Charisma Does Not Equal Enlightenment

Selling Water by the River

In speaking regularly with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how addicted so many of them are to the power of charisma. They swap stories about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare experiences. They get a charge from it, many mistaking charisma for enlightenment. Charisma attracts at all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and it feeds the ego's desire to feel special. The ego loves getting hits of power—it's like a form of spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it? Does it make you free?

Freedom is not necessarily exciting; it's just free. Very peaceful and quiet, so very quiet. Of course, it is also filled with joy and wonder, but it is not what you imagine. It is much, much less. Many mistake the intoxicating power of otherworldly charisma for enlightenment. More often than not it is simply otherworldly, and not necessarily free or enlightened. In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest integrity.

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Enlightenment has nothing to do with states of consciousness. Whether you are in ego consciousness or unity consciousness is not really the point. I have met many people who have easy access to advanced states of consciousness. Though for some people this may come very easily, I also notice that many of these people are no freer than anyone else. If you don't believe that the ego can exist in very advanced states of consciousness, think again. The point isn't the state of consciousness, even very advanced ones, but an awake mystery that is the source of all states of consciousness. It is even the source of presence and beingness. It is beyond all perception and all experience. I call it "awakeness." To find out that you are empty of emptiness is to die into an aware mystery, which is the source of all existence. It just so happens that that mystery is in love with all of its manifestation and non-manifestation. You find your Self by stepping back out of yourself.

~ Adyashanti

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Today I Awoke

Today I awoke, finally I see the Self has re-turned to the Self.
The Self is none other than the Self.
I am deathless. I am endless. I am free.
The birds outside sing…
The birds outside sing and there am I.
The seeing of leaves on the trees, that seeing am I.
The body breathes, breathing am I.
I am awake and I know that I am awake.
Seen from the old eyes, everything is asleep, a game, a delusion.
But now I am awake. I am the play. I am the game. I am the
delusion.
I am the enlightenment I sought, looking everywhere.
Nothing is separate, nothing is alone.
I am all that I see. All that I smell, taste, touch, feel, think
and know.
I am awake and this awakeness is the same as Shyakyamuni Buddha’s.
Today the leaf has returned to the root.
I am all name and form and beyond all name and form.
I am Spirit, no longer trapped in a body.
I am free. I am free because I am awake.
So ordinary. Who would have thought ? Who could have guessed?
I am home. I am really home. Ten thousand life times.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
This is not an experience. This is me.
I am awake. Finally, I am awake.
Nothing has changed, but I am awake.
Before I tasted the root many times and felt, how delicious.
Today I became the root. How ordinary.

~ Adyashanti: My Secret is Silence: Poetry and Sayings of Adyashanti

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Rest and Be Taken

When there is deep abundance
there is nowhere to abide.
There is nowhere to rest
or grasp onto
and yet there is rest

The sky abides
yet it never rests.
Neither can we say that
the sky is not always at rest.
We talk about the sky
as if it were something
as if it actually exists -
and yet we cannot say that
the sky does not exist.
The sky is nothing but
coming and going.

Everything is perfectly spontaneous.
The coming and going arise mutually
instantaneously.
If the true I is asleep
you will miss the point entirely
and you will continue to dwell
in the world of opposites.

So see the two as one
and the one as empty
and be liberated
within the world of duality.

At first it seems
as if begoing follows becoming.
But look even closer
and you will see
that there are only
flashes of lightning
illuminating the empty sky.

Life and death
becoming and begoing
are only words.
In order to save your life
you must see that you die
instantaneously
moment to moment
instant to instant.

Now where are you going to abide?
And where are you not abiding already?

Indeed there is nowhere
to rest your head
and there is nothing but rest.
So let go of all ideas
about permanence and impermanence
about cause and effect
and about no cause and no effect.
All such notions are dualistic concepts.

The Truth of what you are
is completely beyond all duality
and all notions of non-duality,
and yet it includes duality
and non-duality alike.
Like an ocean
that is both waves and stillness
and yet un-definable
as waves or stillness.

