It Is All About Connection


Ishvara:

When you allow yourself to experience the wonder of Life as it evolves and unfolds, you begin to reverse belief and surrender the excess baggage. You see a tremendous order of the universe, of possibilities waiting to take place. You gain an understanding of the energy of Life, the Life Force. You understand how people are the way they are, and why. You understand the fear that most people suffer, the separation that most people experience; you see it is unnecessary, that it does not contribute to the quality of life, but distracts from it. That realization becomes the teacher; Life is the ultimate teacher. In order to be a good student, you have to be open to all possibilities, open to what Life is saying and teaching and giving through the experience.

To the intellect it seems too simple. Also, there is fear, because the moment you begin to embrace the Is-ness of Life, you run into the accumulated stuff--your stuff and other people's stuff. You can look at it and realize, "Oh that's just stuff I picked up somewhere, a bit of useless debris I've been dragging around, thinking I had to fix it or solve it somehow." "Stuff" is really just misunderstood experience. Unfortunately, it becomes bigger than the experience, and it is impossible to analyze the stuff in order to figure out what the experience was, because the experience is already gone and you are left with the stuff. It seems like a raw deal: you have the stuff, but you don't have the experience. It's no fair.

Life is not fair or unfair. Life just is. The quality of your life is enhanced as you change the way you look at things. When you are present with what-is, the moment is transformed by direct experience. Direct experience requires that you hold in check your fears, your doubts, your past; you don't resist them, you are not attached to them, but you see that they have a place. It is like you can be here, and your excessive baggage can be over there somewhere. You know where it is, you know what it is, you haven't abandoned it, but you have it where you don't trip over it, where it is not in your way. In Life, the less you trip over your excess baggage, the further away it gets.

Knowing that you are a unique expression of Life, that you are housing more and more of these possibilities moment by moment, is the direct experience of True Nature, the awakening to this potential that is You, not the programmed or artificial you, but the real You. The more you see that, the more the stuff doesn't matter. It may bug you once in awhile, but you can deal with it. It is just stuff. It is also helpful to remember that it is not all your stuff either. People saw you carrying stuff and so they gave you theirs too. Stuff is sneaky. You often don't know where it comes from; it just accumulates. If you can recognize it, laugh at it, and realize it is all right, you won't fall over it.

Stuff is energy, energy with a label. Take the label off, and you have pure energy. You need more energy to go deeper into the core of yourself, and you can gain energy by de-labeling the stuff. You de-label it by just feeling it, feeling the energy of it directly without seeking to interpret it or explain it, moment by moment. That becomes a double compensation, because you are no longer using energy to keep the stuff in place, and you gain the energy that was locked up by the label. You will now be able to move even deeper, even faster into the core of yourself.

Life is energy. The Consciousness is energy that is intelligent. It is constantly gaining awareness of itself as you; through each experience it is adding to and building up information. The universe is information. Any system, any technology, anything in this world that deals with information will prosper. Suppression of information will fade away, because human intelligence, that core existence of The Consciousness that you are, will not suffer the lack of information. It is the very nature of your being to access more information. You do that through direct experience, through connection and deepening awareness. You can call it "enlightenment," you can call it "transformation," but really it is all about connection.

Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

Below is the continuation of a message I have transcribed and edited from a talk Ishvara gave on January 16, 2005. - TG.

Copyright © 2005 by Alaya®.
All rights reserved.
Alaya® is a registered trademark and service mark.

If you forward this message, please include the copyright notice.

This message comes to you from Alaya, a nonprofit organization. Alaya depends upon financial contributions for its continued existence. Follow this link for information on how to make a tax-deductible contribution to Alaya.
Thank you for your support.

To learn more about Ishvara and the Alaya Community, visit our website at www.alayanet.org


To subscribe to this message list, send an email to tgrant@alayanet.org with the word "Subscribe" in the subject of your message.

Which Human Are You Going To Be?


Ishvara:

You are faced with a sacrifice: Are you going to move deeper into your core existence and face the debris which is thereby set loose, or are you going to continue to hold onto the emotional stuff at the expense of True Nature?

You can see how, all your life, you have tried to figure out where you belong and where things belong; the "why" and "wherefore" of experiences. You have sought to understand the consequences of actions which are often embarrassing, disgusting, separating, painful, and unbearable. It is natural for the brain to fight for its survival, to try to tuck these experiences away into some kind of safe pocket, hoping to keep the lid on them so that they don't flare up.

When you get down to it, there are two kinds of humans: Those who are going to evolve and be all they can be, and those who are going to remain safe, secure in some belief, some concept, some system, some structure, hoping that the structure will take care of them. Which human are you going to be? Are you going to move into the depths of being, finding your True Nature, or are you going to stay safe, keeping your stuff securely tucked away where it won't bother you? Unfortunately, you can either move deeper into the core existence, or you can keep your stuff in place. You can't do both.

It becomes a paradox; much of what has been taught in the past applies to the present: not resisting, not being attached, allowing, exercising compassion and patience. These principles are valid for human existence even now. To be compassionate with yourself is to realize that, "Yes, the deeper I go into realization and awareness, the more muck I have to wade through. It is natural." The stuff has had a long time to accumulate: a little here, a little there; a misunderstood experience forms a solid place of resistance. You protect yourself, and the body in turn mirrors that protective stance: your body braces itself, stiffens itself, stresses itself in order to withstand the onslaughts which the brain perceives are taking place. A baby would not survive this kind of stress, but fortunately for the human race, this is "privileged information." You don't get it when you are born. When you are born, the world is a big playground, full of possibilities, and you have a cushion of magical thinking. You don't know how something works, so you are at liberty to make up an explanation.

But all things change. Humans must mature. The maturity is on purpose, because the baby mind cannot house the True Nature, the direct experience of The Consciousness; it only houses parts, pieces, and bits. The design of Life brings maturity to the form in order to house more of The Consciousness, the possibilities of Life inherent in each cell.

There are certain things that are beneficial to accessing your True Nature, to facilitating the evolution of the brain: laughter; not taking things too seriously, being stress-free as much as possible. When you find yourself holding and resisting, ask yourself: Is this necessary? Do I really have to brace myself against this perceived attack, or can I just bend freely, flow with it, instead of resisting it? Liberation comes with sacrifice, with the realization that your stuff will come up and you will have to face it, but the deeper you are in True Nature, the more connected, the more transcendent of separation you are, the easier it becomes to deal with the stuff. You don't resist it. You say: "Yeah, that's stuff, some of the excess baggage I've been dragging around; no wonder I'm so tired; it takes a lot of energy to hang onto it."

It is easy to think that the world is picking on you, that it hates you, that it is trying to do you in, and that you must have some kind of defense. However, you can see all around you that defenses don't work. Guns don't work; killing doesn't work; withholding doesn't work. There are all these wonderful examples of the things that don't work. Sometimes I question the sanity of human beings, who keep doing the same things over and over again, repeating the things that don't work, while expecting the results to be different.

Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired of carrying around all of that luggage that you don't need? Most of your luggage is somebody else's anyway. Where did you get that guilt? Where did you pick up that judgment? Who gave you that lack of confidence? Who diminished you? You didn't do that yourself; at some point, someone helped you, so it is their luggage you are dragging around. It is like a heavy trunk without wheels. You can hear the scraping in your brain as you drag it around. You are not alone. Everyone is experiencing this, but there is a way out. The way out is the way in; how you got in, is how you get out.

There are certain ways of looking at Life that have a rebirthing quality, a renewing, transformative aspect. The moment you have made up in your intellect that "This is the way it is," you add a structured block, a point of resistance to your existence. The moment you accept a belief or give in to the hypnosis, and you think, "This is how it works," you have established another block, a place of attachment, another piece of luggage.

As I have said before: Become the walking question mark. Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but it is also a terrible thing, because it is human nature to believe so-called "knowledge," to believe the perception, to accept "they say," often at the expense of the direct experience and knowing that you are capable of. When the intellect has it figured out, when it has a neural pathway dedicated to "This is the way it is," it is difficult to get around that. So you have to go back to the point before you believed, before you established neural pathways; you go back to that simple wonder of Life around you, the amazement you experienced at any little moment, the magical movement of the leaves being pushed around by invisible forces. Oh, you know about the wind, you know what that is. You know about a sunset or sunrise; you know that the sun itself is not moving down or up in the sky, but that the earth is simply rotating.

Yet the essence, the magic, the beauty comes from just observing, just watching, just seeing, feeling, not interpreting, not knowing. Beauty is marred by the theory or the hypothesis. This doesn't mean that you are to be ignorant, but it means to hold knowledge, awareness and simplicity altogether, so that you appreciate and enjoy the things around you. When you see the beauty of Life, the gifts bestowed upon humanity, the gifts of nature, the blooming of a flower, the setting of the sun, the colors--these are all perceptions, but when you appreciate these perceptions, when you see them in the context of an unfolding, evolving Life, you begin to reverse the belief, you begin to surrender the excess baggage; you experience magical moments, just from the wonder of Life, the gift of Life.

Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

This is the continuation of a message I have transcribed and edited from a talk Ishvara gave on January 16, 2005. - TG.

Copyright © 2005 by Alaya®.
All rights reserved.
Alaya® is a registered trademark and service mark.

This message comes to you from Alaya, a nonprofit organization. Alaya depends upon financial contributions for its continued existence. Follow this link for information on how to make a tax-deductible contribution to Alaya.
Thank you for your support.

If you forward this message, please include the copyright notice.


To learn more about Ishvara and the Alaya Community, visit our website at www.alayanet.org


To subscribe to this message list, send an email to tgrant@alayanet.org with the word "Subscribe" in the subject of your message.

You Are Faced With A Sacrifice

Ishvara:

The Consciousness as-it-is faces competition. There is competition with the intellect -- that built-in attachments to beliefs, that capacity to believe in systems and structures and to adhere to conditioning. These programs involve more than just concepts, because most humans are hard wired to accept some outside authority or to adhere to some faith, some religious principles. The programming is hard wired in the brain. It seems a formidable task to transcend these basic beliefs.

In the past, these beliefs were part of the survival mechanism for a child-like humanity which viewed the world as a mysterious, frightening place. Some hard wiring was necessary at that time in order to provide people with a pacifier, some assurance of survival. But humans have moved beyond that survival need, beyond the need to feel that there is some "other" power that is protecting or guiding them. The brain's hard wiring has become obsolete. This is in accord with the evolutionary process. In the process of evolution, certain characteristics hang around past their time; attributes continue to be created even though they are no longer needed. The hard wiring for faith, for belief, continues to be created.

This can hinder the awakening process. When you begin to feel the stirring of the core existence, True Nature, it is natural to look outside to recognized authorities or spiritual teachings, in order to try to find some validation, some guidance, but mostly what you find is an agenda, another belief, another concept, another way, and that tends to take you away from awakening.* It tends to box you into an accepted possibility, a religion, a spiritual discipline, or a belief. For the most part, that successfully guides you to some "other", but at the cost of true awakening, true realization, True Nature.

True Nature is a very individual process. True Nature is a place where you absolutely resonate with the uniqueness of Life that you are, where you discover through direct experience your potentials, where you realize your capabilities and your shortcomings. All experience serves this awakening; no experience can be denied or should ever be rejected. All of it is Life teaching how energy works.

In the past, it was most difficult to understand direct experience. There was so much mystery about the world, so much unknown, so much to fear, and as a result, stories became sufficient--stories about the origin and meaning of Life and about what happens after death. Stories assisted in bringing about a kind of stabilization, allowing a person to move through various experiences without freaking out. Something similar occurs with the belief in a Santa Claus or the Easter bunny; such beliefs are for children, to help pacify them in the face of the unknown. They serve a certain function, provide something to look forward to, provide a sense of magic. It is easy for a child to believe in those things, because the child is magical already. The child has a magical existence, but to hold onto such childhood magic is disabling as a person moves into the workaday world. Letting go of the magic seems to be a necessary sacrifice in order to accommodate the consensus world, but the superstitious stories about the "other" continue in consensus reality.

So there is a lot to compete with in presenting The Consciousness as-it-is, as it has evolved to this moment, as it is transcending the past, the systems, the structures, the beliefs, the concepts and the programming. In presenting it as it is now, The Consciousness comes into competition with all the intellectual processes, the beliefs, the hard wiring.

Yet everything serves. Every experience is a revelation of the potential that is inherent within True Nature: the possibility of evolving the brain, deleting neural pathways that no longer serve the expansion of awareness, and establishing new neural pathways that help you to see the bigger picture, to experience greater awareness and connection.

You have the constant opportunity to surrender the emotional stuff which is part of the hard wiring. As you begin to access True Nature, it is natural for old patterns to be released. It takes energy to access the core of your existence; it also takes energy to hold onto past patterns, to keep them in place. You are faced with a sacrifice: Are you going to move deeper into your core existence and face the debris which is thereby set loose, or are you going to continue to hold that stuff in place at the expense of True Nature?
-------------------------
* By saying that it is "natural" to look outside for validation, Ishvara is speaking of human nature, which he contrasts with True Nature. For more information about the meaning of these terms, see the glossary at http://alayanet.org/glossary.html

Written and transcribed by Terry Grant

I have transcribed and edited the message below, from a talk Ishvara gave on January 16, 2005. - TG.

Copyright © 2005 by Alaya®.
All rights reserved.
Alaya® is a registered trademark and service mark.

This message comes to you from Alaya, a nonprofit organization. Alaya depends upon financial contributions for its continued existence. Follow this link for information on how to make a tax-deductible contribution to Alaya.
Thank you for your support.

If you forward this message, please include the copyright notice.

To learn more about Ishvara and the Alaya Community, visit our website at www.alayanet.org

To subscribe to this message list, send an email to tgrant@alayanet.org with the word "Subscribe" in the subject of your message.