egotistical Archives – Page 2 of 2

March 3, 2016

Stream of Life

This is the last chapter in my book: “On Human Being – Loving & Living without Purpose.”

Follow a stream from its highest point, whether it is a spring releasing water from an unknown source or from the snows of winter melting and giving their life giving waters to everything below. As the stream finds its way down from its heights, it passes by or over many obstacles along its way, but it always seems to find a way. Its course often seems impossible, but as it runs into obstacles, it finds the path of least resistance which sometimes means going around obstacles or perhaps it waits patiently to fill a certain low spot that will allow its waters to eventually flow over its would-be obstruction. As we follow the stream, it will sometimes rush in great torrents down steep hillsides or spill over high cliffs into pristine pools below. Sometimes it will meander through large open meadows where beautiful alpine flowers bloom and fill the landscape with color, fragrance and brilliance. Perhaps the stream splits off and fills the meadow with small tributaries that merge back together.

The sounds of the stream also tell us something about its travels in that it will gurgle as it meanders through unobstructed fields and meadows, but it rushes and roars as it surges over cliffs, down steep canyons filled with large boulders and other obstructions. As we continue our journey following the waters, we might see another stream joining ours, increasing its size and power. Still, the waters push forward, twisting and turning as needed to work its way around the landscape as effortlessly as possible. In fact, as we observe this stream, it never occurs to us that the waters are fighting their way downward. It all seems so effortless and easy. Even in those places where the river has cut its way through rocks and cliffs that, when looking at, simply does not look possible.

The stream weaves its way through a tapestry of life introducing us to all manner of trees, shrubs, plant life, and animal and insect life of all kinds. Some of the places the stream takes us are shaded from the sunlight and are cool and dark, even forbidding, while other places are sunlit and brilliant and the shadows cast on the moving water make it look different, even mesmerizing. There are places on its journey where it shoots through cracks in the rock and we see rainbows cast so close, we can touch them or we feel the cool mist on our faces. Everything about this journey is peaceful and calm and the constant rushing of the river soothes us and at times we may even find ourselves talking to the waters as if they could hear. They can! Never do we sense, as we journey alongside the stream, that it struggles to get where it is going. It moves effortlessly, inexorably passing by all the wonders of its long journey to get to its destination which, by the way, does not exist. As it passes by life, it gives life by giving of itself so that all is refreshed, nourished and uplifted. It is a relaxed life that looks for peace wherever it goes, and it goes where it goes simply because that is where it goes. We may find evidence along the way when it changed course or with the help of natural forces it moves out of one bed and into another. Still, it matters not. The stream is not choosing a path to follow. It is simply flowing and as it flows, the path opens up, and with each new opening, new adventure, new beauty and wonder lies before it and it brushes up against all of it, content to take it all in and give back what it can in the form of life giving water. Onward, ever onward, it moves through hills and valleys, forest and fields. Taking in but giving back.

The stream gives life, but is given to life as life is given to it. Its course is never straight nor is it narrow or wide. We cannot map its exact course because a map of the stream’s journey could never account for every detail the stream encounters on its way down the mountain. The stream does not choose this way or that. It simply flows where the grade of the mountain (life) takes it and it embraces and gives back to everything it encounters on its way. Every aspect of the journey is just that – part of the journey. There is no purpose other than to serve as that part of the journey. That incredible moment is as the water passes by all that matters and all is uplifted and better for the experience. No great crossroads or turning points in this encounter or that one. Just life giving of itself for all to marvel at and enjoy. The stream moves on, as do we.

There are no perfect geometric patterns in life as we all would like to believe there is, or as our math and science teachers say. The straight path does not exist except in our imagined lives. There is no straight way to any purpose we consider to be our very own. Life is a stream! We are taught from a very early age that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but no part of our life on earth is a straight line. In life, the shortest distance between two points is the one that took you from point A to point B regardless of what distance you traveled or the time it took. Ego looks at life in a finite way, and in so doing, it must find order and structure that was never intended to be there. Our true life is an infinite experience and every twist and turn, the ebbs and flows, as we call them, are never consistent with what our egos expect. This is the cause of suffering in individuals as well as in society. Ego constructs a true and ordered life and even uses sacred writings and ancient wisdom to reason with us that if we follow the prescribed path it reasons is the correct one, life will work out and flow effortlessly to the end.

Those who rigidly follow their ego’s prescribed course often find themselves in turmoil and needless suffering because they followed the rules and they didn’t get where they were supposed to. Life is full of Monday morning quarterbacks looking back at what went wrong with their plan or what they could have done differently to achieve the pre-planned outcome. We see this second guessing, questioning in every aspect of our lives including religion, academics, and occupations. We might hear someone exclaim, “I followed God’s laws as I have been taught them”, or “I worked hard and did everything I was supposed to, but why was I not protected or spared an outcome I was sure could not happen if I obeyed all the rules.” Unlike the natural flow of the stream which always finds its way, many will push against the natural course of life. They will push against it and question their misfortune. You can almost see them standing in the stream facing upward with clenched fist defying the direction of flow as if challenging it to reverse its direction and go where they command it. All it does, however, is move forward, following its natural course, either moving around you as you fight against it, or sweeping you up in its current. Life does not care about the choices we make. Life, like the river, flows on, embracing everything in its path, and giving back every step of the way. If we could see our lives as a river or stream and simply flow with it, our journey would be so much more pleasant and our expectations would not get mixed up or confused with the twists and turns in life we could not see coming.

The grand part of life we can all enjoy is the pure experience of it. A river has no purpose other than to flow where it will, and it is the same for us. Life flows on whether we resist it or not. Why not enjoy it? Human ego is so busy finding or giving meaning to the process of life and finding justification and cause for everything that happens that we miss much of its inherent beauty. We pass by the works of man or nature and never see them because our focus is on understanding life rather than living it. In trying to understand it or analyze it, we miss it or it passes us by. Every bend in the stream, every change in direction is an opportunity to experience life in a new and incredible way, and particularly from our own unique perspective. Maybe we won’t experience things as others might, but what we do experience is uniquely ours and the only enrichment we need take from any experience is our own to appreciate and fully embrace. “What happens; happens.” Not because we have control over life by the choices we make, but because there are no wrong choices, which is the same as saying there are no choices at all. If we participate in life without the mental anguish of deciding the better of all our various choices then anything we do, any path we follow will be good and right and un-judge-worthy. This type of participation in life removes the resistance we feel as well.

