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.

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?

Alright, so today I’d like to address a point about consciousness.

In ego-land, we see ourselves as a being with consciousness, someone who has consciousness. If we get knocked in the head, we can lose consciousness. If we get on the spiritual pathway, we can raise our level of consciousness and become more conscious. There is my consciousness and your consciousness and they see different things. Heck, there are even people who are deemed unconscious, spiritually speaking.

Looking at this wording, we notice that in every situation, the word consciousness is used to point to something other than what we are. Consciousness is something we have, something that changes over time, something that can come and go. It is variable. It is something we want to develop, something to get more of, something to expand or improve.

It gives us a target to reach for, somewhere “out there” to arrive called a “place of higher consciousness” or whatever. Yet another goal in the future. We want to attain a certain level of consciousness. From this perspective, we are given something to seek and we can see that we are not there yet.

Now given all this, I would like to talk about pure consciousness itself, that which is ALREADY HERE AS IT IS.

In this moment, notice that consciousness is conscious of these words being read. Though the words are changing, consciousness itself isn’t.

Consciousness is conscious of one’s emotional state. Consciousness is not synonymous with one’s emotional state.

Consciousness is conscious of the degree of wisdom one has attained.

There is consciousness and then there is the degree to which consciousness is conscious of consciousness. Whether one is focusing on the world or whether one is looking within and noticing that they are conscious, consciousness is conscious of all of that just the same, it itself not changing.

Consciousness, pure consciousness, does it have any limits? Feel for them right now. Does consciousness contract or expand or is it conscious of all sensation and experience of both contraction and expansion? When there is the profound experience of “expanded consciousness,” is consciousness not conscious of that too? Experiences change. Consciousness doesn’t.

Are there different levels of pure consciousness or is consciousness itself conscious of how loving you are, how compassionate you are, what level of consciousness you calibrate at, and so on?

No matter what realizations have occurred, what experiences have been experienced, has consciousness itself changed or been affected?

It’s so easy, given how drawn into the changing world of form that most of us are, to associate unchanging consciousness with that which changes. These are all misconceptions.

Because we sometimes use consciousness to refer to unchanging awareness and other times we use it to refer to something that is variable, something that changes, something that comes and goes, this introduces a degree of confusion and misunderstanding as different people use the same word to point to different things.

I’d like to invite you to become more conscious of consciousness itself.

Notice that consciousness would be conscious of one’s effort to become conscious of consciousness.

When there is the pull to distract yourself and do something else, is consciousness still conscious of that? When you feel like you’re running away, does consciousness run?

When you’re in meditation, whether you’re doing a “good job” meditating or not, is consciousness conscious of all of that?

No matter what thoughts arise, what experiences happen, and if there is a “me” present or not, is consciousness itself not conscious of this whole game?

Regardless of how hard we try to be conscious, is consciousness not effortlessly conscious already?

Pure consciousness itself. Does it change?

Time for a speedlinks post, a collection of awesome content from around the web to share with you guys.

Differences between Oneness / Enlightenement and Neo-Advaita / Non-Duality by Sage Sarojini. She recently published an extraordinarily helpful article detailing the differences between Oneness and Enlightenment. I know I myself have gotten tripped up on many of these points and it is so helpful to have someone point you beyond.

The Feeling that Nothing is Happening as described by Michael Brown, author of The Presence Process. This article was shared by Roger Gietzen, one of our forum posters and it details an excellent process to help us go beyond just using “The Secret” to manifest stuff as if that will ultimately fulfill us and guides us to coming back home towards the no-thingness within.

What Is Enlightenment? Blogger Tom Stine recently elaborated on Takuin’s answer to this very question, leading to a wonderful discussion.

Where the Hell is Matt? Matt has been an inspiration to me, taking off to go travel the world and dance in front of cool places all across the globe. It wasn’t until after he published his first youtube video that he got sponsored by Stride Gum and got funded to continue traveling the world and doing more of what he loved, having fun and helping make others smile in the process. If he can take off and go live the life he loves without knowing ahead of time how the universe will support him, why can’t we? His second video is amazing as well.

