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Self Help/How-to Category[ Back to Main Pitches Page ] [ Back to Category Page ] [ Authorlink SMART QUERY ] [ Rate this Work ] Welcome to AUTHORLINK, the electronic clearing house and information service for editors, agents and writers. This section displays brief synopses and excerpts of available manuscripts. End Your Story, Begin Your LifeJim Dreaver Summary In this inspiring, life-transforming guide to the realization of inner freedom, the author teaches the revolutionary three-step practice that helps you awaken to the peace, love, and creative joy inside you: 1) Learning to welcome your suffering, whether it is self-doubt, anxiety, guilt, or fear, because it is showing you where you are not yet free, 2) noticing the story behind it and reminding yourself that you are not the story, but rather the luminous awareness that watches the story, and 3) breathing and relaxing into the presence, the beautiful being that you always are. From The Book Introduction ______________ There is a simple yet potent practice for transforming personal conflict and drama, and the stress and suffering they involve, into clarity, harmony, and new creative energy. Let me tell you about it. I was teaching a workshop at Esalen Institute, an alternative education and retreat center devoted to the exploration of human potential, situated on California’s rugged Big Sur coast. On the third morning of a five-day workshop, one of the women participants came in and reported how she had been to Esalen many times during the past few years, and there was one man on the staff there with whom she had some personal issues. Well, she had seen the man that morning and was figuring out how to avoid him, when she suddenly remembered the practice I had presented in the workshop. She stopped as she realized her discomfort. Then she did something she had never done before: she welcomed the way she was feeling, because she realized it was showing her where she wasn’t free. Then she looked inwardly at the story she was telling herself around this man. She noticed it was just that: a story. She saw, almost in the same breath, that she was not the story, not any story. Rather, she was what looked at the story. She was the consciousness, the lucid, ever-present awareness behind the story. When she saw that, she took a deep, conscious breath, and became present as the awareness that she was. Then a magical thing happened. The story dissolved, the emotional tension created by being identified with the story and wanting to avoid a confrontation dissipated, and she felt freer, clearer, more here. She then went up to the man and had a totally fresh, new interaction with him. Of course, that woman didn’t become completely free from that one moment of insight, but it was a beginning. It cracked an opening in the shell of her ego, and all the stories that hold it together, and she had a glimpse, a taste, of the inner freedom that is her true nature. Freedom, itself, is an interesting word. It is perhaps one of the most cherished words in the English language. Certainly it is so here in America, where we value our freedom more than anything. Yet what does it mean, to be free? At the level that most people relate to the notion of freedom, it means the freedom to express ourselves in whatever way we may wish: to choose our work or career, our friends, our politics, our religion, to choose where we live. Yet based on my life experience, I have a different understanding of freedom. At its most vital level, it means the freedom to be, to be the beautiful, conscious person you are. It is to be inwardly free, not restricted or bound by any mental or emotional limitation, not subject to any emotional reactivity, such that you always feel relaxed, at peace, and open in each and every moment. This was the experience of the woman at Esalen during her moment of realization. So, how do you get to this state of inner freedom, the freedom simply to be? The quickest path I know of, and the subject of this book, is to undergo the shift in perception that leads directly to inner freedom. What is that shift? Essentially it is seeing, like the woman at Esalen, that you are not your story. You are not any story. You are not your psychological and emotional history, nor are you your self-image. You are not your cultural, ethnic, national, social, or religious story. All your stories, memories, experiences, have shaped your personality but they are still only that: your stories. They may have been real once, but are definitely not real now. They are an illusory world existing between your ears, in the form of fleeting thoughts, beliefs, pictures, and ideas of “self,” with corresponding feelings and emotions in your body. When conflict or suffering arises, or when your buttons are pushed, it is because a person or an event, real or imagined, contradicts your view or expectation—your “story”—about the way things should be, or ought to be. The conflict is experienced as a disturbing feeling or emotion, whether of anxiety, anger, fear, or something else in your body. However, the upsetting feelings and emotions only exist because of the