So the usual definition of enlightenment would include something along the lines of seeing reality as it actually is in its undivided state, seeing the One in the All, returning to one’s natural state of unity rather than separation, recognizing your true nature to be present moment awareness, or quite simply being who you really are.

To add another perspective to the mix, let’s look at Abraham-Hicks’ definition of enlightenment, which is basically being a blended being and being in the vortex by aligning to the energy of Source energy, but not necessarily in every moment of every day. This is somewhat different than the Advaita, Zen, and Buddhist perspectives of enlightenment.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKi3CSRk5ew

There’s this idea that once you’re enlightened, you will no longer experience any negative emotion and you will be in a place of permanent happiness, and yet what I have from my own experience (which was very confusing at first), from those I have talked to, and even from well-known teachers like Adyashanti, Papaji, Mooji, Nisargadatta, and numerous other enlightened teachers, it’s not about a lasting experience of happiness or peace, but recognizing the well-being that is present from the eternal Self that you are, regardless of any emotional state.

In the video above, Abraham points out that while the well-being of Source is eternal and unchanging, the experience of that and the manifestation of that here in this time/space reality is not how any of us are designed to live our lives in physical form. We’re designed to experience the contrast as a way to continue the unfoldment of creating. By seeing what we don’t want, that helps us know what we do want and thus can be used as a positive way, even if the focusing on what we don’t want takes us out of the vortex momentarily. To experience the negative emotions that result from that is very much okay. It’s by design. It’s not a sign of failure or not being spiritual or enlightened enough. It’s just a sign that thoughts are arising within us in the moment that are out of alignment with Source energy/Love/Truth. That’s ALL.

Living It

It’s easy to get into a discussion about nonduality, consciousness, awareness, oneness, and all these topics which to me honestly feel kinda heavy at this point to talk about. Very seri0us almost.

And yet what I’m coming to find is the more I surrender, let go, reach for thoughts that feel better, perform self-inquiry, do some releasing work like The Sedona Method or The Work, or allow things to be as they are, which are all basically ways to release the ego’s resistance to what is which is the foundation for the separate self that for so long has been a part of the human experience, the more I both expand my awareness of All That Is (the light and the dark) as well as discover this eternal bliss that is always present, and the more I live life as an expression of and celebration of joy and love. Heck, I find myself just not really caring about “enlightenment” anymore and instead enjoy living this life experience in this moment, here and now, fully as I AM.

What is being discovered is that, as so many masters have said, YOU are the point, YOU are the Divine, and the Kingdom of God is within YOU. YOU are the gift. YOU are what you have been looking for. The I AM is IT!! Just to BE what you ARE is already a tremendous blessing, and to be that in living expression by having this life experience which allows us to both know and EXPERIENCE who we really are… MAN that’s so good… That’s grounding the spiritual energy into the physical, uniting the up here with down here, and bringing heaven down to earth as is often said. And so the point is just to enjoy the love that is you, the joy that is you, the well-being that is you, here and now. EnJOY it! In Joy.

“If you really want enlightenment, just lighten up!”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pkxFNc8kCY

True Enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire.

Enlightenment is allowing my connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined in my time/space reality. That’s as good as it gets, you see.

-Abraham

We can talk about going with the flow, and from a place of Oneness, there is only the flow of life. There are no separate parts, just this one harmonious flow of many apparent individuals. To paraphrase the Sufi poet Rumi, you are the entire ocean, and the entire ocean is contained in each drop, expressing itself as each drop. We can allow everything to be as it is and find that there’s this natural intuitive movement within us to flow this way or that, as if we have an inner sense of what the next step is and how to respond spontaneously in any moment. No rules. Just natural flow. Simple. Light. Ease.

When we think of our “life’s purpose” or our “mission in life,” typically it involves some form of outer doing. Maybe our purpose is to heal others, to repair cars, or to build a success business. For a long time my life’s purpose included waking up, teaching spirituality, opening up to loving myself and others, integrating various sometimes conflicting perspectives such as enlightenment and the law of attraction, and a few other things. You will notice that these are all doing-based activities.

Now an interesting thing to note is that all of these doings are all subject to change. They come and go as we evolve and walk down our path. These doings are ultimately all expressions of us being ourselves. When we try to permanently box ourselves into an outer role or set of actions, we actually begin to limit ourselves. When we tell ourselves that we must continue playing an outer role for whatever reason, this may actually impede our ability to fully be ourselves. On the other hand, when we decide that being ourselves is the most important thing, whatever form that takes quite naturally and spontaneously arises, it is experienced in a way that is supported by the rest of our being.

