Listen to a reading of "The End Of Illusions": ❖ It happened suddenly and unexpectedly, as drastic changes often do. You awoke in the morning from an unusual sleep, and something about your waking experience was very different. You couldn't say what exactly, but there was a deep relaxation. A clenching you'd always carried with you simply wasn't there anymore, a clenching you'd never even noticed until it was gone.
Hey Caitlin. That's a beautiful piece. This section towards the end: 'Only the ego seeks to control life against life's will, and if it is life's will that humanity go the way of the dinosaur then that will have the same thunderous beauty as every other appearance twirling within this eternal mystery void.' is a deep truth. No-one I have ever met has been able to understand that when I've explained it to them. But you understand. You know. Beyond idea, beyond all thought, the truth lies there. Bless you lady.
A Zen tale - Bodhidharma sits facing the wall. His future successor stands in the snow and presents his severed arm to Bodhidharma. He cries: "My mind is not pacified. Master, pacify my mind."
Bodhidharma says: "If you bring me that mind, I will pacify it for you."
The successor says: "When I search my mind I cannot hold it."
Bodhidharma says: "Then your mind is pacified already."
I appreciate this essay very much, and my experience has been very similar, but I want to add word of caution. Speaking only from my own experience (at 75), the first cut is indeed the deepest, but it is probably not the last, and don't forget about scar tissue. It took me 42 years to wake up to the truth about the JFK assassination, which I thought would a kind of end point and in many ways it was. But then came 9/11 and it took me about 3 years, namely until I started reading David Ray Griffin, to see that. It took me about 4 months to start thinking clearly about corona -- and I am talking about the origin, not the vaccines/treatment issues. What I mean by "scar tissue" is that it is natural to want to heal what has been painful as well as enlightening. The "healing" can take various forms. It can easily take the form of retreat or even reactivated denial. Why would one choose to continue to see the world as bad as it is, or worse than you thought, and then even worse than that? If you're lucky, at some point you get old and start thinking about making peace with this ever more screwed-up world before you croak. A lot of people probably get old in that way at a relatively young age!
My main point is that I agree that (again, if you're lucky) there can be an end to illusions, but there are always more to come, and you won't know about them until they hit you, just like they did the first time.
There is no longer any such thing as an inanimate object without the Self in the way. Each formerly inanimate object looks back with all the personality of the onlooker.
Ah, touching the Eternal Awareness side of our Tao Life. Rich indeed. No crazy narratives, no thoughts at all, as alive as all else is, without the burden of words. Thank you Caitlyn!
I am profoundly moved by this writing. Your piece describes in words how I have imagined this experience would be. As an aside, have you ever heard of or studied A Course In Miracles?
Reading your piece underscores how nearly every single thing which exists in our culture is there to keep us from waking up. Again, you have demonstrated the power of the simple over the complex.
You write very well, that’s a different and difficult sort of topic to communicate, I enjoyed it.
As a practical matter I don’t think that sort of transmogrification is about to take hold, but again I love your angst, keep dreaming about a better way, what’s wrong with that!
The realities of living, the realities of surviving deplete our capacity for truth and truthfulness, eventually we only fight to win, fighting for the truth all but disappears.
Fighting for the truth - as a way of being - falls to a small band of holdouts like Caitlin, I need the jolt they provide.
The ego as the illusory seat of separateness, of fear/anger, selfishness/greed, lies/deception and crippling death-consciousness can also be responsible for physical disease via autonomic (nervous system) entanglement...Dominant sympathetic chain activation into fight/flight mode prevents healing while parasympathetic "happiness" promotes it, even leading to placebo "miracles." Maybe the ego can be controlled, but at least can be recognized as the above symptoms appear? Maybe this is where enlightenment happens; a sense of oneness, a higher state of consciousness and unconditional love? Maybe covid19 media terrorism is the bigger half of the pandemic? Egoic fear is a physical ailment, but also results in the loss of rational intelligence and judgement leading to control by those wielding it.
Brilliant, thank you Caitlin…if only you had been my psychiatric nurse during my several “psychotic” episodes…would’ve saved me from pills, ECT and the frustration of trying to make someone, anyone, Understand. 🙏
Your thoughts are inspiring. Thanks for sharing them. There's someone I've recently started following whose work I thought you may find interesting. His research on the nature of our planet's climate is fascinating, particularly the influence of the Sun and our Milky Way galaxy, which is having a cyclical impact I was never made aware of. I hope you find it as fascinating and enlightening as I have. 😀
Hey Caitlin. That's a beautiful piece. This section towards the end: 'Only the ego seeks to control life against life's will, and if it is life's will that humanity go the way of the dinosaur then that will have the same thunderous beauty as every other appearance twirling within this eternal mystery void.' is a deep truth. No-one I have ever met has been able to understand that when I've explained it to them. But you understand. You know. Beyond idea, beyond all thought, the truth lies there. Bless you lady.
