How do you feel directing your own & your loved ones' lives, in what many perceive to be a challenging, at times hostile, and seemingly deteriorating world? Many today feel anxious, nervous, afraid, worried for themselves, their children & grandchildren.
What ifHOW we usually perceive & think is ALMOST ENTIRELY focused on DARKNESS: trying to grab, accumulate & survive at any cost AS IFwe were alone, struggling in a hostile, meaningless, mechanical universe? WELL, THIS IS our culture's, and thus our own personal defaultway of understanding, thinking & behaving, called "left-hemisphere dominant" by noted scholar / researcher / author / psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist MD (http://www.johnlovas.com/2025/10/hope-courage-patience-perseverance.html). This mindset is certain that we are alone in a meaningless, mechanical universe, struggling against all odds to survive. Being trapped in this narrow, robotic mindsetIS the nightmare! Sadly, those of us who have experienced major trauma, especially in early childhood, have tremendous difficulty trusting anyone, anything, including life itself. As a result, trauma survivors tend to rely exclusively on their intellect ie left hemisphere! This leaves their hearts armored, somewhat protected against re-injury, buteffectively blocked from feeling, receiving & giving love.
Balanced, well-adjusted, thriving societies & individuals are "right-hemisphere dominant" by default. This right-hemisphere perspective is RADICALLY DIFFERENT because it ISaware of & ISin harmony with ALL of life's INFINITELY WIDER contexts, like Beauty, Love, Meaning, Values, Relationships, the Arts, Spirituality, etc.
Mysticspast and present, are exemplars of right-hemisphere dominance,experiencing life radically differently than left-hemisphere dominant people.Mysticsfeel peacefully held in love; "at one" - Unitive Mystical Experience - with everyone, everything & the Divine;no separation from others & life;feelnohostility; no desperation to control anyone or anything; no fear of anyone, any "vengeful God" nor death; noneurotic compulsion to do anything, be anyone, go anywhere. They feel liberated, free to be appropriate toward everyone & everything in the present moment ie to embody Divine nurturing unconditional love. ALL of us can gradually open our minds & hearts to our own Divine nature. Watch:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLmOpCCJkuY
Instead of a steady diet of psychopathic politicians, billionaires, "influencers", and other nightmare visions, for the sake of sanity - how about reading about and listening to wise elders? My blogs are all about inspiring, mature, healthy, wise role models, like:
and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by.
It's OUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves inwisdom - OR - darkness (https://www.jonathanashford.com/post/the-darkness). Are we "too busy", yet doomscrolling for hours each day?; Is this wisdom stuff "too deep" or "too confusing", and again, are we "just too busy" to get into it and learn? We can procrastinate and aim at bestfor feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life isreallyabout.
We've all noticed how some of us have certain hard boundaries we firmly believe that we cannot step beyond. Some of these seem reasonable, perhaps even life-saving eg a recovering alcoholic refusing to have any alcohol ever again. However, most remarkably firm boundaries are just quirky oddities that needlessly slow or even prevent normal spiritual maturation. These are tied to our rock-solid "story of me" - "my identity" - "it's who I am!!" "I've always hated ... I've always loved ... I could never ... I was always good at ... I've always belonged to ..." Wehave the free will choice to resist anyinner change.
“Many people have intimations of their true naturein childhood – the sense of a benevolent presenceguiding their life, a radiancethat shines forth from all things, or a current of lovethat unites us all. … But we lose touch with this luminosity as we age … we forget who we really are and succumb to the way others see us... By adulthood we've more or less forgotten who we truly are, and have passively absorbed the current cultural fad of being frozen in the armor of materialism, meaninglessness & cynicism. Not surprisingly, something in all of us 'continues to weep over the barrenness of modern life.'" Stephan Bodian. “Wake Up Now. A Guide to the Journey of Spiritual Awakening.” 2008.
