Practice is your number one ally.

You can’t actually get anywhere without practice, even though it’s never the final destination. The goal of practice is clarity. Enlightenment could be replaced with the word clarity. Far from a flight of spiritual fancy or mystical ‘woo woo’, the end goal of spirituality is to become as real with yourself, and the world, as possible.

Practice is a trip into realness which eventually leads to the Truth which is at the core of who and what you are. Quite opposite from the popular talk of self-aggrandizement filling in every facet of cultural expectation today, is this infinitely simple, unavoidable, entirely inconvenient truth.

Practice is like a reed in the wind, and also a steady anchor to guide your mind and self home in the storms of life, and the awakening journey. Practice will lead you deeper and keep you steady at the same time as you pass through the portal of Truth.

All the posturing in the world will not alter this truth. There is no religion or theology or philosophy attached to it; yet from it, all the facets of spirituality can be extrapolated…they extrapolate themselves in an unfolding. So sensitive is this truth to our inner being that sacredness becomes spontaneous. Reverence is the only suitable posture when finally approaching your own nonexistence…reverence which gives way to grief, which gives way to boundless joy, to steady bliss.

Shattering the mask of self which has been identified as you is first annoying, then terrifying, then heart-wrenching. Emotionally, it is equivalent to attending your own funeral.

“Pick up your cross and follow me”, is the mantra of the guru. To die while you are still alive is the greatest teacher, and greatest liberator.

Nonexistence is the truth of the Ego, of the separately identified concept of self because it is just a concept, an imagination, a flight of fancy. What you really are is pure awareness, and awareness is not a thing. It is pure, infinite being beyond the distinctions between things. Therefore you are real, but only as awareness, not as “Jane” or “Larry.”

There you have it. As awareness, your reality is synonymous with the reality of rocks, trees, stars, God and Jerry Garcia’s left toenail. As “Jane Doe”, your reality is synonymous with awareness: nothing. (You can see here the possibility for both wild self-aggrandizement and extreme self-debasement in the field of ‘spirituality.’ All that’s ever needed is just radical honesty.)

Practice is a steady way to refine and purify the mind. What do I mean by practice? Mainly I mean meditation, silent, twenty minutes to an hour every day. It is better to do twenty minutes every day than three hours once a week. Also the repetition of mantras like “Hail Mary” or “Om Ka Kalikaye Nama.” Combined with a few minutes of asana yoga, or Qi-Gong in the morning, meditation and mantra work wonders for the mind. Time spent in nature also cannot be understated. Meditations in nature are much more powerful and a quiet mind is easier to attain out there amongst the trees.

I leave you with this wisdom:

“Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” -St. Matthew

Awareness is everywhere, therefore it is nowhere in particular. Awareness is everyone, and in everyone, therefore no one is exceptional. If I am an incarnation of the Christ, and I am aware that everyone around me is also an incarnation of the Christ, then I never have to go to a special church service on a certain day because I am never away from the presence of the Christ: Christ consciousness. So, let’s practice identifying as Awareness, instead of whoever we think we are, and watch the miracles pour forth.