Awakening into Wholeness
A Journey into TRUTH
This is a memoir to my son about life, culture, and waking up.
Live outside the tangle of fear thinking,
live in silence…… Why do you stay in prison
When the door is wide open? — Rumi
Dearest Noah,
Come groove with me along these serendipitous interwoven groves. In many ways, this memoir has no set direction except for you to discover that truth is a pathless land. I hope that this book will lead you into questioning this culture, dig underneath all beliefs, and come to a deeper understanding of yourself. This memoir is a living document of what I have understood about myself and the world. Dig in, question, and see if it makes sense.
So, let’s journey together and dive in! What a wondrous Universe we live in. The planets spin and orbit while the sun dances, spiraling in a galaxy among innumerable galaxies. We can feel so small within the vastness of the universe. And what a marvelous planet we live on. A blue-green jem floating in the abyss of the sun’s gravity. This earth breaths such life. The seasons revolve upon their cyclical grooves while the fecundity and diversity of nature’s abundance flow in micro and macro ecosystems, flowing into one another into one broad earth system. All the wonders of life, an abundance of interconnected relationships, diversified and evolved and thread together in a multiplicity of interactive co-dependent species. How wondrous it all is. To truly see life and the Universe without labels, without measuring, is a wonder that is endless in scope. In this everpresent wonder, when the mind is still, one sees that all flow together in a grand Wholeness.
This memoir to you, my son, if you stay on this journey with me, and while you traverse this story, you will come to see, if you are willing to dive within yourself, that separation is an illusion, and you are all that is and ever will be yet are not who you think you are. So the paradox is that one is both small and, beyond space-time, everything and nothing.
— — -
Yet, through our dialogues, we have explored culture and the dream state, and you have come to see that our cultural system has created and fostered all the issues both individually, collectively, and environmentally. Yet, this is an important key to understand. In seeing that culture is nothing but a belief system that we buy into collectively, one can wake up and let go of the shackles of enculturation. Culture is a dream state, or a more adept word would be Maya. Maya is illusion. And what keeps Maya so alive and seemingly real, echoing itself as culture, is fear. This is what keeps the drama maintained. Fear keeps us insulated from seeing Maya for what it is: illusion. And if it is true that culture is an illusion, we can wake up and let go of the illusion presented to us since birth.
Over innumerable years, what you now see before you, the global culture we all swim in, recreates itself through drama. All of us play out this drama, playing out the roles of actors and actresses without knowing we are playing. The drama, being toxic and oppressive, poisons the soils and rivers, has created the 6th mass extinction, and has sparked rapid climate change. All the issues you see individually and collectively, are born out of this ongoing drama. The irony is, and you will come to see, 99.9999% of people’s problems are imaginary. Why? We will get into this later.
But one of the reasons I write this is to point out that we need not live this way; that culture is in our mind, and we can release all conditions until one is left in complete wholeness and freedom. Our culture is one of fear. Waking up, with the sword of awareness, one cuts through the attachments of mind until all that is left is nothing. For in waking up, everything burns away in the conflagration of awareness. Nothing is left but Truth. Left in Wholeness, one would be living in love. Living in love, the world would be transformed. This would be a true revolution. Not forced on others, but freeing oneself.
Culture is Maya. An illusion built upon with thought. Here is an analogy. Culture is like a collective interactive game that we are playing. In the game, we have these fantastic avatar bodies that can sense the world magnificently. There are many games that have endless adventures and journeys, yet, in the end, no matter what we do, these avatars will succumb to death. There are many ways to play the game of culture, some healthy, some not healthy, some sustaining, while some will end the game early. The cultural game we are presently playing is leading us to the end of humanity.
The thing is, these cultural games are all different ways of dreaming. They are not real just as a game is not real. Like a game, we can stop anytime and decide on a different game or not play the game at all. Not playing the game is essentially what it means to wake up. Some games are hellish, while others are heaven-like.
The game we have all been forced to play is a dream state mirroring suffering. Yet, as we think this game is not a game, we keep playing it, thinking it is reality. Yet, suppose we question the way we are playing and let go of the opiates of beliefs. In that case, we may come to see that the cultural game which is built around a hierarchical system based on oppressors and the oppressed, separation and fear, is a system that seems to benefit only a few people (though the wealthy, generally speaking, suffer a great deal) to the detriment of many. This is a system that poisons the sky, water, and earth, cuts down vast ecosystems, and a system that uses war for power and profit.
This cultural game is neither fair nor enjoyable, as most people work their lives away, are enslaved to the conditioning of their minds, or insanely think that more things, more toys, will make them happy. Being at war with the planet and each other to have more things and more power seems like a stupid way to play together.
I see that there is a potential for us to either wake up from the dream altogether or to dream up a different game, one that is ecological, egalitarian, and communal. We have seen how well these cultural games have played out. Small indigenous cultures illustrated that this is possible.
That is partly why I am writing this to you. As you read further, think of culture as a game to see that it is made up, as this may illustrate how we do not need to cling to its insidious ways.
Change can be difficult, but we can transcend if we see that we can’t continue living the way we are.
Wonder is the antidote to hierarchical thinking. Wonder is open and inclusive. It has nowhere to go or be and sees no wrong. It is pathless. It is presence. I know this wonder seeped so present in you. Don’t ever lose or push that down.
What I have understood about the nature of reality. Mind you, words can never explain this, and they can only point to something way beyond thought or measure. So, dig into what is being pointed at here. Meditate on it. Wholeness is. Wholeness is everywhere and nowhere. Wholeness is immeasurable and beyond conception without separation. It means that everyone, everything is Wholeness. All are included in this kaleidoscopic oneness in an everpresent Now. Living in Wholeness, one is nobody; in this presence, one has no desire to be anybody. In Wholeness, there is no need to defend or attack, for everything is one. Yet, seeing this, living this, is challenging because we are born into a culture that encourages us to believe that we are separate and not okay. From here, we cling and grasp, avoid, escape, measure, and judge. All those becoming dissolve in Wholeness, for they are nothing but illusions. All illusions, all games, everything — falls away and disappears back into Wholeness.
walking slowly
I gazed at this fractaling tree
gazed while shifting light and shadow danced together
the tree wasn’t a tree
was beyond all the textures and contours
it was intertwined with the entire universe
all around me
flowed coherently
Indra’s web
the mind
quiet and still
here
love was uncontained
all around
i have nowhere to go
for there is no self to get anywhere
there is just now
here
and here is love
flowing free
all this is
Wholeness
stop here with me
and stop the warring
the divisions
the conditioned
hierarchical thinking
that projects itself upon the canvas of the world
separation
fear and insecurity
are born out of hierarchy
hate and ignorance
is stuck
in the quicksand
of fear and insecurity
power and greed
arise out of the dark wounds of deep insecurity
deception, manipulation, and externalized violence
come from feelings of insecurity, distrust, and lack of control
ecological destruction comes from
numbness and ignorance
of wonder and curiosity
we need not buy in
we need not participate
in our conditioned enculturated roles
stop here with me
stop here
for here is where one can see
that we can let go of the
illusionary divisions
It is not in the future that anything will change
the future is the projected past
only Now
only Now
only Now
awareness
now
without trying
awareness
without labeling
without thoughting
awareness
that is fully present
see what was is not
see that every personalized thought
can’t be true
now
stop
pause
observe
without reacting
without changing
without concentration
without fighting
flow into what is
and let go into
awareness
and in that
see who you are
beyond thought
still
quiet beyond quiet
no thoughting
not separate
but whole
in love
a love that has no conditions
a love that holds no bounds
a love
that holds like light
everything
and nothing
in wholeness
in the only reality
which is
— — — —
here i sit
nowhere to go
a soft, silent sky
spreads into
an uncontained stillness
A fiery mirror reflects
the burning sky
into this
isness
dances
lightness blossoms
all is wholeness
here
listening
thought stops
the world crashes
distorted ripples smooth into clarity
here
it is so simple
yet it is also
is the paradox
just be
without trying
just grounding into
the here and now
without trying
stop here
breakthrough
the cultural matrix
let’s be still for a moment
and let love shine through
Love
Love
Love
in this unconditioned wholeness
hate dissolves
separation dissolves
fear dissolves
nothing to become
nowhere to be
but here
Listening in wonder
No wealth can come close
to the immeasurable sweetness
of love
no individual success can come close
to the depth of community health
Violence will never solve anything but perpetuate more violence
hate begets hate
fear and insecurity perpetuate fragmentation and division
all illusions conditioned into us
A running business
that chains one to the role one plays
The only way out is in
the only way in is to stop
to pause
awareness to see
false
and in this is the letting go
no doing
no trying
just letting be what is
and let yourself flow into stillness
let yourself flow into stillness
Chapter 1
The Beginning of Awakening
How I came to see the Dysfunction of this Culture and Awaken into Wholeness
“The ‘I am’ is the sum total of all that you perceive, it’s time-bound, the ‘I am’ itself is an illusion, you are not the ‘I am’ you are prior to it… All knowledge, including the ‘I am’ is formless. Throw out the ‘I am’ and stay put in quietude….Sitting quietly, being one with the knowledge ‘I am’, you will lose all concern with the world, then the ‘I am’ will also go, leaving you as the Absolute.”
