Blog Archives
ET and I – Episode 3: The Great Epiphany
Hey folks, here’s the latest episode of the podcast. This one is complete with some budgie sounds in the background! Not sure if you can hear my tiredness after a hot night. I think the sound is otherwise OK.
I had planned on starting the models of the cosmos series this episode but decided that there was something more important that I needed to talk about first. This is the last of my deeply personal episodes for a while. I made this particular episode because I felt it would create a good foundation for all that I’ll speak about later.
This will be the last of my free full episodes. Short Cuts will continue to be free.
Let me know if the new podcast is floating your boat or not!
Enjoy,
Bright. 😉
Lesson 19
You are a universe unto yourself. Your body contains life and energy without end. You are a mirror both unto the outer universe and the inner universe. You are the mirror and the universe.
In recent years there has been much talk about the microbiome – especially the human gut microbiome. Much of the emphasis has been on the composition of gut bacteria and its links to the neuroendocrine system. Whilst these ways of conceptualizing the human microbiome are useful, they limit us to a very narrow way of conceptualizing and understanding the human microbiome. A more comprehensive way of viewing the microbiome is to see that :
A. Microbiomes cover the entire exterior of the human body and the entire interior of the human body.
B. Microbiomes can be divided in many different ways on many different scales (these are simply a matter of opinion).
C. Microbiomes consist not just of bacteria but all microbes – including prions, viruses, archaea, fungi, nematodes, protozoans/amoebas etc. They are an ecosystem that is as diverse as any ecosystem in the outer world and they contain ecosystems within ecosystems. Much of what we think of as bad (e.g. different types of worms) may in fact be good for human health. There may well be a quantitative continuum that describes how much of any particular microbe is healthy and how much of any particular microbe is pathological.
D. Microbiomes consist of millions of delicate relationships between microbes and microbes and the human body. These relationships are easily perturbed by a host of internal factors (e.g. stress, injury) and external factors (e.g. food, pollution, electromagnetic radiation).
E. Microbiomes depend on high levels of biodiversity in order for the human body to be healthy.
F. Microbiomes contain millions of different energetic transactions that are influenced by a range of internal and external factors and in themselves influence many internal and external factors.
G. Many infectious and non infectious diseases and illnesses arise from disturbances in various internal/external microbiomes or a loss of biodiversity in various internal/external microbiomes. Altered microbiomes may be the root cause or secondary cause of disease or illness.
H. Healthy functioning of various human microbiomes are important for healthy external microbiomes and macrobiomes. A disturbance in certain human microbiomes can cause changes in behaviour that dramatically alter external microbiomes and/or macrobiomes.
You are a universe unto yourself. When you ignore that you are one and many, you do so at your own peril, suffering many unexpected consequences. Similarly your body mirrors the outer universe and what is in you is in the outer universe – disturbances that are in the outer universe are in you.
You are the outer universe and your body, the one and the many. To ignore both aspects of your being is to do so at great peril. One who knows themself attends to their inner universe and the outer universe, for ultimately they are one and the same.
I am Lokey and Lokey is me. Her suffering is my suffering. Her well-being is my well-being. Her fate is my fate. We ultimately choose what we perceive. We ultimately choose how we understand I.
TSM186 : Planting Seeds for Life 2
Howdy folks, it’s my wish that you’re all well! Today’s TSM follows up on the theme of planting seeds that I introduced in TSM182 : https://etandi.wordpress.com/?s=TSM182.
In today’s waffleathon I talk about what it means to plant a seeds and explore the idea of planting seeds from the point of view of investing in the future and in the adventurous uncertainty of not knowing what will happen once you plant a seed. I look at some of the ways that we can plant seeds in relationships and in projects and why an awareness of the balance between nurturing and letting go of seeds is useful to helping life unfold fully.
I was out in my greenhouse today, so if you listen to this prepare to hear the sounds of a moaning greenhouse, birds, seeds being sifted and shocked and me reacting to cold water that was falling on my body!
This episode and all episodes past 183 can be found here : https://app.box.com/s/jelz2aib236w0rnxhgo30n6oyh7iwzvh. All episodes prior to 183 can be found here : https://app.box.com/s/wlnscvi613b3e6oug6si.
On the subject of the plant variety of seeds, you can find more here : https://etandi.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/bombing-the-world-for-fun-and-biodiversity/.
You can hear all my Bright’s Pandemic Journal entries here : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J9LdvnhaMXOeeQx4_RP59oLPvSXYV_-Z. And you can find all past and future journal entries under the I/Other tab on this page : https://etandi.wordpress.com/brights-pandemic-journal/.
And finally you can here Dude’s Maxims here : https://etandi.wordpress.com/dudes-maxims-podcast/.
Enjoy,
Brighty. 😉
There is the many and the one. Essence is that part of you and I that is different and the same. I honour the essence in you and in all of creation.
PS. Another powerful form of Planting Seeds here with Thich Nhat Hanh.
