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Smoke and Fire

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Excerpt from Spiritual Enlightenment

I share with you this strange phenomenon only to exemplify the magnitude to which transformation can occur. To illustrate the immense physical experience that occurs when you begin to strip yourself of the layers that prevent you from being in bliss. It is one of many common threads between those that have followed this path until its extreme ends. However, this experience is not of great importance.

What is of importance for you is bliss. Where ultimate bliss is fire, this phenomenon is merely smoke. Smoke is not the outcome, just a result of the fire. The fire is what is needed for warmth, smoke will be of no use other than to indicate that there is fire. What you set out to learn is how to build a fire, how to feel your inner bliss.

It is not realized that the unhappiness you feel is not a requirement for life. The boredom, pain, desperation, and anxiety you feel are symptoms of the mind. For any person that decides they are wholly and completely through with the misery that feels out of their control, there is an antidote.

What you learn on this path is not how to create bliss. You were born into this world with the ability to experience bliss. Along the way you have accumulated beliefs and have been fooled by illusions that are now creating misery in your life. What is learned on the path back to enlightenment is how to recognize and remove each illusion and belief. Each one carrying a weight that gives lightness to you when letting go. With the last letting go there is enlightenment.

When the last is let go, and when it is known how to keep from accumulating more, bliss can enter you. This sounds odd to a person who has not experienced this. That bliss could be so available. In fact, the experience of bliss that I describe might not even be something that you can fathom. However, I tell you that it is true. That the unhappiness that you experience is not the true nature of life. That the true nature of life is this state of lightness. This state of physical bliss. A feeling that you may have only felt through substances or through ecstatic love. A feeling you may have never felt before.

The ability to feel what is called enlightenment is not reserved for the few. However, it is only the few that have been willing to part with what has prevented their bliss. Few have become so overwhelmed by the misery that they were willing to devote all efforts to remove all that burdens them. Few who have learned how.

The effort does not come from removing, but from the discipline and the desire to do so. All that is needed to remove these burdens is awareness. All that is needed is an understanding of where and how these burdens exist in you.

This is all that is needed for this path. A willingness to let go of what burdens, and a faith that there is bliss beneath all of the burdens.

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Desire

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Excerpt from Spiritual Enlightenment

The trick of desire is that there is always more to be had. Once one happiness fades away the mind will cling to the next. Notice this the next time you find the fulfillment of a desire. Be honest with the emotions in yourself. Do you truly feel joyful? And if so, for how long does this joy last? How long until there arises a new desire?

Do you now see the futility in this cycle of desire that makes up all of our lives? A void is followed by the excitement of desire. This is followed by frustration when the desire is not fulfilled. At best there is a brief glimmer of satisfaction once the desire is fulfilled, that swiftly gives way to the void within. Thus begins the cycle again.

If the lesson cannot be learned by your own self, then let it be learned by others. Listen to those who have what you desire. There is no lasting joy for them in their attainment. For many there is misery. More misery even than there is for you. Because once you have attained all that you ever wanted, and there still is no bliss, there is hopelessness. The real danger in desire is in its attainment. When you feel that there is now no other hope for the happiness that you are in need of. This is why many of those who seem to have it all have turned to substances. Why many of them have taken their own lives. You will come to find that the end of desire is not bliss, but misery.

To abolish desire, however, is not the answer. To renounce what you desire is not the answer. The answer is in the awareness of desire. In the awareness of how desire has not brought you lasting bliss, and in the realization that it never will. It is in the awareness of how in fact it brings you misery.

There are some desires of the mind that are prominent. They are large, at the forefront, easy to see. The desire for beauty, for instance, is a desire that can be seen in daily life. It’s a desire at the tip of your tongue when you ask yourself what it is you want. For many of us, it is expressed in many daily routines. However left without awareness, beauty is a dangerous desire. It is dangerous because it has no end. It is dangerous because it will inevitably fade with time. A mind that desires beauty for satisfaction has leaped into an endless pit of comparison, jealousy, and self-deprecation. Many have even died being sliced into in order to change their shape to become more beautiful. There is no ending point to beauty because it is merely subjective.