The Next Top Spiritual Author Many of you reading this blog are also spiritual messengers. To you have a book within you or already written, ready to be shared with the world? Here’s a course where you can work with some well-known authors like Arielle Ford and Marianne Williamson as well as the CEO of Hampton Roads Publishing Company, the original publishers of the book series Conversations with God. There is a competition where the winner gets a publishing deal and a lot of guidance and support in the publishing arena. Everyone that signs up, regardless of how well they do in the competition, will free guidance, support, and how-tos on how to write a book, present sample chapters to publishers, get published, and so on. There’s only about a week left to register so if you feel called to write a book, and especially if you’re started getting synchronicities and inner nudges here and there like me, this one would be worth checking out.

Inspire Me Today Every day, listen to another amazing person answer the question, “If today were my last day on Earth and I could share 500 words of brilliance with the world, here are the important things I’d want to pass along to others…”

TUT Daily Emails Speaking of inspirational and fun daily message type stuff, check out the TUT daily emails. Mike Dooley, one of the featured speakers in “The Secret,” writes as “The Universe” as he continues to send out amazing content with such a fun and jovial voice, you can’t help but smile at the degree to which he plays and enjoys life. Truly a standout!

Got any more awesome content to share with us? Videos, articles, blog posts, etc.? Share them with us in the comments!

I Am.

It’s so simple. The mind loves seeking, learning, exploring, understanding, and this is all just the beautiful play of the mind. It’s all “food for thought.” It seems that all our reading and learning is great for academia. It makes us excellent students who can say the right words and come up with the right answers when it’s time to take the test. However, it may not be the best strategy when it comes to Self-realization. We need not gain more understanding to go beyond the mind.

“You are too full of gibberish, you know too much. Because of your borrowed knowledge and too many words moving inside you, you cannot see the wordless beauty that can only be experienced in silence.”

-Osho

I Am. Focus on that. It’s simple. So simple. That brings awareness back to its Source, rather than focusing it upon its infinite manifestations.

When your consciousness is directed outward, mind and world arise. When it is directed inward, it realizes its own Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.

-Eckhart Tolle

Make a friend with the I Am. Spend time with it. Nothing need be created. You don’t need to become anything new. Just be. The inner guru will awaken on its own and you will intuitively begin knowing all that prolific spiritual wisdom we previously sought answers for from books, teachers, and gurus.

“When you stop searching and you calm down and you put your books away, and you confront yourself and see what you are all about, that will bring about bliss faster than anything you can ever imagine or ever do.”

-Robert Adams

I Am.

The “I Am” literally is what you ARE. I Am That I Am, and so are you.

Just Be.

Let’s look at several explanations by different teachers who all point to basically the same thing, being with the “I Am.” This takes us right to the heart of spiritual practice.

Nirmala describes Self-inquiry

It does not need to be complicated. Just simply sense your self and do not worry about inside or outside or going deeper. Sense that you exist right now, and then stay with that sense of “I” or “me”. But do not worry about whether it is the right way of sensing your self. Simply sense your self just as you are right now.

Once you sense your self just as you are right now, simply stay with that sense of your self. If a thought or feeling arises, notice who is having the thought or feeling. Obviously “I” am having the thought or feeling. And so then you just return to staying with that sense of “I.”

That is all you need to do. Just rest while sensing your self. Everything else is up to divine grace, and it is taking good care of you.

-Nirmala

Nisargadatta on Focusing upon the ‘I Am’

When I met my Guru, he told me: “You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense ‘I am’, find your real Self.” I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense ‘I am’ tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am — unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher’s) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being ‘I am’, and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ‘I am’ in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared — myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

-Nisargadatta Maharaj

Mooji on Focusing up the Self

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4MtmRkiW_U

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jl5op2g1zw

If you want a practice, if you want a meditation, if you want something to do, there ya go. Just be.

mk guys and gals, here’s a homework assignment for you. I’d like for you guys to do this and then report back in with your results in the forum comments.

Meditate without trying to accomplish anything.

Set aside some time to just go sit and be.