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
My son, this Universe is full of wonder. There is such intricate, interwoven beauty, from the smallest particles to the grandest galaxies. We have had many opportunities and times together where we gazed up at the unfolding beauties of the world and cosmos. You see the world with eyes of wonder. Sadly, not everyone has the ability or privilege to do that. I wish more people could share that with us. I love that you now, on your own, take time to discover new places and spend time in old quaint places, to be in such beautiful topographies and immerse yourself in wonder.
— — -
Have you thought about the suffering of the world? Why do so many people struggle? Why do we poison our rivers and soils, pollute our skies, and tear down forests? Why is there poverty and war? Is this just what humans are meant to do? Is this simply who we are? Or are we stuck in roles and thinking patterns that we have been conditioned to play? Is this the road we are all destined to go down? Or is there another way to live that is not of sorrow?
You may have an inkling of the answer.
I started on this maddening journey of wondering who I am in my early twenties, around your age.
What is my story? And how did I let go of who I thought I was and enter into a profound, undivided Wholeness, that there was no such thing as a separate self, where I realized I was nobody and was at complete peace with that?
I don’t know if you know this, my son, but did you know that I believe love to be the beacon of my life? Yet, at some point, Love did come to me, but not how I expected it to. Love waited patiently for me as I tossed and turned uncomfortably, trying to find her, yet constantly searching in the wrong places. From a young age, I assumed she would sing to me from the mouth of a beautiful woman to where I would discover love’s infinite depths.
I looked outward upon my meandering journey. Ah, but no, she wasn’t waiting for me there either. She wasn’t in all the churches, temples, or mosques. She wasn’t in school or external validation. She wasn’t in the culture. She wasn’t in the past or the future. She wasn’t in Gods or spirituality or gurus.
It took me many years to finally comprehend that the nature of the pathless journey is to stop searching and seeking. It is in giving up the search and surrendering to what is. The journey within is to stop escaping finally. Here, one begins to let go of everything false, seeing that any idea, thought, belief, or identity can’t be oneself. Anything built by thought can’t be oneself.
Thought is built from the past, past knowledge, past experiences, and memories. All of thought can not be in the living present. The only place that one can indeed exist in is the present. In surrendering and releasing all that is false, I discovered that the only true thing is Wholeness, the immeasurable presence of Now that is everything and nothing, in which there is no separation, just an all-pervasive indescribable oneness. The expression of Wholeness is Love. See, Love was here all along. And this Love was beyond the mind and had no particular inclinations or form. All was in Love’s embrace. Here, I saw that there was and will never be anything wrong in the world or universe. So it may be strange for me to say how our culture is dysfunctional and is in our minds. Yet, what I am pointing to is that this culture is a way of thinking, it is a way of dreaming. This type of dreaming creates sorrow. I can decide to stop playing this silly game at any time.
What a journey it has been. A journey that led me to see that truth was in the pathless land that lay in the simplicity of Now.
The river of life is an intricate, rich, immeasurably interconnected, wondrous flow of Wholeness. Children, unless born into and shackled with abusive parents, see the world through eyes of wonder and curiosity. Here, one sees the rich beauty and interconnectivity of the world around us.
Yet I understood, my son, that our culture, like cancer, strips this wonder away from us through the way we are educated and from the environment in which we grow up and conditions us to think we are separate and in competition with each other and thereby we develop psychological fear. I will soon get into more detail about our culture and how this is all a delusion. It is not true. All thought is imagined. All the drama in our culture is imagined by how we are conditioned to think. Flow and presence can feel impossible once we become stuck in the conduits of our conditioned thinking and conform to thought delusion. The immeasurable is entered in the quiet stillness of the mind, and all that is left is Truth.
— — -
Like you, as a young child, and like many other children who had the privilege to be free to play with life, I would wander, explore, and get dirty with nature’s intricate webs of life. (Important note, my son: Every child should have the privilege to be free and play. And as I will illustrate, this hierarchical culture makes this impossible for many families and children. Know your privilege of being a young white male, but never abuse it. Do what you can to make society egalitarian.)
During these initial essential years, I was in love with everything without knowing it.
This love expressed itself in an innate wonder about the universe that I felt deeply interwoven with. I would wonder about the night sky and all the different species that shared their existence with me.
This wonder led me to imagine traveling into the stars and the incredible beauty of the Milky Way galaxy that spread her mist across the darkened sky.
This wonder led me to explore the wild desert hills and the interconnected relations of flora and fauna behind my Southern California home.
This wonder and time to explore led me to see such intelligence in the eyes of the animals I came into contact with.
This wonder led me to feel the energy flowing through the trees I climbed.
This wonder led me to run as fast as possible and as far as I could go to feel the joy and energy flowing through my body.
This wonder led me to see such mystery of the Universe that, at times, I was overwhelmed.
