A. I don’t emphasise the story of ‘my awakening’ these days simply because I have less and less interest in holding up any image of myself, including any image of myself as ‘the awakened one’ or ‘the enlightened teacher”. What I am doesn’t seem to need any image. It is full and complete in this moment, fully engaged with the realities of present experience, without any reference to what did or didn’t happen in the past.

I can’t deny the past of course. I can’t deny that something has profoundly changed here, but at the same time, there’s no need to cling to that story, and use it to separate myself from others. There’s no need to constantly remind you of my story. There’s no interest in separating myself from you in that way. There’s no interest in proving to you how awakened I am. The story seems so irrelevant in the face of the wonder of this moment.

So, on a relative level, of course there is change and transformation, but there’s no need to cling to the story of that in order to give myself a conceptual identity. And on an ultimate level, what I am, as consciousness, has never changed and cannot change. It’s the ocean, deeply at rest, deeply at peace no matter how the waves chop and change. It has no interest in awakening. It doesn’t know enlightenment or non-enlightenment. It has no interest in holding up any story about itself.

This is the gorgeous paradox of awakening. Change and no change at all. (And of course, ultimately there aren’t two levels, ultimate and relative, but it’s a helpful way of pointing, as long as words are required.)

I spent years holding up an image of myself as ‘the awakened one’ without even realising it. Endlessly telling the story of ‘my awakening’ to myself and to others, both explicitly and implicitly, and not realising that it was yet another attachment, another dream.

I’ve met many people over the years who see themselves as awakened, and tell story after story about their past glories, about their life-changing transformation, about how perfect their lives are now, about how wonderful everything is for them — but in secret, of course, in their private and unseen moments, they are still suffering in their lives, still feeling stuck or unfulfilled in their relationships, still at war with others, not deeply at peace.

This goes for students as well as teachers. Nobody is immune from this spiritual bypassing. The truth is, who cares if you awakened yesterday? Who cares if yesterday you recognised your true nature? Who cares if yesterday you had a profound realisation of the ocean? What about NOW? THAT’s where all the juice is.

You saw the ocean yesterday? Wonderful. But can that ocean be seen in these waves? Can you recognise who you really are in this moment? Can you be at peace now? Why cling to a memory of yesterday’s awakening?

Yes, if we are truly interested in the end of suffering, we must go beyond all personal stories of our own awakening, all images of ourselves, all our boasts and claims about our own evolution, to a deep and radical acceptance of this moment. Awakening is the easy part. Holding onto a story of yesterday’s awakening is the easy part. Telling stories about your past is the easy part. Being ‘nobody and nothing’ is the easy part.

The real adventure begins when you’re willing to lose all stories, including these stories of your own spiritual transformation, your own specialness, your own purity, and be totally naked in front of life. The real adventure begins where all personal specialness ends.

Life’s real invitation is this: Find that which is always deeply at peace, even when things fall apart, even in the midst of pain, or fear, or sadness. Discover that which is always at rest, even when your partner comes home and says something that hurts you. Even when someone you love dies. Even when someone disagrees with you. Can the deepest acceptance be found in the pain? In the sadness? In the hurt? In the grief? In the anger? This is life’s constant invitation, however ‘awakened’ you think you are.

Yes, all your ideas of yourself as ‘the awakened one’, or ‘the special one’, or ‘the one who never suffers’, or ‘the enlightened teacher’, or ‘the nobody’, or ‘the fully evolved one’, or even ‘the one who knows’, will crumble in the face of life, in the face of this moment exactly as it is. Life will wake you up from the dream of your own awakening, for what you are is beyond all such dreams.

Yes, life is so fiercely loving and compassionate that it will destroy every image and leave you naked as a newborn baby, naked as the day you were born. Naked, and radically open to all experience. Naked, and present to this moment. The image is humiliated. And what is left is total humility in the face of life.

And so ask yourself this:

Who would you be without your story of your own awakening?

Burn, baby, burn!

~ Jeff Foster The Ever Present Embrace of Life

A marvel!
See how existence becomes manifest in non-existence!
How the in-time holds firm alongside Him whose attribute is eternal!

~ Ibn Ata’ Illah (1250 – 1309), From: Ibn ‘Ata’ Illah: The Book of Wisdom / Kwaja Abdullah Ansari: Intimate Conversations. Trans. Victor Danner & Wheeler Thackston

It amazes me how I’m provided with roads, food, the internet, someone to cut my hair and fix my computer, giant trucks to pick up my trash and keep up my city, dogs to keep me company and make me smile, a husband who loves me, information that comes to me from various places.

