True Wisdom

"True wisdom doesn't come from realizing how much you know or understand about the world. It comes from realizing how much you don't know and understand and from the deep, reverent, sense of humility that comes along with it." - Aaron Hutchins

Be All That You Are

Be All That You Are

 

I wouldn't say that I am a happy person by nature,

With every waking moment...the word "WHY" on my lips.

Aching to understand the reason for my existence.

Yearning to know the truth of all that through my fingers slips.

 

"You needn't worry about life," they tell me.

"Life has a way of taking care of itself."

"You are exactly what you were meant to be," they say.

"You needn't want to be more than yourself."

 

But I was born with this tireless curiosity.

I came into this world with this need to see.

It makes me happy to marvel at universal wonder,

And I find joy in the thought of transcending all that is "me".

 

I have this burning inside to reconnect with my divine nature,

But I also long to help set this whole reality free.

So perhaps those questions within me are my gift to the world.

Perhaps that curiosity is my soul's way of being all it can be.

 

Everything is but fluctuations of energy,
And everyone is perfect the way they are that's true,

But everyone is resonating towards the desires of their heart,

So might not that include the need to be more too?

Therefore pay no attention to the life coaching of others,
For the only advice given is for them and not you.
Just follow along with whatever your heart says,
And be all that you are...That's all you can do.

AARON HUTCHINS

Culture Only Serves Culture

Everything Is Perfect

From our emergence into this world at birth, all the way up until our final rest, we're taught to view the world in terms of duality. Good and bad. Happy and sad. Positive and negative. Light and dark. Beautiful and ugly. Right and wrong. In fact, in the whole spectrum of possible experience it seems as if we tend to gravitate towards one polarity or another, when, in all reality, there really is absolutely no difference between either side of that spectrum except for the feelings that we attach to those things. That is to say, for instance, that a thing is only considered "bad" because we ourselves have attached a negative meaning to that thing that says it's bad and therein lies the nature of all things. These feelings we have not only dictate meaning towards the things we encounter in life, but they also fundamentally shape our perceptions of the world. So, in all actuality, everything is neutral until we attach meaning to it and, in this way, the duality that we all experience is really merely nothing more than a projection of our own consciousness.

Where do we get these ideas and interpretations of our reality then? Well, some of these ideas we, of course, develop on our own, but also, I think just by nature of being brought up in any culture, we are subject to being influenced by the collective views of society and by the perspectives of those in our environment around us. The truth is though, that, beyond all those things, everything that happens in our lives, by one means or another, is perfect just the way it is. Granted, there are a great number of things out there that might bring harm to people and, most certainly, anything that imposes upon the will and/or well being of another is a potentially harmful thing to the world, but those things, I think, really come down to more of an issue of common sense. I'm more referring here to all of those things that each of us do everyday that stand as unique and, perhaps even, unprecendented expressions of who we really are as individuals and of what humanity can truly be. We may not understand all of these things to be sure, but I think that as human beings who are just learning about our lives as we go, that there is always something beautiful to be taken in from every experience that we have.

 ~ You've got an angry person in your life? Well, you can almost bet that they're only angry because they're in the same process of learning some deeper lessons about life as we are.

~ You've been dumped by your significant other? Well, isn't it possible that you're here to have experiences with more than just that one person in your life and that, by opening ourselves up to new people, we can only learn new and beautiful things about ourselves and about the world?

~ You feel uncomfortable around people who look, act or even think differently than you do? Well, could it be that you're just struggling with that fear that we all have of the unknown and of those things in life that we simply just don't yet understand because they're maybe just a little different from the way that we have chosen to live our own lives?

The point is that there really are an infinite number of ways to live a life and, although we will certainly never understand them all, they are all beautiful in their own way. In fact, if we can learn to appreciate and even find joy in those differences between us all, while also allowing others to be what they are and to create their own unique expression of the life experience, I think we'll begin to find that, even after we've probed the virtually infinite depths of the entire universe, all of those different individual perceptions and expressions of life are probably one of the most stunningly fascinating things about life that we may ever encounter. I believe that once we're able to recognize that too, that then we will no longer feel the need to waste our energies struggling against the world or in self-defense, as our world suddenly becomes much bigger and we are able to look out at the universe with new eyes and marvel in wonder and awe at the magic of all that is...

All Answers Come From Within

I've had this idea on my mind a lot lately of looking within ourselves to find the answers to all of life's many questions, so I made these two memes. I hope you like them! :)

 

Let Go And Love All

“Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.”  - Dalai Lama XIV

“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi

In this earthly existence, I believe that monogamous relationships are a beautiful tool that are here to help us begin to understand the concept of what "LOVE" for another individual truly is. By this logic, however, it also seems that, in the end, these experiences are merely a rudimentary step along the pathway to our own personal enlightenment in our lives and to the elevation of our soul. In other words, these encounters seem to serve as more of a model for(or a way of) showing us how we should love and respect ALL beings equally and one of the best ways to do this, I believe, is to begin considering these experiences with others as just that...a beautiful experience. In this way we can start to relinquish our hold on one another and our expectations of others by simply not locking ourselves down to the idea of having just one intimate partner for the rest of our lives and opening our hearts to the whole infinite world of possible experiences that are out there for us to explore.

Our Western culture generally recoils at the idea of having amorous connections with more than one person in our lives, but I think we have something to learn from everyone we meet in this life and that people will come and go throughout our lifetime who have something to teach us through our experiences with them. When we become romantically involved with someone, we often unrealisitically begin to expect or hope that it might last forever, exclusively, but that's only because we've been brought up with our own limited perceptions of the world and perhaps even of our very existence itself here in the West.

Most of us have grown up in a culture where being in possession and control of things and of the people in our lives is a thing to be prized. As a result, we most often end up wanting someone in our lives that we can call our very own(and no one else's) in this life. Eastern traditions, however, have known for perhaps thousands of years, that in order for us to grasp mentally those higher understandings of life and love and nature, that we first have to let go of all those external views that are imposed upon us by our environment, as well as, the things inside us that often make us feel like we need to control the world and to covet things for ourselves...and this is done through a TRUE embodiment of love.

I believe that many of those individuals who have reached higher vibrational levels of consciousness through extremely deep meditation or even those in shamanic or tribal traditions who have, since the dawn of man, taken ayahuasca or payote or other consciousness expanding substances, that push one beyond the infinitely small minded nature of cultural and societal views, standards and expectations, understand this. This is because these altered states of consciousness allow one to step outside of the constraints of the three dimensional illusions of the world and thrust the individual beyond everything they've previously known into a place where, perhaps for the first time in their lives, they are able to think for themselves without the external suppositions of their environment.

That's not to say, of course, to go out and make love to everyone you meet or even to make it your goal to have as many experiences with as many people as you can in this life. It's only to say that beyond looking for someone in life that we can possess and call our very own, that rather, in the natural flow of things, we can be more open to the possibility of the experiences that we can have with people, what we can learn from them and what they can mean to our lives. In other words, we can take what we learned with someone and apply it to future encounters with others in our life, as a measure of refining our hearts and fine tuning our own expressions of love and through that achieve a higher understanding and wisdom of love along the way that moves us into higher levels of conscious thought.

Then, maybe we can learn to love the people we encounter along the way even more, from a place beyond jealousy and the fear of loss in our minds, as we allow them the freedom to be and express themselves as uniquely as they possibly can and hopefully, in turn, they can love us enough to allow us to do the same. The bond between two people is a beautiful thing to be sure, but just imagine all the things in your life that you couldn't have learned had you stayed with that first person that came along. It can be so easy to become caught up in our own whimsically romantic notions of saying that "we've arrived" or that "we've found our one true soul mate", but in all reality, in doing that we are really only closing ourselves off to the endless possibilities of deeper experience that this life has to offer.

There is another way, however. I mean, we can always discover that same true affinity for all beings by the traditional/historical method of simply not being taken in by intimate encounters with anyone at all. This, of course, has been done by the monks, the nuns, The Dalai Lama, The Buddha and so on, throughout the ages in our world, and likely because those individuals who sought true enlightenment realized at some point in their lives that romantic involvement with another might only complicate or distract an individual from the journey towards a pure, unbiased, love for all beings. I'm not completely sure, that we were necessarily meant to follow this route though, as those experiences of love and intimacy most certainly seem to be an integral part of the human experience that are rooted deeply within our souls.

I think that love and even intimacy are experiences that were perhaps meant to be explored with many people throughout our lifetime on many different levels. Our immature culture scoffs at this, however, and tries to tell us that that this is taboo and that we should be seeking "the one that's meant for us" in our lives and, in general, I think we pretty much follow, possibly unknowingly, what culture dictates that we do because it's really all we've ever known in our lives, but, by this logic, I tell you that I think there are many "one's" out there for us to encounter in our lifetime. I understand that this way of thinking is not a generally accepted view in our society, but I think that futher illustrates the point. The point is, we can make the choice right now to be free of fear and control and all the pain in the world if we can allow ourselves to just open up our minds and our hearts enough to just let go...

"NAMASTE"

(which means)

I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.

I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light and of peace.

When you are in that place in you,

And I am in that place in me,

We are one.

 

Death Is Not A Fearful Thing

Before I begin here, I just want to say that, despite the fact that this post is about death that, if you can get around that fact enough to read this, it is actually a lot more uplifting and potentially liberating than you might think and definitely worth the read... :)

The subject of death is something that most of the world puts off thinking about until those fateful last moments when their whole life flashes before them. Most of us live in a culture where death is not talked about or acknowledged as a fact of life until someone close to us passes on or we realize that our own clock is winding down and we have no other choice but to think about it. I've spent a great deal of my life thinking about death and therefore a great deal of my life keeping it to myself, as it's something that no one ever really wants to contemplate. It's generally considered to be too grim or depressing a subject to think about and the very idea of death often generates fear within the minds of many people. Many times, even those who say that they are not afraid of death and that they have accepted the inevitability of their own mortality, find that they had really only done so to tuck the idea away conveniently in the back of their minds and perhaps quietly prevent themselves from having to think about it as well...and therein lies the fear of it all.

In a lifetime of thinking about death, however, I can tell you that there is nothing to fear and that people who think about death as much as they think about life are not dwelling on the morbid side of things, but rather they come to know a great, fulfilling, secret about life and about why death is truly not a fearful thing because they begin to see a fuller, richer, view of what the whole picture of life really is. From birth to death. From incarnation to the grand adventure of life and at last into the great beyond...

These individuals see a more full spectrum of existence as a whole and are therefore often much more aware of the things that are truly important in one's lifetime. Rather than having all those regretful epiphanies in their last moments of how much more they could've loved their life and the world, how much better they could've treated people, how many more places they could've gone, how much more they could've explored and learned about nature and so on. They can apply all those things to their life right now and begin living with much more wisdom and love, as they embrace the perspective of life that usually only comes in those desperate last moments towards the end of one's life when they realize that they may not have much more life to live.

The great philosopher Alan Watts, spent a considerable portion of his life talking about death to people and helping to deliver them from the overwhelming fears that people have about it. I think that was an incredible service to have given to the world as, the fear of losing this existence that we all cling to, is really one of the most deep rooted fears that we can have in life and perhaps the most important one that we have to come to terms with. We like to control our lives as much as possible and the prospect of death is likely the most out of control thing that we can ever encounter or think of. We think that if we can just stamp the idea of death out of our minds that it might not be true and somehow that gives us the idea of having some control over our lives and where we're heading. We can overcome these fears of losing control however, just by remembering that while we may fear death, it is something that we simply have no control of...and never did. Death comes to us all eventually and there is a sense of liberation in that. We don't have to struggle against it now or ever because we simply can't.

 

We're afraid of the unknown...of what might lie beyond the veil...of what awaits us on the other side or perhaps an even more teriffying prospect...what doesn't lie on the other side. The thought of everlasting non-existence. We don't need to fear this though. For, everything that makes us up as human beings...our body, our mind, our consciousness and the spirit of everything we are is made up of energy and even science can tell you that that energy is never lost. It is merely redistributed into the universe, breathing life into other things and creating more of everything that you see around you. Your personality, your life experiences, the feelings you had, the things you created, the people you helped or inspired...they are all energies that you created in the universe and they will never die. Our body may feed the soil one day, which in turn may become a tree that might, in turn, feed the birds and so on and we can live on in this way as well, but you are not just your body. You are YOU...and the essence of everything that YOU are is part of the whole universe and will be absorbed into the universe in one way or another and will most undoubtedly live on forever.

We don't know what comes next, but we can know that we have no need to fear it. The very nature of evolution in this universe suggests that, whatever it is, it will be something better and perhaps far more extraordinary than we can imagine. So, in accepting death and releasing the fear of allowing ourselves to ponder what it is, we can become truly empowered within our life and begin to experience the infinite freedom and joy that comes with TRULY living a life without fear...
 

