“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”

“Your nature and the integral nature of the universe are one and the same: indescribable, but eternally present. Simply open yourself to this.”

We are beings born to consciously experience the indescribable, eternally present and ever unfolding ecstatic universe. Our small thoughts and subsequent actions reduce our ability to experience what Rumi and Lao Tzu understood to be our true nature. We need to lean into the mystery of life and allow ourselves to be open to and accepting of our true non-dual nature.

As we allow ourselves to experience life from beyond the confines of our small thoughts and actions, we effortlessly allow ourselves to understand that our life and all life is truly an expression of non-dual, indescribable, eternally present Consciousness.

The physical evolution of humans has been successfully achieved. We are prepared to function within the world of objects. We have the ability to make ourselves comfortable. We have developed agricultural systems that produce huge volumes of food. We have medical knowledge that can cure a multitude of injuries and diseases. We have built machines that accomplish mechanical functions that offer humans more free time. Despite our innovative technologies, we rarely find ourselves physically healthy, emotionally balanced, or consistently at ease.

We must recognize that there will never be enough objects, enough things to satisfy us. Our needs—our real needs—are nonmaterial. In order to experience true physical and emotional health and to truly feel fulfilled, we need to recognize our true identity. We are expressions of a non-dual Consciousness. This ‘Consciousness’, by nature, is, in its non-judgmental eternality, completely satisfied.

We need to turn our attention inward. We need to understand that our unquestioned beliefs and our small ways of thinking about life become our experiences. Our small thoughts unnecessarily reduce our experiences. Rumi prescribed that we “stop acting so small.”

Understanding who we really are is the ask. Our very being, the Consciousness that we truly are, is asking us to become awake to and aware of our true identity. Our being is asking us to rediscover; reawaken to our true Self.

An appropriate response to this ask is imperative to the well-being of the human species and perhaps all species that inhabit the earth. Any delay in the expansion of our personal understanding regarding who and what we truly are will result in ever greater environmental, physiological, and psychological dis-ease.

Discovering our true identity is the new frontier of human exploration. We are inner space explorers set to discover a new universe, a universe of nondual, nondimensional, nonmaterial, timeless, ever-present Consciousness.

There have been instances in each of our lives when we have experienced ecstatic, open minded Consciousness. Many of these experiences occurred in our childhood, before we became programmed to interact with a world that demands that we make something of ourselves.

As adults, many of us have temporarily, directly experienced non-duality with the aid of the medicine of teacher plants. These medicine-induced experiences serve to temporarily expose the deeper reality of our innate being-ness. But for most, the effects of the medicine diminish and we find ourselves back in our everyday material body with our everyday material problems created by our belief that we need to make something of ourselves.

“Truly I say to you, unless you change and become as children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus was telling us that as children we possess openness. As children, we nonjudgmentally experience our universe. Unfortunately, as we become educated, we learn to judge our experiences. We lose our innocence and forget that we are the universe in ecstatic motion. We forget the effortless joy and wonder that we experienced as children.

We need to recognize that the dissatisfaction and discomfort we feel within our everyday lives really is the Soul we each possess calling us to resume our non-judgmental journey of Self-discovery.

Our life experiences have become exceedingly externalized and materialized. Even God has become externalized and materialized, seen as some “thing” outside and separate from us. We are mesmerized by the illusion of duality. Our misdirected dualistic focus places inappropriate value on material gain. Our ambition to make ourselves materially full is taking us in the wrong direction. Our focus on the inappropriate value of a material world has caused us to lose contact with our Soul. This disconnect causes us to feel an emptiness and fear; and this emptiness and fear cannot be mitigated with more stuff. Our empty feelings, fear, and anxiety can only be cured by allowing ourselves to reestablish our deeply personal connection with our Soul.

The Soul carries the essence of our ultimate, non-dual beingness. It holds the potential to reveal this essence—not as an abstract ideal, but as a living reality available in every moment.

It is the essence of who and what we truly are. Resting quietly in the deepest folds of personal experience, the Soul is not something to be attained, but something to be remembered.

It is the light that shines eternally within the layered architecture of the personal mind, quietly illuminating all thought and perception from behind the scenes. In its quiet radiance, we are continuously offered the opportunity to recognize what has always been present.

We must understand that we are positioned on the threshold of an evolutionary change; a change that requires shifting our attention from things outside ourselves to the thoughts that exist within us. Our ability to experience the ever-present joy and wonder our lives offer depends on our ability to shift our focus and turn our attention toward finding our way home to the nonjudgmental true Self we knew as children. Our Soul knows the way.

