The cedar grove is very quiet. Not silent – there are birds singing their songs, there is wind playing in the branches, little furry creatures scurrying through dry pine needles and pieces of bark, but all those sounds do not disturb the quiet stillness. Old trees, trees that stood there for hundreds of years, with their massive trunks scarred by burns and cuts – they are quiet, they communicate, they relate in the quiet, still space. They hold it and create it. This is how they are.

And when you sit under those trees the quiet sips into you and enfolds you, and you become part of it. You become the holder of the quiet space, though not a silent space. There are sounds, but there is no noise anymore, not inside. Trees speak to you, and you become like trees. Quiet.

I sat in this grove, and then walked away, through the meadows, wading in grasses reaching up to my hip. I sat with my back against a trunk of a fallen tree, washed into white smoothness by years of rains and snowfalls. I was hidden in the grass, hidden from the mountain peaks looming over the valley, from the watchful pine trees covering their slopes.

Then I wandered away again and found a young tree that fell across a river, a rushing mountain river, freezing cold but not frozen because of the rapidity of it’s movement. I climbed up the tree, over the river, and went back to my own spot. To my chair, with a cup of tea next to it, on a high bank with the river at my feet.

I sat there for three days, when I didn’t roam through the forest and the meadows. I sat there and felt good, calm, quiet, like the cedar trees. Life was good, simple, clear, like it used to be. “It had to be this way once”, I thought, “long time ago, before we started making noise, before we forgot how to be quiet”.

I sat at the river bank and felt strong, healthy, vibrant. Like an animal, like a young wolf or a mountain goat. And I was hungry! When the time came to eat I ate with no consideration for organic, or locally grown, or fat and sugar content. I ate trouts baked over the fire, and potatoes cooked in the embers, and bread kept in flames far too long, blackened and charred, and dripping with butter. A lot of unhealthy butter. But It was healthy there, because I was hungry, because in this quiet, simple space everything was healthy.

I came home yesterday, after only three days spent up in the mountains, and it felt like I was gone for months.

I talked to a friend who just came back from his vacation, he told me about all the things he did, all the places he went. There was so much fun, so much doing, so much movement in his story. “I haven’t done anything”, I thought, “I just sat by the river, and in the cedar grove, and in the meadows”.

I haven’t gone places, seen places, done things, but I sat, like the cedar trees taught me, quietly, and there was an entire lifetime in my three days spent in the mountain Forrest, in a little cabin at the bank of a rushing river. There was a lifetime in every moment, and nothing more was needed.

A funny thing has been happening to me. It’s a series of little realizations, coming one after another, each one of them incredibly unlike me. Every next one is more incredibly unlike me than the last.

What IS like me is to be withdrawn, separated, aloof, fiercely independent and always distant. It is like me to not need people, to not need relationships, closeness, to be alone, to want to be alone.

But a while ago, few months ago, I realized that I am afraid of people. I realized that I am scared of being present in relationship with another person. This was different from what I believed before, when I thought that I simply don’t need to be in relationship. I realized that I might not need to be in relationship, but I am also afraid to, and so I decided to deal with this fear.

That was not easy, nor  was it straightforward, but my choice to not let the fear control me any longer guided me, and my relationships changed, mostly my relationship with my husband. We actually got one. We begun to talk, being together, seeing each other. He stopped telling me that he feels like he’s living with a roommate and I felt close to him, present with him. I felt softer, gentler, calmer. I did not have to fight to keep him away from me anymore. I could relax.

I also begun to think less. I noticed that I have less and less time for my concepts, ideas, theories. I had less and less time for making up stories and believing in them. There were still plenty of stories, there were a lot of stories about fear, pain, but not as many as before, and I was not as easily pulled into loosing myself in them as I used to be. I begun to realize that all the problems I had in my marriage were stories that I made up for myself, and then believed in.

Which brought another thing that happened, just last night, when I suddenly realized that I am making myself unhappy, that I am the source of all pain and unhappiness in my life. It became clear to me that life is so good, so great, so wonderful, and the only pain or fear that’s in it is the one I make up, and then believe in. As I realized this, I felt sure that it has something to do with me being closer to my husband, closer in relationship. It had something to do with me dropping my defenses, not having to fight, not having to protect myself. And I felt softer, gentler, calmer. I did not have to fight to keep myself away from my life anymore. I could accept the fact that I am here, right now, and that it’s good that I’m here. I could relax.

I opened myself to another person and that was the first step to opening myself to life. I saw the beauty and joy in being present with another person and that helped me in being present with the beauty and joy of life. I was not there, no mind, no ego in the way. There was only the pleasure of experiencing another being. There was only the pleasure of experiencing life.

And so when I heard this, just now: “my awakening has not been able to fit into the old life I created for myself and there are a lot of changes happening (…) and I can tell you that a storm is raging around me. The life, the reality I created from my mind, from my ego, has rebelled against me and that storm rages around, there is chaos raging around …” what came to me was that the more present I am to life, to myself, to the people around me, the gentler, calmer, softer I become.

The more present  to life, the more present to myself I am, the more open I become. There is no storm. There is no chaos. There is no pain. There is no fear. There is only happiness for me and for everyone around me. Especially for everyone around me because the more present I am – the more loving I become. The more loving I am – the more people around me feel loved. And when I am loving, and when people feel loved, then even the most drastic change, even the greatest loss feels like a wonderful adventure. To everyone.

And so I have found a way to measure the level of my presence. I have found a way to tell how present as myself I am, how present in my body I am. The way is this: I look at my relationship with my husband, I see how present with him I am, I see how loved he feels in relationship with me.

Because I have realized that the true measure of my enlightenment is not how loving, clear, present, strong or wise I feel, but how loved other people feel, when they are with me.

My husband told me today that I have an incredible life.

“Pausha, you have an incredible life” he said, “you work very little, and when you do, your work is the making of pretty pictures. You have a husband who loves you unbearably much, and you are an inspiration to your friends. You live in the most beautiful place, right in nature, and you have an access to a cabin in the mountains, and you have a horse. Your life is incredible”.

“Life IS incredible, for everyone”, I said, “only people make too much noise to notice”.

“You make plenty of noise”, said my husband.

“Yes I do, outside”, I said, “but I don’t make much noise inside”.

I met a man recently. A very interesting man, a man with whom I have some things in common, a man I can relate with in a way I can’t, quite, with my husband. I like this man. I thought today about organizing a project with him, working more closely with him. I shared the idea with Chris, he joked about a romance looming in my future … it was a joke … and it wasn’t.

I looked into how I feel about this man and I noticed that I didn’t know how I feel. There was a fuzzy, cloudy sort of feeling, an unconscious sort of feeling, much like how the body feels after a glass of wine. Not drunk, not out of control but just a little less in control, just a little less present, just a bit less clear.

As I looked into how I feel about this man I realized that in this fuzzy, cloudy space I can be pulled into all sorts of situations, whether I want to or not. There could be all sort of … pulls, seductions, reactions that were not a conscious choice, but that would happen on their own, that would pull me, push me, control me.

It didn’t feel good, this space. It felt euphoric on the surface, but underneath there was constriction, some pain, discomfort and dizziness which was not pleasant. It didn’t feel good because I was not there, I was not present, I could not feel myself there.

So I opened, I felt this place where I would not be present. I saw the trauma, I saw a little girl that needs a daddy, that wants to be taken care of, that needs to be loved. A little girl that can not be a partner, an ally, for her father. A small, insignificant, obedient little girl that has no space, no permission to own who she is in relationship with her father.

I was present there, with this girl, and the trauma healed. The cloudy, dizzy sensation disappeared. I was right there, present in my relationship to this man, without any pulls, with nothing unclear, with no need for seductions and entanglements. I was ready to relate with him as who I am, without losing myself, without becoming a little girl who needs to be loved.

As I thought about this later I imagined what could have happened if I did not pay attention, if I did not choose to become present in this unconscious place.

I would have related with this man without knowing, feeling, being aware of how I relate. The pulls, needs, seductions, would have begun to control me, because I would not be present with them. I could have mistaken those pulls, seductions, needs, for love, and so could he. I could have had an affair, I could have hurt my husband and ruin my marriage. I could have gotten divorced. I might have gotten into a relationship with this man, based on those feelings, pulls, needs, all this trauma I mistook for love, but sooner or later I would have woken up and had to deal with the results of all this – with a relationship I did not really want, with men I hurt.

There could have been so much pain, so many people hurt, my life turned upside down, so much unhappiness – if I did not pay attention.

100. There is no such thing as “impossible”

99. We are present to the fact that the life is our life, that the reality is our reality to do with as we please, because we are really present to ourselves, as ourselves.

98. Whatever trauma, fear, pain is there to stop us from being fully who we are – we don’t let it.

97. Enlightenment is not the end of the journey, rather it’s the very first step.

96. We have ideas, ideas don’t have us. We create explanations and reasons, they do not create us. We are the storytellers who spin the stories.

95. We enjoy the company of people with whom we have nothing in common.

94. We don’t need stories about who we are, we don’t need to define, describe and understand ourselves. We can simply be.

93. What would it be like if, instead of trying to understand and make sense of one another, we honored each other’s originality and uniqueness?

92. Imagination is the force that transforms reality – we can not create that, which we can not imagine and, once we imagine it, it already exists.

91. The only person we ever have any authority over is ourself.

90. After spending millennia on perfecting the skill of thinking, we can now perfect the art of feeling.

89. we can feel so precisely, so distinctly, so clearly and so limitlessly, that there is never any need to think.

88. A snake in a paradise is a real asset, it helps the paradise to open to a whole new level of beauty and bliss.

87. An impossible Saturday idea: on the planet where nature is present, aware, conscious, it is impossible to feel lonely. We are surrounded by friend at all times.

86. Happiness and bliss are normal.

85. When the mind is clear we are present to our thoughts and ideas. When who we are is clear we are present to reality.

84. We choose how we feel.

83. We choose to be with people, rather than for people; with nature rather than for nature; with the world rather than for the world.

82. We choose to find out what would happen, rather than decide what will happen, and by choosing who we are in relationship with anything that might happen – we create it.

81. There is no such thing as “sacred”. There is simply an experience of our relationship to life, to death, to God, to trauma, to love, to ourselves.

80. Where there is love there is no pain, suffering, heartbreak. Love does not bring pain, love heals it.

79. We consider being who we are, expressing who we are, a priority in life.

78. We realize that including, opening, inviting and welcoming is beneficial to everyone, while excluding, protecting, separating and pushing away benefits no one.

77. Anything that mind can provide – love, success, understanding, creativity, power, safety, is only a pale imitation of what we can create when we are present as who we truly are – God.

76. There is no limit to what we can take responsibility for and, consequently, there is no limit to what we can create.

75. To understand wonderland we first have to enter it. To understand who we are we first have to be who we are, to understand God we first have to experience God, to understand nature we first have to be nature. And when we fully are, fully experience, fully open, fully being – then the need to understand becomes obsolete.

74. What we call “an innate human nature” is simply how we choose to relate.

73.Arranging life’s details, creating an occupation, finding a place to live, organizing ways of supporting oneself, is like preparing your canvas, selecting paints, choosing brushes. Once all is ready, the painting begins.

72. There is nothing and no one that can make us be who we are … or stop us from being who we are.

71. Whether the warriors fight for light, or for darkness – as long as there are warriors, there is war.

70. When we explain an experience, understand an experience, analyze an experience, interpret an experience, judge an experience, consider an experience from different angles and look at an experience form various perspectives, there is only one thing that doesn’t change: the experience. Can we just stick to the experience and let go of all the rest?

69. I don’t need to know a definition of line, shape or contour, in order to draw it.

68. We are not alone in the universe. There are beings right here, on Earth, whose ways of relating, experiencing, is alien to us. Beings who are being in ways we can’t even conceive of. Those beings are our partners, our allies, ready to support us, willing to share their secrets. Those beings are what we call “nature”.

67. There is no difference between life and my life. There is no difference between time, and time for me. We may work for others, but we live for ourselves.

66. By being present as who we are we outgrow time and space. By relating as who we are, as humans, here on Earth, we outgrow life.

65. Who did you want to be as a child? What did you want to do? Do you remember? In a spirit of an impossible idea: “there is no such thing as “too late”. There is only, and always, an opportunity to grow, open, graduate”, let’s remember what we wanted to be, and let’s be it!

64. When making decisions feeling is much more accurate and dependable than thinking. One can always argue arguments away, but try arguing away your feelings.

63. We can be present with the trauma, we can let go of it such that it is no longer there, such that it’s never been there at all. When we are present as who we are, we are beyond time.

62. Be what you say you are.

61. When we become our body the trauma stored in it clears out easily, spontaneously, and the body balances easily, spontaneously. There is no need to do anything to be healthy and fit.

60. We can transform the world into a peaceful place, filled with happiness, not by devising a perfect system to organize people – but by encouraging people to organize themselves, in their own way.

59. The only answers we can’t find are those we don’t really want.

58. If time is not linear, if there is no “before” or “after”, no “beginning” and no “end”, If time is a cloud, a sponge full of spaces, tunnels, passages – then who are we? How do we truly exist If we have no beginning and no end, no past and no future? If the continuity of who we are is an illusion, just like the continuity of time … then how do we exist?

57. Love, the real love, is a way of being.

56. With knowledge and understanding we explain reality, with presence and awareness we create it.

55. Things that come easily and without effort are worth having, we don’t need to risk getting killed to get stronger, we don’t need privations to develop character, we don’t need to sacrifice to be good, we don’t need to suffer to appreciate happiness, we don’t need pain to grow, we don’t need frustration to change. We can have it all happily, joyously, and everything is perfect.

54. Who we are is to be enjoyed!

53. Anything we do in life should be done to make us feel better about ourselves.

52. We choose how we relate, we design how we present who we are in the world.

51. The best way to support others is to be who you are.

50. Happiness is a given.

49. We choose ways, means, solutions, based on how right they feel, and how happy they make us.

48. Rather than being a painter I can paint, rather than being a writer I can write, rather than being a designer I can design. I am being myself, and who I am is unlimited.

47. We open fully to what we think is wrong, we feel deeply into what we think is unjust, we connect completely with what we see as evil – and the evil opens, the wrong heals and the injustice transforms – easily, naturally, spontaneously. There is no need for action when we are present.

46. We allow the natural pace and rhythm of our bodies to organize the rhythm of our life.

45. Being famous means no more, and no less, than fully owning oneself in reality. Anyone can be famous.

44. Life is our creation. Right now.

43. We believe that who we are actually IS who we are

42. Rather than doing our best, we do what we want.

41. There is nowhere we can not stay present in, nothing we can’t be present with. We choose who we are.

40. We don’t need to know “what’s good for us”. We can feel what feels right, we can feel what feels good.

39. We remember who we are, who we were before this body was born, who we will be when this body dies, and there is no more fear. The only thing left to do in life is to enjoy it.

38. The world will never fall to ruins

37. There is more to who we are than meets the eye.

36. Creating possibilities changes things, designing impossibilities transforms reality.

35. Life is to be enjoyed, not survived.

34. It doesn’t take work to be present, it takes a choice.

33. Who we are is only our choice, the “outside world” is not a factor.

32. One can be fully supported only when one is fully independent.

31. Things will resolve themselves much more quickly and effectively if we don’t meddle too much.

30. Nothing bad can ever happen to anyone without their agreement. Nothing good can, either.

29. There is not one, ultimate answer – there is only your answer. There is not one, right way to do anything – there is only your way. There is not one, absolute truth – there is only your truth. Life is personal – because it’s yours.

28. Time is an unlimited opportunity, not a limitation

27. Rather than “doing it right” people “do it the way they like it”.

26. Responsibility is not guilt or blame, but freedom to do, to be and to create whatever we want.

25. When searching for answers to fundamental questions and solutions to global problems humans look inside, not outside.

24. People using impossible and unrealistic means to achieve impossible and unrealistic goals

23. A society of human beings can be perfectly and only peaceful and supportive, when it’s based only on the freedom to be unique. No rules, limitations, restrictions are needed.

22. We design life, we design world, we design reality. There is no such thing as control, there is only dependency.

21. Who I am doesn’t change

20. Nothing needs saving.

19. Mind is not something that we are, mind is something that we have.

18. While there are limits to what we can think, there are no limits to what we can be.

17. People sing and dance because music rings in their soul and rhythm pulsates through their body.

16. Doing what has never been done before is normal and ordinary.

15. My body is MY body, I choose whether it’s healthy or sick.

14. I can spend my entire life doing exactly what I want, in a way I want to do it. Nothing more and nothing less.

13. The whole world is home, not only one place, one town, one country.

12. Thinking doesn’t solve problems, it causes them.

11. Disagreement is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate uniqueness.

10. We can be no less than perfectly happy, ALWAYS, and…

9. …nature is the best model to learn from.

8. There is no need to know anything.

7. There is no being in the entire Universe and beyond, who knows how my life should be lived, except for me.

6. We can have everything we want, when we want it, because …

5. …e are running the whole show.

4. Living in this world, as messed up and full of problems as it is, can be really enjoyed.

3. We can communicate perfectly well without speaking.

2. Trees are friends.

1. Animals talk.

I have been imagining impossible ideas for last ninety nine days. Every morning I would imagine something about myself, something about life, something about God. Today’s impossible idea was: “we enjoy the company of people with whom we have nothing in common.”

This idea came up in response to the presidential election that is going on in Poland right now. There is one candidate in this election that would be quite controversial if anyone bothered to pay any attention to him. His ideas, observations and points are so outrageous, so offensive, so unacceptable to the Polish society, to the Polish culture, to the Polish way of being, that they go unheard and the man is dismissed as a ridiculous figure.

And yet his ideas really are valuable, his questions are often valid, his points and observations are quite progressive and important. But no one listens to him.

I listened to him today. I read some of his articles, watched his presentations, and realized that people refuse to hear him not because what he says is unacceptable, but because of the way he says it. This man is not interested in dialogue, in debate, in conversation. This man is not interested in what other people think, he does not consider how what he says lands in another person’s reality. He knows what he knows, he knows that he is right, he knows that everyone else is wrong and he knows that everyone else should listen to him and obey.

People could listen to this man, I thought, if he wanted to be heard, but he doesn’t want to be heard. He doesn’t care to be heard by people who are “wrong”, he wants them to obey and follow. I thought that, and the impossible idea came: what would it be like if we could listen to people whom we consider wrong? What would it be like if we could actually enjoy people who see reality in a completely different way from ours? What if we could enjoy the crazy people, the wrong people, the bad people, the misguided people? Not tolerate but actually enjoy?

I thought it was a pretty good idea.

An hour or so later a friend of mine shared with me a talk he attended, about lucid dreaming and enlightenment. I thought that what he was saying was utterly wrong, his idea of what enlightenment is was silly and misguided, and the whole dream connection utterly ridiculous, and I explained this to him clearly and decisively. As I proved him wrong, and proved myself right, I thought about my impossible idea for today.

It was a very good idea, and what I was being was the exact opposite. I did just what this politician does. I knew I was right and I did not care to listen to my friend who was wrong. I knew I was right and I was not interested in a conversation, I was giving a lecture. I wasn’t being with my friend, I was not aware of him at all, I could have had this entire conversation with myself, my friend didn’t even have to be there.

I was not being with my friend, I was not being at all. I was so focused on the idea, on the thought, on the argument, that I lost sight of myself, of my body, of how I felt. But I didn’t have to do that.

I could have, I thought, listened to my friend. I could have heard his perspective on reality, and I could have enjoyed hearing it because the process of hearing it would be the process of being with him, being present with who he is. I would have become so much more present as myself in this process of hearing a different perspective from my own and not going into reaction to it. I could have become so much more present as who I am, and I could have invited my friend to become so much more present as who he is.

The experience of being, of experiencing the presence of who we are could have become the focus of our conversation and we could have realized that my idea does not define and limit me, no more than his idea defines and limits him. We could have realized that who we are is beyond all ideas, it is a space where unlimited ideas can open up and flourish. We could have realized that there is no end to ideas we can come up with, discuss, consider. There is no reason to cling to a particular idea when we can create millions of them in a second.

If I was willing to talk and listen to someone who was wrong, If I was willing to hear someone who’s opinion was entirely different than mine, I could have become fully present as who I am, as God. And so could he.

But I didn’t. Instead I proved my point.

• Snake in a paradise is a real asset, it helps the paradise to open to a whole new level of beauty and bliss.
• On the planet where nature is present, aware, conscious, it is impossible to feel lonely. We are surrounded by friends at all times.
• Happiness and bliss are normal.
• When the mind is clear we are present to our thoughts and ideas. When who we are is clear we are present to reality.
• We choose how we feel.
• We choose to be with people, rather than for people; with nature rather than for nature; with the world rather than for the world.
• We choose to find out what would happen, rather than decide what will happen, and by choosing who we are in relationship with anything that might happen – we create it.

