This blog is only about awakening, nothing more, nothing less. Anything that will contribute to the possibility of complete liberation from the dream, or from the mass hallucination of humanity, or from the mental matrix, or from the false self, or from the lie, or any other label you want to call it, is welcome here. The key words are FREEDOM and JOY. Sometimes I think this reporting about stuff just keeps the false story going and only adds to the insanity, and there's too much of that already. But something is trying to pry the lid off still, something awaits to be seen. We are all in this boat together, so here we go......have fun!


Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Beginning is Near


Change is afoot. Can't go under it. Can't go over it. Can't go around it. Gotta go THROUGH IT.
Pace yourself. Breathe. Smile. It's all good.







Friday, January 27, 2012

Trees are Happy for No Reason


My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight.

~ Eudora Welty

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Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions.

~ Hafiz

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Don't flail about like a man wearing a blindfold.
Believe me, He's in here.
Come in and see for yourself.
You'll stop hunting for Him all over.

~ Lalla (14th Century)

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Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.

~ Joseph Campbell

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In meditating, meditate on your own divinity. The goal of life is to be a vehicle for something higher. Keep your eyes up there between the world of opposites watching your 'play' in the world. Let the world be as it is and learn to rock with the waves.

~ Joseph Campbell

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Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.

~ Osho

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This silence, this moment, every moment, if it's genuinely inside
you, brings what you need.

There's nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in
myself did I come into this beauty.

Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, 'Be more
silent.'

Die and be quiet.

Quietness is the surest sign that you've died.

Your old life was a frantic running from silence.

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.

Live in silence.

~ Rumi

Charles Eisenstein: Sacred Economics


Chapter 21

http://bit.ly/zgLqNx

The following is the twenty-second installment from
Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of others.” -Albert Einstein

Trusting Gratitude

The question comes up again and again: How can I share my gifts in today’s money economy and still make a living? Some people who ask this question are artists, healers, or activists who despair of finding a way to “get paid for” what they do. Others have a successful business or profession but have begun to feel that something is amiss with the way they charge for their services.

Indeed, to charge a fee for service, or even for material goods, violates the spirit of the Gift. When we shift into gift mentality, we treat our creations as gifts to other people or to the world. It is contrary to the nature of a gift to specify, in advance, a return gift, for then it is no longer giving but rather bartering, selling. Furthermore, many people, particularly artists, healers, and musicians, see their work as sacred, inspired by a divine source and bearing infinite value. To assign it a price feels like a devaluation, a sacrilege. But surely the artist deserves to be compensated for his work, right?

The idea behind the word “compensation” is that you have, by working, made a sacrifice of your time. You have spent it doing work when you could have instead spent it on something you want to do. Another context in which we use the word is lawsuits, for example when someone seeks compensation for an injury, for pain and suffering.

In an economy that deserves the adjective “sacred,” work will no longer be an injury to one’s time or life; it will no longer be a matter of pain and suffering. A sacred economy recognizes that human beings desire to work: they desire to apply their life energy toward the expression of their gifts. There is no room in this conception for “compensation.” Work is a joy, a cause for gratitude. At its best, it is beyond price.

To keep reading, Click Here

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Be Yourself.


"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

~ Oscar Wilde

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When anybody laughs, he has no mind, no thought, no problem, no suffering.

~ Papaji

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You impose limits on your true nature of infinite being. Then you get displeased to be only a limited creature. Then you begin spiritual practices to transcend these non-existing limits. But if your practice itself implies the existence of these limits, how could they allow you to transcend them.

~ Ramana Maharshi

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To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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"Who cares if you're enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?"

~ Byron Katie

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Be still. It takes no effort to be still; it is utterly simple. When your mind is still, you have no name, you have no past, you have no relationships, you have no country, you have no spiritual attainment, you have no lack of spiritual attainment. There is just the presence of beingness with itself.

~ Gangaji

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For a day,
Just for one day,
Talk about that
Which disturbs no one...
And bring some peace
Into your beautiful eyes.

~ Hafiz

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There is no profound knowledge. There are no good words. Everything you've been told is a lie. The only truth that exists is your self, but who is the self? The self is you, just the way you are. The mistake most people make is they want to change themselves. How can you change yourself? You think you've got problems, or you think you've got a bad mind, or you think something is wrong and you want to change that. Those things don't exist. There is nothing to change. That's what I mean when I say, "Be yourself, just the way you are." Yourself, just the way you are, spontaneous, live in the now, has no time to worry or think. When you are yourself you are God, you are consciousness, you are absolute reality. You are always yourself. You never were anyone else. You never were anything else. Your nature is divine. You are not what you appear to be. The only thing to remove is the appearance, or the belief in the appearance, for the appearance is false.

