My mind meandered through various points. Where am I really on this diet? Gary: It is harder for me to be on these first two “Fat Days” of high food intake than I suspect it will be for me to hold the low-calorie regimen for the next 21 days. I am not really enjoying all this food intake as much as I thought I would. The regimen of having specific meals laid out for the entire week appeals to something in me. Is that my German Will at work? Perhaps.

Pat: Are you mastering your body – being a taskmaster with a whip? Gary: I notice that I like no variety, even though variety is allowed and encouraged. I am curious about this. As much as I hate authority in my life, I wonder why I prefer and have self-imposed having no flexibility in these next 21 days. Somehow this inner authority and regimen brings pleasure to me. And the actual weight loss complements that pleasure. And there is a real feeling of satisfaction and joy to drop a pound or two in a day or two. And there is joy in being self-disciplined in this. Again, is this German Will? And if it is, is that OK?

Yet if during the process I would gain, say 1 and ½ pounds in a day while adhering do the diet, I would not be angry and use expletives at myself or the diet. It would rather result in my quiet resolve to continue, I would have patience for it to work out. And there would be the thrill when this 1 and ½ pounds came off again. That’s what I’m aware of.

Pat: Speak to your motivation for doing this diet at all. Gary: I want to go into my doctor’s office in March for my annual checkup weighing my target weight of 165, having good blood pressure and low pulse rate, and cholesterol below 200. That is one motivation. Another motivation is that I just feel good about myself weighing 170 or less. With this achieved I will have taken weight off the table as an issue for me. I could say, “Gary, you are not fat!” That would be the lifting of a huge cloud it seems.

Gary: At the gym I feel good beginning my exercise regimen with the most challenging strength-training rounds. When those are complete I then enter what is for me the most challenging part, the elliptical workout to give my heart a chance to pump hard.  When this aerobic exercise is complete I then conclude with the least taxing strength exercises. It all feels good as I leave the gym. I don’t feel as good if I skip the elliptical, though sometimes I do.  So what is going on in my unconscious during all of this? I do not really know. But I do know that for some reason exercise has been important to me most of my adult life.

Pat then changed gears, but still was building on the wars within me in the matters of diet and exercise. She noted that we each have distorted inner energies, masculine and feminine. Pat: When my distorted harsh masculine comes up strong, that does not evoke your strong masculine energy in response. Rather it is viewed by you as the controlling parent or emasculating parent showing up. Gary: Yes, I withdraw when that energy comes up. I do not take you on. I do not stand my ground. Clearly this is material to work on in our relationship!

We then talked about the inner battles between our inner distorted masculine and inner distorted feminine. It was very revealing to see all that comes to play here. Pat: We are on to something here. Can you feel the rage of the distorted masculine in you? Gary: Yes, most simply in traffic in the attitude of entitlement that I take on. But as it relates to people and to our relationship it is too frightening to bring this rage out. It lives smoldering just beneath the surface in me. Pat went on to note that this is the energy that goes to war, that seduces, and noted that these energies are very charged and powerful. Full of rage. They break down any hope of trust. And we stay unconscious that these are the things that live in us, that live in all our relationships, with each other, within ourselves, and with the earth.

Gary: I am reminded of the kind of power depicted in the Lord of the Rings. Pat: This Ring material and material like it must have been channeled. Gary: This inner war is described in many spiritual teachings – and is critical in yours in AIP and mine in Pathwork. What these teachings teach goes something like this. The real power of Life lives in our real selves – the Positive Forces (Higher Self) and Negative Destructive Forces (Lower Self). These are so potent, so spontaneous and out of control that we have our enculturation imposed upon us from youth on, an enculturation by which we keep these deeper energies toned down and our being “suitable.” We create a mask, our Idealized Self Image, to keep the deeper out-of control energies of our real self in check. Everything is “nice.” And truly lifeless!

Our first step in spiritual growth is to dare to remove these masks, these Idealized Self Images, and begin to feel these inner potent energies that live inside of us. We need to explore them and in particular we have to work through the distortions contained in our Negative Destructive Energy. The Negative Destructive Energy in some sense has been brought about by what has been described in myth as The Fall, whatever that represents. The patterns are all the mask-self strategies to keep life safe. This all begins by looking at the war within ourselves – our inner wars that, unconsciously, get projected out onto others.

The work of spiritual and personal development involves working with our inner wars – coming to see them underneath the surface of our patterns, underneath our masks, underneath those idealized versions of ourselves. All scary powerful work, because we have developed these masks and patterns from our youth in order to be safe in the world, in order to get what we want in the world. It is hard to face the fact that these strategies have given us neither peace nor pleasure. They have to be given up and we have to begin on a fresh piece of paper. This is the couples’ work we think we shall be doing with Sage Walker and her husband Anthony. This is truly deep work.  Scary, yet this seems so much to be where we are. It is the path we have somehow chosen it seems. I feel raw.

Pat:  Goodness! That’s plenty. Gary: So as we look at where we are, where we have come from, and what lies ahead, is this work really helping us? This was the question posed in my previous blog entry. Just look at what gets uncovered so that we can enter more fully into life. But it will not be easy, especially emotionally. Is it the “right” way, the “right” path? One must discern that for oneself! But it seems “right” for us, our “Call” if you please.

Thus ended our morning coffee time. Much of the material we covered during our two hours of conversation was beyond what we are willing to share or even know how to share, but this summary may give one the feel for the waters we are traversing.  Shared with love, Gary

After our group broke up I rode home with one of the members. She said she related lots to what I said, and then said, “Even with all your years of Pathwork you still struggle just like me. Is your Pathwork really worth it? Does it work?”

This was an interesting and appropriate question. At first my pride crept in, thinking that certainly with a dozen years of Pathwork I certainly would be farther along than my dear friend or others in the group. I smiled at my inner kid’s pride and arrogance and let it go.

What was the truth here? Is Pathwork working? And then the insight arose that it matters not where we are in our journey compared to others, or even compared to where we thought we were a few years back. The journey is a messy journey, a spiral journey with ups and downs. We do our work on the dark pieces in our being and suddenly moments of light appear, we know not where from. It is pointless to seek the Light, for it can appear only by our being present to what is true, and often that can be pretty dark and confusing. When the Light does come it will come “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” And for but a brief moment. By being present to the dark, the real, we shall see the Light. Perhaps. Once in a while.

I recall one lecture even dealing with this matter of progress along the path. It is Pathwork Lecture 69 and has the teasing title, The Folly of Watching for Results While on the Path: Fulfillment or Suppression of the Valid Desire to be Loved. Yes folly to watch for results and progress while on the path. Secondly I was reminded of a short piece by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin titled Patient Trust in Ourselves and the Slow Work of God (open). Again, the title says it all – being patient along the Path.

It was a short conversation with my dear friend, but meaningful.  It was the right question to ponder in that moment. The answer? I guess we each have to decide for ourselves regarding the path we are taking in life.

With love,

Gary

Thursday’s Coffee Time

I shared my anxiety over my day’s agenda with Pat. Top of the list was the 9:00 AM Pathwork Counsel meeting, which I shall chair. Why am I anxious about this, why would I rather be doing something else – like recording lectures, writing my blog, etc.? There is a lot on the table for the Pathwork Council – how will the Pathwork school look next year in our various programs? Setting up a Helper Retreat, getting budgets and forecasts in for next year, developing a process for selecting faculty, assimilating a new crop of Helper apprentices, addressing some administrative issues in the existing program as we come up to the March sessions, and so on – all details that have to be addressed and worked through. And so much ambiguity as to what is “right action.”  And then the challenge of helping us all to be on the same page when our styles and opinions are so varied at times.

Pat also identified areas where she was anxious, actions she felt she should have taken but hasn’t as of yet. Just as with the Pathwork Counsel, there are areas of ambiguity and confusion over “right action.” This confusion and ambiguity stalls the decision process and clogs the energy flow.

Pat: So you have to stay stable in this, Gary. You are the holder of a lot here with the Pathwork Council. You have to hold the unknown until the energies configure and show the way. And you are good at this.

Gary: I jump over the “and you are good at this,” fairly well dismissing it. Rather I say, “I may be good at this, but I am uncomfortable holding all this. I’d rather do something else that wasn’t uncomfortable. I want Joy and Pleasure Supreme, not the uncomfortableness of this ambiguity intensified by a sense of urgency.”

But then an insight came up. My ego, living in duality, wants things good, not bad, pleasurable, not painful. The old 100/0 of Bert’s and Moira’s 50/50 Pathwork Program.  But my discomfort is real. It stems from lack of trust in the Cosmos, a certain amount of laziness, and other distortions. But causes aside, this is who I am just now. Can I simply accept my discomfort and all in me that gives rise to discomfort? Just hold it all? True Joy on the Non-dual plane of consciousness does not mean all bliss and no pain. It means accepting what is and being curious about what in me is blocking the bliss. Just be with it all on the bridge between duality and Unity, this place of non-dual consciousness. That is the place to see and accept the truth of me.

I am reminded of Moses who faced lots of frustration. His was not a life of all joy and no suffering. Yet he could hold it all. Eventually he accepted his call to lead the people of Israel and take on whatever that meant. Sure, he would have preferred to have stayed with his wife and be a shepherd and not get caught up in the Exodus. But his Call was otherwise.

So here I am, holding my frustration and discomfort as part of Life. My inner kid would prefer a life of perfect and permanent ease. But my mature adult can stand on the bridge of current reality and hold the truth that right now both pain and pleasure are here.  Being uncomfortable does not mean I am not on the path, though often I fear that this is what pain means – the belief that if I were on the path I would have all bliss and no pain. In fact, feeling my discomfort and frustration on the path enlivens me. I am free to be me, frustrations and all. This is the space of freedom to be me, this space of Welcoming All Guests in Rumi’s The Guest House is what is invited here. I do not have to eat peanut butter crackers or run away to other activity to avoid the inevitable pains of life and to pacify my inner kid. Rather, I accept adult responsibility, feel my pain, and yet take time to comfort my inner kid with compassion as he grows and matures.

With love, Gary

I decided I would participate in the Sunday call, and so Saturday evening I decided to prepare by doing my Daily Review to see what I wanted help with from the lecture and the call. I began by looking at Rumi’s The Guest House and Welcoming the Blues, a Pathwork quote from Lecture 61 Questions and Answers. These two readings ground me in welcoming all parts of me to the table to look at – a kind of pre-Daily Review ritual. So the issue that came up to look at was, “With all the effort I put into Pathwork stuff, why am I not happier or more fulfilled than I am?” I had not even read the title of the lecture we were doing yet (The Meaning of the Human Struggle), and was amazed at how perfectly even the title of the reading material fit my need (lest I think Spirit is not participating in my process!).

As I read the selections from Lecture 181, my psyche opened up with many items – and I could welcome them all:

1. Fear that my process was not working, or that I’m not really really doing my process

2. I don’t want to do my real work, the hard work required – I prefer to stay busy with effort and busy work (administrative work, perhaps even recording the Pathwork lectures is partly this), duping myself and others that I am obviously doing THE work when I am not. Busy? Yes. Working my work? No.

3. I want to be rewarded for busyness and effort, irrespective of attitude and  efficacy – I want to be rewarded indirectly for level of effort, not manifest creations directly from within my own being – the latter being too risky.

4. Actually, unconsciously until now, I don’t want to be happier or more fulfilled. In parts of my unconscious I am saying NO to life.

