And all I know is that I know nothing

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Here’s why – I’ve never written without inspiration and I haven’t felt inspired to write in a long time. Now I do. And I’d like to share something with you, if you will permit me to do so…in my normal meandering, I’ll-get-to-the-point-eventually kind of way. Or otherwise seque off into the galaxy.

In January 2012, I connected with Zeus … someone who facilitates Sacred Ceremony … and he told me about his immediate recent experience in India.

Zeus had just come from some “thing” in India where he had meditated for some ridiculous amount of time – something like 23 hours a day for 6 weeks – there was a word for it – a special term for that particular kind of insanity. Maybe you know. I blank because I just couldn’t even imagine it. But whatever. It was Zeus’ learning in that time, that he shared with me, that I have maybe just discovered for myself for the first time – enough to share with you in an honest, embodied way.

Here is what happened – Zeus facilitated our Sacred Ceremony: a beautiful, connected and deeply soulful journey that is also totally solo… in Ceremony, you can be as connected, merged and ONE as your greatest dream, and you can also feel as cast-off, isolated and alone as your worst nightmare.

At the end of this particular journey … when I was by myself, wrapped in a blanket, and companion-ing with my thoughts, Zeus came over and sat down beside me and this is what he shared (para-phrased by me):

“When I went to India …. You know, we were all invited to be there … it was special and we were all beings who “got it” on one level … but on the first day, our teacher said this:

‘If any of you have come here thinking the next 6 weeks will get you closer to Enlightenment or Truth then you are already setting yourself up for Suffering.”

(Now, dear reader, please remember that this group Zeus had journeyed to India with were people that most of us would think of as ‘Enlightened Masters’ on their worst days.)

Zeus recounted what he had heard … “The moment you go into any new experience (i.e. the Present moment) seeking ANYTHING, you are setting yourself up for Suffering”:

When Zeus told me this, my mental response was – “cool, and GOOD LUCK with that” – because theoretically, every moment is NEW and yet every moment is seeped and coloured with every single past moment we have ever experienced … this is inevitable, so HOW do we divorce expectation from our thoughts, and bring a black slate into each and every present moment? And for that matter – when does ‘a moment’ begin, and when does it end?

Think about this, just for a moment… when you wake up in the morning, you EXPECT there will be light in the sky, water from the faucet, oxygen to breathe, some consistency and continuum of yesterdays conversation – you assume the basics will be there. Right? Can you imagine what it would be like if you went to bed tonight, woke up tomorrow, and the sky was pitch black when you expected it to be light? Weird, for starters.

Here is the question – At what point do you cross the line between what you can or should “expect”, based on your history, and the Unknown? Where exactly does that happen? … or maybe a better question is how much fulfillment can you have without needing or expecting anything externally at all – without ever engaging The Seeker? And how can you really drop the needs, desires and/ or expectations from Daily Life and replace them with just Unconditional Acceptance of What Is, no matter the weirdness or incongruency you encounter? How is it possible not to let the Past influence the Future, even if it’s just one moment to the next?”

Then, Zeus said this – “I suffered on this thought throughout ALL my meditations:

Why do you DO ANYTHING if you are not seeking SOMETHING – why do anything at all? … because everything you DO is YOU SEEKING to fulfill something….

(That’s exactly what I was thinking. What is THE POINT?)

And tonight, in ceremony, I believe I understand how we experience this Surrender of the Seeker. It is when we Fall In Love with Other – and it is the moment that extends from there – for however long it lasts for each person, – where they are in the State of Bliss, such that no matter what happens externally, they feel perfect and joyful. “

My translation – “When you fall in love with someone, it makes no difference what’s going on around you because everything is just AMAZING and since all you’re thinking about is how phenomenal this ‘other person’ is and “how wonderful life is, now you’re in the world”… Life becomes the mirror. Everything you see in your life and the world is the mirror to your internal landscape – a reflection of your thoughts – but the only thing that’s really different is that you’ve dropped the Seeker, so you see beauty everywhere – because you feel so happy within. You THINK its about the external person, place or thing… but it’s not.”

