Watch this video in HD. (Recommended)

Unfathomable Silence

You may have noticed that there haven’t been any posts here recently. A few days ago I returned from a 30-day solo camping trip into the forest. (That’s where the photos and videos shot in the video above came from.) After the initial 6-day trip where a lot of internal things arose but didn’t fully complete, it was time to dive in and see what would happen when I go full out…

You know the stories about Jesus going into the desert for 40 days or Buddha meditating under the Bodhi tree for I think 7 week or so? As the stories go, Jesus was met by the devil who tried to lead him into temptation and the Buddha met Mara who similarly threw all these demons (ego stuff) at him but the Buddha wouldn’t follow any of that and continued to sit in silence. Both of these experiences are central to their awakenings. As the saying goes, be still and know.

Having heard these stories, I certainly had high expectations for my 30-day outing into the forest. “Let’s go face my inner demons and get totally enlightened too! Yeah!!”

The Trip

What actually happened, looking back in retrospect? Well while I literally have no desire to get into the details of the experiences, the shifts, the experiences, the realizations, the transformations, and yada yada yada the way I used to, what I do have some interest in saying is that it was perhaps one of the most internally catastrophic periods in my life I’ve ever experienced. One of the many things that was unexpectedly destroyed, much to my surprise actually, was my interest in continually talking about, thinking about, teaching about, or in any way making spirituality a central aspect of my life. The realizations, the search, the even apparent progress… who cares?!?

It’s like, when you learn how to walk, just walk! There’s no need to keep talking about how you put one foot in front of the other. You just walk… When you stop spending so much time talking about walking and you may just discover that you can walk and chew gum at the same time. So much energy freed up for other things in life! For life to be as it IS, as it naturally wants to arise, without us trying to turn it into what we think it should be.

To be perfectly honest, I just don’t care about yakking about all this stuff anymore. If I never hear another word about enlightenment, awakening, non-duality, oneness, the law of attraction, metaphysics, or any of this stuff, it would literally make no difference. At the same time, having been back in mankind’s civilized world for a few days now, I’ve noticed that whenever the topics do arise in conversation, it’s just a natural part of the flow, and when it’s done, it’s done.

There’s nothing to say, nothing to do. You just BE who you are, naturally, and that’s the whole point. Be yourself… and let’s get on with living life!

Living the Outdoor Life

At this point my intuition, excitement, and passion are all guiding me more and more towards spending more time being outdoors and leading a simple life. Just LIVE it. It’s as simple as that. Just BE.

As such, this may be my last post on this blog. This may be the start of a new approach to this blog. To be perfectly honest, I literally have no idea if I’ll ever have another urge to write anything here again, and either way is just as fine.

Because of this, I’m posting this post to bring a sense of closure to what once was, to this site’s former existence.

The forums I’m going to keep open because intuitively it feels right for whatever reason, but I don’t know what will become of this blog from here on out.

My travel photoblog I will remain active on and you can catch me there. From Georgia to Colorado to California, I am going to be headed up to Alaska next. Woohoo!!

(and before you ask, yes I’ve seen the movie Into the Wild (great movie by the way), and yes the irony of me also being an outdoorsy guy traveling solo from Georgia to Alaska on a sort of epic adventure hasn’t escaped me either.. but no, I’m not copying him. haha.)

In any event, I want to thank you all for being here and experiencing this journey with me as you have. It’s been a fun ride and I’m so grateful that you are all here living your version of it as well.

Peace!

-Ariel

I recently set off to go spend time alone in silence in the mountains and wound up spending nearly a week camping along a river, basically meditating, eating, and sleeping.

Camping Along the Sespe River

Now you’d think it’d be simple enough to sit down and spend time in silence where everything is great and nothing is wrong, but it turns out that wasn’t the case! Wanna watch the mind go crazy? Give it nothing to do!

It’s funny… we have this thing called a nervous system, and they call it a nervous system for a reason! It’s amazing how, when we take an extended period of time to be quiet and still, we get to see the mind’s activities quite clearly instead of just glossing over them and focusing upon the externals of life.

You see, the first few days I found it incredibly tough to just sit down and relax. I kept getting (and usually following) the impulses that would continually arise. Think about this! Do this! Don’t do that! Go for a swim! Take a hike! Work on your tan! Go check out that area! Basically spin around and expend this energy through any means possible, emotional, mental, or physical.

One thing in particular that would keep happening was that the mind would think back to a problem in my life and I’d start feeling the emotional response about that. Feeling the emotional stirring, I’d go into my problem-solving toolbox and start working on the issue. Inquire, release, do tapping, allow it to be as it is, love it, surrender, focus on something else, tell a better feeling story… you name it! I’ll bet your problem-solving toolbox is pretty vast as well after a whole lifetime of developing tools.

and yet after a while I began noticing a certain pattern: I’m right here where everything is just fine, all of the sudden the mind thinks up a problem (that only exists within the mind, mind you), and then the mind gets on the task of solving the problem it just thought up.

It’s so easy to dive right into the process of problem solving, which is almost like the mind’s job, and yet if you pause and take a look, you’ll notice that there’s actually no real problem to fix. NONE!

It’s just the mind looking at the world, literally making up a problem by calling such-and-such a problem, and then trying to solve this made-up problem, thereby giving itself the job of protecting you. It is both the creator of and solver of problems that don’t actually exist outside of thought!

The problem-solver within us mind literally NEEDS problem to continue its own existence! It is addicted to suffering!

As my friend Eric put it so perfectly, the mind is both the arsonist and the firefighter! That says it all. It’s two sides of the same coin.

Addiction to Problems and Problem Solving

After looking at this, it’s discovered that the mind keeps going into problem creating/solving mode on its own. It’s like a deep habit. Looking a little more closely, I saw that there was actually quite literally an addiction to problems and their solutions!

In fact, when you look at our society in general, you’ll see it’s structured similarly to our minds. (No surprise there.) For example, the way we make money is through solving problems for others, is it not?

Are they hungry? Cook ‘em a meal. Are they unsuccessful in business? Teach ‘em marketing and business skills. Do they need to get around town? Start up a taxi service.

Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with solving problems for others, and I’m not suggesting that we stop solving problems. What I am suggesting is that we pause to take a closer look into the nature of the so-called problems that we’re so caught up trying to solve in the first place.

It’s almost like the mind’s mantra is, “There’s something wrong. There’s something wrong. There’s something wrong. How do I fix it? How do I fix it? How do I fix it?”

*Now here’s the key point: when our overall experience of reality is based upon the idea that there’s something fundamentally wrong with life, there’s a general uneasiness, anxiety, and disharmony within us that no amount of problem-solving can solve. Why not? Because the very living in a world of problems and solutions is itself the problem!

This internal fundamental deep deep disharmony within us is due to our belief in the idea that there can exist such a thing as a problem in the first place, and the emotional response we have is due to our belief in something being problematic.

Everything we try, and only everything, whether it’s based in actively fixing a problem like inquiry or healing, or letting go of the problem through surrender and releasing, all of these activities are still based upon the fundamental notion that there’s a problem to be solved. Why else try to inquire, heal, let go, or surrender?

It was only when everything I tried or didn’t try, and I mean EVERYTHING failed, that I sat back and took note.

Vulnerably and honestly I began admitting to myself for the first time in my life,

I am addicted to problems.

I am addicted to suffering.

I am addicted to trying to solve problems.

I am addicted to using my mind and using tools to do stuff.

I am addicted to this whole spiritual game.

And there’s nothing I can do. I am completely and utterly addicted.

Everything I do fails. Everything. No matter how spiritual, wise, or sneaky it may seem. Everything fails. Everything I do is based upon my trying to fix these problems in the first place.

In this seeing, in this clear seeing that I am addicted to this game and nothing I can do works, stopping happened. Somehow. On its own, surrendering happened. In the light of awareness, the game ceased on its own.

Maybe it’s reverse psychology or something, whatever. It worked.

Stepping out of Problem/Solution Thinking

Now as you begin seeing through this tendency of the mind, this literal addiction to problem creating/solution finding, you begin seeing that wait a minute, when I quit buying into these stories of the mind, there’s nothing actually wrong with reality at all! Oil spills, starving children and all. There’s actually nothing wrong with that. Nothing!

Blasphemous! I know… I’m not asking you to believe me that everything is okay, or even suggesting that the world’s tragedies are a good thing. By saying that it’s not bad, that doesn’t mean that the opposite is true. Is it possible that good and bad are just viewpoints of the mind and nothing more?

What I am suggesting that you take a look into the nature of the origin of problems themselves. From where do they arise? Do they have any underlying reality outside the mind’s world of imagination and make-believe?

