Living Unbound

Tag: awareness

  • Jed McKenna Quotes

    Jed McKenna is one of the most straightforward and authentic spiritual teachers, ever. Jed tells it like it is: the reality of Living Unbound, and the way to Living Unbound. Jed McKenna is a pen-name, but whoever writes as Jed McKenna articulates Living Unbound in reality with an authenticity and a clarity rarely found anywhere.

    Here is some of the very direct and very real wisdom of Jed McKenna:

    Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether.

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    Enlightenment isn’t when you go there; it’s when there comes here.

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    It’s ego – the false self – that exalts the guru and declares the teaching sacred, but nothing is exalted or sacred, only true or not true.

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    Enlightenment is the unprogrammed state.


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    I don’t have something you don’t; you believe something I don’t.

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    The point is to wake up, not to earn a Ph.D. In waking up.


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    The bottom line remains the same: you’re either awake or you’re not.One day, there it is. Nothing. No more enemies, no more battles.


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    There’s nothing left to contend against and nothing left that must be done, and there will never be anything that must be done ever again.


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    The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into existence.  Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth.

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    Wake up first. Wake up, and then you can double back and perhaps be of some use to others if you still have the urge. Wake up first, with pure and unapologetic selfishness, or you’re just another shipwreck victim floundering in the ocean and all the compassion in the world is of absolutely no use to the other victims floundering around you.

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    The universe isn’t vague and ignorant. I am vague and ignorant. Something is true, and it doesn’t matter what it is, I’m not going to be false any more. I have not even the slightest trace of the slightest reservation that I would rather suffer and die figuring out what is true than continue this life as a slave to lies and ignorance.

    -On the attitude needed for enlightenment

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    I don’t see it as my role to save or rescue anybody any more than regular people feel the need to rescue each other from sleeping and dreaming.

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    That’s how it is in dreams: thoughts become things practically before they’re thought.

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    You can’t manage to avoid your own true nature forever. It’s a wonder anybody manages it at all.

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    Who you are has little or nothing to do with you.
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    There is no true self. Truth and self are mutually exclusive.

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    This is about unknowing. All this so-called knowledge is exactly what stands between seeker and sought.

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    The teachers we need will always be there when we need them; no reason to track down somebody else’s.

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    The ‘I” casts off the illusion of ‘I’ and yet remains as ‘I’. Such is the paradox of self-realization. The realized do not see any contradiction in it.

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    Before enlightenment, I believed my ego was me. Then enlightenment comes along and no more ego, only the underlying reality. Now it’s after enlightenment, and this ego might be slightly uncomfortable or ill-fitting at times, but it’s all I’ve got.

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    The idea that your ego is destroyed in the process of enlightenment is roughly correct, but it’s not complete. Before enlightenment, you’re a human being in the world, just like everyone you see. During enlightenment, you realize that the human being that you thought you were is just a character in a play, and that the world you thought you were in is just a stage, so you go through a process of radical deconstruction of your character to see what’s left when it’s gone. The result isn’t enlightened-self or true-self, it’s no-self. When it’s all over it’s time to be a human being in the world again, and that means slipping back into costume and getting back onstage.

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    Miracles are nature unimpeded, which is a good way of saying that if you take your hand off the tiller, the boat will steer itself and do a vastly better job of it than you ever could.

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    Relax into the moment and let the universe do the driving. If there was a secret to happiness in life, I’d say that was it.

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    Trust you develop a little at a time as you learn to relinquish the illusion of control.

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    They have abandoned the illusion of control. It doesn’t matter why you do it, just that you do. This is the point of distinction and the root teaching of all major religions.

    ~On the power of spiritual devotion

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    Fear and ego – in other words, ignorance – are keeping your hand on the tiller. Release the tiller for whatever reason, and the steering takes care of itself.

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    Everyone’s grooving on the gurus, and everyone’s getting more and more spiritual, but nobody’s waking up.


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    Go jump off a cliff. Don’t go near the cliff and contemplate jumping off. Don’t read a book about jumping off. Don’t study the art and science of jumping off. Don’t join a support group for jumping off. Don’t write poems about jumping off. Don’t kiss the ass of someone else who jumped off. Just jump.

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    The difference between us isn’t that I’m enlightened and you’re not. The difference between us is that I know it, and you don’t.

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    The truth is identical for both of us. I haven’t achieved a better status than you.

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    There’s no such thing as instant enlightenment any more than there’s such a thing as an instant baby.

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    Simply put, I don’t think. I don’t make choices or decisions.  I don’t weigh possibilities and select one over others. Instead, I observe patterns and move with them.


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    I used to try to be smart and now I don’t and everything works a whole lot better. Stopping being smart was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.


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    This is it. Not some other time, not some other place. Right here. Right now. I am standing at the exact center of infinity and I see beauty and perfection and absolute delight everywhere and in every thing. The touch of the slightest breeze, the sight of a single star through cloud-swept skies, the howls of coyote pups in the distance and the sheer glory and beauty of it all is enough to tear me to shreds and all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you

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    Truth isn’t an idea or a concept. It’s not in libraries or the words of sages. It doesn’t come in a flash of insight or a peak experience. It’s not a feeling of bliss or ecstasy. It’s not a concept to be understood or a feeling to be experienced. It’s not in your heart or your mind. It’s further.

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    Spiritual awakening is about discovering what’s true. Anything that’s not about getting to the truth must be discarded. Truth isn’t about knowing things; you already know too much. It’s about unknowing. It’s not about becoming true; it’s about unbecoming false so that all that’s left is truth.

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    No belief is true. No. Belief. Is. True.

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    One millionth of one percent false is completely false. Everything in duality is false. False as in not true. Not true as in bullshit.

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    This isn’t a song we’re singing or a mountain we’re climbing; it’s a dream we’re unweaving.

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    Living Unbound Jed McKenna Videos Playlist – 11 Videos, Total


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  • The Integral Wholeness Of Awareness

    The Awareness level is where we experience all as oneness, and the oneness as our self. This becomes somewhat easier to comprehend, when we recall that all the conceptual division with which we used to experience life was utterly artificial. In the absence of this conceptual division, reality is one; self is one; self is Living Unbound.

    “Caitanyamatma” – “Living Unbound Awareness is Self”, as the Shiva Sutras (1.1) begin.

    This cannot be understood with mind, even the infinitely expanded mind experienced at the upper range of the Knowing level; it can only be experienced – in, with and as original, unbound awareness; our self. Why is this so? Because understanding is usually understood and experienced by limited-mind as an object in awareness, an object that is the knowledge of the subject who holds it.

    However, “Knowledge is Bondage” (Jnanam Bandhah) as the Shiva Sutras (1.2) succinctly remind us. Knowledge is bondage, because knowledge is an object; objects create subjects, subjects create objects. At the Awareness level, we are experiencing the single field of awareness prior to all division.
    Knowledge is bondage — Knowing is not; knowing is liberation. Knowing is experiencing. Knowing is experiencing in actuality. In actuality, all is one; Knowing is Unity.

    As Yogani says in Advanced Yoga Practices (AYP) Main Lesson 399:

    “From the perspective of the individual, thoughts are only omnipresent when consciously released in omnipresent abiding inner silence, which is cultivated through deep meditation. Before that, thoughts are only objects of perception with which we are identified locally. It is the samyama effect (release in stillness) that enables thought to become omnipresent, and therefore infinite in speed.”

    Again, this cannot be understood with mind, because mind is inherently constrained in some manner; even the formless aspects of it contain consciousness and action, even if effectively infinite in scope. Only when our original Awareness preceding mind is  experienced as our self, with mind as its emanation, does the power of knowing, the knowing of power, begin to flourish creatively, to flow out and return as Living, Unbound.

    Yogani continues:
     

    “Before the samyama effect, a thought is like a picture. After the samyama effect, a thought is the thing itself, and far more influential via the infinite creative energy of divine outpouring that occurs when the mind is surrendered in stillness.”

    When the mind is surrendered in stillness, there is no barrier to the universal open shining of our original awareness, our infinite self. Infinite? Infinite: all distinctions, definitions, borders and limits are artificial. Original awareness is inherently ever unbound.

    “A thought is a thing in itself.”

    When we contemplate this, our mind cannot even begin to understand, because limited mind is a cutting instrument; it divides, decides, discriminates. A thought is a thing in itself, because there is no natural division in awareness; awareness is wholeness. Whether awareness is experiencing the inner silence of the experiencing subject-self that is original awareness, or experiencing its movement as knowing and acting oscillations of awareness, or experiencing the perfect balance of the two as a human, being: there is only awareness here.

