Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practise this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.

-Anthony de Mello

Have you ever gotten used to a person or place to the point where it loses its magic and spark and you begin taking it for granted? It often isn’t until we stop and recognize that this could all be gone tomorrow,really,  ’till we let this sink in and allow ourselves to live from this space, that we truly begin to appreciate what we have right now.

Many people fear death, and yet it’s the recognition that everything in the world is disappearing and dying literally as we speak that helps us be that much more alive! Interesting… Death, it inspires us to really be alive!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLXZMCqUVKE

(Embedding is disabled in the official Adyashanti version, so if you prefer you can click here to watch this same video on youtube w/o hebrew subtitles.)

The other day a spectacular opportunity has literally just fallen into my lap, a culmination of many of my biggest passions and a crystal clear manifestation that makes me feel grateful for all the things that happened and all the things that didn’t. It’s like I can see WHY certain things I thought I wanted to happen didn’t (and thank goodness they didn’t!), and I am incredibly grateful for being able to see how perfectly everything has unfolded for me in my time here in Colorado. It makes me so grateful for everything that is happening now and even what is yet to come, seeing how well it’s all being so utterly mind-boggling perfectly orchestrated…

So now I am tying up loose ends here in Boulder (ie. closing down my PO box, cancelling my gym membership which allowed me to shower, picking up boxes of stuff I’d temporarily dropped off at a friend’s place, saying goodbye to friends I’ve made here, etc.) and getting ready to head west yet again, this time to California. While I don’t want to go into the details of it quite yet as there’s lots of cool stuff that’s still in the beginning stages, let’s just say that this could be huuuuuge…

Honestly Colorado has been starting to feel a little, well, dull and complete lately, strangely enough. Reminds me of a quote I really like…

“Each purpose, each mission, is meant to be fully lived to the point where it becomes empty, boring, and useless. Then it should be discarded. This is a sign of growth, but you may mistake it for a sign of failure.”

-David Deida

After being here in Colorado for two months now, it’s now starting to feel a bit stale. Wake up, do your thing, go to sleep, even if your thing is climb a mountain. A bit routine, you know? It wasn’t utill the whole “Alright, I’m moving to California in two days!” thing popped up that I stopped and allowed myself to fully sink in and appreciate where I am now.

(and it’s not the “going there” that’s the point, but the recognition of “what’s here now” that is the point.)

It’s so cool… sitting in Starbucks this morning, the girls next to me started talking about consciousness, self-actualization, and so on amongst themselves. That’s just the norm here in Boulder.

I took a stroll down Pearl Street, a nice somewhat touristy area lined with shops and tulips, and took the time to sit down and fully enjoy the street performers, even engage in conversation with them, get to know them a bit, and even offer to post some of their peformances up on youtube. Here’s some of the wonderful people I’ve come across lately:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0q4IQOJpgw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=USJaaxxzprY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJHB9PLf8UA

(Be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel dedicated to traveling! It’s fun posting videos of cool stuff that I run across.)

Anyways, It’s amazing how when you know what you have right now, you’re not going to have to be able to do in a matter of hours, and you take the time to fully engage and experience what is happening right here, to quit going numb and wake up out of that routine auto-pilot zombie-mode that’s so easy to sink into.

Have you ever seen the movie The Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? GREAT movie.. Well it looks like someone took that song and mixed it with one of my favorite songs, “Live Like You Were Dying,” by Tim McGraw. This is definitely worth watching…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWg5DlWVa8

Consciousness. Awareness. I used to think this was synonymous with the ‘I Am’, but now it looks like they’re actually two distinctly unique things.

Nisargadatta Maharaj has a text titled Prior to Consciousness (you can find some quotes from it here). I remember reading over some of the quotes some time ago and noticing how much of it went right over my head. “Prior to Consciousness?” Can anything really exist apart from consciousness? (If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it still make a sound?) What kind of reality is existence without consciousness? Is Nisargadatta arguing semantics here or is he rockin’ out some ninja-level mojo here?

It turns out life decided to set up a really powerful experience to help me understand what he meant…

Turning Off in Meditation

The other day I had this really strong urge to go meditate. As I sat down on my bed and leaned up against the wall, I consciously told myself that I wasn’t going to try and accomplish, create, or manifest anything in this time allotted. Should I need to receive or experience something I’d be open to it, but there wasn’t a demand for even that. It was just a decision to BE, to be in a state of full surrender.

Quickly I began dropping down into a deep meditative state and within maybe 2-3 minutes or so, I could feel myself starting to expand beyond the limits of my physical body. Basically the beginnings of an OBE (out of body experience). The thought crossed my mind as to whether or not I should ground myself and hold this energy back down into the physical, but I let that go and allowed my energy to do what it would.

The next thing I know I come to, still sitting upright in my bed. I take a few breaths and then open my eyes and look over at the clock. An entire HOUR had passed. In that time I had basically shut down and turned off. There was no conscious experience of anything during that hour, no awareness of self in that time, no thoughts, and no memory of what happened at all.

I know I didn’t just fall asleep. For months I would get sleepy towards the end of a meditation and I’d stop and take a nap. (To be honest, I think it was my ego trying to get out of meditation and making my body tired to get me to quit, heh.) Because that’s happened SO many times, I know exactly what it’s like to get tired and want to fall asleep when meditating and this definitely wasn’t that. I was still sitting upright. Not even my head had slumped over. It was literally as if my entire sense of self had been turned off and my body was frozen in time.

