Tag: child

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inspiration

Towards An Unshakable Foundation of Peace

Waiting for a connecting flight from San Francisco on my way home to Fort Lauderdale, I look around me at the faces of my fellow early morning passengers. The feeling of happiness within me contrasts sharply with the reflections of dulled spirits I see sitting row after row at the departure gate.

In defense of my fellow passengers, it can be argued that even the hardiest soul has a difficult time smiling at the ripe hour of six in the morning with nothing to look forward to besides a long, cramped flight in cattle-car-coach. Yet here I am, feeling a sense of contentment so overpowering it compels me to share it with a young lady sitting two seats away. We enjoy a pleasant, meandering conversation before going our separate ways.

By all rights, I should appear as glum and bored to the other waiting passengers as they appear to me.  I’ve logged barely a few hours of sleep thanks to a five AM wakeup call. Yet I feel so alive and awake it seems like a miracle. My spirits soar like a nimble 757 jumbo jet taking flight from a short runway.

Let me assure you: I’m no stranger to boredom and depression. And I most certainly don’t feel this happy all of the time. What I’m feeling this morning is the direct result of attending a weekend retreat with Saniel and Linda Bonder.

Before I discovered Waking Down in Mutuality, now co-named Trillium Awakening, happiness had become an increasingly elusive commodity. I had my own ideas about where to find happiness, all of them external, and I pursued each and every one of them with zeal. And then the zeal began to ooze out of me like a rubber raft with a big hole in it. Fortunately, before all of the air in my psychic tires escaped into the ether, I had my first introduction to finding happiness and peace within me.

Thirty years later, my path took me in another direction. I discovered a local group on MeetUp. The group description that captured my attention went something like this: “You don’t have to be a saint to awaken to consciousness. You can awaken as yourself, right where you are. Not in a hundred lifetimes. Now.”

Eventually, I discovered to my surprise that people in this group had actually experienced an awakening. Hundreds of them. It was’t just talk.

That was eight years ago. Since then, I’ve been nurturing an inner experience that is  alive and real. I haven’t had an awakening yet, but I’ve experienced more peace, joy and, love in my life than ever before.

And, most recently, I’ve had an opportunity to bathe in this experience almost on a daily basis. Thanks to the Trillium organizers and volunteers, daily online gazing and meditation sessions are being offered, free of charge, to support people through the coronavirus crisis.

The major life goal that remains for me now is to realize in greater depth an unshakable foundation of joy, peace, and love waiting to be uncovered inside me. You may be thinking, “give me a break.” People have told me your goal isn’t a goal. It’s nonsense.

I disagree.

I believe it is possible to experience peace, love and joy on a consistent basis, and radiate it out to others. Not every moment, of course, but certainly more consistently than every once in a while.

It is said that what you can conceive and believe, you can achieve. As Saniel and Linda Bonder often say, “The Sun in Your Heart is Rising.”

 

 

 

Categories
Stories

Summer Camp

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I’m the only person I know that didn’t like sleep-away camp. My parents started shipping me off to a camp near Portland, Main when I was seven years old. All the kids in my neighborhood went to camp. Why should I be any different?

I don’t know the answer—only that I was different. I thought camp was eight weeks of purgatory. It was like being in the army. Who pays big bucks for your kid to be in the army all summer long?  Lots of parents, that’s who. I don’t know if my parents wanted to get rid of me, or whether they thought it would be good for me. I don’t know to this day. And I can’t ask my parents, because they’re gone. I certainly made it known that I didn’t want to go to sleep-away camp.

A typical day started with a recorded version of reville at 7:00 AM. I dragged myself out of bed, put on my camp uniform shorts and shirt, and marched myself off to the mess hall with seven other brats and our counselor. I use the term “counselor” loosely. A typical camp counselor had no qualifications to oversee children except the absence of a criminal record.

At breakfast, I competed with seven other hungry mouths to cram down a decent breakfast. If I wanted seconds, there were no seconds. I had one shot, and I had to make it count. I learned early at camp how to eat fast. I still eat too fast today.

Next, my bratty bunk mates and I were herded back to our bunkhouse to make our beds and sweep the wooden floors. No bunkhouse I ever lived in had even floors. I had to be careful not to break an ankle just walking around. And the dust. I have no idea how so much dust accumulated overnight. We would have been buried in it if we hadn’t swept up every day.

Having cleaned up the hovel we lived in, we embarked upon our pre-planned day of sports and activities, broken up only by lunch at the mess hall and a short nap afterwards. Then it was back to our pre-planned day.

Are you getting an inkling of why I hated this? On top of the regimented routine, I missed my parents and my friends at home terribly.

By the time I was nine or ten years old, I was given the luxury of two “free-play” days during the week. I always chose to go to the rifle range to shoot at targets or go to the golf cage to hit balls with every club in my bag. Then I went to the putting green to practice putting.

