I had a knee-jerk response to what I perceived as strangeness with the robe and waterfall, and wasn’t sure I wanted to post, but this teaching did overlap with some dynamics that were unfolding in my little corner.
After I posted and received a few comments,I became uncomfortable. I debated about removing the video, but the comments section became full of interesting takes on teachers and words and individual paths…The energy there made me leave this teaching up. In a 27 minute video, there are many words spoken; some of these words resonate, some now seem discordant to me in a new day and new light.
The part that resonates with me is the concept of sitting deeply within for that is what had been on my small fractal menu lately, a pointing to a field beyond wanting. It seems there does come a point when all attainment begins to be seen as nice but still ephemeral in its relation to the core flow. Attainment and loss are naturally arising in life. Beyond this cycle, there seems to be an awareness that the self sits with the self in rain and snow, and in tears and ache, and in sun and breeze, and in welling up and lazy stillness, and in booming pain and gentle ease. The perception of anything is allowed to play through while the self remains, no matter what, come what may.
In light of this sitting with anything that arises, sorrow or joy – I sit with the moment of posting this video and the moment of moving on. I sit with ones who will listen and respond to me with open hearts without judgement. I sit with myself when I am full of ideas and when I can empty myself out of these ideas. It is saturday morning, the 21st, solstice, and a particularly clear and simple bird song is coming through my window with the morning light – that sun light that will illuminate my corner of the world for a longest day of the year. Love to you who venture here.
Life as Improv 
Wow just wow. I am on my knees with gratitude. I’ve never heard of her. What a brilliant clarity. It is exactly what I needed to hear this morning. Thank you you. Thank you Universe. ❤ ❤ ❤
These words are well timed for me too in my goings on and non goings on right now. Thank you everydamnthing! 😉
Hi Marga,
I do agree with her that resistance to suffering is itself suffering. That has been my experience anyway.
I don’t agree though, that the goal of life is to be free, of anything. Maybe because generalized, big, life goals strike me as impossible to reach, except for death itself.
Love itself, to see sheer beauty in another and love them deeply, and then to lose their presence, whether from distance or death itself, with all the attendant pain, belongs to the love. Love is giving of oneself over to the vulnerability of pain from being so open to feeling.
Teal may agree with that, I don’t know, but she does seem to go back and forth between suggesting that we can be free from feeling and saying that when feeling flows through us, without our resistance, we won’t suffer. I still think we do suffer, but the suffering is from being directly touched, from the love and desire, and not from resistance.
Desire I see as an emptiness and it might be tempting to keep it at bay by filling it. Again, the desire itself is not the trouble, it’s what we do with it, how we attend to it. Desiring, when we have the ability to reflect and feel its pangs, allows us to differentiate and refine the direction of its aim.
I also question the aspiration to re-integrate, or to be whole. I think that the pieces we become, when being “broken” are how we can come to understand ourselves as a multiplicity of experiences and influences that then becomes a cooperative, and with that understanding, we can also extend to with other people.
I did enjoy listening to her put into language some very difficult ideas and experiences. I hope you don’t mind my critique here, or maybe I am getting what she’s saying all wrong.
xxx
Debra
I Love hearing your thoughts, Debra! I’m often struck when I read your posts by your great capacity for reasoning, and I recognize a difference in the way you and I process information. I may be totally crazy 🙂 but I don’t have any discord with either you are Teal. I often recognize now, as I try to teach different minds and learning styles in the classroom, that all these ways have their purpose and place. If you and I were side by side in a class, given an assignment, I smile to myself, imagining your dissertation worthy exploration, while I might get up and do an interpretive dance with a poem and art piece. I’m not addressing what you are saying, but I just wanted to qualify where I am coming from first.
This teaching from Teal, who is fairly new to me, appealed in light of where I find myself right now, not past desire, but in a place where I feel the knowing that getting anything I want does not make one bit of difference. I sense a shift in me in trusting the journey itself with allowance in a new way – so the overlap to me was striking.
i think that her pointing probably does have some conceptual flaws, for what she is describing isn’t describable, right? The wording or semantics for this feeling of levels can be off – but overall, I think the cognitive dissonance and paradox recognition is a familiar dynamic for me. I am often wondering about the teaching of following bliss versus absolute allowance, gaining one’s desires or moving beyond desires. This is a dance of duality that spins itself out, maybe. This internal sinking seems to exist in a larger ocean than duality, a pointing to a place in the field beyond beyond seeking, or running. Desire that arises becomes an urge for movement, but does not hold with it expectations. The loss of love you describe is still experienced fully, I think, in this space. Perhaps no desire or wanting is needed to be alive and love.
Re-integration, a desire for wholeness – even in the wording, it seems a wanting. Such a mystery, that. I see how the brokenness and experiential nature of life is what connects us – But I can easily see that we are being conceptual as well. Perhaps another paradox – are we ever broken? No, but we can remember the feeling of that – and thus connect with our hearts…I can’t explain – can I dance it out? haha.
So very honored that you would give of your time and attention in this way, Debra! I do admire the way your wheels turn and I am so glad I chose a seat beside you in this crazy class we are taking! xoxo! m
Oh Marga, I am so relieved to hear your reply! It’s so hard to tell how things sound, when they don’t sound at all, in this sense-devoid space of the internet. 🙂
I think for all the reasons you state, the paradox and conceptualization of the ineffable, are perhaps what draws me to try to spell it out, but you’re right, and words can only take us so far.
I suspect that most of what I write, expresses my own wrestling matches between competing ideas, or ways to understand. But, I would never want to assume that it comes across that way.
I am so grateful for these exchanges, Marga. Your friendship here means a lot to me.
Much love,
Debra
I watched this with… awareness that trauma is difficult to grapple with, especially in ideas of “outcome.” I like your comment, and haven’t anything more, or better to say… so you plus me… says enough.
One, internal thought: it’s always a work in progress, this life, and this tender video reminds me I am not different than Teal in trying forms of expression through environmental systems, over time. 😉
Thanks, marga t.
i have been following teal’s teachings for a while and they’ve brought me a lot of peace and deeper understanding on many subjects. like you, i don’t often click on videos, but hers are so powerful! thank you for sharing! ❤ aleya
Aleya,
I am not so familiar with her (just a bit here and there), but this video really resonated! 27 minutes is a big commitment these days – thank you so much for joining in here today. xo! marga
Be with your pain, BE with yOur joy 🙂 …until we find that place of just being period
…no labeling or strings in duality of thought with any form of judgement attached (I wouldn’t recommend driving when in that state at first though! Being in a body, we are the physical living examples of that duality).
In Teal’s presentation, I see nice pieces of applicable truth in summary for one who (like us all!) is still a work in progress. I have run into a few snippets from her before, but some of them are not so free of contradiction. Not a criticism per say as I get to work out my lingering conflicting issues in privacy for the most part out of the public eye and Teal does not. However, when one makes the choice to put their voice out there proclaiming with others their experience of our shared truths, in my opinion, it comes with it an absolute need to live with those truths active in their life with as close to impeccable integrity as they can.
I always am reminded of the importance of taking a look into the state of the personal life any teacher, because that is where they live out their actual functional access to these truths when the camera is off. When you publicly pronounce yourself as a spiritual leader, you better be ready for a bit of blow back when you do not always practice what you preach. 🙂 (And thus, we discover why this M is more than content not to hang out a shingle advertising any special spiritual awareness at this time).
And besides, I still love me some puffy Cheetos and Snickers bars at midnight from time to time… which if my understanding is right, the eating of serves to “cut one off from the signal clarity of source”. If one needs to be a no sugar or flour eating Vegan, I think Houston, we have a problem…we still have some growing to do. WANTING 🙂 to be one, well that is another matter altogether (lol).
Light and love and light and love…very much enjoyed the share.
-xx.M
Lots can be said for the benefits of the cloaking device of an “ordinary” life 🙂 I’ll toast your cheeto with my chilled hard cider tonight! xo! m
Enough with the shingles already. IMO, we don’t need any more teachers adding to the static. We need ourselves, not more gurus to line up behind like sheep and blindly follow down yet another “path”, however sincere and well intentioned of all involved. Your thoughts?
Dammit S! I just finished printing up my business cards. You were going to be my first follower….yeah, right!
It does seem through our human collective experiences with teachings and teachers, we come across many who are wishing to find living embodiments of truth who can give community and direct guidance for the rough patches. Is this a phase or a necessary part of learning to find one’s own path? Is this an easy trap? Do we wish to escape the responsibility of finding out own way or is this a reflection of our desire to be a part of a group, being “social” creatures and all?