If this is what the experience of death is like (annihilation of self), then death is really nothing to worry about. In nonexistence, there’s no one there to experience death, much less have a problem with it. When you come back after the experience, there’s nothing there to remember. Going through this experience really helped alleviate my fear of death to some degree.

I noticed it hasn’t wiped out my fear of death altogether yet as a few days later during meditation, I could feel the life force literally leaving my body altogether, as if it was being ripped out of my chest, and there was still attachment to keeping *my life force energy* in *my body* for separating them would mean death of self. Resistance to the experience. I’d consciously surrender more and more trying to release the resistance totally, but then the phone rang and pulled me out of my meditation. heh…

This is very different from the conscious experience of nothingness, of the recognition of the no thing that manifests as everything. That’s been experienced before here too and this most definitely was NOT that. In that there is conscious awareness. In this there is not.

Knowing that I didn’t simply cease to exist for a little while and then spontaneously come back into existence, it became clear that there is a difference between consciousness and the ‘I Am.’ I Am is eternal, but the experience of and memory of conscious awareness of the I Am is apparently not. One can exist without conscious awareness of self. It’s similar to how you continue to exist even when in a state of deep sleep between what we call the waking state and the dream state. In that gap there is no reality being experienced (physical reality, the dream world, or otherwise), nor is there a sense of consciousness that is conscious of anything, much less itself. It’s quite literally as if someone flicks the light switch off on you and then later flicks it back on. It’s one thing to have it happen when you’re asleep or get knocked out. That’s normal. This was different…

What’s Going On?

So I’ve always had an association in my mind between consciousness, existence, life, being, and the I Am. Many names for God, right?

If you were to ask me what happened, I don’t really know, but it’s my feeling that there was an experience on some higher than conscious level. Do you remember what happened prior to your birth? Probably not, and yet there were many experiences to be had there disconnected from this physical incarnation. I’ve read that when we go to sleep and go into that state of offness, our soul often leaves our body again and goes off into other dimensions and astral realms and whatnot, so perhaps this was similar.

Reaching out to friends in inquiry about this experience, I’m finding that a number of us have been walking along similar points in the journey for quite some time now. For example, CaterpillarWoman from our forums just wrote a post about That Which is Beyond Consciousness. It’s almost like a flock of birds where we’re all moving independently together. I’ve even found myself going through the same experiences and using the same words and examples as people I don’t even talk to. It’s pretty wild to see this happening. Life is so fricken’ cool…

Anyways, with respect to this experience I’ve come across a number of things that my friends have shared with me:

Developing One’s Abilities as a Conduit

A friend of mine named Kathy who I met recently and was guided to ask about this experience shared that she’s had pretty much the same experience in meditation as me. Sweet! Good to hear! Here is some of what she had to say on the topic, shared with you guys with her permission:

Practitioners of meditation, yoga and healing (or in my case Shamanic) breathing techniques are capable of inducing themselves into a state of trance that sets them up for out of body experiences.

The reason you have no memory is because your body wasn’t along for the ride – it was a soul experience – which means that your higher self is capable of sharing information with your about where you went and what happened.

“Trance can be both voluntary and involuntary, but in both the effect is the same – disassociation of the soul from the body, and temporary detachment from everything related to body. It is neither the state of wakefulness nor that of the sleep. It is an intermediate state of being.”

Visionaries, prophets and psychics all are capable of mastering this state of being. So, if I had to “guess” I’d say that you’re being prepped/initiated for the next step of what will be asked of you on your life path. You’re being shown a portal that’s open to you for your futher development…and how cool is that?!

The trance state is what’s being developed – yes OBE is a part of it in that it’s why you feel you’ve turned off – but the skill of going into a deep trance state at will is what’s being developed – it’s something Edgar Cayce mastered, as an example. You’re further developing your skills as a conduit ;-)

Woohoo!!! Hearing this is SUPER exciting to me. You see, I’ve been meeting SO many channels over the past year or so and am having a great time learning about what channeling is all about and exploring the similarities and differences between channeling styles, so much so that I recently put out a youtube video on the subject. Just seeing it from an outsider’s perspective and watching documentaries on channeling like Tuning In, as fun as that is, I wanna play too! So I’ve intentionally developing my intuition and listening skills, and even going through Bashar’s workshop again called The Art of Channeling (available on youtube) where they explain all about channeling and then even teach you how to become a channel.

The past few days since this experience, I’ve been feeling strong pulls to continue meditating and I’ve noticed that when I do, I drop down into a really deep meditative state really quickly. This shift is something very new for me and so I’m really following it to see what develops.

The State of Nothingness

Next I’d like to share with you a dialog that was brought forth a few months ago in response to a question I had for my friend Marie. She took my question and asked God about it. The following is her answer, shared here with you with her permission:

Dear God. My friend asked me this question:

“When we get hit on our head and lose consciousness, our whole reality as we know it ceases to exist. We no longer experience it. Other people can see our bodies, but we see nothing. I don’t think we actually cease to exist in those moments. Is there actually a conscious experience then and our physical memory is simply disabled in those moments or what?”

The state of nothingness is a state of intense transformation, Marie. This is a state which your energy experiences right before it takes a human form and shortly after the death of the physical body. Also, this very state may be experienced by embodied being at the moments of major transformations.

I agree: often this state feels like death. No wonder people don’t have a sense of body or memory in this state… Why do I have to experience death while alive?

In order to become aware of yourself as all that is, many people first need to realize themselves beyond their body and mind. In other words, they need to break thorough that wall which separates life and death. The state of nothingness is that train that takes you through the tunnel of unconsciousness to the “other side” of awareness. It is that bridge that allows you to experience existence and nonexistence simultaneously.

