Lucid Exposition

The origin and nature of THOUGHT

2012-01-28T15:55:00.000Z

Have you ever stopped to wonder where your thoughts come from? Or are you so taken in by every movement of your mind that you’re barely even aware that you’re thinking most the time?

WHO is that thinks -- and who is it that’s aware of what what's being thought? Do you think, or do your thoughts essentially just think themselves? These are all very important questions, and the answers might well surprise you.

I invite you to investigate for yourself. A great practise is simply to sit and observe your thoughts. Ask yourself, “I wonder what my next thought will be?” Then sit quietly, alert and attentive, watching and waiting. You’ll likely come to some really interesting conclusions.

I came to realise that 'WE’RE' not actually the thinker! Oh, sure, if we want to reflect on something, we can consciously direct our thoughts with our intention. But most of the time, we’re not the ones doing the thinking. If we were, then we’d always be able to control and predict our thoughts, but we can’t. Thoughts just happen, in awareness, like clouds of vapour rising up from the ocean, existing for a limited lifespan, then dissolving away again. Try the above practise, and keep doing it -- it’s fun, relaxing and liberating. You’ll see that you’re not actually the one doing the thinking. It’s more like the thinking is doing you.

Thoughts just seem to rise and fall. ‘We’ are not the thoughts, for we cannot be that which is observable -- we are obviously the subject, not the object. That said, when we’re in our ‘normal’ mode of consciousness, we tend to get completely consumed and caught up in our thinking, automatically believing in and identifying with every thought, investing our very sense of self and being in these fickle movements of mind.

But if we’re not our thoughts, then what are we?

Investigate for yourself -- what is it that’s watching and is aware of the thoughts...?

No word or description is adequate for it, but it might be referred to as the 'watcher', the 'witness' or simply pure awareness. This, I believe, is our natural state, and it’s always with us, throughout our entire lives. No matter what’s happening outwardly or inwardly, no matter what our thoughts and beliefs are and no matter what configuration our personal psychology assumes, that pure space of awareness is ALWAYS there in the background, underlying our every experience in life. Without it, we’d simply cease to be. It’s like the paper on which the words (our thoughts and experiences) are written. Take away the paper and there’s nothing. But that’s a whole other discussion.

Back to thoughts. Upon observation, you can see that thoughts are like clouds passing across the sky of your mind or awareness. Sometimes they’re light and fluffy and other times they’re thick and stormy, covering the whole sky. Sometimes they move across the sky quickly, chopping and changing, and other times, such as in meditation, sleep and times of deep relaxation, they slow down and perhaps even subside for a time.

So where do they come from? I don't believe thoughts 'magically' arise out of nowhere, although it might seem like that. The activity of our minds and the overall structure of our psyche is largely driven by what what in Sanskrit is called 'vasanas', or mental tendencies. Vasanas are like grooves that are created in the mind, much the same way as water flowing down a mountain carves grooves and channels in the rock.

You might think of consciousness as being like water and it tends to flow along these grooves and this is what largely determines the content of our mind and pysche. Of course, it's possible to create new grooves and new vasanas by redirecting our consciousness and focussing on different thoughts, but that takes conscious effort. Outside of the 'base light' of awareness (the ‘paper’ on which the content appears), people's personalities and the structure of their minds are largely just vasanas and conditioning in operation, influenced by other factors such as environment, heredity and culture.

This is what brought me to the realisation that it's not really 'me' that thinks all the thoughts that ripple across my mind. Upon investigation I came to see that the thinking just seems to flow of its own accord, as consciousness moves along those grooves. Kinda groovy, huh?

So thoughts just tend to occur, driven largely by our conditioning and vasanas. They don’t have any independent existence/intelligence of their own, as they’re just the flow of consciousness assuming certain configurations.

This isn’t to say we need be slave to these thoughts. On the contrary, when we realise that they’re just thoughts, movements in consciousness, then we can experience a tremendous amount of liberty and freedom from them!

I used to suffer depression for several years, and I can see now how it was caused by the thoughts that were habitually occurring in my mind. I no longer take my thoughts nearly as seriously, because I’m very clear that they’re just thoughts -- they’re not reality, just crude (and very often distorted) reflections of reality. The depressed thoughts were just a kind of weather-front passing through me. When I learned to dis-identify from it and just witness it, I began to transcend it -- and it passed.

I highly recommend the practise of simply observing your thoughts. It creates a healthy detachment. Rather than being helplessly buffeted by every thought that crosses your mind, you come to realise that they are just the dream-like movements of consciousness and they have only the meaning you ascribe to them. They just rise and fall. They might be part of a chain of thoughts (clusters of thoughts can form and create big entangled structures that become beliefs, habitual thoughts and/or preoccupations) or they might be totally random.

When we're 'unconscious', which means automatically buying into every thought that passes our mind, then we’re a slave to our thoughts and they can make us suffer -- and how! But when we simply observe and allow consciousness to flow as it does, without grasping onto it or obstructing it, then there's a tremendous freedom and liberty.

Nisargadatta said something that really stuck with me: he advised us to see the content of our consciousness -- our mind, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, etc -- as being something foreign or alien to us, something that's NOT 'us', but a process that's happening within us ('us' being, at the deepest level, the space of pure awareness I spoke of). This might be a radical notion to many, but I've found it very helpful. I still experience occasional low moods like everyone else, but I find it virtually impossible to be depressed these days, because I no longer unquestioningly BELIEVE all the thoughts that cross my mind, or give them an importance they simply don’t warrant.

When our focus is freed from the movements of our mind, it can be redirected to the witness -- the awareness -- the sense of being, or whatever you want to call it. And in that core level of awareness, is an incredible sense of peace, contentment and joy. It’s the happiness we spend our lives seeking in the outer world and in other people, but which can only ever truly be found within us. This is probably the most important discovery we’ll ever make.

So, try it. Watch your thoughts. Go beyond your them and trace them to their source. Be open, curious and aware. You might be amazed at what you discover.

Resurrection

2012-01-28T15:41:00.000Z

I must seem like such a fickle creature. But actually there are reasons behind my fickleness. I decided I was going to close this blog and start a new one -- which I did. I liked the thought of a fresh start, a blank canvas and a taking slightly different approach to my blog content. I started this particular blog several years ago and I've changed a lot in that time. My perspectives, my understanding and my approach to life, spirituality and philosophy have shifted, grown and evolved a great deal and I wanted to draw a line under the stuff I've written in the past and start back at zero.

It's been fun. But the thing is, despite having stopped posting here, this old blog was still getting about 10 times the number of page views than my newer blog (which in fact hardly anyone was reading!). I don't exactly know how these things work, I assume it's because it's because it's older and more established and has a greater number of 'back links' or whatever. But it seemed a bit pointless to spend the amount of time I have been creating new essays and blog content and posting it to a blog that hardly gets any hits, when I could post it a blog that routinely gets quite a few.

So, I now end that particular experiment and am resuscitating this blog. I'll update it with the content from my aborted new blog, and keep this one going. Hope you'll bear with me.

In addition to this, I also have another blog over on Wordpress, Dreamlight Fugitive, which is focussed on creativity, writing and art. And I've been updating my Daily Tao blog with completely re-written and re-edited commentaries on all 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching. Hope you enjoy :)

The (Neo) Advaita Trap

2011-11-13T14:47:00.001Z

Back already! Wow. So I realised I will pop in from time to time when I have something to share.

This video is actually rather hilarious; certainly if you've had an experience of the "neo advaita" crowd that seems to proliferate the internet and that has spread across the spiritual marketplace like fungus. Now, I am very drawn to authentic advaita and could write at length about it. I've found the teachings of sages such as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta, and some of the advaita scriptures to be extremely helpful.

What seems to have happened however is that advaita has been distorted by a great many people, mainly westerners I believe, who have created a distorted variation and who sadly tend to become exactly the kind of obstinate, superior pains in the arse portrayed in the video. I'm sure you'll have encountered some of them. I feel there are a great many people out there who genuinely believe they're enlightened simply because their mind has latched onto a certain set of perspectives and beliefs relating to nonduality. They maybe have awakened a little, but if they have to spend all their time 'teaching' others how wrong they are and how 'enlightened' they are, then...meh. There's nothing stinks more than the spiritual ego. They serve as a lesson to us all how easy it is for the ego to hijack virtually anything. Truly, nothing is sacred to the ego! Nothing requires greater vigilance than the 'spiritual path'.

Enjoy the vid, it's really funny:

The Advaita Trap - The Cartoon
by: nondualxtra

Silence is golden

2011-11-10T14:50:00.000Z

It's funny, I keep starting to write blog posts, but I can never seem to get beyond the first couple of paragraphs. It's like trying to build sandcastles when the sand is too dry and the whole thing just sort of collapses!

Perhaps it's because I don't have anything that really, truly needs to be said. I've had a few ideas for topics, but the moment I get down to the nitty-gritty of writing, I realise that it's either something I'm not fully ready to write about, or it's something that doesn't need to be written about. I'm not going to churn out stuff just to fill up a quota. I'd rather just sit in the silence and watch clouds (it's neat - I recommend it).

So, for now the blog is on hiatus. Whether it'll be a long or short hiatus I have no idea. I do know that I've been meaning to wind this down for a while now. I have two new blogs in the planning stages, so I'll still be around. But those are on hold as well until I feel I have something worth writing about, something that needs to be written. Until then, take care and have fun.

Is Art Important?

2011-10-21T17:49:00.000+01:00

As an artist who hasn't exactly made it 'big' (think considerably less than big), I was recently questioning my future and wondering whether I should be devoting my energy to something else. As the economy continues to flounder and as our esteemed leaders continue to make things worse, people are tightening their belts and luxuries such as the arts are obviously the first things to be abstained from.

Always one to question just about everything, I found myself wondering whether art really matters. Is it really important? Is it worth pursuing? Or is it just a self-indulgence that has no real value to our lives? (When considering this question, I was reflecting not merely on visual art, but also music, prose and poetry, sculpture, film-making, etc)

I instinctively feel that art has importance. But there are two kinds of art, I think. There's art that's created simply to make money and is tailored to a specific market or audience and which usually adheres to a specific formula while perhaps simultaneously attempting to pass itself off as something 'different'. This might sound exceptionally snobbish, but to me, that isn't art, it's merely product. Most of the music industry is product and in our X-Factor era that's a fact that's hard to dispute. I feel the same about a great deal of the publishing and film industry. It's driven by profit and the desire to sell; any claims of wanting to find genuine artistic innovation are usually just lip-service.

Product generally has mass-market appeal and is largely consumed as entertainment. Nothing wrong with entertainment, I like to be entertained as much as the next guy (although maybe perhaps not QUITE so much), but entertainment rarely transcends its function. There are certainly lots of instances where it does, where films, music and books actually do take risks and wholly deserve to be called 'art', but in the vast marketplace it's still the exception rather than the rule. I’m not decrying this, simply pointing out a fact. People need to make money and they do that by selling products to as many people as will buy it. It’s the way the world works.

With regard to the visual arts, it's a little harder to find the distinction between art and product. It's a grey area. Artists need to eat like everyone else, so they usually need to have some kind of target market in mind when they create. The quality and importance of the work is entirely subjective and that’s probably the way it should be.

I was at an exhibition just last week and it reinforced my feeling that in order for art to be taken seriously as 'art' it helps if it's grim and bleak. In order to be a 'cool' artist the general criteria seems to be that your work has to be edgy, dark and a little depressing or -- even better -- repulsive! Now this could all just be in my head, and I don't even take my own thoughts and opinions that seriously any more, so I urge you not to, either. But it's possible that even some of the most fiercely independent and 'out there' artists are still just creating stuff that they consciously or unconsciously think fits a formula of ‘cool’ and ticks the right boxes.

Myself, I really don't care what's cool or not. Generally I'm drawn to create things that inspire people rather than nauseate and repulse them. I mean, life is difficult enough, why should art confound that by making us ever more miserable? But that said, when I view someone's work, even if I don't like it, I still usually respect it as a creative endeavour, as an expression of the artist and an artistic statement -- whether or not I agree with that statement.

So why is art important then?

It's not important simply for making statements. Anyone can make a statement and like anything that's mind-generated, it ultimately doesn't mean that much. A lot of the time it's straight from the ego, and there's already enough of the human ego stamped over this world of ours. Art in service of the ego may still be art, but it's not, in my view, important art.

I believe art is important when it has a transcendent quality; when it points us beyond the surface-level miasma of humdrum human existence -- what Buddhists refer to as samsara -- and hints of the possibility of something greater, something beyond. I believe art, in its highest expression, serves to remind us who we are. Through images, stories, narratives and sound, it reflects back to us what we truly are. There's a place for examining the surface-level world of maya, but we don't really need art for that, we simply need to look around us or turn on the six o'clock news.

But it's possible for art to take us deeper into ourselves, inviting us ask questions about ourselves and life itself. Who are we? Where did this consciousness come from and where is it going? What is the world? Where did it come from and where is it going? Is it everything we've always assumed it to be, or is it possible we've somehow misperceived the universe, ourselves and our relation to it?

I've come to learn that the answer is never in the answers. It's in the questions.

At best, I believe, art can make us reflect upon these questions; questions that serve to bring us back to ourselves. Just about everything else in the world is pulling our attention outward and distracting us from OUR SELVES (which is actually the very thing we're truly seeking in life -- direct, conscious awareness of our own being).

Some time ago I was sent one of those email questionnaire things and one of the questions was "do you prefer art or technology?" and I was amazed at the number of people (practically everyone) that said technology. I probably shouldn't have been, for nowadays technology is almost like a drug or religion for many people. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but what can technology do but distract us from ourselves? It's never going to compel us to venture inward and perhaps, in time, stumble upon the in-built but long-dormant self-realisation mechanism -- which is the only legitimate end to the cycle of suffering that drives us to seek out distractions in the first place.

I still feel compelled to create art, to write and create music because I feel something within me wants to be born into the world. I don't think it's in service of the ego or just to express emotions or viewpoints (although the latter point I suppose you could debate). If there's any purpose at all behind what I do, it's because there's some element -- and it's not really on a conscious level -- that would like to use this channel to spark something in others. A spark of inspiration, of remembering, of insight? Or just an opening that might prompt further questions? I'm not entirely sure. I don't feel it's entirely 'me' that's controlling the process. It just is. It's unfolding as it wants to.

I first had an inkling as to this when I began my first novel, a number of years ago. I thought - "yeah, my novel is going to change the world and make people happier and more enlightened." I think my ego crept in, in the nicest and kindest possible way. Now, I have no such expectations. I don't know if what I make will sell or interest anyone, much less whether it will enlighten them. That's really not my business and I no longer have any investment in the outcome. I just do what I feel compelled to do, because I have to and because a little part of me would wither away if I didn't. A rose doesn't bloom in order to make people happy and get some kind of a reaction. It doesn't hold itself back, either. It just does what it does, because...!

So that's basically why I feel art is important. There are many artists (not necessarily mainstream ones or ones with great followings and publicity) whose work serves as kind of opening into something greater. It can serve as a catalyst that makes people stop, reflect and open themselves to new possibilities and new ways of seeing life. It can pierce the dream bubble and spark something quite wonderful, enabling the viewer/experiencer to blossom themselves. Maybe they'll then bring that same essence into the world where it will have a similar effect on others, whether it's in the form of art, behaviour, actions or simply BEING.

No motives though. It just happens -- or it doesn't. And it has an effect on others and the world -- or it doesn't. Art is alive and when it comes from a place beyond the ego and beyond consumer concerns and market pressures, it has the ability to change us and to change the world. Not change us in the sense of making us something other than we are, but simply removing the clouds of illusion that currently obstruct so many of us from being what we are. Art then can be a great wake-up call, which will resonate for those that are ready for it and go straight over the heads of those that aren't.

For now, if I'm able, I'll continue to respond to the creative impulses that compel me to create art in different forms, knowing that the impulse to create is there for a reason, that I'm not truly in control of it and that the reasons and outcome are way beyond my control. Some artists fall into the trap of ego, mistakenly believing it's them that is responsible for their creations. But for me, it's the humblest job in the world. I don't own creativity, I can't control it and I'm fully aware that it's not really me that does anything (and frankly I don’t even consider myself particularly talented).

It just happens and I’m very cool with that, because it feels good. I'm really very clear on that point -- and it's a strangely liberating realisation!

The Headless Way

2011-10-17T13:25:00.000+01:00

Hello! Long time no blog! There is a new entry in the works - I know what I want to write, but I just haven't figured out how to write it. It'll come, when the time is right.

In the meantime, check out this - http://www.headless.org/english-welcome.htm It's a website based on the work of Douglas E Harding and his rather novel, quirky and fun method of self-inquiry: "the headless way".

I've never come across anything quite like it. Try doing the "experiments", which are fun experiential too for leading us into a deeper awareness of what we truly are. I haven't done them all yet, I've been doing them one at a time over a period of weeks, but I love them so far and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. I've come to view self-inquiry as THE most important spiritual practise there is, particularly in terms of self-realisation. This is an offbeat and neat way to approach it :)

Some notes I found on the website, in the words of Douglas Harding:

"So much unnecessary stress has its origin in identifying exclusively with the way others see us. Overlooking and invalidating my own point of view, I make a mistake about my deepest identity and find myself up against the world, separate from others, limited in my resources, vulnerable to all kinds of danger, and in the end, destined to die. It was vital to become self-conscious, to grow out of infancy into adulthood, but this need not be the end of the journey.

Each of us can now go on to see Who we really are. This doesn't mean that we regress to infancy - we can be aware of both our True Identity and our human identity. However, becoming aware of our True Identity means we discover a stress-free space at the heart of our sometimes stressed lives. It is up to each of us how much we pay attention to this Resource.

If we don't drink from this Well, we will probably find ourselves complaining of thirst, or even dying of thirst. And all the while the Water is so close, and free! Take a drink. Now. What have you got to lose? Your self! What have you got to gain? Everything, including your self!

[...]

If I fail to see what I am (and especially what I am not) it’s because I’m too busily imaginative, too “spiritual”, too adult and knowing, too credulous, too intimidated by society and language, too frightened of the obvious to accept the situation exactly as I find it at this moment. Only I am in a position to report on what’s here. A kind of alert naivety is what I need. It takes an innocent eye and an empty head (not to mention a stout heart) to admit their own perfect emptiness.

Forgetting what I'm told and imagine, what society with its common sense and the science of the object tell me to believe, and at last daring to look for myself and to take seriously what I find - well, what do I find? I find surprise upon surprise, beyond my wildest dreams. I see that what I had believed to be true of me and of the world is a pack of lies! "

Integrity

2011-09-16T13:06:00.000+01:00

(I wrote this post a few weeks ago but for some reason held it back. Now seemed like as good enough a time as any to share it though, so here goes)

What does integrity mean to you?

I get the impression that people generally take it to mean being true to their word and treating other people well. But I think there's a lot more to it than that. When looking up the word in my handy little dictionary app, it comes up with three meanings.

in*teg*ri*ty

- noun

1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.

2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished.

3. a sound, unimpaired or perfect condition.

The first definition doesn't appeal to me that much. Moral and ethical principles are mind-generated and are therefore coloured and distorted by the mind's inherent limitations. I agree with Lao-tzu that the highest virtue comes not from following mind-made morals and ideals (which are usually just conditioned into us by the culture we live in), but from being rooted in our own sense of BEING.

When we're aligned with Self, we spontaneously act from 'rightness' because we're in alignment with the innate flow and perfection of Life expressing through us.

The one word that does jump out at me from that first definition is 'honesty'.

I believe the essence of integrity is being honest to who and what we truly are. This is something so few of us actually do, because again we're indoctrinated by a culture that demands we do the exact opposite, wanting us to follow its ideals and nothing more. The only problem is, it's impossible to be true to anyone or anything other than our Self. For truth isn't out there and it never was. "To thine own Self be true" -- great words by Shakespeare, and perhaps the best definition of integrity there is.

I love the other two definitions of integrity because they perfectly point to this Self-honesty I'm talking about.

When we know what are, when we've really delved deeply beneath the surface and journeyed through all the layers of mental sediment, conditioning and ego-identification, we come to that place of expansive emptiness/fullness within us at the core of our being, the very ground of our awareness. You've either experienced this or you haven't, which will make all the difference between understanding what I'm trying to point to and thinking I'm just talking utter gibberish. Because you're reading this at all, I'm going to assume that you've had at least some taste of the deeper Reality of Being.

When we've experienced some degree of Self-knowledge, when we've seen through the screen of our minds, egos and conditioning to the deeper Reality beneath, then part of us is never the same again. Sure, it's extremely difficult to hold onto and sustain this realisation. It's one thing having transcendent spiritual realisations in meditation and quite another thing maintaining them in our daily lives. Our minds and egos have deep grooves and exert a tremendous gravity that keeps the old structures firmly in place (and let's face it, everything in the world around us is also designed to keep the ego in the drivers seat).

But when you've seen the TRUTH, even just a little glimmer of it, you can never go back to the way you were before, at least not entirely and not forever. A little sliver of sunlight has got through a crack in the brick wall of your mind/psyche/ego (a hefty construction if ever there was!), and it wants to shine again. It'll take any little gap it can get and surely, in time, as the bricks start to erode and dissolve -- as they inevitably will, whether by grace, by pain or by death. As this happens, the light gets its chance to shine through, ever stronger and brighter, dispelling the darkness of ignorance and illusion and allowing the truth of life to be seen, experienced and realised.

Perhaps you can now see why I was so enamoured by the dictionary definition of integrity as being "the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished" and "a sound, unimpaired or perfect condition." Isn't that a pretty much perfect description of enlightenment? Is it possible that integrity is in fact synonymous with enlightenment? I'm beginning to think so.

My feeling is that enlightenment is the seeing through of what is false and the realisation of what is true. First comes the recognition of truth and then the integration of that into the entirety of our being. For enlightenment to be true, it has to penetrate every aspect of our being and lives. It's no use having a strictly mental and/or conceptual understanding of reality -- lots of people have that and they're about as enlightened as plant pots. Some people might understand what I'm talking about, and they might even have experienced it, and yet still don't truly GET it on the deeper levels of their being. They might intellectually know that they're the transcendent Reality, yet in their daily lives still behave not unlike like the most monstrously insane egos out there.

This is why I think integrity is such an important thing to reflect upon, particularly for ‘spiritual people’. Integrity isn't as big an issue for people that are completely under the spell of their minds and egos, because they’re too deeply immersed in a world of dreams and illusions and have no conception of what they truly are. Self-integrity is impossible when you don’t even know your Self!

But those that have had some degree of awakening, yet are still operating from the level of ego, then I think integrity is a huge issue. As I said, it takes a certain amount of time and effort to break free of the gravity of the old mind structures, but it's something that ultimately has to be done. Until we do, there's a deep divide at the core of our beings; a gulf between who we truly are and who we're choosing to be in our daily lives. Whether we're aware of it or not, this inner conflict causes enormous pain and is most likely reflected by all kinds of difficulties and problems in our outer lives. It's impossible to be at peace and to flow with life as long as we have this fundamental lack of integrity eating away at us from the inside out.

The ego can deceive us in a million different ways. That's not to make the ego into an enemy, or even something tangible and real, because it's not; it's really just a detour from truth and can be overcome each and every time we move back to that truth. Whenever we catch ourselves suffering, even if it’s just a bad mood, it's likely a sign that we're out of integrity, that we're lost in our thoughts, concepts and egos again. When that happens we’re probably trying to hold life to ransom, as we so often do when we're relating to life from that level. Above all, it's a sign that although we know the truth, we aren't in that moment LIVING it.

I hope I've managed to convey why I feel integrity is so vitally important, especially for those of us in the process of awakening. Perhaps enlightenment (the recognition of truth) is just the first step, while integrity (the embodiment of that truth) is the crucial second step. Enlightenment is actually pretty easy because when we lay the appropriate foundations and invite it in, it comes more or less of its own accord. Integrity, on the other hand, requires a massive amount of vigilance, honesty and persistent effort on our part...

The Future

2011-08-10T17:29:00.004+01:00

“I used to think about the future and then it became the present, so I thought about it quite often then and then it was in the past, so I didn’t think about it that much.”

Father Ted

One of the things that has frequently tripped me up over the years is the notion of future. It’s easy to get lost in it and for concerns and insecurities about the future to overwhelm us, causing untold stress and turmoil. In fact, when it comes to mindstuff, the ‘future’ can be like a gaping black hole, ravenous, all-consuming and virtually impossible to escape.

The ego loves its security and in a world where security is ultimately an illusion (after all, anything at any moment could compromise your sense of security), that can be something of a problem. The future is the great unknown and that is something that utterly terrifies the ego!

To minimise this sense of unease we adopt all kinds of strategies for trying to control circumstances and outcomes as much as possible. Again, going back to what I wrote previously about control, that can only work to a limited extent. We can pursue the things that we think will bring us fortune and security and we may even succeed; but even when we do, it’s rarely enough to dispel our fears and insecurity. This is because our insecurity is a structural component of the ego.

In a sense, our insecurity over the future is a legitimate concern, because we really don’t know what the future holds. Bad things can and frequently do happen. I think it’s likely our fear of the future/unknown is a survival mechanism that’s developed to protect us from potential harm by always keeping us on our toes. Yet in our modern world, where our immediate physical survival isn’t usually an issue, this survival mechanism has become a stress mechanism.

In this media-dominated information age, it’s virtually impossible to escape the news and the news is rarely good. We don’t just leave it at that though. We take what’s happening and project it into an imagined future, playing out all kinds of horrific scenarios in our minds. Sometimes it’s necessary to project ahead in this way as it allows us to make prudent choices that avert unnecessary catastrophe. If I’m walking along a train track and a train appears in the distance, it’s prudent that I project into the future and realise that if I don’t step aside, I’ll get squished.

There are times when this is a useful practise and times when it becomes highly dysfunctional. For we tend to get lost in our imaginings, creating entire alternate realities in our minds. We forget that it’s just fantasy and actually believe that what we’re imagining is real. I believe it’s this tendency that creates much of our anxiety and fear over the future.

Two things have helped me to deal with this. The first is the recognition that the future is actually an illusion of the mind; and so, for that matter, is the past. The only thing that actually exists is the present moment and that present moment NEVER ENDS. In spite of this concept we have of past, present and future, there’s never an instance where the present becomes the past, or becomes the future. It’s a continuing, unbroken, unfragmented whole.

The present moment just IS -- and it always will be. Of course the CONTENT of the present moment is always changing and it is from this that we’ve derived the notions of ‘past’ and ‘future’. But past and future don’t actually exist. However hard you were to look, you could never actually find them because the only place they exist is in the mind; the past as memories and the future as imagination, expectation or anticipation.

What a terrible mess we get ourselves in over something that exists nowhere other than our own minds! However long we wait, the future will never arrive. All we have is this moment, this timeless, eternal moment, the form of which is continuously shifting and changing.

The second thing that’s helped me deal with this structural insecurity is the recognition that I’m not what I think I am. Along with the concept of time, another core human assumption is that we are our bodies. I’m not going to go too deeply into this for now and I’ll assume that if you’re reading this you’ve already got some sense that what you are is something more than just a bag of bones, tissues and liquids.

But even when, on a conceptual level, we know that we are something deeper than the surface-level appearance, it takes a while for us to fully embody and integrate that realisation. In other words, we usually still act and react as though we are just our bodies. And because we know that ultimately our body is going to die, we have a fundamental insecurity that underlies every second of our existence, whether we’re aware of it or not. I’d even go so far as to say that the root of our fear of the future is fear of the termination of the body.

But when the realisation that we are something far transcendent of form takes root not just in our head, but in our heart and our gut, this underlying existential insecurity begins to loosen its grip. When we truly know with the entirety of our being that we are eternal and deathless, then we cease to fear the inevitable dissolution of our form. Our bodies change throughout the course of our lives and the content of our minds and psyche changes from moment to moment. But this timeless awareness that we are remains unchanged.

If you’ve ever explored and moved into this primal awareness, you’ll notice that it at its core is a deep and expansive acceptance. It doesn’t hold life to ransom and it doesn’t have demands or like and dislikes or even goals and directives. It just allows life to be as it is. It remains open, untouched and untouchable.

Knowing what we are and questioning the content of our minds lead us to a deeper and infinitely more secure state of being. Life still happens around us and at times it’s distressing and grim, but when we’ve removed some of our investment of ‘selfhood’ from what is ultimately transient and insubstantial, we experience far greater freedom than ever before.

The need to desperately control the future lessens. We come to see the primary importance of living well in the present moment. We can surrender to a greater intelligence, of which we are an inextricable part, and allow that intelligence to guide us rather than our fears and doubts.

When we surrender to the flow of life, we come to see that that no matter what the ‘future’ (or, rather, the forthcoming configuration of the eternal present) holds, we will be fine. That which we are is ultimately untouchable. Whether our future contains fortune or misfortune, we will be fine. We will always be fine.

When we’ve let go of our insecurities, our attachments and our desperate need to control life, we’ve let go of the very obstructions that make life difficult in the first place. And when we do encounter life’s inevitable challenges, we deal with them with greater ease and grace, always returning to our innate sense of balance and wellbeing.

I believe that when we’re in this Tao-centred state of being, connected with the flow of life and the truth of what we are, then life is often kinder and gentler. Moreover, our state of being has a positive effect on those around us and the world at large.

So why worry about the future when we can instead move our attention inward and allow life to guide us? We can flow gently and smoothly with the current of life and be led exactly where we need to be.

Maybe life really CAN be that simple? Even if I’m wrong, what a way to live!

Control

2011-08-05T15:54:00.007+01:00

I’ve been using the Sedona Method technique of emotional releasing for a while now and I’ve found it immensely helpful. It’s the simplest, easiest way I’ve yet come across for releasing negative emotions. What’s especially interesting is that whenever you feel bad, you are urged to trace the emotion back to one of four underlying WANTS: wanting control, wanting approval, wanting security or wanting to be separate.

I’ve found it amazing that just about every negative emotion can be traced to a basic sense of wanting control. It seems to me that at a core, fundamental level, human beings (or more specifically, human egos) are control-freaks. However subtly or overtly this manifests itself, we’re in the business of wanting control just about everything, just about all the time.

I suppose from the moment we’re born we learn that to get our needs met we have to try to control our environment and those around us. When we’re hungry or uncomfortable or have a poopy nappy, we don’t hesitate to make our discomfort known - and the louder the better. This in itself is a basic means of control, because we quickly learn that crying gets us what we need. The art of control is thus learned at a very young age and as we grow up, it continues to develop in an infinite number of ways. Life, and other people, are seen as things that we have to control in order to get our needs met and in order to be happy.

It’s not until we stop and think about it that we realise the countless ways in which we try to control our environment, our lives and other people. Sometimes the ways in which we desire to control things are quite obvious, whereas other times they are so subtle as to be imperceptible. But, make no mistake, it’s going on all the time!

From the moment we wake up in the morning (which is normally controlled with the aid of our alarm clock), we enter each situation in our daily lives with an agenda. We want to do and achieve certain things and we want situations, meetings and transactions to go a certain way, so we invest a great deal of effort to ensure that’s what happens. We want people to treat us a certain way, so we spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to control them and influence how they respond to us.

If we look closely enough, we can see how we try to control virtually aspect of our lives: from our bodies, health, appearance, diet and sleep patterns to our activities, jobs and careers and our relationships, social standing and the opinions of other people. What is the average human life, if not an exercise in extreme control-freakery?

Now I suppose you could argue that it’s necessary to try to control such things, otherwise our lives would spiral out of control and implode in a catastrophe of chaos and disorder. That’s the way the ego sees it and that’s how it justifies its pathological need to try and micro-manage the universe.

But I’ve come to see that control is ultimately an illusion.

It’s a fiction the mind gets hooked into, a mode of functioning that underlies every nuance of its operating software. It fails to see that its perpetual attempts to control are akin to a hamster running in a wheel. No matter how much energy and effort it invests in trying to control every aspect of life, it’s not going to get you that far.

Because just how much can we actually control in life? Honestly?

I’d argue that ultimately there’s very little we really have control over. As valiantly as we might try, we can’t control other people - at least not completely, and not all the time. Aside from ensuring we give it the proper fuel, rest and exercise it needs, we don’t control our bodies; our bodies do what they do and they’re inevitably going to get grow old and die. We don’t have much, if any, control over our environment and culture, or the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

And here’s the thing: the more we try to control anything, the more we suffer.

We suffer when we don’t get what we want. And we often suffer just as much when we do get what we want. Perhaps this is because we’ve created so much tension and resistance in ourselves that we’re unable to relax enough to enjoy the fruits of our labours. In any case, the mind is rarely satisfied with what it’s got and is immediately ready to fixate on its next object of conquest. It’s a vicious cycle. The more we control, the more we’re dissatisfied and the more we suffer.

Yet letting go of control is a truly heinous notion to most people. The thought of being out of control is unthinkable and is tantamount to a kind of death (and it is a kind of death in a way; death of the ego!). Yet if we take an honest look at the ways in which we try to control life, the ultimate futility of our efforts, and the way it causes us pain, we might find the courage to adopt a totally radical and quite revolutionary approach: letting go of our control over life.

What I’ve discovered is that the moment I let go of wanting to control anything, I feel free and at peace. I believe letting go of the need to control is one of the greatest keys to freedom and peace of mind. Paradoxically, when I know that I’m not in control of life, I feel at one with life and things just seem to flow; no stress, no worry, no resistance!

Whenever I feel bad, or whenever things have become sticky and messy, it’s usually attributable to trying to impose control on things. This has happened with my physical health. The more I’ve tried to improve my health, the more determined I’ve been to get better and the more regimented I’ve been with my diet, supplements, and so forth, the worse I’ve actually become. I can only assume it’s because the more we struggle with things, the more tension and resistance we create within us. This tends to close us down, cutting us off from the innate flow of life, whereas when we relinquish the need to control, it releases tension and promotes lightness, ease and flow.

I invite everyone to experiment with letting go of their need to control life. If something’s been causing you pain or suffering, it’s a sure sign that instead of trying to exert more control over the situation, you need to do the opposite and practise letting go. It’s so simple yet miraculous in the way it shifts our energy and reconnects us with our innate sense of wellbeing and flow. At the very least, whether the situation changes or not, you’ll experience a deep sense of relief, release and inner peace. But don’t take my word for it - try it for yourself!

When we let go of our attempts to control life, life takes over: and life can do things infinitely better than our precious little egos ever could. It’s as though a deeper intelligence springs into action and gets things back into balance again. When we’re no longer creating obstructions (and our obstructions almost always originate in the mind), things naturally settle themselves and come into harmony. This can be seen in nature. As long as there are no obstructions, a lake remains placid and still, for that is its nature. Our attempts to control creates waves in the water, shattering the calm and stirring up all kinds of muck and debris. Pretty soon the water is choppy and muddy, as a result of our desperation to impose our will. Just letting go is enough to allow the water to naturally balance and settle itself. There’s nothing we need to do. Why not let go of control as much as you possibly can and allow life to flow? You might be amazed at the results.

“Let go of your hold on life and allow life to simply flow around and through you.” John C Parkin

Ahhhhhh. The sense of relief is amazing!

Life Strips us down

2011-07-14T15:10:00.000+01:00

On a couple of occasions I’ve seen the Dalai Lama quoted as saying that the purpose of life is to be happy. On the surface this seems like a somewhat superficial statement, but of course there’s a lot more to it than that. I’m sure if he was to elaborate on that, he might explain that in order to achieve any stable and lasting sense of happiness, we must first transcend the ordinary state of human consciousness, which keeps us locked in perpetual bondage.

The predominant state of human consciousness is what Buddhists call ‘samsara’ and is a vicious cycle of craving, grasping and suffering, all the while being lost in layers upon layers of mind-created illusion. The hallmark of samsara - which is the software that just about everyone on the planet is operating from - is suffering. It’s a divisive, fragmented and distorted state of consciousness, in which awareness temporarily fixated upon and loses itself in form.

This isn’t to say that samsara is somehow ‘wrong’, or that it shouldn’t be. It is. Maybe it’s a necessary evolutionary stage for the unfolding of consciousness. What happens with the average human being is that consciousness arises in form and then loses itself in a thick treacly soup of mind-stuff; concepts, beliefs, ideas and delusion. That’s not the end of the journey though.

I believe there’s an in-built mechanism by which, at some point, consciousness transcends the limitations of samsara and awakens out of all false identifications and begins to become aware of itself again. Instead of seeing life through a screen of mind-made concepts, the barriers of belief and false identification begin to crumble and we begin to see and experience life simply as it is. When this happens there’s a great purging and stripping away. It’s not that something is added to ourselves, it’s not that we learn or become anything new. It’s more that on a mental and emotional level, layer after layer of sediment is scoured and dislodged and for the first time we can see reality clearly.

To be free of the dense conditioning of mind is the great liberation and a true flowering of human consciousness. Freed of the accumulation of thoughts and beliefs, conditioning and prejudice, likes and dislikes, expectations and interpretations, life is simply experienced as it is, and separation is supplanted by a realisation of the great oneness of all life. This process of awakening has been described in different ways and called by different names by many different people and cultures. It’s something that fascinates me and I am convinced that this unfolding is ultimately a natural part of the evolution of consciousness. It’s still very rare in this world, which is so coarse, dense and heavy, for everything about our society is designed to keep the rigid structures of mind and ego firmly cemented in place.

The importance of this process of awakening cannot be underemphasised and I believe that life actually wants it to happen. Alas, the human mind is so deeply entrenched in the delusion of separation and false identification, that we dig our heels in the mud and are generally resistant to the natural flowering of consciousness. We don’t make it easy for ourselves at all. Even people that have a degree of spiritual awareness and have embarked on a quest for enlightenment tend to block the process by continuing to cling to beliefs and mind-stuff, looking for things to add to themselves rather than surrendering and allowing all that is untrue to be stripped away from them.

Authentic spiritual unfolding is not a process of accumulation and addition; I think it’s quite the opposite. It’s a matter of subtraction and elimination, in which all that is untrue must be peeled away like layers of an onion until we eventually reach the very core. It’s a process of loss in many ways and it’s not as comfortable and pleasant as we might like. It’s relatively easy to substitute one doctrine or belief system for another. But it takes a lot more courage to be willing to let go of ALL beliefs, all concepts, all interpretations until we are stripped to the core of what we are. Then we stand naked and unmasked, as vulnerable and raw as a newborn child, yet liberated and unfettered by the chains of mind. Something beautiful is born; something that was there all along, but just buried under layer upon layer of sediment.

Just as it’s the destiny of most plants to eventually flower, I believe the same is true for us. Life doesn’t necessarily bring us what will make us superficially happy, but it brings us the circumstances and situations that will eventually enable us to flower. So all the shit that’s happening around you is simply fertiliser! Life WANTS the rose to bloom and all the right conditions and circumstances conspire to allow it to happen. Similarly, life wants us to awaken, to transcend the limitations of our current operating software and to realise the totality of what we are. It wants us to strip away all that’s untrue and it sends us the necessary conditions, circumstances and challenges that will facilitate this process.

Most people are highly resistant, of course. We have a sense of self, a notion of who we think we are, and entire lifetimes are spent maintaining, upholding and strengthening this ultimately fictitious entity. Whenever life tries to strip that identity away from us, we resist and we suffer. Ultimately life is going to get its own way, whether we like it or not. No matter how much we struggle against the inevitable, eventually our form identity will die and the illusion will be forcibly ended, at least for a while.

Death is a kind of Ctrl+alt+del. But the sages invite us to perform a ctrl+alt+del while we’re still alive; to allow life to strip away all the layers of accumulated mind-stuff, to peel away all that is false and illusory. Ultimately it’s going to happen. No dream can last indefinitely; eventually the dream ends and the dreamer again regains self-awareness. Life is continually trying to nudge us awake, to enable us to become self-aware during the dream.

Why do we resist so much? We’ve been told that the only way to true peace and happiness is to awaken fully and transcend samsara. Why do we so rigidly cling onto our false little dream? Perhaps it requires a great leap of faith. That’s the challenge we face. We can either keep resisting and holding on to a fading dream or we can cooperate with the unfolding of consciousness within us. We can allow life to strip away all that is false. That which is Real, that which is truly what we are, can obviously never be taken from us, so no matter how much is pruned away and no matter how much we seem to lose, we can never lose ourselves.

Perhaps that’s what self realisation is; realising That which can never be taken from us, which alone is real. Only the Real can bring us happiness -- and I truly believe that whether we choose to cooperate or not, life is leading us toward that. Whatever is happening in your life, you can be sure the message is something like this: wake up, wake up. You’ve been in bud for so long. Now it’s time to bloom. Let go and allow it to happen.

Words from Eladria

2011-06-11T15:06:00.003+01:00

I'm a bad blogger. I admit it. I've hardly written anything in months. In my defence, I've been distracted by health issues and struggling with other creative projects, but I plan to write much more in the future - in fact, I have a whole new blog planned. Until then, here's a little extract from one of the aforementioned creative projects - 'Eladria', the novel I'm just finishing off (and I'm getting there, it's just a matter of continually polishing away!). I think these words and snippets of dialogue make sense out of context. I'm not sure why, but I felt like sharing them here, in the hopes they might make sense to people. To me, they sum up the truth of our existence, and all that we strive to realise (I was going to say 'strive to become', but we already ARE that! Strive to realise is probably closer to it).

“The universe is but a play of duality, cradled in an infinite heart of unity, infused with a single life essence, a fount from which all forms arise. Darkness has its part to play. Without darkness, there could be no recognition of light. Always the balance must be maintained: night must follow day, autumn must follow summer and death must follow life...all in succession, a never-ending circle -- no beginning and no end.”

[...]

“The tendency of the mind is to create a false sense of separation. The gravity of the mind, of thoughts, beliefs and conditioning is strong and exerts a tremendous pull. But once you have touched the core of what you are, once you have tasted truth, you can never be the same again. The prison of mind will eventually, inevitably, dissolve. Now, I ask you..setting aside this illusory mask you have worn all your life, this illusory sense of being a person separate from the unity of life...what will you do now? Where do you feel your destiny lies? Answer from the heart, from the root of your existence and not through the filter of your habitual patterns of mind.”

[...]

She now had to take a leap of faith. She vowed to deal with whatever lay ahead of her while endeavouring to retain the knowledge, awareness and understanding she now possessed regarding her true nature and the inherent oneness of life. All of the dramas were but expressions in an infinite play of the primordial essence. She was what lay behind, beneath and beyond the outer manifestations. On this level, she was invincible, invulnerable and could transcend whatever came her way. She was beyond the happenings and events of life. She was life.

The Useless Tree

2011-05-16T18:43:00.003+01:00

From Chuang Tzu - The Inner Chapters, the Classic Taoist Text translated by Solala Towler. Not sure why this struck me so much but it did. I guess I'm a useless tree myself!

“Once a master carpenter named Shih was travelling with his apprentice on his way to the state of Chi. When they arrived in Chu Yuan village they passed a huge old oak tree sheltering the village shrine. It was huge, large enough to fit several thousand oxen under its branches. It was 100 spans and towered over everything else in the village with its lowest branches a full 80 feet in the air. These branches were so large they could have been made into a dozen boats. Many people were standing under it, their necks craned as they tried to see the top. But the master carpenter did not even turn his head as they passed it; but walked on without stoping for a moment.

His apprentice took one look at the immense tree and ran after his master saying: “Since I first took up the ax to train with you Master, I have never seen a tree as magnificent. Yet you do not even look at it, much less stop. Why is this?”

The carpenter said, “Enough! Not another word about this tree! Its wood is useless. A boat made from its timber would sink; a coffin would rot before you could put it into the ground; any tool you made from it would snap. It has too much sap in it to make a door, and a beam made from its wood would be full of termites. Altogether it is a completely useless tree and that is why it has lived so long.”

One night, after he returned home, the ancient tree came to the carpenter in a dream and spoke to him. “What are you comparing me too,” it asked, “useful trees like cherry, apple, pear, orange, citron and all the other useful trees? Yet for these trees, as soon as the fruit is ripe they are stripped; their branches are broken and torn off. It is their usefulness that causes them so much abuse. Instead of living out the years heaven has given them they are cut off halfway through. So it is for living things. This is why I have worked so long to cultivate the spirit of uselessness. I was almost cut down several times but I have been able to attain a great level of uselessness and this has been very useful to me. If I had been more useful I would never have attained the great age that I have, and grown so large.

“The two of us are similar. We are both just beings in the world. How is it that we go about judging other beings? You, an old and worthless man, about to die, how can you judge me and call me worthless?”

Shih the carpenter awoke then and spent a long time lying in his bed trying to understand this strange dream. Later, when he shared his dream with his apprentice the young man said, “If this ancient tree is so interested in being useless why has it allowed itself to become part of the village shrine?”

His master said, “It is only pretending to be a shrine. It is its way of protecting itself. Even though its timber is useless, if it were not a shrine it would have been cut down long ago. It is totally different from other trees. You cannot hope to understand it!”

Surrendering to life - 1

2011-03-16T17:33:00.000Z

The word 'surrender' has bad connotations in our culture. It's equated with defeat, weakness and failure. So much so that we probably need a whole other word for 'surrender' as it's meant in the context of spirituality. This form of surrender has nothing to do with defeat and failure and is actually more synonymous with strength than weakness. It takes a lot of strength and wisdom to know when and how to surrender to life.

Eckhart Tolle defined this form of surrender as simply "yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life." The Tao te Ching is an extended meditation on the art of surrendering to the flow of life. It draws our attention to the inherent perfection of nature, which is driven by an inner force, an underlying principle of balance and harmony. The sun and the wind and rain just do their thing. Animals exist, just doing their thing. In spite of the seeming chaos and violence we might observe in the natural world when viewing its constituent parts and their interaction, when the whole is taken into consideration, we see it is all driven by balance and perfection. Whenever it resists and constricts, something usually happens to bring it back into balance again.

We are not separate from nature or from the natural world. Only the human ego would assume otherwise. And so our lives are really meant to flow in perpetual balance as much as anything in the natural world. This balance is lost the moment our egos interject the notion of 'doership'. Doership revolves around a sense that “I” am living “my life” and “I” am the creative force behind everything that happens in it.

Now, we can shape our lives and destinies to an extent. But it is limited and in our overwhelmingly individualistic, 'power to self' kind of culture, it is greatly overemphasised. We lose touch with the underlying balance of life because when we think that we're the one doing everything, that we have to control and direct every single part of lives. If things go the way we want them to go, we're happy. If things don't conform to our idea of what they should be, we're unhappy.

From an early age we learn that if we manipulate situations in certain way we can get results that are favourable to us and there's nothing wrong with that. Until, that is, it gets out of hand and before we know it we're in a megalomaniacal relationship with life. We become the ultimate dictators. Instead of flowing with life, life has become something separate that we need to endlessly control and manipulate. As a result we're perpetually at war with life.

I believe this is at the root of much of our suffering. We devote years of our lives and exhaustive effort to manipulating life into what we want it to be. Sometimes it works, but often it doesn't...and when it doesn't, we suffer. No matter how much we fret and struggle and strive, life is ultimately going to get its own way: we're going to grow old and die. It's a shattering realisation that when it comes down to the war between us and life, life is ultimately going to emerge victorious. So why fight?

Surrender is acknowledging that there's a deeper flow, a deeper reality beneath the myriad forms of this world which have hitherto absorbed and imprisoned our attention. It's only when we let go of our need to control everything and recognise that our reign as supreme dictator of our lives has caused more pain than gain, that we can begin to form a deeper connection with life.

Contrary to everything we may have been taught, accepting and yielding to the flow of life gives us infinitely more power than trying to control and manipulate every aspect of it. The latter wears us out, grinds us down, tending to make us bitter and disillusioned. The former makes us as fresh and innocent as a young child; we regain some of our wonder at the miraculous gift of life. We connect with a far deeper power and come to experience a profound joy at simply being alive and open to life as it unfolds.

It's also possible that when we approach life from an attitude of surrender and acceptance that situations become more harmonious, because we're no longer creating tension and constriction by trying to control everything. Letting go of our stranglehold on life frees up a whole lot of energy that was otherwise being wasted. Perhaps if we are a little friendlier and kinder to life, life will return the favour? Why not surrender to the flow of life and just see what happens...

What do we do (or not do) when the world is going crazy?

2011-03-14T13:17:00.000Z

These are without doubt turbulent and deeply uncertain times.

Just days ago Japan was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes and tsunamis in recorded history, leaving the world in a state of shock. The devastation sadly continues as I write this. This is not an isolated blip either: in the past few years extreme weather and geological instability has increased exponentially. Apparently between 2006 and the end of 2010 there has been a 75% increase in earthquakes, and a similar increase in volcanic activity as well.

And it's not just the planet that's in turmoil - it's the people living upon it as well. In the past few weeks both Tunisia and Egypt have undergone revolutions, with deeply revolutionary unrest continuing in Libya and other parts of the middle east. The rest of the world has not been immune to this revolutionary fervour either, with civil unrest even in comparatively stable countries such as the UK, USA and Ireland.

So what do we do when the world around us is in a state of chaos?

It's normal and natural to react to a terrible occurrence with a measure of shock. Our reactions and the pain we feel motivates us to take action and do what needs to be done. However, problems can set in when we get caught in a kind of feedback loop. This is something the media tends to cause and exacerbate and I feel it's unhealthy and destructive.

When something bad happens, it's best to avoid doing what the majority of people do. It's almost as though people are programmed to respond to chaos in a certain way. They stay glued to the news, which continually feeds images of devastation, violence and heartbreak. This feeds the cloud of despair and shock that almost tangibly hangs in the air, getting larger and larger the more it's 'fed'. People also like to talk with others about how terrible the situation is...which, it may indeed be. The suffering and devastation is indeed heartbreaking and it's necessary to acknolwedge and witness the feelings it brings up in us.

But I also feel we have to pull ourselves out of our knee-jerk reactions of shock, despair and fear and recalibrate ourselves. Instead of continually fixating on images of the outward dissolution and disintegration of form (which was always so incredibly fragile and fleeting in spite of its illusion of solidity), we can instead turn our attention inward and seek that which is beyond form...that which can never be harmed or diminished in any way.

When the world around us is crumbling, we must go within and find our centre. The importance of doing this cannot be overstated. It's not something that comes naturally to the vast majority of people - it's something we have to consciously do.

This formless background upon which the ephemeral objects of this world come and go is eternal, untouchable and ungraspable and yet it's there if only we take a moment to connect with it. For want of a better term, I'll call it the Tao. It is the source of this world; the page upon which the words of this world are written, the very space which allows objects to exist.

There are many different pointers to help one discover and reconnect with this inner vastness. Some people find that quieting the perpetual chatter of the mind allows them to access this state of inner stillness and aliveness. I find it easiest to become aware of being aware, turning awareness toward itself, enquiring 'what am I?', 'what is it that's conscious?', 'what is it that is awake and aware at this moment?', 'what is it that's looking out of these eyes?'

Becoming aware of what we truly are beyond the surface-level movements of mind and beyond whatever is happening in the outer world creates what has been termed 'coherence', a state that can actually now be scientifically measured. Psychological and physiological disharmony dissolve as we reconnect and anchor ourselves in this inner reservoir of awareness/peace/being and we are automatically centred, strengthened and sustained. Coherence is catching. Peace has a habit of spreading.

The world is free to do its thing...which it's going to do anyway, whether we like it or not. From this deeper perspective we are just witnesses, observing the play of form in all its wonder and terror.

"But wait a minute...isn't it selfish going on a bliss-trip when the planet is in chaos and people are suffering and dying?"

There's often an unconscious assumption that if we don't suffer along with others we're cold, heartless and unfeeling. Some people seem to feel that if we aren't constantly glued to the news, trying to glean as much information as we can about a disaster, then we're almost letting down those that are suffering. Yet if you've ever been in a crisis, you know that the people that are of the most help are those that remained balanced, centred and who don't allow the stress of the situation to sweep them into shock, panic or despair. Those reactions, though natural and understandable, have a crippling effect and are completely unhelpful. In order to help in a crisis, you must first transcend it.

Getting swept up in the chaos and trauma simply adds more chaos and trauma to the world. It creates greater disharmony and incoherence. Scientists and mystics agree that we are all interconnected and inseparable from the whole. It's therefore not unreasonable to assume that our state of being must have some kind of an effect on the whole. My personal feeling is that spending all our day focussing on devastation, conflict and violence may actually energise the disturbance and might even perpetuate or worsen the very conditions we're upset about.

If, on the other hand, we remain centred, balanced and in a state of peace (or at least acceptance), then we are emanating the qualities of peace and coherence to the whole. This can only have a positive effect. Again I am brought back to Nisargadatta's statement that we can only save the world by transcending the world.

It's likely that the geological and social/political upheaval our world is experiencing will continue. In the end it may even be necessary for our continued survival as a species. We have created and unsustainable and self-destructive system that simply has to change. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. I think the majority of people are still too deeply asleep to see the choice that's before us, so it's likely we will be forced to wake up and forced to change.

Is this nature's way of bringing us to our knees? Sometimes it takes a disaster of epic proportions to shake us out of our slumber and make us realise...heck, I'm alive! But I'm destroying myself and the planet. What do I have to do to change? The human race has never done things the easy way and alas I can't see that changing anytime soon.

Ultimately it's all just a process. From the perspective of the Tao, the world of form and objects comes and goes...things happen, then change...things happen, then change again. Good things happen, bad things happen. The Tao doesn't manipulate or cling in any way. That's not to say it's cold and aloof, for it is intimately connected with everything. It embraces the entirety, the whole, with wide open arms, judging nothing. (How can it judge? All is part of the overall process and no seemingly separate component can be judged on its own merit).

I feel we are being invited to do the same. Find the Tao within yourself and surrender to it. Let it live through you. Let it observe, with an open mind and open heart, doing what it can when it can, allowing, witnessing, being. By finding the stillness within and embodying and BEING that stillness, we give a tremendous gift to this world. It is a gift of transcendence and transformation.

We can't help the world until we've transcended it

2011-02-11T14:40:00.004Z

The news is one of the most potent and toxic drugs known to man and it’s available on tap, twenty-four hours a day.

I find that just thirty seconds of it is enough to send me on a seriously bad trip. I end up in a state of lamentation at the apparently woeful state of the world. Most of our problems clearly stem from widespread and pervasive human dysfunction and all its symptoms, from the dubious activities of governments abroad and at home to the machinations of the monstrous corporate machine and our ongoing decimation of the natural world. Once you get onto this particular train of thought it’s very difficult to get off it again...and it almost always ends in a crash.

But get off the train we must. As long as we’re wrapped up in the problems, we’re part of the problem. I strongly feel that whatever the problem, transcendence is the answer. We can only help the world by shifting our perspective from appearance to reality, from symptom to cause and from problem to solution. Only by inviting, adopting and embodying a different level of consciousness or awareness can we be of any use to the world whatsoever. Only then do we stop being part of the problem.

This topic is really based around a quotation by the great Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian sage who had truly a wonderful way of cutting through the crap and getting to the essential truth of life. The question has to do with our “preoccupation with the disastrous condition of the world and the urgent need of setting it right.”

Nisargadatta had this to say: “Striving for the improvement of the world is a most praiseworthy occupation. Done selflessly, it clarifies the mind and purifies the heart. But soon man will realise he pursues a mirage. Local and temporary improvement is always possible and was achieved again and again under the influence of a great king or teacher; but it would soon come to an end, leaving humanity in a new cycle of misery. It is the nature of all manifestation that the good and the bad follow each other in equal measure. The true refuge is only in the unmanifested. [...]

“The only way to renewal lies through destruction. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new piece. Only people who have gone beyond the world can change the world. It never happened otherwise. The few whose impact was lasting were all knowers of reality. Reach their level and then only talk of helping the world.”

When we get lost in the woes of the world and enraged by the inhumanity of man, we simply end up causing more suffering. In another statement Nisargadatta stated even more plainly: “The world doesn’t need to be saved by you. It needs to be saved from you.” Ouch.

Einstein once observed that it’s impossible to solve a problem using the same level of consciousness that created it. When I get upset and frustrated by the state of the world (which is ultimately but a representation in my consciousness), I’m giving absolute importance and reality to something which only has relative importance and at the deepest level, arguably little in the way of ‘reality’. When I get caught up in the content of the dream, I tend to forget that it’s a dream. This is not to debate or diminish the fact that there’s a great deal of suffering in the world, because unquestionably there is.

Some sages and masters are content to simply sit back and allow the world to go by, feeling no need to intervene or change it in any way. Such a laissez-faire attitude to the suffering of the world may seem unconscionable to some. I can understand it, although I don’t think I could quite be like that. When I see someone suffer, I feel deeply compelled to help. When a cause feels important to me, I act on it. I sign petitions, raise awareness and when I can make charitable donations. Just because it feels right to me on some level.

Yet I now realise that I must also simultaneously remain grounded in the deeper Reality. The deeper Reality has a transcendent quality: pain and suffering tend to melt away when I remain connected with that inner expansiveness that exists beyond thought and conditioning. An inner attitude of acceptance and transcendence overcomes resistance, enabling solutions to come more easily and generally making situations flow more easily. By retaining conscious awareness of what is Real and what is simply dreamstuff, we access a power far greater than the anguished fretting of the ego-mind.

Whenever we’re having a bad dream we have two options: we can try to change the dream, or we can wake up. Both options require a degree of lucidity and the realisation that what we are experiencing is a dream. We can actively work to change the dream and make it more pleasant, or we can sit back and just allow it to unfold with an attitude of curiosity, knowing that it is finite and will end in due course.

I’d imagine that most people would probably opt to improve the dream in some way. Again, this necessitates the awareness that you are the dreamer. You can’t change the dream from within the dream until you recognise that it is just a dream. Until you reach that point, you’re simply too immersed in it: you’re unconscious in every sense of the world. Your actions within the dream are scripted. To awaken in life is to awaken within the dream, to realise what’s going on and to make your choice -- consciously change the dream to something better, or else sit back and enjoy the ride regardless of what happens.

It would seem that our very belief that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with the world highlights a deeply dualistic mode of thinking. Only the mind can create ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. If there’s only one underlying reality, one infinite expanse of awareness/consciousness/being, then everything is part of a deeper unified perfection. Beyond the prison of dualistic thinking, either “God” is everything or nothing at all. When we judge any aspect of reality as being ‘wrong’, then we’re waging war with the universe in its infinite perfection. We’re waging war with God. (I tend to balk every time I hear or use that word, but it sounded appropriate in this context!)

Again, it doesn’t mean we have to sit back and do nothing when someone needs help. We can take whatever action we feel to be right. But at the same time we realise that, on some deeper level, everything, EVERYTHING that is happening and has ever happened is born of a deeper underlying order and perfection. We can’t strip reality into component parts labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Well, in fact we can and often do -- but that’s a large part of the problem.

Accepting the unacceptable, trying to refrain from judging the seemingly terrible (while perhaps taking whatever action we feel to be right), contributes to greater coherence, greater peace and greater unity in the world. It’s turiya - a new mode of consciousness, still relatively uncommon in the world. And it may be the greatest healer of all.

Ultimately, I don’t believe we’re of much use to the world until we become, as Nisargadatta put, “knowers of reality.”