Again, it’s literally only the belief that there’s something wrong with this that creates the experience of what we call problems and all the mental/emotional/physical dis-ease that comes along with it. Again, it can be discovered directly that there’s *nothing* wrong with the world.

Saying “Oh yes, that makes sense. I understand. Of course it’s all mind.” That doesn’t help either. That’s still just mind.

Anyways, if you take the time to deeply look into the nature of problems, and you begin stepping out of problem/solution thinking, if your experience is anything like mine, you’ll likely begin going through withdrawl. You’re putting the protector of a mind out of a job and it has an addiction to being your protector! It won’t go down without a fight! Like a drug addict, it may feel like you’re going utterly insane without giving yourself another hit of “Here’s a problem. Focus on the problem and juice the problem. Then when you’re tired of that draining activity, start working on the solution and heal that. Once you fix that issue, enjoy the temporary relief and momentary satisfaction of being successful at solving a problem.. until the next problem arises that is. Rinse and repeat.”

Living this way is like a constant battle with life, is it not?

When you allow yourself to go through the process inquiring into the nature of thought, of mind, of problems, of stories, of just not believing or following the thoughts of problems in the first place and break that habitual programming, it can then be discovered directly that my god… the fundamental nature of existence itself is well-being!

All is well! All is well! Even when the world is a mess and all isn’t well, all is well!

What we’re talking about here is a very deep fundamental shift in the very perception and experience of life itself.

(Like the breaking of other habits, it’s not an instantaneous shift in my experience, but a gradual process as we change life-long habits and break away from how society functions.)

Celebrating Wellness

From this new place, a completely new outlook on life is possible:

Everything right now is okay and all of life is an expression of well-being. In fact, I AM the embodiment of well-being itself and my every action is a celebration of the well-being that is already present! Well-being abounds!

As the world spins around and goes through its rollercoaster of highs and lows, all is well. No matter what happens, all is well.

The world is well-being, manifesting as all phenomena, sights and sounds.

It’s not that you’ve solve all your problems and that everything in life will be rosy. This is not an external change, but an internal change. Just because you get enlightened doesn’t mean that you’ll never get sick (Ramana died of cancer), everyone will love you, and you won’t be nailed to a cross. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. To think that enlightenment will solve all your worldly problems is a misconception. That’s not the point. One of the things that clarity into the nature of reality seems to bring you is freedom from thinking that there’s something wrong with life that needs to be fixed in the first place. You exit that (mental) world without the world needing to change.

From this space, you still interact with the world and respond to its happenings, sure, but rather than starting from the assumption that there is something wrong with reality and thereby seeing it as flawed, you come from the awareness that everything is okay and respond accordingly, loving what is. Imagine what a difference that would make…

Instead of trying to “improve the world” and take it from broken to fixed, as noble and helpful as that is, you now see the innate well-being and literally become the very well-being you wish to see in the world, Gandhi-style. Instead of trying to get to heaven or bring heaven down to earth, you realize that heaven is already here! Living from this space of well-being, you automatically begin eliciting a very different response from the world now that you see it differently. As the saying goes, as within, so without.

From this space, this mental/emotional/physical/spiritual apparatus that is arising here begins living very differently.

As the nervous system releases its deep-seated inner anxieties of problems, there is more peace, freedom, well-being, and love that is experienced and expressed. Still new territory to me that I’m exploring here, but It’s like you feel yourself open up to allowing things to be as they are, to loving whatever arises, and to be with any and every expression of life, life and death.

Look within. Look within. Look within.

The other day I was sitting in a coffee shop and overheard a conversation by some high schoolers, probably juniors or seniors. They were talking about how sophomores would look down upon the freshman and say things like, “stupid freshman,” and these kids were taken aback by this statement, pointing out these sophomores were freshman too not too long ago, and now they had turned against what used to be their own kind.

This pattern is pretty common, isn’t it? Although being a freshman is a necessary bridge that leads to being a sophomore, like all stepping stones they are needed until they no longer are. But what good does it do to invalidate that stepping stone just because you are no longer there?

If you like where you are now, why not simply recognize that that stepping stone, that bridge was necessary to get to where you are now. In this recognition, there is a feeling of gratitude and a sense of respect towards others who are walking the path you, too, once walked.

It seems like, for some reason, there is a tendency to burn our bridges, as if it is “bad” to be at a lower level, as if we have to totally obliterate where we once were to fully embrace where we are now. This manifests itself in the form of arrogance and judgmentalism. “Why can’t you see what I see? You idiot, you don’t know what I know. I know better than you. You’re retarded.”

Yet how do we not know that where the person is now is not exactly where they need to be. Perhaps it’s precisely where their soul chose to be even before they were born, and who knows what positive benefits them being where they are will have on others. Who knows what incredible benefits will ripple through the rest of the universe simply because another was willing to “be at a lower level” on the physical plane?

When we drop the notion that one level is better than another, and I mean really drop that, there’s an openness that’s created that allows other to be wherever they are, no matter if we see them as incredibly wise or utterly deluded. There’s a sense of peace in this. There’s a sense of, “ahh, I can stop going to war with others. I can quit arguing with reality. Things really are okay the way they are, even if they don’t look okay.”

If the ego could be defined as “resistance to reality,” this pulls out one of its supporting legs and helps us release yet another trigger that sparks us into conflict and division.

Instead of moving from lower to higher as if we’re moving from better to worse, it becomes simply the understanding that at different levels, we learn different lessons, we have different experiences, we come to clarity on different aspects of the whole, and we become aware of yet another facet of All That Is.

Without the division of right and wrong, good and bad, better or worse, and should’s and shouldn’ts, there’s just different games for people to play, different expressions for consciousness to take form as. There’s just the Divine experiencing itself from every perspective possible. As is sometimes said, without any part of All That Is, All That Is would not be ALL That Is.

And so this part of the journey is about ending the inner war, about stopping the tendency of the right hand slapping the left, of the mouth biting the nose, as if there is benefit in someone beating itself up.

As we let go of the need to give our love and approval only to those we deem acceptable, we let go of even more conditions upon our Love and allow Love to flow that much more.

No battle. No struggle. No judgement. No looking down upon. No patronizing. No condemnation. Just Acceptance. Peace. Love.

and is not that one of the things people crave most? Just to be accepted for who they are without having to put on some false mask in the hope that they will then be accepted? Don’t we all want to just be loved for who we really are?

Let’s create that space. Let’s open up and love people for who they are, love ourselves for who we are, not because of something.. not because we got A’s on our report cards or hit the ball out of the park… not because of something that we have done to deserve this love, but simply because we are who we are. Love that is freely given, always available, and eternally present.

Just Love…

Alright, so one question that I’ve been letting bubble around recently is “What does it take to just be HAPPY?” I mean really. No B.S. here. A simple question. Pretty basic and universal. What does it take?

It is often said that what we are seeking is always here, yet that’s often not the experience that we have, is it? In fact, we often experience that we don’t have what we want. Why the discrepancy?

Well, it seems that one of the big keys to experiencing happiness is resistance. The more we are resisting something, the more tension, negative emotion, knots in our stomach, dis ease, and all those unpleasant things we experience.

In the Sedona Method, they talk about resistance taking two primary forms: attachment and aversion.

Aversion

Aversion we are all pretty familiar with. This comes in the form of hate, judgment, complaining, saying no to, trying to push against or destroy something, etc. It’s basically a sense of war to various degrees. It’s a lot of that “bad stuff” in the world. On a small scale, it may show up as an internal felt sense of opposition or conflict. Someone says something and we notice ourselves subtly going into opposition against them. There they are, and here I am, pushing against them. This is how the experience of an enemy is born. This internal opposition then can grow and manifest into emotional opposition, physical opposition, and when taken to the extremes such as murder and war. Even suicide counts here, which involves an aversion to life and to yourself.

Aversion and this war-like conflictive pushing-against energy is usually pretty obvious when it shows up. It can be very violent and so it is pretty easily recognized, particularly in its more intense forms.

Attachment

Attachment, on the other hand, seems to be far more subtle. Attachment, the way I want to use the word here, is a sense of grasping or trying to get and hold in order to fill a presumed sense of lack. To illustrate attachment, try this quick exercise. With one of your hands, repeatedly reach out in front of you and grasp the air with your fingers, trying to pull it back towards your body. This is what that grasping energy is like. It is that grabbing and holding on energy that we are talking about here. Examples of attachment this context would include trying to gain approval, trying to control, neediness, clinginess, trying to get something to be other than it is, resisting change, trying to elicit a particular response from someone such as them liking you, and on a very basic level, somehow trying to “extract” happiness from something or someone else.

It is this clingy grasping process that I’d like to explore here, how it works and what life is like as we let go of that sucking energy. I’m finding this change to be fantastically transformational thus far…

A Closer Look at Seeking Happiness

Lately I’ve been exploring the idea of happiness and whether or not it really comes from living the dream life, whatever that means to you. To me it involved traveling. (CaterpillarWoman from the forums actually brought up an eye-opening perspective. She explained that she was a military brat and had traveled a lot growing up, so to her traveling doesn’t hold a lot of glamor. This was a big ‘aha’ for me. Sure lots of people want to travel, but it’s not a universal desire.) So again, we’re talking about what “the dream life” means to you.

Looking into my own experience of trying to derive a sense of happiness and freedom from living a mobile traveler’s lifestyle, I’ve found that it felt like I would (without consciously realizing it) subtly demand (perhaps too harsh a word as it feels far more subtle than this), but I would try and obtain a sense of happiness from the experiences I was having. Follow your bliss, they say, but we may mistakenly get caught in thinking that the blissful thing we’re chasing actually contains that bliss! Go get it! Go! Go! This is not the point of following your bliss. When looking at this more closely, it was like constantly trying to get something from the someone/something, be it approval, love, control, money, positive experiences, or whatever else.

Honestly it almost feels like inserting energetic tendrils into other people or things and quite literally trying to extract the happiness that I seek from them.

The pattern was “do something and get happiness from it.”

Withdrawing Your Tendrils

Recognizing this happiness seeking/sucking/leeching pattern consciously, there was then the ability to stop that grasping and withdraw my tendrils.

This is something I’ve been exploring the past few days. For me, this subtler sense of grasping attachment happens more often than the aversion. Both still happen, sure, but the grasping energy feels a little more ninja-like and less obvious to spot. Whenever I experience tension, fear, or basically anything other than happiness or peace, I now look to see if I’m energetically reaching into the world and trying to get something from it. My experience with this has been quite profound and I’d like to share a few examples with you guys.

Experiences with Relationships

Can anyone relate to this?

How many millions of missed opportunities and how much unnecessary suffering has there been due to experiences like this?

With women, particularly the ones I’m attracted to, often I’d look at them and notice a sense of discomfort. Exploring this this more closely and seeing what it is that I wanted from them, I noticed the thought pattern “I want your approval. I want you to like me and think I’m attractive. I want your love. I want this to go well.” Already, before a single word has been spoken, I’m already reaching into her and trying to get something from her, trying to extract approval, love, and even impose a certain response upon her. “I need you to react this way. I want you to like me.”

Seeing this and withdrawing that tendency to get something from her, I noticed a sort of falling back. It’s not a falling back into fear like you’re running away. Rather, you simply observe and notice without manipulation. Surprisingly, happiness and appreciation naturally arise on their own. A sense of warmth and love would be present as well. Rather than focusing on getting something from them, it felt more like I was just glowing in happiness and love within that I wasn’t conjuring up deliberately or talking myself into. It was just naturally present every time I’d withdraw the tendency to try and get happiness and love. Really cool…

Reaction-wise I’ve noticed far more smiles from women, I’m far more comfortable with them, and I’m much more lighthearted and relaxed. The sense of anxiety drops and I’m free to be much more intimate. It’s like without trying to pull them in, you automatically feel closer. Go figure… It’s a much more enjoyable experience for me, and it takes away a lot of the stress of trying to accomplish something. Anything.

No fear of rejection. No desire to try and be loved. No worrying about how things will unfold. That stuff just doesn’t even seem to come up when I stop trying to get something from the situation. Very surprising! What freedom!!

Amazingly, there is the experience of already having everything I’d want from her: Love, approval, appreciation, joy, and so on. I find I actually really enjoy being with people whereas it used to be a source of stress and anxiety. HUGE improvement!

Not Trying to Get Happiness from Travelling

With travel, I’ve noticed sometimes I’d travel around and yet still feel miserable. Okay, wtf, something’s definitely off here… Seeing this, I’d look more closely and found that I was subconsciously expecting some sort of magical *something* to come in and fill me up with happiness. The thought pattern was along the lines of “Here I am, now let’s go out and find all the things I can do or see that will make me happy.” Make me happy. I was reaching into the world and trying to find the experiences that would be my source of happiness. This sensation of grasping, when you pause and pay attention to what’s happening just below the surface, it’s clearly present and very real.

Seeing this, I would then withdraw the sense of grasping for happiness. Just stop trying to grab anything at all. Grasping seems to lead to suffering, not happiness. With this withdrawl, there would be a natural stopping of waiting for something special to happen in order to be my magic pill. There was a stopping of needing to get anything from the experience at all.

To some degree, it’s a death of an entire way of life. It feels like something very important is dying. In fact, if you’re identified with this grasping, it feels like you are dying, with no hope for the future. Pretty scary…

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.

What I’ve noticed happen every single time thus far when I withdrew the grasping is that a natural sense of appreciation and happiness would again come up from nowhere. Oh here it is! There would actually be an immense sense of happiness that would arise, a profound blossoming of appreciation, simply because I stopped demanding that the situation give me anything at all. Weird…

I’ve found that when I travel without seeking happiness from traveling, I actually enjoy traveling 10x more than I did before. Whoa.. It’s like this moment is already so beautiful. It’s not because there’s anything particularly special about what is here or where I am, but it’s like a much more pure seeing. It’s a different type of seeing when you’re not trying to get something from anything. It’s like everything is seen to be beautiful. At the same time, I find I’m not concerned with trying to get more more more in this moment or the next. This moment is already filled with peace, satisfaction, happiness, and joy. All the things I was trying to find! Sweet!

Whether sitting in a coffee shop, driving in my car, going somewhere new, being with friends and family, or being at home and not going anywhere.. this doesn’t depend on where I am or any of those external conditions or places. In a nutshell, when I stop trying to get something I want, I find that I already have it. It just reveals itself when the search for it stops.

It’s almost like the search itself actually overrides the experience of actually having it, ironically enough. It’s like you can have anything you want. Just don’t go out looking for it.

This pattern seems to happen a LOT. Trying to get a sense of comfort, security, and on and on. It’s pretty amazing to look and see how often this grasping tendency seems to happen when you become aware of it. It’s shocking actually…

What About Wanting “Things” Outside Yourself?

What we’re talking about grasping for here is mainly internal things. It’s emotions, feelings, states of being. Happiness, love, that sort of thing.

What about wanting stuff outside of us? Perhaps a good mate, a certain amount of money, a new car, a trip up into space, etc.

We could say that that’s different. After all, money isn’t inside of us. Going to the moon isn’t inside us. Our ideal lover isn’t inside of us… okay wow, that sounds like the setup for an awesome sexual joke, but I digress…

In any event, it feels like physical things other than emotions and feelings are outside of us, and I used to think that too.

3 points about this:

1) Sure those things may appear outside of our physical bodies and we may perceive our bodies to be the physical limits of “us,” but it seems that the “cause” or source of all this is actually within us. Our perception and experience of the world is driven by thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and states of being. It’s that whole “your inner world creates your outer world” bit.

2) There may also start to be the experience of a collapse of both space and the perception of inside and outside as you lose the perception of being centered in a particular point in space and time. When this happens, you find that nothing exists outside of you. In fact, since you don’t exist in any particular location, nothing can truly be said to exist within you. As a manner of speaking, we can say that it all exists within awareness, but perhaps a more accurate way of saying it is that it’s all simply HERE. Since it’s already here and can go no place else, why grasp, try to bring something here, or try and keep it here? None of that even makes sense when it’s all already here.

3) Is it really the *things* that we want? Let’s look at money for example. Money is boring. It’s sheets of paper and chunks of metallic discs. It’s 1′s and 0′s in a computer. There’s nothing special to it. It’s dead and lifeless. It’s not the money itself necessarily that we want, but the experiences that money can give us. Whether it’s the ability to afford different experiences, the feeling of being rich and successful, or whatever else, in the end we want the feelings and emotions that the money brings about. The emotions are available now. We think “I’ll be happy when I get the money.” Why not be happy now? Why wait? What you want, even if it appears to be some thing outside of you, it’s the internal effect that it has upon you that we truly want. In a nutshell, whatever it is that we want, we want it because we believe it will make us feel better. It’s that simple.

So even external things, it again comes back down to the internal game. It’s within. The key is within.

What’s Your Experience With This?

So what about you guys?

Do you find yourself also reaching for something in life?

When you stop and take a look during those times when you feel uncomfortable and want something, do you experience the same sort of energetic tendrils trying to grasp something you think you want?

If you stop doing that, what happens then?

What’s it like for you?

