GUILT: The Death of Intimacy

Of all your fear-induced symptoms (anxiety, depression, anger, etc, etc, etc) guilt is the most deep-seated and often the hardest to penetrate and SEE. As opposed to other undesired emotions, it is entirely interior with little exterior manifestation and, as such, it is very difficult to observe within oneself. In fact, many claim guilt to be the origin of all your negative emotions and many have also claimed that it is NOT an emotion at all, but more endemic and defining to the whole personality or ‘self.’

Guilt is the darkest shadow of all the shadow-zones you seek to eradicate in order to further your evolving consciousness. Therefore, a total all-encompassing ‘innocence’ is seen as the final point of all spiritual pathways. Yet, how many could claim such complete innocence or even claim it for another? Maybe, this is why “sorry, seems to be the hardest word” (Elton John). 

We hurriedly plod through our meaningful, but absurd, “lifestyles,” acutely aware of all the misfortune and suffering that surrounds us, feeling helpless to stem the tide of that suffering. But what can we do? Oh sure, we give to our favorite charities, maybe volunteer our time and even become activists. But, alas, suffering continues unabated and deep within the contours of your mind, beyond all your comforting rationalizations, how can you NOT experience guilt? So how do you minimize the guilt of your helplessness that leads to inaction and indifference? How do you accept that you can only provide so much; that you have only so much to give? What rationale do you think up to assuage your guilt and comfort your ‘self’ as you walk on by the pain of others arm-in-arm with your own suffering?

There is a poignant discomfort to our individual and collective guilt that sinks even deeper than our normal everyday lies, deceptions and self-protective strategies. On the deepest level, guilt pervades your very BEING simply because you realize (but deny) that you are NOT BEING as you were meant to BE. Whereas, you might cognitively extinguish your anger and medicate your depression, guilt is impervious to such methods due to its primordial nature.

It’s as if we were all impostors living in ways NOT reflective of our a deeper WILL. Deep down you recognize that, in some strange sense, you are not ‘real’ and all your  entertaining endeavors and productive projects only magnify this sense of unreality and fraud. This ‘unreality’ is exhibited more in your relationships with others than in any other function you assign your ‘self.’ (Thus, you have “small talk” to aid in remaining in the shallows of deep interpersonal understanding and intimacy, for fear of the 'exposure' that might reveal your guilt).

You can easily blame the world and others in dealing with your anxieties, what depresses you, and even all the things that make you angry. But guilt is completely intrinsic to the belief in an exclusive, autonomous 'self' and often makes you very, very 'bad' in your own eyes, more so than any attempts by others to devalue your ‘self.’ It may take you many years and much excruciatingly painful honesty, to even start the process of facing your guilt and this is primarily due to the layers of guilt that serve as foundation for future guilt-building.

From childhood lies to adult deceptions, you seem unable to shake free of this self-constructed mass of guilt that tends to weigh you down and make progress through life so difficult and often wrought with suffering. Each idea of progress you rejoice in often seems blunted by an inner core of pervasive guilt, in the realization that all your worldly and spiritual ‘successes” may never be enough to assuage your guilt.

With the oppressive weight of guilt bearing down on us all, is it any wonder that free-floating, non-situational depression is becoming the most diagnosed mental illness. But does the treatment only provide minimal comfort from our symptomatic inner suffering, while the disease of guilt only continues to fester, eating away at the core of ‘self,’ thereby impeding access to Deeper Spirit?

INTERPERSONAL GUILT PROJECTION 


In your conflicts, you are always prepared for my indictment because guilt is the one thing you must avoid at all costs, since it only activates your deeper self-guilt. In the name of self-protection, your defenses are sharpened to perfection, as you cut me to pieces before I have the chance to defend my ‘self.’ However, I am acutely aware, often even more than you, of your weaknesses or, more specifically, that for which you claim guilt (those parts of ‘self,’ which you would like to change, deny or are ashamed of).

Therefore, our mutual attacks draw deep emotional blood. Each combative episode, like each puff of the cigarette slowly subtracting from the quantity of our lives,  dissolves away life-giving intimacy and deep understanding, never to return. I find it interesting that people are often more ‘intimate’ with their pets then with the people whom they profess to “love.” This clearly reflects the lack of guilt transference with animals and nature, since no matter how many times Fido soils the carpet, innocence is retained forever to that living ‘being’ that has no ‘self’ except that which we project onto it.

The problem is that guilt is so utterly inherent to egocentricity, that we tend NOT to engage with it, but simply deny, allowing it to fester and grow into the ‘stress’ that saps life and eventually results in all sorts of internal ailments, disorders and diseases. The medical establishment informs us that stress is the number one killer and this is because stress is nothing more than years of impacted guilt for every decision you ever made that impeded your desire for the perfection of that Deeper Spirit within. In every period of your life, what you did to impede evolution (and what you failed to do to consciously evolve) follows and defines your 'self.'

You seem unable to shake free of your guilt or that deep sense of somehow being wholly unworthy of your very ‘existence.’ The body is target to unending layers of guilt since it can never meet your concepts of perfection. You indict your body as easily as you indict the body of others. Too fat, too skinny, tall, short, ugly, deformed, defective, etc, etc, etc. Your demand for the perfection of Source/God (your choice) is erroneously transferred to the body in denial that Deeper Spirit or Infinite Mind is not limited by such form and that the body can never be more than a symbol of imperfection.

You sense an ‘ideal’ of perfection (Plato's "Forms"), and in contrast to that ideal you recognize how radically defective you really are, with all the body’s obscene functions, diseases, disorders and absurd self-constructed purposes and actions. You are virtually incarcerated in your concepts of imperfection and "guilty as charged." No matter how spiritually driven you are to offset such awareness through worldly distractions, deep meditation and continuing your absurd functional busyness, you live with your imperfection through a deep-seated guilt. Guilt rides piggy-back upon the ‘self’ and it seems your only option for shedding this heavy burden, that “old, rugged cross” of sin pressed into your mind, is to project that guilt onto others. In this way, by projecting your guilt onto me, you thereby enhance your innocence. Of course, this means you must deny your undifferentiated unity, oneness and almost absolute sameness with me. The world is a reflection of such collective denial.

There are spiritual "masters" who teach that your guilt is the origin of all your emotional suffering and since you indict your self as guilty, you indict others as "guilty by association." This is an aspect of our unified “oneness,” that does not escape you no matter how hard you judge others in order to reinforce your own innocence. If you are dripping with guilt, since you and I are the same in our humanity, I must be just as guilty. However, you delude yourself into belief that I am not aware of your guilt, since you keep it tucked up in the inner folds of your 'self,' and so even your own awareness of it is rare.

But, I am distinctly aware of your guilt because it is mine, although I too believe my indictment of your many transgressions allows me a facade of innocence. Thus, we can blast away at each other and demand justice for violations of ‘self,’ while claiming innocence through secrecy of mind. This is why the contents of your mind must remain sealed, for if I were to learn the full truth of all your guilt, you believe I could destroy you. We both MUST protect against such exposure and it would seem as though our very life depends upon it. Such is the often precarious 'dance of intimacy,’ which is really nothing but the dance of war.

Guilt is the death of intimacy.

