Monday, October 26, 2009

Expand Into Your Joy, Grasshopper!

As my friend Tammie says, going on a spiritual journey should come with a warning label. Perhaps a Surgeon General of the Universe ought to put a label on our earthly packs of mental cigarettes.

WARNING: THE DIVINE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT SPIRITUAL AWAKENING CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR FRAGILE SENSE OF IDENTITY AND YOUR FIRM CONCEPTION OF REALITY. ALSO, ONCE YOU START ON THIS PATH YOU CANNOT GO BACKWARDS. OH, YOU'LL WANT TO GO BACK, FROM TIME TO TIME. BUT YOU CAN'T. HAVE A NICE DAY!

It's kind of like The Matrix. Once you meet Morpheus and he gives you the blue pill (or is it the red pill?) you start to see the crazy insane huge expansive dynamic energy field that's holding us all together. And once you've seen it, you can't just NOT see it. Oh, I agree, you can try. You can try all you want, but you're going to KNOW differently. And that, my friends, is what waking up to True Reality is all about.

The interesting thing is that it doesn't really seem to matter what handle you grab ahold of. You can awaken within a scientific tradition just as beautifully as within a spiritual tradition. I can run all over the place talkin' smack about Getting Right With Jesus, and you can scamper around babbling about finding your true self with Myers-Briggs, and eventually, if our hearts and minds get cracked open just the tiniest bit, we will both expand into more joyful beings.

Choose whatever concept, whatever label, whatever metaphor makes your heart feel bigger and your mind feel energized. I love what Elizabeth Gilbert says about this in her amazing spiritual-journey memoir Eat, Pray, Love. She's at an ashram, in India, meditating and judging her meditation something fierce. She's trying to find her Authentic Center and simultaneously feeling horribly inadequate that her Assigned Mantra is making her crazy, crazy, crazy. And then all of a sudden the famous line from Jaws pops up in her consciousness, and she can't help cracking a goofy smile. "We're going to need a bigger boat."

So go ahead. Get yourself a bigger boat. There's a big freakin shark out there. Or rather, in here. If your shark is anything like mine, it's hungry, relentless, and pissed. It's the shark of Ego, munching away at your giant, juicy soul. It's the shark of Fear and Judgment, crunching down on your happy little hopes. You can keep feeding it fingers and toes and other non-essentials if you want, but believe me, it's going to keep circling back whenever there's chum in the water.

We are born to be the joyous creators of our own wonderful experience. And we are all creating, all the time. And then, for most of us, we look at our creations and say "Crap! I don't want that! Get that thing away from me!"

Fair enough. Choose something new, something crisp and fresh and tantalizing to chew upon with your own magnificent jaws. There's always this perfect present moment in which you can step into a new boat of consciousness. Oh, the Great White Ego will come swimming after you, its menacing fin piercing through the shining waters of your Being, but it's best not to take it too seriously. Just keep building your boat and let that poor bastard tire itself out.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Overwhelmed by Blog Money Making Info

Holy Freakin Cripes Batman!

How do you people do this? I've just spent the last several hours researching "Blogging for Fun and Money," and I feel like my brain is slowly collapsing in upon itself.

The internet is truly the most prolific, glorious, festering haystack that our species has ever dreamed up--and let's be honest, we've dreamed up a lot of haystacks (also known as "clusterfucks") in our brief time on earth. Meanwhile, my own little needle is feeling lost, lost, lost.

In the past couple of days I have explored the deep recesses of Hubpages, Squidoo, Isnare, Ebay, Ebooks, Ejunkies, Amazon, Paypal, Adsense, Ezinearticles, and once, by accident, Charles Bronson, but that's a whole different story.

My mission is fairly simple: I just want to write and make people laugh. Oh, and force people to be happy. Oh, and get paid for forcing people to be happy.

How hard can it be?

According to my friends Abraham and Buddha and Jesus and Wayne Dyer and Bob Proctor (and also my surrogate mom Carol and next-door neighbor Sharon) it ISN'T that hard. It isn't hard at all for the Universe to shower me with joy, success, and abundant creativity. It's just hard for me to accept, because I don't believe I deserve these things.

I don't think I'm good enough. And until I do, well, I will, in effect, prove myself right. One way or the other.

