Awakening Into Life

The term awakening is often used in spiritual language to describe an experience of utter clarity about the nature of reality. The experience is usually the result of a lot of deliberate practice and is even the final goal of some spiritual paths. 

The term awakening can be a bit misleading though. Awakening to the truth of what you are at your core does not mean, as the work implies, waking up from life to something else. Instead, it is the recognition that all of reality is a self-created experience with literally nothing "outside" of it. In other words, it has no objectively true ground to it, that is different from your very experience of life, right now and that you can wake up to. 

How do you wake up?

Better ways to think about meaning

Maybe you have been asking yourself the question: "What does all of this actually mean?" Is there a fundamental true meaning to life?

Maybe this deep question was triggered by great loss or by having had a dream shattered despite the investment of money, time, and effort. Whichever way you arrived at this that life seems to lack inherent meaning, in this article we are going to explore how what we think about the metaphysics of meaning directly influences what feel and how we act. 


Asking a question many times implies that there must be a concrete answer. In the case of meaning any absolute statement about it is going to be inadequate in most circumstances. To start this exploration, the question has to be reframed so that we can actually find worthwhile answers. 

The Awakened Mind


How can I attain awakening?

It's in the simple process of discovering how everything is Mind. Look in your experience how everything has awareness as its basis. It's not the discovery of something new. It is seeing clearly after the lenses of perception have been cleansed. Cleansed of what? 

The suffering of others


Question: 

I finally woke up through a period of egoic suffering. A dark night of the soul, so to speak. Since, I have felt almost nothing but effortless and profound peace. I see so much suffering around me, almost no physical suffering, but the same mental anguish that finally dissolved the illusion for me.

A question that I have; given that suffering can be (and was for me) such a profound teacher, how do you decide when to try to help and do something about it? With physical suffering it's easy, I intervene without hesitation. Egoic anguish however, I'm hesitant to help.

The Difference Between Real and True

We all know what is real, right? But do we know if that is also true? And do we even recognize the difference between the two? Read on to get clarity on what these words are pointing to and why it is so important to know the difference. It might help you in understanding yourself and your relationship to reality better.

Form And Happiness

Do you chase experience in the hope of lasting happiness? Form never has the power to make us happy or unhappy. But unconsciously we often give it that power. No person, thing or experience makes us happy in and of itself. It's only our interpretation that makes it appear that way.

The World appears in infinite forms

Mind-Self

Today I am. Clarity in not knowing.

I don't know who or what, yet I am. 

Not in me, not in you, not in it. I am nowhere to be found. 

Yet always present. 

Perspectives onto myself. Including the perspective. That I am.

I am perspective, one second real, next second unreal.

How do perspectives exist though? Do I exist?

A perspective from which "I" do not exist, that certainly is true.

A perspective from which "I" do exist, that idea certainly is true.

One second on, and off the next. But who makes the switch?

What is true regardless of ideas? 

What is prior to concepts?

Concepts and ideas come and go, yet I remain. 

Pure potential.

Mind-Self

How To Deal With Desire

How should we deal with desire in the context of spirituality?

Desire is as natural to our human nature as breathing and eating. This is where we start out when we start to explore spirituality. Desire is the natural way in which our mind creates motivation. Desire makes us do things, get things done and accomplish our goals. At least that is what it seems like on the surface. 


A Powerful Dream Yoga Technique

If you are practising mindfulness in daily activities, you may have noticed something interesting happening to your sleep. At a certain point, as you develop your mindfulness, the increased awareness will carry over into your dreams and sleep. And even if this has not happened to you yet, you can learn how nighttime practices can benefit your spiritual progress. Dream and Sleep Yoga are powerful meditation techniques that allow you to extend your practice. 

Mindfulness for busy people - Karma Yoga

Is the spiritual path one of the five most important things in your life? For most people, it is not. Spirituality is something they do on the side. When life is quiet and not stressful. In this article, we will explore why it is so difficult to make meaningful progress if spirituality is not one of your top priorities and how you can fix it. 


What It Means To Be Present in Meditation

The purpose of meditation is to internalize awareness and focus on the present moment. What does it mean to be aware of the present moment? In this article, you will learn about the difficulty to distinguish between conceptualization and presence and how you can go about doing it. 