    And so, a thought is not only a thing in itself, a thought is our very self; awareness in form, arising from formless self-awareness. Experiencing this in actuality does not allow us to understand, for we are now beyond the range of understanding, but to be knowing, that creating the samyama effect is creating a ripple in the infinite lake of our self. Utterly simple. Infinitely powerful. Solely loving. Is this teaching (“A thought is a thing in itself”) unique to Yogani? Not exactly; it has been around for thousands of years, and is considered so profound an aspect of reality that it is deeply embedded in some of the oldest languages and spiritual traditions in the world. For instance, In Hebrew, the word davar means both word and thing:

    “Though davar means both thing and word in Hebrew, it is crucial to point out that thing did not have the Greek connotations of substance. As I. Rabinowitz puts it: ‘the word is the reality in its most concentrated, compacted, essential form.’ …. Names are not conventional, but are intrinsically connected to their referents; the name, indeed, is the real referent of the thing, its essential character – not the reverse, as in Greek thought. One does not pass beyond the names as an arbitrary sign towards a non-verbal vision of the thing, but rather from the thing to the word, which creates, characterizes, and sustains it. Hence davar is not simply thing, but also action, efficacious fact, event, matter, process.”
    ~Leonora Leet, Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah, p. 103, quoting Susan R. Handelman

    There is a teaching which is essentially identical (to the teaching described above, via the Hebrew word davar) in Kashmir Shaivism, the non-dual, practices-centric tradition of Kashmir (as Kabbalah is the non-dual, practices-centric tradition within the framework of Judaic spirituality).

    In The Secret Supreme, the Kashmir Shaiva master Swami Lakshmanjoo describes Sadadhvan, the Sanskrit term for the six-fold path of creation in the Universe, consisting of three subjective paths of increasing subtlety, and three objective paths of increasing subtlety. In explaining an example relating to the middle (subtle) level, Swami Lakshmanjoo states:

    “The word pot is the vacakadhva (creator) for this object (pot). So this object (pot) is vacya (created) and its vacaka (creator) is the word pot.”

    ~Swami Lakshmanjoo, The Secret Supreme, p. 13

    The one field of awareness from one angle, is everything: all-that-is, from another angle; two sides of the same coin. Oneness and multiplicity are the inverse of one another. Mind cannot understand this; it is not designed to do so: mind is a sense, not a self.

    The wholeness of awareness is infinite; the distinctions of form are finite; the perfect balance of the two is to be a whole, liberated human, being; to be Living Unbound. A paradox? From the standpoint of the distinctions of limited mind, yes; from the wholeness of awareness, no. Experiencing the actuality of the wholeness of awareness (aka the awareness of wholeness), the unity of knowing (the knowing of unity), and the harmony of living (the living of harmony) is to resolve all paradoxes, and to enjoy Living Unbound; the ever-present freedom we each and all ever are now, right here, beyond and before imagination.

    No less an authority than esteemed mathematician (and co-author of the Penrose-Hameroff Theory of Quantum Consciousness), Sir Roger Penrose states:

    “Calculus– or, according to its more sophisticated name, Mathematical Analysis– is built from two basic ingredients: differentiation and integration. The remarkable fact, referred to as the fundamental theorem of calculus, is that each one of these ingredients is essentially just the inverse of the other. It is largely this fact that enables these two important domains of mathematical study to combine together and to provide a powerful body of understanding and calculational technique.”
    ~Sir Roger Penrose, The Road To Reality — A Complete Guide To The Laws Of The Universe, p. 103

    And likewise, it is the fact that the wholeness of awareness and the harmony of living are bridged by the unity of knowing, which allows for the ongoing celebration in experience known as Living Unbound. The Wholeness of Awareness and the Harmony of Living are the inverse of one another — exactly as the integral and differential described above in Penrose’s quote are the inverse of one another. The Unity of Knowing bridges the infinite division between the Wholeness of Awareness and the Harmony of Living, exactly as the fact and understanding of inverse relationship (between integral and differential, in Calculus) bridges the apparent differences between the two, which are also actually just the inverse of one another; the same reality experienced from different angles, with different degrees of focus. Most of us feel bound and limited because most of us only experience and know the differential, the finite, the limited, the local. Most of us are missing the knowing-experiencing of our true self, the integral: the whole, the infinite, the limitless.

    Self is Unbound, Self is Living; Self is Living Unbound.

    What is the result of experiencing our self as the wholeness of awareness, Living Unbound?

    “The universe is our playground when we are reborn in the divine flow resulting from the marriage of abiding inner silence and our ecstatic awakening. We are here, everywhere, and nowhere. Free!”
    ~Yogani


    Related Lessons:

    Level 3 Teachings

    Level 3 Techniques

    Living Unbound Resource

    Related Resources:

    Source of the above pictures : http://www.irishviews.com/purple-sky-backgrounds.html

  • Quotes By Nandhi

    The following quotes are from Nandhi, a yogi from the South Indian Siddhar tradition. These are inspirational words he is sharing with us, to help us all in enjoying Living Unbound, in reality.  Thank you, Nandhi for sharing your beautiful wisdom with us.

