You are God playing dress ups..

” Go to America and tell everyone you’re God and they’ll lock you up in a mental institution. Go to India and tell everyone you’re God and they’ll say to you ” what took you so long to figure it out?”

– Allan Watts

That quote from Allan Watts really sums up how we view God in the West as opposed to the East. I have nothing against religion or how anyone views God, I grew up in a Christian faith being taught God is an almighty entity that created us and the world, that we have free will and can choose between good and evil.

WHAT I COULDN’T COME TO TERMS WITH..

One question I constantly had growing up with this view of God was if God was all powerful and all knowing etc then the substance all everything must be God, God and it’s creation must be the same, If God created everything then he must’ve created good and evil…

I was told that the devil created evil, that we have free will, that we aren’t God but his creation etc but my point was if evil was from the devil didn’t God create the devil? I had many questions that I won’t go into but my whole point was is God was so powerful then shouldn’t he be the substance of all things and the creator of all things and if he wasn’t then there must’ve been something greater..

ENTER BUDDHISM/ HINDUISM PHILOSOPHY

One thing that drew me to the teachings of the east was they were teaching what I long suspected, that the ultimate nature of reality, in Hinduism what they call “Brahman” is the substance of all things. Sure there is creation and there may or may not be more powerful beings but the fact remained when you boil it down, good evil, gods, humans, life death etc, the nature of all things and of all experience comes from the one source and you are that source.

YOU ARE GOD PLAYING DRESS UPS

From a western upbringing, saying you are God or hearing you are God sounds like the ultimate ego trip. We must understand though when they say you are God they mean the essence of what you are and the essence of everything is God, in other words there are no two things, there is no separation. The most purest person is god and the most evil is god, the most richest and the most poorest, the most beautiful and the most ugly etc…

We can paint a scene depicting heaven and hell on a canvas. We can say one side is better or worse but in the end it’s all just canvas, remove the canvas and the painting full of separation, judgment, good and evil, all the opposites go with it, you are the canvas not a image on it.

” The Face of God can be seen wherever the eyes falls”

If you want to see the face of God look in the mirror but also be sure to look in every direction and at everything and every person, it’s all one and all god.

When we dream at night we experience countless people, places and things but in the end the whole creation is created from a single source, the dreamers mind, who we think we are, our ego self is just a dream within gods mind, your mind.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS NEW UNDERSTANDING

So how does it affect your life when you view yourself and God this way?

When you view God this way it makes you more understanding and accepting of life and of others. Unconditional love is another way of saying unconditional acceptance and isn’t life always like that?

Before we judge something good or bad, right or wrong hasn’t it already been accepted otherwise it wouldn’t be happening? The essence of what we are is the essence of all life and that essence is always allowing and accepting what is.

Our judgments and opinions come after the fact. Our true self accepts all, loves all, it’s our ego that judges and separates and it’s not a bad thing, to experience a world we must have the illusion of separation and our ego does a great job of doing that as it is it’s purpose, the trap we fall into though is believing we are our ego.

YOU ARE HUMAN YET DIVINE

You are not a mistake, you are not in need of fixing or need to feel worthless, you are human and all those traits and flaws are part of the package of the human experience. We experience all the hardships and suffering of being human but we mustn’t fall into the trap of believing it’s all we are. We experience all this imperfection because we are perfect, we feel so small and meaningless because we are great and meaningful. Life is the ultimate paradox it can’t be understood by the mind because it’s beyond mind.

I’ll leave it at that for now, thanks for reading,

Simon Coleman.

You are nothing…

You are nothing which is why you are everything. One of the most important questions we can and should ask ourselves I feel is who are we? It’s the most important question because our whole lives are built around our sense of self. We go about our day protecting, defending and trying to improve ourselves but who or what are we trying to defend, protect, improve?

The question I’m raising isn’t unique in fact the whole basis of a spiritual practice is trying to answer this question, the more we ask the question and the more we look to answer it we eventually come to realise who or what we are can’t be pinned down.

We believe we are our body but every single cell in our body is replaced at the longest every 7 years…not one cell in our body is the same as it was 7 years ago yet we feel we are the same person. We may believe we are our thoughts and feelings yet we see them coming and going constantly.

We may then feel we are our opinions, beliefs and ideas, we are willing to fight and die over these at times, yet again these come and go and can and do change over time. Are we our memories? Well we are constantly creating new ones so they can’t be us either.

We must be our DNA…well if a scientist could clone our DNA and make an exact replica of us would we feel that clone was us? Of course not we would still feel different. The more we search for ourselves the more we will find we are nothing, we are no- thing in particular and by being no- thing we realise eventually we must be everything at our core.

The only thing that has remained constant our entire lives is that we are conscious that we are alive. All movement is in relation to something that is still, we witness time pass because we are timeless, our bodies are ageing around us in a sense yet the consciousness that we truly are, isn’t.

” If I am everything why do I feel separate?” The illusion of separation is necessary to experience life. Dreaming is the perfect example, when we dream at night the world we call ” waking reality” disappears and we enter a dream world, we enter into our own minds, every bit of scenery, every other person or animal we view, all the good ones all the bad one etc everyone and everything is being created by our own minds. To experience the dream though we must feel separate from every one and thing we come into contact with, it’s the price we pay to experience. When we wake up though we realise it was all in our minds.

Reality is ultimately just dreams within dreams. The dreams we have at night are just miniature versions of what we call the waking state which is just a bigger dream still. The ying yang principle is always in effect, the reason we experience feeling separate is because we are everything, the reason we experience time is because we are timeless, the reason we experience space is because we are dimensionless.

Humans love mystery and the ultimate mystery is that we know we are alive, no one can explain how or why. You are nothing because you are everything. You haven’t been anywhere and aren’t going anywhere you just are.

How does life change when you find out who you are truly? Well nothing changes yet everything does. We still must go to work, we still have needs and desires, we still have our egos which aren’t bad, they are totally natural and if we didn’t have one couldn’t function in society.

Everything pretty much on the outside stays the same but internally a shift happens, we come to realise not to take things so seriously, we become more understanding of others and we realise ultimately everything in life is how it should be at all times.

The body we once identified with must and will run its course but we know deep down that it’s not what we truly are, that death is not to be feared because it’s just the place we were at before we were born which is no place at all, there is no other place than here and now and it’s where you have, are and always will be.

You are nothing because you are everything.

Thanks for reading everyone have a great day.

Simon Coleman.

What if life was meaningless…

What is the meaning of life? What if there was no meaning? If there was no meaning hearing this at first may sound depressing but like everything else in life it’s how we interpret it.

If nothing we have, are or will do matters then what’s the point of doing anything you may ask….Well we can look at it another way too, if nothing matters then why sit around doing nothing? Why not get out there and just enjoy what life has to offer?

What’s the meaning of a bird, a tree, water, the sun etc? What’s the meaning of anything? What you will come to realise is none of these have a meaning, they like everything in life just are. A tree just is, a bird just is, they have no meaning yet they are. We can’t explain why everything is because life was always here prior to the language that describes it, language is just sounds, we are trying to use sounds to explain something prior to sound..

We must also remember that everything in life arises in pairs, in opposites, we can only know good if we know bad, we can only know darkness if we know light, we can only know self if we know other etc. if we never asked the question ” what’s the meaning of life?” The answer wouldn’t need to be searched for. All answers and questions arise together as well, no answer is needed when no question is asked.

So if there is no purpose or meaning to all of this should we stop trying to stop or prevent the worlds problems? Should we stop caring about our friends and family, should we all just kill our selves? No we shouldn’t. What we should realise is that life is what we make it, we should do what we are drawn to do without overthinking too much.

If we have the urge to raise a family we should, if we have the urge to live a simple life or a rich life we should, if we have the urge to become famous or become a monk we should. We must realise that there is no wrong of right way to do life, even if we pursue a life deemed to be ” bad” we must do so with the understanding that we won’t be punished for our sins but by our sins, if we go around doing bad deeds it’s bound to come back to us due to the fact that people we hurt usually seek revenge.

Life is an absolute mystery, we can’t explain why everything is, it just is. Even when we feel we are doing life wrong we must realise we can never do life wrong as what we are is the essence of life itself. We weren’t born into this world we were born out of it, our bodies are ” walking earth” we all have fears, doubts, success and failure, it’s part of being human, at the end of the day life only has the meaning we give it, so get out there and enjoy it to the fullest!

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing guys, have a nice day.

Simon Coleman.

If we are all one….

” We are all one!” It’s a common phrase in spirituality but if we are all one, if everything is coming from the one source, why then does it not appear that way?

When I first ventured down the spiritual path I was fascinated about the idea of ” enlightenment” I viewed it as the point where my sense of self would disappear and I would feel one with all things, in a sense not knowing where I ended and the rest of the world began… it may sound crazy but I truly felt that’s what it must be all about…

Over time I started to realise that it can’t possibly mean that, if we didn’t know where we began or ended how could we experience anything? When we fall into deep sleep we are in a sense ” one with all our experience” in deep sleep there is no self, no world, no other, there is no reference point where we can say ” I’m here and everything else is there”

In deep sleep we experience nothing yet we still exist, deep sleep is the most peaceful state as nothing is happening, no time, space, self or world. We can say in a sense that it is the enlightened state. When we enter the dream state or the waking state though a sense of self located at a single point is experienced that we call ” I” this self has defined boundaries, we need those boundaries to experience everything we are apparently not.

The movie screen when no movie is playing is just a blank screen, no movie is playing yet the screen exists, when a movie starts playing on the screen the blank, undivided screen starts to appear to split up into countless changing scenery, people and things, it appears like a world of separation but the reality is the screen is never divided.

Now back to our experience , if deep sleep is the ” movie screen” of our life and when the waking state or dream state emerges we start to experience a body, a world, time and space, self and other etc then we must come to realise that all this separation is just an illusion.

The movie screen can exist without the movie , but the movie can’t exist without the screen.

Our true self, pure consciousness, can exist without the the world but the world can’t exist without us.

We don’t appear within the world, the world appears within us, and by us I mean all reality is coming from the one source and you are that reality, the self we mistake ourself to be can be likened to a character in a movie. When we realise what we truly are the world still looks exactly the same, it appears separate the only difference is we stop believing it’s separate, lucid dreaming, the experience of realising you are dreaming while dreaming would be a close example.

” Enlightenment” once this is realised, doesn’t become something that we try to obtain or transform into, it becomes the process of seeing through the stories and illusions we and others tell us. How the world appears never changes we just stop believing in appearances.

The way we perceive this world is ultimately inverted, we experience time because we are timeless, we experience space because we are dimensionless, we experience separation because we are one, life is the ultimate paradox and our ego minds can’t comprehend a paradox, it can only understand opposites yet opposites are always one.

You are much greater than you think, all that’s required to realise it.

Thanks for reading,

Simon Coleman.

Living in the present moment.

“Living in the present moment” is a phrase that all of us will encounter eventually when venturing down the spiritual path but what does the phrase actually mean? Many people mistakingly take it to mean living like there is no tomorrow, just enjoying yourself now and not planning for the future, this idea couldn’t be further from the truth.

Living in the present moment simply means to just be here and now with whatever we are doing. Happiness and peace are states of mind, a wandering mind is what causes unhappiness, a mind focused on what’s happening here and now is the most happiest.

Ever notice when we are with someone we like or doing something we really enjoy that time seems to pass extremely quickly? It does so because time is just a thought construct, the past and future are just thoughts happening ” now”. Our minds naturally focus on the present moment, focus on reality when we are doing enjoyable things.

What happens when we are doing something or hanging around people we don’t like? The opposite happens, our minds leave the present moment and drift off into thought stories about how we don’t like this or that, how annoying this person or situation is, how we could be somewhere else right now etc.

Living in the present is the key to long term happiness. Bad times and tough times happen to all of us but if we are to be honest with ourselves we will realise it’s not the bad events that makes us unhappy it’s the stories in our heads about the bad things happening or the stories of regret after they have already happened. The longer we are trapped in our minds especially with negative stories the worse we feel.

Making plans fo the future is ironically for people that live in the present, how so? We get good at what we practice, if we practice always thinking about achieving our next goal, always thinking of the future without enjoying the present moment we are gonna live our entire lives in our heads from cradle to grave.

When our mind is in seeking mode it’s never gonna be happy with what it has, it’s always going to be focused on the next achievement. To live in the present is not to not make plans or not have goals but to learn to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. If we must lose a lot of weight for instance, of course we are going to be excited how we will look when we achieve our goal but we must understand that success comes from repetition, to fall in love with the process of getting up every day, even when we don’t want to and just getting what we need to achieve our goals done.

Success is a habit, a repetitive habit, when we don’t or can’t live in the present and enjoy the process and the ” boring” parts of life our minds can and do easily get distracted and we end up not achieving our goals. In Buddhism the say to develop the gaze of a lion not a dog, a dog and a lion will focus their gaze on you if you stand in front of them, but throw a stick out to a dog and its gaze gets distracted and chases the stick, throw a stick out to a lion and the lion chases you, what they are trying to say is to develop a non distracted mind, the gaze of the lion, focused on the main goal, it’s the key to happiness and success.

In a world full of distraction, like everything else in life, going against the crowd has value, the majority are distracted with no purpose, so we must be not distracted with purpose. To develop this habit practices like mindfulness and meditation really helps. So to sum up, to live in the present is to live in reality and as far as making plans for the future go, we will only achieve our long term goals if we live in the present, we must love the process of achievement not just the achievement itself because 99.9% of achieving something is the process, and it’s going to be boring, repetitive hard work leading up to the goal so we better learn to love it.

Thanks again guys for reading, liking, and subscribing, I really enjoy expressing myself on this blog and am happy that people enjoy reading it.

Have a good day,

Simon Coleman.

The meaning of life.

At one point or another in our lives everyone, at least once will question the meaning of their life or life in general. Life and reality are a total mystery, whether you venture down the spiritual path or scientific path they both have explanations and theories how and why things are how they are.

As humans we feel we are seeing life and reality how it is but we overlook or don’t even realise the fact that only humans experience a human reality. As humans we have 5 senses, and the ability to think. Our five senses take in information and our thinking mind constructs a story about what’s happening.

