N-lightenment

Something in you already knows.

4 Steps of Acceptance and Transformation

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4 Steps of Acceptance and Transformation

 
Phil Snider came up with a beautiful 4 step process for the real acceptance I am offering. Thank you, Phil for sharing this. This is very much the process that I go through naturally and spontaneously with pretty much everything that happens in my life now. But it took Phil’s generous sharing that helped me put it into words. Or he put it into words for me. This is a very powerful and life transforming practice so please pay attention and put this into practice in your life. This is why I see everything that I experience as a great blessing and teaching. And I mean everything. I certainly didn’t always do this. This only came about after my own awakening. But now it is my natural attitude toward life. So here are the 4 steps Phil shared.
 

1. Gratitude

Thank whatever shows up for showing up. This may take some practice when dealing with painful experience before it comes naturally, but do it. I promise it changes everything. Have an attitude of gratitude throughout your day every day. It is best to practice with the things you currently feel the least gratitude and the most rejection and aversion for, the “Oh no!”, “Why me?” and “What the F*ck!!?” stuff. When you can honestly feel gratitude for those things all the rest will be a piece of cake. Everything that shows up is entirely for your benefit and for your learning, so practice gratitude for it now, even before you realize this is true. It will open your eyes and your heart and help you realize the truth of it.
 

2. Realize

Realize you don’t know everything about what just showed up. This is an important truth of life that most people miss or refuse to accept. What we think we know is almost always wrong or at best a very limited part of the whole picture. Accept that you don’t know. This acceptance of reality is enormously freeing. You may have heard the expression: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” Often our accumulation of knowledge actually limits our true knowing, which is always open to whatever arises. So accept that you don’t know. It will improve your life and your true knowing, your wisdom.
 
All of my writing and teaching and healing and art come from this place of “not knowing”. From this clear, open and free spaciousness, all things flow spontaneously and effortlessly. It is like a water faucet has been turned on full blast, all the time. Inspiration comes from everything that arises in my life moment to moment. Because I continuously experience a beginner’s mind, I am constantly learning from everything. It was not always like this. I had a great deal of training as a writer and artist. I used to work at this very hard. I thought I knew what was right and I worked very hard to attain that. Now it just flows with no effort or even thinking at all. This is the benefit of realizing I don’t know and letting go of the belief that I do or should. Realize you don’t know. Let go of the belief that you should. And be free.
 

3. Ask

Ask whatever shows up what it has come to teach you. There is ALWAYS a lesson here. Every single thing that happens in your life is a LESSON. When your mind is open through gratitude and the realization that you really don’t know why this thing, feeling, situation or person showed up, you have the openness and space to hear the answer. Ask what this has come to teach you. Then be very quiet and listen for the answer.
 

4. Realization

When the first three steps are done with an open mind and heart, awakening and awareness will happen naturally. This practice will transform your life. When you do this enough times you will no longer doubt that everything that happens in your life is entirely for your benefit. You will see the world in a very different way. These are not difficult things to do. It just takes willingness. You may now have a thought that says, “I could never be grateful for this.”, say if someone should steal your car. But try it anyway. It is only a thought whether you are grateful or not. Go through the whole 4 steps and see what a difference it makes in your life. You can do this while you are calling the police and filing a report. It may take some time before you realize why someone stealing your car was actually for your benefit. You may realize this quite quickly or maybe never. This is a practice. And the more you practice the more you realize. Continue doing it with each thing that arises in your life until it becomes your normal experience. I can verify that it is a beautiful way to experience life. And thanks again to Phil for breaking it down into these 4 steps. It is quite vague for me to say accept everything that comes into your life. It’s far more useful to break it down into these 4 practical steps.

Life and Death

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Life and death cannot be separated. They’re joined at the hip. When we try to separate them and celebrate life while fearing and rejecting death, we end up living an artificial imaginary life. This only leads to suffering as reality always presents itself no matter how tightly we cling to our illusions.

It’s important to accept life and death as one, as they cannot be separated. In this calligraphy, I painted life and death as one word LifeDeath. If we think of it in this way, we will not stray from reality.

We cannot truly understand life without understanding death. We cannot understand death without understanding life. The two cannot be separated. Instead of depressing us, our understanding, accepting and embracing death as a fundamental reality of life leads to a deep appreciation of every moment of life. It’s temporary. We might as well fully enjoy each and every moment as they won’t come around in exactly the same way ever again.

Our culture has conditioned us to celebrate and believe in youth, newness, and a youthful, perfect beauty that never changes or fades. We avoid images of death and decay because they expose our conditioned illusions. Our illusions crumble in the face of too much truth.

We don’t like to think our minds have been conditioned. We like to think that our thoughts are ours. Those of us who have spent time in the advertising industry or in other areas of mass media know very well the power of the media to condition beliefs, opinions, preferences and desires. Media shapes the way culture thinks and feels. It is unnatural for us to think and feel about life and ourselves the way we do. These thoughts and beliefs have been conditioned by our culture.

Conditioning

I admit to once being a Creative Director of a large advertising agency. I apologize for this. It’s a poor excuse, but it’s hard to make a decent living as an artist and I had a family to support. Knowing the powerful influence we had over the way the population thinks and feels, most of us imagined we were immune to this. One week I decided to test myself to see if this were true. I decided that if I had a strong desire to purchase anything I had seen in an advertisement, I would wait one week before acting on this desire. During that week I would simply watch my mind each day. I was shocked to discover that I was just as conditioned as anyone else. Not much different from Pavlov’s dogs. When the right triggers were given, I would salivate just like those dogs. After the results of my experiment, I began to take the responsibility for what I was doing far more seriously. Eventually I left the business.

Wabi-Sabi

The Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetic is one way to de-condition ourselves and learn to live in reality. Wabi-sabi celebrates the impermanent, the natural, the changing nature of life. It sees that life and death are not separate. Where our contemporary culture celebrates youth and this idea that people and things can be permanent, wabi-sabi celebrates reality. Everything is changing. Youth become old age. The new car becomes the old one. There is nothing wrong with this. It is the reality of life and it is profoundly beautiful. If we can let go of our conditioning, the beauty of life as it really is becomes clear.

Where our culture attempts to cover up and hide the reality of death and impermanence, wabi-sabi celebrates it. Instead of turning away from the wrinkles in this woman’s face or attempting to cover them up with make-up or Photoshop retouching, can you see the profound beauty in these wrinkles, these symbols of a life truly lived. Seeing the beauty in this is wabi-sabi.

My Grandmother Rozie

My grandmother was an amazing woman. I was truly fortunate to have her in my life. As I knew here in her 70s and 80s, she didn’t act the way other women her age acted. She didn’t dye her hair or go to a beauty salon in an attempt to look younger. She never wore makeup. She barely combed or brushed her hair. It was usually a tangled mess. She cared nothing about the latest clothes. She usually wore the same sweater filled with holes. But there was an aliveness about her and great joy. It was wonderful to be with her and everybody felt that way. She loved people. She loved life. And she loved me.

Freedom From Fear

My grandmother gave me the greatest gift that any human can give to another. She taught me not to fear death. When she was in the process of dying and had at most a month left to live, she told me about her decision not have any medical attention for her stomach cancer. She said she had seen her friends go through surgery and treatment and it just wan’t for her. She told me she had lived a wonderful life (She was eighty-five at the time I think.) and she was ready to go. It was very clear that she had no fear of death at all. It wasn’t because of any religious belief or belief in an after life. I don’t think she really cared about that. She had enjoyed a long life and now she was ready to go. She accepted her death fully without any reservation at all. It was as natural as getting up in the morning and brushing her teeth.

I was in my early 20s at the time. Up until that conversation I had been influenced by the media and my society to fear death or at least think it was a negative thing. But my grandmother’s complete lack of any fear changed that. It wasn’t all at once, but it began a process of changing my previous conditioning. In all my media experiences of death, nobody every faced it as something completely natural and nothing to fear. My grandmother did. And I will always be grateful for that.

Until we can fully accept death as the natural process and inevitable end of our life, we cannot fully accept life either. That fear of death holds us back from fully living. My grandmother lived her whole life free of that. That’s why she lived so fully. That’s why she accepted everything in life. She accepted her aging gracefully without trying to appear younger. She accepted and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of her life. And she accepted her death just as gracefully, naturally and completely. My grandmother was a prime example of wabi-sabi in action. Her life itself was a work of art. I was very privileged to have seen it and been a part of it.

