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 my friend and I were cracking up at fact that various words can be both good or bad, valid or invalid, true or untrue depending on how they’re used…

“I’m nothing! I’m nobody!” To an ego, this sucks. You may hear someone say this when they’re beating up on themselves. At the same time, you may hear someone who’s discovered the no-thingness within and found there is no “someone” who has a body, mind, personality, etc. Rather than it being an expression of restriction and low self-esteem, it’s an expression of pure freedom from form!

“I can’t do it!” In the personal power and self-development community, this is seen to be negative. It’s all about embracing what’s possible and believing in yourself because, afterall, you can do anything you set your mind to. On the flipside, you’ve got the aspect of surrender and the recognition that there’s some things you can’t accomplish. If anything, you give up trying and fall into the recognition of what can’t be accomplished because it’s already here. A quick example would be like after a magician saws a woman in half, how do you put her back together? The answer is you can’t. Why? Because she was never separate in the first place! There was only the appearance of the woman being sawed in half that the talented magician created, but even if you bring in the world’s greatest surgeons and doctors, they can’t do anything to put the woman back together again. It’s not that they’re incapable or not good enough. It’s simply that the separation never happened in the first place and in the discovery of the truth of this statement, both the so-called problem of the woman being cut and half and the apparently necessary solution of putting her back together again are no longer needed! You can’t put her back together again what was never actually separate, although you can certainly create the appearance of that and thus experience it as if it were real!

“I don’t know anything!” To the mind which may often be working with the idea that there’s certain things you definitely DO know, like your name, gender, that the earth is round, that fire can burn you, that an egg and a sperm coming together can lead to babies, and so on.. and yet deeper than that there’s an emptiness that’s discovered whereby you find out that you actually don’t know anything for sure! Not really! It’s all made up, a world of appearances, and just a story that’s being told. How do you know for sure that everything you’ve been taught isn’t just a made-up fiction? You don’t know anything for sure, and then at the same time, it is discovered that by letting go of knowing anything in the mind, you actually know much more than you think you know by accessing some deeper inner wisdom. You know everything you need to know when you need to know it, even though you don’t know anything. Somehow this seems to be true for all of us. It’s just a question of whether or not we have discovered it yet.

“It’s all an illusion!” At first we may think that our physical world is really real. Then we may get into physics, metaphysics, or spirituality and learn that the world is all just a bunch of atoms and molecules made up of energy and the appearance of the world is literally created by our thoughts. It’s just a movie being witnessed in awareness. And then the whole discussion of reality vs. illusion, relative vs. the absolute.. that whole game starts running and we buy into one notion or the other, until even the difference between reality and illusion or relative and absolute starts to disintegrate… It leaves you nowhere to stand. Reality vs. illusion, THAT starts to fall apart. What’s the difference between a dream and reality? It’s not that you’re confusing the two and thinking that your mental dream IS reality. It’s simply that there’s seen to be no separation. Look at your hand made up of many molecules. One hand, zillions of parts. Which is the illusion? The one or the many? Both? Neither? Sure we can say “this is of the mind” and “that is beyond the mind,” and yet even that starts to blank out on its own.

“We are all one. We’re all connected!” From a place of oneness, the idea of being connected itself doesn’t even make any sense. How can there be connection if there is ONLY ONE? There are SO many ways of seeing how the one can manifest itself, so many valid experiences… Separation, multiple parts that effect each other via cause and effect, multiple parts that are connected via infinite threads, infinite expressions all arising in one locationless location, just ONE without another, nothing to be anything and a total zeroing out of all of life…

Giving the Mind Nowhere to Rest

What seems to start happening is that while we used to be searching for this to be truth vs. that, we paradoxically discover that everything is a manifestation of truth and nothing is truth. No longer can we say any experience is invalid. All of it is valid. All meaning is valid and yet life is totally meaningless. Every experience is embraced by the one and none of it is rejected even though rejection happens. Who am I? Not this, not that, and yet both this and that. and beyond this and that entirely and yet imminently right here.

We start falling into a space where nothing is valid, nothing is invalid, everything is valid, and everything is invalid.

Every answer is right. No answer is right.