Guilt impedes intimacy and demands your defenses be forever at the ready. I must NOT expose you, else your righteousness would be ineffective in offsetting your guilt. My identifying your guilt means you must face what I SEE and this you cannot allow. So you will crush me and I know you can, as you know I can wound you, and this locks us into the brutality and unpredictability of emotional combat. You may lose a round, but in recognition of the ongoing never-ending war, you will rejoin the battle with ever more destructive conceptual armaments.

Like storm clouds gathering on the horizon, our conceptual combat is barely perceptible except to the most astute outside observer. In fact, we have become so adept and skillful in our psychic battles that, to the uninitiated, your attacks seem almost charitable. But you are conditioned to my subtle attacks and prepared to perpetuate your own, in awareness of my subterfuge. So utterly instantaneous and barely perceptible will be our mutual attacks, that often none but the actual combatants will perceive the parameters of “another battle in our dirty little war” (Springsteen). This does not matter though, because we are always prepared and ready simply because I know your past and you know mine. The past is that aspect of ‘self’ we seek desperately to escape and is the one thing you recognize could destroy me and reduce me to inadequacy and impotency. But, I know your past and in recognition of your attacks on my past, I make note of those aspects of your past ‘self’ that will deeply wound you.

In fact, many teach that our guilt holds us securely in the past, since guilt is always in reference to a past ‘self’ and is never NOW. They say that our little 'guilt trips' are nothing compared to the guilt we experience in our failure to correspond with Deeper Spirit which is always NOW and never THEN. Not to live from that unconditional awareness seems to make us very guilty indeed and we then simply add to it. 

If your declaration of war against me, made secretly to yourself, is based on my past attacks, will you recognize that my attack of you is no different than your emotional assaults on me? Which came first, the chicken or the egg, is an analogy relevant to our circular, "loving" warfare. This is because in your eyes I am the ‘original sin,’ which is my 'loss of grace' and is the origin of your need for self-protection. But, in my eyes, you are the origin of my suffering and make no mistake, you will pay, as "vengeance is mine sayeth the lord."

In fact, I’ve even met those who, after years of conflict and attack, in which each mutually pound blame upon the other, will actually reference perceived attacks that occurred even before the marriage vows were taken. The tally was begun long before the union was officially sanctioned. Was this preparation for battle in order to shake free of guilt, a lesson of childhood? Are we so afraid to look at our guilt that we learn from our parents the most effective means of guilt projection as the only way to achieve innocence and grace?

FORGIVE TO FORGET

There is only one way out of this virtual self-created hell and that is to NOT TO SEE IT, because it does NOT exist. However, as opposed to the world’s repetitive renditions of egocentric guilt and punishment, Deeper Spirit forgives… ONLY to forget. 

This is because, if you are NOT living from Spirit you are essentially NOT living or at the least, mimicking 'life.' Therefore, contrary to your experience of ‘real,’ how can what is NOT living be ‘real'? In such a world of ‘unreality,’ who is victim and who is victimizer? Who is guilty and who innocent? (Perfect non-dualism makes no such distinctions, but we do and punish those who are guilty, including and most especially our own‘self’).

In the ‘real’ world’s value system, your forgiving me my transgressions exalts you above me and clearly constructs a hierarchy of value between us. Although you may grant me reprieve from your judgment, neither you nor I have forgotten my guilt and therefore, it remains to eat at the core of intimacy. Thus, I will not lose sight of what your forgiveness really means. In fact, the moment I lose sight of the fact that YOU are the exalted one who has forgiven ME, you will immediately resume your indictment with all the vengeance at your disposal. In this sense, forgiveness is simply another subtle form of victimization.

Even those who profess to “love” one another, perform this mirage of forgiveness quite often, depending on how many years of living separately-together has transpired. However, if forgiveness does NOT forget, then, although your forgiveness seems authentic, based on what the world teaches, your progression to Deeper Spirit is significantly delayed and obstructed. Deep down, in our moments of clarity, we all realize this fact.

But egocentricity MUST resist even...WHAT IS NOT THERE.

Nevertheless, eventually, guilt is reestablished intrinsically in you and therefore, sooner or later, you will extrinsically indict them once again. Unless my transgression is completely absolved from memory, as yours is absolved from my mind, we cannot go further together and, although we may remain together as bodies, we will die apart in Spirit since the Union with Spirit was never realized.

Spirit is NOT offered alone and cannot be discovered in solitude. This is because only TWO or more, engaged in that pursuit together, can make such a profound discovery.

The Ego is a Surface Dweller Fearful of Depth

Minds are not shared and if they are, it remains surface correspondence and the world communicates little on the surface, which is why lack of understanding causes us to compulsively repeat patterns of war and destruction.

Surface sharing is about the body and this is why sex is considered sacrosanct as the ultimate in sharing (which shares very little, because even abject strangers can share bodies). The ego does not believe any deeper closeness can be achieved.

The ego is unconcerned with the mind, even though the ego-self is nothing more than a belief of the mind. The ego-self even attempts to deny the mind exists by asserting itself as the mind and this is why the mind seems so deeply obsessed with itself by living through a body.

Intimate sharing of the mind can only be cause for fear, since the ego is consistently in doubt of its own existence. Intimate engagement, or the Deep Spirit sharing of 'self,' is threatening to an ego that is consistently preoccupied with self-preservation through concealment. To lose oneself in another is a threat to the belief of self-contained individuality through which the ego defines itself.

As an idea, the ego has no discernible properties and no physical form. Therefore, it must make the body and all the body’s actions profoundly relevant or “sacred.” Two of the most sacred acts the ego idolizes are sex and death, both subordinate the mind by obsessing on bodily existence and the fear of non-existence.

The ego is an idea that must live vicariously through the body and, ironically, because of this it hates the body. Therefore, the egos only real focus is controlling the body and its need for the body to engage in effective actions that increase self-actualization, reinforcing its rather obscure and abstract existence.

But the body can only skim the surface because it is bounded by finite parameters which deteriorate over time (age). Through senility, minds fixated on bodies must follow the body in its deterioration. Only minds can engage in depth because consciousness has no boundaries but what the ego has imposed. The ego-self senses the mind’s lack of limits and works diligently to maintain mental focus on bodily functions, actions and behaviors.As a finite idea, the ego-self can only know boundaries and limits. Yet, it senses the mind’s unbounded potential and rigidly restricts its extension. Hence, you suffer from your own self-imposed rules.

Exploring the mind’s infinite depths demands other minds. Mind cannot explore itself, but it can explore other minds and allow other minds to reveal it to itself. Actually, this mutual engagement was how you came to know your ‘self’ in the first place and how you participated in aiding others in their own self-awareness. But this was only on the surface, as the ego always restricts depth in the name of self-preservation. Allow another too deeply into your ‘self’ and fear will eventually require the need to impose restrictions.

You have yet to embark on this rather miraculous process of discovery. You are still too deeply transfixed on bodies, yours and theirs. But, make no mistake, as you engage in the mutual exploration of mind, the body will recede in awareness and you will suddenly begin to see all bodies differently, since they will lose value in contrast to the mutual extension of minds.

Consciousness is the final frontier. However, it will not be explored through the scientific method, but through the method of Deep Spirit ‘intimacy.’ True intimacy is the sharing of minds and has nothing to do with bodies. In the depth of intimate engagement, bodies tend to recede from view. What is NO longer perceived, simply does NOT exist and may never have existed to begin with…

…and what a surprise that will be!

