IDENTITY

(Photo taken from Sikh website)

There is a saying by myTeacher that "Truth uses everything available to point towards itSelf."  This can be seen through music, through movies, through daily interactions one has with life...well through everything in the world if one is paying attention (and even if one is not...it still will show up at the most unexpected of times).

The other day at a cellular provider a woman was taking a chip out of a cellphone and as she did she said "this is your identity, it has everything about you on it, and she took it out and then she placed it in another cellphone.  As she did this there was a recognition of the obviousness that the identity can not be who one is.  If it was then you couldn't just move it from one thing to another and if she lost the chip or broke it during the move from one phone to another, what was lost?  Just an accumulation of opinions, memories, photos, and videos?  

The brain is the SIM card, it does the same thing that the SIM in a cellphone does, only on a larger scale.  So you cannot be the information that is stored, you are not the brain.  Maybe one day they will be switching or designing bodies around the brain, then it will be more obvious that one is also not the body.  But if you are not the information/identity stored, if you are not the brain, if you are not the body...then "Who Are You?"  Go ahead ask "Who Am I?"  If I am not the identity, who I am Really?

This is where one can only point and always point if one is true to the Self.  You are what the identity appears In, but you have misidentified yourself as the identity, the accumulation of thoughts and beliefs.  Obviously there is nothing to get worked up about, since you have always been who you are...you just thought you were something other than who you are.  Now you can begin to relax into not knowing who you are, so it can be Revealed.

It may sound like one is saying the same thing over and over again, in different ways, any way that it shows up to put little cracks in "knowing."  That is because one is.  Do not be fooled by the power and strength of the mind/brain to continue to keep your true Self hidden.  Like a computer, it's job is to make you forget that everything that appears before you on the screen is an accumulation of 1s and 0s...the same is with the mind/brain...there is only 1 mind/brain and there is less than 0 that you are IN.

Repetition is the Gift.  

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THE NOW MOMENT

The Now Moment is such a simple truthful phrase and often completely missed out on.  How often are you completely aware of the Moment you are In?  Take a look, what is actually going on around you?  Do you find that the thoughts that appear are telling you all the things you have to get done, that you are not doing?  Can you be some other place than where you are?  Let's look honestly.  Are you focused on what is going on around you, in front of you or is the attention on the thoughts about the past or the future?  You can only have thoughts about the past or the future because thoughts are not in the Present Moment.  Even a thought about the Present Moment, is in the past (can you see that?).  

The Present Moment cannot be thought.  To think it...is to not be Aware of it.  To become Aware of it, begin to pay attention to what you are actually doing, not what you think you should be doing.  If you should be doing it, you would be, so don't worry about what you should be doing and pay attention to what you are.

You are in the perfect Moment, Present Moment you can be in (that is why it is the Present/Gift).  If you weren't supposed to be in the moment that you find yourself in, you would be somewhere else (your life is not of your doing...but you cannot see this until you begin to pay attention).  It is not about stopping thoughts, they will still be there, it's refocusing the attention on what is happening, not what is thought about what is happening and not what is thought about what could or could not happen.  This is not something to "think" about (even though you probably will). This is something to be Aware of.  Be Aware of the Life you are In.

TRANSIENT

(Photo "Expectation" by Jurgen Dabeedin)

The world you see is transient.  Everything in it is in the process of being born and dying.  Don't just accept these words.  Look.  Isn't that the way in the world? 

In this recognition, one is wise to begin to investigate what is not born, what does not die.  How...one might ask ... does one look for something that is not in the world (if it were it would be subject to birth and death), but which animates all things? 

(Disclaimer he he he...words can only point...one can use things in the world to point towards what is not in the world, but understand or know, that you cannot describe something that isn't in the world you can only use what is in the world to point to what cannot be described.  However you can Know it and that will come as you begin to know that you cannot understand. :o)  So "air" is just being used as a concept to point to what is not "air" or anything that has an attribute that can be described with words.  Thank you for your time.  ~The editor.)

First, one does not look...you can't look for air right ... yet you know it is there.  It is the same with what you and the world are IN.  So to begin just know or accept, just like you have with air, that it is true that what animates you cannot be born and cannot die (but that it is not an individual).  You can't have individual air and yet air sustains everyone.  Air doesn't ask you to be a certain way for you to breath. :o)  So there is nothing to do to begin to know who you are, but relax and begin to accept that you don't know, but are willing to begin to know.

