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.
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.”
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.
So the usual definition of enlightenment would include something along the lines of seeing reality as it actually is in its undivided state, seeing the One in the All, returning to one’s natural state of unity rather than separation, recognizing your true nature to be present moment awareness, or quite simply being who you really are.
To add another perspective to the mix, let’s look at Abraham-Hicks’ definition of enlightenment, which is basically being a blended being and being in the vortex by aligning to the energy of Source energy, but not necessarily in every moment of every day. This is somewhat different than the Advaita, Zen, and Buddhist perspectives of enlightenment.
There’s this idea that once you’re enlightened, you will no longer experience any negative emotion and you will be in a place of permanent happiness, and yet what I have from my own experience (which was very confusing at first), from those I have talked to, and even from well-known teachers like Adyashanti, Papaji, Mooji, Nisargadatta, and numerous other enlightened teachers, it’s not about a lasting experience of happiness or peace, but recognizing the well-being that is present from the eternal Self that you are, regardless of any emotional state.
In the video above, Abraham points out that while the well-being of Source is eternal and unchanging, the experience of that and the manifestation of that here in this time/space reality is not how any of us are designed to live our lives in physical form. We’re designed to experience the contrast as a way to continue the unfoldment of creating. By seeing what we don’t want, that helps us know what we do want and thus can be used as a positive way, even if the focusing on what we don’t want takes us out of the vortex momentarily. To experience the negative emotions that result from that is very much okay. It’s by design. It’s not a sign of failure or not being spiritual or enlightened enough. It’s just a sign that thoughts are arising within us in the moment that are out of alignment with Source energy/Love/Truth. That’s ALL.
Living It
It’s easy to get into a discussion about nonduality, consciousness, awareness, oneness, and all these topics which to me honestly feel kinda heavy at this point to talk about. Very seri0us almost.
And yet what I’m coming to find is the more I surrender, let go, reach for thoughts that feel better, perform self-inquiry, do some releasing work like The Sedona Method or The Work, or allow things to be as they are, which are all basically ways to release the ego’s resistance to what is which is the foundation for the separate self that for so long has been a part of the human experience, the more I both expand my awareness of All That Is (the light and the dark) as well as discover this eternal bliss that is always present, and the more I live life as an expression of and celebration of joy and love. Heck, I find myself just not really caring about “enlightenment” anymore and instead enjoy living this life experience in this moment, here and now, fully as I AM.
What is being discovered is that, as so many masters have said, YOU are the point, YOU are the Divine, and the Kingdom of God is within YOU. YOU are the gift. YOU are what you have been looking for. The I AM is IT!! Just to BE what you ARE is already a tremendous blessing, and to be that in living expression by having this life experience which allows us to both know and EXPERIENCE who we really are… MAN that’s so good… That’s grounding the spiritual energy into the physical, uniting the up here with down here, and bringing heaven down to earth as is often said. And so the point is just to enjoy the love that is you, the joy that is you, the well-being that is you, here and now. EnJOY it! In Joy.
“If you really want enlightenment, just lighten up!”
True Enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire.
Enlightenment is allowing my connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined in my time/space reality. That’s as good as it gets, you see.
-Abraham
We can talk about going with the flow, and from a place of Oneness, there is only the flow of life. There are no separate parts, just this one harmonious flow of many apparent individuals. To paraphrase the Sufi poet Rumi, you are the entire ocean, and the entire ocean is contained in each drop, expressing itself as each drop. We can allow everything to be as it is and find that there’s this natural intuitive movement within us to flow this way or that, as if we have an inner sense of what the next step is and how to respond spontaneously in any moment. No rules. Just natural flow. Simple. Light. Ease.
Often times other people can be the source of so much of our suffering. This can include friends, family members, celebrities, or even just random strangers. Like many other things in the world, sometimes people just really piss us off. This is a common experience for many people in life.
Making Your Happiness Unconditional
We have this idea that if someone else were to only change their behavior then we’d finally be happy, and this is true given that we’d then be focusing our attention upon something we do like and thus no longer offering resistance to what we see (and therefore not suffering), but this is actually tremendously giving your power away because it’s saying that your happiness and well-being is completely dependent upon another person’s behavior. You basically give someone else the keys to your happiness. Yikes! When we do this, it only makes us want to try and control the other because, well, our happiness quite literally depends on it!
We may try to play this game with a few people around us and it may work to a limited extent, but if we make this a way of life, this is really just not a healthy way to live, you know? It’s just not realistic or healthy to think that the whole world is going to do what you want.
Now this isn’t meant to excuse other people’s behaviors. Not at all. There are so many examples of unconscious behavior out there we can point out. Of course that’s there. What we’re talking about here is releasing ourselves from the suffering that we create for ourselves as a result of the unconscious behavior that occurs all around us. We want to release ourselves from our own self-imposed prison, regardless of what’s happening in the world.
This is about making our happiness and well-being unconditional. Literally. It’s taking down the conditions we have imposed upon ourselves for whatever reason and finding that freedom we so desperately seek.
