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

Been rockin’ out some talks on video lately as I travel around.

Here’s one on the nature of awareness, affectionate awareness.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgLAy7LqzMY

It’s quite beautiful to see awakening being discussed by and experienced by big name celebrities now, bringing enlightenment off the mystical mountaintop and right here into our everyday lives.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIaY0l5qV0c

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qSTHPABoHc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nsYuQnbLS4

So some teachers would suggest that you should get rid of all your desires altogether for that is the ideal state, to be happy with what is and to desire nothing more than what is here and now. Then you’ve got other teachers who would suggest that it’s not really about the desires themselves, but rather the attachment to (and therefore resistance to) the desires themselves. When we get into the discussion about desire, it can be helpful to get clear about our definition of the word desire.

Isha Judd has a hilarious video where she addresses the difference between renouncing the objects of your desire in the name of enlightenment versus letting go of the attachment to desires, as well as the difference between clingy attachment which many people confuse with love and what love actually is.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxBvvmDOf6A

There’s also a passage I’d like to share with you that’s just past the 6 minute mark in the following Abraham-Hicks video. The passage has to do with the idea of “releasing desires.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw2Pc9xTYN0

In the moment you stop pushing against [your monsters and fears], you catch a current that takes you to where you wanna go. That’s why some say “let go let God” or “relax.” “Release desire” is what many teach and we know that’s their way of tricking you into not having any more resistance because it is not possible for you to release desires. You are here FULL of desire, but sometimes by releasing desire, or feeling like you are, you release resistance and when you release resistance, your cork floats back to the surface or you catch the current of your stream, you see.”

-Abraham-Hicks

Allowing, surrender, non-resistance, being, going with the flow, saying yes to what is… call it what you will but it’s pretty fundamental stuff.

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!

You know what? I love video posts. These are a lot of fun and I’m feeling called to develop my speaking and presentation skills and so I’d like to do more videos now instead of writing.

So here’s a video where we talk about those times when we get taken over by negative emotions. What to do then?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIO--pfXMuc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRpjDXCRwiM

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

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

A few of the topics discussed in this interview include:

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbM2EiOc49U

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXzkVUh3DJA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZOcZ8MfTfU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8J5d2FHVxI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Re_X3Mvnk

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

Today we’re going to do a video post on the topic of learning to discern between the Intuition and the Mind.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QczLIT4Mv8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2g39AsS5os

What do the differences feel like in your experience?

What have your results been in following what feels like your intuition vs. what feels like your mind?

Being. It’s one of those spiritual words that’s tossed around like presence, meditation, nirvana, and so on. Not exactly one of the words that’s commonly used in day-to-day life, but is still vitally important in the whole spiritual game that can be played.

So, being. What is it anyways?

Let’s start this post off with Adyashanti going up to bat first. Batter up!

Adyashanti – What Is Being?

(Can’t embed this video, so you gotta clicka the linka.)

He describes being as the You you’ve always been. The You that you really really are, regardless of how old you are, if you’re enlightened or not, if even you’re doing the whole spiritual shebang or not.

One critical thing he points out is that “being” is “form without a particular attribute.”

This is so key.

Being vs. A Being

Typically when we think of being, we think of a being. For example, a person is a type of being. Cats are beings. Dogs are beings. There are lots of living beings and maybe even some non-physical beings running around this place like ghosts or guardian angels and whatnot.

So the word “being” is thought of as a pointer to a particular creature of some sort. An individual.

But this is not what the word “being” is pointing to when we talk about what you really are. It’s not about this being or that being. In fact, it’s not about any particular being at all!

It’s just about being. Not individualized or part of any particular living thing.

It’s not so much a thing, like a human being, but more a presence. It’s existence. It’s just here, whatever the heck it is. It’s just here.

Look to your own experience. This is easily confirmed and verified if you look within and see for yourself instead of trying to wrap your mind around some words and theory.

Look within.

Exploring Being

Being is here within.

Does it have any attributes that make it human? Do you own a human being as opposed to a cat being? Where does being end? Does it have any boundaries that you can locate? Does it have an age? Does it have a size? A color? A shape?

The living beingness that is here is formless. It is nameless. It’s just a presence that is here. and it’s always here.

It’s so obviously here that it’s totally overlooked as we make our way through life.

Connecting With Another

It is what is seen when you gaze into the eyes of any other living being. Again, being not as in an object with any particular attributes, history, personality, or any of that superficial stuff… but just living beingness. Aliveness. It is Life itself peering through the eyes of another.

Looking into the eyes of another, when you do this without labeling, categorizing, or in any way adding additional mental processing, you’re seeing Life itself. It is Life connecting with Life. Awareness seeing Awareness. Being being with Being.

No identity is necessary. No person. No man. No woman. No story superimposed upon what arises. None of that. Just Being.

There is no separation when Being connects with Being.

There’s no “me” in the way of being. There is nothing to cloud the unification.

There is simply Being with Being.

This unity we call Love.

It is One without a second.

Scott Kiloby (click to check out his beautiful new site!) just published a pair of videos on the topic of reification, a fancy word pointing to how the mind separates things.

In these videos he shares a wonderful discussion on such topics as why enlightenment isn’t something to get, how it’s not something the mind can ever get, the importance of resting as nonconceptual awareness, and how thought is not your enemy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8maVff_G2k

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzEYNVG9YQs