“We all know in our hearts the truth of the saying, ‘This is happening for a reason.’ The implication is that we will never truly know what the reason is. The biological human has a mind that gravitates to shame, blame, guilt, outrage, and pity. When our thinking is traveling along this track, this is the time to sit up and take notice, to see where the mind would take us, and to recognize that the road we travel on is an imaginary one, one made up between our ears.”

— Spotted Eagle, from Why Is This Happening?

Spotted Eagle reminds us that the question, “Why is this happening?” is not a meaningful question. It assumes that ‘bad’ events are punishments, and that ‘good’ events are rewards. When the innocent suffer terrible crisis, the mind becomes inextricably caught up in the trap of this thinking and cannot resolve its fear that unjust things happen to those innocent of blame.

Spotted Eagle asks us to detach from the mind’s need to blame, pass judgment, to sympathize, and to react with indignation. Instead, he asks us to engage in a different universe of inquiry, one that is not in search of explanations for what cannot be explained, but instead on a search for meaning.

Because these questions can never be resolved at the level of our notions of fairness, we can only look to them for the lessons and the challenges they impose, and the growth and spiritual opportunity that is possible when we are confronted with such existential challenges. The search for meaning is a journey with a very different context from the search for explanations. The search for meaning is deeply individual. It looks for a spiritual approach to dealing with the intense pain of the present moment. It seeks a way to give a focus of integrity to our energies in times when we are under great pressure, and a path by which our suffering can result in transformation.

By Rebecca Traver

“Free will – now there is a tricky business. After all, it is freedom of choice that results in most of what gets created in our lives. There are questions implicit in this realization that it is our choices which ultimately create the outcome. We have to ask. We don’t really know what consequences our choices will have. So how can we know and be aware of the consequences of our choices when the choice is made? The answer is: we can’t know. More importantly, if the choice is sourced in fear and issues, we can be very sure that we are choosing based on a distorted impression of what that choice will bring about. This makes free will a bit of a hot potato.
The reason this is so is because a will governed by fear and issues is not free. It is, first of all, blind to many of its options, and it cannot trust that the creative flow will lead it in the direction of its treasured essence. It is not focused on the essence. It is focused on medication.
When the will is not free, creating is very hard work. The will starts looking for what will medicate its fear of the future. It becomes attached. Its view of reality is distorted, so it cannot tell what its options are. This is the reason that we cannot work to get into a flow. In fact, the harder we work at it, the further away we get from what flows for us.
Pulling things toward us, manipulating people or situations to get the outcome that will medicate our fear, projecting illusions to hide what we do not want others to see, or to make them think that something unreal is actually real—these consume a great deal of energy that is then not available for creative use. It requires a huge investment of energy to manipulate the reality of others to entice them to behave a certain way toward us. It is purely an act of fear, whether we are mollifying that person, actively seducing him, or simply positioning ourselves to indulge our appetites and self?medicate our fear of or resistance to the realities of uncertainty.” ~ Spotted Eagle

Contributed by Rebecca Traver

“To maintain spiritual boundaries, we must own what is ours, especially the suffering that is generated in the Mind. Mind causes us suffer with guilt, shame, blame, righteous indignation and pity. This suffering is not authentic pain because it is self-inflicted. Self-inflicted suffering leads us away from the truth. It takes us far from the present moment, and preoccupies us to the point of obsession with the illusions of our fears and issues.”

— Grandfather White Elk

Grandfather White Elk teaches us that trauma is experienced in the now as emotional pain. Authentic pain occurs in an emotional flow that moves naturally to a conclusion of peace and balance. Suffering, on the other hand, is experienced when Mind replays past trauma, imagines future trauma, or identifies with the trauma of others. Grandfather tells us that trauma can only be experienced by the self in present time. If it is not processed fully, trauma converts to drama created and sustained by the Mind. During the course of our lifetimes, we learn to suppress the present-time-pain of our trauma and warehouse that pain in our accumulating drama. This drama can be observed in our escalating emotional reactions to our issues. Drama is self-perpetuating and actually blocks the resolution of these issues.
Seeing that the drama is not real, that instead it is made up in the Mind, restores our emotional flow because it returns us to the truth of the present moment. In the now, we can be present with our pain and the pain of others. We can experience our sadness without regret, self-recrimination, or the compulsion to rescue. We can see ourselves, witness our spiritual condition, and tell the uncomfortable truth about what we must embrace or surrender in order evolve and restore ourselves to peace and balance.

