This is Part 2 of a 2 Part Article. For Part 1, click here.

Day 11

I had a profound realization during this meditation. Because the main focus of my meditation for many, many  years has been on watching the breath, staying anchored in the breath and when the mind wanders returning my attention to the breath, I have actually been inhibiting the natural movement of awareness. When awareness moved, I labelled that mind wandering and brought my attention back to the breath. Today I watched as awareness moved, first to my breath, then to my senses, then into stillness, then to the sound of a bird, to the sun on my face, to thoughts of breakfast, and then to a huge sense of spaciousness, of boundaries dissolving of just being a part of this flow of sensation, truly awareness watching awareness.

Just as I am practicing allowing all things to be as they are during my meditation time, I am taking that commitment to allow everything to be exactly as it is into my daily life.  Adya says this is the way to make the foundation of our lives one of meditation. Our whole lives become infused with the same quality of acceptance and non-grasping. I have been experimenting with this this week and finding it SOOOOO difficult! I notice how my ego argues with just about everything and so for now I am accepting that as it is, rather than trying to repress it or improve it.

Day 12

I did not meditate today. 
We have guests and I have had little time alone. I practised meditative awareness instead. Various things happened today that I normally would have something to say about. I watched my mind’s reaction as I let everything be as it is. My mind has been going nuts! It has been telling me this is crazy, that I will be a doormat, that this is bowing out of my responsibilities, a form of spiritual bypass.  I just continue to watch.

Day 13

Today we were asked to contemplate a question, write to the end of our own knowing and wait for wisdom to arise before writing further.

Because my mind has been resisting the idea of allowing all things to be exactly as they are, I chose this question:

What does it mean to allow everything to be exactly as it is?

To answer this question we must first discern what allow means in this context.

The dictionary definitions of “allow” are:

1. let (someone) have or do something.
2. give the necessary time or opportunity for.
3. admit the truth of; concede.

The first definition does not seem to apply, it seems to be an ego that would permit all things to be as they are. After all, things are what they are and need no-one’s permission to be so.

Does the 2nd definition fit? Do we need to give time or opportunity for all things to be exactly as they are? Time is needed to undo the ego’s need to control, to have things be other than they are. Opportunity need not be sought as life brings many chances every day to practice surrendering to what is.

The important word here is “give”. We give the time, the willingness, the opportunity to BE with everything, as it is.

And in so doing we come to definition 3, we admit the truth of everything being as it is. We see the futility of our arguments with reality. We concede that because we do not know what anything is for we can no longer argue with anything. We have had everything backwards -we thought we knew what we are, what everything means and we see now there is no self who needs to allow all things to be as they are, no act of will or gritting of teeth is needed, no sacrifice or martyrdom required!

We come to the joyful recognition that everything IS as it IS, far beyond any sense of allowing it to be so and casting aside that egoic delusion, we rest in the mystery, in the unfolding, in God.

Day 14

Today we are asked to contemplate a spiritually powerful question and write until there is a spark of insight.

What is important for me to know now?

Everything that is happening is for your good. You do not have to be good. You do not have to constantly give. It is time to be receptive. Turn within, listen to the whispers of your soul, follow the breadcrumbs at your feet. Remember you are given daily bread.

Do you remember how you felt when you awoke this morning, before the Susan thought arose?

This is your true nature.

Dwell there.

Be still and know that I AM.

Be still.

Be still.

You are perfectly guided, perfectly loved.

Trust.

Be still.

Receive

Rejoice

Day 15

Yesterday morning when I first woke up, I was in a space I have only glimpsed before. It is a space of inner silence which feels very, very tender. It seems to be here as a background to whatever is happening. I get involved in the tasks I need to do and then I remember and check in and sure enough it is still there. It seems to be intensifying. When I meditated today, I felt a sense of joy that I was able to fully be there for a while. And that was my meditation experience- deepening and deepening into a bright, alert silence that is both joyful and has room for everything to appear. I had a sense of expansion as if the whole world was held in this boundless compassion that I am. Rage appeared and was honoured, sadness appeared and tears flowed for a while, profound peace and ecstatic joy were still there as the background, the fabric. I realised how much I have judged, held at bay, pushed away.

I welcome all experience, all feelings, each one loved, just as it is.

Day 16

Today we were asked to sit and observe awareness.

This has really changed for me . I used to try to find “my” awareness, to still my thoughts so that I could find a peaceful spacious space of awareness.This is where the words get tricky because what I am experiencing is a peaceful spacious space of awareness! But I am not doing it! This state, feeling, experience has emerged from this practice of letting everything be as it is. Underneath the mind that was trying to meditate to get to the peaceful place is the very peaceful place I was seeking. The “I” thought is not aware of awareness and awareness is not aware of the “I” thought. Awareness IS and is aware of itself . Everything that arises in awareness is a modulation of awareness and is made of awareness.

Day 17

The instructions are to observe awareness and ask “Who am I?”

Honest answer, I do not know. I know what I am not but I cannot find the words to describe the peaceful, silent spaciousness that has arisen. Is this what I am? The question does not even seem to make sense anymore.

Day 18

Today we are asked to journal about how we feel about our personality.

I have such compassion for my personality. I see the good girl aspect, the one who thought she had to please everyone to be loved. I see the one who tries to control, who wants to save others from the consequences of their own actions. I see the one who wants to be loved, who has twisted herself like a pretzel to fit in, to feel wanted, to be loved.

I love my energy and enthusiasm, I love the joy that flows through me, my sensitivity and intuition. I see the shadow sides too – the energy and enthusiasm, that becomes an indiscriminate yes, the compassion taking responsibility for others, even morphing into control.

I love that I am a natural teacher and see also my tendency to teach those who have not asked to be taught!

I am coming into a realisation that all is God – that all aspects of myself are being brought into the harmony of true Identity and a deep deep love is arising for myself and for others. I am being healed of my own contribution to separation, the rejection of the parts of my personality that I thought were bad/wrong/unacceptable.

Yesterday, my spiritual aspiration changed, it suddenly came to me that it is now “See only God” and that that includes my ego, my personality, my body, my thoughts, my feelings – all of it.

I often use the analogy of Playdoh as a metaphor for God, All that is, the quantum field of infinite potentiality.

Everything is made of Playdoh, because that is the only substance that exists! And so to view my ego-personality as something other is a fundamental error.

Day 19

What has been dawning on me more and more is how I have really tried to change my ego-personality and in the trying to change is rejection.

I love how Adyashanti said “Everything starts to be seen as a manifestation of spirit, including your humanness, with all of its strengths and weaknesses and all of its funny little quirks.”

This is the attitude with which I went through the day and I feel a deeper and deeper compassion for myself.

Day 20

Today we are asked to write about our most vivid childhood memory

My most vivid childhood memory was when I was about 6 years old.

I was sitting on the pavement eating an orange ice lolly. It was a blistering hot day and the lolly was melting and running down my arm. I was looking at the sky, bright blue, with pure white clouds. A shaft of sunlight was falling to the earth where I sat. I thought that these shafts were a stairway to where God lived.

I sat licking my lolly and my arms, looking at the sky and I merged into Oneness. I knew that I was part of everything, that there was no separation between me, the sky, the sun, the lolly, God.

Of course I could not have given the experience those words but I knew. I also knew that I could tell no-one about this or they would think I was weird. But I knew!

So, what is different about the woman I am now, compared to that little girl?

It feels as though here is nothing different, apart from being bigger! The awareness that recognised itself in that 6 year old body is the same awareness looking out of my eyes today. I feel as though I am reconnecting with something I abandoned -something that beautiful little girl knew intuitively.

I am the awareness that is changeless, that does not come and go, that is ever-present conscious stillness.

It is the background hum of my daily life, the place I remember and return to over and over again.

Day 21

Over the last 21 days I have reconnected with my natural spacious awareness. I have let go of trying to control and manipulate, I have re-established a daily meditation practice, I have befriended my own ego and come to a deep recognition that everything (including my ego) is made of God stuff (Playdoh!!) My spiritual aspiration has changed to “See only God”.

This has been a training in how to allow everything to be exactly as it is, both on and off the cushion (or more correctly the sunlounger!). It has been a joyful journey of relaxing and letting go of control and when the impulse to control arises, noticing and letting go of that with a smile.

Years of effort have unwound, years of ideas about how things “should” be are melting away as I practise having no expectations and being present with what is.

I have discovered that my years of meditation were actually my attempt to manipulate and control my experience and to make it (and me) conform to a preconceived idea of what the spiritual life/practitioner is. This is exactly what I did in every area of my life and in every relationship – have a preconceived idea of how things “should” be, then attempt to manipulate and control.

These 21 days have been life-changing as the practices got to the very root of how I do everything- exposing a spiritualised ego that was still trying to be in control! It has been met with the love and gentleness and acceptance with which I aspire to meet all things and all beings.