The substance stars are made of

Tonight I have a bedtime story to share.

A long long time ago... or was it just a while ago? Hmm no matter, in my mind is as fresh as yesterday. It was sunny and warm, a perfect autumn day. I was walking down the street and I saw a girl in her early teens. She was rollerskating and enjoying her time with her friends. She was all a smile but I noticed one of her arms ended in a stump.

Immediately my mind processing entered a grim mode. I started to pity the girl thinking how hard it must be for her to go through life and how even more hardships are awaiting her in the future. Why things like this happen? Especially to a child. Life is not a walk in the park anyway...

And then she looked at me with a serene look on her face... I immediately felt ashamed. I realized my judgement was born out of a life of programming and social conditioning. The so-called reality my mind is constructing is what keeps me in the prison of judging something as good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate event, accepting or denying.

When that realization happened I stopped judging. I stepped out of my mind`s "comfort-zone" and realized life simply happens. It`s us who label things as good or bad. But that doesn`t make it real. Not at all. When what I hold to be acceptable clashes with what another holds to be acceptable then none is true. It`s just a mind construction, a daydream.

Old news, you might say if you read my previous writings. Something was different this time though.
When you look beyond form you see the truth, you see what is immortal, you see the substance we are made of. And I seen it in that child`s eyes. And I see it in the plants, and the animals, and a gorgeous landscape. It`s the feeling of being connected to one another, the feeling of not being an individual entity but one of the many parts of a sole organism. It`s the feeling of being transported beyond form back to the center of the universe. Back home.

Form dissipates because it is not real. A hand is a stump is no more. It`s just a machine we use to take us to our destination. The stump only exists in your head, and only until you step out and you realize it wasn`t there in the first place.

Forms are bound to change but the spirit is eternal. And maybe one day in autumn you will walk down the street and feel something that will rock your world, a feeling of oneness and completeness. It might come from a beautiful sunset, or a blossoming flower, or the smile of a child who knows what is important in life.

And then you wake up.

The lesson of a tiny creature

I was in the countryside during the weekend doing some labour around the house. I was shoveling some gravel which was to be used for building a new parking place for the cars. Close to ending when I was pretty tired and didn`t pay as much attention as before I unintentionally hit a frog which was hiding in the sand pile. Unfortunately the shovel cut down one of her legs.

It was a small to medium size light green frog. I took her and placed her on a pasture a bit further away. While doing so I couldn`t not notice how calm she was and how warm she was looking at me. Her eyes were watering, most likely because of the physical pain, but other than that she did nothing but to look at me and blink from time to time.

I was amazed by such peacefullness. Don`t think any human being could react this way when facing such a brutal vicissitude of life. However this tiny frog did nothing. Life is life and there`s not much we can do about it but live it and go with the flow. It doesn`t matter if you greet life with open arms or with clenched teeth. What is going to happen will happen whether you like it or not.

Somehow men didn`t learn this lesson. Animals and plants did. They live for the moment while men live for tomorrow with their silly dreams and expectations, fighting and waiting for something that will never come, destroying themselves and the planet we inhabit in their search.

All this time I was looking at this frog wondering what to do to make it better. I can`t really make a frog grow a leg back lol so there wasn`t much to do. However the time I took watching it meant something to me. I borrowed some of that peacefulness myself. Somehow a lesson in awareness has been thought and a frog was the teacher.

All the other beings we share this planet with have an important lesson to teach: to accept what it "is" and to abandon our mind programming and prejudice and everything that keeps us in the past or dreaming about a "better" future, and to live in the now - the only time that is certain.

I will close with a quote from the Bible even if "God" knows I`m one of the worst Christians walking the Earth. However this was quite appropriate:
"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin" (Matthew 6:28)

What is true?

A week or so ago I read a book by a guy who says he reached enlightenment. The method he was teaching his pupils was for them to simply discover "the truth" out of everything else.

"Think for yourself and figure out what’s true. That’s it. Ask yourself what’s true until you know."

So far so good. It didn`t help me that much but it was a good place to start.

"It`s about finding out what we know for c e r t a i n and everything else."

I wrote down a couple of things that resonated to what I hold to be true. Truth is that which was not created and what will never reach an ending. However there was no break through, no new discovery, no "Evrika!".

Until tonight, when a paragraph from Eckhart Tolle made some light. It is not the first time when life gave me some answers even if with a short delay and when I was nowhere waiting for it.

"If in your relationship you experience both love and the opposite of love - attack, emotional violence, and so on - then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. [..] True love has no opposite. If your love has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense of your self, a need that the other person cannot meet for you. It is the ego's substitute for salvation or God."

It is not something I never heard before. But somehow tonight it stroke a chord inside of me and suddenly there was light.
Eckhart is talking about love relationships. I`m talking about everything in life:

Whichever has an opposite is fake.

Simple as that, plus the answer to the question of "what is true". Whichever doesn`t have an opposite is the truth I have been waiting for.

