The Heart of the Matter by Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy

Self-realization is complete and utter fulfillment. It is the end of all suffering and the perception of separation. It is also the conscious beginning of deep, sacred peace and realizing the radiant love that you already are. 

However, this is far more than a personal affair. As the consciousness transforms, that is, as the altered states of consciousness fall away, so does the life situation and the world transform. With Self-realization, an enduring world peace is a true possibility.

Everything conceived by the ego is separate and dual in nature. It experiences that it is split from the world and apart from the divine. The psychological self then suffers the alienation of the daytime dream of conceptual reality, its time and negativity. 

It creates the delusion of a pain gap between the body’s limitation and the magnificent Heart that we genuinely are. The illusion of division then unconsciously operates in daily living. This subject-object relationship (ego vs. everyone else) is the source of all loneliness, anger, lack, desire, greed, fear, exploitation, guilt, shame, manipulation, control, anxiety, worry and sorrow.

Without an ego-subject, there can be no divided objects and separation is plainly unattainable. This is not to say that we do not honor our diversity. In fact, when we are no longer inhibited by the ego, innate creativity, natural abilities and uniqueness thrive. 

We are a single symphony of wise love ... and beyond experience, infinitely more. This wondrous shift is one of identity only; from a suffering ego that is limited to a finite body ... to joyful pure being, whether with form or without. 

Even conceptually, we can understand that nothing could be separate from that which is called totality. Totality is simply whole. By analogy, when we cut a piece of pumpkin pie for dessert, we do not claim that it is other than pie. Likewise, who we are is diversified, yet whole.

You have the opportunity to investigate the truth for yourself. Have you been curious enough to look directly and deeply within? Who are you really at the core? There is a brilliance already shining within you that is profoundly deeper than the body and its surface reality. You have only to realize it by direct looking and inquiring within.  

This does not require the mind’s philosophical analysis. It only compels you to become conscious of what is within right now. When we cherish aloneness and quietude for this deeper contemplation, we realize that we are the love that we have been seeking in every other.

Suffering is not in the world. It is in the pain gap of separation within you and then projected by the divided mind as the painful world. One could say that it is superimposed much like a movie on a cinema screen. Whereas, free of the pain gap, we have a far more enjoyable movie! Just wait and see. Indeed, a life that is free of suffering is a true possibility for all being. 

The fragmented "me” thinks that it is IN the mental space of time that we label physical experiencing. In truth, time and space are appearing within you. To confirm this, simply notice that everywhere you are, it is always here and now. If it was reversed …  if you were limited to time and space … and if your identity was the body only, this could not be so. Every time and place would be something other than here and now. You are the permanent factor that is not confined to the body’s time and place.

In the divided world of duality within time, the ego experiences that it is subject to the push and pull of the opposing forces that are in constant resistance with one another. Every experience is threatened by its opposite. The ego constantly vacillates between pleasure-pain, happy-sad, relative peace-conflict, relative love-hate, etc. It has virtually no conscious stability. In fact these opposites depend upon one another for their definitive existence. For instance, we define happiness as a lack of sadness and sadness as a lack of happiness. 

There is a continuum between these opposites along which there are many varying degrees. The ego defines its placement on the continuum, through the absence of the other … and only time separates them. First, the ego cycles to being relatively happy and after certain duration, it cycles to being relatively sad, which in turn will once again cycle to being relatively happy. 

In fact, within time, constant sadness is just as unattainable as stable happiness; whereas joy is inherent in both and beyond the opposites. For the ego, pleasure cannot exist without pain. Relative love cannot prevail without hatred. As a time traveler, the ego's time-space-body limitation is always subject to both.

Non-duality is transcendental and its world is free of the cycling of time. Therefore, the opposites, such as relative love-hatred or relative peace-conflict, disappear into oneness and the darkness cannot survive the love of the merger. We are stunned by a brilliant stillness that is preeminent, sublime and unrivaled. 

Steadfast joy is natural to the human being. As the non-dual reality, true experience is not in opposition to any other. Therefore, competition, aggression, envy, greed and sexual obsession are effortlessly banished. My point is that you are needlessly suffering and that the transformative power lies within you.

First, the invitation is to realize time freedom. In this attentive openness, we are free of the time required for the vacillating cycles. The opposites cannot take flight and are transcended. Since the concept of “me” requires time, we are also free of the pain gap and its delusion of separation. 

The opposites are part and parcel of the idea of “me,” its never-ending desires and fears, and its need based insecurity. When the concept of “I” profoundly surrenders, both relative love and hatred are extinguished by unconditional love. We move beyond the relative peace that inevitably cycles to war and realize the absolute peace that is beyond all understanding. This transforms so called human experience into an appearance within an all-pervading field of innocence and equanimity. One could say that we regain virginal sight.

