Searching for Consciousness, Jesus and My Apple Pencil

Where is Consciousness? Where is Spirit? Where is my Apple Pencil? (Hint: “Right in front of your face, dumbass.”)

Lots of things are right in front of our face and we can’t seem to find them. Spirit? Consciousness? Where the heck are they? In this video, I explore a new way to think of these essential life essences. Try it if you want.

Morning Coffee Ramble with Rick: Past, Future, the NOW and the Nature of Experience

If you love, crazy, incoherent ramblings, man, this video is for you!

It’s 7am. I’m having coffee. I’ve been pondering these ideas about the past and future, the NOW and the nature of existence and experience. It’s stuff I’ve been thinking about and I wanted to make a recording of it and I’m putting it here. All filmed at an extremely unflattering angle. I’m not sure if it will make sense to anyone but me.

Let me know.

Random Renaissance Person


Today I am pondering “Random Renaissance Person.” You can ponder with me.

Let me first explain that Random Renaissance Person is just that: any random person who lived during the Renaissance period (almost any other period will also work, too, if you happen to have some aversion to pondering people from the Renaissance). Simply imagine a single person who could have lived during that time period. Make the person as average as possible – no kings or queens or dignitaries. Just your average Renaissance villager person.

It’s best not to give Random Renaissance Person a name – we don’t want to get too close to them – but you can imagine things like their work and family situation. Go ahead and imagine all of the events in Random Renaissance Person’s life: being born, interacting with family, working in the garden, being educated, attending religious ceremonies, hanging out with friends, having a first kiss, playing sports, etc. Most people didn’t have a very long lifespan during that time so maybe Random Renaissance Person was stricken with disease or experienced complications in childbirth or was injured in battle. Feel free to design their story.

Of course, there were no photographers at this time, so we can never know what Random Renaissance Person looked like. It’s doubtful they had their portrait painted or if one would have even survived to now. There is a very good chance that nothing at all exists to document that Random Renaissance Person ever even lived. But we know they did and we know that millions just like them have lived all over the Earth since the beginning of time.

We can imagine Random Renaissance Person, lived a full life just like you and I. Every moment of their life consisted of experiencing life events the same way you and I do. Some of those events were minor incidents. Many were major milestones. But to Random Renaissance Person, all were the content of their life and whether they were experiencing seasonal sniffles or adopting a dog or watching a parent die, these were the things that Random Renaissance Person called their life. The struggles and triumphs that shaped who they knew themselves to be. Again, just like you and I.

Now fast forward to the contemporary time you and I are currently living. Look around your household or work environment or just your life in general. In what way is your life affected by the life of Random Renaissance Person? Can you find one single thing anywhere in your surroundings that would have been impacted by the existence of Random Renaissance Person?

Consider that all of those monumental life events that meant everything to Random Renaissance Person are now completely gone. Literally, as if they never happened. The events that kept Random Renaissance Person awake at night with anxiety or that they anticipated with excitement for weeks are now nowhere to be found. In fact, our good friend Random Renaissance Person also has no existence, nor is there proof they ever did. We can imagine Random Renaissance Person may have had children, who had children, who had children, whose descendants may have somehow affected us. Quite possible. But when we look only at the personal life of Random Renaissance Person, it makes little difference to our world whether they lived or not.

It’s fascinating. An entire life rendered completely useless by time and distance. It’s easy to convince ourselves this is bound to happen to people who lived so long ago but have you ever found yourself wandering in an antique shop and found a stack of photos of random, unknown people? People and families from the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, sometimes doing seemingly important things – graduating, marrying, opening Christmas presents, enjoying dinners – now completely unknown, unidentified and unimportant.

Of course, this will never happen to you or I, our lives are way too important and we’ve participated in far too many memorable life events for those things to just disappear. Our thoughts, opinions and beliefs are not only vital to us but also of great significance to humanity. Not to mention, we have many friends and family members who will remember us and all of the important things in our lives for eternity. We’ll never be forgotten like those other people. Right?

The world of form is not as significant as we try to convince ourselves it is. It never has been. It doesn’t have any permanence to it. We try to hang on to this identity in our changing, disposable bodies and pretend we are as important as we believe we are. One day these bodies and all we consider important will fade away faster than a stream of smoke, just like the life of Random Renaissance Person did. What’s left when it’s all gone? Does everything just dissolve and go back to the Earth or can it be that there is actually some sort of permanence behind appearances? Something that remains when all appearances change and pass away? Does it make sense to actually “be” at one point in this life and then “not be” at another point? Is “being” so disposable and finite?

