★--Grounded In Joy (Happiness)...1

•  Happiness Mtg Topic This Week: -Grounded In Joy this meeting will stay posted for 2 weeks
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Sing like no one is listening.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching,
and live like it’s heaven on earth.

regarding-happiness-meetings
We invite you to choose a week you’d like to join in developing a meeting. Though whether this opportunity interests you at this time or not…please feel free to join in with your contributions…

[5/25/16]

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Title: “Getting Grounded in Joy”

So, last week, we were asked to pause and reflect. This week we are being asked to to explore our inner vastness, to expand our consciousness and to awaken to our inner depths. We are being asked to go beyond all that we already know and ask ourselves “Who AM I”?

When I consider this topic, many different thoughts come to mind. The main goal of this meeting is to create self awareness of our inner vastness. As we look at this, and we engage in the questions, we are asked to reflect and notice the gap between the constant stream of thoughts.

We always have our thought forms. Our constant thought forms, where we say the same things, and we experience the same experience of ourselves and others. But, are we really experiencing consciousness, or are we re-experiencing our thought forms?

How can we break through and begin to transcend to the depths of who we are, and what we are?

Can we reach the foundation, the core behind it? Can we begin to conceive it? Can we go beyond what is known and knowing? It is this background, it is that vastness that connects us to the vastness of others.

Question:

We all have so many different experiences of ourselves. The question is the consciousness behind it. In the background, what is the sense behind it?

Can you feel the vastness??

If consciousness is primary, then what you do becomes secondary. We can only manifest from our level of consciousness in this moment.

What do you want to manifest??

Grounded In Joy

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the artist Jim Warren

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  _{The usual interpretation of self-knowledge is objectively knowing our strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits in their manifestations through our body, heart, and mind. There can be no true end-point to the acquisition of such self-knowledge for two main reasons. First, our personality has too many possible modes of acting and reacting to exhaustively know them. We can always surprise or surpass ourselves. Second, we change continually. So what we thought we knew about ourselves yesterday may no longer be true today.
  ~Copyright © 2001 – 2015 Joseph Naft.}
  

We have our thoughts We have our emotions. We have our usual ways of acting. And all the while, we also have the stillness within us. All this coexists, but on different levels. On one level we are our personality, we are our self-image. At the same time, on a deeper level, we are the stillness within. This solves the problem of personality. We are it, but not only it. We can be our self, if we can be our whole self, which includes both the shallow Being Your Personality and the deep, the mask and the one who wears it. We do not seek to destroy or overcome the shallow in us. Instead, we embrace it, we embrace ourselves with the compassionate arms of stillness.
For this week, be your personality and be the cognizant stillness behind it. to read lesson in its entirety  Copyright _©2001 – _{2014 Joseph NaftAll rights reserved.}

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  After all, who else could we be, if not ourselves? Yet the question remains, somehow resonating with us. At times we feel less ourselves, like when we are thrown off by an uncomfortable situation, by feeling unsure of ourselves or inadequate or anxious and not fully in control. At such moments we feel awkward, perhaps even ashamed; we are not at home in our own skin. These and many other types of difficult moments point to times when we might almost rather not be ourselves, if being ourselves means behaving and experiencing in those unpleasant ways. But to be more accurate, we should say that in those moments we are not fully ourselves. And that domain is where our inner work, our spiritual practice can help, help us be fully ourselves.

To be ourselves means to be who we are, in our core. Again, though, who are we? Who am I? That question itself can and does form the foundation of an entire spiritual path. One effective approach to it starts by elimination, by seeing that much of what we think we are is not who we are, is not essential to the person that is us. This is dropping some of the veils of illusion so often referenced in spiritual literature.

excerpts from Intro to Being Yourself Being Yourself InnerFrontier.org Joseph Naft Lessons What does it mean to be yourself?

Who Is Joseph Naft?

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    table of content

 

Who Am I?

I am who I am
But who is that?
How can I know?
I just am me.

But who am I?

Well I am me, says I
But are you your body?
Partly I must be!
But there is more to me.

I am my mind!
Don’t you see?
My thoughts
Are surely mostly me.
But is there more to me?

I am my heart!
My loving spirit
Don’t you see?
I care for you
I care for me.
But there must be more to me?

My personality
Is who I am!
What else can there be?
It is all the stories that
Make up me.

But wait!
My friend and I
Are close as can be
We are very different
Miles and time apart
But connected at the heart!
We choose to be
Unique and the same.

Again I ask
Who am I?
My purpose
My talents, skills
My job is who I am.
Surely that must be.
I strive for excellence,
Even the mundane
Works for me!

When I’m very still
I see clearly
Who I am.
I am aware of all that is.
I am separate and a part.
I am here and now.
But my presence
Is fleeting.

So who am I?
If only I could see…
I’ve reduced myself
To be free to be me!

And lastly
There must be
One more thing that is me
It is the hardest thing for me to be
It is a thing only I can see…

Being fully aware
Of who I am.
Taking responsibility
For being me.
Doing the right thing
When no one sees.
Accepting no less than excellence.
Just being me!

I am who I am
But who is that?
How can I know?
I am just me.

In response to Poppy’s post:
awesome Poppy! I do believe this Happiness Meeting has now begun!

thank you thank you thank you!

loved this! said much… beautifully!

In response to Poppy’s post:

Wow, that really hits the spot!!

I had to read that twice!!

That’s so beautiful Poppy!!

Questions: Can you feel the vastness?

Yes, I do feel the vastness. Over the years, I have had the experience of hearing and somehow feeling the presence of a river.

What do I want to manifest?

Big question. I want to help others. I also want to manifest peace and social justice. I would love to help families be reunited. I would love to start something on the internet that helps families be identified and reunited. Wouldn’t that be priceless, to reunite people who have been separated?

I would also like to protect animals that are being pushed into extinction due to the erosion of the forest. I love bigs cats in particular, but I also would love to protect our sea from pollution.

Who am I?

I am deep in exploration. I know that I am more than my body, more than my job.
Beyond personality, I know that I am spirit, and I am Love. I also feel that words really fall short for what I am trying to express.

This is such a huge question! Its been a bit of a journey with joy, as I took this question on…

I have found it the most challenging of all to go beyond (my) personality.

I have had a few great meditations, trying this on as an inquiry, seeing what came up. Always, I know for sure that I AM Love, and I have a great heart. Love that I feel is an aspect and not just a quality. I literally am Love, and when I am tapping into this aspect, I literally am everywhere, universally. And, that truly is a lot!!

I have also been spending time with the other question: What do I want to manifest,

That is a most excellent question!

I have wondered about others, and about their soul, and about what they want to manifest. It has caused me to consider others newly, and more importantly, to see every day with newness and possibility.

another mtg (like the rest) that opens doors… and sometimes… desire to walk back through to this present moment… taking time for this questions… too(:

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  What do you want to manifest??
  focusing on this

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