Solitude: The Straight Path

Most people are afraid of being alone for an extended period of time. Not speaking to or seeing anyone for a few days is not even an idea worth considering.

Yet solitude is a way to get to the heart of life. As our minds chat away in the world like up and down Pez dispenser heads, the reality of life is always flowing gracefully underneath, flowing as a deep and genuine intelligence at the heart of all existence. We miss it all the time because we are chat chat chatting away.

Conversations are perfect ego boosters, for they reinforce our ideas of ourselves and our ideas of the world. We look for agreement about what we are saying, so we can feel validated and feel as though we have somehow found REALITY, and that we are therefore in POSSESSION of something OTHERS don't have. The sheer ridiculousness of this process is seen quite clearly after one undertakes a block of solitude.

My first experience with solitude began in youth, as most children find moments when they are alone and have only their imaginations to play with. Then I became a farmhand for a farm in Northern California, where the owner of the farm would go away for weeks at a time and leave me alone on the remote property to caretake. And this is where I discovered the merits of being alone and not speaking with others for a large amount of time.

I went back to the city and smaller town life, and eventually the craving to experience even longer bouts of solitude overcame me, and I gave away all of my things and walked into the redwood forest for two months. I slept in a camp I set up high up on a ridge, about a 4 mile hike into the isolated woods, not a single person around to hear any shouts or screams. Just me and the woods.

This was fantastic. And two years later, I went back for a 5 month stint alone in the woods. This took me beyond thunder dome.

5 months in the woods alone is like wiping the windshield after a rain has passed. Sunny, clear, all is obvious.

Now I'm preparing to do a sabbatical of sorts and try a few years alone in the wilderness. Everything you let go in solitude makes you a greater gift to the world in general. Truth is all that matters, and this truth is life.

So, if you find yourself afraid of things like solitude or death or whatever, just go ahead and do some solitude. You'll find many things that were holding you back will fall away easily, such as the need for approval from others. You will take yourself out of the herd mind that Einstein spoke of, and no longer will you be at the mercy of public opinion and mass propaganda.

Knowing is being. But being is missed, so long as we're yap yap yapping.

I'll post more on solitude and potential places to disappear from civilization soon. Thanks for reading, now shut the fuck up and be.

It's Okay to Abandon Everything

You're never stuck.

See, stuck is a state of mind only. So is attachment. In fact, they are both the same thing.

We fear leaving our job, because we fear losing our house or our wives and husbands or our status or our career.

Yet we always have the choice to simplify our lives. We can begin to shed more and more of the outside needs and wants, and get down to the absolute essentials.

I know a young man who left behind his frozen and stuck lifestyle and gave away all of his things. He kept only what fits in a backpack, a small backpack.

His items included only 2 changes of clothes, thin and easy to roll-up and pack. He walks the Earth at this very moment, and has done so for years, living as a nomad, doing minor computer work as he roams about the planet.

He's happy. He could have remained in one place, and he'd still be happy, so long as he kept only what fits into a backpack.

None of us are stuck. But people who imagine that they are stuck sometimes end up taking their own lives, because they believe what they imagine and see no way out of it.

If you think you are stuck, let go of whatever it is that you think makes you stuck. Let go of the thought, first. Let go of the need to fit in. Let go of the society. Let go of the rules. Let go of approval from your parents. Let go of having to please others and lovers and friends. Let go of the fear of being free like a dignified animal of nature.

And just go. Go in, and move outward. Be with yourself. If you are afraid to be alone, then go off on your own into the forest for a month or two alone. If you are afraid of death, then do as Ramana Maharshi, and lay still on the ground, and think about death for the whole day. Feel your body dying. Face the psychological fears surrounding the avoidance of squarely facing your own inevitable demise.

It's too short, this life. Might as well enjoy it. Oddly enough, this is the greatest gift you can give to the world. Equally odd is the fact that only those who have simplified and released their attachments can see that this is so.

Attachments are blinders. Release them and see. Life is an adventure, and like it or not, you are an adventurer.

Urugayan President: The Leader Who Leads By Example

A Nobel Peace Prize for the World's "Poorest" President?

By MANUEL RUEDA (@ruedareport)

March 15, 2013

A Dutch NGO called the Drugs Peace Institute recently made a bold proposal to Uruguayan President José Mujica.

The organization is pushing for a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the 76-year-old head of state, on account of his efforts to legalize marijuana in the South American country.

"We have come to Uruguay to ask for [Mujica's] permission to campaign on his behalf," said Frans Bronkhorst of the Drug Peace Institute.

"We believe that he has made a proposal…that aims to end this [global] drug war, which has done nothing but serve the interests of obscure parties," Bronkhorst told Uruguayan newspaper El Observador in an interview published on March 13th.

In mid 2012, Mujica promoted a bill that would legalize the consumption of Marijuana in Uruguay, and regulate the production and sale of the plant.

