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!
(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.
It seems like one can reach a point where this Love no longer really disappears. Instead of fear replacing Love, it merely attempts to cloud over it at best with things such as painbody attacks or whatever else, yet this fear can never fully override love, despite the fact that it may look like it on the surface. Just like on a cloudy day, you can still notice the way the sun makes the clouds glow from behind. The sun doesn’t fully disappear anymore.
Have you ever noticed how the ego really likes to juice negative situations? It’s like it derives a certain sense of satisfaction out of stewing in anger about a situation, regretting the past, worrying about the future, wallowing in sadness or self-pity, exacting revenge on another, and so on. You know.. typical ego “stuff.” It’s almost like a “guilty pleasure,” in a sense. If we’re honest with ourselves, even though we know it’s bad, on another level it can still feel oh so good…
Yet even though this “bad” stuff is happening, Unconditional Love is always here. This Presence, whatever it is, is undeniable.
Because it becomes so obvious and everpresent, it may begin to feel like a burden to the ego, like a thorn that just won’t go away. No longer can you sit in your own self-created pile of poo, ignoring Love. Logically we wouldn’t want to do that of course, but it can feel comforting to rest in our ego. There’s a sense of familiarity in it if it’s what we’re used to.
With sincere devotion to Truth/God/Love, it’s like its presence can no longer be suppressed and will continue to power its way through your crap, as if it is here burn through your junk. No longer do you have the luxury of ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist. And this is so fortunate, as uncomfortable as it may be to surrender away yet another layer of crud.
This Unconditional Love that arises is not really a choice. It’s not a decision. It’s neither logical nor illogical. It simply Loves because that’s what Unconditional Love does. It is its nature. There is no other option. This Love just powers its way through what you think you are, transmuting everything into itself. In shines from within, transforming everything it touches as it radiates both through your body and out into the world. This Love is not always soft and quiet. No no. It can also be quite intense and powerful as well.
Unconditional Love itself, its very presence, is very upending to one’s ego. It’s like it’s shaking the ego from its comfortable position on its throne. Who’s gonna get to sit in the throne? Love or fear?
If you surrender and let this game of fear vs. love happen, well, let’s just say that love is a big girl and she can take care of herself.
Yet another experiential thingy that can be experienced in this singular timeless moment.
Love itself is unconditional by its very nature. It just loves. What else can love do?
Love itself doesn’t hold back. It doesn’t fear. Holding back holds back. Fear fears. Love simply loves.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
-Rumi
For those of you familiar with author David Hawkins, he speaks of progressive levels of consciousness that one can evolve through. Towards the higher end of the spectrum, beyond guilt and shame, one can open up to the flowering of love itself.
At first this love that is experienced may seem conditional. For instance, maybe you only love the people you approve of. Maybe you only love your friends and family. Maybe you only love “your type” of people. Maybe you only love these people in certain situations and under particular contexts and not others. In this sense, we could say that this love is experienced conditionally.
Yet experiencing love conditionally does not mean that love itself is conditional. For those of you who are looking to become unconditionally loving, let’s take a closer look at this.
Let’s explore the idea of being more or less loving. We could say that one of the common goals of the spiritual aspirant is to become a more loving person, correct?
For sure.
Let’s look at how this evolution works from both the relative and the absolute perspective, as well as how those two interact.
So in my previous post, I mentioned the willingness to cry, and today actually brought me to tears… tears of joy.
I was walking around the mall today feeling incredibly vulnerable. Just open and unprotected, willing to live without the protective walls around my heart, without trying to cover myself up with a fake “ideal” happy face or anything. Just being totally authentic and vulnerable.
As my friend Davidya perfectly describes it, it’s the feeling of the crusts of the heart falling away.
Divine Love
This Love that is revealed, this unconditional love, it’s literally not human. It’s not an emotion. It’s more spirit than anything, totally impersonal. They call it Christ Love, Divine Love… I feel my presence literally more as love and light than as dense physicality, my whole body just glowing and radiating light. (I was always wondering why people kept talking about “love and light.” Now I know… That statement is now finally grounded in experience for me and so it doesn’t sound as “airy fairy” anymore…)
It’s like you look and you see ONLY Love. The mind may look at people and see man or woman, attractive or unattractive, but none of that is really focused upon or even all that relevant. Instead there’s just this deepening on love from within. This love doesn’t take into account any conditions whatsoever or any ideas about a person. It just loves without condition.
One of the deepest human desires is the desire to be loved.
So how do we get to be loved? How do we love ourselves?
