Flaming Canyon by Marc Adamus

It seems that when many people start seeking the Truth, we look for some conceptual collection of ideas to actually BE the Truth. It could be “We are all one” or “Jesus is the son of God” or “We are a spiritual being having a human experience” or “You are the creator of your reality” or whatever else. We want to gather up a whole set of conceptual ideas and call them “The Truth” and it is what ideas should represent the “Truth” that people argue about. This is all very valuable, helpful, and transformative and finding a better set of ideas can very much help change and improve the quality of one’s life experience. For sure.

At the same time, there is something more than the conceptual, so much more. The nonconceptual.

Notice in this moment, awareness is aware. In fact there can be two things happening simultaneously. See if you can tell the difference. There is a) the concept of awareness that exists in the mind and b) nonconceptual awareness that is aware of all concepts of awareness.

Can you differentiate between the two? Being able to do so is KEY. It is a doorway beyond.

In order to go “beyond the mind” as if often said, we have to go beyond the conceptual and recognize the nonconceptual.

Take a moment to notice nonconceptual silence. Stillness.

Take a moment to notice the now moment as it is.

Take a moment to notice nonconceptual being/aliveness/existence/I Am’ness.

Take a moment to notice nonconceptual awareness.

We can read about and study spirituality, metaphysics, religion, psychology, philosophy, and so on all day long in search for the Truth. I’ve done it and I know many of you have as well. It’s all good. This is all typically the domain of the mind, of the conceptual, of temporary ideas that come and go and can be learned or forgotten. It’s all part of the game.

But what about that which is already here and exists without any effort whatsoever? What is so constantly here that like the clothing against our skin, after a while we get used to it and simply overlook it?

The classic finger pointing to the moon is pointing to the nonconceptual. The pointer is conceptual, but that to which the pointer points is nonconceptual.

What is uncreated, unmanifested, unborn, and yet vibrantly and eternally present?

You are that and it is your true nature, and it is right here, right now.

It’s all One, It’s all One, It’s all One…

I’ve spent the past few hours laughing and laughing and laughing… I’m in New Orleans now and the absolute thrill of seeing the One in EVERYTHING is utterly incredible… Religious nutcases telling people they’re going to hell are the One. People arguing with them are the One. Understanding God is the One. Misunderstanding God is the One. The rain is the One. Getting lost in a random town is the One. Synchronistically finding your friends on a street corner as I did tonight is the One. The taxi is the One. The rain falling on my head is the One. Laughing as you dance through the streets in the rain is the One. Enlightenment is the One. Unelightenment is the One. The Law of Attraction is the One. Living a thrilling life is the One. Living a normal life is the One. Whatever you can possibly point to is the One. The ego is the One. Identification with the separate self is the One. Realization is the One. Duality is the One. Non-duality is the One. When it’s seen that everything everything everything and NOTHING is the One, what else is there but to laugh and laugh and laugh at this seeing? IT’S ALL ONE!!!

Everywhere you go, everything you see, and that which witnesses it all, it’s all the One… and what a thrill it is to see this, to realize this, and to be this. That which you are, whatever this is for no words can describe this, THIS IS IT. As it arises in this presence, there’s this lighthearted joy and the eruption of laughter and joy, of freedom and playfulness. In this seeing and in this letting go of trying to micromanage life, there’s this utter thrill of this life experience. In “other” beings it may arise differently, sure. All I can say is that in this seeing, this body that is arising here keeps laughing and laughing and laughing. That which Jesus saw and Buddha saw and Mohammad saw… this is it.

One of the biggest realizations in this is that there’s nothing to oppose. There’s nothing else out there and thus there’s nothing to resist. There’s just this pure seeing and thus suffering, which is based upon the resistance of something, is seen to be completely and utterly, well… not existent within this, even this that too is the One. When it’s seen that there’s nothing else because it’s all One and therefore even that which we call suffering is seen to be the One, there’s nothing to suffer about and suffering simply doesn’t exist. It’s pretty wild…

I talk to people about this and it seems like most people just don’t get it. They just brush it off as if I’m crazy, and yet that too is the One. When it seen so clearly that everything everything everything is the One, there’s nothing to resist, denounce, fear, or run away from. This is it, and everything is it.

