Category Archives: Enlightenment

June 4, 2015 · 4:03 pm

Flash Moments

It’s been two months since I have posted anything here.   I have had several insights that I considered sharing during that time but didn’t take the time to sit down and write.  These ideas or insights come like flashes out of nowhere and if I sit down immediately and write…a blog is created.  However, most of the time when the flash comes I am involved doing other things and rather than stop what I’m doing I’ll make a mental note that I will write about this very good insight later.  I’ve given up trying to figure out where glimpses of insight come from but I know they come as “flashes” while in the present moment.

The problem is that these flashes happen while you’re in the present moment and if they are not written down right away the insight vanishes into the land of past memories.  The space where past memories dwell is not suitable ground for a flash insight because it can get absorbed in concepts and filters that were not there during the initial flash.

 

9 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Awareness, Contemplation, Enlightenment, Mindfulness, Nonduality, Pointers, Present Moment

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

February 7, 2015 · 10:52 am

Gateless = Freedom

It’s been a year today since I completed a “sort of” course called Liberation Unleashed. How I found out about it..I don’t remember exactly…..maybe through a long stream of events that started with Eckhart Tolle’s  “New Earth”.

The whole idea to me revolves around the Zen concept of the Gateless Gate.  It’s based on the notion that we all are looking for a way to find the Gate that will open up the path of peace, happiness with no suffering. We all look for a way to find that Gate and, more importantly, open it. When we finally realize that if there is a Gate at all that it is not locked, has no boundaries and can be freely crossed on either side or passed straight through without the least bit of effort….then we are “enlightened”.

To start the process, you are given a Guide who is a person who has already passed through the Gate so supposedly they will be able to lead you where you need to go. The Guide has only one goal…to help you realize that there is no separate self and never has been.  Sounds simple but believe me, it’s far from it. The questions asked are meant to dissolve the thought that there is a separate little person inside your head running the show…..that there is no separate little person that is separate from all other people or things.  That perceived separate little person is only a conglomerate of your past conditionings, feelings, your life story and exists in memory only.

If this is the first time you have been exposed to such a concept, it can be very unsettling and not accepted.  When something awakens in you and you begin to be interested in this crazy notion, you have started your way to finding the Gateless Gate….which is no Gate at all.

Gateless Gate

Leave a comment

Filed under Enlightenment, Freedom, Gateless Gate, Liberation, Nonduality, Zen

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 6, 2015 · 12:42 pm

The Gap Between Words

I have been reading Eckhart Tolle’s book New Earth for the 3rd time. The last time I read it was about three years ago, I highlighted almost every line and a subtle shift in perception happened.  This time I downloaded it on my Kindle so I wouldn’t be distracted by all the highlights and here I go again highlighting like crazy.  Maybe I’ll compare the two to see if the same passages were highlight worthy after three years.

Speaking to someone’s soul (using soul for the words Being/Awareness/That, etc) is very tricky and almost impossible to do with words since words and thoughts come from the mind and the soul does not.  Speaking to the soul needs to be transmitted between the words. I can hear the gap between the words of some spiritual teachers and others I cannot.

I’ve always been one to wonder about not only my purpose in life but everyone’s purpose. I’m coming to think that we all share the same purpose and don’t each have our own little individual purposes. What that same purpose is we all share is up for grabs.  It does seem that we all share the same unexplained longing and all attempt satisfaction in as many ways as there are individuals.  If the word longing were to be used instead of the word purpose it might make more sense. Maybe if we all tried to understand God’s language, we could find out.

“Silence is God’s language, everything else is bad translations”  – Eckhart Tolle

3 Comments

Filed under Centeredness, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Purpose in Life, Silence, Spirituality

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 19, 2014 · 3:29 pm

Relationship or Connection?

Thinking more about the last post on the importance of my relationship with Aliveness. From a nonduality standpoint there is the question, “who is having the relationship”?  There must be two or more to have relationship. How can there be relationship if there is only One.

Looked up the definition of the word relationship and the ones I liked most were…. (1) The way in which two or more concepts, objects or people are connected. (2) The “sense” of being connected.

