The 9 Realities of Stardust
A Guide to Being Human in the Universe
by
Bruce P. Grether
All conceptions of boundaries are lies.
- Michael McClure, Antechamber
Introduction
Within yourself you have direct access to everything. The truth is incredibly simple: in spite of appearances, nothing is actually separate from anything else.
Though it may seem a bit of a stretch to the rational mind, this is true: All information in the Universe is immediately available to you when you listen deeply and with heightened awareness to the actual realities of the world you live in, which is the same as the world that lives inside of you.
Clarity and truth are revealed directly to you when you embrace one simple, essential fact: You arestardust.
The answers to all of your questions are found in the stardust realities of your embodied existence as a human being.
What we call the “re-enchantment” of the world is really the re-enchantment of ourselves. The world already is, always has been enchanted. We, however, sometimes forget this.
What is happening in the Universe? What is happening inside of you? Actually, these are not 2 different categories. Within you and without you are not really separate realms, though the belief that they are is common. That belief can cause suffering.
In truth, there is no solid, objective external reality that exists “out there” independent of your participation. You always are involved. At the same time, it is not quite accurate to say “everything is illusion,” or, “nothing is real.”
Your body, Nature, the Earth, the Moon, Sun, Stars, and the Universe really exist! Life is real. Love is real. Love is connection.
The fact that you are made of stardust connects you with everything in existence. In its deepest essence this stardust connection is Love.
Anything else you experience is a distortion of Love, just a false belief about what’s going on; Love is your natural state, your default.
“Stardust” is far more than a poetic-sounding word. What this book is about is the literal realities of the complex atoms forged in the hearts of ancient stars that exploded and died long ago to scatter their atomic matter through the star ways. And this book is about why these realities are crucial to how you are a human being in and of this Universe.
Nature itself is the realities of stardust in you and your context in the world. Though there is a lot of matter and energy in this Universe that is not composed of stardust, it is because you are mostly stardust that you are able to recognize this fact. This is also why you are human.
Stardust makes possible everything you are, and your consciousness itself depends upon the complex atoms of which your body is composed. This also makes it possible to recognize your connection with All Things, how intimately you are related with the Universe as a whole.
The 9 Realities described in the book emerged from the practice of sitting meditation, mindfulness, or contemplative breathing. There is no particular instruction in this kind of meditation except: If your mind wanders into mental description, story or narrative, return attention to your breath. This is not about avoidance of thinking, rather it is about paying full attention to the presence of the body. Your immediate surroundings may be listened to closely, though the eyes are usually closed. It’s about gently allowing the thought-processes to recede in importance through alertness.
The essential significance of these 9 clearly reflects the refrain of Joni Mitchell’s lovely song from 1969, “Woodstock,” which in poetic form, describes precisely the current place and situation of humanity in the Universe.
What is sometimes called the “Clear Light” is the remarkable clarity that comes from being truly present, without illusions of the past or the future to compromise the luminosity of conscious awareness, being fully in your body, here and now. To SEE this Clear Light you must trust the process of expanding awareness and allow your ego to die.
This is not “death” as you have imagined it, rather it is the beginning of a new journey to reclaim the truth of your essence.
To “get back to the Garden” is now the prime directive for humanity, not to try to return to a mythic concept of Eden. What this actually means is to remember that our beloved Planet Earth has been the Paradise Garden of our birth all along.
In our minds—in the narratives we have come to believe—we may have exiled ourselves from this full awareness. However, to rediscover the realities of stardust known to our animistic ancestors not so long ago is to recognize our inherent “nakedness” before the power of Nature.
Thus we recover our original fearlessness, our original innocence as Children of the Forest Primeval. The Garden is Nature—our parent and origin.
Allow the stardust realities to speak directly to your human experience from within the cellular, molecular, and atomic realms of your body’s matter and energy.
This book suggests many ways to reclaim your original innocence:
Be an ecstatic.
Allow the full range of human experience to flow through you without hindrance
Release both attachment and aversion.
Hold on to the Clear Light.
Resist nothing.
Allow.
The 9 Realities of Stardust are:
I AM the Source
At Every Moment I Leap into the Abyss of the Unknown
All Worlds Are Equally Real and Equally Imaginary
I AM virtually Identical with Every Human Being
Everything Evolves
I have Lived Forever and I Remember my Life
The Earth IS My Immediate Family
The Center Is Everywhere
Everything Is Alive
The New Edition of THE 9 REALITIES OF STARDUST will be available soon.
