We don’t appreciate magic enough. The universe is a magical place to say the least. I love this suggestion of Clarke’s, though. Will technology ever become “sufficiently advanced” to replace magic? I doubt it. And no, by magic I do not Harry Potter or something more like the arcane or Wicca. I’m referring to the magic that seems to happen as we awaken more and more to the Truth. Maybe miracle would be a better word. But I kind of like the word magic.

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bortescristian

The further along I go with this awakening that has happened and continues to unfold, the more it becomes apparent that the real key to waking up is wanting to wake up. I know it is a radical idea, but it just so happens to be the truth of the matter. Technique is almost always given top billing in the world of spirituality, but the “how” will always come whenever you are truly willing. But willingness, that’s the crux of the issue.

You may already think you are willing. That’s why you meditate, read books by the spiritual giants, read this blog, talk to your friends about spirituality and awakening and enlightenment, go to retreats, all that good stuff. You have a very convincing case to prove how willing you are. But the truth is, if your willingness were electricity, you wouldn’t have enough to power a night light. A firefly could outshine you. Sorry, but it is true.

Look inside for a moment. Feel into this subject of willingness. Can you feel the resistance? Can you feel how much “you” don’t want to really wake up? Something inside of you knows this awakening thing is going to be different, really, really different, and it is frightened about that. Something inside wants to feel better about life, but it doesn’t really want what awakening entails.

Why not? Because the “something” resisting all of this, the “something” that is not willing to awaken, is the very thing from which one awakens! The resistance you are feeling, the UN-willingness, is simple the energy of thought, the “mind” as it were, resisting what is its eventual undoing. Well, maybe undoing is too harsh. Let’s just say that the mind gets to go from being the dominant player in your awareness to being second fiddle.

So there is a massive resistance to awakening. The natural question to ask at this point is “what do I do about it?” Ah, good question. But the question itself is just more resistance. Notice that the question is about doing and about “I”. The “I” is the very thing doing the resisting! The doing is how it resists.

Going beyond this resistance, becoming more willing, is the simplest of things: let it happen. What you are wants this awakening to happen. It is what is waking-up to itself. It IS awake, and is looking for this awakeness to transform everything. So, simply pause and let it happen. It will anyway.

As far as “you” are concerned, I think cooperation would almost be a better focus for the mind. Cooperate. Don’t fight what is happening. Give in. Allow. I think you’ll find this mindset to be a better one. It is far more in alignment with what is really happening anyway. Remember that whole “not in control” issue I’ve discussed many times? You aren’t in control, so why not just let that realization sink a little deeper. Cooperate with the inevitable, and you will find your willingness going up, up, up.

Be well. Namaste.

credit: Il Genesio

Okay, in truth, Tom is not in Missouri right now, but it just didn’t have that lovely allusion to one of my favorite movies, the Wizard of Oz. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I was growing up, one of the television networks (hey, we only had 3) would show the Wizard of Oz once each year, always on a Sunday night. Man, I was GLUED to that TV for the whole thing. I love it, I was mesmerized by it. I mean, how on earth did they get the world to go from black and white to color and then back again? Too wild.

Okay, the Wizard of Oz has nothing to do with the purpose of this post, but so what? Does anything have ANYTHING to do with anything else? Or, put another way, everything has everything to do with everything! Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out later.

So, I’m wrapping up a month in Paris, France, this week. I arrived on March 28, and I leave on Saturday. I fly home from Amsterdam, so this weekend I get to enjoy the wonderful hospitality of the Dutch. But for the past almost four weeks, Paris has been my home.

I LOVE PARIS. I really, really do. Someday, I’m not sure when or how, I will live here part of the year. You see, it’s the language that really gets me. I absolutely love the French language. I can’t get tired of hearing it spoken. I speak it a bit myself, not that well, but I spent the last 3 weeks going to a language school each morning trying to improve my French.

I shared with my newsletter readers that, according to two psychics, I was one of Napoleon’s generals in a past life, so maybe that explains my love of French. Who knows? But here I am.

An obvious question that I’m sure I’ll be asked is, “What did you learn while in Paris?” So, let me provide a few completely spontaneous observations:

*Travel can be very, very good for bringing up any issues you have been trying to ignore or were not aware of. Paris has been excellent in that regard. So, get on a plane and put yourself in a more stressful environment and see what happens. I live in the country of Missouri, so life in Paris is definitely bringing up some good stuff. Who knew it was there?

*Parisians are obsessed with shoes. If any of you reading this blog live in Paris, you will know immediately what I mean. It is the most incredible thing to see sitting at a café. 2 million people live within the walls of Paris, and there are 1.5 million different pairs of shoes. The rest are Converse hightops.

*You can eat raw hamburger and not die. Now, maybe you can’t in the USA, I get that. But here, even cooked hamburger is mostly raw. As is steak, duck and eggs. You know, I think I actually prefer meat that way. Even though this is my 6th trip to Paris, I still have to adjust to the food. It is amazingly good. I think you can probably live on bread, eggs, salade, raw meat, coffee and wine.

*Walking is good for the spirit and body. I feel better in a pedestrian culture. In the USA, we walk only to get in and out of our cars. You can go an entire day, traveling 50 miles around town, and walk maybe 100 yards. In Paris, 3-5 km is not a big deal. Now, given that you get to walk 3-5 km per day, why in God’s name do Les Parisiens where incredibly uncomfortable shoes? Only me and German and Austrian tourists are wearing hiking shoes (American tourists where New Balance running shoes and flip flops).

*The best ice cream in the world is on Ile Saint-Louis in Paris. Berthillon.

*People are the same wherever you go. I know that, but it is really fun to see it right in front of your eyes. The young French women doing their thing. Different language, same flirtatious behavior. Old couples walking arm in arm. Men doing their macho act to impress women. Rude and not so rude waiters. Friendly store owners. People rushing to get from point A to point B. Life is life. Every where you go.

*And all the while, no matter where or when or under what circumstances, Life is still calling to you. You can hear it in the sound of scooter racing down the street, a child laughing, the clink of two wine glasses. Always calling you. One Life. One.

Be well. Time to hit a café. Namaste.

So, how would you know if “I” am enlightened? How would you know if anyone is enlightened? What’s great about these questions is that (1) they are questions that most spiritual people ask about various teachers and gurus and (2) they are so misguided as to be a bit comical.

First of all, you have absolutely no way of knowing if someone is enlightened or not. Period. No way. Zero. Zip. Nada. How can I be so utterly certain? Because you can’t know anything about another. All you can do is have an experience of them. You may have an experience of where their consciousness is at (ego or One, let’s say). You may see their behaviors. But to know if they are awake? Nope. I feel I have a pretty strong sense of where someone’s consciousness is at, where their “focus” is. But I could be seriously wrong. And beyond that? No clue. And moreover, I don’t really care.

Secondly, questions like this inevitably come back to some pretty fundamental things about enlightenment. For instance, who is it that is enlightened? Is Tom Stine ever going to be enlightened? No, he isn’t. Tom Stine is just a body and mind playing around in the dream state. But is Tom that which will every awaken to the truth? No.

Then what does awaken? That which is already awake. Oh, isn’t this stuff just crazy to actually see in print? That’s why you gotta take all spiritual literature with a grain of salt. None of it is true. At best, it is an attempt at expressing some form of truth to encourage the reader to find out for himself or herself what all the fuss is about. Never take any of it as a statement of the truth. Find out for yourself what is true!

I think it was Yogananda who said, “Anyone who claims to be enlightened isn’t.” I don’t think he got it quite right. Better to say, “Anyone who believes he is enlightened isn’t!” For enlightenment is beyond any belief as it is beyond the mind.

Just some late night thoughts for you. Namaste.

I was interested to see you recommend McKenna’s books. His description of enlightenment strikes me as a empty, boring state, in sharp contrast to most people’s ideas. Is his “enlightenment” something you find attractive and seek?

