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Sep 04 2009

Wholeness comes from the Silence

Before I learned to go, first thing, to Divine Presence when in need, I would observe an imbalance or pain in my body and immediately begin arranging whom to go see about it. I lived in doctor’s offices often going 2-3 times a week for a number of years. I was a medical junkie, literally looking for a high. I thought I was taking care of myself. I was physically. It was wearing on me completely though, looking back on that time. This was my response to chronic pain. I went to have all sorts of therapies tried on me, seeking some sort of relief. Usually the relief helped for a couple of days but in some cases, I felt the pain return driving home from the appointment. If I could have taken the practitioner home with me, perhaps that would have extended the sense of well being!

From a purely energetic point of view, the most important thing each of us can do especially when we are sick or out of balance is to go into intentional Silence in the Presence of the Divine.

What we usually do is go to the doctor, chiropractor, therapist, gym, masseuse, a movie, etc. We don’t generally go to God as our first response when faced with a physical or mental ailment. This is a curious reality. Seeking Divine Presence through Silence is much easier than making an appointment, getting dressed, finding transportation, maneuvering through traffic, sitting in the doctor’s office, all to don a paper gown for examination! Further, after getting the help, we have to get dressed again, pay the bill, usually head for the pharmacy, and then retrace all our steps home. Alternatively, sitting in Silence is our own private route to Wholeness.

When we go to a practitioner, we usually go because we hope for help, relief, medicine, reassurance, caring touch, attention and information. Why don’t we go first to Divine Presence when we are out of balance? We can get the same loving assurance, help, relief, attention, and care in the comfort of our own home with Divine Presence.

Cathy did not enter into Silence because she was afraid nothing would be there. Burton said, ” I get in there and am afraid I won’t get out or won’t want to get out.” Sharon shared, “I am afraid of what I will find out about myself. ” Amelia revealed, “I am always so concerned about what I need to do, I just get antsy sitting there getting none of it done.” Rob said, “I am afraid of all the anger I am carrying around. It might get opened up and I could not put it back in. ”

Any of these feelings familiar to you? These are strongly felt feelings, yes, but with not one ounce of lasting truth in them. The feelings seems powerful and real, because they are charged with emotion. However, there is a deeper truth in Silence which amazes everyone I have ever spoken with who intentionally enters into Silence.

There is Lasting Truth in Silence. It is the core of our own True Selves. There is more love and acceptance in Silence than anywhere else in the Universe. The more we experience this, the more we can bring that love and acceptance into our daily lives.

Another way to look at this is, we live in a spiritual world which we are trying to experience physically. We get as many chances as we want, to try and experience this earth dimension solely on a physical basis. Something BIG is missing though, if that is what we keep trying to do.

When I began to meditate I sat outside up against a large walnut tree which grew up through our second story deck. I remember days of just sitting and realizing I was just sitting. I felt safe and supported by that old tree. The sitting in and of itself felt like a gift to myself. Then I began to experience currents of energy I had not experienced before. I remember one early day of sitting, it began to snow. I realized I was liking the Silence. I got up to get some cover from the cold. I found my bright pink and blue serape and hat, bundled up and returned to sit. I thought, I must be meditating, why else would I be sitting here in the snow? It was a great sense of peace and calm.

Silence is a self- teaching process. If you rest into Silence, you rejuvenate. If you float in Silence, you set down your burdens and responsibilities and when you come out you can reexamine what you want to pick up again. If you enter Silence and “bad things” come up, you can name them out loud and command them out of your energy field. They are already there affecting our sense of peace and balance every day, anyway. Feelings and thoughts are not our core being. Welcome to you own true self, that part of you that is basically Silent at the core and from that Silence all else is generated. Most of us spend 95% of our time with the “stuff” that is generated and next to no time with the core of who we truly are.

The entire idea here is when we enter into Silence, we will get the help we need, in the way we need it, when we need it. The inner space is not about being alone, it is about connecting with Divine Source, Infinite Love and Boundless Possibility. Why are you not availing yourself of this space of Utterly Available Wholeness? It is the shortest way I know of to health, happiness, laughter and peace.

