Inspired Mind :: Health & Spirit

When our inner peace and well-being depend on forces outside ourselves (circumstances, the marketplace, other people) the stress and anxiety that result in personal conflict, and that get in the way of our effectiveness, are always close at hand. Our buttons get all too easily pushed.

But as we become more established in our true, awakened nature, we are far less at the effect of those outer forces. We then bring greater clarity, confidence, and focus to the problems needing our attention. We are able to act decisively and generate results with more consistency and predictability. In those instances where events do not work out favorably, we are able to more quickly make the adjustments needed to get things back on track.

The simplest and most direct method for making the shift back to our true nature is as follows: As often as you remember throughout the day, pause and take the time to breathe slowly and consciously. Then bring your awareness slightly behind and above your head. This is more the real you. From this place, make your body, sense, and mind/personality objects of observation. It is as if you are witnessing all that is arising within your awareness.

If you are being bothered by a particular thought, belief, or story (for example, “What if I fail?”) examine it objectively. Be very still for a moment or two, and look at the belief as you would any object from this detached place slightly behind and above yourself. Do not judge it or analyze it. Become aware of yourself as the awareness, or consciousness, that is looking at this particular belief. Now be aware that what you are looking at, you cannot be. You are what is looking.

The belief, “What if I fail?” is just a thought form arising within the field of awareness that you are. When you stop identifying with it through the practice of presence, you cease giving it power. Through applying this technique many times a day, eventually the belief will lose its charge. It will no longer be a button for you. No belief or thought form can persist for long in the light of clear, sustained awareness, or conscious presence.

After you have freed yourself from one limiting belief, then take the next one that is causing conflict, and work with it in the same way. The more you do this, the more your head will clear, and you will come to a place of authentic inner freedom. Instead of living from your mind and its worries, you will live from an alert yet relaxed sense of awareness in the present. Then you will be able to use your mind for the powerful creative tool that it is, but it will no longer be a source of conflict or stress for you.


© Jim Dreaver, 2007

  Jim Dreaver: Buttons

I allow you to be in the world without a thought or word of judgement from me, about the deeds you undertake. I see no error in the things you say or do. In this place where I am, I see that there are many ways to perceive and experience the different facets of our world. I allow without reservation the choices you make in each moment. I make no judgement of this, for if I would deny your right to your evolution, then I would deny that right for all others and myself.

To those who would choose a way I cannot walk, whilst I may not choose to add my power and my energy to this way, I will never deny you the gift of love that the Universe has bestowed within me, for all creation. As I love you, so I shall be loved. As I sow, so shall I reap.

I allow you the Universal Right of free will to walk your own path, creating steps or to sit awhile if that is what is right for you. I will make no judgement that these steps are large or small, nor light or heavy or that they lead up or down, for this is just my viewpoint.

I may see you do nothing and judge it unworthy and yet it may be that you bring great healing, as you stand blessed by the light of the universe. I cannot always see the higher picture of Divine Order.

For it is the unalienable right of all life to choose their own evolution and with great love I acknowledge your right to determine your future. In humility I bow to the realization that the way I see, as best for me does not have to mean it is also right for you. I know that you are led as 'I Am', following the inner excitement to know your own path.

I know that the many races, religions, customs, nationalities and beliefs within our world, bring us great richness and allow us the benefit and teachings of such diverseness. I know we each learn in our own unique way in order to bring that love and wisdom back to the whole. I know that if there were only one way to do something, there would need only be one person.

I will not only love you if you behave in a way I think you should or believe in those things I believe in. I understand you are truly my brother and my sister, though you may have been born in a different place and believe in something different than I.

The love I feel is for the entire world. I know that every living thing is a part of this universe and I feel a love deep within for every person, animal, tree and flower, every bird, river and ocean and for all the creatures in the entire world.

I live my life in loving service; being the best me I can, becoming wiser in the perfection of divine truth, becoming happier in the joy of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Sandy Stevenson

Let me explain. First, everything that can be seen changes. This becomes obvious the more closely you look at it. Our bodies change. They mature, age, and eventually die. Our thoughts, beliefs, sensations, and feelings change all the time. Our stories change. Even a devout religious story, say about God or some other power, changes. It comes and goes, it grows weaker or stronger over time. Then, of course, our friends and relationships change. They too come and go. And the world around us, both natural and man-made, is always changing.

The second key phrase is that you are the seeing, that which never changes. Think about this. Who or what in you is reading these words, words which are themselves changing, moving past your eyes as you read. You may say: Well, I am. But then who is this I that you take yourself to be? Can you actually find the I anywhere in your mind, in your consciousness? Or is it, too, just a concept, the story-teller, but an object in consciousness that is just as elusive as any other concept?

You definitely have a sense of unique individuality. You know that you exist. But when you look within and try to find this you that you take yourself to be, you will not be able to find it. Anything you say about yourself, no matter how true it seem to be, will be just another concept, another story. And, as we have seen, all stories, no matter how true they seem to be, can be observed, or seen. As a result, they change.

Now, for those of you who may still be struggling with this, just to get it at least intellectually is a start. To understand that you are not your story, that everything that can be seen changes, and that you are the seeing, that which never changes. If you live with that understanding, and contemplate it daily, it will seep down into the cells of your body, and become more and more your felt, or lived, experience.

