WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

I thought it was kind of funny when I went to look for a picture for the title of this post that it pulled up this image above, although I just found out it's in it's 3rd season (The show "Who Do You Think You Are NBC.)  I hadn't heard of the show until just now or at least hadn't paid it any mind and so it was kind of neat that I got to take a look at where it was pointing...to our ancestry.  I haven't spent much time investigating mine...I've always been much more interested in what cannot be explained than what can be and ancestry to me...well it seemed that people had put too much stock into where they have come from before looking to see who is in the shell.  Like...if you look at the body like a car then if you are let's say "Irish" then we could say you are a  Volvo and if you are Japanese then you are a Toyota and if you are German then you are a Mercedes but if you see what I am getting at...it doesn't matter what Ancestry you come from … you are not the car/Ancestry (however, I don't discredit it and...in this world...it probably has a lot to do with how your personality is...because of Ancestry and DNA...it makes a pattern for the car/body you are driving in...but it is not who you Are.

Which leads me to what was coming up today.  I was looking at the thought "who do you think you are?"

Where do I get off saying and doing the things that I say and do?  Cause I used to be so scared of who I am...I thought I really knew who was driving this car.  I used to think "I know who I am." 

I used to be so certain of what I am like and what I will be and what I will do.  And then about 20 years ago, geez thank god for patience...if I hadn't been in it, it might have seemed like a really long time...but I was immersed in those 20 years and now I am looking back and they don't seem so long, so about 20 years ago the question "Who am I?" appeared.  And it is obviously appearing for you too or you wouldn't be reading this so hang in there if you are beginning to question yourself...your in the right place or you wouldn't be here. 

So … I'm about 23 years old, at that time and finding myself in a similar situation to the one I find myself in today and I am beginning to wonder who I am (back then it was a question I was looking for the answer too and now it is a question that points to what is beyond any words or thoughts or beliefs or ideas, but this is 20 years later so I digress). 

Back to 23, I had been told for so long who I am...that I am a girl, a child, an adult, that I am a mother, that I am a body, a woman, a worker, that I am what I do and I am what I think, that I am my name, I am a product of the experiences that happened in this life, I am American, I am Indian I am Irish and German...but I was starting to see that all those things could be taken away.  If the body dies...then who am I … if I am not the body...then who am I? 

So shortly after that a book called "A Course In Miracles" entered my life and I read and studied it and did the lessons for years and still this longing to know this answer because the whole Course in Miracles evolved around an "I."  And so "I" got built up to something that was getting somewhere...until one day...I met my Teacher and he pulled the carpet out from under me...all that "I" had become from ACIM was smashed very quickly and it was a terrible time...some pretty all time lows because "I" couldn't understand that "I" wasn't. 

"I" thought I was going to be enlightened...the "I" that "I" had created would be enlightened...but if I wasn't that "I" then who am I?  If I am not who I think I am, who people say I am … "who is running this ship."

 If I am not who I think I am...than Who am I?  <---Back to square one.  (Actually less than one but the mind cannot imagine that...it can Know it which is beyond the mind, but the mind/thoughts don't believe that there is really something bigger than it...something that it is in...immersed in...like a fish in a fishbowl...it doesn't know that it is in water...you don't know what you are in but you are in It.)

This question would not leave me and my Teacher began to reinforce the Pointing that "I am not who I think I am."  And so I spent the next 12 years looking at the thoughts and somehow knowing they were not "me" but still believing they were.

So it has only started becoming more and more obvious and surrender to...in just the briefest of moments there is a stopping and an awareness of beyond thought and acceptance of  not knowing who I am and not trying to know or understand anything...there is an instantaneous rest when one stops trying to know who they are and just let's go.

It has been a long road to be where I am...which is exactly where I have always been but it looked like I took a long way to get here...it has just been the unlearning process...like instead of wiping out the whole computer at once...each program was removed to see that there is no actual operating system there is just operating. 

See you will begin to see that you just do what you do...there is no "you" doing it.  You get to begin to relax because "not existing" is no longer frightening.  You become okay with not knowing because you know that you haven't been doing any of it ever and what has been doing it...has taken care of you (<---humor me since there is no me or you just accept that words have to be used to Point to what cannot be spoken).

