Lost Readers

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Dear Friends,

I have received emails from a few of you who are no longer getting my blog posts in your email box. You should have received my newest post this morning. If you did not, the posts are likely going to your spam folder. I can help you with this. Please click here to send me an email.

http://www.lesleysking.com/contact/

Put your name, email address, and “List” as the message, and I will forward my new post to you with instructions on how to add me to your address book. After that, simply watch for an email from Lesley – The Inner Adventure.

I appreciate your interest in my blog.

Many blessings,

Lesley

We Are Gladiators

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Dear Readers,

My newest post appears on my new website. If you are a subscriber, you likely received it in your email box. If you did not receive an email from Lesley – The Inner Adventure, please click on your “junk” or “spam” file, find the post, and label it as “not junk” or “not spam.” That way you will continue to receive my blog posts.

A handful of subscribers who have WordPress blogs did not make it onto my new email list. If for any reason you did not receive an email from Lesley – The Inner Adventure, please click here:

www.lesleysking.com/2012/05/we-are-gladiators/

That will take you to my newest post. At the bottom, you can subscribe.

I will guard your email address closely.

I look forward to sharing with you more of The Inner Adventure.

Thank you,

Lesley

Plunge into the Unknown

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What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.—Plutarch

It’s four in the morning. The world is dark as I don eye goggles and a mask in order to plunge into the unknown. No, I am not spelunking into a lava cave, nor am I diving deep into a tropical ocean, though this takes as much courage. Instead, I am plunging my kitchen sink.

Why at such an early hour, with so much determined effort?

Simply, it is time. For two days I have trusted Drano to do the job, but it failed to penetrate the murky sludge. During this time I have asked God what this clog reflects, since I know that my outer life is a movie of my inner. All I know is that for days I have been sleepy and tired of life.

And still the clog persists.

Until this morning, when in bed, my discomfort grew so acute I could no longer ignore it.

So as I approach the sink, I see that my life is clogged.

I have a novel to publish and a website to make live.

Though I have kayaked Class IV rapids and scaled 5.10 granite faces, creating a new life most makes me shiver. The last time I recreated my life, I needed Prozac and thousands of dollars of therapy. Now, instead, I rely on God.

So as I push the plunger up and down, I become willing to do as Christ said: Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

I am afraid to lose my dignity through publishing this novel that was a decade in the making, and through exposing my new website to the light of the world. I fear failure.

But I have no choice. I have to take these actions. Each morning, in my spiritual practice, I do my best to raise my viewpoint to a new level. I commune with what the mystics call the Sound current, the God essence infusing all of life. Then I step into the world and actuate that current and thus my outer life changes to reflect my inner.

My mind is fearful because it doesn’t know what the new picture will look like, and so it wants to create from the old ones. It wants to be the travel writer or the teacher. But there is a new image that has formed instead.

It is my Beloved.

I am committed to letting my outer creation stem from this image. It takes courage to live in the moment, to let the Divine reveal my next step. This way I create from infinite soul rather than limited mind.

With God, I planned and embarked on this amazing trip into creation. It is full of every extreme and everything in between. I can embrace it, love it, live each challenge with my whole heart. Like Ernest Shackleton, Jacques Cousteau and Amelia Earhart, I am a fearless adventurer plunging into the unknown.

The sink drain?

Clear and flowing.

P.S. Loving thanks to my subscribers. If you enjoyed this post and are not subscribed, click below to “follow” it. You will receive it in your email box. To share on Facebook and Twitter, click below as well.

 

My Beloved Stands Before Me

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Check out my slideshow post. You may want to click the lower right corner to view full screen. When it’s done, hit your “Escape” key to return.

Enjoy!

P.S. Loving thanks to my subscribers. If you enjoyed this post and are not subscribed, click below to “follow” it. You will receive it in your email box. To share on Facebook and Twitter, click below as well.

Running Waterfalls

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Turquoise pools shimmer, palm trees wave and parakeets zip by. I paddle my kayak toward an infinity line with nothing but blue sky beyond, while the current pushes me into the unknown.

Headed toward the fall’s lip, my fingers tremble on the paddle, my blades slice tentative strokes.  I reach the edge and fly. Water splatters around my head and roars in my ears. I am weightless as I commune with the Divine buoyancy.

I have suspended all thought and am completely in the now, bare in its blue expanse, its airy possibility, its limitless love.

My bow pierces down through frothy, bubbly white and continues underwater. Cool liquid surrounds me, brushing my face and penetrating my ears. I plunge deeper, while bubbles of insight and inspiration percolate.

I rise back to the surface. My whole being glows and the world sparkles with the sense that nothing can stop me in my quest for truth and love.

Reveling in a new freedom, I head toward the next fall. My boat feels a little tippy, but I paddle forward with yet more love.

Every moment a waterfall en route to the great Ocean that I am.

 

Images: Las Cascadas of Agua Azul, Chiapas, Mexico

Road Trip to Bliss

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For the past eight years, one of my main jobs has been to take road trips. Each month I would head out to a small New Mexico town to write about and photograph it. Through visiting some 100 towns, I’ve come to see that being a road warrior can teach me a lot about where I most want to live—that place called Bliss.

“How much more must I endure

until I become one with Thee?”

In my spiritual journey, I’ve often felt the kind of desperation expressed by the 15th-century mystic Kabir.

Until I realize my true God self, I will have heartache. That’s because I experience life through states of consciousness, each like a little town. The pain I feel with the loss of a loved one and the anger or impatience I experience daily are states, as are whole belief systems such as parenthood, politics and religion. They offer some solace, but ultimately lead to desolation.

