How Long Have You Been Standing Here, God?: Seemingly Random Contemplative Thoughts on Awareness

© 2005 Michael Jean Nystrom-Schut. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 05/19/05

ISBN: 1-4208-5030-X (e)

ISBN: 1-4208-5029-6 (sc)

ISBN: 1-4208-5028-8 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4208-5030-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005903672

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Thirty-eight

Thirty-nine

Forty

Forty-one

Forty-two

Forty-three

Forty-four

Forty-five

Forty-six

Forty-seven

Forty-eight

Forty-nine

Fifty

Fifty-one

Fifty-two

Fifty-three

Fifty-four

Fifty-five

Fifty-six

Fifty-seven

Fifty-eight

Fifty-nine

Sixty

Sixty-one

Sixty-two

Sixty-three

Sixty-four

Sixty-five

Sixty-six

Sixty-seven

Sixty-eight

Sixty-nine

Seventy

IPI

Intermixt Press International

San Jose – Indianapolis

Written just for you, provided you’re still standing…

(Specially dedicated to my friend, Trina, at Authorhouse)

This book is designed to provide basic information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering legal, consultative or other professional services. If such expert assistance is required, the services of competent professionals should be sought.

It is not the purpose of this book to reprint information that is otherwise available to the author/publisher or reader, but rather to compliment, amplify and supplement other texts. The reader is urged to read all the available material, and learn as much as is possible about life, tailoring the information to the individual path.

Every effort has been made to make this book as accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes both typographical and in content. Therefore, the text should be used only as a general guide, and not as the ultimate source of information related to these topics. Furthermore, this book contains information that may no longer be either relevant or accurate, as much as we all would like to think our words and thoughts are timeless.

The primary purpose of this book is to educate and entertain. The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained here.

Are you aware that we live in a fantasy world? Nothing is really real here. And now, here comes this thing called fantasy sports; it’s really a big deal these days.

Okay, I guess I can play along with this, too. How about if I pick an all-time fantasy lineup of my very own? They are not your team; you get to pick your own squad. These men are on my side – and in fact they are my writing heroes, who for me have hit more balls out of the park than any of the others.

For me, these writing round-trippers have come to me for many years – and the overall impact they have had on my game? It’s been simply immeasurable…and I am grateful – so appreciative – for them.

So, let me give a shout out – and doing so, with all due respect to the big sluggers such as Griffey, Sosa and McGuire – to the fellows that I want in the heart of my self-progress batting order.

I’ll just do the middle of the lineup – on my own fantasy writing team. They bat 3-4-5 and they are most dangerous for opposing pitchers (in this case, writer’s who don’t influence me nearly as much as these guys do, and who, in fact, talk about what I don’t understand, or agree with!).

When it comes down to it, if I can’t win with my 3-4-5, then there simply is no winning. I maintain a deep debt of gratitude, to my writing friends, who represent the heart of the order:

#3 Mr. Wayne Dyer, MVP book writer

#4 Mr. Depak Chopra, MVP book writer

#5 Mr. Ken Wilber, MVP book writer

…Have you ever read anything from any of these three gentlemen? If not, I suggest you get to your bookstore or library, and read their insights and solutions to the great game of life! Unravel what they have to offer you, in your part of the universe. Then see if you can stay in your seat!

I never could – and still can’t.

Thank you, kind sirs, for the innumerable ways you have helped me shape some sense out of this entire thing called the big game of life.

…I appreciate so much the contributions they have made to me. Partially because of theirs, and others’ ideas, I have some of my own to now share. In fact, the book you are about to read talks about the awareness we should have that God is always present, in our lives, just standing around, sitting around, laying around – waiting for us to know this, and waiting for us to connect and communicate with It.

So now, without further fanfare, I present to you this 71-part book, indicating that God is in our midst at all times, and brought to you here, as How long have you been standing here, God?

Will you let me tell you about you? Because I am so much more than just conscious of me, I have transcended onto you. I am awakened from my own sleep now, so you might wish to hear from an enlightened sector: maybe it will wake you up from your sleep, as well?

I am Michael, a scientist; the object of much of my attention is you. You are the subject – I enjoy my study of you both night and day. I study your character; I study your motive; I study your mannerisms. I study your depth – more so, perhaps, your desperate lack of depth.

If you walk funny, I study that. If you walk normally, I study that, too. I observe it all; how you walk, talk, eat, breathe, place your senses into play.

I eat you, drink you, sleep you, and breathe you. I am your silent understudy, playing out your scenes behind you in the great cinema of your life. I am awake to you, and while you sleep, I think I know you better than you know yourself. I am a personality scientist, and you have been lovingly slipped underneath the cold, warm glass of my microscope.

There is no cause for fear. Don’t run away. You have to trust someone. I do not wish to usurp anything over you. I do not wish to gain an unfair advantage on you. I’ll leave that to the religionists…or the other scientists. If you happened to have wandered into my life – the Universe may have intended for it to be that way. And now I am merely examining you, to try and see who you are, what you are, why you are.

I will tell you some of what you want to hear, and much of what you have previously refused to hear. If you tell me to stop, I might do it…and I just might not.

It’s not your palm I wish to look into; you already know if you are left-handed or right-handed; you already can see if you need hand-cream. No, I wish to go straight for your life, for your soul – so I will gladly hand you back your palm. It’s your heart and soul I want to hold, to examine. Give those to me for a moment, for two moments, for three...

It’s not so much that I planned to place you where you are in my life; the Universe planned it for you. Or maybe it didn’t. But it’s not my doing. I am here for you; you needn’t be here for me for I am funneled food from other sources and don’t ask that you feed me. Just don’t run away from me too quickly. If you must, you must, but something or other within me might contain just what you long for. Are you ready to hear it? Are you ready to receive it? Are you ready for anything at all? As they say, If not now, then when? Are you ready?

Say that, on some level, somewhere inside of you, you’re ready; just say those few words.

Or never mind. I am not really overtly concerned with your state of readiness, or un-readiness. You either are ready…or you are not. It’s as simple as that. But a scientist seeks out the truth. Don’t hang around if you don’t want some of it to come spilling all over you. I won’t judge you, defend myself against you, or overanalyze you. I will just seek to share truth with you. I will be standing over here, trying to share some common sense into your life.

You might very well ask what credentials I have to offer you in support of my study and scrutiny of your life. Just my own life: that’s about it – nothing much more. Having subjected my own life to the Universe, the overabundance of understanding and enlightenment that returns to me is more than I can take in, more than I care to keep quiet about.

I’m ambitious and anxious towards being unselfish about all of this truth I wish to share. I simply must put forth from the surplus of me with someone. As I said before, don’t stay, for if I find you in the way, I’ll shine light into you. I’ll shine a big bright light into every part of your life. I am without choice in this matter – it seems it is something I need to do.

Let me tell you the first of many stories. When I was but a small boy – and while hanging from my front porch – I beheld a big truck one day as it turned a sharp corner down the street. The back door of that truck flung suddenly open and small, shiny objects flashed across the pavement of my street.

What in the crying hell was that, I thought?

Spellbound – this was not some normal event to a kid – I gawked in disbelief for about one minute…and then rushed up to the scene, to see what it was I thought I saw.

The truck had continued on its way… Gosh, I wondered – could this be really happening to a kid like me? Tasty snacking cakes were strewn all over the pavement – two to each package. And the unwitting driver was not coming back for them!

…After a time of being dazed, I lustfully gathered them to me. The shiny packets were inventoried out of the sight of the potentially returning truck; there were literally dozens of them. A poor, hungry boy most of the time, I was suddenly food-rich!

I ate three of them before I knew what came over me. Feeling stuffed and bloated, everyone else in my neighborhood then ate snacking cakes. We ate them in fact for several days. I had fed my own private multitude. And it felt good, though I felt bad about the driver of the truck.