“We don't see thingsas they are, we see themas we are.”Anais Nin
In other words, our personalworldview & self-concept - be that more materialistic & cynical - OR - tending more towards kindness & unconditional love - is our "state" which determines our experience of life.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
Jonathan Ashford - from my current perspective - clearly & concisely expresses the most useful spiritual teachings. Below, an excerpt from a recent interview: "A Near-Death Awakening: 'I Came Back Without a Self'" Jonathan Ashfordhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLmOpCCJkuY
“I could tell you what I was shown and what I understand. I guess you
would say what I understand to be true, or truth as it was defined for me, is
that we are an expression ofunconditional love, here to remember that very
thing. So you could say time, through the process of the spiritual awakening,
simply exists for you to experience the memory, or the event, or the set of
circumstances, that remind you that you are an expression ofunconditional love.
So it (“the Divine,” “Source,”
“God,” etc) has a very
interesting sense of humor. The sense of humor is you are unconditional love manifest into this form, and now you’re
going to forget, and go through everything which is just trying to wake you up
to that fact, but you’re going to see it with different eyes.
So it’s kind of like the joke is: it’s always been right in front of you. It’s always been right in front of your face, but you’ve always been looking a hundred
yards out. You’re always looking to tomorrow, or you’re thinking I
need 12 years of schooling to get me there. I need something, when it’s actually been in the mirror
the whole time.
Every circumstance serves you in your awakening to that very
fact. And we live
several lifetimes, because we miss it. We might live a thousand lifetimes because
we just keep missing it. It’s just floating right by us, instead of
catching that glimpse in the mirror. Understanding that unconditional love is what we are, and the second
we wake up to
it, it’s like feeling for the first time every time.
As it was shown to
me, there is nothing to do here. There is nothing to ever change here. There is
nothing to ever fix. There is only to live consciously in a way to understand, I am unconditional love being expressed in this moment.
How does that play out? If I remember it, my life plays out to reflect that. If I don’t remember it, then my life plays out to reflect that.
So really, it was the two paths, if you want to
call them paths, playing
out simultaneously, based on your state.
As it was shown to me, everyone’s like, ‘What’s
my life path? What’s my purpose?’ I’m like, ‘Well, just think of it this way. You
have choice Aor B, all day, every
day. And based
on choiceA or B, you will
affect the statein which you affect your existence.
Beyond that, everything else was
just shown to eitherpoint you to it – or – pull
you away from it. So all spiritual belief systems, every book, every
definition, every word that we use, every language, everythingeitherpoints us to it – or –away from it.
But you will only know that if
you’re walking in a state of awareness, which is part of the spiritual
awakening process. You grow your awareness. I’m now more aware
than I was yesterday. And because of my awareness, I choose this particular state. And I
might do it a couple of times today, and maybe a couple of more times tomorrow.
Or, I might slip out of it. I might forget it
completely. And then those circumstances will reflect that, and try to point me
back to remembering it again. So it’s really an exercise
in awareness.
Unconditional love is, yes, we are unconditional
love. We walk in it, we hold it, we forget it. But the exercise is the
awareness, because without the awareness, you won’t remember
that you
are unconditional love.”
The way we imagine ourselves, our self-concept, depends on what we're looking at and how engaged we feel. If it's a beloved person, pet, activity or even object, we may well feel at-one-with them. Neither we nor our beloved seems to have boundaries. This has been called a Unitive experience or Oneness. It's primarily a felt experience - as one hugs or kisses a beloved, stares into a baby's or very young child's eyes, holds a puppy's head and stares into its eyes, there is simply unconditional love flowing unimpeded both ways. However, the more different, cautious, afraid, angry or especially hostile we feel, the thicker & moreimpermeable the protective wallswe erect. Often we feel superior in some way than the other. We are right, others are wrong. This "othering" is supercharged when there is a perceived or actualpower imbalance - "might makes right." The swaggering bully, be it in the playground, school, workplace, bar or political arena, displays psychosocialspiritual immaturity. When such delusion of superiority is capped by "God is on OUR side" - religious exclusivism / narcissism - then ANY behaviour becomes not only justified but "sanctified!" When any leader consistently behaves destructively AND is allowed to get away with it, we're dealing with a dangerous cult. Sadly cult members often remain ardent followers to the bitter end.