So I’ve been living on the road for two months now, mostly sleeping in my car, but occasionally throwing up my tent when I feel like camping somewhere beautiful,  grabbing a hotel room when we get a snowstorm, or staying with friends along the way. It’s been really nice and it’s amazing how valuable I’m finding social interaction and friendship to be. I’m not sure I’ve valued it more my entire life than now after spending so much time flying solo. Have you ever seen the movie Into the Wild? It’s very much been a source of inspiration as me, with a kid my age, living here in Atlanta, with the similar driving forces, taking off and heading out to travel solo across the country. Anyways, at the end of the movie, there’s a quote where the main character, who earlier in the movie had said that God’s place is all around us so the joy of life doesn’t come principally from human relationships, but at the end of the movie, he changes his stance and says that happiness is only real when shared.

There’s been many changes here, many of them amazing and many of them challenging, but they have all contributed to my growth and expansion.

I’ve got to say that the time I’ve spent with people has been some of the best time I’ve had thus far, even if it’s something as simple as sitting together on a couch without saying anything. Quality time together is very valuable to me, and from the bottom of my heart I am grateful beyond words to everyone I have had a chance to spend time with thus far.

As I started writing this last night, I was actually feeling a bit heartbroken. It feels like my lifelong dreams, my current way of life, and my familiar sense of self are all being crushed right before my eyes. Those things I had been clinging to for years, it’s like I’m being swept right off my feet and there’s nothing left to grab onto. Just a falling into an abyss. Death. Resisting this is incredibly painful and so there’s just a letting go of trying to do anything and allowing what is to be.

Seeking through Traveling

It’s funny.. most every time I tell people about what I’m doing, just taking off to go wherever I want whenever I want and traveling across the country by following my intuition, the typical response is something along the lines of “That’s so cool! You’re living the dream! I wish I could do the same thing!” and yeah it is amazing, but actually going through this process really takes the rose colored glasses off your head. A lot of naiveté about “living a free life” is all smashing down in the face of reality. I had a chance to talk with a friend tonight who’s gone through a similar experience when he spent several months hiking 2,000 miles up the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine and it was nice to be able to relate to someone as they went through the process of watching their romantic notions about taking off on an epic adventure all get swept away too. I suppose you could say it’s part of the maturation process. People always think that this whole experience is amazing and that this is some sort of dream-life, but my experience of it after two months is that it can be fucking HARD at times. It’s truly not what I was expecting. It’s a lot of growth and much of it has been painful. When people suggest that traveling the world must be some sort of ideal dream life, I used to agree. For a while it would make me wince. I used to think so too… For years I did actually. It’s NOT the key to happiness!!!

See, I’ve always loved traveling and I’ve been blessed to have many opportunities to do so over the years. Admittedly, much of my fun travel has stemmed from the idea that “out there” there’s something that I want, whether it’s fun new experiences or whatever. One of my favorite questions to ask people for years has been, “If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do?” Invariably more than 90% of the responses would include “travel.” There’s a saying (I think it was Yogi Berra) that no matter where you go, there you are, and that’s so true! You take yourself with you, your happiness and your pain. You can’t run from your pain or towards your happiness. Try as we may, it just doesn’t work this way.

This desire to “grab happiness” manifests in many ways, whether it’s trying to gain the approval or love of another, control another, be a good person, be successful, make a lot of money, be a good manifester, live the life of your dreams, or whatever it is… how much of our activities come from the idea of trying to “get more happiness,” really, as if it was an emotional thing to be obtained? Intellectually we may know better, but how often do we feel and act that way regardless?

I don’t know what the answer is for you, you have to look for yourself. What I’m finding happening here is that I’m watching lots of the old familiar dreams (the ones based in seeking something outside myself, primarily) be torn away while simultaneously finding that I’m losing the drive to try and resurrect that familiar sense of grasping. (Thank God…)

I thought I was gonna be moving to Boulder, CO, but now it seems that the intuitive push was simply to get me to go out into the world, to make the move, to grow comfortable with not having a home, to make a home in the unknown, to be at home in the here and now, quite literally and even physically. Where I am in any moment, this is my home. Here I am.

There has been much avoidance of simply being in the here and now. The thought of “what’s next” or “how can I make this moment better” can be very tantalizing and a great way to avoid noticing and being present with what is, in this moment.

Going Anywhere from Here

Just had an ‘aha’ while writing this. I can go anywhere from HERE. Everything is HERE.

When my traveling is seeking based, it always ends in a let down. The experience of actually being “out there” is never the same as my dream of out there.

Being HERE, there is the ability to go anywhere without ever leaving HERE. By this I mean the locationless Here, the spaceless and timeless Here. It’s totally okay to travel, but if we fail to recognize the present moment, the world can never be a satisfactory replacement.

We can experience this over and over and keep trying, thinking that the next adventure will be different, but it doesn’t work that way. When there’s a grounding in being Here, there’s a freedom to enjoy wherever you are, whether you’re traveling or not. It seems like when you give up your focus on being in any particular physical location, you find that you’re both always traveling and never traveling. This sounds kinda paradoxical, but it’s kinda like realizing that you’re always in the present moment and the deeper part of you within (not sure how else to word it), which is not based in space and time, never goes anywhere. Simultaneously, there is the recognition that every experience here on planet earth is a trip through space and time. Even if you’re sitting at home in your room, you are traveling.

Traveling without seeking feels very different from traveling with seeking. It’s not the traveling itself that is the issue, but the seeking energy behind it. Traveling with seeking feels like chasing that elusive carrot and thinking you’re enjoying that carrot now when you’re out there. Traveling without seeking, there is no carrot, and it’s realized there need not be one. Being HERE is already sufficient and there need not be a something else to be viewed as a source of happiness.

This seems to be reflected in many areas of my life. Seeking love/joy/happiness/approval/whatever in relationship repeatedly ends poorly. Experiencing relationships without seeking something from people I have less experience with, so that’d be something else to discover. What are human relationships like when you give up that grasping movement that manifests as neediness, clinginess, control, attachment, aversion, conflict, and so on? What’s it like to completely and totally give up needing something from another and yet still fully being present with them and enjoying the experience? Again, let’s find out, without desperately trying to find out.

Moving Right Along

So yeah, where do I go next? What’s next in store for my life? I don’t know. I really don’t. That question doesn’t seem to be the most important thing right now, as it feels good to just BE, and not because I’m making it feel good, but because the seeking energy has dropped. At the same time, I am open to this sense of at-home’ness that is already here now manifesting in physical form as well and finding somewhere dry to live and with rugged landscapes and wonderful people to enjoy. Right now I’m enjoying being at home within, and this is enough. It feels heavenly and divine.

The idea that “traveling must be a dream life” doesn’t even make much sense anymore. Just doesn’t even register. In the dream world, it very well may be. To the soul, or whatever this is, that is very secondary. To dream about that is to miss this. I have no idea what this is, but here it is. Spacious and empty.

Seeking.

So many teachers have suggested that we stop seeking, that what we want is already here, but how many times do we ignore that suggestion and keep right on seeking?

“What did they find that is already here? Clearly I haven’t found it. I gotta find it!”

Whatever it is that we want, we may believe it is contained in the next experience, the next thought, the next feeling, the next moment, the next manifestation, the next realization, the next guru, the next location we visit, the next lifestyle change, the next meditation session, the next relationship, the next success, the next whatever.

After years of this, eventually we may have enough failures that we quit trying to seek something in the future so much. What seems to be more common in our society, however, is to read a book or take a workshop on how to be more successful, and if so then the seeking-something-in-the-future game continues right along, just like it has for thousands of years.

Heck, we might explore spirituality, learn about “being in the now,” and then engage in spiritual present-moment seeking, trying to do a good job at stripping away the delusion and illusions so that we can see and experience whatever we are “supposed” to see and experience in the now. “I know it’s already here because teacher so-and-so says so, but I’m not seeing it, so I’m gonna find what’s supposedly already here.” More seeking.

For thousands upon thousands of years, mankind has been spiritually retarded. Completely and utterly ignorant of reality. Mass delusion has been the norm for ages. This is how deep the egoic energy runs through our psyche. We’re talking about unraveling millions of years of conditioning here. No small feat. A simple saying of “This is It and I already am That. Separation is an illusion! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!” doesn’t cut the mustard. For most, those are empty words. Without direct experience of what those words point to, they are hollow. The lack the aliveness that comes with inner seeing. We can become the most adept spiritual student (as if spirituality was like academia where the point was to read all the books and memorize the important points, as if we’re going to be tested on our conceptual understandings and the better we do on the test, the more “successful” we will be), but in the end none of that really matters. Not a single thing you’ve ever read is IT. Not only that, one day you may discover, much to your own dismay, that NONE of that is satisfying or fulfilling. Years of seeking, and it brought you not one inch closer to what is already here. Hopefully that’ll sink in enough to where you stop seeking more from books and gurus, but maybe it won’t. Who knows…

Stopping Seeking

Life’s not all seeking though… In those fleeting moments of satisfaction that we have experienced throughout the course of our lives, it is usually because we have accomplished something or achieved something and for a short period of time, we have stopped seeking. We think that we are happy because we have achieved something and in that current experience of happiness we have stopped seeking, but if you’ve noticed, shortly thereafter the dissatisfaction with life arises again and the seeking resumes. Time to get another hit from our source of happiness!

