ABUNDANCE AS THE NATURAL STATE
Focusing on what is
So much we are focused on what isn’t. We spend our energy thinking about all the things that we desire as if they are somehow lacking now with the aspiration that we will attain them at some future date. This is the near constant game that our mind’s play on us. It goes something like this. Look out at the manifestation of this thing that we call physical reality. See how there are certain things not in your visual or mental perspective that you would like to see or believe are there. Things such as cars, houses, clothes, friendships, partnerships, children, jobs, degrees, money, vacations, etc. Decide that at some future date those things will be there. Work to achieve said things until they arrive at future date. Become happy when things arrive and become sad when they don’t arrive. In many ways this sums up our human existence.
While exciting at first, or exciting when you are feeling successful, living simply to achieve your desires is temporary unsustainable happiness that is dependent on what is showing up being in alignment with what you think should be there. Read that sentence again until it really sinks in. What if there is another way to live besides for the achievement of your desires? Would you be willing to stop focusing on what is missing from your experience and trying to get something from it that you perceive isn’t there? Many people might initially say yes however when it comes to implementation, follow through is often poor. We are addicted to focusing on what we think isn’t there and such our experience is one of lack, followed by effort and trying, and feeling only success if we can somehow get the thing to appear to us. This is the cycle of suffering.
You might be thinking how do I not perceive lack when clearly I can’t perceive the thing that I want as being in my direct experience. First I will say that your focus on it not being here is all that keeps it from being perceivable to you and what pushes it away or keeps it out from your direct experience. Mostly we are unaware that we are even doing this, however whatever we insist upon will be what we experience even when we are unconscious as to what it is that we are insisting upon. Something to entertain to help you open up your perspective is the recognition that somewhere what you desire exists. It is not out of creation, it just simply is not directly here now. This perspective can be a bridge for you until you can more fully rest in the abundance of is-ness itself and begin to slowly shift your focus on what is rather than what isn’t. If you fully shift your focus solely onto what is, even if only for a few seconds, the abundance of life as the natural state will be evidently clear.
COMPLETENESS OF ISNESS
Want nothing to be different than it is
Due to that fact that most all of us think that the goal of life is to achieve our desires and then die we completely miss the fact of our own existence. We place most of our attention on the stuff of life and very little, if any, attention on the fact that we exist, that we be, that we are, and so we are unfamiliar with ourselves or with is-ness. Simply is-ness is. Is-ness is before any forms or before anything takes shape in our perceptible and sensorial experience. Recognizing is-ness is the recognition of completion, abundance and the natural state prior to phenomena.
You may wonder how you can more fully pay attention to the fact that you exist. The easiest way that I have found is to set yourself in the attitude of not wanting anything to be different than it is. When you stop resisting what is, either through giving up your focus on what is not or by directly surrendering to your conflict with whatever the appearances are that are showing up for you in any given moment, you are left only with is-ness. That pure state of beingness before thought forms emerge which begin to inform your experience. In addition to not wanting anything to be different than it is, is also not wanting anything from anything. In this way you end your desires to get something from anything. When you do this you will see how much of your energy and attention it takes to engage in life by trying to get something that you perceive you want, think will benefit you, keep you safe or ensure your survival. Once suspended, all of that energy and attention that was bound up in getting, can then be redirected into the pure focus on your beingness rather than on trying to somehow manipulate life to your liking.
What I am pointing to here is quite simple in application, so it begs the question as to why we don’t follow through. Why do we stop ourselves even before we try? Why do we want so much to hold onto our perspective of lack which leads to effort and trying rather than surrender to life and experience the abundance of it? First the mind doesn’t like simplicity. It wants it to be more complicated than that so it will do its best to try and complicate and confuse things for you. Two, we often think that our desires and preferences are more important than they actually are, so we don’t want to give them up. We confuse our desires, preferences and what we think should be (rather than what is) for self-empowerment and therefore think we need to justly fight or stand up for what we want. When we don’t get what we want, or achieve what we want, we feel cheated or somehow worthless or not valuable. It’s hard for our egos to swallow the fact that they really aren’t that important. That what we want isn’t that important and often not even relevant. It feels like a punch in the stomach, or a death of sorts, like everything you thought was so important no longer being so. This is the beginning of the dis-identification of the ego as you and the surrender into the god state where you come to know the real you.
Lastly we’ve confused our happiness, joy, bliss, safety, security and ok-ness to be locked up in something seemingly out there so we keep trying to get it from out there somewhere, in circumstances and conditions. It will never be found there because conditions always change. What doesn’t change is you, is is-ness. Is-ness always is. It doesn’t come and go. It is the stability in the ever changing sea of appearances. Lock onto that instead and you will know yourself and what true sustainable abundant, bliss, joy, freedom and safety is. No more will you need to seek it out in the world of appearances. When you arrive here you will begin to see that your necessity to make things happen through the physical lessens and your more formless nature will be more real than the form. Greater ease and effortless doing naturally emerges. You become more in agreement with God, with the real you, and that alignment, though death to your ego, will set you free. That is divine union. That is mergence with God. That is the return of oneness remembering itself. My best advice is to stop being so stubborn and just let God be as God is and you will discover everlasting peace.
Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado