Category Archives: Reality

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.

 

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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…..

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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.

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July 17, 2013 · 3:38 pm

Upside Down…You’re Turnin’ Me

I had the basic concepts of most seekers on Oneness, Consciousness, Absolute, Awareness and thought I was moving along the Path, slowly but starting to get it. Now I realize that the ideas that formed those concepts of reality are outdated and a new paradigm has begun which is turning everything upside down and creating a shift in perception.

My old paradigm was…I’m here inside this body and the world and others are out there.  I accepted that because my belief was that the me inside was a fragment of the Absolute/Awareness/Consciousness and was safely contained in my body/mind and would show up now and then just to remind me where I came from.  My search was to find ways to call up that contained Awareness on demand because that was where happiness and peace resided….and that wonderful thing called enlightenment.

The new paradigm (which is still in progress) is …who I am is not contained inside this body/mind. Sounds like a simple statement and I have said that for years but still held the feeling of being a separate fragment or person.   In order to accept this new paradigm as Truth, more investigation into what I am “not” is needed…mainly not this person that seems to be contained in this body/mind. Just that simple investigation can turn everything upside down.  Better still is rolling around the notion that objects only “seem” to exist outside of awareness and that the observed and observer are one and the same.  My mind would like to make sense of that one but probably doesn’t have the capability and keeps trying to figure it out anyway….meanwhile my idea of reality is turning upside down.

This song started playing in my mind a few days ago as if I were singing it to the Absolute itself so I found the lyrics to “Upside Down, You’re Turnin’ Me” which sums up my feelings at this point.

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June 18, 2013 · 1:56 pm

The Hidden Image in the Picture

I started this blog when I began the process of retiring from the search and I have to admit that over the last year there has still been more seeking than non-seeking going on. Nonduality has been my focus and naturally coming out of that is a different kind of seeking, the seeking of direct experience or direct inquiry.

I still hold the assumption that there is someone in here experiencing things and people out there.  I have accomplished being the witness of thoughts and things (most of the time) but now what is behind the witness has been my question.  Direct experience may be what will eventually replace the witness but letting the witness go is difficult and requires a shift in perception.

This shift in perception reminds me of  illusionary art called stereograms where a 3D image is hidden within a drawing and you can only see the hidden image if you learn to re-focus your gaze.  When you finally see it, it magically appears out of nothing.  Most instructions tell you not to focus on the picture but fix your gaze beyond it.   I was never good at finding the hidden images.

I recently reintroduced myself to the teachings of Francis Lucille which led me to again consider the Direct Path experiments by Greg Goode.  Maybe the timing is right to get down to some serious direct experience investigation so a few days ago I started the experiments which seem to be similar to learning to look through the illusion and see the hidden images.

The first experiment in the Direct Path involves the perception of hearing because it’s supposed to be the easiest.   During the experiment of ringing a bell, at first the sound still seems to be coming from the object of the bell and I can’t get past that.  Looking closer…since I am to use only the sense of hearing I just hear the sound without the interpreter telling me that the sound is coming from a bell.    Maybe that’s it…my direct experience is that hearing is just happening with or without the use of an interpreter.

One experiment down and 39 more to go….This could be intense but I’ll keep you posted.  If there is anyone else out there who has already been on this part of journey and the hidden image in the picture has appeared, please let me know.

There’s supposed to be a shark hidden in here somewhere…I can’t see it yet.

File:Stereogram Tut Random Dot Shark.png

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

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