So recently I shared this on facebook:

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

and friend of mine brought up an excellent concern:

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

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

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

The Need to Have and Share Realizations

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

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

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

Realizations and Expanded Awareness

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

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

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

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

Out of the Heart and Into the Head

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

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

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

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

To Share or Not To Share?

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

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

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

This awakening process seems to include a lot of different experiences and stages and fluctuations, many of which I don’t expect or even plan. One such thing is that I’m losing the desire to debate things with people or even explain what things are like. Its value seems to be quite limited. There’s more value in being the space for awakeness than in trying to do something to help “make it” happen, as if that was even possible.

I used to think that if I could illustrate things well enough to people, it would encourage them to quit seeking the illustrations by satisfying that search, but that desire can’t be satisfied through explanation.

With respect to words, it seems that they are of most value when they help cut through the mind, to help stop its unconscious patterns in its tracks so that Truth can be seen. I don’t mean that thought needs to stop altogether, but there is conditioning of the mind that most of us are completely oblivious to. It is by cutting through our unconscious conditioning that the veil it creates falls away.

Discussing Reality

When someone sees the Truth, sharing about our mutual experiences is a total blast. We can sit and speak for hours and hours on end, just sharing about our different perspectives of the One and what all has been experienced thus far along the way, and we both seem to grow and expand through this process.

When someone wants to come up and debate or argue about spirituality with me even the slightest, I feel my desire to take part in that discussion completely washing away. It’s like the desire to engage in that energy whatsoever is being flushed out. I can see that in arguing, they’re looking to strengthen their ideas and beliefs about spirituality, not actually see the Truth. It’s a subtle but critical distinction and is the basis for that classic story about “How can your teapcup be filled with something new if it is already full of old ideas?”

When someone asks what awakening is like, in this moment I’d rather simply tell them to listen to the silence than focus upon whatever words I could say. I can’t possibly explain awakening to anyone. Heck, even if I could, it still wouldn’t be sufficient! Silence is far more instructive, despite the appearance of there being “nothing there” in silence. The guru is within and it is always available.

The Wearing Out of Mental Dominance

Now I know this isn’t satisfying to the mind. It’s really not. It’s why we’re told to “be still” or “listen to the silence” or “focus on the I Am” and yet we continue asking, seeking, reading, and wanting to know. We want that which satisfies the mind, not that which will actually take us beyond it. I know… it’s a dilemma that so many of us face. It’s almost like the mind comes with some built-in programming that says “What you want is outside of you.” This is very normal. We want what satisfies the mind at first, at least until we get a lot of mental satisfaction and we discover for ourselves that that alone simply is not satisfying.

It seems that this desire for mental satisfaction has to eventually wear itself out, and life is wonderful in helping us come to this space. I remember Adyashanti once making a crack about telling people to run and run towards the Truth, as if what they’re seeking is right around the next corner.

When the seeker exhausts itself and the energy of seeking collapses, what is already HERE is revealed to be the golden nugget.

The Truth is what you are, not something other than you to be found.

The Truth… I didn’t find it and neither will you.

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.”

One of the hardest things for some egos to accept is that they may be wrong, that what they strongly believe or the way they perceive things to be may not actually be the way things really are. As it turns out, there is tremendous freedom in allowing yourself to be wrong, and in fact that willingness allows something deeper to awaken, something that simply knows and exists outside the game of right and wrong entirely.

Below is a video post I recently created on the topic of being wrong.

Note: I’ve set it to play in HD quality by default, so for those of you who are on a low-bandwidth connection, when you hit the play button, fiddle with the HD button and make sure it’s black (off) so that you download the faster and lower quality version. (If you could let me know in the comments what you did to play the low quality version, that’d be awesome. You may need to turn it on and off. Thank you.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGPX4QfU64w

For those of you who prefer reading, let’s summarize what was covered in the video here.

Smart People Take Note

For those people who’ve grown up being told “you’re so smart” and derive a sense of self-worth from how much they know and what they understand, there may be an association between being right and self-worth. Thus, it may be harder for smart people to say “I don’t know” or “I was wrong.”

