Alice's Awakening, my new eNovella

Below an excerpt from my new eNovella, Alice’s Awakening, in which a fictional twelve year old girl tells the story of how she meets Jim Dreaver (who is very much alive and real!), a spiritual teacher and author of the nonfiction book, End Your Story, Begin Your Life in Douglas Park in Santa Monica. I told him my name, and stood near him. I immediately sensed there was something different about Jim. He seemed to be very patient and kind and his gaze was soft, warm, and welcoming (a word I learned from Jim). He reminded me in some ways of Uncle Charlie, but even more present. Then he asked me a question no one’s ever asked me before. “So, Alice, do you know who and what you really are?” “I’m me, of course,” I said. “I’m Alice.” “Alice is your name, yes… But the name ‘Alice,’ which is a lovely name, by the way, comes and goes… Do you know who and what you are behind your name, behind all your thoughts and ideas about who you are which also come and go?” I didn’t say anything as I thought about his question. It both puzzled and interested me: who and what am I behind my name, behind my thoughts? Suddenly, I wanted to know. I sat down on the bench a few feet away from him. I looked at him. He was still smiling in that kind way he had, and his blue eyes continued to sparkle. Finally I said, a little uncertainly, “I… I don’t know… I mean, I’ve never really thought about it… But now I’m really interested… I really want to know who and what I am behind my name, behind my thoughts…” He chuckled. “Beautiful, Alice… Because this knowledge, which is really the knowledge of your true nature, will free you from all fear and worry forever, essentially, so that you will be truly happy… And no matter what you end up doing with your gifts and talents, you’ll have a beautiful, wonderful life… And, even importantly, you’ll make a positive difference in the lives of others…” “That sounds really good to me,” I nodded, as I thought about what it would mean to be happy all the time, and make other people happier. “So, where do I begin?” “You begin right now with just sitting quietly on this bench, and noticing everything within and around you… Taking it all in…” To receive your own PDF of the novella, send a payment of $9.95 to jdreaver@aol.com via www.paypal.com

End Your Drama

Tired of the drama in your life, of living with a recurrent, underlying feeling of anxiety, fear, guilt, anger, or some other form of emotional reactivity? Want your life to flow more harmoniously, easily, and smoothly? All drama is created through believing a story of some kind, such as “Why does this always happen to me?” or “I guess I’m just not worthy.” But the more you see that you are not any story or the emotions they trigger—because they come and go—the freer and more alive in the present you are. Then you see everything with new eyes, and can take fresh action to deal with whatever problem may be facing you. Moreover, your heart really opens, and you feel immense love and compassion for everyone and everything.

The Final "Seeing"

You will look back on your life, your past, and realize how easy awakening actually is, when you take the direct, or nondual path, which is seeing that you are not any thought or story about what is happening, but rather the awareness or consciousness which sees. In other words, you are always this, right here, right now—this beautiful person, this human being that sees, experiences, and responds intelligently and creatively to the situations, including the challenges and problems, that arise in your own life and the lives of those whom you love and care about. What is needed for this final “seeing” that will liberate you from inner conflict, stress, and suffering forever? It is simple: again, you must be extremely vigilant, watchful your own mental and emotional reactions and disturbances whenever they arise, and then to see to “whom” they arise—this imaginary “I,” the ego “self” or “person” that you take yourself to be. So vigilance, and in particular, self-vigilance is the watchword. Truly, this is a teaching for our time. The more moments you have of this relaxed, but alert presence, the more it becomes your true nature. But argue for your “story,” and it’s yours.

Glimmers of Freedom

Regarding awakening , it takes time to undo the illusory sense of “self,” the “story” you’ve been fabricating in your mind and in your emotional being since you were very, very young. But if you are committed to waking up and becoming free, the undoing gets easier and easier. It begins with getting glimmers, tastes of the freedom that is your true nature. You feel much clearer, more loving, more creatively empowered, although strangely it is not a personal sense of power, but impersonal—your power just is. It flows through you, from the universe itself. You intuit that your true nature is love, and this wonderful sense of inner freedom and empowerment.

Easy Awakening

Awakening is easy if you remember this: every time you experience conflict, upset, or suffering take a deep, slow breath, and relax as much as you can into being here now. Then notice how you are not any thought or story about what seems to be happening—not even the “I” or “me” thoughts—because they, like the emotional reactions they trigger, come and go. Rather, you are the clear, spacious awareness that is always, always here. The more you realize this, the more you embody the liberating sense of freedom that is your true nature. Then your heart opens to everyone, and everything in your life flows more easily because you no longer resist anything.

Permission

I want to say something here about permission. When people are not awake to their true nature, it’s as if they are always seeking someone’s permission—be it a parent, a friend, or someone else in society—to be themselves, to be who they want to be. And society, being what it is, and depending on its culture and customs, has rules and guidelines around behavior that is and is not acceptable. But awakening to the truth within frees you from needing anyone’s permission to be yourself. The more awake and free you are, the more you are guided by the flow of wisdom, love, and joy within. You need no one’s permission to be yourself, and are guided by the one simple rule that every conscious person lives by: do no harm, to self or other.

The Ego's Need to Be Right

You ego, in a nutshell, is simply your “I” or “me” thought. This means that everyone has an ego, so the idea of “ego annihilation,” still persistent in some spiritual circles, is an illusion. The shift in perception that is realization is to see that you have an ego, but you are not your ego. So long as you still believe you are this “I” or “me” you’ve taken yourself to be since you were very young, you will always feel separate and apart from other human beings, other “selves,” and from the flow of life itself. Ego or “self” identification is to live in duality, in conflict and suffering. There is the “me” and what it wants or likes (health, money, sex, possessions, etc.), and then there is the flip side, the “me” and what it doesn’t want, or doesn’t like. One of the main characteristics of ego-identification is that it always needs to be right, because it needs to affirm its own existence, the existences of this “self,” the “person” that it takes itself to be. For example, if it is preoccupied with thoughts of low self-esteem, low self-worth, or an existential meaninglessness, it may be drawn to the idea of suicide, “self” extinction. So, even in doing away with itself, it continues to get to be right. The shadow side of the ego’s need to be right is that, in order to maintain its belief in itself as a separate entity, it needs to make other egos, other “selves” wrong. This dynamic is behind most of the conflict and suffering in the world.

The Buddha's Secret

During my recent Esalen Institute seminar, I was lounging in the hot baths one morning, overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean. Then I looked up at a statue of the Buddha in the hillside garden just above the baths. As I contemplated his partially open eyes, and his mystical, half-smile, I suddenly realized his ancient yet timeless message to humanity—his “secret,” as it were: “I exist here, now, one with the ease, harmony, and flow of life—and I invite you into the same realization.” In terms of tangible knowledge, the only thing we can “know” for certain is that we exist here, now. In this moment now, we exist as the aware, conscious beings—the men and women—we are. This was and is the Buddha’s secret. This feeling of existing here, now, when you really settle into it, is characterized by a quality of infinite, spacious awareness which has no center, other than the feeling of “you” experiencing your existence, and no border. It truly is infinite, unbounded, and universal. This awareness that you most essentially are is aware of everything happening in your inner and outer environment: thoughts, sensations, sounds, feelings, emotions, events, and circumstances. Notice how everything you observe happening within and around you is also is also characterized by a single quality: it comes and goes, arises and disappears within the spacious awareness of your existing here, now. The realization that the only thing we can “know” for certain is that we exist here, now, is the essence of awakening, self-realization, or enlightenment. Every person who is awake and free has come to the realization that they are not their thoughts or stories—not even their “I” and “me” thoughts—all of which come and go, but the ever-present, aware, conscious being or person who is existing here, now. This is why those who are awake and free talk about living in the present, in your experience here, now, so much. This is why I talk about it. When you are awake to your true nature, to the fact of your existence here, now, you realize that this moment right now is actually all there ever is. Even when you imagine, think about, an event that will happen later, it too is only real when “later” becomes the now.

Five Tools for Shifting Perception

Here are Five Tools for shifting perception and awakening out of the ego’s grip into the ease, harmony, and flow of our true nature: 1) The Teaching. The teaching is that the whole world of thought that exists between your ears, including the “I” and “me” thoughts, the ego thoughts, is illusory, yet you—as this aware, conscious being—are still very much here, present and alive in this moment. 2) The Practice of Freedom. This is a simple, three-step process for freeing yourself from the grip of the illusory thoughts (that you still “believe,” or take to be real) whenever you are caught in upset, conflict, or suffering. 3) Conscious Meditation, Conscious Mind. Conscious Meditation is a practice where you actually have the experience of yourself being awake and free, one with the ease, harmony, and flow of your true nature. Conscious Mind is where, when you are in the meditative state, the flow of freedom, you experience using thought, free of the self-obsessing “I” and “me,” as a powerful tool for creative thinking, brain-storming, planning, and setting goals and intentions. 4) The Concept of Residues. Understanding this concept, that even long after you have finally awakened to freedom, residues of old ego patterns and behaviors can still arise from time-to-time, allows us to relax and flow with life, it’s ups and downs, even more easily . After all, we are still human, and we still have an ego, even though we’ve now realized we are not our ego. 5) Conscious Connection. This is where our inner freedom manifests in the world of our human relationships. The freer you are of the “I,” the “me,” the freer you are of your reactive personality, the more able you are to meet others, friends or strangers, in an open-eyed, warm, natural, and welcoming way. This is what will produce the healing that is so sorely needed in our world!

Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Realization

I am an ordinary man with an extraordinary realization. It has allowed me to live stress-free, in peace and freedom, at one with the harmony and flow of life and all its many ups and downs, these past seventeen years. What is my secret? It is all revealed in clear, simple language in my book, End Your Story, Begin Your Life: Wake Up, Let Go, Live Free. Every human being on earth can have the same realization I enjoy. There is nothing you have to do. All that’s required is a deep, fundamental shift in the way you see reality. Come sit with me, hear what I have to say, soak up the energy of being, and get your questions answered. You can “sit” at your desk during one of my online programs, join me at one of my gatherings in Los Angeles where I live, or come to our magical, transformational retreat at Esalen Institute, near Big Sur, California, September 9 – 14. Register online at www.esalen.org, type ‘jim dreaver’ into the search box, or call Esalen at 831-667-3005. For my full schedule of events, visit http://www.jimdreaver.com/teaching-schedule.html

A Story of Sexual Abuse

Stephanie , a middle-aged woman, had come to the workshop with a friend who had encouraged her to break out of her shell. “I’m sure you’ll learn something new that will help you heal,” her friend said, as they were driving down the coast to Esalen. As the workshop began, Stephanie was contracted and very sad, and revealed—when everybody shared a little about their particular story—that she was the victim of a long-ago traumatic experience of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. As a result, she hadn’t spoken to her father in years. She was overweight, having used food for self-protection, and lived with a lot of fear and paranoia, which had affected her sleeping patterns and everything else in her life. She had difficulty getting close to men, not trusting them, above all not trusting herself. She seemed to trust her husband, however, the only man she felt safe with. A few days into the workshop, Stephanie plucked up the courage to ask me a question. “How can you say that what my father did to me is not real? I think of him touching me when I was a child, and my whole being recoils. It was horrible!” “The event was definitely real when it happened, and that needs to be honored,” I said gently, “but telling yourself the story over and over again, reliving the memories, keeps the painful experience alive. When you see that you are not your story, nor your memories, but rather the beautiful, aware person who is here right now, everything will begin to change for you.” She took in what I said, nodding silently. Over the next few days, her energy shifted noticeably. She became much more present. She relaxed and smiled more, and confessed to the group that she was finally getting tired of the “victim” story she had believed all these years. She was even feeling more forgiving toward her father, realizing that she needed to forgive him for her own inner peace. At the end of the workshop, we gave each other a warm hug. “Thank you,” she said. “Something has changed in me. A burden has been lifted, and I feel lighter, freer… I am going to call my father when I get home. I realize now that he was acting out of his own troubled history when he molested me, and I want him to know that.”

A Meditation on Emptiness

Close your eyes (unless you are driving!), take a deep and slow breath, and imagine yourself, your whole being, as vast, empty, aware space… And realize that this space, filled with creative potential, is your true, spiritual nature… It is who and what you most essentially are… Hang out in that emptiness for as long as you want, until you feel really one with it… Then feel yourself rooted in existence, the flow of life, here, now… Actually sense your breathing, and feel the energy tingling in your hands and feet… Feel the vibration of now… Then open your eyes, and just abide in the feeling of being empty space, the plenum-void as Buddhists call it… The full-emptiness, because it is literally vibrating with energy and potential… Contemplate the mantra: “My thoughts come and go yet I, as an aware being, am always here…” Allow yourself to continue to dwell, for a few minutes, in the emptiness... Breathe consciously, and feel yourself as this alive, creative, loving presence that is here, now… Enjoy the feeling of ease, harmony, and flow you are experiencing… As you begin to notice, to actually look within and watch how thoughts, and especially the “I” and “me” thoughts, constantly arise and disappear in your inner visual field… Or hear them, or feel them… An insight may occur… You can think about anything and yet your thoughts do not create upset… You are literally senior to your thoughts… You realize that you can consciously choose your thoughts, and choose actions that will create good in your world…

A Personal Statement

I have seen that everything between my ears—including all ideas and images about “I” and “me”—are not real, yet I, as an aware, clear, and conscious human being, am still very much here… That, in a nutshell, is what I teach. That is what has to be seen to realize true, complete, and final (except for those occasional, inevitable, pesky human residues of old ego patterns!) freedom and happiness… The happiness that doesn’t depend on circumstances… This is my true nature, and yours. It is the true nature of every single human being on earth…

Self-Discipline and Vigilance

Discovering the truth of happiness within you requires a measure of self-discipline and vigilance. You don’t have to be extreme in these behaviors; extreme anything is usually a sign that your ego is involved, and thus is self-defeating. All that is required is a modicum of self-discipline and vigilance.

You need enough discipline such that when you get caught up in your “story” and find yourself in conflict, suffering in some way, you can bring yourself back to the present, to what is here, now—the feelings and sensations in your body, and your current circumstances in this moment.

     

You have to be curious about your own suffering—like I was when I had my awakening. You have to be willing to look deeply inside yourself to find out where you are still not free. And you need tremendous self-honesty, the courage to face the truth about yourself, your own inner “demons,” the things that are not so pretty in your character or behavior.

     

If it helps, you can welcome the suffering, welcome it because it is showing you where you are not yet free. You can remind yourself of the mantra: I am not my thoughts… I am a wise, loving, powerful being.

     

Then breathe deeply and slowly, let the mantra fall away, and come back to the alert, relatively thought-free space. Close your eyes for a few moments and imagine yourself as being empty space. Experience what it is like to be this clear, spacious awareness, this conscious, aware presence you are.

     

When you do this—and you are literally, in a sense, doing beingness—and so long as you don’t get distracted by some thought or story again, you will have the experience of freedom. You will realize that you are, indeed, not your thoughts, but rather the ever-present, changeless awareness in which everything, including your thoughts, comes and goes.

How The Unchecked Ego is Our Undoing

To arrive at this awareness of our true nature, it helps to look more closely at this ego, this “self” you’ve taken yourself to be.

     

The first thing to know about the ego is that it underpins your self-image, your self-identity, your self-concept and, as such, is tied in with your self-worth or self-esteem, how you think about and judge this “self” that you imagine yourself to be. The ego accumulates knowledge, facts, ersatz “truths” and all the memories of past hurts, traumas, as well as successes, to pack around itself and convince itself that it is real.

     

In order to survive as a separate identity/belief, it then needs to always feel in control of its domain—of you, in other words. Your ego needs to know it is right. It needs to be right, to justify its actions, however misguided. And in order to be right, it needs to make other egos wrong, or at least judge them in some way—better than, less than, or superior or inferior to—in order to maintain its comfortable status quo.

     

It does this, in the most extreme cases, through comparing, criticizing, blaming, castigating, condemning, denouncing, disparaging, reprimanding, and generally finding fault with anything or anyone that does not measure up to its standards. On the other hand, when it finds an ego that it is in agreement with, or wants to be like, to emulate, it causes you to act in a way that seeks approval or—in more extreme cases—become flattering, fawning, sweet-talking, and doing whatever it takes to curry favor.

     

The ego projects its viewpoint out onto the world, in other words, and measures everything by its projection, as in: “Is this person acting or behaving the way I think they should be?”

     

So, whenever you find yourself caught in one of these behaviors—comparing yourself as better than or less than another human being in some way—you are caught in your ego. Becoming aware of being caught is the key to shifting your behavior, and moving into a place of greater freedom and presence.

           

And you become aware by realizing that your ego is essentially just a thought, the “I” or “me” thought, and its importance in your life has been that you have built your whole identity around it—your entire personality—since about age two. And this is why it takes time to undo, to get free of, your ego.

Desire

Teilhard de Chardin expressed our true nature perfectly when he said: “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” As a human being you have a story, you have thoughts, including the “I” and “me” thoughts, but your true nature is the pure, aware spaciousness—your spiritual essence—you connect with when you do the practice.

     

Because you are human, you’ll still have the normal human desires for food, shelter, sleep, sex, and creative expression, but the nature of desire changes as you become freer and more present. You realize that desire is an inherent part of your life force and you honor it as such, but you’re no longer attached to your desires.

     

If a particular desire cannot be fulfilled right now, you’re okay with that. You just allow it to fall away. After all, the energy of desire is always there, waiting to arise again, and maybe it will be satisfied the next time. Again, you, as this conscious, aware being you are, are always bigger than, senior to, anything you experience. 

     

It is the same with what I call “residues” of old ego patterns and behaviors. Even after realizing the truth within, you still have an ego; you still have a personality, so you can still be subject to the ego’s neuroses. If you tended to be an angry person before realization —or impatient, or afraid of confrontation, or insensitive to the needs of others—eighty or eighty-five percent of that neurosis will fall away after you wake up. 

     

But you will still have tendencies to get caught up in your old patterns even after you are now awake and free, and have found the source of happiness within.

     

The difference now is that you see it much more quickly, and in the seeing, it falls away. Yes, you may need to apologize for your behavior, or even make amends to someone affected by it, but you do that relatively easily, maybe with the words: “I’m sorry, I got caught up in an old ego residue there…”

     

Then you will just smile, and come back to where you always live: right here, now, alert and completely open to life in the present moment…

Dark Night of the Soul

You may find yourself having a “dark night of the soul” experience, where the existential pain is such that your life feels devoid of meaning and purpose. But this too is an opportunity to find a deeper truth, the truth that is at the heart of your being.

       

Hakuin, the influential Zen master who lived almost four centuries ago, referred to the dark night as “great doubt.” He said: “At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.”

       

You have to be really present with these feelings, this deeper angst. You have to be very alert, watchful, almost like a scientist in your curiosity to discover what is true in you.

      

 If you look deeply enough within, past memories, usually of something traumatic that happened long ago in childhood, will often arise. When they do, you must learn to welcome them because they are showing you where you are not free, where you are not abiding in the peace and happiness that is your true nature. So, the secret is to learn to welcome them, accept them, embrace them—and then see that they are not real either!

      

They may certainly have once been true—after all, the traumatic event, whether it was getting separated from your mother in the store, or being molested by a relative, did happen—but the memory or story is not true now. It is only a thought, a story, which has surfaced from the past into your conscious mind.

       

The more aware you are of that thought, the more deeply and slowly you breathe, and consciously be present with it—and actually see it arising within your inner visual field—the  more it dissolves, and you find yourself experiencing a deeper level of release, of letting go. 

The old emotion triggered by the memory unwinds, releases, and you find yourself relaxing more into the present. You experience more ease, more inner harmony. You can see and think more clearly.

      

You realize: “Wow, I was really caught up in a past event just then, a prior traumatic experience that I believed was true, but now I see was just an unconscious memory that was running me, and preventing me from realizing an even deeper level of freedom.”

       

And then you’ll probably breathe even more deeply, relax, and let go—and look around you, and smile, and just enjoy your new-found sense of freedom. Maybe you’ll even congratulate yourself: you have just discovered your own way to inner freedom, to exorcising these demons from the past…