Things I Know for Sure

My coming radio show (this Friday at 10 a.m. PST), "Things I Know for Sure," is a reflection on the Truth as it has manifested in my life over 40-some years, and speaking as someone who, as a child, was immersed in the world of the Three Principles of Mr. Sydney Banks. I also speak from my experience as as an avid reader, writer and journalist, a researcher, a scholar and lover of many spiritual traditions.

In this show, as a general theme in my life at this time, I will reflect on what these many various traditions have in common. What is the common truth we might all be able to trust in? How do the Three Principles relate to that truth?

And, as a follow up to the recent webinar I did with Sheela Masand (in Spain), I am posting here some of my favorite quotes from various spiritual authors I have read that seem to me to have a common thread.

I start with Mr. Sydney Banks himself from his DVD set, "The Hawaii Lectures," and the DVD entitled "Going Home."


"The Buddha told you: 'You are the world.' You create the world you live in. Yet, you have to find this for yourself. Listen carefully. Not just to what I'm saying, [but] to some wise person that YOU think knows the secret. You can go to the library, you can find the Truth. You can go to the church of your choice and find it. You can go to a Kahuna and find it. You can go anywhere in the world, and once you know what Truth is, you'll hear it spoken all over the world. You'll hear it on a day-to-day basis.

"But you’ve got to listen, not with your ears. You don’t look with your eyes. It’s beyond the senses. It lies deep in here [points to chest/heart]. And once that secret comes out and is divulged to YOU, it’s a secret that cannot be told. It cannot be told by words. It has to be found within your own soul, because your own soul holds that secret.

"And what stops you from getting in here [points to chest] is your own thinking ... You could also call it Ego. [But] ego is a delusion. It’s non-existent."

From Gangaji, and her book (my favorite), You Are That:

"Living truth, whether it comes from the historical Buddha, or from the beggar on the street, is true nourishment ... I once heard it said that religion is the tracks where something alive once passed. In the tracks, there may be a great emanation of power and truth. If the tracks can serve to inspire you to turn to truth, then they are to be honored. Follow the tracks to their source."

From Ramana, from the book The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharishi:

"Know that you are really the infinite, pure Being, the Self Absolute. You are always that Self and nothing but that Self ... Know then that true Knowledge does not create a new Being for you; it only removes your ignorance. Bliss is not added to your nature; it is merely revealed as your true and natural state, eternal, imperishable. The only way to be rid of your grief is to know and be the Self. How can this be unattainable?"

From Toni Packer, The Work of this Moment:

"Why did the Buddha say in parting, "Be a lamp unto yourself--take only the Truth for your refuge"? Why do we seek refuge in things created by thought and memory? ... Human beings communicate, commune with each other freely and lovingly only when the mind is not anchored in any system whatsoever--when there is a coming together empty-handedly.

"With any division into groups there inevitably arises the feeling: 'The group is me' ... In facing our own deep-seated need for security and belonging, can we see the immense attachment and dependency on groups and organizations? Can we see the need to feel that our organization, our religion, is superior to all others? And can we see what that does to us?

From me:

The formless Truth is so vast and infinite as to encompass all forms of Truth, and go beyond all of them. It goes beyond any form of individual or personality, Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Abraham, Ramana, Sydney Banks, as much as they are to be honored and loved. It is both within and beyond any posture or form of the body--health or disease. In the end, the Truth is you. It has never not been You.

Everyone has been pointing you in this direction. Inside. You then discover what is inside you, what is outside you, what is everywhere. You discover Home, and you discover that Home has no location. It cannot be contained and encapsulated in a specific formulation of Truth. As helpful as all those formulations, all those past insights, all those beautiful teachers have been, they do not "contain" the Truth.

The Truth is a moving, flowing river--fullness, allness, Alive. And it is Nothing. Quiet, silence, Ground Zero, stillness. It lies in the unknown, past everything you have ever thought. And all of this is You.

Join me this Friday!

With Love,

Your Mystical Mama

www.ctrnetwork.com/profile/amichen

Postcard from the Front Porch

How are you all?

