Pointers point

Pointers

point

attention

out of the mind

into free fall.

Pointers are a very different use of language from the normal usage.

Pointers point outside of thought, not further into it.

Pointers are words that lead to freedom from words. 

A pointer that I have found to be very helpful is the question:  Where is my attention right now?

The capacity to "see" the mind and notice what it is attending to is an astounding capacity that tends to be underused.  When this question/pointer arises ( "Where is my attention right now?") and I'm honest with myself, the answer is often:  My attention is fixated primarily on the thoughts in my head.  My attention is on thoughts of me-and-my-life and on thoughts of me-and-what-will-happen-to-me. My attention is lost in ruminations about past and future.

Surprisingly, it can be a joy to see this stuckness of attention on the "me".  Watching the mind-shows called "past and future" and "me"  is so much better than being in them. It becomes increasingly obvious that attention, through conditioning and habit, tends to gravitate again and again back to past and future thoughts about this image called "me".  Through this gravitational pull of habit, attention repeatedly becomes lost in the trance of thought.  It's so freeing just to see this dynamic of attention as it occurs!

Pointers break the trance.

They redirect attention.

Another pointer is the question:  What gives rise to the thought 'I am' ?

Resting in this question, "What gives rise to the thought 'I am' ?"... can take awareness into a felt sense of the aliveness that gives rise to the thought 'I am.' 

Both Bob Adamson and Eckhart Tolle, and many others, have said-  let the pointer do its job.  Let the pointer take awareness into the silence.

Nisargadatta had one pointer from his teacher and he spent every waking moment with this pointer for three years, and the shackle of the mind fell off.

Bob Adamson has said that staying with one single pointer is all that is needed to fully realize freedom.  There are many powerful pointers, he gave one example of such a pointer:

What is wrong with this moment

unless you think about it?

This is also the title of Bob's first book.  Every time I ask the question, "What's wrong with right now?" and pause...the mind-bubble pops.  Every time I ask the question, "What's wrong with right now?" and pause...there is the quiet shock of  THIS-ness, where absolutely nothing is wrong. Awareness jumps off the diving board from mind to no-mind.  Awareness leaps from the finger pointing at the moon to the moon itself. Awareness notices what's closer than any word or thought.

Today there is a wealth and explosion of beautiful pointers, like a huge flock of magnificent birds, flying across the internet and in many books.  I am so grateful!  My intention is to go deeply into a small number of pointers, such as the ones mentioned in this post, and to let them clear the mental suffering as it arises.  Whenever any suffering is undone, the burden is less for all.

Thank you to all my friends on the blogosphere who have shared liberating pointers.  The pointer is similar to  a koan or paradox that bursts the boundaries of the mind. 

If you have some favorite pointers, please feel free to share them in a comment.

There are so many great blogs out there, and I will mention one in this context because nearly every post is titled "Pointers." If you haven't had the pleasure of checking out "Radiance of Being" (Rodney Stevens), you may want to click on this link:

http://radianceofbeing.blogspot.com/

~

Awareness doesn't say a thing.

Every day I wake up in the middle of the same old mind-clutter:  should do this, should do that, don't want to do this, don't want to do that (exercise, diet, clean house, give non-stop unconditional love and attention to everyone, save the world, conserve energy, recycle, etc.).

The mental landscape reconstitutes daily.

Fighting it is the trap of becoming more entangled in it.

Let it be.   Let the mind machine do what it does, which is to play out endless internal conflicts.

Yet the magic of awareness is here all the time.   Awareness doesn't say a thing.   It sees, sees, sees.  It is the rays of light that shine away the mind-fog.


~

"How my son ruined my life!"

I came across this You Tube video by a 91 year-old woman who underwent a transformation of heart at age 89. There is also an excellent article on the Huffington Post written by the son that includes a poem written by the mother. Below are links to both, which I have also shared with Greg, Mary, and Jack. Hope you enjoy as we did. We have agreed to say that little word "AND..." each time one of us gets caught up in some mind-made misery.

Link to Huffington Post article about woman at age 89 and 90:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-baraz/frame-it-with-gratitude_b_484722.html



Note: I looked up the word "JewBu" which is said in the video. A JewBu is someone who is raised Jewish and becomes Buddhist, or has leanings toward Buddhism.

Thank you to Alton Slater of Illuminations blogspot, where I first found this video.

Life Itself

"Right now there is no one living a life.  There is only Life itself.  Life breathing.  Life looking.  Life thinking.  Life speaking.  Life sitting..."

Unmani Liza Hyde

http://www.not-knowing.com/writings-articles.htm

~
(Thank you to Sharon Ebert for art work, "Breathing Room.")

Seeing through the veil of the mind

The mind is a wondrous instrument, like a glass to focus the rays of consciousness.  But when the mind is seen not as an instrument but as "self", then confusion and suffering result.  This was brought home to me today as I read  a wonderful book, Only That: the life and teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson, by Kalayani Lawry.

Bob had spent 17 years as an alcoholic, frequently getting into brawls, and, by his own admission,  filled with feelings of resentment and self-pity.  Bob spent time with Nisargadatta in 1976-77.

Here is a passage from the book:

" 'What Nisargadatta was saying and continually pointing out was that...the images, ideas and imaginings that I had about myself weren't the truth.'

"Bob realized the essence of what Nisargadatta was saying...He understood the mind was the problem and in clearly seeing it he thought he'd never get hooked in again.  Then at the end of the session, when he walked out the door and into the street, he immediately got caught up in the mind.  It was different, though, because having seen that the problem was the mind, when he'd seemingly get hooked in, he'd say to himself, 'Hey, wait a minute.  This was seen through the other day; what's this about?'  It would pull him up and he'd have another look and see that it was 'just more of the same old mind crap.'

" 'Those old habit patterns had been there for years and did not immediately stop,' he said. 'When the chatter of self-pity and resentment started up again, there was a remembering that actually there was nothing there and so it wouldn't last.'  Each time Bob saw the falsity, it would lose its intensity and the suffering began to ease off."  (p.41)

Everyday I find there is a continual process of getting lost in mind stories, and then waking up from those mind stories.  Little stories like, "I wish I were somewhere else right now."  That's a kind of story based on an unquestioned assumption that something is lacking in this moment.  All the little grumblings of the mind are an invitation to awareness to see through the thought-stories.  The density of thought is thinned by the energy of awareness.  There's an influx of consciousness as the stories of the mind are seen to be thoughts and not reality.

The mind is a wondrous instrument, but the capacity to see the mind is even more wondrous.

What sees the mind, what is aware of thoughts?  Who knows?  Call it presence, call it higher consciousness, call it Timbuktu...There is a capacity to see through the veil of thought, and to rest in this seeing/being.

Mary, Jack, and I are running out the door to attend an end-of-the-school year party at Chris's school.  Whoever you are, wherever you are, I send you all good will, as we together enjoy seeing through the veil of mind.

The book Only That is available here:
http://www.non-dualitypress.com/
Nisargadatta website is here:
http://www.nisargadatta.net/
Sailor Bob Adamson website is here:
:http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7/index.html

Empty cup

Relaxed attention

is the empty cup

that receives

the infinite good

of This Moment.

~

The pain of mistaken identity

Pain comes from mistaken identity.

Joy comes from true identity (which some might call no-identity or freedom from all identities, but don't get snagged on the imperfection of words).


No one can tell you your true identity.  I looked everywhere for someone to tell me.  That was fun, but became a way to avoid myself.


True identity is not something to be memorized in the head, it is felt freshly in this very instant as life itself.


~

The emptying of fear

Over a week ago I came across some words in a book by Jeff Foster, and I keep coming back to these words again and again.  I'd like to share them with you:


In liberation, everything changes and nothing changes.


Everything changes because it's no longer 'your' life, and it's now seen in absolute clarity.  Everything changes because it all becomes so wonderfully light and transparent.  Everything changes because now life is no longer in opposition to death.  Everything changes because everything you rejected, everything you denied, everything you pushed away is now seen to be nothing but an expression of unconditional love.


And yet, nothing changes.  Chop wood and carry water.  Eat, shit, grow old.  Get cancer.  Scream in pain in the middle of the night.  None of that stops.  This isn't about living in some New Age fantasy world.  This isn't about taking on comforting concepts and surrounding yourself with cotton wool.  This is reality at its most raw.  Nothing can be blocked out any more.  It's the end of control.  It's a free fall into an intimacy with everything.  It's a love affair with what is.  It's an absolute alignment with life.


