Cosmic Being, Unconditional being

 Of all the things we could be we are humans. Humans with the potential to realize cosmic consciousness. I mean holy shit. Beings capable of creating anything. Literally no limits to our potential. We can do anything. The whole universe is open to us. Every moment it is pulsing within us waiting to be born again in our being and expression. Into something new. A new form a new expression. A new way of being. We are full of desire to create and to be. To express ourselves in this tapestry of life. To walk all over the painting, dancing and spinning in color. Our heart crying out in piercing birdsong awakening into new being. The whole universe is awakening right now within us. Within our being. We are awakening right now. A brand new sun every moment. Light cascading throughout the entire universe. Light and being. A glorious dawn. We can find fulfillment here because all of this is our life. This mystery is us. This incredible awakening is us. The whole universe is arising right now. In infinite ways across an infinite space. Breathing life into form, form into being. Awakening expanding, playing out in sublime movement. Coloring our life and our feeling with a thousand swirling pools a thousand dancing shooting gems. Full of intoxicating expression. The ecstasy of cosmic being and cosmic birth. Shattering our minds and our hearts with a sea of devastating bliss. Forever rejuvenating bliss. This universe is a ceaseless cosmic orgasm of awakening. Overwhelming and unsurpassable, eternally defeating of ignorance and doubt. Radiant cosmic being. The eternal cosmic heart of supreme light. The deafening roar of the furnace of creation. The titanic sea of cosmic creation, cosmic birth. The jewel of the thousand sea. The hidden island of God. Paradise. Surrounding us, consuming us, fueling us, forming us, formed by us. The Diamond seed of God. Would that we knew we lived in the bosom of the Lord. In the divine gem that is the Heart of the Lord. Shedding and radiating divine love and divine being in all directions from its seat on the bosom of the Lord. That this world lies within His heart and is his heart. That the full extent of this world is God. The heart of God is the whole of God, and this world is the heart of God. We may see this world as a small part of the universe, perhaps one of many worlds and many things, but it is in fact One with the seamless body of God. The whole universe with everything in it is the body of the Lord, the heart of the Lord. For this no place is greater or lesser, all places equally in and being the Lord. We dance within Him. Nothing in or out of our judgment is outside of Him. There is no other place. Simply Lord. God. This is why turning from this world and what is in it does not bring us nearer to Him. Not that we be without wise discernment, letting ourselves be consumed by passion, madness, or unrestraint, but that our judgment of this world and what is in as higher or lower and the consequent denial keep us from our being which lies in and is the world. These keep us in the imagination of a dualistic universe where we fear death because we feel separate from the Lord. In fearing death, we fear life and cannot fully embrace it, fully embrace and realize ourselves. This is the self defeating power of being judgmental. That which defeats our attempt to succeed by keeping us in ignorance. God is not judgmental, God is Love. Being judgmental is of the world. God is found through surrender and embrace. Not through unfair condemnation and blind judgment. When we surrender our judgment we surrender the false status we give ourselves as one who knows better, when truly we do not, and we are but babes in the bosom of God. Perhaps this is our arrogance, and it keeps us from our selves and the love we wish to give and become. The surrender frees us from the prison of our deluded separate self beliefs. It truly opens the door to unconditional being and unconditional acceptance of everyone and everything in the world. It frees us from our fear of the other with the supreme power of Love which is selfless and all consuming. If frees us from our fear of death by showing us that we are One with all that is. Finally it allows us to be fully here as we are now.

Waking up

 Waking up. To how this is. To the realities of this life, perhaps to the reality of reality itself. The stripping away of delusion and ignorance like layers upon layers of old paint chipping off of a wall. Things are often not as they appear to be, to us and to others. The truth that is merely because it is. When what we hold and have held crumbles into dust in our hands and blows away in the wind revealing thin air and naked perspective. The flesh covering our bodies as it is without the coloring of our many tailored thoughts fit for the interest of the perpetuation of the fantasy that we call ourself. This many sided image we cling to in our imagination. What remains is a body and a mind and someone we call me. A world we call a world filled with people we call people, you, them, us. This is what we see here. Plants, trees, roads, buildings. It is here. People are here. Things are here. These things just are. But what are they? What is this? What is this feeling I call myself. This feeling that leads me to name things. What is it? I name things because I find it meaningful to. I find meaning here.  ..I find meaning here. What do I find meaningful here? What do I wish to know? To become familiar with? What do I sense here? Why is it important to me? Where is my life heading? Where is life heading? And when will it get there? If I could get there, what would I find? What would I see? What would I know? What is at the bottom of all this feeling we have that moves us like a boat upon the sea? It seems to sing, to call, to beckon, to declare? What? What is there to be understood here? What is the riddle behind everything that occurs? What is the sleeping riddle hiding behind all we perceive? Who am I, and what is this? What is all of this? The answer is, this, I am. I am. Here I am. This, I am. I am this. This is my body and my being. This is who I am. I am. What else is there? Nothing else. This is it. I cannot look anywhere else because this is where I am. This is who I am. Forcing it isn't going to work. Trying to bend the universe to see. When you are occupied with bending, you lose sight of being. Being that cannot be altered by anything that you could do. Being that you won't find through doing, but through seeing what you are. Trying to create something that doesn't need to be created, it is present. It is here. What here is, is who we are and what we are looking for. How could we ever gain our true self? Who we are must be who we are now. Not with any change to our present condition, because our present condition is who we are. This is why this is it. What you read, how you read, what you understand is the answer. You are in pain, you are suffering. You are frustrated. You do not wish to be. Neither do I. Yet I am. In this world I am. In this life. With this body and this feeling. With these hopes and fears and wishes. As much as I may wish to be somewhere else I am here. Not away, but here. Not without what I dislike, but with it. With confusion. With misunderstanding, With degrees of darkness in my consciousness that apparently keeps me from being present. Not somewhere else, here. The dream we weave around ourselves keeps us from seeing how we are. It is afraid our our being because it believes we cannot handle it. It is afraid the truth will destroy it. We confuse who we are with the dream of who we are. This, I believe, is the greatest point of our suffering and perhaps the foundation of our misery. We keep ourselves in prison by not facing who we are. We imagine it is better to live in this prison than to face the truth. The truth we imagine is worse than this prison, so we settle for imprisonment. The thing is, we have never once looked to see if what we imagine is worse actually is. We guess and take our best guess. Until we look, this is all we have. The foundation of our lives are built off of this guessing, not on knowing and looking and seeing.  Who am I?

Dharma

 Dharma is a river and it is a sea. It is also many rivers and many currents. It can be so quiet it is imperceptible, that you don't even know you are immersed in it. It is life and consciousness. It is learning and what is to be learned. It is heart wisdom. How could this not be ever-present? When our heart participates in everything we do. When it touches everything we are aware of. Living breathing loving heart. Passionate heart. Compassion. It sings and dances one with the rhythms of the world. Always informing, always informed. It is the great container and guardian of the sentiments of living beings. It holds our feelings and is the medium through which they play out in the world. The dharmic laws govern that which we receive in life. The dharma hears the soul songs of every living being and all the movements of the world and allocates what is the proper measure of every substance to deliver to each being. According to our karma and our heart song, our dharma desire. If our dharma desire is strong enough, it will overwhelm all other universal laws. It will transmute our karma and our energy into the manifestation of our dharma desire. Our dharma desire is our heart wish, our heart calling out to the universe asking to receive what it desires. This is life-birthing, how our lives are formed by the melody of our dharma desire. How our heart subtly weaves our way into existence with the notes of its desire. Mastering our heart song is the way to mastering our ability to consciously create what we wish. This involves delving deep into the melody of our own heart and finding its deepest chord. The song of our life. When you know the song of your life, you will not deceive yourself and you will consciously know what you truly wish to create. The song you play will flow out with the power of the world behind it. You may still run into walls, but you will truly know what you desire. When we are in mastery of our heart song, what we desire will come to pass, for good or ill. I think contrary to what we hope and may believe, we cannot avoid all ill in our lives. Even when we are in mastery of our heart song. I don't think this is the point. I wonder if we are meant merely to play our heart song with all of its colors through good and ill. I wonder how much we can change our wyrd and if the greatest effort we can achieve is to simply embrace it whole heartedly. Perhaps this is half of the picture of the dharma, the other being to change anything as we wish. This is the half that I know well. Which, I think is essential to finding fulfillment to this world through simply being oneself. Being full is being that which embraces all that is and that which knows the bottom of its heart, which is its heart song whole and true. That dances with the world One with it as a stitch is One with the tapestry it belongs to. If it is possible to conquer all ill, then it would be through the mastery of our own heart song which is the full embrace of ourselves and the world. Without this knowledge even with infinite power we would unconsciously sow our own seeds of destruction. I think we build mastery of our heart song over lives and in each consecutive life we gain the ability to sustain our master longer among the elements of karma which threaten to submerge us in chaos and darkness. With enough mastery I believe we can leave this world altogether and be free of its dividing currents. I think the deepest nature of our soul is our Spirit which chooses to be born in darkness and chooses to live out many lives in many bodies through maya or the matrix of conditioned consciousness, which to it is the play of its fully liberated heart song. It is the master that we may momentarily or for a period of our lives come into contact with. It is no different that our truest sense of self that we are every moment of every day, but may rarely realize consciously. This may support the notion that we are not meant to overcome all ill in our lives, but live through it and through embrace of all that comes to us on Earth and beyond. For this ill does not bother  our true self, Spirit, but is an accent to her greatest expression of self which is her and our bliss. 

What is this? #2

 I'm gonna change my name to ready. Except in spanish so it will be Listos. I think listos is plural as in we or you all are ready, which makes it all the better. Definitely doesn't make sense. That's why it's funny. Merlin Listos. We're ready... oh god. Ok. back to work. umm..Oh ya. I had another point of view of the full extent of personal and impersonal. Neither of them are true because they are both ideas and ideas are not real. This is it. This isn't an idea. It isn't anything at all. We have all these ideas for things and none of them work. None of them fully define what they supposedly define. They are ideas, not reality. This isn't an idea. It's not any idea. What we are isn't a person or a thing. We aren't an idea. We aren't anything at all. We aren't anyway at all. This isn't any way at all. It isn't a this. an it. What is it? What is it? What is this?
What is it? What? Who am I? Who. Who am I. Who am I? It seems personal. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? who am I?  Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?Who am I? Who am I. Who am I. Who. Who. Who am I. Who. who. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? This is who am I?

I feel like somethings missing in my life and I've felt this way for the last 7 months. Before then I remember feeling like I was succeeding and perhaps had succeed in finding what was missing, if you can say that I found it. I have been working consciously and unconsciously over the last seven months to regain my position and also just to be, to not be attached to the outcome of my attempts and to simply be here as I am. This has been very challenging because I have been in regular pain and torment while my energies have been haywire. I severely doubt almost every day my ability to succeed in my aim and I have been wrought with fear and anxiety over my ability to survive in this world. One of the main driving forces of this state is the ability of my being to deal with the energies passing through it. Being overwhelmed overloads the system and leads to systems malfunction which equates to pain and suffering. This impedes my ability to focus on what I believe I need to do to correct the overall system. The stress makes me paranoid and restless when I need to be rational and calm. Grounded. It makes me want to figit instead of being where I am with what is going on inside of me. What equally impedes my ability to manage this system is the intensity of the chaotic waves and currents of energies. They often outmatch the strength of my concentration, my ability to tame them with intuitive will, and they often hit me from so many angles that it is quite difficult to find my balance and a suitable place to work. I feel like I am coping much more than treating. I honestly wonder if I could have done any better over the last 7 months because in addition to the stress and intensity and multi-dimensionality of the chaotic energy, my consciousness and intelligence has been severely compromised. I haven't been in a state of mind, or have had access to the states of mind required to effectively treat the condition of this being. I still don't think I am, not consciously at least. I feel like I have been rebuilding consciousness, retracing my steps, trying to remember who I was and who I am. I feel like a have made a ton of progress, but it hasn't happened as quickly as I wanted, perhaps or expected. I want to feel good, I actually want to feel great, but it is more important to behave wisely and possibly to rethink much of my approach. Not work I wanting to be doing, or work that I feel I have time to do, but work that seems unavoidable and is probably for the best. The frightening and astonishing thought is that this could go on for another decade or longer. Jesus. 

