Care for your Vehicle

I look at my body as my temple. My body is my vehicle of Consciousness. It's my physical dimension vehicle of Being. We tend to take for granted our body because we are so lost in our thoughts, that we project and project outwards. As a result of this outward projection to the world of appearances, we ignore everything taking place in the eternal 'Now" and we take advantage of our bodies and pollute it with processed foods and put extra stress on it, by pushing our bodies to limits that it is simply not capable over the long term of whether at the workplace or in other areas of life.

Our bodies evolved in a way that are not designed for some of the stuff we do to it today. There is a reason that chronic diseases are at an incredible high in this day and age. It's stress on the body. Even if disease does not manifest immediately, it often does later in life because it's not the way our bodies were to designed to live. 

Experience is our greatest purpose. But, experience can be anything. It doesn't mean you have to jump out of an airplane nor does it mean you have to attain the most successful job in the world. Experience can be something as subtle as growing and evolving as a Soul Perspective from a relationship with a friend, experiencing the heartbreak of a break up, or the grieving of a lost relative, moving to a new city, learning a musical instrument, starting a new exercise program, taking a different route to work, sleeping in the nude, or going outside of your comfort zone to take on a new hobby. Or it can be all of these which serve the ultimate purpose of growth. As long as there is an opportunity for reflection meaning seeing yourself through another person/object, growth can take place. 

Consider that what we are, is One Energy, One Awareness and One God. There is only one 'entity' in actual existence. In order for there to be something to experience, there has to be more than one thing existing. So, this One Consciousness imagines itself to be separate perspectives. It does this prior to physical incarnation. Then, each perspective incarnates into physicality to experience what we now have as Derek, Mary, John, a tree, a bird, particle, cell, etc. But, in its imagination, none of its perspectives (while incarnated into physicality) know their true nature as this One Consciousness. However, now that there ARE multiple perspectives, there's the ability to have relationships. Relationships of all kinds are our biggest tools of growth and evolution and what physicality is all about. So, there is no God separate from you. You are God itself trying to remember who you are by utilizing physicality as a tool for experience. Experience equals growth/evolution of the perspective you are. Growth/Evolution equals growing/evolving your perspective to remember that your true nature always was this One Consciousness and was never anything, but that. 

Therefore, the human body has evolved the way it has for certain purposes. Not caring for it, is missing the point of your existence here in physical incarnation. Your body is not meant to be a punching bag or an annoyance. Just like you drive a car to get from point A to point B, you need to care for your car or it won't work and therefore, you can't fulfill the experience you set out to do. Same goes for the human body. 

It's kind of funny that when I travel on vacation (which I like to do at least once or twice a year), I plan out ahead of time how I'm going to be eating where I am traveling to. Are there healthy options in the area? Is there a whole foods where I can cook at least? And of course, many people think I'm nuts which is all good :)

It's not really their fault the way they are conditioned, it's just the way wellness is looked at in the modern consumerism world. Meaning, I don't follow any particular diet. It just seems that way because I choose to eat largely organic and GMO free which is the way we were designed to eat when we evolved as humans if you think about it. Just because I choose not to pollute my body with foods that it's not designed to eat, does not make eating habits restrictive. It means I understand my body's purpose here in physicality and what is and what is not nourishing for my body.

In an 'ideal world', there would only be healthy options to eat and therefore traveling would be incredibly easy, because there would always be healthy food at your finger tips. Yet, this is not an ideal world, but at the same time a midst all of this, everything is perfect the way it is, because the way it is now, creates a different web of experience/cause and effect. It's all a matter of how I and others (who choose to be healthier with our bodies), relate to this current consumerism paradigm in place. 

So, you do what you can do and you don't stress it. What is....IS. 

Blessed Be

Blessed Be all that's wrong

Blessed Be all that's right

For all of it is just as is

in the eyes of the Loving Light

Life is ever evolving

Life can never end

It's cyclical in nature

through every curve and bend

From every human being

to every drop of rain

to every flower growing

on every window pane

From every single particle

to every sunset night

your body too an opening

for expression of the light

Death a new beginning

A mere changing of the guard

to the ever evolving Energy

expressed in every card

One Love appears as many

And all within its wealth

One Love that knows that all of it

is merely JUST Itself.

