Some Are Buckets and Others Brooms…

What if we never get what we want…?

What if we can’t? What if it isn’t possible? What if wanting isn’t “natural”? What if the purpose of the agony of desire, is to grow beyond it? What if, it could be ended…what would your life look like…without it? What if, when we get what we think we want, there is a mechanism that prevents satisfaction from being stable or enduring?

So many things come to my mind; if we didn’t “want” would there be anything like addiction? If we didn’t desire would there be anything like jealousy? Envy? Heartache? Disappointment? Emotional dependency? Approval seeking? Suffering? Or on the lighter side…if “wanting” were not behind us pushing with all its might, would we need goals? Passion? Purpose? Drive? Or Ambition? ….And what would life look like without them? Is it too scary to even contemplate, or take a sideways peek at?

As the demands of learning something I am not naturally good at has ebbed, and I am not stretched so gawd awful thin, I find a very interesting experience which I could not have anticipated, for all the tea in China – as they say – to have come, from the many months of solitude.

I feel little or no desire, toward anything at all.

You may not have the capacity to experience the sheer wonder of surprise, which that fact engenders in me. Unlike a good many people, I have met over my nearly six decades – who reported they “didn’t know what they wanted”, I have ALWAYS known exactly, precisely, specifically, what I wanted…or at least that is what my conditioned mind told me was true…and I wanted it fervently, and with great anguishing desire.

But now, I notice, that I do what is required of me…and even what is expected of me, with no resistance and no argument. I never look farther ahead than the task precisely before me, and even as I strive to figure out air conditioning equipment, and sit in rooms with over zealous and over competitive people…I merely do whatever is closest at hand.

I don’t “want” anything from my job, not even a paycheck. It is more like I understand that unless and until, I have taken the action that results in a response, that a check will not be deposited into my account, and thus, I take the actions and watch for the results. I have no other involvement in the job, I do it with precision and commitment, mainly because I have an agreement in place to which I am obligated. (My boss describes me as the most “dedicated” of our new group), I assume that is because every time he sees me, I have made significant strides in understanding and organization, but I am in no way emotionally involved.

At Tuesday’s meeting, sitting across from me was one of the youngest and most earnest among us, who was talking to an older gentleman who is not doing well. The older one said he thought his problem was he just couldn’t get his “head right”, and the younger said “man, I know what your talking about… but now, my head is right”.

The older said, “how so?” The younger said, “working for this company, man”. His zeal, fervor, and the gleam in his glassy eyes caused me to chortle, I couldn’t help it…and I swear, I meant no disrespect. In sales team circles, it could be said that he has “drunk the kool aid, man….”

I chortled, not at his expense, but rather at the recognition of the young, (myself included), who are taught to believe that the outer circumstances of life, if manifested just right, if believed in just so, if worked toward with dedication, if cared about deeply, will one day…as sure as the moon follows the sun…produce happiness and ever lasting satisfaction. I chortled at seeing the younger me, in him. And right behind that, I felt sorrow for the utterly inevitable let down, he will sooner or later face.

Anyone over the age of 35, who has the will and the courage to tell themselves the truth, knows that the outer realms cannot assuage the deep yearning we feel for wholeness and completeness. Which is why, so many, are in so much pain, as they round the bend toward middle age.

It’s not, just… that the dream will not come true, or if it does it will not provide the connection we hoped and longed for, it’s that the outer realms are not real in any effective way, at least not to the part of us yearning to return home.

Many years ago, my Teacher had an exercise that he would often do, attempting to explain the difference between the Real and the illusory. He would place a very strong spotlight on a thick chain and hook suspended from the ceiling, which then broadcast a very clear shadow hook and chain upon the wall. Then he would take a metal bucket and attempt to hang it from the shadow hook…and of course, no matter how many times he would stoop and retrieve that metal bucket from rolling at his feet, and return it to it’s position upon the shadow hook, it would not, and could not, be hung upon its projected hook.

Here is the lesson; every time, without exception, that we are looking to our future for some hoped for goal to be realized, some longed for outcome to be ours, we are projecting And just like my teacher’s metal bucket, once we attain or “manifest” our much-desired goal…our bucket will not hold and it will role away from us, lifeless and useless at our feet. The deeply stubborn among us, will turn away from the lesson that The Loving One is trying to teach…and pick a new goal and begin again, ignoring the truth that the weighted metal bucket, cannot and will not, hold to our shadow fantasies. a shadow hook upon the wall…and sadly, the only thing becoming successfully “hooked” is our mind and our sanity.

And in this way…a life ticks by… in the shadow realms, lost to itself, and using the drama of believing, and willing, and visioning, and hoping, and praying, and convincing others, that the grass is greener somewhere over there, and that all that must be done is traveling just a bit farther, just a little bit longer, just a little bit due North.

Here embedded in this believing, is the absurdity that made me chortle when the younger man held to the notion that he had found the one true outer place, where his mind could finally rest…

All the days of our lives we are like Dorothy in OZ, with our newly pinned curls, gingham dress, and sparkly red shoes…we click them together at the heel and wish and hope and pray for a return home, to Kansas.

Discovering that there is no Wizard, just an old man behind the curtain pulling levers and puffing smoke, is only the barest beginning of the long road home. It is equally necessary to give up the hope that Kansas, the familiar and understandable, holds the key either. It is necessary for full maturation to bloom, for us to pull our expectations all the way back inside, to the point at which we can win for ourselves the recognition that there never has been anything “outside” for us to attain at all.