I thought I'd check in on this lazy blog of mine. We get several hundred visitors (400? 500?) per month here--nothing stunning by blogging standards--but I do consider all of you my friends, and I so appreciate your coming back from time to time to check in on me, even though my blogs land here erratically.

And once again, How are we?

I was visited recently by Jenny and Rudi Kennard of the amazing 3 Principles Movies website--a site featuring hours of totally inspirational 3 Principles-based audio & video footage that this young and energetic couple collected using their own monies and volunteering their time.

They sent me the video blog they've posted of their recent travels, and I noticed that in the midst of the elegant offices and fab kitchens of many other 3P "practitioners," their footage of my own front porch showed a sort of shabby, cluttered entryway--and me opening a front door that started to need paint many years ago. All the rest of the footage of me was with my kids--as is the norm these days, especially with school out.

"On the Front Porch" with Kid (Tori Elle) and Chantal Burns from England

 And so, here I am! My front porch, the nominal inspiration for my radio show, "On the Front Porch with Ami Chen," is indeed rather ragged. The paint on its cement steps peeling horribly. Scattered about in a thoroughly unorganized fashion are garden tools, snail bait (organic! so they say ... ), lots of shoes (thankfully, mostly in pairs), and a shoe organizing contraption that is, of course, completely empty.

Filling in any otherwise clear, uncluttered space would be the children's various formal and informal arts and crafts projects, plastic cups, hair bands, twigs ... that have made it out from the car but not quite through our front door and into the garbage, or onto shelves.

The whole thing is terribly unimpressive. We have plans to blow it out completely and create a spectacular sun room/entryway/mudroom type space, everything in its place. But who knows when this will happen? Perhaps next month. Perhaps never.

In the meantime, Life continues. And here I am. I used to be "waiting for" things to change and "happen," for more money to be coming in, a new "level" of work to unfold--and while these things have happened, I have discovered that "waiting" is a waste of time. It is endless. And endless distraction.

My next radio show on "Money and Support," (this coming Friday, July 13) will be all about this--the constant leaning into the future we do, expecting something "better" to come along, whether that be more money, a better job, a better relationship, or even a better state of mind. This constant leaning is a direct interference with our experience of Reality as it is. Now. The wonder of what is!

This leaning, I have discovered for myself, can be into the next year or the next five years and beyond. Or it can be into "when the kids finally fall asleep," "when this traffic clears up," "when I finish cooking dinner," "when I can finally work on that book project," "when I lose 15 pounds," "when I get so-and-so's approval," "when I experience enlightenment," "when I can find some time to meditate," or any time after this moment.


Just not this moment, God forbid! I can't relax now! Look at this mess!


We would then have to accept our circumstances, internal and external, exactly as they are.

Yet in this stopping, this relaxing, this acceptance, we discover the depths of Life, God, Love itself. We discover who and what we are.

Life is so incredibly short, and yet we spend so much of our Thought energy, and resulting emotional and physical energy on trying to distinguish and decorate it (the personal life) in various ways. We miss, in these efforts, the overarching fact that Life Is. That one is part of Life, and the absolute miracle of That.

We become entangled in the particulars of our own lives, and we miss the constant support we receive, always, from the Energy of Life--that Universal Mind, with which we are one.

I have learned to surrender: to the porch, to life, to the children, the husband, to the Truth as I see it (and as unpopular as my current opinions may be). Surrender to disapproval. Surrender to nothing-to-be-done-about-it. All of it is what is. And here I am, what I am. What I gloriously am!

Past, future, goals, obstacles, problems, "not enough" ... All require a sort of "fantasy projection" that distracts us from Stillness, now, and the impersonal gratitude of Consciousness recognizing Itself in everything it sees and hears and feels and touches. All of it!

