I bought a new home yesterday—a 22 foot 2006 Pioneer Travel Trailer.

While towing it back to Palm Bay, one of the tires blew.

I changed it with the spare.

Five minutes later the spare tire blew.

Ants bit the bejesus out of my feet as I disconnected the trailer and left it on the side of the highway.

I drove to the nearest RV dealer and they didn’t do tires anymore.

They referred me to a wonderful place though, Space Coast Industries, and they gave me a tire and hub (didn’t even ask my name).

I changed the tire…

and ants bit the bejesus out of my feet again.

I towed the trailer to Space Coast Industries and I’m having them replace all the tires.

The tires probably blew because my ball hitch is too low for the trailer, leaning the trailer forward and putting too much weight on the front tires.

A raised ball hitch is only $20 at Walmart.

I won’t get my trailer back until next week.

At the DMV today, it took me three trips to get my address changed and my trailer registered (post 9/11 bureaucracies hate nomads).

The DMV fees were $700 dollars.

It has been a very physically and emotionally exhausting two days.

My Point

Bad things happen to everyone.

If you take “bad things” personally, you suffer.

If you don’t take them personally, they are just painful stuff.

If you think you should always win, you suffer.

If you don’t think you should always win, “bad things” aren’t bad at all, they are just this.

All these events were physically and emotionally painful, but they weren’t personal. They didn’t happen to me, they just happened.

Taking things personally and making winning important are traits of the Mortal level.

They make your life suck.

Let go of the Mortal illusion.

Bad things happen.

Bad things are painful…

but they don’t have to suck…

and you don’t have to suffer.

Why do you want so much (I want, I want, I want)?

Because you love yourself too much.

When you let go of yourself, when you stop taking yourself so seriously, your identity relaxes and Love naturally awakens, stirs, and shines forth from your very being (Radiance).

(Photo by Andrea de Michaelis)

To most women, hair is an accessory.

To most men, hair is a part of their identity.

To the devote spiritual seeker, hair can be a real pain in the ass.

More below the break.

(more…)

PALM BAY, FL–I’m going to let you in on a little secret–a secret that the sages from time untold have all agreed on: You are seriously screwed up.

More below the break (huh?).

(more…)

PALM BAY, FL–One of the popular approaches to enlightenment today is the path of inquiry. I have a serious problem with this, as most students of it, once they “figure it out,” believe themselves to be awake, when really all they are doing is fooling themselves.

If you don’t feel it, if you don’t feel the Beauty, the Wonder, the Passion, the Light, yes, even the Divine, in you, as you, and around you… then you simply aren’t there yet.

Below is an email from a man who recognizes that he is trapped in a nondual quagmire…

I so badly just want some peace. A loving sense of presence that reassures this body/mind that everything is alright just the way it is. That things are neither wrong nor right… bad or good, that they just are, and as that there is just perfection.

I have read “Sailor Bob”, “John Wheeler”, “Gilbert Schultz”, I had a phone conversation with “Charlie Hayes”, I have met “Byron Katie” at a seminar. My favorite book so far was Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse. I understand there is no personal me… no separate entity. What I am is that presence, that awareness that is knowing all of this. There is only just the one and everything is a manifestation within that.

So why cannot I see through the illusion? Why cannot I see through the separate self? Can it ever happen, can I have any influence towards this?

I know, I know… I, I, I. There is no I to have any influence over anything. I am already that! Jeeze, I am exhausted and yet I cannot stop the seeking. I feel like I am being pulled towards this by a invisible Tractor Beam that won’t let me go, but also won’t let me see through the illusion.

Is there a different way I can approach this? Any ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated. I appreciate your “story”, and your pilgrimage to find answers.

My reply below the break.

(more…)

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…

(more…)

DEERFIELD BEACH, FL–Fixing yourself is a lot like re-writing a novel–the end result is still a fiction.

Lasting happiness can only come from seeing the personal self for what it is–a collection of thoughts, a story, an illusion.

