WHO ARE YOU, ...AND WHAT DO YOU WANT?

(A Work in Progress…)

Who are you?

You are not what you do.

You are not who you know.

You are not what you have.

Things are just things.

You are not what you know.

You are not your family.

You are what you experience. Experience changes moment by moment –You must learn to move with it.

You are what you feel.  Feel it.

Touch it, hear it, see it, smell it, taste it.  Move with it.

You are your sensory experience and your actions.

From your experience and your conscious awareness come your decision to act.

You can never know ahead of time whether the result of your action will be good or bad.

Good or bad is merely an interpretation of who you think you are.

When you act in narrow self-interest, you limit the possibility of good.

Goodness is Godness.

And we are all, all of us are God.

Seeing ourselves as God and all that we experience as God, connects us.  When we are connected we feel the pull of all of the strings of the universe at once and we are in balance.

When we act without connectedness, there can be only imbalance.  We become drawn by our desire of the moment and it pulls us off balance when we respond to it.

We desire and respond to what we think we want.

But want is unquenchable.  The more we move towards it the more it recedes.  Want comes from a feeling that something is missing inside of us, a hole we need to fill.  We fall into it because it is emptiness.  It is a bottomless hole. 

As we reach for it and try to hold it, it recedes into the past.  Just as we think it is within our grasp, it moves away from us.  We are not stationary.  We are in constant flux, moving toward the future. We are not empty, that is only an illusion.  We are full.  We are the universe.  We are everything and we need only to come out of the illusion that we are separate and apart from it.

Things or our perception of them are fixed in our memories.  They are what fragment us and separate us from who we are.  Our memories are not the things themselves, but rather a fixed perception of the past, like a photograph or a videotape.

By defining ourselves narrowly, in fragments as what we do , or what we know or who we know, we separate ourselves from everything else.  Separation keeps us away from people and the real things of life and when we are separated we are drawn to things to fill the holes in our lives.

Want is a thirst which is never satisfied because we think that having what we want will make us whole.

Only recognizing our connection makes us whole.  We are not separate.  That is the illusion.  We are all God.  We are all one.  We are connected.  We have only forgotten that we are.

Our EGO, our “I” stands alone and separate and needs things.  It is as real as anything else, but it only contributes to the illusion

There is nothing wrong with having things as long as out attachment to them, our grasping for them does not keep us from touching everything else.  The clutched hand cannot feel because it is not open.  And very quickly it even loses the sensation of the thing that it thinks it is holding.

There is nothing wrong with having things, experiencing them as long as we realize that things are ephemeral.  We can no more hold things than we can hold water or air in our cupped hands.

Still we reach for things and think we have them and we handcuff ourselves to them and this prevents us from moving or growing.  The universe is an ebb and flow.  Constant change.  We move through space and time.  When we attach ourselves to things we lose our freedom to move.  We chain ourselves to our possessions and our perceptions and we drag these things with us because they are familiar and feel comfortable.

I was particularly struck by this when I was traveling.  In an airport one is aware of the constant ebb and flow of people and things.  We have become a people on the move.  And yet as I sat and watched the movement (as I waited for my flight) I became aware of how much baggage some people were dragging along with them.  Suitcases and bags and packages under their arms, clutched in their hands, being dragged along behind them.  People pulling along, luggage, carrying or pulling children by the hand, carrying food and drinks.

The more baggage people carried, the more they struggled, frustrating themselves, annoying other travelers, tiring themselves out.

We burden ourselves with things we think we need and the more insecure we are the more we need to carry with us and the more it burdens us and frustrates us.

The surprising thing is that these folks know they are on a trip, they want or need to move and yet they drag large portions of their past with them and are frustrated by them.

We are all always moving.  It may not be as obvious as it was in the airport, but we are all constantly on the move whether it is going to work on a Monday morning or laying on a couch on Sunday afternoon.  The reality we have just left, disappears and we move into a new reality. And when we go back home even though it looks the same, it isn’t.  We are in a different time and a different place because who we were when we left in the morning is not who we are now.  It only seems the same because of the memories retained by our ego.  That is the illusion.  We are all, whether we like it or not moving through the airport, going somewhere.  And as much as we try to convince ourselves that we know where we are going and when we will get there, we are wrong.  We never really know our next destination.

