Let's talk about doubt

We are humans, so we doubt. It is our nature. We especially doubt things we can't see, touch, taste or smell.

Doubt arises, always as thoughts, appearing in Awareness, known by Awareness, and made of Awareness. Seeing this clearly could be enough to end the doubt, but I will continue.

When we first start seeking, the doubts take the following forms. Is anything happening? Will I ever get a glimpse? Do I already know?

Later, the seeds of doubt may get more subtle, for example. "I know that I had the experience 'I am everything', but can I trust that? Perhaps this was an illusion? Perhaps it is just another belief. Do I really know what I am?"

It is a big leap going from being a thing, to being a no-thing. It might take an adjustment period. Like the wolf raised by sheep. One day the wolf sees his reflection in a lake and realizes that he's always been a wolf. It might take the wolf some time before he stops bleating. He might need to return to the lake more than once before he completely lets go of the doubt, because deep down the wolf still feels and behaves like a sheep! His dad and best friends are all sheep too, so give the wolf a break...he might need to 'fake it' for a while.

How can this be an illusion? How could I not know? And yet, we experience this same strange phenomenon every night when we dream. We completely believe we are real and that the world is real. While there are differences between the waking and dream experiences, the manner in which we are fooled is exactly the same.

The challenge is we deeply believe this experience is more real than other phenomenal experiences such as the dream or the Ayahuasca experience. Clearly the dream and the Ayahuasca experience is just mind stuff, ephemeral. But the waking state is real, made of real solid matter stuff, and therefore different. (This actually doesn't make sense, since all experiences are sharing the same reality, otherwise we would not be aware of them)

With a glimpse, however, we see this belief is not true. We see that everything is made of the same stuff. The stuff we commonly refer to as Consciousness. This stuff has many names. Rupert Spira might call it pure Knowing. God is another name we could use to describe this same stuff, but unfortunately this word has been misused by religion. Jesus used the word God because he was limited to the language that was available to him at the time. Unfortunately, he was not able to reference Neo in the Matrix, or a TV screen as a metaphor.

But the glimpse fades and we revert back to the old way of perceiving reality. Our minds immediately start labeling everything and then doubts arise.

The cool part is that we don't need to know. Just accept that it could be either. I could be a real body with my own separate conscious existence AND, I am equally open to the possibility that this experience is literally a dream in God's infinite mind (and then suddenly all of the characters in my life now have halos above them).

Doubt arises because how could little old imperfect me be God? I'm not even allowed to say it out loud, so how am I supposed to believe that its actually true? Humans are creatures of doubt, and we have been deeply conditioned to see the opposite, so expect doubts to arise.

Ever see the rubber arm experiments on YouTube? It does not take long before a person starts to believe they can a feel a rubber arm that is not attached to their body. They know that the arm is not real, but 10 minutes later they forget. They start believing that they can feel it. It is a simple illusion. This waking state is a much better illusion than the rubber arm experiment...so naturally I think my arm is real!! I think the rubber arm experiment is valuable, because it helps us see how easily we are fooled by our senses.

The good news is that we don't need to know. We just have to get to 50/50!!! I don't know. When we are truly at 50-50, the not knowing, we are liberated from believing we are a person. And to suffer, you must first choose to believe you are a person. To suffer, we must leave the not-knowing and revert back to our beliefs.

Even if you think that you might have some evidence that supports the doubt, his evidence would always be appearing in Consciousness. There is nothing about the dream that can tell us anything about the dreamer's mind.

It is always important to remember that believing we are this person is not a problem. It is God's choice to believe that the universe is real. God chooses to believe she is Jac, or Scott, or Grant. Why not? It's a lot of fun dancing around by myself pretending I am Jac!

The believability of it all that makes the movie more intense and therefore more fun. If God could speak he might say, why not just let them find out that it was never real when the body expires? He might say, why ruin an exciting movie, with lots or drama and lots of bad characters running around causing chaos?

It only matters when we are suffering. If we are suffering we might need to continue with our investigation of the facts. We might need to return to the lake and look again and again until we are satisfied enough to stop doubting.

I had a mini realization today. I saw clearly that I personally needed to see the truth or else I never would have been happy. That's just me. My friends appear to be happy and that is the most important thing...always.

And so today was a day of gratitude. Gratitude for the beautiful day and my many blessings. But mostly I was just grateful for knowing the truth while walking in the woods with my loving pal Rudy. Discovering the truth was definitely worth the effort. I'm grateful I seeked, and I'm grateful I eventually stopped doubting the obvious answers.

"I was alive and I waited, waited. I was alive and I waited for this. Right here, right now. There is no other place I want to be" -song by Jesus Jones