Month: January 2017

There is nothing you believe that you didn’t first decide to buy into at some point. Even your deepest assumptions about how reality works are viewpoints that you had to establish.

Physical reality is a defined context that provides a neutral mirror through which you may experience the nature of your perspectives and beliefs. Physical reality is such that through its constraints, you may very richly experience your unique perspective. In a reality like ours, that perspective can get incredibly “deep” over the course of a lifetime- so convincingly deep that you can forget entirely where you have come from, or even what your assumptions are! This in fact is one the reasons the physical experience is so very valuable to the soul: it allows you to truly experience a defined and unique perspective first-hand. Another reason is, such a deep perspective allows for a very rich place from which you can make choices, so that you can ultimately evolve the quality of your intent toward love.

As we undertake our exceptionally long journeys across space and time, we seek to grow towards love. An important part of growing towards love is growing past fear. And many times as humans, our beliefs are put in place to protect us from our fears. Thus, in fact, we are doing a great service when we decide to confront our beliefs and face the fears that they were protecting. That awakening process is a very meaningful one indeed! When we face our fear, not only are we able to free ourselves from its shackles, we are able to then actualize a more loving presence in our world for everyone else.

Even as deep and convincing as this physical experience and its resulting beliefs can be, if you remove or look past all of the thoughts and beliefs, you will find that beneath them is always what you truly are: your awareness. Your awareness is the silent witness to all of your thoughts and beliefs, the presence that beholds your entire physical experience. Your awareness is you; your current beliefs and identity details are not. In fact, you do not need to believe anything, or think anything, or do anything. If you feel otherwise, it is because you believe it.

You do not need to fear changing your beliefs or viewpoint at any level. You are free to do that! In fact you will find that as you let go of the assumptions that have bound you, and truly face and process your fears, that you are more free than ever! For the spirit itself is much more than the forms it temporarily beholds, and there is always great joy when you take a step closer toward what you really are.

Whatever you focus on, you get more of. And, you get what you expect. These two statements reflect what many spiritual teachers call the “Law of Attraction.” We might say the “Law of Attraction” is a term for the phenomenon that since consciousness is fundamental, when it “pushes,” reality responds. Children naturally focus on what they want. When you tell them they can’t have something, they respond naturally with, “but I want it.” That response is not simply a response of immaturity- it reflects that the child is instinctively responding in a way that does work more immediately in other reality systems: their desire alone has historically produced an immediate change in circumstances. Our reality is the shockingly different place where desire itself seems to be insufficient to bring us what we wish.

However, that is not entirely the case. What we call the “Law of Attraction” still functions- it’s just that the constraints of the physical reality make it such that the “manifestation” of our focus and expectation can seem impossible or delayed. This physical reality is “dense,” because it takes a lot more “thought momentum” to result in a physical change than it may in other reality systems. Also, the rule-set of our reality system is relatively strict- but within and through that rule-set, change does occur.

We do create our reality, both individually and collectively. Recognizing that fact is not only liberating, it is also an important step towards accepting personal and collective responsibility for our world. Not only is the responsibility ours, the power is ours too: we can actualize the positive changes that we so deeply desire! Recognizing the role of our own focus and expectation is a key step in that process. For many of us, in order to fully recognize that role we will need to work past the many disempowering beliefs that have been so deeply held here, for our expectations follow our most deeply held beliefs.

As we try to understand reality, we innately sense that everything should “fit.” The desire to make things “fit” is not just ego derived, it also stems from our inherent spiritual desire to integrate all experience. This is because at the deepest level, in truth, everything does fit- and we naturally seek to reach for that and to integrate everything that we can while we are physical. Yet as we attempt to understand and integrate our current physical experience, often the ego gets in the way: our intention quickly strays from genuinely pursuing truth (which is all encompassing) wherever it may lead, to trying to avoid pain and make ourselves feel like we have control or understanding. Understanding only a subset of relationships between forms, and then deciding to “believe things” to close the gap, is not a true pursuit of truth. Pursuit of truth requires full acknowledgement of that which we do not know- and there is a lot of that.

Because we live in a universe of duality, we often seek truth in the objects of duality themselves: ideas, objects, names, definitions, actions, or concepts. We believe “this” object is the truth, while “that” object is deception; or perhaps “this” object is good, while “that” object is evil. And yet, truth transcends all of the form (see this post or this post). Since truth transcends all of the form, when we “buy into” one form- and resist another- we are embracing something that is not fully in alignment with the truth, which is completely unified.

Thus if we wish to honor our desire to make everything fit and genuinely pursue truth, we need to be willing to look the one place we may have never looked while physical: beyond all of the things that we are trying to fit together. What does it mean to look beyond all of the things?

The things only ever exist as beheld by your awareness. Thus to look beyond them, you need to train yourself to look beyond the objects to your awareness itself. Doing so is not an action- we can say it is an exercise in intent and focus away from your many definitions and thoughts such that you can truly experience the infinite and unadulterated present moment. We often call that exercise “meditation.” Meditation is the word we use for allowing one’s self to move closer to fully experiencing the present moment, without the participation of the physical mind. The present moment is the doorway. The experience of the present moment itself transcends the objects, and in that transcendence, it is possible for each of us to take one step closer to truly experiencing the unification that exists at the root of All Things. That unification is real, and as it contains everything, everything fits.

The fact that you are aware gives you authority to explore what is real. The fact that you are aware gives you authority to interpret what you perceive.

In the individual sense, your awareness itself is “what is.” Its powers of experience, interpretation, and choice are fundamental to it. You can bind yourself to a much more limited choice-set or interpretation-set based on your own beliefs (which are typically beliefs passed to you and “hardened” over a lifetime), but fundamentally you are free to interpret absolutely everything as you will. You may temporarily wear the clothes of limited interpretation within a defined experience, but on a fundamental level you cannot be anything but utterly free!

In the Big Picture sense, God’s awareness is ultimately “what is.” It doesn’t have to answer to any other system or entity- it is What Is. You are a part of that. Metaphorically, you are a drop in the ocean- and yet still the ocean itself. Your very being is rooted in and seeks to be in loving creative service to the entire vast ocean that you most fundamentally belong to; and yet simultaneously and without contradiction you also then, as the ocean, ultimately report to nothing except what you are (the ocean itself).

This authority of awareness is important to recognize because we live in a world where our own fundamental power to interpret how we choose has been obscured beneath an extremely deep history of disempowering belief. We are so free, you see, that we can have the experience of such a deep history. And yet now many are choosing to wake up: to wake up to their power, to their profound personal responsibility, to their true nature that transcends the physical illusion. If you wish to participate in that awakening, you need to know that you have the authority to question and explore everything. If you believe otherwise, it is because you have bought into that interpretation.