Every Single Thing

Life immutable.


Always pulsating.
Throwing up forms.
Manifesting.
 

Every single thing on the planet is expressing This 
in its own unique way.

Depending on its blue print, climate, character, 
culture, DNA, soul's intention. 

Fossiles, mammals, plants, humans, all of creation

In some it blooms and blossoms, 
and awakenings can be part of this.

In others it grows stunted and is riddled 
with misfortune and trauma. 


And then receding back again
in the Unmanifest.


Cycles of Life.

Ups and Downs.
Glorious abundance.
Breathing in
Breathing out
Death and decay. 


Everything is always in process.

Soo funny

As a consequence of integration and actualization 
which happens after awakening, 
the exclusive focus on Nonduality 
as a separate object to be busy with, has disappeared.  

In the beginning, just after the idea that there is a separate entity had evaporated, ( the honey moon phase )
there was a wish to understand what had happened.
And in my case, there was a lot of reaching out to others,
to share the joy of recognition.

This amazing open secret of intimacy with all that is, 
that is so available 
and always here already.

Hours and hours were spend in sharing, talking and verbalizing 
about the one thing which cannot be grasped. 


And in the process of doing so, 
made a conceptual world come into being.  

As if it is possible to talk about This
Giving the illusion that it is something 
which can be given or got.


As if ND is something separate from life.

Since some time the interest in doing this has disappeared


Even Nonduality can be a trap
a conceptual overlay 
where you take up a station.

As if you have reached somewhere.

 Soo funny... 

Life is just life, living.
With all and everything included.







 

At Last

a Flu, a bronchitis 
and the body and mind gets affected.

For weeks on end no energy.
And there is no one who is bothered 
by the lack of life force.

There is simply what is.
  
Just as breaking 3 bones in the foot 10 months ago was never experienced as a problem.

Resistance to what is is increasingly evaporating.
And the welcoming of whatever wants to show itself 
allows an ever deeper sinking in and as Presence.


It is interesting to see the residues 
of contractions of the past 
( which can be viewed as resistance to what was) 
being tickled out of their hiding places, 


Finally allowed to release the charge.
Allowed to relax the tensions in the guts, 
and the holding of unexamined beliefs.


Finally it can be felt.
Finally it can let go.

So instead of the habitual response to resist the feelings
of discomfort, sadness or pain,
(which are after all only sensations felt in different parts of the torso in varying  degrees of intensity) 
to rejoice,

as Love and Presence take their rightful place again.

Now becoming ever more Now 
As attention is no longer captured by past stories, 
but free to be with and as whatever
at this moment.

Sweet and Fierce Kisses

Our many layered manifestation,
that through which we perceive the world/ourselves,
is more or less ready to perceive the non separate nature of existence.

This readiness depends partly on how we came into this world.
What kind of package, 
bagage, 
genes, 
culture, 
upbringing.

Much depends on what Life has in store for us.
The impulses motivating us.
Which happenings, accidents, encounters in our lives 
are directing us.

If we are lucky a wish to know takes hold of our lives.
A need to inquire as to why and how we are here.
What is the meaning of all this?

Questioning the so called solid facts of life
the expectations of society, family.

If we are lucky there is still room for the voice of
the unknown beckoning us home.

In this process of discovering and inquiry
many of the filters screening the direct perception 
may leave us.  

Clarity is a powerful means to dissolve the veils
standing between what we are 
and what we think we are.

An awakening experience e.g. can reveal with utmost clarity
that we are not limited by the person we think we are.
We are not separate.
We are a perceiving capacity.
Direct and open.

And when the awakening experience has passed,
we are left to unwind, and unveil 
the trail of identifications laid down in our
mind and body.
Indentations of our passage through this world.

We are asked to ferret out all the hiding places 
of the separate self.
And notice the ways again and again where
identification want to take up station somewhere.


When through Grace the penny drops irrevocably 
we are knowingly the unknowable, unfindable 
always presence of awareness

Then there will be no more room for 
loosing it, or having it.
The identification with the person 
who is suppose to have it or lost it 
has disappeared.

And then still the unraveling continues.
Deeper down in the substance of our matter.
The subconscious, pre-verbal, past lives, 

where trauma's of the past might be hiding.

