Born Again

Benjamin Ripley. Born of a mother and father, became very ill. This being an ailment of memory. From perfect vibration descended spirit into form, and upon descending into form, spirit forgot of its nature. For spirit looked, spirit felt, spirit heard, spirit tasted, spirit smelled, and for all of these gross senses, spirit believed it was that which it beheld.

In this confusion, spirit believed. And in believing, spirit clouded truth. For belief and truth are incompatible. Belief led spirit, and spirit followed belief on a path away from the great experience, the great communion. After believing many things, spirit believed the ultimate belief of fog: that separation is possible, and is true.

From union, spirit came into form and believed in separation.

Benjamin Ripley learned suffering, and spirit believed suffering to be true. A great fallacy of the mind; the great drama of ego. But something persisted in the beliefs. It was an echo, for spirit knew truth all along. Spirit communed with truth all along. This echo sounded as this life being meant for more. This life is not just another life. This time something... anything significant was to happen.

Spirit pursued this echo in the realm of belief that it was form. Which led to more suffering, more dead ends. Spirit at times wished to end form, to plunge steel through the neck or heart and be done with form. Spirit, in its grand delusion would have destroyed this form with violence and hate.

But then grace.

As form fell into stillness, spirit felt its nature returning. Beliefs fell away, and spirit felt suffering ending. Form bowed to spirit, and spirit realized truth. Now form is dead, and daily it dies to allow for spirit to reside in its truest nature. A new name, it would seem is necessary to describe this spirit embodied in form. To speak to form, may the name Benjamin Ripley be spoken; to speak to spirit residing in form many names may be spoken, but for now spirit will allow itself to be called upon by speaking the name Evan Rise.

Evan Rise describes the echo of truth which spirit communed with along the path of worshiping form. Evan Rise describes the state of spirit descended upon form. Benjamin Ripley is still here, still becoming spirit. Evan Rise is here now, as communion with spirit.

Thank you. I love you.

-Evan Rise

A Thousand Thoughts Later...

And I wound up in the same place. I thought and I thought, but this thinking does us no good. In fact, it could very well be the root of all evil. So it is that I have began uprooting the thoughts I have thought, and have even began uprooting the patterns that cause me to think more thoughts. In this way, the faculty of thought will be seen as it is, the proprietor of Maya, of the cosmic delusion.

Would not only a crazy man murder himself? And would not only a delusional woman steal from herself? Yet the more that we thought, the more that we enabled all of this craziness and delusion. Even the one who asks "what thought must I think to end all of this thinking?" asks the wrong question.

It was thinkers who nailed Jesus to a cross.

It was thinkers who spread the fires of war.

It was thinkers who attempted to exterminate entire races of humans and animals.

It was thinkers who enslaved the Africans.

But none of these will tell you what the greatest sin is. No, the greatest sin is not to think, for a master may think without even sinning. The greatest sin is to create separation from God through ignorance. The most impossible thing that can be done is separation from God, but it is when we think that we create a deep fog in which we can no longer see God. This is the great delusion. This is the great sin. This is the cause of every time we suffer.

The thinking mind is not big enough to understand God. One must slow the thinking mind, let go of the thoughts, and just be with what is. You'll never believe what you will find there.

Namaste,

-Ben