So, let me try to figure this out What happened to me, and my view of the world, from the spring of 2005, onward?
Did I lose my mind? No, I don't think so. If I had, rational thought would be difficult or impossible to maintain, at a minimum distorted, which it isn't. And I validate that by interacting very successfully, socially and economically, in the world, every day. Did I lose, or kill, my ego? Nope. Still just me. Even more `just me' than there was before. Less cluttered. More relaxed. Did desires go away? Nope, still here. Actually nice, round, clear ones. Quiet and subtle. Some rising to fruition, others being silently entertained, by choice. Any so called bad habits? Yeah, a couple. Actually, make that about five. No confessional today, folks. Good habits? Yep, plenty of them. My body is still here, and that is pretty easy to verify. Pinch. Ouch! Everyone who knows me still calls me by name. My dad, who I just saw a month ago, would swear it was still me, the kid he raised, and the man he has known for several decades. So, a lot appears the same. And yet, life is utterly and completely different, now. And as I move forward through space and time, it keeps getting clearer and clearer, in the utterly different direction. What is different? My mind. I am not sure it applies to call it mine any longer. It functions perfectly when I need it; I can write descriptively, and clearly. I can form concepts with it. I can manage an entire department at a company with it. I can form and sustain relationships with it. I can chart the direction, and change the direction, of my life with it. And yet, I can no longer call it `mine'. Because when I don't need to use it, it goes away. Poof! No mind. And that happens to be a lot of the time. Poof. Just sitting here, watching pictures come in through my eyes, made sense of by the chemo-mechanical action of my brain, and `my' mind doesn't do anything. It is no longer compelled to give me an interpretation of what is captured by the senses. It just doesn't exist. Is there silence where there used to be `my' mind? I don't know, because to qualify it and quantify it means there is something there, and there isn't. Only when I need it does `my' mind appear, does what work I request, and then it disappears, as perfectly as if it never existed at all. I can't even believe I am writing this, because honestly, my mind used to be mine; existing all the time. Now it is a wondrous and magical tool, brilliant and useful, but no longer always there, just hanging around, jabbering to itself. More like a tool in a toolbox, effortlessly summoned to do the job at hand, and then retired again. My ego. My sense of who I am. That sure didn't die, as many here will attest. I can relate when people talk about passion, and likes and dislikes. Nothing dispassionate about me, or my feelings. Anything different there? I am going to draw on the old analogy about impressions left on the nervous system; first carved in stone, then drawn through sand, and finally, like a stick or a finger through water, leaving a few ripples. It doesn't much matter what I do or what I am exposed to. I find myself living a much richer and fuller life, like all the colors in my life suddenly got a lot brighter. Like smoking a fresh, skunky, crystalline bud, only without any impairment, no side effects. I enjoy everything I do a lot more, with boundless self confidence, and a larger, much more flexible personality. I am able to tune situations to my liking, and the liking of others, much more easily now. So, since I didn't go away, what changed? I've been turning this over in `my' mind off and on all day, and what happened was Self Realization, in the spring of 2005. And though I've heard the term Self realization many times, how can I describe it, experientially? The closest analogy I can come up with is what we call instinct in animals, an effortless way of acting that bypasses any interpretation, any filtering, any ownership, and just is. Not purely reaction though. It includes the ability to be even more human than the best we can achieve all by ourselves. Because there is no longer a boundary in consciousness, separating what truly is, the raw nakedness of life itself, and just me, now the empty minded. This immediacy allows me to enjoy an almost unbelievable richness in life, validating what the sages have written and spoken about since time began, and living life's rich pageant in all of its subtlety and glory. Like walking into a Baskin Robbins ice cream parlor, and discovering that they now have ten million flavors, and every one is exquisite. And yet, once I have tried flavor eighty three thousand, seven hundred and forty one, and it was just perfect, I find that I lose interest in it as soon as it is completely experienced. No impression left, except for a memory. Not much attachment at all. So what does not much attachment, or non-attachment, mean? How is that even possible? Have I convinced myself that everything is just too much trouble to hold on to, or that at the age of 53, I've experienced everything at least once, and `seen one, seen `em all'? What I think it means is, referring back to Self Realization, that I now identify with life's essence (which includes death's essence as well, btw), or whatever common denominator is found in the entire universe, known and unknown, and that is who I am now. Not who I think I am, but through a hard-won yet miraculous transformation, this is all that is left. And it grows. This Self Realization continues