Love What Is

Wabi-sabi and Zen itself doesn’t reject youth in favor of the old. It accepts everything. It appreciates and is grateful for everything in every moment. Because of our conditioning we favor youth over old age. We favor wrinkle-free skin over wrinkles. We favor the shiny and new over the rusting, deteriorating and old. Because of this we are out of balance. We don’t need to practice accepting what we already accept. That’s already done. We need to practice accepting and appreciating what our conditioning has taught us to reject and fear. That’s where the Japanese aesthetic approach of wabi-sabi can help us. It can return us to a natural way of life, free of the conditioning that has forced us out of balance with nature and reality.

The thoughts we have that reject and fear some aspects of life are not our thoughts. We didn’t create them. We were conditioned by society, by men and women like me in the advertising and media worlds. We would never tell you that wrinkled skin is beautiful in a woman because there is no profit in that. Wrinkles are free. They are a natural part of aging. We would never tell you that the shiny new car we’re trying to sell you will begin to rust and need repairs in a few years. Rust and deterioration are a natural part of life. That’s reality. Advertising doesn’t deal in reality. There’s no profit in it.

To live a natural, balanced and healthy life, we need to live in the real world, not the world of our conditioned thoughts. When we accept, honor, appreciate and love life as it really is, whatever that may be, without trying to change it or wish it were different, we will live a life of true happiness. The world perceived through our conditioned thoughts cannot give us that.

 

 

 

Tomislav’s Dream

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When a sleeping dream can be more real than waking life. This is a profound dream that points directly to Truth.

October 4, 2017
Hello Peter,

I must admit I use sometimes the possibility to contact you without outer reason.

I can not explain why….it is an addition to Satsang and satisfies something in me. Your words always have an effect. I also try not to overdo it.

This morning I had a very strange dream:

I was a German soldier (not exactly sure about it) somewhere in Russia, on a small farm, there was a farmhouse and a barn. A nice sunny day in spring. There where a small boy and a little older girl, but both small children.

I knew there was danger, and I took the boy up, holding him while he hugged me arround my neck, and the girl grabbed my hand. I rushed to go around the house, as there was danger behind me.

Then shots were fired and bullets pierced my back. I did my best to cover the children as I was falling down, so to protect them with my body.

More shots were fired, piercing my body. I was motionless, could not move. I was dead, but satisfied that children were alive. After some time children began to move, trying to get free of my heavy body. I got fear that they will remain pinched down with my heaviness and will die of starvation, but they manage to come free.

They went little back and found their dead father. After that they come to me again. I then recognize I am not dead yet, children know that and come to me, as I am the only one left who cares about them. I want to say something nice to them, but cannot speak Russian. Then I remember few words and tell them: “Ja ljublju vas” (I love you).

At that moment I recognize that I am dying and that I am not only speaking to the children, I speak to all this beautiful existence, to all that life, to all this unbeliaveable beauty, now as I am leaving it all forever.

I see the beauty in everything, this wonderful colors of grass in front of me, and some purple flowers behind it. With my last strength I grab the grass to feel it one last time, to smell it, to enjoy life as it is.

I now see our stupid and futile ways in that we spend our precious moments, wasting them away in trying to conquer, do and own and in similar stupid ways….when we have just to be here and appreciate this wonder of wonders.

I begine to die, all is being stripped away from me….the full tragedy not of dying, but of never really have lived strikes me like a fist.

At this time I began to be conscious of dreaming (although on some level I always was). I know I have to let it go, to die and be free. But my mind kicks in, I recognize I cannot do anything. Dream and waking state mixes, and before the twister that was stripping me of everything could finish his work….I wake up.

I recognize my usual ways of behaving and thinking has took over, and I lost the possibility of seeing life as it is. I know how I do it, but I cannot change it. It is not in my power to decide when and if I will be free. But gratitude for that insight was in me.

That is all Peter, I shared a dream with you. If you have some words for me I will listen gladly.

I am helpless. I can not find right words to communicate what I feel for you and about your effect on me.

Just thanks and love and gratitude. I am so happy that I have a chance to be in your presence on Satsangs. I will be with you this Saturday if possible. But I also often feel your presence or influence on me.