I was in love with love. At around age 5, I came up with the idea that love would emerge from contact with girls. Maybe it was from sensing this Disney idea of happily ever after when you meet the love of one’s life. Yes, somehow, I knew that love was my journey, but I didn’t know that she had no form. Somehow I knew that love was at the heart of myself.
Yet, at my young age, I assumed that it would happen in finding it in the dance of a relationship with a girl, and in particular, what I wanted to believe was a soulmate who would be out there waiting for me. This craving and delusion led me into a shell of shyness and fear of girls, for if they didn’t accept me, then where was love? What if I chose the wrong person? How would I know? Who would it be? This dance continued until my 40s when I realized that the love I had been pursuing wasn’t love at all. Unbeknownst to me was my odyssey into the wild, where I felt alive and whole, where my mind pulsated with wonder, was when I lived in love without trying.
School was where I began to sense that there was something off, though I had no conscious idea of what this meant. Initially, school seemed to me full of magic. I assumed that school was full of learning and exploration. From preschool through third grade, this was the case. I had some fantastic teachers who taught outside the prescribed box of education. They took time to get to know their students and listened to our interests. I loved learning to read and would enjoy writing fantastic, imaginative stories. We dove into the workings of numbers and shapes. We played out historical periods in plays. We played games outside, and laughter and joy spilled like summer rain.
However, this joy for school ended in fourth grade. I always hoped for you that your Mom and I could be a buffer from the impacts of our educational system upon you and your potential. I knew that school would force you to memorize and learn that you had no interest or connection to. I knew that even in the best of schools, your voice would be quieted even if you couldn’t see it. You found some joy in school, but I think it was more your connections to your friends and love of soccer that helped you get through.
By the age of 9, things had begun to change. I started to sense that my parents had begun to have certain expectations of who I should be and how I should behave, especially in school. My actions were either accepted or seen as wrong and illustrated that something within myself was incorrect and not okay. There was little dialogue about understanding why these actions were good or bad, and there was no understanding of why they arose in the first place. Without having conversations around these things to see what this meant, I was left to decipher this on my own with a young child’s brain. I began to sense that something was inherently wrong in the world and possibly inside myself.
I didn’t understand school anymore. I had no choice but to go. I had no choice in what I was to learn. There were specific acceptable questions that one could ask, and one quickly realized that most teachers did not tolerate more in-depth questioning. However, teachers were not necessarily the problem. The setup of the school day, the curriculum that must be followed, and the lack of time to go into anything in-depth forced many teachers to conform to the system.
I began comprehending that the school system wasn’t about learning and that a child’s voice didn’t matter. It was as if I had to hold a particular cultural standard role to be respected and recognized, and I knew this standard wasn’t me. Also, clicks were being made, social groups solidified, and a growing hierarchy within the peer collective was emerging. We were being conditioned to judge and compare each other. This was mostly very subtle and, unbeknownst to most of us, a way in which we were all trying to find safety in a place that didn’t feel psychologically safe. I internalized this as if something was wrong with me without knowing I was doing so. Yet, the school system was doing what it was intended to do. Force out wonder and curiosity, and condition children to follow authority, compare, develop hierarchical thinking, and, in time, fit into being either obedient workers or inhuman CEOs.
My school looked like a prison and felt like a prison. I had no choice in what I was to learn. I was taught that learning had a goal and that my knowledge was judged. I was essentially told that I wasn’t okay with who I was and that I needed to work hard, compete, and push through classes to get the grades that would lead me to societal success. I was graded to measure what I had learned through tests, papers, and projects. This judging subtly told me whether I was smart enough or how well I compared to my friends and peers. This form of coercive education had nothing to do with learning. It was about conditioning my peers and me to fit into this society. Our educational system was making us stupid and unaware. Education subjugated us into ignorance and to buy into the economic dictates of this culture. Education herded us into ignorance.
Over time, our education system destroyed my love of learning. I hated school, but I couldn’t articulate the reasons. I fought with your Grandparents, especially around school. The message was that if I didn’t study hard and earn good grades, I would make a mess out of my life. This makes sense, as they were taught the same thing. It was all about fitting into a civilized hierarchical system. To your Grandparents, they didn’t want to see me fall down the hierarchical ladder. They perceived the lower rungs as being unsuccessful and not meeting my potential. I also see now that this was another way of tamping down wonder, for wonder is deeply connected to the wild wonder of the Universe. By trying to kill wonder, we kill the innate wildness and freedom of being. Though nobody would ever say that there is a want to kill wonder, the actions of how we are educated to fit into a role within the hierarchy is killing wonder.