The third key phrase of the message above is that once you know yourself as the seeing, you are free. Once you’ve made the shift from being identified with your stories to your true identity as the awareness, the unchanging consciousness which gives rise to all the stories in your life, including the ego or story-teller itself, then you are always fulfilled, at peace, and in the flow of life.

Then you are in touch with the secret of manifestation. When you know yourself as consciousness, the source of everything, you just have to be the consciousness you are, and focus on what you truly need or want. Every creative act starts with a thought, an idea. While all thoughts themselves are unreal, they do serve a purpose: you use them for communication and creativity, for making good decisions and manifesting your goals, or intentions, in reality.
After all, everything man-made, from the biggest sky-scrapers to the tiniest microchips, from forms of government to programs for feeding the poor, began with an idea in someone’s mind. So, be clear about your intentions, what you want. Think of them several times a day, then forget about them. Come back to the power of the present, and enjoy the flow of whatever you happen to be manifesting.

© Jim Dreaver, 2007

  Jim Dreaver: Seeing

At the level that most people relate to the notion of freedom, it means the freedom to express ourselves however wish: to choose our work or career, our friends, our politics, our religion, to choose where we live. Yet there is another way to understand freedom. At its most vital level, it means the freedom to be, to be the beautiful, conscious person you are. It is to be inwardly free, not restricted or bound by any sense of personal limitation, not subject to emotional reactivity. You always feel relaxed, at peace, and open to life in each and every moment.

As you begin to master the art of being free in this way, your life becomes more and more a harmonious, deeply satisfying flow. Out of your relaxed state of contentment in the present, you do what you feel called to do, what you love to do, or, simply, whatever needs to be done. Authentic action, or doing, flows out naturally of being. As Lao Tzu said, in the Tao Te Ching: The way to do is to be.

As a result of what you do, you will have certain results, the fruits of your actions, whether in your relationships, work, health, recreation, money situation, or whatever. You will be able to enjoy these results fully because you are not depending upon them for your inner peace and well-being. Because you know how to be, you already are at peace within. The outer gifts in life are like a bonus, icing on the cake.

So, how do you get to this state of inner freedom, the freedom simply to be? The quickest and simplest path I know of, and the subject of this book, is to undergo the shift in perception that leads directly to inner freedom.

What is that shift? Essentially, it is seeing that are not your story. You are not any story. You are not your psychological and emotional history, nor are you your self-image. You are not your cultural, ethnic, national, social, or religious story.

All your stories, memories, experiences, have shaped your personality but they are still only that: your stories. They may have been real once, but are definitely not real now. They are an illusory world existing between your ears, in the form of fleeting thoughts, beliefs, pictures, and ideas of self, with corresponding feelings and emotions in your body.

When conflict or suffering arises, or when your buttons get pushed, it is because a person or an event, real or imagined, contradicts your view or expectation, your story, about the way things should be, or ought to be. The conflict is experienced as a disturbing feeling or emotion, whether of anxiety, fear, or something else, in your body.

However, the upsetting feelings and emotions only exist because of the stories that fuel them, that keep them alive. When you are not holding onto any story in your mind, but are simply very aware and relaxed in the present, your emotional state is always one of ease, harmony, and flow. This is a very important point to understand if you are at all interested in finding true inner peace.

What can be said to be real right now is the fact that you are alive, present, and reading this book. What is real now is that you exist. You are conscious of existing, of being alive. In fact, your true nature, the one thing that is always present, whether you are asleep or awake, whether you are aware of it or not, is consciousness itself.

What you are in your essence is the lucid, unchanging consciousness that gives birth to everything in the world of senses, including all your stories, memories, and to your body, mind, and this unique personality called you.

To understand this is to grasp the literal meaning of St. Francis’s words: What we are looking for is what is looking. You become aware of yourself as consciousness, or awareness, or presence, itself. Or, to use the language of St. Francis, you become aware of yourself as God. We are all, each one of us, individualized expressions of the divine. There is no God separate from us. We are It.

To know this, to find your identity not in stories but in the moment by moment flow of being, is true freedom. It is the perceptual shift that results in genuine self-knowing, in what in the language of the East is called awakening, enlightenment, or self-realization. Then each day becomes rich in love, and full of meaning and purpose. We are inspired to write a new, conscious story for ourselves, a story that works for us, that supports our own and others well-being.

We begin, literally, to infuse our lives, our relationships, and our work with this ever-new consciousness, and the positive, creative stories that flow out of it. As a result, our power to manifest what we truly need and want is greatly magnified.

Let me give you an example, a story, which will illustrate what I am saying: I was teaching a workshop at Esalen Institute in September of this year. Esalen is an alternative education center devoted to the exploration of human potential, situated on California’s rugged Big Sur coast.

On the third morning of a five-day workshop, one of the women participants came in and reported how she had been to Esalen many times during the past few years, and there was one man on the staff there with whom she had some personal issues. Well, she saw the man that morning and was figuring out how to avoid him, when she suddenly remembered the practice I had presented in the workshop.

She stopped, turned her attention inward, and looked at the story she was telling herself around this man. Then she realized it was just that: a story. She saw, almost in the same breath, that she was not the story, not any story. Rather, she was what looked at the story. She was the consciousness, the lucid, ever-present awareness behind the story.

