Are We Looking for God

Are We Looking for God

I want to write in my blog because the last few weeks have been so packed with enjoying life that i have forgotten to write anything. I am not sure what that means yet, but I wanted to get it on paper that from my vantage point, at this moment and with the age that I have arrived at, being content with two to three swims a day in a massively turbulent ocean has been as helpful as running the clothes through an old wringer washing machine. I feel cleansed and squeezed dry of all aspirations and have found myself content with meditation, mindfulness & good food.
Tumbling around in a warm ocean while sitting in a tropical depression is not the kind of depression that I am use to dealing with. The depression associated with climate seems predictable and even fun, while the depression that enters the mind like a starving termite enters a piece of wood is entirely too profound to be considered when sitting in the sun. That’s an essay for another day.

Just to make sure that I drive the point home to my readers, I am trying to make you envious. I am wanting you to feel jealous of this respite in the salted, sun drenched stretch of beach known to the Treasure Coast as Surfer Beach. In addition to every one being 19 or 27 and gorgeous, the beach is nearly deserted for miles. The sand is a soft white sand that warmly pushes up through your toes as you drift down toward the turbulent sea, and the glistening beads of water that give everything an emerald and sapphire coloring, erupt from everywhere.

I took Maddie for a walk and a swim this morning and she went her own way and i did not see her again for 40 minutes or so. Eventually she found her way back to me, smelling like a wet dog, covered in beach sand with her tongue hanging out saying–water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. We meandered back to the the house and she lapped at the water from the out door shower as I rinsed the encrusted sand from everywhere.

One last point in this short post. I want to emphasize that I deserve this contentment with life. First, I worked for it. But most important I not only worked at this, but I studied and researched this. I mean happiness does not come on a whim and it is not securely given like a plaque or a gold star. It is a success that must be cultivated all the time. This does not mean that the cultivation need to be hard dirty work, some might be, but for the most part, happiness comes from knowing how your mind operates and then putting into practice what needs to be done over and over again in order to achieve the richness and the crispness that gives life its colors. Mindfulness, the creating of an awareness that you are somewhere in there doing the experiencing is crucial to feeling a sense of well-being. I am much more than the sum total of my ego.

Mindfulness and well-being go hand in hand. And, weather you approach this from a psychoanalytic perspective, a Zen perspective or a spiritual perspective, each perspective leads to the same end. Enjoying the journey, remembering that the process is as important as the outcome, and above all recalling yourself time and time again to the knowledge of the sensation that is the moment–this is the way forward.

I re-read parts of zen bible while I was here enjoying life and what struck me most was that it was offering a formula and that it seemed to be saying follow this formula and you will be given the way. It sounds christian. Maybe it is. I mean I think that what ever it is that we find, at some level most of us want to call this God. It is difficult to say you believe in God while at the same time professing to be a scientist. But in the long run the two are not incompatible. The Great Spirit, The Universe, Consciousness, A Higher power, The Light Within–these all have in common that they are a substitute for the word God which had become so over used by religion than many of us had to abandon the word because it was just too confusing to reconcile a bearded man on a thrown with a staff in one hand and a globe in the other with what in the 21st century we have come to know as a source of energy. In a way happiness has more to do with physics than any other academic discipline.

The energy of a positive attitude, Norman Vincent Peale aside–is what we are looking for. We are looking for God. We want to find that place internally or externally that feeds us with a sense of peace and a sense of serenity and a believing and an allowing for the good in the world to flow through us. So, if we are in college, in school or in church or in a monastery; or if we are in a lab or an orphanage or a hospital, we are seeking comfort. God gives us that comfort even if how we understand this is that our internal awareness coaches us toward life giving, life affirming events. I can skip a great deal of angsts and simply say: Thank God, this has been a wonderful vacation.

‘Tis a gift to be simple. As I begin to pack and put myself back together to get myself back to the office and to what i do for a living, I do this mindful that I have been blessed with a very deliberate opportunity. My life’s work is searching. I search for myself and for those who i love. I search and help people to organize themselves in such a way that they they will come to understand exactly how their particular mind works. And in discovering they will begin a practice that will help them to discover the divine within, not just once but over and over agin many times a day. Reflection on the moment is the best defense against an ego hell bent on robbing us of joy. As i become mindful that the experience of now is the breath of life, I can let go of some of the aspirations that are overwhelming, and let myself flow gently down the stream of life, anticipating that my needs will be met if i am in touch with my instincts as well as with my ego.

It amounts to a belief that we can indeed trade in fear for joy and gratitude and that this is a fair trade for everyone involved.

