Grace

There are many ways how navigating life makes more sense than living entirely from our mind. On the most basic level it is simply more magical and exciting to allow and integrate intuition and synchronicities into our daily lives. And on the other end of the spectrum we find that navigating is the exclusive and natural way for the being to move through life once the ego is relinquished.

While we can successfully use our intuition to pursue the freedom to do what we want, the default intent of navigation is towards freedom from wanting anything at all.

On closer examination it becomes quite obvious that navigating life requires us to surrender, and complete and effortless navigation requires complete surrender.  After a lifetime of being conditioned to never give up, surrendering does neither sound appealing, nor effortless, to say the least. But due to the unfathomable force, I came to know as ‘Grace’, we can actually navigate right into surrender, instead of having to surrender in order to navigate. If this sounds like a riddle, it is a benevolent one.

Bottom line, once we engage our indigenous navigation system, we are on our way to freedom (the good kind). Just don’t open the champagne too early. Our mind is pretty skilled in causing ‘false awakenings’. 

Forget about it!

During a recent interview I was asked what I thought about 2012, and if I would feel comfortable to speak during an upcoming conference on this topic. As most everybody is probably aware by now, the winter solstice of 2012 marks the end of the Mayan Calendar and is therefore regarded by many as a possible ‘event horizon’ of sorts, a point in time marking a fundamental shift in experience. Many think it could represent the end of the world as we know it, either in an apocalyptic scenario, or in form of a collective shift in consciousness towards global awakening.

My response to the interviewer was that my thoughts on 2012 were “to forget about it completely,” and that I would be happy to share this at a respective conference, even if that would turn me into the devil’s advocate.

Obviously I see no benefit in burdening myself with apocalyptic expectations. Not only would that have the potential of ruining my day, but a belief in an impending apocalypse would also feed into creating such a reality.

Intending December 21^st, 2012 to be the tipping point for global enlightenment sounds like a great and noble project - on first look. However, the very nature of awakening or enlightenment does not lend itself to such an idea. Spiritual awakening simply means the profound realization that we are not an object but rather the awareness in which all objects, however subtle, are perceived. It stands for the clear seeing that our core nature is the immaterial, unfathomable, infinite, and timeless awareness that witnesses all phenomena. To link this Self realization with time or a point in time is somewhat of a travesty, turning it into an intellectual affair, handing awakening over to the mind, which is its very nemesis.

In other words, if we really would like to see this global awakening to take place, we need to unsubscribe from the idea that it could happen in time or at a point in time. We need to unsubscribe from the idea altogether that our essential Self has anything to do with time at all.

In still other words, it seems apparent to me that we have to completely forget about 2012 and any other point in time if we are truly interested in awakening, individually and collectively.