Artwork by Naoto Hattori - "untitled" 

Making Egos Real (or Jed Mckenna is one big fat ego)

There seems to be a great deal of interest in the “enlightenment” of the mysterious stranger who calls himself “Jed McKenna” but who hides his identity under a pseudonym. This is a follow-up from my previous post on Jed Mckenna, "Populist Gurus and Spiritual Cowboys."

Not only are “you" an ego-self, but your ego-self needs “me” to be one too.

You wanna know how you can tell if you’ve really awakened to truth?

While blissfully dwelling in the belief you have finally transcended the ego-self, take a look outside your eyeballs and if you perceive an ego in me (and everyone else) then...

….you might have experienced a euphoric state of expanded consciousness…

..but NO truth (and ego-self is alive and kickin’).

The ego-self conforms to the experience of lack, scarcity and loss. The ego, or self, is nothing more than an experience of needs, seeking to be fulfilled. It seeks to fulfill its needs, or 'self-actualize,' from what the world offers, but because the world is full of egos, the entire world also subscribes to the basic experience of lack, scarcity and loss.

Therefore, egocentric individuals seeking to self-actualize (literally to believe one is 'actual' or real) in a world of scarcity, lack and loss must compete with other egos to increase, or actualize, their self-construct. Obviously there are levels to this competition. Most won't seek to compete for wealth with Donald Trump, however, we may seek to enhance our wealth in comparison to our neighbor. We certainly don't expect the fame of a Madonna, but we do wish to appear more important than our coworkers. We may not seek to attain the so-called “enlightenment” of a self-proclaimed “enlightened master,” but we may seek to convince those around us that we are consciously and spiritually ‘advanced.’

This is so deeply ingrained in the mind as to be on a subconscious level and the rules of the game are readily apparent for all who wish to see.

We teach our children NOT to achieve the greatest experience of life by deeply and fully engaging with others. Rather, because we love them, we teach that they must subordinate this experience to competitive values of self-actualization through the world's games. We want them to "succeed" IN the world and ON the world's terms. Therefore, we insure our children are well-fitted to compete in order to achieve "happiness." This is what we have inherited and passed onto them and they in turn will pass it onto their children. Is it any wonder we have become fixated on experiences of ‘individual’ enlightenment. The individual paradigm fits like a glove.

Jed Mckenna provides good training for stripping the self of its layers of social conditioning. Unfortunately, his approach fails to transcend our fear of one another, which is the most delusional fear of all and the fear that obstructs the progress of ALL individual seekers of “enlightenment.”

Jed McKenna epitomizes the "Christian Soldier" battling its nemesis the evil ego-self. This paradigm is as old as time itself, but it seems McKenna's "enlightenment" is stuck in time.

The ego-self believes it lives in competition with other egos. The ego is an experience of needs seeking fulfillment and it channels all need fulfillment from what the world offers. Therefore, to transcend the ego and its needs, all other egos must transcend as well. The “outside” merely reflects the “inside” and if you experience an ego IN me, make no mistake, it is IN you.

But note how your ego struggles and rebels against this idea, in wanting “enlightenment” for itself.

Jed Mckenna rages against egos. He sees them everywhere and is literally surrounded by them to the point of suffocation. In his self-proclaimed egoless “enlightened” state, he has disengaged from the egocentric world the rest of us inhabit. He even proclaims California as “ego Mecca” and dislikes the entire state all the more because of this. He is fully engaged in nothing but observing, and complaining about, egocentricity in all its manifestations and this is his rationale for completely disengaging from the illusion (and authoring 3 best sellers).

But why would an egoless mind perceive egos? Does ego transcendence still demand attachment to illusion? Why would a mind that has transcended the ego-self still fear egos?

Each chapter of McKenna’s 3 books describes his revulsion of human egocentricity. From middle class lifestyles to new age ideas, McKenna scoffs, so much so, that he appears misanthropic. Indeed, what McKenna sees is exactly that which he fears most…other people... and he avoids them like the plague (except when he is in complete control of the interaction).

Ironically, McKenna's various approaches are excellent for overcoming the seemingly infinite layers of social conditioning and he may have come quite close to an intrinsic center. Unfortunately, his fear of ‘people’ can only obstruct further progress, causing Jed to remaun stuck. As long as he can control the relationship, he’s quite comfortable. However, without that control, McKenna’s fear picks him up and he runs (like when speaking to a group of Gita devotees, requiring he make a hasty retreat out the nearest exit).

That’s called egocentric self-preservation.

McKenna's “enlightenment” is merely an excuse to disengage from the silly human race, but such disengagement is historically accurate in relation to other so-called “ego-transcended” teachers. McKenna does nothing more than carry on the inherited ideology of the past.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend McKenna’s 3 books as guides toward the shedding of social conditioning. His concept of “Human Adulthood” is admirable and should be used as model for an integrated egoic state. However, the truth seems absent from this process.

Mr. McKenna certainly sees that we are separated egos, but why does he negate relationship as the means of integrating?

Be forewarned, Jed McKenna’s “enlightenment” despises human engagement (he even negates his own capacity to engage in “human relationships”) and teaches the conventional paradigm of the “hero’s journey” of detachment. Unfortunately, the world is weary of individualism and beginning to show the effects of universal alienation and estrangement and not the cooperative shared engagement of an integrated consciousness.

Make no mistake, any awakening to truth that still perceives egos in an a world of egocentricity has awakened to nothing more than individual egocentric grandiosity. 

Back to the drawing board, Jed, you’ve got more work ahead of you.

But that’s okay, because we all do….

(and by the way, Jed, stop hiding under a pseudonym. Come on out and fully and deeply engage your world).


Artwork by Chris Mars - "The Nullifier" 

Bridging the Chasm of Egocentric Alienation

The ego-self fears honesty and this is the chief cause of all your failed relationships. They have failed because of your dishonesty.

However, egoic dishonesty is not necessarily predicated on the ego committing a lie, but simply on the ego omitting itself. As long as thoughts are concealed the ego-self gains a delusion of safety.

Unfortunately, this makes you estranged from those you "love" and, ultimately, the world. Even though basic interaction levels are high, disclosure remains surface and superficial.

The ego, or the identity that you insist is “you,” is ultimately defined by egocentric self-preservation. This egoic survival instinct is not simply concerned with bodily survival, since encounters with physical threats are rare. More often, the egos chief focus is psychological survival, which demands ever greater experiences of self-actualization, as opposed to self-diminishment.

The ego requires actualization of itself against its experience of a world and this actualizing is always in competition with other egos (in fact, ego actualization is little more than simply ‘rising above’ other actualizing egos). The greater actualized an ego is, based on the worlds standards of "success," the greater the egocentric experience of “existing.”

These are the finite games we play every day in the hope of ever greater self-actualization through specific outcomes.

The more actualized the ego-self, the more you feel "alive" (learned behavior based on the world’s standards). “Loving” relationships help egos feel alive and aid in egocentric actualizing. Although the ego has no idea what “love” is (always defined in relative terms) it does have an obscure recognition that “love” is a powerful means of self-actualizing itself. Yet, it must use caution, since it fears this could ultimately destroy it....and it's rightl.

