PERSONAL HONESTY AND ULTIMATE TRUTH

For a long time I have been struck by the inescapable connection between personal honesty and Ultimate Truth. While one is momentary and unique and the other timeless and universal, they are inseparably and undeniably intertwined.

For me, one of the ongoing blessings of Enlightenment Intensives, is that this simple fact is demonstrated time and time again. Using the Enlightenment Technique, each person focuses their intention on a direct experience of the Truth, opens to whatever arises in their consciousness as a direct result of their contemplation and then communicates what arises to a partner as honestly and fully as they can. And, this profound and intimate sharing of personal awareness leads inescapably to the Truth.

Recently I discovered this great quote by Russell Scott "The way to the way it is, is through the way it is in you."

Just for the sake of clarification, let's take a look at what the quote does not say....

It does not say, 'The way to the way it is, is other than the way it is in you.' You cannot directly experience the Truth, if you are not willing to face yourself.

Nor does it say, 'The way to the way it is, is the way it is in you.' Your personal awareness is not the ultimate in consciousness. However, it is the natural gateway we all have that opens beautifully into what is (if we let it).

Nor does it say, 'The way to the way is it, is the way it could be in you if only you were perfect.' It is through the way it is in you, in this moment, precisely as you are now. There is no need for you to be any way other than the way you are right here and now.

The more aware we each become of the way it is in us in each moment and the more honestly we can experience and communicate what we are aware of, the more completely and fully we will embody and express what is. Not because we are necessarily in direct connection with what is in each moment, but because we are continually going through the gateway, drawing closer and closer until we finally arrive home.

My consistent experience with Intensives has been that, by using the Enlightenment Technique, I am constantly sharing my personal awareness as honestly as I can until the Truth literally comes out of my mouth and my whole being. This is the opportunity that is offered to anyone who attends an Enlightenment Intensive. It is a time focused with the intention of directly experiencing the way it is, through the way it is in you.

And, having practiced this process over and over again during the Intensive, we are then left with the ongoing possibility of moving through the gateway of personal honesty into Ultimate Truth in any moment of our everyday lives. You are all you need.

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"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket.

The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?"

"He picked up a piece of the Truth," said the devil.

"That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend.

"Oh, not at all," the devil replied. "I am going to let him organize it." "

............From a speech given by J. Krishnamurti in 1929 titled "Truth is a Pathless Land" when he stepped away from taking leadership of the organization called the Order of the Star.

Change Happens

Change happens…in fact, change is the essence of life and the pace of change is increasing at an astounding rate. Difficulties, stresses and diseases result when we fight the force of our life with our desire to remain where we are not fulfilled. Try to imagine a flower refusing to become that which it's seed promises, or the river refusing to flow toward the sea. That is how unnaturally we behave when we refuse to aspire to our potential and when we resist our return to ourselves.

As babies, we have no mental idea of what we "should" do to meet our potential; we don't think of what we should eat, who we should associate with, what skill we should develop next. We simply respond to what existence offers to us. Before our world is interpreted for us, we are not aware of any limitations. When we begin to walk, for example, we fall down, but we are not defeated. The transformation from infant to toddler is an astounding phenomena and uninterrupted, this rate of change could easily continue and even accelerate.

But instead, we stop being fascinated by life and become afraid of it. We use our fear to try to control what wants to happen. And all the understanding and analysis of the sources of our fears and the possible consequences of our behaviors will not serve us in this experiment of life and the experience of ourselves. The only alternative seems to be to feel the fear and to live life anyway until the fear fades away again in the remembrance of who we really are.

It is hypothesized that as children, our fears of abandonment and possible death are real, given how vulnerable and helpless we appear when we are young. But whether that statement is true or not, it is simply time to grow up.

Growing up requires desire, discipline and a sense of humor. The desire to truly experience and live your life to the fullest, immediately removes you from the paradigm where things happen to you and places you in a state where you welcome and are grateful for everything life offers; where you realize that nothing is against you.

What separates us from this joyful state of being are the beliefs and attitudes that we hold about ourselves, other people and the world at large. It takes discipline to become aware of the conditionings and false behaviors we have, to begin to experience life for ourselves as it is in each moment and to challenge the beliefs we hold that unnecessarily limit us.

And a sense of humor is certainly recommended. For if the path of awareness and consciousness isn't fun, why bother?