Then you start to dig through all the things that you are not.  This step is simple, yet often overlooked in one's frustration to understand.  One must have patience and perserverance to begin to discover who they are.  It took this many years to make a "you" that "you" aren't.  It may take a bit of time to see that this "you" isn't (but it doesn't have to because it is not dependent on time...it is who you Are right now, you just think it isn't, lucky for you that just because you think something doesn't make it so).

What you begin and end with is a question, that question is:

"Who am I?"

If the answer that comes, can change, can be altered or moved, it is not who you are (that is the tool to begin to know what and who you are not).  This is the beginning of the end of who you "think" you are.  And the beginning recognition of who "You" actually Are.

Namaste.

EVERYTHING SERVES

Everything Serves, because Life is in Service to itSelf.  Life is like a giant ball being pulled in towards the Center.  The Center, is Home and Service is the call to Home.  It is like a transmitter that goes out and all things, including you are in Service to that Return to Self.

Service does not look like anything, because Service is all things.  Most consider service to be doing something one would call "good" for another.  But if one is willing to look honestly at this, there has to be someone that is not doing "good" for the other to do "good" for it (this is something to look at closely).

As one begins to allow for the possibility that they do not know what anything is for, then they can be kinder to their self in what they feel they should be accomplishing and what is actually being accomplished.  You will come to find that everything you do, including making others happy or sad or angry or blissful is all in Service.

There is a story about a man on the subway with his children and they are acting completely unruly and being noisy and running around when they should be sitting.  The woman next to them is getting terribly annoyed and thinking "why won't this man do something about his awful children."  She burns with this for awhile before finally she just blurts out "Mister what is wrong with you, control your children!"  He lifts his head and looks at her with tears in his eyes and says "So very sorry ma'am, we just came from the hospital...where their Mother just died.  Children come here and behave." 

This simple story has changed so much in how things are seen from these eyes, that no matter what is thought, one doesn't know what anything is for or why things are happening.  But this story has Served on many occasions.  And maybe it will Serve you who is reading this now, not to so quickly judge a book by its cover and to have some willingness that no matter what you think about a situation, you maybe wrong, to have a bit of compassion for others that may not be able to handle things as well as you do, and compassion for yourself when you can't handle things as well as others.

Eventually we all return to the Self that is Calling us Home and it is always the call to Love, no matter what it looks like in the world.

"I" Will Survive...Not.

Most people believe that they will survive death, not all, but most.  This is because they have identified who they are with the body and ultimately with the thought "I" or the personality, which was only created during the time you have been in the world accumulating the knowledge of who and what you are, by your tastes and traits and upbringing.

This short little video says it all.  This is the "I" thought shouting out at the world that it will survive, hence the creation of a "heaven" where all the personalities that can't seem to get along in the world will some how miraculously get along in some other place after the body dies.  But this is a lie that only those that would like to think that they don't have to die, believe in.

There actually is a Heaven, but you don't get to go there, you are already in IT.  But that is a big leap.  

In this world, what is born in this world, does not leave this world and that includes the body and the personality or "I" thought.

So sing and dance and play and laugh until that ball comes falling from the sky which will discontinue the "you" in this world.  You can also begin to take the time to focus the attention on what wasn't born into this world, and doesn't die when the world ends, because the world is in IT, just like "you."

ALL THINGS THAT MOVE (Must Die)

All things that move must die.  This is a thought that appeared this morning during Meditation.  It is a continuation from a walk from yesterday, where Marma (the Chicken) pulled a mushroom out of the ground...took a few bites and then left it.  I went over picked up the broken piece and placed it in my mouth.  As mushrooms are mostly water (like the body) it began to melt and become a flavorful water that then was swallowed.  There was a moment of Awareness of "one Body."  One Body of water that "we" are all In.

So back to all things that move must die.  During Meditation the thought appeared that anything that moves must die.  Take a look for yourself, look at all the things that must die for your day to exist.  Plants and animals must die to give you energy to move about your day.  Just waking up and rubbing your eyes kills thousands of little tiny lifeforms that have been existing on your lashes.  When you go in the shower or bath you drown thousands of others.  Each step your foot makes, if you are not paying attention, crushes and kills grass, plants, flowers, bugs, and millions of things that they eye cannot see.  Cows and goats and anything else that produces a form of milk, spend their lives serving your need to move and expend energy.  Trees are cut down to keep you warm, build your furniture, your home, your pencils and millions of other things that movement requires the trees to die for.  The Earth is stripped of its fish, its soil, it's clean air and it's greenery, so that we can eat, and drive to places to eat what we have taken, which means roads must remove the grass and trees that keep the clean air. This can go on and on...you can take a look at what the energy and movement of your body requires from this life to make that happen.  