Check in with your “stuff” around avoiding Silence. Begin by is sitting with Divine Grace/The Oneness/Spirit of the Living God who loves us each completely, thoroughly, just exactly as we are. Take 10 minutes (by the clock) each day to begin with or join others in Stillness and Silence. We don’t have to put on our best Sabbath behavior, clothes or manners. We are already loved, we just need to show up to feel it reflected back to us. Knowing Wholeness comes from the Silence.

“There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Aug 26 2009

Infinite Source

Infinite Source means just that, the Source of All That Is has no boundaries, limits or perimeters. It is vast possibility without any limitation. This is a challenging concept to grasp, and even harder to actualize in our lives. Both are possible though and embracing Infinite Source is life changing.

Infinite Source means there is no shortage of supply, love, wealth, humor, creativity, food, health, peace, balance, etc. Infinite Source is one of the immutable Laws of Creation. Yet, we experience all sorts of limitations on Earth and in our lives at the present time. This earth dimension we live in, does not generally recognize Infinite Source in our daily lives. It is seen as a theoretical possibility for the most part which we generally do not know how to activate. So for practical purposes, it does not exist.

I would like to challenge this view and suggest that we need to pick up all our threads of creativity and imagination and launch ourselves and our lives into the energy of Infinite Source to more effortlessly and effectively help us with what we have come to do in this lifetime. We create the stifling limits within which we live, operate, breath and create. We, with our own minds, think as humans think, with boundaries, issues, concerns, problems, limitations, conditions, improbabilities and nay saying.

What if there really are no actual boundaries except the ones we are giving our power to in this lifetime? Perhaps we have all bought into accepted conventions and agreed to standard deviations for conditions, improbabilities and nay-saying? Maybe there is a field out there where you and I will meet and none of this will actually matter. Let’s say we could really live in full acceptance of Infinite Source even in one area of our lives. Might it be worth giving it a try?

Repeatedly throughout my years of spiritual seeking, the one thing that comes to me over and over again is that I think too small, envision with limitations, doubt the vastness of the Whole and generally look upon the Divine with human eyes and thoughts. Of course, I am human! However, I don’t think that my humanness is the authority by which I live and create. My “I AM” energy is the authority by which I live and create. My Oneness with All That Is is the authority by which I harness goodness and create with love. In contrast, my humanness is often the wagging finger energy standing at the doorway of my mind saying, “un-uh, you can’t do that, that is not possible, that is dreamy eyed thinking, that is absurd, just fool’s folly”. For years and years, I listened to what was not possible, not probable and gave that energy a great deal of power.

Those years were generously filled with physical pain and suffering on my part. Of course, I was giving my energy and power to many things that I thought I was going to have to do which I would not like, would be bad at doing or better yet would probably fail at. UGH!! I was immediately caught up short when I realized one day that I had really, really had chronic back pain for 16 years. I was totally surprised at this on one level because I secretly thought of myself as a jock. Well, I was, in one part of my brain. I had commuted to work with my bike, I had played tennis and taught Jazzercise, taken yoga and loved to swim. I had walked regularly and weight lifted whenever my body allowed. It seemed very weird that somehow I had become a handicapped person with this chronic pain. The insurance companies would concur with this accessment given all the doctors I was seeing.

For a while this realization of these years of pain, made me seriously angry with my body. I was also furious with everyone that pain was my constant companion. I eventually became outwardly angry and negative until that wore both me and my family out. I then became quiet in my suffering ( for a very short while) and eventually I had the thought, perhaps I could be pain free. This was the first time in 16 years that I had had that thought. It was just a glimmer of hope but it fueled a huge change within me.

This has been my very own, self-created, experience at limiting my life, my health, my options. I really did buy into the fact that I would probably be in pain my entire life. However, I became more and more determined to seek another reality for me. I was completely fatigued and impatient with doctors, body workers, therapists of all sorts. One therapist told me I was psychologically ill and the pain was all imagined. Another said I was one of the sanest persons she had had the privilege to meet. I thought then and there, I think I’ll believe the last one. It feels better. And thus, I began looking for that elusive Infinite Source. I did not know that was what IT was called then but I do now. I now know that my thoughts become my reality. I can choose to create conditions, boundaries, prerequisites, or limitations or not. The choice is mine.