Because the ego does not know what love is (merely senses the presence of something more powerful than itself), egoic love is always based on egocentric standards and conditions, causing conditional egic love to essentially fail to actualize the ego-self. Therefore, egoic “love” is no different then any other means of self-actualization, in that it is predicated on egocentric self-preservation and defines “love” in egocentric terms and conditions.

Initially, when you first met your “beloved” full disclosure was high on the ‘to-do list' and because of the immediate sense of self-actualization experienced by both, you both engaged in a high degree of honesty and self-exposure. You revealed all the thoughts in your head (well, almost all, but no ego ever feels that safe). Your past, your dreams and aspirations, and even your weaknesses, were fully exhibited to the loved one. This degree of honesty creates trust and trust leads to further honesty and disclosure.

Nevertheless, full honesty and complete disclosure is threatening to an ego preoccupied with self-actualization. All it took was one episode of perceived attack from the ‘beloved’ for the ego to begin limiting self-disclosure, thereby, impeding honesty. As a result, thoughts are made private and, gradually, communication becomes superficial and surface oriented.

Because the ego is a survival machine, your beloved easily detected your withholding, no matter how veiled and camouflaged. This precipitated his/her withdrawal in response and gradually over time, (because moments of honesty can result in severe conflict) the ego increasingly begins to perceive honesty as threatening to self-preservation.

Because of this alienation (from lack of honesty) omission becomes the norm and alienation dissolves intimacy and results in increasing estrangement. From this, you are merely a hop, skip and jump away from dissolving all egoic remnants of “love” and the beloved gradually manifests as antagonistic, no longer deserving of honesty or trust. Now, you merely seek to avoid conflict and this requires thoughts remain increasingly more private and so the ego seeks to fortify the mind from honesty.

This is how your most intimate relationships, which once provided the promise of awakening to a love without condition, became a conditional hell on earth. The ego shuts itself off from intimacy for the sake of self-preservation and fear is preserved and estrangement is always the result of fear. The ego demands that thoughts be protected and concealed and, as a result, understanding dissolves into estrangement.

There is only one way to bridge the chasm of alienation and that is through honesty. But it is not the shallow or superficial honesty that renews and reconciles relationships, but the honesty that is absent all fear and allows complete vulnerability in its depth. But first, You must discover why you are protecting and from who...

Withhold the contents of your mind and you obstruct the Deep Understanding that two or more can realize and 'awaken' to. Seek to conceal your mind and you alienate yourself from those you’ve chosen to love and both you and they will suffer.

Against the ego’s protests you must free yourself from this self-imposed alienation and awaken to the one unifying field of the un-conditioned. Deep Spirit communication requires that two minds be prepared to give and accept total honesty. Close off the mind by picking and choosing what can and cannot be communicated and estrangement becomes the norm and you will continue to wonder why all your relationships always seem to fail.

Without total honesty, you have yet to experience your only purpose....


Artwork by Scott G Brooks - "Till Death Do Us Part"

Toxic Being or "Pure Being" is Pure Bullshit.

Here is a typical non-dual quote: “Awakening is the experience of Pure Being.”

Abstractions such as this compel the non-dualer wannabes to consider "Pure Being" as individually attainable and then work to attain it.

“Hey, Joey, look at me! I’m Pure Being, bro!”

The problem is that "Pure Being" is another egoic delusion and, therefore, you will never access it, because it’ll never be “pure.”

So maybe you should accept the toxicity of Being?

If it’s relating to the world that you find ‘toxic,’ and thus seek to ‘purify,’ than count Being out of that equation (oh, it’s still there, you just don't realize it because you consider it 'impure').

Of course, you can conjure up all manner of meditative neurochemical imbalances, get some great whiz-bangs, and call that an experience of “Pure Being.” But then, you can also have an exhilarating bowel movement and call that an experience of Pure Being. What's the difference? (had one just this morning!).

Being is experienced in relationship and it is never “pure,” or free of engagement, although the depth of that engagement may be self-limiting. Pick and choose a "path" to Being and, make no mistake, your engagement with Being may Be significantly curtailed.

Being don’t need no stinkin “spiritual path” to Be.

You certainly experience a separate ‘self,’ but that self is always in relationship to other separate selves. Being knows it is Being through engagement with an experience of a ‘world.’

Hey, maybe that’s why the experience was conjured up in the first place! Ya think?

Your Being is never NOT in relationship. Being does NOT exist free of engagement and the fact that you believe it does, results in your failure to experience it (because you’re off on some mountain top seeking “Pure Being”). Being is always engaged and Being NOT in relationship, is just NOT Being and that’s impossible! (so furgetboutit).

Just because your not all comfy cozy with what you’re Being with, is not the fault of Being. Nope, that’s just ego-self informing you what you should and should not Be with (or ‘do’). But that’s Being too, only you think not and decide to meditate for 20 years to find it (lucky for you that too is Being, only stop complaining about needing to "awaken").

However, you may find that the deeper you engage the ‘world’ you are Being with, the more intense that relationship is experienced and the more Being is accentuated and 'known.' (so come down from your mental mountain top and engage with your experience of a 'world').

The “I AM” is another mirage of an ego-self relating to its own self-construction at the expense of Being.

There is no “I” separate from Being engaged with “them.” You will know your Being through Being with others, all Being in a ‘world.’ However, you’re gonna need to BE with all of it. Exclude parts and ego has taken over and you’ll just complain about it not Being the way you want.

BEING WITH OTHERS IN A 'WORLD'

However, one day your ‘self’ will choose another ‘self’ to deeply engage with and we all feel that pull eventually (although we erroneously attribute it to bodily drives and instincts). This can actually be a quick and easy way of experiencing Being. Unfortunately, the very nature of your ego-self (“I”) will impede and limit the depth of that engagement and you will come close to the opportunity to experience Being (as 'one,' with and through another), only to extinguish it with "your" conditions.

You may never forget the intensity of that experience, and how it caused you to fully and deeply engage WITH your ‘world,’ but you may fail to realize that it was “you” who chose to end it. Nevertheless, when this is finally realized, you can always choose again and this time make the right choice. Eventually the right choice will be made and that's certain, so don't sweat it.

(Artwork by Leo Plaw)

The Reality of IT ALL is that IT's ALL a Lie and that's the Truth, so help me God

“Yet I also sense a great fear of honesty, as if we don't really want to know how bad it is. On one level, this is understandable. Many of us sense something is terribly wrong, but like people who sense they might have cancer, we don't go to the doctor to receive the diagnosis: we react with denial and magical thinking, thus dooming our chances of recovery. I see plentiful evidence that honesty is extremely threatening to the status quo.”
Your ego-self is a liar by nature, but you like it that way because, as Jack Nicholson proclaimed, “You can’t handle the truth!” However, your world is certainly “real” and you count on that always being the case.

Yet, the question remains… is it true?
The above quote is from Charles Hugh Smith's article entitled When Honesty Becomes Threatening (OfTwoMinds) and addresses the dishonesty occurring with the current financial collapse and government’s deceit and misrepresentation. The article highlights the point that we all have a general fear of honesty. However, I would add that this fear is evident not only in the macro-world, but in our tiny personal micro-worlds as well.

If honesty is absent, then trust must also become extinct and this is how civilizations crumble, and individuals die alone.

