I Am that I Am

The Ki Earth Journal continues on as a chronicle of people, places, things, and events; recorded in blog form as I travel around the United States in the summer of 2010. I thoroughly enjoy taking and sharing pictures, (for some reason they won't load in today) and talking about the places I go and the people I meet. I plan to have more interviews and dialogs with interesting people - like the hillbilly and his wife a few days ago.

And there is absolutely no mistake about it - this is also a spiritual journey - a finding of my way home. Exposing myself in the most transparent and honest way possible. This Journal is the humble offerings of a man seeking true life meaning. I intend to go as deep as I possibly can in my openings to innocence; my becoming genuinely human. The blogs are not teachings or suggestions . . . they are invitations to share this journey with me, if you will - a journey from outer observations to the inner observations and back again. The following from the Osho Tarot sums my journey up:

Zen says truth has nothing to do with authority, truth has nothing to do with tradition, truth has nothing to do with the past - truth is a radical, personal realization. You have to come to it.

Knowledge is certain; the search for personal knowing is very, very hazardous. Nobody can guarantee it. If you ask me if I can guarantee anything, I say I cannot guarantee you anything. I can only guarantee danger, that much is certain. I can only guarantee you a long adventure with every possibility of going astray and never reaching the goal. But one thing is certain: the very search will help you to grow.

I can guarantee only growth. Danger will be there, sacrifice will be there; you will be moving every day into the unknown, into the uncharted, and there will be no map to follow, no guide to follow. Yes, there are millions of dangers and you can go astray and you can get lost, but that is the only way one grows.

Insecurity is the only way to grow, to face danger is the only way to grow, to accept the challenge of the unknown is the only way to grow.

Although the above says that truth has nothing to do with the past, I believe that the revelation of truth is shaped by the past. When I visited my Junior High after 50 years, it revealed part of the story that shaped my life today. This morning I wondered if I could find any other stories at the beginning of decades. In 1960 I was 13 in a new school in Columbus, Ohio. In 1970 I traveled from LA around the world, a high adventure which includes many wonderful stories I’m anxious to share. In 1980 I was married and my second son Aaron was born - we owned a restaurant in Homer, Alaska. In 1990 I moved to Kauai as a carpenter. I found this 2000 letter which I feel compelled to share - an honest recording of who I was then. It also totally illustrates who I am at this moment, 10 years later.

A day in my life #63 October 3, 2000

Dear Ones,

In January of this year I went through a brief period of depression. A downward spiraling series of events proved to me that my behavior towards, my choices concerning woman, money and life in general did not work, had never really worked, and never would work. Period. My depression came when I ran out of lifelines and the question was, “Is “this” your final answer?” My choices were 1) yes 2) no 3) duh 4) what was the question? I had no idea which one to pick. Regis from hell would keep repeating the question, “Is this your final answer?” until finally, in front of a packed audience of myself, I screamed “NO!!!!!!” And Regis says, “You have just won $500 and we’re going for $1000.” Ugh.

I realized that in order to continue living – living with any value or feelings of self-respect, self-esteem and self-worth, I had to change – I had to metamorphosis myself. I had to.

Putting new engines in old jalopies isn’t easy. I’d been lugging my caterpillar body/mind around for 53 years and the thought of completely reinventing myself, of actually becoming a butterfly, was frightening. So I blubbered like an old fool for awhile and, thank God, my son Alan held my hand with wise and helpful counseling.

My metamorphosis came while embracing two teachings. One is a daily reading from A Course in Miracles (I read a lesson every morning upon rising) and the other is, beginning with the reading of a book titled “Zen and Now,” a daily card drawing and reading from the beautiful and enlightened Osho tarot deck.

Both teachings are reminders of who I really am, as opposed to who I thought I was or who I thought I wanted to be. Osho has reminded me to live life like the Zen masters do. For them, for me to the best of my ability, every act is a sacred act performed with intention, honor and grace.

I have found that as I commit to living in the here and now and plant those zen seeds of intention, honor and grace with conscious action, the seeds have slowly but surely taken hold, taken root and have begun to grow flowers.

Several months ago I shared regarding an Osho card that I frequently pull. This particular card has become my theme card for the year 2000. Here it is again –

Flowering

Zen wants you living, living in abundance, living in totality, living intensely – not at the minimum as Christianity wants you, but at the maximum, over-flowing. Your life should reach to others. Your blissfulness, your benediction, your ecstasy should not be contained within you like a seed. It should open like a flower and spread its fragrance to all and sundry – not only to the friends but to strangers too. This is real compassion, this is real love: sharing your enlightenment, sharing your dance of the beyond.

This is why I write to you.

There are 78 cards in the Osho deck. Every morning I thoroughly shuffle the deck, cut it into three piles and pull the top card off the middle pile. In the 30 days of September I pulled “Flowering” 10 times, including the last four days of the month four times in a row. That’s not totally true. On the 30th I cut the cards and pulled “Suppression.” I immediately looked at my body all slumped over. I was all serious and not smiling – like I was in this box and wanted to stay there. The card was a perfect reflection of myself that moment. And . . . I didn’t want that moment to be my day. I sat up straight, threw my arms out wide, smiled, laughed to myself and said, “All right – now I’m ready for my Flowering card.” I shuffled again and pulled it.

Zen or God or my Highest Self (the All I Can Be Me) wants me to live in totality . . . wants all of us to live in totality.

And Regis from Heaven has this show called “Who wants to be a god?” All of us do.

If you were to ask your typical realized being, Jesus for instance, if He wants to be a god, He would answer, “Surely I Am, for God and I are One.” Or something along those lines.

What Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and Krishna and all the other Cosmic All-stars had in common with you and I, is the physical body. Now that’s pretty obvious. But you have to ask – if they all had their God ducks in a row, if before their holy births they realized without a shadow of a doubt their Oneness with God, then why bother to take a physical body? Why didn’t they choose to just hang out in Heaven all day, play their harps, frolic with the angels, smile down and leave us earth fools to our folly?

Well, there’s a reason. God is Pure Consciousness. When we die we return to Pure Consciousness in the non-physical. In our all knowing state of Pure Consciousness in the non-physical we know whether or not we lived a life of Pure Consciousness in the physical or not. All those guys in the last paragraph are saying in one way or another. “In my great love and compassion for all humanity I have come to demonstrate what it’s like to live in Pure Consciousness while in a physical body. I am here to show you that there is no separation between God and I – that God and I are One. I’m here to show you what you can do. Check it out.”

Of course all those saints and mystics and shaman and nuns and bodhisattvas and enlightened cowgirls throughout the centuries most seriously checked it out and did their very best to follow the ways of the All-stars. Many actually succeeded, and left the physical, while the rest, God love them, died trying. And the billions of us puppies left licking the Big Dog’s bones? How about them puppies? Some don’t give a shit, some do, and the rest of the litter give it a good sniff now and then. Are you still there, God? Help me! Elvis has left the building.

I keep thinking that it doesn’t have to be that big of a deal. Somewhere along the line a medieval marketing department made us believe that only those who can dribble and dunk can make the All-star team. I don’t buy it. We’re all on the All-star team!!!!!

When a baby is born, that baby enters the world in Pure Consciousness and innocence. After a few mid-night waaaaaaaa’s and some poopy diapers we forget. We (all of us parents, aunties and uncles, big brothers and sisters) become unknowing agents of those medieval marketing assholes (actually it goes back much farther than that) and we take right up with telling that Pure Conscious baby, “You’re not That, you’re this.”

When we sleep at night we return to Pure Consciousness – we (all of us) return to Oneness with God. When we open our eyes in the morning and Bob next to us is farting or the kids are already up fighting with each other or we feel our aches and pains, we immediately (in-correctly) verify again, “I’m not That (for sure Bob’s not That), I’m this.”

Well, let me be your brother (not the guy on the cross or the lotus blossom – your, I’ve been known to fart like Bob, brother) reminding you, YOU ARE THAT!!!!!! You’re not “this.” “This” is bullshit. “THAT” is who you are.

“This” is not my final answer. My metamorphosis came about when I decided that I am no longer going to buy “this.” “This” being the world energy thought that all of us mere mortals are less than “That.” I’m not buying it. I Am the god that I Am. You (YOU!) are the god, you are the goddess that you Are.

How do you remember that? You get up in the morning and you smile. You look around and thank the Creator and all the creator elves for everything your see that’s been created. You thank the Mother for the earth you live on and all life upon it. You thank your brilliance for birthing yourself into the physical where you have another opportunity to demonstrate Pure Consciousness. How do you do that? How do you demonstrate your godliness?

You do it the very best way that you can.

How would a Zen Master do it? How would a god do it? They do it with intention, with honor and with grace. They scramble their best eggs. They make sure their pee hits the water. They consider consequences and act accordingly. They have fun or they forget it. They love whatever you don’t; whatever you do. They kiss babies. They do what floats their boat.

However YOU choose to live your life, live it as if every moment here is a privilege, an honor given to you; a sacred experience. Live your life as a flower, flowering. As the Osho card says, live in abundance, live in totality, live intensely – at the maximum, over-flowing. Live in the physical as if you are the god that you are. Love yourself. Carry the Pure Consciousness from your sleep over into your awakening and walk it – simply by saying “I Am.”

With great love and honor for who you truly are,

David Dakan Allison