Ego

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The core of ego is a feeling of deficiency, of poverty, of emptiness, of saying: "I am no good, I am worthless, I am empty. Give me, give me, more, more, more, more." In this state of deficiency I don't love myself, I don't accept myself. I reject myself. I want to run away, distract myself; maybe go to a movie, see a friend, have sex, eat, fill myself with knowledge, or pretend I am O.K. I am always wanting to fill this emptiness, always rejecting it, always afraid of it. In fact, we are all terrified by it. Most of the time people don't know that this emptiness, this deficiency is what is driving most of their actions. It's such a desperation, such a race to fill this bottomless pit. But how sweet it is to say "yes" to this emptiness. How courageous it is to say: "I feel empty, I feel deficient, and I won't attempt to fill it. I want to see the truth. I want to experience the reality of me. I refuse to manipulate. I want to wake up regardless of how painful it is." Only the hero will take this attitude, for it is a heroic act to see your deficiency, your neediness, your emptiness, and yet not try to manipulate your life to fill it. We are so compulsive, so driven to manipulate, to avoid feeling this basic deficiency of our personal ego. But believe me, my friend, there's no other way towards fullness. God will not pour His grace if you don't accept your deficiency and stop manipulating. Manipulation, striving to fill this emptiness, is only the devil doing its efficient work. It is constantly working to hide its weakness.

- A.H. Almaas

Infinite Potential

It's very important to understand that everything that exists—the whole universe, including each and every one of us, is a manifest or material expression of that which does not exist. From nothing came something. The unmanifest became the manifest. From emptiness, from the void, this whole material universe, which eventually gave rise to life, emerged. So everything that exists came from nothing. Nothing is the source of everything that is. That which became everything is that nonmaterial spiritual essence. That's what you can experience in a deep state of meditation. The fundamental mystical insight throughout the ages is basically this: that the ultimate essence of everything that exists is this no-thing-ness. But when seen from this evolutionary perspective, what you become aware of is that the nothingness is not nothing. Why? Because in the absolute emptiness prior to the big bang there was still the infinite potential for everything that would be created. Everything was possible but nothing had happened yet. So even in complete emptiness, there is some kind of positive creative tension that is experienced in meditation as a suspended state of absolute awakeness. This quiet tension exists in consciousness because everything is possible but nothing has yet occurred. There is a vibration of empty fullness that is enthralling. And what we're very interested in, in the teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment, is locating that same vibration within our very own self—the same energy, the same intelligence that initiated the entire creative process at the very beginning.

Andrew Cohen

With us, one needs to be a waking sleeper,
that in the state of wakefulness,
you may dream dreams.
The thought of created things
is an enemy to this sweet waking sleep;
until your thought is asleep, your throat is shut,
no mysteries can enter.
Mystical bewilderment must sweep thought away;
bewilderment devours thought
and recollection of anything other than God.
- Rumi, Mathnawi III: 1114-1116, version by Camille
and Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance

Nothing

Nothing sings in our bodies
like breath in a flute.
It dwells in the drum.
I hear it now
that slow beat
like when a voice said to the dark,
let there be light,
let there be ocean
and blue fish
born of nothing
and they were there.
I turn back to bed.
The man there is breathing.
I touch him
with hands already owned by another world
Look, they are desert,
they are rust. They have washed the dead.
They have washed the just born.
They are open.
They offer nothing.
Take it.
Take nothing from me.
There is still a little life
left inside this body,
a little wildness here
and mercy
and it is the emptiness
we love, touch, enter in one another
and try to fill.

~Linda Hogan

Actually there isn't a thing

Actually there isn't a thing
much less any dust to wipe away
who can master this
doesn't need to sit there stiff.
By Feng-kan (Big Stick)
(750? - 850?)

A Sharing of Timeless Being

The Sanskrit word ‘Advaita’ points to that which cannot be spoken of and exposes the fallacy of the idea that there is something separate from something else called oneness. The simplicity of this message is directly threatening to the apparent seeker. It is rejected by the guru mind which searches for states to lay claim to . . . stillness, silence, bliss or awareness arise within the hypnotic dream of separation and then drop away again like sand through the fingers.

But Being is the one and only constant that never comes and never goes away. Because it is nothing and everything it cannot be gained or lost, given or received, approached or avoided.

The seeing of these words, the hearing of sounds, sensations in the body, feelings, thoughts . . . the very stuff of boundless aliveness, is the essence of Being . . . indefinable, unknowable, beyond description and yet filling every part of existence.

This clear and simple message speaks of a revolutionary perception where all traditional ideas, and even contemporary teachings of becoming something better or different, collapse. Its illumination is in the energetic, vibrant aliveness that is implicit in the wonder and liberation of simply Being.

It requires no effort and demands no standards. Being timeless, there is no path and no debt to pay. When this is heard and confusion is no more, the contraction of struggling to 'get something' falls away, and the one constant boundless energy of being aliveness is celebrated as all there is.

Tony Parsons - October 2006