A labyrinth of incomprehensible complexity allows you to hide your 'self' within the seemingly infinite folds of confusion and misunderstanding.

Come out, come out, wherever you are….
The truth may prove that it’s all very simple, but we’re not ready for the simple truth, because the ego-self is a composite of intricately complex lies and subterfuge. Perfect honesty would dissolve the self-construct, and then who would “you” be?

The fact is the collective ego must defend against honesty, otherwise the truth might be exposed and that'd ruin everything. Deception breeds conflict and conflict makes for war. Honesty dissolves conflict immediately, but this causes vulnerability and egos hate to be vulnerable (that's why they have bumper stickers on their pickups that say "No Fear")

So everything is beautiful and Walmart's prices are unbeatable! (what else do you need?!)

Your ego thrives on hiding from truth and consciousness is a perfect place to hide cause there’s nobody there but "you" (which seems "real" enough, but is it true). Actually, truth is your greatest fear and you will do anything to avoid it (why else would you watch "American Idol" if not to avoid truth?).

You feel cursed by truth, but proclaim it’s needed. You experience a world always in need of consistent truth that, ironically, changes incessantly. Has the world ever NOT conformed to this “truth”? So, what has been your reward for all the “truth” you’ve endured?

What you really desire are more lies. So, keep ‘em coming, yo!
The egoic self-construct does not provide you any consistency whatsoever and therefore, it cannot be trusted. You must always maintain a safe distance from your ‘self’ because, as much as you try, you cannot predict with any degree of accuracy how it will respond to what the next moment brings. As much as you seek to contain and regulate your ego-self, it often seems to break from your grasp and bring you discouragement and disappointment. Better to trust in the lies that everyone else believes, because there's safety in numbers.

You do not trust your "self" to deeply engage with your world and so the world must always be misrepresented because how can you know what you cannot engage? If your ‘world’ is experienced within “you," how can you trust the ‘world’ if you can’t trust yourself? Therefore, you wait for the world, while the world waits for you, and always, both demand truth and circumstances continue to demonstrate this fact by constantly changing.

When will “truth” meet your criteria? When will it bring the consistent happiness you so deeply desire?
In NOT accepting the “self," you define its “truth” and this defines your limits. Your ‘self' is a product of your mind and exists nowhere else IN time or space, but it was constructed to deceive you about time and space.

You have never truly felt welcome in the "me” you call home. Therefore, you have exiled your “self" to a place where growth eventually must end in death and where “happiness” is endlessly sought, but never found. You are a “stranger in a strange world” and this feeling of dissociation attends your every waking moment (even your dreams are not "true").

You will never trust your ‘self,’ simply because you do not trust others. You live in a complicated world of strangeness and this makes you a stranger to 'them' and your ‘self.’ With all your strength, you have resisted honestly asking “who is this beside me,” because when the question is asked, without the slightest doubt of an answer, the answer will be instantaneous and fill you with complete understanding. Until then, you cannot possibly KNOW your ‘self’ and therefore, you will continue to lie to yourself and the world must always reflect that inner experience, since dishonesty ‘within,' breeds deception ‘out there.’

Until then, lies and subterfuge will become even more complex, incomprehensible and common place and soon you won’t know what to believe, because everything is nothing more than a manufactured mirage.

But just think how happy you'll be... believing in nothing.

The Healed Moment of Vertical Time

A healed moment is one in which you have escaped from the concepts of your mind, which imprison others and cause you to suffer because they fail to meet your criteria. The concepts are still there, but they cease to capture you based on what you demand from others and the 'world.'

We could say that in a healed moment the 'world' still exists. However, you no longer experience yourself as its victim because of how you now ‘see’ it and others in it.

When two or more share perfect equality, in a ‘world’ of confusing hierarchies, levels and degrees, time is experienced as vertical and not horizontal.

This does not negate ‘time’ just allows it to be realized from a Deep Spirit perspective. Vertical time takes up no space and everything needed is contained in one moment and experienced in one moment. But it cannot be experienced alone, since that continually reestablishes the incompletion of your autonomous egocentric identity, which continues to require time and space, or horizontal time, for which to achieve its completion.

A healed moment is entirely absent of all conflict, because there is no right or wrong for which to distinguish needs. A perspective that emphasizes lack or deficiency seeks to blame the world for what is lacking in the belief that what is needed must be found in the 'world.' This is always cause for conflict and is why all true 'awakenings' involve the world. No one awakens alone, because "it takes a village" to teach and learn fear.

Therefore, only a collective can awaken to its own unified completion in order to end all fear and conflict for its members. This literally alters the physical landscape because space/time is useless to those who need nothing because they experience NO lack or deficiency.

If you experience a world of lack and deficiency, make no mistake, that experience is entirely 'within' you and is not contingent on an external world and in no way related to anyone but your ‘self.’ However, dissolving that experience must involve another; otherwise, it only serves to reinforce your egoic construct of autonomous fear. The ego will always fear what it experiences as apart from itself and this is why you often experience the world as a very fearful ‘place’ to be.

Examine closely any problem you experience and you will understand the causal interdependency of collective consciousness. All conflict must involve another and every individual problem is intricately interrelated to your experience of a world full of other minds interacting with yours. This is because every problem you experience comes from a lack and the ego will always recognize what it lacks based on what it believes others HAVE.

Did you find the “soul mate” who will finally complete you? Did you seek your completion through another only to find that they could not give you what you lacked, even though you perceived them as having what you needed? Does someone you 'love' reinforce your lack by what they have? Are they withholding from you because they believe you withhold from them? Do you really have what they need?

The ego seeks to claim from others what it lacks in itself and this is often misinterpreted as complementarity. Unfortunately, the ego that fails to access Deep Spirit will fail to realize the futility of such a search and only continue searching more persistently.

You lack nothing. However, the ego-self is nothing more than a belief in lack and everyone who has what you need, also wants what you have, because lack and need is how an ego-self defines “love.”

A healed moment experiences no lack because, in desiring to see another as complete, you immediately experience your own completion. In fully trusting another, you trust yourself. In seeking to experience perfect peace with another, perfect peace becomes yours and an experience of perfect peace is a healed moment of vertical time.

Although a healed moment is an experience of perfect peace through unified equality, the commitment to time returns. Nevertheless, the desire for another breathe of infinity is irresistible and you will seek out others for which to share in it. This results in an increase that exponentially magnifies its effects in the world each and every time it is shared.

The only resistance encountered is by those who still wish to awaken alone and pursue a continuance of that autonomy.

But resistance to truth is a futile endeavor and merely delays time. The non-dualism of unified atonement is an unbreakable chain that grows with the linking of each 'individual' mind and this provides an experience of accelerating time. You cannot know what is rapidly approached, but you feel it is ultimately momentous and profound and this feeling is always available when experiencing from Deep Spirit.

Therefore, since it is only a matter of ‘time,’ why delay?

Your Own Personal Enlightenment

Many teach that you must seek “awakening” for your ‘self’ and then your world will magically bend to join with your awakened mind.

I merely suggest that it will be through your relationships that awakening will be experienced and the world will bend to join the two that have become one, because the world was created from that merger and so were you.

However, this is absolutely absurd to some.

Healing happens in relationship. An enlightened mind is a healed mind and we all agree that the world is sorely in need of healing.

