Awakening Oneness IV

If this is the case, if spirit is always not-separate, indivisible, then why does it not always feel that way? While this is the great mystery in one sense, I believe that question can be answered without us needing to understand it. This answer is something we'd rather live than just comprehend or think to ourselves. But the living of this answer can be laid out and has been laid out. (This being the case is part of why the Bhagavad-Gita is seen as a culmination of the Vedas and as a last comment in some sense.)

In the Bhagavad-Gita, the messiah-god Krishna tells Arjuna that he does not care whether Arjuna would prefer to not go to war and become king. Regardless of what Arjuna wishes, it is his karma to war and win at war. But God is not simply judgmental and wrathful, rubbing people's noses in their karma. Krishna, the messiah, counsels Arjuna through his struggles and--as Arjuna fulfills the karma he might not have chosen for himself--helps him towards wisdom concerning his life. God walks step by step with the fallible Arjuna.

The message that stood out to me the first time I read the Gita was, "It is better to do your karma poorly than to do someone else's well." As a young adult, this struck me as very strange indeed. As I age, and hopefully mature, this message means more that there is no other place for me to be right now. There is air for when I am flying, a path for when I walk. But this doesn't mean a passive, fatalistic acceptance of karma is what we do. There is also war for when fighting is necessary, negotiations when war might be avoided.

In a personal sense, then, I believe that there is a path as long as we need a path. The simplest way I can understand that path is to see the differences between struggling towards inspiration, becoming inspired, going further into spirituality, and finishing with a complete recognition of non-separation. As it says in the first chapter of the Book of James:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Taking each step in its time builds steadfastness into our freedom. When this steadfastness does not contradict the freedom, then it is complete. Before that, the imperfection, the incompletion is dissatisfying. And that's okay, that dissatisfaction is the desire for improvement, the desire is the fuel for progress. Not only do we want freedom, inspiration, peaceful abiding, etc., but we also seek completion. Before taking each step, we want more because we know more is possible.

Before we are ready to fly, we end up toiling at building some huge monument, apparently to ourselves or our ideals. We think it's one thing, but it ends up being another. This bonfire and funeral pyre is a harsh task, a great accomplishment, and a torture when we climb to the top and the fire is lit. But the phoenix isn't born from sitting on the couch, eating bon-bons or drinking beer, and watching the latest soap opera or sports competition. It is a phoenix because it is born in flames. Peter Tosh sang, "Everybody wants to go up to heaven, nobody wants to die." In the same way, for most, spiritual ascent is hard work before it becomes torture before it becomes truly liberating. Rather than wishing all of that upon oneself all at once, it is best to just begin at this next step and meet the world as it is. It is free.

Awakening Oneness III

If we are awakening, what is awakening? Is there some thing that is awakening or is there a bright spirit that cannot be said to be any thing? Is it impossible to say of spirit, "Here it is but there it is not?" I say, "Yes!" to all the above.

What is awakening? You can try to conceptualize an answer to that, but there is some part of us that simply feels, "Yes!" It can seem at times completely unnecessary to try to think out an answer, unnecessary to move one's attention from that feeling in the slightest. Just live YES! Just do it--it doesn't have to matter so much what we might say. Except, in the same way that we might question Ramana, there is some part of me that is genuinely and deeply curious about this question: what is awakening? And this is why I say "awakening oneness". There is the advancement and opening of my self-concept and my understanding of what it means to be human, so that is awakening, my mind and thinking awakens. There is also the question of whether spirit might be free of my mind and my thinking. While there may be no decisive way to answer completely, I say, "Sure, why not?" Formlessness--not being trapped or contained by any form or forms--is freedom. Freedom from being trapped, freedom from being just this body or that one.

The Heart Sutra says also, though, "Emptiness (formlessness) is not other than form." Oh, this is where it's supposed to get tricky, right? Ha, ha, ha! This just means it's okay to be who and where you are. I have a body, but I'm not this body...and yet, I am. This is me right here. It's in this body, as this body, in this lifetime or moment right now that I am able to feel freedom. So while formlessness is freedom from, form is freedom with. If I know I am not limited to being just this body, I am able to feel perfectly at home here. Why should I feel some other way if this body does not constrain my spirit?