Be yourself. That is your inner mission in life. That is your purpose. That is why you’re here. To be yourself. It’s really simple.

“But what do I do!?” Just be yourself.

When you are focused on being yourself, the outer doing stuff arises quite naturally and easily out of that. You don’t have to give it a second thought, or even a first. You just do it, for no other reason than it’s you. You don’t need any other reason.

Addressing Fears of Being Yourself

When you are simply being yourself, what a tremendous freedom that is! Sure there may be fear around it at first that we need to bring awareness to and let go of.

Many of us have been taught over the years that it’s not okay to be who we are. We’ve been reprimanded and judged for sharing what is true for us. We may have been told that we shouldn’t feel a certain way. In any number of ways, we have been taught that it’s not okay to be ourselves and it is all this conditioning that we’re here to unravel and release.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with not being yourself. It can be a tremendously positive learning experience to experience NOT YOU. We may do this through imposing limitation upon ourselves, buying into limiting beliefs, diving into the energy of fear and separation, resisting what is, and so on. No matter in what way the energy of “not me” is created, it can be useful in helping us see that much more clearly what we REALLY are. The contrast really does serve us and my goodness, earth offers an abundance of contrast, does it not?

So not being yourself is here to serve you, until it does no longer and you can let it go.

Opening Up and Letting Life Flow

It’s amazing how when you let go of resisting yourself, what you want just shows up in its own way in its own time, and often times in ways you wouldn’t have been able to predict or orchestrate ahead of time. Not only does what you want manifest effortlessly and synchronistically, but the stepping stones in your path in life on an outer level become easier to follow. The decisions and actions that are in alignment with your essence feel joyous, exciting, light, and just plain right. It’s literally as if you are becoming more and more of who you are by traveling down your path.

As you recognize on deeper and deeper levels that being yourself, first and foremost, is what life is about, you find that all the outer expressions you take come and go naturally on their own, in perfect harmony with the ebbs and flows of life itself. It’s really quite amazing, far more beautifully orchestrated than anything a single limited mind could ever come up with. What needs to happen does. What doesn’t need to happen won’t. Life then begins showing you the essence of what is rather than you demanding life be a certain way. As you rest back into the observation of and appreciation of life, you see that things just fit. Way cool…

So you know the whole classic “Go meditate on a mountain and give up everything and if you can find inner peace and well-being without all the worldly stuff, then you can have true happiness” idea? That’s all well and good, but I don’t think that’s necessarily everyone’s path. Plus it can be a convenient cop-out from actually living life and being the truth and love that you’ve realized yourself to be.

When we get inner inspiration in whatever form, we can think of our physical vessels as a sort of container or pipe. In order for the inspiration to continue to flow into us, we must ground that energy into this world by manifesting and creating whatever it is that we are inspired to create. This way Source has a reason to give us more ideas. Why give us more if we’re not already using what we’ve already received? We’re given natural gifts and talents for a reason here… Yes we can try and stop or ignore that flow, but that resistance is quite painful to experience. It feels to be very much out of harmony with the natural flow. In a nutshell, it sucks.

Who does it serve if we play small? Imagine if Edison didn’t bother inventing, if Beethoven ignored his impulses to compose, if MLK Jr. decided he’d be better off keeping his ideas to himself. It’s a great disservice to All That Is if we choose to hold back and not share out gifts to the world.

The opportunity here, in these times of blossoming self-awareness, is to recognize the unlimited potential in who and what you are, and to gift yourself with permission to express that knowingness as you choose to.

-Rasha

Surrender isn’t actually about not-doing, tossing in your cards, and giving up on life, but about playing the game in full alignment with one’s inner guidance, intuitive wisdom, connection with Source, or whatever phrase you wanna use.

Being silent certainly has its place, but not when it’s used as a way to resist the flow of life, as if being silent is somehow more spiritual or whatever. When we’re called to be silent, we’ll be silent. When we’re called to speak, we speak. Being silent is not necessarily something that we need to do in every moment. The same applies with speaking. Silence is the home of Source, yes, our true home, yes, but manifest physical reality is not separate from that or in any way inferior to that.

“I had an urge to express certain things and now I have and the urge is gone. That’s really the whole story.”

-Jed McKenna

This creative process is quite natural. Flow of the river.

