GOLDEN AND DARK SHADOW REFLECTED IN OTHERS, WAIT WITHIN US, FOR OUR FREEDOM

All of us at some time in our lives, are confronted with parts of ourselves that get in our way, that limit us, and keep us from becoming more than we are.  It might be a manipulative behavior, or avoidance.  It might be an unexplainable attraction to bad boys, or even attraction to a “golden child” or person who seems to move in complete grace.  This is our shadow in action, and our ego instinctively looks away because shadow holds the limited portions of our personality and habits developed in the past that no longer serve, and are not part of conscious awareness. These are the parts of ourselves that we have learned to repress. 

Our dark shadow holds repressed negativity while our golden shadow holds our repressed potentiality.  These two aspects of shadow are the Guardians of the Threshold to spirit, to non duality, and to living in grace.  They prevent us from being all we can be, from reaching our highest potential, and from living our lives in the experience of heavenly, loving spirit. 

When we come to the same place with our science and our mysticism, the importance of understanding our viewpoint and our place in it cannot be denied.  That threshold of fear, where our own shadow keeps us from the non dual experience, is where I find most verbose folks whose need to rail against the world's ills might be threatened by taking responsibility for the world in a new morality.  This anxiety can be difficult to let go of, like the fear that guards the threshold.  Letting go of the need to find the world wrong so that we can feel right is releasing our own golden shadow.  What we cannot know without crossing the threshold, is that releasing the shadow is also stepping into it, and opening the door to infinite possibility for ourselves and our experience.  We choose possibility with our viewpoint, creating our experience, and when we cross the threshold and accept the will of God as infinite possibility, we accept all that is as our own.  The paradox can be unimaginable, especially to those who hold tight to fear, good and evil and its sweet fruit, me and not me.  The promise of the Kingdom and infinite possibility is just beyond, and so much more...

Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan

To Resist, or Resist Not - Does It Make a Difference?

RESISTANCE RECONCILES OPPOSITION AND GUIDES US FROM DUALITY TO NON DUALITY

Resistance itself is a tool for learning.  At the age of two, we learn the wonderful power of NO, and continue to use it until sometime as an adult we learn, that there isn’t no, there is only yes.  Because even when we use the word no, we are consenting to something – either feeding our ego by insisting that things go our way, or allowing our experience to flow with grace by offering “no” to others as a learning tool.  When we know the difference, we know that there is no other.  And no becomes yes.

Resistance itself is a measure of opposition, and there are enormous lessons to be learned and skills to acquire in reconciling opposites.  Indeed, many of the sacred teachings see the soul as having a function of reconciling opposites in fulfilling karma, repenting sin or mastering kundalini. On the conscious level, problem solving, conflict resolution and negotiating are all basic skills that are learned from childhood to adulthood.  They define our resilience and efficacy, and require mastery of resistance.  It is in the reconciliation of opposites as, often through paradox, as in the practice of Tao (“The cause and the effects are aspects of the same, one thing.  They are both mysterious and profound.  At their most mysterious and profound point lies the "Gate of the Great Truth.")  The practice of Tao requires that we can finally let go of our need for resistance and move in unity.

If we are living in a state of mind that is peaceful, does not judge, allows each their own view, and can hear and see spirit in all of experience - our direct experience will reflect peace, not violence to us. Each step of the process is formed by who we are in the moment.

Artwork Wassily Kandinsky  Black Violet.  Many thanks.

Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan

Imagination is THE Key

AWAKENED IMAGINATION IS OUR CREATIVE AWARENESS AND ACTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

Our imagination is our biggest asset and tool for creating our lives and daily experience.  If we limit our imagination, we limit our lives.  Although our imaginations are unlimited, there are different stages of imagination, from the more mechanical memory and fantasy, to the more creative awakened imagination.  All play an integral part in our lives, but the awakened imagination really holds the key to our quality of life.  We use it when we are experiencing vivid dreaming or creative dreaming.  It ramps up the quality and functionality of our dreams.  We use it when we are in the witness, seeing ourselves doing, thinking, feeling and living.  We use it when we are praying, unifying the one and the many within us.  We use it when we move our subtle energies through our chakras in meditation.  In other words, when we step out of our mechanical functions and move into our creative functions, we do so by using our awakened imagination.