Your truth you hold so tightly to

Your truth you can't let go

Until your world is shattered

and all your truths must go

Then you move towards opening

Then you move towards Peace

and see that separation

was merely just a tease

So, look at life with honesty

Look at life with Love

Understand it's all the same

As below is as Above

A little poem I wrote tonight pertaining to non-duality and the illusion that we are separate. 

The world doesn't need to be saved folks. A midst the craziness going on with the NYC police department here in NYC, There is intense anger, support of this side, support of that side, political agendas, religious posts. It's a fucking madhouse and I stay clearly away from it. But, it is what it is. When people are trapped in their limited beliefs about who they believe themselves to me, they will only perceive the world through the colored lens of those limited beliefs. We've all done it at one point or another including myself. 

Anyway, I'll leave you on that note tonight. 

Much love to you my brothers and sisters  

Exploring the Astral Realms....almost

I've decided to start 'The Presence Process' by Michael Brown. I started it in July/August, but never got far because I couldn't sit still in the way that he advised in his book. So, I've decided to customize my own version of his program to go through the emotional body, especially after seeing the other day, that I need to work through some stuff emotionally. It will be an intensive process of delving into emotions, but the only way Home is through. I'm very excited, yet a little scared.

In discussing with a friend about out of body experiences and lucid dreaming, I wanted to share my recent experience in the 'almost Astral realms'. Let me point out that awakening has nothing to do with mystical experiences, it has everything to do with seeing who and what you are beyond concepts and definitions. Seeing the underlying Being for every and any experience. 

With that aside, I've had a number of strange experiences of late of the same nature. I've had some sleeping problems for a long time now. Recently, early in the morning about 5-6 AM, I've woken up and had a tough time falling back asleep. When I start to fall back asleep, my body is gripped by sleep paralysis. As a kid, I used to have nightmarish experiences with sleep paralysis and as a result, I had terrible fear. However, this experience was nothing like that. There was no fear at all. Actually, it was intensely peaceful beyond words. The most prominent feature of this experience was the buzzing feeling all around my head and throughout my body. Intense, intense buzzing like a vibration beyond words. A couple of months ago, this happened and I had a dream that followed where I was flying and in the dream, I knew I was flying and I knew that I could fly on instinct. On waking, I had the same exact feeling that I knew that I could fly. There was absolutely no question what-so-ever, that I could fly simply by manifesting the experience with thought. But, of course that did not happen. 

So, a week ago, this happened again, without the dream part and I stayed with the buzzing feeling and I absolutely knew in that instant, that I could leave my body when I wanted to. It was a knowing beyond words. It's weird how this thought came to me about leaving my body without any prior experience. I felt so close, but fear came over me, and the vibration stopped and the paralysis stopped. 

After doing a bit of research, it seems that I'm clearly in the early stages of lucid dreaming and the early stages of going out of body. What is actually needed to leave the body and actually explore the astral realms, is to allow the vibration to continue and not resist it. I've been resisting it and as a result, the energy cannot flow as properly and I can't go any further than the early vibration stages. The vibration itself is energy. Going out of body is not overly important to me, but I think it would be a really cool thing to explore the astral realms, and meet some Beings from other dimensions. I've been a big fan of Tom Campbell and his work "My Big ToE (Theory of everything) and Bob Monroe's work with exploring the astral realms. 

So, I will you keep my readers posted on my emotional progress through the presence process along with any new updates on potential astral trips. 

Much love for now

The only way Home.....is through

I've had a wave of insights today and I need to keep posting it here while it's fresh. My friend sent me a blog on facebook today and the blog got me thinking.

Home. Where is it? What is it? Conceptually, it can be a variety of different things.

Home is a non-conceptual I AM beyond all fear and limitations of the human mind. When we die and leave our bodies, we will be back Home. Home with the Light. The Light of Source Being

But, how do we find our way home while incarnated? Well, we can never be truly 100 percent unlimited while in these human bodies. However, we can be less and less limited as I've written about in the past. Finding our way Home is a metaphor for exposing ourselves and opening ourselves up to life itself. Yoga is one the practices which utilizes the body as a way to find our path Home. The toughest and most challenging way through, is via the mind/body. Encountering every symptom in our body, every thought, every emotion, every feeling, every sensation of every cell in our body, feeling every aspect of it, including the hell that we might experience, feeling our way through it......is the only way through it. Talking about it is one thing. Actually experiencing it, is a whole notha.