“Many of you have a habit of allowing your Mind to drag you off into its fearful imaginings about the future. Notice that you are very willing to believe in the terrors you imagine even though most of them never come to pass. Notice that the more traumatic your early life was, the more you believe in a terrible future. Depending upon your personality, you will either believe that you can control the future, or believe that the future will overwhelm you. Notice that this story of what will happen is your personal mythology, based on your conditioning, your history and your beliefs. Notice that it has nothing to do with your possibilities to experience essence in the now.”

— Spotted Eagle

Spotted Eagle says that if we are to have peace of mind, we must first admit these things: we are resisting what has already been created; there is an uncertainty we cannot accept; and this uncertainty cannot be changed or controlled. We must further admit that the one thing we are most able to change is our thinking. If we do not start here, addressing the mythology of the Mind, then what we can and should do in the present moment will be hidden from us.

Spotted Eagle teaches that a willing heart accepts what has already been created, and then from this state of non-resistance, chooses to act or not act. He tells us that the willing heart can clearly see the facts. It knows what essence it desires, and uses this desire for essence as a context for action.

A willing heart is not a heart filled with fear-based or excited emotional reactions to an imaginary future. Instead, its willingness gives us a measure of neutrality that is palpable. When we are willing for the now to be what it is, we know how to transcend the mind’s restless desire for certainty, and instead move with the flow of the present moment by focusing our attention on the essence qualities of what we desire.

If we expend our present moment imagining all the terrible things the uncertain future might hold, our energy will be spent in agonizing paralysis or unnecessary action to prevent what we imagine but which is not real. If we fix our attention on a certain outcome and insist that the future deliver it, we squander the opportunity to experience any number of outcomes or forms which would satisfy our true desire, our desire to experience essence. Attachment to a certain outcome is incredibly limiting. Only that outcome satisfies. Essence can be satisfied by many forms.
Essence keeps our desires open and practical. It focuses our attention on what is now-based and available to us.

Essence defines the result we want—a feeling experience—in a way that keeps our options truly open. The anxious mind is obsessed and controlling and its strategies lead us to bitterness, frustration, disappointment and anger. It is only the expanding awareness of our potential and how to actualize it that the willing heart knows to nurture.

“Financial freedom has little or nothing to do with the amount of money or assets you possess. If you are stockpiling money and assets believing that this makes you secure, or if you are fearful that without a stockpile you are doomed to poverty, then you are truly shackled by your fear of the future, and have made yourself a slave to your illusions about security.”

— Spotted Eagle

Spotted Eagle teaches that a stockpile of resources which is tied to our fears may bring us more conveniences, but it is incapable of truly freeing us to live joyfully. He tells us that when we place our faith in hoarded resources, we have placed our faith in the illusion that money will shield us from pain and loss. If you follow the fortunes of celebrities whose personal tragedies make headlines in the tabloids, you can clearly see that money offers us no protection from suffering.

Spotted Eagle says we are infatuated with money because of our fantasies about what it would be like to want for nothing. Intoxicated by this fantasy, we blind ourselves to the truth that material luxuries alone will never satisfy our deepest longings for the things that give life its richness, like unconditional love, joyfulness, creativity, spiritual connection and peace of mind.

If we are to have a profound experience of the essence of financial freedom, we must discard the belief that freedom is about the amount of money and assets we may possess. If we attach our perception of freedom, or the lack of it, to the amount of money and possessions we have, our happiness is destined to be dashed on the rocks of our neediness for a security that does not now and never will exist.

“Hard work and struggle are familiar acquaintances, and you do not realize that you protect and defend them with attachment. A flow of resources that brings you joy and ease – this is what you hold as a dream in your heart. Detachment is the only doorway to this dream.”

— Spotted Eagle, from Transforming Your Finances

Spotted Eagle reminds us that our deeply ingrained patterns around money and finances are often so familiar to us that they seem like a normal state of affairs. However stuck these patterns may make us feel, they can provide the illusion of certainty, masking the fears we are unwilling or unable to confront. Through a thorough examination of these patterns, we can discover a foundation of fear that is driving our unconscious attachment to the way we currently deal with money. Examination of our patterns will allow us to notice that certain choices we habitually make are the key structure supporting our dysfunctional finances. If we are to reclaim our birthright of joy, creativity, and ease, our money patterns and those things in our lives which are tied to them must be targeted for transformation. Only then can we discover a new approach which moves us in the direction of emotional freedom and our dreams for an essence-rich life.

“I know it’s a big, DUH!” said my friend. “There is almost no pain when I am being authentic to my own needs and feelings.” It was so well-put, I felt compelled to share it with a little commentary on why this is vital to living well when we are facing big challenges.

