A SOIREE WITH SELF

The ‘I’ can never wake up. The ‘one’ we ‘think’ we are doesn’t even exist except in the fiction created by the mind. When we ‘believe’ there is something better, we remain in the stuckness of the trap called ego. To believe that there is something better, is to deny the Moment. To deny the Moment is to resist ‘What Is’.

The argument with the conditions of ‘What Is’ follows. “But how can I accept these awful and inappropriate conditions. What I have now is oppressive.” The question that is glossed over is, how much have we added to our suffering that we are unable or unwilling to acknowledge?

The ‘real’ conditions may be vile but what have we done in terms of reaction to these temporary conditions? Have we invested a loaded reaction that compounds the drama? Or have we accepted the pain, the ugliness of it all, the pattern of our conditioning and even our subtle facilitation of it all? This does not become an approval process for what is ‘wrong’ but an acknowledgement, without the resistance of pushing away. Seeing it and seeing our attachments to how we ’think’ things should be, is a good starting point for acceptance. Without it, we don’t obtain perspective and we don’t give ’space’ (reduced attachment) to the situation.

The death of identification with the ego is enabled when we shift out of the downward spiral of control/defense/offense reaction that normally corresponds to the misidentification. Getting enough space to see the riot going on inside is necessary to quell the disturbance. Identifying/reacting to the disturbance is an indicator of misplaced identity. Leaving the presumed necessity of attachment to ideas, beliefs, and a thought-based existence, liberates a lot.

The process that takes place is an inside job. It is inside then outside, not the other way around. The ‘revolution’ will not be televised because it is always on the inside. Our physical vehicles are the end expression of the Formless, meaning the development and movement to Self, occurs in consciousness.

When we can unplug our core beliefs and observe their impact on our thinking, our ideas, our feelings, and our reactions as well as our lack of ‘actions’ (from Being), we enable awareness. Unpacking all ‘that’ enables a clarity to our ‘stuckness’ and reveals cause for the lack of movement away from self-inflicted suffering.

Our patterns in reacting and our tried and true conditioning, determines reactionary unconscious thinking and doing that repeats sticky outcomes we find undesirable. But to remove this glue is like quitting smoking cigarettes. We know it’s bad but it gets us off despite all that harm to ourselves.

Stepping outside of whom we ‘think’ we are, means losing the “Seen” (also ‘scene’, if I may pun). The See-er becomes alive when we shift our resources in that direction.

“Every act, where the ego of the doer does not surface, becomes a Divine offering.” SATHYA SAI BABA

Unplugging core beliefs, no matter how seemingly sacred, is not sacrilegious. It is clarity. Besides, even beliefs, are only thoughts that cannot get us past our small self, no matter how fervent we ‘think’ we are.

Shifting resources means shifting identity. Shifting identity means ’seeing’ in a new way through our eyes. When we let go off the obfuscation of ego, the See-er can be seen looking through our eyes as it always has done.

The ‘See-er’ is not the ‘do-er’ and is not overly invested in the ‘Seen’. To ‘see’ the ‘See-er” is not to push resources in the ‘See-er’s’ corner. That would be ego working and doing. The ‘See-er’ is already there right Now. There is nothing to ‘do’. ‘Doing’ first, throws out ‘Being’. ‘Being’ is always the beginning. Effortlessly so.

If we desire to soiree with the Self, ‘pushing’ will not do it. To eliminate ‘pushing’, we do not push the ‘pushing’. That would be unskillful, yes. See it. See the identity being glued to the amorphous ideas of whom we ’think’ we are, every single moment in the chopshop of our controlling mind. Once we see through this pretense we thought was real, the allowance of Reality can pour in more freely as each obstacle is removed.

The subtlety of Awareness awaits. Re-identification with ’that’ Nothingness is effortless because it has never really left. It awaits patiently without any need whatsoever to push.

‘Let’ the conversation begin. Begin the Beguine.

“When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender
It brings back a night of tropical splendor
It brings back a memory ever green

I’m with you once more under the stars
And down by the shore an orchestra’s playing
Even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine

To live it again is past all endeavor
Except when that tune clutches my heart
And there we are swearing to love forever
And promising never, never to part

What moments divine, what rapture serene
Till clouds come along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean.

So don’t let them begin the beguine,
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you
Till you whisper to me once more, Darling, I love you
And we suddenly know what heaven we’re in
When they begin the beguine
When they begin the beguine
When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender
It brings back a night of tropical splendor
It brings back a memory ever green

I’m with you once more under the stars
And down by the shore an orchestra’s playing
Even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine

To live it again is past all endeavor
Except when that tune clutches my heart
And there we are swearing to love forever
And promising never, never to part

What moments divine, what rapture serene
Till clouds come along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean.

So don’t let them begin the beguine,
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you
Till you whisper to me once more, Darling, I love you
And we suddenly know what heaven we’re in
When they begin the beguine
When they begin the beguine” -Lyrics by Cole Porter

This Iz Daddy’O