The proposal, known to Uruguayans as the marijuana law, was tabled by Mujica at the end of last year after polls showed that most Uruguayans did not approve of legalizing marijuana. Regardless, Mujica continues to support the marijuana law, and it could be approved later this year if congressmen in Uruguay garner more public support for the initiative.

The Uruguayan president has not yet made any statements about the Nobel campaign proposal presented to his advisers by the Drug Peace Institute.

Bronkhorst said that his organization would gather "the voices of victims of the drug war" in its campaign to get a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Mujica. He said organizations that campaign against prohibitionist drug policies currently lack a global symbol or a famous spokesman, and added that Mujica could fill this void. "He could be the Bob Marley of the 21st century," Bronkhorst joked with El Observador.

Every year in September, the Nobel Peace Prize committee sends out nomination ballots to some 300 academics, former prize winners and government representatives around the world.

To be nominated for the peace prize, Mujica would have to secure the support of one of the people receiving a ballot. Winning the prize is far more difficult, as Mujica would have to defeat hundreds of worthy nominees from all over the world.

Bronkhorst argued that the Uruguayan president was a strong candidate for the peace prize, not just because of his efforts to change drug policy but because of his personal background.

"He is a former [left-wing] guerrilla, who abandoned weapons, and became president through the ballot box in a democratic process," Bronkhorst said.

Mujica currently donates 90 percent of his salary to charitable causes, and leads a simple lifestyle which has earned him the nickname "the world's poorest president."

If he were to win the nobel peace prize, Mujica would become the first person to receive this honor for tackling prohibitionist drug policies.

ARTICLE REPOSTED FROM: Univision

"This Is What Is" by Lisa Cairns

New Nonduality Talk with Lisa Cairns

Auguries of Innocence, by William Blake

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

Knowing is Being

It's really difficult for most to accept that the deepest form of knowing is simply being, which continues to be despite whether or not thought is going on.

What this means is that the intellect isn't even necessary to understand what reality is. Being reality is the only way. Reality will never be separate.

To take an imaginary step out of reality, in other words, to create a separate identity and also a "world" out there for this identity to look at, this is the illusion.

Ramana Maharshi said that knowing is being. It can be really frustrating to ease the investment in a mental self/world in order to experience the always already present reality beneath, within, as all there is.

This is why we are thankful to the ego. In the end the ego is the source of our pain and suffering to such a degree that we are guided back again and again to giving up thought-identity. We relax. We come full-stop in the mind. And here we are.

Rest as this beingness. If there has to be a practice of any sort, it might as well be this.

Cuteness Trumps All (5-year-old Tsung Tsung plays piano)

The End of Seeking

Have a nice day.

BEST Site for Pointers, Hands Down!

PointerPointer.com is the absolute best site for pointers. I hope all of the nonduality friends find their way to this absolutely amazing site:
http://www.pointerpointer.com/

Being Ordinary

 Heard an interview with these guys on the Australian podcast, Urban Guru Cafe. Check 'em out.


http://www.beingordinary.org/

About

Being Ordinary is a website created by two friends, Tom and Mike, and is dedicated to the expression and exploration of what it truly means to be a human being. Ideas such as Enlightenment, Awakening or Self-Realisation, often serve to distract us from the ordinary and mundane from which we assume we must  escape or transcend. Yet if seen clearly, simple and directly, the ordinary can lead us into total acceptance and end the search for something ‘extra’.
These podcasts are the result of many discussions over many years  and although the essence of what is presented here does not require words, labels or theory, the sheer enjoyment and creativity of speaking about the wordless has led to these recorded discussions. We hope that whatever is expressed here directs you straight to the heart of the vast silence from which all expression arises.

Being Ordinary is a natural evolution of an earlier website we created called Sheer Uncanniness, which acted as a forum for discussion about the fundamental nature of being. The posts (including many excellent poems) are still available here through the archives.

About Tom…

I first got into spirituality in 2001 after reading the book Mindfulness: The Path to the Deathless by Ajahn Sumedho. Meditation has done me a lot of good over the years, I’d highly recommend it. I first met Mike in the students union at Lampeter University where we were studying Religious Studies, he looked like a bit of a hippy and I just thought we’d get on.
Nowadays I’m making websites and loving open source software and the open social web. You might like to read my book about spirituality and stuff, The Last Beyond. I am @twombh on Twitter.

About Mike…

Born and raised in the Isle of Man I was brought up around Therevadin Buddhism by my Father who ordained as a monk (you can visit his website at PureDhamma.org). After various travels in India and Asia I took a degree in Religious Studies at Lampeter in Wales, where I met Tom who was playing banjo and singing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. After years of meditation, yoga and philosophy, I sought out teachers such as Ramesh Balsekar, Tony Parsons and Mooji who have  profoundly effected my own appreciation of  spirituality. I’ve also recently completed a Masters Degree in Western Esotericism.
I’ve recently began to teach Mindfulness Meditation & give talks on Nonduality. My website is http://www.myfreemind.im/. You might also enjoy leafing through my early blog on Awakening, Beginners Rope, or join me on twitter @MyFreeMind_IOM.