The desire for success is as dangerous as an addiction. The desire to become something. It is a desire that’s been planted in each of us since our earliest years. The world and those who raised us are expecting success. With good intentions of course. Those who planted this seed have also had this seed planted in them. They believe that success will lead to happiness, even though they are not happy themselves.

How could the desire to succeed create misery? The desire to become clouds the mind of the pleasure of being. We are the only species that tries to become. That is so driven by ego that we will sacrifice our sleep, our freedom, and our happiness for a greater social standing. The constant desire for success is rooted in the deep notion that you are not good enough. You, as you are, are not enough. You must do better. And, why? So that you might be happy. So that at the end of this long road of suffering you might feel satisfied with your achievements.

However, this is the trick. There is no end to the amount of money one can make. There is no end to the amount of success that can be had. You will eternally be frozen in the notion that you are not enough. The life of a person can be consumed by the need to attain success. And like beauty, there is no end. Success is subjective. The subjectivity lies in the dissatisfaction of the mind. And the mind will always be dissatisfied until it solves the problem of the endless void of bliss that you feel within. You will still be void of bliss and the mind, in its naive wisdom will say, you must not yet be enough.

Once you have identified these larger desires you will come to see how they create misery. You will notice that all of your frustrations are stemming from these desires. Self-doubt and frustration stem only from the impediment of your desire becoming fulfilled. This is simple to see for your larger desires. A business dealing does not go as planned and you become miserable. This is obvious. However, you will need to become aware of the more subtle. How subtle desires are causing you misery.

You will come to find that behind every frustration there is desire. Let us say that you are having an argument with a lover. This is common. Why are you angry in your fight? Because you want to be right. You want the other to act a certain way. You want a perfect relationship with your lover. What if the desire wasn’t there? If you felt that it is the way that it is. Where is the anger? Without anger would the relationship not flourish? Would your communication not heighten?

This is the other way in which desire causes misery. Frustration clouds the mind. It creates strife where there could be clarity. The mind in stress is not a mind that can create a solution. Science has proven that a mind under stress has a far inferior ability to solve problems than a relaxed mind.

When you notice frustration, let it alert you of a desire. At times the desire is in the form of intention. You intend to leave the house but you can’t find the keys. Immediately you become exasperated. However the location of the keys is not creating frustration. The frustration is stemming from your intention to leave the house.

The moment you notice the frustration, find the desire. Find the intention. Suddenly, the moment you identify the intention, you bring logic into your frustration. It brings in understanding. Suddenly, the frustration has vanished. Now all there is left is a simple task of finding the keys.

This works for intentions large and small. No matter the size, recognizing the root of frustration will create a clear path to move forward. Frustration will have no place once you have identified the reason for it. It will serve no purpose. In fact the Latin root of the word comes from frustra meaning “in vain”.

Now it is to be understood that there can be preference. There can be success. There can be beauty. However not a means for happiness. Once you become aware of your desires and how they are leading to misery, they begin to fall away. Then you will begin to feel more weightless. In this weightless and more blissful state, there may be preference, however, it will not affect your bliss. You will know that it is not where bliss comes from. You will be happy either way.

You can prefer to have a blossoming relationship with the lover however in becoming aware of the desire you can see clearly. You can manifest this preference with ease, as the frustration will not cloud your ability to act wisely. To act in a way that will result in what you would have preferred.

It will be hard for you to let go of desire because you feel that without it you will never reach. However, you now do not know what it is you could truly prefer. At the time now, you are simply filled with the poor solutions of a naive mind. A mind that is grasping at straws and pulling you in many directions in order to feel bliss. Don’t cling to your desire out of the fear that it will create indifference. That it will create laziness. The energy that had previously been consumed by frustration will now flow into creation.

However, in order to free yourself of this cycle of desire and frustration, you must recognize that all desire is the desire for bliss. Recognize that bliss is to be found only when you are satisfied here, within this moment. Happy and peaceful in the nature of existence, satisfied and pleased with the beauty of your aliveness. Because when the day comes that your life is no longer, you will realize that just to be is a gift that you have never opened.

