Time = Ego = Stress ~ Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy

The next time that you are feeling stressful, please notice that you are looking with the eyes of the ego and its required time. The ego will always resist timelessness, since it requires time in order to function.

Within time, the ego will always be resisting what already is or wanting something more in the future. In either case, it experiences stress and anxiety.

No matter how many things the ego resists (fears) or how many desires it attains, it will continue to feel stressful. It has an endless list and it will always want more. Its intention is to complete itself at some future time. Likewise, no matter how many threats it escapes, once again, it is sure that there are more to come.

The mind-made self is lacking because, through notion alone, it has pretended to separate and made itself an object unto itself (there are not two - Pure I and "me") and therefore can never experience wholeness. It can acquire more and more things or befriend more and more people or even marry the perfect mate and it still has not changed the fact that it thinks its a fraction.

That sense of lack will remain as the ego wanders through life and searches for completion and meaning. It just makes sense that it can never realize wholeness as a fraction. In the end, a fraction will always remain only be a fraction.

The ego is threatened that something or someone will be taken away. Whether conscious or not, it is on guard, defensive and under a constant sense of threat. Although it thinks that its strategy is hidden, right there in plain sight is control and manipulation.

It perceives everyone as separate from itself and that concept is based on its own false idea of separation from Source. In fact to the ego, you are not even important as long as you are not threatening or as long as there isn't something that it can get through you.

The only option is to surrender the ego. In this great release, we profoundly realize that you are already whole. We then live fearlessly, free of wanting, since we are already complete.

The key to stress is ego freedom. Consciously, take a deep breath and notice that you return to the awareness of the present moment. As the Now, you are complete, whole, free of time and its conceptual goal.

I do not mean that there will never be times when you are moving more quickly to catch an airplane after waiting through rush hour or some other life circumstance. I simply mean that when you rest as conscious awareness instead of the ego, you are stress free. In the past, we may have blamed stress on time. Now, we realize that stress is inherent in the ego. Further, the ego can only operate in time.

What a relief! Time = Ego = Stress and all are delusions in the Light of Now.

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Freedom, Storytelling, Patience by Katie Davis

Question:

Thank you for the words of guidance. I am feeling there is some sort of divine grace that allows the "me" to dissolve into the real Self. I understand the practice of being still and observing. Lately,feelings of depression come up from a long time of self betrayal since first sensing the state that you live many years ago. I have to say I ran from this truth as I was not finished with the story. NOW that I am ready to let go of that story and surrender, it is like the body still has its own program with intense feelings. I feel moments of the crises and say now I must break this bondage to the false self. I must BE the LOVE I profess!! Still the self clinging self centeredness remains as a knot in the heart. I no longer want to blame this suffering on another, but accept full responsibility for what I would call the selfishness. I know it is simple, but is not Grace a factor? Looking at that ALL LOVING

Katie:

It is true that through some divine, profound grace, we are able to see beyond the personal self and ultimately that it never even existed in the first place, except as a collection of conditionings, concepts and beliefs; all of which belonged to the conceptual, ‘dreaming I.” The mind-body with its given name still appears with all of its beauty and individual talents … it just is not your identity, yet absolutely inseparable from Pure I that is the Heart of Being; the sacred, inner sanctum of the body that is the abode of unconditional love.

“My being” is the ego trying to possess the divine to make it personal and therefore separate, when in fact, it is the other way around. “I am” is the divine dimension that flows into our lives just like a breeze through an open window, when we are present (that is to say when we are living now) and therefore free of the problematic thinking.

The “dreaming I,” its identification with thought and then the impact of those thoughts on the body is what we call emotion. It all starts when we shift into time. We then misidentify with ego (the “I” thought and its thinking – concepts, judgments, interpretations) and the body senses those thoughts. Then we become sad, angry, depressed or relatively happy depending upon which thoughts we identify with.

The truth of the matter, these thoughts do not belong to us and we can just allow them to stream by without identification with them. In this, we are free of the corresponding emotion. The only shift that is required is to notice that when you are suffering, you are in time and then use the body’s sensing to bring you back to now. Do you hear a bird singing? Do you see something beautiful? Better yet, do you notice that the birdsong rises from the silence and returns to silence? Or, do you notice the space around the beautiful object that you are seeing?

The breath is also an excellent tool to shift from time to timelessness. Close your eyes and simply follow your breathing and how delicate it feels as it moves in and out your nose. Do you notice that at the end of each breath, there is a pausing silence that is still before the next breath?

We use the body to become present, since it is always appearing in the present moment. So, the portals are: sensing, the breath, silence and space to bring us back to timelessness where we are thought free and therefore realize emotional freedom.

You are seeing with great clarity that “me and my story” is the suffering. This is perfect and there is a willingness to surrender it. Yet, out of a lifetime of habit, it is persistent. It is also perfect that you are aware of the habit. What this means is that you are already beyond it. Please tell me, does that awareness ever have a problem?

When you are aware of it … it is like the tail of a comet that follows the comet after its passing. However, instead of just allowing it to be, being patient with the passing tail, the ego is coming through the back door and tricking you back to storytelling …. “I must be the love” (control, manipulation), “I am still clinging to self centeredness” (judgment), “there is a knot in my heart” (ego’s delusion to hold you in time and suffering). However the truth of the matter, tricking you is no longer ego’s option … since you are AWARE of it. The direction is always toward that which is aware. Instead of watching the thinking and the storytelling/depression … be AWARE … be present using the portals that I mentioned above.

Or, are you aware of being aware? Tend to THAT instead of watching the story. These stories have been going on for eons. I don’t know about you, but I just got plain bored with hearing the same old baseline stories over and over again ... unworthy, unloved … etc. All ego stories are about the same with very little variation. Instead, can you watch the watcher?

The truth of the matter is, you ARE this love … whether you are present or not … we just are not able to realize it when we are not present. So tender, loving self compassion is in order. That is what unconditional love is.

You already know your thoughts and your story, right? Well maybe enough is enough. Who is THAT which is aware?

Yes, grace is a factor, but it requires your deep curiosity and investigation into what lies within you; beyond and closer to you than me and my thoughts, me and my emotions and me and my body.

What is all this appearing within? Isn’t it appearing in space? That spatial awareness is the key.

If you have my book, “Awake Joy,” in the second appendix, there are helpful practices that will also support you.

All loving is not something we become, it is the unconditional love that we already are and we realize it when we are now. Is there ever a shortage of now in your life? Lost in time, we forgive the habit, offer ourselves compassion and patience … allowing it to be as it is, while knowing that the all loving is underneath it … no more than an eclipse of the moon.

I know it is not comfortable, but suffering does have an end. It is impermanent. Surrender to what is and know that it is only the tail of the comet, because you are NOW AWARE.

Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org

Awake Joy is the Radiance by Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy

Awake Joy is the radiance that strings life's happy and unhappy moments together like the pearls of a necklace. In its discovery, the pearls dissolve into the freedom of conscious joy. This joy cannot be given to you, nor can it be taken away. If you are searching for joy, you are already here as the final answering. You are what you are seeking and in seeking it, you cannot realize who you really are. You essential Essence is steadfast, uncaused joy. It is constantly be experienced, although most are not yet consciously aware of it.

My book, Awake Joy, is not a therapeutic guide about how to change your life story. Rather, it is a pragmatic pointer toward the mature surrender of "me and my story." Through this transcendence, ever-present joy effortlessly emerges.

Of course, the conditioned mind does love repetition, so it is persistent. If you have ever read books to small children, you might have noticed that they love reading the same stories over and over. They thrive on the security of what is already known. This is not unlike adult storylines, as we anticipate more of the same. The ego loves the known, since it is based upon it.

For true discovery, I am suggesting that you simply leave the story alone for awhile and focus your attention on the storyteller. Meanwhile, I will offer pointers toward the permanent surrender of the mind-made, time based self. In this manner, you have the opportunity to realize unfathomable fulfillment in the Truth of Being.

Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org