To: K-list
Recieved: 2001/08/13 14:42
Subject: [K-list] The Ego Wars, Enlightenment, Depression - and Hello Jason
From: Denise Lyon Anding
On 2001/08/13 14:42, Denise Lyon Anding posted thus to the K-list:
Odd, always thought enlightenment meant "connectedness" to the cosmos. People are part of the cosmos, so are we not connected to each other? Are we, each person, not the Universe in microcosm?
Love comes in so many forms, often not understandable in ten lifetimes, taking sometimes the most bizarre and often culturally unpopular forms, twists and turns, and it is still that cosmos, Love on the grandest scale of All. I have found that Love is not always gentle and acquiescing to our desires or how we think it is supposed to be. But it is connected at all times; that never ends. The beginning really is the ending, a circle of continuity.
(As to desires, I don't consider them negative. What would we be without them? Seems silly to ignore them or despise them. They exist and so do "we." Think the negativity starts when they become out of balance and wreak havoc. Yet, even that havoc can test a lot of people surrounding or revolving around this person, like in the movie (viewed last night, advice: don't go to sleep on it! Whew!) "Quills," about the Marquis de Sade and those around him. Makes one wonder if the definition of insanity is desire out of control, especially cruelty. Amazing how this kind of testing can define us - as it did me. Been writing about "The Ego Wars" in my personal journal this past week and how I figured out how to heal myself after encountering an avalanche of cruelty, primarily the first 18 years of life.)
Been my experience that "God" does talk to everyone, always has. The question is what we choose to do with that awareness in our everyday seemingly mundane life. Found that people are God realized, everywhere. Some choose to sweep aside that awareness and don't want to deal with it, let alone live it consciously. Others see the value in realization and pursue it as far as Spirit wants to take them. Awakening is one thing, so now what do we want to do with it now that we have it? Therein lies the dilemma and choices of myriad paths. Seems to me we can try on for size as many "systems" or philosophies, ideas, as we grow in our understanding. There is useful information and insight to be found in some of the most unlikely places.
Often, we can find it useful too to ask ourselves if we understood and absorbed that awareness energy correctly. (Found it best to test anything I see or hear whether spiritually or from other people or on a website of any kind.) After all, if this vision/awareness came from the All That Is/God-ess would it not be smart to allow All That Is to define the vision after imparting it to us? Like this computer thing I'm still so new at: first you download a program, then you open it and begin to learn how to navigate your way around it and take the time to really absorb and understand it (and then you start to figure out what it does not do). Why allow your own self to interpret that vision if it originated from something more than the "you"? Found this questioning an effective tool to create enough separation space to learning the difference among the ego, Self and the All That Is/God. Each has a different way of speaking.
Found that visions can take decades to fully absorb and understand. Sure, you can get the basics on the first few levels but God/God-ess tends to pack a few thousand lifetimes, yours and others, and quite a few million words if spoken/written language were used, into one vision that may be a mere flash or occur for 20 minutes or even months of daily waking visions. Portions of understanding are often sealed until the right timing to reveal it; that could be decades later. This is all a lot of information to personally download into one Higher Self and ego. (Though I often suspect, sometimes knowing, that the same or similar visions were delivered globally and simultaneously to a very many other people as well. *We Share*!)
Restraint when allied with Spirit/God-ess/All That Is: Just checking back in with this site after a couple of months. Spirit drew my everyday focus elsewhere yet found when checked back in that there was still very much a secondary/background focus and connection of Spirit.
Like had been writing some "poetry" (truth is it is more "condensed thoughts," nothing rhymes) as I do every end-of-July. Always a special time of year for me. Then I check back in and Harsha was posting his poetry and others were sending in other authors - going back to reread those gems...thanks! All thinking along similar connected lines)
Was thinking deeply about Jason's post. Certainly related to and understood those feelings he expressed. Also, knew many loving people would respond kindly to him; it was not then time for me to respond.
So, how are you doing right now, Jason? Certainly been where you are (if I understand your post accurately).
By the time I was three years old, I started falling into depression. The joy was constantly being killed in my life, by the people around me. I would get knocked down, then find the strength to stand up again only to get pushed down more forcefully. I kept standing and they kept pushing down. I would stand again anyway, knowing what would happen, refusing to stay down. I figured I was going to be beaten no matter what I did or didn't do; the least I could do was never sell my soul, keeping my personal integrity, which was what they wanted to destroy in the first place. I never let go of that. I knew they would tire of expending the energy to abuse me sooner or later and give me a few moments rest before it would start all over again. I just didn't have it in me to stay down.
