Peacefully...
Well, I fell off the blog for a few weeks. I had some work to do and now I'm back...This next week coming will mark the one year of Peaceful Contemplations (happy b-day!) and also the anniversary of Inspirations' hosting blogs and writers... it's been an amazing year!My wish is that this note finds everyone practicing peace and creating the space for peace to occur everyday.
I had a profound retreat, I received some guidence to "Create Peace" while I was on retreat... and with this blog I thought that I was doing just that! But no, there is even more peace available for the creating!
I am going to be blogging about "Creating Peace" which I'm sensing is more of an "active" Peace...instead of "Peaceful Contemplations" which has been a "passive" Peace...
The new blog will be beginning sometime in June...
Hope that you'll tune in.....
Peace ~ Beth ^ TOP
Diminishing Peace.
This week I find myself referring to the question: Will this choice increase my peace of mind, or diminish it?Let’s explore the definition of diminish:
1. To make smaller or less or to cause to appear so.
2. To detract from the authority, reputation, or prestige of.
3. To cause to taper.
What does it feel like to make a choice and find that your peace has been diminished by it? It feels like you have a lot of work to do! I know because I am in that situation today. I now must choose again, reflect and choose carefully! Please excuse the repeated lesson posted below, I needed a refresher!
A Peaceful person, just one, in any situation can bring balance and harmony. When you are at Peace you are in balance and harmony within yourself and everything outside of yourself. You can not be disturbed or diminished in Peace. You are centered and able to respond from a place of Peace and balance and ALL THAT YOU ARE. Sounds hard to achieve?
It takes practice and witnessing of one's self, how do you lose Peace? Where did it go?
Peace is always a choice and always available. It takes a willingness to choose Peace and to accept life as it is, as it comes and as it goes - over and over again.
Peace is the middle way, the way that Buddha told us was The Path to Freedom - - Peace is Balance - - polarity and duality work together within peace.
We all have the ability to achieve that sort of Peace in our lives. We are offered countless chances to stand and hold our Peace in the face of everyday conflict. We are offered a choice everyday to achieve balance within and demonstrate that balance in the way we live in this world with others. When chaos and conflict become dominant, when polarity shifts happen, we have the opportunity to be Peace, to amplify Peace and to bring balance.
This daily balance is weight training for the Peaceful Warrior, day by day building the muscle of Peace...
I invite you to discover that your true nature is in harmony with itself.
Have a great rest of the week!
Beth
^ TOP
Order, Chaos and Balance (Peace).
Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Spanish philosopher & politician (1883 - 1955)
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Spanish philosopher & politician (1883 - 1955)
Please consider the following images and meditate on how chaos as well as order play their roles in natural balance.
Have an awesome week~
Beth
^ TOP
Resist Not Peace
Matthew, v. 38, 39: "Ye have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil"This week’s blog is fun for me to write, one of my favorite topics is evil. I am living with a teenager who is in love with evil and darkness! I have a lot of practice at not resisting Evil and a real life experiment at embracing it and understanding my daughter in depth, for I know her “good” side as well as the “evil” persona she is currently sporting.
I have encountered other forms of Evil, we all have. I'm here to tell you that Evil come to PASS... not stay and resisting or making a "big deal" out of it will only make it stay longer!
"Evil may be likened to fire. The nature of fire is to destroy everything that comes into its fold. The power of evil is as great as the power of fire, and at the same time evil is as weak as fire, for fire does not endure, and so evil does not last. As fire destroys itself, so evil is its own destruction. Why is it said, 'Do not resist evil?' Because resistance gives life to evil, non-resistance lets it burn itself out."
**I encourage you to apply these ideas and concepts to your life and to world events such as war where there is great resistance built up to stem an Evil. Any perception of Evil is of itself… just that; a perception. All of our perceptions come from within ourselves. Resisting can actually bring on more or worse enemies, understanding and perceiving are keys to embracing the Evil Enemy!
Understand your Enemy = No Enemy. How can we harm another when we see ourselves in them?
Below I copied a couple of Q&A from an article that is linked HERE.
Question: How can one manage a person who is really bad?
Answer: If a person is 'really bad' it means that the whole surface has become bad, but still the depth cannot be bad. However bad a person may seem, the depth cannot be bad, and for goodness is life itself and a person who is all bad cannot live. The very fact that he is alive shows that there is a spark of goodness in him. Besides, just as there are various objects, so there are various persons. Some show softness outside, hardness inside. Some show harness outside and softness inside. Some have good in the depth and evil on the surface, and some have evil in the depth and good on the surface, because as many souls there are, so many are the varieties.
Question: Is there a system to take away evil?
Answer: That system is understanding life more and more; it is keeping the love element alive, trying to keep an harmonious attitude as much as possible, and then keeping beauty before oneself.
