Monday, November 26, 2012

The Problem With Money

The Bible says that money is the root of all evil. Still, without money you can’t buy food, you can’t pay your bills; you can’t get medical or dental care. Then there is gas for the car, or bus or cab fare, paying the baby sitter, buying clothes and washing them. It’s pretty obvious that there is very little one can do, in today’s society, without money. Sure, you could move into the wilds, hunt wild animals and gather greens and wild grains for food; you could even learn to build a cabin and start fires by rubbing two sticks together; but could you, really? And if you could, would such a life be fulfilling? Well, maybe.

I don’t know about you, but I was raised in a middle class American home, with hot and cold running water, central heating, indoor plumbing, not to mention a bed with a soft mattress, a stereo, and a TV. Nevertheless, if the economy crashes world wide, or we get hit by a rogue asteroid, or by a super electro-magnetic storm from the increasing sun spot activity, or Yellowstone’s mega volcano erupts, then having the ability to live like a survivalist might just come in handy, and money will be the least of our troubles. Still, if we deal with the problem now, it may just assist us in weathering any storm or calamity life can send our way.

The problem with money lies in our economic system. Being that our economy is based upon the availability of precious metals and gems, the struggle to control the Earths energy resources is backed by those who have an abundance of these commodities and the political power that comes from their possession. This type of setup invariably leads to the control of the few, over the needs of the many. This condition generates the consciousness that there will never be enough. The truth is, there are enough resources on this planet to insure that everyone has enough of what they need to survive and enjoy life, as long as those resources are distributed adequately.

So how can we do away with money? I mean everyone deserves an honest wage for honest work?

Credit for ones creativity and productivity need not be based upon a medium of exchange, such as rare metals and gems, or upon the availability of fossil fuel. Individuals could receive credit for creative and productive activities based upon their efforts alone. I suppose that it could be called the barter system, but it is more than that. When an individual does a job or creates something, they would decide what that job or creation is worth in the way of credit. If they place too high a value on their effort, they would probably not acquire many takers, unless their talent is rare or extraordinary. Those who do decide that this individual’s talent or capabilities are worth the price will then trade their own earned credits, as a medium of exchange to obtain whatever that individual produces or is able to deliver in the way of services. Credits would be be based solely on one’s capacity to produce desired goods or services.

I know, it sounds like money, but it isn’t. It is simply credit for ones efforts, one’s productivity. It is not based on substances that are cashed somewhere in a vault, or upon a product, such as oil, that many need, but is hoarded by a few to maintain power over the many. It is truly an honest wage for honest work. Credits would then be based solely upon an individuals personal assessment of the value of their productivity; or in the case of an individual with limited understanding, upon what society agrees is a personally sustainable amount.

An individual could save up his credits to purchase goods and services with them, just as society now saves money, but credits would be based solely upon what one can do or create and the only way an individual can transfer their credits is through a fair exchange for goods and services. No one would be able to inherit credits from others through entitlement or by succession or will. An individuals credits would belong solely to them.

All children would be given a substantial amount of credits by right, simply for being born. This amount would be decided upon by popular vote, and based upon what is needed to sustain a child until he or she becomes personally productive. Children would also earn credits for going to school and for demonstrating good citizenship.

Those who are unable to produce, either because of a physical or a mental disability would always be taken care of. Many would be taken care of until they have been trained to provide a service that they are capable of offering or have developed skills that deserve personal credit. Even those who are incapable of developing skills would taken care of because the availability of credit would not based upon materials that are difficult to acquire, but rather upon care, consideration and even love for one’s fellow human beings.

Without the possibility for personal gain through the accruing of funds without individual productivity, either by inheritance or theft, society would change radically. There would be no more power barons, or idle rich. There would be no lost youth roaming the streets, seeking opportunities though which to take advantage of others for the purposes of survival, personal gain or power.

This could be accomplished tomorrow. All that would be required is that the government pays off all of its debts to other countries with its stockpile of gold, gems and other precious metals and materials. Then we could shift to the credit system without harming other countries. The government could then replace all monies in all bank accounts with double the amount of credit. For those without a bank account, the government could give every individual who turns in cash, twice the value of that cash in credit. Each credit would equal one dollar, there would be no cents. All accounts would be rounded off to the nearest dollar.

At this point it would be very helpful if the government would put a freeze on price hikes in all businesses and services for one year to allow our economy to recover. All disability claims would still be honored in the amount of twice the previous monetary value of those claims. Food stamps would still be issued to those who are presently impoverished, at double the amount. Health care would still be provided to the impoverished, and to the country’s veterans, in the same way it was provided before, except all such services would be based in credit offered by the government until the credit shift is completed.

This would generate an economic boon for everyone in this country. Suddenly, everyone would be able to afford what they need, and companies and service providers would be able to produce more, employ more people and the entire country could finally get back to work, and that work would not only provide credit for goods and services, but also provide a rebirth of hope for the entire country.

Of course, foreign trade would probably be hampered for a time until other countries were willing to trade goods and services for goods and services. Who knows though, maybe the entire world would come to its senses, and our whole planet might one day be free of the wealthy and powerful controlling the masses by withholding necessary resources. It’s a thought.

Friday, October 26, 2012

The Power Of Thought Forms


    Barbara Marks Hubbard has a different term for Thought-Forms. She calls them memes, but I believe the term thought-form, as expressed through my connection to spirit as I wrote this, is the same thing. It is the word I came up with, at the time I was allowing spirit to communicate this important truth through me, to define what spirit was trying to say about how shared thoughts, statements, and agreements mold our life experience, effect the planetary consciousness and how we live and move and have our being within it. So, if you like, while you read this, just superimpose the term Meme over the term Thought-Form, and you will probably see that they are the same thing.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

     What is a thought-form? Where do they come from? Why do they have power and what kind of power do they have? First of all, thought forms have existed since Mankind first developed sentience. It is not just the capacity to develop intelligence, the capacity to observe one’s environment and to formulate conscious strategies for coping with and manipulating that environment, but it is the emotional impact intrinsic within these processes. Sentience is emotional self-awareness. It is not just the capacity to observe and react in a productive and progressive manor, but to do so as the result of an emotional impact from a sensual observation or experience. For instance, a child generally doesn’t develop a healthy respect for fire, or very hot things, until they experience the pain and the shock that comes from being burned. From that point forward there is an emotional component to the term “hot”which is rooted in fear, and evokes a psycho-physical response to the offending sensation of intense heat. This psycho-physical response is what draws our hand back when we sense heat radiating from an object and It is this psycho-physical response that lies at the root of thought-form development.

     Another term often used in regards to this psycho-physical response is engram. An engram is created when an experience is intense enough to become etched upon not only the memory but also upon the neural network within the body. Engrams generate unconscious psycho-physical responses to experiences and observations that either match or closely resemble past experiences that were both emotionally and physically intense enough to become imprinted upon the neural net. It is speculated that engrams are the basis for what are called knee-jerk reactions to certain stimuli, such as the hand automatically drawing back from something that is perceived as hot, or automatically cringing at a specific tone of voice.

     So what do psycho-physical responses and engrams have to do with the generation of thought-forms? Thought-forms are, in essence, social engrams. Thought forms are generated when the majority of individuals within a social group agree that something is true based upon the collective experience of the group. In some ways this is a good thing, as it promotes social connectedness and civilized societies; but in some ways this is not such a good thing as it also promotes blind allegiance to social agreements that may not always be grounded in truth. The reason for this is that engrams and psycho-physical responses are often formed before reason and intellect are fully developed. Often social agreement is based upon infantile perceptions of reality, formed before an individual or a society has developed the tools to accurately assess observations and experiences. For instance, early society agreed that the Earth was flat. They also agreed that the Earth was at the center of a universe and that the universe revolved around it. As the result of Galileo’s discoveries through the use of his invention, the telescope, mankind eventually traded those early social thought-forms for more enlightened ones.

     Thought-forms have long been used by religious leaders and governments to control the masses. Generating a social thought-form is fairly easy when dealing with uneducated minds or fearful and superstitious social groups. It is fairly easy to utilize the fears and the superstitions of groups and societies to direct the masses into believing, acting or reacting in a prescribed manor. Sometimes this is viewed as necessary, for the protection of the group, or the society, such as telling them that a Supreme Being has the ability to monitor their every move and will inflict terrible consequences upon them if they break certain rules or laws, or overstep certain boundaries. Unfortunately, often such contrived thought-forms can forestall, or even impair the capacity for social and intellectual development such as when Galileo was arrested and his discoveries that were suppressed by the Church during the Inquisition.

     Today many thought-forms are subtler than those of previous ages and are often founded on scientifically based assumptions. Nevertheless, thought-forms based in religiosity and superstitions not only still exist but they also continue to control the thoughts and actions of the greater portion of global society. Often, whether individuals choose to believe in the religious or superstitious concepts behind these thought-forms or not, they still find their emotional and physical actions and reactions controlled, on deep sub-conscious levels, by thought-forms they either do not subscribe to or are unaware of. Even atheists often call upon God for help or forgiveness when confronted with their own mortality. To be sure, even the ancient thought-forms have become quite subtle in that we are so accustomed to them that we no longer consider them as important, and yet, it is when a thought-form drops below the level of our conscious awareness that it has the most power over us. The truth is, our lives, our decisions, our actions and reactions to life’s experiences are largely choreographed by thought-forms that were both born in antiquity and generated in present time, often by well meaning individuals, groups, religious organizations and even governments.

