Choosing to Not Indulge Our Minds

Posted on April 12, 2012 by admin

I think we all have splits, to one degree or another, in our personalities. Part of us wants one thing while another part wants something else. We may want a bowl of ice cream, yet we may eschew that bowl of ice cream because of how we might feel it will impact our health or appearance. We may want to lay in bed for another hour in the morning, yet we want also to get up and tackle some nagging item on our to-do list. We are confronted with countless situations in our daily lives which challenge our sense of clarity or conviction. What do we really want? How do we find that which is the best path forward? There is a tendency that almost all of us have to indulge one part of our personality or another rather than acting from a more unified place. We become identified with just one part of our personality at any given point in time and then we act as if that perspective is our only perspective. As another example, we all have a part of our personality that is fearful and another that is more confident and courageous. Depending on which voice … more

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Speaking the Whole Truth – A Path to Authenticity

Posted on March 24, 2012 by admin

The more I am honest with myself, the more I realize that there is a distinct split between what we present to others and that which is actually our truth. This is not something that is necessarily intentional. We generally don’t mean to lie to others, and in many ways what I am talking about here is not actually lying, but more accurately, a withholding of full disclosure. It’s easy to speak truth while withholding vitally relevant information. Unless and until we learn to acknowledge our own truth in its entirety, and speak it freely, we are not free, and we have no real shot at true liberation. We remain false out of fear of the ramifications of being true. So why don’t we always speak our truth? The first and by far most powerful of the reasons is that we are actually not entirely interested in knowing the truth. An internal split exists which leads us to subconsciously prefer to live our lives inundated with distractions and other self-defending mechanisms, rather than live a life of openness and authenticity. Our preciously guarded self-image would be threatened if we were to be completely honest with ourselves. Without a deep-seated intention … more

Being In Love

Posted on March 19, 2012 by admin

I have a confession to make. I’m quite curious about what it means to be in love. Don’t get me wrong, I do love. I feel love very often, many many times each day, and tears can and often do come to my eyes just from the sensation of that love. But that love comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes. I will witness someone’s sweetness and the unmistakeable sensation of love will arise in me. I’ll be touched by someone’s generosity, or their kindness, goodness, sensitivity, vulnerability, support, beauty, selflessness, or resilience, and my heart will undoubtedly be touched and the sensation of love will arise. I continue to see through this exploration of my life that only that which is experienced within the moment within which it arises is true, and it is only true within that moment. Everything else that I might think to be true is based on speculations about the future or reflections of the past. So what then of the idea of being “in love” with someone.? Being in love seems to imply to me a belief or trust that love still exists even if it may not be being felt in … more

Posted in love | Tagged being in love, cats, in love, love, truth | 2 Comments

Immediacy and Performance

Posted on March 8, 2012 by admin

I performed last night, and I LOVED it. I had so much fun. It was such a different experience to anything that I had had when I’ve performed in the past. It had been a few years since the last time and many years again prior to that. The bottom line is that I feel like I truly showed up, not only with my musical capacity, but more importantly as Me. I was able to connect into the music and truly perform as an expression of my soul. My experience right now as I write this the following morning is one of liberation, of freedom. I think the part that is liberating is that I simply allowed my soul to freely express, to release itself from the bounds that normally constrain it, and allowed that to be witnessed by those present. I performed without a set list which in retrospect was a very wise choice. I’ve learned through my spiritual practice, and through life in general, that each moment is new and you never know how (or even who) you are going to be in the next moment. To try to have a plan for song sequence gets in the … more

Posted in life, spirituality | Tagged immediacy, music, performance, presence, present moment | 1 Comment

Taking My Space – Performing Music Again

Posted on March 5, 2012 by admin

(written 2 days ago) I will be performing in a couple of nights, playing the piano and singing at a restaurant/bar in my town and I’m excited about it. It’s been a journey getting to this place again, and the journey continues as I move towards the actual evening. I’ve been noticing the tendency that I have to contract or subtly collapse when I think about moving forward into my life in a more public way. It’s strange, but as I’ve attended to this impulse, the power is much stronger than I would normally expect from something this subtle or or something normally hidden from view. The way it shows up is that I’ll have a thought about a project I’d like to undertake or an event that I’d like to put on and quite quickly there will be some sort of internal thought or monologue which somehow shoots it down or voices some sort of insecurity. Instantly, or what seems like faster than instantly sometimes, there will be a very subtle contraction that happens and I’ll back off of whatever it was. The best way I can describe it is that it is like the subtlest of collapses, and … more

Posted in growth | Tagged collapse. authenticity, music, performing, support, taking space, thoth | Leave a comment

I Am an Ant Killer!