"Tom was in his mid-thirties when a truck he was working under fell and crushed his chest. He had a very elaborate near-death experience (NDE). There were many parts of it, but one part was his life review. He went back over every event in his life in minute detail. He said, ‘I could count the number of mosquitoes that were buzzing around me at this time, which he couldn’t have done during the event, but in the NDE he did. And he said, ‘Not only that, but I experienced everything through my eyes and through the eyes of other people involved in the scene.’ He described one incident in particular, when he was a teenager, driving his truck down the street, when a drunk man wandered out in front of him. He jammed on the brakes, and was furious at the man for almost denting his truck. So he rolled down the window and started yelling at the man. And the man, being quite intoxicated, reached his hand in the window and slapped Tom across the face. You don’t do that to an angry teenager. So Tom got out of the truck, and started beating the man up. And he left him a bloody mess on the median strip. Now Tom tells me, when he relived this in his life review, he felt it through his own eyes – the adrenaline rush, the rage. And he also felt at the same time, through the eyes of the drunk man – the humiliation of being beaten up by this kid, the 32 blows of Tom’s fist in his face. Now Tom couldn’t have told you it was 32, but reliving it anew in an NDE, he felt 32 of them. He felt the man’s nose getting bloodied, he felt the man’s lower teeth going through his lower lip. And he came back realizing we’re allthe same thing. There’s no difference between me & that man. It’s like if you’re looking at your fingers, they look like they’re separate things, but they’re really connected, and you can’t cut one off without hurting them all. So the Golden Rule for near-death experiencers is not a guideline, it’s the way things are.” Dr. Bruce Greyson - "After" 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViCWJWHR0a8
Before his NDE, Jonathan Ashford had nothing to do with religion / spirituality. During his NDE, he like most ND experiencers, was welcomed with unconditional love. He now understands that the Divine has no interest whatsoever in which quirky little religion, if any, you belonged to. The Divine likely inspired Emo Philips' comedy sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78
“Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.” Confucius 500 BCE
Increasingly, people understand the Golden Rule from a non-dual perspective ie that myneighbour, myself & the Divine are one & the same - ONEentitymanifesting as infinite variety of appearances, includingeveryone & everything: spiritually independents, scientific materialists, agnostics, atheists, theists, "president-for-life" dictators, drug dealers, petty crooks, mosquitoes, dogs, birds, fish, trees, rocks, mountains, oceans, earth, sun, moon, clouds, sky & cosmos. Divine non-dual infinite potentialself-reflecting by manifesting as & exploringduality - the material world of opposites.
“A mystic sees beyond the illusion of separateness into the intricate web of life in which all things are expressions of a single Whole. You can call this web ‘God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father,’ but it can be known only as love.”Joan Z. Borysenko PhD
On manifesting as humans, we tend to forget our true nature, AND alsoforget most of our wisdom. Awakening is remembering who we truly are - and -how to live appropriately as 'dual citizens' of non-duality & duality.
So, no matter who we think we are, let'sbe kind, humble & pull together like wise, nurturing grandparents.
While listening to a Michael Neill interview, I discovered the host of nextlevelsoul.comAlex Ferrari. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND listening to this excellent interview, and for
those who get more out of reading, there is also a fine transcript:https://nextlevelsoul.com/michael-neill-true-self/ Below is Ferrari's veryfine introduction:
"On today’s episode, we welcome Michael Neill,
a thoughtful teacher of human consciousness who explores how fear,
thought, and misunderstanding keep us fromrecognizing the deeper
intelligence already alive within us. There is a strange habit in human
life of assuming that if we feel unsettled, then something somewhere
must be wrong. We search the world for the broken piece, and if we
cannot find it in our circumstances, we turn inward and decide that the
flaw must be in us. This is one of the great tragedies of being human:
not that we suffer, but that we so quickly conclude that suffering means
we are defective. In this profound conversation, Michael Neill opens a gentler door, one that does not ask us to become something else, but to notice what we already are beneath the noise.
There
is something almost comical about the way we chase fulfillment, as if
peace were hiding behind one more success, one more achievement, one
more perfect moment in which the world finally arranges itself according
to our preferences. We are taught this from an early age. We are told
to improve, optimize, correct, and repair ourselves until we become
worthy of rest. Yet the deeper wisdomof life suggests something else
entirely. It suggests that beneath all the frantic movement of the mind,
there is already a quiet wholeness, untouched byour personal dramas.
The tragedy is not that this wholeness is far away, but that it is so
close, so ever-present, that we overlook itwhile searching for
fireworks in the distance.