~ Robert Adams

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Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed.
Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes.
Every single thing is just the One Mind.
When you have perceived this,
you will have mounted the Chariot of the Buddhas.

~ Huang Po

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"I can walk on the clouds!" says a child.
But if she reached the clouds,
she would find nowhere to place her foot.
Likewise, if one does not examine thoughts,
they present a solid appearance;
but if one examines them,
there is nothing there.
That is what is called
being at the same time
empty and apparent.
Emptiness of mind
is not a nothingness,
nor a state of torpor,
for it possesses by its very nature
a luminous faculty of knowledge
which is called Awareness.
These two aspects,
emptiness and Awareness,
cannot be separated.
They are essentially one,
like the surface of the mirror
and the image which is reflected in it."

~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Peace, Love, Compassion


Nothing I say can explain to you Divine Love
Yet all of creation cannot seem to stop talking about it.

~ Rumi

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Love is seeing
the unity
under
the imaginary
diversity.

~ Nisargadatta

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The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other [people] and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

~ Thomas Merton

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Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance.

Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.

When you accept what is, every moment is the best moment. That is enlightenment.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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The truth is that a whole new state of consciousness already exists, that every part of your experience that’s unfolding right now is already enclosed within absolute stillness, absolute ease. And so there really isn’t
anywhere to go or anything for which to search. Struggle only gets us deeper into the very thing we’re trying to escape. This is a very important thing to know about egoic consciousness: The harder we try to get out, the deeper we dig ourselves in.

~ Adyashanti

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We try to grasp something strange and mysterious because we believe happiness lies elsewhere. This is the mistake. The Self is all-pervading. Our real nature is liberation, but we imagine that we are bound, we make strenuous efforts to become free, although all the while we are free. Birth and death pertain only to the body, they are superimposed upon the Self, giving rise to the delusion that birth and death relate to the Self. The universe exists within the Self. Discover the undying Self and be immortal and happy. Be yourself and nothing more. Thoughts change but not you. There is neither past nor future; there is only the present. Yesterday was the present when you experienced it; tomorrow will also be the present when you experience it, therefore, experience takes place only in the present, and even the present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental.

All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that? Your true nature is that of infinite spirit.

~ Ramana Maharshi

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Enlighten your desires.
Meditate on who you are.
Quit imagining.

What you want is profoundly expensive,
and difficult to find,
yet closeby.

Don't search for it. It is nothing,
and a nothing within nothing.

~ Lalla - 14th Century North Indian mystic

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The Ineffable Mystery of Being

What I have discovered through my spiritual practice is an increasing self-intimacy. ..a sense of authenticity and real-ness, that has become the cornerstone of my daily life. I cannot imagine how I could have lived without this living presence and sense of emerging fullness.

Our awareness is incredibly powerful at enabling the unveiling of ourselves, revealing a fuller picture, illuminating our experience, but only if we are willing and committed to knowing the fullness of what we are.

I find as I continue noticing and encountering this awareness in my life what comes into view is both particular and vast, discordant yet harmonious, life sustaining yet challenging and not necessarily easy. This active engagement demands my courage and honesty, this is no walk in the park.

As I continue, the sense of congruence and authenticity begins to sprout and this self-intimacy becomes the rule, in time. Although it is not as though there is one mode of being, that of self-intimacy, no, it is more like that a dance has begun.

This dance, fueled and enabled by the openness and desire of wanting to know myself, is both exhilarating and liberating and, as I develop trust in the unfolding, I soon begin to recognize that any ideas or desires for Awakening need not concern me....it no longer is of interest as my life has filled up with a delicious fragrance of authenticity.

I no longer care for anything other than supporting what has taken root within me…if the self concept or ego continues I don't care, the teachers and teachings tell me this and that and I don't care, life is its usual mix of struggle and strife, joy and love, and I no longer care...why would I care when I know the golden key is within? Why search for anything when the very fabric of experience is the path of unfolding. Everyday experience reveals this once we get a little more familiar with ourselves and stop trying to awaken, stop meddling with our experience long enough to notice what is.

At some stage there was a key realization, one among many, when I realized I can let go of all concepts about the teaching and just feel comfortable in everyday experience without any framework or concepts about how it ought to be. Is their a doer? Is there an ego? Is there an awakening? Are we perfect? None of these conceptual frames of reference are important. Instead I relax and notice that all that stuff is just ideas about...about the ineffable mystery of being.

