So how old are you?

Does your physical age define or limit you? Is there something more?

All my life people have told me stuff like “You’re so lucky to be getting this stuff so early in life.” or “You’re only XYZ years old? How do you know all this so young?”

To be honest, the age of this physical body has little do with the age that I feel I am, and this is probably true for many of us, isn’t it? Yet it’s what people see nonetheless.

How old are we? Let’s take a look at that question by diving deeper into both the seen and the unseen.

It seems that by starting with the physical age and exploring beyond, there’s many different ways we could look at age:

Physical Age

The first age is the most obvious and so we’ll start with it. It’s what people tend to think of when we talk about how old we are. It basically has to do with how many laps we’ve done around the sun. Physical age. We (our bodies) may be 10 years old, 20, 50, 100, whatever.

Yet is that a good determination of how old you feel?

“I feel like a kid again!” Have you ever said that when letting go and playing around, acting silly without a care in the world?

There’s older people who act like little kids and there’s younger people who look and act like older people. How old you feel seems to be more “in your head” than where your body is, so let’s look at that one next.

Mental/Emotional Age

Maturity-wise, how old do you feel? If you were to ask me, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought to myself that I feel like an older guy experiencing the body of a younger guy. Have you seen the movie 17 Again where the middle-aged guy gets warped back into the body he had back in high school and gets to sort of relive that time period in his life? It’s kinda like that.. sorta.

I’m currently 25, but in many ways I feel like I’m somewhere in my upper 30′s or 40′s. That’s the age range I find myself socializing with. That’s the age of people I often hike with, do spiritual group things with, and even the age of the women I’ve find myself attracting and being drawn to the past year or two. (This last one has been taking some getting used to and came with a lot of head scratching, without a doubt, but there’s been some really amazing lessons and experiences that have come from this.)

Anyways, in many ways (though of course there are several big exceptions exceptions to this), I feel like I’m older than my body is and I currently resonate most strongly energetically with people around 5-15 years older than me, for whatever reason.

So physically our body may be in one place, but mentally and emotionally we may be experiencing something else entirely, and this experience can often feel more real than wherever our body happens to apparently be.

This also brings to mind kids with mental retardation whose bodies age but mentally they remain in the mindset of a little kid. Mentally and physically we may be in two different places.

Now beyond your physical age or your mental age, there seems to be another sort of measurement of maturity. We can call it spiritual maturity or the depth/age of your soul.

The Age of Your Soul

You know how people use the terms “young soul” or “old soul?” While technically that may be a bit of a misnomer because souls are ageless, we can still use those terms when we talk about how conscious someone is, how far along the karmic ladder/wheel they are, if they live a superficial life or if something deeper drives them, how far beyond the ego the person is gone, or whatever it is that we use to differentiate between newer souls and older souls. Sometimes it’s just more of an intuitive feeling, isn’t it?

With some people you can just look into their eyes and it feels like there’s an expansive ocean there. So deep and vast. There’s often an element of incredible peacefulness present or a radiant spark of light and joy in their eyes.

This age seems to be less tied to our physical age and more related to our emotional/mental age, but just because you’ve matured as a person and had many years of life experience doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve developed spiritually, so I like to differentiate between spiritual age and emotional age. They seem to be somewhat distinct.

Timeless Eternal Being

This is where things get really interesting. When it is discovered that what wakes up from the experience of personhood is neither male nor female, neither old nor young, then there is the experience of discovering that who you truly are is not a man or a woman, nor are you in any way bound in time. Your age is not found in time for you are ageless, timeless, and eternal, all those mystical esoteric things we hear sages and gurus and scriptures talk about.

That which wakes up from time is not subject to time and does not pass through time. Time is seen to be an appearance that passes through this. It’s like recognizing your essence to be the white movie screen that the movie is projected upon. The screen is not subject to the images that flicker upon its screen. The images are but a fleeting appearance that show up against the backdrop of this expansive, empty, spacious presence.

When this is discovered to be what you are, at the indescribable substanceless core of your being, there isn’t the experience of being young or old, male or female. There is just presence, existence, life, being. At the same time, the body that arises within this may have a certain age and may have a certain balance of masculine and feminine energy. It’s just that none of this is identified with to be what I am.

