Raptitude

I was forwarded this blog, and so far very good. Check it:

http://www.raptitude.com/

Patterns and Cycles

Cycles of Life and Death. Patterns of Darkness and Light. Cycles of practice and non practice. Patterns of perseverance and apathy. Cycles of resistance and embrace. Patterns of flexibility and rigidity. Cycles of awareness and ignorance.

We are living as we are dying. We are darkness as we are light. We are what does as we are what does nothing. We are the courageous warrior and the coward. We are open flowing beings and shut tight nut cases. We create and destroy. We are being created as we are destroyed. We are awake and we are dreaming. We know and we know nothing. All at once.

Conduit to manifest the unmanifest.

In regards to patterns, and being aware of them:

What patterns do you create in your day?

What patters do you habitually, routinely, subconsciously and impulsively commit yourself to every day?

Habits? Personal Care? Thought Process? Focused? Unfocused? Goal
Oriented? What goals? Too much? To Little?

In our patterns we speak who we think we are. In observing it we have a fit of self honesty. In accepting it, we open the door to becoming much more.

In terms of the cycle of our life:

What is the overall theme in retrospect? What has been gained or lost? What constant cycle keeps coming back? What is the constant lesson?

The unfolding cycle of our life holds the clues to what the universe is always telling us everyday. It's the bigger picture. We see how we have tried to be, wanted to be, wished to be, detested to be, and all along consistently who we always are.

Patterns and Cycles we live and don't always understand. Constant unfolding.

Emptiness, My Lover...

Art by Vladimir Kush

One afternoon, on a day off, I was looking for something to keep me occupied and pass the time. I tried reading a book, writing some thoughts down, but all I could really manage to do was to be still. In unveiling emptiness, there will be times when so much life flows through you, all you will want to do, all you will be able to do, is lay down and absorb it. All you can do is lay down and let life penetrate you. So, after managing to do nothing else, I set personal hesitation and the sense of ego aside and lay on the bed and sunk into the stillness. This is an excerpt of what I wrote after the experience:

"This is not a journey of achievement, but of being. All is a projection of light. My eyes are stiff and staring foward. I see the light constantly moving into different colors and shades to project what is supposedly in front of me. Sight becomes blurier but clearer. There is no wind flowing from the window, the hammock doesn't move with the breeze. It's all just changes in colors, in the light particles, making it seem like there is movement but there isn't. I touch my nose with the knowing that it's not really here, I feel how my neck is really not on the pillow. My eyes are not really seeing, my ears are not really hearing. As I lay here, absorbing this new knowing, I feel a flow of energy coming through my spine soothingly rising up to where the heart lies, and here there is hesitation. This has happened before, but this time I am not scared, this time I let all hesitation that arises flow through and I let go. I sink into this body that I now reside in. I accept it, feel how life is being projected from my skin, how it penetrates and vibrates like a cool breeze of light rain within me. As one would get to know another person, one has to be willing to get to know Emptiness, get acquainted with it's constant quiet expression. As one creates a relationship with a person one loves, one has to be willing to open up to this emptiness, heighten our awareness and attention towards it, to better recognize it. This is how one can begin to lay down the foundation of opening the doorways to what is really always here. As I sink in and bond with the emptiness from where all arises, I feel that if it would have happened in the woods, in the midst of pure earthly silence and nature, I would of lost all notion of myself forever, engulfed in the natural beauty of life. But here, I will quickly be absorbed once more by the egoic demands of the society I live in. All seems meaningless with such quiet wisdom so alive within me now. "

I share this, to demonstrate the experiential qualities one can have on a personal level when coming into awareness and acceptance with Emptiness.

Dissolution

To dissolve one's self, initially sounds, nihilistic. It leaves us feeling too open, without our cherished morals, believes, and values. To most, dissolving everything that has been built, worked for, over the years, seems pure madness. It required on my end, to see the current reality and belief system held at the time crack and fall apart to even begin to conceive such a concept. It was necessary for the dormant seeds of discontent to sprout furiously, blooming my hidden suspicions, no longer allowing them to be denied. In the unfolding of my story, such a dramatic collapse of my previous perception of the world was necessary to see through it. Stark, certainly, but it created a resolve, a determination, to see through the delusional state we were creating and living our lives.

When everything was falling apart, and inside I was burning up everything that I'd ever known, believed or cherished, I could see why others thought it was madness, depression, and why I saw it was the only way. I was running against the pack. I was going against the grain. It was unnatural. To separate, isolate. I felt the disconnection, and I agree, it felt unnatural, but what I'd realized was that I had never really been connected.

