Just because you think or feel that something
is true, it still doesn't make it true.

Thoughts and feelings exist only in the "I" of
the Beholder.

They have no other reality.

They act like decorative ornaments that ran-
domly hang on the tree of your ego.

Without their razzle-dazzle, the tree would not
be able to be seen.

Without the tree, however, these ornaments
would really have nothing to hang from.

***

If you're not 100 percent happy in the present
moment of Now, then you'll unconsciously create
reasons for you to seek happiness out of some
imaginary future where you can, hopefully,
become satisfied, sanctified or made more whole.

However, if you believe that true happiness is
just around the corner for you, you'll always be
noticing more corners.

***

The Mystery of Life: The indivisible pretends to
be divisible, assumes a point of view, and then
struggles to, seemingly, regain what it had never
really lost.

You're not moving through life like walking through
some kind of elaborate maze.

You're actually standing perfectly still and Life's
Maze is really moving through you.

So be a-mazed!

***

However you believe the world to be, that's
exactly how the world will present itself to you.

You are always living your life out into your
beliefs about how life is.

You'll see something in your life whenever you
begin to believe it strongly enough.

It's not the other way around.

In fact, you're creating your own private hell
every day through your attachment to your
belief that this right here and right now,,,
is not heaven.

***

The visible world is manifested by the dance
that goes on between your "I" - what you say
you are (i.e. the "yes-stuff") and your "not-I,"
- what you say you are not (i.e. the "no-stuff).

Unfortunately, the "not-I" can only talk in terms
of who you are not.

It has no real language for talking in terms of
who you really are.

***

From time to time, notice how your periods of
great spiritual insights and clarity are often
followed by periods of great spiritual doubt and
confusion, and that these seemingly opposite
states fluctuate randomly back and forth
throughout your entire life.

The ever-growing possibility of "no-thing-ness"
will compel you, again and again, to lose your
focus. In order to continue your playful pretending,
you pull back at the very last moment and sabotage
yourself from full awakening.

But, in truth, you're only playing with your Self.

Have you ever watched how a cat first catches
and then seems to carelessly release the
same mouse, again and again?

First the cat has it and then he pretends that
he doesn't have it. Again and again.

Likewise, you seem to have "IT."

And then, you pretend that you don't have "IT."

But it's all really OK.

After all, nobody wants a good movie to end.

***

When Consciousness becomes self-conscious
of itself, it appears to show up in the world as a
personal ego.

But why does the ego go out looking for a
Consciousness that it already is? After all,
Consciousness isn't "lost" that it needs to be,
somehow, "found."

Although the ego is compelled to go out looking,
ironically, its only real hope of ever surviving is
in not finding.

***

The nature of the mind is to keep the screen
of Consciousness filled with seductive mani-
festations.

In short, we all love the razzle-dazzle that comes
along with the appearance of "The Other."

Above all, your mind doesn't want to kicked out
of the "Ego Game" too quickly.

It desperately wants to be the last final Survivor.

The Big Cosmic Joke, however, is that the mind
is as non-existent as is the very ego that it's been
trying so hard to protect.

Ah, isn't it fun to pretend?

***

There are no "good" feelings, and there are no
"bad" feelings.

Feelings should only be classified as being com-
fortable or uncomfortable.

Labeling feelings as "bad" will only lessen your
willingness to associate yourself with them when
they show up for you.

Judging your feelings as bad is an indirect way
of judging yourself as bad for having them being
present in your life.

Resisting life, however, only stokes the fire.

The Universe just doesn't like to hear "NO."

***

The center of the Cosmos lies in the center
of your own heart.

A trillion times a second, you're both creating
and destroying the entire universe.

So of what is there to be afraid?

Is a Mother ever afraid of her own infant?

At every moment, you are already cradling
your Beloved.

Even as you, yourself, are being cradled.

***

Before you cross the threshold into dreamless
sleep, absolutely everything in the world that you
hold near and dear will have to be surrendered
and left behind.

You can only enter that empty kingdom with
empty hands, empty mind and an empty heart.

If you're coming with anything in your hands,
mind or heart, you're required to wait at the
threshold until you finally put it down.

***

Consciousness can handle your life without you
and your controlling ego ever being involved.

The movie screen has no need to control the
characters that are appearing in the movie.

The screen of Consciousness equally accepts
every comedy, melodrama, farce and tragedy
without any discrimination whatsoever.

Consciousness is even big enough to welcome
your perversions and to tolerate your holiness.

It's only you who seem to have a problem in
equally embracing all of these passing phenomena.

***
In discovering that you have no real control
over your choices, your heart will be set free.

However, if you believe that you have even one
single choice in life, that's enough to keep you
fully trapped and into taking the Game very
seriously.

There's an old song that say, Freedom's just
another word for nothing left to lose.

In truth, though, freedom's just another word
for nothing left to CHOOSE.

***

When "what isn't" is chosen over "what is,"
then things appear to move.

