soulfully, peacefully alive, bliss inspires joy with generosity
spiritually, blissfully alive, peace infuses love with gratitude
I allow myself to savor these words, pregnant as they are with positive connotation.
In this couplet, I find resolution in ultimate fulfillment, and though it might leave the impression of being impossibly naïve, I remain willing to be guided by its wisdom ~ and its vast potential for freedom.
True, the couplet in question makes a lot of assumptions that go far beyond the pale of everyday life, but it also calls out for resolution in the life of yours truly, who, thankfully, still possesses the wherewithal to understand and appreciate its uncompromising promise and power.
In this moment, I am called to ask: do I feel more inclined to be alive or to be alive? In other words, which side of fulfillment do I now feel inclined to engage: contentment or enchantment?
Or, in drawing forth this exquisite image of the Rubin Vase, which profile am I now compelled to accept?
The distinction is simple enough to articulate: to be alive is to rest wholly in contentment; to be alive is to flow fully through enchantment; I note well these emphases for soul and spirit, respectively, towards what I find ultimately full+filling.
Loving Trusting Caring Lusting
I now invite myself to contemplate these gerunds ~ loving trusting caring lusting ~ to speak them aloud to myself, intimately, to welcome the effect they have on me, and to note this one peculiarity: one among them doesn’t seem to belong here; can you guess which one?
I say, doesn’t seem to belong, and for good reason: not all lust is created equal.
I beg forgiveness for sounding so obvious, but “a lust for life” has a very different ring to it than “a lust for power”, for where in this world can a love of peace and a joy of bliss (for all) be found in a lust for power?
But then, I wonder: can peace, love, joy, bliss be found in a lust for life ~ and vice versa?
Perhaps they can if I believe … think … know they can.
Getting a Clue: Put Others First?
I have heard it said, we all face The Choice: embrace a love of power or embody the power of love.
Acts of loving, trusting, caring dovetail nicely with the power of love, but what of lusting? With lust, even a lust for life, is there not a risk of engaging a love of power at the expense of another? In lusting, is there not a danger of losing the love, the trust, or the care of another?
But then, is there not a risk, even a danger, in putting others first at the expense of me, myself, and I?
Without lust, am I even really and truly alive? Alive, yes, but alive?
Could Trust Be the Ultimate Power?
I now allow myself to contemplate these affirmations of trust:
I trust you, I trust you to be you with me, to be there for me when I need you to be there for me.
I trust you enough to know that I can rely on your understanding with innerstanding, to know that you can respond to, or at least address, with sufficient care and compassion, my concerns and conundrums.
I trust that you can carry and convey a perspective of care and concern in the face of a problematic situation or relation, to offer competent real-time, real-world help in the easing or the lifting of a burden.
I trust, in the face of lusting after life and love, that you might not always be you with me, not always be there for me when I need you to be there for me, not always care enough about one of my concerns or be competent enough to address, even assuage, said concern.
And so, I fall back on myself, on my secret love affair with power to care for me, myself, and I.
Who Can I Trust in this World?
So, who can I trust in this world?
I ask this question, not because I do not trust anyone in this world, at least a little, but because, if in the process of approaching ultimacy in fulfillment, no one in this world is ready, willing, and able to trust me in this process, then what recourse do I have but not to trust in turn?
I know what I can trust ~ good intentions and sound judgments ~ but who, other than me, myself, and I, can I trust in this world to hold these good intentions and to make these sound judgments with dignity and integrity, i.e., patiently yet playfully, consistently yet impeccably?
On one end of the Self Other spectrum favoring Self, flexibly ensconced in third density consciousness, I remind myself: soulfully, peacefully, gracefully alive (with supreme contentment), the ease of bliss that invariably arises as a consequence cannot help but inspire joy by way of generosity. In sharing the sweet energy of my bliss with grace, said bliss cannot help but inspire joy with and through generosity.
On the way to enchantment in a constancy of ecstasy, who can bear for long such joy as this?
True to form and function, those who can bear the power of trust to receive benefits and blessings can take easy pleasure in the power they wield as they are deeply invested and interested in preserving and promoting the welfare and well-being of the one they serve: themselves.
At the other end of the Self Other spectrum that favors Other, flexibly ensconced in fourth density consciousness, I remind myself: spiritually, blissfully alive (with supreme enchantment), the grace of peace that invariably arises as a consequence cannot help but infuse love by way of gratitude. In sharing the sweet energy of my grace with bliss, said grace cannot help but infuse love with and through gratitude.
On the way to contentment in a constancy of intimacy, who can bear for long such love as this?
True to form and function, those who can bear the power of trust to give of themselves can take no pleasure in the power they wield as they are simply too deeply invested and interested in preserving and promoting the welfare and well-being of those they serve.
In bearing the power of trust to give and receive, a most unbearable tension seems to rise.
Feeling Tense: Who Can I Be? What Can I Do?
In taking pleasure in the love of power that I wield, I can be, in my ecstasy, a bubble unto myself, and in giving pleasure to the power of love that I wield, I can, in my intimacy, be of service to others.