How do you grasp Nothingness?

The Downside Of Wanting To Be Fast

Our whole economy is about efficiency. We want to do things in less time. Everything has to be done as quickly as possible. Time is money. But what is the cost of the thinking that things have to be done faster?

The Moment Is Eternal

Time is generated from within the moment. You always only perceive now. But you can't understand this intellectually. In order to realize this, a great shift in your perception has to take place. How do you do this? By letting go of any concept outside of what actually exists right now.

There is no such thing as an absolutely True thought

Contemplation is a technique for the generation of meaningful insight. The results form contemplation are very different from intellectually understanding something. It is also different from looking up an answer and then being content with it. 

Looking up answers
Insights cannot be looked up.

As a society today we are used to finding every answer through google on our smartphones. But relative, rational answers leave us without the deeply satisfactory "aha"-moments when our minds have seen through a question on their own. 

All You Are Trying To Understand Is Yourself

Are you on the spiritual path to knowing who you are? Have you asked the question: what is this all about? Maybe you are trying to understand the world and find an answer to the biggest question one can ask. You can find the answer when you understand, that all you are trying to understand is yourself. 
City-Bridge

The Multiplicity Of Paths To Spiritual Awakening

The following interview gives a great insight into the nature of the spiritual path. There is a multitude of possible paths that can lead to enlightenment. 

It is interesting to note that they all agree on the highest truth, the emptiness or non definable presence of your highest self, which is beyond all form.



I highly recommend you listen to this interview and let it open your mind to other paths besides the practices you have currently chosen. 

Bring Joy Into Your Practice

Have you been meditating for a while? Have you settled into a routine and meditate a certain amount of time daily? If this is the case, you may also find that your practice has become a little stale. The meditative practices you apply are always the same and you are not really excited about them anymore. 

In this article, I want to explore how you can bring joy back into your practice and give it a positive quality. This way your practice can become something you look forward to every day.

To Go Beyond Fear Means To Go Through

Do you feel that something is holding you back? Maybe it's subtle, but those are feelings of fear. Why are you not doing what you know you want to do? The only way to overcome fear is to go through it. In this article, we are going to explore just how the dynamics around resolving fears work. 

You are physically safe, and you need a better way to deal with fear.

Constructive Desire

Desire is a double-edged sword, it is mental energy that often seems to arise all by itself. It also seems like we only have little control over it. This is the case when desire develops through unconscious thought patterns. We expose ourselves to experiences and objects while we have certain desirable emotions and thoughts. When we have positive thoughts about something, we increase the pleasurable emotions associated with our desired object or activity. 

When observing any experience in pure consciousness, there is nothing inherently better or worse in any experience. But from our personal perspectives, we create, unconsciously, positive and negative scenarios around the immediate experience. This is based on what the experience means for us personally. As such, desire is based on the very positive end of interpretation and is therefore not at all a given. 
 
Whether the world is perceived as abundant depends on the interpretation


Show Me The Line Between Internal And External

The close observation of your experience will reveal the insight that there is no real difference between the inside and the outside. What is the inside supposed to be like, compared to external experience? Internal as well as external experiences have certain qualities. They differ from each other in certain aspects. 

For example, one significant feature of the internal experiences is their privateness. This may be enough to define the difference between the external and the internal experience. We share with others what is on the outside and we experience only for ourselves what is on the inside. But in this article, you are going to see that the differentiation between inner and outer experience is illusory. 

Internal external reflection.

Developing True Character

Modern personal development advice is very often based around the central question of how you, the individual, can be more successful. In this article, we are going to explore, where this development comes from, when it started, and dive deep into the practical implications of the more impactful approach taught by the ancient philosophers.

Existence is form and distinction. Character is one of them. 



Spiritual Transformation

Spirituality is a difficult topic to discuss with people who are only slightly aware of what its essence is. Even if you are beginning to be interested in spirituality, it is difficult to get a clear idea of what spirituality actually means. We all come to this with our own ideas and notions of what we can expect or what spirituality is about. Once you dive deep into this topic you can expect that all of your ideas about religion and spirituality can be transformed. 

It's in the flow of the river...