(An Extraordinary Absence, p. 100)

While the life energy here that calls itself Colleen hasn't opened up into liberation, there's not much worry about that.  It is glimpsed that 'my' life is in no way apart from the one life, that 'my' life is a notion riding along with the one life we all are.  I have never been apart from the whole, even when I imagined I was.  Whether it's seen or not, oneness is the reality.  There is no one and nothing to fear, since I am apart from none of it.  While fear still arises, there is a real decrease in the amount of fear in any given day.  Less fear.  Less fear!  That has become the 'direction' of this life: toward less fear.  Less fear through recognition of the lack of separation.  Life becomes not about accumulating more of anything (there is such abundance in every breath that 'more' becomes an absurd notion) but about a natural shedding of psychological fear.  Shedding the erroneous notions that produce fear.

A powerful tool for releasing fear-producing notions is the meditative inquiry taught by Byron Katie.  Attending Katie's school and workshops has changed my life profoundly. Here is a link to her website:
http://www.thework.com/index.php

Thanks to Jeff Foster for his clear and powerful words. Here is a link to his website:
http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

Babies- a brilliant film

Greg and I loved this film and highly recommend it.  The trailer is worth watching in itself.  Here is a link to the trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vupEpNjCuY
We saw the movie in a theater on the "big screen."  But it is also available to watch on-line for free at this link:
http://www.watchbabies.net/

Releasing long cherished notions

Every day ideas gripped tightly in the mind are gripped less tightly.


~

Yes and no

"There is only complete simplicity: an openness, a consent, to letting happen what will happen, and to letting the misconceptions fall away."

David Carse, Perfect Brilliant Stillness, p. 125

Allowing what is in this moment.  Surrender.  Alignment.  Flow.  Oneness with the movement of the Totality.

Consent.  Welcoming what is.  Making friends with the present moment.  Non-resistance.

Sounds good, but....how many times do I bump into the slightest glitch in my day and instantly exclaim, "No!"  The "no!" to any unpleasant occurrence is interesting to watch.  Muddy shoes on the carpet? In the same instant they're seen the reactive "no!" arises.  A hundred times a day there is the inner bracing against what is, there is the knee-jerk response of "this is unpleasant and I don't like it."

It's amazing to begin to become conscious of the amount of  resistance to what is.  And to see how much stress this resistance to what is creates.

It's as if the light of awareness were sunlight spreading over an inner landscape that had previously been in darkness.

I see the resistance to what is and I don't want to plaster "consent" on top of my feelings of resistance and aversion.  I don't want to pretend to surrender when every fiber of my being shouts "no!".  I want to be honest with myself.  I can see that all the resistance to what is creates feelings of misery.  But the resistance seems natural and automatic, so what alternative is there?  How can I "not resist" what I resist?

Let me look freshly at this whole dynamic of rejecting or accepting what happens.

What happens happens, with or without my consent.  Without my consent, what happens can feel like slamming into a brick wall.  With consent, that very same happening may feel like a joyful and flowing dance.

My consent, my willingness, my acceptance is the one vital, indefinable thing I have to give to this life,  to "what happens."

How does this work when I feel the knee-jerk lack of consent to every unpleasant happening, whether small or large?

Consent does not come from the ego, but from a deeper level of being than the ego.

Is it possible to say "yes" to the "no" of the ego?  In other words, is it possible to accept all the painful non-acceptance that arises to the glitches of an ordinary day?  Who says "yes" to the "no" of the ego?  I do. The deeper me which is the conscious space of being. I actually feel this inner tilt from no to yes, from resistance to acceptance.  There is a sense of stepping outside the thought of "no!" and being the quiet, intelligent awareness that surrounds the thought. There's a sense of the field of conscious awareness enlarging, in the same way that the view of the earth expands when a plane gains altitude.

The conditioned response of "no!" to those muddy shoes is strong and it is allowed to be. Can I be the space for this? (Eckhart Tolle recommends asking this question.)  Can I be the space for conditioned reactivity?  Can I be the space for feelings of irritation?  Can I be the space for this non-spiritual and negative Colleen?  Can I be the space for the shoes on the carpet?  Can I be the space for what arises in this moment, whatever it may be?

After asking the question there is a gap of openness.

Wow! Space is here! For all of it. For everything. Space has always been here.  Now I see it!  Now I am it. Yes, I can be the space for muddy shoes on the carpet, I can be the space for feelings of irritation, I can be the space for beleaguered Colleen, that poor ego trying so hard for years to become enlightened when the ego can never be enlightened.