I reached a point in my life where I understood unity consciousness, meaning that I am connected to everything in life, and everything in my experience is of me. After this, I developed a greater awareness of my role in creating this experience, and what it reflects to me in each moment.  Imagination is the key to this creative process.  As feelings arise that tell me I am limited or separate from everything and everyone, I have learned to habitually evoke my awakened imagination to create feelings like joy or rapture.  These feelings allow me to realize that I am part of the infinite wonders of creation and completely connected.  If I find myself with negative thoughts about another, I can recognize them and then evoke my awakened imagination, to think of something wonderful for myself and another.  Using this tool of imagination to corral thoughts and feelings allows me to create an internal environment according to my highest potential by maintaining a resonance of creative good, thus bringing what is good into my experience.

Exercising my awakened imagination has become a daily routine for me.  I think that the most efficacious times are right before sleep and upon waking.  Before sleep, if I can imagine the qualities and experiences that I desire in my life with awakened imagination, the quality of my sleep and dreaming is dramatically improved.  I engage more in vivid and creative dreaming and feel better rested during the day.  I truly believe that in this way, what I imagine my life to be, will become my experience.

 Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan

Guardians of the Threshold

OUR OWN FEARS GUARD THE THRESHOLD TO SPIRIT AND OUR ENTRY

I love Rudolph Steiner's story about the Guardians of the Threshold, who guard our entry into spiritual awareness, until we understand that one Guardian is the golden part of us who's beauty is too blinding and we must look away (or accept our self worth) and the other Guardian is our dark nature that holds the archetypes of the thief, whore, and all other undesirable natures that we look away from and cannot own up.  Until we do, we cannot cross the threshold.  Once we do, the guardians vanish, because they ARE us. 

I think it is worth noting, that according to the Steiner teaching, once the threshold is crossed, the experience of the seeker changes to one who's experience does not contain direct violence and chaos - because duality is transcended, harmony can rule the day.  It does not mean that duality no longer exists, only that it is no longer the experience of the seeker who has crossed the threshold. 

You cannot cross the threshold into integration until you know that you can illuminate darkness yourself.  The first Guardian contains all of our fears in aspects of good and evil. These fears prohibit our crossing the Threshold until we reconcile all good and evil within and see them interwoven into our whole being.  The unseen then becomes seen. 

The second Guardian, our golden shadow, is a sublime, luminous beauty impossible to describe.  It holds our highest potential, and our low self image and our perceived limits keep us from embracing this Guardian and crossing the Threshold.  To embrace the second Guardian we must realize that our highest possibilities (unseen) within ourselves creates our character and that our world of sense is a seed ground for the higher world.  By embracing the second Guardian, everyone is redeemed and all are connected.  We cannot cross the threshold in separation.

Excerpted from All About Living by Molly Brogan
Artwork by Alejandro Silveira Bruno.  Many thanks.

Color the World With Generosity of Spirit

UNCONDITIONALITY OF LOVE AND FORGIVENESS IS EXTENDED WITH GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT

Have you ever had a day when you felt completely in love with life, when you could see and feel spirit all around you, in everything and everyone?  When you feel like this, you are generous of spirit.

Generosity of spirit can also be accomplished with thought.  One of Neville Goddard's sayings is "Think of something wonderful for yourself and another."  If our thoughts create our reality, then being generous in our thoughts will bring a generosity of spirit into our life that translates into peace and joy.

Giving our loved ones the space and love they need to work out their difficulties without agency or intervention can be generosity of spirit.  Often, if we see someone struggling, we feel compelled to do something for them, fix things, or give our opinion or words of wisdom.  Almost just as often, this makes things worse. 

There are those times when we can be helpful.  Usually if someone needs our help they will ask for it.  It sometimes isn’t easy to stand by and watch someone struggle.  But sometimes – our generosity of spirit is all that is needed for others to feel loved and supported.  Knowing that someone is in our lives that we can ask for help when necessary, who loves us enough to allow us to try and fail and try again – empowers us to continue to try.

If you can look out at everyone, and see them as becoming, remembering their highest potential and, in spite of their apparent mistakes and foibles, as doing the best they can in grace with their state of mind and stage of life - then you truly do have generosity of spirit.

