Becoming our Observer

What does it mean to be a better observer

of all things happening in our world & how it

affects our spiritual awakenings during the

holiday season? Spiritual awakening is like

a big light bulb that illuminates all of life, &

the holidays & their myriad of cultural illu-

sions, beliefs, obligations & myths. Unfor-

tunately, we sometimes find there’s a lot of

unconsciousness around the holidays. For

instance, I’ve never stopped to think what

flying reindeer have to do with the birth of

Jesus, but since it has been engrained in

my mind since I was a child, I’ve gone along

with the notion & haven’t taken the time to

stop & think why it’s suppose to make

sense. Like everything else going on in our

lives, we need to stop & take a look & not

close our eyes anymore. Awakened

awareness steps forward, & it strips away

false beliefs around everything, including

holidays & all the hoopla associated with

them, if we really stop & take the time

If we want to reclaim the holidays in a way

that is meaningful to us, we can certainly do

this by increasing our awareness & being a

better observer. In many ways we do the

same thing with everything else & the holi-

days are no exception. As we pay more

attention, things that aren’t in alignment or

have no integrity are revealed. We are then

forced to make a choice; do we continue to

do something that is not in integrity & in

alignment with our being or do we change?

It’s important that we are at peace with our

decisions and actions. I think that’s one

way we can bring greater integrity back to

our holidays.

Cultural holidays aren’t going away. We

can choose to participate in ways that are

true to us. Whether we choose to celebrate

the Winter Solstice or Christmas, holidays

are a form of ritual & they are a way to hon-

or people, the passing of seasons, im-

portant changes in cultural history, etc.

However, many of them have been stripped

of their meaning & looked at just as days we

have off or a reason to over-indulge. In

other parts of the world, they get lost in zeal

& ideology; & thus, people get lost just as

badly in their holy day without realizing the

truth that EVERY DAY IS HOLY & should

be observed as that. Practicing a faith for

only one or two appointed days of the year

is a poor practice indeed. If anything, the

holidays should be a reminder about the gift

& sacredness of every single day of our

lives. When we realize this, we are able to

reclaim not just the holidays, but every day

as being holy.

Vast blessings~~~ Doug

OUR VISION STATEMENT

The Spiritual Light Center is a peaceful and

joyful fellowship of individuals, centered in

love, dedicated to the God within, and honor-

ing the many paths to truth.

January 2019 Newsletter

ONGOING EVENTS AT SLC

Every Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. Join our group

in the Hall for Movie Night! We enjoy a

good spiritual movie or documentary and

afterward pick a place and go out to eat!

UPCOMING SPEAKERS

January 6, 11 a.m.

Rev. Richard Talley met his wife Eileen at

Unity Village where they were married about

25 years ago. They have co-ministered var-

ious Unity Churches and now lead PATH

Ministries in Hendersonville. Richard will

share the African concept “Sankofa – Heal-

ing Your Present Through Your Past.”

January 13, 11 a.m.

Shantu Harrison is a very gifted animal

communicator and truly nature’s advocate,

a name the animals gave her. She is also a

great speaker. Shantu will share with us on

“Feeding the Hungry Ghost Within.”

January 20, 11 a.m.

Forrest Rivers is a local writer, teacher,

and spoken-word artist. He believes the

Earth is sacred and ALL paths lead to the

Oneness of God. Forrest is a wonderful,

gentle soul who will speak with us about

“Nature as a Spiritual Experience.”

January 27, 11 a.m.

Rev. Dr. Katherine R.B. Greysen was or-

dained a Science of Mind minister this past

November. She received her PhD in 2007

and left academic administration to teach

Communication Studies at Haywood Com-

munity College. Kate will speak on “Out-

reach/Reaching Out - Healing Our-

selves/Healing Others.”

Tuesday January 1st

9:45 until Noon in the Hall

YOGA NIDRA CLASS led by

April Wikstrom, Doctor of

Occupational Therapy &

Certified Yoga Instructor.

For details call April, 342-5910

aprilwikstrom@gmail.com $30 offering requested

Bring 2 blankets & a pillow

SPIRITUAL LIGHT CENTER INFORMATION

80 Heritage Hollow Drive, Franklin, NC 28734 (behind the Gazebo Restaurant)828-369-3065 slcfranklin@frontier.com www.spirituallightcenter.com

Becoming our Observer

A Bit of a Preface

by Bill Groves

Every method of therapy or rehabilitation I ever en-

countered during 25 years of counseling has had to do

with helping someone observe and gain insight into

their behavior and thought patterns. This is not easy to

do at first because behavior patterns can be very

deeply engrained with layers of defenses to protect

them. When that is the case we’re really dealing with

addiction. Not necessarily to drugs, but to behaviors

which are highly addictive.