 
All that wants to be unwound

 

Making more room for clarity
for This to love Itself more nakedly.


And still all that shows itself is This.
Sweet and fierce kisses of
the One substance.
Kissing Itself. 


A wonderful thing is that all the images and expectations
of how spirituality, awakening, realization looks like 
disappear.  

One is whatever is present.




 

 

A Kingdom for a horse

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
  

We would trade anything 
not to loose the sense that we are a person


It is too scary...
Because then there is nothing to hold on to.
Nothing to define what we are.


If through Grace letting go happens
it does not follow that there is no more sense of identity.

But then there is identification with whatever appears.  

This and This and This as well, 
in fact Everything.

This is where the identification is.
Everything.

Not in a: 
'whenever you are sweet you are welcome to stay' 
kind of way.

No everything:
emotions
appearances
thoughts
sense perceptions
discernment
actions

An all inclusive of all that appears.

The hurricanes and the sunsets.


Everything is the substance of what we are.
Life.

The Kingdom is us and ours already  

No need for a horse.

Unless we enjoy the ride of course.

Do you notice?

Now
Right Now
Always the present moment
Not yesterday
Not tomorrow or later
But simply now
Always always now
Now on a chair, or a couch
reading these words
while we hear the slight buzz of our device
birds whistling
a dripping tap
thoughts about breakfast are passing
and the body aches still a bit from yesterdays exercise
This is where we are now until it changes into the next now
It is always Now you see.
But simply now.
Nothing special about the present moment.

Here 
Always right here
Not somewhere else
Some place else
But simply right here
In this location at this moment
Present moment awareness
Here is where the sensory perceptions are noticed.
The wind coming in through the windows 
touching the skin on the legs
The young rooster from the neighbours crying out
The wind rustling the leaves of the palmtrees
The fridge humming away
A mongoose mother and baby walking over the terrace
Simply here and now

Do you notice when the narrative of the mind 
with the stories about the person
and the past and the future subsides
life is whole and complete?
Already
Full and alive
Simply here and now
Present moment awareness
Do you notice? 

And do you notice that nothing is needed to
make this happen?
Simply noticing this?
That it is already the case?

 

Knock knock

Hi Good morning,

Where are we?
Well here of course

And are we really here?

Fully, wholly, holy?
with all of our attention and presence? 

Or are there some pieces missing?
not yet included?

Hanging outside our conscious awareness? 

Buried themselves as a tension in the guts,
an ache in the back
or a numbness, a deadening in parts of our anatomy.

Whether physical or psychological.

Better not to feel?

Or shall we allow them in this time?

Do we hear them knocking on our doors?
An unease,
a sadness,
depression?



When at last we can include them into our existence, 
feel their pain of rejection and hear their stories
we might discover riches we did not know existed.

Curious?

A Postcard from the Infinite

Who and what we are is This.

Undivided wholeness.

There is only the Divine.
There is only This. 

And in This and as This 
everything dances and moves.

How could it be otherwise?

( Even the separation and suffering
is the Divine feeling and experiencing
Itself through the body mind organisms
we have called ourselves. )

This is the case wether we are perceiving this or not.


If we have the intuition that this is True,
if something inside of us is resonating to these words,
it might be time to start looking at everything that
is blocking this perception.

What is it in us that is going against what 
we somewhere know to be true?

What are the beliefs and convictions 
which make us believe otherwise?

Question everything which blocks or doubts 
the truth of our own being.

Stop at nothing.

Find out what remains when everything else 
has fallen away.



p.s.  Write me a postcard when you do..  :-) 

Unwinding

What we are is unchanging, effortless and everpresent.
And in this and as this, always changing appearances come and go.

If there is no identification with neither the unchanging condition
nor with the appearances, there will be no preference for 
either this or that.

There is the tendency after initial awakening to identify again,
this time with: 'We are only THIS'.
Usually this is a phase. 
Here is where the concepts:  
"There is no person, there is nothing you can do"  
find their origin.

This is again a duality, as appearances are taken as something different from the Absolute.


This subtle identification can have big consequences 
as it often translates itself as negation of emotions, rejection of the body and mind and consequently the unwillingness to look at the conditioning connected with this.