I used to tell my daughter, who would work so hard to get cast in school plays, or achieve academic success only to be disappointed over and over, that life was not fair. I would tell her that she would encounter situations throughout her life that would prove that life was unfair and that she would be mistreated along the way, even though she worked harder and harder to achieve her objectives. How naïve I was and, unfortunately, the message I imparted to her was completely wrong. Not only is life fair, but it is completely honest. Life is truth therefore it cannot be dishonest. The only dishonesty in life is our own dishonesty which culminates deep within the egoic structures of the mind. Our egoic identity is the only thing on this planet that resists the natural flow of life, to the point that what we have come to believe about ourselves and what we are is the only dishonest thing in life. Ego-constructed reality and reality are diametrically opposed to each other and we get caught up in the game of life that convinces us that life is hard and not always just or fair. Ego is always swimming against the current of life, trying to offer another kind of reasoning for the ebb and flow that doesn’t always seem so pleasant. Life is always honest and it always finds the way to bear that out. How hard we sometimes struggle to keep what we know about ourselves from ever seeing the light of day, and so we bring dishonesty to the light of life. Our lies, our dishonesty dims the light of life, and compounds our struggle against the stream that, if we would only let go of everything we hold so tightly to, would all drift out of sight and our lives would freely and effortlessly blend together with the flow of life never to be consumed in worry, doubt or the endless game of making ourselves “other” than ourselves.

Nothing in our three dimensional awareness can account for what is really happening and therein lies the greatest lie we tell ourselves. The more precise and defined we become, the less aware we are; and the more we convince ourselves that we are precise and defined, the more of our true selves we trample under foot, and the greater our lie becomes. The lack of awareness culminates in the denial of the stream of life we all follow. It is to convince ourselves that we can make the stream of life straight and exact according to geometric rules that only hold in a manmade reality. We convince ourselves that within the sterile structure of manmade forms is the answer to who we are if we but push science to find the one simple equation that defines everything we will ever need to know. Only the ego could have created such a lie. Only ego could convince us that straight lines can be found in nature and that a formula can be derived that will be able to predict everything we can expect for the future and give an explanation for everything that has happened in the past. Conscious awareness is a very limited awareness because of its ability to dump so much information so quickly we cannot even sense that it is happening.

As we meander or tumble through life, we tend to miss the incredible sights along the way as they are happening, but we know they were there because we think back upon them. Sometimes we look forward to the horizon out yonder and think that when we get there, things will be so much better, or all our questions will be answered. We easily look forward and backward because those are the places we can most freely and successfully lie about. In the conversation we have with ourselves, we can reminisce how much better things were “back then” or how much better they will be in some future “when”. Now, the present moment we exist in right now, is an honest moment that is pure and untainted by any thought for yesterday or tomorrow until our egoic reaction to it poisons it with untruth. Facing the present is our most daunting challenge because of its purity. In our un-pure state, we have difficulty facing the purity of present reality because being present forces us to look at ourselves without the ideological masks that we have created to shield us from the glare of present reality. Being present strips us clean of all the false definition we use to demonstrate ourselves to the world. It is a scary place for the ego. In fact, it is a place the ego cannot exist in because ego is anything but honest. Ego needs identity. That is why it always reminds us and everyone else of its past accomplishments or projected future achievements. These are its cover; a safe haven from something that cannot be explained in its terms, its language.

The stream of life is infinite. The egoic life is finite. The two cannot co-exist. They cancel each other out. Either we are in the flow and completely truthful or we are in illusion and living a lie. The stream of life is enjoined with the world and nothing is missed along the way. The largest of egos and the highest degrees of knowledge and education cannot describe what the stream knows. Its world is the whole world and it is one with it. It knows the terrain, the hills, valley and rocks along the way and is never fooled by images condensed and printed on a map that the ego provides. It feels everything and reaches out to everything, as it gives to life, its “own” life. Consciousness cuts away so much of life while ego tries so hard to convince us that what we are conscious of is the real nuts and bolts of life. It works hard to convince us that its view of the world “is” the world. Its view is always looking backward or forward, but never does it acknowledge the present with its billions and billions of pieces of information discernible right now to a quiet non-egoic soul.

We are in the stream of life whether the egoic self believes it or not, and the stream always moves ahead, even if we fight against the current. Our experience is an unfolding. The more we flow with life, the more a part of us life becomes. Every aspect of the terrain we pass through is our guide, our map and our journey becomes an infinite stream of intuition and awareness that consciousness no longer blots out. Our intuition and our wonderful bodies are sensory instruments available to all of us to navigate and enjoy our life experience here on planet earth. We step off the cosmic train for a short time and we can enjoy the experience or fight against it. We choose. The ego created world is calculated and sterile and does everything it can to reduce the stimulation we all are equipped to comprehend. Granted, the comprehension is not in the language of ego, which has also been stripped away of the greater part of knowing. Our intuitive abilities need to be at the forefront of our awareness, not in the background as they often are. Tune them in and turn on the truth of real life. Real existence! Destiny is unknown, therefore, non-existent.

The possibilities available to us along our journey through life are endless. Ego wants to see and plan for the end. It seeks a goal, an end that, when reached, is somehow a utopic conclusion to a well-planned life strategy. I was speaking with a friend one evening who was looking for a catalyst of perhaps thought or an individual such as Buddha or Jesus, who by their words and deeds could change the hearts and minds of people to live in peace. He shared his thoughts about how the so-called age of enlightenment some 500 years earlier, which was ushered in by such great minds as Newton, Descartes, Pascal and others, had failed to provide the predicted “know how” to change a dark world into an enlightened one. The age of enlightenment was supposed to find “mind made” solutions to all the ills of human existence, including war, poverty, education, government, and every other aspect of life. My friend recognized the failure of the intellectual mind or so-called “enlightened mind” to accomplish anything other than to increase suffering and the carnage of war on a greater, more massive scale. While he lamented this failure of enlightened minds to solve complex world issues, he asked me, “If the age of enlightenment is not the answer, what is the catalyst, event or individual that brings about changes the enlightenment sought but could not produce?”