Now the ego may try to control this process, invest itself in a particular outcome, need something in particular to happen, want to do things right, and so on, but this is far more simple than any of that. Inspiration arises, action is taken, and then the next thing comes… unless it doesn’t. Whatever happens, and I mean whatever happens, our experience of life becomes a progressively increasing degree of acceptance and surrender to what is. You basically go with the flow. This was discussed previously in the post about the second half of allowing everything to be as it is.

We all have creative inspiration. It’s normal. It’s natural. And in fact that’s the way life should be. How do we know? Because that’s what is.

When we try to box our creative endeavors into a particular form, whether it’s painting, speaking, writing, or whatever else… when we try to fit this flow of energy into a particular box, we actually prevent it from taking its natural form.

Creative energies can take any and every form, and no form is better than any other. I’m writing this simply for myself, but since myself includes you, this makes things that much easier.

Anyways, it’s totally okay to allow your path in life to meander whichever way it goes. Our actions don’t always have to take a particular form in order for us to be living in alignment with this creative flow. It’s about being who we are, regardless of what outer expression it takes.

It’s yet another let go of control, of being this as opposed to that, and of trying to do it right. Just flow with it, whatever form it takes. Just flow…

Alright, so here’s something we see that’s pretty common in spiritual circles:

People are suffering and resisting what is (basically your typical ego stuff) and then learn about surrendering and allowing everything to be as it is. They hear phrases like “turn the other cheek” and give up struggling with what is. In a sense, this takes the wind out of the sails of the ego.

Great, cool. No longer do they fight, struggle, and demand that things should be different than they are. They basically give up trying to control their reality, but often they go to the other extreme and turn into passive wimps, basically neutered their sense of inner power sense. I’ve written about this previously in the article Does Surrendering Control Mean I Don’t Do Anything?

The Second Part of “Allowing Everything To Be As It Is”

This next part is often missed… You see, once we allow everything to be as it is, we notice that there is a totally natural and healthy desire to change things that, unlike all of the compulsive fear-based stuff we’ve let go of before, doesn’t arise from the anxious, fearful ego. This energy is Source/Creation itself expressing itself through you in physical manifestation. You become a vessel through which the creative power of the entire universe flows. How’s THAT for power!?

This power that arises seeks not power over others, but power WITH others. It uplifts the one and the all and creates win/win scenarios. It doesn’t seek to raise one up over the other in a win/lose scenario as the egoic energy so often did.

This is the third chakra taking action when in alignment with Source, rather than being dominated by the ego. Instead of being closed down, it becomes an open powerhouse for the Divine.

Look, did Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, or MLK Jr. sit around meditating and surrendering all day? Heck no! While that may certainly have been a big part of their process, they truly opened up to allowing the mind/body/soul to be used in service to the Divine and entered the world with this energy… and there was some serious mojo behind their actions!

They become flow-ers of Divine Energy, living from a place of inner inspiration, living from the stillness within.

This desire is the desire to create and be or do something out of the sheer joy of doing it, out of the pure expression of what you truly are. It’s Life seeking to experience itself through a physical body. It is Creation creating.

So… allowing everything to be as it is also includes allowing our inner being’s innate movement to create to be as it is as well, and allow our bodies and minds to follow through on this energy when it feels right!

“Everything is perfect about the universe, including your desire to change it.”

So one of the big buzzwords floating around in the Law of Attraction community these days is the idea of being the creator of your reality.

I see a number of people claim to be awake once they learn about this, but really all that’s being done is the transformation from a traditional egoic identity to another more spiritual identity. This is not truly waking up beyond the dream.

“I” am the Creator of “MY” reality. So you’re suggesting there is supposedly both a creator and a reality that this creator is creating? This is a classic case of Subject/Object duality. From the perspective of awakening, it’s utter nonsense. It’s part of the illusion, not what’s actually happening.

False Identification

What are you?

Are you your job? “I am an investment banker.”

Do your actions define you? “I am a basketball player.”

If you were to stop doing those things and start doing something else, would you cease to exist? Of course not. So your current job is not literally what you are. Neither are the actions you take. You are here regardless of what job you have or what actions you take. Identifying with your job, or any activity for that matter, is yet another case of false identity.

So to identify with what you do is a case of mistaken identity. Classic ego.

The same applies to the activity of creation.

A Creator Implies Duality

For there to be a creator, there must also be a reality that the creator creates. The two go hand in hand. As soon as we create for ourselves the idea of a creator and a created reality, BAM! Instant duality.