At times, the world can be a big, unfriendly, cold place to live, full of darkness and shadow.  Relating to others with respect and kindness is to be generous of spirit.  Encouraging others around us to shine is a gift that we all can offer each other.  In fact, when we extend this gift to others, we extend it to all of life. When we remember that it is more important to extend love than to be number one or front and center, we express our generosity of spirit.

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan

Age of Ethics

extending us at once internally and externally, technology ushers us into the age of ethics

The transition into the age of ethics has just begun and will take decades to emerge.  It will be, I think, a fascinating transition.  Our notions of trust will, out of necessity, become central and evolve.   The transition from the information age to the age of ethics is a dynamic dialectic.  Trusting ourselves to know that despite our fallibilities and mistakes, we will persevere and grow is essential.

Just as the personal computer ushered us into the age of information, the personal communication device will usher us into the age of ethics.  With communications technology developing at an accelerated rate, there is little happening in the world that can be hidden anymore.  Sure there are areas of the world that are underdeveloped, without technology and operating at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy.  Yet, as this is the age of global experience, they will be carried along.  Could this be part of life’s grand design as well?  Can we trust that it is?

All material copyrighted 2010 All About Living, Molly Brogan 
Artwork by Ron Isom, The Oracle of Gadfly.  Many thanks.

The Exquisite Mystery of Lifelong Friendship

Halfway through my first day of high school, at the tender age of 14, frightened and overwhelmed by my own small feelings, I was ripped away from them when a slender hand slipped a note onto my desk during English class.  I looked up to see a beautiful stranger attached to the hand.  The note said, "I like your laugh."

From that day forward, the presence of Vivian George in my life continues to uplift and inspire me.  Even when she is away, in my heart, she is my confidante, and I speak to her often.  With the spirit of her presence in my life, when we are able to get together, as we have not lived in the same state for almost four decades, it is like we never left each others' side.  We immediately pick up where we left off and each leave the encounter re-energized and inspired. 

There is a mystery here about spiritual intimacy that cannot be denied.  We have allowed it since our paths combined.  Over the years, we cultivate it, appreciate it, marvel at it.  There are times we include it in our life’s work.  She makes an appearance in my first novel, Remember Me as the recipient of the main character's letters, acting as a mirror character.  Her wedding gift to me, a painting, is now included on her website:  viviangeorge.net

Someday, I hope to include myself in her Tuscany Workshop, but unfortunately, not this year.  Here are the details for anyone interested.  Believe me, you will be transformed:

The Inspiration of Art

A Painting Workshop In Tuscany with Vivian George MFA

Dates: May 21 - 31, 2011

Colorado artist Vivian George finds her inspiration in nature. "Nature has all the components that are in painting - rhythm, color and harmony. Individually and together plant forms show energy and light, texture and pattern, repetition and color; and when confined to the flat, square format, their geometry is revealed," she explains. In this workshop, Vivian works with each participant individually to find his or her vision. The colors of the late afternoon sun on the olive grove, the repeating patterns of a hillside vineyard or the symmetry of a narrow drive bordered by native cypress . . . each person's view is different and leads to a unique interpretation.

Artwork by Vivian George.   Many thanks.

Forsaking All Others Brings Us to Unity

WE ARE REALIZED BY BEING THE GOD WITHIN

Most of us feel that there is a source or creator or God or ultimate order to life.  Connecting to this for some of us, is fleeting, takes effort and may even be something we think very little about.  How do YOU connect with the spirit within you?  How often do you connect?  How does this connection effect your life?

Do we have to have a God?  I believe God is.  God is within us all. Not all of us recognize or understand that it is this God within us that creates our experience according to our own filters of belief and viewpoint.  Our experience is created whether we recognize this aspect of it or not.  I believe that the quality of our experience improves with peace, harmony and love, if we do.  Does this mean that folks who don't believe in God are doomed or suffer more or are wrong?  No.  It simply means that some of us believe in God and some don't.  I believe that everyone is living to express who they are and moving into their potentiality that will be included in their expression.  This is change.  I can feel the harmony and completion of the entirety.

We all live a different experience.  Our relationship to our experience creates it.  This includes our relationship to ourselves, others, God, the earth etc.  That is the many.  There is that part of life where we are all one.  Some say this is the God within us or Christ consciousness.  Paradoxically, the oneness doesn't negate our individuality, it empowers it. 

