Being. It’s one of those spiritual words that’s tossed around like presence, meditation, nirvana, and so on. Not exactly one of the words that’s commonly used in day-to-day life, but is still vitally important in the whole spiritual game that can be played.
So, being. What is it anyways?
Let’s start this post off with Adyashanti going up to bat first. Batter up!
He describes being as the You you’ve always been. The You that you really really are, regardless of how old you are, if you’re enlightened or not, if even you’re doing the whole spiritual shebang or not.
One critical thing he points out is that “being” is “form without a particular attribute.”
This is so key.
Being vs. A Being
Typically when we think of being, we think of a being. For example, a person is a type of being. Cats are beings. Dogs are beings. There are lots of living beings and maybe even some non-physical beings running around this place like ghosts or guardian angels and whatnot.
So the word “being” is thought of as a pointer to a particular creature of some sort. An individual.
But this is not what the word “being” is pointing to when we talk about what you really are. It’s not about this being or that being. In fact, it’s not about any particular being at all!
It’s just about being. Not individualized or part of any particular living thing.
It’s not so much a thing, like a human being, but more a presence. It’s existence. It’s just here, whatever the heck it is. It’s just here.
Look to your own experience. This is easily confirmed and verified if you look within and see for yourself instead of trying to wrap your mind around some words and theory.
Look within.
Exploring Being
Being is here within.
Does it have any attributes that make it human? Do you own a human being as opposed to a cat being? Where does being end? Does it have any boundaries that you can locate? Does it have an age? Does it have a size? A color? A shape?
The living beingness that is here is formless. It is nameless. It’s just a presence that is here. and it’s always here.
It’s so obviously here that it’s totally overlooked as we make our way through life.
Connecting With Another
It is what is seen when you gaze into the eyes of any other living being. Again, being not as in an object with any particular attributes, history, personality, or any of that superficial stuff… but just living beingness. Aliveness. It is Life itself peering through the eyes of another.
Looking into the eyes of another, when you do this without labeling, categorizing, or in any way adding additional mental processing, you’re seeing Life itself. It is Life connecting with Life. Awareness seeing Awareness. Being being with Being.
No identity is necessary. No person. No man. No woman. No story superimposed upon what arises. None of that. Just Being.
There is no separation when Being connects with Being.
There’s no “me” in the way of being. There is nothing to cloud the unification.
Scott Kiloby (click to check out his beautiful new site!) just published a pair of videos on the topic of reification, a fancy word pointing to how the mind separates things.
In these videos he shares a wonderful discussion on such topics as why enlightenment isn’t something to get, how it’s not something the mind can ever get, the importance of resting as nonconceptual awareness, and how thought is not your enemy.
Some people advocate believing in God, believing that unconditional love is better than suffering, believing that we’re all one, believing that you are the creator of your own reality, and so on. These belief systems can all have very powerful and helpful effects in your life. You’re probably familiar with the power of the mind and how much of an impact it has upon the reality you experience.
At the same time, other people recommend looking past beliefs entirely because they limit your knowingness. This too can be a very helpful process, and yet it seems to contradict the other way of life which uses beliefs as a tool to really impact your life.
You can believe in your beliefs so strongly that you effectively become them, yet you are not your beliefs if you are not your thoughts. What’s the dealio? If we’re doing the whole spiritual thing, should we have beliefs or not?
Marie Levit, author of Healing God, recently posted a video about this subject, discussing how beliefs fit into one’s spiritual evolution.
So part of this spiritual path involves moving from fear towards love, becoming more and more loving.
The past few days I’ve allowed myself to be in my ego. To be angry. To feel my deep sadness. To experience this energy that for so long I’ve been trying to run away from, transcend, transform, heal, or in any way shape or form change. This egoic presence something I haven’t experienced in quite a long time, much less embraced.
I’ve decided to stop running from anything that is within me. Whether this fear is me or not me is not of primary importance right now. It is here, and I’m not going to run from it.
Diving into my own anger, I’m noticing one fear arising in particular: If I allow myself to experience my darkness, I’ll somehow slide back into my ego and become totally unconscious again, like some sort of crazed psycho killer or something. (Gotta love how the mind works…) A high degree of unconsciousness basically the complete failure for what one would call a spiritual person.
Looking at this more closely, we see that this fear is actually afraid of itself. It’s fear afraid of fear. The ego afraid of itself. It is a self-sustaining and self-reinforcing mechanism.
