Connect with living experience

Some people seek knowledge as a means to an end. Yet, teaching reveals itself to those open and aware. When you make peace with existence, a given situation presents and you allow it to be. So, it is not what you read or hear that matters, but how living experience unfolds within. The inner guide is the real you.

Think until you outgrow it

Nobody has every encountered anything but a thought or projection of a thought.  One does not escape from now, but one may deny it or be distracted.  To be lost in thought is to forget the essence of being.

Perception combines feelings and sensations with judgment.  The inner judge introduces thought and tells you existence is based on structures and forms that you work out.  Curiously, everything is fine already. Time is irrelevant. As you ask, how do I still the mind? Mind tricks you to believe it is not already still.

In terms of form and linear time, you may not be able to add much more to your cv or identity. The mind-created sense of specialness or recognition may or may not be realized.  What is the point then, of obsessions with form, the search for things, engagement in endeavours? What is already transforming?

To feel the luminous, formless being is beyond thought, beyond a conceptual dream of personal history. Move beyond constant neediness and drama.  Awareness is stillness that exists beyond images and comparisons. It is not something you experience if you follow a course of action. Stop thinking to just be.

Notice & heal the division

Much of your identity emerges from standing against something or standing for something other than who you are.  What if mind only exists to distract you from the essence of being? Notice and heal the division within.  Punishment is not the way to go. Instead, choose to awaken, forgive and learn. That's good karma.

Rely on the path

To know your thoughts and emotions intimately enables you to weather any storm.  When you live under the influence of afflictive emotions, you forget who you are.  When you look for strength and trust outside self, you grow more afraid of illusions.  In order to free the essence of being from the mind, it is necessary to understand and transcend afflictive emotions that you permit to control you.  Awaken from the dream.

What enables you to realize new levels of awakening? How does life show you sources of pleasure also bring you insight into experience of pain and suffering?  Why does heightened awareness serve you?   

Reconnect with spontaneity

Notice the nature of soul-level spontaneity versus mind-driven motivation.  Which do you favor or ignore?  One way to deepen spiritual practice is to sense a journey to expand and serve others emerges from the innermost core. 

Take the example some people are inspired by altruism, that is the desire to serve.  Others are motivated to act based on fear or something in-between.  The world transforms through our changes in attitude, perception and behaviour.  Whether you choose to awaken to the nature of the essence of being and extent of energy flowing through you, is up to you.