Best Wishes in the Coming Year:

This one foot in…one foot out…is a hard place to be.

I have experienced enough Silence, with enough stability to know beyond any doubt, that the fiction that we imagine ourselves to be is nothing more than a constant parade of created thoughts… held in place by habit, overuse, and spitballs."

More than this, because the thoughts I do have, now come to me in such a slowed down, slow motion sort of way, I can tell that they arise from some place beyond this place, to which I do not have access.  They are attracted to me by rote memory and old habit.  They are not “mine” in any sense of the word, save their habitual nature.

Most of them are entirely useless, but some are designed specifically to put me back to sleep and thereby to render me useless to myself, and, not-to-put-to-fine-a-point-on-it, all of humanity.  Now don’t misunderstand me…I do not think of myself, in any way, as a necessary component to humanity, other than the fact that I am breathing.  But: truth be told: most folk do believe their thoughts in the entire, and never once even suspicion that those thoughts may be utterly without ground beneath them.

Thus a person who has come to undeniably know, not in a conceptual way, but in a mud between your toes kind of way…that thoughts are not personal in any form, not “mine” nor “yours”, but just things that float around impersonal like, and get stuck between your teeth like a poppy seed, is a person equipped for escape velocity.

These days that escape is all I want.

I can’t figure out what to do with myself, in the main, because everything I still “want” is something I cannot force into being.  It is something that is bestowed or not, by some other circumstance than the one I find myself in.  A Gift of freedom, that is not for the taking, but only for the receiving.

My thoughts can no longer get me emotionally involved.  Already gone is any lingering doubt, that they are anything other, than the purest of fiction.   Not that thought is somehow wrong or inappropriate, without thinking nothing in the world could be communicated or created.  But those type of thoughts are few and very far between.  The thinking that names itself, by the name on your birth certificate, is a function of habit only and the source of all suffering.

My new Teacher has a lot to say about the end of the “personal will”.

He describes how: when liberation – constant and stable – has been gifted to you, that the personal will drops away.  I did not fully understand that notion until now.  The egoic mind is based entirely upon aversion and desire, what you like and what you don’t like.  All activity that could be defined or described as born of one’s will, is born out of the scorching need to move away from something that one wishes to avoid, or the equally scorching need to move toward something one wishes to have and hold.

When the egoic mind begins to dissolve, all aversion and desire goes with it, thus all motivations that could be described, as sourcing out of the personal will also ebb away.  He says quite directly that the personal will dies with the personal self.

I am on the cusp of that…on the skinny razor’s edge…of having no personal will.

The number of times that I am driven to action to avoid something, or to lay claim to it, are dwindling each and every day.  It is a strange and somewhat scary place to be.  Thus my “one foot in, one foot out” dosey doe, a circumstance I would change if I could.

I look forward to being without aversion and desire…they are exhausting, debilitating, and deeply disturbing fellow travelers.  High on the one hand, low and painful on the other – they require too much of us, and do so, without our conscious permission.  In that way, they are like soul eaters, constantly nibbling at our flesh and honing the skills necessary to keep us trapped and in bondage for all the days of our lives.

Laying them down, heavy as they are, threatens us with the notion that we might just float away into the heavens…never to be seen or heard from, ever again.

But enough exposure to the Silence Within as made it possible for me to trust, in the deep marrow of my bone, that putting them down is the last step before freedom’s doors open their gates to me.

Despite the fact that it is a step that I cannot take, by virtue of the aforementioned personal will, (owing to the aversion/desire paradox), I can continue to make myself ready for Grace through the medium of development of true humility.

True humility, is not the simple posturing of clothing oneself in the lookalike garb of the beatified among us.  True humility is the capacity and the willingness to recognize that we not only know nothing at all…but more accurately we cannot know anything.

We can measure everything to the sun and back; we can bend the laws of nature – despite the fact that we haven’t the foggiest notion what they really are – to our desires and even to our whims.  But not one of us, living or dead, knows a thing about what is really True and really real.  All we can know is that life experienced without the veil of the poverty of the thinking mind, is the most restful and healing place imaginable.  That is what we can know.  And nothing else.