Michael Brown author of 'The Presence Process" has a similar program. Granted, I don't follow his process to a tee, I think the approach makes sense. The only true way to salvation/liberation/HOME is through the body/mind, since the body/mind is our only vehicle/tool of experience while incarnated into humanity and if it is our only tool/vehicle to work with, then it also must be our only path Home.

You can't find your way Home in real life by avoiding the path that leads to your house. I was watching the Wizard of Oz on Thanksgiving with my niece. My goodness, I never realized the spiritual undertones of the movie. Dorothy couldn't find her way home out of Oz without following the yellow brick road. The Yellow Brick Road is a metaphor for experience itself. Dorothy wanted so badly to go Home, but the more she resisted, the more fear she had, the more stuck she was in Oz. Remember the ending when the good witch says "you could go home any time you like". Again, another metaphor for us here in humanity. We are always essentially Home and could realize it anytime we would like, if we would simply embrace our experience and stop resisting life so much. It wasn't until Dorothy followed the Yellow Brick Road and all of the challenges and pain it brought along the way, it wasn't until she opened up to what the Yellow Brick Road offered, that she was able to finally find her way home.

In the same way, you can't find your way to your true Home (your nature as Love) by avoiding the heart of your experience which often includes pain, heartbreak, physical illness and mental torment. Feeling our way through it means we embrace it all. We feel it all and experience it all. If we have doubts about our experience, we embrace those doubts. If we get caught in the ego perspective of the human experience, we embrace that too. If illness is a factor, we embrace that too. And underneath that experience is mere Love as we embrace the experience of experience.

Love flows freely while fear contracts and resists. Love illuminates the unknown into the Known, while fear keeps the unknown in the dark as the unknown.

Most of us fear that which we don't know. The only way through that fear is to illuminate the unknown by diving into it and feeling our way through it.

When we think of Home, we thank of safety, comfort and love. Home therefore, is the ultimate metaphor for Love, our true nature as Being. Opening up to that frequency is the only way Home.

Ultimately, we've always been Home and have never left, but we just have to realize it.

The limitations of beliefs

I AM....whatever I perceive myself to BE. There is no objective truth as to what I AM or what I AM NOT. Physical reality is a co-creation of subjective experiences.

I limit MYself by what I merely believe MYself to be. If I believe MYself to merely be a human being in a competition filled world, then I will BE just that. I will only find validation in what I AM from the needing of finding love and approval from others.

But, when I allow my experience to BE, when I embrace all that IS, in sickness and in health, when I allow my fears to be there and love them fully, when I allow other perspectives outside of MY own, I open MYself up to a greater perspective of Love and I AM less limited. I AM only Love itself. I don't need another to love me to validate who and what I AM. I already AM Love itself!

 I AM that I AM. I AM Being and I AM Derek. I AM Being being Derek. There is no separation between I AM and Derek.

What you believe yourself to be via concepts, definitions and labels, will ultimately be what you BE. The less definitions and labels you apply to the I AM, the less limited you will be and the more Love you will be.

All perspectives including the more limited and the less limited are equally valid to the Greater perspective of totality.

This is non-duality. This is Love.

Some insight that came through today.

Love to you all.

The meaning of life is....Love

I think it's important to acknowledge this as I was reading something today from a near death experiencer about this subject matter and I thought I'd create a post on it. Life can be so tough sometimes for some, that they want out. I just want to say that I empathize with those who might be going through this from my past experiences and my deepest love goes out to you. Here's my experience as candid as it can be:

Back in 2007-2008, I started developing chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, literally out of no where (later, I learned of the cause and effect of stress on my body as the contributing factor). I was your average American 26 year old (whatever that means) prior to this. I partied a lot, ate the standard american diet, was always dating someone new and most of all, stressed a LOT about anything and everything. I got sick and my life changed. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I couldn't comprehend how I could not do the things I used to do (drinking a lot, partying, other stuff). I missed my college days desperately as I had so much fun in college. I became very depressed and angry with the stress of searching what was wrong me that I started thinking it would be easier if I stopped existing. I never had a plan nor did I ever truly think I would ever do it. But, the thoughts crept in my head when flare ups would happen. I was also in a bad place occupation wise at a job with not such a great environment, making minimum wage. I couldn't deal with the stress anymore of life. This only happened between 2007-2008. After that, these thoughts never came back.