But when you achieve your coveted, and deeply sought after, personal “enlightenment” will you bring along the sick, the weak, the needy and frightened? Will you be grateful to them for your freedom and free them with you? Or, have you left them behind as too burdensome for your personal journey?

Have you relinquished your burden, and thus your responsibility, in the bliss of non-duality and personal “awakening"? Have they ceased to 'exist'?

If the truth you discover is for your mind only, how can that be true? If the starving masses of Ethiopia do not get ‘it,’ how can you have ‘it’ without them? Does that make truth, denied to the many but granted to the few, still an illusion?

Do they receive gratitude for your awakening? Do you give them rest for which to lean upon for a while? Are they grateful for YOUR enlightened mind? Will you “teach” them how to become enlightened... just like you? Is teaching the only task the “enlightened” can perform? Why do they NOT perform miracles? When will they raise the dead?

Do you really believe that you can awaken without the rest? Who could have taught you this?

Ancient history is confounded by billions of egos all claiming a different interpretation of “truth.” This merely proves it is NOT known. Because of this, we have much “spirituality,” but are absent of spirit.

Is your neighbor awakened? What about your wife or husband? Your children? How can you be and see them as NOT? But, if they ARE, then who do you teach? It’s a swirling vortex of hypocrisy with the claim that if you are not “awakened” then you do not understand.

Like the rich man who plays golf to prove he’s rich, the religious “awaken” to prove themselves “spiritual” and they will teach you this much (and, make no mistake, it's all "religion"). The hypocrisy is the same and, as the rich man ignores poverty and suffering in his right to personal wealth, the spiritual ignore it in the right to personal enlightenment.

If “non-duality” is your ‘church,’ can anyone become a member? Is spiritual enlightenment exclusive to a select few? What is the cost of membership? Whom do you exclude?

If the world is NOT awake, you will most likely not awaken without it since, as the priest’s of “Oneness” rightfully claim, you are the world and the world is you.

However, if by chance you interpret yourself as having experienced an “awakening” of sorts (and there seem to be many sorts of awakenings) it’s best to just give it away. Because, until they have it also, “you” have nothing of any value. If you refuse to part with it, and clutch to it religiously, then realize that you can’t take it with you because it is of no value and what is of no value must surely be left behind.

Ahh…but I’m sure your personal awakening is very valuable to you. Because it's the truth, right?!


Your own personal jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares

Your own personal jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there

Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone

Lift up the receiver
Ill make you a believer

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver

Reach out and touch faith
Reach out and touch faith

Your own personal jesus...  
(Depeche Mode)

The Crypt-Keepers of "Ancient Wisdom"

The paradigm of individual enlightenment clearly supersedes all other paradigms of discovery. In fact, most spiritual ideologies prescribe solitary spiritual pursuits as superior to collectively engaging to discover truth.

But then, how else would the 'proprietors' of truth maintain their ownership? The "Crypt-Keepers of Ancient Wisdom" hold the key to your salvation and only they can unlock the door.

Yet, why would truth be available to certain specific individuals and not others? (that's called 'relativity'). The Crypt-Keepers of Ancient Wisdom tend to advocate that you must first be 'awakened' to truth "within" and then somehow this is miraculously transferred, or superimposed, to others and the world.

Of course, "you" have to get enlightened first, before you can spread that "enlightenment" around to all the ignorant, and only the Crypt-Keepers can teach you how.

Until then, well, everything just has to suck for awhile longer because you're still a miserable, ignorant, sinner waiting for your big break. In the meantime, just keep doing your practices and studying your egoically preferred ideology (as taught by the Crypt-Keepers) and before ya know it -POOF- your enlightened!

Try to go against this current and resistance is fierce. You'll go up against the modern day "Crypt-Keepers" of the ancient axial-age teachings that, sadly, have had little influence on a postmodern world careening toward mutual destruction.

The Crypt-Keepers peddle postmodern egoic truth-potions that they claim are direct from the "Crypt of Ancient Wisdom" and will lead to your salvation or "awakening."

Psychotherapy and psychopharmacology have demonstrated effectiveness in negotiating a difficult world. Ingeniously, the Crypt-Keepers dress up this modern psychology in the disguise of "ancient wisdom," thereby making everyday psychobabble, 'sacred.'

However, my chief issue is with the spiritual enlightenment or "awakening" programs that imply, or flat out claim, that you must completely transcend your ego-self and only then, can you suffer no more. Yet, you must endure austere sacrifices and struggle your entire life in order to receive this reward. This is false advertising and, in fact, is not what the world needs (as illustrated by the current state of affairs) and therefore, most likely it's NOT what you need (although they may have successfully convinced you otherwise).

What we need to experience is the love that comes with the extension of Being and is the only way Being is realized. However, you will need to join with 'others' in order to facilitate that experience, so look to the one standing next to you. Yet, for the Crypt-Keepers, others are not as significant as the "ancient wisdom," which actually promotes disengagement from your "illusionary" world and those that inhabit it. Therefore, you must join only with the Crypt-Keepers if you wish to be saved.

Unfortunately, many egos do not discover the truth of Being until their final moments when "a hand to hold seems more important to most than any other comfort or wisdom" (great quote from an anonymous commenter)

Relationship 101

The micro is the macro and everything that happens in your little corner of the universe mirrors the same happenings in the global, macro-world. The same cruelty and neglect, in your tiny relationship enclaves of "love," is also available for witness in the interactions between whole populations and nation-states, just as the same random acts of kindness in your relationships can be seen in the larger world (when you look real hard).

Seek to engage your corner of the world in the deep level of mutual understanding that inevitably annihilates your fear of strangers. The sad case of postmodern man is that even those who profess abiding love for one another are essentially abject strangers in denial of this pervasive epidemic of alienation. The ego fears engaged intimacy because, in its own self-absorption, it must deny that the "master teacher" has been there all along. Yet, if that's true, then it must realize it has wasted a great deal of time (a couple of centuries) and realizing that would really suck, big time.

The ego demands truth be sought, and not created, and the Crypt-Keepers are here to cater to that desire. But the unspoken rule, that they will not utter, is that you must forever seek, but never find and such is the state of our shared world.

But who wants to realize that? Good grief, they don't even teach relationship 101 in grade school. How do we expect children to become caring adults with the capacity to nurture the planet and each other, when all they're taught is the same self-absorption and selfishness we received? "Study hard, so you can get a good job, kids. Just in case the world still exists when you graduate."

We can't even save our own personal "love-relationships," how do we expect to love the world enough to save it?

We fear the depths of deep understanding that intimacy naturally engages. We cannot lovingly engage the world until we do so with each other, simply because there is no separation.

Thus, we remain surface strangers forever giving 'lip-service' to "oneness," while essentially ignoring and neglecting one another to go off on our separate "hero's journey" in solitary seeking of spiritual enlightenment ("hey, I got mine, how 'bout you?!"). We fear the depth that intimate engagement would demand and so we become victim to small-talk and egoic social norms which perpetuates our apathy and boredom as surface strangers. To escape our mundane existence we desperately dive head first into austere spiritual ideologies and practices, seeking freedom from our self-created, shallow hell.

This only serves to further remove us from the awakening that is shared.