This can be used in any situation life presents you with. If your happiness is "because" of something and in the absence of that thing you will start feeling miserable then the whole situation is not true - that for happiness vs. sadness but it`s the same for everything else which has an opposite.

All the opposite principles are representatives of duality, we live in a dual world after all. All those that do not have an opposite come from the world of non-duality and are those that will survive our mortal death.

Non-mind

The non-mind is a lightning, a current of energy that burns you inside out. It starts with the thought. It continues with observing the thought and with stepping outside the thought. It ends with a scent, a flavor that cannot be expressed in words. Which is understandable after all words are expressed thoughts. No thought can express the non-thought, the non-mind.

You feel both full and empty same time - full of being and empty of illusion. This emptiness cannot be regarded as something negative, like boredom or unhappiness. The negative can only exist in the presence of the positive. This emptiness contains none of it. It`s void of any kind of emotion.

This current sweeps away your entire body, bit by bit, and eventually you start to feel that it is not just inside but also outside. This current is connected with the outer world as well, the energy going in and out as it chooses, like a wave in the ocean. That is when you start doubting the existence of your own body. How can you have a material existence when you clearly feel the wave inside out. Your "static" body is actually a movement of energy, a wave of particles.

You are unlimited. You have no beginning and no ending. This wind can take you miles away and it is only for the consciousness to hold it together. In the absence of this consciousness, nothing holds this wave in place. You would dissipate into oblivion.

In the absence of the mind and the thought, you experience a freedom you never did before. Life tastes sweeter, and not just metaphorically. However, even now you feel a bit caged. Why not stopping the consciousness all together? Why not dissipate completely into the Universe? Ultimate freedom - the end of everything.

Your body is not non-mind. Your body is mind. Your body is a cage. When you step outside the mind, your body feels liquid or even further less dense. This might explain how the American shamans were able to juggle with their own energy field, to transform themselves into whichever they desired and to completely leave the world when time came without leaving a corpse behind.

Or maybe the non-mind is not the ultimate answer. Maybe it`s just the opposite of the mind, just a creation to ensure duality on this plane. In this case none would be real except this dance of particles, held together by a thought. The ultimate answer is yet to be found, not in words at least.

The further you go down the lane the more questions you have and the less answers you are given. Life is here and now and not in these words you reading.

Nothingness Enthroned

 "The elephant is a distortion in space, its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure." - The Elephants, painting by Salvador Dali

 You look around and you see a room, a chamber full of objects. They form and define your space. To an extent they are part of your "persona". They speak about who and what you are, about what you stand for.

But what if instead of concentrating on the object, you loose yourself in the space between. What if, instead of seeing the end-of-the-road object, you see the void that supports the whole structure. Is an empty room really empty or is it full with substance? And if you fill your room with objects (and accordingly your mind with fleeting thoughts) doesn`t that take away some of your substance, some of your immortal nature? For objects come and go but there is something that is eternal.

There is a seed of creation that never dies or disappear. Unfortunately our kind is only interested in possessions, and I wonder if not, in a moment of solitude, we mirrored the emptiness inside of us and, scared of it we ran away and lost our awareness in this ocean of material illusions. What would happen if instead of running away we would embrace the emptiness and see where it takes us. Why be afraid? What do we have to loose?... Our minds probably, but maybe that is the whole point.

The emptiness is all around us. The emptiness is also inside. Going back to the quantum physics, they say that the solidity of the matter is an illusion. Even the apparent solidity of the human body is almost 100% empty space, this is how huge are the distances between the atoms comparing to their size. Even more than that, if you split an atom you will find the same substance - emptiness. What remains is more like a wave, a frequency (does that sound similar to our thoughts brainwaves by any chance?) - like the sounds of a unmanifested music. The whole matter is nothing but a wave of energy, a wave of thoughts, which we choose to see in a certain way and which gives birth to everything around us, our body, our chamber, our whole world. Our dream...

The Unmanifested is not present in this bipolar world but still it forms the substance from which this world was created. What does that mean but the fact that our true nature is in the void? We were born out of darkness and in darkness we shall return. This nothingness is our mother and our father. It gives us birth, it fills our space with "nothing", it nurtures us and helps us back on the right track for when we get trapped in the object.

So why fear the emptiness? Why go back to the mundane for fear of boredom and find things to do in order to pass the time? To continuously recreate dreams and illusions in the hope that this way we will be "something" or "somebody" when the truth is that we are nothing.

And if you taste this truth you might find out that this emptiness is more fulfilling than any object. Ironically, in the bosom of stillness you will find that which sets the world in motion.

Until next time have a day filled with emptiness and may the nothingness in one mirror the nothingness in the other.

Why so serious?

 
Nothing in life has a meaning deeper than the meaning you give it.
You first think you are "somebody", you build yourself an ego, a role to play. At a certain point in life (usually when you`re young) it actually makes sense. You are this or the other. You are a doctor or a student, a good person or a sinner, or a scientist, or somebody who is insecure. There`s billions of people and just as many egos. And you go on playing your part feeling happy and feeling sad at times.