5. I fear feeling fulfilled. It’s too much to take in.

6. The Lecture gives a beautiful prayer, suggesting that the reader use some form of this prayer to ask for help. But with a NO to Life, I see I do not want help to grow and expand into fulfillment and joy, so I say NO to asking of help, even in prayer.

7. (This was pivotal) Again on some unconscious level, I want to work hard and I want the work to be ineffectual. In fact on some unconscious level I do not believe the work can or will be effectual. But I want others to praise me for working so hard. A kind of pity party. I become the ineffectual but addicted workaholic!

8. The Lecture catches my attention: “My happiness will contribute to the happiness of others.” My self-imposed “suffering” brings no one happiness. Now I begin to see that I really do need to pray for help, but the No is still there as well. Just be with both pieces, Gary, welcome both of these guests too. The house is getting full!

9. The Lecture then says I will have reservations about all this working out. I nearly laugh out loud – this is exactly where I am!

10. I recognize my pervasive attitude of negativity. I see its symptoms as spelled out in the Lecture: tiredness, pleasurelessness (a coined Pathwork word no doubt), all part of a destructive force in me.

11. AND I refuse to want to give it up.

12. AND I insist that I am a helpless child, a victim of life in all of this, that I CAN’T give it up.

13. Can I commit to grow up, to want to grow up? Can I ask for help?

14. At this point the Lecture invites me to ask for help – not from outside myself but from inside. I do, and my inner self says:

You don’t want my help.

You don’t want my help to work, to be effective

You don’t want Pathwork to work, to be effective

You don’t want to be happy

You want to work hard for nothing

15. Kind of shocking to have this so close to the surface. So I ask,

How can I change?

How can I want to change?

How can I want to want to change?

16. Response,

Really see how miserable you are in some aspects of your life

Really realize that this is neither necessary nor desirable

Really see what is possible in these as yet undeveloped areas – like relationships.

17. I see that I don’t believe it is possible to be better off, to be fulfilled, say, in areas like relationships.

18. But I begin to see that I have choices here. I am not a helpless child. However, I resist seeing this on a felt sense level. Yet intellectually I know that I do have a choice. I Know that…

My misery is of my own making – coming out of my images, beliefs, my attitudes.

Yes, my attitudes shape my experience…AND I have the CHOICE to change. AND I resist knowing that I have a choice …

19. So THIS right here and right now IS the HARD WORK I would rather not do, this seeing into myself, my needing to choose to make other choices. I’d rather keep BUSY and BLIND and a CHILD.

So was that amazing or what – to see all of this in one fell swoop. Just be with it, Gary, just be with it. Welcome all guests, as Rumi suggests.  These are all parts of me and to see this is to be in Truth. From here, from being in Truth, I can grow.

Sunday morning meditation

For my Sunday morning meditation I dropped in the question, “Why do I opt for hard work rather than for Joy?” Before I was even sitting on my bench answers were arising. “My ego works hard. My ego does not trust my intuition, so it has to work hard. So why do I not trust my intuition, my inner wisdom?”

More answers arose,

1. Religion was never about waking up my Spirit within. Rather it was about memorizing scriptures and creeds, about “believing” “right” dogma – including that I was a lowly sinner with nothing good inside. Inside – my intuition, wisdom, and Knowing – were all evil continuously, the dogma said. I took that in at an ego level. My ego was warned never to trust what arose within. And it held onto this belief, yet at some level Knowing it was not True. Why did I not let this –  my Knowing that my being was all evil was not True – express itself and trump my ego? Not sure. Some fear around this.

2. Career, school – though I enjoyed learning and working, the pressure was for grades and performance. My belief: there was no value or merit for doing what you loved, only for what the system said you ought to do. I would not even ask myself what I wanted to do, this would not have occurred to me.

3. Marriage – not about joyful mature and mutual love but an immature way of getting what I wanted and being a “good” husband and father in return.

4. Music – no value in taking in the joy of music, letting the soul sing. The value in music was in practicing hard to get the notes right – all the while knowing that you were not that talented and did not enjoy playing that much.

5. Dancing – being taught the steps rather than the flow – always anxious since I did not know how to let the flow (that I now know is there within me in spades) out and did not know the steps well enough to execute them smoothly.

6. I think I may be dyslexic – not able to read quickly, etc. So school was hard work. But I was “smart enough” and committed enough that hard work would bring good grades – especially in science, math, and engineering. Could not have done philosophy or psychology or theology – all subjects that I really had passion for – too much reading and language skills required.

7. So I did not learn how to connect my two worlds: my inner world (Intuition, feelings, etc.) and my outer world (work, performance, etc.).

Life was a mixture, and when I trusted my intuition my psyche got nervous and would back me up with analysis and thinking, not open to my making a mistake. And without being able to make a mistake, my intuition, feeling, and emotional side did not mature. My ego worked “good enough” to keep me trapped – if I let go and trust my intuition I might not be “good enough” and could lose what I have, so I was trapped in not letting go. So the invitation in all of this is to let go, to begin trusting my inner wisdom, feelings, emotions and intuition more, and to be OK with mistakes as I grow this inner territory.

Sunday Morning Coffee Time following Meditation

Pat began by saying where she was, and, amazingly, she was in a similar place – so much judgment about not doing even her meditation right, and so many other things. Pat: Just to accept that as my pattern and not think I’m so awful. I have this yearning for a simpler life – one being able to stay and be present to all that is arising – not less activity but more fully present to fewer things.

I shared my meditation arisings. Pat could relate. Pat: It took a long time to realize that there was not enough joy in my life before I had the courage to change. My pattern is not to trust life.  My belief, “This is all I deserve.” So I work hard at the mundane. Gary: Yes, both of us get involved in the administrative stuff rather than the creative stuff. But of course bringing order is a value as well, provided we don’t get fixated or rigid or controlling. It can be creative at times.