Anyway, I drowned in that depression, sometimes suicidal, for thirty years. (Had I succeeded in suicide, "they" would have had what they wanted for so long. Anytime my thoughts and actions began to turn too dark Spirit found creative ways to talk me out of it, counseling me to never give up on life.) By the time I was almost thirty, I decided I had to battle my way out of it. Spirit called me to it. The worst of that battle took about four years. After that, over the years, it was just bits and pieces and later crumbs to clear out. (Specks of mere crumbling dust now.)
It was a process. I took back my life and my joy and haven't looked back. It took time. I did it without benefit of counselors or drug therapy or some special group. Hard as it was, it was for me to do anyway. In the end, it really is changing how you have been trained to think and creating your own life philosophy rather than suffocating in someone else's ("they" were cruel dangerous poisonous manipulative extreme pessimists). From the family culture and my father's work environment, I had resoundingly learned to "trust no one;" trusting was just not an option for me back then. So, out of sheer desperation for survival, I reached within and literally, violently (the good kind which means a forceful action), pulled my Higher Self inside out to remain in my everyday awareness and let Spirit guide and teach me, my only Mentor.
It takes time and practice to align your thoughts and living and I certainly stumbled a lot along the way, mostly over my own bloated ego; it was so full of pain it had begun to affect me physically and was destroying my health. I had gone beyond several burnouts; I was dying. Now, after all these many years later, I have found that the Joy from Within counterbalanced that sorrow and depression and has healed the pain. Since then my happiness, safety, anything is not dependent upon others' whims, harshness, cruelty.
A little story: My husband and I went to a 7 am breakfast this past Sunday morning. I was still in deep thought about you, Jason, and your post, and the concept of healing, when, on the walk outside the restaurant lay a young bird (a starling?). It was on its side, gasping, eyes wide open with fear, appearing as if it had broken its wing and had internal damage. It was definitely in shock. It didn't look good; felt it would not last very long.
A brief, barely heard in the distance, ego thought lightly passed nearby: "Should I pick it up and take to a vet?" Then Spirit quietly said, "Not necessary" and led me to stand over the bird quietly and let loose of conventional thought and freely "give" Spirit's healing to the small bird.
(Found that Spirit has Its own Way/Tao of doing; my job is just to cooperate and witness the beauty of the moment. I've been asked to do some rather odd things, sometimes the kind that frustrate or encourage or terrify or give peace to others; it runs the gamut and it is All quite strange yet wonderful in the end, to me as well, ...whatever.... Always testing, testing, testing to make sure it isn't my own "bright" idea but rather the working of the Spirit/All That Is. ....That is why I am often slow to respond to many of these posts.... Here in America we seem to have the practice of "talking off the top of our heads" or "ripping off people's heads" or "cutting them off at the knees" or the "cowboy attitude," too quick to be right, too quick to assess a word, a situation, without careful deliberate thought.)
The rest of the story: Then Spirit led me to leave the bird on the walk. My husband worried that someone would step on it, not noticing it. (He is a gentle Dragon.) "No," I answered him, "Spirit thought enough of this tiny bird to bring us here and cause us to take notice and deliver Spirit's healing to help it. This little bird will be just fine; it will fly away under its own power. Spirit knows how to take care of it." With that, we left the bird as we found him and entered the restaurant. Later, when we left the restaurant, my husband looked for the bird. It was nowhere to be found. But in its place where the little frightened bird lay there was that residual Spirit life energy, quietly glowing, often left at a healing site. That was Spirit's way of telling me that, truly, All was well. (We have our own language, often visual, of communicating...)
So it is with you, sweet Jason, Spirit thinks as much and more of you as it did this little bird. To me it is not whining to ask for help, to reach out, wanting to connect to others. It takes time to learn to understand this profound connectedness. Nor is it whining to realize that we are not where we want to be, that we want more, different, for ourselves. I think that it is a drive Spirit gives us in order to relate to the Universe, and in so doing, traveling on the road to truly knowing ourselves. Therein lies the greatest beauty. And Love.
All that you need really is already available to you. The Universe is All around you, is you. Ask and receive. Spirit/God is available to everyone. You don't have to be part of any special religion or follow any particular teacher. We all have the Teacher Within. We are all worthy. Healing is a way to recalibrate ourselves, to gain our balance to better enjoy our life. It gives us back our beauty (actually our "re" awareness of that beauty before it was soiled by something/someone/our own/their lack of understanding). I often think there comes a time when we no longer require healing because we have learned how to become full of the cosmos. We leave behind being full of self or what others have mistakenly dumped onto us. I believe that we all get there, eventually. How can we not? We are the cosmos. And Beauty.
Love to All,
Denise
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