Sometimes these ‘trips’ happen spontaneously. Why is that?

Nothing happens spontaneously, my dear: when you are consciously or unconsciously ready to know more of yourself, your energy creates an experience of entering that train.

Does everybody have to experience this ‘train’ in order to become you?

Yes, but not in every lifetime. For instance, someone who experienced this state this life time and evolved through it to the point when the train is no longer needed will incarnate in his next lifetime with an awareness of himself as all that is.

So, the purpose of that train is to take one from the world of relative to the world of absolute?

True. Except for these two are not separate worlds, even though it may appear that way. The mastery though, is to complete the circle, not getting stuck in any of its fragments. True awakening starts with the awareness of your body and mind as limited reality; continues with the awareness of self beyond the body and the mind, and ends with an awareness of the body and the mind as unlimited reality.

So, one doesn’t have to take these trips to ‘the other side’ of awareness his entire life?

Not at all. The purpose of taking any trip is to arrive to your destination. If you can remember that your destination is not the train itself and not the places you visit, but your own self, the experience of being on the train will eventually disappear.

Many people don’t know how to act on that train. Can you give advice?

Get your mind out of the way.

That’s it?

That’s it. If you can resist the temptation to analyze the train and the landscape, but simply allow the train to take you through transformation, you will merge with the absolute effortlessly.

This makes so much sense. You said that my entire being is going through transformation in this state. Does it include my mind?

Of course it does. This is why thinking in this state is nearly impossible.

So, it’s like a surgery with Divine anesthesia.

Great analogy.

Well, now I can see why “waking up” in the middle of the “procedure” can be so frustrating… My last question is: Why when one is in this state others perceive him as a human being but he doesn’t perceive himself this way?

Others perceive you as a human being, because you never quit being one. It is just that in the beginning of your transformation your mind doesn’t have the capacity to perceive yourself as more than one thing. So, it perceives you either as a human being with a body and thoughts or as a silent awareness with no body and thoughts. Eventually your mind transforms so much, that it develops capacity to be aware of all aspects of your being simultaneously. That is when you no longer need the train to bridge between ‘two’ worlds, but you realize yourself as an embodiment (separateness) of the absolute (oneness).

Thank you.

and so with the wonderfully helpful suggestion to get the mind out of the way and continue focusing on myself (as usual), I’m going to wrap up this post and go back to enjoying the journey and following the guidance of my energy and intuition. It’s creating such a wonderful transformational process here and I am very grateful to be along for the ride.

So when you heard about spiritual awakening or enlightenment, what was the prize that you wanted in the end? What was the story that got you hooked?

Perhaps it was something about experiencing endless bliss and joy, or maybe it was the end of suffering, or perhaps it was about experiencing constant Oneness with the Divine. Maybe it was the answer to all your life’s questions.

It may be something else entirely, but whatever the case may be, I’m sure the bait was very shiny and attractive, yes?

It turns out that they don’t give you the full story when you start playing the game. What I’m about to share isn’t meant to discourage people on the path, but simply to help them be conscious if and when these things start occurring. These things don’t necessarily mean that something has gone wrong, although it may certainly seem that way. A helpful book to those who are experiencing the following symptoms is You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up!

Now, if spiritual awakening was to come with a series of warning labels, what would be printed on those labels?

Warning: All your beloved attachments are going to be taken away from you. Everything you hold near and dear to your heart you must be completely and utterly willing to lose them. The more you hold onto them, the more you’ll suffer. It is only in the willingness to let go that find your freedom. By the way, letting go as a technique to trick the universe into granting your freedom, as in saying that you let go while peeking over your shoulder to see what’s to come, that doesn’t cut it. You can’t B.S. your way there. Believe me, I’ve tried… No one else has been able to pull that one off either.

Warning: You will experience dark nights of the soul. You will experience your entire world crumbling down. You will experience intense emotional roller coasters, to the point where you literally may feel like you’re going crazy.

Warning: You must let go of all of your judgments and false sense of worth. You know all those accomplishments you’ve achieved in this lifetime? What do you brag about? You must let go of holding onto any of them as a way to enhance your self-worth and boost your sense of self. Your trophies and medals, while certainly valuable in their own right, they must lose their importance as something that makes you feel better or worthy. You are not valuable because of anything you have ever done or ever will do. You are valuable simply because you are. Because you exist. All the blows to your pride and are ways to help you let go of your false sense of worth and open up to the realization of your true worth.

Warning: You must let go of all your ideas about God. In order to find God, you must quit telling yourself you already know God. All the ideas that you’ve grown up hearing, being taught, holding onto, or rejecting, all of them have to be let go of in order to be seen through.

Warning: You will find yourself entering a place with no rules, no shoulds and shouldn’ts, no technique, no strategies, and no room for all of your egoic stuff and the energy of division.

Warning: Your ego will throw fits. Your painbody will go crazy. Your buttons will get pushed. Your ego will throw out every trick in its book. When you start learning how to get past its tricks, it’ll become more sneaky and subtle. As you advance, your ego advances. It all happens to bring more awareness to the energies within, to help you let go of that which you previously have been unconscious to.

Warning: The egoic dangers don’t end after awakening. In fact, as Adyashanti points out, the dangers after awakening get more dangerous and there’s much more of them. For example, one can settle in to seeing the Absolute as the only valid perspective and disregarding the world of the relative because it’s all “illusion.” This can lead to some very unconscious behavior and a letting go of changing that because “it doesn’t matter” and “there’s no one to change it.” Remember, the world is illusion, yes. Brahman alone is real, yes. BUT, the world IS Brahman. This is true non-duality: seeing the Reality in the so-called illusion as one.

