I myself looked for some larger branches and put them on top of the kindling. So it was in life. In order for the more substantial  pieces of wood to catch fire, the kindling must burn first. In order for us to liberate the energy of our strength, our weakness must first have a chance to reveal itself.

~The Witch of Portobello, Paulo Coelho

“I cannot live with myself any longer!”

Have you ever said this to yourself in the privacy of your own lunacy? If you have, perhaps you’ve made yourself miserable enough to want to wake up now and acknowledge that you’ve just made a fundamental discovery! You’ve identified two of you – there is the “I”, and then there is the self with which “I” cannot live. If you assume that this is true, then is it possible that only one of these “I’s” is real and the other is artificial? An interesting thought…

So, why bring this up? Well, what I’d like to do during this three part this ‘Living in the Now’ series is to discuss the difference between our ‘real self’ (you as a part of the Oneness) and our ‘false self’ (our physical body as identification with the ego).

How can we challenge ourselves to step beyond this limited view of ourselves and step into the greater expanse of who we really are? How can we free ourselves from the intense grip of our egos, which is currently controlling our thoughts, our emotions and our mental image of what we project into the world we perceive? How can we step out of our ‘minds’ – these minds to which we surrender so much control? How can we learn to live in the present moment and let go of past baggage and fears of the future?

These sound like impossible tasks to some, but hopefully with greater understanding of how to apply the principle of living in the Now to our lives, we can attain a deeper grasp of how we can transform ourselves into ‘Beings of Now’.

Enlightenment, transformation and living in the present moment can only truly begin when we honestly look at ourselves and ask questions like, “Who am I?”, “Am I listening to my soul?”, “Is there a ‘real’ self and a ‘false’ self? And if I believe that there is, can I make a distinction between the two and believe in myself enough to take the necessary steps for transformation?”

During this period of major realignment on our planet, there are many coined phrases and terms that are flowing as freely as our out-of-control minds. Words like evolution, vibrations, false self, ego, consciousness, superconsciousness, unconscious, inner body, unmanifested, authentic self, soul, spirit – the list goes on and on. It’s easy to get overwhelmed trying to determine the meaning of each word and how it fits into our own interpretation of how things work. But remember, these are just words – words that can both confuse and words that can excite, words that make us feel empowered and words that make us feel unworthy. But remember that the most basic job of words is to help us TRY to communicate.

As an example, there are words whose meaning we don’t question, such as the word ‘dog’. When we hear that word, we can assume that most people immediately envision a furry, friendly, cuddly pet who wants to lick us and be our friend forever. Pretty simple: mental image = definition of the word. But…what about other words a bit more tricky to envision? How about a word like ‘enlightenment’? What immediately comes to mind? Is this a harder picture to conjure up? I would guess if we asked each person reading this what he or she saw in the mind’s eye, each person would have a different mental picture and thus a different explanation of what ‘enlightenment’ means.

Our minds are very important to this process, but we must know how and when to use them and when to step out of our minds! Our intellect is also very important in our human expansion, yet our intellect can also get in the way of transformation. We have to learn how to understand the difference between our mind and our intellect in order to really make significant changes in our lives. The journey is challenging, yet it is tremendously important in our own personal path back to Source.

Can we release our falsely-created self, the ego, behind? Can we truly breathe the lighter air of the spiritual on a regular basis? Through the wisdom of various spiritual teachers, a variety of different lessons and also, with the study of the powerful book of Eckhart Tolle called ‘The Power of Now’, let us bring to light the importance of living in the present so that we can face this existence in a state of true inner peace. Eckhart Tolle shares so beautifully his deep understanding of the power of our own minds. In this book he speaks of ways in which to understand how the mind works, of obstacles that we are confronted with daily that have the power to challenge our ability to stay on the path, of the importance of undersatnding relationships that we share in our lives, and of how to discover, through communion within ourselves as well as with others, how to truly live in the present moment.

As we work through this process, it’s important to define a few terms that we will be discussing as they relate to the material given here. Each person, each religion, each teaching that we have all been exposed to over the years can have a different definition or understanding of a specific term – that is both the beauty and the confusion of trying to use words for spiritual understanding. I by no means am giving the ‘right’ definition of the following terms but I am attempting, within our limited vocabulary, to share one possibility, one variation of an xplanation of some of these important terms so that clarity may have a chance to assist us in the understanding of what it means to live in the Now.