A Zen tale - Bodhidharma sits facing the wall. His future successor stands in the snow and presents his severed arm to Bodhidharma. He cries: "My mind is not pacified. Master, pacify my mind."
Bodhidharma says: "If you bring me that mind, I will pacify it for you."
The successor says: "When I search my mind I cannot hold it."
Bodhidharma says: "Then your mind is pacified already."
I appreciate this essay very much, and my experience has been very similar, but I want to add word of caution. Speaking only from my own experience (at 75), the first cut is indeed the deepest, but it is probably not the last, and don't forget about scar tissue. It took me 42 years to wake up to the truth about the JFK assassination, which I thought would a kind of end point and in many ways it was. But then came 9/11 and it took me about 3 years, namely until I started reading David Ray Griffin, to see that. It took me about 4 months to start thinking clearly about corona -- and I am talking about the origin, not the vaccines/treatment issues. What I mean by "scar tissue" is that it is natural to want to heal what has been painful as well as enlightening. The "healing" can take various forms. It can easily take the form of retreat or even reactivated denial. Why would one choose to continue to see the world as bad as it is, or worse than you thought, and then even worse than that? If you're lucky, at some point you get old and start thinking about making peace with this ever more screwed-up world before you croak. A lot of people probably get old in that way at a relatively young age!
My main point is that I agree that (again, if you're lucky) there can be an end to illusions, but there are always more to come, and you won't know about them until they hit you, just like they did the first time.
There is no longer any such thing as an inanimate object without the Self in the way. Each formerly inanimate object looks back with all the personality of the onlooker.
The three marks: Dukkha - unsatisfactoriness; Anatta - no permanent, abiding self; Anicca- impermanence, all compounded things subject to change.
Caitlin holds up the flower.
Ah, touching the Eternal Awareness side of our Tao Life. Rich indeed. No crazy narratives, no thoughts at all, as alive as all else is, without the burden of words. Thank you Caitlyn!
I am profoundly moved by this writing. Your piece describes in words how I have imagined this experience would be. As an aside, have you ever heard of or studied A Course In Miracles?
Reading your piece underscores how nearly every single thing which exists in our culture is there to keep us from waking up. Again, you have demonstrated the power of the simple over the complex.
You write very well, that’s a different and difficult sort of topic to communicate, I enjoyed it.
As a practical matter I don’t think that sort of transmogrification is about to take hold, but again I love your angst, keep dreaming about a better way, what’s wrong with that!
The realities of living, the realities of surviving deplete our capacity for truth and truthfulness, eventually we only fight to win, fighting for the truth all but disappears.
Fighting for the truth - as a way of being - falls to a small band of holdouts like Caitlin, I need the jolt they provide.
The ego as the illusory seat of separateness, of fear/anger, selfishness/greed, lies/deception and crippling death-consciousness can also be responsible for physical disease via autonomic (nervous system) entanglement...Dominant sympathetic chain activation into fight/flight mode prevents healing while parasympathetic "happiness" promotes it, even leading to placebo "miracles." Maybe the ego can be controlled, but at least can be recognized as the above symptoms appear? Maybe this is where enlightenment happens; a sense of oneness, a higher state of consciousness and unconditional love? Maybe covid19 media terrorism is the bigger half of the pandemic? Egoic fear is a physical ailment, but also results in the loss of rational intelligence and judgement leading to control by those wielding it.
Brilliant, thank you Caitlin…if only you had been my psychiatric nurse during my several “psychotic” episodes…would’ve saved me from pills, ECT and the frustration of trying to make someone, anyone, Understand. 🙏
Your thoughts are inspiring. Thanks for sharing them. There's someone I've recently started following whose work I thought you may find interesting. His research on the nature of our planet's climate is fascinating, particularly the influence of the Sun and our Milky Way galaxy, which is having a cyclical impact I was never made aware of. I hope you find it as fascinating and enlightening as I have. 😀
https://suspicious0bservers.org
I started following him after I watched this less than 8 minute video.
https://youtu.be/n-W76C0kkwc
Thnx😑😑😑😑😑