The mind is so tricky. It’s so good at protecting us from reality.

When the veil of illusion begins to disappear, we begin to see just how incredibly good our mind is at hiding the Truth.

The truth that life won’t hurt you. That you can’t be touched by the horrors of the mind. The truth that what you are is beyond this dream of the battle me vs. the other.

So often we get lost and trapped in our own lives and also other people’s lives. We look to those that seem to have it better and dream ourselves up a perfect reality based on their dream. We dream ourselves out of the moment – out of what’s actually appearing for us. We believe that more beauty, more money, more power, more attention, more fame, more people loving us and more possessions will give us what we’ve convinced ourselves we’re missing.

Why does the mind do this? Why does it come up with an ultimately beautiful life that it’s striving for, and then also the opposite version of that, this horrible nightmare with the potentiality of cancer, poverty, loss, abandonment, loneliness? Why does it do this and then oscillate between thoughts about these two extremes? What I want and what I don’t want? Why is it’s dream so powerful? Why does it have so much power that in fact, it convinces us into believing there is something wrong with this one innocent, precious moment of our life which is all we can ever know?

The mind does this as a functioning of consciousness. Consciousness is so curious what it would be like to be something it could never be, two, one and the other, that it becomes fascinated with these projections of love and fear onto others and onto life. In this it actually falls in love with itself and then it falls into disgust with itself, and it is a game of two that it’s playing.

Yes, playing! When there is not an identity that is claiming these theatrics, it is cute and innocent. But when there’s an energy claiming this exploration and this curiosity that consciousness is having, then there is extreme suffering: “Why can’t I be as beautiful and rich as her?” “How can I get the same loving, kind family that he has?”, “How do I avoid this person, whom if I see, will take my dignity and my husband.” These sound like extreme examples, but often they are so hidden in the subconscious that we don’t recognize their roots.

Consciousness, on the other hand, created these roots and the corresponding thoughts out of its curiosity and exploration. This whole time it is just trying to answer the question, “Who am I?” It uses what it loves and what it fears, as a gauge or barometer to try and pin down its identity.

It can never do this, it never will. As long as consciousness manifests as body and mind, it will continue to try and look for itself. But it will never find itself.

This is the tragedy, but also the joke of life.

Try as it might, through the millions of ways that it can think of, to attempt to define itself and find it’s origin – it never will. It can never find itself.

It can never find itself because it is everything and nothing. It has no center. It has nowhere where it’s going. It has nowhere to return to. It just is. It’s just here, as THIS.

The only home consciousness can ever have is in reality.

The reality that is behind the thoughts.

The hands on the steering wheel, the barista handing you the hot cup of coffee, the cold wind on your skin, the sound of footsteps on a wooden floor, the sound of a glass breaking, the phone call coming in, the person at the doorstep.

This is all one thing. It’s just one empty looking, one empty experiencing, one transparent, empty stillness that holds all things and watches them coming and going.

Spirituality and the search for God is the most dangerous place consciousness goes.

This is because it uses the ultimate ideal and freedom “God” and projects itself onto that. It uses the idea of God, or enlightenment, as something that can save it from itself, protect it, give it it’s dream and take away it’s nightmare. When the idea of God is dropped, along with the entire fictional world of the mind, what is left?

What is left right here?

This is a deep and meaningful question because it points to something that is alive and free. Yet, when I say “alive” and “free” there your mind goes, creating another ideal. This points to something beyond words, beyond the ideal – just THIS. THIS. THIS.

The sound of the washer, the body lying on the floor, the feeling of brokenness, the feeling of wholeness.

Reality doesn’t need to be sought!!!!

You don’t have to look for enlightenment and try to get it.

Let me save you years of spirituality and seeking, Gurus and psychotherapy, your ideal of God, enlightenment, freedom, joy, whatever you want to call it – it’s all right here!

IT’S THIS. THIS. THIS.THIS. THIS. THIS.

I can’t make this any clearer. Until you drop the search, you’ll be like a cat chasing its tail.

Just stop. Just stop right now. Just stop right now and come home, to your home, to your room, to the computer, to your body, to the people to THIS, THIS, THIS. Just reality as it is…it’s so simple. Perhaps too simple.