Channeling: True self, real eternal self

Arriving at true self,

Arriving at real eternal self.

Is there a difference?

It depends on how you understand it to be.

There is the arrival at your true self.

Whereby by means of stripping the false layers,

One layer after another, your true self is exposed and you arrive at it.

The other is arriving at your real eternal self.

With this, the above helps.

It is a stepping stone to attaining to your real eternal self.

It helps enables it.

But to attain to it, one has to attain to awakening.

It is awakening the Divine in you.

See it as your real eternal self lies dormant.

You are not aware of it.

You do not know it.

You do not even know you have it.

Until one day, something triggers it.

And you awaken to it.

It is akin to acquired and infused contemplation.

With your own efforts, you are able to arrive at acquired contemplation hence also attaining to your true self.

To the real you, stripped of all false selves.

But to arrive at your real eternal self, you have to awaken to it.

Infused contemplation is a form of awakening to it.

What is the difference between the two?

One is earthy, the other Divine.

Life outside: Shadow work

 It was here I engaged in my shadow work though at the time, 

I saw it as pursuing truth wherever it leads me.

I applied it especially to facing truths about myself.

This I pursued with brutality and ruthlessness.

No area was too hard to tackle.

The moment I sniffed out an area. I pursued it.

The ones hard to deal with, I did it by keeping my eye on it,

Hence keeping my awareness on it, looking at it while I work on it.

That happened one day.

I was talking to a boater at the marina.

Walking away, I found myself conjuring all the negative elements I could about her,

Ready to move away from her when I caught myself in the act.

Engaging in it one time, it might be others, two times, it could be due to the other.

But when it is every time, the problem lies with me, not them.

That was when I realized there was something wrong with me.

When I saw every time I drew close to a person, I would dig out all the negative aspects in that person

And moved away.

It was disconcerting realizing I was the one with the problem.

This part of me was so entrenched, I was not able to heal it on the spot,

Hence I kept my eye on it.

The same happened with detecting the pleaser in me.

I walked away after a conversation with a boater.

When I saw, all the while I was talking to her,

It was as though I handed my soul over to her, placing it in her hands.

All that time, I did not have possession of myself.

Had she said B and it was A for me, I would have turned my A into a B.

It was another deeply entrenched flaw, one I spent years working on before I was able to free myself from it.

Meditation and pursuant of truth, that was my main path those years.

Life outside: Beauty living in a boat

 There is a certain magic to living on the water.

Looking out at the ocean, one sees the immensity and limitlessness of the horizon.

The soul easily expands, taking in that natural beauty and wonder.

The sea, shimmering with lights as the Sun casts its rays on it.

The immensity of the horizon stretching to eternity.

The wonder, marvel of the sky meeting the ocean in one seamless moment.

The sun rises in the morning, first a peek, then half moon, before rising up from the horizon.

All that is beautiful, wondrous to behold.

I often sit on the rocks, facing the waters, engaging in meditation.

Or walking along the water, feeling the cool breeze blowing at my face.

It never ceased to make me feel the presence of God with me.

Elias, the prophet said, “and God was not in the storm but in the gentle breeze that blew.”

Once having lived by the waters, it is hard moving away from it. 

The ocean has a freeing aspect like nothing else, apart from the skies.

Life outside: A break from the Church

 One night I woke up with a line in my mind,

“The Church does not have a monopoly on God.”

Again, it was one of those earth shattering moments.

Where I felt the ground cut from under my feet.

To believe that my entire life, only to wake up to that truth overnight,

Was indeed earth shattering.

When I was in the class of Form Two.

I told my classmate who was a methodist,

“Your religion is fake. Only the Catholic Church is the true Church.”

Fortunately for me, religion was not that big for her, she ignored me.

I came across the inaction of Taoism and what a relief that was for me.

Until then, I had been pushing so hard to be a saint.

To be able to ease my own efforts was very freeing.

I continued to go to Mass but increasingly I noticed something happening with me.

Hostility and coldness, feeling trapped by the walls of the Church.

One day, I lifted my head and saw sunlight streaming through the ceiling,

My spirit took a flight out through that opening in the ceiling and it felt so good.

Gradually, I stopped participating at Mass but continued going even when I started feeling physically sick.

My mind told me to continue going while my body fought against it.

Dr. Gabor Mate has it so right when he said, when we do not say no, our bodies say it for us.

My heart would pound, my head feeling as though it would burst, all in resistance.

It came to a head one Sunday, when the priest spent half an hour of his sermon asking for donations.

He stopped only to watch while the congregation filled out the second check.

My body went into full fighter mode, making me feel literally sick.

I decided I need a break, just a short break.

I walked out. 

I did not take the back door. I walked right up to the priest, walked by him and out of the Church.

The short break actually lasted years.

Life outside: Sailboat

 Again, ignorance is bliss.

Living a rather sheltered life prior to entering the monastery.

