To be able to distinguish the difference between your horizontal and your vertical is the same thing as being able to distinguish the difference between the content and context of your life.

The problem that every single one of us has in addressing this profound problem is that you’re not able to communicate the truth about your existence and what you’re doing here as a human being and when you do come up with the words, you don’t have a context to pin that communication to. Content and context are inseparable, like peanut butter and jelly.

Content is the horizontal and context is the vertical.

Now, without the context, the content doesn’t know why it’s doing what it’s doing. The content is doing a lot of stuff but it doesn’t really understand why. Now, without content, the context knows why it’s doing what it’s doing but it doesn’t have a place to do it. So, it remains nebulous, esoteric, metaphysical. Sounds interesting but that’s about it.

For example, intentionality is clearly a contextual matter. Intentionality provides purpose, direction. Strategy is clearly a matter of content. A strategy allows intention to materialize, to become real but one without the other creates “stuff.” When a human being says they have a lot of “stuff” going on, they mean that they are involved in a lot of content in their life but they have no real idea or understanding why. Other than the fact that all this “stuff” is keeping them pretty busy. Being busy is really good because it keeps the human mind from being confronted with examining why they’re doing the stuff they’re doing.

It is a standard recommendation to people going through stages of grief to keep busy, so, you don’t have to be with the grief and the struggle of understanding the why. So, as I said, this issue of content and context is really important. What I want to do is to discuss and share with you the implications of content and context by focusing on one particular dynamic that will wed content and context together, creating for you a thorough understanding of the purpose behind being alive and living.

So, I want to start in the content…in the horizontal…in the middle of your everyday life. Getting up every day, going to work, raising kids, making money, paying bills, buying stuff, doing stuff, saying stuff, seeing stuff all around you…and as you see yourself in the middle of all of this stuff, what are you seeking? Why are you doing all this stuff? Again, what are you seeking?

Now, for every person who answers, there will be a different response. And many people will answer that question with a response that revolves somewhat around the concept of seeking to be happy. You do what do because you’re trying to figure out how to be happy. Why? Why are you so discontented in the first place?

If you sit back and listen to everyone talking about their attempts to be happy, you hear and see that there’s a lot of stuff going on. But why?

Where did you come up with the idea that you could become happy by doing stuff that makes you miserable? How did you become unhappy in the first place? The condition of being unhappy would imply that the reason you seek to be happy is that something is missing or you wouldn’t be seeking happiness in the first place. So, what’s missing? And that’s where it gets really tricky because without context, the content, the seeking to be happy just results in more stuff….not that seeking to be happy is wrong…it’s not…it’s just that it doesn’t know what it’s doing.

One of my favorite places to go is Home Depot because I do a lot of stuff and Home Depot sells a lot of stuff and every single time I go into that store, I will see a product, a tool, some stuff that I have no clue what it’s used for. I’ll stand there and look at it for a second or two and then walk away. I’m intrigued, I might even pick it up and mess with it in the same way that a curious monkey would examine a shiny necklace but have no clue what it’s for. But I put it down and go about my business because I’ve got stuff to do and I better get the stuff I came here to get so I can get my stuff done.

So, why are you doing the stuff you’re doing? And that’s the context of the issue, that’s the context of your life. But if you ask someone that, that person will typically give you an answer that is based upon more content. So, let’s quickly go back and ask the question once again, what are you seeking, why are you seeking to be happy?

Now, let’s leave that there for a second. We’ll come back to it.

Let’s move away from content and let’s go into context. The source of the material is the metaphysical. The source of your life is consciousness, God, the absolute, or whatever you want to call it and now, the question is, what is consciousness seeking? If consciousness wasn’t seeking anything, then there would be no such thing as evolution. So, what it is seeking? What is God seeking? If God wasn’t seeking anything, then why would there be a Bible? Why would a Koran, a Bavadgad Gita be necessary?

What if the context of your existence was seeking the same thing that the content of your experience of your life was seeking? Now, let’s clarify a few things: context isn’t really seeking anything; it simply IS. It exists. But what is it about context that is still missing?

Context is missing the physical.

