely accused of something?  I have, and those are soul triggers.  Anyway, these themes appear in this post.

I was robbed, as I see it, yesterday, being pulled over by a highway robber in the guise of a police officer.  I want to share my thoughts about the experience here just in case it may soothe the wound of someone else out there who is reeling after an episode similar to my own.  So here goes . . .

Highway Robbery! Rude Awakening! I awoke this morning and very first thought was that even the honored British-born Theravada Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto in his travels throughout India retracing the Buddha’s footsteps on a spiritual pilgrimage was robbed by highwaymen. More than once if I recall from reading his book. My pilgrimage is only to the gym and I too am a spiritual seeker. I don’t care! I’m going with the comparison. It works for me.

Highway Robbery… that’s what happened to me yesterday. I didn’t sleep all night with flashbacks of the red and blue lights swirling behind my car. I reviewed the whole thing willing to admit to myself if I could have been mistaken. No. All night long. No, no mistake, I was not speeding.

The cop was a good actor. I assume a highway robber has to have some type of convincing skill in that way. Maybe they coach them on the approach to use. Right off he said, “Didn’t you see how many cars you went past?!” I thought he stopped me to say a tail light was out.

How many cars did I pass? there were 2 lanes and I was in mine and didn’t whip around anyone…just was minding my own business driving straight on. Again, there were two lanes. I was in my lane. I have no memory of passing 4 cars who were driving in the other lane next to mine.

And there was no traffic … its a lightly traveled road which is why I usually drive that way. I take back roads whenever I can.

His next line was about a radar clock and how fast he had to drive to catch up to me. What??? I drove that road every time I go to the gym and was not driving fast, was not in a hurry. I was not upset, had nothing in particular in mind but maybe my grocery list. Planned on stopping on the way home.  Anyway.  Nada. My conclusion. Highway Robbery!

Again, even the honored British-born Theravada Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto in his travels throughout India while retracing the Buddha’s footsteps through India was robbed.

For me, it was $200 that I had to put on a charge card of which I was robbed. For Theravada Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto it was his begging bowl and some precious survival items.

He had to let go and not argue about what happened. That’s why I’m not a monk or nun material. I argued. Well, I mostly disagreed and kept saying so. Either way. I’m letting go but it’s not been immediate.  Maybe blogging it all out will help me but others who will need to move this kind of business.

Strange how it happens, you know.  The moment you up-your-game, there comes a challenge right off to give you the test.  Suppose you vow to live healthier and the next thing you know, you get sick.  Practice for getting healthier.  Vow to be more peaceful and there comes a highway robber to give you practice for that too.  Anyway . . .

Highway Robbery! I am not my money nor am I my driving skills.  Here’s another consolation:  Buddha said in The Discourse on the Not-self . . . ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’  That’s a good mantra if you are up to speed on the Non-self teachings.

I have listened to many of Ajahn Succito’s audio teachings and have read both of his books about his pilgrimage through India. Today I will pop in one of the CD of his dharma talks while working on watercolor painting and connect back with his energy to heal further from this experience.

Just as a footnote, it’s not so much the money (but yeah, losing $200 right now does hurt) but it is more-so being accused of something that I feel certain that I wasn’t doing and then to avoid a hassle of going to court (which is what they count on most people doing!), admitting guilt (had to check that box online) confessing to something that I didn’t do in order to pay the ticket.  Highway Robbery. This being accused of things that I haven’t done is an old soul wound that life circumstances trigger. How it goes has to do with when one is working more consciously and conscientiously on the spiritual path, it brings up those old grudges and defilements–impairments to peace.

Ajahn Succito released his possessions to the thieves without anger or resentment with an attitude of maybe they needed those things more than he himself did.

I am trying to consider my own experience of highway robbery with an attitude of giving a generous gift to the city’s police department — maybe they all need a raise or have higher operating expenses.  Not that I don’t!  but still, there it is— a better attitude for me to embrace such as given by the example of Ajahn Succito.