Everything that happens is support for my life and supports other people’s lives too. Isn’t it a miracle that what you and I offer the world also seems to be enough to provide us with this support? We are all contributing and we are all receiving.

We are all moved to contribute, and we are moved by something very mysterious. How is it possible for this immensely complex existence we are part of to function and actually support us? Isn’t this such a miracle! What good fortune to be born into a world that provides for us. Some would argue that it doesn’t do this very well, but truly, isn’t it amazing that it does it to the extent that it does!

It seems that something behind life moves each of us to contribute as we do. We have enough people doing the things that need to be done to make it all work. How does that happen? We didn’t all decide to be doctors, for instance. That would be too many doctors! Some of us had to be patients, anyway. What is behind our choosing to do what we do? Life is a great mystery.

When I can see that others are playing out their role perfectly (and, as a bonus, they’re doing it with their own personal style and unique personality), then I relax and can just let it happen as it is happening. Something much wiser than we are is making it all happen through us. How interesting! I think I will just enjoy the unfolding of the show in front of me. Maybe I’ll jump up and do something too. Who knows? It’s fun not knowing, especially when you realize that we are in good hands.

Even those who cause difficulty and trouble for others have a place in this mystery. They serve a role too. It’s hard to see how they are contributing, but at the very least they contribute to our growth and evolution by challenging us. And sometimes we are the one causing trouble and pain!

I will let the troublemakers be as they are too, since they are as they are. I will let them be part of this drama on earth, since they already are part of this drama. I might be moved to do something in response to them or not. We’ll see. It might be someone else’s role to respond instead.

We all have a part to play, and we just need to play that part. We can hardly not play our part. So I will let life be as it is and let it move me as it does, and I will revel in this great mystery in which I am participating and bring as much consciousness, gratitude, and joy to it as I can. To see the truth about life — that we are part of one Consciousness creating it all — is to be happy and at peace, and from that place of peace, it’s easy to love it all.

~ by Gina Lake from her Blog

Identified with silence and boundlessness
My spirit widens clasping the universe
Till all that seemed becomes the Real,
One in a mighty and single vastness.

Someone broods there nameless and bodiless,
Conscious and lonely, deathless and infinite,
And, sole in a still eternal rapture,
Gathers all things to his heart for ever.

~ Sri Aurobindo

We’re taught to rely on the advice of experts, but their opinions seem to change with the breeze. If you knew that something had remained unchanged for the last twenty-five centuries, and had continued to help people find the peace and joy they were

seeking for that entire time, would you be curious?

The perennial philosophy is a golden thread of spiritual thought. It’s a group of harmonious spiritual concepts that are free of dogma and ritual. It can be found in virtually all cultures, time periods and areas of the globe. It’s been a part of so-called

“primitive” and pagan belief systems as well as the mystical branches of almost every organized religion.

The perennial philosophy is not a formula for enlightenment; its simple concepts have helped countless seekers reach spiritual mastery. In a world that’s severely lacking in harmony, we can ill afford to disregard a message that’s united many of the world’s

greatest minds. Although the perennial philosophy has much more to offer, we’ll look at four of its most basic and helpful concepts:

• There is a Divine Ground that permeates the universe. The world we think we see is a temporary projection that originates from that Divine Ground.
• A change of consciousness is required to become aware of, and experience, the Divine Ground.
• Everyone has the ability to experience the Divine.
• Experiencing the Divine is life’s highest purpose.

Life-giving intelligence permeates everything in existence. This intelligence wants to be known and can be known.

Most of us have been taught that spiritual mastery is a nearly impossible goal. The perennial philosophy does not agree. No secrets, methods, formulas or spiritual practices are necessary to experience the Divine. Knowing the Divine does require a shift in

our awareness, but everyone is capable of making that shift. Thousands of spiritual seekers have made that shift, and you can too.

How do we shift our awareness? Successful spiritual seekers share a certain mindset. They are:

• “Pure in heart.” This does not mean we need to “clean up our act.” It refers to our motives. A pure heart is looking for a connection with the Divine for the sheer joy of that connection. A pure heart isn’t asking for material blessings.
• “Poor in spirit.” This has nothing to do with poverty. It means that we understand that the world can make us rich, but it can never enrich us. We’re poor in spirit when we understand that our life will be empty unless we have a direct connection with the

  Divine.