For example, growing up I really liked getting things right. When someone would ask me something, it really boosted my self-esteem to know something. When someone would ask me something I didn’t know, instead of saying “I don’t know,” I’d make up an answer that was completely absurd, something that was obviously wrong and off the mark. For example, even something as simple as “What time is it?” If I didn’t know, I might say something like 25 o’clock. It was a fun way to basically get admitting that I didn’t know something, which to my ego was perceived to be a tremendous blow.

There’s a saying I really like… “I’m not young enough to know everything.”

Misperceiving What Is

How many times have you seen someone misinterpret or misunderstand someone else? One person says one thing, but the other person actually understands something else entirely.

Quick and easy example: “I love you.” That statement can mean a hundred different things. A thousand. It’s so easy to think a person is saying one thing when really they’re saying another.

Growing and Learning

Have you noticed that as you develop over the course of your life and you learn new things, your perspective of the world changes?

There’s another saying I really like… “Show me a person who believes the same thing their entire life and I’ll show you a person who’s learned nothing.”

As we develop and evolve, very often our understanding of reality changes and what we used to perceive to be “the truth” is later seen to be maybe part of the truth or perhaps completely false entirely. Seeing that what you have said before can be very scary, particularly for teachers and educators, or for anyone who bases their life on a certain set of rigidized teachings.

Eventually we may see beyond the limits of our previous understandings, and this is a natural part of the process.

What Then of Our “Old” Understandings?

Something I’ve seen with some authors is that they’ll write a book during their own personal transformation. The book is awesome and useful and very helpful. Yet what may happen by the end of the book is that the person who started writing the book is not the same person who finished the book. They transform so much that the energies that are discussed in the book may no longer even be present within them. They’re no longer “in it” but beyond it.

Quick example. Let’s say a person writes a book on forgiveness, on how merciful and forgiving God is and how we can develop our abilities to forgive as well. Then the author later comes to the realization that if nothing wrong could ever happen and that God could never actually be hurt and thus feel that He has been wronged, what then is there to forgive? If forgiveness was never actually necessary in the first place, is the book on forgiveness still applicable? On one level, yep. On another level, not anymore.

It Ain’t So Black and White

Instead of seeing truth as a right and wrong thing, a better model may be that of rungs on a ladder. Certain things may be up above you on a higher rung on a ladder. You climb and eventually get there and stabilize on that rung, only to later keep climbing and leave that rung behind altogether. That rung and the lessons you learned there may no longer be appropriate for you now, but those lessons may be appropriate for many others.

Thus, even if we outgrow a certain realization or understanding, it may nevertheless be useful for others if they’re on that level now.

This has been interesting for me looking back over some of my old blog posts and see that I’ve grown since I started writing posts here 2 years ago. Some of what I’ve written before, I can now see beyond where I was then and see that where I was then and, well, it’s not necessarily that I was completely wrong by any means, but it was just that I was only seeing a small part of the bigger picture. If I were to talk about a subject today, I would likely approach the topic differently and explain things in a new (and hopefully better) way. In fact, I may even mention that what I am seeing today I may negate tomorrow. I may realize something tomorrow that will completely turn all my current understandings on their ear. There’s a sense of flexibility and non-attachment here now. Freedom.

So yeah, we grow, we develop, we expand our awareness and understandings, and as a result what we say may contradict something we’ve said in the past. Oh well!

Have you ever felt like your creative juju was flowing and you finally “got it”? In that moment, the insights and clarity were available and the words would flow right off your tongue. It felt like you could effortlessly share these ideas with anyone.

Then when you sat down to start writing or talking about your realizations with someone else, it’s like you lost it? It’s almost as if something clicked off inside you and you can hardly put two words together.

This seems to happen at times to many different people, myself included, and when we experience this it may feel like something’s gone wrong on some level, almost as if we lost some important information and abilities.

But you know what? Sometimes those insights and gifts are just for us. They don’t need to be shared. and that’s okay.

Things are so much easier when we quit trying to control things and say how things “should be” and instead just trust the process, however it shows up.

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.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKs5sQ0CRc8

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.

Mist Mountain Colors by Marc Adamus

So I’ve been doing a lot of letting go of my sense of obligation towards teaching. Some of this transition has been previously discussed, but I’ve been doing a lot of exploration on in the area and I’ve noticed that there was some energy of “People really need to hear what I have to say. It’s important that people wake up and that I am here to play my part. They need me. The best thing I can do for others is to share with them my truths (whatever they are) so that they can wake up ASAP. Don’t be fully yourself, but the version of you that I think you should be.”

haha wow, so there. I said it.

