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Chocolate Cake and The Sky of Now By Katie Davis Through self-observation, we can discover that virtually all suffering is due to our continued relationship with the past Chocolate Cake The purpose of this chart of reference points is to assist your current perception. Once perceived, it is not calling for mental interpretation. Instead, we release the perception to open to the essential Essence to which they point. Interpretation will lead to analysis and theorization, which will conceal and sabotage the purpose of the charting. Throughout all of these transitions, the Pure Awareness that I am never changes. Whether I seem to take on form or not, in every case, I am the Eternal Now that is Life. I no longer differentiate between any of my dimensions and I am fully integrated as the Totality. The awareness of your current reference point means that you are already beyond it, since you are aware of the point. The direction is always toward that which is aware. A point of reference is a general indicator to move beyond. As an example of using a reference point, I might ask someone for directions to a certain address. That person might first ask, if I know where the Post Office is, if my search address is nearby. I am not looking for the Post Office, but the reference point is helpful in orienting. Likewise, I am not directing you to the reference points below. They are meant for general orientation. The analogy that I am going to apply is a multi-layered chocolate cake. Each dimension is parallel to the one above it and all exist simultaneously. The body reference point is the bottom layer. I am the time-based ego and I am identified with the dream of form. I am not aware that I am dreaming and that my world is the mental image that I am projecting. My attention is on you and I am not conscious that this focus is to primarily enhance or protect myself. My identity is my body and I am unconscious of being. This layer is the battlefield of conflict and I am the sufferer. I am also an illusion. As the ego-body, I believe that this is the only dimension and I am not conscious of the layers above me. The eyewitness reference point is the next layer and I am the self-observer. The eyewitness is a study of me, my form, and my interactions with my world; the study of the false. I am still the ego, but I am progressing toward freedom of this state of consciousness. I continue to look out at you, but I am primarily interested in “me” for the broader purpose of self-understanding. I study my personal consciousness as the subject of my world. “I am the body” idea is at the forefront and I predominantly attend my inner objects of thought, physical sensation, mental images and emotions. I am becoming conscious of my personal suffering and how it perpetuates. The “I am” reference point is a layer that is beyond “you and me.” I am conscious of my being and I am attending the space around my objects in the world, as well as my inner space beyond my thoughts, mental images, emotions and body. My abode is the inner body, but I am not yet free of form. I enjoy a beautiful feeling of connectivity with all being and appreciate oneness within the world of experience. In unity consciousness, you and I are one, and I am at one with all that I experience. I sometimes get lost in time fixation and therefore, I still identify with thoughts, but I can release them when I become aware of it. Detachment is not a reference point, but it is a marker. It is a thin layer of icing that is applied before adding the next cake layer. Formlessness dynamically disconnects from the body and I am no longer identified with the idea of “me.” I am now consciously awake to the dream of form and the world is unreal. This shift is a universal transition and allows the bliss of Awake Joy to vibrantly emerge. The icing bestows the mystical phenomena that are commonly associated with awakening. “I am the witness only” reference point is formlessness and I have no form. My being has transitioned to the Pure Being. I am the primal sense of being-consciousness-bliss and the substratum of form. I have surrendered conflict and I am now the playground of peace. I release subtle layers of the intellect and transmute the illusion of collective suffering. If thoughts are present, I have no sense that they speak in any real way and thus personal suffering is impossible. I am also conscious that the layers below me are unreal. I am not aware that duality persists. In other words, two subtle reference points endure. I am not conscious that I am still a reference point and that I will be eliminated. “Pure I” has no reference point whatsoever and I am the final layer of our cake. “Pure I” is Self-realization and the fulfillment of non-duality. Not one word that I could say would be true. The Heart is full embodiment and I am Awake Life. The bad news is that we are not going to take this cake and eat it. The good news is that we are going to give it all away by serving it. The chocolate cake is not ready to selflessly serve without the fudge frosting! The frosting is the art of awake living. The Sky of Now
Awake Joy is the radiance that strings the happy and unhappy moments of the life situation together like the pearls of a necklace. In the direct realization of this radiance, the pearls dissolve into the precious freedom of conscious joy. Sensibly, inherent joy cannot be given to you, nor can it be taken away. In essence, it is who you really are. In searching for joy, you are what you are seeking and in seeking, you cannot realize your radiance. My new book, Awake Joy, is not a psychological or therapeutic guide about how to change your life story in order to be more joyful. I am suggesting that you leave the story alone for awhile and turn your attention to the storyteller. In your willingness to surrender the teller of tales, joy naturally emerges and the life story transforms to reflect that joyful transcendence. Of course, the conditioned mind does love repetition, so it is persistent. If you have ever read books to small children, perhaps you have noticed that they love reading the same stories over and over. They