Be awake to what matters

At any moment, you can wake up.  Any situation can awaken you.  Existence is an exercise where you create ways to feel more alive.  Being awake is feeling into knowing what matters.  Sometimes small life changes enable you to feel more awake, more present.  Even splashing water on the face can help.  How much sleep do you need to be awake to what matters?

To be awake is to recognize it was a dream that created the sense of distance between who you are and what you think you want.  Dreaming is the distance.  For dreaming to feel real, sleeping is necessary.  From the moment you are awake sleep disappears along with the world of dreams and the impulse to dream.

Being awake is being here now and accepting what you already are.  Awakening cannot be made a goal. All goals are dreaming like all achievements and pursuits to them are dreaming. He who is asleep cannot dream his way to enlightenment.  Whatever you imagine is not the same as being what you are already.

It is assumed that a process exists for everything and so process is dreamed into being.  It is imagined you must follow a path to reach a destination, take training to become qualified with a certain skill, literally travel from place to place, when the starting point and destination are the same. That is, you convince yourself you are less than you are in order to think you must earn the reward of a desired experience.   Being awake to what matters is accepting everything is instantaneous.

Similarly, it is often assumed a person moves through dreaming and waking states to wakefulness and then to that which has no name.  Everything but the last state takes you away from yourself. In reality, you do not go anywhere but life and experience looks different in the imagination.  You think you must lose yourself to become whole, do something to merit entry into paradise.  When you truly lose the self, your false identity or sense of separation from who you are,  you cannot come back to it and for desire and ego cease to exist.  

Get this: Paradise is here now.  Being awake to what matters is knowing no-thing you think exists.  Yet, the point of it all is enjoying every step of the imagined journey, appreciating every experience, and loving everything you encounter along the way back to where you never leave.  Love is the answer.  All of existence points toward it and is it. 

5 Ways to know change is in the air

Many people get wrapped up in the prospect of change.  How can you know change is in the air? 

1) Read your vibes. If you detect a sense of discomfort or restlessness, this is your physical body letting you know it is the right moment to make a change or let change happen.   

2) Watch your thoughts. As you notice desire arising, and find you are focusing attention on particular visions or ideas, this is a stepping stone to feeling the urge to do something differently.

3) Feel the waters. Feel life as a stream. You are either in the flow or going against the current. Change here is perpetual. The moving stream cannot be held onto.  To the degree you resist the stream, you feel the current is moving. Every emotion you feel points to the state of the flow.

4) Understand the system of waves. For every change, there is the unchanging. You are just as much light and darkness.  No waves have only crests or only troughs.  Cycles exist based on perception of space and time.  Space is inseparable from objects that occupy space.  The seen is inseparable from the unseen. Cannot have the ups or highs without the downs or lows of life.

5) See the underlying motive- the impetus for change is often the desire for a greater degree of permanence. As you come to see the true reasons for your choices, you can more clearly identify what you really want.  Decipher illusions you create for yourself.  The Path finds you.

Recognize what you really want

Everything you do or do not do is an effort to recognize what you really want.  Finding this article is no accident.  Noticing particular situations or people in your life is no accident.  Growing more aware of what you think and feel is no accident.  In fact, there are no accidents.

Even now, you are noticing certain things about yourself and your life that feel completely new.  Awarenss is expanding.  Know you are always in the right place, in the right moment.  Watch what you resist letting go, what is disappearing from your life.  Be aware of what you are feeling.  Your feelings are the path to what is hidden right in front of you.  Everything that matters is ready for you to embrace it when you are.  Any pressure or stress you feel comes from you.

Its not what you think

You may think certain things are missing in your life; a certain amount of money, the appropriate course of study, the perfect home, the right partner or relationship, business deal, opportunity, or condition.  Look closer.  Be aware you cannot tell life what you need.  Life reveals timeless insight and wisdom to you based on what you think you want.

You may hear people say you are what you think or you are what you do.  Step back.  Get completely clear.  Nothing is ever missing in life.  When you think this is the case, you forget who you are. When you know who you are, anxiety falls away. Whatever comes and goes, changes of state or conditions do not bother you.  What awaits discovery and recognition? Notice the witness of desires arising and falling away.  Notice what witnesses the silence.

Its all pointing here

Imagine a life where you do not have to do anything about anything.  Imagine a  life where nothing is wrong, where every choice you make at a given moment is the right one.  Give up all your emotion and effort to get somewhere. Let go of restlessness.  It may seem too simple to be true. Recognize you are the seer and experiencer, the observer and participant in this life.

What if you do not have to do, be or become anything? From this moment, notice what the mind would have you believe.  Then step back and accept every view is a reflection of the timeless recognizing itself.  Reconnect with the dimensions and perspectives you temporarily cut off.  

As the mind carries no intention, ambition or neediness, it is spontaneously one. It does not view itself as a separate part of anything.   Recognize the attitudes you hold toward 'the other.' All you think is a self-fulfilling projection.  As you drop the resistance and false ideas you adopt as a child, you slowly let go of all fixations and identities connected with the body.  What's left?

Be  true nature, the state of pure awareness.  See things with less distortion.  Allow peace to fill you. To see everything as equal is to love and appreciate yourself unconditionally.  When you are truly free, you expect nothing and simply flow freely with the stream of life. He who is truly rich wants nothing.  He who has desires is simply playing the role of creator for a while.

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages." - William Shakespeare