Inner peace – our real being

Waking up is remembering our real being.

It is a journey into the unconditional inner peace that we are.

It is remembering who we were before we started playing
this game of I-am-separate.

But how can we remember?

What worked best for me was the 180 degree inward look. Awareness watching itself.

This is a Dzogchen meditation method. But the easiest description of this is in a short 4 min video on John Sherman’s website http://www.justonelook.org/.

Initially, my ego wouldn’t let me look inside. This manifested as an itching sensation over the whole body when I tried the exercise. But after trying for a few weeks,  that feeling subsided.

At first, there was deep peace. If I were to use a metaphor, I would compare it to a still, dark surface of a lake. Dark because of the lack of sensory input. And still because it was so peaceful and quiet.

Afterwards, quiet joy emerged. Again, if I had to use a metaphor, it felt like a small fountain. Always pouring forth. Always moving. Inexhaustible.

The remarkable thing about this joy was that it was not dependent on the outer circumstances. It was unconditional.

At first, I thought, ‘Yeah, nice. But that is just another emotional state.’ And I stopped practicing.

But then, I read, “No, no! It is not just another emotional state. It is our real being.”

Ah! THAT place is our real being. That place is where I can remember what I am.

Turning awareness back on itself and resting in there is like the prodigal son returning home to the father. The joy that is felt there is the joy of coming home.

 

Be careful what you wish for

On my way home from work, I bike through a small forest which features several raspberry plants. In summer 2013, I often stopped and indulged in the delicious red fruit. Yummy!

The smell of raspberries. Their taste. How wonderful! I just love raspberries.

During the whole summer of 2013, my heart was singing in joy and gratitude, ‘Life is like a giant raspberry cake. How blessed am I that I can pick raspberries on my way home each evening!’

Little did I know what the universe had in stock for me.

One year later, in summer 2014, I saw some unknown weed making its home in our small front yard. Long, fast growing canes with thorns winding all over the place.

At first, I tried to battle the weed. To no avail.

But then, I looked closer. The leaves looked very much like the ones from the raspberry plants in the forest. The canes didn’t carry fruit yet. So, I am not absolutely sure yet, but I suspect that I fell victim to a raspberry invasion.

I do love raspberries. But, for heaven’s sake, not in my front yard, please!

But the universe was just quietly smiling behind the scenes, whispering,
Always be careful what you wish for !

The power of forgiveness

My wise inner voice urges me to share my spiritual journey. Yet, often I still recoil in fear from that task. (Somehow, I’m afraid they might still hunt witches in Europe.)

So, mid of October 2014, I manifested three opportunities for sharing and writing under my real name. But each time, I had second thoughts about it. And I would procrastinate.

And each time, something in my surroundings would mirror that hesitation.

Often, this sort of fear-based procrastination was mirrored by some clogged things. Oh, I didn’t know how many things there are in a household that can be clogged! Coffee machine, dishwasher, drain, toilet, shower head…
A year ago, I even had breathing issues  – a clogged throat chakra.

In the second half of October 2014, the drain in the bathroom sink was clogged. I do prefer a clogged drain over a clogged throat chakra, but it still sucks.

Shit!

I was aware immediately that I probably caused the clogging by my resistance to sharing under my real name.  I assumed that I would have to pour chemicals into it in order to fix the drain. How annoying! Sometimes, life on Earth sucks.

Then one evening, I confessed to my husband, “You know, the clogged drain is very likely caused by my refusal to respond to that newspaper’s call for readers’ experiences about spirituality.”

He listened patiently, probably not believing my theory. Then, he got up and went to the bathroom. “Honey, did you do something to the drain? It appears to be cleaned now.  I didn’t pour any chemicals into it. Did you?”

No, I didn’t either.

***

The power of forgiveness is that I come into alignment with my real being, i.e. that I find my inner peace even if faced with disturbing situations. As a result of that, the outer circumstances can change since they reflect my inner emotional state.

 

The magic wand of inner peace

I learned that choosing inner peace over anger brought a huge advantage. Not only did my light bulbs live longer (as I have described in the previous post), but little wishes seemed to be fulfilled promptly.

The trash bag story
Some years ago, when my little kids were out of the house for a week, I was cleaning out their rooms, collecting old toys that they would not need any more (- well, that I had decided they would not need any more).

I collected many small transparent trash bags full of old and broken toys. But the amount of toys was just too large for our garbage bin outside. So, I had to store the transparent trash bags in the basement.

Then I thought, ‘Oh, it would be sooo useful to have one of these really large heavy-duty drawstring trash bags, which are opaque, in order to hide the old toys, so that my children cannot see them when they come home.’ I was afraid they would l start lengthy discussions about whether these things can be thrown away or not.

That was just a thought. But we didn’t have any of these large opaque trash bags at that time and I did not consider buying any.

Two days later, when I got home from work, I saw some strange plastic lying in front of our garden door. I looked closer wondering what that was. And it was a large opaque drawstring trash bag, arriving just in time so I could continue with my toy-clearing work the next day.