It’s about changing ourselves and allowing others to change (or not) out of our/their own volition, not because of attacking or being attacked.
Let’s listen to a wonderful Abraham-Hicks talk that gives a hilarious example of this and takes a look at how we can allow ourselves to be in this world and have healthy experiences in our relationships without letting the little things in life tear us apart.
Over the past few days we’ve looked at our various definitions of Reality and Truth, noticing that the words mean different things to different people… and different channeled Source energies for that matter.
Let’s look at another word and bring clarity to its various definitions.
Today’s word of the day: DESIRE
Desire is Baaaaad!
In some traditions it is taught that the source of all suffering lies in both desire and ignorance. The ignorance stems from not knowing who we are and not perceiving the world as it actually is. By desire, people refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering and so desire is, in a sense, considered a ‘bad’ thing.
As fellow spiritual blogger Tom Stine points out, it’s not truly the desire that’s the issue, but rather the attachment to and identification with desire by the separate self. This attachment is sometimes called ‘clinging.’ It is the clinging that is what needs to be let go of, not the literal dropping of desires altogether to become some sort of celibate monk. Desires that arise are like anything else that arises within the field of awareness. They’re inherently neutral. Just an object of awareness.
Desire is Good!
Abraham has suggested that many spiritual people suggest letting go of desires because in their experience, desires do lead to suffering only because they haven’t found the way to actually manifest their desires. Abraham is saying not to let go of desires, but to learn how to deal with them appropriately.
Abraham explained, “People associate desire with that edgy feeling of wanting something they don’t believe they can get and they call that desire. We call that resistance. We call that wanting something and blocking it at the same time. That’s resisted desire. That’s what desire that’s not going to manifest any time soon feels like.”
Abraham then continued, “When you have a fresh desire, when you want something and you don’t doubt it, that frisky feeling, that feeling of exhilaration, that’s what you came for. That’s what your quest is. That’s the feeling you want.”
It’s not the actual getting there that we’re after. It’s the moving toward there that we wish to experience. It’s the exhilaration of that movement itself.
As the saying goes, life is about the journey, not the destination.
In this context, the fact that the ego can never be satisfied is not a problem. It’s not seen as a sort of bottomless pit that we are ceaselessly trying to fill. The experience of Creation happening through us is what we came to earth to experience. It’s not getting there. It’s going there.
We have also explored the ideas that the world you see in a dream in the brain and that there really is no phyiscal reality outside of you. Your imagination is, in a very real sense, just as real as this so-called “physical reality” that you experience. It is from this context that Abraham and I begin discussing the nature of Reality… whatever the heck that is.
What Is Our Reality?
You are vibration.
Look at a Television. Our TVs keep getting thinner and thinner, yet none of us are looking for the little men and their horses inside the TV that are getting squeezed in there. We accept that they are simply a vibrational reflection. It is a signal that’s being received and deciphered into a particular visual effect.
YOU (the separate self) are like that too, and so is physical reality!
The separate self is nothing more than a perception of vibration. That’s IT. It has no true substance, in and of itself.
When Abraham uses the word “reality,” they have to do so because there are so many people in agreement on it. Instead of implying that our reality is actually Real, they are simply choosing to “speak our language.”
Perhaps more accurately the word “reality” could be substituted with the words “virtual reality” or “perceived reality,” but using our word “reality” helps them bridge the gap between what we think reality is and how it actually is. It creates a sort of common ground.
Without the above understanding, it may seem as if we are talking about two different things. One person talks about reality as if it’s actually real, but another uses the very same word to mean something that’s just perception and nothing more.
So it’s not that anyone is wrong, but rather that they are using the same word to mean two different things. Hence the confusion. It’s a lot like when someone says “I Love You” to another, but both people have two different interpretations of the same word Love.
Continuing on to Part 2 of this series of Ariel’s conversation with Abraham, we’re going to look at the idea of self-inquiry and realizing your true nature.
I just listened through my whole conversation with Abraham and am feeling ecstatic as a result. SO much was cleared up, so many of my misunderstandings were taken care of. It was mainly due to definitions, of using the same words to mean two different things, such as yesterday when I spoke about our differing definitions of Truth. I’m finding that BOTH of us are correct. The misunderstanding stemmed from the fact that we were simply using the same words to mean two different things. I will go into this more deeply over the next few days with examples so stay tuned!
What Am I?
I began our conversation by explaining to Abraham that as I was going within and inquiring as to whether I was this separate self of if I was truly One, REALLY looking within, Abraham responded that I was some of ALL of it, but in control of where the emphasis is.
THAT is the key point. That is money right there.
It would be like a television asking, “What channel am I? Sports? News? Porn?”
We all laughed.
I then continued and explained that when looking within, I’m finding that this idea of a separate self isn’t real and that what exists is Love and Peace and Joy and when Abraham says “follow your bliss,” that’s literally YOU that you’re following. I said that I’m finding that I AM Creation itself.
Abraham confirmed all of this to be true.
I continued to say that it doesn’t feel so much that there’s a separate self who’s creating, wanting to get into the topic of “me” being the Creator of “my” reality, but that I AM the flow of Creation.
