Being Present & Self-realization by Sundance Burke

Question:

Thank you for your work!! I have a question for you... Is this about "being present, in the moment", or realizing the truth of who we really are? It seems, if I am totally present, in the moment, i don't know who i am because i'm not thinking or conceptualizing. But, that being totally present goes in and out, or back and forth. However, if i know myself as pure awareness, i walk around with that "knowing" and it doesn't matter if i am present or not!! There seems to be a difference here and a big contradiction. One is totally alive i guess you could say, and the other seems to be a mind thing or an intellectualizing. Can you please offer your insight and guidance? Thank you very much!!! Peace

Sundance Response:
Being present in the moment is just the first step in realizing who you really are. And what does being present really mean? It means being conscious of all that is happening in your experience right now, both outside the body and within the body/mind. It means that one is aware of self-experience now and aware that one is aware now. Very practically, it is eating and knowing there is eating, walking and feeling there is walking, thinking and seeing the thought process as it happens, being conscious of the present sense impressions being felt and reflected in the body/mind etc. It is by being present right now, which means conscious of Being Experience, that one can be beyond the body and mind phenomena and broadly engaged in that which knows all of this experience; the coming and goings on.

Consciousness is the permanent backdrop for all life experience, inner or outer. This sense of inner or outer is transcended into All Being when there is a conscious witnessing present as Self. This Aware Presence does not distinguish between inner or outer, that inside or outside the physical body, as the conscious Presence is who you are as the seer-knower-feeler and everything seen -known -felt, including the body, is this Self's experince, but not itself, except relatively and temporarily. Knowing who you truly are or Self-realization is fully realizing that True You is always here and beyond all experience including the experience of life as we know it. There are infinite life expressions that one might behold, many worlds, many dreams and You are their knower and also their source.

This cannot be understood intellectually and be called Self-realization. The latter is being this knowledge and that means that what I am saying is your actual experience of being nothing other than BeingAware. Self-realization is not a philosophy to be mentally explored, rather it is the reflected Livingness of that which is Pure Awareness... the Lover of All Mainifestation... the Heart of any Life.

Another response to your query is: concepts do not matter except to other concepts. Being is All that is Living Now.

Thanks for asking. I trust this pointing serves Truth.

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

Love at First Glance by Katie Davis

Ecstatic poetry recognizes that all love is One Love and that in falling in love with one another, we are expressing the Divine. Rumi, a thirteenth century ecstatic poet, describes The Glance as falling in love at first sight. He shares that The Glance is the mystical moment, when two spiritually connected individuals meet. The following selections reveal, in the meeting of eyes, not only the exquisite union of two loving souls, but also the Love that is the Heart of the Universe. Katie selected these excerpts from The Illuminated Rumin, translated by Coleman Barks and illustrated by Michael Green.

~ What is the Heart? It is not human and it is not imaginary. I call it You.

~ This is how I would die into the Love that I have for You…as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.

~ Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other,” just doesn’t make sense any longer.

~ You and I have spoken all these words. But for the way we have to go, words are no preparation. There’s no getting ready, other than Grace. I have one drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.

~ What was in that candle’s light that opened and consumed me so quickly? Come back, my Friend. The form of our Love is not a created form. Nothing can help me, but that Beauty. There was a dawn, I remember, when my soul heard something from your soul. I drank water from your spring and felt the current take me.

~ This night, there are no limits to what may be given. This is not a night, but a marriage. A couple whispering in bed in unison the same words. Darkness simply lets down a curtain for that.

~ I would love to kiss you…when soul rises into lips, you feel the kiss, you’ve always wanted.

~ In Love that long! I am Here, this moment, inside the Beauty, the gift God has given, our Love: this ring, this gold and circular sign, means we are free: out of eternity, I turn my face to you, and into eternity: we have been in Love that long.

