You cannot be in service of an idea if your are in service to your heart. For the heart is beyond ideas, even good ideas. It knows what the mind can never grasp.
The full heart risks the mind, breaches its walls, and sets itself free. Love reigns, for the sovereign heart beats in all.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Other Side of Nothing
Since all is one, there is in truth, no duality. So this thing, this body, this mind, is part of the non separation. We have already established that any separation is false.
There is nothing wrong with being a person, being a mind, having a personality, having therapy, working through a depression. All this is an expression of the One.
There is nothing but this. And what is this? It is fullness, and overflowing, and spawning endless fullness. Life in all forms, seething, writhing, jumping, cavorting.
One expression of fullness is personality. Billions of personalities. All important, none separate from the whole, none separate from the One.
Every single expression is That. Every single expression is one of the One, part of the wholeness. Each perfect in its expression and path.
Source is no thing in particular, but everything in its entirety. So nothing is everything. You can stand with the empty glass side, or stand with the full glass side. Either way, it's all the same.
I don't always enjoy my personality. But I certainly enjoy watching it. I get caught up in it and wallow in self pity, or get a big head about something I've done.
Then I step back and see what's been going on and have a good laugh. As a non separate part of the whole, I have to love the personality, don't I? It's doing the best it can.
Love is simply wanting the personality to reach its full potential. And perhaps have as much fun as possible doing it. Love doesn't mean I have to like every part of the personality, or even support all the parts. But having compassion for the ugly parts is love.
I can have compassion for people I can't help. I can have compassion for people I don't even want to help. And when I'm well aware of how much I dislike someone, and avoid them, I forgive myself. For "discretion is the better part of valor."
Each one of us is stumbling down the path, drunk with a small mind, and Everything is watching over us. We are our Friend.
There is nothing wrong with being a person, being a mind, having a personality, having therapy, working through a depression. All this is an expression of the One.
There is nothing but this. And what is this? It is fullness, and overflowing, and spawning endless fullness. Life in all forms, seething, writhing, jumping, cavorting.
One expression of fullness is personality. Billions of personalities. All important, none separate from the whole, none separate from the One.
Every single expression is That. Every single expression is one of the One, part of the wholeness. Each perfect in its expression and path.
Source is no thing in particular, but everything in its entirety. So nothing is everything. You can stand with the empty glass side, or stand with the full glass side. Either way, it's all the same.
I don't always enjoy my personality. But I certainly enjoy watching it. I get caught up in it and wallow in self pity, or get a big head about something I've done.
Then I step back and see what's been going on and have a good laugh. As a non separate part of the whole, I have to love the personality, don't I? It's doing the best it can.
Love is simply wanting the personality to reach its full potential. And perhaps have as much fun as possible doing it. Love doesn't mean I have to like every part of the personality, or even support all the parts. But having compassion for the ugly parts is love.
I can have compassion for people I can't help. I can have compassion for people I don't even want to help. And when I'm well aware of how much I dislike someone, and avoid them, I forgive myself. For "discretion is the better part of valor."
Each one of us is stumbling down the path, drunk with a small mind, and Everything is watching over us. We are our Friend.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Forget about Not Knowing
Forget about "not knowing." Not knowing is actually your natural state. Go take a walk in the garden, look at the grass, the flowers, the birds. You do not know anything about them. You do not know how or why they are.
You already know that scientific reductionism is sterile. One answered question brings up ten new ones. Each answered question opens the door ever wider to what is unknown.
You are already prepared for the next moment. When driving your car on a country road unfamiliar to you, without even thinking, you go left when the road turns left, and right when it goes right. You slow down for the unexpected deer.
You can know a lot of things. The earth is no longer flat. All your knowing is tentative. Labeling and defining helps one maneuver, but does not define what is.
Trying to get rid of knowing is an ego trip. The bars just changed from black to white. This kind of effort is not needed. Ask, who is doing the undoing? Slip into the background and just watch.
Acknowledge that all knowing is tentative. Only a fanatic holds onto beliefs as if they were crucial to life. Only a fanatic would insist on not knowing.
Not knowing is the actual state of affairs. Awareness is always present. It accepts belief and non belief. It accepts knowing and not knowing. Where your mind goes, it is already there waiting.
Awareness is already present, open, ready, willing, without prescription. It is prior to your knowing and forgetting. Your definitions and labels, useful or not, are pointers only.
The body-mind is a vehicle only, roving the field. What it knows is useful to it, or harmful, but all its knowing is temporary and subject to change.