 



Here is a quote by Alan Watts from the video below(9 mins.) of a talk he gave regarding eastern thought on the subject of death and why we have no reason to ever fear it. I hope you watch it and are just as inspired as I was to live more and to fear so much less... :)

"So, the bodhisatva saves all beings. Not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered...they are liberated...by the very fact of not being able to stop change. You can't hang onto yourself. You don't have to try not to hang onto yourself. It can't be done...and that is salvation..." - Alan Watts
 



Life Is An Adventure

Life is an adventure and unfortunately one that many people might not even be aware that they're on. To those who have had this wakening revelation though, the world can sometimes seem like a very lonely place, as you step back and watch the surging flow of people all around you, moving subsconsciously about their day, perhaps unaware of the infinite beauty of the reality around them. We all live within the same web of illusion, so it is unlikely that anyone sees the full picture of reality, but every once in a while you can look into the eyes of someone and see the sheer limitless, endless, wonder of the whole universe and know that they too have embarked upon the same self discovering journey of finding out exactly what it means to be alive and why every second of our existence in this life is a thing to be enjoyed...

How To Become "The One"

"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." - Morpheus

 

Reality is merely an illusion and we all live in this "Matrix" of illusion that Morpheus was referring to everyday of our lives. Ignorance to the truth of reality is the problem and the only solution to this problem is to begin to awaken your mind and set yourself on the path of "The One".

Here are the 5 main things you can do to start following the path to true enlightenment according to the "Matrix" trilogy, the documentary "Philosophy And The Matrix: Return To The Source" and the philosophers throughout time who inspired it:

1) The superman rejects all of the previously established constructs of systems of good and bad and what you're told that you're supposed to do. "The One" will use his own will to do what he wants regardless of what the world says or thinks.
- According to the great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

 



2) Free yourself of the attachments to singular individuals, platonic or intimate. This includes romantic and sexual encounters. "The One" will learn to love all the same and not raise any one person above the others.
- Neo fails at this by holding Trinity up above all others, but the TRULY enlightened individual will not.

 

 

3) Let go of the idea that anything in the future will continue to be like the past. Anything is possible because the limits of the past have only been true up until now. All we know so far is that which was, but that which was can always be changed.

- According to the philosopher David Hume.



4) You must die to the ego in order to attain true enlightenment, immortality and a union with the world and with the divine.

5) Once the spirit has been reconnected with the divine then "the matrix" itself begins to dissolve and the spirit of "The One" will revert to it's natural expressions of light and peace. This individual will then be able to help realign all the dimensions of human existence: body, mind and spirit.

It should be noted that we are all, in a sense, "The One". We all live within the same illusion and are, in our own way and in our own time, trying to understand the truth behind it all. Some may not be looking at the moment or even in this particular life, but ultimately we will all wake up from the dream and remember who we really are. Ultimately, we will all become "The One"...

For A MORE "VISUAL" LOOK AT ALL THIS, CHECK OUT:

Philosophy And The Matrix: Return To The Source - Documentary

http://vimeo.com/53000177

(FULL MOVIE)

What Are We Doing?

What are we doing???...This is probably the first question that often comes to mind when someone begins to see the bigger picture of what humanity has done so far with the unfathomably profound gift of consciousness that we've all inherited through billions and billions of years of evolution in this universe. We've traveled across light years of space and were seeded on this planet by the stars to do one thing, to answer the question that's been burning in the mind of the universe itself and the very reason for the existence of everything we could ever know since the beginning of time. I think that this question that the universe has really been trying to solve through all of its infinite expressions of existence is, "What am I?"

I don't even think the universe knows the answer to this question any more than we know what we are, otherwise there would be no purpose for our existence here. It seems to be trying to figure out, through every random occurence it can allow us and everything out there to have, in this existence and every possible parallel one, what it is to exist and how it came to be.

To do this it would have needed to empty out it's conscious awareness of itself completely, the same way that one does when they meditate or when they ingest a psychoactive substance. In order to learn from that which is outside of all known reality and that which only seems to be completely unknowable in our current state of mind, requires that the old state of mind be entirely cleared out of everything it has previously known and experienced so that it can allow those inner parts of itself, of which we are a part, the freedom and universal power to explore and create anything that we can deem possible in our conscious minds. Only then might the source of all things that birthed the universe discover every aspect of what it truly is. In the same way we can connect with our own inner universe by quieting our minds and allowing those deep inner parts of ourselves the freedom to explore and be something new and different and unique, that we might receive a kind of knowledge from beyond the veil that transcends all of space and time.

So, what are we doing with this consciousness we have to wonder? Where are we taking ourselves on this fantastical adventure we call life?  In the past we've established systems of disharmony and separation, world governments and divisive borders and cultures that push us away from each other and strip us of our human link with one another, but overall our lives seem to be perhaps moving towards a greater interconnectedness, as we've painstakingly been learning from our mistakes since the dawn of time.