There is only and ever, the capacity to open ourselves afresh to the current moment, to become willing to be vulnerable to the dying that is required at every moment and in every breath, to honor the sheer implausibility of our existence, and to rest in perfected trust.

You cannot win. Not now, not ever… There is no such thing…

If you can fully embrace that idea, it will release you from the bonds of the conditioned mind and set you free. Free to trust Life, free to feel the truth, free to see the simplicity, free to cherish the moment, free to truly live…and finally, to leave the shadow hook in the shadow realms. Once that is accomplished, then the metal bucket becomes a useful tool for carrying water, or building castles in the sand, or holding colorful marbles to play with, or bringing seeds to singing birds, or holding nails to frame an abode… or just a simple vessel…waiting, empty, and potentially useful, content in its “bucketness” and striving for nothing more than what it is, for reasons unknown and unknowable.

We are not the Author, we are merely the players, some are buckets and others brooms, some cups and others saucers, some low and some high, and how could any of that matter? … Even in the slightest…

Now, as my life matures and deepens, I see the necessity of examining my bucket in close and loving watchfulness, the dull gray, the rolled wire handle, the utilitarian value, the commonness, the usefulness, the emptiness, the lack of glory…and I am moved beyond words…in gratitude and thankfulness, in acceptance and recognition, in harmony and utility, in value and worth, and I say quietly to myself…”it is good…”

And more…it is enough…

Adayre R. Miller

4/23/11

Photo courtesy of Mattwarburg and flickr photo sharing to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link… www.flickr.com/photos/mattandmaggie/2403129235/

A Light Left Burning in the Window of Their Souls, By Which I Might Journey...

...Or...

A Journey of Such Great Distance, I Bow My Head, So As Not To Glimpse How Far It Is, I Have Yet To Travel…

Yesterday at work I was obliged to give the “role play” of the company story that they require us to deliver, with the fervor of religious commitment.

I did not want to do it, despite the fact that my dream was once to be a public speaker, I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in front of this particular competitive crowd and awaiting the “constructive criticism” that follows these weekly events.

But, of course, wanting or not wanting to do a thing, is not criteria that figures largely in the day-to-day activities of adults…and thus, I prepared what I knew was required, and set my mind to accomplishing their goals.

A couple of really interesting things occurred, and allowed me to take the experience into the Spiritual realm where my only true interest lies.

No doubt, because I have so many years of experience with public speaking and because I have spent an even larger number of years training my mind to go inward rather that out, (even though I am not nearly as good at it as I would wish to be at this stage in my life, and at this age) still, it provides me with a certain level of equanimity not normally exhibited in that room and in those “role plays”, except by the people who have been doing it for years and are the successful crowd, who we met in an earlier essay, who sit on the North side of the room.

After I had concluded my rendition of the company story and completed my assigned task…the “constructive criticism” portion of the days events was underway.

On the East, West, and South sides of the room…almost to a person…surprise was the unifying expression. “I can’t believe how comfortable you are doing this, for the very first time”, or “Wow, you seem so relaxed and at ease”, or this from the curmudgeon who doesn’t want to talk to any of us newbie’s, because “we won’t be around long enough to bother with”…”I don’t know your name, (no surprise there), but you won’t be going anywhere”!!??!! High praise indeed, from a man who won’t speak to you, until you’ve been aboard for three months or more.

Ahhhh, but then the North side weighed in…the list of crimes they discovered were so long, detailed, and persistent that eventually my boss waded in and began defending me, as I sat silently as instructed to do, and awaited the finish of the “We’re-Only-Trying-To-Help-You-Grow-Rag-Time-Blues”.

As I sat through the four points of the compass and received my baptism in the company culture, my mind did as I committedly instruct it to do, and kept it’s attention on my reactions rather than on their contributions.

Over the years that I have grown and matured in my spiritual practice, I have developed a very strong habit of blending into the wallpaper, (unless I am having a lot of fun and then I get rowdy and ribald as in the old days, when I was young and not very bright), and so I was not overly surprised at their surprise. Having kept such a low profile, I was an unknown cipher to all of them and therefore it was not unexpected, that I provided a type of shock.

For some reason my boss chose to take comments starting in the East and West, then allowed the South to chime in and finally the North, as the surprised praise turned into disgruntled blame, I watched my mind want to reach for the former and pull away from the latter.

But I did neither…

I cannot begin to tell you how much that means to me.

In the early years of being my Teacher’s committed student, he would often formulate lessons around what he called the “Twin Evils of Praise and Blame”, he taught without pulling any punches - as he was so masterful at, about the ways and means by which Praise and Blame can enslave a mind and prevent the, oh-so-necessary, growth of the Soul and Spirit.

In our culture of the blind leading the blind, there is almost nowhere to which you can turn to discover the evils of praise and blame, and the necessity of maturing into the capacity to accept neither of these dark energies into your self.

We abide in the notion that praise is a thing that heals, rather than wounds, and we, in all probability, would deeply resent someone trying to tell us that it can so easily and deeply damage the very ones we are attempting to serve.

When you praise another, if they are not in their “right” mind…which is to say, if they are living a life bound to the external as their source for well being, then praise can and will, enslave them to the source of external praise which brings them some temporary and fleeting relief, from the burdens of the “self”. They can so easily become as attenuated to the giver of praise, as does a heroin addict to their dealer, and in the doing of so, will have introduced a dangerous pathogen into their mental and emotional systems.

Blame on the other hand is the projected emotional disturbance of another’s mind upon some external source or person, to which they attribute their suffering, and in that way, is just as erroneous as is praise.

