11 Signs of Enlightenment

Thanks to Source working through Facebook, I ran across a blog post by Matthew Ferry, and I liked his material so much that I posted a link to his blog on my links page. (By the way, check out my links page sometime). Matthew posted his 11 signs of enlightenment, and I've posted them below - slightly revised: He wrote it in third person, and I changed it to first person so that it becomes an affirmation. Another 'by the way': I will contact him and ask him permission to publish this.

Here are 11 tell-tale signs you are experiencing enlightenment in day-to-day life (revised): credit https://blog.matthewferry.com/11-tell-tale-signs-experiencing-enlightenment-day-day-life/

• I am happy because I exist and it is my natural state. Circumstances are no longer the source of my happiness.
• I am at peace with the way things are and eager for whatever is next.
• I have begun to see that people are innately innocent and that their selfish actions are a natural result of survival programming.
• I acknowledge that we are all just doing the best we can in a world that is mysterious and challenging.
• I am inexplicably driven to forgive everyone for everything.
• I take steps to release the illusion that I can control anything.
• I experience the freedom of knowing that my opinion and perspective are not important, valuable, or needed and the world goes on with or without my commentary, opinion, insights, observations, or point of view.
• I am beginning to acknowledge that the world is an expression of my perspective and programs developed through familial, cultural, religious and geographical influences that I had no choice in.
• I am starting to see that the only thing I am against is my perspective about what I am experiencing in the world.
• I [am starting] to lose my urgency. Nothing feels very important. I feel compelled to do the things that I enjoy.
• My stress begins to disappear. When it returns, I might find it interesting rather than urgent and distracting.

Thank you Matthew. As I've written before, my recovery began the moment I was truly done with living life as I knew it. Now, at that point, one either changes or one dies. I'm grateful that I began to change. I'm grateful today for my wholesale dissatisfaction with life as I used to see it, and I'm grateful to be moving into a perspective that works for me. 

The very neat thing about these 11 Signs is that I can use them as a guide to note my progress. There is nothing listed above that's about perfection, and nobody on the Earth plane lives in perfection. We embody perfection, but we don't live perfectly. Enlightenment, to me, is simply learning to live life from the inside out - to endeavor each moment to live from the perfection that resides within, rather than reacting to the circumstances that surround me (which are really only the result of me and others living imperfectly).

My path toward Enlightenment consists of mindfulness, meditation, prayer, and practice - I practice being how I want to show up today. Because of this, I no longer have much use for protecting myself (my ego) nor worrying about if I'm going to get what I need. I know that I am already abundantly equipped to make this journey. 

I used to live each day with the goal of just getting through the day - surviving without too much hurt, or, if I was hurt, blocking the pain with alcohol, drugs, and other addictive behavior. It is a depressing way to live. Today my purpose is to enjoy life and to be a blessing to those around me. It's not always easy, but it's a lot simpler than reacting to circumstances. 

I am grateful today for the privilege of being on this journey.

Namasté,

Ken

Let Me Share A Secret...

I recently talked with a parent of a person who lives with co-occurring disorders - she has a mental health condition along with substance use disorder. I shared my experience with this parent - my experience of relying too heavily on my parents and others to take care of me, to 'fix' me, when it would have been better all around for me to learn to take care of myself. I shared with this person how my learning to be responsible and take care of myself was/is the scariest thing, and yet the best thing, that I've ever done. I felt very comfortable talking with this parent - I was in my element, I was in the groove.

That's not the secret. That's what I do for a living - allow myself to be vulnerable so that I can share my experience and knowledge so that others might gain hope and maybe insight.

My secret is this:  I would rather not. People scare me. My brain, or my ego, tells me I would rather be alone all day than deal with people. My experience, on the other hand, tells me that the more open I am with others, the more I share the real me with others, the healthier I'll be. 

So I live with this paradox. I like to speak in public, and I write this blog, and on Facebook I'm very open; yet sitting down to talk with someone 1:1 is very scary for me, at least before the event. Once I'm in there, the experience is good. And when I'm done sharing or doing whatever I'm doing, I feel very good inside. 

I don't know if that fear of others, or that desire to isolate, will ever leave. It has its benefits - I must be spiritually prepared every day, through prayer and meditation, to meet whatever (or whoever) is mine to meet. This fear is the thorn in my side that St Paul describes - it keeps me coming back to Source, because I know what would happen if I did only what my head tells me to do - I would get sick and die. I've learned that if I'm not doing something today that makes me uncomfortable, I'm probably not doing anything today that's healthy for me.

I bring this up for two reasons: First, I need to remind myself that when I see someone else do something that looks very challenging to me, yet they're making it look effortless, there is probably a lot of preparation and stuff going on behind what they're doing of which I'm not aware. In other words, I ought not judge by appearances - things and people are rarely, if ever, what they seem at first glance. Second, I'd like to give some hope to someone who might read this and say to you, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do one thing every day that scares you," and, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

I existed for a long time avoiding the tough stuff in life, and I was very empty inside. It's very painful to only go through the motions of living. Only when I began to do the things that I didn't want to do, the things that scared me, the things that exposed me, the things that I had no idea how to do, did I begin to experience the richness of life. One doesn't necessarily need to climb Mount Everest to experience a thrill; simply doing what's written on my heart while ignoring the screaming voice in my head can be quite thrilling. I have a lot of people in my life for whom I'm very grateful who would not be in my life if I were living by my old m.o. Simply put, it's really easy to get to know people who are really easy to get to know, but it's not very fulfilling. Inside of me, and I'm pretty sure inside of you, are those things that deep down my heart yearns to do, but my head has excuses not to do. For me, those are the things I do if I want to have the kind of life that I can feel good about. And I suppose I am, bit by bit, because, bit by bit, I'm feeling better about being me. It's been a long time coming.