My viewpoint is that nothing is external to God, and God is not external to me.  God is an essential part of who I am.  God is I AM in me.  The paradox is that I am both differentiated (individual), and undifferentiated (God).  I am God (Father), myself (Son), and my experience (Holy Spirit), expressed in states and stages and dimensions of consciousness.

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Ron Isom.  Many thanks.

Free Will Is and Is Not

ALL POSSIBILITY EXISTS ALWAYS.  OUR FREE WILL ALLOWS OUR AWARENESS OF POSSIBILITY WITH A CHANGE IN VIEWPOINT

I think the notion of free will is simple. God is the realm of infinite possibility. We choose possibility (free will) to create our individual experience. At some point in the journey, the two are integrated - the one and the many. Some people argue that free will is not the same as choice.

I think that all possibility is the realm of God, and we choose possibility, according to our viewpoint in the moment. Yet, if we are coexisting in an infinite number of possible realms, we are, in the same moment, living all different possibilities, each from a different viewpoint. As space time opens and all possibility is reached, each one limited viewpoint is simultaneously one in the all possibility. Everything you can imagine, you are. As you are experiencing yourself in separation from others, you are choosing, with free will, which possibility to include in your viewpoint to shape your experience. You can change by choosing again. As long as you are separate and limited, the choice remains. There is a state of being where all possibility and all viewpoints are realized. Here, the choice is all of everything. This is the God within us.

We cannot change what is, which is everything possible. But we choose our state of consciousness, our viewpoint, and in this, exercise our free will. By doing this, we change our experience of who we are and live our potentiality of all that is. This is how we, as some say, co create. We do by making the possible real. We don’t really change what is possible, we change our experience by changing our viewpoint, and that changes what is possible within our experience.

We generate meaningful connections in our experience of consciousness, not the intellectual speculation of consciousness. States like cosmic consciousness (experience of all time and all others and all that is) can and are experienced in sleep and deep meditation or contemplation. Also, the undifferentiated, ineffable, omniscient, realm of all possibility can be experienced in sleep or deep meditation and contemplation. Once accessed, these states are in our awareness like a background programs, running though all our experience. Like this, they become a part of our complete experience. We all have the potentiality for this. We recognize and then experience when a change in viewpoint allows the possibility to manifest as real in our experience. Intellectual speculation may lead us to a change in viewpoint, or it may not. Our viewpoint manifests the experience. Our free will allows our choice.

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Beth Nash.  Many thanks.

Forgiving or Giving For Love

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EXERCISING FORGIVENESS UNCONDITIONALLY LEADS TO THE AWARENESS OF ONENESS

 There seem to be many faces to the process of “forgiveness” being worn these days. Many books, lectures and workshops are available to help us contemplate and adopt forgiving behaviors. We are all taught as children that forgiveness of friends and family is an important part of social life.

The poet William Blake tells us: "In heaven, the only art of living is forgetting and forgiving."  This leads us to the notion that forgiveness is key to finding heaven on earth.

It can be difficult for us to understand that forgiveness cannot happen when we are focused on the tangibles, on what we feel we have lost, on our injuries.  No matter what has occurred in our experience, what happens is an invitation for greater self awareness.  It is an invitation to understand that by bringing our awareness of the spirit in our experience into focus, we can forgive and create harmony.

To complete the process of true forgiveness, whatever our actions, we must be willing to let go of the memories that create anger and resentment. And we must be willing to hold all others in our heart with love.  The paradox here is that as we learn to live with unconditional forgiveness for ourselves and all others, we no longer experience the conflict that requires forgiveness.

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan

All About Living With Our Fears

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GUARDING THE THRESHOLD TO OUR POTENTIALITY, FEAR CONSUMES OUR ASPECTS AS WE INSIST ON IT

You need only watch the evening news to see how fear driven humanity has become. So much of what the media presents displays and exacerbates our fears that we have to wonder, how much of our daily individual experience includes fear? Do we need fear? Can we live without it? 

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From my experience, I can tell you that the longer I treat fear as a signal to feel my total connection to life, and have faith that what will happen next will be in accordance with my highest potential, the less fear I experience. Things that triggered fear 5 years ago do not now. By not allowing the feeling to become emotion, (feeling becomes emotion by including memories of other fearful experiences or dread of future difficulties,) the fear is quelled. What comes up more and more now instead of fear, is a mild interest, sometimes amusement, but always faith that what is occurring is reflecting to me what I need to recognize in the moment.

