Month: December 2016

You are a completely unique and irreplaceable portion of All That Is (which might also call God or Source). God loves you, specifically and personally, so much- far more than any love you have likely ever experienced on Earth! You are more wonderful and precious and valuable to Her than you can even conceive! The reality of those statements cannot be articulated in words, or even thoughts- it can only be personally known and deeply experienced.

And yet we live in a world where for many of us that experience is not commonly known. Why?

Neale Donald Walsh shared a great metaphor to answer this question, which I will paraphrase here. Imagine that everything that existed was light and love. Imagine that a small bright soul rejoiced and existed as a single light within the ocean of light, which was God. The soul said to the ocean of light of which it was a part, “I am the light! I am the light!” And God replied joyfully, “Yes, yes you are!” And they rejoiced together and reveled in existence. But eventually the soul said, “But God, what does it mean to be the light?” For as it had always been light amongst light, it knew nothing else! It could not conceive of that which it had never been; no contrast existed for it. The soul in its joy innately wanted to do something, to add to the light, to participate in Creation! And so God said, “I love you so much that I can provide a way to you that you can better understand what it means to be the light.” The soul replied excitedly, “Wow! How?” And God said, “In order to be more fully of the light, you must experience and temporarily become that which you are not: darkness.” The soul was ecstatic that such an adventure and opportunity existed for it, that it could become even more by experiencing contrast, and add to the light- so it excitedly agreed to participate in the experience! God said to the little light, “To experience what you are not, you must temporarily forget that you are the light. And yet even while you have forgotten, you cannot ever truly be other than what you are- for you are the light.” And the little soul set out on a great adventure, to see how much it could actually be and engender the loving Source from which it came…

So it is with us here on Earth. We have chosen to have an experience of contrast and limitation, to have a context within which to make choices and exercise our intent, so as to participate in Creation and evolve the quality of our beings towards love! We seek to exercise love even in the face of great challenge. We have received an amazing gift! We don’t often think of physical reality with all of its hardships as a gift- but indeed, a gift it is.

You may have forgotten the wonderfulness that you are, but truly, you are a cherished, marvelous, powerful, bright soul in the ocean of All That Is. What’s more, by choosing to participate in this experience- and so many other experiences- you have undertaken the brave and deeply respectable task of participating in the very real process of actual Creation, however messy or painful it may (temporarily) be.

Take a moment to listen deeply within yourself beneath all the thoughts and beliefs of this lifetime, and in the quiet presence of your own spirit you may sense a subtle but enduring reminder that indeed, no matter what this walk in the physical may hold, you are the light, and you are LOVED!

Until you can understand all phenomena, you cannot fully explain one part of all phenomena. In other words, you cannot speak to fully understanding why something is if you cannot speak to why everything is. Everything is ultimately connected- and identifying relationships between forms does not convey a true understanding, which is complete.

In our world we often identify “why” something has happened when we can point to some other thing that caused it. We believe identifying the relationships between various forms means we understand them. For instance, that ice over there melted because its temperature rose above 32°F. Why did the temperature of the ice rise above 32°F? We may identify a cause for that too. Science helps us to follow a logic chain and physical laws further and further, until we understand many complex relationships, at least between how physical objects interact. Eventually we arrive at a “we don’t know why that is, it just is,” and that means the understanding is yet incomplete. Yet we tend to believe we understand the true cause of something when we comprehend some level of the cause-effect relationships that relate to it- in other words, we are satisfied when we can explain one form by identifying its relationship with other forms, to some subjectively sufficient degree of complexity. We also tend to do this with more nebulous topics, such as religious topics or social phenomena. For instance we may ask, why is there racial inequality in America? And we may point to historical context, political events, or even to groups of people or to their ideas to explain. Or we may ask, why do we suffer? And we may embrace a religious idea that seems reasonable, like perhaps the idea of original sin. We buy into the explanations. Soon enough, we believe we “understand” reality, when in actuality all we grasp is but a tiny subset of the perceived relationships between its forms.

The word “form” here means anything that is a unique, individuated thing- whether it be an object, a person, a thought, an idea, an event, a sensation, or any combination of these. Form, by definition, is not everything. And because it is not everything, no form (or forms) can contain all the answers and explain all phenomena. These statements may sound like nothing more than silly word play, and it may sound daft to identify that “something that is not everything can’t explain everything” – but in fact this is an important spiritual truth. It is important because we do not truly understand something only by comprehending its relationship to other things, even if we do so to what we consider to be a great degree of complexity.

In order to truly understand what is happening, we need to look beyond all of the form. We need to look to what is most fundamental if we want to understand that which is not fundamental.

All the answers for all phenomena do exist at the level of Source. And if for today we might attempt to pick one word (one form) to identify what Source is, we might use the word: “Consciousness.” Nothing exists that isn’t consciously experienced! Consciousness is the foundation; the forms it beholds are but “dreams”- sub-sets that it experiences within itself. The dreams are not everything. But ultimately, consciousness itself is.

YOU are conscious. If you are reading this right now, you are a conscious part of Source! And through that inseverable connection between you and what you are, at the deepest levels you always have access to All That Is. Many people who physically die and come back report that they experience “knowing everything.” This is because all knowledge and all form exists within Source, and once they are “removed” from the form experience of this physical reality, they return to the deeper state of awareness which is native to them. True understanding is always available at the deepest levels- but it vastly transcends all human language and all human ideas. Even the entirety of all of human history and all the experiences of the Earth are but a tiny subset of the forms that exist within All That Is.

We then who are yet human need to embrace the humility necessary to fully recognize that our forms (our ideas, our physical understandings, our beliefs) do not hold all the answers. Yes, we may expand human knowledge, broaden our scientific capabilities and understanding, and indeed there is true value in that. But such understandings will never be complete. Form itself by definition is inherently limited. But the wonderful, amazing, and loving boundlessness of All That Is contains all understanding- and it is something that can never be further from you than your own breath- except that you behold, believe in, and participate as one of the many forms that are a part of its Creations!

Meditation is not ultimately about piling one thought (the thought “don’t think” or some other) on top of a stream of other thoughts. Meditation is about removing the momentum behind the thoughts, so that their arrival will diminish, so that awareness itself can rise without falling asleep back into thought.

Thought is not the same as intent. Thought is a form beheld within the mind; intent is the fundamental movement of consciousness. In order to slow down the momentum of thought, intent must first move to change the desire to behold the thought. Our desire to listen to our thoughts feeds their momentum. If we want to experience our truer nature, we have to decide to actually “let go.”

Most of us who experience constant thought do so because we care about those thoughts. We truly believe their content is important. Or perhaps we find comfort or pleasure in them. The thoughts arrive to serve us. Perhaps we’ve been propelling the same thoughts so consistently and for so long that they’ve become almost all we know. The following is not to be misconstrued, but in order to fully meditate and experience our greater awareness, we have to allow ourselves to “not care” about the content of our thoughts. We have to allow ourselves to let go of the need for the thoughts to serve whatever purpose they are serving.

If you sit down to meditate, and you actually want to be doing something else, your intent and your meditation experience will reflect that. Meditation then should be done at a time when you are ready to let go. When you invest yourself in letting go, when you give yourself permission to deeply release all expectations and needs and desires, then your momentum of thought will reflect that, and your greater awareness will naturally rise to the surface. Indeed, incredible relief is available to you when you finally “put down” the needs that your thoughts are faithfully serving.

Meditation is ultimately not an action. It is allowing awareness to be more fully in the present moment without being lost in the dreams of the mind. That allowing means letting go- even letting go of the need to listen to our thoughts, and letting go of the wants, needs, and desires that those thoughts are serving.