stories that fuel them, that keep them alive. When you are not holding onto any story in your mind, but are simply very aware and relaxed in the present, your emotional state is always one of ease, harmony, and flow. This is a very important point to understand if you are at all interested in finding true inner peace. To know this, to find your identity not in stories, not in your body, mind, or personality, but in the moment-by-moment flow of being, is true freedom. It is the perceptual shift that results in genuine self-knowing, in what in the language of the East is called awakening, enlightenment, or self-realization. Then each day becomes rich in love, and full of meaning and purpose. We feel inspired to write a new, conscious story for ourselves, a story that works for us, that supports our own and others’ well-being. We begin, literally, to infuse our lives, our relationships, and our work with this ever-new consciousness and the positive, creative stories that flow out of it. As a result, our power to manifest what we truly need and want is greatly magnified. Now, I woke up to the truth of inner freedom many years ago, at the end of a twenty-year spiritual quest. If you are interested in the story of my journey and subsequent awakening, you can read it in the appendix to this book. After all, I—like you—have a story to tell. Like you, I have many, many stories, and I am creating new stories out of my experience every day. I will tell you of one series of events that happened to me, however, because it is a key element of my “story” and illustrates the real value of awakening to truth. It shows how, even when faced with a personal catastrophe, you remain relatively calm and undisturbed, and can thus deal with the situation more intelligently and appropriately. A few years ago, I experienced a health crisis that literally turned my life upside down. What happened was I had three strokes over a period of several months, each worse than the last. The third stroke landed me in the hospital for six days. When I came out, I couldn’t move the right side of my face, my right arm and hand were severely impaired, I walked with a limp on the right side, and I had difficulty thinking and speaking. While I was recovering, people who didn’t know me that well would say things like, “Gosh, it must have been really scary for you,” or “You must have been terrified.” But the truth was, other than a brief contraction of instinctual fear, when in the ER I was presented with a choice that could have resulted in a major stroke or even death, I was unafraid. After all, I had already woken up to my true nature. I knew myself as pure consciousness, that which was not born and does not die. When you live knowingly as the consciousness that you are, fear and other negative emotions cannot touch you, other than momentarily. Needless to say, I was sobered by the whole experience. I remember lying in bed soon after I got home from the hospital, still in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion, and thinking: “Thank God I’m free.” At least I had that. At least I knew who and what I was. If I was going to have another stroke, or even if I was going to die (and, at that point, both were in the realm of possibility), I was ready. Then, as the days passed and I regained a little strength, I realized I needed to make a choice. If I wanted to live, I needed to make a conscious decision to do so. I formed a clear intention to get well, and daily used the power of visualization to create more blood flow in the corollary arteries that had begun developing in the left side of my brain since the strokes. Over the next six months I had occupational and speech therapy to assist with my rehabilitation. Thus began the slow process of healing. So, that is an integral part of my story, and yet I am not my story. I am the consciousness that is present, right now, writing this book. And what is more important to me, right now, is sharing what is needed for this awakening to happen in your own life. This is an instruction manual on what may be the simplest and shortest way to the most liberating transformation we can undergo. Why do I say simplest and shortest? Because there is nothing you have to do, other than be very alert and notice when you are getting caught up in a story. While practices like meditation, prayer, yoga, and emotional release work can all be beneficial to body, mind, and spirit (and I have done them all myself), you don’t actually have to do any of them in order to find freedom. You don’t even have to do good works to get free, although you will certainly do them as freedom starts to become a reality for you. All that is required for awakening to your true nature is to undergo this shift in perception, in the way you see and experience reality. It is a shift from experiencing life from the limited point of view of “me, myself, and my story,” to seeing it from your wholeness. It is awakening to the expanded view of universal consciousness itself, the consciousness that is expressing through you, right now, in your uniquely individual personality. Many people are still confused about awakening itself. They have many “stories” about it. One of the most common misperceptions is to think of it as some kind of salvation or magical state of being that will free one forever from life’s problems and challenges. However, this is an idealized, mountaintop view. Awakening needs to be brought down from the detached perspective of the mountaintop into the real world of the marketplace. It needs to work in the nitty-gritty of our relationships, work and daily lives. After all, if the truth can’t flourish here, where we all live, what good is it? The fact is that the world is in crisis. There is the constant presence of terrorism, war, injustice, oppression, poverty, hunger, and disease. All this conflict exists because people’s inner unease and insecurity are projected outwardly. Struggling for some sense of meaning in their lives, they identify with and cling to a particular “story”—whether cultural, religious, political, or personal—which is continually re-created by the mind, and gives them the direction and purpose they seek. The story, of course, is shored up by a whole set of beliefs, judgments, and assumptions. The problem is that beliefs, by their nature, are divisive. When taken to extremes, they can result in a willingness to fight, even to kill and die for, what is so fervently “believed.” More than ever, the world needs the healing that awakening brings. The key to embodying awakening is to understand that it is very much an inner, personal journey. You must be willing to face yourself honestly, to examine closely who and what you think you are. If you’re not prepared to look deeply into this “self” you have imagined yourself to be, inner freedom will continue to elude you. You’ll carry on in the belief that whatever it is you are looking for—happiness, validation, approval, success, or freedom from self-doubt—lies somewhere outside yourself. However, there is something else that will help accelerate your quest for self-realization: guidance. Rumi said: “Whoever enters the Way without a guide will take a hundred years to travel a two-day journey.” You can awaken on your own, without a guide, but it is not that common and usually takes a long time. Clear, objective guidance from someone already awake speeds up the journey. It also ensures that you receive accurate directions on how to begin the process of self-inquiry, and how to go deep with it when blocks or obstacles come up—as they will. Through this book, I will be your guide. I will walk with you every step of the way, and will show you what you must both do and know in order to set yourself free in the shortest time possible. I have already spoken of the doing. It is the heart of the practice I gave the woman at Esalen, and I will describe it in detail at the end of this Introduction. You must stop and pay attention to what is happening inside you whenever you are in conflict or are upset. Then you must learn to welcome, or at least accept whatever you’re experiencing, be it a feeling, an emotion, or an event. You must accept it without judgment or resistance. It is your ability to allow things to be as they are, especially during those times of suffering that opens the door to transformation. The practice requires an openness and an emotional vulnerability. It does not mean that you become a doormat, and allow people to walk over you. By all means, you make changes where change is needed or desired. You retain the ability to say “No” to unwanted experiences. But inwardly, you resist nothing. Awakening is above all a state of psychological and emotional freedom. It manifests in a non-resistance to life, an all-embracing acceptance of life’s ever-changing conditions and circumstances. But to really unlock the secret of awakening (and to understand why it persists in remaining a “secret” in the minds of those who have not yet figured it out), there is something you have to know. Behind every negative emotion, every form of personal angst, there is some kind of story you are telling yourself. You have to see and recognize that the story is just that: a story. It may or may not have some basis in reality, but it is only one way of seeing things, and it is not who or what you essentially are. Any story you hold onto in your mind, consciously or unconsciously, gets in the way of your ability to be present, to show up fully. Freedom lies in understanding the mechanism that produces the story, that maintains resistance and perpetuates conflict, fear, and suffering within you. You need to see, from the perspective of the consciousness, the wholeness that is your true nature, through the very “me” itself. You need to see through the “I,” the ego, the story-teller that forms the basis of your self-identity, the “person” you think you are. I call this awareness of what is really taking place within you, the teaching. The teaching is based on nondual wisdom. It is called nondual because ultimately, there is no difference between the spiritual and the material. It is all one reality. The nondual approach is known as the direct path to awakening, or inner freedom. It confronts the one obstacle to this freedom—the belief in the sense of “I” or “me” as having a real, separate existence