10- The Illusion Of Reality

10- The Illusion Of Reality

At fifty-six, my father, husband and girlfriend of twenty years were in various stages of terminal cancer.  As I walked this intimate journey with them, the gifts and insights I received were innumerable. I attribute this to a practice Phil and I had embraced for about three years.  Using a mindset of compassion and non-judgement with regard to all experiences that arise in life,  present moment awareness is heightened. Due to this we discovered a complete shift in our experience of life itself. As the primary caretaker for my rapidly declining husband and girlfriend, I was thrust into an expansion of that shift.  While the people in the world around me went on as usual, I no longer shared their experience of it. The collapsing of  timelines, and synchronistic experiences became as much a part of life as the air I breathed.  I literally watched the differences between my experience of ‘reality’ and theirs, as if it was being played before me on a stage.…because, as Shakespeare had written, indeed it was.  

Living in the continual awareness of what is truly important and what is mere distraction was life changing.  When the people I loved were nearing the end of their physical incarnations, and as one by one they passed, a kind of awareness set in as to the true nature of this thing called life.  The normal comings and goings of everyday-ness were more evident to me as I watched the world scurrying around in distraction and routine while I was enveloped in a heightened sense of present moment awareness.  A dear friend of ours, Ed Rubinstein, once wrote a book titled Waking From The Trances Of Everyday Life.  It spoke to the mindlessness of habitual ‘doing’ in ordinary day-to-day living rather than living from a state of presence while attending to those same tasks.  I found myself acutely aware of this phenomena. I was living within a kind of slowed down state of hyper-focused awareness where time was ticking forever away, while the people interacting with me didn’t even seem to notice.  Caught as they were within their own trances of everyday life, two very different realities co-existed side by side, only appearing to share commonalities.  We all drove our cars, ate our meals, slept in beds, walked the same halls or sidewalks, even discussed many of the same subjects, but our realities of what was transpiring in those moments couldn’t have been more different.  This fascinated me and I began to not only experience, but understand the concept of ‘peace amid chaos’ and the teaching “peace that passeth all understanding” more than I ever had.

Instead of living along a timeline of fear and dread as a soon-to-be mid-fifties widow facing the loss of my beloved husband, father and friend, as well as my home and income, my experience was quite different.  Instead of life pulling at me from all directions, I was free to focus on my very ill loved ones. I stood amazed at the peaceful and meticulously guided experience my husband Phil and I were both having as we lived out his last weeks at the hospital.  Spiritually centered in a thought system based in compassionate non-judgement and presence for years, together we each experienced what we considered heightened results of those efforts as his passing grew close.  An ever-flowing stream of synchronistic experiences seem to provide whatever we needed whenever we needed it, and struggle was not even a blip on our radar.  Other than the weariness of living in a hospital week after week, we were free from tending to all of life’s necessities as one by one they were either eliminated or addressed through no doing of our own.  In fact, many things that would normally need attention during the illness and after the passing of a spouse, had been eliminated the week before we even learned Phil was ill.  This is what I refer to as the collapsing of difficulties along timelines due to our practice. This, in my experience, results from an attitude of acceptance and non-attachment in regards to life experiences.  Over and over I experience the peace that unfolds as I curiously approach life without judgment or attachment to outcome, simply witnessing what it holds rather than resisting or struggling against it.  Even as I reflect on such events to share them here, I am in awe at the ease with which the road ahead of us was prepared even  before we knew it was coming.

With Phil long past retirement age, and as spontaneous as we were, it wasn’t until the lease on our condo neared renewal that we decided it was retirement time.  Having always envisioned an RV lifestyle, we decided to move in that direction. Upon hearing our plans, my daughter unexpectedly suggested that rather than paying a heightened month-to-month condo fee, we should move into her guest room for a few weeks while we hunted for our RV, so we did just that.  Within a week we sold or donated most of our possessions, put my art studio in storage, and moved out of the condo. Since Phil wasn’t going to give notice of his retirement until we found our RV, a week later, when a routine examination revealed colon cancer, we still had the full coverage from his insurance and he was still gainfully employed.  Therefore, we had almost no bills, no property that needed tending, our finances were intact for the remainder of his life because his salary continued, and I was not left with the expenses of an RV I would not be using.  Add to this that I was able to live between the hospital and my daughters guest room, which made everything very convenient.  Even the choices Phil was able to make from the hospital with regard to structuring his retirement income were informed by his terminal diagnosis.  Those choices eliminated any remaining bills I would have been left with and provided me with a small monthly income to fund my expenses while taking care of my girlfriend for the next two years.  This would not have been the insurance or retirement structure we’d have made had his diagnosis come even one week later.  As astounding as all this was, it didn’t end there.

