How Being the Observer Set you Free | The Calm Way

Click here to join us for the Calm Way group sessions... we practice, we play... Meditation, transformational journaling, and connection.

Subscribe to get my letters on living as conscious creators in the great shift and more at andreamaiwrites.substack.com

Pick up The Calm Way: 365-Day Journey Out of the Weeds and Into the Wilds of True Inner Freedom at https://purelightbookshoppe.com or on Amazon

Chapters

• 0:03 Journey to the Calm Way
• 9:13 Embracing the Present Moment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

sitting idly by in a lazy haze does nothing. So what do we do? And is that a bad thing? Let's explore that today in the calm way and see what. See what we come to. Here we are at a new day and the sun has risen again, and I wanted to share with you what came through for me yesterday as I sat in a deep contemplation and noticing how more and more is being removed, stripped away back to the very basic foundation of nature, and so let me just share what came through. So how do I step into the breadth and depth of the calm way?

Speaker 1: 0:47

I steeped myself in wisdom traditions before taking off into the wild west of the last five years, because I had a solid base from which to explore the universe of consciousness in new ways. I was able to see that there are endless experiences to consume, and there's a difference between an all-you-can-eat buffet and eating the same meal every day for the rest of your life. Each has value when we can taste and touch into the many timeless and ancient traditions. We can open ourselves to what appears to be new arising, and we can also stay one track for a very long time, all through an entire life, and even in that there will be constant shifts. The taste of the meal, the taste of what you consume and experience will change, and that's beautiful, all right. So we see this division as if there's a difference between the all you can eat buffet and eating the same meal every day. Sometimes it shows up as spirituality versus religion. In my experience, in any religion you'll see endless divides. The same goes for the things that identify as spirituality. What does it lead to? After a lifetime of observing and participating, I see the same stories run through all of it. So what is left? What is left? The boundless beauty of nothing and all. When one begins to have an experience of awakening to the empty nature, there can be deep rest in this groundless quality or the mad desire to disbelieve, to disbelieve the empty nature, thinking it to be bad or uncomfortable. So see the layers and go to the back of the line. Go to the back of the line and see. You might think of this as the big picture when you're at the back of the line. We can ask who sees, what sees? Many look to science, yet another spiritual religion, one embedded in a different sort of proof, and we can look inside, we can look outside.

Speaker 1: 3:01

There's this practice, that in the Taoist tradition that is so beautiful, talking about soft eyes, having soft eyes and I loved that term because it's it's a physical representation of what I call stepping to the back of the line or the back of the queue. It's the or the back of the queue, it's the aerial view, it's the view from behind the phenomena. It's also this wide range lens. I'm not a photographer, but something that might give you a panoramic view. Recently I was introduced to a fish eye lens. The fish eye lens allows you to see the whole sky when you put it on a camera.

Speaker 1: 3:46

At first you, you can only see a small portion of anything. You see the clock on the coffee table, the coaster, a novel, a pen, a plate, a rock, a letter from a friend. Then, expanding by shifting the eyes, one sees the walls and ceiling, the windows door, pine tables, sleeping dogs, lamps, pictures on the wall, all of the things that are in front of you or in your periphery. When we drop into soft eyes, open the inner vision, you see more. You see through these things. So, close your eyes and what is now observed? The more one observes, moving from the sense of vision, both inner and outer and opening the other levels of witnessing or observing.

Speaker 1: 4:39

The data eventually, no matter how seemingly solid, dissolves or moves, and this is the way of everything, even the observer, eventually drops away into the infinite stream. If the observer is on land watching the sun rise into the east, or triangulated out into the ethers between the sun and planet, seeing their precession, seeing the precession between the planet and the sun or the star from a different angle, eventually it all changes. It may take millions or billions of units of time, but change it does. The experience of suffering is directly tied or tethered to how deeply is our desire for things to stay the same? How deeply is your desire for things to stay the same? See, fear is not real. It's a delusion emanating from how hard we're gripping and to live in the relative moment, in what you perceive as you and your life changes Changes upon realization of the self and the not self, or the me and the not me, and the actualization of that into the experience. So by dropping to the back of the line, one begins to see differently.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Eventually, the observer, the awareness at the back of the line, knows it is no thing, it knows it is nothing, no fixed state, and it flows to any point in the line without losing the awareness. But it might spend a lot of time at the back of the line just observing until it can move up and realize it can stand in the middle of the queue, it can stand at the front, it can be right in the midst of everything, face in the wind, knowing the wind. And it are the same, just different emanations from the, from the primordial source, and so at some point there's not even this for all has been seen through, and this stream of consciousness, this emanation releases from the arising phenomena, emanation releases from the arising phenomena as to why it is this way. Well, what else is there? You can read all the wisdom traditions you like, and this is pretty much the answer that we come back to. It is the way it is and what else is there? So the calm way when I was writing it is there.

Speaker 1: 7:16

So the calm way when I was writing it presented itself as a, as a completion and a new beginning, and more will surely follow after that, after writing down that book. For now it's the best distillation of a life of study and practice that I could offer, and now the invitation is to step to the back of the line, if you aren't already there, and witness, take it in, observe, look closely at one part, at many parts, at the periphery, at the all-around view, at the internal view. These are things that we can sit with moment by moment and play with them. Really, play with these lightly until we can see through. And when you do see through, that's also something we'll be exploring, because there can still be confusion as to what to do. There's this time of transition and it can last for a short amount of time or a very long time Of the seeing through and now what?

Speaker 1: 8:19

So, but for now, wherever you are in your journey, I really encourage you to slow down, take more time Every time you feel like you've lost the thread of connection, every time it feels like there's a solid you, a solid fixed you. Remember you started as this seed and you'll return to dust, and there's nothing in that to fear. Like I said, fear is only the illusion that comes when we grip tight, when we hang on to things being a certain way. So that's what I'm sharing with you today and I'd love to hear from you. Please drop me a message, leave a comment If you know somebody who would benefit from this, share it with them.

Speaker 1: 9:13

And the more we expand together this awareness, the more easily a new arising can happen, because we've let go of what was, we've let go of the old bags, you know, dropped the old luggage, so to speak, and we can just be with what's arising right now. And what's arising is pretty spectacular if we let it. I say spectacular, that is a very grandiose kind of language, but always, as one is both empty and luminous, it is spectacular if we let it. Thank you very much for your presence and if you'd like to pick up a copy of the Calm Way or schedule a private session with me and to experience the Calm Way at a greater level, the links for both of those are in the description. Have a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful day.