We never saw that truck again. Maybe he changed from his unlucky route, we thought. What I knew was that from the horn of plenty of my own overabundance, I had managed to feed myself, and, having become full, I saw a clear and natural purpose in feeding all others who lived and dwelt in my little world alongside me.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know it all (can you tell me who does?), but I know what I know. If I share it with you, that doesn’t mean you have to accept it. If back then I had offered you a snacking cake, you wouldn’t have had to eat it. You could have tossed it back at me. You could have saved it for later. You could have given it away. It’d have been your snacking cake. You could have done with it anything you wanted.

I would have suggested you eat it. They were so sweet…and free, too! Free snacking cakes for everyone! Would you – could you – have really chosen to resist such a generous gift as a free snacking cake?

…So, when I try and tell you about you, understand why it is I do so. I don’t know it all, I don’t want anything and I don’t have any ulterior motive other than that I am quite full, myself, yet still have something more to give.

Do you want some of what I have to give? I hope so.

One final word of warning: Watch out if you decide to run away from what I have to offer you. The Universe has an abundance of legitimate personality scientists on duty, every shift, and more still on call. There seems some kind of interest that is maintained by the Kosmos to show you to yourself. I don’t necessarily have to be the flipper of the pages of the photo-album of your life. Any other page-flipper will do just as well.

But stay and sit here with me just the same. I think you might just want to hear some more of what you are about to see…

Most of us, at least, are simply not aware.

That’s my whole point in this book.

God Himself is standing right in front of us, and we never even notice. Life is screaming loudly in our ear, and we don’t hear a sound. The Universe is doing its part: attempting to nudge us, bump us, offer us a signal – over and over again – some kind of a sign. We’re not tuning in, though. We’re not picking up on it.

How often do you read a paragraph or a page in a book, and pause at the end of it and say to yourself, "Damn, what did I just read?" You then have to go back and start at a point where you were still aware of what you were reading – still connected to the stream of thought flowing from the writer’s mind – so as to start again.

Some competing thought (hunger, thirst, a person, an itch – gee, I think it could have been a zillion other things!) broke in and derailed your train of thought, and sidetracked the message of the words in your book. We are reading the printed words, but no symbols or meanings are coming to our brains from it.

Did you just hear that? Do you need to go back and read it again?

We just aren’t aware enough. We are not aware.

There are times in our lives when we are not ready to hear something, not ready to admit something, not ready to give up something, not ready to experience something, not ready to quit experiencing something. Our level of awareness is simply not there yet! Whatever it is that is knocking on the door to our inner self will have to wait for another time, another place. Now was not that time or place. We weren’t ready because we didn’t yet have a heightened sense of understanding in order for us to see it well enough.

Most of us stumble through our lives like droves of semi-blinded zombies. We have every opportunity to look out at our world, yet we just won’t open our eyes and do it. We can feel, but we won’t reach out and touch. We can hear, but we won’t listen.

As for the rest of us, all of the rest of our senses are sending busy signals back to us, too. We are clogged up; nothing is getting through. We are here, but yet, we are not here. We are breathing – so that must mean we are alive – but are we really? Are we really alive to life?

Many times in my own life, I realized I was much more dead than I was alive. Could that be the case for you, too?

I grew tired of the surroundings in my own personal land of slumber. For God sakes, I slumbered for years on end. I thought I was involved in life but I wasn’t. I thought I was awake, alert and alive, but I wasn’t. I was faking it and life was faking me out. I managed to achieve plenty of altered states – drugs will gladly do that for you – but nothing resembling anything that was real.

I just missed it. I missed it completely…

…Waking up these days is like coming out of a life-long dream. I still am in a dream, but I now know I’m in the dream. I look around, blink my eyes, and try to focus on what is around me, but it’s all new, all different. It’s the same world – just one processed differently now.

I am not here to proselyte. I have nothing to sell. The message simply is that to be aware is to know a beautiful thing. Reality gets a bad rap; it really does. This awakened state of consciousness (the real one) is okay after all. We work hard to alter our states from this real state. If we would just settle into reality, what would leave us would simply be the illusions. All the fake stuff would be gone and what was real would remain standing; we’d have something then.

