Ilumine-Ao

Is it your time to wake up? Is it time to move forward? To the next level? To evolve from where you are at? Read this phenomenal article by Alan Cohen.

For our best and highest good, all ways…
Ilumine Ao, Al Diaz

Awakening On Your Path

by Alan Cohen

We are told in Genesis that “a deep sleep fell over Adam” – but nowhere does it say in the Bible that he woke up! In essence, all the events that followed Adam’s falling asleep are a part of his dream.

Metaphysically, Adam represents all of us. We, too, have entered into a deep sleep. As individuals, nations, and a planet, we have forgotten where we have come from, who we are, and where we are going. An honest look at the troubles we have created for ourselves reveals that we have painfully lost sight of the visions that once painted our future. What began as a happy dream seems to have tail spun into a nightmare. Struggling in the murky shadows spun by the bony fingers of fear, it appears as if there is no escape from the labyrinth of the problems we perceive. The heaviness of our sleep has drawn dark curtains over the memory of our golden origin.

But nightmares always end with awakening. While the dream may seem overwhelming when you are in it, it becomes as nothing the moment you open your eyes. Sometimes the awakening is gentle, light, and easy. Often it is startling and feels jarring. But if we are having a painful dream, one in which we see ourselves as powerless, small, or unlovable, is it not worth the shake-up in order to wake up?

The Citadel of Fear
Every sojourner of spirit must face the time when the walls that protected his old world begin to crack. Sooner or later the chisels of life’s trials pick away at our armor. And this dismantling is wonderful, for there is no greater tragedy than hiding behind something that we are not, living a life that is less than we are. The universe is continuously working to remind us of our identity and our purpose. If we are living a life that is untrue to our soul’s calling, our inner guide will not let us rest until we step back onto our true course.

The time comes when we can no longer find refuge in our defenses. We discover, often with awe, that it is precisely our defenses that have kept us in darkness! We tire of straining to protect ourselves, and we feel stifled and restricted by the walls we have built between our hearts and others. Our defenses are not worth the love we lose in hiding. We cannot afford to maintain a citadel of fear at the cost of peace. In our efforts to keep pain away from our heart, we have also denied entry to joy. The moment arrives when we must break free and make a stand for who we are. That moment is now. The time has come to cast aside our cloak of smallness and don the robe which honors our true magnitude. We must claim the strength to live in the dignity befitting our identity.

When I first set onto my path of awakening, I felt as if my whole world was falling apart. Many of the things to which I had devoted my time, attention, and energy suddenly became meaningless. It can be very startling and unnerving to discover that the values for which you lived no longer seem real. I did not find the same satisfaction or communication with the friends I was used to spending time with. I wondered why I was doing the kind of work I was in. The social pursuits which had formerly brought me pleasure no longer held gifts for me. I felt that most of the goals that I had strived for were no longer worthy of my continued attention. My entire sense of purpose had shifted. I had a brief taste of something more and better, but I did not know how to make it a lasting element of my life. I felt lost sometimes even as if I was going crazy. It was a dark night of the soul.

If you are passing through such a night, or have ever done so, take comfort in knowing that such a void is a very important, helpful, and necessary part of the journey. When planting a garden, the earth must be turned over, tilled, and smoothed out before new seeds can grow; otherwise the old weeds will overtake the seedlings. In the same way, before a new and shining building can be erected, the old, dilapidated, and useless structures standing on the lot must be cleared away. We must make space for something new and better to enter our lives. While it may seem that we are out of control or subject to forces greater than ourselves, it is important to remember that there is a wisdom in the events that we attract to us. All is for learning, growing, and healing. God is very present, and we are not alone.

Such a time calls for faith, the knowing that everything somehow works out for the best. It is not your world that is shattering, but your illusions. God’s world can never be shattered, for God’s world is founded in love, the only indestructible energy in the entire universe. If you feel disillusioned, then take heart; dis-illusion means the end of an illusion. Disillusionment is the best thing that could happen to anyone. It means that something false has been undone, and the truth behind it is available to be discovered. The truth is always healing. Only illusions are painful. Therefore be glad, even proud, that you have had the courage to learn a lesson that would break your illusions and replace them with greater strength and wisdom.

Our pains and tribulations are the chipping of the cement off the Golden Buddha. The armor falls away to reveal the gold. A worthless image is crumbling, and the treasure is coming forth. It is the end of the cover-up and the beginning of the radiance. In such a birth, there is great cause for joy.

