DREAMS...

At night when we dream, people show up for us, friends, family, love ones we have lost, animals, stories, dramas...everything shows up in a dream for you to play in.  Have you ever had a dream that was as real as if you were awake?  Have you ever had a dream where you were in a different body?  Ever dream you were an animal, that you could fly, that you had powers you don't seem to have in waking life?  Have you ever wondered how all of these things appear for you?

Let's say that you see your friend in a dream, did they actually appear for you or did you create them?  If they just appear for you, where did they come from and if you created them how did you do that and simultaneously play out both the parts?  Is it possible that you are playing out all the parts in the dreams you have?  If not, who is playing them?  If so, how can you be everyone?

This is where if one is paying attention, something can be Revealed or Seen.  Because that last question if you are willing to look at the question deeply, you will begin to see that you have misidentified yourself.  Not only in dreams but in waking life.  If you look and can see the possibility that you are playing everyone in your dream, then who is the real you?  To be everyone in the dream ... you also have to be "dreamt."  

                    Who's Dreaming?

If you take the position that you are not playing all the parts, then who are they that have shown up for you, where do they come from and where do they go to when you wake?  As in your dreams, so is life, these same questions one can ask of dreaming one can ask of life.  Is there a possibility in you that you are being Dreamt, just as everyone that appears for you?  Remember the dreams that you have had that seemed so real it took some time after waking to Realize it was just a dream?  Such a similarity may appear for you in Life and it will appear for you upon Death which is the waking from the Dream of "Life."  That is why this simple question of "Who Am I?" is so significant because you do not need to wait for Death to find out who you are...who is actually Dreaming all of it.  The one thing that can be shared with you...is that it is not who you think it is.

                            "May all Beings awaken to itSelf."

RUNNING (To or From Emotions)

The "I" thought (who you think you are) is always running to or from an emotion...because the "I" thought takes one away from the Now moment.  The "I" thought is telling a story about something that has happened in the past and or will happen in the future.  But if you take a moment to look at this...how can one be out of the moment they are in?  It can't really happen...there is no future or past...there is only a story about a "future" or "past."

It seems simple huh and it really is that simple.  However, don't be fooled by the power of the mind...you are already thinking about this instead of just having the "ah ha" that it brings that to be in the Present moment...you cannot think about it...it is the thinking that takes the Awareness off the Present Moment.  

Begin listening when you hear the thought "I."  Just begin to admit that it may not be true.  That you don't need an "I" to exist.  You don't need a story to be who you are...you are always being who you are.  Emotions keep one running after thoughts.  Without a story about what the emotion is...there would only be raw emotion.  But if you start telling a story about emotion...like I feel sad because so so did something to me the other day and I don't like so and so...if you tell the story about sadness then you keep the emotion alive and going...but you could just as well not tell a story about it...feel the emotion and don't call it anything...just raw emotion "feel it" then it just comes like a wave ... rises up ... and fades away.  It is the same with good emotions...like love and happiness...you don't have to tell stories about them either.  Just be it.

You are beginning to see that your thoughts are not important.  They don't do or change anything...they are always in the past because you aren't in the Present Moment if you are thinking about it.  It will become more and more easy to just relax and not understand what all this means.  The less you think about it the more you are in It.

If you find a good story running a line on you...one that you keep wanting to watch...in the middle of it just say to yourself "think..ing"  Take a breath and no that whatever you are thinking about is insignificant...that you have never had an important thought in all your life and that actually you have no idea where thoughts even come from and utimately that you have no idea who you are.  You cannot stop thinking from happening but you can begin to see through thought.  So that your attention is on what doesn't move.  Then the thoughts are just clouds in the sky.  They just drift by.

"I" am not who "I" think I am...and neither are you.

If it can be thought...it is not who you Are.

