I Was Thinking…

I remember myself going through the notions about one particular topic – a reason for the pain, why?

Notion 1 (my teen age). It’s not fair.

Notion 2 (my age of atheism). It’s random.

Notion 3 (my age of search for the God). It’s karma, punishment for mistakes

Notion 4 (my age of intellectualization). It’s just for a lesson to be learned through painful events.

The last notion stayed with me for a while as it seemed there is nowhere else to go with it. Until I relished one day – it cannot be truth. There is nothing designed to serve the dream, only the oneness that is outside of the dream. The behavior, personality, pleasure and suffering is a part of a make up of the dreamed world. No universal laws emerged to serve it.

So, the question just hanged in the air unanswered and it was ok, just have no answer, and the question itself somewhat dissolved.

Today during the meditation I observed the moments of dealing with discomfort that body finds itself with after long sitting in a particular posture, and slight pain associated with the process of getting up back on my feet (literally LOL). I was getting up very slowly, paying attention to sensation in each muscle.

And thought came…. The pain is here simply to slow us down and return us to the present moment. As all there is true is the present moment. Each moment… In a hunt for pleasure we skip moment by moment, without acknowledging it, without noticing its texture. But when pain paralyzes us, it holds us bounded with the present.

So, that’s my notion #5 (my now). Will have to see how long it stays with me… We change… Tx “god”!

Even those that mastered the life will be once in a while visited by fears. Fear will never dissolve completely, it’s impossible at its core.

Fears, sadness and other contracting expressions of ego will be always there as long as the ego is alive.
As we progress on our spiritual path we refer to ego as some strange entity that has to be dissolved. Once again, this task can never be accomplished during any lifetime. It is impossible not only on practice, but even theoretically.

The ego is the only proof of the human life; it is the only evidence that we live in the body.
If ego is dead the person is dead. I don’ necessarily mean that it drops dead and the heart stoops beating, but what defines life, what is expressed in human experience, will disappear.
So, the ego simply reminds us through fears and other contractions that we are alive.
It might sound philosophical and confusing, but it’s actually very simple.

“I am” is an ultimate state of existence, it is not life as we know it. It is not a human experience, it’s the ultimate life, but not a human life. Only when a personality is formed that can sense expressions of life, then we can say “I am alive”. We experience our aliveness through aliveness of the ego.
If ego is dropped completely, the personality is drooped completely and the vehicles that experiencing is destroyed. Then one can move what is called last stage of Samadhi, enlightenment. But then you as you know yourself is not alive anymore. There is no “you” anymore. No personality, no individuality that is alive. Therefore “you” as a person are dead. The ultimate Iamness is there, but it always has been… and always will be there… You appeared and will disappeared, Iamness is not affected by it.

Once I have found myself on the crossroad - to be alive or die. No, not suicide. Not at all. Well, figuratively speaking it also could be applicable. The choice was to remain in the state of Samadhi, an ultimate existence or re-experience my “self” in the body and complete this lifetime embodied. The choice was the life of a human. The ego would be the main defining element of such state of being. There is no alternative to it. None. All the talk about dissolving the ego is a pure nonsense. Impossible even in theory if one understands the basic concept of the ego, it’s nature and functions. Ego is here to preserve “your” life.It’s that simple. As far as you choose to live in this body, accept inevitable - there is no way of life without fears and occasional destructive emotions.

Accept it and learn to enjoy all expressions of life… Because you’ve chosen it at least once….

Unless you as a person are alive, there ego will be always there. All one can do is to master it, to develop ego-management skills.  Recognizing it for what it is is the first step in ego mastery.

Love and peace to you, passerby.

