Seriously?

    When I intentionally (or unintentionally) say or do something silly in front of my 7-year-old granddaughter, she gives me that look and exclaims, "Seriously?!?!"
    But without the benefit of such instant, honest reminders, our most common error is taking ourselves too seriously. We do this individually (self-centered, egocentric, self-serving, self-absorbed, self-obsessed, narcissistic) and also as members of a group (partisanship, sectarianism, religious exclusivism).
    This narrow focus on our 'self' & 'tribe' shows up as: jealousy, gossip, theft, pessimism, cynicism, nihilism, impatience, anger, arguments, shouting, bullying, sabotaging, fighting, racism, sexism, misogyny, ageism, religious intolerance, war, genocide, etc ... in brief, as 'greed, hatred & delusion.'
    'Delusion' because these are misguided, dysfunctional expressions of our innocent, universal need for love.
    See Chris Germer's 8-minute video: https://www.theawakenetwork.com/chris-germer-shame/

    “... most of us seem to experience three stages in the way we relate to others.
    Stage 1: … emotional slavery, we believe ourselves responsible for the feelings of others. We think we must constantly strive to keep everyone happy. If they don’t appear happy, we feel responsible & compelled to do something about it. This can easily lead us to see the very people who are closest to us as burdens.
    Stage 2: … obnoxious stage, we become aware of the high costs of assuming responsibility for others’ feelings and trying to accommodate them at our own expense. When we notice how much of our lives we’ve missed and how little we have responded to the call of our own soul, we may get angry … we tend toward obnoxious comments like, ‘That’s your problem! I’m not responsible for your feelings!’ when presented with another person’s pain. We are clear what we are not responsible for, but have yet to learn how to be responsible to others in a way that is not emotionally enslaving.
    Stage 3: … emotional liberation, we respond to the needs of others out of compassion, never our of fear, guilt, or shame. Our actions are therefore fulfilling to us, as well as to those who receive our efforts. We accept full responsibility for our own intentions & actions, but not for the feelings of others. At this stage, we are aware that we can never meet our own needs at the expense of others. Emotional liberation involves stating clearly what we need in a way that communicates we are equally concerned that the needs of others be fulfilled. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is designed to support us in relating at this level.

    … an important form of self-compassion is to make choices motivated purely by our desire to contribute to life rather than our of fear, guilt, shame, duty, or obligation. When we are conscious of the life-enriching purpose behind an action we take, when the sole energy that motivates us is simply to make life wonderful for others and ourselves, then even hard work has an element of play in it. Correspondingly, an otherwise joyful activity performed out of obligation, duty, fear, guilt or shame will lose its joy and eventually engender resistance.”
    Marshall B. Rosenberg. “Nonviolent communication. A language of life.” ed 2. Puddle Dancer Press. 2003.

    AND what if all that we experience were just a dream, like ones we experience during sleep? Wouldn't this markedly reduce how seriously we took ourselves & our life? This is exactly what some very wise folks say about reality! Yet to us, this sounds ridiculous because we've been conditioned from early childhood to be anxious, frightened, hyper-vigilant perfectionists. Here we have two diametrically opposed ways of seeing ourselves & life. How we can resolve this quandary is expertly presented in these 2 books:
    Robert Wolfe. “Living Nonduality. Enlightenment Teachings of Self-Realization.” Karina Library, 2014.
    Robert Wolfe. “Emptiness.” Karina Library, 2020.

    “The trouble with the rat race, is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” Lily Tomlin

    “Dear ones, you who are trying to learn the miracle of love through the use of reason, I am terribly afraid you will never see the point.” Hafiz

    “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” Joe Klaas

    “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” Winston S. Churchill

Who / What Am I Really?

    Most of us are anxious, frightened & confused about life, aging, sickness & death, so much so, that we try (without success) to not think about or discuss these "depressing matters." Yet it is actually our aversion that keeps us trapped in the thoughts & associated emotions we're trying to avoid.
    We hyper-rational, control-obsessed individuals declare that death is "unacceptable!" Our society has conditioned us to consider ourselves bigger, better, smarter, better looking, and certainly independent of everyone else. How dare life slip out of MY CONTROL with all this aging, sickness & death crap! That's for "losers" - NOT "me"!
    BUT most of us have failed to learn that arguing with reality is THE cause of needless suffering. Only by "leaning into" the very things that scare us, and learning as much as possible about these, by truly becoming intimate with & directly experiencing these challenges physically & emotionally, can we come to a radically different perspective.
    This sounds alarmingly ridiculous to most of us, I know, yet it's true. And you'll only know how true it is AFTER you've given up arguing with & denying reality, have completely accepted the harshest of life's challenges, and awakened to lovingly embracing ALL of life's "10,000 joys AND 10,000 sorrows." Then and only then, can you possibly get how everything is perfect as it is.