Don’t try to do a good job meditating, don’t try to be super still, don’t try to get enlightened, don’t control your breathing, don’t try to maintain a proper posture, don’t worry about what to do, don’t try to be successful, don’t try to experience deeper states of peace, don’t try to raise your level of consciousness, don’t try to destress, don’t try to make anything happen, don’t try to quiet your mind, don’t have any expectations for any results whatsoever… literally nothing, ya dig?

See what happens and share with us what you find.

Whether nothing happens at all, whether your have some super spectacular grand revelation, whether you decide instead to go pick your nose, or whether you become the next living Buddha, whatever. There’s no such thing as a wrong answer or a failed attempt. How can there be if there’s no goal?

No expectations. No right or wrong.

Just stop.

and Be.

Enlightenment. It’s basically your vibration raising up to the point where your consciousness has a broad enough perspective to realize that everything is “connected,” that everything is One.

It’s like progressively taking off the blinders of limitation.

Now, along with the realization of Oneness comes a natural application of actions stemming from Oneness. We could say that these actions operate on a higher level of consciousness than actions which stem from the illusion of separation.

Typically, though, the actions feel quite ordinary. They’re common, natural, and plain. It’s not about walking on water or anything, but simply being yourself, your true self. As the saying goes: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

There are many many ways to apply the principles of Oneness in our everyday lives. Keep in mind that there is no right way, no correct way, no guaranteed way, and no definitively proper way of acting that can be turned into an external set of rules, guidelines, or laws to be followed. It must all come from within, arise spontaneously, and be a natural expression of the Oneness that you are.

That Sneaky Ego

Any external rule, when it’s not backed up by the consciousness from within, can be turned around to be used by the ego.

You tell people “Thou shall not kill” and their egos will turn it around, find a way to justify the exact opposite idea, and engage in holy wars.

Face-palm.

You tell people to Love one another and the ego jumps in trying to own others, bringing in energies of neediness and lust, totally missing the true meaning of Love. Perhaps they try to control others and override their free will because “they know better.”

Whenever you have an external mental “rule” to follow, the creative ego is ALWAYS able to spin and misinterpret something for its own selfish purposes.

From Beyond the Ego

With that said, can you think of some heart-centered actions you could take that might be representative of actions that stem from Oneness?

Off the top of my head, there’s:

• Loving others as yourself
• Uplifting yourself and uplifting others
• Being yourself to the fullest extent possible
• Not taking fears seriously
• Allowing yourself to be a whole being, guided by your Higher Self instead of your limited physical mind
• Replacing ideas of segregation with understandings of shared humanity
• Accepting others fully as they are, the way same Creation accepts us fully as we are
• Changing scientific perspectives to come from a place of Oneness
• Recognizing that all experiences are valid, for they all generate self-validating realities. No experience is inherently better or worse than any other. They simply have different consequences.
• Sharing food, shelter, blood, time, attention, or even a listening ear with those in need
• Becoming enlightened
• Helping others (more of yourself) awaken to their true nature
• Recognizing yourself as Love, realizing there’s nothing but Love in the universe, and thus automatically Loving all others unconditionally

These are many of the ways I’m applying it, and I’m sure many of you are already using many of these ideas as well and many more.

I’d love for you guys to help me add to this list. How else do you find your relationship with others changing now that you are coming to understand that everything is One?

The Sun’s Fortress by Marc Adamus

Alright, let’s get straight to the point. How do you actually do this? How do you get enlightened?

There’s so many gurus we can follow, all of whom give similar instructions, but they’re all variations on a theme. What’s the best path? The fastest path? The path that’s most appropriate for me? Is there even a best/fastest/right path at all?

How do you get enlightened? Let’s strip away the fluff and look at the core instructions on exactly HOW to do it as instructed from a variety of teachers:

Ramana Maharshi

Repeatedly perform self-inquiry by asking the question “Who am I?” over and over until the ‘I’ falls away. The thought “Who am I?” is not meant to come up with an ultimate answer the mind can accept. Rather, it will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Hold on to the sense ‘I am’ tenaciously and do not swerve from it even for a moment.

Michael Langford

Turn awareness back upon itself so that awareness is watching awareness. Add nothing else to the process. Expect nothing. Just be aware of awareness.

Adyashanti

Allow everything to be as it is and then perform meditative self-inquiry, asking the question “Who am I?”