It’s all One. It’s all One. It’s all One. There’s this utter perfection of being here and this is it. It’s already it. That which we all seek, we already are. This rocks. There is a thrill in this seeing. Totally. This may change and it probably will for it is just an experience, sure. But that which is witnessing doesn’t change. It is eternal, permanent, and everpresent. That which I am can’t be lost and is just being as it is. What joy this is… Beyond anything that can be named. Ahhh yes…

Awareness. Consciousness. Silence. Stillness. Presence. Being. Isness. This. Aliveness. Existence. Spaciousness.

So many words and they are all useful. In fact it can sometimes be helpful to change them around a bit lest people get stuck on one conceptual word as if it literally is IT.

I’ve seen so many people (myself included here) who’ll go around saying “It’s all an illusion. None of this is real. You’re already it. Just wake up and realize we’re all one.” Great, cool. The thing is that as @oshum said, these words become like a dull sword, unable to cut through the darkness. You can keep saying these words ’till you’re blue in the face, but life will show you that this is a path of diminishing returns and eventually it runs dry on you.

These pointers may be true and useful to a certain point, but eventually you realize that simply saying these words and telling them to others doesn’t actually wake people up and end suffering. It may help crack the mind to a certain extent, but that’s about it. It won’t “do it for you.”

Alright so first off, if you haven’t seen Avatar yet, you gotta go watch it!! Whether you choose to watch the movie in 2D or 3D, both offer an amazing experience.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, the movie takes place on a distant planet named Pandora that is home to these blue humanoid aliens called the Na’vi. They are very much like the Native Americans with bows and arrows and a deep appreciation and respect for life and an understanding of the interconnectedness of all life. The US military comes in to basically drive them out so they can mine for this mineral called unobtainium, killing off many of the natives in the process.

There are some beautiful spiritual messages in the movie and the way it’s all illustrated is absolutely amazing. Just… wow…

The forest and plantlife on the planet is phosphorescent and iridescent in a very heavenly way and even glows for a moment every time you step on the grass. The sky is full of gorgeous planets and moons. Standing on that planet and looking up into the heavens strangely feels like home…

Their diety is a benevolent goddess named Eywa who is basically the living energy that runs through all things. One particularly great passage from the movie took place when one of characters prays to Eywa to take their side and help during the invasion of the military. Another character responded that Eywa doesn’t take sides. She only helps preserve the balance of life.

Heck, even the credits of the movie were amazing. Make sure you stay past the end and watch them to see how many people were involved in the creation of this film. My jaw literally hung open watching them scroll by. It was so nice to see that many (thousands of) people join together in the name of creating such a conscious movie, helping reinforce the understanding that all this “oneness stuff” isn’t so alternative and out there, but is rapidly becoming integrated as a part of mainstream life.

So yeah, if you haven’t seen this movie, I highly highly recommend checking it out!

For those of you who have seen the movie, what was your experience? What did you like about it? How did the movie impact you?

Union by Mario Duguay

There’s an old saying that the only thing permanent is impermanence. Our life experience is one of learning better ways to interact with this changing flow.

And yet simultaneously there is this eternal unchanging presence. It seems to be part of neither existence nor nonexistence… It is a manifestation of nothing. It is unmanifest. It is. All that can really be said is that it is. We can go within and tap into this and find that when resting in this place, it’s as if we are home, and I mean really home. In this place there is no longing for anything more, no need to get anything, and truly no sense of lack. There is no separation for there is nothing else to be separate from. All else is just appearance, and yet the appearance is not other than this. In this pure being, all is divinely perfect just as it is, including the appearance of problems and pain, and yet it doesn’t invalidate the negative aspects of Allness. To simply be is itself already completely sufficient. Nothing more is needed.

In this space there is no anxious need for a particular outcome, as if one outcome would somehow lead to more fulfillment than another. It’s interesting… when we release our attachment to the outcome, we find this place of perfect peace that is what it is, independent of outcome. It is a space beyond the mind, transcendent and yet completely grounded, particularly when the lower chakras are open and balanced. It’s as if the physical body is being used as a vessel to bring the peace of heaven down to earth. This peace is expressed through a mind/body organism.

The Experiences

No experience is permanent, nor need it be. There is a place for peace, a place for passion, and even a place for war. Granted the energy of war doesn’t exist in this spaceless space, but that energy does have a place in lower realms of time and space. In this peace there is an openness to all experience, a spaciousness that welcomes every event untouched and undistorted. There is no fear of “losing this experience” because it’s not about the clinging to any one particular experience, but the seeing of what lies beyond all experience and supports every experience, noticing every experience and allowing it all to flow.