Real life is good. It’s those illusions – more intolerable, the longer a normal and healthy human being exists – that are becoming increasingly unendurable.

So, what happened to me that made a difference? I was walking along one day (well, it actually happened on a series of life’s walks, and in a sequence of life’s space-time moments) when I got this funny feeling in my head. I might have fallen down or I might have just kept on walking. It was about as magical as a light summer rainfall – very, very magical stuff, though very normal at the same time. Magical it was, but not in the mystical sense. In other words, it’s stuff that happens to everyone. It’s everyday magic – the best kind of magic.

Anyway, all I know is that I started to see the world through a different set of eyes – spirituality came more into focus. I had worked hard at squinting to see reality through the blinders of my own illusions, but it didn’t happen from all my endless working away at it. I mostly wound up just fretting about how hard it was to change and how tough it was to become transformed and how weird it was to be brave enough to throw out old, treasured, more traditional thoughts and habits.

The good stuff took place in between those times of concentrated effort. Over a period of time, I emerged to see the world differently. So, no, I’m not talking about mystical, magical stuff. There were no lightning bolts. Nothing happened in a flash of light. Would that have been cool? Sure, I guess, who wouldn’t like a personal manifestation from God to show us the way?

Not needed here though. Usually our enlightenment happens, one little zinging ray of brilliant brightness at a time. It’s just as awesome that way, really, just as long as we understand the nature of the miracle – most of them are plain, but progressive, works-in-the-making.

It is not necessary for me to place the label of spiritually enlightened on myself. I am neither stupid, nor arrogant. I make no such claims of advanced enlightenment, and for a number of valid reasons. If you knew me well, you’d see that better than most. So I’m neither a guru nor a sage…just a plain person…perhaps just like you.

Anyway, mostly, when we are busy creating or earning labels to apply to ourselves, we eventually find that they stifle and slow down the various processes of growth. So I’ve given up labeling; I don’t embrace Christian or American or company president or any of them. No, labels are not for me. They are better off dismissed from our lives.

Did you ever leave church or mosque or home altar feeling pure and elevated and complete? That’s not really such a good thing, you know. Why? Because just going to the temple isn’t going to do it for you.

On the other hand, I assure you that merely talking about enlightenment (or rebirth) and becoming enlightened (reborn) will not place us on any kind of pedestal either. It doesn’t work that way. We can’t make enlightenment, or rebirth, happen. We don’t work for it; we just get fed up long enough from being unenlightened that to pursue enlightenment becomes the only logical choice left for us.

…Lots of really nice things unfold for us when we finally are ready to do that. We stop being and doing how we once did, and start being and doing in a complete new way. We see through the stuff that we didn’t see through before. We process our world radically differently now – as opposed to how we did it then. All priorities are flip-flopped. The colors of life – having slowly eroded to varying shades of gray – now begin to become reinstated in our lives.

We still do much in the same way, and, yes, we oftentimes (if we are honest about it) slip up and have lapses in our path of progress. We then have to back up a bit and take another look at it. But this is never a problem. We know to just get up, dust off, snicker at ourselves for being silly, and keep going. It’s never serious. Nothing is ever serious. Nothing. Nobody’s perfect. That is the lesson we are laughing about. So we can get a good laugh as we see our lives and ourselves in them.

There are many ways to put into words before and after pictures that our lives have experienced. I plan to illustrate many of them in this book. Much of it, though, is not so translatable into language. For those parts, you will have to stretch out and try and make a personal reach of your own. I guess you could say that part of it is willing listening, and part of it is giving up, and part of it is honest effort. It can be a beautiful, frightening ride.

Since it is real life we are talking about, real life things happen – good and bad – in the process of it. But don’t fear. We are too ignorant to know good from bad most of the time. I am all the time seeing that. Remain in that ignorance, I say.

Enlightened, even just a bit, we continue to emerge the same person. You are still you (even though we will talk plenty more about just who this you person really is, and isn’t…).

Your field of view, however, is in much greater view to you. Your eyes are open wide. Your dozing days are over.

