Understanding Oneness

“In the stillness of your presence you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form.  You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature.  You can look beyond the veil of form and separation.  This is the realization of oneness.  This is love.” – Eckhart Tolle

Beyond all the thoughts we have about ourselves, beyond all the concepts and ideas that shape our personal identity exists the core of who we really are.  The formless and the timeless reality grounds itself in the soul of each person and every creature.  When the mind is still you can feel this energy, the formless and the timeless reality, moving through you.  This is the awareness of source energy.  Yet, the vast majority of people seldom become aware of source energy.

Generally we tend to focus our awareness solely through the mind.  This blocks our awareness from sensing the presence of our own being.  Therefore, when we focus our awareness purely on our thoughts we minimize our ability to function optimally.  To be a seer into one’s life, to see your path clearly, requires an awareness that transcends the limitations of repetitive thinking.

The thoughts that we identity with make up the relative self.  The relative self only comes to know and understand itself through comparison and judgement with other people and things.  This is the basis of duality.  Of course everyone is differentiated in the sense that we all have special talents, unique physical attributes, and specific weaknesses which to transcend, but when this sense of relative existence all what we identify with a formula for inner and outer conflict arises. 

In the isolation of our own minds we lose sight of the formless and timeless reality that holds all of life together.  When awareness is filtered solely through our mind’s concepts and abstractions we diminish our ability to connect with the flow of life and create with life in the way that life itself operates.  Life is not an abstraction.  It simply is.  Therefore, your being-ness is the same as nature and it's is-ness.  So can you be with what is as opposed to being with what you think is?  Can you be more like nature?

The restless mind, with all if its constant analysis, comparison, and judgment, keeps our focus purely in the relative world.  This is the core of human suffering because in our isolation we seek out salvation by judging our selves as superior to another.  Or we mask our illusory inferiority and the pain derived from this sense of lack through addictive and self-damaging behavior.  Yes, it is damaging to incriminate yourself on the grounds that you could have done something better, or that you feel as if you are not as good as someone else, etc.  You did as only you knew how in that given moment…Nothing more, nothing less.  Self-forgiveness is an access point into your enlightenment.

Beyond the mentally defined and operated world is a sense of perception that transcends relativism.  Beyond our self-imposed isolation is our true nature…it is a feeling that we come to through pure awareness uninterrupted by the mind.  This sense of self cannot be judged.  It can only be experienced. So therefore, simply experience your life and stop trying to judge it.

Eckhart Tolle consistently states that only within a state of stillness, when we feel the self beyond the mind, will we come to know true love and peace. 

What does Eckhart mean when he speaks of the unmanifested life that animates your physical form [from the opening quote]?  What is he trying to convey when he states that this is something we can feel? 

What I believe he is saying is that there is an energy that resides within us that contains the source of unlimited potential to make manifest what it is that we are intending to become.  He states that this same energy that resides within us also resides within everything.  This is the unmanifested because it is the energetic all that has yet to be.  It is the all will be.  All aspects of existence flow through life together, evolving together, whether we see this or not.  This is what it means to see past separation.  He does not mean that you necessarily see this with your eyes, although this unity is something you can see, and in actuality it is all that you do see, but he means that we can see through feeling.  To feel with your eyes…

Judda Krishnamurti, one of my favorite philosophers of all time, posed the question.

"When we say we see a tree or a flower or a person, do we actually see them? Or do we merely see the image that the word has created? That is, when you look at a tree or at a cloud of an evening full of light and delight, do you actually see it, not only with your eyes and intellectually, but totally, completely?"

I believe that this is type of perception that Eckhart is talking about.  Both Eckhart and Krishnamurti emphasize seeing life without the interference of mind identification.

I will close this piece on one more of Eckhart’s insights.  He states,

“What is God?  God is the eternal one life underneath all the forms of life.  What is love?  Love is to feel the presence of that one life deep within yourself and within all creatures.  To be it.  Therefore, all love is the love of God.” 