When we live this way, we think that our happiness is found in the next goal, an achievement which invariably lies in the future. Go get it! Chase that carrot on a stick!

If what you found was really what you were seeking, why do you now experience lack once again? Why does the seeking need to resume?

What if seeking was not a path to the solution, but actually the problem itself, masquerading as a solution?

Perhaps the answer is not in finding the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or even jumping from one pot to the next. Perhaps it’s not about finally getting that prized whatever that seeking is supposed to bring about, as if you are less without it and more with it. Perhaps it’s about stepping off the path of seeking altogether, even if it meant you’d never “find” happiness or enlightenment. What about that? Crazy!

What if we stopped for a moment and asked ourselves, “What if happiness was not found in the achievement of anything, but revealed in the absence of seeking happiness?” What if we stopped this insane journey of needing more MORE MORE and just relaxed into this moment?

What if everything was always totally okay right now, and it was only our thoughts which suggest otherwise that were ever causing any issues? What if it was never the getting of the thing that was the real solution but only the seeing through buying into the idea of lack and limitation? hmm??

For thousands of years man has sought to find the magic pill that gave him what he wants. Are you going to fall into this same old trap as well?

What if nothing outside of you had to change one iota for you to be completely, totally, and utterly happy and fulfilled?

We may have heard this before, and if so, why don’t we experience life this way?

Being In The Moment

What if this moment was IT? All that you were looking for. Imagine for a moment that you had no memory of the past and no imagination of the future. Imagine what it’d be like if you literally lost the capacity to even believe a single thought.

Without any memory of the past or any hope for salvation in the future, what is this moment like, purely, and without the dream for more?

I’m not talking about the content of this moment, but rather this moment itself. The spacious presence that envelops all happenings.

What is life like when we simply notice whatever is arising in this moment, without neurotically trying to sculpt our world so that we can be happy and fulfilled?

Without the energy of seeking, without the thought that what we want is contained in past or future, what is it like to simply just be here, as you are?

This question is not meant to be answered. It’s pointing towards a stopping. It’s suggesting that we explore what it’s like to just experience this moment.

Full Stop.

What is life like, without seeking?

So one of my favorite topics currently is the unfoldment of the awakening process, the signposts and markers along the way as the whole “me” identity falls away. Given that more and more people are awakening, this provides us with a deeper recognition of how the human ego based in separation has been constructed in the mind (the fall of man), as well as the undoing of all that (awakening). We get to see it happen again and again, more and more, from a variety of perspectives. The following is a post by Tom Thompson. He published this on facebook and many of the spiritual traps he pointed out cracked me up. Been there, done that, basically… (By the way, Hotei is the Laughing Buddha or the Fat Buddha. You know.. the one you’ll often see in Chinese restaurants. ) With Tom’s permission, I am sharing his essay here with you guys.

Realization is sudden. The fruit ripens slowly, but falls suddenly and without return.

-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Hotei Has Returned to the Market Place

This essay is in response to many discussions I have had with students over the years. Its purpose is to help clarify certain aspects of the awakening process. In this essay, I am not going to be overly concerned with the politically correct semantics of “enlightenment” or “advaita,” but simply point out some things that may be useful to know about.

As awakening happens, there seem to be several stages that many people go through. These stages can be a little confusing because they are not delineated anywhere on the maps of our day-to-day consensus reality, nor on most religious or spiritual maps. Please remember, these guidelines are descriptions of what may happen, not prescriptions for what must happen. The process is different for everyone.

THE RELATIVE

The first stage is the apparent separation between “me” and “everyone and everything else.” We click into this stage around two or three years old. In this stage, we become very aware of the phenomena and people out there at the other end of our senses. We learn that the way to survive and thrive in this world of appearance is through the effective control and manipulation of the “me-in-here” and the “everything else-out-there.” For instance, we may be taught that life is easier if we have a pleasing personality so we learn to smile a lot and say please and thank you. We notice this usually has a positive effect on “them-out-there.”

We are taught that life works better if we do things like get good grades, empty the garbage, work hard, remember appointments, follow through, make money, and have all of the right thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are considered “good,” “healthy,” and “successful” by our society. We learn to “fit in” with the rest of herd and follow the consensus map of reality without ever really questioning it. Questioning the accepted maps of reality tends to confuse and upset the herd as they believe their maps are reality.

In a nutshell, we learn to manipulate “in here” and “out there” to conform with what we have been conditioned to “believe” is best. We discover there are lots of things “in here” and “out there” to manipulate, control, and keep track of. And they all seem to keep changing all of the time, no matter what we do! This is due to the relative and transitory nature of phenomenal reality. It is hard to keep all of our ducks lined up in a row. Reality just continues to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, whether we think it should or not!

It is important to realize that almost everything that falls in the categories of religion, spirituality, psychology, metaphysics, and philosophy is in this stage of separation. When you enter a religious/spiritual/psychological belief system, you are being taught to translate and manipulate your experience, inwardly and outwardly, according to the system’s map. All maps are an overlay on reality. As Alfred Korzybski pointed out, “The map is not the territory.”

THE ABSOLUTE

If one pursues a spiritual/religious path and learns to translate and manipulate the mystical process well enough, or sometimes quite by accident or grace, one may fall into the Absolute. In the unqualified Absolute all separation, and thus all phenomenal existence, disappears. There is only the unborn — vast, timeless, deathless, and free. If there were still a separate someone able to talk or think about it, they would say in amazement, as great realizers have, “From the first, not a thing is!” or, “Nothing has ever happened!” or, “There is only vast emptiness, no holiness about it!” But since there is no “one” and no “thing,” nothing is said or expounded. There is only vast emptiness, still and silent. And herein lies the peace of God! No spiritual teachers or preachers saying anything! Thank you, Jesus!

Once the initial terror of self dissolving into Nothingness wears off, this stage is quite addicting. It is a great hiding place. The bliss and peace of absolute samadhi seems infinite. It is like deep sleep wide awake. The relative world is an old dream that never happened. In some systems, this stage may be mistaken for enlightenment, but it is really just a half-baked state. The trouble with the Absolute is it is relative experience. But it sure can knock your socks off!

THE RELATIVE IN THE ABSOLUTE

Sooner or later, if the human instrument continues to live, there is a coming out of the Absolute as this merging is actually just a relative experience. The upside of this experience is that free awareness may now be recognized as always already being present. This is good! The downside is that the “enlightenment” experience can easily be hijacked by the conceptual mind, and an “enlightened ego” is born. Not so good. This is where spiritual aspirants often become spiritual teachers, leap on their high horses and ride off in all directions proclaiming, “There is no one! Just One! And I am That!” And this is true. Sort of. Side ways. But not if you think about it or believe it.

Inspired to share their “enlightenment” with others, “No One” now changes their name from “Suzy” to “Ma Avidayananda,” starts having satsang, sits up front in the guru seat, and always has a dedicated student scurry off to pick up the big fat “donations” check at the end of their “I Am, There Is No Me” retreat.

The trouble with the bliss of samadhi is that eventually you have to go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, change the baby, or yell at the neighbors to shut up their stupid barking dog! That darn Relative has such poor boundaries! It just keeps intruding on the bliss of our enlightened state. If the whole universe would just realize how enlightened we are, it might start behaving appropriately. This can be a difficult time as something truly profound has obviously happened to us, but the universe doesn’t seem to care or notice. Enlightened egos just hate this! They can’t get any respect.

What often does begin to happen in this stage is that awareness becomes increasingly aware of itself as the ground of being and becomes less involved in seeking any identity in phenomenal reality. The drive to control and manipulate both ourselves and others begins to shift and fall away. It becomes more and more apparent, even to an ego, that “I” am not the doer, “I” am being “done.” Things happen, including “me.”

THE ABSOLUTE IN THE RELATIVE

Do shadows exist? Of course they do. I can see one very clearly right at this moment. There it is! Shadows appear in all different shapes, sizes, and shades. Without a doubt, shadows do exists!

And so do you!

But shadows do not exist by themselves. There are no independent shadows. They are totally dependent on something else for their existence. A shadow is a shadow of something else. Without that something else, shadows don’t exist. A shadow has no separate and independent existence. And neither do you. A shadow is totally dependent on something else for its existence. And so are you.

You, as a separate and independent entity, do not exist.

You! You are being used! You are being used by the infinite creative intelligence of the universe as the interdependent go-between of the Relative and Absolute! You are the timeless, nondimensional point where the Absolute expresses the Relative and the Relative returns to the Absolute. Behind you, vast emptiness. In front of you, the ten thousand things. No boundary, except you. Without you, nothing exists!