But back to "all things that move must die."  All movement is away from who you truly Are...which cannot die.  So if you move, you move in the direction of death.  This does not mean that if you do not move that the body won't die, for the body itself is in perpetual motion and must die or dissolve back into what it came from.  

However, one might be wise to look where they are rushing to get to.  As one slows down, there is more of an opportunity to see where one is going.  As one slows down, less things die, less quickly.  As one slows down, there is less need for energy, which means less food is needed, which means less plants and animals die.  And where was one in a hurry to get to, wouldn't it be their own death?  

The less time you are in a car, the longer your chances are to live, right?  Aren't car crashes one of the number one causes of death?  And if you are driving less, you are doing less damage to the Earth so not only do you live longer but the Earth does too and all the things that one kills with one's car as they barrel down the road to the end, get to hang around a bit longer too.  

This isn't being said to make guilt, it is about Awareness (and possibly some gratitude for all that gives its life for you to live yours).  Begin to Be Aware of where you are headed and take the time to see how much life gives to you so that you have the life you are in.

All things that move will die and will be replaced by something, something will be born in its place, but what is the hurry for the end of what is and the beginning of the new.  If you have ever lost someone you love, you know that it cannot be replaced (this goes for all living things), the exact same does not come.  Everything that gives it's life is unique and precious and will not come again in that same form.  So be Aware of the forms around you...all the forms, not just bodies but everything that you are in, eventually it will not be there, but it is there for you right now.  

Maybe through this Awareness you begin to walk a step slower, drive 5MPH less, eat one less bite, drink one glass less, don't move every time the thoughts say you should, buy one less item, look at what you are eating see if it is really what makes for a body you would want to be in, maybe you smile more and frown less knowing that this all will fade, but that you are lucky enough for the moment to be in it.  As one slows down, less is needed and more is received.  Wait and See. :o)

Death is motion, motion is life...you will begin to know what both appear In as you slow down to take notice, and in that, you may find what is not born and can never die, but what both birth and death appear In.  

Your ownSelf.

WHAT IF NO ONE'S WATCHING

You may hear from time to time to "keep an open mind."  Sounds simple right, but what is an open mind...from here it looks like a mind that can allow all possibilities.  Of course this is easy to say but to do...one actually has to be willing not to do.  Because "doing" is of the mind and if the mind is "doing" then it is not open.

So what does all that mean...well let's see what the mind is holding on to and then let's see if it can open.  Can you allow the possibility that no one is watching your life.  That you will have an entire life...only seen by you (shared with apparent others, yes, but only seen by you) and that at the end of the road, when the body dies, all of it goes with you, because it was, in a sense, only a computer recording the ins and outs of life and then wipes out at the end just like what you do to your old computer when you are ready for a new one.  You wipe out all the information so that no one has it and you get a new one and start over again.

It is not being said that this is how it is...only can one allow the possibility that it could be?  That there is no one to pray to, no one to save you, no one to save, only a computer, walking the planet, recording the information of life and then commenting on it, putting it all into neat or not so neat little files that it recalls at later times to share with others that come along and then eventually is put to rest.

See that is a blue sky from here.  No holding on to anything, record yes, hold on to no, unless one wants to.  The blue sky is that you are not the computer, you are what the computer is in.  

Ani DiFranco who wrote the song that is the title of this post "What if no one's watching" says in the song "What if God is just an idea someone put in your head."  Isn't that a pretty interesting thought?  Thoughts are interesting and especially if we follow them to their Source.  Ever follow a thought back to where it came from?

So if somehow this thing you are riding around in that one calls a "body" is like a computer, couldn't a program be placed in it that said "God" and then a button is clicked that says "Find" and one types "God" and the search begins to find "God" but what if you are in "God" how would you find what you are in?  And how would you understand what you are in?  Can you see the good humor in this.

So then we create others that can help us find "God."  Like if we just do everything that Jesus said or the Bible said or Buddha said or Mohammed Said or Rumi Said or whoever the latest Guru says...then we will find God...but we over look the message in the search to find.  Ultimately the message is "You Are That which you are seeking to find."  But the little computer thinks that it is the computer that they are and not the THAT which cannot be described with words but only pointed to...again follow a thought to it's Source and then tell one if there is something to be sought.

So Blue Skies...an open mind.  An open mind accepts that they may be wrong but is willing to hear all the possibilities and shines.  For the open mind it is not a matter of who is right or who is wrong, but rather, what right and wrong appear IN.