Lisa Tilson

Last year, a spiritual teacher prompted me to do the exercise: “How do I stay separate?” It was a fascinating experience for me because I had never considered what it meant to be separate or what effect staying separate might have on my life. Today, the exercise popped into my head again, and I thought it would make for an interesting post.

How I stay separate:

1. I try to appear like I have my life together
2. I judge others (”They are better than me”, “They aren’t as spiritual as I am”, “They don’t eat organic food and thus clearly care less about their bodies that I do about mine” etc.)
3. I observe others without opening myself up right away
4. I decide that I don’t want to be friends with certain people.
5. At school I stuck mainly to myself, convinced that I don’t need to make friends because no one was “on my level”.

The list could go on. One thing that my teacher pointed out after the exercise is how similar staying separate is to arrogance. Arrogance is the ego’s way of keeping a person separate, be it spiritual arrogance, intelligence arrogance or fill-in-the-blank arrogance, it is giving yourself permission to judge someone esles process so that you don’t have to see that we are all the same ore more precisely, so that you don’t have to see that you are the same as the person you are judging. The same works within the self: if you are constantly judging yourself as less than others, you are staying separate from yourself!

So, this week I havne’t written a post. I have thought about writing a post, I have started posts and deleted them, in fact, I have a post draft sitting there, unsent, because I couldn’t seem to get my ideas clearly lined up. I also avoided connecting with my reiki group - everyone else seemed to be having these amazing experiences after the training, and I couldn’t even bring myself to try reiki on my own.

Why did I spend my week like this?  The truth is, I don’t want others to think I’m not clever or to see that my thoughts don’t come out clearly right away.  I don’t want others to know that it takes me a lot of hands on experience to learn something and I especially don’t want others to judge me or disagree with what I write.

In my opinion, a perfect example of both staying separate from myself and from others! Its an interesting complex that I think a lot of people have developed, so here’s my ten cents: look for when you are being separate, and possibly arrogant then, open up a little, maybe share something with someone you feel you can trust (or you could blog to the entire internet population!). Within the self is a little bit more tricky. What I have found works is to look at that thing you judge and find the positive polarity of it. In my case: I dont’ want others to not like what I have to say, which means that I care about what I write and I don’t want to have something I care about rejected. However, if I never share it, no one else will ever have the chance to relate to what I think, bad or good and honestly, that’s worse than someone not agreeing with what I write.

Thanks to my ego, for without it there would be no need for this earth school.

As I flounder about in this period of self discovery, I keep coming back to at least one truth: consciousness. I first really understood the concept of consciousness when I began studying Kundalini Yoga and the teachings of its master, Yogi Bhajan. His teachings often brought up with in me a resounding “I knew it! I knew that there had to be more to this life than the typical “work to buy a car so that you can get to work” lifestyle philosphy” but I was unsure up until that point, exactly how to break the mold. In his lectures he encourages us to become aware of ourselves, our thoughts, our actions and our egos. I learned that this awareness alone would allow me to have a certain level of control over the path I walked. (Pause for grammar and continuity check of paragraph) I just realized that I knew about consciousness earlier, before I could actually percieve of it. Lets back the train up.

My first exposure to the concpet was in 2nd year English during an in-class reading of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The professor interpreted the piece further than Plato does in the conclusion, for those of us who didn’t quite get it, after finally “seeing the light” persay, I remember being overwhelmed by this amazing philosopher’s intelligence. I knew at that moment that I could not spend my life chained to the wall knowing that there was more to be had. The problem was, what exactly was I looking for when I turned away from the wall? I didn’t even know who to ask, or what I was asking about.

I suppose that was what lead me to deepen my exploration of the only thing that I could equate to a giant light - God. Which lead me through an exploration of all major religions, leading me eventually to the teachings of Yogi Bhajan. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this is where I “got it”. The most important lesson I learned from that period in my life was to become conscious of how my decisions, most of which I had always taken for granted, effect me; consciously, energetically and physically. This has the basis for anything I chose to integrate into my practice or lifestyle.

As amazing and exciting as this new revelation was, I soon realized, however, that this way of life, is percieved as kind of … wierd. The part of the allegory that exemplifies what I’m talking about here is this:

Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.

Once one sees the truth, one can’t really look away, because the truth is always there in the back of ones head. So even if this man, goes back to the way he once lived, chained to the wall, there is always a dissonance between him and others. The allegory goes on to describe what that dissonance looks like - you look crazy, or stupid to regular people, because they don’t know what you are talking about.

This is where the Buddhist proverb comes in. You are in a pickle, you can’t look back, but going on is a little bit painful. Funny thing is now, just like me, you have seen the truth first, and understood the proverb second! (This is apparently how it always works according to a non scientific survey of people who have broken out of their chains) We’re in this together now, floundering around looking for other people who think about the same, crazy reality that exists beyond the apparent reality. Even that sounds a bit crazy… oh well, at least we have eachother! Happy Halloween!

I suppose that today is as good of a time as any to write my first post. Its not a cosmically spectacular day, there are no monumental site developments to speak of (except perhaps that the page no longer looks like the theme I used to create it) and I have not reached complete clarity regarding the scope of the site, however, today feels like the day.
I think I feel that way, because in a subtle way, today has been different than the rest. (”The rest”, for those who don’t know, are the days and weeks, and months since I got married, and decided under my own volition that I would rub the slate clean and decide for myself where I am going. Not only did I decide this, but I have had the opportunity to quit EVERYTHING - school, work and all activities - to begin completely anew.)
Today has been different because progress appears to be happening fast enough that I am able to perceive it. For instance, I felt that it was necessary to leave the house today and tie up some loose ends that have been intimidating me. I left the house, and did not WANT to come back until all of the tasks on my list had been completed. That “want” is a feeling that hasn’t happened to me yet, and that I have been anticipating experiencing. On top of this new feeling, the past few days have been inspiring, as I have felt motivated to explore new medium of communication and that I have had the tools, such as a microphone and a website, dropped into my lap, but today, today I noticed that I am inching along. Progress!
So, hello everyone and welcome to the place where I tell my story! In my blog, I will write about my experiences. I will also be podcasting on the moon quarters, with the first action packed podcast occurring on the full moon, the 24th of November, 2007. In my podcast I will talk about women; our past, present and future. I will provide resource reviews of inspiring books, lectures and movies. I will also include a little bit of my story and I hope that you will share yours with me.
Thank you for reading and in advance for listening, I hope that the information I have to share inspires your creativity as a woman and gives you tools to be successful, nurturing, graceful and wise women. Until next time!