This video makes our actual identity clear, but with one proviso and I’m going to make this proviso very clear on this post. I’ve taken the next section of this post from my new book, The Liberation Way, which is still in being edited, but I thought this section was so important that I wanted it included with this post.

We keep on searching for me.
The search is fueled by the belief that there is a me that I can somehow find.

But who is searching?
Is that not me?

The seeker searches for himself.
He becomes frustrated when every self he stumbles on he rejects as not being the “real” me.

After 30 years of this we still haven’t arrived.
When do we tire of all this activity?

Who am I?

I’m guessing that you still don’t know.

Let’s take one more look at this belief that fuels the search.
This is our last examination of this strange energy.

We believe that we are not the seeker … that we are someone else and it is this someone else we hope to find one day through our meditations, watching of videos, or of reading books like this one.

Why, I ask you, do we reject the seeker?
Why can’t we just be that person?

Is it because we don’t want to be a seeker?
Does that strike you as, perhaps, just a little pathetic?

As I’ve said a thousand times, we are self-rejecting.
We persistently mirror our own primal invalidation.

We have taken the place of our well intended parents.
In a very well intended way we continue the process of self-rejection and we do that by rejecting the seeker and, all the time, seeking someone else.

When we were invalidated by our well intended parents, we believed that they were rejecting a “thing” an “entity”, a noun.
We were that “thing”, “entity”, noun.

So we came to believe that the “me” is a “thing”, an “entity”.
And because this “thing” was rejected, we sought to become something else.

And what was this something else we sought to become?
It was a projection … the projection that we probably absorbed by what we thought our parents wanted us to be.

We have continued this endless journey of becoming someone we are not the whole of our lives.

So who am I?

Is the I a “thing”, an “entity”, a noun?

Is it the underlying emptiness that many of the sages of the past seemed to imply … that which dispassionately observes and notices … the mysterious witness on which the whole flow of existence drifts?

I say we are not a “thing”, an “entity”, or a noun.

This means that if you continue to struggle to find out who you are, if you insist on continuing being the role of the seeker then that is who you shall be!

Do you understand? You are what you are and you have some power to understand this process and you have some power to effect how you are in this world. The operative word in that sentence is “some”. You can see and understand.

Sounds, I notice them …
when
I notice them.

Even if I ‘know’ they are present …
I only notice them when the noticing of them happens.

What is noticing?
Am I the act of noticing?

In deep sleep I notice nothing, yet I awaken and “I’m” am still here!

So, I can’t be the noticing. Noticing happens, just like everything else that happens.

What am I?
Who am I?

Could I be the life, the energy that is nothing at all?

Truly nothing! Already virtually like death itself.

I began this long, long journey over 30 years ago because of a profound fear of death.

And now, in this moment, I wonder and realize what I could never have imagined;

the duality of life and death may be the ultimate illusion.

Perhaps we neither die nor do we live, for I can truly not find anyone or anything here or there or anywhere — just appearances happening, here, there, and everywhere.

Unborn wandering the world, I no longer fear any shadow as I walk in the Vally of death’s grand illusion.

But there are no stupid people. What appears as stupidity is simply belief, identification with a psyche that clings to a belief that is contrary to what is.

And the only difference between a Buddha and everyone else, is that a Buddha either entirely has fallen out of belief with the psyche or takes it with a Very light touch, since the identification with the psyche is the core belief that is contrary with what is.

Those of you who have read Liberation from the Lie will understand how this age of extreme technology spawns both incredible achievement, as well as outstanding ignorance. The two go hand in hand. The reasoning and the story are rather complex, but they are made very clear in this book. Something I can’t quite do at this site. If I could I would.

What do you believe? What do you cling to out of psychological necessity. Do you need to believe that the USA is incapable of being a global terrorist, that every baby is a blessing from God?, that technology will save us?, that the world is coming to an end in 2012?, that if you only work hard enough and have the luck of grace that you too will become enlightened?

These are all beliefs that keep us weighed down in the mire of ignorance. It’s the rule of thought linked to emotion which takes the form of identity + belief.

