This week we started with the question of how we can share the JOY of not needing to be (a) someone. We later spoke more about "shining" as this JOY, living it, and demonstrating it. Please feel invited to share anything that comes up for you around this even if you didn't attend the meeting.

We are all born as a non-dualistic organism within an organism. We are living in a universe without boundaries, everything is one. Influenced by our surroundings we slowly became someone. A someone apparently separated from everything around us. We became a 'self'. But somewhere in the lives of the 13 people in the LAB meeting we became aware of the non-duality of life. We transcended, outgrow or did manage to see beyond the self and became non-dual again. I say again but as you probably all know we were never separated in the first place. Question: Can you remember when in your life this insight became your truth? Or did you never lose this insight? Try to answer this question for yourself. The main question during the meeting was "how can we teach people to become aware of no self, of non-duality and what can we do to speed up the process of awareness? The main answer that I heard was "leading by example, stay calm and collected all the time no matter the circumstances". I agree, I do the same as much as I can. But what we might have to do is tell the youth when they are about 8 years old about non-dualism. We have to tell them about our insight and have to start a dialogue with them about non-duality. What we learn late we must teach our children when they are young. It's so stupid to live half of your life (in my case) believing you are someone and then when you're old(er) become aware of no self and non-duality. I think that a lot of people die without having the insight of oneness. Many people die as a 'separate individual' in a uni-verse without boundaries. So in my opinion the LAB book we are writing should be focused on the youth. Use plain English and start with the big questions; Were I'm I? Who am I? How does it work? The pitfall that we, people with a non-dual perception, have is to keep repeating that self does not exist, that self is an illusion. I think by repeating this statement we might be scaring people off. People will turn around and ignore us or don't understand what we are saying because their 'self' is stubbornly ingrained. Our insight of non-duality should not be a conclusion but a starting point. I think we need to start the conversation by indicating that a self exists. A self exists from a certain perspective. You can use the self as a tipping point of insights. The self exists and the self does not exist and then explain why we see it that way. If we only repeat that the self does not exist a proper dialogue will never start. As soon as (young) people can switch between a self and no self, their behaviour (just like our behaviour) will automatically change and people will probably come to the perspective that everything is connected. That all is one. The joy of living in this oneness without having to be someone or doing anything. To be or not to be that's the question. We are here in the 'now', the everlasting fleeting present moment. It is so ephemeral that it is elusive for the 'self'. As soon as you try to describe it, it's gone. A human being is a tipping point of being and not being. Words are necessary to be able to communicate, but words are also the veil under which non-duality is hidden. We all play a self (a word/role) in the world of selves (words/roles). The world of selves/words is not the reality, it's a world we invented and it is not real. Our false 'reality' is in our mind(s) only. The moment you/we perceive this oneness shining and joy is there, we automatically living it, demonstrating it. The joy is there and it will never leave.