If I substitute the word “connection” for the word “relationship” a new understanding comes to light.  A true connection is not two separate things…but those separate things becoming one. All the different types of relationships come to mind such as family, friends, coworkers, casual, intimate and I look at them to determine if I feel connections or if I am relating as a separate self to their separate self. The second definition indicates that connection is a sensation or feeling.

I realize that most of my relationships are not connections but two or more sharing their separateness. I would like for that to be different and maybe that’s why a connection with Aliveness/Presence is important to me.  Although an open connection with others is probably…. absolutely… the exact same thing.

 

3 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Contemplation, Direct Inquiry, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Self Realization, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Zen

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 17, 2014 · 1:40 pm

Relationship with Aliveness

 

Still thinking about yesterday’s post on what is important and being able to build your life around the answer. I said “my spirituality is most important….my relationship to spirit trumps all other relationships.”

I didn’t realize that until I typed it. Now I’m wondering about the choice of the word “Spirit”.  The word comes from Latin meaning “breath”. Breath is certainly our invisible source of aliveness.

How can you have a relationship with aliveness?  All religions and spiritual teachers mention an invisible unknown mystery to life and give it some sort of name. We all know that the names are endless for that which cannot be named.  I guess Aliveness is as good a name as any, it doesn’t make your mind wrap around an object or make it personal.

It seems the only way I can have a meaningful relationship with Aliveness is to treat it like any other relationship that is important to me.  Be attentive, listen, nurture it, don’t ignore it because of the constant bombardment of thoughts, appreciate it…..love it.

 

6 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Direct Inquiry, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Reality, Spirituality, Zen

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 2, 2014 · 11:23 am

Reality…In The Shadows?

I was vacuuming my bedroom, pulled out the bed stand and noticed a dark spot on the carpet.  Since I have a new puppy I went about my clean up routine, got the cleaner and rag and started scrubbing.  I did quite a bit of scrubbing and the spot would not come out of the carpet. I looked up to the top of the bed stand and realized that the spot I had been scrubbing was the shadow of an object on the table!  It was the shadow of a fly swatter!  How crazy is that?

I wouldn’t admit to this except that my immediate reaction was laughter and the old tale of the rope being mistaken for a snake went through my mind. But then looking deeper, I wondered how many other situations/objects do I mistake for reality?  For those few moments I was convinced I knew the reality of my purpose ….to clean the spot obviously made by the puppy.  When in reality all I had to do was remove the object producing the shadow and my problem was eliminated.  I wish I could remember that seeking the Truth is just as easy…..

4 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Direct Experience, Enlightenment, Mind, Nonduality, Reality, Seeker, Self Identity, Self Realization, Shadow, Spirituality, Truth, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 13, 2014 · 3:56 pm

Cleaning the Lens…

I’ve only been blogging for a year and not very consistently. Inspiration to write ebbs and flows for me. I just reviewed all of the blogs I’ve done and most relate to my journey down the nonduality path. I just completed the Liberation Unleashed process where the only goal is to help with the realization that there is no personal self….that’s it…nothing else. All other spiritual beliefs and concepts are put away temporarily so that the focus is only on direct experience.

There is only one person outside of the blogosphere who knows of my spiritual journey and that I am involved in the LU process. Not that I want it to be kept secret…exactly the opposite. I am excited to share my insights but I honestly don’t know where to begin the discussion with anyone who has never heard of the no self concept. My knowledge of it has progressed over the years going from one path to the next and the different concepts all linked up together at some point.

I remember when I first became aware of the no self philosophy…it felt uncomfortable. I felt more comfortable keeping the personal self in a separate compartment I called the ego, small self, lower self or a “little me” in the background not to be confused with “my higher self” hanging out somewhere above my head. There seemed to be two parts of me each taking turns being in charge.

Realizing that the little me in the background doesn’t exist and never has existed takes some honest looking. Maybe for some it’s a spiritual awakening happening in a flash but for me it has been a slow process that started two years ago backed up by 25 years of spiritual seeking.

