Ego loves the spectacular, the awe-inspiring, mind-jolting “burning bush,” calls it a miracle, and is quick to place profound meaning in it relative to current circumstances, missing the real miracles, which are infinite in number and everywhere. A dewdrop sparkling on a blade of grass, a flower or tree swaying in the wind, snow, smiles, winks, a kiss, the smell of rain newly fallen, a breath, the whisper “I love you,” in tender moments, sunsets, sunrises, a child skipping to school, crying, laughter, etc., etc., etc.
The big and bold is the chase of ego, and in that chase, real miracles go unrecognized, and life itself is reconciled to the mundane. Close your mind, and, in so doing, you open awareness. That is, nothing is missed, and all that you experience is one great big miracle. Wherever YOU are, whatever you are doing, they are there and for no other reason than to enrich your life with wonders.
Bozebits
Life is a mystery, but your mind, too, wants its place in that, so it invents its own. The mind’s mystery is intrigue and subtlety, spooky, dangerous, and full of villains, ghosts, and monsters lurking in every corner. While there is nothing wrong with your mind indulging in its brand of mystery, never let it get beyond fantasy, fun, and, especially, fiction. It is no different than consuming “junk food.” That is, it tastes good and feels good, but has no nutritional value and can cause significant damage to the body. “Junk food” for the mind is no different, and you are being fed it constantly. You don’t have to eat it, but if you do, take it for what it is, e.g., nonsense and of no nutritional value to your mind!
That part of you that is not your mind will love you for it and let you peer into the real mystery. The mystery that transforms body and soul that is! Now, where are those chips?
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
“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
Your existence is not an evolutionary process, e.g., a coming from or going to. It is an involvement. That is, whatever is right now has everything to do with your participation in the whole of creation. Do you see? YOU, not from a place of evolutionary progress or regress, exist here now with your creation. Your involvement with it is an expression of your love for it. Create life and live it! There’s no better formula for YOU being you.
Bozebits
Awareness, that is, opening yourself beyond the silly and often inane knowledge humans treasure far too much, embraces subtlety, mystery, and reverence, which ultimately coalesce into decency and a well-rounded human being. The mystical, unspoken, and even unspeakable grounds you in humility and forsakes the rigidity of all the “absolutes” humans anchor themselves to, which chains them to life rather than free them to experience its myriad surprises.
In other words, it’s not what you know about life, but what you are free to step into that you don’t know, e.g., you are greatest when you are smallest. Humble up, be grateful, and embrace the surprise.
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
What you think of yourself, regardless of grandiosity, power, strength, or humility, does not come close to what YOU are for the simple reason that your mind, where all thought originates, is incapable of thinking that big. Descriptions or labels, such as “infinite,” eternal,” even “I AM,” are limited by your mind’s definition of those terms and inability to comprehend the unknowable, making any definition of you little more than denigration. What YOU are, underneath anything you “think” is unspeakable; therefore, your silence, in every way, is as close as you will ever get to knowing. Shhhh…, there YOU are.
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.