Posted on February 12, 2012 by admin

I am in ant killer! It’s true. I recently returned from being away from my home for about a month, and I walked into my kitchen only to find rivulets of ants flowing along the counters and cabinets. With rains just starting up, and with renters leaving little ant-tempting niblets tucked away around the kitchen, I tried cleaning, scrubbing, scouring, yet the ants kept finding more and more little num nums with which to satisfy the nutritional requirements of their den of mass birthing. After a couple of days, I hit my limit of being inconvenienced and purchased some toxic little syrup boxes, an ominous precursor to the deathly six-legged holocaust which ensued. I believe in the sanctity of life, not just human life, but life in all its manifestations. It is a tenet based in my very being, I have been eating vegetarian for the past few years, largely because I don’t feel comfortable contributing to the suffering of animals through my food choices, yet I still found myself ensconced in this mass eradication program. I’m sure these ant killing toxins don’t offer much in the way of a peaceful death for these ants either, as I don’t think … more

Posted in favorites, growth | Tagged ants, buddhist, consciouness, killing, killing ants, sentience, vegetarian | 5 Comments

this

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin

Over the past many years, I’ve continued to be interested in learning something which might be considered akin to the truth as pertains to reality and our existence. Some things are starting to click together and in a way it has me somewhat excited. It feels a little new, so I thought I’d explore it here a little. About a year and a half back I wrote a Declaration of Theistic Independence in which I stated with unabashed clarity the plethora of spiritual beliefs to which I do not ascribe. I’ve touched again on this more teasingly in Closed Minded with Geomancers in Glastonbury, England). Another post, entitled “I Am NOT That” was all about a defiance which was arising around all that I am not. All of these writings were primarily concerned with clarifying all the things that I am not and that I don’t believe. I think I’m starting to get, through all that rejection, what I do believe, or at least what I am coming to experience. The experience is quite simple, but the conveyance is perhaps anything but. It’s difficult to express because the experience itself actually comes without words. I think I’ll start with the … more

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Wanting Even That Which We Don’t Like

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Ted Seymour

I read something a week or so ago which pretty much stopped me in my tracks. It was one of those things, that, if true, would imply that perhaps my entire way of being may have been off for my entire life. The words have continued to both haunt and inspire me, so I thought this would be a good place to explore them. Here is the culprit: “Freedom is wanting whatever the universe wants. When you are aligned with the universe, what you want and what is happening is the same thing.” ~A.H. Almaas – “Facets of Unity” In my perspective, freedom has meant being able to choose whatever I want and perhaps not being in a position where others can pick or choose for me. If the words quoted above are true, then freedom doesn’t mean having what you want, but perhaps being free of want altogether. Is it possible? I think so, but it seems to require a complete trustingness, a full relaxation into accepting whatever is rather than being attached to however we might want things to be. I would venture to say that “what the universe wants” is quite simple – the universe wants whatever … more

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Spreading the Love – Busted Again

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Ted Seymour

I just got busted. Not criminally busted, but caught once again writing “I Love You” as my signature when I charged a purchase yesterday. The sales clerk looked at the signature (which they very rarely do in America), and twisted her face up a little as if her brain was struggling to fire the proper sequence of synapses to bring comprehension to what she was seeing. She looked at the back of my credit card (which I haven’t signed) to validate that signature and I said, “who’s to say that’s not my signature?” She smiled, laughed and thanked me telling me it’s her favorite one she’s seen. (See previous post: Saying I Love You). It’s such a lovely practice, that of consciously trying to be with the loving connection which naturally exists between ourselves and our fellow humans. I encourage you to try it out as you scramble to buy your last minute holiday presents today. A few nights ago, I had dinner with some friends and included in that group was a very bright young man now attending college at Princeton. At the dinner table, he spoke passionately of wanting to have an impact on the world. In orderto … more

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Video with Mooji, I Cound Not Get on the Bus

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Ted Seymour

While I was in India for the first few months of 2009, I sat for a time with Mooji, a wonderful spiritual teacher and very heartful human being. While there and intending to return to the states, I had an experience where I went to the bus to begin my journey back and I simply couldn’t board it. This happened 2 days in a row. If curious, you can read perhaps my favorite post, “The Heart Knows Better Than the Mind”, which is the story of that time, and which also serves as the precursor to the videos below.Today, a friend posted a Mooji video link on her Facebook page (unfortunately announcing that he won’t be teaching in Tiruvannamalai, India this winter) and after watching that, I happened upon another video, which was one of me sitting with Mooji and talking about the experience I had just had of not being able to get on the bus. I was asking him about making decisions and where the struggle with that comes from. Apparently someone turned that interchange into a 2 part video called “Destiny,” subtitled “I Could Not Get On the Bus.” How peculiar, but more so, how nice to … more

Posted in india, spirituality, video | Tagged bus, decisions, india, mooji | Leave a comment