Well, as it turned out, I discovered meditation around 2008-2009 and my life changed. It helped me to become more and more and more present.

The meditation book that really got me started was 'Meditation, now or never' by Steve Hagen who is an American Buddhist Monk.

What I learned from those darkest years of my life was a large factor of resistance. We are waiting for something good to happen, while desperately hoping the 'bad' part of our experience goes away. I kept holding on to an image of my previous life in college where I was free to do whatever I wanted to do. I had all of the friends in the world, girlfriends, drunk nights and such wild experiences, that the thought of having to change my lifestyle made me so depressed, that I couldn't even face the reality of that. My depression was from resistance of my current situation.

As Eckhart Tolle is quoted as saying- "If you are stuck in the mud somewhere, you don’t say, “Okay, I am in the mud, I have to accept it, and here I am - I’m not taking any action because I have to accept what is”.  This moment is already always as it is, and there’s nothing you can do about that.  That’s what you accept.  Then, action that arises has a different energy to it.  The will that flows into what you do is no longer egoic.  When you have not accepted this moment, the will goes against the Universe – that is what the ego does.  It is negative, it fights something that it says shouldn't be there.  If you use negativity, you are trapped in ego."

Meaning, you first have to accept....the reality of What IS. Once you can accept and be in love with What IS, you can then take action to improve your quality of life.

I was reading a report today from Nanci Danison who sends me email newsletters from her site. She is a near death survivor. She talked in this newsletter about suicide. Ultimately, from the greater perspective of Being, suicide is not a bad thing and is not looked down upon. However, apparently, we come into this life with certain purposes and we pre-plan exit strategies ourselves prior to incarnation! Go figure! If you consider that we are merely Awareness itself incarnated into human bodies, then this life that we experience is merely a virtual reality game. It's not as real as it seems folks, but it is very real for the subjective experience of each of us.

There is nothing that is ultimately that serious in the large scheme of things that is worth killing yourself over, from the greater totality of Being. Only from our limited perspectives, do we think in such a way of life and death. Consider that at the end of this human life, you will shed this costume (physical body) and wake up from the dream of human physicality and embrace and remember who you truly are as an Eternal Being of Love and Light merely as an aspect of the one Source Being. No more fears, no more anything. Only Love. This human experience will seem like a vast dream once you enter the after life. The amnesia will wear off and we will remember everything and have complete access to all Universal knowledge. You'll smack yourself in the head (which won't exist) and think....oh yeah, now I remember! You'll wonder how physical life could ever have fooled you, in the way it has.

Life's purpose in physicality, in my opinion, is the experience itself and the growth in understanding that Love is all that matters. There is nothing else here to experience, but Love, Love, Love. You have a chronic disease? Accept it with Love. Are you grieving for a close friend or a family member that passed? Allow yourself to grieve. Feel the emotions fully. Embrace the emotions of sadness and depression. Let them flow for as long as they need. Embrace that pit in your abdomen with Love. Is life becoming too much for you? Embrace those thoughts with Love and allow them to be there.

Start to look at life from a different perspective, even if you have to fake it first. Understand that you are loved by all other Light Being perspectives and that they are looking after you here in this life, even if you are clueless to their existence. You have wonderful Beings of Light friends (closer friends than you can ever imagine) waiting for you when this life ends. Waiting to hear you express what it was like to be a human for a lifetime. Understand that human life is not meant to be taken as seriously as you think. Start to view your negative experiences, merely as opportunities for you to Be Love in the seemingly toughest of times.

Understand that I love you more than you can know and there is only Love in this Universe, even when it seems that there is not. So get off the ledge and go have a laugh somewhere, because once your life is over, you won't be able to go back into physicality and express the Love that you are, to the people closest to you. Make a difference now and Be Love. Look at every situation and question whether or not you are acting from fear or Love.

Expressions from ME

I feel the only way to fully embrace all aspects of myself, is to allow my experience, to be, regardless of how difficult it might be to face. In order to do that, I need to accept what is currently happening in my experience....meaning, exactly how I feel....right....now.

