Discovery...

“The greatest barrier to discovery is not ignorance … 
it is the illusion of knowledge.”

You have been spoon fed for so long through schooling and books and television and Internet so much information that you do not know how to discover anything for yourself.  Become your own project and discover who you are by your own investigation; not by what you have been told through learning.  There is nothing wrong with learning, in that it can help you get around in the world, but be wise with what you come to believe about what you learn.  You don’t want to buy into anything too rigidly.  


An open mind is one that doesn’t become fearful of knowledge but brings light to knowledge.  It’s not about going out and fighting a system but to begin to step out of it so one can see it.  How can you see what you are in, when you are in it.  So you step outside of the norms of life, you do not accept that everything is how you have believed it to be, you allow the possibility that you maybe wrong about what you think, feel and believe and then begin to watch the world from an “outside” view…not as a good or bad, you just begin to view it like you would a project or an investigation.  You begin to watch yourself and the world as an “unknown.”  And then begin to see if what is being shared about you and about the world you live in…is true.  Look at your life and see if it reflects what you are being told.  The news will tell you that only bad things happen…but how often do you actually “see” a bad thing happen for yourself?  



One must begin to step out of the boxes they put themselves in?  One goes in a box so that they “look” like they “fit in” the world.  Those boxes are all the things that you say that you are…what your religion is, what your nationality is, what your country is, what your beliefs about anything is…all of them are boxes to make you feel like you are safe in the crowd, but what is a box but a coffin and the more boxes you have the more layers you have been buried in.



What is it that draws one to being in a box…a coffin?  It is the fear of standing alone…at least in a graveyard there are others seemingly there; but if you get out of the casket you are alone.  To be willing to live outside of boxes one must first face fear.  The fear of being alone, of being misunderstood, of being outcasted, and ultimately of death.  If you face the latter first the rest naturally begin to fall away.  How does one do this?  Take off a box and see if you are willing to die.  If you are religious…drop your religion for a time maybe even just an hour (you can pick it back up later) however become willing for even God to disown you, be willing to die and not know what will happen…you don’t anyway you just believe that you know…but beliefs don’t make things real…they just make boxes.  If you are married, be willing to not know what marriage is, it doesn’t mean you go and leave your spouse or get divorced, it just means that you don’t know what it is.  You have been told what marriage is…but what is it really, what is it to you, has it become a box or is it something that stimulates your growth, these are investigations for you to look into and not even your spouse can do that for you.  Those are two big ones but if even a slight bit of fear comes up to even look at it; you might begin to see the box you have put yourself in and in this, fear becomes a friend, a tool you can use to gauge how deeply you have dug yourself in.  You can use anything, if you believe you are “Human” look into that box…what actually is a human or is it just a label placed on a body because one doesn’t actually know who or what one is.  Do you really know who you are?  That is a genuine question to ask?  You may think that it is more comfortable to assume that you know all these things, because you have learned them…and everyone seems to agree that they are true, but comfort leads to stagnation and a very unfulfilling life.  



It’s not that one shouldn’t be comfortable it is about becoming aware of the unknown, which leads to vibrancy, energy and stimulation, creativity, you begin to see that you don’t ever know what is going to happen, but it becomes obvious and beautiful that you don't.  You aren’t rushing to put everything back in place attempting know how everything should be.  You begin to experience life as it actually is; without any beliefs or boxes or coffins to rest in and to rely.  You become extremely close to the present moment; the one that you are in but continuously overlook.  You become more childlike, you didn’t have to know how to be a child to be one. Your parents didn’t know how to be a parent and to raise a child and yet they did and if you are honest and have children you don’t either, but you don’t need to know, you just become aware of yourself and watch what it is like for “you” not anyone else but “you” to be a child, a adult, and a parent.  You begin to Trust the river of life without boxes, without conformity, without having to pretend to be someone.



Every once in a while for some length of time step away from the TV, the Internet and then when you bring them back pay attention to what you watch on TV and look for on the Internet, pay attention to what you are feeding yourself with information.  As you do these things you become more clear in yourself, you begin to know who you are more intimately, no one is going to have this life experience for you, so don’t waste it on what someone else has lived.  Take the best from every experience, yet have your own.



Take chances and have fun!


THOUGHTS

(Click Photo for "Ask YourSelf")

Those thoughts you have that go by all the time, one after another, bringing all kinds of other thoughts and reactions and sensations, have nothing to do with Reality.  This is not something that you can take someone’s word for (although taking someone’s word for it, at first, is a great helping hand in beginning to see for yourself), you must be willing to investigate whether or not, thoughts have anything to do with Reality, or do thoughts appear after the fact.  It is not only possible, but actual, that everything you think, is after what happens, even your arm moving or your eyes reading this, is after the fact of it happening.  The body registers the information and then the brain receives it and thought appears and this is all very instantaneous, yet still behind the action.

Why would you want to begin to see that thoughts have nothing to do with Reality, because then you will begin to see that you are not the thoughts.  This will lead to beginning to ask, if I am not the thoughts, then who am I?  Or “if they are not my thoughts, who’s are they?”  Did you ever wonder where a thought comes from or do you just blindly follow them?  The funny thing is…the blindly following is even before the thought.  Awareness of this, will begin to shed light on a darkened state of mind.  Until someone turns the light on, no one even knows they are in the dark. 