I understand that one may think that the experience of openness to all experience is just another experience, and yes this is a valid perspective, but that to which I am pointing is a non-experience that can be experienced. It’s hard to put into words exactly. Rather than try to explain it, I’d rather just point to this previous posting about traps that can lead back to separation. Rather than saying “avoid this trap,” I am simply saying that it is helpful to be aware of it. One way or another, when the time is right it will come into awareness. Life experience is a wonderful teacher and I think it’s something that people need to experience for themselves. Falling for the trap is totally fine. It’s happened here several times. That contrast and repeated opportunity to fall for the trap yet again or see beyond it really helps with our conscious evolution. Learning by trial and error.

There is an opening and closing that is possible. When the fear arises, “I hope I don’t lose this experience,” that feeling when followed by focused attention and then concern immediately begins a closing experience, but when both the fear and the experience of opening/closing are seen to be happening within this non-thing, it’s as if the spaciousness becomes seen to an even greater extent. The attempt to force this opening also begins the closing, but the recognition of the forcing as again an experience arising within this automatically creates the experience of reopening. It’s like one must allow the experience to be present exactly as it is without getting sucked into the experience or trying to manipulate it any way in order for the experience to continue. It’s an interesting paradox. You can have it so long as you don’t grasp at it. Simply observe and enjoy, but don’t get caught up in it. In a sense, it’s almost like it has its own wisdom and for it to open, it requires us to let go of trying to control it so that it can take over on its own.

Some say that wise people learn from the mistakes of others, and this is valid to a certain extent. Taken to an extreme, however, one would simply study all day without actually experiencing life for themselves. No judgement as this is one of the infinite number of ways that All That Is has of experiencing itself, and all ways are equally valid, yet life is here to be experienced to whatever degree that we so choose. As with many things in life, to really *get it*, theory just ain’t enough.

The Doer

Surrendering happens, but there is no one to surrender. The dissolution of the surrenderer happens and it seems that only in retrospect was the surrenderer dissolved. No one did it. It just kinda dissolved on its own, but there wasn’t actually a surrenderer here in the first place, only the appearance of one and the experience in one. The nonexistence of the surrenderer, however, does not invalidate surrendering itself. Surrender continues to be, regardless of whether or not there is someone here to do the surrendering.

There is the surrenderer, the thinker, the breather, the creator, the doer, and so on and so forth… all identities that dualisically set themselves apart from the action they perform. The seeing beyond duality requires not the cessation of certain actions, but the seeing beyond the one who would do the actions. Hence the relevance of Self-inquiry.

OM

OM makes sense suddenly. I’ve seen people use this word before and wondered why. Now it feels like it is the primordial voice of God, like the first physicalized manifestation of Silence. OM is powerful and very enjoyable. Aum is fine too, but it doesn’t seem to have the same depth of being as OM, as if Aum is the feminine counterpart to OM. I am now spontaneously OM’ing, just for the sheer joy of it. I’ve never been into mantras before, but now OM is almost orgasmic to the soul. It’s like singing the name of God. The point of chanting OM isn’t to accomplish something in this case or arrive at some destination. It itself is its own reward, the way singing is about the song itself, not about getting to some destination at the end of the song. OM itself is the point. It is a sort of divine kiss. The mind is somewhat fascinated by this, but not too terribly so. There’s an overwhelming presence that far outshines any experience.

And so now I let go of this experience, enjoying it as it is, and allowing the flow of experience to continue. The allowing of the flow of experience is wonderful too, far more enjoyable than resistance to experience.

OM

Conscious.TV did an interview with Catherine Noyce about what it’s like when the identity of the separate self is lost.

I absolutely LOVE this ~40 min. interview because Catherine is such an ordinary person describing the ordinary experience of the awakened state of being everything and nothing, the state that so many people desire to experience. What Catherine has to share is so authentic and so on the mark, again pointing out that it’s not about the fireworks and the spiritual experiences. It’s about THIS aliveness that’s right here right now. She’s not a spiritual teacher. She’s just another regular person who’s woken up and realized who she is.