apart from consciousness—and reveals it to be the illusion that it is. The world between our ears, in other words, the world of "I," "me," and "mine," is an illusion. It is a fabrication, a story we have spent a lifetime making up and believing. By inwardly examining our thoughts, beliefs, reactions, and ideas about ourselves, we begin to realize that our personal stories are always changing. The more we see this, the more the internal drama falls away. We start to know ourselves as the luminous awareness that is always present and that sees and experiences reality, including the stories we tell ourselves. This knowing is intellectual at first, but when we are one with the knowing, it manifests as a feeling of ease, flow, and relaxed yet alert presence. Gradually, the intellectual knowing becomes embodied. More and more frequently it becomes our lived experience. As our head clears and our heart opens, we awaken to the true beauty and meaning of life. The mind is then no longer a distraction, but a powerful ally. Our life purpose becomes clear and love guides us in everything we do. The pages that follow will support you in making the shift toward inner freedom. They are composed, for the most part, of a series of questions and answers based on actual dialogues that I have had with many truth seekers, both privately and in workshops. In addition, I tell many stories to clarify my meaning, as well as offering short mini-meditations in each chapter. The chapters themselves are organized around a specific aspect of the practice, so that it will be easier for you to learn. Woven into each chapter is the entire, seamless, nondual approach to awakening, which states that realization is a matter of seeing that you are neither your story nor your thoughts. You are the clear, ever-present consciousness which is aware of everything. Throughout this book I will emphasize this teaching again and again. Between the dialogue and the stories, it should become very clear what is involved in seeing through your own “story” and letting go of whatever beliefs, ideas, or concepts of “self” you may still be holding onto. The more you are able to simply be present and release all that you hold onto inwardly (by seeing that it is not real), the more you will find yourself relaxing into the awakened awareness that is your true nature. Then your times of inner peace and freedom will occur more and more often, and the periods of conflict, stress, and suffering will be fewer and shorter in duration. Increasingly, a heartfelt sense of love and gratitude for life will be your predominant emotional reality. One day you will pass through the final door of self-knowing. A profound sense of ease, meaning, and beauty will then be yours. Then you can really share the gift with others. You can share the new story you are creating for your life. In this way, our world will gradually be made whole. The Revolutionary Practice The practice is called a practice because it is something you do. The more you do it, the better you get at it, and the more easily and effectively it works for you. You begin to embody the teaching (that you are not your story). There are three simple steps: Step 1: Welcome Your Experience It is easy to welcome good experiences, but awakening depends on your being willing to welcome the negative. So, whenever upset, conflict, or struggle arises, or your psychological or emotional buttons get pushed, or you find yourself challenged in some way, welcome it. It is showing you where you are not yet free. You can say to yourself: “Ah, I welcome the presence of this conflict in my life. It is showing me where I am not yet free.” Remember, you are learning to welcome your suffering, not any pain you may be experiencing. Pain is a fact of life, and simply has to be accepted when it is present. When you accept it, then you can work with it, and perhaps alleviate it through some method or technique. But when pain is resisted, there is always a story of some kind, as in “I hate this pain and want it to go away!” It is the story that causes you to suffer, and that is why the next step is important… Step 2: Notice The Story Behind every reactive emotion, whether it is stress, self-doubt, guilt, anger, envy, jealousy, loneliness, anxiety, depression, or fear there is always a story, belief, or thought. Notice the “story” you are telling yourself that keeps the emotion alive. Most people are in touch with their personal stories, their emotional “history,” but you may have to dig deep within yourself. The story may not be immediately obvious. When you find the memory of something in your past that is triggering the reaction in the present, don’t dwell on it. Don’t think about it. That’s just more story, more thought to keep you in the emotionally reactive place. Just know that there is a story behind your suffering. If it helps, you can affirm to yourself the one story that is always true: “I am not my story… I am the pure awareness that is present right now…” Step 3: Be Present Now relax and breathe into the feeling of being present. Be the awareness that you are. Observe any residual feelings or emotions, but don’t try and alter them in