For many years we have seen how people repress their thoughts, feelings and movement and we have recognized the energy required to hold against our experiences in life. But it's more immense and powerful and impossible than that. We have been trying to fight the inevitable, but life will not be conquered. We may win the battles, never the war. Events and circumstances are continually nudging us from our complacency and comfort. And, when friendly invitations to grow and transform ourselves are offered and ignored, the messages only become stronger and more insistent. We always have a choice about how we respond to the world and its events. It is much easier to volunteer for change than to wait for conscription.

If you stop trying to hold yourself constant, you will just happen naturally and freely. The world is nothing like we have been told. It is time for us to experience it directly for ourselves. This is possible by living fully in each moment without resisting what is. When you actively invite change and new experiences and keep opening to whatever wants to happen in your life without condition, the results are seldom what you would expect. But don't take our word for it.

A New World...Anything Is Possible

Imagine that you live in a world where anything is possible and nothing is against you. Everything that happens assists you in fulfilling your potential and there are no limits. Although things are important, nothing is serious. In this world, life is a series of games that you create and the only point of each game is for you to remember and embody who you are. There is nothing to learn because what you learned a moment ago is no longer useful. In fact, what you think you know is most often in your way of seeing the next moment clearly. So, you just keep opening, moving, watching and responding in each moment. Every time a thought comes in from the past, you watch it and don't attach to it so you can see clearly what is actually happening now. Rather than being a static object, finite and concrete, you are just a flow of energy. Doubt and anxiety melt away. Sound like fun? Perhaps a little looser and freer than how you are living now?

The only thing between you and this New World are the beliefs you have about what is possible. You have been given all kinds of faulty information and much of it has been accepted without question, examination or experimentation. This conditioning process has been so effective that you now create your reality based on these restrictive pieces of outside information and repetitive and fairly limited personal experiences.

Very few of the messages you have received are about awareness, aliveness, growth, excitement, creativity, freedom and experimentation. They are mostly about safety, security and comfort, belonging, not rocking the boat and not causing too much distress to people around you. As a result, the choices that you make are primarily directed towards keeping yourself safe and secure and not upsetting anyone else. You are not free.

Basically you live in a prison which was originally maintained externally, but once you are a young adult, you create that prison yourself, again and again, out of the belief that you know something about reality. There have been many good experiments about this.

A natural scientist put a pike fish in a large aquarium with a piece of plate glass in the middle of the container that the pike could not detect with his vision. Small fish that the pike would naturally feed upon were placed in the tank on the other side of the glass. The pike has a predatory lunging motion and for a few days he tried to strike at the prey he could see only to bump his head into the glass plate. After about two or three days, he gave up. Then they took the glass plate away, and he never ate any of those little fish. He had developed a belief about reality that didn't shift despite the new situation and new evidence.

A lot of the limitations that you have about yourself and what is possible are constructed in exactly the same way. Most of what you are limiting yourself with has nothing to do with what is actually going on right here and now. From the inside of your belief system, which we might lovingly and non-psychiatrically refer to as your neurotic character structure, all your energy goes to keeping the existing belief system together. It is who you think you are. You then create a reality outside of yourself that matches what you already believe. But, are you a pike or a person?

Getting outside of your existing box is what awareness is all about. You can do it anytime. Begin now.

Being More Alive and Loving

Our minds cannot comprehend 'being together' and 'being free' at the same time. Within the dichotomy of the mind, it can be only one or the other, never both. As a result, most 'relationships' become a battle of wills, both internal and external. Partners try to balance commitment with freedom and parents struggle with sacrificing themselves to fulfill obligations to their children. Compromise replaces life and a good compromise is when no one is really happy.

You can never really be with another person unless you recognize that you are always free to be elsewhere. This can be a difficult concept since it seems to imply a degree of irresponsibility. In fact, we are talking about the ultimate level of responsibility and honesty to the people around you. It requires an awareness and sensitivity that most people are not currently accessing or practicing. If you are truthful with yourself and your loved ones, when it is appropriate for you to be together, you will be together. When it is appropriate for you to be apart, you will be apart. Simple.

As you read these words, your mind is already in catastrophe. You envisage the break down of the family and much resulting chaos. But this is already happening. The way we are 'loving' each other is not working. We need to reconsider our values and our options.