So you might say … well then who are you talking to...well I am talking to myself just like I always have...I use the body, nature, universe...all of it to reveal the Self to myself.  When you are all alone, that is all you can do and there are infinite ways to do it...you think that you are separate from me so that I can talk with you...if you knew we weren't separate then there would be no need to communicate in this fashion.  But you do know that we are not separate, even if you deny it...otherwise you wouldn't be able to type or read this.  I am always here caring for you as you are for me...giving and receiving are the same and I can only give you what you are willing to receive.

If you ever want to watch some good movies that Point...here are just a few off the top of my head:

• The Matrix
• The 13th Floor
• Fight Club
• A Pure Formality
• What Dreams May Come 

Okay, time for reading :o)

Outside The Box

OUTSIDE THE BOX

~Joysters

So this morning on my walk, there was a thought that some of the things that have been happening in my life are outside the box. You may often here someone say "think outside the box," but do they really mean it or has it just become another thing that is said to someone to shut them up. Like maybe you do think outside the box, however, the minute that you share those thoughts with another...many times you will find your ideas and thoughts rejected and the life sucked out of them and then they sort of just fade away.

Lately, life has been being lived "outside the box." Like it's becoming more of a mystery...as I mentioned I cleared out my home of all the food and alot of stuff that had been accumulating...a sort of simplifying, if you will. And then there was the not speaking for quite a few weeks and fasting a few times for 3 days and 10 days on the Master Cleanse. During this time, it has been like being outside the box and looking in on the boxes that everyone says should be there.

People seem to like to think about things outside of the box but then if they are actually lived...the world/people will come and try to jam you right back into that box because people/society/the world are in a box and they don't want you to be out of it because then they have to see that they are in it and they don't want to see the prison of ideas that they are contained in. What they want is to make everyone just like them. Don't do anything differently because it too scary for the masses...what if everyone just started doing what they want...then what?

Well for me...I don't know :o) I don't know nor do I care what it would be like if everyone lived outside of the box...all I am doing is living it. You have to make the commitment to yourself first and then once that is made...live it.

As an example, about 5 years ago I began an afternoon meditation...that meant everyday, rain or shine, anything that was going on, 7 days a week...that I would be at meditation. Might not sound like such a difficult thing to do, however not only do you have the outside pressures of incringing on people's time but also you have the thoughts running through your own head of "why are you doing this, this is dumb, people are going to be pissed, your missing out on all the fun, your but hurts, your legs hurt, get up get up get up" and then sometimes you get the breaks especially after, well for me the first 2 years were the hardest but now...now after sitting through all of that noise and not getting up, even when the thoughts are screaming there is a snake coming towards you, open your eyes, move and you don't ... well now... now is bliss.

And sometimes it was embarrassing to tell someone that I had to stop whatever I was doing and go sit for 1/2 hour and do nothing. This really annoyed lots of people...it was supposedly an "inconvenience" to them and their life and what they wanted, however inside I figured if a brick had dropped on my head I would be dead for that 1/2 hour anyway so I just pretended I was dead a lot of the time...especially when it was stressful like one time I had told the team mom of our kid's football team that I could help her but at 4:30pm I would have to leave for 1/2 and sit. She was fine with it when she said she was but then when 4:30pm came and we had run into overtime and it was a very exciting part of the game and she needed me to help her with getting things to the boys...I had to remind her of our agreement and I had (not really had but it is a commitment to myself) to walk out on my son's football game (however if brick had dropped I wouldn't have been there either). I came back after meditation to some angry parents and sort of a disbelief that I would walk out on life like that. (That is just one example of many, many examples of the world attempting to push you back in the box.) You may tend to make people and the masses angry...you have to learn to answer to yourself first and then to the world and it has probably been for you, like it was for me...the other way around for so long that you have to unlearn and deprogram and as you do you are reprogrammed from a place of who you are.

