Sat 2 Feb 2013, 09:00 - Sat 2 Feb 2013, 17:00
Jeff will speak at the GATE StoryCon Conference 2013
Saturday, February 2, 9-5
Book now: http://gatecommunity.org/storycon2013/
“A Return to Consciousness: Who Would You Be Without Your Story?”
Jeff Foster invites us to consider a stunning paradox right at the heart of our existence, a universal conundrum that every human being has grappled with since we first walked the earth. We are the main characters in an epic movie called “My Life,” adventurous protagonists in our personal saga that stretches from cradle to grave and perhaps beyond. We grow and we change, and we follow the yellow brick road, and we seek our salvation and the salvation of others, in all kinds of ways. Yet as all the world’s great spiritual and religious traditions have always been reminding us, who we truly are is timeless and unchanging, and beyond all mind-made stories. We are paradoxical beings, with one foot in the world, and the other, out of it. And yet, here we stand!
Beyond the individual, time-bound stories of our lives, beyond the complex tales of our past and the rich dreams of our future, we are always deeply rooted in the Now, grounded in this timeless moment. Behind the ever-changing myths that are played out in our minds and hearts, we always find the never-changing cosmic movie screen – consciousness itself – which allows everything to “be” in the first place. Are we really two things at once, the ever-changing and the never-changing? How can we be fully human, and fully divine, at the same time? How can we live with one foot in our life story, and the other one in the Now?
Jeff Foster invites us to wake up to something obvious and yet constantly overlooked. In any moment, when we simply step out of the story of our lives – our challenges, our plans, our problems, our successes and failures – without ignoring or denying them, we find at the core of our being an ever-present, unchanging life force, timeless and free, deeply at peace and cosmically uninvolved in the epic drama of “me”. Again, this is not about ignoring or denying our challenges, but always remembering the consciousness that animates them, the consciousness that unites us all. Some have called this life force Presence, some have labeled it Awareness, many know it as God. There are many names for the nameless ever-present movie screen that you are, the cosmic theatre in which all human drama – war, romance, comedy, horror, science fiction – plays itself out. Jeff calls it Deep Acceptance.
How can we reconcile this paradox of at once being fully involved in the movies of our lives, fully absorbed in their trials and tribulations, yet fully aware of the screen on which they play out? How can we reconcile the paradox of being fully engaged with the world, busy fixing its problems and discovering creative solutions, on this exciting and rich journey towards our futures, and yet being fully at peace, grounded deeply in the Here and Now, and already complete? How can we live both as a character in a movie, living in and loving the world, and being passionate about transforming it, yet at same time, rest deeply, knowing ourselves as the movie screen itself, seeing the inherent perfection of things as they already are, knowing that everything is deeply okay as it is, even before it is transformed?
Does the greatest transformation actually happen when “we” get out of the way?