As Phil and my father’s passing was bridged by less than a day, even the window of time I found away from Phil’s bedside in those last days, to visit my father before his passing, was filled with a blessing.  A kind of coherency rare in my dad’s last days was granted the morning I visited.  And while my visit lasted only a few hours before I was unexpectedly called back to an emergency situation with Phil, we said all that we needed before his transition.  Even after Phil’s passing, everything was so perfectly aligned that I was able to spend the time necessary to care for my girlfriend as she battled her own terminal illness. Because all of my worldly and personal responsibilities had been synchronistically resolved, it was impossible not to marvel at these amazing results I attribute to the daily practice of compassionate non-attachment which Phil and I had embraced for so long. But before I move on from sharing the collapsing of difficult timelines, I want to share perhaps the most profound result of all Phil’s experiences during this time.

As if facing the end of one’s life isn’t typically jarring enough, exiting through the painful conditions associated with colon cancer is not an easy path.  Unless, like Phil, one had spent years playing a conscious game of ‘Don’t Make It Real.”  Borrowing a phrase from the ACIM (A Course In Miracles) community, Phil and I had spent the last three years helping one another view and respond to the world as a projection of the mind, and therefore not ‘real’ in the sense that most experience it.  Seeing everything in the physical world of form as a reflection for our own benefit of awakening from thoughts of separation, we helped one another get out of the perception based conditioning of our thoughts; those automatic responses of believing the minds projection and the results such thinking produces.  For years we reminded each other, numerous times each day, to step away from the divided mind of perception and into the whole mind of compassionate non-judgement.  This practice brought us into present moment awareness like no other.  We got to the point where just the phrase “don’t make it real” could almost instantly shine a light on any situation, lifting the heaviest burden or pulling us out of intense frustration.  We laughed at ourselves often as we found one another emotionally snagged by the things in life that we were ‘making real’.  We marveled at the way this ‘not making it real’ game really seemed to lighten or shift our experiences. Our world filled with synchronistic wonder as this practice freed us from the cycle of cause and effect and collapsed difficulties along timelines.  This proved true even along the timelines we were unknowingly moving toward.

I first received the diagnosis of Phil’s cancer in the hallway just outside an exam room where he was resting from a colonoscopy. Upon sharing this news with him I took his hand and immediately asked him if he was scared.  He smiled, saying no, and that he wasn’t going to ‘make it real’.  We agreed!  We weren’t making light of the news, we simply weren’t afraid!  On the contrary, we knew that walking through such a circumstance using the practice of compassionate non-judgement would be profoundly opportunistic on our path of awakening.  And since spiritual awakening had become the center of our lives for many years, we simply continued the practices we had found, opening ourselves to the mystery unfolding before us.

The staff tending to Phil at the clinic came in and out of the room with lowered eyes and consoling words, sharing their sadness about the diagnosis. Each time one would leave the room Phil commented and repeatedly pointed out to me how the staff’s response to the situation was so conditioned that they couldn’t even see that we weren’t in fear or disbelief.  So conditioned to the beliefs they held about the news of a terminal diagnosis, they weren't able to be present to the very people they were attempting to console. It was then that Phil and I knew we would walk through what was ahead of us together, in the same kind of peace-filled awareness bubble we had played in for years.  A bubble of awareness that most of the world couldn’t see. We weren’t in denial.  That is not the nature of the ‘don’t make it real’ perspective. We had simply conditioned our minds to see beyond the programmed illusion of separation that ensnared most.  Completely aware of the physical prognosis of the diagnosis within the illusion, we were intimately connected to the reality beyond this illusion of separation which the diagnosis had also brought, and therefore completely free of fear!  As time went on and Phil’s illness progressed it was sad to watch the suffering of loved ones who only felt the ‘reality’ of impending loss.  Personally, we knew this to simply be a time of transition; a glorious time that truly should be celebrated as one steps into an expansion of themselves free from physical limitations, having completed the mission their incarnation facilitated.