Living enclosed for over eleven years at the monastery,

The world had gone by me, I knew little about the real world at large.

I remember remarking how bright the stars are at night.

Evelyn, a friend of the monastery, hid a smile and told me that was not a star.

It was a satellite. She proceeded to explain what a satellite is.

It went right over my head, I thought she made it all up.

Hence I was able to move with the flow which was not easy with a man like George.

No sooner were we back from Malaysia than we headed out to our new boat.

It was so hard.

I did not have time to settle back into my new life here.

And I was whisked off to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Then to Bellingham, Washington State where we took possession of the boat.

The other point about ignorance being bliss was concerning George.

It did not occur to me at the time that he actually knew very little about sailboats and sailing.

That would have been very unsettling.

He had a couple of trial runs off the coast of Florida.

Everything else he learned from books.

Fortunately for me, when we sailed from Bellingham to the San Francisco area, he hired a couple who knew what they were doing.

Jim and Ruth were wonderful seasoned sailors.

We did encounter a hard storm on that trip.

I huddled at the back bunk, waiting for it to subside.

The following morning, we woke up to a calm sea with the sun shining.

That did feel so unreal.

As also when the boat was in the middle of the ocean.

It was as though we were moving in a big bubble of water, going nowhere.

I was to learn when there is no horizon to gauge the distance.

That is how it appears to be.

I learned something else on that trip which is that I am not a sailor.

While I did not get seasick traveling in waters on the putt putting boat,

Or going from one town to another in a cargo ship.

I do get seasick in a sailboat.

It is miserable experiencing seasickness.

Because the only cure was to get back on land.

Hence it was heaven when we pulled into Crescent city and went to a restaurant.

“Here, take my keys and go get some supplies,” the waitress told us, throwing us her car keys.

I could not believe anyone would do something of that nature.

The two men went off to get more supplies while Ruth and I stayed to have our dinners.

Our final destination was at Emeryville where we stayed a couple of years.

Then it was to San Diego where we finally had the boat trucked to Texas.

Life Outside : Boat shopping and death of my father

 What my husband was not.

He was not a regular type of man.

I would see a man flipping burgers in the backyard and wish my husband was more like a regular man.

He liked to call himself an eccentric.

What he was, was a man driven by many devils, if you could call it that.

He was always into projects.

Once into projects, he would go at it till it was finished.

And find another project to fill his time.

He wanted badly to be a writer but he was more an artist than writer.

He painted better than he wrote.

A year after we were married, he retired early and started shopping for a sailboat.

We drove all along the coast, looking at different boats to buy.

And ended up ordering one to be built.
It would be a steel sailboat, thirty nine feet long.

We were driving back when my heart started sinking in dread.

Fearing an accident, I turned the wheel over to George.

When we reached the town without any incidents, I sighed with relief.

Ten days after we were back, his son came visiting.

Looking at my happy face, he started looking very uncomfortable.

“Have you called home?” he asked.

“What happened?” I asked him, “Is something wrong?”

He hedged then blurted out, “Your father passed away.”

I did not believe it. It was as though if I did not believe it, it would not be real.

I reached for a phone and called my mother, “What happened to father?” I asked.

“He passed away. He went for a minor prostate surgery and passed away,” my mother told me.

I howled into the phone. His blood would not clot and he bled to death.

I made hasty arrangements and flew back to be with my mother.

We had planned a trip to visit my parents in September. 

I flew back at the end of June with George joining me three months later.

Channeling: Transparency

 I have an affliction or so I thought it to be,

until I examined it at length.

I had termed it being simple.

Yet simpleton I am not.

Jesus’ words came to me of Nathaniel,

A man without guile.

Yes, that is me.

He did say, to be simple like a dove and wise as a serpent.

I am that.

My spirit team, could you help me with this?

Those who know you term you as naive and gullible.

You are neither.

You are possessed of natural innate wisdom.

Nor are you gullible.

You have the ability to see through people, situations and things.

It is the ways of the world you are not good at.

And do you want to be good at that?

To say one thing when you mean another.

To cloak your words in ways that make it more acceptable.

Engaging in human machinations which involved much subtlety.

Engaging in games and manipulative tactics.

You do not want any of that.

And you do not have any of that.

Hence it is the world that calls you naive and gullible.

A spiritual person would not call you that.

At one glance, they are able to see the depths of your being.

And know you are possessed of inner wisdom.

What you are is not being tainted by the world.

Living in the world, being in the world yet not of the world.

That is what you are.

You are transparent, a trait often not very comfortable for those in the world.

What is transparency?

It is a mirror.

What does a mirror do?

It shows out the other.

Hence it is a trait that can be uncomfortable for the world.

And this transparency, it is the mark of the blessed.

Look at saints and sages, what sets them apart?

This very transparency.

They are as they are.

They do not pretend.

They do not strive to be another.

They say things as they are.

They are as they are.

And that is the mark of you as a person.