Best Wishes in the Coming Year:

Adayre Ronni Miller

12/29/13

12/24/13

I have finally arrived at the end of wanting spiritual enlightenment for something other than Itself.

It has taken a lifetime to arrive here…

You might not think it much of an accomplishment to spend 40 years attempting such an outcome, if I had known what real Awakening was, I perhaps, may never have embarked on this long and singular adventure.

All the years of dedication, I come now to know, were covered over with the oily film of what Waking Up would do for me, how it would lift me up, set me on high, and make those around me, see me as special and unique.

Now, I want only to complete the transcendence of the personal self, not for what it will do for the me that does not exist…but rather for what it might mean to the sentient life around me.

Today I gave away all the remnants of a life spent in the pursuit of recognition.  I took to Goodwill all that once spoke of a woman who needed desperately to be seen, loved, wanted, and cared about.

My furniture is piled in a haphazard pile in the middle of my living room floor as I seek to find a simplicity that I have never before been interested in.  I want all aspects of my life, from my home, to my clothes, to my very existence to vibrate to the simplicity of life at the cellular level.

I want only to play host to a purified consciousness…rid of the needs of the mind driven by aversion and desire.  No longer locked in the useless seeking urgency of goals and outcomes, I wish only for peace, calmness, purification, contemplation, and singularity.

These are not things that I can make happen, I understand now that only humility will invite the deepest forms of Grace.  I await you Oh Lord, no longer searching, no longer beseeching, no longer willful.

The gratitude I feel for having lived long enough to see this day is beyond expression.

Christmas 2013

An End to Struggle…

 

As I continue moving toward the dissolution of self… I realize that all that I had thought was true; in the moments where I have had a foretaste of the end of the personal self was in fact delusion.

I now seem quite stuck.

I feel a great push toward the ultimate release, of shedding the personal self in all its forms…and yet…I recognize, quite acutely, that there is nothing that can be done to pry open that door.

I have brought myself to the edge, positioned myself for the great yawning leap, been more than willing to follow my Beloved Teacher’s example into the void, but now, I understand, that it is a grace that cannot be negotiated.

I have drawn the comparison, once before, of Moses standing just outside the Promised Land and being refused entry.  That is exactly how I feel.  I would not go backwards into the full embrace of the empty illusion of a self, for any reason whatsoever.  Yet I cannot take myself into the “Land of Milk and Honey”, as that final step is not a choice that can be made, but rather is a gift that must be received.

That paradox elicits in me a spark of the desire to return to struggle.

Struggle was the crucible out of which my personality, and illusion of self was born.  I struggled with loneliness, fear, terror, sadness, emptiness, horror, ugliness, lovelessness, self-hatred, self-loathing, and so much more…that it cannot be catalogued.

But behind all of the symptoms was the muscle bound instinct to struggle.

Here…at the door…struggle has all but left my life.  I do not struggle with any aspect of my life. 

I realized just how true that had become, when a helpful elderly woman described for me how I could lose the weight that I carry by doing this thing and that, and how much better my life would be if I lost the weight she saw as a problem.  As I listened to her, I realized that my obesity no longer has meaning for me.  Further, that all the many things I use to struggle with – no longer have meaning for me.

It is just that simple.

My, judged by the outer world, problems hold no meaning for me…

That is the very best thing I could say about the value of becoming willing to surrender the notion of a personal self.  By the world’s standards, I have a good many problems: work that is entirely without creativity, obesity, poverty line income, blooming health issues, no friendships, no family…and none of that…has any meaning for me.  Primarily because I do not struggle against them, with them, or for their demise or change…I merely watch and am aware.