Through surgery, and conditions arising from the surgery, through living at the hospital almost day and night for eight weeks, and being given various and ever shortening time frames for survival, our peace filled bubble of expanded awareness remained around us.  While I was often physically exhausted, from living at Phil’s bedside and checking in on my girlfriend when I could, Phil and I were most always in good spirits.  Alone in his room we would often talk about how amazing it was to experience ourselves actually living the awareness we had come to realize and reaping the results in this time of heightened circumstance.  It is easy to think you are growing from your spiritual perspectives when things are going smoothly.  But when the road gets rocky you get to see the degree to which your beliefs and experiences align.  We were amazed how natural it was to continue to live from our heightened awareness as Phil literally lay dying.  Phil would visit with loved ones and friends that came by, and when asked how his attitude was so upbeat, he would share his excitement about the adventure ahead of him in terms he felt they could understand. “I’ve spent my whole life wondering about the spiritual world and now I’m going to experience it first hand!” he said to one friend.  “Why be afraid?  We don’t die!” he would exclaim.  This was quintessential Phil.

Apart from high spirits Phil was also virtually pain free throughout his entire illness.  Rarely if ever on pain medication, he remained alert and truly ‘with us’ until he slipped quietly away in his sleep the night we brought him home for hospice care.  Having since watched the stark contrast of my girlfriends long and harrowing struggle with the exact same illness, and her painful lingering as she held tightly onto her body in her last days, the differences that an awakening mind like Phil’s experienced was again magnified for me. So different was his experience through his illness and transition that it is impossible to know just how much of it to contribute to his practice of compassionate non-judgement.  However, I can honestly say I have never heard of such an ease filled and almost completely drug-free presence associated with anyone passing from colon cancer.  I personally credit much of Phil’s experience with his practice of compassionate non-judgement and the difficulties that were collapsed because of it.  As for my own experiences I am certain they were aided by this practice.

A day or so after Phil transitioned, a profound thought dropped into my awareness.   It was deeper and more substantial than normal everyday thoughts that run through my mind and it caught me completely off guard.  More like a statement of fact, it carried more weight than the words themselves and was accompanied with an expansion experience beyond-the-body.  The thought was this,  ’If Phil is dead, then I can’t really be alive.’  A profound shift instantaneously arose in me and the concept of illusion that is taught in esoteric scriptures literally expanded in my awareness.  I instantly grasped a new level of understanding with regard to the physical world as a projection of the mind.  A confirmation was extended that there truly is no such thing as life (or death) as we define it.  There is only awareness…eternal awareness.  I have come to realize that this is what we are, and this is what we expand into more of upon our passing.  As we exit the limitations of our physical experience, we expand into more of that awareness, which we never truly left, but only imagined leaving in our illusion of separation. From there, if we have evolved our consciousness enough to move beyond the planes of matter, energy, space, and time we can align directly with this awareness.  For Phil and I, this evolution was practiced through compassionate non-judgement.

Because I had been wrapped in an uncommon cocoon focused on what is referred to as ‘end-of-life’ scenarios multiplied by three, I had been experiencing huge doses of this awareness for quite some time.  The comings and goings of the world around me continued to mirror stark contrasts between my reality and the hum of a distracted, unawakened reality.  Experiencing the ease of the timeline associated with Phil’s passing and how everything was divinely guided also magnified my years of practicing compassionate non-judgement, and not making things ‘real’. Giving our personal power away to those things that we grasp onto as ‘real’ limits us from our limitless, eternal nature.  Having been able to embrace the world as a mirror of the fragmented mind, even through Phil’s illness and passing, I had fostered a new level of awakening.  In truth, Phil was no more dead than I was alive….not in this physical form of illusory projection anyway.  We are both beyond those small concepts of life and death.  Knowing this allows me to approach life differently than if I buy into any ‘form’ as who I am.  The freedom in this doesn’t divorce me from the responsibilities I align with in my incarnation or remove me from tragedy.  It does however lighten this for me and moves me from one experience to the next with grace and gratitude. The opportunity this world affords me to choose love and compassion at every turn connects me deeper to my true essence. I have come to realize this as a gift beyond measure.  While I am only practiced at it and not perfect, I have come to realize that it is this attitude that moves me closer to true Self-realization.  