You are standing there and you are rapping away to yourself, only it’s not you, you are talking to. God’s no longer extending His Long Arm down from heaven, knocking on the outside of an empty head, trying to get your attention.

You are awake now.

You are alert.

You sought God all your life and now you know you never had to go outside of you to find Him. Now, it’s God and you, locked in some kind of unexplainable Oneness thing. And it’s really great – though quite a bit humbling. You’re no longer sweating a thing; not one damned thing. You’re in it, but you’re not. And you are cool with everything; whatever it is that comes your way – its okay now.

Everything is sort of chill now. You could never say that before. You realize you are in the Good and Loving Hands of a caring Kosmos. In this time and place, my friend, is anything else relevant? Does anything else matter?

I ask myself that…all the time…and I wonder, what else can possibly matter now?

How awake are you? Millions are awake enough to manage to function in the world. They can go to work, assume responsibilities, engage in interpersonal relationships and basically stumble through the day-to-day processes. Perhaps they can even experience flurries of thriving.

By overall comparison, a relatively few people are awake enough to contribute intellectually or inspirationally to their world from the reservoirs of an evolved sense of spirituality. Very few envision a history beyond the time and place of their own life spans. And even fewer still are awake enough to become caught up, lost in the flow of universal spirit, to the point that they able to understand, as well as relate some of that understanding, to a world in dire need of being set free.

Wake up all you can. And then shake up the person next to you. They need it as bad as you do. Most of us have the ability to essentially understand and comprehend the concept of awakening so as to put ourselves on some path to higher awareness. We all do it similarly – through an endless push and pull, attack and withdrawal, rising up and falling back, leaping and lapsing, stirring and resettling in slumber and finding and losing our way.

These processes are going on during all the moments of our awakened being. Are you very much aware of them than you ever were before?

The more we are awake, the more we are awake to become more awake. When you come awake, you know that it was only a dream you were having before. But also, at the very same time, you know you will continue in that dream, because the process of your awakening – as long as you are mortal, anyway – can never become complete. Thus, we knowingly embark on a series of awakenings throughout the course of this dream; and we come to understand them as the collective human experience that they really are – and that’s really very (to put it in the vernacular of the casual) well, cool.

What are dreams, really? They are expressions from a buried state of waking and sleeping consciousness. What is awakening? It is an understanding – a glimpse – of those expressions. As time flows forth, we are able to become more and more aware and awake about the dream we often call our human existence. We stir from our slumber. We rise from our sleep.

How do you know you are waking up? The more you see the great union between yourself and your world, the more you are beginning to become awake. The sleeping person is wrapped up in his own issues and situations. Awakening is like rising up from your own narrow point of view. The higher you rise, the more you see. The more you see, the less you see of yourself in relation to everything else. A narrowed perspective of your own part in the universe is becoming more and more understood.

Guess what? There is a great Reality available to our understanding. We become more a part of it as we come alive and wake up to it.

Let me give a simple example: Imagine that you are sitting in a park, viewing a beautiful sunset. Now imagine you watching yourself sitting in a park, viewing a beautiful sunset. Are you with me? Okay, now imagine you watching you watching you in a park, viewing a beautiful sunset.

What is the point? How much can you step back and see of yourself? Can you put you in your place in it all? Just how awake to it all are you? How awake do you want to be?

Are you awake enough to examine these words –and millions of others in circulation – and apply their questions and inquiries to your life? Are you awake enough to face the truth in your being so asleep? Do you want to come up off that bed of rest you are on and interact with your universe with new senses and a new heart?

Oh, maybe later?

Well, that’s your choice. No one can force anyone to take food and drink to his mouth to willingly eat it, drink it. Some of the kids actually turned down their snacking cakes. They didn’t want to eat between meals! (Was that the kid talking, or mom and dad?) When you are hungry enough, you will come to get some. When you are thirsty enough, you satiate your parched throat with drink. You are content now, to occasionally sup from a great banquet table. You have not understood that this food and drink will satisfy you much more than any other ways you intend to satisfy yourself.

