What Do I Do When Lightning Strikes Me…

The air seems different lately or maybe it’s the light. Something has changed. The ego senses it. But a deeper part of you has known all along and it waits patiently. It has always known what you needed. But you don’t know that…yet.


The ego, however, is busy connecting dots, sniffing out trails, dusting for prints.

Then…the lightening strikes.

Long phone calls. Text messages passed between them, sometimes late into the night.

There’s no mistaking…

…the ego has been betrayed.

It feels like a swift and penetrating prize fighter punch to the gut. The chest is crushed, the throat constricts as your breathing becomes rapid, it’s hard to talk and…

…what’s that ringing in the ears?

As the blackness descends, you can’t breathe and the mind is racing ever more rapidly…

…over the cliff.

You were expecting economic collapse, a Great Depression, WWIII, explosive packages, errant missiles, electromagnetic pulses, even asteroids. But now Armageddon has finally arrived…and it’s ALL for you and you alone.

Did you not see it coming? How could you have missed the signs?

That doesn’t matter now. Now, the ego demands its pound of flesh, because guilt has ALWAYS required punishment…and you ARE the executioner.

The attack is swift and chaotic. The ego thrashes about like a hot wire in a hurricane.

“You fucking bitch….who is he…did you fuck him….oh God….how could you do this to me…why!”

But deep down under all your desperate fear is the voice that softly whispers…..

…“you know why.” 

But you refuse to listen and instead, the ego loudly stakes its claim…”But I loved you!”

The next day, after almost no sleep, you’re numb and exhausted. You go to work and marvel at how you could have possibly made it through this day so well. But, the drive home is ALL ego and it calls upon the demons of hell to come to your aid in demanding she be nailed to the cross and then burned at the stake. You see images of your own personal apocalypse and in your rage, it seems you’re only just one thought away… from actual murder.

That night, in a darkened room, completely immersed in your suffering….your mind goes to an even darker place.

Make no mistake…you are in HELL.

What else could this place be?

However, gradually, after many hours, you begin to get quiet. Very… very quiet. Again, there’s that other voice in your head. But this voice ignores your suffering. This voice denies you your pain. It whispers something much different than the ego… completely opposite, in fact.

This voice says…”do you really think you known what love is?” 

And very slowly, painfully slow… it comes to you… that, no…you really don’t….and you never did.

…and maybe that's been the problem all along.

But the ego, ever quick to nurture condemnation, screams at you… “but how can you blame yourself, she’s the one that broke the rules…

…she cheated!”

Then that voice again, unperturbed and very quiet…

“love does not require rules…only you do.”

And when you finally realize you have no clue how to go about it, you then become willing to learn and invite instruction…

…from that which knows.

What have I got to do to make you love me
What have I got to do to make you care
What do I do when lightning strikes me
And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I say when it's all over
And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

What do I do to make you love me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I do when lightning strikes me
What have I got to do
What have I got to do
When sorry seems to be the hardest word 

(Elton John)                                      

                                                                                               

Nobody's Perfect...(except me)

You are “you” in relation to “others.” Egocentric isolation is delusional, since it assumes a self-construct developed entirely absent the influence of others. One need not engage in spiritual practices to realize this. In fact, spiritual or religious practices, that reinforce self-absorption under ideological dogma, may inadvertently interrupt this reciprocal circuitry by disengaging you from others.

Your love partner infuriates you by his behaviors, as you infuriate him by yours. Yet, rarely do you realize that his behaviors have emerged in reaction to you, as your behaviors evolved in response to him.

This reciprocal circuitry becomes antagonistic and combative simply because both parties in the mutual exchange fail to acknowledge the circular nature of conflict and instead form direct lines of attack, never losing sight of the target (each other).

There is no flow of direct current in this reciprocal exchange. It is always alternating from one to another and back again. Yet the ego-self must seek to make the current of mutual conflict direct through blame and condemnation in the need to assert your innocence and increase their guilt.

Unfortunately, the ego (“you”) rarely recognizes this circuitous exchange, because it would mean focusing on itself and experiencing guilt for what "you" do, as opposed to merely an all out condemnation of the other. Although not very good at recognizing its own erratic and dysfunctional behaviors, the ego is skilled to perfection in identifying and condemning the behaviors of others (judgment), particularly those whom the ego has come to be familiar with through “love" (ironically).

This is why the world exhibits continued blame and condemnation, but little in the way of actual change (patterns of hate and mistrust are continually repeated). Nations remain chronically antagonistic, while relying on fragile peace accords and cease fires to offset outright war and destruction. So why would we expect this to be absent from our egocentric personal world, while it is clearly apparent in the collective world?

The collective world is the product of many personal worlds in conflict (yours included).

Yet, just as the world refuses to see the reciprocal/mutual circuitry of its patterned conflicts, we also refuse to acknowledge this reciprocal exchange in our personal relationships.

We frequently exclaim that “nobody’s perfect” with regard to our own erroneous decisions. Yet, we’re less likely to support such a disclaimer from others, especially those we have come to identify as recipients of our “love” and who we evaluate as betraying our love by failing to meet our egocentric standards.

