Awareness is like clothing. It comes in two styles: "A-ware" and "B-ware." "A-ware" is open, loose fitting and comfortable. "B-ware" is buttoned up and uncomfortable. When approached, those wearing A-ware ask: "How can I be of help?" Those wearing B-ware ask: "What do you want?"...
Before and after the now, the sole thing that is is the soul, the everything. In the now, every thing is the everything. Upon our manifestation in bodily form, we assume a temporary self which disappears when our body is no longer. As every thing is a manifestation of the soul, the soul is what connects every thing as one thing, the everything. This connection is called love. Unlike the soul, the self views itself as apart and separate from every thing that it perceives as not its self. The self connects with every thing with ever-changing emotions like joy, hate, love, anger, indifference, envy, etc. Our experience of life is a function of how we connect, through the soul or our self. In a world inherently hostile to the self-sustainment of our bodily form, we need the self to survive. When we do so, we experience life with the emotions of our self. However, when we are not oblivious we are eternally the soul, we can return from the emotional rollercoaster of our self to the eternal love that is the soul; where there is peace beyond words and every thing is absolutely beautiful. That is the purpose of this blook, to guide us to the realization we are the soul....
"Don't worry about the future, the present is all thou hast; the future will soon be present, and the present will soon be past." Family post card sent from Kansas to Tennessee, 1910. Courtesy of Kate Bowers. Homespun advice from the farm belt; reminiscent of Buddhist teachings, long before they were popularized in America....
"You can not escape a prison if you do not know you're in one." The mind creates a familiar and comforting world out of the seemingly chaotic universe. In so doing, it separates us, imprisoning us, from directly connecting with the universe as it is and, ultimately, realizing we are the universe. Unless we come to know we are prisoners of mind, we can never escape. To recognize we are in mind's prison, we need to realize we don't know anything. That's scary, or at least our mind makes us feel it is. "You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need." -- Vernon Howard The mind galvanizes in us desires that can never be satisfied but temporarily. This is how the mind distracts us from recognizing we are in its prison. ...