new site

I have started a new website called OneWord.

I am very happy with how Eternal Awareness evolved from its modest beginnings on Blogspot/Blogger to its modest place here on WordPress. And I also like that my very first post is still here, because it helps give me perspective. I can go back and see how I’ve changed or improved, whether in terms of self development, writing style or focus.

It’s funny, because in starting another site, I found myself wondering if I had abandoned Eternal Awareness. Eternal awareness is not, however, something that stops or goes away.

Eternal awareness is something that grows. In the beginning it is like starting a fire by hand - you get a few sparks going and then carefully nurture those first, timid embers into a warm flame.

My awareness fire began with very small sparks, so small I swore they weren’t there. But they were, and as they grew I realized a flame called deeper awareness was actually coming into view.

I have never presented myself or this site as an authority on eternal awareness. The name came about from a class I took. My original blog was inspired by my teacher, but the name was changed after I took a class on the Bhagavad Gita.

In the Gita, Krishna tells the forlorn Arjuna that he simply doesn’t understand the nature of what’s going on. Arjuna is faced with a terrible dilemma: his small army is facing a larger army whose ranks are filled with old friends and relatives. In awful despair, Arjuna is caught in a spot where he is powerless to fight. Krishna reprimands him, telling Arjuna it is not only his duty to fight, but his eternal duty to fight - that there is something of a higher perspective that he is supposed to kill.

To paraphrase Krishna, “Arjuna, you need a change in perspective. And the first thing you have to do is to become aware that you are an eternal being.”

I started thinking about that, and decided to try to do my small piece out of respect for Krishna and Arjuna’s great story. So, one of the things I did was to change the name of my site to Eternal Awareness. It’s funny how something small like that can help focus you. Eternal Awareness became a daily, weekly and monthly meditation - a working, everyday life mantra.

This site will stay up, and it is likely that I will become active here again. In the meantime, and through all of time and beyond, I hope your sparks grow into deeper and deeper awareness.

Surrender

Within surrender is found the greatest and most relentless of strengths, culled from the immovable pliability of life’s deepest inner power.

Surrender

Descending, sinking into surrender, plummeting through fears, past anxieties, spiraling yet further into darkness.

And in that darkness stopping - and there, suspended, between breaths - floating in the still pool of eternal flow.

Aware, and quietly, respectfully, bathing in the deep, dark river of great and ancient harmony - sustained and merged, submerged, as liquid warmth and life permeates and infuses every cell, ever molecule, every atom, with sustaining embrace, cleansing and caressing everything existing inside and outside of forever.

thinking about eternal life

How many people are planning for their next life?

The superior perspective - which would be mine, of course, just in case I haven’t mentioned it - is to think in terms of our next incarnation, but we are poor planners when you get right down to it. Most people, if they think about this, usually ponder in terms of life after death, leaving their physical body behind and going to “heaven”.

We need to think about our eternal nature in terms of a continuum, something that is happening now, has been happening and continues to happen. We are eternal beings, now.

I wonder if monks consider their next life more than the rest of us? Perhaps they only think of it when their teacher lectures about it, or when it comes up in rote meditations and prayers.

I recall two past lives when my teacher said, “You need to understand that it doesn’t stop with this one life, that we’ll be back.” I may have mulled that over a bit in one of those lives.

In another life, I recall someone saying, “You think this is the end? You actually believe that? Well, you’ll see, and you’ll see me too! I’ll look you right in the eyes.” He kept his promise. Are you familiar with the phrase “being shook right down to your core?” I wasn’t prepared for that.

I find myself thinking more and more about my next life. Is that because I am getting closer to death? Perhaps I am simply using sound project management planning skills.

Painting: Fransico Goya, Time