"I love you." For most people these three words carry an implication of commitment and obligation, which has nothing whatsoever to do with loving another person. Current ideas and beliefs suggest that sacrificing yourself to your partner or your child is proof of your love. But this kind of bargain does not serve anyone since everyone is required to pay in order to be loved; everyone is diminished by this agreement.

If you truly love someone, you want him or her to be totally, completely and utterly true to themselves no matter what the consequences. This is their due and this is the optimum situation for you, too. Stop trying to be perfect and simply be who you are. Then the message that you offer to each other might be closer to "wake up" than "go to sleep". You will be saying "live your life, be independent and true to yourself " rather than "depend on me, do what I say and live a life of obligation".

To your essence, what is of value is the experience of being loving, rather than being loved, because loving is the expression of your true nature. You current beliefs about love are in the way of your natural loving. When you start to allow your loving to emerge you will see that it has nothing to do with anything outside of you. It is unshakable; it is not dependent on anything outside. Your loving cannot be impacted by external forces and, therefore, it is not dependent on being loved in return. You will also see that there is no formula for being loving. There are no inherently loving or unloving acts. Everything is contextual, relational and momentary. Being loving requires awareness, sensitivity and the willingness to experience everything that life has to offer. What could be more alive?

Heaven or Hell?

There is a story about Jesus wandering in India and coming across a group of very poor people at a well one day. He noticed that they all looked very unhappy. They reported that they were so tied up with the struggle of their daily existence that they did not have time for happiness. They thought they would have joy in heaven. Jesus responded, "My brother, man, your thoughts are wrong; your heaven is not far away; and it is not a place of metes and bounds, is not a country to be reached; it is a state of mind. God never made Heaven for man; He never created a Hell; we are creators and we make our own. Now cease to seek for Heaven in the sky; just open up the windows of your hearts, and, like a flood of light, a heaven will come and bring a boundless joy; then toil will be no cruel task." *

So this is it...you can be in heaven or hell in any moment. You create each moment. You always have a choice about how you see things and it is your beliefs and ideas that create either heaven or hell whenever you experience it. You can be free at any time. Every moment could be heaven.

The idea that most people carry deep inside of them is that they are separate from the flow of existence and from what is happening around them. This sense of disconnection is what underlies all the worries, anxieties, misery and suffering that you experience and see. Even though it all seems very "real", an incredible illusion is made up out of the crazy ideas that have been taught to you by others. What you think of as "reality" is what is keeping you away from the naturally vibrant state of your existence.

In each moment you have the choice to believe what you think you already know, which is usually built on a grid of fear and contraction, or of living from a totally different place. Think of it. Let yourself feel it. You could believe that you are a wonderful part of the flow of existence, that everything is exactly as it should be, that anything is possible and that you are perfect just as you are. Then the "default settings" in your inner computer would shift from fear to love, from believing that good and bad things happen to you to realizing that everything that happens is for you. We create "realities" based on these deeply rooted and often unconscious belief systems. Freedom simply means knowing that you have a choice. If you are in hell, you are putting yourself there.

Be as aware and awake as you possibly can be in every moment. Let that be your priority. A big part of waking up is finding ways to put aside, and not be so controlled by, your conditioning. You might, for example, imagine that an angel is sitting just behind your left shoulder, ready to love, guide and support you at any time, without judgement. No matter what technique you use to free yourself, your life will begin to "happen" and there is not very much that you have to do about it except stay open!

Now these ideas will drive your mind crazy, because it is unable to understand them and it wants to control your life by an act of will in order to keep you safe. But this approach is not working and is not necessary. You don't have to fight anything because this is not a battle. When you relax and get less attached to your willfulness and need to control, you will discover there is no need to judge yourself, others or any experience. You will find that there is an incredible appropriateness to existence.

You don't have to hold yourself so tightly together. You can just flow. And, if all of a sudden, something bumps you around and your mind says, "you see, you can't just let things happen", you don't have to believe it. If your partner has an affair, or somebody dies or the roof falls in - whatever is happening is happening for you. It is happening anyway. Your willfulness or resistance doesn't stop your partner from having an affair or anyone from dying. You often don't have much control over the actual events in your life, but you do have control over your responses to them. You don't have to live in such a high state of alert. It is killing you.

As you let go of your willfulness, you may find that you still have preferences. You might really love a certain type of coffee or ice cream but it's just a preference. And if you really open to existence, then those kinds of playthings are usually around.

