Everyman's WEEKLY Journal # 68
© 2014 Rev. David Seacord
April 6, 2014
New views….
Yesterday afternoon as I said a tearful goodbye to my son Ambrose (after driving him back up to Ashland, Oregon from Yuma this week) I was in the experience of the most grateful broken-heart I can remember having ever known. But for accepting and surrendering to the circumstances of life karma's I would have been so very happy to have avoided that moment forever… and simply continued creating a life that was nearby enough to his that there would never again be a sense of long-distance separation. Last night his mother Mindy and he and I spent the evening together, and at one point she got out a large pile of photos of our failed six-year-long attempt at being family. For me it was wrenching to view them, for it was clearly visible in the flood of memories that it was I who (then in my early forty's) had been unable to walk my talk of Love with her. Yet it was also deeply moving to me to see many good moments revisited, for despite our ultimate failure as intimate partners, I could also see that love was always at work leading us to the best outcome that our choices would allow. Thus can she and I now look at each other with pride that our co-parenting project named Ambrose has turned out as a deeply sensitive talented and amazingly honest human…. one whose willingness to express his heart often stretches mine to bursting or tears. And in that co-accomplishment and by grace of the Godness there has been a deep healing of the wounds of the past that were between she and I, so that we can now call each other friend very honestly. While I know that there are no accidents as to these kinds of karmas, I humbly and without pretentiousness admit that 'significant relationships' can be a very painful way to grow.
So, in departing Ashland, I am once again 'alone' and dependent upon my inner connection to Source to provide my guidance on 'the journey'. And, in a way, letting go of Ambrose after four months of constant connectiveness was like unplugging from a mainline love fix. Just telling the truth… that our addictive mechanisms die a hard demise. I remember once listening to Gangaji being interviewed by a radio DJ who asked her if she ever still had the experience suffering… she answered with beautiful honestly that when it came up it was usually the result of becoming attached to her students choices. Ahhh… I can so relate.
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Last weekend Ambrose and I reviewed the Landmark Forum together in Phoenix, supported by several open-to-couchsurfing friends who housed us overnights. The course hours were long and the very skillfully guided group conversation was both challenging and inspiring… as we expected, having both done the course before years ago. If you ask 'why then do it again?', the answer is simply because insights and realization fade over time, especially if the culture that we/I live in is less enlightened than 'the teachings'. In other words, we humans tend to forget what we learn if we are not living an environment that supports of practicing our realizations. That is why the Buddha taught his devotees to seek refuge in the Sanga (the community of others on the Way). And that is also why we/I do sadhana… to keep returning to our inner well of pure consciousness, that we/I may continue to remember who we/I are/am…. yes?
In any event, my personal experience of the Forum resulted in several radical openings. I got that I have been out of integrity in several areas of my life (like generally "taxes", and not having a Will written, and also that I have spent the last half year trying to avoid being responsible for my failure as a lightworker as being the real cause of my being ticketed last summer for 'camping' on the Big Sur coast). Those realizations obviously leave me with a good amount of cleanup work to do…….
The big breakthrough that gave me this seeing was to make the connection that WHEREVER I WAS NOT EXPERIENCING PEACE OF MIND there was 'something untrue' trying to hideout unobserved inside me. So I started looking for anywhere I could see situations in my life that I was not at peace about. I was stunned by how many sources of 'not peace' I have been still keeping, and the justifications I have been using to do that. Although egoically embarrassing, this isgood news, for it means I have successfully seen some of my own blind spots, and am now not so blind in those areas. And, using the coaching from Landmark, I am continuing to look into the areas of 'loss of power, freedom, or self-expression' for additional integrity issues, or 'rackets'.
I have also gotten a new clarity about my 'job assignment', and what constitutes success or failure. Although it has always been right in front of me, I am now much clearer that my job as a transformed being is to BE transformed. Ideally of course, that means all the time. That means a successful interaction with any other being will be one that increases their freedom and their peace…. never the opposite. That means I am not supposed to become a participant in ordinary human dramas…I am supposed to show the way OUT of them. I am supposed to demonstrate what being awake actually is… that it is a being who has space to allow others to BE whoever they are being, without getting hooked, or reacting, or judging them. A transformed being is a living key, a gateway… my function therefore is always and only to empower other beings to their own self-awareness mastery. This is exactly what ACIM means when it teaches that 'our brothers are our salvation'… and why that seeing God in 'the other' is the only way to be able to see it in ourselves.
How I got to see this is by (again) failing to be this, and by looking at those failures without any excuses. My human egoic machinery does not normally do this voluntarily. That is why I put myself in a Landmark Forum seat… because the roller coaster of consciousness ride that ticket bought me was (I knew) not going to let me bullshit myself. This is hard to find, in the ordinary world, yes?
If you would know 'why not', or 'how come not', it is because of the integrity that is present in the course by intentional design. Just as in my 1976 encounter with the Hindu saint Anandamoyi Ma, I again discovered that 'in the presence of the embodiment of the truth, what is true (for me/you) cannot be hidden'. So what the Landmark Forum gave me was the gift of a kind of pressure FOR TRUTH that 'rattled my skeletons' (so to speak).
Given that my human machinery is totally normal and is really only interested in looking good, exposing skeletons takes some courage. Thank God that many of the 150 people in the room did have the courage to expose themselves authentically, for I and all (including Ambrose) benefitted immensely.
For now, that's my current report on the Landmark Forum. I suspect I will be reporting on additional impacts in the future, and if you should find yourself interested in checking it out, I do encourage you in that.
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Sun's coming up and a new day is arriving. May it bless all of us. Or perhaps better said, "May we receive all that Life would give us…"
Namaste,
David
PS… When we returned from the Forum weekend I found myself the parent of 30 stalks of young corn, plus five beautiful flat summer squash, a row of okra, and several health looking bush beans and some greens. Now, THAT is (to my heart) a truly miraculous reason for joy. :-) (And 'thank god' for automatic watering systems, too….)
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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