Perhaps I should coin a new word … hmmmmmm … idbel … lieftity … belity, beliefity — I like that one. What’s your beliefity?

Fuck, it’s another freezing morning, dark outside. Oh god. I hate getting out of bed, so I won’t get out. But the fucking dog has to be walked. Why the fuck do we have a dog? She’s just something I have to walk so I can pick up her shit. What a perfect metaphor of my whole fucking life.

I pull up the shade behind my bed without actually getting out of bed. Totally dark grey brown outside. The leafless trees look dead. A freezing cold wind can be heard blowing through the branches.

I gotta walk the dog in that.

I have to take a piss. So I drag my sorry body out of the bed and stumble to the toilet. The whole pissing thing starts to slow down when you’ve hit my age. Reluctantly the piss expels itself from my body, it actually dribbles, while I watch in mournful disgust. I’ve become horrible, even to myself.

I look at the cute little dog in her crate. She’s desperate to get out of there so she can take her piss and do her shit as she pulls me this way and that way through flat, frozen suburbia. I am so fucking desperate to just jump back into that glorious, warm bed with its near perfect pillows. I can put my laptop in my actual lap, check out the boring crap on my local news site and then spend another totally wasted 15 minutes on Facebook. Can life get any better than that?

But I can’t do that because I have to walk the fucking dog. I might as well get it over with. So I slip on my pants, which are lying on the floor beside the bed, pull on my grey socks, throw on my black, but outstanding sweatshirt, and finally tie my hideous, but oh so comfortable green sneakers. I place my “smart” phone (designed exclusively for dumb people, such as myself), fetch a pair of headphones, throw on my navy blue jacket, somehow struggle to get my dog’s harness on, which I put on incorrectly since it takes someone with an IQ over 80 to get it right and finally fall out of the house into the freezing cold outside.

This is how the ego wakes up. But this ego is still asleep.

There is only one difference between the ego and real awakening. The ego “thinks” it is “doing” all of this stuff, including typing the words of this post. This is the illusion. The ego thinks, he does, he opines, he gets dressed, he loves his pillows, he doesn’t want to walk the dog.

The ego is the story of “me”.

Awakening just sees everything happening on its own with no one doing any of it. It is action-less awareness. So the next time you need to pull on your socks, know that it’s all happening on its own. No one is doing anything, yet everything happens just as it must happen and will happen and always has happened.

When the ego sleeps, the “me” is wide awake. When the “me” finally goes to bed, Life springs to wakefulness. Ahhhhh … the irony.

That’s how the ego wakes up in the morning.

The bed in this post is my actual bed photographed this morning. Okay, so I was lying about the grey weather. Sue me.

You can see the video here. The discussion starts kind of slowly, but it builds, so stick with it.

But I wanted to add this:

As you notice your internal life and greatly reduce your attention on the external world, you will see that your internal being is a sea of disquietude and desire. The more you notice it and STOP responding to the push and pull of desire (which will be impossible in the beginning — so don’t create unobtainable desire-based goals out of this), the true core of your Authentic Self (see Liberation from the Lie) will naturally arise. When this happens, the illusion of the doer will cease commanding your life and everything will be changed.

Stillness becomes your center. You will realize that every thought that is self-referential (representing a substantial number of all our thoughts), is representative of the drive for security where none can be found. Why can none be found? Because the self you believe yourself to be is non-existent.

I don’t want to say more.

There is nothing to fear, but fear itself. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Of all the problems we have in life, fear is the one thing that unites them all. We fear not being able to pay our bills, we fear losing a loving relationship, we fear loneliness, we fear sickness, we fear getting old, we fear failing in life.

In other words, we fear and we fear most of the time! Fear is like a nearly ever-present background hum that is always ready to pounce on us whenever the moment is ripe.

We love people like Martin Luther King because he inspired us. He told us that we don’t ever need to be prisoners of our fears. He showed us the way to live our lives on our strengths rather than cowering in the shadows of our terrors.

