Just to announce to anyone who cares to listen, and to inspire myself to intend to follow through on projects in the future, I will begin in early January 2023 to offer daily words of inspiration from my spirit teacher. Spirit tells me that ….. something to think about. Will they be original? Is that possible? Will they be from the simple seeker books? Will they be a new book in formation? I don’t yet know. As my mother once said, “Time will tell.”
Sincerely,
Jean Whitred
(Simple Seeker)
So I haven’t been all that faithful in keeping everyone up to date on what’s happening re the little “Spirit teaches a simples seeker” books, but here I go, after a long delay.
“Letting Go” was published in late December 2024. It was a struggle to get it out there before the end of the year. Why did it matter? It was an ego trip by me. If it had a 2023 publishing date to it, it would be eligible to be represented at the “Celebration of SFU Authors” in the Spring of this year, 2024. We barely made it through and I’ll never, ever again wait until late in the year to get the publishing process started. What a stress. And all because I seemed to need to wait until Balboa, the publisher of choice, had a publishing sale. It would be so much easier if money was more available, and yet, perhaps most authors struggle with limited (if any at all) money to spare from their survival needs’ budget.
Enough complaints from my personal perspective.
“Letting Go” is a self-help book based on my own life-long lived experiences of struggle to hold on to relationships that no longer, if they ever did, served me well. Spirit, my inner teacher (or is He an emergence from the collective unconscious?) seems to put Simple Seeker through the grinder by helping her to understand that she is the primary cause of her own relationship problems. I need to learn to relax and accept that any mental stress is a warning sign of built-up tensions, and that tensions can be relaxed by simply accepting them as they seem to be. Everything and everyone is in relationship to everything and everyone else, and yet some relationships need to be seen for what they are, without any attempt to change them. Abuse is abuse. Why pretend that it isn’t. And, what to do about it? Accept it for what it seems to be, and step away from it. I always seem to have responded with denial, pretending that it wasn’t intended as abuse, until it became increasingly abusive enough to require me to accept that it must be intended. Even then, why would anyone be intentionally abusive? It provides a temporary sense of power over someone else. And, misery loves company. After all, if you’re in an angry mood, who needs to see a happy camper nearby?
Anyway, the long and the short of the message of Letting Go is not to try to let go of the relationship, but of the tension that it seems to cause. People may not exit your life simply because you stop letting them get to you. We can let go of the stress they cause us, which we actually cause ourselves, by letting it get to us. We can refuse to be pulled into a stressful discussion, or, as a comedian might say, “Exit stage right.” Walk away.
Spirit serves as a holistic therapist to a simple seeker – me. Perhaps readers will relate to some, many, or none of the short sessions in Letting Go. Whether or not you do, is of less importance, at least to me, than if you enjoy the confrontations between this simple seeker and an unseen voice of authority in my life.
Love,
Jean Whitred
(a simple seeker)
A simple seeker was mediating on the possibility of individuals possessing a unique individual frequency of energy.
“Not frequency as singular, unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless there’s no variation within our individual thought processes.”
“Is that possible?”
“No.”
“Then, our thoughts harmonize?”
“Or they do not.”
“Is it possible for them to harmonize?”
“Yes.”
“Is it desirable?”
“No.”
“Then, awareness …”
“Yes.”
“How to become aware?”
“Of what?”
“Of the degree to which our individual thoughts …”
“And emotions?”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t a matter of becoming aware of our thoughts and emotions, but rather to what degree they harmonize with each other.”
“And the degree to which our personal thoughts and emotions harmonize with each other at any particular time, and in whatever possible situation, determines the strength and quality of our individual frequency and vibration?”
“Yes.”
“Wow!”
“Why, chela, does that understanding seem to distress you?”
“Couldn’t some mad, military scientist use that information to create a means to identify different energy types?”
“For what purpose?”
“To fingerprint and control, or destroy.”
“Yes.”
……..