I assume that the true falling away of the personal self, will provide even more release than I am currently enjoying, even more freedom from the horror of living by wanting.  I wish that for myself and for all of humanity…

I will ignore the desire to return to struggle.  I will be patient, silent, still, and unmoving in the face of that desire.  I submit myself to Humility so that I may have the chance to return to full Sanity…and I am forever and always grateful beyond measure.

Adayre R. Miller

Navigating the Unknowable…

I have for a long time now, been free of the notion that the “I” that inhabits my life is the one born of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. 

Having fully and completely embraced the fear, that kept me from the discovery that there is no personal self, it has liberated me to a degree that I would not have imagined possible in my early years.

But it does not hold.

Under significant stress or the experience of rejection, (which is my most vulnerable Achilles heel), the center reasserts itself and I am once more a personal self…with all the concomitant woes and fevers.

A small, separated, and disturbed “person”.

I know this was not true of my Beloved Teacher and I know it is not true of my current teacher.  For them the transcendence of the self, became a permanent and wholly complete dropping away of the self, a condition that serves all of humanity in the most elegant, refined, inclusive, and profoundly beautiful way.

It was precisely the fact that my Beloved Teacher was not possessed of a personal self that made him so incredibly alluring.  His calm in the face of any and all circumstances, his astonishing and piercing consciousness that seemed to be capable of looking straight into the depth of my soul, was born of the unalterable fact that he had released all forms of the personal self, and stood, naked and pristine clothed in the glory of the All…rather than the petty concerns and anxieties of the “self”.

Having transcended the personal self enough to know that it does not exist, I have seen the horizon, felt its indefinable majesty, and my heart has sung to its heavenly tune.   But now, I have come to know that transcendence is not nearly enough…it is a temporary look, a small foretaste…it is Moses stopped at the border and only capable of viewing the promised land from afar.

I am much to mature now, to believe for even a moment that there is something I can “do”, some strategy to apply, that will make it possible for me to step cleanly and forever, beyond the dark illusions of the personal self.

And I have been grieving for some time now that certain knowledge.

Sadness and sorrow have engulfed me, as I have slowly freed myself from the idea that I can orchestrate the release of the personal self, a condition that had me holding on even as I was trying to let go.

I do not want what others around me want.  I do not value what others around me value.  I cannot speak to a single soul of the process I am going through.  My Beloved Teacher is dead, and my current teacher is not accessible to me as he lives on the west coast. 

So I travel alone, attempting to shed the desire to control the outcome and to await the “second coming”. 

I am so much clearer now of why my Beloved Teacher spoke so often of how the path of liberation was so utterly solitary, why Krishnamurti proclaimed that no group on earth could be joined, that would promote the liberation that I have fixed my sights upon.

It is not that groups are not available, as they have been for all time.  A truly liberated soul is such a majestic and astonishing appearance that, that One will draw others from around the globe.  But rather, it is that once transcendence has been tasted, however fleeting that might be, then the journey can be nothing other than entirely singular.

I count myself deeply blessed that I have left behind the notion that there is something that can be done, accomplished, or achieved, that will liberate me and allow the freedom I know is available to enter my life.  I no longer, even for a moment, believe the spiritual marketplace all of which offer fools gold in the place of real value.  Gone is my desire to seek the artificial glow of recognition, and in its place is a true willingness to surrender all and everything, for the hope that I might travel the last few feet and cross over into the promised land of non-localized Beingness.

As the Bible so clearly states it…”I know of myself I can do nothing, but the Christ within can do all.” 

It is an entirely misunderstood notion that the “All” is a pouring forth of whatever the current culture deems desirable.  Money, fame, achievement…pure nonsense…the “All” of which the Bible speaks, is the return home of the lonely soul who imagines themselves a “self” with all its unachievable desires, needs, hopes, and dreams.

Liberation is possible.

I can only hope that I have purified my”self” enough that I might experience it in this lifetime.  That I might breathe the free air of a soul so alive, that selfish desires no longer enter to disturb the peace that passeth all understanding.

