A Walk in the Physical

When you are impacting another, you are impacting spirit, and spirit is real. Since spirit is real and enduring, by affecting another person’s experience, you are “impressing upon” that which is real. You are having a real effect. This is in contrast to simply moving around the “props” of the physical simulation (the objects or forms) which are, generally speaking, local and transient.

The real spirit is interested in real impact. This is partly why from the perspective of the Big Picture, the success of our physical lives is not determined by our physical accomplishments or possessions, but rather by how much we were able to love others. Loving intention and interaction is successful in part because it is furthering real change in the direction of our native state, which is unified and whole. That change is far more powerful than it may seem on the physical surface! In fact, since the spirit is multi-dimensional, by impacting another, you are always having an effect on multiple dimensions.

This is important to remember in a society that is obsessed with physical accomplishment, the allocation of objects, and the acquisition of temporary identities. Our society spends (we spend) a huge amount of energy focusing on the transient and pursuing the substanceless distractions of possession and identity. Yet we can remind ourselves of that distraction. We can remind ourselves of our inalienable power to make a true, lasting impact: by loving the person next to us! The genuine intention to love the person next to us, however we can, is all that is required to make an impact that lasts forever.

Many searching for truth believe that truth consists of some sort of knowledge, as they believe understanding relationships between forms primarily constitutes bringing one closer to understanding “what is.” For instance: knowing the equation for determining the area of a circle, or understanding how chemicals will consistently interact with one another, or memorizing the names of geographic locations on Earth, or even something subjective like understanding social phenomena, or something abstract like trying to understand if God is real- is believed to impart one with an ability to interact with “reality” (what the thinker perceives to be reality) with greater effectiveness.

However, form cannot explain form, except only to the illusory extent that we identify our grasping of the relationships between forms to be satisfying to us, or not. Even “objective” (repeatable and verifiable) proof of effectiveness only demonstrates just that- effectiveness within the local known world- and not why. We can understand more and more effectively how form relates to other form per the rule-set of our local reality, but this is not true understanding.

The real question then is not whether we understand or don’t understand that 2 + 6 = 8. The real question is, if we “know” why 2 + 6 = 8 even exists. Without that answer, there is not true knowledge.

Since all form, all differentiation, exists within and by something else, the answer cannot be known without that something else. That something else is always present, always existing, and always transcendent: it is consciousness itself.

Consciousness is inherently formless. It gives rise to the experience of form. It even sometimes seems to “lose” itself in the experience of form: in the experience of day and night, and brain chemistry and coffee and languages and pain. But it is, fundamentally speaking, completely formless, transcendent, omnipresent, eternal, and immortal. Its existence gives rise to the form that can be understood from a local well-defined perspective in the first place.

This is why the truth can never be fully spoken or understood with the dualistic mind. Form and duality itself is transcended by that which gives rise to it all. That which transcends form, and fully contains and creates all of it, cannot then be named or explained by it. As the Daoist text the Dao De Qing begins, “The Dao that can be spoken of is not the true Dao. The name that can be named is not the true name.”

No one then can say with form (words, ideas, and explanations) the “why.” No one will be able to articulate “the answer” to you. But, you do not need them to. You are conscious. You are awareness already. All you need to do then is completely let go of all the forms- all the understandings, beliefs, expectations, definitions, and identities that you have wrapped yourself in over your lifetime- and allow yourself to fall back into your transcendent formless nature which is already native to you. From that nature, all things are known, just as they are.

And that is more than enough.

Every day, every one of us is “casting votes” within consciousness space. Those votes matter. Every time one of us holds a thought or embraces an intention, both our reality and other reality systems are affected.

Most of us have been raised with the belief that the physical outcomes are what matter. And since it often can seem like we have little power over those outcomes, we feel powerless.

We are not powerless. In fact, we are connected to the Source of power itself, each and every hour of each and every day! We are creators ourselves! As participants who are deeply involved in this reality experience, we have forgotten that. But it doesn’t change the fact that you and I are actually creating our world every day- not just with our hands, but with our consciousness itself.

Your individual choice to love the person next to you, matters. Your individual choice to face your fear, matters. Your decision to accept yourself, your decision to accept responsibility for this world that we live in, your decision to humbly accept the change that your own life has invited you to- matters. You do not need to move a mountain- you only need to genuinely work towards engaging your life with an intent that is more loving, open, and sincere. If you do that, you are changing the world.

Be encouraged in that power! Be encouraged that you are having a real impact, even if you cannot see it. For every choice that you make in the quiet of your heart is heard, and that is a power that will remain with you today, tomorrow, and every other day of your life, no matter the physical circumstances.

Our physical reality is not really a place- it is an experience. Consciousness beholds information, and believes that experience to be an objective material reality, because the information is all that the local consciousness currently “remembers” and the information occurs in a persistent and consistent manner. But that information, no matter how consistent, is not fundamental: it occurs primarily as an experience beheld by consciousness. Consciousness is always present for any reality to exist. In the case of our reality, consciousness does not rise from the physical reality (from a brain, for instance); rather, the physical reality and all the form within it only exists as an experience within that which already exists (consciousness).