     Every time you watch a commercial on TV you are helping to generate or are participating in the proliferation of a thought-form. Every time you go to a show, or participate in a religious or social event, every time you give yourself over to a concept or a belief you are helping to generate or are participating in the proliferation of a thought-form. Nevertheless, not all thought-forms are destructive, controlling or limiting. Some thought-forms are not only constructive and liberating, they are also healing. These thought-forms, that are gaining more and more social agreement, empower the individual; engender acceptance, open-mindedness, unity, and the knowledge that all things are possible to those who believe in endless possibilities.

     In the realm of thought-forms, Global Thought-Forms are by and large the most powerful of all. For instance, Life is fragile and tenuous. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality life is tenacious and persistent. In spite of dozens of global calamities that forced thousands, possibly millions of life forms into extinction, life continues to express on this planet. The discrepancy here is the confusion between substance and form. Substance persists; form is constantly changing and evolving to address the constant state of change that exists within all environmental spheres.

     Nevertheless, the thought-forms promoting the fragility of life persist because mankind is rooted in substance, due to another thought-form that promotes the idea that substance is more real than form. The fact that thought-forms have so much power is evidence of this, as people tend to believe that if you can’t see it, touch it, taste it or smell it, it has no basis in reality. Regardless of this belief, our lives are continually molded and our perceptions are constantly modified by feelings and emotions that, in themselves, are insubstantial to the degree that they cannot be seen or measured with physical mechanisms outside of our bodies. Or can they?

     For decades now we have been able to measure the effects of emotions, by monitoring blood pressure, heart rate and galvanic skin responses. This is how the lie detector works. Of course it takes a skilled operator to decipher the meaning of the traces that these measurements generate on paper. Still, it doesn’t take a machine to recognize the sadness in a friends face when they have lost a loved one or when they are experiencing the pain of a failed relationship.

     So also can the effects of a thought-form be seen if one knows what to look for. An example of this is in the suddenly soaring rate of breast cancer. Only in the last decade has there been increasing awareness of this disease. In fact the awareness has increased so much that you can’t drive on the freeway without seeing at least one pink ribbon bumper sticker, or shop without seeing a pink canvas shopping bag, or turn on the news without hearing about some organization or individual discussing a 5k run or a fund drive of some sort to fight this deadly disease. Could it be, that all of this focus has generated a thought-form that says, if you are a woman, you will probably get this disease? Could it be, the more people that focus on it, the more women there are that fall victim to it? Could this be a modern day thought-form gone wild?

     This is why it is so important that our race becomes aware of what thought-forms are, and that thought-forms have power over our minds, our bodies and our spirits. It is imperative that we, as a race, come to recognize that we contribute to the construction of and the proliferation of thought-forms by investing our agreement and energy in them. Unless we do, we will not need an asteroid from space, or an atomic war to seal our fate. We will destroy ourselves with our own agreed upon thoughts.

     Nevertheless, humanity has the power to transform the planet and all of the lives upon it through the use of this magnificent tool. What if all humanity came to agree that the Earth itself is an electrical generator capable of providing enough energy, as the result of it’s rotation and it’s orbital transit around the sun, to provide enough free, renewable energy to power any and all of our needs forever? What if all of humanity agreed that the human body is so strong and so adaptable that it could overcome all disease? What if all of humanity agreed that war was no longer an acceptable way to deal with political, social and spiritual differences. What if we all agreed that we, as one race on earth, are so deeply connected that we have the capacity to sense the deepest needs of all mankind and the capacity access solutions that are equitable to everyone on Earth? Sound Crazy? Maybe not.

     In a world where information from everywhere is transmitted around the globe in an instant and accessible to nearly everyone on the planet, it is not such a stretch to imagine that we can all come to agree upon positive and productive ideas and concepts. Of course, first humanity must come to understand that this kind of universal focus has powerful consequences. This kind of universal focus generates universal agreement, and this in turn generates powerful thought-forms that lock humanity into actions and reactions that may or may not be in it’s best interests. Once it becomes universally recognized that thought-forms exist, that they have incredible power over the expressions and evolution humanity, they can then be used as tools to transform society, and indeed, all life on Earth.

The Grand Illusion


Deep within this Grand Illusion hides the spark of Truth and Light
That cuts the fog of indecision and melts the darkness of the night.
But, as they intertwine each other, homogenize, solidify
They lose themselves in one another, as light melts to shadow, and sea to sky.

The inside then expresses outward, the outside turns to hide within
Truth obscures in dark illusion, virtue masquerades as sin.
But, illumination now approaches, and the Darkest Forces fight
To keep the pendulum from swinging out of darkness, into the light

But there are Cycles in the cycles, smaller wheels the larger turn
and cogs may stick if oils wanting, and you cannot teach who will not learn.
But the masses, reach for reaching's inborn, out of darkness, toward the dawn
As the stars of night flow westward, from darkness' womb to be reborn

And the time of birth approaches, and the pains more frequent come
And the world in awful waiting trembles, in advent of the coming One
But as birth nears the unborn fear it, fear, born of darks familiar hue
So, death to darkness! But...what's beyond it? Is the doctrine of the New Dawn true?

Unknowingly we clutch at darkness, while longing, hoping for the Light
Never seeing that sunset and sunrise are both the answer to our plight
For in the end is new beginning, and new beginnings end what's past
Within the womb birth seems like dyeing, for last comes first and first comes last!

And truth is always veiled in darkness until the Principle is known
That melts confusion into wholeness
And then that wholeness stands alone!

The Difference Between Religion And Spirituality


  Most individuals consider religion and spirituality to be one and the same thing. They are under the impression that a highly religious person is also a highly spiritual person. Where this may be true in some cases, most often it is not. The reason for this is simple, and yet so often overlooked. Religion is a socially driven organization of laws or rules, rituals and teachings that have been generated by men for the purpose of maintaining a social structure and spirituality is a self driven, intrinsically personal process toward a greater realization of the meaning of life and ones position within the greater whole.

      I realize that religionists will argue that all of their rules, laws, rituals and structures were inspired by God within spiritual individuals. My point of contention here is that once they are written down and thus become a social mandate, they lose their spiritual quality by virtue of the fact that they no longer issue from a self driven, personal process. Clearly, there is a need for rules, laws and rituals, and for social organization and these may very well be the foundation upon which spirituality develops. Nevertheless, in order for spirituality to develop, it must be a totally personal, internal process based upon personal responsibility and choice. Surely, if social structure is the foundation of spirituality, then personal choice and personal responsibility are its cornerstones. In truth, if these are not allowed to develop and flourish then spirituality becomes a stillborn experience for most individuals. Of course, there will always be a few rugged individualists who will develop that inner reality in spite of any and all stultifying and constricting social mores.

    The Religious path requires education, indoctrination, confirmation and/or ordination. To become a member of a church, individuals are generally required to attend classes at the conclusion of which there is a ceremony or ritual, which confirms that he understands the rules and ideologies of the group and agrees with them. To become a leader, or to obtain ordination, one must attend a college where he acquires a degree in that churches curriculum. This requires that an individual be willing to accept, whole-heartedly, the concepts, tenets and rituals of that particular church. This does not mean that there are no free thinkers, who have become members or have been ordained into any specific church, but it does mean that any freethinking and actions based upon that free thought will be severely limited by the rules and tenets of that church.

      The spiritual path is one of inner self-discovery. It's total focus is based upon ones personal, inner process and the search for greater meaning. The only requirement for spirituality is a willingness to commit oneself to total self-honesty and personal responsibility. How one chooses to define the deity of their understanding, or God if you will, is up to them. There are no rules or rituals beyond those, which the individual defines for themselves.

       Spirituality is not about morals, it is about ethics. Morals are based upon the rules and rituals of the religious based society, whereas ethics are based in self-honesty and personal responsibility. Spirituality is not for those who are dependent upon others to define the rules for them but rather for those who are willing to honestly and diligently search and discover who they are and what they truly desire and then take the responsibility of building a code of ethics, which will assist them in attaining it. Spirituality is only for those who recognize that life delivers to them that which they create, through their thoughts and actions, and that they are totally responsible for their own life experience. The truly spiritual individual recognizes that the only real savior lives in the heart of he who is totally self-honest and takes personal responsibility for all of his thoughts and actions.

       It is important to add here that, to some people, religion is very important. I have no desire to discount the teachings of any religion, for in truth, such teachings are of great benefit to some individuals. In all religions, be it Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or Judaism there are Avatars, the promise of Avatars or Saviors, if you will. It is not my desire to debate whether these figures are real or simply symbolic of the desire for perfection personified within man. The issue here is one of personal responsibility. If you have the ability to live your life, as these Avatars or Teachers taught, then you know what I mean.