    • Climbing above the mind is yoga; to be the multiple reality as oneness is the yogi. Awake to the knowing, realities ascend consciousness to the peak, to simply Be. AUM
    • The ancient bridge of source and mind is grace flowing as the sacred, to Be. The bridge dissolves in oneness to be the momentum of intent, knowing purpose. AUM
    • The mind clear as sky to be the universe within, and the vast void beyond the mind as awareness; to be oneness, and the many as one, each thought aligned. AUM
    • Past burnt to acquire the infinite now, each thought flows empowered of source, merging all thoughts to the thought of One, become Oneness, the sacred One. AUM
    • Within is the vastness of space that is void filled in the presence as light of oneness; expanded consciousness as the vibrant light, the bliss being be. AUM
    • Celebrating divinity through each yogic posture as breath, wisdom is tranquility worshipped and the journey to be a light; bliss the awake guide to being. AUM
    • Merging thoughts to be womb space of void, celebrate realms of all sages, the ancient soul awake to being the celebrated Siva, whirl within breath to be. AUM
    • Breath, nada and awareness as bhakti fire ascends to the calm third eye perch of the vibrant flame. Yogic grace calms the fire to stillness, delving to Be. AUM
    • Within breath through yoga is the guru, the ancient presence beyond breath. Aligning silent wisdom with the intellectual offerings, we alight to be bliss! AUM
    • Each sheath of consciousness pierced, Kundalini climbs as consciousness awakening to dissolve senses into the inner fire of tapas, to be the bliss body. AUM
    • Propelling the mind to embark on its inner journey, each sheath of consciousness as gratitude to be absorbed through breath surrender, inner fire awakening. AUM
    • The throb within the atom is the vibrant awareness of the AUM that is also the vast space that holds universes, expanding consciousness to be; simply be! AUM
    • Our yoga is the lightness that dwells as light. Consciousness flows empowering each thought as ancient intent of all sages to be our now; as grace that alights! AUM
    • Awakening to each magical moment, time, matter and space converge to the root of thought. In bliss reality, each thought manifests the now. AUM
    • Celebrating silence with each thought merged with the mantra fire is the enlightened realm. Conscious samadhi is fullness that celebrates void through each breath. AUM
    • The word ‘freedom’ is most used by poets of every language spoken on planet earth. Above the mind’s rooftop is ananda, wisdom to be; prophet, as joy; ananda! AUM
    • Alight as the inner music where the mind and breath has merged, the awake joy transcends the mind as the fire of knowing and the surrender. AUM
    • Scriptures are for altars and not rules to be followed. The sum total of all scriptures written by humans through all ages weighs less than source that is the now. Scriptures guide to higher conscious truth and higher consciousness is independent of need for scriptures.
    • Stillness and the vibrant stillness of being is fulfilling fire that has the light of knowing and the warmth of inspiration as the sun lit within; So be. AUM
    • Ascending states of consciousness above the mind is oneness and celebrations of vibrant joys that empower the mind to seek more of cosmic union; so to be. AUM
    • Beyond sleep and tiredness is the primal grace of inspiration. Beyond being awake is the knowing. Beyond focus is to simply Be. Each breath the breathless Be. AUM

    ~Quotes by Tapasyogi Kalathi Adiyen Aadi Nandhi

    Founder of:  Journey Beyond Enlightenment, http://nandhi.com/

  • Yoga and Addictions

    The following post is by Carson Kadatz, the founder of Blissed Yoga, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Per his post, Carson has had deep personal experience with successfully making the journey from the nightmare of addiction, to enjoying Living Unbound, in reality. Thank you,  Carson, for sharing your beautiful wisdom with us all.

    Many of us know what it is like to feel addicted to something. But what often comes to mind when the word “addicted” is said, is a mental picture of a junkie, strung out, trying to find a way to score his next hit. In reality, most of us are addicted to something in one form or another. Addictions are not limited to substances like heroin, crack or methamphetamine. We can be addicted to money, to television, to our job, to sex, to lying to ourselves, to our thoughts and to hundreds and hundreds of other things, situations and concepts. Addiction comes in all flavors and varieties and we have all suffered from them to one degree or another.