“Had this cool dream about God. I was having a conversation with her, “her” was a pretty, Hindu like, twenty something, covered in those brown body paint tatoos, with corn row hair. I asked her if she ever made mistakes, she laughed “Me? No way!” Then the phone rang.”

There is no such thing as “sacred”. There is simply an experience of our relationship to life, to death, to God, to trauma, to love, to ourselves.

Where there is love there is no pain, suffering, heartbreak. Love does not bring pain, love heals it.

We consider being who we are, expressing who we are, a priority in life.

We realize that including, opening, inviting and welcoming is beneficial to everyone, while excluding, protecting, separating and pushing away benefits no one.

Anything that mind can provide – love, success, understanding, creativity, power, safety, is only a pale imitation of what we can create when we are present as who we truly are – God.

There is no limit to what we can take responsibility for and, consequently, there is no limit to what we can create.

To understand wonderland we first have to enter it. To understand who we are we first have to be who we are, to understand God we first have to experience God, to understand nature we first have to be nature. And when we fully are, fully experience, fully open, fully being – then the need to understand becomes obsolete.

I love the “Ally McBeal” TV show. I’ve been watching it back in Poland, and I am watching it again now. It’s about many things, this show, but mostly it is about love. Or what is called love. Or what is considered love.

I watched an episode last night. It was about people wanting to get other people to be with them rather that with someone else, it was about who will get whom, away from whom, to be with whom. It was about who will have whom, who will get whom, and who will not. And everyone in the episode was unhappy. Literally everyone. And they all talked about love.

It left me puzzled. I was trying to see what was this whole mess was about, the mess full of people wanting to get people, not wanting to lose people, thinking that they should get who they want, thinking they shouldn’t, thinking that the other one shouldn’t get someone because they should …

What does all this have to do with love? I can see where the pain comes in, I can see where the frustration comes from, but love? What does all of this have to do with love?

And yet all those people talked about love. They wanted to get someone because they loved them, they thought they shouldn’t get this person, someone else should have them, because someone else loved them first, but then the person who was “gotten” loved someone else entirely so they wanted to be gotten by someone else whom they loved, who felt that they have no right to get them, because someone else loved someone … the word “love” was used a lot. Love was the reason, the excuse, the justification, but love was not the point. The point was to get someone.

I thought about this, I thought about love and what it really is, what it really means, because  what I saw in this episode did not convince me. What I see around me does not convince me. People in pain because of love, heartbreak because of love, suffering because of love – I don’t think so. I don’t think love causes suffering, I don’t think love causes heartbreak, I don’t think love causes pain.

But not getting what one wants does. If I didn’t “get” whom I want it would hurt. But what does it have to do with love?

“Is love getting someone?” I wondered, “does love mean having someone?” Do I love my husband because I have him? Would I stop loving my husband if he moved out? Would how I feel towards him change simply because he changed his address? I don’t think so. And If I loved him regardless of where he lives – then do I need him to live with me? do I need him to be mine? Do I need to have him?

And if I love my husband regardless of whether he is with me or not, would him moving out hurt me? Why should it?

But if I wanted to “have” my husband, then it would hurt if he left. But would the pain have anything to do with love?

I thought about this and it occurred to me that love is in how I relate. Love is in how present, how open, how real I am with someone. When I am with Chris as who I am, as God, and I relate to him from this place then there is space, for both of us, to be who we are. Then there is a space for both of us to open completely, to express who we are fully, to open beyond who we are, to become even more ourselves and beyond ourselves. Then there is no trauma, there is no pain, there is no fear. There is only who we are, there is only God, there is only love.

There is only love.

This is a space, this love. A space we hold for each other. This is being in relationship, this love. Being in relationship with each other. This has nothing to do with “having each other”, this has nothing to do with “being together”. This has nothing to do with sharing a house, with sharing a bed. This has nothing to do with ages, genders and social institutions. It’s simply a way of relating. With everyone, with anyone, at any time.

There is no pain in this. there is no space for pain, there is no space for suffering, there is no space for heartbreak. There is also no space for “having” anyone.

There is only freedom, there is only happiness, there is only bliss, there is only love.