The new-age nonsense of surrounding yourself with people like you or those with characteristics you would like to emulate is a surefire way to separate yourself from reality. It is no different than living your life in front of a mirror that reflects only you all the time. Do you see? The reaction of everyone outside your sphere of friendship and commonality is as essential to living as your view of them should be to them. The world is not whole, and you are not “one” with it if you exclude those who are not like you. Quit looking at the world as a safe little place you make up, that looks like whatever it is that looks back at you in the mirror. Looking at mirrors is a shallow, boring life; the real view is a room with lots of windows. Open yours now and be open to everyone.
Bozebits
There is nothing more or less unique about your human experience than that of a dung beetle having its own. The importance of your politics, religion, ideology, education, affiliation, wealth, etc., is no greater than the routine activity of said beetle, making little round dung balls out of big ones. In other words, self-importance based on routines and gathering more and more is nothing more than a synonym for separation, and dung beetles feast on separation, if you get my drift. Life is living and far too abundant to consider what else it could or should be – you should be too. Living, that is!
Bozebits
A better life can only happen now, at this moment, which you frustrate with thoughts of improvement. “What is” drowns in dreams and fantasy and you, thrashing about on mind-made improvement, miss the only place and time where “better” is actually better. You have it ALL. The “house special” is only served up when you are seated at the table now, and it is a feast like no other. Experience it, and who knows? You might enjoy it, too!
Bozebits
Take what you get in that first instant of awareness and keep at bay the urge to assume you know what or why something is as it is. What you think and feel is like washing clear windows with dirty water. Your intuitive voice always speaks just before thoughts and emotions kick in with noise and nonsense. Eternity is glimpsed in the absence of time, so taking what you get is not time-sensitive; it is, however, noise-sensitive. Still all thoughts, and awareness becomes a vision of countless miracles unfolding before you. It’s the most exciting part of any day.
Bozebits
“The dark night of the soul” is not coming to grips with what happened in the past. It’s letting it go, once and for all, as in, “it never happened.” The so-called “darkness” alluded to is giving up the story of misery and suffering you desperately hang on to, and we all do this. In other words, you and you alone close the curtains to the light that ever shines around you. The reality of the “dark night” is that it is not real. Opening the curtains is nothing more than living in the light without the shaded lenses of a story no longer told or remembered. Living now always has a perfect shade of light that is bright, beautiful, and always new!
Bozebits
“You are ‘worthy’ of your dreams” is often said in new age speak. However, believing yourself worthy of anything is surrendering to the idea that anything you think or dream is more significant than what you are now, and that is an affirmation of unworthiness. It is not possible to know joy and happiness when hopes and dreams determine “worth.” Quality of life is not the measure of what you can be; it is what you are now, stripped bare and clean of every whim that crosses your imagination. You just can’t know YOU until you are free of any concept of worthiness. The greatest miracle of all is what you are in the midst of what is now. You are not in any way worthy of it! YOU are, however, “IT,” and that is a richness that has no measure.
Bozebits
“I have a right to; fill in the blank.” Your statement of rights is a statement of your imprisonment. A declaration of beliefs, desires, and expectations of something “out there” that you have determined needs to be given to you and respected by the giver is not freedom. Bound and gagged, you are free if you are without attachment to anything that is given out of respect for your so-called rights. Your freedom lies in the release of anything you believe you have a right to.
One of the many aspects of present-moment awareness is that it challenges all the norms you are conditioned to accept. Most will argue and resist those challenges, but the more aware you are, the more apt you will see your possession by the unreal. Nothing holds you except those things you hold. Let them go, and what you think you have “rights” to give way to what is, and that will set you free.
Bozebits
You stand on the precipice of beauty and folly. You recognize one and live the other. That is, you don’t choose between them, as one encompasses the other, and the other is the smile you wear while breathing life in all its nuance and mystery. Which is recognition, and which is beauty? Don’t overthink it; YOU already know.
Bozebits
“I choose to surround myself with like-minded people who, like me, generally believe as I do, love and accept me as I am, and positively lift me. Comfortable and safe in my world that avoids contrariness, I have few, if any, challenges to my ego or self-esteem. After all, it’s what new age spirituality suggests I do. However, in so choosing, I fully accept that I am missing out on the more significant part of human life and living: a rich and diverse world, full of myriad philosophies, tastes, beliefs, lifestyles, cultures, art, and colors, etc., etc., etc.” Do you see?
Choosing is exclusion, denial, and blindness, while life and living are a package deal. They cannot be what you want them to be because what you want is your own prison cell. “Tear down these walls!” You will be stunned, enriched, and enlivened by what and who is on the other side!
Bozebits
Nothing exposes ego like another ego. “I am right, and you are wrong” is the battleground for ego, and it is always a battle. Even if placation is used to lower tension, e.g., “we’ll just have to agree to disagree.” If you find yourself in that field, you’ve been exposed. Not to worry, however, we’ve all been exposed! There is no right, and there is no wrong except the side that you happen to be on, in which case you are wrong. Ego’s checkpoints are: Are you speaking or gesturing? Are you thinking, imagining, or dreaming? Are you engaged in all other forms of communication, including writing? All of these are fraught with ego.
I know, I know, I’m in trouble, but you don’t have to be. Checking your ego regularly avoids many unnecessary and silly battles.