Each occurrence of an addictive behavior is preceded by triggers and thought patterns. Becom-

ing conscious and aware of these triggers and thought patterns is essential if we want to gain

any power over our repetitive negative behaviors, such as anger outbursts, eating, isolation,

buying, excessive social networking, etc, etc. The “becoming conscious and aware” is the is-

sue.

The huge problem is that it is very easy for us to spend our life jumping from one thought to the

next, jumping from stimulus to immediate response with no reflection on or awareness of our

motivations, of what caused or led to what. To obtain that awareness we absolutely must slow

down the process and observe our self in action. To suggest we observe our thoughts and ac-

tions implies that we are separate from them. It implies our thoughts and actions are not our

selves, which is a new concept for many. If we aren’t our thoughts, actions, or body, then who

are we?

To continue to read even one more sentence we must agree that whatever we are it is eternal,

or an inclusive part of all that is eternal. If you’ll go that far with me then I’d ask, “Are our bod-

ies, actions, or thoughts eternal?” Well, my body’s getting kinda old and I hope that I won’t have

to stay in this aging vessel for another 67 years. My actions have a distinct beginning and end,

even though their consequences go on. My thoughts are so fleeting, like feathers in a gusty

breeze, and most have so little substance I know they vanish in an instant, unless I act upon

them and create a consequence. Whatever “I” am connects me to All That Is and is unaffected

by all this which is fleeting and temporary.

Sometimes in quiet moments I can sense this eternal Self unconditionally, lovingly being with

me - simply observing it all with patience and non-judgment. If I go up the ladder further I’d en-

counter the Christ, who I believe binds together all our eternal selves. I’m talking about the “me”

that binds together all my own lifetimes and is blessed from each of those incarnations. This

Self sees each of my actions in this life, which will be replayed at the end this existence.

If I allow it, this eternal Self can gently observe my behavior and allow me to watch along (since

we’re one anyway).. I suppose I could call it my conscience, my higher self, or whatever. But, if

I let myself slow down enough, I can catch myself doing whatever I am doing “in the act”. I can

sense myself gearing up to do something by observing my behavior, and even stop the train

before it becomes the “train wreck”. Observing myself, becoming “the Observer”, as Eckhart

Tolle and others have coined the phrase, is the beating heart of personal growth and spirituality.

Fortunately there are some good folks writing a lot on this topic to help us on our path. What

follows this are a couple of articles I hope will help you in your personal journey.

Becoming The Observer by Gary van Warmerdam

Becoming the Observer is more than just thinking

about yourself. It really is a different state of mind.

Whether you are doing meditation, mindfulness prac-

tices, therapy, or other personal development work,

becoming the observer is a critical skill to learn in or-

der to make personal changes. Being the observer is

more than noticing how you think about your self, and

even your behaviors.

Being an observer of your self requires that you be

aware of very subtle emotions, impulses, feelings in

your body, and behaviors. In this state of mind you will

have a different mental process. It would be more like

sitting in a hunting perch watching and waiting to see

what comes through the meadow. This can be difficult

when we watch our self. Many of our behaviors, emo-

tions, and impulses are automatic, and keep our at-

tention so engaged that we don’t have any bandwidth left to notice when that impulse, thought,

or emotion happened. We end up doing the response before noticing the sensation or thought

that stimulated a response. Once we are engaged in the response or reaction, the opportunity to

notice yourself doing it is lost.

The ability to become the observer of your self and your behavior is a vital step in changing your

behavior and emotional reactions. For instance, if you are prone to get angry (or some other

emotion or sabotaging behavior) you want to be able to choose not to say something before it

comes out of your mouth in a way that you will regret. Since most outbursts happen so fast, just

within the time it takes to have a nerve react, how do you intercede? It may seem you notice

only afterward and tell yourself how poorly you handled it. The answer is to develop a number

of new neural pathways in the brain that act as a kind of monitoring system. This will give your

mind, and your brain, a new way of working to help change the old ways. This does take time

and commitment to develop these pathways.

New neural pathways can be accomplished by doing some exercises regularly over a few

weeks. Once developed, you will have a kind of conscious monitoring system in your mind pay-

ing attention to little triggers, your emotional state, and patterns of thoughts that often precede

your outbursts. By being the observer you will have learned the important signposts to look for

within yourself or in your environment that tell you that you are nearing one of those angry out-

bursts. Before investigating these warning signals you won’t know they are there. You usually

discover them through a process of reviewing past outbursts. In any case, once you have them

you will see the signposts and getting a warning. This is what the observer part of your mind is

able to do.

