What Leads to Awakening?

In a recent post, I spoke of how our gifts come, not from our suffering, but from the movement of life through us. This arose from the underlying idea that suffering is necessary and will lead to benefit. We notice that we suffer and then improvement comes along, so the suffering must have been the [...]

Experience and Belief

We tend to think of experience as superior to belief. But there’s a phrase that gives it away – Seeing is Believing.
The mind creates concepts about the world based on what we’re told and our own  experiences. With a few repeats, these are programmed into the habit mind. Future experiences remind us of prior ones, [...]

Effortless Meditation

For a core practice, I recommend an effortless meditation. While this is not what everyone needs, it is one of the most potent tools for most of us. Not only is there the rest and release, but the direct experience of allowing and of the inner Self.
However, I was reminded recently how poorly the idea [...]

One Process

A question from a good friend drew out an important point. Recently, I’ve written still more about the way reality can change in posts like “What Changes?“
Yet it doesn’t matter what model or way of seeing reality you have. We may see that the world is happening to me. We may see events as some [...]

What is the Illusion?

Over on Soul Awakens, Kris raised an important point that needs to be recognized.
The illusion of self
The illusion of self is not that your existence is an illusion. The illusion is the idea you exist separately. An independent entity. There is a false identification with our experiences that obscures who we rally are. That is [...]

All Life is in the Moment

At a certain point in our journey, we’ll begin to experience everything as being now. If we’ve had a very visual journey, we may experience time collapsing into the moment. The nodes of the mesh of our history becoming one point, all moving together. The series of “me”s from our past, all found to be [...]

Endings

On the journey, there are typically a series of openings that either follow or produce a falling away. The end of the old. Periodically, such falling away has a profound effect on one’s world view and life. Certainly, realizations are such changes, but also when core drivers are seen and end. I mentioned one such [...]

Deepest Release

It is fascinating to see the depth to which we can go with allowing, with letting it be as it is.
When we first begin on the path, we are long used to doing to accomplish. Pushing forward toward our goals. Gradually, it becomes clear that the spiritual path is not so much about doing but [...]

How to Listen

Recently, the art of correct listening has come up several times here and elsewhere. As Nirmala observed, a spiritual teachers job is to point the student at what is already present. The student’s job on the other hand is to listen correctly. Indeed, the entire story of our life can be told from where we [...]

Fullness of Emptiness

In a number of posts here, I use the term Fullness. I say things like “Everything is either fullness or resistance to fullness.” But what of emptiness?  Teachers like Adyashanti describe reality as an emptiness, the process as an emptying out.
We’re describing the same thing. This is one of the many apparent paradoxes of fundamental [...]