The experience of the immensity experiencing itself is what is the final destination in being alive. When one releases the mind into consciousness and finally shifts from subjective to universal experience of everything. Everything is me and the experience of me experiencing everything is love.

In this there is no conflict and no duality. In this the words come from this consciousness and the experience is within it and of it. There is no other way to describe it and the feeling of simply being is Joy.

How do I cultivate this so that it permeates into every aspect of my being in every moment of my being? How do I stay in this and also be of it and around it? That is the challenge or the offer or the gift.

The ability to adapt to a new twist in the experience, the fluidity of thought and emotion and action to accommodate everything and every situation is the true mark of spiritual evolution. When the absolute futility of resistance is so obvious that it cannot be considered as a viable choice for experiencing life anymore. The falling of the mind into its familiar craters of doubt and fear are exposed simply as its preconditioning and the process of emerging from these into the wholeness of the conscious experience is gentle, nurturing and irreversible.

Silence is the womb in which creativity is born. When thoughts subside and emotions dissolve and actions release into stillness is when the seed of creativity germinates. That is the necessity for original being. When nothing is tainted, shaded, influenced, contaminated, projected, manipulated and controlled by past memories and present knowledge and future expectations.

On this day I make another groundbreaking discovery (haha) - that there is nothing to fear if you live in non duality...where acceptance of the process is the portal into freedom. What does this really mean? Really? It's the constant and continuous discovery of the moment so discrete and distinct that to classify from memory or projection seems bafflingly ridiculous. The complete immersion into this moment is the complete freedom in it. I don't have a say in it and I don't have a problem with it. Perhaps I am not even in it - at least as a conflicting entity, questioning it with subjective skepticism.

If that is the truth and by god it seems like it is...what is there to do? When they say Nothing, I disagree. When they say Everything, that seems unclear too.

Do what feels right and you will be set free. Here's the kicker though...doing what feels right...like really feels right...will always BE the right thing, the right doing the right being. There is no ambiguity in non-duality. "Right" may be a word with an opposite, but in non-duality there is no "Wrong". The Buddhist and Vedantist would say that there  just Is.

And that is true - however - I am still alive and in duality. And I still have to experience this truth subjectively to really get it and then enjoy it. For there lies the ultimate human desire....to enjoy and experience non-duality within duality. And since this desire is the deepest one of Spirit itself, it is the hardest to fulfill but the most satisfying to experience. It is, it really is. I know this from direct experience. Never in the dimensions of my ultra materialistic, professional, corporate, social and urban existence have I experienced the fulfillment of a desire that was more satisfying than the fulfillment of the desire of experiencing glimpses of non-duality.

Perhaps the next step is to stay in it until there is no feeling of joy and bliss either. Maybe there comes a time when even the desire to Be or to Not-Be seems like child's play.

 

This is a beautiful moment. It was...it came and it went and now I only see it in my memory and convince myself that it was a beautiful moment and that I was in it then. The desire to stay in a moment or escape one is the essential fabric of the human experience. And it is baffling for the mind to conceive that life can actually be richer, fuller and more real without this consistent desire to change something or not change something.

The desire to accept and the desire to resist.

The things that make me feel happy and desirous are the ones that also make me fearful and disdainful...isn't that a trip? That I want it and then chide myself for wanting it.

I am back at the airport this evening and I feel different - alive, energized, focused and ready for an adventure of self knowledge and understanding. It is really that - knowledge, experience and understanding of the self. I cannot imagine anything more important, energizing, humanizing, de-humanizing and mind-blowing than this. I can't. Not drugs not sex not love not anything.

It's like the carbon copy that thought it was the real me and always feared its own destruction has been released of this tremendous burden to represent me. It can be free too, it has realized. Free to rave, rant, vent, wax, crave, abstain and everything in between. And there is no judgment and no regret. It is free to be itself and free to free me. And when this has happened I am transformed. I emerge with a certain newness of direction and hope and intention. I cannot stay away from me anymore. I am Me. And it is real and feels real and is good and feels good.

Picture the movement of image over image. Like synchronized swimming or ballet or anime or something equally creative and soulful. There is always a deviance - never are the two images superimposed so completely that they seem as one. There is the slight crook in the arm or tilt in the head of one image that is not quite matched by the other. That causes asymmetry and discord. It also causes natural beauty - the beauty of human.

It stirs passion and conflict. Passion is conflict and it arouses the human desire to change, improve, grow and learn. It's entropy in its highest state.

But then, there is a moment - so brief that it can die without casting a shadow in persistent memory - one moment of pure, joyous, unshakeable, invincible unity - a Oneness between the two images. And it is like experiencing the world from the eyes of a child or God. There is no duality in what is happening and what is perceived as happening.

This is the goal of human strive and strife. This is the need of the soul and the essence of the organism. This is the culmination of Sadhna and Tapasya and wars and politics. This is what we want to make happen as we grow and learn and become.

Is this what is happening to me? This feeling that everything is a perfect combination and culmination of the true experience of Life. That every delay, every bottleneck, every queue, every deadlock, every conflict, every mess-up is a way of jolting myself back to attention in the Now. And realigning with what is and thus causing this perfect symmetry even if for a brief blinding moment of bliss.

One day it hit me - that today is the day. That day that I told myself would eventually arrive. The day when I feel that I am myself. My own self. Now of course, this sounds trite, and I'm going to have to explain myself, but not just yet. The first point I want to make is that this day - today - did not arrive. It just was there. It was a day like any other day - a chilly, breezy, foggy, sunny, cheerful and brisk July day in San Francisco. It just was *the* day. It could've had some or none of those qualities and it would still have been *the* day. Or had all of them and not been *the* day. Something fitted on the canvas, the last jigsaw piece, and there was the perfect placement of all objects onto the universe, all thoughts into the repository - or depository - in the cranium, and all emotions in the cells of the body.

Everything fell into place and there was nothing left to ponder or question or doubt.

I've felt this for a while, several years really, or perhaps even all my life. That there is a presence which, though silent, is always with me. Shadowing me, not necessarily darkly, but just like a carbon-copy.  But, lately, very recently, in fact, I have realized that I was the carbon-copy and the presence was the real thing. But in typical trickster fashion, the carbon-copy had assumed it was the real thing and the real thing had receded into the background.

The problem, though, until now, has been that the carbon-copy has lived with a vague but persistent discomfort, or discomfit, about its authenticity. The labels all add up: passport, license, employee badge, social security number, credit cards, bank accounts, insurance papers, cell phone id, even Facebook and Linkedin pages. They all point to and nod in confirmation that the carbon-copy is Me, the real thing.

So until now, although the carbon-copy believes it at the intellectual level, it doubts it at the instinctive and intuitive level. And the doubt is entertained by the presence - the real thing - but never explained.

Is this confusing for you? Good, for it should be, it was for me. It has to be until it becomes so crystal clear that one just has to laugh at the simplicity of the solution to this problem of duplicity. It's a toggle switch really, only, one has to first become aware of, then find, and finally flick the switch. All in good time, the journey to the center is all the fun, really. Isn't that what they say, they being the spiritual seers and seekers?

Now the point of all of this was both lost on me and understood completely. I could see the game is of hide and seek and I could see the fascination with staying lost until its appeal is outweighed by the fascination of being found. I couldn't imagine, until now though, that even though this can be understood at the intellectual level, it would still be so easy to forget it or get frustrated by it, successively.

Once I understood it, I thought, the instinctive and intuitive doubts would disappear, too. And then I would shift from carbon-copy to presence like That! Just like that. Irrevocably and irretrievably. That the death of the copy would be real, a real experience of dying and that it would actually have physical properties - perhaps my skin would scale and my eyes would water and there'd be a buzzing through my ears as stale trapped air escaped and made way for clean, fresh, alertness. This thing, would physically manifest and the New me would look and feel and "action" differently, too.

It didn't, though. It hasn't yet. But what I write from now on is really the presence. The carbon-copy did not die though - it still remains and is the primary ‘face' of me to the outside world. It still is functioning but its thoughts now come from a different source and are essentially channeled into it to operate correctly within this world. This rationing of thoughts and actions and emotions can be perceived as making me a hell of a boring person. But not really. Well, I can't really say that just yet, we'll have to see as time goes by and this story progresses.

This personal blog filled with so many words and passion and musings and introspection. I read it at times and it all strikes a real, authentic chord. And others, it seems hollow and inconsequential.

No matter - it's what was happening when it was happening.

http://artchakra.blogspot.com

A blinding flash of bliss.

Everything you do in life must be fresh.

Like it has never happened before.

Weeks and weeks go by and I feel a steady disintegration and de-fragmentation of identity and at the same time this feeling of complete un-knowing of what was and what will be. Where and how will this resolve if indeed it is meant to?

My thoughts lack any novelty now and there is nothing that I feel particularly inclined to create, discover, analyze or understand. Not in the temporal world at least, nor in the world of imagination or fantasy. The richly colored spectrum of my thoughts, this jumble of what really happened, what I believe happened, what I want to believe happen and what others believe happened... are all superimposed on one another and result in this complete unconsciousness of my experience in the present moment.

How can I really stay open to life and its meaning - when all seems manufactured in my head? The game is played in dull rote now. It only salves the ego perfunctorily, often only in response to overcoming some challenge - the euphoric rush when I subvert a perceived threat or slight. Nothing else, except ego-stroking praise at times, really makes me feel momentary elation. Isn't that strange, and sad?

Can one really go away? Can I leave my body and mind, like David did, but return when I want to, unlike him? David is gone, gone forever, leaving so many stunned and speechless and grieving. For him and for themselves. But that is not what I want to happen to me and my loved ones. I want this to be my home, my abode, my paradise on earth.

How to create this paradise on earth? Through authenticity in connection and communication. No matter what. No matter what.

All you need is Love

Love is a many-splendored thing.