• “Empty hands.” Seekers with empty hands are willing to let go of all mental conditioning, preconceived notions and the desire for a particular outcome. They are willing to be instructed by the Divine instead of trying to fit the Divine into their own belief

  system.

These qualities are free and available to everyone, no matter what our circumstances might be. Most of us have been taught that we learn about God by studying a holy book or attending church or Bible classes. Spiritual masters have never been interested

in learning “about” Divine Presence; they expect to “know” the Divine through personal experience.

The perennial philosophy tells us this is not only possible, it’s our highest purpose. Best of all, experiencing the Divine is the beginning of a life of fearlessness that you can enjoy.

~ Lee and Steven Hager www.thebeginningoffearlessness.com/

~ To learn more about the perennial philosophy, read The Beginning of Fearlessness: Quantum Prodigal Son >>>Click Here

“Who, then, are you?” they ask. “What’s your secret?”

My secret can be summed up in one word: selflessness.

Selflessness is the Truth. Selflessness is the Way. Selflessness is the Fruit. In reality, there is no ‘you’ nor ‘I’ nor any ’self’ whatsoever. There is only Consciousness Itself — the One True God — which is what we are.

All that is necessary is to Realize This, because to Realize This is Wisdom, to Live This is Love, to Be This is Happiness. So, if you really want to know my secret, look to your ’self’.

In finding the source of your ’self’, you will find Consciousness Itself, and nothing else. Then, you, too, will be free of your self and all its sufferings.”

“Enlightenment, Realization, or Gnosis is nothing that can be attained through any of our conventional ways of knowing. This is because conventional knowledge is based on imaginary distinctions, which we take to represent reality.

The Reality that Gnosis reveals, however, is non-dual, and without distinctions.

To the extent that we reify the distinctions of conventional knowledge as inherently existing entities and objects, they act as veils to our Realization of this Non-dual Reality (‘I and the Father are one’).

Thus, to attain Gnosis we must surrender our belief that conventional knowledge gives us knowledge of Reality.”

~ From: Naked Through the Gate,, by Joel Morwood

~ To see and hear a 10-minute presentation by Joel, the director at the Center for Sacred Sciences, where he explains how Gnosis is beyond all concepts, how thought and language create duality, and how even “nonduality” is a relative concept: >>>

href="http://www.centerforsacredsciences.org/publications/online-video.htm">Click Here

Gnosticism has been defined as “a dualistic religious system that combines ideas from mythology, philosophy and the abstruse.” The ’system’, however, turns out to be so diverse and contradictory as to be almost meaningless. It’s like trying to define present-day Christianity by its estimated 3,800 denominations!

One scholar has tried to define Gnosticism in doctrinal terms as: “… the notion that the world is evil, the result of a rebellious angel (demiurge) attempting to create something apart from God. The goal (end) of the Gnostic’s existence is to escape the created world and return to the state of perfection that existed in the beginning, before the creation of the world.”

The early Roman Church gave the impresson that Gnosticism was an aberration or perversion of ‘orthodox’ Christian doctrine and existed from the 1st century CE to about the 5th when it was finally eradicated in a concerted effort by the Church and State powers.

But in actual fact Gnosticism was practiced many centuries before Jesus of Nazareth ever appeared on the scene.

George MacRae highlighted some of the evidence of pre-Christian gnosticism… and concluded that “for a growing number of scholars — now clearly in the majority — such evidence… enables us to rule out… that Gnosticism is to be seen as a heretical offshoot from Christianity’.”

In the early twentieth century, the New Testament scholar Wilhelm Bousset, who traced Gnosticism to ancient Babylonian and Persian sources, declared that “… gnosticism is first of all a pre-Christian movement which had roots in itself. It is therefore to be understood… in its own terms, and not as an offshoot or byproduct of the Christian religion.”

So it’s important to understand at the outset that Gnosticism could refer to a very wide range of religious beliefs and practices, that were generally esoteric in character, and which were often exploited by unscrupulous opportunists two thousand years ago as, indeed, they are right up to this very day.

Our main concern here is not Gnosticism as such, but the concept of gnosis. Gnosis (no-sis) would have been known in India when the Buddha was teaching as jnana (ya-na); both mean “knowledge,” in the sense of “wisdom,” and evidently, both words are from the same root.