Is it?

You Are Not Less Than!

You Are Not Less Than by Rick Baldwin

Image by Barbara Jackson from Pixabay

We have been convinced by ignorant people to believe we are less than we are. We have been told by those who do not know, and are only repeating what they have been told, that we are flawed, limited, imperfect, and broken.

You can decide who and what you want to believe but I challenge you to examine the facts before doing so. Do not allow yourself to be trapped in someone else’s limited belief about who they think they are before you look within yourself and discover the reality of who you really are.

Who are you?

You are not your body. Your body is limited and changing and it is destined to return back to the earth of which it is made. If you believe you are your body, you will seem to be limited, changing and destined to die.

You are not your mind. Your mind is limited and changing and it is destined to disappear into nothing like the thoughts of which it is made. If you believe you are your mind you will seem to be limited, changing and destined to disappear.

If you are not your body and you are not your mind, what is it that you are?

Look within and notice another dimension which is your very Presence. This Presence doesn’t change and has never changed. You have noticed it before, that ageless, ever-present being looking through your eyes. It speaks loud when you are silent. It is that! That Presence is who you are!

It is that Spirit, that Presence, that Being, that Life who you are! You may say it is “your” Spirit but it is far beyond “yours.” It is pure Spirit. The Spirit of God! How could you have ever been convinced to believe you are less than perfect when your very essence is the Spirit of God?  

When you know who you are, when you see who you are, when you feel who you are, no one will ever be able to take it away from you. They couldn’t really take it before, but now that you are aware of it, you will never let it go because it is always there, always present, always YOU. It is never less than perfect. How could it be? It can never leave you or be extinguished.

Take some time to be aware and reside within yourself. Watch what happens when this awareness increases and becomes more permanent. You will soon discover you are so much more than you always believed and so much more than others have told you you are!

Protection From The Storms

Birds on a Wire

Image by roshanjoshi from Pixabay

A few years ago I was watching a documentary about the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. You may recall, there was a tremendous loss of human lives and property in that tsunami. To witness the destruction being captured ”live” on video, gave a sense of immediacy to the tragedy. I felt as if I, too, was there with many of the survivors, barricaded in an upper-floor house or hotel, hoping the sea of death and destruction wouldn’t swell any higher and sweep us away.

I was struck in particular by one scene of the video. Dark, muddy water flowed through the streets of a small village, taking everything in its path that wasn’t anchored to the ground. Houses crumbled, cars were tossed around like toy boats, and human beings, unlucky enough to not find higher ground, were hurled about in the debris-filled, ocean soup. A man and woman, thrashed about in the black water, hung on to a broken tree, and frantically searched for something more stable to cling to that would possibly rescue them from impending doom.

While the man and woman clung for their lives, I was soon aware of two birds that landed on a power line directly above the chaos. The juxtaposition of the two scenes hit me hard. The two birds, apparently deciding to take a break from their flight to relax, were oblivious to the heart-wrenching display of struggle and survival that was being played out directly below them. They surveyed the picture, determined there was no threat to them, and continued their peaceful pause. Meanwhile, human tragedy continued to take its toll beneath them.

I’ve never been able to shake the image of those two birds or to forget the idea that, in the midst of every human tragedy, there is an atmosphere of rest if we know where to search. Sometimes that rest is in the deepest of the ocean during a hurricane or it’s in the highest altitude during a tornado. And while those physical locations may provide for us some protection, there is also a spiritual dimension that ensures peace during any storm, tragedy, or catastrophe. We may not be as fortunate to be the birds on the wire, with physical distance from the calamity but we still have that spiritual location of peace and protection we carry within us wherever we go, even if it is in the heat of the battle or in the heart of the destruction. 

This spiritual center of peace within us is our true Being. Because it is who we are, we can never be removed from it. It is our secure foundation to hold to when we are being tossed about by life’s waves. When we become aware of this center of our Being on a regular basis, we begin to realize that it is never touched, moved, or injured in any way during any condition, even if our body is maimed or destroyed. We begin frequently to reside in the awareness of this spiritual location ”above the earth’s calamities,” similar to the two birds in the tsunami.  We anchor ourselves in this place of deep joy and peace, untouched by sickness, tragedy, or annihilation and, in doing so, we see manifested our true life of happiness, peace, and love.