The reality of the matter is that there is simply creation happening. (The recognition that everything already exists here and now beyond time and space and that truthfully there’s nothing new ever being created.. this is another matter, but that’s slightly beyond the scope of this article.)

In your own direct experience, rather than some spiritual theory, what’s actually happening here in this moment? Awareness is aware. Thoughts are being thought. Actions are being taken. A world is manifesting around you. Where is this “creator” thing people talk about? Can you find one? Or is it simply just some abstract thought? Where is the “me” that is this “creator”?

Who is the doer? There isn’t one!

Yes thoughts are an integral part of the creative process. Yes there is the ability to deliberately choose thoughts. Yes what you think about you bring about. Yes thought is the energy that creates worlds. All the stuff the LoA teaches you is true, but this is all part of the illusion.

Co-creation Implies Duality

If we settle for the idea of “I am the creator of my reality” and adopt that as our new sense of self, now the mind may mistakenly say, “Ah, now I know who I REALLY am,” a feeble attempt for the mind to recognize the Self. But that’s okay. This is all the innocent mind can really do. This is certainly a step in the right direction. It’s closer to the truth than “I am the victim of a power beyond my control.”

Seeing that “I” am the Creator of “my” reality and “you” are the creator of “your” reality and the two of us are, together, creating a shared reality, we are “co-creators.” Since there is more than one of us here creating, it’s duality and thus part of the dream.

This isn’t to say that the idea of being the creator of your reality is somehow wrong or invalid. No no. This is definitely the case in the world of the relative, but this is simply just another part of the dream state. What you truly are lies beyond the dream.

Non-dual Creation

What’s actually here is simply the unfoldment and flow of creation. To think that you are a single droplet in control is like trying to flail about and control the flow of the entire river. You actually are the totality of the river. When we stop struggling with life, we find that going with the flow or “turning downstream” as Abraham puts it is quite natural. Life becomes an experience of effortless creation.

Instead of “me” trying to control “my reality,” there’s a total letting go. In my experience, here’s the recipe for quick/instantaneous manifestation:

• A thought or desire arises from a state of pure joy and appreciation: “I would LOVE to do/have that!”
• The thought is experienced for just a moment.
• The thought fades away just like the breath after your previous exhale.
• You move right along with your life, completely forgetting about the desire.
• It just shows up on its own because you have allowed it to and offered it no desire.

Really the universe does all the hard work. All that’s done “on our part” is to enjoy/appreciate/focus up and then let go. That’s it. We’re not doing the heavy lifting. The universe is what does all the heavy lifting and figures out the “how.”

There is no creator and created. There is simply thought arising, a dreamworld happening, and awareness silently aware of it all. When they are all seen to be one, OF COURSE manifestation syncs up with thought. It must for there is nothing else out there!

Without the duality of a creator and a created, there is simply the unfoldment of creation of which everything is an integral and inseparable part.

Where is God in all this?

Saying that there is no Creator does NOT mean that there is no God. This is not what’s being said here.

Many people believe “God” is the creator and you and I are the created, separate from the Creator. The Creator is somewhere “out there” and the “created” is right over here.

But what is discovered is that there is no Creator or Created, independent of each other. There is simply the unfoldment of Creation. There is the flow of Life. There is the One, being. This unfoldment, this process, this being… this is God. This Life that you are, is God. You and God are One.

The attempt to split up “God” and “me” or the “human” and the “divine” or “heaven” and “earth” or the “Creator” and the “created” are all functions of the mind. They are illusory. The are based in duality.

You are God.

The human is divine.

Heaven and earth are one.

The creator and the created are the same exact thing.

This unity is experienced directly when we allow it to be, when we stop buying into our thoughts that suggest otherwise. Thoughts of separation may arise, and that’s not a problem. It’s buying into those thoughts as if they were the Truth that creates within us the experience of separation.

Enlightenment and the Law of Attraction Complement Each Other

With the Law of Attraction we have this mysterious non-physical Source *somewhere* through which we can feel our connection via our emotional guidance system.

Waking up and getting enlightened, we discover directly the presence of God Unmanifest, the emptiness, the nothingness, the unnameable, the Source of All That Is, prior to manifestation. We become that Source, or more accurately, we realize that we actually ARE that and have always been that. The recognition of what we truly are expands. The manifest physicalized presence here “on the leading edge” consciously unites with the unmanifest nonphysical presence of Source. In awakening, the unification of you and You, as Abraham puts it, becomes much more real as the apparent separation that previously seemed to be here vanishes. This happens because we see that the manifest and the unmanifest are one. The physical and the non-physical are one.

