Why do you meditate?

Do you meditate for general health and wellbeing?
Do you meditate to get high, to enjoy those peak experiences?
Do you meditate to to get enlightened?

Identity true/false.

The need to know the truth and persistent close, self observation will reveal your true nature.  Once seen, a complete transformation takes place.  For the first time you know who you are and know that previously, like most of the population of the world, you only had beliefs of who you are, false beliefs, misidentifications. Relaxation, peace and the understanding that life is what it is take over, what happens is what happens and that life plays out the way that it plays out.

Questions from seekers reveal the continued misidentification.  When a seeker is informed that what he is is awareness itself they will invariably ask what do you have to be aware of?  This immediately informs that the seeker is continuing to identify as some-one, some-one who is or can be aware and who has choice instead of the fact that he is the awareness itself and that who he previously identified as is in fact only an appearance in that awareness (that he/she is).

If there is importance it is that the seeker continues to suffer.  So continue to look closely and question your 'truths' as all untruths will be revealed as such under close scrutiny.  If you need guidance then write to the author or any other Advaitic.  Feel free to contact me via my website if you wish.

If a non-seeker is asked about their thoughts, they would probably say that they are in a logical sequence from one thought to the next and I would have assumed that too.  But experience (during my seeking years) showed me that thoughts are extremely random and some-times the most tenuous association will trigger the next thought, and some-times something in the vicinity will interfere and cause that to be the next one; some-times there's no apparent connection.  This appears to be a strange way for a mind to work but evolution has a way to save the best or at least the one that works.  However I've come to see that, in fact, this is a very cleaver process that a series of thoughts now, with the slightest connection to some-thing I need to do today, but that I'd forgotten, will remind me.  This process of watching the mind is called thought awareness and will overcome the beliefs we normally believe in and show us just what a belief is.

thoughts.

A thought enters the mind and we act on it or another thought says don't act on it.  Until a thought enters we can't act as there is nothing to act on.  Consiousness without a thought is like a computer without software.  The computer itself is effectively useless, it is a potential; it can't function until software is put in to tell it what to do and how to do it.  Thoughts are like that; so don't make the mistake of thinking that once self realisation has happened no thoughts will occur or that you'll be free from thoughts all the time.  There will be periods of time when you are thoughtless - indeed it happens to you now although you may not have noticed it.  But until a thought occurs - like 'I'll mow the lawn', or you happen to walk outside and see that the lawn needs mowing which triggers a thought saying 'I'd better mow the lawn' we can't we can't mow it.

In the moments when there are no thoughts it is very peaceful and in those times after realisation following the time of great desire to be free we can experience times of absolutely stillness, consiousness without any movement, not even a ripple; nothing, just pure awareness and that is beautiful - and don't forget that the desire to be free is, after all, just another desire.  But after a while we get seduced by the world again and why not?  It's a beautiful place.  It doesn't really matter whether we're thoughtless or not we just carry on with life understanding fully what we actually are, who we actually are and who we are not; it is the realisation that ends the suffering. 

Frustration

Do I feel frustration, or am I frustration (in that moment)?  Any thing can cause it - this time it was receiving an over due bill from Telstra (telephone company) when I'd not even received the bill in the first place.  Trying to find 'your account' and logging on was impossible.  It just seemed to send me round in circles.  My wife, on the other hand, is able to see my mistake - yes mistakes still happen.  The more frustration I feel the more I insist on blaming 'them' and becoming blind to the possibility that I might have gone wrong some-where.  I think it feels better just to write about it....The mind just keeps tripping along.

The body it still subject to the world and it's effects.

The body it still subject to the world and it's effects.  Simply understanding who I am and the transformation that goes with it doesn't make the body impervious to age and infirmity.  Just the other day while re-building our bathroom and after jackhammering some concrete out of the floor I stood up and this simple act caused my lower back muscles to spasm,  v-e-r-y painful, as those of you who have had the same problem will know.  So I had to go to a doctor, pay and take the prescribed medications to help the healing process.  So now I have to let nature take it's coarse for a few days.  It's clear that it's the body and not me that this has happened to though.

I've just been visited by Jim of  http://www.jimdreaver.com/  ; he was visiting his brother locally and was told of me buy a mutual lady who attended one of his sessions and had previously emailed me and listened to a talk I gave in Fremantle, Western Australia.  As we sat under the large oak tree on this warm, sunny Spring day in the back garden and talked I was reminded of the similarities and differences of our awakening(s). Again it showed how the experience and circumstances of enlightenment is so common to all and yet so personal and subsequently expressed so uniquely.  Until today I had decided to not go on subscribing to my web site but Jim showed me that perhaps I should let it go on a bit longer so those out there who are still seeking freedom can have another angle, another perspective, another way of looking at the 'problem' - thank you Jim.

A close obseravtion of our emotional live reveals there are subtle ups & downs; quite appart from the more gross emotions we experience through out our lives.  The small, clear highs ofter lasting only seconds can be easily missed.  I call them blips.  Not the negative 'blip' seen on the computer screen starting a nuclear war type of blip but the subtle pleasant blips - a little bubble of wonderful emotion which may be triggered by a past memory or experience or some aspect of that experience.  These make life sooo pleasant and memerable - even if in the end it is know there is no-one here to experience it all, but the pure experience is quite remarkable in itself.