LOLO NATIONAL FOREST NEAR ST. REGIS, MT–As I drove northwest from Missoula, I stopped by a river, read, ate, and took a bath in its cool, clear waters. With no pressing engagements, I decided to spend the night.

I love the freedom that the stealth camper provides. Without the need to research campgrounds, I can just drive off in any direction I feel like heading, stop when I’m tired, make camp pretty much wherever. The freedom is wonderful.

In the last post I mentioned that I was inquiring into this “pebble” of self, this “Wayne” thing. If you’re interested, I go into it more below the break (huh?).

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A STARBUCKS IN MISSOULA, MT–”Flowing” would be a good word for my direction lately. I’ve been in Missoula a couple days now, mostly working on the the consulting gig and poking at this little “pebble” of self that remains in the Oneness flow (more on that later).

I haven’t done much on the rig since I left. No direction has clarified whether to keep her or not, so I’m not putting a lot of effort into fixing her up. I’m not feeling any pressure to decide though, so I’m just coasting with it until it clarifies.

More and more I find this is the best way to make life decisions, just roll with the situation–not fight it or try to control it–until a direction clarifies. When the time is right, She’ll make Her intentions known.

BY A LAKE ABOUT 5 MILES NORTH OF BEACH, NORTH DAKOTA–”Jim and his Karma” left a comment on my last blog post stating basically that he felt I was just kidding myself about this enlightenment thing. (Actually, he left two comments, but I wrote this before receiving the second one). My response below the break (huh?).

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A CORNFIELD SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE BISMARCK, ND–After locking my keys in the truck while stopping for a break in the woods of the Chippewa forest, I took it as a sign that 1) She wanted me to stay the night here and 2) it was time to get my priorities straight.

An hour later I got the truck unlocked (with a small branch no less), and spent two nights right in that spot.

In the video The Secret they tell you that you can gain your wildest desires if you only focus on them. That’s true–if you aren’t ego based. Spirit (what I call Her) almost magically provides as long as there is little or none of “you” left. This is simply because there is less of “you” and more of Her operating through your body/mind.

Lately I have been concerned about problems with the truck (a natural concern with a used vehicle) and sure enough, I’ve been having problems with the truck. Nothing big, and frankly mostly my own fault, but enough to really make me see who’s really running things here.

So I spent the two days re-evaluating my priorities:

1. Really start listening to Her.
2. See and drop any resistance to Her.
3. Work on the consulting gig (for income).
4. Make the truck more livable.

ASHLAND, WI–So I’m driving and my mind is spinning around and around with stuff like, “Is this really the lifestyle I want? Look at the freedom! I feel like I’m doing something wrong when I make camp in someone’s parking lot. I can travel anywhere and stay anywhere!”

Round and round and round.

The doubts come up when I can’t get online to do some work or I’m taking a shower with a garden pump sprayer or I’m using a bucket and cat litter for a toilet. The joy and freedom is felt when I pull off the road overlooking Lake Superior, open the back doors and sit in my home and take in the view for a couple hours.

As my mind spun in circles and the doubts whirled, I asked myself, “Did I do the right thing?” and just as clear as day I heard Her voice, “You’ll know when you get out West.”

Until just that moment, I didn’t know where I was heading.

Take over Baby. I don’t need me anymore. Let me just get out of Your way.

PARADISE, MI–The last few nights I’ve been awoken by the thought, “The tire is going to blow out and I’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere.”

So, on the way to Paradise, MI (Upper Peninsula), I had the one tire that was balding, replaced. But what should have been a 30 minute job became three hours. They stripped a stud and nut, so now I only have 5 nuts holding the (new) tire on instead of six. It’s a Friday of course and there are no studs or nuts for my truck to be found. I told them not to worry about it and went on my way.

I think She’s doing this to me on purpose–wearing what little there is left of me down. Ironically, after each incident, each problem, I feel somehow more open. More serene.

Modern spirituality says you have to surrender, you have to stop. I think that can take you far–very far–but ultimately, if you really want to be one with the All, you have to die for Her. Not just give up trying, but die to yourself so She can run things. You’ve got to say, “I’m done with me. I’m broken. I’m not working anymore. This ‘me’ is a useless piece of crap and is just getting in the way. Take over, Baby. Thy Will be Done.”

There is an amazing feeling of freedom to it.

NEWPORT NEWS, VA–One of the great lessons that problems teach us, as I have been reminded of over and over lately, is that we can resist them and be miserable, or we can step back, surrender, and feel free as Life takes us on Her own journey.

It’s natural to resist, to fight, to try to overcome the obstacles (the personal self loves to control things), but by surrendering your desires and saying, “Come what may,” you step away from the troubles, and then magically the stress just falls away.

For myself at times like these, I like to slide into what I call the Passionate level of Enlightenment–letting go, opening up, and allowing Her to flow through me.