The first word I would like to discuss is the word ‘being’. I am sure there are various definitions of this word but in this context here, the following definition is offered:

BEING: ‘Being’ is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the many forms of life that are subject to birth and death. ‘Being’ is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence.

This means that it is accessible to us now as our own deepest self, our true nature. ‘Being’ is used by many people because it is an open concept – it does not reduce the infinitely invisible to a finite entity since it is difficult to form a mental image of ‘Being’.

Many people identify the word ‘being’ with a physical expression and label it ‘God’, where they can envision a very large man-like character who knows all things, sees all things and judges how we live our lives. Other people think of ‘Being’ as life-force energy or Sprit of pure love and light that vibrates at a very high rate of frequency. No interpretation of ‘Being’ is right or wrong. For every living creature, it is their very presence, and it is immediately accessible to us as the feeling of this presence. It is only a small step from the word ‘Being’ to the experience of Being! How incredible is that!?

Next, what is enlightenment? Simply:

ENLIGHTENMENT: means to regain our awareness of ‘Being’ and to abide by that state of ‘feeling-realization’. It is simply our natural state of ‘felt oneness with Being’ that keeps us in the state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible – something that IS essentially us and yet is much greater than us. It is the discovering of our true nature, beyond name and form and identification with our physical body. The word ‘enlightenment’ conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way!

The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of seperation, from ourself and from the world around us. We then can perceive ourselves, whether consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment, separate from everything else. When this happens, fear arises and conflicts deep within ourselves can become fueled.

The greatest obstacle to experiencing the reality of our connectedness to All There IS is the identification with our mind, which then can cause thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadul afflication, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents us from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. This can help to explain why so many people have difficulty meditating. Their inability to establish stillness within and of having a mind empty of thoughts seems an insurmountable task. After several failed attempts, our minds declare victory and meditation becomes an imposibility. However, if we can learn to understand the power of our minds and begin to have power over them, the results are peace, happiness and stillness within.

He was tired. Smearing a mosquito across his cheek, he clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes. The evening fog was becoming dense, eating away at his ripped clothes and seeping into his bones. Twigs cracked under his thick rubber soles as he dragged himself through the labyrinth of the forest. He was told there would be a clearing soon. He was told he would find his answer in the clearing.

Before nightfall, he arrived at an open field. At the far end of the field was a small cabin. There was a torn piece of soggy cardboard propped up on the porch with the words ‘Help Wanted’ scratched into it with thick red marker. Inside the cabin, there was a round pink man sitting behind a desk that seemed too small for his demeanor. His thick spectacles were propped up on the tip of his nose. He folded his newspaper as the screen door to his office creaked open.

“I would like to work for you in exchange for money that I can use to buy food and shelter,” said the traveler as he approached the man behind the desk.

With an almost imperceptible nod, the man agreed to employ the traveler. “Come back tomorrow morning and I will tell you what work you will do for me.” The traveler agreed to return the next day.

In the morning, the man behind the desk gave the traveler an axe. “Your job will be to cut down trees in the forest around my cabin. You will be paid for each tree you cut down.”

The traveler was very excited. He agreed and promised that each day he would cut down more trees then the day before.

At the end of the first day, the traveler cut down 20 trees. He was very proud of himself. On the second day, the traveler worked twice as hard but only cut down 15 trees. He thought that it must have been because he was still getting into the habit of cutting down trees, so he decided not to be too hard on himself and come back the next day fresh and ready to achieve his original goal.

On the third day, the traveler worked harder then he had on the first two days combined but he only ended up cutting down 12 trees. He was feeling discouraged and frustrated. He went to the cabin and approached the man behind the desk. He told his employer about his experience and asked for advice.

The man behind the desk folded his newspaper, peered at the traveler from above the thick red rim of his glasses and asked, “In all this time that you have been working yourself to the bone trying to cut down more trees each day, have you taken the time to sharpen your axe?”

“No. I didn’t think there was time to waste,” grumbled the traveler.

“There is no time to waste. All we have in the light of the sun and the cool of the breeze are the tools we are given to assist us in our work. Time will not help you cut down a tree. It will not make you stronger, nor will it lift the weight off your shoulders when you are tired. All we have are the tools we are given.”

