エンライトへの道

The Way to  Enlightenment
There is a Native American  story I heard many years ago. A young Indian
brave was having bad dreams at  night. In the dreams he owns two dogs, a white dog
named “Love,” and a black dog  named “Fear.” Every time he goes out to feed
them, the black dog snarls  viciously and starts attacking the white dog, such
that the dreams are turning  into nightmares. 
Desperate,  he goes to the medicine man, the wisest man in the village. “The
black dog keeps  getting bigger and more ferocious. I’m afraid if he kills the
white dog it means  love is going to die in my heart, and I will lose my
courage as a warrior. What  should I do?”
The  medicine man thinks for a moment, then says, “It’s  simple.”
“What?”  the brave pleads.
“Just  feed the white dog.”
Feed the  white dog. Focus on love, not on fear. Stop giving energy to the
dark, fearful  thoughts inside your head, and feed only that which is positive
and true, that  which makes you feel inwardly confident and whole. That’s the
lesson in this  story, and it is a good story to remember for those who are
still struggling  with self-doubt, with inner conflict.
But to wake up and be truly free, you have to  face everything in yourself,
including all your demons. You have to face fear  itself. You have to confront
the black dog. You have to look it in the eyes and  discover, for yourself,
just how real—or unreal—it is. Of course, what you’ll  discover, if you truly
face it and stay with it long enough, is that it  isn’t real. Nothing in your
mind or in your dreams is real. Only  consciousness, or awareness, is real—real
in the sense of being timeless,  changeless, ever-present.
Yes, you have thoughts, including the “I” and  “me” thoughts. You have a
personal history. You have concepts, beliefs, ideas  about your life, and what
you want to do, what you want to achieve or  accomplish. You have memories and
stories about your life. You have sensations  in your body. You have feelings
and emotions. You have experiences—all the time.  Events and circumstances
come and go in your life. 
But none of these manifestations of  consciousness are ultimately real, and
none of them are who and what you  fundamentally are. Who and what you are, as
I have made clear throughout this  book, is the consciousness, the quantum
presence, that is aware of all  these manifestations, these arising phenomena, in
your life. You are the ocean,  the boundless awareness expressing in and
through this unique yet finite  mind/body/person that is the outer expression of
who and what you are. Get that,  realize the liberating truth of this notion,
and you will be  free.
Remember  the two tools that will, more than anything else, help you awaken
to this  freedom. The first is the practice of presence. It is your ability to 
simply be at ease and alert in the now moment, aware of both your inner and 
outer environment, welcoming all that unfolds. The practice alone, each time
you  remember it, will alleviate much of the conflict, stress, fear, and
suffering in  your psyche simply because you won’t be resisting it.  You will be
more open, more receptive to whatever you’re experiencing. You won’t  be
fighting against it.
In  this way, the practice softens you, paves the way for a clearer insight
into  reality—into the truth of who and what you are. This is where the 
teaching, the second tool, comes in. You must see that the world inside  your head,
the world of “I” and “me,” is an illusion, a story you have spent a 
lifetime making up and believing. The more you see this, see it from your  wholeness—
see it globally—the more it falls away. Your body relaxes, your heart  opens,
and you awaken to your true nature. You awaken to yourself as  consciousness,
as the ocean manifesting in the wave that is your body/mind/self.  
Then  you will be free. You will be free of the attachment to and
identification with  the personal pronouns “I” and “me,” which marks the final shift
into freedom.  Then you will be enlightened, fully awake to you true nature,
self-realized. You  will know yourself as consciousness, as an expression of the
divine, the quantum  Reality behind creation. You will see clearly and beyond
all doubt that the  “person” you had always taken yourself to be doesn’t
exist, and never did, other  than as an idea, a story, between your ears. 
Then  you will find your identity not in thoughts or beliefs, not in emotions
or  feelings, and not in events and circumstances, but in being itself, in 
the beauty, harmony, and fullness of existence. The mind—thought—will no
longer  be a distraction, but a true ally. Your life purpose will become clear and
love  will guide all your actions. Love will guide you in your relationships,
your  work, your creative pursuits, in every aspect of your  life.
©Jim Dreaver,  2005