The only thing that happens in the outer is Events. Events are entirely neutral and without the potential for good or ill…in the Inner is where Experience lies, and in that, we can train ourselves to have absolute control over our lives and the levels of joy or suffering to which we are subject.

Since I have returned to the workings of the world, the deep realization of these truths - which I have enjoyed for some months now - has been somewhat wobbly, I have often felt myself under pressure which I incorrectly assigned as coming from outside myself, until the Evils of Praise and Blame made their way around that room on Tuesday morning.

As I watched the surprised glad handing slowly metaphorisis into blaming criticism, and held my attention firmly upon my internal responses, my balance was restored.

I remembered to remember… that my only role in this great drama of Life, is the role of Witness, that my contribution to my fellow human beings will not be found in what I do in the world, but rather, the tally that will be taken upon my death, will be of how much, how pure, how often, and how sacred was my capacity to bear witness to the workings of mind, as it sought to rob me, and therefore the planet, of poise and steadfastness.

When you, and I, and those that will come after us….can stand in the quiet center of our still minds, knowing – truly knowing, that nothing in the outer can affect us in any way that we do not allow it to, then we will have won for ourselves and our humble home, the blessings of the Invisible Ones.

You can touch people with praise so deeply, that they lose themselves entirely…

I cannot recall even a single instance in which my Teacher praised me, and yet, his unconditional Agape Love, fell like soft rain upon my upturned face. His gentle willingness to sit through my many and varied attempts to force him, through attempts at manipulating him, into praising me were met with a benign, beneficial, beneficent, and blessed refusal to do so.

He never waivered, nor wearied, in his willingness to allow me to see my false self in the clear and transparent mirror of his soul, until finely - one day, I could see my own transparency coming into view as well.

And so, I sat… still and quiet inside myself, as I was Praised and Blamed in fairly equal measure, neither reaching for, nor pulling away, from the external circumstances on display before me. Do not imagine that I am far enough down the road to no longer feel the pull, as my Teacher so clearly is, I felt it…I just didn’t journey with it.

Later in the day, a coworker came to me and described Rick as being an “asshole” for his “unjust and unkind” comments…and allowed as how I should not take it personally, that I had “done the best one she had ever seen”, including the North side of the room, superstars. I accepted her commentary without providing the feedback, that I was not taking her praising comments any more “personally” than I was Rick’s….and herein lies the victory…

When we can rise above the pull of praise and the fear of blame, is the very first moment in our lives, in which we might have some use to the Invisible Ones. Until then we are merely puppets manipulated by others for their need or gain, strung along like hungry baby birds, needing and requiring the energies of others to sustain us… or worse, demanding like small children, that they “take it back” if they throw us a bone instead of a meal. But either way - we are indeed -merely manipulated or manipulating children, reliant upon the outer to conform to our wishes, for our shadow strengths. Caught in a web as surely as a fly in a spider’s embrace, doomed to continuing looking beyond ourselves into the world of the mirage for our salvation, succor, and survival…a view that dooms us to the endless repetitions of the lost and lonely.

To mature into full Beingness requires that we lose this willingness to manipulate and to be manipulated, it requires of us that we rise up high enough to see the doom to which we are subjecting one another when we rely upon Praise, or when we accept Blame. Does that mean that we are not fully responsible for any and every wrong doing of moral and ethical character? …Of course not…but those are matters of self responsibility, rather than the projections of a mind that can no longer bear its own presence, and is therefore casting about in the external, looking for someone upon whom to project its weaknesses and flaws in understanding.

It takes a good deal of maturity to see this view of Praise and Blame, it took me a good many years to even get a peek at it…but now, as my emotional structure becomes increasingly stable, and my will increasingly turned to the realms of the inner, I can see, for myself, the ways and means by which Praise robs people of self-reliance. And self-reliance stands practically alone, at the very top of the mountain of good that the Creator yearns for us to acquire for ourselves. To become a self-reliant individual serves every-other-living-thing upon this blue globe of ours. A self reliant individual is a source of strength, a meter of well being, a lighting rod for the attention of the Invisible Ones, an opening through which grace can travel to us, a harbinger of what we could be, and might be, and a song each of our Souls longs to sing…

I move toward it with my head bowed so as not to see the great distance that must be spanned, but even knowing how far I must travel, I recognize that the Great Ones need only know that I am traveling their direction to support and encourage me, and to leave a light burning in the window of their souls, by which, I can find my way through the darkness of the “self”, into the pure and radiant light of the Impersonal One.

Adayre R. Miller

4/20/11

if you have enjoyed the photos that accompany this essay, please visit Ben at either of these links © Ben Heine 2011 – you’ll be glad you did…….www.benheine.com
BLOG: benjaminheine.blogspot.com

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…The Sun Just Had Better Things to Do That Day…

I thought perhaps you might have some interest in a follow up report on Caleb, my young leaf picker upper…

On the day, last Monday, as I waited for him to arrive, (he was 17 minutes late – I know this having just checked the time), and I had already begun the odious task of doing for myself what I had contracted with him to do for me, when he almost arrived. I just happened to be standing in the front “yard” of my home, with leaves blown out into the cul de sac, like a semi circle of debris swept outward by the hand of the wind god, when around the corner he came on his trusty bicycle. He got far enough to see the leaves and old, aching-back me, and turned around in a large spin and headed off in the direction he had come.

As he moved away into the low sun, of the soon to be fading light, I felt a sum of melancholy for him…and even, a little, for me…

I had truly thought Caleb would prove to be a young boy, who was maturing into the role of manhood, and the demands of keeping your word.

