It's that time again, Peter is building the big newsletter. If you have some good pictures or consciousness related cartoons or images please send me some. You can send them in a message here for consideration. Cheers!

Hearing about it isn’t the point. Its grasping whats being said. The language is pointing to something. An experience or consciousness that you can grasp.

I’ve been noticing something slightly disturbing about spiritual teachings. For any teaching to survive, it has to attract people. And to attract people, it almost always has to offer some kind of “goodie”. Freedom from suffering.A better life.Authenticity.Peace.Enlightenment. Something the ego wants. Because if a teacher simply stood up and said: “Let’s pursue truth for its own sake, even if it destroys everything you believe and gives you nothing in return.” Almost nobody would show up. So teachings package truth with incentives. Even teachers who deeply care about truth still have to do this. Take Peter Ralston as an example and this community. This work clearly points toward something very serious. But notice how the entry points are things like improving your life, ending suffering, authentic experience, workshops, courses, books, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s probably unavoidable. It just reveals something about us as humans. Most people don’t come for truth. They come for something they want. And maybe, if they stay long enough, truth sneaks in. Which brings me to the funny part: Even writing this post… I can see the same mechanism in myself. Part of me genuinely wants to explore this dynamic. And another part of me hopes people resonate, like it, comment on it… so I can collect enough points to reach Level 2 in this community. So even this reflection isn’t free from the same incentive structure. Which makes me wonder: Is it actually possible to communicate truth without any incentive attached to it at all? Or is some level of “goodie” always part of the game? -Talat

I noticed that when I think about others, I'm only interacting with my thoughts about others. That's how far our relationships go. Yet there is a different way of connecting with others: I notice they are 'in the same place' where I am. It is the same formless seat of our being, unchanged and unlocated. In that seat, we are identical. What follows is an appreciation of this sameness, which I want to call Love. All I can do from that position is simply be That which dreams both of us. So I got curious: is this love? What is love in your experience?

A spiritual "teaching" assumes a separate individual that needs improvement: That needs to become more conscious, as that is what seems to be the only worthwhile Endeavour; to live with integrity, become whole and complete, in the end. That seems to be common sense, solid and true. Now at the same time it is true that you are whole and complete already; there is nothing wrong with you. It's a paradox. As long as this person is experienced as a separate being (this IS you) , with a life and a history and (hopefully) a future in which there is a striving towards a goal of enlightenment, or being bad ass conscious...there is not a chance you will get what is longed for. Sad but true. You will never get it. It is in this context a bit silly to say that you never existed, nor did anyone ever. In this immediacy that cannot be explained, understood or made sense of, such a statement is silly; you are boundless, infinite existence that does not exist and is nothing appearing to be you. But this is true freedom in which everything is always new.