    “So, what is it that animates this chunk of meat (our body), that makes it vital? The teacher would call it ‘the vital principle’ or life-force. It is in the absence of this that the body is inert.
    If there is such a thing as life-force, does it evaporate when the body dies? No. This ‘vital principle’ is present in the very movement of the cosmos: evidently, it is universal and eternal.
    So, the teacher would ask: what, then, can we consider real; a piece of flesh which decays and returns to the earth, or the force which is eternally present?
    Without the presence of this universal force, the body does not ‘see and hear.’ We cannot rightly say, then, that the body ‘sees and hears.’
    That which is seeing and hearing right now is not the body – it is the vital Principle. ‘You’ are that.

    When it is indubitably recognized that your nature & the nature of the absolute are fundamentally the same, indivisible nature, this is the ‘recognition of one’s true identity’: the realization that any and all identity is eclipsed by an actuality which renders separative distinctions ultimately meaningless.
    Such a realization, or non-dual perspective or awareness, cannot help but have a profound effect on one’s consideration of ‘personal individuality’. One cannot recognize that truth, of all pervasive indivisibility, and continue to maintain the fiction of separate personification – of the ‘me’ that was born and the ‘I’ which dies.
    This fruit of realization – that the absolute essence of all being does not ‘come’ from some place nor ‘go’ anywhere – quenches our deepest, final fear, the fear of extinction. Then the liberated may, indeed, ‘take no thought for the morrow.’”
    Robert Wolfe. “Living Nonduality. Enlightenment Teachings of Self-Realization.” Karina Library, 2014. 

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this 47min Robert Wolfe video: 

 

One Love

    "Going inward & making a connection to the deepest parts of you — physical, emotional, energetic, or spiritual — is the best, the deepest way to live and the deepest way to create impact." John Wineland
    HOWEVER, the deepest, truest, or most authentic aspect of who we are - according to saints & mystics - is beyond (transcends) the capacity of our usual level of thinking to conceive & of language to express! So the foremost experts at this, again saints & mystics, can at best provide pointers for us to directly experience ultimate reality:

    “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” Mother Teresa

    “The problem with the world is
that we draw our family circle too small.” Mother Teresa

    “There is more hunger for love & appreciation in this world than for bread.” Mother Teresa

    “The important thing is not to think much, but to love much, and so to do what best awakens us to love.” Saint Teresa of Ávila  


    “When it is indubitably recognized that your nature and the nature of the Absolute are fundamentally the same, indivisible nature, this is the ‘recognition of one’s true identity’: the realization that any and all identity is eclipsed by an actuality which renders separative distinctions ultimately meaningless.
    Such a realization, or non-dual perspective or awareness, cannot help but have a profound effect on one’s consideration of ‘personal individuality’. One cannot recognize that truth, of all pervasive indivisibility, and continue to maintain the fiction of separate personification – of the ‘me’ that was born and the ‘I’ which dies.
    This fruit of realization – that the absolute essence of all being does not ‘come’ from some place nor ‘go’ anywhere – quenches our deepest, final fear, the fear of extinction. Then the liberated may, indeed, ‘take no thought for the morrow.’ ”
    Robert Wolfe. “Living Nonduality. Enlightenment Teachings of Self-Realization.” Karina Library, 2014. EXCELLENT BOOK

 

    "Even when we've awakened from ego-identification, we still need to unlearn & relearn about love. What we call love, or what we think is love, is often mixed with a lot of early personal conditioning, old belief systems, & emotional attachments. When the heart doesn't go out to look for love, but looks instead back to its source - the ground of Being - we can discover unconditional love as who we have always been. Then this new experience of love can become the foundation from which relationships are formed. A whole different emotional way of being & seeing gives rise to a new, vastly more compassionate & connected way of relating.
    Open-hearted awareness, which is operating from our heart-mind, begins to include necessary judging functions of the mind, but leaves behind the fear, separation, & controlling anger that made us ‘judgmental.’ Our normal judging functions are transformed by open-hearted awareness into discernment & discriminating wisdom.
    The judge, the critic, and the superego are not essential or rigidly fixed parts of the human psyche. As soon as we shift into open-hearted awareness, an immediate feeling of being nonjudgmental & more compassionate arises. We develop a more mature conscience, a sense of integrity, & an acceptance of what is, while having the capacity & motivation to change what needs to be changed.”
    Loch Kelly. “Shift into Freedom. The Science and Practice of Open-hearted Awareness.” Sounds True, 2015.

Robert Wolfe “Quenching the Thirst: Fundamentals of Nonduality”
CONCISE 47-minute interview: