What Are Your Motives?

"Examine the structures in our lives. Ask ourselves is this job, house, partner, activity or direction bringing me essence, and if not what is the essence that is missing here? If you are telling yourself you have no choice you can know that this is never the truth. What is true if you are saying this, is that you are afraid to make the choice that would bring you essence. So he would ask you, examine your true motives for doing what does not bring you essence and if it is a list of fears then you are not being authentic and essence will elude you!" ~ Spotted Eagle ~ on "Creating With Essence"

Small Steps Preceed Big Leaps

Spotted Eagle asks that at all times and in all circumstances, learn how to focus our attention on our desire for essence. When we are anxious or afraid, breathe and ask ourselves what is my heart's desire for essence in this moment? When we are uncertain what to do ask ourselves what small step could I take that would bring me closer to my treasured essences? When we are depressed ask ourselves where is my attention? Has it left the reality of the present moment? Has it wandered into the fearful or empty future that I am manufacturing in my imagination? Is it distracted by the past that I am judging and therefore left to regret. Then redirect your attention to your heart center and find there your desires for essence. Attention the essence you have even if it is not being expressed as fully as you would like. ~ Spotted Eagle ~ on "Creating With Essence"

There is a lot that is going on today in our lives to distract us from the essences that we can still enjoy moment to moment to whatever varying degree that might be. If we spend more moments of our time attentioning the essences that we already have, fewer moments are spent worrying about a future that does not exist resulting in a small incremental step to living an essence rich life.

"We must learn how to be authentic in our thoughts, our words and our actions, uncompromising in the face of our insecurities and our neediness. We must hold firm in our intention to experience essence while we honor the timing of the universe which may be very different from our own. We must be aware in those moments when our fears would dictate a choice that is not authentic. We must embrace the growth and learn that we must grow and evolve into the person who can live his or her life as an expression of essence, purpose and authenticity. We must learn to be present with the truth of what is there, what we have already created without criticism, fear or judgement. We must value the truth present in each and every moment even if it is uncomfortable, uncertain or even painful. And finally we must embrace the crisis that healing often brings as the most powerful force in the restoration of our wholeness." ~ Spotted Eagle ~ on Creating with Essence

Here Spotted Eagle speaks further to elaborate on the fact that we are here to create our lives not in the way that most of us have been taught by the culture but in a spiritual way. It's not easy to let go of our fears of the future that drive us to establish a level of security vested in cars, homes, perceived wealth and other forms. Instead we need to trust that if we live our lives authentically with our desire for the experience of essence as the quiding force for the universe in creating our lives, that we can instead have a life that is spiritually rich. This is truly why we have taken on the challenge of living in this world.

New Culture, New Ways

"The culture has ways of supporting what it demands by way of the form. So if you say you have a goal for fast cars, big houses and lots of money no one will argue with you that this goal has no essence. If you say instead that you have a desire to experience freedom, to experience fun or to follow your heart's bliss, he can guarantee you that there is probably no officer in any bank that will loan you money for this endeavor. If you quit your high stress lucrative job there are probably not going to be many people in your life that will support your decision unless that job has already managed to give you some life threatening illness.

His message is that in order to create with essence we must discard the culture's ways. First we must stop measuring the results by the form so we must discard measuring amounts of money, or the value of our possessions, especially if we view them as a means of security. We must stop measuring the success or failure to meet a goal. We must stop resisting the unintended consequences or the results we did not expect. Especially we must stop worrying about how others evaluate or judge or view us and what we are doing.