A simple seeker’s note to herself – The fingerprint of personal energy
“Spirit didn’t seem at all stressed about the possibility of us all being fingerprinted for our personal energy type.”
“There is nothing to get stressed about.”
“Why?”
“It isn’t going to happen any time soon.”
“Then it will happen, in time?”
“Yes.”
“What affect will it have on individual freedom?”
“What individual freedom?”
“Our freedom to be individuals.”
“How individual are you, now?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, but do you?”
“I mean, when I am out walking and/or shopping, not everyone knows who I am.”
“And being recognizable from your energy would deprive you of being an unknown?
“Yes.”
“What if I told you that you and everyone else is now recognizable to anyone who can sense your general characteristics and your likely unique pattern of energy vibration?”
“How can they do that?”
“Can you know when someone near you is upset?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He or she seems to express their distressed state of mind in body language.”
“Yes.”
“And more.”
“Yes, there is a certain tension in the air around them.”
“Yes.”
“We don’t need a mad military scientist to identify our emotional states of mind. We usually express them physically, and with psychic energy, in a way that almost anyone can recognize.”
………
A simple seeker was meditating on Stage 16 of The Tree of Life. Her chosen text calls this meditation “I Am That I Am.” An earlier meditation had, as its focus, “Who AM I?” But, she kept asking herself, “If I am that I am, who or what am I?”
“You were never anything other than what you are now Physical life serves to help us understand that simple reality. Whatever we have experienced, whatever we experience now, and whatever we will experience, the simple fact remains, we are what we are, whomever we choose to be, and while we choose to be.”
“If I’m playing life as an actor, then why does it seem so real?”
“An actor is an actor, no matter what role she plays. But each role we play, each relationship we experience, we have chosen to live the roles, or archetypes, we express. We simply are an individual aspect or ray of Life. Case closed.”
…
A simple seeker’s note to herself
“Could I have chosen to play the role of a simple seeker?”
“Yes.”
“But what of all the many other roles that I have seemed required to play throughout my long life?”
“Each and every one of them were no more nor less than a subset of roles that contributed to the roles you now play.”
“What role does memory serve in contributing to how well, or not so well, I play the roles that I now play in life?”
“Memory is as a script that you have learned to read, to help you focus on your role.”
“Some people seem to lose their memories without changing the way they play their roles in life.”
“They have learned as much as they can with memory as a guide, and now are challenged to live without it.”
“Can social conditioning replace memory as a guide to living social roles?”
“Yes, and it does. The roles we play today are not all as those our ancestors played. Life situations required us to adapt to changing conditions of life.”
“Then, our children will not necessarily live as we do?”
“Even now, modern technology, and rapid access to the thoughts of others around the world, are expanding the information that future generations will possibly call memory.”
“And yet, they too will be playing archetypal roles, even if those roles differ from those we now may see as a way of life?”
“Yes.”
“And yet, they’ll still be whom they are?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a beautiful ending.”
“There is no ending.”
………
The Tarot Page of Wands looked strangely familiar. It was a young by dressed up in clothes that he didn’t seem to feel comfortable wearing.
“What does it say to us?
“It wouldn’t say the same to me as it would to you.”
“How do you know? Or do you?”
“What does that mean?”
“When anything, or anyone, speaks to our inner knowing, we’re receiving a message, and we know it.”
“Can it be an important message?”
“It’s always more than important. It’s vital to our best interest and to our personal world.”
“That would create inner tension.”
“Yes.”
“Who wants inner tension?”
“It’s not a case of wanting.”‘”
“Then, needing?”
“Yes.”
“Why do we need inner stress?”
“There’s a difference between stress and tension.”
“In degrees?”
“In cause. The situation creates tension, and …”
“Ignoring the message of tension creates stress?”
“Yes.”
“So, if we feel stressed, it’s not directly caused by the situation?”
“Exactly. Too many people seem to attempt to cope with stress with medication, instead of meditating on its possible cause, alone or with a trusted and qualified teacher.”
“Are we talking about you and me?”
“Yes, and anyone else who cares to listen.”