“People nowadays speak of the body and the mind, but they only know the illusory body and mind, and do not know the true body and mind. As they leave the true to follow the false, it is no wonder that even before their number of years is exhausted, their bodies and minds are worn out. They have the forms of living human beings, but their souls have entered the lair of demons.”

When we spend our life energy, the energy of our spirit, chasing the mirage of a materially based experience, our Soul suffers. Our Soul enters into the lair of demons where the quest for more “stuff” drains us of our life force and leaves our Soul overshadowed by our small thoughts.

Rumi nourished his Soul by being an aware participant, consciously engaging with the nondual, nondimensional, and nonmaterial indescribable conscious universe in ecstatic motion. He pointed at his indescribable conscious experiences in his poetry.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”

Imagine a life experience that is so full there are no words. The potential to experience this kind of fullness exists within each of us because we are, by our very nature, this fullness. Soul possesses the wisdom that can allow us to understand the intrinsic value of the nonmaterial universe. Learning to listen to the wisdom of Soul will allow us to open our lives to the ever-present experiences of joy and wonder, experiences that, in this very moment, exist just beyond the small world of our small thoughts.

We must understand that our body and our mind are energetic expressions of eternal Consciousness. We must understand that we possess an innate ability to consciously experience our life and cause our experiences to nourish the Soul. Without our conscious attention, the energy necessary to nourish our Soul will be consumed by the illusionary belief that we are separate from Consciousness. This false belief is the cause of our needless struggle with the mesmerizing material world.

Each of us possess a magnetic center. Our individual magnetic center attracts our experiences. Our experiences are our medicine. Our experiences can serve to expose the patterns of our thoughts. Once exposed, we have the opportunity to change the way we think about our life experiences, correct them, and alter them in ways that reflect our recognition of who and what we really are. We are Consciousness. Our conscious recognition of this reality transforms the energy of our experience into food for our Soul.

If we do not make efforts to change the way we think about our experiences, our magnetic center will continue to attract similar experiences. This is the way the medicine of life works. We have the choice of living and reliving the same energy-depleting experiences day in and day out. Or, we can, with awareness, take the medicine of life and allow ourselves to see ourselves acting small. We can then use true Mind, Body, and Spirit to transform our experiences. These experiences change our magnetic center, allowing it to attract new expanding universal experiences, experiences that are the portal to real freedom.

When we are born into this life, we each possess a unique essence. We are unique essential expressions of Consciousness. Our essence, by its very nature, desires to be expressed. Unfortunately, in our world today we have unconsciously allowed personality to dominate essence. This is an upside-down arrangement that should be corrected.

Personality, unlike our conscious essence, does not come with us into this world. The family we are born into and the region of earth that we initially inhabit provide the major building blocks of our personality. The moment we are born, our personality begins to be instilled in us. The list of personality-shaping influences is long. Our parents may subscribe us to the dogma of an organized religion. Perhaps we are raised in a middle-class Christian neighborhood or perhaps in a materially impoverished third world country. The formal education we receive and the influences of our family and friends all play a part in shaping our unique personalities.

The problem is, the unconsciously accepted aspects of our personalities begin to eclipse our essence. And there is little effort made by our families, our schools, or our culture to reign in our personalities and introduce us to our essence and our true Mind, Body, and Spirit.

We unconsciously accept the misperceptions of our society, and these misperceptions become the habituated lenses through which we see our world. We project our opinions and what we think we know onto the energetic field of life, and these projected misperceptions manifest and do not allow for the exhilarating expression of our essence.

Unless we begin to ask ourselves why we act and feel the way we do about almost everything, our lives will become more and more entrenched in the world of our personality, and with this entrenchment we stray from our essential path and condemn ourselves to the revolving door of our habituated personalities, seldom catching glimpses of our essential being. We unconsciously deny ourselves the opportunity to experience life as it truly is.

Personality is a necessary component of the life experience; it is the tool that, when used correctly, allows our essence to be expressed. Our personalities need to be re-educated to assist our essence rather than restrict our essence.

G. I. Gurdjieff was an enigmatic, twentieth-century teacher masterful in the Fourth Way tradition. The Fourth Way tradition tells us that our personalities are comprised of many separate identities, and we live our lives experiencing the attitudes of these revolving identities. In any given situation, at any given moment, an identity will unconsciously be allowed to step forward from within the cast of our personality and take center stage. The up-front identity will experience and react to the situation according to its memories, its way of thinking. The small thoughts of the small identity will be projected onto the energetic field and this projection will reflect the thoughts of that identity.

We fail to recognize that we are comprised of many identities. When we say “I,” we assume ourselves to be one self, when in reality we are many small selves, each possessing its own set of beliefs, ideas, and agendas. In most instances, the identity that we unconsciously allow to come forward and interact with any given situation uses its memory, its habituated way of thinking, to engage with the experience. In most situations it is not qualified to profitably handle or respond to the situation. Habituated, small-thinking identities do not often successfully transform universal energy. They far too often fail to feed the Soul.

The good news is that when we understand that there are many identities, many small selves contained in our personality, we can begin to watch for and self-observe our identities. Our observations allow us to dissect our personality, examine each identity, and determine the cost-benefit ratio of that identity. We can examine the identity and decide if it is contributing to a real understanding of Mind, Body, and Spirit. If it is not, we can choose to forgive ourselves for misunderstanding and gently restrict unprofitable identities from accessing our energy. We can change our investment strategy.

The first step we can take when we set out to make the transformational journey into a new understanding of our universe of non-duality is admit to ourselves that we are functioning at a very low-level of consciousness. The Fourth Way tradition points out that there are four recognizable levels.

Self-remembering is a power tool useful in our efforts to awaken to and become conscious of our true Self—the Self that is the potent eternal expression of Consciousness.

Self-remembering is the act of remembering that we are the ecstatic universe in motion, it is the act of recognizing and opening ourselves to the reality that our nature and the integral nature of the universe are one and the same: indescribable, but eternally present. It is the process of remembering that we are, and all things are, a singular yet multifaceted expression of the indescribable jewel of Consciousness.

Self-remembering involves remembering that Soul exists within each of us and that it is available to introduce us to our true Self. Self-remembering is the art of remembering that we are at all times, regardless of appearances, our true Self; the true Self that is the expression of eternal Consciousness.

Whenever we have the presence of Mind, we should take that moment and acknowledge that there is a true Self. We should feel certain, with all our sensual being, that eternal Consciousness is present. Even though we may not fully understand the depth of our true Self and its relationship with eternal Consciousness, the simple act of reflecting on what we are learning about our true Self is penetrating and dissolves our misperceptions regarding who and what we think we are and reveals who and what we truly are. We are eternal Consciousness.

Self-observation is another power tool useful in our efforts to awaken to and open ourselves to our true Self.

Self-observation is the process of learning to watch ourselves as we go about our day. We can watch our identities and the way they interact with the world. We can name them; get to know them. The identities we most often see are the identities Rumi rightly accused of “acting small.” These small identities are unaware that they live within non-dual eternal Consciousness. They know only the small world of their opinions and memories; opinions and memories that are based on incomplete information regarding the reality of our true being.

We can, as the observer, quietly and without judgment, watch ourselves and the world around us. We can watch the way our identities respond to the given moment, and we can watch how the world responds to our identities and the attitudes of our identities. We can also watch the identities of all those around us. Nonjudgmental self-observation is a nutrient-dense feast for the Soul.

The process of Self-remembering can go hand in hand with self-observation. At the moment we remember to self-observe, there is an opportunity to simultaneously and with split attention Self-remember. We can watch our small self, acting small, and we can remember that our true Self is as vast and eternal as Rumi’s “universe in ecstatic motion”.

In these moments of split attention, these moments when we are the observed and the observer, time slows and insight into what it means to be the universe in ecstatic motion filters into our awareness. In these moments of split attention, we effortlessly experience true Mind, Body, and Spirit. In these effortless moments of attention, we nourish our Soul and we offer ourselves the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the ultimate reality of the non-dual eternal Consciousness.

“When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”

Rumi was speaking of nonduality when he said, “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” Siddhartha, the master of Buddhist teachings, used the concept of OM to express non-duality. Hinduism uses the concept of Brahman to express the ultimate nondual nature of the universe. Jesus said, “I and the Father are One.” Lao Tzu referred to non-duality as the Tao.

Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel prize winner in physics, suggested that physics is compatible with the notion that there is a basic non-duality at the heart of the universe. Scientifically recognizing non-duality is an intellectual process, and mere intellectual knowledge of non-duality has limitations. Our greatest joy and greatest freedom is realized when we recognize ourselves and the universe as expressions of non-dual eternal Consciousness.

The origin of the eternal Consciousness is, by its very nature, unknowable. Some sciences and religions have attempted to explain the unknowable origin of Consciousness using a dualistic framework. Some religions have then given what they think to be the origin of this ‘Consciousness’ the name of God. These dualistic thinking religions and sciences serve to perpetuate the idea that we are separate from God and the universe. Our collective misunderstanding of God and the universe, and our need to logically and materially name and explain the illusions formed in a dualistic framework has created unnecessary suffering, suffering born in the mesmerizing illusion of duality.

God must be set free from our small, dualistically based misunderstandings. In fact, all things that exist within the universe must be set free from our small, dualistic, materialistic thoughts. When our nondual relationship with the nonjudgmental Consciousness is understood, the peace and ease that are qualities attributed to God will be seen as attributes of our true Self.

We humans, as functions within this singularity, as functions within this nondual universe, have forgotten we are functions and therefore we mistakenly believe ourselves to be separated from the garden where all needs are met. We fail to recognize that our small thoughts, our dualistically formed judgments have created our small worrisome world. This small dualistic world is a world where we struggle to make something of ourselves.

We can free ourselves from our self-imposed feelings of needing to make ourselves happy and find fulfillment by simply remembering who and what we truly are. We are expressions of a nondual eternal Consciousness. And as expressions of this nondual Consciousness, we are always in full possession of all we need. We simply need to understand this and recognize the non-dual nature of our true Self.

Many of our identities act very small. They exist in a state of waking sleep and are unable to understand and embrace the integral relationship they have with Consciousness. In order to experience the innate freedom available to us as expressions of Consciousness, we need to learn to redirect the flow of our vital life energy and use this energy to invest in engaging with our true Mind, Body, and Spirit. This righteous engagement empowers our Soul, and our Soul will assist us in our inward journey, a journey of awakening.

The Fourth Way tradition tells us that if we hope to awaken from the dream of separation, we need to learn to watch for, or self-observe, actions that guarantee loss of vital energy, energy that could be used to produce the food that nourishes our Soul. These actions are negative emotion, negative expression, internal consideration and morbid introspection. Watching for these emotional actions is a great place to use the power tools of self-observation and Self-remembering to shed light on our wasteful identities. Once we have seen these identities, we can reeducate ourselves and release ourselves from the self-imposed prison of our small and fractured thoughts.

Negative emotions are instilled into our personalities; they are not essential. From very early on we learn to judge our experiences as being either good or bad, right or wrong. What we perceive as being good or bad is usually based on the prejudices we have learned from our social environment. We learn to seek out and hold tightly to what we believe to be good, and in order to possess what we believe to be good; we wage an internal and external emotional battle against what we believe to be bad. We push all that we believe to be bad or wrong into a darkened corner of our lives, and then we unknowingly allow the darkness to consume our life energy. Negative emotions consume our life energy.

Negative expression is the act of allowing our negative emotions to project themselves into our outward appearing experiences and onto the outward appearing experiences of those around us. Negative emotion and its expression can be as small a matter as making a negative comment regarding the weather or it can be as violent as war and murder.

Internal consideration is an emotion that occurs when we feel we have been wronged or underappreciated by someone or something. We may feel we are owed a debt. We may even find ourselves suffering because we mistakenly believe we owe a debt to someone or something for the wrongs, for the sins, we believe we have committed.

If we look closely at our internal considerations, we will see that they are born in and belong to one or several of our misguided identities. Internal consideration will cause us to keep a mental ledger noting all the wrongs we believe we have committed or have been committed against us.

When we begin to see our small identities and their misunderstanding, we may begin to think badly of ourselves. We may begin to judge ourselves for our mistakes. We begin to suffer for what we perceive to be our failure to be more perfect; to make something of ourselves. We fall victim to morbid introspection. Morbid introspection steals vital life energy. We must, in moments of morbid introspection, practice non-judgment. All is forgiven in the universe of non-dual reality. Morbid introspection will serve only to cause us to find it too painful to continue our inward journey of Self-discovery.

Many lives are consumed in the infectious and unholy fires of our negative emotions. Entire cultures have been infected. These negative emotions of small self will consume our vital life energy and sentence our Soul to the “lair of demons”.

Recognizing the energy-consuming, unprofitable expression of our negative emotions is powerful. When we are able to observe, without judgment, our negative emotions we have the opportunity to stop engaging in our negativity. The act of simply reducing our emotional engagement with these negative emotions will conserve energy and nourish the Soul. Soul will respond and guide us to the greater freedom of True Self. We need only practice non-judgment and forgiveness on ourselves and all others.

The lotus flower as described in many teachings tells us that the lotus begins its expression within the nutrient-rich mud at the bottom of the pond. Within this nutrient-dense mud, the lotus seed sprouts and establishes its foundation. It lays down its roots. The lotus then senses and grows naturally and effortlessly into the light and air available at the surface of the pond, where it branches out and establishes leaves that naturally and effortlessly absorb the air and light. The lotus then uses the nutrients from the muddy bottom and the air and the light from above to manifest its inherent and beautiful flower.

The flower of the lotus is always, ALWAYS, inherently present within the seed. Its manifestation depends only on the lotus’ natural ability to make use of the food sources available within its environment.

People are no different from the lotus. Each of us possess, buried in the nutrient-dense mud of our small-self world, the seed of our true Self. And like all seeds, the true Self seed holds within itself the inherently beautiful golden flower of our true Self. The only thing a person needs to do in order to allow for true Self to germinate, grow, and flower is find a way of creating the crack that allows a sliver of conscious light to penetrate into the shadowy world of the small self.

Our Soul has the power to crack the hard shell of our small self. We need only make small directional non dimensional changes in our way of thinking. These small non dimensional directional changes transform everyday experiences into nourishing food for the Soul.

Esoteric: from Greek esoterikos (within).

Many definitions of alchemy suggest that alchemists were the first chemists. Many of these chemists were thought to be working to discover a process that would allow them to turn the base metal of lead into the rare and deemed valuable metal, gold. And indeed, there were many individuals involved in this materially-based endeavor.

However, there were then and are now esoteric alchemists. These esoteric alchemists use symbolic language to express a transformational process of expanding the life experiences of the small self (lead) into the true Self (gold).

The food triad is a long-understood teaching of esoteric alchemy. The alchemy of the food triad recognizes that our life experiences are the food we can use to feed our Soul. The alchemy of the food triad uses attentive awareness to digest our everyday experiences. Attentive awareness is transformational. The proper digestion of our life experiences is the alchemical process that dissolves the illusion of our dualistic material world and transforms our dualistic experiences into nondual expanded experiences of true Self.

There are three basic foods involved in the process of nourishing our Soul: the food we receive from the earth’s natural system, the food we receive as we breathe the air that surrounds us, and the food we receive from sensations/impressions.

The first food is the densest; it is the physical food we gather and produce from the living soil and natural world. This dense physical food needs to be digested then refined, so our bodies can absorb the nutrients. The digestive process begins when we cook, chew, and swallow our physical food. The stomach continues the refining process. Digestion of first food is an instinctive process.

The second food is less dense; it is the food of air. Air contains several elements that feed the body and assist in the distribution of the first food. Breath brings the second food into our bodies and expels byproducts from our bodies. Breathing, at this physical level, is an instinctive and automatic function.

The third food is the food of sensations/impressions. The food of sensation/impressions enters our bodies through the five senses. We see, smell, taste, hear, and feel sensations. Without the food of sensations/impressions, the body will not function.

Our bodies are constantly receiving sensations/impressions. Sensations communicate to our bodies the necessary information our bodies need to function. For example, our eyes are constantly adjusting the light that is received through the pupils. Without these constant, instantaneous, automatic adjustments, our brain will not receive the clear information necessary to process an image.

The list of automatic biological functions is long. The sensations our bodies receive allow for the biological functioning of the body. Without sensations and the instantaneous automatic adjustments that result from these sensations, our bodies would not function.

The work of the food triad can stop at this point. The human body will make use of the three available foods—the physical food we gather, the air we breathe, and the sensations we automatically receive. These foods will be used to maintain the body’s apparent physical presence. However, when the food triad is allowed to stop at this level, the Soul will not receive the nourishment it requires. Our Soul will suffer and our true Mind and Body will grow old before their time.

We must understand that the food triad is designed to allow for further digestive work, and that this work will allow us to provide proper nourishment to Soul. To allow the food triad to continue beyond the point of merely providing nutrients to our body and expand to allow the production of nourishment for the Soul, we need to begin, without judgment, and with conscious awareness, to see our misperceptions—the impressions of our small self.

Impression: an idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone, especially one formed without conscious thought or on a basis of little evidence.