— — -
Even as a young child, I was also confused by our culture. I didn’t understand wars. How did that solve anything? Was blowing up other people supposed to create peace? That made no sense, even to a young child. I didn’t know why we destroyed nature. How is it that we destroyed the very thing that gave us life and that we are a part of? I didn’t understand poverty. How is it that many people struggle and have limited resources, and we haven’t focused our attention on helping them out of this cycle? That didn’t seem like community to me. I didn’t understand ownership. Who gets to own things and why? Why couldn’t we live with a community of people and share?
This society was built into a perpetuation of separative egos that are programmed to compete within a debilitating class system. I didn’t want to be a part of this. My parents thought I was probably angry or lazy because my actions mirrored that. However, it was much more profound for me. I was lost in navigating a system I hated, yet I still had to participate. I felt that there had to be a better way to live.
I didn’t like authority. I see now that at a subtle level, I knew that following authority wasn’t learning and that authority was no path to truth and love. Authority was about power and prescriptions and took one away from living one’s authentic life full of joy and freedom.
Again, authoritative structures were taught in society, and it would be hard to question this. Yet, a school system based on authority and control is fear-based, and what is in the beginning is in the end. Instead of giving voice, authority squashed deep reflection and critical and contemplative thinking. Most children learn to obey authority, for they see the consequences of acting out and quickly become followers of the dominant society and fall into the roles our culture tells them to play. At some level, I knew I didn’t want to lose my voice or wonder, so I fought against it. Again, there was no way I could explain this at the time.
I was bullied relentlessly, beginning around the age of nine. This had a profound effect on my psyche. This trauma led me to internalize their abuse and to create the belief that I was what they said so that they couldn’t hurt me. My self-esteem was shot. Every day, I felt confused. I was lonely, though I had friends. All my relationships were superficial. This was because we were all being conditioned to be superficial with made-up values that had no meaning. We believed in what our parents believed, not just in their outward beliefs like religion, but in how they thought. We normalize what is around us and digest their thought patterns without question. We followed what we thought society wanted us to be. To have authentic, deep dialogues was unheard of.
I had no idea who I was. I grasped at many things to find some connection, yet everything seemed like ash. Somehow, I kept wearing masks to fool people into thinking I was confident and okay. Inside, though, I was in constant conflict.
By the time I enrolled in college, I struggled to control my life. I had been dealing with anxiety and conflict while falling into a deeper and deeper depression. A constant battle between judgment, hate, love, and kindness consumed my life. Confusion was my constant companion.
However, one day, I finally stopped and listened.
The path I was on was exhausting me and leaving me feeling empty. I held onto certain beliefs for comfort, but it was like trying to bandage a fractured bone. I was suffering deeply despite living in the upper levels of our class system. I came to realize that suffering is a part of our culture’s dysfunctional class system, regardless of one’s position in the hierarchy. Plus, if one is aware, one would see that by being in the upper levels, one oppresses others through the choices one makes to keep that position.
Materialism can never fill the void of disconnect. I felt this deeply. Until I came to the point where I felt like I had nowhere to go. Then, I finally surrendered. The summer after my sophomore year at the University of Oregon, I stopped fighting, gave up, and finally listened. Another way of putting this is that I stopped wanting to play the game. I was done being fake and wanted to know what was true. I was 19, and there was no trying to let go. I was done.
I played basketball with my friend Matt on a beautiful summer day in Eugene, Oregon. We tossed the ball around for a while and then played a few pickup games. After our last game, sweaty and exhausted, Matt asked me while we were walking back to our dorm if I wanted to drop acid with him and some of his friends the next day. I didn’t know much about LSD at that time but had heard it was a psychedelic drug. I had no idea it would be an experience beyond anything I could imagine. I was curious and felt like I had nothing to lose.
At the time, I did not know that research would illustrate how psychedelics could open one’s mind to seeing oneself and the world differently and help people with depression, suicidal ideations, and end-of-life experiences. However, I knew that a part of me was looking for something to open me and that maybe this could be the spark.
Matt and three friends met me at the basketball court the next day. Matt gave us all a small stamp and instructed us to place it under our tongues and keep it there. He put it on my finger, and I immediately put it in my mouth. The stamp had no taste and dissolved after a few minutes. I had no idea what to expect.
— — -
The weather was lovely, so we decided to take a leisurely walk without a particular destination. We talked and wandered around, enjoying the moment. At this point, I felt relaxed and fully present. However, after about 30 minutes, I began to feel a lightness spreading through my entire being. It was as if the sun was within me. I realized I needed to be alone; something was happening, and I didn’t want to talk. My mind was hollow, and my thoughts had dissipated. I tried to sit quietly with no one around me and experience what was happening. So, I asked them to continue walking and told them I’d sit alone.
I found myself standing on a cliff overlooking a winding river. Soft white clouds drifted across the clear, tranquil sky. The river was a serene blue, moving slowly and steadily, constantly changing yet timeless. The chirping of birds was like bursts of color flowing into the peace I felt.
Time stood still. Suddenly, I felt completely absorbed by an expanding silence. My thoughts vanished as my self dissolved, and pure awareness made everything crystal clear. This awareness removed all the fragmentation and fear from my mind. A soft lightness of stillness flowed in an indescribable presence. Since my personalized self was built out of thought and conditioning, there was no personalized self. With all thoughts quieted and conditioning dissolved, I was completely present in the Now. Everything was one, and there was no division anywhere. I, the earth, and the Universe merged into an immeasurable oneness. As there was no me to join anything, there was no separation. An indescribable energy couldn’t be contained, yet there was no knowledge of it because I was it. I was part of everything all at once; it was NOW, the ultimate source of reality, the immeasurable.
Without trying, I had let go of the tiller. All was clear. I was the boat, the wind, the sun, the water, the bugs, the grass; I was sailing as one with the universe. I was the Universe. I was everything and nothing. I saw clearly that I am you, and you are me. I was every person who has been, who is, and who will be. I was every creature, all rivers, oceans, earth, sun, moon, and stars. All of it. There was nothing that wasn’t myself. In other words, all is Wholeness, and Wholeness is all.
It wasn’t until later that I could describe what had happened. I understood entirely that control was an illusion. I saw that all thoughts are conditioned and that I was a menagerie of enculturated ideas. I saw that I had been playing out societal perpetuated roles. I noticed that the hell I was living was created by my thinking, built by my past conditioning and societal influences, especially by my education. SociI saw that the business of my life kept me in numbness and from feeling alive as I tried to distract myself from my inner pain. I noticed that our culture was dissected from nature because of ignorance.
I saw that our culture had created a way directly opposed to goodness and love, for it was born out of separation and fear. I realized that I was living in a dream and now waking up. The only real was Now. Truth is Now. I was ultimately in the Now, a complete presence with no beginning or end, no definitions, no identifications, no beliefs, no inside or outside, no thoughts, but simply complete and utter wholeness — holiness. Holiness… Joy lit up everything like warm golden shafts of sunlight. I knew directly that I was completely okay and beautiful and perfect. I knew nobody could dictate my life unless I gave them the power to do so. I had let go of my tiller. I had let go of my enculturated self. I had let go of everything. All was, is, and will be flowed through an indefinable wholeness. An inferno of clarity consumed all my illusions and transformed them into dust.
I understand that letting go of all beliefs, opinions, and thoughts is the key to dissolving the ego. This awareness is so all-encompassing that there is no separation from what is present. It is listening without direction, hope, or craving and being fully present in the Now. Through this presence, I have realized that thoughts, beliefs, and identities can never be the true self, as they are merely images, memories, and knowledge from the past. They can never be what indeed exists in the present moment.
I was in bliss and was in love with life. What felt like no time had been 3 hours. My ego came back, yet I was changed. Even though I had this blissful awakening, I was far from done. The road forward would be challenging, lonely, and sometimes brutal, for my ego fought to continue and not let go of its hold. I didn’t know what to do or how to dig in. I had glimpses of wholeness for many years, yet I would slip back into my ego.
It wasn’t until I picked up a book by Jiddu Krishnamurti that I began to see a way out of the prison of my enculturated mind. He pointed to questioning thoughts, so I started digging into my thought patterns. And as I observed my thoughts without trying to change them, without fighting against them, my unconscious, conditioned self began to reveal itself.
As I stopped trying to push down or hide away from my suffering, my unconscious thoughts and deep beliefs about myself emerged. I started going into the darkest recesses of my mind, the tangled mythological forests of enculturated identities, traumas, defenses, and attachments. I came to see how the moment-to-moment act of awareness– of one’s thoughts, fears, worries, ruminations, doubts, and aspirations– is how one begins to let go of desire and attachments without trying.
My son, the simple key to understanding yourself and discovering the deep, immeasurable, infinite quiet stillness is awareness. Yet, awareness is not easy to grasp, for it can’t be grasped. Because of our constant thoughting, we may seem aware or listening, but in reality, we are constantly discerning with thought, which distorts our seeing. Awareness is an immeasurable presence of everything happening in the Now. It does not try to change, manipulate, look for good or bad, label, or categorize. Awareness is open, and one sees what is direct. Here, in this presence, one sees what is false without trying to do anything to it; in that seeing, the false disappears like mist.
One could describe this as part of the hero’s journey, which Joseph Campbell is talking about. “You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. You will not realize your potential if you follow someone else’s way.” The ego wanted to hold onto the thought apparatus and attachments. Yet, in awareness, I was directly observing that these attachments were nothing more than phantoms. But, along this journey, there came to be more letting go, more moments of insight, and flashes of pure joy. The more I slayed my ignorance, the more I could see and find my inner health, and the more I drew into an indescribable quiet. This journey also illuminated that life in its diversity is one, that there is no need for authority, and by tapping into wholeness, we can be in joy and love and live sustainability with each other and the earth. It was also confronting the hierarchical structure and the deep understanding that wealth has nothing to do with joy or true success that helped me see that the psychological issues are a direct result of living within the confines of this culture.
There is a profound quiet in wholeness. Jiddu Krishnamurti described this silence beautifully. “So we are talking of a stillness that is not dependent on anything. And it is only that quality of stillness, that absolute silence of the mind, that can see that which is eternal, timeless, nameless. This is meditation….Silence is difficult and arduous; it is not to be played with. It isn’t something you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, sitting together, or retiring into a wood or monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, and your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence.” Wholeness is accessible to everyone. And as he points out, it demands diving into listening, listening into our psyche and again, burning away with the fire of awareness all that is false. Awareness must be present in all our reactions and actions if one is to be free.
Waking up and living in love, truth, and compassion was the journey I had no choice but to embark upon, no matter what would be placed on my path. The journey was not easy. There were periods of struggle and setbacks. I thought I was somewhere and realized that I had further to go. I reverted to old habits, seeking the same wholeness I felt in college. Yet, this search was actually keeping me from wholeness. It was like Hermann Hesse’s character Siddhartha, who had to discover himself by finally stopping and listening after searching for truth through experiences. Siddhartha learned to stop searching near the end of his journey. Enlightenment didn’t arise until he was finally still that he finally awakened.
In my mid-40s when I stopped running away and searching for truth. Instead, I did a deep dive into awareness, confronted what was false, what was this I, until all that was left was truth. I shed ignorance within me, not in time, but in awareness. This helped me comprehend how our cultural conditioning gives birth to a self that is rooted in fear and separation. This self seeks security in the familiar and comfortable or takes extreme risks to escape itself. Both of these tendencies are driven by a desire to escape the enculturated ego. However, I realized that by transcending my conditioned self, these fears were nothing more than illusions and delusions I had created. In truth, Wholeness is all there is. It is what I came to understand, Sri Nisagaddata Maharaj, pointing out: “It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false, and you are free of pain; truth makes you happy and liberates…..The sense of ‘I am’ is your own. You cannot part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as in saying, I am young, rich, and so on. But such self-identifications are patently false and the cause of bondage.”
This sense in us, the I am, is there waiting. Yet, it is not the I, we think or believe it to be. There is no methodology or prescribed way or one is just following authority and escaping. Finally stopping and looking with wonder is where understanding is. In the understanding is when the false is let go of. Remove the false. And keep going further, until nothing is left but what can’t be measured or expressed. This is beyond even the I am. Wholeness has no labels or bounds. It flows through all and is all. Wholeness lies waiting in presence. Yet, as I have pointed out, being aware and open is so simple yet feels so far away, for we have been conditioned to put up defensive walls and to follow the guise of authority.
By not relenting and continuing to wonder and enflame one’s mind with awareness, I understood and burned through the layers of desires, attachments, and beliefs. Through awareness, I understood my delusions of clinging and sense of a personal self were illusions. Again, this isn’t a trying to get rid of but a direct seeing into the nature of thought and the enculturated self; one that points to what lies within us and how culture imprisons us into a dream state that covers up who one is.
There is only one thing, and there has only been one thing that can transform our society.
See my Son, the only thing one can do, the only thing that matters, the only thing left, is to take the arduous journey into oneself and discover who you truly are. Society is not outside of you; society is us. Society is both the conditioner and that which is conditioned. It is all of us, and we are it. Culture is the very nature in which we think.
Here is something to wonder about. If we can begin to see that who we are is nobody, we will discover there are different ways we can live together on this planet. And I mean nobody in the sense that one is completely okay in the here and now without having a desire based on insecurity to become somebody. I wonder if we lived in a place of complete okayness, that there would be no need for Government or State to dictate our lives. There is no need for hierarchy or power structures. There is no need for oppression or domination. There is no need for war or environmental destruction. There is no bettering oneself for there is no personalized self to get better.
My son, to wake up and confront enculturated conditioned dysfunction, you must take the journey within, dig underneath your conditioned thought-induced self to directly see it for what it is, an illusion, and discover the quiet, utter stillness beyond all knowledge. This is the only way to wake up from our cultural dream state. Nobody can do it for you. Only on can take this journey. There can be many pointers and people to support you on the journey, but the psychological journey can only be taken by oneself. People, religions, and psychedelics can only point the way. In the end, as in the beginning, this heroic journey must be taken alone.
The journey to discover who one is is the most extraordinary journey you could ever embark on. This journey leads one through the dark caverns of what was once repressed or conditioned out in the open light of pure awareness. The journey is simple: letting go of all that is false with the light of awareness until all that remains is truth. This journey is shedding off all identifications and beliefs that hold us back from meeting our fullest potential.
Who you are is beyond anything one can imagine. Who you are isn’t in the pathways of thought. Who you are isn’t in the confines of conditioning. Who you are is beyond the realm of time or measurement. Who you are is not separate, isolated, nor stuck in the pathways of desire, identity, or belief. This journey is about being aware, in the quiet listening of your mind, for the mind is what causes all delusion. Through inward listening, one shall see that the conditioned self you bring into your daily adventure is not who you are but part of the cultural dreamscape satiated in sorrow and drama. In listening, you shall see the most profound sense of wholeness, interconnectivity, and love: that you are all, and all is you.
You will see that only when your mind becomes quiet will you see clarity. This is simplicity. Presence. Here is where you tap into Wholeness. Here, desires dissolve like fog on an early morning summer day. Here, there is no need for any power structure or the State. By bringing a way of living with the planet in wholeness, interconnection and sustainability come into being.
Ah, living in Wholeness and love is a difficult task. At first glance, it is much easier to live in drama. My son, most people are terrified of sitting quietly with themselves and beginning this journey within. Most have lost sensitivity to the world. They are playing out roles, thinking with second-hand information, and have lost wonder and curiosity. Yet, there is a way to ignite wonder and sensitivity if you ever lose this within yourself. At first, the journey into oneself seems like an arduous undertaking. This journey brings you into the dominion of ignorance and pain, the nature of our enculturated self, the self you are attached to and don’t want to let go of. It will bring into question your beliefs, assumptions, and opinions built into you throughout your life and the understanding that society is not somewhere outside of you but instead is how you think. It will confront your comfort with your attachment to the known in all intents and practices. Yet, the irony is that suffering is always with you, no matter how far you push it down, and those pains you think you have covered impact your actions every step of the way.
As you confront your walls of belief, you shall see that those walls do nothing but create more hurt and suffering in the long run. These walls force one into constant conflict, blocking one from seeing the essence of who one is. These walls create great suffering because, in actuality, they do not defend us from pain or hurt. Instead, pain and discomfort get buried in your body and dwell as unconscious, unresolved issues. To see this, one needs to be present and aware.
You will see directly into what is when you listen without escaping or desiring to gain something or to be somewhere else. In this awareness is clarity. The false is seen and disappears through awareness, while truth emerges underneath our delusion.
To be awake means to be in truth. This means being aware of what is false, such as personalized thoughting. It means looking at your beliefs and opinions and seeing how they influence your actions. It means not to run away from or even fight complicated feelings but to listen and look at them and see what is false or true. It is to tear away the false, to get down to the very core of truth. This can be painful, so most people like to stay in the known. The known is secure. You think we know what it is we know. There is a false sense of security in this. But it is here that you become enslaved and dead to life. With awareness, one can become the hero within, slay one’s ignorance, and open into the light of awakening.
Suppose you can go through the process of cutting away your emotional attachments, confronting fear head-on, to begin going further, to touch the core of truth. In that case, you may discover that life is extraordinary as the chains are thrown out. Thoreau put it nicely. He said, “Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvium which covers the globe…through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin…”
What holds one back is one’s mind. Scott Forbes said, “It is not so much the things outside the mind that enslaves people. It is the inner attachments.” To look, you must be honest with yourself and not run away. By doing so, you can begin trusting in life. It also means that you start to see that the world you have existed in is built by the way you think about the world. How you see the world is produced and orchestrated by your thoughts.
The beautiful thing is that you can wake up whenever you want. Wholeness and love can never be destroyed, and they always are. Take the journey into the self, and you will see that this is the case. This can happen if you learn to stop and listen openly and have the courage to dive into truth and destroy ignorance. In this pause, listening is wonder as one is tapping into presence. Presence is right here, right now, beyond time or measurement, always. Instead of reacting to thought, this is where we listen and observe and see what enculturated thinking is — fragmented measuring based on cultural conditioning.
In awareness, Wholeness is tapped into, and love and freedom flow. In love is Wholeness, an immeasurable flow that lies in all. Psychological fear and acquisition no longer exist here, for there is no artificial self to get anywhere.
Love is Now. In love, hierarchy disappears like mist. Love is unconditioned and has no bounds. Love cannot be destroyed, no matter how hard we try. In love is an all-pervading joy and goodness that flows without constraint. In love, one lives in the quiet stillness, rooted in the unchanging Truth: Wholeness, all that is.
