Written on December 28, 2009 by Tom Stine
A while ago, a reader sent me the following question: “Do you have any thoughts on discipline and freedom?” After exchanging a few emails to clarify more specifically what he was asking, he sent me the following:
I’m on a spiritual path and I pick up stuff from all sorts of places like the Sedona Method, I’m checking out A Course in Miracles and the Work of Byron Katie and non violent communication, and other sources, and sometimes with all the techniques and stuff my mind can get really jumbled and I wouldn’t know which to use or when, and it gets to be this mess in my mind, where all messes are made—haha. I think a reason I cling to the forms and techniques is I would achieve pieces of peace and my mind would identify “Sedona Method” with peace and that would get me in trouble. Anyways, my question with discipline and freedom is I don’t know what to do! Should I keep with just one or how should I make sense of this? Should I stick with one discipline and go all the way with it or let freedom guide?
These are excellent questions. This dilemma he is facing is a very common one amongst spiritual seekers. There is a vast array of spiritual ideas, techniques and practices, and even worse pseudo-spiritual ideas, techniques and practices. In case you’ve been sleeping, try googling words like “manifesting” or “The Secret” or “abundance” and just look at the ads in the margin. Yikes! You could go nuts just trying to come to grips with all this… um… well… “stuff” for lack of a more polite term.
But, as is said, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and even in pseudo-spiritual teachings that pander to the basest human instincts, you can find some true gold. But how does one navigate through the trash and hopefully find the treasure?
Well, you don’t, to be honest. You will never find your way through this endless sea. However, that which you are, the Infinite, will lead you and show you the way. It always has been leading you, and it will continue to do so.
So, my suggestion to my reader is to do the following: sit down with any single one of the techniques and practices and work with it until you feel done with it. Just give it a whole hearted effort and see what happens. A bit of earnestness, as Nisargadatta called it, works wonders. We could also call this willingness to let all be undone and transformed
In my own experience, when I was going through a phase like this one, I found that if I would really dive into something, really give it my all, within a very short period of time, it would fade away. And then on to the next, and the same thing would occur. That little bit of intense effort would be all that was needed.
Eventually, all the techniques, all the practices, gave way to the only real practice there is: stillness. When the Infinite begins to awaken through you, it increasingly wants nothing to do with techniques or practices. It has one seeming agenda: to shine it’s light on everything in your mental-emotional system, to open every dark corner and shine a light into it. And what you discover is that it is operating on its agenda and its program, not yours. As a matter of fact, yours never mattered in the slightest. It has always been the Infinite doing its thing.
As a matter of fact, the first realization of truth that was experienced came in the midst of a rather odd “choice” of practice for me at the time. Something in me simply wanted to sit quietly and do nothing, no practices, no techniques, nothing. Just sit and be still. And within minutes, well, there was nothing but Stillness.
I find these days that all I can really do most of the time is sit, allow whatever is arising to arise, and simply watch it merge back into its Source, the Infinite. Ultimately, that is the only real practice. The only “discipline” required is to do one thing, one simple obvious thing, and do nothing else. How interesting!
Namaste.
Written on December 22, 2009 by Tom Stine
This article is one of five articles on forgiveness posted today by several different writers. At the end of this article is a list of links to the others. Forgiveness is an excellent topic for the holidays as, to me, Jesus exemplifies forgiveness more than any other spiritual teacher. And while we have no idea when he was actually born, thanks to history, we celebrate his birth in three more days.
I have a somewhat radical perspective with regard to forgiveness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I can forgive, but I’ll never forget.” Well, I’m sorry, but that isn’t even within a hundred miles of forgiveness. As long as there is any perception of wrong doing, any perception of injury, any perception of being hurt by another, then you have not only not forgiven, but you, yourself, are trapped by your own inability or unwillingness to forgive. Even worse, the only person who is suffering from your unforgiveness is you!