I think that it can be seen as a self-measure of where one is on the path based on how one handles those experiences and deals with the uprising kleshas. Kleshas, in Buddhist thought, are mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc.  I had some anger going on mostly stemming from pride — in that, I do believe myself to be a safe and careful driver and obedient to the laws of the land.  Right, so that’s that. The robbers got their money and I got my measure of active kleshas are the strong conflicting emotions that spin-off and heighten when we get caught by aversion and attraction.  In my case yesterday, aversion!  And maybe too much pride in my perceived driving skills — active defilement.

Should I thank the highwayman for the rude awakening he gave me by helping me see in what state my spiritual progress *(or lack of) exists? Should I wonder about his karma?

Not really there yet.  Maybe that gratitude will take a few more days.  Meanwhile, I’d love a $200+ refund; but not holding my breath for that one.

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Integrating Spiritual Experiences into the Personality

Integrating Spiritual Experiences into the Personality

Integrating Spiritual Awakenings into the Life of the Personality

Do you see what’s going on?  I mean really? There’s a burning desire within me to write about this maybe because until now I only partially understood what’s been going on.  Maybe that’s what you are (or have been) too and that’s why this post.  Let me give a few examples of what is intended.  Let’s say you watched all three Lord of the Ring movies.  But even if you haven’t, hang in there, okay?  Remember how Sam, Frodo, Pippin, and Merry came back from their adventures returning to the Shire and the looks they got from the hobbits from those who never left?  Remember how Frodo and the others looked at one another?  They had to find some way to come back now after their long journey and live normal lives.  Right.  See where I’m going here?  Integration back into the work-a-day world with others can be difficult.

My gosh, I’ve written about my difficulties with that for years but wasn’t fully aware that its a process now in which many others are also struggling.  Increased sensitivity to sound and noxious energy is one part of it. Yet the other part is continuing to meditate in the world of men and beasts after being in true solitude and withdrawal for an extended period.

Some people go on retreat, some for as long as a year.  For myself, it was a much longer period of time overall.  Not that I didn’t have to deal with real-world concerns in spurts but for the most part, I do recall at least 2 solid years of meditation throughout the bulk of the day.  I was, for all practical purposes, withdrawn from the world of the ego/personality and spent a good deal of time in states of . . . well, let’s just say in states in which the self that deals with earth living was out of the picture.

I pictured myself remaining in that state until the end of days.  Yet, the personality/ego needed to integrate all the spiritual meditative states and bring them right into the face of loud neighbors, barking dogs, mean humans and the whole gambit of aversions.

My meditations took on a new format at that point.  My mind was being critical, judgmental, aversive, impatient, intolerant—you name it.  Woah, my spiritual practice took a huge hit!

I began to really dislike myself and felt like all my spiritual work was destroyed.  My mind, in meditation, was running in 10 different directions and it wasn’t easy to pull myself together, so-to-speak.

At that point, thoughts of becoming a nun of some type or other or hiking the Appalachian Trail on a permanent basis were prominent.  I began to resent my family to whom I came down of the mountain (literally from the high Country of the Appalachians to the flatland) to serve.  I wanted to go back, desperately.  I didn’t want to integrate.

Many times when my energy tangled with a difficult human I’d find myself really angry at myself instead of realizing it’s okay to stand up for one’s self in a way that is direct and at the same time kind.

My point in writing this is that people who view themselves as on a spiritual path upon which they might have had profound spiritual experiences feeling great love, peace, and unification/oneness in meditation or on retreats should give themselves a break.  Like Frodo and the others and even like Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, it’s a path and may take a while to come back to this temporary earth home after having really gone HOME.  No matter if that going HOME was brief or for years, it is my current understanding that our job now is to apply what we experienced to our ego/personality and integrate that within the earth world.  It’s a journey and self-acceptance is a huge part of it now as we pull the mind back into the unity consciousness it once knew.

Memories will arise triggered by life experiences and people outside of times of spiritual withdrawal and we can watch the mind and learn about our patterns and tendencies.  In that awareness, we can diffuse their energy.  But it doesn’t mean we’ve lost our prior spiritual state, nor does it mean we have done anything wrong.

It’s just a deeper level of spiritual awakening and not a failure in any way.  That’s what I’m trying to convey.

I hope these views and opinions of mine will find their way to those who might be able to understand and benefit from this little post.

