Who You Really Are By Ananda If these words move you in any way please support our cause

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Table of Contents Part One The Nature of Self and Reality and How To Unify Them Part Two Organizations. Money. Tradition. Intoxicants. Science. Art. Technology. Evolution. Elegance. Form. Division. Love. Commodities. Quantity. Delusion. Sexuality. Family. Work. Joy. Part Three Who Are You? Part Four Community

Part One 1. All is divine nature. The wind blowing gently through the trees is Jesus, the shimmering water is Buddha, the birds singing their symphonies is Lao-Tzu. Even all of humanity as well, from the most impoverished to the most wealthy, from the dullest to the sharpest, from the most cruel and degraded sinner to the most exalted of saints, is a manifestation of that sacred reality that is all encompassing, omnipresent, perfect and eternal. There is nothing that it is not. All is of the same undivided nature and should be treated as such.

2. So why the world not perceived as undivided, sacred, divine? It is the ego. The ego is everything your true nature is not. It is separation and division, it is limited and alone, always lost in the delusions and fantasies of the past and the future but never in the simple perfection of the now. It does not spring from the love that is the foundation of existence, but from the wounds and scars of pain and suffering and the cruelly blind actions they engender, that cycle on like night follows day until one simply wakes up. It is the continual chatter in your head, your attempts to dull the suffering of the world, it is an environmental by-product of the collisions of matter, yet for most it is their most precious object and we live in its empire.

3. The divine nature is the sun seen for itself, as it truly is, without preconceptions or conditions, through a glass clearly, illuminating all equally. It is the moon glowing in clear silence, gently stirring us with its subtle pulls and vibrations. It is the smell of flowers, trees, the superabundance of life that has no name, yet in its no name is intoxicating in its complex simplicity. It is the regenerating selfless shower of rain, the breathtaking peace of a summer breeze, the awakening power of lightening, it is the ceaseless rearrangement of matter that gives birth to the infinity of forms without beginning and end, it is you hearing these words now.

4. The ego is born from pain, the accumulations of injury, cruelty, neglect and abandonment. These wounds and scars lead to the development of ego consciousness, the sense of separateness, the sense that others are not I. Now suffering from the pain of isolation and aloneness one becomes the author of pain and suffering for others. Guilt and retaliations from these actions create more suffering and ego creation and more darkening of the perception of the true nature of existence until it is totally blackened, cut off, cast out, a blind man in paradise.

5. Suffering is stored in our bodies in groups and complexes. These groups and complexes are attached to painful actions, either done to you, or actions you have done to others. These complexes lock your body and its ability to feel and perceive in that moment of suffering, freezing it, making it static, taking your body out of its natural state, which is free flowing and supple, at one with everything, living in the eternity of now, instead making your body a tomb, from which there appears no escape. These complexes of pain can be brought to the surface by simply sitting still, in silence, noting the rise and fall of your breath, watching thoughts arise and fall but not getting attached to them. Or by simply being aware of what is being perceived by your senses as you go throughout your day, bringing your wandering mind back to what your are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, right now.

6. Then suddenly, dark and rumbling and fearsome, a storm cloud will build within you. It will seem terrifying to your ego for the foundation of its structure is being threatened with dissolution. Like a dying man it will desperately do anything to maintain its existence. Fearsome threats and outcomes, cries and pleas. In the center of the storm the complex of suffering will break and flood you with pain. Abide it in it, for it is the grace of suffering in one of its purest forms. Then the storm will clear, an interior sun will fill you with light, love, the joy of laughter and the gratitude of being, and you will realize the thing that has shaped and controlled your life and actions was nothing at all.

7. There is nothing but the One. Indivisible, radiant, pure, stainless, perfect in its manifold expressions, but always, eternally, simply, the One. The summit of human achievement, yet nothing to be striven for. Hidden in plain sight. Always waiting to give without conditions. You as you really, truly are. The object of your desire, asking in the subtlest, gentlest of voices, not to be desired. Beautiful, eternal, all connected One.

8. Enlightenment is when the mind finally stops. The mind that is always dreaming, scheming, plotting, rationalizing, fantasising, always desiring, just simply stops. It is nothing to be achieved, it is simply the absence of achievement. It just simply is. And in that isness is a great liberation, the final relief of all burdens, the loss of all tensions, a beauty and joy that cannot be expressed in symbols, but can only be experienced as an eternal, gently ecstatic now. The end of desiring, the end of struggling, the end of striving and suffering, the flame is snuffed out, and the completion of human existence has been realized. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Just be enlightened.

9. Reality makes us asleep in order to awaken us, to see its majestic grandeur with fresh eyes, the vision of a child, seen for the great work of art it is. Suffering exists in order to be liberated from suffering. Desire exists in order for desire to cease. The dream exists in order to be awoken from the dream. The paradoxical nature of reality only seems paradoxical because reality is apprehended by symbols, not seen with clear vision for what it truly is, in itself, its perfect nature. There will always be crises, confusion, conflict and strife within the dream. It is only when one wakes up does that cease.

10. As one stills oneself and starts to peel back the layers of personality, that accumulation of sense impressions, experiences, desires and thoughts we call the self, great suffering will be revealed. When the mind is stilled the sediments that have darkened perception will come to the surface and be washed away. Most of these injuries and pains will be conditional to your location in time and space and the social, economic, political and historical milieus in which you have developed. But there is one fear that is universal, and that is the fear of death. That fear strangles every cell of your being and it has to be faced and released. That fear is the wellspring from which come the endless desires that bind you to this existence. There is no death. Death comes from the sense of separateness that is an illusion. You are actually part of a reality that is deathless, eternal, immortal.

Part Two 2.1 Organizations should be as flexible and responsive as our thoughts are in our natural mind. Without preconceptions or planning, just reacting to the needs of the now. Not imposing preconceived ideas on reality, distorting ever evolving being, causing more problems than solutions, more chaos than order. Respectful of the infinity of forms, its ever changing contours, its wisdom, intelligence and power. Not holding onto the beauty which is becoming every moment, not controlling, dominating, confusing the limited experiences of the isolated and singular with the interconnected multiplicity of the One.

2.2. You are not an object to be traded, haggled over, bought and sold, the mystery of life incarnate reduced to a transaction in the marketplace. Despite its being deeply inscribed on every inch of your being no medium of exchange determines your worth. You have to realize this in stillness. The demons that haunt you are an illusion. The natural superabundance of life, which gives for eternity, can be locked up behind symbols, the validity of which is enforced by the sword, but in that restriction is always the seeds of their undoing. The dam will always break, the hoarding will always suffocate, the object will always be unobjectified.

2.3. The traditions that have carried us this far are dead. They are poisoned, corrupted, a decaying thing that is the opposite of their origin, which is life. Simplicity becomes complex, the unanalyzable becomes analyzed, the true becomes false. Instead of undoing to understand and apprehend the eternal simplicity of these beginnings, the undone is done up, what was clear is made clouded, what was perfect is made imperfect. It is a special kind of darkness that is done in the name of the sacred reality that is all encompassing, omnipresent, perfect and eternal. The only tradition should be one of permanent undoing, never grasping, always casting aside.

2.4. Intoxicants have always been with us, always will. Like nature and its vegetation, intoxicants encompass the spectrum from the poisonous to the divine. Some substances show and reveal the basest parts of humanity in its truest form. Greedy, selfish, acquisitive, lacking in awareness, empathy and compassion, demonic. Others are mere amusements, relatively benign, but in the end still a distraction, a barrier between you and the true nature of reality. Others can show a glimpse, possibly a much needed glimpse in a spiritually dead world, of something beyond an existence that is repetitive, asleep. But do not get attached to any of these phantasms, there is another reality, the one that you truly are, that contains real peace, insight and ecstasy, which never runs out, never exhausts, is eternal.

2.5. Science is just a tool, not a worldview, a way to live. A symbolic system can never be the totality of human experience, its sublime mystery, a door is always waiting to be opened, and its key is the non-symbolic. A hammer is useful, a nail is useful, a board is useful that will build a shelter that will comfort and protect the temple of humanity, but do not mistake the hammer, the nail and the board for reality.