Everywhere I observed others, I saw cliques bound not by some deep, indestructible knowing, but by superficial man-made parameters. 'I believe this, and you believe that, so I'll hang out here, and you hang out there, and leave me alone.' The duality and fragmentation under which we constructed our lives was clearly an unstable foundation. Tipping from one extreme to the other, a time bomb.

The desire for connection was there, but in such circumstances, connection felt conditional, like another trap. I was scared out of my wits. I'd never been so alone, so confused, so depressed. The idea of ending up in a looney bin was amusing, especially since I felt stuck in one already.

The unknown, what was beyond all this, at first appeared as a big gaping hole. Abysmal, and terrifying. The more I sought this place within, the more confusing trying to make sense of things was. There was nothing to make sense of. The riddle of the question. Where did the inquiry begin? I remember the day this question was answered. It had been a hectic day. I was laying in the driveway looking up at the stars, begging for an answer, for something to once again make sense. "It isn't the question that is problem, but where we were looking for the answers. Within the limited scope of our minds, we will never make sense of things. Get beyond. " I didn't hear this. I felt it. The information, the knowing of this began to run through my entire body. Warm and soothing, comforting it relaxed my anxious and tired mind.

That was connection. The way it ingrained such wisdom into my being made it undeniably more reliable than any other source of information I had ever encountered. It's been since moments like this that the path unfolding involved a seeking this current, that carried with it the deepest wisdom, the purest love, and the vitality required to see in such a different light.

So, when you read dissolution, when you hear it, and hopefully feel it, I offer a translation. Do not see the end to your self, but a beginning. Do not see a death, but a birth. All that falls away, is no longer necessary, and will not be missed.

Inner Flame

'The Flames of the Search'

By A.H. Almaas

How do you know that the knowledge you get from others is the truth? How do you know that your teachers, or even the great philosophers, have the answer that is appropriate for you? Christ says to love your neighbor. Do you really know that that is what you need to do? Buddha says that enlightenment is the best thing. How do you know that is what you need?

Some people say you have to learn to be yourself. It sounds good. Some people say you should be free from your personality and develop your Essence. It sounds great. How do you know it will resolve your situation? You don't really know whether any ofthese ideas are relevant or true for you. You can't know with certainty until you have experimented and learned from your own experience. Until then your action is based on faith or belief If you assume unquestioningly that what someone else says is the truth, your inner flame will be extinguished. You will believe that you have answered questions when you haven't answered them; someone else has. And they haven't answered them for you, but for themselves. We comfort ourselves by believing that others know, and that we can use their knowledge. It's a very comforting thought; it encourages us to be lazy. We comfort ourselves by saying to ourselves, "Somebody knows, and in time I'll get around to studying it. It's already known and always available to me."

But do you, yourself, really know in your heart what is supposed to happen? Do you ever allow yourself to question, to have a burning question--and not put out the flame quickly with the first answer that you hear? You put out the flame so that you can return to your sense of comfort and security.

Someone tells you that it's good to pay attention, to be aware. When you try it, it helps a little--but you still don't know whether it's the answer. You don't know whether it will actually resolve your situation. And if you believe you know, you're lying to yourself. You need to keep the question alive while you investigate for yourself.

Are you strong enough to live without answers: as a flaming inquiry into the truth?

Unlabeled

retrieved from: www.toonpool.com

Post Shift, the unfolding of life unravels without possessiveness. Although I do acknowledge that the past and current experiences are unique to this experience of self in many ways, not taking possession of them, allows a fluidity that was not present before. In attaching to an experience, person, thought, or emotion, one alters 'being'. It is not longer what it is, but what you allow it to be in your presence.

Say, that you find yourself being serious for a period of time. You start to tell people you are a serious person. People start to call you a serious person. Then one day you are gathered around the table, and somebody makes a comment that makes everybody burst out laughing. You start to laugh, but then hold back on full laughter, for you remember, you're a serious person.

Have not those who called themselves just been capable of unjust action? Have not the heartless been capable of being gracious? Even in unawareness, we catch glimpses of how what we are is nameless, formless, unlabeled. We are beings capable of incredible transformation.

What happens when we drop all the labels? We are no longer the add on, but the source. This is where True Self sits. And here, we are what we need to be, at the time being.

Negation Experts Beware

Making the state of negation your new identity is as blind as attaching to any other belief system, teaching method or philosophy. Being versed in non dual lingo, and becoming a forum Nazi, to be part of the non duality clique, does not make you more aware, much less more awakened.

The path of awakening is one of a warrior against himself. He discovers his current perception as limited, invalid, a lie, and begins to gut through the belief systems and notions of self to dismantle his current being with diligence and force. It is to strip the self of all the labels that currently entangle it, not to replace them with identity to the void, but to open the self up to what is beyond the duality through which reality is currently being perceived.

If you think that in knowing negation, you are making progress, you are more blind than the ignorant herded sheep. All you've become is the biggest expert at denying your self. Isn't that exactly what was intended to be avoided here?

It takes courage and will to stare your self down, to see each shadow to it's face and say goodbye. It takes endurance and stamina to always be willing to take it further. It requires extreme amount focus and intent to keep going inward instead of outward, especially when the habit is to build the self from external surroundings. But most of all, it takes humility. To be humble enough to see your misperception, be grateful, and surrender to the transformation. Only then, would you be willing to empty your self out, and listen, instead of keeping your cup full of arrogance and assumed knowing.

You see the big hole of unknown and you don't jump in. You tip toe around it saying 'I need not worry, it's not really there.'

The only thing not there is an ounce of clarity.

I would say it BUT...

I could not have said it better....

Following Directions

Embodiment

Yesterday, I had a fabulous massage. The appointment was made with a woman who had given me a massage 4 years ago, about a week after the Shift. The first time we met, I was purging out a lot of emotions, and the body, felt tied in energetic knots. The emotional roller coaster was filled with loops and high rises. I couldn't identify the source of it, in terms of specific events, but it felt as a wave of baggage being released all at once. She was aware of the body being more than what is manifested physically, and seemed very in tune with working with the body as energy, which was a wonderful synchronous detail.

At the time I was in a state of deep detachment. I had axed my old self, and all it's false crevices. I took the journey of non duality extremely personal. I did not know what it was to get beyond myself directly, but had full willingness to deliver whatever the cost to no longer see in delusion. I used the non dual philosophy and David's writings to face every fear, every hesitation, to tear down every wall that was in the way. Not an escapism, but a period in my life, where I was no longer going to run from anything any more.

One of the biggest fears was not existing. Intentionally causing my own death through a existential crisis, but near the Shift, that was faced, and I felt fully ready to let it all go. All of it. I didn't know what I was, but I felt to be living everyday in what I was not, and it was constant torture. Especially when, IT felt so close. The other side.

After the Shift, I was surprised to still be here. I, Sharon, the entity. Yet, when I looked in the mirror, I did not recognize myself. Inside I felt empty, like I had pressed the reset button on myself, and had just rebooted. What was gone was the fear. Absolutely no fear. No thoughts.

I would walk around town in amazement to the untainted view. More color, vibrancy. Internally all the behavioral habits, mental notions and beliefs were gone. I believed nothing, judged nothing. All around me was the same external circumstances with an entirely different perception of it.

Then the weight of the world came in. It was as if a glimpse of liberation was experienced and then was thrown into the purging of all that had been me at one time. It was intense to say the least, but the knowing never left, never faded. Now I could work through it all with a foundation, a ground to stand on. One question puzzled me only, 'Why was 'I' still here?

When I received a massage four years ago, it was releasing the old pains and fears that needed to be purged to regain Pure Being. It was a HUGE release of all the emotional weight I was carrying. When Kathy, walked out the door, she embraced me is a warm deep hug, and said 'The Love you seek does exist'.

I was puzzled when I had first heard this. 'I' was beyond Love. 'I' was no longer to meddle with such things if the intent was to get beyond all this. Love had always been a fleeting experience in my life. I'd watched people never attempt to honestly love their entire lives and justify it. I was done with that.

Now four years later, here I am about to get a massage again, and I sit in my living room realizing that the love I was seeking does exist. When she arrived, she walked through the door, and as she was getting settled, I said to her, "You know, four years ago, you gave me a massage, and when you left, you embraced me and said, 'The Love you seek does exist', and I wanted to tell you that you are right, I found it.' She sat on my couch, stared at the trees I had painted on the wall, and said 'Yes, I can feel it.'

Although my husband, Josh, and my daughter Maya, are portals of Love in my life, and have taught me much of it's workings, I was not referring to the love of falling in love with a person, or a thing, or a place of any kind. After much time and intent and purging, I had tapped into a current, a force, that arose as the place from where all things arise. It's subtle most of the time, so subtle, that it is clear why it is so easy to miss for those who do not take the time to sit in it's simplicity. It was from the practice of sitting with this current, allowing it to guide the way, that the story continued to unfold, in a completely different perception of life than before. For in this current, there was no resistance, no fear. It was what knew all things, and offered timely wisdom. It was subtle, but constant. And it's consistency, is what made all the difference.

