Lately I have been having fluctuations between totally not caring about anything, and REALLY caring about everything. I’m starting to see that the path you have spoken of where one becomes completely blissful and “stinks of Zen” and then totally falls back into the Game of Life might not always be a 100% completely linear one… haha, but what do I know?

Awesome post Bill, I look forward to your blog posts more than any other thing each month.

FROM BILL: You may have some qualities of levels beyond where your center of gravity is, and you always have the capacity to exibit characteristics of levels you have been through. Your center of gravity, so to speak, is going to be in one place–you have one main way of making sense of the world, and that’s where you come from most of the time.

At any rate I’d love to hear more of your articulation of what’s happening here, because I think you’re doing a great job in an area where there’s not many people willing to stand between what’s perceived as the spirit and the vastly differing world of the everyday. Perhaps you can have fun with this and make another blog post about your experience, because (and I only speak for myself when I say this) the courage you have in putting your own experience out there is a great model for the rest of us that have these experiences to believe that such things are possible. After this type of expanded learning is reinforced enough this will become common place and the free market will get rid of all of the ones who aren’t cerious. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I articulate how awesome it is to hear your experience of emptiness because that shows that enlightenment is possible on an individual basis. And being a fish for a while can be fun as well, if you haven’t tried it; just know how to unhook yourself for God’s sake, and don’t blame the fisherman when you get hooked on the same hook over and over because you’re too lazy to go check out the new stream that some other rare fish told you about.

I don’t want to go on at length here (focusing on what I don’t want gets me what?) however this whole fish thing reminds me of a story in Buddhism wherein there was a turtle who lived with a school of fish. One day the turtle decided to get out of the water and go for an exploration of the land surrounding the water probably for about a weak. At any rate when he got back all of the fish were frantic trying to figure out where he had gone, and he tried and tried to explain this dry land stuff to the fish. They asked him lots of questions about the land: can you get wet on the land; can you swim in the dry land; can you breathe it etc. The turtle was at a loss to explain it and, finally getting tired of the fish’s questions which seemed unanswerable, the turtle decided then to go for another walk for another weak. This helps me to understand how previously I was emurced in my internal map of reality and always would try to figure out what was outside. No matter how much Bill tried to teach me nothing made sense, and nothing really clicked for me because I couldn’t figure out how to ask the right questions. It was only when I decided to explore the dry land of emptiness on my own, when I actually went to my center of being for myself, that everything that Bill said to me in the past made more sense and I had one ahah after another laughing at how much I previously had missed. I still have lots of fun playing being a fish and, in some cases, I take the perspective of the many and become a whole school. However I akin many fish to those people who like to complain because teachers aren’t representing for them what they need, however these people will get hooked over and over again without realizing that they’re getting hooked and complaining about how the hooks don’t satisfy them. If you aren’t content where you are then make plans to change–perhaps catch a ride with the slow-paced turtle and learn a thing or two about trying to hurry all the time–but don’t complain about how the nice new shiny fishing lewer didn’t give you what you were promissed. Some fish–like me–end up somehow getting the bate anyway and get themselves unhooked pretty easily, but still continue to get hooked and don’t bitch about it.

Sorry; I don’t know where I’m going with this because I seem to be swimming in circles. I just need a school to hook up with perhaps, or perhaps get my own together. Keep up the good work though, and thanks for putting up with my ramblings. I hope that, rather than just putting my shadow out here, that I’m one of those who seems to take this ceriously and is interested in learning.

FROM BILL: In the transcendent you are it all (or, rather, you see that this is the case–you’re always the all, whether or not you see it). At the same time you are not identified with it.

Being human (by the way) means sometimes being expanded and sometimes being contracted. Most people are trying to get rid of being contracted. Be human, which includes both.

FROM BILL: Chris, your reaction to the world and your place in it comes from you. If you are miserable, there are things you do inside, unintentionally and unconsciously, that create your feelings, behaviors, and the kinds of situations and people you find yourself with. The key to moving from “wishing you were dead” (which is where I was at one point) to having a fulfilling life involves becoming aware of how you’re creating your response to life and watching yourself do it. This means being aware of and watching the internal processes that create your life. Awareness will cause you to stop doing what does not serve you. Your way of doing this internal stuff was learned when you were growing up. You have the internal processes of someone who was traumatized or abused in some way. The way your internal processes work will continue to create the misery you’re experiencing as long as they continue to operate unconsciously and automatically. If you become aware of them, and see how you’re creating misery, you’ll stop doing it. You’ll stop created crappy feelings, and you’ll stop attracting crappy situations and people. I did it, and if I can do it, you can, too.

You said: how can you have “x” by your own efforts when there really is no separate you ?
“You” don’t exist. You are only a concept.
It is an illusion and because it is an illusion You can’t do nothing.
It is one big process,
ONE LIFE living through everything
(the law of caos and reorganization at higher level).