What
struck me most in this conversation was the way he dismantled the
illusion of brokenness with such grace and precision. He spoke about how
many people spend their lives trying to fix what was never actually
damaged in the first place. That lands deeply, because so much of modern
life is built on convincing us that we are lacking. If we are not
enough, then we can be sold the promise of becoming enough. If we are
not healed, we can be sold the process. If we are not awakened, we can
be sold the map. But as he so beautifully implied, the map is often
mistaken for the territory, and the territory itself is already alive
beneath our feet. Or as he said so simply and powerfully, “we’re
obsessed with the mess, and we missthe amazing bit.”
There
is also a spiritual maturity in the way he speaks of success, because
he does not condemn it, nor does he worship it. He simply sees it for
what it is: neutral. Success can be a beautiful expression of inner
alignment, or it can be a desperate attempt to patch an invisible wound.
The world often celebrates the outer result without asking what energy
created it. And that is why so many people can arrive at the summit, only
to discover they are still haunted by the same insecurity they had at
the bottom of the mountain. If inner poverty remains, no amount of
applause can make one feel rich. This is why some of the most outwardly
celebrated souls remain inwardly restless. They have achieved the dream
the world handed them, but not the peace their own spirit was asking
for.
As the conversation
deepened, we moved into the nature of spirit itself, and here the waters
became beautifully clear. He described spirit not as an ideology,
religion, or special category reserved for monks and mystics, but as the
formless intelligence from which life itself arises. That insight alone
can loosen a thousand years of misunderstanding. To say that one is
spiritual is almost redundant, because one cannot be anything else. The
wave may forget the ocean, but it is never separate from it. The body
moves, the mind chatters, the personality performs its little dance, yet
beneath all of it there remains a stillness that does not come and go.
It is there in joy, there in sorrow, there in confusion, and there in
clarity. The mind may scream that life is unstable, but spirit remains
as it always has been—silent, spacious, and complete.
What
I also loved was his refusal to deny the darker side of human
experience while still insisting on a deeper truth underneath it. This
is not naive spirituality dressed in pleasant language. It is not
pretending that cruelty does not exist or that human beings never lose
themselves in violence, greed, or fear. Rather, it is the understanding
that when people are deeply lost, they act from that lostness. That does
not excuse harmful behavior, but it does illuminate it. It helps us see
that confusion creates suffering, and suffering passed through an
unconscious mind becomes suffering inflicted on others. The wisdom here
is not in becoming passive, but in recognizing that if we only fight
darkness as darkness, we will remain trapped in the same dream that
created it. Something far more transformative happens when one begins to
see beyondthe behavior, to the misunderstanding beneath it.
Again
and again, the conversation returned to trust. Not lazy trust, not
wishful thinking, but a living trust in the intelligence of life itself.
We have become so accustomed to strategizing our way through existence
that wemistake anxiety for wisdom. We assume that if we worry enough,
calculate enough, and control enough, we will finally become safe. But
life has never offered that bargain. The river does not ask us to
control its currents. It asks us to learn how to float. That is why one
of the deepest revelations in this episode is the reminder that fear and awarenessarenot the same thing. Awareness is clean, direct, present.
Fear is the mind trying to outmaneuver life before life has even
happened. And from that misunderstanding, entire identities are built.
Perhaps
that is why conversations like this feel so necessary now. So much of
the old world is trembling. Institutions, identities, and assumptions
that once seemed immovable are cracking before our eyes. And while the
mind interprets this as catastrophe, spirit often uses collapse as
invitation. When the false begins to fall away, the real has a chance to
be seen. What remains after the noise is not emptiness, but presence.
Not despair, but a deeper kind of sanity. And maybe that is the hidden
grace in all of this: that when we finally tire of trying to fix the
movie, we may at last turn and notice the light behind it.
SPIRITUAL TAKEAWAYS
Much of human suffering comes from the mistaken belief that we are fundamentally broken
True spirituality is not something to attain, but something we already are
Peace begins when we trust life more than the anxious strategies of the mind
So
in the end, what lingers is not merely a set of ideas, but a softer way
of meeting life. A way that does not demand perfection before peace, or
certainty before surrender. It reminds us that beneath all striving,
beneath all self-judgment, beneath all the endless noise of becoming,
there is already a presence quietly waiting to be noticed. And once it
is noticed, even for a moment, life begins to feel less like a battle
and more like a sacred unfolding.