~ Rob Matthews

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Just JUMP!


Listen!

Here’s all you need to know to become enlightened:

Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know.
That’s it. That’s the whole deal; a complete teaching of enlightenment, a complete practice. If you ever have any questions or problems—no matter what the question or problem is—the answer is always exactly the same:
Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know.

In other words, go jump off a cliff.

Don’t go near the cliff and contemplate jumping off. Don’t read a book about jumping off. Don’t study the art and science of jumping off. Don’t join a support group for jumping off. Don’t write poems about jumping off. Don’t kiss the ass of someone else who jumped off.

Just jump.

~ Jed Mckenna

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I said Oh no! Help me!
And that Oh no! became a rope let down in my well.
I’ve climbed out to stand here in the sun.
One moment I was at the bottom of a dank, fearful narrowness, and the next, I am not contained by the universe.
If every tip of every hair on me could speak,
I still couldn’t say my gratitude.
In the middle of these streets and gardens, I stand and say and say again, and it’s all I say, I wish everyone could know what I know.

~ Rumi

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First, the question itself is the obstacle to progress, not lack of an answer. The question is the key. Once we truly understand the question, we’ll have the desired answer. The desired answer is always the removal of the obstruction a correct question represents. The question, understood correctly, is the obstruction. If it’s not, see the second point.

Second, come up with the right question. There’s always only one. Wherever you are right now is where you’re stuck, and the only question that ever matters is the one that gets you unstuck, that takes you one step further. All other questions are fear-based ego-sparing time-killers. Forget concepts and ideas, forget past and future, forget mankind and society, forget God and love, forget truth and spirituality. Find that one question; the exact question that ego doesn’t want you to ask. Put your full attention on it. That’s how progress is made. Everything else is a stall tactic.

To move forward, you must figure out exactly what is obstructing you. Whatever it is, it isn’t really there; it has no reality, no substance. It’s your own creation, a phantom lurking in the shadows of your mind, a shadow demon. Your obstructions are your demons, and your demons are shadow dwellers. They live and thrive in the half-light of ignorance, so the way to slay a demon is by illuminating it with the full force and power of your focused attention; by looking at it, hard. Banish shadow with light and see for yourself that no obstruction exists, nor ever did. We create our demons and we feed them. To awaken we must slay them. That’s really the whole process: Slay one demon, take one step.

Repeat.

~ Jed McKenna

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Unraveling the Sweater




When you were born into this world, you were undifferentiated consciousness. No concepts, no ideas, no words, just the Isness of awareness, pure and unsullied. And then someone pulled a sweater over your head that was knitted from their ideas and beliefs about the world, what they had been told was important and real and true, and they passed it on to you. And because you had little choice in the matter, you accepted this sweater, and came to believe it was a part of you and it even became the invisible backbone of your identity. Everyone wore a similar sweater, so it was clear that the sweater was a part of being a human being without exception.

If someone wore a sweater that was fairly similar to yours, there was no problem, but a different color or design sometimes was quite disturbing. It was hard not to warn anyone with unusual patterns in their sweaters of the dangers of nonconformance, and there were those who took this to an extreme whereas different sweaters had to be excluded and shunned, maybe even imprisoned or killed. A sweater, after all, is not just a sweater, it is the symbol of self, and must be true. A different sweater means something about you is incorrect, so to remain intact, one must reject whatever sweaters clash with one’s current fashion statement.

One day, as you were getting older, you noticed that the sweater had become a little tight, a little uncomfortable. So you were sent to a knitting class and learned how to sit quietly, knitting away, adding more to the sweater. Of course, you were very careful to not get too flamboyant with the design, just enough to show you had some creativity. And sometimes you would get together with others who also liked to knit and discuss how enhanced life was having discovered “the way” to knit.

Knitting was so embedded in the social structure of your life that there was little time for anything else. Everything was based on being a successful knitter, how else was anyone to tell who you were except by the sweater you wore? It was essential to keep one’s sweater in good repair and to learn how to maintain it. Everyone loved to talk about each other’s sweaters, offering compliments or criticisms as appropriate. You could always tell your enemies from your friends by their knitting techniques and yarn colors, so it was important to learn the differences and pass your knowledge on to others.

But there came a time when knitting took up so much time and energy, and questions arose as to what and who and why. Though these questions triggered great anxiety, you tried putting down the knitting needles for a bit. And for a little while, you were free from knitting and it was exhilarating! But knitting was such a habit that before you knew it, you found yourself knitting again, especially when your friends came over, since it was all anyone ever talked about. Still, you couldn’t forget that scintillating sensation of cessation, so, in secret, you began to sit without knitting, a little bit every day.

On days when your friends visited, you would pick up the knitting needles as usual, but it became apparent after awhile that you were getting a bit sloppy, dropping stitches here and there. Your friends thought perhaps you needed a refresher course, and they all had taken up with a new knitting teacher who was supposed to have the latest in techniques, especially when it came to repairing holes and tears. They encouraged you to attend these knitting workshops and at first you thought they might be right. I mean their sweaters were so beautifully done, with silver and gold thread in incredibly intricate designs. But the truth you were so reluctant to reveal was that you were tired of knitting. And you were afraid to say so, since everyone knitted something. Even ugly sweaters were better than nothing.

One day, while you sat and pondered these things, you noticed a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of your sweater. Usually, you would have taken out your needles and started furiously repairing the abnormality. But instead, you started pulling on the thread. Suddenly, the sleeve of your sweater started rapidly to unravel, at a rather frightening speed. Quickly, you took out your knitting needles and began pulling the yarn back together until one could hardly tell there had ever been a mistake. But you knew.

Now it was all you could do not to pull on that loose thread. It became like an itch under the surface of the skin. You couldn’t help it, your thoughts kept roving to the idea of no sweater and not-knitting. What would it be like to just stop? Would you be an outcast, would your friends and family leave you? Could you survive without your sweater, naked? You sat with your friends, your knitting needles idle in your hands, and many were worried that you had lost it entirely. Perhaps you would have to go to the hospital and have a surgeon repair your sweater for you, or in the worst case scenario, knit you a new sweater entirely! One friend said she would introduce you to the Swami Knityananda, who would put one of his sweaters on you and they were supposed to be just perfect, it was said no one could make a better sweater! And that his philosophy, “Knit This, Knit That”, took one to the highest levels of Knit-vana!

Well, all this talk became a bit much, and you stopped going out and you stopped inviting people over. You sat with your sweater, looking at it in the mirror, wondering at its colors and textures, its strangeness and its beauty, its ugliness and shabbiness, the whole of it. And you pulled at the loose thread. You pulled and you pulled. First one sleeve went. Then the other. You were terrified for a second, having never seen your bare arms before. But it was so freeing. So you kept pulling. And pulling. And finally the remnants of the sweater fell to the floor. And you saw your Self. The Truth of your Self. And you knew you would never be able to knit another sweater, because you knew that nakedness was sweet. And you just started laughing and laughing at the joke of it all.

One day, your friends came over and you were just sitting there, naked. At first they were outraged, then concerned, then curious. After all, you were so happy, grinning like you had an in on the biggest secret! So, as they furiously knitted away, they tentatively asked you what had happened. And with a little sparkle in your eye, you said, “It’s simple. Ask yourself “Why Knit?”

Suddenly, all the knitting needles clattered to the floor.


Friday, October 21, 2011

#OCCUPY YOURSELF - 28 OCTOBER 2011


For one day, we shut the system down!

 

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH AS MANY AS POSSIBLE...WE DO NOT HAVE MUCH TIME!

A momentum is occurring
People are uniting across the world
They are sending a message
The next step is fast approaching

On Oct 28th 2011
WE SHUT THE SYSTEM DOWN.

For one day we peacefully protest in a symbol that will be felt across the globe.

We step out of the system and step back into ourselves.

Turn off all lights
Unplug all electrical devices
Abstain from using TV, radio and internet or phone.
Abstain from making any purchase of any kind
Choose that morning to cancel any services you feel you no longer need
That morning call in sick to work

Do NOTHING that generates money into THE SYSTEM.

We will send a message
We will unite

Most importantly, for one day...
We live without distraction

Read a book
Meditate
Play
Sing
Dance
Create
Frolic in nature
Love

On Oct 28th 2011
Step out of the system and get back to yourself

Spread the word!
SHUT IT ALL DOWN!

Join us on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=275706552463169&notif_t=event_ph...
 

Friday, October 14, 2011

Freedom "To" vs. Freedom "From"


...And this myth that I can rest in some assuredness. That I will  never again feel insecure or feel fear, or feel doubt, or feel those emotions we don’t want to feel. If I'm truly enlightened I will never feel those emotions.
Forget it. That’s not it. That's the pipe dream. That is the opium that is sold to the masses. And they eat it up and they never get there and they end up disillusioned.