So I ask you, for the sake of your own peace, to seek stillness.  Give yourself the space and time to get to know the real you.  In your stillness observe the mind, but do not give thought and abstraction your clinging awareness.  Do not let it become your identity.  If only for a moment seek to feel the life energy that brews within you.  That is the real you…And maybe then you will remember that you are already everything you need to be and become.  Maybe then you will remember that you are life…why not create your life from the sensation of self that is uninterrupted by the mind?  Create your life in the flow of your experiential experience in this moment and this moment only.  The mind cannot know the unmanifested and the energy contained within you, but your heart sure can.  This is were faith comes into to play.  Trust your heart.

Realize the oneness within you and all around you.  This is what love is.  How then would your life change if you walked the path of life with this realization in your heart? 

You Are The World

Do you ever feel as if you want to be a part of something bigger than yourself?  Thing is, you are already are, we all are.  We all are because we a part of life and the movement of creation.  Bob Marley made this clear in his song exodus when he stated, “So were going to walk, all right, through the roads of creation!”  And yes, we are the generation that will “trod through great tribulation.”  No matter how intense things may get and no matter how big the yearning grows inside of you to contribute to “changing the world,” we cannot forget that the world is not something outside of us…it is within us.  This then hints to the process as to how the world actually changes…do you see where I am going with this?  I will give you a hint, look within!

I admit, sometimes I forget how profound this realization really is.  Getting caught up in my daily responsibilities or in focusing my attention on “how messed up things are” only draws my attention away from this experiential realization.  Yet, when I set aside my restless mind through focused awareness on the now I bring myself into a state of cognitive liberation.  It seems to me that only in this state of cognitive liberation can I deeply feel a sense of peaceful community and powerful unity with my surroundings.  When we feel this together we start changing the world through our everyday interactions because on the inside we are profoundly aware of what is and not just what we are thinking about.  This is what the great global awakening is all about.  It is the empathic movement.  As we “trod through the great tribulation” we walk in unity.

What has thwarted unity for centuries now is the mind and its dogma.  Our minds, our belief structures, and our repetitive modes of perceiving life have hindered us from feeling the interconnectivity of all things.  It is important than to not let the mind use you through its engrained and repetitive ways.  Why not use the mind in tandem with a deep penetrating silence.  Internal silence opens up your experiential awareness to witness the all encompassing what is.  At this point of awakening the mind will absorb new awareness as opposed to recycling thoughts…your life will take on new meaning because your receptivity will enhance your awakening.  This is how the internal guide evolves.

Granted it has been our differences that have led to segregation, brutality, and war, but regardless of how diverse we all are we are nonetheless linked by something that transcends our diversity.  It is something at the core of who we are as individuals and it is something we all share in common as a collective.

When we realize we are humanity we come to realize how equal we are to everyone and everything.  Our superficial differences are shattered through this perceptual awakening.  As liberating as this concept can be it can also be very humbling.  It would be humbling to admit to yourself that you are equal to the beggar on the street, the lunatic in the asylum, or the thief who robs the innocent.  How about the person with severe mental retardation, severe schizophrenia, or the billionaire standing on top of his or her empire?  What is it that actually makes us believe we are to be separated, categorized, and ranked amongst each other?  It seems that we often separate ourselves based on the measures of our I.Q., our bank accounts, our jobs, our belief systems, and the part of world we come from.  But do these differences really separate us?  They may make us different, but do they separate us?  All these labels, categories, and ways of being are nothing but mind creations that perpetuate themselves through unconscious adherence to stagnant social norms.

Granted, there are people doing terrible things, but they are not doing terrible things out of their own isolated agendas.  People do horrible things because they have been conditioned to see the world the way they do. The thief acts through the compulsions in his or her mind.  People who commit evil acts typically have had countless interactions with others who have traumatized their sense of self worth and or have conditioned them to see that power over another is the only way to gain control. These people unconsciously relive what has been done to them, in the same way a child who was abused abuses their child.  Yet, the only way to reverse this evil is through forgiveness.  Forgiveness of another unconscious act is the only way to show them that they no longer need to hide behind their superficial sense of power.  Forgiveness and acceptance create the foundation of human evolution.