We need resilience now more than ever. Here's Michael Neill's advice: "The conventional idea of resilience was our ability to bounce back from problems, bad situations, traumas, things like that. ‘Battered but not broken.’ ‘Sadder but wiser.’ I never loved it, because I don’t know if I want to be sadder but wiser. Can I just be happy and dumb? There are all sorts of lovely metaphors, ‘You can push something under water, but it’ll always rise back up to the surface.’ I don’t discount any of that. That is our nature.
But for me, what makes us resilient is our ability to start from scratch any time, in any moment, to literally have a fresh start every day if we want, every hour if we want.
Not, ‘Oh, I’ve got to start again!’ but that capacity to begin each day from a blank page, instead of as the next page in an ongoing novel of problems, suffering, despair and trauma. Now, of course we have those too. Butif I’m carrying 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of past problems, and I’m groaning how ‘I’m resilient, I can carry this load,’ that’s very different fromknowing that I can live today free from that. I can start today withoutmy backpack of rocks. That capacity to me is our innate resilience.That abilityto start from scratch, to get a fresh start in any moment, to literally begin each day, each moment as good as new.
The other thing is that 'battered & bruised but wiser.' I sometimes use the metaphor of a mirror. Amirrorcan be reflecting horror, horrific things for years and years and years. But the mirror is untouched. It’s as good as new. And if the next thing that comes in front of the mirror is beautiful, the mirror will reflect beauty.It doesn’t matter if it’s been 50 years reflecting something else. And that’s just built into the nature of the mirror. Well, we’re like that. We are, as best as I understand, pure consciousness in form.
Another metaphor I use is people think of themselves as the person on the ground, getting either rained on, or the sun is shining. And you hope for more sunshiny days than rainy days in your life. But it seems to me that we’re the sky, like we are the place within which weather happens.
And so, yeah, there’ll be rainy days and I don’t thinkthe sky minds thatthere are rainy days, becausethe sky is still the sky. I don’t think the sky minds if there are a lot of clouds on some days. We all have cloudy days. ‘Rainy days and Mondays,’ right? But the sky doesn’t mind because the Sun’s still there, just sometimes we don’t see it for a little while. But we know it’s there. There’s never been a police report filed for a missing Sun. In the same way, if we start to get our innate spark, our innate intelligence, our responsiveness, our creativity, our sense of fun, our sense of play, they never go anywhere. They’re like the Sun. Sometimes they’re in evidence, sometimes they’re not, but they’re powering the system the whole time.” Powerful Insights are Found in the Present Moment: Michael Neill Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssz_sz2mLA8
Some will automatically dismiss all of the above as wishful, even delusional thinking. One major reason for such pessimism is that some (like me in the past) not just habitually consider, but envision (and dream!!) worst case scenarios in excruciatingly vivid detail. The logic is to be prepared, to never be caught off guard. And when anything less terrible happens, we're lucky! This is not only a sadly common, pessimistic view of life, but detailed imaginings (thoughts) of worst case scenarios have the exact same damaging effects on us as if we actually lived through them. Strange but true, it's very difficult to let go of a lifetime habit of pessimism. Pessimists tend to feel arrogantly superior eg "Well, I hate to be the devil's advocate, but ...." "Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?" Marshall B. Rosenberg
Pessimists usually continue to cling to 'being right'even though their bleak attitude causes them, and people around them, unhappiness.
“One of the greatest misconceptions ever is the belief that … ‘It takes years to find wisdom.’ Many experience time, few experience wisdom. The achievement of mental stability and peace of mind is one thought (insight) away from everyone on earth … if you can find that one thought. Throughout time, human beings have experienced insights that spontaneously and completely changed their behavior and their lives, bringing them happiness they previously had thought impossible. Finding wisdom has nothing to do with time. Achieving mental stability is a matter of finding healthy thoughtsfrom moment to moment. Such thoughts can be light yearsora second away.” Sydney Banks, "The Missing Link: Reflections on Philosophy and Spirit.” Lone Pine Publishing, 1998.
Michael Neill's teachings are based on the Sydney Banks' awakening experience & subsequent teachings & books, which are imho very worth a deep immersion, which realistically very few readers will take the time to do. Many of those who have thoroughly acquainted themselves have benefited greatly.
"Our feelings are a barometer of how our thoughts are being utilized." Sydney Banks, "The Enlightened Gardener" Lone Pine Publishing, 2016.
How am I? Seriously - check in with yourself! Why? Because the whole gamut of BAD feelings are caused by "thinking." It's NOTwhathappens to us, but how we THINK about it that causes MOST of our suffering. And we're OFTENcaught - much like whales entangled in fishing nets - in useless thinking (self-talk, internal chatter). We're almost constantly talking to ourselves in our heads, and 90-95% of it is useless, even harmful. We innocently but WRONGLYassume that this steadychatter tells us the objective truth, who we actually are and providesevidence that we're alive & thinking rationally. NO! The vast majority of self-talk is old, repetitious bits of "the story of me" - a poor, wronged, separate me, barely surviving in a crazy, hostile world.
Whenever we're caught up in self-talk, we actually feel BAD: stressed, overwhelmed, out of control, contracted, sad / angry, lonely & disconnected. Our "mind racing" is not normal. "Multitasking" isnot productive. There's often a real sense of "time crunch" - not nearly enough time to get everything done, even in a "half-assed" way. You may be thinking, 'Stop the world, I want to get off!' This is just rushing towards burnout.
“Every human being is sitting in the middle of mental health and they don't know it.” Sydney Banks
So we can't stop the world, BUT each one of us CAN let go of the actual cause of most of our unnecessary, self-inflicted suffering - we CAN let go ofself-talk!
We can easily detect when we're caught up in self-talkbecauseit makes us feel BAD. So we firstnoticeself-talk going on AND we drop it, just let it go, stop supplying energy that sustains noise. EVERYONE CAN DO THIS. Thenrepeatedly bring awareness to the silence that is always there between, behind, underneath the words & other noises. Be curious, "listen for" & enjoy resting, luxuriating in the silence.
Quickly you'll begin to appreciate all that comes withsilence: peace (instead of stress & time-poverty); wisdom & calm competence (instead of feeling overwhelmed &out of control); spaciousness & relaxation (instead of contraction & tension); intimacy & oneness(instead of loneliness & disconnectedness). Within this peaceful silence we effortlessly connect with deepest intelligence or wisdom & creativity which far exceeds our personal (egoic) intelligence. We operate FAR more wisely, efficiently, empathically, and joyfully when we're acting from the depth ofwho we truly are.
"When mind and soul are in unison, you will experience mental well-being." Sydney Banks, "The Enlightened Gardener" Lone Pine Publishing, 2016.
DO listen to this EXCELLENT 56 minute Michael Neill interview
From before recorded history,mystics in the form of shamans, medicine women & men, sages, saints, alchemists, various varieties of artists, and most recently quantum physicists have been pointing out how reality is INFINITELY greater and FAR more complex than we can describe, or even imagine. Ourmind filters out (blocks from our consciousness) most of our perceptions, to prevent us from being overwhelmed, thus allowing us to focus only on what's necessary for survival. So our mind is both an information 'receiver', and a 'reducing valve.'
Our society's mindset has become far toonarrowly, self-destructively, self-centered - using Iain McGilchrist's profound understanding, 'Left-hemisphere dominant': http://www.johnlovas.com/2024/03/knockin-on-heavens-door.html Our current mindset is 'Unwise' both in terms of secular academic wisdom research, http://www.johnlovas.com/2021/06/loads-of-information-some-knowledge.html as well as humanity's timelesswisdom traditions. Wisdom traditions can be compared to politics. Many politicians put self-interest & their own party's success, ahead of the welfare of their country. Such "partisanship" - a form of individual&groupnarcissism - is tearing the US apart. However, some politicians are decent mature human beings, who take their job seriously, primarily serve their country's, & ideally the world's, best interests. Wisdom traditions, taken seriously, guide practitioners toward ethical behavior, unconditional love of self & others, and the capacity to gracefully navigate life's most difficult existential challenges. Like politics, religions (both often working as one) have a shameful history of incompetence, corruption & criminal behavior. Nevertheless, both politics and wisdom traditions - when taken seriously - arevital & irreplaceable for a deeply meaningful life. Clearly bothindividuals and society have a duty to deeply care for, to wiselynurture, themselves & each other.
It takes a certain type of intelligence to quickly become a billionaire, to become a populist dictator, to become a wealthy slum lord, or 'succeed' in any other criminal activity. But tomatureinto a peaceful, generous, collaborative, loving, nurturing human being requires a rare & infinitely more precious quality: wisdom. Our society has almost completely forgotten about the value, or even the meaning of wisdom. As a result, we're democratically electing an increasing number of world leaders who have all the attributes & more of Batman-movie villains, but none of the attributes of wiseleaders such as: Mahatma Gandhi, Václav Havel, Nelson Madela, Jacinda Ardern, etc.
We MUST re-educate ourselves about, and individually & collectively embodywisdom in order to heal our broken Earth so that our children, grandchildren and as yet unborn future generations can survive & even thrive.
A senior nondual teacher - Tony Parsons - points us towardswisdom which is nondual. Our dualistic minds find nondualityparadoxical at best. The most highly spiritually-evolved mystics & saints of all our wisdom traditions have always lived & pointed towardnondual wisdom, BUTeven their own 'conservative' religious institutions have been systematically persecuting & murdering them out of fear, ignorance & jealousy. HOWEVER, we're NOW at the tipping point where the hubris of our commondualistic 'cleverness' MUST evolve, or more accurately, shiftintonondual wisdombefore humanity extinguishes itself. This provides some sense of the direction in which Parsons is pointing:
“It seems that in the boundless energy that is oneness there can also arise a contracted energy which brings about apparent self-awareness. A powerful and convincing sense of self-identity seems to arise together with a belief in personal free will and choice in what is experienced as a real life story. All of these personal experiences can only apparently arise in what seems to be a very real but dualistic reality in which everything appears to be separate. This sense of separation can bring with it a sense of loss and a need to seek guidance, an understanding or a path or process that can promise fulfillment. There are attempts to seek unity which are totally futile because the separate seeker is apparently the very dualism from which it is trying to escape.” Tony Parsons https://www.theopensecret.com/
“What goes on in these (Tony Parsons) meetings is not so much to do with conceptual clarity. It is to do with an energetic shift, it’s to do with energy. Basically, the energy of being separate is contraction. At a very early age there’s a contraction of energy into a sense of a center, ‘I’m “me.” Oh! Now I’m “me”!’ Basically, the apparent separate individual in the dream is in the contracted state – ‘I’m in here, this is my boundary, and everything else is out there.’ And it can seem threatening, or not. So what happensin these meetings and, interestingly, directly after them, is that somewhere that contractionmeetsboundlessness. That boundlessness isn’t anyone’s; it’s just boundlessness. The speaker is speaking to itself. The speaker is meeting nothing and speaking to nothing. So conceptually, there can be a clarity about that. The most powerful thing in these meetings is that the contracted state can open out intoboundlessness. It’s an energetic shift.” John David interviews Tony Parsons in 2007 • Wisdom of the European Masters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvokZJjemfg
“What we’re talking about here is just an energythat can’t be known. The energy of emptyfullness. It’s a mystery. It can’t be understood. I use the word energy as everything. All there is, is energy. All there is, is everything and anything. For me energy is a good word, it’s like aliveness. All there is, is aliveness or energy. This is it. This is energy in the form of a room, people, breathing, thinking, feeling, sitting on a chair. It’s simplyenergyhappening. And that energy is absolutely boundless. Nothing influences it. It’s completely free and wild. It appears as everything and nothing. It’s a mystery. And because it’s free, it has no purpose or meaning. There’s no meaning to any of this. This aliveness is utterly, wonderfully, meaningless. But because it’s free energy, it can also belimited. And so in its apparent limited form, nothing is real, everything is only an appearance. In its apparent limited form, what arises in the human being is a self-awareness. At a very early age after birth, suddenly, there’s a sense of self-awareness – a sense of ‘me,’ ‘I am real.’ And that child goes into the world full of other apparent individuals, who also feel that they are real, so it lives, in what I call, ‘a dream.’ It lives in a dream of you could say, of ‘dualism.’ He’s in the dream of beingseparate. I am a separate individual. The world is something that’s happening to me. So thatsense of awarenesskeeps me separatefrom everything. That wouldn’t necessarily be recognized by most people, but that’s actually what happens. That’s the dream state ofindividualism. Most people in the world you could say feel as if that is absolutelyreal, being a separate individual in the world. What’s being suggested here is that that whole idea, that whole sense of being separate, and being individual, and having free will and choice, and living in a story that seems to be real - all of that is a complete & utter dreamt illusion. Most people think it’s real, but what’s being suggested here is that it’s an illusion, and there’s something else, another possibility which completely explodes the whole idea of individuality or separation.