If you’re afraid of experiencing you’re own fear, noticing your existing fear will bring up more fear, which will create more, which will create more, and so on.
When we talk about the idea of “living in the moment,” so often the emphasis is on being in the moment. On being present in the now. How ’bout the other half of that statement? LIVING in the moment. Fully. PASSIONATELY!
I go out hiking 1-2 times a week minimum these days. Water hikes are my favorite. Where I went today, at the top of the waterfalls there was this rope swing. I’ve ALWAYS wanted to ride one of those! For this one you climb up a tree, swing from a branch, and get launched towards the water at least a good 15 feet up above the surface. Basically, AWESOME. Did I do it?
YOU BET I DID! Over and over and over again!
To be honest, I’m getting tired of trying to be spiritual all the time and living up to some ideal called loving, non-attached, peaceful, open to what is, or whatever the heck we’re “supposed” to be when we’ve gone beyond our ego. If whatever this is is our natural state, why the heck am I trying so hard to accomplish it!? Seriously!
The transition I’m making now is to really EXPERIENCE life. FEEL it. Let it MOVE me.
The way that social interactions are experienced seem to change significantly when one comes from this place of this one non-thing. Let’s reflect on some of the more prominent changes that occur, some of the fruits of oneness, if you will.
It seems like one can reach a point where this Love no longer really disappears. Instead of fear replacing Love, it merely attempts to cloud over it at best with things such as painbody attacks or whatever else, yet this fear can never fully override love, despite the fact that it may look like it on the surface. Just like on a cloudy day, you can still notice the way the sun makes the clouds glow from behind. The sun doesn’t fully disappear anymore.
Have you ever noticed how the ego really likes to juice negative situations? It’s like it derives a certain sense of satisfaction out of stewing in anger about a situation, regretting the past, worrying about the future, wallowing in sadness or self-pity, exacting revenge on another, and so on. You know.. typical ego “stuff.” It’s almost like a “guilty pleasure,” in a sense. If we’re honest with ourselves, even though we know it’s bad, on another level it can still feel oh so good…
Yet even though this “bad” stuff is happening, Unconditional Love is always here. This Presence, whatever it is, is undeniable.
Because it becomes so obvious and everpresent, it may begin to feel like a burden to the ego, like a thorn that just won’t go away. No longer can you sit in your own self-created pile of poo, ignoring Love. Logically we wouldn’t want to do that of course, but it can feel comforting to rest in our ego. There’s a sense of familiarity in it if it’s what we’re used to.
With sincere devotion to Truth/God/Love, it’s like its presence can no longer be suppressed and will continue to power its way through your crap, as if it is here burn through your junk. No longer do you have the luxury of ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist. And this is so fortunate, as uncomfortable as it may be to surrender away yet another layer of crud.
This Unconditional Love that arises is not really a choice. It’s not a decision. It’s neither logical nor illogical. It simply Loves because that’s what Unconditional Love does. It is its nature. There is no other option. This Love just powers its way through what you think you are, transmuting everything into itself. In shines from within, transforming everything it touches as it radiates both through your body and out into the world. This Love is not always soft and quiet. No no. It can also be quite intense and powerful as well.
Unconditional Love itself, its very presence, is very upending to one’s ego. It’s like it’s shaking the ego from its comfortable position on its throne. Who’s gonna get to sit in the throne? Love or fear?
If you surrender and let this game of fear vs. love happen, well, let’s just say that love is a big girl and she can take care of herself.
Yet another experiential thingy that can be experienced in this singular timeless moment.
Freedom. Liberation. Is it really something to achieve?
When you say, “I want to be free,” WHO wants to be free? If it’s suddenly realized that there’s no one to be free and there’s nothing other than what you are to be free of, what then?
You Are Truly Loved features content designed to guide people towards spiritual enlightenment, unconditional love, and inner peace through Self-realization. We Are All One.
So part of this spiritual path involves moving from fear towards love, becoming more and more loving.
Seriously!
It seems like one can reach a point where this Love no longer really disappears. Instead of fear replacing Love, it merely attempts to cloud over it at best with things such as painbody attacks or whatever else, yet this fear can never fully override love, despite the fact that it may look like it on the surface. Just like on a cloudy day, you can still notice the way the sun makes the clouds glow from behind. The sun doesn’t fully disappear anymore.
