Awareness is Different than Intelligence

Awareness is not the same as intelligence.   And intelligence is no substitute for awareness.  One aspect of awareness is that it allows you to see things clearly, including how your beliefs and assumptions distort your perceptions.   With awareness of this distortion you can make changes in your conclusions.

Intelligence is how you process and analyze what you see.  But if you don’t have awareness to see things clearly, no amount of intelligence is going to help you because you are starting with a distorted set of assumptions.

A good article on how beliefs distort your perceptions, and therefore you analysis and conclusiosn.

Measuring Progress on the Spiritual Journey

It is naive to measure your self as a success in this journey based on how you feel on one day.

It is equally foolish to measure your self as a failure based on the feelings of only one day.

In spite of this foolishness, the inner judge will present evidence and argument for both cases at different times.

Don’t believe your self when it is masked by this inner judge character.

Leadership and Integrity

It is the season of politics and people are campaigning for your attention.  The news casters and pundits grasp for it too as they tell you their story of a story.  They sit in their arm chairs and rate the candidates speeches and delivery looking for signs of leadership.   Yet they are somehow oblivious to the fact that it is not the great speaker that makes for a wise leader but rather the quiet listener.

Suggested reading:  Good to Great by Jim Collins

The Jim Collins website

Humility

There’s a tube down his throat to help him breathe.  The tube comes out of his neck and his breath bypasses his mouth.  They call it a trachea.   The doctors had to do it.  The infection had gotten so bad that his airway had almost swollen closed.  The previous set of doctors had dismissed the periodic coughing episodes as unimportant.  Now it was close to closing off his breathing.  The coughing had gotten worse and difficulty breathing couldn’t be dismissed anymore.

Phlegm builds up in his throat and trachea tube every hour or two.  It starts gurgling in his throat.  His body convulses in a coughing gag reflex effort to clear his airway.

We tell the nurse who calls the respiratory therapist.  The respiratory therapist puts a tube deep down his trachea and sucks out the phlegm.  She puts it down so far that it touches is internals.  It makes him heave a cough that lifts his whole upper body.  It looks like torture.  Not being able to breath normally.  Not even being able to clear one’s own throat.  Not being able to help him do something so simple that we all do so naturally all the time.  So easy to take your breath for granted when it comes so easily most of the time.

With the trachea tube in his throat bypassing his vocal cords he can’t talk.  He tries to write some words but that is difficult.  The farm equipment accident injured his left hand years ago.  That coupled with years of arthritis makes small hand manipulations difficult and his letters sloppy.  The morphine he’s on for the pain tends to make his mind fuzzy so he misspells words.   With sloppy writing and fuzzy spelling it is difficult to understand what he’s trying to write.   He’s beyond frustrated that he can’t tell us the simplest things that he wants… needs.  No way to clearly tell us what would make him more comfortable.

I can’t make him breathe easier.  I can’t make his fear go away that is a reflex from choking and gagging while the phlegm blocks his throat.  I can’t clear his throat.  I can’t make the infection in his throat go away that started this cascading of events and discomforts.  I can’t go back in time and change what transpired to have my dad end up in this hospital bed.

I’m not powerless and I don’t feel victimized.  There are simply things that I can do, and others that I don’t have power over. I’m not frustrated or angry.  I’m just aware that I don’t control the bodily functions, immune system, or emotions, of another human being.

I think knowing what you can’t change, and accepting it falls into the category of humility.  It’s not a joy in itself.  However it is far more peaceful than fighting what you can not change.  Life is a big place and respecting the forces of it is part of being impeccable. Death is one of those forces on the human body to respect.  Doing so can teach you a lot about savoring the moments of your life.  Little moments like breathing, or being able to speak and ask for what you want.

I don’t think those folks who proclaim, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it,” ever sat with their dad through the challenges of old age and a body with ailing health.