Awakening is about waking up out of the dream, but that doesn’t mean the dream necessarily ends. Mastering the Law of Attraction is about learning how to play with the dream in alignment with natural laws. The two go hand in hand and are both complementary pieces of the puzzles.

Both are valid. Both are functional. Both are just fine.

Going Beyond Identifying With a Creator

If you want to play the game of being the creator of your reality, by all means go for it! Have fun! Enjoy yourself! Play!

Just recognize that what you truly are is far deeper than any conceptual identity such as “a creator.”

What you truly are is totally independent of what you do. You just are.

What you truly are can’t be named. You just are.

What you truly are can’t be conceptualized. You just are.

It’s almost too simple for the mind to accept, and so the mind continues to run around under the delusion that “I can’t just be! I must be someone! Someone must be doing all this! I must be a someone, such as a spiritual/creative/enlightened someone!”

No mind, doesn’t work that way… What you really are is not a someone. It is not a something.

You are no thing arising as every thing. You are not anything as opposed to anything else. You are not a creator as opposed to a non-creator. You just are. You are a non-dual being.

Creation is gonna happen whether you mentally identify with being a creator or not. You don’t have to mentally identify with what you are to be what you are. Every specific mental identity is an extra layer on top of pure being. It can be stripped away. You remain.

Who would you be without adamantly clinging to the notion that you are “the creator of your reality?”

Without that added layer of mental abstraction, who would you be if you were to just be?

Once upon a time, long long ago, in the time before time, which is not so long ago since this time we speak of is Now, there lived a vast empty space.

This space existed everywhere, all at once, simultaneously. It was omni-present. Yet it had no substance or form to point to that we could say it is “here” as opposed to “there.” Indeed, it existed nowhere. There is nowhere we could really point to to say there it is, for it existed in no location, and yet it was undeniably here.

One day the nothingness of space wanted to create matter, a non-thing creating a thing, but it was puzzled with the idea of how it could put matter somewhere given that it was already everywhere. “Ah,” it realized, “I may be everywhere, but there is nothing here to prevent matter from taking up this same space where I am. I love this matter so much that I want it to be right here with me, so close that the two of us will actually be one. It may look like there is matter over here and space over there, but if you look close enough, you’ll see that matter is actually mostly empty space. I may look to be outside of matter, but I’m actually deeply embedded within matter as well… the sweetest and most intimate kiss imaginable. Form will be infused with space, inseparable from it. We can talk about space and matter, but they’re really both me. Ah, what joy. I’ll have a playmate to play with that will actually be me, taking the form of something else. What a glorious game this will be!”

and space very much liked the idea of this game, so it made it so.

BOOM!!

The Universe as we know it was created.

Infinity was Born

And space was happy, basking in the glory of itself as the infinite manifestations of the One empty locationless non-thing that it is. It itself is the source of all form, inseparable from it, intertwined with it.

And space went around thinking to itself, “Oooh, a planet. I am that. Hey, a porcupine. I am that. How shiny! A spoon! I am that! Oh look, a human! I am that too!”

Space found all of its infinite manifestations incredibly beautiful and wondrous, so amazing in fact that it wanted to look and look and look at itself and what it could be and do. It was a most curious looker. Space couldn’t really do anything but be with something, aware of its existence.

And so it was that the emptiness of space was simply here, being with all of its manifestations, including the manifestation which chose to call itself “human.”

Now this particular manifestation of space called human chose to have a verrrry interesting experience. You see, the “human” space that was looking decided to somehow forget about the formless aspect of itself and experience just the form, a transition from pure formlessness to both form and formlessness to finally only form.

And so it was that these humans began to experience themselves as only form. With this imaginative creative decision, space suddenly had the grand opportunity to experience itself as if there was literally something else, apart from itself. Wow! What an amazing new experience!

Separation was Born

“Here I am,” said the space-filled human, “and there you are. You and I are not one, for I am this form and you are that form.”

As these humans began to forget about the formless, they began forgetting about things like energy, universal presence, and the Source from which they arose.

And it was discovered that this experience was quite painful. Humans were very unhappy with this choice on some level, for it no longer was possible to experience such a sense of fullness and completion. On a very deep level, these apparently separate humans longed for a reunification with the Oneness that they intuitively picked up on within.