The result can be suppressed emotions, projections, and psychological hangups many people prefer to pretend they have gone beyond.

The ND world knows some teachers who carry issues they do not want to know about, as it does not conform with their conviction of what awakening is.


If we have the fortune to go through this phase, and do not keep our station here, we as it were step out of what we can call the 'hanging out in the Transcendence'. 

Then there seems to be an initial phase of humility,
of surrendering this vastness, 
a willingness to take on again the humanity we all carry and offer this as well as fuel for the fire of self inquiry.

All and everything want to feel, and be the freedom of limitations.

The knots and nooks in our system are unwinding in the
relaxation of surrender to what is.


When there is no identification anymore
there is simply what is happening. 
No rejection
No grasping
No preference
Simply everything that appears and is.

Fluctuation

The first step is Self realization.

Knowing beyond doubt that what I am is
unknowable
effortless
everpresent
untouched by appearances
immediate
never not here
not in the stream of time.

And knowing this experiential
so rock solid
that the idea that it can be lost 
is alien and does not enter.
  
Knowing this is so intrinsically that no matter
what happens, no matter what appears,
one knows this can never be lost.


No matter what thoughts, emotions or states,
no matter what incidents, accidents or disasters. 

And not because I repeat this to myself
or dig up a memory of an awakening experience from the past.

As long as there is fluctuation, 
( the i ve got it, i lost it phase )
as long as This is not established beyond doubt
the penny has not completely dropped,
and there is still some way to go.

A process, a ripening, a need for more clarity,
an unveiling of assumptions,
something still obscuring the clear perception,
a seeing through of beliefs.

However paradoxical this may sound
to the conceptually correct nd mind.

And after that..?
Who will tell? 
There is never an end station....





 

Sunsets and Tidal waves

No separation is
experiencing without boundaries.
Differences exist are seen and noticed.
But everything is still felt as not separate from 
what I am.
Much in the same way an arm is different from
the pancreas or the left big toe, but all is still viewed and experienced as part of the body.

The whole of our experience at every moment.
It does not exclude anything.

Questions coming from an image of how enlightenment looks like frequently come up e.g. to ask if anger or other strong emotions still arises.

The image or expectation of what enlightenment or no separation looks like is never how it is.

It is the whole of our experience.
With everything that appears. 

In my experience right now, in the relaxation that follows when the primary contraction of erroneously experiencing ourselves separate from existence has fallen away, deeper and ever deeper layers of contracted energies are able to come out of hiding.
Coming up after years or lifetimes.
Traumas which were too painful then are coming up 
to be felt and experienced now.

Sunsets and killer whales
Baby seals and rabid dogs
Honeymoon and tidal waves
Daisies and dementia

All that comes up.
In the immediacy.

Being present

There is no distance to This
and what we are.

This does not fit any framework 
and does not care which words are used
as words cannot catch It.

It is simply the direct perception,
the immediacy,
the knowing, seeing, touching, perceiving
of all that appears.

And that means all,
that means also all of the hangups,
contractions,
irritations.

It means simply This.
Already the case.
Already existence in all its glory 
and ordinariness.

The amazing sunset,
the beautiful smile,
and the dirty toilet,
or being squeezed in the bus 
during rush-hour on the way home.

The amazing insights and revelations
and the surging up of emotional turmoil
as it resurfaces in the relaxation of this
new found freedom.

Can we be present to it all?

Can we be relaxed enough to take these 
sometimes agonizing feelings and let them play out?
Simply feel them and let them tell their story?

Or do we need to nullify them ( again ).
Distance ourselves and hide them 
behind a curtain of lofty concepts?

Create a duality where none exists?

Do we dare to simply be present
without creating another story?

The seeing, feeling, perceiving, experiencing
of all that appears.

 
 


 

Comfort zone

From the position of feeling oneself a person,
separate, independent and autonomous,
the message of Nonduality is synonymous with suicide.

And if one is content with life as it is, 
if life is going well for you, 
if you are comfortable and at ease,
i would not go near this message.