Peace Must Come
Once you have begun to awaken, you can never really go to sleep again. Oh we can doze a wink or two here or there, but once the climber has caught sight of the mountaintop, nothing can stop her from reaching the summit. We have come too far to turn back now. We have played out many of our fantasies and idle wishes. We have been teased, tantalized, titillated, and seduced by the cheap perfume of shallow dreams, and somehow the aroma just doesn’t turn our heads like it once did. Now we want peace more than idols.

To dare to be yourself means to live in the spirit of power rather than weakness; to proceed from peace instead of clamoring to maintain defenses; to want the reality of love more than the nightmare of fear. And we do.

The time has come for us to be released from the burden of living for dreams other than our own. Armoring is for protection, not expansion. The Golden Buddha must stand in the sunlight. We are living in the age on earth when men and women are stepping forth to claim freedom. There is a great wave of awakening that cannot be denied, suppressed, or reversed. Those who align with the expansion are empowered and uplifted by a Force much larger than themselves. And those who resist or oppose it are gripped in only deeper struggle. We must choose between love and fear, and learn the truth of the one and the uselessness of the other.

Peace must come to those who ask for it. Strength must be given to those who claim it. And love must bring healing to all who open their arms to receive it. The time of awakening is at hand.

Who are you? Because who you are and the energy you emanate is what is influencing those around you. BE all that you can BE and it will make a big difference on other people’s Life as well…read this great article by Jim Rohn.

For our best and highest good, all ways…

Ilumine Ao, Al Diaz

The Best Gift to Give Yourself and Others

by Jim Rohn

I’m often asked the question, “How can I best help my children, spouse, family member, staff member, friend, etc., improve/change?” In fact, that might be the most frequently asked question I receive, “How can I help change someone else?”

My answer often comes as a surprise and here it is. The key to helping others is to help yourself first. In other words, the best contribution I can make to someone else is my own personal development. If I become 10 times wiser, 10 times stronger, think of what that will do for my adventure as a father… as a grandfather… as a business colleague.

The best gift I can give to you, really, is my ongoing personal development. Getting better, getting stronger, becoming wiser. I think parents should pick this valuable philosophy up. If the parents are okay, the kids have an excellent chance of being okay. Work on your personal development as parents—that’s the best gift you can give to your children.

If you have ever ridden in an airplane, then you might have noticed the oxygen compartment located above every seat. There are explicit instructions that say, “In case of an emergency, first secure your own oxygen mask and then if you have children with you secure their masks.” Take care of yourself first… then assist your children. If we use that same philosophy throughout our whole parental life, it would be so valuable.

If I learn to create happiness for myself, my children now have an excellent chance to be happy. If I create a unique lifestyle for myself and my spouse, that will be a great example to serve my children.

Self-development enables you to serve, to be more valuable to those around you; for your child… your business… your colleague… your community… your church.

That’s why I teach development skills. If you keep refining all the parts of your character (yourself, your health, etc.) so that you become an attractive person to the marketplace, you’ll attract opportunity. Opportunity will then begin to seek you out. Your reputation will begin to precede you and people will want to do business with you. All of that possibility is created by working on the philosophy that success is something you attract by continually working on your own personal development.

Vol 53, June 19th, 2010

Miracle of Love Scholarships

In one of my quotes for this newsletter I indicate to “pause” and experience the moment. By doing so you become aware of what is going on around you and most importantly what is going on within you. Read this great article by Eckhart Tolle.

Anxiously Seeking Something

by Eckhart Tolle

Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel demeanor. He said: “They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don’t know what they want. We think they are mad.”

The undercurrent of constant unease started long before the rise of Western industrial civilization, of course, but in Western civilization, which now covers almost the entire globe, including most of the East, it manifests in an unprecedentedly acute form. It was already there at the time of Jesus, and it was there 6oo years before that at the time of Buddha, and long before that. “Why are you always anxious?” Jesus asked his disciples. “Can anxious thought add a single day to your life?” And the Buddha taught that the root of suffering is to be found in our constant wanting and craving.

Resistance to the Now as a collective dysfunction is intrinsically connected to loss of awareness of Being and forms the basis of our dehumanized industrial civilization. Freud, by the way, also recognized the existence of this undercurrent of unease and wrote about it in his book Civilization and Its Discontents, but he did not recognize the true root of the unease and failed to realize that freedom from it is possible. This collective dysfunction has created a very unhappy and extraordinarily violent civilization that has become a threat not only to itself but also to all life on the planet.

Dissolving Ordinary Unconsciousness
So how can we be free of this affliction?