With that, the man behind the desk unfolded his paper and continued reading.

Reluctantly, the traveler left the cabin and returned to the woods. Before cutting down any more trees, he sharpened his axe. That day, he cut down 23 trees. Each morning, before he began cutting, he checked to make sure his axe was sharp enough for the work he needed it to do, and each day he cut down more trees then the day before.

When I came to the realization – not the understanding but rather the ‘knowing’ – that I am not my body but instead that I AM a limitless, boundless, and timeless SOUL living a human experience, everything else started to make sense…including ‘Nothing Matters’.

‘Nothing Matters’ encompasses the concept of attachment. For example, if you believe that you are nothing without that perfect person, if you believe that you are worthless and would never be able to get along in this world without that perfect man or woman, what you are really saying is that you are attached to the idea of the perfect dependable partner because you do not believe that you are limitless, boundless and self-sufficient, totally powerful in your own right. Through this attachment, you have empowered this idea or this person by giving up your own power. If instead, you apply the concept of nothing matters, than all the fears that lead you to believe that you need someone else to survive disappear. You no longer spend time considering what would happen if you were alone, because the idea of ‘alone’ wouldn’t even exist – you would see it as another cry from your ego to make you afraid.

Our Souls are trapped in a time/space reality just for the benefit of experience. By applying ‘Nothing Matters’, the experience of being here becomes not only bearable but actually peaceful.

Resistance is released.
Passion surfaces.
Purpose is uncovered.

Does purpose matter? That is your choice. The concept of ‘nothing matters’ says only one thing: you make your own choices. Other people’s judgments don’t matter. Your judgments don’t matter. Your choice is made regardless of whether you doubt yourself or not. Nothing matters because this is all an illusion. I am not fat and short. I am so much more encompassing than that. I am not female and blond. My skin color is not me. None of that matters.

“Nothing Matters” opens your EYES to everything around you, not just what you see in front of your nose, or on your schedule for the day. ‘Nothing Matters’ represents a consciousness or an understanding that we are all limitless beings, capable of anything and everything!!

All you have to do is decide what you want to do with the power that is yours. Do you choose to empower manifestations of fear or do you choose another path? There is no right or wrong because in fact…nothing matters! Judgments…nope, they don’t matter!

We are only observers, because the real experiencer, the real thinker is our Soul, going through local space, and past, present, and future time experiences to grow and to evolve. Our body, physical, mental, and emotional, our mind and intelligence are only the tools of the soul to get that experience. I say ‘only’ because to give these things more credit would empower them while taking power away from me.

Let me for a moment get into the topic of free will versus destiny.

It may seem like a contradiction to say that we have free will to create our existences but at the same time, before we came here we decided to go through specific situations that we cannot now choose not to go through. Let’s look at this for a minute. Assuming that this is what actually happened, and that we did in fact agree to experience some predetermined things in this life, it is important to understand to what we actually agreed. We only agreed to take part in the experience. We did not predetermine how we are to experience the experience. In other words:

We always have the choice to decide how we want to respond to experience.

That is the key in determining how our existence unfolds. Empower yourself by owning your choices, taking command of your journey. None of this matters because essentially we will all get to the end result. The question is only how you CHOOSE to get there. If you choose to take a passive role and see yourself as indestructible because the ending is inevitable, that is your choice. Take a moment if you wish and just remember that for each cause, there is an effect. You are free to make your choices, but ignorance of their consequences is not a defense. It is up to you how you choose to live your life.

Only you look through your eyes.
Only you see the world the way you do.

If you choose to see yourself as being harmed, then that will be your reality. On the other hand, if you choose not to see yourself as harmed, your thoughts and perceptions will accommodate this alternate reality for you. Nothing that you experienced matters in the end whether you see yourself as harmed or not. Nothing matters. Even the choice that you make about whether you are hurt or not doesn’t matter because the way you define yourself here is not an all-encompassing definition of who you are.

It is about perception.
It is about experience.
Have fun with life!! Enjoy it!! Life is not a serious thing….it’s freedom if you choose to look at it that way.
Always your choice…

What is attachment?