I know this all sounds overly optimistic, but we must look deeply into all of this, the good and the bad.  The world is not a cruel place for no reason...There is evil in this world only because there is fear and fear is nothing but a mind creation.  I do not want us to get this mixed up with caution.  The body instinctively protects itself through caution.  But what I am talking about is how we generate fears inside of us based on pre-conceived ideas about people that are different than us.  We fear these differences.  We fear the unknown qualities of another.  Yet all this consumption in another’s differences distracts us from seeing the inherently unity that we all share.  So I ask us all to ponder, would fear diminish if we realized that we are all apart of the same "human organism?”  Would the world then change if we, as a collective, acted in a way that protected the human organism’s integrity to the best of our ability?

I know I am posting my own beliefs here in this entry but I do feel that there is nothing out there, no life status, no test, or any self-story that would justify someone as "better" than someone else.  I come to this belief because I realize that everything is tied together and that the only boundaries between you and I are physical.  But why should a physical boundary denote separation.  Physically speaking we are not so physical.  Quantum physics has empirically proven that we are mostly empty space.  The illusion of physicality is simply that, an illusion.  Everything is energetically tied together.  This is how we feel empathy not only for each other, but also for the world, and creation it self.  Yet the basis of the post is not about quantum mechanics, so I digress [I will post an article about that soon].

The shape of the world is the way it is because of all of our collective actions.  This will always be the case.  Yes, I realize that some people are more intent on "changing the world for the better," and I grateful for them, but at the end of the day this pursuit can only satisfy their own life mission.  Remember, the world is within you.  There is no level of comparison.  No one human is better than another, no matter what they do with their life.  Human potential is unlimited and it can only be awoken through individual pursuits.  Every person is an individual expression of creation itself.

Ironically it is our diversity that unites us.  Our answers to a peaceful tomorrow are found in our diversity.  Each person has an answer, but only when we combine our answers together do we solve the human dilemma.  If we would stop seeing our differences as things that differentiated us, and began to see them as aspects of creation that bring us closer to a solution we would move closer to peace.  I am not talking about the differences we hold in our minds, those are just abstractions.  I am talking about our differences in the ways in which we express our creativity.  When we funnel our creative actions together we will project humanity into a new dawn.  So that is how you can contribute to world peace.  Simply be you.  Express who you are without fear of condemnation.  Those who condemn you exist, to their own dismay, within the isolation of their own ego.  Your reward in stepping outside the limitations of cultural separatism is love.  And it is this love that will not only change the world, it will change you…because you are the world…

The Experience of Transcendence: Understanding Oneness Even Further

When you perceive something and interpret it with your mind, the object or thing that you witness becomes the word, idea, or the concept that you interpret.  What you are seeing therefore becomes the word...therefore you experience the mental image, the mental word.  This is the basis of subjective truth.  Subjective-ism occurs because there is a separation between the observer and observed.   When you see something for what it truly is, without interference from the mind, you experience the observation simply as it is.  Herein lies the experience of absolute truth for the "observer" and "observed" mend into one, into one experience.  Observation at the level of duality creates a cognitive truth whereas the experience of reality without the interference of mind creates the experience of absolute truth.  The latter is the experience of transcendence.

Truth cannot be uncovered by any formulation; through any means of cognitive understanding.  Truth is.  It is nothing more, nothing less; for truth...really...is undivided experience.  Undivided experience is when experience is whole.  Undivided experience is.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Truth, absolute truth, therefore is experience that is untainted by the mind because it is the mind that taints experience by creating separation and thus ending the "undivided experience."

The separation occurs because, through the product of the conditioned mind, the observer sees the "observed."  The observed becomes something to be named or identified.  This is the basis of duality.  However "real" this may seem, it is only real in the cognitive sense.  We must realize that "real" is subjective.  Absolute truth, as the experience that it is, cannot be defined through a word, a idea, or an concept.  The mind cannot touch experience.  Only perception, untainted, can touch and hence taste absolute reality.  We will go deeper into this as we proceed.

Concepts of the mind do not reside within the physically perceived reality.  Abstractions [thoughts] are only observed because they are projected onto what we observe.  Yet, how can something that is seemingly untraceable within the physical world, that being thought, dictate the way in which we experience the physical world?  Yes, the mind is useful, but its utility is based purely on how it makes sense of stored memory [the conditioned mind].  To live through the mind, to perceive solely through the abstractions of the mind is to perceive and witness life through the past.  Why than should an experience that is isolated within your own mind become the basis too which you see the world as it is now.

Living through the lens of the past, through the conditioned mind, we separate ourselves from the now.  The past and the now can not overlap.  Go deep into this...not with your mind...but with the sense of self that senses.

The observations we filter through the conditioned mind creates a sense of self that is separate, that is "unique," that is "individual," and yes this is "real," but do you not see how this "realness" forbids us from experiencing the grandeur of the undivided experience?  Do you not see how this sense of mind separation is the basis of duality, and hence the ego?  How are we to experience the truth of the undivided reality...the reality which is...if we are too far removed from this reality because we live through the abstractions that the mind and the ego create?  How can the ego, which is an accumulation of all of our yesterdays, come to know and fully experience the now?

...The mind cannot touch the now...

Yes, "I" may be writing this, but at the absolute level, this is not "I," this is something collective coming through me.  The experience of me writing this is an experience in the now, not necessarily a formulation based on the "truths" of yesterday. Yes, it is "I" that has had to focus and decipher between the ego me and the collective me, but if I divide this experience from you it becomes utterly meaningless.  For these words are for us all.  A writer without a reader seizes to exist.  Do you see the profoundness of that?  Do you see the beauty when the object and the subject, the outside and the inside, the You and the I mend into one experience?

The now inherently transcends dualism.

Yes, the object and the subject, the outside and the inside, the You and the I are perceivable...but this perceptibility does not render the dualism of this conceptualization as truth.  Again, truth is.  The truth is the all-encompassing phenomena of now.  Is and Now are inseparable.  They are verbs, not things to be defined.  The now inherently transcends dualism.  Dualism still exists, but only within the whole, within the oneness.

Do you get this?  If not, witness the workings in your own mind.  Witness how it seems that what you are reading is outside of you.  Because "I" wrote this does not mean that it is not "yours."  By how could this writing here, this piece of "intellect" be "something" if it were not to be received by "something," that something being you.  This "conversation" implies unity.  And it is this unity, this bond, that is beyond words, and beyond the mind.  We can say it is a bond, a unity...but this definition does not undermine the experience of this bond...can you notice the difference?  Do you feel this?

Feel this...do not think this...feel this...What does unity feel like?  It goes beyond the word, does it not?

Now you see...there is something that is greater than the You and the I.  There is something that is beyond all of this.  This "something" that is beyond allows this experience to occur, allows this transmission of information to occur.  Yes, this "something beyond" exists in tandem with the world of duality, yet, this something beyond allows us to perceive this duality and go beyond it.  This is where undivided experience can be perceived.  Are you beginning to realize the nature of transcendence that is all around us of which actually shapes our reality?  But when, as a society, are we going to actually let this sense of transcendence shape our reality, or "norms" and our mode of collective being? [This concern is for another post]...

Typically we see the world and perceive it, and hence create our conditions, our norms, and our ways of being through the realm of perception that is just a step beneath the realm of transcendence, of "oneness."  This is the realm [the level] of the mind, of abstractions, of the ego, and of duality.  The concept of you and I as separate is real only insofar as we believe it to be.  The conventional experience of "you" and "I" as separate is supported by this belief and therefore perpetuates the duality between you and I.  Do we not see then how "belief" tremendously shapes our "truth?"

Is it possible to see that this "truth" [the truth of duality] is upheld by a subjective truth...that is that our experience of each other, of the you and I, occurs because we do not allow the something beyond to be perceived.  This experience of transcendence then only becomes something we know about in books, in fantasy, or the like.  If we try to understand transcendence with the mind we simply get more mind.  Transcendence is an experience.  It is a feeling.  It is the feeling that allows you to experience the "something beyond."  In this feeling is the experience that there is something beyond you, something beyond I,  and something collective too where no division occurs.

Undivided experience is something you can see and feel, but it is not something which the mind can understand.  It may try, but the actual trying only keeps the illusion alive that this "something beyond" does not exist.  In reality it is this "something beyond" that is the fabric of our world, of our lives, and of our experience...that is if we choose to experience it.  How do I know this?  Well, I don't.  I feel it!

