The Chalices of Infinity © 2012 Rev. David Seacord, 30" x 24" Acrylic on Canvas (Black not part of image).
Everyman's WEEKLY Journal (#2)
© 2012 Rev. David Seacord
December 9, 2012
To me, the silence of my mind is most truly valid when I am experiencing it during chaos…. for just like the story of the blissful yogi coming out of his/her cave and then 'losing it in the marketplace" due to the world's stressors, I can see that my spiritual immunity to the illusions and stressors found everywhere in phenomenal life is being gained/grown not by my escaping from life, but rather by my developing a keen discernment of that quietude while fully IN life.
Therefore,--- like it or not---while I breath, I am practicing. Or, forgetting to practice, which is ultimately, part of the practice…..
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With that in mind…. Thursday night (after some consideration) I chose/decided to 'watch a movie'---the first time in at least several weeks that I had chosen to do that. Based on watching and feeling my yes/no responses to various options, I finally chose "The Terminator" (after considering several much more supposedly 'conscious' titles), and after watching it, I also chose to watch its sequel, "Terminator II", in order to finish the story. I was a bit surprised when I discovered I wanted to see an 'action film', but I allowed myself the space to choose it, realizing I was going to see if I would be able to watch it/them without losing self-awareness of my own self-observing practice, and also curious to see what spiritual lesson (or teaching) I would receive from 'between the lines' of the adrenalized script. For me, this always happens….it's just in the nature of my Higher Mind to continually lay out for me to see where Good/Source/Love is at work offering teaching through even the supposedly most dense/tense dramas. And yes, there were several that I've been pondering since…. (BTW, I am assuming your probable previous viewing of these flicks at some past time, so I'm not going to be 'reporting the storyline' except as minimally necessary. Because you know… it's never 'the story' that's important. ) (Yeah… if we only reallygot that…)
What is reality, really? Here's a pretty girl living a 1984 version of life….being a working/dating waitress… who suddenly is confronted with a terrifying new reality… that sentient machines of the future have targeted her for termination because she is about to become the mother of a man who will eventually lead the human revolution against those machines. Obviously this is a rather extreme and dramatic circumstance, but the reason we relate to it is that in our own lives, we also have our versions of the same kinds of experiences. Life flips things in our (wouldn't it be nice) well-ordered worlds upside down, and suddenly we have some 'choices to make'. The basic idea of all spiritual practice is that (over time) this practicing helps us to make better and better choices, and therefore results in our lives containing more and more Light. And, as in life, in The Terminator movie version, the first crisis (choice point) revolves around the heroines ability to SEE completely differently… and thereby reformat a kind of sanity out of the insanity of everyone around her being murdered as the Terminator (sent back from the future) tries to find and get to her. In my life, I can see this reformatting ability as fundamental to a flexible consciousness. Other crisis response options---usually involving some kind of major denial---have (in the past) left me paralyzed and unable to take effective action. But through meditation and presence practices, I now have the fairly reliable experience of a certain mastery in meeting life in the moment without strongly held denial. This has been serving me well….Hallelujah. Such is the grace of the Godness…
Another lesson theme that was clearly present throughout both films was the ongoing questioning of the power of Fate vs. Conscious Creation…ie, exploring the "do we individually make a difference?" question. The thing I noticed was that in The Terminator the view was usually from the place of an ego struggle to gain power over external circumstances, ie, to conquer them. Whereas in the Star Wars trilogy, where there are teaching about Being and Yielding as a way to 'use the Force', The Terminator initially teaches the viewer that 'one must act!'…. that the only choice is in the choice of what action one will take. In this view I agree there is truth… (in life we are a paradigm where even not choosing is a choice)… however (continuing the comparison between Star Wars and The Terminator) access to IN-formation (inner knowledge) critically impacts our selection of possible choices. Knowing the Presence of the Godness in the midst of the battle definitely reduces the ego drama of a situation… it usually first shifts it to being a 'dharma' (a karma simply being worked out… which is NOT PERSONAL in the way ego dramas are), and then, with the reduction of personal investedness, there can then arise to be seen a new view: The nature of the NOW as always containing an underlying perfection (as a growth curriculum provider giving exactly the right next lesson to be learned).