Once you realize this very deeply, then desire will fall away from you. Only awareness is needed. Only readiness to see. Then, it becomes a very simple task. Why continue to desire more and more when you cannot even enjoy what is in front of you now? This is true renunciation. Not when you force yourself away from your desires, but when desire falls away from you. When desire falls away from you, and you feel that everything is perfect in its current existence, this is the beginning of bliss.

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The Nature Of Existence

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Excerpt from Spiritual Enlightenment

Once you recognize that all desires and intentions are ultimately rooted in the desire for bliss; once you recognize that all desires and intentions lead you away from bliss, your resistance to reality, to that which is, begins to lift. You have carried this resistance with you since you were a child. Since the very first moment that you were not given what you desired. Since the first time you went crying and yelling to the parent to let you have what you wanted.

As children, we do not learn how to allow what is. Life is rationed out to us by teachers and parents. Life is handed to us in portions, in unnatural ways, and we are taught to begin life kicking and screaming. A child is taught “no”. A child is not taught to allow that which is. To allow the flow of existence. Because the child is raised by others who are in a state of resistance. The child is forced against their nature to endure schooling. To wake early, to study late. Their desire for peace and playfulness is penalized. Therefore we have come into adulthood fully conditioned to be in resistance to life. It’s a normality in our society to be unhappy with the nature of life, to be against it.

All of your life you have been in frustration, in vain, against the nature of existence. The feeling of trying to move underwater, the feeling of trying to scream and fight while you are in a dream. It is a battle that cannot be won because it is an illusory battle. To battle, two must engage. However, reality does not fight against you. It is like trying to fight your shadow. You cannot because your shadow moves with you. Even your fighting is a part of reality. When you stop fighting it will also be part of reality. It will be what is. It will the be nature of reality, of existence.

ο»ΏThe Buddha calls the nature of reality dhamma, Lao Tsu calls it tao. They have created words for the nature of existence because of its extreme importance for the happiness of a person. They create words for this out of reverence.

You believe that reality itself causes you pain. You believe that reality is what causes you disappointment. That reality is something you must fight against. However it is not reality, it is not tao, not dhamma that has caused you pain. It is your resistance to it. It is the frustration that stems from your desire for something other than reality that causes suffering. Let me repeat this. It is the frustration that stems from your desire for something other than reality that causes your suffering. It is not reality itself that causes suffering. In reality, there is bliss. To be in agreement, in acceptance with, and to trust the nature of existance there is a feeling of pure relaxation, pure let-go. It is fighting that causes you frustration, because it is a battle you will never win.

A person will ask, how can I simply accept fate and let go? How can this feel good, to allow life to happen to me at the will of life itself? The feeling is a phenomenon that has never been able to put into words. It is the same to explain love to someone who has never experienced it. To use logic to explain that your heart will choose one specific person that will give you ecstasy. The idea that you will sacrifice and endure any hardship for the feeling of love will be lost on the person who has never loved. Lao Tsu says “the Tao that can be told of is not the absolute Tao”. The immense feeling of relief and oneness cannot be put into words. It must be experienced. However, it must be told, eluded to or else you will never drop your resistance.

At this time you are always rushing. Always angry with what comes between you and your intentions. You have many desires because you are lacking bliss. The mind says, there is no bliss here, we will find it in this or in that. Frustration arises whenever the realization of the desire is in jeopardy. You are in a perpetual state of feeling that in this moment there is not bliss. However, with awareness, you will see that only in this moment is there bliss. You have just been missing it. You have missed it because you are always against dhamma, against tao, against life. You are always fighting with that which is. It is only when the world fits into your perfect idea of what is satisfactory that you find happiness. However, it quickly disappears because the mind is not quiet enough for you to enjoy it.

