February 2007
Back to Archive index.
February 1st 2007
Today’s Gem -- Awareness Is What We Are
You are Seeing itself, constantly about the Seer's business. You are not the one who thinks she has a lease on seeing for a few years, during which time she wants it to show her that she possesses health, wealth and fame.
You are Awareness ITSELF and ONLY.
This is the most infinite "only" you can imagine, because it includes the infinity of Reality, the infinity of Love and the infinity of Health and Wealth -- not a mere part of it, but all of it!
Why? Because Awareness is God's consciousness of Itself! It is our good pleasure to be the witness of all God is! It is our good pleasure to be what God is being. It is our good fortune to be infinity itself, and consciously so.
From: 'A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity', by William Samuel. www.williamsamuel.com
Today’s Gem -- A Question of Identity
We act as the wrong identity when we act as the ego who possesses this consciousness called Life, and when we believe it is our personal property, the 'action' of a private mind.
We act this misidentity when we think of ourselves as one who is the recipient of Life.
We act the true identification when we reckon Identity to be Awareness (Life) itself.
We act the true identification when we declare that Awareness itself is being this Identity-I-am, when we act from the standpoint that Awareness only is being Identity-I, instead of the body-form which is merely the focal point of images within Awareness.
From: 'A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity', by William Samuel. www.williamsamuel.com
Today’s Gem -- Living From Presence
If you can see so much as a grain of sand, a fleck of dust or a blade of grass, if you can hear a sound or feel the form of any conceivable thing, then the totality of the Ineffable Godhead is present, at hand, here and now, the only fact of being!
Why are we so quick to acknowledge that "God is all" and that God is being every "thing," but so hesitant to act as if that which is being every "thing" is present?
If God is being all Awareness beholds, isn't God precisely where things are? Certainly! And, since God is all, isn't God being this Awareness that perceives things? Of course! Then why deny it and why act differently?
The simple fact is, when one acts as if God is present, the Godhead makes itself apparent in our every thought and action. Don't take my word for this. Be kind to yourself and try it. You will see.
From: 'A Guide to Awareness and Tranquillity', by William Samuel. www.williamsamuel.com
Today’s Gem -- Leela At Play
Source has come through Its infinite intelligence in this design of the intellect in order to create the very playing fields of limitation that It seeks with such an insatiable quest. And because every single mind/body organism has a unique personality that we call the ego, or that I call the "me" in contrast to the 'I' of Source, we see how Source has at least six billion different experiences of limitation each moment, and that's only on Earth.
Without the automatic response of a judgment to a thought, usually a negative one, which then causes the contraction of limitation, there would be no Divine Leela at play here.
Imagine a world without judgments, comparisons, opinions, and preferences, where everyone is perfectly attuned to Consciousness as the Source, and feeling the Oneness instead of his/her own separation. No drama, no conflicts, no storyline to get immersed in as though this were all real and not a dream. No egos fighting for dominance or recognition or revenge.
No more dualism, because the duality of the opposite polarities is seen as interconnecting sides that meet in the middle and cancel each other out.
Satyam Nadeen -- From Onions to Pearls www.satyamnadeen.com
Today’s Gem -- Maintaining the Balance
Imagine a world where all humans see and feel themselves as Pearls of pure Consciousness and no longer use their onion vision through their multilayered conditioning.
We are talking about total awakening to the original state of enlightenment and a world without limitation, which leaves only freedom.
What's wrong with this picture? You got it! This is a picture of Source back at rest again in infinite freedom, only now within a perfect world of appearance in the creation.
Remember the whole purpose of Source at rest was to create the world of appearance as the outlet for Its insatiable quest for limitation. It only allows freedom to exist alongside limitation as a balance point so that the whole experience doesn't get out of hand.
Satyam Nadeen -- From Onions to Pearls www.satyamnadeen.com
Today’s Gem -- The Ego's Fight Back
How do you think the individual ego personality is going to respond to this challenge to evaporate into the calm of being just a dreamlike, illusionary prop of Source's play? Why, as you can expect, it is going to fight back in its self-survival mode with everything it has that keeps it going and separate: fear, disgust, skepticism, doubt, revulsion, incredulity, and horror.