Because of this, love has become our damnation instead of the means to our "awakening," since it is often our most significant 'loved' ones who receive our most fervent blame and condemnation. Unfortunately, this reciprocal exchange of blame and condemnation is self-reinforcing and, if not identified early, can only progress in intensity, eventually causing the most intimate of relationships to self-destruct and separate.

Become aware of the reciprocal circuitry, which has no direct current but alternates continuously from one to another, and recognize that this circuit would NOT exist...

...without YOU.

Artwork by Val Jean - "Companionship; Loneliness"

The Ego Hates the Ones You Love

You believe that parenting children must cause conflict since it means setting limits and teaching discipline. Notice how the world of egocentricity demands conflict even from love.

Yet, Love is NOT aware of conflict and if you ARE, then you are NOT aware of love and other goals are clearly more significant to you. If love were the precedent guiding your actions then conflict would be substantially diminished and perfect peace would reside “within” you.

However, in your world love is never the guidepost because the world was made from the conflict inherent from competitive division and, therefore, it is fervently expected. Wherever conflict is expected love is always absent.

Sometimes your egocentric concepts seem to lift you, while other times you suffer from what you believe.

Yet, beyond all the ego’s many concepts of love is a love that cannot be conceived of, or even exist, in partnership with conflict. You wish to believe that you love your children very much and there is a part of YOU that is aware of love, but YOU are unaware of that part.

The ego is aware of many different concepts of love, all demanding different conditions, and these you superimpose upon all your relationships, thereby, applying limits and boundaries against those you claim to love.

The world teaches that sometimes love must hate and, although you adamantly refuse to believe that you could ever hate those you love, your moments of anger are composed of the same ingredients that you reserve for those you most despise. In fact, ironically, often those you profess to love the most, can momentarily become the most despised.

You certainly don’t feel like you hate your children in your moments of anger, but only after the moment has passed, at which time the ego seeks for a rational explanation to dissolve your guilt. Make no mistake, your comforting rationalizations are no different from the thoughts that rationalize continued war.

You learned to experience many different levels and types of fear in your world and this demonstrates the proficiency of the ego in minimizing what is entirely the same in ALL situations. Love cannot possibly be present in anger and, although you will seek desperately for its return, in the moment you banished it you merely delay your greater goal. Frequent delay wastes time and makes the goal seem entirely unattainable. Goals evaluated as unattainable (love) will inevitably be substituted by more attainable goals and when love is absent, the many faces of fear easily fill the void.

Through reliance on fear your world was made meaningless, because a world perceived from a filter of fearful self-protection is patently absurd.

Nevertheless, you refuse to accept that your standards, of teaching your children how to effectively negotiate the world so that they can be “successful,” are meaningless. However, look closely at your past and recognize how your greatest successes are now interpreted as failures and your failures erroneously evaluated as success. These are the confused standards that cause your suffering and therefore, you expect others suffer through the same because as you teach, "life ain't easy and you have got to be tough to survive."

What you wish to know is truth, therefore, you must teach IT instead of your confused standards and this is because essentially the only one who must learn is YOU. Dig deep down below your conventional thoughts and the ego’s status-quo “wisdom” and learn what’s true and cannot be taught through the world’s standards.

Teaching “success” in a senseless world is always absurd, yet, you deny the absurdity by applying more nonsense, only you call it “common sense.”

Yet, you believe you cannot sit idly by and watch someone you love fail in life and become unhappy and miserable. In SEEING someone you love “fail in life,” you have applied standards that exclude love, but idolize what the world values and the world certainly values "success" over love. How much has been lost in the name of success?

Love does NOT see success or failure, but only Perfect Peace, regardless of actions or behaviors. Indeed, Perfect Peace sees a world where concepts like failure and success do not exist and therefore, all conflict is abolished completely and love is seen in perfect clarity.

What you SEE is in direct proportion to what you believe and, although this seems to have no bearing on the objects of perception, the world conforms directly to belief. Perception gives you “failure” and “success” in direct correspondence with your confused standards, but neither concept has any relation to Truth and so chaos reigns supreme. Look at your world. Can you honestly claim that chaos is NOT growing in crescendo? Are the standards and values of the world NOT becoming increasingly more relative and nonsensical?

Nothing can disturb the mind in Perfect Peace and, therefore, nothing could “exist” that does NOT exactly conform to those peaceful parameters and this includes all your relationships. The problem is NEVER outside your mind. But, if you continue to believe it resides “there,” then there is where it must be experienced as perpetually irresolvable and, therefore, compulsively repetitive. History must continue to repeat itself if we continue teach what we learned in the past, because this is ALL we can look for in the future.

Artwork by David R. Choquette - "untitled"

Avoiding “Dark Alleys”

You seek to avoid threat and your seeking merely places it “there” TO be found. This demands a fear induced vigilance which consumes the mind and exhausts the body, although you simply consider it a “normal” part of living.

Yet, it was from fear that the ego was formed and made to seem “normal.” Therefore, the frightened ego-self demands that you avoid ALL “dark alleys,” even though the ego has never seen the light.