In the beginning, we practice being present to this moment; the only entry point to the "inner body." In this, we become aware of what it feels like to actually be fully and completely in our body, rather than ruminating in our head. Our senses come alive and we become aware of our effortless breathing. We realize our aliveness.

Then attention begins shifting to simply "I am" rather than “I am this or that.” Here, we are in alignment with the infinite pure being that is the open door to a "new" reality. In truth, you are already the infinite and intelligent power that is the totality.

The timeless Now, or what Ramana Maharshi called the Forever Now and Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, is beyond the appearance of the present moment. The timeless Now is free of content altogether and is the space within which the present moment is appearing. It is beyond the concept of "you," your idea of separation and the vacillating cycles that oppose one another ... and that allow the perception of negativity to persist.  

If you could realize that you are radiant love and that this realization is the key to world transformation, would you hesitate and wait? Would it not be worth it to at least look and consider the Heart of the matter?

Katie Davis Website www.KatieDavis.org

Dissolving the Collective Pain Body ~ Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy

Our conditioning determines our likes and dislikes. For the mind-made self, someone does something that the ego does not like and it judges it from a past perspective. That judgment is based on past experience and the conditioning from that experience. The ego resists what already is and reacts. That resistance and reaction cause suffering for you and others.

Self-observation begins when we start watching our thoughts and how they relate to our emotional environment. Content has to do with what someone said and what we dislike. Structure deals with how the ego and its thoughts interrelate with our emotion, regardless of the content or story about what is happening.

Through self-observation, we can notice that when the ego attaches to negative thoughts, the body reacts in contraction as though those thoughts were true. That contraction is what we call negative emotion. Our emotions do not change because of what is happening in the life situation. They change because of our problematic thinking.

When we watch thought, this structure becomes evident and we see more clearly how the ego mechanism is functioning within us. That is, we become conscious of what was previously functioning unconsciously. In self-observation, we can also watch our emotions and become aware of how the mind is more than willing to perpetuate the negativity as it moves deeper into unconsciousness.

If we resist the negative emotion, it perpetuates it in the same manner that when we try to control our thinking, it actually becomes stronger. Once you are caught in a deep emotion, the only option is to consciously suffer. If you are consciously watching, you are transmuting not only your present pain but also the pain of the past. The pain of the past formed your dislike and it reactivates in the present as reaction.

Sometimes, we may be confused when all of a sudden we find ourselves totally angry or deeply saddened. If the depth of the negativity is out of proportion with what is happening on the surface in the life situation, you are beginning to sense and feel the collective pain body.

What is collective pain? Well, if you could accumulate all of humanity's suffering into one "body" of negativity (unconsciousness), that is the collective pain body.

When this pain arises within you, if you resist it, you are accumulating more pain. Instead of resisting, invite it in and experience it fully. I am not asking you to get involved, analyze or interpret it. I am only asking you to consciously be with it. If it goes deeply enough, it is as though you become the negative emotion. The emotion consumes you.

I realize that it is uncomfortable, but there is no other way out. Through your willingness to watch and allow that collective pain, it is transmuted into pure consciousness.

Always ask, is there anything deeper? Discover what is at its depth. The pain does have an end. You will directly realize that suffering is a delusion. It does not help to just mentally say, "Well, this suffering is a delusion" and go on suffering from time to time. It requires that you directly realize the delusion.

In the core of the pain, you will realize the pure consciousness that you genuinely are. When all of the unconsciousness is transmuted, what remains is perfect peace.

Katie Davis, Compassion, Service, Suffering, Author, Awake Joy

Questioner ~

We are all ONE... The world is as it should be... Suffering is just due to the dualistic mind. Yes?

Then....
Is the grief of the mother who has lost her child due to her dualistic thinking?
Is the pain the dying child feel just due to the child's dualstic thinking?
Is the starvation in the world as it should be?
Are the suffering from the victims of war just coming from the their minds of dualistic thinking?
Is the pain a victim of violence (physical from a broken body and mentally from the experience) just due to the dualistic thinkng of the mind...?

And is the hope for a "better" world and my goal to do the best I can to ease the suffering just due to my dualistic mind?

Katie:

I am delighted that you asked this question. It is the very essence of the spiritual quest. This is life's purpose. Until this body's last breath, I will be pointing to the possibility, potentiality and Reality that is within.

Self-realization is the end of all suffering. For ourselves, our relationships, the world, the living earth. Can you imagine this? And yet, there are so many who cannot hear this call. This is not a trivial matter. The impact is as huge as the universe.

Our first responsibility is to wake up from daytime dream of dual mind, its suffering and its time. When we discover that virtually NOTHING is as it seems, the focus shifts inner. If I am not "me" ... then who is really here?