Movement, however, doesn't necessarily mean
that things are changing, and it certainly doesn't
mean that anything is being "improved."

The Great Mystery is discovered only in seeing
the inaction within the action…and, at the same
time, seeing the action within the inaction.

***

The bad news: You can't really save anyone
from their destiny.

In fact, you can№t save them even if it's your
destiny to be involved in their destiny.

Period!

The good news, though, is that no one is ever
going to be damned. Not ever.

No matter what's been happening in your life,
you're not being punished.

You're only being taught.

***

Great teachers and philosophies are like special
portals that point you into the infinite vastness of
Consciousness.

However, most seekers get stuck at these doorways
whenever they begin to worship the portal itself
instead of looking into what they're being pointed
towards.

Unless you find the inner courage to eventually walk
through these Gateways - and be destroyed - you'll
spend your life teetering at the edge of your own
emptiness.

Stop seeking outside of you for something that only
lies within.

Portals are not the Truth.

Portals only point out the Truth.

But be still. Be patient.

Sooner or later, all roads lead to OM.

***

Action vs. Inaction:

The Psychologist says Do.

The Guru says Be.

Consciousness, taking both positions, says
Do-Be-Do-Be-Do.

But, once again, all change is Go(o)d.

Sooner or later the cosmic kaleidoscope is always
re-cycling everthing and creating new mandalas.

Same stones.

Different patterns.

***

Consciousness is able to play all opposing
sides simultaneously.

Consequently, it's not interested in any of the
ego-based distinctions of "either-or."

Since it's able to contain all opposites,
Consciousness does not, and can not, ever
take a firm position on anything.

Only the ego wants to take a firm position.

Unlike all of the "gods," though, Consciousness
doesn't take sides.

***

By overlaying a subjective grid work on the
world through your definitions and beliefs, you
vainly try to artificially divide the indivisible.

Beneath all of your ego-based interpretations,
however, the Absolute persists undisturbed and is
completely untouched by everything that you think,
feel, say and do.

Meanwhile, though, you're still struggling to
frantically write the story of your life on the watery
surface of an Eternal Ocean.

But you're using an icicle pen!

***

The world is not the illusion.

It's you who are the illusion.

Who you are is the context that the entire world
is happening in.

As long as you are in the body, however, you
won't be waking up from the illusion.

You'll only be waking up to the illusion.

Even after you've discovered that it's only
illusory, the mirage of a desert lake still looks
just like a real lake.

***

What you really want is to have a profound
experience of your own true nature.

At the deepest level, you are compelled to seek
out the true Source of "who" you really are.

The irony, though, is that when you seemingly
arrive at the very core of your Being, there will
be nobody there to greet you.

Who you think you are can't possibly survive
your own awakening.

Nobody can survive it.

***

You will never "know" the Truth.
You can only "Be" the Truth.

There is no "knower" that's really separate from
the Truth that's being known.

The ego says that it wants to experience the
Truth, but it survives more by saying "no" to the
truth than it does by saying "yes" to it.

However, consciousness is truth, itself, and so
it needs no one present in order to validate it.

Life is just as it is.
There's nothing more than "just this."
And, quite amazingly, there's nothing else than
"just this."

***

As long as you're dreaming that you're awake,
there'll be no end to your fears or your desires.

They will only end when you become fully
awakened to your own dreaming.

Suffering finds its roots in your desire to be free
from something that's present…even if it's only a
desire to be free from dreaming the Dream.

But no desire is really spiritual…including the
so-called spiritual desire to have no spiritual
desires.

And yet, paradoxically, it's all absolutely
spiritual.

Yes! All of it.
Every fear. Every desire.

***

Because it never changes, Consciousness itself
is never angry, sad, hurt, lonely or scared.

It's only the historical ego-self that seeks to validate
its separate existence by maintaining a close association
with, and attachment for, those thoughts and feelings.

When you create a heart-centered detachment to the
world, however, these passing phenomena can then be
experienced with compassionate indifference and a kind
of "holy apathy."

Detachment is the realm of unconditional love.

***

Your belief that something-is-missing-in-the-present-moment
provides the momentum for the melodrama of your life topropel
itself outward in search of this absent and elusive"something."

Similarly, the proverbial donkey is never able to arrive atthe
dangling carrot because the carrot is always kept just out ofits
reach.

Just like it is for you.

Life's ongoing momentum prevents you from reaching any
permanent satisfaction or experiencing any sense of final
completion.

Sadly, though, you never seem to run out of new carrots todangle
in front of your ravishing "I's."

***

When the mind goes out looking for the reality of
Consciouness, all that it will ever find is just more
mind.

Instead, turn around and see whose mind is doing
all this so-called looking.

Who you really are has absolutely no polarity.

Since Consciousness stands in opposition to
nothing, it creates no real opposite.

Who you think you are, however, does appear
to have an opposite.

The Game begins anew whenever you start
pretending again that you don't recognize your
own reflection.