When somebody reiterates your ego, you call him friend. When somebody makes you feel insecure, you call him enemy. But the same person can become your best friend a moment later for simply starting to feed into your ego. And right after that, an enemy again for he did something to offend you. The truth is, they are all the same. The one who applies labels is you. It`s not their deeds that made you choose. It`s your own projections and your own mind(less) programming that brought you in this situation in the first place. And nothing will change until you remove the veil off your self created illusions.

A while back I saw a movie, don`t remember all the details but it was about quantum physics. They say humans are bombarded every second with 14 million bits of information. From that huge quantity, with our 5 senses, we only bring in a few thousands. And even then, all that information is being filtrated by our expectations, our prejudice and our mind barriers. In conclusion, we are blind and deaf to what life really is. We acknowledge less than 1% of what happens around us. What we see is nothing but a dream... our own imagination.

We don`t see life as it is, we only see what we want to see. When you know this, life suddenly becomes unlimited. You see the unbounded potential in each and every situation. You stop making excuses and you go out living.

How can you say that X is your friend, and Y is your enemy when there is absolutely no certainty whatsoever. How can you ever be sad again when you know that sadness is nothing but a state of mind? Your mind. How can you be frustrated or angry with life and situations when you know it`s of your own making.

How can you be angry at a dream when you can simply wake up?

Well, tonight all my friends are my enemies and all my enemies are my friends. Enjoy the game.

Instead

I don`t believe in words and I have no faith in gods.
Their scriptures seem so cold and their clothes too old.
I have no trust in philosophy. It`s human mind atrophy.
I put no weight on thought. They are long lasting not.

Instead I love the site, the beauty of the night.
The white of the snows, the way in which wind blows.
The green of the tree where a wolf pack roams free.
The howl of its wolves who follow no rules.
Amazed by her hair curl and the smile of a girl,

A kiss on her lips and a touch on her hips,

The softness of her voice making my heart rejoice.
The blossom of a flower and a spring rain shower.
The scent of a rose which makes time froze.
The silky morning dew mirroring sky`s blue.
The play of a child who knows to live life wild.
Take the mindless set, I choose life instead.

An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will

Bide within the Law you must, in perfect Love and perfect Trust.
Live you must and let to live, fairly take and fairly give.
(The Wiccan Rede)

I have always tried to treat people the way I expected to be treated in return. Time ago I used to think that it was needed if you want to lead a "pleasant" life and to have people be nicer towards you. And they were. Life does indeed give you what you deserve. Treating others the way you would like to be treated does work. But... yes, there`s a but... it didn`t yesterday.

Details are unimportant. Somebody did to me something I wouldn`t do to that person or to anybody else before. Something which my system of "morals" would prevent me from doing. Why? Because I don`t do that. Because something in me stops it from happening.

And thinking about it, it might be that that "Mr. Morals" inside of me is my greatest enemy on the path towards freedom. That voice that says, "Don`t do that. It`s not nice. Don`t add to the world`s negativity. Think about your image. Think about what other people will think of you."
Of course, in a way it`s all right to live following a set of rules. That stops the whole world going crazy. But what if those rules keep you in slavery? Indeed, treating others how would you like to be treated helps you lead a more pleasant life. But you`re still chained to something even though your chain is made of gold and not iron. It`s still a chain.

So what to do in this situation? Start acting against your mindset and system of morals? Do exactly the opposite and be rude or straightforwardly hurt people? Of course that might crush your previous morality and... kindness. But fighting fire with fire would NOT give you freedom. It would simply change your system of rules, your mindset with another. So the answer here would be, rather than analyzing your current personality and find flaws and try to change, better just let it go. Just be aware. Just accept that the world is a crazy place and it can not be logically understood .

You can be a moral person all you like and one day somebody will treat you so unfairly that you will have a big problem dealing with the whole thing and not have a break down. Life indeed cannot be controlled. And given the fact that we use less than 10% of our brain capacity, and that with our limited physical senses we perceive less than 1% of what really happens around us... we can safely assume that we are blind and deaf to what life really is.

And even though I knew all that, there was still a battle inside my head, between the "me who felt hurt" (the ego) by that other person`s action  and the "observer" - the one who doesn`t get involved and who simply watches life unfolding any way it chooses to :). And this is what worries me or better said what is bothering me. It`s something I have to discover or to learn in order to move forward, to reach that freedom from mind control.

Takes me thinking to what Eckhart Tolle used to say about the pain body, about that negative energy which takes control over us if we let it. And it is precisely what startled me last night, that thing that "disrupted" my peaceful existence and begun to feed into my own negativity. I started to emit judgements and criticize another person because it wouldn`t live by my set of rules and morals. And this "pain body" would have grown even stronger if it wasnt for the "observer" - my awareness. If I kept on thinking that way then no good would came out of it.

