Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spirituality. Show all posts

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Oneness Is The Cure-All


We are all One regardless of race, religion, orientation, or colour. Oneness transcends the physicality’s that are in the physical.

Oneness is Universal, it is etheric, it is Spirit, and it is Connection.

The moment we tap into that Oneness, embrace it in knowing-ness, is the moment that we start to open our eyes with new sight. Every-thing and every-one is seen with an amazing amount of love, and true beauty is seen. Complete and total acceptance of one and all is embraced. Sorrow becomes a fleeting moment, in that Knowing that ultimately we are all One and thus we will always be together. Anger becomes obsolete as the need for such is washed away with the transcendence above minor aggravations. And while we may still experience various emotions, understanding and acknowledging them, but then letting them simply flow on, helps us to remain connected to the present moment without dissociating and becoming emotion-less.

This is not about losing emotion and becoming robotic. This is about understanding, acknowledging, accepting, for the lessons in experience and mind-expansion which may later aid you in the teaching experience.

In this understanding, we rise above the meaning of "emotion" as defined in temporal logic, to that of a greater understanding, a Self-realized understanding and connection to the ethereal emotions.

In this place, we will experience less dis-ease, for any dis-ease of the body, or mind, is a physical manifestation of the previous moment's negativity.

Whatever we feel or think or experience, if not released but rather buried deep within, will at some point in time need to be released. How does the physical body remove something that is affecting the Spiritual Self? It creates dis-ease, dis-comfort. It produces events that bring one to realisation. It brings one to awakening.

What do I mean by "awakening"?

The human body was designed as a complex and highly evolved vessel for the purpose of carrying the Self; the Divine You and the Divine Me, and the Divine We, to encounter the human life experience.

Scientists and metaphysicians have, for years, said that we only use a small portion of our brains. Sci-fi creators have shown us in movies and books, that those who are 'alien' are much higher evolved in that they utilize much more of their brain functions.

But the connection is still not being made between Self and self.

Whatever becomes manifest within our human bodies, is a direct information message from the Divine Self - the "soul" if you will, to express that it is time for us to move forward, and upward.

Many people are not aware of this, nor do they embrace it. An individual becomes diagnosed with an illness, and they immediately take ownership over the illness; they call it "my ... disease"; such as "My diabetes", "My cancer", "My flu"... etc.

Owning it locks it into place within the human body. It does not release it. It does not give it permission to leave.

But first, we must look at what has caused these dis-eases. Most people will look at the scientific reasons; "I smoked for X number of years", "My parents had diabetes and heart disease", etc...

The first thing that we must do, is let go of the excuses that have caused and created such dis-ease(s) and understand the reason(s) WHY they have manifested into physicality.

Here is a scenario, a young girl is molested. She endures the pain in loss of trust, physical pain, and becomes emotionally ill.

As she grows older, she cannot trust others, she looks at her body as the cause of the originating "problem". If she looked a certain way, maybe she would not have been molested.

So, she begins to starve herself (or maybe overeat) in a two-fold issue; 1) to punish the body that created the allure to the molester, and 2) to create a body that no one would wish to harm.

Maybe, she begins to cut herself, or burn herself. Psychologically, we can analyze this as the self-mutilation in order to release and "feel". But often, those emotions that drives one to such activity, is not just the "high" sought from the pain, but the Self being translated and understood by means of release – which is what creates that temporary “high” feeling. But these methods of release have been MIS-understood, and MIS-interpreted by the conscious mind.

And as time progresses, maybe this individual attempts suicide, becomes overly consumed with the pain of the experience(s), that they now have created a dis-ease within the mind, of depression, or bi-polar, or borderline personality, etc...

The more she holds on to the pain and angst of the experience(s), there becomes physical dis-ease within the body. Maybe cancer...

OK, I stop here to explain.

Often, those who are diagnosed with such dis-eases as cancer can tell of times in their past that they were hurt or experiences which they still hold on to - maybe it is anger, fear, sorrow, etc.

The Divine Self works in such a manner that while we are experiencing these cognitive and physical happenings, the "boss" (to use a crass expression) – which is the all-knowing Divine Self – that Connected Oneness - over this physical body will express when it is time to let go. When it is time to eradicate the past experiences and move forward.

So, it creates a dis-ease to occur in the body, such as cancer. If we stop looking at this dis-ease as a death sentence, and we start to look at it as the blessing that is there to wake us up, and help us to revisit the negativity of our past, ball it all up, and truly let it go.

In the instance of an individual who has been molested or offended, there must also come in the release, a forgiving. The individual who committed the act(s) was a very sad individual who had no power or control in some aspect of their own life, so they exercised their power and control over another, and stole that instead of going within and creating it for themselves. To continue to allow the pain and sorrow of incidents that happened in the past to affect you, hold you back, keep you down, is continuing to feed energy to the individual. In essence, you are now willingly giving your power and control to the individual(s) who took it from you. Why are you still giving them what they want? When will you decide to take back your power and control, and cut the line that is feeding them?

In holding on to anything negative, we are feeding part of our Selves into it, and thus creating vacuums of positive space within our Selves. When we do this, we are left unprotected and dis-ease has room to manifest into something physical and thus turning that positive space into negative space.

In the past few years, I have begun to hear more and more people speak about "bucket lists". Things that they wish to do, see, and accomplish before they die. Most people have, on their bucket list, things like bungee diving, or visit the Taj Mahal, or climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, etc. In fact, there is a whole comedy series dedicated to doing things on a bucket list.

But I think that the premise of this is misunderstood. While it is wonderful and great to visit these places, undertake such activities, these are all surface things.

The deeper picture of such a list would be to revisit the past for a moment in time to release things which have potential to manifest into physical dis-ease later down the line.

To revisit those times in your life which have caused much pain and sorrow and upset, to look back at it from the present time, acknowledge that it occurred but then to come to the resolve to no longer give it the energy that it has been feeding off of you for so long, and cut that energy flow. Simply cut it off. When we cut energy flow to anything, it dies. Even a ceiling fan, when energy bursts something within and that flow of electricity is lost, the fan ceases to work, ceases to operate, and it dies.

So too with all these experiences, bundle them up into a ball that is the negative past, and cut off the energy that had fed them. Then let it all go.

At that moment in time when we can view our Selves, not as mere physical creations, but truly digest and understand that we are nothing more than Spiritual Be-ings that are driving a physical body and having a physical experience; and we remove EGO from the equation of what is and what is not, we will begin to walk the path to attain Oneness.

Oneness, I can very easily sum it up to mean that connection of the Divine Self and the physical self. Then taking that Oneness of Self-realisation further, to connect to others, in acknowledging that we are all the same, are all one small part of the great One.

When we each can attain this level of Oneness and Connectedness and Understanding, we accept all, then at that time, we will evolve as a race and true peace will be upon this earth.

So, now is the time when we start to wake up. Start to eradicate before it can physically manifest. Open yourself up and Connect, and become At One.


Namaste

_/|\_

Friday, May 6, 2011

My Birthday Wish

Today, is my birthday. Well, it is now "officially" since its after midnight on Friday May 6th.

Since early yesterday morning, I have received birthday wishes on my Facebook wall from friends who are located all across the world.

Just after midnight, my husband came out of the shower and started singing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" in a loud voice and with such gusto. The initial note struck me and made me jump out of my skin. He makes me laugh.

Growing up, my birthday was always a week-long (and more) celebration on the scale of a royal event, that culminated in a party, cake, and piles and piles of presents. That day was MY day. I made the choices and I made the decisions on where we went, what we did, and I knew what I wanted.

Maybe those early celebrations of my "special day" set me up for many "failures" as I grew up and birthdays passed with very little notice. Birthday parties planned often fell by the way-side when guests did not turn up and I was left sitting alone at a huge table in a restaurant.

Then, on my 29th birthday, the worst thing possible happened... I died. I don't mean that figuratively, I mean that literally.

I had been misdiagnosed by an inept doctor and then overdosed by him over a space of 12 months. In the end, I was no longer cognitive of my surroundings, I shook like a leaf while walking, and I could not sit for more than a few minutes at a time without being so exhausted I had to lay down.

The day before my birthday, I was rushed to hospital where I was diagnosed with being in Lithium toxicity, five times above the normal high level, and all my other "readings" were way off.

Arriving at the hospital, I made it into the emergency room and then collapsed.

The next day, my birthday, I suffered a major seizure, my heart stopped and while my body was revived and in a coma on life support, "I" was no longer in the physical realm, and my physical body was fighting to join me.

After that birthday, each one seemed to get worse. I began to dread my day, not really wanting to celebrate it. I began to look upon it with fear, and in that fear that I had surrounding the day, I continued to manifest negativity after negativity.

The one year I made the conscious effort to enjoy my day and truly celebrate, our 8 week old puppy had to be put down, that came only five weeks after our 16 year old dog passed away in my arms.

This year, I face this day for the very first time without my beloved father. Every year, my Dad would sing "Happy Birddday" to me in a mock Indian accent. This came about when I was little and had a very good friend who was a neighbour. We spent so much time together and I developed the "ear" for the Indian accent. My favourite was how Indians would sing "Happy Birdddday" and it delighted me. I aligned with my Indian "sister" and acquired many of the traits of her family and my other Indian friends. As far as I was concerned, I was one of them, and they were one of me.

