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.

Photo by Julian Fann

Training the ego is like training a dog—no one wants to be around a poorly behaved dog. It’s not the dog’s fault he barks too much, bites people, chases cars, soils the carpet, etc., he just needs to be trained. Our egos also need to be trained, to be put in their place, not to run rampant and out of control wreaking havoc wherever they go

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?

There is so much that needs to be faced and acknowledged and cleaned up. No one can break free from bondage when they live in a state of denial or continue to run from past mistakes that have caused pain.

All the things I’ve tried to deny and run from still exist in my life. Ignoring them didn’t make them disappear; instead, they are right in my face, waiting for me to put my attention on them. The list right now is huge…money issues, health issues, relationship issues, etc.

Trying to play outside of the laws of life doesn’t work. When things are out of balance, they need to be looked at head on. The accountability must come in, along with an openness to doing whatever it takes to bring it into balance.

The soul becomes fragmented into broken pieces when things are out of balance. The only way to feel whole is to retrieve those lost pieces–pieces that were stolen or given away or simply lost in the midst of some moment of temporary insanity.

Healing is about wholeness and balance–cleaning up all those areas where we have made errors–not by blaming ourselves or others, but by recognizing our part in it, making amends, asking for forgiveness and finally, forgiving ourselves.

Bad choices, mistaken beliefs and errors in judgment happen to everyone., but there is a major difference in the lives of those who clean things up and those who ignore them or run away. In the end you can never really run away–I am proof of that–a distance of 3,000 miles hasn’t removed any of it from my life. The unresolved stuff comes with you whether you like it or not. It is patient and will wait until the day you die and beyond to resolve it and clean it up.

Facing the Truth (and ourselves) without the veils or stories takes incredible courage. It is our stories that make sense out of the senseless, our stories that connect the dots, and our stories that make up the glue that holds who we think we are in place.

But it is also our stories that keep us from experiencing life as it is. We are so busying filtering that what we see is bent and refracted in ways that “fit” with our beliefs and past experiences. We frame our relationships in the same way. We blast people with a muddy cocktail of projections from our vast library of beliefs and associations connected with them, that they don’t stand a chance of being seen fresh and new in the moment.

To clean house, so to speak, is to drop the stories (and the justifications, rationalizations, and explanations) we put around our experiences and take stock of what’s left. What you typically find is a bit of a mess—things that you thought you could ignore or deny right out of existence that now need to be handled and resolved.

Some of the messes are a big deal and some aren’t. But once we can see them, we wondered how we lived with them for so long. Cleaning them up seems like the most natural next step in our lives. Suddenly, there is no longer a good reason not to.

As we move forward in this way, we begin to feel the way you do after a good spring cleaning: lighter, freer, and more able to breathe. There is more space, more light and more openness to the present. We are available now because we have unburdened ourselves, released these weights we’ve been dragging around for years.

After all this hard work, my intention for myself, at least, is to prevent this type of laboring in the future by cleaning up my messes as they arise. A kind of clean as you go approach. Because though I’d love to stop making messes, as long as I’m human, there will always be messes made that need to be cleaned up. If I can simply eliminate the extra task of unraveling the stories around them, I’ll spend far less time in the muck and mire of existence, and more in the lightness of being.

I recently began to imagine what might happen if we truly wiped the slate clean – eliminated all activities, habits, and engagements with others – just stopped doing for as long as it took to find out what might happen.

In that pure state of relaxed being-ness and non-doing, my guess is that eventually the impulse to do something would arise naturally, not from some kind of external pressure, but rather an innate sense that it was time to move and do…time to act and to create something out of nothing.

This temporary retreat from the world, if done in complete immersion, would successfully create a gap between the inauthentic and the authentic, essentially a limbo or void of just pure existence that is not attempting to self-express. It is within this gap that a true bridge can be built from the false to the real. This gap is what cuts the cord between the past and the future and immerses us in the present fully, and it is only from that place that anything close to being real can emerge.

By expanding fully into the space of the present, we can break free from all the things from the past that were holding us back and keeping us in bondage. For it is only when you stop doing long enough and shift into a state of just being that you begin to see what matters. Otherwise, the habitual default mode continues to operate, keeping you comfortably unconscious.

There is something extremely powerful about removing old habits; it has a way of shedding instant light on what’s left in the shadows to be seen and faced.