If this continues, then I fear the planet may be doomed because we are forever doomed to repeat the past. Our house is burning simply because you can't possibly feel comfortable in your home, if you fear the ones you live with because they're all strangers. Self-preservation is top priority.

Best to just let it burn and keep seeking for the guru who will save your 'self.'

The general consensus holds that such intimacy, or engaging in deep mutual understanding, is simply too exhausting. Yet, what exhausts us is our lack of intimacy and the mind-numbing despair of our surface existence. Why do we fail to recognize that such depth between two or more is the ground of awakening which can liberate us from our self-imposed strangeness and mutual alienation?

It is not a deeper seeking within the 'self' that need occur, but deeper seeking with each other.
That was both the Christ and Buddha message, which has been completely co-opted by the individual egoic ideological, "ancient" agenda and the Crypt-Keepers who insist we conform.

"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are altogether." (Beatles)

Truth is not granted to individuals based on meeting the expectations of the wise, old, "Crypt-Keepers of Ancient Wisdom" so that they may transmit it to you. Truth is created and thus, discovered, by the many in realizing their need to unify in that creative discovery. In that sense, truth does not yet exist until we create it together by deeply engaging to do so.

Ego Goals vs Deep Spirit

Why would you think that you can know your ‘self,’ or even parts of the self, simply by self-observation or the use of introspective or meditative techniques? The observer is biased and will tend to completely miss, or even deny, aspects that cause discomfort.

However, others see what you cannot because it is through others that you have defined your ‘self.’ You do not define and give meaning to your 'self' alone or in isolation, but through engagement with a world of others and 'they' are your world.

In fact, the deeper our engagement with that 'world,' the more 'defined' we become.

The ego-self is entirely other-referencing and is always in the process of defining itself, or 'becoming,' through others and the world. This is particularly true of the relationships that we choose for which to deeply engage with another, because it is through these 'intimate partnerships' that we define our deepest layers of the 'self.' We engage with others to intimately share our 'self' so that the 'self' can evolve.

Yet, why is it that we so frequently fail to create and maintain intimacy in our most significant relationships? Why is it that so many relationships fail to engage the depth between them and either remain hopelessly stuck on the surface or disengage entirely?

Individualized ego goals often impede Deep Spirit intimacy, since they reinforce separation and division resulting in chronic conflict from frequent interpersonal competition. The ego idealizes the love of another, not for how it can reinforce the others self-development (your partner's), but for what it expects others will do to reinforce its own self-construct (you). The ego is a self-absorbed belief 'package' whose sole function is self-preservation through pressing itself into and against a world of conflicting opposites. It perceives others as naturally opposing its projects and goals. Nevertheless, the ego believes that completion of its goals and projects will eventually provide fulfillment by firmly asserting it into its experience of a 'world.' Therefore, it picks and chooses significant 'others’ to join with in carrying out its plans of self-actualization. These are the 'loving' relationships we attribute the most significance and expect will add to our individual self-fulfillment.

Yet, these significant relationships may be stifled and paralyzed by chronic conflict, simply because the embodied egos we choose to join with (in 'love') have self-actualizing goals of their own to give meaning and define their own individual self-defining. They expect you will comply with their plans, while you expect compliance with your own.

Chronic conflict with 'loved ones' is often the most severe, because your ego-self expects to negotiate a world of other egos it has NOT chosen to "love", all perceived as strangers, yet each applying meaning to their lives and often in opposition to you. However, in contrast, you expect that those you have chosen to join with 'in-love' will support your individual egoic self-actualization and when that is not forthcoming the ego experiences betrayal.

Although the ego expects opposition from the world, it will not easily tolerate opposition from those it chooses to collude with in building and actualizing itself.

The ego-self wants to experience the fullness of its existence based on what the world teaches you must have in order to be "happy." Conforming to the world is how the ego-self realizes its existence as significant and not merely a made up fantasy of the mind's imagination. It must build and develop itself for fear of being swallowed up and nullified by the world it experiences as outside and separate from it. Therefore, the ego adopts projects and goals that the world teaches will result in an actualized 'self' and, as the world teaches, an actualized self is a "happy" self.

Intimate relationships are considered important, but subsidiary and subordinate to individual egoic actualization.

The problem is that most of the projects we engage in to achieve this ever allusive "happiness" are projects that promote egoic self-absorption and reduce the importance of relationships as primary means to self-actualization. Intimate relationships are downsized and minimized as the means of self-realization.

We can collude with another in achieving ego goals, however, they too seek egoic self-actualization in agreement with the world's definition of a self-actualized 'individual.' These egoic pursuits, although not detrimental from an individual standpoint, are the antithesis of Deep Spirit intimacy in the creation and discovery of the love that joins individuals. When ego goals of self actualization dominate the mind, relationships must suffer and often may expire simply for lack of attention.

Egoic self-actualization that supersedes or takes priority over Deep Spirit intimacy, creates tension and conflict between loved ones who feel betrayed by one another. The 'chosen one' was not supposed to become a stranger in opposition but, instead, an ally in your self actualization and egoic search for "happiness." But the allegiance was lost and now, instead of sharing your 'self' in the desire to self-actualize through love, you withhold your 'self' and gradually begin to hold your partner in contempt as they also withhold from you.

Eventually the ego will experience increased anxiety in relation to the chronic stress of this constant withholding, or blunted extension, since our deepest inclination is to naturally extend to others. Anxiety will rise, particularly if the ego's demand for control in asserting itself against the other is consistently thwarted by the significant others own self-assertion. No matter how hard you try to control external circumstances, another ego is thwarting your efforts in their attempt at control. These are the daily "control dramas" that are played out in millions of "loving" relationships, so much so, that it is often 'normalized' as typical of all intimate relationships.

When separation-anxiety increases to a boiling point, the ego then avoids conflict altogether by slowly disengaging from the relationship. Now there are only bodies in proximity, providing only surface communication in the performance of routine, superficial domestic tasks, while the self is locked away in avoidance of depth. Adverse alienation sets in and we find we can no longer collaborate on even the smallest things. Eventually, the pattern becomes rigidly predictable, with no 'surprise' in the interactions, as engagement gradually becomes monotonous and mundane. Yet, we will not disengage from our individual self-actualizing pursuits and in fact, the ego intensifies its efforts in the direction of individualized self-actualization, since the relationship no longer holds out the promise of "happiness."

Eventually, the ego may cut itself off completely from what it sees as the source of its betrayal, resulting in physical separation and eventually the severing of all ties.The ego then seeks out another for which to collude in its individual plans of self-actualization. It has no desire to realize its role in the circular nature of the conflict and denies the fact that it's as guilty as the one it blames. Therefore, it will reconstruct the same patterns of conflict in every 'love' relationship it engages with in the future.

Yet, if it can come to realize its role in the pattern of betrayal, it can then gradually begin to alter its perspective enough to engage the other toward resolution. Resolution is always assured through increased understanding, because seeking to deeply understand another is to automatically correspond with Deep Spirit. When you correspond with Deep Spirit, the ego recedes in silence, thereby ending its incessant chatter originating from its need to control reality (others). Now both can listen deeply to one another, easily redirecting patterns to allow an intimate center through which communication can naturally occur.

It only takes one to extend from this Deep Spirit, because such extension has the miraculous tendency to evoke the same extension from others and this is because it is as natural as breathing. Yet, we have lost touch with this deep inner nature, because we have become hypnotized by what society teaches will lead to fulfillment and self-actualization, rather than the intimacy with another we know will energize and bring joy into our lives. Joy is only available when shared.

