Sometimes I ask myself this: If this were to be my last opportunity to say something that might be of use, what might I say? What would I wish for people? 

That they not miss the moment. Not miss life, the very thing. The now of it. That the mental noise abate enough, some part of every day – some bunch of nows – that they really see, really feel, that they are here. That they are alive, aware of the moment they’re in – the moment that is what they are. Because all they have of themselves, really, is the deeply personal encounter with this fleeting bit of reality. However much it might seem to be otherwise, however compelling the impression of an ongoing self, having a history and opinions and aspirations (all of which live in the mind, not in life itself).

If I could bring this about for someone, the last time I were to open my mouth or put pen to paper, this is what I would do. It would be enough. Not missing your life is enough. Is abundant. Never mind if you have a big awakening.

But anyway, where else does awakening occur but in the now, in a moment of juicy, sumptuous life? Awareness feeling itself happening, tingly with apprehension of the smell or feel or taste of a thing. Where else but this moment can the revelation occur?

So it’s a win-win situation. You may wake up, really wake up: never resist again, never again get lost in thought, or be subject to mind-caused torment, finally knowing what you deeply are. You may not. Probably you won’t. Hardly anybody does come to this.

But meanwhile, you won’t miss your life! When it comes time to die, you won’t have missed the precious thing – the only thing you ever could have had. You’ll have paid attention, a good chunk of your allotted time, to what was right in front of you. Good and bad, the pain in the ass, all of it. You won’t have failed to pause to feel the wind on your face, to let it mess up your hair. You won’t have stopped your heart from breaking, when it needed to break. You’ll have allowed yourself to rest, when rest was needed. You won’t be sorry it’s come time to die.

All you have, or ever will, is this moment. It’s a jewel in your hand. But briefly, oh so briefly: because here, now, is another. Nothing lasts. You cannot experience anything later (however much your mind might try to get you to). This is the human condition, from which there is no escape. And why would you want to be someplace else? Why see life as being clamped into handcuffs, your fists at your back? There is no solace in fearing what’s ahead. Isn’t life a feast? It better be. It is restful to be here, to really be here, without lament.

In the play Our Town, the character known as the stage manager asks the audience this: Does anybody ever live a life fueled by the knowing that something in us is eternal? Not eternal as in outlasting death. Eternal as in not-caught-up-in-time. The stage manager is asking if we feel the ongoing stillness within ourselves, the timeless thing that’s devoid of content or motion or trouble of any sort. The now, really felt, is vast and motionless. It goes as far as the sky goes. He is pleading with us to get that, while we’re alive.

Feel that, and time isn’t a prison. Death isn’t a bad guy. Aging isn’t an enemy. Every day is your best friend, the most cherished thing, whatever it may bring. A heap of miracles, every one of them imperfect and ordinary and not to be missed. When you stop asking life to “make you happy” – when you sense, at least occasionally, this inner stillness – then life is allowed to be itself, as it comes, moment to moment.

Learn to savor the simple, the plain act that is just itself, without needing to have meaning, without needing to get someplace better. The simple gesture of running the sponge over the soapy plate, a round face without expression. There is no thought for being finished, for the next dish, or for what happens after the dishes are done. Walking up the stairs: just this step, this foot on the wood. It’s not about getting someplace. The exquisite pleasure of the flex of muscle (even if it’s sore), the pressure of the foot against the surface (even if the stairs need repair or sweeping). Even with the body in motion, always there is the stillness.

This is the thing we want. It’s how the presence of the eternal is felt to be alive in the ordinary reality of the lived moment. It’s not by trying to become different from how you are. It’s not (God help us) by trying to wake up! It’s about paying attention to what you’re doing. Laying a stick of wood onto the fire inside the stove, the feel of the cut surface against fingers and palm. Bending to put the scoop of cat food into the little dish. Pausing to watch the whiskered face lower itself to the fragrant morsel, as if in prayer. (Where do you suppose the cat is, ever, but in this precious moment?)

