New Beginnings

hello everybody welcome nice to see everybody and happy new year so as always i want to speak about this idea of new beginnings the beginning of the new year in the context of enlightenment to the awakened to enlightened awareness so when i'm speaking in these giving these talks it's always in a very unique context and so it's context specific so i want to speak about this idea of the beginning of the year new beginnings looking through the lens of enlightened awareness or my understanding of enlightened awareness if enlightenment is what we're interested in more than anything else and if we're very sincere or serious about attaining enlightened awareness we're very serious about being on the path and succeeding on that path then a new beginning is not something that we want to experience once a year but a new beginning is a state of consciousness we see and understand the whole idea of a new beginning as a state of consciousness as a fundamental relationship to being alive so enlightenment is in is an experience and as a state of consciousness and it's a particular position that we take in relationship to the human experience so that's what i wanted to speak about today what does a new beginning mean a new beginning means two things a new beginning means nothing is wrong and everything is possible when we experience higher states of consciousness when we awaken to the bliss of enlightened awareness when we have our deepest and most profound insights into the nature of reality as a whole part and parcel of that experience is the shocking recognition that nothing is wrong and then all things are possible when we wake up from relative reality relative consciousness relative cognition to absolute reality absolute consciousness and absolute cognition we flip and the flip is something is wrong something something fundamental is wrong and so little is possible to nothing's wrong and everything is possible all things are possible it's a big flip it's a completely different perspective so once again when we wake up from relative consciousness relative cognition and relative reality to absolute consciousness absolute cognition and absolute reality the flip goes from something that's terribly wrong and nothing is possible to nothing is wrong and everything is possible so it's quite a shift it's not a relative shift it's an absolute shift and this is of course what i emphasize all the time because that's what i teach that's the shift from unenlightenment to enlightenment from relative reality to absolute reality so the experience of consciousness of the new beginning is identical when you have a few moments of waking consciousness and cognition where you experience the sense the inner the inner sense or the conviction of a new beginning you get to start all over again the the feeling experience is based upon the recognition that nothing is wrong and simultaneously that all things are possible but if we're interested in awakening to enlightened awareness the state of consciousness that is enlightened awareness we have a very bold aspiration and that that bold desperation is to live in that state of consciousness that nothing is wrong that all things are possible all the time that's the goal that's what we want to work towards but not in a way that's that's deluded or pregnant with avoidance or denial in the spiritual experience this recognition of new beginnings it's part and parcel of the experience of a higher state of consciousness it's the experience of a higher state of consciousness it's the experience of a different plane a different and higher and deeper plane of reality itself and when we awaken to this higher plane of reality this higher plane of consciousness if we are if we're intelligent reflective people with intelligent reflective souls sensitive and paying attention to the nature of our experience we all know that life that the experience of life and the experience of being human it's so much more pleasing when we're not burdened with angst and fear and doubt and despair and brokenness and woundedness so brokenness wound is wounding us down in despair and the karmic the heavy karmic repercussions of those kinds of feelings and those kinds of uh wounds repeatedly give us a very different message and so if you can if you're convinced there's something fundamentally wrong because you feel wounded because you feel there's something fundamentally wrong with being alive it's something wrong with as i as i've often explained if you've been traumatized at some point in your life if you've experienced a deep wounding one that you have not healed from not have recovered from this what's called a core wound creates a conscious or unconscious belief system it's an unconscious or unconscious belief system and it's unconscious conscious or unconscious belief system because something like there's something fundamentally wrong with me and inadvertently almost every time we knowingly or unknowingly and usually it's unknowingly draw the conclusion that there's something wrong with life itself life sucks so to speak and it's usually it's understood from a relative point of view from a relative human point of view it's understandable if we've been hurt wounded or traumatized we've had a hard time and we're suffering it's reasonable to conclude that something is wrong with life itself very reasonable and understandable i'm not judging anybody i'm just trying to make a point and then then with the next step is of course if you think there's something wrong with life itself our relationship to life and to the experience of being human and the infinite creative and personal opportunities of being human will be viewed with doubt fear and suspicion we might end up being cynical about our own capacities to be happy and to succeed and to love and be loved and end up in a kind of free-floating cynicism and nihilism without even clearly understanding how we got there now the thing about the spiritual experience or the awakening to enlighten awareness the thing about the the big spiritual experiences is as i keep repeating we flip from relative consciousness and relative cognition relative reality to absolute consciousness absolute cognition and absolute reality we discover on these higher and deeper planes of conscious experience we discovered a couple of things one is that these higher and deeper planes of experience and realms and realms of reality we recognize that they feel palpably more real when you wake up to higher states of consciousness one of the hallmarks of these higher states that oh this is this has more this is about to be more real more authentic more fundamental more truthful and that's why the experience of these higher states of consciousness and the awakening line awareness is so liberating because in because when we experience these higher states of consciousness we experience liberation and a freedom from our darkest convictions about the nature of reality and the nature of human experience in our own woundedness suddenly we suddenly suddenly what we felt was insurmountable grief insurmountable fear insurmountable doubt he's replaced by what's felt to be a deeper and more authentic experience of consciousness and cognition than any of our other experience has ever been more inherently meaningful so when we live our life from this from a state of iron enlightenment from the perspective of relative reality relative consciousness and cognition we see the world through the through the lens of our woundedness and our fears in our doubts and our despair when we awaken to enlightened awareness we see the world through the lens of the awakened mind and the awakened heart and the awakened soul we see the human experience experience of consciousness and cognition the experience of mind body world and universe through a lens of liberated consciousness liberated knowing the experience of being alive and the experience of being human is very different the kind of decisions you're going to make if you think there's something fundamentally wrong with you you think there's something fundamentally wrong with life itself the kind of decisions you're going to make in relationships your life choices will be very different obviously and if you make choices and then if you make important and fundamental life choices from the perspective that nothing is wrong and then and then at the deepest level you're fundamentally free so from the perspective of enlightened awareness from the perspective of a life lived in pursuit of enlightened awareness a new beginning the state of new beginnings the experience of the experience of new beginnings is what we want to aspire to live in and from every single day sometimes it'll be easy er sometimes it'll be easier it's easy er it's easier to live the human experience your very own unique human experience from the perspective of new beginnings if you have access to that state of enlightened awareness directly and immediately it's that higher state of consciousness that makes us so immediate so palpable and so real and when we don't have access to this higher state of consciousness but we know what that our state of consciousness is and we know how important it is that we start to live our live our life in such a way we make that state more accessible to us so that's why for example in uh historically people have chosen to live a religious life alive infused with awakened awareness tend to live a life of greater discipline and greater self awareness so that's why for example meditating for long periods of time every day is a good idea because it helps us to gain access to absolute reality and absolute consciousness and absolute cognition if you're serious about it if you're really into if you're ready willing to to make that the noble effort to let go unconditionally absolutely and authentically every single day you'll start getting pretty good at it it's like wiping the slate clean wiping this leg clean wiping your face slightly in every day and it's why you'll start to make the effort to take care of yourself because you want to feel good you don't want to feel bad so you do things like exercise every day because if you exercise there's more oxygen running through your blood pumping through your blood you're gonna tend to feel more positive you will tend to trying to avoid addictive behaviors we're trying to avoid a relationship to life it'll pull you down into the mud the deep the deep and thick layers of mud of your own and our own inertia now inertia in my language i call the irrational refusal inertia is the experience of an irrational refusal and it's the very opposite the state of consciousness of inertia it's the very opposite it's the very opposite consciousness of new beginnings so inertia is what we all feel when the alarm goes off in the morning we don't want to get out of bed it's a big no to life no leave me alone that's when the worst part of ourselves says to the other to the others to the world and to life no leave me alone it's inherently and fundamentally unwholesome so inertia is how we feel when the alarm bell goes off we turn over we don't even get out of bed and nurses how we feel when we decide you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna exercise today because i don't feel like it inertia is how we feel when we eat too much i repeatedly over and over again eating too much too much food too much sex too much alcohol this fuels this is driven by inertia and it's fueled by inertia and it becomes a a self-perpetuating hole that we can get lost in when we allow ourselves to become lost in inertia we stop paying attention because we don't care and inertia is not just not caring but it's not caring about the fact that we don't care so the experience of inertia which is something we all are familiar with is the very opposite of the exhilarating feeling of a new beginning and as i was saying earlier in new beginning means nothing is wrong and all things are possible and inertia feels like everything is wrong and nothing is possible so what i want i'm trying to say here is that the conscious experience of new beginnings of a new beginning can be your experience every single day in one form or another but you're going to have to be willing to work for it some days it'll be it'll come easy some days it'll be free some days it'll just be there the minute you wake up in the morning and other days you might have to work for it but this is the state of consciousness that made that makes life worth living and may and and is what enlightenment is all about part and parcel of new beginnings has to do with the freedom from karma because when you when you when you begin to meditate or when you begin to wake up when you begin to experience higher states of consciousness you will discover parts of yourself that are inherently free inherently liberated unstuck inherently unstuck and unbounded and the parts of yourself that are inherently free and unstuck and unbounded are inherently free from karma also so when you when you begin to wake up deep when you begin to wake up at a very deep level you begin to have greater access to these deeper parts of yourself that are unscarred and untarnished and they are inherently already liberated from the very beginning always they don't need to be worked on or developed but that's their natural state of being is inherent liberation in a lot of the enlightenment teachings it's called awakened to the true self or an evolutionary enlightenment we also call it the authentic self and when you awaken to what's to call the true self or your own authentic self you'll have the shock and revelation of discovering a deeper and more authentic part of your own self that's never been hurt wounded or traumatized or victimized in any way even if your ego has been hurt wounded traumatized and victimized many times terribly and tragically and is still suffering greatly as a result when you awaken to your true self and your authentic self you will discover to your shock and surprise that