Why do we run from what is clearly best for us? How did we get the idea in our heads that enlightenment-rebirth-awakening were not fun? Are other ways of living – alternative to this life – so much better? I will tell you the answer: no damn way!

Perhaps it was organized religion that planted the idea in you that a life of constant sacrifice, rule-abiding, religious routine, seemingly meaningless ritual, abstinence, endless history lessons from sacred text and general dullness were the purposes (and rewards in themselves) of the pursuit of spirituality.

If it were just that, I would suggest you run hard, in the opposite direction! And if you don’t know where you are going, just follow my dust!

No, you have your own plan in mind. You see it differently. So spirituality (due to the caricature of how it’s been presented) becomes somewhat of a turn-off.

I can see that.

Any representation of spirituality as anything short of the real thing, is a sorry one. Religion and spirituality are two different general course studies in the overall School of Life. Want to come alive? Seek true spirituality, of which religion is only a small aspect. Why slumber longer? Isn’t it time to stir? I suspect that if we all knew what spirituality really was, we would all go in for it with the greatest of gusto.

Forget what you think it is all about; it’s not about that – it never was, and it never will be that. Become aware, and you will see that what you might have been running from was certainly not awareness. There is nothing about awareness that is not what you want, not what you need. Put another way, when you have awareness, you don’t need (or want) much of anything else.

Your being will fill up with life. And you will never return to sleep again. Doesn’t that sound like something good? Sure it is.

I am up early to the chirping of a sole, Costa Rican Mountain Robin. I guess robins are fellows who enjoy getting the day started early wherever they live. There is no fault to be found in that – the business about early birds and worms and all…

I am simply aware this morning – not in a good mood, not in a bad mood. Having given up placing emphasis and assignment of good and bad values to each day, I simply make a note that I am aware this morning.

My feelers are out for what the Universe would have me know. My antennae are perked and primed to pick up any and all signals. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet an interesting, new human today…or a friendly animal? Couldn’t an alien enter my world today? I think it could. Anything can happen. I don’t know what the day will bring; all I know is that I am ready for it. I am aware and awake and alert…albeit, still a bit tired.

God, no wonder, the time is about four-ish or so, in this not-yet-bright morning. There’s no light yet. That robin is on top of things, for sure. I am aware that daybreak occurs a little after five, and on this morning, I’ll surely see it happen.

My day really started when I got up to use the bathroom, and upon returning to bed, found I could not sleep. Rather than lie there and allow nagging worries and superficial anxieties captivate my spirit, I just got up and got distracted. Do you ever do that?

It’s not that I need to deny all of those feelings and practical matters, I just would rather pick the time and place to confront them…and while I slumber in the bed, helpless to those pestering thoughts, I know that’s not the time and place.

The moments are slowly passing by and there’s now a chorus of chirpers out there at just this moment! The morning must be in significant stages of advancement; I even hear some other little songsters among them, too. It’s going to be a gloriously typical day on earth today, but no more or no less than any other day; they are all gloriously typical when we rest in the state of heightened awareness. In that place, even (so called) terrible days are fine, too, because really, terrible is nothing more than our judgment on something, and thus, it is better left un-judged, ignored.

I am aware of bodily functions right now. The refrigerator is running very loudly. I am aware of the hum of the computer. I am aware of the buzz of the overhead kitchen incandescent lighting. Lots of sounds that fade into the background of the busy day are in a loud and clear expression at this time of the morning.

I am very aware of God. God is standing right here, over my bed. God is in the bed. In fact, there is no one else but God and me, right here, right now. That’s a good feeling, and I observe it as such, being careful not to get intellectually hooked into it or emotionally wrapped up with it. Just observing and relaxing is fine enough.

I sit in my pretty little house. It’s nothing fancy and nothing to brag about. But why does it have to be anything more than just my little home anyway? I am only here, in this house, borrowing its comfort and safety for a time. It is not my home. I am homeless – I am only drifting through time and space. We’re all sort of like vagabonds that way, and me, by choice. I am aware of all of that…and am at peace with that. It’s fine with me. It’s the nature of things in the universe.