My Dad thought it was so cute the way I would say it, and so he adopted it, singing to me in that special way each year. It was a song that he and I shared. A moment that was just "ours". It was between Dad and me.

This year, for the very first time, I won't hear my Dad singing to me in that special way. But in the silence of the night, before the dawn hits, I DO hear him. I KNOW he is celebrating with me and celebrating me as he always did.

I miss my Dad. I miss hearing his voice. However, I delight in knowing that he has never left me and is closer to me than he ever could possibly be in life. It brings me comfort and peace.

Dear friends from all over the world, some having been friends since grade one, and others have become dear to me in more recent times, have flooded my wall with birthday wishes.

I sit here in the wee-hours of my 38th birthday, and I am filled with an overwhelming sense and knowledge of the depth of blessings that is in my life. The people who are in my life who are more than acquaintances, more than "friends", they are family to me.

I see the deeper meaning behind each message, and SEE the ones who have taken the time to notice that today is my birthday and written on my wall, sharing their love with me.

What greater gift could I ever ask for than to know that I am remembered and loved by so many?

I think about the spiritual connotations and think of the meaning of the greeting "Namaste", which can be translated to mean "I see you in me and I see me in you. Together, we are one".

While I have emotions of not physically hearing my father's voice singing, of thinking of his physical presence not being here upon this realm; I am so completely and totally overflowing with love, with peace, with absolute joy, and I am present in the feeling.

These messages have been wonderful gifts to me. While they are not wrapped up in pretty wrapping paper with a bow on top, they mean so much more.

My greatest gift is something that I ask of from you, each of you who has stumbled upon this blog. A gift that will traverse days, weeks, months, years.

For my birthday, my greatest gift would be for you to do something special for someone else today.

Whether that is smiling at a stranger, opening a door for someone, giving money to someone in need, volunteering for your favourite charity, spending time with a family member or friend who needs an ear, giving someone a hug, etc. Do it with complete & total love for that individual, whether they are a stranger or not.

Recognize YOU in THEM & THEM in You. We are all connected, let's celebrate life.

Thank you ALL for participating in my birthday desire. No matter what day you stumble upon this blog post, no matter what year you do, take my wish and turn it into a reality. Not only will you be fulfilling my wish, you will be fulfilling something deeper and of significance for you and for the one(s) you share of your Self with.


_/|\_
~ Namaste ~


©Leyla Hur
All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of this material without written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Introspection on Osama bin Laden's Death


I admit, last night I got caught up in a momentary wave of excitement and jubilation over the killing of Osama bin Laden; but upon further contemplation, I began to see another picture. While I am glad that the worlds greatest mass-murderers in recent times is now gone, do I truly feel "happy" with his killing?


Martin Luther King Jr., aptly said "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."


And when I reflect on all the feelings I have on capital punishment, is his killing really something that I can honestly rejoice over? My common thought in a capital punishment case, is to not kill a killer, giving him/her the luxury of a single closed cell, complete with TV, radio, typewriter (in some cases, computer), books, three-square meals a day, roof overhead, and bed, without threat from outside sources until a death where one is simply, and humanely put to sleep. But rather, put them in main-stream population where they have to watch their backs every single day for the rest of their natural lives. Maybe my thought process is cruel and unusual, but I also think that death can often be "too easy", especially in extreme cases of barbarism on the part of the offender.


Do I understand and empathize with the celebrations and the jubilations? Did I not say myself "the devil has been sent back to hell"? Yes I do and yes I did.


Someone told me that I was a product of a sick and perverse society, and in my momentary glee-filled jubilation, I agree that I was acting in such a way.


As I meditated upon my actions, my thoughts, and my feelings today, I updated my Facebook page as such: "In retrospect, I feel peace is so much healthier than revenge. I feel love is so much greater than hate. I feel that we are all on various paths and at different stages on each of those paths; acceptance, embracing, forgiving, and loving will be that which will bring us all inner-happiness and inner-balance." And this truly is how I feel.


When we get caught up in a moment, and these moments do arise, these "human-based emotion" moments, we do sometimes take a step on what is solid ground, what is "grounded", and we forget that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We don't need to beat ourselves up for these feelings, or these emotions, but it is important to understand them and learn from them, especially if we are striving to live a balanced and Spirit-filled life.


Each experience we have is just that, an experience. There are no mistakes in life, just opportunities for learning. Last night, I had that opportunity. I embrace it and I learned from it.