In my own life, though I have come a long way, I have not gone quite deep enough. Indeed, while I give myself little breaks, here and there, there is always the energetic pull of what was left undone, yanking me back, because God forbid, I might fuck something up and have to fix it later. Right now though, I’m being called out to stop all the incessant doing and just allow myself to release the judgment and fear of rejection that comes from not feeling as though I measure up.

What is needed is a full scale rebellion…almost a revolution of being, in which I’m immersed in the space of no-thingness until I’m satiated, and then able to move into the doing authentically. I need a complete break from the mundane so that I can fully break ties with the old and then move into the future authentically, and stop dragging around the balls and chains from past beliefs about myself and others.

I know this…and yet, I’m still reluctant to let myself fully fall into that void of being. There are so many good reasons not to. So much support to stay busy and be productive. So many judgments to avoid and expectations to fulfill.

But I also know that in giving myself permission to discover the truth in this, that I can then speak about it from my own experience, which will in turn give others permission to do it.

Most people wait until something happens to them and forces them to take a break. Very few volunteer. But why wait until you’re ill or in a state of trauma? Then you’re busy trying to get better.

Why not simply move into it?

What will the people in my life say? They won’t allow it. They won’t accept it. I will feel guilty.

Sounds like bondage to me.

In fact, the whole entire way we live our lives makes absolutely no sense to me. Never has. Never will. Practically none of it is working. Our relationships. Our work. Our communities. Our environment. Our schools. Our government.

My theory is that the core reason for this is that no one knows what the hell they’re doing or why they’re even doing it. Most are doing what they do because everyone else is. Most are doing what they do because they are afraid of what other people will say and do if they don’t. This leaves very little room for anything real to emerge.

Authenticity takes time, and time is a rare commodity, doled out to the elite, who mostly waste it anyway. A true rebellion would begin when people take the time to stop doing and listen. This is where the most power lies. In silence. In the present moment. In the nothing-ness.

It is from there that real change can take place. It is there that true freedom lies.

Such a simple idea, and yet so seemingly unattainable.

The fear of being alone is what causes most people to enter into or remain in bad relationships. Fear, being the poor adviser that it is, leads to poor choices. It tends to keep company with scarcity and evokes the flight or fight response regularly. The energy associated with it is downright toxic.

What starts as simple enjoyment of the way we feel when our partner is around, can, when coupled with fear, move into attachment and even addiction, in which we feel tremendous suffering when they aren’t.

Essentially, when our well being is dependent on another person, we become enslaved to him or her. Take it another step further and you might even say our very survival is dependent on the relationship.

I call this type of relationship, the “save me from being alone relationship” in which one or both parties will literally put up with anything as long as they are assured they can hang onto the relationship.

People become each other’s life preservers.

Typically, my observation is that in most of these over-the-top co-dependent relationships one person plays the role of savior or master and the other plays the role of saved or slave. The person saved from being alone becomes indebted to the one who is doing the saving and is willing to do anything to repay this debt and please their savior.

The savior or master, on the other hand, holds all the cards and is in a position of power in the relationship. They call most of the shots and tend to exert great control over the relationship. There is a sado-masochistic dynamic at work here as well.

The slave is held hostage by the fear of being alone and the master uses this need as leverage against the slave. Both the controller and the controlled are each happy with this arrangement, because each is getting what they need.

This dynamic works until the master gets bored or the slave gets tired of being controlled or when either one or the other or both finds a new master or slave.

To break the spell or enchantment may require cult member style deprogramming as the fear and survival needs that created this dynamic may be buried so deep in the subconscious that neither party may even be aware what is at play in their relationship. Bringing the nature of the relationship into conscious awareness is one step on the road to healing.

But this begs the question: what does fear have to do with love?

Absolutely nothing.

Love doesn’t take hostages; fear does.

Love isn’t about control; fear is.

Love isn’t worried about the future; fear is.

Love is without conditions and restraints. Love is about freedom.

Fear has its own agenda, and that is to make sure you survive.

But life is not about mere survival. It’s about growth and learning and living…really living.

No one can save us from being alone.

We’re all alone. We’re born alone. We die alone.

Holding on tightly suffocates what’s near and dear.

Is that what we want to be doing?

I took a walk with a friend the other day. It was an overcast windy day, typical of fall in the northwest, with hints of sunlight scattered amidst the fallen leaves. We were sharing the details of some personal issues with each other when she turned to me and said, “For the longest time, it’s felt as though the universe were conspiring against me.”