Although I would prefer not to admit to this, there was some invalidation of where you guys are and an attempt to “help” you see what I see, as if my perspective is better than yours. Ah, yet another layer to let go of, of being some sort of savior.

A lot of that has been dropping away and now more and more I find myself appreciating each and every person just as they are, wherever they are, no matter what their perspective, understanding, or level of consciousness is. Be whoever you are. I’m not here to fix you, change you, improve you, or teach you. I’d rather just love you as you are. That’s enough for me now.

You Guys Are Powerful!

What I’m discovering as well is that you guys are really powerful beings!

I’d like to acknowledge you all, individually and collectively. This awakening that is happening across the world, this ascension process or whatever you wanna call it, it seems like everyone is involved to a greater or lesser extent. It is happening with or without our help. Our involvement in “helping people wake up” may be unnecessary in an absolute sense, but it can certainly be incredibly beneficial nonetheless, not to mention fun! Our roles happen when the inspiration arises, not out of shoulds or shouldn’ts.

There need be no sense of obligation in this process. I no longer feel responsible for any of you, for helping you wake up, for helping you understand anything, or for getting you anywhere whatsoever. You’re here, and that’s enough. That’s it. Your awakening is between you and God.  I recognize the duality in that sentence, and it was done deliberately. Yes we are all one, yet there is an apparent individual here who is responsible for their own awakening. Plain and simple. We each have 100% responsibility for ourselves. No one else is responsible for us. In fact, there is no one else here to be responsible for us in the first place!

Each of us have the necessary seeds of wisdom within us that we need. In this moment we have all that require and nothing is lacking. Sure we can support, encourage, and assist one other in this awakening process, but we all are powerful enough to stand fully as who we are. We don’t need anyone else to hold us up or do it for us.

What I’m finding with my energy and my life path at this point is that I’m less and less interested in “teaching” spirituality directly, with the primary intention of helping people wake up. In fact, I’ve noticed that now when I go in with that intent, it doesn’t flow as harmoniously as it once did. I don’t have to wake anyone up. You guys are already doing that, with or without my help!

So rather than trying to lead people to awakening in whatever form that takes and share what I’ve learned, I’m finding it far more in alignment with who I am now to support those who are in the midst of their journey, to simply love them for who they are.

I’m not seeking to accomplish anything whatsoever by writing this post. I’m simply enjoying the flow of creative energy as it expresses itself in writing. It just feels really good, and I deeply enjoy this experience. It just feels right.

A New Direction for You Are Truly Loved

“You Are Truly Loved features content designed to guide people towards spiritual enlightenment, unconditional love, and inner peace through Self-realization. We Are All One.” That’s been the slogan for this blog since I started it nearly 2 years ago. I’ve really enjoyed playing my part in that mission thus far and it has been a wonderful stepping stone to get me where I am now.

“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

These days I naturally find myself falling into a position whereby I help people gain a greater contextual understanding of the symptoms and path of awakening that are already happening, rather than trying to lead people towards the next thing.

I find myself synchronistically and effortlessly having wonderful conversations with beings who have realized their True Self and am interested in hearing what these people have to say and sharing their messages with the world. Why? I have no idea. It’s just what feels right within and I find the need to question it no longer necessary or even all that useful.

See, it’s not about a few people like Jesus or Buddha or Ramana or Tolle (or me) being the sole awakened ones teaching others about spiritual principles. In this day and age, so many people are now waking up. The greatest gift we can give another is not our own ideas and realizations, but rather the gift of themselves. Who YOU already ARE is greater than any gift you could possibly imagine. Who you ARE is nothing that needs to be learned or obtained from anyone else. It’s already here, and you already are That.

So here I am, naturally finding my energy shifting from apparently playing the role of a so-called teacher to simply being love. To just being.

This being, now, in this moment, wants to express itself as what it is, and the form it is taking is more of supporting those who are already walking the path, not in trying to get anyone anywhere whatsoever, including to a perceived better version of this moment.

This moment. Just being who I am. Loving. That’s enough. Nothing more is necessary. This feels right.

“You’re not here to teach what you’ve learned, but to be who you are.”

-Matt Kahn

When Matt told me this in our discussion the other day, we could both tell he struck a major chord within me.