Many years ago, when I was studying Kabbalah, I learned that each experience we encounter will create an action or a reaction on our part. When we react, it is nothing more than a giving us a mile-marker to know how far we have come, and what areas of our life we still must work on. 


I am grateful for the experience, and I am grateful that I know what areas of my life I still must work on as I walk this path in this journey called "Life". 



Namaste


©Leyla Hur
All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of this material without written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.

Friday, April 8, 2011

My Awakening



Over the past few days, I feel like I have come into a new Spiritual Awakening, a complete and total understanding. To keep this locked up inside of me would not service me, or whoever might be reading this.

For too long, I have tried to find “understanding” within the walls of religion. Recently, I had a comment from someone that was very negative in its very words, but in comprehending, pondering, meditating, and then understanding, I find myself sitting here tonight with complete understanding.

The individual who wrote to me accused me of having an “identity crisis”, they told me that I should have “gotten over” my identity crisis years ago. While my initial reaction was one of complete shock and hurt at the words, I now am grateful for those words because it caused me to open my heart and my mind to complete and total opening up to my Self.

Over the years, I have traversed many spiritual paths, gone on spiritual journeys, and tried very hard to find my sense of “belonging” within the walls of organized religion.

This started in my mid-teens when I was in a foreign country attending school in a distant location from the town I was living in with my Grandparents. Alone, lonely, away from “home” (the home that I had grown up in with my parents), and without the friends I had known most of my life, I was friendless in this town. The only people I could consider as “friends” from school lived in the city, a distance from where I was.

In that loneliness, I was introduced to the Mormon Church via members of the church who embraced me and accepted me as one of their own. At 16-years-old, it was no wonder that their complete, total, unconditional acceptance appealed to me and drew me in. Whether I actually believed in the teachings of the church, I felt that I had found my place of belonging.

After I was baptized in to the Church, I found myself leaving within 9-months. I began my true “journey” through many different paths and religions, returning often to the Church, but never staying long.

For so many years I could not understand why I was not “satisfied” to just give up my life and any other beliefs that I might have and remain within the bonds of the church; at the same time, I wondered why I kept being drawn back to the church.

So when I was finally “out” of the church, my name removed from their records as if I was never even in existence; in essence, wiping me away from the mind and the cognition of God, I felt freed and relief. Now, I was finally released to truly explore my own truth.

After my father died, I delved in to the religion of my ancestors, my father and my birth; Islam.

Initial study taught me that Islam was more a way of life; it was a spirituality where Allah (God) was everything, not merely IN everything, but actually WAS everything.

Removed was the belief and teaching that God was a mortal man, an image that I simply could not comprehend since first learning about this “white-bearded Deity”. My mortal conceptualization of an omnipresent being contained within a body of flesh and bone seemed overtly limiting to me. The idea of a Holy Ghost and Son seemed even more foreign to me.

So, as I delved more into the study of Islam, things began to make sense. And that is why when I was first harassed by what are known as “haraam police” (haraam meaning “forbidden”), I was shocked. These individuals claiming that their “correcting” me was “sunnah” and that if I was to be a Muslim, I had “better get used to it”.

Often, I felt like I was a mere child being scolded continually by individuals whom I had never met and whom I did not know; strangers, that were labeled as “sisters” simply because we were both Muslim.

I became increasingly frustrated and angered at these people who were correcting my every thought, my every belief, my every action, and most often these individuals were much younger than me.

A couple of times, I came close to giving up the entire aspect of Islam because of the nastiness that was spouting out of these individuals, followed up by the prevalent “I say this because I love you for the sake of Allah”. What the hell did that sentiment mean? They only “loved” me to keep in the ‘good graces’ of Allah; and that “I”, the “you” they were correcting, had no matter, no meaning, no worth?

I began to withdraw from a lot of the social and religious activities within the community as the offense of more than one unnerved me. I was told by the select few I confided in to just “ignore them”; but in my doing that, I was continuing to give them permission to act in such an abusive manner.

An individual with my background does not accept abuse by simply rolling over and taking it. I have long-learned to open my mouth, stand out strong and tall, and shout out against abuse.

In my frustration, I tried to understand why I kept delving back in to different spiritual paths. Why was I not simply satisfied with “me”? What was I truly searching for, and would I ever really find it?

In a moment of complete and sheer frustration, I unloaded on a dear friend, and divulged a part of myself to her. I let down my barriers and opened up to a secret I kept long buried. In my doing so, in her amazing response, and in my thinking about her words, I finally saw clearly the whole picture. I finally understood myself, my frustrations, my “need” to hide behind organized religion.

This was a process that first began last year, but I could not let myself go enough to be honest and truthful with who I was and “why” I was.