Bear in mind that this is in the natural mode of how it was designed by Source to function in order to keep this Maya and Leela alive. To believe and understand these statements would mean the death and disappearance of the ego. But this may be going against the grain of every experience in your whole life.
I think that is why traumatic events tend to stun and nullify the rigid structure of the ego, at least enough for the logical side of the intellect to shut down and the intuitive, creative side to open to Grace and the possibility of other realities not yet experienced in the realm of Spirit.
That's what happens sometimes, even on a good psychedelic trip. But that trip can't make a permanent change or dent in the ego. It's a door that slams shut as soon as it opens for a peek at freedom.
Satyam Nadeen -- From Onions to Pearls www.satyamnadeen.com
Today’s Gem -- The Grace to Surrender
What is needed to overcome a whole lifetime of conditioning and ego personality is for Grace to arrive at a point where we just give up all conventional wisdom with its specious answers to the problems of our human predicament.
We need the Grace to just surrender the power of the individual "doer" to the understanding that Source is the only movement in the lawful unfolding of manifest destiny.
Do not feel like the Lone Ranger here if you are feeling a little overwhelmed and confused by all of this. The ego personality is not normally going to just lie down and die as you consider these things.
But persevere in the knowledge that a seed has been planted that Grace can and will water, since you have made it this far into this seeming madness and total freedom.
Satyam Nadeen -- From Onions to Pearls www.satyamnadeen.com
Today’s Gem -- Illusions of Free Will
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to those of you running around with your head stuck in the tiger's mouth of awakening is breaking through the big, fat, juicy layer of conditioning centered around your free will and intentional efforts at life.
It sure feels like you were born with free will. Everything you've learned about New Age awareness says that you are responsible for your thoughts and actions, that thoughts create reality, that energy follows thought, and that you should take responsibility for your life and improve it on all levels: spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, cultural, sexual, artistic, and so on.
Remember that it is with infinite intelligence and wisdom that Source makes the dream we live in so real, and that it's hard to argue with our seeming illusions of free will.
And that's by Divine design! It is the intentional efforts of the "me" ego to improve, change, make better, and ameliorate your life conditions that keep limitation alive and well.
Satyam Nadeen -- From Onions to Pearls www.satyamnadeen.com
Today’s Gem -- Understanding Is All
There is one aspect of free will allowed, though: the freedom to think you have free will. But this in no way changes the actual truth that you are simply not the doer. You are being done at every moment by Source.
You ,don't exist as separate from Source except in your fantasy of separation. There is no you as "me." There is only Consciousness as "I AM" in appearance and "I - I" at rest.
Your efforts to change life from what it is --- as is, into something different are futile. You are headed down the path of destiny that was laid out at the moment of your conception. If you accomplish some planned goal in your life, it is a coincidence because the plan was already established by Grace and Destiny. It happened in spite of you and not because of you. Source is very cleverly keeping you confused about who's in charge here.
Once you awaken and it sinks in that all there is, is Consciousness, and you as the "me" are not the doer, then only one course of nonaction remains open for you to relax into -- that is, just be. Do nothing -- understanding is all!
Satyam Nadeen -- From Onions to Pearls. www.satyamnadeen.com
Today’s Gem -- The Accumulation Game
The mind, the body, and the emotions play this game called accumulation. They evaluate one piece of conceptual knowledge against another piece of conceptual knowledge. "How does this piece compare to that one? And how does that compare to this?"
We like to compare our experiences with others. "What have you experienced? Oh, I haven't experienced that, but I have experienced this; have you?" "This is what I believe; what do you believe?"
Then the emotional body asks, "Is this it? Is this the right experience? Am I having the experience? Why don't I have the experience?" The body-mind collects more things to do, more techniques, more this, more that.