Adayre R. Miller

10/28/13

photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Rehan Shaik, to see more of this artist work please follow this link…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23118467@N08/3295006874/in/photolist-62aLKm-7DTnsZ-8JViZ9-4aXy1q-5SVE8N-4QidtG-8c6RWi-7sjmiG-2beCk-6go5ic-8sk9Tz-f89Nr-26E1Q3-dcm7pR-ahY6qU-drXoeb-5ypM4M-gpHtZS-a7mrKg-9z9ugV-aTcDTt-521hkq-9wyNxA-FQ5AD-3dKHiy-5SwSVp-8viNKT-d75MQu-ahLtHE-c68pPG-c68pNm-8kRGWj-8kRHcu-8kNu3t-dkScyx-55fNt2-bFVUsk-aeXwWQ-dp7KhN-gTjLHj-bfAe36-bUvHWF-aeraty-8hzQVn-8hD6zh-8hD6C7-4LbhFf-bfAdxn-dxAhit-7Pi4BG-gcN4W2#

All There Is To Know...

I am including this lesson from my Beloved Teacher in its entirety.  Here is the how and why of his genius, and an example of the depth of his being.  He did not teach "how to get what you want from life" rather, he taught how you can become a being of such depth, that "getting what you want" no longer enters into the days of your life.  To live in this manner is to bring value to the entire Universe simply because you are breathing...

A student once asked George,

"What is compassion?"  He responded, "Compassion is creating peace in every situation."

This response confused the student. "Doesn't compassion have to do with love?", he asked.  

George paused for a moment.  With a twinkle in his eye he stated, "Compassion is higher than love."  He waited a moment to let these words sink in.  He then continued on, "It has been said that when all the shortcomings of love are removed, it becomes compassion."

"What shortcomings do you speak of?" replied the student.

George sat back in his chair.  With a deep breath and a smile on his face, he said, "Love has limitations.  But compassion has no limitations.  Compassion has been called the ultimate essence, the harmony of harmonies.  Love is not so noble.  It is possible to love one more than another.  It is possible to love one and hate another.  It is possible to love a part of one thing but not all of it.  It is possible to love in our own self-interest, for our loved ones, our family, our nation.  It is possible to love because we are loved.  This is Love's limitation."

George continued,"Compassion is a law, not an attribute.  It is not an attitude.  It has no relationship with affection, sentiment or empathy.  Compassion takes no position.  It is partial to nothing.  It is ALL for everyone."


George remained silent and allowed the student to think.  After a few moments, the student spoke.  "If compassion takes no position, this creates balance and peace.  Is this correct?" he asked.


George nodded.  "By creating peace in every situation you heal everything you touch.  In time, peace will follow you, and you will heal without touching.  That is compassion.  No books or schools are needed for compassion.  All there is to know comes to you naturally, from the soul."

 George Addair

photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Stefan Reichsteiner to see more of this artist's work please follow this link:
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/61168120@N00/3210104677/in/photolist-5TEChn-7Yxc4N-4AcCwZ-9fDk2i-aGJx2Z-4PwwLg-6phwgj-7YtX6P-7Yxc6C-316uk1-9paVKc-efNfHY-cZ8A1d-68R8Kp-8z39cS-2eM7Cu-97P4hu-6CTmzw-8JcVjL-8J9Csn-8JcvTb-8JctGd-8J9mMr-6pdnWT-4com2P-59AGZM-ccuaQs-9GLebX-aoMmRf-dBiSw7-8oM6fH-5PWESD-i8NeG-9GwAD9-6dhzrn-8z38LQ-5XSuXv-55fbhg-8ADxLg-2PRN1v-6DhexK-9YRgKu-3ptqdx-7115oa-Nc61L-amGpwH-c5fLtY-5Stk8f-guqv3-ctCrKu-98QKhd#

A Life Well Used…

 

I wanted to share an experience that has been happening to me, more and more often.

It begins in my heart and surges upward as a feeling tone that soon surrounds and engulfs my entire being.  It isn’t until it reaches my brain that I can name it and it always comes with deep tears, and soft mewling sounds issuing from my throat.

Its name is gratitude.

When my brain becomes engaged and wishes to describe for me this up swelling of deep appreciation, it always carries with it my Beloved Teachers name.  Gone now for a year, his effect on my life will live until my last breath is taken…and likely long after that…

My gratitude is for the fact that I could not have imagined what my life would be like now, just weeks before my 58^th year begins, given the intense suffering that characterized all of my days until I was nearly 40.  Nothing outwardly has changed at all.  I still make just enough money to meet my bills and not a penny more, I am still obese, and I still live a life that is singularly alone, but not at all lonely.

So why, you might be wondering, should I be so gosh darn grateful for a life that most people struggle greatly with…(nearly broke, fat, and friendless)…

It is because the silence of mind, that began just a few years ago, is growing, stabilizing, and deepening.  With that silence comes control over the speaking portion of my brain that I once imagined was me.

Old, tired, useless habits of mind are dropping from my life like so much unusable debris; they slough away and leave me feeling pure, innocent, free, and deeply alive.

On a recent road trip for work, I drove almost six hours in complete internal and external silence.  I have become so accustomed to the wonder of internal emptiness, that I marvel at the ease of it…the relaxation and rest and care that can be deeply perceived, when the static of the speaking mind is not there to interfere.

I discover that the mind that narrates, (the one that everyone imagines that they are), is a turbulence and a drain on your vitality.  It causes irritation and discomfort that can drop cleanly away, when the silence that we naturally are, is surrendered to, and allowed to have dominion in our lives.

And of course, it must be pointed out, that with silence comes a complete and total end to suffering of every kind.

During this long drive, sitting in such an empty, yet vital interior, my lower hip began to ache from my posture, or the long drive or, perhaps just old age.  As it began its dull throbbing that started just below my waist and coursed down my leg to just above the knee…my silent mind merely watched it.

I went from gazing at the kaleidoscopic color palette of the high desert, to intense engagement with the pain.  It was as though my silent mind finds everything useful, or honorable, or valuable, or awe inspiring, or some combination of all these attributes.  Without the parsing, divisions, comparisons, and competitions of the speaking mind…the quiet mind accepts all, and finds nourishment in all.

It was about that moment that the, now familiar, feeling of gratitude overwhelmed me.

Gratitude has always made me cry…and sometimes it can make me cry so hard that I cannot speak, as was often the case when I tried to communicate to my Teacher the enormity of the gift that he had brought into my life.

Many, many times over the years, that I was his dedicated and appreciative student, I would try to express my gratitude to him.  I would start with speaking the words, and would invariably begin to cry, and more often than not, the tears would become a flood of emotion that would be so intense that I would bend over at the middle, as though I needed to be closer to the ground in an attempt to manage the fierce flood of gratitude that was overtaking my nervous system.

As these episodes would calm down, I would invariably raise back up, to see him merely watching me, impassive, calm, quiet, undisturbed…and now…finally, I know why.

His mind was so quiet, that all near him could feel it.

His caretaker, in his old age, would often tell stories of how much people were drawn to him.  How the dentist would not let go of him and needed to wheel him, in his chair, back to the car, rather than let her do it.  Or how if she would stand in line with him at a check out counter, where someone was angry or disturbed, how those around him would become calmer and quieter as well.

I saw it and felt it, every time he was nearby…but I did not know what it was that made him so different and unique, to all others I met in my everyday life.

It is only now that silence is becoming a more stable and accessible experience in my own life, that I fully understand, why he had such an enormous effect on me.

I cannot remember ever missing an opportunity to sit in his presence.  If he had not been teaching… I would have been just as content to merely sit with him, and bathe in his calming influence.

And I know, as an absolute certainty, that silence would not now be growing in my own mind, had it not been for my proximity to his presence and to his teachings.