Whenever there is consent for even the least unpleasant occurrence, there has been a shift from ego-identity to deeper being. There has been a shift from thought to awareness. The ego is incapable of saying "yes" to anything unpleasant; when the ego says "yes" to something unpleasant it is faking it.  I have felt this many times!  My ego says, "yes, those muddy shoes on the carpet are just great" and the ego is lying through its teeth and this is clearly felt as the horrible inner split of inauthenticity.

In authentic consent, there has been a shift from being identified-as-resistance to being identified-as-awareness.  Identified as the space of awareness in which the resistance and everything else occurs.

Consent itself is a bridge from the superficial self to the deeper self. The deeper self is the no-self of aware space or presence. Consent is a bridge from object consciousness to space consciousness (see p. 227 of A New Earth). Consent is a bridge from ego to essence, from knowing to not knowing, from form to formlessness. Consent is the thump of power at the heart of each person. Consent is the inborn vitality that is accessed in any moment we live as a Yes! to life.

~

"There is nothing one has to do to be oneself." Stuart Schwartz

                                                                 Ramana Maharshi

When you click on the link below you will see the words, "There is nothing one has to do to be oneself."  Wait several seconds and a powerful slide show of words and photos will begin.  I have watched several times and I am attending a weekend workshop with Stuart Schwartz in Woodstock New York from Aug 27-29, 2010.  He spent a lot of time with a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi, Robert Adams. Hope you enjoy the slide show as much as I have.
http://www.satsangwithstuart.com/

Seeking

I took Jack to school then came home. I'm lucky I've been able to cut back to working three days a week and today is a free day. These days when I have free time I'm eager to just hang out and pay attention to the fact of being alive.

I'm interested when feelings of restlessness and craving arise. The ancient energies of vague dissatisfaction and boredom have propelled me like a motor through the days of my life. This morning they seem fascinating, and I look at these mind patterns that have been running my life. I love to belt out the words with Mick Jagger, "Can't get no satisfaction!"

The sense of seeking has remained an undercurrent in life even as the object sought has morphed into new forms over time. As a kid it was maybe a toy, as a teenager, romance, as an adult, adventure, meaningful service, fame, enlightenment, whatever. I've even sought for freedom from seeking! Which is just more seeking of course. Different people seek different things, but the energy of seeking is the same.

The seeking is glorified in society as a sign of zest, ambition, drive. To be free of the seeking compulsion would be wimpy, according to some. Without seeking one goal after the next, we'd be rudderless and stagnant, we'd waste our lives, whispers one voice of fear in my ear.

Would I stagnate if I were not in the "seeking" mode? Or is the energy of seeking, which runs me around the same circle of futility again and again, the real stagnation?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with seeking. Seeking is an inevitable and valid aspect of every human life- we all seek to survive, to care for our loved ones, to be happy- and that's great. I want to do the best I can on the level of seeking. I'm just wondering what else there is besides seeking.

 Seeking arises from a sense of lack, a sense of something missing, and in the end it tends to reinforce the sense of lack, the sense of something missing. Seeking leads to brief gratification followed by an intensified sense of deficiency and a renewed compulsion to seek, and so turns the hamster wheel of samsara.

The compulsion to seek need not be fought or resisted, but simply looked at. To fight the compulsion to seek is just more seeking. It only tightens the knot.

So I'm just looking: What is this restless energy of needing to get somewhere? What is this restless of energy of needing to get away from here? What is the restless energy of needing to be somebody? What is this restless energy of needing to get away from being the deficient person I am now? What is this restlessness and agitation that drives so much unnecessary and misery-producing activity (such as, in my case, overeating)? Only awareness can answer these questions, not thinking.

Have you ever glimpsed that the mind-pattern of seeking is like a big decoy that diverts awareness from present being?

To stop seeking even for an instant feels like falling off a cliff edge. I am undefended. I have no agenda to protect me from contact with the rawness and spontaneity of life in this moment. No goal means there is nothing to distract me from the fullness of here. If I'm not seeking I'm not thinking, the mind is quiet, the flame of attention illuminates this moment.

It is possible to step off the seeking merry-go-round for a moment.

 All the energy that had been consumed in seeking is suddenly freed. It's disorienting. The energy that had been on a mission to save the world and change others, etc., is unplugged from the imaginary false self. What's left is nothing out of the ordinary. But when the energy that had been consumed in seeking is suddenly freed to flood the present moment, the voltage of consciousness ratchets up:  The ordinary is revealed to be a stunning field of aliveness.