Make it conscious. Observe the many ways in which unease, discontent, and tension arise within you through unnecessary judgment, resistance to what is, and denial of the Now. Anything unconscious dissolves when you shine the light of consciousness on it. Once you know how to dissolve ordinary unconsciousness, the light of your presence will shine brightly, and it will be much easier to deal with deep unconsciousness whenever you feel its gravitational pull. However, ordinary unconsciousness may not be easy to detect initially because it is so normal.

Make it a habit to monitor your mental-emotional state through self-observation. “Am I at ease at this moment?” is a good question to ask yourself frequently. Or you can ask: “What’s going on inside me at this moment?” Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.Primary reality is within, secondary reality without. But don’t answer these questions immediately.

Direct your attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life — by denying the Now. There are many ways in which people unconsciously resist the present moment. I will give you a few examples. With practice, your power of self-observation, of monitoring your inner state, will become sharpened.

Freedom From Unhappiness
Do you resent doing what you are doing? It may be your job, or you may have agreed to do something and are doing it, but part of you resents and resists it. Are you carrying unspoken resentment toward a person close to you? Do you realize that the energy you thus emanate is so harmful in its effects that you are in fact contaminating yourself as well as those around you? Have a good look inside. Is there even the slightest trace of resentment, unwillingness? If there is, observe it on both the mental and the emotional levels. What thoughts is your mind creating around this situation? Then look at the emotion, which is the body’s reaction to those thoughts. Feel the emotion. Does it feel pleasant or unpleasant? Is it an energy that you would actually choose to have inside you? Do you have a choice?

Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant. Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are making the present moment into an enemy. You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer. Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.

Either stop doing what you are doing, speak to the person concerned and express fully what you feel, or drop the negativity that your mind has created around the situation and that serves no purpose whatsoever except to strengthen a false sense of self. Recognizing its futility is important. Negativity is never the optimum way of dealing with any situation. In fact, in most cases it keeps you stuck in it, blocking real change. Anything that is done with negative energy will become contaminated by it and in time give rise to more pain, more unhappiness. Furthermore, any negative inner state is contagious: Unhappiness spreads more easily than a physical disease. Through the law of resonance, it triggers and feeds latent negativity in others, unless they are immune — that is, highly conscious.

Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are responsible for the planet. As within, so without: If humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution.

Just BE… read this great article by Osho.

For our best and highest good, all ways…
Ilumine Ao, Al Diaz

Greatest Fear of All

by Osho

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom.

Buddha has actually called it the lion’s roar. When a man reaches an absolutely silent state he roars like a lion. For the first time he knows what freedom is because now there is no fear of anybody’s opinion. What people say does not matter. Whether they call you a saint or a sinner is immaterial; your whole and sole judge is God. And by ‘God’ a person is not meant at all, God simply means the whole universe.

It is not a question of having to face a person; you have to face the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the stars — the whole universe. And this is our universe, we are part of it. There is no need to be afraid of it, there is no need to hide anything from it. In fact, even if you try you cannot hide. The whole knows it already, the whole knows more about you than you know.

And the second point is even more significant; the second is, God has already judged. It is not something that is going to happen in the future, it has already happened: he has judged. So even the fear of that judgment withers away. It is not a question of some Judgment Day at the end. You need not tremble. The judgment day happened on the first day; the moment he created you he already judged you. He knows you, you are his creation. If something goes wrong with you he is responsible, not you. If you go astray he is responsible, not you. How can you be responsible? — you are not your own creation. If you paint and something goes wrong you cannot say that the painting is the cause of it — the painter is the cause.

So there is no need to be afraid of the crowd or of some imaginary god at the end of the world asking you what you have done and what you have not done. He has already judged — that is really significant — it has already happened so you are free. And the moment one knows that one is totally free to be oneself, life starts having a dynamic quality to it.

Fear creates fetters, freedom gives you wings.

FREEDOM GIVES YOU WINGS

I have been a misfit my whole life — in my family, in my religion, in my country — and I have enjoyed it all the way, because to be a misfit is to be an individual.

To fit with the existing established order is to lose your individuality. And that’s your whole world.

The moment you compromise and lose your individuality, you have lost everything. You have committed suicide. The people who fit in the world are people who have destroyed themselves.

Certainly it needs courage, a tremendously strong sense for freedom; otherwise, you cannot stand alone against the whole world. But to stand against the whole world is the beginning of such a great joy, rejoicing and blessing, that those who have never been misfits cannot understand it.

All the great names in the history of man were just misfits in their society. All the people who have contributed to the happiness of man and the beauty of the earth have been misfits. To be a misfit is a tremendously valuable quality.

Never compromise on any point. The very compromise is the beginning of your destruction.