your true self which you remember always feels more authentic and always feels more real has never been hurt wounded or dramatized and your authentic self in the same way has never been hurt wounded or traumatized so then you then you then you you realize and you directly experience the ecstasy and the inherent glory of your own liberated true self your own already liberated authentic self now i know this is hard to get if you haven't had the experience but this is remember this is an enlightenment context it's not a psychological context so i'm speaking about an experience of transcendence of a radical transcendence of the small self not avoidance of the small self i'm not speaking about spiritual bypassing but the point here to repeat and i can't repeat this enough is that when you awaken to undiscover a deeper part of your own self that you recognize to be more real more authentic more true than your ego ever has been and that part of yourself has never been heard wound and traumatized or victimized and is inherently free from fear and doubt and is inherently always vibrating with nothing is wrong and all things are possible and you gain more and more access to that part of yourself you can live you can live the state of consciousness of new beginnings every single day as i said sometimes it'll come easy spontaneously naturally and effortlessly and other times you may have to work for it god forbid but this is the miracle of enlightenment and awakening to enlightened awareness and it's a miracle that not enough people know about because while a big part of living a spiritual life in earnest has to do with work hard hard spiritual work working on ourselves and training ourselves to be a more conscious person which is part and parcel of living the spiritual life and earnest is always all is all about still if we have this experience of of awakening to and discovering a part of ourself that has never been hurt wounded or dramatized and that is inherently free and that is and that is even more importantly more real and more authentic and the smallest than the part of ourselves that has been heard wounded and traumatized could ever be this this will inspire us to no end to want to do all the spiritual work we need to do to gain permanent access to this deeper and more authentic part of our own self it will become much easier for us to work for our own liberation to work for our own enlightenment if we have a taste of what it actually is rather than having to take somebody else's word for it and not having any idea what it's all about so once again if you actually have a taste or direct experience of enlightenment yourself if you're affording the possibility of awakening to your own true self your own authentic self and experience its own inherently liberated nature they provide and the inherent profanity of that and the miracle of that that will inspire you to know and to do any spiritual work that's necessary to straighten yourself out and to clean yourself up because just because you awaken to your true self and your authentic self that doesn't mean your karma is going to disappear but it means that you will awaken to a part of yourself that is free from your own karma it doesn't mean the karma disappears you still have to do the work that we all have to do to free ourselves from karma that doesn't go away the work needs to be done but you'll be much more willing to do the very hard work to liberate yourself from the karmic bonds from the past so your true self has never been hurt wounded traumatized or victimized your authentic self has never been hurt wounded and traumatized and victimized the true self is always inherently free your authentic self is already always already inherently free and a big part of the work is getting to know that part of your own self intimately and not only getting to know it intimately but choosing choosing to give your authent your true self and your authentic self greater hierarchical value or importance in your life i choose to give the significance of my true self i choose to give the significance of my authentic self and their inherently liberated nature more significance then i'm going to give my the story of my ego and it's suffering i'm not going to deny it i'm going to have compassion for myself and others and i'm going to do all the work i need to do to free myself from that suffering that's no longer going to be put on my altar as the most important part of my life because when we and that's why i keep repeating when we endeavor to live the spiritual life in earnest we make that fundamental shift from relative reality to absolute reality relative truth absolute truth relative consciousness absolute consciousness relative cognition thompson cognition that means you're living for to put in a mythical religious language it means now i'm living for god so if we want to if we feel this absolute this absolute metaphysical principle it's the source of liberation and the source of truth then we have to we have to give it more significance not as a way to avoid anything about relative reality relative truth and relative the relative the infinite relative challenges of human existence but we want to embrace the human experience in all in all its infinite challenges from the vantage point of highest absolute spirit that we aspire to that to be our vantage point it's where we want to endeavor to engage with the human experience from however imperfectly we're going to do that that way that would be our aspiration it seems it's a high and noble aspiration it's a very particular and very specific one it's one in which we're giving heaven a little bit more significance and relevance and reality than we are earth so the experience of this is the experience of new beginnings the the consciousness of new beginnings is always found in heaven itself now that doesn't mean on earth that nothing is wrong and all things are possible but but understand that the idea here is that if you if you have access to the consciousness to this highest state of consciousness that comes from having access to heaven that nothing is wrong with all things are possible and then you bring that conviction that ins that awaken an inspired spiritual conviction with you and through you as you embrace the inherent challenges of being a human being an imperfect human being in a fractured world then you will bring you'll bring you'll bring light and hope and love and passion and compassion down into this world through your imperfect vehicle what we want to do in a teaching like this which is so inspired by an integral perspective an integral philosophy is we want to embrace it all but we want it all to be informed by the highest principle first and foremost we want to give the highest principle the greatest significance hierarchically as we put this picture together and learn how to relate in the most spiritually enlightened way as we understand it to the overwhelming complexity and challenge of being human in a fractured world you