We talked of the spirals of life, learning these familiar lessons in the same areas of our lives at deeper and deeper levels year by year. Yes, the blues in life bring us face to face with what we need to see, face to face with those blocks that keep us in pseudo joy rather than in joy supreme! These cause and effect aspects of Life are the Spiritual Laws of the Cosmos. In this sense Pathwork is a science, as my helper Moira says. Pat: The Dali Lama says this too: Buddhism is a science of the mind.

And so we adjourned. What was the answer to my opening question: “With all the effort I put into Pathwork stuff, why am I not happier or more fulfilled?” Well I could see there were many many reasons. Just need to sit with them and begin making different choices. As Pat says, “It’s all about growing up.” Yes, and part of us doesn’t want to!

Later on Sunday came the Pathwork Steps Conference Call. The preparation had brought me so much. There were six or so of us on the call – deep sharing, and yet even more disharmonies arising in me to work on. But I could more easily laugh at myself, at us all, as we live our lives imperfectly in an imperfect world – and yet, at higher levels Knowing it is all perfect. May we get more tastes of this “It’s all perfect” feeling and yet be able to live in what is real in each moment – the perfect imperfections of it all.

Love, Gary

Coffee Time – Saturday Morning

Gary: As I work with my Daily Review, our Coffee Time, and writing my blog, I catch myself in a feeling of joy. It is like working on a puzzle – a complex puzzle – and then the joy in having pieces show up that just complete a part of the picture — the “Aha’s”. So this is my experience in working with the puzzle that is my Life – the experience of Joy! Pat: Puzzle – that’s a great image. I like the emotional energy around this image. Puzzles are fun, they are adventures.

Gary: Pathwork gives me clues to the puzzle that Life is. I have much energy for working the puzzle of Life. This is so True. My source of Fun and Joy is working the puzzle of Life. And you are very much a part of that puzzle! Pat: It is a gift to receive that image – an arising from your own psyche, not an image you received from the outside. Gary: Even this insight that life is a puzzle and that I find Joy in working with the puzzle is another piece to the puzzle in itself – and I can feel my joy from its arising. Similar to my finding puzzle pieces in the Pathwork Lectures or from other sources. I love learning – especially learning about the Mystery. Pat: You’ve always loved learning.

Gary: But this topic – Life – so captures my imagination, invigorates my creativity, and awakens my intuition – all which are facets of the life force that wants to burst forth in and from me! Pat: Amen!

Gary: So I seek that which supports this bursting forth – our Coffee Time, our relationship in all its dimensions, Pathwork, Journal writing, writing my blog, conversations with other seekers and friends. Pat: I feel a prayer arising: “May I seek that which supports my bursting forth!”   Gary: Amen!

Gary: Turning to your and my relationship, all the dimensions of our relationship bring up so much in me – some of it joyful, some of it scary, some of it frustrating, some of it wanting to control, some of it meanness in me – but these facets are ALL part of me. That Welcoming All Guests from Rumi’s Guest House truly plays out here.

Pat: Funny. Our living. There are transparent spiritual laws at play that we can’t see. If we say “construct” or “structure” these words are too rigid, too concrete. No these spiritual laws are transparent, fluid, full of wisdom, Truth and the like, dynamic. As I look out and size things up, I am enchanted – there is something solidly in place that we can count on, AND it’s of a transparent, fluid nature. It is fun, like these hidden-picture pictures you look at and suddenly a hidden three dimensional image snaps into place. Words like fun, joy, aliveness come to mind.

Gary: All of this is part of the Grand Puzzle – seeing, or rather, experiencing the seeing, is another piece falling into place. Experiencing how it helps expand and complete the picture. Takes your breath away. The puzzle is less of a puzzle at a higher level of consciousness, and we delight in the experience of this framing or contextualizing pieces of Life. Pat: We delight in swimming in the current of these higher frequency waters. There is a place in us that knows the joy of this experience of swimming in the higher frequencies. Gary: A place that is the HOME from whence we came. Here on the earth-plane we get tastes of this joy of living in the higher frequency spaces. AND we are going home to them.

Pat: The little ego’s self-cherishing is keeping an image of a separate self – all the ways we maintain this image of a separate self. Gary: When in fact we are a piece in the puzzle. When the puzzle is complete, the picture is complete and has nothing to do with the shapes of the individual puzzle pieces. At this higher level the picture is complete and the pieces have no individual meaning apart from the Whole.

Pat: Luminous Emptiness! This morning we are tracking the puzzle pieces back to this beginning, but at the deepest level what “it,” this beginning, is is described as luminous emptiness – referring to the book titled Luminous Emptiness: Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead, written by Francesca Fremantle on the teachings of Chögyan Trungpa Rinpoche. Pat read sections of this out loud (open to read these sections). These words were brilliant and inspiring to her.

Gary: You take in that brilliance and it enlivens you. AND that is what the Pathwork Lectures do for me. We are very different it seems in what most supports our working the puzzle of Life, and we can each honor that which supports Life in ourselves and in the other – each of us finding the key to our respective door to the inner Mystery. Pat: It gives us great joy and delight when the energies that arise in each of us, though enlivened from a different source, are recognized as one and the same – the One Mystery. Again looking at the four closing lines of the Luminous Emptiness quote. Knowing this is key – the fastest road to freedom. I am not other than you. It’s very helpful for me to contemplate that! The basis of all ignorance is that I am separate.

Love, Gary

So what is the Truth of me? Here are some of the pieces…

1. I do not know my Calling.

2. I am impatient, frustrated, and angry not knowing my Calling

3. I do not want or intend to know my Calling

4. I have a NO to life, a negative intention not to follow my Calling

5. I long to follow my Calling.

6. I am not at peace in life.

7. I am following my Calling

8. I do not experience all the joy I could from following my Calling

9. I am ashamed of my Calling

10. I am ashamed that I am ashamed of my Calling

11. I am ashamed that I do not fully follow my Calling

12. I am confused

13. I am ashamed for feeling confused

14. I am complex with many pieces moving in different directions

15. I am ashamed that I am complex

…

Of course I could go on and on ad infinitum. But it is True that ALL of these pieces live in me. Now the Key: As I accept ALL of me – truly a radical self-acceptance – I experience a great expansion of consciousness, and an influx of Life and Joy. I give birth to ALL of me. I am “born again” in each moment of acceptance. I come to be in the Truth of me. From Truth great things can happen!