Just step back from what the body-mind sees, and thinks, and feels. You are already awareness which doesn't know. See this and you need no longer worry about knowing or not knowing.
Awareness doesn't need to know anything. That is what you are. Forget about knowing or not knowing. You are prior to that.
You already know that scientific reductionism is sterile. One answered question brings up ten new ones. Each answered question opens the door ever wider to what is unknown.
You are already prepared for the next moment. When driving your car on a country road unfamiliar to you, without even thinking, you go left when the road turns left, and right when it goes right. You slow down for the unexpected deer.
You can know a lot of things. The earth is no longer flat. All your knowing is tentative. Labeling and defining helps one maneuver, but does not define what is.
Trying to get rid of knowing is an ego trip. The bars just changed from black to white. This kind of effort is not needed. Ask, who is doing the undoing? Slip into the background and just watch.
Acknowledge that all knowing is tentative. Only a fanatic holds onto beliefs as if they were crucial to life. Only a fanatic would insist on not knowing.
Not knowing is the actual state of affairs. Awareness is always present. It accepts belief and non belief. It accepts knowing and not knowing. Where your mind goes, it is already there waiting.
Awareness is already present, open, ready, willing, without prescription. It is prior to your knowing and forgetting. Your definitions and labels, useful or not, are pointers only.
The body-mind is a vehicle only, roving the field. What it knows is useful to it, or harmful, but all its knowing is temporary and subject to change.
Just step back from what the body-mind sees, and thinks, and feels. You are already awareness which doesn't know. See this and you need no longer worry about knowing or not knowing.
Awareness doesn't need to know anything. That is what you are. Forget about knowing or not knowing. You are prior to that.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Only Now, Always This
If you could just settle down into not knowing, and not caring that you don't know, and really getting a feel for that, then you would be close.
You are already close because what is, is already here, as all that is. All your thoughts and ideas are obstacles to seeing.
Let the not knowing overtake you, and unmotivate you, to the point that you just give up. Surrender to not knowing and drop off the cliff to nowhere.
You won't gain anything. You will loose the sense of I that thinks it had something, or lost something. You simply overlooked the obstacle -- yourself.
A subjective feeling, a knowing you can't shake, will overtake you. It is not bliss. Just ordinary truth. You can't grasp it, and you can't hold it.
The truth that sets you free gets rid of you. Not the body, not the mind, but the "I sense" of separateness.
Nowhere is everywhere. And you are here. One without a second, Awareness, Consciousness. You are that.
Where did the little you go? It was never really here. It was only a thought. Now there is only this. Only here. Only now, always and forever.
You are already close because what is, is already here, as all that is. All your thoughts and ideas are obstacles to seeing.
Let the not knowing overtake you, and unmotivate you, to the point that you just give up. Surrender to not knowing and drop off the cliff to nowhere.
You won't gain anything. You will loose the sense of I that thinks it had something, or lost something. You simply overlooked the obstacle -- yourself.
A subjective feeling, a knowing you can't shake, will overtake you. It is not bliss. Just ordinary truth. You can't grasp it, and you can't hold it.
The truth that sets you free gets rid of you. Not the body, not the mind, but the "I sense" of separateness.
Nowhere is everywhere. And you are here. One without a second, Awareness, Consciousness. You are that.
Where did the little you go? It was never really here. It was only a thought. Now there is only this. Only here. Only now, always and forever.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Beyond Voluntary Simplicity
Imagine a rainbow that needed to be told that it was beautiful, that needed to be told it was the most beautiful of all rainbows, that needed to be told it was special. That's the kind of image the ego holds for itself.
Because the ego is an image, a bundle of self defining concepts, unnecessary things are needed to support it. It seeks compliments. It seeks entertainment. It creates complexity in its effort to support the image.
However, as the ego dissolves and recedes into the background, all the energy that went into defense and self promotion becomes unnecessary. No need to try and drop effort, there is nothing left to support any effort. Effortlessness is what is left.
When understanding comes, simplicity has an appeal that it didn't have before. It's like the mother bird, finding her nest empty.
Because the ego is an image, a bundle of self defining concepts, unnecessary things are needed to support it. It seeks compliments. It seeks entertainment. It creates complexity in its effort to support the image.
However, as the ego dissolves and recedes into the background, all the energy that went into defense and self promotion becomes unnecessary. No need to try and drop effort, there is nothing left to support any effort. Effortlessness is what is left.
When understanding comes, simplicity has an appeal that it didn't have before. It's like the mother bird, finding her nest empty.