Tim Birchard's Blog - Posts Tagged "heart"
Best day of your life?
What’s the best day of your life?
Is it a birthday? A wedding? First love? Special vacation?
Often, we associate the best day of our lives with some seemingly special occasion that appears to stand out from all the others. But actually, there is only one correct answer: Today. The best day of my life is today. The best moment of my life is right now. Because right now is all that exists. Right now is all we have. Today… this very moment, as you read these words, is all you have.
Anything else, birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, celebrations, dances… special events… all of those are nothing more than memories. Memories are habitual thought patterns creating the illusion of a solid story and an actual identity. But remove those thought patterns and the past disappears. The future disappears. They are revealed to be what they truly are: empty concepts. Mentations.
The best practice you can ever have is to recognize and embrace truth. The truth is, the only day of your life is today. The only contact you make with reality is in the present moment– like a needle making contact with an album on a record player.
Therefore the best day of your life could only be one possible day: today. Embrace it.
Is it a birthday? A wedding? First love? Special vacation?
Often, we associate the best day of our lives with some seemingly special occasion that appears to stand out from all the others. But actually, there is only one correct answer: Today. The best day of my life is today. The best moment of my life is right now. Because right now is all that exists. Right now is all we have. Today… this very moment, as you read these words, is all you have.
Anything else, birthdays, anniversaries, funerals, celebrations, dances… special events… all of those are nothing more than memories. Memories are habitual thought patterns creating the illusion of a solid story and an actual identity. But remove those thought patterns and the past disappears. The future disappears. They are revealed to be what they truly are: empty concepts. Mentations.
The best practice you can ever have is to recognize and embrace truth. The truth is, the only day of your life is today. The only contact you make with reality is in the present moment– like a needle making contact with an album on a record player.
Therefore the best day of your life could only be one possible day: today. Embrace it.
Primal wounds
Through the lens of the ego, you have wounds from very early on. These primal wounds, while not causing any damage or insult whatsoever to your True Being, nonetheless feel very real to the one who mistakes himself for the physical body. The resulting belief: “I am unlovable,” or some variation on this theme.
The plot thickens when someone or something reminds this one of the primal wound… and misperception is compounded to such an extent that he responds to the Reminder(s) as though they were the actual cause of the original primal wound. Suddenly, it seems as though the mistaken belief of “I am unlovable” is being agitated and reinforced by external circumstances again and again; everywhere one looks, he is reminded that he is unlovable. And as a result, victim status might very well be unwittingly assumed… again and again.
When those external circumstances are seen for what they are, simply REMINDERS of the primal wound, then the beloved can begin to find a way out of the darkness and begin to move toward light. And when the primal wound itself is recognized for what it truly is, empty, hollow, thought-based, and impermanent (along with the physical body and mind), then all perceived chains drop away. Reality is revealed with clarity. The Beloved again sees his own One True Face in all other beings and circumstances.
Freedom for the self has been achieved (or “remembered,” since it was never actually lost in the first place), and can now be demonstrated to the apparent multiplicity through freedom from attachment to all that is temporary. Living this truth by example, the Beloved has returned home. Belief in the false drops away. The need to escape vanishes. All is home. All is one. All is love.
There is no ‘Other’.
The plot thickens when someone or something reminds this one of the primal wound… and misperception is compounded to such an extent that he responds to the Reminder(s) as though they were the actual cause of the original primal wound. Suddenly, it seems as though the mistaken belief of “I am unlovable” is being agitated and reinforced by external circumstances again and again; everywhere one looks, he is reminded that he is unlovable. And as a result, victim status might very well be unwittingly assumed… again and again.
When those external circumstances are seen for what they are, simply REMINDERS of the primal wound, then the beloved can begin to find a way out of the darkness and begin to move toward light. And when the primal wound itself is recognized for what it truly is, empty, hollow, thought-based, and impermanent (along with the physical body and mind), then all perceived chains drop away. Reality is revealed with clarity. The Beloved again sees his own One True Face in all other beings and circumstances.