It can’t know itself and its existence except by experience. So, context seeks to create content to experience itself in order to not just know but to experience itself as to who and what it is.

It’s not complicated. You know that inside of you have a lot of love to share. You know yourself to be loving but you can’t experience yourself as loving until there is_________

Go ahead and say it.

Fill in the blank: until there is someone to love.

So, you seek someone to share your loving nature with. The context needs the content to be able to experience itself.

So, again, what is consciousness seeking? It is seeking to know itself as what it is…what is referred to in many Eastern texts as Sachidananda…Existence, knowledge, and bliss. And you are the content that the context of consciousness has chosen as the strategy, the mechanism, by which to do that.

What consciousness is seeking is the same thing that you’re seeking. What you’re seeking is the same thing that consciousness is seeking…but you don’t know that because you do not concern yourself with the context of your life but only with the content of your life, thus, depriving yourself of understanding why you’re doing all the stuff, the content, that you’re doing. Even dying will just be more stuff you have to do at some point in time.

Now, if you’re willing to consider that consciousness is seeking to experience itself on this planet, that existence is seeking to know itself through physical experience as existence, knowledge, and bliss, then that makes you an instrument of that unfolding, of that context. The content of your life is seeking the context of consciousness and the context of consciousness is seeking the content of your life, thus making both you and consciousness out to be seeking the exact same thing…joy.

Evolution is the diminishing process of ignorance or unconsciousness until at some point in time, the two meet, realizing that they are one and the same. Content and context merge, fulfilling the purpose for which they both existed in the first place. What is this called? It is called peace, home, transformation, bliss, timelessness, self-realization. In fact, there are no words for it.

Love simply is.

Joy simply is.

Being simply is.

You, you simply is.

Now, the two, content and context, truth-consciousness and the human being, physical and the metaphysical, seek no more but simply be. The implications are staggering, to say the least, but most importantly, what are the implications for you, the individual?

You will, at last, find what you’re seeking and you’ll find that the very thing you were seeking was the very thing that you always were but you didn’t know it, so, you got involved in a lot of stuff that although now, that stuff doesn’t really matter anymore, you’ll keep doing your stuff but now with a true understanding of why you’re doing it and you will become a master of your stuff.

People will know you to be a master of your stuff but you realize that that’s just more stuff and you need to focus on the stuff that really matters because after all, you are an instrument of the truth, not your truth but its truth.

Love simply is. Joy simply is.
Being simply is. You, you simply is.

Now, you have no need of any belief system, no religion, you have no need of living your life through symbols or labels or seeking anything outside yourself at all because now, you realize, you IS. You BE.

But don’t be naïve. There’s a lot of content going on that doesn’t know what it’s doing and that content wants someone to blame for the injustices and countless, daily assaults that it’s going through to finally seek a solution to its problems.

The new consciousness that is taking place, that is making itself known in the world today is a movement toward the spiritualization of mankind, and every single piece of content in the physical world is an instrument of that unfolding. The question is whether or not you will choose to become conscious of that. An individual who is unconscious will serve as an instrument but by creating harm, damage and pain to themselves and others and the world but it works because it forces the rest of us to seek greater context of why they are doing what they are doing. It forces the rest of us to seek with greater determination the happiness which we know is real, attainable, and everlasting.

If you are conscious of it, you will eventually surrender to the greater will of consciousness and in doing so, will experience, not just know, the majesty of who you are and what you’re doing here, and that’s a pretty sweet gig. You have become the very thing that both content and context were seeking. The content of your life is the doing. The content of your life is being. Now, the doing comes out of the being.

Being first, doing second.

Context first, content second.

Here now, you can see that your mind can subjugate itself to the greater purpose. Said differently, the content of your life’s experience can begin to serve the context of your life’s existence which is what it was intended to do all the while.

So, there is the mutual debt that I have spoken about before. The content, the horizontal, the physical, is indebted to the context, the vertical, the spiritual, for having given itself the chance to exist in the first place. And the context, the vertical, the spiritual, is indebted to the content, the horizontal, the physical, for being willing to experience the process of realizing itself in physical form.