Friends of the Heart January 2008

We invite you to enjoy the January issue of Friends of the Heart which is a monthly publication offering articles on non-duality by authors, musicians, artists and poets. This issue includes "Adoration" by Katie Davis, Presales of Awake Joy by Katie Davis and Free Spirit by Sundance Burke, "Only the Self is Love" by Sundance Burke, information about event registration for events in Dallas, Sedona, Flagstaff, Boulder, Richmond Hill, Toronto and Chicago, "Loss, Grief, and Grace" by Meredith Young-Sowers, author of Spirit Heals, Heart of Life E-book by Katie Davis, and "A Way of Communicating the Sense of Nonduality" by Jerry Katz, editor of One.

We have also added a Contributor's Directory underneath the newsletter on the same page so that you may more conveniently find and enjoy all of the submissions by authors who have shared their wisdom with Friends of the Heart over the years.

Awake Joy & Free Spirit Presales Open

Presales are open for Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment by Katie Davis and Free Spirit: A Guide to Enlightened Being by Sundance Burke. Both books are hardbound, each with 224 pages, and they each have a retail price of $22.95.

Until February 1, we are offering a 20% discount on each book which saves $4.59 per book. In addition, we are also offering a Togetherness Presale Discount for those who would like both books. The Togetherness Discount is 30%, saving $13.77, plus two books ship for the price of one.

Awake Joy and Free Spirit will ship February 1. The presale discounts apply until February 1.

Click the following links to enjoy Awake Joy: Summary, Contents, Reviews, Author Biography, Purchase.

For Free Spirit, please click: Summary, Contents, Reviews, Author Biography, Purchase.

We hope that you enjoy them and that they point to awakening and Self-discovery. They truly were a joy to create.

Awakening by Sundance Burke

What is this Awakening? Everyone assumes and also thinks that they are someone, meaning a person. Well, you are not a person, because a person is just an experience. Your experience of being a person comes and goes and does not even last for 24 hours. You also experience the world and your family, friends and neighbors and they do not last either. You forget all this every night. And when all this disappears, you also disappear because this "you" is like everything else, it's just experience.

No experience is the awakening. This is completely true. The awakening has nothing to do with experience, so there's no point to seeking one. Whatever you experience can never be what being awake is. And No Experience is the awakening, that which underlies all that happens. As you are not found in any experience, you are no-thing at all, but you are. I AM is this Being. However, you cannot improve this Being by adding to it, because all you could add is not what you are. So do not try to add anything and do not try at all; one way or another.

Awakening is just being free and clear, not from something like experience, but as What Is. Nothing Is, Being happens. Be clear, this is Awakening. Blessings Sundance

Flagstaff Satsang, JOY Right NOW

Registration for Sundance and Katie's satsang and satsang intensive is now open. First, they will be speaking at the Flagstaff Religious Science Church at the Sunday morning services at 10:00 am on January 27 with music by Tom and Shondra and no registration is required. There is an optional love offering to the Church. Then, on Friday, February 1, they begin a two day event in Flagstaff entitled JOY Right NOW. Satsang will be Friday evening with a satsang intensive on Saturday, February 2. You may register for a single event or for a special two day pass. The donation is reduced through registration, but you may also donate at the door.

Those attending the Sedona Satsang at the Sedona Creative Life Center in the Chapel on January 26 also have the option of registering for a two day pass that includes Satsang in Sedona as well as the Saturday JOY Right NOW Satsang Intensive at the Flagstaff Religious Science Church on Saturday, February 2.

Our sponsor for all of our events in Arizona is Richard Sink of Video Satsang, who regularly offers video satsang with Gangaji and Eckhart Tolle at the Spiritual Life Center in Flagstaff.

To register for the Flagstaff events, please go to Flagstaff Religious Science Church. To register for Satsang in Sedona, go to Schedule and Registration. You may also donate for all of the events at the door. For more information about the Arizona events or to view Sundance and Katie's Schedule for 2008, go the Sundance and Katie.

We invite you to awaken!