Love makes the world go around

Love, and do as you will

Love changes everything

Love is in the air

Love is old love is new

Love hurts

Love heals

Love is all you need.

What is it about this word that captures so much for so many, so powerfully? It's the trigger that sets off chemical, physical, neural and biological reactions within me. It creates visual, aural, oral and sensual stimulations in me and, as I experience it, I also lose myself to the feeling and the phenomenon, knowing that without really knowing it, I have been transported to a realm that is beyond the real, beyond the ordinary, beyond the given. It is a place of wonder and beauty and abandon and bliss. It is what makes the organism grow, expand, create and sustain.

This word, that is love is the essence of the human experience. The only reason that we are here on this planet living a life in form and structure and thought and emotion. There is no other reason to be alive than to experience love. There is no life without love, no living without the anticipation of love. There is nothing but love.

Then how did this happen? How did the human experience, conceptualized and actualized solely to experience love, become so forgetful of its one and only reason to be? How did we as human beings take this vision of love and create, instead, this reality of fear? Why did we not trust and believe and rejoice in the inevitable outcome of the perfect human experience and, instead, settle for the harrowing journey into fear?

What is this love that transformed so quickly into fear? And what is this fear that transforms so slowly back into love?

They say love and fear are two sides of the same coin. What is perceived as love, can in a split second transform into fear. And what is experienced as fear can evolve eventually into love.

Human love and Divine love? Is there a difference? Can one exist without the other and is one better than the other? Or is there a need for comparison at all?

Before we begin, look out the window again. The Family is back. And my weekend comes to an end. I saw them leave all packed up on a rainy Friday morning and now they return on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Dad in red plaid, wind whipped hair and rugged jeans picks up the little blond boy who skips out to the house. Mom in pink and gray, strawberry hair gone crazy in the wind, cajoles the little girl to come out. She doesn't want to, but finally obliges. Everyone exits, makes their way back to home sweet home. The maroon sedan, the anchor in their lives sits there waiting for one of them to return. She has served the family well. Strong and sober, watching over them. As I do too? That then is my surrogate family. The life that I never had. Or is that incorrect?

Maybe that is it then! That's really the only way to live life. When we talk about a collective consciousness or a cosmic consciousness where we are all connected by a single thread of Being. To share completely, not only life experiences as individuals, but lives themselves. Maybe, when I watch this family, I connect with them so wholly that their experiences become my own. That I feel suffused with joy and fulfillment as they step in to their house together. For, in that moment, it becomes my own reality. No, not in a possessive way but in the most harmoniously divine way possible.

So, give like you would give to yourself and take like you were taking from yourself. Without expectations and without asking.

Of Love then. Well, human love will then be the same, wouldn't it? Give without expectation in return and with the wholeness of heart and soul. Feel the richness like it grows with giving. Are these merely words or is it indeed possible? They say that happiness in love with another is simply an illusion. That what is really happening is that joy unfolds from the deepest inner center of one's own being and suffuses every cell of one's being. The fullness and richness of such joy creates the momentum and energy to propel it into our external world and bounce off of every object that it comes across. And when one is with another being, who has triggered this reaction from within, this happiness anchors on that being and believes that that being is indeed the source of love and the ensuing happiness. But ,whereas, that being has indeed been the catalyst in creating this love reaction, all the ingredients  were always within me.

They just needed a trigger to create the organic reaction. They lay dormant in the wholeness of my being, under layers and layers of egoistic projections of reality. However, once catalyzed, they simmered and surged out and exuded from every pore of my being, like a fire that blazes out of control and singes everything in sight.

So, what that means then is that indeed a catalyst is needed to create such a love reaction, but the chemistry happens all within myself, and is simply a worldly expression of the cosmic love that flows within me always.

The questions are twofold then:
 
Is the knowledge that such a love exists within me enough, then? Is "knowing" this enough, or do I have to experience it to really believe in it?

And, if feeling love is indeed the requirement for finding inner bliss and outward joy, how then to find the catalyst?

The simplicity is so profound. The sedimentation of the particles of thought and emotion into the decanter of awareness is beautiful to observe. As they settle onto the bottom, there emerges a crystal clear vision of what is. The filters, while still there are like transparent films of soap that hang on with tenuous will - still trying to maintain the bubble of illusion - the last barricade against the direct experience of Truth.

The beauty that unfolds when this bubble bursts is what the experience was always designed for. It is the challenge of Brahman to all Atmans playing the game of hide and seek. By design, the game is complicated with so many diversions and distractions and false clues and temporary "wins". The game is further complicated in the labyrinth of relationships that need to be built to play it....they often make Atman lose track of the purpose...often for lifetimes.

But once there is the sense of the staged experience that hides the real experience, there is a jolt back into awakening. And this awakening is a continuing process that will go on, beautifully unfolding, moment by moment allowing me as much time and space and experience that I still need to completely surrender.

And then, someday when I am satisfied that there is nothing else that I truly want to experience within the bubble, it will burst. And I will dissolve into All.