11- Good Grief

11- Good Grief

Even with an absolute understanding that life is eternal and that we can stay connected to our loved ones after transition, acclimating to the physical absence of someone you have spent the better part of your life with is tough.   The grief process is just that…a process.  Even for those with heightened intuition or obvious experiences that we remain connected, there is a necessary period of grief.  As Barbara Brennan’s work shows, energetic cords literally connect us to one another.  The deeper the connection, the stronger the cords.  At the time of a loved ones passing these energetic cords are literally severed.  Appropriately experienced, grief is the way of processing this separation and initiating the return to individuation. Good grief is a necessary energetic release expressed through the emotions.  Suppressing these emotions is as unhealthy as drowning in them. Unfortunately, many do get stuck in the most difficult phases of grief and do not process the energy necessary for healing.  For that reason I want to share an uncommon practice which not only transformed my grief but illuminated my world. 

Following Phil’s transition, from time to time an overwhelming sensation of profound loss would completely encapsulate me.  Anyone who has lost someone very close to them experiences this aspect of grief.  Unfortunately what is more uncommon, is something I experienced in the midst of these episodes of despair.  As suddenly as the overwhelming emotion of grief would come upon me, it would be lifted from me.  It was as if some invisible force literally removed a heavy blanket drenched in the weight of sorrow from around me.  Often my tears would stop in midstream.  The emotion wasn’t replaced with another feeling or thought, the heaviness was just lifted from me.  As a trained counselor and trained reiki master I knew the value in letting the emotion flow whenever and wherever it wanted to, so I wasn’t repressing the intense emotion.  It was quite literally being lifted from me.

The first few times this happened I was perplexed.  Alone in the guest room I was occupying at my daughters, I would occasionally burst into sobs that would cease almost as soon as they started.  Not because I was choking them back, but because the deep grief out of which those cries arose would unexplainably evaporate, much like a dream upon awakening.  All that I was ever left to deal with unaided was a gentle sadness that was manageable and natural.   

After a while, this phase was followed by another which was not only welcomed, but deeply intimate.  A soft introspective kind of energy began to stay with me.  It was a type of tenderness that would emerge as I began speaking about Phil or tending to the business at hand following his passing. It would sometimes include tears or tender emotions, but it had a sweet energy attached to it and I simply allowed it as it arose.  In the presence of a stranger or with friends I was quite comfortable aligning with this energy.  Much like an emotional reverence for all that we had shared in our life together, it was, in many ways, my initial avenue for remaining connected to him.  If I had to describe a feeling associated with this connection it would be an intimate gentleness or tender sweetness that only I could experience.  It was born out of our unique relationship and all that we had invested in it over the decades.  It was Phil, wrapping his presence around me.  This was good grief!

It was this connection that inspired me to write letters to Phil at the end of each day.  Just as one would write and mail a letter to a loved one without expecting an immediate reply, these letters extended my connection to him because it focused my mind in our eternal connection.   Where our thoughts are, our emotions follow.  I realized that the more I stayed focused in the present moment, bringing to it all that I desired, the more I aligned with the signature or essence of who or what I desired to connect with.  This was demonstrated through the letter writing.  Of course, I also talked to Phil all the time as if he were physically beside me.  We had loved our life together.  It was a quiet, simple life and because we were both such introverts, it was mostly solitary, which we enjoyed.  We had one another and were deeply connected in our intimate aloneness.  The type of shorthand that grows between spouses is palpably absent when one transitions before the other, and nothing prepared me for the space this left behind.  Talking to Phil and writing the letters each evening greatly filled that space for me.  Eventually he would reach through time and space and connect with me in ways that touch me even in the remembering.

Early widowhood was not something I had anticipated and after a while I found myself wanting to connect with others who could relate to it and sort of walk me through it.  Hospice kept reaching out offering grief support, but my experiences weren’t reflected in those groups.  I tried reaching out to an online support group for widows and widowers in hopes of sharing my experiences but I soon found out that no one in those groups was having the kind of experience I was.  Many were in deep grief…for years….stuck in that feeling that would be lifted from me almost as soon as it would arise.  As I tried to explain my experiences, the forums reflected that no one understood.  There simply was no framework for them to relate to what I tried to share.  Even among widows, I was without a community in my widowhood.  That’s when I intuitively knew that my experiences were the result of the compassionate non-judgement awakening practice Phil and I had used for years….and one that we had made a game of practicing together in the years before his passing. 