…The chirping has subsided now. Those robins seem to like to kick things off and then turn things over to some of the other singers out there in overall bird-land. I like their style. I wonder: do they go to bed before the other birds? Or do they just settle for less sleep than the others? Or do they take more naps during the day? I guess I need to be more aware of them. When I do that, I will have my answers.

Everything ultimately comes to us via the avenues of our enhanced awareness.

All of a sudden, there is silence again. Nothing is as loud as it was a bit ago. The birds have either moved along now or gone back to the land of sleep. Maybe we are having a solar-lunar eclipse and they are confused as to what to do? The refrigerator is quiet, too, but now I hear the clock ticking and I didn’t hear that before. Our awareness of detail comes and goes – escorting different things at different times to the forefront of our senses – but it is always providing some form of entertainment to us.

When we are ready to hear certain sounds in the universe, they will come to us; until that time and space arrives, all is silent. In order to beckon the general matters of the universe to me, I must be receptive to them. That requires my attention. Right now I give the universe my attention. I will do the same in the next moment, but mind you, not until it gets here.

And what do I do about the moment after that?

It will be treated much the same as the others.

I am living fully, and loving fully, now. It was not however always this way. Yet, as still greater enlightenment and understanding come to me, I will note that I am living and loving even more fully than before, and that it was not always that way.

Our lives are a journey through time and space. They are laden with lessons and insights that our Tour Guide is very, very anxious to personally and privately show each of us. How do I know that? I have listened and simply become very aware of it. I think it’s the nature of the Universe to want to show us things – that’s weird, but I think it’s the way it is. Or am I just a very special being to Someone Out There?

There’s not a chance of that; I’m too much just like you.

A profound, spiritual truth: If one of us is special, we all are. If none of us is special, no one of us is special.

But are we listening? Do we care? Is it all of interest to us? Or are we zoned out or fixated on trivial distractions that are preventing us from living fully in the now? Are we looking, rather, to achieve, perform or succeed? Each must address and respond to these questions…or not. I guess we don’t have to do it. I am not sure why we wouldn’t actually want to, but I guess if we don’t want to, we don’t have to. We can do what we wish with them, I suppose. To become awake is not a requirement of the Loving Kosmos – rather, only the most golden of opportunities.

I just looked up and glanced out the window! The glorious, typical new day is engulfing the whole city! But, as for me, I am heading back to bed. I am aware – along with all the other stuff – that additional rest is required for my weary, egg-shell mind and soft-shell body. That little tempest is long past me now and will provide good contemplation time for me later in the day.

…More chirping is happening all around me now! Wow! It’s alive here!

Ah! Awareness! What a wonderful thing each new day of it brings. What a pleasant thing to go to sleep to. And that is just exactly what I now will do – so, for now, nighty night!

To open your senses fully and completely to the Universe and hear of its whisperings, will among other things, always require on your part a rare and great courage. Do you have the courage to see what it has to show you? Or do you only want to see what your eyes show you? Would you prefer that your blindness follow you throughout your life? Or would you like to some day really see?

There are some things in your world that need your attention. Are you aware of what they are? What are you doing about them? Perhaps it’s time to do something. I’m not talking about trivial things such as working on one’s to do list. To do lists too often get in the way of real living.

I’m not even talking about things such as moving, changing habits or lifestyles or joining a mosque, temple, synagogue or church.

What I am talking about are things that you know you have to do, but you don’t have the courage just yet to do them. In fact, you already know the things I am talking about. When you become aware of what the issues in your life are, you bring awareness into focus to ask the Universe what it is you are to do about them.

What you know you have to do is something that may bring temporary pain to you and/or even others in your life. It might, on the other hand, be something that will be fun, and the struggle you encounter may be to avoid the temptations built into all that fun.

Whatever we encounter on our path is something we have to continue through. Moving along the path – going beyond the enjoyable and the dreadful – is necessary if we are to continue to grow.