The more you are dominated by your mind, body, and emotions, the less freedom you will experience.

The absence of context in your life and its relationship to the content of your life results in so many barriers…confusion, a sense of powerlessness, hopelessness, and my favorite: depression.

According to the New York Times analysis of data collected since 1999 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, more than 34.4 million adults took antidepressants in 2013-2014, up from 13.4 million in 1999-2000.

It went on to say that almost 25 million adults have been taking antidepressants for at least 2 years, a 60% increase since 2010. Moreover, approximately 15.5 million individuals have been taking the drugs for at least 5 years, nearly doubling the rate since 2010. While the drugs have helped millions of people with depression and anxiety, and many people can stop taking them without significant issues, some individuals who try to wean themselves off cannot due to harsh withdrawal symptoms they say they were not warned of. Initially, the drugs were cleared for short-term use; but even today, with millions of long-term users, there is little data about their effects on individuals who take them for years.

The more you are dominated by your mind, body, and emotions, the less freedom you will experience.

Suffering is the inability of your level of consciousness to see the essence of what is taking place. Instead of learning how, knowing how to see the truth of what is taking place, the mind gravitates immediately to how what is taking place is affecting its own desires, cravings, and addictions. Because the common denominator for so many people is functioning out of their negative-ground-of-being, that is all you’re capable of seeing, experiencing, sure, with temporary periods or moments of relief, but always circling back to negative-ground-of-being.

The essence of what is taking place is always perfection and not only is it so difficult to see that, it is at times, unbearable. You are captive to your neurology only as long as you choose to be but that is going to require a different base of knowledge through which to SEE the world and yourself. You see, I want to stress this as much as I can, that this work, this path, is not about analyzing the old you. It’s not about assessing the old you, though that process can be helpful in identifying certain rabbit holes that will take you to a higher level of understanding at a faster pace.

The old you is just “stuff.” You can’t fix “stuff.” You can stretch it, beat it, isolate it, deny it, analyze it, sell it, repress it, pretend it’s not there, but once you’re done, you’re going to end up with more “stuff.”

Consciousness allows you to **SEE** how things work, how all things are connected, and serve the same goal but go about it in different ways.

Why? The answer is simple and I have discussed this before. Nothing real can be threatened. Take every single thought you have, run it through the formula, and see what you come up with. What you see is that the negative-ground-of-being does not exist. It’s something you made up. Consciousness allows you to SEE how things work, how all things are connected, and serve the same goal but go about it in different ways.

You are perfect just the way you are. Your issues are not random for you choose them as part of your process of awakening, of becoming. The problem is not the illusion, the problem is the truth of who and what you are and you don’t know anything about that but if that problem became your path, to learn of that, to become that, you would have a much better problem than you have right now.

I wish I could say there’s an easy way out. I wish I could say, well, you just need to figure out how to have more money, or ask for God’s forgiveness, or be in a better relationship but it’s not true. Your outer life is a mirror reflection of your inner world. You can only see in the world what you see in yourself. All there is is stuff! All you see is just stuff moving around and at times, making a lot of noise.

I want to end this message with a quote from Ron Smotherman’s book, Winning through Enlightenment.

“Now I want to tell you the whole truth. You already exist in the reality of realities. Your life already makes an enormous impact in the world. What you do counts. You may be defending yourself from experiencing the fact that your life makes a difference because you are dependent on agreement or the responsibility of seeing the truth may be too much for you. If you solve the truth that what you do and don’t do affects the world profoundly, could you continue to live your life the way you’re living it now?
Be with that question for a moment wouldn’t you have to make a commitment to be responsible for your impact on the world? Would you have to absolutely dedicate your life to something and do rather than not to? When you have to give up your petty personal problems? I say your life counts. I say that you come from the reality of realities, the one that created this crummy reality of agreement. Furthermore, I say that deep within you, you know it. You know that what you do, what you don’t do, makes a difference in the world. I say you can’t legitimately deny it and further that, by admitting this to yourself, your life is changed for all time.

Without context that supplies the why, you don’t know how to go about it the right way. Content is content. It’s just stuff.

Context, Content and Your Stuff