The mind and body tend to follow old patterns, making horizontal movements, collecting facts, teachings, teachers, beliefs, and experiences. That's the predominant way most people live their lives horizontally, not vertically. Then they bring that movement into their spiritual lives. But it doesn't matter how much horizontal accumulation of knowledge and experience you have; more information does not equal greater depth.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti. www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Beyond The Mind
Now, in this moment, you can realize that you are truly not going to get anything from my words, that whatever your mind absorbs and accumulates as knowledge is not going to get you any more depth. None. Zero. Nothing.
It will just get you more horizontal movement. It will just get you more knowledge.
Maybe that's what you want, maybe not. But as soon as you realize the limitation of mind, the mind feels very disarmed because it has so much less to do.
There is an invitation beyond the wall of knowledge, which is not to some regressive state before the mind can operate, but a transcendent state that's beyond where the mind can go. That's what spirituality is. It's going where the mind cannot go.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Letting Go
Try imagining you come up to a wall. There happens to be a door in it. You open the door and walk through the wall. Now to go deeper in, you are going to have to leave the wall behind.
If you reach back and hold the wall with one of your hands and try to get your feet to walk, you are not going to get very far. So when you really want to get depth, transcendent depth, you are faced with whether or not to let go of the mind.
What the mind says is, "I'll let go a little bit, but I'll stuff a lot of that knowledge in my pocket for the journey. I might need my concepts somewhere along the line."
It will start to ask lots of questions. "Is this safe? Is this wise? Am I going to be stupid?" As if all wisdom is contained in the collection of knowledge. Mentally, psychologically, people tend to get very insecure when they go completely past their accumulation of knowledge.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- You Go Naked
The mind can't fathom that there can be a true intelligence, a transcendent intelligence, that isn't the product and outcome of thought and conceptual understanding.
It can't fathom that there could be wisdom that's not going to come at you in the form of thoughts, in the form of acquired and accumulated knowledge.
The true spiritual urge or yearning is always an invitation beyond the mind. That's why it's always been said that if you go to God, you go naked or you don't go at all. It's the same for everybody. You go in free of your accumulated knowledge, or you are forever unable to enter.
So an intelligent mind realizes its own limitation, and it's a beautiful thing when it does.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- A Great Mystery
When you stop holding on to all of the knowledge, then you start to enter a different state of being. You start to move into a different dimension. You move into a dimension where experience inside gets very quiet.
The mind may still be there chatting in the background, or it might not, but consciousness is no longer bothering itself with the mind. You don't need to stop it. Your awareness just goes right past that wall of knowledge and moves into a very quiet state.
In this quietness, you realize that you don't know anything simply because you aren't looking back to the mind for its acquired knowledge. This quietness is a mystery to the mind. It is something unknown. As you go into depth, you literally go into a deeper experience of what seems to be a great mystery.
Now the mind might come in and want to know what's going on and start to define everything, but that's not going to bring any more depth. The mystery just keeps opening to itself if you let it -- if you let go of control.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Still Here
As acquired knowledge is left behind, what is found is that you have left your familiar sense of self behind. That self only existed in the accumulation of knowledge and experience.
Something very interesting happens when you leave it all behind, because you are literally leaving your memory behind.
You leave behind who you thought you were, whoever you thought your parents were, and everything else you thought and believed. Yesterday is gone.
Then a very interesting thing starts to be noticed: you can leave all of that behind and still you are -- you are right here and right now. So what you are becomes even more mysterious.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Thoughts Are Not What I Am
When you realize that you can leave every self-definition behind and still you are, then you begin to see that these thoughts must not be what you are.
In other words, who are you when you are not thinking yourself into existence? Who are you when you give up all thoughts, even the ones that you are not supposed to question, such as, "I am a human being. I am a woman or I am a man. I am somebody's daughter or son."
You start to see that when you are not thinking yourself into existence, who you have taken yourself to be literally isn't there anymore.
If this "you" can disappear like that and reappear as soon as you think it into existence, how real is it?