I was a loner, even back then. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I hated camp. But it was much more than that. I felt that my fundamental freedoms had been stripped from me. I think deep down I always wanted to be free to shape my own life.

When I was thirteen, I could legally go to work. I chose to go to work during the summer rather than go to summer camp. I’m sure my camp-loving friends thought I was crazy. I didn’t care. I was me and they were them. We’ve grown farther apart through the years, but that’s another story.

I worked at my father’s company, a wholesale wallpaper distributor (Zins Wallpaper) located in Newark, New Jersey. I picked rolls of wallpaper from a maze of bins in the shipping department to fill orders from paint and wallpaper stores.

From time to time, I’d get lost in the bins and have a smoke. On the official morning break, I’d order a corn muffin and a vanilla malt. I didn’t have to worry about calories back then. I had a metabolism like a nuclear reactor. I also enjoyed the early ride into work with my father every morning. And I rode home with the aged gentleman my father had bought the business from. His name was Sam Zins. He was a very kind man.

Don’t get me wrong. Aside from these pleasant memories, picking wallpaper orders in the basement of Zins Wallpaper was no picnic. But it sure as hell beat the crap out of summer camp.

What was your summer camp experience? Did you go to camp or do something else during the summer? Tell me. I’d like to know.

 

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essays Issues life motivation musings personal growth philosophy Uncategorized

Living from the Inside Out

 

JOYOUS LIVING

This is a guest blog from a Swedish man who writes under the pen name, Fomtriok.  I find his writing to be profound and insightful, even more so than published books I’ve read on the human condition.  I’ve included his short bio at the end of the post.  Enjoy!

There is this disposition that some people have, but most people lack.  If one does lack it, it is the simplest thing in the world getting it back.  Because everyone had it once.  It doesn’t really demand an outward action to get it back, but it rather demands the courage to step out of line and accept having it.

Let us get started.

Children – they live their lives from the inside out. They start focusing on one thing, then they start trying to understanding one thing; playing with, lifting up, measuring, biting, fumbling with – one thing.  And then they move to the next. Part by part they get to know their own selves, their room, their house, their universe.

Most adults, however, live their lives from the outside in. They start out by simply acquiring some locale in which to live.  Thus, they start with the shell.  And they start with a schedule that is empty of activities. Then they ask themselves, ”What do I put in this shell of a house? In this shell of a schedule?” And one by one, they start filling the house with objects, and possibly even a family.  Gradually, they start filling their schedule with activities, musts and obligations. From the outside in.

That is no way to live life. That life is unnatural. It is a mere imitation and parody of life. It is the life of a machine.  People who live like that often find themselves unhappy and ask themselves, “Why am I unhappy?”  The question is ironically a manifestation of the very problem. They ask themselves, “What do I lack? What is it that I have not yet put into my life, or schedule?” So they try to add even more things, or activities, to fill the void, and “fix” what they assume is the problem; that a certain thing, or event is lacking.

But they are doing it all wrong. It is not so much that they add things, but rather how and why they add things.  The underlying problem – sickness even – is that they are living from the outside in: They add things only after careful consideration.  That is not life. That is work.  Life happens when you turn the whole thing upside down, and start from the inside.  Then you won’t even notice whether you are adding or removing things, because all that consumes your attention is primal and unaltered curiosity.

Those souls who drive the world forward, in the small or the big sense, never abandon the way of the child.  They never stop living their lives from the inside out. They never stop focusing childishly and joyfully on the small “toy” – on that singular point of interest.  They could care less whether others perceive their curiosity as weird or normal.  And only from that standpoint do they gradually work their way outwards into the unknown, constantly playing, constantly putting together and taking apart; disassembling and reassembling, over and over, in an infinite loop.  Until the whole room has a role in the game.  And then the child starts over.  With a new room, or the same room from an entirely new perspective.  From the inside out.  And the game is on again.

That is a true life.  It is the only life that is happy and free.  It is simple – even when it is complex.  It is irrelevant whether your point of curiosity might be pottery, or explaining a complex scientific phenomena.  It is still an utterly simple life.

When you are a child, there is no arrogance.  You do not drag others down with cynicism. Nor do you let cynics drag you down.  You merely play.  At the end of the day, that is all life is; a vast playground for us to fill with meaning.

My name is Oscar Herrgård. I am Swedish.  I am interested in meeting fascinating and kind people, who think well, but also act and don’t just talk.

I want to share my story.  This journal is simply one of my windows to the world. Already long ago I decided that the only life I want to live, is one where I wholeheartedly dedicate myself to solving some of the greatest challenges in our world (most importantly climate change and socioeconomic unfairness). Life is simply wasted if you don’t spend it doing what is most valuable to you. Don’t become; Rather be. Don’t want or plan; Rather be. Incorporate your ideals in the small detail here and now. That is how you move mountains.