Warning: Just because you wake up, that doesn’t mean that everyone will love you and you’ll never have any struggles in life again. Just look at Jesus if you have any doubts about that one.

Warning: You must come out of hiding. All the dark stuff within you that you haven’t been wanting to look at and be truthful about, it’ll all come up to the surface. All that stuff you hide from other people, the things you don’t want to show to others or to yourself, your inside will become your outside. There’s no hiding ANYTHING from anyone. It’s a deep deep level of vulnerability, sincerity, and self-honesty.

Warning: All your life lessons will come to the surface. You’ll have to look at and accept everything. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to go. You can only be here, now. There’s no one to become. Waking up isn’t a self-improvement course. Although it may appear this way on the surface, the point of waking up isn’t to become more spiritual, more loving, more enlightened, or more acceptable in the eyes of God. It’s about Self-realization, about realizing who and what you really are. You return back to your natural state and be who you really ARE, that which doesn’t have to be created, manifested, or maintained.

Warning: The farther you go, the more painful it becomes to deviate from the Truth of your being. Think of it this way: If you walk into a tree at 2 mph, it’s no big deal. If you whack a tree while running as fast as you can, it’s gonna hurt. The deeper you go into Being, the more painful it is when you lie even just a little bit, hold back your Truth, don’t allow yourself to be who you are, resist what is, judge another, or in any way violate natural laws. You get a lot less slack. In Zen they call it walking the Razor’s Edge. Deviate even a little bit and you quickly get cut.

Warning: You have to take complete and total responsibility for everything and everyone that shows up in your life. As your consciousness begins returning back to its natural state of timelessness, manifestation starts happening much more clearly and the link between inner thoughts and vibrations and outer manifestation becomes REALLY clear. No longer do you get the luxury of blaming others or judging others. Everything you see as a problem in others instantly gets turned around and becomes your problem. You’ll begin taking on a lot more pressure once everyone’s problems start to become yours. The world truly is your mirror. All the problems you really have with others really are problems you have within yourself. Get to work on surrender. It becomes a much more necessary skill later on.

Warning: You must accept that you’ll never “get there,” that you’ll never “arrive.” You could spend an entire lifetime on this journey and never wake up. Indeed that has happened to many people. In fact, so long as you cling to your desire to get somewhere, you’ll never actually wake up to what’s already here. You must surrender completely your desire to succeed in your path of awakening. You must accept the fact that you may embark on the journey, never to actually get enlightened.

Warning: You may feel very connected and One with Source/All That Is at times, and you will also experience yourself feeling totally disconnected, lost, confused, and cut off. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s the experience of pure separation, they very illusion we are trying to see beyond.

Warning: Even if you get a glimpse of the Truth of your Being once or twice or a hundred times, the egoic structure may rebuild itself, leading to the experience of being unenlightened, or what we call a non-abiding awakening. Adyashanti reports that it usually takes people anywhere from 3-15 years for the momentum of awakening to settle in. Although it doesn’t happen in the future and can only happen in the now, don’t expect an overnight insta-fix.

Warning: Just because you have a clear seeing of who you really are, that’s not the end of the journey. The first question is “Who Am I?” Once that’s discovered, it now becomes a matter of how what I AM manifests itself in this world. The second question upon realization is, “How then shall I live?” It’s not enough to have the inner realization. That realization must express itself out through the totality of your being for it to become a living realization.

Warning: You must completely and utterly let go of control, of even controlling your survival, much less your destiny. You must be willing to die, to face the fear of death and surrender into it without attempting to stop it or control it in any way. The fear of death and the unknown become your friends. No longer will you be running from them.

Warning: The more you begin living in the moment and letting go of the domination of your consciousness by your mind, you may begin experiencing memory loss. Whole blocks of memory will begin falling away. It’s not exactly like Alzehimer’s, but there very well may be some significant loss of short-term and/or long-term memory as you begin relying less upon memory and more upon a deeper intuitive knowingness.

Warning: You may have intense kundalini awakenings to where it will feel like your entire nervous system is being overloaded. Many people have literally gone insane from this. It can be helpful to seek out some helpful resources including other people who have experienced similar symptoms, various practices you can do to work with the energies, and even a guru to help guide you safely through the process.

Warning: You may experience cycles of confusion and clarity. In one moment you may be very wise, deep, loving, and compassionate, and in the next moment the cloudiness of the veil will return and you will no longer have a clue as to what’s going on. You may become sucked right back into your ego, experiencing your deepest and darkest fears.

Warning: There is tremendous value in working with others, but you must learn to stand in your aloneness. Many of your relationships may change. Friends and family that have been close to you your whole life may be let go of. Some people will come, others will go. Some stay for the long haul. Which ones will stay and which ones will go? Who knows? The flow of the river will determine that more than any conscious decision. You can try to make it a conscious decision, but that will actually be more of a resistance to the flow and a desire to control than anything else. You don’t get to control the process. It happens. The you you think you are doesn’t make it happen.

Warning: You don’t get anything as a result of awakening. There’s no thing you get as a prize such as a good feeling such as a constant never-ending wonderful enlightened experience or a boost to your self-esteem. (What self would we be talking about anyways who has a self-esteem?) You get nothing, but BOY what a nothing it is. By seeing that you ARE that nothingness, and that you ARE the entire universe arising from that nothingness, you realize that what you ARE is already more than anything that could ever be wanted, as Gangaji so beautifully puts it.