These days I tend to experience moreso one or the other. Sometimes there is the experience of being someone (Ariel) experiencing time, and other times there is the experience of causeless uncreated emptiness and timelessness. I don’t know what degree this evolves into experiencing both time and timelessness simultaneously and perhaps that is a duality that still needs to be experientially resolved here , but the way it seems to be happening here is sometimes TIME is happening loud and clear and seems so obvious whereas in other times, TIMELESSNESS is right at the forefront, nowhere yet literally right here. There is also a sort of stabilization process that is occurring where the swings from experiential separation to experiential oneness are strangely starting to quiet down and there’s becoming less and less of a distinction between separateness and oneness, ironically enough. The experiences are starting to become secondary to this presence that is present during both separation and oneness.

In any event, when timelessness wakes up, there literally is no experience of time. None. Not at all. Sure the sun still rises and sets yes movement is still seen, but somehow the experience of the passing of time throughout the day is nowhere to be found. There is just movement and silence happening here. Everything is happening and nothing is happening. Not really sure why and I can’t fully explain it. Just reporting on what it’s like.

So when people say something like “How did you get this at such a young age,” It sometimes leaves me scratching my head, to be honest. What wakes up from the physical is the timeless, and that has nothing to do with the age of the body, young or old. Ramana woke up at 16. Adya’s first awakening was at 25. Sure the stereotypical enlightened master is an old dude with a long white beard, but that doesn’t mean that you have to wait ’till you get old to wake up. lol…

So How Old Are You?

In your experience, how old do you feel?

There is no right or wrong answer here.

The question can simply be used as a helpful indicator to recognize what is most apparent within awareness at this moment. The physical? The emotional? The soul? The timeless?

All just different ways of experiencing the same identical ONE.

Many different experiences, some with the experience of an experiencer, others with the experience of no experiencer…

Life is cool.

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

-Anthony de Mello

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

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLXZMCqUVKE

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

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

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

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

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

-David Deida

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

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

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

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0q4IQOJpgw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=USJaaxxzprY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJHB9PLf8UA

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

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

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWg5DlWVa8

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

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?

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!

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

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

Disidentification

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

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

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

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

Being

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

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

Separation, Only In Imagination

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

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

Awake and Asleep

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

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

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

Facing Inner “Stuff”

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

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

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

The Doer and the Self

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

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

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

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

-Sailor Bob

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

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.

Let’s talk about some of the main differences between the awake state and the asleep state as well as address two traps that keep one falling back into (the experience of) separation.

Awareness: Awake vs. Asleep

Asleep, awareness seems to be no big deal. You can be aware of awareness, but it seems like just another thing to look at like the floor or your thoughts. Nothing special really.

Awake, awareness is seen to be what you are, not as an identity like a parent or child, but as pure presence. Some say Presence prior to name and form, but this exists outside of time entirely, yet not separate from it. This aware presence is expansive, spacious, boundless, unchanging, and free. That which is seen by awareness is intuitively recognized to be not other than awareness and not separate from it.

Awakening is simply a movement of Consciousness. It is a moving away from the identification of being a separate one to the recognition that all of life is a flowering in Consciousness being revealed.

-Cathy Rosewell Jonas

It’s possible to have the experience of vacillating between awake and asleep, something which Adyashanti refers to as a non-abiding awakening. Through simple trial and error and life experience, I’ve found there to be a number of ways to send yourself back into a state of egoic delusion. Here are two such examples:

Owning and Personalizing an Awakening Experience

“I had a spiritual awakening experience.”

While this sounds totally logical to the mind, by trying to take ownership of an awakening or claiming to be the one who experienced it, a personal self gets recreated and that very energy of dividing life into an experience and an experiencer sends one back into the world of separation. It’s like you can allow water to rest in the palm of your hand, but as soon as you try and grasp onto it, it all flows out. It seems that spiritual experiences are something that we must learn to allow to be here as they are and not hold on to or claim as “mine.” This is something that comes naturally with the maturation of awakening, not something necessarily that needs to be forced.

In Reality, all experiences simply arise in the moment. Without a separate experiencer, experiences are experienced with incredible intimacy, for there literally is no separation from or avoidance of the experience. Just pure experiencing within consciousness.

From the perspective of a separate self, things are taken personally and there is a sense of distance from the experience. When we are in love, we try and close that gap. When we go into fear, we try and widen this gap. This is why lovers come together and people may try to run away from their problems. There is a perceived sense of separation between “me” and “what I’m experiencing.”

WHO is experiencing is a very valuable question…

Clinging to an Experience

“I want to maintain this experience.”

Back to good ‘ole attachment and clinging.

The experience of awakening (which can come and go) is actually not the same thing as awakeness itself (which is eternal and literally here right now no matter how awake or asleep you are.)