Wow! I was sooo amazed at how this works. This sure seemed like a very strange synchronicity. Too strange to be just some random coincidence.

***

Over the years, there have been many such fast manifestations. They had some things in common. Always, the underlying feeling was one of inner peace. And on top of that inner peace, a desire occurred. A spontaneous thought like , ‘Oh, it would be sooo nice to have this now.’

The important point is that I didn’t make my inner peace dependent on the fulfillment of the wish. Rather, the inner peace was unconditional.

Choosing inner peace became important to me because it is like having a magic wand.

How many light bulbs does it take to choose inner peace?

Even though my spiritual journey started with the quest for inner peace, there were times when I didn’t feel peaceful at all.

In 2009, I experienced a major disappointment. I felt treated unfairly. Since then, anger was my constant companion for about three years.

About five times a day, I had a thought spiral running in my head, ‘This is unfair. I feel so helpless. I feel so much rage.’

I was not able to get out of the vicious cycle by myself. But the universe helped me in amazing ways to vote for inner peace. Each time I was playing the ‘How unfair’ tape in my head again, weird things would happen around me.

When I was upset, light bulbs in my room would suddenly burn out.

Or one day, when I was in major inner turmoil, my freezer would stop working, with a weird unknown error code. It would do that several times, and it always coincided with me feeling angry. It occurred so often that when I got really upset I would always go into the basement and check whether our freezer was still working.

On another day, I felt overwhelmed by the requests from society ( pre-school teachers, neighbors, parents…) and I thought , ‘Oh, leave me all alone! Don’t bug me with your requests of what I should do for you. Just stay away from me! ‘

And what happened? The cutout switch of the doorbell broke down and needed to be replaced ! Ha ha, that was a great answer from the universe. I wanted to be left alone, and if the doorbell cannot ring anymore, then nobody can come in – and I will get my wish fulfilled. Thanks a lot , dear universe. Very funny!

Another story: I got really upset about someone. In this emotional state of intense anger, I entered an elevator. Guess what, the elevator didn’t work. It didn’t even manage to shut the doors. So, I took the stairs up and I wondered again, ‘Was that caused by me ? Really ? Weird…. ‘.

Eventually I got so fed up with the high maintenance cost of all the burned out light bulbs that I realized that I should better watch my thoughts and my inner peace.

Here, A Course In Miracles (ACIM) was helpful. This channelled work is about finding inner peace and finding the inner teacher. Within 5 months, I did about the first 100 ACIM workbook lessons and that helped me a lot. Additionally, I had two sessions with a coach. After that, I felt sufficiently peaceful (and just stopped doing the lessons. Note to all ACIM folks: I am sure you will forgive me for not finishing all 365 workbook lessons.)

I had never heard of phenomena like this before. Was I going crazy that I believed that my emotional turmoil was the cause of burned out light bulbs?

But then, I met several people who had the same thing occurring to them. I have heard of a local area network failing several times, a street-lamp going dark, light bulbs burning out every other week, and an electric outlet burning through. All these things occurred when the respective person was in an emotional crisis. I have been told by someone who had a Near Death Experience (NDE) that this phenomenon is also common among NDEers.

There is a blog post by Lindsay Curtis about the influence of human energy fields on electronics with many comments by readers who experienced something similar: http://www.thedailyawe.com/2011/05/can-human-energy-fields-affect-electronics/  ( the link does not work anymore. Seems like she has taken the post off her blog, unfortunately.)

So, it seems that I am not the only one who experiences these strange phenomena. I am not going crazy. Good news.

On the contrary, by being guided to choose inner peace more consistently I am regaining my sanity.

The stubborn baby tooth

I have wished for a sloooow ramp-up of this sharing of my spiritual journey. Still clinging to my privacy. Still hiding in anonymity.

In September 2014, something strange happened. My son (who had no problems with getting new teeth before ) suddenly had a new tooth emerging while the baby tooth still had not fallen out. It was sort of dangling there, only loosely connected. Not of any use anymore, but still stubbornly held onto.

Two teeth in the same spot – that is a very strange sight. I gave a homeopathic remedy which is supposed to help in such cases . To no avail.

Then it occurred to me that this was a mirror of my situation. It was as if Source was smiling at me, saying, “You wanted a sloooow ramp-up? This is what a slow ramp-up looks like. Still clinging to your anonymity like your son’s body is clinging to the baby tooth. And it causes the new tooth to be slightly displaced. Think again. Is that what you really want?”

Uh. I got the message.

I told my son that we would see the dentist in December. And if the tooth hadn’t fallen out by then, it would have to be pulled out. My son was scared.

End of November, I finally decided to make this blog publicly available. Guess what. Two days later, the stubborn baby tooth finally fell out. No dentist needed. What a relief!

This is one of the many broad hints I received by the universe that writing this blog is the way forward for me.

I am always in awe of these synchronicities. They point to the invisible intelligent power behind the scenes. They point to God.