Eckhart Tolle refers to this "something beyond" I speak of when he talks about the formless and timeless reality as the unmanifiested that animates the fabric of our world:  He states


“In the stillness of your presence you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form.  You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature.  You can look beyond the veil of form and separation.  This is the realization of oneness.  This is love.”

So how do we choose to experience this?  How do we feel this?  Well, I suggest you stop seeing the world through the conditions embedded in your mind.  Simply see the world.  Allow yourself to experience the world without a dialogue in your mind which is defining this experience moment by moment.  It is the dialogue of mind that creates the duality, the separation, the loneliness and the rest of it.  It is the dialogue in the mind that labels the tree and thus experiences the label.  Yet it is the perception, of which is whole and alive, that connects  us all with the something beyond.  The tree than is no longer a tree...it becomes an experience...it becomes you, and you become it.  This is how experience is ultimately undivided.  This is.  This is the feeling of transcendence.

Go on...and melt into your reality...

Do You Ever Feel Like you Know Everyone?

Do you ever get the feeling that you know everyone you meet (even when you meet them for the first time)? A sense of familiarity? A sense that "time" is frozen and all there is is that experience? Now of course when we meet people personally we have a connection with them more so than the average "stranger," but do you ever even feel that you know everyone..not everyone you meet, but everyone you witness moving around you?

Do you ever sense that we are all one family here...moving through life together despite our differences. We experience different things, we love and fear in different ways, we express in different ways, we enjoy different things, yet at the end of the day there is something that connects each and everyone one of us...there is something that connects even the most self-absorbed, the most insane, the most eccentric, the coldest, etc...it is the heart that connects us all. And even if we are so "closed off," we have the potential to live from heart center. For when we sit back in the calmness and peacefulness of our own heart center we can see another and know, whether or not they realize their connection to the all, that they too are as magnificent as life itself...for they are life...no judgments here despite what they may be doing or not be doing on the exterior for they are family (whether they are awake to that or not)...The real human experience starts at the heart. It is the mind and its sometimes arbitrary creations that divide us.

It is all a matter of perceptive. Because we have the choice to see the connection or we have the choice to perpetuate the divide between us, between nature, between the inherent interconnected universe. Yet what is beautiful about human relationships is that they bring us the opportunity to share that heart felt experience with another. Another who will know exactly what you mean and how you feel. Being connected is being human...And realize that even in your isolation you are connected for there is never isolation, yet but only in the creations of the mind. As you sit alone in your room you may sometime want to try and be quiet and just sense how alive the air is around you, or how the past carries on with you, or how that stranger that smiled at you today created a feeling that still lingers on in your gut...you may just want to hold to door open for the next "stranger" that crosses your path...they may be awake, they may not...but are you? You may just have made their day...

There is an inherent love in that...and I know that this feeling that we feel when we are connected to another, even if we are meeting them for the first time, or even if we have never met them, illuminates the fact that love is the baseline feeling/emotion/experience of life. Love is what permeates this interconnected matrix we call life and it is love that begets this sense of familiarity we feel between total strangers (I am not talking about people we we feel we have had "past lives" with, but I am talking about the feeling we feel towards everyone, towards the ALL). For ALL OF US walk this path together...we are all ending up, eventually,in the same place...back into the oneness of source...back into the arms of god...back into the experiential feeling of love (whether that happens while we resonate in physical form or in spirit is simply a matter of when we choose to see with our hearts instead of seeing with our minds)...

Just imagine, from a macro perspective...we are the self-reflective conscious cells of the Earth, of the Universe and beyond...We inhabit the same body (earth) and we share experiences on this planet together...so why no work together here? For we are the same body? To use the human body as an example...why not work together and create a harmonic environment so that the body that we inhabit can function in a healthy manor? Why do we have to compete, why do we have to divide, why do have to be disconnected you and I? What is moving us, forcing us, to live in this contemporary fashion? The answer to the last question is not for this essay, but you may want to ponder it, for in really witnessing the answer to that we begin to break down the defenses that keep us in this "isolated" state...however arbitrarily they may be created and subsequently perpetuated...For even communities and religions (which are thought not to be isolated social experiences) that gather around the same ideals essentially divide themselves, at the mind level, from everyone who does not honor the same ideals and principles...Are we not one body, one heart, one love?