When she saw that, the story dissolved, the emotional tension created by being attached to the story and wanting to avoid a confrontation, dissipated, and she felt freer, clearer, more present. She then went up to the man and had a totally fresh, new interaction with him.

Of course, that woman did not become completely free from that one insight, but it was a beginning. It cracked an opening in her ego, and all the stories that hold it together, and she had a glimpse of the freedom that is her true nature.

© Jim Dreaver, 2006

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Quite literally, that is, because after I purchased two new cultures from Gaia Organics in Knysna, I recently made another batch, so the 'old stuff' had to go.

Once again, I was in for a surprise. As you can see from the picture below, the one bottle almost blew its top. Although it was filled to the rim, which meant no oxidation could take place, the time it had to think over its existence in the darkness of this cooling chamber it built up (read: created) quite a bit of carbonic acid (and all tho other nice ones, too, of course). This made the bottle's lid break in its intended place - luvely design, indeed! I then carefully poked a knife into the crack to relieve the pressure.

After the lid came off, it was crunchtime, because the bugger was about to hit my tastebuds. And boy, did it hit them! Pouring the tea into the glass can only be likened to pouring a glass of champagne - it was one explosion of bubbles! The first sip then revealed what I had suspected all along anyway: that the tea easily survives that period while retaining all its goodness, and if you leave it no oxygen to feed on in its solitude, it will also not turn into vinegar - which of course has a completely different set of health benefits.

The taste was just like champagne, bar the aftertaste, which left a little to be desired. Otherwise I'd starting this on a full-time basis, fooling people into believing they're actually driniking bubblies.

It proved to me once again that Kombucha Tea is nothing short of a miracle. Its health benefits are undisputed, its durability legendary. Every household should have one and cultivate them, because as you may know, every time you make tea, you get a new symbiont, which you can then distribute among family and friends - there just ain't no better present!

So there - I've once again gotten the kicks out of dabbling with the nectar of the Gods and lived to share the experience! If you haven't heard of Kombucha tea, well there's a site where you can read up on it in 27 languages.

All that's left to say is: enjoy!

Use Intention As A Tool: The key insight here is to understand that what you see is what you get. Think fearful thoughts, and you will create situations that just reinforce the fear. You are learning to see that while all thoughts are unreal, they do serve a purpose: you use them for communication and creativity, for making good decisions and manifesting your goals, or intentions, in reality. After all, everything man-made, from the biggest skyscrapers to the tiniest microchips, from forms of government to programs for feeding the poor, began with an idea in someone’s mind.

So, be clear about your intentions, what you want. Think of them three or four times a day, then forget about them. Come back to the power of the present, be patient, and enjoy the flow of whatever you manifest.

Live Your Understanding

Awakening, enlightenment, or self-realization is knowing yourself at the deepest level of your being. It is knowing who you are beyond all your beliefs and ideas about who you are, beyond the story you have fabricated in your mind about who you are. It is seeing through the I itself, the me that you have taken yourself to be for most of your life. Then the work is to fully embody that knowing, to be it, so that you directly experience yourself as one with the beauty, harmony, and flow of the universe.

The Consciousness Practice: Whenever suffering or upset arises, look for the story you are telling yourself that keeps the emotion alive. Then breathe, and be very present. Notice how you can look at the story, so you cannot be it. You are what is looking: clear, vibrant, present-time consciousness. Get this, and a shift happens. The story loses its power over you, and your energy is freed up. Eventually, you will question the very me you take yourself to be. You will see that it is just a story too (the story-teller) and that your true nature is the luminous, ever-present consciousness behind everything. To know this, to find your identity not in stories but in the moment-by-moment flow of being, is true freedom. Then life is always rich in love, meaning, and purpose.

When you no longer hold onto any image or concept of self, because you have seen that it is all a self-generated fiction anyway, there is nothing in your consciousness to resist what is happening, and so, no anxiety, fear, or suffering. Meaning and happiness no longer depend on beliefs, outer conditions, economic status, or anything else. They come from within, from the fullness and radiance of being itself.

Your ego, your personal history, and the power of your mind are available when needed, but they do not get in the way. Changes of the kind that throw most people into crisis cease having the power to upset you, other than momentarily. If upset does occur, you do the Consciousness Practice above, and you recover your clarity and equanimity quickly.
The authenticity, spontaneity, and sheer goodwill you then bring to each moment will inspire the highest and best in others. More and more you see them as an expression of the same light in you. In this way, you contribute to the healing of our world.

©Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Jim Dreaver: Master Your Mind

  

Face Your Fear: Get centered, then look at the situation, whether real or imagined, that is triggering fear, and affirm to yourself: I welcome this as a gift. It is showing me where I am not yet free. Then you simply picture, in your mind, the worst thing happening. You visualize experiencing the loss, or failure, or whatever it is you're afraid of over and over again, until it begins to lose its charge. Until you realize that no matter what happens, you, as the lucid, ever-present consciousness which witnesses everything, will always be okay. Like the samurai warrior, you learn to die before you die (die to images and concepts of I and me) and thus you are free.

Open Your Heart

Stress and fear close the heart down. We become judgmental and critical, and life starts to feel empty, joyless, and meaningless. As you become more present, more sensitive to your own and others' feelings, to the underlying concerns, worries and fears that most people have, your natural kindness, compassion and generosity are liberated, and with them, deep inner strength and courage. An open heart, balanced with common sense and good judgment, makes you the kind of person others want to be around.

Releasing Blame: Blaming those who have hurt, wronged or betrayed us causes our heart to harden, makes us feel like a victim and just perpetuates our own suffering. People do hurtful things because they do not feel loved; they are not at peace within themselves. Understand that, focus on being fully conscious and present in your own life, and it will be easier to let go of blame, resentment and anything else that interferes with your mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. This is the essence of forgiveness.

Speak The Truth

To be present without any agenda (one of the signs of being awake) requires self-honesty. You have got to be willing to look within and examine the stories you are still believing, whether about self-doubt, guilt, resentment, judgment, arrogance or whatever. As you face them, breathe into them and see through their insubstantiality (after all, you can’t actually find a thought or belief anywhere), they start to drop away. Then it becomes easy to speak the truth, because you're no longer caught up in trying to defend or justify your ego, which itself is just a story too, the I or me, the story-teller.

Be A Listener: The best way to invite honesty and to attract people to you is to be interested in them. If you are present with them, you will establish the level of trust that makes them want to open up and share themselves with you. Listening is one of the most important keys to being present. Listen to others, listen to the sounds in your environment, and especially, listen to the sound of your own thoughts. Listen to the silence beyond thoughts, to the silence that you are. Listening, in turn, opens you to the experience of yourself as a living, feeling, vibrating, conscious human being.

© Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Jim Dreaver: Learn to let go

  Suppressed Medical Discovery: Dr. Robert C. Beck ( Cancer,AIDS, anything viral)

Here's an extract: "
We hear a great deal about its use in terminal cancer, but the time to start with vitamin B17 is now before the disease becomes clinical. The time to start is the same with any matter of adequate nutrition and that is right now. You may start now by commencing to eat the seeds of all common fruits that you eat. The apricot and peach seed contain almost 2 percent of vitamin B17 by weight. The apple seed, although very small, is equally rich in Vitamin B17. So are the seeds of prunes, plums, cherries, and nectarines. The only common fruit on the hemisphere that lacks nitrilosidic seeds, are the citrus fruits. This lack has come about by artificial cultivation by breeding and hybridization, since the seeds of citrus fruits on the African continent still contain Vitamin B17. Two more rich sources of Vitamin B17 are the simple cereals millet and buckwheat. Macadamia nuts, although expensive and exotic, are very rich in Vitamin B17 and so are bamboo shoots, mung beans, lima beans, butter beans and certain strains of garden peas. But for convenience, the simple source for your Vitamin B17 are the seeds of the common fruit."

  Vitamin B17 in all common fruits you eat

Anyone open-minded will have heard of the benefits of Oxygen and Ozone. If you haven't, well, that's what the link is there for. There are a myriad of applications for it, and the benefits for you or your loved ones' health are obvious. That said, happy reading!

  Ozone Cancer Treatment

Thomas Merton, the 20th Century Trappist monk who was also keenly interested in Eastern wisdom, said: “The only desire that is not a sin is the desire for God.” Now, knowing that God is synonymous with enlightenment, awakening, or true inner freedom, you must want it more than you want anything else. That’s the deal. You must want it more than you want money, power, fame, sex, relationships, or any of the seemingly infinite number of things human beings seek in order to find security, happiness, and fulfillment in their lives.

To desire these other things is not “wrong” in any moral sense, but it is a “sin” as Merton points out. The original Greek meaning of sin is “to miss the mark.” A sin, then, is any action or behavior that takes us away from the only place where authentic, lasting peace and happiness can be found: within the depths of our very own being, within our God-nature, if you like.

That is why awakening, or enlightenment, continues to elude most people. They have been seduced by the media, by movies, television, and popular magazines into thinking that happiness lies “out there” somewhere. Into thinking that happiness lies in having more money, a bigger house, a more expensive car, a brighter smile, a thinner body, a prettier girlfriend, a more successful boyfriend, or whatever.

There is nothing wrong with having any of these things in and of themselves, as I indicated. It’s the attachment to wanting them that creates all the suffering. If you make these things the primary focus of your life, you will never find the deep happiness and freedom that is your inner nature.

Q. Having the desire for enlightenment, and at the same time letting go of the desire, seems like a difficult balancing act to me.

It seems like it, but it is a balance that begins to happen more effortlessly as you learn to live fully and consciously in the present. Nisargadatta Maharaj said: “Enlightenment may seem arduous, but it is easy if you are earnest, and quite impossible if you are not. Everything yields to earnestness.”

Intention, or your driving motive or desire, in other words, is fundamental to attaining anything worthwhile in life. Look at people who are successful in the world in every other sense, whether it is in business, sports, entertainment, making money for its own sake, or whatever. Such people have very clear intention, very clear goals, and they pursue them with their whole heart and mind. They want to achieve their particular goal more than they want anything else, and they are willing to make whatever sacrifice is necessary.

Awakening, or enlightenment, is no different. You must want it with your whole heart and mind. Yet there is a paradox here, too, because you must let go of the wanting at the same time. If you become too obsessed with getting enlightened, in the sense that you are always thinking about it, always in your head about it, it gets in the way of your ordinary, daily life. You develop an unrealistic view of what enlightenment is. You develop a story about it. You can get so caught up in the pursuit of whatever you imagine enlightenment to be, that you end up not dealing with such real-world issues as working, paying the rent, taking care of business. You end up not being present.

How to balance the deep desire with letting go? I use the mountain-climbing analogy, which I first read about in Robert Pirsig’s Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. You are determined to climb to the top of the mountain, to reach the summit (which is a metaphor for enlightenment) and now you can let your goal go, put it at the back of your mind, while you focus on enjoying the journey. You remember that enlightenment, awakening, is your ultimate goal, but that the ongoing work is to be truly aware and present each and every moment of the day.

When you start getting caught up in your story, in your beliefs, concepts, justifications, excuses, judgments, and rationalizations, notice that. Notice it, and then breathe and come back to the present, to the awareness of your true nature. Come back to the awareness of yourself as the consciousness which gives birth to the entire universe, expressing through this body, mind, and heart that is “you.”

©Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Jim Dreaver: Desire

To be awake is live in inner freedom. That means no more personal drama, conflict, or emotional suffering. You always feel at peace inside, regardless of what is happening in your life. You are free of fear, and always in the flow. You are present in your relationships, your work, wherever you are, responding creatively to the real needs of the moment. Your essential nature is happy, loving, playful, and content.

As the residues of your old, illusory psychological and emotional “self” fall away, consciousness, the experience of yourself at a pure being level, gradually becomes your new “identity.” It usually takes a long time to fully embody, or integrate, our true nature. The following practices, if you do them diligently, will help you shorten the process.

Be Very Present

As you learn to be relaxed, centered and grounded in the present moment, you free yourself from your “stories,” from the past, and thus from mental and emotional conflict. Presence, or consciously inhabiting your body, is the source of your physical energy, strength, and power. This practice will help you become more present:

Expanding Awareness: Sit, and close your eyes. Breathe down into your belly. Now visualize the focal point of your awareness as being just behind and above your head. From this place, see and feel the length and breadth of your body within your awareness. Notice your breath, your bodily sensations and feelings, arising and falling away within your awareness. Notice the thoughts and images in your mind coming and going. Notice how sounds come and go against the background of this silent, expanded awareness that is your natural, relaxed state of being. Welcome it all, resist nothing.
Everything arises and disappears within your awareness. But awareness itself, this sense of inner clarity and spaciousness, is always present. It is who and what you are. Be present, then, as this awareness as you open your eyes.

Go With The Flow

This practice is about understanding the nature of rhythm and change, of ups and downs, and learning to flow harmoniously, to stay present, with whatever is. The flow happens naturally as you become sensitive to energy itself, to the underlying quality of mood, sensation and feeling. Most of the stress people experience is because they live too much in their heads, in their story. They are not in touch with their felt, present-time reality.

Energy Awareness: Start paying more attention to what you sense and feel, rather than to judgments, opinions and thoughts. When you are with people, take a few moments to tune in. Open up to the deeper energy that is present. Become aware of awareness itself. Listen for the silence behind the words, beyond the surface activity. This will help you get out of your head, into your body and into the moment. As your sensitivity to energy increases, you'll be more in the flow. Then you will know when to be soft and when to be strong; when to move forward and when to pull back; when to speak and when to listen.

© Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Jim Dreaver: Awakening

Now imagine what you could accomplish in the world, if you so desired, empowered by such a state of inner freedom.

In my workshops and private sessions, there is a specific practice I use which leads people to a direct experience, or taste, of the freedom that is their true nature. I invite someone to dialogue with me around an issue they have, an area of suffering, upset, conflict, or fear. In short, a button they have that prevents them from relaxing into and living from their authentic self.

I may question them about the issue. We may have to revisit the past. When did they first experience this? The stories that run us are deep-rooted. As the person gets more in touch with what is bothering them, they may have feelings or emotions around the issue. Their energy will shift as their body becomes more involved. During this time, I am simply holding the space of relaxed, warm, welcoming presence. However, when the person is sufficiently connected to their feelings, I will say something like:

“Now, just pause for a moment. Take a deep breath. Notice the story you are telling yourself that is causing the suffering. Notice how you can look at the story, you can look at the uncomfortable feelings that are being generated, so you cannot be the story or the feelings. You are what is looking. So, what is that?”

As they look within, they may answer: “The witness? The observer?”

I point out how that, too, is really just another story. “But what is watching that?” I ask.

They often fall silent at this moment. I encourage them to remain open. I may say: “What you are is what is looking at the story and feelings you experience. What you are is the luminous, ever-present consciousness—the seeing—that gives birth to your body, mind, personality, and to the stories that cause the contracted feelings. Embody the seeing—be it—and you are free.”

Many people undergo a shift at this point. Their eyes light up. They have an “ah hah” moment as they realize they are not their story, but rather they are awareness itself.

I remind everyone that with the ongoing practice of self-inquiry, they will inevitably begin to question the very “me” they take themselves to be. They will see that it is just a “story” too (the story-teller), and that what they are, and always have been, is the radiant, ever-present, unchanging consciousness behind everything. To know this, to find our identity not in stories of “self” or “other,” nor in circumstances or events, but in the moment-by-moment flow of being, is true freedom. It is what it means to be awake, enlightened, or self-realized. You feel your connection to everyone else, and living starts to become rich in love, meaning, and purpose.

I point out how this is also the secret of manifestation. When you know yourself as the source of everything, you just have to focus on what you truly need or want. Every creative act starts with a thought, an idea. The more in touch you are with your true nature, the more powerful your manifestation. You can then write a new, inspired story for yourself and our world.

©Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Jim Dreaver - How I work

Here's an excerpt: "Then one day I just quit. Cold turkey, as it were. I wish I could say I gave up dieting out of defiance. But the truth is, I gave up in defeat. I was just too tired to care, too sick of tying myself in knots trying to live la vida low cal.

I decided that if I couldn’t be thinner, at least I’d be healthier. So I pitched all my diet books and decided to do one thing, and one thing only: I’d commit to exercising 30 minutes four or five times a week, either walking or light training with weights. I’d still eat whatever I wanted – no dieting allowed, in fact.

A curious thing happened: the more I walked, the better I felt. The more I lifted weights, the more my new muscles burned fat. Like dominoes falling in slow motion, that one small change led to several others. The kinds of foods I wanted soon changed, too.

I instinctively gravitated toward those that would be more filling and satisfying – whole grains, fruits, vegetables. I began to taste real food again: fresh mielies instead of corn chips, real raspberries and blueberries instead of fake flavoured bars. What had I been thinking?"

  Why dieting is just plain dumb

Q. I see the power of the shift you are talking about, yet I feel reluctant to let go of the religious story that I grew up with.

The inner, spiritual journey only really begins when we start this process of questioning the personal, cultural, and religious stories we have become so identified with. This journey is a process of letting go of attachment to our inner conceptual reality as we seek, through silence and stillness, to find something beyond words and ideas. It can be an unsettling time in our lives, because we are calling into question everything we have held most dear. All the beliefs and concepts upon which we have built our personal sense of identity are starting to come undone.

Doubt and skepticism, the products of deep self-examination, enter the picture, and we are no longer sure what to believe. We are no longer sure of who or what we are. Where before, when we were still looking for something to believe in, mountains were just mountains, and rivers were just rivers, now, in Zen, they say of this questioning phase: “Suddenly mountains are no longer mountains, rivers are no longer rivers.”

It is a time of learning to be comfortable with not knowing, the necessary precursor to the attainment of true knowledge, or insight. This phase can involve a lot of “dark night of the soul” kinds of experiences, which makes it a perfect opportunity to develop our skill in the practice, in our ability to stay present, open to all that is, in the face of self-doubt and uncertainty.
Here, our religious yearnings deepen and flower into true spirituality. Spirituality is religion made personal and experiential. Religion emphasizes beliefs, codes, doctrines, and the need for intermediaries—the priest, the pastor, the rabbi, the mullah—between us and the divine. Spirituality is characterized by the letting go of beliefs and concepts, and an opening to a more direct, felt experience—in moments of stillness—of the unity and joy that religion talks about.

This of course is after we have confronted, through the power of our own presence, of unwavering awareness, whatever demons may be assailing us, whatever dark nights we may be experiencing. It requires us to be vulnerable, open to whatever is arising. Most of us, at some point, have to walk through our own personal fire, sometimes even a raging inferno of emotion, fear, or self-doubt, before we come to stillness and peace. It is perhaps no wonder that someone once said: “Religion is for people afraid of going to hell, spirituality is for people who have already been there!”

If the religious stage of the journey is based on “believing” in some version of truth (or trying to believe), in whatever story about God and creation most appeals to us, this phase is where we start to actually know the truth for ourselves. In letting go of what we “think” we know, our awareness expands, and we begin to really know—to sense, in a deep and discernable way—the immensity and timelessness of the consciousness that is our true nature, and the interconnectedness of all of life.

We can feel this consciousness, in moments of stillness, as an actual energy, a flow, a powerful sense of mystery and presence. And we find our faith in that, the palpable nature of existence, of being, rather than in beliefs and ideologies.

  Jim Dreaver: Going Deeper

Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.
Live in joy, in health, even among those afflicted.
Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled.
Live in joy, without possessions, like the shining ones.
The winner sows hatred because the loser suffers.
Let go of winning and losing and find joy.

Q. Are you saying that enlightenment is incompatible with religion, that we can’t both be enlightened and, say, be a devout Jew, or Christian, or Moslem?

I think if people are devout and follow the true teachings of their particular religion, especially as they relate to the values I just mentioned, then that is a fairly enlightened way to live. However, awakening, or enlightenment, in the way I use the word, refers to understanding who we are beyond all our beliefs, concepts, and ideas about who we are.

It is knowing ourselves as the awareness, the consciousness, behind all phenomena, behind all creation, which includes the creation of religious beliefs and stories. Enlightenment means unconditional freedom, a freedom that does not depend on any agent, belief, or circumstance.

Once you have seen through the illusion of the world inside your head, which is what enlightenment is, you can no longer cling to any particular story about reality, which includes a religious identity or point of view. Instead, you find yourself honoring, equally, the core of truth and goodness in all religions. However, you may well choose to worship or express your love of the Divine through a particular religion.

The path to true freedom is not incompatible with going to church, the mosque, or to temple. In fact, the freer you get of your own story, and of attachment to ideas and images of “self,” the more clearly you’ll understand and relate to the heart of the great spiritual and religious teachings. You just won’t get lost in all the dogma, the rules and restrictions, the guilt-tripping. Meister Eckhart, the fifteenth century German mystic, had clearly realized his true nature, but he continued to be a Christian preacher. The Dalai Lama is a contemporary example of an awakened human being who, because of destiny, finds himself espousing the cause of Tibetan Buddhism

For a growing number of us throughout the world, however, the deeper our own inquiry into the true nature of God and creation, and the greater our own hunger for true inner peace and freedom, the less satisfied we are with attaching to any form of belief or story. We want the experience of awakening, of enlightenment, now.

For that to happen, we must get fully and alertly present now, see all our stories and beliefs for what they are, mere objects in consciousness, and realize that what we fundamentally are is the consciousness which sees.

©Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Jim Dreaver: Enlightenment and Religion

Much of the time all they had were the words, the dogmas and, using the mechanisms of guilt, coercion, and fear, a pervasive need to control other people, rather than set them free. It is worth remembering that Jesus was not a “Christian,” and Buddha was certainly not a “Buddhist.” Indeed, both individuals held to the big picture, and saw themselves as being beyond the limitations and restrictions of any one religion or practice. Jesus’ essential teaching was forgiveness and love, and Buddha’s was awakening to the truth of being, to inner freedom, so that we could love.

Now, many people of course—in fact, the vast majority—stop here. They don’t look too deeply within themselves, and they don’t really question the religious beliefs, the stories, that they have been fed, or that they have chosen. Consciousness, in a very real sense, is still asleep in them. It has not evolved, flowered. It can’t. By insisting on clinging to beliefs or concepts about reality, people are literally keeping a lid on consciousness.

Now, it is also true that many people find a certain level of inner peace with religion, especially if their faith is strong. But, I emphasize again, that faith is tied to the beliefs they hold. Take away the beliefs, and their faith doesn’t have ground to stand on.

Q. What if I am a very religious person, and do see the futility of relying on money, other people, the government, and so on for my happiness, but just rely instead on my inner belief in God, or a higher Power, or Jesus, if I am a Christian? Surely that would suffice? I mean, if my belief is really solid, grounded, firm?

It works well in theory, and is in fact the basis of all religions. Just believe what we teach you, and the peace of God, or at least salvation in the afterlife, will be yours. The problem with religions, all religions, is that regardless of how long they have been around, or how many adherents they have, or how noble or sacred their traditions, they are essentially just stories about the origin, meaning, and purpose of life.

If you can believe the story, embrace it fully, and live according to your particular religion’s precepts and dogmas, then you probably will have a fairly good chance of being happy. And some very devout, sincere people actually do this apparently successfully. However, in my observation, the ones that benefit the most from traditional religion are those who connect with the spirit of the religion, the essential message of the scriptures, rather than the rules and the dogmas.

It’s just a fact that most religious beliefs, whether they are about how we got to be here, or where we are going when we die, strain credulity, at least in the minds of those with educated, inquiring, skeptical minds. That was certainly the case with me, and it is probably the case with most who are interested in awakening to the deepest truth knowable. The bottom-line is that the majority of people, in this scientific, technologically sophisticated age we live in, find most religious beliefs just too un-believable. It is trying to believe in Santa Claus again—or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy.

That doesn’t meant to say religion can’t serve us. It does. There is much in all religions that is good, true, beautiful, but the goodness, truth, and beauty lie in the common human and spiritual values most religions espouse. I am talking about such values, or virtues, as mercy, charity, kindness, compassion, love, gratitude for the gift of life, and so on.

©Jim Dreaver, 2006

  Religious Beliefs

ACCEPT YOURSELF

The moment you accept yourself you become open, you become vulnerable, you become receptive. The moment you accept yourself there is no need for any future because there is no need to improve upon anything. Then all is good, then all is good as it is. In that very experience life starts taking a new colour, a new music arises.

If you accept yourself, that is the beginning of accepting all. If you reject yourself you are basically rejecting the universe; if you reject yourself you are rejecting existence. If you accept yourself you have accepted existence; then there is nothing else to do but to enjoy, to celebrate. There is no complaint left, there is no grudge; you feel good. Then life is good and death is good, then joy is good and sadness is good, then to be with your beloved is good and to be alone is good. Then whatsoever happens is good because it happens out of the whole.

But you have been conditioned for centuries not to accept yourself. All the cultures of the world have been poisoning the human mind because they all depend on one thing: Improve yourself. They all create anxiety in you - anxiety is the tense state between that which you are and that which you should be. People are bound to remain anxious if there is a "should" in life. If there is an ideal that has to be fulfilled, how can you be at ease? How can you be at home? It is impossible to live anything totally because the mind is hankering for the future. And that future never comes - it cannot come. By the very nature of your desire it is impossible. When it comes you will start imagining other things, you will start desiring other things. You can always imagine a better state of affairs. And you can always remain in anxiety, tense, worried-that's how humanity has been living for centuries.

Only rarely, once in a while, has a man escaped out of the trap.

That man is called a Buddha. a Christ. The awakened man is one who has slipped out of the trap of society, who has seen that this is just absurdity. You cannot improve yourself. And I am not saying that improvement does not happen, remember – but you cannot improve yourself. When you stop improving yourself, life improves you. In that relaxation, in that acceptance, life starts caressing you, life starts flowing through you. And when you don't have any grudge, any complaint, you bloom, you flower.