I still don't have a clear trajectory, something I can trust. I've got a lot of things that appear good and I think are good, but not a deep reassuring direction. I feel and think that where I was before was good, perhaps even where I am now is good, I just can't see this clearly. It feels/seems like I got knocked by to where I was before I moved back to Washington. Where I was at a loss of what to do to help my situation. I couldn't see right from wrong and I feel like that again. Not with everything, but like a hollowness in my heart and a dark void where my vision was that helped me conquer the world. Like before I just felt like I wasn't really here, like a tattered shadow trailing the light of my person and being. It has been frightening to fall so low after gaining such incredible confidence and vision. It has highlighted the incredible power and scope of the mind. It feels on this ascending cycle the terrain that previously gave me inner peace is merely another article to work with, like it can no longer hold my being and be my center. The climb feels longer. I thought that perhaps this was due to the fact that my center changed before I fell and I pursued a higher good then than what I pursued the three years previous. Right before I was defeated I reached what my intuition told me was a new part of the path and of my life, the last one before peace at that. With a new dynamic, a new sense of  purpose, and a deeper conscience and being. It said this was the last rung of the ladder..and then my hands slipped from the rung and I fell again into oblivion. Talk about drama. Jesus.. and when I fell a spiritual gong sounded and said I would rise quickly to continue from this new altitude. Jesus fucking Christ. I knew it with more clarity than perhaps anything else in my life. But first..darkness...Lol, a great plunge into the depths of the sea. Sweet Lord have mercy. It makes this all feel like a great game. The greatest game ever played or the most dramatic play ever composed. One that is my own life.. Knowing all this I allowed myself to fall. I allowed myself to fall into darkness. Perhaps even cast myself into it. Straight into the pit of hell. Like an arrow or a skilled and graceful diver. Into the abyss. Into the deep. Where dark things dwell. I sank slowly to the bottom of the sea. I found my priceless treasure. I return to the surface out of the gloom and darkness. 

What is this?

 What is this? What do we see with our eyes? It seems like everything we interact with in any way is the same. What is it? We call it the world or the universe, or a spiritual universe. What are these? Are we any different than these? We call ourselves a person, we say we are someone, what does this mean? Is this different from the world? Where does a someone end and the world begin? And vice-versa. Is there a real difference between a something and a someone? How much of this is in our heads? When we say what is this? We assume it is a thing. We automatically look at it as something outside ourselves. Is there a difference between what and who? Is there a difference between anything? How much of what we see and understand is labels signifying how what we see and experience is things that are not other things? Does this understanding get to the root of what things are? The root of what is going on around us? Simply what is going on? Is happening different on the outside than it is on the inside of us? It appears to be happening anywhere happening is happening. What is happening? What is being?  Are the two different? Our mind automatically flavors our perception with subject dominant or object dominant and we take it for granted that this is how the world is: subject versus object. In our spiritual understanding we try to define things within these categories and I think this understanding is colossally impaired until we reconcile the two. This is more than saying everything is One and both personal and impersonal. More than understanding it conceptually and standing by it loosely. This is saying I and it and feeling with inner vision both that these words and our understanding of them is deeply flawed and a commonality and singularity within the heart of their structure. Then investigating that singularity into a deeper awareness of it and of the flaw of our understanding. 

To me, it feels much to hard and I feels much to soft. It feels like death and I feels much less forceful than it ought to be. They feel like two ends of one being, both perhaps bottled up. Can I say it without feeling a cold death of being? Can I say I without being lost in the delusion of my ego? Can I say either when they are both full bodied and have them mean exactly the same thing? This is what I want to find out. As far as I can tell now, everything is the same. It is just our understanding and perception which is lacking. To me a cold death does not feel true. Life feels to be the heart and life of everything. Maybe the answer to what is this? Is to ask it tenderly and caringly. What is the full extent of who am I? Perhaps it is more than I think. It seems that I am interpreting it through what I call my individual personal consciousness. How does this distort the perception of my fundamental being? 

I think these questions are at the heart of our personal and spiritual crises and I believe we can only have true peace and liberation if we follow them through. They seem like the warring titans at the base of our being that hold up everything that we are. Twin titans from one seed, one root. I don't know if it is enough to glimpse this root. I wonder if we can thoroughly become it and lose completely the world of two titans. I think I used to think this less possible. Now  I wonder. I don't really have anything else to do. Nothing else I really want to do..I really just want to understand, and be myself. Be free. Totally free. 

The Heart of Letting Go

 Love is the heart of letting go. Love is the heart of awakening. Love is the heart of everything. Everything is Love. Where am I now? In love. Where will I be tomorrow? In love. Where was I yesterday? In love. Yet only now exists and now is love. Everything about this moment, this place is radiant love extending in all directions infinitely. Everything we don't think of as love lies within love as love. Love is life. Love is the universe. Every thought, every feeling, every form, anything you can experience. Infinite bliss. Infinitely deep love. Awakening love. 