I always liked the quote..."A stranger is just a friend you have yet to meet." I really like that one...and it rings true for those who choose to feel the love in their hearts for everyone, for everything, and for the ALL...Call me a dreamer...But I know this to be true...

The Cosmic Family

The closing in on "time" will bring us closer to our true nature. As we become more aware of the stillness which is the NOW, we become connected through feeling. If all is connected, if all is interwoven, how can anything be bound to time? Of course, there is a separation between the past, present, and future, but this is only understood through thought. Of course the past is still alive, for we can witness it now through the remains of yesterdays creations, but in the grand perception of things these three realms (past, present, and future) mend together to become witnessed as the eternal moment of now. For what was in the past lives it self through the creations that surround us today, and what will be the future will only be an extension of what is right now. So the past, present, and future are united. This is where time stops as we understand it (as a means of division)...Now we can understand this conceptually, but this is really a feeling experience. And it comes when the mind is quieted and has stopped categorizing everything that it witnesses. Yet all of this is a choice...

Yet, the duality, as much as it is a hindrance to our awakening (that is if we are unconscious to its purpose) it inherently is a blessing. For duality is the cornerstone of our mind dominated way of living. Living with a conceptual understanding of things is what separates us from the "animals." But it is only through experiencing the separation of our individualness can we evolve and grow so that we can experience the communion between all on a very deep level. For example, how are we to know pleasure without pain, how are we to know good without bad. The duality will always exist, but the whether or not we let it tether us to an existence were we see ourselves as not connected, where we see that we are not part of the weave which is nature, is a choice. We can choose to live in the blessed illusion that was set before us at the dawn of Adam and Eve and be "unconscious", or we can evolve to a place where we witness, through feeling, that you and I are the same. Is there not supreme joy in knowing that everything you see, everyone you meet is part of your cosmic family? Would we not build a more harmonious society if the foundation of our choices as a society honored this experiential feeling? I will say... that I LOVE YOU ALL for what you are, all that you will be, and all that you could be!

The love you have for another inevitably becomes the love you create for yourself. Even when we live our lives primarily through the rustling and bustling of our minds does our essence, the soul level of our being, know this inherent reciprocity and make its way through the filter of thoughts. Because if you do for another you feel a sense of joy in your heart. You did not have to think to create this feeling of joy, for it was born in the act of giving. Giving to another, and even giving to yourself, is naturally human because it evokes a feeling of joy within us. When you feel this you know you have tapped into the feeling of your soul. This is beyond any thought and is not bound to any measure of time (for it is not dependent on any condition of the past or future - we may give and do good acts because we think it is the right thing to do and we then hope to get something out of it, but this is tied to time and conditions, for we feel that if we keep doing good things that good things will happen to us in the future...and whether or not this is true is of no relevance, because during these times we are bound to time, we are bound to the mind and we loose sight of the beauty and joy that we can feel in the right now!).

Sometimes we often feel as if we need to do the right thing because if we don't we are a "bad" person. Sometimes we feel we need to do the right thing in order to be right in the eyes of God, as if God is judging us and placing our entrance to "heaven" based on the contingency that we follow "his" plan. Are these actions not based in fear?

Witness this...what God, whom essentially is the movement of creation, could ever judge a thing that was created by itself? How could creation banish and judge the thing it has created itself without judging itself?

Do you not see...that you and I, the trees and rivers, and the stars in the sky are GOD! For we are all the movement that is life...This understanding of seeing yourself as "god-self" only comes to be when you realize that your choice is creation it self (which is born from the realm of duality, so bless the duality...)! Your choice, or lack thereof, is creative. Hence, we create as we live. The society we see is the accumulation of choices we have made in the past, but it is our choice right now to create whatever it is that we want that brings us into the now. Your life, our society, and the cosmos as a whole, are tied to this universal fact. That you are God, creating through the choices you choose. Yet, the "final" product of these choices, which is always is the NOW...is WHO WE ARE! So do not fear who you are, be excited that you are here now...choosing who you want to be!