It’s like fish at the bottom of the sea, they do not know they are in the dark, if you went down there and said to them…”hey…fishes…you are in the dark” they might say… “what the hell is dark?” how would you describe it to them?  However, if you took one in your arms and started swimming north, up and up and the dark became lighter and lighter, until the fishes eyes burned and it said “oh…I see…it is so warm, it is beyond warm, it is behind kind, I didn’t know what cold was until now, I don’t know how to explain this, but I know how it feels.”  And then you start to go back down and the fish doesn’t understand why would you bring him back down to the darkness and you explain that the Light would obliterate him because he comes from the dark, but as he now Knows the Light … Knows where all are going and that it is not out or in or north or south or up or down but it is IN everyONE, that the fish can now point to it with others that are in the dark and Lighten their load.

So the fish goes back down to the deep sea and it is not easy to tell those that have not seen something, something which cannot be explained but can be Known and yet he starts and he begins to help move the other fishes that Hear him up slowly into lighter gentler waters and as they move up others move up with them and they all begin to see that what once so dark and scary and unknown, is not that at all.  That they have been in it all along, they only thought they were in the dark.  But the Light was/is always Here.

Thoughts are like Dark waters, you can share with one that they are not in Dark water but only paying attention to Dark water, but the only way for one to See they were in Dark water, is to begin to stop pay attention to the thoughts.  Not trying to stop the thought…just not paying attention to them.  One must begin to pay attention to what is before the thoughts, what thoughts appear In, the space between thoughts…this space right here (       ).

If you are one that is ready to begin to stop paying attention to the thoughts, then get in touch with me. 

  ~Joysters

KARMA, GUILT, SIN AND REASONS...

If you believe in karma, guilt, sin or that everything happens for a reason, you will continually live life “thinking” that things are not good enough, that you must get better, that everyone else must get better or that you are in the process of getting better and you will not be aware that the moment you are in, right this moment, is perfect unto itself and you are the perfect you for the moment you are in.

Karma, guilt, sin and reasons are traps.  They are used so that you do not pay attention to the present moment.  If you are paying attention to the moment you are in, the one right in front of your face, then what needs to change?   Karma, guilt, sin and reasons are the “mind/thoughts” way of making you believe that you can change something; that you have something to do with the changes in your life.  However, change happens, in spite of you.  In fact, the only reason that there is the concepts of karma, guilt, sin and reasons, is because you “think” there is a “you” to fix, to get better, to make different.  However, as you begin to notice that things just naturally change, no matter what you think; then you begin to see, that the “you” you thought you were/are, doesn’t actually exist.

Just for the moment remove all ideas/concepts of karma, of guilt, or sin and reasons and just look right in front of you … there is nothing there right (smile)?  Nothing that the thoughts are telling you are there are actually there right?  Be honest, without thoughts about trying to make anything different, isn’t everything perfectly ok (don’t think about it … just look :o). 

Some people think that without a future, life will be boring … nothing to look forward too, but there is no future there is only this moment that you are in and the next moment doesn’t come; you are in the next moment right now … all you really can do is pay attention to the moment you are in.  Most don’t … most pay attention to the past that is over or the future that hasn’t come and don’t see what is right in front of the face.

Maybe just for today when thoughts appear that say things should be some other way; you refocus the attention on the moment you are in, what is right in front of you.  Watch and see what you do.  What you have been trying to “save” yourself and everyone else from through karma, guilt, sin and reasons.  Let it all go of for today and look at a world that doesn’t need your help, doesn’t need saving, or fixing; if something needs help or attention it will show up and then watch what you do. 

You have been “thinking” for so long now that you are the one doing it; while all you have been doing is watching and commenting.  But in this moment there is nothing to do, but pay attention. 

This doesn’t mean that you expect a certain day, a certain way, a certain out come, you just watch all of it.  Watch the emotions as they arise, watch the thoughts (but don’t follow them) watch as they come and they go and begin to notice that all thoughts pass, everything will pass and bring the attention back to what is in front of the face and then bring the attention onto what the face appears in.  Begin to pay attention to who is looking out of the face, not with “thoughts” about who is looking out, but actually place the attention on who is seeing out of the eyes.

As you begin to see this for yourself, you will begin to see that it is how it is for everyone. 

Most are “thinking” they are doing it, but as you begin to consistently pay attention to the moment you are in, you will begin to see that they only “think” they are doing it, but you will know that it is not true, because you have discovered for yourself that you are not doing it.  You won’t be able to explain it to anyone, but you will begin to point to what you have discovered.

You will smile more, because all the frowning came from “thinking” you were doing it.  A great relief comes in seeing that you are not.  Sometimes first there is a bit of fear because one does not know “who” is doing it, but that fear will pass as you see that it has always been this way, and you have always been well taken care of (no matter what the mind/thoughts say).

If it makes you angry to have to give up karma, guilt, sin and reason, you would be wise to look at why you want to keep them in your life.  Honestly, why you want ideas and concepts that keep one feeling/believing they are “not good enough” right now.  You are probably the same person that wonders why people kill themselves and yet give them all the ammunition for the gun.  Just for today, put the ammo down (concepts, ideas, beliefs), everyone is perfect just the way they are, no matter what you say or think, let them be who they are.  If they are to be some other way they will.  Sit back, relax and for once have no one to fix, not even yourself.  You are good enough to be here, just as you are, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here.

Don’t think about it!

 (((SMILE))) :o) 

or think about it.

 (((FROWN))) :o(