So in the end, guess I have to be grateful. To give thanks to life for showing me one of the issues I have to go through in order to reach the other side. It showed me that there is a pain body inside which is still strong and to find a way to stop feeding into it.

Onwards...

I choose chaos

What are the consequences anyway? To be regarded as madman? To have fingers pointed at you? To have people asking why cant you be more like "the rest"? Why cant you do as we did? Why aren't you "normal"? What is wrong with you?
I was reading some quotes by Jim Morrison with a friend of mine and she said he was a rebel and his ideas were unacceptable from a social point of view.
I looked at them and I seen nothing wrong.

"A person has to be willing to give up everything, all the bullshit he`s been taught, all society`s brainwashing. You have to let go of all that to get to the other side."

Seems like what a normal person would do if you ask me. Who gives a rat`s ass about what society thinks? Who cares what the other thinks of you when you pass by? Seriously, who gives a shit?
Of course, you have to play a role in order to survive. You cant exist by yourself. You need people around you. But do not lose yourself in their perception. Do not give them more weight than they deserve. Hear their calling, and occasional whining. Learn if there`s anything to learn, help if there`s need to help, and move on.

Morrison made a lot of mistakes, he picked many wronged ways in order to reach "the other side". But at least he tried. At least he stepped out of the highway and took on a wooden path. And maybe he did find that place he was looking for.

"The road towards freedom - external freedom is a way to bring about internal freedom"

For me this are not the ideas of a madman. If you take away the rock`n`roll glamor and the drugs and the alcohol and you simply read his words you will find the same spirit, the same wisdom of a Jesus, or a Buddha. You will find a master.

Now, if he reached "the other side" doesn`t much matter. He found the truth that normal is madness and that the ultimate answer is in chaos.

On death and dying...

 Remember each moment, what you are accumulating is it going to be taken away by death? - Then it is not worth bothering about. If it is not going to be taken away by death, then even life can be sacrificed for it - because one day or another life is going to disappear. Before life disappears, use the opportunity to find that which never dies.

A woman`s husband died. She was young, had only one child. she wanted to commit sati, she wanted to jump in the funeral pyre with her husband, but this small child prevented her. She had to live for this small child.
But then the small child died. Now it was too much. She went almost insane, asking people, Is there any physician anywhere who can make my child alive? I was living only for him, now my whole life is simply dark...
It happened that Buddha was coming to the town, so people said, We don't know any physician, but Buddha is coming. That is a great chance. You take the child to Buddha and tell him that, 'i am living for this child, and the child has died,' and ask him, 'You are such a great enlightened person, call him back to life! Have mercy on me!'
So she went to Buddha. She put the dead body of the child at Buddha's feet and she said, Call him back to life! you know all the secrets of life, you have attained to the ultimate peak of existence. Can't you do a small miracle for a poor woman?
Buddha said, I will do it, but there is a condition.
She said, I will fulfill any condition.
Buddha said, Settled. The condition is: you go around the town and from a house where nobody has ever died, bring few mustard seeds. That village was cultivating mustard seeds, so Buddha told her, Just go around...
The woman could not understand the strategy. She went to one house, and they said, few mustard seeds? we can bring a few bullock carts full of mustard seeds if Buddha can bring your son back to life. But our mustard seeds will not be of any help, because not one, but thousands have died in our family.
Since eternity we are here. We have seen our great-grandfather dying, we have seen our great-grandmother dying, we have seen our grandfather dying, grandmother dying. we have seen so many deaths in our family. These mustard seeds are useless. Buddha's condition is: 'from a house where nobody has ever died.
It was a small village, and she went to every house. Everybody was ready: how many seeds you want? but the condition was impossible, so many people have died in our families.
By the evening she became aware of the fact, and of the strategy of Gautama Buddha. She understood that whoever is born is going to die. So what is the point of getting the child back again? He will die again. It is better to seek the eternal, which is never born and never dies. She came back, empty-handed.

Buddha asked, where are the mustard seeds?
She laughed. In the morning she had come crying; now she laughed, and she said, you tricked me! Everybody who is born is going to die. There is no family where nobody has died - not in this village, not in the whole world. So i don't want my son to be awakened again into life - what is the point? After few days, or few months, or few years, he will have to die again. And all these years he will live in misery, in all kinds of anguish and anxiety.
Your compassion is great that you did not wake him up back to life! forget about the child. initiate me into the art of meditation so that i can go into the land, into the space of immortality, where birth and death have never happened."
Buddha said, you are a very intelligent woman. you understand the point.

I call this a miracle, not Jesus' waking up Lazarus. I don't call that a miracle. Apparently that looked like a miracle, but appearance is not the reality. I call Buddha's strategy a miracle. everybody is going to die, there is no point... one has to get out of birth and death.