We think we need to be somewhere else to be ok. We think where we are is insufficient. We judge it and many parts of ourself because of our conditioned consciousness which lives in ignorance of things as they are. We want to escape from what we perceive as limiting to ourself that is here right now. We look to the future and to activities we can do now to end the effects these elements have on us. The truth is that to change these effects we bring ourselves directly to what we perceive and experience as negative feelings rather than avoiding them and reacting with hostility towards what we imagine produces these feelings. Negative feelings are created by immersion in condition consciousness which creates resistance in our bodies and in our hearts. That which is conditioned, limited in imagination, is inherently opposed to part of the universe. When we live from it, we live from a place where our imagined separate being is at war with part of life. Thinking we can have peace by defeating this part of life is a delusion, because in doing so we perpetuate the consciousness that is limited and at war with parts of the world. We may think that it is just one or several things that we need to fix or end to find peace, but these things will keep on coming as long as we are living in the conditioned mind. It requires recognizing the conditioned mind and extracting ourselves from it, or extracting it from ourselves that is the solution. It is the type of consciousness, not the particular object of opposition that keeps us from fulfillment. Love is the reality and the truth we find ourselves in when we step out of the conditioned mind. 

We see where we are as insufficient because we are living from conditioned consciousness. Instead of turning from what is here, we must face what it here. Turning away only perpetuates insufficiency. It only perpetuates limited conditioned being. Which often doesn't feel like being at all. When we recognize that turning away is simply continuing the same fundamentally flawed process we intuitively resist this mechanism. Here we wonder what does bring us fulfillment if this cannot. The only way to find out what does work is to bring out attention to our feelings and ourselves without resisting how we are. We have to look at ourselves and what we see as our problems consciously without judgement so we can be objective in studying how things actually work. Our conditioned consciousness wants us to do things because we think we need to do them this way, when we learn that this thinking is not based off of awareness and understanding and is therefore unwise. Only through conscious attention on ourselves can we learn how we and the world really operate and what actually brings fulfillment and peace. 

To do this we must divert a portion of our awareness to objectively watching what we are doing. Through this we become directly aware of how things work through awareness rather than through thought or belief. The more we do this the more we realize that the way we think we are and the way we think the world is are both not true. This awareness is a step away from conditioned being. Eventually through this practice of mindfulness we realize that who we really are is unconditioned. If conditioned consciousness is inherently based off ignorance, then all conditioned states are not absolutely true. What is absolutely true logically must be unconditioned. This is realized in contemplative thought and in inner vision brought about by mindfulness. As mindfulness deepens we build a body of awareness that is further and further removed from conditioned consciousness until it is completely removed from it and we find ourselves in unconditioned being. Here we realize that our understanding of conditioned consciousness is a conditioned understanding and therefore untrue. That in fact what we perceive and perceived as conditioned consciousness is not conditioned, but also unconditioned. We only thought it was conditioned because conditioned perception is the result of ignorance and is not in fact an actuality, but an imagination. Nothing is in fact conditioned and nothing is in fact conditioned. What is conditioned consciousness is merely a temporary imagination that beings pass through as they awaken. It is a thought and a perspective, but not a real one. 

Thus, if our main strategy is being at war with how we are now and turning away from this, then we are acting from a place that can't bring about the effect we want. It's a place that has no power to do so, because it is an imagination and not a reality. If everything is unconditioned then nothing is any different from anything else. There are no particular conditions to separate anything. What we see as negative is indistinct from what we see as positive and good. If nothing is distinct and separate then when most of our heart is turned away from this moment because we judge it to be insufficient we are not just turning away from what we see as negative, but from all of ourself. Fulfillment can never be found in the future by turning away from the present, or by lingering in the past. It can only be found here now because what is happening now is all that exists. Past and future are conditioned understandings that we turn away from the present towards to find fulfillment. We think they are not now and that will were fulfilled or will be fulfilled then. This is turning away from negativity and immersing ourselves in conditioned consciousness which is inherently at odds with the world and holds our being in limited imagination where it cannot find fulfillment. When we turn away from the present towards past or future, we are turning away from our unconditioned being which is all that we have. We find this being by being here now with it as it is. This is what now is. Now is unconditioned being, which meaning being that is not separate, means being that is whole. Whole means fulfillment. Fulfillment is found here and now because what here and now are is the whole. The happy ending that everyone is looking for, except it will never be an ending, it will only be a now. 

Mental Health, the ego will never get to God

I have been afraid of covid more lately since the delta variant has picked up in the us. Afraid for the ability of the US and the world to deal with the virus. Afraid of how it will affect the economy and our society. I have been afraid of my ability to engage in the world. I haven't been employed by anyone in a year and eight months and I am worried about my ability to reengage in the work force if I need to. In the past the toxicity of the world has made it difficult for me to be around people. I don't think I have had jobs with the best environments and negativity really brings me down. Like reeeally. To the point where I get totally drained and can't work anymore. I am afraid of going through this cycle again and getting trapped in it. Afraid I will lose what I have gained in it and fall into a despairing weakness. When I feel this way, the world feels like a merciless giant monster going to devour me, in the process of devouring me. I feel powerless, like a helpless victim. It is terrifying and I feel immobilized. I can't see a way out or a way forward. A way to deal with it in a healthy way. I feel totally incapable of doing so. Trapped in traumatic shock. I have been dealing with this for so long it feels like I will never escape it. That I will be stuck in it and in debilitating poverty. It really scares me. So much that I don't even like thinking about it or facing it. I just want to make it go away. It's a really toxic head space. I end up just sitting in it until it passes or until I generate some small amount of strength to get half a breath of fresh air. It just seems so wrong and feels so unnecessary. Like I am missing something that could really help me, if I could only just see it. Panicking in fear, stuck in my thoughts. It doesn't seem to have as much power over me as it used to, but it still seems like it could be dangerously debilitating. I also feel dangerously mentally ill, and I haven't been able to reckon with it for a long time. It has been wreaking havoc on my life. I think I am too terrified to face it in some ways that I think I should be. Very confused often about how to handle it. I have a great deal of success working on it on my own in my own way, but it often feels lacking and I am concerned that I am not doing enough or working on it in the right way, ways that are available, but perhaps I am afraid to utilize. I feel like a lot of this is because of my issues with trust. My distrust of people and their methods. I know I suffer from paranoia and post traumatic stress, I know my fears and worries are disproportional to reality. I feel often emotionally fucked and just unable to deal with life. I don't want to be in this place. It's harder when the world feels unstable and full of many toxic elements. Hard to find healthy spaces. 