This is an important distinction because the vast majority of us are so deep into the “dream” of the physical universe that we have forgotten what is real. We typically believe that matter is what is most real. It is not. While we behold the shiny sense data of the physical universe, we forget to look deeply enough into the truer “substance” that is right beneath our noses: our own awareness. That awareness itself is a gateway to much greater forms of being than the one that is being experienced as a human reading this post! Your transcendent soul is ever present- it is You!- and it can be incredibly empowering to wake up to the fact that your awareness transcends all of the many subjective circumstances that you have convinced yourself are objectively real.

The events that take place out in our world are far more than they appear to be on the surface. All things take place first in consciousness space, and then in the world of matter. Thus in order to improve our world, we must first make a change within consciousness. We cannot simply change the circumstances or the leaders. We cannot simply put new systems into place, or enact new laws. The change must occur in us. The change must occur in you. There is no other way.

The change that is required is deeply personal. It is not a change with the forms that we work with- with the specific ideas, the identifications, the beliefs, the human framework. It is not a change in the contents of the mind. The change that is required is of ourselves, of what we are at the deepest level, beneath all the objects of the physical experience. The objects that we work with- the ideas, identities, beliefs, and systems- they are just the “props” of our world, and they will come and go. What lasts is us– the consciousness of each individual who is actually wielding intent and making real choices every hour of every day. That is the real engine that drives what happens in our world. The physical details and the human systems will naturally work themselves out when we successfully change ourselves.

In order to do that, we must consistently work on the very nature of our intent itself, and consciously strive to exercise intent that is loving, rather than fearful. We must bravely seek out our own egoic tendencies, challenge our own beliefs, and feel. We must be fully present. We must acknowledge our own weaknesses, take ownership, and do our very best to actually be a more loving presence in the world. We must actually put others before ourselves. The effects of such choices are far greater than they may appear to be on the surface.

In the face of all the tribulations of Earth, pursuing change can seem daunting. When we look inside ourselves, and see all of our many imperfections, change there too can seem daunting. And yet, in the scope of the Big Picture, every real genuine step toward love is great progress! Every step forward that the soul takes towards actualizing love and overcoming fear is a genuine step forward for the entire universe! This is important to remember when we turn within ourselves in a common moment, and seek to be better. That is, in fact, where the real work is done: in the common moment, in seeking to make the more loving, humble, fearless choice in any given situation, no matter how mundane it may seem on the surface and no matter the Earthly objects involved.

What you practice being, you will be. This reality is a system in which you create momentum of interpretation, and over the long-term the reality reinforces back to you a reflection of the momentum you have created. When you judge reality is a certain way, it will then display itself back to you that way- not only in the sense that you interpret what you see in that light, but also in the sense that physical events actually tend to happen differently to reinforce your belief.

Put simply: you get what you expect!

Our momentum of interpretation is built up from moment to moment over the course of a lifetime. Each moment then is an opportunity to change the course! Each moment is an opportunity to re-direct our focus to where we prefer. Our direction of focus is powerful. We often forget that, as we tend to believe that the external world occurs irrelevant to our interpretation of it. But indeed, we build creative momentum with each moment of our lives.

Right now is one of those moments. What momentum are you creating in your life today?

You never left Home. Your spirit is still there! You are still there. While you are there, you have committed a part of yourself into this local physical time-bound experience. In order to have this experience, you had to agree to temporarily forget the breadth of what you really are. That “veil” of forgetfulness was necessary for you to have the experience of being a human. After all, how could you have the experience of being human if you fully knew you were the universe? But your forgetting, and your highly specialized focus in this reality, do not change the fact that you already exist beyond it as well.

Spirit is not some substance that comes and goes. Spirit is the ever-present substrate through which all experience occurs. Spirit does not cease. It can take many shapes, and those shapes may change, but spirit itself is always present. You are spirit, and thus even as you entertain the life before you, your transcendent nature always remains.

For those of us who are so deep in the dream, this is an important fact to remember, because our believing in the separation of the spirit from the physical has helped to keep us in an experience of distance. As spirit, we form our own reality experience through belief. It is reality-changing then to wake up to the fact that we are not distant from our true nature or from the larger reality! In fact, we are there right now! Metaphorically speaking, we are dreaming the physical while asleep in the non-physical. As each individual even gradually wakes up to his or her greater nature, a change occurs in consciousness space, which effects a change in our world. So be encouraged and be reminded that you transcend this rich reality experience before you, and even if you do not see it or feel it, you are already Home!

There is only love, and those who are temporarily acting from the darkness of an experience of “lack-of-love.” All beings at their core are the Light of Source! All beings are of love: all beings desire it, all beings are called to it, and it is the ultimate nature of the Light within us all. Sometimes the individual spirit experiences the darkness as a temporary sojourn: even though the spirit’s true loving nature remains unchanged, the spirit’s local personality can, through its own experience of being “distant” from love, fall into a vibration that is experienced as “far from” its native light. From that place, the personality can make decisions which challenge others. That darkness is not some separate power or authority- it is merely the natural result of real consciousness exercising imperfect intent when experiencing “distance” from the native love. In that sense, there is no evil.