The Universe is so agreeable that it will support me either way. If I'm saying, "This is wonderful! There's so much good information here! It's going to be easy for me to start making money with my unique gifts!" The Universe replies, "Rock on, Babe! Here, let me give you some more stuff to confirm that feeling!" If I'm saying, "This is too much for me; I'm overwhelmed; I'm not good enough or smart enough to do this." The Universe says, "Hey, no problem! I can totally provide situations, people, and experiences that will add to that belief!"

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what being Cut Off from Divine Reality feels like. Call it God, call it your Higher Power, call it Intuition, call it Fate, call it Ayn Rand--the All Being of Everything doesn't mind. It likes you anyway, and all it asks for is this one little thing in return:

"See yourself as I see you, and be happy."

Oh, and for anyone curious about The Way of Mastery, you can get more information at www.thewayofmastery.org.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Way of Mastery

Greetings, Spiritual Bunnies of the Cosmos.

Wow. I gotta tell you, weird stuff starts to happen when you open yourself up to the Divine in All Its Forms. I'm pretty open these days. In fact, I'm kind of a Cheap Easy Date when it comes to anything wrapped in a "spiritual" package. This occasionally has its downsides. For example, I really don't want to talk about the multi-level marketing spiritual transformation system I purchased for only $1,595 plus tax. But mostly, it just makes life more and more fascinating.

Granted, I am fairly easily fascinated. I really enjoy restaurants that have large selections of sugar packets and liquid creamers waiting on the table so I can make condiment sculptures. We all have our personal muse, do we not?

I met a new friend through the internet who invited me to a Mastery Group. I accepted the invitation eagerly because I thought it was a Master Mind Group. My vague impression is that Master Mind Groups are where people get together for the purpose of communing with other like-minded, goal-oriented souls who want to achieve stuff. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe they're just groups for like-minded, goal-oriented people to get together and play that game with the little multi-colored pegs where you get ten tries to guess right. Oooo, I love that game! But I digress.

When I arrived, I discovered that this particular gathering is actually a "Way of the Mastery" study group. The Way of Mastery is, among other things, a book, and the group is, among other things, a book group that studies this book. Here's what the book has to say about itself:

"A Guide to Awakening in Christ Mind: This volume contains the extraordinary teachings of Jesua ben Joseph (Jesus) as given over a three-year period through Jon Marc Hammer. These teachings were originally published in 1997 and known only to a small number of people. For the first time, The Way of Mastery is available as one volume, beautifully presented, to be read and cherished for a lifetime as that "way home" taught to Jesua Himself and now offered to the world."

Indeed. Well now. At this point I hadn't started to read the book, and I don't know anything about Jon Marc Hammer, but I am already burning with low-grade envy. Oh, and skepticism, let's not forget that. Really? REALLY?? You're just sitting around, Jon Marc, and JESUS shows up to tell you a thing or to? Of course, Neale Donald Walsh has a whole series called Conversations With God, where he, you know, converses with the Big Kahuna, but somehow that's easier for me to swallow. Even a very brief look at world religions will tell you that there seems to be quite a few different versions of God. In effect, you could say that everybody's got his or her own version. Like God is one of those ceramic lawn geese you see in the American midwest. People dress their lawn goose up in all different kinds of costumes, depending on season and holiday, but underneath, it's pretty much the same goose all the time. Jesus, though, somehow he seems more personal. More specific.

I am amused to observe that my first reaction is vague Puritan outrage. What happened to the good old days when we could just send these jokers to the Dunking Stool? I am even more amused to observe the secondary reaction of envy. I am so positive that IF I am ever chosen to receive the teachings of a non-physical energy, it's not going to be anyone like Jesus. I would probably get someone like. . .like. . . I don't know, what's that Mormon dude's name? I'm not bagging on the Mormons, mind you, but it would suck for me because I am very fond of my fully caffeinated Diet Coke each morning.

Okay. So, this isn't my first time at the Self Awakening Circus. So I know that those two emotions--envy and outrage--are the dubious gifts of Ego. And while my ego-self feels momentarily threatened by this book, this group, my True Self just sits back and crosses its legs in the shade, laughing at me. "Well, what are you going to do now?"

I sit with the group, and for two hours I participate in one of the best philosophical discussions I have ever experienced. And it's not just the verbal wordplay that's ringing my bells. There's an (Oh God, how I have grown tired of this word, but still!) ENERGY that's whipping round the room like a. . . like a. . . shit, I don't have the right metaphor handy. But it's powerful, this feeling. I'm watching the faces around me in the dusky light, and as these people read aloud and talk and laugh, they are starting to glow.

Someone reads a passage from the book's first chapter, and I feel strange things happening inside my chest. I feel like the plates in my brain are shifting. Until next time, I leave you with this passage. And no matter who you think it's from, I hope it does weird and wonderful things to you, too.

"Take a deep breath into the body and let it go. As the breath leaves the body, hold the thought that there is nothing worth holding onto any longer that keeps your peace and happiness at arm's length. Become committed--fully committed--to the experience of happiness, even as you have been fully committed to unhappiness, limitation, and lack. Give your Creator full permission to sweep the basement clean. There really is not anything down there worth defending or protecting."

Friday, October 9, 2009

Me and Abraham Hicks, Part 2

Hey All You Freaky Seekers Out There, This One's for You!

The phrase above just whisked me back to the television of my childhood, old Budweiser commercials from the late seventies to early eighties. "Here's to you/For all you do/This Bud's for you!" It was a catchy little song, and then you got to see a lot of cowboys and construction workers and other aspirational archetypes working up a sweat and then bonding with beer away from their womenfolk, happy as clams. (By the way, what's up with that expression? Why is the clam reputed to be so happy?)

Boy, I am REALLY tempted right now to go off on some more appropriate images to go with that song for a new Budweiser campaign (Man drunkenly beats Baby Mama, gets DUI, discovers Inner Child through 12 step meetings) but that is not what I promised you for today. No, for today I promised you "Abraham and Your Feelings." And that's what you're going to get, so quit your whining, you tangential little buggers. Remember, there's no crying in baseball, and there's no crying in Spiritual Awakening, either. Wellllll. . . okay, there IS some crying, from time to time, but as long as you're truly ashamed of yourself, God will look the other way.

As I was sharing with you the other day, Abraham is a non-physical collective of vibrational beings who choose to vibrate together for the purpose of communicating with us. Mostly they do this through their self-titled collection of books presented by Esther and Jerry Hicks, which you can find on Amazon or at www.abraham-hicks.com. (No, I am not receiving kickbacks from Abraham or the Hickses--yet--but I am certainly open to any and all offers to sell my soul, so please email if interested) So, apparently, some of us made a deal with Abraham to get together in this lifetime, so they could remind us of stuff that we had forgotten, but they remember. And we knew we might forget, so before we came we made this deal so we'd be reminded about forgetting, something something something, we are all extension of God, reality-creating machines. Something like that.

In their series of books, talks, and seminars on the Law of Attraction, the group of folks who make up Abraham keep harping on two points. The first is the absolute absoluteness of the Law of Attraction, Like can only get together with Like. And the second is the absolute reliability of our perfect guidance system, our emotional GPS. We each come with this Onstar-type GPS system built into our mainframe, and hence we can always tell, moment to moment, what type of reality we are manufacturing. When we feel good, we are attracting good things--and more specifically, good things according to our PERSONAL definition of what is good. So, for example, you might feel good when you are are attracting a solution for putting shoes on Argentinian orphans, and I might feel good when I am attracting a supersale at Designer Shoe Warehouse. That's one thing about the Law of Attraction that I really appreciate. It's not all preachy and judgmental.

According to Abraham, when we feel bad, it's because feeling bad is SUPPOSED to feel bad. We feel bad because we are giving our attention to something that is not the Truth of Our Being. Specifically, we are giving our attention to an aspect of something that does not please us. And we can tell the difference; we can FEEL the difference. "Little kids in Argentina without shoes." That feels bad. "TOM's Shoes gives a free pair to a little kid in Argentina every time I buy a pair of shoes!" This feels good. See? Now you can start practicing for yourself!

And once you do, boy, things get interesting. This whole very weird shift starts to happen. You start to realize that it's ALL you, it's ALL your perspective. And you can't help noticing when you are looking at something or someone, and thinking, "I don't like you. I would like you to be different so that I can enjoy observing you." You start to look for things you do like. You start to look like your life depends on it. Which, in fact, it does.

How ya like them apples?

Awakened Masters Agree: All is Well, So Just Accept Goodness, Damnit!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Me and Abraham Hicks, Part 1

Greetings, Fellow Travelers.

So. It's time I reveal the shameful truth lurking at the heart of my current "spiritual" mindset. Are you ready? OK, here it is: I base the majority of my decisions on the teachings of a "collective" of "non-physical entities" channeled by a housewife from Phoenix. Yes, that's what I said. Wanna fight about it?