The present quickly becomes the past and when we try to hold onto things that are no longer present, we are like a boat tied up at a dock.  The more that we are experiencing change, the higher the waves and the more we are buffeted against the pilings.  No wonder we often feel so battered and beaten.

A boat’s function is, after all, to sail and move with the waves and to be carried along with them.

We are all boats driven by the winds of time.  If we accept that and work with it, then we adjust ourselves to the wind and run before it, free and unfettered.  We flow with it and let go, as our unique self adjusts the sails and rudder because we all have a direction we are going.  While we are connected to everything and everyone, we are not an amorphous mass, undefined and blank.  We have come from somewhere and we are somewhere at a specific point in space and time and we are going somewhere, even though we may not have a firm idea of where that is.   And we therefore move from that point where we are and adjust ourselves to our connection with the universe and see where it is that we take ourselves.

When I am too convinced that I know what direction I should go, I often fight too hard against things that are not really restraining me.  I lose the ability to discover where my life can go if I let it.  And in my fear, I fail to recognize that wherever it goes, it is the right place, because that is where my Godself has chosen to be.  If I stop struggling against it, it will feel right and I will know I am on track because I am no longer struggling with it.

It is the flow of something moving into its natural place because that is where it needs to be.  It is atomic particles of different charges dancing their dance.  It is the boat of the soul, rising on a crest and dipping into a trough and then rising again, because that is what it must do and that is where it is supposed to be.  It is true freedom ad when we move with it and stay on our conscious surface, we are real and natural and we go where we belong at that particular moment.

THOUGHTFULNESS AND MINDFULNESS

When we are thoughtful (full of thought), we are ruminating through the attic.  We are exploring the past.  There may be times when we need to do that, but most of the time we need to be living the present.

We exist to be mindful (full of mind or consciousness).  We need to be experiencing the sensory surface rather than to be constantly evaluating it.

Our peak experiences are mindful experiences.  Lovemaking, for example, is not something we want to be analyzing as we experience it.  We want to feel the sensory surface and ride the wave of consciousness.  We live in the moment and simply experience.  All of life should be lived and experienced the way we experience lovemaking.

It is not that thought and thoughtfulness are wrong, that is a part of us too.  I am thinking as I write this, but I am also experiencing the feeling of writing and creating and that is the energy which drives this writing.  The experience of writing feels good.  The goal may be to publish ones thoughts, but the pleasure of writing comes while it is happening and the fingers are flying over the keys, and the mind is just turning and spinning and the ideas are just unfolding.  Experiencing conscious awareness is just that, an unfolding.  Watching the universe unfold before us.

THE TRAP

Recently, I fell into the trap of measuring my past and thinking I was at the end of my life.  (We are always falling into traps of our own making.)  We are never at the end of our life.  We are always at the beginning.  Even if we are a thousand years old (and we are always a thousand years old) we are always at the beginning because each new heartbeat is the beginning of a new life.

I met someone new and newness is newness and what I found was a love for myself and a love for her because she was fresh enough and grounded enough to see that I was at the beginning of my life and reminded me of it.   Each moment we spend together is new and I concentrate on the freshness of it and revel in it and I am alive as move through each new moment.