But it can happen that through
bereavement, accidents or loss,
the promises of our culture and upbringing 
are seen as empty and false, 
and we start to question the existing status quo.
Who am I?  
What is it i call me?
What is it in my experience which limits me?
What are my beliefs, assumptions? 
And is this what i am?

Cracks in the armour of our personal self through
upheavals can be a first step
towards a discovery of greater freedom.

An invitation to reality.
And a stripping away of all that is standing in the way


A message of freedom may be uncovered 
going through life most difficult challenges.
As we are challenged and are forced
to look further than our comfort zone.

A bargain

Letting go of pretense, 
the masks
and all the roles we play.

Letting go of ideals, 
ideas and beliefs.

Letting go of
everything we hold dear,
everything we think is true.

As these are filters which
shield us from the raw reality of Life

And in the space which gets created,
by not filling in the emptiness with our noise,
we as it were allow our senses to clear 
as we do not rush in to label
whatever information comes in through the senses.


Then there is the immediacy of knowing.
Being the knowing. 

And simultaneously
we enter a space of not knowing.
As everything appears as if for the first time.

And it does. 


There can be a honeymoon at first with this 
new uncluttered way of experiencing Life.

Elation, insights, bliss, clarity.
The thrill of being alive 
open and unbound.


But then as well there can be confusion and depression
as this blast of freedom can shatter the very foundations
of what we always felt was safe and secure.
We walk on shaky ground.
Not yet used being comfortable 
to live without limitations.

Life can as well appear as empty, sterile, meaningless
as the old structures are dissolving. 

In this open Space,
unprotected because the filters have gone 
also things in our personal make up 
of limitations and old pains,
often after years of being in a contraction, 
can be tickled and teased to open up by this new freedom.

A whole range of emotions might visit us.
As a blast from the past.
Despair, anger, sadness, anguish.


Or pains or shaking of the body
as energy gets released.

Shedding an old skin can be a painful.

Be sure to know what you want.
Enlightenment can be 
more than you bargained for.










 

Dare?

What happens when we let go of concepts?

What if we are able to let go of all frameworks 
which up to now helped us to navigate this
big amorphous thing we call Life.
( Where we try make sense of the sensory perceptions,
the actions happening around us and through us.)

Can we let go of all beliefs, stories and 
the way we think the universe works?

Can we also let go of the Nondual jargon,
the Nondual way we have accostumed to look at ourselves and the world?

( Nonduality almost starts to reek after a cult.
Is it the beginning of a religion?
Words as Nondualism for instance...  What is that? )


Words are used within a context where there is a reference point, a duality.

The immediacy, the direct perception is already here, 
alive, 
before words and concepts appear,
and does not need our understanding.  

It is the recognition.
moment to moment.

To be present with 
whatever, 
whatever is appearing.

No need to cut it up in me and the world
inside or outside
or spin a story around it.


Do we dare to let go 
and fall into the mystery?












 

Are you present and aware?

The instruments of the body mind,  
through which emptiness experiences
and expresses itself,
have been geared from day one 
to notice seamlessly all that appears.

Not perceiving separation as the personality structure 
has not been build up yet.

At first in awe about the endless wonder of things,
and as education and conditioning 
are making their inroad
through parents, siblings, teachers, friends,
in an ever increasing sense of unease.

Slowly giving in to the demands and expectations of the ones who care for us, we start to loose our wholeness and start to identify with the persona.

Our attention gets mesmerised and caught 
by the self-referential thoughts and patterns 
we mistakingly call me.
Taking us away from here and now
to regrets and guilt of the past or 
hopes and fears for the future.

All the while the senses are hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, here and now.

Always present yes,
but mostly not aware.

A next jacket?

What is it in us that is perceiving?
What is it that is reading these words right now?

What is it that is noticing the difference 
in temperature in the room 
or the sudden feeling of unease?

The taste of coffee
the irritating noise of the drilling machine next door.
Thoughts about the dinner you had yesterday with a friend?

Who or what is seeing this all coming and going?



Whatever is right now in our field of perception
is effortlessly seen, noticed and felt.

What is it?

This most basic and primal principle.


Without it nothing even exist because it is not perceived.

Who and what are we?


This is a most amazing journey and adventure,
if we can do this exploration for the sake of truth,
for a need to know.

If we do this with an intention to get something out of this,
or to make us feel better 
we will get disappointed.

The brutal fact is that this journey 
is not to acquire and achieve but rather
to see through, let go, and loose.

To notice everything and anything which is 
limiting us, defining us.

And if we can be aware enough we see
that these are just habits,
thought-constructs which at times help us 
to navigate through life but often 
limit us and enslave us.

If we can see this happening,
we already create space, 
loosen the identification with the personal story.



But notice that at any time the strong habit
of identifying can crawl into the next jacket.

e.g. the ND person who has seen It.
Who is beyond it all 
and can now assume an identity around This 
of feeling more special or more free.

Another crutch to hang on to?





 

Turn it off?

This strange experience we call Life.

Perceptions continuous.

An ongoing barrage of sounds, sights, smells, 
sensations, thoughts, emotions, intimations, insights.

At times pleasant and pleasing 
and at others 
uncomfortable and uneasy

And to notice the response to all that 
in this alive functioning organism.

Seemingly at random, 
and perceived by something.

What is this Something?

What is It? 

What is it that perceives all This?

What is it that is aware of all these sense perceptions?
thoughts, emotions?

Is is something we do?

Are we straining ourselves?

Or is it effortless taking place?


Strange thing is,
we cannot even turn it off.
 


 

Didn't know...

Bubbling up like champagne.
Drunk from all what comes in through the senses.

Did not know that the colour green could be so heady,
and that the sounds of bird singing 
and the fridge humming
could be so tantalizingly sweet.

A friend just visited 
and the laughter of merriness
bellows into the garden
as eyes shine 
and bellies shake.

Grateful for all that appears.

The healing of broken bones.
The amazing capacity of the body.
Movement once again
where before all was mangled and torn.

Grateful for contractions appearing 
accompanied by decades of long buried 
feelings of sadness 
of feeling unsafe.
Finally they are allowed and welcomed into 
this open loving space where they are held.
Tell their story of abandonment and hurt,
and move on.
And Freedom finding ever more space to be.


What a wonderful adventure 
to find all these treasures
wherever we turn.



 

Touched

The direct perception.

The direct touch of a colour, green, red, blue.

Being moved by music, a sunset, a beautiful form.

Being moved by an emotion, happiness, sadness.

Everything appears and is known.

Known without thoughts.

Through the direct contact.

Can you see this happening in your own experience?


Thought comes into being as a story told after the 
appearance has taken place.

Or just pops up randomly
about the past or the future.

This is how it operates for everyone.


The difference with being awake or not, 
is that when you know that your identity
is not anything in particular
thoughts are not taken in anymore 
as the most important element.


It is seen as an appearance among all others.

It is seen that it is a story,
told to keep an identity in place,
and to create an artificial separation 
between me and others,
between me and the rest of the world.

If this is seen through there is the being 
touched by all that comes in through the senses.

The smells, the sights, the sounds, the emotions.
Coming and going continuously without stop.
Without interpretation.
Without filters.

Life being touched by Life.

Always,always there are perceptions coming and going.

If the nature of thoughts 
and the identity it is keeping alive 
is seen for what it is,
it is life living.

Nothing less

 Simultaneously the container and the contained.


Aware of Self and
aware of everything that appears.


The benevolent, intelligent alive Something 
vast, open, all embracing,
and 
the birds singing outside the house
the JCB moving earth close by
the stinging foot healing from a fracture
thoughts and emotions present
sensations, sights and smells.


This is an experiential knowing, seeing, 
not to be achieved
as it is always present already.


This seeing, knowing becomes more obvious 
once the mechanism of referring everything to the 
personal mechanism slows down.

Some instances where this can happen are e.g.
falling in love, 
being in nature,
having a mystical experience.

And it is possible to facilitate the thinning out
of the personal identification through
self investigation.

By seeing that all appearances,
sights, smells, sensations, thoughts, emotions
come and go. 
And it is our identification with some aspects
of the appearances which gives the idea of separation.
But is this true?
If we keep questioning those thought structures and habits
they start loosing their rigidity, become more plastic
and let in more light.


Another important ingredient for seeing through
the personal structure is intuition.
Listening to the guidance already here
as This is already present and  
whispers already to us what is needed.

