The Seer

Invariably, it takes a flash of light to reveal the true meaning of Life and of all things to us: nor can it be obtained in any other way.

As the veil lifts, one moment’s sudden revelation completely rearranges and shifts our viewpoint; and the scene abruptly changes. In fact, this was exactly what happened to me one day while in deep meditation.

I was considering ‘Spirituality’, its study and problems, when suddenly it dawned upon me that the student-position, which I had assumed, was certainly an unreliable and unsound one.

As this actuality burst upon me, breathlessly my heart cried out, “Oh to be the great subject itself instead of a mere stidemt of it!”

Instantly there followed a moment of shining light with its electrifying transfusion, sudden and swift. As though a curtain had been raised admitting some startling new sight, I saw the indisputable fact with vivid, clear distinctness — I saw that I was the Truth ItSelf … not a student at all!

Under this flood of blazing revelation, what else could I do but exclaim further, — “Why, this means that I am the TRUTH! I am not a student trying to solve problems of human existence, but I am the absolute and changeless Truth itself!” The simplicity of all this amazed and overwhelmed me. Here in this brief but thrilling moment, I saw what years of study and research had never given me.

Immediately, I then understood Jesus’ dynamic statement, “I am the Truth!” Yes, this was it. I was not a student of Truth, endeavoring to obtain and attain certain states of consciousness, always letting go one for another higher on the scale. No, I was the Truth ItSelf!

What more then could I ask? What more could be desired? Did Truth, or true Being, have any association with a problem? Certainly not. Neither, then, did I!

“I am the Truth!” exuberantly I told myself again and again, in my newly found changed relationship. I am not trying to do, to think or to know something; but I am doing, feeling and being Truth, the Life, and the Way! Oh, the blessed wonder of light!

I saw then that the problem of human existence could never be solved … but will dissolve when we take our rightful stand as the Truth, the Life and the Way.

Now once having seen and accepted this platform, all other speculations immediately vanished, while beautiful verifications in Jesus” life and teaching came flooding my rapturous thought. How plainly now to see that Jesus never said that he was a student of Life, but insisted, “I am the Life!” Neither did he intimate that he was a follower of some particular way or system, but again and again reiterated, “I am the Way!”

No wonder he was so absolute, so completingly certain and sure. Never did he speak nor act as though he were using Truth as a means to bring about certain healing results in a material existence! His attention was NOT towards conditions, states nor beliefs, but upon that Being which is unalterable; that Principle which is fixed and absolute; that Life which is wholeness always … ‘Against such there is no law.’

So, ‘Know thyself!’ Learn Who and What you really are; the meaning of life and the fullness of all things. Then for you, wars and problems will cease and be no more; sorrows and limitations fade away; for finding yourself as you really are, you shall be in touch with every good and perfect thing; and shall live here on earth a life of peace, joy and plenty.

~ From: The Christ Within by Lillian DeWaters

Q: Doctor Wong, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?

A: Your heart only good for so many beats, and that it … don’t waste on exercise. Everything wear out eventually. Speeding up heart not make you live longer; it like saying you extend life of car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take Nap!

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiency. What does cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So steak is nothing more than efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef also good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And pork chop can give you 100% of recommended daily allowance of vegetable product.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that mean they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of goodness that way. Beer also made of grain. Bottom up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have body and you have fat, your ratio one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can’t think of single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No pain … good!

Q: Aren’t fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU NOT LISTENING! Food are fried these day in vegetable oil. In fact, they permeated by it. How could getting more vegetable be bad for you?!?

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?

A: Definitely not! When you exercise muscle, it get bigger. You should only be doing sit-up if you want bigger stomach.

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy?!? HEL-LO-O!! Cocoa bean — another vegetable! It best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming good for your figure, explain whale to me.

Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?

A: Hey! ‘Round’ a shape!

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.

And remember:

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways — Chardonnay in one hand — chocolate in the other — body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming “WOO-HOO, what a ride!!”

AND …

For those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health. It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat … and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat … and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine … and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine … and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats … and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

~ Sent in by Theresa-Ann Harvey — Thanks Theresa-Ann

All things — all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary — are equal expressions of the Infinite. There is no more or less Infinite, no higher or lower Infinite.

Therefore, all attempts to either find or hold onto the Infinite are based in illusion. And illusion itself is none other than the Infinite.

The Infinite uses all measures in order to awaken in all the various forms in existence. It uses birth, life, death, happiness, sorrow, clarity, and delusion in order to awaken.