Why is this so? Why would my unforgiveness be a cause of my suffering? The cause of my suffering is what the other person did to me! That certainly sounds reasonable. After all, one would argue, if the other person hadn’t hit me, yelled at me, abused me, raped me, left me, abandoned me (and on and on), then I would not be suffering. I think it would be hard to find 5 people that would disagree with that position. It is simply how the vast majority of the world thinks.
But let’s look at this situation for a moment. At the moment the incident took place, you were experiencing pain. I grant you that. There is no question that in the moment, really, honest pain, anguish and hurt occurred. I do not mean to imply that this is not the case. Pain is a hard thing to endure, and it is often difficult to get through. But as soon as the incident is over, what is happening now? Well, something different. Something without the pain. As always is the case, life moves on to something new.
So, where is the painful incident now? In memory. It is now a thought. It is also a feeling attached to the thought. More than likely these thoughts and feelings will form beliefs, such as “I must be a terrible person for such a thing to have happened to me.” And as these thoughts are repeated, as the feelings are regenerated, as the experience gets ground into the psychological-mental-emotional system, a whole complex of suffering gets built around the memories of the experience. But please notice, because this part is very important, all of it is now 100% in your mind. The incident may have occurred in the seemingly real world, but now that it is over, it is gone and exists only in the mind.
This state of affairs is both a curse and a blessing. It is a curse because an event that happened once in the past is now replaying in your awareness over and over and over again. It is traumatic in every sense of the word. But it is a blessing because you can now let it all go since it exists only in the mind. It won’t be easy, and recovery from memories that are traumatic are some of the toughest to let go of, but you can let it go. And letting it go, completely letting it go, is forgiveness. True forgiveness. The kind of forgiveness that matters.
Believe it or not, you can let go of a traumatic memory and all the emotion and beliefs attached to it to such a amazing extent that you will have a hard time even remembering that the event took place. It will feel as if it was a movie that you watched once upon a time and are now recalling. There will be nothing really left of it. It won’t be repressed, supressed, denied, or any of a dozen other psychological methods to try to get it out of your mind. As a matter of fact, almost surely you will have to re-experience a major portion of the traumatic event, even to the point of feeling all your anger, shame, guilt, fear, horror, etc., again. It can be brutal and rough. But on the other side is a freedom like nothing you’ve ever seen or felt. Believe me, I know from my own experience.
And that is why I can make the bold claim that I did in the title of this argument: “There is nothing to forgive.” EVER!! When you truly forgive, when you finally let go of something to the extent I’m describing, you will see in no uncertain terms that there is nothing to forgive, and, more shockingly, there never was!! You are healed in a way that is absolutely miraculous. The past is past, gone, never to return. It was only in your mind and now is gone! You are truly free.
Can there be any doubt that those strange words of Jesus, while hanging on the cross, came from a man who knew, really and truly knew, that there is nothing to forgive?
Forgive them for they know not what they do.
How true! How perfect! Jesus could look at his tormenters and have nothing in his heart but true forgiveness, a forgiveness that sees nothing to forgive, ever. To have that utter openness of heart is the greatest blessing by far.
If you want to read more about this somewhat radical view of forgiveness, I would suggest A Course in Miracles. The main theme of The Course is not miracles, as the title would suggest, but forgiveness. The Course says that true forgiveness as I’ve defined it above is the key to freedom, awakening and, ultimately, miracles.
The Other Forgiveness Articles
Beyond the Known
And last but not least, my good friend Takuin has produced an amazing e-book, “Beyond the Known.” It is a delightful, easy to read and stunningly beautiful book. And it has a great price: free. Please head over to takuin.com to download a copy.
Written on December 14, 2008 by Tom Stine
For most of us, a part of the journey of awakening will involve a process of letting go of layer after layer after layer. You sit, you see through something, you feel this tremendous release, and your mind says, “Wow, I’ve really seen through this thing. I’m getting pretty free.” But are you free? How can you tell if you are or aren’t?
A friend of mind just help me to see how you can tell whether you are free on a subject or not. It’s so simple, I really can’t believe I missed it. Ready? Here is it:
If you still give a hoot about it, then you aren’t free. There is more to be seen through.