2.6. Art will always be mysterious because it is a macrocosm of creation itself. From our earliest origins representations have been created and will be until this stream has been extinguished. The motivations are as varied as the thousands of beings that create on the thousands of points on their paths of evolution. From initial representations of visions, to attempts to manipulate reality, mirrors of subjectivity or magisterial depictions of the evolution and involution of being, we are the agents of this sacred talent, unique among the living. Let your creations be as pure as the endless creation, not polluted by fear or desire, a representation never to be confused with, or substituted for, but capturing the essence of this sacred eternity.

2.7. Technology is simply the amplification and extension of the human limbs, organs and senses. It is not the ultimate reality. No one would confuse the arm or the eye with the totality of being, so why when they are merely amplified, extended? Due to our inability to contemplate the whole and to see reality for what it is, in itself, life appears to be a series of reversals. In this instance what was intended to free us from toil and want instead made us dependant prisoners, cut off from the very source of life itself, its regenerative power, its infinite intelligence, beauty and design, its creativity in every moment of its eternal becoming. More dangerous is the conceit that technology can mimic the human mind, as if abstract patterns or polluted streams of information can approach its mountaintops of insight and intuition, let alone the unfathomableness of the liberated state. And why no technologies that try and mimic the human heart, its rays of sunshine, its healing rains? Technology has a role, but only when seen from the perspective of the One.

2.8. Material and spiritual evolution are not incompatible, they are part of the same procession within being. But they are similar in name only, as one is about the progression to the simple to the complex, the other the progression of the complex to the simple. Also in one of those the higher subjugate and dominate whats below, in the other the higher feels compassion for and elevates those below. But just as those creatures in the water cannot comprehend its future self on land or in the air, so cannot the unenlightened comprehend its future self in the enlightened person, the states are so dissimilar. However love provides a bridge, and there is no struggle to remember your divine nature.

2.9. Elegance cannot be taught to each other, like yet another corpse from the graveyards of tradition and formalities. It is the spontaneous outgrowth and expression of the natural self. For gestures, thoughts and speech and movement to have that art, it cannot come from education, but from undoing, where these unwilled acts are born out of gentle compassion and simple awareness, where even the humblest of moments contains within, the infinite power of the totality of being.

2.10. The previous age was of the four sided shape, which we not only lived and surrounded ourselves with, but was also inscribed on our hearts and minds. What was highest in us was utility, until the freedom and ease sought in organization became a prison without windows and bars, without even a glimpse of the reality outside. Things are not out of control or wrongheaded simply because the content is too large for the container. Be thankful, that due to the grace of being, is phantasm is just that, a phantasm. The ceaseless rearrangement of matter has given us an infinity of forms to learn from. The smallest insects design contains a more profound elegance than the largest monument to conceptualization, ego and desire.

2.11. With awareness and movement on a planetary, even cosmic scale, organization by line is grotesque, a farce and insult to divine nature. The end of wars, disputes, conflict, theft, hatred and strife between countries, between classes and within societies and families can only come about with the erasure of the line, not its mere movement. The journey from strife to harmony is the same as the journey from ego to non-ego. Self-remembering will generate a new way of living. Is a child the product of a line between its father and mother? When one moves to a new living space does not one open the windows, wash the walls and sweep out the dust or just put the old furniture on the new?

2.12. From the standpoint of being love is unconditional. That is love in its truest form. It is not how it is often experienced now, conditional, dependant upon certain acts and achievements, only to be given as a reward like you are feeding an animal. Nor is it a commodity to be hoarded, amassed and traded. In being there dwell no misers of love. Still yourself and unlearn its false scarcity. It is air, it is water, it is earth. Quit huddling in dark corners with your prized possession. Open your doors to those who are passing by, as the Kingdom of the Heart sweetly wears down and washes away the iron Empire of Mind.

2.13. The fascination with objects is that they remind us of the divine, though not consciously, but remotely, like a familiar face seen in the street, but whose name you cannot remember. Your natural love and yearning for the divine, when searched for in this manner, becomes its opposite, lust, covetousness, thieving, greed, criminality, murder, deceit. Why kill each other for a rock when in your return to being, every ray of light is a treasure to which no base matter can compare, every drop of rain is a diamond cut in heaven, every plant a superabundance that makes the wealthiest look like beggars and paupers. Blood stained gold can never be properly enjoyed, not even by the most dead. But even the most dead can return to life and enjoy the infinite richness of being by returning to their true nature.

