RECENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
PLEASE DO E-MAIL ME WITH YOUR OWN
What do you think about meditation and are there techniques that you teach?
There are so many reasons to meditate. Health, relaxation, stress reduction, increase of psychic abilities, to gain insight are just a few. It is often that I take time out to be with the presence of being that is here. Many times a day for brief periods of time I will repeat phrases to myself such as “rest and be in the silence,” or “rest as awareness.” Organizational structures and techniques from many traditions such as counting breath and visualization abound and they are all great but you might also try to just notice that there is life here. The most inarguable fact before all apparent facts is that ‘you’ exist and that this is always true no matter what. Let’s keep in mind that any committed aspirant of awakening eventually finds that this moment and ordinary daily life needs to be included as their spiritual life. Let this text facilitate this actualization and let it be possible now and for the days ahead.
I find that many people are confused by what is called a direct invitation. This is very different from adhering to a formula or right living, diets, cleansing practices and such things. While this sort of thing does have its place our attention and affection can be more directly pointed into a non-linear reality that transcends the conditions of the mind/body organism. I think that confusion arises because people are looking to understand awakening from an intellectual orientation. They might want or be used to a system or formula with a guarantee that they will enter a promised land called enlightenment or nirvana after a given amount of correct practicing. They might also be used to the technique being addressed as special and secret in some way. Maybe it was discovered in the Amazon jungle or maybe it is simply just the most ancient one known to man. One might reflect on the hypnotic effect that a mysterious spin can have on a person or on the fact that practices have been given for thousands of years and for the most part awakenings are very few and far between. Let me suggest that there is nothing more mysterious than the fact that presence and being are immediately here and that it is dancing in form. This force is behind all appearances. Notice all objects in your environment right now. One can notice how the temperature feels on the skin, the sound of the refrigerator in the next room, the shape and color of the objects of a room and one can notice that there is awareness present within in which all of this can register.
This is completely and unconditionally true. Reflect on this for just a moment. Can you see that before the process of intellectual understanding can play out in your mind there first has to be ‘you’? I am suggesting that ‘you’ are always completely present. As you sit with this and other pointers it becomes obvious that whatever goal or destination is up and running for you whether you call it bliss, enlightenment or nirvana it exists in the very place that you are looking from.
So are you trying to tell us the same thing that I've heard so many times in so many books? "Just be"
You could say that. You can also get a sense of what this two work pointer is really trying to say. If you know what it really means to "just be" you also know that the mind can fall into the background of awareness. It't ticking, creaking, sucking and aching sounds are renered insignificant in comparison to the aliveness that is pure being itself.
How does this new awareness that you are speaking of apply to relationships?
As you begin to shift towards this awareness of being and presence you naturally become more aligned. It now seems as if being alive is easier than ever because you see that aliveness comes from what you already are. You no longer feel the heavy energetic sense of need that so many people have in life. As you find yourself in this new orientaton it is very okay if things don't work out the way that they seem they should or if others don't seem to be acting and behaving in ways that you think that they should. This also changes the way you relate to others. Aligned relationships are the result of people who know and own their sense of self. They see their partner and friends as people who are walking along side of them and on a parallel path rather than supporting them. A leaning philosophy about relationships abounds in our society. As an aligned person you will have no sense that other people can complete you or make you happy.
*FIND JEREMY ANACKER ON FACEBOOK AND JOIN AN INTERACTIVE COMMUNITY
***The names are changed for the sake of anonymity.