A demand my father was never really capable of keeping, at least with me…

I loved my Father, and never really understood why he did not exercise some measure of control over the fits of rage that my Mother was so prone to, after all - he was a cop, sworn to “serve and protect”… but even though I loved and valued him, the single most memorable aspect of his character was how entirely you could not trust his word about anything at all. I often wondered how a man could be so untrustworthy, and yet successfully rise in the ranks of a law enforcement department, with many men under his command and at his disposal.

I suppose it had a great deal to do with his relationship with my mother, and that maybe he was a different man at work than he was at home. I remember quite distinctly at nine years of age, turning off – like you might turn the spigot of a water faucet off – the con-siderable and very painful, disappointment I felt every time he promised me something that turned out not to be fulfilled, when the piper was done playing.

When I met my Teacher and began this now 28 year old relationship, he was the first person I had ever encountered who not only could be totally trusted, but who knew how trust was produced and how I could learn to be that way myself.

He talked at length about how the “Universe works by agreement”, he spoke in metaphor, (although I could easily see it as being somehow actually true), that the “sun agrees to shine” and that the “stars agree to orbit” and that the Creator agreed to breathe life into us. And, further, that we owe that creative system our allegiance and loyalty, by learning to abide by our agreements, even down to the smallest detail.

It was, and remains, a study in meditation for me. To this day I watch every agreement that I utter…and in point-of-fact, turned down an opportunity to trade our companys Monday “day off” sales coverage – and with it the potential to earn a commission – which I sorely need, because I had no way of contacting Caleb to renegotiate our agreement, and would have had to simply ignore him, as he sadly chose to do to me….

I do not take his choice personally, but I know the road it has potentially set his path upon, and I am sad for him that something he saw, whatever it might have been, caused him to go back on his word and begin, or possibly add to, a process that will have a calamitous harvest later in life.

There are three parts to “agreements” and becoming a trustworthy human being. First, you must actually know…or pay attention, to the promises you are making. (It might sound crazy that some people wouldn’t know they have promised something, but I have dealt with a good many folk who are so absent from their lives, in terms of their attention, that they do not even know they have offered a promise.) Secondly, you must of course follow through, and following through means showing up at 5, if that had been your agreement and not at 5:17. And third, be willing to truly, if the need arises, renegotiate your agreements, giving the person with whom you have made an agreement, the real opportunity to say “no” to your desire for an alteration…if they so choose, and thus binding you back to your original word.

An agreement then, is a “completed” circle, in which a promise has been offered, fulfilled, counted on, and counted - as in tallied - and will be remembered in the long journey that faces us in this life and the life to come. In this way, a human doing begins the long journey toward becoming a Human Being.

I suppose it was because my thirst for trustworthiness was so great, and because the welcome rain of my Teacher’s total trustworthiness cooled my burning skin, like the touch of a loved one after a long absence, that his lessons regarding “agreements” and “completion” are as alive in my heart today as they were 28 years ago.

My Teacher taught the magnitude of Spiritual Completion in this way…

Say you are on a plane that is heading from Boston to San Francisco, and it fails to “complete” its intended route by crashing into the Rocky Mountains, due to engine failure, killing all aboard. Then let us say that Bob promises to meet Bill for lunch this next Tuesday and fails to arrive, or is even just late - without calling Bob to renegotiate - and thereby does not “complete” his agreement.

The spiritual concept regarding completion is that this failure to complete, of the plane heading west - which took physical lives with it, is not nearly as tragic as when Bob makes plans with Bill, who also fails to complete, by breaking his word. (This presupposes that you can agree with my Teacher and me, that what happens to your body is not nearly as important as what can happen to your, soul and spirit.)

Bill is merely inconvenienced, irritated, and maybe begins to back away from his relationship with Bob. But Bob is spiritually sickened by his failure to complete, and that failure will reverberate for ages going forward in Bill’s life, future, and destiny.

Suppose for a moment that the Universe does work by “agreement” as my Teacher proposed…and one day the Sun just had better things to do, and failed to show up and clock in one Tuesday morning, or the Moon decided it had better things to accomplish than the gravitational pull it exerts on the oceans tide and was an hour or two late next full moon…our world, and everything we know, would be utterly destroyed by this “failure to complete.”

Our every breath is drawn inside a tightly woven tapestry of reliance upon another. There is nothing you can possibly do, or should even attempt to do, to escape this interwoven intra-dependency. The only freedom that is possible in a human life is derived directly, and proportionately, from the obedience you demonstrate in the care you give to “completing” your promises and keeping a watchful eye upon the quality of your character, and in so doing, honor the many layers of agreements that make our life on this planet possible.

I am always mildly taken aback when the new age community talks so much and so frequently about, “aligning themselves with the flow of the Universe”, and in the doing of same, expecting great rewards, manifestations, and recognitions…while also, often, being completely out of integrity with respect to their agreements, and the growing number of non-completions that are the result of broken agreements.

Fame, fortune, accomplishments, and financial rewards…cannot and surely will not, move with us, from this life into the next. But who could possible argue with the notion that the careful building up and clarifying of your moral, ethical, and spiritual character, will set the stage for whatever may come in this Life and, in the Life beyond this one.

Standing, rake in hand, facing the setting sun, and watching as Caleb unconsciously chose to create upon his tally sheet a “non-completion”, I felt for him…a sadness, and a longing.

I have, many times throughout my life, been accused of being “too intense”, or “too much”, or “too serious”, and I do not deny any of these allegations, they are perhaps all quite true…but I can tell you that I have only one driving aspiration… to slowly, over-what-no- doubt will take eons, grow into the shoes of the first person I have ever experienced as truly trustworthy, (at least in the flesh, I have read about a good many dead ones).