Two Approaches to Spirituality

2010-12-15T13:55:00.002Z

“The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot

There seem to be two main approaches to spirituality. The first and by far the most common, is the accumulative approach, in which the individual reads lots of books and acquires as much spiritual knowledge as possible, constructing exquisite new belief systems and engaging in all kinds of wonderful practises and sadhanas. There’s always some new technique and trend that’s taking the spiritual marketplace by storm, and so many exciting things to investigate and learn. This is the spiritual sweet shop and it’s a fun - and tasty - place to be.

The second approach is the de-cumulative approach and it’s a lot less common, perhaps because it’s not in the least bit flashy or enticing. By comparison it’s stark and simple. The de-cumulative approach is in some ways the polar opposite to the accumulative approach. It’s not about gaining new beliefs or adding more knowledge to the mind. It’s not about learning new techniques or becoming a better person. On this path, there are no answers out there, beyond some simple pointers that may or may not be helpful. The only prerequisite is to have a sincere yearning to find truth (truth about the nature of oneself and life) and, with an attitude of earnest inquiry, you are invited to look within and explore the truth of your existence. It’s about letting go of everything you think you’ve learned about spirituality, yourself and the world and to take a good look around in order to find the truth, first-hand, for yourself.

It took me a very long time to realise that sweet shop spirituality doesn’t really lead anywhere. It’s all about the thrill of the hunt, the perpetual mindset of seeking - and thinking you’ve found it in the latest spiritual bestseller, before realising that this wasn’t quite it (whatever 'it' is) and moving onto the next big trend, technique or book. I realised the answers aren’t out there, because on a fundamental level, there is no ‘out there’. It gradually dawned on me that world is maya, a mind-created, mind-projected and mind-sustained world of illusion and dream forms. If you want to learn about what is real, then you don’t look for it in the world of the false. You won’t find answers about reality in the world of dreams. Your best bet is to instead turn your attention to the consciousness that is dreaming.

This shift in attention from dream to dreamer was a huge turning point for me. It doesn’t mean I still don’t get pulled into the dramas, crises and strife that happen around me, because I do. But it doesn’t happen for quite as long anymore. On a couple of recent occasions when there have been dramas occurring around me, and people running about freaking out, I simply found myself letting go and realising that, in spite of the panic and stress around me, the drama itself didn’t really matter and that it would quickly resolve itself as it always does. And it did, on each occasion.

The dream frequently gets rocky, for that’s what happens in dreams - one moment you’re soaring through the sky like an eagle, then the next you’re tumbling toward the ground. But when you know all along that the whole thing is just a dream, you simply observe with an almost amused detachment, knowing that the seemingly dire crises will promptly resolve themselves and that what you really are cannot be threatened in any way by any of it. Indeed, the element of lucidity while dreaming even gives you an element of being able to better control the dream itself. I tried that too, and it worked remarkably! I have a suspicion that the famed ‘law of attraction’ stuff actually does work, but that you have to be detached from the dream and from what you want to create. Only when you know yourself as dreamer and not dream can you truly utilise your creative power for crafting and altering the dream should you so choose. You have the choice as to whether you simply let go and watch the show, or whether you want to change the outcome of the dream.

Now, there will be a great many people who would vigorously oppose the assertion that the world as we experience it is a dream. It’s a pretty radical statement and one that’s very hard to explain on the level of mind. I don’t feel the need to even try to explain it at the moment (although I do feel an explanation of sorts brewing in the back of my mind, words that perhaps want to be expressed at a later date). You can’t take this on someone else’s word anyway. It’s a realisation that can only be arrived through deep and unflinching inner exploration. It’s necessary to jettison all concepts and ideas about what you think you are and what you think constitutes reality and simply look within. The invitation of self-inquiry as offered by sages such as Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj has been, for me, the match that ignited this particular realisation.

It’s a journey that must be undertaken oneself. It’s wholly possible that others will come to different realisations and understandings of reality. The important thing is that the journey is taken earnestly, without expectation and without any other motive other than truth. Many of us, myself included, have embarked upon the spiritual path with an idea that it will bring us something wonderful, some superhuman state of enlightenment. This hidden agenda has to be ditched. When the ego uses spirituality as a crutch or a secret weapon to bolster itself...well, it’s never going to work out. It will get messy. I am certain that the ego can never become enlightened. It sure as hell thinks it can. But authentic awakening is the transcending of ego, in which the false, conceptual self dissolves into something vaster, deeper and truer. And by ‘something’ I actually mean nothing and Everything. This is where words get tricky. This is where it’s best for me to stop talking altogether.

I suppose the point of this post was to note what I see as the two contrasting approaches to spiritual realisation. The accumulating/gathering approach sees us devouring information, teachings and techniques. It may be a necessary foundation for our spiritual explorations (until we may come to realise that it’s unnecessary and even counter-productive). There comes a point when we’ve stuffed our bellies with so much confectionary that we feel bloated, sick and yet simultaneously unfulfilled. It took me many years on the spiritual merri-go-round to realise that I was just going around in circles.

It was then that I was drawn to the spartan and decidedly un-flashy approach of de-cumulation, wherein the only motive is a simple desire to know what’s true and what isn’t true. Not because of what it will get me, but simply because the confectionery shop had left me so unsatisfied and disillusioned. This fundamental shift in focus is radical. I stopped looking for answers within the dream itself, and started exploring who and what the dreamer was.

I’m beginning to realise that this ‘path’ doesn’t really lead anywhere. It does seem to cause a radical shift in perception and awareness. I don’t think I can ever look at ‘myself’ and ‘the world’ in the same way ever again. Yet I don’t think I’m suddenly going to burst into light and ascend to higher planes. This apparently separate entity with a body and name and memories and habits is here for the duration of its allotted timespan. But there’s something changing within. There’s a timeless presence or awareness that’s simply witnessing the play of form as it takes place through and around this time-bound physical entity. It’s impossible to find and touch this awareness - it’s not to be seen or categorised. It’s simply watching with a detached amusement. It’s almost like someone sitting in a darkened cinema munching on popcorn while watching what’s happening on the cinema screen. Sometimes the film is so good (or bad!) and so compelling and realistic, that the cinema-goer is utterly pulled into the events of the film.

I like the cinema screen analogy. I’ve heard it used before and it’s one of the best for explaining the nature of consciousness and life. I may return to it. In the meantime, I continue to nibble popcorn and watch this amusing, scary, funny, sometimes tragic farce unfold.

The biggest conspiracy of all

2010-12-09T15:09:00.003Z

I find conspiracy theories interesting - not so much on the level of content, but as a phenomenon in themselves. Here I use the term ‘conspiracy theory’ as a neutral description for all the wide-ranging controversial, unproven or unverifiable theories of political, social or systemic conspiracies.

I recently came across a David Icke book and I skimmed through it with interest. I'm aware of his theories but have never read any of his stuff. I didn't really like it. He presented some coherent insight into the ultimate nature of reality as a dream in consciousness, cobbling together elements of ‘The Matrix’ and advaita philosophy, while tacking on his own sci-fi-esque twists about shape-shifting reptiles (yes, really). But my overall feeling was that he's mixed truth with illusion. More damaging than a lie is a twisted truth or a half-truth. The book was called 'Infinite Love Is the Only Truth, All Else is Illusion', but Icke deeply contradicts himself by remaining so deeply immersed and caught up in what he himself says is all an illusion. He briefly talks of love being the only reality, yet his writing appears to come from a place of anger and fear.

It's clear to me that some of the 'conspiracy theories' are self-evident: it's a sad truth that large corporations do have a strong influence on government policy. Whether this is due to a nefarious plot to take over the world and create a 'one world government' or simply down to greed is uncertain, but I'd suspect the latter. The principle of Occam's razor states that the simplest explanation is usually the likeliest. Now, I believe there is evidence to support some conspiracy theories, (I won't go into which ones, as that is not the scope of the intended discussion). There is corruption, there are dubious agendas and all kinds of power plays that can happen within any organisation or government. This seems to be endemic to the unawakened human mind.

But I'm not sure dwelling on such things is a healthy thing. Conspiracy literature, such as David Icke and others, can have a compulsive quality and it's sometimes convincingly written. But I it feel creates anger, fear and paranoia and this can become a mindset.

Our experience of reality is filtered through our mind and psyche. Someone who focuses on conspiracies will tend to see conspiracies everywhere.

"Why hasn't John returned my call? It's been weeks since he got in touch. I bet Janet said something to him about what happened at the party. They've all been talking about it behind my back - they've had it in for me all along."

That's the 'reality' we experience, until we later learn that John has been in hospital and therefore unable to return our calls and that Janet has forgotten all about what happened at the party. I'm sure we've all done this before - seeing a vast conspiracy that exists nowhere other than our minds, a projection of our own insecurities and anxieties.

The mind's tendency to project is something that can't be overstated. Our anxieties, fears, insecurities and prejudices totally colour our view of the world and others (and it's interesting to note that often conspiracies are often levelled against minority groups and their perceived 'agendas' that threaten 'us', highlighting our projected fear and prejudice). We can never say how many of the conspiracy theories are simply projections of our own fears and insecurities. There's actually very little we can know with certainty.

Even if the theories are true, we don't have much scope to change things as long as we're stuck in the low, sticky energy of anger and fear. As Einstein stated, a problem can never be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it.

"He who looks outside dreams, he who looks inside awakens."

One of the best quotes of all time, by Carl Jung! I believe the conspiratorial mindset is disempowering for it keeps us locked in a world that isn't ultimately real anyway. It keeps us from seeking our own truth within and from connecting with the only thing that's real in the dream: the witnessing consciousness.

The only way we can really help the world is to go beyond the world and that means to stop fixating on external phenomena instead seek what's true within. The dreamworld is enticing with all its dramas and thrills and spills, whether they're real or imagined (and, ultimately, I'm pretty certain it's all imagined). But it's still just a dream in consciousness.

Perhaps conspiracy theories are a conspiracy in themselves to keep us distracted from realising our true nature? Could that be the biggest conspiracy of all? ;-)

Some additional thoughts on awakening & emotional healing

2010-11-09T13:02:00.002Z

After re-reading what I wrote in the last post I wanted to clarify that not everyone 'takes up' spirituality as a distraction. But it does seem to at least start that way for many people based on my own experience and observations. Maybe pain is a necessary trigger to spark this awakening. People that never suffer have no reason to look beyond the dream, because who wants a pleasant dream to end?

Two things might happen once we begin to explore spirituality. Firstly, we might simply get caught up in a seemingly better, more 'spiritual' dream which is still ultimately just a dream. Or we might come to realise that the impulse to spiritually awaken isn't simply about adopting new beliefs and practises, but is a spark of something deeper within us and part of a greater process, an impersonal universal unfolding of consciousness.

As long as we seek to get something out of spirituality, some benefit, whether it's enlightenment or peace or freedom, then it's likely the ego is hi-jacking the process. This is not a judgement, and it happens all the time and I catch myself doing it. Ultimately I perceive authentic spirituality as a great surrendering to the unfolding of the universe, a flowering within, around and beyond 'us'...and one that cannot be forced or coerced. We can however create the space within us to invite it on and allow it to happen. Effortless effort.

The basic point I wanted to make below was that, for some at least, the process of awakening can be painful, uncomfortable or disorienting. The deeper we go, the more we have to confront all the psychological/emotional crap that's been buried within us. The light of awareness highlights all the areas of darkness and makes it impossible to hide from them or ignore them any longer. It seems to draw this stuff to the surface like a poultice. We then have to confront layer after layer. This seems, at least to me, to be part of the process. Maybe it's not a bad sign. Maybe it's actually a very good one. It's better that this stuff is dealt with rather than continually stuffed down and repressed.

To summarise the process I've found for dealing with these blocks and emotional issues. First, be aware of it. Feel it. Move into it, then beyond it. See what's at the centre of it or beneath it. Keep going inward until you reach an open expanse of pure being, the energy/consciousness out of which the block has been formed. Rest in that. Be it. And then see what happens. I've found this very helpful myself and wanted to share it.

Awakening - a painful process

2010-11-08T14:00:00.003Z

“Make no mistake about it - enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imaged to be true.” Adyashanti

I think there’s a widespread notion that becoming enlightened or awakening is a smooth and joyful process, a kind of ever-expanding state of love, light and bliss. At times it maybe is, but that’s not the entirely of it. In spirituality, I think there’s a tendency to cling to positive feeling-states and use them as a means to evade the nasty stuff that’s still lurking deep within our psyche.

This kind of evasion is what is sometimes referred to as a ‘spiritual bypass’ and is, I think, the reason that a lot of people are initially drawn to spiritual pursuits. They use it as a way to circumvent the pain that’s deep within them, the fears, the ravaging self-doubt and the residue of emotional pain from the past.

It maybe works for a while, as well. We become ‘spiritual’ and for a time our attention is shifted away from the black ball of pain that’s lodged somewhere deep within and we feel better, brighter, happier. The problem is, aversion tactics don’t work in the long-run. They don’t remove the underlying unease and unrest, they just temporarily mask it over.

Of course, it’s not just spirituality that people use as means of distraction and denial - some more common ‘weapons of mass distraction’ are addictive use of alcohol, drugs, social interaction, sex and compulsive mental stimuli such as an overabundance of television watching, computer game playing, internet surfing and anything else that keeps us as occupied as possible so we never actually have to feel what’s within.

I think that we all have this black cloud of fear and pain lodged somewhere deep within. My feeling is that it starts the moment we’re born and are forcibly yanked from oneness into a strange and unsettling world of separation, in which we have very real survival needs that must be met and the inevitability of occasional (or, if we’re unfortunate, sustained) pain and suffering. Something deep within us tightly constricts - we become aware on a deep, instinctual level of potential danger and the possibility of annihilation. This primordial, unconscious fear remains within us our entire life, like a tightly clenched fist in our gut, a continual reminder that we are potentially at threat in any and every moment. This fear is at the core of our sense of self and is possibly a biological survival mechanism.

As we go through life, experiencing various hurts and pain, a residue of this pain forms around this core fear. Layer after layer of pain develops, until the black ball gets larger and larger. It gets so large that we begin to mistake it as being who we are. A large proportion of people’s actions are motivated by this mechanism and the desire to avoid future pain and discomfort. This is what Eckhart Tolle calls the ‘pain body’, the accumulation of past pain within us. It’s dormant sometimes, but can easily get triggered and take us over, dramatically colouring our thoughts, perceptions and behaviour. Different people seem to have different key feelings that glue their black ball together: for some it’s fear, for others it might be a sense of unworthiness, abandonment or anger. The circumstances of our lives can trigger this mechanism at any time and set in motion all kinds of subsidiary programs and conditioning.

No one likes to confront the darkness that’s within. I think most people are unconsciously aware of it, but they do anything they can to avoid feeling it. We have this black lump of crap at the core of our psyche and we spend our entire lives both running from it and disguising it as best we can. We try to cover it in paint and make-up, masking it with more and more things, achievements and possessions in order to fill the void. We distract ourselves from it in sometimes the most destructive of ways. For many people, ‘being spiritual’ is just another way of running from the black void within. Most spiritual seekers think they’re seeking enlightenment or whatever, but I see now that most the time we’re just trying to escape the pain that’s within.

Avoidance and aversion are never the answer. I no longer see enlightenment or spiritual awakening as I used to. I used to buy into the notion that it’s something that you add to yourself, an experience of perpetual bliss and peace and knowing. But now I see it differently. I’m not saying this is the final understanding I’ll have on the subject, and I’m always open to shifting perceptions and deeper understandings, but I now see that there’s no way we can ever be enlightened. The ‘we’ I’m referring to is, of course, ego. The ego that seeks enlightenment can never be enlightened, because enlightenment is a shifting of awareness beyond the illusory chimera of ego. There’s nothing to ‘add’ to ourselves. We are already the totality. Perhaps awakening is nothing more than the realisation of this.

Going back to the original quote by Adyashanti (who is one of the clearest teachers on this trickiest of subjects), I can now see the truth of this. Awakening is NOT about achieving extraordinary states of bliss and light. It’s not something that we add to ourselves. It’s more a process of excavation and eradication. It’s the shedding of layers upon layers of masks, stories, beliefs and conditioning. Instead of continually polishing, painting and trying to disguise the black ball that resides at the core of our psyche, we meet it head on.

We begin peeling back the layers and moving deeper and deeper into it. The more we deny and repress it, the more it grows. I know it’s a cliche, but there’s never been a truer one: the only way out IS through. It’s a painful process, confronting our deepest fears and most intense emotional pain. But each layer has to be acknowledged and felt, although it’s also important not to get stuck in it, as some people might have a tendency to do this. Bringing our conscious awareness into it, we can feel it fully and then let it go, moving to the next level. It takes great courage to face our pain and fears like this. Once you’ve started, there’s no going back, only forward. We must persevere as we move deeper and deeper, through layers of fear, anxiety, terror, grief, loss and hurt.

When we move right into the core of this black void, we encounter something inexplicable. I’m almost hesitant to speak of it, because it’s maybe something everyone needs to discover for themselves. But at the core of all these encrusted layers of sediment...is something extraordinary. Well, that’s actually not true. It’s more like nothing, but it is extraordinary. At the deepest core of all this crap is a vast expanse of openness, emptiness, expansiveness. There’s nothing there -- and yet this vast nothing is simultaneously everything. There’s just pure Being; unconditioned awareness, a sense of vast and intangible intelligence and conscious prior to any identification with form or thought. If you’ve experienced this state of being before you’ll know what I’m referring to. If not, you’ll probably be scratching your head about now, utterly perplexed. That’s all right too.

From this core state of simple Being (and I’m on shaky ground here, because words are really inadequate when it comes to putting these experiences into language), we can begin to see through all the pain and fear. It was all based on a misidentification with form. It was based on the illusion that what we are is anything other than this vast, intangible, infinite ocean of awareness. The identifications of mind, ego and conditioning quickly dissolve into this endless ocean of nothing/everything. Tracing consciousness back to its source and being rooted in this primordial sense of ‘I am’ (which exists prior to notions of ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’), is the method of self-enquiry as recommended by two of the spiritual giants of the 20th century, Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nisargadatta called this the ultimate medicine - nothing else is needed. All problems, all fears and pain tend to dissolve when we trace our consciousness back to its root (at least this has been the case in my experience, which is all I can really speak from).

Of course, it’s unlikely that you will remain in this state of being forever more. We have bodies and minds and we have to function in this world, so of course we’re going to come back into our ordinary state of consciousness. What happens then, I can only speak for myself. Each time I move into the state of pure being, I feel it dissolves a little more of the illusions and pain I’ve carried within for so long. Sometimes it’s as though the black ball of fear/pain disappears completely. Even if it doesn’t, it rarely seems quite as dense and impenetrable as it was previously. I think that each time you touch the realm of being, you bring a little of it back with you. It has a transmuting, healing quality. Sometimes it stays with you a long time, sometimes just a few moments. Maybe at some point it with remain as an abiding awareness, but it’s best just to accept the process as it unfolds. There’s no need to understand, grasp or cling.

There is no goal to achieve this, and I don’t believe there should be a goal to get rid of the black ball within. The moment we have a goal, we create a resistance within us and we tend to create additional blocks. I don’t recommend this process to everyone. Many probably aren’t ready or willing. It’s fine that they keep doing whatever they’ve been doing, distracting themselves with TV and alcohol. I can’t do that. It’s like I’ve come so far that I no longer have the option of going back.

The ego hates this stuff, because it often ends up in tatters, limping about in the corners of the psyche, broken and battered, quietly plotting ways to reassert itself as it wipes its bloody nose. It’s free to do it’s stuff. There’s a deeper process at work, in all of us. And that’s all it is - a process. It happens, a lot of the time unbidden. We’re drawn to do what we do, what feels right in the moment. The right pointers and teachings appear at the right moment. It might seem like we are, but it’s ultimately a fallacy to think that WE’RE doing anything. The process does itself. We are just a process!

The pain drives us either outward seeking distraction, or it compels us inward, to find its source. Pain is perhaps our greatest teacher and healer. Uncomfortable though it is, it’s certainly not the enemy. It’s pulling us back to ourselves, to what we truly are. It’s the mechanism that invites us to wake up from the dream we’ve been living. We’ve been fighting and resisting it all these years, but perhaps pain is a vital component of this thing we call enlightenment or awakening...