This is the whole thing. This is it, what life is for. This is the fulfillment, the encounter with the beloved.

Someone asked recently about the meaning of life. Don’t look in the usual places, I said. If you have to go looking in your head to find some meaning, that isn’t it. If there are words for it, that isn’t it.

Do you notice what the warm coffee feels like going down your throat? Do you stop to watch the cat enjoy its supper? Did you think it was supposed to be grander than that? What possible “meaning” could come near to feeling yourself be alive?

The best thing that can ever happen is when things stop meaning something. When whatever comes along, or whatever gets done, is left to be its plain self. Unelaborated, unadorned, unnamed. The end of infernal interpretation! The radical relief of it.

In the absence of all that familiar handling, the world floods the scene. Into the open palms come the feet of little birds. Everything is new, as if never seen before. Thank you is the only thing left to be said.

Jan Frazier’s Website

You are never far from healing,
for healing is not a destination.
It is more like a remembering;
a constant invitation.

It is like the Sun; always there,
yet sometimes hidden
by innocent clouds.

When you feel far from healing,
when doubt rages, and sorrow fills your being,
and pain stings and burns;
when yesterday’s joys seem so far away,
and tomorrow’s happiness is a distant fantasy;
when you feel like you’re living the wrong life,
and nothing seems possible,
stop, just for a moment.

Bring your attention out of past and future.
Invite curiosity into the moment.
Into the body, the breath.
This living scene. This day, this hour.

What’s it like to be alive, just for a moment?

Can you feel your feet on the earth?

Can you feel your belly rise and fall?

What if you’re not far from healing?

What if you’re not actually broken?

What if healing IS presence?

This timeless sense of being alive?

What if the future is unknown, and your fears are all in your mind?

What if the Sun never stops shining,
even as the storm rages?

– Jeff Foster

Question: “…I contacted you almost 4 years ago when my husband of 20 years, and the kindest, most supportive and best friend I’ve ever had, died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 43. I contacted you soon after and asked your thoughts about seeing a world famous medium and you said I should do whatever might help. I have received many messages of support from him since then in the form of readings from various mediums, a host of coincidences and even sightings in my daily life. These have been a great help in my embracing our eventually being reunited when I die. That said, I can’t apply the Course teachings to everything else and not this. If everything I experience here is what I’ve asked for that means all of my husband’s messages are coming from me and not him and that is crushing me. Literally. And now, the personal thought system is constantly telling me that if I continue with my Course studies, my husband will disappear from my memory because he was nothing but my own projection and that when I die I will not remember him and will never see him again and this, more than anything else, has interrupted and stalled my progress…Ken (Wapnick) said that the thoughts of love we have here are but shadows of what is beyond and you explained that Tim was a manifestation of the Love that I am. It’s all so confusing to me. Obviously I can’t go back, but I also do not want to give up the hope that I’ll see my husband again…” – SB

Liz’s Response: Only the Truth is eternal and unchanging. If you have something and lose it, it was an illusion. You seem to feel that either your husband was the source of your well-being or your relationship with him was the source of your well-being. If your well-being falls away when he is gone then it is not real, lasting well-being. It is an illusion of well-being.

But the good news is that you do have a Source of eternal, unchanging well-being within you. You won’t let go of your husband as long as you think he is the source of your well-being. You will let him go naturally when the Truth is true for you and you know that you can rest in Its eternal peace. There is no reason for you to feel guilty for your mistaking the source of your well-being. The Truth in you goes on whole and perfect, untouched by this. The path to true Peace, for everyone, is one of holding onto idols while growing your awareness of Truth. No one releases idols until they see that they do not work and they are aware of What does work. Your having an idol simply means that you are not yet aware enough of Truth to not have an idol. Growing that awareness is a process.

You also do not have to fear that you will lose idols that you are not ready to release. Nothing can be taken from you. What falls away does so because you are ready for it to do so. However, it is true that you will not continue on a path that you do not believe will bring you the unchanging peace that you seek. When you find yourself fearing that you may lose the memory of your husband as the source of your well-being remind yourself that this will fall away only when permanent Peace has come into your awareness. At that point you will not experience any loss. You will then remember your relationship with him, not as an idol that was the source of your well-being, but as a manifestation of your eternal well-being. There will no longer be any fear associated with this memory.

