Katherine's Blog

Pure open heartedness

2012-01-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

Dearest friends,

I love you all so much.

I am so grateful to each and every one of you for your devotion to open-heartedness, now and always for yourself and for all beings, past, present and future.

Whatever we choose in life or death, nothing about us ever falls outside of pure love and natural perfection. We are held in all directions by the complete timeless devotion which is the nature of reality. Even in moments we don’t see it, it is the case.

I feel deeply with everyone today and all days. This care is not mine but ours, it is us, our naked selves. Allowing ourselves to be just as we are, fearlessly open-hearted, love cannot not pour out. We want the very best, and the most kindness and love for all beings. We want no one to ever suffer. My devotion to the Four Mainstays is motivated by this, and the Four Mainstays fortify my devotion in complete unflinching indestructibility. Nothing can stand in the way of the love we share, this is actually the way its always been, and now we notice.

I love you. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

Kat

From the Winter Gathering in Sweden

2012-01-03T05:28:00.000-08:00

Dearest humble friends,

I am awed by each and every one of you. Thank you for your demonstration of humility and power in sharing so openly these last days. Sharing data normalises all data for all of us, removes its power as something to be afraid of, something separate or apart from benfit itself. I see so clearly for myself that the more I open up about these taboo topics of money, shame, wanting to be selfish, unworthiness, suicidal thoughts, desire, sex, loneliness, fear of rejection and all raging afflictions, the more I am a free and powerful to really be in full relationship with these data without fearing them or fighting them.

For me this week has been such a potent and tangible teaching of the direct reflection of our personal relationship of ourselves and our data, myself with myself, and the relationship of all people with each other and the world. It could not be more obvious how fighting and fearing our own data, judgment, avoidance and disempowerment of ourselves is the root of all fear and fighting, judgment, disempowerment and avoidance in our world.

It is time we as a people stood up and avoided nothing, got real about the mess our world is in, and got real about our own power as individuals to make a difference. I don’t want to avoid my power, I want to nurture it. There is nothing I want more in my life than to be of the most potent and far reaching benefit I can be with my body, mind, speech, qualities and activities. All aspects of myself and my data are devoted to this. I couldn’t do it without the support of the Four Mainstays, and for you all, I am so eternally grateful. You give me my life, and I love it.

I love you

Kat

Courage

2011-11-28T02:31:00.000-08:00

courage |ˈkərij; ˈkə-rij|nounthe ability to do something that frightens one : she called on all her courage to face the ordeal.• strength in the face of pain or grief : he fought his illness with great courage.PHRASEShave the courage of one's convictions act on one's beliefs despite danger or disapproval.take one's courage in both hands nerve oneself to do something that frightens one.ORIGIN Middle English (denoting the heart, as the seat of feelings): from Old Frenchcorage, from Latin cor ‘heart.’THE RIGHT WORDCourage is what makes someone capable of facing extreme danger and difficulty without retreating (: the courage to confront the enemy head-on). It implies not only bravery and a dauntless spirit but the ability to endure in times of adversity (: a mother's courage in the face of her loss).
I searched for the word courage today on my laptop and the dictionary definition popped up. It touched me deeply as I recognised the experience of relying on open intelligence and the Four Mainstays in the midst of raging afflictions as the greatest of courage. Sometimes it feels completely frightening to let our data rage, and to stay open and ask for support when everything we've learned tells us we need to protect ourselves, hide out and run. Yet it is in doing this; relying on the Mainstays just when we want to 'go it alone' that I have experienced the greatest unfolding of love and power within me. Only by relying on the Four Mainstays in the midst of fear, without rejecting or hiding out from it, has it become clear to me that there nothing to hide from, nothing that needs protecting, there is only pure open benefit within each and every data, even that which I most fear. Thank you to my teachers, the Balanced View community and all the Mainstays for the transmission of courage and support for me to stay put in the midst of raging data-streams, and to stay open, available and to continue on, prioritising benefit for all in all I experience. I am so happy not to be living within conventional ideas about what suffering is - only by facing our suffering completely without shying away do we see there is no suffering anywhere. There is only ever love, compassion and great peace within every single perception.I am endlessly grateful and blessed. Thank you Candice, Kathy and all dear friends committed to open intelligence for the benefit of all.

2011-11-08T03:28:00.001-08:00

‎"By the power of open intelligence, we shift in emphasis from self-centredness to the openness and beneficial power of open intelligence. We empower our beneficial nature. Open intelligence returns us to reality. It aligns human intelligence with reality. Open intelligence is reality itself."

Thank you Balanced View for opening my heart and mind to the reality of my human life as an endless flow of clear and direct love and kindness for all and revealing the tools and capacity to make a lasting contribution to peace on earth. ♥

Keep it simple

2011-10-06T00:12:00.000-07:00

Open intelligence is the knowing quality of every experience. It is what is looking through your eyes right now. Whatever thoughts and emotions you have, however you label them, they will not leave a trace or mark on sky-like open intelligence and you cannot hold them in place. Open intelligence is your fundamental identity - the only thing constant about you; always pure, always luminous and always naturally present. Check it out and see if it is so.

Gentle love everywhere

2011-09-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

To get real with all our data in open intelligence is to find gentleness, intimacy, kindness and love everywhere, in all experiences. This cuts the root of needing to cling to that special person, place or thing. We find what we were always seeking in and as ourselves - each here and now as open intelligence. Gaining confidence in open intelligence creates the space to really enjoy everything and everyone fully without needing anything in return. What a beautiful gift and investment for life! What a magical way to live - the reality of real unconditional love and service in every single moment. This is what is possible for each and every one of us.

Humility

2011-09-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

When we see ourselves as an isolated individual who is better than others and who doesn't 'need' support, we shut ourselves off from the incredible love of open-hearted reality. We live our lives in the tension of trying to hold our identity in place, and in fear of criticism and rejection. The humility of open intelligence is the reality of knowing everyone everywhere is exactly the same as us, that its safe to be supported, and we can relax completely exactly as we are.

I am so grateful to my trainer and the Four Mainstays for providing me a space where I can be fully supported to let all data be as it is without replacing it with 'being strong' or 'being fine'. Without this support it would be impossible to settle into my intrinsic stability, completeness and safety as open intelligence, naturally present in all data - even in insecurity, sadness, weakness and vulnerability. Wow! What power and open-hearted tenderness it is to not need to be strong, but to find our natural state is indestructible all on its own.

Thank you Balanced View!

Wholly beneficial

2011-09-08T00:28:00.001-07:00

The cure for all the things we don't want to feel, is to feel all the things we don't want to feel. Letting ourselves be as we are in the safety and love of the Four Mainstays we allow benefit to become obvious in every experience, every aspect of ourselves that we have feared. The clear, relaxed and free open intelligence that is sensing everything is naturally present as all of us with nothing left out.

How incredible to be able to be 100% ourselves and to know everything about us empowers more and more benefit for ourselves and all when we let it be.

I am so grateful to the Four Mainstays for showing me this tenderness, care and kindness towards myself. What a wonder to share it with all.

Effortless power wtihin all data

2011-09-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Your power is not in controlling points of view or in efforts to be successful in any way, but instead in the spontaneous, natural and effortless presence of who you already are. Clear and potent open intelligence, shining as the appearance of all data.

Your power is in letting yourself be 100% you - 100% open intelligence, inclusive of all of your data - even feeling weak, unstable and sad. All of this is your power and complete open love when you let it be as it is.

Short moments of peace

2011-09-03T10:56:00.001-07:00

Short moments of instinctive recognition of sky-like open intelligence within positive, negative, and neutral thoughts, emotions and experiences reveals the already present peace, stability and benefit within every single moment, no matter what we label it.

Complete as we are

2011-08-30T01:33:00.001-07:00

Allow yourself to be fully 100% you by letting all your data be just as it is, one moment at a time. There is nothing about you that is wrong or evidence of failure. Short moments of open intelligence and the Four Mainstays show us directly that we are totally 100% inseparable from pure and perfect love. The search is over - we are always where we've always wanted to be.

Unstained

2011-08-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

Every single thought, emotion and experience naturally vanishes like the flight path of a bird in the sky, and you - vast open intelligence - always remain open, clear, unstained, with nothing to protect or uphold and effortlessly flooded with energy to be of benefit to all. This is my experience of life. Short moments of open intelligence repeated many times become continuous. Thank you Balanced View!