From here, where are we gonna go? What are we gonna do? Where can the mind rest when everything it thinks is seen to be both valid and invalid simultaneously and no matter what it thinks, it can no longer satisfy itself by boxing a collection of ideas up and calling it “my truth,” “my beliefs,” “my religion,” “my philosophy,” and so on? Even “all ideas and no ideas” is an idea itself that is seen to be part of that same predicament, like a snake eating its own tail.

If anything, there’s just a complete validation/invalidation of the mind to where everything/nothing is it. Every thought and no thought is IT. Both sides of the paradoxical puzzle are seen while the puzzle has no sides.

The Self is beyond knowledge and ignorance.

-Ramana Maharshi

No conclusion and no thought can bring you to Self-realization. Who you are is not found in that world, and yet you are present there too…

Just Being Present, Without Needing to Access the Mind

Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.

-J. Krishnamurti

Though observation and NOT through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Observation keeps you right here. Analysis and dissection keep you spinning around in search for an answer. At best the analysis implodes upon itself, leaving you nowhere with nothing to grasp at. Just a simple being here. Just being. The search, if it has been truly effective, has shown you that the search can never lead you where you want and so you give up the search and rest here. In this resting the discovery can be made of what’s truly HERE.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

-T.S. Elliot

So recently I shared this on facebook:

All understandings are conceptual. Even a living realization can be grasped by the mind and turned into another concept to be understood and shared. What if we stopped going into the domain of mental concepts altogether and simply rested in what is here without moving, without also going to the mind to label, describe, remember, or understand… Just experiencing whatever happens as it arises, purely and untouched.

and friend of mine brought up an excellent concern:

Can you imagine if after we process thought into concept and fail to SHARE it? So many others wouldn’t be touched, stimulated and motivated to realize more. I so enjoy following your travels and posts. It’s like a good shot in the arm, for you are always willing to SHARE freely. Thanks for that! ♥

Yeah, that hits right on the money on some of my concerns as well. What’s being questioned here, on a deeper level beyond whether we say something or not, is whether or not we have to take what is discovered through the heart and immediately bring it up into the mind to be stored, leaving the heart and quickly going into the head.

Let’s give a little background here and set the context by sharing a pattern here I’ve noticed…

The Need to Have and Share Realizations

Whenever there’s some sort of realization or ‘aha’ moment here, I’ve noticed an immediate impulse to somehow put it into words and go out and share that. Post about it on facebook or twitter. Write a blog post about it. Make a video about it… all with a deeper fundamental idea that something *bad* will happen if you don’t share what you have come to know! Afterall, we’re here to serve one another and give of our gifts, are we not? Yet is it possible that in our rush to give, we do so before allowing ourselves to receive the fullness of that which we have to offer?

At the same time, I’ve noticed an attachment around both realizations and the sharing of realizations. You see, having realizations can show you that you are growing and moving forward. The sharing of them can make you feel special and wise. You even get rewarded by compliments and thank yous, and those treats can continue to feed the impulse to give more and more. Heck, the realizations are even being used to help financially fund my life! In a sense, they’re like “my product.” I share my realizations here with you online which helps me continue traveling, living, exploring. It is thanks to your donations, affiliate purchases of products I recommend, clicking on the ads I have on this site, and so on that I’m able to put gas in my car, pay my credit card bills, and get food in my belly! (Sure this also comes in other ways, but this is one of my main sources of money.) And so if my realizations and insights feel like they lie at the heart of my physical survival (whether or not that is true), then well, let’s just say that it makes them feel important, almost life or death!

and so we can make realizations out to seem critically important… yet what are realizations, exactly?

Realizations and Expanded Awareness

The other day I finally had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Matt Kahn and Julie Dittmar who are both absolutely amazing people!! It was an incredible gift to spend time with the both of them. After Matt’s satsang and Julie’s meditations here in California, we had a chance to talk about realizations and their importance.

Let’s take a look at how realizations themselves work, and much of this Matt pointed out and helped me discover so mad props to him.

When awareness expands a bit to encompass more of what is, within this new area of expanded awareness lies something that wasn’t seen before. What awareness sees is then experienced and discovered/realized. Then what may or may not happen is that the mind jumps in and translates into words and concepts that which is seen, and this collection of ideas we often call “the realization” when actually these are nothing more than pointers. If we’re directly experiencing that to which the pointer points, what is the need of a pointer? Just experience the experience!

