A Walk in the Physical

We are not here to struggle, suffer, and merely survive. We are here to thrive as the beings of joy that we truly are!

But oftentimes, what we perceive to be the “demands” of the world cause us to fall into seriousness. Our worldviews require things of us, and in heeding them we quickly get bogged down by the responsibilities that we have heaped upon ourselves.

None of it is required. None of the seriousness, heaviness, or stress is required. At the most fundamental level, nothing is required of us- for awareness itself is perfectly free, and in fact awareness fully transcends the forms that it allows itself to get lost within.

Thus while you are here on Earth, allow yourself to let go, and to choose joy! There is never a circumstance in which you are not allowed to choose joy, should you wish.

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.

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.

Being afraid of death is like the dreamer being scared to wake up, because the dreamer doesn’t remember waking life while he is asleep. Metaphorically speaking, you are in the dream right now, reading this blog post. You likely do not remember what is it to be “awake,” because such “amnesia” is a necessary requirement of buying completely into the dream. Never-the-less, you are not just the dreamer: what you truly are is too vast to articulate, and entire other reality systems much more real than this one are available to you when you “wake up.”

Does it hurt when you end a dream and wake up? No, the transition is very natural. Every day we wake up from our previous night’s sleep and we typically think nothing of it. Physical death is a similarly effortless transition. Countless Near Death Experiencers confirm that there is no pain in the transition itself from physical life to the non-physical one. In fact, just the opposite- the transition is incredibly liberating and full of unspeakable love and joy!

Living in the physical- dreaming that you are actually form- is the much more constraining and potentially challenging state. We are free to thrive here, to fully enjoy the contrast and all the experiences that this life has to offer- but we do not need to fear the end of it in the least. Death is release, the great liberator, a joyful awakening into our much more native state! Not only do we not need to fear that, we can in fact look forward to it as the wonderful, expansive, celebratory return home that it is! And indeed when we dismiss the specter of the fear of death, we are able to live our lives more in joyful alignment with the immortal spirits that we truly are!

No matter what the belief, people will tend to find data to support it. In fact, over a lifetime people tend to assemble complex fortresses of data to support what they already believe. As they do this, most people believe that their viewpoint is “true,” and that others’ viewpoints are “false.” Furthermore, many believe some forms (ideas, beliefs, identities, or actions) are inherently “good” while others are inherently “evil.” To those who are so deeply accustomed to living in a universe of duality, this can seem natural.

At the deepest level, there is fundamental Truth. But that Truth transcends all of the form of the physical universe. It transcends all of the ideas, all of the words, all of the beliefs, all of the objects, all of the contrast. While there is no word that can name it (since words are also form), perhaps we can attempt to speak to what that Truth is by using this one simple word: LOVE!

While forms themselves are not innately “good” or “bad,” since a consciousness must always assign meaning to them in order for them to have meaning, the movement of consciousness through intent does either align more closely or less closely to Truth or Divine Love. This is why it is so very important to deeply explore the nature of our own motivations, and to act from loving intent (which aligns with Truth) rather than fearful intent (which temporarily does not). Loving intent might also be described as: selflessness, personal responsibility, humility, and acceptance. It includes the willingness to be wrong, to seek out truth and grow in the acceptance and service of others, even at the full expense of what one has previously believed.

The challenge is, our beliefs tend to become invisible to us: they tend to appear to us to be assumptions about how reality really is, rather than beliefs. In other words, once our beliefs are set, the data that arrives almost always appears to support the existing belief. But in fact, the same data is being utilized by different conscious participants in different ways.

We often don’t think about spiritual growth in this way. Instead, we fight for the form. We try to make sure our way of seeing the world is furthered. We worry about it, we fret and fight that the rest of the world may adapt to the correctness of what we believe to be right. But the correctness of belief is not what this universe is about. We are here to develop the quality of our intent, the quality of ourselves as truly loving beings. We are here to face our fears and to accept personal responsibility. We are here to actually accept and love one another! That, far more than any claim of form, will further God’s plan (the ultimate loving intent) for this universe!