cherish the security of knowing the storyline and they adore the anticipation and expectation of what is already known. This is not unlike repetitive adult storylines, as we anticipate more of the same. The ego loves the known, because it is based upon it. When you are identified with the story, you believe that outside circumstances cause your emotions to change. For example, someone does something that you either like or hate, so you feel either happy or angry. This translates that if you are happy, somebody can take it away and if you are angry, somebody else should fix it. By surrendering your true power in this manner, you helplessly ride the waves of emotion, as they endlessly rise and fall. You remain subject to their merciless push and pull. Your opportunity is to turn attention inward in self-observation and to attend to what remains pristine and untouched by emotion. At first glance, you begin realizing that your attitudes about past situations are linked to certain present emotional reactions through your conditioning. Based on past experience, this conditioning is the actual cause of your emotional storms. This is self-inflicted suffering. You cannot learn the joy of being, but you can learn how you deny this truth, through self-observation. You can observe how you drain your life force, as you willingly perpetuate negative emotion through storytelling. Meanwhile deep within, constant joy is without the need of any condition or circumstance. My invitation is to look deeper than the storyteller for its discovery. In attention to the now-ness of the present moment, you can enjoy the sky over the sea of emotion. That is to say, you can be free of the negative impact of your memory of past pain and its reconstitution into present negative emotion. Time consciousness has its attributes and it only displays via concept. When you sense the timelessness of simply being now, joy transpires. The time required for identified thought’s progression does not exist. Therefore, there are no thoughts to cause emotional contractions within your body. Mind can only do one thing at a time. When it is in attention, it cannot compulsively think. This is not to say that life is then listless or lackluster. In lieu of the never-ending emotional roller coaster, you experience a changeless joy, which is gleefully energizing. Free in the Sky of Now, you are free of the ego’s self-created emotional drama. Through self-observation, or what I call the eyewitness, we can discover that virtually all suffering is due to our continued relationship with the past. This view is based on ego’s story-time, which is the storyline that accompanies the mental image of an incident. The result is that we mentally live our past concept in the present moment, rather than being the now-ness of all experience. We misconstrue the now to be a fleeting instant that is insignificantly squeezed between the past that we are trying to get over and the future that we are trying to reach. If we could examine more carefully, we would realize that the constant now is virtually all there is. The now is outside of time and therefore, it is the refuge of our timelessness. Timelessness is eternal. There is nothing fleeting in forever. While self-observing, the emotional aspect of the mind cannot use you. Instead, you become aware of your conditioning. It is usually earmarked by some sort of unease that surfaces as an emotional reaction. This is why it is unnecessary to process the past in order to be free of the past. A past fixation can only create more misery. Contrarily, when you are free of your conditioning in the present, you realize freedom from the past. Releasing your conditioned behavior is not an external action. You release it through the silent and still watching of the Eyewitness. You become conscious of your repetitive thinking and how it is linked to your emotions. Because you are observing, you no longer tend to identify with your thoughts, which source your emotional reactions. The eyewitness is distanced or detached from the troublesome inner dialogue. It is when you are distracted from the here and now that you identify with complicated circumstances. You are then mechanically tossed about by the waves of your past. Of course, now always is, whether you tend to it or not. I am saying that it does not really matter. In truth, you are always free and always now. However to realize this emotional freedom, you watch your inner dialogue and are present with your emotions. Instead of resisting their push and pull, you welcome the emotions as you observe and feel them. You become conscious of your mind activity and its attempt to add intensity to emotional situations. In so doing, you become aware of the internal mechanism of perpetuation. The eyewitness does not try to change anything. I am asking you to simply watch. You will find that you are not your mind, nor the emotional aspect of mind, your emotions. This is not to deny your emotions. In fact, by fully experiencing them consciously, you realize freedom. Through uninvolved attention, you are liberated from the unconscious tendency to judge, label and categorize outer circumstances and inner feelings. Initially, your emotions are reduced to mere waves of sensation through your physical form. Subsequently, you notice that you are here before, during and after every emotion. While the sensations are impermanent, you realize that the eyewitness is still, permanent and free. In this discovery, you are unbound in the Sky of Now. Katie Davis is the author of Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment. She will be offering “Awake Right Now!” Satsang and Intensive with Sundance Burke, author of Free Spirit: A Guide to Enlightened Being April 18-20 in Chicago, as well as in Dallas, Sedona, Flagstaff, Boulder, and Toronto. For more information, and to register by April 1 to save, visit www.katiedavis.org or contact event sponsors Charlie or Maggie Wilkins of One Heart Teachings, who also offer Living the Power of Now in Chicago, at 847-780-4116, teachings@one-heart.net or awake@katiedavis.org. Admission is also available at the door.
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