Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practise this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.
-Anthony de Mello
Have you ever gotten used to a person or place to the point where it loses its magic and spark and you begin taking it for granted? It often isn’t until we stop and recognize that this could all be gone tomorrow,really, ’till we let this sink in and allow ourselves to live from this space, that we truly begin to appreciate what we have right now.
Many people fear death, and yet it’s the recognition that everything in the world is disappearing and dying literally as we speak that helps us be that much more alive! Interesting… Death, it inspires us to really be alive!
(Embedding is disabled in the official Adyashanti version, so if you prefer you can click here to watch this same video on youtube w/o hebrew subtitles.)
The other day a spectacular opportunity has literally just fallen into my lap, a culmination of many of my biggest passions and a crystal clear manifestation that makes me feel grateful for all the things that happened and all the things that didn’t. It’s like I can see WHY certain things I thought I wanted to happen didn’t (and thank goodness they didn’t!), and I am incredibly grateful for being able to see how perfectly everything has unfolded for me in my time here in Colorado. It makes me so grateful for everything that is happening now and even what is yet to come, seeing how well it’s all being so utterly mind-boggling perfectly orchestrated…
So now I am tying up loose ends here in Boulder (ie. closing down my PO box, cancelling my gym membership which allowed me to shower, picking up boxes of stuff I’d temporarily dropped off at a friend’s place, saying goodbye to friends I’ve made here, etc.) and getting ready to head west yet again, this time to California. While I don’t want to go into the details of it quite yet as there’s lots of cool stuff that’s still in the beginning stages, let’s just say that this could be huuuuuge…
When we talk about the idea of “living in the moment,” so often the emphasis is on being in the moment. On being present in the now. How ’bout the other half of that statement? LIVING in the moment. Fully. PASSIONATELY!
I go out hiking 1-2 times a week minimum these days. Water hikes are my favorite. Where I went today, at the top of the waterfalls there was this rope swing. I’ve ALWAYS wanted to ride one of those! For this one you climb up a tree, swing from a branch, and get launched towards the water at least a good 15 feet up above the surface. Basically, AWESOME. Did I do it?
YOU BET I DID! Over and over and over again!
To be honest, I’m getting tired of trying to be spiritual all the time and living up to some ideal called loving, non-attached, peaceful, open to what is, or whatever the heck we’re “supposed” to be when we’ve gone beyond our ego. If whatever this is is our natural state, why the heck am I trying so hard to accomplish it!? Seriously!
The transition I’m making now is to really EXPERIENCE life. FEEL it. Let it MOVE me.
It’s interesting when past lives start to be remembered spontaneously.
It’s like consciousness can project itself into that life and experience it just as real as “this” life. My friend Davidya recently wrote a very fitting article on this topic which makes me laugh due to its alignment with my own experiences.
The dream world at night has the same level of (un)realness to any life, including this one.
All content is just an imaginative dream that arises within the context of awareness.
The I Am That I Am is everpresent throughout all space and time, here and now.
I Am infinite and eternal, able to call forth any aspect of myself for viewing and experience, as if the universes’ experiences were my own personal collection of movies.
I Am, here, living this human experience.
I am the watcher of the movies, not the character in the movies.
Yet the duality between the observer and the observed somehow are collapsing as well into simply just Isness.
There is the arising of Life as an expression of the I Am.
What is the I Am?
It is what I am. It is what You are. It is what All is.
There is only one true I that is. Pure beingness itself.
The I Am that you feel is the same exact I Am that I feel. That is the link that unites us.
You and I don’t have a life. You and I can’t lose our lives. We ARE Life itself.
There is One Life, flowing into and through itself. There is nothing but Life with which Life can interact with.
All mental ideas and things are but expressions of the One Life that is.
This lifetime you’re experiencing in this moment, any of your past lifetimes, the life experienced by other people, the lives lived by other conscious and unconscious beings… they are all equally dreams arising within consciousness.
You are the eternal undamageable Presence that is not subject to space and time nor anything that arises within it, the Presence that is in this world, but not of it.
