Soundtrack for this page: Nahko Bear, “Build A Bridge”
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955)–
Throughout my life, I have been plagued by a propensity to begin forgetting your NAME!, while you are still in the process of speaking it. That has just been my way…it was always a frustration because I do not see myself as a forgetful person in the important capacities…
Once I meet you, I rarely forget YOU…the way you look, sound, act…something insightful or funny you say, those things I remember…but your NAME! usually escapes me until I have had to go through the “shame and embarrassment” of asking you again…and perhaps again.
Thinking about that fact became wildly profound and ironically hilarious to me, once I began to learn about the concept of an authentic or, if you like, a True NAME!
One of the most amazing realizations, for me, about “my” True NAME!, is that it is simultaneously the least and most important thing that I wish for you to know about me.
In the end, it is not my LEGAL NAME!, some title I’ve earned, or a nickNAME! that I aim for you to remember. Ultimately, it is not even ME that I am hoping for you to remember at all…because what is paramount, is that NAME! is, in actuality, the singular energy inside of YOU!
More directly, NAME! is The Divine Spark inside of you, which only you have been given the opportunity to comprehend.
NAME! is the part of our consciousness which, once truly examined, can be held apart from what Sigmund Freud NAMEd “The Ego” and be seen as your equal…yet vitally unique…understanding of what I am calling “NAME!”
As such, I continue to find that this NAME! I have been given the opportunity to present to you, resonates harmoniously throughout the dualistic reality in which we exist…for it defines the part of me that is contemporaneously defined in you. A truly COMMON ground in an otherwise increasingly divided and extreme world.
I claim no ownership of NAME!, as this energetic presence came TO me…not FROM me. For me, NAME! is exceptionally beautiful…and offers the most humbling experience of which I am aware…pure evidence of The Divine.
The sovereign distinction…here…is that NAME! is WHO I am…not WHAT I call myself. NAME! does not reside within me, but simply flows through me.
Having said that, as I am EXCLAIMING my enthusiastic fidelity to this…frame of mind!!!
If one MUST define where NAME! ends and I begin…I’ll happily claim “!”…the exclamation point at the end.
Picture me willfully inverting myself…as if I were choosing to do an handstand…simply for the purpose of drawing your gaze for a moment.
And each of us must do something that makes our heart sing. Because nobody will want to do it with us, if we’re not passionate and inspired.
–Elizabet Sahtouris–
Purrhaps my “personality”…the “author’s voice”…if you will…is best described as a human embodying hummingbird-like energy…dancing effortlessly from flower to flower…which is to say “subject” to “subject”…magically mesmerizing an on-looking audience, while merely feeding upon the SWEETNESS that Gaia has to offer, by delving deeply into any of Her “mysteries”…and therefore Purely Exemplifying Her Presence through The Present Moment…
…Heaven On Earth!
As I uncovered, for myself, myriad layers of evidence for the connections between all life, I found True Love in the understanding that I am merely another point of you. I believe there is one root to which we are all inseparably connected…One Universal Consciousness…THAT is NAME!
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Suffice it to say that it is not our differences, but our similarities, on which I prefer to focus.
It is consistently reported that the vast majority of the world’s population believe in some form of Divine Creator [Zuckerman, Phil. (2005) “Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns”, chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.]…so one would think that it should not be much of a stretch for nearly anyone to connect with my story.
However, one of the “rubs” of our reality is a, Divinely-driven, ironic truth… Only I can understand the way I see my reality. Coming into agreement with another person, such that we are then sharing the SAME reality…now that’s the real trick!
Truly, though, whether or not you choose to believe everything that follows…in the pages of this site…is secondary to me in comparison to your comprehension of the primary message contained within my journey…
That being, the importance of choosing to explore deep inside of yourself, so that you may better discover your True NAME! and, as a result, that you find the inspiration, wonder, and love you deserve in your unique experience of the miracle and gift of living this life.
And…perhaps most important, that you then effortlessly spiral that love into the lives of those with whom you connect…by simply living your truth…as you continue on your own Hero’s Journey of Life!
I feel that the concept of presenting my story as, “authored by NAME!,” was revealed to me (In April 2013) because it Divinely encapsulates the messages contained within these pages.
These words are the result of my efforts to strip away my ego…at first. But when that didn’t work…I learned to embrace, transmute, and finally to love everything within my ego…so that I could come into alignment with an authentic True NAME!
What follows is the story of my spiritual “awakening” and the subsequent journey that “waking up” engendered…my Shaktipat (As it is known in Hindu Dharma). As I believe it is for each of us, this has actually been ongoing since my birth…but I began to ACTIVELY witness and ATTEND to the process in the Spring of 2011.
We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.
And this is THE most important message I wish to convey. The AWARENESS of which I speak…the change in perception and perspective that evolved within me, as a result of my choice to ask VERY tough questions of myself…about myself…this is what led me to NAME!
Everything begins with this awareness, because every thing we experience, first requires our awareness to fall upon it…for it to manifest in our personal reality.
What you pay attention to, is what you become conscious of.
–Ian Xel Lungold–
I began to experience what I call, “Universal Presence,” in ways so intimate and unquestionable that all previous life experiences combined could not come close in their authenticity.
As a result, an exponential increase in my capacity to comprehend the depths of love, as well as the depths of our dualistic existence, began to unfold fractally within me and combined powerfully with the permanent banishment of all doubts regarding my soul’s permanence beyond the present lifetime.
As is often the case with colliding waves, this synergistically created a spiraling movement inside of me that is far greater than the combination of the individual energies…essentially, it was like a “rogue” wave. Certainly my family, friends, co-workers, and former students would likely describe my resulting transformation in this way!
For within this completely serendipitous (I had no idea what was coming!) journey, a powerful knowledge “lay in wait,” as I discovered that the registration and incorporation of my LEGAL NAME!, via my birth certificate, primarily served to begin a lifelong process which effectively separated me from NAME!, my true reality as a spiritual being living a mortal life.
Paradoxically Divine, though, was that discerning the history and meaning behind this LEGAL NAME!…the one that my parents manifested from the combined Love in their hearts…became equally essential in developing my understanding of the purpose and importance of this journey into my True NAME!
It wasn’t until I had learned most of what is contained herein, however, that I had “spiraled out” far enough to see The Divine Beauty in full flower…to see how my True NAME! represents nearly everything that I have learned on this journey.
So meow that I am awakened to and have a fair understanding of mine…AND because without it, we will ALL remain eternally “lost in time”…I’d like to know your NAME!
I have come to build a bridge…so come let’s build!
-Nahko Bear-
Leadership is not a popularity contest; it’s about leaving your ego at the door. The NAME! of the game is to lead without a title.
–Robin S. Sharma–
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
-Henry Stanley Haskins-
Next Piece: Introduction ~ Why The Wetikó?