It does get chaotic out there, one thing after another, layer upon layer of noise.
I think Friending Being Lost at Sea: http://seeingm.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/friending-the-lost-at-sea/ That M is pointing to is in part allowing oneself to step away from the need for a guide – a leader – allowing oneself to be still and quiet enough to hear the inner guidance. The reason the sea metaphor works so well I think is that we have to abandon the crowds, even the spiritual crowds. It can feel lonely and undirected…
Those be my thoughts, at least this morning. Later today, you can come by and be my first customer for a hands on feet channeling dolphin light worker release party for one, discount rate for fellow Andromedan sister. (Hopefully no one who stumbles here and reads this will hate me forever! I make fun of many things, including my own taste in clothes and poor cooking skills.)
Excellent Marga. Thanks. Always helpful how you get me 🙂 BTW, aren’t you also a Reiki master? My cat needs a treatment. Love you much.
Static allows for the practice and exercise of discernment. At certain points, I think it is important to wade through it to help one fine tune their truth to BS detectors…it is time limited the help from doing that, though. A certain point, we do turn the TV evangelists off for good 🙂 and focus on the inner signal.
It has been my experience that true and powerful teachers have always, all ways done enough egoic house cleaning within themselves that what they offer to a fellow rememberer (student 🙂 ) is a place to mirror oneself and to see/feel what it is to access and BE self with their TEMPORARY assistance. For a time, the good ones facilitate a borrowing (so to speak) of some of their experience with clarity and wisdom until we remember how to access inside past the illusion of separation consistently on our own.
True teachers act as a focusing lens to help remove erroneous filters quickly…holding binoculars up to our eyes for rapidly seeing the place that they CURRENTLY stand in action from stillness all the time (they should be in evolving motion while still, too!). The good/true ones then send us back off on our own, back to where we currently stand, to live our day to day lives practicing returning to where they are located within self all the time, but this time doing so on our own (while allowing the checking back in with them from time to time for a bit of help/encouragement when we truly need it).
True teachers are not destinations, but launching pads.
In my opinion,Teal has pretty good access to some important truths, but her ability to apply past egoic filters/interpretation is a work in progress. This is what I intuitively feel in her presentation. However, I do not ever discount that we are actually in the presence of Masters who are coming back and poking fun with us by “Guruing out” to push buttons, either. 🙂 I would have to meet Teal in person to get the feel for if this is actually happening with her or not (I would put my money on not at the moment, but I leave possibility always open). These enlightened BEING beings can take the form of jesters, jokers and tricksters with their Guruing persona, but always in their physical presence I have what I experience as HEAVY, deep, peaceful presence rolling underneath the circus show surrounding their physicality.
All paths eventually lead to the same inner teaching place, it is just how clean and direct can we access our inner “home” teacher/ings. How free of distraction is the garden leading to our own front doors?
The pink flamingos with LED sparkles still have the ability to catch my eye from time to time, thus no claim of teacher here.
However, it is my experience that we all unofficially teach each other all the time.
Mirror, mirror on the wall… -xx.M
Agree with all, M. I suppose I was venting some frustration with how so many people are selling their spiritual “specialness” everywhere I look. It feels like a massive insane narcissistic circus side show. I long for more connection on equal footing….helping each other along the way unconditionally, lovingly, offering what we are able to give generously, no charge, no expectation, no quid pro quo. Seems as if more and more people are looking to create a lucrative business of this business. I’m weary of running into it at every turn 😦
Marga,
I haven’t heard of Teal before, either, but enjoyed the video. It is interesting to watch the video and see the various responses, and to sit with my own… 🙂 I have been thinking a lot lately about this movement from uncertainty and not knowing, to certainty and knowing, and the paradox about our being creators of our own reality vs the need to surrender to what is. And one conclusion I have come to is that every thing we encounter that speaks to us is astoundingly perfect. I have a tendency to want to take people along the path I walked, so they could see the sites that spoke to me, and hear the words that spoke to me, but our ways home are unique. I could take another person to the same places I have stood, and they would see something totally different. One moment speaks uniquely to each of us. One video like this speaks uniquely and perfectly to each one who sees it. It is incredible! The parts that we question, are good for us to question. The parts that ring our hearts like a bell, are delicious sign posts. They are both elements of the movement of the whole Universe bringing us to the most glorious place within.