Usually when I am angry, frustrated, impatient or snippy, I am giving my power to limitations, conditions and fears which are working me in negative ways. When I am peaceful, happy, loving and understanding, I am going with the flow. Infinite Source is a huge vastness of possibility and there are absolutely no bounds on that Source except the ones we create.

When I finally got that I might be able to live in greater health with pain free energy, I began to see all sorts of new help around me that had always been there. I had just not seen it. The limitations which I had made my reality, literally blocked the channels of Infinite Source around me. I began to change what I thought was true, who I spent time with, what I spent time doing and how I characterized myself to myself, and to others. I tried out aspects of Infinite Source such as “if I don’t give it a try, who will?” and “when will it be a good enough time to do something I love?” and “who is your authority here anyway?” and finally, “girl, figure out what you love and do it!”. And slowly I did. I have now been pain free with the exception of normal bumps and bruises for so many years that I know I will continue pain free, the remainder of my life.

Take a leap of faith and truly imagine what has seemed impossible for you.

Call forth Divine Assistance and go for it.

Counter the nay- sayers within and without with calm resolve.

Honor your path as part of the learning process that leads to our own true selves, pain included.

Proclaim Infinite Source and give your power to those possibilities, without bounds, in all situations.

Try giving your power to imagining and working with Infinite Source. You will truly experience that Infinite Source is seriously real. The only boundaries and limitations we have are the ones we accept and create for ourselves.

Aug 12 2009

Being Eternal

When all seems to be said and done, there is still more to handle, respond to, and integrate, always and forever! We are never said and done. We are never completely finished, not in death, not in life, not in work, not in love.

There is always more awaiting us when we are ready to receive it, into our knowing. We are ETERNAL. We are eternally presented with more of something or another. Even in the most severely extreme actions taken to end a life, one is never said and done. It is impossible to finish or end ourselves. We are always with our being whatever dimension we are living in. This is an absolute truth for all beings, everywhere.

Eventually, sometime, somewhere we will begin to hear the small voice of All That Is which is always with us whether we attend to that voice or not. Even at the end of deeply destructive action, we come face-to-face with ourselves and we are IT. There is no getting away from us, from our thoughts, words, deeds and actions. We are IT.

Being Eternal is a forever process.

Our beings repeatedly move from one dimension to another and pick up where we left off. We still have to face the same heartache, the same sadness, the same misperceptions, the same feeling of disconnection from God and Divine Love. As above, so below. As below, so above. We are the creators of our own lives. We are the ones who make choices with what we are given. We are the ones who give meaning and power to the things which happen to us. We can do the clearing work now or do the clearing work later, the choice is ours but the blocked energy NEVER simply goes away on its own.

We are inextricably part of All That Is, in mind, body and soul regardless of what we have done, what we are thinking, what we are presently doing or not doing or what we will chose to do in the future. We create our own lives, the good and the bad, for the sole purpose of healing our souls from the separateness we feel from the Greater Whole. Why do bad things happen to us? Why do good things happen to us? We are on a journey and each of us will have the precise and exact situations we need to heal our souls.

Upon my return from India three years ago, I experienced 10 days of amoebic dysentery and 4 weeks of a serious, painful knee infection which had me in bed for over 2 weeks and on crutches for another 2 weeks beyond that, affecting all my systems because of the bacteria.

I had been on a spiritual journey to an ashram while in India. You can imagine my outrage, anger and ranting about having such a thing happen to me when I had “put out” so much to make that trip! What had I done “to deserve that reaction” in my life? I was not at this level of outrage on the first day of the dysentery nor even during the first week of the infection but as it wore on and on, I wore out, more and more. I felt exhaustion, weakness, pain, pain, pain and then anger, fear, rage, blame and finally release. Ah, the sweet energy of surrender!

I finally saw that the entire experience was for me to GET THE SPIRITUAL MESSAGES of the trip and to integrate that knowing into every aspect of my being, including deep and serious illness. I am not a super “swifty” in this type of learning! However, with enough pain and discomfort, I did have to stop railing, begin meditating and praying, and eventually, let go.