Wow, I thought, she’s describing my feelings exactly. I imagine most people feel that way when life seems particularly challenging. But as accurate as it sounded, what did it really mean?

How could the universe as a whole conspire against anyone? If it could conspire against someone, could it also conspire for someone?

When things are going well, we tend to think we’re being rewarded or have hit a lucky streak or grace period in which we’re in the flow. However, when things are going badly, we assume that we’re being punished or that we’re unlucky or having a bad day. What’s behind this way of thinking? Do we actually believe that the universe is capable of taking sides? Or is something deeper at work?

Perhaps, we’re actually onto something when we think this way. We are living beings who interact with our environment all the time. There is no way to separate ourselves from it. We are connected to everyone and everything in the world we live in. We send out signals and we receive them. Every thought, emotion, and action carries our energy with it as it is sent out. By the same token, we are constantly bumping into the thoughts, emotions, and actions of those around us…receiving them. Could it be that the universe is made up of all this output, and it is this interaction that we feel and perceive as either positive or negative? Is there something, a presence, an intelligence beyond that directing the show?

Perhaps, it’s just a way of personifying the chaos we feel at the mercy of sometimes. Blame our pain and suffering on the big, bad, old universe, because we certainly couldn’t be to blame. Shit happens, right? No one asks for suffering. Right?

Well…I don’t know about that. But I do know if you look deep enough, and I mean really deep, into the hard-to-reach corners of religion, science, literature, and the arts, they all essentially point to the same thing: we and the universe are one and the same…we are it…it is us. We are moving with it all the time, whether we recognize it or not. Sometimes, we just allow that and feel totally in sync with it. Other times, we resist and feel totally out of sync with it. It is not the universe that has shifted, but us. We create the ripple that hits us sideways and knocks us down. Sometimes the effect is delayed making it appear as though things “happen” to us out of the blue, but if we were to rewind the tape and look at ALL the thoughts and feelings we were having…we would see a connection somewhere.

Are we to blame? No, there is no blame, because most of us aren’t aware of how things work, so we interact with the world around us ignorant of our role in it. But our ignorance doesn’t get us a pass either. Our only option is to find out how things work, and make the changes within.

Sounds daunting, doesn’t it? It is, but it seems to me that if you were willing to incarnate on this crazy plane of existence, the least you could do is to read the instruction manual, so that you don’t fuck it up. Too bad it doesn’t exist. No, we have to go searching for it, and rather than finding it all in once place, we pick up pieces along the way, like finding clues on a scavenger hunt.

The whole thing feels as rigged as a Las Vegas casino. Apparently, that’s part of the game of being alive.

A hall of mirrors. A labyrinth. A maze. Waking up in the dream. Dreaming we’re awake. Because of it’s mirage-like nature, we can never be sure we’re onto the Truth. Again and again, right when we think we’ve hit the bulls-eye, we discover we’re not even close.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Would you really want to destroy the mystery anyhow? Half the fun is not knowing what will happen next.

But that doesn’t stop some of us from trying to figure it all out.

The deeper I enter into my spiritual life, the more I encounter the psychological issues that keep me in bondage. When I frame my emotions, thoughts, beliefs and experiences through the lens of my core wounds and the key relationships in my life, I allow myself to navigate into the shadow aspects of my life, without which there would be no hope for happiness or freedom.

My core wound (as is many people’s) is connected with issues of neglect, abandonment, and feelings of overall unworthiness. When I brush up against any of these issues in my day-to-day life, they inevitably trigger very old ingrained reactions. The driving force of my life and my capabilities as a communicator were all defined by my need for first, understanding and second, attention. That’s right, attention. Had I not been ignored and neglected by self-absorbed, overwhelmed parents, I would never had the need to become articulate and self-sufficient, and filled with an unquenchable thirst to understand the deeper meaning of life.

The irony at middle-age is to realize that for years, I’ve continued to attract people into my life that maintained this pattern of neglect and indifference, to further agitate my feelings of being unnoticed and unseen until it has nearly driven me mad, but it’s also pushed me to develop my communication skills even further, to build a life around those skills so that my human need to be heard was finally met.

