Non Duality Adventures

   "I" always believed very strongly that "I" was a kind person. The story held was that "I" am empathetic, caring and very compassionate. "I" would attempt to support others in any way "I" could emotionally. "I" had a strong sense that "I" was a good, honest and supportive person.  Then "I" began to enquire into how thought works. Why does it say the things that it does? What is its motive? What is it trying to get, achieve and control?  On the surface layer. Of course "I" was being caring. Of course "I" was being supportive. But in the exploration of the layers of thought underneath the action and the first layer of story were found to be beliefs of "being right", and of "knowing better". This led to the desire to explore and question more. So if "I" am doing something or saying something because "I" think "I" am being kind or giving my...

We (as consciousness) are taught to believe that what we are is a separate individual body moving through time. We are told this from a very early age by all those around us. As we grow up we don’t question this. Why would we? It is what everyone around us says, feels and thinks, it is what all of the structures of society back up. Our education, work and government say it is so. So why investigate otherwise? The answer to this is suffering. This perceived individual person is believed to navigate life while experiencing fear, worry, regret, anxiety, loneliness and loss. We cling to things for safety and grieve the things we believe we have lost. We constantly strive for an imaginary success that can never be gained as the goal posts continually move further and further away into imagined time. We may feel “we” have got there for a moment, but then it passes and the chase is back on for the “what next?”. We are never satisfied for longer than a fleeting moment. Thought is structure...

Life as the Guru When we begin our spiritual journey, we seek out practices and teachers that will support us to DO what we think we need to DO in order to progress. We begin to enquire into the thought system and we see that it is not the logical, organised, useful functioning of what we are, but a crazy, illogical rising of automatic content that we do not in fact have any control over at all.  When we see that we have no control over it at all and attempt to stop it or change it, we watch as it goes crazy. We then begin to detach from it and fall back into a position of watching it and observing the craziness. This then gives us the spiritual will needed to begin to detach from larger parts of our story that has been the cause of immense suffering.  Throughout this journey, we reach out to supposed others to get guidance and support as we flip-flop in and out of one moment, believing the story and everything that it says into the next, being able to objectively watch and ob...

  Being rather than understanding and knowing   The road to finally waking up in its fullest expression is ladened with pitfalls. Some are shallow and stoney and others deep and dark. The length of time we remain in the holes depends on what is needed to be learned and how fast we see we are in a hole and seek to climb back out.  One of these large pitfalls is that of understanding or knowing. When we begin to “learn” about spiritual awakening and non duality we take it on as information in the form of knowledge. We read, watch, experience and then it is stored within thought as memory. This allows for enquiry within thought to begin. Questions about the actual content begin to be asked such as “Why can I not forgive them?” or “What is it that I am expecting from this situation?”. As this evolves we then begin to ask looser questions about the content such as “Why do I feel this way?” or “What is at the root of this particular chain of thought?”. We then go on to ask...

Thought is never stronger than when creating fear. Just stop and think for a moment. Watch it. Can you write down what comes up as it does? Chances are it is about fear or control (ultimately the same thing). Simple thoughts about others, situations, and ourselves if examined are about thought trying to control and predict stuff or go over old stuff in order to attempt to analyse and judge. All of it is to go with fear.  Worry, anxiety, and unworthiness are one of its best fuels for those trains. It can grow and gain strength as these kinds of thoughts carry immense energy. Once in this track loop it can then cause emotions which are triggered by it and add on the train giving the sensation of impending danger and death. What a great way to keep itself going. How can you ever stop thinking now? If you do, you will die. The fear of death is the basic root of thought. When I first started this journey I would sit and write down thoughts as they would arise and watch the trains connec...

  All too often we don’t realise it but feeling lost or lonely is perfectly ok. That it is bound to happen. It is part of the structure of thought. Create separation and then get lonely . The feeling from the presence of god/ consciousness will do this! On such occasions, we are in conflict with our selves and the so-called suffering or pain is bound to take place as we replace our actual sensations, which are momentary energies, with labels and explanations from memory ABOUT the story and how it is effecting us. We do not see that it is the story that is causing the pain. No story, no loneliness. We so desperately try to make sense of all this, simply because everyone else seems to be doing the same. The story runs in thought. "They look happy!" "Why am I so alone and unhappy?". Facebook and other social media have ramped this up to unbearable degrees. The "look at them and how great it looks" scenario feeds the story coming up within thought and the s...

  Waking up amidst the gritty stuff Nearly every “spiritual teacher” that I have ever heard speak has at some point mentioned their retreats, their teachers, their practices. There has been the indication (whether meant or not) that there was a journey which involved “spiritual places and people”.  This wasn’t the case here. (Unless you include the one weekend retreat I did in Portugal as an attempt at the time to escape young children, a caravan and the searing heat of the Portuguese summer!) Other than those three days the story here was that of kids, a husband, arguments, friends, work... a very ordinary life. There was no teacher who wore robes and whom I bowed down to. There was a man from Leister who sat on my sofa and exploded my entire world in the most violent fashion while in the midst of kids, washing, cooking dinner and sleepless nights. It was messy, very messy! It was not serein, it was not calm, it was definitely not up a mountain. There had never been reli...