Life Is A Mirror Of Self
We are all figuring out life best we can, in our messy and imperfect, perfectly human way. Life includes in it the whole spectrum of experience and there's no guidebook or rule book, there's no one way to live life. A lot of the people I meet along the way are looking to others to give them answers. But other people/ gurus/ teachers (even life) are only ever a mirror, a reflection of your own awareness, your own subjective experience of life, pointing you back to Self. That mirror can be crystal clear or that mirror can be partial and muddy. I encourage each and every one of you to look into your own direct experience, use your discernment, listen to what others have to say and mark it against your own internal compass and intuition. Drop all your judgements about what you think you know and take a careful look, take a look prior to your assumptions, observe. See if whatever they (or I) are pointing to stands up to scrutiny, does it point back to Self? But don't take my word for it.... go looking for yourself!
Conversations & Questions: 25/09/18
Q: Is the whole old spiritual paradigm collapsing? The old way of doing things may well be, the very strong hierarchical Guru-lead spiritual organisations as an example. But I feel there will always be the search for connection to, or rather awareness of Self (it's like consciousness forgets itself, just to for the delight and play of remembering itself too!) and those 'big' answer-less answers will be searched for as long as there is suffering in the world. What that search looks like, and if it's so widespread that it's not to be seen as 'special' or different (fringe) anymore... yes I think this world is changing, but then it has done before and it will do again. Q: Is it time to truly realize that there is no need to heal, to transmute, to work it out at all? To "heal" others, to "heal" ourselves? Is the healing subject rather antiquated even though it seems to be such a part of mine and others journeys, to attend workshops, classes, .....to give workshops and sessions... As long as it's taken as a personal "I am healing" or "I am being healed" there will be suffering, because sometimes healing happens and we…
We Are Already Enlightened: Taking It off the Pedestal and Back into Reality
“We are already enlightened”
This statement seems overused in many spiritual circles and is in serious danger of creating concept fatigue. It’s been placed up on the spirituality pedestal as something teachers, gurus and seekers alike say but for many it has become an abstract ideal to aim to understand but never truly a reality to reach. So what use it is other than to dangle a carrot and perpetuate the seemingly endless cycle of seeking?
Don’t be tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet; what is being pointing to is the fact that our inherent or primordial nature is one of open awareness (consciousness). Within this arises the sensory phenomena of experience – thoughts, feelings, sensations (body/world). Included in that are all those beliefs, views, conditioning, embodied memories, traumas and concepts – everything that we experience and call ‘life’. (more…)
Transgressing The Prescribed Spiritual Path
In my life journey thus far I've had to transgress two* major spiritual paths/groups/movements that were both whole-life encompassing - Guru, lifestyle, friends and family, home, job, it felt like a lot could and would be lost. It's was for sure a very difficult thing to navigate but I feel it's important to share and talk about as I see a lot of people dealing with this, particularly in the realm of spiritual organisations. Over time I've actually come to see that it's a totally normal and healthy part of 'spiritual' development (I say spiritual lightly as I actually believe it's not spiritual, it's LIFE). Moving beyond our seemingly secure boundaries of experience, paradigms and conditioning - the known. It's a hugely vulnerable place to be - the unchartered territory of our life, where we let go of the known and step forth into the openness of the unknown. "You're losing your way", "you're falling off the path" these were ideas that were offered up and I became fearful of, that I would 'miss my chance' for enlightenment and make a wrong turn/decision. Choose the wrong door, and therefore closing the other doors forever. Take an irreversible action. Being judged…
Nothing To Hold On To
Can anyone else relate?.... The feeling of nothing to hold on to, of no solid ground, of no control and no stability, can bring terror to the forefront of our experience - particularly when we find ourselves in resistance to this free-fall. And yet when you realise that this free-fall actually brings with it the total freedom of no limits and no boundaries, when you realise that this groundless-ness brings with it the capacity for any and everything to show up - there, there is the moment that you sink into the feeling of pure joy that there is nothing to be fixed, just a new norm to be enjoyed.
An Exploration of Vulnerability
This exploration of life requires great vulnerability, earnestness, openness, radical honest and deep inquiry. It’s a truly destructive process, one that burns everything that you are not with such a fire that not even a whisper of the false is left. But what this can mean is that which we hold so dearly, so tightly, for so long doesn’t fit into this new paradigm that is tenderly cracking open. Our once core beliefs and truths don’t feel like ours any more and so we’re required to drop them, to move on, to take a leap of faith into the unknown.
It’s this continuous release into the unknown where freedom lies. It’s not a position to take but a (more…)
Stop And Smell The Roses
Life is such and unbelievable gift, how often do you stop and smell the roses? Appreciate the little simple ordinary moments? Without reference to the past or thoughts to the future.
We miss the beauty of the moment so easily. Ordinary life has become so throwaway, so undesirable. Instead marked with the next glamorous instagram shot, the next big ‘experience’, the next enviable goal. Next next next. We miss the sheer joy of this extraordinary, but divinely ordinary moment.
Whether that moment be filled with anger, joy, sadness or bliss it doesn’t matter. Just the fact we are alive, that we bear witness to all of this. Oh the magnificence that (more…)
Getting In The Mud
This morning I came across a beautifully articulated post on Facebook by Unmani (one of many I might add). She recently unexpectedly lost her husband and has been sharing openly her journey/processing throughout this difficult time - it's beautiful, raw and brave and I see that this is very much what she is being called to do, for the benefit of herself and for all those who read what she writes. She writes: In yesterday's online open meeting someone asked me a very interesting question that I feel has been coming up for many people around my recent sharing on Facebook. What is true spiritual attainment if a so-called spiritual person can be so human? Usually being or attaining a spiritual state is assumed to mean that you rise above the ordinary human emotions, sensations, thoughts etc. Here I am, as a so-called spiritual teacher, revealing that actually I am very human and have a wide range of human experiences that many people can relate to. If you have put me, or any spiritual teacher, up on any kind of pedestal as being the ideal to aim for, then you will most likely be disappointed by my down-to-earth humanity. I am…
The Elephant in the Room
GETTING PERSONAL There's so much of my spiritual path/story that I haven't yet shared on this blog or social media. Not because I feel the need to hide it, I'm not particularly attached to privacy even, but because I'm still living it each and every moment. The implications not yet seen, the fullness of understanding not yet known. And yet the more I walk this path, this world, the less and less the need to understand, the need for certainty seems to matter to me. These days I find the words are there less and less. The *need* to communicate less and less. But somehow these last few weeks it feels like there's an elephant in the room that I've not been addressing, in the past few months its been somewhat stopping me from publicly writing more than a few snippets here and there. More and more my private writings seem to be addressing this. There's been a shift in my focus, but somehow to talk of it I feel the need to contextualise it with my story a bit more. Two and a half years ago I experienced a life shattering shift (just over a year after the first…
10 Years Ago Today…
10 years ago today Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died. I remember the day clearly, we were in the Dominican Republic on a holiday marking our 1st year wedding anniversary. I turned on the TV (probably the only time I did) to see it on the BBC news tick-a-tape completely out of the blue - “THE BEATLES GURU DIES”. At the time we were living in the epicentre of Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation (TM) moment in the US; Fairfield, Iowa, the place we had called home for the last 2 years, and would go on calling home for the next 7 almost 8 years. But TM was much more to me, it was something that shaped and formed my whole life, my formative years, something that I had inherited, 20 minutes twice a day, as natural to me as brushing my teeth, I never knew life without it. I learnt TM when I was six years old, I had attended the Maharishi School in the UK, I had worked and lived in amongst TMers, both in the UK and the US for most of my life. My mother was a TM teacher from the 70s, almost all of my friends were TMers, I…
Raw Unadulterated Living
I have gone from living the (American) dream... good job, beautiful house, wonderful friends, two beloved cats, more stuff than we could ever want or need, plentiful money, gorgeous and loving husband - I wanted for nothing… and now I have nothing (except the husband of course 😜 I’ve still got him thankfully). We have no home – not even a real base, we move from house sit to house sit every few weeks, new place, not knowing anyone, not knowing the area, living out of a hand luggage suitcase. No money to speak of – most people would be shock at how little we live on right now, no possessions - I literally mean it when I say all we have is a hand luggage suitcase each that fits all our stuff, no friends or people we hang out with (because of the said nomadic lifestyle) – just us two 24/7. Nothing really that we need or have to do, no purpose or meaning, no ambition and drive, no desires. And yet I'm the happiest I’ve ever been. So happy I could cry sometimes with overflowing gratitude and love for life as it is. This lifestyle isn’t for everyone,…
Two Years On…
It’s been almost two years since I had the Shaktipat Transmission that led to a massive awakening and fundamental shift in perspective and I just now feel like I’m getting the hang of this groove - the groove that has no particular way of being in its expression, anything can and does show up in my experience of daily life. However to say that this doesn’t have some general overarching characteristics and themes isn’t to say the whole story. When I had the transmission the immediate aftermath and reaction was good - for about two weeks - joyfully experiencing, pervasive and expansive silence and insights into the nature of existence, the nature of life, were bountiful, it was like an excited child exploring its new world for the first time. Then the first wave of 'detox' from the personal small self came, it was as if that joyful inquisitive experiencing of the world turned bad, the mind ‘attacked’, doubts and questions of whys and hows were abound. My mind was trying to ‘get it’. Every concept, every word, every experience was questioned for its validity in my experience, so much so it became distressing. I remember the best advice that…
Compassion of The Heart
Again and again life has recently been showing up with this question of what is compassion? What is love? Compassion can look like a lot of different things, but for the moment I wanted to talk about compassion for those around you that act in ways that you don’t understand, don’t like and don’t find their behaviour to be acceptable at all – maybe they’re behaving like a complete asshole.