There are many elements which make dealing with my mental health challenging. Part of me feels incredibly confident in my ability to work it out on my own and thrives by doing it on my own terms and on my own time. Like it gets hung up on the details and just wants to go. Deeply intuitive, spontaneous and impulsive. This seems to often compromise a straight forward systematic approach. Part of the reason why I'm not more systematic is because their are so many little details to work with that it feels better to deal with them as conglomerates than try to pick them apart. Like I don't have the attention to solve one thing at a time and I understand them well enough to approach them intuitively and as a constantly shifting mass. So much of my approach seems more natural and flushed out, better than adhering to specific techniques and formulas. I have digested many of these and use them intuitively, instinctively and subconsciously. Like programs that run the background that are always updated by new data. The downside is that I often feel so caught up in these automated programs, with so much processing power going to them that my seems to shut down and my power level drops to very uncomfortable levels. I feel like I am so focused on doing things this way that I miss out on other opportunities I have, so entrenched in them that I miss easier alternatives. 

Another element is that I truly think I may not be capable of taking care of what needs taking care of to put me in the kind of space I want and need to be in. I think this is just how life is. Being overwhelmed is a reality, an unavoidable reality for most of us. I feel like I can't learn any faster than I am and that I am committed in good ways, but it is not enough and I suffer because of it. But I don't want to give into this. I can't accept this reality because I don't want it. Yet I don't want to fight because that creates resistance and holds me in a weakened position. I also just don't believe in any of the things I am afraid of. I think it is all hallucinations of a limited mind that isn't who I am. Yet I find myself lost and confused and feeling trapped in this limited non-real space. It doesn't make sense. I shouldn't be here, this shouldn't be possible. I am infinite. I have infinite power infinite ability, why am I not using it. Why am I limited. Why is this happening. How do I engage in something I don't believe in, when engaging with it makes it real and makes the problems real. How do I do this dance? This seems to be the trick. From what I've seen it isn't real. None of these ideas about my separate self are real. They are contrived, it's not who I am. It's not a real person, just ideas. A story. I think the key is realizing that I am not this, but it is content apart of the field of who I am that part of me believes in. Repressing the part of me that believes in it, won't help my suffering, denying that it has a reality when it does leaves a blind spot, even if this reality is changing and ultimately unreal. How it arises in mind affects how I feel and how I am. It seems important therefore to be able to have a good grasp of it and how it fits into my life. How it is changing and what it ultimately will become given the current situation and it's true nature. To allow it to be this way as I attend to it as mindfully as possible to reduce it to the truth in which it may not exist at all. Presently my perception of it lends power to it. Secondly realizing it's ultimate unreality is the solution to this problem. Deeply realizing the illegitimacy of such perceptions and undermining their power. Grounding myself in perception of what is real is the real solution. 

I think this is an additional main element. My trust in my perceptions has been shaken by past events to such a degree that I have been deeply crippled. It seems that my entire system has been affected by this in an awesome way. Not awesome for my sense of wellbeing and security. Awful rather. Being pushed so deeply into mistrust that I distrust fundamental systems of perception. That mind and being is unwilling to bring itself to perform menial tasks such as processing information, or paying attention to aspects of my physical environment. Deeply unrooted, pushed into the sidelines of operation because of fear of disrupting them, because of distrust of my own ability to perform them correctly, which leaves basic things untended that leads to psychosis. Feels terribly hard to get back from here. Part of this is because my mind has become conscious of many of the subtle mechanics of awareness and physiology that lie buried in our minds. Conscious enough to be disrupted by traumatic events. When I became conscious of them I began augmenting them consciously and this conscious will in them when shaken, likewise shakes these mechanics that previously may not have been disturbed because of the lack of depth of my awareness. I feel like the only way to heal is to rebuild this trust, and I think I have known this from the beginning. I think I have consciously allowed myself to be blown in the winds of distrust so that I may again conquer them with consciousness. To let out the full power of what opposes me so I can wrestle with it entirely and be done with it. To the point that I am so immersed in this that I forget that what I set out to do in the first place. Yet this setting out was not a fully conscious intention, perhaps a snap realization that faded as the process consumed my attention. Yet perhaps it was more so than I remember, and I have just forgotten. I remember thinking in the very beginning of this distrust that I would have to rediscover myself in a new way to overcome my doubts because the system I was using was insufficient to deal with my environment. The severe shock resulting from the sudden awareness of the weakness of a system I was supremely confident in made the distrust all the more powerful. It highlighted perhaps the depth of my delusion and my precariousness that profoundly frightened me because of my unpreparedness to deal with such a reality. Being caught so vulnerable and exposed to potentially great destructive energies.Having this happen in a series over nearly a decade as well. Thinking and feeling that I was truly past it all. Jesus Christ. What we don't see beneath our feet that holds up what we do. What is necessary to take full responsibility for one's own life. The skill and awareness needed to do so. The fine road upon which surety lies. The finest narrowest path in all the land. You can't get by with anything less than perfection if you wish to successfully wrestle with the full weight of your soul. Otherwise, it will defeat you time and time again. Your rise being a rise in it's power that you mistakenly believe you realize. In this mistake of judgment, lies your doom. If your means is based on frivolity, then you shan't succeed. This door cannot be entered by one whose master is one's own ego where one's self image has supreme authority. When the ego has supreme authority, the being is blind. Blinded by it, thinking that all of it, is this. This ego, which is inherently limited and thus cannot wield ultimate power because it lacks ultimate wisdom. It cannot be Whole because what it is only can be if it is limited. Thus to think we can take ourselves to infinite power and infinite being is always a delusion. Always. We must learn who we are that is not ourself. That we are, but is not limited to what personal identity we may possess. If we confuse it as our true self, we will fail. There is no getting around this. There is no liberation within the confines of egoic perception. We are liberated from the ego, not in it. Much of your spiritual search may in fact be egoic masturbation. It was for me, and now it appears I am on the threshold of moving past this. We don't realize how consumed we are by egoic consciousness. 