In giving birth to all parts of me I can work with them. Without moralizing, (or, rather, accepting moralizing when it shows up and not letting my moralizing piece stop me – rather being curious about the moralizing) I can be curious about these pieces, examine each of them, determine their origin, and do the work necessary to heal what is broken or distorted in each of them. This is the work of the Pathwork, the work of purification and returning home to God. But it all begins with fully accepting ALL of me, including the many pieces that do not accept ALL of me, those pieces that seek to hide these less-than-admirable pieces of me from the world and from myself.  ALL of me includes, yes, ALL of me. Ever expanding into such possibilities. This is Creation. This is my true Calling in Creation.

With love, Gary

PS – Rumi’s The Guest House certainly fits here (open)

PPS — And when looking at ALL of me, I’m always encourage by this quote from Pathwork Lecture #61 Questions and Answers, a quote I titled Welcoming the Blues (open)

PPPS – “Your Soul Is Rooting For You” – compliments of my daughter Nancy – Thank you, Nancy!

Einstein is very different from Oppenheimer, and the latter had ridiculed the former for his stubbornness in holding to the belief that Quantum Theory, with its Uncertainty Principle, was leaving out part of the fundamental physics of the Cosmos. I am not drawn to this debate, nor do I sense that I have the mental apparatus to engage in such debates. What I am increasingly drawn to, however, is the man Einstein, his philosophy of life and of the Cosmos.

What draws me are some similarities I find in our philosophy, attitudes, and struggles. Let me innumerate some of them…

1. Einstein trusted his intuition about reality and the rules of the Cosmos rather than empiricism. This led to both his Special and General Theories of Relativity.

2. He believed in a Reasoning Source (God) that was behind the Cosmos and beyond the mind’s capacity to grasp.

3. While faithful to the ethnicity of his Jewish heritage, he did not ascribe to Jewish or any other religious dogma as a basis of Truth.

4. He despised autocratic rule wherever it showed up – academically, politically, in religions, etc. In this regard, Hitler was intolerable.

5. He worked best alone but engaged with a few peers to work out his ideas.

6. He was a nonconformist and a rebel against the establishment – especially academia

7. His relationships with women were complex and a struggle for him

8. He was a pacifist, against armament, yet flexible, changing his mind when Hitler came to power – seeing the need to stop Hitler’s aggression on all fronts.

9. He was indifferent about his appearance, often wore no socks, often out of style with his surroundings

10. He was an odd duck, even in his own mind, but comfortable in that way. Very much his own man.

I am so looking forward to the Life Study program where I can delve into these dimensions of Einstein and learn from him.  Regarding points 1) and 2) above, I was drawn to Lincoln Barnett’s The Universe and Dr. Einstein, recommended to me by a friend. See a section I relate to titled: Einstein on Mystery and God.

With love, Gary

PS Another interesting quote often attributed to Einstein (click here)

Pat: I wish I could be more fluid and agile in my awareness of my soul movements – this changing of the energies moment by moment. I listen to my AIP teaching CD over and over again. I share some of these ideas with others, but it draws a blank stare in response, polite, but clearly not understood, clearly not material that others outside my AIP circle relate to. Clearly this material has to be worked up to if one is going to understand. One needs previous training to understand and absorb what these teachings are saying. There is a gradation, like growing in school grade by grade, but this gradation is not about being superior but rather simply having moved to the next grade in the school of life.

Gary: Yes, finally, perhaps, we are leaving the shore of the familiar and seeing just how radical this new space really is. More than ever, we are jumping into the abyss that we have feared our entire life. And it really does take time to get to this point because of the magnitude of the change required, or rather, the change that seems to happen in us organically as we do our spiritual work over time, over our entire life. It is an experientially felt sense that changes one’s fundamental stance toward life.

Pat: What changes is one’s perception of Life, perception of reality. Gary: One’s core attitude opens up to take in all that is, like waking from a dream, or perhaps like fully entering into a dream, so different from the familiar day-to-day life we have each led for over six decades. This awareness in each moment (awareness of motivations, feelings, sensations, and the like) does not mean more or deeper thinking in every moment. Rather it is fully being in each moment, fully embodied in each moment.

Pat: Who we are makes our lives. And there is no separate anything. Oh the importance of doing our spiritual practices so that we can experience these Truths. Concentration and focusing practices. All of this just to experience being present. On this planet, the earth, we are slowed down, our mind lumbers along. Awareness, on the other hand, is very quick.

Gary: And it is all good in the sense that there is perfection even in the lumbering mind too, not just in the higher levels of awareness. The effects that result from our lumbering along allow us to see and experience the effects more clearly and from there work on our inner causes that brought them into being.

Pat: Perhaps I’m talking about the perceiving of the underlying being as Source – whereas the externals, the manifestations, are our material to work on. Opening to the reality of that deeper awareness changes how we live our lives – moment to moment. Spiritual maturity brings us the capacity to experience all that is more than and beyond what we once knew. Instead of thinking what I’m living in each moment I am being in life in each moment. In Ken Wilber’s Grace and Grit he explains how he lived his life – he had more fluidity in experiencing what was his true nature AND at the same time he could experience himself as embodied here on the planet. If you see everything that arises as energy, energy that arises out of your emptiness, then nothing can rock your boat!