Are there lessons to be learned in the human body? Do you not believe in life being a test? Why are we in human form now? I thought I was getting this but now I am confused.
Thanks,
d.
My response:
Life is not a school with lessons that need to be learned so that we can eventually graduate to a higher level of existence. There is nowhere to go, no heaven to get in to, for everything is here and now. Heaven is this moment. It’s not something to gain access to, but realize that it’s already here. And you are it. You are the infinite. You are nirvana. You are joy. You are God. You are Love.
(The kingdom of God is at hand!)
You are the One. If you are the One and there is no one other than you, what else is there other than you to accomplish?
There is only the experience of yourself, being yourself, witnessing yourself, enjoying yourself, experiencing more of yourself.
Yes you evolve spiritually, raise your consciousness, become higher vibing and more loving, but that’s really just another way of saying becoming more of who you really are.
We are consciousness becoming conscious of itself, the Self experiencing the Self, the Divine forgetting who it is so that it can awaken to the incredible joy of remembering who it is, more and more and more.
There is no purpose to life in the sense that there is something that we must accomplish during our stay here or else our life is a failure. We are simply here, as the Divine, giving All That Is the experience of itself, one flavorful bite at a time.
That’s it. Everything you do, everything you think, everyone you meet, and every experience you have, it is all That experiencing That.
Life is not about tests, but simply a series of opportunities that allow you to be more of yourself.
When you already are everything, there is nothing new to acquire, including knowledge or education. There is only the realization of what you already know within, the awakening to your true nature, and the remembrance of who you really are: the Infinite.
The idea of learning lessons presupposes the experience of lacking something and subsequently acquiring something new. This is not possible given that you already are everything in existence.
So there is no destination to life really. You don’t ride a roller coaster to get to the end. You ride the roller coaster to enjoy the roller coaster. You ride life to enjoy the ride of life. This is it. This moment. In this moment we are experiencing ourselves in every way possible. It is in this world that we are bringing ourselves from the Unmanifest to the Manifest and thus experiencing all possibilities, all versions of All That Is, here in physical manifestation.
You are here so that God can know itself, so that the Divine can experience itself. God lives through us. It is thanks to you that God can experience itself and know itself, and God is infinitely thankful to you for your help in the experience, overflowing with appreciation and unconditional love.
The point of life is life. The “destination” is the journey.
Last night I listened to an Adyashanti satsang called “The Three Phases of Awakening” and in his talk, he brought up some traps which really resonate with me, traps which I’ve found myself getting caught in.
The trap is that once you get a taste of the Absolute and realize that all is perfect, then who cares about the world of the Relative because it’s all perfect anyways. Who cares because it’s all an illusion? At this point, you even have the choice to sit back let the body waste away and not really engage the world because hey, it’s already perfect. What more could I do?
Let’s examine this together and see exactly what’s going on.
Fear of Life
Many of us have a fear of death, yet there’s another fear that’s not talked about as often: fear of life. For some people, fear of life is even more intense than fear of death.
It’s like when we’re born, there’s all these bright lights, people pulling us this way or pushing us that way, lots of commotion, and then we get slapped. What an entrance. Perhaps there’s a part of us that says, “Man, I don’t like life. It was better before I was born. All of the sudden I’m suffering.”
It’s almost like some people don’t like life right from the get-go and this never quite heals.
Escaping Life
This is a very common experience for people since life can be so unpleasant. Some people will try to escape life through drugs, alcohol, music, sex, food, sleeping, or whatever other distraction works for them.
Perhaps people get into spirituality with the hope that when they become enlightened, life will suddenly become magical and wonderful. It will be the solution to all my problems!
So they take this (inaccurate) idea with them, proceed down the spiritual path, and eventually they find themselves abiding in the Absolute reality.
Hiding in the Absolute
In the Absolute, everything is as it is. Perfection is. What we call “real life” is seen to be totally an illusion and nothing really happens. Everything just is. It’s pure beingness. There’s nothing we could do to make life better or worse. Even the Hitler’s and diseases of the world are seen to be part of the perfection.