any way. Don’t get lost in analyzing or trying to understand or change what you are feeling. Don’t create a new “story” around it. Notice where the feeling or emotion is in your body, and just let it be there. Remain as the clear, alert presence that you are. Notice how “you,” as an aware being, as the witness of your body, mind, and personality, are still very much here, yet you don’t need any concept, belief, or story to define yourself in this moment. As you breathe and stay in this place of alert, expanded awareness, you will feel a shift in your energy. The emotional contraction will unwind, and you will feel more relaxed, more at ease, more whole. You will feel more truly present, more centered and grounded. Then you see everything anew, and you can deal with what’s in front of you from a place of confidence and strength. You use the power of thought, your goals and dreams, to create what you are passionate about. As you master this practice, you will become freer, more present, and more in the flow more of the time. You will begin to know yourself as the awareness that is looking at the story, the awareness which watches your body, mind, and personality. You begin to realize, at some level, that your true, fundamental nature is clear, vibrant, present-time consciousness itself. Eventually, if you are really curious about discovering your true nature, you will take the “fourth” and final step to awakening, the one that will completely and, for all intents and purposes, permanently free you. What is the fourth step? It is to question this very “me,” this “I” that you take yourself to be. With deep self-inquiry, what you will discover is that it is just a “story” too—the story-teller. The “I” that tells the story is no more real than any other thought. Even though it occupies center stage in your personal life, you cannot actually find the “I” or “me” thought anywhere in your mind. At some point, it will dawn on you that your true nature is the beautiful, timeless consciousness behind everything. As consciousness, you are the source of everything you experience in your life, including the “I” thought, and the ego itself. To know this, and then to embody the knowing, is to be free. Chapter One Welcome Your Experience ______________________________________________ Awakening To What We Are You say that the true freedom in life is discovered when we see through our personal stories and awaken to the consciousness that we are. What does that really mean? First, let me say that our true nature cannot really be expressed in words. Consciousness, awareness, beingness, and presence come closest to defining what we are, here, right now. We always start from this moment now, from the present. So, what can be said to be real right now is the fact that you are alive, present, and reading this book. What is real now is that you exist. You are conscious of existing, of being alive. In fact, your true nature is consciousness itself. It is the one thing that is always present whether you are asleep or awake, and whether you are aware of it or not. What you are in your essence is the lucid, unchanging consciousness that gives birth to everything in the world of the senses, including all your stories, memories, and to your body, mind, and this unique personality called “you.” To understand this is to grasp the literal meaning of the words that have been attributed to St. Francis: “What we are looking for is what is looking.” You become aware of yourself, your true nature, as consciousness, awareness, or presence itself. Now, most people are not aware of this. They tend to live as if in a dream—a dream that sometimes turns into a nightmare. They take their ego and their thoughts—the personal “self” and its many stories—to be real, are caught in habitual patterns of conflict, self-doubt, and worry, and have only occasional glimpses of the timeless beauty and mystery of existence. The goal of spiritual or transformational work is to wake up from the dream. It is to break free of the internal dialogue. It is to see through the illusion of “me, myself, and my story,” the imaginary world you have created between your ears, and that makes you feel separate and apart from others. These stories, memories, and experiences have shaped your personality but they are still only that: your stories. They may have been real once, but are definitely not real now. They are an imaginary world existing inside your head, in the form of fleeting thoughts, beliefs, pictures, and ideas of “self,” with corresponding feelings and emotions in your body. Every time you see the truth of this, your head clears, your body relaxes, your heart opens, and you experience a release from inner conflict, stress, and suffering. You become, in a word, present. Awakening itself is the realization that you are not your stories, not your thoughts, but that you are the consciousness in which stories and thoughts—in which all existence—arises. You are not an object, a human being in space and time who has only intermittent glimpses of consciousness, the source of creation. You are not a wave, occasionally remembering your connection to the ocean. Rather, you are consciousness