Once you have the warning, you are also in a different conscious state. Not only do you have

the observer mind working but now you can also have your common sense reasoning on site to

consider the consequences of an angry outburst. That will help motivate you not to go there.

With your observer active in your mind, along with your common sense reasoning, you have a

much better chance of refraining when the angry energy swells up to rant. You will have three

parts of your mind working, two of them for refraining, and one pushing for the angry outburst. In

the beginning the two parts might still be small and get overrun by the anger, but with time those

patterns of the mind become stronger and can hold back the angry behaviors and words. As

you progress further you might use the power of your observer skills to look into the sources of

your anger.

Aspects of Being the Observer

When you get good at observing your self you will notice it the moment something triggers you.

You will notice the first sensation of feeling uncomfortable, the impulse to want to do something

in response, such as move, speak, or to withdraw from someone. When you are very skilled at

being an observer you will be able to observe this angry impulse and refrain from acting on it. In

this moment you will notice a second response, the one that happens in our body and emotions

when we don’t follow the old automated reaction to act out. It is in these moments that we grow

out of old patterns and begin to consciously create new patterns and behaviors.

Becoming the observer requires that we do it in a non-

judgmental witness manner. It is not enough to just think

about our self, any egotistical person can do that. When the

ego part of the mind thinks about our self it does it with a

mode of comparison. The ego part of the mind will compare

us to someone else, or an idealized version of our self we

hold in our belief system. It is evaluating how well or how

poorly we did something based on that standard for compari-

son. Our ego might even judge us for not being very spiritual-

ly aware. It produces thoughts about whether other people

are noticing us and what they might think. It is an egotistical

thought that says we are not meditating enough or not doing

enough mindfulness practices. While these may seem like

observations, they are not. These thoughts are criticisms with

an agenda. The result of which is that we feel worse.

When we act in the way of a neutral observer we notice different things. We notice when nega-

tive thoughts are arising from parts of our ego and the emotions they produce. In more height-

ened states of awareness we might also notice the idealized version in the background of our

mind being used as comparison. We might notice the idea that we could sit down and spend

some time in quiet meditation, and then notice how our emotions, thoughts, and body react to

that idea. As an observer we might notice negative thoughts rebut why it is not a good time, we

are busy, or that we will be better served by something else instead. In these moments we can

see the micro seconds it takes for our agenda to be changed, procrastination to happen, or for a

conflict in agenda to arise and feel uncomfortable. The Observer state of mind doesn’t see any

of these rebuttals or redirects as a problem as that would have an agenda. It just notices as if

you were studying the brush stroke style in a particular painting, or the wood grain in a piece of

furniture. If it were to think anything about them it would say, “I notice a rebuttal or conflict com-

ing from parts of my mind,,, interesting.”

The Observer Aware of Itself as a State of Mind

When you become the observer you will notice that your thoughts

arise all by themselves. You will notice that your mind thinks all

by itself and you can sit there and listen to it and watch the imag-

es it projects. In the beginning of noticing you will often have re-

action to the chatter of internal dialog. There might be thoughts

wishing it would quiet down, or that you aren’t meditating very

well, or confused as to why interfering thoughts don’t stop. At this

stage you are having too many reactions to really be the observer yet, but you are a step closer

to that state of mind. After a while you move on to observe the reactions as well as the initial

impulses. This is another state of mind for extending your mindfulness practice.

One of the byproducts of this process is that you realize that you can sit and listen without re-

sponding to the initial impulses, or the reactions to those impulses and thoughts. When you are

doing this you realize yourself as something separate from these impulses and the mind that is

doing the thinking, talking, and reacting. You are calm and conscious of your self while around

you the mind is busy with chatter and impulses to do something. You become aware that your

mind is separate from you. With this awareness you also become aware that you are separate

from your mind. This can be both a very interesting new sense of self, and uncomfortably unset-

tling at the same time. The unsettling part will soon pass.

As you practice becoming the Observer you will notice more subtle things that affect you. In the

beginning you might notice you are procrastinating. Over time you will notice the different things

you are doing that leads you to procrastinate. With progress you will notice how when you think

of starting on a task that your mind jumps to checking your email, or calling a friend. With more

practice you might observe a kind of automatic impulse down your arm that moves your hand to

your computer or phone. You will become aware that you really barely thought about doing

something and your body was already in the action. You may begin to wonder what is making

this happen and why does it happen. This kind of curiosity will help with motivation to practice

more and diversify your mindfulness practices. In this state of mind there can be a sense of cu-

riosity about all these subtle things happening. You might have a state of wonder or watchful-

ness while watching your mind.

