On Being Fucked: self equals suffering.

Alcoholic Dana, Intellectual Dana, Yogi Dana are all equally enslaved. Each is fucked the same, though in its own particular way. Even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

What I didn’t realize when I first got sober in 2008 was that Dana’s reinvention of herself as a spiritual seeker (“artist in recovery“) was logically no different than Dana as scientist, as philosopher, as world traveler, investment banker, femme assasin, yogi, adventure enthusiast, intellectual, mountain climber, blah blah blah, or whatever... or any other “version of self.”

To be sure, some of these versions of self may be more socially acceptable or desirable (e.g., scientist, spiritualist, logician) and/or healthier to their body vessel (e.g., yogi, rock climber), while others less so (e.g., alcoholic, femme fatale) — but in constitution they are all equal — all equally descriptive of the “bondage of self.”

Not convinced? Try getting out of the self through spiritual practice, psychedelics, service work, play, sex, drugs, rock and roll... What is this thing trying to get out of itself? What is this thing that is trying to free itself? What is this fucking “self”?

Today, the message is clear: All “self” is suffering. And seeking Higher Self or spirituality is still samsara.

Stop. 

Know what you are by seeing what you’re not. The infinite needs no definition. Welcome to no self.

Nightmares and the no self

Bad dreams are a learning mechanism, teaching that I am not the body, I am not the feelings, I am not the thoughts passing through the mindscape.

I awoke this morning a little after 5, still in darkness. I was acutely aware of the perceptions of heaviness in my chest, squeezing in my throat, and quicker-than-typical heart rate. The nightmarish state experienced within last night’s dreams seemed to be persisting into wakefulness, shrouding an otherwise beautiful early morning with a cover of damp, dark haze; there was powerlessness, there was fear, there was sadness.

These are not my feelings.

Nothing had happened to me. In reality, I knew I was surrounded by Love, safe and secure.

Why was I wearing this physiological state?

The incongruence was jarring. The realization hit hard and completely.

These are not my feelings.

Eschewing the brain-body container relieves me of the bondage of this experience. Observing the experience with lovingkind detachment is the transcendence of the human condition.

I always safe and I am always secure.  I am nothing but the unadulterated awareness of these foreign installments floating in the great sea of consciousness.

This is the true Self — the no self.

Deconstructing and Remembering

I am the space between breaths, the timelessness of no thoughts, a sea of serenity, the eye of the maelstrom;
I am the summer desert hailstorm.

I am the fledging hawk flying for its very first time, guided by the unseen hand of its Creatrix and Creator.

I am the mirroring rainbow, bowing down and inverting upon itself, doubling indigo over a violet core.

I am all colors lit unto themselves and onto a single focal point.

I am the perfect equation being solved for some (x, y, z) in space-time.

I am high beyond conception, the mind-body sober —

I am nothing, as I am everything.

Awakening Again

It was weeks ago the realization hit: “Dana,” in and of themself, is nothing. No matter what the intellect, how talented the mind-body vehicle, how accomplished the “self” — it is ultimately meaningless until and unless guided by Divine Creative Intelligence.

Here is the submission: I ask that every thought that arises be of Divine origin; I ask that no thoughts arise that are not of the Highest, Greatest, Good. I ask that every iota of this mind-brain-body vehicle be corrected for, and filled overflowingly, with perfect Love.

There is no fear, no selfishness, no dishonesty, no resentment, no other expressions of ego here — for there is no lack of Love in this position.

This must be remembered in every seemingly contiguous moment of “now.”

To realize this was not to gain something, but to lose something — to deconstruct the self that Dana had created by removing ego-mind (“forgetting”) — thus allowing the everpresent, evertrue, Higher Self to shine (“remembering”).