Beneath the surface of this need for attention has always been the greater need for meaning. My passion for this has defined my life since I was fifteen and even now, at forty-six, shows no sign of waning. These two drives when partnered could have manifested into incredible opportunity for me to step into a role of leadership. Luckily for me, my need for attention is not fed by crowds and adoration and admiration. Quite the contrary. Some other force, more subtle and less defined is tempering this type of overly visible and overly public display. No, it is much more anchored in my personal relationships. There is the dilemma, but also the opening.

Getting to know yourself and your core psychological issues and how they’ve shaped your life is the foundation upon which any real spiritual growth is built. The two simply cannot be separated. They are intertwined and dependent on each other as lungs are to drawing a breath.

That’s not to say that you should get caught up in analyzing them every spare moment, but rather getting acquainted with them, observing them, seeing when you have strong feelings or thoughts or reactions to something, watching for the triggers that come up. As you get to know yourself, this won’t seem so strange or overwhelming; it will become second nature, and part of your daily experience. Over time, you will actually begin to notice that you are evolving and growing and stretching in ways you never conceived possible. The more you are willing to invite these unconscious parts of yourself to the surface to be explored, the more insights will come, and instead of feeling as though you’re living in a small world defined by your past, you will begin to experience a world that transcends all boxes; the possibilities that once seem limited will, from this perspective, seem endless.

An evolving life is an exciting life. Growth means movement and movement means growth. Something as simple as deciding to pay attention to yourself can change everything. It opens unseen doors that you never even knew existed. Your ability to comprehend even the most complex situations begins to expand. Your capacity to accomplish what before seemed to take huge amounts of effort, now seems to move into a rhythm of effortlessness. What becomes apparent is that our entire struggle has been caused by our unconsciousness, and we alone can change it.

I read something recently written by a scientist that said when this world was created only 10 percent manifested in the density of the 3-D, which means that the other 90 percent manifested in dimensions that aren’t visible or experienced with the five senses. This sounded familiar and of course, I realized it sounded identical to the theory that human beings only use 10 percent of their brains, and that the other 90 percent isn’t being accessed or used. Perhaps, that meant the unused 90 percent of the brain was created to access and use in the 90 percent of creation that we can’t see.

Imagine the possibilities and experiences and other worlds that might exist in that other 90 percent? Imagine what we could do and would do if we could access that 90 percent?

The 3-D world–the world you and I live in–that makes up this 10 percent of our experience is extremely limited. It is a shadow world, an illusion, a holographic matrix, a massive projection created by a massive agreed-upon belief. This matrix isn’t real or solid, but the appearance of it is convincing, convincing because we have amnesia about the other 90 percent.

This amnesia keeps us in bondage, makes us slaves to the unreal, accepting our fate, falsely believing this is all there is, that the 3-D is a solid, immovable, chaotic realm that we were born into, like prisoners we adapt to the rules of this realm, believing we have no choice, no power to escape or change it, that we must obey the rules of this realm, stay in the box of our beliefs about it or risk pain or certain death.

Fear is our warden, uncertainty and doubt keep us in line, so we resign ourselves to finding whatever pleasure we can within it, looking outside of ourselves for the next thing to relieve our feelings of limitation, even though these pleasures are never long-lasting and are threatened by constant change and suffering and loss.

Within each of us is a feeling that something’s not right, that there is something inherently wrong with the world we’re living in, that it doesn’t make sense, that the rules go against something deep inside of us, some memory that exists there, it makes us agitated and confused and afraid, some feel it at greater levels than others, so we begin to question everything, we seek out answers in books, workshops, meditation, techniques, gurus, but nothing works, all external answers throw us off track and leave us empty-handed, our minds spin in the confusion, some of us give up hope of ever finding an answer, some of us seek out escape through death, others escape with drugs and oblivion, others shut down and hide out in relationships or churches or work, but then there are others who are determined to find out the Truth.

The Mayan, Hopi, Navaho, Essene and Biblical prophecies for the time we’re living in all speak of a clear choice between destruction/death and creation/rebirth, we’re at the end of a very difficult cycle and what happens next on the planet and to humanity is up to the actions of those of us who choose to wake up and break through this 3-D illusion of bondage, and access the other dimensions and worlds of creation beyond the 3-D.