……..
A simple seeker’s note to herself
“Why didn’t I see that coming down the road?”
“What didn’t you see?”
“You were setting me up, again.”
“Yes.”
“I guess I do tend to let myself get stressed out, now and then.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes. You do have a choice, you know.”
“Between what?”
“Between feeling stressed and feeling the tension.”
“How can we know the difference?”
“It’s a matter of perspective.”
“Perspective?”
“Yes.”
“What difference in perspective?”
“The difference between awareness and …”
“Physical experience?”
“Yes.”
……..
A simple seeker was overwhelmed with what she was reading on a website she had connected to via a Twitter tweet. She could not pull herself away, to wind down.
“So, now you’ve discovered depth psychology?”
“You know that I studied that many years ago. But this goes far beyond a simple review.”
“Jung as a spiritual teacher was not part of your formal studies?”
“As far as I can remember, spirituality and thinking were not even considered …”
“Compatible?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s your take on this new ethics?”
It isn’t new in that it would replace the old.”
“Then, how can it be considered as new?”
“You’re setting me up, again.”
“Yes.”
“Then please explain how the two can merge, and why they must, now?”
“They’ve never been separate.”
“As in the letter and the spirit of the law?”
“Yes.”
“Then the old and new ethics of spiritual depth psychology refers to developing an inner awareness of the purpose of outer forms of ethical conduct and social expectations, and why these serve us well?”
“Yes and more.”
“What more?”
“The process of increasing awareness requires and stimulates intellectual development.”
“And emotional development?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“When we each start to develop an inner perspective of how and why to express compassion toward ourselves and others, then our emotional development will be the stimulus to intellectual awareness.”
“They develop separately?”
“Yes and no.”
“How is that possible?”
“We each are usually more mature in either thought or emotion, but each is continually, if very slowly, developing and influencing the other.”
“Then emotion and thought are as yin and yang?”
“Yes.”
……..
A simple seeker’s note to herself
“Emotion and thought as contained within spirituality?”
“As yin and yang within the Tao.”
“Wow!”
“Why does this surprise you?”
“It brings yin and yang into so many other seeming dualities within our so-called Western culture.””
“Yes.”
“As within – so without.”
“Again, from the East.”
“Yes, but we’ve brought the concept into everyday life.”
“How so?”
“Via psychology and logic.”
“Yes. Correspondences exist in all possible fields of thought.”
“What about emotion?”
“What about it?”
“Do correspondences exist within emotions?”
“No.”
“Why within thought and not within emotion?”
“One is form and the other is force, or moving energy.”
“Emotions are potentially too variable to support correspondences?”
“Yes.”
……….
A simple seeker was meditating on the thought of who or whom trading places.
“How does it work? What would it look like?”
“I t’s you and me when we interact. I’m here and you’re there, but only from my personal perspective. From your perspective it would be the reverse.”
“Why are we separated?”
“Isn’t that just the way it is?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“We’re as connected as we each care to be.”
“As we choose to be?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“As we each care to be.”
“What if we don’t, or didn’t, know each other?”
“It would still be the same.”
“How can we care to be connected to someone …?”
“To everyone and everything.”
“How?”
“We each are more connected to each other than anyone is aware of.”
“Is that a structural concept of oneness?”
“Oneness is more than a concept. It’s a reality.”
“A structural reality?”
“No. An essence reality.”
“And, in essence, we’re all connected?”
“Yes.”
“But not in form?”
“Yes.”
“What connects us?”
“Love, as expressed in awareness, understanding, and compassion, as well as love’s many other varieties of connective tissue.”
“Love’s varieties of connective tissue?”
“That hold us all together.”
“Would they necessarily all be healthy tissues?”
“Potentially, yes.”
“But, in reality?”
“Potential is real.”
“Are these connective tissues aware …?”
“Of what?”
“Of being ….?”
“Of being what?”
“Of being connective tissues?”
“Between whom or what?”
“You’re leading me on.”