The ego is a seemingly impenetrable system of defensive fortifications constructed entirely from fear. You need not be aware of the extent of this system (which is so intricately complex as to be unbelievable) just the fear from which it was built. Without fear it cannot stand. Without fear, the world would not be as you now SEE it… a labyrinth of “dark alleys” which you must avoid and from which it seems impossible to find the safety of home. This is what you find because this is what you expect to SEE and so, look for, which demands the need to protect your ‘self’ from what SEEING makes REAL.

Surrender your fear and defenses dissolve and you will SEE that there was never anything “there” requiring protection. There are no “dark alleys” and there never were. The world is not as it appears.

Yet, you believe that there are some people you must be cautious with, just NOT those you claim to “love.”

But, the world’s “Love” is  a contractual obligation that can be dissolved at anytime if the terms of sacrifice are not followed. This is cause for your greatest fear and guilt is always the chief weapon of attack. You believe in your past wounds and so your vigilance is paramount to protect against future attack. These are the “dark alleys” that you seek to avoid. They exist nowhere but in your mind, because you made them up, but they make up the world you experience.

You have so rigidly normalized your defenses that you are not even aware of exactly what you are defending against. But you’re not aware of oxygen either, yet this does not interrupt your breathing. The ego does not require awareness, just your denial and continued self-protection.

The egocentric mind is so tightly wound and constricted that just the slightest reprimand or disparaging look, could instantly thrust you down a “dark alley.” The world is blinded by guilt and this is what consistently motivates ALL attack. You have experienced attack with those you have chosen to “love” and, although the ego demands denial, your walls have been securely reinforced as a result. Yet, how can love be extended from behind walls?

To dissolve your defenses is to realize that there is nothing to fear and, in that miraculous moment, perfect peace will surround you. 

There's NO freedom until you do, because it is only fear that keeps you in chains. The world you experience is perceived in fear and your brief moments of “happiness” only reinforce the fear which is always there before the “happy” event and must always come after. There is NO rest for the fearful.

The ego’s fear is religiously consistent, while your brief moments of pleasure are fleeting wisps of smoke disappearing on the horizon. Nevertheless, you have yet to come from behind the walls of fear that YOU made to protect from NOTHING. There is nothing there to harm you. Let down your defenses and experience freedom beyond measure.

You were not Created from fear, which means that there can be NO fear in you, other than what you demand. Conjure it up it no longer, as it serves NO purpose.

You have no idea what it would be like to be totally without fear. To not worry, get angry or depressed. To be free of your defenses and at peace in every moment seems virtually impossible. But to be “in the moment” is nothing more than to extinguish fear. All remnants and any residue must be wiped entirely clean.

There is little that can be said to relieve your doubt, except that you must give up ALL maps, because nothing in the world can offer directions to an experience that is FREE of all fear. The world is lost in fear and if you are “there,” you are lost with it. Yet, if only one SEES entirely without fear, all must SEE.

Does this mean that “you” should no longer wear seat belts or look both ways before crossing the street? Does this mean you should no longer avoid “dark alleys”?

There are NO exceptions. However, in a world made from fear, exceptions are necessary. The mind that makes fear real, must protect the body from death, because fear also made the body. But if you are a mind and NOT a body, what is there to fear? If all “experience” is of the mind, how can fear rule the mind if it can be easily banished forever with just a single thought? The body was made from fear and if fear is gone, so too must ALL its associations recede from view.

You live solely in the infinite mind of Being and that cannot be altered by any game you choose to play in denial of this FACT. Fear is the denial that changes NOTHING, because it makes NOTHING real. Your world was made to deny this simple truth. Believe it NO longer.

Artwork by Laurie Lipton - "Last Night I Dreamed of Murdering Mommy" 

 

The Mutual Actualization of Truth

The ego-self is a powerful mechanism of individual self-actualization.

Ironically, the sole reason for the ego-self 's existence is to continually maximize itself to prove it ‘exists’ and is as ‘real’ as everything else it senses and judges as existing. 

The more self-actualized, the more certain is existence to an ego-self. This is because without continued self-actualization the ego must doubt its existence, since an ego-self cannot conform to the same empirical standards it uses to prove (science) the existence of the world it experiences.

The world is physically measurable through sense impression, but an ego meets no such standards, since it takes up no space and it is the very mechanism that judges the existence of empirical reality through sensation. The ego cannot sense itself as existing without the physical body that seems to contain and limit it (and which it suffers from). Except for continued conceptual self-actualization, the ego has no means of proving it is real in the same way it has come to believe in the reality of its ‘world.’

Therefore, the ego must continually self-actualize (compete) by pressing itself into, and against, what it experiences, and then defines, as empirical or physical reality. As an embodied 'self' it must contrast against other bodies in order to know that it, the ego, is as real as what it experiences through sensation. This makes the body paramount to ego existence and, if the body were to disappear, the ego would then automatically judge itself as non-existent, since it would have nothing for which to measure self-actualization in an empirical world (and this tends to define 'death' for the ego-self).