See, what’s really key here is not the mind’s translations of the seeing of awareness but actually the awareness itself. It suddenly struck me that realizations themselves aren’t important and Matt nodded. No, they’re really not, he responded. Eventually there’s realization that realizations don’t even matter all that much. This one really hit deep…

Out of the Heart and Into the Head

Another thing I’ve repeatedly noticed is that when the clarity of expanded awareness quickly moves into mind to be verbalized, the experience of the expansion itself is often diminished. In my attempt to immediately give what I have before it settles in and stabilizes, I myself actually lose it. Wait a minute… The intent was never for me to have less in the name of you having more, but that’s what continues to happen. I sacrifice my own experience in the name of hopefully helping you have yours. Something is definitely off here, you know?

It’s like.. imagine for a moment if you were to sit down and eat your favorite meal, something monumentally delicious. Now instead of sitting down and deeply savoring the experience by staying in the world of direct sensory experience, you instead go into your mind and start describing the taste, the feeling, the texture. You then move from having the experience of tasting to the experience of describing what it’s like to have the experience of tasting. The two are WORLDS apart. When you start experiencing your thoughts, you’re no longer feeling life as it is. You’re experiencing your thoughts about the world. You’re not feeling. You’re thinking.

In a sense, it’s almost like a sort of premature evacuation. Out of the vulnerable heart and back into the safety of the head. When all the energy starts arising (whether the experience is one of physical sensation, experiential clarity of seeing, sexual energy rising, or whatever else…) it’s like there is an exiting of the world of feeling and a retreat into the world of mind, as if the mind needs to do something about the experience. Instead of holding the space for that energy to be present, you go into thinking about it. Rather than doing this, there is another possibility: Let go of the need to go from feeling to thinking and expand in your capacity to fully embrace life and experience the fullness of all it has to offer. Just FEEL it, without naming it or describing it, without holding on it, trying to maintain it, or share it with others. Just FEEL it. Quit flitting about so much. Be still.

What is here to be enjoyed is silence. Silence without escape into thought. There are many realizations and aha’s in silence, and yet these are all blossomings and flowerings of silence itself. Silence verbalized is never the purity silence itself, but only a pointer. Silence is the point. Silence is the heart. Silence is the home. All the words are simply decorating the silence, as Matt likes to put it.

To Share or Not To Share?

and so, is there any value to sharing what is realized? Sure. Look how many teachers across the ages have shared what they have discovered. It all has a purpose and reason. And yet if the sharing is coming from a place of attachment or ego fulfillment, that needs to be addressed.

What is it like, for once in your life, (and I’m talking to myself here…) to not try and give away and share everything you have discovered? To let people discover things without your help, as if you guys wouldn’t be okay without my help. What is it like to experience things and not tell people? What is it like to sit and feel like something horrible will happen or the world will miss out on these discoveries if I don’t share them, to allow this fear to arise and not move to take action upon it.

On one hand yes, we are here to help, contribute, and serve. God works through us, sure. And yet on the paradoxical flip side of this, there is also God saying, “Relax. Take it easy. I don’t need your help. I got this.”

Reader Question:

Dear Ariel,

Ultimately, are we all “one” or are we separated individual consciousnesses?  Will we still be feeling the difference and separation between “me” and “you” ?

Thanks,

TSS

Ariel’s Response:

Great question, no?

When we begin looking into the nature of awareness, it seems like there’s “my awareness” and “your awareness.” There’s that which is looking “through my eyes” and that which is looking “through your eyes.” They have access to different perspectives, different thoughts, and different experiences. We often experience them as tied to the unique attributes of each person (my awareness is over here looking at you over there, where your awareness is over there looking at me over here).

Yet are they really one? If they are, why don’t we experience a unity between the infinite individual awarenesses? This idea of one universal awareness isn’t what is experienced from behind the veil. Separation is the norm, but what’s really going on on “the other side of the veil?”

Self-inquiry

Well, let’s start with a quick exercise…

Point to yourself.. Go ahead and do it.

Where did you point?

Many people point to their heart/chest and others may point to their head/mind.

Where did you point? Take note.

Is there a little “someone” in there that you’re pointing to? When you say “My name is so-and-so,” to what is that name pointing to? A little “me” inside your chest or head, perhaps? If you feel in, where does it feel like you are located? Centered?

