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Michael’s interest in meditation started in 1965 when he was introduced to the Quakers. The Quaker’s belief is that God is within you. This was a revelation, an “aha” moment that struck a deep cord. Within pointed to a place where Michael felt that he could experience God directly. However, it was 25 years before he actually discovered the blissful freedom that comes from within. In his practice he had many useless diversions and wrong turns. That’s why he wrote Making Your Wisdom Come Alive; so that you can take the direct path to this freedom, which turns out to be your genuine Self-Nature.
What do we experience anyway?
We all experience our own self-nature, right? That’s just who we are. Then what’s the problem? Self knowledge is a matter of ferreting out what we actually experience from what we are supposed to experience. This means looking at our self afresh with wonderment, as if looking through the eyes of a baby.
We often filter our experiences through our thoughts about them, or through what we’re told our experiences are supposed to be. These filters include our definitions of life, our mind, and what we are. When we take a fresh look into what we really are, we find that our mind and the nature of the world change in ways that we could not anticipate. Life becomes a beautiful adventure. This change does not come from changing our thoughts. That would just be a temporary fix. Rather it comes from standing in our real center, the place where we really stand anyway.
So how do we get to experience the glow of life, the way we intuitively feel it is meant to be. By intuitively I mean that no one feels happy being measurable. Even when people attempt to end their life, they hope to find more happiness than they experience here. That’s because underneath it all, people feel there is a place where they can be completely happy, free from the limitations that they seem to face.
When we look to our core, what do we find?
The good news is that it’s possible to find a freedom that’s greater than many of us have ever dreamed of. The way you get there is like a sculptor. You strip off the limitations that you see, until you find your original face as pure Consciousness and Bliss. The problem is that you can’t know your own Self-Nature the way you know an object, with your senses and mind. That’s because you abide on this side of your senses and mind.
But still you can know yourself. That’s because you are yourself. Like the sun is light, you are Consciousness and Bliss. You wouldn’t need a candle to find the sun, would you? In the same way you don’t need a separate light like the mind or the senses, to know what you are; you know yourself in a more direct and immediate way. You know yourself because that’s what you are. So at your core what do you experience anyway? Is it limitation and suffering, or is it the blissful freedom of your own nature?