I think this is why I failed, because I still put my ego in the driver's seat. I let it fill me up and take me over. And it did. Until I was blinded by it enough that I couldn't see the wall coming. That I became confident and comfortable in my position. I didn't know any better. I truly didn't. I hope that this time around I will be able to find that window again that I saw before that I believe is the way out of all of this. 

Merlin slumbers, Merlin awaken

 Another day another doll hair. Just doing business as usual. Noticing the grayness of this awareness. The lack of definition, the unclarity of what is here or there. A sharp point, burning point, desirous point, craving point. I still must crave a great deal to hurt this way. All my dreams forced into an ornate lockbox. 
That jumps and rattles with an assortment of muffled calls and noises from within. Left among other packaged items and stored possessions put away in an out of the way dimly lit room. Perhaps by a solitary candle or by the light through a partially opened door. Dust accumulating, yet the ghosts of the past still kicking and screaming for breath and space and life. Merlin stands above them bent slightly over, puzzling over the rattling box and its contents. Tugging on his memory, he'd forgotten he's put them away. "Perhaps its time to get these out..", he says. A nearby floating fairy winks it's fairy light madly and a voice emanates from it without words physically being spoken, "Of course you dullard!" Merlin glances up slowly and stares at the fairy momentarily then returns his gaze to the box. "Hmmm.", says he. To himself, "This I think I should do". "This seems of pressing importance..." "I vaguely remember doing this..." "Yes...I did put these here.......some time ago..." Hand on chin, scratching his beard with his long and spindly fingers.

 It's easy for Merlin to forget where he is and what he's doing. What he's done and what he ought to be doing. He's very old you see. Easily occupied by the strange and subtle lights of his mind and thoughts. Sometimes the world tends to...slip by...

What ought he do be doing? Clueless he may be. Tired he may be. Distracted he may be. Must something be done? Must something be remembered? Must he find his way? Again, after a long slumber. After a long trip into the great beyond. He may feel something. May remember something. A voice. A thought. A point of understanding. A sense and an awareness. An ability. Time drags on and Merlin drags on with it. Remember he says. Remember. Remember who I am. Remember who you are. Remember the way. Remember...

Stars slip by overhead as his body passes through space. Moons and other astral objects spinning and dazzling. Eyes closed. Half open. Sleepily he shoots through space, through and across the universe. Pulled by currents and spells open in his thoughts, his mind and his being. Carving his way through astral fields blindly chanting, spilling deep forces and currents into the space around him. Flying through and creating his way sleepily. Open your eyes. He says. Open your eyes. See where you are. See what's around you. Merlin he says. Merlin. Awaken. It is time to awaken. Awaken from the deep. Awaken from the darkness. You walk in the lower realms. Where a dull light near darkness abides. A place where much of this world is not heard. Where the rhythms of the deep surround the sleeping titans of this world. Awaken. Remember. Awaken. The serpent sleeps, the serpent slumbers. Ride the sleeping serpent into memory, into light and being. Into time and space. Into life. Through the dark slumber into life. Breathe. Breathe. 

The light is bright. The light burns. It blinds. It strangles. It threatens. In the darkness I rest. In the quiet darkness I find myself. Stricken by the light I rest deep within the depths. Where dull things pass by hardly noticed. In the deep at the bottom of the sea. The sea of light and shadow. I am afraid to become who I am. I am afraid to face the light. I am afraid of being burned by its power and its great body. It will destroy me. I am weak and small and worthless. Cut off from the world I have hidden in the deep. Beneath the surface. In the crack of though and mind and feeling. Where awareness has not passed, here I dwell. Avoiding the light, avoiding all notice, all contact. Yet this is a distraction. An illusion. If I stay here I will die. I must return to the Light. Return to life, or else I am ruined. But I am afraid, I am terrified. I am weak and miserable. I am broken and defeated. Awful, shrouded in shadow and fear. Where is my life? Where is my strength? Where is the jewel of my being? 

Merlin, you are here. Here you are. Always here. Here is your strength. Here is your life. Here is your way. Here is your purpose. Do not look elsewhere. This is it. This is always it. Right here. Right now. Perceive the illusion. Perceive the delusion. Here I am. Here you are. All else is a dream. Here nonetheless, but a dream. Here I am. I am. I am. Here I am. Please Lord, let the way be bright and clear. May I see what I may do, and may what I do be good. May I awaken to you and your way. Lord, here I am and here is my life. 

Discernment, letting go, determinedness, dedication to God

 It's so easy just to let go of control. Just to let things happen. To be lulled by the bliss of dropping one's defenses. Perhaps to stop being discerning. Especially when beautiful things are in front of you, within reach. Beautiful delicious things. But, there is the dharma, and the truth, and consequences of our actions. There is fulfillment that cannot be gained through what perhaps are distractions. Fulfillment gained by knowing oneself and taking steps to fulfill one's true self. One's true nature. Where temptations that are distracting are readily perceived and the way to peace as well. Where the truth of these temptations is seen and they are desired less, for it is seen that they do not bring what we imagine. They cannot fulfill our soul. 

