One Constant Thing

What is sought remains hidden from the seeker by already being everything.

It is so obvious and simple that the grasping of it obscures it. Never found, never knowable, being is the consummate absence that is beyond measure.

Looking for being is believing it is lost. Has anything been lost, or is it simply that the looking keeps it away? Does the beloved always dance constantly just beyond our serious focus?

The very intention to seek for a mythical treasure within life inevitably obscures the reality that life is already the treasure.

By seeking the myth it dreams it can attain, the seeker effectively avoids that which it most fears … its absence.

Liberation is like a fuse that suddenly blows, and all the little lights go out and there is only light.

This is not a message about you or me or anyone getting anything. This is about the realisation that there’s nothing to get … that what has been sought has never been lost.

This isn’t about seeking or not seeking; it’s beyond the concepts of Advaita and non-dualism and beyond the idea of reaching states of awareness or mindfulness. There’s no goal. There’s nothing on offer. This is totally beyond knowing.

This is really a description – a sharing together of a description of something that is beyond attainment, something that can’t be lost and also can’t be grasped or gained.

All the time there’s separation there’s a sense of loss, there’s a sense of a feeling that there’s something that isn’t whole. And so the seeker attempts to fill that void, fill it with something – whatever. And some look to something called “enlightenment” because it is felt that enlightenment might be the thing that will fill this sense of loss; it could be the answer to some secret that we don’t quite get.

And it sounds, when we read about enlightenment, as though somebody else has found the secret. But nobody’s found the secret.

There’s no such thing as an enlightened person. It’s a complete misconception. But the difficulty is that being seekers, the energy of seeking pushes us into being attracted to the idea that somebody else has found something that we can find, because we grow up believing that effort brings results. So, if effort brings results, and we’ve heard of something called enlightenment or liberation, we can make the effort and then we can become liberated or enlightened … like this guy up the road we’ve heard about, or that woman that’s giving satsangs. They have got something that I want. If I go there I will learn how to get it.

In the dream there’s still an idea that enlightenment or liberation is something that’s attainable. And so there are teachings that reinforce the idea that you are an individual that has choice, so now you, as an individual, can choose to self-enquire or to meditate, or whatever else, and eventually you could become enlightened.

You can go all over the world and find teachings offering something to get. It is rare, however, to find an uncompromising communication that offers nothing at all to the seeker.

This aliveness is nothing being everything. It’s just life happening. It’s not happening to anyone. There’s a whole set of experiences happening here and they’re happening in emptiness … they’re happening in free fall. They’re just what’s happening. All there is is life. All there is is beingness. There isn’t anyone that ever has or does not have it. There’s nobody that has life and somebody else doesn’t have life. There just is life being life.

This message is so simple it totally confounds the mind. This message is too simple. Already your mind’s saying, “Yes, but come on … what about the levels of enlightenment and what about my emotional blocks, and what about my chakras, they’re not all fully open? What about my stillness – I’m not really still yet, and what about my ego? Somebody told me I still have an ego … it’s a bit reduced but it’s still there.”

But all of that, all of those ideas are adopted lessons about how it should be. The ego is what’s happening. The ego is just being ego. Thinking is just being thinking. There is only being. There is just being. There’s nothing else. There’s nobody that’s running that. There’s no destiny, there’s no God, there’s no plan, there’s no script, there’s nowhere to go because there is only timeless being. Being is totally whole just being. And it is alive and fleshy and sexy and juicy and immediately this; it’s not some concept about ‘there’s no-one here’. It’s not some concept about ‘there’s nowhere to go’. It is the aliveness that’s in that body right now. There is pure beingness, pure aliveness. That’s it. End of story.

Really it is simply that. So there is no-one, there is no choice. There is no choice at any level. Oneness didn’t choose to become two. There is just oneness. All there is, is oneness being alive with nobody doing it. Is anybody doing breathing? Is anybody doing blood circulation? Is anybody really doing anything? No. There is just apparent doing. Apparent life in freefall.

There is no answer to life because life is its own answer. It’s happening already. It’s this. You never lost it. That’s the amazing thing about liberation. When liberation apparently happens people say, “It’s amazing because the thing I was looking for has never left me. It’s the one thing that never comes and never goes – the one constant that can’t be known or held onto.” And the one constant is being.

Tony Parsons
May 2008

One Christ

Only one Christ, THE Christ, has appeared throughout all time. Each incarnation, each manifestation brings the same essential core message, even though it is stated in different ways appropriate to the times and cultures. Jesus was no greater than any of the others because of some act performed, and to believe otherwise is ignorance.

Very few theologians would say Jesus is God. A common iteration of official belief is this: God reveals Self in Jesus. To this we can add the insight of Eastern sages and the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart.

"When the Father begets his Son in me, I am that Son and no other.... Thus, we are all in the Son and are the Son.
The Father gives birth to his Son without cease, and I say more: he gives birth to me his Son and the same Son.” - Meister Eckhart

Other Divine personalities who actually lived in the past are not simply imaginary human forms. Many have appeared to point the way for us to experience the Godhead within us, not merely to know about our divineness intellectually, but to actually experience it. Lord Buddha, Sri Rama, Sri Krishna, Jesus.........many have come and gone to point us in the direction of Truth, the Christ within.

Many of us have searched and searched and yet our heart craves nothing more than to be Whole. A Oneness, or Wholeness, in Spirit, or God. I'm smiling right now as I write this, and I almost want to laugh out loud. If that sounds strange, it's because of the simplicity of it all, and as a matter of fact, it's so simple that we all almost miss "it". I, too, had searched and exhausted myself from the effort. That's what is so funny. And when you "get it" you will feel like laughing, too. You'll be amazed at how silly we humans all are, trying and trying to find "it" when we are the "it" and have been "it" all along.

