Posts Tagged ‘Self-inquiry’
photo credit: Michele Catania
Awareness
There is awareness. There is awareness.
For some reason there is the belief in the human mind that physical reality is what’s real, but it is nothing more than just a belief. It’s the illusion.
When awareness gets amped up and it’s realized there is nothing but awareness, the content that awareness focuses on feels so… empty and light.
Everything is nothing.
What’s the difference between physical reality, imagination, the dream world we visit at night, wherever we go after we die, locations experienced when astrally projecting, experiences that arise in deep states of meditation, and everything else?
The rules are different. Certain laws, like the laws of physics, may apply in one place and not another. Certain colors and forms and shapes appear in one and not another, but that’s about it. They’re all just different illusions appearing within awareness. They’re all like different movies that awareness can watch.
Awareness is.
and awareness is SO much more real than any observable reality.
Finding Yourself
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.
Read More …
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 …
The other day I was in a discussion among friends and the question was raised, “What is God?”
There were many good responses including God is good, energy, the creator, love, and so on, but none of them quite fit for me. Sure they all pointed to one itty bitty portion of that which we call God, but how do we know ALL of God? If I told you my name is Ariel, I’m male, and I like mangoes, would that be sufficient for you to truly know all of me? How could I learn all about you?
There’s gotta be more to the story… what is God?
What was my response to the question? Take off my shoe and set it down before us all.
“What is God? Let’s start with something simpler. What is this?”
“It’s a shoe.”
“Right, now what is a shoe?”
“It’s an article of clothing that we wear on our feet. It protects our feet and gives us style.”
“Okay, so that’s its role, yet to be worn is not what it is. To look good is not what it is.”
“It’s a stitched collection of material such as leather and rubber.”
“That’s what it’s made up of, but that’s not what it is.”
“It’s just a bunch of atoms. The atoms are made up of pure energy.”
“You’re right, but so is everything else. Those are just the building blocks. That’s not a shoe, but what makes up the shoe. What is a shoe?”
“A ’shoe’ is a label that we apply to an item which meets certain criteria, like the ones discussed earlier.”
“That’s true. Is a mental label all it is though, or is there something more physical and tangible to ’shoe’ than just a label and a set of criteria?”
We can go on and on, but what we’d find is that the best we can do is describe qualities and attributes about the shoe. We can point towards what the shoe is, but we can’t actually say what the shoe is.
We can give a whole collection of descriptions and stories about God, but that’s not what God is. God is not a story or a description to the same degree that you are more than just your story and descriptions. Read More …
This past weekend I drove up to North Carolina for a marching band shoot. (I currently live in Georgia and do a lot of photography events.) While driving in the car, I listened to the Sedona Method audio course. It really helps me become conscious of and subsequently let go of various egoic patterns. One of the things I love best about the Sedona Method is that it’s basically a program to systematically dissolve the human ego.
What AM I??
For the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of frustration present regarding my own nonexistence. See, it’s starting to sink in on a fundamental level that “I” really don’t exist, beyond just some hollow wise-sounding words, and there’s a certain amount of fear in this realization. There is a frustration in that there is not even a “me” to experience this frustration! It’s a very strange experience…
Now as this sinks in, all sense of location is also dissolving. Not only can I not find a “me” outside of thought, but I also can’t find a place where I, whatever I am, exist.
Sure, if you asked me, it could be recognized where this body that I have is, but that feels completely and totally irrelevant. It’s like if you asked where I am and I told you where my car was. That doesn’t have anything to do with me.
So not only can I not find a me and I don’t know who I am, I also can’t even find out where I am! 
Talk about frustrating!!
It’s truly shattering my entire sense of reality. Utterly. It’s a frustrating experience to the ego… and the ego I have is putting up a lot of resistance to this experience. All that can be done is to surrender, to let go of resisting. Read More …
We’ve all heard the famous instruction to “look within.” it comes in many forms.
“The Kingdom of God is within you.”
“All Truth is within.”
What on earth does that mean? Where is in? How do we look at it? How do we find it? Our eyes can only look outside of us. How are we supposed to look within?
Awareness Watching Awareness
When one begins to ask themselves, “What am I?’ the question will ultimately lead to the dissolution of the very person asking the question. The “I” that I’m seeking does not exist. The only aspect of “you” that is always there no matter what is the non-personal awareness. You are awareness.
Now awareness can be focused on what’s part of the illusion including thoughts, ideas, other people, my own body, the world, and so on. When we watch our thoughts, we can use our awareness (what’s real) to simply watch the thoughts (what’s unreal) pass by without identifying with them.
Alternatively, we can point the awareness (what’s real) directly at itself. Let’s try this now.
Notice the aspect of you that is aware of these words, the location you’re in, that’s aware of what’s being seen, heard, and felt. Notice that there is something that is aware of these sensations.
Next, actually become aware of the fact that you are aware.
By doing this, by being awareness watching awareness, you are now TRULY looking at your Self. By doing this, you are not going through the mind or engaging in any ego illusion. The illusion is being pierced straight through. When one loses focus on the awareness itself, the awareness is now focused back on the illusion and has lost touch with Reality.
Spirituality and Self-Realization Is That Simple
There’s so many distractions along the path of Self-realization. All enlightenment comes down to is realization your true nature. Things like crystals, manifestation, chanting, brain wave altering, channeling, and all other sorts of practices may certainly help you experience phenomena, but they will not give you the realization of the Self.
Realizing your true nature involves seeing through the illusions and keeping your attention focused solely and squarely on the Self, the awareness.
By doing this, the mind will begin to grow quieter and quieter as it progressively unravels. It will still kick and scream from time to time and continue to flare up occasionally, but when it does, simply surrender away the juice the mind gets from those experiences and it will lose its grip over you. By seeing yourself as awareness, this will progressively weaken and ultimately dissolve all identification with thoughts and with the mind.
You will then start to have “spiritual experiences” whereby you have glimpses of your true nature, and these experiences will be more real than anything of this world. These experiences will increase in frequency and duration until they become your permanent state.
There ya go. Self-realization.
It’s Awareness Watching Awareness.
All else is to be surrendered to God.
Many people who are seeking Truth, be they scientists, spiritual seekers, or religious practitioners, are looking to find how they fit into the world and what their purpose is.
At the core of this search one finds the question “Who Am I?”
Once you figure out who you are, then you know how you fit into the puzzle of life and what your role in it is. So… who are you?
Can you ever actually see yourself?
Can you look outside of yourself to see yourself?
Let’s allow Adyashanti to take us on an adventure. Let’s see if it’s possible to actually “look within” as so many masters have told us to do. Read More …
