LAKE CATHERINE STATE PARK, AR–What is this “Divine Within” that I keep talking about? Why do I keep bringing it up? Why is it so hard to grasp? Is it real?

Imagine that you woke up from a deep sleep and you had complete amnesia. You couldn’t remember anything. No memories of your past, of your family, of your friends. You couldn’t remember your native language–you couldn’t talk or communicate. You could see objects, but you don’t know their names or even what they were used for. The amnesia runs so deep that you don’t even remember how to move your limbs. They just seem to move on their own.

You would be aware of the objects around you. You would be aware of sounds and smells and the sense of touch. You would be aware of breathing, but not why it was happening, or even that it was happening to your body.

With your complete amnesia, there is no personal story. No ego gorilla. There is only awareness of stuff around you.

You would be, in essence, pure Awareness.

With this awareness is a sense of being. A sense of an invisible, but alive, movement.

This is what I mean by your true nature, by the Divine Within, by your Life Force. Really, there is nothing mystical to it at all. It is just your sense of being.

From the Enlightenment of Oneness, it is “felt” as Life/Love living.

From the Enlightenment of Stillness, it is felt as Life/Love radiating.

From the Enlightenment of Passion, it is felt as Life/Love moving.

To the mind’s eye, this being, this Awareness, is seen as Light. From Oneness: Light within a Sea of Light. From Stillness: Light softly glowing. And from Passion: the Light of a brightly burning flame.

I stress this concept–this Life Force–because I want you to learn to feel it and to see it. I want you to become aware of your deeper, spiritual nature because the more you experience this felt sense of You, the easier it will be for you to see the thoughts, the stories, the drama, and the selfish emotions that block that feeling–that block your realization of your true nature.

I call my “flavor” of teaching, Passionate Enlightenment, because I want you to feel it. Not just consider it. I want you to live it, not just contemplate it. I want you to feel the passion of Life living unrestrained and unbound through you.

I want you to wake up and be free.

OUTSIDE OZARK, AR–Once upon a time a young gorilla left her baby alone for only a moment and a wolf came along and ate her baby. The mother gorilla was terribly heart-broken and filled with remorse.

A few days later, still in mourning, the gorilla came upon a softly glowing orb laying on the forest floor. Plagued with guilt and a strong maternal instinct, she promptly adopted the radiant orb. 24-hours a day she held it tightly in her arms, protecting it from all dangers. She nurtured the orb, and gave it anything that she thought it might desire. Never again would she leave her new baby!

When she saw danger (or even thought about danger), she would hug the orb tightly to her breast and flee into the forest. When she saw another gorilla with something she thought her orb might want, she would howl and scream and slap at the other gorilla until it relinquished it.

Though it was constantly tugged and pulled and jostled about in all directions by the mother gorilla’s actions, the orb continued to glow serenely.

You of course, are the softly glowing orb. An orb in which a giant, 900-pound, deranged, psychotic, and over-protective mother gorilla has adopted.

A gorilla that has you completely enshrouded in her arms–smothering you, blocking your radiant light. All because she cares too much.

Even though you want nothing, she is constantly trying to acquire new and exciting things for you.

Even though you fear nothing, she is constantly trying to protect you from imaginary dangers.

She is smothering you. She is choking off your life force.

See the gorilla. Feel her. Recognize when she is pulling and tugging and jostling you. See her clearly and you’ll soon be free of her.

You are not the gorilla.

You are the orb. You always have been.

RED ROCK CANYON STATE PARK, OK–Earlier this month, I wrote a post, What is the Ego?, but I need to expand on that. The previous post should probably have been titled, Ego Part I: The Ego Story.

There are at least two distinct “personalities” to the horribly ambiguous term: Ego…

1. The Ego Story: Identifying with (thinking of yourself as) your past and the roles you play. I cover the Ego Story here.
2. The Ego Gorilla: Emotions (desires and aversions) centered around the false, personal self, “This will bring ME happiness” and “This will cause ME pain.”

I’ll cover the Ego Gorilla in the next post, but the Ego Gorilla is exactly what it sounds like: a 900-pound monkey on your back.

The more adept you become at recognizing the Story and the Gorilla, the sooner you’ll realize when you are being influenced by them. The more clearly seen, the easier dropped.

These two aspects make up what is commonly called the ego, but what is much more clearly stated as the Personal Self.

Recognizing that the personal self is an illusion, is enlightenment.

Enlightenment means the end of all your personal suffering. Personal suffering ends because you no longer believe in a personal self.

OUTSIDE AMARILLO, TX – As I mentioned previously, making decisions has been quite disconcerting since waking up. My values are all out-of-whack from when they were based on an ego. Without an ego, what do you base your decisions on? It’s starting to get easier though. Now it is almost as if, when faced with a decision, the options have a sense of “lightness” to them (or lack thereof).

Options feel “dark” or “light” or various shades in between. Not dark as in evil, but dark as in an unlit road in the night. Even though the mind may say one thing, if it feels “dark,” then that option isn’t a path I should take.

This takes a lot of faith–faith in the wisdom whispered from the Oneness. The mind will often argue up and down to turn left–when the path on the right, though uncertain, is brightly lit and beckoning.

I started writing a post about why we believe and cling to a theory (or religion), when, by its very definition, a theory is unproven.

I wanted to show that if you can change your belief to, “I believe I do not die when my body dies,” then you will naturally overcome the fear of death. Overcoming the fear of death will dramatically weaken the ego (as it did for me). A weaker ego is much easier to drop than a strong one.

But how do you get someone to believe that they don’t die upon bodily death (if they believe otherwise)? For that matter, why do people believe A over B? Can they make themselves believe B if they can see the benefits?

Anyway, I ended up scrapping the whole post because I kept going around in circles which tells me it’s not fleshed out enough.

But, since I wanted to get something posted today, well, this is one of those examples where blogging can be just as messy as real life. So just forget I said anything about beliefs and go out and enjoy the day.

I am still camped north of Phoenix. I had to clean up some messes I had made from my Wayne Wirs days (pre-enlightenment). I also wanted to finish up a much shorter and simpler version of my original “waking up” meditation before hitting the road.

I plan to use The Three Enlightenments Guided Meditation at my talks. I’ll probably play the recording at the beginning of the class to set the mood and introduce the audience to a few of my core concepts (ego, the Divine Within, thoughts, the Three Enlightenments, etc.)

A couple core “strategies” of my teachings–designed to help loosen the grip of the ego–are also covered in the meditation:

• Shifting your identity to the Divine Within. Ego-Wayne thought of himself as a Soul, but in the meditation I refer to the Divine Within as Love (emotional), Light (visual), or the Life Force (felt). These are concepts much more accessible to the general population.
• Experiencing what it feels like to be enlightened. The more often that you see and feel the wonders of your enlightened nature, the easier it will be for you to see what blocks you from living this way: the ego, Wayne Wirs, state-your-name, whatever.

The meditation helps you experience both of these aspects of enlightenment. In doing so, it will, hopefully and eventually, allow you to drop your ego story for good.

You can download the meditation here.

As I mentioned in the last post, a sense of direction has arisen from the Stillness. It has become clear that I should soon start teaching about the Passion, the Stillness, and the Oneness.

Furthermore, there is a strong “pulling,” a felt sense to close the circle–to return, as Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey posits, to home. I don’t know whether this is the pull of an archetype deeply embedded in the human psyche or something higher, but I feel the need for completion–to return to friends and family and say, “I am back. I’m different, but I am the same.”

It seems appropriate, it seems balanced, that I should hold my first talks in South Florida, a place of hedonism, materialism, and tension. A place that, as a spiritual seeker, I had longed for someone to guide me and help me find my way.

I return to see if I can integrate these worlds of friends, family, and Florida with the Divine Within. I feel a sense of dread, for I don’t know if I’ll succeed or destroy this gift I’ve been given. My mind says it is too soon, but Stillness whispers, “Go.”

South Florida is a place that I do not belong, but to which I am drawn. I fear it, but I know somehow, that it is required of me.

In my last post, I mentioned how “quiet” motivation now is. Yesterday, while sitting in Stillness, a direction–my next steps–became clear.

The desire to “make things happen” rarely appears anymore and, when it does, I feel clunky and disingenuous. Sometimes though, as I rest in Stillness, Life will softly whisper–like a lover murmuring a sweet secret–and my path will become crystal clear.

This whisper–this revelation–stimulates the Passion. A powerful welling of energy rises in my chest and I feel excited and alert and in harmony with my surroundings as Life starts to awaken and stir and live through me.

Wayne Wirs would have tried to control and bend and manipulate this power (as have countless spiritual seekers before him). But to control it is to kill it, for Life cannot flow through an ego.

If you want Life to live through you, you must surrender to it. You must stop swimming, stop struggling, stop trying. You must give up and allow yourself to drown in it. Give up and give in. It is by surrendering, by complete supplication to Life, that you will find joy, and bliss, and harmony as Life lives as Life was meant to live… unhindered.

The “quietness” of motivation has got to be the weirdest part of waking up. I know I’ve said this before, but what motivates you when there is no you?