      The most important thing in life, beyond rigorous self-honesty and personal responsibility is harmlessness in thought word and deed. I personally weigh everything I think, do and say according to three criteria, "Is it Loving? Is it Harmless? Does it promote Unity?" When something does not fit these criteria, I choose not to align with it. Although religion plays an important part within our society and I recognize the need for this, I am also aware of much abuse, and highly separatist ideologies perpetrated in the name of certain religious sects. I, personally, cannot align myself with such activities.


       It is my belief that the New Millennium will herald in a "New World Concept". One in which mankind will begin to perceive itself as one contiguous whole, and no longer as factions, races, religions and nations. Due to the advances in communication for the common man and thus the shrinking of the world, in non-geographic ways, mankind will become more aware of his sameness, and less concerned by his differences. I also see, rising out of this new concept of humanity, the development of a new world order based upon service. To be sure, when the average individual gains the capacity to share with other individuals, world-wide, his deepest inner feelings and needs, he will also become aware of the need for international organizations and fellowships that will address these needs within all men, regardless of their race, color, creed or national origins. But this fellowship cannot develop until we come to the point where we can celebrate our commonalities and ignore our differences. Herein lies the secret to true spirituality.


Kerry Dennis

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

What Is It That We Are Seeking? by Diane Musho Hamilton

What Is It That We Are Seeking?


Diane Musho Hamilton Sensei is a gifted mediator, facilitator and teacher of Zen and Integral Spirituality. She is the dharma successor of Genpo Roshi, and is his first successor in the Big Mind lineage. She has worked with Ken Wilber and Integral Institute since 2004 and has been the lead trainer on Integral Life Practice. She is also a core founder and faculty of iEvolve: Global Practice Community.



I’d like you to contemplate one of the most important words in Zen practice.
Aspiration.
This word evokes a possibility for something beyond what is now. This is often expressed as desire or longing.
What is it that we are seeking?
Some people I have worked with seek the truth. Some seek peace; others, enlightenment, love, union, realization. Sometimes, we don’t know what we are seeking, but we are drawn to something greater than ourselves. It is hard to express this desire with a word because words are inadequate. But the feeling of yearning or longing is unmistakable.
When did you become a seeker? What were the circumstances? Have things changed since you began your search? What have you found? How is your seeking different now than some years ago?
A friend of mine, who was working in the film industry in Los Angeles, was driving down the freeway when she suddenly realized she had no idea who she was. That prompted a spiritual question: “Who am I?”
This is the fundamental question posed by the great Indian saint, Ramana Maharshi This question is basic to Zen; for instance, when Bodhidharma visits Emperor Wu. The emperor asks, “Who are you?” And Bodhidharma answers, “Don’t know.”
His “Don’t know” is different than the one my friend encountered. Hers occurred at the beginning of her quest, and Bodhidharma’s was a result of a lifetime of practice.
Some people start their spiritual search because they are suffering intensely; they want to find a way to end or to answer for suffering. This the Buddha’s initial motivation. He was the son of privilege, growing up in a palace surrounded by material wealth, and every form of pleasure. But when he ventured out beyond the walls of the palace, he encountered a very sick person, a very old, decrepit person, and a corpse., and lastly, a wandering bikku. As soon as he witnessed the more disturbing side of human existence, he felt compelled to leave the comfort of the palace for good and to follow the path of the seeker.. He ventured beyond his known reality into the wilderness of the spiritual search.
Some people, like Michael Murphy, the co-founder of the Esalen Institute, began their quest after experiencing what he describes as a "hinge moment” in meditation. He dropped out of the pre-med program at Stanford with a new vision for the purpose of his life. Another friend of mine began to seriously practice meditation after one too many nights of hard drinking. It was also a hinge moment, but of a different kind.
Our desire to awaken or to discover truth is very particular to our life, and it has unique qualities and detail. The personal is one dimension of our experience. Another dimension of our experience is that this profound desire, this longing, is an attribute of enlightenment itself. In other words, enlightenment seeks itself.

So human beings are participating in the awakening of the universe to itself.
Intrinsic to who we are as living beings is a deep yearning to know our original nature, who and what we are beyond form and condition. And at the same time, there is a deep yearning, an almost paradoxical yearning, to manifest in form and within our unique situation. This paired yearning, this desire to know the unformed and manifest it in form seems intrinsic to the unfolding of the universe. For we are not other than the universe, we are only a manifestation of it, both in our yearning and our form. Scientists say that the universe has been evolving for 13.7 billion years. Ken Wilber reminds us that it has evolved from quarks to atoms to molecules to cells and livng organisms. Emerging from nothing, each advance of the nervous system, comes greater and greater complexity, and that complexity in form carries more consciousness. So human beings are participating in the awakening of the universe to itself.
A beautiful way to think about aspiration is to remember, each time you sit on your cushion, that your desire to awaken, and your desire to express that awakening, to discover more of who you really are, is an expression of the universe at work, identifying itself through you. It’s not just you coming to the cushion; it is the universe coming to reflect on itself through you—the impulse of evolution. All of life, in fact, is moving because of desire; all creatures co-create through the experience of desire. It is a non-personal force with which you can join as an expression of the universe unfolding and getting to know itself.When we honor our intention, or desire, rather than personalizing it, we can experience it as an attribute of life itself. So in practice, we sit both as complete fulfillment and complete desire.
Yesterday, I sat next to the geraniums on the windowsill in my kitchen.They were an expression of what we are talking about because they are awake, they are present, they are naturally fulfilled. They are drawn toward the sun, not because of a personal impulse to be happy, but because the life in them is drawn naturally toward that which is light; they are reaching out, they are being pulled toward the sun. That is their nature because they are part of the life force itself. So when we surrender our personal ideas about desire, we can join with that universal life force.
The Buddha said have few desires, but have great ones. Have the same desire as the universe.







































Integral Post | What Is It That We Are Seeking?

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

BOUNDARIES MAKE FREEDOM POSSIBLE by Robert Augustus Masters


BOUNDARIES MAKE FREEDOM POSSIBLE




Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D., is the author of 11 books (including Transformation Through Intimacy andSpiritual Bypassing), a highly experienced psychotherapist (and trainer of psychotherapists) with a doctorate in Psychology, and a teacher of spiritual deepening. His uniquely integral, intuitive work (developed over the past 32 years) dynamically blends the psychological and physical with the spiritual, emphasizing full-blooded embodiment, authenticity, emotional openness and literacy, deep shadow work, and the development of relational maturity.





Boundaries are an essential part of life. They delineate and maintain needed borders and separations, making differentiation possible at every level. Boundaries both contain and preserve the integrity of what they are safeguarding, be that physical, psychological, emotional, social, or spiritual. Without them there is no relationship and therefore no development, no evolution. But despite this clear truth, we often fall into the trap of believing that boundaries hold us back, preventing us from being free or realizing nondual consciousness — whatever untroubled, idealized state we may aspire to. If we thus equate having boundaries with being limited and if being limitless is a cherished goal for us, we will tend to view boundaries as a problem, an obstruction to freedom, something to overcome.

Real freedom, however, is not about having no limitations; rather it is about finding liberation within—and also through—limitation (as when the apparent constraints of committed monogamous relationship actually enrich and deepen the relationship). Real freedom does not mind limitations and in fact is not limited by them.
Boundaries make freedom possible by clarifying what must be worked with, not just personally and transpersonally, but also interpersonally. Since everything — everything! — exists through relationship, it is crucial that we learn to work well within relationship, both with others and with our own needs, states, and identity. This work is not possible if our boundaries are not clearly delineated and skillfully maintained.

Whether our boundaries are collapsed, blurred, abandoned, trampled, disregarded, nurtured, overpoliced, cemented, or honored, they determine our edges, limits, borders. Boundaries may be overdefined, underdefined, or ambiguously defined. What really matters is what we do with our boundaries: Do we use them to fortify our ego or to illuminate it? Do we lose ourselves in them or hold them in healthy perspective? Do we use them to keep ourselves from love or to deepen our capacity to love? Do we concretize them or do we keep them flexible? Do we allow them to be overly permeable or do we allow them to be as solid as circumstances require? Do we use our boundaries to isolate ourselves or to create and deepen connection?
Without healthy boundaries, we cannot have healthy relationships.
Without healthy boundaries, we stunt our growth.
So what are healthy boundaries? They are steadfast guardians, serving both to contain and preserve the integrity of what they are safeguarding. Boundaries don’t just hold space; they make and honor space by keeping it appropriately compartmentalized. They keep particular aspects of us enclosed until they are sufficiently developed. A premature rupturing of self-encapsulation (as when we are forced into adult responsibilities when we are young children) interferes with our development, leaving us with leaky or otherwise dysfunctional boundaries.

A healthy boundary is a psychophysical presence — a kind of energetic membrane — possessing the necessary firmness to protect us from invasion, intrusion, violation, and other dehumanizing or life-negating forces, as well as the resiliency to soften and open to what is beneficial for us.

Healthy boundaries serve our highest good. They are akin to the loving parental hand that holds our hand as we take our first child-steps along a seaside wall or a playground ramp, gripping us neither too tightly nor too loosely. That touch, so reassuringly solid and steady, gives us the courage to venture farther afoot. As we mature, we will find that some of our boundaries can be expanded or made more permeable; for example, if we have an intimate partner, we can expand our boundaries to include him or her rather than collapsing or ignoring our boundaries in order to be close. Such expansion does not weaken our boundaries any more than expanding our love weakens it.

Healthy boundaries serve our evolution. Each developmental stage is fittingly nested in a cooperative complex of boundaries, holding us so that we can, as optimally as possible, navigate the terrain and learn whatever is needed (this process, of course, is often obstructed by factors like poor parenting or traumatic events). If we are overboundaried, we’ll stay too solidly put, remaining stuck in significant ways, with only part of us moving on (as when we keep developing cognitively but not emotionally or morally). And if we are underboundaried, we won’t stay with a particular stage long enough or go deeply enough to learn what we need to from it, thereby becoming little more than developmental dilettantes, touring rather than really living out particular stages of growth. Without healthy boundaries, we don’t grow; we age but don’t really evolve. Healthy boundaries set us apart without isolating us and bring us together without homogenizing us.

If we are inclined to be overboundaried — overbudgeting for defense — we wall ourselves in, confusing security with freedom. On the other hand, if we tend to be underboundaried — leaving the gates too open — we float on the periphery of embodied life, confusing fusion with intimacy, limitlessness with freedom, and excessive tolerance with compassion. Boundaries make containment possible, but does such containment protect or overprotect us, entrap or serve us, ground or cement us, house or jail us?

Those who are underboundaried tend to mistake collapsed boundaries for expanded ones; a collapsing (or outright dissolution) of boundaries may be seen as letting go or even transcending them. A similar mistake is made in our idealized view of romance, where the overwhelming urge to merge is seen as the ultimate state of love rather than as a temporary fantastical state that inevitably unravels over time. We may rationalize or glamorize this abandonment of boundaries as a kind of liberation, a casting-off of shackles in the service of transcendence and spiritual realization. As much as we might conceive of such radical expansion as a wonderful thing, confusing our flight from boundedness with true openness, we don’t realize we are not really expanding our boundaries, but rather neglecting them. For example, someone we are close to speaks very disrespectfully to us, clearly crossing a line, and instead of asserting ourselves with them, taking a needed stand, we leave their behavior unaddressed and unchallenged, thinking we are being compassionate with them, thereby disrespecting the very boundary of ours that was inappropriately crossed.

Abandoning our boundaries is not indicative of a higher or more noble state—however much we might spiritually rationalize this—but is just escapism and aversion, an avoidance of facing, entering, and moving through our pain. Dissociation in spiritual robes is still dissociation! We may make a virtue out of moving beyond the personal, perhaps thinking that we are transcending it, when in fact we are slipping into the domain of depersonalization (a well-known psychiatric disorder featuring disconnection from one’s sense of self). But depersonalization is not the same as the self-transcending or “no-self” realizations of advanced spiritual practice! It is just another form of dissociation (or unhealthy separation).

What is arguably the opposite of dissociation? Intimacy. And intimacy requires healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries protect but do not overprotect; they stand guard but do not jail. If we keep ourselves overprotected, we don’t thrive but stagnate. And if we keep ourselves underprotected, we also don’t thrive but open ourselves undiscerningly, left in a state in which overabsorption is inevitable. We might protest: shouldn’t we be receptive? Yes, but overabsorption and receptivity are not necessarily the same thing!

Having healthy boundaries doesn’t mean a lack of receptivity; instead, it is a discerning receptivity, an openness that can just as easily say a full-blooded “no” as a “yes”. The undiscriminating openness and too easy “yes” (and possible show of equanimity) of those who are underboundaried is especially difficult to cut through when it’s taken to be a sign of spiritual attainment. When we cannot voice and embody an unequivocal “no,” allowing ourselves to be closed at times, our only way of protecting ourselves is to dissociate, to get away from what’s difficult rather than face and pass through it.

Where being overboundaried appears to promise freedom through security, being underboundaried seems to promise freedom through limitlessness. But both cut us off from living fully. This fact is usually obvious when we overprotect ourselves but not necessarily when we underprotect ourselves, especially when we legitimize our actions spiritually, making an unquestioned virtue out of our undiscriminating openness. For example, we may open our sexual boundaries in the name of universal love, reframing our multi-partnered sexual encounters as tantric practice, thinking we are being more openhearted than those “stuck” in monogamous relationships, since they, unlike us, are limited to just one partner. While our true nature is indeed limitless, the way in which it manifests in this world, in individual form, is necessarily equipped with boundaries. Boundaries may seem to divide up what which is undivided and whole, but it is through such division that a deeper, more integrated whole is created, in much the same way that cells, through their very division and differentiation, make tissue and organs—and an embodied us—possible. We cannot hope to mature and find true integration without first being clearly differentiated, vividly and unmistakably outlined. Good boundaries provide and support this essential differentiation in our lives.

The primary emotional state that functions to uphold our boundaries is anger—which is quite problematic for those who view anger as a merely negative state. This view is especially common in Buddhism, which (with the exception of Rinzai Zen and Tantric Buddhism) generally conceives of anger as no more than an afflictive or unwholesome state, confusing it with aggression. Classic Buddhist texts generally take a very negative view of anger, seeing no value in it per se (other than as something to transform into compassion), and much of contemporary Westernized Buddhism follows suit, not bothering to distinguish anger from aggression, confusing anger with what is actually done with anger, and advocating that practitioners not express anger, all the while failing see that compassion and openly expressed anger can coexist.

Those enmeshed in spiritual bypassing rarely see any value in anger, being too busy avoiding it to recognize its value and function as an energetic guardian of our boundaries. We tend to try not to look or act angry, even when we are raging inside, turning away from the very forcefulness and fieriness that empowers us to properly enforce our boundaries. Without free access to our anger, our “no” lacks the intensity (however quiet it might be) and strength to have the impact it needs, and our “yes” remains anemic, cut off from real vitality. Not having the voice and energy to assert the boundaries we need leaves us at the mercy of forces that may be detrimental to us.

Boundaries allow differences play their essential role by preserving our autonomy and making healthy interrelatedness possible—a fact clearly illustrated in mature relationships, in which there is deep communion without any dilution of one’s sense of self. In such relationships, we don’t discard our boundaries to make meaningful connections; we expand our boundaries to include the other without short-changing ourselves. Such inclusion has room not only for shared love and joy but also for shared pain.

Imagine a place with no pain, no judgment, no nasty moral dilemmas, a place where whatever happens is just karma, just the perfection of Being unfolding as it must. Imagine not just visiting there or dreaming of being there, but actually dwelling there. Such is the narcotic promise of spiritual bypassing. This is a dream not to fulfill but to awaken from. Of course we yearn for freedom, for real transcendence, but we need to have something from which to take flight. Healthy boundaries provide the ground for stable footing. Spiritual bypassing, however, uproots us before we’ve established such ground, mostly through its devaluing of the personal and interpersonal in favor of “higher” realities, and its accompanying neglect of boundaries. Along the way, relational intimacy is left mostly by the wayside, as if it were little more than some vestigial practice for those misguided souls still trying to have a worldly relationship free from spiritual ambition.

We are not here to shed or abandon our boundaries, but to breathe integrity and strength into them, to fully illuminate them, and to make sure that they take a form that serves not only our highest good but also the highest good of all. We are not here to override or devalue our boundaries but to use them as wisely as possible, valuing the personal and interpersonal as much as the transpersonal, and discovering the freedom in fully engaging our experience. Our boundaries stand as guardians on this path, with an authority that supports our growth and awakening.

Excerpted from Spiritual Bypassing by Robert Augustus Masters.

ALWAYS ALREADY: THE BRILLIANT CLARITY OF EVER-PRESENT AWARENESS- Ken Wilber


ALWAYS ALREADY: THE BRILLIANT CLARITY OF EVER-PRESENT AWARENESS


"What follows are various 'pointing out' instructions, direct pointers to mind's essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session." –Ken Wilber

Where are we to locate Spirit? What are we actually allowed to acknowledge as Sacred? Where exactly is the Ground of Being? Where is this ultimate Divine?

THE GREAT SEARCH

The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: there is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate-each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other.  
This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense. The separate-self is, at bottom, simply a sensation of seeking. When you feel yourself right now, you will basically feel a tiny interior tension or contraction—a sensation of grasping, desiring, wishing, wanting, avoiding, resisting-it is a sensation of effort, a sensation of seeking.  
In its highest form, this sensation of seeking takes on the form of the Great Search for Spirit. We wish to get from our unenlightened state (of sin or delusion or duality) to an enlightened or more spiritual state. We wish to get from where Spirit is not, to where Spirit is.  
But there is no place where Spirit is not. Every single location in the entire Kosmos is equally and fully Spirit. Seeking of any sort, movement of any sort, attainment of any sort: all profoundly useless. The Great Search simply reinforces the mistaken assumption that there is some' place that Spirit is not, and that I need to get from a space that is lacking to a space that is full. But there is no space lacking, and there is no space more full. There is only Spirit.  
The Great Search for Spirit is simply that impulse, the final impulse, which prevents the present realization of Spirit, and it does so for a simple reason: the Great Search presumes the loss of God. The Great Search reinforces the mistaken belief that God is not present, and thus totally obscures the 'reality of God's ever-present Presence. The Great Search, which pretends to love God, is in fact the very mechanism of pushing God away; the mechanism of promising to find tomorrow that which exists only in the timeless now; the mechanism of watching the future so fervently that the present always passes it by—very quickly and God's smiling face with it.  
The Great Search is the loveless contraction hidden in the heart of the separate-self sense, a contraction that drives the intense yearning for a tomorrow in which salvation will finally arrive, but during which time, thank God, I can continue to be myself. The greater the Great Search, the more I can deny God. The greater the Great Search, the more I can feel my own sensation of seeking, which defines the contours of my self. The Great Search is the great enemy of what is.  
Should we then simply cease the Great Search? Definitely, if we could. But the effort to stop the Great Search is itself more of the Great Search. The very first step presumes and reinforces the seeking sensation. There is actually nothing the self-contraction can do to stop the Great Search, because the self-contraction and the Great Search are two names for the same thing.  
If Spirit cannot be found as a future product of the Great Search, then there is only one alternative: Spirit must be fully, totally, completely present right now—AND you must be fully, totally, completely aware of it right now. It will not do to say that Spirit is present but I don't realize it. That would require the Great Search; that would demand that I seek a tomorrow in which I could realize that Spirit is fully present, but such seeking misses the present in the very first step. To keep seeking would be to keep missing. No, the realization itself, the awareness itself: this, too, must somehow be fully and completely present right now. If it is not, then all we have left is the Great Search, doomed to presume that which it wishes to overcome.  
There must be something about our present awareness that contains the entire truth. Somehow, no matter what your state, you are immersed fully in everything you need for perfect enlightenment. You are somehow looking right at the answer. One hundred percent of Spirit is in your perception right now. Not 20 percent, not 50 percent, not 99 percent, but literally 100 percent of Spirit is in your awareness right now—and the trick, as it were, is to recognize this ever-present state of affairs, and not to engineer a future state in which Spirit will announce itself.  
And this simple recognition of an already present Spirit is the task, as it were, of the great Nondual traditions.

TO MEET THE KOSMOS

Many people have stern objections to "mysticism" or "transcendentalism" of any sort, because they think it somehow denies this world, or hates this earth, or despises the body and the senses and its vital life, and so on. While that may be true of certain dissociated (or merely Ascending) approaches, it is certainly not the core understanding of the great Nondual mystics, from Plotinus and Eckhart in the West to Nagarjuna and Lady Tsogyal in the East.  
Rather, these sages universally maintain that absolute reality and the relative world are "not-two" (which is the meaning of "nondual"), much as a mirror and its reflections are not separate, or an ocean is one with its many waves. So the "other world" of Spirit and "this world" of separate phenomena are deeply and profoundly "not-two," and this nonduality is a direct and immediate realization which occurs in certain meditative states—in other words, seen with the eye of contemplation—although it then becomes a very simple, very ordinary perception, whether you are meditating or not. Every single thing you perceive is the radiance of Spirit itself, so much so that Spirit is not seen apart from that thing: the robin sings, and just that is it, nothing else. This becomes your constant realization, through all changes of state, very naturally, just so. And this releases you from the basic insanity of hiding from the Real.  
But why is it, then, that we ordinarily don't have that perception?  
All the great Nondual wisdom traditions have given a fairly similar answer to that question. We don't see that Spirit is fully and completely present right here, right now, because our awareness is clouded with some form of avoidance. We do not want to be choicelessly aware of the present; rather, we want to run away from it, or run after it, or we want to change it, alter it; hate it, love it, loathe it, or in some way agitate to get ourselves into, or out of, it. We will do anything except come to rest in the pure Presence of the present. We will not rest with pure Presence; we want to be elsewhere, quickly. The Great Search is the game, in its endless forms.  
In nondual meditation or contemplation, the agitation of the separate-self sense profoundly relaxes, and the self uncoils in the vast expanse of all space. At that point, it becomes obvious that you are not "in here" looking at the world "out there," because that duality has simply collapsed into pure Presence and spontaneous luminosity.  
This realization may take many forms. A simple one is something like this: You might be looking at a mountain, and you have relaxed into the effortlessness of your own present awareness, and then suddenly the mountain is all, you are nothing. Your separate-self sense is suddenly and totally gone, and there is simply everything that is arising moment to moment. You are perfectly aware, perfectly conscious, everything seems completely normal, except you are nowhere to be found. You are not on this side of your face looking at the mountain out there; you simply are the mountain, you are the sky, you are the clouds, you are everything that is arising moment to moment, very simply, very clearly, just so.  
We know all the fancy names for this state, from unity consciousness to sahaj samadhi. But it really is the simplest and most obvious state you will ever realize. Moreover, once you glimpse that state—what the Buddhists call One Taste (because you and the entire universe are one taste or one experience)—it becomes obvious that you are not entering this state, but rather, it is a state that, in some profound and mysterious way, has been your primordial condition from time immemorial. You have, in fact, never left this state for a second.  
This is why Zen calls it the Gateless Gate: on this side of that realization, it looks like you have to do something to enter that state—it looks like you need to pass through a gate. But when you do so, and you turn around and look back, there is no gate whatsoever, and never has been. You have never left this state in the first place, so obviously you can't enter it. The gateless gate! "Every form is Emptiness just as it is," means that all things, including you and me, are always already on the other side of the gateless gate.  
But if that is so, then why even do spiritual practice? Isn't that just another form of the Great Search? Yes, actually, spiritual practice is a form of the Great Search, and as such, it is destined to fail. But that is exactly the point. You and I are already convinced that there are things that we need to do in order to realize Spirit. We feel that there are places that Spirit is not (namely, in me), and we are going to correct this state of affairs. Thus, we are already committed to the Great Search, and so nondual meditation makes use of that fact and engages us in the Great Search in a particular and somewhat sneaky fashion (which Zen calls "selling water by the river").  
William Blake said that "a fool who persists in his folly will become wise." So nondual meditation simply speeds up the folly. If you really think you lack Spirit, then try this folly: try to become Spirit, try to discover Spirit, try to contact Spirit, try to reach Spirit: meditate and meditate and meditate in order to get Spirit!  
But of course, you see, you cannot really do this. You cannot reach Spirit any more than you can reach your feet. You always already are Spirit, you are not going to reach it in any sort of temporal thrashing around. But if this is not obvious, then try it. Nondual meditation is a serious effort to do the impossible, until you become utterly exhausted of the Great Search, sit down completely worn out, and notice your feet.  
It's not that these nondual traditions deny higher states; they don't. They have many, many practices that help individuals reach specific states of postformal consciousness. These include states of transcendental bliss, love, and compassion; of heightened cognition and extrasensory perception; of Deity consciousness and contemplative prayer. But they maintain that those altered states—which have a beginning and an end in time—ultimately have nothing to do with the timeless. The real aim is the stateless, not a perpetual fascination with changes of state. And that stateless condition is the true nature of this and every conceivable state of consciousness, so any state you have will do just fine. Change of state is not the ultimate point; recognizing the Changeless is the point, recognizing primordial Emptiness is the point, recognizing unqualifiable Godhead is the point, recognizing pure Spirit is the point, and if you are breathing and vaguely awake, that state of consciousness will do just fine.  
Nonetheless, traditionally, in order to demonstrate your sincerity, you must complete a good number of preliminary practices, including a mastery of various states of meditative consciousness, summating in a stable post-postconventional adaptation, all of which is well and good. But none of those states of consciousness are held to be final or ultimate or privileged. And changing states is not the goal at all. Rather, it is precisely by entering and leaving these various meditative states that you begin to understand that noneof them constitute enlightenment. All of them have a beginning in time, and thus none of them are the timeless. The point is to realize that change of state is not the point, and that realization can occur in anystate of consciousness whatsoever.