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It is not possible to find harmony in our lives when it is filled with fear.  Sometimes letting go of fear is as easy as taking a deep breath, and finding our faith or compassion in the moment.  Sometimes it is as difficult as a dark night of the soul, where we face our fear by understanding that what we fear is a part of us, and accepting the divinity of all that we are by letting go of every ”thing” in our experience. 

The emotion of fear needs to be recognized and released, so that we can feel our harmony.   Life with an unattached and fearless viewpoint allows us to live in tune with the infinite.  

All material copyrighted 2010: excerpt, All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Rachelle.   Many thanks.

Reconciling the Problem of Evil

THE FEELING THAT WE ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF EVIL IS OUR INVITATION INTO HEAVEN ON EARTH

 There is a wide variety of opinion on the existence of evil. Some see any opposing force as evil, while others think that to be termed evil requires an act resulting in an injury to life of some kind. What are your thoughts? How does your belief about evil affect your life?

I think that "evil" is much like fear. Overcoming fear doesn't mean that I will never experience it again in my life. It means that I understand it differently and process it differently than I once did. Overcoming evil is much the same. Once we understand that evil is a value judgment of negativity in our world, and that judgments assigning positive and negative value are a function of mind, but we are much more than our minds, we can transcend our dualistic mental constructs. When seen at this viewpoint, the world is in balance; what we value as good and evil can be seen differently, as aspects of the same experience.

We sometimes take identity in holding ourselves separate from others as we judge and value the differences. Not good or bad, it is something we humans do as we identify ourselves. This is a function of our ego, which is limited to duality because it creates our identity separate from the world. Here, good and sometimes evil is established as we explore the "I am not" of I AM. This exploration is important to raising consciousness and expanding awareness.

Who we are and what is possible is reflected to us in the moment. We can live these moments in a separate string, or in the eternal moment or both - the one and the many. But however we choose to live these moments, they are a reflection that invites us into spirit and the possibility of more, all ways.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Val Jean.   Many thanks.

We Dwell In Possiblity During Deconstruction

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IT MAY FEEL CHAOTIC, BUT DECONSTRUCTION REMOVES LIMITATION MAKING SPACE FOR POSSIBILITY

Sometimes, when things seem to be falling apart in our lives, it is happening to allow us to move on in ways that we would not otherwise, because we would hold on to what we have now.  Our will is to keep something the same, divine will is to allow change.  What we don’t see is that the change is wonderful and so we get wrapped up in the bad feeling that things are falling apart.  Resist not!  It isn’t easy to enjoy deconstruction.  But when it starts happening to me, I have begun to notice it now, and I can have faith that something wonderful is about to occur in my life.

Deconstruction is a difficult process for all of us.  As we create, we are reaching within to experience God and feel our oneness with God and all his glory.  As we deconstruct, we are bringing the energy of God back to the world, and making room for divine will in our experience (the deconstruction.)  When we have fully embraced both processes, creation and deconstruction occur simultaneously. As we reach within and connect to all creation, we express creation as divine will makes it “more” than ever before, adding the possibility that is ours in the moment.  This is the crux of coherent integration. There is joy in feeling the connection and honoring the individuation.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork by Andy Kehoe.   Many thanks.

Living the Change

WHERE THERE IS A DISTINCTION BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, THERE IS CHANGE

Change happens. It is part of the human experience. It can be a wonderful gift, if we understand the process. There is a great deal of information available about skills for managing change. But the most important skills that we can master are the ones that give us an understanding of ourselves, and how we, ourselves, facilitate change in our lives.

Our capacity for paradox is probably the most important factor in our ability to change...In every paradox, what seems to be opposing can be seen as complimentary and in fact, part of a larger spectrum, from a wider viewpoint...Determining the spectral nature of paradox might require an ability to develop and sustain relationship. If the change you are experiencing affects not only you but a larger group, your understanding of the nature of relationship may be the key to successful change.

Another critical element of change is anamnesis, or the remembrance of our own essential being, that part of us that we bring to manifestation, our own spirit...This change in viewpoint is the crèche of experience manifest. This, is essential change.

All material copyrighted 2010: All About Living, Molly Brogan
 Artwork:  Newton, By William Blake