Oddly enough, Life mysteriously seems to be guiding me. People who I thought, for financial reasons, would be a good fit to work with have suddenly dropped off the radar, and people who I didn’t even know very well have recently popped up providing me with ideas and motivation to start holding “talks.” (Chandi Devi and Cristina Whitehawk)

I know this “Divine Guidance” (or Super-Synchronicity) is perfectly natural for this level of being–indeed one of my favorite sayings from Fading Toward Enlightenment is “the less there is of me, the more there is of Her.” The world seems to “line up” for you when there is no you. For example, Eckhart Tolle, just prior to The Power of Now’s publication and just as he was really needing money, won a thousand dollars on a scratch-off lottery ticket.

As often as this “hand” has come down to guide me over the last few weeks, I still find it quite disconcerting. It’s a new land I find myself in and the subtleties of its language are sometimes quite difficult for me to grasp.

I noticed this morning that I had been at the Slabs for a week now. I had only intended to stay a few days, but somehow the time got away from me. I talked to a guy yesterday who has lived here for three years. He makes his living digging “septic tanks” and bumming beers. Once you’re in the Slabs and you’ve got nowhere else to go, then you’ve got very little reason to leave. The Slabs are sticky that way.

Many who arrive here fall into a Dark Pit, either alcohol or drugs or even retirement. Once in their Pit, they rarely can see a way out–indeed, sometimes they don’t even know there is a way out.

But Dark Pits aren’t limited to the Slabs. Most people fall into pits at some point in their lives. I was in the Corporate American Pit for over twenty years because I was too afraid to leave. Currently I’m dealing with (more accurately, not dealing with) two people who, right in front of my eyes, fell into their own Dark Pits: one into a Pit of Anger and the other into a Pit of Depression.

The sad part is, Dark Pits are all in our heads. The Pits of Anger, of Jealousy, of Fear, of Envy, of Depression, of Regret, of Revenge–none of these Pits are real. They don’t exist in the real world. These Pits, when people find themselves “trapped” in them, are only in their heads. How do I know this? Because you’ll never find a frog in one of those Pits. You’ll never find a sparrow, or deer, or tree, or cloud, or grain of sand, or beach, or ocean, or sun, or anything else that is real. You will never find anything real in any of those Pits.

So I stand up here in the sunlight, waving my hands, shouting, “Up here! Come up here where the real world is! Come up here where there’s light and wind and fresh air. Where there are birds on telephone lines. Where there are forests and mountains and lakes. Come up here where there are oceans and beaches and thunderstorms and Life! Come up here.”

How do you get out of a Pit when you find yourself in one? You just go for a walk in the real world. Just walk, and look, and listen, and live.

And when those thoughts pop up and try to drag you back down into a Pit (and they will) remember: Anything contained in a thought is just a Horton–and all Hortons are just figments of your imagination. The real, wonderful, living World is up here. Suffering, Sorrow, Misery, and Anger live down in the Pit. They live based on a past that no longer exists. They live only in a Pit deep down in your mind.

Appreciation. By far the most common experience that I feel.

Sometimes my eyes fill with tears just looking at the discarded. How is it that we miss the beauty…?

(more…)

Do enlightened people feel emotions? If so, how are the emotions different than those experienced by story-people? (New term: “Story-People.” Kind of derogatory, but I want you to start thinking of your ego/story in negative terms as this will help you see, feel and ultimately reject the ego/story. It’s accurate too, as the illusionary ego/story turns you into a fictional character–but I digress.) ***Edited 11/6/2009: See my comment below.

Story-Wayne used to think that enlightened people never (or barely) experienced emotions–surely never any negative emotions. This idea was based solely on how enlightened teachers presented themselves to their audience.

My experiences however, are completely different…

(more…)

Anyone on the path of spirituality knows that the ego is the main barrier to enlightenment–but “ego” is a horrible word for describing what the problem truly is. “Ego” is vague, ambiguous, and because of that, to most, it becomes meaningless.

If you want to wake up, all you have to do is see your personal story as just that, a story…

(more…)

The Slabs.

No, this isn’t part of my Map of Life series. Slab City is a place that–once upon a time–fell through the cracks and has since found an identity all its own. A kind of Mecca for American nomads, it’s home to survivalists, dropouts, ex-hippies, and many others who live on the Fringe.

It’s also home to Leonard Knight, a man with a life-long passion. Leonard Knight is the man who dreamed and built and resides at Salvation Mountain–a kind of Billy-Graham-on-acid-while-listening-to-Lucy-In-The-Sky-With-Diamonds sort of place.