EVER-PRESENT AWARENESS

This primordial recognition of One Taste—not the creation but the recognition of the fact that you and the Kosmos are One Spirit, One Taste, One Gesture—is the great gift of the Nondual traditions. And in simplified form, this recognition goes like this:  
(What follows are various "pointing out" instructions, direct pointers to mind's essential nature or intrinsic Spirit. Traditionally this involves a great deal of intentional repetition. If you read this material in the normal manner, you might find the repetitions tedious and perhaps irritating. If you would like the rest of this particular section to work for you, please read it in a slow and leisurely manner, letting the words and the repetitions sink in. You can also use these sections as material for meditation, using no more than one or two paragraphs—or even one or two sentences—for each session.)  
We begin with the realization that the pure Self or transpersonal Witness is an ever-present consciousness, even when we doubt its existence. You are right now aware of, say, this book, the room, a window, the sky, the clouds.... You can sit back and simply notice that you are aware of all those objects floating by. Clouds float through the sky, thoughts float through the mind, and when you notice them, you are effortlessly aware of them. There is a simple, effortless, spontaneous witnessing of whatever happens to be present.  
In that simple witnessing awareness, you might notice: I am aware of my body, and therefore I am not just my body. I am aware of my mind, and therefore I am not just my mind. I am aware of my self, and therefore I am not just that self. Rather, I seem somehow to be the Witness of my body, my mind, my self.  
This is truly fascinating. I can see my thoughts, so I am not those thoughts. I am aware of bodily sensations, so I am not those sensations. I am aware of my emotions, so I am not merely those emotions. I am somehow the Witness of all of that!  
But what is this Witness itself? Who or What is it that witnesses all of these objects, that watches the clouds float by, and thoughts float by, and objects float by? Who or What is this true Seer, this pure Witness, which is at the very core of what I am?  
That simple witnessing awareness, the traditions maintain, is Spirit itself, is the enlightened mind itself, is Buddha-nature itself, is God itself, in its entirety.
Thus, according to the traditions, getting in touch with Spirit or God or the enlightened mind is not something difficult to achieve. It is your own simple witnessing awareness in exactly this moment. If you see this page, you already have that awareness--all of it—right now.  
A very famous text from Dzogchen or Maha-Ati Buddhism (one of the very greatest of the Nondual traditions) puts it like this: "At times it happens that some meditators say that it is difficult to recognize the nature of the mind"—in Dzogchen, "the nature of the mind" means primordial Purity or radical Emptiness—it means nondual Spirit by whatever name. The point is that this "nature of the mind" is ever-present witnessing awareness, and some meditators, the text says, find this hard to believe. They imagine it is difficult or even impossible to recognize this ever-present awareness, and that they have to work very hard and meditate very long in order to attain this enlightened mind—whereas it is simply their own ever-present witnessing awareness, fully functioning right now.  
The text continues: "Some male or female practitioners believe it to be impossible to recognize the nature of mind. They become depressed with tears streaming down their cheeks. There is no reason at all to become sad. It is not at all impossible to recognize. Rest directly in that which thinks that it is impossible to recognize the nature of the mind, and that is exactly it."  
As for this ever-present witnessing awareness being hard to contact: "There are some meditators who don't let their mind rest in itself [simple present awareness], as they should. Instead they let it watch outwardly or search inwardly. You will neither see nor find [Spirit] by watching outwardly or searching inwardly. There is no reason whatsoever to watch outwardly or search inwardly. Let go directly into this mind that is watching outwardly or searching inwardly, and that is exactly it."  
We are aware of this room; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of the clouds floating by in the sky; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of thoughts floating by in the mind; just that is it, just that awareness is ever-present Spirit. We are aware of pain, turmoil, terror, fear; just that is it.  
In other words, the ultimate reality is not something seen, but rather the ever-present Seer. Things that are seen come and go, are happy or sad, pleasant or painful—but the Seer is none of those things, and it does not come and go. The Witness does not waver, does not wobble, does not enter that stream of time. The Witness is not an object, not a thing seen, but the ever-present Seer of all things, the simple Witness that is the I of Spirit, the center of the cyclone, the opening that is God, the clearing that is pure Emptiness.  
There is never a time that you do not have access to this Witnessing awareness. At every single moment, there is a spontaneous awareness of whatever happens to be present—and that simple, spontaneous, effortless awareness is ever-present Spirit itself. Even if you think you don't see it, that very awareness is it. And thus, the ultimate state of consciousness—intrinsic Spirit itself—is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid.
And just that is the great and guarded secret of the Nondual schools. It does not matter what objects or contents are present; whatever arises is fine. People sometimes have a hard time understanding Spirit because they try to see it as an object of awareness or an object of comprehension. But the ultimate reality is not anything seen, it is the Seer. Spirit is not an object; it is radical, ever-present Subject, and thus it is not something that is going to jump out in front of you like a rock, an image, an idea, a light, a feeling, an insight, a luminous cloud, an intense vision, or a sensation of great bliss. Those are all nice, but they are all objects, which is what Spirit is not.  
Thus, as you rest in the Witness, you won't see anything in particular. The true Seer is nothing that can be seen, so you simply begin by disidentifying with any and all objects:  
I am aware of sensations in my body; those are objects, I am not those. I am aware of thoughts in my mind; those are objects, I am not those. I am aware of my self in this moment, but that is just another object, and I am not that.  
Sights float by in nature, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float by in the body, and I am none of those. I am not an object. I am the pure Witness of all those objects. I am Consciousness as such.  
And so, as you rest in the pure Witness, you won't see anything particular—whatever you see is fine. Rather, as you rest in the radical subject or Witness, as you stop identifying with objects, you will simply begin to notice a sense of vast Freedom. This Freedom is not something you will see; it is something you are. When you are the Witness of thoughts, you are not bound by thoughts. When you are the Witness of feelings, you are not bound by feelings. In place of your contracted self there is simply a vast sense of  Openness and Release. As an object, you are bound; as the Witness, you are Free.  
We will not see this Freedom, we will rest in it. A vast ocean of infinite ease.  
And so we rest in this state of the pure and simple Witness, the true Seer, which is vast Emptiness and pure Freedom, and we allow whatever is seen to arise as it wishes. Spirit is in the Free and Empty Seer, not in the limited, bound, mortal, and finite objects that parade by in the world of time. And so we rest in this vast Emptiness and Freedom, in which all things arise.  
We do not reach or contact this pure Witnessing awareness. It is not possible to contact that which we have never lost. Rather, we rest in this easy, clear, ever-present awareness by simply noticing what is alreadyhappening. We already see the sky. We already hear the birds singing. We already feel the cool breeze. The simple Witness is already present, already functioning, already the case. That is why we do not contact or bring this Witness into being, but simply notice that it is always already present, as the simple and spontaneous awareness of whatever is happening in this moment.  
We also notice that this simple, ever-present Witness is completely effortless. It takes no effort whatsoever to hear sounds, to see sights, to feel the cool breeze: it is already happening, and we easily rest in that effortless witnessing. We do not follow those objects, nor avoid them. Precisely because Spirit is the ever-present Seer, and not any limited thing that is seen, we can allow all seen things to come and go exactly as they please. "The perfect person employs the mind as a mirror," says Chuang Tzu. "It neither grasps nor rejects; it receives, but does not keep." The mirror effortlessly receives its reflections, just as you effortlessly see the sky right now, and just as the Witness effortlessly allows all objects whatsoever to arise. All things come and go in the effortless mirror-mind that is the simple Witness.  
When I rest as the pure and simple Witness, I notice that I am not caught in the world of time. The Witness exists only in the timeless present. Yet again, this is not a state that is difficult to achieve but impossible to avoid. The Witness sees only the timeless present because only the timeless present is actually real. When I think of the past, those past thoughts exist right now, in this present. When I think of the future, those future thoughts exist right now, in this present. Past and future thoughts both arise right now, in simple ever-present awareness.  
And when the past actually occurred, it occurred right now. When the future actually occurs, it will occur right now. There is only right now, there is only this ever-present present: that is all I ever directly know. Thus, the timeless present is not hard to contact but impossible to avoid, and this becomes obvious when I rest as the pure and simple Witness, and watch the past and future float by in simple ever-present awareness.  
That is why when we rest as the ever-present Witness, we are not in time. Resting in simple witnessing awareness, I notice that time floats by in front of me, or through me, like clouds float through the sky. And that is exactly why I can be aware of time; in my simple Presentness, in my I AMness as pure and simple Witness of the Kosmos, I am timeless.  
Thus, as I right now rest in this simple, ever-present Witness, I am face to face with Spirit. I am with God today, and always, in this simple, ever-present, witnessing state. Eckhart said that "God is closer to me than I am to myself," because both God and I are one in the ever-present Witness, which is the nature of intrinsic Spirit itself, which is exactly what I am in the state of my I AMness. I am not this, I am not that; I rest as pure open Spirit. When I am not an object, I am God. (And every I in the entire Kosmos can say that truthfully.)  
I am not entering this state of the ever-present Witness, which is Spirit itself. I cannot enter this state, precisely because it is ever-present. I cannot start Witnessing; I can only notice that this simple Witnessing is already occurring. This state never has a beginning in time precisely because it is indeed ever-present. You can neither run from it nor toward it; you are it, always. This is exactly why Buddhas have never entered this state, and sentient beings have never left it.  
When I rest in the simple, clear, ever-present Witness, I am resting in the great Unborn, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit, I am resting in primordial Emptiness, I am resting in infinite Freedom. I cannot be seen, I have no qualities at all. I am not this, I am not that. I am not an object. I am neither light nor dark; neither large nor small; neither here nor there; I have no color, no location, no space and no time; I am an utter Emptiness, another word for infinite Freedom, unbounded to infinity. I am that opening or clearing in which the entire manifest world arises right now, but I do not arise in it—it arises in me, in this vast Emptiness and Freedom that I am.  
Things that are seen are pleasant or painful, happy or sad, joyous or fearful, healthy or sick—but the Seer of those things is neither happy nor sad, neither joyous nor fearful, neither healthy nor sick, but simply Free. As pure and simple Witness I am free of all objects, free of all subjects, free of all time and free of all space; free of birth and free of death, and free of all things in between. I am simply Free.  
When I rest as the timeless Witness, the Great Search is undone. The Great Search is the enemy of the ever-present Spirit, a brutal lie in the face of a gentle infinity. The Great Search is the search for an ultimate experience, a fabulous vision, a paradise of pleasure, an unendingly good time, a powerful insight—a search for God, a search for Goddess, a search for Spirit—but Spirit is not an object. Spirit cannot be grasped or reached or sought or seen: it is the ever-present Seer. To search for the Seer is to miss the point. To search forever is to miss the point forever. How could you possibly search for that which is right now aware of this page? YOU ARE THAT! You cannot go out looking for that which is the Looker.  
When I am not an object, I am God. When I seek an object, I cease to be God, and that catastrophe can never be corrected by more searching for more objects.  
Rather, I can only rest as the Witness, which is already free of objects, free of time, free of suffering, and free of searching. When I am not an object, I am Spirit. When I rest as the free and formless Witness, I am with God right now, in this timeless and endless moment. I taste infinity and am drenched with fullness, precisely because I no longer seek, but simply rest as what I am.  
Before Abraham was, I am. Before the Big Bang was, I am. After the universe dissolves, I am. In all things great and small, I am. And yet I can never be heard, felt, known, or seen; I AM is the ever-present Seer.  
Precisely because the ultimate reality is not anything seen but rather the Seer, it doesn't matter in the least what is seen in any moment. Whether you see peace or turmoil, whether you see equanimity or agitation, whether you see bliss or terror, whether you see happiness or sadness, matters not at all: it is not those states but the Seer of those states that is already Free.  
Changing states is thus beside the point; acknowledging the ever-present Seer is the point. Even in the midst of the Great Search and even in the worst of my self-contracting ways, I have immediate and direct access to the ever-present Witness. I do not have to try to bring this simple awareness into existence. I do not have to enter this state. It involves no effort at all. I simply notice that there is already an awareness of the sky. I simply notice that there is already an awareness of the clouds. I simply notice that the ever-present Witness is already fully functioning: it is not hard to reach but impossible to avoid. I am always already in the lap of this ever-present awareness, the radical Emptiness in which all manifestation is presently arising.  
When I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I notice that this awareness is not an experience. It is aware of experiences, it is not itself an experience. Experiences come and go. They have a beginning in time, they stay a bit, and they pass. But they all arise in the simple opening or clearing that is the vast expanse of what I am. The clouds float by in this vast expanse, and thoughts float by in this vast expanse, and experiences float by in this vast expanse. They all come, and they all go. But the vast expanse itself, this Free and Empty Seer, this spacious opening or clearing in which all things arise, does not itself come and go, or even move at all.  
Thus, when I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I am no longer caught up in the search for experiences, whether of the flesh or of the mind or of the spirit. Experiences—whether high or low, sacred or profane, joyous or nightmarish—simply come and go like endless waves on the ocean of what I am. As I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I am no longer moved to follow the bliss and the torture of experiential displays. Experiences float across my Original Face like clouds floating across the clear autumn sky, and there is room in me for all.  
When I rest in the pure and simple Witness, I will even begin to notice that the Witness itself is not a separate thing or entity, set apart from what it witnesses. All things arise within the Witness, so much so that the Witness itself disappears into all things.  
And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I notice that there is no inside and no outside. There is no subject and no object. Things and events are still fully present and clearly arising—the clouds float by, the birds still sing, the cool breeze still blows—but there is no separate self recoiling from them. Events simply arise as they are, without the constant and agitated reference to a contracted self or subject. Events arise as they are, and they arise in the great freedom of not being defined by a little I looking at them. They arise with Spirit, as Spirit, in the opening or clearing that I am; they do not arise to be seen and perceptually tortured by an ego.  
In my contracted mode, I am "in here," on this side of my face, looking at the world "out there," on the "objective" side. I exist on this side of my face, and my entire life is an attempt to save face, to save this self-contraction, to save this sensation of grasping and seeking, a sensation that sets me apart from the world out there, a world I will then desire or loathe, move toward or recoil from, grasp or avoid, love or hate. The inside and the outside are in perpetual struggle, all varieties of hope or fear: the drama of saving face.  
We say, "To lose face is to die of embarrassment," and that is deeply true: we do not want to lose face! We do not want to die! We do not want, to cease the sensation of the separate-self! But that primal fear of losing face is actually the root of our deepest agony, because saving face—saving an identity with the bodymind—is the very mechanism of suffering, the very mechanism of tearing the Kosmos into an inside versus an outside, a brutal fracture that I experience as pain.  
But when I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I lose face. Inside and outside completely disappear. It happens just like this:  
As I drop all objects--I am not this, not that--and I rest in the pure and simple Witness, all objects arise easily in my visual field, all objects arise in the space of the Witness. I am simply an opening or clearing in which all things arise. I notice that all things arise in me, arise in this opening or clearing that I am. The clouds are floating by in this vast opening that I am. The sun is shining in this vast opening that I am. The sky exists in this vast opening that I am; the sky is in me. I can taste the sky, it's closer to me than my own skin. The clouds are on the inside of me; I am seeing them from within. When all things arise in me, I am simply all things. The universe is One Taste, and I am That.  
And so, when I rest as the Witness, all things arise in me, so much so that I am all things. There is no subject and object because I do not see the clouds, I am the clouds. There is no subject and object because I do not feel the cool breeze, I am the cool breeze. There is no subject and object because I do not hear the thunder clapping, I am the thunder clapping.  
I am no longer on this side of my face looking at the world out there; I simply am the world. I am not in here. I have lost face—and discovered my Original Face, the Kosmos itself. The bird sings, and I am that. The sun rises, and I am that. The moon shines, and I am that, in simple, ever-present awareness.  
When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, every object is its own subject. Every event "sees itself," as it were, because I am now that event seeing itself. I am not looking at the rainbow; I am the rainbow, which sees itself. I am not staring at the tree; I am the tree, which sees itself. The entire manifest world continues to arise, just as it is, except that all subjects and all objects have disappeared. The mountain is still the mountain, but it is not an object being looked at, and I am not a separate subject staring at it. Both I and the mountain arise in simple, ever-present awareness, and we are both set free in that clearing, we are both liberated in that nondual space, we are both enlightened in the opening that is ever-present awareness. That opening is free of the set-apart violence called subject and object, in here versus out there, self against other, me against the world. I have utterly lost face, and discovered God, in simple ever-present awareness.  
When you are the Witness of all objects, and all objects arise in you, then you stand in utter Freedom, in the vast expanse of all space. In this simple One Taste, the wind does not blow on you, it blows within you. The sun does not shine on you, it radiates from deep within your very being. When it rains, you are weeping. You can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, and swallow the universe whole. Supernovas are born and die all within your heart, and galaxies swirl endlessly where you thought your head was, and it is all as simple as the sound of a robin singing on a crystal clear dawn.  
Every time I recognize or acknowledge the ever-present Witness, I have broken the Great Search and undone the separate self. And that is the ultimate, secret, nondual practice, the practice of no-practice, the practice of simple acknowledgment, the practice of remembrance and recognition, founded timelessly and eternally on the fact that there is only Spirit, a Spirit that is not hard to find but impossible to avoid.  
Spirit is the only thing that has never been absent. It is the only constant in your changing experience. You have known this for a billion years, literally. And you might as well acknowledge it. "If you understand this, then rest in that which understands, and just that is Spirit. If you do not understand this, then rest in that which does not understand, and just that is Spirit." For eternally and eternally and always eternally, there is only Spirit, the Witness of this and every moment, even unto the ends of the world.