This practice stemmed from studying a variety of esoteric, psychological as well as scientific perspectives. Over many years I had pieced together a practice stemming from Eastern thought, Western channeled material, shamanic practices, as well as psychological and scientific theories I felt led to explore.  Each of these disciplines were teaching much the same things from different perspectives, and sometimes from a religious framework I didn’t personally feel the need for.  Together they formed a foundation of awakening through compassionate non-judgement with regard to life scenarios.  This brought an uncommon ease to life that I had not experienced prior to this practice. 

Having had many mystical experiences, the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung first captivated me.  His teaching around the subjects of projection and deep introspection had a huge impact on me.   Then came the Taoist and Buddhist teachings of non-duality, and self-inquiry which fit perfectly into the Jungian framework I was exploring.  The work of pioneers like Eckhart Tolle, Bruce Lipton, Larry Dossey and the like also influenced my understanding. Next came channeled material from various sources along with the teachings from A Course In Miracles and the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’Oponono.  It has been my experience that exploring the teachings that show up in response to my ongoing sincere request to be ‘led into all truth’ is my journey to Self-realization as source-realization. I literally follow the guidance placed before me, weighing it as I go for resonance and then trust where it leads.  In this way I have not gotten bogged down in any ‘path’, tradition, religion, philosophy or dogma.  Instead I have been able to grasp what served my truth-quest while remaining open to further lessons.  I do not adopt beliefs!  Anything I believe…and I mean anything, can greatly limit the communication between my larger aspect or higher wisdom and my physical expression of self.

There are many sources and avenues to explore, and these are just some of the ones I was guided to piece together based on my experiences.  I have come to understand the value of expanding intuitive awareness for the support it lends my own higher mind guidance.  When I nurture this connection it grows.  When I allow myself to be externally guided, this connection diminishes.  Creativity is one conduit for nurturing this intuitive connection.  It has always fostered an avenue through which guidance can speak to me and teach me.  Outside material then appears in a timely fashion to serve a supporting role to the intuitive nudges I experience.  Traditional meditation has never spoken to me.  Its passive nature is not my preference for journeying nor do I experience it as an avenue for truly moving into Self-realization. 

In a nutshell, this is my practice;  I understand that everything is a projection based on individual perceptions.  Therefore, I take responsibility for mine, choosing to see everyone extending either an extension of love or a cry for love.  This helps me move away from judgment. I can then embrace whatever emotionally triggers me as though it is simply a reflection of something I have the unique perspective to heal.  From my individual perspective of duality or separation, I take full responsibility for what I am projecting into my awareness, then bring that situation into the healing energy of compassion.  This transmutes (converts) any ‘negative’ energies that were triggered in me, dissolving them and shifting me toward a state of non-dual wholeness.  This heals the fragmented aspects in myself as an individual, and energetically contributes to the healing of the collective.  My experience is that this process also shifts and collapses difficult timelines and, as it did for me, greatly reduces suffering in those times of grief or loss. From this perspective I am opened to further guidance from my higher wisdom and led into all truth, which has been my focus in this lifetime.

We have been conditioned in western society to associate the length of one’s grief to the depth of one’s love.  My hope in sharing the way my grief was seemingly supernaturally lifted because of the practice I had used for years, is that others may benefit from such a practice or from the resources I used.  I would also like to validate the awakening aspects involved in such practices.  Phil and I both felt that our journey through his unexpected illness and terminal diagnosis was greatly cushioned because of our shared practice of compassionate non-judgement. We also felt that a loving marriage fostered a thriving survivorship.  We spoke of this before his passing and I can still recall his loving countenance and peaceful assurance that following his passing I would be okay.  I believe I am doing our marriage of twenty-two years proud by carrying forward all that he gave me.…and continues to give.  His presence in my life following his transition has been unquestionable.  In life, we knew ours was the road less taken.  I know that is still true as I continue my journey.  It takes me places I find impossible to share with those who simply can’t relate to that which is beyond the physical plane.  This doesn’t make me special, it just places me in the minority as one who has consciously undone much of my programming in an effort to experience self-realization as source-realization in this lifetime.  I share my stories in an effort to share myself, my journey and my experiences with any who might also desire such realizations.  There are lots of areas of my life I haven’t mastered, but grief is not one of them. I hope sharing my experiences helps those looking to end the suffering that often accompanies the loss of a loved one.  One of the truest teachings I have ever personally experienced came from A Course In Miracles (ACIM) and it goes like this…. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”