Forget about your dreams. Wake up instead!

2010-10-13T20:37:00.003+01:00

It seems this blog has become something of a monthly occurrence now. There was a time when I wrote almost every other day. I have been busy trying to finish up other things however, and I suppose that now I actually know people read this, I've lost my spontaneity a bit. Blog fright! But here are some words I scribbled down the other day, based on one of those 'flash insights'. I thought I might as well share.

There’s a lot of talk in our culture about the importance of our ‘dreams’...we've got to follow our dreams, make our dreams come true, live the dream, never give up on our dream. You know you the drill!

But here’s what I suddenly realised. All this talk of dreams is really the last thing we need. We don’t need dreams. Life is already a dream! What good is it dreaming within a dream? Certainly, the dreams can be sweet, but they rarely stay that way for long, because that’s simply not the way dreams work. Sooner or later elements of discord and discomfort creep in and before we know it our dreams become nightmares. So, why not forget our dreams? What we need more than anything else is to wake up.

We don’t need to manipulate the circumstances of our lives in order to be fulfilled and at peace. Because, like I said, dreams have a habit of perpetually changing and shifting. You can be lying on the beach on a tropical island one moment and then the next moment you’re being held at gunpoint by Ronald McDonald. (Dreams are bizarre, as well!)

Perhaps it’s better that we simply wake up and see life for what it is, and indeed, more fundamentally, see ourselves for what we are. I recall the inspired words of Carl Jung when he said that “who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens.”

The notion that we have to chase and fulfil our dreams seems to have taken root at the heart of western spirituality and these dreams usually come down to at least some element of avarice. Perhaps in order to thrive in our western world, spirituality involuntarily assimilated some of the principles of capitalism? Such ‘dreams’ tend to be unconsciously founded on the notion that what’s out there is really ‘real’ and that in order to be happy we have to mould and manipulate it into a favourable configuration. I’m not saying that we can’t do things and have goals, but simply that they be seen for what they are, which is ultimately quite insignificant, no matter how grand and lofty our ambitions. Do stuff (by the very nature of the world we live in, we have to do stuff), but remember that it’s all just maya you’re playing with, dream-stuff, a play within a play, mere movements in consciousness.

The ultimate goal is not to fulfil our dreams, but to wake up from every last one of them. To see reality for what it is, to know ourselves as what we are, to dis-identify from the dream forms we’ve projected ourselves into and know ourselves as the dreamer, the dreamed and the dream. The deeper we go into the dream, the more we tend to lose ourselves in it, but if we take a step back, withdraw at least some of our attention from the objects of the dream and use it to go within and inquire (who...what...am I REALLY?), then the awakening process begins. We become openings for turiya, a new form of consciousness still rare in this world, the stateless state of lucid wakefulness.

This wakefulness is worth more than all the gold in all the dreams in all the dreamt-of worlds. The person living in a slum in India who has awoken from the spell of our great collective dreaming, is infinitely richer than all the Wall Street brokers put together and multiplied by a thousand. The riches of the dream-world never last, but the emergence of lucid wakefulness is a jewel that will surely last beyond eternity.

Personal Development vs Spiritual Development

2010-09-13T18:21:00.003+01:00

There seems to be a strange dichotomy at the heart of Western spirituality. Do we completely accept things as they are, and surrender to life or do we take charge of our destinies and strive to manifest what we desire?

I’ve long been baffled by this confusion. Is it a mixture of both? For a while, I tried combining the two, but that’s more difficult than it sounds, because our minds are such that we tend to veer more in one direction than the other in any given moment. True balance is hard to achieve. So, time and time again I came back to the same question: to control or to surrender? Which is it?

I think the root of the paradox stems from the fact many Western spiritual teachers have blurred the line between personal development and spiritual development. In truth, they are quite different things. Personal development is very much rooted in the little ‘self’, the ego, and is to do with developing and adding to this self. It’s about developing greater self esteem and self confidence, as well as achieving, accumulating and acquiring that which one desires. There is nothing wrong with personal development. To be ‘self actualised’ on the egoic level is in fact highly preferable to being bound by a weak and dysfunctional ego that’s hopelessly snared in a net of self doubt, fear and limitation.

Spirituality, on the other hand, has nothing to do with developing the ego. On the contrary, it’s about transcending ego. It is about awakening from the notion of being a separate, limited little ‘self’ and seeing through all the stories and concepts we’ve spun about ourselves, the world and life. Whereas personal development is about adding to yourself, spiritual development is a process of subtraction. You let go and let go and let go until all that’s left is a primordial awareness, subtle, silent yet all pervasive.

On this level, there’s not much need to control reality, because all is seen simply as a dream unfolding in consciousness. Which isn’t to say one will simply sit in a chair forevermore and won’t be moved to take action in any way. But whatever action we take will no longer be driven by the need to find fulfilment and happiness, because we’ve come to realise that fulfilment and joy are in fact our innermost essence and are available to us only by turning inward.

This isn’t to pit personal development and spiritual development against each other. Each have their place and one may be more appropriate for one person than another. I’m not sure if spiritual development can be forced. It seems to be a more spontaneous occurrence; either one is ‘ripe’ for it, or one isn’t. If someone has absolutely no pull toward spirituality, then the fire simply hasn’t been lit and it’s probably best that they stick to personal development for the time being.

The way many teachers and authors have combined personal and spiritual development has created, I feel, an unfortunate confusion and ultimately leads to disillusionment. People might pick up a book like ‘The Secret’ and think that by focussing on the law of attraction and working through a list of material desires they are somehow on the way to everlasting happiness and spiritual fulfilment. I feel this is very deceptive. It can be fun to play around with the material world and it’s good to have nice things and pleasurable experiences, but if people are exclusively locked into the world of things, then the moment those things are taken away, or fail to show up, then suffering arises. Our happiness is utterly at the mercy of events, circumstances and other people which are by their very nature fickle, unstable and ever-changing.

It seems to me that the only way to find true peace in the world is to transcend it. Simply striving to make your life circumstances as ‘perfect’ as possible, and to accumulate as much money and as many material possessions as you can is really the worst way to be at peace in life. Because no matter how high you climb up the mountain, eventually you’re going to have to come back down. Such is the nature of life. And when that happens -- as long as you’re completely focused on the outward trappings of life -- you will suffer.

The confusion between personal and spiritual development is one that needs to be clarified and understood. Personal development is another word for ego development (because, simply, the ‘person’ is the ego). I don’t mean to lament the ego, for it is what it is and it does what it does, but so long as it’s running the show (and when it comes to ‘my’ desires, ‘my’ goals, and ‘my’ dreams, then it clearly is), there can be no lasting peace. Happiness will come and go with each success and failure. Only by going within and finding out what we really, truly are, can we touch upon the level of peace, fulfilment and joy that we’re really looking for. Everything else is a quick fix and will ultimately amount to nothing, because anything that can be achieved or acquired in the world of form can and will eventually be taken from us.

I can see how catering for both the ego’s endless quest for more possessions, achievements and attainments and our drive to be ‘spiritual’ can make for an enticing package. It clearly sells books. Dressing up the ego’s desires in a spiritual cloak makes it more appealing perhaps because it mitigates the element of avarice and makes it more permissible. But so long as the ego is running the show and we are locked into the illusion that we need certain things and sets of circumstances in order to be happy and free and spiritually fulfilled, then it won’t be long before we’re in train wreck town.

Again, I’m not dissing those types of books, or saying it’s wrong to pursue goals and desires, just so long as we’re clear about why we’re doing it and what we hope to gain from it. Sometimes we need to repeatedly try something one way before we realise that it simply doesn’t work. Many people are like that when it comes to life. It doesn’t matter how many times they hear things like ‘happiness only comes from within’. They’re still intent on trying to make their outer lives as ‘perfect’ as possible before they can be happy. Maybe it will take entire lifetimes to realise it just doesn’t work like that. No matter how perfect your life circumstances are, or how high your bank balance is, or how great your business is doing, it could all change in the blink of an eye. Only by finding that which is changeless within us can be rooted in any kind of lasting peace.

I’m lucky to have learned that comparatively early in my life. I’ve stopped chasing after things to make me ‘happy’. But I am still being drawn to do certain things and pursue certain avenues. The motive is different now - it’s not to achieve fulfilment, success and happiness. When I turn within, I already am fulfilled, successful and happy. It’s simply because I want to and because I can. Another time I’ll maybe talk more about how I am continuing to reconcile the paradox of doing and not-doing, of taking action and surrendering to life.

Letting Go

2010-08-15T19:14:00.002+01:00

They say life is a balance between holding on and letting go.

I’ve found that the most important of the two is actually the art of letting go. We hold onto so much in life: memories, concepts, self-definitions, hurts and grievances, losses, frustrations, other people’s opinions and our so-perceived failures and failings. We become so encumbered with these weighty layers of sediment that we lose touch with who and what we truly are. When we’re holding on to this much crap, it’s little wonder we often experience life as a painful drudge, filled with disappointment and anguish.

We’ve lost ourselves under these layers of sediment, which exist in our minds and psyche as thoughts, conditioned reflexes, memories and belief patterns. They have a phantasmic quality, and they tend to warp and distort our perceptions of reality. People tend to unconsciously forge an identity out of this mindstuff, so the very notion of letting go of it is almost tantamount to a death of self. This is perhaps why most people are so resistant to change and will do almost anything to avoid changing themselves and altering the structure and content of their mind and egos.

But I do believe that the only way to peace and liberation is to cultivate the art of letting go. And when I say letting go, I mean letting go of pretty much everything we’ve ever been holding onto. Whenever we feel emotional pain or stress of any kind, it’s a signal that we’re holding onto something that we need to discard. I’ve been experiencing this repeatedly of late. Some of the things I’ve realised I have to let go of are old definitions of who I think I am, who I think others are, how life works, old relationships, old fears and doubts, outdated notions of what I am or am not capable of doing and a number of other beliefs about myself, others and ‘the world’.

A Course in Miracles states that we are never upset for the reason we think we are. Whenever pain or hurt comes up, or any sense of frustration, fear or anguish, it's helpful to ask yourself: what would I have to believe in order to be upset about this, or for this to be an issue? Or, what do I need to let go of in order to be at peace? It might be a belief, a perception, a conscious or unconscious desire or need. Once you have recognised what you need to release, you can then do what you need in order to let go of it.

The two most powerful methods I’ve found for releasing beliefs, thoughts and feelings are the Work of Byron Katie and a technique of emotional releasing called the Sedona Method. Both can easily be learned and will serve as invaluable tools for the rest of your life. Byron Katie’s Work is superb at tackling erroneous thoughts and beliefs, while the Sedona Method is extremely effective at releasing feelings and emotions. These are the kind of things that really need to be taught in schools!

It can take some commitment to work in this manner. For a while at least, it might seem that the more you release, the more there is to release. The issues keep on coming thick and fast and the moment you’ve moved beyond one sticky issue, another rears its head. This is because we carry layer upon layer of this stuff around with us. Most of the time we’re only aware of the tip of the iceberg, but rest assured the majority of that iceberg is submerged beneath the water.

So why commit to this process of clearing and letting go?

Because, as far as I can see, it’s probably the only way to true and lasting peace. I believe our true nature is akin to the ‘zero point’ - that space of vast, expanded awareness, stillness and emptiness/fullness that lies at the heart of our being. Words are quite inadequate at describing this transcendent state. It lies at the core of our being, prior to thought, feeling, perception and ego. It’s almost like a primordial awareness, a vast interconnected oneness, in which all forms are united at their source.

The more of this toxic mindstuff we strip away, the less our true nature is obscured and the more easily we can access and rest in it. These glitches of psyche, which are all more or less rooted in ego, in the false identification with our bodies, minds and a misplaced sense of ‘self’, are like clouds that obscure the sunlight. For many years we’ve identified with these clouds and, whether they were dark stormy clouds or light fluffy ones, we’ve derived our sense of identity from them.

As we begin to disperse the clouds, seeing through them and recognising their intangible, illusory nature, the sky gradually clears and we can finally see what we really and truly are, and always have been. We were never the clouds, at least not truly. We are the sky...the sun and everything above and beneath!

This realisation of our true nature is the only thing we need to hold onto in life.

The rest we can let go of, recognising its transient and ephemeral nature.

There is only one reality, one self, one substance out of which the universe is manifested. The content of mind -- all the baggage we carry with us, our desires and fears and beliefs and definitions -- are but clouds in the sky. Let it go. Go beyond it. Find the light that underlies it, the essence that enables it to be. And hold onto that. Be rooted there. Peace, fulfilment and joy is almost a guaranteed byproduct! But do it without motive. Chase the truth only for one reason: to know the truth. Let all else be as it will be, and stay grounded in that realisation of being.

That is our invitation and our challenge, both yours and mine.

Some thoughts on ego and enlightenment

2010-07-14T13:49:00.003+01:00

I’m not into the extreme ego-bashing that takes place in many spiritual circles. Making the ego into an enemy, a dragon to slay, something to destroy is frankly a little ignorant. Trying to fight and destroy the ego is just as ridiculous as trying to destroy your shadow, or your reflection in a mirror. It isn’t real - it’s just a trick of the light and try though you might, you will never succeed in destroying it, because it has no inherent existence of its own. As long as you’re alive in this world, you’re going to have an ego. If someone calls your name, you will answer to it. The ego is kind of necessary for functioning in our day to day lives. It has its purpose.

Where things go wrong is when we identify with our ego, with our reflection or shadow, and mistake it for being the entirety of who we are. This is what causes the problems, not really the ego itself, but our identification with it and with the layers of conditioning, beliefs and thoughts that glue it in place. In order to break free of this illusion, it’s not necessary or advisable to try to destroy the ego, it’s enough simply to dis-identify from it, to recognise that it is simply a mechanism or a software program through which we process reality. We are the operator of the software, the witness that peers through the mask. This realisation is the essence of spiritual awakening.

I’ve heard it said before that in order to transcend the ego, we must first have developed a reasonably strong, balanced ego. Weak egos are always seeking outside validation, forever manipulating circumstances and people in order to boost its fragile sense of self. The danger is, I suppose, that weak egos might use spirituality as a way of actually boosting their sense of identity. Well-developed egos may have less need for doing so, and thus might be a little more authentic in their desire for transcendence of ego. Even then, the ego has a powerful self-survival streak and is rarely truly willing to commit the suicide that authentic spiritual awakening asks of it.

Two types of Spirituality

Many forms of ‘spirituality’ and religion, and just about all of what is known as ‘personal development’ are actually ego-development, means of feeling better about ourselves and the world. This is good and may be an important part of our path toward eventual awakening, but to avoid self-delusion and future disillusionment it is necessary to distinguish between these forms of ‘feel-better spirituality’ and genuine spiritual awakening, which is actually a destructive process, in which we willingly step into the fire and are seared to the bone, allowing everything that is false to burn away.

Feel-better spirituality is about adding to yourself and coming up with more positive stories about yourself and life, whereas authentic spirituality is a almost like crucible in which everything is taken away from you, including all notions of who you think you are. This is not to pit one against the other, just to the highlight the difference.

Most people are simply not ready to enter the crucible. They will know when they are, because often it is a spontaneous happening, or perhaps life pushes them into it because otherwise the suffering is too much to bear. There comes a point when instead of simply making the dream better and more pleasant, we begin to see through the dream and once this happens, it’s impossible to relate to it in the same way ever again. Ego still exists, the dream continues to unfold, but it develops a certain transparency. We cease identifying with it.

The Spiritual Ego

An interesting phenomenon that I have witnessed in myself and others and which is sometimes a characteristic of the ‘spiritual path’ is the development of the SPIRITUAL EGO. The spiritual ego arises when we begin to think that ‘we are spiritual’ and that we have all this knowledge and wisdom which others don’t have and that we’re somehow closer to our ‘higher selves’ than ‘unspiritual’ people.

We may indeed be closer to the realisation of Self, but the spiritual ego can be a tricky trap to fall into, especially when we invest too much identity in it. In truth, the spiritual ego can be even more noxious and dangerous than the average ego, because it has a certain righteousness and it tends to be closed off to all other possibilities and viewpoints. Because the spiritual ego believes that it is in possession of the ultimate truth and is somehow closer to God, it is capable of committing all kinds of dubious behaviours, as is the case with suicide bombers for instance. An extreme example I know, but it’s still important to keep a check on the spiritual ego.

Who wants to be enlightened?

It’s ironic that many people strive to reach enlightenment and destroy their egos, little knowing that these desires are actually driven by their egos. Our true Self - our true nature as expansive consciousness - is in a non-manipulative relationship with everything. It doesn’t want experience to be a certain way, it is open and embracing of everything. I believe that it does however have an impulse to express itself through the world of form, and for this to happen a certain transparency is necessary, a lessening of the calcified hold of ego, or at least a seeing beyond its narrow and quite illusory confines. But the true Self doesn’t struggle or strive or attempt to manipulate reality. It’s a silent and vast ocean of stillness that ever lies at the core of our beings. We reach it by surrendering to it. The ego likes to get so far to it, but when it comes to the surrender part - forget it! Why surrender to the source when you can use it to manifest a new car or a bonus at work?

I believe that the impulse to spiritually awaken is genuine, a prompting from this deeper level of being, but the ego often hi-jacks the process. ‘Oh my, wouldn’t it be great to be enlightened!’ Only the ego wants to become enlightened - because our true nature, the awakeness that we are, is already awake. So beware the tendency of ego to hi-jack the process and make spirituality into the same old process of acquisition and accumulation that it takes with the material world.

Don’t make the ego into an enemy and don’t try to vanquish it. Just see through it and cease identifying with it. That’s all. As simple as that. No need for conflict or aggression, or creating false dualities within our consciousness. There is an apparent duality, but it’s simply a mirage. When this is realised, it may not disappear altogether, but we are no longer bound by it, granting importance to this seemingly independent aspect of self.

It becomes like a yo-yo match at times. The ego has tremendous persistence and it loves creeping back in - even the smallest of cracks will do. Just watch it with patience and amusement, as you would a small child playing. Don’t take it so seriously. But watch for any investment in concepts and ideas about ‘yourself’ and who you think you are, including this notion of being ‘a spiritual person’. There’s no such thing as a spiritual person. Spirituality is seeing beyond the person, beyond the ego. There is only spirituality expressing spirituality; awareness becoming aware of itself. Nothing personal about it at all.

Those are just some unassorted ramblings, I hope they made some kind of sense on some level.

This Is It!

2010-07-04T13:41:00.001+01:00

I wanted to share a slightly abridged extract from Adyashanti’s book ‘Emptiness Dancing’, for it is something that had a profound effect on me and afterward I will explain how.

“Everything is consciousness. Everything is God. Everything is One. Seeing that everything is One shoots a hole in trying to pin the pendulum swing of experience in any particular place. If it’s all One; it’s no more One when the pendulum is in the high state than when the pendulum is over in some other state.

Zen teachers don’t explain anything in an abstract way, which is both the beauty and the terror of it. My teacher’s way of explaining this would be to hold up his staff and say, “This is Buddha.” Then he would bang it on the ground and everyone would think, “Wow! That’s really wild Zen stuff. I wish I knew what he was talking about.” Then he would go -- bang, bang, bang, bang -- and he would say, “This is Zen. This is it!” And everyone would react, “Oh, wow!” People would wonder, “What? Where?” but nobody would say that. “It couldn’t be THAT because he’s just beating a stick on the ground.”

Since it’s not all One to the mind, the mind keeps looking for it, “Where is it? What state is it?” Because the me references everything to its own emotional state, that’s what it uses to decide what is true. It thinks that what is true is always a spiritually high emotional state, but this stick pounding is not a very spiritually high emotional state. Then, to make it worse, to make it more horrifying, he would say, “This is a concrete description of the truth. This is Buddha. This is not abstract.” Then we would really be defeated.