As I began exploring this statement more deeply, I found myself having no idea who I would be without doing the whole spiritual teaching thang… Whoa! How quickly we fall into our roles…

Improving the World

So a part of me wants to “make the world a better place” and all that jazz. Something that’s common amongst us guys is that we like fixing things. If someone has a problem, offer them a solution so we can solve the problem. If someone’s suffering and feeling limited, help them know the truth for the truth shall set them free.

With respect to teaching, this tendency may become so intense that it can develop into wanting to practically beat people over the head with spiritual concepts and becoming somewhat preachy, particularly when we first invalidate the other. I’m not saying that this energy is the driving force behind my sharings by any means, but it can occasionally creep in nonetheless. It’s helpful to bring awareness to this and to recognize when the ego is doing its egoey thing.

For a while now it felt like the best way I could be in service to the world and give to others was to help spread spiritual messages and share spiritual teachings, just like many of the great spiritual leaders of yesterday and today. Hence this blog. This teaching/sharing thing has been an integral part of my path for many years now. I am now recognizing a shift in energy and the progressive diminishment of interest in talking about all this spiritual stuff so much…

“We change the world not by what we say or do but as a consequence of what we have become.”

-David Hawkins

More and more I find myself wanting to simply live a more regular life (haha, whatever that means) and do what I love, without having to make it into a big spiritual event. Whether it’s something as ordinary as shopping for groceries, talking to your neighbor, or drinking a cup of tea, why not make your entire life be a living expression of and celebration of Love? Isn’t that what this is really about? It is, as Gandhi put it, being the change you wish to see in the world.

…Do we really need to change others in the first place?

Loving What Is

While we’re on this topic, something else huge Matt shared with me was his perspective when interacting with others. Even when another has a different belief system and is disagreeing with him, “You have the right to think and believe whatever you want. I am simply here to love you as you are.”

My goodness, how wonderful is that!? When we look at people in this way, instantly our desire to correct them, improve them, argue with them, or in any way whatsoever struggle with them drops away. So to does the need to teach them, save them, or actually do anything in particular at all. Gone is the need to react.

If they come to you and ask for healing or advice, by all means assist them if you so desire, but no longer do we invalidate other people for being the way they are. This is the key.

Instead, there is simply Loving What Is. Accepting them fully as they are.

This is the beginning of spiritual retirement, or perhaps the birth of true living spirituality.

This is the freedom from the egoic compulsive need to do, change, fix, attain, achieve, or improve.

No more needing to teach people something new, to be the observer of the interaction, to study how their ego or your ego is functioning, to do any of that stuff. It may still happen, sure, just like anything else, but much of it takes a backseat and becomes secondary if not completely obsolete. Really, there’s just Love. Simple, pure, innocent, and real Love.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRKLvkMFZ9E

A Shift of Purpose

If I didn’t talk about spirituality so much anymore and if I didn’t teach on spiritual topics unless specifically asked, who would I be and what would I do? (It’s really more a question of dropping the attachment than it is of dropping the activity altogether, but still.)

This question scared me at first, but the more I sit with it, the more excitement I’m finding in the opening of doors that allow me to invest my energy in other pursuits.

There’s a number of other exciting projects that lately I’ve been exploring investing my time into. Just doing a little light brainstorming/heartstorming aloud for a moment…

• Developing my alternative energy power source
• Bringing together many of the spiritual teachers and awakening/awakened people I interact with on Facebook and developing a connected and cooperative community of really conscious people
• Working on a project supporting those who are now stepping into the light and are getting burned out
• Going to Utah for the winter to work at a ski resort and learn to ski

Without the intense focus upon teaching teaching teaching, raising mass consciousness, and spreading awareness, suddenly there’s so much energy freed up for other endeavors!

The Freedom to Be Still

Yet nevertheless, regardless of what you do, the focus is on being what you are.

What you do, of course that’s likely to change over time as you evolve and continue on along your path. If you teach, cool. If you drive a school bus, cool. If you race turtles, cool. But this is all secondary. Our real purpose is to be who we really are, regardless of what outer form it takes. All actions and roles become a manifestation of being and no role is given any undo sense of importance over any other.

As we let go of our attachments and obligations to do anything in particular or play any specific role, there seems to be a progressive falling away of striving in doing, and we find ourselves resting in being within. Just being.