itself, viewing all of creation through the eyes of this human being that is “you.” You are the ocean itself, manifesting in this individual human wave form. As this realization occurs, you find yourself connected to an inexhaustible source of wisdom, love, and inner joy. Instead of living out of some myth or story about who you are and what life means, you live in awareness in the present. Meaning and identity no longer depend on beliefs, stories, or circumstances, but flow directly out of the beauty and dynamism of the life force itself. They arise from the sense of oneness, of intimacy, you feel with life—from the fullness and fragrance of being itself. With this awakening to the truth of being, the incessant chatter of the mind no longer dominates your consciousness. Your inner state becomes one of clarity and ease—at times, radiantly so. You become aware of a deep, vast silence, a spaciousness that is universal, without center, and without borders. You feel yourself to be one with that silence. Out of that inner silence, you use thinking—including the “I” thought—for the extraordinary creative tool that it is, but there is no attachment to thinking itself, nor to the concepts “I,” “me,” and “mine.” In fact, whenever you use these personal pronouns you are clear that you are speaking as impersonal consciousness, expressing through the personal form that you are. You use them in a functional way, free of personal ownership, pride, or emotional reactivity. Because of this openness and freedom from ego, from attachment to the personal perspective, living becomes much more effortless. Regardless of what is occurring, each day has a quality of magic and adventure to it. Contrast this with your experience when you have not yet awakened to truth. Whenever you say “I” or “me,” there is a very definite identification with the personal, with the ego self—with some kind of story, judgment, expectation, assumption, or agenda. You often feel divided, as in: “A part of me feels this way, and yet another part of me feels that way.” There may be glimpses, but there is no abiding awareness of being one with the totality of consciousness. Instead, separation, isolation, and a feeling of aloneness, even meaninglessness, is the prevailing experience. It is this personal identification with your story, with who you “think” you are, that triggers self-doubt, stress, worry, and fear. It perpetuates the experience of conflict and suffering. Awakening, as will become clear, means freedom from conflict and suffering. This is the promise of the inner quest. It doesn’t matter what your circumstances are, or where in this world you live—inner freedom can be yours, because it is your true, God-given nature. What does the consciousness that we are actually feel like? The feeling-tone associated with being established in pure consciousness is one of relaxed ease, harmony, and presence. It is one of openness and welcoming, of gratitude and appreciation. Thoughts may or may not be present, but you are not identified with them. There is no “you” in the way. There is just the flow of beingness, what in Zen is called the “suchness” of life, and you are one with the suchness. Everything happens out of that oneness. Truly, to know yourself as consciousness, and then to embody that knowing, is the greatest blessing… See if you can feel it, your true nature, right now. Just be very present, very aware of all that is… Then let the awareness that you are permeate your body… Notice how your breath flows in and flows out in the awareness that you are… Then notice how sensations arise and fall in your body… Notice how thoughts, images, and stories come and go in your mind… Be aware of yourself as the awareness, the consciousness, which is aware of all this… Getting Our Stories In Perspective I resonate instinctively, at least on an intellectual level, with the truth that I am not my story. I even get a sense at times that I am, as you say, the clear, unchanging awareness or consciousness behind the story, whatever the story is. Yet what else is there but our stories? The history of humanity is one vast interwoven story. The history of humanity is indeed one interwoven story, as you put it. The theologian, Ann Foerst, described us as a story-telling people—homo narrandus. There are as many stories as there are people, and it is natural and human to share our stories with each other. A story is simply anything we think or believe, or tell to others, to explain what has happened, is happening, or is going to happen in our lives. It is how we derive a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, until we tap into a deeper level of being, and no longer depend on any story for our identity. There are stories of need and desire, abundance and lack, contentment and dissatisfaction, success and failure, justice and chaos, wealth and poverty, health and disease, hope and despair. Sometimes our stories are mundane and ordinary, sometimes they are fun and even exciting, or inspiring; and sometimes they are painful or sad. Stories or parables also serve as teaching devices. We learn from them. We use them as teaching tools to illustrate certain