The most compassionate thing you can do is not write them off. Bring them into your heart. Their asshole-ness is covering up a non-acceptance of Self in themselves. When you accept your whole Self, when you accept all that you are and all that you experience, all the ‘world’, then you aren’t rejecting anything. You aren’t creating a sense of separation – all is you. So pull into your heart that someone, see that (more…)
Awakening Is Not Like Baking A Cake
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you have to do XY&Z in order to realise the Self…. as if it's like a cake that you put all the exact ingredients in the bowl in the right order and put it in the oven and ping, you have yourself a perfect cake. Except it doesn’t work like that, that's the mind’s imaginings of what it is. What I’m talking about is prior to the mind, and therefore can’t be grasped by the mind. Anything the mind thinks it knows or understands about this is just the mind imagining what it thinks. It’s not an adding to, it’s not a changing of, its a realisation of that which you cannot NOT be, that which you already are, that which you always were, that which you always will be whether you realise it or not. It’s like waking up from a dream; before… you were in the dream and you didn’t realise that you were dreaming, but you were. Then you wake up and realise it was a dream. It doesn’t change the dream, the dream is still there, playing out at it was, but you realise you…
Looking with Childlike Wonder
We tend put value judgements on what we want any given moment to look like, and so when the present moment doesn’t look like how we want then we seek to change it; we seek for the ‘good’ to stay and the ‘bad’ to go. This futile seeking to change the here and now causes immense suffering because life can look like anything.
And yet in reality good or bad it doesn’t matter, it all comes, it all goes, nothing stays around for very long. NOTHING. If we can sink into the reality of that for a moment we can see the futility of trying to hold on to anything; then the peace and sense of freedom that opens up in its wake is quite glorious. The physical feeling of tension and heaviness is lifted, the space of being right here right now is felt. Nothing to change, nothing to do, nothing to be. (more…)
Personal ‘I’ vs Awareness ‘I’
There’s an assumption that when I say “you are awareness/consciousness” that I’m talking of I-personal/ego/individual I/you. Firstly I want to clarify that when I speak of I/me/you in conjunction with awareness I’m talking of the non-personal ‘I’ that is consciousness. That is awareness. The you (big Self, I-I) that IS awareness-consciousness.
It seems to be common that when someone realizes that who they took themselves to be (the mind-body ‘I’) is untrue, it’s seen that at the heart of experiencing there is nothingness/emptiness/awareness. This is true. But I urge you to not stop there, look/inquire deeper into this recognition.
The Lion Roars
Wow I feel like a lion has been unleashed. This brutal honesty in service of truth that cuts with the precision of a well known blade is quite a surprise to me. This sharp intellect that can spar and duel with words unknown to me, spilling out like nobodies business. There’s still a tendency that’s been around all my life – that when confronted with an assertion by someone, to shy away, to back down without even looking, to assume that they must be right… "who am I after all? I know nothing." But I’m finding this tendency more and more untenable. There’s a nauseating energy, I guess we would call it adrenaline, that surges in me and so this hiding, this backing down from looking to my own experience doesn’t last. It’s like I cannot NOT look to see if what is being said is true – no matter how much the tendency to hide from that looking still shows up. And so I find myself, for the first time in my life, facing full-faced to what life is showing me. Responding to the assertions of others, looking at the fabric of what they are saying. And… well then the…
Living the Obvious
Life has become about living; living not in past regrets or future worries but life lived in this moment... None of the second guessing, the questioning, the “is the right thing?”, or shoulds and should nots. The age old - before awakening, chop-wood-carry-water and after awakening, chop-wood-carry-water is so so true it's laughable. Being a seeker you imagine some different 'state' where everything will be beautiful and blissful – life will be perfect. Well… life is perfect, but not in that way, perfect in that it IS. It’s happening exactly as it is, nothing to do, nothing to change, nothing to be; even in amongst every imaginable phenomenal occurrence. That’s where the miracle of life is to be found, in the very ordinariness of existence. You are, and always have been exactly what you seek. You are the freedom that was/is always here, it’s only a matter of seeing through the trees of ‘personhood’ to see that the ‘person’ that you take yourself to be is such an incredibly limited and narrow view of you. We take ourselves to be the body; the body that has changed, morphed and grown since birth, the body that will die. We take ourselves…
The Attachment of Relationships