I still don’t know if any awakening happened….I have no expectations of enlightenment….realization is a better word I suppose. Nothing really changes….just a clearer lens to look through.

9 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Direct Experience, Direct Inquiry, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Pointers, Seeker, Self Identity, Self Realization, Zen

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 24, 2013 · 11:12 am

My Little Life

I usually don’t have a particular intention during meditation but today I had the intention to understand my next step in this spiritual journey.  I feel  like I’m jumping around again between different teachers seeing the sameness in all their teachings. I put out this intention…didn’t get an answer so I quit meditating early with a bit of an attitude.  The attitude was one of feeling discouraged wondering if I will ever be content to just “be”.

I sporadically keep a journal. I picked it up and read about a dream I had almost exactly a year ago to the day. I was trying to find a connection at a train station. I was running around trying to find the next train, up and down stairs, in elevators and then a man appears in a chair with wheels and says he knows the way and to hop in.  It was uncomfortable fitting in the chair with him at first but I got settled in and we flew through the station quickly. I remember the relieve of giving up looking on my own and letting him navigate. I don’t remember if we made it because the next thing I remember is looking at him from a distance and he was eating chocolates not worrying about catching the train at all. Then I started judging whether he was the right one to lead me after all and the anxiety started again.

Well, here I am a year later still looking for the next train.  But now I finally realize why I never want to stop seeking or looking for the next train.  If I stop seeking I’m afraid of going back to sleep again and living my little mechanical life outside of awareness.

My spiritual life has always been a priority for me and I try to keep it strong because my little life has never seemed as important to me as my spiritual life.  It came to me that I need to switch that notion and make my little life a priority because that is what is..right now.  It’s not attached to the next teacher or to the cushion.  This is one of the common threads in most teachings but now I may be actually getting it.

I’ll have to remind myself (probably often) that the fear of going backward and living that mechanical life outside of awareness is not possible because my hope is that once it’s seen… it cannot be unseen.  My next step is to realize that my little life is what is important….living it within awareness is the practice.

I guess maybe having an intention during meditation is a good thing after all.

6 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Direct Experience, Direct Inquiry, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Reality, Seeker, Thoughts, Truth, Zen

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 10, 2013 · 6:01 pm

Who Am I…Really?

The most common spiritual inquiry question “Who Am I?” has been a question of mine since I can remember.  Not because of spiritual inquiry but because of wondering what my name really should be.  I was named after my father whose name was Harry Carl so the closest female version of that name was …Harriett Carlyn.  The label was strictly a namesake because no one ever called me by either name.  At some point the “o” was put in the middle name making it the more commonly known name of Carolyn.  After that, my label changed many times throughout my life.  I just counted seven different forms of identity in my wallet all with different names. This display of aliases has created problems for me at times especially in airports.

Maybe that’s what started my spiritual quest of trying to discover who I really am.  I always envied people who were  given a name at birth and have never known any other label.  It seemed they always knew who they were and I was always wondering. So now that I’m on this road to “no-self” I can finally stop wondering who I am…and just be whatever name pops out of my wallet that day.

How many names would each spiritual seeker have if they changed their name with each shift in perception or with each “Aha” moment?  After so many changes the names that identify us would become meaningless…

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Direct Experience, Direct Inquiry, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Seeker, Self Identity, self image

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 28, 2013 · 10:52 am

Hard To Say Goodbye

The Witness has been my identity for the last several years. When I became aware of her I grasped her like a long lost friend and she has been with me ever since. She could be watchful of thoughts, people and things from a distance staying disconnected..being a spectator. I was quite proud and happy that I had her…seeing this as an advancement of my spiritual growth.

It is with regret that I have come to realize that she came just to take over the role of my previous identity. Although she has helped me make great strides in self realization, she has now made me aware that she too represents a separate self and needs to go. She has been a true friend and guide and I don’t want to let her go….maybe I’ll just call on her when needed rather than cutting it off completely…hard to say goodbye.

9 Comments

Filed under Absolute, Direct Experience, Direct Inquiry, Enlightenment, Nonduality, Seeker, Spirituality, The Witness

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,