I have seen what true character looks like, and it is beautiful beyond compare.

I am not popular, or sought after, or often even well liked…I do not have external goals and I am often an outsider, in a world that favors flash over substance. I have no idea if anyone will remember me when I am gone, or if it even matters…but I can tell you truly… that every time I break my word, every time I hear myself lie to save face or cover some flaw in my character, I feel a sting in my heart that rings a bell in my mind, and allows me to know that I am serving myself and the gift I have been given poorly, by not facing squarely the obligations that came with the first breath I ever took, and the right to the aspiration of becoming a human Being.

I long to one day lay claim to some measure of depth, that is so beautifully described in the this poem by William Ernest Hemley England 1846 – 1901:

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

To become the “captain of one’s soul” is an achievement, the worth of which cannot be measured, the depth of which cannot be defined, the value of which is to high to count, the measure of which will shape our destiny, and the acquiring of which will shine back upon all of creation. And only then… will we truly be in “alignment with the Universe.”

4/14/2011

Adayre R. Miller

Photo courtesy of Zen Roxy and flickr photo sharing, to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link…www.flickr.com/photos/nordrum/2114564479/

A Bargain At Forty Times the Price…

I wanted to introduce you to a young man I just met, although our association is so far quite brief - I believe I know a good deal about this young man already, and I also believe that your time would be equally well spent in meeting him.

His name is Caleb.

From what I know so far, it is a fitting name, and one that has it’s origins in the Bible. Caleb was a companion of Moses and Joshua, and his name means “faithful, devoted, whole-hearted”, he was noted in the Bible for having astute powers of observation and fearlessness, in the face of overwhelming odds.

The Caleb I recently met, has the beginnings of the type of character that could well become powerfully astute and fearless. I already know that he is faithful, devoted, and wholehearted.

I first heard about him from a neighbor I see, very occasionally, in the small park at the very end of my subdivision. She too, is a dog walker and on the rare occasion when just right timing allows us to be united in stopping at every bush, tree, rock, and small weed that we pass, in the time honored - sniff, sniff, pee, pee - tradition of dog companions the world round…we have the opportunity for a brief chat.

She told me of a young boy who comes to her house and collects up her dog poop for two dollars and fifty cents a visit and how much she enjoys paying him for this small service. As she described him, I was put in mind of an era gone by, when young men came to your home in kinder, gentler times and used a silent mower to groom your lawn, pushing a spinning and cutting steel edge, as it kicked up green blades and the wonderful, summer breeze-born perfume, of cut grass.

I thought how clever he was, to have come to this time honored tradition of the young providing their neighbors with service - for an age appropriate sum - in a desert enviroment where grass is a rare occurrence, but dogs are plentiful. And I smiled at his ingenuity…

Next I heard of him from my closest neighbor, also in his employ for the picking up of dog leavings, but here there was an added item on his service menu.

I live in a subdivision that should be ashamed of itself, for calling the tiny patch of ground that surrounds our homes a “yard”…for it surely should not be so named. If it were indoors I doubt it would pass code for properly being called a hallway, and yet, my house and my neighbors were the models for the subdivision and were planted with trees that, when mature, became looming monsters in our hallway of a “yard”.

I am a tree hugger of the first order, but as those two trees in my backyard, loomed taller than the two-story house behind me, filling my tiny passageway with debris and lifting my cinder block fence out of it’s moorings, I did the ruthless thing, and had them cut down.

Only then did my home begin to breathe again. I felt the appropriate measure of sorrow over their loss, but truly, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Not so my neighbor, he is living in a rental and his two trees mere inches from his windows, shadow his home to the degree that I cannot imagine any light at all, penetrating their leafy green expanse…and more, they drop leaves like they are running to keep up with a demanding boss, and an overblown production quota.

My neighbor’s trash bin cannot keep up with the bag after bag of leaves he must dispose of on a weekly basis, so while chatting with him and recommending that he utilize the empty real estate in my bin for the removal of his wild over production of dropped leaf matter, he told me of a young boy who, now in his employ, does all the stuffing of leaves into bags he once had to spend his time doing. I realized it had to be the same young entrepreneur I had already heard about from the dog walker….”so, tell me more about him”, I said to my neighbor.

“Well, he’s young - eight or so - he comes by twice per week, and fills up my garden trash bags. He is paying his dad back for a computer game, (or something like that, I can’t quite remember), that has already been purchased for him, under the agreement that he would pay for half of it out of chores and such. He also has a deal with his dad that he won’t go into any of the houses he works for”, (in years gone by, he would have been given lemonade and cookies at the kitchen table, when he was finished with his chores…but, sadly, those days are gone).

I asked my neighbor to have him come to my house the next time he came by, as I would be VERY glad, to have the same done for me.

And in this way, I answered my doorbell to find young Caleb standing on my front porch…

He is indeed somewhere in the seven to nine age range, (I am not good at guessing that), and he has the angelic face that will one day find him voted the “most handsome” boy in school.

He looked up at me from under curly brown hair, framing a perfectly molded face with high cheekbones, good structure, startlingly crystalline clear blue eyes, and a lovely smile framed by a cupid bow’s lip-line.

He will one day turn into a real stunner…

He introduced himself, giving me his Biblically derived name, and inquired if he could help me in some way. At first, as my three tiny dogs bounced around him on the front porch - desperately wanting his attention - he misunderstood and assumed I wanted a refuse picker upper, but we soon sorted it out and found the right service.