The meaning of jnana, as summarized in an encyclopedia, is: “the eradication of the ignorance that sees the illusory multiplicity of the world as real, by attainment of knowledge of the Self (The Absolute),” which is regarded as “a single fundamental reality,” by the presence of which “there is no real distinction between the soul (or essential self) and God.”

As the renowned Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi, once observed: “It is due to illusion — caused by the ego, the ‘I am the body’ idea — that the kingdom of God (realm of Being) is conceived to be elsewhere.”

~ To read the complete article: >>>Click Here

~ Robert Wolfe

It was only when I met the non-dual message that the addictive cravings and obsession greatly diminished, to the point of being virtually absent. Presence was the key. I want to share this message

Through resting in presence, and allowing all thoughts, emotions, and sensations to be as they are, the addict begins to experience a newfound freedom to not follow each thought, emotion, or sensation that arises.

Through resting in presence, the pull towards the object or towards the future, can dissolve away on its own. This approach to recovery is more helpful than developing a better story or ego.

This approach helps the addict see through the ego itself. It helps the addict see through the sense of separation.

When the addict no longer identifies with thoughts, the thoughts are allowed to come through freely and uninterruptedly. But the clinging to those thoughts for a sense of self releases itself.

In that release, the addict stops seeing himself as an object, cut off and separate from other objects “out there.” Therefore the seeking towards those objects releases itself. And the incessant, over-active thinking relaxes.

Through presence, the addict experiences a quiet mind. That quiet mind is like a warm bath that embraces him in all situations, providing a sense of freedom, peace, and well-being.

When the addict experiences real freedom, peace, and well-being, the need for a fix dissolves away. And the need to identify himself as an addict or “sick person” falls away too.

~ by Scott Kiloby, From his about-to-be published book: Natural Rest: Finding Recovery Through Presence

~ This article is continued: >>>HERE

~ To see and hear Scott talking on YouTube about this new paradigm for recovery from addiction: >>>Click Here

Or, as it’s been said, “There are many paths up the mounatin, but the view from the mountaintop is ever the same.”

The masters of our Nondual Wisdom Tradition teach that the source, course and goal of the spiritual ‘path’, including any traveler on that ‘path’, are but different aspects of one indivisible ultimate reality.

So the core message could be stated as …

I am That, You are That, All this is That, There is nothing else but That, That is all there is.

The task of the seeker is to turn “That” into “This” by consciously realizing one’s true nature.

Another way of stating the core message is simply …

All there is is Consciousness. Consciousness is all there is.

In the statement above, you can replace Consciousness with God, Providence, Universal Mind, The Christ, The Buddha, Krishna, whatever (but not ‘creation’ or ‘the phenomenal world’).

The idea is that Reality is not two… there is actually no separation between you and God, or you and anything else (appearances notwithstanding). You — and every ‘thing’ around or within you — is simply God ‘manifesting’.

Consciousness (or God etc.) can exist without the manifest universe, but the universe could never exist apart from Consciousness.

~ To read the complete article: >>>Click Here

“One Bright Pearl” thoroughly expresses it even though not itself revealed in its name, and we can recognize it in its name.

“One Bright Pearl” directly transcends the eons, and because in eternal past it never ceased to be, it reaches up to the eternal present.

Though there is one’s mind now and one’s body now, they are just the One Bright Pearl. This grass or that tree are not grass and tree, nor are the mountains and rivers of the world mountains and rivers; they are One Bright Pearl.

Thus, the Bright Pearl, existing just so and being beginningless, transcends changes in time and place. The whole universe is One Bright Pearl.

We do not speak of two or three pearls, and so the entirety is one True Dharma Eye, the Body of Reality, One Expression. The entirety is Brilliant Light, One Mind.

When [the Bright Pearl] is the entirety, nothing hinders it. Round [like a pearl], it rolls around and around.

When it is just so, it hangs suspended in space, it is hidden in the linings of clothing, it is held under the chin [of a dragon], and it is worn in the hair topknot.’ All these are the One Bright Pearl as the whole universe.

It is its nature to be attached to the lining of clothing, so never say that it is attached to the surface. It is its nature to be guarded under the chin [of a dragon] or kept in a topknot, so do not think that it is found on the surface.

~ to read the complete article: >>>Click Here

~ by Master Dogen Ki-gen, From: Sounds of Valley Streams, Trans. Francis Cook.