Living Life as What You Have Realized Yourself to Be

For the first time since starting this blog, I feel a sense of completion in terms of writing about spirituality, consciousness, nonduality, and the nature of the egoic mind. The recent post Want to Wake Up? Focus Upon the “I Am” sealed the deal. There are so many fun things to explore in the spiritual arena including chakras, past lives, the law of attraction, and all that jazz, but when it comes to waking up from the dream of separation, that post goes right to the heart of enlightenment. It is what I had heard many times while passionately seeking and yet continually overlooked and what what shines clearly today as the seeking energy is seen through. The sheer simplicity of the I AM, the I AM that’s ALWAYS here.

How then shall I live?

Something that Adyashanti once said has really left an impression upon me. He said that the first and primary question of the spiritual journey is Who Am I? Once that is discovered, the next question is How then shall I live? It is this second question that takes an internal realization and expresses it as an external manifestation. It is this second question which helps our internal transformation permeate all aspects of our being. It is this second question that allows you to come back and be in this world, but not of it. It is this second question that shifts us from simply knowing and being the Truth to LIVING the Truth, from realizing to experiencing, and to letting go of all that is not in harmony with the infinite being that we have realized ourselves to be. This is what this physical experience, from my perspective, is all about: experiencing more and more of who you really are. Since you are All That Is, what else is there to experience?

Adyashanti has a book titled Emptiness Dancing. While I haven’t actually read the book, I’ve heard him explain the phrase before elsewhere and it’s so apropos to this stage of the journey. It’s about the transition from simply being emptiness to coming back down off the mountaintop and being the emptiness dancing in the world. The world of form is not separate from the world of formlessness. They go hand in hand in one inseparable dance.

Doctors, lawyers, politicians and professors Modern science, the oppressed and the oppressors Religious leaders, the gurus and the shamans Everybody has one thing in common: We are nothing pretending to be something We are nothing pretending to be something -Here II Here, Plankton

So… how then shall I live?

Fully Experiencing Life in this Moment

The other day I was working on some childhood issues with a friend and found myself starting to leave my body again. It was basically a way of me trying to avoid life and not experience the unhealed trauma within and so I was guided to come back into my body and really feel what was arising within and leading to much of my unconscious behavior. It’s amazing how often I live in avoidance to life. For example, when there’s negative emotions (whether in myself or in others), rather than feel the energetic flow and fully allow the emotional energy to be here as part of the richness of life, there’s the (very understandable) movement to fix the situation and create a better feeling experience or somehow get rid of the negative stuff, but this only seems to invalidate the unpleasurable stuff, not release it and heal it.

“You have the right to think and believe whatever you want. I am simply here to love you as you are.” -Matt Kahn

We hear about people going off into a cave and that seems to be a great way of avoiding life, of trying to cut out the external world (including thoughts) so that you can experience the inner world. After all, the kingdom of God is within you and nothing outside of you makes you happy anyways, so spend time going within because that’s where the real treasure lies. So it makes sense that focusing on the internal world is the next step for those of us who had been completely and totally focused upon the external world of form. At this stage the journey involves swinging to the other end of the pendulum, from the world of form outside of us to the world of formlessness within, to the world of spirit. Eventually there is a natural rebalancing of the pendulum as the external world of form and the internal world of formlessness can be experienced together, until we discover that they can play together nicely.

“The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys, who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world. The practice of non-meditation is ceasing to be the see-er, hearer or speaker while eyes, ears and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life.” -Wei Wu Wei

Eckhart Tolle calls it being present. Byron Katie calls it loving what is. Today I’d like to call it fully experiencing life as it is in this moment, being intimately one with whatever is arising. No more turning away, distracting yourself from, or protecting yourself from, but a total and complete openness to and embrace of what is. Nisargadatta refers to this as affectionate awareness. These are all beautiful pointers to deeply experiencing this moment.

Creating the Life of your Dreams

A few weeks back a TON of insights came through me on the topics of living the life of your dreams, living an unlimited life that is not held back by doubt or fear, going beyond your unhealed energy, living a life guided by your heart and soul, living life from a place of authenticity and alignment with universal law, and so on. It’s not about self-improvement, as if the point was to make a better/richer/happier/more successful mask, but to be that which is beyond all masks and express the unique essence of what you REALLY are in every moment, however your energy chooses to expresses itself. Instead of transitioning from who you believe yourself to be to something even better (self-improvement.. notice the implied sense of judgement from worse to better and the word ‘improvement’), it’s about expanding the degree to which you experience what you really are (being yourself).

You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness. -Eckhart Tolle

What was seen next was that before I could teach this to anyone else, I had to first live it and master it myself in my own life. Thus my life will become a teaching and a sharing, even though I don’t fully understand yet what all this will entail. As is often said, the best way to convey or teach a message is to live it. This is a gift I give not only to the world, but (perhaps first and foremost) to myself.

Being Unconditionally Supported

In a recent post featuring an interview with Lester Levenson, a story is shared how he travels around the country without the money or wherewithal to make the trip, and yet everything he needs is effortlessly and miraculously provided. I LOVE that!! He makes a point that once you master the ability to create what you need at will, no longer do you need to hoard lots of things as a buffer “just in case” you’ll need it in the future. For example, let’s say you were so incredibly supported by the universe that you had the ability to create for yourself whatever experience you so desired. In this case, how necessary would it be to save up or earn all the money first before heading out to go do what you wish to do? For many of us, we have the belief that we need to have the money available before we can do certain things. I’m not saying this is good or bad, right or wrong, but I am pointing out that it is a belief we have adopted and thus live by while there are other ways of being supported by the universe. Here’s a wonderful Bashar video where he helps someone open up to really living this way in his own life: So yeah, wrapping all this up, it seems that the transition for me now, personally, is away from trying to “get enlightened” (haha) and instead simply living life in this world NOW as openly, authentically, lovingly, joyously, and freely as possible, experiencing more and more of the light of Self. Life free. Be yourself. What a life!