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 […]
IF THIS POSTING HITS CLOSE TO HOME, it may not be entirely comfortable. But if that’s the case, then it may be particularly valuable. It is the product of my own experience. I’ve directly fielded the title question several times and several times indirectly, so it makes sense to address it publicly. The first thing […]
I HAD AN EMAIL EXCHANGE with my dear friend Tammy out in Portland yesterday, and then a phone call from another kindred soul, Charlie, who also lives in Portland. Questions and comments that arose in those visits have led me to directly address the raison d’être of both Awakening Clarity and Nonduality itself: Self-realization. Amazingly […]
Reality on Rye I met my friend Larry for lunch at a deli today. We’d never met in person, but Larry is a regular follower of Awakening Clarity. He consistently leaves comments and sends me personal emails. We’ve gone back and forth quite a bit. He happens to live in a town near to […]
I noticed this morning that I was beginning to believe that my internal descriptions about life (otherwise known as ungrounded opinions) were actually representations of life. I noticed because my dearest friend, suffering, came to visit. This may sound unpleasant, and it is at first, but whenever suffering drops by, it’s also the opportunity to […]
The Nondual Diary: Mountains and Valleys Diary Day 2 Once or twice a year I get to surrender to pain in my abdomen. It’s quite a treat. I think it’s something akin to a ghost that’s left over from my heavy drinking days. It used to haunt me more often and more viciously, but over […]
I’m a whole day early with the new post, and the new Awakening Clarity. That in itself is a fine Sign. This new approach to Awakening Clarity is chiefly in reaction to this website. I sat down several days ago and did Byron Katie’s The Work on it, on how I saw the blog itself, and how I […]