My answer was not what he wanted to hear. I told him that to look, in any way, to an outward cause, to an individual, or event would never bring about the changes in human existence he sought. The only change or catalyst he could ever affect was his own. I told him that we, as humans, are all a part of the stream of life, but that we each are our own stream as well. Individually, we affect the larger stream, but with human reasoning, we will likely never see it. When we become our own catalyst, our change, we become the larger stream and it becomes us and our outlook on the conditions of the world we wish were different becomes part of a compassionate whole. When such a change takes place in us individually, everything else changes as well. My friend listened thoughtfully, but was unable to see it. His mind was convinced that something big and extraordinary was needed to alter things in the world as we know it. My response to him was that an individual transformation to higher awareness is big and extraordinary, but he would not accept that as an answer. “There must be something,” he mused. I could not help him.

The majority of us look for the same thing. We look to our gods, our leaders, our parents, someone, anyone or anything that will reverse the way things are in a massive and dramatic way. We are conditioned to be this way. Heaven forbid we allow ourselves control of our own lives. That is how it was in the so-called enlightenment, when highly sophisticated and educated men determined that they could figure out anything intellectually. It continues to be a myth in the present day, yet the stream flows onward, ever onward and as long as we look for the utopic conclusion, the life strategy or catalyst that changes in a massive way those things we have determined must change we swim against the current of life. Life is, at that point, a struggle and we will never win against it. Despite our struggle and good intentions, we will be washed away in the inexorable flow of life that always moves forward.

Everyone is eventually swept away in the current of life. Some hang on until the very end while others stop resisting and glimpse the beauty and splendor that is always there if we simply let ourselves get caught up in the flow. The stream of life simply is! So too is life. Life is about being in the flow, not having or fighting for or against it. Regardless of the things we determine to be important, or the causes we choose, we struggle against or go with the stream of life but it always flows onward to an infinite destination we will never know. But we need not know because such knowing will not add one thing to the incredible beauty, abundance and wonder of our existence. We need only breathe life as it breathes us and go where it takes us. There is no end in infinity! The stream of life is eternal life; so are you!

July 19, 2015

Choosing Supportive Thoughts

I was recently asked this question by a dear friend: “Carl can you share your thoughts on choosing thoughts that support ‘us’ and who is that chooser?”

I must admit that my response is somewhat disjointed but I think it does get to the point I am trying to make. Here is my response and by all means let me know your thoughts. This is a most important question to any seeker who moves through life “chopping wood and carrying water.”

An obvious response to such a question is to choose thoughts that are upbeat and positive and in a lot of new age thought, with emphasis on the Law of attraction, we are taught to choose only good thoughts and to even make judgments about how things are going by the way we think and feel about them. The fundamental problem with this idea of “choosing,” this or that, is that we give ourselves over to forces that somehow have control of our life experiences whether they be good or bad as we judge them. I have often said that “experiencing life from the standpoint of “how you feel” about something is not a realistic nor a good formula for life” simply because life is a “full on” mystery and we have no control over the events that are occurring, the people who cross our paths or circumstances we find ourselves in at any given time.

What we must unlearn is that we can somehow “think” our way to a so called “abundant” life. Any thought is likely to be against this because we are all taught that thinking is the only way to climb out of any “bad” situation we find ourselves in or the converse of this which is to think our way into maintaining the “good” situation we find ourselves in. Most New Age teachers go so far as to tell us that they can take us out of any adverse situation by simply following the formula they themselves have experienced even though their unique experience can never be yours or my experience no matter how hard we put our mind (thoughts) to it.

I have struggled with this question for many, many years and always come back to the saying that “we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” In other words, “WE” are not these bodies (which includes the mind and all its thoughts) so we need not take anything in our experience too seriously because we already are spiritual. I say we are more than the gods we create in our minds to subject ourselves too. So what thoughts support this? That really lies at the heart of the question and what we might think supports this likely does not.

At first blush we might look at the words of Paul the apostle who encouraged us to seek after things such as, “…whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think about these things. These are all things we would identify as “good” things to seek after and think about but there is a subtlety that is very misleading. All these things require a judgment which is the tool of ego to disassemble anything going on in life, e.g., this is good and this is bad. The ego always picks a side and puts all the arguments in front of it to divide from those who see “good or bad” in a completely different way.

Right and wrong is the ultimate tool of distraction and ego plays this well. Can you see this? It would have been just as effective for Paul to have said “whatever things are not pure, not virtuous, not lovely, etc., and you could not have wound up with a greater mess than we currently have amongst humans in the world. We are nuts with rightness and wrongness. So what should we think if “thinking” is the nature of the human and especially what do we think that supports us?

The only answer I have found satisfactory to me is to be contrary to what the mind thinks. That is when the mind wants to judge, don’t judge. When the mind wants to declare something good, erase the thought. When the mind wants to uphold a particular view accept the “other” view instead. Mind wants you to hold to an idea of good or bad; don’t do either. Another way to say it might be “seek not to be happy but seek to find happiness in those things that, otherwise, make you unhappy.” If you can get to this type of non-judgment and acceptance of what was once judged good or bad everything begins to “be” okay. That is, happiness, joy and all the other things we endlessly seek resonate within as a natural condition of our non-judgments. The mind leads away from happiness; it takes us “too” things that are supposed to make us happy but either don’t, or are very short lived.

Here is an example of a contrary thought that goes against a primary tenet of many of our judgments that says simply; “you deserve to be happy.” Well, “no you don’t! No one deserves to be happy. In fact no one deserves a life different from the one they are living. Do you see that this puts unnecessary requirements on something that is simply our nature when we determine that nothing we can do, say, think or believe can make us happy. Be happy…period.

Ultimately, you are probably gathering that I take the position that no thought is a good thought. Ego never has a thought that does not contain the motive that I am right and you are wrong and if we were all honest with ourselves we would recognize our own complicity with this greatest of all egoic tools. This is why I am such an advocate of limiting our thoughts. I know this doesn’t answer the question but outside of accepting “what is” without any judgment whatsoever, can I come up with thoughts that support us. In fact, you could say, the less we think about thoughts that support us the more likely we are to get to know “us,” meaning YOU that lies beneath the you that is merely the “thought” of you.