So I am not saying that living outside of the box is easy and again ... as you do it people will want to stuff you back in so the commitment to yourself, above all else...must be a real commitment or it will just fall away like all the other times that you have been excited to do something "outside the box" and then let the outside forces strip it away. Now meditation isn't something I do...it is a way of life...it is natural...I don't often have to think "oh it's 4:30" the body seems to know what time it is and it goes and sits. That may sound strange to someone that hasn't done it...hasn't made a commitment to something and suck by it wholeheartedly but it is that way.

As you begin to do these things, you will need less and less permission to follow where life is leading you. It will be scarey at times and hopefully you are lucky like me, and have a Teacher in your life that pulls you in when the tide gets rough. Begin to trust in yourSelf. Begin to know that you are ok and provided for. Begin to step outside of the ideas of who and what you are so that you can actually see and experience life from being who you are.

Well that was good...I'm glad I had this talk with myself, oh and don't be to quick to share your dreams...let them simmer and cook and then start to take action before you tell anyone what you are doing...especially when you are just starting out...you don't want your dreams killed before you even get to enjoy them. :o)

Who You Think You Are is Just an Idea

Just sitting here and there is an obvious sense of emptiness. My Teacher has called it "absence of presence."

When he first shared that I had no idea what he was pointing to...however patience has paid off and although I can't tell you what it is ... I can tell you what it is not.

You can't do anything to become aware of it ... anything you do moves to try to be aware moves you away (and as that is said... really you cant move away from what you are in and so even movement is a lie but that is another topic for another seeming time).

So "I" am an idea.

Anything I would say about myself is actually a lie because I am not an idea...but any thought that says "I" is an idea.

My true identity cannot be identified.

I am not a body but the body is in me.

I look out through all eyes/i's.

I look out of your eyes and out of the dolphins eyes at the same time and see mySelf...there is no separation between the two on how I see.

But thoughts think that there are two things...just remember...just because you think something doesn't make it so and paradoxically because you think something...so it is.

Rest well in Me...you are completely taken care of until the end of your days.

TIME AND THE "I" THOUGHT

This morning the thought appeared "there is no you."  Took a look and was like wow … yes there is emptiness here and was able to see something that is being pointed too.  As a kid two things seemed very strange to me that everyone else agreed was absolutely real.  One is "time" and the other are "words." With a child's mind everything is much more simple and the simplicity pointed to the obviousness that both "time" and "words" were man-made.  From that realization it has formed to what can now be shared (seemingly) many, many years later with a more educated way of saying it (though not much more,  heh).

So, what was seen is that if one said the word "car" (was in one at the time) over an over again … it begins to lose it's meaning.  Without knowing it's meaning it could have meant anything …  as long as someone else agreed that whatever it was named it is what it is … however … and … just because something is "named" doesn't make it what the name is  (like humans).  That was what was revealed about words … the seeing that they are only "real" because we agree with others that certain sounds represent what we see with our eyes.

Then there was time … this took more time (heh) to grasp.  It was actually more of a wondering of "how could time be real?"   This image appeared of just space (not even that really) but just this vast Emptiness and then a grid is laid upon that Emptiness and it is called "time" but there really is no "time" or another way of saying it is … it is only and forever  Now.  


Time (the grid) is just another man-made thing that we all have agreed upon.  So "time"  is the grid that is laid on Emptiness/Space ... that drove the investigation even deeper.  A question arose "what is the universe laid on? ... what is behind the universe?"  Well the Gift was/is received and there is no word for what was/is Revealed ... could call it … Light or Energy, Brightness,  Emptiness, Space, Stillness (see picture above for vague concept the yellow is the backdrop or the screen that all appears on)...but it's not really that … what is before time and before words and before bodies and before the Universe and is right Now forever Now … it is Everything and everything is in IT … it animates everything and yet is not an IT (obsoletely indescribable).

So that created a bit of a freak out for a good 10 years … with bouts of paranoia that still arise (don't underestimate the power of beliefs).  However, the Universe and Time (don't say this to a scientist that hasn't dug all the way through) do not actually exist.  Which brings us back to the original thought that appeared this morning "there is no you."

Thoughts are just like the grid above and like words, they aren't actually there … go ahead and look for a thought … see if you can make one appear ... perhaps they are just echoes in "time."  (Cosmic Joke.)