Now it is true that the world we live in is illusion and ultimately unreal, but there is still an element of experiential reality to it, is there not? It’s like, no matter how enlightened you are, if you get hit in the head with a hammer, it’s still gonna hurt.
The understanding that this world is an illusion and not real is an excellent instructional understanding, but there’s still a sense of practicality that needs to be integrated alongside this understanding. This is the part where we become “in this world, but not of it.” Rather than abiding in the Absolute as a way to escape the life of suffering, we recognize that All That Is INCLUDES the world of the relative, illusion or not. Read More …
Let’s examine different ways you could deal with the swift current in this area.
Remain Stationary
You don’t like the fact that your view keeps changing and you’re continually traveling into unknown territory. The unknown is scary. It makes you incredibly uncomfortable and you’re comfortable being where you are. So you drop anchor and sit still in the middle of the river and watch the sunset.
It takes a lot of energy to hold on tight in this current, but you do it anyways because at least now you have some semblance of “control.” You feel comfortable because you know what to expect. Nothing has to change. You can be right where you are without having to be taken by this river, be taken by a power seemingly beyond your control.
This is commonly expressed as depression, as debilitating fear. Instead of taking a risk and jumping forward, people hold on tight to exactly where they are.
The founder of McDonalds, Ray Croc, had a famous saying:
“When you’re green you grow. When you’re ripe, you rot.”
If you’re not continually growing and expanding, you’re rotting.
People will generally clutch onto their anchor until it gets to painful and takes too much energy to keep holding on. The built-in human desire for variety kicks in and they want to experience something new so they’ll raise anchor up and start moving again. Read More …
We live in a society today which is dominated by self-help books and self-improvement guides promising to increase the quality of your life in such-and-such way, or your money back!
What’s going on? It seems everyone feels perpetually imperfect and is constantly seeking something new and better “out there” to satisfy a craving to feel better “in here.”
As usual, this stems from the ego’s distorted perception of reality.
In reality, Life is in a state of complete perfection. You are perfect, just as you are. There is nothing to improve and nothing that could possibly be improved, only changed.
From the perspective of the ego, everything is inherently imperfect. Life needs to be improved and changed in order to achieve happiness. You need to DO something in order to BE happy.
Interestingly, even once the goals are met and the ego should theoretically be satisfied, the feeling of satisfaction turns out to be short-lived. It seems that the ego’s hunger for improvement is insatiable. It ALWAYS wants more! MORE!
So people wind up getting caught up in this game of cat-and-mouse, trying to do something to achieve happiness, and creating new goals to reach the next level as soon as the current goal is met.
What happens it that people are unhappy NOW while trying to get to the ever-elusive THEN which is ironic because the Now is the only moment there is. Read More …
Spiritual Truth is something to know, to experience, not something to believe in. The joy and love and peace of God can be actually experienced once you know how to access it.
Do you need a belief system to know how many heads are sticking up out of your neck? If I told you you had 18 heads sticking out of your neck, would a debate even be necessary? No.
You know you have only one physical head. You experience it. You know it. No belief system or opinion is necessary.
It’s when you lack the complete knowingness and experience that the weaker substitute of belief or opinion (which only exist in the mind, not in reality) is necessary.
Whether or not Jesus turned water into wine, or whether Adam and Eve actually existed, it’s not something we can actually experience. Thus, it’s basically a question of whether you believe in it or not. Since there’s no way of proving it one way or another, all you have are people arguing and defending their belief systems which is essentially a big house of cards. People are terrified of what will happen if their cards come tumbling down.
What are some spiritual truths that can be experienced and that really make a DIFFERENCE in your life? Read More …
You Are Truly Loved features content designed to guide people towards enlightenment, unconditional love, and living a life of joy through Self-realization and proper application of the Law of Attraction.
Seriously!
Many of us have a fear of death, yet there’s another fear that’s not talked about as often: fear of life. For some people, fear of life is even more intense than fear of death.
Spiritual Truth is something to know, to experience, not something to believe in. The joy and love and peace of God can be actually experienced once you know how to access it.