This leads to the second part of the question which is who is the chooser of the thoughts? This question for me is a bit easier to answer. My response is: “The chooser isn’t choosing the thoughts; the chooser is experiencing the thoughts the human is experiencing and is completely unattached to any thought, thought.” In other words, only humans react to “human thought.”

Ultimately, all I’ve got is “the thoughts that support us are the thoughts not thought.” Silence is always the ultimate support for in “stillness, god is known” and being face to face with that which YOU are requires no description or definition of any mind based thought. In fact, no mind could possibly conjure a description that came close to such knowing, even if the mind was working at one hundred percent. The most thoughtful thought is the thought that contains no judgment and that pretty much negates any thought. Don’t judge; now there’s a thought!

October 12, 2014

The Nature of Spirituality

While working with my Sister in a village in Honduras where she had bought property and had set up a small clinic for the people of that village and surrounding areas I was able to see firsthand that spirituality is not a condition of what we possess or an arbitrary hierarchy of needs as so many of us believe. There was every form of disease and malnutrition and every single person who came to her clinic would receive a dose of a de-worming medicine just for showing up. Parasites infested everyone because there was no infrastructure anywhere in Honduras that could provide basic needs. Dirt floors and stick huts packed with mud were common and trips to the river were where the villagers drank, washed clothing, dishes and bathed themselves.

One day we, my sister and I, were talking about the children who always seemed to be hanging around. I observed that they all seemed so happy and asked my sister if she thought these little ones stood a chance of ever having a spiritual awareness. She exclaimed immediately that it was not possible in the least as they were struggling with so many other issues that to discover their own divine nature would be impossible. I was surprised by her response and asked, “How do you explain that they all seem so happy?” Her response was just as immediate and similarly direct. “I don’t know,” she said, “it puzzles me too because they have nothing and they have nothing to look forward to!”

I was not satisfied with this answer and pressed her a bit further on the subject of spirituality. She insisted that “basic needs” had to be served before anyone could advance to a more “enlightened” state and that outside the work she was doing to help the little ones in her village few if any had any chance of having anything other than a life of poverty and disease. I remember being saddened by her assessment of those children and pondered the sweetness in their faces and their complete exhilaration with the life they were living. Not once did I ever hear a child complain of their circumstances and everywhere I saw gratitude and acceptance, happiness and joy. In fact, when I was getting ready to leave three of the young children wrote me letters thanking me for coming to visit them and expressing how much they loved having me there with them. What moved me most, however, were their wishes for me. Each of these wonderful children wished for me to have “everything I desired” in life and to be happy. Without having any concept of how “good” I had things in my life, how abundant and full of the things that are supposed to help us become “actualized,” these children were completely giving of themselves. What they gave was more than all the riches in the world. They gave their love, their friendship and from the very depths of their souls they spoke to mine.

Their “giving” to me was from the depths of someone deeply spiritual but without, even, the label of “spirituality.” They were divine and it didn’t matter if they knew what that meant or not. Life for them was a treat as was my life when I was with them. I wept when I read the words of giving and concern for my happiness.

Spiritually speaking these were the great ones. Amidst, the squalor, disease and rampant poverty, as we in the west would define it, I witnessed majesty as I have never seen it. I stood among giants and I trembled before them. I could no longer feel any sorrow for these children as my sorrow for them turned to sorrow for myself. I had become the judge of their existence and what I had seen for them was destroyed by what they already knew about existence. In desolation, they knew more than I ever hoped to. They were humble; I was embarrassed. I was completely undressed by the “gods” of this tiny little village and I have never been the same since. My prayer since that visit has been that the children of this village never discover the labels we put on them and that their simple view of life never gives way to the noise of our, so called, “actualized” descriptions.

Surely spiritual awareness, which I had sought for so many years, is not a property of attainment, acclaim, and fulfilment of so-called basic needs. Spiritual awareness is our very first aspect; it is the very core of our nature. How true the New Age statement that “we are spiritual beings having a human experience”. There is nothing we must attain in order to achieve spiritual awakening. In fact, it might be considered an arrogant assumption that we must somehow become something we are not, nor may ever be, in order to achieve higher states of awareness. One might ask, “What chance do the poor and infirm have of ever reaching higher states of awareness if they must rise above basic needs when such a possibility may never present itself in their lifetimes?” We all sense a kind of hypocrisy at such a question because we know that some of our greatest spiritual icons came from such circumstances. Some even went from incredible wealth and royalty to a life of poverty and begging as a way to find the awareness I was convinced must come some other way.

We are spiritual beings. Our first state of existence is a spiritual one and it is the human-ness of our earthly existence that conditions us to think that the human is not the second state but the first. The focal point of our existence, the peak of the pyramid, if you will, is our most basic knowing, and poverty and lack are equally able as is wealth and riches, or education and intellect, to drive us from or to that knowing.

Adapted from the book: On Human Being-Loving & Living Without Purpose

January 1, 2014

Resolutions – No time for Masks; The “I’s” Have it!

New Years is a time many of us think of as a “renewal.” This is a time when we can reassess the year just ending and realign ourselves to greater achievement and stronger commitment. It is a time where we look to the oncoming year with new hope and newly expressed motivation. This renewal is often short-lived and yet each year we recommit with new energy and determination. Rarely do we ponder the reason that our resolutions have any staying power.

Perhaps the thing we all need to consider is that each of us is comprised of many masks all representing different aspects of ourselves that are only present when we need a particular characteristic to carry us through a given situation that a given mask represents. Most of us wear dozens of masks who represent individual “I’s” that appear and disappear throughout the course of our daily and nightly routines. We are never without them. The obvious question, at this point, is what has any of this have to do with the making and breaking of our New Year’s resolutions?

Simply, if we do not have a consortium of “I’s” in alignment with a particular resolution we will be in a constant struggle with those “I’s” who are not on board. Here’s an example: One of the most tried and true New Year’s resolutions has something to do with improving health, e.g., lose weight, exercise, etc. Let’s say that we commit to walk one mile each morning at six in the morning. The “good health” “I” steps forward and fully commits to this simple but extremely useful resolution and we feel the sense of purpose and confidence that, while requiring some effort, will be an extremely valuable opportunity to improve overall health and fitness. It’s a go starting January 2^nd at 6:00 AM.