Most things that are written here on this site/blog you will have to investigate for yourself.  All these hands can do is type and point ... but no one could have looked for me (well actually there was no one that actually looked) ... but that is a bit advanced in unlearning … until you begin to see that you have believed in something that isn't ... just like Santa Claus.

Most people would not find any of this helpful … but one will.   ;o)



Being Alone.

Up until the last week, I have not been physically alone in life.  I went from my parents and siblings to a husband and children, with no time where I lived alone or really had any time alone.  Recently, I've been given some alone time...like completely alone...it was a squence of events I suppose...looking back. 

About 2 weeks ago, I stopped verbally speaking...then I went on a short fast (no food) and cleared our home out of just about everything there is to eat that had any chemicals or additives including all bathroom stuff...so then home was really empty not only of people but of "stuff." Slowing I moved all clothing out and am widdling away at all the nicknacks collected.  It has been a pretty intense time.  Not many distractions although much being done. 

What has been found...is that I am never alone.  I mean I have known that for a long time (used to make me feel paranoid)...but now in a different way...now in Being Alone...I find that I am not alone.  Actually, I don't exit.  I mean the "I" that I think I am...doesn't exist...doing keeps happening whether I think there is a me (and even that is not me) doing it.  It doesn't mean I haven't been scared...like when the storms were coming and the wind was blowing and it was dark and creepy and when the water pipe broke and snow was falling and spent over a week turning the water pump on and off to do dishes and bath until the plumber came.  Or the fear of not having food, as I live rural and haven't been driving and wondering how food was going to get here (a week in and it dawned that you can order many lovely things through Amazon (Prime even better cause it's free shipping).

So I am alone and simoutaneously not Alone and in this finding was a pharse that appeared..."there is no "I" in You."

Again nothing to learn...always been this way...always Is.  Time to get the mail.

  ~Joysters

Journaling...

There's been quite alot coming up today...I'll get it written down as it comes...I was thinking about journaling.  I have done it pretty much all my life in one way or another...I've always loved to write and I also love the intimacy I have felt when writing to myself.  I used to write in code when I was younger so that no one would figure it out and I could say what I truly felt about anything.  My earliest journal that I have kept is from when I was 15 years old...so it's kind of nice to have it to go back to and if you have children then I would suggest you suggesting to them to journal.

So what brought this up was...last month I was feeling pretty low and I popped open a journal from like 1999 to 2004 and just sat up real late reading it and I was shocked...there was a time that I just sort of free flowed writing...if you are familiar with Neale Donald Walsh (he wrote the Conversations with God series) I was reading him back in the early 2000s cause he was saying at the time the same things that were (or similar) coming through my "Talks" with myself...I would write a question and then the answer would just be there.  Well what a treat to read what was written back then...now ... it made me realize there is no "time" (which I have another post brewing on that thought).  I really got to see that I have always been taken care of ... in fact there is no "I" to take care of and what I was reading reiterated that and pointed me back to what is beyond and before the thought "I."

So if you feel like unlearning ... to who you Are.  Grab a pad, go some place quiet, maybe lite a candle and some incense to warm you up and just write whatever comes up...you can even do it on the computer but I would recommend that you sit with a journal without electronics and just let your hand write what it would like to share...sort of like "Hugo" if you have seen the movie...it's like your hand is just waiting for the key (pen) to share everything with you.  You don't ever have to share it with anyone, although someday you might want to...who knows ;o)

One of the first real questions that began the unduing of who I think I am ... was writting down the question, "Who am I?" and watching as it was all taken away...everything that I thought I was...because anything that I thought I was...could be taken away.

  ~Joysters

Is there anything to share...truthfully...like can anyone really share there life with another?

I usually feel completely misunderstood when I am with another. We don't see the same colors on the flowers and the trees and we don't like the same music.

Today I heard a video program that had on one of my favorite groups from the 80s "The Force MDs" the ballad like love songs that had my feet off the ground for years and now I've come to find out they are favorite on Barrack Obama' play list te he he. I guess you could say we share the force mds but the experiences and emotions that come up will be different for each of is.