The Myth of Love August 31, 2012

The myth of LOVE has caused untold suffering… The myth of LOVE says that you get love by being a good person, by earning it, or by getting the approval/attention of someone you admire. You don’t get LOVE because you are a good person or because you deserve it or because you have earned it. And you don’t get it from another person (nor is it possible for you to actually give it to another!).

Authentic LOVE, the Heart’s LOVE, is within you and nowhere else! “If this is so Michael, than how come I don’t feel it?” Because you have innocently bought into the belief, the conditioning, the programming, the brainwashing that society, advertising, the media, and even from your own parents (and they, innocently, from their parents, etc), that love is something outside yourself that must be earned or given to you by another. That it’s NOT something you already are. This is a lie.

And when you believe this lie, you naturally (and again, innocently) miss the fact that YOU ARE the LOVE you have been seeking. Imagine a river looking for water on land!? ha! Well, that’s exactly what you are doing when you seek love outside yourself. You are going in the opposite direction from where you want to go.

Silently turn within and notice the LOVE that is the inherent aliveness that is looking out your eyes right now. The open heart loves unconditionally and causelessly… It is 100% the conditioned mind that is under the illusion that love must be earned and that it has “good” reasons why some people/things are not loveable.

Why does the mind do this? Because it has been conditioned to believe that love is rare, not abundant and therefore limited, and thus there is only so much to go around. And understandably, when seen from this limiting perspective, the mind rations what it believes to be its own love (but which in fact is only egoic desire and has nothing to do with love!) and tries to hold on to it very tightly and only “gives it” to those people/things it deems worthy.

Again, this is not love at all, but rather judgment and ego. And yes, even the mind’s judgment and ego are totally loveable when the heart is fully and forever busted wide open. Remember, Love loves. Anything else ain’t love.

-Michael Jeffreys

Advertisement

Byron Katie and The Folly of Arguing with Reality August 20, 2012

“When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100% of the time.” -Byron Katie

This has long been a favorite BK quote of mine. What it points to, a bit humorously, is the cold-blooded, unflinchingly consistent, non-negotiable fact that REALITY trumps “your thoughts ABOUT reality” every single time.

In a moment of insight, she saw the inherent beauty in how consistent and impersonal this “law of the universe” is: “Oh, I see… when I believe my thoughts, I suffer. When I don’t, I don’t suffer.”

It’s not about trying to change your thoughts or get rid of them. Rather, it is simply no longer believing/taking seriously/buying whatever story or scenario the thought is trying to “sell” you on.

-Michael Jeffreys

The LOVE is IN You… Nowhere Else August 17, 2012

ENjoy the moment… the joy is HERE already, don’t look for it “out there”! That’s the mistake I made… I let other people’s energy affect/influence me, instead of choosing my own vibration (the highest, best feeling, most joyous) and then just staying with IT, regardless of externals.

Once you realize YOU ARE it, you stop trying to squeeze it out of everything outside you… that’s why no-one and no-thing and no interaction has ever been able to give you the love you so desperately seek… it literally can’t! It can’t give you what it doesn’t have.

The LOVE is IN you… nowhere else. It’s your highest vibration/frequency and you’ll know it because it feels amazing and loving and whole and desires nothing.

 
-Michael Jeffreys

Is Not Consciousness Already Fully Awakened? August 12, 2012

Is it actually true that Consciousness NEEDS to awaken? Is not Consciousness already fully awake, regardless if it is experiencing a thought that says, “I am confused, lost, and unawakened,” or a thought that says, “I am clear, present, and awake”?

A thought can claim literally ANYTHING you can imagine… BUT, it owes its existence to Consciousness. And so, Consciousness MUST already fully be existing, since without it NO thought could be known! Let this sink in. No Consciousness = No Thought!

Since Consciousness is ALL you have ever known, ANY experience would have to take place “within” Consciousness. Could it be that the simple seeing or noticing of THAT which is already the case: that you are ALREADY inherently and 100% free, be what is referred to as “liberation”?

That YOU are Consciousness and Consciousness is inherently and totally free. Only a thought can believe otherwise. But again, that “disbelieving thought” owes its very existence to that which it claims to be doubting: Consciousness!

-Michael Jeffreys

Nothing Real Can Be Threatened… Nothing Unreal Exists -ACIM August 2, 2012

The 3-D butterfly exists, but only as an optical illusion. (It is actually a 2-D chalk drawing on the sidewalk!)

The Buddha talked about attachment being the cause of suffering. The idea being that things the mind cares about, whether they be “positive” or “negative,” are bound to bring you suffering, sooner or later.

But let’s dig a little deeper. For it’s easy to overlook the fact that another belief must be running PRIOR to the belief that something is good or bad. And that’s the idea that the “world out there” actually exists! If you didn’t believe “the world” actually existed, you wouldn’t care about it at all, positively, negatively or any other way!

The world does exist… but only as an appearance! It exists as a mirage. Which is the same as saying it both DOES and DOES NOT exist. Just like the glistening silvery shadow on the desert highway at dusk may LOOK like water, but it isn’t actually water. So, you could say that the water is both there and not there. There is in actuality NO water there, and yet it cannot be denied that looked at from a certain angle, a certain perspective, it looks like there is water there!

This is the illusion, the maya, the paradox that many of the mystics talk about. And it’s the UNDERSTANDING of this that makes all the difference. If you still think the dream is real, how can you not suffer? However, you are FREE from suffering once you deeply understand/realize in every cell of your being that, as A Course in Miracles says, “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”

-Michael Jeffreys

Byron Katie and Loving Your Thoughts August 1, 2012

I was listening to an interview with Byron Katie today during my run and she said that one of the things that happened during her awakening, was that she suddenly began to have loving compassion for her THOUGHTS.

Instead of viewing them as “the enemy,” she began to see them much like a mother sees a child who is misguided; with compassion, love and an open heart. And so when a thought arose that said, “I want everyone to like me.” Her response was now a genuinely compassionate: “Of course you do, dear, of course!” It’s amazing what loving your thoughts, versus trying to stop them or change them, will do.

And once she was able to love them as they were (the idea of being “mean” to them suddenly was tantamount to mean to one’s own child!), she was able to see that in fact they were simply one tiny perspective, and not the truth, or the way things “really are.” That no thought was inherently true. And so this is why “questioning every thought” became the core of her teaching, THE WORK.

-Michael Jeffreys