Humility isn’t about following the overly optimistic positive side of your personality to think you can create and change anything in life.  Nor is it about falling into the negative side of self importance and feeling victimized about life either.  Humility has to do with transcending both sides of self importance all together: the aspect that says you are helpless, and the aspect that says you can accomplish anything you can dream.  There is a middle way.

In the west our mind is so apt to put things into categories of being a winner or a loser,,, a success or a failure.   These are the dual images of self importance to avoid.  When you practice humility, you are no longer trapped by either of those limiting roles or labels.

Fear of Death

A spiritual warrior doesn’t fear death. Death is inevitable. A warrior recognizes that to fear death is ridiculous waste of time.

It is also an act of disrespect towards the gift of life.

That a warrior has no fear of death is not extra ordinary.  It’s just common sense.  What is extraordinary is how a warrior is able to face such an inevitable outcome with sobriety and not flinch with fear.  A warrior is able to do this because she has control over her attention.  She is able to look straight into passing of her body with the awareness and will power  to not let her self be distracted by a  thought or belief.

To have control over one’s attention doesn’t just mean to focus on something by controlling your will. You also have to control the point of view you see it all from.  Many people can focus on death but do so from a point of view from fear or uncertainty.

A spiritual warrior is able to hold their attention on the immortality of their body from a point of complete acceptance and love for the unknown.

Overcoming your fear of death is not a major accomplishment.  It is a fairly obvious and straightforward approach to living a satisfying life.   The extraordinary accomplishment is the control a warrior has developed over their attention.

Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness

Money and the comforts it can purchase can’t protect you from fear.  A big house, in a gated community can’t protect your mind from thoughts, self judgments, and emotions.

A private plane doesn’t protect you from the fear of flying.  A life insurance policy for $10,000,000 doesn’t insulate you from the fear of death, ill health, or the fear of losing a loved one.

No amount of money can protect you from an untamed mind that can take your emotions into a downward spiral of suffering.

If money buys happiness then Howard Hughes would have been one of the happiest people in the world. As it turns out his money didn’t protect him from his thoughts, beliefs, and fears.

The reason part of the mind looks for simple rules to describe the nature of emotions like happiness.  What people find difficult to accept is that one exception like Howard Hughes breaks the rules. Money doesn’t by happiness.  It’s just one factor of how your mind affects your happiness and your emotions.

What can protect you from fear, self judgment, and false beliefs is awareness and love.  Awareness and Love can create and insure happiness.

Creating Confidence

Faith is a force you command. You have the power to put faith in something or someone. When you do we say that you believe in an idea or a person.

Confidence is the feeling you create for your self by investing your faith in something or someone. Oddly you can create this feeling of confidence even if the idea is a lie or the person you believe in is a fraud.

A spiritual warrior is aware of how his or her belief in something can create a false sense of safety.

Practices for spiritual warriors in Self Mastery

Mother Sarita

Mother Sarita and don Miguel RuizToday Sara Macias Vasquez left her body behind and journeyed into the Spirit. We know her as Mother Sarita. She is don Miguel Ruiz’s mother, an amazing healer, and a Spiritual Guide to many. I had the pleasure of her company many times. And every time was an inspiring example of unconditional love, passion, and faith. In her ninety’s she has more passion about life than most people I know. To witness her presence each time was a gift of life. She was 98.

Raised in rural Mexico, she learned ancient Toltec wisdom from her shaman grandfather, and passed this wisdom on to her son, author don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements). In 2007, Mother Sarita was inducted into The San Diego Women’s Hall of Fame for her contributions to healing and teaching, and for her role as an influential mentor. Her message “Si se puede,” (Yes, it¹s possible) was an inspiration to many. Her courageous and loving spirit will be greatly missed.

(Born January 8, 1910; deceased May 22, 2008)

Her Spirit, her teachings, her wisdom, passion, and Faith will live on in her many students, children and grandchildren, including don Miguel, and his sons.

She lived beautifully, and her dream lives beautifully in many.

Thank you