The menu is not the dinner….

The experience is reality.
Its description is a symbol.

In other words, the menu is not the dinner.

You can’t eat the menu; you can only eat the dinner.
This mad compulsion to constantly measure creates the experience of time.
This is the real meaning of sacrificing the soul for the world, or the spirit for the ego.

My ego is a collection of status symbols, images. Reality is a state of consciousness NOW.
Happiness, fulfillment, joy, love, beauty, gratitude, peace, are reality NOW.
They are the original attributes of consciousness in its pure state.

Fear, anxiety, greed,anger, hostility, guilt, time, lack of abundance, are states of consciousness in its measuring mode – replacing reality with symbols of reality. Time is an abstraction,
so is money, so is matter, so is the world – all abstractions, projections of symbols.

There is nothing wrong with this. Actually, it can be a lot of fun as long as you realize,
I am not the symbols.”

I measure out the world by quantifying Myself.
I am God quantifying Myself by creating symbols of Myself
These symbols I call mind, body, physical things – all abstractions.

This is God’s game.

I forget Myself by creating symbols.
I remember Myself by not clinging to symbols.

The stock market is a symbol of how we are feeling. When we’re feeling lousy
about ourselves, it crashes. When we’re feeling good about ourselves, it goes up.
Our skills, our brains, our abilities, our talents, our potential, our universe, does
not change drastically overnight, but how we feel about ourselves changes and so the
world appears to change.

— Depok Chopra-Sutras for Instant Enlightenment

Posted by | Paul Reynolds

“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system…..” - Rumi

For over 30 years Paul Reynolds has collected and shared inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Embracing the philosophy that at the core of all these expressions is the reminder that we are loved and supported every moment. This unending stream of inspiration, imagination and wisdom is posted via his weekly ‘Living the Question Blog’, which has become ‘home’ for those discoveries. If you would like to receive the readings and share them with those you feel will benefit, please fill out the ‘Subscribe’ form to the right and Paul’s selections will come to your email every Friday.

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