Love is connectedness.  When two people are lucky enough to find each other they begin dancing to the sounds of the music that they are creating and each new note is a new step and a new adventure.  As long as we stay in the moment, we don’t lose who a person was a moment ago.   Instead we discover who they are now and who they are becoming and who we are becoming.  Touching another is not holding them or restraining them out of fear of losing them, but rather sharing energy and life.  When we meet someone who is close enough and aware enough, we each experience our being by seeing its effects on them and they experience themselves in us and in the moment and everything becomes more real.  It is that intensity and realness that we feel as love and it feels that way because it is free.  It is connectedness without strings.  We stay connected by touching one another physically and mentally and emotionally.  Sometimes out of our fears of losing this feeling we try to pull them into ourselves or ourselves into them and we tend to lose ourselves and when that is lost, the ability to love is lost, because loving is giving ourselves to the universe and being open to the touch of the universe.  We cannot hold onto love any more than we can hold onto time.  Love flows it cannot stand still or be put in a box.  If we try to put it in a box is ceases to exist it becomes a memento, a trinket of the past.  It ceases to be able to become whatever it must become.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Wanting is a feeling of being incomplete, of lacking something.  It is based on our history.  As we grow and develop we compare ourselves to others and to the rest of the world.  We see what those close to us have and we see their happiness which appears to come from what they have (that we don’t have).  We begin to believe that happiness is comprised of having ‘things’.  Having a new toy, having a bike, having a new TV set, or a new video game, or new clothes makes people happy.  Or so we think.  Usually it is the newness that generates happiness.  The new toy at Christmas is a surprise and the surprise of it and the new experiences are the real source of happiness.  A few weeks after Christmas, the new toy usually ends up in the pile of our other things, and we crave something new.

Our very first feelings of wanting come from feeling safe.  When we are being held or fed, or when we are being given attention, we feel comfortable and safe, protected.  When any of these things change or are removed from us, we feel their absence and we want them back.

Change and newness…

Pleasure from things…

STIMULATION AND SAFETY.

Safety is a lack of change, a sameness. Having safety and security is comfortable because it is what we know.  What we know depends on our past and our memories.

Sameness, however, results in boredom.  We habituate to stimulation if it is persistent.  Our mind becomes so used to the same thing over and over again that we fail to even notice it.  Our memory of it becomes so tied to it that it becomes a part of us.  We can no longer distinguish between it and ourselves.  What we do notice is its absence.  When the thing is removed our experience and our memory do not mesh.  The sameness is gone and we are aware of the lack.

Our memory craves to be balanced by sameness, but our mind wants to explore.  Our mind needs to experience the universe as it is, constantly changing and constantly new.  Our memory wants things as they were.

Do we want what our parents want?

Do we want what our friends want?

Being like our friends is comfortable.  If we act like them and dress like them we become part of them.

Do we want what seems to make other people happy?

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, I’D RATHER BE SOMEPLACE ELSE.

To be someplace else is not reality.  We can only be where we are.  Reality is the time and place where we are and what is happening to us is what is happening to us.  Being open to the experience of it, to immerse ourselves in it is the natural thing to do.  To wish we were someplace else is to shut ourselves off from reality.  Not only do we not have the someplace else, we lose the present moment by avoiding it.  This is a thirst that can never be satisfied.  And it costs us dearly.

We want wealth.

We want security.

We want to be in control.

We want love or rather to be loved.

We want to feel good about ourselves.

We want the attention and positive regard of others.

We want knowledge.

We want health.

We want safety.

We want acceptance.

We want fame.

We want to be rich and famous or at the very least to be well-off and well-known.

We want adventure (or at least controlled adventure).

We want clothes, jewelry, food, drink, friends, cars, homes.

We want to be smart, to be beautiful, to be strong, to be happy,

We want never to have to want anything!

And we want it now.

We want to be in the future and because of that we ignore the present.

We are all expecting to live quite soon.

We want to have it all (What we don’t realize in our blindness is that we already do have it all.)  It is all there before us ready to be discovered, but to have it all we must stop clinging to the things that anchor us to the past and keep us from being open to the future.

WHY DO WE WANT?

We want because we see something that is elusive and free and that is what we want to be.  We are drawn towards freedom and newness and adventure.  We are drawn towards change.  It is our nature to do this and to be this.  Experiencing the freshness of a golden butterfly in the warm blue air.  Floating totally unencumbered on unseen currents.  Moving in whatever direction its instinct takes it.  It lights ever so gently on burgundy dripping petals surrounding a chocolate button reaching upwards toward the life-giving sun.  They kiss as they meet, touching tentatively, joining briefly as they move each in their own direction, each on their own mission.

And the feeling of the overwhelming beauty is so poignant and so beyond what we normally feel that we want to revel in it.  We want never to lose it, because it lifts us momentarily out of the everydayness that is our usual fare.   We want to catch the butterfly in our hands and cup it in our hands, hold it so we can keep the feeling.  We want to pick the flower so that we can carry it with us forever.