Let’s use an example. Let’s say you are madly in love with a woman. Not that that has ever happened to any of you, but let’s pretend, shall we? 
You sit, you look at the situation, you let go of your feelings about her, you look at your beliefs, you challenge yourself to see her from any and ever angle. You reach an incredible place of clarity, peace and love. You feel incredible joy and love for this person. You find that, amazingly, you feel more love than you could have possibly imagined regardless of what happens between you. Your heart is wide open, and you feel better than you’ve felt in years. Yes, you’ve really opened and experienced great peace, joy and love.
All done, right? You’re free right? You might be. How can you be certain. Simple. Do your thoughts go to this person frequently? Do you still find yourself “drawn” to her? Do you find that you can’t get away from your thoughts about her? Ah, well, congratulations, you’ve discovered another layer. Time to sit down in your chair, open your heart, and be open and present with all the thoughts and feelings that arise within you. Round 2 or 8 or 20 has just arrived.
The layers will arise, one after another, until you are done. There is no way to tell how many there are, or when they will be finished. But a simple thing to do is to be utterly grateful to each one and to their seeming source, the worldly object that appears to give rise to them. And when your mind is finally quiet, then you will know you are finally free. You won’t give a hoot. And you will be supremely happy.
Dedicated to my dear friend M. Namaste.
Written on February 21, 2008 by Tom Stine
My good friend, Matt, sent me the following the other day:
Ultimately…it’s not the stories that determine our choices, but the stories that we continue to choose. —Sylvia Boorstein
The timing of Matt’s email couldn’t have been more perfect. I have been thinking a lot about the past, and the above fits well. As this statement aludes to, the past that we remember as occasional thoughts and stories that we tell ourselves and others, does not have a dramatic impact upon our current lives. It is the past that we remember over and over again that influences our present experience.
When anything occurs, it always happens now. In this instant. And just as quickly, it is gone. Even if it is an event that takes place over an hour, a day, a month or a year, every aspect of it occurred in just one instant, an instant which is over. Ultimately, then, every bit of the events of our lives, and thus all the details of our stories, ends up in the past as nothing more than a memory. And there is the biggest tragedy and greatest hope with regard to our past.
As Sylvia Boorstein indicates, we keep choosing to remember certain of our stories, and we then define ourselves by the details of these stories. For instance, I graduated from college, and therefore I have a rather large memory, filled with multiple events and details, that I have carried around with me and used to define who and what I am: I am a college graduate. But in fact, isn’t my experience of having gone to college just a memory? How can I even really know for sure that all the things that I think happened to me during college every really occurred? I can’t. All I can say is that I remember them.
While graduating from college is a fairly innocuous example, we can quickly imagine a whole host of stories that would be far more dramatic and, for almost everyone, far more influential upon their present lives. For instance, if I had dropped-out of college because I had a problem with drugs or alcohol, I could easily be carrying that story around with me today as a large limiting belief that makes my life difficult. But, upon reflection, it seems valid to ask whether an event that occurred 2 or 10 or 20 or 40 years ago really means anything in terms of the present time. Almost everyone would answer yes, but I think the better answer might be no.
Given the fact that the past is gone, that it no longer exists, then we have a chance to experience some real freedom from what we thought were the stories that defined who and what we are. We can start with the obvious truth: the past is unreal. It is at a minimum gone, done, finished. In a very real sense, though, we can say that it was never real. Only what I am experiencing in this moment has any reality, if we are honest about it. My high school graduation is just a collection of faded memories. Can I say it even really occurred? Even if you show me a photo of the event, does it really make it real? No. It is only my memories that tell me that I walked across a stage, received a diploma, went to a party afterwards, etc. But it can’t say for sure whether I did it because I am not now doing it.
All of this must mean, then, that at this moment, we are all free of our pasts. Our pasts do not exist. Our stories are just that, stories, that are not real. And without them, we are free to do and create anything we choose without limitations based upon our past. We are free, truly free (and we always were).
