New Beginnings January 1st 2023

hello everybody nice to see you all happy New Year so as I was thinking tonight about this talk about New Beginnings the obvious dawned on me and the obvious that which is obvious was that there's no such thing as new beginnings it's kind of completely obvious but I wasn't really thinking about that when I was thinking about this talk and about 20 minutes ago I realized that the idea of a new beginning is kind of a it's a kind of an existential fallacy such things don't exist because when we wake up to higher States Of Consciousness and we experience deep and liberating insights into the nature of reality when we begin to look more closely at what what we're actually involved in here Who We Are who we are where we are what's going on here when we begin to wake up the fundamental truth that begins to Dawn on us is that whatever it is that we are which is a very challenging question but whatever it is that we are is obviously part of a continuity so whoever we are whatever we are something we can discuss but um whatever it is that we find we're going to discover as part of a continuity continuity and unbroken continuity from the beginning of time and who knows who who knows if time really had a beginning anyway and if time has a beginning when did when did when did that beginning start when the idea to create the universe first arose as a thought in the mind of God was at the beginning so in speaking about New Beginnings I wanted to just say the obvious and I wanted us to be good to to dwell upon the obvious for a minute or two and face the the harsh irreconcilable truth they were part of a a continuity a process it's very complex and intricate and evolving that has no beginning or if it if it did have a beginning if the Big Bang was the beginning of the greater process which many people believed it was that only happened once and in terms of the challenge that our egos are facing with our regrets and our sins and our disappointments and our frustrations you know in our humiliations and our wishing we could do it all over again when our ego is writhing in humiliation and frustration we all want a clean slate and the truth that the awakened mind reveals to us is that there's no such thing as a clean slate because karma is multi-dimensional and has multi-dimensional and the karmic momentum which is what biologist Richard calls Cosmic habits go all the way up and all the way down the spectrum of consciousness and as they say Mariana Buddhism as the Dalai Lama's likes to repeat it's a law of dependent origination and a lot of dependent origination tells us that everything that exists is dependent upon everything else that exists and nothing exists independently or in isolation to everything else That's the Law of dependent energy origination and he said in an interview that we did with him he defined ego as the ignorant belief in what he called independent self-existence which he says is an illusion doesn't it doesn't exist so I think if we want to be big-minded and big-hearted about this if we want to if we want to be spiritually courageous and audacious and um honest well and authentically well-meaning and sincere what a novel idea and sincere then um and we have to muster up a lot of Courage because um we're all on a moving train and we're not separate from the moving train every Every Act the reaction that we perform it helps to give helps to create and give rise to more dimensions of this moving train so we're already involved deeply involved in ways that we can't even begin to imagine in this process on this moving train that's in progress so this Pro this process that we're all part and parcel of is in progress on many levels that we can see in so many levels that we can't see and that's the truth and it can't be stopped the process is is well well in progress and it's it's very complex and what we falsely imagine to be merely our personal karma is our part and parcel of this complex multi-dimensional process that's unfolding all around us and within us so if we can't wipe this if we can't wipe this light clean on New Year's Eve to start all over again and we only we only have one other option which is to um muster up the courage and the spiritual wherewithal to to jump right into the center of it all to to have the courage to try and take as much responsibility for the reality of our karmic circumstances and as many levels as possible all at the same time It's actually an impossible task because there's so much that we have to be willing to embrace to come to terms with is to take responsibility for it to inspire and transform it's uh it's the I suppose it's the attitude of the intention of the awaken bodhisattva it's uh we have to awaken to kind of an unthinkable degree of heroic their heroism because it takes a lot of courage to stop avoiding the truth and the truth is there's no way back and there's no starting over ever in 10 minutes it's just going to be 10 minutes later or in 10 years it's going to be 10 years later but there's no way to what there's no way there's no way to wind back the clock and to start all over again the complexity of karma keeps unfolding and building upon itself so we have to instead find the find the spiritual strength to be a great person and to do great things in the midst of unconditionally accepting the totality of our Karma predicament not in any way trying to deny or avoid our mistakes or in our shortcomings and our failures realizing that we're all works in progress we're all on this journey together Nobody's Perfect so it's the what we need to let go of or transcend is our refusal to accept totality of reality that we find ourselves in the midst of and it's is this is this karmic refusal it's this reluctance embrace the totality of the complexity of the picture that we find ourselves in the midst of and of course our resistance is understandable because it's just overwhelming it's terrifying for a mortal soul to be able to glimpse the enormity of the complexity of the predicament that we're all in individually and collectively and because a big part of this realization is that the only person who can change is to change the situation and make things better is you and me Here and Now yeah so we have to embrace a level of aloneness in this heroic Endeavor that is terrifying and overwhelming and we have to accept a degree of the vulnerability that's terrifying and overwhelming and a degree of courage that's terrifying and overwhelming together I don't know anything's going to change unless we're willing to go that far but that's kind of what it takes so just realizing that there's no such thing as a new beginning every every moment that passes is building upon the moment that came before and all the moments that came before that and all the moments that came before that and all the moments that came before that and all the moments that came before that so this this train left the station a long time ago and it's not just there's no there's no way I can start over so can we bear can we spiritually emotionally psychologically can we bear that unbearable truth that there's no way back there's no way to start over there's no way to get a second chance or or the other way to look at it is that is that the second chance that we're hoping and praying for exists always exists inherent in the present moment in our next in our in the next choice that we make so the second chance at the second chance comes as a result of Our Own position that we take in relationship to the the night this moment and the next moment that's coming that's where the second chance exists not something that anybody can give to us as I can say is your second chance kiddo never gonna happen so the second chance I in the way that I think about it has to do with Awakening too maturity of becoming a real a real adult growing up and realizing that there's no such thing as as a second chance and then we have to stop resisting the fact that this is it and this moment is always it and always has been it and it's always going to be it and always wanted things to be a little bit better or if you wanted to escape from what we find challenging or those all the things that make us feel so uncomfortable in LEDs that this is the moment baby for all of us so this is the moment that we have to step forward as the enlightened one enlightened ones so what does it look like to be enlightened in the midst of all these complexities and such overwhelming obligations to be responsible if you want to know the answer to that question you should go look in the mirror as terrifying as that is you're it I'm in Europe and we're all in it there's nobody out there that's going to do this for us there's nobody up there or down there or anywhere else that's going to do this for us we we're the ones have to step forward and be the only one that there could be to take responsibility for all this so I think the new beginning is really Awakening to a level of maturity and spiritual maturity and dignity self-respect and responsibility for for life and for truth and for Spirit that's overwhelming that's the big new beginning but it's not a starting over it's it's a it's a it's a it's embracing responsibility it's embracing the very responsibility that we've been avoiding for God knows how many lifetimes that's the beginning of there to be any other very different relationship to life and that's what I think the to speak metaphorically that's what the energy and intelligence that created the universe is we could say hoping for that's what she's waiting for and hoping for in all of us when will he or she be ready to take responsibility for all of this and and I believe that until we are willing to take that kind of responsibility she is helpless because at a certain point the at a certain point the the wheel are the The Guiding hands of this of his creative unfolding to descends out of the sky and falls and falls upon all of us so we have to be willing to become stars in this movie yeah you have to be willing to be counted and to be bear witness take responsibility so a big part of embracing a liberated position relationship to life is giving up the whole idea of a new beginning I was taking off like a big bag you're carrying on your back just take it off and leave it behind you'll find yourself very much in the midst of a process it's been unfollowing for a long time and it will continue to unfold well into the future but we're not we're not seeing we're not thinking about it in the foolish way anymore so that's the first thought I wanted to share and it's important and it's not just important for you or for me it's important for all of us Embrace this kind of maturity you know when we think about this the when we think about the infinite nature of this Con this Cosmic evolving continuity they were all part and parcel love it's very difficult to think about beginnings and endings because beginnings and endings are only are relative distinctions that don't ultimately have any meaning because every every relative beginning and every relative ending is part of a larger continuity it's truly Unbroken in relationship to anything and everything in life it just it just makes the ego feel better I think you get a second chance but it's a fallacy everybody it's a complete fallacy just it's just not real for example if you let's say you get remarried and so you've been you've been married and you got divorced and now you're giving in another shot you can't say that's a new beginning because your relationship to being married a second time is going to have everything to do with what happened when you were married the first time and you can't separate those two events the first your first experience will have a large large positive and or negative influence on just on the second and second round like everything else in life everything that exists is part of everything else that exists and the enlightened perspective is is what I like to move work out to process perspective in which we become more and more aware of this continuity and try to reflect on this the reality of this Cosmic continuity that we all are part of our love and expression of in relationship to all things gross and subtle it'll help you quite a bit it helps us not to feel so victimized by difficulty and by hardship doesn't mean it doesn't mean being human is Easy by any stretching imagination I'm not trying to say that have come more to appreciate what the buddhistoric Noble Truth was that the that in life there is suffering where life is suffering I appreciate it now more than I ever did before but the more we can become aware of this Cosmic continuity that is the ultimate context for everything that we experience and everything that we see we'll be able to see everything that happens gross and subtle more and more in the context of this Cosmic unfolding metabolism this is very very helpful seeing context and being aware of context is what liberates us and gives us spiritual soulless and spiritual strength it helps us not to take this or that particular event as soon as seriously and thankfully as we thankfully as we might otherwise everything that exists is part of everything else that exists it's part of everything else that exists as part of everything else that exists and everything affects everything else and because everything that everything that we do affects everything else this is why our actions and their motivations find interactions are so important so there's no such thing as a new beginning but this is the good news about enlightenment that the great realizers discovered that there is a that in the when we experience higher states of consciousness of some of the highest states of consciousness when the ego Falls away we realize that there is a Deeper Self sense it's a deeper Unity for me it exists as a foundation of all of our all of our experience in every moment even though in our ignorance we're living remain largely unconscious of it but when we awake into this deeper dimension of self called the true self for example the ground of being as Echo Charlie would refer to it or the true self refers to it as D self when you awaken to the D self as your own self you realize in a very profound way that in fact Who You Are is eternal unborn and undying and infinite birthless and deathless and eternally free from the products of time and anything and anything and everything that happens in time so when you awaken to your true self you realize that you have always been free that's not a small thing nothing bigger can possibly happen to you in a human life and then the realization of the true self especially if it's a a deep and abiding realization of the true self so can we say that the Awakening to the true self is a new beginning not really because when you awaken to the true self you you simultaneously recognize as many everybody says when they have an experience of their own true self they only say but I've always known this when they become conscious when they emerge from the stupor of unconsciousness when you awaken into the true self to the ground of their own being now we say oh but I've always known this and there's the experience a state of remembrance they remember who they really are I remember who I really am I'm not the I'm not the ego I am the true self and I always have been I just forgot but that's not a new beginning because you in that in that in that Awakening there's a realization I've always known this if you say I've always known this that means there's no beginning to this realization I've always known this and of course in The Awakening to the true self there is the recognition that the ground of being which is the synonymous with the true self is an eternal ground because the record is the Awakening during the recognition of Eternity so you went that's when you realize that my my own self I am eternal the truth of who I am as a cell that's an i is truly synonymous with eternity this is what I'm describing as an experience it's not an intellectual reflection so when you awaken to the Eternal nature of your own true self you realize this has always been the case so it's not a new beginning to waking up waking up is not a new beginning it's remembering the truth we most people forget the lost sight of so there's no beginning new beginnings of Enlightenment either and then with the Awakening to what I call the authentic self which we orbital I think we like to call this psychic being that's when we wake up to the momentum of evolution that we realized that this evolutionary impulse if the impulse to about the the ecstatic nature of the impulse to evolve is authentically the best part of me and the best part of you it's a part of me that feels thoroughly positive and so deeply inspired about being here in this world I want to exist I want to exist what a novel idea I want to be here I want to exist life is good life gives me the opportunity to to to to to exist in a context in which I can creatively participate in the adventure of evolution that that experience is an experienced a pure creative inspiration and pure positivity it's a pure positivity that's totally overwhelming there's no Neurosis there there's no self-doubt there's no fear there's just pure inspiration purely positive pure inspiration so when you have when you have the experience that I am as my own authentic self is pure inspiration pure positivity it's a good thing this note in that in that state of consciousness there's no doubt there's no ambivalence about being here or about or there's no struggling with the existential question about whether life is good or worth living because you in that state you have no doubt because you know who you are you are the evolutionary process itself Awakening to itself through the body of Mind personality of your very own self once again it's not a new beginning because you realize you've always been that you just forgot lost touch with it that's why it's waking up you can only wake up if you've fallen asleep you know people say I fell asleep it means that you used to be conscious you used to be awake and then you fell asleep you lost touch but even then there's no uh it's no new beginning you're carrying on with the work with the work that's been happening all along so the so the most important truth here as I've been saying is that there is a continuity that reality is part and parcel of a continuity gross and subtle that is Unbroken and all we need to do if we want to wake up in a profound way the liberating nature of Enlightenment is to not resist this truth it's through ego's resistance that's that's the painful part of all this the ego does not want to be without responsible and their ego does not want there to be does not want to be done alive the eagle likes to experience life in small bites bites that species that we can condense it thinks it can control which is a fallacy anyway so a big part of the waking up process is to ceasing to resist foreign stopped resisting wow that's a new beginning uh so yeah I hope you try you can get the point of what I'm saying is that from one side of all this is that we have to take our feet off the brakes and stop trying to control everything for the wrong reasons because we want to try and survive all this unscathed you'll never survive the Sunscape nobody does and no one ever will so if you don't want to survive on Skate then you have spiritual strain because then you're here to make a mark you're here to do something you're here to be your truth and authentic self with everything that you've got what a novel idea I'm here to make a difference why because someone's got to do it and the beautiful thing about non-duality is that um in vidante they say that the the highest truth is that there's only one and not two and I am and you are and we all are that one without a second so therefore I always like to ask people do you believe that that's true if you're a true Seeker you know all true Seekers say oh yes and I believe that I say do you believe that you're the only one that you know the only one that there is that when you hear the words these these foundational teachings of vedanta that there's only one and not two do you believe that yes I believe it do you believe you are that one without a second yes I believe it so then logically I had to follow up and say well therefore who could have possibly decided to create the universe except you since you're the only one to do this and then there's a little bit of a shock so it's just stopping to resist the implications of the immensity of Enlightenment when we awaken these truths that we awaken to it's it's Having the courage to not resist the implications of these truths is where we find a real maturity a real human dignity and spiritual power but very few people want to be that free and if you can find that kind of Courage because it ain't a joke to wake up and also as I've been saying for a long time you should really wake up in the way I'm describing it'll it'll shake up your life whatever the status quo is for you or has been will be rocked like crazy the deepest realizes did not compromise they lived a realization however perfectly they let the realization with a bold spiritual self-confidence that cared not what people thought it takes guts it's not easy because the realization itself the realization of Consciousness itself if you allow it to touch your soul will call you out and then suddenly the quit and then the question you have to you have to wrestle with as well if I am both the uncreated and The Unborn and also the evolutionary impulse what kind of impact is that going to have them on the way I've been socialized on my superego on the conventional ways of thinking about self and other and life and culture and community an obligation and meaning and purpose it's going to shake it all up shake it like crazy that's when people get scared I don't know who I am anymore that's the whole idea and you see when I think about this idea of there being no new beginnings even as I'm speaking to all of you and I think about this idea of know that they're being known in a beginning site I get it I get these bare glimpses of the continuity that I'm fatigue I'm referring to which transcend includes everything that we can see to smell taste and touch and everything that we have experienced and everything we can talk about and infinitely more than that it's all here right now so we have to be willing to allow ourselves I believe to be swept away by these big truths and do everything we can to honor them and it's honoring these truths it's the most important thing I think in terms of living spiritual life it's not to get something for ourselves but it's to honor these biggest truths to stand for them to be reflections of them to the best of our ability and if you can accept that there's no such thing as a new beginning then you can be in a position to come to terms with the past maybe for the first time things could have worked out differently they would have but they didn't so they are as they are and if we could have done things differently we would have but we didn't because we did the best we could but now we can do better you know why because we have so much more experience those are so much more enlightened because we learn so much we've become so wise and so so sincere so now there can be a new beginning I guess we could say but it's not a new beginning that's given to us by higher power or some kind of super being it's a new beginning that we give to life because we stop resisting because we're taking so much responsibility for what light what it means to be alive what it means to be conscious so we ourselves become the bestower of the great gift of the new beginning onto our very own South and as many others as possible as many others as we can and just following on from all this I've said most of what I I didn't intend to say most of what I said tonight even really know what I was going to say but um what we want to learn how to do is we want to learn how to be our best self as much of the time as possible you don't want to just have a good moment on a good day in a good week and a good month and a good year but we want to be able to be our best self a good deal of the time if not all the time might be a bit much because we're all human and imperfect and trail of times but we want to learn how to make the effort to be our best sell a lot more often and I've noticed that what helps a lot of people be their best self is the recognition that there's an obligation to do so not because you feel like it not because you think it's a good idea because you know you have no choice because you feel obligated by Consciousness itself to be your best self in front of your maker in front of your friends your family in front of people you know in front of people you don't know we want to try not to give ourselves an excuse to be less than our best self for each other and that just comes from care it still comes from really caring not being being unselfish if you're selfish it means you don't care and if you're unselfish it means you do care and I much prefer to be the people who do care genuinely sincerely authentically and people who really don't it's caring which then makes us human awakens our Humanity our deeply man it's the most important thing and caring in the sense means caring about depth authenticity meaning purpose integrity what's real what's true and what's important more than anything else it means you're not playing games anymore with your life with other people's lives it means you know this counts and you're in for you're into the Long Haul you know there's no Second Chances in our new beginnings right it's easy to be nihilistic and it's easy to relativize anything and everything but I think if we do that we're just copping out hiding from the enormity of the implications of being awake and having to be responsible for the greatest good and all our imperfections