    So how does one overcome an addiction? Most would think that it would be obvious that the solution for a person who suffers from a drug addiction, would be totally different from the solution for a person who is addicted to television or to their job. Nothing could be further from the Truth. There is only one thing that can universally help anyone who suffers from any addiction, and that is a personal connection to Inner Silence. But before we can truly understand what this means and how Inner Silence can help save us from our addictions, it will be important to understand what causes addictions.

    So…. what causes us to be addicted to something? The answer to that question is: Misidentification. Thinking that we are something we are not. Believing the thought that we are our body, that we are our thoughts, our beliefs, our ego, our job, our house, our relationships…… that we are something other then the consciousness that underlies all form. This misidentification causes us to feel “un-whole” and feel like there is a void inside that needs to be filled. We try and fill that void with all sorts of things…. with money, with sex, with toys, with drugs, with anything that will temporarily distract us from the reality that we don’t feel Whole inside. In the words of Greg Baer in his “Real Love” series of books, these are all forms of “Imitation Love”. They give us a brief period of relief when we partake, but soon after, we are back feeling “un-whole” again. And often the next time we partake we need just a little bit more of whatever we are addicted to, to help us feel some relief again. This easily and very quickly becomes an endless cycle…… a cycle that leads into a deeper and deeper sense of despair and hopelessness, as we continue looking for something that will fill that void indefinitely.

    What yogi’s and other mystics worldwide have come to realize, is that if we can learn to connect to that which we truly are, we can step out of that feeling of un-wholeness into the bliss of Reality…. we can become that which we truly are; Pure Bliss Consciousness.

    So how do we learn to connect to Pure Bliss Consciousness? The answer to this is very simple….. Deep Meditation and other yoga practices. The practice of Deep Meditation, when undertaken in a consistent and self-regulated way, will bring us out of the cycle of needing different forms of Imitation Love for relief, and into the Reality that we already are that which we have been seeking all along…. that we have been looking for God with His own eyes. A consistent, twice daily practice of Deep Meditation allows us access to Inner Silence, which as we continue to practice, begins to leak out into our daily lives. We begin to notice that everything is perfect just the way it is….. even the stuff that used to cause us endless suffering, is perfect. We begin to notice that we have more “space” in our daily lives, and that the things that used to bother us, the things that used to trigger us to run to our favorite form of Imitation Love, no longer bother us so much anymore. We are able to see things from a completely different perspective. A perspective from which we can love things just the way they are, no longer feeling un-whole inside.

    Now, you may be saying to yourself…. “This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about! How is Deep Meditation going to help me stop needing to have sex or do drugs or work 80 hours a week or watch 6 hours of TV a night? He probably has no clue what it is like to really be addicted to something.” Well friends, nothing could be further from the truth. When I first came to yoga I was addicted to heroin, methamphetamine, methadone, marijuana, sex, anger, fighting, control and just about every form of Imitation Love known to man. When I first started practicing yoga it was right after ending an 8 year relationship, my career, and being forced into bankruptcy, all in the same day, and then deciding I wanted to end it all by trying to kill myself with an overdose of heroin. It took time, and a bit of flailing for a while, but eventually I found the practice of Deep Meditation, and once I did, things started to change, and fast. Within 14 weeks of starting a twice daily practice of Deep Meditation I had downdosed off of my methadone prescription without feeling any opiate withdrawals (which is not biologically possible), I soon lost my desire to fight reality and anything that wasn’t the way I figured it “should” be, I learned to truly Love my ex (and all) unconditionally, I lost my need to have sex several times a day, I lost the desire to change the way my family relates to each other, I became content with my job, I no longer had a temper, and I began to help others find peace and silence through meditation and yoga as well. Now, I can say from personal experience, that everything you could ever want, everything you could ever desire, you already have…. you already are. It is all inside, waiting for you to touch, waiting for you to embrace, waiting for you to Be. Learn to silence the mind a few times a day, every day, and soon you too will find that all these forms of Imitation Love that you have been addicted to for months, weeks, years, decades, just aren’t necessary anymore…. that everything is perfect, just the way it is.

    May all your Heres be Now.

    Namaste.

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    -Article by CarsonZi

    Founder of Blissed Yoga – Finding the Guru in You

    

    Related Living Unbound Lessons

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  • Ken Wilber on Living Unbound from the Illusion of Material Self

    Excellent, straightforward overview of why the reality of who we are is ever Living Unbound from the illusions of the material self.

    “The true self is that which is not an object.”

    ~Ken Wilber

    For more from Ken Wilber, please visit here.