And Buddha initiated the woman, and she became one of the enlightened ones among Buddha's disciples. Her urgency was such... she knew that, my husband has died, my child has died, and now it is my number. Any moment and I will be a victim of death, so there is not much time. I don't know at what moment the death is coming, so I have to be totally involved in the search, what the Buddha is telling me to do: 'go inwards. go to the very center of your being, and you will be beyond birth and death.'

This I call an authentic miracle: cutting the problem from the very roots.

by Osho

Acting vs. Reacting

 
Today I will talk on the subject of how the mind deals with every day situations and what kind of "influence" such a decision might have on you.
I just read this blog a few minutes ago and it did seem like the "answer" I was expecting for the past few days. And Life does indeed answers our calls as long as we open our mind for it.

We are programmed to act a certain way given certain outside conditions or stimuli. Simple as that. Or at least it`s simple if you let the mind rule over you, if you fail to realize that mind is not you but a tool you use.

If you consider yourself to be the mind then you will indeed act the way you were programmed. If you consider yourself to be a "persona" playing a certain role on this plane and another person or situation comes and does something that disrupts your "perfect" existence you will immediatly respond in a defensive manner.

Negative does not necessarily mean taking a baseball bat and hitting that person over the head. Negative can also be being unpleasantly sarcastic or even indifferent.
And it is not necessarily the outcome which I consider as "negative" but the way you feel inside.

You act negative for you get defensive. Somebody or something attempts to jeopardize the idea you have of yourself. And you worked so hard to get here. You been through so many self-made hardships and you had to convince so many people that you do exist. And now somebody or something dares to be a pain? The nerve some people have...

You like your room to be tidy and somebody starts throwing your things on the floor, then your first reaction is to get displeased (or even angry) with the other. Whether you show it or not, deep inside you feel this anger eating at your core. That is what happens when you "react", when you let the mind deal with the situation.

And this is what happened to me last week when I got an email from an old acquintance who`s "indirect" purpuse was to draw me back into a series of mind games and ego clashes by taping on my old wounds and insecurities. And this is exactly what it would happen if I got this email as far as an year ago. I would have gotten angry and most likely say a few words back in order to "prove a point" and come out on top. Basically unconsciously reacting to somebody disrupting my "happy" existence.

What changed that I didn`t fall for the trick?

Rather than letting my mind answer that email I`ve chosen to be aware. I read the words, I noticed how they strike a feeling of insecurity inside of me. I tried my best to keep my composure and not give in to my desire to "teach" that person a lesson, and so the negative flow has been stopped. Instead of jumping into a roller-coaster of negative feelings and memories, I decided to keep my inner peacefulness and be a witness instead.

And so it had little to no negative effect on me. When you go through life "reacting" to the way life kicks you in the family jewelry, then you are bound to go through a lot of negativity.

When you stop that and instead try not to take things personal and realize you don`t have to be a "victim" to other peoples and situations, life will simply stop appearing like a boogie man who is after you.

Choose acting rather than reacting. Remember mind as a tool. Remember that "your" beliefs and concepts are not the ultimate truth but just a point of view, and that there are 8 billion points of view and all of them are right and all of them are wrong, all in the same time.

Simply be aware.

Time

"Question:  How does Reincarnation work?

Many believe that the current personality experienced on Earth now will, after the change known as "death", return to the "afterlife" for a time, the Astral Planes, before eventually returning again in the "future" for another life as another person. This is actually an erroneous but understandable perspective.[...]

The process of reincarnation can be related to a wheel.

If we look at a wooden cart wheel, we see that it has a hub at the centre, spokes radiating from the hub, the spokes eventually joining the outer rim of the wheel.

In this context then the wheel represents the following: Hub - the Higher Self; Spokes - timelines relative to the Earth concept of "time"; Rim - the physical Universe of matter.

The hub, the Higher Self is the total of all physical lives and "future" lives, "past", "present" and "Future" relative to Earth concept of "time.

Each spoke represents a "timeline" for each individual experience of a personality, or "incarnation".

Each incarnation therefore represents a personality which begins at the hub, travels to Earth along a particular timeline, arriving at the rim, collects a package of experience, and then progresses back up the spoke.[...]

The Higher Self chooses which country, location and parents would best present the opportunities and experiences required for this particular "incarnation".

So the Higher Self could for example send a personality as a female in one incarnation, who will be born to a family of bakers living in London, England in the year 1862.

Another personality of the Higher Self might be a male born to a doctor and his wife living in India in 1999.

Another personality might be a son born to a Saxon noble family of land owners in early medieval times and so on.

It is important to understand that these personalities are not sent by the Higher Self sequentially, i.e. one at a time. All incarnations of a human being take place concurrently relative to the Earth concept of "time", i.e. simultaneously relative to the Higher Self - the illusion called "time" while here on Earth."