It is difficult, but it is possible when we have the spirit never to be really grown-up, never to close our heart to learning, always to be ready whatever our age, to accept what is harmonious and beautiful. When one thinks, 'What I think is right,' and one finds arguments and reasons to make it right and when one thinks, 'What the other person thinks is wrong' and one finds reasons to make it wrong, one will always remain in the same place. But when one is ready to accept, even from a child, that something one says may be wrong, one thinks, 'Even though it is a child who said it, it is a profit for me to accept it.' God has not spoken only through His prophets, He speaks through every person, if we open our hearts to listen. The difficulty is that we become teachers. If throughout our whole life we remain pupils, teaching will come all the time from within and without. As soon as we become teachers we close our hearts from Him who alone is our Teacher.
Question: How can we help a person who does not understand our kindness and is doing harm?
Answer: Love is a conqueror, and in the end will conquer. It is not only the person outside whom love will conquer, but it will conquer the self of the one who loves. This is the conquering of the kingdom of God. The power of love is penetration, nothing can resist it in the end, and by giving kindness we have not lost anything. It is an element which is never lessened, it is a treasure which is divine. When we consider whether a person is worthy or unworthy we limit our love to a channel, but when we allow that feeling of kindness to flow it will develop into a continually flowing condition. Then kindness will work out its destiny without any intention on our part.
Peace be with you this week!
Beth
** more info on Resist Not Evil ^ TOP
How to achieve peace through speaking the truth and changing…
Two subjects have come up for me repeatedly this week! Changing and speaking a truth. I sat and meditated on how these two subjects relate and this is what I’ve come up with.
Truth is not fixed. Truth needs to be told everyday. Change brings about a need to tell the truth again and again. There is no one perfect truth and there is nothing static and fixed in time and space. Our beliefs can feel that way and by our choice our beliefs can be very limiting and fixed. So what tool did our Creator give us to keep our conscious clear and our truth in alignment with how we change as we grow and mature? Perspective is the tool. If our world view is narrow or if we don’t know how to shift our perspective to take in more than one or two sides of a “story” we often get caught up in a conflict loop. Our thinking becomes black or white, we are either right or wrong, others are either in truth or they are lying. The truth is that we are always both right and wrong and other things too depending on the perspective of how we view ourselves and others, situations and the world around us. The greatest Peace comes in allowing others to have their truth without their truth detracting from your truth. We can achieve this Peace with acceptance of what is and perception shifting.
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The Indian spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, said that, "A votary of truth [a person fervently devoted to truth] is often obliged to grope in the dark." Our challenge therefore lies in our blind spots, not in our vision. Unlike correcting a blind spot in the rear view of an automobile, which can be rectified simply by adding a different kind or a supplemental mirror, we cannot correct our personal blind spots so easily. To correct them, we must grow in our perception and in our acceptance of what is. "Perceive" means to "seize wholly," to "see all the way through." Perception, therefore, is the act of seeing in the mind, of understanding.
**
Truth is perfect understanding of that which is. It is neither the spoken word nor the written word, although these may have a ring of truth to them. Truth cannot be defined; it can only be experienced and lived.
It’s very hard to change fixed beliefs; this is the starting point of perception shifting. Opening the mind to other possibilities and actually allowing yourself to have different experiences and outcomes as a result of shifting your perspective can bring on fear. Change is often very uncomfortable; it is natural and necessary for all living things. It is often less frightening to change all outward appearances rather than change a belief or something that you think. We often structure our lives based on false beliefs that may have been passed on to us by our birth family. As we grow and learn we often have to deny the truth that is standing right in front of us in order to keep our fixed beliefs and feel right or in truth with what we believe.
It takes less energy to change your mind; however, changing your mind will leave you without solid beliefs to rely on. Your fixed beliefs tell you if you do this… then this will happen (every time). Often times people will seek hypnotherapy to replace fixed beliefs with new patterns, these are still patterns! The new patterning may work for awhile but will inevitably need replaced, learning how to shift perspective replaces the need to repattern. Without fixed beliefs what will happen? Something different, every time something different will happen, every outcome is not the same… this is what people refer to as “living in the NOW”. Living in the NOW is living with no fixed beliefs and experiencing everyday as if it were brand new and ripe with possibility. Imagine how much energy comes from living in the NOW rather than keeping up a false pretense!
I’ve copied an exercise for perception shifting from the book Illusions, by Richard Bach
The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change.
I practice shifting my perception with my art work. I’ve found that painting shows me my subconscious, becoming aware of what’s going on in there allows me to shift and view my thinking as just thoughts. Thoughts are like clouds in the sky, they form, make a pretty shape and dissipate, and I can choose not to allow them to remain solid, I can choose not to attach myself to them!
Through painting and meditation, I "see" the deeper understanding in my mind and often bring it out into this world in my art work.
Everyone can find an activity that they enjoy doing that can help them focus (or defocus) enough to gain inward perspective. Peace is possible!!
Have a great week!!!
Beth
Illusions Quotes: http://www.barefootsworld.net/illusions.html
**Truth is Perception: http://www.chrismaser.com/truth.htm ^ TOP