The truth of being
cannot be grasped by ideas
or experiences.
Both waves and stillness
are the manifest activity
or your own self.
But self cannot be defined
by its activity
nor by its non-activity.
The truth is
all-transcendent
ungraspable, all-inclusive
and closer than your own skin.

A single thought about it
obscures its essence.
The perfume of true life
is right in your nose.
There is nothing you can do
to perceive it
and yet you must do something.
I say:
Rest and be taken.
Rest and be taken.

~ Adyashanti: My Secret is Silence: Poetry and Sayings of Adyashanti

To read more poems:
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/A/Adyashanti /index.htm#PoemList

http://www.adyashanti.org

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE - June 21, 2011

Here are some astrological observations from Barbara Hand Clow.....Enjoy!

"The Summer Solstice has arrived north of the Equator where it is time to breathe, relax, be sensual, and to become fully embodied. South of the Equator, it is the Winter Solstice where it is time to assess what you've created during the year, especially to consider your Spring Equinox intentions made during September 2010. [This site is written for readers who live north of the Equator, so those down south will need to switch your comprehension of the influences of the solstices accordingly.]

For those of us living in the north, our spring coincided with the opening stages of the Universal Underworld on March 9 (hereinafter the Universal). Experiencing the Days and Nights of the Universal during only 18 days is causing great changes in our personal and collective lives. Thus, letting go and relaxing will be difficult this summer. For most people, it's been hard not to be totally distracted with so much going on, so it could be easy to miss this summer's potential to flesh out and deepen what we've been creating since March. Yet, remember, you create your own reality, and the events in the outer world are deeply connected and inspired by what's in your minds. Please take a look at your Spring Equinox intentions to assess how you are doing now, and also take note of the things that are popping into your life that you didn't even plan on. During such intense time acceleration, chaos is breaking out everywhere, since chaos is always part of new creation: The reorganization of the fractal fields creates exceedingly unexpected new things in your life.

We are in the middle of three eclipses from June 1 through July 1, 2011. The June 1 eclipse occurred during the Day Three sprouting phase of the Universal. In the reading for the June 1 Gemini New Moon-which was an eclipse during Day Three-I summarized the progress of three key events that were seeded during Day One of the Universal. I will not be constantly repeating this material as I follow it through to October 28, 2011, so you should print out or save a copy of the reading for the June 1 Moon in Gemini to make it easier to follow the unfolding events.

Events since the Gemini New Moon have continued to verify the critical nature of these three themes: a crisis over the use of nuclear power, chaos in the Middle East, and global financial instability. During this Day Three sprouting phase, three Fukushima reactors are in meltdown, Syria is afflicted with a civil war, and the Americans are opening a fourth war front in Yemen. Regarding the financial crisis, on June 1 (the first eclipse), the European Union Times published an astonishing story about the real reason the president of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested by the Federal Security Bureau in New York on May 14 for supposedly having attacked a hotel maid. Apparently, Strauss-Kahn discovered that Fort Knox has been emptied of all its gold bars, which are the basis of US drawing rights in international banks, and he was trying to fly back immediately to Europe to meet with the German President, Angela Merkel! The real story about what he was doing from the European Union Times is posted on http://2012patriot.wordpress.com

My reading for the March equinox suggested that the Universal would unfold amid an explosion of chaos: The equinox Sun in 0 Aries moved right to Uranus in 1 Aries soon after the equinox. Many planets were in Aries throughout the spring, so this hot astrological influence was right in tandem with the Mayan Calendar as usual. Many of you are feeling quite disturbed and distressed right now, and during such great change, I find that deep reflection on personal growth in light of events in the collective world is essential. As humans, we keep our sanity by maintaining some kind of logical explanation for what's going on in our world, and Carl Calleman's thesis on the Mayan Calendar certainly helps. [I, for one, cannot imagine comprehending our times right now without Calleman's idea! I'm going to continue this site through the Winter Solstice 2012 mostly to reflect upon the nature of the new world that will be emerging after the end of the tun-based Calendar, October 28, 2011.] Right now, we are in the end of Night Three (Day Four opens June 25), and we are beginning to see the real implications of the Day Three sprouting: The Middle East is being totally reshaped by revolution; many countries, besides Japan, are seeking ways to shut down their nuclear reactors; and the world's financial systems are tottering. Arresting one key player after another for sexual peccadilloes will not hide the truth.