The mind has a tendency of seeking the first while overlooking the second which is putting the cart before the horse. When the ego arises to create and/or maintain something that can be lost, it’s focusing upon that which is bound in time and thus not resting in the eternal and the permanent. It’s seeking to make the impermanent permanent rather than recognizing that which is already permanent and thus can’t be lost and doesn’t need to be maintained.

While logically it would make sense that one would want to maintain a pleasurable experience, the way that experience is maintained is ironically by allowing the Self (and the experience as well) to fully be as it IS. In the same way as you let the air all around you to be as it is, the One must also be allowed to be as it is. Don’t try and grasp the air. Don’t try and grasp the Self. Don’t try and grasp the experience. No grasping. Allow it all to be as it is.

Adyashanti Elaborates

Adyashanti has a program titled The End of Your World which focuses upon non-abiding awakenings and some of the traps I’ve listed above. It’s one of my absolute favorites. Below is a pair of youtube clips, excerpts from the aforementioned program where he discusses these two traps and goes into more detail.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l86wjEeB5zw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3lp61bKwYs

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:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSm816G_uZk

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

In the mind we may have this idea of finally arriving somewhere, being done, and achieving a sense of completion, whatever that means to us… but that sense of lasting and ultimate completion can never actually be achieved in this world.

Let’s look at this from both the perspective of the relative and the perspective of the absolute and see why this is the case.

Relative Destination

From the perspective of the relative, you are always expanding, always growing, always becoming aware of more of the infinite. As Abraham says, you can never get it done. Despite the temporary feeling of success at the achievement of any goal, no matter how much success you have, there’s always a desire for more, a natural part of the unfoldment of creation.

As is often said, life is about the journey, not the destination, for we spend 99.9999% of our time on the journey and whatever’s left at our destination… only to have a desire for yet another destination and so we leave our previous destination.

No matter how enlightened or conscious we become, dead or alive life still goes on, and we still do our stuff.

Absolute Destination

From the perspective of the absolute, you can never “get there” because you’re already there. You’re here, right now, and this is it. This moment. How can you possibly arrive where you already are? How can you arrive to a place you never left? From the perspective of the absolute, you can never “get to your destination” either.

It’s simple.

More More More

There is no destination you can ever reach and be “through” with your journey. You can never get to the end of infinity.

Even if you were to get fully enlightened and to realize there exists nothing beyond this moment, there may or may not be more love you wish to bring into this world, more nothingness to be, more enjoyment of the Self to be had, more people to help awaken, or whatever else creatively flows through this unique presence that you are.

Even if you die, there’s more lives to experience, and perhaps even other realities outside of this Earth to experience. Who knows?

Living Life Now

It’s not about finally arriving anywhere ultimately, but about walking the path right here, realizing you’re already here, and yet strangely walking a path anyways by allowing life to unfold as it does here and now.

It’s kinda like walking an eternal treadmill, transforming the energy all around us and giving us the appearance of things changing, but we never literally go anywhere.

We never get “there.” Ever. There is nowhere else to go. There is simply the living of life, here and now.

The paradox is that it is only by seeing through the false idea of “getting there” and letting go of ever trying to “get there” that we finally get the experience of “being there.”

The energy of “trying to get there” only creates more experience of “trying to get there and not actually being there.” When we let go of that energy, we “magically” find ourselves right here.

The notion of finally arriving somewhere in the future is simply a product of the egoic mind and actually doesn’t have much, if any, rooting in how this thing called life actually works. The destination is the carrot on the stick. Quit running after it. It’s not gonna run away from you if you stop running.

Life is about the journey, not the destination.

Being Present

It’s not about getting somewhere by reading this post, but about the experience of reading this post itself. The reading and writing of this post IS the point of this post. Experiencing creation. The post itself is the point of this post. It’s about the experience of this post, not where this post actually takes us, wherever that may be, such as closer to enlightenment or whatever.

This is the whole premise of “being present” or “being in the now.”

We may try to “be in the moment” thinking that this spiritual practice will make us more conscious or help us achieve a goal called enlightenment.

Baloney!

Being in the moment IS the point! Keep it simple! There is no goal that conscious awareness is really trying to help you achieve, although the mind may see it this way.

It’s when you really toss out that whole notion of trying to get anywhere that you find yourself automatically in the moment and amazingly exactly where you were “trying to get” in the first place.

This moment. This is it. There is no destination outside of this moment. Really. Truthfully. Honestly.

Stop the search for anything outside of this moment. You’ll never get there in time. Be here. Be now. Be yourself.

Love.