N-lightenment

Something in you already knows.

You Are The River

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river-09Life flows like a river. All things come and go in this river: experiences, feelings, thoughts, sensations, perceptions. Notice how this happens. In every moment there is change, movement and transformation.

What appears to be happening outside of you is also happening in this river. Everything is happening in this river. Notice how what appears to be happening outside of you is also always changing, moving and transforming.

Sometimes a thought, belief or feeling may appear to be stuck. It doesn’t seem to move. It is like a stagnant place in the river that is no longer flowing. It is not really stuck but through our continued focus and attention, our thoughts, beliefs, fears and attachment, we prevent it from moving on. We prevent it from flowing as it naturally wants to. Eventually these stuck places reveal themselves as physical disease so that we will finally pay attention and release them. But even then, we often don’t. We seek a cure for the symptom (the disease) without looking at the cause (the stagnation, attachment, fear and resistance). And this too is just like a river. That stagnant parts that are not flowing become unhealthy. Sometimes it takes a great rain to wash through the river to release these stagnant places. Sometimes it takes a great trauma or crisis, like a serious illness or loss, for us to release these stuck places too and return to our natural healthy flow.

You are like a river. Everything comes and goes in you. Sometimes when the snows melt in the Spring, the river runs very fast. It can even overflow its banks. And other times, late in the summer, it moves so slowly and gently it barely seems to move at all. No matter how the river is flowing, it remains the river. To our superficial perceptions it may appear that the river is a raging rapids or calm and tranquil. But the river has no such opinions. It knows it is just the river. And this is also like us. No matter what is happening in our life, raging rapids or calm and tranquil, we remain just like the river.

Everything changes in our river: thoughts, feelings, beliefs, perceptions, sensations, experiences, situations. Everything is in constant flow. But, just like the river, we do not change. We remain what we are. We have been like this before this body was conceived. And we will continue just like this after this body is no more. There is an undying peace, love and well-being that never changes. Just like the river, we have always been absolutely complete and whole. Just like the river we see how everything is constantly changing in us and around us. And, just like the river, we see this and smile, for we never change. We remain always complete and whole.

The Experience of God

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web-sun-minWe have many ideas and beliefs about God and what God is. We attribute many characteristics to God: infinite, omnipresent, etc. And some of us attribute very human characteristics because it is all we can imagine: loving, jealous, judging, punishing. Some people don’t believe that God exists at all.

I never really had any of these beliefs. Instead I had what I considered and still consider a direct experience of God. It began when I was a very young child, maybe five or so. Probably before that. I lived in a house with two alcoholic parents. Life was unpredictable, sometimes violent and mostly terrifying. I slept, as they say in the old westerns, with one eye open because I never knew that was going to happen.

Alone in the woods that surrounded my house, I discovered a very different experience. Here there was no fear. I felt connected to every rock and plant and creature. The birds would sing my name. I felt at home, protected and loved in a way I never experienced in my house or anywhere else. And something else. With all the fear that was the rest of my life gone, I often felt filled with a powerful light and love. I was at peace. I was happy. After I learned the word God, I came to understand this as the Presence of God. I felt filled with God. It is possible that without this experience I may not have survived my childhood. So I came to understand God as this experience of being filled with light and love, of being at peace, of being happy, of being Home.

By the time I reached adolescence, I had become harder and tougher, at least on the surface. My attention moved on to other things. I rarely experienced this powerful inner light and love. I began to seek it outside in my girlfriends, where the world told me it was.

At twenty-two, completely unexpectedly, I experienced a powerful awakening. Not only did the experience of light and love return, that was all there was. The experience was so powerful it just blew everything else away. The limited angry young human vanished completely. You might say only God was left. For ten days I lived in this bliss. I healed people simply by shinning this powerful unconditional love on them. And this love was all that I was.

Ten days after it began, this experience faded. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that the sense of a limited separate person returned and overshadowed it. I had no idea how it happened so no idea how to keep it or find it again. I had tasted Nirvana. I had lived in Heaven. I had experienced God. And, more than anything else in my life, I wanted that back again. That was the true beginning of my spiritual search. Forty years later, after many different practices and teachers, after many smaller awakenings, it emerged again. This time more mature, more solid, more consistent. It wasn’t so much all the practices and teachers, although they certainly played a part. It was simply my own readiness. Now I was ready to live in the experience of God. I was ready to return Home.

There is an interesting acronym for the word ego. It is “Edging God Out”. And readiness to experience God directly is simply the readiness to let go of what is in the way, to let go of everything that is in the way. That also includes any beliefs or ideas about what God is. And it includes the belief that you have ever been separate from God. When all beliefs, all attachments are let go, the direct experience of God is right here. It has never been anywhere else. We tend to search for God everywhere else but right here. This is exactly why we cannot find God, why we cannot directly experience God.

I have nothing to say about what God is. This experience burns away all thoughts and ideas and beliefs. It leaves you empty so you can be filled with God. And that is better than any thought, idea or belief. This is the real deal. This is the direct experience of God. As it turns out, this has never been separate from you.

 

 

My Job Description – Bliss

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Dream-JobI have a rather unusual job description. It’s not to be a spiritual teacher, coach or healer, although I do appear to do these things. My real job is simply to be in peace, love and bliss always. If I am not in peace, love and bliss always, how can I help you realize that you are here too?

It is not always easy. Most of the human population live very much in their egos. And this, of course, creates enormous suffering for themselves and everyone they come in contact with. This is the nature of the ego. And this is exactly why it is so important that I remain as my True Self, free of ego conditioning.

So my job is to be happy, at peace and embodying unconditional love. This is the only way I can show people that they are also like this, no matter what their ego has been telling them all these years.

 






Happiness

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“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh