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.

Young children and animals, why we love them.

For most of us there is nothing more adorable than watching a small child discover the world, they look at everything with wonder and excitement, dance and play when they want to, not doing anything because they know someone is watching or it’s the right thing to do but just because that’s what they want to do in the moment.

Similarly with animals they brighten up our day, dogs in particular are always happy to see us, always loyal to us, they make us feel accepted and loved.

Thinking about this I started realising that what we call ” innocence” when we say a child or animal is innocent which is why we love them, what we are really saying is that they are honest, we love and value their honesty.

ITS HONESTY THAT WE LOVE

What we really love and value in young children and animals is their honesty, they do things in the moment just for the sake of doing it, they express how they feel in the moment when they feel it. When a dog wants more food it begs, when it wants to play fetch it brings you the ball, when a young child is happy it dances, laughs etc, when it’s upset it’s screams down the room etc…

You may be saying ” what’s your point? I express and act how I want to when I want to as well”

ADULTS CAN’T ALWAYS BE HONEST

We can be ourselves up to a point but we must fake and lie many times during the day not because we are bad people but because that’s how society operates. We also can’t help not to do or to say things that we know will please others. When we are having a bad day we still tell strangers and acquaintances we are “good”for instance. It’s acceptable to be happy and laugh in public but not to be upset or cry, of course we can do it but it makes others uncomfortable.

How we dress, what we buy, the photos we may put on social media etc we may say it’s for us but deep down we do and say things because we know what type of reaction it will cause, usually a reaction that gets us praise or attention from others.

ANIMALS AND CHILDREN LIVE IN THE MOMENT

Animals and children truly live in the moment. Like I said earlier everything they do comes from a place of just wanting to do it not from a place of thinking it’s the right thing to do. What we all long for I believe is to have that freedom again, that freedom to just be who we are when we want to be with no guilt, shame or judgment. We live in a world though where we must wear a mask, play a role, many roles to many different people, it can get exhausting and we all long to put it down…

CHILDREN AND ANIMALS ARE NON JUDGMENTAL

My final reason I feel we love animals and children so much is that they are non judgmental and that’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal because they are showing us the true essence of what life is and what life is all about. Life at its core is non judgmental, life at its core is unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, it’s what we all crave because it’s what we all are but seem to forget it as we get older into adulthood.

We all grow up and develop an ego, a sense of being a separate person in a separate world and that’s totally fine as to experience a separate world we must feel like a separate entity, it’s the price we pay to experience life. The downside is that to be and act like a separate entity we must develop tendencies that judge others, that only show conditional love, that divides and separates everything. Our ego thrives on all those actions and thoughts to fuel itself, the ego is a dividing mechanism.

Most people feel they are a separate person wandering around a dark, unforgiving world looking and craving for love and acceptance from outside sources. What I feel animals and small children bring out of us is that intuitive sense that the world isn’t how we perceive it to be, we believe the world is dark, unforgiving, judgmental and unloving because we are seeing it through the lenses of our egos.

CHILDREN AND ANIMALS REMIND US WHO WE ARE AT OUR CORE

Unconditional love, acceptance, honesty, non judgment. Whether we realise it or not its not that animals and young children shower these things onto us, what they are really doing is bringing those qualities out of us, qualities we having hiding underneath the mask of the ego, they remind us who we are at our core which are all these qualities whether we realise it or not.

Thanks for reading,

Simon Coleman.

Meditation: actively doing nothing…

We live in a world of appearances. Seeing someone exercising, constantly moving, puffing and sweating we would look at all that activity and probably say ” Wow they are really getting some work done, they are really making changes to their body.

Appearances can be deceiving though, while yes we can look at someone exercising and based on all the action we see assume correctly so that they are making a difference to their body and life, we may look at someone sitting perfectly still, eyes closed and assume they are doing nothing at all.

What is good for the body is to keep it moving, to keep pushing it to its limits. Our minds though are completely different, what is good for our minds is a period of stillness, of doing nothing. While doing nothing sounds like a waste of time in a world where we are constantly on the move, at times less is more and it’s especially the case in regards to our mind and meditation.

Meditation is the act of actively doing nothing. So how to we practice actively doing nothing? It’s quite simple, just sit, just sit and watch. We are so used to watching life go by, so used to getting swept up in our thoughts, feelings and emotions, constantly judging and labelling everything. Meditation is a break from all that mental effort, it’s all about just watching non judgmentally.

So how do we go about this practically? Our body and mind are linked. Sitting still, keeping our body still is important because we want all our awareness on what’s going on mentally not physically. Constant movement of the body steals our attention and distracts us which is why we sit still. While sitting still tends to slow the mind and thoughts, our goal isn’t to stop thinking or get upset if thoughts keep coming, our only goal is to sit and watch ” from a distance” how our minds operate non judgmentally.

A scientist studying the behaviour of a monkey in a lab isn’t going to be judgmental of the behaviour and actions of the monkey, the scientist is just there to observe and take notes. Meditation is exactly the same, we are there just to simply watch how our mind operates.

So what’s the point of all this? The point is to realise once you know how something operates, once you know how a trap operates you are free from it. Watching our thoughts and feelings come and go, seeing them come out of nothing and dissolve back into nothing makes us realise that if we can see the coming and going of every thought and feeling that none of these that we put so much time and energy into is worth worrying about or identifying with.

Clouds pass by in the sky, the clouds could be light and breezy or dark and filled with rain, lightening flashes, thunder booms, all these things happen in the sky but not to the sky. The sky is much greater and holds all these things within it yet it doesn’t identify or is affected by any of it.

Through constant meditation you will come to see that every thought, feeling, sensation and perception that we all experience and identify with ultimately has nothing to do with us or who we are at our core. All the things we experience are just impersonal passing phenomena that we identify with which many times causes us unnecessary suffering.

The act of mediation is about getting in touch and visiting our true self, diving underneath all the thoughts and feelings we identify with to arrive at our core which is ultimately, nothing. We are ultimately nothing, timeless and dimensionless, but the nothingness we are is ultimately what allows everything to be. We are nothing which is why we experience everything, it’s the perfect example of the Ying Yang principle in action.

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

Simon Coleman.

Who’s offended? Mindfulness will reveal it..

It happens to all of us, someone says or does something that we deem offensive but have we ever stopped to really ask ” who is offended?” Of course the answer in our minds is so obvious that we feel it doesn’t warrant further investigation, ” Me, I’m offended!”

It’s the most natural and obvious answer but have we ever stopped to ask who I am that is offended? Someone calls us a bad name and we feel bad but us feeling bad is a reaction to something we call ” Me” being hurt or offended.

We may say ” I am my body” but does our body feel hurt when someone says something offensive? Does our nose, arm, ear or leg etc get upset? Of course not, how could they, how could any part of our body get upset by words?

We may say ” that’s true but my body has uncomfortable feelings when I’m offended” We need to remember that the uncomfortable feelings our body goes through isn’t because our body is offended but a reaction to something we call ” Me” or “I” being offended.

So if our true essence isn’t our body or mind because if our mind comes from our brain our brain is part of our body, then who or what are we then? The more you investigate this question you will eventually come to realise that who or what we are cannot be found, thought about or conceptualised.

We know we are experiencing a mind a body and a world but anything we experience can’t possibly be what we are because we see the coming and going of all experience. What we are can’t be known and can’t be offended. If what we truly are can’t be offended then why are we offended?

Eventually we come to see that who we think we are is just that, a thought. What we walk around day in, day out trying to improve, trying to protect etc is just an image in our head of words and ideas that we think we are. So what’s really happening when we get offended? Quite simply someone’s words are ” attacking” our thoughts, attacking our image which is just a thought. Our image and view of ourselves can be seen and described in thoughts and words so what we essentially have is words attacking words, thoughts attacking thoughts, thought wars! Lol

When you critically and mindfully see and experience what I’m saying you’ll come to realise how strange all this really is. We go around attacking people’s image and defending our image but it’s all just images in our minds.

What spiritually is essentially trying to reveal to us is that life is like watching a movie but we get so involved in the movie that we forget we are watching it and start believing and identifying with a character in the movie. We always experience the feelings and emotions of the main character in a movie when the movie is good and we are really into it. All that a spiritual teacher is trying to point out is to remember we aren’t the character but the one watching it.

I mentioned the word mindful just earlier and mindfulness is a powerful practice and habit to get into to so we can see this for ourselves. Particularly being mindful of our thoughts, watching our thoughts come and go, watching our feelings come and go, realising that all thoughts and feelings rise out of the emptiness we are and dissolve back into it.

We’ve spent a whole life time believing who we are is a body, mind and image, reading this post won’t break that conditioning but hopefully if you have grasped what I’m saying it’s given you food for thought to actually be mindful and watch what is really happening in our lives as opposed to what we assume is happening.

How to we practice mindfulness? Well meditation goes along way to developing the skill which I’ve wrote about previously and is a whole separate post in itself. For now though the takeaway point of this post is to stop assuming and reacting to life and to the words and actions of others and start observing what truly is happening.

