MY HOLY TRINITY

A young friend of mine was ruminating introspectively for a moment yesterday, when she sighed "Life is so complicated."
That stuck in my mental craw. She looked at me with a little surprise. "What?" she inquired.
Looking at it, I replied, "Only when we make it so. It's actually also stunningly simple, once a few basic truths are realised."

Since I've written a whole book on basic things about life that we were never taught, I wondered this morning as I was waiting for my dirty washing to go through the laundrette -- "Can I get the simple basics down to three?" Here's what I came up with.... at least for this morning........

1. The human mind is dual: the universe isn't.
2. Nothing matters
3. There's no free lunch

 THE HUMAN MIND IS DUAL: THE UNIVERSE ISN'T.


Everything gets classified into opposing polarities of good/bad, better/worse, right/wrong... and we try to disown what we think may be "bad" for us. That's  where the trouble starts. Every saint has a sinner-inner, and vice versa. If we could get comfy with that in our selves, and stayed aware of it in others, we would be far grander and less vulnerable to nasty surprises than our protective "rightness" would have us to believe.

Everything has its opposites, and the trick is to find the point of balance., moment to moment.

NOTHING MATTERS

That;s how this all got started. Nothing wondered about itself, frequencies got lowered,  matter showed up and started organising itself into all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff.

If we could get that, outside of mind, nothing matters any more than anything else, we'd be a lot happier.

THERE'S NO FREE LUNCH

The law of Consequences. Everything we say and do has consequences. Everything we DON"T say or do has consequences. And if we get to thinking that we can manipulate the consequences, we're in for a big surprise.

But we'll go to our graves blaming "others".

And then we'll wake up.

THIS -- AS A DREAM

This place is a dream

only a sleeper considers it real

then death comes like a dawn

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought 

was your grief.

Mevlana Jelaludin Rumi

(1207 - 1273)

Trans: Coleman Banks

Life is a dream.

When I woke up to this awesome reality a few years ago

And the laughter subsided enough,

I thought I'd made the most astounding discovery since breathing.

Then I find today that this guy (Rumi) knew it 8 centuries ago!

Obviously the word has been slow getting out:

Mankind could have saved himself a few wars

And a truckload of suffering about suffering.
I guess the problem is that,
We can't simply read that "Life is a dream"
And file it away with yesterday's news;
Each and every one of us has to get it for himself.
That requires a certain level of commitment and surrender to possibility
That puts us still in an uncomfortable minority.

The experience of "getting it" is very much akin to the experience of waking up.

It's the surprise of the thing that catches you unawares.

When it happened to me
Nothing around me changed;

Nothing within me changed,

And yet nothing has been the same since that moment.

I real-ised I'd been poking around

In a half-seeing, energy depleting, anxious trance.

Perhaps just as surprising was to discover --

Thanks to Papaji --

That part of my inner awareness

That had always been wakeful enough

To know

And wait

For me to "get it."

All I had to do was wake up

And get out of the way with all I think I know

And allow real Knowing
From that nonjudgmental Awareness
To get through to me.

That process of getting out of my own way

Continues........

The dreaming continues,

But
With awareness;

That's the difference.

I am the dreamer, not the dream.

I am not my Self....

I am the watcher 

And the experiencer

Of my Self in full flight.

What a blessed relief!

And joy, too,

Except when I forget
And get caught asleep in the dream
Again

Sometimes
Until I re-member........

WHAT WE BECOME

Thanks to Ivan M. Grainger

A sapling seeks sunlight,

Reaching out for that golden touch.

Over time

The tree takes the form

Of its own seeking.

And

We become what we've been looking for.

If you think otherwise,

I have a question for you --

"How has your "otherwise" been working for you?"

No?

Then you may be kidding yourself.....

We have become what we've been putting out (for).

Ouch?

IDENTITY

It has been said
(By whom, I don't know, but it's too good to let pass by -----)

Identity starts
With an Opinion
Opposed.

Isn't that good?

Who-we-think-we-are
Is the result of a negative reaction
("I'm NOT that!")
To a limited idea about our self.

Watch teenagers;
They develop an identity for themselves
Less out of what they're for,
And more as a reaction to what they're against.
And there's plenty of that buzzing around at the time!
We all did the same.

Our contrary ideas --
The ones we attach to --
The ones we I-dentify with --
Are just as false and limited
And limiting
As the phony perceptions from which they arose.
But do we replace our ideas about ourselves,
Even when they no longer work for us?

Nope.

We hang onto our Identities for dear life.
We fight for them,
And will even die for them,
Or because of them.

Here's a bottom line....

• We can only live up to our self-image;
• Our self-image is limited;
• We live limited lives.

If you want more in your life,
Give up glaring at life,
Life is abundant..........
Look, instead, at your self image.
I mean, don't just glance at it;
Really look.
And get honest in your looking.

(You'll need a mirror or two, or three.....
You know the mirrors I mean.
Yes, those people around you,
Especially the ones you don't feel comfortable
Spending a lot of time with).
Mirrors reflect back to you
Things about you
That you cannot otherwise see.

It's ironic, isn't it? --
We spend endless hours wishing others were more like "Me",
When they actually are!
It's our self image, the way we "see" our self,
Our "Me", our Identity
That is out of whack.
Thank God the remedy is close at hand.

HEAVEN

You don't get into Heaven by following rules,
Or by breaking them....
Heaven is nothing
Like that.