Doing or non-doing may both still happen, but the stillness of being becomes primary, everpresent and unchanging.

No more need to serve, to create, to give, to uplift, to share, or inspire. You can do all that of course, but you don’t need to. This is the freedom from all sense of obligation. This is the freedom from needing to change others or change the world. This is the freedom from doing anything at all. This is the freedom to just be.

Ahhh freedom…

Today I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with spiritual teacher and intuitive healer, Matt Kahn. The two of us have been checking out each others’ work on facebook and occasionally speaking online, but it wasn’t until today that we got together and really talked. He’s been getting these intuitive nudges to speak with me, (Thank you, Julie!!) and our discussion was nothing short of AMAZING. We spoke over the phone for about an hour (Edit: Not  2 1/2 hours. I was wrong… time really flies!) while he compassionately guided me beyond my current sticking points, showed me exactly what I was unable to see, and intuitively brought up ideas and insights that were exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear them. It was quite literally as if each topic, each sentence, and each WORD was custom tailored to my particular regarding awakening, much deeper than the generic “Who’s the one who’s asking the question? Just surrender. Be still. Observe it.” You know, the typical stuff that we Advaita-heads like to say.

For example, I’ve been pretty into the whole non-dual, no self, awareness is aware… thing. He came in out of left field and recontextualized all of that. It’s not that he invalidated it by any means, but rather I’d been so focused upon that that I couldn’t see my way out. It had become so much my spiritual dogma (not exactly, but I can’t think of a better word) that it was actually becoming a hindrance to moving on. Everything that we pick up we must eventually let go of. If you ARE a guy, do you need to run around telling everyone that you’re a guy? No, of course not. It’s clear. You just live it. Plain and simple. Similarly, the Truth is ultimately what you ARE, not what you say.

“You are not the one who speaks the truth, you are the truth that speaks.”

-Matt Kahn

See, even when we experience something directly, it’s easy for the mind to subtly turn that into a teaching or a belief system and say, “Ah, THIS is the Truth! Look at all these quotes by enlightened gurus talking about this and that! They know what’s up too! This MUST be the correct perception of Reality!” Is that really so different than evangelical Bible thumpers who claim their words are “the right” words? Rather than allowing the teachings to simply be a confirmation of the Truth of what you ARE, they become a substitute for it and what we cling to. It’s the classic case of, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon,” example #346.

I would love to share with you what we talked about as well as my experience in the discussion. We discussed a TON, and not in an overwhelming sense, but in an abundant and full and complete way.  However, when I started writing this stuff out, I quickly realized that it’d be like 18 million pages long, soooo I’d rather not…

Instead, lemme give you guys a taste of some of the amazing topics we discussed:

Topics Discussed with Matt

• Letting go of the student role, the reading of books, the memorizing of quotes, the intellectual understanding of spirituality, and so on
• Going beyond accumulated knowledge
• “Spiritual retirement” and the end of all practices (yay!!)
• How to instantly see the Truth and free myself of these practically bipolar emotional swings like confusion/clarity
• How even these new things he shared with me I would one day be letting go of
• The more subtle inner workings of my/the ego
• How the ego doesn’t care what form it takes. It just wants to be right. How to use this to your advantage
• The 3 different forms perception takes and how to quickly discern the difference between perception and Truth
• How when we let go of teaching others what we’ve learned and instead simply be ourselves, our unique gifts and purpose in the world can finally awaken and manifest
• The spiritual ego creating a “no separate self” self
• How we don’t have to pull people out of the illusion and bang them over the head with Truth. Instead we simply allow them to play with their toys, for the longer they play with them, the closer they get to the toy breaking down on their won. Let them play. Let them be asleep if they so choose to be. Love them anyways.
• Experiencing things like emotions or going to the movies and totally experiencing them as they are, without the need to invalidate them or not experience them just because “they’re an illusion.”
• My unseen need to “earn” enlightenment via doing it right and accomplishing something. When you stop trying to earn something, you receive everything
• The unseen reason for my resistance to completely finishing things, for that would mean there’s nothing left to do, which would mean no purpose to live, which means I might as well roll over and die for life would then be pointless
• How having nothing to do and being obligated to do nothing actually gives you the freedom to choose anything
• Relating to, validating, and loving others, even when they disagree with you… in a fantastically open-hearted way that totally disarms their ability to continue pushing against you
• Ego-less manifestation and how to be okay with desiring and attracting things like lots of money or beautiful women from a state of pure appreciation, without the ego running the show

Ego-less Law of Attraction

The last one was particularly entertaining. After we finished talking about the whole enlightenment thing, he intuitively somehow picked up on my desire to harmonize enlightenment with the Law of Attraction and how to get what you want without having it be a total ego thing.

