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Leaping Into The Unknown
June 6, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 5 Comments
I tend to believe that human beings in their general nature are lazy, as such we tend to stay in our comfort zone. A comfort zone can be physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual. it takes something extra to push ourselves beyond the safe and known. I believe that extra something is an impulse from our soul.
When we do manage to extend ourselves that bit further, in whatever way, there is usually some benefit or reward. This can be as simple as we feel good about ourselves and hey that’s no small thing. when that pay off has greater attraction than our resistant to doing whatever it is, we tend to keep doing it.
I began performing on stage when I was around 17 or 18, possibly it saved my life and certainly I fell in love with it. I can still remember walking off stage after my very first public performance feeling like I was walking on air. The stage gave me the opportunity to be somebody other than the angry young man that I was. It was a kind of freedom.
It wasn’t long before I became strangely attracted to dance. I’d never really seen any but something in me started pushing in that direction. I really came up against my laziness when I started to dance. Dancers train really hard to make it look really easy when they perform, hours and hours and hours of training. obviously to be a dancer, passion and love for it is greater than the efforts of all that hard work.
Pretty much from the beginning I was interested in exploring the body itself as the site of human experience. Then when I was 25 the healing ability showed up and added another dimension to my exploration.
When I’m actually going with all of this is June 29th 1996. At 6 AM on that Saturday morning I began a 36 hour performance entitled “36 Hours In-Quest-ion". I’d been
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8 Ways To Overcome Jealousy And Envy
May 11, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
I know that the fastest way to despair is by comparing one’s insides with another’s outsides, and that Max Ehrmann, the author of the classic poem "Desiderata," was absolutely correct when he said that if you compare yourself with others you become either vain or bitter, or, as Helen Keller put it: "Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged."
But Helen and Max don’t keep me from going to the land of comparisons and envy. Before long, I’m salivating over someone else’s book contract, or blog traffic numbers, or Today Show appearance. Then I have to pull out my set of directions–these 8 techniques–that will lead me out of the continent of jealousy and home, to self-acceptance:
1. Get more information.
Most of the time we envy one quality about a person, and we presume the rest of her qualities are as perfect as the one we want. That’s usually not the case. Think Rain Man. Boy did he know how to count those straws and play poker. But his social skills needed some fine-tuning, yes? Do some research on the person you want to temporarily destroy and you will find that she has her own set of problems and weaknesses. Moreover, if you consider her success in context, you’ll see that she hasn’t always been a superstar–that maybe, just maybe, back when you got a blue ribbon for the fastest freestyle swimmer in the 7 to 8 age group, she was afraid to dive in the pool or couldn’t figure out how to swim without getting water up her nose. My point: you don’t have the full story. Once you do, you’ll feel better. I think.
2. Compliment her.
"WHAT?!? You can’t be serious," you’re thinking to yourself. Actually I am. I have tried it numerous times and it works. Last year I came across a blogger I envied. She had two degrees from Yale. (I scored 1,000 on my SATs). Her books were bestsellers. (I had just received a royalty statement that said more copies of my book were returned than sold.) Her Technorati score (blog traffic) was, well, much better than mine.
So…. I did something very counterintuitive. I e-mailed her to tell her how impressed I was with her, and I would very much like to interview her on Beyond Blue. When I started reading through her blogs, I found this great story about her feelings of insecurity regarding a fellow writer whom she felt somewhat threatened by because he was writing on the same topics as she was. What did she do about it? She contacted him and took him out to lunch.
I couldn’t believe that she had moments of insecurity too! I mean, she’s got two Yale degrees! Nowhere in her bio did it mention insecurity. But by complimenting her, and connecting with her, and dare I say befriending her, I learned that she is just like me–with some outstanding strengths but some fears and reservations and insecurities, as well.
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Loving Ourselves Unconditionally
May 11, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
"Love the one you are with. That will always include you."