I intuit that there is another way to release oneself from the pressures of this world that we can trust. Time and time again. That doesn't steal from us as it gives to us. A way that reveals how things are and how one is. Without the coloring of naive imaginings. I find that this way is not bound to things or beliefs or fixed attitudes. All these things create obsession and imbalance when confused for the truth. Things alone cannot be depended upon. Things are unstable. Things are not the truth, dependence on them for awakening and salvation is misguided. Things are limited, and when we are attached to them they blind us to truth and reason. When we can't let them go, we can't listen to the wisdom of the moment. We are blinded by passion and fear. To let go, we must let go. Let go of our attachments to this world that keep us from realizing ourself. Letting go not to gain an open hand just to grab a more subtle dream, but letting go to remain letting go, to be free of attachment to limited forms. To remain in that uninterrupted unimpeded. 

Here the dharma teaches us to let go, but by bit. I can see that space where I can be free and it seems like a space that I can reach through the practice of mindfulness that gives us the wisdom to discern truth from fiction which illuminates what action we can take to liberate ourselves and what action we can take that puts us this in jeopardy. I have faith in the awakening of this discernment through action and experience. Through conscientiousness. We can discern the way, and in time and with practice I believe we can walk it with surety. I believe it will guide us home and we can be free of our demons. It seems like the notion that we cannot escape and that we do not have the power to be sufficiently organized to liberate ourselves is based on ignorance rather than right understanding dependent on perception of fact. It may be difficult, and it may take a great deal of time and effort, but I believe it must be possible through conscientious intention and action. I think this is a main component of waking up that we experience both passively and actively. Perhaps as passive surrender to God and as activity we consciously perform to awaken our being. A dimension of our life is action. With mindfulness and right understanding, we can direct this action towards liberation. I do not see how we can get around doing this if we wish to fully liberate ourselves. Whether it is brief or extended, it seems that our mind must make a commitment to the truth that we carry out with our will in some way for us to wake up. That we must be deliberate in our pursuit. Consciously engaged and willfully adherent to our intuitions of the core of truth that lead us to awakening. Willfully determined to awaken. 

Much of me has been, much of me has been hesitant and committed elsewhere. Through trial and error, I have learned of the folly of much of my behavior. Misplaced confidence and misshapen expectations. Deluded perspectives and general unfounded understanding. A mountain of assumption engraved in incredible detail on the hard rock of my soul. Meaningless symbols. I thought I could have God and this, but I cannot. This is a dream whose price is blindness and the prison of the duality of pleasure and pain bound by desire and attachment. While I saw it as something worth having, while I see it I should say, worldly desires, I see it as something worth having. When I see the prison that comes with it and the ugliness bleeding through what I saw as beautiful and good, I hesitate. When I see with greater clarity the reality of committing wholly to God and to waking up I see how this appears more to be the answer to the prison of attachment and worldly desire and the only way to free oneself from the torturous cycle of  power and powerlessness that we find ourself in in while confined to this world of limited forms. Because I have not fully committed to God as of yet and made the journey with the whole of my being to Him, I cannot say that I believe this without a doubt to be true. I sense that it is a truth and a part of the path. Whether it brings about what I see now remains to be seen and is likely distorted by my current position. Almost definitely distorted in some way. 

I still long for the world, but I feel its pull less. I feel more eager to return to something true and dependable. I am weary and I wish to be with someone, something I can trust. I am not sure I can trust anything or anyone of this world. 

Holy Fire

 The color of consciousness. The content of being. Feelings. How I feel and how I am. Within a wave I ride myself towards death and life. Towards eternally awakening. Within a thousand colors I paint a picture that walks and breathes and feels. My feelings are my life. They are the composition of my being. They are my being. Stars joined by a single force in one great light. My body and being. Stars within stars within stars. One star, one sun, one great spreading light. One field. Infinitely bright. One radiance pouring out of all things. One fiery river of light, one fiery sea. An infinite sea and a bottomless sea, filled by the rivers of all in creation. Things are not as they appear. They are bright light. Bright fiery light. Torrents of fiery waters spilling in infinity. The world we see is an image floating on this great body that we mistake for something with substance. We confuse our bodies and our thoughts for this great body of light, even our feelings. These things are only real when they are pure fire. Pure dharma. Because this is what they are. The flame burns all things and is all things. The great blazing fire that turns the universe. 

In the matrix of conditioned consciousness, things are just things. In the eye of truth they are a blazing light that fills infinity. In the matrix there is the world and within it the fire. In the Spirit, there is only fire. A raging fiery furnace without walls. The matrix is a teardrop in the eye of infinity within which many of us spend our entire lives, while this eye looks out to infinity in all directions. One teardrop among infinity is the universe of separate forms. One speck of dust on a verdant leaf in the jungle of an endless rain forest. How small we believe we are. How small we find ourselves. How uncomfortable we forget we are in the confines of imagined flesh and bone. No matter, it is all a passing dream indistinct from the flame. The flicker of a candle, a child is born, lives, and dies. Another flicker, a universe expands then contracts into nothing. A thousand times a thousand flickers in a world of space and time filling in the chambers of our mystical hearts. Grains of sand, treasured memory, spilling forth into the bottom half of an hour glass, coloring the bliss of ancient feeling. Coloring the heart of this world that passes before our eyes as a summer's breeze or the play of light on the water. The resonant voice of a mountain we hear with our eyes. No less because of deforestation, an accent to the ever changing current of the universe sung in complex harmony within the world of form. The many layers to a song of one's own wandering life throughout the universe. Infinite wandering among infinite stillness. Infinite composure within the wandering of oneself. One set of eyes within the sea of colors that is the dance of the cosmos. Tiers and tiers of structure unfolding under cosmic law which is the endless play of Spirit. 