Evolution of my Psychic Medium Perspective

 This is a personal viewpoint 

I have NOT stopped believing in our connections to other realities and the world of spirit containing spirit guides and/or deceased relatives. YET, at the same time as making that statement, it is clear to me that I don’t “go there” so much these days–at least not for myself anyway.  Why?  I ask myself this very question and hope this bit of writing will help sort it out.

Maybe it is because the clear advantage of being spiritually responsible for my own evolution in the here and now (which happens to be planet earth in this body/soul/consciousness) is my primary focus these days.  And I’m aging (like everyone is!) and as I get closer to the possibility of the ending of this form, this physical body, priorities change.

Maybe this happens to everyone and not just me — this I cannot say.  I haven’t taken a survey nor is there any interest on my part in doing so.  What has happened for me anyway is that I’m much more aware of what I’m supposed to do here — and one biggie has to do with remaining in a state of peace despite emotional challenges.  Can my departed parents or a spiritual entity in another dimension do this for me?  Spiritual evolution is personal — not that we can’t receive assistance when heartfelt and earnest request is made; but I’m here and while my parents and guides, et. al. are near and dear, I alone make the determined choice and effort to manage my own psyche with both feet on Mother Earth, here and now.

The last two words are key in what I’m attempting to express.  Here:  Earth Dimension  Now:  As I sit at my desk, in front of this keyboard in my living room.  It will do me no good to go talking to my deceased parents or a spirit entity right at this moment–in fact, it feels somewhat like co-dependent escapism to some extent to do so.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t believe loved ones can communicate with us here upon Earth through someone who is open and receptive.  Yet, I think of it this way — my parents or spirit guides cannot live in this body with me and actually if I’m not careful,  their communication can become (if my focus is off) a huge distraction.

That said.  I’m aware that we are all at different points of consciousness evolution — none better than another.  To be clear, I’m not expressing that one person’s evolution in one direction is more or less advanced than another’s.  One thing that Soul Astrology has taught me is that we are all on particular paths with different karmic pasts.  Like snowflakes, we are all alike yet so very different, unique.

I am able to (somehow and I don’t know precisely how) connect in with the energy of persons, places and things whether here on Earth or elsewhere — most of the time if the need is great enough and I am clear enough at any give time.  Intention and compassion on my part to help another enables the clarity.  Yet,  it has become a lesser focus and direct mission in my life.

Rather, my own heart is drawn in other directions — more specifically in taking personal responsibility for my own energy and evolution.  This is a bit difficult to express and I am using this blog post to sort it out as I said.

Maybe I feel that I’ve exhausted that direction or gone as far down the path of psychic and medium types of personal seeking and have doubled back now to the main path — something like this anyway.

Once we discover a truth, there is no need to keep on; it becomes redundant.  In another way of saying that and being very, very blunt (but not unfeeling) about it, it becomes like this:   So what?  Our loved ones remain with us and can communicate and entities from other dimension exist and also communicate–all in helpful ways at times.  So what?  And while I realize that I am not really a separate entity apart from ‘All That Is’ and that in essence, this person (personality) called ‘me’ and this physical body doesn’t really exist apart from everything else on an ultimate level, they do conventionally.  Non-self is a helpful view to have while maintaining a conventional view in balance.  We exist, yet we don’t — if you will.

The question then becomes something having to do with questioning why conventionality exists in the first place and why challenges and difficulties exist here on Earth and what we do about them — are we to escape and ignore them or do we use them to help ourselves and others evolve in such ways that spiritual responsibility is taken for growth and evolution?  And how do we use the body and the mind-consciousness in such ways that enable us to realize a greater truth?  What truth?  Remaining in the ‘Here and Now’ while achieving and arriving at the Field of Peace while in this physical body/mind.  When one compares that goal to one that has already been reached which involves talking to the deceased loved ones or spiritual entities or guides . . . well, you see my point maybe?

In the end, through divination what are the angels and guides guiding us toward but back into our own self while understanding the non-self so that we can function in a peaceful way upon the Earth–that’s what it’s about for me now.  And while we are here helping others to do the same perhaps through example or maybe even through something like this rather long laborious blog post, its what we’re here to do.  Here and now.

Thus end my thoughts about this topic for now.