I do not mean that you have to be stubborn; if you see something is right, go along with it. But the moment you realize that something is not right, then even if the whole world feels it is right, it is not right for you. And then stick to your position — that will give you stamina, strength, a certain integrity.

And to be a misfit does not mean to be an egoist. If you are an egoist, sooner or later you will compromise. When you find any group of people, any society, any country, which helps you to be more egoistic, you will immediately fit with that society. The real misfit is a humble man, that’s why nobody can absorb him. He is free because he is free of the ego.

My understanding is that only people of intelligence, individuality, are rejected. The people who are obedient, who have no individuality, no freedom of expression, never say no to anything, are always ready to say yes, even against their wills — these are the people who gain much respectability in the world. They become presidents, they become prime ministers, they are honored in every possible way, for the simple reason that they committed suicide. They are no longer living, they are simply fossilized. How can you fit living people into a certain pattern? Every individual is unique — why should he fit into another’s mold?

The whole misery of the world can be explained very simply: everybody has been cut, molded, arranged by others without their even bothering to find out what he was supposed to be by nature. They don’t give a chance to existence. From the very moment the child is born, they start spoiling him — with all good intentions, of course. No parent does it consciously, but he was conditioned in the same way. He repeats the same with his children; he knows nothing else.

The disobedient child is continuously condemned. The obedient child is, on the other hand, continuously praised. But have you heard of any obedient child having become world-famous in any dimension of creativity? Have you heard of any obedient child who has attained the Nobel prize for anything — literature, peace, science? The obedient child becomes just the common crowd.

I have lived continuously as a misfit everywhere, and I have enjoyed it, every inch of it, every drop of it. It is such a beautiful journey, to be just yourself.

FREEDOM FROM, FREEDOM FOR

Never think in terms of being free from; always think in terms of being free for. And the difference is vast, tremendously vast. Don’t think in terms of from — think for. Be free for God, be free for truth, but don’t think that you want to be free from the crowd, free from the church, free from this and that. You may be able to go far away one day, but you will never be free, never. It is going to be some sort of suppression.

Why are you so afraid of the crowd? … If the pull is there, then your fear simply shows your pull, your attraction. Wherever you go you will remain dominated by the crowd.

What I am saying is, just look at the facts of it — that there is no need to think in terms of the crowd. Just think in terms of your being. It can be dropped right now. You cannot be free if you struggle. You can drop it because there is no point in struggling.

The crowd is not the problem — you are the problem. The crowd is not pulling you — you are being pulled, not by somebody else but by your own unconscious conditioning. Always remember not to throw the responsibility somewhere on somebody else, because then you will never be free of it. Deep down it is your responsibility. Why should one be so much against the crowd? Poor crowd! Why should you be so much against it? Why do you carry such a wound?

The crowd cannot do anything unless you cooperate. So the question is of your cooperation. You can drop the cooperation just now, just like that. If you put any effort into it, then you will be in trouble. So do it instantly. It is just on the spur of the moment, of spontaneous understanding, if you can see the point that if you fight, you will be fighting a losing battle. In the very fighting you are emphasizing the crowd.

That’s what has happened to millions of people. Somebody wants to escape from women — in India they have done that for centuries. Then they become more and more engrossed in it. They want to get rid of sex, and their whole mind then becomes sexual; they think only of sex and nothing else. They fast, and they will not go to sleep; they will do this and that pranayama and yoga and a thousand and one things — all nonsense. The more they fight with sex the more they are enforcing it, the more they are concentrating on it. It becomes so significant, out of all proportion.

That is what has happened to Christian monasteries. They became so repressed, just afraid. The same can happen to you if you become afraid too much of the crowd. The crowd cannot do anything unless you cooperate, so it is a question of your alertness. Don’t cooperate!

This is my observation: that whatsoever happens to you, you are responsible. Nobody else is doing it to you. You wanted it to be done, so it has been done. Somebody exploits you because you wanted to be exploited. Somebody has put you into a prison because you wanted to be imprisoned. There must have been a certain search for it. Maybe you used to call it security. Your names may have been different, your labels may have been different, but you were hankering to be imprisoned because in a prison one is safe and there is no insecurity.

But don’t fight with the prison walls. Look inside. Find that hankering for security, and how the crowd can manipulate you. You must be asking for something from the crowd — recognition, honor, respect, respectability. If you ask them, you have to repay them. Then the crowd says, “Okay, we give you respect, and you give us your freedom.” It is a simple bargain. But the crowd has never done anything to you — it is basically you. So get out of your own way!