Meanwhile, the only thing that matters is how you live your life. Who do you love now? Are you faithful and devoted to each person you are connected to? Are you ready, at a moment's notice, to go right to those who need assistance from you? Do you trust the grand plan that is unfolding no matter what will happen in your personal life? During times like 2011, heroes are made. Or, are you sitting around groaning and waiting for the end of the world while you are doing nothing in your own life? I suppose if I could make a film that would characterize the current scene, it would be titled Waiting for Nibiru. Ironically, in the middle of silly apocalyptical fear, a popular film is popping up titled Tree of Life, and my dear friend Brian Swimme has announced his monumental film, The Universe Story, which premieres in September 2011! Surely we are living in a time of miracles! We are all invited to observe in wonder, breathe deeply, and enjoy the show!

This Summer Solstice chart is very musical, like an early medieval madrigal; when the theme of one planet is played, all the other planets sing along. This is because many planets are in a 0 to 10 degree range causing many more multiple aspects than usual. The Sun in 0 Cancer, for example, is exactly 30 degrees from Mars, while sextiling Jupiter; squaring Uranus; trining Neptune, Chiron, and Moon; and opposing Pluto! Quite a potent entry into summer, wouldn't you agree? The other notable character in this chart is its director-Saturn; he stands alone by the rising of the Washington, DC chart, while the other bodies are in a wide "bucket" with Saturn as the handle. Saturn directs the field of an impressive Grand Square involving Mercury/Sun in Cancer, Uranus in Aries, and Pluto in Capricorn. Saturn went direct on June 12 and is now moving forward to cross the 1776 USA Saturn on August 28 (see the USA chart at the end of this reading).

In late August, the world will be deeply immersed in the Night Five, the destruction phase of the universal. I have to wonder who set up this game? Often I wonder if the US could have avoided being central player in the National and Planetary Underworld game called Empire? But, it's not really about the US during the summer season-it's about a global emotional-body cleansing with Saturn in 10 Libra exactly quincunx the Moon in 10 Pisces. The Moon passes over Neptune/Chiron just before the Solstice, which means that we all will be experiencing acute emotional healing crises while the structures of the last 5,125 years crash and burn. Since Saturn is in Libra, this is the grand balancing, the grand culling. What could this be? For me, if we are in our hearts and coming from our hearts, we will exist in universal peace and joy. Those who are hard-hearted will be part of the culling. We are moving out of Homo Agressus into Homo Pacem; you are either a warrior or a peacemaker. It is each person's choice, it always was, yet now the field is shifting to peace and harmony.

We begin with the Sun moving into Cancer as a focus. Engaged in multiple aspects, its agenda is to seek comfort, joy, security, and nurturance. Mercury is 10 degrees just past the Sun, and so the Sun in Cancer comprehends itself and knows it wants total and enveloping nurturance. The Sun feels its power because it resonates freely with Mars in 0 Gemini, and the Sun is expanded and stabilized by a sextile from Jupiter in 3 Taurus (exact on June 25). Jupiter in Taurus is grounded and wise, so this sextile to the Sun (with Mars activating their midpoint) is like the song, "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin. Yet, as the Sun in Cancer sextiling Jupiter in Taurus lilts along, the Sun is kicked in the butt by a square from Uranus in 4 Aries (exact on June 26). Since the Sun in Cancer opposes Pluto in 6 Capricorn (exact on June 27), Uranus sits at the top of a T-square to Sun opposite Pluto. This tense T-square occurs while Uranus-square-Pluto is in close orb, so this summer will express the early stages of seven Uranus squares to Pluto that will come in 2012 and last until 2015. Described simply, this T-square suggests that this summer is when everyone on the planet will realize that the classic old ways are not coming back. Then Saturn in Libra opposing Uranus in Aries makes this T-square into a cardinal Grand Square, which anchors the shift into new realities. The exact aspects to the Sun and other planets go off like time-released capsules through June 27, so the new themes will be complex as well as very apparent-since Mercury is a strong player in the Grand Square.