At 5:45 AM, January 2^nd the alarm goes off just as planned and what happens. While “good health I” is ready to go, “like’s to sleep, I,” who did not agree to any resolution is not ready to crawl out of bed and go for a walk. Additionally, “well dressed I” is disgruntled that “I don’t have anything proper to wear on this walk.” “Know it all I” jumps into the fray, as well, and contests that “I do not know enough about the nuances of walking to feel that it’s completely safe to do” and then of course “work I” comes forward with “we really need to catch up on some work and this time would be better served doing that, just this once, of course.”

All the other “I’s” come forward in these few seconds and the battle to overcome them begins. Perhaps there is enough intensity from the “good health I” to force the others to go along but the conversation amongst them all is intense even though we may not hear anything. Sounds corny, I know, but we all have this going on inside us and rarely do we ever consider that what one “I” believes is useful and good is anathema to the others and outside our conscious awareness they will attack any goal, plan or resolution that they have not bought into!

Our intentions need to incorporate the desires of all our “I’s” or at least have a majority if we are going to ever be successful pulling off New Year’s resolutions; or any resolutions, plans or goals for that matter. Too often we let a single “I” commit to something only to see it fall unglamorously to the wayside underneath the taunts and jeers of all the other “I’s. All of us recognize that we have masks but few of us” ever try to have them integrated when we take on new things. In fact, most of us don’t even consider that the “I’s,” that are our makeup, have any bearing on anything we plan to take on and, quietly let our well-intentioned resolutions slip into the dark and dingy hall of failures without even considering what happened.

Talk to your “I’s”; all of them. Even the ones we hate to admit exist like the mean, angry or scared ones. They will tell you what they need and give insight into how to make things we plan work or at least have a better chance of working. The only other alternative is to have them take apart everything we desire and bury it long before we were given any chance to succeed.

The best resolution is the one that takes the entire cast of “I’s” into the New Year.

January 26, 2013

What do you do to be enlightened?

I was asked these two questions about enlightnment recently and wanted to share my thoughts with each of you as well. Here is the Question:

Do you think that we can all one day become enlightened? If so, what do we need to do?

My Response: There is no “day” in some future time that we become enlightened. There is no future at all. Each of us already is enlightened and at various points in our lives we see it. Those who do get a glimpse of it are usually pulled into it by some event, such as the death of a loved one, or something else that causes deep reflection in which no “answer” comes. Most people who have such an experience can always recount the emotional state they felt in such times but they almost always revert back to the egoic need to explain what is going on. Most come to some conclusion that their “prayer” was answered or that an Ahhhh Haaa came to them and they understood in a way they hadn’t before. What gets lost in these conclusions is that in that moment where no answer existed is the only place that enlightenment occurred.

In other words, enlightenment is not some magical, mystical awareness of all the, so called, “Big Questions.” Enlightenment is the “nothing” that
existed before the “ego” needed an explanation. It is the sweetness of being in the presence of absolute silence and not needing an explanation
for everything. In that place there is no fear, love, happiness, sadness or any other emotional state. There is nothing but silence and it is in that
“not knowing” that “all” is known and none of it needs definition.

What do “we” need to do? “Be still and know that YOU are god.” In other words, unmask who it is that occupies your body by silencing the mind. In
this place you will experience the grand mystery of which we are all a part. It’s all you can do. There is no “we” in this unmasking. You’re own
enlightenment will enlighten others. The “god” that you are is never invisible to the “god” that they are. Something inside us always sees the greater light but it is in the quiet of the mind. Quiet your mind and discover the “everything” that is contained in the “nothing.” This is your enlightenment.

This is what you can do.

April 15, 2012

You Are Not Your Body

Jesus, dying on the cross was not about giving his life as a demonstration of power nor was it to save us from our so called sins. It was a demonstration that He was not his body or mind or anything else we all tend to identify ourselves with.

His closest disciples did not understand this either. This is why Peter came to his defense in the garden of Gethsemane and cut off the ear of the Roman soldier who was trying to apprehend Jesus. Peter wanted to defend the “man” He thought Jesus was, not who Jesus actually was. Peter, and so many others then and now, could not see who Jesus was outside the “man” he thought him to be. He only saw the “man” and thought the “man” was endowed with special powers and that he must defend Jesus, as “the man” Peter “thought” him to be.

Jesus was never able to convince anyone that He was not his body; that He was not the “object” others had created him to be. His whole ministry was a demonstration of his own awareness that he was completely unidentified with anything in the world. His crucifixion was a profound and vivid example of that. Death did not matter to him. Not because we “rise again,” but because what WE truly are never dies! Who we are never dies and Jesus imparted that message one last time by allowing himself to be killed as a demonstration that he would continue on just as each of us will continue on.

We will never “fail” in this life because this life is not anywhere near what we are in eternity. Detach from the body, discover who resides within and nothing in human experience will ever be able to take from you anything that actually does matter.

February 28, 2010

Thoughts Shared With a Young Explorer (Part 3)

This is the last post of my conversation with a young explorer searching for his own enlightenment. My answers to his questions are inline with his questions. He is a very intelligent individual. I think you will find his questions and hopefully my answers very interesting. My answers are in blue:

The first point I would like to bring up, if I understand your statements correctly, you said, on your website, that each individual was capable of doing anything conceivable just as any god that they personally could imagine. Correct. Also I gather that you believe that each person is technically free from any and all burdens and limits, and can with proper exercise of their “spiritual” side release these capabilities. If by technically you mean “mind” created limits then no you are not free. It is the discovery of the “I Am” that is not a part of a mind created illusion that will allow the engagement of godlike power. Gods are completely free of any burden and limits as you describe them. Going on these assumptions (and correct me if I’m wrong about those assumptions) how can such an idea be reconciled with the irrevocable position that humans find themselves in now, even those such as yourself who embrace the possibility of higher capabilities? The “irrevocable position” you describe is a “mind” created position from a collective of minds (egos works too). I know unequivocally that the mind cannot get to the possibility of “higher capability” you mention. It can attract more of “this reality” to its self and most of what we see going on in this world is just that, e.g., mind attracting more and bigger versions of the same.

