Good morning, everyone.
What do you want? That’s a good question. Because as it turns out, you actually have what you want, or get what you want.
So what do I mean by this? How does that apply to our work together?
The old saying is that you need to want freedom as much as a drowning man wants air. If you’re drowning, you’re not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or your work or your problems or your relationship or your partner or your children or anything, nothing.
You’re thinking about one thing, air. And if you want freedom that much, then it’s absolutely completely done.
But let’s face it. There are many things that interest us, compel us.
And I’m not talking about the things to do in life. I’m speaking more about the unnecessary activities of our mind that for some reason continue to attract us, compel our attention, distract us from freedom or essential being, and for no beneficial purpose whatsoever, just very mechanical, repetitive, compulsive thinking.
Okay, there’s no fault in that. There’s no one to blame. That’s the human condition, of course, you know. So much information and data has been impressed in our minds, our empty mind. And a lifetime of, in a way, laziness has kept us completely engaged following along with that.
But there’s an alternative.
And that alternative is readily available every single second of your existence.
And it’s never not available under any circumstance, ever.
Well, you know what I’m gonna say now. Let’s have a Holiday.
Blown wide open. Prior to the rising I, prior to all of that mentation, redundant, pointless, mentalizing, but prior to that, here and now, I am, consciously knowing myself.
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So what is needed once we recognize this? Is to have some discrimination or discernment, to know what’s going on here.
To be able to recognize when I begin rising as ego and attachment to thinking and all of that.
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And in the moment when we notice that, what is that there that’s arising? It’s obviously a separative experience with an entire world attached to it.
Feelings, emotions, ideas, opinions, preferences. Past, future, me this and me that and me everything else, that rising I.
So our work is to discern as quickly as possible when that begins to happen.
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Maybe it happens right away, or maybe it doesn’t happen for a few minutes, or maybe it doesn’t happen for half a day. Well, what to do? When you do notice that you’re arising as the separative I, in that moment of noticing itself, again, have a Holiday.
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And be what you are prior to that arising, that movement.
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And this comes back to my question at the beginning. What do you want? This is not a judgment at all.
If you want freedom, if you want blown wide open, if you want present moment consciously aware being, that’s it. That’s what you have.
And it never goes anywhere, so you don’t have to get it or attain it. It’s always here. It’s always here. Never not.
But if those thoughts are compelling and we follow along, then it can be said, in a way, in that moment, that that’s what we want. We want to follow along with those thoughts. It’s not a conscious desire or something like that. But clearly, if we start following that thought stream, then for whatever reason, it’s very interesting, very compelling, very infatuating. And obviously, we want to go along for that ride.
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And there are so many things to be interested in there, isn’t there? And again, I’m not speaking about the things of your life, your family and your work and your art or whatever. I’m talking about the pointless redundancy of mentation that is endlessly looping in the head that serves no benefit whatsoever.
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And yet seems so fascinating. It’s true.
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Just notice on holiday, try to notice when the movement of the rising I begins. What is that? What is that? What is that? You know what it is. And in that moment, come to the root of that and just be there instead, the root, the source of that, which is who I am.
And you begin to really see that movement in stark vision, really. You really can see that happening.
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And then you clearly get to see the option. Of living in your timeless, essential being that needs no thought, concept, anything other than itself, I knowing myself, purely subjective knowing.
Between that and the endless stream of redundant and pointless mentating that seems to create an I, that feels like an I, that appears for all intents and purposes like an I, like that’s who I am. You need to see also, and this is key and important, that that phantom appearing I that claims to be who I am is not what I am in essence.
You have to recognize that movement as not what I actually am in essence, but what is appearing as me in a very ephemeral, temporal way, but is actually not me. It’s only thought, a shadow.
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And all is good, really. There’s nothing to judge at all. I don’t judge. Whatever it is, you know.
All of these movements, even those movements towards the rising I, there’s no fault or anything like that. Nothing like that at all. We just notice, that’s all.
Simple. Just notice. Just be cognizant of what’s going on with you, that’s all.
And then you start to see, what do I want? Because if I want freedom, here it is. I can have it.
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It’s good to be with you. I’ll be back again tomorrow. Peace.
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