When the ‘self’ is understood, like solving a puzzle, satisfaction and amusement is all that remains.

We have been duped into believing that the ‘self’ is something that it is not. We speak of the ‘self’ as if we assume we know what we are talking about.

Sadly, but understandably, we do not.

We make an a priori assumption that a ‘self’ exists, and then we build an entire life upon that mistaken notion.

Or, more correctly, we believe the ‘self’ exists in a way that it does not. Like a play of flashlight beams, or bubbles floating on a stream, or the northern lights, or  running toward a mirage, there is nothing substantial.

The self is not a thing, but…

If we want to understand what the ‘self’ is, we must take the time to study it by looking at it directly, with awareness, precision and honesty. We must get nice and close to this supposed ‘self’, look at it unflinchingly without blinking or drifting.

Look now if you like. :>

Reason #1 Most people live much of their lives Asleep, which means unaware, unconsciousness, inattentive, mechanically, and on autopilot. This leads to reason #2

Reason #2 Because most people live much of their lives Asleep, they live in a way that is harmful to themselves, those around them as well as the world they live in.

Reason #3 Because most people live much of their lives Asleep, they live in a dream world of their mind, in a world of concepts stories and drama’s, rather than in reality as it is.

Reason #4 Because most people live much of their lives Asleep, they come to believe a variety of social myth’s, such as: wellness is a good goal; self esteem is a life-long project; death is ‘dark’ topic; and you have ‘control’ of your life. (The emperor has no clothes! says the one who is Awake)

Reason #5 Because most people live much of their lives Asleep, they miss many or most of their life-moments. The clock is ticking, meanwhile, most people are sleeping right through the alarm that is ringing in their ear…

Reason #6 Because most people live out their lives Asleep, their unfolding stalls and they fail to plumb their potential. Like stopping on the 3rd rung of a 10-step ladder and holding on for the rest of life, many people only live out a small part of their possible potential.

Reason #7 Because most people live out their lives Asleep, they come to accept the status quo and the lowest common denominators as a guide to what is possible. Sleepers accept what society says is normal and acceptable. But normal and acceptable in our society is Asleep!

Reason #8 Because most people live out their lives Asleep, they fail to ask the big questions in life. The BIG questions such as Who am I? What is true? What really matters to me? Why am I the way I am? Whose life am I living? Why is the milk so white? (kidding!). Without asking the big questions, much of life is left unexamined and unlived.

Reason #9 Because most people live out their lives Asleep they end up following a life trajectory that was initiated in grade school without ever considering the options. Most life paths are accidents that simply lead to nowhere deep or profound. Schooling, job, marriage, kids, vacations, divorce, retire, die… That is the typical life in 8 words.

Reason #10 Because most people live out their lives Asleep, fear, useless thought and emotional reactivity are the driving forces that compel them to act. Fear, useless thought and emotional reactivity are the products of the sleeping human, but seen to be utterly un-necessary to the Awake human.

BONUS Reason! Reason #11 Because most people live out their lives Asleep, I am forced to be on the roads with people who CAN”T DRIVE! Inattentive, zoned out, distracted, wrong lane, too slow, too fast, too old! But, and this is a big but, to be Awake means I no longer run people off the road!

Over my 43 years, due to many circumstances and situations beyond control, I have established particular patterns of reactivity such as anger and fear, as well as patterns of occasional empathy and friendliness. I am often intense and dark, periodically humble and gentle. These particular patterns have served to give me my particular and unique personality or, ‘color’, if you will.

I am now accountable for how this particular color is presented and expressed to the world.

To take this analogy further, as an individual I am a unique color of Life. That unique color is illuminated by the one light of Life. There are infinite colors, but only one Light. I am exactly the same as you as the one light, but also infinitely different from you as a unique color.

This unique color that I am is a product of chance and is for the most part, beyond my control. (Imagine a melted box of crayons.)

The one Light that I am is also beyond my control.

When one comes to this understanding they stand on the brink of a certain kind of freedom. When this understanding arises, a new perspective arises with it. The perspective is this: in any given moment, I can relax my identity and open as the one light of Life that I am, or I can lose myself as the unique color of Life that I am.

If I contract as a particular color, then my identity takes the shape and form of my limits and fears. My identity and therefore my happiness and suffering becomes dependent upon the conditions that surround me and that I mistakenly use to define me. I become identified with the patterns of behavior and thought that have resulted from all that has happened in my life. My identity is based upon conditions, and therefore my happiness and sense of freedom is always conditional.

If I open as the one Light that I am, my identity is without pattern or condition. If I open as the one Light that I am, I become, in a sense, the colorless open space and Light, in which all patterns and conditions appear, reside briefly, and disappear. My identity is without condition, and therefore my happiness and sense of freedom is condition-less.

Nothing I have ever done, felt, or experienced makes any difference to the one Light that I am.

When you identify as the one light of Life, that light grows stronger. As that one light of Life grows stronger, your unique color also becomes intensely magnified as that one light of Life shines AS you. You become the expression of color and Light that you truly ARE, rather than a faded or half-lit shade of a dreary color obscured by fear and contraction.

We are all a play of color and Light. At times we are uniquely colored. At times we are the light of Life. And sometimes, in the moments of our greatest truth, we become a play of such vibrant color and intense light that we simultaneously express our full humanity and our full Being-ness as human beings.

Color and light, humanity and being-ness, inter-woven into a brilliant rainbow of Life. Not sometime in the future, but right here and now.

May we all remember and shine as the light of Life, illuminating our truest and most brilliant colors as a gift to the world.

The same life-impulse that compels us to do something.

Either the impulse will arise and be acted upon, it will arise and be cut off, or it won’t arise.

Life moves through body/minds and expresses itself, using the mediums provided.

The same as the question that arose in your mind a moment ago.

Either it does or it doesn’t, it will or it won’t.

When does that apple fall from the tree?
When it wants to?

The apple falls when the conditions are right.

Everything happens when the conditions are right.

Including understanding the statement: Everything happens when the conditions are right.

Why is a question-mark shaped like a hook?

I was twenty when I purchased a Champaign colored Fender bass guitar.  I was determined to master it after an evening in a local pub, watching my friend Pat who had obviously made his bass guitar an appendage of his body.

I never got past the skills of a novice, playing the opening notes of Deep Purples Smoke on the Water.

Ba Baba, Ba Ba Baba, Ba Ba Baaaaa, Baba

My friend Pat on the other hand, had dedicated himself since childhood.

He was able to listen to any tune and then play it almost immediately. He has mastered the fundamentals and was able to play anything he heard, note for note.

Pat would agree that the gap in abilities between he and I would have been equal to the gap in abilities between he and Geddy Lee, the incredible bassist of the band Rush.

Geddy Lee was and is a virtuoso and a Master of his craft, capable of creative expression limited only by his imagination.

He has gone far beyond even the expert and is able to free-style, unconstrained by the rules of form and function.

I was a Novice, never getting beyond learning the fundamentals.

Pat is an Expert, beyond fundamentals and capable of playing almost anything he is exposed to, note for note.

Geddy Lee is a Master, beyond expert and capable of free-styling and unrestrained creative expression.

What about you?

When it comes to playing the music of Life, YOUR music, the music you ARE, what is it for you?

Have you learned the skills that allow you to free-style your Life song, enabling you to play with anyone anywhere anytime?

Or, are you still plucking away at the sorry 5 note song you learned in childhood, annoying your lover, kids and cat, because you are still kidding yourself that it’s ever gonna go anywhere?

Learn to become a Master Life-Freestyler here.

As I turned the corner, there stood my hill, just as I left her, except this time she is bathed in a golden light.

I feel affection arise, and gratitude.

A struggle is ahead of me, but a welcome, self imposed one.

As I near the top, everything relaxes into its proper place.

The small things are seen as small, and almost everything is small.

There is but one large thing, and that is the awareness that contains it all, the hill, the light, the gratitude and struggle.

I have un-become, and all is right with the world.

The answer you give to that question is one way others can get some information about you, what you value and maybe even a hint at your education, intelligence, interests etc.

In an average, modern day spiritual situation, a question commonly heard asked is, “what is your Sadhana?”, which means, what is your spiritual approach, experiment, or practice? What is your moment to moment approach to life?

The answer you give to that question may give some information regarding the depth of your spiritual life, as well as what has been determined to be your biggest challenge in your spiritual evolution.

For instance, if someone were to ask me what my Sadhana is, my answer would include the following:

1. The continuous practice of maintaining attention to the basic felt sense of existence, I Am-ness, presence or aliveness.

This means I attempt to maintain a wordless awareness of the experience of being alive by placing and resting attention in the open space of the heart.

