The Silence

I have seen my work change radically over the space of a couple of years and as life has taken me on this journey, I have seen myself move from speaking about meeting emotions fully to Non doership.

I feel another change occurring now as I find myself moving away from Non doership, feeling that I have adequately covered the subject and falling more into silence. So how then to communicate that which has no words? It is an interesting conundrum and yet from that silence words appear. And I feel as if more will appear. But not from a place of Non doership but something so much more profound.

The silence.

Everything appears calm and still and yet activity is still occurring.

The waves are still rising and falling and the whole play of the ocean being the ocean is happening and yet there is no reference point to it.

I recently completed a series of livestreams in which this idea of silence kept appearing. I was in Devon in the United Kingdom at the time and if I were to visually represent my understanding of this silence. It would appear as a moon lighting the night sky with its reflection across the water.

Everything appears calm and still and yet activity is still occurring.

The waves are still rising and falling and the whole play of the ocean being the ocean is happening and yet there is no reference point to it.

Similarly, the exact same thing is happening in our lives. Despite appearance there is this same calm which underpins all things. It is in this place that we truly are. Glimpses of this place are generally known as awakenings, accepting this place is Realisation.

It is our natural way of being and as such requires no journeying to, no practise, no methodology, no pointer. It simply is. It is known and yet not known, choosing as it does to embrace both sides of the coin. Any attempt to codify or turn it into some structured teaching always collapse and yet this attempt to teach although failing still provides us with a glimpse, a roadmap.

This constant unknowing, this singularity

in which the idea of another cannot exist, holds every idea about it and no idea about it.

Ultimately though even glimpses and pointers must be let go of. Indeed, the one trying must be let go of. This exposes the so-called story as an illusion, as unreal and a natural letting go and a natural recognition occurs. In this recognition the ideas that have formed about what this is are put down and life is seen as is. This constant unknowing, this singularity in which the idea of another cannot exist, holds every idea about it and no idea about it. It is random and non-consequential and yet intelligent and purposeful. It appears in a myriad of forms all pointing back to itself and yet it is not separate from any pointer of it. It is immediate and yet even time or words cannot capture its true essence. They are merely a mirror reflecting that which is no longer needed when the singularity is accepted. If indeed even an acceptance is needed. It is simply this and even that is a complication.

And yet sometimes this singularity wishes to be known and starts this journey back to itself. It is the lover looking for the beloved not realising it is the very beloved it is looking for. A divine play, a silent mystery. A question constantly answering itself with no one asking the question and no one answering the question.

Simply put. It is this…

The Impersonal Personal

We are afraid of our greatness and yet our greatness is who we are.

We shrink back from the possibility of us as we truly are and choose instead to live lives of quiet servitude. In many cases our conditioning impairs us from realising our true selves.

Who are you to be great, to be magnificent, to shine in all your glory? Who are you not too?

You are created in Gods image and as such this greatness resides in you.

But let me before I continue clarify what I mean by this greatness. It is not the traditional idea of greatness, of heroic deeds or attainment. It is that resting in what we truly are. A singularity a vast expanse. In this expanse an idea of you appears.

Things happen, tasks are achieved and this idea of you appears to be very real and yet as real as it appears, it is known by who or what, we do not know that I am not this story. That I am prior to story, to subject, to object and apparent form. That my natural state has never known the temporal and yet witnesses it and experiences it as this vast expanse and as individuality. All manner of experience, ideas and form appear in this expanse and yet it is free of it.

Such is this greatness that all apparent opposites and paradoxes are calmed and resolved in it. It is effortless, existing as it does. One without another. It is the centre and basis of all that is and yet it itself cannot be encapsulated. It cannot be understood, adequately explained and any explanation attempted collapses at its very attempt at explaining. It cannot be known and yet offers invitations at every instant to know itself. It is that silence that has no one to witness it.

It is your infinite greatness. It is you.

If

If we can put down the limited idea of us,

those binds we have so expertly used to tie ourselves down. To be anything than what we truly are.

If we are fully present, if we are fully aware, if we are fully here. If we can silence the noise, the machinations of the mind, the constant chatter, the need to know, the need for explanation.

