Pathless Path

One of the most common questions that I hear come out of spiritual seekers is How.  How do I wake up?  How do I realize what I am?  How do I live the enlightened life?
One of the things that we are very much aware of but very much unwilling to see is that there really is no how.  We don't have some convenient formula or prescription for what awakening looks like, acts like, or even feels like.  And as soon s we adopt a particular concept of what it looks like, we have set the ground for another disillusionment, which comes when we realize that our concept of enlightenment doesn't fufill this deep need to live it. 
So what I often suggest is that we take the pathless path, the road that has no landmarks, signs, or pointers other than the immediacy of our experience as it is.  This pathless nature of the path often leaves minds very confused and bewildered as we jump from one concept to the next, one idea to the next.  If we just stop relying on our ideas and concepts and we give up this need for a prescription and how-to manual, what we begin to realize is that the path is living through us, not the other way around.  In other words, we have no control over the path, because it has always been in control.  If we try to control it, It eats us up....if we allow it to take over we are left with the Heart of the Truth.  The fiery immediacy of this pathless path will shows all that Is, not because we do it right, or get it somehow...but because that is just what it does.

The Spiritual Ego

Those of us who travel in spiritual circles are all familiar with the ego, and its ways to limit, debilitate, and cower us.  But very few of us are aware of the 'spiritual ego' which takes over after we believe ourselves to be enlightened, special, or in some way different than anything else.  This is where most people in the spiritual world just end up half-baked, thinking that they've achieved something profound. 
What they fail to recognize is that this new 'awakened' identity is just another version of the same old thing....just a more enlightened ego.  This is that camp out spot where people genuinely believe that they are manifesting Truth, living from Love, and are very Intuitive---but it is actually the place where the ego has constructed a very elaborate, very spiritual sense of self.
I meet people who say oh yes yes yes I know who I truly am, I get that, I've been there already....I am free of suffering, I am free of my past.  All the while working very hard to prove this to everybody else, to demonstrate that they have somehow escaped being like you and me. 
Let us just look and see what we are actually telling ourselves, and let us examine the way in which we corrupt our own deepest nature by making our self into some glorious new thing.  Let us see the arrogance, the fear, the denial that reasserts itself at this stage.  Let us move beyond any idea of ourselves, others, or Truth into that nakedly raw place where nothing can be known, where nothing can be achieved, and where any identity we create is essentially false.
Let us see that the True Nature of all has no specialness to it, because it is that which all beings are equally.... then we will see that this Truth of our self doesn't not make us special, it destroys any notion of being special.
This leaves us being TRULY special~

Spiritual Materialism in Our Time

We are living in a time when great Masters are seldom heard, while all manner of people bearing the 'spiritual look' are venerated.  Just as in all the other arenas of life, we worship appearances and fancy titles, rather than the simplicity of the Truth within the Heart.  We read books and hear stories about these beings who walk on water and dress in robes, or have special powers and we think somehow that truth is found there...
Without knowing ourselves or our own mind we want to follow the next exciting opportunity---maybe this one will lead somewhere, but after so many empty promises...after relying on Buddha's word, or Jesus' word, or Ramana's word we must finally discover for our self what is actually true.
That is the beginning of real spirituality, and the end of our materialistic relationship with life.

Proof

If you look for proof of truth, you find Nothing,
If you look for nothing, you find Truth.

Unimaginable Love

In speaking with people about Love as the nature of Truth, I often encounter misunderstanding of what is actually being pointed to.  Because our conditioned and romanticized depiction of Love is centered around emotion and pleasure, it becomes very difficult for many of us to detach from that original view.  There is an open space in which Love is actually more than we can imagine, more than we can associate with as a feeling or thought.  This unimaginable Love is unconditioned, unregulated, unbound--we must come to it totally naked of any preconceived notion of Love.
This Love is sweet, but not sweetness...it is ecstatic, but not ecstasy...it is Truth, but not truthfulness.
Love is the Source, and the Source is ungraspable-
We can, however, recognize this Love as our own beingness.  In this way, love will not be known by how it looks, or feels, or even how it acts-it is deeper and more primary than that.
Love is, Love is...any thing we try to tag at the end of that makes Love into an idea.
Love just Is.