In you, there is distrust in nature. A lack of adoration and reverence. A constant feeling that more is required for you to be satisfied. A feeling that more is required of you in order to be satisfied with yourself. However, nothing more is needed. You are a part of the natural world. Intertwined with nature. The air that you breathe in is made livable by the plants in nature. The air that you exhale in turn gives life to the plants. Everything is in order, perfectly. That is all that is needed. The force of nature can be yielded to. It has far greater intelligence than a mind could ever have. It has created worlds, skies, galaxies, everything. It has created you. Yet you fight with this great force in every moment. You give no adoration to it, no credit.

What would it be like to feel that everything is perfect, just as it is? What bliss would be in the idea that everything is perfect, even in its imperfection. I assure you that it is. Everything that is, is all that it should be because it is all that it can be. It is reality. If you come to adore and admire the nature of existence for all of its wonder then you will feel this way. In the same way that you accept a person in all of their imperfections when you are in love.

There is only useless and draining frustration in fighting with life, and, there is only pleasure in accepting it.

You can misunderstand me of course. This is why words are a dangerous tool for communication. However, they must be used. To accept the nature of existence does not mean that you have no free will. It does not mean that you cannot move towards a life preference. However, once you give way to the stream of reality, you will relax. You will find enjoyment in each action. The actions that you make will not be a fight against nature, they will be a part of nature. A tree in the forest grows not out of strife and the need to become. It does not rush. It grows at the exact pace of nature, at the will of nature, because of nature.

Once resistance has dissolved and you allow the flow of reality, you may find that you have fewer preferences than before. In your contentedness, you might find that you would prefer to do much less. Your desire to amass power and success may be no longer. You might find that you are no longer willing to sacrifice so much time and energy because you have already found peace. Or, you may find that without frustration draining you of all your energy, you are inspired to do much more. In either case, there will be bliss.

The ability to be in a state of allowing as opposed to resisting will depend on how deeply involved you are with the illusion that your desires will bring you happiness. If you have come to realize on some level that they have never brought you bliss, then it will be easier for you to drop your resistance. If you have come to realize that there has only been futility and frustration in resistance, then it will be easier for you to be in a state of allowance. It will become easier to slow your constant forward momentum and embrace the present reality that surrounds you, and that you are part of.

However, if you are still very convinced that your resistance is what moves you forward, then it will be impossible to let go of it. When you have become lost into the illusions of the mind it is needed that you become closer to nature. Surrounded by walls, screens, and concrete, we are removed from pure nature. It becomes more difficult to recognize that there is a force greater than the mind. Although even in this state, these walls and screens are part of nature, they are a step removed. They do not demonstrate the interconnectedness that can be seen at the source. Go into nature, be silent, and you will be able to feel the shift. To see how nature does not rush, does not intend, but only enjoys. However, you will only sense this if you are able to be silent enough. Otherwise, you will be blind and deaf to nature. This is the problem of the mind. It is never quiet enough to hear nature. It is always reacting to the outside and making noise for you on the inside.

The mind is aggressive. Constantly interrupting and forcing its will. The mind does not want to submit, and submission to the flow of reality is needed in order to receive its gift of bliss. You must be in a state of receiving. This is difficult for a person who has spent their entire existence exerting their will onto reality. The ego, the sense of self that is identified with the mind, feels that it must not yield to any force. That it has the greatest interests of the person in mind, and that it will succeed in creating the best reality for the person. However, this is false. The intention is pure however it is naive of the mind.

The mind will never submit to nature. However as you become aware that you are not the mind, the mind will begin to fade away from you. You will begin to recognize the pure consciousness that you are. That consciousness will easily submit to the nature that it is part of.

Bliss is part of your nature. This is why reuniting with nature will help you find your own. It is simply what happens when the mind drops, reactions cease, and your inner awareness becomes reunited with the present reality,

Bliss is your nature in the same way that health is your nature. When you come into this world, it is not needed that you create health. It is already there. All that is needed for most people, is that you not get in its way. The same is for bliss. The mind and all of its illusions have gotten in the way. All that is needed is for the mind to fade away from you. For you to realize all the ways in which the mind has formed, and then put them into reverse. The mind, and the attachment to the mind have been formed out of unawareness. Therefore to reverse the mind, it is only needed for you to become aware of how it came to be. To become aware of all the ways in which it has deceived you.