To extend from Deep Spirit is the path to dissolving alienation. This is because you are no longer strangers to one another and embark in the infinite process of intimate awakening together.

To remain strangers is to give up all hope of understanding and thus, all hope of love. To correspond from Deep Spirit 'within' is to find yourself through engaging to deeply understand another. It is the spiritual ground of all relationships and, although few ever reach that level, the path is available to everyone.

The Infinite Depth of Awakening Together

As Deep Spirit you are infinite in depth and there are times when you can feel the truth of this, in the sense that there is always something more or deeper that your just not getting at.

Residing at the surface denies this depth, but this is only because depth is fearful to a ‘self’ that has become quite accommodated to surface engagements. You have experiences of others coming into your life for one reason and that is to engage your depth. This is because you can’t go "within" alone.

If you wish to experience a non-dual "awakening," seek it with and through another.

The ego-self has very little need for depth, since it primarily relies on surface ‘perceptions’ in order to judge differences in its experience of reality. This aids it in anticipating and predicting bodily actions and purposes. Perception is exclusive to physical sensation (senses) and is quite often erroneous due to its shallow nature. This is why seeing is not always believing and our bodies can easily hide the truth. If you wish to realize a non-dual "oneness" you will need to experience it with and through another by plunging below the disorganized complexity of surface engagements.

This is evident even in our dualistic reality, as individuals relating with one another from depth are often surprisingly less egoically inclined in that engagement, since depth of interaction engenders intimacy or a deeper level of mutual understanding. However, even this is limited, since there has been no conscious choice to perceive each other differently and soon the ego resumes it shallow apprehensions. You will not attack what you engage with to understand, because what you come to deeply understand is always a reflection of "you." It is through others that the 'self' constructs and knows itself.

In this sense, intimacy is defined as a deeper understanding and it is a emergent relating with another mind, and thus the world. We cannot understand strangers (ego-self fears what it does not understand) and as long as strangers continue to engage in transferences of conceptualized "love," the world will exhibit that lack of depth and clearly it does.

The belief that a non-dual experience of unified oneness can be accessed through ideologies which advocate solitary practices is absurd, but clearly such ideology conforms to the world's conditions of truth, which are equally absurd. This alone should make them null and void, but not to an ego-self seeking to control its world through ideologies of "oneness" in an attempt to reconcile itself with an experience of a world it fears.

You cannot engage in self-intimacy alone, because you did not construct the 'self' alone. However, you can “find your 'self' through another, in fact, this is the only way “you” can be found and understood. The 'form' that such a relationship takes is insignificant and need not require any physical contact. However, the content of full engagement fuels correspondence with the infinite depth of Deep Spirit.

The intimacy of Deep Spirit is fearful to an ego and such depth of engagement is virtually unknown to the ego simply because the ego-self will always fear what it does not understand. This is because it cannot construct expectations for which to anticipate and predict behaviors and actions. Many individuals spend their lives avoiding any authentic depth of relating with others and the world. From fear, they choose to remain at the surface relying primarily on perception and its inaccurate tools of sensation. In this way, as long as appearances are perceived as satisfactory, as in conforming to egoic expectation, depth can be ignored and understanding never achieved.

The world reflects the magnitude of this ignorance and surface duality is the expected norm. This alone is why we fail to understand the world that we mutually create and lack of understanding can only lead to continued chaos, absurdity and self-destruction.

This is often evident with individuals whose lives are in severe disarray due to a life-long failure to access depth through others, thereby, impeding any depth of understanding for the individual 'self.' Always dwelling at the surface, they spend a great deal of time in self-development, productivity exercises, task management and organizing daily empirical objectives and society adamantly supports and advocates these endeavors as fruitful and worthwhile above any authentic interpersonal engagement. The more intellectual seek out austere and esoteric ideologies for which to accentuate the ego-self.

So many walking-wounded who have contracted into themselves for fear of engagement, failing to understand that healing is extension and, through extension, Being is realized.

Perform a cursory examination of all the "self-development" blogs and websites and it becomes clear that the ego's prime objective is to become expert at surface activities and engagements. We are expert practitioners of conforming to the world's value system. A value system that we created simply from fear of engaging with one another.

Issues of depth are frequently avoided through all manner of egoic defense mechanisms, not the least of which is anger and rage. The ego constructs experience based on expectation and expectations are restricted to surface beliefs to minimize the chance of encountering fear. Most surface beliefs involve self-defensive actions to protect the 'self' from psychological attack, but ego can only be attacked by those it does not know and if it remains on the surface it must sculpt its life through an abject ignorance of others. Thus, we have the modern world as we know it, completely immersed in fear and the resultant self-absorbed defense measures that can only obstruct engagement and, hence, understanding.

Your "awakening" or "enlightenment" involves a deep engagement with others and the world. Your “true nature" will not be realized through separate, solitary meditative exercises and this is an erroneous judgment egoically derived from poorly translated teachings of the ancient masters. However, the inner calm that these practices afford may further your seeking depth, but only because you have essentially sedated the ego’s fear by calming your mind.

Such a deep understanding of one another naturally dissolves our usual sense of self-protection and suspicion, since this depth significantly minimizes alienation and distrust. From such a depth of intimacy with another, you would then naturally transfer that to your own personal experience of the world (without any active ‘doing.’ In fact, the more you do the less depth possible, since the conditions of the world's need for 'action' impedes intimacy). The only way to “awaken” to an intimate engagement with your experience of 'world' is to intimately engage with your experience of others. That is your purpose, and theirs, because the world is made manifest through the relationship of the parts.

You have only one primary function in your experience of world and that is to seek depth in relating with that experience and the primary component of that experience, or that which causes you most fear and joy, is your engagement with others.You experience a world that is composed of others experiencing the same 'world'. This mutuality of experience is the substratum and foundation of your personal experience and intimate relating is where your “awakening” awaits you. The deeper you go, the more you “awaken.” Remain on the surface and your experience is dulled, barren and based on historical egoic expectation and prediction (the past).

Enlightenment is not self-detached or self-propelled, but deeply engaged with others in experiencing a Deep Spirit correspondence not available to individual minds alone. You have already chosen others through which to engage and awaken. They are your teachers, as you are theirs, and many more will come to you as needed. Trust in the need to deeply engage with those who surround you. Your choosing them was no coincidence. You must heal to be healed and teach to learn. This lends credence to the concept of “universal oneness.” However, a theory without a practice is useless to an ego-self that demands action. Therefore, to experience this “oneness” you must engage intimately with others and together you will reach those depths, for alone you merely remain hopelessly at the surface and your 'world' remains there with you.

This is the simple truth egoic minds continue to resist, opting instead for the path of the solitary seeker, which must leave others behind, simply because engagement is so utterly frightening. Yet this theme is the foundation of every religion and spirituality prior to the ego's need to demand they conform to individual egoic goals. However, keep in mind that the infinite depth of Deep Spirit intimacy has no end-point and no destination and is infinite by nature. But then, neither does spiritual "awakening" have an end point, although many modern so-called masters teach it as a destination or outcome.

There is no end to how far two or more can go when they join in that purpose.