When the body-mind seems not to "get" the deepest Truth

I just listened to an interview with Rupert Spira on BATGAP (Buddha at the Gas Pump) from 2011. At the end, Rupert talks about the relationship between realization and the body-mind's adjusting (my word, not his) to the Truth that has become known. He says that this takes usually takes time, and that this adjustment can happen before or after the realization of the truth of nonduality -- or both before and after -- and in fact seems to continue indefinitely.

I think those of us who have realized Truth to the extent that it is clear that there is no self often reflect on the contradiction that in daily life, many of the old patterns of behavior persist. That is, I often behave, internally (in thought) or externally (in behavior) as though I really truly believe I am a separate self. There continues to be that deep knowing that there really isn't anything separate, but I must admit that one looking from the outside wouldn't be able to tell that!

I've become much more relaxed about this. My programming from childhood was to become "perfect" in order to be loved, and that has given way to a kind of compassion for the illusory separate self that seems to show me up as less than perfectly enlightened! (See how the "me" creeps in -- as though enlightenment were something "I" do?)

Fundamentally, just as enlightenment isn't something "I" do, neither do I create the separate self.  "I"  am not the author of it nor responsible for it. Life does everything.

And One More Time: There is NO Separate Self

Recently, I heard an interview with an engaging, modest man named Robert Wright, who has written a book called, Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment. 

One thing I notice when Westerners write books about Buddhism, though, is that they rarely mention the most important aspect of enlightenment, maybe even the only aspect that really matters: one realizes that the separate self doesn't exist.

(I really want to emphasize this because some people imagine that the separate self somehow disappears. And so they are looking for evidence in behavior in order to decide if a given teacher is enlightened. But the fact is that the idea of a separate self exists in the mind; and once it is seen through, one knows that it never existed in the first place.)

So, as usual, this fundamental fact was ignored in the interview, which, I think, means that Wright doesn't know it.

I decided to look for a review of the book and found a thoughtful one in yesterday's New York Times, by a Antonio Damasio. But the lack of clarity about the lack of a separate self results in this conclusion to his piece:

 "The self appears fragmented, in daily life and in meditative states, but subjectivity does not break down. It never disappears, or we simply would be unable to observe the fragmentation in the first place.

"I would venture that in most meditative states some subjectivity remains, as representative of the biological interests of the individual. As far as I can imagine, the complete disappearance of a subjective view would result in a “view from nowhere.” But whose view would that be, then? And if not ours, how would we come to know let alone seek such a view, such an emptiness? Mindful meditation is no stranger to the world of paradox. Is there anything stranger than discovering the pleasures of not feeling?"

Whose view would it be then, indeed? The emptiness that we actually are is doing the looking (and at the same time IS the objects it is looking at).

Emptiness is form

Form is emptiness

Emptiness is NOTHING BUT form

Form is NOTHING BUT emptiness.

Ego just wants to realize its own nature

In, I believe, 2006, I attended a retreat co-led by one of my teachers at the time, Dorothy Hunt. Dorothy said something that I wanted to have been the one to have said. What did it matter who said it, as long as the wisdom was imparted? Nonetheless, I wanted to be the one who got credit – because I'd been thinking it as well but no one called on me.

After the retreat was over, we were all enjoying lunch, and I was telling someone sitting across from me about how I wanted to get credit for being wise and enlightened – how my ego craved that. Dorothy, to my surprise, responded from the other end of the long table, “You did say it.” I looked over at her, puzzled. “You did say it,” she repeated.

And suddenly, I was bowled over with the truth of what she said. It took a year or so before I understood in words what I had realized in my body: I am everything, so of course I am also what comes out of Dorothy's mouth.

I was recently re-telling this story to someone who hadn't heard it, and this caused me to consider it from another vantage point. For one thing, it was a miracle that Dorothy was so attuned to me that she knew exactly what was the right thing to say to me at that moment. But I also see now that her statement undercut my assumptions about ego. I've always thought ego – the wanting to make the personal self bigger and more important – was to be admonished and kept under control, if not eliminated. But now I see that ego is a pointer: we really are bigger than our apparent separate selves make us think we are. The ego is striving to realize that largeness. So Dorothy, rather than cut down the poor ego that was only trying to help, said, essentially, “Dear ego, you don't have to try so hard because what you want to make happen already is true. The apparent separate self is already as big as it can possibly get. It is infinite.”

The Central Question of "KUMARE" -- Can an Unrealized "Guru" Lead One to Truth?

I've been meaning to write about the film Kumare but there is so much to explore that I haven't been able to find a focus.  Today, what is coming to me concerns core issue of the film:  whether one needs a guru in seeking Truth.

For those who haven't seen the movie, a brief description:  an American filmmaker with family roots in India decides that he will become a fake guru and see whether he can deceive people into following him.  An East Coast resident, he goes to Arizona, where he is not known, dons robes, a beard, and a fake Indian accent modeled on his grandmother's speech, and invents yoga poses and doctrine.  He does indeed convince quite a lot of people that he is a real guru.

After I saw the film, I watched a couple of interviews with the filmmaker on-line.  He says at one point that he wanted to show people that the truth was in themselves.  I don't know this person, but judging only from the narrative in the film itself, this seems a rationalization to justify, after the fact, his deception.  In the film, his reason is simply that he wants to see if he can get away with it -- if people will be gullible.  He finds that they are.

I may come back another time to the question of whether it can ever be ethically justified to pull this kind of ruse, but I want to focus on something more important here.  I was turned on to this film by someone I met only on-line who said that it was an example of how a fake guru can produce real effects.  I'm glad this person turned me on a fascinating movie, but now that I've seen it, I find that I don't agree with her view.

(Note: A bit of a spoiler is coming here.)  It is true that all of Kumare's main disciples wanted to make changes in their lives, and they first relied on him to help them but most later found that they had the inner strength to pursue these changes without him.  But what kind of changes were they?  All, without exception, were self-improvement projects -- losing weight, dealing with personal difficulties, etc.  They were all within the realm of personality.  And here is the crux of it:  no one who is not awakened can lead someone who is also not awakened to awakening.  There are no exceptions to this that I know of.  Re-arranging the personality has nothing to do with awakening because awakening is seeing that, although the True Self reveals itself through the personality, it is not, in essence, the personality.

It is true, though, is that we are also drawn to teachers who reflect where we ourselves are in our life's journey.  If we choose a teacher -- fake or real -- who is operating at the psychological level, that is because something in us needs to deal with psychological issues before going deeper.  There's nothing wrong with this -- the only error is in assuming that there is something of the nature of absolute truth in it.

The assumption in the end of the film is that, since most of the disciples found what they needed in themselves, they didn't need a teacher in the first place.  This may or may not be true when addressing psychological issues.  But the role of a true guru is not to help one have a better marriage, or address body image issues, or find a satisfying career.  There are lots of experts who do have a role to play in this but their title should not be "spiritual teacher."  A spiritual teacher in the deepest sense is someone who helps us see that we are not simply this temporal being struggling to improve but rather that we are not separate selves at all.  Since there is absolutely nothing in the culture around us to point us back to this truth, a spiritual teacher is often needed to do that.  But s/he has to have realized this before being able to teach it.