A few of the topics discussed in this interview include:

• What changes upon awakening
• How life is experienced once there’s no longer a separate self present
• The loss of the seeker
• If the negative emotions are still experienced or if there’s just permanent joy
• If one liberated person can tell if another person is liberated
• The supposedly enlightened people who have problems with sex, money, and power
• If fleeting glimpses into one’s true nature even matter
• If she still has dreams and goals in life that she projects out into the future
• Connecting to universal wisdom
• What (if anything) someone can do to wake up

If this interview resonates with you, the book mentioned at the end is Everyday Enlightenment: Seven Stories of Awakening, of which Catherine’s story is one of the the seven shared, I presume. Also included in the book is Jeff Foster, an awakened author and spiritual teacher who has also been featured here before.

There is a special event that will be taking place on New Years Day, 2010. It is called “The Namaste Project” and it is a vision that came through my good friend Ash Ruiz, lead singer for the band Here II Here. The following is what he posted on Facebook and I’d like to pass the word on to you.

The Namaste Project

Namaste ~ The Light in me recognizes and greets the Light in you.

Come be a part of History in the Making!

The Intention

The Namaste Project…the end of separation is: A Flash Mob that Lights Up the World.

The Namaste Project will debut in L.A., Miami, Asheville, Atlanta, Orlando, and New York City on 01/01/10 at 1 pm. (Ariel’s note: Feel free to organize an event in your city too!!) The intention is that at 1:00 pm hundreds of people in all 6 cities will stand in silence connecting with one another in the Namaste pose as the world keeping going around them for 30 minutes…and then walk away as if nothing ever happened!

Although I see it happening in Silence I’m also aware that spirit always knows what’s best so maybe toning will arise or some om(ing) or the Holy chant!! All is possible when one allows themselves to be where they always are.

The Vision

On Thanksgiving morning I woke up with the most delicious visions dancing through my awareness echoing the dream I had just had. I was sitting on an etheric blue grid bench in the middle of Times Square with an all-consuming sense of well being and peace, enjoying the harmonious orchestra of the way of it. The hustle and bustle, the sounds, the horns, the lights, the pretzels and yes… even the hotdogs were all aspects of the dance of God, pure and utter Leela. In that moment I noticed my mouth whispered Namaste and I somehow knew that all beings everywhere could hear this greeting of the spacious heart to the spacious heart and then I received the sweetest confirmation. A little girl with the cutest little fro met my gaze and with her palms together placed restfully over her heart, she bowed her head in a Namaste… and then an older gentleman walking his dog, a woman in a power suit gliding to work, construction workers, drag queens, tourists, celebrities, the homeless, the wealthy, Twilight Fans, You name it! Everybody everywhere did the same! I was witnessing Planetary Awakening in the most radiantly ordinary way!

People started to slow down till eventually everyone stood still. And people everywhere where looking into each other’s eyes whispering Namaste with tears of joy streaming down their glowing faces while instinctively knowing the truth of all being everywhere. This was a moment so powerful that all was healed in the knowing that there was nothing ever sick to begin with. It truly only takes one because in reality that’s all there is. We all share the same light of awareness and as this ever-present awareness we all have full capacity to recognize and greet our infinite self in infinite ways.

So as I lay there completely buzzed as the love of now, it occurred to me that this could begin in small ways with all the beloved beings I know throughout the world with no end in it’s capacity to grow and blossom. Fun! Wouldn’t it be fun to participate in a public display of fearless light and love? Wouldn’t it be fun to set the tone for the New Year with the power of the open heart and mind?

I would love your feedback and any ideas, help or suggestions about this unfolding vision.

Thank you, I love you,
Ash Ruiz
www.welcometothismoment.com

P.S. I’m excited to see how it unfolds and in no way do I expect it to be or not be “exactly” like the beautiful vision I had, for I’ve come to notice that reality is always brighter and more beautiful than every possible attempt to imagine or describe it.

(Ariel’s note: and here’s a quick video of Ash so you can meet the person through whom this inspired message has come)

Reader Question:

Hey Ariel, how’s everything?

For a long time I pondered the meaning of the phrase “Jesus died for our sins”. In the past you made some very good interpretations of bible quotes, but if I remember correctly, you never talked about the christian concept of Jesus dying for our sins.

Do you have any explanation of this phrase?

Thanks a lot, and have a nice weekend,

F.

My Response:

Good question. You’re right that it’s not something I’ve ever talked about here.