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For me the whole idea of reincarnation sounds boring, at least. Too much literature was written on this subject and maybe that`s why.
I kept hearing how outside this bidimensional world there is no time, and how everything happens in the same moment. And I can say I understood the idea. Now, thinking in retrospect I didn`t really understand it, most likely I assumed the idea and moved on.
We, on Earth, have this notion that time is linear, that now we`re doing this and in 10 years from now we will copulate with aliens and 1000 years ago we used to drink clean water.
The idea that time moves in a circle (even if I read about it before) was never something which can turn into a life-style. Now thinking about it, it does make it easier to think about the possibility to time-travel and to look at the whole process as indeed happening in the same time. If you die tomorrow and you (well, not literaly you but your soul) have the possibility to reincarnate not only after but even before your current existance, let`s say 2500 years ago and be a witness of Alexander`s empire, then our whole existance, our entire dogma is to be questioned.
I guess our current idea of time is one of the strongholds of the ego. You get born, you live, have children, and then you die. It all happens in the past, present and future. However, if there is no time, at least in my case, having and clinging to the idea of an ego gets very wonky. If I can die tomorrow and be revived prior to my latest existance, then there is nothing to base a "persona" upon. Who is this idea of me as long as my existance is not even liniar? I can move throught time, getting born here and there according to my life plan and to what I`m interested in experimenting at a certain "time".
I am as fluid as the ocean, or so I thought. Now i start to wonder if the ocean doesn`t hold even more "weight" than I ever did. How can someone say he is the sum of his history and his becoming if he can simply travel in time and change it and start all over again? Just go back, patch a few things and voila you are a completely different person.
And more than that, by changing yourself in this current life, you change "yourself" in all of your existences, as they all happen in the same moment. Everything happens Now.
Well, in this case, you - that which you consider yourself to be and what you stand for today - are not real. You are not even a figment of your own imagination. You and I, we do not exist. We are nothing but an experiment of something greater than we can ever imagine.

Play the role but do it good

Who are you but a collection of memories, of teachings and suffering. They shaped you. They gave you strength. And if not for the strength, then they strengthened you in your weaknesses. Only fools pretend that they have no responsibility for what life has given them. Take a look at your scars, were they really inflicted by somebody else or were they self-made? Who is your enemy but yourself?

So you have chosen to play a role. You are either the good guy or the bad guy, you are a sinner or a defender of morality. No matter the role you picked, this made you think you are better than the rest. Why? Because it is what you chose.

And the role will bring you victories, and it will bring you suffering. The moment you decided for one, you decided for both. There is no one without the other. The coin has two sides and you are destined to live through them both. So stop whining. In the end you will be victorious. Crown of Gold or Crown of Thorns, it`s only different in your mind.

What are you a winner of though? ... What is it that you`re winning? ...
Nothing. There is nothing. It`s all in vain.
If there is nothing then again, nothing stops you from playing the role. Do it, but do it the best you can. Have no remorse for there is nobody to count`em. If you want something go get it. It`s yours to take.

Never forget though, there is nothing to win. A role is just a role, like a play in a theater. It gives you nothing but, at most, some crowd ovations. So play the role and do it good. For it is not real. Deep inside you are not the role but the actor. And the actor encompasses everything - Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End.

By playing the role, you meet the actor. But you have to step on the scene first. And to give it all. And one day you will meet the actor. And the play will be complete.

Now please excuse this midnight-passed mindless scribe. He is just playing his part.

A few "thoughts" on Dual Non-Duality

I read words which sound ordinary. I do things which look ordinary. I eat foods which taste ordinary.
And then I wake up and I read words which sound extraordinary! I do things which look extraordinary! I eat foods which taste extraordinary!
It is the same words, the same things and the same taste. The only thing that is different is the "feel".
When you live in ordinary everything seems boring. When you live in extraordinary everything seems divine.
It is the same words, the same things and the same taste. What makes the difference is your awareness, your silence...
So keep reading the same words with this new "feel", do the same things and taste the same foods. And ordinary will become extraordinary.
And you will arrive back home.
The air tastes different up there even if it`s the same air.

Passing moments

Take a short break from whatever it is you are doing; breath in and out, watch the air fill up your lungs and then coming out. Read slowly and try to "feel" the words rather than understanding them...

The quieter you become;
the more you are able to hear.

If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.

You will not be punished for your anger;
you will be punished by your anger.

A wise man makes his own decisions;
an ignorant man follows the public opinion.

Student says 'I am very discouraged. What should I do?'

Master says, 'encourage others.'

A flower falls even though we love it and 

a weed grows even though we do not love it.

Although gold dust is precious, 

when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision.

Even a good thing isn't as good as nothing.

When you get to the top of the mountain, 

keep climbing.

If you gaze for long into the abyss,
the abyss also gazes into you.

To set up what you like against what you dislike -
this is the disease of the mind.

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on,
he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.

When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough.
When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much.

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.

Ego

During meditation I surprised myself thinking on a few subjects, having contradictory thoughts on peoples and situations for their deeds which were against the way I would have done it. And my thoughts started to ramify into yet another story, or maybe not another but actually the same old story, of a person who thinks himself different then another, who thinks he knows best and who think that the others should look more carefully into his mouth.
And so I started to look more closely into the process, why does the ego does it? Probably many things I write about now have been said before but I don`t remember, and even if they were, the fact that it`s happening again can only mean that I haven`t learned the lesson yet. So i will go on, maybe one day I will get bored of "myself" and finally decide to move on.

The ego is the sum of the thoughts we have. Our thoughts "give birth" to a character, a person, an individual. Some people are smarter, some are dumber. Some people are better then others, even if "better" is relative, and so on.  There`s 8 billion personalities and each and every one think they know best. Even if they pretend to be humble or "inferior" to another, make no mistake, that was still their choice, because of the fact that of course "they know better".
So the ego is the role you play, husband or wife, employee or employer, rich or poor, etc - the story you tell yourself each and every morning and which you now take to be true.

The ego is born from conflict. You can only know who you are by comparing yourself with the others. From this comparison you make up your mind as to who you are and who you are not. If you think about it, you realize you can recreate yourself every moment. You can simply decide to be another person and it will happen. Of course as long as you fully believe you can change into that which you desire. However this is not the topic of this blog. The internet is filled with "get rich receipes" or whatever "fetishes" you might have thinking that it will change your life. I already found out that it doesn`t.
Being another person would just create another sort of conflict, another pain to carry on your shoulders. And so, the answer to the whole thing would be that you have to drop the ego, this personality, this thing you call you or yourself, in order to be free, in order to end the state of conflict.

So, about an hour ago, I was going through this state of conflict, imaginarily arguing with pros and cons as to why the whole situation would have been better if "done my way". The subtle message was, that things had to be a certain way in order for me to be "happy". And things never happen this way because, of course, the other egos think that they also know better then you. How can you ever find peace this way? You can`t. You will go through this perpetual state of conflict, of unhappiness, until the day you die, and maybe even beyond.

So how do we drop the ego?
A few weeks back I was thinking about the same thing. And then I first tried to localize it. I thought that finding its place i can make it back of or something. Unfortunately they didn`t invent a spray that can take care of the problem, yet.

If you alone remained on the earth, nobody to fight with, would you have an ego? You would not have an ego. The other is needed to create it; the other is a must. ego is a relationship, it is not in you.  Remember, the ego is not in you, it is NOT LOCATED within you. It is always located within you and the other - somewhere in between, where fight exists. (Osho)

Yeah, like that sorts out my problem, thanks! -.-
So, I guess it is really not that easy. However, feel free to read what Osho says about it in here.

Then I realised, you simply cant fight fire with fire. You cannot understand the ego. You cannot reason with it. For the simple fact that the ego is a product of the human mind, or maybe they are the same, I don`t know. Using your mind to fight the mind would not be very smart. In order to step outside the ego, you have to step outside the mind. Stop yourself from thinking, but do not force it.
Using any sort of means in order to obtain a result is of the mind, is the same thing that give birth to the ego in the first place. What to do then? Simply be aware of your thoughts, let them roam through your head until they get bored, or until you get bored and drop them out. Cherish the moments of peace in your life, do not run away, do not look up for things to do in order to pass the time, in order to not feel lonely or bored anymore.

Watch your thoughts and the stories they give birth to, until one day when you will realize how impotent the whole process of thinking is, and how it brings no results whatsoever, and then you will be free. And you will stop being a slave of the mind but a true master.

Hope this helps.
I`m off to see what conflictual situations I can give birth to in order to "test" what I learned tonight ;)

What is your illusion?

What is it that gets "under your skin"?

In order to answer that you should first know what the ego is, and how does it (tries to) rule your life. Is it career related, or family, or spiritual, or related to relationships and society? Or all of them? What roles do you enjoy playing?

Because then you will know what is it that "gets under your skin", what triggers your insecurities, your unhappiness.

Pick one subject and think about it. Are you worried of what might happen in case you don`t get what is it that you "think" you need. Do you feel that you need to compete with others in order to get it? Are you constantly thinking if you`re good enough for it, or at anything else for that matter?
Well if the answer is yes, you just found the "field" in which your ego is playing tricks on you, the area in which you are still under the spell of the illusion. And for as long you feed into it, you will never break free.

In conclusion, whichever creates tension in you,  whichever bothers you in one way or another is a clear indication of the direction in which you have issues to solve. And I do mean anything. For example, you walk down the street and you see somebody who does something which you`d regard as inappropriate and that makes your blood to start boiling, well then there you are.

For "my" self, what triggers conflict inside of me (at least lately) was and still is the relationships chapter, which is a clear indication of where is the ego, the "persona", pulling the strings, fighting for it`s own survival. And even though at times I find it difficult to deal with this problem, I do have to be grateful for having a place to start with, in order to clear all the waste left and star anew.