Natural beneficial changes

2011-05-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

Attempts to change our experiences to find well-being or peace or stability are always fruitless and serve to substantiate the belief that peace and stability are found in a certain data-set. No data can be held to - just like the here and now can not be held to, and we end up seeking and exhausted trying to hold our wellbeing in place. Changes that we make based on rearranging data to find ease perpetuate our belief that we are flawed and unstable in the first place.
When we look to Open Intelligence for our peace and stability we find our ever present ease and we shift spontaneously from self-focus to the open context of benefit. Here behaviours change naturally and effortlessly, with no rule book or 'perfect conduct' required. All actions, experiences, thoughts and emotions are seen to be equal expressions of Open Intelligence and always without exception a platform of profound benefit.

Stop fixing!

2011-04-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Nothing needs to change about you. Instead of describing all of your thoughts, emotions and experiences - notice the open clear lucidity which is naturally present in each moment just as it is. You - the clarity view - are always flawless. Give up trying to fix yourself, and you'll find your natural perfection.

Open-Hearted Clarity

2011-03-29T16:11:00.001-07:00

When we relax as clarity and allow everything to be just as it is we see that no point of view has an independent nature. Everything, absolutely everything we experience is already clarity. There is no division or split - just seamless clarity. Wow - we are so powerful when we rest like this, as the unchanging basis of everything. Here we can face everything fully, open-hearted and clear. No longer anything to avoid in ourselves, anything to avoid in the world we live in and nothing to chase after either. Simply open-hearted power in every moment, living fully, completely and bursting with energy to love and benefit.

2011-03-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

The power of short moments cuts through clinging to, or avoiding, any conventional activity to micromanage points of view, and releases us to the natural explosion of benefit - right here in the inseparability of clarity with all experience whatsoever.

Immense gratitude

2011-03-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

This evening I sat with an old friend and considered how just a few years ago points of view seemed to have so much power. So much was felt - so much frustration, anger and sadness about the world and the destruction and unbeneficial activity I saw all around me and in me, and I had no solution for it. I felt helpless and was exhausted.

Shortly after I reached a point of total hopelessness, I was offered the opportunity to rely on clarity for short moments, many times. With the training and support offered, now all my sadness, frustration, anger and all moments whatsoever have been transformed into a single stream of raw open beneficial energy. The assumption that points of view had an independent nature and power over my wellbeing is outshone forever as indivisible clarity becomes increasingly obvious. Only peace and energy to contribute to the world remains. I feel the solution for the first time to the crisis I saw and see around me, and I know deeply that as a human race it is possible for us to create world peace together.

I am so indescribably grateful to have been offered the toolkit of the Four Mainstays to recognise my actual identity as pure, unchanging benefit in all experiences. I can only express my gratitude for what I have been given by giving back a million fold to others. If every aspect of my life can be transformed into ever expanding and ever powerful love and benefit then the same is true for every single human on this planet. Why settle for anything less than a new era of pure peace and unconditional love for all of humankind?
Out of destruction and breakdown can come pure benefit and breakthrough. It's up to us.
Thank you everyone who takes a stand for clarity.
Kat

Simple clarity

2011-03-17T16:48:00.001-07:00

Keep it totally simple for yourself: clarity or points of view. What are we going to focus on?
Try it out, and see what feels better!

Everything is free

2011-03-14T16:11:00.001-07:00

There are no experiences to be free of. All experiences are already free! Try and hold on to a thought, or an an emotion, or any moment at all. Everything self-releases like a line drawn in water. Instead of trying to change points of view, relax as open clarity and enjoy the always beneficial intelligent flow of experience - free, in and of itself. www.greatfreedom.org

Everything is at rest.

2011-03-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Everything is already at rest. Look into each moment and see for yourself, all experiences are inseparable from sky-like clarity, like light is inseparable from space. There is nothing to resist or push away. All points of view are your total gift for noticing this is so.

Clarity

2011-03-12T02:39:00.000-08:00

Our stability; our sense of ease, well-being, relaxation, our self assurance; the complete openness and power to do whatever is needed to be of most benefit to everyone is found in clarity.

Amnesia for the era of reification

2010-10-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

Dearest Candice

I am so deeply and profoundly grateful to you for always, always seeing clarity and demanding clarity, in every single human you meet.

You are the most humble world leader, the powerful, loving friend in the truest sense, and the greatest inspiration of what it means to be human. When I sit with you, and I feel the power that I am, I am totally awed by what is possible for our world.

You said today that society would have amnesia for the era of reification and I can say with 100% surety that this process is already happening, person by person. I have amnesia for the reification of viewpoints. I am society! I can not remember what it was like to have a point of view and see it as a problem, something to suffer from. Now, the appearances of clarity can be so intense, and yet within each moment, I am 100% assured of my stable nature – I can relax, and in confidence to let all be as it is the love and gratitude of open hearted clarity opens up from every single afflictive state.

I feel a different person to the one I was only a month ago! I am more satisfied, more stable, more mature, more in love, totally in love, more alive in all moments, more complete, more relaxed about everything – everything, and I feel more gratitude for life than I ever felt possible.

I am deeply touched by everyone who chooses clarity instead of emphasising point of view, by your courage and your humility to simply expose yourself to yourself as simple, pure clarity free of all elaboration and embellishment. Getting real. This is so incredible – this is so so incredible! Humanity is changed forever – thanks to you all. Introduction to clarity, plus 100% commitment to the Four Mainstays, plus 100% assurance of the benefit of each moment, equals irreversible and permanent peace and wellbeing for all beings. We role model the Four Mainstays Life: permanent, ever increasing love and benefit – and it cannot be stopped. Boom! Everyone will know. Suffering will be erased forever.

I love you Candice for always seeing me. I love you Kathy and Asaf and am completely inspired by you and so honoured and humbled to sit next to you each day. I love every one of you.
Love
Kat

Love

2010-10-03T04:45:00.000-07:00

Over and over again the true nature of love opens up to be more intense, more powerful and more wild and free than I ever could have imagined. It is so clear that by following after impulses and desires I collapsed 'Love' and the feeling of being 'in Love' down into a pinhead of experience to do with me and one other person, and with so many expectations and such clinging attached to that. Completely limiting in so many ways - and draining!

Relying on clarity, all the viewpoints get more vivid and powerful, including the desires and the bliss. We start to find that the entirety of all experiences exist within us; out of control, raw, wild energy - wild love!

Using these unrestricted, unpredictable experiences as a skilful means to be of benefit to all, by allowing them to be as they are without trying to indulge avoid or replace is the most sublime way of life.

Here, relaxing as clarity, it is piercingly clear that there is no separation from overwhemling desire and powerful, universal, beneficial energy that can transform our planet completely.

Piercing love - unshakable, powerful love that depends on no one. This is what we all are.

Taking a stand

2010-09-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

We have to take a stand for sanity, and we, each of us, is the only person who can do this for ourselves.

In each short moment, when we rely on clarity rather than continuing to mess around in reifying points of view, we do just this. We take an immediate stand for the potential of humanity to live in benefit for and with each other. We realise this potential in each short moment - making our commitment to our clarify all points of view in our natural stability. We see that we are not a victim, we are not a slave to any impulses, any fear. We are never limited in our capacity to be totally open-hearted, totally clear.

Short moment by short moment, rely on clarity. Boom! Each moment is clear, stable and wide open. It has never not been this way! Individually we demonstrate what is possible, first to ourselves, and then to others.

Life lived this way is easy, and so powerful. Nothing stands in our way of ensuring all humans know permeant happiness, peace and generosity as the standard for living. Its up to us.

I am so grateful for the unending support I get to live a life of limitless love.

Katherine

Death and other Afflictive State

2010-09-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Four Mainstays are the direct expression of all-pervasive Clarity. They are piercing reality of clarity’s endless benefit, prosperity and generosity. They are the complete and whole experience of true kindness and care.

The Four Mainstays are rugged. They are indestructible. They are single-pointed, unwavering, fully engaged, responsive. They have one purpose. Benefit of all. World peace. The total realisation of the human potential, in life and in death.

We’re born, we live, we love, we die. When we live a life based on the accumulation, definition and identification with points of view, the concept of death is both terribly frightening and terribly appealing. Death from the vantage of point of view means an end to relationships, an end to love, an end to our ability to create, an end to our ability to be touched and to touch, to hear and be heard, to see and be seen, to feel and be felt. When we have looked for relationship, touch, sound, emotion, sight and sensation as evidence of our intimacy and love, then of course death signals a terrifying prospect: we might be alone, unable to love and be loved, completely forsaken by the tenderness of the human heart. On the other hand, death can mean the end of suffering, the freedom from the struggle of ups and downs, release from being someone endlessly efforting to get somewhere and endlessly failing to hold on to it.

In clarity however we discover who we really are. We discover in each short moment our all-pervasive nature. We get to grips with the reality of the situation; we never have been someone going somewhere, we find in every moment that we are simply a super-complete brightness, soothing clarity..like space pouring into space, like sunlight in air. Indivisible intimacy and love is our ever-present nature, the source and spring of every experience regardless it’s label. Clarity never goes anywhere, never dies, never falters, never fails, never forsakes.

In each moment of instinctive recognition and with the fuel of every afflictive state this is our endless discovery. In each moment of allowing everything exactly as it is we release the limiting confines of viewpoints on our experience and our powers of benefit. In each moment of allowing everything to be as it is we experience the freedom of death, and the freedom from death. We experience ourselves as we are, pure clarity and this very alive human powerhouse of beneficial capacity.

In each short moment, simply right here and right now, always available, always where we are, we can allow ourselves the kindness of the release viewpoints. This is it, nowhere else. This is where we find it – here, now. What we are now is what we will always be. Nothing added, nothing removed. Going nowhere. Loving in all directions. Benefit is realized for each of us, and together, here in the instinctive recognition of our lucid and very alive, forever unborn and never dying nature.

Afflictive states and benefit

2010-07-16T04:02:00.000-07:00

Dearest Candice,

I am not in the mood for bullshit any longer. I am not in the mood for any dillydallying around. I am not in the mood for putting up with the way things are, the way they have been. I am not in the mood for complacency. I am not in the mood for accepting the consensus that a society built on lack and pathology is ok or that it is ok to continue to put up with that and even contribute to it.

If anything is my most afflictive point of view, right now, it is this. It is the wrath and fire that I feel, complete rage actually. And the recognition that I cannot scream and shout to make people come out of a corner they are in in the first place simply because they are afraid. It is wanting to shout, and knowing that that won’t help. This is my most afflictive state, and it is also the fire of my determination and the fury of my love.

I know the solution. I see that in skylike clarity this intense rage in me causes no tension. I see that it instead is expressed in potently direct speech, body, mind, qualities and activities. The ‘afflictive’ state generously pours out mountain-like stability, confidence and energy to do what needs to be done. It points me squarely to my capacity to serve unwaveringly myself without dragging anyone along. It unequivocally directs me to the reality that I can only take responsibility for my points of view, and that I am absolutely capable of making a direct, clear statement of ‘only clarity’ in all of my relationships and leadership roles.

This life is my responsibility. This is my carefree, playful life of relaxed clarity. My life. Choosing what I want. Nothing else.

I look at all the afflictive states I have experienced over the last three years and I see they have each fueled this fire in me. Even when I did not feel like they were giving me anything but pain. Even when I felt I would have given anything – even my life- to rid myself of the grief, the sorrow, the loss, the black, black depression, the failure, the unworthiness, the arrogance, the pride, the fear, the sense of imprisonment by my work, the fear of rejection if I put a foot out of line, the need to do it right, the physical pain, the heartbreak, the overwhelming desire and heartbreaking love for another. So many of these states, unpredicatably appearing, taking over and going wild in me. Each time I have relied on the solid Four Mainstays and, with their total support the unending haven of their unconditional clarity and love, often immediately and sometimes not so immediately the fan of these seemingly ever circling points of view as spun out leaving confidence in their wake.

Now the fan can – and does - spin as much as it likes. I welcome my button pushers. Facing everything, avoiding nothing. I know so deeply that my afflictive states are giving generously to me again and again the opportunity to see things how they really are. They are evidence of my indestructibility. And, when this is hard to see I know where to turn. My trustworthy teachers, my indestructible community, the teaching, and to the instinctive recognition of naturally present clarity. The rugged Four Mainstays uniting us all in great mutuality of only support, only love.

It is incredible how this reality of how things are is being made obvious to us all. We are being given the opportunity to let ourselves go wild, to let the covers be pulled, to give up trying to be someone or to have a life that looks like anything at all. In accepting this invitation we free ourselves from all ideas whatsoever. We stay with exactly what we are – a single, simple, unbounded moment - and we acknowledge ourselves. We set free the clarity potency in every single point of view.

All at once, seamlessly. Wild clarity is wild benefit, wild benefit is wild clarity.

Right now every element of my being is resonating with a lionhearted roar and with the power of wild, wild oceans.

With all my love and life,

Katherine

Easy Sailing

2010-05-18T00:07:00.000-07:00

I was asked a question last night about my experience of the disturbing states I used to experience 'Do I still have them?'. It really struck me; I had to really think about whether I did or not!

Over the last three years, everything has continued as normal, in fact, I would say that some negative thoughts and emotions have raged more than ever before, however what has changed is my belief that they have any power over my well-being whatsoever. By taking short moments of clarity, repeated many times, it has become unavoidably obvious to me that my stability is found in the natural presence of awareness rather than in the constantly changing flow of points of view.

As this becomes more and more my experience, the impulse to focus on and describe disturbing states has just loosened up - so firstly they don't hang around as long, they resolve spontaneously, and secondly I barely notice them when they do appear. There simply is just nothing of interest to look at.

Wow!

I am really grateful to have been asked this question and to have had the opportunity to reflect on my disturbing states. It is in seeing how far we have come since being introduced to clarity that we can really see the powerful benefit of short moments.

Life really can be easy sailing!

Sending immense love to all,

Kat

2010-03-08T00:17:00.000-08:00

I feel so privileged to be waking up this morning to a world of clean water, affordable healthy food, health care and a warm house. Every single human being deserves these simple qualities of life, yet so few have them.

Its up to each one of us to bring about equality and peace for all beings. I see now that it is possible, we are not helpless.

I have experienced such a shift in myself in the last 3 years. A life that was totally self-focussed on being 'someone' and 'living life to the full' has transformed into one where all my daily decisions are naturally and effortlessly held in the context of what is most benefit for all. I no longer need to impose my way of thinking on anyone else or struggle to change others to keep me stable and content. In the complete, permanent stability and love of awareness there is nothing left to do but to contribute to the world.

This is our natural state - like nature - intelligent benefit flows without thought or contrivance.

Short moments of clarity, repeated many times do become continuous. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Today I am going to do all I can to bring about world peace and benefit for all beings.

Wow. What a life. Thank you Great Freedom!

Love

Kat

2010-02-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

Complete confidence in awareness is the self-release of the here-and-now.

Candice O'Denver

Indivisible love-awareness

2009-12-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have been granted the most incredible opportunity to get to know awareness. This last week I had an accident which resulted in a multiple fracture in my leg and a major operation. I am left on crutches for 8 weeks, unable to be independent in my day-to-day living, and with severe pain as I learn to walk again.

It really has been a gift. In the mist of the most intense pain it was obvious that the basis of my experience was totally stable, unchanging, crystal clear and open; my basic well-being unwavering.

In the mist of self-pity, frustration, sadness and exhaustion the relief of crystal clear awareness is immediate. Each changing experience is an opportunity to rest in indestructible clarity and sky-like openness with everything as it is, moment by moment.

It is beautifully confirming to experience the immediacy of relief, and the total transformation of confused self-pity to compassion for all beings in the simple recognition of the indivisible basic state. We see nothing needs to be avoided. Nothing affects the basic state. When nothing is avoided, we can feel everything fully, and feel the immense confusion and suffering of all beings. In an instant, whoosh, self-focus dissolves into love for all.

What a blessing this christmas to be getting to know true compassion rather than reifying a self-focused personal identity that needs to control the world in order to be ok.

I am so very grateful. With love to all,

Kat

Total ease with every moment

2009-11-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

I am struck by the ease that continues to saturate every aspect of my life and experience.

Clarity is in the present experience, it isn't anywhere else. Nothing at all needs to be done with my perceptions to find clarity and ease. No effort whatsoever is necessary. Nothing needs correcting.

This is such a relief. This is the lived experience of something totally new for me. I have struggled for many years to avoid failure in my relationships, my work, my personality.. constantly correcting everything and seeking perfection.

Now, with nothing avoided and everything included, peace saturates every single aspect of my experience. I am free to feel. I am free to think. I am free to be every single label in the dictionary, and yet none of them define me. I don't need to appear in any way whatsoever in order to be OK with myself. Here, I find I am clear, at ease, in love and totally capable to be responsive and to do what is needed to be of most benefit. Effortlessly wide open and natural like pure space.

Thank you Great Freedom!

Love

Kat

2009-10-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

“If you bog yourself down in conventional ideas, then you’ll just be a “bogged down someone” all of your life. There can be no bigger disappointment than wallowing around in conventional ideas, when all the while the very basis of who you are is this pure intelligence that is entirely cognizant, conscious and aware and which does nothing but emanate benefit.”

Thank goodness for the end of all disappointments! As someone with high expectations I was bogged down by disappointment after disappointment in myself, my relationships, my partners, my work, my mind, my heart.. Now, all there is is one gift after another of total open presence which needs nothing, expects nothing and is totally, absolutely content with everything exactly as it is. I am so very grateful for this!

2009-09-27T05:26:00.000-07:00

"Never underestimate the power of this simple practice. It is the most powerful force on earth. You have got to get that in the core of your being. We rely on short moments, and it takes us all the way to personal peace and unity, and it takes us all the way to world peace and unity."

This is another quote from the Short Moments book, which I absolutely love. This one captures the Great Freedom teaching; bold and simple.

Short moments of clarity, repeated many times, become continuous. Short moments of peace, repeated many times, become automatic. These short moments, of complete openness do become continuous. I have seen it in my own life. How amazing is that!

I am someone who spent my life looking for the root of suffering, and wanting to cure it - both my own and that in the world around me. I studied psychology, neurology, social constructionism, homeopathy, I was a peace activist, a youth worker, an ecologist and a developer of community focussed social enterprise. Nothing I studied or did gave me a solution that could bring guaranteed peace to myself or others, or give me hope that peace and unity was possible in the world.

The instruction of 'Short moments of awareness' and the support of the Great Freedom teaching has shown me the root I was looking for, and given me the solution. Short moment by short moment, I have introduced myself to my indestructible peace, my wide-open unflinching clarity.

Short moments is all that is needed. No matter what appears, a short moment is always available. The direct experience of total unity and peace saturating everything. There is no looking anywhere else. The search is off!

Anyone can do this. And seeing it in myself is how I am absolutely convinced now that a peaceful world where we simply want to be of benefit to each other is possible.

Love endlessly,

Kat

Clarity

2009-09-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Clarity is as obvious as the here and now!

Isn't it amazing! All the striving to find perfect peace, perfect intimacy, perfect love and perfect clarity in a specific set of circumstances (which almost inevitably seems to be somewhere else other than where we are), is totally unnecessary.

Short moments of clarity have shown me this. They have shown me that no matter where I am and no matter what is going on for me, clarity is still there - stable, lucid and wide open like the sky. Clarity saturates every experience equally.

The more I have noticed this, the more obvious it has become. Sure enough, relying on clarity has become more compelling than indulging, replacing or avoiding the thoughts, emotions and experiences. My old habits of trying to improve myself and my life have transformed into a totally incredible appreciation of every moment.

I am awed by the simplicity and effectiveness of this practice, and it's potential for the human race. In just two years my life has transformed to one of permanent ease, openness and an uncontainable energy to be of benefit and serve the world in whatever way I can.

Clarity shines brighter and brighter and with it the love, energy and total gratitude for every moment. I wish this for every one on earth! It is our birthright.

What an incredible time to be alive.
Love
Kat

2009-09-17T05:56:00.001-07:00

"World Peace - Yes We Can!"

http://www.greatfreedom.org/peace.html

Peace is naturally present. The more familiar we become with this as our natural state, the more peace spreads naturally around the world.

The instinctive recognition of awareness is the single key to effectively bring about world peace, clarity and stability. To gain confidence in awareness as your true nature, this is to pioneer the way for the solution to all problems. With our open-minds, hearts and courage together we can recognise all limitations as limitless, and to give all we have to bring and well-being peace to all beings.