lessons. But whatever emotion they evoke or lessons they teach us, the fact remains that our stories are not who or what we are. They are only expressions of who we are. Those who are in the process of awakening to truth and inner freedom understand this at some level. They learn from the story but they don’t get lost in the drama of it. Instead, they derive their identity from simply being alert and present in each moment, from the flow of energy and fullness that can be felt right now. However, most people are still identified with some kind of story at the personal, self-defining level. It is the attachment to these stories that creates the emotional experience of either heaven or hell, or something in between the two, in our bodies, minds, and hearts. Strong emotions are always the result of being identified with a story. When we are simply present as the awareness that we are, not identified with any story, our emotional state is always one of ease, harmony, and flow. Until we go through this shift in identity and as long as we don’t know ourselves at the level of pure, primordial consciousness, we are doomed to a life of uncertainty, anxiety, and suffering. How do you define suffering? Suffering is the personal response, through the creation of a story in one’s mind, to pain or unwanted experience. For suffering to arise there has to be someone—a “person,” an “I,” a “me”—who suffers. And that person always has a story around his or her suffering. Or, to put it another way, pain plus a story equals suffering. As you become freer inwardly, however, pain or unwanted experience is just that—pain or unwanted experience. You may get upset about an event initially, but then you remember who and what you are—pure consciousness, expressing in this body, mind, and personality called “you”—and you just deal with it. You do not create a story around it—or, if you do, it is a functional, factual story. It is a story which describes what actually happened, or is happening. Almost all the human suffering in the world is due to the identification with a story of some kind—from people taking their stories to be reality. It may be a personal story of abandonment, loneliness, guilt, or fear. It may be a story of power and control. It may be due to a state-imposed religious story with its own harsh or restrictive edicts and subsequent denial of human rights. It may be a self-imposed religious story with a whole set of beliefs and dogmas which you then feel compelled to embrace. The more entrenched you are in your own story, your own version of “truth,” the more you will likely resist what I am sharing. Whether it’s some personal story of insecurity, pride, or fear, a cultural story that causes you to be identified with a particular ethnic group or custom, or one of the many religious stories that have always been promoted as the “truth and the way” to humankind, you will tend to cling even more tightly to it. A lot of fear can come up as you contemplate the letting go of a story, any story, with which you have previously been identified. If I am not my story, then who or what am I? Ah, that is the big question. When you know, in the depths of your being, the answer to that one, then you’ll be free and your search for yourself will be over. It is my intention to guide you gently and skillfully toward the answer, but I can tell you this right now: you will find it on virtually every page of this book. Welcoming Your Experience You have spoken of the need for welcoming what is, for embracing and accepting whatever is happening right now, even though you may not like it. Can you say more about that? We have no problem welcoming good experiences into our lives, but if we are serious about awakening, we must learn to welcome the negative. So, whenever upset or struggle arises, or you find yourself being challenged in a particular way, welcome it, because it is showing you where you are not yet free. Open yourself to whatever you are feeling. Until awakening begins to become a reality, most people have difficulty with being fully present, especially being present without an agenda. They invariably require an agenda. It may be a shared interest, a personal or business meeting with a particular focus, or some kind of gathering for a specific purpose. In the work we are doing, you are using your own suffering as your agenda for being present. You are not denying it, you are not trying to avoid it or escape it. You are not trying to rationalize it or understand it through some form of mental analysis. You are facing it head on by welcoming, or at least accepting it. Now you may immediately realize the totality of the situation. You may notice the story you are telling yourself that is triggering the upset and you may grasp, even affirm to yourself, “I am not my story.” This may produce a shift. Suddenly you are fully present, no longer caught up in any self-identifying story. You may have a glimpse of your true nature—that you are That. You are the consciousness that is aware. But for many of you the shift in identity will be brief and you will revert again to getting caught up in your story. But at least now you know. You’ve had an “Ah