I probably best described the Passionate Level here (and guide listeners into it here). It’s wonderful to feel some higher power (God, Tao, Spirit, Higher Self, Her) moving through you. You almost never know where it’s going, but it always feels “right.”

PS: Some more photos of the truck’s current interior (with new floor and dressers) below the break. (What does “below the break” mean?)

PPS: I picked up the missing bolt on Monday, the truck is fixed, and I should be heading north to cooler air in a couple days.

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–It’s amazing what a few holes in a box can do. Two windows and a vent and all of the sudden, there is light and air and Life.

Pure awareness–that which is your nature before your mind starts buzzing–is a lot like the new windows in my truck. It really isn’t anything special, just an opening–but that opening allows for us to see and breathe. What was dark before awareness/windows, is now light. In a very real way, openings allow Life.

I differ from many non-dual teachers in that I spend a lot of time celebrating and appreciating the life that flows forth from this emptiness (and I call that flowing, moving Life, “Her.”)

Before, when I climbed inside the back of the truck and closed the doors it was pitch black and stuffy. Now there is light and air (and Life). Your awareness is the Light and Life–and ironically, your mind confuses things and makes everything dark.

(Raw pictures of the truck with windows and the early bed below the break.  What does “below the break” mean?)

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–So far the Truck Project has been a powerful teacher of Reality and the mind’s interpretation of it.

The project has constantly thrown in my face two very different views of the same thing: The Real World and the Mind’s World.

More below the break.  (What does “below the break” mean?)

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–I have been feeling really down since buying the truck. My mind has been filled with dreads and doubts and worries. My mind has been focusing almost exclusively on problems: Can I have AGMs and Lead Acid Batteries on the same circuit? Should I cut a window here? How do I get all these rivets out? After spending all this money and effort, what do I do if the transmission locks up? People are going to think you are homeless. No one will take you seriously anymore. You’ve made a huge mistake, you’re an idiot.

But all those thoughts are just the mind doing what minds do: worry, solve problems, protect (and criticize) the personal self. More below the break…

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–I’ve received a whole bunch of emails over the last few days asking why I’m looking for a “stealth RV.” I can sum it up in four words, “The Bastard Doug Coone.”

More below the break…

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NEWPORT NEWS, VA–My energies have been really scattered lately. Selling the RV, figuring out what to keep and what to let go of, searching for a stealthy replacement “RV,” working on the consulting project….

Yesterday I spent 12 hours on the road looking at used shuttle buses. When my mind came up with the idea, “A shuttle bus! That would make a great stealth vehicle!” it was all excited. As soon as I looked at my first one, my stomach sank. It just didn’t feel right for some reason. Maybe it’s the concept. Maybe it’s just timing. Maybe it’s fear smacking me in the face. I don’t know, but I walked away from each of them. I haven’t always been this way, but I trust my gut now more than my head.

Anyway, my mind lately has been racing and questioning and fretting. It’s like a beehive in there, all this buzzing as the mind tries to solve all of these “problems.”

But, unlike last year, I now reside behind all the activity. Last year at this time, I was the buzzing. Now the buzzing is just noise and tension that happens inside of me.

I don’t want this to sound like I’m anything special though, it’s just that I’ve come to realize (and feel) this truth. This “everything-happens-inside-of-you” aspect, is happening within you also. All it takes is just a slight shift in your identity (what you think you are). You are not the noise buzzing in the empty room, you are the empty room.

NEWPORT NEWS, VA–When you own little, you feel freer. When there is less of you (no personal self), you feel freer. When your life is simple, you feel freer.

It’s ironic that we are conditioned (brainwashed?) into buying more stuff, bettering our character (more ego), and keeping our schedules filled (more activity).

I’m not advocating self-imposed poverty or isolation though–that is just another character-building game (ego). I’m talking about finding a balanced, conscious, and harmonious way to live with the natural flow of Life.

I’m talking about keeping–even acquiring–the stuff which enhances your freedom and harmony, and getting rid of (selling, donating, tossing) the stuff which makes you feel embedded.

Our lives can feel like a rock sitting in the mud at the bottom of a lake–or like a fallen leaf gently floating upon a stream. We’re conditioned by society to sink, when it’s in our nature to float.

NEWPORT NEWS, VA–As I walked through a busy mall today I thought, “I have no room for any of this stuff.”

Every time you buy something, you should consider getting rid of something else–maybe two things. Everything you own, is just more stuff weighing you down.

You could say the same thing of your personal story: It’s a huge body of imaginary stuff weighing you down. A giant imaginary story restricting your natural self–your inherit freedom.

If you are contemplating lightening your load, instead of thinking of it as letting go of your stuff, maybe you should think of it as your stuff… letting go of you.