When the energy pattern called seeking comes back into view today I may get absorbed into it and become the seeker, that's what happens most days and it's fine. But sometimes I am not completely lost in the mind-pattern/identity of seeker/doer.

Then I am the awareness that sees the mind-pattern of seeking but is not trapped in that mind-pattern, even when activities of seeking are taking place. There is a moving through goal-directed activities without losing touch with the plenitude of being in this moment. Concurrent with goal-directed activity there is a sense of completion. This is living in two dimensions, as Eckhart Tolle says. The dimensions of becoming and being are simultaneous and need not be in conflict.

Sometimes there is doing without any sense of being the doer- such a weightless, free feeling! And sometimes there is doing that is encumbered with a heavy sense of "me doing it, me being the doer, me working very hard and feeling very sorry for myself, etc." Both are fine, it's just interesting to notice the shift from imagining myself as the doer, to dropping that imagined sense of being the doer. It's interesting that doing carries on very well even when the notion of personal doer-ship is absent.

Being has nothing to do with seeking. Being is what is here now. In this moment there is a cessation of seeking. There is a vacuum-like openness. Into this openness there is a gentle burst of sheer aliveness. The aliveness that is always here but rarely fully felt.  It's another cosmic joke: not seeking is finding.

~

Hubble looks at deep space

Greg and Jack showed me this awe inspiring and humbling youtube video, which has been seen by more than 2 million people. I've just learned how to post videos, hope this opens your mind as it has mine.

This video made me want to marry Greg all over again

Thanks to Shamash of You Are Awareness blogspot and Facebook group for posting this video
http://www.facebook.com/youareawareness#!/posted.php?id=374846741603&share_id=118901261474766&comments=1#s118901261474766
This video has been viewed by nearly 50 million people.

The fulcrum of attention

     The last few days, like many days, have been rocky.  My husband planted a rose bush a few inches from a brick wall and this triggered some discussion.  My teenage daughter seemed withdrawn and thoughts arose in my mind that caused turmoil. There are hundreds of lay-offs at the institution I work at due to downsizing, and I may lose my job.  You know the drill, from the mundane stressors to occasional intense angst that seems to come out of nowhere and have no cause,  life rolls on.  And beyond the tiny and sometimes larger travails of this individual life, there is the massive suffering and also joys of billions of people and animals on this planet.

      This morning I read a stunning essay on 'Sailor' Bob Adamson's website.  http://members.iinet.net.au/~adamson7/intro.html

      Bob helps me to see that there are basically waves and the space in which those waves occur.  Attention is usually riveted by the waves, but it is possible for attention to shift and become conscious of the space in which the waves occur.

      Waves, or vibrations, or patterns of energy, comprise everything that we are capable of detecting.  Thoughts, feelings, sensations, all physical and mental objects, are basically transient energy waves that appear and subside in the space of awareness.

      The noisy waves of thought and emotion and sensation are a magnet for attention.  Yet there is always the possibility of shifting attention to notice the space in which the waves occur.  Why bother?  Because this space in which everything occurs is the deeper self.  It is the space of present awareness.  Some might call it the no-self...the words don't matter.  The reality that the words point to is what matters.

      I'm not just my story, I'm the silent awareness that knows the story and without which there would be no story.  I'm the silent awareness that knows the story but is not itself a story.

      The story is the dream-like surface of life, and I do the best I can on this level, but remain in touch with what matters most: the deeper dimension of being, which is to say, the space in which the story occurs.

      The space and the waves are no more different than water and ice-cubes.

     Consciousness and the objects of consciousness are in no way separate. Awareness and the arisings in awareness are an indivisible whole.  They cannot be separated.  They form a seamless continuity.  Yet within this whole, it is possible to shift the accent of awareness from the objects to the aware space in which the objects occur.  Form and formlessness are one, as the Heart Sutra says.  We tend to be lost in form, but it is possible to become conscious of formlessness.  This is key.

      The space of now is where the waves called past and future thoughts appear.  It is the intersection of time and eternity, the intersection of the dream and reality, the intersection of ego and essence.  It is the fulcrum where attention can shift from content to space.  This is the shift from powerlessness to power.

     Most of my life I have been primarily aware of  the objects of consciousness, while I have overlooked the presence of consciousness itself.

      I have been lost in content and I have ignored (been ignorant of) the space in which the content occurs.  I have been focused on things and I have discounted the space of  no-thing that makes everything possible.  I have lived in the mind (thought) and been oblivious of the presence of awareness in which thought occurs.

