Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.

~Robert Brault

A thought for the day

What is cosmic awareness? It is when you move away from the tightly-defined ‘self’ of your own ego and embrace a more oceanic feeling of your self in unity with the entire universe, with a sense of interconnectedness with all things. There is also an inner knowing that things will never be the same again. It is invariably a profoundly transforming experience, usually lasting the rest of your life, having opened a window into a reality you never knew existed.

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Taken from the Living The Field course, the masterclass for miraculous living that brings together science and spirituality.

No matter what’s going on, you are here, and you are not affected by anything.  Can you notice that?  When pain is here, you are the same, when pain is gone, you are the same.  No matter what else is going on, underneath it all is you, silent, unchanging, here, and absolutely certain that you are here. 

If you will just look at that whenever you can, the idea that anything is at stake in this drama of your life will vanish. Maybe the drama will continue, but who cares. If you see a drama in the movies, no matter how skillfully it’s presented to you, no matter how evocative it is, or how well it creates terror and sorrow and so on, there’s never ever the sense that you are at stake in it. 

Now look, you’re here.  Just look at that every chance you get.  Just look at the fact that you’re here.  If you do that you will see that over time even though all kinds of drama may be going on, none of it will affect you; it gives you the revelation of eternal, permanent happiness that has actually always been here.  If you get stuck, that’s ok because you’re still here whether you’re stuck or not.  Nothing that happens within the dream can hurt or help you in any way whatsoever.  Now, isn’t it sweet to be here?  And you’re always here, regardless of anything. 

So what we do is look at the reality of what we are, instead of trying to fix believing we’re something we are not.  Stop and look at this feeling of presence that’s always here, but that is too subtle to speak about, that is never absent, that is always the same, and never changes. What does that feel like?  Just look at what this presence feels like, and everything else will be taken care of.  It is the secret to eternal happiness.  And everything then becomes easy, falling-out-of-bed easy. 

But if, instead of directly experiencing the truth about what you are as presence, you instead stay mesmerized within the belief that what you are is your life story.  If instead of knowing you’re presence, you believe you’re your life, you plunge yourself into all the immense problems that life stories present to us. 

Just notice what happens when you believe you’re your life story instead of your presence.  You become obsessed with all kinds of things you want and don’t want.  You have to work very hard and make all this effort to be good and true.  You have to choose wisely, and avoid the temptation to deviate.  You have to struggle for enlightenment with strenuous effort.  You have to be very careful that you do the right thing.  You have to be very careful that you avoid deception.  You have to be very careful that you don’t deviate from the path or you’ll get into trouble.  You have to choose well and stick to what you’ve chosen.  And the list goes on.  

Now what is all of that about.  All of that is the total nonsense of a false self.  Abject foolishness.  Stupidity with which we beat ourselves.  The only thing that gives rise to the dream is the idea that you’re the story about your life.  The only thing that gives rise to misery and suffering is the belief that you are that story.

And that belief becomes the very lens through which you see everything, through which you see the story and the picture of you that you can relate to and understand and do something about.   So you go on about your business of doing something about this story of yourself, this history and conglomeration of thought, trying to understand it, fix it, ignore it, accept it, get rid of it; trying to do something, trying to do anything; anything but hear that there is nothing to do. 

Already, in this moment, just as you are, you are eternal freedom itself, permanent, untouched, untouchable, reality itself, no matter what the state of your story might be.  Right now in this moment, in the midst of all the craziness, even in the midst of powerful feelings of being separate or alone or worthless, you are free, you are reality itself; and the totality of the story, the good, the bad, all of it, is utterly irrelevant, utterly bullshit.  That’s precisely what the false belief is – utter bullshit.  That’s what the word bullshit means – something that’s false.  Ok, notice how clear it is now that the only solution has to be knowing the truth of what you are; with all the rest just being a story about yourself that’s totally irrelevant.

Much Love, 

Ben Gilberti

What are these stories telling you?
How are they teaching you to see the world?
What are they asking you to expect from your brothers?

Are these stories helpful?
If not, why are you listening?

 www.reginadawnakers.com 

Excerpt from an article from What Is Enlightenment magazine
(Issue 17, Spring/Summer 2000)

Question: The goal of traditional spiritual teachings has generally been understood to be ego death-the final destruction of our attachment to a separate sense of self. But in today’s rapidly evolving spiritual culture, what is often taught as the means to liberation is not ego death, but self-acceptance-acceptance of every aspect of ourselves, including our egos. The message of self-acceptance has become increasingly popular and is now commonly seen by spiritual teachers from almost every tradition to be the most effective and holistic way to address the suffering of contemporary Western spiritual seekers. As someone who works closely with many seekers, guiding them on the delicate and subtle path to liberation, why do you emphasize the importance of self acceptance in the pursuit of spiritual freedom?

Cheri Huber: “Kill the ego” is a phrase that is easily misinterpreted. Who is identifying “ego”? Who is killing whom? Who is seeing whom as the problem? Who is right and who is wrong? Who is making these decisions? There are two things we can count on where egocentricity is concerned-One: It is very clever; Two: Its only job is survival. Ego will take anything-ANYTHING-and use it for its purposes, even the notion of killing/dissolving/transcending/accepting itself. You can see the danger, spiritually speaking, of misinterpreting “kill the ego.”

These words are interchangeable: I ego, egocentricity, conditioning, karma, suffering. The definition they share is that they are the illusion of a self that is separate.

I offer this as a working definition of self-acceptance: The realization that there is nothing separate-from All That Is, from “God,” from Essence. It is the moment-by-moment living awareness that the self who struggles is not who we are but is, instead, karmic conditioning, a learned response to life, a survival system that served us as children but has lost its efficacy for us as adults and now needs to be appreciated, embraced and relived of its job.

The desire to get rid of ego is very different from ceasing to identify with a karmically driven, egocentric, socially conditioned illusion of a separate self. The first implies a contest: Ego is charged with killing ego; ego battles with ego; ego wins! The second implies letting go of the illusion of control; it is the end of struggle, and the means to that end is awareness.

The processes that I teach for ceasing to identify with conditioning are threefold: pay attention, believe nothing, take nothing personally. I don’t actually teach self-acceptance. I encourage people to see that the things they believe about themselves are not true. When you see through all that you have been taught to believe, when you realize who you are, self-acceptance becomes irrelevant.

All suffering is held in place by false beliefs. All beliefs are false. What is, is. Believing it is not helpful. Believing is what the illusory separate self does to maintain an existence outside the present moment. The process of not taking any of this personally allows us to see that we are all in the same boat. We can take responsibility for ending suffering, but we don’t have to blame ourselves for being born into it.

Belief:

If it’s true that a false belief about yourself is the problem, then nothing you do about the artifact that is what you falsely believe yourself to be can help you. All of the stuff you think is wrong with you doesn’t matter because you’re not the you the stuff is wrong with.

Certainty:

The one thing you’re certain about is that you exist. If that’s what’s most certain about you, then that’s most certainly what you are. You are that you exist. Feel the pure feeling of being.

Permanence:

You can’t be anything that comes and goes in your consciousness, because you are that which sees the coming and going. Look at that. If you look at your permanence often enough, you will loose your belief in your impermanence.