All kinds of awareness have to learn to be handled. Sometimes, when we don’t want to do something, we cloud our minds with distractions and clutter so that the truth cannot be seen on an eyeball-to-eyeball level. In so doing, we only delay what is inevitable. At some point on the journey, we will come across the very same matter again – and, this time perhaps with a diminished availability of time and will, find that it still remains there for us to face.

So…open up those eyes of yours and begin to see what you haven’t wanted to look at before. Then find the courage to do what you must do. Somewhere on the other side of it, you will encounter your peace. It is waiting, patiently, for you there; be courageous enough to follow after it.

…That’s mostly all there is to that – though that’s quite a bit right there!

What is a more important question to ask ourselves in life than, Who and what am I?

Perhaps, it is the most significant question we will ever need to pursue, for if there is no me, then a me that does not exist has no need to ask any further questions. With no me, does the question of a God even surface?

So, before any other part of our external world can be placed under our microscope, we should turn our gaze deeply into ourselves.

Who and what, then, are we?

I am aware of a me (an I) that indeed exists. This person observes the world around me and wonders about the many elements of daily life. This person asks about God, creation, purpose, meaning, life in general. This person drives me to remain me, and keeps me – for better or worse – on some course, beyond my ability to recall, outlined only in some mysterious form of time.

I am an ever-awakening being. All chips on the board of life were moved to the square of that awareness. As long as I remain aware, I can begin to grasp meaning and purpose to life. As long as I remain awake, I can steadily learn (and steadily unlearn as well) the lessons life brings.

In addressing the questions of who and what I am, I have approached the easel and left more than a blank canvas as my legacy. I have embarked on my own personal awareness, and, having found it, discovered it to be the key to all of my other journeys into the deep.

I see it now. I see it. I don’t comment on it. I don’t rule on it. I don’t interpret it. I don’t demand it conform to me. I just see it.

The universe just is. I don’t question it now. I don’t try to understand it. I don’t conquer it. I don’t shape it to meet my needs. I just flow with it.

When I can’t flow with it, I flow with it anyway. When I give up, I get up. I just observe it. I just witness it. I just see it. I get up; I go on.

This universe is not a good universe. It is not a bad universe. It is not beautiful. It is not ugly. It is not vast. It is not compact. It is just a universe. And now, even these untrained senses of mine can see it as that.

I don’t have the key to everlasting life. But I own some personal light on the eternity of time. Now is the eternal. Right now is the eternal. I just see right now. I don’t see a past. I don’t see a future. I don’t see a yesterday or a tomorrow. I don’t see what I just wrote. Or what I am going to write. I just see…it…just this word, then this word, and this word, and this word…

I am not here to win, and I am not here to lose. I am not here to know everything or to be ignorant of all things. I am just here to be. I am just here to see. What I see is what I see. What I don’t see does not concern me; why should it?

Do I care about what I cannot see? Why should I care about what I cannot see? If I could see it, I would see it, and care about it. If it were there to see, it would come forth. Everything that I am to see will come forth and show itself to me. Since I cannot see it now, how can it carry meaning for me?

No matter. Awakened, I see it all now.

My way is not the way. Neither is even the way of Zen, the way. But hold up! Surely your way is not the way either! If I were going to choose between my way and yours, I would, of course, choose mine. Why is that? If I knew your way was the way, I would choose your way. Why wouldn’t I, if I knew it was the Way?

Is Christianity the way? Study it carefully, but don’t ask a Muslim man. He will tell you of the prophet Jesus, and also tell you how Mohammed came to update Jesus’ way of one way. No doubt, others will come to update Mohammed, but don’t tell that to the Muslim man. If you ask the man of the Bahai faith, he will tell you that he has come to update Mohammed, though not to overthrow him.

To be sure, there is much you can learn from Christianity, and from Islam, and from also most certainly from the Bahai! But what is the point about the way? The point is that there is no one way. I know not to focus on a way. There is only what there is. Just see that. That’s really all there is to see.

Don’t get hung up on this way, and that way, and the only way. That’s just a trap!

What are these feelings I note inside of me just now? I think I need to know what they are. I could label them as some form of depression. Yes, they are depressing feelings. They are living here, right inside of me.

Ah hah! But long before this