The universe isn’t this great big thing labeled consciousness trying to know itself. That is something humans make up because they think they have greater awareness than all other forms, and that makes consciousness little more than human arrogance, which is a quality you should not aspire to possess. The answer to everything lies not in the cumulative intelligence gathered by human endeavor, and so-called raised consciousness, but in the humble acceptance that everything works gracefully, unbeknownst to you or anyone else, and while “not knowing” YOU are the center of it. Stillness is awareness, and Gods (YOU) know this.
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.
Bozebits
Nothing happens “to” you. This is so hard to “get” in everyday life, as we are all taught to look outward for reasons and causes. The reality is that all that happens, every interaction with who or whatever, is because of you and only you. It is your experience, and that is all any of us can expect in life. Own it, and life is yours fully and completely; fight it, resist it, blame it on others, and you will live conflicted, confused, and with a finger pointing toward everything and anyone but the real cause, e.g., you.
It’s difficult to smile when life is hard, but it is worse when smiles are replaced with judgments that only stand up in your failure to recognize that YOU are the creative center of the universe; the Maker of all that is and all that is” is in your hands. Be grateful that within YOU is love significant enough to create something so incredible.
Bozebits
There is so much going on right in front of us, but we look back at what happened in a previous, nonexistent moment and parse, dice, and second-guess what could have or should have been said or done after the fact when it no longer matters. Do you see? That meeting with your boss, where you could have said this, other than that, the discussion with friends about world affairs and the point you were trying to make would have been better stated had you expressed it another way. That scarf you knitted would have been nicer had you thought of doing it another way, which you hadn’t thought of while doing it, the golf shot that would have been closer to the target had you only used this or that club, etc. “If only” is unreal, and to recount and rehearse what “might have been” will not improve anything you do now, including some learning you think will benefit you in the nonexistent future.
Living in the present does not give you a second chance to “get it right” in some well-rehearsed future moment. It just gives a brand new, fresh, clean moment, and whatever your performance is now is always perfect until you take it apart “after the fact.” Don’t take it apart! Smile at your dalliances with life and get engaged with what is right now. Life is not a performance-driven affair. It’s just fun if you let it be fun. You can’t fail, so let it go.
Bozebits
Those who continuously look outward for safety, comfort, and answers to their minds’ fears, suffering, and travails, never seem to notice the stone they trip over. It is easy to point “out there” while nursing your bruised and stubbed toes, but until you see the stone you trip over as an obstacle, you place in your path, you are going to have sore feet for a long time. Every single thing, person, institution, etc., you denigrate, revile, and curse, is you kicking stones with bare feet with the silly expectation that looking beyond them is, somehow, stepping over them. Your feet tell you otherwise.
Simply, anything, anyone that turns your love into hate, anger, or sadness is not worth your reaction to it. Love, in any circumstance, is non-negotiable.
Bozebits
Consciousness is just another thing co-opted by your ego that it can have more of than someone else and feed its need to be right and everyone else wrong. It comes with a scale you can use to judge yourself and others, which fuels its condescending nature. “Is your consciousness ‘raised’ to the level of someone you look up to in spiritual, social, psychological, or intellectual circles? No? “Well, you’d better work on that,” or “you can get there too.” Do you see? The modern-day love affair with consciousness is coupled to “rules” no different than the varying rules of philosophical, political, and religious institutions that make you better only because you know the rules. There are no rules of consciousness. There are no rules at all. If we are one, then we are all one consciousness, and no part of it is better or worse than any other. There simply are no parts.
Raising consciousness is condescension. That is “raising ego,” and that is not a way to spirituality or awareness. Being married to “what is” with love and reverence makes you aware, but never “better.”
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
You cannot hate for “no” reason. The very nature of hate is so-called reason brewed in a cauldron of beliefs, conjecture, points of view, and ideology. Some would say love’s opposite is hate or fear, but it is not so because love is an essence indistinguishable from any “other” known source. Like the sun, love shines on and caresses all opinions, divisions, judgments, you or anyone else has. If you hate or fear, you have a reason; if you love, you don’t. You don’t act out of love; you love, and acts form from its nectar. Love is sweetness without the sweetener. Go crazy, sprinkling it!
Bozebits
Truth interpreted ceases to be true. The application of conjecture, which is the only thing your mind is capable of, sullies truth in innuendo and judgment. “What YOU are” reaches out in silence and offers compassion where noise and drama scream with other screamers. The quiet knows only love’s embrace and extends it to all who listen, not with ears, but hearts. Ears hear only noise; hearts know truth. Let your heart be the only listener and its silence the only words you speak.