THOUGHTS...

Thoughts can get taken so seriously. Sometimes thoughts become too important and what has been revealed is to just let it all drop.  Everything you think…just give it all up.  None of it is going to matter when you die ... so just die to it now.  Then you are empty again (as you always truly are), clear, empty, pure, pristine; Stillness.  

It has been mentioned (by Wayne) about looking at thoughts and beliefs like the flavors "chocolate" or "vanilla."  You pick one and let's say you really like "chocolate" and you go around telling everyone how good chocolate is and why they should like chocolate, you give taste tests.   Some people who originally liked vanilla, might now like chocolate, because you introduced it to them and they weren't aware of it, and came to find they like it more.  Then after all this work, you may find years later that you don't like chocolate anymore, ate too much of it and now are an avid vanilla eater and you once again go around telling people how great vanilla is and that now chocolate is not good for you cause you read a book on chocolate that says it is no longer good for you and you begin converting people to vanilla.

This is how it is with thoughts and beliefs.  They change over time, you pick one today and tomorrow you will find something that says something in a different direction and you start following that.  However, in the end it will not matter what flavor you preferred of anything.  When you die, you have to (figure of speech) leave your preferences at the door.  When you die, all your beliefs, ideas, thoughts die.  You return to what you already are right now, before the beliefs and thoughts.  Funny, that the beliefs and thoughts that one thinks will reveal to them who they are, where they are going, and what they are in; are the exact things that keep the Revelation from your awareness. 

At the end of your life all beliefs are stripped from you, however, you have the ability right now to just drop everything you believe, everything you are fighting for, all the things that you attempt to convert others to see your way; and just simply Be.

Nothing to teach, nothing to learn, just simply Being.

GOD AND AIR...

In Meditation, there became the obviousness of complete dependency on That and then it was revealed that the dependency is like being dependent on air.  You need air to breath, yet you do not need to think about it to know that you are dependent on it and that it is there even though you cannot see it.  That is how all are dependent on That.  It has everyone whether they are aware of it or not.  Usually one is not aware of air yet would be if there wasn't any.  So it was shared to continue to hold on … in a sense to that, as if you are holding on to Air.  You cannot touch it, or grasp it, or do anything to make it come to you or go away from you, but you can rest in that it is there, it is giving you life, and animates you with every breath.

Also similar with Air and God, you can’t put a number on it, or a description … like people will say there is only One and yet you don’t think that about that with Air … one just says Air.  That is how it is with God … it is Supreme Universal Intelligence and yet cannot be explained with the mind … can you really explain Air? 

Everyone is cared for by it (and it is not an it), you don’t earn it, you don't lose it, you can't do anything to stop it, you don’t get to use it; because it is using you :o)  That is why it is said that there is only One (less than One).  The “less than” keeps you from being misled into believing you can know what God is and yet you can Know God/That.  It is a catch 22 and a beautiful mystery that continuously reveals itSelf.  If one takes the time to pay attention to the Air you breath, then it may lead you to become more Aware of That, which you are in.

So that was a very, very welcoming Meditation.

DYING WHILE BEING BORN...

(click here or on photo for Break on Through)

Sometimes the personality has a very quick death, like with Ramana Maharishi, his personal identity died and he Birthed into Awakening at a very young age.  Or sometimes and for many (see A Personal Odyssey Wayne Austin) the process is gradual and there is a life with much trials and tribulations.  What once was a Curse, at another time will be seen as a Gift.  Yearning, anger, depression, frustrations are all calls from yourSelf to know yourSelf.  When things are good, often the call isn’t Heard, but when things are considered not good, then one begins to listen, and once one begins to listen, what was at one time considered  “not good” becomes the “Great Gift.”