God is nothing but our subjective experience of God. Search for the God is to be ended. It’s not “there”, it’s not “here”, it’s neither within nor without…

When words “this” or “that” will stop make sense for you;

When you can sit still without a restlessness and expectation of the next moment to come;

When happiness is not to be sought anymore and suffering is not to be avoided no more;

When neither offence nor praise will stroke your ego;

When you can be equally content driving a Lamborghini or walking barefoot and penniless;   

When churches, cults and religious wars start look like a joke;

When you neither feel guilty nor indulge in a pleasure while finishing a chocolate bar;

When you ca enjoy every bite of your meal but take only as much as your body asks for to be nourished;

When making love to s stranger with full presence and open heart stops feel dangerous or immoral;

When neither feeling of being in love nor out of love consumes you;

When your mind will keep remaining still as you catch yourself making the biggest mistake of your life;

When your body stops demanding adrenaline but will be able to withstand any amount of it without you loosing balance;

When you will be attentive enough to hear birds singing and train passing moles away;

When you keep catching passersbys smiling at you for no particular reason;

When you realize that rare moments of remained struggling with content of the current moment is nothing but a habit;

When you are offered a fortune and managed to feel equally ok either you put it in your pocket or leave where it is;

When you can easily live out of a suitcase after residing for decades in a mention, and with the same ease can return to a mention with no sense of guilt or shame;

When you will notice that your memories are equal towards those that you’ve loved and those you’ve hated in times of delusion;

When you will see things with your eyes closed and know things without engaging intellect;

When you will hug a diseased man without worrying about your own health;

When in a basket of your desires none of them will conflict with each other;

When after falling with your face in dirt you get up with a smile on your face;

When neither debt nor billions will make you sleepless;

When neither physical nor emotional pain is neither sought nor rejected;

When killing and stealing stops feel like forbidden actions, but your mind doesn’t suggest acting on this allowance…

… then and only then you will “meet” and know God. And since this meeting your life will never be the same…as it stops being yours.

Less one talks about God and attempts to prove either existence or non-existence of God, more chances he has to experience God.

When more people arrive to true experience of God instead of faking God or no-God in their lives, only then conflicts manifested in various acts of violence will end, poverty will be reduced and human suffering will end.

Then the new era in evolution of humanity begins…

Do you remember that evening that you call a nightmare?
You came after a busy day and just want to unwind by sipping a glass of wine with a friend or cuddling with a loved one. But neither is available. Friends don’t respond to your emails, loved ones made other plans for the night as they thought you will be busy - everybody seem to create some sort of sabotage, the world is against you. And you feel  disconnected, rejected, abandoned, unloved, unwanted and finally… forgotten.

So, what did you chose to do in on one of those days? Pity yourself diving in your loneliness ending up watching a TV show you don’t care about with a pack of popcorn?

Did you feel like the biggest looser in the history of humanity without realizing that you just won a lottery? The universe planed thoroughly all circumstances to make sure that your sweetheart is shopping for new shoes with girlfriends and your buddies are stuck in traffic or got sent for an overseas trip that they really didn’t want to take on.

And why do you think all those troubles? For your own good, dummy!  So, you slow down for a moment and go within. If you’ve chosen a meaningless entertainment that you don’t even enjoy anyways, be sure, you will get more of those days… as they were planed for you with love, and you are just not listening the voice that whispers it’s time to reconnect with yourSelf.

So, take a bath with a few candles in a silence indulging in reflections and self-observation… Or have an hour of meditation, either sitting quietly or cooking a healthy meal for yourself taking time that you otherwise never find. Whatever you do, watch your thoughts passing by, without clinging to any. Let them all go. Let whatever is untrue to pill off like an onion’s coat.  Find your core beyond all mental noise.

And feel a gratitude to the universe for a lottery you’ve just won. Say “thank you, mommy”. 

Accordingly to many world religions human life is suffering. BUT… The way of ending suffering exists…
I see few stages in life when we feel puppy happy:

First. When we haven’t lived our life yet, didn’t experience disillusionment and losses.
Second. When we are in denial, not in touch with our experience, emotions and feelings. When our responses to life’s events are repressed, unseen, unrecognized.

But there is s third one. When we live a life of purpose through service.

But then again, there are three stages here again.

First. When we serve for others. We see pain and we want to extend our hand to help releasing it.
Second. When we serve for ourselves, for our own sense of meaning and fulfillment.

None of above two stages guarantee sustainable happiness, only glimpses of happiness, because our happiness relies on appreciation of our efforts by others, on the size of impact measured by our egos. And usually it’s just never enough. You have to deal with misunderstandings of your motives, misjudgments, misconceptions. You ego is there, it will make your mind react, it makes your hear itch, it makes your soul feel lost, it makes yourself feel disempowered and your body week.