I was supported in this odyssey by a book I had gotten in India written about a spiritual mystic, entitled Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness* by Satprem. During the endless days of my debilitating imbalance, I read this book. My strong emotions were raging around and then I got to chapter 14. Here was something that struck to the very core of my being:

We cannot heal unless we heal all the way down and we cannot go all the way down unless we go all the way up. The deeper we want to descend, the more powerful the light we need, otherwise we are eaten alive. … Ultimately, progress is not so much a matter of ascending as of clearing all that obstructs — when we are clear, everything is THERE. …..When the seeker has had a first decisive opening above, when he has seen the Light, he almost simultaneously feels a battering below, as if something in him were aching. …And he will have learned his first lesson: we cannot take one step above without taking one step below… As soon as we have touched a certain intensity of consciousness or light, it automatically exerts a pressure on the rest of our nature and brings out the corresponding obscurities or resistances. *Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris, 1996-2003, pgs 235-239.

This extended pain finally made sense. My confinement and pain was not a punishment, not a “bad thing”, not cooked up for me to suffer. It was a necessary experience if I was going to really escape all the emotions I had of blaming and raging against the Universe when my body was deeply hurting. Having spent 18 years earlier in my life with debilitating back pain, I was deeply familiar with pain. However this time, I could see that my body was speaking to me LOUDLY about letting go all blame, anger, outrage and pain.

Resist not evil came hurling into my mind and saturated the pores of my body. The message was to simply allow and this would pass as well. It did pass and I had a talk with the Universe to arrange for other means to get my attention if and when I needed such a clearing in the future! I envision an email from God with a clear message, “clean up your act, you need to move on! ” I would hope I would get such a message now and not need more weeks in bed.

Have you gotten any emails from God recently? I had probably gotten lots of messages which I had not recognized or ignored before my knee episode. The “big guns” were brought in so that I had to attend to the messages. May we each attend to the areas of our lives which are bringing us imbalance. They don’t go away, ever, they just retreat and wait for another occasion to get us to pay attention to what needs clearing and balance in our lives. As we are eternal through and through, we have all the time we need to learn the lessons before us.

Prayer and Clearing Suggestion

Open a Sacred Healing Circle as you envision that for yourself.

Say from your heart : I forgive myself completely and ask forgiveness from all others, where I have tried to hurt or punish myself or another knowingly or unknowingly including the following specific incidents ( _____) through all space and time. I want to walk more fully in the Light, in Balance and In Harmony with myself and with others. Thanks be to All That Is.

Aug 11 2009

Evidence of Hacking

Dear Readers,

You may have gotten a post earlier yesterday seemingly, from my website. My website was hacked yesterday before we caught it. All the information has now been secured at a higher level than before. The post itself goes to my list of email addresses and RSS feeds which are saved in another secure location which the hacker can’t access. This means that the hacker does not have your email address. The hacker did however, write a bogus post so that is what you may have received last night saying “Hello World”. I suppose it could have been a lot worse! A stronger security protocol has been established so we hope this will not occur again. We are in communication with the host of this publishing service to work with them in insuring further security for the future.

If you have received the bogus post as an email, I suggest you simply delete it from your inbox.

Ah, the joys and challenges of the Internet! My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Many blessings of the Highest Light.

Peace and visions of a renewed, smooth blogging process.

Robbins Hopkins

Jul 31 2009

Say Yes to the Universe

What happens when an opportunity comes along which we have not consciously called to ourselves, and it keeps insistently inserting itself into our lives? This has been my experience of being the executor for my mother’s estate. It is probably a good thing I did not know all that was involved because I would have probably gone running in the opposite direction. Well, I did run in the beginning!

One thinks of these roles as a few months duration and then closure. This role for me has been forming and reforming itself for over 3 years.

Now as I am seeing a possible end to this, I realize that I have been given numerous opportunities through this process to say “YES” to the Universe or “NO”. My major learning is that if I can get into a place to wholeheartedly say “Yes” to the Universe, my life flows more smoothly. If I don’t get into that place, I feel drained, worried, frustrated and disturbed.