Resistance to this Mindfulness Practice

At the same time, the ego part of your mind will likely be doing things to push you away from

further investigation. Becoming the observer of these resistance dynamics, such as procrastina-

tion, challenges the status quo of the ego and unconscious belief system. This may cause un-

comfortable feelings. This will lead to the next layer of practice for an observer. You will need

to observe these uncomfortable feelings and refrain from acting on them. You might notice that

these feelings send the signal to your mind that you should get busy doing something so you

feel better. The result of acting on these feelings will likely be that you become so busy that you

don’t have time to practice being the Observer as intently as you were doing. You might notice

that this is a kind of defense by the belief system to stop the changes in new behavior you are

making. What I am saying here is that your ego mind and unconscious beliefs will put up vari-

ous kinds of resistance and roadblocks to your practice of becoming the Observer. Some peo-

ple might find it easy, but I have found those people to be rare. For most people becoming a self

aware Observer is to be worked at.

As a practical exercise, begin sitting still and noticing all the sensations you feel with each inhale

and exhale of your breath. Then begin to observe all the things that come to pull your attention

away from observing the sensation of breathing. This will give you a good start for developing

the skills of a conscious observer.

A Zen Master’s Strategy to Stop Thought Cycles

from hackspirit.com

If you’ve ever read wisdom from the likes of

Buddha, Osho or Eckhart Tolle, then you’ve

undoubtedly heard the phrase “become an

observer of your mind.” But what does it ex-

actly mean?

Becoming the observer simply means that

you take a step back from your mind and

become aware of your thinking patterns and

how you’re responding to things. This is im-

portant because we all develop patterns of

thinking over our lifetime, many of which are

unconscious and can undermine our mental

health by trapping us in painful moods.

Our mental habits can be both useful and far from useful—to start sorting out the difference we

first have to notice them. Below we’ve found a passage from spiritual master Osho who explains

exactly how to go about becoming an observer of the mind so we can liberate ourselves from

conditioned patterns of thinking.

How to become an observer of your mind and liberate yourself

“Become an observer of the currents of thought that flow through your consciousness. Just like

someone sitting by the side of a river watching the river flow by, sit by the side of your mind and

watch. Or just as someone sits in the forest and watches a line of birds flying by, just sit and

watch. Or the way someone watches the rainy sky and the moving clouds, you just watch the

clouds of thoughts moving in the sky of your mind. You simply sit and watch. It is the same as if

you are sitting on the bank, watching the thoughts flowing by. Don’t do anything, don’t interfere,

don’t stop them in any way. If it is not coming don’t try to force it to come. You are simply to be

an observer….

“In that simple observation you will see and experience that your thoughts and you are separate

– because you can see that the one who is watching the thoughts is separate from the thoughts,

different from them. As you become aware of this a strange peace will envelop you because you

will not have any more worries. You can be in the midst of all kinds of worries but the worries

will not be yours. You can in the midst of many problems but the problems will not be yours. You

can be surrounded by thoughts but you will not be the thoughts…

“And if you become aware that you are not your thoughts, the life of these thoughts will begin to

grow weaker, they will begin to become more and more lifeless. The power of your thoughts lies

in the fact that you think they are yours. When you are arguing with someone you say, “My

thought is”. No thought is yours. All thoughts are different from you, separate from you. You are

only a witness to them.”

Some practical ways to practice being “the observer”

There are a few ways to practice what Osho mentioned above. You might like to visualize your

thoughts as pictures projected up onto a move screen, while your awareness is “you” sitting in

the audience watching the show. Or you might like to picture your thoughts as clouds that drift

across the sky of your awareness.

When you eventually catch yourself having drifted away in thought, you might note that fact us-

ing the label “thinking” and saying that to yourself before gently escorting your attention back to

the breath or body.

What a liberation to realize that 'the voice in

my head’ is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that voice in my head with love. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Samadhi but extends my conscious realm

Beyond the limits of the mortal frame

To farthest boundary of eternity

Where I, the Cosmic Sea,

Watch the little ego floating in me.

~Paramhansa Yogananda

◄ December January 2019 February ►

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1

Yoga Nidra

Class with April Wikstrom 9:45a.m. to Noon SLC Hall

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4

5

6

11:00 Sunday Service

Rev. Richard Talley

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4:30 p.m. Movie Night

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13

11:00 Sunday Service

Shantu Harrison

14

15

4:30 p.m. Movie Night

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20

11:00 Sunday Service

Forrest Rivers

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4:30 p.m. Movie Night

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11:00 Sunday Service

Rev. Dr. Katherine R.B. Greysen

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4:30 p.m. Movie Night

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