Creating with essence requires that we develop an entirely new set of skills and first among these is that we must be responsible for our own feelings, responding in the present moment to the choices that are truly before us and make those choices based on the essences we hold most dear. We must monitor essence in our lives and examine each moment for opportunities to create more essence. Vitally important is that when the essence leaves an endeavor and we have only our goal and our fear of not achieving it as our reason for staying with something; if we are staying with it for fear of our security we must be willing to engage in a process that will allow us to abandon this investment and move with courage to discover our new dreams for essence." ~ Spotted Eagle on Creating With Essence

Cool Essence

"To create from our desire for essence is actually much easier than creating the form, but it takes a set of skills that are undeveloped in this culture. The skills we are conditioned to using are of little or no value when we are creating with essence and these are things like planning, defining, goal setting, forecasting, working harder, not making mistakes, setting time limits or targets and the most lucrative, having a clear picture of the form you are trying to create and putting yourself in that picture." ~ Spotted Eagle from "Creating With Essence"

I listen to this recording time after time to remind me of what I have been doing wrong in trying to create my life and most importantly what I must do correctly. I have tried the methods that our culture teaches and they have not succeeded for me. Living my life authentically and giving myself over to the universe and holding onto my desire for essence as a guiding force for creating my life has begun to give me a life that is not steeped in forms but is growing richer in the essences I desire most. Those being freedom, creativity, and joy to list a few. I can't explain it if I look through the lens of what my culture has taught me and I am in wonder how it is coming to be but I am not arguing with it and I am not stopping. I just spend each day efforting to pry myself from the cultural claws that clutch at me in a desperate attempt to keep me within its grasp. Some days are good and some not so good but the flow is there.

One analogy that could be applied to the whole effort is that of floating on a river and I am headed for a falls. The flow of the water is increasing and so is the fear of the approaching falls, ever increasing and my mind keeps telling me I cannot survive this but my heart tells me, yes you can. Finally, inevitably there it will be, the falls and I will plunge through what my mind told me I could not survive, to the quiet pool at the bottom. There I can enjoy the peace and tranquility of a cool swim, giddy with the joy at surviving what was once perceived as unsurvivable.

Redirecting Our Desire

"Eliminating our desires will not end our suffering. Our suffering is result of our attachment to the form. Our judgements about what we have created, and our fear and the regret that these instill in us. Desire is the force behind all of creation so what we must do is raise the level of awareness and in so doing exalt our desire, in truth." ~ Spotted Eagle on Creating with Essence

The Struggle Side of Creating

"Most of the suffering human beings experience in their daily lives is a result of their attachment to the form. We are fed images by the culture about what success means and we feel a deep need to control what happens to us. When we encounter uncertainty that might threaten the form that we are attached to we experience great fear. We pour our life force into protecting the forms that we are attached to and we fill our emptiness with the forms that will medicate our pain and longing and we become like addicts with our satisfaction dwindling while our need grows. What we don't understand is that creating the form is a difficult task. It requires controlling a thing into being. It demands great struggle to create a certain thing by a specific time in a specific way and the most unfortunate thing about creating the form and the thing that makes it most difficult, is that when the essence is not there, creating the form becomes a grinding burden as we struggle to make it happen, usually out of fear of failing, fear of disappointing others, fear of losing our false sense of security. Creating a form that has no essence robs us of our joy and this is how it destroys the quality of our life." ~ Spotted Eagle on "Creating with Essence"

Beware the siren song of marketing media. Do we really need so much stuff in our lives or are we responding, as Spotted Eagle says, to our need to medicate our fears or quiet our longings for the medication that the forms of our possesions give us. Requires a very tough look at ourselves.

Essence

"One of deep virtue
cherishes the subtle essence of the universe.
The subtle essence of the universe
is elusive and evasive.
Though it is elusive and evasive,
it unveils itself as images and forms.
Evasive and elusive,
it discloses itself as indefinable substance.
Shadowy and indistinct,
it reveals itself as impalpable subtle essence.
This essence is so subtle, and yet so real.
It is the subtle origin
of the whole of creation and non-creation.
It existed prior to the beginning of time
as the single deep and subtle reality of the universe.
It brings all into being."