Whew!!

Now as I say all of this I’m laughing. In certain moments it can be a crazy, wild, intense, OMG-I’m-gonna-die experience, yes, particularly when you’re in the heat of the moment, but it’s like waking up from a dream at night… You recognize that it was all just a dream and it doesn’t feel like it was actually all that real. What you ARE is infinitely more real than anything that appears in this world. Those experiences will begin to feel so distant and faded, like a memory that you can only partially and vaguely remember, as if it happened to another person entirely in another far-off world.

That said, it’s worth it. It’s all SO worth it. The direct realization of who and what you really are is SO worth all of the bumps and jolts that we experience along the way. Things to lighten up as you do.

Note: All of the above pictures were created by my dear friend Patty LaPlante. The quotes come from the book Oneness by Rasha.

Not everyone will necessarily experience every single thing listed above. For some people, some experiences may be more profound than others. In fact, there are many other things that one may experience that haven’t been listed in this post.

Either way, there is a book I’d HIGHLY recommend that people check out titled You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up! by Michael Mirdad. You can read my full review of it here.

For those of you who’ve also been walking the path for a little while now, what “warnings” would you give someone who’s getting started and doesn’t know what to expect?

So Patrick Swayze just croaked. It’s like Ghost 2.0.

Actors on a movie screen and most people in real life… what’s the difference? Actors in the movies know they’re acting and that the roles they play aren’t who and what they really are.

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances”
-Shakespeare

What’s so bad about death? Death is only seen to be worse/different than chewing bubble gum when labeled and judged by the mind. Everything just is. Death just is.

Beyond Death

In awareness there is freedom, freedom that transcends even birth and death, for it is not subject to these superficial changes in form any more than a camera is affected by what shapes and colors appear before it.

In awareness, everything is, and yet even saying that is too much.

What is the human body? It’s like a space suit used by consciousness as a sort of vehicle to enter the world of time and space. When we exit the body, we’re no longer in the domain of time and space. This exit can actually be made while in the body, despite the fact that time and space keep seemingly happening. They are then seen to be totally, completely, and utterly illusory, a fabrication of mind that creates for us this dream world we call physical reality. We often call this awakening.

Heaven and Hell, imaginary constructs of the mind. What lies beyond is truly beyond the mind, beyond anything imaginable. What lies beyond is truly One, for there is no other possibility. What lies beyond we call Heaven, we call Nirvana, but what they truly are can not be named. Heaven and Hell are actually One. Nirvana and Samsara are actually one. This recognition we call Heaven or Nirvana, ironically enough. This unnameable isness we call Heaven, but do not confuse the name with the isness. That’s like thinking someone’s nametag actually is who they are. No no, the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon, silly.

Birth and death are two sides of the same coin called Eternal Life. The Life that you are (notice that I did NOT say have) has no opposite. There is no extinguishment of Life. Only the transformation of what arises within it.

One of the egoic mind’s biggest fears is death. Fear of death.

It’s been shown countless times on TV and in movies… someone puts a gun to someone’s head and suddenly they begin begging for their life, willing to do almost anything as long as they’re allowed to live. “Please don’t kill me!”

I find myself being able to relate to this mentality less and less lately. What I’m finding is that I feel like I’m losing my familiar almost instinctual will to live.

Now the dualistic mind may hear this and think, “You don’t want to live? Well then that must mean you want to die! Oh no! What’s wrong!? There must be something wrong!” Right?

But that’s not what I mean in this case. See, it’s more about no longer desperately clinging to one over the other, coming to peace with both, and valuing all of life including life in the physical and the nonphysical, finding that ultimately who you are literally CAN NOT die and that there’s nothing so terrible about the transformation we call death anyways. So… what’s the problem?

(As usual, this is nothing I can or even have any desire to prove. It’s simply something I know, and I have no idea how I know. I just do, and here I am sharing this knowing. There seems to be something deeper to whatever it is that we are that goes beyond guessing and theorizing and just knows.)

Life Beyond Birth and Death

As a separate self with a body/mind/spirit, we tend to identify with objects and ideas, thoughts and emotions. In a way, we experience ourselves almost like we were the clouds in the sky that come and go and change forms in the process.

Yet our true nature is much more like the sky: infinite, vast, eternal, untouchable, and perhaps most notably, empty.

The sky is totally unaffected by even the stormiest of clouds. Does the sky run and hide every time a hurricane blows through? Does the sky mourn the death of a cloud? Does the sky celebrate the birth of a cloud? Well, no. Not at all. There’s really no reaction to the happenings of the clouds, good or bad. The sky is just empty, being. The sky may certainly be aware of the clouds passing through, yet neither clings to nor resists anything the clouds do or don’t do.

This may sound very unemotional and almost heartless, and I suppose in a way it is. What we call emotions are yet more clouds that come and go within the emptiness of the sky/what we are. Instead of emotional, a more accurate pointer to the sky would be allowing and accepting. The sky allows the clouds to be whatever they so choose to be, without judgment, no matter what, for it knows full well that it is unconditionally safe and well.