In putting myself first, I engage a love of power; in putting others first, I release the power of love.
Here, clearly, it is not a matter of this or that, but rather, of this and that.
If engagement serves to release the power of love with sufficient care and concern, and if release serves to engage a love of power without hurt or harm, then the only question that remains for each, in relation to the other, is when and where, with whom, and for how long?
In one moment, I take my ecstasy, in joy, through bliss, with generosity; in another moment, I give my intimacy, at peace, in love, with gratitude. Back and forth I go, flowing and resting, resting and flowing.
Life is Easy; Why Make it Hard?
From one perspective, life is easy; why make it hard?
Perhaps because I am afraid ~ afraid of losing significance, afraid of lacking relevance ~ of losing relevance, of lacking significance … of lacking relevance, of losing significance … of losing relevance, of lacking significance … ad infinitum, moment to moment to moment.
Might I just end these fears of losing and lacking here and now?
Or is there more involved than simply choosing to end the fear?
I have two extremes within which to play: seek myself in a constancy of ecstasy by viewing and treating everyone as mere projections of my consciousness or find myself in a constancy of intimacy by viewing and treating myself as a mere reflection of consciousness in the eyes of others.
But truly, even in the intimacy of my contentment in tandem with the ecstasy of my enchantment, I serve both Self and Other ~ Self, through satisfaction and fulfillment, and Other, through the example that is set ~ even as this world is populated by so many challenged persons.
I have to wonder if the first guideline on the Georgia Guidestones is there for this reason.
In my recent reading of The Code of Trust: An American Counterintelligence Expert’s Five Rules to Lead and Succeed, the very first chapter I was drawn to read was Chapter 10: Trust in a Toxic Environment. For some reason, I could not help but read this as Trust in a Toxic World.
In this chapter, six so-called bad eggs (fearful people trapped by their problems and illusions) are called out: control freaks (an oxymoron, given how little control they have); hotheads (profile: volatile, hyper-emotional, hyper-active); passive-aggressives (powerless albeit sly folks with an uncanny ability for spreading misery with terrifying ease and without saying a single word); egomaniacs (excel at advertising confidence, even as they excel at grabbing rewards); bullies (armored amalgams of narcissism, anger, impulsivity, hyper-emotionality, obsession, and repression ~ hardened survivors of other bullies); and last but not least, this catchall: people plagued by disorders of all kinds in an increasingly toxic world (mood, mental, emotional, personality, substance abuse).
If nothing else, these benighted souls provide myriad lessons on who not to be, on what not to do.
The profiles on these beleaguered people are refreshing to read: given my acute sensitivity to these rather unpleasant forms of conduct and behavior (and my, up to now, foolish inclinations to put these people in their place), I am reassured that someone has a handle on it.
In this increasingly interconnected world, the crucial importance of cultivating healthy, happy relationships is coming more and more to the fore; any hope of weaving the delicate threads of contentment and enchantment into fulfillment cannot ignore or dismiss this vital truth.
I cannot help but wonder if or when these people will ever get the help they need, or failing that, whether serving as a beacon for these people might not help our cause in approaching realizations of ultimate fulfillment in a world where such realizations are viewed and treated as moot at best.
If tough people fight fire with fire, then wise people dodge fires even before they have a chance to rage. If shrewd people keep their friends close, and their frenemies closer, then wise people trust to serve to keep their frenemies close, even as they keep their friends closer.
In the words and worlds of the wise, few and far between are the fires and the frenemies.
Might I have my fear be my friend, rather than my frenemy?
A strange notion to be sure, but there it is.
Contentment + Enchantment = Fulfillment
In one moment, I remain ever soulfully content to make the most and the best of what I have to offer; in the next moment, I cannot help but be spiritually drawn to have the presence, the promise, and the power of this world enchant me with its beauty, its harmony, its majesty.
Just putting this oscillation into words brings me clarity and vitality.
By putting this oscillation into graphic form, I gather even more clarity and vitality.
I invite myself to contemplate the following series of graphics …
These graphical representations really do speak for themselves, and I will leave it to you, the reader, to contemplate whether such an ultimate fulfillment is possible for you ~ or even desirable to you.
I hereby allow the course of my life to be easy, to inform and inspire my quest, with intimacy and ecstasy, to find, to have, to keep my sweet spot between allowance and insistence, fate and destiny.
In tapping the ultimate harmonic, I flower and flourish towards ultimate fulfillment.
Enchanted, I now find my rest in peace …
Contented, I now find my flow in bliss …
Happy thanksgiving.
–
To share information and inspiration on what is happening on this troubled yet promising world, I drew up two lists of sites that are serving the causes of personal, global and/or cosmic awakening.
This post has been filed under Integration in the Ultimate Outline.
Note: my evolving outline on approaching a realization of the ultimate in personal fulfillment can be found here, accessible from the nav menu under the page “Be Here Now”.
Note: this ever growing perspective began here: Ultimate Perspective