When it was clear that my mother was finally ready to move to a retirement center, I kept ignoring what all this would mean to me. We found a great retirement facility, lovely apartment, worked out the financing, discussed the move. We planned out the furniture she would be taking with little cut-out scaled furniture representations for each room courtesy of my husband. I would be very present with her at her home, then return to my home and stop thinking about it, completely. I just simply did not think about any of the real consequences of this for me. That worked okay for a while to lull me into thinking, “this will chug along just fine”.

Then I began to get phone calls 3-4 months before the move, such as, “Robbins, I just don’t think I am really ready to move quite yet. You know there is only so much time and I’d like to spend it here where I am. ” Or another call, “Robbins, I don’t think this new place is going to really suit me. Perhaps we should wait. ” These calls were coming after we had paid a hefty deposit and already set the move date.

It slowly dawned on me that my 86 year old mother could not cope with the move, at all, really. She might be able to work with me on what to take but the idea of really clearing out her home of 41 years, was simply shutting her down. At my home, I went ballistic, right into agitated anger, then “I can’t cope” mode, I am ” incompetent” mode, why me?, defeated resignation and on alternate Saturdays, begrudging acquiescence. In other words, I was in a state of resounding “NO”!

I really did not want to go to Richmond (2.5 hours from me) week after week to make this move happen. I had a healing practice in full swing, for goodness sake. I had terrible “clearing out” skills myself. Why me? Why me?

Thus began my daily training and education about saying “YES” or “NO” to the Universe. All the agitation with the situation and with myself simply made me feel worse. I had not expected to begin my role as executor while my mother was still alive and fully competent. I felt surprised and really unprepared. Therefore I tried to control everything I could. Grasping for control is completely different from saying “YES” to the Universe.

Grasping for control looked like my trying to get clarity and a firm decision from my mother about what she would take to her new apartment, in one afternoon. We both ending up frustrated. Another image comes to mind of my driving on I- 95 South and being detoured by a three lane accident. Traffic was at a standstill for 1.5 hours before it moved. My reaction was to fume. The more I fumed the worse the situation got. I eventually realized I was driving in the wrong direction on a secondary road before I got a hold of the anger. These are just some of the none too pretty exchanges which occurred in my “NO” period.

I did finally get that I was making myself and most everyone else miserable AND that I had a choice in the matter. I began to call for the clearing of my anger, my fear of failure, my fear of not being competent to help my mother, fear of screwing up the legal process, fear about resenting the time I needed to spend in Richmond and a few dozen other fears as well. As each one of these fears was named and released over a few weeks, our time together got easier and easier. Surprise, surprise!

I went for 2- 3 days a week regularly and we began by setting up systems for addressing the “stuff”. I remember being quite thrilled at about 6 weeks into this process, when my mother called and said that she had actually gone through a desk by herself and cleared it out as well as a chest of drawers. She was very pleased with herself. This was the first time ever, in all the years I had known her that I remembered her doing this of her own volition. So, confidence was growing for both of us. As I was increasingly going with the flow, saying “YES” to the Universe, amazing things were happening.

We actually laughed a great deal as we were plowing through boxes from our lives in Holland, which had not been opened in 41 years. We spent one afternoon remembering all the clothes my mother had made for me through the years. This was aided by still having ever single one of the patterns in the basement and many actual material scraps of outfits themselves to aid our memories! I began to program my IPod for the trip on I-95 South and by playing my own music, the trip seemed shorter and shorter. We went out to dinner just the two of us which had hardly ever happened as we were always with other family members. Such truly precious times, all from saying “YES” to the Universe. I came to realize that this was a supreme blessing for me on every level, one I had not called for myself but one which the Universe had presented all on its own for me.

Try saying “YES” to your Universe in your life.

There is likely to be a delicious blessing past the anger, frustration, need to control, fear of failure and fear of having to do something you don’t like doing. My husband laughed with me as I began to come home each week and delve into our own piles of stuff, clearing, sorting and giving away. I became determined to de-clutter and clear out so as to never have to face a 40 year stint of accumulated possessions of my own. Another opportunity to say “YES” to the Universe. Happy affirming to you.

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