I have been bouncing in those two stages for years trying to understand if there is any other way to live and serve? I kept asking the universe where my (or anybody’s) ego ends and takes the pain with itself away form my true self. How to transition in to selfless state when none of this nonsense invented by human personas can touch me, can shake my intents, can move me away from my path. As I kept asking I kept seen more and more expressions of ego. It felt there is not way out of this mess unless I reach enlightenment, this ilusionary Mecca of every spiritual being is craving for.  But what if there is no such things as enlightenment for us, ordinary extraordinary beings, what if enlightenment is only a concept, or a spontaneous mental conditions caught by few lucky ones  (smile).Yes, it’s a whole separate discussion all together, so I will live enlightened beings alone for now.

So, if life of service neither for others or yourself doesn’t guarantee happiness, what can then?

And the answer lies in a third stage to which one sooner or later arrives… It’s service for God… when your focus in service is razor sharp with clear sense of purpose that has nothing to do with your or others’ outlook on it.

One doesn’t have to be religious to understand what it really means. I don’t consider myself religious even thou some of the religions I respect (while others strongly disapprove). I don’t believe in gods elephants or monkeys, I don’t believe in embodiment of gods in few rare humans even thou some indeed came closer to the God’s nature (Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and other avatars).

But I strongly believe in the God within us, withing every alive being, a energetic substance that defines our Divine nature, one that unites us versus separates, one that makes us true brothers and sisters like in a church! I wish I could invent other lingo with the same meaning).

Only by serving for the God we loose ourselves, our false identities, personas. By entrusting ourselves to our divinity we start seeing the irrelevance of all egos strategies to take us away from the truth.  But only by finding the truth and dedicating ourselves to life of truth we can find true happiness… Find and share with others.

Do you life the life of truth or you just keep comfortably existing, keeping smile on your face not realizing that it’s a muscles habit, not an expression or pure joy? Look at the mirror and ask yourself, do my eyes smile when my lips stretch in a smile. Then go deep within and search for YOUR truth. Until then, do the world a favor, stop polluting the environment with that grin of yours  :-)  Be true to yourself. Find yourself. First through others, and then through the God in you.

Ones who are fed by human love and rely on it as a drug are addicts that are doomed one day wake up with no drugs available and no place to buy it. Friends get married or find jealous girlfriends [or boyfriends], loved ones focus on their eqoic selves or find another shoulder to cry on.

At the end of the day the only sustainable source of love is you. If you don’t learn to nurture the source, don’t make sure that this source is always taken cared of, you will always in search of another human that will spare few drops of love.

Human love is rarely altruistic. While loving, humans satisfy their needs. Those that claim that their love is unconditional are simply unconscious. It takes a very careful self-examination to uncover conditions and real motives.

One “loves” because you praise their ego, another exercises his/her spiritual advancement while loving you “unconditionally”, someone else just pities you while another admires you and puts on pedestal as their own trophy.

Human love is lust… lust, craving for wholeness….one is searching for his own meaning through you…lust is dust.

The source of love is not out there, is within you. Until you get it, until you embrace it fully, not just on intellectual level, but your whole existence finally arrive home… until then your name is loneliness…

This ultimate realization won’t come just because you hear this statement and agree with it. Your mind agrees, your soul doesn’t. You can not make it to agree, you can only make it to tolerate.

Tolerance to this truth is not enough. It’s only a bridge. You need to cross the river to separate you, one who is watching a land from a little island that you call yourself.

You can only arrive to this truth through the silence, but even then it’s a partial realization. Some aspiring soul searchers choose isolation. Yes, silent self-observation brings you closer to the truth, but will never takes you there. By spending more time with yourself one doesn’t create an environment in which ego and sense of self dissolves as all there is you with yourself. So, you make your sense of self even stronger. You dissolve self only by merging with others, merging with nature, merging with all events that life prepared for the humanity, both - labeled good and bad.