THE EYE OF SPIRIT

When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit; I am in fact nothing other than witnessing Spirit itself. I do not become Spirit; I simply recognize the Spirit that I always already am. When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am the Witness of the World. I am the eye of Spirit. I see the world as God sees it. I see the world as the Goddess sees it. I see the world as Spirit sees it: every object an object of Beauty, every thing and event a gesture of the Great Perfection, every process a ripple in the pond of my own eternal Being, so much so that I do not stand apart as a separate witness, but find the witness is one taste with all that arises within it. The entire Kosmos arises in the eye of Spirit, in the I of Spirit, in my own intrinsic awareness, this simple ever-present state, and I am simply that.  
From the ground of simple, ever-present awareness, one's entire bodymind will resurrect. When you rest in primordial awareness, that awareness begins to saturate your being, and from the stream of consciousness a new destiny is resurrected. When the Great Search is undone, and the separate-self sense has been crucified; when the continuity of witnessing has stabilized in your own case; when ever-present awareness is your constant ground—then your entire bodymind will regenerate, resurrect, and reorganize itself around intrinsic Spirit, and you will arise, as from the dead, to a new destiny and a new duty in consciousness.  
You will cease to exist as separate self (with all the damage that does to the bodymind), and you will exist instead as vehicle of Spirit (with the bodymind now free to function in its highest potential, undistorted and untortured by the brutalities of the self-contraction). From the ground of ever-present awareness, you will arise embodying any of the enlightened qualities of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—"one whose being (sattva) is ever-present awareness (bodhi)."  
The Buddhist names are not important; the enlightened qualities they represent are. The point is simply that, once you have stably recognized simple, ever-present awareness-once the Great Search and the self-contraction have been robbed of separative life and returned to God, returned to their ground in ever-present awareness-then you will arise, from the ground of ever-present awareness, and you will embody any of the highest possibilities of that ground. You will be vehicle of the Spirit that you are. That ever-present ground will live through you, as you, in a variety of superordinary forms.  
Perhaps you will arise as Samantabhadra, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast equality consciousness: you will realize that the ever-present awareness that is fully present in you is the same awareness that is fully present in all sentient beings without exception, one and the same, single and only—one heart, one mind, one soul that breathes and beats and pulses through all sentient beings as such—and your very countenance will remind all beings of that simple fact, remind them that there is only Spirit, remind them that nothing is closer to God than anything else, for there is only God, there is only Goddess.  
Perhaps you will arise as Avalokiteshvara, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of gentle compassion. In the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, all sentient beings arise as equal forms of intrinsic Spirit or pure Emptiness, and thus all beings are treated as the sons and daughters of the Spirit that they are. You will have no choice but to live this compassion with a delicate dedication, so that your very smile will warm the hearts of those who suffer, and they will look to you for promise that they, too, can be liberated into the vast expanse of their own primordial awareness, and you will never turn away.  
Perhaps you will arise as Prajnaparamita, the mother of the Buddha whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a vast spaciousness, the womb of the great Unborn, in which the entire Kosmos exists. For deepest truth, it is exactly from the ground of your own simple, clear, ever-present awareness that all beings are born; and it is to the ground of your simple, clear, ever-present awareness that all beings will return. Resting in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you watch the worlds arise, and all the Buddhas arise, and all sentient beings as such arise. And to you they will all return. And you will smile, and receive, in this vast expanse of everlasting wisdom, and it will all begin again, and yet again, and always yet again, in the womb of your ever-present state.  
Perhaps you will arise as Manjushri, whose ever-present awareness, takes the form of luminous intelligence. Although all beings are equally intrinsic Spirit, some beings do not easily acknowledge this ever-present Suchness, and thus discriminating wisdom will brilliantly arise from the ground of equality consciousness. You will instinctively see what is true and what is false, and thus you will bring clarity to everything you touch. And if the self-contraction does not listen to your gentler voice, your ever-present awareness will manifest in its wrathful form, which is said to be none other than the dreaded Yamantaka, Subduer of the Lord of Death.  
And so perhaps you will arise as Yamantaka, fierce protector of ever-present awareness and samurai warrior of intrinsic Spirit. Precisely those items that pretend to block ever-present awareness must be quickly cut through, which is why ever-present awareness arises in its many wrathful forms. You will simply be moved, from the ground of equality consciousness, to expose the false and the shallow and the less-than-ever-present. It is time for the sword, not the smile, but always the sword of discriminating wisdom, which ruthlessly cuts all obstacles in the ground of the all-encompassing.  
Perhaps you will arise as Bhaishajyaguru, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a healing radiance. From the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you will be moved to remind the sick and the sad and those in pain that although the pain is real, it is not what they are. With a simple touch or smile, contracted souls will relax into the infinite vast expanse of intrinsic awareness, and disease will lose all meaning in the radiance of that release. And you will never tire, for ever-present awareness is effortless in its functioning, and so you will constantly remind all beings of who and what they really are, on the other side of fear, in the radical love and unflinching acceptance that is the mirror-mind of ever-present awareness.  
Perhaps you will arise as Maitreya, whose ever-present awareness takes the form of a promise that, even into the endless future, ever-present awareness will still be simply present. From the brilliant clarity of primordial awareness, you will vow to be with all beings, even unto an eternity of futures, because even those futures will arise in simple present awareness, the same present awareness that now sees just exactly this.  
Those are simply a few of the potentials of ever-present awareness. The Buddhist names don't matter; any will do. They are simply a few of the forms of your own resurrection. They are a few of the possibilities that might animate you after the death of the Great Search. They are a few of the ways the world looks to the ever-present eye of Spirit, the ever-present I of Spirit. They are what you see, right now, when you see the world as God sees it, from the groundless ground of simple ever-present awareness.

AND IT IS ALL UNDONE

Perhaps you will arise as any or all of those forms of ever-present awareness. But then, it doesn't really matter. When you rest in the brilliant clarity of ever-present awareness, you are not Buddha or Bodhisattva, you are not this or that, you are not here or there. When you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn, free, of all qualities whatsoever. Aware of color, you are colorless. Aware of time, you are timeless. Aware of form, you are formless. In the vast expanse of primordial Emptiness, you are forever invisible to this world.  
It is simply that, as embodied being, you also arise in the world of form that is your own manifestation. And the intrinsic potentials of the enlightened mind (the intrinsic potentials of your ever-present awareness)—such as equanimity, discriminating wisdom, mirrorlike wisdom, ground consciousness, and all-accomplishing awareness—various of these potentials combine with the native dispositions and particular talents of your own individual bodymind. And thus, when the separate self dies into the vast expanse of its own ever-present awareness, you will arise animated by any or all of those various enlightened potentials. You are then motivated, not by the Great Search, but by the Great Compassion of these potentials, some of which are gentle, some of which are truly wrathful, but all of which are simply the possibilities of your own ever-present state.  
And thus, resting in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, you will arise with the qualities and' virtues of your own highest potentials—perhaps compassion, perhaps discriminating wisdom, perhaps cognitive insight, perhaps healing presence, perhaps wrathful reminder, perhaps artistic accomplishment, perhaps athletic skill, perhaps great educator, or perhaps something utterly simple, maybe being the best flower gardener on the block. (In other words, any of the developmental lines released into their own primordial state.) When the bodymind is released from the brutalities inflicted by the self-contraction, it naturally gravitates to its own highest estate, manifested in the great potentials of the enlightened mind, the great potentials of simple, ever-present awareness.  
Thus, as you rest in simple, ever-present awareness, you are the great Unborn; but as you are born—as you arise from ever-present awareness—you will manifest certain qualities, qualities inherent in intrinsic Spirit, and qualities colored by the dispositions of your own bodymind and its particular talents.  
And whatever the form of your own resurrection, you will arise driven not by the Great Search, but by your own Great Duty, your limitless Dharma, the manifestation of your own highest potentials, and the world will begin to change, because of you. And you will never flinch, and you will never fail in that great Duty, and you will never turn away, because simple, ever-present awareness will be with you now and forever, even unto the ends of the worlds, because now and forever and endlessly forever, there is only Spirit, only intrinsic awareness, only the simple awareness of just this, and nothing more.  
But that entire journey to what is begins at the beginningless beginning: we begin by simply recognizing that which is always already the case. ("If you understand this, then rest in that which understands, and just that is exactly Spirit. If you do not understand this, then rest in that which does not understand, and just that is exactly Spirit.") We allow this recognition of ever-present awareness to arise—gently, randomly, spontaneously, through the day and into the night. This simple, ever-present awareness is not hard to attain but impossible to avoid, and we simply notice that.  
We do this gently, randomly, and spontaneously, through the day and into the night. Soon enough, through all three states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping, this recognition will grow of its own accord and by its own intrinsic power, outshining the obstacles that pretend to hide its nature, until this simple, ever-present awareness announces itself in an unbroken continuity through all changes of state, through all changes of space and time, whereupon space and time lose all meaning whatsoever, exposed for what they are, the shining veils of the radiant Emptiness that you alone now are—and you will swoon into that Beauty, and die into that Truth, and dissolve into that Goodness, and there will be no one left to testify to terror, no one left to take tears seriously, no one left to engineer unease, no one left to deny the Divine, which only alone is, and only alone ever was, and only alone will ever be.  
And somewhere on a cold crystal night the moon will shine on a silently waiting Earth, just to remind those left behind that it is all a game. The lunar light will set dreams afire in their sleeping hearts, and a yearning to awaken will stir in the depths of that restless night, and you will be pulled, yet again, to respond to those most plaintive prayers, and you will find yourself right here, right now, wondering what it all really means—until that flash of recognition runs across your face and it is all undone. You then will arise as the moon itself, and sing those dreams in your very own heart; and you will arise as the Earth itself, and glorify all of its blessed inhabitants; and you will arise as the Sun itself, radiant to infinity and much too obvious to see; and in that One Taste of primordial purity, with no beginning and no end, with no entrance and no exit, with no birth and no death, it all comes radically to be; and the sound of a singing waterfall, somewhere in the distance, is all that is left to tell this tale, late on that crystal cold night, bathed so beautifully in that lunar light, just so, and again, just so.  
When the great Zen master Fa-ch'ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the roof. "It's just this," he said, "and nothing more."  
       Excerpt from The Eye of Spirit, Ken Wilber