To be attached to something is to be unable to let go of a belief. To be unable to let go of a belief is to create a limitation for ourselves. A limitation does not allow us to progress. It does not allow us to expand our thoughts, develop our feelings, and essentially, stops our journey of experiencing life. Every time we create an attachment, we take a step back on our journey through life, and every time we return to the ‘comfort’ that we have convinced ourselves the attachment brings, we take yet another step back. To experience life, not just to ‘know’ of life, but to experience life in this physical dimension, we must choose to continually take steps forward. The difficulty is that each new step is a step on new ground. New ground is unexplored unknown. Growth through experience means taking new steps and placing our feet on new ground, regardless of how afraid we have convinced ourselves to be.

Why do we have attachments?

They make us feel artificially safe. We surround ourselves with attachments to create a world where we feel secure, where we see the predictability of what will happen when we turn to our attachment. We convince ourselves that routines are positive things. We are told that routines, or in other words, processes that we continually repeat (or…PATTERNS!), allow us to limit, or one day ‘maybe’ even eliminate the possibility of making a mistake. We are taught practice makes perfect.

So, we attach ourselves to processes that we have dared to try at one point, and after seeing that things worked out, and probably believing that it was luck that made it work out and not us who did it all by ourselves, we continue repeating the process. There is a sense of addiction in the success that we reap from attachments. But before you get too comfortable with this ‘success’, tell me what is wrong with making a mistake in the first place?

A mistake is just as much an experience in life as a success. Who is to say that mistakes aren’t successful? We are here to experience. We are not here to experience the good, and then go home. We are here to experience the all. Are you not perfect? Are you not whole and complete? Are you not a direct manifestation of all the power that exists? Why are you limiting your experiences out of a sense of artificial fear that you have convinced yourself exists in the unknown? What is the unknown? Who is to say that the unknown is bad? What is bad, and what is good in the first place? You owe it to yourself to do Your ALL in this lifetime. If you choose to hide from that which is not familiar, you have stopped living.

There is a different side of this story as well. Sometimes attachments do not bring ‘success’ and pleasure. Sometimes, people grow attached to beliefs that make them miserable. Why would anyone want to be miserable? They may believe that they deserve to be miserable. Attachments that result in suffering are created as a form of self-deprivation, or in other words, as a punishment that we think we deserve.

Why do some people think they deserve to be punished? Because they have stopped loving themselves. They have stopped seeing the beauty and magnificence of the loving being that they are. They have forgotten that the person they are in this life is not a clear and full representation of who they are  and of what they represent. That which they represent is pure love, is pure acceptance – the two are synonymous, but the attached person has forgotten about this. The attached person believes that they are not worthy of their own love. This is when attachments develop.

What are we attached to?

It is easy to say that someone is attached to his mother or her sister. How many people do you know who are attached to money? What seems on the surface as an attachment to an object, to a process, to a physical or intangible thing, is really an attachment to a belief. Beliefs make us feel certain ways. Beliefs create artificial security that motivates an attachment. If you say you are attached to your mother, could it be that you are really attached to the belief that only responsible, good and polite daughters take care of their mothers in old age? Could it be that you have chosen to punish yourself for your successes because your family wasn’t as strong as you and you failed to help them to change and to be stronger, so instead you started punishing yourself for being the strong and limitless person you are?

Could it be that your attachment is a manifestation of a belief of which you convinced yourself decades ago: that being strong and loving of yourself should be punished, and being weak and refusing to take responsibility for your own life should be praised and rewarded? Could it be true that you don’t love yourself enough, that you don’t appreciate the gifts that you chose for yourself to be an independent, free spirit that does not NEED to be attached to any belief? The moment you understand your true potential, the second you begin to love yourself again and to appreciate the radiant spirit that you are, is the instant when you begin to fully experience life again.

I say again because there was a time when you chose not to accept your strengths as weaknesses. There was a beautiful time when you were totally unconditional love and free of judgement. There was a time when you loved yourself enough to know that you could do anything. Go back to the point when you gave up hope and love for yourself. Go back to the painful and wonderful moment when you started punishing yourself and feeling the need to attach. Go back to the person who you are still punishing and free the limiting belief structures that have trapped you for so long. Let that person free and you will feel your lungs fill with fresh air for the first time in years. Release all limits and you will again be able to manifest your dreams into reality.