In the world of separation we experience a world of “me” and others, me and you, me and God, me and earth, me and heaven. I want to get into heaven. I want to be at one with God. I want to be close to you or far away from you.

Where is this “me” that lives in relationship to everything else?

When we look within, we can find a body, thoughts, a history, a sense of awareness, feelings, brains and bones… but where is the “me” within all of this?

It turns out that the felt sense “me” is nothing more than a feeling created from a thought believed. As we do the inquiry, we keep failing at our attempts to find out who is here, who is doing any of this. Who is in control? Who does my name point to? Who has free will? Who is inquiring? Who is aware of inquiry happening?

As we continue inquiring, more and more of the places for “me” to hide is brought into awareness, such as in thought, in emotion, in feeling, in time and space, in accomplishments, in identities, in the identification process, as that which experiences, controls, or decides, etc. until there is basically nowhere else to rest. It is then discovered there is no me and there never was. Just a feeling of me, a thought of me, a sense of me.

Who you are is not who you think you are. Who you think you are is not what wakes up and becomes enlightened. In awakening, who you are wakes up from who you think you are.

Life Without the Sense of Separate Self

Somehow, without a me, there also is no you. Not really. There is no world. There is no God. There is no other. There is nothing. Nothing at all. It was all just mental concepts, ideas, beliefs, and notions. Total collapse of everything because we see through the “me.” There is just what is, without a name. Pure being, pure existence, pure life.

As there is a settling into “no-me’ness” and nothingness, eventually for whatever reason, there may be a sort of cosmic explosion where the entire world is seen to be simply continuous arisings of consciousness within consciousness. Consciousness is all, but “I” am nowhere to be found. Everywhere the world is, there I am. I am nothing and I am everything, and there is no one to claim ownership for this sense of existence/life/being. Just pure aliveness being alive.

Jeff Foster published a book with a hilariously accurate title, An Extraordinary Absence: Liberation in the Midst of a Very Ordinary Life. A very ordinary life, and yet the me I thought I was is nowhere to be found!

In this space, nothing is personal, yet everything is incredibly intimate for there is no separation happening, no distance between things, even though the eyes may still register things going from here to there.

There is still the ability to see chair and floor and cloud and Ariel’s body and Billy Bob’s hat, sure, but this is all seen secondarily. What stands at the forefront is the ineffable, the unspeakable, the singular ONE beyond name and form. We still use words like you and me because they are quite useful in practical conversation and day-to-day life, but we use those words very lightly, with a sort of laughing wink, knowing that we are just playing with form, like a child sculpting a sand castle. It’s made up, it’s play, it’s a game that lives in our imaginations.

We can still individuate, but we don’t separate.

Note how thoughout history, many awakened people have referred to various things like God and humans, the Father who art in Heaven, Shiva and Shakti, the mother who rears the ten thousand creatures, various planes of consciousness or dimensions of reality, and yet they never claim that anything is separate or apart from its source. Oneness and individuation are both still apparent, but individuation is a lighthearted secondary to Oneness.

Ultimately there is just awareness, without a “me” or a “you” apart from the thoughts of me and you arising within awareness. Although it may look like my awareness or your awareness on the surface, it is clearly seen that there is ONLY awareness, one without a second. Everything is seen to somehow be a manifestation of awareness. There is no one to claim ownership of awareness since the thought, feeling, and subsequent feeling of ownership are simply optional experiences of awareness itself within awareness, not something other than awareness or separate from awareness.

There is still the recognition that in the same way that awareness experiences itself bit by bit (yet also paradoxically all at once since there is no time), there is also the recognition that awareness itself has an infinite number of perspectives, an infinite number of ways of experiencing itself, and this infinity can be experienced without going into the world of separation.

Separation and infinity, it turns out, are not the same thing, and need not be always experienced simultaneously. The Infinite/One are always present, HereNow, but separation is just an optional experience. All waves exist, but none are separate from the ocean. They ARE a surface-level temporary appearance of the ocean itself.