to overtake any vestiges, any crumbs that were left over, any remaining stories and assumptions, remaking them quickly and steadily, silently transforming my personality, and my external life, just as daylight increases after the Winter solstice at a rate of about three minutes per day. Almost unnoticeable, yet fully dynamic, always expanding. The best part is, I get to keep everything I win. For good. A good example of keeping my Self Realization treasure is the effect on `my' mind-- the one from the toolbox. Remember what I said about the mind I use? That I use it and then it disappears when no longer being used? Well, all of the growing clarity and expansion that continues to occur once this Self Realization happens, is available to me, each and every time I use `my' mind. I want to use it, and wow! It has all this neat stuff in it this time around! Without all the stories and filters and boundaries and attachments that were gumming up the works, knowledge accumulates at an astounding rate. I put my attention on something, and before too long, depending on the amount of knowledge contained in the object, I know it, fully and completely, or at least until my consciousness expands to take yet more of it in. I mentioned what we call death several paragraphs ago. I've been curious about it, and since I had this Self Realization, I've decided I could find out what it is, without needing to `drop the body' as the expression goes. Someone said that if we knew the reality of life, we'd weep about birth, and rejoice about death. What a crazy thing to consider, right? Absolutely stands life on its head, right? Crazy talk. And yet, I felt through the great absence of fear in my system, the fear that I have stopped lugging around, that it was time to confront death, stare it in the face, shake hands with it, good on ya, mate. So I started doing that, a little bit here and a little bit there. Got a great big cloud of death that I was able to sit in, about two days ago, while driving on the freeway to San Francisco, and passing a huge military cemetery, with row upon row upon row of white headstones, thousands, some in light and some in shadow. As I passed, a lot of the energy of the dying, the screaming deaths, the violent deaths of war, each man leaving, greatly wounded and sad, came inside me, and I felt instantly the immensity of all of that war borne death. Looked at it this way and that; a three dimensional model of the blood, the screams, the wounds, the khaki, and the frozen faces. After than experience, and all of this happened quickly, I had my business appointment in the City and left, spent several more hours in the office, came home, and saw what death was. I finally recognized, after my experience with the cemetery, that most of us are afraid of the moment of dying, the ways we can die, and that the fear of dying obscures the reality of death. Because when I saw the reality of death, the full bright reality of death, it was a love from the universe, from God, so complete and so full of the brightest, most transcendent light and life and love, overwhelming love, that I saw, that it drowns out even the great loss we can feel upon leaving our loved ones on earth. It transcends all of the love we feel here on earth, like the power of the sun compared to a candle. No shadows. Is this great, all encompassing love available while we are here on earth? Sure, yes, absolutely. And do I want to die now? Absolutely not, no, no f'ing way!!! This was not a death wish. Merely presenting an example that all things can be known, all desires fulfilled, once Self Realization dawns. Last, I apologize for my past anger towards those who questioned my experience of Self Realization here, which I gladly have shared as it has happened, and as it has grown. The experience of Self Realization was so immediate and so clearonce I was there, it was like, and is, another world, never to return; free at last. One minute all bound up, and the next, all bonds cut, sliced off, no boundaries, no stories, no nothing. That fast, and that dramatic. And yet at first I was like a kid learning to ride a bicycle, still learning what everything felt like anew, and looked like anew. And wanting to shout that the way to eternal freedom had been found, and that for anyone it was a lasting, permanent and solid reality of everything the universe has to offer. The mood makers and skeptics are wrongeven `average joes' like me can do it! And so when I proclaimed this glaringly Self-evident reality, this eternal truth, and people questioned me, it was hugely frustrating. Here was something I loved more than anything in the world, Self Realization, and wanted to share the good news with everyone, and surprise to me, people doubted my experience! What? It was like seeing the most beautiful palace on earth and pointing it out, plain as day, and having people shrug, and reply, "nope, don't see it ". Seems like a big joke to me now. And the doubters greatly helped me increase my clarity around what it is I am experiencing. It goes on, it expands, it changes delightfully, and it is the Self, realized and immortal. Not much more to say this time around, except a big Jai Guru Dev, which I say, because it is this wonderful saint who I have grown to know so well, who gathered up all of my fears, and gave me a safe place to land, time, after time, after time. And thank you all here on FFL for giving me a precious place with which to express these special thoughts. Jai Guru Dev, to each and every one of you. :-)