Discover Awareness

Have you discovered that you are not a who, but a what. I am, you will find out, is pure awareness without content. Obviously not a person.

The reason we can ask "Who am I?" is because at some fundamental level we know that our essence is not a person. But, you will notice, the person does have a relationship with the I am. The two are one with apparent separation. What a wonderful trip.

Discover The Truth

Meaning is like the discoveries in science. We don't create meaning, we discover it. The truth was present before you were born and will be there after you're gone. So just relax, fall into yourself and see what's there.

So much goal orientation is mental gymnastics, orchestrated to make the ego feel like it's got somewhere to go. The truth is already here, present and accounted for. Let go and drop into it. It has only to to be discovered.

Love Itself

Love has nothing to do with others. There is only one love, and it's you. When the self loves the Self the whole creation becomes love itself. There was never another, it just seemed so. When this becomes obvious love is not hard to find. It was you all along.

Lost and Found

God loves the lost as well as the found, but only the found know the cost. 

Every Life Is In Service To The Whole

It seems apparent to me that "every life is in service to the whole" because life, existence, is one interrelated whole. Individual forms exist, but they are not self created and owe their being to the supreme. The creator made the forms and choreographed the dance.

When we acknowledge the creator, we follow the dance. Those who do not acknowledge the creator feel separate, alone, on their own, and need to grab their share.

There is only one dance, and it is in honor of the creator. Those who honor the creator know they are a part of the whole and work to find where they can contribute. They know the whole has their regard as well. Those who don't know this are fighting on their own with no knowledge of support.

False Assumptions Are Deadly

Can you really be happy if you are out of touch with reality? Same for truth. To deal with a situation you have to know the facts of the situation. This is why beliefs and assumptions can be extremely dangerous. You can build beautiful castles in the sky on false premises. But they will not last. They come tumbling down with the next storm.

I have known extremely intelligent thinkers with powers of logic that plow lesser minds into the dust. They usually win intellectual battles, but they lose the war. No matter how pristine their logic, the precision of their thinking, if it is based on a false assumption or two,  winning a battle is of no avail.

A much simpler mind that is willing to look at its assumptions, that is willing to challenge its beliefs, has a much better chance of having a successful life. Their house is built on rock, while the great mind that failed to challenge their beliefs, built their house on sand. That house will not stand.

Every life is in service to the whole. Some know it, some do not. Those who know it live a life of gratitude full of reward. Those who don't, live a life of clutch and grab, stressful to the end.

You Are The Authority

Some of us have an innate intuition that guides us. I always trusted mine and it served me well. If a book, teacher or guide doesn't resonate, go another direction. If it does resonate, go for it, but keep discernment front and center. You can learn from others, but put no head above your own.

All Is Well

I'm a good loner, so I'm in my element. Since the Covid-19 stay at home order, I've installed a bamboo floor in my office. Fixed a plugged kitchen drain, and installed a new garbage disposal. It's time well spent. It's like Zen for me. When I do manual labor (I did this with no help) it's like meditation. Nothing goes on in my mind but the task at hand. I'm pretty sore right now, but the jobs are done.

Tomorrow I plant my tomatoes and maybe watch my garden grow. I don't really have the ability to panic, and I'm not feeling stressed. I do my best to console some relatives who think it's the end of the world. But all is well. I do know that.

Unique Aloneness

In your absolute unique aloneness you are one with everyone. From alone to alone to alone, one. I got a sense of this one very cold winter day. I was looking out the window feeling very alone. I saw a squirrel hopping across the snow and then up a tree. I thought, he is so alone, no one cares whether he lives or dies. In that moment my alone and his were one. There was no separation.

Awareness As Identify

Obviously the creator is doer of all things. The point is, the creator in itself is not affected. So, if you identify as the creator you get to enjoy the world in all its glory with security and peace. The essence of the creator in life is simple awareness. It is the field in which we play. 

Truth and Beauty

I was intrigued with enlightenment, not because it was cool, but because it was beyond what was typically known. Truth is what was behind my seeking.

Beauty and truth walk hand in hand. When you see beauty you see essence. Beauty like presence is everywhere but usually unseen. 