Here is a video by Terence McKenna that might paint a deeper picture of this process of evolution that we've all been going through...



There Are No "Acceptable Losses"!

I made this image today. Any thoughts on this? :)

This Is The Dream World

This is probably true for everyone. I don't think that they were talking about opening our eyes for the first time here by becoming a spiritual person or becoming more "enlightened" in this life or opening our eyes to really anything in THIS reality. No. This and every other seemingly tangible universe IS "the dream world" and to attain the kind of understanding that would truly open our eyes in this way would mean a complete separation from the physical realms all together and an instant ascension into infinitely higher vibrational planes of existence.

The Hero's Journey

I've been thinking back recently to a trip I took last year to see the Mayan ruins of Mexico and Guatemala. I've always been fascinated with the magic of the region and with Mayan culture, beliefs, architecture, creation myth, etc. This has been particularly true as we near the end of the Mayan long count calendar; an intricate system of time keeping which spans the 5,125 years from August 11, 3114 BC to the winter solstice on December 21, 2012 AD.

Many translations say that the Mayans predicted the end date of the calendar to be the end of a great world age. In fact, it seems the Mayans thought that at the end of this 5,125 year cycle we would enter what they called "The Time of No Time"; a period which would bring with it phenomenal changes and transformation on the earth. These changes, they believed, would propel us into a great evolutionary period on this planet, which would carry our world into a time of new beginnings and deep spiritual growth.

When thinking to myself about all the mind blowing structures that I was privileged enough to experience at each of the ancient sites, I was reminded of just how much of a feeling of awe and reverence, as well as a deep reflection upon one's own spiritual nature, that each of these spectacular monuments seemed to command. This was a defining experience which planted the seed within me to find more peace and harmony within myself, as well as letting go of fear, that I might one day come to understand more the true nature of existence and reality. Many of these concepts, I feel, have lead me to a place of comprehending, that the road to enlightenment is more than just a quest for personal knowledge. It's about learning compassion and coming back with all that you've learned, with a burning desire to share with other's what following that call within your heart has taught you.

This burning call to action, that all of us experience at one time or another in our lives, got me thinking about the book, "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. In the book he introduces the concept that all the great journeys in our lives that make epic stories, help us achieve difficult goals and even perhaps lead us down the path of ultimately becoming better people, unwaveringly follow the same progression of events, which he called "The Hero's Journey". Fascinated with this concept, I started researching more about the hero's path, as it no doubt mirrors the path of one whose goal is to seek true inner peace and enlightenment. This can be seen here in this short clip from the fascinating documentary, "Return To The Source: Philosophy And The Matrix", where they briefly discuss Joseph Campbell and "The Hero's Journey", through Neo's path to enlightenment, in "The Matrix" movie.

Now, looking more closely at these steps as a process of spiritual illumination, I began seeing instant parallels with the enlightened figures of the past, such as Jesus or The Buddha, for instance. In both cases, their lives seem to almost precisely mirror this process in perfect sequence. Particularly, the story of The Buddha's life, I think. I've been looking pretty deeply into Buddhism lately and have been completely fascinated with the life of The Buddha, as it is such an inspiring story of giving up everything that feeds "the self" in order to attain a completely pure state of love and compassion for all that is, as well as the obstacles that one must face along the way.

As far as my own "Hero's Journey" is concerned, I have most certainly experienced "The Ordinary World" & I have many times heard "The Call To Adventure", of which I have many times followed. Regarding, the particular call towards deepening my own level of enlightenment, however, I have definitely experienced "Refusal of the Call" more times than I think anyone would care to admit. Perhaps, that phase of the journey though, is by nature, designed to ensnare most any one of us, if only for awhile. I'm not sure I have specifically had my "Meeting With The Mentor" yet, although I have become quite inspired the last few years by the writings, documentaries, talks and teachings of many different spiritual masters and intellectuals advocating the exploration and development of consciousness, compassion and love, as well as refining our ability to perceive who and what we are beyond the veil of the physical world. I've hardly "Crossed the First Threshold" by making some minor changes recently towards helping myself refocus my energy in the direction of this goal. Though, it seems those "minor changes" have already presented me with some rather major "Tests, Allies & Enemies" to be regarded.

So, I am pretty far from my goals in this endeavor. I suppose though, enlightenment, is probably the most trying goal a person can set for themselves in this life, but, then again, I do like to make life difficult. Nonetheless, after many years of deliberation & "refusal", I have embarked on this journey; not quite a "hero" yet, but it's a start and I imagine every hero's story begins somewhere.

What's your "hero's journey"?