Another my take on God post . . .

[J. Stew]

Society rewards different qualities than that which it takes to reach your own center. Society rewards winning, beating someone, one-upping them, proving that you’re worthy. This creates the idea in your head that in order to be good yourself, that you have to be comparatively better than someone else in something. If you physically feel good when you beat someone, outwit someone, trick someone, do anything better than someone, then you are adhering to this idea that your self-worth is tied with this sort of discrimination. It is this discrimination that you are unknowingly or ignorantly holding onto as truth, that is acting as a barrier to being the Self that lies behind the ego and which is the basic awareness in the emptiness that you are. Society rewards discrimination, making ‘good’ choices, outsmarting someone, and winning. We make money that way and it tricks our minds into replicating the same thought process over and over. This is the rat race of the mind. It’s the same mind-set that fish have at the poker table. They think, well maybe this time I’ll catch that miracle card so they keep fishing and they end up losing.

The way out of the mental rat race is to 1. know what you’re looking for, which is the Self that is the awareness in the emptiness, which is the Self that lies behind the discursive mind or ego-mind, and 2. understand how to get there, which is what religion is used for. Religion just points the way, you have to actually sit there and realize that you are nothing. Then you realize that out of that nothingness, you have this basic awareness that just sees, that doesn’t discriminate. The ego discriminates, but you are really nothing. Once that fact is realized, then your ego realigns with this center which is your Self, which is the basic awareness that we call God. When the realization that you are nothing but something occurs, the ego dissipates and a more pure personality reemerges. This is why adrenaline junkies are fun to be around. They are constantly addressing their fears and crushing them, which is the same as dissipating the ego because the ego is made up of all the fears and worldly desires that we have. Through being this Self that is basic, that everyone is, there is the meaning that religious people talk about. That’s why they seem kooky. They’re talking about this great thing but it’s paradoxical. To see it, you have to go from complex thinking, which we all do here, to simple thinking, to no-mind. When there is no-mind, or no ego-mind, what is there? Nothing but the present moment. In the present moment this basic awareness sees without discrimination. It sees truth insofar as the ego-mind doesn’t interrupt and create some bias, some dual way of thinking about things. This basic awareness sees truth when the discriminatory mind isn’t putting some ‘spin’ on things. As one remains clearly present, in the present moment, the human experience evolves from a grasping/fearful position to an experience? of flow with what is naturally going on in the present moment. And that is the trip, the journey, the path of God. Holla, Stew