Then you said: you can have whatever you want in life,
so
1.focus on what you want,
2.ask how can I get it ?
3.take massive action.

so
WHAT IS THE TRUTH ?

If I exist I can focus, questions and take actions.
If I don’t exist I can’t do nothing.

Thank you for the answer.
ROSARIO (Italy)

FROM BILL: Just because there is no separate self doesn’t mean than nothing happens. Doing happens, but without there being a “you” to do it. The organism you associate with you (you being an idea, but not the reality) has a nervous system, which learns and response to stimuli. It can respond to someone saying focus on what you want, for instance. For that to happen does not require a “you.” “You” is just an idea, and ideas can’t do anything. That there is a separate you is a delusion. That actions happen, or that responses happen, is not.

I studied and now teach this abstract force called electricity. I studied for many years and one day – bam – the light bulb came on. It all made sense in a split second – so I know but teaching someone else takes their desire to seek the knowing. I can only point the way and give them experiments to try to have this knowing – they have be determined to stick with it till they get it. When you can’t describe it – you have trouble getting someone else to get it – as you say – “focus on what you want” but as you climb the ladder make sure its against the right wall. A college degree cost a hell of a lot of denario and a 3 day seminar costs a hell of alot to keep up with the latest technologies. Bertrand Russel said in his book “Conquest of Happiness” that we should “get a job” – ha

I’ve learned that it’s helpful to look from the perspective of the one onto the many such that the one that is observing everything observes from the center of being and looks out upon the many manifestations which the one observes. I’ve often times gotten trapped in the perspective of trying to look from the many–the disowned selves from which one speakes in big mind is a good model for this–onto the perspective of the one wherein I am the center of the universe and this universe is mine and that is all I see. When I look from the one it becomes apparent that everything is this emptiness, and the one through which this is manifesting is really irrelivent; whether the one has realization by way of Bill Harris or Sam or anyone else listening/reading or whatever it matters because the one evolves, and the whole being feels good because the one is realizing that which I am. And also for me this makes things a lot easier because I don’t have to always focus on what Sam wants or needs, or what I feel that Sam is lacking, because I can rest in the awareness that all is one (from a particular perspective) and actually am more and more able to be free and open with the people around me because they are perhaps the one I am also and don’t necessarily judge me unless I judge myself. This shift of awareness from looking from the perspective of many looking at the one to the one observing the many still has to integrate for me however I find it quite useful for understanding because it’s my one individual perspective attempting to recognize the perspective of the many, however the center of being has no form recognized as Sam or Bill Harris or anybody although it is through everything that exists at the same time. What I mean is that there’s no reason to try to control everything and this is no longer a problem for me as the one, because I can more clearly see when me as Sam is trying to control out of a feeling of lack of power due to the power somehow being given to the many by somebody much bigger than me. All of this power stuff becomes irrelivent because there’s no need for personal power to manifest things or whatever; the tools created by this matrix are very useful in their own right, however as the one I have no need for them. I don’t want to go on too long here talking about matrixes and stuff.

I’ve recognized this “it” from a very early age and have always tended to seak people who I perceived to have it, and I can’t quite explain how this manifests as the way for me; it’s as if those who have it are the manifestation of the way, and I can somehow recognize those who are an embodiment of the way although I don’t know what that is. I’ve had flashes of intuition about the path leading up to this which I’m sure didn’t come from me, although I’m not sure where they came from, things which when I hear something about Buddhism I suddenly have a flashback to one of these dream sceenes and I understand what they’re talking about. This sudden intuition thing comes with much cultivation, although the foundation for this came naturally without any training on emptiness etc, and I’m quite sure that with what you’re doing here with this blog you’re helping to bring this sort of awareness out of me. And when I look from the perspective of the one looking upon the many I can tell that many have had similar experiences (meaning that I’m not that special) and that up until now there’s been no way to talk about or resonate with that sort of inate wisdom, which is why I really appreciate your efforts to make this sort of thing known. And I also imagine that somehow you deeply resonate with this sort of thing because from my observation it seems that you’re coming out a lot more in these posts, as if you’re really making an effort to stretch yourself out to make space for the learnings to flurrish. I’m really proud of what you’re taking on here, and what you’re doing to help us deepen our practices and come to ever greater realization about our true self. This is something that we need nowadays, sort of like a sword of truth that helps to cut through the illusions of what we thought was spirit into finding our own spirit through the perceived darkness of our world. It’s easy to become jaded due to all the ignorance around personal growth and things of a spiritual nature and often times one feels helpless in that one can never find the way to where one wants to be, however I have the hope of achievement that we will pursurveer and create a new vision of what it means to be enlightened. You’re helping to lay the path down so that we can walk across it. I want to be like you when I grow up. Maybe not exactly the one that is Bill Harris like wearing your head or a Bill Harris power shirt or anything like that (although perhaps a future marketing idea) but close enough.