All of your seeking is in reality the activity of the Infinite as well. No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace.

If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.

~ by Adyashanti, 2010

You asked …

“Is what we see touch think and smell made of awareness or are they just objects and sensations appearing in awareness?”

Briefly, the answer is, ‘both’. All phenomena such as thoughts, feelings, sensations, sights, smells, sounds etc. arise out of awareness and appear in awareness — there’s no actual separation — it is all ultimately One. You could say it’s something like what happens when you dream. The dream comes out of your mind AND appears in your mind as the dream. You are both the creator of your dream and, at the same time, you may appear as a character in your dream. A wonderful mystery isn’t it?

You then asked …

“is awareness a substance and what happens to it at death?”

No, awareness is not a substance … in fact, it’s not a ‘thing’ at all. Awareness could be called no-thing-ness … or Spirit … or the Life force. Awareness was not born with our body nor will it ever die, even though our body will finally dissolve and disappear. Our body/mind/personality evolves and changes constantly but Awareness is always the same … it is ageless. Awareness can never die because it is life ItSelf.

Awareness is not something you have like a memory or a heart: Awareness is what you already and always ARE. Awareness cannot go anywhere when the body dies because it is everywhere (or beyond ‘here’ and ‘there’) … eternally, even though we presently experience it only within our own body/mind.

Imagine awareness as being something like the space behind and around these words. If you were to delete all the words, the blank space would still remain unchanged. Without the space (the blank background), the words would not be possible, but the space does not depend upon the words in any way whatever. It’s existence is constant whether words are on the page or not. That is the relationship between the true Self (Awareness) and the temporary self (the body/mind/personality known as ‘me’.)

What you see depends on how you look

Perhaps a reason that the Understanding is not a more common occurrence is that it is too simple, too close to home, too subtle. All the seeking is in the other direction, toward something other, something grander. Consider this: a common response when the Understanding happens is laughter. A common response is, “Oh, that!”

Right here, that which is most familiar to you, but overlooked because the looking has been for something else, something beyond. That’s why the finding is in stopping, in stillness. “Be still and know I am God.” Your natural state. Subtle. It is lost, overlooked if there is positive movement, direct searching, active thinking, anything but profound stillness.

A metaphor: In the retina of your eye there are two kinds of cells: cone cells and rod cells. The cones are clustered toward the center of the retina; what is in the center of your field of view is focused on them, and they register shades of light and, especially, color.

The rods are more numerous around the edge of the retina, and they pick up what is on the edge of your field of view, in your peripheral vision. They do not distinguish color, can discern only black and white, but pick out contrast better than the cones. This is why the rod cells are important for night vision, and explains an odd phenomenon; that night vision is better in your peripheral vision.

Walking in the Vermont woods at night, I learned at a young age that what you could make out in the darkness, what you could see, depended on how you looked. Repeatedly, you would see a movement in your peripheral vision and turn to look directly at it, to see only darkness. Eventually, one learns not to turn, not to look directly, but to keep it just in your peripheral vision, just at the point where you are almost not looking at it at all. That is when you can see it best.

Subtle. It is lost, overlooked if there is positive movement, direct searching, active thinking, anything but profound stillness. Focus on it, and it is gone. All of the talking, all of the asking questions, reading books, meditating, thinking, focusing, seeking, is all counterproductive because it is pushing in the wrong direction, creating activity and turbulence and noise.

Just as there is wei wu wei — the action which is not action, action which is not willed, is not volitional but witnessed as spontaneously happening: so too there is a seeing which is not seeing, a seeing which happens without trying, without looking.

… article continued here

~ From Perfect Brilliant Stillness, Beyond the Individual Self’, by David Carse

“Life is a mystery. The more you understand it, the more mysterious it becomes. The more you know, the less you feel that you know. The more you become aware of the depth — the infinite depth, the more it becomes almost impossible to say anything about it. Hence silence. The one who really knows remains in such awe, such infinite wonderment, that breathing almost stops. In presence with, and as, the mystery of life, one is lost … or found … completely.”

~ Pete Sumner

A simple question: Do you trust life? All you need to answer is Yes or No.

In life, we never know what’s coming next. As much as we want to know and plan our future, it will come as it is meant to come. So why fear? Why seek to control something we cannot control? The beauty of it is, we don’t have to know what’s going to be as we have a power within us that will create and attract whatever we may need in each moment.