Our Spiritual Nature
People often ask me how they can love themselves unconditionally, regardless of what they have done or how they think or feel. When we realize our spiritual nature, we have a better way of looking at what we do as human beings. By remembering who we are spiritually, we can more easily be loving and accepting towards ourselves and all that comes forward in our lives. So, I suggest that as we start out and complete with each day, we take the opportunity to engage ourselves inwardly in the Spirit first.
When we choose to realize ourselves spiritually, we find ourselves functioning according to the laws of Spirit — acceptance, cooperation, understanding, enthusiasm and empathy. There is an aligning of how we are intending ourselves spiritually, as souls who are one with God. A key is to appreciate with gratitude whatever comes your way. Everything has value. Nothing needs to be different from what it is, including you. Yet, in this world, change is constant. While living in the world and coping with change may be challenging, you can learn to align with and practice how to apply the laws of Spirit and love it all.
Gratitude
Begin the day by getting yourself in a consciousness of gratitude. There is a reason God is bringing a challenge to you. You can ask inside, "Help me to understand, Lord. What is it I am to learn?" Some days you just have to do the best you can. So say, "Thank you, Lord," and choose to handle the situation as best you can with what you know and the conditions present.
As you start the day, first surround and fill yourself with Light and love. You can do this as a prayer to God, an invocation of the Light, or through your creative imagination. Then, extend the Light into your day as you see yourself moving forward in the world. During the day, remember that the Light goes before you and prepares the way. All the things that come forward in your day, expected or unexpected, wanted or unwanted, are part of that Light action which is always present within you.
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How To Find Happiness - Adyashanti
March 30, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
How to find happiness, don’t we all want to know?
The pursuit of happiness outside ourselves can only lead to sorrow because anything attained can be lost. Even the search within ourselves can lead to suffering because of unconscious beliefs and misperceptions. In his sword-swinging yet playful manner, Adyashanti cuts to the heart of what’s really true and points to the causeless happiness that comes with knowing the sacred reality of who we are. How to find happiness? - Waking up to our true nature, it’s the only show in town!
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Four Quadrants Of Separation Consciousness
March 27, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
To help us understand separation consciousness we can break it down into the four quadrants of separation.
Quadrant one: I am separated from mind. This quadrant deals with judgement of our own thoughts. It is me against me and covers all aspects of self doubt, self criticism and self-consciousness. It is the kind of self talk that limits and inhibits us, that tells us we shouldn’t, we couldn’t, we can’t. Impacts our mental well-being and clarity.
Quadrant two: I am separated from body, and emotions. This quadrant contains all the emotions and feelings that we don’t like having and don’t want to have. It also contains all of our judgement and negative feeling about our bodies. Many of the emotional distortions here Impacts negatively on our self image. This impacts our emotional well-being and emotional intelligence.
Quadrant three: I am separated from you; as is separated from them. This is the source of all social division. It operates in all the ways that we create identification based on difference and ignoring similarity. The police and emotional distortions from quadrants one and two are the sources of these social identifications of separation.
Quadrant four: I am separated from Source. This is of course the ultimate source of separation consciousness, from which the previous three quadrants arise. All separation consciousness, egoic identification is the result of our loss of awareness of unity with Source, the Divine.
Obviously there is much more complexity that can be gone into as to how the first three quadrants come about and influence each other to create our experience and the world we live in. Some of this is covered in "What is Karma", "Karma & the Law of Attraction" and "Karma & the Evolution of Consciousness".
As a simple over view of separation consciousness I hope the four quadrants are helpful.
“You are a Spiritual being having a human experience" Living Liberation is the missing manual Find out moreValidation, Why It Matters
February 2, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
This is a really wonderful short film with a really powerful message. Pretty much every person alive will get a lift from validation, but hey a picture is worth a thousand words so click, enjoy and let me know what you think.
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Spiritual, Love Relationship Guide
January 15, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
A simple guide of agreeable ideals and intentions as a foundation and touch stone for spiritual love relationship.
We believe that our relationship has a spiritual basis and serves our own evolution.
We experience this, manifest, as a deep and powerful desire to know love.