So, here I am. My family and I muddling through the summer, summer camps, camping. ... We've been hosting visitors like Jenny and Rudi, Robert Jackson (of the "A Quiet Mind" podcast), Drs. Bill and Linda Pettit, brave 3 Principles colleagues. All of it a blessing beyond belief ... Heading out soon to Grass Valley, later in the summer, Kauai. Exasperation with children. Complete exhaustion from time to time. Forgetting to surrender. Surrender. Love. Intimacy. Peeling porch. Joy and laughter. New ridiculously cute puppy. There will be a garage sale, a new drop-in class in Santa Cruz, a larger retreat in North Carolina in September. How will any of these events "go?"

Who knows?

Does it matter?

During my interview with her, the renown spiritual teacher Gangaji and I spoke of "stopping," a word, she said, that has no end. "Surrender" too, she said, is another such word. No end to surrender!

I surrender to this Life. All I have, will ever have, have ever had. All of it collapsed into this one moment, Consciousness, Formlessness, regarding itself in form after form after form. An endless entertainment, springing from Love itself.

From this space of surrender, I greet you, my Friend. Are you in the midst of your own surrender? To every experience? Every thought? Every state of mind? Letting it go, letting it be ... No effort to control, get rid of or gain anything.

Perhaps one day, we will sit together on my old and shabby, or chic and spiffy, new front porch

 ... and simply laugh.

With Love from

Your Mystical Mama

Just Stop!

The truth of who you are is utterly simple. It is closer than your thoughts, closer than your heartbeat, closer than your breath.

If you believe your thoughts to be real, if you follow your thoughts as the basis of reality, you will continually overlook what is closer, what has been calling you throughout time, saying,

"You are here! You are home!"

...

This is a time of the ordinary awakening. This means you.

--From The Diamond in Your Pocket, Gangaji




Thought is not reality, yet it is through Thought that our realities are created.

--From The Missing Link, Sydney Banks




Can there be simple awareness of what's going on, without making something of it? ... All seeing matters. Not just seeing feelings, but seeing their total interconnectedness with thought.

... It happens, when there is pure seeing, there is wisdom.

--From The Light of Discovery, Toni Packer

Don't Think About Me!

Don't think about me, my Friend!

Then you will only
come to know
your own thoughts

Those dry and brittle bones
picked over by crows
you found somewhere
and kept too long

They make the inside of your head
Too noisy!

Don't think about me,
My Friend.

Come down, instead
to this dancing river
where eternally
I sit.

Join me on this speckled rock
webbed with moss
graced with a
warming sunlight

We will talk,
and listen ...
And when our talking slows
and dissolves into
Listening
And when our listening slows
and disappears into
This Space ...

You will know me!
And I will know you!

Beneath, behind, beyond
the many forms
our Truth takes,
We will discover
True Love

And the world will improve
All by itself.



These pomes were written at the edge of Fallen Leaf Lake, in retreat with Gangaji and many beautiful others. Endless Gratitude to All.

Reemerging Sunshine of the Accepting Mind

I recently posted my status on Facebook as taking a "Me" day ... Just before that, my young daughter had been in the hospital on critical status with a chest infection, we had canceled vacation plans, I had just finished moving my non-profit out of the office, and earlier this year, my father had passed away. (The year before, his spiritual teacher and mine, Sydney Banks, passed, and the year before that, my grandmother, Nell.)

Medical bills and paperwork were piling up, and our already small house was filled with boxes from my old, "real" office. Although there was so much to do, I have come to learn that in most adult lives, having "a lot to do" is not a temporary state. There is never a time when all things get done, or are done ... when from a worldly perspective, one has indeed accomplished "enough."

I also understand (and more and more so) that, from a global perspective, my, let's say, "suburban" problems are all good problems to have. Alia's health was jeopardized, but we had nearly instant access to highly trained doctors, x-ray and ultrasound technology, medications of every type ... our own hospital room, even!

Furthermore, our little family is well-fed, housed, intact and we live in a country where--in most cases--one can say what one thinks. Freedom, calories, opportunities, computers, heat, running water. Only gratitude is truly in order, of course.

Nonetheless, anxiety does not come because one asks for it!