It always amazes me how hard it can be to anchor our attention in the now-moment, even when things are going well. When things go awry, it can seem a monumental task to behave and choose based on what is true right now, without the distortions of past interfering and causing us to fear the uncertainties we face about the future. It is such a powerful temptation to feel that others’ problems, wants and desires are more important than meeting our own needs.

Spotted Eagle tells us that the only basis we have to perceive things in an authentic way, to behave authentically and to make authentic choices, is to bring our attention back to the now-moment. When the now-moment contains things we wish were not there, our resistance robs us of our willingness to be present, to face whatever challenge is before us, and to put our own oxygen masks on first before helping others.

There is nowhere we can run and nowhere to hide from the issues and conditioning that rise up in the mind when we are triggered by what is in the present moment. We can certainly choose to stay stressed and freaked out. But if we are to take dominion over our lives, a confrontation with our distortions is inevitable. Seeing our pattern of distortion is fundamental because without owning our patterns, we will be unable to free ourselves to perceive things in an undistorted way, to behave in a manner consistent with basic self-care, and to choose what we would choose if our thinking were not distorted by fear or fantasy.

It’s a tall order, but then again, being a human is not spiritual kindergarten. It’s more like a PhD program in how to live your authentic life, in spite of the material plane’s uncertainties.

“Vision devises nothing. Plans nothing. Designs nothing. Contrives nothing. It has nothing to do with what we hope will happen.”

— Spotted Eagle

I just posted an article on our sister site, Overcoming Fear of Uncertainty, in the Tools section, entitled Vision. In this powerful teaching, Spotted Eagle explores the principles that distinguish vision from fantasy and goals. Here is an excerpt:

“Vision is not about envisioning the future. Vision does not foretell; it does not predict the form the future will take or what the outcome of an endeavor will be. Vision is not a fantasy of an event or circumstances we can picture in our imagination. Vision is none of these things. Vision devises nothing. Plans nothing. Designs nothing. Contrives nothing. It is not empowered by what we hope will happen in future time. Vision refers, not to fantasy we make up in the imagination, but instead to the manner in which something is seen.”

Become a member to read the full text of this Spotted Eagle teaching. It’s free, and benefits include a one-hour introductory class on Overcoming Fear of Uncertainty.

What motivates a human being? Psychologists have been debating this for over a century. Darwin posited that motivation was driven by instinct, and Freud expanded upon this by theorizing that motivation had its basis in irrational, unconscious instincts, expressed within the mind. Modern behavioral and cognitive psychologists have explored and debated the role of intentions, desires and goals and their impact on the internal motives that explain human behavior. Spotted Eagle addresses these questions by drawing a distinction between fear-based motivation and essence-based desire.

Fear-based motivation describes the way in which the anxious Mind seeks to quell its fears by trying to guarantee certainty and security in an uncertain world. When the anxious Mind’s motivations drive behavior, we fantasize about a future where our fears and issues do not exist. Most fantasies are born of distorted, fear-based motivation and for this reason they are not powerful in guiding us to create what is practical, sustainable and satisfying.

Spotted Eagle says, “To be powerfully creative, you must go after the greatest distortion in your thinking—fear of the future—and overcome it, or nothing you do will produce sustainable or satisfying fruit.” He points out that where we feel powerful we usually do not fantasize about the future. Instead, we come to the now, open and available to whatever is there, whether it is painful or joyful. Because we feel powerful in this area, we have no neediness for fantasies to medicate our fear of the uncertain future. “Be present with your now and everything that is truly there within it,” he says. “Appreciate its joys, and rise to meet its challenges with courage and dignity. This is what catalyzes the growth that will evolve you into a person who can live the life of your dreams.”

This is an excerpt from a post on the Overcoming Fear of Uncertainty blog. Click here to read the full text.

“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.”

— Spotted Eagle

Spotted Eagle asks us to take a hard look at our attitudes about money, and how much reliance we place upon it. This reliance makes us forget the reasons we want money, and what we unconsciously expect that having more of it will do for us.

If we have not mastered living in the flow, we may want a lot of money because we think it will take away all of our problems and still allow the thinking that created those problems to remain. We may be so focused on money that we forget the simple truth that resources come in countless forms.

Fundamental to the partnership between Sprit and money is essence, the feeling experience we expect to receive when we are enjoying both the process of gathering resources and what those resources provide. When we allow essence to guide our desires, we can put money into its proper perspective as one of many equally useful tools in creating the life of our dreams.