A Dialogue on this Topic

Here’s a wonderful clip from a talk about the Journey After Awakening with Adyashanti and Loch Kelly. In this clip, they talk about some of the post-awakening experiences, transformations, and unfoldings:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dthmW6ffxAI

But don’t try to make the experiences and realizations out to be the point. Those come on their own as the underlying illusions are cleared out. To clear out the illusions, focus on finding the self. Does it feel like there is a self present? If so, where? To whom? Who is experiencing it? And who is experiencing that? What is the “I” we refer to when we talk about ourselves? Find that out and all the enlightenment stuff seems to take care of itself on its own accord.

If you want to find God, then as the saying goes, know thyself.

Everything and Nothing.. not two.

Nothingness

Some spiritual practices really emphasize nothingness. Emptiness. Formlessness. Silence. The Uncreated. The Unmanifested.

Seeing this, we may go into meditation and do our best to detach from life, detach from our emotions, detach from our experiences, and recognize who we are independent of all circumstance.

There are also many losses that can be experienced.. loss of attachment, loss of desire, even loss of self! This may also be reflected “externally” (heh) in the world as loss of physical posessions, relationships, and so on.

Deep within we go, deeper and deeper, falling into the abyss of nothingness/nowhere, until it is seen that there is no one to fall, no one to surrender, and that the nothingness, the experience of nothingness, and the no one experiencing the nothingness are all one and the same.

Into the nothingness, nothing collapses, and explosion of everythingness happens. Silently, form, color, shape, fullness, love, creation, action, doing, celebration, dance, music, fullness, abundance, infinity… all are seen to BE the nothingness.

Non-dual

Everything and nothing are one and the same. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness.

The ascetic who has little to no posessions is seen to be the same as the materialist who has lots of stuff. They are the same, identically one and the same. There is only one.

No understanding to be grasped. Nothing to understand. Beyond all understanding and yet imminitely present.

Everything and nothing, not two, not two.

Formlessness and form, not two, not two.

Manifest and Unmanifest, not two, not two.

Seeker and mystic, not two, not two.

Just the stripping away of all, without time and space, expressing itself as all of time and space.

Uncreated, uncaused, already existent, and active within consciousness now. The pure silent glow of the Divine, radiating as All That Is.

Here. Now. Always, in All Ways.

Here we are, experiencing the One in all its infinite manifestations. What’s this like? What’s that like?

Here’s a wonderful video that Matt Kahn recently published, talking about experiencing the fullness of life.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUiEJDJLkhY

When we believe our thoughts, then perhaps out a love for truth or a sincere desire to finally end our suffering, we can begin inquiring into our own thoughts. Byron Katie offers a wonderful method.

Is this thought true?
Do we know absolutely for sure that it is true?
How do we feel when we believe this thought?
Who would we be without this thought?
Is the opposite thought as true as or perhaps more true than the original thought?

As we systematically begin letting go of untruths and misunderstandings, more and more we begin to discover ourselves to be not our thoughts, but actually this empty, spacious, expansive, boundless, and inherently free awareness.

That which is aware of these words. That which is aware of what it feels like to be a separate person who believes their thoughts and then inquires about their thoughts. Not some conceptual mysterious invisible Infinite Self thingy that we have to go find, but just this awareness that’s so clearly right HERE!

As awareness, somehow there is love, adoration, affection, and overflowing appreciation for all that is witnessed, and oddly enough, somehow that which is witnessed is not felt to be separate from or other than awareness. Freedom as awareness, with nothing to grab onto, not even a spiritual nondual idea or belief system to call the truth. Nothing to grab onto. Just being what you naturally are…

The gift of Truth, it is then discovered, is not contained in a mental conceptual encapsulation of some ideas or collection of thoughts that are “the right answer,” but in the living conscious realization of what you truly are.

This is the end of the search and perhaps the beginning of truly living. This is the revelation of the Divine equally in every ordinary and extraordinary moment. The two are one and the same. Summiting a mountain or sipping a cup of tea, both are seen to be ordinary and extraordinary. All is radiantly alive, and this aliveness is what you are, seeing yourself in and as All That Is.

Infinite Love and Joyous Freedom beyond the mind, as awareness, here and now.

Noticing all the various spiritual points of view like the absolute and the relative, the individual, the one, the infinite, and so on.. we may find that these actually wind up being ways to divide up ISness, pure being. In this video, we explore this topic as we point towards what IS behind all these ways of speaking about what is:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGLIuVQaiNM

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?