Maybe through the creative process can we realize how tied we all are, how much of family that we really are! When I find myself awake to my perceptions, I bless the illusory separateness that I see between you and I...because I know, through this duality that we are able to experience one another...but it is the joy in my heart, that I feel through attending to you or attending to myself that makes me realize that on a very real experiential/feeling level...THAT WE ARE FAMILY. This is Love, is it not?

If someone acts in a way that we find offensive or hurtful, simply realize that this is their pain that is being projected onto you. There is pain in living in complete immersion in the duality (this is unconsciousness). There is an inherent pain, an inherent longing, in not being conscious of the feeling that we are all one. So, if someone acts in a way that you find disturbing, hurtful, or the like...realize that this comes from a place of pain within them...they do not remember who they are (RE-MEMBER)...they have not yet found there way into the light. Bless them for this is their journey too...Maybe you too can bring them into the light of love! This is our birthright through the universal re-membrance that we ARE ALL FAMILY...

Unconditional Love

"Unconditional love, where everything about the other is beautiful simply because they exist...this is love from the heart." - Patricia Cori

"[Conditional Love] is the swinging back and forth of feelings as they are dependent upon reciprocal expressions from the other." - Patricia Cori

"As most of the human population is emotion-centered in its expression of love, there is much suffering and misunderstanding in the human union. Shared joy and total acceptance and respect between partners is the basis of unconditional love, yet more often manifested competition, positioning, and the bartering of emotions, sexuality, and power set the conditions for a love that is based on contingency." - Patricia Cori

I have found much inspiration lately in the writings of Patricia Cori. Most of us will have never heard about her, yet she disseminates a tremendous amount of wealth that is very pertinent to examining the human condition.

Conditional love is a love essentially based in fear and is a human expression born of the fear paradigm. If we feel that we are in a constant state of lack we are disconnected from our heart centers and we therefore live through the formulations of our minds and subsequent ego's (the illusory personality that we have become so attached too). *What is of extreme importance is that we do not judge ourselves for observing our fear driven, animalistic behaviors...for in acceptance of what we were we become what we are at the heart level. This is not to undermine what we are now, for what we are now has given us a platform to evolve into a vibration of ourself that resonates at a much more intense frequency of love and compassion, art and expression, truthfulness and honesty...It is part of our karmic journey to experience the fear and look into it. Only until we look at our conditioned self can we break free into the awareness of the all. And in the "Awe of Awareness" all that we see is beautiful, for we see the infinite path, which eventually ends up into communion with the ALL, in everyone and everything. This is the basis for unconditional love. It is not resigned for any one human, but rather it is a love that we share in reverence with all, for the all...This is ONENESS...

So lets witness our reactions, lets witness the pillars of conditions that we place amongst another in fear that we will be left without that which we desire. For when we step out of the reactive fear state and into the state of awareness that is born within our hearts we become the embodiment of all the love that we could ever imagine, all the love that we could ever handle...In this state we no longer feel any sort of lack and our conditional relationships no longer exist for they are no longer bound to conditions or any thought. In this state feelings and emotions are no longer needed to be reciprocated, because we realize that we are all ready reciprocating inherently at the heart felt level (through all the fibers of existence itself).

What we need to do is clear the mind and feel from our hearts. When we let the mind create our emotions and feelings we feel through a conditional existence. So why limit our life? At the core of our existence we are boundless, free, and in constant love...for we are the light that creates...we are creation...

Like the essence of the mind, the essence of love also evolves. Simply, witness the reactivity of the mind, forgive yourself through accepting whatever your are, whatever you are doing, and however you think. Acceptance of this reactivity creates a silent place...From here do whatever your heart feels...feel the sun on your face, the soil beneath your toes...feel the smile of another permeate your being...for this is life...and this is the most beautiful thing we will all experience. Beyond conditions lies our awareness of the ALL. Sense this... The one thing that ties us all together is that we are experiencing this thing we call life together...can we not fall in love with that?

The Duality of "Awareness" and Thought

Awareness: as a state of being...
Thought: as a state of mind...

I do so frequently forget - forget to be aware of the things I see - because so often my "awareness" is funneled through the filter of thought and memory. There are of course no cut and dry rules to observation and awareness, but I do realize myself getting lost in my own thoughts. Yet I seek another state of being that bypasses this process. I seek a state of awareness where thoughts and judgments begin to dissolve. The key then to achieving this while my mind is in analytic mode, it seems, is to observe the judgments, but to see the unimportance of them. Because simply put, these thoughts are illusions in the sense that they are temporal. For what I see in the visual plane is what it is and nothing more. It extends into the eternal moment of now. The application of words to the visual experience only limits the actual experience, by funneling this inherently experiential experience through the filter of words which are inherently limited themselves. As Krisnamurti stated, "you cannot know the unknown through the process of the known." What he was eluding to is that we cannot observe the divine through the lens of the collected known (thoughts, ideas, and memories).

More practically speaking, my ego, although an aspect of my being that should not be condemned, engulfs my being in its "drama" and funnels the energy that could be used to be "aware" into the area of thought and limited existence.

*I state that the ego should not be condemned because when you judge the ego as something bad or something that should be changed, what happens is only the perpetuation of more ego. So when I say to myself, I should not judge myself like this, I kept alive the very force that I desire to dismantle. Yet, what makes things interesting is the observation of the paradox I find myself in...For in my state of awareness - where I sense and feel that "all is one," I loose sight of the ego as if it never existed...but the days are eternal and I am drawn back down into my state of ego (the state of relative existence) because I do witness myself as a separate entity. And on many levels this warrants the discriminating judgments, both internal and external. So the paradox seemingly exists; that I am both a piece of existence, an entity, as well as the whole itself (that is if I am to honor feeling and not just rational intelligence, for "awareness" in the way I tell of it is a feeling and not necessarily a thought, although thoughts may follow). Amazingly, both the relative and the oneness exist simultaneously.

This is something that I admit is beyond my current understanding...How both a sense of separateness and oneness can exist at the same time (non-duality)...Because I have my own ability to think and decide for myself apart from the rest of the masses. The mind understands that both I and the rock are separate, but from a grander more divine perspective I realize that the relative world could only possibly be experienced if there were a "fabric" that holds it all together. This divine "fabric" is what I sense when I sense the "oneness." Because only when I bring myself away from my thoughts can I sense this; only when I see beyond the relative can I sense the whole. And it is the senseing of this fabric and the knowing that I am a part of this fabric brings me to the realization that all is one.

And what does this sensing feel like? It feels like love. For what else would hold existence together if not love? For what emotional energy would we attribute to the phenomena of having the desire to live in the first place? To illustrate: as the trees climb higher to capture the sun, as the fish eludes its predator, as the people procreate... I wonder why? to live? but why live if not propelled by the force of love... and we should realize that the fear of non-existence is nothing more but the fear of not being able to experience oneself anymore. Are we really afraid of death, or are we really afraid of not being able to experience existence?...is that not fueled love?. And through this feeling is what brings all of this together and an experiential understanding of the "ether" that holds all of this that we call life, together. All of this relative and oneness stuff... For the basis of our relationships are inextricably tied to this natural experience.

From this realization we can begin to see how blessed we are for being different (in all capacities). This relative existence gives us the ability to see how we exist among others and it therefore allows us to see, in a greater capacity, how we choose to live and create who we are; for our differences create the contrast in our lives. For we relate to the relative...This is our blessing, our gift, and although this may make us feel alone and isolated from time to time, although it creates the ability for extreme differences and prejudice to form, and for wars to exist....it creates the opportunity for ultimate connectivity, unity, and the experiential realization of love. So the wise see that the greatest gift of the relative is our ability to choose how we relate or not relate to what we experience...and in that we are only left with choice...The choice to be aware or to be reactive...The choice to live from love or from fear....and the choice to connect through our differences - for we could never experience ourselves if it was not for the other.

So in conclusion, awareness is both an activity of thought and non thought. It can allow us to experientialy experience the oneness all around us and within us and help us live and base our lives on this glorious experience or it can dictate our lives based on our beliefs and thoughts so that we become reactive. The former seems more pleasing, yet our egos are tied up in the latter, for who are we if we are not to relate? The answer, from an intellectual capacity, still eludes me...but the feeling most certainly does not.