Once we become aware of the fact that the way we think about life, our impressions regarding life, are based on little evidence, we can begin to reevaluate our small thoughts. These moments of reevaluation are transformational moments. These moments transmute the lead and create gold. These moments use the nutrients of our day-to-day lives to nourish rather than deplete our energetic reserves.

Experiences of anger, fear, and anxiety offer us incredible opportunities to reevaluate, to digest our impressions with a deep understanding of the true nature of our experience. We can see that the small thoughts and actions of small self create anger, fear and anxiety. This understanding creates an opportunity for us to express gratitude and forgiveness rather than anger, fear, and anxiety. Gratitude and forgiveness feed the Soul.

We must not allow ourselves to continue to struggle. In non-duality there is nothing to struggle against. To small self, struggle is seen as evidence that good or bad exists. Struggle of this nature is an energetic drain. We can recognize that struggle can be used to our advantage. When we observe ourselves struggling, we can stop, disengage from the small self struggles, and engage with conscious awareness regarding the true nature of life. In this way, struggle is used to our benefit. We convert misunderstanding into understanding, we let the light of Consciousness penetrate the shadows of the small self.

We must not allow ourselves to become discouraged; lack of courage is born in small self's fear, and this fear is the result of small self’s misperceptions. When we observe ourselves feeling discouraged, we simply need to Self-remember. We need to remember our true, fearless Self. The true Self that dares to live.

“A person with outward courage dares to die; a person with inner courage dares to live.”

We fill ourselves with many inaccurate, unconsciously accepted thoughts, and we experience life through the quality of these thoughts. The quality of our small thoughts fractures and splits apart the full spectrum light of our experiences, reducing our experiences to fragments of reality.

In order to experience the full spectrum of life’s light and enjoy the deepest beauty, peace and ease that life offers, we must find ways to create a vacuum, a space emptied of our unconsciously accepted thoughts. We make this empty space as we engage in the process of observing our small self’s fractured thinking. When we allow ourselves to see the fractured thinking of our small self, we can disengage from these thoughts, empty ourselves for a moment. And in making ourselves empty of our fractured thinking, in that moment of emptiness, the reality of our conscious nature will fill us with an understanding that allows us to experience our ever-present true Self.

The Soul, like the lotus, intuitively knows that the full spectrum of life-giving light exists. It is our opinionated thinking that keeps us confined to the lower earthly realm where we experience only the shadowy slivers of light and mud. Correcting our fractured thinking, emptying ourselves of our habituated patterns of thought, allows the innate wisdom of the Soul to transform our lives. Emptying ourselves of small thoughts makes space for the revolutionary uprising of true Self.

The Soul understands; it is unencumbered by the misunderstandings that fracture the human experience. In order to allow ourselves to nourish Soul, we can empty ourselves of erroneous and fractured thinking. A vacuum; an empty space is created via the processes of self-observation and Self-remembering. Self-observation and Self-remembering, when done without judgments or expectations, naturally creates empty space, and it is within this empty space that the innate understanding of Soul flows effortlessly into our awareness.

Small self’s future reflects its past. Its present situation initiates reactions based on memories formed in the past. Our small self is attached to memories, and these attachments confine us to a small world that reflects our small thoughts.

The small self has been told and has accepted the mistaken belief that life is a struggle. Our small self acts out the struggle every moment of every day. Our small self struggles to create joy and happiness. It has not understood that the small thoughts it recycles and the things these recycled thoughts seek will not create lasting joy and happiness. Lasting joy and happiness cannot be created. Soul, on the other hand, understands that joy and happiness are always present just beyond the small judgmental thoughts of our small self.

Soul knows that, like the golden flower of the lotus, the true Self is ever present within each of us. Soul has an intimate connection with the true Self and is eager to assist.

Soul, when properly nourished, empties us of the small thoughts of the habituated small self. Our emptiness makes room; creates space where the Soulful understanding of the nondual universe can take root. When the roots of understanding have been established, small self will develop an appreciation and a taste for nonduality. Small self will discover that it is safe to surrender to the experience of eternal Consciousness.

Our aim is to allow ourselves to recognize that we are the ever-present beautiful golden flower of true Self. Our aim is to allow ourselves to stop acting so small and simply open ourselves to our nourishing interconnectedness with eternal Consciousness.

“Your nature and the integral nature of the universe are one and the same: indescribable, but eternally present. Simply open yourself to this.”

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

We have mistakenly been taught to judge our lives and the lives of all others by measuring right against wrong, good against bad, freedom against restriction and more against less. We unconsciously and unnecessarily confine ourselves to a distorted world where we feel we must measure and make more of ourselves and everyone and everything around us. In our world of judgmental measurements, we struggle. We struggle to make ourselves more. More, always more. This world of struggle with ‘more’ is the world Jesus spoke of when he told us of “the world of outer darkness where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

We must remember that our true Self is an expression of Consciousness, and in so being, true Self is inherently full and complete. In the fullness of our true Self there is no need to judge or measure. In non-dual reality there is nothing to measure or compare against. True Self simply enjoys the experience of being full.

The good news is, we can use our mistakenly measured judgment to our benefit. We can make a profit from our judgmental experiences. The right or wrong, the more or less of our personal daily experiences are magnifying experiences that allow us to see that, for our small self, there will never be enough. Without the dis-ease of these magnifying experiences of endless need, we would never feel the need to move forward and find our ever present, non-dual, non-judgmental, infinitely full, true Self.

We can recognize that life is our medicine. When taken appropriately and with non-judgement, life will feed our Soul, and Soul counsels us regarding our true identity. On the other hand, the medicine of life, when taken inappropriately, is a poison that causes our Soul to be caught in the “lair of daemons” where our mind and body become old before their time.

We can experiment with our judgmental experiences. We can stop ourselves from judging. We can start our non-judgmental experiment with simple daily experiences. Rather than getting out of bed in the morning and immediately judging the day by the weather, we can stop and express an awareness of cause and effect. We can express our gratitude in having the opportunity to experience another day with our growing awareness. On our drive to work, we can stop our struggle with the traffic and the “bad” drivers. We can make the choice to simply be present and, again, be grateful to have the opportunity to experience another day with our growing awareness. Our experiment with nonjudgment will provide proof that the ease of true being waits just beyond judgment.

“Time is the name we give the imaginary place that is 'not now'.”

Time is a measured experience of our society. Humans have created systems of all kinds that are designed to give us more time to enjoy life. And yet, in the world today it seems there is never enough time. Our time-saving devices are not working. This is because time belongs to the world of things. Infinite Mind is timeless. True Self is timeless. Joyful experiences do not belong to the world of things. Joy, lasting timeless joy, is available only in the open-mindedness of this timelessness.

Our misperception regarding the nature of time causes baseless fear and anxiety. We are almost constantly aware of the time. We are seldom aware of true Self. We are always running late. Late for what? We use time to measure our productivity. What are we producing? We use time to measure our progress. Where are we going? We use time to measure how much time we have left before we die. Have we ever really lived? How can something as eternal as a universe in ecstatic motion be running late, need to produce anything, go anywhere, or die?

This time-motivated world is a fragment of the universe in ecstatic motion. True Self experiences only the unfragmented non-dual universe. Therefore, time has no urgency to true Self. If we understand true Self, time will have no urgency for us. Our true Self is free to take the time to experience the timeless universe.

The time-driven world of the small self is a trap. Small self's time trap seldom allows for the experience of now. Small self is trapped in the nonexistent world of memories of past struggles and the fearful and anxious world of struggles yet to come.

Life does not occur in the past or in the future, it occurs in the now. True Self does not live in the past or in the future, it lives in the now. Now is alive. We must “dare to live” in the now.

The nonjudgmental life of true Self, the Self whom we truly are and the only Self that can fully experience ease, can only be experienced in the moment of now. Soul, a function of eternal Mind, can only transmit its wisdom and offer its assistance in the moment of now.

Small self is a fragment of true Self. The fragmented small self is never actually separate from true Self. The fragmentation is imagined; the illusion of being separate from true Self can be dispelled by our consciously choosing to experience the moment of now. Soul can help us live in an ecstatic timeless non-dual universe if we make the slightest effort to place our small self in the timeless moment of now.

When we find ourselves caught in the time-driven, anxious world of our small self, we can ask ourself to STOP and remember. In that moment of STOP, we can take a breath. The act of taking a breath at the moment of the STOP brings us into the ever-present awareness of now. Now is the magical moment where we can allow ourselves to remember who and what we truly are. Every moment we cause ourselves to Self-remember has the effect of transforming the moment into a conscious, timeless, anxiety free experience.

In our moments of Self-remembering, we consciously allow the vibrant energy of the reality to mix with the dense energy of the material world. The resulting transformed energy is the nourishing energy we give to our Soul.

The true Self will respond to this energetic gift.

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

We can accept the responsibility of giving ourselves to the timeless moment of now. We can, in the moment of now, remember that we are expressions of eternal Consciousness. And we can express gratitude; we can thank the moment of now for the opportunity to awaken to our ever-present true Self.

Assumption: the action of taking on power or responsibility.

Small self assumes that life is a challenge that demands that we take on the task of making something of ourselves. The small self assumes the world to be a series of time-driven events that involve multiple interactions with multiple objects. This is a false assumption. Our true Self is non-dual eternal Consciousness, and in recognition of this non-dual Consciousness we can rest easy in understanding that we are complete. We don’t need to make something of ourselves, we simply need to experience who and what we truly are. We can facilitate this profound experience by simply remembering to bring our attention to the act of assuming the attributes of eternal Consciousness.

An understanding regarding the power of assumption allows us to experience the attributes of our true Self rather than the mistakenly accepted fractured attributes of our small self. Adjusting our assumptions, widening our scope of vision offers us the opportunity to experience the qualities and conditions of eternal Consciousness. As we, with attention, assume the attributes of Consciousness, we allow ourselves an opportunity to effortlessly experience and express our true Self.

Attribute: a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something.

We can make ourselves familiar with the attributes; the inherent qualities of eternal Consciousness. We can remember that each of us is an expression of this Consciousness and in so being, each of us is in full possession of the attributes of eternal Consciousness. We may not be able to instantly comprehend the full measure of our true Self as expressions of Consciousness, but we can comprehend the inherent qualities, the attributes of Consciousness. As we go about life, we can remember to be present with the moment; we can be in the now. In the presence of the moment, we can remember to actively assume the attributes of eternal Consciousness. We can invest our energy in our conscious expression of these attributes.

Nonduality, Endlessness, Fullness, Gratitude, Forgiveness, Righteousness, Intelligence, Virtue, Peace and most essentially, Love. These are a few attributes we can give our energy to. Most importantly, we can remember to focus our attention on the attribute of Love.

True love, not small self-love, is the foundational attribute of eternal Consciousness. It is this non-judgmental love that dissolves all struggle. It is this unconditional, nonjudgmental love that exists above all else. Bringing unconditional, nonjudgmental ever-present higher Love into this world will cause us to recognize that we and all things that exist are expressions of higher Love.

We can easily see that we have been completely successful in manifesting faulty assumptions. We can see that the manifestation of the small thoughts of our small self effortlessly, without our attention, become our experience. We can be absolutely certain that, with our attention we can be equally successful at manifesting the attributes of eternal Consciousness.

“If, with all your heart and all your mind you sincerely assume the attributes of Infinite Mind, dis ease (lack of ease) will flow right through you.”

This is not to say we will not experience dis-ease as it flows through us. It means that rather than unconsciously allowing ourselves to see ourselves as victims totally engaged in the experience of dis-ease, we can STOP.

We can take a breath, self-observe, and Self-remember. We can, with attention, allow ourselves to simply assume an attribute of truth and allow ourselves to non-judgmentally experience the experience. In this way, we profitably make use of the experience. We can gain precious energy that will be used by our Soul to further our Self-realization. Self-realization filters the element of dis-ease out of the experience and allows us to see that in the timelessness and endlessness of our true beingness, the attributes of Consciousness are in full and ever-present effect and all is well.

Our small self judges everything, and in the act of judging we instantly give our energy and our lives over to the fractured dualistic experiences of seeking right and struggling with wrong.

If we are ever to become awake to our ever-present true Self, we must “judge not.” We must practice nonjudgment on ourselves and on all others. When we “see” ourselves becoming judgmental, we can STOP, and in place of judgment, we can remember ourselves, and, with awareness, assume the attributes of our true Self.

When we find ourselves judging our experiences as being good or bad, when we see ourselves judging ourselves and or others, we can stop, and we can choose to assume the powerful attribute of forgiveness.

We can forgive our small identities and we can forgive the small identities of all others. We can see that “they” do not yet understand that they are the universe in ecstatic motion. Breathe deeply. Be aware that the attributes of eternal Consciousness are always in effect.

Almost every moment of every day there are experiences that are asking us to engage in forgiveness. Our experiences are begging us—beseeching us, imploring us—to stop, take a breath, remember who we really are, and assume an attribute of eternal Consciousness.

Be at peace. There is no need to struggle. True Self has nothing to prove. We can always find a kind word. We can always walk away from any struggle in the full glory of knowing who and what we and all others truly are. We are non-dual expressions of eternal Consciousness.