Finding Focus and Centre amid a school of Red Herrings and the Fields of Furphy’s

The master would advise – “Before enlightenment sweep the path, rake the leaves – and after enlightenment sweep the path and rake the leaves”. All well and good for the master who obviously has nothing better to do – what about me sitting within the confines of my life and wondering WTF! And why do I feel so crap? We all want our lives to be BIG, we want a life like those we see on TV – the lives of the rich and famous – having the fiscal resources whereby if we get bored living in Tahiti we can pull the Lear Jet out of the garage and zoom to another location: the ski fields of New Zealand or the surf breaks of Indonesia. Failing a Lotto win this fantasy will remain just that: wishful thinking, a momentary distraction whilst adrift in a sea of mundanity. But what if you are exactly where you need to be. What if the circumstances, the physical environment wherein you reside right now is completely tailor made to supply exactly what you need in order that you become enlightened? “Nah!” we chime in chorus – I don’t want to be here: it is too hard, too soft – too painful, too boring! So we look for distractions that are available to us: the TV remote control, the box of chocolates – we jump online and visit a dating service: surely Mr/Ms Right is out there somewhere – all I need is to find him/her – then I’ll be happy. Back to Master’s advice coupled with the notion that where I am is where I need to be: that somehow I have to sit within the minutiae, minutia and mundanity and ‘feel’ the life of whatever comes to the surface. Man if you thought sweeping and raking was hard wait till you try surrendering to the life you have or even worse sitting still! If we should decide to accept the challenge – and believe me it will be challenging – and we delete all the possible/potential distractions: (temporarily – we don’t want to get too gung-ho) the mobile/cell phones, TV’s (including the justifiable outrage at current affairs presentations), Computer games, Books, Food, Sex, Social engagements/media etc. the list of ways whereby we can be distracted – and away from the Here & Now – is almost endless. And if we choose the path of non-distraction and we live within the life we have, we also automatically get to live in accordance with the Master’s advice.

We don’t do this because when we delete the distractions, the props – we are faced with ‘feelings’ we would rather not acknowledge and some of these ‘feelings’ will take us to parts of the self that we do not want to know about let alone acknowledge. They make us feel sick, exhausted – depressed. But once again – as the blade always has two edges – these rejected feelings contain information and no matter how dark and disturbing these feelings might be, the feelings and attached information require time in the light. It is time to take our ‘medicine’ – it might taste awful but it is remedy for what ails us and for a while we will feel worse. Feeling bad/worse is OK you are allowed to ‘feel’ this stuff it’s part of the process – there is nothing wrong with you if you feel like crap: despairing, desperate, disastrous – it’s about acceptance and self-nurturing, self- love – give yourself permission to feel and acknowledge all this stuff. Living in the world today is NOT easy and it is not a world of sweetness and light, there is shit happening all around us and we know and feel it!

Today – possibly more than at any other time in the human’s brief history of living on planet Earth as we are continuously bombarded with Red Herrings and Fake News Furphy’s –e.g the Corona virus bullshit – we need to sit still and surrender to the space/time wherein we are each located. This location is by design not by chance and if we can just sit and surrender long enough – and the ‘time of long enough’ will be unique to each – we will be provided with the opportunity to find our completeness and to be at Peace. This sitting within the life we have is not inactive nor is it passive – the acceptance of ‘being here now’ is the most powerful ‘action’ one can take. Once we have located our own centre and felt the Peace within inside we can return to the ‘world’ armed with the information that was always on offer. From this place of Wisdom we will know exactly what else we have to do as an integral, pivotal member and part of the collective. This is The Work and this is The Time – open wide – drink a big glass of castor oil and wait – woohoo – man what’s that stink – ah it’s the stench of enlightenment.