Spiritual Vitamin for June 6th (You are not who you think you are)

DEATH (Melancholia)

This morning on my walk the body was very tired, this isn't a common occurrence any more, although it used to be.  So I only made it half way and turned around and came back home...at other times, I may have pushed myself to make it...suck it up and just get it done...but my walks have shifted quite a bit over the years and there really is no point in the walking...it is just walking...there is no where to get to and no reason for doing it (though I used to think there was) just simply walking .

When these things happen, becoming that tired...I am much more aware that things will eventually end.  I have, even as a young child, been acutely aware of death.  Sometimes I have been drawn to it as an escape and have had made attempts to "get out" of this world that way.  There have also been times that I have been extremely scared of death and the bodily pain that maybe associated with the experience.  One time I was pretty freaked out about it my Teacher said, "well, one thing you do know is that it will end."  That took some time to sink in...and now...there is a knowing that no matter how painful something is (not only painful but any emotion or state) eventually it will end and in that knowing...is a release of the fear and a recognition of this moment, one where there is not pain and no need to be afraid that pain may come at some other time.  A redirection of the attention, if you will, to what everything is showing up In.

Death and Fear are actually the same thought...because neither can really be experienced...you can be afraid of death...but you cannot experience it … so if you cannot experience Death than what is there to be afraid of....they are both ghosts.  If you are dead...who is experiencing it?  (Once again...one is pointed to the question of "Who am I?")  Who dies?  The body cannot experience death...it is either alive or dead.

Really the reason, at least for me, that death has been so scary, is because it reveals to the mind that it does not have control...you know you don't have control over death...even if you suicide...you know inside that you are only doing it because you are afraid of death...you are afraid that you are not in control of your life...which you are not.  However, you could just relax in that knowing instead of being afraid.  You haven't ever been in control, you just think you have and your thoughts actually come after action.  You may think that they come before you do something but you have been wrong...you may not like to hear that but it is so...the action happens and then thoughts appear and you think you did something.  You are watching a movie called "my life" but you are not the director or even the actor...you are just the watcher and as you slow down and allow this to be revealed to you...you smile a lot more.

So there has been a fascination with death for me....I have experienced many losses in life, physically lost people very close to me and have gone to some pretty deep depths of despair at times.  The undoing of what I believed has been quite emotionally painful at times although I wouldn't change a thing...not if I could.

So this morning I got home pretty exhausted and which made it perfect to take some time out and watch a movie that my Teacher recommended that he had recently watched called "Melancholia."  I snaggled into the couch with some blankets and turned on the Roku and got onto Netflix because it is an instant play film and made some tea and let the body rest as I watched the movie.  And it is very good...it is visually beautiful and Kirsten Dunst does a really good job...actually all the actors did a really good job. 

One of the things that came up for me was purpose...you know many people say that things happen for a reason and we all seem to be working to get better or improve life … but what if nothing means anything...that everything that you "think" you are working towards or for...is just for nothing...there is no meaning at all...you have just been (in one sense) killing time (which doesn't exist anyway).

Does it really make a difference what you are doing in this life?  I'm not saying this in a depressing sort of way...maybe in a way that you can look and just see … "what am I doing?"  I mean if you are just wasting time anyway...what are you wasting it on.  Possibly you can relax in yourSelf more and more as you see that this is all going to end and there is no rush to get anywhere.

Sometimes at first, you may become scared and go through the process that you are going to die (you as you think of yourself … are going to die) and then you will possibly begin to relax into the fact that everything does...we are just seemingly floating in space on a giant composter.  We are on the Cemetary Planet...everything here dies and is born...but who you are isn't born and doesn't die...who you Truly Are...the planet is in.  This is the beginning of seeing Heaven on Earth.  Heaven is looking out of you...and everything, however, one must begin to question who they are to begin to See.

Anything that pushes one closer to the Present moment, where nothing, no thing is happening...is a Gift.  And so Melancholia the movie...is that gift to me today...another reminder that this will all come to an end and a Pointer to what doesn't.

Rest in Peace.
  ~Joysters