You seem to imply that one can be the master of their own reality down to the last detail. If “one” is ego then absolutely not. If “one” is god then yes. Yet to imply this however seems faulty considering the fact that a human by taking thought cannot “change one hair of the head” or add an inch to their stature. Correct but what is thought? It is the mind identified with forms it chooses as important and necessary to “it’s” own identity. Mind is limited and stuck in a world it believes must be answerable to 3-D reality. It is a finite world the mind lives in. In short I mean to say that seeing that one cannot change many things about their own reality or that they are subject to such conditions in the first place implies that each being is subject to higher powers, and therefore cannot be god of their own reality beyond their control over their own will. Very nice “mind” created thought. You might as well have said “my mind can only grasp (because it has been conditioned to do so) that there must be a god out there somewhere the likes of which I can never become. That is the illusion I accept.” Certainly the mind that lies at the heart of our beings can somewhat detach itself from physical realities and ponder on things “supernatural” but this does not imply that there is complete control over the condition a being finds itself in or that it finds part of the matter it can control in (the body itself.) Your “mind” speaking again. It will tell you it can detach and ponder the “higher” things of eternity but it cannot. It is inextricably attached to the physical and knows not god. It only knows the identity it has created and will tell you anything to keep you believing that.

Even by your own actions you presume that my analysis of the matter is incorrect or faulty in that it goes against some system or pattern that must be followed…that my thoughts are following inbred tendencies and biases and that I must avoid them because of a suspicion or fear of contamination, by doing so you inadvertently have subjected yourself to what you deem to be a higher law. It may seem to you that it matters or that I care but I don’t. You’ll come to it on your own or you won’t. It doesn’t matter at all. I share with you the limitations created by the mind to keep us stuck. Judgment is the biggest. Humility is second. Don’t see a lot of either in our mind constructed world today. Your pursuits of things mystical have been, no doubt governed by certain practices which you have habitually repeated, and you therefore are a servant and not the master as a god would seem to be. I’m not sure how you could conclude such a thing but yes at one time I was the servant of my own mind created illusion. That is becoming (more and more) no longer the case. I never pursued mystical things. I did, however, always have an awareness of my spiritual, mystical (if want to call it that) nature. I tended to be afraid of it as the mind reality I was in (greatly influenced by the church) said it was evil. That is no longer my reality or illusion. I am Mystical as are you.

Science is hardly different in that it also trusts in certain natural processes and follows them through to obtain results from evidences that can be measured physically. In both cases you have people subjecting themselves to the order of things outside their own will and desire in order to bring about some realization or result. Even if one claims that seeking out this inner god requires listening to a higher instinct this still implies that there is a higher order of things being obeyed thus making null and void the idea of godlike power over ones reality. What more can I say? Your ego is stringing some good thoughts that make perfect sense to its level of reasoning. I engage my own mind to read your questions and understand what you are saying but spiritually speaking there is no “higher instinct.” Instinct is a thought form that has its creation in the mind. I’m not there. Instead of seeking out “this inner god” try only seeking out a “quiet mind.” Forget god for now. You seem to be on a quest to “not” discover him or her. Try only quieting your mind. He or she will show up sooner or later.

That was the first point.

Second, you appeal to scripture, and even your own patriarchal blessing (the thing you were told when you were 14 which you spoke of in your bio on amazon.com) to confirm your conclusions yet deny the remainder of said sources almost entirely. Hmmmmmm….I think you’re making an incorrect assumption. I don’t deny anything. I don’t care where “knowing” comes from. I accept pretty much all of it’s possible sources and believe me those sources are infinite. My patriarch was a great man and imparted truth to me that sang to my soul. He spoke to god, as god. 3 dimensionally speaking I rule out nothing anymore just because I was conditioned in a certain way. You sited Jesus as telling the people that they were “gods” and indeed He did say so, but did He not also command love, obedience, and sacrifice? Correct. This is not consistent with your assertion that Jesus and prophets taught and followed some different belief system similar to what you have discovered. I hear your conditioned ego at work again. “Belief system” as you call it is a very egoic (mind created) thought form. It calls forth duality which I have discussed earlier and in so doing it creates judgment. The mind always falls back to what it was conditioned to accept as reality. I don’t propose they had a belief system. That would be egoic and mind created. Instead they recognized they were gods and their awareness went from “mind created” to “god created.” They did not need or espouse “belief system.” In fact they are more likely to have taught us to “unbelieve.”

Third, simply denying the present physical existence as an illusion is to deny oneself insights into the realms of eternity that this physical reality must function in harmony with. Remember that the insights you speak of are mind created insights. There is noting wrong (or right) with such thoughts and insights but that is all they are. Never forget that. Even our science tells us that what makes it into consciousness is a small fraction of what is really going on. As spiritual beings it is even more that we could see and be aware of if we could see “as gods” and not as “minds.” Just as a simulation or game may temporarily and in minor ways rearrange the order of our perception of overall reality that doesn’t mean that such fabrications are complete illusions that have no connection to what we see before us. Games or fabrications? Now who or what devised them? Illusions inside illusions….you’re becoming very sophisticated in your description of “illusion.” At fundamental levels they all rely upon basic realities, yet to claim ownership of all-powerful knowledge yet still be subjected to an alleged illusion further illustrates that regardless of godlike potential one is still subject to powers greater than his/her own to which they are held captive. When you discover the god that you are you will not be subject to any law, including what we call physical laws (gravity, etc.). God’s know no law and are therefore not held captive by them. Only the mind puts barriers around the infinite. Think of it this way. any absolute you establish as “your reality” is a finite reality. I don’t dwell in that world any more but I do accept that I am in it and I try to “get along” so as to not upset to many along the way who see things as you do. Jesus called that “rendering unto Caesars what is Caesars” Don Juan called it “controlling your folly,” and there are other expressions such as “chop wood and carry water.”

To follow a route of believing that we are sucked into some illusion is to surmise that we are subjected to any number of layers of fabricated realities and discredits ones own existence and will entirely, thereby plunging everything and everyone out of existence, agency and consequence. I’ve never said you are sucked into an illusion. What i say is that we are taught “what” to see and what is important by the “mind created” world of humans. Surely I do not discredit my own existence. I exalt it but accept it as nothing more than a vacation from “other things” I and all of us were doing before incarnating on Earth. This life should be fun no matter how you “judge” the particular experience you are having at any given time.