Freedom is never freedom "from." If it's freedom "from" anything, it's not freedom at all. It's freedom "to." Are you free enough to be afraid? Are you free enough to feel insecure? Are you free enough not to know? Are you free enough to know that you can't know? Are you free enough to be totally comfortable, to know that you can't know what's around the next corner? How you will feel about it? How you will respond to it? That you literally can't know? Are you free enough to be totally at ease and comfort with the way things actually are? That's freedom.
 
~ Adyashanti

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You are not "in the now"; you are the now. That is your essential identity--the only thing that never changes. Life is always now. Now is consciousness. And consciousness is who you are. That's the equation.
 
~ Eckhart Tolle

If this were your only spiritual practice, it would be enough: to withdraw identification from opinions, positions, thoughts.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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Not to know is profound; to know is shallow. Not to know is internal; to know is external. 

~ Chuang-tzu

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To one who knows naught it is clearly revealed. 

~Meister Eckhart

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Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment; Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition. 

~Rumi

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Rejoicing in nothing and knowing nothing are the true rejoicing and the true knowledge. 

~ Lao-tzu
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All I know is that I know nothing. 

~ Socrates

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When you’re blind to your own nature, the Buddha is an ordinary being. When you’re aware of your own nature, an ordinary being is the Buddha.
 
~ Hui Neng

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Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance. 

~Lama Surya Das

Monday, October 10, 2011

Take A Good Look




You cannot have made the decision to look, because that would mean that reality was split between you and your decision. The present is the entirety of reality. You cannot have something that stands before it, making it happen, because the only time anything in the past existed, it existed as the present.

~ Cieran

“I” does not exist. It is a referential concept only. A way to put our collected memories of experience over time into a handy photo album we can pull out and display at whim. We think it is real. We “think” it into reality and then turn it into a narrative, a story about “me”. It is fiction. It is a fantasy, a fairy tale, no different then pulling a children’s book off a shelf and saying “Here’s the story of my life.”

Have you ever actually looked for this “I”? Where is it here and now, as you sit reading these words? Who is reading? What is reading? Is there an “I” present? If asked, does there appear a roster of qualities, a list of personal attributes, as if by magic? Is there a recitation occurring, is there a voice in your head?

Do you believe that voice is you? Does it speak with your voice, spell out your ideas and beliefs? Has it a point of view you call “yours”? Is it the way you present yourself to “others”? Do you seek validation through it? Is it true?

You probably have never really thought to look at the possibility that there is no self and never was. You might consider the idea preposterous. But there’s no harm in looking, is there, to scientifically examining the possibility that the idea of self is merely conceptual and has no reality? If there is no self, what would that mean? Would that change the way you actually function? Is a separate self necessary to operating in the real world or is it an obstruction, a detriment? Is having a separate self actually helpful, or does it cause arguments, dissatisfaction, and disappointment?

Does this separate self have real needs or are they imagined? Could it be that this separate self is just a thought, a symbol of an idea dressed up as a body? Could it be that this idea has parasitized the life in the body by encumbering it with myriad desires, plans, expectations, feelings, motivations, and more, all in order to perpetuate itself? Has this virus of mental/emotional selfhood so overcome humanity that it has completely forgotten its natural state of freedom and joy?

Have you ever stared into the eyes of a newborn? There is nobody there. Only emptiness. But there is tremendous life force. It silences you completely. It is the state we are born to, before words, labels, ideas, and beliefs become the predominant way we interact with the world. A child has no concept of separation from experience. A child is its experience.  It is fully immersed and one with life, right at the start. And then the parents begin injecting the generally-accepted version of reality into its vulnerable brain, starting with the labels of “boy” or “girl”. Before you know it, the child thinks it’s the label. Identification with labels, words, and beliefs leads to the formation of the fictional idea of “I”.

“I” relates to categorized experience, listed and filed under headings such as good/bad, right/wrong, like/hate, etc. The categories are arbitrary and are not necessarily connected to what happened, only to how it was perceived. This remembrance of experience is not a bad thing when applied to what is actually happening. No one wants to forget what “hot” means, or repeat an action that could cause bodily harm. But when a concept replaces an experience of actual knowing, then life is immediately corrupted, disconnected, and disjointed. It becomes a lie.

Living a lie leads to intense suffering. Living in a world based on this lie spreads the suffering to everyone. And this all begins with the erroneous and false belief in a separate, individualized self.

This lie can be seen through. Prove it to yourself. Look for yourself. There is no “I”. It is only a concept. Concepts are not real things. They can only point to real things. What does “I” represent? What is the sense of it? Take a good look. Take a real good look.  Look into the face of what you fear most, the demise of “you”. What is real cannot die, what is unreal never existed.

Take……….a………..look.