As our species evolves with new cultural ways, old security blankets have to go. The most amazing thing about this Solstice chart is that it even indicates what the new patterns may be. The Sun in 0 Cancer exactly trines Neptune retrograde in 1 Pisces, which is close to Chiron in 5 Pisces; and the Moon in 10 Pisces has just passed over Neptune and Chiron. This is an exquisitely subtle planetary and lunar dance, like a sweet little Irish jig that dangles our future right in front of our noses. This Cancer/Pisces trine says it's time to heal (Chiron) our separation from spirit (Neptune), and the way to do it is to open our hearts (Sun/Mercury trine Moon). The most profound Cherokee teaching is in the stories about the "Two-Hearted's." From these stories, I learned that my people (Cherokee and Celtic) have endured because we live in our hearts no matter what the two-hearted ones-the conquerors-did to our people. We have endured; they never penetrated and split our hearts. And now, during this beautiful summer season, the end of dominant cruelty is coming for all of us...."

Click HERE for more....

As It Should Be

One of the ways we can know what is happening in these times is not to read channeled messages or news reports, but to extrapolate from our own experience. We are here as lightworkers and starseeds and what is happening within us, in terms of our energies and outlooks, surely reflects the intentions of those who are managing events.

There is one drawback and that’s that we only know what is happening within ourself alone, not what is happening within others, which is why we share in discussion groups. Our sharing makes our experience known to others and they make their experience known to us.

And doing this job, I receive your emails in which you say that what I wrote about is also happening for you. These too help construct a picture of what we’re all going through.

In the last three messages from the Boss, he’s said that he (or perhaps my guides, or even both) is gradually raising the kundalini and I feel the impact. So may you, since your guides are probably doing the same with you. Since I’ve begun watching in April, there has arisen an increased sense of joy, wellbeing and satisfaction. At the same time, there has also arisen a decreased sense of personality or personal-ness.

What does that mean? It means that, at exactly the time when I feel “better,” I feel fewer issues, desires, or preferences. “I” am disappearing. In fact “I want” is disappearing and surely that is the main obstacle to evolution or enlightenment, is it not?

It is “I want,” or what the Buddha called the cycle of desire, that has us remain on one plane rather than advancing to another, is that not so? Endless, endless desire, one desire satisfied succeeded by another, making us what Buddhists called “hungry ghosts.”

I’m becoming more fit to serve because “I” am getting out of my own way. And the same may apply to you.

But there isn’t a straight-line path up a divine incline. There is doubling back and standing still and walking from side-to-side. Habits assert themselves and confuse. I’m used to watching the odd TV program and I still turn on the TV. But I watch less and turn the TV off sooner. I imagine soon I’ll only watch it to catch up on the “news,” if what the mainstream media presents can be considered news.

I also feel drawn to meditate more and I do. But often it is not meditation as we’re used to thinking of it. I meditate actively sometimes, instead of passively. I’m meditating now as I work. The telling of the truth about myself is no hindrance to meditation. A statement of truth is no diversion, but a fulfilling of the inner impulse to be still.

Truth is still, is it not? It is known in stillness, as many sages tell us. King David is one:

“Commune with your heart upon your bed, and be still.” (1)

“Be still and know that I am God.” (2)

Or Lao-Tzu. Here he captures exactly how it’s becoming for me:

“Be still while you work
And keep full control
Over all.” (3)

“Touch ultimate emptiness,
Hold steady and still.” (4)

The same way of speaking can be found in modern-day sages like Adyashanti: “An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.” (5)

What Adya called an “attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation” is exactly the frame of mind that I’m gradually finding myself in or moving towards. It isn’t true that I’m not following any discipline, because karma yoga or selfless service is a discipline. So I cannot say that all is simply the product of the rising energies.

I’m a seeker of truth (jnana yogin) who follows the discipline of selfless service (karma yoga). All paths, sincerely followed, lead to God. There is not one that is better or more fit than another.

I could fight the rising energies and not pursue a spiritual discipline. If I did, I assume that life would be getting progressively more difficult for me rather than easier round about now. To know about that we’d have to hear the shares of those who are in fact fighting the unfoldment that’s occurring and we probably won’t hear from them, at least not now.