This concept is not new, and was thoroughly explored by others as indicated by this reference. http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/2 As I mentioned before. To the mind created reality there is “opposition in all things.” To the spiritual (gods) there is not. Everything is equal.

So it can be ascertained by simple observation that there are governing laws which humans have sought to understand so that we might be in harmony with them to our advantage. Governing is an egoic term. Gods don’t govern. To govern or be governed is not to be free. Humans govern but only because they have lost the “knowing” that they are gods first who are supposed to be enjoying a human experience. Also, seeing that life and existence allow the presence of goodness, joy, happiness, serenity, peace or any good thing simply shows that the overruling power of all things is “good” or freedom and agency promoting, for self-serving “evil” would not allow joy or anything contrary to its own nature or which didn’t consolidate all power life and existence to itself, and only that which is truly good and inspires freedom would allow the agency we enjoy whether to seek out greater freedom and capabilities or captivity and death. I once believed this but that was when I had a concept of “good and evil” and believed there was an “overruling power.” I no longer have a concept of “good or evil” and you know who god is.

So I ask, which is greater and more likely true to our eternal nature, the assumption that we are victims of meaningless illusion thereby robbing us of agency and free will and any form of godliness (agency), or the realization that those powers which truly enable and free and magnify the existence of any being are those which embrace and harmonize with all levels of existence? Only those caught up in the illusion are victims of it and by the way most are. You have the ability to change your life in an instant. all power for you to do that right now is at your hand. You need only do it. Your mind and the illusion it creates is what robs you of any agency you think you have or are supposed to have. Change it now. You can do that. Life and our existence itself show a pattern (even in the fact that we must be able to look beyond and comprehend things outside the physical realm) that laws do exist and only by obedience to those laws can we hope to attain to any level of additional choice, knowledge or freedom even as your assertion about the nature of reality admits. Ahhhh…Grasshopper. Spoken like a true Mormon. Obedience does not open you up to additional choice, knowledge or freedom. Awareness of the reality of a conditioned mind that believes “obedience” to mind constructed laws is what will free you. You are free already and you already know everything. Your mind prevents you from accessing what you are and what you know and all the subjection and obedience you give yourself over to will not get you any closer to finding your true self.

These are the areas where I see a key fault. Your conjectures about the nature of reality contradict themselves, for on the one hand they embrace a nature and a law and individual choice, but on the other hand claim that the realm we readily experience has no part of such nature and law and individual choice, or that we are subjected to the same until we assert our own power over it by obeying some law which should give us power although we supposedly already retain it for ourselves yet find ourselves subject to an outside force without any choice on our part. You are really hung up on “law.” I make no assertions that acceptance of “some law” that gives us power. If anything I am saying there are no laws at all that you or I are subject to at all. Gods are not bound by law. Any law and when you get that you overcome all boundaries that hold you back from being what you truly are. Remember what I said earlier. Know by “not knowing.” Let me add do by “not doing,’ see by “not seeing.” Here’s a great illusion: someone you consider to be an authority tells you to obey his or her way of believing things and you do. Who then is bound? Laws exist for those who need laws and those who need laws are the mind created collectives who want to control you in some way or another. It is confusing to try to explain the nature of such a belief or to ultimately come to the sure foundation since the pattern set by accepting such assumptions will inexorably lead one to question any other “reality” they claim to have found on the same basis as they questioned the first. I have no beliefs. All of it, everything is incredible or wondrous and to ascribe to a set of beliefs is to place my own imposed importance on something that is just to incredible to describe. I nor you really have enough time in this life to consider our importance, important.

However we should have hope despite our lack of being in complete control for our ability to comprehend and be aware of natural law sets forth a pattern which simply states that we are capable of acquiring understanding and ascending the scale of ability and choice and freedom for we are not inhibited to see and to choose to do so, and therefore we are invited to “climb.” Big problem in the illusion today. We are so convinced that we are lowly and sinful and unworthy blah, blah blah, that a big part of the current illusion has convinced us that we must “climb” as you call it and find that greater purpose that lies ahead somewhere. We are already gods! We stepped down to come here and our purpose for being here is not to step up. We already are up!! Always have been and always will be. We are “the purpose.” We came here to have fun and we are all wrapped up on finding out why we came here. Such a waste of time and energy when everything is before us to let go and just enjoy this incredible experience.

The empowerment of knowing we have choice and our own agency is the crux of any philosophy or religion or scientific pursuit. The fact of the “present” asserts the fact that we are by nature free beings over our own wills, and can use such to influence those things placed within our grasp, and the fact that we exist gives us liberating knowledge and purpose that witnesses that we are part of the fabric of the universe without beginning or end and that we have a far more fundamental involvement and place in it than is sometimes conceived. Sounds like god speaking. Great truth here. Do you know what you are saying here? Everything is in your grasp…everything. In fact, you already hold it in your hands.

February 21, 2010

Thoughts Shared With a Young Explorer (Part 2)

To continue the dialogue with my young friend from yesterday’s post (As I mentioned in the previous post our young explorer is LDS so some of his questions (and my answers) have a connotation oriented to that faith. The answers are general, however:

Young Explorer:

You seem to imply that one can be the master of their own reality down to the last detail. Yet to imply this however seems faulty considering the fact that a human by taking thought cannot “change one hair of the head” or add an inch to their stature. In short I mean to say that seeing that one cannot change many things about their own reality or that they are subject to such conditions in the first place implies that each being is subject to higher powers, and therefore cannot be god of their own reality beyond their control over their own will. Certainly the mind that lies at the heart of our beings can somewhat detach itself from physical realities and ponder on things “supernatural” but this does not imply that there is complete control over the condition a being finds itself in or that it finds part of the matter it can control in (the body itself.)

That was the first point.

Second, you appeal to scripture, and even your own patriarchal blessing (the thing you were told when you were 14 which you spoke of in your bio on amazon.com) to confirm your conclusions yet deny the remainder of said sources almost entirely. You sited Jesus as telling the people that they were “gods” and indeed He did say so, but did He not also command love, obedience, and sacrifice? This is not consistent with your assertion that Jesus and prophets taught and followed some different belief system similar to what you have discovered.