Yesterday, when I received a massage, it was not one of release, but of a final integration. Enough had been purged. I was empty enough to let this current flow without resistance. Not an millimeter or quantum particle of me resisted. I allowed it to engulf me, embody me.

At one point during the massage, she requested that I love myself, and embrace every inch. In my attempt to do that, what arose was, that I had always felt too big for this body energetically. Like all that I am could not fit here, in this body of current residence. After I said that, the following words arose within, 'It's ok, it is safe here, come home.'

In realization, it arose that I had walked away from being an identity to dismantle old ways, old belief systems. I had emptied myself out, cleared the clutter, but I had not come back home. Now was the time.

In this moment, I felt every inch of me filled with the current. I felt whole, steady. I was as everything else, a part of this universe. One and All. I was home for IT, and IT was home for me. Full merge.

I have never come out of a massage, so awake, so present, so strong. 'I am HERE!' resonated within.

It feels good to be home.

Freedom Can Come Home

It has been observed that even non duality can be used as a form of escapism from Reality. The philosophy is one of integration, even if on the surface it appears to be one of negation. What is being eliminated is not the entity, or the external reality, but the assumption that one knows by intaking only surface material. It directs toward knowing inside out, from deep within.

The dismantling, does not make Reality fall apart, but your limited perception of reality. It is about embodying who we are, without masks or flashy costumes. It taps into what comes out of this embodiment when the current existence is fully embraced, for what it is.

Many debate about what should be here, what it could be like here. That's not what non-duality is about. It is about EXPERIENCING what reality is. Which means you start LIVING. You engage in your story, you face your fears, doubts, concerns, circumstances. You put will into discerning what areas in life you are distorted with unprocessed emotions, unfounded beliefs, and behavioral habits. When you've emptied out the trash, then you begin the journey of experiencing life unfiltered. It's clearing the clutter to finally begin to tap into your potential. Not the ends to a mean, but a beginning. Inner freedom is hands on.

Take the Bite or Shut up

The birth of all concepts is also the birth of the biggest misconception of all time. It appears to have begun when a man, or maybe a group of men, began the endeavor of putting Life into a cute little box, and then deciding to share this with all the ears that listened.

Now before going further, it must be made clear that it is not being implied that this was the wrong way to go. But it must also be made clear I am not here to discuss the benefits and consequences of concepts.This is about living life with no concepts at all.

I'll offer the following analogy to demonstrate the point being made. Let's say that there is something you've never had a taste of. To make this easier, I'll pick something specific. Let's say that you've never had an avocado. I can describe the color, the texture, even offer a comparison, but as we all have learned, not until you taste it, do you really get clarity on what the experience of eating an avocado is like, and only then do you truly understand how the description was right or wrong.

Only with tasting it. Only with taking that bite.

Now let's make an extreme example. Let's say that nobody ever quite gets the guts to taste the avacado. So you got scientists cutting it in half, messing with the texture, analyzing the seed, playing with the skin, creating all sorts of concepts of what it MIGHT be like to eat an avocado, but in the end, no one really knows. Until a few come around that are so tired of wondering what it might taste like, or worse, being TOLD what it might taste like, that they dive in and taste it for themselves. So now, that they've tasted it, you got these few brave ones being bombarded by everybody else who wants to know what an avocado tastes like. 'Do you like it? Whats the texture like? Do you eat all of it or part of it? How does it feel in your tongue?' People want to know. So now, these few are trying to explain to others what their direct experience of eating an avocado was like, while others insist their theory is a better description of what is it like to eat an avocado, but the truth of the matter is that no one can really tell anyone what an avacado taste like, so this problem is never going to be solved until people get brave and taste it for themselves. It's ridiculously easy, right?

To get into the depths of Life, the Universe, Your Self, you can't be the reader of concepts, or the creator of concepts, but a destroyer of concepts.

You destroy all concepts through experience.

Life is in front of all of us. All of us are breathing. There is no privilege you need to gain, no status to attain, there doesn't even need to be an understanding of anything at all. All that is needed is that you to take the bite.

How do you really do that?

You stop looking everywhere else for answers. I know that it has become common nature to get together and share ideas,but consider that it would be wise to know what you are talking about first.

If there is anything we can help each other with, it is with getting each other to take that bite. Edging each other take the leap, that first step. In any other manner, we are not helping each other at all.