When will Buddha bring the ice cream? I would like the Instant Enlightenment Sundae, please, with no nuts. And could I have it to go? --Murphy We hear a lot of talk these days about awakening. Weapons of mass instruction are proliferating. How to write happily about higher consciousness without sounding Holier than Tao? How to trust what is in us and that we are finding our way to it? With unrelenting humor, Murphy gives it a try, only to discover in himself a surprising truth about what is hidden from our everyday mind: what it is to wake up.
Is being self-aware the same as being awake? What role does attention play? Along with these questions, Murphy explores, with great fun: Everything in Self-Help but The Self; the Leaky Boat School of Self-Perfecting; Beliefs (the Big Addiction) and Ownership (the Big Trap). Whatever the hitch, he always says, But I can work with that, an endearing attitude, and for him, Attention is the teacher.
Here is a look beneath the golden robes of the spiritually well-endowed. --Murphy
With over 40 drawings by Bruce M. Sherman.
Contents
Preface
Writing about the Mystery has its dangers, namely, believing-in-the-one-who-thinks-he-knows. In the garden for a nanosecond and I become the Wikipedia of flora.
Chapter 1: Lord, Have Murphy
A blow does get my attention. A sudden fear. A quick deflation. Bam! Is that the sun blazing gold across the horizon? I had not noticed because my world has shrunk to the size of a kumquat.
Chapter 2: Murphy, Have Lord
GO WIDE, SAYS THE OCEAN, SAYS THE SKY. My new bumper sticker from Glowaii. Yes, it is just another state, well south of the great Unknown. But it does cost to fly there. Pay how? With attention.
Chapter 3: Lord-and-Murphy
So I huff-and-puff to accept myself and others. And then the discovery. Focused attention yields to finer Attention, opening into light-flecked space where there is no should.
Chapter 4: Write It Up!
It is when the writer makes spinach out of this mysterious process. Ugh. Ego usually gets a bad rap, by the way, in all this press. Why not pick on the nose? It can dominate at moments, too.
Chapter 5: Higher Education
I had the privilege of attending, in Amsterdam, the Sit-Chat-Ananda Institoot for Lifelong Learners. At first it was very easy for me to become very busy with pretending to be collected. In Holland we call this going down the toobs.
Chapter 6: Head Case Studies
The only problem with identification is getting identified with it, thinking it is a problem. Golden opportunity here! To sit in my own stuff, really notice how I am, and wake up, thank you. See without interfering. Not to change things but to see.
Chapter 7: Maximizing the Art of Living
There appears to be a blurring of the line between self-help and awakening. All we need is to redefine a few key terms:
TRANSFORMATION: Transitory information about how to cope as a cheerier me.
Chapter 8: Wakebook
It is all about streaming live video of yourself. Somehow mind-here-observing connects with body-here-seen and feelings-here-interested-in-seeing; all three coming together permits perception of what is animating the whole.
Chapter 9: Picture This
In the moments we embody the finer energy, the Goodness of it flows through us into the world. Can it be? The shift we are seeing at times, in ourselves and others. At any moment, freedom.
Chapter 10: Metamurphosis
Once upon a time there was a sensitive little caterpillar living in a forest. All there was to do all day was eat leaves. But others were always trying to chew him up.
Annotated Bibliography:Hungry to come home? Read The House of Seven Gratefuls by Bee Holden.