Don't Believe the Lie

Anything that tells you that you are not whole and complete is untrue and we can right away ignore that information.  What we can't ignore is the call, the longing that tells us that we are not in harmony with our Oneness, our True Nature.  That call, that scream is the voice of the Self calling us to awaken all the sleeping energies within ourselves and to emerge in Love.
It is not a call to change, to do something, to achieve anything.  Rather, it is a call to shift from "me-ness" and our limited view to the view of entirety, of the One.  The shift is toward opening, softening, relaxing and letting go of the constant striving.  It is a shift from being so involved in our story to letting everything dissolve in peace. 
Mind will always say "I'm not whole" because the very nature of our thinking is partiality, division, interpretation, and analysis.  Our thinking does not and cannot understand Oneness.  In order for the mind to understand Oneness, it would have to be outside of Oneness looking in...that simply cannot be when we recognize that Oneness includes everything and has no boundaries.
Ultimately,  the basic ground of our mind is Oneness, and as that essential truth is realized the need to try to understand or comprehend our wholeness is seen as futile.  Mind eventually sees that it and Oneness are the sameand with that comes an enormous peace and ease of being.
This eventuality that I'm talking about is not necessarily in time...it's not a matter of when, how, or why but simply a matter of Is.  Oneness is Here right now.  When the mind is available to recognize this, the eventuality is seen to be ever-present.
There is a very subtle difference between the call that draws us into our wholeness, and the thinking that would tell us we are not whole.  We can only see this through direct experience.  Only after we have failed to find what the Heart has been calling us to do we finally realize that it isn't 'out there' to be found.
Both longing and searching can come with pain, and both can carry enormous energy.  However (and ultimately)  we have this choice to stop believing anything at all and drop completely into Oneness right now.  Don't wait another instant!

Non-Duality is very Natural

Non-Duality means non-duality.  It's funny how, through our manic searching and desperate attempts for control we can very easily imagine separateness in our lives.  We have this in-built tendency to create very subtle conditions for Truth.  We may understand intellectually that everything is One, but through our experience we always conjure up exceptions to that.  In this way we tend to try to exclude what we don't want, or create some condition that prevents someone or something else from being whole.  But, non-duality means non-duality...just because a person may not know all the spiritual languages, or be able to astrally project themselves doesn't mean that they aren't just as much the One as anything else.
In our truly natural state, which is just right now, there is nothing excluded from the totality of existence.  But the mind would believe otherwise, the mind would organize and interpret experiences down to the nth degree, hoping to somehow get a grasp on the eternal and unbound~ but it can't be done!

Non-duality is the relaxation of the mind to the essential truth that there is nothing to fix, nowhere to go, nothing to become...

Non-duality is the basic nature of our Being, that aspect of our Being that includes everything.  The aspect of of our Being that isn't concerned with analyzing reality, or making assumptions based on false evidence.
Non-duality is the direct experience of your own Self, and the recognition that your own Self is in its essence no different that anything else.

Realizing Presence

The realization of our most essential nature is not any different than Being present, or rather, Realizing Presence.  While it is with the best of intention that people run around saying things like "just be present" or "I'm trying to stay present", it is not actually possible for us to be present.  We are Being, we are Presence.
The matter of being present to our lives is one of realizing the Presence that underlies our whole life situation.  It is not a matter of going from 'not present' to 'present'....in that way, there is no such thing as actual presence because it ends up just being a 'me' who 'got present'.  This is already living in ignorance of the ever-present nature of Presence.
Realizing Presence, though, is the most important thing we can do as human beings.  It is the realization of what has always been True, and the reality of what we have always been~ Pure Presence.

The Preciousness of Uncertainty and Doubt

There is a great gift provided to us directly from Life itself.  It a gift that I am calling the Preciousness of Uncertainty and Doubt.   This the basic law that Life enforces to bring us to a full and authentic awakening to the Self.  The good news is that it works, the bad news is that the vehicle that Life uses can also be the catalyst to deep resistance and suffering. 
The good news...
The good news is that Life is unrelenting in its movement to awaken all to the basic Reality.  Life provides us with exactly the appropriate teacher and teaching at the perfectly appropriate time.  This is evidenced by the appearance of uncertainty and doubt in our lives.  Essentially, self-doubt exists because as long as we have some notion or idea of ourselves as fixed, Life will disrupt that pattern with great doubt.
When we become very certain (of ourselves, our ideas, our beliefs, etc.) Life has already provided the necessary medicine- uncertainty.
There really is no such thing in the quest for spiritual awakening as self-confidence, self-worth, nor is there any certainty to be found.  Psychology and belief systems may provides temporary (and sometimes useful) senses of self-worth and certainty, but when it comes to Reality there's really no such thing.  The sooner we get clear on that and give up the insistence on finding some certainty or developing self-worth, the sooner we come into accord with the nature of Life.
The bad news...
The bad news isn't really bad news, it just implies that likely Life is going to have to be very fierce in tearing away the illusions that we hold to so strongly.  Ultimately, any certainty or self-worth that we discover only sets up the conditions for our disappointment, because NO idea, belief, feeling, or experience is lasting...and the only 'things' we can rely on are those things.  In this way, Life is inviting us to give up our need for certainty or a good feeling about ourselves, and arrive right Here, where we rely on Nothing.
The funny thing is that in relying on Nothing, we simultaneously rely on Everything...so the need, desire, or drive for certainty is just irrelevant.  It's not that we've arrived at certainty and 'found our self', it's simply a matter of no longer wanting for anything at all.

To the Beloved

I surrendered to You,
and you completed me.

Then I began searching for You,
and you escaped me further
each time I got close.

I looked all over,
and sometimes I thought I'd found You~
but I kept looking

and You appeared
and told me to stop looking
for You

and I had trouble doing that,
because I hadn't found You

So I crossed the ocean, and
sat in the burning desert sun~
still You could not be found

and when I was really frustrated
with You
You came once again
and invited me to stop searching

And I knew not what else to do
so I stopped looking

And there You were~
except You were not You
and I was not me

It was all along I
that was sought,
and Grace that was found.

Where God Is

"God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
                         ~Corpus Hermeticum of the 3rd Century:
 What is it that we call God, aside from the images, ideas, and assumptions that have been handed down to us--and sometimes shoved down our throat?
This phrase "God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere" is such an accurate pointer for the true and living nature of God.  If we take God to be a person, or thing, or even some 'force with an intention' we miss the real thing.  Likewise, if we assume that there is no greater essence than our material world is just as much of a misunderstanding.
In order to see the real and actual nature of God we have to hold both formlessness and form simultaneously.  If God is God, it must be everything everywhere.  And, if God is God there must be nothing that is not God.  Otherwise, what we call God is a fantasy in our mind.
When God is That which contains your life and also who and what you are, then God is real, and living, and nowhere else but right Here now.
With very good reason this word God has a great deal of stigma attached to it, because the distortions that have been made of this very simple and intimate Presence have been widespread and used for all sorts of violence.
So, let us give this word God back to the Truth of itself so that we needn't run from a concept that no longer serves our awakening.  If, though, we can see the real and true nature of God, we will no longer run, and we will no longer seek more understanding, nor will we cling to material reality as any more real than the non-material reality.
Ultimately, God is your own Self, and my Self, and the Self of all things everywhere.

Locate your Self and you locate God~
As with God, your Self has no actual circumference, and its center is everywhere all at once.

Relationship with Fear

The one thing that is almost universal about fear is that we all want to avoid it...naturally.  It may even be built into our DNA to avoid pain, discomfort, and unease.  And, for many good reasons, that is perfectly appropriate.  However, there is a way in which, through our attempting to avoid fear and discomfort, we actually generate our own suffering.  We actually, as human beings, put an extraordinary amount of time and energy into securing a sense of comfort and avoiding a sense of discomfort in order to establish a sense of 'personal solidity' that will help us feel safe and invulnerable to ever present tides of pain, sickness, dis-ease, and finally, death.
Spirituality is in many cases the further attempt to find and secure a sense of safety, or a sense of having some ground beneath our feet.  But the real purpose of our 'spirituality' is the possibility to encounter our fear, our insecurity, and our groundlessness directly.  In one sense our true security lies in a total absence of security, our true fearlessness lying in the absence of any 'safe place' to reside.
Our relationship with fear need not be one where we must get rid of fear, or abolish fearful thoughts....Rather, our relationship with fear is one where we enter in directly to the fear, removing all sense of security and safety in order to see that there is a huge void that we exist eternally in.  In resting in this enormous void, we find that even without a sense of security or safety, who and what we are is eternally safe, eternally secure.  It was simply in our imagination of what we were securing safety from and security of that we missed this eternally present abode.
Life then becomes an opportunity to encounter all the ways in which we seek security and protection of an image of ourselves, and how that leads to deeper delusion and suffering.  It becomes an on-going investigation into deeper and deeper experiences of having nothing to hang onto, nothing to comfort you, and being willing to see fear for what it is...ultimately useless.
With fear no longer at the helm, life begins to look different...namely, there's really nothing wrong, nothing to be fixed, nothing to find, nothing to become~
we finally have the freedom to just Be.