The Awe of Awareness

I sit here on a bench looking towards the 59th st bridge. Second avenue runs adjacent to where I sit...The tram takes passengers to Roosevelt Island, High Schoolers congregate and yell, and the homeless rest. It is a relatively warm February day here in New York City...And amongst all this over-stimulation I still find peace within myself. As the Auto's rustle, bustle, and roar I sit here in peace. There is this overwhelming sensation within me that I can only label as acceptance. And it is this feeling of awesome acceptance that grounds me into this unbelievable moment of now. My heart is wide open and joyous. "Everything" is running right through me -- yet I am not attaching to it.

In the not so distant past all this stimulation would drive me crazy. And yes, I do still hold the notion that some environments are "healthier" than others (for example, I may prefer to be sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon...), but I experientially now know - in this feeling of utter acceptance of the now - that peace is an inward experience and has nothing to do with external situations. The possibility than exists, that even to be in the midst of great trouble, can one hold a sense of profound peace and awe. For witnessing oneself experience existence in the moment of now is all there really is. The rest is a static creation of the ego which detaches us from witnessing the reality as it is. It is the witnessing experience that allows us to step aside from the ego.

As things move "through me" I accept them by being conscious of my own ego and not letting the judgments and associations of my ego dictate my experience - but rather I allow this consciousness to immerse my perception and open me up to the glorious "what is" experience. In this place I am grounded even further into acceptance because I see that all is temporal - and in witnessing that temporalness I am grateful that I get to witness whatever it is that comes before me. In this sense both gratefulness and acceptance are synonymous.

This experience of profound acceptance is learned especially through our relationships. The more "troubling" the relationship, the greater the opportunity to become conscious of what it is to accept. This is not to say we should seek troubling relationships, but many of those relationships that we have had no choice in the matter of can sometimes be the most challenging...and for good reason, for these relationships give us experiences to which we must demonstrate an even greater degree of conscious awareness to observe how the ingrained ego patterns led us to react. But acceptance, profound acceptance, allows the ego and its reactions to rest. In this greater degree of conscious awareness the ego and its filter begin to dissolve and our true nature reveals itself in the experiential experience of gratefulness. We are traveling further up the evolutionary spiral of consciousness. This is the true movement of life...up the spiral, further and further into a deeper awareness...an awareness with no end... Now, that is awe-some!

This demonstrated awareness also brings us the understanding that those who may have troubled us in the past only do so, or did so, because they are acting in a way that is in-congruent in relation to our current state of being. For we are all different (yet the same through egolessness) - but this is who they are in this moment of now - and although you may want them to be a different way - this is who they are and who they believe they should be. Who are we to tell them to deny their own experience by asking they change it. For this is their experience...and although you may see their reactivity -- this is their karmic lesson -- to live as they are so that they may develop an ego that can be dissolved their own way through deliberate conscious awareness. Again...further and further along the spiral path of consciousness evolution do we travel...

Yes, through deliberate conscious awareness does the ego dissolve and we are brought into oneness (but keep in mind that oneness is as ever expansive as the movement of consciousness evolution up the spiral of awareness)...but because of the process of actually having an ego to dissolve do we come to experientially understand what it is to be a conscious entity (this is the supreme opportunity to be in awe and grateful)...so forgive oneself for ever thinking you should be better than what you are! Because when the ego dissolves you simply are! Nothing more than the perfect divine nothingness and everythingness that intertwines in the ethers of this physical, mental, and spiritual existence are we...Only through the darkness can we come to know what the light is...Through coming to witness our ego and its reactivity can we become realized to the state of communion with the all-that-is...this is awesome acceptance...this is awesome gratefulness...This is Awe...So forgive yourself and yourself to let go of what you believed you thought yourself to be...and stand in the awe of your own simple perfection...