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Lose All Gain All
My worldwide wheels can neither exist nor turn without this unmoving hub; my worldwide body has no organ half so vital as this subvital and indeed subphysical heart of hearts.
Here are key and keyhole and door in one -- the central emptiness that is the key of the Kingdom, the keyhole that leads to Wonderland, the needle's eye that is the gate of Heaven.
Through this point of entry I am in all the world and all the world is in me. And if, having entered, I am capable of many things, it is because capability means room; if I am a thinking reed it is because, reed-like, I am coreless. 'Cogito ergo NON sum'.
And common sense, forever trying to salvage some miserable chattel for me, only breaks the conditions of that universal policy of insurance whereby unlimited comprehension is given to those who lose all.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang (Editor). Reprinted by permission. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Paradox
Your true Nature is the Paradox to take care of all paradoxes: There is nothing that is not you and nothing that is you;
The Aware Space is and isn't its contents; you care and you don't care; you control things and they just happen.
This may sound silly, but in fact it is the perfection of wisdom. And it works. Spiritual life is all paradox. It's the union of opposites. It's having your cherry cake and eating it.
It finds you on the way Home and all the way Home, seated, with your feet up, by the fire of God's love.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang (Editor). Reprinted by permission. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Suffering
The strange thing about suffering is that by taking it on you go through to the underlying peace that passes understanding. Some people seem to suggest that when you see Who you are, there is no more suffering. On the contrary. In a way, it's the exact opposite of that. You take it all on.
You take on the pain of creation, not only human suffering but the whole tragic history of the world and the suffering of other centuries -- not because you are a saint or a good person. You have no option. That's the way you are made, and that's the way through.
I'm not saying, mind you, that a life consciously lived from its true Center will be safe or painless, easy or consistently joyful. Real adventure is made of sterner stuff. You embrace the suffering of the world no less than its splendor and its thrill.
The real joy, the joy that casts no shadow and knows no variation, has come through the fire. You could say that the remedy for suffering is homeopathic.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang (Editor). Reprinted by permission. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Faith
The solution to a problem, no matter 'what' it is, is to see 'whose' it is. Not to understand or feel or think who has the problem, but actually to gaze on that WHO and await what comes of the gazing.
This seeing and this waiting you can always do, whatever your need. The rest is out of your hands.
See what happens and trust it.
Trust Who you are to come up with the right answer at the right time.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang (Editor). Reprinted by permission. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Loving
If we really look, surely we can see we are built for loving. We are built open, as capacity for the other one.
If one experiences oneself as space for the other, one listens, one looks, one attends to the other. And the other one feels attended to, feels entertained and valued, because after all if you have nothing where you are, no face, no thing at all, that other one is doing you a marvelous service of supplying you with this fascinating scene.
It means that I'm going to let others be what they are, because space has no way of manipulating and using and exploiting them. Space is very patient, very hospitable.
This is a totally different thing from the imagined basis of our perswonal relationships, which is a symmetrical one. In a certain sense it is the very basis of loving.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang (Editor). Reprinted by permission. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Unity
To every being accordingly, I say -- not lightly but with all my heart: Here in the depths of me, as Who I really, really am, I am the One you really, really are.
Though we may belong to vastly different regions and eras, wear vastly different faces, enjoy vastly different experiences of the world, all these are peripheral matters, matters of accident and time and content.
They are transcended in the one central, timeless Container and Essence in which I'm aware of myself as you, and you, and you, ad infinitum.
The barriers are down, our wounds are healed, and we are well again because we are One again.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas Harding. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang (Editor). Reprinted by permission. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Something You Choose
Forgetfulness or non-forgetfulness is not a part of your destiny. It is something you choose from moment to moment. That is what Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) said.
He said that you have the freedom either to identify with the Self and have the understanding that the body is performing its predestined activities, animated and sustained by the power of the Self, or you can identify with the activities of the body and the mind, and in doing so forget the Self.
If you choose the latter course, don't blame God or God's will, or predestination.
God did not make you forget the Self. You yourself are making that choice every second of your life.