And I have learned that when stress or anxiety come knocking, when everything screams to be done, it is time to stop ... and not do a thing. Have you heard the play on the old adage:

Don't just do something. Sit there ...?

I have another one: If it feels urgent, it probably isn't.

I put everything on hold, packed my child's "Hello Kitty" backpack with a tangerine, banana, cashew bar and bottle of water. Plus a notebook.

And then I ran away from home.

I took the train to San Francisco with the sole intention of enjoying myself--and being by myself.

The train ride itself was soothing, although as we pulled out of the California Avenue station, a cold feeling crept over me that once (in my 20's) had been familiar--a feeling of dread, of coming depression. As in: What does it all mean? Nothing!

For days, my mind had been engaged in planning, packing (both the office and our suitcases for vacation), then adrenalin-filled caretaking, hovering ... watching hospital monitors fretfully at 2, 3, and 4 a.m. with daughter's pulse, oxygen and respiration levels too high, too low.

Worry, future thinking, time pressures ... these sorts of thoughts can all result in this "collapsed" feeling.

And I allowed my mind to allow this. Allow the dread, the depression.

By the time we rolled through Belmont, the feeling was gone.

The City itself shone and sparkled in all its grunge, its fine foods and crystalline forward-ness. Market Street welcomed me, indifferent--those out of scale skyscrapers--as if I were an ant to be expected, tolerated, maybe stepped upon, but not maliciously.

The SF Museum of Modern Art was spacious, airy, modern (go figure) ... The rooftop garden sunny and bright, a shelter to couples in love, a mother with her child, a lone young tourist from Britain.

I had moved into the Now, the space of the accepting mind and, how did I put that day? ... I caught up with myself. I became myself, again.

This is the brilliance of the Mind--that its default setting is harmony. When thoughts become quiet, the quiet itself can become very, very deep--its depths both mysterious, unfathomable, and safe.

I got many responses to my Facebook post from Moms and others who felt it was their time for a Me day too! Go for it! I wrote in reply. But it does not need to be on the train, or in the City. It can be the hike, the walk, the yoga class, the park bench in the sunshine.

In my view, the "form" of meditation is not the essence of meditation--true meditation is simply the quieting of thought, surrendering to the Allowing Mind--and actually, this can be done in any moment, anywhere.

Indeed, just yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed again (Alia's birthday party!) and it was evening--where could I go? To a bar? No, no ...

So, after returning a coffee maker to my aunt's, I went home; and simply accepted both the feeling of overwhelm, and my immediate situation: cleaning up from the party, getting kids ready for school, ready for a busy Monday ... Then I sat down with my husband to watch a nature program on TV.

And peace came again.

What is so beautiful to me--the greatest lesson I have ever learned--is that quiet can be counted on. Perhaps not demanded, but the sun returns when mental storm clouds part ... Mental health and well-being return.

Any catalyst will do ... A cup of tea, a good stretch, an insight, or just resting in the allowing mind. If you know the 3 Principles and Sydney Banks' work, it all makes sense. Thought creates feeling.

"I don't want this" creates the feeling of dis-ease. "I don't know if I want this, but it's obviously happening," and there is curiosity, openness ..."I love this!" and one is filled with both Love and gratitude.

One does not have to change one's thoughts, but the mere resting, the allowing of Thought--without attaching, judging, trying to get rid of ... opens the space for the deeper harmony of the Divine Mind to enter--and the Divine Mind is always grateful, always in tune, always connected.

As the mom of two still-young children, I can testify to the fact that a parents' thought flow, or resting mind, is often interrupted by the needs of children ... And if we cannot become present with our children in the moment, I believe it behooves us as parents to create the space (or simply INTEND the space) for us to find our replenishment in solitude, then. We come back to our families and children with inspiration, with good feelings and as role models for well-being.

As Gangaji has said, "Take a moment to recognize the peace that is already alive within you."

So, yes, Moms, Dads and Non-Breeders ... take a Me day! And if you cannot take a Me Day, take a Me moment. It may be that nothing "special" need happen at all ... for something very special indeed to emerge, from within.