This practice undermines and undoes a lifetime of bad habits including:

- being lost in useless ‘self-talk’ that erodes the quality of your moment to moment experience of life.

- inattention to the sweet and subtle moments of life’s beauty because you aren’t really there for them.

- poor quality of thought because your thinking mind is not sourced from a place of silence and stillness.

- avoidance of experiencing the most sublime and blissful way of life, which is a life lived with attention firmly rooted and anchored in a place where it is actually pleasurable, JUST TO BE ALIVE!

2. The practice of recognizing what draws my attention away from the openness and direct experience of the heart space, and into the concepts and self-talk of the head space.

This means I am vigilant and watchful for triggers that cause me to react with thoughts, judgments and interpretations, which will almost always lead to emotional reactivity such as anger, frustration and disdain.

The most amazing thing about this Sadhana, or practice, is that it turns your mental/emotional reaction triggers into opportunities to practice connecting with, resting in, and living from, your own deep, wise and loving heart.

Put differently, living in the head space is ONLY a habit, a bad habit that destroys the quality of  your life, and a sure sign that you too may “lead a life of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in you” to quote Thoreau.

So let me ask you this: What is YOUR Sadhana? What is your moment to moment approach to life?  What is your ongoing method of living life deeply?

The weakest link in most forms of PD is the lack of implementation.  Being Awake IS implementation.

How does it feel to know that everything that has ever happened is what SHOULD have happened, because it DID happen? Reality says so.

Transformational Speaking, is mostly about the speaker. The Transformational Speaker, is ALL about the audience.

Life is a magical display, an amusement park, a living lab — IF you have the eyes to see. Have you had your eyes checked lately?

Most quotes on Twitter are like hand-me-down clothes – outdated, unoriginal, old and smelly!

I’m wondering why everyone quotes other people, rather than saying something quotable. In other words, go DEEP and speak from that place.

A Caring Professional uses their livelihood to learn how to open their heart to the world. Are you one?

Chasing a mirage of cool-aide instead of a mirage of water, still leaves you dead of thirst.

The truth of ‘your’ existence is the truth OF existence. Remove ‘you’, to remove what keeps you in a state of suspended foolishness.

Considering how, of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, faith is the most childish and least evolved.

Did you know that your life is the size of your awareness?

There are only a few things we can say about life with any real certainty. What do you know for sure?

Wondering if you have ‘self-knowledge’, or the understanding of how your body/mind is patterned?

You will very seldom have a thought that is anywhere nearly as profound as the silence it springs from. If you do, it just HAPPENED to you.

Most approaches to personal development are heavy on the personal and absent on the development. Validation does NOT equal growth.

Considering how the silent mind is the reflective mind, seeing without embellishing, watching the naked moment display itself, unadorned.

The fact that ‘Affirmations’ are seen to be so valuable in our society, just makes me sad…

Resting in the understanding that incessant yearning for what ISN’T, cripples our ability to contentedly be with what IS.

Affirmations and positive self talk is for children and sleeping adults… No kidding!

I’m thinking that if I wasn’t me I’d wanna know me because I’m into the coolest stuff EVER!

Until you can you can’t!

Emotional reactivity happens when we are asleep, eyes wide open!

Maturity is the ability to contain experience long enough to determine if it’s wise to share it. Being awake is the key to maturity.

Handcuffed and procrastinating, neck deep in organizational and time management books, finally, I let myself drowwwnnnnn……

Contemplating the fact that a life dependent on materialism and externals for happiness is unstable. Happiness without condition? You bet!

Hey money grubbers! Have you ever heard of the idea of living with an open heart?

If you believe the thinking mind is where creativity comes from, maybe it’s time I told ya the truth about Santa Clause too

72 hours of balls out creativity and productivity, done with an empty mind and an open heart. Keeping perspective is KEY.

Juggling chainsaws, glass balls, rubber widgets, and puppy dogs is easier when there is ALMOST too much at stake, and too much to do

I’m considering how I can explain the idea that we all live with closed hearts and busy minds, a product of our less than ideal upbringing.

You are aware of what is going on inside of you (thoughts, emotions, sensations) as well as what is going on around you (stimuli, input, movement).

There is a heightened sense of aliveness because you are the center-point of your life, and you are aware that your life is dancing and shimmering and fading before your very eyes.

As you read these words, are you also aware you are alive? Can you feel your aliveness? Are you breathing? Are you relaxed? Is your heart open?

Are you aware that you are the living, breathing – still-point – around which your life turns?