Similarly, I’m finding that our true nature is not passively disconnected either, as if just being meant that you just don’t care. There’s an almost tangible quality of Love here as well, a Love that I write with a capital L. It’s not the human love we hear about in movies and romance novels where we want to constantly be around the other or somehow feel incomplete without them. Rather, it’s a more unconditional Divine Love based in allowance and appreciation. It’s the type of Love that has no opposite for it arises from the non-dualistic Source that has no opposite. (This statement is a little off given that Love doesn’t actually arise since that it IS everywhere and it IS everything, including a supposed source out of which it would arise, but the perceptual human experience of it may be likened to that of a flow that arises from within, swirls around our consciousness, and is finally expressed without.)

Being Okay With Everything

Anyways, coming back to the idea of the will to live, there is a shift that seems to happen between having a deep investment in one’s personal safety and security and the continuation of the “me,” to a resting in the well-being of Isness, regardless of what happens on the surface.

It’s like we begin taking the world less seriously, no longer really buying into the idea that our safety can literally be found in this world, in emotions, in achievements, in money, or in worldly things in the first place. It’s similar to how you can be totally absorbed in a movie, caught up in the drama, and then later step back and say, “Oh right, it’s just a movie. No biggie.”

To those still caught in the drama of the movie (or dream if you wanna use that word), it may seem uncaring if you no longer take the world’s problems as seriously as you once did, but you from your expanded perspective you can see that even their reactions to your stepping back are just more appearances arising within the dream movie. Heck, even your own reactions are just more of the dream so even they aren’t all that big of a deal either!

Life is okay. Death is okay. Birth is okay. Everything is okay. All is well.

As words this may sound hollow, idealistic, or perhaps even a naïve delusion, especially when life seems horrible. Of course.

Yet when the emptiness within reawakens, there is an untouchableness that arises, for one recognizes that who they truly are can not be touched by anything in this world.

That said, pain is still experienced just as sharply. If you get whacked in the head it’ll still hurt and you may still bleed, just as before. If your body jumps out of a building, gravity still makes it go splat. Of course. Earth’s rules still apply to the earthly part of the infinite you. Yes.

Yet as we fall back into our true nature, clutching onto nothing as we fall and fall and fall, resting nowhere and aware of it all, it seems like there’s a deep okayness with it all, somehow, that doesn’t need to be forced or believed in. This okayness with all of life just naturally arises. With this sense of well-being, there may be a loss, to a greater or lesser extent depending on how life unfolds in this particular case, of the intense egoic will to live.

With this transformation, when it’s time to live as a physicalized being, we do so, peacefully and openly. No attachment or aversion to life or death. When it’s time for awareness to consciously transition back into the non-physical with the experience we call death, that too is accepted peacefully and openly. No attachment or aversion to life or death. There’s no fear, for there is no real death, and “on the other side,” what could there possibly be other than more of this infinite One that you truly are? More experiences for the youless you.

If you’re gonna live, live. If you’re gonna die, die. No worries. No resistance. Hakuna matata.

Defending Your Life

So if we find ourselves totally okay with life and death, what about the question, “Should I defend my own life should someone try to take it?”

I really like the responses to Neale’s inquiries given in the books Conversations with God.

In the dialogs, God actually gave two different answers, depending upon the context of the being whose life is being threatened.

The first answer was directed towards your everyday regular asleep person living on the earth. The response was that if someone is abusing you, you should stop the abuse. Not only is it a reflection of loving yourself, but it also demonstrates your love for the other, for when one is allowed to abuse another, the abuser too is experiencing abuse.

The second answer was given from the perspective of a highly evolved being, or an HEB as it was referred to in the book. The perspective of the HEB would be along the lines of, “If you feel so strongly that you need to take my life for your own evolution, please do so. I love you that much to lay down my life and give you the gift of this experience. I know that I am an eternal being and recognize that I will be okay no matter what decisions are made. Not only this, I understand that I too played a role in the co-creation of this experience and as such, there’s no need for me to invalidate this creation. From here, there is simply a recognition of what I created and a new choice that is consciously made as a reflection of who I now choose to be.”

So, would you defend your life if someone wanted to take it? Well, that totally depends on a whole number of things, including but not limited to such things as your own level of consciousness, who you’re dealing with, the context of the situation, who else is involved, and so on. It doesn’t seem to be very black and white.

Defending the Lives of Others

I was talking about this with my mom earlier today she asked both about defending your own life as well as defending the lives of those you love. For example, she said that she would do more to prevent the death of her children than to prevent her own death.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your perspective on this, especially those of you who are parents. I have no kids of my own and don’t feel that biological pull to start a family at this point in my life, so I’m sure many of you could relate to this better than I could.

If someone were to try and take the lives of your children or loved ones, would you intervene?

Would you kill the attacker if need be or would it be preferable to simply disable or injure them, sparing their life?

Enderts Beach at Dusk, Redwood National Park, by Daniel Ewert

So there’s times when you feel your creative mojo flowin’ and it feels like it’s on like Donkey Kong. It’s those times that I feel most tuned in and connected.

Then there’s times when it feels like there’s a storm brewing within. The ego’s flailing and there’s clouds covering my light. It is in times like these that I simply pull back in and sit still, knowing that any fear-based actions I take will likely create some negative results that I’ll have to undo later. So I simply be still, let go of all resistance, and just allow everything to be as it is.

Looking at the frequency of my posts lately, you can probably guess which state I’m currently experiencing.

Does the sky need to run for cover, when it rains?

-Gangaji

(My experience of this I’ve been posting a bit about in the forums.)

There is literally nowhere to run. It is all here. There is only Here.

No matter where you go, there you are.

-Yogi Berra

These turbulent times have repeatedly shown themselves to be precursors to some of my greatest awakenings. At this point, there’s nothing to do but simply sit still and allow everything to be, allowing everything to happen in its own perfect time.