Lesson 15
“Your path is the only path that matters.”
You can listen to an expert, read all the best books, spend time with a mystic, sage, guru, shaman or supposed enlightened human being but the only path that actually means anything is your own path! So honour it, respect it and accept that this is your path! It maybe a pathless path that meanders everywhere and goes nowhere or it maybe a path that follows a nice little pattern and seems to have been pre-ordained or to make perfect sense when you look back at it – like it was the path that you were meant to follow. Whatever the situation maybe, fuck everyone elses path and their prescriptions of the best path or the path that you should be taking! If you really want to follow the path less traveled, follow your own path! Be your own path! Let the path take care of itself and forget about where you think you are supposed to be going. Feel your beingness, your nowness, you Iamness as often as you can remember and enjoy the path that you are making. Maybe others will try to follow you but no one can follow or inherit what you alone have created and lived!
Just as Bright Garlick is on his own path and it is a path to death and god knows what else, so you too are on your own path to death and god knows what else! Trust it, enjoy it, accept it, let it be and don’t ever worry about where you should be. No shoulds just what is and what’s possible!
Isn’t it nice to know a lot…and a little bit not!
Carers in a Time of Love, Loss and Grief
I urge you to consider the importance of carers in our human civilization, especially at this time. In many ways carers are the foundation of mature civilization and without them, we would not get through this current pandemic. Here is a post I wrote many years ago that may help you to understand why caring has so much value in our individual lives : https://etandi.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/caring-as-a-path-to-spiritual-growth-and-et-contact/.
I dedicate this reminder to Julia. You have survived and endured and grown my dear friend! What a wonderful example you have been to the human race!
Here are some wise words from a long haired dude I admire:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Lesson 13
“Losses help train the mind with pain.”
First we lose, then we grieve. With grief comes all manner of emotion. Well known among them are anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But moving past Kubler Ross we might also add sadness, rumination, longing, desire, forgetfulness, rage, confusion, struggle, sleeplessness, wonder, joy, obsession, preoccupation with the past, emptiness, letting go and physical illness. There is no end to how we might respond to loss.
In terms of pain, there is physical pain that arises directly as a result of being physically injured and physical pain that arises from illness and physical pain that arises from strong emotion. Physical pain is unavoidable. There is also emotional pain and mental pain and both of these are a choice. Our suffering is a kind of holding of pain and that too is a choice. When we lose something we experience pain and suffering. If we are wise, we let our losses train our mind. If we are ignorant or stupid, we let our loses fall by the wayside and have little impact on our mind, except to wrap us in endless loops of mental activity and further pain.
How then can losses train our mind? They can train our mind by helping us to experience things that are both avoidable and unwanted, unavoidable and unwanted. They can train us by helping us to see how much we let our minds get caught up in mental activity which leads to emotional pain and physical pain. They can train us by helping us to see how getting caught in states of unawareness can damage our relationships and limit our perceived options.
There is a great and powerful idiom that has been passed down to us through the ages, since before the time of the mythical Buddha and before the time of Jesus. And it is worth remembering at all times :
SHIT HAPPENS!
How we respond to shit is entirely up to us. If we remember that it is our reactions that shape the contours of our life, then we can make better choices and better decisions and create a life that is more to our liking.
So how much pain do you want? How much pain is enough? How many losses do you need?
There is no greater teacher than pain. But not every person is ready to learn!
Lesson 11
“There will never ever be a waking up of humanity en masse, only the waking up of a small number of individuals. In order to wake up, you must drop all ideas that you will ever be awake.”
If humanity were destined to wake up en masse, it would have done so thousands of years ago, when most of us had our needs met. This idea of humanity waking up is one of the grandest delusions of the modern era. There can only ever be the gradual waking up of a small number of individuals, in a process that takes an entire lifetime and possibly more. That is because we have so much to wake up to. Waking up to the fact that we are enslaved to the mind and that the mind must use itself as a mirror, waking up to how we function, waking up to how others function, waking up to our own choices and our own actions and the choices and actions of others, waking up the way the human world and the natural world works, waking up to the nature of all phenomenon. Such waking up stirs only in the souls of a small number of humans who have the courage to face the truth of what they are and who have faced the same challenge in other lives – both what we see as past lives and/or parallel lives.
We all live in ignorance and the entire human race has risen from an ocean of ignorance.
To move past ignorance, we must see, we must examine, we must know without fail, the truth of how things are within us.
Lesson 9
“Pay attention to what you are ignoring in your relationships.”
I have suffered so much in my life because I was ignorant and I was stupid! And I had so many terrible things happen that were beyond my control! If I told you about the suffering I’d experienced, you would scarcely believe me! But it is unimportant because it is just a story about experience and every person has their own misery.
All of my suffering was created by my own mind and much of my suffering was created by my imagination. And in this you are like me and we are like each other. To be human is to be a slave to the mind and to be a slave to the imagination. We use our imaginations for bad rather than good.
Our entire lives revolve around relationships. We cannot exist without them. We are shaped by our relationships – the good ones the bad ones, the turbulent ones and the indifferent ones. They shape our experience and all of our superficial identities. They help create our masks and take us far from who we really are. And they also help us to know ourselves and to find our way Home. They bring us so many things that are painful and so many things that are wonderful. They bring us hate, joy, love, happiness, curiosity, anger, frustration – the entire suit of human emotions.
Relationships are never easy, not when your young, not when your a bit older (see Marriage Story for the perfect example) not when your older (see Grace and Frankie for many examples). But they do get easier when you begin to pay attention to what you’re ignoring. Now it maybe that your husband or boy friend bitches about you all day and you think “Fuck you arsehole!” but he may have a point that you’re choosing to ignore. It maybe that your employees are afraid of you and you keep thinking “They’re so lazy!” but you may be so stuck in how you see work that you forget your employees may have different priorities. Or it might be that your wife or girlfriend complains that you spend too much time at work and you think “Give me a fucking break woman! I’m working 60 hours a week to keep a roof over your head and put the kids through school!” but you forget that her work never ends and neither does her worry.
Sometimes it’s the people closest to us who have the most to teach us and sometimes it’s people further away but the best way to really learn is to take a walk in someone elses shoes and to imagine what it’s like to be then. It’s easy to get stuck in our ways and to think that everyone elses way is wrong or sucks. It’s easy to get fixated on all the little things that are wrong with the people we care about or the people we have the most contact with. And it’s easy to blame people who we profess to love or care about. It’s so much harder to look honestly at how others might see us and how we treat others. Only when we examine fully how we are towards others – in thought, feeling, speech and action, can we say, “It’s not my fault!”. But most of us never do this and as a result we see only what we want to see.
My relationship with my son has been very turbulent the last 4 years and especially turbulent since he got involved with a much older woman, who is mentally unstable. It has caused immense suffering to myself, his mum and to Toa. Yet I know that there are things that I have been ignoring in my relationship with my son and so I try as often as I can to imagine what his life is like for him and to listen with my heart to how he is feeling. I know that it will take time to heal our relationship and to heal my son’s suffering. Yet my own healing is a choice. Do I hold onto the hurt and the suffering or do I accept it and let it go? What causes the greatest suffering is seeing Toa’s suffering. So fatherhood has been incredibly challenging for me. Yet I continue to support my son, to love him and to care about him. I listen to his criticisms of me and accept that I have made mistakes. I try to pay attention to what I cannot or choose not to see. And I trust that things will get better and that Toa will make better, healthier choices in the future.
Many a relationship was lost to ignorance and selfishness!
Don’t be irrelevant. See what you are ignoring, rather than acting like a brick wall. See it through others feedback and see it through your imagination. Be honest and be thorough because you have everything to lose and everything to gain.
Lesson 8
“The greatest question of all is “Who/What am I?””
The greatest question of all is not “Where did the universe come from?” or “Where did God come from?”, or any of those stupid questions that are beyond our comprehension. The greatest question is the one that is closest to home.
Most problems in human life arise from having too little awareness of the nature of the self. When we make the effort to discover what we really are, most problems either disappear, become less important, lose their weight or are able to be seen from a different perspective. We all have problems and there are things that make everybody’s life difficult. But when you know what you are, you have the capacity to see through your problems and to see the impermanent nature of everything that is making your life difficult.
We blind ourselves to how things really are and to life, by creating false identities. We then place these false identities at the center of our life and wed all our actions to one or more of these false identities. We forget that we are not just a doctor, father, wife, child, garbage man, politician, philanthropist, business man, artist, student, nurse, teacher etc. Those are all just roles.
So, we begin by seeing what fills our life – relationships, people, places, work, roles, thoughts, feelings, actions and choices. And then after we’ve seen what fills our life honestly, we ask “Who am I?”. Find the answer and then drop the who and use what – “What am I?”. And keep going, peeling away the layers of false identity, until at last you reach a final answer. Then go one step further as suggested by the great teacher Ramana Maharshi and ask “What is it that is asking “What am I?”?”. Reason the answer out intellectually, then feel the answer and sit with that felt experience. Then give it time to make sense. And throughout your day remember what you discovered and feel it again, whenever you need to. This isn’t rocket science, it’s Self Inquiry, disidentification and reidentification, peeling back the layers of self deception, penetrating the bullshit you’ve covered yourself in, drilling a hole into your core and finding out what you really are. Once you have experienced this and been able to reconnect with it during your day, you can begin to recognize when mental activity kicks in and begins to lead you astray. You can see how your thoughts fill the silence and lead to a host of other mental activities and shape your feelings, actions, choices, beliefs and values. You can see how easily you begin to forget what you really are as you get attached to and lost in your roles. When you see and understand honestly, then you can begin to live differently.
For those who yearn ET contact, there is no quicker path to contact, then to know what you are.
ET and I 
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