As the personality dies and the Truth of Who You Are is being Born, the one thing that lightens the load in Life and Death, is that you begin to realize that you don’t care.  All remnants of personal “will” (which wasn’t anyway) are dissolved as the Truth grows that you didn’t have a personal “will” anyway.  How will you know when this begins to happen, you SMILE more and frown less.  The attention has now been shifted to what doesn’t move, what doesn’t change, what is constant before time, during time and after time.  This does not mean that life will become easier, though it might, it may become harder, you just won’t care (SMILE).  And that doesn’t mean that the body will not still react, it will do what it does, yet you, the one that you “thought” you are … won’t care.  It is a simple shift from thinking one is the “doer” to Realizing one is the Witness.

So if you are lucky, like this one, there was not ever too much love of the personality, which eventually came as quite a surprising Gift, for had the personality been loved and admired (which it can be once it is seen for what it is), it may not have been moved past through.  And yet it has still been a very gradual process.  Depression, anxiety, mood swings, instability, yearning and longing, all came as a tremendous Gift (though that does not mean it was easy).  All of it was/is used to push one back into itSelf. 

Once your attention is on That (That which you are IN), life still happens, all the same things that have always happened to you, may still occur, but now you face these situations, from where you have always been, you are already dead, you know where everyone is going, because everyone is already there, whether they know it or not.  All the things that you once thought were obstacles are now seen as the pointers to the Truth of You.  You see through Child’s Eyes and it is all a mystery, the attention gets placed on That, you are no longer seeking safety in the world, because your safety is no longer in the world, it is in/on THAT which the world appears in.  So…

You may find yourSelf in a great mansion or homeless on the street.

You may find yourSelf rich or penniless, with not very much to eat.

You may find family and friends all around you, or that you don’t have a single one.

You may find that you accomplish so much or that you get nothing done.

You may find that you are genius or that you cannot do simple math.

You may find yourSelf in a great depression or on a chosen path.

You may find success or failure;

You may find marriage or divorce.

You may find yourSelf driving fast cars or riding on a horse.

You may find the birth of a child or the death of one you hold dear.

You may find yourSelf while laughing or while shedding pain-filled tears.

You may find yourSelf in struggle, you may find yourSelf in war, you may find yourSelf travelling upon a distant shore.

You may find yourSelf a homemaker; you may find yourSelf behind a desk.

You may find yourSelf in the city, or the country, or forest.

But you will no longer care where you are, where you are going or what you will be, because you have found yourSelf and in THAT you are forever Free.

WHO AM I, REALLY?

This question is really the topic of my Thesis Essay and I have been sitting with this question since it first appeared probably at a very young age but not in that form.  The question didn't actually appear in form until age 22 when I had left my husband at the time and was living in the apartment over his moms and I was sitting on the floor and realizing…if I am not someone’s wife, then who am I?  And then I started writing it down and could not understand, who I was.  If you took everything away that everyone and I had been saying that I am…who am I?  Who is the “I” that keeps appearing and making “me” miserable.  

Then it was said/heard that “I” am not needed…well where will “I” go.  Then a mass panic for so long of attempting to get rid of the “I” and then finally finding out that you can’t get rid of something that doesn’t exists.

That took 40 years (minus 2 for we don't have an "I" thought when we are born and until responding to it) and even still when the “I” thoughts come they can seem to have so much power, but then something Greater says “where is your attention?”  And the light bulb goes on that the attention had once again been placed on the “I” thought and not what the “I” thought appears in.

How subtle the shift and how Great the reward.  So simple and not dramatic … though all these dramatic events led to the simplicity of this.  Asking “who am I?” consistently for 20 years, not in a pattern but in a silent questioning…when there was horror or fear, when there was great love when there was passion … during all these things the question would appear…but “who are you?” and so all the attachments were slowly taken away.  All the wantings were not important like they once were.  Everything was lost.  But not the question.  One can lose everything in this world but they cannot lose the Self.  They can even lose theirself (small “s”) but they cannot lose the SELF.  You will not ever be alone because you are the Aloneness.  Looking out of the eyes is the most gentle, kindest, compassionateness.  It has no desire to make anything different.  It just SEEs and is Aware of itself…in all it’s many forms.