From: Final Talks, by Annamalai Swami
Today’s Gem -- Experiencing Emotions Fully
When you fully experience any negative emotion, with no story, it instantaneously ceases to be. If you think you are fully experiencing an emotion and it remains quite intense, then recognize that there is still some story being told about it -- how big it is, how you will never be able to get rid of it, how it will always come back, how dangerous it is to experience it.
Whatever the story of the moment may be, the possibilities of postponing direct experience are endless.
For instance, when you are irritated, the usual tendency is to do something to get rid of the irritation or to place blame either on yourself or someone or something else as the cause of the irritation. Then the storylines around irritation begin to develop.
It is actually possible to do nothing with the irritation, to not push it out of awareness or try to get rid of it, but to directly experience it. In the moment that irritation arises, it is possible to simply be completely, totally, and freely irritated, without expressing it or repressing it.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- Facing Fear
Fear is often the biggest challenge because it is what most people habitually attempt to keep away. Of course as they try to keep it away, it grows even larger, hovers even closer.
What I am suggesting is that you can actually open to fear; you can experience being afraid without any need to say you are afraid, and without following any thought of being afraid. You can just simply experience fear itself.
When I speak of directly experiencing fear, I am not speaking about physiologically appropriate fear. The response to physical danger, fight or flight, is natural and appropriate to the human organism. It is hardwired into the body for its survival. For instance, it is appropriate to get out of the way of an approaching bus.
But the fears that I suggest be directly met, all the way through, are the psychological fears, the fears that keep our energy and attention bound unnecessarily in protection and defense, such as the fear of emotional pain or the fears of loss or death. When a psychological fear is met rather than resisted and run from, it often reveals an even deeper emotion.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- The Diamond Discovered
A deep sadness or hurt may be revealed under fear. This, too, can be directly and completely experienced with no need of a storyline. If you are willing to experience these emotional layers all the way through, you will finally approach what appears to be a deep abyss. This abyss is what the mind perceives as nothingness, emptiness, no-body-ness.
This is an important moment, because the willingness to be absolutely nothing, to be nobody, is the willingness to be free. All of these other emotional states are layers of defense against this experience of nothingness -- the death of who you think you are.
Once the defenses are down, once the door is open, then this nothingness that has been feared can be met fully.
This meeting is the revelation of true self-inquiry, revealing the secret gem of truth that has been hidden in the core of your own heart all along. The diamond discovered 'is you'.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- Deeper Into Yourself.
You have the power to simply stop and say, "Fear, anger, grief, despair - okay, come." When you say, "Okay, come", and you really mean it, and you are truly open, the emotion cannot come because in that moment you are not telling a story about it. I invite you to check this out for yourself.
Fear, anger, grief, or despair only exists when linked to a story! Yes, this is an amazing, simple, yet profound discovery. It is huge! You can actually recognize that what you are running away from does not, in truth, finally exist, and what you are running toward is already always here.
When Columbus and other explorers discovered the "New World", they all came back and said, "There is more out there than we know about, the earth is not flat.” But many people responded, "Oh no, I am not going there. The sea demons will get me. I will fall off the earth."
It is with this same primitivism that we view our emotions. If you are willing to fall off the edge of the earth, you will see that you yourself hold the earth, and you cannot "fall off" from yourself; you can only go deeper into yourself.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- Your True Nature
In the Western spiritual subculture in particular, some people are fairly open to experiencing their emotions because it gives them a sense of depth and a sense of freedom. But this can become a cover for the fear of experiencing no emotion whatsoever.
Defining yourself as an emotional being is perhaps a step deeper than defining yourself as a purely mental being, but it is not all the way home.
What you avoid in defining yourself as an emotional being is emotion-less-ness, nothingness, emptiness. Once you have experienced pure emptiness, you know directly that who you are cannot be defined by any mental or emotional state, and this knowledge is freedom.
When you do not define yourself by emotional states, then the emotions are free to arise because they don't mean anything about who you are. You know directly that all states are simply passing through the pure space that is your true nature
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
---
