Transforming Dark Thoughts

Acceptance?

When one begins to look at or talk about dark thoughts or feelings and what to do with them, how to work with them, what are they, what does it mean, "dark," to begin with? And, never mind acceptance and transformation - what does that mean? What do you mean "acceptance of dark thoughts?"

Humans tend to think: "If I accept dark thoughts I will manifest them. They will take me over. I will become them." What do you mean "accept and transform?" We will get to that. It is a powerful way of dealing with what you imagine are dark thoughts.

So let us back way up and start first by doing a little blessing for each of you and remind you in an ancient, Celtic, pagan-style blessing, we would say: The power that moves the sun, moves me. The power that moves the moon, moves me. So that you remember that you are connected to and part of an individualization in manifestation of universal life energy.

Life energy takes many, many, many forms. Many forms. And, because life energy takes many forms, it is often easy to mistake life energy for death energy because sometimes life energy may seem very challenging to the human mind.

When one has dark thoughts and feelings that one can, in fact, manifest one's highest purpose and good and life goes on and things do happen in a good way even while one is in the middle of one's own dark thoughts.

If you can remember that you are not separate from life energy or life force, although it feels like you are because you have a body that feels separate, or distinct, you see-- so it is very hard for incarnate beings to remember that you are simply a different variation of manifestation of universal life energy. But you are. And you do not have to be swallowed up whole by supposed dark forces.

Now what do we mean by dark forces? So-called negative thinking. So-called negative feelings; feelings that are not life-sustaining, life-promoting, life-affirming - like, "Life is hard. I lack. I am afraid. I am overwhelmed. I am under attack. I am in survival mode." All of those could be called dark thoughts.

All incarnate beings live those feelings. Grief, death, loss, terror, loneliness, isolation, sadness, pain, anger, rage, hate, violent feelings, hurtful feelings - all of those are experiences that human incarnate beings will experience by definition because you are in a body. The body is temporal. The body will crumble, age and die. Therefore, the body in the form you know it guaranteed will not survive. Do any of you know anyone who is more than 150 years old? There is your guarantee. Although there are some in some cultures who say that that happens commonly, but then they are not speaking of linear time and that is another topic for another day. I see you are intrigued.

Because you are in bodies that age and die, the undercurrent of the human experience is trying to achieve the balance between survival, destruction, fear, death, annihilation, non-existence or seeming non-existence, at least in the human form, and life-affirming, joyful, growing, opening experiences leading to enlightenment. As the Buddhists would say, being stuck on the dharmic wheel of samsara or suffering in the incarnate world and enlightening and so-called not having to come back, as if not having to come back is the great goal to achieve.

Well, you see there is another goal first. And the goal before not coming back for those who are in the cycle of incarnating multiple times, many lifetimes - the goal is to be as joyful and liberated and life-affirming and non-attached while in a body to transcend the fact that the body will crumble and die. And not even to be attached to staying in that body simply because that is how you conceive of being alive.

Now this may sound very abstract and on some level it is, but, in another way, it is very primal. And all of what you would call dark thoughts and feeling come from the attachment to the body, the attachment to the physical world, the attachment to understanding life as you manifest it in the physical plane. And, because the compelling aspects of the physical world are so strong, it is so difficult for incarnate beings to remember that you are of spirit, you are of the soul, you are of life energy.

And in fact, that is greater and stronger than any physicalized manifestation of body that you could possibly experience. The greatest ecstatic experience in body is nothing compared to the ecstatic bliss of the soul when it is achieved. Is it unachievable? Certainly not. Of course it is achievable. It is too horrible to think that you all would be teased with a carrot in front of your faces: "Oh, by the way, here is enlightenment - only six more lives. Only a thousand more lives. And each lifetime that you have and each death that you have and rebirth, I pull the carrot a
little further away."

That is, in fact, how traditional human religions have baited people. And that is the cause of a lot of suffering, thinking that enlightenment is always the next step away. We could do a long discourse about the politics of spiritual communities and the human-mind contamination and pollution of spiritual principles. We will not go into detail about that this evening. But when human minds begin to speak of spiritual ideas, there is always some contamination, you see, some limiting of what the spiritual realm actually is about. And when that happens, you get ideas like, "Enlightenment is always just beyond your grasp."

The truth is, enlightenment exists within each of you fully, developed fully in blossom in this moment and every moment of your awareness if you can only remove the veils that you have accumulated to remembering it. Enlightenment is not outside and beyond you. It is not a goal to attain, like throwing a football over a piece of wood to make what? Points? That is how that works?

Yes; that is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is holding that ball, being the arm, throwing it, being the wind current that carries it, being the ball flying over the piece of wood. Being the people watching, being the weather. You see? That is - and the light bulbs that make the numbers that are made of gold or whatever? That is all part of what enlightenment is. The fullest experience of life energy in whatever manifestation you are focusing on in that moment. Now, all of this is very lofty, interesting and abstract. What might it have to do with dark thoughts and feelings, acceptance and transformation? Well, it is in fact directly related. If you can begin to remember that you are an enlightened being that does not remember that you are enlightened - that is a very controversial statement in some circles. If you remember that you are an enlightened being who, because you are in human form, does not remember that you are enlightened, then you will begin to see that all of the so-called dark thoughts and feelings of fear, of negativity, of anger, of limitation, of pain, of suffering, of no way out, of death - all of those have to do with being attached or invested in the human conception of life.

Now, does this sound too abstract so far? Do you understand the practicality and daily use of what I am saying?

"Remember, everything is possible..."