Assuming the books are factual, I have to wonder if he got stuck in a dead end on his spiritual path. If enlightenment means pitying, rather than loving, everyone else, and spending days playing video games to stave off the boredom, count me out.

As you can tell by my somewhat tongue in cheek title, I have to answer my reader’s question “yes.” I do find Jed’s enlightenment attractive. And the primary reason is quite simple: I desire the truth. If what Jed describes is the truth, the Truth with a capital T, then I want it. I want nothing but the truth. As Morpheus tells Neo: “I offer only the truth, nothing more.” Even if the truth is I wake-up from my nice comfy world and discover I must live on a hover craft while psychopathic machines hunt me down, then, well, so be it.

I know, it sounds a bit nuts to say something like that, but you see, this whole enlightenment thing IS nuts. I strongly suggest that you let go of any notion of pursuing enlightenment unless you simply have no choice. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if I weren’t simply compelled to do it. For most people, some nice, simple garden variety awakenings are more than sufficient. I guess I should explain that some more, but I will save that for later.

My reader also made an excellent point in his email: most people’s ideas about enlightenment are in sharp contrast to what Jed McKenna has to say. But I’ll be honest: my ideas about enlightenment are now, and have been for quite some time, in sharp contrast to most people’s. Enlightenment has nothing to do with bliss and joy and eternal happiness. Most people think that nirvana is some blissed-out state like an infinite orgasm. Nirvana is simply the word the Buddha used to describe the cessation of the separate self (nirvana means cessation, by the way). Enlightenment isn’t eternal bliss: it is freedom. Freedom from the idea you are a someone, a self, a separate entity. The ultimate freedom is to realize you are nothing.

All I’ve found with Jed is an echo of my own periods of realization. I’ve also discovered a thing or two that has radically changed my approach to life here on planet Earth. More on that one at a later date. (I know, I’m always promising more later. But I deliver, don’t I?)

So, in sum, I still strongly recommend you read Jed. He will go a long way toward demystifying enlightenment for you and helping you to see what the spiritual “journey” is really about. The best book of the three is the third one, Spiritual Warfare, but the other two are pretty essential to understanding all that Jed has to say.

First:  I have a sneaking suspicion that Jed McKenna is none other than Adyashanti writing under a pseudonym. I could be wrong. But I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of Adya’s talks, and I have a strange ability to remember the most trivial things. And so when Jed McKenna uses an example that is almost identical to one I’ve heard Adya use, and one that seems quite original at that, I get curious. After 15 times of this happening, I get suspicious. Honestly, it makes me laugh.t

Second:  Jed’s books serve a very important purpose. They are descriptive of what may in fact be one facet of the awakening process. Basically, our attachment to ego has got to go. No getting around it. We think we ARE the ego, and we just have to drop that. That’s why Adya talks of “getting out the swords and hacking and slashing.” You gotta LOOK AT YOUR BELIEFS and see that they are all untrue. Every single one of them is untrue. You have to look at enough of them until the house of cards collapses. Again, that’s why Adya also says, “Awakening can be a bloody mess.”

Jed highlights that part. No, he hammers it home. 99 times out of 100, people don’t just see a glimmer of the Truth and wake up like Ramana or Ekchart Tolle. When they do, they have to sit on a park bench for 2 years or in a cave for 10. When the ego is just blown out like that, the mind/body often goes into major shutdown. For the rest of us, the 99, we have to sit down and look deeply at ourselves, being willing to look at every nook and cranny of our psyche. We have to do something that would make a Freudian analyst pee his pants.

Third: One criticism of Jed is that he seems to deny the “heart” aspect of awakening. He even seems to be disdainful of things of the heart. If you read Jed from a slightly broader perspective, however, you see the heart in what he says. Jed says he “doesn’t do heart” not so much as a dismissal of what we can call Love but as a pointing out that squishy, gooey, New Age stuff (or any religion for that matter) will almost certainly NOT result in awakening. The failure rate is almost 100%. 99.9999% to be completely not-exact.

