The Present Moment
You Are The River
Life 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.
I Love Movies
After awakening all my interests in the world seemed to fade away. Since I feel complete, I have no desires for anything that is not already arising in this very moment. That makes me very happy, but a terrible consumer. If everyone were to awaken I imagine this consumer economy would have to undergo a major change if it could even survive at all.
But I still seem to be interested in movies. Not just spiritual movies, if there is such a thing, but all movies. Action adventure. Comedy. Romantic comedy. Drama. Super heroes. Science fiction. Not horror or even thrillers. I don’t go for that anymore. I’m not interested in fear. So I was wondering the other night why, of all things, have Hollywood movies remained an interest?
I think it’s because it’s a beautiful analogy for how I see the world. I see the world as a movie, a projection. And I am like both a member of the audience watching and the movie screen that all these amazing things are projected onto. None of it is entirely real. None of it truly affects this infinite eternal beingness/awareness that I am anymore than the images on the screen affect the screen. I am just watching this show go on with a sense of curiosity, wonder, amusement, love and joy.
Energy and feelings occur in this body and I watch this too, just as I watch thoughts. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing movie. But this deep inner stillness is not touched by these thoughts or these feelings. It is always free. And this is very much like watching a movie. I can get interested and involved in the movie when my attention is there. Otherwise what’s the point? But I am still sitting in the audience of a theater or my couch at home. And just like the movie screen, when fire appears on the screen, it is not burnt. When a blizzard appears on the movie screen, the screen itself is not cold.
In this way life itself appears kind of like a movie. Things are continually changing, coming and going, being born and dying. This is the perfect way of all life. It’s why attachment to anything always ends in suffering. But this infinite Essence, this pure Awareness, is not touched by any of it. It always remains pure and clear and free.
And perhaps this is why I still love movies so much. Watching a movie is like this infinite awareness watching life. It is a reflection of this inner awareness. When attention focuses on one thing it can be intimately involved with that one thing. Just as we are when we watch a movie. But when the movie is over and the house lights go up, we are here sitting in the theater. We never really were in a fire or freezing on a remote mountain top. And this is also true of our True Self. It is aware of everything happening in life and through attention can become intimately involved. But it is never changed by what occurs. It remains always pure, clear and free. And this freedom is where our true happiness comes from. This is where peace comes from. This is where the true love that knows there is no separation anywhere in existence is born.
So movies, yes. Pretty cool. Much like we are.
Unconditional Love
Unconditional love has no need because it is complete unto itself. It is the Being of love. It does not love or receive love. It simply IS love. It needs no other person. But all in its presence are bathed in this love like a powerful perfume. As are all not in its presence. There is no need for an other because in truth there are no others, nor a self to perceive others. There is just love. That is all. And that is enough.
The Experience of God
We 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.
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