“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
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
“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
“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
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.