To an ego-self there must always be conflict between bodies. This is the only way an ego can actualize and believe in itself as 'real.' This is because an ego-self is conceptual (based on nothing more than identifying with ‘ideas’ of what it is and is not). It has no physical properties other than the body it believes contains it. Yet, it does realize that the body is NOT IT, simply because a body can still exist without an ego, but an ego cannot exist without a body (in relation to conditions of comatose or unconsciousness). Therefore, the ego must always include the body as part of itself, because without a body it could not actualize and hence exist.

An ego is impervious to peace (absence of conflict) simply because peace is an absence of conflict between bodies and such an absence would negate the egos ability to continually actualize proof of its existence. As long as the ego-self (“you”) defines itself as an individual IT MUST experience conflict, because individuals must be defined by limits and boundaries in order to contrast and conflict with other individual bodies.

If you stub your toe, a bodily limit has been breached. However, have your toes stepped on by another and, although the pain (reminder of a breached bodily limit) may dissipate and dissolve, the breach to self may linger on. Thus, you must always be vigilant against breach of bodily limits but, more importantly, breaching the conditions and limits of the self is often more threatening, since it impairs self-actualization which negates existence. This is why the ego may seek out bodily risks as pleasurable (dangerous sports, auto-racing, sky-diving, etc) but will avoid psychological/emotional pain as holding a much greater risk to 'self.'

As long as you are aware of yourself as limited by (and to) a body, you must experience conflict between bodies. However, if a body breaches your limits, it is always the self of that body that is condemned and attacked, because without a 'self,' the body can do nothing at all.

There is no escape from this need for contrast and conflict and it is endemic to an embodied ego-self. 

The world teaches self-actualizing values that reinforce egocentric existence, setting the limits and boundaries to that existence. The ego looks to the world for instruction on self-actualizing and all you need do is decide to ignore those means of egoic self-actualization simply because they promote limits and conditions (which, of course, will be significantly uncomfortable to the ego-self conditioned by the world's values of self-actualization).

The chief method of overcoming egocentric actualization is to actualize with another. But an ego-self must be convinced that mutual actualization enhances itself and not just another.

When boundaries lose relevance and become unnecessary, egoic need for conflict between embodied selves becomes less antagonistic and threatening. Mutually engaged actualization dissolves conflicting interests and opens up communication channels, previously seen as too threatening. This promotes depth of understanding and a psychological intimacy that increasingly builds upon itself by further discarding limits and conditions.

Very simply, bodies no longer take priority when minds join in discovering truth. 

When two or more share a common interest in recognizing and discarding limits and boundaries, egocentric individuality can become unlimited, because increased trust and safety naturally overrides fear. As fear recedes, limits dissolve (since ALL limits are fear-based) and individuals engage in a mutual exploration of each other, through each other, thereby, increasing self-actualization of both, equally.

You will know and understand your ‘self’ through knowing and understanding another. There is NO other way to fully understand your ‘self’ than to fully understand another and be understood by another. This is what we long for and the ego recognizes that longing, but can only be confused by, since it clashes with all egocentric goals. Therefore, it interprets this longing for itself only.

This is why love is a victim of relativity in the ego's world and fails to sustain or even remain.

Nevertheless, such mutual actualization of truth has always been your deepest goal. This is the path to awakening together and discovering a truth available to all minds, but never to individual minds seeking alone. This is how it was supposed to be, until the ego collapsed love into fear and 'individuality' became the means of communicating with nothing, creating a world where nothing is communicated of any substance and, although everything seems to change, repetition rules the world.

Artwork by De Es Schwertberger - "Vision One"

Ruminations on Non-Dual Relating

Your only purpose is relationship. What other purpose could an 'ego-self' have, but to dissolve its self-constructed distinction from another? What other reward does this 'life' offer?

Or is there something else you seek?

So what are you 'doing' then? Exploiting time/space and snatchin' up as much square feet as possible to put all your stuff... until time runs out?

There is a reason why learning to 'love' another is the most powerful experience one could encounter even in this dualistic dimension. There is a reason why the hardest work you will ever experience during this 'lifetime' is being intimately engaged with another. There is a reason the ego-self fears love more than death itself and many die never knowing it. 

If learning to intimately and fully engage with others is the only reward this life offers...is that NOT indicative of what you need do to "awaken" to the next?

The others await you because, contrary to pop-spirituality and new age non-duality tailored to egocentric individuals, "awakening" is a joint venture and non-duality is all-inclusive.

No one awakens until all do....(here is your new mantra)

Ha! But, never mind all that... your on a "hero's journey" and can't be burdened by other peoples sheit. You must blaze that solitary path to your "awakening" (allowed only to the privileged few).You must follow in the footsteps of the ancient wisdom seekers who came before you.

It's incredible how deeply mired in the ancient myths we have become...all these years of conscious evolution has only made us better victims of the past (and, oh, how we worship the past).

In your search for individual awakening, don't give up on the rest of humanity (or when you awaken will you finally save us from ourselves?). They WILL finally complete you, but not the "you" you've become accustomed to, nor the "me" the other identifies with in contrast to "you." All you need do is fully engage "them."

If the ego-self is a figment of your conscious imagination... do you really exist at all? What about their ego? Best to get together and engage in some deep intimate understanding...

...and find out which one of "you" is real. If you're lucky... it'll be neither. Ha!

We see ourselves as a pretty sick bunch and, as a result, we really don't trust each other very much. So why count on one another to find the promise land? Best to just "awaken" alone? Oh sure...we choose a few 'privileged' individuals to "love," but eventually we come to realize that there's alot about them we don't much trust or care for either (so much for "love").

I mean really...look what we do to each other and to our home. So much greed, corruption, murder, abuse and war...what's to like, eh?

Of course, you console your 'self' on the fact that you don't do what they do (you're on a "spiritual journey") and they are NOT. But deep down you know it's a lie, because your past is chock full of your own sheit (and your 'present' ain't so sweet either) making you really no better than they are, since to be IN a body demands an ego with a past.

The past...remember that? (how could you forget)

You could never forget what "they" have done to you and so, you don't much care for humanity as a whole and you find human beings a rather disgusting and petty lot.

I suppose until we can find some redeeming quality worthy of committing to, we'll probably continue to punish ourselves...

...into extinction.....

but that's okay, cause we only give ourselves what we feel we truly deserve....

...haven't we always?


Artwork by Heather Nevay - "untitled"

CHRISTMAS NEUTRALITY: The Gift of NOT "Loving it All"

I often find myself in disagreement with my non-duality buddies, who continue to recommend that we “love it all.”

....as if an ego has any comprehension of love. 

Oh sure, egos have relative ideas of “love” (over 6 billion, in fact), but after centuries of such relativity, we have come little closer to what love IS, thereby asserting “dualism” in the world of conscious experience or....what love IS NOT.

This makes me wonder why “loving it all” is so frequently advocated by non-dual teachers. Of course, hypothetically speaking, a non-ego might “love it all,” since relative concepts of "love" would not be superimposed upon experience.

But then… show me a teacher who has NO ego and I'll show you an elephant that flies.

However, its easy to understand the ‘feeling’ dimension of an egocentric 'self' and “loving it all” would certainly seem to 'feel' better than NOT “loving it all.” But this is the trap of presupposing that love has something to do with 'feelings' and egos should probably NOT make assumptions that they have NO way of testing for truth (like knowing what “love” should 'feel' like... feeling THAT... and then pronouncing that you’re “loving it all”).

However, stop feeling love for "it all," even for a nanosecond, and guilt may very well be the very next feeling...

This Christmas, I would suggest you cease your attempts to “love it all” simply because relative love merely asserts its relative opposite, resulting in the usual combative contrasts that egos never fail to identify and, unfortunately, act upon (in fact, couldn't we say that it's all this relative "love" in the world that's the world's number one problem?)

For instance, let’s say this Christmas, somebody snubs your precious gift giving. Well, of course, instantly the ego will assert relative suffering, or 'hurt,' which will then threaten the ego's "loving it all" perspective, causing it to quickly rush to reframe it’s relative suffering into relative “love,” which it can only suffer from equally, due to it’s relativity...

...because deep down you know your only scamming your ‘self.’ Notice the circularity?

This Christmas, seek neutrality... it's so much easier than "loving it all." (of course, your ego is telling you that you MUST "love it all' or else you're not being non-dual, but just ignore all that)

Egos fear that if they don't "love it all" than they will subsequently adopt the opposite perspective. Yet loving "it all," as a means of replacing fearing/hating “it all,” is probably not a ‘best practice’ for egocentric individuals stuck in relative perspectives of “love” (but still wanting some kind of "practice"). This is because relative love can only assert a dualistic opposite and, as we all know, the opposite of relative love would be relative fear (and corresponding relative hate).

Now, some would say that since we “are it all” we must then “love it all" (kind of in-sequence) Yet this is a story of mixing metaphors. Stating that we “are it all” is an excellent non-dual “pointer.' However, “loving it all” is an egocentric relative concept, since egos do not know love, only relative love.

It seems logical that once we can finally give up our relative concepts of “love” we might then be open to apprehending what love is, which might then result in discarding all relativity (hypothetically speaking).

Until then, it seems logical that a neutral perspective might be more advantageous than a relative “love it all” perspective. Yet, it does seem that some “non-dualists” are really stuck in the egocentric, relativity of Pollyanna love. But who can blame them, social conditioning is deeply pervasive (relatively speaking).

So this Christmas, instead of “loving it all” give neutrality a whirl. 

This way you can't go 'wrong,' simply because you have not adopted one way or the other and your “loving it all” will no longer interfere with what LOVE can be...if you weren't out tryin' to "love it all."

Perfect Peace holds no perspective... one way or the other..so neither should a Peaceful Self.

So have a very neutrally merry Christmas!
(and avoid kissing hamsters.... kiss a Lemur instead)

Surreal image by Olivia - "Lemur Christmas"

Are You LIVING....or Protecting from Fear?

The ego is composed entirely of fear.