Tomislav

October 5, 2017
Wow, Tomislav. I am very moved by this dream. It is beautiful. You are a hero, a Bodhisattva, helping all the world even at the loss of your own life. This is very beautiful. I am touched by this. And then you see life as it is, the miracle, the incredible, fragile beauty. Wonderful dream. It has a lot to do with truth. This is the true you. It is interesting because in the dream you experience reality. Then when you wake up you go into the common human dream. 

If you agree, I would like to share this letter on Facebook. This is a dream of truth. Then when you wake up, the powerful habit of conditioning covers over this realization that you had in the dream. This is common. When we wake up from sleeping, immediately the mind-created world goes to work. This is my bed. This is my room. This is my body. This is what I need to do today. It is all so familiar. I am so familiar. The miracle of life as it is, of what I am, is covered over by our waking dream. 

This means you are very close. You see all of this. You experience all of this. You realize all of this. Even your frustration about it is good. It shows your direction is very strong. 

This dream is so amazing. It points to the entire human drama, the ignorance of truth and the realization of truth. Everything is in this dream. It is amazingly profound. Thank you for sharing it with me. It completely touches my heart. 

I would not worry too much about your conditioned thinking taking over. More and more I see this falling away by itself. Just continue with what you are doing. You have seen reality, even if only in a dream, but a very special dream. It’s wonderful, beyond any words. It is natural for a shift to happen. This is better. In your daily waking life, you will notice more shifts, more cracks in the veil of the waking dream, where you can see these miracles of life be revealed. This will happen naturally. Don’t be in a hurry. And don’t let your intention go. Keep your intention strong, but instead of doing and trying so much, relax, observe and pay attention. Pay attention to life. Listen. Life itself is always showing you, teaching you, just as in having this wonderful dream. 

You are open. You are ready. And so more and more you will see what life is showing you. What a great adventure. I am so happy for this. I am so happy for you. 

Thank you for sharing this with me, Tomislav. And if you give me permission I will be happy to share this with others who may be as touched by it as I am. 

Love,

Peter

October 5, 2017
Dear Peter,

of course you can share it.

Thank you again for your words, they are as always a beacon of light for me.

It is as you say, I’m allowed more and more glimpses. Few days ago, as I was doing my physical exercises in the morning, a beam of sunlight lit a small part in front of me. I was in an instant blinded by the beauty of the moment. It was clear for me that the only place where beauty can exist is now….and a timeless now. Not few milliseconds later. Not when you think about it. It was so clear. And then I began to think how I can convey what was seen and little later the movie of my life was on again. But what was seen can not vanish. It is here. The cracks you are talking about. I will do as you advise, pay attention to life and relax more (I think that is happening anyway, by itself).

Thank you again and I am so blessed to have met you

Tomislav

The Bucket List

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bucketThere was a movie a while ago with Jack Nicholson called The Bucket List. The Bucket List is a list of things you want to do before you die. Usually we don’t want to accept that this body is limited and eventually will die. We try to put that realization and acceptance off as long as we can. But this truth is not bad to be aware of and live our life according to.
 
If you discovered that you only had one year to live, that your body would be dead in one year, what would your Bucket List be? What would you want to do before you died, before it was too late to do any of those things on your Bucket List?
 
I don’t want to be morbid. I’m just explaining a simple and obvious truth that so many of us try to ignore. Even if you are relatively young, your death could come in a year or less. That it comes is certain. When it comes is far less certain. If we stop ignoring this simple truth, it can make our life far richer. We naturally stop doing the things that are not so essential and spend more time with the things that are. Our life become more focused and also more beneficial. Being aware of our impending death, we become more alive. Interesting, isn’t it?
 
Without this conscious awareness, many of us put off the most important things or don’t do them at all, imagining that there will always be time some day. Often that some day doesn’t come at all. We end up spending our last days with a lot of regrets. Simply accepting that our life is very limited can help us begin to make the most of what time we do have. It doesn’t matter if that’s 50, 25, 10, or 5 years. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1 year. If we acknowledge that it could be over in a year or less, we’re far less likely to be filled with regrets when that inevitable time does come.
 

What’s In Your Bucket List?