A dog though experiences a dog reality, an ant experiences an ant reality, a tree experiences a tree reality etc, each life form has different senses and ways of interpreting reality so why do we think we have the ultimate view? When we question the meaning of life we are assuming first of all that we have the correct view and second of all we are assuming there is a meaning to it all.

What’s the meaning of life? That’s like asking what is the meaning of a bird or the meaning of a tree, or the meaning of the taste of coffee, all these things have no meaning and require no meaning, everything just is.

Whatever we have done, are doing and will do is the meaning of life, the meaning of life is to live, the essence of you and all things is life. The essence of a movie is the screen it plays on, take away the screen and the movie can’t play. The essence of all life is God/ the Universe/ Brahman whatever name you prefer.

There are no nouns or objects in life only verbs, only actions, everything is a process, everything is in constant flow and change but there is no controller, life is just happening. Our minds search for a meaning not because there is a meaning but because that’s just how the human mind works. Animals and plants, the stars and planets all continue to function without thinking or searching for a meaning.

Our bodies still circulate blood, grow hair and nails, heals itself when injured, our hearts and other organs still function without thinking, life is just happening, life is running itself, we don’t need to search for meaning in life, all we need to do is appreciate that it’s happening and that it’s such a miracle and mystery that it is happening.

” Man suffers because he takes to be serious what the gods made for fun”

– Allan Watts

The meaning of life is to live, we should strive for greatness and success if it’s in our hearts, we should be happy with a simple life if it’s in our hearts, whatever is giving us a reason to get up in the morning and make it through the day we should pursue but at the same time realise it only has the meaning we give it. The meaning of all our lives is just this, just this moment.

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing guys, have a good day.

Simon Coleman.

You aren’t aging.

You aren’t aging. That statement seems to make no sense, ” of course I’m aging, I look and feel older every year…” you might say, Time to delve into spiritual philosophy…

In a previous post titled ” who do you think you are?” I was explaining the idea of really questioning who we really are at our core not who we think we are. Our name, gender, ethnic background, language, culture, opinions, beliefs, preferences, etc, anything we claim to be ourselves can never possibly be us at our core because all these things were taught or programmed into us at a young age, we could change all these things and still the sense of ” Me” feels the same.

In Hinduism it’s called ” Neti Neti” the practice of self enquiry, finding our true self behind all the stories we tell ourselves and others. Whatever age we are right now, look back at photos of when you were a young child, you look, act and think completely different now yet you feel the same as you always did, the sense of ” I” always feels the same.

Science tells us that every single cell in our bodies die and are replaced every 7 years and 7 years is the maximum, many of the cells in various organs are replaced much quicker. If we have already determined that we aren’t our thoughts or feelings, that they are just passing phenomena that we are aware of and when we come to realise that the body we claim to be us is also passing phenomena that we are aware of then who or what are we?

The reality is the more you look the more you realise all we are at our core is just a conscious, aware presence. We know we are alive that’s all we know for sure, everything we are aware of we see coming and going yet we remain unchanged at our core. All movement is in relation to something that is still, our inner core is timeless, still, ever present, always ” here and now”.

We feel we are a character in the movie of life, moving through the movie, going through ups and downs as the story unfolds but in reality we are the screen the movie plays out on. The character in the movie ages but the screen doesn’t age, the character in the movie moves around but the screen doesn’t move.

Another post I titled ” you are living a double life” was explaining this idea too. When we look out into the world we see time moving, our bodies and every material object aging, we see a world of constant change. When we turn our attention inward though we can discover, timeless stillness. The essence of what we are is the essence of the entire universe, the universe is a closed system, nothing is taken or added to it.

Science says the universe started with the ” Big Bang” but what was before the Big Bang? The reality is time has never started or with ever end, there is only this moment, The you of 10 years, 1 year, 1 hour or 1 second ago isn’t the same you reading these words right now. Our ego is just a story we tell ourselves, it gives our lives an illusionary sense of direction but it’s not ultimately real.

Our bodies are just walking earth, it came from the ground and will return to it along with our ego story, but the sense of knowing we are alive doesn’t go anywhere, that knowing knows the whole universe and that’s what you are at your core. There isn’t God and you being Gods creation, the essence of God and everything is identical, nothing is separate, only our ego story appears to age but our true self, the self of all things doesn’t.

The movie screen doesn’t end and disappear when the movie ends, a new movie starts playing. The essence of what you are can’t age or die because it was never born, everything just is, all scenes of a movie exist ” now” on a DVD disc but we must watch the movie scene by scene to give the movie the appearance of an unfolding story.

Our lives are an infinite amount of ” now” moments, birth, death and every moment in between is happening now. Is your mind blown? It should be, life is a miracle, it can’t be understood, you are the essence of life itself and aren’t going anywhere.

Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, have a great day.

Simon Coleman.