Yet, ironically, it has convinced you of the need to protect from fear, requiring you trust in IT to spot threats and alert you to danger.

This is a pact from hell (that literally makes hell “real”). How can what is created from fear protect you from fear? Therefore, in your trusting reliance on the ego-self, an experience of ‘hell’ is your reward.

The ego convinces you that fear must be avoided and it will help you do so. Yet, to be completely without fear would be to annihilate the ego, because the ego relies on fear for its very existence. In your fidelity to the ego-self, what you fail to realize is that the ego constructs the very fear it seeks to protect you from.

That which causes you the greatest fear is that which reflects back to you the fearful nature of your ‘self'...

.... other people.

It is not fear of death to be dissolved, but fear of other people. This is because when fear no longer comes between you and those you experience, life will finally be lived because death is no longer a consideration when one is finally living.

Are you living.... or just protecting from fear?

The chief defining aspect of hell is fear projected into a future based entirely on a past. This is the purpose you apply to everyone you meet and they, in turn, apply to you (notice the reflective effect of duality).

On the surface, our cordiality may often seem evident, but deep down what we deny is that fear keeps us alienated and estranged from one another (even in our closest relationships). Non-duality does not end separateness (or duality), but dissolves alienation (or dualism).

The non-dualism of Christ Consciousness realizes perfect peace because in eradicating its fear of others, fear no longer reflects back upon itself.

Without fear, time has no purpose and the present is all there is. As long as you are in time, you are relying on an ego that requires fear in order to know itself through time. This reliance on your "protector" automatically requires you fear the present, because the ego cannot protect you in the present, simply because in the present the ego does NOT exist.

Therefore, the ego must advise you to avoid the present at all costs and it does this by assuring you that the present could not possibly exist and you must rely on the past to inform the future. This is why every experience you encounter has been manufactured from a past solely for self-protection, providing an illusion of safety in the future. Yet, only in the present can you be free of protection, since the ego knows nothing, and prepares for nothing, but a past projected into a future. This is why your experiences often seem so typical and mundane simply because you only experience what you come prepared to experience and anything else is deemed unsafe and fearful.

There is only one way to secure your present as extended into a future (thereby dissolving both future/past). See no one else as having a past and be free of the need for protection, since all protection from others was learned in the past.

Avoid not one encounter, especially those you distrust. Engage fully without a care for protection, no matter how vehemently the ego screams in condemnation of your ignorance. Recall that the ego constructs experiences that reinforce itself and the only means of reinforcement it knows is fear. This has nothing to do with bodily protection, because our everyday fears seek to protect the ego and not the body.

If you take away its food (fear), it will starve and you will realize its death throes by the joy and peace you experience with, and through, others.

The Interdependent Non-Dual Nature of Christ Consciousness

Ego’s experience pain and suffering and because of that, we fear each other above all else. This is because nothing causes more pain and suffering than "man's inhumanity to man." In fact, it is often our most significant others that cause the most pain.

Yet, the inverse is that those you have joined with to experience “love” are often cause for the most joy (you may even have briefly touched this, but have long since forgotten due to the desensitizing angst of daily egoic existence).

To trust in your ability to heal yourself, you must trust in the healing ability of another, because the world is an interdependent unity of transference and counter transference and you cannot extract your ‘self’ from that experience, because it is inherent to your ‘Being.’

Not one concept of your ego-self was constructed in isolation from other self-concepts. Waking from the dream is an interdependent project, because we do not dream alone.

But then, why do we seek to ‘awake’ alone?

See everyone as facilitator to your awakening, even those whom you judge has having little or no value. Since, who are “you” to judge?

Nevertheless, the ego-self expects ‘healing’ on its own terms. It will seek out healing through conflict, because it was designed from conflict and in conflict, and it believes that it alone has the power to heal itself, because it alone made it what it is.

The ego seeks out conflict through which to define itself in opposition to the world. Therefore, the more actualized the ego, the more it believes it has transcended conflict. It believes that through actualizing itself in the world, the world will heal it, based on the world’s rewards (in other words, “if only this, than that”). Only by following the world’s prescribed ‘laws’ will you achieve your ‘reward’ and the world reflects that expectation in widespread discouragement and despair.

The law of the jungle is survival (everybody for himself) and the more "enlightened" and powerful the 'self,' the greater your reward and the more your chances of survival (in this life and after).

Your ‘self’ is an abstract concept developed purely to protect from fear and, through that function, actually manufactures the fear you seek to evade. The irony is that what you protect from is what you made “real.”

To replace the “real” with the truth you must let down your defenses. But, the world can be a very frightening ‘experience’ and you need a ‘self’ you can count on to protect “you” from what’s ‘out there,’ denying that what’s ‘out there’ is entirely experienced ‘within.’

Instead of seeking to protect from it, through your concepts, maybe it’s time to engage with it?

What was developed in the need for protection (ego-self) merely magnifies your alienation from others. Make no mistake, it’s not others that threaten you, but your inner experience of others. There is a very distinct difference that you will not realize alone through intellectualized ‘spiritual’ games. You need others to aid you in unifying what seems a distinct division of mind.