Third, simply denying the present physical existence as an illusion is to deny oneself insights into the realms of eternity that this physical reality must function in harmony with. Just as a simulation or game may temporarily and in minor ways rearrange the order of our perception of overall reality that doesn’t mean that such fabrications are complete illusions that have no connection to what we see before us. At fundamental levels they all rely upon basic realities, yet to claim ownership of all-powerful knowledge yet still be subjected to an alleged illusion further illustrates that regardless of godlike potential one is still subject to powers greater than his/her own to which they are held captive.

This concept is not new, and was thoroughly explored by others as indicated by this reference. http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/2 (this is a Mormon passage found in the Book of Mormon).

So it can be ascertained by simple observation that there are governing laws which humans have sought to understand so that we might be in harmony with them to our advantage. Also, seeing that life and existence allow the presence of goodness, joy, happiness, serenity, peace or any good thing simply shows that the overruling power of all things is “good” or freedom and agency promoting, for self-serving “evil” would not allow joy or anything contrary to its own nature or which didn’t consolidate all power life and existence to itself, and only that which is truly good and inspires freedom would allow the agency we enjoy whether to seek out greater freedom and capabilities or captivity and death.

The empowerment of knowing we have a choice and our own agency is the crux of any philosophy or religion or scientific pursuit. The fact of the “present” asserts the fact that we are by nature free beings over our own wills, and can use such to influence those things placed within our grasp, and the fact that we exist gives us liberating knowledge and purpose that witnesses that we are part of the fabric of the universe without beginning or end and that we have a far more fundamental involvement and place in it than is sometimes conceived.

My response:

“The illusion is great in you young grasshopper,” but, so too, is the force;-). You remind me of me. You search but your search is of 3-dimensional things which mine once was also. I see the natural duality of space-time reality at work in your life just as it was in the time of Jacob and other leaders of the Book of Mormon and with varying philosophers throughout time. The idea that there is “opposition in all things” is a 3-dimensional dilemma and it is at the heart of “judgment” which no one would argue Jesus told us “not” to do. Most think his admonition not to judge was because it would be taken care of by a God out there in yonder heavens and so was not necessary for us to get involved in but that would be wrong. Jesus told us not to judge because he like so many others knew that there is no duality when it comes to “spiritual” life. In other words, everything that happens is profoundly wonderful and no experience in life can be “judged” as anything but incredible regardless of how it is viewed or judged.

There is no good or evil except as you create it in your 3-dimensional mind and your mind is a totally physical thing. Your mind is not spiritual! No part of it is. Not the sub-conscious, not the conscious or any other part of it you may choose. When you speak of spiritual things you cannot include 3-dimensional conditions or conclusions because 3-dimensional reality does not comprehend (and never will) spiritual things. The great difficulty in life is the struggle between the mind and the spirit (god) that dwells within. The mind is constantly struggling to keep control so it is not lost to the aspect of each of us that it cannot comprehend. You cannot do the things Jesus said you can do because your mind has convinced you, you cannot. Your mind is the product of upbringing that has convinced you, you cannot do anything that cannot be explained in rational or 3-D terms.

As long as you remain trapped in the dogmatic ideas you constantly seek to prove or disprove in human terms you will remain forever in a quest that has no end in 3-D terms. The mind is completely good with this because as long as it can convince you that a rational answer to your divine nature exists you will never discover your divine nature and this is the mind’s ultimate objective. The mind does not exist outside of any conception other than the one it has created as “the self.” There is no self. That is the beauty of “waking up” from mind created reality or as I like to call it “illusion.” Nothing you identify with in this human existence or that you think is important is. When you find that space you no longer see the world as it is rather you see it for what it is not and what it is not is so much greater than anything you can imagine. Petty human words and language are remiss to describe it.

I can’t tell you what I know. You can’t learn it either. It already exists within you but you will never find it through the mind. The mind is the great tempter and teaser. It will let you think you are smarter than anyone and have intellectually figured everything out and nothing could be more untrue. It will even convince you that through it you can have “freedom” which it cannot even begin to comprehend. Freedom does not exist as a mind conceived thought form. The mind can only conjecture what freedom is based on its idea of reality. The only true freedom is freedom from what the mind thinks is real and important. Outside of that, we are not free. Freedom is not an abstract, mind created idea. It is the inherent nature of gods. It is your inherent nature but as soon as you try to define “it” using words and definitions you no longer are free.

What I am trying to convey to you is that I cannot provide you any answers that you don’t already possess at a deep inner level. The only way to access that knowing is to shut down your mind that refuses to shut up. Once you do that the god that you are will speak and it will be a voice of knowing. When my patriarch told me I would speak to people from many walks of life and that I would speak the truth it was not my mind that heard those words. It was god, the inner me, that knew and those were the only words I heard. They hit me to my core and they have never left me. God knows but God also does not interfere. God only works in an “unknowing” mind or better yet “no mind.” One of my affirmations is to “know” by “not knowing.”

I would love to provide conclusive proofs to you but I cannot nor is it important to me to do so. I know the course my journey has taken and I see you travelling a similar road. All I can do is suggest that you find ways to turn off the chatter of your mind. That is when god (you the god) will speak and show you wonders you have always known.

See below for some thoughts on your comments and questions below but know that you are in a different place than I am. I am not looking for 3-D conclusions and proofs. It just doesn’t matter. I no longer see what the world sees. Most people only see what they look at but my “seeing” is not with eyes. Something else perceives a greater reality. A reality of non-illusion as constructed by physical senses. You are limited by your mind. That is why you must get out of it. See below for more:

(You can see here that I have more to share. I will save that for the last post tomorrow. In my last post I answer the “parts” of the question asked (above) in line so you get a response to the actual idea or thought presented by our young explorer). More to follow

November 9, 2009

How do you define awareness?

How clear do you think your perception of life really is? We are really two people happening all at once, e.g., the egotistically created self and the self we came to earth with that is almost always in conflict with the other. Tell me what you think controls your life. Your ego or the person you were before you got here. I’d love to hear. Please see my website at; http//.www.spiritual-intuition.com. Namaste

So how do you define awarenes? I’d love your thoughts