Namasté,

Ken

There is ALWAYS Hope

I had the wonderful opportunity today to give support to a 70-year-old person today who has had a long life with lots of hard knocks. They wondered if they shouldn't just give up. My response was, "There is always hope. If we can work together to get you to a place where you feel absolute peace and contentment for even just one day while you're living, then it is worth it, and I believe that it is possible."

I wasn't simply conveying an empty platitude; I meant it, and I believe it - for myself, and for anybody else that can draw a breath. And this is the beauty of the work I do - I get to witness miracles; always in my life, and often in the lives of others. 

There is a Power greater than me and greater than all of us of which we are all a part of - we all belong to It - and when we open ourselves to the possibility of hope and healing, healing can and does occur. 

Emmet Fox was a Divine Science minister and author from the last century, and one of the first authors I read when I began my study of New Thought. He wrote:

“There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem.
It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake; a sufficient realization of love will dissolve
it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.”

The Love that he is talking about is God or Source or whatever term you'd like to use to describe the Power that underlies all. When we unreservedly tap into that Power, what we call miracles happen.

And I have, without the use of mood-altering substances, experienced those peaceful, sublime moments where all is well with me, the world, and the Universe. I have been to that place of perfection within. These moments have the effect for me of making all the challenges I've lived through worthwhile. 

There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world. There's a good bit of pain and suffering right here in Waukesha. Fortunately, I'm not tasked with alleviating all of it. I don't even have to carry it on my shoulders. What I can do, and what I endeavor to do, is to see past the pain and suffering in someone, to see the goodness and perfection underlying it all. We can't lose that - no matter what I've done, no matter where I've been, no matter how much hate and sadness I've harbored, that spark of Love that created me has never been snuffed out. Others helped me tear away a lot of the crap that was covering up my Light, and now I look for It in others, and help them let go of what is covering up their Light. 

For me, it begins with the belief that every life has value, even when an individual thinks their life has none. I can picture the people who told me I was wrong when I said my life had no value, and who didn't let me go. It begins with hope.

And when I give away what I've been freely given, I am not depleted - I just get more to give away, and for that I am most grateful. 

Namasté,

Ken

Progress, not Perfection

I have recently been experiencing the turbulence of change. For me, change usually shows up, or begins with, an inner discontent. I've written before that I'm not a person who is easily satisfied, and this is a trait I've only recently identified as something I like about myself. What it means for me is that I continue to seek a more satisfactory experience of life. What it also means is that I'll never find it. I'll never get to the point where everything is perfect, at least for more than a moment. 

Last year around this time I posted a Happy New Year post because my birthday is in July, and it makes sense to me to mark the years as they began for me. I read that post today, and noted that there were 4 things I'd like to work on in the coming year:

• Treating my body more respectfully and lovingly by consistently eating healthier and continuing to gain physical strength;
• Continuing to treat my mind better by becoming more choosy with the thoughts I allow to reside there;
• Continuing to grow in the self-discipline area, with emphasis on vocational training and fiscal responsibility;
• Continuing to release fear and become more open to giving and receiving love from my fellow human beings.

So I read those things, and realized that those are still the things I'd like to work on (with possibly the exception of formal vocational training - not interested right now). These are all areas in which I've made progress, but there's more progress to be made.

Up until now, I've had a tendency to compare the way I do things today with the way I used to do things. This has been a good way for me to begin to trust that I really am on a good path, and I really am in recovery. 

Life really does seem to operate on a spiral - I come around to the meet the same basic lessons, yet they're given in different situations often with different people, and, most importantly, they're deeper. Each time I come around to something, I receive a deeper experience of self and the Universe and of my relationship with life. You really can't buy the kind of education I'm getting (which may be why I'm not much interested in any kind of vocational training a local institution can provide right now). 

But anyway, getting back to comparing today to one year or five years ago, or whatever - I think I'm getting past that. I think that for perhaps the first time in this lifetime, I am beginning to feel secure that I exist - that I am a part of life, a part of the Universe, and that I have value and purpose. My life has value and purpose. Trust me, for the longest time that was something I could not claim. I think today I can, without qualifiers - in other words, I know I have value whether or not I currently have a job, a home, a friend, some money in my wallet, whatever. That's actually a pretty neat feeling. It means this: because I have value, whatever I'm doing or experiencing has value as well. 

I've expressed it before in writing, and I think I'm beginning to express it now in living - I'm experiencing what it's like to live life from the inside out - to be living my purpose, and through living it discovering more and more of who I am. Life for life's sake. 

So, back to the title of this post - my motivation for living has changed from trying to find the perfect formula for everything to endeavoring to be, day by day, moment by moment, a more honest and real version of Ken. And the really neat thing for me is that today, that's enough. And I'm more happy to be me than I've ever been before, and that's a miracle.

Namasté,

Ken