Individuality

Integrated Being

Sometimes when we talk about the parts of yourself, it can very easily seem as though they are like parts to a car, or furniture in a house.  Its not like that at all, but language can twist things sometimes.  Speaking plainly is important, as well as making no assumptions about anything said or written. Its so easy to speak of the higher self like its out there apart from you.

As I was working on a tree today which had fallen in a wind storm recently, I found myself feeling into myself.  I have been thinking about ego and about this higher self for a while.  I think that the language I use is just incorrect, perhaps distortive.  The higher self does not magically come into the moment when the ego steps aside.  The higher self is always there.  Its always there.  In every moment, in everything you do.  This is why you probably wont feel some grand entrance of a self you knew nothing about making its presence known to you.....because its who you are, an integrated part of a whole.  You are part of it, it is part of you and none of this is in anyway separate.  Somehow, though, ego does a perfect job at making a grand mess of things. Things wind up LOOKING separate or different from what they really are.  And sometimes, in simply writing, its easier to write or discuss these issues, these parts of you as if they ARE parts.  They aren't parts.  And for writing this way, I realize I have been in error.

The beautiful thing is how integrated things already are in you.  When the big self comes along, its a nonevent unless ego is installed or lurking in the shadows. Ego has in my case been a real Achilles heel.  IN the first awareness that I had of my authentic self, I about went "ass over tea kettle."  There was not reason for this to have happened, but it did.  Its ego's fault.  Really! (smile)

What you are is an extension, a part, of your higher self.  It looks out through you, you look out through it.  You shift and change focus moment to moment, and as you are able to hold this nondual presence within, you will feel its traces, which is bliss and peace. In many ways, so much of an awakening is simply learning how to keep the ego in check so the self can appreciate the larger picture that will come more into focus. When experienced this way, nothing is out of place, everything is part of a larger whole, and our creaturehood is a marvelous natural thing to let move freely within.  In this blessed stillness, you can sense the presence of all that you are in a unified and simple way, like how a flower grows or how the wind blows.  Its all part of the larger landscape.  None of it is truly separate.

The higher self is not some journey to Oz that we make.  Its the result of a singular act of surrender. If the ego can let go of expectation, we can begin to see what it is that we have always been. Its just taken us a little while to get to this place where we can do that. And its okay, because none of this is any kind of race to 2012 or any of that.  The universe is entirely open ended, and this is but one life in a series of them.  Vast, infinite sums of them, in fact.  Being happy to explore this life in its fullest will probably tend to open you up to more possibilities as you signal that your own being is changing enough to be sturdy enough to handle the larger focuses.  We are really like children here, learning the basics. There is a wonderful world out there once we begin to get those basics down.

Within you is a marvelous creature that you are becoming.  Within you is a giant of a being that can bring you the single best reward you could have ever known.  Learning the lesson of self love is a hard one because of how ingrained lack of it has been in our world, and in our own individual karmas.  But knowing that this has been a global karmic issue can be a great way to build compassion for the fact that we are all just learning how to feel the bliss that is US.  The light that is me salutes the light that you are---the very essence of nemasté,

Awakening cannot be explained, but experienced.  Trying to explain it is like trying to understand liquid water by studying ice.  It is close, but the opposite end of a far larger experience.  Explaining what nonduality is by talking about the ocean of being or just the individual is in a sense missing the point because in the experiencing ALL states exist at once with no paradox, no contradiction.  An Awakening breaks you out of the old accustomed modes of being and moves you into a watery realm of self that has always been there waiting for you, a fundamental aspect of your creaturehood, your being.  Like love, it can be described, but all descriptions fall short for the simple fact that its in its direct experience that it is known.  In that one moment, though, your world shifts in a significant way.  Even those who are touched by it in a temporary way are changed forever.  It is not something foreign to us, but fundamental.  When you find it, it is like awakening a long lost love, or something you always knew but had perhaps for the time being forgotten.  It is the mover of worlds.  It is a game changer, a churning of your insides until your earthly self aligns with the cosmic, and in that moment, you will know that the two were never separate.  Something inside of you served to create a rift that moved you in directions far afield from your fundamental self, your larger self.  While ego was involved, this has not been some cosmic accident, but an experiment, a journey we have chosen to take here in this world.  There is far more design in the stars than we could ever dream possible.

Unlike some, I do not feel that our more icy side is a false self.  All aspects of being serve a purpose, and we chose the arrangement of self for a purpose, which has been to learn the myriad ways that consciousness can arrange itself and express itself.  This purpose has served the infinite self in its quest for experiencing a boundless realm of awareness.  All of this, every scrap of it, is a creation, and suggesting that the creation is any less real than the consciousness that formed it forgets the nature of the infinite which is itself creative energy.  In fact, you can work your way through an Awakening by learning to allow this creative energy to flow through you.  This energy is freeing, opening, and liberating.  It actually breaks away the ice of your former being so that you may begin to experience the more watery realms of your awareness.  It isn't that the ice isn't of any benefit, its that it has its place within being, but so does the infinite ocean, and when the ice clogs the self so that the watery self cannot flow, we become limited in what we can ourselves experience in the moment.  We feel cut off from some still larger source of purpose, which is the foundation of our creaturehood; the creative.  The egoic self, the individual is a part of being, its just not the whole story.  There are vast realms of awareness quite different from the ones you know now, and it is in this broader awareness or state of being that will show you in a direct way what awaits you.  The beauty that you are, the beauty that is the universe, lies nested ---curled--- waiting to unfurl, bringing great fruit to bear in your life.

Since creation is itself an act of love, creativity is itself unifying and a bringer of love. This is why those who are creative, regardless of their discipline, will love what they do.  Its because the work, be it a physicist, mechanic, librarian, teacher, lawyer, or artist, bears the mark of the creative.  Otherwise, the work become work, instead of ones passion, and everything becomes ordinary, perhaps even perfunctory.  Observe anyone who is great at what they do and you will find creative energy, innovative thinking, a willingness to break out of old modes and molds. In truth, our creativity is our connection to our divinity.  Ringing within us are the faint echoes of the first impulse of creation, the very essence and secret of how worlds were formed out of a seeming "nothing" that was itself full of everything. This is why the experience of Awakening is full of passion and power, of beauty, and grace.  Its is beautiful and terrifying as the old you, so crammed with ice, finds itself on unsteady ground while the volcanic passion of this experience seethes up all around you, threatening to swallow you whole, threatening to destroy everything your egoic self has worked hard to install, protect, and propagate.  It only seems a threat at first because of how conditioned you have become to feeling like your individual self was all there was.  The ego is threatened and swings into action, creating body pain, trying to keep together the old alignment based more on a limited understanding than on anything enduringly infinite or larger than itself. Because it is a young self, it cannot be expected to move with the same depth as the soul, the infinite self.  It tries, and slowly slowly, it learns, but knowing already exists within you and it lies deep within your breast, deep within the yearning that is but the tail of a much larger tiger.  Hot blooded and alive, it moves with the certainty that its divine being has conferred.  The only threat that it brings is the threat of change.  Uncertain, there may be fear at first until you are utterly seduced and brought into a new way of being, and of feeling.  Out of the intellect and into feeling, you learn that the one language in the universe is Feeling.  It is through this that we commune with the entirety of All That Is.  Here, secrets unlock and we resolve into beings who are unmoved by those secrets.  It isn't that a secret isn't juicy and wonderful sometimes, its that using the secret it simply no longer necessary, for the secret is that it is Us.  Whatever it is, we are One with it, for this Watery realm of our being means to heal the separation that our individuality has served to create through its having been created. 

Beyond who you are, and what you think is possible, is something still more. In our conventional thinking there exists all manner of distortions and presumptions that do not serve our larger unfolding.  Knowledge is not the key to unlocking the universe.  It is love and the creative, and all of this is spoken in the language of the Creator which is FEELING.  This is the bright sun that shall melt away your ice and bring you to a new alignment to your being.   The secret to all of this is learning to feel deeply.  And in those depths of water fire and even ice, we discover through wonder what it is to be a human reaching for the stars.