Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here. And now, here is today’s question:

Q: I feel lots of energy coming through me and certain powers. How can I become a “co-creator” with God?

This question arises when one believes that there are two Selves, God’s and “mine.” But there is only the nondual Self. Sagely tradition argues here for total humility, clarity and transparency to preempt narcissism, pride, and megalomania. All that is meant to appear will spontaneously happen in and through the various selves as the Self’s play. One need not push the river or add legs to a snake, as Zen says.

Q: I feel an expanded sense of Awareness in meditation and especially here in satsang/therapy, but then I lose it at other times, like at work. I feel I’m only aware of being Awareness some of the time, not all of the time. How to have more consistency?

This very common concern presumes that Awareness is a special state of mind coming and going in time and can somehow be made “constant” by some special discipline, when in fact Awareness is timelessly/always the Constant Substratum of the dream or movie of life. Our Real Nature is this Self-evident, Obvious ISNESS, the only non-changing aspect of our life. All else changes but THIS. And, as Shankara and Ramana Maharshi frequently pointed out, people already know they are constantly the Self and really don’t doubt it. Otherwise, if they were only their changing mind-states with no continuity, they would be incessantly shocked, over and over, moment by moment, by the sudden re-appearance of discrete, discontinuous bodymind states.

So we all know, deep down, subconsciously, that we are the One Self-Awareness. All that’s “needed” is to stop presuming that we are the changing, limited states of the bodymind and stop searching for some special new bodymind state called “enlightenment.” The only way we miss Spiritual Truth is by searching for it on the “object”-ive level of body, mind or psychic-soul.

The fact is that the God-Self—Infinite, Unborn Awareness—is equally present in human confusion and clarity, struggle and ease, failure and success, misery and joy, just as present as when one is on the meditation-seat, the car-seat or toilet-seat. Where else could God be but right HERE? When could God be but right NOW?

Wisely knowing-being this grand yet simple Truth is what allows for deep relaxation, real freedom, blissful peace, and all-embracing love.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here.

And now, here is today’s question:

Q: I feel emptiness, but it feels like a dead, disconnected, nonblissful, meaningless emptiness.

Classic self-enquiry, again, would have one enquire “Who recognizes this emptiness as such?” Alternatively, the individual is invited to explore the precise nature of this dead emptiness—or any bodymind state of suffering or dis-ease (e.g., anger, fear). It is Guest—You are non-separate Host. What are its dynamics? How, precisely, does it manifest for each of the senses and the emotions? How, specifically, is it that the Infinite Being-Awareness-Bliss has packaged ItSelf in such an interesting masquerade? One explores the dead emptiness with that intense curiosity and “lurking suspicion” that it is really an opaque window onto the Divine Reality. So one makes this dead emptiness the object of an informal, ongoing mindfulness or witnessing meditation and, through the clarifying and dissolving power of Awareness, one witnesses it unravel and reveal itself as the Divine temporarily appearing in phenomenal form. As Advaita Vedanta says, whatever is, is Brahman. There’s no other Reality than this. When Awareness focuses on any object/state, it will eventually dissolve it, like sunlight melts a hard solid ice cube into water then into vapor. Awareness ultimately dissolves everything back into pure Aliveness-energy.

It helps here to know that such “dead emptiness” states of feeling hapless, helpless and hopeless are an almost standard crisis (Self-intended!) to render the “me-dream” so intolerable that one ceases to invest or cathect any more energy in “normal” living and instead awakens to Vastness. In other words, when the dream becomes stultifyingly banal or painfully nightmarish, there’s motive to wake up altogether from dreaming. The me-syndrome becomes so “insufferable” that one melts, transcends or simply pulls back from or snaps out of it by resuming one’s real Identity.

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Retreats held in Santa Barbara, California this September. In preparation for the retreats, this is the second in a series of questions answered by Timothy.

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Q: Why are we here in the first place?

This, along with many other similar “why” questions, can, of course, be “answered”—e.g., “to love and serve and to enjoy the adventure of being the Formless playing the dance of Form.” Yet “why” is more usefully re-directed to How is it that there is an arising sense of self and world at all?

A related “why”-question is “Why did the Divine Self dream up this painful illusory world and self-sense?” This, too, can be therapeutically shifted to “Precisely how is it that I identify with and problematize any painful situations and self-sense?”

Q: “So, ‘how’ come there is suffering?”

One can always point the questioner back to classic Advaitin or Buddhist self-enquiry, “Who or What is aware of ‘suffering’?” The knowing Awareness, after all, must be quite different in kind from its object. This Changeless Principle Right Here recognizes various changing emotional, mental, psychic and physical states like suffering, ennui, loss, desire. The Changeless Awareness is not part of or tied to those changeful aspects of experience. If the person further responds, “well it feels like my suffering is changelessly part of my life,” one can reply, “where is it, then, in deep, dreamless sleep?” as evidence that suffering comes and goes and is not always, changelessly part of one-self.

But it is also therapeutically useful to sometimes speak on a more conventional, psychological level by distinguishing between intensity, pain, and suffering. Basically, any form of physical or emotional pain is a form of intense energy that one does not know how to process psycho-physiologically. There is an ancient, evolutionary programming within different species to perceive and judge certain intense stimuli: “Owww! Painful!” Without this discrimination, most animal species never would have survived, lacking incentive to run away from predators chomping on one’s limbs. So pain is a useful alarm signal. Suffering comes in with neurotically self-obsessing thoughts like “Why is God always doing this to me?” or “I must have lots of really bad karma to have this happen to me.”

One can drop the “suffering” of certain painful situations by letting go inner judgments, resentments, regrets, expectations and the sense of being the hapless target-entity afflicted by cruel outside forces, and instead simply notice pain, along with intelligently making any changes needed (e.g., pulling the hand away from the fire or moving beyond a chronically abusive relationship). This shift from conflicted suffering to fully experiencing pain is well-known to many professionals working in pain-management clinics, where the emergent wisdom has been to teach clients how to meditatively be-the-pain. Studies indicate that many people’s felt-sense of even physical pain actually diminishes considerably, by up to 80%, by focusing upon pain’s raw sensations and not getting entangled in self-obsessing thoughts about the pain and its relation to “me.”

Marathon runners, swimmers, cyclers, weight-lifters et al. routinely take on extremely painful situations while training. Their muscles and entire physiology painfully “scream” as these athletes repeatedly go beyond their normal felt-sense of physical and mental limits, stretching into greater excellence. Most persons suddenly placed into this stressful situation of athletic training would complain of being put into hell. But athletes seek out this situation—they know they can “become the pain” and realize it as passionately-intense energy. It’s not just that the body-mind starts releasing endorphins and other natural pain-managing chemistry. No, these aware athletes often feel that they’ve been released into nondual aliveness, pure intensity—no more subject of experience, object of experience or dualistic process of experiencing. Just pure experiencing.

This is, notably, one of the very definitions of Brahman in [the classic nondually-oriented Hindu medieval text] Yoga Vâsishtha.

Likewise, we “become one with” any painful physical or emotional situation upon losing the dualistic sense of subject and object and realizing we are really this Formless Awareness nondually being various forms of intensity. This is Shiva experiencing ItSelf as Shakti, Awareness experiencing ItSelf as the sacred world of intense energy.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at both the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat and the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ Retreat this September. Over the next several days I will post questions from seekers along with Timothy’s answers. The first question and answer is posted below.

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Q: I cannot seem to find, know or perceive the Self or Awareness. I get a vague sense of the Self, but I can’t seem to bring it clearly into focus.

An oft-heard complaint. The Self is not an object to be rendered “clearer” or “more focused.” The clarity of focus is in realizing that one’s true nature as Awareness is not any kind of object, thing or entity at all. Awareness need only rest or abide as ItSelf, sheer Isness-Aliveness-Sentience-Intelligence, the basic roomy Capacity for experience. Invisible and imperceptible, Awareness need not go in search of ItSelf or try to make an object out of ItSelf, just as a fingertip is not “designed” to touch itself and will only convolute or dislocate itself in trying to do so. If you want to perceive the Self [objectively], behold the world and all its beautiful beings—Divine Forms of the Formless.

Q: What basic attitude should be maintained?

Just be capacious no-thingness, with a simple, keen curiosity or affectionate amusement over Who/What am I? And what the hell/heaven is going on here? What is the true nature of this arising pain or pleasure, this discomfort or comfort, this confusion or clarity? What is the real nature or underlying reality of this “me”-subject and “my” objects of experience?

In general, one enquires “What is this? What is this particular saliently-arising state (fear, lust, anger, shame, envy, euphoria, pride, numbness, tightness, nervousness, body sensations, thoughts, memories, images, psychic impulses…)? And for Whom does it arise?”

Awareness being the only Reality, when Awareness investigates Its own emanations-productions, It deconstructs them and knows neti, neti, “I’m not this, not this.” The Buddha often put it, “this [whatever aggregate or state] is not mine; this I am not; this is not my self.” [N’etam mama, n’eso ‘ham ‘asmi, na meso atta.] This is Buddhist mindfulness, Hindu witnessing, Christian-Sufi watchfulness. No need to get heavy or obsessive with it. There’s nothing to “do” and nobody to “become.”

Just be, just remain as you are, in the relaxed, “natural state,” lucidly dreaming the life-dream, freely noticing-enjoying the basic fact of Awareness and Its objects. And plainly know that You are both this Formless Awareness and these “Form-full” objects. Thus, you can be fullyengaged while freely unengaged, compassionately involved while transcendentally uninvolved.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Question for Liz from a reader:

“I read somewhere in your story, or a blog post, that at some point in your journey with the Course, you experienced heavy ego “rebounding.” I am 1/3 through the workbook. I find there’s strong correlations for me between a day or few days of inner peace, much less ego chatter, etc, followed by very persistent, loud, insistent(!) ego noise and demands. Some mornings after a previous day of consistent meditation are particularly noisy. How did you deal with ego rebounding, and what do you recommend for those periods when my ego’s voice, and its resistance to any of my meditative work, is strong?” – M

Liz’s Answer:

Yes, you have described the ego’s rebounding very well. This is the process. You experience peace or an insight and as soon as you even so much as glance (usually unconsciously) in the ego’s direction it does whatever it needs to do to hold your attention. And it’s usually not something nice! This will go on as long as the ego still seems to have something you want and/or you are afraid of God (True Being).

After long, futile struggle I eventually learned to just accept the rebound. I accepted that it was happening because I still believed on some level that the ego had value and/or was “safer” than Truth. I accepted that I was in a long process of undoing that belief. Accepting the process and where I was in the process did not undo all of my discomfort but it did lessen it considerably.

On those days when the ego was particularly raucous and I couldn’t meditate I just accepted that, too. I made the attempt and tried to just be with the resistance, observing it and letting it go. But if it was too uncomfortable I would just go do something else. Throughout the day I would turn my mind inward to Truth whenever I remembered. And if I couldn’t feel It I would remind myself that it was still there. The sun still shines even if, from my point of view on earth, the clouds seem to obscure it for a time.

And I’ve learned that ego episodes always pass. This was something that I would remember in the midst of them, too.

Kabir, 1440 – 1518,
Mystic poet and saint from India

#1

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals;
not in masses, nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

~ Kabir

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#2

Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now,
in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth,
find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

When the guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

 ~ Kabir

Adapted from “The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi” by John Troy
Told by V. Ganesan, grand-nephew of Ramana Maharshi

Masthan Swami was a staunch Muslim. His parents observed all religious codes, rituals, and disciplines rigorously, and brought him up in the same manner. Even as a child of eight years, he would enter into Samadhi (a state of repose and silence) without knowing what it was. He had the natural ability to be detached from people and things from childhood. This remarkable devotee followed all the Islamic injunctions and was very much devoted to Allah and Prophet Mohammed.

In 1914, Masthan Swami was living in a village forty miles away from Tiruvannamalai and from where Desurammal hailed. Being two of the only people in that village who shared a similar spiritual ―madness, the two became friends. One day she told him, ―Masthan Swami, you must meet my guru. She then brought him to Virupaksha cave to Ramana Maharshi.

After this staunch and devoted follower of Islam came to see Bhagavan at the cave, this is what he recounted: ―Ramana Maharshi was seated like a rock; his unswerving gaze was filled with grace, compassion, and steady wisdom. I stood by his side. After giving me a look, the gate of my Heart opened, and I was also established in that state in the very first encounter. Just one look from Bhagavan and I stood like that for eight hours, absolutely without fatigue, and filled with total absorption and peace.

When he returned to his village, Masthan Swami experienced some conflict within himself. Until then his Master had been Prophet Mohammed. Though Allah was God, and Prophet Mohammed was his guru, here was a living guru, Ramana Maharshi.

“Am I disloyal to my other guru, Mohammed, who is no more?” he wondered.

This was his conflict—he was filled with Bhagavan‘s presence, but as he was brought up in the Islamic tradition he had this feeling, “Am I brushing aside my Master Mohammed because he is no more in the body?” Fortunately he was bold enough to go to Ramana Maharshi and confess, “Bhagavan, this is my problem. Please help me.”

Ramana Maharshi looked at him for sometime because Bhagavan was never interested in the question. Bhagavan was always more interested in the questioner. He looked at Masthan Swami for a full fifteen minutes, showering all his grace and replied, “Do you take this body to be Bhagavan? Do you think the Prophet is dead? Then is Buddha dead? Is Jesus Christ dead? Is Adi Shankara dead? Are they not guiding, hundreds of thousands of people even today? Are they not living in the Heart? A living guru means the one living in one‘s Heart as a guru. A living guru does not mean somebody living in a body at a given historical time, and at a given geographical space. The guru ever lives in your Heart. Heart is Allah, Heart is Mohammad, Heart is Jesus Christ, Heart is Buddha, and Heart is Bhagavan. Live in the Heart as the Heart by diving into the silent Heart.”

These words were recounted to me by Viswanatha Swami. I could not grasp them immediately, so I requested Viswanatha Swami, “Please explain it so that I can understand.” He said, “The guru is timeless. To talk of the guru in time, you bring in death, birth, living, all this. There is no outer guru and inner guru. There is the guru principle, which is the Heart of every one of us.”

I said, “Swami, how do you say this?”

He replied, “A devotee once came from Lahore. Tiruvannamalai and Lahore are more than one thousand miles apart. In the 1920s and 1930s, travel was almost impossible in India. He could stay for a month or so. But when he was to leave he wept before Bhagavan, ‘How can I leave you and go, Bhagavan?’

“Bhagavan asked, ‘Where are you going? Can you go away from Bhagavan? Bhagavan is always with you. Bhagavan is in you. In fact you yourself are Bhagavan.’

“It is the same state of I am in each of us; the living Master is always in the Heart as still awareness. This awareness that is in you and you in it, in me and in every one of us, that is Arunachala Ramana, God, Self, Heart, Jesus, Buddha . . . We can give it any name or no name. Love makes no claim of its own.”

Last week a friend and I rented a movie which received some really good reviews, but I was disappointed.  I thought the story and dialogue between the characters was poor, and it seemed like many of the actors were just regurgitating memorized material.  I wasn’t believing that what was happening was real at all.  During some parts of the movie, my attention was diverted and I began thinking about other things going on in my life.  I really didn’t care about the characters or what was going to happen to them.  On the other hand, when I watch a well-made film that I like, I forget the actors are acting and I find myself believing the story.  I’m laughing and/or crying, even though in the back of my mind I know it’s not real.  I’m not thinking about anything besides the film.  I’m drawn to the screen and caught up in the drama.  I judge the characters’ choices and actions, and decide which are good and which are bad.  I also formulate an opinion of how the story will or should end.

After this movie I watched was over, I began thinking about spiritual awakening.  We hear again and again that if we want to wake up, we need to go within and detach from the outside world.  Perhaps, awakening eventually happens when life becomes like a bad movie.  In other words, when we aren’t drawn to what’s happening on the screen or out in the world, and instead focus within on the One Self.  Does that mean if we’re not awake yet, that the movie or the outside world is too engrossing right now?  Maybe we just need to relax, enjoy the film and not try to rush anything, because it’ll end when it’s supposed to end and not any sooner or later.

Regardless, I’ve decided to just see where this movie I’m immersed in takes me, and not be too concerned about it.  After all, I really don’t have a choice, do I?

An article by Regina Dawn Akers

Contemplation is the art of going beyond the mind’s understanding to another understanding, understanding that clearly transcends the mind. Some call it realization.

If one is identified with the mind, wisdom-realization may have the feeling of coming from beyond “me.” One may give credit for the wisdom to Holy Spirit, Jesus, Buddha or some other symbol of transcendent wisdom. If one is not identified with the mind, wisdom-realization feels like home, like Self.

When I was first guided to write “The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament” (NTI), I was given instructions about how to do it. One very important instruction was:

“In order to understand the symbol, one must accept the Love of Christ. One prepares himself to accept that Love by recognizing he does not understand the symbol, and then he asks for understanding. By opening up to receive understanding without judgment, he opens up to accept the Love of Christ. With that Love comes Christ’s knowledge, for they are the same and inseparable. Then the meaning that is beyond the words is understood as a Light that shines for all who look to see.”

There are two main points about receiving in this paragraph:

1 – In order to receive wisdom, I have to realize I don’t understand.

2 – In order to receive wisdom, I have to be willing not to judge what I receive.

These were important instructions to move me completely beyond my ego, including my spiritual ego, so that I could receive spontaneous enlightened clarity without blocking it with what I think I already know and without blocking it with what I think it should be.

Whenever we contemplate anything, we receive the most if we are willing to be completely open and non-judgmental. If I think wisdom should sound like A Course in Miracles or Mooji or Thich Nhat Hahn or anything else, I block wisdom somewhat. If I think it should tell me something specific like “You are awareness,” I block it somewhat. If I think it should use certain words or shouldn’t use certain words or should be poetic, I block it somewhat. Anything I think I know gets in the way of completely open spontaneous receiving.

Sometimes when contemplating, the flow of wisdom begins on its own, spontaneously. Sometimes the flow of wisdom begins as I focus on an inquiry. For example, as I write this, today’s Awakening Together daily quote is:

“Who cares if you’re enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?” ~ Byron Katie

If I am contemplating that quote, I might ask myself, “Am I over concerned with enlightenment? Has that become an obstacle for me? In what way is that an obstacle?” And then I use looking, not thinking or analysis, to see what the answers to these questions are. As I see through looking, wisdom that is perfect for me on this day arises.

Or I might ask myself, “What is ‘it’ when she says, ‘Can you just get it in this moment, now?’” And then I remain open. I don’t use thinking to try to figure it out. I just stay with the question, open, waiting for an answer to come. If my mind starts to think, I ask the question again. I wait in the stillness of the open question.

Sometimes when wisdom begins to flow, it isn’t immediately brilliant to me. The first few words that appear may seem uninteresting or unorganized. I remember I’ve promised not to judge what comes, and I start writing whatever comes. This seems to open the flow more, and soon I have perfect wisdom for me now.

When we sit down to contemplate, it is best if we have no expectations about what we will realize or receive through contemplation. The mind needs to be totally open. Our expectations limit us.

For example, maybe for the last 2 or 3 days I’ve had insights about my attachment to the body as “me”. That doesn’t mean that the theme of realization today will continue on that track. It may switch tracks entirely today. I don’t want to block today’s gift of grace with an expectation of what that gift is supposed to be.

Or maybe the theme of grace is repeating itself again and again. Maybe the mind sees this repetition as monotonous. Maybe the mind thinks that if “I am doing this right, the realization should be completely new and deeply profound each day.” But what does the mind know? Is it the wisdom teacher? Is it grace?

It is best to let go of all expectations and be open to whatever comes without judgment.

Another block to receiving wisdom through contemplation is thinking I understand or thinking I already know. For example, if my practice is contemplating a quote, like the quotes from “The Seven Steps to Awakening” or the Awakening Together Daily Quote, I may sometimes come across a quote that is easy to understand. Maybe the quote is short, simple and clear. “I get it,” mind says.

Well … that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to be gained through contemplation. Joseph Benner had realization after realization, resulting in a book called “The Impersonal Life,” through contemplating one short quote continually. The quote: “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Consider this story on contemplation by William Samuel, written in his book “The Awareness of Self- Discovery”:

“Once, in China, I was given a simple verse to read and then to give my interpretation. I was ready to give an answer immediately but was informed that I had twenty-eight days to think about it. ‘Why so long?’ asked, I, with the usual impatience of a Westerner.

“’Because nothing has been read once until it has been read twelve times,’ was my answer. ‘Read and reread.’

“I did. Twelve times twelve to make twelve readings … and I heard a melody I could not have heard otherwise. Since then I have known why it is that certain lines in the Bible (or any other book) that have been read countless times will one day, upon just one more reading, suddenly take on a grand new significance.

“So reader, with a very gentle touch, read and re-read. If you are earnest, and act with the earnestness you are, one day when you least expect it, you will hear and feel your Heart within complete [the] words without.”

Sometimes we may be asked or guided to contemplate a quote we do not like. Maybe it uses words or symbols we do not like. Maybe we don’t have any mental understanding at all and we feel frustrated about that lack of understanding. Maybe we don’t like the source of the quote; maybe we have judgments against the person who spoke or wrote the quote or maybe we have judgments against the scripture or spiritual path the quote comes from. Any judgments we have about the material we are contemplating can get in the way of receiving wisdom. If we have any judgments about the material, we serve our self best by being willing to look at our judgments and let them go.

Contemplation is not an activity of the mind. Contemplation is a doorway to transcend mind. One may need to be patient or one may need to be willing to accept something that comes fast and unexpectedly. One may need to be willing to write in a voice that seems very different and unfamiliar, or one may need to be willing to receive clear ideas through an easy thought stream that sounds very much like “me”, or one may need to be willing to accept what is realized spontaneously with no words or thoughts at all. Maybe your clarity will come through picture-images in your mind’s eye or through a dream as you sleep.

Contemplation itself cannot be taught. It is something one realizes from within and through experience. However, it may be helpful to read how some contemplation masters describe contemplation. You can read a few of those pointers under “How do I contemplate?” at this link.