So you can see why I tried so many times to tell him of my gratitude, while also sobbing like a child…

I, as yet, have no experience with the “Universality” that he would often speak of.  The union of all things everywhere that he could experience and express, and the place from which he taught.  I have no idea if that will come into my life, or if I will share in that measure of depth…. and I do not need to know.

As George matured and ripened, as a teacher, he strove always, to simplify his lessons.  In the early years his written lessons would often be narratives, describing the awarenesses that life was giving him direct experience of.  But as he advanced and deepened, his lessons would get shorter and shorter, more and more simple.  As this one, that I still feel so deeply…”Don’t compete, don’t compare, give up the need to know.”

As I traveled through the desert, driving in total silence, I realized in a deep and profound way that I need know nothing, about life, about my life specifically, about the way things work, or how it came to be thus.

As a direct and intense experience, I could feel the absolute wonder of not needing to know.  The silence, that has become my most valued experience, was not something that I could have brought into my life, by virtue of a plan, or a goal, or a need, or even a want.  I have no idea how it happened, or why.  I do know, without doubt, that it is the only thing worth having in a lifetime.  I know that it ends suffering and fear, that it bestows trust and faith, like a bloom bestows beauty and fragrance.

If all that ever comes my way, is a continuing development of this silent mind…a deepening of relationship with it, and to it.  I will have been gifted with all that matters in the world.

I look forward to the day that it no longer comes and goes.  I have no idea if that day will dawn for me, and I have no way of doing anything at all to encourage it to be so.  I must wait and see if it continues to unfold, but, if all I ever get, is what I have already experienced…then my life has met with more grace, than can be described or expressed.

And thus the enormity of my gratitude, for a life so well used…

Adayre R. Miller

7/23/13

photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and meli_bee; to see more of this artist’s work, please follow this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23385506@N06/2257819205/in/photolist-4rvUZk-cuGbXh-cL5cFE-6zF8oM-9hA7Yb-87Ygch-UHZvx-9CrSAf-3icfqH-81CxxW-boo4a8-sxGY7-7sLhoM-36XKRK-9pkojb-eREuSp-e88uvq-dd9Kc9-evSaCm-a9hx62-4xDrzy-9qGs5m-9sPbfM-dmViC6-p6ThU-9jHzMS-9dFad5-JHYz5-5KTHtu-7u5mpz-bYXCg7-aAGSK-d27EeQ-7qJLCQ-8A1F1J-7EmTR7-fd56DJ-8fDSav-dRiH2F-8p2BpJ-9syTJz-NKWpH-7emint-2e3mFL-KDxhk-f4U5A8-7xycfk-6Uizq7-p2oku-feVMXp-r9Uii#

Teachers Open the Door, But You Must Enter By Yourself. – Chinese Proverb

My life has been punctuated, by moments of such intense development of understanding, that they cause me to gasp and catch my breath, as though I have been caught in an avalanche or been grazed by a bullet.

Normally, no one standing near me would be, even in the slightest, aware of these astounding transformational moments…and thus there is no outer marking for such a landslide of experience, as is mine, as I go through one of these moments and come out the other side.

This most recent one is vitally important… not because it represents a landslide of shifting understanding, and with it functional clarity, but also because it is the moment at which I truly “became my own Teacher”.

One of the many dictums that are written on my heart, as I continue to develop my capacity to live the light that my Beloved Teacher so selflessly shared with me, is his oft-repeated lesson regarding the development of one’s soul. 

He said, “At some point you, must become your own Teacher, Teachings, and Student.”

I freely admit that I; A. thought that would be an astounding trick indeed – how could one teach/learn/and embody lessons all at the same time, and B, how could you possibly know if you had developed into your own teacher, while you were still in the mindset, behaviors, and adaptations of a student?

Well now I know how…

Last night I was invited to join a small gathering of folk, who are intent on bringing into the world a new level of growth, of an existing business.  I wasn’t entirely sure why I had been invited as I have so little to say on the subject that seemed to be at hand, but liking the people involved, I agreed to participate.

I picked up a young woman, for whom I have considerable affection, who does not have a car and drove her and another friend to the event.