That to me is a real value of Jed McKenna. He slams home a point that almost no one asks: what is the success rate of most spiritual teachers and teachings? If we answer honestly, we have to say: pathetic. Assuming, of course, that you measure success as awakening (enlightenment). Very, very few wake up. Jed tries to explain why.

Fourth:  I’m reading and recommending Jed because he offers something valuable. A wake up call. If you are on the Enlightenment path, then get down to business. Do it. Find out who and what you are. NOW. Sit down and wade through the ego. See what happens. I’m also recommending it because there is some AMAZING material for those who are not going to attain Enlightenment, a whole huge discussion that he calls Human Adulthood or the Integrated State. You get that in book 3, and it is wonderful. I can’t even begin to describe it here. But suffice it to say, if you simply want a better life, Jed explains how to have that happen. I agree with him completely. You gotta grow-up.

Fifth:  As Adya correctly points, all spiritual teachings are TEACHING TOOLS. They are meant to hit the reader between the eyes and stir up something real and vital. They are never to be taken literally as the truth. Jed’s books, Adya’s satsangs, Gangaji’s satsangs, Ramana’s teachings, you name it, none of it should never be taken literally. And, yes, people do. And their is nothing you can do about that. If you are in the spiritual teaching business, just say your piece and let it go. Humanity will do with it what it pleases. And somewhere along the way, someone will benefit greatly because the real purpose of all these words took place: to cancel out some of your beliefs and allow a glimpse of truth to happen.

Sixth:  The problem people have with Jed is the same problem most of us have with EVERY teacher. The problem is a question our egos love to ask:  HOW AWAKE ARE THEY? People love to play the “my guru can kick your guru’s ass” game. If I’m into Adya, I think he is the most awake being on the planet. If you are into Ramana, he’s the most enlightened being ever. Jed rubs you the wrong way and so you think he is the height of ego. That’s how the mind works, isn’t it? Mine is better than yours. Everyone plays the game. I’ve played it, too.

But guess what? Sailor Bob Adamson said it best:  ”The only difference between an awakened one and one who hasn’t awakened is that the awakened one knows that there IS NO DIFFERENCE!”  Go Sailor Bob!! Yep, that’s it. Not one shred of difference. From the perspective of Truth, no one is more awake than someone else. At best, and again this is just a metaphor, one person is a little better at pretending to be asleep than another. But still…. how can the One reality be different? How can there be an iota of separation between us? It may appear that way, but that’s our only problem!! Appearances can be deceiving!!

So, is Jed the bomb? Is he the most important, biggest, etc? Hell no. Jed isn’t the most awake being. There’s no such thing. Get to the place where you know what Sailor Bob means.

That said:  I also feel I have a pretty good meter for where someone’s consciousness lies. On one end of the scale is very egoic. On the other end, hardly any ego, every clear. Jed’s at the clear end. How clear? I don’t know. How much ego left? Don’t know. Does he need to “awaken” some more? Don’t know. Adyashanti? Very clear. More awakening? Don’t know. Don’t care, either.

As for other spiritual teachers who have the label “enlightened” attached to them, my meter says they ain’t so hot. But so what?!?! If my meter says still egoic, then I don’t touch their teachings. Doesn’t mean I’m right, it just means I’m not interested in their teachings. I certainly think some of these so called “enlightened” gurus have experienced a great deal of awakening to the truth. But full blown enlightenment? Not according to my meter. But hey, my meter may suck!! It really doesn’t matter in the end anyway.

None of this stuff is a problem unless we take it all seriously, like it matters. It doesn’t. The truth is to let all that stuff go and just enjoy the dance of life. Nothing else to do. As Jed and Adya (and Ramana and Nisargadatta and many others) point out, it’s all about surrender in the end. True surrender. What you are surrenders its illusions to the Truth. Just let it all go!

So, again, get Jed McKenna’s book. Believe it or not, I’ve got more to say about Jed and enlightenment, but I’ll save that for my next post.

• Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
• Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment
• Spiritual Warfare

These 3 books are fantastic. They are a very clear and detailed explanation of spiritual awakening. Jed does a nice job of showing some of the ins and outs. I don’t necessarily agree with every last word of his, but for the most part, Jed has written books that capture my experience quite well.