The problem with that idea is there are very few people on the planet who can tell you how to do that. Unfortunately, that’s the way things were set up. And only those who have done it can tell you how. Though, there are a hell of a lot of people out there who will try and convince they know the way. But don’t be fooled, they’re lying, decoys set up to throw you off the path. And some of those who really do know probably won’t want to tell you. It’s kind of dangerous telling people how to escape from prison. You tend to get killed or crucified. The people who know are hard to find because a lot of them are pretty quiet about it and often keep a low profile. It could be the homeless guy sitting in the doorway. Or the little old lady down the street. Not necessarily the mystic in the loin cloth or the multi-million dollar guru.

There is another way, and it will sound far-fetched and like a trick or some new age mumbo jumbo.

What if I told you, you already know how, but just forgot, and that all you had to do was to drop the amnesia and remember?

You probably wouldn’t believe me, and besides who the fuck am I to tell you that anyway?

Didn’t I just say that only people who had been there could tell you how to do break free?

For now, let’s just say I’ve had some pretty convincing experiences and leave it at that.

The choice is all yours, you can keep an open mind and consider that what I’m saying just might be true or you can write me off as crazy and go back to living blissfully in the 3-D (a mere 10 percent of existence) and telling yourself “this is all there is”

The choice to wake up is, always has been, and forever will be, yours.

The end is near. In our gut, we know something is wrong with the way things are. We feel it. The world is in crisis. People are suffering. The environment’s a mess. Our trust in our leaders is failing.

People everywhere are talking about the end times. When discussing the weather, one woman I know referred to it as apocalyptic.

There is no hiding from the challenges we’re facing. We live with the awareness of it and carry around with us everyday.

The problem is that few of us know what to do about it, so entrenched in the daily grind that we surrender to the complacency and passivity that is our lot in life. We don’t have time to think about the world’s problems, because our lives are literally being consumed by the details of survival.

Even on a personal level, our relationships, our families and our communities are strained to the breaking point. Not only do we not have time to self-reflect and build a foundation of relationship with the self, our relationships with others are under constant attack. Consumer society and the need for all of us to keep this great machine going, by necessity, requires us to sacrifice the very things we value most: our closest relationships.

We know this and yet, we cannot seem to escape it. Like prisoners, we try hard to accept the limitations that constrict our lives. We make the best of it. And when we can’t make the best of it, we try every available means of escape: we eat, drink, have sex, watch TV, shop, travel, anything to change the way we feel and give us temporary relief from the stress of the daily grind. And when that doesn’t work, we go to our doctor and ask for a drug to help us to cope and get through the day.

Not exactly a formula for a successful life. Pretty insane when you really look at it. Why aren’t we all in the streets protesting our captivity, screaming about the sacrifices we’re expected to make? Because, and here’s the slippery part, we don’t think anyone who can do anything about it will hear us. We don’t think anyone cares. And on one level we’re right. Why should our jailers want things to make things better for us, when we’re so good at making it better for them?

Did I just say there are people benefiting from our captivity? Absolutely. That’s exactly what I said. Think about it for a minute. This is nothing new. There have always been the lucky few who benefit from the hard work and sacrifice of the many. The only reason that this continues is that we allow it. We see it, but in truth, we’d rather not think about it. So we become passive and allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the belief that nothing can change. We give in to the agreed-upon mass amnesia that surrounds us and is reinforced everywhere we go, because we don’t want to cause trouble, we don’t want to attract attention, we don’t want to be perceived as abnormal or crazy. So we shut up and put up with the way it is, even though deep down inside we know something’s terribly wrong.

Well, I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be this way. The only way that we can agree to being miserable is because we’ve forgotten something very important: we’ve forgotten who we are. The only reason this game of limitations can be perpetuated by those who are benefiting from it is if we agree to play it. And the only reason we agreed to such conditions is because we believed we didn’t have a choice. That is precisely what those in power are banking on.

But we do have a choice. Because we have the key to the prison door. We’ve always had the key, but we forgot where we put it.

Think of it this way. We were born as human beings. We were given this incredible instrument to play that has capabilities beyond our wildest dreams. We’ve been told we were made in the image of our creator, which essentially means that within us, we each have the same capabilities as that which created us. The problem is that even though we have this instrument, we weren’t given any instructions, so we don’t know how to play it. Our parents and our teachers teach us many things, but for the most part, the full range of the instrument is left un-utilized. Being mostly self-taught, we only know how to use a small percentage of the instrument (for most of us it is only around 10%). This keeps our range of experiences in life extremely limited. Our beliefs are limited so we develop limited habits of thinking and behaving. Our focus is mostly on the world outside of us, and because of that, we are heavily influenced by the thoughts and beliefs and actions of others.