The longing to come home is nothing less
then This already calling out to us.





 

Forgotten costumes

Halleluja.


A Yes to everything.

Resistance to the wind.



The helpless and 

hopeless surrender to what is.


As we are thrown around  

by gales and storms

and caressed  by the pleasing breeze.


The passion for the Divine 

is overtaking us in our own house.


It will empty us of all 

of what we think we are.

And take ownership.


Like the landlord who claims 

his rightful place.

He does not shy away from the things 

we rather hide and bury under the floor boards.


While we attempt to block our ears 

for the skeletons in the cupboard

who are rattling their bones 

and for their yearning calls

to be heard and included,

He invites them all into his gaze.

And by doing so plucks away 

the hidden dresses and costumes

we had forgotten 

are still wearing our names.


He does not leave until all is His.


Cleaned out

Empty

Nothing left

but 

This

Inevitable

A process of integration after the initial awakening
is inevitable.

A life time of misinterpretation, 
falsely believing to be an independent identity,
has stored itself in the body.
Along with the trauma's, the pain and the injustice
closely linked with this initial error.

These layers are opening up,
slowly or suddenly,
when the pressure of the main contraction 
of the individual identity, 
have fallen away.  

Opening into this new open space,
where finally they can be felt just as they are,
emotions, e motions,  energy in motion, 
and move on,
releasing their charge.
The body becoming more open and alive.

Consequences

Another consequence of this natural functioning,
is that the organism becomes more sensitive.

Perceiving without filters, without barriers,
felt directly.


And life, as we can see all around,
is a dance of variation
of differences, 
of minute details, 
of highs and lows,
of ecstasy and despair,
of breathtaking beauty,
and ugliness.


All is keenly felt
in this One open space 
where perception is ongoing at all times.
And where nothing is more felt as me than anything else.
Because everything is felt as me.
Ultimate subjectivity. 
All the flavours and perfumes of existence.
Are all simply appearing. 

Operating spontaneous

If the penny has dropped,
if the shutters of perception remain open,
a lot of ease and contentment are a consequence.

Hopes, fears, dis-ease are synonymous with the 
individual contraction, so if the focus and obsession
have fallen away something artificial is gone and
the natural functioning of the organism 
becomes apparent.

Operating spontaneous without a someone directing
or wanting things different,

Everything is simply observed, seen, known for what it is.

Directly cognizing.

All of Life is seen without filters.

 

 

It is all about me

There is the habit
to make the things which happen to us 
about me, 
myself,
I.

Which of course is natural and true 
because the me is 
the only constant in our lives.  

Everything is always happening
to this me, 
with this me, 
and...
is observed by a me.

Ultimate subjectivity

This is the case with everyone, 
awakened, or not. 

An Avatar, or street bum makes no difference

This never changes, 
as long as there is a body, 
as long as there are senses 
this is the case.

It is always happening to or through this me.
With capital or not.

The difference is really 
knowing who or what we are 
underneath and beyond our conditioning

Who do we believe we are?
What have we taken in, 
all those years?

In all of us, 
growing up, 
a conceptual reality has over layed the direct perception.

We believe ourselves to be a someone separated from
the rest of existence
This we have conveniently
put outside of our skin..  ( so funny )
And created an inside and an outside.  


If through a process of decondioning, inquiry and insights
the filters which are obscuring our perception 
are disintegrating, we find out through experience 
that life without filters is the natural state.
Everything is directly perceived.

That is the difference.

Life

In what we could call, 
the potential of what it is to be human,
waking up to our true nature is a major event.

It changes the way we look at ourselves,
turns everything from inside out, 
with the overriding message: 

"We are not separate, independent individuals, 
 we are, as everything else, consciousness. 
 We are a perceiving capacity for all that appears 
 at every moment "


As Life is not static, 
everything is always in flux,
realizations deepen, 
are making place for other vistas and
unexpected appearances.

And if we are not clinging to our present station
Life becomes ever more rich and deeply felt.

No more need for conceptual frameworks
or the urge to make others understand.

Books, satsangs, youtube clips of teachers
become obsolete.
One becomes wary even.


No more words.

Life is just living itself.

In all it's ordinariness