I really enjoyed his total down-to-earth real-life perspective on living the awakened life as a regular person. For example, he was like, “What do you want? You want a girl with big tits. You’re a guy! You can be honest about your desires. And you want a lot of money so that you don’t have to work and can enjoy yourself.” This totally caught me off guard and had me cracking up. It’s SO my style and so bang on with respect to  my personality! Wonderfully irreverent, so not conforming to any limiting box called “proper, polite, spiritual person” or any of that silliness… Just REAL.

Now here’s the cool part: I shared with him what I wanted and he asked me to visualize that and feel what it felt like. I said it felt “expansive, open-hearted, and liberated.” He asked me how that energy felt and I responded that it felt “amazing.” He caught that word as it was a special word to me, not just loving or good, but *amazing.*

Whatever you want, give that to the world. So if deep down I want to feel amazing, and the money and the girlfriend would be ways for me to feel that, my job would thus be to give the world *amazing* energy. See others as amazing. See the world as amazing. Be the energy of amazing. Really be that and radiate it into the world. It is by being that energy that I would attract all of that which, to me, would feel amazing. So simple!! That is one of my unique gifts. That is what I’m here to share with the world. By looking at my desires (what I want) in this way, I can discover what I would love to give to this world. This really is the deeper purpose to the law of attraction.

Sessions with Matt

The discussion with Matt was beyond excellent. He has an amazing ability to zero in on exactly what you need to hear, as if he was quite literally your best friend. It’s amazing to listen to him speak and then remember that many of the things he says, there’s no logical way for him to know. It’s his intuition in action, and it’s laser targeted.

I also enjoyed feeling his energy in the transmission. The energy and presence is perhaps even more powerful than the words themselves, as great as the words are. It is SO helpful to have someone who has been where you’ve been and can see what you aren’t seeing to help you along the way. In my opinion, it is perhaps one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. He’s so real in his teachings, not lost in space with esoteric spiritual teachings or anything, but very down to earth.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us95WX3Ry5I

If you’re interested in having some guidance with your own awakening, I HIGHLY(!!) recommend scheduling a session with Matt. Information about his sessions are available here.

About Matt

Matt Kahn, is a spiritual teacher and intuitive healer who invites seekers of all faiths, to discover their true divine nature.

Since an out-of-body experience at the age of 8, and profound awakenings at the ages of 18 and 28, Matt began waking up from the dream of reality to realize true divine nature. Now as a spiritual teacher, Matt delivers peaceful, loving teachings to all who are eager to expand and uplift their state of consciousness.

Matt is an awakened master with an uncanny ability to offer direct, and accurate messages that speak directly to the soul. The energies realign your awareness with the dimension of the soul. Through this work, you are able to easy live in direct connection with the soul, dissolving any barriers in mind and body, and eradicating the patterns of human suffering in your life. The intention of this work is to fully allow the soul to blossom into expression, through your unique personal experience — transforming the world around you into a reality of divine grace, infinite abundance, and joyful harmony.

Many spiritual seekers have experienced profound healings, and have awakened to their true nature through his timeless insights and peaceful presence. His teachings are often compared to a unique blend of Eckhart Tolle, the great Indian sage Papaji, and the Buddha.

His teachings, whether verbal or written, are delivered through a transmission of presence that serves to rebalance both hemispheres of the brain, while expanding and uplifting one’s consciousness.

Matt’s unique, compassionate approach blends timeless wisdom and the gifts of expanded awareness, with a style that deeply resonates in the modern world. He has been an advisor to celebrities, corporate executives, as well as an inspirational teacher to other psychics and healers worldwide.

In addition to providing individual healing sessions when his schedule allows, personal retreat programs, and his “Road to Realization” program, Matt travels around the world with his partner, imagery guide, and sound healer Julie Dittmar. Together, they lead presentations and retreats that invite human consciousness into the joy of peaceful existence.