The shortcut for absorbing the truth lies in service. It’s through service to others you “loose yourself”. Others can be your spouse, a family member, a neighbor whose name is Pain In An Ass; the others can be your enemy or a stranger.
Learn to serve, learn to forget your own needs and you will arrive home and experience love as no other… Because all there is… is love…

And then you can love you partner, love your friends… But there will be only joy in this love, no clinging, no withdrawal… no ego. Only love.

Did you place your attention on anyone besides you today for longer then few minutes?

Pick up the phone then or knock at their door. Start serving those whop are close and might need your compassionate presence. Then go out there and find those that are in need. Stop being a coward.

You want love? Give all your love to the world without holding back. Otherwise all your spiritual mambo jumbo is an act of masturbation without a lubricant.
You heard me!

Suffering can not exist in the world of wholeness; it only finds expression in the world of separation.

Suffering is in the roots of mentality of “I” am separate from “you”, ”I” need to protect “myself” from “you”, “I” need to outsmart “you”.

Suffering would not have a place in the world of abundance; it’s only in an imaginary world of lack and deficiency, the world of scarceness.

We perceive pain as something that belongs to “me”, joy as something that belongs to “me”. Conflicts between people perceived a relationship between two entities… And we try to manipulate and solve them, we get upset and angry, wanting revenge or at least a sharp come back.

If only we woke up from the dream of separation we would stop feeling all emotions and feelings as “mine” and interactions as “inter-mine”. We would see that it’s all there is, LIFE, the ocean that has waves, always has, always will be. The wave penetrates one living creature, arising the wave within the body (observe your body, that’s the only place that holds stormy emotions) and then the wave moves to the extension of the body - another living being; and it seems like a person just had an emotional response, reacted. But it’s nobody’s emotions, emotions that belong to nobody. Waves carry them from place to place. Wave passes through John, moves to his Wife Susan, from Susan to her boss Neil, from Neil to his daughter Monica… And so the wave travels… always…

But unless awakened from the dream we believe that the feelings are ours, and we feel guilty… Or feelings are his/hers, we assign ownership and feel angry… We want to hold someone responsible and feel guilty if it’s on “me” and angry/resistant if on someone one outside of “me”. And the mess of delusion keeps spreading like a disease…

But what if nobody is responsible?

What if it’s just a life of the wave?

What id you at least try to lucid dreaming?

So, you are unsure of why you exist if press is not hunting your ass? You keep forgetting passerbyes whose heart your manage to touch with a simple smile, with a work of encouragement, with few ideas shared that now you’ve forgotten…

Who are making a difference in the world, people who plan the seeds or those who “take it from there” and grow the trees? If equally both, why do we praise executors for commitment and perseverance while forgetting about those who gently created the initial foundation for fostering the change?

Seed planter, it’s only the ego that strives for the spotlight… Your authentic self shall never doubt the impact you make on the overall evolution of “the game”.

Disregard suffering of your ego and keep walking… More places your feet step into, more seeds might be planted… Keep your inner container always clean, filled with morning dew. Forget about the unattained, forget about missed glory, just keep planting.

Human soul is a deep ocean… populated by nothing but love… but visited by all sort of little creatures from the land of Mind – fears, disillusionment from unreached expectations, doubts…

Until visited, the ocean just is…

As visitors interfere the silence of the ocean, so comes the search of the ocean’s for its own meaning…

A simple man searches for his meaning in small deeds. An ambitious man searches his greatness in reflection of his deeds on the cover of Fortune magazine or Philanthropy web.3.0. (no such thing yet? watch it, someone will like the idea and launch it).

Some of us have a razor sharp focus, others with undiagnosed ADDs wonder around the world in hope to find that one thing to commit to. And those with razor sharp focus after using in a toilet Fortune magazine with their face on the cover, start envy those who lived unencumbered, while those who’ve lost many shoes traveling wish they committed to one place and one vision for a greater impact.

Do simple men or ambition men have any peace in their pursuit for meaning?

The last roadblock in one’s search for life’s purpose is an a habit to arrive to presence of “me”.

For either creating or destroying a  habit, it takes only 30 days. Watch “me” knocking at a door of your heart, and have inner strengths to say NO each time…. with love and compassion to “me” from the space of non-me.

I believe in a natural emergence of the rest…