One thing that I constantly remind myself in facilitation is that it’s not about me. Any idea that I have about where it “needs to go” are attachments I work to let go of. Whoever I am facilitating for dictates where they go.

I can only take people as far as I’ve gone and as far as they’re willing to go. The minute they want to stop - that’s when it stops. No judgment.

Likewise I can only take myself as far as I’ve gone and as far as I’m willing to go.

Questions coming up in my own journey are:

Who’s the one going? Is it You? Is it your karma or soul contract or Dharma to do/go?

Being attached to the doer is to only go to the level of a slave. Slave to the ego who has desire to do. Slave to the mind who creates or receives the desire. Either way, it’s not you.

Many stories arise from this desire to appease the mind. Desire to be somebody or do something. Desire to create or earn money. Why is it you must be somebody or do something? Is it to seek or discover or to become somebody in the eyes of another? All form. All attachment. All going outside of your body. What if there was nothing to find by going out into the form (i.e. the world)?

Remember the story/myth of King Midas who turns everything into gold with his touch? Works out pretty well until he touches that which he loves the most in the world, his daughter.

Oops…

That’s desire.

That’s planting a story onto everything and everybody. It’s a hell of a trip to lay on somebody: Show me I’m doing a good job. OR. Show me that you approve. It’s like turning them into gold.

What if they have to go to the bathroom? Are you going to follow them in there to watch them shitting and still ask them to approve you?

BE SOMEBODY

Other people/institutions/culture/parents (maybe farther but this is where I’ve found it anyway) have laid that trip on you. Be somebody. Show us what you can do. Show us who you can be.

**“I WANT YOU”**

Think of the big daddy war bucks, Uncle Sam, with his finger pointed at you. Oh yay! I’m Chosen!
Oops now I’m killing people and bleeding in a ditch.
(Where has that finger been?)

[ a tangent] Look at his eyes.

See how the white of his eyes are under his Iris and pupil? The Japanese have a word for that, Yin Sanpaku. Basically eyes are the window to the soul and if they are out of balance it shows something in the eyes.

Beware of a Mother’s Guilt

When Mothers realize that they are responsible for their children’s disfunction - that the shadow they did not integrate in themselves becomes present in their children - it is easy to feel guilt.

Similarly, when we wake up to the fact that our desire and mind stories are, basically, our own energy leaking all over the place a lot of feelings and thoughts come up. It’s a sharp duality: Well if I’m creating it all, then I must be powerful? Well if I’m creating it all, then how could I have let this happen? (Alan Watts has some nice ways to show how Zen is going past all the ideas of being a God or powerful etc. and back to being a man. That it is enough.)

So let go of the judgment of the past because that’s just another desire and we can’t change the past.

See? These desires just come up all over the place. So sweet and I’m addicted to the sweetness. So sour and I can even get addicted to the sourness.

Because just as an addict can’t change. One of my teachers said about addicts:

“If they could change, then they would. When they can, they will.”

[read this aloud] If I could change then I would. When I can, I will. I am enough as I am. I am enough

Hello my name is Colin and I’m a recovering desire addict… it has been 1 second since my last relapse.

It is so easy to judge your past and all the times you’ve acted according to this program of desire and all the stories attached to it.

When I am judging my own past, then I become the judger. Now I do it right and then I did it wrong. Another trip. Another part of you.

The real you, the real me, the real we, is indescribable.

Is not labelled by anything. It can’t. It defies form and description. Touching it, well you may have to discover that for yourself because I’m quickly moving out of my paygrade. (Saying that feels more honest then saying “Pay me $$$ and I’ll show you how to get there) Because the way I got there may not be the way you can get there. Heck the way I get there may not be the way I’ll get there next week.

Here’s how I see it from having walked the journey of this body called, Colin. When I came into contact with any spiritual truth it remained an idea until it was embodied. Because there isn’t anything to understand. The truths of these Bodhisattvas can only be felt. They can’t be found if we are searching. Yet we have to be searching to find anything. [I’m still wrapping my head around that one too and as long as I’m wrapping my head around it then I’m caught] Also, it came not as a fixed point or destination like “enlightenment” (Ooho shiny…) It came in the journey.

It came in the processing and discovery of just how many layers there are to this game of Colin’s life. Each layer is different. Some look yummy and delicious and others like month-old white Wonderbread - like the chemical bread in the supermarkets all purple and hairy. Yet, with a bit of chewing, they all taste like a morsel of this overwhelming love.

LOVE

That’s another thing, love. Man, all these layers of programming and conditioning pull me into seeking love, that most beautiful nectar. Always out there in fashion, magazines, a new pill, a new skill, a new “guru”, a new shill.

In one of my favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey’s character sees a woman and asks “why is it I fall in love with every woman who gives me the slightest bit of attention”.

THAT’S YOUR MIND/EGO/SHADOW (Whatever you want to call it.)

Ooops… fell in love again

Yeah it’s nice and pretty but a soul union, a real connection helps us get beyond the drama we are telling ourselves and others.
It seeks the truth and the truth hurts.

Oh, well if love’s not out there then where is it?

It’s in us. It’s in all of us. Everything you are looking for you already have. I used to think of my heart as in a cage because that’s what it felt like when I was loving.

So much love it hurt so much!

I could only love so far because that is what it felt like when I was loving. Hurt like hell because I was pressing my heart into cold steel.

Who imprisoned my heart? Who has the key? I did and I do. I imprisoned my heart when I gave that story, and responsibility, of loving me to my parents, friends, culture, wife. It got so many layers that I became fascinated and fixated on the light from others. It just lit up my big cage.

Yay! Illumination! It’s still a cage…

“And he puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore”

Then something comes along that really presses me on the cage or makes me feel like the Grinch when his heart grows 3 sizes larger. Where was that the whole time?

“Maybe… Christmas doesn’t come from a store.”

That’s what these great beings do. The Maharaji’s , The Buddha’s, The Jesus’. The Masters of the game don’t have to be here. They’re here for us.

The Bodhisattvas achieved enlightenment and then they came back. Why? I don’t know, really. Maybe it’s because we all have to go together. Not sure.

Either way… What love? What radiance? What service?

They came back to help us. To show us. To connect us with real unconditional love.

I don’t want to speak too much more because the energy is waning.

The candle’s getting dim.

When I touch that light of radiant love within, and I’m still figuring this all out, or whatever…

The light within is not a cage. It’s a disco ball.

And we’re all dancing together.

Letting go of Desire, Love and Disco Balls.

“I WANT YOU”