When the finger pointing , is the Moon.

 

                                                                       It's in the Eyes!

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A Smoke Beneath the Haloed Moon: Notes on Awakening and the Ache of Being

"Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not."
— Deepak Chopra

"The idea that there is a self, a me, an I separate from what is happening, is the fundamental illusion."
— Eckhart Tolle

Tonight, I stepped outside for a smoke.

The air was still, the sort of stillness that makes you feel like the world is holding its breath. I looked up—and there it was: the half moon, glowing silently in the sky, wrapped in a perfect ring of rainbow light. A lunar corona, they call it, but I knew better. This was no accident. This was Presence making itself visible.

Earlier, I had been listening to a Toth reflection—“After Awakening, What to Expect.” It stirred something deep inside me. Not in the mind, but in that quiet, bruised place behind it.

Awakening.

That word used to sound like salvation. Now it feels more like shedding skin that no longer fits. Sometimes I feel like I’m standing barefoot in the vastness, no ground, no map. Just the aching beauty of being… here.

I had been reflecting on two quotes that seemed to contradict each other. Chopra speaks of discarding the false self, as if there is a real one waiting underneath. Tolle, on the other hand, dissolves the whole game—he says even the one who thinks it is discarding, even the "I", is an illusion.

I saw the contradiction. And then I saw the ring around the moon.

Both may be true in their own way. You could start by peeling away what you are not, until even the peeler dissolves.

I don’t know. But I do know this: when I lit my cigarette, I was not alone. The moon saw me. The silence held me. The ache in my chest was not depression, not really—it was the sound of something vast echoing in the hollow of the self.

I didn’t want to write this at first. It felt like nothing. But Presence insisted: This, too, is the path.

So I write it down. For the ones out there walking barefoot under the same moon.

And then I saw her smile—the kind that doesn’t come from joy, but is joy. It’s in the eyes. Just like the moon.

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#Awakening #Nonduality #EckhartTolle #DeepakChopra #TothTeachings #LunarCorona #SpiritualReflections #PresentMoment #SmokeAndStillness #BlogEntry