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April 12, 2011

The True-Self: Impersonal and Individual.

“When life flows through us in such a pure and powerful way, utterly beyond any preconception or idea that we may have, we have found our true life.”

“…When we abandon the idea that what we ‘really’ are is a centralized self corresponding to our ideas, we discover ourselves as the unceasing, ever-changing kaleidoscope of experience that arises as our life. So we discover that we are, in each moment, a truly individual phenomenon, not limited even (or especially) by any notion of a continuous or coherent ‘self…’

At this point, we begin to sense that our experience, and thus our immediate life, is ultimately not about us nor is it for us. We begin to sense that we are vessels or vehicles for something much larger—in fact, reality itself, in all its vastness—and that our lives are unfolding rather completely independently of our own personal sense of ‘self,’ with its various hopes and fears, its ambitions and agendas. We begin to realize, in other words, that our life is ultimately not a personal phenomena at all.

Ironically enough, the realization that our life is not a personal phenomena marks the birth of our true individuality…

This realization, of course, can only occur when any self-conscious “I,” even any sense of ‘me’ being me, has ceased, if only for a moment. When it does occur, this realization is accompanied by a very powerful and life-changing awareness. Undeniably and astoundingly, we discover that, when life flows through us in such a pure and powerful way, utterly beyond any preconception or idea that we may have, we have found our true life.” ~from Touching Enlightenment With The Body by Reggie Ray

Change is the only constant. It is in the unsettling or unexpected moments of “our” life that we realize the inevitable and unavoidable truth that we are not other than life. In fact, we are an example of life.

If we have the courage to move beyond “our” interpretation of life, and rest in a direct experience of the eternally unfolding present moment, there we will find our True-Self. It is the impersonal and individual awareness—the enlightened mind—underlying this eternal revolution. ~from Life Is Verbing by Ben Riggs

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Dr. Reggie Ray currently resides in Crestone, Colorado, where he is Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to the practice, study and preservation of the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the practice lineage he embodied.

The Dharma Ocean Foundation has an online media store where you can download “theme-based affordable bundles of talks, as well as complete program recordings.” Right now they are offering a free MP3 or PDF download, a talk from Reggie Ray entitled, “Emotional Awakening.” Click here for this free download.

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