You have, are and always will be much greater than you think, your only job when you are ready is to see and realise it for yourself.

Thanks for reading.

Simon Coleman.

You are the problem..

You are the problem, well more often than you think. One lesson I learnt in my early twenties that has stuck with me and helped me through life is taking responsibility for what happens in my life and to my life.

It’s so easy to blame others for not liking us, taking advantage of us, being mean to us, letting us down etc the list could go on and on but when we externalise blame we not only become a victim but we give all our power away to outside influences.

In philosophies such as Stoicism one practice they constantly remind us to do is only worry about what is in our control and stop worrying about what isn’t. What you’ll find is if you really examine your life that not much is really in your control at all.

We can’t control the actions, words and behaviours of others but we can control, with consistent practice how we deal with these and other outside influences. There are people out there that want to take advantage of us, that’s life, but it’s our fault if we keep letting it happen. There are people out there who don’t find us interesting or don’t want to spend time with us, is it their fault or maybe we should learn to be more interesting or work on our social skills.

We should constantly be striving to learn and grow in every aspect of life. If we are blessed with a healthy body and mind why waste these gifts away? Why not put them to work to become as fit as possible mentally and physically? If we are constantly getting into arguments or angry is it really always the other persons fault or is there something about ourselves we can work on?

I personally take full responsibility for what happens in my life, the success is my doing, the failure is my doing, people upsetting me is my doing, people taking advantage of me is my doing etc. playing the victim and blaming others without taking at least a little bit of the blame is not only lazy but nobody cares, nobody wants to hear our problems because everyone has enough of their own to deal with.

We all want people to love us for who we are but the truth is everyone that is in our life and enjoy being around us is getting something from the interaction and association. Everyone is looking to add value to their life and the people that they have in their life are there because they add value. Knowing this why don’t we keep adding value to ourselves?

Getting in better shape, constantly developing knowledge and wisdom, pursing your passions and hobbies, working on your character to be more trustworthy, reliable, honest etc all adds value to yourself which others will appreciate. This is especially true when dating for instance. Everyone is always searching for the best deal possible in a partner but we can’t expect the best if we don’t become the best ourselves.

In the end the world is how it is and people are how they are, instead of getting upset and not liking the way things are we must accept the way things are and learn to adapt and change ourselves to fit reality not get upset that reality doesn’t conform to our liking.

You are the problem and so am I so let’s all get to work improving ourselves, adding value to ourselves and the lives of others and quit playing the blame game which is only appropriate for small children.

Thanks for reading guys have a great day.

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.

You are not good enough and never will be..

You are not good enough and never will be.

The statement sounds really negative but it’s true. It’s true yet it’s a good thing. We are always striving to become better in one way or another, no matter how much we succeed or achieve we always feel we could do more, be in a little better shape, make a bit more extra money, work on our character flaws or insecurities etc.

We are never perfect and never will be which is what makes life so enjoyable, it gives us something to do in this life. I always liken my life to a movie, the best movies have drama, adversity, struggles, failures and success. A movie or a life where everything is perfect, nothing ever goes wrong etc would become boring very quickly.

Our flaws and not feeling good enough is what makes us human and is what makes other people relate to us and connect with us. When we are ” rough around the edges” it gives other people something to grab onto so we can relate and connect, if we were perfect, smooth and flawless nothing can be clung onto, we’d be perfect but out of touch.

Think about your close friends or family members that you love, you probably know an insecure one, a constantly grumpy one, one that is a know it all but knows nothing really etc, the list goes on…but for all their faults and flaws to we hate them? Of course not, their flaws and habits are what give them their unique character and it’s the same with us, the flaws we try to improve make us who we are and our loved ones love us regardless.

There is nothing wrong with self improvement, I’m a big believer in constant improvement in every aspect of life but we must remember that we will never be good enough and that’s perfectly ok. If we delve down the spiritual path we will realise our true self, the self of all things is always totally perfect and flawless, it’s our ego self they never feels good enough and wants to constantly improve and their is nothing wrong with that.

When you venture down the spiritual path you will eventually come to realise that we are flawed because we are ultimately flawless, we are imperfect because we are ultimately perfect. All of life is ultimately a paradox that our minds can’t comprehend, all of life operates under the ying yang principle, all we have, had and will ever have is just this moment, so we should embrace whatever arises in it, all the perfection, imperfection, goodness and bad is always exactly as it should be.

You will never be perfect but that doesn’t mean to stop trying to be.

Thanks for reading have a great day guys.

Simon Coleman