Dr. A. L. Dussault,

http://mindfulnessinpsychoanalysis.wordpress.com/

http://freeassociations.wordpress.com/

http://technorati.com/people/aldussault/

awakening

I am not the content of my consciousness, I am not the thoughts and emotions that arise in my consciousness, I Am the
consciousness–itself.  I Am the aliveness of the consciousness.  I am able to look at the thoughts and the emotions that arise in
consciousness.  That part of me that can look at my thoughts is my aliveness looking at my ego’s content.  I am not that content.  I am the larger entity in which the ego emerges.  I call that larger entity the self as a way of differentiating it from the ego.
The Self is a greater consciousness than the  activities of the ego.  Moreover,  much to our delight, the ego can be witnessed by the Self, by the greater consciousness.  It is in this witnessing of the ego by the Self that we become aware to the concept of the duality in the human psyche.  If I can say with some conviction, “I am so mad at myself,”  I am witnessing that there is an “I” observing the “Self,”  an “I” which is mad at a separate object which is the Self.
I AM.

I AM alive and present in this moment.

I AM the persistent awakening,  that comes from an abandonment of  identification with  thoughts and with  opinions and with  feelings.  I have to abandon identifying with the content of the ego in order to experience My self.

We are not talking about a denial of affect, but rather,  about a keen awareness of thought & feeling,  followed by a Consciousness that although these sensations arise in me, these sensations are not me.  They are not me any more than the obsessive ramblings of a narcissistic mind is me.  A deceptively simple but definitive advance in analytic thinking came about when the concept of the Self as separated from the ego was born.  The ego and its location in the psychic apparatus along with the id and the super-ego constitute the location or the psychic place in which the identity is created and maintained.  Thought & feeling emanate from here.  But Consciousness is greater than what arises in it.  I Am the consciousness in which the ego arises.

This duality of identity within the mind of the human being is either the source of great joy or the source of tremendous consternation and conflict.   Because as long as we are not aware of this duality, the ego has nearly total control of our thoughts, our actions and more importantly maintains a  deep and complete identification with these thoughts and feelings as if these are the totality of us.  In this condition the human mind remains “contained” in the ego and this containment is the source of great narcissistic injuries as the individual passes through life thinking that he or she is the sum total of his or her thoughts.  The danger in this narrow vision is that we begin to protect our thoughts as is they were us and in so doing we enter into conflict not only with Others, but we remain conflicted with the greater potential that remains untapped, unknown, undiscovered.  In other words, the Self is hidden or more accurately disconnected from the ego and it exerts no influence in our lives.  We conduct ourselves “as-if” we are our egos.  As such, we wander through life with this life size cardboard cut-out of ourselves in front of us and leading at all times.  Our ego becomes a persona of us and the Self and its magnificent connection with all sentient life is missed.

The very witnessing of this duality is the opening in the wall, the crack in the narcissistic shell, the glimpse that allows us to eventually experience the eternal, cosmic stillness, the ethos from which The Creator manifests through you.

Monday @ Mimi’s

From my deck the lake below shines, glimmers, or simply at times, reflects my mood.  It is a perfect location from which to luxuriate in moodling. Isn’t that a great word, “moodling”.  I saw it used recently by Julia Cameron in her seminal work, The Artist’s Way.  I love that recovery book.  I have used it for so many years.  Actually, I don’t think that I ever read the book from cover to cover.  Her chapter headings are so easy to identify with that it is easy to pick a chapter and not necessarily read it in sequence.

Recently, we have been re reading the book at the “Monday @ Mimi’s,” meeting.  In addition to commenting on the events of the past week, the group is used to support the arts, especially the talents that are reluctant to emerge.  The left-brain ego driven person has a difficult time both locating the artist within and then letting it come out into the open to play and create at will.  Most of us have an artistic talent that began to be stunted somewhere around the 3rd to the 5th grade.  We stopped letting ourselves create with the concept of evaluation and criticism and competition set in, mostly in the classroom, but for some of us it was stunted at home as well.

Math and science, even literature were fair game, but the arts are a leisure time activity at best and a waste of time more frequently.  In essence we were taught that to engage in a process simply for the joy of the process was frivolous.  The outcome was important to each endeavor.  The process was to be ignored and diminished in value.  Capital value, money, making a living all fell under the category of getting a-head in the world.  Art & music were only of minor significance & were to be studied by only the very few who displayed an innate talent..  Below is an example of talent not sufficient to be explored:

Monday @ Mimi’s makes no such distinction.  When we gather to explore our talents, we gather first and foremost to explore our resistances to making and creating.   When I first joined the group, I was in awe of the fine talents that were being displayed.  I felt surely out of place and even asked if it was O.K. for me to be at this grouping since I was not an artist, I simply took pictures.  I was hesitant to even call myself a photographer, let alone an artist…In the following months I began to respect the stirrings within me as genuine aspects of the divine spirit in all of us.  I began to grow in a direction that my left-brain, science addicted hemisphere, had previously prohibited.

I think that many of us in this group are feeling a readiness to move beyond our private domains.  The First Monday of the month, which is the Monday set aside for presentation, has grown to as many as 40 people attending and cheering each other on to do more, produce more and in general to validate that the spirit which channels through us in the process of creating, is the same spirit that created the universe.  When I create a meditation, or a watercolor, or a pen & ink, I AM.

I AM.  This is such a powerful place from which to grow.

I am looking forward to helping us to create an art cooperative.  I have a vision that was set in motion by a member of this group who I have become very close to.  When we talk heart to heart, we are aware that we have a very similar need to manifest a cooperative that operates on a daily basis to continue the work and the process that we currently enjoy on Monday’s at Mimi’s house.  I am committed to this process project and I hope to find great energy to contribute to this venture.  We are at the very beginning of putting this cooperative together and in the same way that our food co-op operates to feed us organically, we hope to grow the art community in this same organic fashion.

our artist way co-op

I look forward to comments and suggestions………..

Sanctuary Road: a state of grace

Stuffed Pumpkins & baked  apples, cardigan sweaters & wood fires, long lingering evenings after short cold days these are a few of my favorite things.

I am basically lazy.  In part my not wanting to leave home may have something to do with where I have chosen to live.  I am situated on a dirt road between Burlingame State Park & the Kimball Bird Sanctuary.  The name of the road is Sanctuary Road.  No wonder my house feels like a church to me.  There are no street lights and I look out over what has affectionately become known as Walden Pond 2

When Saturday morning arrives, I usually feel ready for just about anything.  I think that arises from the sense of freedom that I have come to give myself on Saturday mornings.  I can write, paint, draw, play my keyboard…or, if I prefer do nothing.  Doing nothing, just ‘putsing’ around,. is a leisure time activity very near meditating for me.

This morning is gray, the leaves are still green, but it is clearly a fall morning.  The wind is a lot stronger than a breeze and everything seems to be moving slightly, although everything is clearly attached and feels very secure.  The day sets itself up for me as a canvas to contemplate.  I am acutely aware of muted colors.  The reds are more of a rust and the browns are actually a light gray & the greens are more dusty than brilliant.  I feel a painting coming on.

But, before I begin what ever activity the universe leads me to, I want to spend another moment with this conscious connection with my soul.  I have become aware, again,  that it is gratitude that feeds my spirit.  And although I am not always able to muster up the energy to get myself there whenever I contemplate the list of “things” and “conditions” that nourish me, I FEEL better.  However, I am not always capable of praying in that way.  There are time when worrying, and filling my mind with fear and negative words takes my breath away.

I say, my breath because when I sit in meditation there are always two things that immediately come to my mind.  I am breathing and I am thinking.  When my thinking is so strong I forget to remember that when I concentrate on my breath I can remove my focus from my egoic thinking mind and for a brief time,  I feel calm and spiritually fit.

I am reminded that I am in touch with my soul by the energy  that I have for creative projects when I am in a state of gratitude instead of a state of fear and worry…..below is a recent watercolor that I titled, Island Meadow island meadow

1000-words-exactly/

a quick blog on the nature of the ego and its emergence from narcissism

Good Morning, Page: or Good, morning page…..

10:30 a.m., Sunlessday, 9/27/09

I seem to “lack” confidence in my “practice” of meditating.  ”I am not good at it.”

I do “not” do it enough, I do not go “deep” enough.  It takes years to get better.   Or, my favorite lately, “I’ll probably only be a “C” student at this too.”

Fact is,  i can awaken as a miserable, impossible to get along with myself, self-involved, non-believer.  And by the way, from there it only gets worst, not better.

….Eckahart Thich Nhat-Hicks, along with Freud and Jung, Thomas, Aristotle, Abraham, and all the saints; are the new Masters of the Universe.  And, like in Bonfire of the Vanities, I feel I am a burnt-out, out of luck, Zen-less, neophyte once again at a new altar promising piety and peace in a world more filled with greed and envy and violence than any the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary could have envisioned (walls white & red-hot of steel closing in on you from top and bottom and all sides, was one of my favorite).  By the way the caveat was added that in Hell the body was never destroyed therefore the anticipation of the end of pain would never happen.

I think that i actually preferred the sexual interest the roman catholic priest had in my genitals, it was in the very least, less violent.

Today, I awaken with no desire, a non attached ego, a slightly quivering heart and a sense of dread that “2012″ might indeed be the only way to approach collective consciousness.  I have awakened this morning to the fullness of my cynicism, I am back to being a student of nihilism.  Of course, i know that I am not the only nut-job to meditate & find the eternal void to be smack in front of me while every one else sits with a moaning – Lisa, half-smile pasted as a semi-look of bliss on their faces.  But, that I may not be alone, is not exactly comforting.

Does anyone else out there ever get so discouraged, that despite all the beautiful possibilities, all the promise of unlimited manifestation, stillthe ego can come in, take over and be in charge for what feels like an eternity.

It is like the walls of the mine/mind have caved in on themselves.  Let’s see if I am able to carve a way back to sanity…I think the canary may still be alive.

Dr. Albert Dussault

www.iphotoimpression.com

aldussault@cox.net