This is a trick. This is how the odds of the game got so highly stacked against us and our freedom. The only way out of this endless loop, this nightmare, is to learn how to play the instrument we were given, to learn its capabilities.

Now here’s the tricky part. Where are we going to learn this? Who are we going to trust? Well, truth be told, there are a lot of smoke and mirrors out there, decoys and distractions and disinformation to throw you off the track. Why? Because as I said earlier, if you learned how to play your instrument, if you learned who you are, you would be free, you would be able to do those amazing, mind-blowing things called miracles, and you would be never see yourself as limited again. Essentially, if you knew how to utilize the other 90% of your capacity, you would become unstoppable. Your life and the lives of all human beings would change dramatically. Those in power would no longer be able to hold onto that power; and they would no longer be able to maintain the game they’re playing.

Without a doubt, it’s dangerous to talk about this. The risks are great. The infinite minefields that have been set up to keep all of us in prison are insidious and subtle and almost impossible to navigate through without help. But, given how close we are to destroying each other and the planet we live on, silence is no longer an option.

The bottom line is that we’ve been duped, duped into believing that bondage is the normal state of things and freedom an idealistic fantasy, duped into believing that things just “happen” to us, duped into believing that this is the way it is and we should simply accept it.

We’ve been told we’re sinners and weak and powerless and that salvation lies in a far-off place called Heaven. We’ve been sold a bill of goods and given a set of rules that will allegedly insure this salvation.

But at some time in your life haven’t you wondered what kind of world would be set up this way? Isn’t there something so inherently flawed and wrong with this picture?

Most of us don’t question things until we’re faced with a crisis, or even more likely when we’re facing our own death. Then the questions swirl around us en masse. Some of us decide to become seekers and try and find answers to the big questions, why are we here and what does this all mean?

Even with a passion to know the Truth though, the odds are against us finding it. Why? Because the world has been designed to keep the truth hidden and elusive. Most answers only breed more questions, leading to frustration and despair. It is so much easier to stick with what we know and do what everyone else is doing. There is very little support for real solutions to the human dilemma.

Then, even if we find what we think are solid answers, they don’t help, because most of the answers get stuck in the intellect and we cannot find a way to translate them into action or real change. So we spin around in circles trying to sort through the endless information and promises of freedom, enlightenment and salvation.

The answer is much simpler and more obvious than we think it is. In fact, it’s right under our noses. It’s within the instrument we were born with. Imagine if you will, that contained inside of this instrument is the very key that will set you free, answer all the questions you’ve ever had, and give you all the capabilities to change whatever circumstances in your life that you wish, a veritable magic box that holds within it the secret of who you really are, without limitations, a box full of miracles and all that is required to open it, is a willingness to do so.

Human beings are capable of extraordinary things. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we forgot this. It’s time to wake up to our Divine Nature and stop betraying ourselves. The self-sabotage has to end here and now.

The first step is to acknowledge that we are truly powerful. The second is to listen to ourselves above all others. The third is to trust that freedom is our birthright and cannot be denied to us.

Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? The world will keep reinforcing the lies to keep you off balance and send you down endless dead ends. It is akin to battle, but once you remember who you are, the odds are very strong in your favor.

The only way to find the Truth is to stop listening to the world around you, for at least part of every day, until the Truth gets stronger and stronger and begins to convince you that you’re on the right track. The power of the world will lessen, the images will dim and the sounds will become muted as you begin to listen to your own inner voice. Eventually, you will discover that the things others are affected by no longer affect you, and you’ll establish a foundation of meaning in the world beyond appearances. The bondage will start to come off when you realize you have a say in what manifests around you, not because you change your actions, but because your thinking is changing.

Yes, it is slow, but accessible. It takes practice and persistence and commitment to the Truth. At times, you will be tempted to regress into the world of appearances; for its pull and its promises are seductive. You will question the validity of what I’m saying again and again and again. You will doubt and curse and feel despair.

But believe me, it’s worth it. Think about it. Think about the limitations you live with everyday. It isn’t so bad you say. I can live with the way it is. Today perhaps. But what about tomorrow when something unexpected hits your life? Then what? Then I suspect that some of this may start to make sense. The Truth will be illuminated in such as way that you can never forget it. It will be there to anchor every thought and action you make.

What have you got to lose?