Gary: Including not being rocked by not yet being there. Coming to Know that our dualistic state, with its limitations, has a purpose – in this dualistic state we do our work of purification, clearing up all the patterns and distortions that keep us from Union. The root distortion since the Fall (whatever what is named “The Fall” really means, but knowing that we were somehow a part of whatever it is or was) is that we are separate – separate from God, from the Cosmos, and from each other, even from ourselves. From this root distortion of thinking we are separate, all other distortions, images, misconceptions, wrong conclusions, and the like emerge. This is where we are called to the work of purification by whatever spiritual path we are on.

Pat: May I open to the fluidity of alignment with Truth. My morning is impressing symbols into my soul substance. It takes me into the unknown. Gary: In entering the unknown we come to trust the goodness of the Cosmos. Pat: Stepping into the unknown IS trusting the Cosmos. Gary: It is, again, pushing further out to sea from the shore of the familiar. Pat: Leaping into the abyss, into the current of the Life Stream.

Gary: As we move out into the Sea of Life, how others react to us becomes unimportant to our own sense of wellbeing. We can experience a space where we no longer depend upon others’ “getting us,” or on our being somehow “right” in all of this. Pat: However, from that stance each of us can see the pattern in us that wants to jump up and be accepted and loved. From here, from this observer place, we can work on our own material.  My AIP path and your Pathwork path focus on this, giving us the techniques to see our distortions, enabling us to cut through the patterns and ultimately to reside in our own true nature.

Pat: Being aware of body, speech and mind. I’m clueless about being aware of speech and mind. Gary: Interestingly, I am working on my recording of Pathwork Lecture 80 Cooperation, Communication, Union and it speaks to the awareness of speech. The lecture suggests that the only way for us humans to communicate with each other is from a place of independence.  Not interdependence, but independence. Healthy interdependence comes after true independence. Before independence I would think there would be codependence between two people – each consciously or unconsciously wanting to get something from or influence the other for the purpose of feeling safe, happy, or fulfilled. This codependence can be pervasive in our patterned living, even as, or perhaps, especially as, a couple. This codependence can be totally unconscious and may even appear as harmony. But in fact it could be pseudo-harmony with one or both parties wanting to keep the peace or not rock the boat. These patterns of codependency preclude true communications between two people, the lecture suggests.

Pat: Sometimes in our coffee time I find I am practicing my spiritual practice. In fact I would say absolutely that our coffee time is our practice, practice for life. It is our pushing off from shore. Do you get that? Gary: I am more aware of this being a pushing off for us. Pat: How do you know that? What in your sensory apparatus informs you of that?

Gary: First I feel a tinge of fear arise at the question. But let me drop below that for now and come back to the fear later. How do I experience this pushing off? It is a sensation in my chest first of all. Then I would say I experience an intuitive sense in my mind, perhaps, and this intuitive sense in my mind comes with some excitement. I feel more alive. Yes, more alive with this intuitive Knowing that I am now at Sea and no longer on the shore of the familiar. This experience of intuition and excitement is familiar, but I had not named it until now, or perhaps I could say my knowing was not cognitive knowing but a deeper Knowing, a Knowing that was not recognized by my intellect cognitively, or, say, by my ego, whatever that might mean.

Gary: Back to the fear. I think my separate ego (the separateness of course being an illusion) has a need for cognitive understanding as a defense, understanding that can be explained in words, in concepts and ideas. When the intuitive Knowing that is deeper than the cognitive intellect has capacity for grasping, then the ego feels endangered. “How can I explain this Knowing?” “Is this Knowing trustworthy?” “Will this intuitive Knowing make me look stupid?”  All this comes up. How interesting. It is good to slow down and consider what has arisen here right now. Can I be open to trusting a deeper intuitive experience of Knowing?

Pat: Sometimes in our morning coffee time, when I say I’m practicing for life, I am more the awareness. The movement, the breath.  Then, after coffee time, when I am getting into the externals I’m so quickly caught in pattern. I need to practice in our coffee time so that I have an entrée into the everyday world – our coffee time is like on-the-job training for life – learning how awareness feels.

Sometimes in our morning time when you are talking, writing, sharing what Pathwork says – those are the pointings, and I’m already practicing where the pointings are pointing. I’m in the practicing of what the words are pointing to. I just notice it this morning – the words and the writing are the pointings. I am noticing that in the moment I’m practicing. OK, that’s fine.

At the same time some alarm or concern arises – and there need not be alarm, because it’s all here, it can all be here. No need for alarm. That’s what I mean about practicing. Practicing to develop the fluidity of what is, connecting to the soul currents as we take the steps in our embodied life. A way to be with how we, in this year of 2012, will evolve. We don’t know how we shall evolve this year. We are stepping into choices and decisions without holding concrete ideas of what the year will be. We are entering the unknown, but more attuned to our Essence. So this morning I am practicing the feel of that. Gary: So radical, this space is so radical from where we have been.

Pat/Gary: If we pay attention to the pointings and move in that direction, well that’s the way we decide. It’s not like an evaluation in your mind at all. But it is a choice your healthy ego makes, a choice to surrender to the unknown, trusting the goodness of the Cosmos. Somehow in our embodiment, with the work we have been doing and continue to do, we begin to experience the felt sense of the letting go and surrendering, the felt sense of trusting the goodness of the flow of Life, recognizing the Truth of what is.

Our mind paints the Truth as something “out there” and “fixed,” when in fact it is a dynamic, alive, flow of energy – spontaneously arising moment to moment.

Pat: Wow! Now that was absolutely worth hanging in there for this morning. We must never see our coffee time as somehow less than the jobs in life that we have. Pat/Gary: We recognize our coffee time as most sacred. “MOST” is absolutely appropriate. Pat: Your relationship with the Pathwork Lectures is hugely important, as is AIP for me. But what is MOST SACRED is our relationship and everything we do to cultivate that relationship. The path within the path. Gary: And realizing that we know nothing about what real relationship feels like. Pat: Your mind may say that, but your Essence, your Core, your Real Self Knows what a real relationship feels like and that Knowing wants to be revealed. Gary: Yes, you are right. Our mind does not, and really cannot Know what a real relationship feels like. The Knowing leading to surrender is deeper than our mind’s capacity to experience cognitively. And from that place of surrender we shall Know what a real relationship feels like.

