A DEAR FRIEND AND REGULAR AC READER, had a wonderful, truly authentic experience of Oneness this week. That is Big Joy! She wrote me about it, and you can’t write the way she wrote until you’ve seen what you really are. You can write the same words and delude yourself if you want to, but you’ll never fool anyone […]
“THOSE WHO KNOW DO NOT SAY. THOSE WHO SAY DO NOT KNOW.” Like every relative statement about absolute spiritual truth, these two are both true and not true. The first line of the Tao Te Ching, though it varies in different translations, is roughly, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” Nonetheless, […]
I WANT TO CONCLUDE THIS SERIES, the most popular pieces I’ve ever posted, with a look at how Awakeness can directly function through a human being, without that person, or anyone else, being the wiser. You may recall that I have named this a state of being “actively inhabited”. It’s as good a label as any, I […]
I REMEMBER LISTENING TO A KEN WILBER SERIES several years ago, I think it was The One Two Three of God, which helpfully classified the three types of mystics: Nature, Theistic, and Nondual. Reality can be discovered through any of those three channels: nature, a personal God, or Nondual awareness. However, because both the “software” and the “hardware” […]
AUTHENTIC SPIRITUAL AWAKENING is both a lot more and a lot less than most people think. I insert the word “authentic”, because 99% of the people I hear talking about spiritual awakening are talking about a spiritual experience. Spiritual experiences can be very beautiful, and can even be life changing, but it’s just not the same thing. […]
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY WIFE, Betsy. She is a wholly remarkable human being and Awakeness is consciously alive in her. You can see it. You can feel it. You can hear it when she speaks; people are mesmerized by her voice. Animals recognize it. Even plants recognize it. God is here, moving from room to room […]
AS MANY OF YOU KNOW, for the last few weeks I’ve been doing online video meetings with my teacher, Scott Kiloby. I’m a student/mentor, meaning that it’s very much his show, but I’m allowed to contribute if I behave. I’m the sidekick who listens closely and then offers observations and suggestions. The students seem to […]
IN THE LAST DIARY ENTRY I mentioned that I might have to return to field work, meaning traveling about to acquire inventory for my online bookstore. I haven’t done much of that in the last 18 months, and while I wasn’t excited about the prospect, I was certainly surrendered to its necessity if it came down to doing it. Let […]
A Very Short Course in Surrender I TALK ABOUT SURRENDER at every opportunity that Life affords me. And as it so happens, Life has afforded me an awful lot of opportunity. This body-mind has taken a lot of knocks. Most of them started right here; they were initiated by me. I never saw that, and for 47 […]
A FEW WEEKS BACK I MENTIONED that my wife, Betsy, and I have begun taking yoga again. For the curious, I am utilizing yoga to enhance my waning physical condition and to balance out energy patterns. There is no spiritual seeking left here, other than the impersonal desire to be as clear an expression of the […]
LET’S START WITH THE TRUTH and slowly work our way through to the lies. The dream, also known as conventional existence, or “the world”, is a three-legged stool of illusion. It looks very stable. But take away any one of those legs, and it collapses. Those legs are: 1) Time 2) Space 3) Causality ALL THREE […]
IT’S BEEN A COUPLE OF MONTHS since I sat in a live-video meeting with my teacher. This afternoon I sat in just such an Internet meeting once again. And it took me all of about thirty seconds to fully recall why I do them. As you may have noticed here on Awakening Clarity, I can wax philosophical from time to […]
THERE IS A SANSKRIT PHRASE, tat tvam asi, which means, “Thou are That.” I was Brahman—the Absolute—before I ever meditated for the first time, now some 30 years ago. I was Brahman before I ever took a breath almost 59 years ago. In Zen there is a koan, “What is your Original Face, the face you […]
I TAKE AN ANTIDEPRESSANT. I just restarted taking it yesterday after a two or three month hiatus. I feel better, isn’t that nice? If that bit of information negates anything that’s said elsewhere on this site for you, then that’s 100% your business. Think as you will; you’re going to anyway. I take your […]
THIS IS THE CONCLUSION of a two-part essay that addresses, as Part I stated, “A phenomenon that arises in post-realization that I will call Second Movement. That’s my label for the rubber band of ego snapping itself back into place after True Seeing, whether it was a glimpse or a more sustained experience. Having witnessed the causeless, spontaneous, […]
The Nondual Diary: “How come I can’t stay THERE?” (Part I of II) WORDS ARE GOING TO FAIL US time and again today. I’ll be moving back and forth from the relative to the Absolute views without warning, so just follow the best you can. I don’t see any way around it. To fill the language […]
Housekeeping Notes: Let me welcome Egypt and France to the list of countries visiting Awakening Clarity. They join 17 other countries helping to awaken Clarity. I’VE CHOSEN FOG AS THE THEME OF THIS POST, because truth is always shrouded in fog until it’s not. I’ve just been on the phone to my old friend, Vince, […]
I EXERCISE A LOT, EXCEPT WHEN I DON’T, which can also be a lot. The “a lot” that’s happening right now, I notice, is the “I don’t” part. I regularly eat smart and healthy, except when I don’t, which also happens regularly. The “regularly” that’s going on just now, I notice, is the “I […]
WHEN I FIRST STARTED GETTING SOBER, back in the spring of 2000, I made the conscious decision to devote my life to the pursuit of a deeper spirituality and material consequences be damned. Now, it can be noticed that I was single and beholding to no one on the planet but myself. It can […]
I’ll post Part II of “Okay, but what about MY LIFE?” tomorrow, August 30.) I’D NEVER BELONGED TO ANY TYPE of digital social networking. I’d never missed it, never yearned for it. This past month, however, I fell into joining both Twitter and Linked-in. I didn’t think it would do me any harm to learn […]