Do you know what is separating you from being Oneness? You want to be One while retaining your separate self. You're hesitant to be lost in Oneness, one as God. Your wish must be that you, or your - self, should not exist and only God exists. The two cannot exist simultaneously. You have to be merged in God. The Spirit, or Oneness (or God, if you want to use the word God) won't tell you that the "you" that exists is in fact getting in the way. Only by merging in Him and letting your existence be gone can you truly be who you are. Think of it this way: Imagine traffic merging when it comes into a freeway. It loses its existence.

May you be born into Oneness, pure Love, pure Consciousness - the only thing there is.

Blessings.

Healing with Nature - Shamanism & Reiki

This is a picture of myself with my cat, Muffy, after her near death experience. Muffy had a stroke in February of this year, and she nearly lost her life. She was unable to eat or stand up on her own, and she really couldn't do anything but curl up and lie there in her little basket. One eye was terribly dilated and she couldn't see or hear. After intensive medical treatment involving IV's, medication, tube feeding and then hand-feeding liquids through a syringe, she began to respond and show some encouraging signs. Her vital signs were stable.

Major progress didn't occur, however until I began a therapy with her which is based on the healing elements of nature. I've not had any professional Reiki training, nor any in the Shamanic healing, but I had read enough about the two to know they work. Instinctively, I "knew" in my heart that the energies of nature could heal little Muffy. I began carrying her outdoors every single day, even on cold winter days. When it was cold, I wrapped her in a blanket just allowing her head to be uncovered. We ventured into the back yard and visited with tree spirits, father sun, and mother earth. The wind blew its magical breath on us, and I often felt Muffy inhale deeply taking it all into her tiny body. She enjoyed touching the flowers and plants with her nose, feeling the intense vibrations from the energies in the plants. On rainy days, we enjoyed the sprinkles of the raindrops, sending their healing waters down to us. The scent of the wet earth was stimulating beyond a doubt to my little cat. Her whole body, mind, and soul responded by healing itself dramatically each day.

Muffy is now doing very well. She has recovered and is enjoying her life again. We still go out and journey around the yard every day, and even at night. The stars, moon and night creatures we encounter all contribute to her well-being (mine, too, I might add!). As a matter of fact, she demands going out now,several times a day, and is VERY vocal about it, too!

I just thought I'd share this personal story with you to give hope to anyone who is suffering, or who has a four-legged or winged friend who may be in need of healing. Our connection to nature has its own way of healing us.

As a result of my experience with my cat's recovery, I have decided to take a class on Reiki Shamanic healing beginning in July with a wonderful woman named Shawna. She's a healer and a Golden Eagle minister and is the owner of Cassy's in Abilene, Texas. I don't know where this will take me, but for now I'm taking it one step at a time.

Willingness to Evolve Spiritually

Why can't I evolve into a more spiritual person? What's holding me back? Most of us have asked ourselves these questions at one time or another. We've all secretly wondered if it's an impossible feat that only the spiritually gifted people can accomplish.

The key to evolving spiritually is willingness. A simple, heart-felt conviction of willingness is all that's required. Anyone and everyone can have that willingness at any moment - which is all we ever have - one moment, or the present Now. Saying that you should have done it last year, last week, etc. or that you will try to do it in the future, but not now, is an indication that you aren't understanding the illusion of time. We don't live in the past or the future. We are Now. The time is always Now, and your willingness to be connected to all there is, all that is God or Spirit, is the critical portal into being Oneness, a divine spark of Spirit, if you will, and that's all you ever are. That's all, you ask? YES, that's all. You are Spirit, pretending to be a separate self, until, that is, you find your real self, which is the ultimate core essence of who you are.

So, do you have the capacity to consciously evolve? YES, absolutely! When you have that compulsion to find something bigger, deeper, higher, and infinitely more real than anything you have ever known, nothing will hinder your search. We are pulled by an invisible web - a web connecting the universe, and we are grasping to become that something which is at the deepest level of our being. We feel choicelessly compelled to reach for it, not knowing what that "it" is.

Keep grasping, don't give up, and as the Persian poet, Rumi has said, "don't go back to sleep". Who knows when you will pass this way again.

Don't go back to sleep

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
- Rumi

A Poem

Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Eternal Aura, Eternal Soul, Eternal Mind

What a paradox it is that the higher frequency of vibration of the mind brings with it a slowing down of activity in the brain. Experts who study this say that during meditation, brain activity is reduced by 80%. No wonder we feel so calm, peaceful, and relaxed during meditation. Yet, one is acutely and intensely alert while meditating. How can this be?

The brain and the mind are not the same. The brain acts as a receiver of mental energy and then translates the energies of the nonphysical mind into physical functions. It also translates your perception of the outside world so that you can experience life in a physical body.

The mind is like an aura surrounding your physical body and is larger than the body. It is what is called the conscious awareness, or the soul, or the higher self. This is who you really are. Spirit. Awareness. One. It is the eternal part of you that never dies. You simply evolve back to that from which you originally came - to the ultimate state of Being, to that consciousness which is behind all things.

When we go into a meditative state, or stillness, we are in an alert awareness, or super consciousness. The more we quiet and still the chattering brain noise, the more we can simply be the presence, the awareness - where no problems exist. The illusion of the outside world ceases, and we are simply aware of the drama playing out around us. The problems of the physical world simply dissolve.