It’s a real blessing to have a teaching that insists upon being concrete, because he could just have said, as I sometimes do, “Everything is consciousness. It’s all One.” Then the mind thinks, “I got it. I’ll buy that. I know what that means.” But when a stick bangs on the ground and the teacher says, “That’s it!” you can’t wrap your mind around it. The banging of the stick is as much God as you’re ever going to get. Everything else after that is an abstraction, a movement away from the fact.

[...] There is no experience that is more the truth than any other experience, because in the centre of it all, there is no seeker. Right here, there is nothing. All is One.

You will discover there is no little “me” in the centre occupying the space. Without this me in the centre, there is nobody to judge whether a given experience is the right experience or whether it is spiritual. Do you get it? This is it! When my teacher banged his stick on the ground, he showed that everything was arising out of the centre where nothing is. All is an expression of that centre and is not separate from that centre. If you don’t see it HERE, you’re not going to see it anywhere. This is the Great Release -- the release from having to change anything to get to the Promised Land or to search for the enlightened experience. The enlightenment experience is that nothing needs to change. In fact, you can see from here that enlightenment itself is not an experience. And it’s not a spiritual high.”

I found, and continue to find, an extraordinary power in these words. They cut through one of the most pervasive and tragic lies which sits at the very heart of most forms of spirituality: that enlightenment is an end-state that we must strive toward, some experience or state of consciousness that we have to acquire, something that we can ‘add’ to ourselves. That is the mind’s concept of enlightenment and it is rooted in our culture’s prevailing mindset of subject and object, acquire and accumulate. This could not be further from the truth. As long as you seek enlightenment, you’ll never find it. Because you ARE it. Not in some distant time in a mind-projected future, but HERE...and NOW.

“This is it!”

I will never forget those words. Whenever I find myself buying into the delusion that I need anything to be any different to the way it it is, that I can’t be at peace with a certain situation, that something is ‘wrong’ or ‘shouldn’t’ be happening, I remind myself that “This is it!”

Experiences come and go -- our emotional state rises and falls, for no experience can sustain itself indefinitely, or even necessarily for very long. And that’s OK. But the delusion is that when things aren’t going the way the mind thinks they ought to be, that when we aren’t feeling as good as we might like on an emotional or physical level, that this is somehow an experience that isn’t ‘right’ or isn’t ‘spiritual’ and that we cannot be at peace or happy until we’ve changed it.

We might intellectually understand that all things are One, and yet until we actually move into the full realisation of this, our minds and egos continue to cut reality into chunks and label them ‘good’ and ‘bad’. We’re happy when we experience the ‘good’ and unhappy when we experience the ‘bad’. But this isn’t wholeness; it’s divisiveness. With the mind we’re created both God and Satan, heaven and hell.

But when we truly realise that “This is it!” -- This! Here! NOW! -- the mind loses its power to dissect and divide. If it truly is all One, then it’s ALL One, not just the bits we deem desirable and pleasant. No experience can be MORE part of the Unity than any other. Sitting on the toilet is just as spiritual as sitting on a cushion chanting mantras. If it’s all One, then how can it ever not be One?

And similarly dawns the realisation that, if it’s all One, then at this very moment you are as ‘spiritual’ as you will ever be. You cannot be ‘more’ or ‘less’ spiritual...you ARE what are. You cannot add anything to yourself, for you ARE already everything! Of course, paradoxically, the mind may obscure this fact -- so maybe the spiritual journey, if it can be called that, is simply a means of removing the blinders and realising that you ALREADY ARE that which you seek. It’s not about adding anything to yourself in any way, it’s maybe more about subtracting whatever obscures your direct realisation that “This is it!” As Joseph Campbell once said; “Eternity is not the hereafter. This is it. If you don’t get it now, you won’t get it anywhere.”

I happened to be reading those profoundly insightful words by Adyashanti while sitting in the waiting room of a hospital dermatology clinic. I was going to get a strange lesion on my ribs checked out. Incredibly struck by the great ‘Aha!’ realisation sparked by the words, I went in and was told that it appeared to be a form of skin cancer. I just nodded, interested and almost bemused. I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. Why should I have been? “This is it!” This experience was no more or less Divine than any other.

Now, fortunately it was a relatively minor form of skin cancer, but I wasn’t really bothered in the slightest. It was interesting watching other people’s reactions: the ‘c-word’ has a profound affect on people. But I knew that everything would be taken care of, as it always is...or it wouldn’t be and I’d just have to accept it, and that was fine as well.

It’s the tendency of the mind to cut in and start freaking out about things, but I think my mind was stunned into submission by my astonishing realisation that “This is it!” Everything was taken care of. I admit that the most arduous part of the whole incident was the pain of the wound after the operation (it was an awkward place) and that kind of knocked my spirits for a while, but that soon passed as well. No part of the experience was any “less Divine” than any other experience I’ve ever had.

Now, I’m not saying that this realisation sticks with me 24/7. The mind has such tremendous gravity and before long it was up to its old tricks again, attempting to divide and conquer its perception of reality. But, even now, the moment I recall those three powerful words: “This is it!”, the mind usually recoils and crawls back under its rock, immediately letting go of whatever it’s been grasping onto. An immediate sensation of letting go happens. Tension dissolves and resistance diminishes. Life seems simpler and more peaceful again.

So that’s what I wanted to share. Remember the stick being banged upon the ground and the words “This is it!” (Hey, maybe I should get a t-shirt printed!) The experience that you’re having RIGHT NOW, whether the mind deems it good or bad, pleasing or displeasing, spiritual or unspiritual, is an experience of the Oneness...and is as much “God” as you will ever get, for there is ‘more than’ or ‘less than’ when it comes to One (it’s either ALL One, or none of it is).

That can be very sobering, especially when you’re not feeling so great physically or emotionally, but usually I find that whenever I make this recognition -- “This is it!” -- striving begins to diminish and the need to seek and acquire or make myself or my experience somehow ‘better’ or ‘more holy’ falls away. A great space opens up and in that space, all things are right. I see that everything is already perfect as it is, for it is all part of the Oneness and can never NOT be part of the Oneness, beyond our mental misperception that it isn’t.

And why would that be the case? Because, altogether now: “THIS IS IT!”

Hold the Knowing

2010-06-30T19:10:00.002+01:00

This morning I awoke to the sound of birdsong and it sounded exactly the same the birdsong that I would hear outside my window as a child. And in that moment, time dissolved. I realised that nothing had changed -- nothing. That which is “I” is precisely the same, and it has been along along.

I could almost experientially see how time and space are just illusions of mind, whereas “I” am unchanging, eternal. It doesn’t matter what experiences are perceived and witnessed in consciousness, or how time appears to be so tangibly real, stripping away people and places, ageing my body and the bodies of those around me...I am unchanged by any of it.

There’s something deeper and more Real, and it’s always there, the space in which experience and thoughts and forms and perceptions appear and then disappear. And that space is alive and far more Real than anything in the phenomenal world.

This Realness is in everything, is animating everything and yet these manifestations are not ‘it’, they are merely the effects of this underlying, all-pervading cause. In the same way that consciousness is the fabric out of which dreams are created and experienced, the phenomenal world is a world of flickering dream-forms, created by the underlying Realness. This Realness is always there, in everyone and everything, yet we’re so accustomed to relating only to the surface level that the true Reality is almost always forgotten. This forgetting was the true ‘Fall’ of humankind and it can be reversed at any moment.

How do we stop falling? By ceasing to get stuck on the surface level of life with all its never-ending dramas, conflicts, turbulence and strife and seeking the deeper, underlying Reality, the space in which all the forms of life arise and subside - the sky in which the clouds appear and disperse.

Know yourself as the vast open sky and don’t get lost in the delusion that you are the ever-transient, insubstantial clouds that pass over it. That’s all. That’s enough. Watch the clouds, but BE the sky...and hold onto that knowing.

“If you knew how important you were, you’d explode into a million pieces and just be light.” Byron Katie

Of course, the momentum of mind is great. You’ll keep ‘losing’ the knowing. We didn’t just ‘fall’ once, we fall repeatedly, each and every day. But in each moment, we can pick ourselves up again, until maybe someday something within us will decide that it’s tired of continually slipping into forgetfulness. But, I’ve come to see the importance of being motiveless. There’s no goal and nothing to seek and nowhere to be but here, now.

Just BE. And hold the knowing.

Movement from truth

2010-06-23T18:38:00.000+01:00

I’ve been finding I have much less to say. A while back I began embarking on a process of questioning everything - every thought and belief and assumption I’ve ever held about life and about myself. It's an ongoing process, but the more I question the more profoundly I’m struck by the arbitrariness of the components we make up with our mind to represent what we so blindly think of as ‘reality’. I’ve come to see that no thought, and certainly no belief, is true...because it’s really just a second-hand representation of reality. When I think about something, or someone, it’s perhaps rarely if ever the actual ‘thing’ itself I’m thinking about, it’s my mental representation of it, like an icon on a computer screen.

Is it possible to have a direct experience of reality without it being filtered through the net of mindstuff and assorted beliefs, interpretations, judgements and memories? Yes, I believe so. But such an experience, free of mental filtering, happens in an open state of awareness, when the mind is still and the tendency to slap labels, words, concepts and judgements onto things is avoided. Then and only then are we really in touch with life and with others - and with ourselves. There’s an expansive level of freedom in that state of openness, and it tends to come with a natural state of embracing, of non-discrimination and acceptance. The moment mind kicks in and starts analysing, dissecting and interpreting, that openness is lost and our energy tends to contract. We shrink back into ‘ourselves’, or the little ego persona we’ve crafted so diligently and which is sustained by our compulsive thought activity and all manner of labelling, judging, conceptualising and comparing.

As you try to loosen yourself from this compulsive noise machine in your head, you naturally begin to question things. You begin to lose your certainty about things you’d previously believed to be true with absolute certainty. Your whole world begins to fall away - and you along with it. This is not a particularly fun or pleasant process (to say the least) but it does feel tremendously liberating.

This repeated conceptual suicide is something I’ve been engaging in and it’s a grisly, painful and unsettling affair. I don’t know who I am anymore, because I look within and see nothing but an expanse of emptiness. I don’t really know what to believe anymore, because each time I look at a belief it tends to slip through my fingers like grains of sand. My mind and ego do not like this at all. They’re quick to rise up and, based upon the filters of old experiences, conditioning and past belief systems, try to pick up new beliefs, arguments and positions. But even when that happens, the centre doesn’t hold for very long, because no matter what position I adopt on any given subject, I’m increasingly seeing that there are several counter-positions that are perhaps equally valid. So arguing about anything seems like an infantile waste of time.

And yet, this state could easily be mistaken for apathy or nihilism and that doesn’t sit well with me. When your belief system gets eroded, how do you inform your behaviour and actions? What constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’? The way I see it at present is that whatever brings suffering to oneself, the world, or others, is by its nature ‘bad’. Pain is a messenger that something is wrong and that appropriate action is needed. Things which bring harmony and peace are by their nature ‘good’ and can therefore be fostered and encouraged. I guess that’s a belief system in itself...but at least it’s a stripped down, uncomplicated one - and one that I can validate by direct experience. But even that is open to exceptions, of course. There are no hard and fast rules - I simply see it as a helpful base-line. Follow what your heart prompts you to do, or not do. Let love lead the way.

When you begin to truly realise the interconnectedness of all beings and can see yourself in all creatures, I think a natural empathy spontaneously arises. Their suffering is your suffering - and you are not only the one suffering, but are also the one perpetrating the suffering. With this realisation, action can arise from the heart. In the past I’ve fallen into the trap of reactivity. I’ve long felt passionate about many things and I don’t view that as a bad thing, but it can be blinding. I can see the many ways I’ve been reactive, arrogant, judgemental, short-sighted and just plain ignorant. It’s a sobering realisation, but that’s alright too. In the future, perhaps I will manage to take action when I feel in my heart action is necessary, while avoiding the pitfalls of reactivity, which usually come from buying into certain entrenched thoughts, viewpoints and beliefs. Or I might fail miserably. I’m open to that as well. We’ll see what happens.

I like this quote from Adyashanti (which I have rearranged slightly for clarity) which I found in his ‘Emptiness Dancing’ book, because I think it highlights what I’m talking about with regards to taking action from heart and not head - and by heart I mean the heart of life, as it expressing through us.

“Human beings come from separation, not unity, in 99% of the activities they do, whether they think they’re doing good or bad. When you come from separation, that’s all you’re transmitting. When you come from unity there’s no conflict motivating you anymore. The world doesn’t need you or your message or anything you do, but you are just moving or being moved to do what you do. You’re moving from the unity. Mysteriously, this movement doesn’t happen for a reason. It’s just the way life happens to move through you. [...] Activity flowing from Truth has such potential. Every other motivation for movement, for action, is violent.”

Perspectives on time

2010-06-10T19:50:00.004+01:00

This is well-worth watching, it's very interesting, insightful and really cool (if a little dizzying!). It echoes some of what I was trying to express in my previous post about Unplugging. The distinction between past-oriented, future-oriented and present-oriented ways of dealing with life are truly insightful. Enjoy!

Un Film De Black Dogs

2010-06-08T19:13:00.000+01:00

It's silly I know but I had fun making this!

We become what we focus on

2010-06-06T12:48:00.001+01:00

As you have perhaps heard, this week in England a man went on an insane rampage with a shotgun, massacring twelve people and injuring several more. Whenever I hear about things like that, I find it so hard to understand what would drive a human being to commit such an unspeakable atrocity. But it really got me thinking.

There’s no question that many people have totally warped minds. The way we process reality is through a screen of thoughts, judgements, beliefs and conditioning and this informs our behaviour which, depending on the structure and content of our filtering process, can exhibit many forms of dysfunction.

No one is immune to this. All of us have these ‘erroneous zones’ to quote the title of a Wayne Dyer book. In most people these areas of perceptual distortion create comparatively minor dysfunctions, perhaps in certain areas such as relationships, self-concept, anxieties, fears or dysfunctional behaviours. But in some people, their internal wiring is so deeply distorted that these individuals become inhuman monsters, capable of committing untold acts of evil. And, somehow, they always manage to find ways to justify their behaviour.

The sobering thing is that, depending on the way our mental filtration system is wired, any one of us has the potential to become a psychopath! Unless, of course, we have the ability to acknowledge, witness and see beyond our perceptual filters, because only then can we transcend them.

At this point in time, it’s probably fair to say that the majority of people don’t have a sufficiently high degree of self-awareness to be able to do this. That’s why the majority of people believe that it is always situations, other people and the world that are the cause of their suffering, rather than their own interpretations, stories and commentary about those perceived externals. To be lost in our interpretations and mind-stuff and continually, pathologically, mistaking them for reality is live life asleep at the wheel, or enmeshed in samsara as the Buddhists might say.

Waking up from the dream of thoughts, belief structures and the maze of our mental interpretations is one way to transcend them and find genuine peace in life. Another way, and one that’s possibly easier for many people, is simply to shift the focus of our attention. This is one of the simplest laws of life and it’s not rocket science: we become what we focus on. If we focus on negative things, such as miserable, depressing, hateful and violent things, then tend to become miserable, depressed, hateful and violent people. On the other hand, if we focus on qualities such as harmony, balance, peace, gratitude and love, then we can’t help but become more harmonious, balanced, peaceful, grateful and loving people.

You can experiment with this right now. Take a moment to ruminate on the following words: hate, misery, suffering, violence, murder, pain. Repeat them silently or aloud to yourself and notice how it makes you feel physiologically. If you really take some time to notice how your body responds, you’ll probably feel a tightening and contracting sensation and perhaps even a slight nausea. Now spend some time focussing on these words: love, kindness, joy, hope, harmony, peace, beauty. How does that make you feel? I’m guessing your body will feel lighter, freer and more at peace. Instead of contraction, you might notice a feeling of expansion and openness and maybe even a pleasant tingling sensation.

Focussing on positive qualities such as love and kindness doesn’t just give you a momentary buzz. When you spend enough time focussing on these qualities, it actually changes the structure of your brain. This has been demonstrated in brain scans of Buddhist monks who regularly practise what is called metta meditation, a practise in which they sustain focus on love and kindness. The focus of their attention demonstrably rearranges their brain structure and as a result they are more aligned with the qualities they are focussing on, becoming more peaceful, loving and compassionate. The implications of this are unquestionably profound.

If focusing on positive attributes such as love and compassion can change the structure of our brains and make us experience these attributes more readily (and, no doubt, altering the entire way we see and experience the world and life), then surely the opposite must also be true. By continually focussing on hate, violence and despair, we become ‘wired’ to feel these emotions more readily and this in turn colours the way we see others and the world.

Now, it just so happens that our media is negative in the extreme. We are continually bombarded with stories and images of violence, hate, prejudice, suffering and cruelty. Not to say these things don’t exist in the world, because sadly they do. But our unrelenting focus on them is actually distorting our brains and perpetuating and intensifying these conditions in the world. I can’t stand to watch the news, because having studied press and broadcasting, I know how it is gathered, created and structured to be as negative, hard-hitting and emotive as possible. Essentially it’s not news stories they are selling, but negative feelings - which, it has to be said, a dysfunctional part of many people actually laps up.

It’s not just the news media, either. Television, films and literature have become ever more horrific and gratuitously violent. Nowadays television dramas, at least in the UK, are prided on being ‘dark’ and ‘gritty’ and filled with miserable, psychologically-deficient characters whose sole lot in life is to receive and inflict suffering and violence. Our screens are routinely filled with scenes of graphic torture and brutality. I’m not even going to touch upon the new genre we have called ‘torture porn’, something which actually makes me despair of the human race.

The prevalence of this kind of material is very disturbing in the effects it can have on people. Whereas most people are unlikely to go on a killing spree after watching something of this nature, some people do, even if it is only a very small minority. But consuming such media input unquestionably has an effect on everyone, whether they become gun-toting psychopaths or not.

Experts have pointed out that the ever-increasing amount of violence in the media has a desensitising effect on human beings. Violence is almost unconsciously seen as commonplace and almost ‘acceptable’. The effect of this is, in general, a growing lack of empathy for the suffering of others. I believe this desensitising effect is causing a hardening and deadening of people’s hearts, as well as most likely an ever-increasing distortion in their mental filtration system as discussed earlier.

Again, this comes down to the simple truth that become what we focus on. It seems the human mind is very much like a computer: if you input garbage, you get garbage back out. But if you ensure that the input is of a sufficiently high quality, you are guaranteed to get a far higher quality output.

Is it true to say that the media is responsible for exacerbating the problems of the world by virtue of the fact it’s so overridingly negative? I certainly believe so and I think something has to be done about it. The enormity and extremity of the negativity that bombards us from all quarters has got to be toned down and balanced with some positivity and inspiration, which people definitely do respond to. Most people are too unconscious to realise what’s going on, so someone really needs to do it for them. What a different it would surely make if people were exposed to a decrease in graphic and gratuitous violence in films and television and an increase in news coverage of stories of optimism, hope and examples of progress in the world, of which their unquestionably is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating we simply delude ourselves into believing bad things don’t exist, because clearly they do. But it’s vital we don’t get sucked into the extremely powerful - and curiously enticing - black holes that the media loves to spin for us. Action that arises from a state of peace and optimism is always infinitely more effective than action that is undertaken from a mindset of negativity, fear and reactivity.

The media is really letting us down. Sure, you might argue that it’s what people evidently want to consume, because for some reason negative headlines sell more copies than positive ones. Eckhart Tolle notes that the entire media industry is really just selling ‘food’ to our pain bodies, the accumulated energy of past pain within us that thrives on negativity in order to sustain itself. If most people are not self-aware enough to see what’s happening, then the change will have to start from the top down instead of the ground up. We need someone at the top to take responsibility for what the masses are being fed and to start sprinkling in more positivity and toning down the excessive negativity and violence we’re all subjected to in just about every art form and media outlet.