Often the human ego rejects this idea, in part because our collective consciousness has grown within a history and environment in which it was important and meaningful to identify one’s enemy. But at the most fundamental level, there is no enemy. Ultimately, you have no enemies!

Even the most heinous of crimes are acts committed from a place of lack of love. The evildoer needs love. Love is the answer.

This does not mean that we need to accept acts of cruelty or that we should stand by when intervention is required. It simply means that even as we do intervene, we can recognize that the one we intervene against is not a foe, but in fact is another embodiment of the Light making its way with free will through a very challenging world. Evil is “ignorance to love” – and having experienced that ourselves, can we not have understanding for those who seem to do us harm?

As a human it can be difficult to understand suffering (the word “suffering” here generally meaning “negative experience”). But from the greater perspective of the spirit, the potential to suffer, even very likely suffering (it’s never technically the requirement to suffer) is greatly worth the trouble. “What Is” can become more when it (through you!) can experience specific contrast- even when it can experience fully what it “doesn’t like,” which better defines the opposite. Creation utilizes definition; free will requires a context. The spirit in a fundamentally joyful state decides in all its eternal and invincible power to facilitate new experiences for itself so that it can integrate them- and in so doing, become even more, expand the frontier of all experience, and add more to the JOY!

Sometimes in that process the soul must seemingly be tried to its very limits. But so it is in a Creation that ever grows and becomes more. For if it did not, it would be stagnant; it would not become more. “What Is” is what it is and can’t be anything else- so if it wishes to increase its scope it actually needs to also “be” things that are challenging, painful, and constraining, too. When even those challenges have been integrated, its “What Is-ness” expands in due measure, and the native love and joy of Creation grows with it.

Suffering is also meaningful in another way: it serves as the feedback and counter-pressure sometimes necessary to “drive” the individual consciousness to personally grow its quality of intent toward love. Many are driven to spiritual growth through suffering. While that may be incomprehensible to the human ego, to the spirit that exists in eternity, and to the one who sincerely wishes to grow in eternal love and fearlessness, such a price is actually accepted with gratitude!

There will come a time someday when you will be able to look back at your own suffering, and see its greater context. Until then, let yourself feel what you feel, and let go of your judgments about it. Take heart, for your true nature always remains unharmed and invincible, no matter how much pain your local body may feel or how dark your human life may seem. The Source of all Creation is always, always with you! Be bountifully hopeful in that, in your true invincible nature and in your inseverable unity with God, for there is always hope available through what you actually are beneath this convincing physical experience.

As we exist in this physical reality, we experience a universe of form. We live within a world of duality, where things seem separate and unique from one another: cows are different than cats, hot is the opposite of cold, and the future happens after the past. We are almost totally engrossed in a life of entertaining and manipulating form after form. Our minds are full of thoughts (which are forms), our eyes behold discreet colors and shapes (forms), and our days are spent manipulating objects (forms). This is our reality, and so we assume that all of reality is this way.

Thus when we seek to understand the “Big Picture,” we naturally tend to do so using the forms that we know. Our form-based assumptions carry over into how we imagine the greater reality to be. Indeed, those very assumptions give definition to our experience of reality! Our beliefs (our deepest assumptions about reality) form the experience that we have. Once we have defined reality a certain way, the other ways become seemingly non-existent to us. Indeed, that is the very definition of form and the reason that form itself exists!

Yet all form exists within that which is formless. That formlessness cannot truly be named, for it is beyond any word that could attempt to describe it! But we might use the word: consciousness. Consciousness–  sometimes called “spirit”– is the fundamental “substrate” upon and through which all experience of form exists. Consciousness itself fundamentally transcends all of the forms it beholds. It can get “lost” in form for a while- indeed it is capable of doing even that!- but its true nature is transcendent. Your true nature is transcendent. And the unspeakable vastness, majesty, and total breadth of the Great Spirit that is the Source of All Things is most certainly transcendent! In other words, duality itself is not fundamental.

In the context of that incredible transcendence, how can any of us claim to have fit the truth into a form? How can any one Earthly idea, name, person, book, religion, or set thereof be “the truth?” It cannot. Many times a form may, through our own identification with it, help us to connect with our transcendent Source- but the form itself is not the answer. To believe otherwise is just that- a belief, which is a form itself. That belief can only have meaning as a consciousness assigns meaning to it.

We will never find the “true answer” within form. But fortunately, you are conscious, and therefore you are connected to the Source of all truth already! Your human personality with all its form-based local understanding of reality may search under 10,000 rocks looking for the truth, and may hold on to certain assumptions about how reality is until the day of your physical death– and yet the Great Spirit already and always dwells within you as that which is transcendent!

Thus when you are ready to fearlessly surrender your need for answers within form, to give up the power and control of your beliefs, and to simply meet your awareness of the present moment exactly as it is without any label whatsoever, know then that the true nature of your being will always be there waiting for you.