“I need you to come by twice per month and load the leaves, (migration from my neighbors leaf-producing-champions), that I have blown into a pile, in the front and back yards, into bags.” “How much do you think that would cost?” I inquired.

He paused….and very thoughtfully…tracked through his pricing policies. “Well”, he said, “I charge 2.50 a visit for dog pooper scooping”, and then he worked through my neighbor needs and his mountain of leaves, “and your neighbor pays me 15.00 a month…but since you don’t have any trees…maybe 4.00 dollars for both yards, per visit?”…he concluded.

I allowed as to how that sounded like the exact right charge and then we further worked through our two schedules, and arrived at our only solution…Monday’s… late afternoon.

Just before he got back on his tiny bicycle, having successfully completed our business transaction, he commented on the reverse glass painting I have hanging on my porch wall, right beside my door. I had painted a woman on a piece of glass, head resting on her hand waiting for the long lost return of her loved one, and then mounted her into an old multi paned window frame, I found at some junk store or other.

“I like the woman in your window”, he said…and it took me a minute to realize he was talking about my art piece. “Thank you”, I said, “I used to be an artist and I have lots and lots of paintings, I would show them to you, but I know you have an agreement with your Dad not to come into any of the homes you work at…”

“Yes, that’s right”, he said, just as he mounted his tiny bicycle, turning back in the saddle and promising once more, to come by on our agreed upon Monday…and then he rode himself off toward home.

You might be wondering why his brief visit impacted me enough to be writing an essay about it… well, here is why…

After fifty-five years of life, I know – truly know – only a thimble full of things. One of them is that keeping your word is the single most important thing you can learn to accomplish. And, it is a thing that is now so rare in our culture that it is practically on the endangered species list.

I cannot tell you the number of times that I am exposed to people who tell me one thing and do another. Just this week a co-worker and I decided to meet to struggle through the mind-numbing volume of information we have had dumped upon us, she told me she would call right after her ten o’clock appointment, and we would pick a place to meet. I finally quit waiting for her call at 3 in the afternoon.

I know some folk, who so routinely do not follow through on what they say they will do, that I no longer believe anything they say at all.

I do not have the capacity to express how much damage I believe that does to a life…and more importantly, to the life that follows the one we will face when death comes to take us.

In the three weeks of training that I just went through, we, the new hires, ate through our bosses replenished candy jar with a speed and commitment that was truly impressive, (it had a good deal to do with anxiety about the complexity of the information – or at least that was true for me). And no one other than me, made good on the many promises to replenish his stash that were proffered him over the three weeks we spent together, (I know this because he commented on it).

Even promises this small, left unfulfilled, can one day develop into a mountain of broken agreements until the pressure breaks the back of a life, and ruins any chance that individual may have, to develop into a person of “character”…and yet, young Caleb is already well on his way to this goal I have cherished all of my adult life.

We live in a world that cannot see the forest for the trees. What could it possibly matter if we find ourselves admired by thousands, on multiple continents…showered in good fortune, with a bank account flowing to excess, and approved of by everyone we meet…if we can’t keep the simplest of promises?

If we cannot be trusted with the smallest of things, then Life will not trust us with the most precious of things…the capacity for Depth of Understanding.

I know that the only thing I possess of any value is my developing capacity for Understanding. I know I have been given this gift, not because I found the right teacher…or even because I dedicated myself to following his teachings…but, mainly and simply, because my word has slowly over time, become true.

My creditors, my boss, my friends, my co-workers, my sister, my customers…all have benefited from my desire to be impeccable with my agreements.

A week ago, I told an anonymous young man on the other end of an 800 number, that I would call him back once I had made my purchasing decision so that he would get credit for the sale. When I was unable to do so, it sat on my mind like a thorn, for days on end.

It is my commitment, that should I give my word to even a total stranger that I strive to follow through with as much will as if they were a beloved, so strong is my continuing desire to be trustworthy.

The traumas of my very difficult childhood, caused trust to become the one ingredient in life, I yearned for above all others. Before I met my Teacher and learned his lessons of impeccability of one’s word, there was nothing I trusted in the whole of the world. Now, because of his lessons, and my will, (I have always striven to give to everyone I meet the one thing I want most in the world…and of course, you must give what you want to get…and now), I have the great good fortune to live inside a mind where trust bubbles up as though it were spring water released from the warm and loamy earth. Trust now soothes, and comforts, and enhances, even the smallest corner of my life. (I would mention here that as much, Agape (unconditional) Love, as I hold for my Teacher these twenty-seven years passed, the amount that I trust him is quite literally boundless, and it is due entirely to the impeccability of his word and character).

Caleb is, in these simple agreements he is making with his neighbors, in the process of discovering if he will become trustworthy…

Based just on my first small glance of him, his seriousness of purpose, the fulfilling of his financial agreement with his Father, the noticing of the things around him, like my window lady, speak to a maturity well beyond his years. His simple, yet quite powerful capacity, to determine his price and confidently communicate it, the willingness to produce a schedule and keep to it, (which my neighbor reports is true of him), all this and my intuitive sense of him…brings me the awareness that we are engaged in a great deal more, than saving my aching back from having to fill, lawn and garden trash bags, with yard debris.

In Numbers 14:24, Caleb is called by God “my servant”, a position of highest honor heretofore used only for Moses. I cannot imagine a god who wants us to destroy those whose faith does not align with ours, or who needs us to build showy cathedrals and make loud pronouncements…but I can, and do, imagine a God who cares deeply about a young boy, becoming a Man of Character. The education that the keeping of his word provides, amidst the dry and crumbling leaves of another of God’s creations, is the real work he is engaged in…the profits of which, will last him a lifetime.