Slowly the formless began to be rediscovered. People discovered electricity. People discovered x-rays and gamma rays and microwaves… all these powers that extended beyond the realm of physical form. People intuitively picked up on some sort of larger power and argued over its nature. People experienced a sense of Love from within, but argued on whether or not it was purely a product of biological reactions or if it actually had some deeper home arising from this mysterious formless nameless something/nothing.

Remembering the Space

Over the years, some of these seemingly separate space-filled humans remembered that indeed they were much vaster than they eye could see. They were actually this infinite empty space arising as this person. In fact there was really no one here. It was really just this one nameless presence that had no boundaries.

“You crazy man!” other separate people cried. “You’re a looney! What are you talking about? Can you prove what you’re saying? No? Of course not!”

Slowly, bit by bit, one person at a time, more people began remembering about the space within them that they were never disconnected from.

They began to consciously experience a sense of nothingness that was full of everything, a sense of nameless and qualityless space that is full of everything that exists. They called it the pregnant void, and other mysterious terms.

“Everything is the same one empty non-thing,” said these people who remembered. “I can’t tell you what I am, for all that I could say arises within what I am. I can only point the way. You must remember for yourself what you actually are. It is the only way for you to truly know.”

“I don’t get it,” said the people who had not yet remembered, “but something sounds amazingly familiar about what you have to say. Something rings true about this. Let me see for myself what you are talking about.”

and so they began practicing a multitude of techniques in the hopes that they could discover what is already here. They began hoping for a particular experience of what they are, or to create something new… when the reality is that what they have been looking for, the vast emptiness of space, has been here all along.

As the restless seeking and searching began to subside, there was a resting that arose in its place, creating a space for the emptiness that simply IS to recognize itself.

“Ah, yes, THIS! This has been here the whole time. It never went anywhere. This sense of something that was missing from my life was actually here all along! What a deep sense of completion and fulfillment in a very non-human sense that is present. It is beyond what we call human, resting in and as something so much more.”

and so this space, which used to look at the different manifestations of itself and think that it literally WAS that as opposed to anything else it could look at, began to reawaken into its deeper nature, consciously remember its true infinite depth.

There is an infinite presence here, but it is no one. It is no thing. It is empty. and yet it is everything. It is everywhere. It lacks nothing for it is the infinite everything. All joy, love, and peace arise from it. Where else could it come from? There is nothing else but it.

and this space began looping back upon itself, remembering what it really is, seeing its emptiness yet again, and reveling in the bliss of nothing.

This space that had remembered itself through a person, people call enlightened.

“What are you so happy about?” people asked the enlightened one.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me about God, the ultimate Creator of All That Is.”

and the enlightened one was silent. His silence actually was his answer. The silence of space IS the ultimate Creator. Any verbal answer is the created, not the creator. Silent space has no shape, no form, no beard, no name, no nothing. It’s empty. It is space. Empty and pure, and yet full of All That Is, inseparable from it.

This space that had remembered its innate emptiness would witness its human manifestation as a grand creation of this infinite space. This space would speak words through this body about returning home, and that our true home was here and now.

This space would speak words about how it is everything and nothing, both the source and the manifestation, the creator and the created, and that all dualities are really the same one thing… nothing.

Space could be nothing, everything, and/or just one individual. Wow… What an amazing play that space is putting on!

It was when space saw itself that it laughed. A laugh of recognition and remembrance.

“Just what I always wanted,” said space to itself, “to be everything and nothing, and I already am that. What more could I have ever asked for?”

Have you noticed how when you really really want something, it just doesn’t come.

and when you let go of wanting it and basically forget about it, it suddenly pops into your life?

What’s up with that?

There’s gotta be more to the story than just positive thinking. What’s missing? There must be an easier way.

Let’s look at what’s going on from the perspective of what you want, giving us insights into how to actually get what we want.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_0NsTObFwU

Featured in this video is Marie Levit, spiritual teacher and author of the book Healing God. In her book, she has a dialogue with God on a variety of topics from guilt and regret, to love and fear, and compassion and suffering. Her book is available for preorder directly on her website HealingGod.net as well as on Amazon.com.

When we take a look at the experience of life, we can see that many many different things happen all around us.

If you were the original Creator of Life, what would be the point of creating it? You already are All That Is. What more would you want?