Your life won’t get any better by fixing yourself.

Get off that hamster wheel. After all these years, it still hasn’t brought you any lasting happiness.

See the lie. Push it away. Let it go.

DEERFIELD BEACH, FL–I have found that there are two qualities that underlie all awareness when the personal self drops–qualities that are powerfully felt when I’m not under the influence of decades-long conditioning: Emptiness and Gentleness.

Emptiness (vastness/openness) is the mental quality of awareness. In a strange, wonderful intermixed sort of way, everything seems to arise (comes into existence) inside of me, is a part of me, and yet is (all at the same time) still separate from me. I use the word “emptiness” because of the strong feeling of it happening inside of me (“me” being the feeling of this vast, living, emptiness). The inside/part of/separate paradox isn’t really a paradox though–it’s just like when you think of an easter bunny: the image is inside you, part of you, and yet separate from you.

Gentleness is the energetic quality. It underlies everything. Conditioned “Wayne” has a lot of Yang (“can-do,” assertive, forceful) energy, but under that conditioning, is this simple, gentleness that feels so much like the “true” me. I’ve often heard other’s call it “love,” but that seems too vague, too idealistic. “Gentleness” feels more alive, more flowing, more natural.

Emptiness is mental and very difficult to experience for most. The noisy personal self is the main barrier to experiencing it.

Gentleness on the other hand is very easy. Just practice being gentle.

Then, as a tool, notice that when you are not being gentle, that you are either under the influence of the personal self or prior conditioning. The simple act of seeing them makes it much easier for them to drop away.

SILVER RIVER STATE PARK, OUTSIDE OCALA, FL–I’ve made and uploaded a new video today. Shot from inside a canoe as I drifted down the Silver River outside Ocala, FL. Another example of the one-take-push-record-talk-push-stop technique complete with all the expected unexpected interruptions of real life. Sadly, I didn’t capsize or knock the camera into the water as that would have sent the video soaring up the YouTube viewer ratings. Oh well, maybe next time.

Enjoy and have a wonderful Holiday!

GUM SPRINGS CAMPGROUND, OUTSIDE WINNFIELD, LA–I’ve added a new video, Dropping the Personal Self, to the Videos page. It provides a technique for seeing and distancing yourself from the sucky personal self.

Enjoy.

GUM SPRINGS CAMPGROUND, OUTSIDE WINNFIELD, LA–My Why You Suck post was designed to be funny, but my following points are serious.

Separate You from your personal self. Your goal isn’t to accept your personal self, it is to separate You from your personal self. Separate You from you (capital Y from little y).

It’s not about making your personal life better. It’s not about checking items off the previous list, “Oh, that’s not my problem.” It’s about seeing how the personal self sucks–and just as importantly–how it may suck in the future. It’s not about fixing your personal self, it’s about transcending it.

Feeling, not thinking. It’s not about thinking how it sucks, but feeling how it sucks. The more you feel it emotionally, the more easily you can identify it, separate from it, and drop it.

Seeing it and touching it. Most importantly, it is about touching the personal self. Touch it, pull away, touch it, pull away. Like touching the table, pulling away, touching the table, pulling away. The more often you consciously touch it (by seeing it and feeling it) the easier it will be to realize that you are not it.

Once you distance yourself from the personal self, once you separate from it, once you see it for what it is–a thought gone awry– then you’ll drop through the Hourglass of Enlightenment and never suffer from the pain of the personal self again.

December 16, 2009 5:56 PM: Added a video, Dropping the Personal Self, to the videos page (Wayne).

GUM SPRINGS CAMPGROUND, OUTSIDE WINNFIELD, LA–My belief is that the easiest way to wake up is to:

1. See and experience how wonderful enlightenment feels.
2. See how the illusion of a Personal Self sucks (see below).
3. Naturally drop the sucky Personal Self because you’re sick of it.

Read the full article here…

(more…)

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.

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…)