PHOTOS BY DADDY’O

UNLOCKING THE ILLUSION

“The way we humans act and think of ourselves as separate and in control of things must appear strange to a horse, even predator-like. But horses seem to accommodate our foolish ways, accept us anyway, and even find creative ways to remind us that we’re really part of the herd.” Tara Bennett-Goleman

“What I love about jazz is it’s spontaneous. You’re being honest. You could sing the same songs every night, but as a jazz artist, like Lady Gaga is, we sing different every night. It may be the same repertoire, but each night, because of the atmosphere we’re in and the moment, each moment is different, and each night it feels like it’s a brand new song.” Tony Bennett

Is it real when we dream? Is it real when we live our life? Or is the question really this: Is there any meaning to dreaming and to living?

We often see separateness in our life between our rhetoric and our reality. It does not match. What we ‘think’ we are, is not what we say, do and become.

We sometimes see ourselves more easily when we take a look at the political sphere of life. It is very illusory. Recently, the head of our intelligence agency pompously stated that is is basically ridiculous to believe that the CIA et al, would spy on their monitors. Recent reality has confirmed the gulf between words and reality. And then the beat goes on, like nothing big happened, with the continued affirmation and subsequent support from our President.

That is the big stage. Most of us are on the smaller dais. And our own lives are filled with delusions and illusions that are just as compelling as the above example.

When we are in the thick of this so-called reality we cannot even begin to see the distortion. If our practice is full-on engagement and attachment to the phenomena without regular reference to who we really ‘are’, we are in a real funk.

If we really are transparent to ourselves and our constituents we would not redact our records to hide our lack of integrity. The integrity of thought, word, and deed is the goal of conscientious intelligence agencies and individuals on the perennial path of higher consciousness. Making excuses to ourselves of why we can’t see the truth is only furthering the distortion. There can be no liberation or freedom from this darkness without full-disclosure.

It always has to start with us seeing the ugly, sordid missteps of life. To deny them, is to hide in the darkness of illusion. Revelatory openness allows reformation and recommitment to the cause of integrity and wholeness. Distorting, lying, and hiding are the spiritual equivalents of poison to Self. The conditions will be created to either sustain the lies or sustain the Light.

Ergo, the ability to ‘see’ is fully contingent on the ability to maintain the integrity of not buying into our own lies to ourself. What we have been doing, all along, is trying to protect “ourselves” from harm. The harm is illusory because what we are protecting is not even real, that is, the ‘false self’ we manufactured. If this ‘false self’ dies, nothing but illusion dies. We ’think’ we will die if this ‘false self’ dies, so we maintain an extra-large illusion/delusion.

See that. See the “thinking” that surrounds that. See the long-standing pattern of false belief we have maintained in order to maintain all that distortion.

And, we cannot stop watching ourselves so that we may distinguish ourselves from the separateness that is illusion. The barriers that we put up between ourselves and others are exacerbated by the ego/mind/false self. The separateness is pure illusion. Our belief in the separateness facilitates the usual suspects (ego/mind/false self). The separateness is a potential constant in our moment-to-moment behavior that will penalize our progress in a big way if left unchecked.

Using the concept of “The Energy” and it’s reality, more so, can be an alternative to the “over-thinking” we normally grapple with in our lives.

We tend to think that we are this batch of energy in our bodies and mind that we manufacture, control, and disburse in our daily life. Connecting this way automatically cuts us off from the vast and bottomless source of all energy.

“The Energy” is not owned by Exxon or anyone else in particular. Once we “start’ owning it, we lose it. ‘Owning’ is an unnecessary redundancy that derides the fullness of Being. It is wholly inappropriate. This is why it is referred to as “The Energy”.

When we see our need for control is deleterious to ‘integration’, we can begin to ‘let’ “The Energy” flow through our life unimpeded by ego delights and illusory distractions. The ‘fullness’ of “the Energy’ is enough, always. If we see, open up, and flow that, constantly, we choose that which is already ours. It is there Now, in the Moment.

“The Energy” connects us all to each other wirelessly, kinda like bluetooth. Interference of large self-imposed distancing, is its bane.
Once we “pair up”, we ‘get’ the Energy, effortlessly. When we ‘sit on cushion’ we can practice and ‘let’ that Quietness in our spacious interior.

Whether in a dream called dreaming or ‘reality’, we need to see the illusions first. Illusions carry the distinction of something ‘not right’, like in the Matrix movies, of seeing a repetition like a black cat twice. We know that ‘something’ is missing, something is just ‘not right’.

The meaning is, that what is missing is really there, but not where we are looking. It is hiding in plain sight. Awareness is the key.

See the Silence, Be the Moment, and feel “The Energy”, always.

This Iz Daddy’O