Transcription
My conversations with Donald Hoffman, Rupert Spira, and Bernardo Kastrup have been watched over half a million times. I loved having them. But, since my Ken show 10 months ago, I literally cannot have those types of conversations anymore. Not because they're wrong, but because it appears that presence has no interest in talking about consciousness. And that has been fascinating and unexpected for me, and also very revealing.
Now, to be clear, I am not knocking those conversations. I loved having them. They were a really important part on my path, and I know they've been a really important part for many other people, too. One guy came to me, and he said he'd listened to my conversation with Rupert and Bernardo, the 2 and 1/2 hours on mind and matter, and he started with one unconscious view of reality, and by the end that had been shattered, and he was open to non-duality and even awakening. So, these conversations are fantastic. I'm not saying they're wrong. They're important, but something has shifted in me.
So, presence is not interested, since my Ken show, in talking about consciousness because it does not want to listen to what the mind has to say about something it can't possibly grasp. Identification with thought blocks awakening. You cannot understand awakening. You cannot think yourself into awakening any more than you can think yourself into flow or love. Awakening happens at the level of the heart.
So, when I had my 2 weeks post Kenzo, when I was deeply empty of Simon and all sorts of bliss and intensity and I was walking down the street and it was clear everyone else was empty, too. I was them, they were me. And I was the graffiti and I was the rubbish on the floor. Now, I knew this at the level of the heart. When I started to think about it, it very quickly became disorientating. So, I realized I had to stay here at the level of the heart. And I have stayed at the level of the heart ever since. My locus of attention has come from here down to here. As the Zen saying goes, "What are you doing here? Come here."
And it's really given me an appreciation of people who have spontaneous awakenings without context, how it can be destructive and deeply traumatic in some cases. And I've spoken to people who've had that experience. Now, so many spiritual teachers talk about witnessing, awareness and acceptance. But, you can witness anxiety and get some relief with that and yet still have it for 10 years, 20 years even. And that's because witnessing accepting awareness for me implies a certain indifference. And when you have that indifference, it's very hard not to in the back of your mind have a sense of I don't really want this here.
But, what was so clear to me when I had that shift was it was loving presence. The frequency, the felt sense of dipping into this loving presence was love. And that's why it had this blissful element. And so, therefore it's not about accepting experience, it's about embracing experience. Having experienced love in that way, as myself and as reality, at the level of presence, we still have the human experience. And so for me, the question becomes, how do we live that? How do we live in alignment with loving presence?
Well, it has to start with ourselves. How can you experience a deep love of the whole of reality when there is an internal rejection going on? And everyone I work with has a self-abandonment somewhere that got laid down early, and they don't even know it's happening. They feel it's happening. And so that's the work I do is to help people get clear on where they're rejecting themselves. Because as you remove these self-abandonments, then you can remove the impediments, internal impediments, to be able to have that inner yes to yourself, and therefore to the whole of reality, rather than going up into your head and into concepts, and of course then going out and trying to control your external experience so you feel better inside. Which as I'm sure you've realized by now, does not work.
So my invitation is to come from concepts, from the head, to the heart. And to first meet your inner experience with an inner yes. You can even smile as you meet your inner experience. That helps some people. It's a loving yes to what's here. And when we fully love our inner experience, it reflects outwards. And that's been so fascinating as well for me is how quickly the outside reflects this inner yes. Relationships with my wife, with my kids, with my parents, with friends, work, finances, everything shifts outside when you have this loving yes inside. And of course it does, because you're aligning yourself with truth.
So the conversations that I had were a joy to be a part of and they are a fantastic doorway. But presence is already through the door. So if you want to move from head to heart, from concepts to presence, you can get in touch via the links below. And right now, come to your heart. Feel that as I send you love to wherever you are in the world.