Posts in the “personal” category

“I have no idea who that guy was, but I know that he just reset our karmic destiny.”

(A quote from the book, Love Everyone, that makes me wonder how many times our karmic destiny is reset and we don’t notice it.)

“And when Jung starts to deal with his archetypes, collective unconscious and so on, he is starting to deal with the fourth chakra ... he himself is afraid to go on, that’s quite clear. He goes just so far and then he stops, because he’s afraid that if he goes the next step, he will no longer be able to do what he does as Carl Jung.”

From http://www.ramdass.org/RD/chakras-in-the-body-2/

“What you seek is within you.” ~ Ram Dass (I think that quote comes from Ram Dass. I heard it today while listening to the audio version of his book, Polishing The Mirror.)

I’ve been reading the book Polishing the Mirror by Ram Dass lately, and at one point he says something in regards to being an observer and “standing on a bridge and watching time flow by.” I thought that was pretty cool because my own analogy has been to think of myself as being the needle on a record player and just staying in that one spot as time (or in this case, the album) streams by.

“What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.”

~ Ram Dass

“You and I are the force for transformation in the world. We are the consciousness that will define the nature of the reality we are moving into.”

~ Ram Dass

This image is from the longer Ram Dass article titled, Uncooked Seeds. As I get older, I find more wisdom in Ram Dass’ writings.

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”

Ram Dass

“Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.”

~ Ram Dass

“Who you think you are will always be frightened of change. But it doesn’t make any difference to who you truly are.”

~ Ram Dass

“It’s very hard to grow, because it’s difficult to let go of the models of ourselves in which we’ve invested so heavily.”

~ Ram Dass

This is a great quote from my favorite book on spirituality about trying to change other people (and attachment and karma).

“And when Jung starts to deal with his archetypes, collective unconscious and so on, he is starting to deal with the fourth chakra ... he himself is afraid to go on, that’s quite clear. He goes just so far and then he stops, because he’s afraid that if he goes the next step, he will no longer be able to do what he does as Carl Jung.”

From a Ram Dass post, Chakras in the Body

Zeus, the Best Dog Ever, passed away on August 21, 2010. In an unrelated event, I almost kicked the bucket on the same day in 2016. That would have been kinda cool in that regard.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~ Rumi

“I am not this hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within.”

Rumi

Note (March 14, 2018): I’ve disabled comments on this website until I get through this current illness.

I woke up Thursday morning at 2:15 am and quickly knew something was wrong; if I didn’t act fast I was going to go unconscious for the eighth time. I threw down some Zyrtec and Benadryl, put some ice in a towel, went outside, and sat down with my head between my knees. (When I get close to passing out I feel extremely warm, like some form of hyperthermia, so I try to cool down as fast as possible.) I don’t even know what I did wrong this time, but that’s how life with MCAS rolls.

The mast cell disease has been kicking my butt the last few weeks, and I’ve come close to losing consciousness several times. Had this been eighteen months ago when I didn’t know what was going on I surely would have lost consciousness, but these days I at least know that I can try to rapidly load up on the meds and do some other things to stay conscious.

One thought I’ve had during these times is, “What joy is there in this moment?” I don’t mean that in a negative thing; in fact, I mean it as the exact opposite. For example, when the syncope started last Thursday at 2:15am and I ran outside to sit with my head between my legs in the icy cold weather on the porch, I asked myself this question. My first answer was that the cold felt good. After a little while I noticed the faint sounds of an owl making “Who ... who” calls somewhere in the distance, and combined with the cold dark silence, that was very pretty.

Frankly, my main thought was that if I was going to go unconscious again – something you never know if you’re going to come back from – I wanted my last thoughts to be of something joyful, and that’s when I started thinking to ask myself, “What joy is there in this moment?” If you’re having a bad day or a bad moment, I encourage you to ask yourself that question. For me it’s been a way of finding some gratitude in my most difficult moments.

“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson