Realizing the True Self in Everyday Life
By P. T. Mistlberger
This webpage contains copyrighted excerpts of the book "A Natural Awakening: Realizing the True Self in Everyday Life", ISBN: 0-9733419-0-4. Cost for one copy is $14.95 U.S., or $19.95 Canadian. Copies may be obtained by emailing the author at pmistlberger@yahoo.com. All rights reserved. No parts may be reproduced or transmitted without permission in writing from the author. Cover photograph, "Blue Forest", is the property of Thomas DeVange, Copyright 2004, all rights reserved, photo may not be reproduced or transmitted without permission. Note to the Reader ****************** When I first sat down to write this foreword, I was trying to remember how long I have been on the spiritual path. My thought was that this might make a catchy introductory sentence. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that this pathless path, really consists of my entire life: my family, my culture, my children, relationships, thoughts and feelings, the spiritual searching - all experience really. And experience there has been: married for fifteen years, raised two children, lost my wife Donna ten years ago, lost two close friends to cancer, recently changed careers, years and years of meditation practice and retreats, and now, an official member of the half century club. Wow! Sounds like someone else when I look at the words now. And perhaps that is a clue... ******************** Chapter One *******************
Chapter Two
- Ramesh Balsekar The Cause of all Suffering *********************
Copyright 2004 by P.T. Mistlberger, All Rights Reserved.
Contents
Forword
Introduction
Note to the Reader
1-The Essence of Spiritual Enlightenment
Seeking for Enlightenment in All the Wrong Places
Consciousness and External Reality
What is Enlightenment?
Pure Consciousness (the Natural State) and Separate Identity (the ego)
The True Self and No-self
2-The Problem
The Cause of all Suffering
3-Thought
The Difference Between Thought and Consciousness
The Purpose of Thought
The Source of Thought
4-Feeling and Emotion
The Emotional Body
The Lightening and Thunder of our Inner Landscape
The Failure of Drama and Repression
The Inner Blocks
5-Identification
The I
Identification
The Egos Cultivated Identity
The Myth of Narcissus
Nirvana, Emptiness, and the Fear of Death
Eliminating Who I am Not, reveals Who I am
6-Projection and the Self-Image
Projection and the Creation of Separation
Taking Back Projections
Family-of-Origin Projections
Judgments
The Natural State and the Original Separation
The Root of the Ego: The Self-Image
The Principle of Reflection
7-Relationships
Relationship with the Whole
Heartbreaking Honesty
Attraction and Repulsion
The Edge of Desire
The Joyful Delusion of Romantic Love
Unattainable Love and the Anxiety of Rejection
Triangulation
The Lucifer Principle
Abandoning Hope and the End of Possession
Being Here, Being There For
Sharing the Self-Image
The Function of Boundaries
The Willingness to Be Wrong
A Spiritual Practice and Autonomous Fulfillment
No Ego-Back Guarantee
The True Meaning of Being Alone
8-Sex, the Body, and Male-Female Gender Issues
Ordinary Sex and Conscious Sex
The Deeper Bodies, and Pure Energy
The Alchemy of Sex
Denial of the Body: The Dark Side of Religion
Scapegoats and Why Bad Guys are Popular
Male-Female Gender Issues
Gender Ego Impediments to Awakening
Not Good, Not Bad, Just Is
9-Myths and Misconceptions
The Illusion of Spiritual Growth
Do we really Create our Reality?
Old and Useless Paradigms
Phony Holy and the Denial of the Dark Side
What is the Higher Self higher than?
Who Reincarnates?
Gurus, Followers, and Guru Bashers
Psychic Powers and the Paranormal
Soul Mates
Enlightenment Myths: Is There a Self to Work On?
10-Roadblocks to Enlightenment
Religious, Political, and Social Conditioning
All in the Family: Psychological Conditioning
False or Wrong Motivation
Insincerity and Lack of Effort
Unresolved Authority Issues
Excessive Intellectualizing
11-Spiritual Practice (I): The Enlightenment Process
The Pathless Path
The Enlightenment Process
Awareness of the Present Moment (Realization of the Natural State)
Connecting and Letting Go (The Spontaneous Functions of the Natural State)
Moving Energy and Staying Alive (The Spontaneous Expression of the Natural State)
Communing with the Heart (Abiding in the Natural State)
12-Spiritual Practice (II): Different Roads to Rome
Inquiry, Devotion, or Service? Meditation, Relationship, or Action?
The Value and Limitations of Group Transformational Therapy
Relationship Work: The Realization of the One I
Wilhelm Reich and the Modern Body Therapies
Spiritual Escapism and Premature Kundalini Awakenings
Personality and True Individuality
13-Spiritual Practice (III): Usefully Useless Methods
Making Enlightenment the Number One Priority in Life
Useful Uselessness: Spiritual Methods for Clarifying our Intent to Wake Up
14-Work and Action
Personal Will and True Will
The Difference Between Desire and Passion
Success, Fear, and the Unknown
The Art of Extending and the Golden Rule
The Realization of Impermanence and True Success
Responsible Action
15-Spiritual Teachers, Teachings, and Satsang
The Meaning of Satsang
The Function of Satsang
Quirks and Qualities of Spiritual Teachers
Masters, Mystics, and the Deluded
Modern Versions of Timeless Teachings
Fundamentalism, Materialism, and the Third Principle
Spiritual Corruption and Clarity of Intent
16-Spiritual Illusions
The Dreaded Boredom Monster
Witnessing is not Projecting
The Myth of the Inner and the Outer
Spiritual Enlightenment is Just an Idea
The Bogus Seeker
Belief vs. Direct Experience
Walking the Talk
Waking up in a Sleepy World
17-Space, Time, and Creation
Creation and the Origin of Space and Time
The Wisdom of Unknowing
Non-Duality and the Bigger View
Life After Death and Higher Dimensions
Modern Physics and Enlightenment
The Meaning of Creation
18-Enlightenment: Being Home
You Cannot attain to God
Enlightenment does not Destroy the Mind
The Stages of Awakening
Enlightenment with Others, or Enlightenment Alone
Love and Compassion
Being Home
The Final Truth
Glossary of Terms
The questions in the book were culled from different sourcesactual questions from clients, students, and those attending my weekend seminars, training courses, public talks, and satsangs over the years, as well as questions from Internet message boards I spent substantial time participating on during the years 1999-2002. Some of the questions are composites of those asked by more than one questioner, and some of the questions were created by myself so as to create more ease in reading, especially with some of the more subtle discussions.
There are certain themes and teachings in this book that are repeated, cropping up in similar form in several chapters, and this is done intentionally. This book is a meditation more than a scholarly view of spiritual transformation, and although it does contain some intellectual material, it should be used primarily as an aid for deepening and expanding spiritual awareness. For those who have seen the spirit this book can be used as a confirmation, or as stimulation for further investigation or challenging some of the assertions made herein.
Concerning the use of certain terms, like most who work with the Eastern models of spiritual awakening I choose to use terms such as enlightenment, Natural State, consciousness, and no-self to indicate that which finally must be directly experienced to be understood. I use these terms because they carry a minimum of baggage and are streamlined mental pointers to the indescribable. But even these terms should not be wielded as symbols of a new language. They are devices of convenience that are meant to be dropped once theyve done their job, which is to draw our attention toward the consideration of what it means to be truly free.
Foreword
What all of this experience has in common, we are reminded in the following pages, is that we are continually being invited to go to the heart of spirituality and life, and deeply investigate who and what we really are. With an open and heartfelt look at these, and numerous other topics on what it is to be human, Philip reveals an innate ability to cut straight to the core of the pathless path, and life in general. In fact, no assumptions are allowed!
I first met Philip about one year ago after a friend informed that he was giving Satsang in Vancouver on a weekly basis. Initially, I was surprised that someone was actually holding regular Satsang in the Advaita Vedanta tradition in our city. Having sat with many different teachers from numerous traditions over the years, I must admit to bringing a healthy dose of skepticism to the first meeting. To my surprise, my skepticism and curiosity were met with a quiet, unshakable confidence that seemed firmly connected to the Present Moment. And now, after a year of sitting with him in Satsang on a regular basis, I must confess that this initial impression has not wavered. In fact, if anything, it has expanded; especially after so often witnessing his skillful weaving of years of psychotherapy practice and group leadership together with the Now moment response of the Awakened perspective to aspirant's Truth-seeking questions on every conceivable topic of personal psychology and spirituality.
In the subsequent pages of A Natural Awakening, we are treated to a voice that presents the unusual combination of a deep, impersonal, spiritual wisdom, and an inquiring intellect that has scoured the globe for answers to the innermost, existential questions of life that we all share. Speaking from his own direct experience, the author brings clarity to many of the questions that spiritual aspirants the world over struggle with: What is Enlightenment? Why do we suffer? What are thoughts, emotions, projection, and self-image all about? What is the true purpose of relationship? There is no shrinking back from any issue. In fact, in addition to an incisive discussion on the shadow side of being human, he dives, without hesitation, into a lot of the myths, misconceptions, and roadblocks around spiritual Awakening that others might gladly leave unaddressed.
In plain and easy to understand language, several commonly held myths are debunked: the Higher Self, Abundance, celibacy, manifesting, reincarnation, past-lives, soul mate, and so on. No quarter is given as he boldly reveals the egos hidden, and often not so hidden, agenda: seek but never find! In terms of the ego, and personal choice, we are reminded that, ultimately, the only real so-called personal choice is the decision to wake up to who we really are. Through a wide-ranging scope of topics, the endless tricks of the ego-mind are exposed for what they are, and we are brought back again and again to the fundamental fact of our true identity.
In all our searching for the Holy Grail of happiness and fulfilment, we miss the obvious: That which is always already the case. In our constant efforting and searching we overlook this palpable Reality, which is, as Philip so clearly explains, simply attuning fully to the natural, already present, radiance of This Moment. This is not an inconspicuous insight. The Awakening which is pointed to is a radical shift. In fact, as you will discover in the following pages, this marks the full shift from time to timelessness, from space to no-space, from mind to consciousness, and from limitation to freedom.
To all who are already on the pathless path, and to those of you who may be new to the spiritual quest, you will find in these pages many useful pointers to a release from the woes of the ego-mind and the relative world; and, on the other hand, to the realization of the nature of Absolute Reality, and your Naturally Awakened Self.
Brian Haley
M.A., Counselling Psychology
Vancouver, BC
July, 2003
The Essence of Spiritual Enlightenment
You are at Home in God, dreaming of exile.
A Course in Miracles
Seeking Enlightenment in All the Wrong Places
Im so tired of seeking for happiness through my relationships, finances, possessions, personal accomplishments, and even spiritual growth. Im always told that enlightenment is the only way to achieve satisfaction. So sorry for such a basic question, but what exactly is enlightenment?
Let me begin by telling a story. It involves the whole issue of the nature of seekingspecifically, the search for happiness and fulfillment outside of ourselves.
The year was 1985. I had taken time off work to make a journey to India and Nepal. The journey was, in many ways, the culmination of a life-long dream to visit the mysterious lands of the Himalayan regions, where, the legends had it, ancient wisdom had been protected and maintained within the hermitages and monasteries of these forbidding lands. My expectations had been quietly nurtured via the writings of such authors as W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Carl Jung, Alexandra David-Neel, and more contemporary well known Tibetan Buddhist masters such as Chogyam Trungpa and the fourteenth Dalai Lama.
For several years Id had a meditation practice, and had undergone a number of the more experimental forms of work on oneself, such as participation in the Gurdjieff Work, and Primal Therapy. I also was a disciple of Osho, a somewhat radical East Indian Tantric mystic. Id read prolifically in the occult and mystical philosophies. Id experienced all manner of strange, altered states of consciousness connected to certain mystical practices. And yet still, there remained this deep inner restlessness, and this urge to seek in a faraway place, one that was sufficiently exotic and remote so as to satisfy this longing for the unknown.
After arriving in India, and spending a couple of weeks exploring around the north of the country, I eventually made my way up to the most remote and forbidding regionthe land of Ladakh, northeast of Kashmir, up on what is geographically the Tibetan plateau, and to the tiny, medieval-like town of Leh. While there, I became ill with dysentery, and lay in my little hotel room for several days, almost delirious with fever and unable to eat anything. Eventually I recovered and hired a jeep in order to visit some of the local Buddhist gompas (monasteries) that were dotted around the area, perched on rocky crags overlooking valleys. One day, someone directed me to visit a particular monastery, believing that the master of this monastery might be able to help me in some way in my quest for spiritual realization.
When the day came to visit him, I set out from the village, and after a long drive through the barren valleys eventually came to the foot of the mountain upon which his small gompa was situated. I hiked up the mountain path for perhaps an hour, and finally came to the front gate of the hermitage. I knocked, and waited. Shortly, someone answered, a young monk who seemed a bit surprised to see me. (This was a small, obscure monastery that was not on the usual circuit for tourists or other wanderers). I was welcomed inside, and found myself standing before a large statue of a Buddhist saint. I then waited for the senior teacher of the monastery.
In due time, he arrived. He was a tiny man with a shiny head and equally shiny eyes. But clearly, he did not seem very interested in me. He basically ignored me, and went about his activities. I watched him for a while. He had a curiously dispassionate attitude, and seemed to treat everything in the same wayhis student monks, his statues, his animals. Occasionally he would glance at mea strange looking young Western man who seemed to want something, but the sense of his basic disinterest seemed clear.
I cant remember how long I stayed there for, waiting for something. It might have been a few hours. Eventually I left and returned to my driver at the bottom of the mountain, who had agreed to meet me at a certain time. We then drove quietly back to the village. Once back in my hotel room, I became aware of how angry I was. I was angry because it seemed as if the old monk at the monastery had completely ignored me. Despite the fact that I was obviously an unusual young man, and had come half-way around the world to this remote land in search of wisdom, I had been treated no differently than everything elsethe other monks, the statues, the animals.
At that moment, I thought I realized what the root of my frustration was. I deduced that I wanted recognition, acknowledgement, and special attention. By refusing to indulge me in these, the old monk had shown me the nature of my attachment to seeking. Just by simply being himself, and by behaving with equanimity toward everything around him (including me), he had clearly shown me my own pride and ego. He had shown me the basic problem with seeking itself. By doing absolutely nothing, he had made me vividly aware of how far I had turned from the essence of my own nature, instead looking outside of myself to find it, even to the furthest away spot on Earth I could get to. Or so I thought.
However, the real point of this storyas I only came to see much lateris that absolutely nothing happened. The senior monk had not mistreated me. He had given me no secret teachingeither directly, or indirectly. In truth, he had not even ignored me. He was just purely and simply being himself. The entire drama had occurred in my own mind. Even my later realization of how he had supposedly imparted some teaching to me about the equality of all things was also a creation of my mind.
The moral of that story is that realitythis momentis always okay. Its only the confused ego that resists reality and tries to make something out of it. The ego even creates the spiritual seeker, as a way to try to deal with the inner longing to realize our true nature. But the agenda of this spiritual seeker is that it must never arrive. It must make up endless stories to justify this continued need to seek. It must seek but never find!
But without seeking how do we ever find anything?
Thats the great paradox. We are restless beings who are conditioned from a young age to believe that our fulfillment, our completion, lies outside of usin the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, in the flickering mirage on the horizon. But in truth the very thing that we are seeking, the very Holy Grail of understanding, is the very thing that we are.
Can you explain that?
Throughout history religions and philosophies have made symbols of the very one thing that finally cannot be understood by the intellect. That very one thing is consciousness itself. It is the one thing that cannot be sought for, because it is the very Ground of our existence. It is already the case.
How can we know that for sure?
Well, what is the one thing that can you can say with certainty about this moment right now?
That it exists?
Exactly! And that youre conscious of it. Thats all that can truly be said about this moment. Everything else is some sort of mental constructionsome sort of thought, memory, interpretation, speculation, imagination, anticipation, and so onthe world of mental fabrication. There is the actual reality of this moment, and our conscious experience of it, and then there is the world of thinkingimagination, fantasy, projection, memory. In this moment, all is simply as it is.
This present moment already exists in its utter simplicity and purity. Your nature as the consciousness that is experiencing this moment is not separate from this purity and simplicity. It is one and the same as it. Grasping this leads to the ending of the impulse to seek for our True Self in external reality.
Consciousness and External Reality
Can you explain that a bit more?
There are two basic things apparent all the time. There is our inner, subjective experienceour consciousness. And there is the outer, objective realitythe world. Now let me use an analogy to go further into this.
Consciousness can be likened to a vast, empty blue sky. Thoughts are something like the clouds in the sky. When there is space between the clouds, we become aware of the empty sky. Much like the sky, consciousness is the space, the background that contains thoughts. And much like clouds, thoughts are always changing form, and are finally seen to be insubstantial when we penetrate them with awareness.
What do you mean by "penetrate them with awareness?"
By simply watching thoughtsimpartially witnessing themwe see their vaporous nature, much like clouds. They appear solid from a distance, but when entered, are in fact not substantial.
The egothe sense of separate identityis nothing but a collection of particular thoughts, which like a bank of clouds has the ability to obscure our view of the empty, vast blue sky. The vast blue skyconsciousnessis the True Self, who we really are. It is one and the same as the present moment in its totality.
Where does the world come into all this?
Well, lets consider another analogy. If consciousness can be likened to the vast sky, and thoughts to clouds, then lets liken the world to a flowing river. The mind, using the function of thinking, is really engaged in the practice of taking snapshots of this flowing river. The mind then creates photo albums of these mental snapshots. These photo albums comprise our memory, and eventually, our cultivated identityour personal self or ego. They begin to substitute for the actual reality of the flowing river. Further, the ego launches us on a long journey to find itself in the content of the world. It searches for endless pots of gold at the end of endless rainbowsmaterial wealth, true love, status, power, fame, recognition, avoidance, worldly causes, and so on.
The river of the world is wild, spontaneous, energetic, dynamic, and always movingyet also, is unified, whole, and at peace with itself. Sometimes it is a charging rapid, a whitewater churning with energy. Other times it is calm and barely moving, reflecting moonlight with clarity and stillness. But it is always deeply alive, and unlike a photograph, not at all static and frozen in time. It is pure energy.
This is reality. Reality is alive, dynamic, full of energy. The ego is always trying to freeze-frame reality, literally to lock it into a mental snapshot. The collection of these mental snapshots results in the experience of time. Time is nothing other than the minds attempt to organize reality into an artificial pattern of sequencepast, present, future an attempt to describe the flowing river and make sense of it.
Why do you call it artificial?
Because time only exists in the mind. Time is a measurement. Reality, in its natural form, is always in the dimension of the present moment, which we can also call the dimension of timelessness.
But how do we know that its timeless?
Just by thinking about it, you cant know. But by entering into it, understanding begins to deepen. You enter into it by bringing the totality of your awareness into the present moment -- that is, whatever you are doing, be fully present with it. The more present we are, the more we become aware of timelessness.
To return to our analogies again, the sky (consciousness), and the river (the world) are eventually understood to be two sides of the same coin. They are really one and the same. It is only the egos ability to use thinking in the service of creating an artificial duplicate of the flowing river (the photo album of mental snapshots) that creates the sense of being separate from the riverand separate from the world. Separation from the world is isolation, and with isolation comes the experience of being cut-off from the abundant energy and well-being of existence. This is suffering, in all its forms.
Are you suggesting that there is something wrong with thinking or memory?
That all depends on what you think you are. If you really believe that you are your mindthat is, if you deeply identify with your thoughts, beliefs, memories, fantasies, and projectionsthen sooner or later there will be suffering, pain, unhappiness, misery.
How does that work?
If you honestly observe your thoughts, your beliefs, your fantasies, and even your memories, you will notice that they are really not consistent. It is in their very nature to change.
The accumulated center of mass of these thoughts, memories, beliefs, and memories is what is generally known as the egothe personal identity. When most people refer to me, this is what they are referring to.
The problem with this me is that it is founded on one basic assumption. This assumption says that this meIis in some basic sense consistent, continuous, and solid. This appearance of consistency, continuity, and solidity then creates a distinct sense of being separate from everyone, and everything else. This separation then becomes the basis of all unhappiness and suffering.
In truth, simple and honest observation shows us how there is really nothing consistent about our identity at all. We are frequently changingour desires, our likes, our dislikes, our values, our aspirations, our dreams, our goals, not to mention our bodies as they age. We are in a constant state of change. And within this change we also see how there is nothing continuous about us either. If our assumed sense of identitythe Iis seen to be actually neither consistent nor continuous, it is also understood to not really be solid either. It is fluid, changing, malleablelike the nature of the flowing river.
What is Enlightenment?
If we are basically inconsistent and always changing, then what is spiritual enlightenment? Who or what is it that wakes up?
The short answer is that enlightenment is the direct realization of your true nature. With this realization comes an end to all seeking. By end to all seeking I dont mean that you no longer actively pursue spiritual practices, or other worldly pursuits. I mean that you finally come to understand the basis of seeking itself, and cease to be directed by the notion that your essential nature is actually lacking something.
Seeking for happiness is based on the belief that you lack something. That there is something basically flawed in youthat you are like a machine that is missing a working part, or needs to be fixed. Enlightenment involves the deep and clear understanding that you, as you actually are, are lacking nothing at all. That your real nature is absolutely okay. More than okay, it is wonderful and actually divine.
This real nature is consciousness itself. It is not thinking. Thoughts are the very things that are constantly changing. Identifying with these thoughts create the false sense of a solid self that is somehow consistent and continuousand isolated. So, in that sense, no one wakes up. We only have to rediscover our essential nature, which is already awake.
But how can I know this? Just by telling myself? How do I get there?
You may have heard of the old Zen parable of fingers pointing at the moon. We can get fascinated with the endless ways of pointing at the moon, and with the fingers that are pointing. The fingers in this metaphor represent words, explanations, methods, paths, maps as to how to get there and what its really all about, and the Moon represents our true nature. But eventually, we just have to go beyond the pointers and discover the moon for ourselvesdirectly, with the aid of our own sincerity of intention. You have to really, truly want it. You have to make the realization of who and what you are awakeningthe number one priority in your life.
Spiritual enlightenment has nothing to do with any particular religion or spiritual tradition. It is, rather, a condition that can best be characterized as our true and actual nature or as I prefer to call it, the Natural State. To dwell or abide in the Natural State is enlightenment. The Natural State is simply who and what you really are, at the deepest and truest level. It is consciousness itself.
Are there degrees of enlightenment, or is it just a one-shot dealyoure either enlightened or youre not? Can we fade in and out of the Natural State?
There are a lot of misunderstandings in this area. Some of these misunderstandings have arisen as a result of a tendency on the part of those following particular high-profile gurus or teachers to over-idolize them and thus assume that enlightenment is out of reach, remote and unattainable by the average seeker of truth. From there, it then becomes convenient to assume that enlightenment is a once-in-eternity event that only happens to special or chosen people.
In reality, its not so simple. Enlightenment is paradoxically both a process, and a condition that stands outside of time. Enlightenment is a process in that there are indeed gradations or degrees of awakening, that is, there are different degrees of distortion caused by the mind in its obscuring of our Natural State. Enlightenment is also a condition in that its actual essencepure consciousness itselfis not created or developed, but is already the case.
Can you explain the degrees of awakening a bit more?
In the beginning, work on self or spiritual seeking will often yield an experience that we can describe as a glimpse of our true nature. This glimpse often gives us a sense of the meaning behind life, and although the effects of the glimpse usually wear off as we get absorbed in the endless distractions of daily life, it remains as a memory of what is possible.
In time, as we continue our seeking of spiritual truth, more and more glimpses into this truth begin to occur. Eventually, we may notice other changes within us, such as a gradual weakening of old patterns, and a deeper recognition of who we really are. However, the only actual degrees of awakening, or initiations, are part of the process of the wearing away of the ability of the mind to obscure our naturally enlightened conditionjust like clouds gradually (and occasionally suddenly) dissolving to reveal the shining sun that is behind them. So the degrees of awakening have nothing to do with our Natural State, they have to do with the degree of distortion or blockage caused by our minds. At the basis of this awakening process is the deepening realization of the fabricated nature of the ego, or separate personal self.
Pure Consciousness (the Natural State) and Separate Identity (the ego)
Can you describe the qualities of the Natural State and the ego?
Pure consciousness, the Natural State, is whole, complete, at rest, free, loves without conditions, and is beyond space and time. It has no beginning and no end. It is uncreated and cannot die or be destroyed. It is nowhere and everywhere. It is completely unidentified with anything, and absolutely unattached, yet supremely sensitive and compassionate. It recognizes and knows, without doubt, that there is only one real Self in the whole of existence. It is fully awake. It is the very essence of wakefulness.
Other names sometimes given to describe pure consciousness are the True Self, Source, the Christ Consciousness, the Buddha-mind, Atman-Brahman, and so on. Ultimately, they all point to the same thing. The terms enlightenment, awakening, Self-realization, and Self-discovery all refer to the process of remembering our true nature.
The ego is governed primarily by desire and fear. It is fragmented, incomplete, restless and striving, bound and limited; it loves only with conditions (i.e., does not truly love), and is defined and limited by space and time. It was created and will die; it has a beginning, and an end. It is always at a particular place in space and time, being identified with and expressing through a body of some sort. It dwells heavily in the past and future, and is founded on fear and guilt and self-rejection. It seeks to form co-dependent relationships with select others as part of an attempt to escape the feelings of separation, pain and fear that are always there. It recognizes and knows itself as hopelessly separate, in competition with all the other separate identities, and is constantly seeking ways to manipulate others to receive their attention and energy. The ego is of the nature of a dream (and occasionally, a nightmare). It is the very essence of dreaming.
Is the ego bad?
Bad and good are value judgments that arise out of the whole experience of separation that is born out of ignorance of our true nature. The ego is not bad, because it does not actually exist in the form we make it into. In truth, what the ego is revealed to truly be, when seen directly, is nothing other than a functional organizing principle that helps our body survive in the world. It is like a little Chihuahua watchdog that has a certain light shining on it that is casting a giant shadow on a wall. This giant shadow results in the little dog going out of control and thinking itself the master of the house. It then puts its energy into defending and reinforcing the sense of separate and special identity. This defending and reinforcing eventually leads to all manner of suffering.
Awakening involves showing the little dog its true naturea simple little entity that helps our body function in the world, not some fearsome tyrant that needs to run the whole show. The dog gets put back in its little doghouse and is given a nice bone to chew contentedly on. Eventually, as our awakening deepens, the dog dies a peaceful and natural death. This is the moment of fully realizing the Natural State, and how we are able to function correctly and efficiently in the world without believing in separation at all.
True Self and No-self
Then what am I, really? And what can I really accomplish, in the end?
The best analogy is to compare the limited personal self to the nature of a dream. Dreams can easily become nightmares, as we know. Most forms of personal development or personal growth amount to efforts at improving the quality of the dream that is the personal self. Successful personal development is akin to creating a happy dream.
The enlightenment process is something altogether different. It is the equivalent, in this analogy, of waking up out of the dream, regardless of whether the dream is a nightmare, an ordinary dream, or a happy dream. The process of dreaming, whether when asleep at night, or during our so-called daily waking state, is created by identification with thinking.
Enlightenment is a fundamental shift in perspective that is the result of the gradual (and on occasion sudden) breaking of identification with thinking. To break identification with thinking is the result of the practicing of witnessing thoughts without getting caught up in them.
As we learn to witness thoughts without getting caught up in them, we gradually (or suddenly) become aware of the artificial nature of the limited, isolated, personal self. As we become aware of the fabricated nature of the personal self, we simultaneously become aware of something much vaster and deeper, something deeply rooted in the here and now.
It is commonly said by those who have shifted into the Natural State that one of the great understandings is to see how there is nothing that can be done to create this condition. There is also the direct realization of how the enlightened condition is not just our Natural State, but that it has always been our Natural State, because it is literally timeless. Its essence is pure consciousness. The nature of pure consciousness is one of pure freedom, love, and natural wisdom. It is also absolutely full of energy and deeply alive. It is the Source of life itself.
To summarize, here are some simplified descriptions of the enlightened conditionour Natural State:
1) The Natural State is pure consciousness. It is the True Self. It is not thought, feeling, intuition, or body-sensation. These four functions exist within consciousness, as waves exist within the ocean. But our true, actual nature is the ocean, not the wave.
2) The Natural State is not defined by space or time. Meaning:
a) Spaceby being beyond space, the Natural State does not recognize separation. It knows that it is directly connected to everything, and deeper, that it is everything.
b) Timeby being beyond time, Natural State exists in the eternity of the Now. Time is a function of thought. Consciousness abides in the pure Here and Now. It is the pure Here and Now.
3) The Natural State cannot be created or attained, because the Natural State is the very Source of the seeker himself/herself. The seeker is the sought. As long as there is seeking, there is no resting in the Natural State.
4) As the Natural State cannot be created or attained, it can only be re-discovered, by redirecting the focus of our consciousness back upon itself. This is why all meditations ultimately boil down to awareness of the I am presence. In time, the I fades and simply am or this remains.
5) The Natural State is radiant, pure, and untouched by anything. It was never born and never dies. It is always Here and Now.
Suggested exercise: Examine your motives for seeking spiritual enlightenment. Once you have clarified your motives, see if you can find from where this motivation to awaken is arising.
The Problem
The root of the frustration which the civilized person feels today lies in the fact that they live not for the present moment, but for the illusory future.
The human being is an incredible species. We have accomplished so much. Yet at the same time, we create so much misery. Why? Why is there so much suffering?
There is a story from the life of the Buddha that movingly illustrates the source of suffering. It is about a young woman whose infant died shortly after birth. Grief-stricken, the young woman visits the Buddha, taking the lifeless body of her child with her, and implores him to bring her child back to life. Buddha looks at her with great compassion, and instructs her to first go and knock on the door of every home in her village until she finds a family where no one has ever known a family member who has died.
The woman duly follows this instruction, and knocks on door after door, inquiring as to whether or not the family members have ever known a family member who has died. In home after home she gets the same answer: they have all known at least one other family member who had died. As she went from home to home, each time she asked the question she could see the sadness and suffering in the eyes of those who remembered their dearly departed. Slowly, she began to open her heart in compassion to them, and to begin to understand the roots of her own suffering.
By the end of the day, the woman returned to the Buddha, who asked her what shed discovered. She replied that every family shed encountered had suffered a painful loss of one sort or another. Buddha then asked her what shed realized. She replied that although she was still sad, she now saw clearly that suffering itself was inherent in life, born out of our very attachments.
The cause of suffering is attachment. All attachment is born out of our seeking for happiness and fulfillment in external reality. We seek this way because we are unaware of our true nature.
In truth, everyone is already on a spiritual path. Life is nothing but one big spiritual path. The only difference, if we can call it that, with the majority of people is that the enlightenment they are seeking, which is usually understood as a kind of personal satisfaction or fulfillment, is sought not in their actual nature, but within the content of the worldin attainments, in possessions, status, recognition, relationships, security, and so on.
We have been deeply conditioned to believe that the causes of our happiness lie outside of usin relationships or circumstances, or in anticipation of the newthat new object, new clothes, new home, that new person, that pay raise at work, that particular event, or in the weather, sports team, stock market, government, nation, religious idols, etc. As a result of this conditioning we spend great amounts of time and energy trying to control or manipulate outer events. We become heavily focused on what is outside of us. If I can just get that person to love me, everything will be well. If I can just be close to the right person, I will be completed. If I could just acquire that recognition from others, or that fame, then my life would be wonderful. If I could just have more money, I would be happy. If I could just have that car, that piece of art or jewelry, that home, then all would be well.
However, there is one basic problem with all this. The entire effort to find such happiness on the outside is based on a profound error in understanding.
A close and honest look at the things of the world will reveal a simple truth: Nothing lasts. All living things age and grow old, and eventually perish. Even this planet upon which we live goes through its changes, and one day will be no more. Even the stars themselves do not exist forever. In the human realm, personal projects lose steam and fizzle out, relationships change, fade, or dissolve, bodies age and die, organizations, empires, and even nations eventually alter form and sooner or later disappear.
Nothing is truly permanent in the world. If nothing is permanent in the world, then it follows that searching for happiness in the things of the world is a project doomed to failure. Sooner or later, our chips must be cashed in, our bargain completed, and the thing from which our happiness has apparently come from either breaks down, leaves, changes form, or dies―be that thing our physical youth and well-being, our friend, spouse, or other important relationship, our career, material objects, and so on.
It is relatively simple to see the point that nothing is permanent. It is even straightforward to understand how attachment to anything that doesnt last will probably end in suffering. But putting into practice the matter of letting go of seeking happiness from the things of the worldthe whole gamut of external reality from relationships to objects to personal endeavors―may not be easy. In large part this is due to the fact that we were born into this world, in these physical bodies, in a state of extreme dependency and helplessness. We absolutely needed the support and dedication of our caretakers (usually our parents) to make it through the first few years of life, and for most people, about the first twenty-five percent of an entire life is lived in a state of physical dependence of varying degrees on the parents or caretakers.
However, as adulthood progresses, we begin to experience deeper and deeper levels of loss. This loss may take only simple forms for many years―the loss of a friend who moves away, the loss of a beloved pet or object. But eventually more difficult losses are endured―the loss of a love relationship, the loss of a job or career, the loss of a parent to death, the loss of our physical youth and health. One thing is for certain, if we live an average life-span, we will sooner or later lose most of the things that we at one time believed were the causes of our happiness. And what we do not lose, we ourselves will be removed from, via the eventual death of our physical bodies.
So, the only absolutely certain thing in life is change―and this change includes, naturally, everything external that appears to hold deep or profound meaning for us.
With this understanding in mind, an interesting thing can be observed, being that most actions of hostility undertaken by people are related to the pain associated with losing something―or, the belief that something has been lost, or taken away from us. Our lover leaves us for someone else and we exact revenge in some way. We are not given the attention, appreciation, or acknowledgement that someone else is and we exact revenge in some way. Someone apparently acts insensitively toward us, and we act insensitively toward them, or toward someone else in return. (Such revenge may be active, either in direct hostile action, or passive, in withdrawal and avoidance).
Even the most highly-trained, cultured of our society battle over rights to things and who owns what, all founded on the fear of loss. Entire nations that go to war are operating on this need to punish or dominate or exact vengeance based on the belief that something―either now, or in the distant past―has or had been taken away from them.
To summarize, we can say
1) Everyone is searching for their true beingbut almost always, this search is not recognized for what it really is and is rather only vaguely understood as a longing or desire for completion or fulfillment. This longing and desire usually gets directed outwardly, into the content of the world. It becomes the search for status, approval, love, family, accomplishment, possessions, fame, power, and so on.
2) Sooner or later, almost everything we value and cherish that is outside of usour relationships, attainments, possessions, etc.will be removed from our life in some fashion or another, given enough time. That which is not directly removed from our life will eventually change form, at the very least.
3) When things are removed from our life or change form, we suffer in proportion to our resistance to these things leaving our life or changing form.
4) In our subsequent suffering, we commit hostile actions, either toward others, or toward ourselves. These actions can range from the extremely gross (serious crimes) to the extremely subtle (mild depression or loss of passion for life, or general dissatisfaction with things).
Given all this, its clear that anything outside of us -- within the content of the world -- is unreliable in terms of its apparent ability to truly provide us with happiness or fulfillment.
What is being further proposed here is that this conditioned tendency to search for fulfillment outside of ourselves is directly based on the existence of the false self or ego. The enlightenment process is one of learning to see directly into the artificial nature of this ego. As we do this, we simultaneously become aware of the naturally vast nature of consciousness, and of our natural identity as consciousness.
As we undertake this shift from identification with thought, to resting in consciousness, we experience the sense of well-being, and abundance of energy, that is basic to our Natural State. This in turn makes us much less dependent on external fixes of energy, and more clearly attuned to our natural Source of Being. As in the analogy of the infinite ocean and its waves, we gradually become established in knowing ourselves as the ocean, not the waves. We come to know ourselves as deeply and fundamentally okay, lacking nothing in our basic nature.
What causes this shift from seeking for happiness from the content of the world, to looking for it within our own nature?
The Source of truth -- your own ultimate true nature -- is pulling you to it all the time. When youve truly become tired of trying to find your True Self within the content of the world, you begin to respond to this pull. The more you respond to it, the more you allow it to draw you in, the more clear it becomes that your fulfillment can never come from the content of the world around you.
Suggested exercise: Reflect on the ever-changing essence of all things. Notice how everything about youyour body, mind, life, etc., has been constantly changingexcept for one. See if you can notice the one thing that has not been changing your whole life, the one thing that has been with you from as far back as you can remember.
Over to:
Home