Freedom for the self has been achieved (or “remembered,” since it was never actually lost in the first place), and can now be demonstrated to the apparent multiplicity through freedom from attachment to all that is temporary. Living this truth by example, the Beloved has returned home. Belief in the false drops away. The need to escape vanishes. All is home. All is one. All is love.
There is no ‘Other’.
Infinite Source of Love
Do you find yourself entering into intimate relationships looking for a surrogate mother or father? Do you feel as though your partner plays the role of your child, while you play the role of parent? Do you feel resentment toward your partner for holding power over you, or for not carrying her/his share of the weight and responsibility?
Do these questions make you feel uncomfortable?
Relationships are ideal ways to learn and grow, for your partner acts as a powerful mirror, reflecting a magnified image of your internal world. Struggling with a partner is simply a reflection of struggling within one’s own self… the struggles of the ego. Struggles for power, love, respect.
The mistaken perception at work here is that power, love, and respect are somehow ‘out there’ and must be obtained, captured, and chained up in order to keep them around. The truth is that all the power, love, and respect you could ever want already reside within your heart. All you need do is inquire within.
When you are completely comfortable being alone with yourself, you will find you no longer want anything from others. When you tap into the infinite source of love, located in the heart, you will discover that you no longer experience the urge to throw yourself into the middle of chaos… flashing lights, loud noises, etc. The “fun” you once craved will seem to satisfy less and less.
Go within. For true love, seek intimacy with your own heart. That is the Infinite Source of Love that you’ve been overlooking all along. You’ll find there is no need to look further. You’ve been carrying it around with you the whole time.
Do these questions make you feel uncomfortable?
Relationships are ideal ways to learn and grow, for your partner acts as a powerful mirror, reflecting a magnified image of your internal world. Struggling with a partner is simply a reflection of struggling within one’s own self… the struggles of the ego. Struggles for power, love, respect.
The mistaken perception at work here is that power, love, and respect are somehow ‘out there’ and must be obtained, captured, and chained up in order to keep them around. The truth is that all the power, love, and respect you could ever want already reside within your heart. All you need do is inquire within.
When you are completely comfortable being alone with yourself, you will find you no longer want anything from others. When you tap into the infinite source of love, located in the heart, you will discover that you no longer experience the urge to throw yourself into the middle of chaos… flashing lights, loud noises, etc. The “fun” you once craved will seem to satisfy less and less.
Go within. For true love, seek intimacy with your own heart. That is the Infinite Source of Love that you’ve been overlooking all along. You’ll find there is no need to look further. You’ve been carrying it around with you the whole time.
Disorientation as the false drops away
Greetings, Dear One!
You’re doing wonderful work! And now that you’ve been focused on releasing such a tight grip on misidentification with the physical body, the mind, and things/events in the 3D world you perceive, you are moving forward quite quickly.
You feel a sense of disorientation, do you not? Yes. This is to be expected. Suddenly, after all these years, those pastimes that used to bring you such a sense of satisfaction, those things you used to pour your love and energy into because they were an extension of YOU… suddenly you feel your passion for those pastimes beginning to wane. Beginning to drop away. Beginning to become less and less satisfying.
“How can this BE?”, you wonder. “These pastimes have been an integral part of my identity since I was a child! What is happening to me?!!”
Just know that this is normal, natural, right, and very, very positive. We have been telling you nothing else but that identification with the physical body and mind is a natural misperception, and will come to an end in due time. Whether it happens on the ‘death bed’ of the physical body or before, it will reach its expiration date.
For those of you who are more dedicated to your growth, you will reach this date sooner… before the expiration of your physical body. While this may feel disorienting and even frightening at times, this is truly a cause for celebration. For even as you drop your passion for playing guitar, collecting records, going fishing, creating folk art, collecting spoons, or whatever, you are creating space for your energy to be available for deeper service to your community, no matter how that may look.
Remember: you have two jobs— 1) to realize your own freedom; and 2) to demonstrate that freedom to others that they may see it and emulate it. There is nothing else to be done. Now that you are on the road to achieving your own freedom, it is time to demonstrate it as often as possible to all around you. Speak your truth. And refrain from speaking those habitual falsehoods that you may have spoken for decades.