When we accept that we may only have one year or less to live, our life becomes very focused. What’s most important stands out. What’s in your Bucket List? Is it to see all the 7 wonders of the world? Is it to visit places you’ve dreamed of? Is it to heal any relationships that are still unhealed? Is it to fulfill fantasies that have remained just fantasies? Is it to continue doing exactly what you’re doing with no change but perhaps a little more awareness, love and compassion? Is it to quit a money-oriented job for one of selfless service? Or the opposite? Is it to reach enlightenment before you die? Is it to focus your remaining days on experiencing as much pleasure as you can squeeze in? Is it to cure cancer or end poverty? What is it for you?
 
Having a limited time to do what is in your Bucket List focuses your Bucket List. The most important things tend to rise to the top. Why wait? The time of our death is uncertain, even if we are only in our 20s. Live like you’re experiencing your last days and you will live fully. You will take nothing for granted, not a single mouthful of food, not a single sip of water. Everything will become precious to you. With limited time, each contact with another person may be your last. You can’t help but make the most of it.
 

Average Life Expectancy Is 80 Years

I’ve thought about this. Actuarial tables say that the average life expectancy for a healthy person today is 80 years old. I’m chronologically 68 years old. That’s 12 years from now. My body seems to be relatively healthier than many males my age due to a mixture of exercise, diet and genetics. But I also know that death can come at any time for any number of reasons. So I tend to live each day as if it were my last. I take nothing for granted. I find that a good and enjoyable way to live.
 

My Bucket List

My Bucket List is pretty simple. It only has one item. 1. Be present. It doesn’t have anything else. There’s no number 2. There’s no wish list of certain people, places or circumstances. Just be present with whatever is in each moment, whoever you’re with, wherever you are, whatever is happening. That way a hospital or hospice bed is as good as the Taj Mahal. That is the most fully alive it is possible to be. A single moment being fully present is worth one hundred years living in a dream.
 
So that’s my Bucket List. That is all I ask and all I require. In this way I know I have lived fully in each moment. So there are no regrets. I squeezed every last drop out of life. And I do this in every moment. So if the next moment is my death, I’m good. My Bucket List is complete. 🙂
 
That’s my Bucket List. What’s yours?

Is Life a Dream?

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dreamAs spiritual seekers we enjoy listening to or reading theories of awakening and enlightenment. We want to believe there is some sort of step-by-step plan we can follow and understand with our minds. That’s the way we’ve learned everything else in our life. If we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that it hasn’t really worked, at least not yet. But there’s always the hope that the next thing will, or perhaps it will if we’re a little more diligent in following the path we’ve already learned. At some point in this process at least a few of us will realize that it’s not working and it probably won’t.
 
This is rather disillusioning. If all these spiritual books and teachers can’t help me, what can?
 

A Much Simpler Approach

Let me suggest a much simpler approach that perhaps we’ve missed. And very likely we’ve missed it on purpose. 🙂
 
The reason that all these wonderful new spiritual theories and step-by-step practices haven’t really worked is that they’re all based on thoughts. And thoughts are not the solution. They’re the problem. Not thoughts themselves, but our belief and attachment to them.
 

The Zero Point

Let’s call freedom from all thoughts the “zero point”. It doesn’t mean there are no thoughts, but no thought is believed in, no thought is attached to. Thoughts have zero importance.
 
In spiritual terms this zero point is often called Samadhi and sometimes Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Consciousness-Bliss).
 
Ramana Maharshi has said, “When the Self is realized, the world disappears.” This is an interesting comment and very true. And there is a simple explanation for it that has to do with how we perceive the world. We perceive the world through our thoughts about the world and the objects in it. Our first experience of this zero point is often the apparent disappearance of the world and all the objects in it. All objects we were previously seeing appear to have disappeared into a pure light. This may sound frightening, but it is anything but. It is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
 

An Experiment in Perception

Years ago I spontaneously discovered a little experiment. After years of meditation and a practice of letting go of attachment to thoughts I called “don’t know” mind, I discovered I could look at any object and, layer by layer, surrender every thought I had about it, name, form, color, function, connection, etc. When this was complete for that object, that object would at first become very blurry and then disappear completely into the background. I could no longer see it. As soon as a single thought about it reappeared it would immediately snap back into sharp focus.
 