The trick to moving easily through these states to the point where I know I am all, and none, of them is to be a visitor—a tourist—rather than a resident.

So I practice road tripping through states of consciousness.

Recognition  Over the years, I have come to see that each town has a unique identity. It might be a little cowtown like Mosquero, a mountain village such as Truchas or a wilderness hub like Glenwood.

When I arrive in a town, I cruise the main street to see what’s there. In Glenwood, in southwestern New Mexico, I quickly note the beauty of a village on the edge of the 3.3 million-acre Gila National Forest. I also see, and meet, hunters with their cammo clothing and rifles. On the flip side, I encounter environmental activists attempting to preserve the environment, including the Mexican gray wolf.

I know I am in a place with a conflicted consciousness.

Similarly, at various points in my day, if I lose my spiritual footing, I can suddenly find myself in a particular state of consciousness. Most common for me is victimville. Like any town, it has set characteristics: an abundance of unfairness, a sense of powerlessness and an overriding futility about all of life.

The faster I recognize that I am in a state, the quicker I can move through it.

Help!  The trick of moving through a town without setting down roots is in accepting it for what it is. On my visit, I don’t try to change Glenwood. When I meet a lion hunter, I don’t attempt to talk him out of killing. I don’t try to make the ranchers in the area appreciate the gray wolf. I meet people who do these things. But that’s why they live here, because they have a mission to change Glenwood.

I, however, have a mission to know myself as God. And so, upon recognizing that I am in a particular state, I call on God for help. My mind wants to engage in the state. It wants to convince victimville that I’m right about my case, that I really am abused and unappreciated. It wants to lay out all of the evidence, of which there is plenty.

If instead I call on the Divine, the mind is forced to stop, and thus something new and miraculous can happen.

Ascend  In Glenwood, since I am here to write and photograph, I already have a sense of detachment. Though I may feel the tug to enter into the town’s conflict, my purpose, and the fact that I have a true home elsewhere, keep me from dwelling.

Instead, I can simply observe. Through interviewing residents, I come to see the perfection of the place. I see how the hunters help keep the balance of animals in a system that does not stay balanced itself. I see how fearful the ranchers are of losing their livelihood to wolves. And I see how important it is for the defenders of wolves to make their case for wildlife.

The system runs well on its own. All the people have their perfect roles. Thus, I can leave town knowing that system is intact.

Similarly, once I recognize victimhood, I know that my home is not in this state. Even though it may feel familiar—I have likely spent lifetimes here—my true home is with God in the higher worlds. My job is not to fix the state. My job is to move through it, working out any attachments that still bind me, so that I can be free of it.

When I call on the Divine and chant my mantra, I begin to see the many facets of victimville. I see how hard I’ve been pushing myself for the past few days, so I find that the persecutor is actually not my employer or friend, but myself. I see that whenever I feel like a victim, it is because I have been a persecutor. In the same way that Glenwood had the whole of wilderness consciousness, the victim/persecutor state has certain facets that never change.

It is my higher calling as a writer that allows me to let Glenwood be Glenwood. It is my higher calling as a spiritual being that allows me to let victimhood be victimhood.

Leave Town  So once my day in Glenwood is complete, I pack my notebook and cameras and hit the road headed home. I leave the fight behind and find solace in my soul self.

Similarly, once I recognize the victim/persecutor state, I head out of town. I do this by chanting my mantra and offering an antidote such as forgiveness. I may take the afternoon off in order to quiet the persecutor and nurture the victim. When my mind wants to enter that state again, I treat it like a child by offering better diversions: take a walk, listen to a spiritual CD or read spiritual literature.

Before long, I find myself in a new town, one that is friendly, with everyone smiling. The gray pall of victimville has lifted, replaced by the rosy glow of love.

Often when I leave a small town and head back along some beautiful road—alone with God—the whole world takes on a sparkly radiance. I know that I have survived another experience—I have passed through without setting down roots there.

Days, weeks and years of such travel lead me through state after state, each growing weaker as I give it less of my power. All of this traveling is completely necessary because each time I enter a state, I bring my newest and highest viewpoint to it. In this way, I actuate the flow of love received in my spiritual exercises. I transform my outer life to fit the image taking shape in my inner.

Soon I find that no state in the material world can “catch” me and thus I move into the states of the astral world, where the towns are more subtle and, rather than things, deal with feelings and images. Though it is more refined and even heavenly, I don’t linger there, but instead keep on the Royal Road as it travels through the mental world and beyond into the sublime reaches of consciousness, where I leave all states and merge with the blissful Creator.

P.S. Loving thanks to my subscribers. If you enjoyed this post and are not subscribed, click below to “follow” it. You will receive it in your email box. To share on Facebook and Twitter, click below as well.

You know you’re a spiritual warrior when. . .

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  • You’re happy for no reason.
  • Your memory is replaced by Post-It notes.
  • You realize that in arguments, the fault lies not on their side of the street, nor on your side of the street. You own the whole block.
  • You tell your friends you have a life-threatening illness and they say “congratulations.”
  • You tell your friends you’re getting a divorce and they say “congratulations.”
  • Your biggest thrill takes place while you sit quietly alone in your house.
  • People ask you what you’ve been up to lately and you can’t think of a thing, but you’re certain your life is more exciting than it has ever been.
  • You’d rather Be than do.
  • You laugh at the beginning of your beloved’s jokes.
  • Peace is acceptable, war has its place, but that barking dog next door has got to go!
  • You’ve detached from work, family and possessions, but chocolate. . . not so much.
  • You’d rather part with money than hold onto it.
  • You don’t know what you ate for your last meal, but you’re pretty sure of what you did in your last life, and it still gives you indigestion.