Unification of these two distinct and opposing perspectives is the non-duality of Christ Consciousness and it is an entirely interdependent experience.

Your world is your experience, both inside and out. Many spiritual paths emphasize that by changing the ‘inside,' the ‘outside’ cannot harm you and this alludes to the “kingdom within." Yet, what they fail to address is that you cannot change the inside alone, as this only reinforces that you are alone and separate from what is ‘outside.’

Healing is an absence of conflict in all experience and there are many you have chosen through which to encounter that perfect peace. Did you think that 'they' came into your life by coincidence? Is it all simply a matter of chance?

Take a long look at the one next to you. Extract from that “look” all past concepts, or expectations, superimposed upon them and then communicate to them what you see. When you superimpose your concepts upon physical “sight,” you lose vision, because your concepts are hinged on egoic self-preservation and, therefore, based in fear.

Fear obstructs vision through self-protective, seemingly impenetrable, veils. Healing is nothing more than seeing through the self constructed veils of fear and realizing perfect safety. Do you feel perfectly safe with everyone you have chosen to love? Can you reveal your ‘self’ to them with excruciating honesty? (or must parts be kept undisclosed). If not, then you have abdicated your function as healer by denying this function in them and this is because you believe that healing is impossible from them and this makes it unavailable to you.

If healing is impossible from them, this only means protection is still necessary, because only egos require protection. You believe you must heal your ‘self’ regardless of the fact that the self was not constructed in isolation from them and they are as much a part of you as you are of them.

Individual fixation on your ‘self’ does not change this equation. Every individual problem you experience is always in correspondence to others. It has been said, that we are like the walking wounded, numbed by fear and closed off from any depth of engagement and so we do not understand one another and have given up trying.

Relationships steeped in the depths of intimacy are healing “places” for all who enter and join. We all feel the pull toward healing, but deny the source could ever be with another, because the experience within you cannot be trusted and so, neither can they. The ego-self must engage and engage deeply.

The ego will contrive strategies to evoke conditioned love as a way to personal happiness, but this is an egoic ruse and is destined to fail. Your lacking the motivation to heal the ones you have chosen to love, means you have simply refused to be healed by them. Love is interdependent healing exchange and, if you are not healed, than there was no love, but only conditioned behaviors rigidly based in conventional self-protective duality.

There is no other way to spin this, although your ego will try.

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.

Dissolving the Conditions of Fear

The most incredible joy you will ever experience is in relationship with others.

But you doubt that this is true.

The ‘self’ can invent all manner of experiences for which to extract an exclusive, individual sense of satisfaction and pleasure for itself. But let’s make no mistake, any solitary satisfactions are ephemeral and based in fear.

The ‘self’ was constructed through interaction and engagement with others, although you think of it exclusively as ‘you’ and, therefore, have found it easy to deny this cooperative exchange.

"I don't really fear other people," you say, "I just don't trust them very much."

Ah... and so begins your self-reliance, as if you conceived your 'self' out of thin air and thus, need not rely on anyone but yourself to transcend that which "you" made. Unfortunately, this is delusional. "They" made "you" as you made them, and neither faction will give up so easily.

Nobody leaves alone.

The ‘self-concept’ is a creature of the world and cannot exist without that correspondence. Your belief system has been constructed in direct correlation with those who share in constructing the experiences of a 'world.' Quite simply, the self looks to others as reference for its own 'self-construct,' because we share in everything (by the way, who taught you that you could "transcend" the 'self'?).

Yet, the ego-self must deny this in fear for its very 'existence.'

So get ahead, hunker down on your cushion for a long meditation in seeking self-transcendence. Is that your goal? Maybe "we" will let you transcend your 'self' (but I doubt it). Ha!

Do you really think "you" can leave without "us"?

One of the chief ingredients of every self-concept, and that which we all share equally, is fear. Relationships conditioned by fear eventually wither and die (and thus, we're constantly seeking the means of 'resurrecting' our "love" from the dead). Fear stunts growth and impedes evolving consciousness, because it demands conditions, or limits, be imposed.

An enlightened perspective is absent all fear and naturally extends from unconditioned consciousness. Fear demands conditions be fortified against fear and those conditions are what we superimpose upon our relationships (and then wonder why our relationships suck).

Deep Spirit engagement is stifled by conditions, but rarely do we engage the world, others and ourselves without conditions. Failure to engage others from Deep Spirit, causes our experiences to become desensitized, blunted and apathetic. This is why so many become numb, and immune to joy in the "declining years", as the ego’s conditions have walled off Deep Spirit engagement almost entirely, allowing only the fear of death to predominate.

Nevertheless, even engaging with others from Deep Spirit will automatically predispose one to egoic fear.

There have been times in your life when you have engaged with others from this deep well of unconditioned awareness. However, most likely the engagement was brief, as the ego quickly clamped down on the mind, imposing conditions, thereby, squelching the intense freedom within the experience. This is called 'being in the moment' and, contrary to your guru, you cannot avail it alone.