Well, even if you don't, I kinda do. If you had told me a couple of years ago that my most beloved teacher would be a fuzzy group named Abraham whose big obsession is Vibrational Fequencies, I would have guessed that one or both of us was in serious need of psychological help. And yet, here we both are. Me, totally psyched about Abraham, and you, totally forced to read my blogging love. Doesn't quite seem fair, does it? And yet. And yet. As much as my critical analytical mind is saying, "Who the f**k are you and what have you done with Ellen?" My heart, that capricious whimsical beast, is soooo grateful that Abraham and I have found each other.

We've got a lot of terrific inspirational teachers, gurus, and avatars to choose from these days, and I'm a huge fan of their work--I love Eckhart Tolle, and Byron Katie, and Wayne Dyer, and Elizabeth Gilbert, and even Deepak Chopra (Dude, I'm so sorry I insulted you with that flying carpet comment when you came to speak at Mile High Church, but you and I both know that's a story for another day). But there's nobody I love quite like I love Abraham.

Abraham's perspective is made possible by a lovely couple named Jerry and Esther Hicks. Here's the back story on these crazy kids: Jerry, the husband, always a seeker, one of life's troublemakers always wanting to know how and why things worked. Interested in spirituality, mysticism, ouija boards, psychics, Napoleon Hill and Thinking and Growing Rich, etc., etc. Esther, the wife, much more of a natural born happy person, was freaked out by many of Jerry's interests, especially paranormal phenomena, had vague feelings that all this stuff was evil and not to be messed with. Then the two of them had a wonderful experience with a medium named Jane Roberts (the Seth Books gal)--the stuff this person brought to them came from a place of such love and wisdom that Esther realized it couldn't be anyone or anything bad. Shortly after this, much to her great surprise, Esther began receiving communication from her own spiritual guide, an extremely helpful and encouraging group of beings who call themselves Abraham. For the past 20-something years, Jerry and Ester have been pimping Abraham out to the world through a series of seminars and books, God bless their bold little souls.

You can get the full story on Abraham and all their multi-media offerings at www.abraham-hicks.com. But for now, let me tell you that what they have to say about the nature of our reality, about the Law of Attraction, about the Art of Allowing, is truly kind of amazing. In fact, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and cheer. If your neck hair isn't into that sort of thing I'm sure it's just a personal hygiene choice, so no big deal. Anyway, Abraham is pretty persuasive on the absolute nature of the Law of Attraction. According to them, we live in a vibrational universe; everything is made out of an energy that vibrates at a cetain frequency. Like is always getting together with Like, while at the same time keeping apart from Unlike. Our thoughts have a frequency that acts like a magnet. We attract the essence of our predominant thought "signature," if you will. For those of us who are thinking love and wealth and creativity and success and happiness, this is good. For those of us thinking accidents and migraines and arguments and endless lines at Wal Mart, this is not so good.

Or, in other words, we create our lives by the stories we are telling, so it just might be in our best interests to start telling better stories about our potential experience.

So, Law of Attraction is absolute governing principle of Universe, yadda yadda yadda, have a nice day, have nice thoughts, or go ahead and burn in hell of your own twisted mind, whatever works for you. Abraham wants us to know that all this is, in fact, the truth, but their big thing is that we all come with a perfect customized GPS system. Our emotions, it turns out, are the really significant thing about everything. Or, as Obi Won Kenobi (is that how you spell his name?) was always saying, "Luuuuuke, Trust Your Feelingssss." I have to go back to my alleged real job right now, so tune in tomorrow to learn about Why You Feel Bad and Why You Should Feel Bad About This. It's going to be so fun! I promise!

Highly Evolved People Agree: It's Completely Your Fault That I Watched 10 Hours of VH-1 Yesterday.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

The Divinity Within Me Goes on Vacation to a Cooler Person

I'm thinking about my friend Kira who used to have a father-in-law named Terry. Terry was apparently a "glass half-broken" kind of fellow who frequently expressed his frustration that Life Does Not Appear to be Fair. He was a persistent asker of the question, "Why, why, why does this ALWAYS happen to me?" I used to wet my pants laughing at Kira's representation of Terry's dramatically outraged angst, but I feel kinda bad about that today. Today, Terry, wherever you are, I feel ya, babe. I, too, would like an answer to this question, slightly revised. My question would be: "Why, why, why do I always do this to myself?"