2.14. The desire for quantity comes from the blind repetition of sense impressions from the past, not a clear perception of the moment as it exists now and its needs and capabilities. You cannot cover up your fears with quantity any more than a blind man can regain his sight by staring at the sun. The blind man can regain his sight however by turning inwards, going within, into stillness, awareness, undoing. And in that movement you will discover true quantity, and overflowing infinity in the One.

2.15. A lie is a lie. Madness is madness. Delusion is delusion. Why engage with something you know to be false? Why give it your most precious possession, your attention? Is it because you suspect that you are lie? You are mad? You are deluded? Then turn your attention on yourself, and undo your lies, your insanity, your delusions. In stillness find the storm of hurt, fear, rage, blindness and selfishness that is at the center and face it with a finality. Your natural self does not feed the negative. Would you raise and feed a rat hoping that it will grow into a lion?

2.16. There is no sin, there is no shame, there is no guilt in sexuality. That has all been washed away. Love in its most intimate form, gently wearing down even the most hardest stones, the dancing embrace from the highest to the lowest, nothing is spared from perfect participation in its union. However there is sin, there is shame, there is guilt when one of the most natural and sacred acts is poisoned by greed, control, selfishness and hatred, diverting and distorting a free flowing current like a dam, making what was once a bed of flowers into a bed of nettles, transforming our everyday union into our everyday hell. After years of sleep there is still vast spaces to be awoken and explored, do not let the shadows of others or yourself darken the lights in your rooms.

2.17. Would you try and dance with a wounded leg? Would you try and sing when your throat has been cut? Write a poem with a broken hand? So why do you try and dance with reality, sing its songs, write its poems when the relationship with your family is wounded, cut and injured? Removing all the mirrors in your house will not hide the scar on your face. The One will never reveal its true majesty, grandeur and power until your scars are healed. Do not be afraid to be the first to weaken, only frightened beasts always seek to dominate, wise deities seek to yield. The dam will burst, the source will return flowing, what was once dead will return to life.

2.18. The house has to be built, the garden has to be seeded, the garment mended. What has to be maintained, has to be maintained. Very little has to be done to satisfy our true needs, our natural bodies, families and societies. What is inexhaustible is our desire to hide from ourselves, our loneliness, our fear, our shame, and try and dress it up in garments of endless toil, your true needs so small, the void so large, near infinite. Paradise on earth has no work camps. In eternity all action and movement is divine play. Let your work be a mirror of how the One has worked on you.

2.19. Rejoice. Although it hurts right now the world is not what it seems. It was consciousness, it will be consciousness, it is consciousness. Just because sleep exists, does not mean the awoken state does not. It just simply means one is sleeping. Like every morning after sleep, awakening follows. What is lived now is not your true nature. It is just a game consciousness plays. So great in its scope, so vast in its beauty, the tears are ones of joy when you apprehend it. All beings will be liberated in due time. There is nothing to worry about, nothing to fear, who you think you are, is not who you truly are. Love, laughter, wisdom, compassion and insight is how you worship this creation. All beings, rejoice.

Part Three Who are you? Are you your job, how you look, your money? You possessions, your dwelling, your transportation? No. That is too simple. You are more than that. Are you your friends, your lovers, your children? Your actions, the good, the bad, the indifferent? No. That is too simple. You are more than that. Are you your victories, your future, your present? Your joys, your sufferings, your banalities? Your thoughts, your emotions, your personality? No. That is too simple. You are much more than that. So who are you really? Are you just an aggregation of the previous? A being with no center, just a continual rearrangement of margins? To find out, ask yourself, alone, in silence, who am I? And discover who you really are, your true nature, reality.

Part Four While the deepest parts of undoing must be done alone, in your desert, your wilderness, your cave, friends on the path to liberation should come together on a regular basis to breath together, be silent together. Simply watching the rise and fall of your breath, your thoughts emerging and falling away, senses open and in the moment, supporting each other gently during the storms that will inevitably rise, to share in the healing stillness that follows. With no leaders, no gurus, no doctrines, just temples of stars and sun, its softness and flexibility can never be eliminated. It will just move around obstacles, regroup, renew. Silently wearing down until all are liberated.