One curious thing, however: who is Jed McKenna? If you google him, you will come up very short. He seems to hardly exist. There is even some speculation that the house and ashram he describes in the first book may in fact never have existed. So, the stories in the books may be fictional to some extent. However, the information is not fictional in the slightest.

Read and enjoy. If you would like to buy the books from Amazon, here are the links (from which I receive a tiny commission):

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You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need

Just like you, I sang those lyrics on more than one drunken (and sober) evening. They are compelling and seem to reflect almost everyone’s experience. You can’t always get what you want.

But is that true? On more than one occasion, I’ve run across a spiritual teacher or guru saying something completely opposite to this bit of Rolling Stone wisdom. Something along these lines:

“Everything that happens to you is exactly what you want. But only in retrospect, after one has experienced some sense of awakening, do you actually see that this is true.”

In a certain sense, I had suspected on some level that it is true. But last night, for the first time, I knew it to be true. When it hit me, I was floored. “I’ll be damned,” I said. I won’t go into the details, but it was something that I swore I wanted, something I thought I knew that I wanted, without any question. And when I finally saw the truth, when clarity dawned, I knew that the reason that this thing was NOT in my life was because I didn’t want it. I was shocked, but I knew it was true.

And then I saw it: yep, everything in my life is exactly as I want it to be. If you could dissect the entire energetic pattern of Tom Stine, probing through every piece of mental and emotional “stuff,” you would find that the sum total of my life is a 100% direct reflection of that mental and emotional stuff. Amazing, really.

Now, I know for certain that many, if not most of you, will object to this assertion. You are already forming counter arguments about concentration camp victims, earthquakes and other natural disasters, child abuse, etc. The mind immediately wants to protest and lash out and say, “No way, impossible!” Well, I don’t blame it, because to see the truth of this is kind of devastating to the mind and its arguments. I wish I could give it something comforting, and some good answers, but I can’t.

I’ll leave you, though, with something to consider before you get too bent out of shape. And it is this: if it is true that your life is an exact reflection of your desires, and everything is exactly what you want, then investigate the following questions:

1. Who is it that is doing the desiring?
2. What gave rise to the desires in the first place? From whence did they come?

Find the answers to these 2 questions, and you will laugh the next time you hear the Stones singing, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Namaste.

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I live on a farm, believe it or not, the one that I grew-up on and the one that my dad grew-up on. My grandparents bought it in 1944, and it has been in the family ever since. No one in the family does any farming these days, certainly not me! My grandfather would laugh out loud if someone suggested that I was a farmer. He was, and so was my dad, but I’ve always been a bit too cosmopolitan for the farming gig. Nonetheless, I love hanging around the old farm.

When I say “changes around the farm,” that’s my way of saying there are some changes happening here on tomstine.com. I’ve been pondering various things for a bit, and recently have been making some changes. As this site is now just over 1 year old (and as yesterday was my birthday, I’m a bit older, too), I’m feeling like heading in a few new directions. So, here are some of the changes and some of the things I’m thinking of doing:

Taking a Break from Coaching

You may have noticed that the link to coaching has disappeared. That’s because I’ve decided to take a break from coaching at the end of this month. From March until at least September, I’m going to be on leave. Why, you ask? Because I’m not really sure where I’m going or what I’m doing with the coaching. Something has quit resonating about it, and so I’m taking some time away to explore it a bit.

Coaching, to me, is mostly about change, improvement, growth, no matter what it is you are focusing upon, whether it be career, personal issues, spirituality, you name it. And that’s the thing: I’m not so sure that change, improvement and growth mean a damn thing! I don’t mean that to sound apathetic; rather, it is a sense that I have that flowing with life is infinitely more important than our feeble attempts at manipulating life.

I am wondering more and more if a coach can teach others how to flow with life. I think it is possible, but I’m really not certain yet how to do so. So much has gone into my own evolution into flowing with life that I’m somewhat stumped as to how I got here. And how I got here may not even be relevant to how someone else will get there. I’ll just have to sit with this one and see what develops.

