Coming Back for It

To people who had had awakenings but were suffering over something, Adya used to say, "You came back for it."  I never hear him say that anymore -- maybe too many people didn't get what he meant.  This last satsang, he said something with, I think, the same intent, though:  temporarily abdicate the deeper knowing in order to get into the mind's not-knowing.  I've heard him say this before also, but I think it has to be said at just the right time.  Something in me heard it, and though I had no idea how to do this, something in me seems to have.

For years I've been struggling with my feelings about a temple I lived in when I was young.  I just kept up an internal monologue with them about what they did to me -- "me" as the victim -- even though in other circumstances, I would have said clearly enough that there is no one here!  And now this is shifting.  I am starting to see how I sought their energy, hoping to make it mine, hoping to win them over somehow.  And all of the time, my own energy was calling to me to be released and celebrated.  We seem to get all confused in love -- whether it's love of a temple or of another human being -- and think, implicitly or explicitly, that the other has something we need.  And it's simply not true.

Seeing through morality

I went to a satsang today, someone I heard about and so was curious.  It felt very abstract to me, and very conversational, not worshipful.  It surprised me that I crave that worshipful aspect of satsang.  But the thing that surprised me most was that the teacher never once mentioned that we don't actually exist. Oh, he mentioned that trees and chairs and stuff like that don't exist, but isn't the bottom line really that there is no "me" here?  It is only through experiencing the emptiness of the "me" that we can know that other things also have no independent existence.  And the path, for me, to find out that the "me" does not really exist was to see how judgment maintains it, how there is a constant commentary in the mind about what is the "right" way to be, and, especially for spiritual people, the "right" way to wake up.  It was in my first glimpse into the absolute that I understood that morality does not really exist -- it is created IN ORDER TO maintain the ego.

Gratitude toward Adya

Sometimes I am just so overwhelmed by gratitude for my meeting with my teacher, Adyashanti.  For so many years, I looked for someone who would understand where I was coming from when it was still so impossible to express it that one almost had to be a mind-reader.  And he was.  When I met him, I knew implicitly that, however deep my realization was to go, he would be able to follow and assist me.  I was not disappointed.  We are so blessed when we meet the right teacher.  I am moved to tears whenever I think about it.

Emotion and Awakening

Q:  What is the relationship between emotion and awakening?

I once thought that emotion somehow went away when one woke up, and was replaced by constant bliss, or something like that.  Pretty silly, now that I think of it.  But I think that belief was encouraged by some teachers who seem to look upon emotional states as illusory.  My experience is that I definitely still experience emotion -- both positive and negative.  What seems to have changed is my judgments about emotion.  There seems to be an allowance for all kinds of feelings.  So-called "negative feelings," such as sadness, don't have to be gotten rid of.  In a way, I can just enjoy them as part of existence, in the same say that we experience the sad emotions in a work of art as enjoyable.

A KOAN

Q:     Why does the Buddha above have no head?

A:      Think about it.

BEING ONESELF

I've noticed that the people who are able to take advantage of the teachings the most are those who aren't inhibited about being true to themselves -- to the way Being manifests through them, including how they think.  When someone begins a question with,"So-and-so says that this is true.  What do you think, Adya [or whoever the teacher is]?" I know that person isn't looking inside.  Because it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about anything, but especially not about awakening.  The only thing that matters is what the seeker himself or herself thinks or feels.  There are no "wrong" answers, only inauthentic ones.

I remember a satsang with Mary Winslow many years ago.  She was telling person after person that there really is no control over anything.  I kept thinking, "But that's not my subjective experience.  I don't think that's true."  Finally, she said it one more time and I raised my hand and said what I'd been thinking.  She said, "But you experience what you experience, and THEREIN LIES THE ENLIGHTENMENT."  Everything disappeared.  In fact, her words didn't even go into memory and I only know them because I later obtained a tape.

Now I could have held my tongue, thinking, "She's the teacher, so she must know."  Or I could have silently thought her wrong but said nothing.  But something in me said, "No, say what is true for you."  And I got rewarded big-time for my honesty.

The same, I think, is true of actions.  In the early days of my attendance at Adya's satsangs, I used to start crying about 15 minutes into the satsang and not stop until the end.  I didn't know why.  It wasn't anything in particular he said.  I experienced it as a kind of opening, although I'm sure lots of people thought it was weird.  One of his other students did the same thing, and I met her red eyes with mine sometimes after satsang.  But even if I had been alone in this, I wouldn't have put the brakes on my tears.  The opening needed to happen, and I only knew what was needed; if it looked crazy from the outside, so be it.

Being oneself is the alpha and omega of spiritual progress.  I think this is because, when we are not being ourselves, when we strive to do it "right" or to try to be accepted, we are divided, and that tension to maintain the lie stops us from going deeper.