“Yes.”
“Where are you leading me?”
“Where might I be leading you.”
“To an impossible thought.”
“No thought is impossible.”
“But the reality that it might suggest …”
“It’s the only reality.”
“That the many qualities of love are more real than I am?”
“Yes.”
…….
A simple seeker’s note to herself re Love as Connective Tissue
“Love as connective tissue?”
“Yes.”
“But love is variable.”
“Yes, in quality and strength.”
“So, we may be held to different people, places, and things by different qualities and strengths of love?”
“Yes.”
“Does love have a negative aspect?”
“How would that be possible?”
“So, then, there may be more or less love, and stronger or weaker love, but there’s always some love holding us together?”
“Yes.”
“Where would hate fit into this picture?”
“Hate doesn’t fit into relationships.”
“What causes hate?”
“Dissatisfaction with one’s life.”
“Can we feel hate and love at the same time?”
“Yes.”
“A love/hate relationship?”
“Yes.”
…..
A simple seeker was meditating on the concept of resisting what seemed to be.
“Why?”
“To protect myself from attachment.”
“How?”
“By accepting that any pleasure or possession is no more than a temporary experience.”
“Some might cling all the more, to enjoy what they have while they can.”
“So, acceptance is not enough?”
“Enough what?”
“We need more than awareness?”
“To what?”
“To resolve the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The problem of how to let go.”
“Of what?”
“Of whatever seems to need to be let go of.”
“A two-way street?”
“Yes, and yet, more.”
“Yes. A pressure gradient.”
“Please explain.”
“Whatever or whomever we cling to is also clinging to us.”
“How?”
“Everything and everyone is energy in relationship with everything and everyone else.”
“So, it’s the relationship and not the temporary forms that needs to be released from each other?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Everything and everyone relates to everything and everyone else.”
“Then how to let go of a relationship?”
“We can’t.”
“What can we do?”
“We can, with practice, learn to accept the existence of relationship and its power, and its immunity to our will, individual and collective.”
“To focus on the relationship and not on the who or what?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“To meditate, from as detached a perspective as we can, while remaining calm and non-judgmental of ourselves and/or of whatever relationship we wish to understand.”
“Can we learn to understand the why and how of relationships?”
“Yes.”
“And then they dissolve?”
“No.”
“What does happen as a result of our understanding?”
“Acceptance.”
“And then?”
“Tensions relax.”
“Without detachment?”
“Detachment from what?”
“From whomever or whatever we were attached to.”
“We never were attached to anything or anyone.”
“Other than relationship itself?”
“Yes.”
“How are we attached to relationship?”
“We are relationship.”
……….
A simple seeker’s note to herself
“We can’t understand a relationship until we accept it?”
“Yes.”
“What if we don’t want to accept it?”
“It doesn’t go away.”
“So, if we accept it, then we can understand it?”
“Not necessarily.”
“How to learn to understand why it’s in our life?”
“Meditation on possible reasons why it exists in our life, and what seems to weaken or strengthen its power over us.”
“Can relationships have power over us?”
“Yes.”
“Do they necessarily have power over us.”
“No.”
“How do they gain power over us?”
“We give it to them, or we do not.”
“How to regain power that we have given away?”
“Learn to relax about the situation, and then accept personal responsibility.”
“What happens then?”
“We become detached from its hold on us.”
“We stop resisting?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“Tensions relax and we learn to be as a witness, and not as a victim.”
“Are personal relationships necessary?”
“Personal relationships are necessary until we learn that relationship is all-inclusive.
“So, personal relationships help us to learn about a more inclusive relationship?”
“Yes. It’s a necessary beginning to developing a sense of unconditional love.”
“And personal relationships are necessarily conditional?”
“Yes.”
“Is that also a Universal Law?
“Yes.”
………
A simple seeker was meditating on the concepts of projection and rejection, and wondering if they were one and the same.
“One and the same what?”
“Perhaps not exactly one and the same but …”
“But what?”
“Perhaps they are the same whatever, from a different perspective.”
“What different perspective?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Yes. If you have an idea, then you owe it to yourself to at least attempt to express it, if only to yourself.”
“But isn’t just toying with an idea the same as expressing it?
“Not as long as it’s too vague to take any recognizable shape.”
“Then, rejection as a form of projection.”
“How so?”
“With photography, we reject what we don’t plan to project our focus on.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t …”
“I may have forgotten.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what?”
“You were stepping into thoughts too deep for your comfort zone.”
“About rejection being a twisted form of projection?”
“I think it goes the other way, and not twisted.”
“Then?”
“An unhealthy mental attitude. When we project our shadow, to use Jungian symbolism in referring to aspects of our personality that we would prefer to deny ownership to, we are attempting to project them on to someone else. We then think, or pretend to, that we are free of our rejected emotions or thoughts.”
“Self-delusion?”
“Yes.”
Then photography does express the concepts of both projecting and rejecting our focus on some aspects of the same background.”
“Yes.”
…..
A simple seeker’s note to herself
“Was I stepping into thoughts too deep for my comfort zone?”
“Yes.”
“What thoughts?”
“You were toying with the idea of possibly distancing yourself from our relationship.”
“How would projection and rejection fit into that idea?”
“Rejecting the closeness of our relationship by projecting the possible distancing of yourself from it, in the future.”
“Is it possible?”
“Yes. You choose from minute to minute how to live your life, at least to some extent.”
“Would you accept my decision?”
“Yes.”
…….
“Was I something like a sleeping spy all this time?”
“Yes.”
“But why all the dead ends and exploded bridges?”
“Designed to keep you moving.”
“Why my terrible scrawl of handwriting, and imbalance, when I so needed to write neatly and move gracefully?”
“It would have distracted you.”
“And my inability to paint?”
“Form would have won out, or might have, over essence.”
“Why such pathetic music skills?”
“Same as above.”
“But, I love music.”
“Yes.”
“I’m told that I have no skill, but I love to sing to myself.”
“Yes, a private pleasure is allowed.”
“Allowed?”
“Yes. It keeps you company, without distracting you from inner development.”
“How can I share your teaching when I have such little , if any, support? Nobody believes me.”
“Not a problem.”
“Why?”
“There are those who will.”
“Within my lifetime?”
“Is that important?”
“To whom?”
“To you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
………..
A simple seeker’s note to herself
A simple seeker was recovering from yet another surgical procedure.
“It hurts.”
“Yes.”
“Why do you say “Yes” as if my pain was a blessing?”
“It is.”
“A blessing?”
“Yes.”
“How is that possible?”
“Are your wounds healing?”
“They seem to be, this time.”
“How do you know?”
“The nerves in the area are active.”
“Does their activity indicate healing?”
“I don’t know.”
“But they live?”
“Yes.”
“That in itself is a blessing.”
“Yes, but they hurt.”
“Are you suffering?”
“Where are you going with that?”
“Where might I be going?”
“Pain vs suffering?”
“Yes. We feel pain with physical senses, while suffering is an emotional response that can be controlled, if we choose to control it.”
……..
A simple seeker’s note to herself
“Perhaps my suffering comforts me in my time of pain.”
“Is that a healthy situation?”
“Healthy?”
“Yes.”
“In what sense?”
“Life enhancing.”
“Surely, rejoicing in pain would suggest an unhealthy mental attitude.”
“How so?”
“I’m aware of feeling pain, and my awareness seems to activate self-compassion.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“You’re leading me down one of your paths, again.”
“Yes.”
“So I feel compassion for my suffering, and not for my pain?”
“Yes, and in the deepening awareness that it is your suffering that attracts your compassion, healing gradually takes place.””
“My suffering is reduced?”
“Yes, and more. When your natural healing energies are released from their focus on your suffering, they are then more able to cope with the source of pain.”
“I need to learn to relax and feel the pain, without self-pity?”
“Yes.”
……….
Simple Seekers 