Dear Human Being

Dear Human Being,

For whatever mysterious reason, I feel compelled to write to you in this very moment. Here I sit, with you in my mind and in my heart. I want the BEST for you, my friend. Let me begin by saying that I have tasted both pleasure and pain in this lifetime. They, in and of themselves, are not the problem. Indeed, there are no problems, only situations. However, for many human beings, and perhaps even for you, as well, there is sometimes the experience of suffering and separation.

Do you suffer sometimes? And how would you describe this suffering? Most people will tell you that you suffer because you believe yourself to be limited to the body and the mind. You perceive yourself as a separate human being who was born and who will one day die. But, is this actually true? Can you know without a doubt that this is true? How?

I have tasted freedom. It is present, even now, within me and within you. For now, I shall call this freedom, the awareness of awareness. Perhaps this sounds too simplistic for you. Let us find out, my friend.

If we gift ourselves with just a few short moments; moments where we don’t believe anything, where we don’t go to the mind and ask it what is happening, what do we then experience? What if we just simply sit and watch awareness? What if we don’t believe our thoughts and don’t act on our desires and fears. What happens then? What arises? And what watches that which arises? Are we able to do this? Do we have the option of simply watching awareness without acting in any particular manner? Are we able to let go of all concepts and means of identification? Can we remain naked, empty, and thus pure? Are you pure timeless being or are you a limited physical form? Go deeper. Go into the void. Don’t be afraid. The void is your true nature and source. From god you have come and to god you shall go. Indeed, even now you are the Absolute Supreme Reality; One without a second.

It has been said by many sages and saints, that the true nature of God is Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Many also define God as Love. Therefore, is it any surprise, that when we, as human beings, as consciousness, decide to live lives of love, we experience happiness and joy, purpose and meaning? And cannot the opposite also said to be true? That when we lead lives of hatred and violence, laziness and indifference, we experience darkness and depression, suffering and misery? Therefore, my dear friend and fellow human being, why not choose heaven over hell? As much as you can, I urge you to live love. Start the day with love, spend the day with love, fill the day with love, and end the day with love. This is the way to God. When all human beings decide to live love and treat each other with love, then and only then, shall we begin to see the creation and emergence of heaven on earth.

Love all and serve all. Do good and be good. Sing and chant the names of God. Help your fellow neighbor. Service to man is service to God. Make good use of your life and don’t waste any time or resources. Continually surrender your life to God until He has completely dissolved your ego and has absorbed you into His eternal being. Be honest. Allow thoughts and emotions to come and go and see them and deal with them as if they were merely passing clouds. You are the sky; vast and omnipresent.

I don’t have much more to say to you, my friend. Please remember that God is always with you, in you, beside you, above you, and below you. Speak to Him always. Listen to Him even more. Follow your heart. Follow your joy. Follow your bliss. You are free to do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. As much as possible, try to do good and remain as non-violent as you can. Understandably, life feeds on life. Some of that is inevitable. When you can, restrain yourself from harming or hurting others. Instead, spend each moment trying to bring happiness and love to others. Be compassionate. Be kind. Be understanding. Give to others what you want to receive yourself.

Finally, always remember that you are Awareness, Beingness, Consciousness, and Love. You are Timeless Being. You are Freedom itself. All is One and the One is All. Be at peace. Rest. Relax. Enjoy your life and best of luck! 

Love Always, Me

Form or Formless?

"What do you want, the form or the formless?"  This is what Sathya Sai Baba asked one of his devotees one time and what I feel to ask all of you and myself today.

Spiritual Seekers can be found in every land, speaking every tongue, worshiping every form of God known to man.  Christians would love to see Christ, Muslims want to see Mohammed, Buddhists enjoy seeing the Dalai Lama,  and Sai Devotees love Swami.  But everything that is born will one day die.  Form is impermanent, transient, and fleeting.  Our very children will come and go.  We had lovers when we were young and we imagined that we would always be glued to their hip.  Not the case.  Ramana Maharshi used to say, "Let what comes come and let what goes go and find out what remains."  The formless alone remains.

The form is beautiful, no doubt.  Perhaps we are even in love with our own forms.  The human body is miraculous and amazing.  I don't know anyone who wants to die.  We are programmed to keep this organism alive, so we eat what is healthy (mostly), exercise the body, and do what we must in order to protect it from harm.

I read once that the reason we incarnate is in order to experience.  As formless awareness, unembodied, floating freely without any vehicle, we have no way of perceiving the world.  We need this dualistic creation and our five senses in order to experience what God has manifested as the universe.  Look at us, we are junkies.  Humans are very good at becoming addicted to form.  Ladies love to shop, Americans love to eat, Europeans love sipping coffee, and devotees love the form.

I don't believe there is a right or wrong answer to this question of what we want.  And of course, in any given moment, we are apt to provide a different answer.  In the morning, I may choose the formless, but by evening, I may be desiring the form.  Who knows?  Desires and fears and self-image are changing most rapidly and unexpectedly from moment to moment.

I will end this blog post by saying this: the formless is eternal and unending, without birth or death.  So, what will you choose? Remember, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Duality is an illusion.  All is perfectly One.  You are a king/queen, dreaming that you are only a beggar.  Enjoy your next breath...it is divine.

You are the Kingdom of Heaven

I love it when a concept becomes a Reality. Just now, as I was walking home from the bus stop, I began to be flooded with intense joy and energy. I felt like a young kid again; fast, quick, dancing, and happy. I felt like there were beams of light coming from my eyeballs. And then I heard the question within: You are the Kingdom of Heaven, so why are you searching for It outside of your Self? Good question! And nice to know. Of course, this applies to every human being on the planet. This thought was also speaking to you, to the One who is everybody. You are the Kingdom of Heaven Itself, too.

Hearing this thought, realizing this truth, even more energy began to flood my being as I tuned into the Awareness which was now more predominant than my body and mind. I watched the wind blow the tall Texas grass in the night as I stretched out my hand to touch the Heaven that was inside of me and all around. I felt transported back 2,000 years and thought about Jesus walking upon his city streets as the embodiment of heaven and how Pure Love must have streamed from his Beingness, touching All whom he came into contact with. Here I was alone and yet not lonely in the slightest. I was full and complete. I stopped for a moment and closed my eyes and repeated these words: I AM the Kingdom of Heaven. Again, more energy flooded my being and I seriously thought I might just go into some kind of ecstatic samadhi or exalted state of existence. I looked up into the clouds and over to the bright full moon. Everything was perfect in that moment and nothing needed to be changed. I could see that All was perfectly well just the way It was. After all, God is What Is. Why argue with What Is? That only creates separation and suffering inside.

So, now, hear I sit on my bedroom floor, full of gratitude and with my eyes wide open. I want to love the entire world when I am in states like these. I want to walk around and hug everybody and physically touch their hearts and BE with them in that open, free space of Love and Lightness. This moment is Heaven. You are Heaven. This is It. We are always and already Here and Now with God and Nirvana. So enjoy.

Komal Said...

I just had a lovely conversation with one of my dear friends and spiritual teachers by the name of Komal. He is so generous, loving, and wise. I am grateful for his presence in my life. He lifts me up when I am down. He supports me. He encourages me to see the Best in Life.

Today, he said, "Don't follow anybody. Be yourself. I want you to be Philip. You are so original. There is no one else like you on the planet." I am sometimes afraid to just be myself, whoever that even is. As Nisargadatta says, the self-image changes more frequently than anything else in the world. Every moment we are experiencing a new "me." Komal was encouraging me today to follow my passions.

"Don't give up anything," Komal said. Don't give up acting. Don't give up your passions. Be who you are. Follow your heart. Don't give up so easily, he said.

Life is funny, he said. And It is. Life is changing all the time. Life is always giving different messages to me and sometimes they even contradict each other. But as I said to my friend Angela last night, "What do you want?" And I must ask myself the very same thing. What do I want? Can I have it all? Am I It all? Life is rich and diverse. Shouldn't we celebrate all of life? Enjoy All of Life? And why not? This doesn't mean be stupid or don't use discrimination. But it does mean that Life is offering something to you in this very moment and because Life is a River it will not stop and wait for you to make a decision. So, Komal says, "Say yes to everything." Go with the flow. Be yourself. Live your life. Be as you are. All is One and there are no mistakes to be made.

Thank you Komal. I cherish you.

Acceptance is Magic

I remember the first time I heard Stephen Levine say "Acceptance is heaven and resistance is hell," over 15 years ago. Okay, well, actually I think I may have read it in one of his books and not heard it flow from his tongue, but still. It was very helpful to read. It was enlightening to read. How true! And yet, even knowing that, intellectually, hasn't seemed to be enough to actually stop me from doing just the opposite in my life. But who is the "me" in this sentence? The mind. The mind is not always great at accepting What Is. Often it is quite the contrary. The mind judges. The mind dislikes. The mind wants Reality to be different than what it is. Ah yes, then the hell arises within. We call this suffering.

Stephen also brought to my attention that pain and suffering are different. Pain and pleasure happen. You could say they are the 2 sides of the coin of Life. But it is resistance to pain which causes suffering. In other words, pain is only sensation. Some very great saints experienced horrific pain, but apparently, did not suffer because there was no-thing left in them to resist. They were open channels, rivers, the flow of What Is. When we Allow things to unfold as they are then Life becomes a smooth running stream taking it's course where it will and all is well.

Aha! Remembering yet another Stephen quote, "Everything dissolves in Love." In fact, I wrote a song with the very same title, inspired by this Truth. Yes, everything dissolves in the presence of Love and Acceptance. Why is this so? Because most other states have to do with non-acceptance. So when Love is present, non-acceptance can't stay. No matter how long a dark room has been dark, even for a 1,000 years, when the light is turned on, instantly the darkness disappears. It simply CAN'T remain. The same goes with emotions and states of grief and loss. When One truly accepts What Is, then there is no more struggle, no more resistance, no more suffering. Life just continues to unfold and there is peace.

Thank you Stephen and Ondrea Levine for continuing to teach me, almost 20 years later! May you both be blessed. May we be blessed. May All beings everywhere be blessed. And they are.

Acceptance...it is magic in your life...the miracle you've been waiting for.

I AM

Who is aware of thoughts? I AM

Who is aware of emotions? I AM

Who is aware of actions? I AM

Who is aware of the body? I AM

Who is aware of the mind? I AM

Who is aware of the world? I AM

Who is aware of good and evil? I AM

Who is aware of saints and sinners? I AM

Who is aware of Duality? I AM

I AM is beyond All Duality. I AM is prior and after everything witnessed. I AM is the Alpha and the Omega. I AM is Awareness Itself...the space in which everything arises. Is anything aware of I AM? I AM

It's All About Experience

How do you experience this thing called Life? How do you experience yourself? How do you experience others? How do you experience this world we live in? You see, it's all about Experience.

Some say Life is Good, others say Life is Bad. Buddha said Life was full of suffering. Sai Baba says Life is Love. Everybody will spit out a different point of view, a different perspective, a different flavor...a different Experience.

And experiences and perceptions change. Sometimes quickly and other times over a long period of time. One may feel that there life is Blessed for several years, but then, one Experience will happen, and soon it seems that all has gone to Hell.

Some people had very joy filled, loving experiences growing up. Others couldn't wait to graduate, get out of the house, leave the State. Some people started off like wall-flowers, very shy and insecure, but as the years progressed, so did they, and eventually they blossomed into Beautiful and Radiant Beings of Light and Love.

Some spent their years alone in the forest, others in the hustle-bustle of a big city. Some were very poor and had no money, others were spoiled rotten and had every desire fulfilled. Life is rich and full of variety. Life is a movie, a story, with an incredible tapestry of flavor and experience. Every moment is merging into the next moment. Life is always changing, very transient, and it is impossible to hold onto anything. But, there is That which always remains and doesn't need to be held onto; Awareness.

Awareness is the "thing" which is Aware of all of these different Experiences of Life. Prior to everything, there is a witness who is witnessing Life; internally and externally. This witness is watching every thought, feeling, and action which arises in Consciousness. Well, that is if the Witness is paying attention. Often, the witness is so identified with the Mind, that it isn't even Aware that it is Independent of All Experience. But, as you begin to question Reality, your Self, and Life, you will see that there is this Shining Awareness which is the background of the foreground, the context for all content, the space in which everything happens, and It is always present, already here and now and always the case.

Are you happy right now? Are you sad? Are you feeling anxious about something? What is your experience right here and now? And are you being honest with your self? Or are you in denial? Do you feel that you are a mixture of competing thoughts and emotions, desires and fears? One voice says to eat the piece of cake, and after doing so, another voice arises to say, "I wouldn't have done that if I were you." Which voice do we trust? And the funny thing is that Ultimately, All Voices come from the One Source. Isn't that a hoot? All Duality comes from a place which is beyond Duality and is therefore Non-Dual. But that is the Cosmic Leela we are dealing with, that I AM dealing with. I don't actually know that you even exist. Jackie O'Keeffe actually says that Existence Itself is only a concept floating in the Mind. Which brings me to...

Experience again. How do you experience Life? Do you see a world? Do you perceive others in this world? Or are you like Sri Nisargadatta and see that All is One? What is your honest and truthful experience? And from what place are you answering this question? If you answer it from your mind, you might be tempted to say, "I can understand that All is One and that there are no Others." But, again, what is your experience? Is that Actually how you perceive things? As Oneness? Or do you perceive separation where there is none? Are you speaking from the Intellect; a place of concepts, notions, and ideas? Or are you awake? And what does that even mean, to be Awake? Who or what is Awake?

What is your experience here and now, honestly? How do you experience Life? How do you experience your Self? How do you experience the World? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you doing? Who are You?