      No-thing, space, awareness, consciousness, being, stillness, silence, emptiness, life, mystery, love, essence, Self, now, presence, freedom, openness, spirit, formlessness- all these words are synonyms that point to the immediacy of awake space that is the medium in which everything exists.  It is the dimension of eternity which is the substratum of all appearances.  It is the dimension of the unborn in which the born exists.

      Attention is shifting from the wave to the space in which the wave occurs.  Noticing is shifting from "me and my life" to the no-me space of being that is my deeper self.

      There is less interest in becoming and more interest in being.

      This shift in attention feels like new eyes are opening in me, quiet eyes that see what is without needing to comment on it.  Quiet eyes that can simultaneously sense forms and the space of emptiness from which all forms emerge.

      The exhausting and delusory effort to improve on the perfection of what is subsides in this moment.

      There is a sense of being one with the unfolding  mystery, of joining in the creative energy of the universe in its ceaseless expression of the good.  This is a radically different way to live than the ego stance of being a special-someone who is going to manipulate things toward correcting a mentally defined deficiency.

      Einstein said that no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.  The level of consciousness called thought  has created the problems in the world today.  The mind has created the problems and only awareness can solve them, for awareness is a higher level of intelligence than thought.

      In my own experience it is the level of awareness and not the level of thought that solves problems like a rose bush planted close to a brick wall,  my relationship with my daughter, and the possibility of job loss.

      It is from this deeper level of consciousness that true solutions can be found for individual and collective problems.   Attention shifts to this level of consciousness easily when space is noticed rather than objects.  It is possible for anyone to shift the fulcrum of attention from thought to awareness.   See Bob's essay for a very clear description of this shift.

      Thank you for being in this space.

~

The man in the chair

    I sat in the audience with about 200 people last week during 12 hours of talks by Eckhart Tolle over a four day period.  I never once felt that Eckhart had the slightest intention to alter me or anyone in the audience in any way, and yet now, as each day goes by, I feel somehow altered in a deep, indefinable way.  What is going on?

    I feel reluctant to even call Eckhart Eckhart.  It seems more accurate to refer to him as the man sitting in the chair.  The man sitting in the chair on the stage was utterly at ease.  He had no desire to entertain the audience.  The person next to me drifted to sleep and began snoring softly.  Several times I felt my eyelids become heavy as I was on the verge of sleep.  To the mind, the man sitting on the stage was quite boring.  Why then, days later, are waves of transformation continuing to move through this space that I am?

    After a long space of silence Eckhart smiled and said, "Sitting on a stage and not knowing what to say could be a nightmare."  We laugh.  Eckhart smiles and sits in silence for a few moments.  "It's only a nightmare if you think you should know what to say."  There is another pause.  "If you enjoy not knowing, if you are comfortable with not knowing, it's actually quite pleasant to sit up here."  He smiles contentedly and there is more silence.  The man on the stage is clearly quite happy.  He is not at all worried about what he should say. The three television cameras pointed at him do not faze him at all.  He is in no hurry and he feels no need to entertain anyone.

    It's strange to be in the presence of this complete lack of anxiety.

    The man in the chair does not need to change anything.  He is comfortable with what is as it is.  That is all.

    A woman in the audience is called on to come to the microphone to ask her question.  She rushes up to the microphone and gushes out effusively, "I love you!"  The man on the stage looks directly at her and says with quiet firmness, "You love yourself."  The woman agrees, and then proceeds to ask her question.  When people admire Eckhart, when people are drawn to him, he realizes they are really attracted to their own reality.  What we crave is direct experience of our own truth or essence.

    The man in the chair on the stage oozes a sense of complete ease and fulfillment.

    Why is this?

    He is completely at one with his deeper being.  From this connection with source there is a perpetual overflow of peace.

    Even now, days later, after going through many of the usual small daily dramas at work and at home, I have this strange sense of being on the verge of remembering something long forgotten.  The man on the stage reminded me that I too am connected to source, it cannot be otherwise.

~

Is death a problem?

     Is death a problem?
     No, death is a natural and sacred occurrence.
     It is the way of all form to vanish.

     Only the mind makes up a story that death is bad.

     Why not question this story?
     I'm sure I will weep and feel intense agony when my loved ones die.  I will likely feel fear and great sadness when I approach my own death, and this is fine.  All of these feelings are fine, and they don't make death a problem.

~