Saying Goodbye to Comments

I know I’m being a blogging heretic, but I’ve decided to turn off comments on most of my posts. Sacré bleu! I know, comments are one of the pillars of blogging, a way to create community and conversation. Comments that have been posted here have often been fantastic. I have met some fantastic people via comments, and I want to say up front that I value each and every one of you and your contribution. Thank you!

That said, as other bloggers will attest, commenting is a right royal pain in the ass. In many respects, it is a great idea, but in practical terms, it’s often a gigantic time waster. My readership has grown enough that I get lots of comments. While many of them are worth reading, many are not. Don’t worry, if you’ve left a comment, and it has appeared on this site, then you can be sure that I valued it. But I delete a number of comments, some outright spam, others just pure crap. It gets old after a while.

And, I have a funny feeling that it effects my writing. I’ve wondered if I hold back at times to avoid having to read the silly comments I will receive. I know of one blogger that consciously censors her writing to avoid the ridiculous comments she will get. I pretty much say whatever I want, but I wonder if my writing will change a bit with the comments turned off. We shall see.

At times, I will allow comments for a particular post if it is one where I want comments and feedback. At times, I really want my readers’ input, so turning comments on for those posts makes sense.

Furthermore, you can always create a trackback on your blog which I will be more than happy to allow it through if it isn’t spam. To me, that is the best way to create flow and conversation between blogs. If you agree or disagree with something I say, WRITE about it. Don’t have a blog? Wordpress.com or blogger.com will get you started in 5 minutes or less.

More Frequent Posts, Newsletters and Tweets

Quite simply, I want to write more often. I feel like using these posts to take a bit of a look at “me” and how awakening is happening here. I think it would be entertaining for you and possibly even “enlightening.” (Yes, pun intended.) If you are reading what I write, I suspect you must be curious about awakening, or quite likely experiencing some of it yourself. So, I think I’ll get a little more personal about my experience and what is going on within and without.

I Want to Write An Ebook and Create An Online Course

I’ve been threatening to write a book and/or an ebook for a while now. In the next year, I would like to actually do so. We shall see if that happens, but nonetheless, that’s what I would like to do. So, in the next year, maybe you will see something like that.

I also have a strong sense of moving in the direction of creating some sort of course, something educationally oriented for the spiritual seeker. Not sure what, but I can feel that one coming.

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you are having a great weekend! Namaste.

What do I mean by clear seeing? That’s kind of hard to describe. At this point, the best I can do is say that clear seeing is perceiving the world, life, self, everything, with the purest of sight. Only what is true seems to matter. Anything that I don’t know for absolute certainty must go. Basically, all beliefs are not wanting to be believed. Clear seeing appears to be freedom.

I’ll have more to say about my retreat, my experiences, this blog, you name it, in the near future. For now, I wanted to share the above as I sit here at San Jose International Airport enjoying American Airlines postponing my flight. Ain’t life a trip? Seriously, it’s a blast.

Be well, my friends. More soon. Namaste.

“Is Enlightenment easy or difficult?”
“It is as easy and as difficult as seeing what is right before your eyes.”
“How can seeing what is right before one’s eyes be difficult?”
To that the Master responded with the following anecdote:
A girl greeted her boyfriend. “Notice anything different about me?”
“New dress?”
“No.”
“New shoes?”
“No. Something else.”
“I give up.”
“I’m wearing a gas mask.”

credit: ThreadedThoughts

I’m heading off to California for another 5 day silent retreat with Adyashanti. I’m going less because of Adya and more for the 5 days of SILENCE! It is so nice to give that gift to myself every now and then. Don’t get me wrong, though, I love Adya. He is fun to hang with for 5 days. Maybe I’ll have something to share when I return.

In other news, Tina Su over at Think Simple Now has written a wonderful article entitled How to Get Over Breakups in which she quotes yours truly. The article would have been a good one without my words of wisdom, but with me, well….. Mon Dieu! Fantastique! Seriously give Tina’s article a read. She’s done a very nice job.