Life is always ‘in the right’. It doesn’t matter if we agree with it or not, it simply is. Life will decide if we shall meet again or not. Life will bring us together again if it’s meant to be. Life will show us when it’s time to go. Life will let us know what is next. Life will guide us in the right direction. Life will bring us everything we need at the right time. Life will help us when we truly need help.

Life is more than we can imagine or ever understand. And most importantly: life is not separate from us. We don’t have a life, because we are this life.

Close your eyes and, with your hands on your chest, feel your heartbeat and breathing that has continued without fail since your birth. It’s always been there and guess what, you’re not controlling it! Have you ever realized this?

Without your hearbeat and breathing, there would be no life — these simple miracles are here to teach you to stop trying to control your life and to let it simply happen. Let life happen to you. And trust that whatever happens, is right because it is happening.

Notice that there’s something much greater within you than can be contained by your mind and body. This ’something,’ which is really not a thing at all, cannot be controlled and the more you accept this, the more life will flow — the more abundance and love you will experience.

And you will realize, that you are this love and abundance. You are life and your only responsibility is to trust this simple knowing of who you truly are.

~ by Jason Lee Mitchell

Well, in the southern hemisphere, we’re here again, in the dark of the year and approaching the winter solstice in a few short days.

As we move about in the outer world of things, forms and appearances, one thing we notice is that everything seems to be changing all the time — everything we put together eventually comes apart — everything that is born, dies — everything that we get is eventually lost again. The leaves that grow on the trees in the spring, fall again in the autumn. Everything in this world of form seems to shift and change, including us. We are getting older.

Sometimes, if we have seen enough metaphorical leaves fall in our personal lives, we can begin to notice what is hiding behind the changing play of forms. It is often most visible to any one of us when the leaves that we were most attached to are in the midst of falling. The ever-changing nature of the world of form is a constant opportunity to notice what is amongst us and in us that doesn’t change.

The world of changing forms is issuing an invitation to notice what doesn’t change. When we look in the same way at ourselves it becomes an invitation to acknowledge that the personal form-bound mind-constructed version of who we are (that we have learned to call ourselves by as children) is not what we truly are. There is something in us that doesn’t change when appearances or personalities change.

When we notice that our personal mind-created and form-bound identity is not who we are, we can begin to see the full beauty of the world of form and yet not be devastated by its changing nature. We can move through the world of form and its constantly changing conditions, thoughts, feelings and appearances, realizing that every bit of it is as sacred as the most holy temple or mountain-top. We bow to the world of form in awe and amazement.

This is the invitation of this time when the wondrous form world has died back to its minimum — when the days are short and the nights are long and cold. At this time of year, there is a transparency about the forms of our lives. We are revealed to ourselves in our true raiment if we accept the invitation. We are life itself! We are the life rising in the baby lamb being born and the same life falling in the plants on the compost heap from last year’s garden — all at once.

All that has fallen away is still with us because we ARE what it all falls into.

~ by Alice Gardner

Why are relationships so challenging for most people?

Relationships are challenging because we bring so much conditioning to them. By conditioning, I mean hopes, fantasies, expectations, and desires. We have so much we want another person to do for us — fulfill our fantasies, expectations, and desires, and if they don’t, we are angry with them and feel judgmental and critical of them.

Those judgments prevent us from loving them and cause them to judge us back and not feel loving toward us. So, the root of difficulties in love and relationships is our conditioning — the desires we have for someone to be a certain way in order to please us. This is conditional love — right? “I will love you if you behave and look a certain way, and I won’t love you if you don’t.” Conditional love isn’t love, and relationships don’t work when love is conditional.

But our conditioning doesn’t have to limit love in this way. If we can see that our expectations, desires, and fantasies are not important — that we don’t need these met to be happy and to have love in our life, then we can experience the other person just as he or she is, rather than as someone who needs to look and act a certain way for us to be happy and feel loving.

When we can just meet others, free of our ideas about what we want them to be or what we want from them and free of judgments, then love has a chance to flow from us to them. And love is more likely to flow to us from them as well. So relationships are challenging when we’re trying to get something from others or trying to change them to please us, and they work when we’re not doing that, but just being present to them as they are showing up in the moment.

Conditioning is really the only thing that interferes with love because we are all, by nature, loving, but our ideas about what we want others to be like interfere with our ability to feel that love. Love is our natural state, and when we aren’t paying attention to our thoughts about ourselves and others, then love naturally flows from inside of us to whomever we are with.