What is Authentic?

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If you are searching for authenticity in your life, you may eventually discover that this is just another sneaky way of putting up more boundaries to separate this from that. Some experiences are considered special or ‘it’, and others are considered inauthentic, wrong, or not ‘it’. In this play of experience, all experiences, without exception, are equally authentic, or in fact equally inauthentic.
However, some experiences seem to be sweet reflections of your true nature beyond the thinking: a walk in nature, a melting into a lover’s eyes, a blissful moment in meditation or dance, or just a random moment when thoughts seem to fall away. When these sweet gifts happen, see them as pointers to who you are, and don’t get distracted by the sweet experience that is only ever temporary and always unreliable.
When we start to believe that this experience is ‘it’, we immediately get excited that we have arrived at our spiritual goal. We immediately start to look down on all other experiences with great superiority, as ‘not it’. So as soon as the experience of ‘it’ passes, as all experiences do eventually, we assume we have lost ‘it’. But you never had ‘it’. You never had anything. It was just a passing sweet gift. Be grateful for whatever insight it brought, and let it go. It is already gone anyway.
Who you really are is never an experience of authenticity. It is never an experience at all. It can not be got and it can not be lost. This is the freedom beyond all experience.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

You can never control what people think about you

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Today in the meeting, a bright young woman courageously raised the issue of how to navigate in life when you can never control what other people will think about you. You always risk losing the approval, acceptance and love that you think you can get from someone else. Every step you take you potentially risk being ostracized from society, and essentially even risk your very survival. The pressure to make the ‘right’ decision, and to avoid ‘wrong’ actions or words, is so strong that it can even paralyze us.
At some point we have to see that there is no way of controlling other people’s perspectives. They too are looking for approval and acceptance. They, just like us, simply don’t know. There is no authority ‘out there’ that can tell us how to live or whether we are ok. We can never rely on anyone else, and we will never get the final stamp of approval from anyone else, because they are all just as lost as we are. At some point we have to come to see that our own not-knowing, is the only authority to really know.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Thought tries to hijack everything

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When you understand the nature of thought, that it can only fit whatever is heard, recognised or experienced into what has been previously understood or labelled, you can see that it can not do anything else. It will always try to hijack everything, but who you are is always free, no matter what.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Thought believes it can protect me

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Thought believes that it can protect me. Thought believes that there is a safe place away from here. Thought imagines that tomorrow will be better, that somewhere, with someone else, will be perfect. If only I can figure it all out, then I will finally be able to relax….
But in the meantime, whether we like it or not, Life is simply a wild unprotected, out-of-control, wondrously timeless mystery.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Risk it all

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Life may not always fit into your ideas of how it ‘should’ be. It may not always feel comfortable. But there comes a point when you are just so tired of chasing temporary experiences of peace and love, and hoping for a perfect future ‘one day’. There comes a point when you acknowledge that your deepest longing is to wake up to reality no matter what. There comes a point when it is time to risk losing it all, and to courageously take a step into the unknown.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

The Push/Pull Game

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We make so much effort to be unique and different from other people, but at the same time we long for love and acceptance from them. It’s such a push/pull game. We want to stand alone and be independent individuals, but at the same time we want to melt and merge as One with all that is. This paradox of Life isn’t a problem to be solved, it’s just the way it is.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

Dancing on the surface

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Many so-called seekers are dancing on the surface, tasting many flowers, but never really courageously dive deep into what is real right here now. This comes from a idea that “something ‘more’ might satisfy me one day if I keep looking out there”. It is an endless agitated energy that will never be satisfied. It will always be looking for the next fix. If you really want to explore what is true, at some point you need to stop and feel what is here, instead of continuing to dance to the next flower. Feel that agitated energy when it comes up, rather than just blindly following it.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

A Beggar for Approval

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When we believe that we need others approval, love or acceptance, we are like beggars. We believe that what is, is not enough, and that what we need is in someone else’s hands. Without the crumbs of attention that someone else might occasionally throw at us, we are bereft, lonely and generally lacking. This has perhaps become such an old habit, to energetically reach out there, that we have forgotten how to really meet the other, and more importantly, meet ourselves in whatever is really felt. Beyond this old habit, there is the genuine longing to meet beyond all boundaries. But it requires giving up the position of need which has felt so safe and familiar for so long. Without that position we just don’t know how to interact anymore. And in that not-knowing, there is the openness to meet and be met as we truly long for.

Unmani
www.die-to-love.com

No Back Up

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This is the same message as Jesus or Buddha or all the Zen Masters, but striped of any tradition, lineage, or dogmas. Once, this message used to be the secret mystical teaching that only those who had been practicing, or on the spiritual path for many years, and had attained certain spiritual qualifications to prove that he was ready, could have access to. It was greatly respected because it was understood to be truly dangerous to those who might misinterpret it. Now, in our modern age of technology this message is much more freely available (and more open to misinterpretation). However, this does not mean that it is not still mortally dangerous to what you think about yourself. If there is any kind of crack in your belief system, this message can really destroy your life as you think you know it. But if you already feel that the life you have been living, is only one pretence after another, then you are willing to risk it all, to wake up to what is true. This is the courage to stand alone.
I have no tradition. I have no lineage. I have no permission to speak from some nice old man. I stand naked with nothing to hold on to and no back-up. And yet, as Life itself, there is no way to prevent this pouring out of what is true.