He is building for himself the most precious of things, moral fiber, and I am enhancing for myself the most sought after of things, deeper understanding, and all of this, for four dollars per visit…

A bargain, I would say, at forty times the price….

Adayre R. Miller

4/10/11

photo courtesy of Jean Richard (Strogg) and flickr photo sharing to see more of this artist work please follow this link…www.flickr.com/photos/strogg/41152712/

LIVE As Though You MEAN It…..

I recently received an email from a friend of long standing, who is a woman whose commitment to the spiritual life is as long held and cherished as my own. In that communication she writes the following about an essay I have posted on my blog, it reads….

“For me . . . when one no longer identifies with one's self as a thinking, mental being, or Soul, one's reality of who one is shifts . . . it shifts to the level of Spirit, as in who are we? Spirit, Soul and Body. We are Spirit, having a Soul, or a Mind and a Physical Body. In the current reality shift into the realm of Spirit, (we already made the shift from body to mind) we ARE Spirit . . . I don't see us accessing Spirit, we are Spirit. The access of Spirit is simply becoming conscious of it as the constant flow of unfolding Spirit, or perfection (the idea of perfection requires non-judgment, of course,) as you so beautifully said, thinking expresses itself through adjectives which require judgment.” -Culliver Brookman

And my reply to her began an essay…

The distinctions you have so clearly illuminated are ones I am in complete agreement with...I have never thought of the "soul" as one's mind but now that you have said it to me, it seems so obvious that I am surprised I didn't realize that.

I am not sure which essay you are speaking to exactly, but if I alluded to the notion that we are somehow disconnected from Spirit, then I surely wrote something in which I do not believe. I have begun thinking of myself as a momentary, (tiny life span), expression in the heart or mind of a Being too infinite to understand. A kind of singular cellular and active pulse, of a Source, who for some reason unknown, values my smallest experiences and my tiniest gains. (Which are indeed tiny!!)

As such, I (we), might be likened to a cell in that large and creative heart, and if I Awaken then I beat to a rhythm that heals, unifies, and uplifts...and if I remain unconscious and selfish then my contribution is entirely lost...not just to me, but all those I might encounter...

Just now I am struggling in a way that I have not yet encountered in my life, prior to this point.

My new job places me in the burning center of a cauldron of competition. Competition is something our culture is particularly enchanted with, you need only watch the fans, who are themselves watching the modern day form of gladiators on the field of endeavor, to see how rabidly do we enjoy the processes and experiences that competition affords us.

My Teacher always counseled contribution over competition, and now I am very clear why that was, and is, true. To measure ourselves against another can do nothing but harm, if the other is “better” we are cast down, if the other is “worse” we are falsely lifted up, and more importantly we are set up for a most difficult fall, when the game changes or new players take the field.

The new environment I find myself in is fraught through and through with so much competition, I can barely find myself for the fog that it has thrown me into.

I will give you a few examples…

Once out of the insular training group where all the players were on a level field of abject confusion, and into the primary group where folks of long standing had been doing the same dosey doe with one another for years, the full weight of the experience of being an outsider was placed upon our shoulders.

One among us new folk, went round the room and introduced himself to the old timers and in one case the response he received was…”I don’t want to talk to you, so many people come through here I don’t want to waste my time until you’ve been here for three months or more.”

The Gladiator group, (the ten’s on the competition scale of one to ten), all sit at one table on the north side of the room…and if you accidently choose a seat at that table, it isn’t long before you realize how unwelcome you are, and move. Those folks have not spoken to me and made clear that they do not wish to either, and because I am no longer an individual who seeks the approval of others, I have therefore followed their lead and allowed them to be insulated against my intrusion into their world of “better than”.

That said, in a seizure of corporate political stupidity when required by my boss to publicly comment upon a “role play” that one of them gave - demonstrating her considerable competencies -AND being required by him to provide “constructive criticism”, (something I really dislike doing), I did as he bid… and you would have thought I shot the scared cow, in terms of the response it has engendered.

I have never been good at pretense, and I am even less good at with years of solitude under my belt.

The measure of covert ill will that competition is so good at generating, coupled with the land mines that are available to be stepped on at every turn, and the huge neediness of egos whose well being relies almost entirely upon their “winning” for the sustenance they demand, has literally made me emotionally ill.

I find myself in a swirl of home made, hand made, self-induced, self defined, loss of equilibrium….to such a degree that I feel somewhat seasick.

Because of my childhood, my observational skills are exquisitely finely tuned, and of course they are back in the saddle once more and allowing me to perceive, “through a glass darkly” which is to say to misperceive at every turn and with agonizing clarity, the fleeting face of disapproval as it passes over the “winners” in the room… and the boss whose income is tied directly and forcefully to keeping those winners doing the job they do, that disapproving gaze comes to rest in my direction casting me with a faintly greenish and sickly glow, and highlighting my “political” ineptitude.

I am once more an outsider…a role I am intimately familiar with, but one that I no longer challenge or attempt to “fix”.

I have so far, fought off the considerable urge to placate, restate, engage, mollify, or appease the opinions of others, and cast about for their approval and inclusion. (An historical character defect that I have spent a good deal of time and energy shedding).

The drain on my sense of well-being has been enormous, but even as I have seemingly misplaced my so very precious and high priced understanding, a part of me has the ballast and poise to see the larger picture, or the longer view.