So I've been truckin' along, trying to put my little life back together. A life that (in my previous incarnation) was fairly happy and successful and full of Pottery Barn accessories. Then, all of a sudden, I took a brief four-year detour to the grim village of Absolutely Crushing Depression and all its folksy tourist attractions--Despair, Divorce, Self-Loathing, Better Life Through Pharmaceuticals, those types of rides. Then something very bizarre and unexpected happened. I woke up one day and realized, oh well, screw it, I want to live anyway. I wonder if there's anything to this whole God rumor? I started meditating, and, much to my surprise and retroactive annoyance, God showed up. And He/She/It arrived with some very disturbing information: I am the creator of my reality. Always have been. Always will be. World Without End, Have a Nice Freakin' Day.

As the possessor of a fine and expensive Liberal Arts education, I have enjoyed extensive training in the art of being skeptical. It's kind of a requirement for the whole critical intellectual endeavor. So now I pester the God of My Understanding with questions pretty much every minute I'm awake. I bet Divine Source is totally psyched to add me to the roster. But no matter how I ask, God is pretty clear on the whole Thoughts Create Reality thing. This is a fundamental principle that some of you may know as the Law of Attraction. If you're not familiar with this delightful creative genesis, I recommend the movie The Secret for those of you on the spiritual-yet-materially greedy side of the fence. For those of you more tempted by the crazed incantations of quantum physics, check out the mind-altering What the Bleep Do We Know? But the short story is this. Everything that shows up in your life comes knocking on the door because you have invited it over. With your thoughts. Did you know that your thoughts were calling up dubious friends like Poverty and Psoriasis and Falling Anvils? Personally, I had no idea. But now, for better or worse, I do know. So now I know it's my responsibility to think some better thoughts. Crap.

Which makes it all the more frustrating when I manage a week like this last one. My car insurance expires painfully from lack of payment. The next night I hit a parked car pulling into the space next to it. What the hell? I've been driving for 23 years and never hit anything, and now I hit a parked car? And oh, the absolute potpourri of negative thoughts that come pouring out of that dented left rear quarter panel! I've been working so hard to put my life back together, "Why, why, why does this ALWAYS happen to me?" Why am I such a loser? Why can't I just get it together and lead a functional life? Why couldn't I create a new $5,000 client instead of a smashed Ford Windstar? I know this whole reality thing is just a wacky plastic holodeck, so why did I choose this? This, in the spirituality business, is known as an affirmation. The affirmation in this case being, "I use the Law of Attraction to Bludgeon Myself With."

Well friends, I should probably bring this post to a close so I don't wind up working myself into a frenzy of Bad Things Happen energy. But I could use your help. What thoughts work for you to help turn that frown upside down?

My Mega-Spiritual Thought of the Day: I Honor the Divinity Within Me Who Has Gone on Vacation to a Cooler Person! Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Monday, September 14, 2009

To Blog or Not to Blog?

Good Day, Friends.

How are you?

Thanks for coming to visit me when you feel like it. I surely do appreciate your support. I've been torturing myself for a few months now, trying to answer that Fateful Eternal Question: To Blog or not to Blog? Yes, my friends, it's a question we must each confront at one time or another. We may try to run from it; we may seek to evade it; we may try to deny it, yet still, it lingers on the doorstep of our Frantically Overloaded minds. For within this question lurks the Greatest Queries inherent in our existence. Who Am I? What Am I doing here? Does anybody else besides me CARE what I'm doing here? How can I get more people to care what I am doing? How can I get my own reality show based on my absolutely fascinating experiences?

How many people are blogging their little hearts out today? I do not know, but I would imagine it's probably like, maybe, 35 or 36 people. It seems presumptuous to ask that you choose to follow my version of reality over theirs, but I ask all the same. For in this blog I will chronicle the Adventures of Ellen (subheading: "My Lukewarm Attempts to Live a Spiritual Life"), and, in so doing, I plan to set all of humanity free from the chains of Limited Thinking. If this is not possible I am at least going to get y'all a really nice book of coupons for stuff you use every day. So stick with me, and one way or another I'm going to add some serious value to your life.

My Incredibly Self-Actualized Super-Spiritual Thought for the Day: Be Good and Do Good Things for Other People if You Happen to Think About it. Ciao!