Just a brief post to promote a business that I feel passionate about www.nurturewithlove.com the aim is to provide hand-crafted gift/shopping bags for women who are used to being givers rather than receivers, and those who need a big dollop of self-love in their lives.  I think that there are many people I know who fit that description, me included.  Nurture with love also has a  facebook page http://www.facebook.com/nurturewithlove.  If you like what you see please press the ‘like’ button.

Namaste, with lovingkindness

xx

I have started PAUSING – when I feel anything, discomfort, pain, joy….pausing, feeling it, allowing the sensations to come up.  From this place of pause I can make more loving choices.  Again I have been connecting to that place of non-duality, non labeling.  Not seeing things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but simply as what they are, experiences.

The Upanishads say “The Self is all-pervading, hence It is that which is still and that which travels, that which is active and that which is inactive.  It is both stationary and moving, and It is the basis of all forms of existence, therefore whatever exists in the universe, whether joy or joylessness, pleasure or pain, must spring from It.  Who is better able to know God than I myself, since He resides in my heart and is the very essence of my being?  Such should be the attitude of one who is seeking”

Yes, yes, I long for You so deeply.  I want to remember You always yet each day I allow the world to enter my heart more than I allow You in.  How ridiculous I am.  You are in me yet I cover You with the crud of this unreal world.  Each day I make an effort to dig out the rubble and get back to the source and each day I seem to allow more rubble to fall in.  Yet I cannot stop.  Knowing You is my burning passion and need.  I am on my knees clawing with my fingers to get to You yet I make mistake after mistake.  I am tired.  If I lay here a while and open my heart I know You will show Your face to me.  I let go of the struggle and allow what is to be.  No dualistic struggle, no labeling, I let go and experience, I keep opening myself wide to You.

Yesterday I was sent an email with details of a free online class with Dr Jean Houston: The 3 Keys To Discovering and Living Your True Purpose.  You can sign up for the class here: http://evolvingwisdom.com/jeanhouston/yourlifepurpose/free-online-class it is taking place on 15th January, but if you sign up you can listen to it via a download if you can’t make the live class.

Happy Listening!

“Let yourself breathe and trust. It is only by a courageous letting go that the heart becomes free. This is called the wisdom of insecurity” Jack Kornfield.

 
“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” Helen Keller

At the moment I have the urge to be outrageously bold with my life. No fear, no regret. Living my best life seems to be a priority. Asking myself “what would love do?” helps. Smiling, even through the pain, helps. Self-love needs to be a priority ‘Om Namah Shivaya’ ‘I honour the Divinity that resides within me’

“First he tempted me with infinite caresses.  He burnt me in the end with pain and sorrow.  In this game of chess I had to lose myself in order to win Him” -Rumi

This resonates.  At the start of my ‘awakening’, years ago, it was all magic and fairy dust, angels, crystals and light…..which was, and is, lovely….but then this awakening deepened and became more solid.  Being human isn’t easy, there is pain and sorrow as well as happiness and light.  It is all enlightenment.  The whole.  All experience is valid, good isn’t better than bad, things simply are as they are.  Not struggling with what is, that’s enlightenment.   As a Buddhist saying goes “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water”.  And then, there is my acute realisation of the difference between my small, egoic, earthly self and my Self, the Divine, Tao from which all manifests….and really it’s the same, isn’t it?  Zero separation.

I’ve had to lose so many concepts of my self, so many self-used labels, in order to gain a glimpse of Divinity – and, I never seem to hold that for long.  I have to continually let go of my self in order to experience the Bliss.  Letting go of the constructs of “who I am”, letting go of dualistic thinking and embracing the whole and all that goes with that.

Kahlil Gibran, in The Prophet, writes about Joy and Sorrow:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater thar sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Through inner peace, I believe, world peace IS inevitable.

“Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole” -Jack Kornfield

 
Love, for me, isn’t reserved for a special few in my life. I love people, and not in ‘grades’ of love. Love doesn’t have to mean sex, close contact or even being in verbal contact. I love my husband, we are in an exclusive, sexual relationship but I also love my friends, previous lovers, neighbours, my dog…..and it is love. Just beautiful, wonderful love. Love doesn’t mean no boundaries, Love to me means living my best life with a wide-open, compassionate, awakened heart.

“Last night my Beloved was like the moon, so beautiful! He was even brighter than the sun. His grace is far beyond my grasp. The rest is silence” –Rumi

I bless the realisation that we are all part of That Beloved essence. If we could all realise that we are parts of the Divine, we all have that essence within (and without) us, we would surely treat each other like the precious God-pieces that we are?!

“Every being in the Universe is an expression of the Tao. It springs into existence, unconscious, perfect, free, takes on a physical body, lets circumstances complete it. That is why every being spontaneously honours the Tao. The Tao gives birth to all beings, nourishes them, maintains them, cares for them, comforts them, protects them, takes them back to itself, creating without possessing, acting without expecting, guiding without interfering. That is why love of the Tao is in the very nature of things” – Tao Teh Ching 51

Show me how to love more. Keep my heart open.