Is there a way to really deal with all fears once and for all?

There is and it is the truth of our own innate power that underlies all fear. The great teachers of power, such as the Buddha, Gandhi, Crazy Horse, Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King have showed us the way.

What do their stories have in common? Is there a common thread that can show us the way through fear?

We know that everyone, without exception, is haunted by fear. It is, in fact, their experience with fear that provided them with the motivation to explore it, learn from it, and finally to truly see through it. When we see through the dark veils of fear something utterly new and vital is revealed and that is the power of our primal selves.

What do we do when fear fills our life?

We panic, we resist, we medicate, we flee to any distraction that will take us away from the raw experience of it.

This is not the way. It is, in fact, precisely how we sustain the power of fear in our lives. It is the way that we will always remain slaves to our fears.

What was their secret? What can we learn from these great teachers of the past?

If we are to see through fear, if we are to ever discover the power that lies waiting for us, we must accept fear’s invitation.

What does that mean?

It means that we acknowledge the power of fear, that we cease avoiding it, that we commit ourselves to finding out what the storm of fear is really about. This means to open ourselves to fear in a way that is truly fearless. Crazy Horse said, as he charged into battle, “It is a good day to die”. This is the attitude we can emulate when fear fills our own life. We let it be exactly as it must and we observe the hot emotions rise up and do their best to intimidate and destroy the observer.

These are the terrors of the soul. 995 out of a thousand will flee, but starting today be among the 5 out of a thousand who weathers the storm, who explores it, who observes it, who lasts it out.

For who weathers the storm without fleeing from it? Could it be anyone less than the primal power that is you? Is that not the power of total truth and liberation. Could it be anything else but the power that can weather any storm?

Every moment presents us with an opportunity to discover who we are under all the layers of fear, for nothing is more generous than fear. Nearly always it is present. So every minute is an invitation. The trick is this: Fear tells us what we need to be, how we must change … truth tells us that who we must be we are already!

Is this not your fully awakened, authentic self? When you finally see that you don’t ever need to be a slave to your fears, then you are free and you and your world are reborn.

Find out for yourself.

These are some of the thoughts that occur to me about who I am. They occur to me quite frequently.

And, they are true!

I really am an asshole, a jerk, and a loser. I also think that I’m rather kind and compassionate, but can also be rather judgmental and cutting.

But there is a caveat here. They are true to the extent that they reflect my own Wound, my own primal invalidation experience. They are accurate and reliable representations of the earliest beliefs I had about myself and because they are so old and so well-established, that they tend to also be the most persistent.

All of these thoughts reflect my family of origin and how I was raised.

I also think that I’m intelligent, rather intellectual, of mediocre appearance and athletic ability, a so-so writer, occasionally funny, urbane, fairly sophisticated, and I really like artichokes and Mahler.

But these somewhat more complicated thoughts are not quite as “deep” as the first level … the asshole level.

But there is a layer that is even deeper than the primal level and that is the level of life itself and we are all that. That is the deepest level. It is deeper than all belief.

For a thought to have impact, it must be believed. So, when I say that I am an asshole, there must be a part of my persona that buys into that thought. Without the believer, the thought has no power. It’s just random noise and nothing more.

So, do I believe that I am an asshole? Not really … okay, now and then I do believe it. But mostly the thought now brings on a knowing chuckle and little more.

Do I believe that assholes are real? There are plenty of dicks in the world, so there really must be assholes as well. I would go as far to say that everyone has asshole potential. It’s all part of the distinctly human repetoire. Why should I exclude myself? Am I special?

When it is realized that we are, ultimately, not any thought, that, in fact, we are so much LESS, then we are free. For nothing can be freer than Life. Every thought is its own little prison. The bars are made of belief. Break out now, before it’s too late!

BTW — you can see my latest youtube video by clicking here.

Friend: Eric i was reading your blog yesterday pissing myself laughing in the library at some of it especially that jesus guy. I’m assuming he’s made up lol

Me: oh yeah, I remember meeting him.

Friend: So he’s a real guy ?

Me: Apparently so

Friend: I was reading what makes someone a dick and that seem relevant to the Wound, to what i feel inside right now
I keep saying it is a block when i tell people

Me: Sometimes the writings resonate.

How is it a block?

Friend: But a wound sounds pretty damn good way of describing it.
It’s like a pain, an agony, yes like i can’t go beyond it.

Me: The wanting to go beyond it is the same ‘energy’ as that which nurtures the pain you’re feeling.

Friend: And like a wound when i touch on it it hurts in fact it is excruciating.
It effects the way i behave
My body language
I shy away from things and i feel pretty damn shitty overall.

Me: That is the Wound, but it’s also kind of amazing.

Friend: But it just wont go away.

Me: It will always be part of your experience of you, part of what makes you unique.

Friend: It just doesn’t seem to connect with anything though
where as some thought beliefs you can see why they come up and why they keep appearing but this is just
its just there … almost pointless.

Me: I think it connects with everything, because it’s a filter … like a prism.

Friend: Yeah maybe its the accumulation of all the pain I’ve experienced throughout my life.

Me: Well, like anything else, it will tend to attach to anything with which it resonates (second time for that word).

Friend: So is even the resonating fooling me ?

Me: No. If it’s ‘fooling’ anyone, it is the ‘believer’. For a belief to exist it has to have a believer. they are One entity.

Friend: Yes. I try asking the question who am I or who is the thinker etc?

Me: The point is never to ‘escape’ this, because that’s the action of the believer as well, so the urge to escape creates an infinite loop.

Friend: But i can never come to anything when i ask it.

Me: What we are is the space where all of this, the body, the world, etc. happens
All that stuff, everything, is the foreground, and the Self is the background.
Only the foreground can feel shitty or elated.
You can’t MAKE the foreground BE the background. It’s hopeless. That’s the main delusion of spiritual aspirants.

Friend: Shit yeah. i think that is probably what I’m doing and i fail all the time, like when i feel at peace i try to hold it, but then a horrible thought will come through and ill try and deny it

Me: You must fail and you’ll fail for an eternity for the reasons mentioned.
The foreground cannot become the background. It’s really quite clear.

Friend: I think I’m at the most frustrating time of my life for that reason because it seems the solution to it is so simple but Ii cant seem to come to that resonation. I keep telling myself why am i asking people these questions am I hoping for something more and better?

Me: You believe you are the foreground, which is what everyone does.

Friend: Am I really wanting to be free and i cant answer any of them. I really don’t know.

Me: Here’s where it gets a little tricky, because you also ARE the foreground.
But the foreground ceaselessly changes. you breath, the objects of sight are always changing and THAT which sees is tied into the content of its seeing and that’s where the confusion arises.
That’s why all the great sages have said that enlightenment is waking up from the belief in the solidity of the content of consciousness.

Friend: Right Eric.

Because they are looking for something that doesn’t exist. You can’t find what isn’t there! But seekers are driven to find a new and better “me”. Both the seeker and the object of it’s seeking are really just one entity and that entity is belief.

It is the belief that says, “As I am, I am not adequate or sufficient.” And it is that belief that fuels the seeking. It is a process that can only end in the total demise in the belief, as well as its believer. But it only ends for very few of us. Most will seek for the whole of their lives never finding what they seek … because it was never there to be found in the first place.

Over time, the seeking itself becomes a full time job. We work at it. We dedicate most of our time to it. And, just like any other job, it becomes tiresome. It’s a grind.

Is there a solution? Can we be cured of the sickness of seeking?

The good news is Yes and it’s pretty simple, but very, very, few people can “absorb” the medicine.

Here it is and I hope you’re ready for it.

What are you doing right now? Are you reading this post? If so, realize that you are not the reader.

That’s the realization! Whatever you’re “doing”, you’re not that. There are no exceptions to this medicine. Are you sitting? Well, you’re not the sitter. Are you observing? Well, you’re not the observer. Are you in love with someone? You’re not the lover of that person.

Can I say it any simpler than that?

We hear a lot about the human potential movement. We can be more than what we are. Life can be more than what it is. These beliefs fill us with a strange kind of hope.

“I can be more”. Doesn’t that sound good? Isn’t that inspiring?

If I can be more sounds good, then I must also believe that as I am, I’m not so wonderful. I need to be improved.

I can always be more, which can only mean this:

I will always be less than what I could be!

It’s a permanent state of self-negation.

I wonder, can anything (and I mean anything) be more than what it is? See if this is true in your own life. Can your face be “more” than what it is? Can the road you live on be “more” than what it is?

You might reject this line of reasoning by saying, “Everything can be improved.”

Perhaps.

But can you improve a mountain? Can you make the sky better?

You can, but only under one condition. That condition is this: you can only improve something only if it has been previously degraded by negation!

The issue is never one of improvement. Never! It is always about reversing negation. Yes we can improve a seriously underperforming inner city school, but only through reversing the social and economic negation that community has experienced for generations.

Yes, we can “improve” a polluted river, but only by reversing the effects of mindlessly throwing garbage and toxins into the river.

We see that reversing the effects of invalidation requires us to stop. We simply stop negating. That stopping will put into place very powerful healing processes.The word “improvement” is such a misleading term. The universe is perfect, but the religion of self and group and environmental negation is so pervasive in human society that it has created the perfect, endless loop.

It works like this: We reject what is, in preference to what we want it to be. It is a matter of belief. We belief the object, such as a baby, is imperfect. We will then mold the object into a form we can use. We turn objects into functions. We “use” a river by dumping industrial waste into it. Or, we “use” a river by damning it to produce electricity, until we kill it. But always the molding will result in something degraded (see Chuang Tzu’s story about boring holes in chaos here).

If you’ve read my post on why the Lakota Believe the White Man is Crazy or have read my book, Liberation from the Lie, you will see that this is really the whole understanding. With the development of intensive agriculture about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, the stage was set for human and environmental degradation on a massive scale. My book describes this process in pain-staking detail, but always with an emphasis on self-healing.

The opportunity to reverse the scars of invalidation is always open to us. Healing is always a consequence of exploring how we have been negated by others (mostly our parents) and how we have replicated that self-negation in our own self-focused behaviors and beliefs. It is something we see, but to see the story and its many effects takes great courage. It’s not a path for the feint of heart. It requires intelligence and heart. Fortunately, many of us have the ability to take this difficult, but profoundly inspiring journey.

The path of Liberation offers people something different from Buddhism, conventional psycho-therapy, or Advaita (non-duality), which are colored by undertones of “improvement”. The Liberation Path is more akin to Taoism. It is a path of return. Of going back to our roots as wild beings of the cosmos, of being utterly true to ourselves, of recognizing our connections with all the universe. We are never alone in this world. Instead, we are liberated by our realization of connection, power, and energy.

We can live the whole of our lives with our eyes wide open and yet be utterly blind. Or we can live with clear eyes and a clear heart, centered in our root, our center. But that is not something that happens over-night or simply by sitting in meditation 20 to 40 minutes a day. It takes work, persistence, and perseverance.

More than anything else, it asks us to love what is, as it is. This is stopping. We see that negation and invalidation is failing to love what is. When that happens we take on the task of breaking what is and turning it into something else. The path of return starts and ends with love.

What stops you from starting now?

We couldn’t help noticing and appreciating how well the trails were marked. Each of the color-coded trails were noted by a bright and clear sign. There was no way we could ever get lost in this relatively open and small park.

We decided to take the longest trail, the Red Trail and walked several miles along a deeply forested area on one side and along broad open fields on the other. These softly undulating fields

have been farmed for about 200 years. Before that, perhaps they were home to Lenape Indians who lived in this area prior to the European invasion.

After walking several miles we came to a crossroads. To our surprise there were no trail markers. Had we somehow left the Red Trail? Prior to this moment, the markers were so clear and easy to follow. Now there were none.

We decided to walk in a roughly straight direction assuming that we were still on the Red Trail and then we came to another intersection and still there were no indicators of any kind. My wife said sarcastically, “Would it kill them to put up a marker?”

We were lost.

And doesn’t this mirror the whole spiritual journey? We read a book. It really resonates with us. We think we “know” it and the mind eagerly sets out on the path described in this book. We are filled with light and hope. Our confusion is ended and now the path is obvious. It’s well marked. Others have gone before us. We know where we are. And then, just as suddenly, we’re lost. All the resonance is just a memory. We don’t know where we are? Where are the markers? How did we fall off the path?

Just as day inevitably turns to night only to return again and as joy fades into indifference but also only to return again, so clarity inevitably becomes muddled.

This is just how it is. It’s how it’s supposed to be. If we always knew the way, then life would become way too predictable. Getting lost is both scary, frustrating, mysterious, intriguing and fun.

Are we not lost now? And isn’t it equally true that we know where we are. We can see that clarity and uncertainty arise together if we are truly honest with ourselves. We may want to believe we’re clear, but the shadow of unknowing always undergirds the certainty of the ego.

The way is now and sometimes it’s clear and sometimes it’s invisible. A sense of knowing comes and goes. Just as unknowing comes and goes. Sometimes the markers are right in front of us, clear as day and sometimes there are no markers at all.

But we can always see that when the persona demands or even just wants clarity over confusion, then suffering will be created. It’s not an issue of “letting go” of that demand, because that will nearly always be a phony, ego-centric behavior, it’s just to see the creative inter-play of what we presume is clarity, as opposed to confusion. Perhaps we are confused about the distinction. Perhaps we are clearest, when we experience the most confusion.

When the markers are present can we always count on them? When the markers are missing can we say with certainty that our directionless wandering is truly without direction?

Can we trust ourselves and the journey knowing that we never left our enduring home? Can we see that the path and its absence happen in equal measure?

Seekers will think they have arrived when a blissful mood arises in their experience. They feel glorious, for it is a glorious mood. And then they feel anything but glorious when the mood fades away as does their claim of having overcome the trials and tribulations of a relentless ego.

Life really is a bitch.

And when the claim of having “made it” gets blown away as the mood changes, the inevitable crappy mood follows in its wake and now we feel really defeated.

But actually, the good to bad mood swing is a gift. Because it can be seen as just another object of consciousness that floats by just like everything else floats by. The good/bad mood pattern is really a single repeating event.

What is it that notices all of this floating? Now that really is a horse of a different color.

But we will be slaves of the conditioned persona to the extent that we don’t notice what is usually present. And what is usually present that we fail to notice is the mood that is in between good and bad and this tends to be our dominant mood. We can call it the graceful name of the “In Between Mood”.

It turns out that this too is just another object of consciousness no different from the obvious extremes of bliss and misery, but it tends to be overlooked. But it is really the In Between Mood that turns out to be the most interesting, because it tends to be our primary, set mood. The more you become aware of it, the more interesting it will become.

Try this in your own life and what time is better than the present?

Focusing exclusively on the extremes is life on the spiritual journey merry-go-round, but realizing the in between mood is the hidden goldmine.

See for yourself. This is what you will ultimately discover, that who you are has nothing to do with any mood and this is liberation itself!

I was stunned, for these were the very words of Jesus of Nazareth. Who knew? So I explored.

“I gotta say, you’re kind of like the last person in the world who I’d think would make such a statement. Why big boobs? I don’t get it.”

I had hoped to get Jesus’ views on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. I had no idea that our conversation would so quickly go to boobs.

“Listen. I’m incredibly attracted to boobs. Is that so hard to understand? It’s not like I went up into the wilderness and pondered this. I just do. If you’re offended, then what can I say? I’m sorry, if that matters. But I see a woman with big boobs and I start, you know, getting hard. It just happens. Obviously you don’t get it.”, there was a little anger in his voice. “And, by the way, I don’t especially care if the woman is white, black, or green, if she has the boobs, she’s gots my attention.”

“I think I do get it Jesus. Aren’t you saying that life just happens whether it’s big boobs or walking on water.”

“Walking on water — what’s that?”, Jesus asked, absentmindedly.

“You know. The time when you walked on water. I don’t really know the Bible, but I know the story of you walking on water is somewhere in there.”

“Oh God. It’s just a stupid story written by people who needed to believe that miracles can happen. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. I never walked on water, although I have walked in water, but I guess that’s not much of a miracle. But it is! That’s the miracle. But, you know, people need these ridiculous stories to give them hope while they live a life of misery. It’s kind of sad.”

I noticed that he was looking at a middle aged brunette with a very curvy body. He was suddenly distracted. So I leaned over and whispered, “Hey quite a body over there. Pretty sexy.”, although she wasn’t all that good looking, she nonetheless had Jesus’ rapt attention.

“So Jesus, what makes you a holy person?” He was clearly annoyed that I interrupted his excitement.

“I don’t know. If you want to believe that I’m a holy person then go ahead. I’m not stopping you. By the way, are you a yid — you kind of look it?”

“Do you mean a Jew?”

“Of course, jew, yid, hebe, you know what I’m talkin’ about.”, he said derisively.

“Yeah, I was born jewish, but I’m kind of an atheist now.”

“Kind of an atheist? What does that mean? How can you be ‘kind of’ an atheist?”

“It means that I really don’t believe in any gods, that life is just amazing, boring, loving, hating, or whatever other form it takes and that’s pretty much it. What do you think Jesus? Your believers say you’re the son of God?”

“Oy. More walking on water bullshit. It makes me sick. I’m just a man. Hey didn’t your Buddha say pretty much the same thing when he was sitting on his butt under the bodhi tree? I mean, aren’t you the “official” buddhist round here (how he knew that I didn’t know. Maybe it was a miracle). Why do these people need such stories. Pathetic in a way. Yo dude, it’s been real talking to a landsman, ‘sort of’, but I’m kind of distracted right now and this conversation is getting a little … you know, boring.”

“Hey Jesus, I have this Liberation from the Lie Blog and I just wanted to ask you if you have words of wisdom that you would like me impart to my readers before you go.”

He paused in thought and then he said, “Well, I don’t know if you’d call it wisdom, but you’re not the first person to ask me this question”, he said with a smirk, but he continued, “Just stop.”, he said with tired emphasis. “Tell your readers to stop looking outside themselves. Stop looking at their frankly two-dimensional projection they have about regular guys like me. If they really want to experience a miracle in their lives, let them look into a mirror and say, ‘A miracle is happening’ and live that truth. How’s that?”

“That’s really good. Thanks Jesus, you are pretty amazing.”

“So are you.”

And then he entered the crowd around the crowded bar in the direction of the woman with the big boobs.

Only one problem; most everyone hates him. And he’s hated for some of the right reasons. He stands for one thing — his own over-weaning ambition. He’s a hard-hearted sociopath willing to lie and prevaricate his way into office willing to do whatever unscrupulous act necessary to get him there. He spouts whatever he believes get him the most votes. In other words, he’s a politician.

But he’s especially insincere and two-faced. He wears his socio-pathology in a way that Republicans are particularly keen to spot. This is his achilles heel.

Santorum, on the other hand, is a true believer. He really is a remnant from the worst parts of the Middle Ages. He spouts his hatred for gays and same-partner marriage with authentic conviction. He’s convincing, real, and he is “man enough” not to pull any punches. Like George Bush, he shows you his hand. He also stands for blue-collar white America and this message also resonates very positively among younger, mostly white, voters, especially male voters.

And this is why, against all odds, he just might win his party’s nomination. And this sentence says one more thing which helps his campaign; he has become David against Goliath and that’s a winning combination.

I don’t like Obama. I worked my butt off for him in 2007, but I won’t be fooled again. I don’t like any Republican, not even a very little bit. They are a bunch of ignorant haters who celebrate their impoverished callousness. So I can choose not to play the game. I can opt out of the bullshit and not vote. If you feel the same way, I urge you NOT to vote for the lesser of two evils and not to vote at all.

Let’s make it a campaign. Urge your neighbors and friends not to play the game. The system doesn’t care about you or me so why should we gift it with our support through voting. Stop playing the role of the rube. Don’t vote.

All suffering is delusion. And delusion is a belief. It is the belief that we are what we are not! You are not the reader of this post. Your mind is doing the reading and the evaluating and you don’t have a clue of how or why that is happening. But it is happening and that is the miracle and mystery of this life and you are witness to THAT!

Am I the doer? No!

So when I’m washing the dishes, or making the bed, or writing this blog post, it is always the body that is doing the washing, the bed-making, and the writing. When I project my “self” as the one washing the dishes or making the bed or writing this post, I am inserting thought as belief into something where it doesn’t belong. We do this all day long!

The same energy as Source, that which makes the mountains, the oceans, the forests and everything else is that which allows me to wash the dishes, make the bed, and write this post.

Suffering is the deluded interjection that “I” am doing all of this. Just as I didn’t make the mountains, so I didn’t make this body, which is washing dishes, making beds, and writing blog posts. The reason why we can’t “get into” this NOW is because we are not the content of this NOW. The content of everything is Source. Washing the dishes, making beds, and writing blog posts are all source doing its thing. But there is so much more to this.

So to answer the question of why we suffer it is simply this: we suffer because we believe in something that isn’t true. When I believe that I am washing the dishes, I am, in effect, “doing” the process that both claims achievements, as well as failures. I am neither the achiever or the failure — maker. This is also why no ever becomes enlightened or can claim being enlightened. It’s all source acting as a mountain or a dish washer.

Suffering ends when we see through the ruse of delusion. It’s really quite easy. Do you know what your body will be thinking one minute from now? Of course not. You don’t know it because you are not it. You are not the thinker. Source is the thinker.

So why do I have such painful thoughts?

You have painful thoughts because you believe you are the doer, the thinker, the person who wins or looses at life.

In an earlier post I said that I couldn’t communicate this realization through words, that it was essential to have personal consultations to have the depth of this monumental realization.

It is difficult to truly realize the bleak power of belief in our lives because we are blind to most of the beliefs. They are very strongly embedded in the psychological self. What prevents us actually having this realization in this life are those parts of our life that we are unconscious of — that we are unaware.

Here is an example. I have a very demanding job which forces me to rush around all day long. I’m always rushing from one phone call to a meeting and to everything else that demands my attention. The compulsion to rush, which is usually an expression of suffering, is something I psychologically embrace. I “think” it’s part of the job and that thought, over time, becomes unconscious … something I am no longer aware of. Because it is unconscious, I must suffer as a consequence. Our suffering is always a result of unconsciousness. So the pathway is to bring what is unconscious to the light of awareness.

We come to realize that we can’t know anything not because we are inadequate, but because it is not our role to be a knower. To believe that we can know is a core delusion. No one knows anything. I can’t say for sure if anyone knows anything. Everything is as it is and everything expresses itself in is-ness. Hunger happens because a million other things happen and that stimulates other things to happen. This is how the whole of the universe works. It’s all one vast happening, happening in a zillion different forms.

It took me 30 years to see the whole array of my beliefs. This is why I suggested that personal consultations are great at accelerating realization, but you could do them with a gifted therapist or even a good friend who has taken this road.

Tomorrow I’m going to talk more about what happens after this realization. That too can be a powerful pointer to what is unconscious in our own lives.

Suffering ends when we find out who we are not. The whole purpose of the seeking journey is to see its absurdity. The drive to know or to control is beautifully designed to show us that we are neither the knower or the controller. It’s as simple as that. But this teaching will appeal to very few of us. The power of lack is very great and it will continue to fuel the drive to know and to control in nearly all of us. We need to feel powerful and so we drive on in our delusions and thus induce suffering in our own life, as well as the lives of those around us. That is, simply source, expressing itself through the belief in lack. It is also, just is-ness.