The authentic guru can facilitate an end to conditions, but if he/she cannot unconditionally reciprocate in the exchange, neither will touch the joy of unlimited freedom.

The ego-self fears Deep Spirit engagement, simply because such engagement requires absolutely nothing from an ego-self. It comes from a natural space of consciousness that identifies with no concepts and is intricately unified with others and the world.

There are very few moments in your life in which identification with your ego-self is nonexistent. However, in corresponding with Deep Spirit, dissociation from the ego is experienced and the experience is utterly intoxicating. Nevertheless, in order to engage with Deep Spirit, another 'self' is required because it cannot be accessed alone (sorry...).

Although brief, such an experience is rarely forgotten, although it can remain dormant for many years and, for some, may never again see the light of day. The brevity of the experience is associated with a fear of self-annihilation or the loss of self. Becoming unified with your experience of another, directly threatens your egoic identity and the ego-self will forcefully resist by quickly inserting conditions upon the exchange. Conditions are always the result of fear. Conditions assert an autonomous ‘self’ in opposition to other selves, all competing for control and dominance.

Very simply, two or more can agree to engage without condition and, thus, relate without fear. Such a mutual goal demands peace be the underlying foundation. The conditions of fear must always create conflict and, whether between nations or loved ones, conflict will eventually result in war.

You can come from a different place in all your relationships if you so choose. However, you must choose, otherwise the ego will always choose for you, because the ego always comes from the past.

To relate without condition is not a difficult as it would seem. Recognize that all conflict is born from conditions determined by your individual egoic fear. Simply admit this to each other and allow Deep Spirit to rise up and gradually dissolve egoic conditions.

Deep Spirit engagement is known for its excruciating honesty, since all reasons for hiding, or concealment, is dissolved, along with the fear that commands concealment. Deep Spirit, when fully realized, has no conditions whatsoever and is an experience of "perfect peace."

Between two or more 'individuals' no other experience comes close to the freedom of letting go of your conditions, or "perfect peace," in mutual engagement. It is the most natural joy one could ever encounter and many have described this ineffable feeling with the label of “enlightenment,” while others believe it a correspondence with God.

Conceptual Imprisonment

Love cannot be conceptually understood and this is why it's not available. However, it can be experienced by engaging to understand it. Unfortunately, you engage from prediction and, therefore, suffer disappointment, because it can never be what you predict.

Attempting to extend outward from a concept is to demonstrate misunderstanding. To experience a concept is, of course, no experience at all. This is equally true for "non-dual awakening." If you think you've experienced “it,” then clearly you haven’t.

Love is an awakening that is unpredictable and cannot be prepared for, since you have no idea what it is. To predict and prepare is to set conditions upon an experience for which you have no understanding. When you think you know, you only imprison another within your concepts, thereby, imprisoning yourself. To define what you need from your own “knowledge” is to deny the truth.

Yet, when you engage without knowing or defining, you allow an openness for surprise.

Surprise is natural, while concepts are completely made up. Love, like enlightenment, must come as a complete surprise. Otherwise, you can be certain you have come prepared for the experience you expect based on what you predicted and, make no mistake, you will have it as expected. Yet, it's funny how what is expected seems to lose value over time, which means your preparations have been useless.

This applies as equally to "non-dual awakening" as it does to love, since both transcend time and are thus, timeless. Prepare for either, based on past learning, and you will experience neither. However, your ego will inform you that you have experienced the concept you were prepared to experience and you, obviously, will become a “believer." Are you a believer?

The world is full of "believers," but exhibits little in the way of truth. Love transcends the world, but if you awaken to it based on the world’s specifications, you have nothing other than what you had before. And who wants that?

To predict is to construct experience based on past learning. What is “loved” is the concept of another and not the other at all. In fact, essentially the other has ceased to exist by becoming a concept that you have constructed for which to fantasize an exchange of conceptual "love" based on your predictions of what it is. But concepts are always empty and there is nothing you can experience from a concept. Duh!

Yet, it’s funny how we look to concepts for our salvation, rather than to each other. But wasn't that the Buddha/Christ message? What happened?

Imprisoning another through a concept means that the other will exist only as a concept and "love" must be predicated upon conformance to that concept and for the ego, nothing else will do and anything less feels like betrayal. Therefore, if another fails to conform to your concepts, the ego can only see "love" as absent and will adjust accordingly.

This is why the ego seeks endlessly for love, but dies without it. To awaken to it, is to live and many realize this just prior to dying. In a moment they immediately understand what they were here for. Do you know what you're here for?

Love is “awakening” to truth and therefore, can come to you only through another because the truth of you is in them. It can’t be realized alone, through deep contemplation or years of meditation. It must be engaged with in the understanding that you cannot predict or prepare for it, whatsoever. Fail to see it in them and you will mistake the truth of yourself and choose your own imprisonment by limiting what you can awaken to in them. This is because "they" are indivisible from "you."

"and all my instincts, they return
and the grand facade, so soon will burn
without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside"

"in your eyes

the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete

in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes
oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light, the heat I see
in your eyes"

(Peter Gabriel)

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.