~ Number 21 from The Complete Works of Lao Tzu

Choice

"If we focus on the forms of our lives, the job, the house, the car, the clothes, the bank accounts, the wives or husbands, the girlfriends or boyfriends, we can experience life as gain and loss. If instead we put our attention on the essence we receive from these things there is nothing to be lost. Essence is either there in the present moment or it's not there so what we need to do when we make choices is we chose to move in the direction of our dreams not based on the form things take, not on the outcomes of our lives but on our dream for experiencing essence. Then as we move in a direction, choosing something that will bring us that essence, when it shows up we can ask the question, "Is it there?" It will either be there or it won't." ~ Spotted Eagle from his talk on "Peace of Mind"

Peaceful Thoughts

Speaking for myself I find that being in a state where my mind is at peace is oftentimes very elusive. I can't help it that I am human and being that, I respond to the internal pressures, some innate, but most learned, that I must create security for myself. This in turn takes me from this moment in which I find myself, into future thinking and imagining a scenario of doom and gloom. If I don't do something about it today, a very uncomfortable future awaits me. Now this is not to say that I should kick back and expect the universe to deliver without any effort on my part. Of course living in a material plane requires attention to the ebb and flow of resources and so allowances must be made for that. What I would like to emphasize here is that when I take myself out of this present moment and hang out in a state of worry and fear of what could happen, I am missing out on the peace of mind that is really there in most of my present moments. In those times when I can truly put aside the worries and concerns for the future that doesn't exist I am discovering little essence rich moments that are making my life much more pleasurable.

" See yourself in a state of a simple and pure desire for your fearful mind to be at peace. Feel the sincerity of this desire. Feel your longing to live from this place. Notice that, in spite of what is, you can touch something, higher, something deeper. " ~ Spotted Eagle from his teaching, Peace of Mind

"If you try to deal with change at the level of the form the outcome will take, then no transformation is possible. The structure of perception, behavior, and choices that is creating the present reality will continue to operate, and what you create will continue to follow the pattern that is causing you to suffer." Spotted Eagle

Just sweep it under the carpet.

As part of a recent home remodel I was tasked with the removal of the old carpeting and the refinishing of the original flooring beneath. As it turns out the original flooring was oak as so many of the older houses are. The owners through the years had responded to the advertising campaigns promising the beautiful look and feel of carpet. So easy to clean, so wonderful to behold!

As I pulled up the carpet and then the pad I was aghast at what was left there on the floor! Years of accumulated fine sand and grit and disintegrating carpet pad lay hidden there, out of the reach of any effort to remove it; hiding the beauty of the authentic wood, grinding away at its surface with each step.

I was struck with the thought of how our spirituality is much like what I saw before me. We respond to the sirens of marketing and cultivate a life foreign to our authentic selves. We cover up our authentic nature with what society tells us is a more desirable image while our issues that we deal with daily, like the dirt we drag onto our carpet, work their way down through that covering and stay trapped beneath. Never really being dealt with, never able to access them to truly put ourselves beyond their control. Instead of choosing to deal with our issues when they need to be dealt with, they stay where they are. Lying hidden under a inauthentic covering that others see as grand and better than the original beauty that we all have within us "beneath the carpet".

Three days later there before me was an oak floor shining and radiant in its natural color and beauty. We had cleared away all the old accumulated dirt and had worked hard to reveal what had been there all the time. Authentic beauty.

Losing Confidence in the System?

"Money is simply an agreement you have with your culture that scraps of paper, bits of metal, and pieces of plastic can be exchanged for something you want. When people lose confidence in this agreement, money becomes what it really is, something that has no intrinsic value. Because money has no essence, Spirit cannot value money solely for its own sake. You can understand nothing about money until you understand this."

The above quote from the teachings of Spotted Eagle is difficult to wrap your brain around, I know. I get a headache when I think about it. The relief does not exist within the aspirin bottle however but is centered around that word "essence." That is a good starting point of inquiry on a path to curing your headache.

Say good bye to security

"Giving up security usually means giving up your drama about what you have been through in your life. This is because we often envision security as whatever will keep us from going through unpleasant events we have experienced in the past, especially in matters of money and love No journey into consciousness is complete until we leave security behind, and learn to be joyful without it." - Grancfather White Elk