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It’s ALL pretty simple really. I’ve learned in all spiritual traditions - including the 12 steps in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous - three things: Number UNO: Trust God or Love if you will. Two: Clean house - Scrub your mind - it's ALL in the mind - EVERYTHING - which makes its way into the heart, the belly and into the marrow of the bones if the pain was or is bad enough. Three: Serve Others. That’s it. Simple but not easy as the Big Book states… and if you study any or all spiritual traditions, you will find that they all eventually boil down to these same three things. Each one of those things, put into action, brings one to a deeper and deeper spiritual awakening. It’s an ongoing process. And it's what’s needed for each of us at any given time in the history of mankind. We really can’t progress too much without doing these three things on an ongoing basis. We can stay distracted for for lifetimes, for eons... with and within the desire systems of the world that take up strong residence in our thoughts, but eventually... to begin the road home - into - yes INTO the True Self - that is always there waiting - we must find a spiritual tradition that resonates and begins to guide us into doing those 'three things.' When life pain gets bad enough, when the GOD - GIFT OF DESPERATION - is wailing in our hearts, we will open our mouth and cry out for help. Anything else before we are ready for the journey can be constant DISTRACTING mind and thought masterbation and we stay in our heads running around continually with our gyrating thoughts or concepts on any number of topics, belief systems, personal likes, dislikes, judgments, opinions, especially in these days of mass confusion where it feels better to be distracted than to accept or figure the chaos out. I have certainly done my share of pontification, gyrating for years this time around on many 'spiritual and God concepts' out there. I was seeking hard for relief, but the problem was I didn't "do alot" until I absolutely had to find something to save my life. So, it takes a little bit of a journey to get to this point where we know we need to find a way to truly heal from our misery that then takes us into doing those three simple things and then to 'wanting and needing' to do them everyday for our continued sanity. It’s the only way out to complete freedom from ourselves and our sufferings, and ironically, what drove me to the journey of finding out that I needed to do those three things in order to stay sane and gain freedom, was the pain and together with GOD - the gift of desperation - I came into a 'willinness' to FIND a path that would help me know what to do. WHAT TO DO because I COULD NOT stay in the pain I was in. It was killing me. And turning that around... that was a good thing because the 'I,' 'I,' 'I' of me, the 'it's all about me, and what I need, and what I want, and you need to give it to me, and why aren't you, and you hurt me, and you, you, you are not doing what I want you to do.... and why did those awful things happen to me... I didn't deserve all that, and on and on and on and on.... NEEDED TO BE KILLED. The parts of me that were not working because of going around in circles as a victim of my circumstances, needed to be slayed. I’m now finding freedom each and every day from my YEARS OF EXHAUSTING fear driven self-centeredness. When I do those three things, I’m able to live in a peaceful and calm place by just being in each moment, each day, that I’ve NEVER had in my life. I might have looked like it on the outside, but inside I was a twisted piece of anxiety and fear. I can’t afford to waste any more of my precious limited time on continually trying to prove myself for validation, by getting everybody on board with my opinions, by judging others, by living in fear of the future, by regretting the past, by getting jacked back-and-forth by the media at any given moment in time - pushing their fear agendas on me and then me pushing their fear agendas on others. I’ve got to keep trusting God, cleaning house, and serving others. This keeps me out of suffering and pain and it serves the Higher Good in ourselves and in our world. I'm still not completely free because I am still a work in process. I'm still in the 'upheaval' of what I 'bought into,' what was 'force fed' to me by my parents, media, my peers, my wounds from childhood forward, the religious systems, the false gods of image, success, what I must do to be loved, my insecurities, and mostly the fear of it all pushing and shoving me every which way but in. Always thinking the answer to it all was 'out there,' chasing dangling chocolate covered carrots and buying into the mirage way out there in the distance of... 'it will be ok when....' When what? It has NEVER been ok. I have always lived 'out there' wishing, wanting, needing, pleading, going broke, chasing, feeling ashamed, guilty, manipulating for love in subtle ways that snapped back in my face like a rubberband instead of hitting the mark out there. Oh that illusionary 'out there' where all ones dreams come true and one lives happily ever after. Let me pause to laugh out loud.... in the old days I would writhe in fear and cry. Living in those places serves no one and nothing. All that stuff is but an enticing, all lit up fantasy house built with thin plywood walls withstanding not even the slightest wind. Over the years, my all enticing, lit up fantasy house of becoming famous and having you give me the love I so needed, thereby validating me, has crumbled one wall at a time into a pile of broken pieces of myself. WE ALL HAVE A CROSS TO BEAR Jesus went through a vicious, bloody, torurous hell. There was a saint in India that everytime he would think of Jesus he would lower his head and cry. I've come to understand that. I didn't used to think much of Jesus - even though as a kid I was raised in a Pentecostal Church and danced and sang in the isles praising God with all my little heart... so I can't say when I had the shift into deeply loving Jesus and embracing his teachings... but in my quest for trusting God, cleaning house and serving others, I cannot ignore the example and messages of Jesus. As many of you are aware, after he drug his cross of death to the hill called Golgotha (Calvery) to be crucified and he was left to hang as a sinful example against the authority of the Roman empire in UNFATHOMABLE pain, he surrendered his life completely and 3 days later he rose from the dead. He then lived on for 40 more days trusting his Father (within) (I and my Father are One), and serving others. Before the cross - and even more so - after the cross. He didn't need to clean house anymore I'm sure you would agree. --- It seems to take great and at times unfamothamble pain for any of us to truly surrender --- My mother used to say “we all have our cross to bear." Jesus, my Mother, and so many others, including many friends in recovery, who have suffered before me, have been real life examples that we can drag those crosses of pain and the suffering they cause and the eventual healing they bring - and then we can rise from the dead of ourselves to continue our journey to trust God, clean house and serve others. Take a peek inside the house you really live in every moment of every day.. see what's roaming around up in there in your head.. begin to notice if you have the dis-ease of constant mind and thought masterbation that's most likely going on 24/7 keeping you distreacted from your 'real Self,' the Self that's aways there waiting for you to come on in to the 'deepest chamber' of your heart to settle in for the the 'real journey' home. How can we stop being controlled by those trillions of thoughts fueling the engine in our heads that is ALWAYS running? Turn off the media... sit in a silent place... begin to inhale into your heart center... focusing your mind there as you breath in gentle and steady and then gentle and steady out letting your body release and relax down deeper on each exhale. You'll be amazed as you continue your focus, that you'll seem to have no thoughts. Keep breathing.. keep focusing.. keep relaxing down... soon you are floating. It's a start.. try it. Once you start this, you might just make time for it more and more and more. I started with this same simple meditative practice in 2020 that has taken me into many other deep avenues and alleyways of old ancient spiritual traditions that have opened my eyes into a reality that has blown my concepts and former beliefs about everything into bits. Simple but not easy... Why? Because usually we won't do it. Addicts can be kind of lucky in this way. We are FORCED to find something to help us. In the 12 Step meetings I attend I hear many say "I'm grateful to be a (fill in the blank)," addict of some sort. Why... because the pain of our addiction and our dis-ease of self has brought us to a life of doing those three things... Trusting God Cleaning House Serving Others Staying lost on the wheel of life for eons... or finding yourself aching for a way to get off. Simple but not easy, a price has to be paid. Jesus paid that price beyond what I can bare to think about. On this Easter weekend... I'm thinking about that precious heart that came to save my life and I'm crying because he did.
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(c) 4/4/26 Cee Cee James ᥫ᭡.ִֶָ𓂃
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