And then one day, to reach back home.

How do we save the world?

 
Could it be that the world doesn`t need saving? Could it be that our idea that somebody/something outside of us needs "saving" is nothing but a reflection of our own insecurities?

Or at least that was my answer when a friend asked me the other day, what should we do in order to save the world. She said that others answered with "God" or "the judgement day" which more likely were meant for a joke than for a real solution.

If you look outside of you and you see something you don`t like couldn`t it be that it`s actually something inside you have a problem with? Life is life, regardless of the way you perceive it. One might look at it disappointed because he is mirroring his past mistakes and failures, his struggle and heartbreak. And of course life will seem like a torment. Another will simply take pleasure in the small things, the green of the spring, the song of the birds, the smell of the ocean, and life will seem like a blessing. Same life, two different approaches.
Of course that the one who sees life from a material perspective will feel the need to "save" something or somebody. But that because inside he feels the need to be saved as well. While the other will realize that life is perfect just the way it is, and it needs no changing.
Desire for changing or for self-perfecting can only be caused by the inner emptiness, one`s insecurities.

The same question can be answered from a different perspective. At the surface we are all different, with qualities and defects that make us unique. However at a deeper level we are all the same. We are made from the same material, we breathe the same air, we have the same spark that keeps things in motion. It`s only our "persona" that is different, our ego. And it`s this persona, this role we socially play, that makes us different, or at least tries to.

When you are living in the whole, when you are one with the ones around you and with the whole world, do you still think that the world needs changing? No, because you realize you are the source, the alpha and omega. You are just as responsible for what is going on outside than as the next one in line. If the world really needs saving, then what else can you do then "save yourself". The world is a mere reflection of your own thoughts and feelings.

When you are living as an individual, when you see yourself as a body & mind different from the others, then your ego starts to tell a story, the story of a world in turmoil, with people who do good things and with people who do bad things, a world that needs a "hero". And who else can be that hero but yourself? ;)

Problem is that as long as you live as a "fraction" there is no way you can be that hero. Regardless of what you do, other people, other "fractions", will consider your actions as good or bad according to "their" perception. Like Sartre used to say, "hell is other people". So your "saving" might appear as exactly the opposite. A clash of individualities will never solve the world problems.

What might save the world? The birth of a new mankind, a man who sees himself not as the drop but as the ocean, a man who doesn`t try to save the world for he knows that he is the world.

Longing

I feel trapped in a body which is too little.

The urge of freedom to tear this meat apart and break free.

Like a beast to run through the ancient forests.

And fill my nostrils with the scents of the spring

A pack of dire wolves roaming the land

In the sacred grove to drink the purest of waters

And then to tear the fur into pieces

Like a raven to grow wings and fly to the sky

To feel the wind growling in my feathers.

To reach to the end of the world.

And there to tear those wings apart and break free once more.

For even them make me feel captive.

I want to dissolve my self in an explosion of light

And for a second to be one

With the ocean of all

For my self I`m not enough anymore.

I shall set me free!

Assume responsibility for one`s actions.

Two nights back after I went to sleep, was laying in bed and my mind started to wander around, like per usual as to what minds do.
And the train of thoughts went towards my relationships. Well, it was actually racing towards why my latest have not been very successful. For example, the last one I had feelings for was a great girl - smart, funny, beautiful, you name it. However she had the habit of keeping me at a distance, which is normal considering how hard is to put your trust into other people nowadays, at least for some who might feel like they have something to loose.
Or it might be that, because she was that smart is why she kept me at a distance ;)
And so, I was laying in bed, couldn`t sleep and started to think, why couldn`t she be more "the way I wanted her to be". Why couldn`t she make me feel more appreciated, more loved, why didn't she act more, why didn't she take more responsibility and why not show some initiative.
And all this time I was letting my thoughts get the best of me. And that is exactly what they did. Until I realized what was happening, I realized my thoughts we`re "getting under my skin", and so I got up and went to do the dishes lol.
And while doing that my intuition bumped me over the head. And a new thought came into my mind, "Andrei, why do you play the role of the guy who runs after something and not get it, instead of playing the role of somebody who gets what he wants".
And this was so simple and so obvious that it made me have one of those "wow" moments. When we let life interfere, it does know best. And usually the "truth" is simple. Its we who like to make life complicated.
It was my ego there in bed who was starting to tell a story about a guy who simply cant have a meaningful relationship. And like somebody said a while back, "if it require thoughts, its not real"...
And that is what opened my mind.
And no I`m not saying that playing a different role is the answer to my problem. Or yours. Or everybody else`s. Playing a role is simply feeding into your ego. What I`m saying is, trust your intuition, trust your presence, and ultimately trust life. Dont put weight on your thoughts for they are not real
You dont like something, you are free to choose differently. Of course it would be so much easier to blame "her", or "him", or "mom" or "dad". However, not assuming responsibility for one`s life it`s the best way to keep running from life itself.