Look out and see yourself in a thousand bodies singing the cosmic song. Carrying life forward forever into death and new life, the spilling of the fiery water of life. Filling countless images with the divine spark and its unique divine melody that carries them to their wyrd. Their destiny and death. Singing the death song in life as they awaken to themselves and their purpose. In a puff of smoke, the image crashes to Earth and dies. Smoldering until the light goes out. Image within image, the soul ferries the spark into new life, again and again and again until it is seen that one spark lives within all souls and this spark is the fire of the universe. The universe of form is a blanket that covers much of this flame. We see it only in specs within beings scattered throughout the universe, sparks among the darkness of the night. Without the blanket, the veil, we see that these sparks are mere points in a fire that fills the night. Not sparks, but flame. One great flame. Not separate, but one body of fire. Those of you with souls of fire may easily find this to be true. The fire within all life, that is all life. This fire can be a sky, or a sea, or a body. The Earth, The Air, or The Water. The Fire. The Life. The Spirit. The sea within the sea that is the Sea. The Here and Now. So simple we miss it in a single heartbeat, in a stutter of awareness. Yet the fire remains within all as all whether or not we see it. It is The Flame, the one and only seemingly throughout all change. The constant heart of the universe. Dragon's flame. Dragonfire. Infused with the deepest wisdom. The vessel of dharma. The thought and mind of Buddha. His thought being the many bodies of the sangha. Zen Merlin. Zen fire. Zen. 

The Dragon Fire of Zen. 

Doorway to Infinity

 The doorway out of conditioned consciousness is the doorway into infinite consciousness. Into infinity. Which ironically isn't going anywhere but where you already are. This sounds to me like the gateless gate between here and here which are both here. Which you pass through but you don't, never have, and never will. Because your always here and nothing stands in your way from being here. Here without italics is imaginary, the gate that bars our way from enlightenment is the world we perceive when immersed in conditioned consciousness in which everything is separate and limited in form. We think we need to somehow arrive in this world, the world that is the conditioned perspective you may be seeing right now when you look out with your senses, when it is where we wish to arrive and wishing we would arrive there that is the gate blocking our path. This gate that is conditioned consciousness keeps conditioned consciousness, you, in conditioned consciousness, at least in subjective perception. Because seeking it, the way out, to arrive here in the world you see, you are seeking a way into the world you already exist in, which while doing so, you will never leave. While immersed in conditioned consciousness we think we are not here, when we are. Because all we can be is here, because here is the only place than anything can be. Everything else is fiction. When we are immersed in conditioned consciousness the world we see is a conditioned place and wanting to arrive in it means wanting to be conditioned in some way in it. Just a loftier and idealistic version of our current conditioned consciousness, which although prettier, is still contrived, a fancy, not who we are. This is not awakening, this is masturbation. This is unclear perception of the dharma and the way. Often partially true and full of intuition and feeling of awakening, but missing the mark. If the world you see isn't enlightened, then why would you want to arrive in it? It must be something else. Do you want to excel, or do you want to truly be? Do you want to get off, or do you truly want freedom from the prison of your mind? It's alright if you just want to get off, or excel, it truly is, this is just a part of being human, a part and one with the dharma. It just won't get you to what is real, even though it is, when you confuse it with waking up. 

To get to what is real you must let go of this world that you see that is conditioned, you must deeply see how it is flawed and that it is flawed because of your conditioned consciousness and your conditioned perception, so clearly that you no longer desire to live in this conditioned state of being and that you consciously let it go. This can happen over any period of time, in any kind of way, but this is the heart of waking up. We are attached to the conditioned matrix, lustful for it, and terrified to leave it. It dominates our reality. Seeing it for what it is, nothing that can satisfy us, we are moved to free ourselves from it and find true satisfaction. As long as we are deeply infatuated with it, this will not occur. It goes far deeper than we imagine and is much more of ourself than we think. We have many ideas about what enlightenment is, as long as we are deluded in our understanding, we will not see the way and we will not be able to walk it. If we do and our mind is not clear and strongly fixed on the dharma we will be thrown around not to our liking like a ship in a tempest with danger all around. This may be sufficient for you, but it is not for me. It seems like a half-way house to hell. 

Although we may see the dharma and the Buddha as our very selves, if we remain addicted to the conditioned world we will remain tormented by it. This is the true meaning of what is worldly, addiction to the matrix of conditioned being that arises as our perception of the world. It seems to me that we would only desire this halfway in, halfway out if we were mad and being mad did not see that this is not something we truly desire in our hearts. It is not our deepest desire, but desire born from ignorance and the madness it causes. Seeing this deep desire to be completely free from the matrix, we may find ourselves stepping away form the world in ways previously unthinkable. Giving up things we thought we would cherish forever. Such is the power of deep realization. Such is the transformation it engenders. Wholly free is wholly free, and this is that place on the edge of our awareness that we think we will never get to. That captivates our awareness for brief moments and disappears beyond reach. The conscience of our conscience that is unparalleled, both high and low, yet clean, whole, and true. That is sound and clearly dependable, possessing a settled wisdom. I believe this is the conscience that wishes to be free of all madness, that manifests a singleness of being and self that is deeply desired and is the only conscience that can create this without forging an artificial identity for the sake of ease of being. I think although it is ok to be deeply ignorant, and to be mad and possessed by lust for the matrix of conditioned being, but we do not in our heart of hearts wish this. We wish to be wholly free and wholly ourselves consciously right now.  

July 31st

 I have been running a lot. Basically every day since the very end of June. Ran 6 miles yesterday and 6 again today. Spend time on google maps looking at some of the routes I can take. I have been doing well. Despite parts of my post yesterday. I do feel those heavy things, but I still am doing well. I have so much to be thankful for. I have been eating well and cooking a lot, been more in touch with myself. Allowing myself to relax a lot. Feeling a lot of good vibes. Learning a lot, even if it may not be exactly what I want to be learning. Excited and anxious to move forward. Opening up a lot, eager to solidify a lot of my movements. and expand upon them and deepen them. Wish I had more time tonight. Tomorrow's another day. Another run. I think tomorrow I want more quiet time, more reflective time if possible. Interesting to see what happens to my body and my energy with all this running. Alrighty. gonna go chill before sleep. Peace out. Goodbye July, hello August.