Turn Life Around

(Ladybug macrophotography and water droplets by Don Komarechka)

Notice sometimes only seeing things upside down allows us to truly see things right side up. More than once, we may contemplate living differently, imagine what it would be like to somehow change or even leave our old life behind, and yet hesitate to take off. As we reach the end of our rope, or (tip)ping point, the excitement of the unknown is more powerful than the fear that held us back. Fearless Soul takes the helm over Ego. Only then do we see the obvious. This is the process of getting in touch with and being ourselves.

Attain a deeper state

Notice when you are not attempting to control your experience, all that remains is for you to watch, listen and be. You may come to tune into the watching, the awareness, notice its something quite fluid and flowing from one point of awarness to another. You may notice how your body feels, sensations arising and falling. You may tune into the silence or intermittent sound. Allow awareness to go rather than where you want it to go. Deep relaxation happens as we let go of control. Even as we let go of attempts to relax, something magical happens without us. There is no effort to sustain anything; not a thought, a pleasant or unpleasant feeling, or a memory. Every sensation lasts as long as it lasts, and is allowed to dissipate. Awareness may decide to stop and rest. Notice awareness moves as it wants to, where it wants to go, no attempt to control it. No effort need be made to stop anything from happening. Instead of seeing where you can direct awareness, you await seeing where awareness can take you wherever it wants. This may be somewhere or nowhere. Be like water. Notice watching water flow freely has a way of unwinding you, your thoughts and body. Nothing is pushed away but allowed to take its natural course. Listening to the wind blow, is akin to listening to the flow of the breath and water. There is no end to allowing everything be as it is. Every instance of letting go guides you to the next opportunity to repeat this. Attaining a deep relaxed state may happen, but there is no goal to stay or move. Notice your own allowing and resistance. No need to enhance anything.

Stop valuing your beliefs

Notice what happens as you stop valuing your own beliefs. As you start to see them for what they are, you see them as empty of all meaning, value and ultimate Truth. This is part of letting go. Who would you be without a particular belief or more than one? Nothing. Even when you know you are Nothing, part of you may still be convinced the world needs something you [Ego can] offer. If you shift to have a deep belief of holding no beliefs, this is simply a way to mobilize "you." If you conceptualize, it disempowers and disengages you- you may imagine nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be-a kind of lifelessness. This is what the mind imagines because it cannot imagine what is beyond it. To follow a natural process is to find a response to life that is undivided but non-reactive. Letting go of points of view implies you have no idea what life will do with you. Ego does not believe life can take care of itself. As you realize it then you are empowered because the emptying out process is energizing. You feel lighter, like when decluttering a drawer, a larger space or life. When we look into awakeness itself, this is being, free from fixation, from points of view, self-images, beliefs. This is what freedom means- the more empty we are, the more freedom we have to move and function or flow. To have a fixation causes you to go into reaction instead of a response. One arises from a place of wholeness or peace. This is when natural state is operational. As you come out of a mediation and find you respond peacefully to something you reacted to previously, then it dawns you connect with who you are, the undivided self. Notice where your humanity is engaged, when fear is triggered, the divided self reacts to what it does not want. To try to get rid of your Ego is to try to get rid of your shadow. It cannot happen. We cannot outrun the shadow (a shadow activity itself). The Truth simply notices the shadow and continues to flow as it always has.

Life beyond the mind

Notice that the moment arises when you no longer follow things in the mind but rather, shift to what you feel (consciously experience). This may shake "your" world up so much that you ask yourself how to move through "the world." You can no longer navigate based on what you think or believe. It dawns that any belief you could possibly have is simply "you" taking an opportunity to feel what its like. That moment, you get a very visceral idea of the "me": the judge, the commentator, that which assumes and attributes blame. The little "me" cannot fathom another way to be other than its thinking way. When you ask "how" to function in the world, the answer is: there is no answer. Nothing prepares "you" for this. One simply is and moves through worlds. Something else is guiding you, something the little self could never know even if it was told. Its no big deal. It simply is not anything related to "your" thoughts and expectations and reperatoire of conditioned . One no longer asks how to integrate new understanding or awakeness into life and dimensions. Asking has no place here. One simply lives, breathes and flows. Being awake is simple when we do not believe whatever thoughts we have about life. All sound is swimming in silence. That is the sound of reality. A thinking mind can never know how silence operates. That silence is what mind is seeking to know.

Go beyond mind-control

Notice what happens as it dawns that Being itself is guiding each action. Meditation in its true sense can be a way of spontaneously discovering our natural, undivided state. We cannot get to a natural state through divided means. We cannot create natural, effortless states. We can only create unnatural states. As we fall into the state where we cease to manipulate our experience in any way, this is true meditation. Anything else is mind-controlled. Through mind-control, we can create extra-ordinary and mystical states, but not the natural state. Let everything be as it is. This is simple and yet, how often do you attempt to stop the mind, seek be peaceful, or something other than what is? Anyway you manipulate experience, simply notice it and let it go. This gives mind very little to do. The mind is no longer leading the way. It falls into background. The natural, free state only reveals itself through non-doing. It takes some consciousness to notice when we manipulate inner experience. The natural state is ever-present. Its already quiet. There is no reason to get to peace. No search is needed. States we seek through meditation are here. Most meditation is manipulation. This points to distrust of original nature. No need to battle ego. It is a conditioned part of ourselves. Distrust of ego can escalate to distrusting the essence of Being. Its why we seek to control. Letting go of our conditioned urge to manipulate inner experience guides one to natural awareness.