Pat: What can you say after a morning like this?! May we awaken for the benefit of all beings. May our lives be an offering. Gary: Amen! Pat: Pretty miraculous.

With love, Gary

Coffee Time Monday Morning

Pat: I want a right relationship with food, but this does not mean that food no longer matters in our life. Quite the contrary. A right relationship with food includes enjoying food. Gary: Good point. Right relationship with food really focuses on enjoying food, perhaps. But of course enjoying food does not mean eating as a compulsion or emotional crutch. Currently I spontaneously and unconsciously grab snacks during the day. This is using food as a crutch. And when I do this I am not savoring or appreciating, just relieving a little of life’s tensions and anxieties.

Eating consciously means appreciating foods – all the tastes of various foods and seasonings. We shall likely eat fewer so-called comfort foods and perhaps even develop a more sophisticated and broader palette. Perhaps we shall develop more of an appreciation for fine food carefully prepared rather than huge quantities. Pat: Yes, coming to savor food. This is part of our right relationship with food. All this feels important as we enter this diet — this attitude toward food is what we are going for.  …

Pat: I notice we are becoming open to change. Gary: This is a big deal, to really let go of what is and to be open to, even inviting in, change. Pat: Someplace in here (pointing to her heart) one begins to trust or have a feel for the basic goodness which life is (a phrase Pat thinks A.H. Almaas uses in his Diamond Approach). This feel of the goodness facilitates an openness to change, to move toward the goodness. One begins to notice one’s actual experience of the goodness of life. In this I notice I become more determined to see my blocks, my obstinateness, my patterns, my resistances — all that stand in the way of the goodness of life that is all around us – AND become open to change. That is the inner movement — coming to WANT to change in order to more fully taste the goodness of Life. Parmenter would say, “Change who you think you are.” Just maybe I now have a sense of that openness to change – and it comes through our AIP morning practice.

Gary: Feels exciting to me. This all has a feel of moving off the shore into the sea of Life – a real letting go, saying goodbye to the old “US,” the parts of us that were and still are distorted. It seems we have an intention to launch our boat into the Sea of Life – back to Pathwork Lecture 1 by that name.

Pat: I remember the AIP experience we had in 2006. You were signing up for AIP, but I was hesitant to sign up. We had the picture come up that you were leaving the shore in the AIP Spiritual Development ship and I was staying behind, waving goodbye. Then, suddenly, spontaneously, “No, I’ll come with you!” Gary: All that was so consequential – your now being in AIP finishing your sixth year of a program that has so changed your life, though I stuck with Pathwork instead after the first year. AIP has been so foundational to your spiritual life, and it came about almost by accident. But something deep inside of you Knew this would be right.

Pat: We are finding our way. OUR way. Gary: We don’t know where we are going – we have no maps, no goals, no plans. We are stepping into the unknown with trust in the goodness of the Cosmos. As soon as we say, “This is the way it is or will be (or will not be),” we know we have gotten off the path. For in fact we do not know until we launch what the way will even be. Even with considering taking on the couples program with Sage and Anthony, we have to enter this with neither a compulsive YES, YES, YES! nor reject it with a compulsive NO!, NO, NO! We are just open to the possibility of what their program will offer us. We shall discern in the moment as life unfolds.

Pat: This is so meaningful: To experience these fundamental changes in our way of life and to let our lives be a witness to these changes in our way of being as we launch more freely into Life, leaving the shore of the familiar and embarking upon the Sea of Life. Wow. Gary: Yes, and Pathwork would remind us, especially me, the mental one, that these are, in fact, experiences, very specific personal experiences. They are beyond generalized intellectual concepts. These are tastes of the real self in real life and they help us move along. Pat: It is only in my mind that the inner and outer worlds are different and disparate (distinct in kind, essentially different). How can you live in this outer world, be on time, if you are letting go into the moment of the arising in the inner world? This is all a piece I cannot grasp yet. However, opening to the Mystery that is God – takes my breath away.

Gary: Yes, and Pathwork would say that the outer being is an out-picturing of the inner, but the Real, the Source, is the inner, the One. Not that the outer is not real. It is real, but it is a manifestation in the physical of the inner. It gets back to everything being cause and effect. The Causes are always inner. Effects can be inner or outer. Causes are never outer. Pat: Though causes can seem to be outer. It is good to see the moving of things. Gary: Yes, the expansion, contraction, and static stages of the Cosmos and of all life in the Cosmos — including you and me, us. The entire Cosmos is breathing and full of Life. Quite a ride as we get on board our little boat and go with this Cosmic flow of Life — into the Unknown, but Goodness of Life.

With love, Gary

All I could think to do was slow down. We had to slow down. While it was Pat who was in overwhelm at this moment, both of us had been in a crazy overload this past week, especially the last three days. AND we were not aware of the degree of overwhelm until we sat there looking at each other in the classroom, staring into each other’s eyes.

As we left the classroom we took time to talk to the instructor – maybe even a half an hour or longer following the class. The instructor was patient, wanting to know what had thrown Pat off during the orientation, what seemed to concern her about this program. Pat was not entirely clear, but I pointed out that both of us had been in a state of non-stop activity, and the intensity of the material thrown at us in the orientation class simply pushed Pat over the top. We just had to regroup and get grounded.

It was 4:30 when we left, and we decided to go directly to our favorite restaurant (Texas Roadhouse) just to eat an early supper and see what wanted to happen next. After supper and arriving home we said little. I held Pat for a while as we listened to quiet music. Neither of us was sure exactly what to do to come out of this overwhelm. Around 7:30 Pat adjourned to bed and slept the night away. I stayed up until 11:00 and got my head a bit into the material we had received about the diet. Once I could pace myself in going through the material I was not quite so much in overwhelm.

