Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 70

The Soul

If you sit quiet for a moment and concentrate on the mere fact that you are breathing, something that takes no conscious effort, you’ll notice that there is a part of you that can observe yourself breathing. Perhaps that part will say something to itself, like “I never noticed that before!”

This “Observing self” is the first hint that you have a Higher Self. The Higher Self reminds you that you are more than this body and its urges, its drives, its wants.

Now, entertain this Higher Self. It’s the part of you that tends to say useful things to you. It might say “You don’t need to do that” or “You don’t need to get upset about that”. In fact it sees things from an alternate perspective.

This Higher Self is the channel through which you will connect to your soul. Your Soul is always you. It sees you with your wonderful individual traits, with your personality, and it knows that you are more than that. So it tends to let you know. It does so by opening you up to beauty, to love and compassion.

What does it mean to be opened up? Have you ever looked at a mountain view and gasped in astonishment? That’s you, being opened up to the majesty of Nature. And there are plenty of other ways this can happen. When we realize that we’re more than our physical world we are opened up. The physical body climbs a mountain and knows it’s hard work. Why not watch it on video instead? Yet when you stand at the top of that mountain, looking around you, the physical effort is far less important. You know no video could ever do this experience justice.

Each of these are hints that the soul is with us all the time. It asks us, in this way, to get to know it. As we become more familiar with it, like being with a wise and valued friend, we see more aspects of it and we develop more aspects of ourselves.

Eventually we notice that we, our physical selves, can work with the soul to heal the wounded parts of our lives – and when we do that we heal the soul, too.

Learning….

I spent part of this morning talking to a lady who has an adult son with Asperger’s syndrome.

It was a delightful chat, as we discussed the ways we all made ourselves “stories” about parenting. And yet behind it all lay one unacknowledged story – that she as a parent was somehow to be blamed for having a son who couldn’t be “just like everyone else’s son”. So deep was this story she was telling herself, that she found she was creating dramatic future scenarios in her head about how she thought her son ought to be feeling — rather than observing that he was a reasonably contented and happy person, doing well, and with a huge amount to contribute to the world.

At times all she could see was where he didn’t fit in, rather than seeing the ways he was excelling. In her heart she knows he is kind, polite, helpful, and honest. But she couldn’t feel that fully.

The pressures of the outside world will tend to cause us to feel that way — if we let it. And that’s when we turn what’s beautiful into what’s uneasy, anxious, and sad.

The Shift: 2012

2012 is probably not going to bring the end of the world, despite what those who delight in disaster scenarios would like. What it is actually bringing is a change in the way we’re thinking. Perhaps we needed Facebook and Twitter and so on just to let us know that we’re not alone – and so the awareness builds. For it is certain that we will be able to believe what the heart is telling us much more easily when we know we’re not alone, when we know others feel the same way.

The shift is from the head, the logical, practical, five-sensory world, to the realm of the heart.

The head believes that materialism matters, that the individual is king. The heart knows that real abundance is what we feel in the spirit, and that we are all connected.

The old way of materialism doesn’t work any more. It’s led us to pollute, destroy, kill and despoil.

Want to try something different?

Syria, and The Hawk Fallacy

So now the Hawks are saying Obama should go and do something about Syria, making it look as if he’s not being “presidential”.

The only thing is that this is not Obama’s purview. It is, first and foremost, the UN’s problem. If the UN fails to take action (which isn’t unusual) then perhaps another nation can take on the struggle, a nation that feels itself to be especially involved. These are often nations who are close to the area of conflict. That would include perhaps Turkey, a NATO member, backed by NATO forces from other nations, a scenario we have seen all round the world in other conflicts.

But Senator McCain thinks it should be us. Just us. “Getting involved” is his phrase.

Does he have any idea how far away Washington is from Syria?

Does he have any notion how profoundly unwelcome US interference in the region would be?

McCain may be on the Armed Services Committee but he seems to be astonishingly unaware of some basic facts of political life. He seems to have forgotten his own party’s support of Assad for several decades.

Is there a solution? I wish I could say there is. Unfortunately it seems as if this Syrian struggle has many phases to go through. And anything we can do now will only make it worse.

Clippers

Clearing out my mother’s effects I came across her gardening things – which included about fourteen sets of secateurs; clippers for pruning bushes. Some were practically brand new.

Why so many? I puzzled over this for a while before it hit me. As my mother grew steadily weaker she became less able to prune and snip her shrubs, but instead of facing that she chose to see the clippers as at fault. They were no good anymore, otherwise they’d still cut! Buy another one!

I wondered at this piece of mental gymnastics, designed to shield her from her fears. And I wondered how often we all do that. We all have a tendency to buy something to “solve the problem” rather than facing our real situation.

I could have wished something a little better for her as she moved towards eternity.

Colorado shooting

It’s time to have the gun-control conversation. Most first world countries have had it, and decided that gun control is essential. Only third world countries of a bandit-like sort still fail to control weapons – think Afghanistan, Waziristan, and so on. And they only fail to control their guns because they are basically unable to police the remote areas concerned.

We are not such a country. Unrestricted access to weaponry may have served some sort of purpose once, but that was a long time ago.

It’s time to change.

The Lessons

We’re here to learn a few things before we die, that much seems plain. Now, what do you think those things might be?

Soul Mates

In response to some discussions about soul mates – who they are and what we can do to find them more easily – I’ve created a short video. Take a look:

Soul Mates II

Two Things about Memory….

The first is that people tell me they frequently remember the bad and upsetting things in their lives. They’ll also say that one bad thing can upset a whole day. I’m sure we’ve all felt like that.

The second thing is that memory is notoriously fugitive. On the whole we remember things such that others who were present at the time frequently recall them very differently. Go to any family or friend gathering where people are swapping stories and you’ll hear “It wasn’t like that at all…” at least once.

Perhaps the best way to view this is as a hint. It seems that we choose the way we’re going to recall events — whether or not we’re fully aware of that choice. Could you imagine a life where you chose only to remember the good stuff, the loving stuff, the things that made you smile?

Go ahead. Imagine it. Then choose it, every day.

In Praise of Tact

I’ve been dealing with my deceased mother’s estate, and it’s been remarkable how people can be either crass or overly kind, or totally clueless. I put the bank in this last category, firmly.

Strangely enough the person with the most kindness and delicacy and, yes, tact, has been the auctioneer’s assistant – the lady who comes and selects what will be suitable for auction. This is a delicate task. I can imagine a person of lesser abilities stamping past the shelves of beloved Tchotchkies with a mercenary and hawkish eye, rejecting the half of it and gazing critically at the remainder. Because that is what the job boils down to. But to do this with charm and delicacy, not ruffling any feathers or exciting any opposition, that takes empathy and real diplomatic-corps level tact.

For this is not just another job. Approached with care it becomes a way to help relatives let go of the dead loved one, and do so without guilt, without twinges of doubt. It’s a way of helping us all to say good bye to a person, a life, a shared past.

Thank you, Charlotte Grey of Weller’s Auctions. Thank you.