What Zeus concluded was this – “When we fall in love with Other; and everything is Bliss – for an hour, a week, a month or a year – the Bliss does not come from finding someone else who completes us or fills a void but rather, from feeling the Exhale … the Trust … in another person that allows the Seeker in all of us to Rest so that we are finally able to see Self in Other. It is when we first ‘fall in love’ and we smile at the world, that we disengage The Seeker. We give the credit for the State of Bliss to the Other but the Bliss is something we experience within ourselves, when we disengage the Seeker who is always looking for peace, inspiration, love, truth, beauty externally – Other is just the vehicle but really, all the Other does is allow us to fall in love with ourselves. Other is just the vehicle that points us back to our Self Within.”

At the time, I remember thinking. “I have no idea what that means but ok, that sounds pretty cool to me.”

Tonight, I get it. I think.

I’ve had a series of ‘shooting star’ experiences lately… and one meteor … that have stacked on top of each other like a New York City Club sandwich and have left me feeling so bewildered, awed, amazed, dazed and confused that I have found myself in this interesting place of ‘floating’… thing are happening around me and I logically understand that I SHOULD respond in such and such way but I actually cannot process what I am seeing and experiencing in any other way than in this kind of Floaty-Bliss-Witness-MakesNoDifference kind of way.

That’s not entirely true. I got an email two days ago that really upset me. But only for about 5 seconds in the Grand Scheme of things … and then I was all warm and fuzzy again.

So… My point… what is the point? I don’t really have a point. I just want to acknowledge, to myself and to anyone else who might read this, that I feel inspired again, after a long time of feeling partially motivated but not necessarily inspired.

What I see (right at this moment) is that LIFE IS GOOD – no matter what’s happening around me – and what I feel is that I’m not seeking anything beyond what I have in order to experience a different state … that is not to say I’m not seeking SOMETHING or that don’t have HUGE dreams. I do. And they are EXTRAORDINARY. But the crux of the dream is in this moment. And this moment – that depends on nothing to be what it is – is BRILLIANT and seeks nothing. Bear with me, okay?

I was at a “Life and Wealth Mastery” in Fiji and the ‘wealth’ part of the seminar started with the analogy of someone who starts with nothing and dreams of one day having a Ferrari. He works his ass off – with relentless persistence and pig-headed determination – to get the Ferrari. He finally gets the Ferrari. He gets the keys, descends into the little sexy leather bucket seat, turns the car on and feels the engine beneath him as the car roars to life. And off he goes, thundering down the road with his gorgeous new Ferrari thinking, “I did it. I now have a Ferrari.”

The adrenaline and exhilaration was like nothing else … for a few quick moments. And then he realizes … it wasn’t about the Ferrari … it was about who he had to BECOME in order to get the Ferrari … the fulfillment was in the miles TO the showroom, not the miles FROM the showroom.

Think back on the last time you felt completely, head-over-heels in love with someone. Think about how you interacted with the rest of the world when you were in that “I’m so in love” state – even when that person wasn’t anywhere near you. I bet you were your Best and Highest Self. Even if only for a day, a week, a month. And then eventually … ‘the honeymoon ended’ …. And in that instant you re-engaged the Seeker and once again started looking externally for what exists within.

I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. I just re-read it and thought “H’uh?” the entire way through, so God only knows what I’ve been going on about. But this is what I FEEL right now … INSPIRED, HAPPY, HOPEFUL, OPTIMISTIC. I have been with the most amazing people lately. I feel safe, protected, loved, supported … and in that space, I seek nothing… but the flip side of that is that in that happy space my dreams have taken a Quantum Leap forward. So, I seek nothing but I want everything – the dream come true, the fairytale.

But right now, here I am, in my office – in my little chair that I sit alone in so much of the time, as I do. In the pure tangible sense of the word, nothing has changed and yet everything has changed… that feeling of inspiration and bliss and contentment remains in me like a bright red happy birthday balloon filled with eternal helium joy . I could want for nothing except perhaps to experience the tangible, measurable evidence of my wayward meanderings in person.

And I have no idea what any of it really means.

p.s. Zeus is not his real name.