Such falsehoods as claiming limitations that are not truly yours… in other words, “Playing Small”! It’s time to end those patterns, for they serve neither you nor anyone around you. Claim your space. Claim your power. Wield it with gentleness, for true power has no need for making loud sounds and defiant postures. True power has no need to prove anything to anyone. True power is love.
You are Love. Love is all there is. There is no ‘Other’.
You’re doing wonderful work! And now that you’ve been focused on releasing such a tight grip on misidentification with the physical body, the mind, and things/events in the 3D world you perceive, you are moving forward quite quickly.
You feel a sense of disorientation, do you not? Yes. This is to be expected. Suddenly, after all these years, those pastimes that used to bring you such a sense of satisfaction, those things you used to pour your love and energy into because they were an extension of YOU… suddenly you feel your passion for those pastimes beginning to wane. Beginning to drop away. Beginning to become less and less satisfying.
“How can this BE?”, you wonder. “These pastimes have been an integral part of my identity since I was a child! What is happening to me?!!”
Just know that this is normal, natural, right, and very, very positive. We have been telling you nothing else but that identification with the physical body and mind is a natural misperception, and will come to an end in due time. Whether it happens on the ‘death bed’ of the physical body or before, it will reach its expiration date.
For those of you who are more dedicated to your growth, you will reach this date sooner… before the expiration of your physical body. While this may feel disorienting and even frightening at times, this is truly a cause for celebration. For even as you drop your passion for playing guitar, collecting records, going fishing, creating folk art, collecting spoons, or whatever, you are creating space for your energy to be available for deeper service to your community, no matter how that may look.
Remember: you have two jobs— 1) to realize your own freedom; and 2) to demonstrate that freedom to others that they may see it and emulate it. There is nothing else to be done. Now that you are on the road to achieving your own freedom, it is time to demonstrate it as often as possible to all around you. Speak your truth. And refrain from speaking those habitual falsehoods that you may have spoken for decades.
Such falsehoods as claiming limitations that are not truly yours… in other words, “Playing Small”! It’s time to end those patterns, for they serve neither you nor anyone around you. Claim your space. Claim your power. Wield it with gentleness, for true power has no need for making loud sounds and defiant postures. True power has no need to prove anything to anyone. True power is love.
You are Love. Love is all there is. There is no ‘Other’.
Security in 3D
The interplay between chemistry and emotion in the human body / experience can be confusing and limiting, we know. In the midst of wanting to feel loved and cherished, at the precise time when you forget that you already are Love and Cherishing, of course it can seem like the “only way out” of pain, sadness, and suffering is through chemistry — through changing the chemical balance of the physical body by introducing endorphins or other altering compounds.
We understand.
Yet this is the very dimension where you have volunteered to experience re-membering that you are none other than expression of the Divine — to demonstrate to other seemingly separate souls what it looks like to surrender seeming “security” in 3-D… Security which cannot ever be secured in the temporary, 3-D expression of Reality, mind you.
The boundless energy of youth; the house and mortgage; the family… no matter how emotionally attached to these concepts you may feel, they follow the transitory nature of being. They are illusion. (They have a beginning, middle, and an end. Time-bound.)
There is no “other”. There is only One. And you are it. In this moment. And everything you see is a reflection of your own brilliance. To you it may seem to be in disguise, but we assure you — look deeply and you will see that you are I AM. Time reveals itself to be illusion, and collapses. The human body, with its limited perception, is laid aside, as are all human dreams, which are revealed to be tiny in comparison to the brilliance of the Source of Love — the I AM, which is no other than you!
The very idea of achieving “security” on your plane is laughable, in the sense that selfishness leads to despair. The only “security” in your 3-D world is acknowledgement of the transitory nature of 3-D existence, and dedication to a life of service to a Higher Good.