Today was a very difficult day for me and I'm still feeling quite emotional and I'd like an outlet to express my emotions. But, the reason it turned out so difficult, is the way I handled it. I haven't been this stressed in quite a long time and I realized today how poorly I handled the stress of the situation I found myself in and it just goes to show how human I am after all or more along the lines of how much work I have left to do on myself. I had a big awakening two weeks ago (one of many over the past couple of years), which was detailed in my earlier posts, yet my humanness has never been more evident than today.

There was a leak in my apartment today which woke me up and I immediately panicked. Combine that with a couple of other things including a falling out with a former friend and bang, here I am. Crying is something that is often looked down upon in our society for men and personally, I don't feel ashamed to cry. Crying makes me feel good. It's a release of emotions for me and a release of energy. I cry during movies or when I get emotional. I'm posting this because, it's making me feel incredibly vulnerable to post it...haha! The more vulnerable I allow myself to be, the more open I become. I feel the more public I can express myself and as honest and open as I possibly can be with myself and my experience, is the only way I am ever going to come full circle in embracing all aspects of myself. I was recommended that I post this blog to Facebook. I'm still hesitant to do it because of the complexity of personalities that encompass my Facebook friends, but I am strongly considering it. I'll do it when I am ready.

I hate wearing a mask. I've worn a mask for so long, my face needs to breathe. I want everyone who reads this blog to see who I truly am. Who I am is exactly who I am in any given moment. I want to shout it from the rooftops and the mountain tops to express my Love for them by showing who and what I really am. The only way I can express the love I am for them is to be perfectly honest and embrace what I am feeling right now. I am feeling sadness right now and a little fear of a number of factors. Yet, there is a Love around that sadness and fear as I allow it to flow through me. The fear I feel, is a result of the potential unknown.

Did we ever consider that there are no faults in relationships, but merely opportunities for growth? I could pinpoint a million things from present relationships or past relationships that I, or my partner were at fault for, but, ultimately, fault lies in the eye of the beholder. There's only subjectivity. What one person sees as a fault, is an opportunity for growth for another. See yourself....in relation to another and live from there. Neale Donald Waslch has some incredible stuff on this on youtube and in his books 'Conversations with God'. No, there's no religion involved. It's strictly spirituality. Relationships provide us with some of the greatest homework for ourselves as we really see the parts of ourselves that we often don't want to see. It's easy to live your life detached from the world with no interactions. However, there's very little opportunity for reflection (using another person as a mirror) which is why relationships of all kinds are such wonderful tools for us here in human form. So, please don't beat yourself up if you seemingly fuck up. That fuck up is a wonderful opportunity for learning, evolution and growth for your soul perspective. Maybe my next post will delve more into manifesting and the....gulp....Law of Attraction.

I've worried so much in my life over the years, including rejection, making the wrong decisions, what people will think of me, money, change, sexual performance, my health. Yep I've been a worry wort. I've held my feelings in, in the past. Awakening for me has liberated me from these emotions/feelings, but being a conditioned mind/body, they still rear their head. So, when I'm in a tough situation, such as what I dealt with today, sometimes, these conditioned feelings arise again as part of the conditioning of my mind/body. Let me point out that, the leak/flood today was not nearly as bad as my reaction to it. The fear of my apartment being destroyed and my work computer. The fear of my bed being destroyed. Where would I sleep? I realize how non-adaptable I am in life. It takes me a while to be able to sleep in a new setting which is why I don't sleep well in hotels (plus hotel pillows are very uncomfortable).

Acknowledging what you are feeling is huge. Being in denial, is a rejection of the dark side. Acknowledging the dark side, is embracing the dark side and as a result beaming light on the dark side. I am all of it! Being whole and complete means acknowledging what we often don't want to face. It's painful and difficult. Trust me! But, facing it, as difficult as it might be, is much more liberating and enlightening and healthy for the body then holding our emotions in and having them manifest in other forms within the body or projected outward towards other people. We can never embrace all aspects of ourself, with part of ourself still in the dark. Star Wars was a religion for me growing up and I never realized how profound George Lucas's script was in relation to spirituality until recent years.

My fears and my dark side are here for anyone to see. I am fully open as I embrace it all. That which used to be dark, is becoming more and more lit.

I love you all very much and I will continue to detail my journey through the human roller coaster known as life :).