Between the Heart that you actually are and the misidentification with the false, separate sense of self (the mind-made self) is the pain gap. Within that gap is not only what appears to be our personal suffering, but also the COLLECTIVE suffering that you are noticing in the world. Through this misidentification, suffering appears not only in our lives ... but within the world of form. We blame the world and yet we are projecting it.

The only enduring resolution is to dive in and realize the unconditional love, perfect peace and overflowing abundance that we are. In Self-realization, the dual mind is destroyed and realized as the illumined mind that is at home as the Heart. When we then turn to look at the world without the pre-existing pain gap ... it is the "new earth." It is here now for everyone. The key is within you.

Someone shared a story of walking on the street in the city and she came upon a man who was laying on the sidewalk just left to die. Everyone on the crowded street was just walking by. They may not have even been conscious of the situation. The person called an aid car and perhaps saved the man from dying.

She had an apparent choice there. She could have been scared and upset about the situation, judgmental of the others that were walking by and then generalized it as an uncaring world. This negativity actually strengthens the negativity in the collective consciousness and the negative only gains more power.

So we are asked to stay still as the genuine love and compassion that we are. We remain free of judgment and in acceptance of what is. Stay true to the Heart. We are then spontaneously animated in right action.

Instead of interpretation (bad, awful, shouldn't be) ... yes, this man may be dying ... compassion moves us into action. True compassion never reduces to suffering. In the old world, when we saw people suffering, we would begin suffering as well. In the new world, True Compassion remains steadfast as authentic Love in action.

It is a mystery why so few hear this call. If we will investigate to discover the falsehood of the separate self, then dive into the collective ego, we realize the delusion of suffering ... you are free ... and collectively the world is free.

Meanwhile, the love that we are is in constant selfless service. Helping Love's child that has fallen on the playground. Opening the door for the elderly. Every day there are simply ways to give this love away; to be the instrument of true love.

We either strengthen the illusion ... or we realize the Truth.

If this can be true for "katie" it is true for everyone. We are free of all bondage right now. We have only to look with clearsight. THAT is a miracle.

Practice: Breathing and Sensing Awareness by Katie Davis

Questioner:

Thank you for you answer. It gave me a deeper understanding of what you talk about. When you talk about direct investigation it is always to ask myself what is really happening in the moment, who is really asking this? How to make it practical and not be a question from the intellect? What is the way to make this more practical.

I read you awoke spontaneusly to this self realization. How can one live more often in that state of presence and not be absorbed into the mind. How can I come to this quiet place in my daily life? And really experience that joy of life at any moment including the dificult times and real suffering?

I know it may be too many questions and I would like sometime to come to your satsangs. Your words inspire me and yet this realization that I am not Monica; I know it just partially; sometimes I've have experienced that state of no separation, but it is like a flash light in the middle of the night.

Katie:

Thank you for writing back. The pathway to realizing who you are underneath all of this thinking requires that you notice what is true for yourself. I can point you where to look, but simply telling you answers is not the way. We have assumed throughout our lifetime many false ideas, so one by one we begin examining for ourselves the truth.

You are exactly right. First and foremost, we become conscious of this moment. I am not asking you to get mentally involved with what is happening ... such as right now. Instead, focus on your breathing and use the body's senses. Since the body is grounded in the present moment, it is a very effective tool to practice being present. Just take a moment here and now away from your computer screen. Close your eyes and just notice how wonderful the air feels as it moves in and out your nose. This may seem too simplistic, but this works. Go ahead for a moment, close your eyes and just breathe while concentrating on the air moving in and out your nose ...

This is a tool that you can use anytime and anywhere. Just really become conscious of breathing.

Let's try one more thing. Do you hear anything right now? Once again, I am not asking you to become mentally involved with what you are hearing. Just notice that while you are listening, you cannot think. Do you see something lovely in your room? How about carefully smelling for a moment. Do you notice that while you are sensing, there is no thought?

Thinking is like a giant hook that snags us away into suffering. We jump on a train a thought and get carried into the problematic past ... or rushed into the future in anxiety or worry. Are you aware of your thinking? It doesn't matter what you are thinking. I am not asking you to become involved with the subject matter. Are you able to watch your thoughts yet? I promise you that the suffering is caused by the thinking as well as identification with the idea of 'me' that is your body.

But first things first. I would like you to try this conscious breathing. It does not require that you sit away somewhere. While you are driving, are you aware of the air moving in and out your nose? While you are washing dishes ... or during anything that is being done, I would like to concentrate on the breath.

Secondly, I would like you to play with the body senses. When you are a the grocery, listen. While you are breathing and walking to your car, do you smell anything?

After you have practiced this for a few days or a week, please let me know how it goes. If you find yourself suffering. First, we just have to accept it. It is as it is. However, take a moment to go into the breathing or sensing and let me know how it goes.

Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org