No wonder you are so confused and dysfunctional! Just like Alice, in ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND:
“WHO ARE YOU?” said the caterpillar. (This is the ultimate spiritual question!)

… Alice replied, rather shyly, “ I-I hardly know, Sir, just at present — at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

Yes, Alice, we do see.

An apparent “someone” in the apparent “Absolute in the Relative” knows exactly how Alice feels! “I can’t explain myself because I’m not myself” is the truth. It is in this stage that friends and family may become very concerned about you. Things that may have been of profound interest to you throughout your life may lose all significance. You are no longer trying to find yourself or any meaning and significance in the transitory dance of the phenomenal world. You may suddenly leave a long relationship that has never really worked. You may drop out of a successful career. A doctor may suddenly become a gardener. A lawyer may open a bed and breakfast. If you have been a spiritual or religious person all your life, seeking suddenly stops. You stop going to church, reading books, running off to retreats, or attending the guru of the month club.

You are losing your human form as consensus reality no longer defines you. You are no longer identified with beliefs or maps. Conceptual reality is clearly seen for what it is — a bunch of concepts with no basis in reality. Thought seems to happen less and less as there is no longer a separate “me” story to prop up with obsessive thinking. There is just present awareness, this as it is. Life lives you as it always has.

This is where “compassionate folly” may begin to happen. Be very clear that the “compassionate folly” is not something someone does or practices as an elite “enlightened one.” It is not a position one takes in life. It is something that spontaneously arises when all of one’s interest in what human beings do or believe to avoid the void falls away. There is then no longer any identification with most of the “doings” or “beliefs” of humans beings, as they are seen to be based on a false assumption. Yet at the same time, the love and compassion for humans seems to increase as there is no longer any sense of fear or separation. This means joyful participation with other humans may continue (although not always) without there being any identification or involvement in whatever they are doing or believing to avoid the void. So you may go out to play golf with your friends even though you couldn’t care less if you ever saw another golf club in your life. You may enjoy the game more than ever, but it is not because of golf, it is because you are “being” with your friends. The context of doing is being.

Friends and family may start to say things like, “Something has happened to you. You’ve changed. You are just not yourself anymore.”

No kidding.

They’re right.

You’re not yourself anymore.

HOTEI HAS RETURNED TO THE MARKETPLACE

There is the simplicity of being- this as it is.

The knot of resistance dissolves.

A deep surrender or relaxing into life happens.

A deep acceptance of and openness to all people and situations occurs.

If fear arises, fear arises. If laughter happens, laughter happens. Get up, go to work. Eat lunch. Enjoy the weather.

Everything happens by itself.

The play of compassionate folly arises spontaneously.

Relative and Absolute — what? Where?

Wisdom, compassion, and skillful action arise spontaneously from the ground of being.

There is only this now.

The search has ended.

The seeker is gone.

Hotei has returned to the marketplace, laughing himself silly, pointing to the hazy moon of enlightenment.

What else could he possibly do?

Where else could he possibly be?

Originally written and published by Tom Thompson, http://www.theawakenedheartcenter.com

Okay, so just a little jibber jabbering. I figured this whole “go out and live the life of your dreams” thing was gonna be a big epic adventure, and in a way it is, but honestly that seems to be a bit idealistic. People keep saying “Oh man! That’s so amazing what you’re doing! It looks so cool and so fun!” and yeah, I suppose it looks that way from the outside. At times it is, for sure, but perhaps the best word I can think of to describe it is RAW.

It’s not so much about experiencing life as I’m finding out, but experiencing YOURSELF. It’s basically about coming out of hiding and being more honest with myself and authentic than I’ve ever been…

Hypocrisy

It’s so funny to just watch this stuff happen. For example, I’m watching myself become a huge hypocrite. Things that I’ve given people crap about before I now watch myself do. It’s SO true that what you resist persists. I remember saying, “Oh, you don’t have to go meditate on a mountain to find God. You can find him anywhere! He’s everywhere!” and then I go march off to a mountaintop. In so doing, I’m  actually starting to see WHY people go do such a thing. There’s a reason that many spiritual places like Tibet are at elevation… there’s something special about the altitude and what it does to the human body. The silence and the intimacy with nature is pretty fantastic as well, for sure.

After it Manifests, So What?

Both my desires and my fears are manifesting like crazy and in the middle I’m finding that a) the experience of what I desired isn’t all they’re cracked up to be and b) the experience of what I feared isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. It’s like the extremes between the joy of desire and the fear of fear are starting to come closer together and I’m starting to find the happy medium in the middle as being more valuable than the polar opposites of what I want and what I don’t want.

Is it still a manifestation of victim consciousness to sit back and not take creative “control” of your state of being? Maybe. I dunno. Learning to allow is a BIG part of the equation as well. It’s not all about controlling every step of the process, which seems to be a big misunderstanding about the LoA.

How Much Do You REALLY Know?

This experience seems to be about embodying that which I have learned or have realized. I’m seeing the extent to which I’ve been bullshitting myself, how much I thought that I got that I really don’t. Yeah, when you see that and you stop running, whew boy…

When you get the ego hits, it really helps to again disidentify from it. When you feel it’s YOU that slipped and fell flat on his face, when your follies and mistakes are taken personally, it’s a tough pill to swallow. When you can step back as awareness and see that it’s just egoic conditioning that’s being brought to the light of awareness and that it’s not YOU you’re seeing, it makes it SO much easier to let go and release.

YOU have never made a mistake. YOU have never really done anything in your life. You only think you do…

Coming Face to Face with Emotions

Matt Kahn just posted an excellent bit on facebook called The Truth about Feelings. (I think you have to be a facebook member to read that link. Not sure if you have to be his friend too.) In that article, he points out the difference between experiencing feelings directly versus experiencing what you think about the feeling. BIG DIFFERENCE. As he describes, it’s like being a child who’s curious as to what it’s like to experience a feeling and feel what it’s like without all the preconceived notions and judgments as to what is good, bad, acceptable, unacceptable, or otherwise. It’s a far more pure and defenseless experience.

The past day or so I’ve been experiencing this sort of knot in my stomach and have been spending time just feeling it without trying to change it or do anything about it at all. Just really EXPERIENCE LIFE and all that is arising as it is in this moment. One could say, “Why would you sit there feeling bad when you can just reach for a better feeling thought and feel better now?” and this is a question I have been asking myself as well. My response to that excellent question is that there seems to be a difference between having your mind take the lead and having your heart and soul take the lead. When your whole life is based around reaching for better feeling thoughts, life becomes very mental, and to be honest I’m already overly mental… What I’ve discovered is that when you go within and connect to your heart and soul, they are MUCH better guides than the mind ever could be AND the energy of your light starts to penetrate into your mind and transform it. Then your thoughts take their cue from your inner being, rather than your mind constantly trying to be the one in charge. I’m certainly not a master at this yet by any means, but I definitely prefer this path right now.

More “Pieces” to Non-abiding Awakenings

Speaking of links to share, Sarojini recently posted a fantastic article on The Stages of Awakening. I’ve seen a number of teachers post such descriptions before, but this is perhaps the description I’ve read in that REALLY matches what I’ve experienced and what I’ve seen in others. What others have written may certainly be valid in their own experience, but this is what’s been the case here.

Peace

Yeah, it’s been very chaotic lately. Perhaps you can tell. I’ve found it very challenging lately to simply sit down and SHUT UP. It’s very rewarding when I can for short periods of time and I know it’s necessary, but that’s one of the big dust storms my own ego has been kicking up lately. Alright, time to go turn the computer off, be quiet, and sit with all this swirling stuff within and face even more of my own stuff for myself, for my own sake. I could use some silence and stillness right now, even if all the action and opportunities sound much more enticing to my ego…

Buh bye now!

Okay, so let’s get into the nitty gritty of awakening for a bit. To be honest, there’s been quite a bit of struggle arising here, wanting desperately to return to the experience of wholeness, of unity, of the lack of lack, of the conscious recognition of what I am. One of the main issues about the human condition is the sense of lack within. We can talk about that void that people try to fill with food, sex, experiences, physical possessions, and so on. On a deep deep level, it feels like something’s missing and people will do whatever it takes to fill that void. From the perception of a separate self, I myself am not sufficient and thus I need something other than me to fill this gaping hole within me… but nothing I get is ever sufficient. If it does feel sufficient, it’s only temporary. Like a drug addict, I always need another fix. I always need more…

Now there’s a really weird experience that can arise after an initial non-abiding awakening. Basically what happens is that you KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that the egoic self is not you, that your thoughts have no reality, and that there is literally no such thing as a separate self, and yet simultaneously for some reason you continue to believe in and experience a separate self. You experience living life as a “me.” It can create a tremendous amount of conflict within, as if something has gone terribly wrong. You believe something and don’t believe something simultaneously. It’s really crazy to really experience both at the same time…

Disidentification

I took a drive down to downtown Denver today to check out the flagship REI store in all its multi-story glory. There was traffic along the highway and I spontaneously found myself falling into a sort of driving meditation. Basically just relaxing into the moment. Suddenly and without warning, it was as if there was a silent balloon bursting within me and there was a sort of separation (too strong of a word.. more like complete and total disidentification) with the body. I just looked down at my arms holding the steering wheel and was stunned to see in perfect clarity that this body that was driving here was literally NOT ME… at ALL. It was just some sort of suit to use to move around with. This body has more in common with the car that was being driven than with who I am. The body is a vehicle.