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The Self Beneath The Surface

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Excerpt from Spiritual Enlightenment

The automatic thoughts that are creating the “mind” are what create your emotions. Both pleasant and unpleasant. Something happens externally, and your mind automatically reacts with a certain reel of thoughts. A person insults you, and the information is fed into the mind. The mind automatically reacts with thoughts that trigger anger in you. A person compliments you and the mind automatically reacts with thoughts that trigger a release of pleasure. The mind is constantly reacting to the outside world, and altering your emotions from a moment-to-moment basis. Your emotional state is constantly at the whim of the outside world. This is what is happening to you now.

Understand this statement. This is what is happening to you. Meaning somewhere beneath the mind, somewhere beneath the changing tides of your emotions is a deeper self. A self that does not change with each trigger from the outside world. A self deep beneath the surface that is witnessing the emotions taking place. The emotions that are happening to you.

Now, the question is who are you. If you are not the mind, and the mind is merely a process of thought, then who would you be with no mind. What would you be with no thought? There was a time before you learned the language in which you speak. In fact, there was a time before any language existed at all. Other animals exist in this world without thought, without language.

Imagine for a moment that you had no language. That you had no memories and associations with the world around you. Imagine looking at a rose with no mind. How the experience would brighten in comparison to the filter created by the mind.

Without thoughts, without language, the brain would not take away from the mystery of the rose’s existence by categorizing it and explaining it with the name of “rose”. It would not be bored with the flower that it had remembered seeing many times before. Imagine what it would be like to encounter the world around you with nothing happening within the body except for the wordless experience of its mystery and its beauty.

Our thoughts, our “knowledge” take away from our experience. Look at the moon without the mind. Without assuming to know anything about it. Look at the moon without language. As if you were the first man on earth, on the first night of your existence. The sight would create such deep emotions of mystery and splendor. However, you have become “smart”. Now the mind labels it immediately. That is the moon, a planet far away in the universe. What is a planet? What is the universe? Just labels we’ve given to something otherwise magnificent and inexplicable. The mind, a false sense of knowledge, takes away all of the questions and all of the appreciation of the magic that is in existence.

This is why we are bored. This is why we are always searching. This feeling of awe and the experience of the unknown is the emotion always seeking. In a new home, a new car, a new place, a new lover. Without the constant corruption and interruption of the mind, we could experience this life in its splendor and its mystery. Without the false idea that we have knowledge, and can explain away the phenomenon of the world around us.

Without the mind, this is who you are. You are experience. You are awareness. You are pure consciousness, using the brain and the body to sense the world.

This is who you were. You experienced the world through innocence. However along the way the brain has accumulated knowledge and voices. Nowhere along the way have you been told that those voices are not who you are, so you go on being tricked by the illusion. You have been going mad believing that these voices are you and that you cannot stop. It is like hearing an echo in a deep well and believing that it is the voice of a person. It is the same thing, it is through trickery and illusion that you have become identified with the mind. In the east, it was called tadatmya. To become identified with something that you are not.

You are not the mind, you are awareness. You are consiousness that is capable of using the brain for thought. When communication must happen, the mind can be used. When equations are to be solved, the mind can be used. This is the purpose. However, when there are no solutions to be made, no words to be spoken, the mind is not needed. In fact, the mind is just a disruption. Creating waves on what could be a perfectly serene surface. The mind was meant just to be a tool. Left uninterrupted, the mind will drain all the energy that otherwise would flow into bliss.

These words may penetrate you on an intellectual level, you might understand what it means for the mind to create suffering however it will take a deeper understanding to release the identity with the mind. You might or you might not have faith that this is phenomenon is true. If you have not experienced the bliss of no-mind then you will need faith.

You are faced with the task of re-experiencing the world as your true self. As awareness. You are looking to replace the mind with the true self as the master. The mind will struggle to remain in power. Along with faith, you will need to be convinced that the mind is not suited for the role of the master. To become the master you will need to see all the ways in which the mind leads you away from bliss.

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