​Let our consciousness connect
To every lost realm of Self,
And remember:
The ocean of our boundless being
Lies just beneath the dry,
Crusted surface of our denial.
Within arms reach,
Not far at all.

​As we breezed through,
We breathed life into this world.
We are not movement,
We are flow.
We will find ourselves
In our heartbeat,
In our breath,
In our art,
And the green vibrancy
of nature all around.
We will find ourselves, always,
In the promise
Of our deep, blissful sleep.

It occurred to me:
At the point of true Empathy with our ‘enemy’,
Forgiveness transforms into Compassion,
Our vulnerability dissipates, alleviating any sense of victimisation,
And punishment becomes redundant.

‘Critical, me?’  I’m confused, where did that come from?  I wasn’t even upset.  Can you even see me?

But she feels judged.  So?  Fuck that!  Two days of scrutinising and criticism, and I’m critical?!
‘You don’t give your kids enough space, you’re too controlling.  Their breakfast is insufficient.  Your writing is impersonal and the language fluffy, it’s not real.  You aren’t letting people do what they want and you’re not accepting help.’   And so on, and so on…  And I’m critical.  Hmm...  Not smiling on the inside so much anymore.

And of course, she couldn’t actually be right about me, could she?  And as my lawyer sister would say: ‘true, but irrelevant’.  And in this case, I agree; it is truly irrelevant…
​
I said to her the day before: ‘you are very defensive, you know.’ 
‘I know’, she said with a smile, much to my surprise.
​
Days later, she is long gone, and boy, how feathers are ruffled.  There seems no time limit on the hurt and anger of perceived injustice.  And then, as if the world has gone mad, fights and accusations flare as everyone has a grievance.  So it continues, criticism and defensiveness feeding on each other in a meaningless cycle of sad negativity, projected randomly in all directions, often hurting those we love most.

But even the darkest and heaviest of clouds lighten up and dissipate eventually.  What needs to be seen is always there waiting for truth to bring it to light: 
Projection is pain, it occurs to me.

Why do you criticise and blame?  Do you not see how beautiful you are?  This anger, born of original pain.  What lie did they tell about you?  A lie in your innocence you believed long ago, the pain of which you still carry with you today.
​
As the words played in my mind, I felt my being wash with emotion, deep sadness and love for her, for the child I once was, for my son, and others I have known through time.

September 19, 2017
 
Remember, it is never the person that has wronged you that is to blame, it is his or her actions.  We channel what we choose to express.  When others hurt us, we have a choice.  If we choose to engage in conflict, we become channels ourselves to the same forces we think we oppose.  We become channels to the very same expression that has hurt us, and in doing so we betray ourselves.

Hold strong to what you know is good and noble inside you and be a channel to it.  By doing so, you may discover it in who you conceive as being your aggressor.  They may not know that they can channel something else, but if you can see you will show them.  If you can only hold on to the knowledge that before you stands a vessel with the capability, if not the wisdom, to choose it’s subject of expression, you have at that point liberated yourself from self-victimisation.  

May 15, 2013
 
“Hold onto your foot with one hand and stand on the other, stretch out the other arm and stand still for as long as you can, feeling the stretch in your leg” the teacher said.  The children wobbled about doing as the teacher said, trying to find their balance.  “If you are losing your balance try looking at something still”, he suggested.
 
“I don’t want to do Yoga mum", Adam cried, "Taekwondo is bad enough!” 
“You don’t have to, no one can force you to do something like that.  I just think it might be good for you”. 
“Well, I don’t want to do it and that’s that!” 
“OK, honey, you don’t have to”. 
“What is it for anyway?  Tell me Mum.  I won’t do it anyway, but just tell me”.
“Well, honey, you know how you were all wobbly in Taekwondo the other day?  Well, yoga could teach you not to be, your body, and on the inside too”. 
“I know how not to be wobbly, I just need to look at something still, like the wall or something”. 
“That’s right, and what about inside, can you look at something still inside yourself?”  “What do you mean?” 
“Well, you know how sometimes other children might say something to upset you and you might get upset or angry and you feel all wobbly on the inside?  Well, yoga can help you find a still place inside yourself where you feel calm, where you are Adam no matter what others say or do around you”.
“We are all really good at being who we are sometimes, and not so much at other times, like your friend who is too scared to be your friend when there are mean children around.  He gets a bit wobbly then, doesn’t he?  And then you have other friends that are not wobbly at all and stick by you no matter what!”
“Yea, sometimes I am really nice when the bullies are around”.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I try to be really cool so that they won’t bother me…”
“That’s ok, honey, we all get a bit wobbly sometimes, even big people do.  And sometimes, Adam, when you are feeling all wobbly, there will be some people who will come and push you over just because it’s easy.  But you know what Adam, you also have some really good friends that will come and help you keep still and find your balance again”.

The day I was shown compassion (see 'A revelation’ post) I found that my life had expanded as a new dimension had been added to it.  This dimension was profound and it had laced the rest of my existence and perception with new depth and meaning.  Love was in the air, love and compassion and with it a deep understanding that we are all inherently vulnerable people, coming from the same place and struggling with the same things.  We were all bound and connected by our shared humanity and if we could lay down our defences for a while, reach out and touch each other’s pain, we might begin to heal.
 
More than three years later, I was still unforgiving.  It felt as though god himself came down and showed me the way, I saw the path so clearly and I understood it.  I was touched by it deeply.  But I could not follow it -my heart was closed and my anger in control.  Something inside of me was locked.
 
August 23, 2013
​A few months ago, I had decided to try Yoga.  I had gone through a time of stress and bad health and needed to heal.  The lesson included both physical work and almost half an hour of meditation.  This experience was profound and completely unexpected, as I described it then: ‘A moment of true enlightenment, of pure, complete, deep calm’. (March 2013)   I had come out of the meditation feeling extremely heavy and relaxed.  Everything around me felt thick like soup, and I moved very slowly.  It was as if I was sitting at the bottom of the ocean floor, surrounded by a dark, blue, heavy sea.  This was not the place of colourful corals and dancing fish, this was a place that was quiet and still.  It was an experience of deep, intense centeredness.  This deep calm was my deep calm, it was me.  I was all in my body, my mind was there watching, but was not active, it had taken the back seat.  I did not want to explain to anyone at that time what I was feeling, as that would have swept my consciousness back into my mind and I wanted to keep inhabiting my body so completely for as long as I possibly could.  The calm was complete, and by that, I mean total.
 
Other things followed that day.  I had picked up my children from school expecting the usual aggravations that are part and parcel of motherhood, and of course, it didn’t take long before my little angels tested my patience.  But this time it was different.  I possessed a certain composure and control which I had rarely experienced until then.  Yes, I got frustrated and even angry, but I was not flustered and I was not overwhelmed.  I could handle the situation without too much difficulty, I knew who I was, I knew what to say and do.
 
Of course, when one experiences such an experience, the second yoga session is filled with dread ‘what if it was a one-time experience, what if it doesn’t happen again?’  And so of course, in the second time it didn’t.  I was extremely disappointed and plummeted from experiencing one of the best weeks I had had in a long time to one of the worst.  But as that second disappointing week went by I found myself experiencing yet again snippets of centeredness, calm, and natural control.  These moments gave me heart as I started feeling a longer lasting effect on the very core of my existence, an effect I did not have to search for and grasp, but one that presented itself to me in unexpected moments, bringing me back to an inward unity and natural calm.
 
The third Yoga session was even more intense then the first and things went on from there.  A couple of months later I had written: ‘The deep inner calm continues, my body gets stronger, my attitude towards people is subtly changing.  The affect they have on me is less; I am not so sensitive or vulnerable to them’.  (May 11, 2013)   I remember feeling that something inside me had been awakened, something I did not know existed and was now here to stay, transforming me from within.
 
I also remember talking to a friend and telling her how Gwen didn’t bother me so much anymore.  True, I now saw her very rarely, but her aside; I felt that the path I had known about for years now, this path I could not follow was suddenly available to me.  Something in my heart was released, it had been unlocked.

August 22, 2013
 
The first time I had glimpsed the true way of compassion towards those who assault us, through my hurt and anger, was while reading a book called ‘The Winner’s Bible’, some three years ago.  There I was, filled with anger and hate towards a family member (let’s call her Gwen) who had hurt me in so many ways, for so long, surrounded by people that are inherently connected to her, knowing I cannot just walk away, and knowing that her toxic existence in my life now threatened the very foundation of my own family.
 
As we drove off on our family outing, surrounded by her world, her poison threatening to crack through the now fragile underlying structure that supported my family unit, threatening the love that still kept us together, I was silent.  There was anger in the air, thick and heavy, and I was silent.
 
But this was a different silence.  Yes, I was afraid for our future and desperate to have this pain and damage end, but something else was touching me.  Something gentle and kind, confident and quiet.  And I was silent because I was trying to grasp this message that was coming to me steadily through my emotional turmoil.  In the strangest contradiction I felt anger and saw compassion at the same time.  And the message was there for a long time, all through the drive and most of that day.  My husband took my silence to mean what most people would, which only reinforced the cloud that hung over our heads that day.  And yet the message kept coming through: ‘There is another way; there is wisdom in this place that can be followed’.  This voice, this entity, call it what you will, was showing me something different.  This was what some might call a moment of enlightenment, of true illumination, but it was more than a moment.  It was a clear message that stayed with me that day, still and present.  At the time I wrote:
 
An eye opener through my pain and hurt that there was another way to be.  Where you can go lower, deeper, then a superficial emotional level of aggressive communication.  Where you can see your aggressor.  See their real motivation.  Motivation that is not really to do with you.  And when you see that, you give them empathy and respect.  And maybe, they can see that respect in your eyes, and switch too, to a deeper level of meaning, communication, and interaction.  Not that I am very good at that.  I still struggle to resist that surface level of frustration and the urge to lash back.  (February 27, 2010)
 
It felt illusive, however, as I struggled to hold on to it, for although its presence was as real and as independent of me as the sun shining above, its rays of clarity were shadowed by the clouds of anger and pain that shrouded my body and being.  And there I was, in my silence, with waves of emotion washing over me, trying to get a glimpse of this confident presence of truth that was there for me to behold if only I could clear a path for it to enter through the sphere of my emotional turmoil.
 
This was over three years ago.  Three years since a moment of godly truth touched me, and still now I am caged in by the barred walls of my own crippling emotions.  But much has happened since, many more glimpses to be shared, and I am now in a place where they are all coming together.  I had spent the morning with my son at a session, discussing the subject of bullies and how he might cope.  In this simple session that was addressing an eight-year-old boy, simple tools seemed to bring together years of messages.  When I arrived home an urge to sit and take note compelled me to this place: to continue a journey and maybe, finally, to find some simple truths that can provide resolution and help me achieve lasting inner peace and answers to the hard questions of Self, Compassion, and Forgiveness.

I have been avoiding this section for quite some time now.  My excuses being that I wasn't sure where it was going, I didn't have the answers, I was in the middle of the journey and did not know how it ended yet, etc, etc.  I think the truth of the matter though, is that it is a very personal subject, sensitive, and at times painful.
Since my father's last downturn and eventual departure I find myself questioning things more than ever.  I look at his life, and he himself and hope that whatever his time here was about, that it was meaningful and fulfilling for him. 
'What is the point of all this', is a question that has come back full force now, and I must admit that when I think of my father, look to his life, the exercise seems more futile than ever.  (I am not saying there was no point to his life, but at this time, if there was any fulfilled purpose, I don't see it.  In this respect his life seems cut short to me, his legacy only partially complete, his pain still evident and unhealed at passing).
I think in a nutshell there are two questioned aspects to this life of  ours:
Firstly, why are we here?  Meaning of life sort of thing.
And second, why does it hurt so much?
Let's face it, if it was all peaches and cream, maybe we wouldn't bother ourselves so much with the first question, we would just enjoy the party (although the transient nature of our mortal existence would probably swing it back into question).  And of course, maybe this transient nature is responsible for some of the pain in the first place.  But either way lets face it, life hurts more often than not, and the happiest person need only turn on the news to acknowledge that something stinks in paradise.
​As the title of this section implies, I look directly to the human condition in trying to make sense of our mess here.  As I have admittedly no answers, just snippets of spiritual enlightenment and blessed moments of divine intervention, I thought I would share these with you guys, who enjoy reading my waffle.  Please tell me what you think, write comments, start a dialog, let this be a place where we can journey together to, where?...