One with Life: Insights to Spiritual Enlightenment

By George Tsiattalos

Are you drifting in time, from past to future, with little reality in between?

Have you realized the essence of who you truly are, or is your mind still holding you hostage?

Does the past weigh heavily on your heart?

Does the so-called future occupy most of your attention?

Do you use your mind or does it use you?

Do you really begin at birth and end at death?

From the very start to its final pages, this groundbreaking book is designed to spark a spiritual awakening. The question is: Are you ready for it? Or will your ego – the false mind-made self – stop you along the way?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649797773

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George Tsiattalos (2021)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Tsiattalos, George

One with Life

www.onewithlifeinsights.com

ISBN 9781649797759 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781649797766 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781649797773 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021912592

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgment

I am deeply thankful to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle for his teachings which helped spark a realization I never thought possible. I named this book after his passage, There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One with Life. Being one with life is being one with now. With that said, I thank you, Eckhart.

Preface

Someone once asked me, How do you know that the present moment is all we have? Show me proof.

I smiled and responded, Try to get out of it!

Introduction

Deep down, you know there is more to who you are than who you think you are. Here and now, silence whispers the truth of who you are. These whispers are this book. There is an old Zen story about a Zen teacher’s dog who loved to play fetch with his master. The dog would run ahead to fetch a stick, then run back, wag his tail, and wait for the next game. One evening, the teacher invited one of his brightest students to join him. This boy was troubled by the contradictions in Buddhist doctrine. You must understand, said the teacher. That words are only guideposts. Never let the words or symbols get in the way of truth. Here, I’ll show you. With that, the teacher called his happy dog. Fetch me the moon, he said to his dog and pointed to the full moon. Where is my dog looking? asked the teacher of the bright pupil.

He’s looking at your finger.

Exactly. Don’t be like my dog. Don’t confuse the pointing finger with the thing that is being pointed at.

This book is that pointing finger. Spiritual enlightenment is not some future event reserved for Buddhists or lifelong practitioners where you achieve superhuman feats. You don’t need books of knowledge or a lifetime of practice. Self-realization takes time, but it can only happen in this moment. It is never out there, only here and now. It is not some achievement after you’ve gained x, y and z. The only faint knowledge you may need is to understand the workings of the ego, which is your false mind-made self. As the egoic layer peels away, you let go of all you are not and realize what is left. Beyond the knowledge of what you are not is the realization of what you are. Everything this book points to is self-evident. The insights of this book are already yours. Deep down, you already know. This book is simply meant to help you remember, so to speak. As a flower curled up in lifelong hibernation, you must look beyond the finger to bloom in eternal realization.

As you read, don’t get too caught up on words or concepts, such as enlightenment, which can be as much a barrier as a bridge. Pay more attention to experiencing what the words are pointing to. Remember this well as you continue reading. The purpose of this book is not to replace your religion or ideology with something new to believe in. This book is neither theory nor fact. This book is a disposable signpost pointing beyond belief to the direct realization of a transcendental reality within. In other words, this book points to your freedom from attachment and identification with thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is not meant to give or add anything to you. It is not meant for philosophical discussion. I speak from direct experience and this book is meant for direct experience.

Particularly in the first few chapters, italicized terms are defined so you are aware of the context they are used throughout the book. The first chapter starts fast and digs beyond understanding. It introduces some of the insights that will be discussed in subsequent chapters. You may find it initially difficult to follow and keep up with. However, everything, including you, will come together. All you have to do is continue reading. Statements that initially sound abstract will reverberate with more reality as you deepen into the book and yourself. Pay close attention to any subtle shifts you feel as you read. This is more important than trying to decipher what you read. This book is not meant to be deciphered in the mind, but felt as a subtle shift of reality. When I capitalize words, such as Being and Self, I am pointing to your intrinsic nature. I sometimes capitalize words to differentiate the defined you with the undefinable You.

Naturally, you may be curious to know a little about me before reading further. You may be thinking, Are you really writing an introduction without introducing yourself? Who I am to you spans this book and will come to fruition as the pages turn.

Each chapter speaks through thick layers of human conditioning suspicious of the ego’s potential response. For survival purposes, the ego will whisper its best whispers to deter you from finishing this book. Your time-bound sense of self wants the first chapter to be your last chapter. Don’t hesitate to pause and direct your attention inward after statements that resonate deeply. At points, you may be wondering, What in the world is he talking about! If you come across a statement that does not immediately resonate and seems devoid of understandable substance, just keep on reading. Everything I touch on should be elaborated in a later chapter. This book isn’t meant to make much sense in pieces and neither are you. This book truly works best as a whole and so do you.

Chapter 1

Who Am I?

Who am I? This question has perplexed humans for countless ages. The answer to this question is nearer than the breath. You must be willing to question everything, even the questioner. The error in our endless pursuit to answer this question is in the question itself. Instead of asking who you are, ask who you are not. To realize your true self, you must see beyond your assumed self. To see beyond your assumed self, you must let the assumptions go. All assumptions are temporary, ever-changing and will eventually disappear when the mind disappears. The content of the mind is born in the mind and dies in the mind. Are you really that content? Have you allowed complete silence into the mind to feel your own presence beyond content? Can you sense the lack of content that allows content? Can you sense the awareness behind what happens and know that in it, you are enough? Or is your mind stuck in a torrent of thinking that you can barely break from the moment you wake to the moment you sleep? Perhaps you have it all figured out already by knowing your name, age, occupation, social status, memories woven into your identity, etc. I too had it all figured out until one day I realized the epic illusion I was living. What felt like a colorless flash of long-forgotten familiarity deepened as a universal understanding coming back to me. Transparency abounded. Everything started blending. I no longer felt things were happening to me, but rather within me.

Growing up, I would rarely question who I was. Why should I? The answer seemed so obvious and everyone had it. My mind was heavily conditioned to believe, I am what this thought says. I am what that thought says. I am the actions I take. I am what he or she said. I am what my birth certificate says. I am my past. I am my expectations, attachments and so on. Why bother questioning what we all apparently know? It never occurred to me to truly investigate this question. Like most humans, I would assume the answer and ignore the question. After all, everything else seemed far more important and entertaining. It seems most of society is designed to pull us away from such questions by training us to assume the answer. For 30 years, I settled for George as my answer. Of course, what George meant changed all day depending on the instability of what happened. I was stuck in a prison-like story called my life and suffered intensely as a result. I sought many ways out, but only found short-lived pleasures and further entanglement in what happens.

The answer to who you are must not be a distant goal for the future. Nothing ever happens in the future because the future is always just a thought you have now that can only manifest now. In time, your realization of the timeless grows until its appointed hour, which can only be now. Like all things, Self-realization can only happen in the present moment. Self-realization is a more precise, down to earth term for enlightenment. The word enlightenment is not bad or wrong, just usually inflated as some glorified status. I use both terms interchangeably.

Who you think you are is constantly changing, subject to time and inherently unstable. Your thought-made self is shaped by what happens, which is the most unstable thing in the universe. When I use the term what happens, I point to everything that transpires on the level of mind, body, and universe. This is where we look to assign ourselves an answer to who we are. We look to what happened, what is happening or what is expected to happen. In other words, we look to our thoughts. This means you are susceptible to anything and anyone at any moment as you meander through a world that plays tug of war with who you are. Why do we rely on unreliability for meaning and fulfillment? Because we are not in conscious connection with who we are. Who you are is not something to believe in, it is an underlying reality to realize. Do not take my word for it. Use this book as a bridge to be left behind and directly experience what I’m pointing to. This passing reality of human experience is interconnected with an underlying reality of spiritual consciousness. To be enlightened is to realize this omnipresent intersection. When I use the word consciousness, I point to the formless fabric of life. Consciousness is the space in which everything resides, the silence in which all sound comes from and the stillness in which all motion is born.

When you’re fully present in the moment, you don’t derive a sense of identity from an evanescent world. Being fully present in the moment doesn’t mean you lose peripheral vision of future goals and past lessons. It means your feet are grounded in the here and now as your arms reach back and forth. Your home is nowhere else, only here and now. After all, there is nothing else. This allows you to be far more effective at what you do and think because you are fully present in the moment doing and thinking. Would you rather worry about the future or accept what is expected, then fully plan for and be at peace with it now? Would you rather suffer from the past or accept what has happened, then fully learn from and be at peace with it now? Both past and future are always mere thoughts you have in the present. They are tools to use, not places to live. Learn from the past and plan for the future, but don’t make them your illusory home or identity. You only have one true home and that is in this moment you are reading this word.

If you consider yourself just human, then you will suffer. Convinced you are just flesh, bone and thought, you will continue living your life at the mercy of what happens. When you are fully here and now, rooted in reality, there is no suffering. Realize you are not just human and you get to redefine what it means to be human. When I use the word suffering, I point toward mental suffering, not physical pain. Everything that happens instantly becomes a memory of a previous appearance of this moment that is remembered in this moment. Everything that is expected to happen is just a thought you have in this moment that may eventually happen in this moment, which is ever-changing its appearance. Although life seems like a series of moments, it is always this one, ever-changing moment. When you stop regularly worrying about the future and suffering from the past, all that’s left is possibility to be as you choose to be in the only moment that is real – this moment.

Contrary to popular belief, you can never find yourself in thoughts, things, people or places, just illusions destined to fail you. A false sense of self is created through attachment to thoughts about who you are. Thoughts cannot describe who you are, but you are misled by the ego to believe they can. To feel an attachment is to lack space between a thought you have and who you are. To lack space around thoughts is to be identified with thoughts. Much of the time, we don’t have a choice in what to do or how to be because there is no space between an event and our response. Thus, the event chooses for us. Free from attachments, you have a choice to act from or rest in wholeness. When I use the word whole or wholeness, I point to the essence of who you are that cannot grow or shrink with what happens. You are already whole, which you will realize as your egoic conditioning diminishes. As a reminder, ego or egoic points to your false mind-made self.

As the ocean, most of us only know the waves. We believe we are separate waves. I am this wave and you are that wave, says the ego. How long does it take for a wave to realize it is the ocean from which all waves arise and cease? How far does a wave need to travel to remember it is the ocean? No time. No distance. Like thoughts, waves are passing outer expressions of a lasting inner silence. Fleeting waves cannot describe the enduring depths of an ocean just as fleeting thoughts cannot describe the enduring depths of who you are. The conceptualized you is no more than changing thoughts merging memories and expectations. It is no different than walking around attached to a fictitious hologram of who you take yourself to be. When I use the word hologram, I point to the mental image you create of yourself that represents who you are. Exposed to the elements of judgment, you and others add to and take away from this image based on the most unstable thing in the universe: what happens. When two people interact, it is usually the holograms of what each person takes themselves to be interacting. Each hologram then creates its own hologram of other people. This is not wrong or right, it is simply the normal reality for most humans on the planet. We only know ourselves as isolated holograms at the mercy of what happens. This is not to say that we should avoid the roles and functions in our lives. All roles and functions can be far more peaceful, joyful and effective given we lose our attachments to how they should or shouldn’t be and don’t seek ourselves in them.

We all have the seed of enlightenment within. This seed is unveiled in the absence of thinking and grows the longer you ease into this absence. Any attempt to define yourself is ultimately adding to your fragile hologram that changes with the seasons of your mood and volatile moods of the world. Such definitions are passing experiences of a passing reality on the outskirts of this ever-lasting moment. By letting go of who you think you are, what is left is a watchful presence – a silent awareness – containing all that comes and goes. Declarations of who you are ultimately have nothing to do with who you are. Become aware of thoughts as they pass, not automatically and conditionally attached to them. Use thoughts, but don’t let them use you. The moment you try thinking your way into knowing who you are, you fail. Any answer you come up with will eventually reveal itself as insufficient. Everything in the mind passes. The answer you seek doesn’t pass. You cannot use the mind to reveal what contains the mind. You must go beyond the mind by allowing silence into the mind. The egoic whispers in your head continuously define who you are because without those definitions, the ego wouldn’t exist. And, like all entities, what does the ego – or who you think you are – want most? Survival. This is why I said, The ego will whisper its best whispers to deter you from finishing this book.

To realize who you are, do not look to the mind for help. You will only hear what you’ve always heard. Even if it tells you otherwise, the message, like all thinking, was born in the mind and will eventually die in the mind. You have to go beyond the mind and realize what was never born and will never die. How to do that? Allow your thoughts to subside and unveil what remains through a silent mind. How to do this? By not turning it into something to do. You must be, not do. Be. Here. Now. Consciously be the space containing the appearance of this moment, not an object in it. Although it is not ultimately necessary, meditation certainly helps, especially if you do not sit as a means to an end or carry any expectations. As thoughts arise, do not judge your mind for doing what it is supposed to do. That is just adding more unnecessary commentary. Gently watch your thoughts and in your watching, they will pass until all that is left is a watchful presence. Like holding in your breath underwater, this cannot be done under the weight of thoughts waiting to come crashing down. A moment of complete inner silence is all you need for a glimpse.

Are you the thoughts you have about yourself? Are you the thoughts others have of you? Are you a combination of both? When you become anchored in the present moment and free of thinking, you are still there. If you are defined by thinking, then who are you in the absence of thinking? How are you still alive if you cease to think since thoughts are all you know yourself to be? Shouldn’t you just be an inanimate bundle of flesh by now? Did you, as a thought-made entity, die and resurrect yourself a few seconds later when you started thinking again? Was this identity ever real to begin with? Or, are you the subtle void between thoughts? Are you the empty space in which thoughts come and go? Are you the silence beneath all sound? Are you the stillness beneath all motion? This indescribable, formless and timeless presence is beyond perception, but it can be realized. This is your leftover essence when you unravel all you are not. This is pure consciousness containing time and form, yet untouched by time and form. Underneath all you do and think, this awareness allows and watches all your doing and thinking. When you are not what happens, all that is left is the awareness behind what happens. Let go of all you think you are and it will be here waiting for you, for it is You.

Chapter 2

The Cause Behind Everything

Waking up on a beautiful Sunday morning in the middle of Spring, I felt the warmth of the sun creeping in through the blinds as I slowly opened my eyes. I could hear the soft white noise from a nearby humidifier amidst a backdrop of beautiful songbirds. I began to slowly stretch my legs and arms as I gently turned over to lay on my back. Being slightly sore from the day before, I scanned my body for signs of distress and felt only radiant aliveness emanating from each cell in my body. As my eyes continued to open, I felt each eyelash begin to separate from the crust that had bound them. Suddenly, there was great distress passing through my mind and body. I could not open my eyes. My eye crust was imbued with super glue or so it seemed. I tried using my fingers to help, but it became a tug of war between the crust and my eyelashes. My eyelashes were losing. After having laser eye surgery, my eyes were granted better vision, but at the cost of frequent dryness. I forgot to put in my eye drops the previous day. My forgetfulness was to blame! I was the perpetrator! I even accused my wife Alexis as an accomplice for not reminding me. I had figured out the cause behind my temporary blindness – or did I? If we were in a courtroom, the judge would have slammed the gavel by now and this seemingly simple case would be closed with a definitive answer. Question is, how simple is this case really? What is the true cause of my crust-induced, temporary blindness?

The day before my eyes woke to a prison of super-crust and torn lashes, I spent the day kayaking down a river with Alexis and friends. We arrived home late, exhausted and ready for bed. Perhaps our busy day, which led to me forgetting, is the true cause?

When I first met my father-in-law, he reached into his chest pocket with a smile and gave me a boyfriend application sheet he printed from the internet. The questions were absurd, but I answered them with complete honesty and somehow passed the test. Perhaps my passing this boyfriend application sheet, which led to marriage and kayaking, is the true cause?

Before I met my wife, I signed up to online dating websites. I tried them for a few months and realized it was not working for me. I cancelled them all, but still had three days left on one of the sites before the cancellation went into effect. I received a wink and so I responded. We exchanged information right before my month was over and that is how we met. Perhaps her wink or my response is the true cause?

After pondering the idea of life without contacts or glasses, I made the decision to start a two-year payment plan and improve my vision with laser eye surgery. Perhaps it was my decision to go ahead with the surgery that is the true cause?

During the invention of laser eye surgery, no one found a way to prevent the risk of dry eyes following the procedure. Perhaps the surgery is the true cause?

About 66 million years ago, the asteroid believed to have killed the dinosaurs wiped out most life on Earth and allowed the blossoming of new life. If it weren’t for this event, would we even be here right now? Perhaps it is this asteroid that is the true cause?

About 300 million years ago, the only landmass on Earth was one massive continent called Pangea. Perhaps if this landmass didn’t break up into seven continents, the world wouldn’t be as it is and I would never have made the decision to get laser eye surgery. Perhaps it is the separation of Pangea that is the true cause?

The moon was formed some 4.5 billion years ago when a celestial body crashed into the Earth helping create the moon. If this celestial body never hit the Earth, would I have been on any dating websites? Perhaps this collision is the true cause?

Over 13.8 billion years ago, the universe is said to have begun as a singularity and expanded rapidly with the Big Bang. Some say it never began and it will never end. Many say God created the universe. If the universe was never created by God or formed by the initial singularity, would I have been able to sleep long enough for an intense amount of crust to bind my eyelids shut? Perhaps the formation of the universe is the true cause?

This is turning into a very long court case. If it weren’t for the formation of the universe 13.8 billion years ago, which led to the formation of the moon 4.5 billion years ago; which led to the breakup of Pangea 300 million years ago; which preceded the major asteroid impact 66 million years ago; which led to the evolution of humanity; which led to dating websites and laser eye surgery; which led to my father-in-law giving me a passing grade for my boyfriend application sheet; which led to marriage, kayaking, exhaustion and forgetfulness; which led to the beautiful morning of my crusty awakening, I would never have asked for a warm washcloth to end the war between crust and lash and reclaim my eyelids!

Nothing that happens has a single or simple cause. Everything is infinitely connected and therefore has numberless causes. The seemingly simple and impossibly complicated all stem from billions of years of evolution, mystery and innumerable causes. Seeking out an underlying cause to what happens is a diversion of the mind to shrink the immeasurable to a single event. Whatever happens already happened and instantly