This was fascinating to me so for a while I experimented with this with many objects in my perception. What it taught me was that I could not physically see an object as something separate from everything else without thoughts about that object. Without thoughts I could not separate an object from the background it appeared in front of. Without a thought, that object ceased to exist to my perceptions.
 
This also explains why the entire world and all objects cease to be perceivable at the zero point, Samadhi, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. As Ramana says, “When the Self is realized, the world disappears.”
 
If you have not yet experienced this, then this will only be another thought to you. This is why all words are only useful as pointers, not Truth. Hopefully these words can point you to a little expansion, a little less attachment to and belief in words as Truth. And also a little better understanding of what your perceptions (sight, touch, sound, smell, taste, etc.) are made from, as well as a little better understanding of your thoughts and feelings and even sense of self.
 

All Matter is 99% Empty Space

Let me add here that physicists have long known that what we see as solid matter is actually 99% empty space. Hopefully this will give you even less confidence, attachment and belief in what you see and believe as reality. That is certainly what the experience of the zero point, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, awakening or your True Self will do for you. It will leave your mind forever free of mental knowing. And this freedom is bliss. It is peace. It is unconditional love. It is True Knowing. It is Presence to what is in each moment.
 

Integration

The initial experience of this freedom from thoughts, what we call awakening, is so radically different from everything we have ever “known”, which we now realize was just a thought-based waking dream, that it takes some time for integration. Some rush this integration and too quickly develop thoughts and theories about what it is. They let their initial discomfort and unfamiliarity with being in a thought-free state of complete not knowing trigger them back into a thought-world, although now it is a “spiritual” or “awakened” thought-world. But this is still a thought-world. It is a new dream, but it is still a dream.
 
There is another option.
 
Obviously remaining fully in the zero-point / Samadhi is not going to work for functioning in this material plane. Without perceiving objects, we cannot function with them. So that is not really an option, at least not for long. We might call the practical second option a Middle Way or as I like to call it:
 

Living Awake

In Living Awake we are fully aware that our thoughts are not reality, are not Truth. They are just thoughts. In this way we live free of thoughts. We are fully aware that all our perceptions depend on these thoughts and so none of our perceptions are real. The world we perceive is an illusion, a dream depending entirely on thoughts. I understand how disorienting this will seem to those who still believe their thoughts and perceptions. What is there to trust? What is there to depend on? Nothing in the dream. But for one who has experienced the zero point, Samadhia, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, the True Self, this is a life of complete freedom.
 

Living In The World But Not Of It

This is what it truly means to live in the world but not of it.
 
The world will always appear as a dream because of the way our brain and perceptions function. Reality can never be understood with the mind, thoughts or perceptions. When this is realized it is accepted. When this is accepted the dream no longer affects us, no longer causes any problems or suffering. Living Awake is living free.
 

Practical Applications

I understand that very few people have experienced the zero point as described above. And of the few who have few have spent enough time to fully integrate it. Of those who have not yet experienced this, there is a great deal of misunderstanding, attempted and believed mental understanding and flat out fear and resistance to letting go of the thought-world that completely.
 
Yet there are very practical applications for this understanding in every stage of consciousness and attachment.
 

True Healing

True and miraculous healing happens as soon as someone lets go of their attachment to the thoughts that create their suffering. It’s not something people are used to doing. But it is far less challenging than it might seem. I have helped many people do this with amazing results. It is only necessary to work with someone who is already free of thoughts.
 

Byron Katie

You can see how well this works in The Work of Byron Katie. Simply questioning these thoughts already gives some freedom. The more this freedom is experienced the more insight arises from direct experience about the true cause of suffering and freedom from suffering.
 

Presence and Mindfulness

As soon as anyone is free of thoughts, they are instantly fully Present. It might be said that Presence, mindfulness and being free of thoughts are the same thing.
 

Short Moments

It’s not necessary to experience full zero point. Even a short moment of freedom from thoughts is healing.
 

The Mantra

The most powerful mantra I know of is “I don’t know.” If understood and accepted fully this mantra brings instantaneous freedom. We have been carrying an enormous burden of layers of thoughts. Each year of our life we have added to this burden. We call it knowledge. The simple understanding that these are nothing but thoughts, and that thoughts are only representations of reality, not reality, can free us instantly from this burden. The freedom of this mantra “I don’t know”, fully understood and accepted, is amazing.
 