ha!” moment. You’ve tasted the truth of your being. Keep persisting with the practice of alert presence and I promise you it will get easier. You’ll have more and more awakened or enlightened moments. The body has a cellular memory of wholeness and ease. It remembers its natural state. When you are in the state of wholeness, it’s almost like the cells are saying, “Ah, this is how I’m supposed to feel.” Then life itself will feel smoother, more harmonious, more flowing. The idea of welcoming played a vital role in my own awakening. The more I was willing to acknowledge to myself that I wasn’t free, that I was still in conflict or suffering, the closer I found myself moving toward true freedom. And the single most powerful mantra that precipitated my awakening and which I used whenever I was conflicted, was this: “Ah, I welcome this experience. It is showing me where I am not yet free.” In other words, you’ve got to befriend your upsets, demons, and negative emotions. You have to stop running from them and turn to face them. This contradicts our natural tendency, which is to live in resistance and denial. The power in adopting a truly welcoming attitude is that it indicates that you accept where you are right now. You may not like it but you accept it. Acceptance, in turn, brings an immediate relaxation, an ease of being and an allowing that may then open the door for the shift in perception called awakening. Jean Klein, the man who was my spiritual guide, talked about the importance of welcoming, and it was he who gave me the idea. “Welcome your experience,” he used to say. After all, openness, acceptance, and surrender to what is create a surer path to freedom than resistance and struggle. You must sink deep within yourself to find out who and what you are, and you cannot do that if you are fighting with what is or are struggling against your situation in any way. Another contribution Jean made to my understanding was the practice of stepping back with my awareness and experiencing myself as the space in which my body appears, in which breathing happens, in which the personality, with its sensations, feelings, and thoughts arise. Doing this practice whenever I was anxious or stressed gave me a sense of detached presence. By “detached presence” I mean that I would still feel the upsetting emotion, and yet I would at the same time have a sense of freedom from it, and the glimmerings of the realization that my true nature was this freedom, this spacious awareness, and not the emotion. The focus on awakening to freedom is integral to the whole nondual approach. Become established in the openness that is your true nature and then live your understanding every day. Continue with the life-long work of becoming a more compassionate and loving human being. But if you have a story about awakening as being a living exemplar of selfless love—as many people are wont to do—then you are unlikely to ever get there. You will forever fall short of your own unrealistic standards. Awakening is waiting for every single one of us precisely because it is our true, inner nature. Being awake doesn’t make you better or smarter than anyone else. It doesn’t make you superior. It just sets you free, that is all. It frees you from conflict, worry, and fear, and brings you back to the deep inner peace and fulfillment, that innocence and openness of mind and heart, that you once knew when you were very, very young. Except that now you have the wisdom, maturity, and life experience of adulthood to serve as a protective container for this new way of seeing and being in the world. The more of us that find the inner peace that comes with awakening to who and what we are underneath all our beliefs, myths, and stories, the more we will see peace in our world. Then our children can grow up in an atmosphere of love and caring, rather than fear and uncertainty. Then we can come together as a global community to solve the many social and economic problems facing us. What better or more selfless motive for awakening, for enlightenment, could there be than this? About The Author Jim Dreaver writes and teaches about the love and freedom that are our true nature. He has taught his work at many venues, including Esalen Institute, and has previously published The Way of Harmony (Avon, 1999) and The Ultimate Cure (Llewellyn, 1995). Copyright 2008-2009, Jim Dreaver (Expires March 15, 2009) To request information on this author or a manuscript contact the listed agent or e-mail: dbooth@authorlink.com AUTHORLINK SMART QUERYEditor/Agent Request for Manuscript/ScreenplayThis service is for legitimate publishers, editors and agents only. Please do not request a manuscript or information unless you can verify that you are an active professional in the industry. Thank you! Note to Editors and Agents: Your contact information will remain highly confidential at all times. The information will be given ONLY to the person whose materials you requested. Respond to any listed writer in seconds. No paper rejections! It's the quick, "green" thing to do. More book deals have been facilitated here than any similar service. 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