We have built up a set of ego habits for gaining satisfaction. For some it involves pleasure; for others, more neurotic, it involves pain. As you look at many people’s lives you see that their suffering is in a way gratifying, for they are comfortable in it. They make their lives a living hell, but a familiar one.

This network of thoughts has been your home since you can remember. Your home is safe and familiar. It may be sad and painful sometimes, but it’s home. And besides, you’ve never known any other. Because this structure has always been your home, you assume that it is what reality is – that your thoughts are Reality with a capital R.

If you start to use a method that makes gaps in this web of thoughts of who you are and what reality is, and if it lets the sunlight in and you peek out for a moment, might you not get frightened as the comforting walls of ego start to crumble? Might you not prefer the security of this familiar prison, grim though it sometimes may be, to the uncertainty of the unknown? You might at that point pull back toward the familiarity of your pain.

That is the critical point. For here is your choice: Whether you truly wish to escape from the prison or are just fooling yourself. For your ego includes both the suffering and the desire to be free of the suffering. Sometimes we use cures halfheartedly, with the secret hope that the cures will not work. Then we can hold on to our suffering while protesting we want to get free. But meditation does work. It gives you moments of sunlight – of clarity and detachment. Sooner or later you must either stop meditating, do it in a dishonest way, or confront your resistance to change.

When you begin meditation you may approach it as you would a new course in school, a new method to learn, a new goal to achieve. In the past when you took a new course you studied the rules of the game so you’d do well. You wanted to receive a high grade from the teacher, to get approval, or to be more powerful. As you advance in meditation, these external motives fall away. You begin to feel a spiritual pull from within. It is profound and it is scary.

– Ram Dass

One day I went atraipsing down to Windward Side.
There was a full moon blazing; the ocean at low tide.
I’d found a wild hair and convinced it was my night,
I went down to Windward grabbing everything in sight
As I was gadding all about, for twas all a lark to me,
I stumbled into an alleyway, far too dark to see.
I saw, when my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom,
I was in no alley but a tattered smoky room.
Sitting in the far corner on a faded flower rug
Was a wrinkled old woman, her hand cupped around a mug.
Just as I glimpsed her, she beckoned me come near.
So I strutted on over, for what had I to fear.
I stood before her and she motioned me to sit
But I wanted t’know where I was and I’s taking none of it.
I was about to ask if my prankster friends were back in town
But instead, to my astonishment, I just sat right down.
I seemed to know what was to come, though we spoke not at all
For that was no mug in her hands but a crystal ball.
She reached out with her wrinkled paws, took my hands in hers,
Placed them on the milky sphere and the clouds began to stir.
“Don’t be afeared, my sweet,” she said, “I know what you’re looking for.
Unhappy with what you have at home, you’re looking to find more.
But I see no tall, dark stranger in your future trail
Nor, in truth, fame or riches, can I tell you of in detail.
Nor can I promise only happiness will be your destiny
But then, do you want the truth or only what you’d like to see?”
So I reached into myself to find out what I wanted to know
Then looked up and told her what I wished she would show
“Welcome to Windward Side,” she said, and her eyes took on a glow.
“Few choose windward to be the direction they want to go.
Now look into the crystal ball and to your future you’ll see the key.”
So I took a deep breath and peered inside, almost afraid to see.
Then..A figure took shape that I recognized and surprised as could be
I gasped…as I beheld the key…the key to my destiny, you see,
The figure was familiar because what I saw was me.

I have a covenant with the world.
It is that things will always end.
It is a promise that the divine has given to me and that never breaks.

Sorrow will end.
Happiness will end.
Pain will end.
Longing will end.
Life will end.
Death will end.
Thought will end.
Hunger will end.
Purpose will end.
Joy will end.

