Sky Blue

Become choiceless. Choiceless awareness is the only joyful state, a peaceful state, a state without confusion. ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The little wave said to the vast ocean, "How could I be like you?' The ocean replied, 'It's easy, just settle down." ~Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The discovery that you are not your mind is the dawn of spirituality. You are not your thoughts, memories, beliefs, or desires.

You are boundless clarity untainted by concepts. You are the self-luminosity of pure awareness. But when your limitless Am contracts into a point of view, it becomes i. And this little i begins to think, "What sin did i commit to make myself so separate and lonely? Who will save me?" But instead of looking for a savior, or for someone to blame, what i really need is simply to relax, to expand, to dissolve back into Am.

A mirror remains spotless no matter what it reflects. Even reflecting a lump of offal, the mirror is untainted. The vilest image and the loveliest image are of equal disinterest to the mirror. Fleeting, dream-like reflections, our thoughts leave no impression on the glass of pure awareness. And their appearance in the mirror does not alter its essential emptiness.

In the blue sky, clouds precipitate, then evaporate, yet the sky remains ever the same space whether stormy or clear. When the clouds move, the sky does not move. So our thoughts precipitate and evaporate in pure awareness. "Right" and "wrong" points of view appear and disappear in the vast space of consciousness, which contains all possible perspectives. Yet no "right" point of view is going to heal the world, for it is just a thought. What heals the world is the energy of love, which vibrates out of transparency itself, the light of pure awareness, free from points of view.

No passing cloud enfolds the sky, yet the sky enfolds all clouds. No point of view contains awareness, yet awareness contains all points of view. Who we really are remains timeless, boundless, clear, even as a thousand thoughts storm through our mind. Whether positive or negative, horrific or soothing, the thoughts that pass over the mirror have nothing to do with its fathomless clarity.

Therefore, why struggle to replace "bad" thoughts with "good" thoughts, or change "wrong" views to "right" views? Points of view are right or wrong only in relation to each other, generating the polarity of argument and conflict. The argument never ends, it just gets exhausted. But there is no point in generating any argument at all, because in relation to the pointless space that contains them, all points have equal weight, and the sum of their weights is zero.

So our real responsibility is not to be right or wrong, but to wake up. Awaken as the all-pervading space of pure love. And the only instruction we will ever need to deal with our own mind is this:

Let thoughts think themselves, and let them dissolve, because there is no i in them. O mind, give yourself permission to rest as awareness. Rest as who you are when you aren't trying to be "right." Don't be a cloud, be the sky.

An Effortless Practice

Witness your thoughts without grasping or entering them. This shift from doing to Being is always delightful, life-giving, and energizing, even if the thought you witness is heavy or disturbing. The falsest opinion or most negative image can be the graceful means of liberation, the moment you cease grasping it.

Let us repeat that: the falsest opinion or most negative image can be the graceful means of liberation, the moment you cease grasping it. Or as Rumi wrote, "Your grief may be the garden of compassion."

Believing even the most lovely thought requires energy, but it never provides energy. Yet dropping that thought provides instant energy, as our awareness returns to crystal clarity. When we let go of a thought, the boundless void gushes back to fill us with emptiness, bringing an explosion of ananda, or bliss.

Dropping thoughts requires no energy because it is not doing. In fact, dropping thoughts restores vitality to the mind. This is the immediate pathless path to liberation. And the content of the mind is irrelevant to success in the path. We can practice this non-practice with any thought, trivial or profound, at any moment of the day, by simply letting the thought go.

Right now, surrender this thought and witness the blissful surge of awareness from within, a round wave of transparency rolling out of its center to encompass the stars. As thought, you are very small. As awareness, you encircle galaxies.

In truth, this effortless practice is already happening. Your thoughts are constantly dissolving. You don't reap the reward of this because you grasp another thought as soon as this one passes. But when you simply watch the death of one thought, the birth of another, without expending your energy to hold one or grasp the other, you notice that you are not your thoughts. You are the Witness, the ocean of consciousness. And what is the ocean made of? Waves of ananda.

Every thought has an opposite and wants to contend against it. What has no opposite is vast awareness. The unchanging untainted clarity of this vast space is not just within you, it is you. Even your elections, your photons of light, the sub-nuclear particles in each of your atoms, vibrate out of the generous void.

Enfolding your darkest fear, your pain, your birth, your death, this vast space is pure compassion. And its very nature is bliss. All that is required is to relinquish viewpoints, right or wrong. In fact, there is no need to believe this.