Well, if there was just you, all alone as the infinite, there would be a lack of experiencing yourself in relationship to anything else, for there is nothing else but you.

As so *BOOM!* You create an infinite number of expressions of yourself, many unique perspectives of yourself, and give yourself the ability to experience yourself in relationship to “something else.”

Now you can experience yourself as a person who is single, has a girlfriend, a boyfriend, multiple boyfriends and/or girlfriends, a wife, a husband, a daughter, a son, a pet, or any other of the many possibilities of relationship with an other or others.

All of the people who come into your life create the possibility for the being that you are to experience yourself in relationship to another.

Everything that happens in life is a doorway for you to experience yourself as anything that you wish in response to what happens.

Many Different Responses

Say you’re walking down the street and someone makes a silly face at you. Thanks to this trigger, you have the ability to experience yourself as someone who laughs in response to it, who gets angry because of it, who has no response in relation to it, or anything else. Thanks to this gift of someone making a face at you, you have the opportunity to experience yourself in many different ways.

Everything that happens “to you” in life is simply an opportunity for you to experience another facet of yourself. On the level of form, you can be the “same you” over and over, or you can change and be a “new you” altogether. Our lives afford us this tremendous opportunity, and what a gift that is.

You are not the victim to your life.. unless you choose to experience yourself in that way. Yet ultimately you are not in any way a victim.

You and Them

What anyone says or does has nothing to do with you. It’s entirely them and “their stuff.” It’s a reflection of who they’re choosing to experience themselves as.

On the flipside, your response has nothing to do with them. It is entirely you and “your stuff.” Who you’re being is completely an expression of who you’re choosing to experience yourself as.

Recognizing this, we can allow others to be the way they choose, for it’s all them anyways. We can even allow all of life to be as it is.

You and I are independent, and yet because we require one another in order to experience ourselves in relationship to each other, we are intimately connected and completely intertwined.

Deeper than this, there is only one of us. Really.

Absolute and Relative

In the domain of the absolute, everything just is.

Not happy or sad. Not male or female. Not big or small. Not perfect or imperfect. Everything just is.

There is no opportunity for uniqueness or relationship, because it’s all one.

As the one expresses itself in the world of the relative, we are given the gift of experiencing ourselves as anything we wish.

Nothing happens “to you” in life, unless you want to experience yourself as someone who has stuff happen to them.

Nothing happens “for you” in life, unless you want to experience yourself as someone who has stuff happen for them.

Life is a meaningless blank slate, on top of which the mind can paste any meaningful experience it so chooses.

We are that free, as the empty nothingness that we are, to create ourselves as a unique expression of the infinite everything that we are.

Choose

And so in this lifetime, who do you wish to be? Choose.

Like it? Choose again.

Don’t like it? Choose again.

Want to use your free will to push against life? Do it.

Want to use your free will to surrender to the flow of life? Do it.

It is all up to you.

(Photo by =LimpidD on deviantART)

The mind is designed to think in either/or ways. Duality. The mind thinks that it’s this OR that, not this AND that.

Is someone right or wrong? How ’bout both? And neither?

We’re either separate or connected or one. Which one is True?

There is a here and a there, or there is only a here. Is there here?

Could fear be a form of love?

Could the Devil actually be God?

Something can be something, or nothing, or everything, but not all simultaneously.

Is there really Truth separate from something called falsehood?

It seems as though awakening makes the mind have to face some impossible realities that are obviously and undeniably happening right before your eyes.

You are the space of nothingness that is full of everything, and they are not separate. Nothing and Everything are unified as One.

Individuality and Oneness

Individuality does not imply separation. A wave is not in any way separate from the ocean, but is the ocean itself, expressing itself as a wave.

There is no separation, and yet there is simultaneously oneness AND the infinite. Non-duality is NOT limited to just Oneness. That’s why they don’t call non-duality oneness. Non-duality means not-two, or not-separate.

It seems like the mind can get “stuck” in oneness, yet the One expresses itself in an infinite number of ways. In this, there is no loss of individuality. Everything is the One.

Any realization or understanding you must be willing to let go of, including Oneness. You must be willing to not understand or know a single thing. To have no idea what the Truth is. To be that simple and unattached to knowing.

You are the indescribable, and you are all descriptions. There is nothing that you are not, and you are that which you are not, except that you aren’t.

Beingness

How would you describe or visualize beingness? It has no qualities to describe. It just is. Is/am/are/were.. all forms of the word be. To be, you just are. Nothing else. No thing to describe. Just beingness being without any mental image to wrap around beingness.