All things end. That is the covenant. And in that there is freedom.

Freedom to grieve now.
Freedom to smile now.
Freedom to cry now.
Freedom to reminisce now.
Freedom to live now.
Freedom to die now.
Freedom to crave now.
Freedom to search now.
Freedom to love now.

The perennial question regarding the purpose of life has been answered.
Change is the greatest thing.
That is why the best part of love is letting go.

Once upon a time as this mind’s awareness of Truth grew the natural result was that this mind came to experience that it was “in the world but not of the world”, as the popular phrase goes. This meant that it felt that it was still a self operating in the world but that it had a growing awareness that its interest was really in Truth. It was a lot like being at a party but standing on the edge of the room and watching the party rather than fully participating in it.

Then this mind attained an experience of detachment that was “not in the world but aware of the world”. This meant that it no longer lived through the self to fulfill a sense of lack but that there was still a world in its awareness. This was a lot like being outside of the house in which a party was occurring but still being aware that there was a party.

Now this mind is attaining an awareness that it is “not in a world but aware of a meaningless idea of a world”. This is like being in a quiet place and remembering that once it had an idea, far distant now, of a party that was only ever an idea.

In the A Course in Miracles community there is a lot of talk about “observing the world” and “observing your thoughts”. This practice comes naturally as a mind’s awareness of Truth results in it experiencing itself as apart from the world and its own thoughts about the world. At first this detachment is vague but grows as one’s awareness of Truth grows. This first experience of observing helps a mind to gain an awareness that the ego’s (personal thought system’s) thoughts are not the mind. Since the mind can observe them, the mind cannot be them. This practice results in the first two experiences described above. It is done by mind as a “decision maker” or “learner”. This is when it still makes sense to mind that it has a choice between Truth and illusion. Mind seems to be making a choice, or a decision, to detach from the thought system (ego) about a self. Mind is becoming aware, very dimly at first but stronger as time goes on, that the self and its world is not reality.

Beyond the decision maker or learner-mind is Mind Itself. Mind Itself observes it all: the ego, the world, the decision maker, the mind’s growing awareness of Truth. The Observing Mind is always present. It is not something that a mind practices; It is something that a mind allows. This leads to the latter experience described above.

Often when I answer in my newsletter/blog a question from someone experiencing an upset in their life they explain that they have tried and failed over and over again to forgive the situation as just a projected image in their mind. This effort would seem to be in line with A Course in Miracles but in practice it is not helpful. If your awareness has not grown to the point where you see something as just a projected image trying to forgive it leads to repression rather than to release (forgiveness).

What shows up at the level of form is the result of cause and effect at the level of form. The mind in which this occurs is the one split mind, which ACIM calls the “Son of God” or the “dreamer of the dream”. What you experience as “you” having the upset is a figure in the dream. Your mind is ultimately the one split mind (dreamer), but that is not how you experience it. You experience it as though it is the figure in the dream. And you have to deal with the thoughts in your mind at the level at which you experience them. It is not helpful to pretend you have an awareness that you have not yet attained. So my answers address how the writer experiences their problem at the level of form. I deal with their projected interpretation of what they see rather than with the image itself because their upset is in response to their interpretation, not to the actual image.

For example, sometimes I get emails where someone writes something like: “I just learned that my sister has stage 3 cancer. Since she is an image that I project I have tried and tried to forgive this but her cancer persists. I want to know what I’m doing wrong. How did I cause this? What thoughts do I have to forgive to heal her?”

At the level of form the writer is not responsible for all of the forms that she sees. She did not think her sister into cancer. Logically, how could that be? She does not live in a vacuum with her sister. What about everyone else in her sister’s life? Did they contribute to her having cancer also? If this were the case then everyone who ever saw the image of her sister would have to heal whatever it was in their mind that caused her cancer so that she could heal! And what about her sister’s own mind? Didn’t that contribute also? The writer is not responsible for the cancer but for what she tells herself about the cancer and its effect on her sister and her own life. These stories are what determine her experience of peace or conflict.

When you do rise in awareness and become aware that you do project what you see you are no longer identifying with the figure in the dream. You are the “dreamer of the dream”. You realize you are the one split mind and that you project the whole dream not just individual parts. And you also see that it is nothing. In other words, forgiveness and the awareness that you are the dreamer occur simultaneously. The “dreamer of the dream” is the level of awareness that is forgiveness. Until you have that awareness, concerning yourself with what shows up rather than just with the meaning (interpretation) that you project onto it only increases guilt. Form is still real to you and you think that it has meaning. So deal with undoing the meaning that you project onto the images that you see and eventually you will realize that what you see has no meaning in itself. It is nothing. All the meaning that you see you give to it. This will help you to see that there is no justification for guilt. And as guilt falls away your awareness will transcend the dream and forgive it.

I have experienced a tumultuous few weeks being on a roller coaster of emotions and found myself becoming very skeptical of this whole idea of this world being a dream and that we are something other than what we appear to be. And as usual it was a good thing. I needed to reboot and start over as I have come to realize my spiritual foundation was faulty. I have been so focused on the end game, the final result, the big awakening, that I have been rushing down the path trying to get to the end and I became delusional. I hungered so much for an imagined result, I blinded myself to the fact the imagined result could not be found.

I was going over a lesson at the Trinfinity Academy site where Bentinho was saying that once we came to know that we are a Presence at all times apart from our seeming selves, then it becomes very obvious to us that we are eternal beings. I thought, how did he make that jump from the physical temporary body to the eternal being, for I certainly don’t see it? What I see is someone that has become aware of behavior patterns that brings anger and pain, has let them go, and is certainly leading a more peaceful life, but I am still a human being that has a finite existence here and do not have any feeling of being an infinite being. I thought, what did I miss here?

It took me a couple of journaling pages to finally arrive at a place where I found peace, and here is where I ended up:

My skepticism lead me to write down all the things I do know, the things I know are true and not future truths I am supposed to come to know. That left me with the question, “am I something other than what I appear to be, and if I am, how can I come to know this?” I thought about this question and I do sense a Presence within me and this is what I have to focus in on. I have to zero in on this Presence and see if it brings me to know if there is in fact a Being behind a veil that I have been told exists. This Presence feels so right it is hard to explain. It feels so right because it is not something I have convinced myself is true for I feel a Presence within and looking back on my life I have known of it all along. I sense that the more I stay with the Presence the less I will identify with this body. But it still leaves me with this body. Will it lead to seeing something I don’t see right now?

This is what I should have been doing all along, coming to know a truth, not accepting what someone else said is true, accepting it and convincing myself that by believing it I will arrive at the door of enlightenment. I realize now that my general feeling of discomfort was the signal telling me I had to take another look at things with my aspirations of awakening to the truth still in hand. I became skeptical and found the reason for my skepticism.

In today’s modern, high tech society we get to enjoy the benefits of cell phone and internet connections that we often give little or no thought to.

As I completed my latest Minister Preparation Program (MPP) course and learned more about the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, I had the opportunity to contemplate just how similar one of the weekly mantras we learned in class is to real life technology.

The mantra I took away from this course was simple enough but had a profound impact on my perception of awareness and helped me to better understand what my relationship to that awareness is. This simple mantra, “Remain with the Self,” and the deep sense of connection I feel when I practice it is similar to how my wifi signal at home automatically recognizes my device when I return home. I don’t have to ask my phone to stop using my data and switch to wifi. It was designed to recognize the signal and “auto-connect” to my internet connection effortlessly.

Using the mantra, “Remain with the Self,” worked in much the same way. We are designed to recognize our Truth at the deepest level, and we draw to us every experience needed to help guide us in that direction. Turning toward the Self in this way gives us an instant connection to that Truth affording us the same flexibility as almost any smart phone… the ability to auto-connect.

“Having realized the Self nothing remains to be known because it is perfect bliss, it is the All” ~ Ramana Maharshi