The result? Well, let’s go back to the aforementioned study of Buddhist meditators. When we focus on positivity and higher attributes of kindness and love, it physiologically changes us and it makes us happier, more at peace, kinder and more loving. And that is the only thing that will ever change the world and alleviate the needless suffering mankind inflicts on itself, animals and the planet. At the moment we’re stuck in a feedback loop almost; negativity happens, we get stuck focussing on it, and then more negativity springs from that.

We have to break the loop! And, as always, the change starts with you. Yes, you. Here. Now!

Focus on what it is you want to see in the world. If you want to see more love and compassion, then spend some time each day focussing on those qualities, even if it just means silently repeating those words to yourself and noticing the change in your body. The change starts with us. Let’s do it! It really is up to us.

The importance of Unplugging!

2010-05-24T17:54:00.000+01:00

I recently came across reference to a study about the physiological effects of being what’s termed a ‘digital native’ - which is to say, growing up ‘plugged in’ to the internet, emails, social networking, mobile phones, video games and mp3 players. Although video games, computers and portal music devices have been around for a while now, it’s only the past ten to fifteen years that the internet has become integrated into virtually every home and, accordingly, Generation Facebook is growing up quite differently to any previous generation.

This isn’t conjecture. It can actually be seen in brain scans. The brains of digital natives are very developed in certain areas (involving the skills utilised to access information speedily and play video games), but are under-developed in other regions (including the areas that are related to social bonding, empathy and emotional intelligence). The brain is, of course, malleable - I love the term ‘neuroplasticity’, but like a muscle, it’s only developed in the regions that get exercised, while other regions tend to waste.

This is a common scenario for many family units: everyone might be at home, but each will be using his or her own computer or handheld device, together physically, but in another world completely. Has the ‘information age’ come at the cost of human intimacy and closeness? Are the various ‘social networking’ websites actually creating a generation of socially-retarded adolescents are adept at maintaining their Facebook Wall but are unequipped to cope in situations involving genuine social interaction? Does this bode well for the future of civilisation as we know it? And could this blog be getting any more melodramatic?

It is an important point, however. The development of the internet has been a wonderful tool in many respects: we now have access to just about any information on just about any topic imaginable. We can connect with like-minded people and share whatever ideas we like. But it’s all too easy for the servant to become the master. I’ve found in my own experience that, left unchecked, the mind can quite happily zone out and spend hours aimlessly surfing the internet, taking in website after website, hooked into information input like a junkie on a steady heroin IV. Compulsive and useless internet usage is what I’ve deemed one of the Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Distraction from what, you might ask? I believe a distraction from ourselves and whatever it is we’re feeling within us. The only journey ever worth taking in this life is the journey within and it’s one most of us - specifically those of us still living in the ‘shallows’ and trapped on the level of mind - are desperate to avoid. Intuitively, unconsciously we seem to fear there’s a black hole at the centre of our beings and we are willing to do anything to avoid being sucked into it.

And so we place our attention elsewhere and are sucked into far more enticing but ultimately deadening black holes - useless and usually quite distorted information devouring, compulsive television viewing and, the joke of the century, social networking sites that fool us into thinking we’re being social when in fact we’re physiologically eroding the very centres of our brain that are necessary for interpersonal interaction.

I’m not suggesting we wholly abandon these pursuits. There is a time and a place for everything. I enjoy watching a little television and I have met some wonderful and very dear friends via social networking, people I wouldn’t otherwise have met. But, for me, the key is moderation. I know when to unplug. I can usually sense when I’m becoming compulsive and unconscious in my ‘plugging in’ activities. I don’t like the way it makes me feel. If I spend more than even a relatively short time staring at a computer screen or watching television, I start to feel deadened. My mind either numbs out or becomes excessively active. My body feels dull and lifeless. I find an aching restlessness within, a lack of balance and groundedness. It feels horrible, actually. And if I get TOO sucked into whatever I’m doing, I sometimes don’t even notice how yukky and gunged-up my mind, body and senses are feeling. I don’t know whether this is to do with artificial electro-magnetic fields (which, let’s face it, our bodies were not designed to handle) or whether it’s simply an intensification of mental activity, an imbalance of energy in the head, being syphoned off from the rest of the body.

I feel the exact opposite when I’m sitting quietly in the garden, or having a walk somewhere beautiful in the country. Being in nature, and bringing my full attention to where I am rather than being off on some mental trip, makes me feel alive, at peace, still and tingling with life. My body feels lighter, freer and more balanced. Often, if there is enough stillness within and enough space between my thoughts, a feeling of deep inner peace and joyfulness bubbles up within me. One more than one occasion this feeling has become so intense that it’s become an ecstatic bliss! And I didn’t need to do or be or have anything to experience this incredible bliss. It was simply there all along, my nature state of wellbeing! Sitting quietly in nature, free of mental distractions and completely unplugged from technology, I find it far easier to experience this state of peace and joy.

Technology does have its place. But it’s not going to make us happy. Not in a million years. In fact, sitting glued to our computer and TV screens is only ever likely to obscure our innate wellbeing and joyfulness.

So, my advice is simple - make sure you take plenty time to unplug! This might be extraordinarily difficult for some people, but the greater the difficulty, the more necessary it probably it is and the more profound the results. I strongly encourage that anyone with children or adolescents be willing to teach them the necessity of unplugging frequently. It could be the most important service you ever render to them - and to society as a whole. We’re never going to wake up and come to our senses as a species so long as our minds are sucked into an illusory Matrix-world created and sustained by our compulsive addiction to technology.

Balance, as always, is key. And I do believe the best way to achieve that balance is to cut the power, go somewhere beautiful outdoors, take a few deep breaths and allow that balance to naturally and spontaneously happen. Because when we remove the obstructions and bypass the WMDs, however temporarily, it is the nature of things - and the nature of us - to spontaneously and naturally return to that balance, in much the same way as the pendulum eventually comes to centre when it’s allowed to do so.

Take some time to unplug. Regularly! Believe me, you’ll thank me for it.

Time to kick Dawkins' ass

2010-05-23T14:36:00.004+01:00

I find Richard Dawkins extremely...irksome. Whilst he raises a few salient points about religion and fundamentalism, it’s ironic that he is the flip-side of the coin: a scientific fundamentalist, who dogmatically follows a belief system which is just as antiquated in some ways as the narratives of orthodox religion - and in some ways just as dangerous, if not more so. The most dangerous thing about this man is that his theories and paradigms are held as absolute fact. In my view, he’s a scientific dinosaur who is sadly being portrayed in the media being a cutting edge, modern-day scientific prophet for our time, a fountain of knowledge and an oracle of information that can tell us exactly what’s ‘true’ and what’s ‘false’.

In these days when orthodox religion isn’t taken seriously by anyone but its adherents, it almost seems as though the establishment wants to propagate a new paradigm, a new belief system or hegemonic consensus that it wants the general public indoctrinated with. That maybe sounds a bit paranoid but I can’t help but feel it explains why the media is so intent on foisting this man upon us - for he gets his own documentary series, has become a celebrity and even had an appearance on Doctor Who for crying out loud. This in spite of the fact that he’s one very least charismatic individuals I’ve ever seen in the public eye (and that includes many politicians). It worries me that his theories and paradigms are presented as being absolute and irrefutable fact. This is dangerous and it’s simply untrue. Dawkins is pedalling an antiquated belief system, a model rooted in an arguably outmoded paradigm that ought to have long-since been superseded given the advances made during the 20th century with regard to our understanding of the quantum world.

I can't help but feel that Dawkins' worldview is extremely deadening and erroneous. And it’s all just conceptualisation, taking us farther away from a direct and pure experience of reality, keeping us trapped in concepts and beliefs - and in that way is little better than religious dogma. At least in mainstream society religious dogma is treated with the derision it usually deserves. But not so here. I feel this has to change.

There, I’ve had my little rant and feel much better for it. I guess the main point I wanted to make was to highlight that ‘scientific’ fundamentalism is every bit as dangerous as religious fundamentalism. Science and religion share a surprising amount in common - both seek to create paradigms for understanding reality. The tendency toward fundamentalism seems to be a characteristic of the human ego and can rear its ugly head regardless of the context or content.

I’m starting to believe that perhaps it might be best to let go of our need to explain and create narratives about life and to simply LIVE LIFE. Sure, science has brought us innumerable benefits, but to rely on it to find ‘truth’ and meaning is, in my view, misguided and insufficient. The truth is in the living of life, in simple, direct experience. This tendency to need to get lost in mind and to try and explain and answer is getting us waylaid. We’re so busy trying to explain life and gets answers to life, that life passes us by. I do believe that the key to our future as a species is not in seeking answers with the mind (because thoughts are by their very nature limited - they are second-hand and intrinsically limited representations of reality), but in consciousness itself. Space is not the final frontier: perhaps consciousness is. But thats’s another discussion entirely.

Here’s a great article by Steve Taylor entitled "Deconstructing Dawkins", which makes numerous excellent points in its analysis of Dawkins' philosophy and the whole paradigm of materialistic, mechanistic science. It was this article, in fact, that inspired me to engage in a little bit of much-needed Dawkins-bashing! Enjoy! http://www.steventaylor.talktalk.net/dawkinsessays.htm

(PS I haven't actually gone that deeply into arguing points or why I take issue with Dawkins' philosophy, mainly because I don't have the time, but also because Taylor's article does it so expertly. I agree with pretty much all of what he says.)

Death

2010-05-22T18:41:00.001+01:00

Below are some words I wrote today while contemplating life and death. They are reflective and contemplative I suppose and they seemed to spring from that deeper place of stillness that's beyond the surface level of mind; that deeper level of intelligence from which all fresh ideas, insights and creativity emerge. I share them with you that you might simply consider them - not with mind and through the filter of belief systems, but with the heart.

In a way death seems so cruel...savage almost. But it’s not. The consciousness comes to reside here for but a short time and then it moves on. The flickering dream-forms of this world come and go, come and go, ever changing, ever in motion. Birds sing, the sun shines, clouds continue to drift across the blue sky, blossoming trees sway in the morning breeze. This has happened for millions of years before this unit of consciousness stepped in and will continue to happen long after it has stepped back out.

The enduring element, a string unbroken, is consciousness. Things appear in consciousness and then disappear again. I am not this body or mind. Neither is anyone I ever meet their body or mind.

What am I? Awareness, unconditioned consciousness. That is all. That is everything. And it is the building block out of which the world of form is created, in much the same way that the ocean is responsible for the wispy clouds that travel across the sky in ever-shifting shapes and which eventually return again to the ocean. However long a time it takes, they eventually return to their source. How can that be in any way tragic? Is it not in fact something sublimely beautiful? Perfect symmetry, perfection in the rhythm of what we call “life” in the phenomenal world, the world of “things” born of the void of “no-thing”.

Ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of all things is the number one cause of all suffering in the world. When we dwell solely in the surface level and have no awareness of the true depths of life, the vast ocean that lies beneath the rippling surface, then we suffer and the cessation of form is a grave tragedy. This is because we’re locked in the world of 'things' - things that come and go and can be taken and destroyed. We are unaware of the vast immeasurable field of unity, the invisible and unmanifest, the deathless realm that underlies and sustains and is the true essence of all particular things.

When the form returns to the formless, in many ways it is more a birth than a death - a rebirth of unimaginable proportions and a return to wholeness, to the very ground of creation...a blissful, undivided, undifferentiated unity. The only tragedy in this is the tragedy of our own misunderstanding and ignorance. The truth is beyond the mind. And it’s always more beautiful than we could ever possibly imagine.

Video Blog: Accept Yourself

2010-05-13T17:19:00.003+01:00

I've been toying with this for a while, the idea of creating little video blogs every so often - and I finally decided to go for it. I've never spoken on front of a camera before, so it was a rather strange experience. I'm not really sure how it turned out or whether it's something I will do again. You know what it's like when listening to a recording of your own voice - it can be a little uncomfortable and you tend to pick yourself to bits. This is doubly the case when viewing a video of yourself! But I resisted the temptation to erase it and, as a measure of accepting myself (gotta walk the talk!), decided to post it anyway.

Baby Blog: Fears of Adequacy

2010-05-09T18:20:00.004+01:00

In order to keep this blog alive following its recent resuscitation, from time to time I'm gonna do 'Baby Blogs' (which are basically just short entries). Anyways, I posted the following on an online forum I am part of (Mysterious Wisdom), and for some reason thought I felt compelled to share it here, because I believe it's an important message for us all. It was written in response to the following quotation, which is from Marianne Williamson (but is often falsely attributed to Nelson Mandela). It's ways been one of my favourite quotes and has great power to it.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

I believe there is great truth in this. When we're lost in fears of inadequacy it's because we're mistaking our ego as being what we are...and in a strange sense, we're right - the ego can never be 'good enough' because it isn't even real and it's only the palest reflection of what we truly are. But I believe hand in hand with this fear of the inadequacy of our false self is the fear of our true nature, which is beyond all conception and which I think we intuitively realise is vast, expansive and immeasurably powerful...and this freaks us out!

I believe this fear of embodying what we truly are stems from wanting the approval of others. Many of us build our entire lives and personality/ego structures around the desire to secure the good opinion of others. This pathological need to micro-manage the opinions others have of us is exhausting and self destructive. I know. As I wrote in the "Sedona Method" post below, once we become aware of the underlying 'wants' beneath our feelings and beliefs, we can clear them, chipping away at them bit by bit.

I found a LOT of approval-wanting and control-seeking (as in controlling other people's opinions) embedded within me like layers of underground rock. As I chip away at them I feel freer and freer, and less willing to cover up what I really am just so others won't think I'm 'weird' or, gasp, 'different'!

I invite everyone else to do the same. The world really, REALLY needs us all to step up and be authentic now!

Sedona Method: How to quickly release negative emotions!

2010-05-05T14:09:00.002+01:00

I wanted to share about a technique that I’ve found hugely effective at shifting all kinds of negative feelings and emotions, from the superficial surface-level ones to those deep and sticky ones that seem to bubble under the surface for years on end.

It’s called the Sedona Method and it’s actually been around for over 30 years, although I must confess I hadn’t heard much about it. The name was vaguely familiar, but I’d never taken the time to check it out. But, oh boy, I’m glad that I did! It has been hugely helpful in so many ways and it is the essence of simplicity itself.

At the moment, it’s EFT that’s all the rage (Emotional Freedom Technique - a systematic system of tapping various points on the body in order to clear blocked emotions). However, having practised both, I have to say I find the Sedona Method far better: it’s much easier, simpler and you can do it absolutely anywhere at any time and no one will be any the wiser. Try doing EFT in front of your boss at work or on the bus and it’s surely only a matter of time before they’ll have the doctors in white coats knocking on your door.

The Sedona Method is almost ridiculously simple - but it works. As a species, we humans are incredibly emotionally retarded. We simply don’t know how to deal with the ‘bad feelings’ that come up. It’s not something we’ve ever been taught. And so we either suppress them and numb ourselves out with any of the Weapons of Mass Distraction (which include alcohol, drugs and any number of excessive and addictive behaviours even as seemingly harmless as compulsive TV watching and internet surfing) or we blindly react to them, often in very destructive and harmful ways.

I’m absolutely certain that there would be little problem in our society with drugs or violence if people were better educated in how to deal with their emotions. We’re a species of dysfunctional, emotional cripples and this really has to change if we’re to continue living upon this planet without blowing ourselves to smithereens.

I've always found Buddhist psychology far more 'switched on' when it comes to dealing with emotions, than anything else I've come across. I’ll never forget Thich Nhat Hanh’s admission that, instead of ignoring or denying or unconsciously reacting to our emotional state, we must instead befriend it and treat it as a young infant crying out for attention. If we bring our attention to it, our compassion and kindness, holding it in our awareness and cradling it like an upset child, it gradually lessens its hold and dissolves into peace. The light of our awareness - conscious, sustained awareness - is what heals emotion.

Also extremely helpful are Eckhart Tolle’s teachings on what he calls “the pain body”, the accumulated past pain that lives on within us as a kind of energy field, and which can be triggered by even the slightest event which might resonate with that past pain (such as issues of grief, fear or abandonment). This pain body can completely take us over, colouring our entire view of the world, of ourselves and others, making us behave like wounded animals, creating dysfunction in all aspects of our lives and relationships. Again, he recommends that the only way to heal this repository of emotional pain is to bring our conscious attention to it. Awareness changes whatever it touches. It heals. But it can take a long time and a lot of sustained, directed attention to dissolve some of the more deeply-ingrained emotional scars within us.

The Sedona Method works on this premise, and it works astonishingly quickly. I highly recommend the book ‘The Sedona Method’ by Hale Dwoskin. It’s a complete and comprehensive course on how to use the method yourself. I like the fact that this book isn’t simply some big advertisement which tells you all about the benefits of the technique and then on the last page tells you that in order to learn it you’ll have to sign up for some horrendously expensive course or an over-priced set of CDs. On the contrary, the book leads you through the entire process.

You can learn the technique in two minutes flat, but the book goes on to show you deeper and deeper ways to use it, to clear out all the emotional muck that’s been creating havoc in your life. It has worked wonders for me, and I’ve been teaching my family to use it as well. It never fails to work. I truly believe that this is the kind of thing that needs to be taught in schools.

You can try it now.

Identify something that’s causing you emotional pain, be it grief, fear, disappointment, hurt, jealousy, anger, or whatever it might be.

The process works by asking yourself a set of specific questions which lead you to simply release that feeling. How do you release it? This is actually something that happens quite naturally and spontaneously. If you pick up a burning hot object such as a lump of smouldering coal, how do you let go of it? You just do. You just drop it. You don’t even need to think about it. How do you let go of a negative emotion that is causing you immense emotional pain? You just do. You just drop it. You don’t even need to think about it. The moment you consciously decide to let it go and to stop holding onto it, it just disperses. The sensation is one of sudden relief and lightness, like releasing a tightly-clenched fist.

Here is the process. Try it yourself, right now.

Identify something that’s causing you to be upset. Ask yourself: what am I feeling, right in this moment, about this issue? It might be a strong feeling or a subtle feeling, or a mixture of feelings. Try to identify what it is, but keep mental discussion and rumination to a minimum. Stay focussed on the emotion and where you feel it in the body.
Ask yourself: could I allow myself to welcome this feeling? Most the time we strenuously resist feeling bad, but for this process it’s vital to welcome the feeling, no matter how painful. Allow it to be. Embrace it with your awareness and allow yourself to REALLY move into it and feel it. Witness the energy of this feeling.
Next, ask yourself: could I let this feeling go? Allow a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to come. No matter the answer, proceed to the next step.
Ask yourself: am I willing to let it go? Avoid mental debate, just see what answer comes up within you. If the answer is ‘yes’, proceed to step 5. If ‘no’, then ask yourself would I rather have this feeling, or would I rather be free? Work with this until you get a ‘yes’ answer or else proceed to step 5 anyway.
The last question is, to simply ask yourself: When? This is an invitation to let it go NOW. You may find yourself easily releasing it.
Repeat steps 1-5 as often as needed until you feel free of the initial feeling you wanted to clear.

If you find it difficult to clear something, then it might help to give yourself permission to hold onto it for a minute. Allow it to be there, in your attention for a while longer, until you move on to release it. Sometimes we have unconscious attachments to our feelings, even the ones that are causing us immense suffering. Bringing awareness to this and seeing the insanity of it really helps us dissolve that attachment. In any moment we can choose to hold onto our pain, or we can choose to be free.

Now, some people might say that to simply blast away our feelings like this is a bad thing, that our feelings are part of who we are. Whilst they can sometimes be helpful messengers, it is a grave mistake to think our feelings are ‘who’ we are or can tell us anything about who we are. The majority of the time they are simply the body’s reaction to the content of our mind and the thoughts we are thinking. To invest emotions with a sense of self is a dangerous thing, for when we become attached to our feelings - however painful they might be - we become chained to them and they literally sap the life energy out of us. It’s a perfect recipe for a life of misery.