Coffee Time Sunday Morning…

Pat: My mind says, “So Pat, what do you have to say for yourself?!” It was a voice from childhood she suspected. After simply taking this in she shared that she really did not realize the stress of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday leading into the orientation. “I just don’t believe I have stress – refuse to see it if is there. Others have stress, but I do not. Do you have stress?”

Gary: I do not do a good job of being aware of the stress – I just keep going and going and going. I read aloud an email I had sent to my daughter Sherri last night after Pat went to bed – it was about what I have been into. Pat: Upon listening to me read this, “Sherri will recognize where she gets it from.” Gary: What is the “it”? Pat: What do you think it is? Gary: The go, go, go? Pat: YES – in our AIP spiritual practice we would call this an imbalance. How can we have deep “being experiences” in our lives when we are so caught up in the doing? Pat went on to reflect back to me that even when she is getting ready so we can go out, say to the grocery, I keep on “doing” up the point when we walk out the door.

I confessed to such a time yesterday – I was irritated when Pat was not ready to go to our orientation class. To fill the “precious” three minutes I had to wait for her I began reading one of the Pathwork lectures I was getting ready to record. Pat: How would it feel to drop into spaciousness or emptiness – letting yourself relax into emptiness for those three minutes? Gary: I see this as a mutual situation – just look at your past three days of your own doing, doing, doing. Pat: I agree that this is a mutual issue. It is easier to see in the other what we are blind to in ourselves. She went on, We did not realize the emotional toll the diet would be. In the diet we shall be working to drop food as an emotional crutch – thus changing our relationship with food!

Gary: Maybe the diet threatens to catch us in our pattern of busyness. We have to stop to be very careful in what we are eating. Do we believe giving this much attention to what we eat has value? Perhaps we resist getting caught in just how out of control we are in our busyness – no time for conscious meals. Take another area of our lives: get-aways or vacations. Even to get away for a weekend once a quarter is simply not possible, or, rather, we won’t make getting away a priority. I know much busier couples who, at the same time, find time to go on exotic vacations, sometimes even twice a year. I, we, would be very challenged to do that with any regularity. Give us a workshop any day, and we are there. But a vacation? Not high on the list.

I observed that I was in an enabling role in this pattern. When Pat gets tied up in all kinds of things, taking her away from our USness, I say to myself, “Great! I can work on another Lecture Recording, or spreadsheet, or whatever.” AND, I notice, I really want to do these doings! In the process I kiss our relationship goodbye. I don’t like this about myself, but I do not do anything about it either. All unconscious pattern.

Pat: Food, fat – these armor us against the pains of life. Gary: Yes, this too. Because the instructor said that this diet program will take food off the table as an emotional coping mechanism. I’m not sure I like that! Yet I see the truth in it. Pat: Yes, I really want a right relationship with food! Gary: Yes, but the kid in me says, “Hell no! I care nothing about a healthy relationship with food – I just want to eat!” This is especially true for me who always used food to feel good and cover pain growing up. This intensely structured diet we are embarking upon takes dieting from an unconscious “To Do” – something my strong self-discipline can do with some pride – just watch me follow such and such a food regimen in my good old German way – to a conscious “To Be” state – staying aware of and following my body’s signals and needs as it relates to food. My inner kid fights this – does not want to grow up and be self-responsible in eating.

And I could immediately make the connection to other areas of my life. My little kid does not want to be self-responsible for my own happiness. Rather, “Tell me what I ought to do to be happy, and I’ll do it! But don’t make me have to look for and discover my own road to happiness, don’t make me have to be responsible for my life!” I can smile at this now, and see that this is part, perhaps the central part, of what my spiritual journey is all about – growing up!

Pat: I notice how quick your mind is – seeing so quickly the next step. I find I am having to hurry to keep up. And I’m feeling the same way about the couple’s intensive with Sage and Anthony – the work we are considering doing over a 12-month period beginning in July with a 3-day intensive with them. It’s hard to keep up with you! I am still sitting in the reverberations of where we were yesterday in the classroom. I’m just trying to remember when I was last in such a tizzy.

Gary: Pat, I find I really want to meet you here and not race ahead in my mind! My mind so easily leaves my feelings, my heart behind. Part of my pattern. I am coming to see that our possible work with Sage and Anthony will help us to hook up and be more in synch and connected at deeper levels – especially emotional and spiritual levels. I sense it will change our lives as we have come to know them in our relationship. Our entrenched patterns that form the basis of how we connect with each other will likely be shattered and we shall drop to a deeper level of connection. I am longing to hook up with you at a deeper level, and I don’t know how on my end, and all this scares the hell out of my little kid who wants to stay absolutely in control. I sense we need help in this, and I’m looking forward to working with Sage and Anthony for help in these areas.

My little kid has figured out all the ways of being in relationship with you without getting hurt. I can see how I’ve tried to manipulate you to get what I think I want in our relationship – and coming to see that I do not even know what I want in our relationship! There is a predisposition to codependence in me – and perhaps we are mutual in this, and very unconscious at some pretty deep and important levels. Pat: And there is something called “LOVE” and “CONNECTING” – this is where the real longing is.

Gary: I sense I can be satisfied only by dropping my defenses and patterns in our relationship. To do this, fear comes in big time, though often I am unconscious of this fear driving me. Dare I let go of these patterns that have served and protected me and given me at least some modicum of happiness – all be it pseudo-happiness? Pat: There you have it! Dare I let go?

And with that we adjourned our coffee time and entered meditation time. Still a busy Sunday, but this coffee time is oh so worthwhile for us as we ponder the dimensions of life and attempt to wake up and plot our course with increasing consciousness — together!

With love, Gary