There’s a willingness to die, a willingness to cry, and a willingness to be obliterated.

Om Namaha Shivaya

www.youtube.com/watch?v=flXZHkNDmnc

The Guiding Light by Philip Kuglin

This is sooooo not what I thought it would be or what I was expecting it to be, this whole awakening thing.

It feels like I’m being wiped out, deleted, cleansed away, the little “me” anyways. I’m not completely done by any stretch of the imagination, but rather right in the midst of the process.

Everything I was doing that was so important, it’s all falling away.

The Dissolution of Identity

I used to seek all the time, and that’s falling away. Who am I when I’m no longer motivated by needing to figure things out?

I used to try to wrap my mind around stuff, but that’s falling away. Who am I without understanding?

If I’m not using my mind to know what to do, how can I fully trust that I’ll know what to do regardless? Who am I when I begin to rely on the mysterious invisible ever-present knowingness rather than the power of my own mind, the way people have done for thousands of years?

I used to derive a sense of self-worth by being able to prove myself and my understandings to others, but that feels like a pointless game when Reality is simply something that must be experienced. Who am I when I no longer need to prove anything to anyone, even myself?

I used to think there were multiple things that could be separate and yet somehow connected, or one thing which people could point to and call God, but now I’m finding there is no thing that can even be pointed to in the first place. Who am I if there is nothing? Not the mind’s understanding of nothingness as if it was some blank empty space devoid of color and shape, but a holographic existence with no things…

I used to define myself by my roles and personality, but there is no one home to identify with any of those things in the first place. Who am I without a sense of self who can identify with anything?

There’s nothing left to figure out, only more to become conscious of. What do I do when I’m no longer trying to figure things out? (or right now, at least without as strong of a pull)

and how can it be that this feels so much more natural than the effortful existence of before?

It’s such a wonky transitional place to be in, different and beyond what I’m used to, yet still perfectly natural.

Beyond the Honeymoon of Awakening

The whiz-bang awakening experiences of WHOAAAA, THIS IS WHO I AM!? seem to be settling down and there’s a falling/surrendering into the stillness. I’ve heard it called “the honeymoon of awakening” and that’s a wonderful description of it.

To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea if I’m even enlightened… and strangely enough, it doesn’t matter! Why don’t I know? Because there is no one to be enlightened, no one to try to be enlightened, no one to wonder if so-and-so is enlightened at all. It’s just pure conscious existence with no identity.

What is is sooooo simple that it’s so easy to overlook, despite the fact that it’s right there, staring you in the face. It’s what’s doing the staring. The consciousness/awareness/beingness with no identity and no sense of self. It’s so obvious that it’s almost too easy to overlook due to its simplicity. Beingness itself feels totally normal.

There’s a nameless formless consciousness which moves all of life, but there is no one there to do any of it. There is no one inside of a person. There is just the movement of life itself, and the resistance to that which people call “personal will.”

Nothing is being gained by awakening, for you already are everything and thus it’s impossible to gain anything. Rather, I’m being stripped away of all that I am not and never was, despite the fact that paradoxically, I am everything. As confusing as that is to the mind, it makes perfect sense within and is somehow inexplicably totally obvious.

Coming to Terms with the Ending

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5eFqKp6H6c

Adyashanti talks about ending here in this video, and about halfway through the video he says the following:

Everything is beginning and ending and yet there is that which is neither beginning nor ending.

Anything that arises will fall away. Everything that arises will fall away. Everything.

Some things you really want to fall away will fall away.

In fact, things have fallen away that.. you still haven’t come to grips with the fact that they’ve fallen away!

Blammo! That last line totally cracked me up because that perfectly reflects my current experience.

All that’s left is to surrender ALL experiences, including the experience of awakening, the experience of reading or writing this post, the thought of if this is true or that is true… everything is surrendered the moment it arises and there’s nothing left to cling to. NOTHING.

Awakening is not the end of the spiritual journey, but the beginning.. yet it is beyond all beginning and ending…

From the Mind to the Heart

Adyashanti and Loch Kelly talk about “The Journey After Awakening” together in this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsVImg6imX8

What’s particularly interesting to me is how they talk about awakening starting to settle in as it awakens from mind into the emotional center. When this happens, you begin to experience unity from not only the state of mind, but also from the place of emotion. I’ve just begun looking into this the past day or so, and have begun posting about it on the forums. I would love for you to come in and share your ideas and perspective, by the way!

In the video above, the discussion halfway through about the unconditional and impersonal yet absolutely intimate love was particularly fascinating.

I’m so glad that there’s more to awakening because I’m definitely not yet feeling the superbliss/love/ecstacy/satchidananda and without that, awakening seems like somewhat of a letdown.

Sooo glad about this. It’s a tremendous relief… Phew!

My gut says that the impersonalness is actually okay, despite the protests of the mind. What’s necessary is to drop down into and awaken the heart so that it can manifest and express itself as all forms of love, personal and impersonal.

Boy oh boy…

The Urban Monk recently featured an excellent post discussing a healthy perspective on personal development and spirituality.

One great point that he brought up was that since people are in different stages in their evolution, they will perceive things differently. It’s totally natural.

For example, a guru may tell you that you can never be hurt or damaged and that no matter what happens, you will always be okay.

The thing is that this statement is based in the understanding that who you truly are is the consciousness/awareness/love/beingness/spaciousness that is your true nature.

Can You Be Hurt?

If you are still identified with the physical body and mind, this won’t make much sense.

Here is a perfect example of this, originally posted here:

For the last 2 years of his life Ramana Maharshi suffered from cancer and experienced great physical pain, but even towards the end he maintained the same tranquil poise and self same radiant smile. When he was suffering from cancer in the arm a disciple ran away crying because he could not bear to see his master in pain. Ramana only smiled and spoke to a disciple nearby.

“Duraswami is crying because he thinks I am suffering agonies! My body is suffering but I am not suffering. When will he realize that I am not this body?”

The disciple in this story is still identified with their mind and body and thus it seems like someone actually can be hurt. Heck, just taking a quick look at our world today, it would seem pretty obvious that people are already hurting. Look at all the pain and suffering around the world.

Yet even though there is pain in the world, there is no “me” in pain. This is the odd part that the mind can’t fully grasp.

Blindly Accepting Teachings

A danger, however, is that it may not necessarily be wise to blindly accept the belief “you can never be hurt” right off the bat just because someone says so. Imagine what would happen if a psychopath accepted this idea and ran around the world killing others under the premise that they could never hurt anyone in the first place and so whatever they did wouldn’t matter.

See what happens when the ego subverts spiritual truth for its own personal gain?

The human ego is a master at doing this. Sometimes its tricks are overt. Sometimes its tricks are sneaky. As long as there is an ego there in control, it will distort everything it hears. Every single time. This is the problem of dealing with things on a mental and conceptual level. This is why it’s so important to begin dropping all beliefs and concepts and find the truth that remains.

Yes it is true that you can never be hurt, but it’s just as critical that you understand what the word “you” in that statement is referring to. It’s referring to your true nature which is beyond the effects of this world. There is no separate you and thus there is no one who can be hurt.

Again, for this to truly sink in, it must be realized on a level beyond the mind.

It can also be helpful to recognize that every belief you have is a distortion of Truth. It’s not good or bad. It’s just the way it is.

What would it be like if you fell into a pitch black void?

Your eyes couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Your ears couldn’t hear anything in the silence. Your mouth couldn’t taste anything in the emptiness. Your skin couldn’t feel anything in the blankness. Your nose couldn’t smell anything in the nothingness.

It would be just you and your thoughts… but “you” are your thoughts so if the thoughts then started to subside, what would be left?

What’s beyond physicality, beyond thought?

Joe Rogan, stand-up comedian and commentator for the UFC, talks about such an experience.

Check out this video of him talking about being inside a flotation tank.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEjTXX2rHgA

One of the biggest and most central aspects of his experience, IMHO, is how he mentions that “he” literally disappeared the more he surrendered. It wasn’t “him” having the experience for there was no “I” there any longer.

The separate self falls away and he becomes One with the nameless. In this experience arises the fear of death, which is really “death” of the illusory separate self, a false self which was never real in the first place.

Are you attempting to rid yourself of your ego? To become ego-less?

Well, as long as “you” exist in physical manifestation, you will always have an ego. It’s as simple as that.

The ego’s fundamental role is to give you the ability to exist in the physical reality you chose to be born into by creating separation where there is none. The ego is what allows us to differentiate between a this and a that where there is only One.

It is what allows Jesus to heal this person’s legs or that person’s eyes. It is what allows the Buddha to sit under this tree to meditate or teach that group of people. It’s what allows you to know that that food needs to go into this mouth when this stomach starts growling.

The purpose of spirituality is not to rid yourself of that ability altogether, but to recognize that you don’t have to allow a negative ego to unconsciously control your actions. This happens when we mistakenly identify with the separate self, the little voice in our heads, and think that it ACTUALLY IS us.

Enlightenment is about a radical shift of identity, about the realization of your true nature.

Enlightenment is about integration and realizing that you are All That Is. There is no part of All That Is that is rejected, including the human ego.

Waterfalls in Paradise Meadow by Daniel Ewert

Light does not overcome darkness by rejecting it, but by transmuting what used to be dark into light, rendering darkness “dead” in a metaphorical sense. When you realize the moon is made of rock, you don’t have to kill the belief that it’s made of cheese, as if there was a battle in the first place. In a similar way, the light of Truth and the realization of Oneness automatically overrides the incorrect belief in a separate self, one of the main lies of the ego. You don’t attack and attempt to kill a lie. You simply bring in the presence of Truth.

The ego is simply a tool, a conduit. It’s what keeps the physical you where you have chosen to be focused into here in this physical reality. As long as you are in physical manifestation and have a unique personality, you will always have an ego and that’s totally okay. That’s how it’s designed by Creation. Even enlightened people have physical bodies.

So Love your ego, just like you can Love every other aspect of All That Is, of Creation.

The process of self-inquiry by asking the question “What Am I?” is about dissolving the ego’s grip over you, about shifting your sense of identification from what is Illusion to what is Real.

Identification with the ego and the separate self can “die” the same way you can let other mistaken beliefs fall away and “die.” The ego you have and the ability to subsequently differentiate between a this and a that in physical form, even though it’s not ultimately REAL, is still a helpful ability while experiencing physical reality. It allows you to play with the illusion.

Just like when you go to the movies, you know that what’s happening on the screen isn’t actually real and that it’s all a made-up story, you can still have a good time watching the movie anyways. No one said you have to believe that what’s happening on screen is actually happening.

So don’t try to kill the ego or become literally ego-less. Just free yourself from all attachment and aversion to what is. Inquire in to your true nature to realize who you truly are, yet don’t actually believe a single thought the mind tells you. That’s what it’s all about. That’s the heart of spirituality.