Then the line of statements naturally arose, “I’m not this body. I’m not anything here that is happening. I’m not any of these passing thoughts or feelings that arising now. What am I?”

Awareness turned back around on itself and it was stunningly clear that there was NO ONE HERE to be aware.

“Ohhh shit” was my response. Pure emptiness was then recognized to be what I truly was. Emptiness is literally no one. No thing. Yet somehow this pure emptiness is aware. Inexplicably. It’s like recognizing that infinite empty space is aware. It is conscious. There’s nothing there and yet it is aware.

Being

Eckhart Tolle talks about our true nature being “pure being.” Isness. Existence. The word “being” is easily misunderstood so I’m gonna get a little nitpicky here because the misunderstanding of this word has led to both delusion and confusion here. When we refer to being, we are not talking about a being. It’s not a spiritual being, as opposed to another type of being, not a human being or a living being or a dead being, not this being as opposed to that being. Just being. One without a second.

We are not conscious beings, as if there are more than one of us. You are not “a conscious being.” Neither am I. There is only being. What you are inside is literally emptiness. No-thingness. Spaciousness.

Separation, Only In Imagination

Have you ever noticed how someone can say something and our minds will spin an entire story filled with drama and fanfare about how rude they were and how wrong they were and how on-and-on-and-on… and yet they were being totally nice! It’s like we misinterpreted them and thus experience them as if they were being mean. We experience something that literally isn’t true and never happened, except for in the presence of our own imaginations. This is the same thing about experiencing ourselves as a separate self. We think we really are a person. I have “my body” and “my ideas” and “my history” and “my life.” There is the experience of a separate self in our imaginations, but there really isn’t one.

Now I know this isn’t what human minds are typically designed to understand. We are taught to “be somebody,” to be rich or famous or a doctor or a teacher or whatever else… be something. Yet what if the reality was that you are not a something at all? What if the very creation of a “someone” in itself creates a “something else” that exists in relationship to “me”? Instant duality.

Awake and Asleep

It seems that the main difference between the asleep state and the awake state is one of identification. Asleep there is identification with something that awareness is aware of. It’s like watching a movie on TV and literally thinking you ARE what you’re looking at. You watch your thoughts going by and think that you ARE your thoughts. You look at your body and think that you ARE your body. Awake, there is just the effortless passing of all form in front of the screen of consciousness. You are the nameless, formless, emptiness that gives rise to all form and yet is not separate from all manifestation. You create it all, and yet paradoxically there is no “you” present to be a creator or do the creating. It all simply arises.

There seems to be a process of awakening which involves all the letting go, surrender, and spiritual work and practices that we can do. It’s the game of the doer. The process takes time. Then there is the actual instantaneous flipping or awakening, the shift from delusion to Reality. The awakening itself takes no time.

After going through this experience, I put Adyashanti’s program The End of Your World back in the CD player and started listening through it again. As always, it is so perfect. It really gets to the heart of the non-abiding awakening process and explores many of the more subtle issues and confusions that arise. Again, highly highly recommended for anyone going through the non-abiding awakening process.

Facing Inner “Stuff”

One thing he talks about is the willingness to face anything and everything that creates any anger, resentment, resistance, or inner conflict of any kind. It’s like a willingness to face yourself, or at least what you perceive to be the resistant aspects of yourself. This is one of the biggest parts of my own process right now. I’m finding myself facing lifelong insecurities and fears. What if I wind up homeless? Well I am now. What if I don’t know what to do with my life? Well I have no clue now. What about facing the aspects of myself that have caused problems in intimate relationships? I’m facing those too. Yes there is fear within me, but I’m not afraid of having the fear. Fear yes, but not the fear of fear. This seems to be the big key. There’s an understanding about the nature of fear, of emotion in general, and a willingness to face it. What I’m fearing manifests. What I desire manifests. Everything within me is really showing up in the world. One thing that I’m finding is that those things that I fear really aren’t so bad. It’s almost like our fears are little kittens with the roar of a tiger. They seem terrible before we actually face them.

So saying all this, I don’t want to separate out the living of everyday life from one’s spiritual awakening, as if one’s spirituality had to be separated into a neat little box. Like “I’ll be spiritual when I go meditate in my quiet room, but the rest of my life is separate from my spirituality.” No, no. They really seem to go hand-in-hand.

Is it necessary to go out and physically do all the stuff you’re afraid of? *shrugs* I dunno. This is simply the way much of this experience is playing out here. It’s going out and really putting some of my deepest unconscious beliefs to the test and giving the ego nothing to hold onto. Stuff that I’ve resisted for years, here it is and so what? It’s no big deal. It’s not in alignment with how things actually work anyways. I can let that go. It’s clearly not true and I have no reason whatsoever to buy into those beliefs anymore.

The Doer and the Self

and so there seems to be this Ariel guy here, living his life, doing all the stuff he does, surrendering or resisting, and yet having no control whatsoever over his awakening, as if he was the one who would awaken. Ariel can’t awaken. He is just a mental collection of ideas and physical matter and emotions and.. stuff. He is an abstract concept, but he isn’t real. He has no real existence. He is part of the spinning world of name and form existing only in the mind of consciousness.

Then there is this emptiness that doesn’t actually do anything. The conscious recognition of emptiness by emptiness. The recognition of the Self recognizing the Self that we call awakening, there doesn’t seem to be any real trigger to it. There is literally no control of it. It literally feels like an on/off switch that is switching by itself.

The following quote just passed by on facebook and it feels so fitting right now:

Realise that the conceptual thinker and conceptual thoughts seemingly obscure the non-conceptual natural state. Pause a thought even for an instant and the natural state is fully evident. STOP and SEE. In the seeing, pure awareness gets used to itself…

-Sailor Bob

The bit about pure awareness getting used to itself, this seems to be SO key. It’s about getting used to being no one, just spacious emptiness awareness. It is unborn and uncreated. It has no face. Rather than the world of name and form and thought and physicality basically pulling consciousness in to a sense of contraction and identification which is the hallmark of the asleep state, there is a sort of getting used to being pure awareness, of being the no thing that simply is.

So I’ve been on the road about 5 weeks now, driven over 4600 miles, and have been living life in experimentation mode by applying various principles I’ve come to know and seeing how well they really work in this whole “real life” thing. I’ve made amazing friends partying at Mardi Gras, photographed a cheer and dance competition in Texas, skied in New Mexico, camped along the Rio Grande, hiked down into the Grand Canyon, had an ostrich bite my camera, been homeless in Colorado, discovered how every state has is very own distinct vibe, experienced the most ridiculous and consistent degrees of synchronicity, met amazing friends all over the country, had the universe repeatedly bring me all that I want including exactly the type of weather I want when I want it, been given free food and lodging all over the country… Quite honestly this is the most exciting and simultaneously the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.

I’m learning SO much. There’s lots of things I’m learning that I didn’t know before and many things that I’m finally actually GETTING. To use an analogy, let’s say you’ve done martial arts for a while and your instructor keeps telling you, “Hands up! Keep your hands up!” and so you know that your hands need to be up but when you’re practicing, your hands subconsciously keep coming down. It isn’t until you actually spar against an opponent and get clocked in the head that you finally GET IT that your hands need to be UP!  This is a lot like that. As is often said, life is our greatest teacher… There’s a lot of things that I “knew” didn’t work, and if you were to ask me before, I’d tell you that no, such-and-such doesn’t work. If you asked me now, I’d be like “nah dude, really, that shit DOES NOT WORK!!” It’s that transition from mental understanding to gut-level understanding.

