Well said.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> 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.
> :-)
>