Later, gators. See you soon. Namaste.

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Abi Skipp

Funny the thoughts that will rattle through one’s head, completely unbidden. I awoke this morning and kept hearing the Cheers theme song playing in my mind. I could see Norm sitting on his bar stool quipping one-liners that never failed to make me laugh. One of my favorites:

Woody: How’s life treating you Mr. Peterson?

Norm: Like I just ran over its dog.

If you are asking, “what does this silliness have to do with spirituality and awakening?” then I’m afraid I haven’t got a good answer. In a certain sense I’m not trying to make a pithy comment on spiritual awakening. But I will say one thing: all moments of genuine awakening are in fact the only break you will ever get from all your worries. Awakening is the only answer.

If awakening is the only answer, then what does this mean for all the programs, courses, techniques, etc., that are supposed to help free us from all our worries? What about things like the Sedona Method that I have promoted right here on this website? Don’t they work, too?

Well, in truth, they really are only a step in the right direction. All these programs, courses, techniques, etc., get us to start questioning all of our assumptions about life, so they have a place and often can prove helpful. But in the end, like everything else in this world, they prove to be unsatisfactory.

In the end, to find true relief for what ails us, we might find ourselves, if we are lucky, stuck. The old ways don’t seem to work any more. The old techniques have us feeling lost. We have no idea what to do. And so, out of desperation, we do the only thing we can do: we sit, we reflect, we look within, and we begin to question.

We do what Nisargadatta Maharaj did. We do what Adyashanti did. We do what Ramana Maharshi did. We question. We investigate. We wonder if all of our old assumptions are true. Ramana questioned one assumption: death. Nisargadatta was told by his guru, “You are the supreme ultimate reality. Now go discover that for yourself.” So he sat and sat and sat until he saw through everything that said otherwise.

So simple. So utterly simple. Sit. Question. Let the truth be revealed to you as you question that which is false. And here’s a little hint: no thought, no belief is true! Now go find that out for yourself. And when you do, you will take a permanent break from all your worries.

Namaste.

Honestly, I wish I had something pithy, amazing, thought provoking or exciting to share with you. But alas, I don’t. For some inexplicable reason, the new year has come and I’m thrilled to simply be. Almost as if that is simply enough. Actually, it is more than enough.

I will leave you with this: what is something you can not do for a few minutes so that you can take a moment to sit and be? Let’s make this the least productive year we’ve ever had! A year for sitting and not doing. A year for enjoying life.

It’s either awakening or lazy hedonism. Not sure which yet. But so far, it’s a good year. Be well!

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Tempo no tempo

For most of us, a part of the journey of awakening will involve a process of letting go of layer after layer after layer. You sit, you see through something, you feel this tremendous release, and your mind says, “Wow, I’ve really seen through this thing. I’m getting pretty free.” But are you free? How can you tell if you are or aren’t?

A friend of mind just help me to see how you can tell whether you are free on a subject or not. It’s so simple, I really can’t believe I missed it. Ready? Here is it:

If you still give a hoot about it, then you aren’t free. There is more to be seen through.

Let’s use an example. Let’s say you are madly in love with a woman. Not that that has ever happened to any of you, but let’s pretend, shall we? You sit, you look at the situation, you let go of your feelings about her, you look at your beliefs, you challenge yourself to see her from any and ever angle. You reach an incredible place of clarity, peace and love. You feel incredible joy and love for this person. You find that, amazingly, you feel more love than you could have possibly imagined regardless of what happens between you. Your heart is wide open, and you feel better than you’ve felt in years. Yes, you’ve really opened and experienced great peace, joy and love.

All done, right? You’re free right? You might be. How can you be certain. Simple. Do your thoughts go to this person frequently? Do you still find yourself “drawn” to her? Do you find that you can’t get away from your thoughts about her? Ah, well, congratulations, you’ve discovered another layer. Time to sit down in your chair, open your heart, and be open and present with all the thoughts and feelings that arise within you. Round 2 or 8 or 20 has just arrived.

The layers will arise, one after another, until you are done. There is no way to tell how many there are, or when they will be finished. But a simple thing to do is to be utterly grateful to each one and to their seeming source, the worldly object that appears to give rise to them. And when your mind is finally quiet, then you will know you are finally free. You won’t give a hoot. And you will be supremely happy.

Dedicated to my dear friend M. Namaste.

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I’ve recently written quite a bit about the topic of control. Over and over, as I look at my life, as I watch others experience their lives, I keep coming to the same simple realization: we don’t have control over our lives. We are lived by something, a force that operates through our bodies and conditioned minds. We are lived by LIFE itself. And whatever “we” are goes along for the ride.

Interestingly, as I was in the midst of writing my recent posts on control, I got to travel to San Francisco to hear Adyashanti give a weekend workshop. And guess how he started his first talk? Yes, of course, he started discussing control. I smiled when he mentioned control that morning. It was a wonderful talk, and as so often happens, I remembered almost nothing from it, even though it had a profound impact upon me. A good spiritual talk is memorable for its effects, not for its words.

Fortunately for me, I ordered a recording of the weekend, and after it arrived the other day, I began to listen again to the talk on control. It was even better the second time! Let me share a bit with you:

You’re not in control, but your desperate efforts to keep control actually does alter the way existence moves for you. It doesn’t move in the way your controller wants to, but it does have an effect on existence, your effort to control it. It doesn’t have the effect you want it to have, but it does have an effect. And you only know that when that control is totally let go of. Because when it is totally let go of, and you are no longer putting that energy out to existence or to consciousness, then existence starts to change.

Yes, of course, our efforts to control do effect the events of our lives, but not how we want them to. That explains so much. But as we let go of attempting to control, life then begins to flow. Ah, yes, perfect. It makes complete sense to me. Nothing to be but let go of one simple false belief: that we have control over our lives. So easy to say. So difficult fun interesting to do.

I suppose it depends upon what we mean by spirituality. If you look at it as an observer, you would think that spirituality was about everything but awakening. At least, if you listen to the voices in the world of spirituality speak, you will rarely if ever hear anything about awakening. So, yes, spirituality deals with far more than awakening. In it, we find everything from angels to zen and so much in between.

Let me hear from you. Is it more than “concerned with spirit,” ie, the non-material? Is it more than enlightenment? Is it about talking with spirits, channeling, manifesting money, relationships? And why?

I wrote about this topic before in What Is Spirituality? Really. Take a look.

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I have a good friend with whom I often disagree on spiritual issues. I think on some level we enjoy our disagreement, even though on another level we often react to each other as if to say, “Are you nuts?” Recently we exchanged a few emails, and I sent him a message today that I’m quite certain he won’t like. Afterwards, I thought, “Hey, if my friend won’t like it, I’m sure it will irritate others, too.” Of course, that means I need to publish it here.

Truth is a not a state of being or consciousness or anything. The truth is what is. When you awaken, you simply drop into being able to know that which is, without any interference from your mind. No state. Just pure awareness. Awareness aware of itself. Because what it perceives is that everything it perceives is itself. Total unity.

Some of the quantum physics people who have gotten all new-agey like to speak of the fundamental field of reality, or the ground or field out of which all things arise. This field is the Buddhist “nothingness”. Same thing with spirit, consciousness, awareness, etc. All are empty in the sense of no-thing-ness, ie, they aren’t objects to be perceived.

And so, when awakening occurs, when enlightenment happens, one becomes fully aware of the truth, i.e., that all is merely an appearance of this fundamental ground of being, all is this complete totality, all one essence, all one intelligence, all one awareness, conscious, awake, alive, aware.

No states of anything. Just pure beingness. In essence, that’s really all there is to enlightenment.

Namaste.

Secondly, Michael Jeffreys has been kind enough (crazy enough?) to quote me on his page of spiritual quotes. Thanks, Michael, I’m honored.

And, as always, I’m grateful to you, my readers, for making this site a lively and fun place to explore the truth together. Namaste.