Awareness Anonymous By Sundance Burke

New WiseCrack by Sundance Burke


(AA Meeting ~ Speaking at an Awareness Anonymous meeting)
Hi, my name is Sundance and I am a non-thinker.
I used to over-think unconsciously every day. I was a slave to my mind.
Now that I am conscious and aware, I no longer think.
In fact, it’s been 5 minutes & 32 seconds since I had my last thought.
Today, I stay thought-free, one second at a time.

When I was thinking, I was addicted to the past. For me, one past thought simply led to the next. I just couldn’t stop thinking, because I thought I needed it to be who I am. Yet, every time I thought too much, I’d end up suffering. After several years of hard core thinking, I began to hallucinate. I thought that I was seeing separate people, places and things. I felt completely isolated and lonely. I tried to possess and hold onto the images as if they were real. I was constantly paranoid. I felt like everyone was leaving me or after me. I projected the cause for all my problems onto the illusion of others. My vision got blurry and I started seeing double. I would reach out for things that weren’t there. I was constantly dissatisfied and afraid. I began to believe that an imaginary future held my salvation and I lost all contact with the present moment. I felt divided, lost and constantly threatened. I didn’t know it then, but I was about to wake up in a gutter of my own making. Because of this experience, I now realize that I cannot have a single thought without the risk of falling back into my addiction.

By these meetings, I have come to realize that thinking is a dis-ease and so I shouldn’t feel guilty. I now know that I am not responsible for the thoughts that I think. I am merely unconscious when I am thinking, and so, I don’t know what I am thinking or how much.

I used to feel that I couldn’t live without thinking and that I was powerless to stop. The truth is, I used to over-think everyday. I guess you could have labeled me a Maintenance Thinker. I just couldn’t do anything without thinking about it first. I’d think a lot before going to bed at night. I’d also think in the morning, as I was getting ready for work. I’d even think on the job and then I’d bring my thinking home with me. All the while, I didn’t feel like my thinking habit was a problem. I thought that I could think and get away with it. Often, I would hide my thinking from my family and friends. I didn’t want anyone to know how much I was thinking. So, I wouldn’t reveal anything I thought. I would just keep my thinking to myself and think alone. You see, I became a closet thinker. However, sometimes a friend would suspect that I was thinking alone and ask, “What are you thinking?” I’d say “nothing,” hoping to hide the fact that I had been thinking all the time. Occasionally, I’d be honest and own up to my thinking and tell them just what I thought. Unconsciously, I probably knew that my thinking was a problem and that I needed help.

It’s a fact that I experienced a tremendous number of problems while I was still thinking about one thing after another. In the beginning, it seemed that I could think socially. However, I soon found out that 2 thoughts were never enough for me. I just couldn’t stop at “I Am.” With me, 2 thoughts became 3 and 3 became 4… “I am…I am so…I am so angry,” I’d think. Next, I’d be pounding down one thought after another until I was completely unconscious and unhappy. “I am so angry… at… you… for…leaving…me… and…running…off…with…my…best…friend.” I’d go on like this until I blacked out and lost all consciousness. My thinking was completely out of control and I hurt myself, my family and friends. I also created a lot of enemies.

Sometimes, I used to think positive thoughts to get high, but after thinking too many thoughts my thinking would invariably turn negative and then I’d suffer. When I wasn’t thinking anything at all, I felt so bad that I desired to start thinking again, just to get high again. This cycle of up and down thinking would repeat itself endlessly. Eventually, I thought my life was hopeless and I thought about ending my thinking altogether.

Only by grace, I discovered Awareness Anonymous and attended my first meeting. These meetings were dry, and so, no thinking was allowed anywhere in the hall. The anonymity in the group name comes from no thinking. However, each anonymous member of the group used to be an over-thinker, just like me. To maintain our anonymity, we hang out with other non-thinkers and try to avoid places where there’s a lot of thinking going on. Someday I hope that I’ll be able to be around thinkers without thinking like they do. Until then, I’ll just stay with the program and not think. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be here anonymously.

My My My by Sundance Burke

If we want to be enlightened, we will have to lighten up by dropping all our unnecessary burdens, heaviness, and carry-on baggage. What is that, one might ask? Well, it's all the things that we identify with and attach to that don't belong to us and I'll get to these things in a minute. But first, how do we demonstrate that we attach to things? We demonstrate this by our thinking and speaking. We say "my" body, "my" feelings, "my" mind, "my" world etc. Here's a very short list of the things that weigh us down from one moment to the next. "MY" body, disease, health, illness, pain, image, worries, concerns, goals, projects, work, house, car, bills, neighborhood, environment, hopes and dreams. "MY" feelings, memories, guilt, resentments, regrets, insecurities, frustrations, excitement, depression, sadness, anger, happiness, fears and desires. "MY" thoughts, judgments, opinions, political and religious affiliations, past, future, story, knowledge, experience, training. Each and every one of these things possesses some weight for us to carry.

Let me ask, do any of these things really belong to YOU? Another way of approaching this is to ask, who would you be if none of these things had anything to do with you? Don't all these conceptual trappings just make YOU up as something when in truth YOU are no-thing at all? Is there any such thing as a YOU without this idea that "I am what I perceive"? Strip down, get naked, let's go skinny dipping. Take off all your restricting clothes. It's just apparel, cover up, make-believe pretense. None of these things are YOU. And if YOU let everything go you'll realize who you really are.

Wow, can you believe it, You are no thing at all, so there is nothing for anything to attach to. One thing needs another for attachment and YOU do not qualify for that position. Lucky YOU! My oh my have YOU changed. YOU look good unburdened, light and free. It's crazy isn't? We have been carrying all this weight throughout our lives and it has never even occurred to us that we could put it all down. I am not saying that you don't have to interact with all these things anymore. You will have these interactions. However, you will no longer be confused. You will meet them from a clear awareness. Things only weigh upon us because we believe that these things make us who we are. Well, the truth is that they do not make us who we are. Rather, we make them what they are. If YOU can intuit the truth of all this, YOU will never again use the word "my" to express your belief, rather YOU will use it to express your wonder. "My Oh My" what a beautiful life!
Blessings, Sundance

Awake Delight by Sundance Burke

Ah ha! We are awake. We are not our thoughts; any idea, voice, belief, opinion or feeling judgment. We have awakened from our dream of endless desire and fear. We see the splinter in our mind. “Something needs to change in this moment for me to be happy.” What a funny and absurd idea. How can we possibly be happy, when we are entranced by such a suggestion? Obviously, we cannot be happy while chaining our Being to a pre-condition for present contentment. Yet, now we are awake. We see the thought. We realize what it is saying and we recognize the lie. This mind has always been speaking like this. However, now the trance is over, the splinter is gone and our eyes are crystal clear. Awareness is here, always here and That is who we are. We are awake in the light of knowing without pretending to be some-thing or some-one. We are not sad, depressed, angry, bored or confused. We are not afraid or longing. We are not a splinter of the mind. We are awake. We see the thief sneaking in to take us away to its hiding place. We catch this thief red-handed. We enjoy this attempt to steal from us, because we know that our house is empty and no one is home. We release this thief, because there never was anything real to get or take. This plan for our takeover is just so ill-conceived. Dreams are just dreams. Thoughts are just thoughts, hitching posts for every little self-concept. We are not little or big. We are not an abstraction of Being Alive. We are simply Awake and ever delighted to be so. Love and Blessings, Sundance