So what’s the story taught in Christianity? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong because I really haven’t studied the Bible much, but from what I understand it seems that the idea was that basically the God of the Bible wanted to wipe out all of humanity as a result of them being such sinners. I’m not sure who thought up this plan, but Jesus came down to take the karmic burden upon himself. Instead of humans rising up beyond their egos to get into heaven (become enlightened/reach nirvana), humans now only have to believe in Jesus as being their lord and savior and they’re magically free of all that they have created, karmically speaking… It’s a much easier task, but people should still strive to be good people and live like Jesus did. They’ll never be able to fully do it though. After all, Jesus is more holy than they are. Jesus is perfect. Humans are mere mortals. They are “just human.” The Divine and the human are separate in this respect. We can only be one and not the other. (Oooh, separation.) Jesus must have been Divine. Afterall, he wasn’t born like a regular human. His mom was a virgin. The Divine doesn’t typically take the form of a human.

I dunno about you, but a bunch of pieces to this story feel way off. Let’s explore…

Karmic Debt

With respect to Jesus dying for our sins, maybe there was some agreement made for Jesus to take upon himself the karmic burden of humanity for a while, either temporarily or permanently, as a way to make it easier for people to go through their spiritual process. I honestly don’t know what agreements were made on that level. Either way, people are eventually going to have to take responsibility for the energy they created and rise above it. Since there is ultimately only One of us here, whatever YOU create and cause another to experience, YOU will experience yourself, even if it happens after the death of this particular incarnation.

There’s a wonderful metaphor about karmic debt I once heard. How does repaying financial debt work? Let’s say you borrow $100. Well then someday you’ll have to repay that $100. (Let’s assume there’s no interest.) If you have only $100, then paying back that $100 now is going to significantly affect your net worth. Now let’s say that the debtor allows you to repay that $100 5 years from now. In the meantime you take that $100, invest it, and turn it into $1,000,000. 5 years later when it’s time to repay that loan, paying back the $100 will be a snap. No problem at all. Your bank account will hardly notice the difference.

So perhaps Jesus dying for our sins was a way for us to delay the karmic effects of our actions so that we have a chance to raise our level of consciousness to a point where the results of our actions don’t impact us as deeply as they once would have, allowing us to consciously grow without getting overwhelmed with too much too soon.

To give a silly and overly-simplistic example, let’s say you insult someone by calling them a dummy. Such an action arises out of a particular level of consciousness that has a judgment around the word dummy. If someone was to call you a dummy back, you’d probably get really pissed off about it and fume about it for who knows how long. If, on the other hand, the return of your action is delayed so that you have the chance to heal your energies surrounding the word dummy, then when you get insulted back, it won’t be an issue for you any longer and you’ll just shrug it off. You will have demonstrated to yourself that you have grown. If Jesus really helped us out in this way, what a tremendous gift this was, and if so, thank you man!

Things may have been set up that way, but if so it would only be a temporary thing. What you put out is what you get back. Everything is here and now. There is nowhere else for what you create to go! There is no escaping your karma. There is only the rising above it (or not).

Getting In To Heaven

The idea is that Jesus died for our sins to help us get into heaven. Well what is heaven anyways? I basically define it as living in unity with God, in a state of oneness. It is living in a state of wholeness, living in a state of non-separation with the Divine. Heaven is not so much a literal location but more a level of consciousness. People talk about going “up to heaven” as if heaven was literally “up” in the clouds somewhere. The word “up” is a pointer more towards vibrational frequency and level of consciousness. You raise your vibration and raise your level of consciousness. It’s an internal transformation, not a trip that’s literally taken through space, as if we literally travel from earth to heaven. From this perspective, the concept of “bringing heaven down to earth” makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?

To do this we have to die to our limited moral identities (egoic separate self) and wake up to our true selves (which is already one), but the thing is that our physical bodies don’t have to actually die to go through this process! In the east this process is referred to as enlightenment. In Christianity it is taught that you can only get to heaven after you die, and while this is true, this mistakenly assumes that the “you” that dies must be the physical incarnate you. This is a mistake in understanding.

“The Kingdom of God is at hand.” You don’t have to physically die to wake up. Who you think you are does, yes, but who you really are wakes up from who you think you are. Every person who has ever become enlightened has demonstrated this. Jesus was simply one man of many to live this and teach this.