And, a third theme that became visible to me was the theme of altruistic self-sacrifice for the good of the whole… particularly played out by the scientist who 'was responsible' for developing the computer chip that allowed machines to become sentient in the first place… in the movie 'that he was responsible' was placed like a blame, but he showed in his role how to be responsibly responsible… by his (dare I say Christ-like) action of giving up his own life while destroying his own research (that research being the 'body of necessary knowledge' required before an immature mankind could play with the nuclear fires of self-destruction). Thus he altered the future by deleting the trigger. Everywhere in life I see we are offered the same lesson…. Papaji's caveat "If you touch it, it will bite you" being my own personal mantra. Same/same with 'play with fire, you'll probably get burned'…. therefore Wisdom teachings instruct us to just stop choosing whatever we have seen about our habits/patterns that does not serve us. Sometimes we/I have the power to do that, sometimes we/I initially don't. Clearly, that is where practice comes in… offering us the encouragement to continue despite all past failures. This then is key: Our fate becomes real IF we do not chose to overturn it…..with a Conscious Creation.
As is often the case, the real message is not delivered until the closing line. Why? I think because we all need to acquire a critical mass of personal experience before we are willing to open ourselves to that which is beyond our personal experience. So the closing line (reflecting the sequels reformatting of the Terminator from an assassin to a protector, and the surprise love story that then unfolded) was: "If a machine can learn to value human life, perhaps there is hope that we can too…"
Well, it was a movie, right? Maybe the best profit-motivated blockbusters can offer is a scrap of hope at the end….maybe more than that would be getting too personal…. However, I am a stand FOR LIFE… that there IS 'hope for humanity', and that you and I (by the way we live our lives) ARE right now being 'the difference' that Goodness/Love knows is needed here and now. These words are written as an expression of that stand… I express through words, music, painting…. you also express via your many gifts too. We can all contribute, and as we grow, we can consciously remove whatever fear-blocks remain, until none remain.
Epithet.
I have often pondered the impact power of film, seeking to grasp and understand the forces at work that cause us (individually and culturally) to chose these storied illusions over our own direct experience. However, I must admit that while treatises could be written specific to film, that the art of escaping our personal mundaneness is certainly not limited to film, but encompasses most human activities. Reading can be an escape, food the same, sex the same, career the same….on and on and on… which leads to the seeing that it is NOT the thing itself that is to be named within a dualistic continuum of good/bad, or better/worse, it is rather WHERE WE COME FROM that makes something either valuable or limiting to each of us.
If we/you/I do the work, if we practice inner quietness, it will be like gardening within the soil of our own being. What is available is a direct conduit to the richness of universal Self-knowledge. Who would not be completely satisfied with this as their treasure? What seduction (sensorial or mental or emotional) would interest one already so wealthy?
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ADDENDUM. (Written Wed. 12-5-12)
As all days do, this day offered some sweet learnings. One in particular, involving a small 4 year old girl-child (the daughter of a couple that I am close with, and with whom I socialize…. so that the child knows me and often expresses love towards me when she sees me).
Unplanned, Mom/daughter and I ran across each other at the weekly Wednesday tent-based combo craft & 'farmer's market' that fills the large church parking lot outside where the girl goes to pre-school. Mom and I had a lot to talk about (adult-talk) while I completed my food shopping…. but it was quickly obvious that Amy (not real name) was getting quiet tired. As our hands were full, we let her know we were 'almost done', and upon loading my goods in my car, I followed my intuition, and picked her up to carry her.
Amy immediately put her head on my shoulder, and fell asleep. Well, maybe not totally, but she immediately yielded herself to my care, with a complete and total trust that she was safe.
She had never done this before, so fully, and I was more than touched… I was moved. I felt my heart just completely love the child back. This was all internal… externally Mom and I continued our ongoing conversation, walking from my car to her car, where I gently placing Amy in her child's seat. And in another few moments, our conversations completed, they were driving away…..
LATER…. as I was present to my feelings, I began to get the teachings.
Macro/mirco… as above, so below… i.e., as with child to adult, so are we each to the Godness.
In more words, I experienced that my hearts response of complete love for the child when she surrendered herself to my care…. that THAT is the exact same response that the Godness experiences for us/me whenever any one of us drops our egoic separation from the Oneness, and fully yields to Source's All-Good flowing through our lives.
We/I use our minds erroneously when we dwell upon thoughts of doubt or concern or fear or uncertainty. All these stop us from yielding in childlike trust to our own Unlimited Good, which God/Love (same/same) would LOVE TO GIVE US.
I got this today: Good is willing to love us completely. The only qualifying condition is us being willing to BE LOVED COMPLETELY. This has just become my new definition of Heaven: Heaven is simply being always aware that I am completely Loved by God.
Namaste,
David
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