I think there is absolutely something to this being present, that it is vital, and I also have come to the conclusion that there is a creative, collaborative field beyond this time of being present, beyond wanting perhaps, where we discover what is ours to give to this world and all that is around us. It is like, with full acceptance, we discover our treasure, and then we cannot help but seek to find ways to communicate and share it. I think first we go out into the world seeking, then we find our way back within, by hook or by crook, and then our movement in the world is no longer a seeking, no longer a means to fill a void, but a giving, a filling of the niche only we can fill. Creation without any one of us offering who we are has a little void, that little missing “who you are.”
Don’t ask me what it’s like to sustain this! 🙂 I sustain it for seconds at a time, then stumble. But I think we’re here not only to encounter precisely those experiences that will give us the opportunity to rediscover the brilliance within, but to sustain that discovery into a living reality by sharing it. In some sense, this is why we need one another. We can “know” who we are alone, within, but there is a way that giving the authenticity we discover to one another is the consummate act of Creation. And I think we are here to create. There is a great line in A Course of Love that spoke to me: “You would not be other than you are.” We think when we “get it” that everything will be different. But maybe not. We will be who we always have been, just absent the striving and seeking, free to give the gift of ourselves. Just who we are. I find that to be a most beautiful thought.
Michael
I wouldn’t want to miss your input for the world!
You are displaying extrasensory perception of the momentary dilemma I was having for not having vetted the source. No matter – What speaks for whatever reason at this little blip in time, speaks. Perfect words for right now!
Do Rumi or Hafiz have any skeletons? I think I will post a Hafiz poem before slumber for a wonderful palate cleanse after the wide range of flavors of today!
I love love love this angle, Michael, of the returning to the world with our presence. I can see this authenticity, mostly in the classroom these days, for me, where I find the human purpose and the spiritual combine for a ruckus good time of in the moment whatever arises. Soul meets soul often these days for me there. Then in other arenas, some memory or discomfort puts a wall down and authenticity cannot be found. Perhaps it is a to and fro process, and I am returning again to that inner pain and joy for the parts that are not quite stripped to that deliciously authentic place where we are each the perfect us – the only ones with our very own particulars. The thing that has surprised me in the past couple of years is how very easy and natural and funny every little moment can be – once we taste that, we easily turn from the bland or fake indulgences – Only the real will satisfy.
Thank you, MIchael for the insights, deep connections, and field uplinks so perfectly timed! Freaky is starting to seem normal and I am finding I do like this life away from Kansas!
Have a wonderful night, my friend! m
Emotional Vipassana – Yes! I was so skeptical at first like who is this weird chick who is so beautiful and spiritual and strange? What kool aid has Marga been drinking? But wow, Wow! So timely. I’ve had depression most of my life and lately anger is arising and I was trying to change it because ‘its not spiritual’ but I started to just allow myself to feel all these complex emotions – I had been feeling very angry at someone and invalidated and I decided to validate myself this morning – even though a whole group of people just told me I was flat out wrong. It’s that being there for yourself even when you go ‘wrong’ through all those so called negative emotions that is the spiritual balm. Wow. Love this 🙂 Thank you!
Come on down, I’ll make you a cool, tall glass of kool aid, Erin! We often seem to connect in our flow, don’t we?
You say many things, chocked full of much wisdom that can come from embodying ourselves fully (not just the lovely spirituality, but everything) Anger is a vibrational step up from depression – and a necessary step, it seems to me! We can feel the surge of energy increase as we step up to anger – like moving up a scale. From there we can flow to more and more empowered places. Also, I love the way you stood your ground in the sea of disapproval – so easy to bail on ourselves when we stand alone like that – and reject ourselves for being or seeming ‘wrong’.
I often say to myself and I find it coming out of my mouth as a parent and teacher – “you have to be your own best friend” – which sounds like a pat phrase – but really it applies to so many things we go through. We can pat ourselves on the back, we can soothe with kindness and true words, we can can laugh at our slips and trips with love, we can understand and listen, we can make ourselves cups of tea and give room for whatever needs to be seen, with love. With love, we sit with ourselves. That is a best friend. A best friend doesn’t leave us in the dumps, condemn us with the crowd, dismiss what we are feeling. We came along with ourselves for the whole journey! Best friends can’t even do that.
So now are you calling the Multiple Personality Disorder hotline to help me? haha I almost took this video down, but I am so glad I didn’t. Sometimes words are helpful, for whatever reason. xo!! m