Transcript – Cascais Meditation & Spiritual Musings

(Caution: The below is an unedited transcript. It’s likely to have many errors and inconsistencies.)

My friends, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding in the spiritual journey that makes this way too difficult, pointed to in the meditation- It’s the idea that you have to do something. It’s the idea that it’s not already done and the whole foundation, the whole basis of spirituality is to point you in a direction of seeing what’s true, not what you must do or must not do, but to see more deeply what is actually real.

As human beings, we have the opportunity to play in being human and in this play, very naturally we get lost. We imagine things that aren’t really there. We believe things that are impossible. We get lost and confused and then something within the being longs to return home.

Home to what? What is true. In every quality of all things spiritual as it relates to wholeness, love, peace, joy, everything that our being craves. All of these expressions are expressions of the truth. That when you see the truth of life, the truth of what you are, what follows is some expression of love.

And, so in this is an invitation to surrender any movement inside of yourself that adds a burden to your experience that says you must do something. And, even if it’s just for these moments together, be open to the possibility that it’s already done.

In the same way that as we sit in this space, we can recognize a peace. We can recognize a spaciousness that allows us to breathe more fully. And, do you recognize that this quality of presence, of right now, is actually always here?

Even as you go for a walk, even as you drive your car, this quality of presence that you can sense right now is actually always present. And do you see that when we don’t feel connected to it, we’re lost in our imagination? We’re lost in what we think to be real, where we’re going, what we think is happening, what we’re afraid of. None of which is actually happening in now.

There’s a willingness to let go of what’s not real, and in that willingness, one begins to breathe, and in that breath, we connect with the present.

And whatever your spiritual insight, whatever the profound nature of your discovery, in some way or another, you can be assured that the discovery says, “Oh, it’s not what I thought it was”. The discovery is, “I thought something that was true that wasn’t really true”.

And this is really good news to whatever degree you might be able to sense it or taste it or touch it, but it points to a discovery that if there is any tension inside of you, if there is any perceived lack of love, joy, wellness, then there is an innocent misunderstanding about what’s real. And for me, my heart says, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

And the more we rest in such a space of investigation as this, as one gathers experience in life with an open heart, what you begin to see more and more clearly is that you cannot trust the mind’s content. To trust the mind’s content takes you away from presence.

Notice this – how many times you thought you knew something that brought you into a space of anxiety, worry, and fear, to really believe what the mind was saying only to find out it wasn’t true. Not to offer judgment toward the mind, but just to see the reality of the situation that the mind only thinks it knows.

And, this is where we offer ourselves to the truth rather than chasing mental content. We say, “Oh, yeah… the truth is not in the mind. I will not connect to what I am in the mind. I must surrender what is in the mind”, which is simply an expression that says, “I don’t really know,” [inaudible] the mind can’t really figure this out.

And in the release, y