This has also been a very emotional experience in that it’s forcing me to really look at myself. I’m basically free to go where I want and do what I want (within reason… a 4 wheel drive or all wheel drive vehicle would be super handy for going up into the snowy mountain peaks and camping in the backcountry, for example, buy I digress…). One thing I wanted from this trip was to really shed light onto the remaining unconscious portions of myself. See, I remember Adyashanti talking about when his awakenings first started, and they also began in the nonabiding form as I am experiencing, when he was going through his process he’d sit down in a coffee shop for hours writing and writing about his beliefs and exploring any area within him that would still go into division. This has been a big part of my journey here. It’s really taking what I’ve learned and applying it all. Jump in with both feet and apply the law of attraction, for example. Apply the ability to surrender and let go when your ego gets bruised and you face your inner darkness head on. Do all the stuff you need to do because now it really matters. It’s crunch time and the pressure’s on.

Freedom of Experience

To what degree do I want to experience freedom? I’ve thrown up a tent and camped in state parks and enjoyed being out in nature. I’ve slept in my car and enjoyed waking up in new places and not having to tear down a tent in the cold mornings. I’ve stayed in hotels and loved the big comfy bed and the little kitchenettes that allow me to cook. I’ve stayed on friends’ futons and enjoyed the free lodging and social life. What is the most harmonious expression of freedom that I’d like to experience? Let’s go out and try a lot of different things and see what they’re like!

Now I’m looking for a more permanent home to throw down some roots. It seems that this country really caters to those with a home and address. Where do I want to live? I can live in Denver, a big city with lots of different regions all over. I can live in Boulder which is a smaller town with a great spiritual vibe and amazing outdoorsy people. I can live up in a small mountain town like Nederland which gets a lot more snow and has more unplowed roads. Heck, I can even go live in a tipi on a sustainable farm! So many options! What do I want? What does my heart say?

Go dive into the unknown and follow that intuition… Let’s see where it takes me.

Spontaneity vs. Planning

What degree of structure do I want in my life? What works best? What feels best? What is most enjoyable? You can try going out somewhere in the world where you literally have NOTHING that you need to do. No plans. No nothing. Just show up and here you are. Where does your intuition lead you next? Completely and utterly spontaneous, allowing synchronicity to be everything.

Do you want a full schedule with lots of things to do and times to be at certain places?

Do you want to be generally open with only a few things scheduled to give your life some sense of  structure and direction while simultaneously being open to change direction on a dime?

I’m finding the last option to be most enjoyable for me. Complete and utter no plans doesn’t feel so good. I like having a next step to head towards in life and a few things on my to-do list. I like having an overall purpose for my life within which I allow the flow to occur. What do you like?

This is something that has been really valuable, to really let go and actually try out lots of different ways of being in the world and find what feels and works best for YOU. This is probably something that each person needs to find out for themselves…

Intuition

Intuition is SO bang on. It’s been my go-to option whenever it comes down to make a decision. Virtually every decision now is simply a matter of asking my intuition. What does this feel like? How does that option feel? Eventually you really start to develop the ability to discern between the feelings of expansiveness, openness, joy, excitement, and subtleness that usually comes with the intuition’s yes versus the sense of closure, downness, no, stopping, almost shut down that comes with the intuition’s no. Honestly one of the main challenges is getting the mind to align with the intuition. That’s really where the main challenge seems to lie, in getting the mind with all its logic and reasoning to surrender to a simple feeling that doesn’t explain itself.

Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction really works. I mean it REALLY works. I experience so consistently whatever it is that I most strongly think and believe deep down. It’s SO clear…

You are the light, mind is the prism, the world is your rainbow.
-Ash Ruiz

One thing I found amusing was to over and over hear people say “but this never happens!” It’s like everywhere I’d go, restaurants would hand me free food and beer, the weather would be perfect and just as I’d asked, things would just work out for me, and I’d just smile knowing that this has all been created within me and is being experienced due to my own inner alignment. At the same time, I only experience it to the degree that the alignment with inner being is maintained. It’s like a direct 1:1 relationship. Alignment with inner being, loving what is, non-resistance to the present moment, being in the vortex, being in a state of allowing, flowing the energy of Source through you, whatever you wanna call it… this one singular thing is what leads to the unfoldment of all that I desire in ways that are more amazing that I could have ever imagined had I been trying to micromanage or control any of this. It’s like having full creative power of choosing my vibrational state of being and simultaneously having no control over the physical world. The more I surrender control of the world and focus on inner alignment, the more the apparently outer world shows up in ways that reflect my inner alignment. This is really what the LoA is all about.

Happiness

This has been a pretty hard-hitting one for me. I really thought on some level that going out and jumping in to what I perceived to be a life of freedom and travel would bring happiness. It was subtle, but it was definitely here. This has been one false notion that’s been crashing down the past few days, and it’s been a tough pill to swallow. How many times have I thought that going out and “living the life of my dreams” would be what I was looking for? Wasn’t that what life was supposed to be about? It’s the idea that a certain lifestyle = happiness. Nope. Being out here in Colorado doesn’t make me happy. Heck, even manifesting all the stuff that I want doesn’t make me happy. Experiencing synchronicity and being in the flow itself doesn’t make me happy. It really doesn’t. I’m finding I keep placing conditions on my happiness and joy, as if something in life needs to be a certain way so that I can experience happiness and so I go about trying to structure my life a certain way. I keep placing these conditions on myself and finding that they keep come crashing down. They don’t work.

What I keep coming to find is that happiness DOES NOT lie outside of myself, as cliche as that may be. Happiness isn’t found in being loved. It isn’t found in living a certain lifestyle. It isn’t found in finally getting something you’ve always wanted. It doesn’t lie in mastery of a certain skill or achievement in a particular ability, including manifesting everything you want. Not at all…

The way it seems that it works is that happiness is found within, as if we ARE it. Literally. We find that we ARE it when we quit looking to FIND it. This inner being that is along for the journey every step of the way, this awareness that is ALWAYS present no matter how epic or traumatic the experience of life is, this presence that is always always always here, it’s so easy to get distracted from that and get lost in thought or lost in the world or lost in experiences, and yet this beingness is always here. When there’s a turning within, Love is found here. Joy is found here. Happiness is found here. Peace is found here.  Well-being is found here. It doesn’t matter where in the world I am or what is happening around me. It’s like this ground of being is becoming my home, silence is becoming my home, even if I don’t have a physical place to call home.

I wanted to write a book about the Law of Attraction, put together a workshop, collect videos that were especially helpful and so on, and yet what I’m starting to find is that mastery of manifesting DOES NOT BRING HAPPINESS. If I ever do come out with a product on the LoA, manifesting is going to be seen as sooooo secondary to being joyous, to being joy itself.

Byron Katie

The other day I was listening to Byron Katie and she said a number of things that completely blew me away…

Her whole thing is about questioning your thoughts and no longer believing in thought whatsoever, thereby ending your suffering. Her process to help us accomplish this she calls The Work and it’s repeatedly proving itself to be so effective and powerful…

She says that all suffering is a result of believing in thought. Period.  She mentioned that one thing she loves about life is that when someone else experiences pain, she doesn’t. When she experiences pain, the other doesn’t. We *think* that we suffer because of what another says or does, but the reality is we suffer because we believe thoughts that arise within us about what another said or did. If we didn’t believe any of our thoughts, experiences would simply happen and we wouldn’t suffer as a result of them. When you no longer believe in your thoughts, you are in heaven. When asked if she still feels like she’s in heaven even when bad things happen to her, she said she no longer perceives them as bad because she’s done the inquiry and doesn’t believe the thoughts that arise that suggest something is bad. She then went so far as to suggest that what if you went to heaven and took all your current thoughts with you. Would you then even experience heaven at all? The thing is you wouldn’t, and this is the condition most people are in. We all are in heaven right now, and yet we don’t experience it because we believe in our thoughts.

This is something that Adya has mentioned before as well, that he has literally lost the ability to believe in his own thoughts… I’ve wondered how this plays out in terms of the LoA which says that what you believe you experience… The two perspectives kinda seem at odds and this is a paradox that I have still only partially resolved for myself.

In any event, questioning my own thoughts repeatedly is bringing SO much valuable insight to me, so much clarity, and so much understanding. It’s a very useful technique…

So What Now?

There is SO much I don’t know. Everytime I think I know something, life gently and lovingly shows me how completely utterly wrong I am. There’s just so much more surrender to experience, a continual opening up to even deeper love (especially the scarier places), finding more areas of darkness and bringing the light into them, being happy and joyous for its own sake without any reason necessary, letting go of those fears and resistances and doubts and worries, and really just BEING. Being, loving, enjoying, surrendering…

Really I don’t know anything. Geez…

All I know is that here I am, sitting in a coffee shop, reflecting on the past few weeks of… good god… I don’t know how to describe it…

Whew… So yeah… If you’ve made it this far along and enjoyed what was shared, If you wanna read more from a wandering guy who has no idea what he’s doing half the time  :lol  feel free to donate some cash and help me pay for food and gas. It’s certainly appreciated!

Until next time, happy living!!

-Ariel