Waiting Room Paradise 

There are so many opportunities to practice moving from Waiting to Being.  The hardest part is remembering to do it.  Whenever a fear or desire are removed, before they are replaced with another one, we naturally go to Being.  It's what we hope vacation will be like – happy and peaceful.  Some prefer excitement to peace, but excitement is not a replacement for peace.  Excitement is energizing, but has its price, whether it's from a roller coaster or from anger.  Spiritual guides  tell us that this isn't really what we're looking for.  We're looking to be fully contented in this moment.  This means, among other things, not waiting for someone to apologize.  When we're only in the condition of waiting, we're in 'horizontal mode' and have concealed our vertical connection.

While we know the general principles, there's a great lack of application, of entering contentment right now.  Even reading this and waiting to learn something novel or for the point to be made.  Learning in 'spiritual mode' means appreciating each moment as it unfolds.  All other learning is just an arrow pointing to this.  It's an invitation to relax.  Here we are in Paradise.  This is the perfection of our existence, right now.  There's nowhere to go and nothing to do – except in the horizontal, which we're putting on hold for now.  Attention is on perfection.  As we give ourselves fully to that perfection, we're invested in the connection between us, invested in each word, fully.  We're not looking for excitement, nor to see who has this or doesn't have that; we leave all that behind now.  In this quiet space, even if words come, it's blissful.  It grows stronger as concealment gives way – concealment that's from discontent and from what may never be achieved.  No, we're in Paradise now.  There's a growing brightness that's penetrating the darkness of our worries and memories, and we are OK.

As the mind becomes more peaceful, it is less interested in its typical story-telling.  The mind comes to stillness, like water, so it reflects the single nature of Eternal Light.  Though the eyes and senses may experience multiplicity, can we feel the place of the heart that's beyond the world, quiet and at ease?
This is Home, and we only visit the world from there, rather than the world being our home and we occasionally visit peace.  While here in peace, we want the mind to recognize all the ways it gets caught up in waiting – dinner's not ready, the light's red, etc. – and we're not happy.  During those times when we tend to fall into discontent unconsciously, by habit, we ask the mind to give us a reminder that we have left Home, contentment, peace.  We ask it to become alert to separate from discontent.  The ability to see a habit is the beginning of its cure.

It is destructive to create situations of confusion or turmoil, to develop a philosophy, rationalizing that it's good to be in a hurry, have no rest, to constantly irritate ourselves, to be driven, to be discontent, to have no peace.  As we behave, so we live.  If we believe in confusion, in excitement, in 'hurry, hurry, hurry', our mind and body will suffer from what comes of confusion.  There will be no peace in the mind, so there will be no peace in the heart, and therefore, no peace in the body.  So, we repeat the primary understandings until we undo what has been done.

The difficulty is that we become tired when we don't have anxiety or excitement to drive us.  This is using the animal mechanism of 'fight or flight' to keep us functioning.  It's animal energy, and we don't do it as well as animals, who know how to use it when they need it, then rest.  We use it all the time and burn out.  We have built ourselves on looking for trouble, not because we want trouble, but because we want energy.  The only way to transcend this is knowing there's a spiritual energy that breaks down anxiety, fear and desire-driven behavior.  Only then do we set foot in the next kingdom.

A calm mind is a gem.  It's more intelligent and efficient in the horizontal; but for many, it just seems boring.

When we find ourselves in Paradise, we can let go of the adrenals.  That's the energy of our existence. 

In the most ordinary of situations ~

  Waiting for the machine on the phone to give way to someone we can speak to,
  at traffic lights,
  waiting at doctors' offices,
  wherever we normally wait,
  defining the situation as something we don't like, and we're waiting for a better time ~ 

we're programming the mind to notice:
 'Oh, I'm waiting for a better time',

and to allow for the transition to:
 'No, I'm not waiting; I'm living and I am being.' 

Those who can master this will master everything.  It seems like a minor adjustment, but it's a major adjustment.  See if it's possible to find Paradise in the waiting room.

From notes on the class of 5/31/10, CD #770