Tripped Up On The Road to Enlightenment

When the seeker trips and fall on the road to enlightenment, he just might call it grace. Every seeker needs to trip and fall. A good big crack in the skull just might to the trick. As Leonard Cohen wrote, "it's the crack that lets the light in." A nice fall might just put the seeker out of his misery. A hard enough fall opens to a new light and the seeker is dead.

The Forgotten Journey

Who is our master? Are we ourselves, masters of our fate? Or have we simply discovered ourselves here, at odds with a world we did not create.

Do we parlay with the existentialist? Lending our disparate words to journals of despair? Or do we play with the materialists? He who dies with the most toys wins.

Are we as innocent as we proclaim? Or are we up to something. Have we hidden something from ourselves just to make the game more fun?

There appear to be choices, but if we did not create ourselves, these choices only feel like choices. They cannot be real! And freedom, expounded with flaunting zeal, is hollow as the grave.

And what of all our individual purposes, if we are but a small part in a big universe? Are we not dependent on our brother, and he on us?

And yet, intuitively we know that there is some purpose, uniquely ours to do. There seems to be a Being assignment, an itch we need to scratch.

Some few among the many feel this itch more profoundly, more deeply, more searingly. We, the seekers, are willing to drive ourselves nuts, seeking high and low for a knowing lost.

We drive ourselves mad, even long after our friends have told us so, and left. Isn't all our seeking due to this intuitive itch, this craving, this drive to know?

We cannot justify it to your friends, much less ourselves, yet we continue on. Hasn't this intuitive knowing informed us all our lives?

We curse it, yet continue on. Our heads are in the tiger's mouth. Where is our free will now?

Have we come here trailing clouds of glory, and Karma too? And so we chose this journey, agreeing to forget the reason why. But the forgetting is a thorn. We know we have forgotten something.

This, our crown of thorns, the search for something we forgot. The clues are few, and the search is costly. We even loose ourselves in the process.

A sense of eternity is in here somewhere. Could we but put our fingers on it we could relax. And so we claw and scratch, and point. Sometimes we follow, and then we abandon.

Perhaps the soul has been here before? Perhaps many times. If we are eternal, it may not be otherwise. Somewhere the game is known. We have known it. We want to know it again.

We journey on, knowing that the unknowing knows, whether we can put our finger on it or not.

I Never Got Anywhere

I'm not getting anywhere, 

and I'm not going anywhere, 

for you see I'm all ready here. 

I never went anywhere, 

and I never got anywhere, 

because I was always right here. 

The Self was always here, 

and I never noticed, 

go figure. 

So can I be proud, 

of all the fruitless effort, 

squandered all over town? 

To find myself, 

when I wasn't really lost;

such a fool. 

So here I am, 

having never left, 

or gone anywhere but here. 

Simplicity and Trust

Have you ever noticed that simplicity and trust go hand in hand? For example, in a relationship, if you trust the other person and they trust you, life can be navigated very simply. But if trust is lacking, things get very complicated. Think about it. You will see that it is so.

The same relationship is in operation between the self and the Self. When you give up trying to out think God, or the universe, and accept that there is no choice but to trust the process, your life gets much simpler. A peace descends because you are not fighting what is.

Now, this doesn't mean that you forsake discernment. You are still required to make decisions, make a living, do what needs to be done, but, the decisions become easier, and often spontaneous. Why, because there is trust that the universe is doing what it knows best. You do not judge it, but take what is deemed bad, or evil, in stride, trusting that a purpose is in play.

You know your piece of the pie, but may not know the big picture. If you trust that the big picture knows what it is doing: that it is good, then what choice do you have to make? Life becomes peaceful and easy. Trust is the relationship that abides between self and Self. That's enlightenment.

When Do You Know You Are Enlightened?

Don't seek enlightenment because you think it would be cool. Don't seek it because you think it might make you special. Enlightenment will take all your specialness away. Seek only because you can't help seeking. If the seeking seems to come from your bones, then go ahead and seek. For sure, be more interested in truth than enlightenment

How will you know when you've arrived? There are so many takes on what enlightenment is, which definition will claim you've arrived? What teacher will tell you that you made the grade? Will the teacher's affirmation make it so?

Everyone is unique. There is not one path to enlightenment, but many, and the varieties of awakening are endless. Seek the truth rather than enlightenment. The truth always satisfies. It is only you who will know that your seeking has ended. It will be only you who will know you know. So be open, be honest, and the truth will set you free.