During that ride she began to ask me questions of a spiritual nature regarding the understanding, which I hold as the dearest legacy of my Teacher’s life, and of my time on this planet.

At this stage in my life, there is nothing in the world that captures my attention so cleanly and so committedly, as the spiritual understanding that was bequeathed to me by my Teacher.

I pursue no goals.  I have no interest in the comings and goings that I see all around me.  I attempt no assimilation with the culture at large, or even with the sub-culture of the “spiritual” movement.

I am wholly and completely content to regard the ever unfolding nature of what I have been taught, and much more, to witness its effect upon my life, my peace of mind, my behaviors, my attitudes and my heart…and thus feel no need to acquire any other bright and shiny objects.

So as this lovely young woman expressed her interest in my understanding and thus in my Teacher’s value, I was more than thrilled to engage with her queries.

I am gifted with the ability to describe something in a hundred different ways, using a hundred different analogies, metaphors, similes and examples.  This is born of my attempting to connect with my fully disengaged mother, over breakfast cereal, in a  “what happened the night before on date night” raft of stories.  My mother who was either in a death dealing rage, or mute and absent, like the emptiness left behind by a sudden storm, developed in me, this quite valuable gift as I strove mightily to illicit some change in her dull repose.

So, as Katie peppered me with questions, that skill came to the forefront and married my ever-present-deeply-held-enthusiasm, for the gifts of understanding I have been given…and I was off to the races with my erudition.

The words flowed forth, with the same zeal and joy that they have always rolled out of my mouth with, and my heart and mind hummed with the joy of it.  So much so, that I could not turn it off when I arrived at our destination, there too, I spoke when I probably oughten have.  I waxed poetic about the subject on the table, when I probably should have held my tongue.

So prepared in this manner, I got up today, and gathered myself together to arrive at a job interview that had been scheduled two weeks ago.  As I made my way downtown, with a large time buffer to spare – lest some hindrance appear, I was met with a wreck in the tunnel and trapped for a long time in a scarcely moving line of never ending automobiles.

As it became clear that I was to be there for a good ling while, I began to worry around, in my mind, the problem of what to do with my house that has been bugging me for a long time now…

I say to myself that I want to leave Arizona.  I have said that since the day I came back here, (continuing to be my Teacher’s student was the only reason I could be pushed into returning to this climate).  And thus I am currently thinking about what I need to do to put the house up for sale, and new flooring is at the very top of that list.

As I sat waiting for what seemed hours, I began to work on the only idea that has presented itself that even remotely satisfies.  I want to empty my house…right down to the baseboards.

So as I made mental images of acres of open, but still beautiful space, that idea suddenly got hooked up with last nights verbal expressions, and before you could say Jack Sprat, I had married those two ideas together, and come up with the notion, that perhaps I could teach in my now empty, but still, elegantly beautiful living room. 

Well my dears…that is my oldest and my absolute favorite fantasy… cut to me: teaching…

Gone are the adoring masses, replaced by a small but deeply interested few, who have gathered themselves to hear what it is I have to say.

I cannot begin to describe the physical sensation of pleasure that oiled itself through my innards, as that fantasy took hold of me.

It was excitement layered with fun, pumped up by joy, and dancing electricity, as it spread itself through my veins and caused me to almost call the company I was intended to interview with, to tell them to forget it, that I was going to be occupied elsewhere and ecstatically so.

Just then…I glanced out the window and saw the clouds drifting by, an unusual sight here in the “Valley of the Sun”, and a lone blackbird was slicing his way, through that cerulean blue and fluffy white field.

At that precise moment, filled to the brim with quite delicious excitement, listening to my mind making all manner of plans about how my empty dining/living room would become a sanctuary of holiness, wherein I would pass on the great goodness that has been bequeathed to me, I suddenly and quite profoundly became my own Teacher, Teachings, and Student.

As I sat fidgeting with pulsing electrical zeal, it suddenly dawned upon me that I had traded the “here and now” truth, for the lie of a better tomorrow, without even the hint of understanding that it had occurred.

As the jittery high of my fantasy, began to rapidly empty from my veins, I looked up at that blackbird, and knew in the deepest way possible, that I had just experienced the full tilt power of the impact of the illusions of mind.

The truth was that I was sitting, looking out a window, and seeing clouds, sky and a lone bird.  The lie, of a deeply desired and often hoped for future, was so intense and so enticing that I had almost gotten up and walked away from the opportunity to interview for a job, that I could really use, so caught in the embrace of illusion was I.

This moment knocked me out of my shoelaces.

This is what they all mean…I thought to myself… not just my Beloved Teacher, but all the ones that I have ever respected and looked to for help, sustenance, support, and deeply needed guidance.

This is how we are lost to ourselves, and to the moment in which we are actually living, in favor of some imagined moment in a non-existing future.  Some hope comes into our mind, fills our bodies with lusciousness, and compels us away from the actual and the real.

No doubt, you are that this exact moment, stuttering out a … now-wait-just-a-cotton-picking-minute-here, protest … what if this were the angels, or the gods, or the tarot card readers message, that this is what I am supposed to do, the formulation of some new spiritual guidance wrapped up in a bow, and feeling like a hit off a heroin syringe?  Isn’t that possible?

To which I respond, not a chance.

I am not saying that I may not indeed, empty out my space, get new and more suitable flooring, set up some chairs, and extend an invitation to those around me, to join me in sharing in spiritual understanding. 

That cannot be known by me until the day it arrives.

That potential is one of millions that may or may not occur to me, as the days and weeks of my life unfold.  But for this moment, I am sitting, looking out a window, and seeing a blue and white sky and a black bird.  That is all that can be known, and all that is currently true.

And here is the veil’s width of the difference between living in the lie of illusion, or dealing in the truth of the moment, which is the only place reality exists.

And in this dawning of realization, I became…

“my own Teacher, Teachings, and Student.”

(A note about goals and the setting of such.  My bodies response to the future oriented fantasy of teaching, allows me to know that is still the one activity that I wish to experience and express before the end of my time on this planet.  But the type and quality of teacher I aspire to become, is one who lives fully in the here and now. 

I am not interested in helping anyone to achieve anything. 

I am only interested in helping others to realize their true nature…and here’s the thing, your true nature can only be experienced in the present moment, and will be denied to you, to the degree that you live inside the fantasies of mind.  The realization of one’s true nature, slow as it has been for me, has cured me of ills to horrible to describe.  Gone, or going, is fear, suffering, self-consciousness, embarrassment, comparison, competition and a whole host of other discomforts and dis-eases – in their place – relaxation, ease, peace, and well being.  So forgive me if I do not care that you reach your goals, or acquire your possessions, or achieve your desire for fame, or get what you want, or become rich and acclaimed…what good all of that…if you don’t find out who you are?)

Adayre R. Miller

7/11/13

Photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and "Say Your Piece" to see more of this artist's work please follow this link:

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/30246759@N02/2838807264/in/photolist-5jRCuQ-8apBff-8amnSe-aEDKDN-7TRpp7-btNfu7-5mQ8bU-75xy4g-7JCYY6-otGEy-4C8Rza-7ZnDsE-f6d3Qc-9Rkv4N-6TMcyP-5KB3Eg-9U7vkx-74CoA2-Hyorj-LVq5g-zZ9uS-5o1YT8-5W9Jje-mWoYV-bjh9kK-dD9RS3-bzcExB-2nNQWM-9p9hbD-5cpPGR-dQGymX-bBDDX1-7p6cvR-4NTpwH-eCAExo-3ufnFU-kMBV9-9pKNS8-4HvFYM-9r38jS-9DGmvU-a47qQq-8EbP3k-umDiX-6J6daq-8vaDCC-4dt6iR-c3Ve2C-8agbAg-7Qynbz-9K61E4