Great Peace - Great Fortune!
Love
Kat

2009-09-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

"In a short moment of awareness, we have complete openness. When we begin short moments, getting a taste of that helps us recognize that this openness pervades everything. The openness of awareness is a much more comfortable space, because there isn’t anything going on."

I love this quote. There are no knots to undo or unravel. There is no confusion to work out of or tension to relieve. All is already totally wide open, relaxed and resting in itself. Every moment totally at home in itself as clarity with nothing needing to be done to achieve it.

This is like a great sigh of relief! Each short moments is a touching in with this relief. In an instant of recognition that this is the way it is, the straight-jacket of beleiving we need to find freedom anywhere else is removed. We spread our wings in ease and our energy is released to be of benefit to all. Short moments, many times, become continuous.

What joy!
Love
Kat

2009-08-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

"Once we relax enough, we see that there is nothing but a basic state of pure presence without anything going on in it. That pure presence is entirely aware. It is inseparable from all of its own appearances. Whereas we thought all appearances were separated out from each other, now we don’t even think about that. It is just instinctively clear that there is nothing that has ever been separate—that everything is seamless and without division or split anywhere, and we are amazed that this came upon on us without even thinking about it."

Every short moment shows us directly that the here and now is spontaneously self-releasing. We cannot hold on to any perception or make it in to any 'thing' in its own right. When we are all tied up in our descriptions we simply don't notice that this is the case. When we relax we see that every single perception rests in itself, as the pure, clear and relaxed basic state. Nothing need be done to achieve contentedness and completeness. It is our natural state. Every short moment shows us this, and we learn to relax more and more with everything exactly as it is.

It is incredible to see how this plays out in my relationships. Relating to everyone becomes filled with ease, openness and love. Nothing to avoid and nothing hidden. No need to appear in any particular way to anyone, or expect anyone else to be in any way whatsoever. Complete gratitude for everyone's unique contribution to the whole.

I am so grateful to see this increasingly play out in my life in every single relationship.

Kat

2009-08-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

"All of the buzz words we have like “self-respect,” “self-esteem” and “self-love” are found in that first short moment of awareness. We find everything we have been looking for: esteem, respect, love—it’s all there. All the nurturing we’ve been looking for everywhere in anything we have explored, we find there, and then we know we don’t have anywhere else to look. This is very important. Don’t confuse yourself and don’t confuse other people with strategies that are going to end up in pain."

There is nowhere else to go. Keeping it simple and relying on awareness in each here-and-now, it is now so obvious to me where my stability and ease lie. Love, ease and contentedness are not in holding in place the multitude of perceptions, emotions, thoughts, relationships and circumstances..or in ridding ourselves of the 'bad stuff' - it cannot be done! Instead of relying on the perceptions, I have chosen to rely on wide-open awareness, moment by moment. Now life shines with brilliant love, ease in all situations and an unstoppable flow of energy to be of benefit to all. Nowhere to go. Here and now is all there is and it is our choice in each moment - to rest or not to rest!

With total love,
Kat

2009-08-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

"Whatever your own points of view are, that’s where your instinctive realization of awareness is. That’s where your instinctive realization of the basic state is. It’s in your own points of view—it isn’t anywhere else. All the things that you’re absolutely certain are indications that you are not recognizing awareness—that’s where your instinctive realization of awareness is."
Short Moments, Chapter One

It is so good to be grounded in the self-release of the here-and-now, with nothing to look for anywhere else. The search is over, the efforting is over. All the striving to be the right kind of person has come to an end. All the looking for the right kind of relationship is over. All the wanting to be accepted and liked has fallen away. The need to have the right kind of career and achieve the best - gone. To be respected and admired - not necessary. Totally content in what is right here, everything exactly as it is; pure, clear, spontaneous and carefree awareness. Dependent on nothing. What a releif.

What a wonder!
Love Kat

Clarity

2009-08-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

Whatever comes, let it come. What ever is, let it be. Everything, exactly as it is is pure lucid clarity, wide open and uncompounded. With the striving to fix ourselves coming to a complete stop in clarity, all that is left is the unceasing flow of energy to be of benefit.