Spirituality, awakening, awareness, enlightenment, whatever you call it, only exists in the present. You cannot experience it anywhere else, not even in a so-called previous experience. It has no residence in the past or the future, as those are just memories or imagination. In other words, spirituality is a constant, present-moment reality that you always are; there is never a becoming, searching-for, and finding. To speak of it in any way or to speak as if you have a mantle because you have awakened is to step out of the real. Awakening is the ultimate humbling that lacks for words but thunders silence. Be thunderous.
Bozebits
“Words hurt,” as it is sometimes said, but they really don’t. What hurts is an egoic reaction to them, and “reaction” is an expression of your ego defending what it believes is essential to its formulated and unreal importance. What YOU are underneath your ego doesn’t care, nor can it be hurt. It simply smiles at every encounter, every interaction, everyone, and everything.
You need not protect yourself from others’ words. If you are whole and know what it is that lives beneath the noise of the mind (ego), there is nothing to be protected from. Know YOU, and you know no hurt or fear. Seriously!
Bozebits
Separation is uniquely “I” (ego) based. That is, whatever reasoning or beliefs you adhere to, whether religion, politics, nationality, gender, ethnicity, social status, education, etc., you are the sole source of separation and any discord you sense is with that which lies outside your point of view. Furthermore, those who subscribe to your separation (agree with you) do not make you “one” with them. It just feeds your ego with the security of numbers, e.g., “look at all those who feel and believe as I do. I (we) must be right.”
Your “truth,” as it is bandied about in spiritual speak, is not truth if in any way it separates you from another, regardless of any moral code you subscribe to. Oneness is love, and love is without reason of any kind. Sinner or saint is not distinguishable. Love is our core and thus surrounds us all.
Bozebits
What you believe is right inherently carries the seed of wrong, making any “right” equally wrong. “I am right, and you are wrong” is the way of the ego and the form of all judgment. What you believe is not what you know, and it is ever so little you or anyone can “know.” Let go of what you believe, but even more so, let go of your reasons for having them, as well. Besides, being wrong about everything makes for a quiet, blissful life that never needs an offensive or defensive position to distract you from joy, peace, and wonder. Life is total wonder, but not if you are “wondering” what to believe or not believe.
Bozebits
“If your lips are movin’, your ego is groovin’.” Everything you say, regardless of eloquence, beauty, or intent, is ego. What you write, think, or dream is ego. What you do that is kind, unkind, charitable, uncharitable, etc., is ego. Do you see? Human exchange of any kind is ego, and when you get that, once and for all, you will see the miracle of life as opposed to the narrow interpretation of it, e.g., egoic interpretation. There simply is no path to awareness through your mind; it just talks too much (mine too). Still, this is the human experience, so it can never be turned off, but it can be turned down. Focus more of your “seeing” the world on what you hear rather than what comes through your eyes. While it will not rid you of ego, it will undoubtedly have it talking less. That is always a superior, less egoic, “groove.”
Bozebits
Collective consciousness is “out there,” and if you feed it, you are its “monkey.” That is, not unlike your own “monkey mind,” screeching and howling to a constant beat, whether you consider it good or annoying, plays into the field of what new agers call the collective. And the collective mind is no different than the individual mind, e.g., egoic. Look at the side you’re on in any collective cause, and its only theme is your cause is the right one, and everyone else is wrong. Your added voice-only fuels the already noisy, vitriolic rhetoric spewed at those whom you and your collective consider wrong.
Love loves without condescension, judgment, or moral superiority, and always with transparency. It has no ego and, therefore, cannot be joined to a collective ego. We are witnesses to a lot of ego in the “collective,” but it is not the collective that is sick. It is you and me and anyone (everyone) who takes a side and forsakes love in doing so. Love it all, including “us” and especially “them,” or be another monkey in an endless, unwinnable, clamor for rightness. Isn’t there enough noise without adding yours? Besides, the “quiet” is so lovely.
Bozebits
Your opinion matters least of all in human affairs. What you know, believe, trust in, or hope for is no prize and might even be considered a joke. What you don’t know shows up as humility, kindness, reverence, and compassion. Not words or thoughts; just tenderness. Now there’s a prize! Love expresses most clearly when the ghosts of opinion are not haunting you. Speak less, love more. It’s that simple.
Bozebits
Ego asks why, but only because it already assumes an answer, making “asking why” an attempt to confirm or add to what it has already determined. Rarely, if ever, will ego ask and accept a solution that doesn’t align with its already predetermined knowing, and even if it did, ego is incapable of knowing “why” about anything anyway.
What YOU are, that has no connection to ego, other than the observation of it, never asks why because it does not need to know. Do you see? “Not-knowing” gives way to perfect unattached, unbiased living, and all that shines through such living is joy and realization that the only effort needed to live is an awareness that miracles constantly unfold around you. YOU are the greatest miracle of them all!
Ask not why you live as you live. Seek only to embrace the miracle and mystery of YOU who is living it. There’s nothing better than you, knowing YOU!
Bozebits
The “ego” you disagree with is the most straightforward way for you to glimpse your own (ego). Ego, agreeing with other egos, turns into condescension fueled by the security that comes in numbers doing the same. What is always in play in either scenario is your ego and all ego ever wants to be is right and have its way. You might even call it the “dictator,” which is all of us when exchanging with other egos.
Can ego be overcome? No, but you can be quiet and not “engage” by agreeing or disagreeing with any other ego. Tough to do, but in the depths of silence lies the serenity of love, joy, peace, and kindness. Regardless of your thoughts, these things only show up when your mind is still, your lips are not moving (talking), and your heart is open. Can you be still? Yes. Will you? You have a chance if you don’t “think” about it.
Bozebits
Self-importance is the mountain no one successfully climbs. Its incline is steep, and its peak extends forever in the mind that struggles to reach it. Eventually, you’re in the clouds where you can no longer see anything but your ego-imagined self. There is nothing of value on the mountain of self-importance.
Nothing you do in any walk of life is important. That you are “what YOU are” while walking is. YOU have no measure in human “being.”