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This page is dedicated to sharing various "miscellaneous" writings from over the years that have not (yet?) made it into a published book. Your engaging comments, dialogue, and questions are welcome via email or in person!

​Please note: The post date is indicated by the date in italics. In the title of the post, however, in larger, bold letters, I put the date that the original was written. My intention is to give you a more raw, "under-the-hood" glimpse of how my journey has unfolded, to show you where I've been and how I got to where I am (in hopes that you can find some resonant breadcrumbs for yourself and where you are), and to exemplify the fearless vulnerability, integrity, and radical responsibility that I encourage in each of you.

They digest best if read and received meditatively, and not like a typical blog or social media post (i.e. informational/surface level only).

​(There was a glitch in the "comment section," so I have disabled that feature.)

Journal Entry - August 8, 2011

9/17/2019

 
     All that I do seems to be an expression of an endless, infinite spectrum—-shadow-light, shadow-light, shadow-light—-this side of the Absolute. Never purely dark, never purely illumined. I need the oscillation to catapult beyond, into immediate, trans-dual, impersonal seeing. Why are we taught that shadow is bad? Why taught to prefer the light? Why do I still look over my shoulder for someone looking back over at me, in anticipation of being scolded over one wrong step, blindly obeying what I'm told in rote behaviorism?
     
My biggest fear is the possibility of punishment as the result of such failure, so I order my life (and my mind) around obsessively ensuring it never happens. I wag my tail so you'll pat my head and cower for your approval. The truth is that this has produced a stalwart body-mind-persona complex that everyone loves!—-at the expense of not loving myself—-and a talented, capable facade that does everything right, white-knuckling through the performance with a smile. I have contrived a way in the darkest of shadows to be "good at stuff" in order to earn praise and accolade--out of darkness comes a distorted light. Or is it distorted at all?
     
What's so skewed about wanting to be liked and wanting to be proud of accomplishments? Nothing if it's not an addiction. Nothing if it's not an aversion. Nothing if it's not running away. Nothing if it's not all-consuming. But so it has become for me: The object of desire promises happiness, and when received refuses to give it. The poisonous need for affection, esteem, attention, and affirmation is actually never satisfied, and thus forms a toxic co-dependency where both of us--me and the need-—are left wanting. Left wanting even when I get what I think it is I want. Wanting and wondering what I did wrong or what's wrong with them for not noticing. The options are clear: give up, surrender, try harder, make it worse.. Has the shadow brought me to where I now am? Is this an auspicious grace? Is this new awareness the first step to redemption? I pray this be a true glimpse of freedom and not just a decorated prison cell.
     F
or the first time ever, I am intentionally putting myself in situations that evoke my insecurity, trying new things that I don't instantly excel at and that don't feed the loop of "what they think of me and how to sway their opinion." This is the furnace of transformation induced by my will against my will, by the strength of my hand despite the squirming underneath, all guided by an inspiration and sustained by a Presence far greater than I can say. Can I stay here until the dross is burned away? Until all attachment is released? Until the clinging become an open hand? Can I learn to rejoice when I am not given the object of desire? When I don't draw attention for how special and gifted I (think I) am? May this become a beautiful crown of thorns, my drops of blood adorning the path of suffering all the way to liberation.
     In this way, there is no such thing as a misstep or a mishap, for all is returning to the Source, and Love is driving the whole display. God has lost Himself in the world of form and is steadily finding Himself again. When all the layers have peeled away, nothing is left for fixation--nothing to be, nothing to have, nothing to hold, nothing to need, nothing to fear—-and all is seen clearly from the place that cannot Itself be seen. Mysteriously I am a part of this somehow, like it or not, a part of this force that's forcing me to let go, praise or no praise, success or failure, into my own transcendent obliteration. Who Am I? God finding God, even in these pages? Who am I to think different? Who am I otherwise? Who am I when all that I have known myself to be is gone? Who Am I. . .? Who Am I. . .? Who Am I. . .?

Journal Entry - July 19, 2011

9/2/2019

 
The buzzing-and-grinding has returned to my brain. How can a small pink pill make it stop? But it does. Can I allow even this? Can the buzz be a hum that sings me awake? Can the grind refine me to an easy surrender? To just this? All is aching for God. But the ache is in a fundamentally incorrect assumption that God is not here. The eyes are wide with searching; searching for what? All is already given. There is nothing lost; therefore nothing to be found. 

Still stimulus everywhere! It's too much. Can I just breathe? Fragmented thoughts, swirling. Can I catch one? Watch the turmoil of my being, and contemplate its return. Returning, returning, all returns. I can clamp my eyes shut and try not to see while the entire process I witnessing effortlessly.

Probably the most profound realization is this: A pill cannot stop anything. Only I can. Unnecessary reliance on the exterior is shadow-hugging, ignoring my own capacity to stop the incessant obsessing. Somehow I was made victim of a monster called OCD. The anxiety and scrupulosity that have been for years "attacking me from the outside" are nothing more than cut-off and alienated parts of my self: Excitement to experience the world in its fullness, desire to create a life of my own, capability to make decisions for myself--all numbed and dumbed down by repressive rules and others' agendas. They turn against me under the insidious disguise of a diagnosed disorder that no longer fits, that I now disown.

Worry. Fear. Anxiety. Guilt. Dread. My whole lot my whole life. Every day, I wake up with a sour pit churning my stomach. "What did I do wrong?" "Who's mad at me?" are the first thoughts to rudely intrude my conscious mind. I was raised to believe that God is watching, and a little disappointedly at that, in everything I do. No one thing caused the belief--it was a perfect storm of poison, dose by dose absorbed into my bloodstream. Have to do right, think right, believe right, say right. . . Or what?! I don't know.

Though having left that world behind (I think), the leftover pathogens creep and crawl into my new habitat. The ego has changed costumes. Apparently I am "more aware," "more awake," "more mature," "higher up the mountain of evolved consciousness"; but it's the same shit: The "should" dilemma demands my very freedom and haunts my every thought, paralyzing my ability to fluidly act, think, speak, be. I feel guilt if I don't meditate, failure if I don't reach a particularly aimed-for state, worry if I eat something not organic, fear and paranoia of losing sleep if I drink too much caffeine, dread to fulfill a teaching commitment with hopes that no one shows so I don't have to deal with my own self-criticizing insecurity. . . "Is this okay? Am I okay?"--sheepishly looking over my shoulder for the proverbial head-nod from some authority outside myself. Still obsessed with do-it-right-say-it-right-think-it-right. . .even be-spiritual-right. And if I don't? I still have not found out. "Something bad for sure," it says. Something bad for sure.

I am now off medication for the first time in fifteen years and nothing is clear. The liberating power of having done it myself is intoxicating, but no clue what to do next; never functioned without the synthetic chemicals doing it for me. This goes deeper than neurological malfunction and pharmaceutical weaponry anyway--this is shadow itself; this is the mind, my mind, and the mind is only the mind is only the mind is the only the mind. This is the mouth of the lion; the mainframe motherboard; the heart of the beast; the root of disease. This is my wound dealt with a deadly blow that only the precision of a surgeon's hand can heal. And this is my offering to the world in its despair, my gladness to its hunger, the "touch my side" sign of real pain endured, my thorn of sufficient grace, and the wound by which I heal the world.

    Kemper Kaliana

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