Are you ready to tell yourself the truth?

What if you could tell the truth all the time?

Imagine of you could tell yourself the truth, live in truth, be an expression of truth,

awaken from the delusion that you are separate from

others, from your source, and from all of life. Can you begin to get a feel for this now?

What if you could always recognize when you were deluding yourself or

creating a false sense or image and thinking that is what "you" are, or identifying

with a certain point of view or belief and thinking you were that viewpoint?

What if you had a practice that could easily and frequently connect with your core truth,

your depth, your essence and you could receive guidance and clear direction about what

wants to be expressed in this life called "you"?

Imagine if you could easily feel this deep rootedness to the ground of being.

If you felt a connectedness to all of life and directly sensed how "life" actually moved you,

lived you, providing guidance, nourishment, inspiration, passion, resources,

whatever was needed to fulfill it's own unfoldment.

What if you could begin to feel this current of life, how if moves and flows and there was a

deep surrender and allowing and feeling of ease of being as life revealed itself as you?

What if you began to realize that this sense of well being was the result of turning within

your own being and realizing wholeness, oneness and unity rather than endlessly seeking

to achieve, accomplish, or acquire things or experiences to get fulfillment and contentment.

Imagine if you truly knew who you were, at your core, and you knew absolutely that this awareness was your constant, what you could rely upon, rather than on things in the world that constantly change.

You would experience liberation, peace, deep contentment & joy.

You would be home.

The most important choice we'll ever make..

Each moment we have a most important choice to make. We can notice awareness and all that awareness is aware of; thoughts and feelings, our own breath, our surroundings, people and animals, life all around us, nature, and sensations in the body. We can also begin to notice- the stories in the mind, beliefs, conditioning, our tendencies to avoid, protect, zone out, even move into addictive behavior and unconsciousness in an effort to not feel pain or discomfort.

We can notice this field of awareness, it extends beyond the body, reaching out in every direction, up to the skies and down to the core of the earth. There can be a noticing that awareness is aware of so many things and within that are all points of view. This is a critical piece, if there is an awareness of this field, the within and the without, the sky and clouds, other divine beings, all of life, there is awareness of an infinite number of view points, perspectives, and possibilities.

We can begin to notice that when we are caught up in a story like- "this is wrong, this should not be this way, he/she should not be doing this, they should not be treating me this way, it should be different" that we actually collapse into a single view point, a "me" that is arguing with what is.

Each moment is an opportunity to choose to rely on awareness or to attach to a point of view and take the roller coaster ride of thoughts and emotions as we separate ourselves from everything and collapse into a viewpoint, letting the mind drag us around like a dog on a leash, story after story, drama after drama.

While we may have a habit to collapse into a point of view, thinking that we are that point of view, defending it like our very "life" depends on it. In actuality we are not a point of view, we are the field of awareness, our very essence is the awareness that contains all of life and as we practice noticing this there is a feeling of expansion, a ease of being, a relaxedness, a quietness. From this relaxedness we can access clarity and wisdom, our innate strength, a sense of our true self that we've been looking for all our lives.

Stepping out of the story..

I listened to a friend talk today about death, one of her close friends had a child that died and she was talking about grief, fear about not being able to protect her children from harm and how difficult it was to deal with imagining losing one of her own kids.

I heard her create story after story after story, I listened as the mind jumped here, then there, opinion, belief, drama. After about 4 minutes she winded down and then she said, "I need help with this."

I replied... So you have a friend that had an experience. You have a friend that had a certain experience. I repeated it a few more times. That is what happened. That is all that is happening.

Then a thought about that occurs (fear, powerlessness, What If... ) and you may notice that an energy (emotion) arises in your body. So what if you could just stay here (let your hand hover over the front of your body from your chest to your belly). What if you could just be here (in your own body) just noticing what's here, sensation? holding? heaviness? contraction? without any commentary, labeling, or story from the mind.

Stepping out of the story and into awareness of what is arising in the body. Noticing what's here, as a sensation, making space and just being with what is here..

What I've found is that this is the very intimacy I've spent my whole life looking for .. out there..

When I say BE with what is here, what I mean is... imagine that you have a friend that is having a really difficult time, you want to BE with your friend, you don't have a problem with where they are, you are not trying to change anything, you are just going to sit down with your friend and bring your tender loving attention to your friend, just be present. That is how you want to BE with what is arising, the heaviness in your heart, the contraction in your gut, the blockage in your throat, whatever you find .. just be with it.. meet it, practice allowing what here to just be here.

As we do this.. usually we start to notice a bit of relaxation, a deeper breath, so we let awareness notice this.. let awareness drop deeper into the body, coming back to ourselves, into the stillness within, discovering our ground, the ground of being, our own depth. So we notice this..

This internal ground of being, this stillness within, is what we actually want, this internal sense of calm and peacefulness. This is the space we want to live from, move from, parent from.