But I’m not fighting them. I know what’s happening energetically behind the scenes, as do you, and I’m allowing it to work its effect on me, as are you.

So, in every way, we’re riding an escalator, a divine moving staircase to Heaven, to an expanded state, a higher vibration, a more umbrageous existence. It’s just that it’s happening slowly and without watching it and noticing the gradual expansion, we might not be aware of it. Or without discussing it with each other in discussion groups, or reading channeled messages whose mission is to alert us and reassure us about what is occurring, we might not be aware of the gradual rise.

Knowing this, I’m not alarmed to watch the falling away of desires and preferences. As I become stiller, I’m not fighting it or acting against it. No matter where it leads, I’m convinced that the outcome will be one I’ll be happy with. As I become stiller and stiller, I simply adjust accordingly. I let the things I used to do fall by the wayside in full trust that what is happening, since I asked for it in the first place, is as it should be.

Footnotes

(1) Psalm 3:4.

(2) Psalm 46:10.

(3) Lao-Tzu, The Way of Life. The Tao Te Ching. trans. R.B. Blakney. New York, etc.: Avon, 1975, 55.

(4) Lao-Tzu, WOL, 68.

(5) Adyashanti, “True Meditation,” 1999, downloaded from www.adyashanti.org, 2004.

~ Steve Beckow - http://stevebeckow.com/2011/06/as-it-should-be/

The Most Important Thing

Words exist for meaning,
but once you understand the meaning,
you can throw away the words.

~ Chuang Tzu

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"A strange passion is moving in my head, My heart has become a bird which searches in the sky. Every part of me goes in different directions. Is it really so that the one I love is Everywhere?"

~ Jalal-Uddin Rumi

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"The most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing."

~ Shunryu Suzuki.

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"Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start. Inquiring about a difference is like asking to borrow string when you've got a good strong rope. Every Dharma is known in the heart."

~ Hsu Yun

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"When we practice zazen [meditation] , all that exists is the movement of the breathing, but we are aware of this movement. You should not be absent-minded. But to be aware of the movement does not mean to be aware of your small self, but rather of your universal nature, or Buddha nature. This kind of awareness is very important, because we are usually so one-sided. Our usual understanding of life is dualistic: you and I, this and that, good and bad. But actually these discriminations are themselves the awareness of the universal existence. "You" means to be aware of the universe in the form of you, and "I" means to be aware of it in the form of I. You and I are just swinging doors.."

~ Shunryu Suzuki

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"Even when the light begins to dawn in zazen, we don't get attached to that either. If you start to see what the world is really made up of, if it comes apart in tiny glowing, luminous pieces for you, don't be attached to that either. It's important to just keep walking. It doesn't matter where you're at in the way--if you're at the beginning or far along-- the instructions are the same: Keep walking with an open heart while the wonder comes over you."

~ John Tarrant

Trusting Others vs. Trusting Self

http://www.benjamintsmythe.com

The ULTIMATE, ULTIMATE, ULTIMATE Secret of Existence!

Jeff Foster - http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com

A Prayer for the Dying

Life,

Let them struggle to understand until there is only confusion,
and in the centre of that confusion show them their inherent clarity.

Make them courageous by taking away all of their hope,
and let them weep until their stomachs hurt,
until their tears melt into laughter.

Love them by destroying them.

And when they are more alone than ever,
show them an intimacy they cannot imagine.

Make them suffer until they are exhausted from fighting You,
make their pain great enough so that all their concepts turn to ash.

Let them never know what they are looking for,
but make them keep looking anyway,
as if their lives depended on it.

Give them time to read their books and listen to their teachers,
give them time to build up mountains of knowledge,
give them certainty and pride and a sense of security.

And then let their books rot,
and turn their teachers into hypocrites,
and make them doubt and forget everything they've learned.

Everything.

And make them stand alone, facing You,
naked and without protection,
and let them tremble,
let them piss and shit themselves with fear,
let all facades fall away.

And then let them into the great secret,
that they are loved beyond words,
in their nakedness, in their failure, in their ignorance,
in everything they were running away from.

That they are you.
That your face is their face.

That nothing ever happened at all.


~ Jeff Foster - http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com