Free of identity beyond simple existence.

Creation

You look at a plant and you see how Creation creates itself and recreates itself infinitely fast over and over, yet taking no time to do it. How is this possible?

Every thing is the unmanifest no thingness expressing itself repeatedly in a series of blips of time that doesn’t even exist.

You Are What You Are Not

God is All That Is. You are God. You are All That Is. Illusion and the dream state is God. Non-God is God.

Your thoughts are not what you really are. Yet thoughts are another manifestation of All That Is. Thoughts are All That Is. Everything is All That Is. Everything you look at IS the infinite. Thoughts are your true Self, the totality of what you are, as is everything else in All That Is. There are no “parts” of God. There is simply the unified totality even though there is the individual which is not the totality.

A is not B. Yet there is ultimately only one presence, both of which A and B are. Thus A is B, just different manifest expressions of the same One presence.

Your body is your mind which is your false self which is your true self which is the sun which is the stars which is your deepest passion… it’s all the same, even though it’s different. They are not two.

Creating the Impossible

You can experience the unreal by making it real in your own imagination and thus experiencing it. Have you ever seen someone completely misinterpret a situation and experience something that never actually happened except in their own imagination? This is the experience of the dream state people call real life. It’s all just a play of mind which is consciousness pretending to be mind, which is lila, the play of the Divine.

Because of this creative and imaginative ability, we can somehow experience separation up to a certain point, even though it doesn’t actually exist! Through the mind, we can create the impossible and make it manifest. “Anything is possible.” This is what the mind does. It makes up stories and descriptions to describe that which just is and has no description. The mind is a creative and imaginative story-teller.

The you you think you are is just another story.

Humanity

Paradoxically we can go through separation to realize oneness. All separation eventually does reintegrate back into Unity.

We can experience who we are not in order to realize who we really are. This is the summation of the human experience.

There is NOTHING wrong OR right with any experience, real or illusory. It just is what it is, all part of a larger scheme to bring us back to who we are, unless it does not.

When the wave falls back into the ocean and realizes its immense depth, nothing is lost. Awareness expands consciously to become more conscious of what it is, and always “was” and always “will be.” It just is.

The wave does not cease to exist when the ocean is realized. It simply realizes its own depth. The wave continues to happen, but it feels so superficial compared to the immensity of the infinite Self, yet the wave IS the infinite Self.

You are the impossible, happening, and you are not.

Surrendering the Need to Understand

The mind… can it even grasp Truth?

What if we just gave up trying to understand all this?

What happens when we finally get it that we can’t get it…

What if we let go of trying to understand, know, or realize anything…

Welcome welcome, America’s new president, Barack Obama!

This afternoon he gave his inauguration speech in front of roughly 3 bazillion people all crowded along the Washington Mall.

Thank goodness there was so much body heat going around, because it was a cold day today, yet the human popsicles came out regardless to watch our new president be sworn into office.

One of the big buzzwords these days is “Change.” So, setting this context, let’s highlight a few of the changes that he mentioned in his inauguration speech today that specifically tie into the idea of spiritual change and Oneness.

Choosing Oneness over Separation

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

Love over fear. Unity trumps separation. Let go of outdated belief systems that no longer serve us.

Unconditional Love is just that: UNCONDITIONAL. That means without condition. Regardless of race, culture, history, or belief systems, you are Loved just the same. You need do nothing to earn it, nor can you lose it. You Are Truly Loved, unconditionally and infinitely Loved. It is Love that is our foundational bedrock, our core of being.

The All Are the One

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Our differences may exist on the surface, and we all play unique roles within All That Is, but it is our variety that makes us special, and our diversity that, when fully honored, paradoxically draws us together as One.

You and I all fit into the puzzle of All That Is when we are fully being who we are: unique expressions of the One.

Creation is Power

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

If you have a bunch of blocks lying on the ground, it takes power to creatively put them all together as a building. Yet when you have a building constructed of blocks, it takes virtually no power to destroy the building.

Power lies in Creation. Only the powerful can create. Anyone can destroy because it takes no power.

True Change Starts With You

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

You are your society. You are the people. The All are the One and the One is the All. We are one nation.

It is up to you to take responsibility for your life, to create your reality, and to serve yourself through service to others, for you and the other are One.

It’s time for change! Let’s sing it with Here II Here!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0f3Dn_FQ8Y