So the invitation is to just practice several times a day, notice what is here (especially when we are triggered or activated) and meet it, stay in the body, be very intimate with what is actually here (rather than what the mind says about what is here).

falling into the mystery...

So often folks who've been confused by early religious experiences have such issues with the word God, it's loaded with concepts and misunderstanding. So we refer to our essence as creator, higher power, spirit, infinite intelligence, the great mystery. What I've discovered it that the less we describe it, the better. All descriptions are just like a finger pointing at the moon, they are concepts of what the mind can not actually grasp. So it seems we just keep throwing out our old out dated ideas of what this mystery is and then we come up with new better descriptions, until we don't need to anymore and we just rest in that which is indescribable.

This is the invitation, to simply sit in the silence, silence being defined as not the absence of sound, but the absence of self. No self concept, no concept, no following thoughts, just resting in this not knowing. Sitting quietly and dropping deeper into the mystery, deeper into ourselves, deeper into not knowing, into discovery on a sensory level, into sensation, into the body, into this field beyond right and wrong, beyond conditioning, beyond the beyond.. and resting there.

The invitation is to discover the ground of being.. our true nature, empty, still, present.. and simply rest ...

Commitment to Presence..

How would your life change if you were able to remain boundlessly open to and fully present with whatever was going on—not only around you but inside of you as well?

Spiritual awakening, explains Gangaji, involves a commitment to turning toward our experience and the willingness to be with what is there. When we are able to face whatever arises, we break our habitual tendency to turn away from our experience and to cut ourselves off from life.

It seems so natural and normal, we are drawn to what feels good, comfortable, safe, familiar.. and we avoid what feels bad, that which evokes our deepest fears. The invitation is to notice what arises internally when we get triggered, activated. Make noticing what is here now, as a sensation in the body the most important thing. Notice movement in the body, or the opposite, holding, contraction, heaviness, density.

As we begin to notice the way these feelings show up in the body we can also ask ourselves, "Is this ok that this is here, just as it is? Is it entirely ok, or not entirely ok, is there resistance?" Most often there is some resistance, it's natural, it's how we are wired, to avoid what we think is painful. So we can practice noticing the sensations that are present, the resistance, the thoughts that arises with commentary and stories, we can notice all of this and yet not follow the thoughts back into the mind, allowing awareness to rest in the body.

Usually after a period of allowing what is here to be here, there comes a deeper breath, some small amount of relaxation, so we notice that, and soon things seem to lighten a bit, the contraction lessens, we drop deeper into awareness of ourselves, things become still, calm and there is a feeling that all is well, all is exceedingly well.

This is where it really begins, the dropping, the deepening, coming back to the natural state, resting in our true nature. The invitation is to surrender deeply into this, melt, let yourself feel as if you are resting on a raft and the mighty river is taking you. Taking you where ever it will, the river knows where it is going, you are completely at rest, actually you are the river, feel the current moving beneath you, around you, you are the current.

You are one with life, all of life, open, allowing, fully present, awake ... enjoy!

Been stopped lately??

Have you noticed how Life stops you? It may be in an airport having missed a flight... sick in bed or in a doctors office.. or just opening your mail.. and you get stopped. For some period of time you are not going to be moving, doing, your plan of action is halted. Once one stops fighting, resisting or complaining there is this settling down period, maybe even a deep breath. Often at that point I'll notice deep emotion; frustration, sadness, grief even and I'll start to look at how it shows up in the body - tension, holding, heaviness or density in the chest or belly. For a brief time there is a conscious allowing for whatever is here to just be here, just noticing what is here and meeting it as a sensation in the body.

Awareness seems to have shifted from being totally consumed with the situation "out there" (and how much I don't like it) to just noticing what is arising in the body right now, sensations, movement, tension, tingling, whatever. There is curiosity about feeling the "energy body", seeing how it moves, how the nervous system deals with the energy that arises. I am the awareness that is noticing what is here in this energetic system and as it is allowed, there is eventually relaxation and resting and a descending into stillness and spaciousness.

As a result of "being stopped" I notice that "I" am back to the natural state, there is a sense of calm and a feeling that All is Well and everything is unfolding as it is and suddenly the problem that was so objectionable before is remarkably not a problem at all..

the light of morning..

each morning the light is always there, bright most often, startling at times,

inviting awareness to come into a deeper recognition of itself..

illuminating the faces all around us.. whispering quietly..

can you see yourself here? here? here?

can you embrace this? allow this? be present with this..

just for a moment, relax and breathe into this reality?

and what do you notice here.. mental spinning? resistance?

calmness, stirring.. can you take a moment to just notice what's here..

the moment is endlessly inviting us in.. won't you sit with me for an instant..

I have something so nurturing for you, come now and fall deeply.. into yourself..