The image of relationships and enlightenment don't normally go hand in hand. The stereotyped image of the 'enlightened monk', shunning the material householder life is something that’s been around in spiritual traditions for a long time. So out of this there comes the common misconception that you can't be in a relationship and be successful on the 'spiritual path'. But being in a relationship doesn’t necessarily mean that awakening can’t be there too. The relationship doesn’t have to go, only the attachment to the relationship has to go. Don't get me wrong, the result of that dropped attachment may actually be that the relationship ends. Ultimately that’s what was meant to happen, and all attachments do eventually fall away - what's left is what’s left, maybe the relationship will be there, maybe not. My own relationship has taught me that relationships in themselves aren't some obstructive thing that stops you from realizing your own nature. Having said that, I lived through the often painful dropping of the attachment to my relationship with my husband Martyn. We found ourselves at an impasse after he had a spiritual awakening that in the wake of he felt he could no longer be at the ashram where we were…
Taste the Strawberry
I’m pretty much an open book these days, but I’m not some kind of spiritual google that people can ask any amount of questions and I give them the answers. Someone on twitter recently asked me “…does that mean people have no individual purpose?” A perfectly normal and unassuming question as questions go, but all of these questions, do they need to be answered? If you have the answer will it stop all questions, or will it just satisfy that particular question for a second then another one will fill it’s place? Is there a question that will end all questions? Is there an answer that will end all questions and answers? Will this cycle of questions and answers ever stop? Is there something in you that is nothing to do with questions and answers? (Wow, see how many questions I just asked there!!!) Throw out all questions, throw out all answers. They are just more of the same stuff, empty and meaningless. Keep quiet and see if any questions or answers come in this quietness of being. (more…)
The Humanness of Existence
The utter humanness of existence cradles in it every possible emotion, sensation, feeling & thought. We can’t run from that, we can’t hide from that, we can’t avoid or resist that, and nor should we want to.
It’s our human experiencing that reveals the ever-changing world of perception that we live in – our ‘world’ is constantly being born and reborn in every moment. Embrace this change, embrace it as the play and display of awareness-consciousness (you). This play is set on the stage of pure open, unconditioned and ineffable awareness-consciousness. (more…)
Bliss Beyond the ‘Happiness Bliss’
This is not the bliss of happiness; the fleeting bliss of phenomenal experience, that shows up when nothing is rocking the boat, the bliss that’s dependent on the content of life being wonderful. It’s something deeper, something more fundamental, something ever-present. It’s like an immovable mountain; the very ground you walk on. It’s peaceful beyond the word peaceful. It’s the very fabric of you.
I didn’t notice it much until now; there have been plentiful moments of the kind of happiness bliss that we all know about, both since this realization and throughout my whole life. But this…I’ve had hints of it, I’ve sensed its unceasing presence; it’s completely without words that can describe it. The nearest thing I know to say is to use the word bliss, but it feels far more primordial than that word can grasp.
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You Are Aware
You are the awareness that’s witnessing the comings & goings of life. You have no qualities, no attributes other than you are aware – you’re not an object that can be described. There’s nothing that can show up that can disturb you - for you just ARE. Notice that you're observing even the thought or feeling of an 'I' that wants to identify what's showing up and why it's showing up. In this recognition you realize that anything can show up, nothing can be avoided or gotten rid of, life doesn’t need to ‘look’ a certain way, because you are simply aware. You are that awareness, you have always been awareness, you cannot NOT be awareness, for you are aware. Notice that all that I say is not a prescription for something to do, rather is a description of how it is; you need no instruction or ‘practice’ to be aware. And so you say “but it’s not always like this”, but it is… are you not always here, always aware? Do you-awareness need anything, does the feeling of peace, space, bliss or lack of thoughts need to be there in order for you to be aware? Are you not aware even when sadness or anger…
Nothing More Than This
There’s nothing more than this…. and yet people spend their lives convinced that they’re missing something, not getting something, not where they’re supposed to be, not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Pretty much focused on everything BUT This, what IS, the present-moment experience.
There’s something in the mind that’s compelled to go with the seeking energy for that ‘greener grass’ over yonder. This constant looking/seeking motion that pulls your attention out of the very now is derived from the attachment to the idea of how life ‘should’ look. Ultimately this is where suffering shows up, where there’s a disparity between how life should look, i.e. your expectations, and the reality of what is actually happening. But if for a moment you can set aside this seeking, this outward searching movement to fulfill expectations and desires, and look to your own experience prior to words and descriptions in this very moment – is there anything lacking here? (more…)