Back to the Basics

This morning I heard quite clearly to begin blogging again... and to title this entry 'back to the basics.'  What exactly did I hear?  In my understanding and interpretation of it, I heard my Self.  In another interpretation it might be called inspiration.  What I do know is that True experience always inspires and motivates me to inquire more deeply, to be more fully present in authentic ways, and to enjoy every minute of it. 

As I inquire without an agenda, without a spiritual or scientific preconception or predisposition, these are the basics that occur to me as essential to experience the Truth of Being in my life:

1.  Ask open questions... and be willing to hear different answers.
2.  Be fully present with life, and appreciate it just as it is... even when it isn't comfortable or pleasant.
3.  Be willing to be surprised and delighted and transformed.
4.  Take joy in the simple and everyday... but don't be a slave to it.
5.  Take joy in the unusual and abnormal... but don't be seduced by it.
6.  In other words, take joy in letting everything be as it is, without judging it... and then...
7.  Be willing to see it all differently.
8.  Most of all, be willing to see your self differently, without definition or preconception.
9.  Be willing to see through the eyes of the inclusive Self.

These are the basics I return to every day, whether it's through meditating, walking in the woods, sharing a meal with friends or family, working on a thorny computer issue, writing about technology or music or spirituality, or playing with my animals or grandchildren.  It's all of a piece.  There is no real separation... just categories of mind and consciousness that I have defined and that weave in and out of experience.  It's up to me to return to the basics so I can live fully in an awareness of inclusivity, of my true Self that is all of it and more.  How do I know?  Back to the basics... inquiry and experience are the only true tests.  Everything else is simply hearsay.