As they will their way through the world, most people are living in a rather profound state of resentment and disappointment. When you are open, you are greatful for everything that happens. So when your partner has an affair, or you lose your job, instead of getting all bent out of shape, you could be saying, "Thank you. Thank you for creating an experience for me that I might not have had any other way." It's a gift. You are being set free. Probably you did not want to go to that job anymore anyway.

So existence is here and is giving you all the information that you need at any given time. If you live without too much willfulness then existence just comes and says, "Here, take a look at this" or "Let go of that" and it is quite simple and you do it. "Yes" to this. But your mind, your neurosis, wants to control it all and if you can allow yourself to be living in a "yes" then it all begins to flow and it is just moment to moment and you simply begin to happen. You begin to live your essence as opposed to the constructed reality of the mind. Life gets to be a lot more fun. You just follow the more natural energy that is there in all of us underneath the prison of our conditioning. You don't have to will it. Heaven or hell? It's your choice in every moment.

* The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ" by Levi p.63

Underneath It All

There is a wonderful version of an old Sufi teaching story that addresses the state of illusion that most people are living in. One night at three in the morning, a drunk walks out of a bar. There is virtually no traffic in any of the four lanes of the highway right in front of the bar, just wide-open spaces leading in either direction. The man is so inebriated and dull from his evening of drink that, even though he has four wide open lanes choose from, he bumps into the single stop sign at the entrance to the freeway. In his drunken state he walks straight into the one obstacle that is in his way - in the vast expanse of possible space he finds the thin bar that supports the stop sign and bangs his head right into it. He stuns himself, backs up, shakes his head and then takes another run for it and once again bangs right into the signpost. This happens five or six times and after the final collision, in great despair, he grabs onto the stop sign and screams into the darkness of the night, "It's no use! I give up! I am surrounded!"

The bottom line of all paths of awareness and spiritual growth is to dedicate yourself to "waking up" from the conditioning that you have been getting since you arrived on the planet. This conditioning has happened on some basic levels and is very, very strong. From the moment a child is born, we begin to feed it information. Most of it is craziness. We feed it fear-based information about food, sex, money and relationships. Think about it for just a moment. Think about the information that we give to children. Is it any wonder that the 'computer system' ends up with the program that it is in constant danger and believes it has to continually fight to survive?

If you begin to be more honest and curious about yourself, you will notice that much of how you see yourself and the world is nothing other than what someone else told you. You have not really tried to find out very much for yourself. You are locked in the prison of your conditioning; you are trapped by these beliefs but will cling to them like the drunk to the stop sign.

During the course of your life you have constructed a personality or an identity out of this jumbled morass of mis-information. Fortunately, this construction is only covering, but has not destroyed, who YOU are underneath it all. To come out from under this conditioning, consider the possibility that YOU are not in danger (at least not the danger that you think you are!). If YOU do get into real danger, YOU will respond appropriately. YOU don't have to live in such a state of alert. If you can drop your conditioned beliefs about yourself and the world, then you can live in awareness rather than anxiety. If you start telling and living your truth, it will set you free.

What goes hand in hand with freedom is responsibility, which is neither duty nor obligation. Responsibility just means that you have an ability to respond - you have the ability to respond differently than your conditioning dictates. As you read this article, your conditioning is going to try and link these words back into what you already know. That is the function of the conditioned mind. It gathers new information and fits it into the original context of understanding. This mind can only re-create what it already knows. It is a very sophisticated computer that has been mis-loaded with all kinds of damaged software programs. It is taking new experiences and information and it is trying to place everything into its existing grid, trying to keep you safe. From this, it creates a "reality". Basically what you are doing is creating futures out of pasts and very seldom do you experience anything new. The conditioned mind can't do it. It is terrified of the unknown and, in its current state, is incapable of being in the present.

Now, the mind can do many things, and when we begin to access another kind of intelligence, the mind can resume its proper function. The other kind of intelligence is not about creating realities out of past experiences. It is about becoming aware of exactly what is happening in any given moment and allowing yourself to simply respond. It's not about how you think it is going to be, or thought it was going to be, or were told it was going to be. What we are talking about is getting clear enough so that you actually see what is going on, without the normal filters you have to protect you from your experience. Try entering each moment without any conditions. This requires courage, but remember, you are not the machine you have been conditioned to be. You are much, much more.