1.    What are you afraid of?
2.    What are you obsessed about?
3.    What/who are you attached to?
4.    What /who are you cut off from?
5.    What is necessary to have, do, be for you to feel happy?
6.    What must you do before you die?
7.    What limits, burdens and imprisons you?
8.    What is the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams?
9.    What is your biggest regret or failure?
10.    In what areas of your life are you living a lie?
11.    Do you feel that you are doing what you were born to do? Why? Why not?
12.    What is the greatest gift that you have to offer others?
13.    What is lacking the most in your life right now?
14.    In what area of your life are you thriving?
15.    If there was one thing you could change right now what would it be?

According to Wikipedia, the illusion of control is “the tendency for human beings to believe they can control, or at least influence, outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over”. This belief, I think, stems directly from how much our lives seem to support that illusion. In other words, when things are going well or going our way, it “appears” as though we are in command to some degree, bending life to our will.

However, when things begin to fall apart and our circumstances abruptly change, we usually feel as though we’ve somehow lost control. We throw around words like lucky or unlucky, depending on what happens to or around us. We talk about how certain things are “meant to be” or that there are no accidents.

The bigger the change, the more it becomes clear that we have much less control than we think we do. At any moment, without notice, our lives can change dramatically. We can have an accident, be involved in a natural disaster, get sick, lose a loved one, get fired, etc. We all know this; we have all experienced this, and yet we still behave as though we have control over our lives.

According to a recent study, the illusion of control is strongest when we are in a position of power.  From an article in Science Daily, called Power and The Illusion of Control:

CEOs of Fortune 500 companies routinely overestimate their capacity to turn mergers and acquisitions into huge profits, leading to financial losses for themselves, their companies, and their stockholders. Even ordinary people seem to take on an air of invincibility after being promoted to a more powerful position. The consequences of these tendencies, especially when present in the world’s most powerful leaders, can be devastating.

In a new study, Nathanael Fast and Deborah Gruenfeld at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Niro Sivanathan at the London Business School and Adam Galinsky at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, show that power can literally “go to one’s head,” causing individuals to think they have more personal control over outcomes than they, in fact, do.

“We conducted four experiments exploring the relationship between power and illusory control – the belief that one has the ability to influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance,” said Galinksy, “In each experiment, whether the participant recalled power by an experience of holding power or it was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to Manager-Subordinate roles, it led to perceived control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the individual. Furthermore, the notion of being able to control a ‘chance’ result led to unrealistic optimism and inflated self-esteem.”

If control is an illusion, then why do we hold onto it so tightly? My guess is that we need this illusion in order to suspend our disbelief long enough to fully engage in our lives. Without it, we’d be paralyzed with fear, looking over our shoulders wondering when something bad might happen. Our illusion of control gives us a feeling of being able to do the impossible, transcend limitations and create new opportunities. Our greatest inventions come from the belief that we can create something out of nothing. If we simply resigned ourselves to our mortality or the fragility of human life, we would never attempt to do anything.

Problems arise when this belief in our ability to control things goes too far. People with lots of power and/or lots of money often fall prey to this because their lives are buffered by the ability to manipulate or buy their way out of problems and suffering. This option is not available to people without authority or means.

What fascinates me is that those without power or money often turn to each other to solve problems. Or to the divine, in whatever way they understand that. They use inner resources rather than outer resources. Of course, not all. Some take a negative approach and manipulate others by stealing or simply escape altogether through addiction. But for the most part, those without power or means  tend to live life with a greater awareness of change and death, and therefore approach life with respect and humility.

As evidenced by our failing economy, the illusion of control at its extreme can extract a tremendous price (there are endless examples throughout history that reveal the same thing). Life is not a casino, and when it is seen as fodder for manipulation to be used for personal gain, the illusion falls down hard and fast. Life has, and always will have, the upper hand, and it has some not so subtle ways of reminding us of that.

Anything that flies high eventually has to come down. Like it or not, there’s no way to outsmart change or death. They’re inevitable. We can only pretend they’re not, but sooner or later, they’ll come knocking at our door.

Is it not better then to meet life as it is and stop the pretending? To some extent yes, as long as we learn to accept change and death without fear.  Nothing wrong with wrapping a bit of illusion around us for comfort. The trick is to not to buy into it too deeply or get too attached to things staying the same. This is where a bit of Zen acceptance and surrender comes in handy.

There is some freedom in letting go of the illusion of control. We can relax our vigilance and begin to allow it all to unfold, as we would a movie. However, life is not a spectator sport. For as long as we live, we are players on the field, engaging in the game. What we think, say and do matters, but not in the personal way we typically think of it, but rather in a big picture kind of way.

To get a glimpse of that you’ll need to speak with the director.

Why is it so easy to take the people, places and things in our lives for granted?  We get comfortable with the old and familiar. We get lazy and unconscious and begin to feel entitled to what we have rather than grateful as we would be for a gift.

With all the collective emphasis on the Law of Attraction and manifestation techniques, there is the risk of putting too much attention on what what we want or what is missing from our lives rather than on appreciating what we have.  With our economy in crisis, it is illuminating so many things that we falsely assumed were permanent fixtures of life, barely realizing their fragile roots or that their very existence was based on a mass agreed-upon illusion.

As the John Lennon lyric so aptly states, “You don’t know what you got, until you lose it,” we are waking up to our own blindness to the incredible privileges that have graced our lives: work, housing, food, clean water, material goods aplenty, a multitude of entertainment choices…the list goes on. Suddenly, these aspects of life that we assumed were a given, are now threatened, and oh how much more precious they seem! Suddenly, our lives are not so much about what we don’t have, but rather being grateful for what we do have.

The restlessness and incessant need for more lessens when we shift our perspective even slightly and see the value in choosing what we have. It is as if a veil has come down and America has been caught with its collective pants down. No longer can we deny that people on this planet are living unsustainable lives under intolerable conditions. This awareness is now bumping up against our formerly sheltered and buffered lives. No longer can we pretend that we have transcended our humanity. We, too, are facing issues connected with our survival and there is no where to escape that reality.

In this context, the self-help movement with its promises of salvation and material wealth, seems a bit shallow. We cannot survive this major evolutionary shift by continuing to support the every man out for himself mentality.

That chapter of our story is over.

There is no denying now that we need each other to survive. We have to come together to share resources, not accumulate them, to share knowledge freely, not turn it into another product to sell, to cooperate, not compete.

The spiritual naturally becomes political when it involves the survival of our planet. Hiding on a mountaintop is no longer an option for anyone who considers him- or herself a member of a global community. Yes, we still need to meditate and we still need to practice principles of conscious living, but we also need to take action. We can no longer afford to be spectators in this game of life. We are being called our to take ownership of our lives and accountability for the lives of everyone on the planet.

Choosing what you have, sharing what you know, and being who you are with all of your wisdom and skills are some of the first steps in this process. Just the simple act of opening up your life to the bigger picture will shift things in miraculous ways.

Human beings are tribal in nature, always have been, always will be. We need each other. Even our natural affinity with online social networks reveals this. The post WWII model of nuclear family life is outdated and unsustainable. It is a model of excess, draining resources and creating waste. Our planet and our economy will no longer support that lifestyle. Instead, we will be forced (since most of us didn’t volunteer) to live more cooperatively in relationships and networks of interdependence. Bartering will replace monetary exchange as people look for more creative ways to purchase what they need. Sharing big ticket items among a group of families will make them more affordable and accessible. Gardening, public transportation, free local entertainment will replace their higher cost alternatives.

None of us knows how far down the rabbit hole we have to go to learn these lessons, but go we must, the window to turn things around already past. In the meantime, look at what you have and see it for all it’s preciousness, because tomorrow it may be gone.

The underlying process to waking up is to remove anything and everything that is in the way or interferes with it, remembering that the true and natural human state is this place. The rest is a trick, a lie, an illusion, a trap, a prison, etc.

We need to remember who we are. We are Divine and our natural state of being is wholeness, perfection, health, prosperity, peace, joy, love, connectedness, oneness, etc.

We move back and forth between remembering and forgetting, between expansion and contraction, between love and fear. The path is about spending less time in the place of forgetting, contracting and fear and more time in the place of remembering, expansion and love.

Why is this so difficult to grasp or to put into words? Why is it so difficult to experience at will? It is what we all know exists, what we search for and long for, but often miss. When we do find it for whatever brief period, we rejoice; when it’s gone, we feel devastated. This is why people use drugs and alcohol–they are looking for this sensation or place of being in the flow…this place of joy and bliss and connectedness. Drugs and alcohol simulate it, but it’s not nearly as good as the real thing, and when you come down from a drug high you are even further away from the real thing–a viscous circle with the only escape being one or more of the above paths at work in your life.

The place is the place where miracles and healing and manifestation happen. It is the space in between everything. This is what Christ meant when he said the Truth will set you free…it is this place…this high energy, almost manic blissful place where life seems magical and wondrous that he was speaking about. To be human and remember your Divinity is about as good as it gets…it’s like being in love with Life.

When someone is in this place it affects everyone around him/her. They can feel the energy because that person has tapped directly into Source and has become a clear channel for that energy and it is electric and intoxicating.

To access this Source requires nothing more than clearing the channel and removing whatever is in the way physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, energetically, etc.

This will allow us to access this Source more at will rather than at random.

Sometimes it seems so random. I’ve worked hard for years with all the techniques, but lately it just seems to happen without anything specific preceding it, as if I’m just finding the location and then the channel opens up.

Maybe my son was right and there are two “earths” and one is underneath the other one. One is REAL and the other one is a lie, a simulation or game. There are doors and escape hatches from the matrix earth into the real one, and perhaps we slip into it when we dream or meditate or take hallucinogenic drugs or sometimes just randomly have a peak experience. But then we always come back into the matrix–the limited earth, the painful earth, the challenging earth. Finding the doors are the key to a better life. Death is one door, but there are many, many other doors, and within this false earth there are clues everywhere about how to access the REAL one. It’s tricky and requires lots of work and removal of the false persona that we’ve been led to believe is real. When we remember who we are, we automatically have access to the REAL earth. But remembering ain’t easy; luckily there are lots of catalysts around that can trigger a memory.

Life is a wonder and a mystery. We move through it under the strong illusion that we have some degree of control of it or at least our personal corner. On the surface at least, we don’t, and life does not hesitate to remind of this regularly.

But there is something deeper here…a paradox to be sure. There is a deep place within us that is connected to the Whole of ALL THAT IS. It is in this connection that we can tap into something deeper. This is the place where we can see the bigger picture and recognize the Divine Perfection all around us. It is the place where we can laugh at what is unfolding and not take it so seriously. This is also the place where we can get freed up of all of that drama and biographical, genetic, ancestral and societal baggage we keep dragging around with us.

As small children, we are powerfully imprinted by our early experiences, both good and bad. It is where our first impressions of love, relationships and the world are made. Depending on whether those early experiences were positive and uplifting or dark and traumatic or somewhere in between, they shape our perception and ways of navigating through the world.

If we grow up on a starvation diet devoid of much attention and affection, that becomes our normal because we don’t know what a full meal tastes like. Because it feels normal, we will tend to perpetuate that diet and attract people and circumstances into our lives that only partially feed us.

To stop carrying those early imprints with us, we need to heal and release the thoughts and beliefs about the world they created. Often they are so much a part of us, that we cannot even see them. But in spite of their invisibility, they shape and influence every decision we make.

For someone who is used to being deprived, learning to receive love and attention and affection, is a major healing event. It is a process of unwinding and unraveling all of those deeply ingrained ways of being, reacting and moving and opening the channel for a new level of aliveness.

In order to do what it believes will keep us safe, our subconscious sabotages all of our desires and needs and deep cravings to grow and change. This saboteur affects everything we do. To really heal these subterranean levels of fear, we need to connect with something greater. To reduce the imagined threat of releasing our old way of being, we need to remember who we are.

This is nothing short of dying to what was and being reborn to what is. It is where we will find real freedom. It is where we will find our authentic voice. It is where we will learn what it means to be alive.

We, perhaps for the first time, will be back in the driver’s seat of our lives, rather than feeling like some rogue part of ourselves is behind the wheel.

This is not really about control, but rather surrender and allowing and being with what is at a very high level of acceptance. Control is about the need to survive. When we begin to taste freedom, we no longer feel in danger and so no longer need to control things. We are no longer out of alignment with what is before us and what is unfolding. The feeling of being out of sync was simply all that noise from our subconscious trying to survive what it perceived to be a very confusing world.

There are many modalities that allow us to release our early scripts and beliefs. When we are ready to really let go, we will find them.

In the meantime, take a look at your circumstances and relationships. Notice any repeating themes or patterns? Feelings of powerlessness and frustration? A sense of moving ten steps forward and two back? A gnawing feeling of being victimized, but with no clue how to shake the feeling or change your circumstances?

That’s it. Keep paying attention to it. Call it forth from the shadows into the light of day. Watch what happens when a little bit of awareness creeps in. The power and intensity starts to diminish. Exposure is half the battle.

It’s as if you’ve discovered a few stowaways living inside of you…long-term house guests, and it’s time to show them the door.

For that you may need help, because these squatters aren’t usually so keen on leaving. They will do anything to convince you they are helping you and that you cannot survive without them. An objective person can help you to hold steady and not be swayed or undermined by such tactics.

Sometimes you have to sneak up on them and trick them into leaving. Whatever it takes, whatever modalities you choose, by all means stand firm. Give them a hug, thank them for serving you, but don’t forget to lock the door once they’re gone.

Photo by Julian Fann

Now + Here = Nowhere

There is Nowhere to go…there is only Here…Now

Here Now…Now Here…No-Where…

There is No-Thing to do…only Nothing…the Void that is filled with
the illusion of Some-Things…

There is No-body to be…only Nobody…the Void that is filled with the
illusion of Some-Bodies…

From this place of Nowhere, Nothing and Nobody…from this Void…comes
the IS-NESS that is Every-Thing…Everything that IS…the IS-NESS that
is Every-where…Everywhere that IS…

No Separate-ness…No Separation…No-Thing Separate…No-Where
Separate…No-Body Separate…

What IS as IS…

This IS…That IS…There IS…

It IS…

No-Thing-ness as Some-Thing-ness…

One Thing…All Things…Every-Thing…

Being One-Thing…Being Every-thing…Being No-thing

All of IT and None of IT…

IT IS…IT IS NOT…

ONE-NESS…ALL-NESS…IS-NESS

I AM

WE ARE

THEY ARE

Now Here…

No-Where…No-Thing…No-Body…

Everywhere…Everything…Everybody…

I, You, We, Us, Them, Him, Her, It…

Words to hold us in Time and Space…Some-Thing to grab onto…

Some-Thing…Some-Body…Some-One…Some-Place…

Any-Thing…Any-Body…Any-One…Any-Place…

As long as WE ARE HERE…

NOW…

Words…

Just words…

No-Thing more…

Photo by Julian Fann

Who we are is constantly changing. We are not static, therefore, we cannot hold onto our concept of ourselves or others. To truly grow and move and flow with the river of life, we need to constantly let go of where we are and what we know. This makes us available for what is and what’s to come.

Many find fluidity threatening. It is unpredictable and unknown. Without a measured, structured controlled way of being, life becomes rich with possibility and also with danger. Anything can happen. And as Alan Watts reminded us there is real wisdom in insecurity. Nothing is certain or guaranteed and to operate as though it is, leaves us unprepared to meet what life presents us in the moment.

“How could this happen?” we ask when life takes a sudden abrupt turn in a new direction, the very question revealing deep levels of unconsciousness about the nature of existence. Life simply is unfolding as it will moment by moment, and the workings of it are so vast and complex, that try as we might, we will never be able to rein it in and direct it to do our bidding.

The shattering of illusions, such a quintessential aspect of waking up, reveals this unfathomable mystery over and over again. Like grains of sand in a clenched fist, no amount of our demanding the truth, brings it forth. Instead, it seems to be the gentle surrender and dropping of resistance that allows the fog around our vision to lift.

Thankfully, there is always more…more to see…more to know…more to experience. Thinking you have arrived is yet another illusion. So many spiritual teachers have been blinded silly by that one, as they set up their tent shows promising to show us the way. What a relief to realize that stopping is not an option. Life is about movement and growth, and for those whose main focus is escape from that usually end up getting yanked out of their stupor by some major jolt or challenge.

Fate has a way of finding our hiding places.

We all know the whispering inside of our hearts, as well as the ongoing costs we incur by ignoring it.

As I’ve said before we can take our experiences easy and smooth or hard and straight up. There are benefits to both. Often the resistance makes our experiences and the lessons we learn from them far more powerful, indelible in their impact and level of penetration, giving them a bit more staying power.

Resistance then may not be a bad choice if you don’t mind higher spheres of pain, because the tighter we hold onto our illusions, the more attached we get to them, the more wrenching and severe it can be when they blow up.

Life becomes quite shamanic at this level. We invite this kind of no-nonsense teacher when we really want to immerse ourselves fully into the deepest level of a particular lesson. We may even question our ability to survive travels into these depths, as they often leaving us feeling adrift without anchor or familiar ground beneath our feet.

But eventually, with time, we emerge from the murky darkness and find our way onto dry land. In the process, we may discover that something within us, something connected to us, something mysterious and yet familiar, was there to sustain us all along, That something also is what connects us to all that is around us, and let’s us know that we are not alone.

Once we can really see and experience that connectedness with everything, we no longer need to fight or control or manipulate the world around us. We no longer need to cling to our concepts and beliefs. We can simply let go and fall into the void and relax into the awareness that there is no death, and therefore nothing to fear.

In fact, there are no limitations at all. There is only this game of hide and seek between the truth and the illusions that distort it.

The ultimate paradox is that since there is nowhere to go but right where you are, you are exactly where you should be, illusions and all.

I’ve been speaking to friends of mine about why life seems so hard much of the time, and through a circuitous route, we ended up with a number of conclusions, none entirely satisfying. People’s theories ranged from, “none of this is real” to “your outer world is a reflection of your inner world” to “suffering and struggle are necessary” to all theories in between.

Even those of us who put lots of attention on the meaning of life seem baffled most of the time. No amount of our intricate story-weaving really even touches the mysteries of life nor answers our demands for an explanation.

I’ve always cultivated a fantasy that somewhere, sometime I would meet someone who would tap me on the shoulder and point me in the direction of the Truth. That like Dorothy and her friends in the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain would be outed.

I suppose the not-knowing is what keeps life interesting and magical. The uncertainty keeps us in the game. But, and most would agree, sometimes, it is just all too much. Sometimes, I’m just tired. Moving through the density of the 3-D feels like a trudge through the mud, and once in a while — without the help of mind altering substances or the nightly out of body forays of the dreamstate — I’d like to have the sensation of flowing freely through and with it (sober AND awake).

The best I’ve come up with so far is to not resist what is. Rather, I just let myself fall into what’s happening in the moment…fully and completely, until I’m so in it, I don’t differentiate myself from it. I merge into it with a full out embrace and trust. Seated in the Is-ness, I am gifted with periods of real peace and even joy, but not what I would call freedom. Sorry, but that’s what I’m really going for. Sadly, I think that’s the one thing I cannot really have. At least not in the way I imagine it.

Being here on this plane of existence doesn’t appear to be about freedom or transcendence or nirvana. If it is, it certainly isn’t the easiest door to open. Believe me, I’ve tried, and paradoxically, it is that trying that has led to my failure. It seems as though the very act of wanting and seeking and desiring a way out of the limitations of physically existence, actually seals the door even tighter, whereas, letting go of the need for things to be different, being with all that is as it is, tends to crack it open just a hair.

In other words, if you’re here, be here. Death is your ticket out. Life has a built in exit plan. Knowing that, wouldn’t you want to hang out here and see what happens next? Besides, how do you or I know that once we die, we aren’t lining up to come right back? How do we know this isn’t one of the coolest places in existence to incarnate?

On the other hand, it could also be a prison matrix where we’ve been sent to learn some heavy-duty lessons as part of some kind of karmic debt. Or even further down that line of thinking, we could be prisoners with no real reason behind our imprisonment other than we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In that model, those of us looking for an escape would be considered heroes.

This illusiveness and speculation is precisely the problem. Like a kaleidoscope, our experience of life shifts depending on how you look at it. Turn it one way and it looks like a cosmic dance filled with divine blessings and opportunities. Turn it another way, and it looks like a cruel, painful phenomenon filled with unnecessary hardship and suffering. Turn it again, and it falls somewhere in the middle and looks like the most ordinary thing in the world.

Maybe it’s all of those things, plus more. Perhaps we’ll never really know what this is all about. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I don’t know…personally, I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking for answers or wondering what’s around the next corner. Maybe that’s a good thing, too.

We need help. But short of an evolved extraterrestrial species arriving at the eleventh hour to bail us out of our stupidity and ignorance, we’re on our own.

To some people, plain and simple, that would mean we’re doomed. However, I would like to suggest that left to our own devices, we actually DO have the capacity to transform our current situation. The problem is that we’ve forgotten how. We’ve forgotten that in addition to being human, we also have within us something quite extraordinary, something mostly unseen and unnoticed, but something not at all limited by the boundaries of time and space.

This transcendent aspect of us is the energy or intelligence within us that created us and gives us life. Don’t you find it strange, how little attention we give to this core essence of our existence? Instead, few of us acknowledge that this even exists or that we have any access to it or would know what to do with it even if we could access it.

It’s as if life is a puzzle and we’re born into it with a bit of amnesia and confusion and only a handful of clues about our existence. As our life unfolds, we have many opportunities to remember and become clear and even to work the puzzle. Our tendency is to look outside of ourselves for answers. There are so many sources of information and teachers out there who promise to answer our questions. All ultimately lead us astray, except those who redirect our query back to their source: ourselves.

It is only then that we can begin to discover for ourselves not only the answers to our questions, but the source of the questions themselves. We begin at the end and end at the beginning. All our fruitless searches return us to where we started, with the greatest discovery of all being that there is nowhere to go and what we seek we already have.

With that said, how will that discovery save us? It will not only save us but it will relieve us finally of the burden of having to figure it all out. Because whether we know it or not, we are not in charge of the show. We are simply playing our small role. There is instead, a director or cosmic intelligence that can see the whole thing as it plays out. Our only duty is to make sure we listen to that intelligence as it gives us our cues and tells us our positions in the grand drama that is unfolding.

Photo by Julian Fann

An untrained mind is that is out of control is our responsibility. We live on a planet surrounded by millions of similar untrained, out of control minds; because of this, things are a mess and bordering on total destruction. Bad decisions, addictions, consumerism, waste, conflicts in relationships, boredom in work, etc., are all ego-based. Imagine a world in which we took the ego out of the equation!

In a battle with two egos, there is no way to win. It’s reduced to trying to prove who’s right and who’s wrong, and that end, once achieved, is a hollow victory. It creates a winner and a loser, but neither benefit from the outcome. Real connection and communion can only occur when both parties are open and present and egos are in check. Keeping the ego in check in a relationship isn’t easy—there are so many opportunities to be offended, misinterpreted, confused, and so forth, mainly because we are entering into this connection with pre-conceived ideas rather than coming to it fresh and open. We base our relationships on the past and the future bringing with us assumptions, expectations, stories, judgments, and concepts— in other words, lots of baggage that we automatically project onto that person. This essentially renders the relationships both mute and blind, because instead of really hearing and seeing other people, we are actually having a conversation with our concept of them—they might as well not even be there.

One way to change this is to begin to break habitual patterns in our lives. But, as most of us can attest, that’s easier said than done. The subterranean levels of the psyche—the deep and murky shadowland of the unconscious, the really ugly dirty stuff of the core wound survival stuff—is not an easy terrain in which to move or breathe. That’s why we need to tread carefully. We cannot actively attack the ego—that only makes it stronger. Instead, we have to take our attention away from it and essentially refuse to feed it; through neglect, its power will weaken and eventually fade away. Again not simple, and that’s where the need for training and undoing old bad habits comes in. Many seek a teacher for this, a shaman, a guru, a sage or monk. But let me warn you…this is a slippery slope filled with teachers whose biggest problems are their egos. And there are no short-cuts. Just like learning anything else and doing it well it takes daily, and in the case of the ego, sometimes, hourly or even moment by moment practice. As a wise person told me not so long ago, we have millions of thoughts per day, so don’t expect to get control of them overnight. However, just knowing they need to be controlled is half the battle. The other half is a lot of blood, sweat and tears…lots of trial and error…two steps forward and ten back…that kind of thing.

Are you up for it? Unless, you’ve been dragged along the pavement of life and are tired of being scraped up, probably not. This type of practice isn’t for the light-hearted or the lazy. It’s for those who want to finally once and for all turn down that incessant meaningless chatter, and find out what lies behind all this insanity and senseless suffering. It’s for those know there’s more and are willing to do whatever it takes to access it.

Yes, things have to get pretty bad, to the point where we decide that enough is enough, and we won’t tolerate the suffering the ego generates anymore

With that said, there are also innumerable ways that people have stumbled upon this egoless place…quite by accident. One woman whose story is circulating like mad around the internet got there when she suffered a stroke to the left hemisphere of her brain. Others simply have a sudden awakening with no rhyme or reason.

Perhaps you’re one of those. For the rest of us, we can begin freeing ourselves from the tyranny of an untrained mind today. Some wise teachers suggest starting with the question, “Who Am I?” and see what opens up from there.

Think about it…if you’re not your personal history, your stories, your concepts and beliefs, your daily roles in life, then WHO ARE YOU?