Again Abraham agreed and then jumped in to point out that I said something was very close to one of the flawed premises as discussed earlier.
The thing is, “when you’re not being who you really are, there’s something ‘screwy’ in it” and, “there are a lot of human justifications for being this, but they’re all bogus.” The bogus justifications we make for feeling bad are all flawed premises. Being anything other than full of ecstasy and joy is the physical part of you being out of alignment with the non-physical part of you Abraham refers to as Source energy. The idea that this is necessary or just how life is is a flawed premise.
Today we will be starting a multi-part series of Ariel’s conversation with Abraham that took place Oct. 25, 2008 in Atlanta, GA. Some of the discussion will be based on answers Abraham gave directly in response to Ariel’s questions and some of it will be based on information that came during other parts of the talk. No matter when the answer was given, the context for this whole series will be comparing the, and this is totally the wrong word but for lack of a better word, ‘philosophy’ of enlightenment and ‘philosophy’ of the law of attraction. Together we will be looking at different ways of being in the world and comparing and contrasting them, exploring whether they are really saying the same thing from different angles, whether they are appropriate for people at different levels, or whether they actually conflict in some way. Due to copyright, I can’t just transcribe word-for-word all of what was said and so instead I’ll paraphrase what was said and share the central ideas and nuggets given in the workshop. A copy of the full recording is now available here.
The way I (Ariel) define Truth is more from an Absolute sense in that everything is what it is. Nothing more.
Whether we call something a potato or a triceratops, it still is what it is. All the labels and meanings we apply to things are literally things we’re making up and then agree upon. They’re not inherently true in and of themselves. When we stop labeling things and overlaying the mind’s idea upon what something is, what then opens up is a direct realization of the essence of All That Is rather than the appearance of it. We call this awakening, or more commonly, enlightenment. Essentially the veil drops when we quit buying into the mind’s games and we remember who we really are beyond name and form. Everything we see “out there” is recognized to be the One, not just intellectually or because we heard some guru say this is how things are on some mysterious mystical level, but we actually experience the dropping of the veil of illusion and the direct realization of the Unity of All That Is.
Abraham’s usage of the word “Truth” seems to be a little more common-place in the sense that “It is true that so-and-so said XYZ to me.” or “It is true that I don’t have all the abundance I desire.”
It is from this differing context that Abraham suggests we don’t get “hung up on that ‘truth stuff’” because there are a whole lot of things that are true in our lives that we don’t want activate in our vibration and there are many things that we do want activate in our vibration.
So how would Abraham suggest we interact with Truth?
The other day the Abraham-Hicks workshop CDs recorded here in Atlanta arrived. It’s the workshop where I had an opportunity to speak directly with Abraham.
I’m listening to the CDs now and Abraham brought up a very interesting point which I had forgotten about until now.
There is this assumption that first the earth was created and then people somehow arrived on the earth. Either God placed us here, we developed into humans through the process of evolution, or whichever other theory you choose to subscribe to, and there are certainly many more.
When you remember, and it is something you will remember because it is something that you know, everything that you see in physical formation, everything that you call manifestation, everything that is actualized, all this knock-on-wood stuff that you can see and smell and hear and taste and touch, all this stuff was preceded by a vibrational reality.
Everything.
The Earth spinning in its orbit. It was vibrational reality first, and because thinkers thought upon it longer, when enough thinkers thought upon it, it began to take form enough that other thinkers could then experience the participation of it in manifested form.
Everything is that way.
You are magnificent beings and you are incredible in your earthly achievements, but we want you know, as bright and as brilliant and willing and wanting as you are, you have not scraped enough dirt together and launched it into orbit. You are not launching planets into orbit. There is something bigger going on here than you can explain through the physical beingness and action of your time/space reality.
-Abraham, Workshop in Atlanta, GA on 10/25/08
What is this bigger thing going on? It is the experience of physical manifestation that occurs by virtue of what thoughts and intentions the thinker holds in mind. It is a non-physical process that leads to the creation of physicality.
So just to play with this idea a bit and explore alternative theories regarding the creation of Earth and the creation of Humans, how’s this for an idea?
And I’m in no way saying that the following is “the Truth.” It’s just a fun idea to toy around with.
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In some traditions it is taught that the source of all suffering lies in both desire and ignorance. The ignorance stems from not knowing who we are and not perceiving the world as it actually is. By desire, people refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering and so desire is, in a sense, considered a ‘bad’ thing.
Abraham has suggested that many spiritual people suggest letting go of desires because in their experience, desires do lead to suffering only because they haven’t found the way to actually manifest their desires. Abraham is saying not to let go of desires, but to learn how to deal with them appropriately.
Look at a Television. Our TVs keep getting thinner and thinner, yet none of us are looking for the little men and their horses inside the TV that are getting squeezed in there. 
I began our conversation by explaining to Abraham that as I was going within and inquiring as to whether I was this separate self of if I was truly One, REALLY looking within, Abraham responded that I was some of ALL of it, but in control of where the emphasis is.