Emotion might be thought of as energy in motion (e-motion). Like clouds in the sky, they drift by, ever changing. Emotions are not a problem in themselves, but when we get ‘stuck’ on them, and caught up in a certain emotional reaction, it creates a blockage in our system which will eventually lead to all kinds of mental, emotional and physical problems. So if you find yourself particularly attached to a certain emotion or emotional reaction/pattern, then this is a warning sign and an indication that you most certainly need to let go of it. It’s likely that you’ve invested a sense of ‘self’ in the emotion and this will create all kinds of imbalance and problems, as well as skewing your entire perception of reality. It’s important to be willing to release that emotion now...or even just to allow yourself to release your attachment to it.

Some might argue that it’s important for us to hold onto our grievances and anger, believing that without them we wouldn’t have the impetus to take action in life, or to tackle situations that require change. Letting go of our painful emotions does not make us less effective in life, however. On the contrary, it makes us infinitely more effective. It’s natural to be angry and upset at certain situations but the longer we remain choked by those emotional reactions, the more we tend to perpetuate and even worsen the situation.

Action is far more effective when it comes from a place of peace and balance, as opposed to anger, resentment and knee-jerk emotional reaction. That’s why I’m learning that when something upsets me, it’s important to first release the emotion and THEN take whatever action I can to change the situation. This enables us to be more effective and balanced in everything that we do instead of being walking tornadoes of emotional chaos and unrest.

To take this process a little deeper, you can trace each emotion back to one or more of the four underlying WANTS. Every emotional reaction that we have can be traced to wanting approval, wanting control, wanting security or wanting to be separate. Sometimes it’s a combination of these.

So, for each feeling that you are dealing with, ask yourself: what underlies this feeling? Is it wanting approval, wanting control, wanting security or wanting to be separate? Again, look for an intuitional rather than analytical response. Allow the answer to come to you.

Once you have identified the wants that are at the core of your emotional reaction, you can release them using the same process:

Get a feeling for this sense of wanting approval, control, security or separation. Can you locate the sense of this want in your body? Where is it and what does it feel like?
Ask yourself: can I allow myself to welcome and accept this want?
Could I let go of wanting (whichever want it is)?
Am I willing to let go of it?
When?
Repeat the process until you feel you have cleared the underlying want and then move onto the next if there is one.

By clearing the sense of want that lies at the core of the emotion, you can clear it by the roots rather than just by the surface. As with weeding your garden, tackling the issue at the root will allow for a deeper clearing and will usually prevent it from re-appearing.

It’s amazing when we realise just how much of our lives, our behaviour and reactions are based upon the desire for approval, control, security and from wanting be separate. Letting go of these wants frees up great amounts of energy within us, dismantling long-held pockets of resistance, allowing us to truly be free. Your mind might initially object to the idea of giving up wanting things such as approval, security and control. The thought of giving up such seemingly-important desires might seem insane. But, ironically it’s usually our deep-seated need for something that prevents us from ever actually getting it.

As the saying goes, “want doesn’t get”. Can you see where this is true in your own experience? Have you ever wanted someone’s approval so desperately that you unconsciously sabotaged yourself and ended up behaving like a complete idiot, therefore eliciting precisely the opposite response than you’d intended? Experiment with letting of of the four big wants. You will come to see that giving up ‘wanting’ something is usually the best and most effective way to actually get it! And the real bonus is that whether or not you do actually get it, you’ll be at peace.

I hope you find this process helpful. The book goes onto elaborate in greater detail, with a range of ways to apply it to your life in every area, including goals, relationships and letting go of resistance. You find that as you work with it, more and more things rise to the surface to be cleared. This is a actually a good thing and is not reason to be discouraged. We all carry so much baggage around with us and it all has to rise up in order to be cleared. It can be an exhausting process at times, but I believe it’s a necessary part of the journey if you truly want to be freer, happier and more at peace in life.

So, release, release, release! The more we let go of this crap, which is totally foreign to what we truly are, the more we come into contact with this deep and ineffable peace and joy which lies at the core of our being. When all the obstructions are cleared, it’s like stormy clouds dissipating in the sky, allowing the sun to shine unhindered, bringing everything to radiant life.

The Sedona Method is the perfect way to clear out the emotional aspects of an issue, and can be used well with Byron Katie’s The Work, which is excellent at clearing out the mental levels, such as negative thoughts and belief patterns. These are the two methods of psychological/mental/emotional clearing that I recommend the most. Psychologists would do well to adapt them into their line of work and, indeed, a growing number do.

So there’s really no excuse for continuing to pollute yourself and the world with our toxic emotional energy. It’s not that negative feelings will never come up again, for such is the nature of being human, but at least now you have the ability to deal with them.

So there’s really no longer any need to continue feeling mad, sad or bad!

Life As Art! Authentic art!

2010-04-30T13:44:00.007+01:00

Still alive! I think...

Crikey, it’s been ages since I’ve written anything for this blog and I’ve no idea why. I suppose I go through introspective phases, where much of my energy is drawn inward and I really don’t have much to say or anything especially scintillating to contribute.

What I energy I have had has been channelled into the writing my novel, of which I’ve endeavoured to write three pages a day. That’s the ideal quota, although it hasn’t always run quite as smoothly as that! There have been barren patches...and I'm taking a little break just now as I gear up to write the big climax. In spite of the ups and downs, I’m getting near the end of the first draft, after which I will heave a sigh of relief and then embark upon the endless series of rewrites that are necessary to scrub it up into something that, I hope, is publishable.

And then, of course, I will swear to myself that I will never again write fiction. Writing a novel is a backbreaking, exhausting, soul-depleting process at times...don't get me wrong, it’s fun, exciting, electrifying and deeply fulfilling as well...but it's a known fact that for all the hard labour and blood, sweat and tears that an author pours into the creation of their novel, they usually only get peanuts in return for it by way of financial reward. Unless they’re JK Rowling. But then, for many of us, it’s not really the money we do it for. There are, after all, far easier ways to earn far vaster sums of money. Some legal, some not so. For me, it’s like an itch that appears and it doesn’t subside until I’ve given into it and extricated whatever it is that wants to be created through me.

And I have various itches at the moment...blog topics that I feel are demanding to be written, paintings that are insistent on being painted (even though I haven’t got a clue what they are or how to create them), and of course a novel that has to be finished, because it really won’t give me any peace until it has been. I wonder whether other artists feel this ‘itch’, this restlessness under their skin that prompts them to create in order to satisfy that inner unrest. It’s not an unpleasant restlessness. In fact, it’s rather a nice one - and whenever I feel it I can sense that there are words that want to be expressed, or images that somehow want to tumble onto paper or screen. I’m feeling a heightened sense of this at the moment. If I had the energy I’m quite certain that I could spend all my waking hours simply creating and expressing what I feel wants - or maybe needs - to be expressed through this channel that is ‘me’.

It’s funny, I am the consummate creator, but I am a lousy salesman. I wish I could find someone else who could step in and take my work and sell it to the world. Because in order to live in this world, an income is somewhat necessary. I’ve always hated ‘selling myself’, I tend to get really shy and just want to slink into the background. I’m not usually shy at other times, but when it comes to my work - which is always quite personal to me as I invest a lot of ‘myself’ into it - I just want to hide. I remember when I was in primary school, the teachers often took an interest in my stories and the comics I made and would sometimes read them out to the entire class, while I sat there, covering my face in my hands just wanting to crawl under a rock. I don’t know why I felt like that, and why I still often feel like that. Funny.

I maybe need to get over this and blast it out of my psyche. I have the perfect means to do just that, as I will share in an upcoming blog. This inner excavation and balancing is necessary, I suppose, in order to get my novel out there. I invested too much energy and love into this project to just let it sit gathering dust. I believe it’s more than just an entertaining read, but something which might inspire people and the world so desperately needs inspiration. The publishing industry, music industry, TV and film industry - in fact all of the media industries - churn out so much lifeless, soulless, worthless trash which just continues to rot people’s minds.

As an artist, I want to free people’s minds and touch something deeper within them. I don’t need to be the best artist, the most eloquent writer or the most original innovator in order to do that. I just need to be authentic. Whether or not the money-grabbing industry out there is interested in what I have to offer is immaterial, no pun intended. I’m kind of beyond caring. But I do feel I should find an outlet to get my stuff out there, just on the off-chance that it might, in some small and perhaps seemingly insignificant way, lift people’s consciousness just a little.

I no longer crave success or recognition in the outer world. I no longer want or need to be a bestselling author and a recognised artist. Which is probably just as well, because I’m just not interested in what’s ‘in’ and what the current market trends are. I have an inner vision that I never deviate from, regardless of whether I think people will ‘like’ or ‘get’ what I do. I’d rather be an authentic, unadulterated artist who achieves very little success or recognition, than a massive superstar who’s a household name but creates utterly dead, generic, pointless work that’s crassly orchestrated for maximum sales potential. (Not to say that all the big names do that - that would be a terrible and untrue generalisation. But I do see it happening a lot, in every art form).

So for now, I’ll stick to writing my strange, cosmic fantasies, painting weird formless abstracts that probably break every rule in the book and would make critics shudder, and writing blogs that the majority of people would think are but meaningless jibberish. Oh, and my newly-composed ambient music, which I actually rather love listening to, even if no one else ever will.

Around about the time I hit the big ‘three-oh’ (OH!), something funny began to happen within me. I stopped being so utterly dependent upon the favourable opinion of others and largely ceased caring whether or not I measured up to what ‘the world’ thought I ought to be. I’ve gradually come to realise that we all have the choice. We can live after ‘the world’s’ opinion of who and what we should be, or we can simply be authentic to who and what we actually are. Option one might bring us a tacit pat on the back for our conformity and for holding up the status quo, but ultimately living after second-hand opinion leaves us deadened and hollowed-out husks.

It’s dangerous trying to be true to other people, because very often they know absolutely squat. We can only be true to ourselves and follow the rhythm of our own hearts and the pulse of life as it flows through us. That’s the only way to achieve a genuine and lasting peace in life. I’m very grateful that I came to realise that while I’m relatively young, because it’s something a lot of people don’t catch onto until very very late in the game of life...if they do at all. No matter what happens in life, don't let yourself come to the realisation that the title character of Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' comes to on his death-bed: "what if my entire life has been wrong?"

So, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is simply to be authentic. A life lived with authenticity can never be wrong. It might take a considerable mustering of courage to actualise that simple directive, but so be it! It is energy well-spent. I believe that everyone is an artist, whether they’re creatively inclined or not. The canvas is our life itself, and we each get to choose what we’re going to paint on it. If you’re going to be an artist - then BE an artist. An authentic, free artist, who doesn’t care about markets, trends and what the world might think. ‘The world’ knows nothing. ‘The world’ is just a term for the collective human psyche - and just look at how dysfunctional that is! Forget about that, and be an unhinged, crazy, daring artist! Art is not about money, fame and recognition - and neither is life. It’s about simply being true to one’s inner vision, one’s inner truth and daring to bring that vision to life for all to see.

I'm closing with one of my favourite quotations of all time, by Nikos Kazantzakis:

"You have your brush. You have your colours. You paint paradise, then in you go."

Embracing the return movement

2010-01-31T11:56:00.000Z

There are two basic movements in life; the outward movement and the return movement. I believe Eckhart Tolle speaks of this in “A New Earth”. The outward movement roughly equates with the ‘morning’ of our lives and is characterised by growth, learning, expansion, development, acquisition and an ever-widening sphere of influence. We grow to physical maturity, learning all the time, until we enter the ‘adult world’ and embark on a quest of accumulating; gradually increasing our possessions and money, progressing in our chosen field of endeavour, finding a spouse, maybe even physically multiplying by having children. There comes a point, however, when this cycle naturally comes to an end. The diminishment of all that we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring and accumulating begins to set in. Our career begins to wind down as we head toward retirement, the children we spent many years rearing leave home, our bodies begin to age, our health perhaps deteriorates, we find our sphere of influence significantly lessening and this diminishment manifests most starkly as our friends and loved ones begin to pass over.

Is that a depressing thought?

It needn’t be, for it’s simply the natural rhythm and flow of life. Look outside your window and you’ll see this rhythmic cycle unfold as the seasons pass in natural succession. You can’t avoid it: although humankind spends a lot of time and money trying to prolong and extend the outward movement, clinging on like grasping beggars. Ultimately all such efforts prove fruitless. The resistance to embracing and accepting the return movement is the cause of so much needless suffering in our culture and undoubtedly stems from our retarded attitude to death. As a species, we’re out of balance with life. We try to cling to the summer months and refute the winter, refusing to accept that it’s a normal, necessary part of the cycle. We become fearful, dysfunctional little beings locked in a state of misery and desperate clinging, causing so much suffering for ourselves and the world at large. We block the flow of life and in so doing all kinds of gunge gets clogged up around us.

On a personal level, I experienced the premature cessation of the outward movement when I lost my health and all the things that were previously important to me (though frequently taken for granted and unacknowledged) were stripped away: health, job, social life, many friends (the sad fact is that when you stop going ‘out’ as once you did many people rapidly lose interest in you). All the old ideas I had of who I thought I was, what I was doing and what was important were stripped away. I was forced into the return movement. Everything started to dissipate and slip away.

What remains when that happens? What remains indeed! The return movement is not something to be feared and avoided. In fact, it’s one of life’s greatest gifts and a true portal to spiritual awakening. When all the outer props are gone, when all the old images you have of yourself stand revealed as empty and hollow, all the remains is...yourself. By ‘yourself’ I don’t necessarily mean a ‘person’. I’ve come to see the ‘person’ as something wholly arbitrary; a collection of habits, memories, beliefs and behavioural patterns, none of which has any solidity or permanence, and which shift and alter all the time. What always remains? What is the one changeless aspect of self that will always be there, no matter how much our outward experience may shift, no matter how much our beliefs and concepts and self-images alter? This is not an easy question to answer, and I encourage everyone to ask this question of themselves. It is perhaps the most powerful line of enquiry in the universe!

Let go of everything you possess, and everything you think you are or ‘ought’ to be and see what remains. This is an excellent question which just popped in my mind and which I’ve found remarkably powerful: “If I let go of ______, what remains?” Insert whatever you like there. It’s helpful to explore what you would be without the concepts you have of yourself. For instance: “If I let go of my need to be a ‘good’ person, what remains?” “If I let go of my religious or spiritual beliefs, what remains?” “If I let go of all my judgements about myself and others, what remains?” “If I let go of my need to be a good mother/father/teacher/astronaut, what remains?” “If I let go of my fear of death, what remains?” “If I let go of my need to liked by everyone, what remains?” Try it! Try letting go of all your hopes and fears and all your most cherished concepts about yourself and the world. And really be open to exploring the answer. Don’t try to answer with words or concepts, just be open to an actual experience of what remains. If you let go of all memories, all perceptions, all beliefs, all hopes and dreams, all fears and doubts and judgements, what remains?? When all of that is stripped away, what is left?

While I urge everyone to seek the answer for themselves, I will also offer what I have discovered. All that remains for me when all else is stripped away is...a sense of being. This isn’t something new, but is something that has always been there, buried under an ocean of thoughts, beliefs, props, concepts and mental noise. I could lose everything in my life, every belief and I could have my entire memory wiped and I would still experience a sense of being.

When everything else is gone, all I know for certain is that...I am. There is awareness. This awareness is not a person, and it’s not limited despite seemingly being enclosed in a locked physical receptacle. That awareness - or consciousness - is the only constant in my life. It’s the only unchanging facet of my existence, whereas everything else in my life has been in a continual and continuing process of change and dissolution, like clouds in the sky, ever shifting, disappearing and reforming.

In this dream-like reality of ours in which even the seemingly solid and immutable is forever changing and dissolving, what is the single changeless element? What never changes? What always remains? The great masters and awakened souls have told us that to know the changeless amid the ever-changing is to know the difference between truth and illusion and to be grounded and rooted in that realisation of Self (or ‘being’, ‘awareness’, ‘consciousness’, or whatever words you care to use as pointers) is the key to being liberated. Like when you’re dreaming at night and occasionally while still immersed in the dream you become conscious that it’s just a dream and with that realisation the dream suddenly loses its ability to scare you and grip you. Rooted in that lucidity, you see the dream for what it is and can actually begin to enjoy it and consciously mould it with your intent, just for the sheer fun of it.

That’s what I wanted to share. Maybe it will mean something to you, maybe it won’t. The outward movement of life comes with tremendous energy and excitement, but it also tends to move us further and further away from our original undifferentiated state. We lose ourselves in the dream and give reality and solidity to what is ultimately transient and hollow. By all means have fun in this state, but don’t resist the return movement when it comes. It’s a portal back to our self, our true nature, if we chose to see it as such. In this way, the more we seem to lose, the more we gain, the more we remember and realise what we truly are, the more conscious we become of what always remains.

I believe this is what authentic spiritual awakening is; not adopting a certain set of beliefs and rituals and clothing the personality in new garments, but a conscious dropping away of all that is transient and false and a realisation of the one, changeless reality that underlies all form. It’s an invitation that’s open to all of us, at any point in our life. Alas, it seems that many of us need to experience great sorrow and suffering and loss in order to be forcibly shoved toward this awakening. But that’s another discussion. All we really need to do is accept and embrace the limitations we face in our lives and use them to go beyond and find that within us which is, and ever has been, beyond all limitation. This is the invitation to freedom.

Wake up, wake up, wherever you are

2010-01-19T15:35:00.003Z

More words from Nisargadatta's "I Am That":

“All effort leads to more effort; whatever was built up must be maintained, whatever was acquired must be protected against decay or loss. Whatever can be lost is not really one’s own; and what is not your own of what use can it be to you? In my world, nothing is pushed about, all happens by itself.”

“Without knowledge of the knower there can be no peace.”

“I can only tell you what I know from my own experience. When I met my guru, he told me: “You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense ‘I am’, find your real self.” I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon. It took me only three years to realise my true nature.”

“The way to truth lies through destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst. With the body comes the world, with the world - God, who is supposed to have created the world and thus it starts - fears, religions, prayers, sacrifices, all sorts of systems - all to protect and support the child-man, frightened out of his wits by monsters of his own making. Realise that what you are cannot be born nor die and with the fear gone, all suffering ends.”

“What the mind invents, the mind destroys. But the real is not invented and cannot be destroyed. Hold on to that over which the mind has no power.”

“Cease to be the object and become the subject of all that happens; once having turned within, you will find yourself beyond the object. When you have found yourself, you will find that you are also beyond the subject, that both the subject and the object exist within you, but you are neither.”

“Renounce all lesser desires. As long as you are satisfied with the lesser, you cannot have the highest. Whatever pleases you keeps you back. Until you realise the unsatisfactoriness of everything, its transiency and limitation, and collect your energies in one great longing, even the first step is not made...Nothing physical or mental can give you freedom. You are free once you understand that your bondage is of your own making and you cease forging the chains that bind you.”

“By themselves neither pleasure nor pain enlighten. Only understanding does. Once you have grasped the truth that the world is full of suffering you will find the urge and energy to go beyond it. Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up. If you do not want to suffer, don’t go to sleep. You cannot know yourself through bliss alone, for bliss is your very nature. You must face the opposite, what you are not, to find enlightenment.”

“When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known and yet you recognise it as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present. The mind is no more. There is only love in action. There will be no fear.”

“The entire universe is your body and you need not be afraid of it. You may say that you have two bodies; the personal and the universal. The personal comes and goes, but the universal is always with you.”

“Begin by realising that the world is in you, not you in the world.”

“Realise yourself as the ocean of consciousness in which all happens. This is not difficult. A little of attentiveness, of close observation of oneself, and you will see that no event is outside your consciousness.”

“It is your mind that has separated the world outside your skin from the world inside and put them in opposition. This created fear and hatred and all the miseries of living.”

“There is a state beyond consciousness, which is not unconsciousness. Some call it super-consciousness, or pure consciousness, or supreme consciousness. It is pure awareness free from the subject-object nexus.”

“Look at your mind dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all the time. Stop it - and just BE. If you give it rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength. Constant thinking makes it decay.”

“Understand that you are destined for enlightenment. Co-operate with your destiny, don’t go against it, don’t thwart it. Allow it to fulfil itself.”