There are many wonderful strategies and techniques, many ways of expressing or giving love to ourselves. They can be very effective and powerful and play a significant part in positively transforming our lives.
Yet what is the “me” we are trying to love in the first place? Is there really a separate self who is separate from love that needs to be loved?
Today’s guest post is brought to you by Father Peter Bowes who shares with us his take on how to have a direct experience of the Divine.
Many say they believe in God, but believing in God is not the same as having a direct experience of God. Direct means first-hand, not second-hand. It is not hearsay or conjecture. Direct means something happens to you. You go through something, and then you can say you have had an experience. Throughout history, belief in God has resulted in people gathering for worship in churches, mosques, and temples. All over the world people still congregate based on similar beliefs about God. But how many can really say they know God?
Love and faith are the two most important qualities that make a substantial relationship with God possible. Love pulls you to the Divine Being; faith expects that something real will happen. Love connects you and God together; faith brings trust that God will respond to your hopes. Love creates the opening for something genuine to occur in relationship with God; faith reaches out beyond what is comfortable, stretching you to feel and see what you long for with your whole heart, mind and soul.
A direct experience of God requires love and faith, both of which play integral roles in preparing you to meet God. With love and faith, you let the Divine Being know you care enough so that God will come and give you God’s Self. You have to silence the mind and the emotions, and develop a stillness that can wait for a response from God. With meditation and prayer, a person can clear the mind of the world and the distractions of the senses in preparation for this meeting with God. God will come when you have cleared away all the other gods in your life, and this takes work, patience and diligent effort.
The initial phase of this preparation can be somewhat discouraging because the most dark and detrimental parts of your nature show up for review. You just can’t ask God to come into a place soiled with dirt, confusion and negative energy, so you will have to make a clean and wholesome space before you invite God to reside in you. Often you will need a Teacher – someone who has had a direct experience of God, who can see what needs to be drawn out of you – to help you clear the space within you.
All the mystics and saints have described direct experience of God in much the same ways. Each describes experiencing the love of their life in the embrace of God’s kiss and God’s presence. No fear can exist in the presence of God since God is all love and light. God is inside you and is loving you with every ounce you are willing to receive, and this experience will move you from belief to knowing. When you come into a direct experience of the God at the center of your being, it will change you completely, and you will know a profound peace that cannot be disturbed by the confusion of the world.
About The Author
Father Peter Bowes is a Master Teacher, priest and co-director of a mystical Christian order with spiritual centers in 15 cities called the Centers of Light. EnlightenNext Magazine named Father Peter among the “Top 10 Internet Gurus,” between Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. To learn more about Father Peter Bowes, visit FatherPeter.CentersOfLight.org.
You know what? That’s not a metaphor or just some random lyrics in a song… When we talk about physical reality being the “dream state,” that’s actually a quite literal explanation.
Life is becoming such a joy now that my state of being is no longer tied to the circumstances of life and thus at the affect of it. It’s like unconditional joy. It literally does not depend on what happens in the world!
Blurrrrrr
The lines between what we call “real life” and what we call “dreaming” at night have begun to blur for me. There doesn’t seem to be much difference anymore and it’s quite a fascinating and enjoyable experience.
Real life is literally starting to glow with this colorless radiance. It feels much more malleable, as if it’s more like playdough than actually solid substance. Even walking through the aisles at the grocery store, I don’t so much see cream cheese and milk (though I do mentally perceive that too when necessary), but I feel like I’m directly interacting with liquid love. That’s how I’d describe it. (Looking at this experience right now, it feels more like I’m feeling it with my heart than seeing it with my eyes. I guess our hearts can see!)
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.
It seems like one can reach a point where this Love no longer really disappears. Instead of fear replacing Love, it merely attempts to cloud over it at best with things such as painbody attacks or whatever else, yet this fear can never fully override love, despite the fact that it may look like it on the surface. Just like on a cloudy day, you can still notice the way the sun makes the clouds glow from behind. The sun doesn’t fully disappear anymore.
Let’s explore the idea of being more or less loving. We could say that one of the common goals of the spiritual aspirant is to become a more loving person, correct?
So in my 
Many say they believe in God, but believing in God is not the same as having a direct experience of God. Direct means first-hand, not second-hand. It is not hearsay or conjecture. Direct means something happens to you. You go through something, and then you can say you have had an experience. Throughout history, belief in God has resulted in people gathering for worship in churches, mosques, and temples. All over the world people still congregate based on similar beliefs about God. But how many can really say they know God?