So we could talk about how the individual seems to take form, what it’s like, all the belief systems it collects around itself to believe in its life and its story. We could talk about that. And it’s possible, that in just talking about it conceptually, and hearing a few suggestions that come from somewhere else, it’s possible that that whole belief system of separation, that whole belief system of individuality of awareness, can unravel. It may not. But the other thing that can happen is, where there’s an openness tosomething that’s beyond the sense of self, when there’s an openness to another possibility – a terrible possibility, but a possibility nonetheless. There could be something energeticthat’s very freeing and boundless about that energy, and then, the contracted energy of being the selfcan melt or fall back intothatwhole, because the contracted energyis alsooneness. Contracted energyis also theboundlessin thecontractedform. There is nothing that is right or wrong. There’s nothing above or below. There’s nothing that’s here or there. There just iswhat isandis not. That’s the mystery we’re talking about. And again, it cannot be known. So what you will go away from here is with absolutelynothing at all. There’s nothing to learn or understand about what we’re discussing here. Butsomething could possibly apparentlycollapse – but only apparently collapse. It’s the restricted feeling of being an individual in the world that’s separate.
This is not a teaching. There’s nothing to learn. It’s just a communication. It’s an illumination of what seems to be the human condition, and a suggestion that something else that’s completely beyond that but somehow by confrontingcan also unveil liberation. But you can’t do anything about it. The you that thinks you can do something about it simply can pour water and benefits. Yeah, it’s this. It’s this. It’s nowhere else, it’s this.
Q: When the contracted sense of separate self falls away, are there any physical manifestations that you or others can notice?
Tony Parsons (TP): No, not necessarily. The physical thing that can happenwhen thewhole contracted sense of being a ‘me’ collapses – but only apparently collapses – the body relaxes, because all the time in there’s a sense of me, and the me is trying to maintain its image in the world, who’s trying to play the game of the world, so there’s a lot of tension and fear involved in that, which suddenly falls away, so there’s a relaxation. Noticing that there’s a lot more energy, just available, not to anyone, because it takes a lot of energy to be a ‘me’ in the world, to try to make that illusion work.
Q: I’m here to ... – I’m probably wrong,
TP: There is no wrong.
Q: OK, I’m looking for something
TP: You’re looking for a better experience
Q: No actually, I wondering if I’m looking in the right direction
TP: There isn’t one. So seekers, people come here, apparently come here, seeking a better experience or a different way of living for themselves which will support and bring them a better experience of life. That isn’t available here. This is about death. It’s about the end of that which seeks to find a better experience. This is about the death of that which feels it is separatethat’s what can go on here. But there’s no one that can do anything about that.
Q: So what is the point?
TP: There is no point. This is a meeting which is absolutely, completely, pointless. It’s of no value to the seeker at all.
Q: Will it make someone’s life better?
TP: No it won’t. It won’t make your life better. First of all, it will point out what you may hear, that you don’t have a life, and so the whole idea of your life could be better by being here completely collapses.
Q: Will I be a better person?
TP: No, you certainly won’t be a better person. If anything, you’ll be a bit worse. You won’t be anything. What possibly could happen is the sudden collapse of the idea that there is anyone to be anything or to get anywhere. It’s the collapse of the whole sense or illusion that you are someone, who by applying a certain principle or process, can reach somewhere called ‘be better.’ There isn’ta better or worse. There isn’t an inner or outer. There isn’t an upper or lower. There is only what is. This is what is. This is what is andwhat is not. It is and it isn’t. It’s empty performance. It’s a mystery, and you’ll never understand it. I don’t. It can’t be known.” Tony Parsons – London, June 2018 https://www.theopensecret.com/(ABOVE first 12 minutes, BELOW remainder of 2hr mostly Q&A)
