Experiencing Essence together, beyond the personal self, is the true purpose of a nondual group

For the last nearly two years, I've been a part of a wonderful nondual spiritual group. For most of the last year or so, we haven't had facilitation. This has worked, probably because, at the beginning, we did have two facilitators and were guided as to how to be in the group.

 In a group with a leader, it is implicitly conceded that the leader gets to decide what the group is: people who don't like it can leave. But in a leaderless group, everyone believes they have a right to their own view and are more likely to stick it out when they are dissatisfied, believing they can re-form the group in their own image. I've been in a several leaderless spiritual groups previously, including a couple I started myself. Having no one in charge is really tricky because what often happens is that everyone has different needs, and therefore different ideas of what a group should look like. One group I was in, for example, seemed to spend half of its time together discussing what it was really about. I began to wonder if it could ever work to have a leaderless group that actually functioned and that allowed people to go deep into Truth without someone's guidance.

I want to say that there is nothing wrong with guidance. I've had lots of it, some of it in a group format. But the idea that someone "knows" and therefore guides, and that the rest of the participants need guidance because they don't know is inherently false. It may or may not be helpful for seekers to initially project our True Nature onto another -- a guru or teacher -- but in the end, we are all equally Aware Essence. And it seems to me that a leaderless group more accurately replicates this truth than one that gives all the power to one member.

In this most recent group in which I participate, we all understand that the purpose of the group is for us to be together on the level of essence -- or whatever one wants to call that which we essentially are that is beyond the mind, beyond words, and that manifests as love and wisdom. Ego comes up, but it doesn't get very far because we all know why we are there: to meet each other in pure awareness, beyond form. So we do a lot of gazing into each other's eyes, where we meet as essence. We talk as well, but the words emerge from those depths.

I've thought a lot about what has made this group the only one I've ever been in that has given me what I was seeking. I think it is the INTENT. Most spiritual groups either are about teaching a doctrine, or they are about delving into each person's inner process: how that person is approaching Truth (however a given group defines that) and what the impediments are. In contrast, because the members of our group know that there really are no "individuals," we do something that looks quite different. The point of our meeting is to experience together "The I That Is We," as Richard Moss put it. It's a completely different approach from that taken by most spiritual people.

Is Obedience Necessary?

I've been wondering, not for the first time, why so many religions, especially those with a monastic component, stress obedience as part of the spiritual path. Of course, if one lives in community, there have to be rules for practical purposes, but most religious communities go far beyond what is practical. Obedience seen as is part of what will bring you closer to God, or spiritual realization as it is conceived in a given tradition.

What are the reasons one would obey another person instead of one's own heart? It seems one must believe not only that another person somehow personifies the goal one wants to attain spiritually but that one does not have within oneself the wisdom one is seeking. I find it hard to believe that there is any way that obedience can come from anything other than denial of one's True Nature.

Anyone can awaken

One of the myths about enlightenment is that it's very difficult to attain, and that only an august few human beings manage to do it.

I remember many years ago at my teacher Adyashanti's satsang, a man came up to dialog with him. The man asked several questions, all of which were in the vein of, “Can someone who is not awake have a reasonably happy life?” Finally, Adya stopped him because he saw the assumption this young man was making: awakening was impossible for him. Could his life be worthwhile nonetheless, he was asking.

Adya finally stopped the man and said, “Let's see who's here tonight.” He looked out over the gathering, which was small enough in those days that he knew personally most of the people present. “I'd estimate,” he said, “that fifty percent of the people present have had an awakening, so why not you?”

This is the little secret, you see. Most people think that awakening is somehow this difficult thing. You have to meditate for years, or do some other kind of practice, and then maybe, if you are the right kind of person, you will be blessed with a little glimpse of the truth. No! Someone needs to tell the truth: we all have access to this. And there are no preconditions. It is our true nature. How could it not be available to us – whoever we are, whatever our past or present circumstances?