TheWayofLiberationEbook by Adyashanti – extracts
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Clarify your aspiration: ‘To clarify your aspiration means knowing exactly what it is that your spiritual life aspires to, not as a future goal but in each moment.’
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Unconditional follow-through: ‘…be fully present, sincere, and committed now, with absolute honesty and a willingness to uncover and let go of any illusion that comes between you and the realization of Reality.’
- Never abdicate your authority: ‘This means that you take full responsibility for your life and never forfeit it over to someone else. There is no such thing as riding the coattails of an enlightened being to enlightenment itself.’
- Practice absolute sincerity: ‘Sincerity encompasses the qualities of honesty, genuineness, and integrity. To be sincere does not mean to be perfect…
In order to be sincere you must let go of being judgmental toward yourself.’
- Be a good steward to you life: ‘Your life, all of your life, is your path to awakening… Pay attention to what life is trying to reveal to you. Say yes to its fierce, ruthless, and loving grace.’
I think I know what my aspirations are – what I came to call P.U.L.L.: Peace, Unity, Love and Light. Honestly, with PULL in our lives, and PULL on the planet, and PULL in our relationships… we are all Home.
Yesterday, I finished my NVC infographic on the flipchart. Marshal Rosenberg blows me away with his deep insight into what makes us tick – and it’s all based on Human Needs.
Look at these as examples. Imagine, just imagine what our lives would be like if we all acknowledged that Humans need these things, and made the acts of fulfilling and meeting these needs the foundation of our personal responsibility and interpersonal relationships:
And I so much prefer the NVC model of ‘universal human needs’ to Maslow’s triangle. Maslow’s triangle makes it look like anything above basic safety and protection is a ‘nice to have’… and those of us (ie most of us), brought up to think that meeting our needs was extraneous or selfish, can be prone to discounting our right to the upper levels.
Rosenberg says, when our needs aren’t met (and we don’t believe we can ask to get our needs met), we get depressed. AMEN.
***15minMED***
Today’s Creative Impulse: Daily use of Hootsuite across 4 School of Dialogue social media channels, to share conflict resolution content that would help my clients, past, present and future.
And yet… I feel sick at the thought of it.
‘Your life, all of your life, is your path to awakening. By resisting or not dealing with its challenges, you stay asleep to Reality. Pay attention to what life is trying to reveal to you. Say yes to its fierce, ruthless, and loving grace.’ [Oops, accidentally pasted this instead of selecting bold!]
Ok. What is all this trying to tell me.
It’s about shining your light. Your light is the spark of the creator within you. The ‘fierce, ruthless, loving grace’ of your Reality is that you have much to share. To gift.
I don’t want to preach, force, vaunt.
Then INVITE. HOLD tight to the idea of PULL, and extend an invitation. Think compassionately of all those who are experiencing the polar opposite of PULL – eg Torment, Separation, Fear and Darkness – at this moment…
Would you let your self-consciousness keep them there a second longer than necessary, if you can share some ideas that you found helpful in getting out of Torment, Separation, Fear and Darkness? Do you think that your journey out of depression was just a blip before the real work began? That was your apprenticeship.
How do I orientate myself though?
Go back to the Needs Lists above. There is a Need there (or two) which you do not believe applies to you, and therefore you do not feel able to move to meet that need. In fact, the thought of doing so makes you feel sick.
Ok the ones that both attract me and make me feel icky are:
- contribution to the enrichment of life
- purpose
- simplicity ease
- appreciation
- to be seen and heard
- understanding
Ok, so in sum, it’s a need NOT TO BE JUDGED when I stick my neck out creatively according to who I really am.
So would that be a need for ‘acceptance’?
Yes.
Beautiful. And how to you feel when your need for acceptance is not met?
I feel powerless, because I get stuck in a cycle of creative expression and self-silencing. It’s a catch 22 because I daren’t share of myself for fear of rejection or non-acceptance.
So let’s use the full NVC process. You’re saying that:
- [OBSERVATION] You note that you resist sharing your creative expression eg on social media or with a potential ‘audience’ because you are afraid of rejection
- [FEELINGS] You feel powerless and stuck because…
- [NEEDS] Your (universal human) need for Acceptance is not being met, and yet nor is your need for Creative Expression. Therefore…
- [REQUEST] You would like…?
I would like to work on meeting this need for Acceptance in a different way.
I have a strong sense it starts with Self-Acceptance.
Is that right?
Self-acceptance, self-approval, self-validation… offering ourselves these gifts allows the Aspiration to be achieved more smoothly. It’s hard if we are relying on others for acceptance, approval and validation.
As Adyashanti says above: ‘In order to be sincere you must let go of being judgmental toward yourself.’
How do I do this work then?
What do you think?
Maybe if I can validate the underlying aspiration of PULL in my mind, then the activities around sharing PULL will seem less controversial or ‘extra’ to me.
I think of how my girls lean into creative expression every time their Aspirations for change/awareness become clear and vivid to them. And my, the light they shine is beautiful.
Excellent. Yes. The focus is on the mission, not the medium.
Oof. Love it.
The aspiration, not the artist. The content, not the creator.
If you are in love with the mission, you love to serve that mission by acting as a channel for it – along with all the others serving the same mission as you. You get a sense of the collective action, rather than of yourself as a solitary being.
How much are you in love with your aspiration, ‘PULL’? Do you truly value it, or are you a little embarrassed of it?
These are good questions.
May my love of PULL embrace me, and I it, so we become intertwined, and I can be forgetful of me, and act as a remembrance of all that is peaceful, unified, loving and light. May this become my guiding protocol for every day. May I bask in the joy of accumulating ‘present moment awareness’ because that truly is the Source point of PULL. May I gently, tenderly and with discernment not judgement, close an eye to all that is not of PULL… and open my heart to all that is of PULL. Holy angels of the highest realms, assist me to open my heart to peace, unity, love and light, this day and every day. May I ACCEPT myself as a follower and fan of PULL. May I accept all beings however they present themselves to me. May I meet my own need for ACCEPTANCE as a PULL fan. And may I embody these qualities with my full consciousness, here, now and always. May I accept my own mission to accumulate present moment awareness that I may better accumulate and radiate PULL. Amen.
I am accepting my own mission #AccumulatingPULL
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Accumulating PMA =>
Accumulating PULL