But to catch the butterfly is to crush its gossamer wings in our hands as it struggles to be free (as is its nature).  To pinch off the stem of the flower is to remove it from its source of vitality and beauty.  To hold onto that which is free is to destroy its freedom and its life.  It ceases to be what it is.  The butterfly is no longer free to lift itself back onto the unseen currents of air.  The flower is arrested in its thrusting toward the light.  The moment that was is no more.  We cannot hold onto a moment of time.  For in trying, we arrest ourselves. The roads we are all traveling have crossed and we encounter each other and smile for what we have all felt and then we move on in our individual journeys.  The instant will remain a part of all of us and we will remain a moment in the fabric of the universe.

But we must all move on.  We are not solid matter, but rather, energy and energy must flow.  It is its nature.  It is our nature.

We feel the desire to capture moments such as this because our consciousness is not fully awake.  We fail to see that each moment is as precious as the next.  To be awake and alive is to have the capacity to experience every moment with the vividness of this one.  For it is the recognition of the universe’s freedom to change and not to be fettered by the past, which draws us to these experiences.  It is the desire to feel this freedom ourselves which is what makes these occurrences so powerful.  The problem is that the more we are grounded in substance, the less we feel ourselves as conscious energy.  We have come to believe that the essence of life is in the objects of life and that if we only acquire those objects we will have what we seek.

Our memory and our perception separates the universe into things so that we can label them, categorize them, and hold onto them if only in our minds.  But separating the universe into things fragments it and isolates us from it.  We come to see ourselves as disconnected and we want to be connected.  That is the nature of wanting.  It is the desire for reconnection.

It is the delusion we all carry with us.  For in reality we are never disconnected, we are always totally connected.  It is a game we play with ourselves.  We pretend that we don’t know that we are all God.  That we have set up this stage so that we can amuse and entertain ourselves with the drama of life.  We go to plays, watch movies, and read books for the same reason.  We want to experience for brief moments all the pleasure and pain because it makes us feel more alive.  But we need to remind ourselves that it is only a game and that we ourselves have written the rules of the game.

And we can rewrite the rules as we choose.  We have forgotten this and we must remind (RE – MIND) ourselves constantly.

FAST FORWARD

Waiting for Christmas.

Sometimes we try to move through life too fast.  We want to get to some event which is in the future.  When I was a boy, I and almost everyone else I knew counted the days until Christmas.  I couldn’t wait for all of the fun and surprises and gifts that I was going to have on Christmas Eve.  The closer it got the slower the days moved.  The hands on the clock seemed to freeze and days never seemed to end.  I wanted to tear the days off the calendar so I could get to the good stuff.  Only later did I realize that the “good stuff” was going on moment-by-moment and I was letting it go by as I anticipated what was to come.

The Future Never Arrives.  It keeps on receding into the future, rushing ahead of us at a pace we can never catch up with.  It is the present that is our constant gift.  It is always here and it is the only reality which we have.  Even our excitement for what is to come is in the present moment.  We have to learn to enjoy that present excitement and everything else that is happening in the ‘now’.  ‘Nowness’ is our reality and it is intense if only we don’t try to mask it and push it away thinking about the past or imagining the future.  Keeping our mind ‘full’ of the sensory experience in which we are immersed, is the true happiness because it is real and it is all that we ever have.

Not Doing.  Sometimes to keep our finger off the fast forward button, we must stop all activity.  We must stop doing and just be “in the moment”.  We are after all, ‘human beings’ not ‘human doings’.  To meditate, is to stop the body and the thought process and just be in the moment.  When we are able to ‘do’ this, sensory experience rushes toward us with all of its intensity and we are truly being.  Of course we ‘do’ this by ‘not doing’.  We cannot make ourselves meditate, we must simply allow it to happen.  We engage our minds and ourselves in some totally repetitive process, like repeating a mantra or counting as we breathe and as we do it over and over again it becomes automatic and yet it preoccupies our thought process and lets our mind come to its fullness as the present washes over us as it flows into the past.