So I would like to say to you: Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world because it goes against your training, your education, your culture. From the very beginning you have been told how you should be. Nobody has ever told you that you are good as you are; they have all put programs in your mind. You have been programmed by parents, by priests, politicians, teachers - you have been programmed for only one thing: Just go on improving upon yourself. Wherever you are, go on rushing for something else. Never rest. Work unto death.

My teaching is simple: Don't postpone life. Don't wait for tomorrow, it never comes. Live it today!

Jesus says to his disciples "Look at the lilies in the field. They toil not, they weave not, they spin not - yet even Solomon was not so beautiful as these poor lily flowers." What is the beauty of the poor flower? It is in utter acceptance. It has no program in its being to improve. It is here now - dancing in the wind, taking a sunbath, talking to the clouds, falling asleep in the afternoon warmth, flirting with the butterflies ... enjoying, being, loving, being loved.

And the whole existence starts pouring its energy into you when you are open. Then the trees are greener than they look to you now, then the sun is sunnier than it looks to you now; then everything becomes psychedelic, becomes colorful. Otherwise everything is drab and dull and gray.

Accept yourself - that is prayer. Accept yourself - that IS gratitude.

Relax into your being-this is the way God wanted you to be. In no other way did he want you to be; otherwise he would have made you somebody else. He has made you you and nobody else. Trying to improve upon yourself is basically trying to improve upon God, which is just stupid, and you will get madder and madder in trying that. You will not arrive anywhere, you will have simply missed a great opportunity.

Let this be your colour: acceptance.

Let this be your characteristic: acceptance, utter acceptance. And then you will be surprised: Life is always ready to shower its gifts on you. Life is not a Miser, existence always gives abundantly - but we cannot receive it because we don't feel that we are worthy to receive it.

That's why people cling to miseries - they suit their programming. People go on punishing themselves in a thousand and one subtle ways. Why? Because that fits with the program. If you are not as you should be, you have to punish yourself, you have to create misery for yourself. That's why people feel good when they are miserable.

Let me say it: People feel happy when they are miserable; they become very, very uneasy when they are happy. This is my observation of thousands and thousands of people: When they are miserable, everything is as it should be. They accept it - it fits with their conditioning, with their mind. They know how horrible they are, they know that they are sinners.

You have been told that you are born in sin. What stupidity! What nonsense! Man is not born in sin, man is born in innocence. There has never been any original sin, there has only been original innocence. Each child is born in innocence. We make him feel guilty; we start saying, "This should not be. You should be like this." And the child is natural and innocent. We punish him for being natural and innocent, and we reward him for being artificial and cunning. We reward him for being phony-all our rewards are for phony people. If somebody is innocent, we don't give any reward; we don't have any regard for him, we don't have any respect for him. The innocent is condemned, the innocent is thought to be almost synonymous with the criminal. The innocent is thought to be foolish, the cunning is thought to be intelligent. The phony is accepted - the phony fits with the phony society.

Then your whole life will be nothing but an effort to create more and more punishments for yourself. And whatsoever you do is wrong, so you have to punish yourself for every joy. Even when joy comes in spite of yourself - mind you, when joy comes in spite of yourself, when sometimes God simply bumps into you and you cannot avoid him - immediately you start punishing yourself. Something has gone wrong - how can this happen to a horrible person like you?

Just the other night a man asked me, "You talk, Osho, about love, you talk of offering your love. But what have I got to give to anybody? What have I got to offer to my beloved?”

This is the secret idea of everybody: "I have nothing." What do you not have? But nobody has told you that you have all the beauties of all the f1owers, because mall is the greatest flower on this earth, the most evolved being. No bird can sing the song that you can sing-the birds' songs are just noises, although they are still beautiful because they come out of innocence. You can sing far better songs, of greater significance, of much more meaning. But you ask, "What have I got?"

The trees are green, beautiful, the stars are beautiful and the rivers are beautiful-but have you ever seen anything more beautiful than a human eye? Have you ever come across anything more beautiful than human eyes? On the whole earth there is nothing more delicate than the human eyes - no rose can compete, no lotus can compete. And what depth! But you want to know, "What have I got to offer in love?" You must have lived a self-condemning life; you must have been putting yourself down, burdening yourself with guilt.

In fact, when somebody loves you, you are a little bit surprised.

"What-me? A person loves me?" The idea arises in your mind: "Because he does not know me, that's why. If he comes to know me, if he comes to see through me, he will never love me." So lovers start hiding themselves from each other. They keep many things private, they don't open their secrets because they are afraid that the moment they open their heart, the love is bound to disappear - because they cannot love themselves, how can they conceive of anybody else loving them?

Love starts with self-love. Don't be selfish but be self-full; they are two different things. Don't be a Narcissus, don't be obsessed with yourself. But a natural self-love is a must, a basic phenomenon. Only then out of it can you love somebody else.

Accept yourself - love yourself: you are God's creation. God's signature is on you, and you are special - unique. Nobody else has ever been like you, and nobody else will ever be like you - you are simply unique, incomparable. Accept this, love this, celebrate this - and in that very celebration you will start seeing the uniqueness of the others, the incomparable beauty of the others. Love is possible only when there is a deep acceptance of oneself, the other, the world. Acceptance creates the milieu in which love grows, the soil in which love blooms.

  Osho - Tools for Transformation