David Hawkins

Surrender the ego’s desires, proclivities, and positionalities to God. Surrender your very life, all fears, and sense of self to God. Allow God to do with you what he will.

Buddha

Meditate. Know and practice the four noble truths. Follow the noble eightfold path.

Gangaji

Stop everything. Just be. Drop all activities, all attempts to get something or achieve something that’s not already here. See what’s always here. Just stop.

Eckhart Tolle

Be in the Now. Listen to the silence.

It’s interesting to note that he didn’t awaken by constantly being present. His ego just kinda collapsed overnight spontaneously.

Neale Donald Walsch

The reason people are enlightened is because they say they are.

(Note: Neale isn’t actually enlightened. He’s simply sharing his understandings as received from God while writing his books, Conversations with God.)

T. Harv Eker

If you want instant enlightenment, don’t believe a thought you think.

(Note: Harv isn’t enlightened either, but his suggestion nevertheless ties in well.)

Bashar

If you want to be enlightened, just lighten up! Follow your highest excitement to continue finding more and more of yourself. Know that you are the One and the All.

Neo-Advaita

There’s nothing to do and no one to do anything. Just be still and allow the Self to realize itSelf.

Jesus Christ

You reach Salvation by reaching for the Christ Consciousness and Unconditional Love, following the path modeled by Jesus. Like Bhakti Yoga, it involves devotion to God.

Karma Yoga

You can reach moksha by doing God’s work instead of your own, by performing good deeds and tasks.

Jnana Yoga

Explore the sacred Hindu scriptures, typically with the aid of a guru.

Raja Yoga

Contemplation and meditation.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Meditate with a straight posture while looking up at the third eye, the center of Christ Consciousness, without straining your eyes. Be still and know.

_____________________________________________________

As you can see, there are a multitude of paths, yet even this is not by any means an all-inclusive list. There are many more recommended ways such as by receiving the grace of a guru as a form of energy transmission, by repeatedly chanting mantras, by performing various physical activities to activate certain energies within the body, by overcoming the enemy (ego) through a holy war (jihad), and more.

Spiritual Practices

What is the value of spiritual practices?

Freedom can only be realized when you don’t do anything to realize it. It must happen on its own.

Practices to help you hone your mind, to learn how to better focus or surrender are of value in that they can help you focus on the Self and withdraw attention from the pull of egoic thoughts.

If a practice serves the purpose of quieting the mind, it is of great help.

The Truth of who we are is Here and Now. All our practices are ways of searching for what is already here. They are designed to help us come back home to who we truly are.

Any practice which is based on the idea that you are someone in particular who does something in particular to achieve something in particular, any such practice is an obstruction because it is based upon the false belief that you are not already there. It’s an ego game. Don’t strive to achieve enlightenment. Just be. The ego achieves. The Self is.

Rather than trying to make yourself enlightened, look to how you are unenlightening yourself and stop doing that.

Enlightenment is like revealing the light of the sun. It’s not something to search for. Rather, you dissolve the clouds (egoic identification) preventing you from seeing the light that’s already present and has been the whole time.

Look for what does not need to be practiced to exist. Look for what is always here, eternally present. Focus attention there. Allow beingness to be. Let go of the “me” and all the stories involving it.

Boiling It Down

In a nutshell, what’s ultimately necessary is to quiet the mind and let go of identification with anything. Instead, we look at what’s always here, underneath mental chatter, prior to and during all thought. Enlightenment is found in the stillness. You can’t take Heaven (aka Enlightenment/Nirvana) by force. You must surrender into the silence and allow it to happen on its own.

“Be still and know that I am” points directly to it. Simply be still, drop all egoic movement, and be who you truly are, without anything else added.

Be Still and Know That I Am.

Something I realized the other day is that when it comes to the Law of Attraction, what most of us don’t realize at first is that what it is we want to manifest is actually SECONDARY!

Song of the Tides by Marc Adamus

There’s something much more profound going on here. What the LoA is really teaching you to do is to blend all aspects of your being, to be your whole self, to unite the physical you with the non-physical you in thought, word, and deed. Call it raising your vibration, expanding your consciousness, integrating your being, whatever you want. It’s a way to experience Creation and growth in a way that is in full alignment with All That Is, without requiring All That Is to be any certain way.

The LoA is a wonderful little game. It’s the famous sales line, “Sell ‘em what they want. Give ‘em what they need.”

Remember in the movie Karate Kid when Mr. Miyagi had Daniel-san painting the fence, sanding the floor, doing wax-on wax-off? It’s a lot like that.

Old School

How many times have you wanted something really badly and struggled and grunted your way there. Sure, maybe you eventually got there after a lot of hard work, but when you finally got there, the feeling of success was short-lived at best. Heck, maybe it even felt like a disappointing let down compared to what you were expecting.

So 99.9% of your time was spent getting somewhere else, not enjoying or accepting where you are now, and the remaining 0.1% of the time at the end is spent actually experiencing the thing, but not even fully enjoying that either!

Doesn’t something sound wrong with the picture here? There must be a better way.

There is.

Lighten Up!

What the LoA is really about is using these things you desire as a place to simply focus your attention. It is by focusing your attention on what it is you desire that you can start using them as a means to be your whole Self NOW. THAT is the Primary focus here.

That’s what’s really going on slightly beneath the surface.

As was pointed out yesterday, the world doesn’t really need another painting, but it sure can be fun to paint it and feel the flow of creative life energy flowing through you as you paint.

Getting attached to a desire and needing it to happen is totally missing the point.

As Abraham points out over and over, there is nothing more important than that you feel good because when you are feeling good, that feeling is representative of the fact that you are integrating and being the whole being you were born to be.

So while awareness may be focused on better feeling thoughts, something you desire in the future, what’s wonderful now, what you appreciate, the opening of your heart, the state of being felt in meditation, or whatever tool you’re using to raise your vibration, aka “feel better,” the deeper spiritual purpose behind the Law of Attraction is about uniting the various aspects of yourself to be your Whole True Self.

Whatever process you use to realize that who you are is really the One and the All, whether you use various meditation practices to become enlightened, whether you are applying the principles of the Law of Attraction, whether you are studying the teachings of some enlightened guru who has realized a deeper truth and is sharing his or her realizations with you, whether you’re using quantum physics, or whether you’re using some other vehicle, you’ll notice that all of these vehicles, at their core, are geared towards a unification process, of realizing via any means possible what is Real, the Truth of Who You Are.

What we’re witnessing here is Reality using Reality to awaken itself to itself. It’s all One Reality. You and I are the same One Self.

On a deeper level, the Law of Attraction isn’t about getting what you think you want, whether it’s a new car, a better relationship, improved health, or whatever else. On the surface that’s what it is, but that is being used almost as delicious bait to move you towards a process of unification, to know and be who you truly are.

It’s through being who you are regardless of what happens outside of you that all that you would want to manifest happens automatically on its own! It’s all taken care of for you!

How magnificent!

Life in its natural and healthy state is spontaneous, intuitive, and synchronistic. It is open to change at all times, without attachment to what was or what might be.

Not everyone experiences life this way at all times. We all have habits, conditioned ways of being, that may work for us or may not.

Either way, we can recognize that by getting stuck in a pattern and therefore resisting change, we limit the possibility for growth and opportunity.

Habitual actions, unlike actions based off of intuition and inspiration, stem from thoughts that we believe to be true.

So take a look at your habits and ask yourself, “What thoughts would I have to believe to take this action?”

A habit is simply something you’re not aware you’re doing. When you’re aware of what you’re doing, the action then becomes a conscious choice.

The action is clearly serving you in some way or else you wouldn’t be doing it. Deep down you feel it’s the best choice because it affords you the greatest opportunity for pleasure among all known options.

When you find the root thought that drives the habit, you’re no longer unconscious of the cause and it then releases you from its grip automatically. See, what you resist persists, but what you look at disappears.

Once you’ve been released from the unconscious belief that was driving the habit, you’re now simply down to a choice: do the behavior or not. The difference is that you’re now fully conscious of the choice that’s being made. It doesn’t have the same control over you it did before.

By letting go of old habits and being willing to make the choice to move in a different direction, you open yourself up to life supporting you more fully in the ways it can best do so.