This moment already is the promised land. We only see it otherwise when we believe in thought as if it was literally “the truth” (the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon), when we fill our consciousness with the energy of fear and separation and thus misperceive reality.

No One Can Do It For You

One thing I’ve learned about spiritual teachers is that they can’t do it for you. You have to do the work, whatever that entails. You have to raise your consciousness. You need to stop resisting what is. You need to start loving what is. You have to wake up. Ultimately the point is about who YOU really are, not about the guru who gets you there. Respect and appreciation for the teacher, but it’s about realizing YOURSELF to be the One and the All. YOU are the greatest gift you could give yourself.

To say that someone else can do it for you is fantasy. It’s delusional. Can an enlightened teacher help you out? YES. Can meditating on their energy or being in their presence or following their advice benefit you? Certainly. Can they do the work of surrendering your ego for you or receiving the grace of God? NOPE.

To suggest otherwise is a copout, IMHO. That’s choosing to not take responsibility for your own life which is incredibly disempowering. There is tremendous value and wisdom in surrendering to a higher power, yes, but this is not that.

The ego would love if it you could just accept someone as your lord and savior and have that be enough. Man that’d make enlightenment, awakening to infinite love, getting into heaven, and all the other spiritual prizes so easy, wouldn’t it? Sure, just adopt this belief system, do these particular actions, pay enough money, apply this strategy, or whatever else and you’ll get what you want, but in my experience, it just doesn’t work that way. It just really doesn’t.

It’s basically about surrendering the ego, not accomplishing something with it. You can’t force yourself there.

So is the story about Jesus dying for our sins true? Perhaps there’s something to it. I don’t know. Someone build a time machine and let’s go back in time and ask him. Either way, whatever happened, what’s done is done. It’s history. Here we are in this day and age. Now what?

If we assume there is something to the story, does that absolve us of karmic responsibility to rise above the egoic level of consciousness and give us a sort of get out of jail free card with respect to retuning back home to a state of oneness and getting into heaven?

Nope. Not so much.

Surrender and Letting Go

Edit: This last part here has been added after the original posting of this post. It is a story about Ramana pulling a Jesus and having someone who came to him feeling really guilty about being a sinner give all his sins to Ramana. It’s a cool story on surrender and letting go. Click here to read. Reading this, it shines a whole new light on being released from sin.

There’s a tremendous freedom in letting go of our expectations.

With expectations, we have this inner need for something or someone to be a certain way so that we feel happy, loved, safe, or whatever else, and so we make our way through life requiring it to show up in a certain way or else we will subtly or overtly reject it.

Without expectations we go into events and experiences with tremendous freedom and openness. How will things turn out? We literally have no idea, and that’s totally okay! and the ironic thing is that when we give the world its freedom, we find ours. By giving the world its freedom to be as it is, we allow people to blossom in their own way and it’s so much easier for the world to manifest itself in a way that is in alignment with love, freedom, truth, and joy, in a way that is an expression of the highest good for all concerned, yourself included!

mmm, yes

I’ve been spending some time with someone recently who I really enjoy being with. One of the cool things is that she is able to pick up on the expectations I’ve been bringing to the table (and not been wanting to admit to), can point them out while accepting me fully as I am anyways (so healing, my goodness…), and helps me let go of so many unconscious patterns of thought that I’ve been living out for years.

Many of you guys have probably experienced this as well, but I’m finding that when I go into things with a mental story I’m trying to live into and super-impose a made-up story of “us” onto what is, it actually inhibits the natural flow of life. On the other hand, when I let go of my need for things to show up a certain way and just be authentic and get REAL, our experience of each other can be pretty incredible…

With some people you’re compatible and with others you aren’t. Totally normal. How wonderful it is when both people drop their masks and find that who they are within already clicks with who another is within and they don’t have to do any of that nonsense as far as trying to impress the other, make them happy, or any of that. You just enjoy yourself for who you are and the other for who they are while simultaneously shedding every false thought you’ve ever had about yourself or the world, as discussed in Conversations with God.

Conscious relationships are such a wonderful opportunity for expansion and growth…

Expectations as Definitions

When we seek to define ourselves, we actually limit ourselves. “I am THIS and not THAT.” Instant limitation. Why don’t we just be ourselves without needing to define ourselves at all? Just be yourself, however you happen to show up. Who cares what words define you?