In this openness that I finally began embracing, I began to SEE and see for the very first time.

I began addressing issues that I had seen crop up time and time in religion, and especially what I had recently learned within the confines of Islam “the religion”.

One of the biggest issues was the idea of covering in the hijab. When I first covered, I did it for myself. I did for my own reasons and it had nothing to do with the common misnomer held within Islam. And I had often questioned myself if my own reasons for covering were “in line” with what was common thought within the religion itself.

The verse in the Quran says; “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty…” Qu’ran 24:31

And when I finally came to understanding, I realized that when God speaks, He speaks in the whole sense of the explanation and it is us mere mortals who understand in literal, and in so-doing, MIS-understanding.

“Guarding” one’s modesty is something that most of us do already. What is “modesty” in the true understanding of the word? In the online Princeton Wordnet definition it says that modesty is freedom from vanity or conceit. When we guard against this, we are removing EGO (Edging God Out) from our lives.

So covering the body in “modesty” as the literal translation has been interpreted, might not be what the original belief was.

When I meditated on “lowering their gaze”, I realized that this was not something that was also literal, but realize that this was the precursor to guarding modesty. Again, I finally understood it to mean that we need to be aware of our surroundings. When we lower our gazes as we walk, we are being cognitive of the path ahead of us. While this is indicated towards us as individuals, it has a much bigger meaning to it. A deeper, more spiritual meaning and not the literal translation that has kept so many women covered in cloth for so long.

I questioned why, if modesty was such an important thing, were we all born naked and emerging out of our mother’s naked vaginas. And then I understood the complete picture…

We are already “covering our modesty” as we emerge out of the womb, as we are forming IN the womb. Our “covering” is our physical bodies, and this covers that which “drives” our bodies, our soul.

In discussion with my husband, he asked “So does this mean that we’ll all be naked in heaven?”

No. We will not be naked; we will not have the bodies which we have now, because we are nothing but forms of energy.

We say Allah is everything, not just IN everything, but IS everything. How could that be? What is true omnipotence? The concept is difficult to comprehend on so many levels. But as we transcend in Spiritual awareness, it makes complete and total sense. Upon shedding of our mortal bodies, we too are omnipotent in that we can be in more than one place at one time because we are nothing more than energy forms.

Does this concept align us with Allah and “enjoin” us to him? Yes and no.

Yes we are aligned because if we truly believe that Allah is the creator of all things, therefore OUR creator, we hold a strand of His DNA within us. This is shown in the mere fact that we are alive, we are breathing and we are feeling. We have a soul, and in that soul, He holds a part of us. This is what is called Divine Connection. This is also what links each and every single person upon this earth to each other.

Does this mean that we are in essence “Gods”? Yes and No. Yes in that we are creators of our own destinies, and no in the literal sense of the word. We each hold a part of God in us through that Divine Connection, but we are NOT Gods in that literal sense of the word, at least in my comprehension.

In answering my husband’s question, no we will not be “naked” because we will have no form to be naked with, but rather we are energy.

Someone asked tonight “how can God judge us, and why God would like some of us or dislike some of us when he doesn’t have a character and human emotions?”

I replied, “From what I have learned over my years (not IN religion), I have learned that this "judgment" is truly that Divine source in all of us (our soul connectedness) that will be responsible for judging us based on experience culminating with the intensity of Love on the Other Side, as well as complete and total understanding of the ages once removed from our physical form and limitations as well as human, earth-held, understanding. I have a very difficult time comprehending a "court" with the energy force that is Allah at the head handing down judgment and "sentencing".”

And I truly do believe this. It just makes complete and total sense to me. I suddenly “get it”, I understand and I feel completely freed in my understanding.

I no longer feel confined within the bounds of man-made religion. I finally can understand the concept of living and experiencing without the man-made rules and regulations.

Am I no longer “Muslim”? Yes I am, because I understand the meaning of Islam being “to submit” or “to surrender”, from the Arabic root word “Peace” (Salaam). Muslim means “one who submits”. But again, I do not believe that it means this in the literal sense, but rather in the limitless sense. 

We all submit and surrender in so many aspects of the meaning, being “submissive” does not mean the same thing which many have come to understand the meaning.

As a tree bends in the wind, so too we bend with the winds of change. It is a natural process.

Life is as easy or difficult as we choose to make it. For me, I choose to make life easy, without all the confines of rules and regulations, rights and wrongs. I choose to simply Be.

The true purpose of life; is to experience, and in those experiences we learn, we expand our minds, and we live.





©Leyla Hur
All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of this material without written permission from the author is strictly prohibited.