I am not in this job just to pay my bills, nor am I in this body just to move from here to there, nor in this city just because I need to be somewhere after all…no, I am here - right here - by design, by intention, by the will that blew breath into my being and caused me to take up this task that I find before me.

As you know, if you have read any of my essays, I am not a “goal setter”…I frankly think the notion of goal setting is a quaint form of the expression of the desire to believe that we can control, something…anything…anywhere…anytime…at all….

I have become a pragmatist or perhaps, more accurately a realist, I don’t believe we can control anything at all and I am equally clear that hope holds no help in our lives, either - and in point of fact - is a potentially emotionally and spiritually dangerous activity in which to engage.

Please stay with me while I attempt to explain such outrageous, and against the popular grain statements as “goal setting doesn’t serve you”, and “hope can be a danger to you”.

Goal setting is one of the most favored pastimes of our conditioned or egoic mind. It is the voice in the head who promises the illusion of permanent happiness, or so much worse, permanent safety… if we can only get ourselves over “there”…wherever “there” may be. Goal setting is the active arm of desire, which you may remember the Buddha has so rightly sighted, as the very source of every moment’s worth of suffering, you and I, have ever experienced. Desire, masking itself as goal setting floods your conditioned mind with the promise of a better tomorrow, a field of greener grass, a mirage of an oasis…that once you arrive “there”, turns out to fill your mouth, belly, and throat with the dry dust of…”this can’t be all there is, can it?”

Whether your “there” consists of a different body, a higher income, a life of passionately pursuing your “dream”, (a most common synonym for “there”), a romantic relationship, or perhaps worst of all fame…all of these and any other you can think of, when finally obtained, will return to the dust out of which the mirage was originally created and from which it wafted into your view. This truth cannot be avoided, by anyone, even the most talented or capable among us…for the simple reason that the image you have in your mind, comes to you out of the shadow realms and as such, will not have a functioning relationship of any kind, to what you will find when you get “there”… which is… that your circumstances can have nothing to do with your happiness, safety, peace, or well being.

True happiness, safety, peace, and well being are sourced from deep inside us, from our connection to the divine that has breathed everything into existence and from which, we have been loaned the breath that animates us, there is nothing in the outer that can be substituted for that depth relationship, try though we might, all the long days of our lives.

So that brings me to the other sacred cow in our culture…Hope.

I was reminded by someone recently that Hope was in Pandora’s box…way at the bottom, beneath all the other evils when she opened the box and let evil, “which cannot be undone”, out into the world. Wikipedia goes on to tell me “all the evils were released upon the world, save one…”hope”.

The Ageless Wisdom Teachings are attempting, with Pandora’s parable, to alert us to the fact that the world cannot afford to have the evil of “hope” released upon it. Hope as practiced by every conditioned mind that has ever drawn breath, is a custom of enticing the mind away from the current moment… the only moment in which Life actually exists… and deep into the forever-unreachable future.

Hope is the Frankensteinian bride of goal setting, and together they can quite literally rob us of our entire lives, should we allow them to…

It is my experience that as Silence settles more deeply into a life… that the mirage of hoping gives way, finally, to the clearer, deeper, and measurably more real experience of Faith. I can “hope” until the breath leaves my body, for some outside source to rescue me from myself, or I can move with commitment, fierce dedication, total availability, absolute will, and perfected understanding into the mission to save myself from my own conditioned minds illusions…until I am finally and safely, on the “other side” of my self and have made contact with the Impersonal self that is the true face of the real me, and to whom Faith is the recognition that I cannot but finally and ultimately prevail. No matter how much time it will take, one day, someday, we will turn our attention inward and notice that all we want lays waiting at our feet for the mere bending over, and picking up. That the fountain of peace, for my life and yours, rests in the deep center of us all.

Here in the center, there is no need for hope…. as Faith has illuminated the truth that every tiny twist in the road we have taken has been for our highest good.

You see the conditioned mind keeps you seeking the things and experiences that serve the body (physical – emotional – mental bodies), the things that provide pleasure, or the illusionary promise of salvation from pain, these things do not serve you…the deep you. In fact they may prevent you from ever discovering your real self, and that - my friends, is the only tragedy that has ever befallen the son of man.

This job, this selling of mechanical equipment, is not in my life to pay my bills, (although it likely will), and it certainly is not in my life because it aligns itself with my “dreams” – something I am working quite diligently to shed myself of – but rather, because it is testing my resolve and pushing the envelope of my understanding. It is demanding me to put into active form, the deep experiences that have been bestowed upon me by a loving creator, through almost three years of spiritual retreat and near total silence.

My long time friend and her recent email, have brought me back to these pages… and through that, back to the ballast that had begun to inform my every waking moment whilst I was still cocooned in the loving embrace of outer and inner silence.

I had lost touch with the value this writing provides me…as I struggled so to learn something well outside my natural talents, and to do so with folk who are so very deeply entrenched in the poisons of competition. Here too, you can see the hand of a loving and infinitely patient provider… a friendship dormant for more than a decade, a slender electronic hello, and some time spent here at my keyboard, and once more my sanity is restored…

There is nothing in the outer that can rescue me…only my total reliance on the power of acceptance and through it the wonder of Faith…can and will be, my salvation.

I extend to you an invitation to give up seeking your goals, to trade in the evil of future oriented hope, in favor of the deep quenching of your thirst, the waters of which are available only in the present moment…and thereby come to…LIVE as if you MEAN it…

4/7/11

Adayre R. Miller

photo courtesy of Ed Schipul, you may see more of this artist’s work by following this link to Flickr photo sharing… www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/2371505523/