For session bookings, media inquiries for interviews, or event bookings, please call the Seattle office at (253) 639-0770.

You can check out his YouTube videos online, follow him on Twitter at @TrueNature, and visit his website at www.TrueDivineNature.com.

Thank you Matt! So much appreciation!!

Beautiful Day © Marc Adamus

There are so many paths back home.. which is a funny idea given that you’re already home. There’s just a lot of mental activity that can cover up the truth, just a web of imagination that’s telling you something other than what’s real.

“When we wake up out of the dream of ego, the only thing that gets resolved is an idea that thinks something needs resolving.”

-Matt Kahn

Have you ever made up a story in your mind that you believed to be true… and later you found out it had NOTHING to do with reality? That’s what being asleep, in a spiritual sense, is like. You totally believe a thought to be true, only to later (maybe) find out that it was totally false. Yet the interesting is that, despite the fact that it had no basis in reality, you can experience it to be just as real as if it actually was true, so real in fact that it basically makes no difference whether or not what you’re experiencing is the reality or an illusion. Either way, the experience is effectively just as real and so it makes no difference. That’s how powerful the illusion is. It’s the next best thing to the real thing, and experientially it can be just as effective.

All these paths to awakening involve stepping beyond the mental stories of the mind one way or another and back into pure beingness, here and now.

The path taken by this so-called individual (this Ariel character) involves resting as pure awareness, allowing the mind to relax, the Self to return back into conscious awareness, and awakening to progressively deepen on its own accord the more the mind relaxes its insistence upon the existence of a separate self, both mentally and emotionally. (I think. I feel. etc.)

Every time awareness starts getting caught in the web of the mind (being stuck in the mind), awareness simply takes a backwards step and notices that it is aware of the mind, and aware of awareness itself. Instant exit. It because an almost automatic thing now, and even this movement is seen to be yet something else that arises within awareness.

Many Paths…

There are so many paths to awakening… resting as awareness (Adyashanti), being still, chanting mantras, selfless service (Karma Yoga), self-inquiry (Ramana), focusing the mind upon the “I Am” (Nisargadatta), surrendering to a guru, surrendering one’s will at length to God (David Hawkins), the Eightfold Path (Buddhism), just stopping (Gangaji), being Present (Eckhart Tolle), and so on. Each path gives you different sights and sounds along the way, sure. Each path gives you different experiences along the way, of course. Each path may take a different amount of time, no doubt about it.

People have woken up following all of these paths. People have woken up following no specific path at all.

What may be appropriate for one person and their energy may be inappropriate for another. And that’s totally fine. It’s not about finding “the one true path,” for such a thing does not exist. It’s a matter of finding the path that resonates with your being, and aligning yourself with that.

Even within a single religion there may be many different focuses depending upon which church you go to: forgiveness, appreciation, prayer, service, grace, surrender, meditation… each of these focuses are appropriate for some people more than others. It’s truly a matter of finding the path that is appropriate for each individual.

One Mountain…

Many paths, one mountain.

Some paths may be shorter than another. Some paths may climb a steeper and more intense face of the mountain. Yes. There are differences. Some may loop around the base of the mountain seemingly forever before turning upwards… or they may head in another direction entirely, away from the mountain.  Of course. But again, it’s simply a matter of finding the path that is most appropriate for each individual. The wonderful thing is that so long as we keep our sights aimed upon God (or Truth, Love, Light, or whatever pointer you wish to use), God is so big that you can’t miss!

“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me..”

-Jesus, John 14:6

Statements like the above can be confusing. This statement points not to one path, but to the one mountain, and ultimately we all ARE this same one mountain, of which Jesus was but one conscious manifestation of. It’s about recognizing your true nature AS the Way (Tao), the Truth, the Life itself, and no one can own that or the path to that for everyone already IS that. As discussed previously, enlightenment is about awakening to your true nature beyond any limited mortal sense of identity. This non-dual identity-less identity can be called Brahman, the Self, Christ Consciousness, Being, and so on. Different traditions use different words to attempt to point to the same one unnameable Presence.

Yet ultimately, the I Am that I Am, is the same I Am that You Are, which is the same I Am that Everything Is. There is only one “I Am,” and you are it. Everyone who truly awakens comes to this same realization. There is only one of us arising as everyone and everything. There is only One. I Am That and so are You.