We experience the journey of healing and liberation through love and also in the reflection of what in us is separate from love, surfacing that it might be transformed, healed and unified into the love.
We acknowledge that what we feel, is ours and within us, and not ‘caused’ by what is outside of us. We are responsible for our feelings.
We acknowledge that to make the other responsible or to blame for what we feel is not true, and does not serve, but limits us both.
We acknowledge that leaving the other to try and stop feelings that are uncomfortable or painful for us will not bring us healing.
We acknowledge our own and the others right to leave.
We acknowledge that trying to change the other to try and stop feelings that are uncomfortable or painful for us will not do so and does not honor them.
We acknowledge and honor the other for their uniqueness, for all the ways we are alike and all the ways we are different.
We commit to focus on finding resolution and creating healing especially in times of conflict within us and between us.
We pledge to support the other in creating resolution and healing in themselves.
We pledge to forgive and release ourselves, and the other, from conflicts, misunderstandings, and separations from the love in the past and in the future.
We are committed to healing what in us limits us and is separate from love.
We commit to honoring and respecting ourselves.
We pledge to honor and respect the other, to the best of our ability.
We trust that the Divine and our souls guide and support us.
We invite and open to that support in everyway it can manifest.
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Ten Rules For Being Human
January 13, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Found this the other day and while I feel ’school’ is somewhat an oversimplification it also has validity. Enjoy……
| 1. | You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period. |
| 2. | You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life." |
| 3. | There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work." |
| 4. | Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson. |
| 5. | Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned. |
| 6. | "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here." |
| 7. | Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself. |
| 8. | What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. |
| 9. | Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. |
| 10. | You will forget all this. |
by Cherie Carter-Scott
“You are a Spiritual being having a human experience" Living Liberation is the missing manual Find out moreWayne Dyer Movie
January 7, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Wayne Dyer has just released his first movie ‘Ambition to Meaning - finding your life’s purpose’. While I haven’t seen it yet Dr Dyer has consistently produced quality work for decades now and I’m sure this follows on.
Ambition to meaning is a compelling portrait of three modern lives in need of new direction and new meaning. In this his first-ever movie, Wayne Dyer explores the spiritual journey in the second half of life when we long to find the purpose that is our unique contribution to the world. Filmed on coastal California’s spectacular Monterey Peninsula, Ambition to Meaning captures every person’s longing for a more purposeful, soul-directed life.
Here is a list of screening locations and times. Ambition to Meaning is also available on DVD
Below is the trailer….enjoy!
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Profound Children’s Books
December 23, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Doing our best to practice conscious parenting means being vigilant about what information and influences our children come in contact with. The kind of books we read them, and in time they read for themselves, is an important part of this. The mainstream marketing children’s Disney stories and their ilk, lack for me a deeper appreciation of life and humanity that I hope to instill in my child. It was a great pleasure then when we first discovered the books of Jon J Muth.
His books are always my favorites to read. There are two parts to a children’s book that are really crucial, the first is the illustration and the other is obviously the story. As an illustrator Jon J Muth is very talented, his pictures have a warmth and intimacy that I have found in few other book. The stories themselves carry profound human and spiritual teachings in a simple and unpretentious way.
I think the child in me loves the idea of a giant panda zen master friend like Stillwater living in my neighbourhood and being a mentor/friend. Of course my little boy doesn’t get the joke in Zen Ties, when Stillwater greets his young nephew Ku from a train, "hi Ku". Ku of course speaks in three metrical phrases of 5, 7, and 5 - a haiku.
Another favorite is The Three Questions, a young boy Nikolai in his pursuit of the questions "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?". It was in this book that I first met the character ‘Old Turtle’, a mythic representation of the deepest wisdom.
Probably my favorite of all is ‘Old Turtle and the Broken Truth’, authored by Douglas Wood
I know that at the conscious level my 3 1/2-year-old boy probably doesn’t understand the depth and wisdom of these books. Until around age 8 children’s subconscious minds are wide open. So I know that on some level the repetition of reading these stories over the years, they are truths and values will be absorbed.
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