NEWPORT NEWS, VA–Other than about a dozen cases of Fading Toward Enlightenment sitting in my brother’s garage, everything I own fits in my Jeep. Let me say that again, “Everything I own fits in my Jeep.”

I had the RV exactly two years to the day, sold her yesterday and am now officially homeless.

I checked into a room for a week at an extended stay hotel (InTown Suites). The room goes for about the same nightly rate as a campsite. Not too bad for the price but I suspect some of the loose stuff in the Jeep will find another owner by morning. I’m surprisingly unconcerned.

WAYNESBORO, VA–I talk a lot about “Her,” this one, all inclusive Life Force that suffuses everything. Ironically, I don’t consider myself religious in the least. This “She” (to me) IS NOT an unseeable, unknowable, entity, something you have to have faith in. Nor is She this lifeless point in space in a “vast sea of pure awareness” that the dry and dusty nondual teachers parrot each other about… (More below the break).

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HUNGRY MOTHER SP, VA–Everywhere I look, I see Beauty. Everywhere I look I see the Divine. Everywhere I look.

Many (not all, but most) nonduality teachers seem to miss this entirely. It’s like they think enlightenment is a purely mental process, as in, “I figured it out!”

Much like my confusion with their lack of personal blogging, I’m boggled that they seem to be blind to the amazing essence that suffuses everything. The One Life that is everything (including ourselves).

Our True Nature is not just a mental quality, not something to be figured out.

Our True Nature is Life without the illusion of a personal self–not some dusty, dry and rationalized Awareness without any life.

HUNGRY MOTHER SP, VA–As I was breaking camp today, I noticed one of my–I don’t know what they are called, a “do-hickey” I think–was missing from the front of my jeep. The do-hickeys attach the jeep to the tow bar which allows the RV to pull the jeep around behind it.

Because of the missing piece, I ended up getting a much later start than I expected (it took about two hours to find another do-hickey ($3.00) at Tractor Supply in Kingsport). Not a big deal, as I wasn’t planing on driving very far anyway.

But because of that delay, I ended up finding this great camp spot right on the river. There is no way this spot should have been empty as all the other sites on the river were taken. The previous occupants must have just vacated it. Once again, I’m finding this whole control thing is over-rated.

So I’m sitting here in my little office in the back of my RV, listening to the river flow by, fine-tuning the photo and writing in this blog.

I love the sound of a babbling stream in the morning. It sounds like… victory.

I’m a very lucky man.

Warrior’s Path S.P., Kingsport, TN–A follow up to “Naked In A Stream“:

One of the hardest points to get across to spiritual seekers is that when it comes to enlightenment, there is nothing to gain.

Enlightenment is like dropping the clothes that you have been wearing all your life.

Nothing is gained. No new skills are acquired.

Over the course of your entire life, you have been naked under your clothes.

Warrior’s Path S.P., Kingsport, TN–In the comments of my last post, reader Emily asked my thoughts on the oil spill. She’s talking about the Deep Horizon oil spill and I just spelled out “Deep Horizon” because, 1000 years from now, no one will know what oil spill Emily was referring to. A thousand years from now, readers will have to look up “Deep Horizon” because the memory will have been long forgotten and the effects of the spill will have effectively vanished.

This “temporariness” is a key aspect to finding inner peace and appreciation within our world. More below the break…

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Warrior’s Path S.P., Kingsport, TN–Some people see a world filled with darkness and danger, a world where the future hangs like a foreboding storm cloud.

Some see anyone who believes differently from them as their enemy.

Some view strangers with suspicion and distrust.

Some even fear the simple, empty alleyway.

How can this be?

Because most people see the world through their mind and not through their eyes. Through their fears and not through their heart.

Most people see thoughts–but not Truth.

Darkness where there is only Light.

Warrior’s Path S.P., Kingsport, TN–I received an email the other day from a reader who had recently had a satori experience and was asking for advice on what she should do now.

Since satori experiences are indicators that the Personal Self is weakening, I offered the following “empty room” practice.

More below the break…

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Warrior’s Path S.P., Kingsport, TN–From the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42, last paragraph:

What others teach, I also teach; that is:
“A violent man will die a violent death!”
This will be the essence of my teaching.

My thoughts on this below the break…

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POWELL, AL–The other day, as I was self-checking-out some groceries, I told the little computer that, “Yes, I would like some cash back,” and proceeded to walk out of the store with the $100 sitting there in the cash dispenser. I didn’t realize my mistake until the next morning.

My first thought was how wonderful that must have made someone feel.

If I ever win the lottery, I’m going to do that every day.

POWELL, AL–Today, I hiked down a trail, took my clothes off and went skinny dipping in a stream. There is something wonderful about being naked in Nature. Nothing between you and the sun and the rocks and the water.

More below the break…

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