Do not worry. We don’t lose this knowledge. It doesn’t vanish. All we lose is the illusion that this knowledge is anything more than layer after layer of thoughts. In this realization and acceptance, we are free to experience the truth of life as it is without the heavy filters of thoughts that were in the way and prevented us from experiencing it. We were taught that the more knowledge we had the closer we would come to Truth. Life shows us that the opposite is true.
 

Thoughts Are Not the Problem

It doesn’t mean thoughts are not useful. They are. This is how we learn. This is how our culture was and is created. This is how we form our personal separate identity. The problem is that we believe these thoughts are more than thoughts. We believe they are reality. We believe they are Truth, just as we believe what we perceive with our eyes is reality, not a dream created with our thoughts.
 

The Dream

All spiritual seekers have heard that life is a dream. Perhaps now you are beginning to understand what that means. It’s not life that’s a dream. It’s our thoughts and perceptions of life that are a dream. It we want to truly experience the miracle of what life is, we only have to let go of our belief in and attachment to all the thoughts we have about it.

Deep Presence and Knowing God

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deep-presenceI use the word Deep Presence here because many people think that they know Presence and know what Presence is. And this is actually impossible. All knowledge of anything, including Presence, including God, is dragging the past into the Present and this makes the true knowing of Presence impossible. Presence is not in the past. God is not in the past. It is always alive in this moment. Anything remembered from one second ago is the past. Presence and God only exist in this eternal moment and nowhere else. You, your family and the world also only exist in this eternal moment and nowhere else.

It is very important to understand and accept this truth. For most people not only Presence and God, but themselves and the world too, are only thoughts. To understand Presence, God, themselves and the world, they seek more knowledge believing that this will help them. Unfortunately this only moves them further and further away from what is always alive and new in every moment. Instead of Presence, God, themselves and the world, they only experience thoughts, knowledge and beliefs about these things. They only experience the past, not what is real. The real can only be experienced in this eternal moment, in Presence.

To experience Presence, we must shed all knowledge of Presence. We must shed all knowledge of everything. If we drag the past into Presence it is no longer Presence. One good tool for doing this is to repeat “I don’t know what this is.” about everything you perceive, think or feel. This helps erase the attachment to the past. You must do this with the complete understanding and acceptance that this is entirely true. You don’t know what anything is. Your knowing, no matter how profound or how attached you are to it, are only limited thoughts. And these thoughts are all from the past, not Presence.

In Presence, you are like a new born infant experiencing the world for the very first time. Everything is fresh and alive and new. And you don’t know what any of it is. It is a continuously unfolding miracle. That is the experience of Presence.
You don’t know what you are. Any knowledge of you or the continuation of a self story is also just the past. This idea of you cannot experience Presence as it itself is the past. In Presence this idea of you dissolves completely.

Knowing God

When you dissolve, what is here, what is always here in Presence is God. It is not separate from anything you experience. The word God is not necessary either. Nor is the word Presence. All words can have the attachment of the past in them, past knowledge, past experiences.

“I don’t know what this is.” Erase. Erase. Let go. Let go. In every moment continuously let go to this eternal Presence. Enjoy the continuous unfolding of this miracle. You don’t need to know what this is. Let it be what it is without trying to understand or interpret it. It cannot be understood or interpreted and still be what it is. Allow life, allow reality, to unfold as it is. As soon as you attempt to grab hold of it with some interpretation, understanding or knowledge, it is no longer real. It is no longer Presence. Just let it unfold as it is. It is always benefiting you. If you are truly Present, you will experience its absolute perfection. So let it be. You cannot add anything better than what is already always here. Let go. Act as you are spontaneously inspired to. You don’t need to know why. Just trust. Just be present. Just be.

In the human world, being Present is extremely rare. My friend Steve says, “Presence is the least visited place on earth.” But if you can find someone who is Present, hang around with them. Be in their Presence. Soak in their Presence. It will trigger your own Presence. If you can’t be with them in person, it is possible to do this with spiritual teachers on the Internet through YouTube videos and even books and writings. Both Mooji and Eckhart Tolle are very Present beings. And, even better, BE that rare person who lives in Presence and help others visit this least visited place. Perhaps, if you do, it will no longer be such a rare experience for humans.