If we can favour simplicity over complication, acceptance over resistance. If we could just sit, just be here, however uncomfortable that may feel. If we can sit in our pain, our misery, our tragedy. If we can be honest, radically honest. If we can put down all that defines us, those stories, those ideas that we believe ourselves to be.

If we can put down the limited idea of us, those binds we have so expertly used to tie ourselves down. To be anything than what we truly are.

No longer a drop

But an ocean entire.

If we can accept that terrifying idea that we are not this story. That this pain is not real. That we can be happy. That the holy land exists in us. That the kingdom of heaven is within us. That the destination is in fact us. That we are the answer to the question. That every scripture, every prophet, every saint, every sage came to us, to remind us of who we are, and if this in turn can ignite the question:

Who am I?

And if at every instant

The question can answer itself

Then we can be home

We can be free

To realise

I am home

I have always been home

I am always here

A reality with no one to witness it

No longer two

Just one

No longer a drop

But an ocean entire.

Why Are We Afraid?

Why does that which is in our minds eye frighten us so

That shimmering possibility

That expanded sense of self

Why are we afraid?

Why does that which is in our minds eye frighten us so

That shimmering possibility

That expanded sense of self

That living openly

That Living freely

Why does it frighten us so?

Why do we expend so much energy keeping the nightmare alive?

To keep that suffering going

To keep that story alive

Is it because we do not believe?

Is it because we lack faith?

Have we forgotten our innate greatness?

That created in Gods image we are capable of so much more

That to live in quiet servitude is not our lot

That to release this fear is to release the world

From the bondage of separation

From what holds us back

Relax

Take a breath

Breathe

Really breathe

And…

Fall apart

Let the story go

Cry

Scream

Regret

Feel it

Really feel it

Collapse as the story leaves

As that mass of energy leaves

Collapse

Sleep

Sleep like you will never wake

Feel the tiredness of having held onto a lie

For so long

For so many years

Tired carrying this burden

Sleep

Lose the sense of self

Lose you

STOP…

Something stirs

Like the dawning of a new day

I rise

I open my eyes

I stretch

I yawn

I am not me

At least not as I was

A rebirth?

Something differs in me

I am not me

As the day dawns

A new possibility stirs in me

I want to say so much more

I want to do so much more

To make a difference

To be

Now I can

Now I can

The ghosts of the past are gone

I have so much to say

The open road beckons

Will you travel with me friend?

Will you hear my stories?

My musings

My thoughts

My heart laid bare

My truth finally revealed

A Call To Simplicity

Strip away the unnecessary and what are we left with?

In a world of increasing complexity; simplicity now seems the answer to navigating what is happening.

Our complex theories and pointers are increasingly showing themselves to be hollow and impractical. Unable to answer the questions of our time. In such an instance we find that simplicity is once again standing the test of time and showing itself to be the answer to the questions being thrown up by society.

The answer is quite simple. To strip away what is unnecessary.

What remains is simply this - a moment devoid of need or explanation. An immediacy where the idea of a subject or object, an apparent or real is seen through and yet nothing exists to witness this.

What is incredible, and a joy to know is that this simplicity is our inherent nature. An operating system made so advanced due to its simplicity that it offers us all we need to navigate these turbulent times. What is then needed to access and rest in this natural simplicity. The answer is quite simple. To strip away what is unnecessary: The fanciful explanations, the conditioning, the ideas that tell us that our salvation lies in the next moment, the ideas that we have formed about being here and now and being present. Anything that is rooted in the temporal.

What remains is simply this. A moment devoid of need or explanation. An immediacy where the idea of a subject or object, an apparent or real is seen through and yet nothing exists to witness this. A singular moment in which anything manifests and in which anything can happen, but it is always known it is just this.

A play such that Shakespeare wrote

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

And yet in that nothingness is everything and with that ,the play continues. The story continues to tell itself and yet in this moment of nothingness it is seen that it always is. Time, space and knowing collapses. Language and explanation fail. And yet what honour in this loss. What joy in the letting go of the idea of effort, of doing, of being and realising that the dance is dancing itself…