In this context, defining yourself includes such definitions as “spiritual” or “loving,” as well as the attempts to strive to live up to some mental ideal such as perfect, masculine, strong, or whatever else. Just be YOU. Maybe you’ll find out that who you naturally are is already enough.

Now, by doing this, you can no longer control the outcome (or at least give yourself the illusion of control). Yes you can try to control the outcome by pretending to be this or that, but when you drop all the games, you find you have zero control over situations or other people. Here you are and here they are and that’s that. You expose yourself for who you really are, pure and naked. Is this vulnerable and scary? Sure… but so liberating!!

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

-Anais Nin

When we drop all our expectations about one another, what would that look like? Let’s allow Jeff Foster to share his experience of this with us:

Note: This has been previously shared here before, but I feel it’s worth bringing up again.

So the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. It’s soooo easy to confuse the two nonetheless. It’s one of the first things people do when they get onto any sort of spiritual pathway. For example, in Christianity, some claim the Bible IS the Truth. In non-dual circles, you’ve got folks who think that “All is one, duality is an illusion, and there is no separate self” literally IS the Truth. It’s the same thing… confusing the pointer with what the pointer is attempting to point to… It’s okay. It’s one of the most common errors people make. It’s how dogmas and rigid teachings are born.

Here’s an excellent video by Anthony de Mello talking about how much is lost when we use concepts and pointers in place of really LOOKING at Reality as it is.

Recognizing this, we can begin the valuable and effective practice of letting go of our labels.

Letting Go of Labels

Remove Your Labels by Bob Seal

When it comes to removing your labels, the idea is that you stop perceiving things through the filters of your mind and instead begin observing what is more purely. In this way you begin opening up to seeing things as they are, as they naturally show up, not the way your mind perceives things with its stories, memories, descriptions, ideas, boxes, and conceptual understandings, all of which actually limit the fullness of what is.

One of the biggest misconceptions is the label “me” as it points to a separate self. The discovery of what “I” really AM is the essence of the spiritual journey. All other stuff regarding karma, past lives, angels, chakras and crystals, the law of attraction… that’s all secondary to the clear knowing of the I Am That I Am and consciously being That.

Along the path of remembrance of who we are, dropping our labels can be a very valuable practice. It is like a boat designed to help us get across a lake: It’s very useful in doing what it is designed, but once you get to the other side, you don’t pick up the boat and drag it with you on the shore! No no, leave it in the water and keep walking freely!

Readopting Labels

Once it has been seen directly that All is One, the very same one indescribable unnameable presence that just IS, then we find that our labels become quite useful again, ironically enough!

See, it’s pretty hard to have a conversation when you’re not using any labels or nouns! Communicating with one another becomes incredibly challenging, if not altogether impossible, without using words like tree, food, apple, you, me, body, car, store, earth, wife, etc.

In terms of sheer practicality and being able to hold a conversation in day-to-day, it’s actually quite useful to talk about things in terms of you and me and this and that, even if those “things” are only conceptual pointers that exist solely in the mind. When we see beyond what the pointers are attempting to point, into the underlying unity of All That Is, we can freely use our pointers again without worrying that what we’re saying is somehow *literally* supposed to represent the *Truth.*

For example, when we look at a garden salad, we can call it a salad, or a random mishmash of vegetables, or a delicious meal (or not, depending on one’s preferences), a collection of molecules and atoms, a unique bundle of vibrational energy, a particular manifestation of the one, and so on. Is any one description somehow more true than any other? Of course not. They’re all just different ways of pointing and labeling. In fact, these pointers can actually be quite useful.

The words that we use are taken very lightly. Every label is used with an underlying grin and a knowing wink, like a game of pretend and make-believe that we’re all playing together as we collectively agree that something is what we say it is.

We can recognize that in terms of using our words to actually speaking THE Truth, our best possible outcome is complete and total failure… so why try so hard or take things all that seriously!?

By saying that something is a chair on the level of form, that does not need to imply a denial that this particular manifestation is something other than everything else. This chair is this chair, and yet it is simultaneously everything else as well. I can say “I am the One and the All” without needing to imply that you are NOT.

A thing IS what we say it is AND it is NOT. Non-duality is paradoxical. It’s not either/or.

The dropping of labels is simply designed to help us see more clearly both what a thing simultaneously IS and is NOT.

The dropping of labels allows us to see what every so-called thing is, beyond name and form.