Only through sacrifice of the ego comes recognition of eternal life. Since eternal life is all there is, “you” can never lose “it.” But even these terms, in this limited human language, suggest separation between subject and object — “you” and “eternal life.”
This is all part of the beauty of the expression of the I AM — the Universe dancing for the joy of dancing. Surrender your fear and dance!
We understand.
Yet this is the very dimension where you have volunteered to experience re-membering that you are none other than expression of the Divine — to demonstrate to other seemingly separate souls what it looks like to surrender seeming “security” in 3-D… Security which cannot ever be secured in the temporary, 3-D expression of Reality, mind you.
The boundless energy of youth; the house and mortgage; the family… no matter how emotionally attached to these concepts you may feel, they follow the transitory nature of being. They are illusion. (They have a beginning, middle, and an end. Time-bound.)
There is no “other”. There is only One. And you are it. In this moment. And everything you see is a reflection of your own brilliance. To you it may seem to be in disguise, but we assure you — look deeply and you will see that you are I AM. Time reveals itself to be illusion, and collapses. The human body, with its limited perception, is laid aside, as are all human dreams, which are revealed to be tiny in comparison to the brilliance of the Source of Love — the I AM, which is no other than you!
The very idea of achieving “security” on your plane is laughable, in the sense that selfishness leads to despair. The only “security” in your 3-D world is acknowledgement of the transitory nature of 3-D existence, and dedication to a life of service to a Higher Good.
Only through sacrifice of the ego comes recognition of eternal life. Since eternal life is all there is, “you” can never lose “it.” But even these terms, in this limited human language, suggest separation between subject and object — “you” and “eternal life.”
This is all part of the beauty of the expression of the I AM — the Universe dancing for the joy of dancing. Surrender your fear and dance!
The big mistake
“I’m not lovable.” (Also known as, “I’m not good enough.”)
Distill any unhappiness down to its essence, and you will find some variation on this belief. Common stories go something like this: “Someone inflicted trauma, therefore I am unlovable, or not good enough.”
It is understandable how you could draw these conclusions, erroneous though they may be. However, these beliefs (lies) can only be held as long as one perceives through the lens of dualistic (small mind) thinking.
“I’m not lovable” — holding this belief requires the perception that there are two distinct entities, subject and object, and that the subject (the giver of love) refuses to give love to the object (the starving, would-be recipient of love) because the object is not worthy of receiving love.
This is the big mistake.
The truth is not the opposite– “I am lovable” — the truth is “I am LOVE.” How can one not be lovable when one IS the act of LOVE?
“I’m not good enough.” The opposite is not “I am good enough”… the truth is, “I am GOODNESS.”
These misperceptions become habitual thought patterns when you continue to look outside of yourself for validation from external sources; sensory experiences such as relationships, food, clothing, movies, travel… the list goes on.
Your journey of remembering that you are the Source of Love involves healing this misperception.
Instead of looking outward for validation, turn inward. Look to your own heart. That is where you will find the truth that has always been with you: You ARE love. You ARE goodness. You ARE compassion. You ARE hope. You ARE divine wisdom. No matter what behaviors you have or have not exhibited on this plane of existence, your divine nature is unshakable. Unquestionable. Bullet-proof.
Go inward. Turn away from all that you see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and think about. This is known as releasing attachment. It’s perfectly fine to engage in daily life– just do so recognizing that all sensory experience is to be set gently aside… they are not what is important– they are not what matters– they are not what is real. Only the internal world of the heart is real.
Look inward and remember.
Distill any unhappiness down to its essence, and you will find some variation on this belief. Common stories go something like this: “Someone inflicted trauma, therefore I am unlovable, or not good enough.”
It is understandable how you could draw these conclusions, erroneous though they may be. However, these beliefs (lies) can only be held as long as one perceives through the lens of dualistic (small mind) thinking.
“I’m not lovable” — holding this belief requires the perception that there are two distinct entities, subject and object, and that the subject (the giver of love) refuses to give love to the object (the starving, would-be recipient of love) because the object is not worthy of receiving love.
This is the big mistake.
The truth is not the opposite– “I am lovable” — the truth is “I am LOVE.” How can one not be lovable when one IS the act of LOVE?
“I’m not good enough.” The opposite is not “I am good enough”… the truth is, “I am GOODNESS.”
These misperceptions become habitual thought patterns when you continue to look outside of yourself for validation from external sources; sensory experiences such as relationships, food, clothing, movies, travel… the list goes on.
Your journey of remembering that you are the Source of Love involves healing this misperception.
Instead of looking outward for validation, turn inward. Look to your own heart. That is where you will find the truth that has always been with you: You ARE love. You ARE goodness. You ARE compassion. You ARE hope. You ARE divine wisdom. No matter what behaviors you have or have not exhibited on this plane of existence, your divine nature is unshakable. Unquestionable. Bullet-proof.
Go inward. Turn away from all that you see, hear, touch, taste, smell, and think about. This is known as releasing attachment. It’s perfectly fine to engage in daily life– just do so recognizing that all sensory experience is to be set gently aside… they are not what is important– they are not what matters– they are not what is real. Only the internal world of the heart is real.
Look inward and remember.
Fear of 'getting all spiritual'
I used to be afraid of ‘getting all spiritual’. After feeling like organized religion had let me down in so many ways, I began to equate ‘getting all spiritual’ with being tricked… with believing lies.
From then on, I wanted proof. I assumed that if I could perceive it with my physical senses, it must be true. Anything outside of the scope of concepts could not be proven; therefore, if I believed in something I could not see/hear/taste/smell/touch or conceptualize, I was going to end up playing the fool… believing lies… and suffering more.
Yet the truth is, I am not this physical body. I am not this mind (therefore, I am not mind-based ego). And as my friend Atreya Thomas says, there are only two things we can be afraid of: something concerning the ego, or something concerning the body. (http://revealingtheabsolute.com/2015/...) Since neither is my true self, believing them to be real is a mistake.
As it turns out, when I believe what I see/hear/taste/smell/touch/mentally conceive to be reality, I am believing a lie. I am mis-identifying with the transitory and imagining it to be permanent. The path to truth is to discard what is perceived via the physical senses. Reality is beyond thought. Not “irrational”… but “extra-rational”. Fear of ‘getting all spiritual’ is ego-based fear.
Atreya, you said it best: as long as I mistakenly believe the illusory self to be true, the risk of egoic paranoid thinking will continue to be extremely high. My fear of ‘getting all spiritual’ is, in itself, a painful symptom of believing a lie. The doorway out of this suffering is to recognize my true identity as The Absolute.
When I gently recognize ALL thoughts (including these) and perceptions as movement of the mind, then I can rest in the peace and freedom that is my birthright.
From then on, I wanted proof. I assumed that if I could perceive it with my physical senses, it must be true. Anything outside of the scope of concepts could not be proven; therefore, if I believed in something I could not see/hear/taste/smell/touch or conceptualize, I was going to end up playing the fool… believing lies… and suffering more.
Yet the truth is, I am not this physical body. I am not this mind (therefore, I am not mind-based ego). And as my friend Atreya Thomas says, there are only two things we can be afraid of: something concerning the ego, or something concerning the body. (http://revealingtheabsolute.com/2015/...) Since neither is my true self, believing them to be real is a mistake.
As it turns out, when I believe what I see/hear/taste/smell/touch/mentally conceive to be reality, I am believing a lie. I am mis-identifying with the transitory and imagining it to be permanent. The path to truth is to discard what is perceived via the physical senses. Reality is beyond thought. Not “irrational”… but “extra-rational”. Fear of ‘getting all spiritual’ is ego-based fear.
Atreya, you said it best: as long as I mistakenly believe the illusory self to be true, the risk of egoic paranoid thinking will continue to be extremely high. My fear of ‘getting all spiritual’ is, in itself, a painful symptom of believing a lie. The doorway out of this suffering is to recognize my true identity as The Absolute.
When I gently recognize ALL thoughts (including these) and perceptions as movement of the mind, then I can rest in the peace and freedom that is my birthright.
