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/
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