We are awakening oneness. We are awakening to the fact that form and formlessness have never been separate, that matter and spirit have never been different, that I/we can feel inspired and peaceful abiding as spirit-body right here and now. But, again, beginning to recognize this is not the same as keeping one's awareness open and present. Not only do we get to enjoy the process, but by being forced (in some sense) to actually struggle through the process, we get to value it as well as experience it. Why is that important? Most of us want meaning, and value lends meaning. Another way of answering is to say that only the tested can inspire the fearful. When we have struggled on this path, we become more capable as guides on this path. We are awakening awareness of the oneness of the beginning and the end (of this path, of self concept, of spirit and matter). The Bible says, "I am the alpha and the omega." If spirit is the beginning and the end, arguing over who or what is greatest is pointless but it may be amusing.

So there is a difference between enjoying flow states and fully realizing or establishing one's awareness in the actualization that spirit and matter have always already been not-separate (nondual), realizing that I am completely free within all these apparent limitations. There is a path to inspiration, which involves effort and is like climbing to the top of a mountain. Oh, beautiful view from here, neh? And from a point of accomplishment, where the view is already beautiful, we are ready to really spread our wings, leap up from the path, take to the air. Beyond the heady rush of inspiration, then, there is another heady rush. (Where does it end?!)

While soaring up on high, we might look down at the tiny people below us. They look like ants toiling away. If we take the next step, we see that not only was that us, not only was that me, but it is me. It is hard to say whether the egg came before the chicken. Without one, the other doesn't exist either. That struggling person down below is struggling like I have, like I still do at times. And, if we do not feel ourselves to be some strange Phoenix flying high in the sky already, we can look up from where we struggle like ants and still see that that strange bird already is me. The oak tree is not separate from the acorn it once was. Spirit is not trapped in my form here and it is not only existent in that form up there. Spirit is not-separate, this formlessness is freedom within form and as form.

Awakening Oneness II

What happens with flow-states? It seems like researchers are better able to answer that question from a neurological perspective, so I'll leave that to those more capable. One thing that obviously happens is that the sense of self-identity either opens, disappears for a time, or is blown away. Different feeling-qualities occur depending on what sort of state one is in just previous to flow and what sort of psychological trajectory one is on. In other words, it can make a difference whether one has been working on a koan or problem (even problems or challenges like trying to dunk left-handed) with determination or if one is simply releasing one's focus into an easy sense of fluidity. While both approaches may achieve flow states, the results may be different. Whether there is a difference between flow states and samadhi may be an important topic; whether there is a difference between satori and nirvana may be another important topic. But something becomes very clear even to those of us who don't pretend to be experts in all this.

When one realizes that it is possible to set the context in order to "cause" flow states to occur more than randomly in one's life, the feeling and definition of self and human life change. It becomes increasingly impossible to think of oneself as conventionally limited and increasingly impossible to work with a mundane or less-than-extraordinary definition of human potential. In fact, the words human and potential end up almost seeming like synonyms. One shifts one's conceptions away from human history to define us and towards potential along with the feeling-qualities of awareness. We get a taste of what it is like to be buddha--awake. Moving beyond conventional conceptions of self tends to be inspirational and sometimes terrifying. Folks tend to feel somewhat confused as well as grandiose, like there is no ceiling or limit. Sometimes the feeling is quieter, though, as if one's problems melt away in the light of awareness like morning sun burns off an early fog.

Hakuin, a 17th century Zen reformist, particularly worried that his students would be satisfied with just a taste. Jesus warned his disciples about arguing over who amongst them was highest (because they all had farther to go). This sort of grandiosity, inflated contentiousness, and also feeling that a taste alone is enough is also commented on in the book of James (my favorite among them). This is where it can be incredibly important to be in contact with a realized teacher, a tradition, and a community. At this point in one's experience, it is perhaps more likely that getting only a taste will have the negative effect of satisfying or inflating one's ego.

The benefit of a teacher, tradition, and healthy community cannot be emphasized enough, so I will not try. As a psychologist, another aspect stands out for me. Self-identity is forced to change. While in many circumstances, we can identify ourselves fairly easily as a combination of our temperament and the social roles we play, a taste of spiritual awakening and alertness forces a shift in how we understand ourselves. The roles we can define no longer seem all that important, and in most cases, our own impulses and temperament (what many would call "personality") also no longer seem to define us. Not only have we desired for something more, but we have felt it, tasted it, touched it firsthand.

Perhaps the easiest way to describe this difference in self-identity is to say that no container ever seems to truly fit again. Rather than being the shape of the lamp, we are the light within. So along with Ramana, we can say and know true that: I have a body but I am not this body, I have emotions but I am not emotions, thoughts, perceptions, sensations, history, etc. And we most often feel compelled to ask: then, who am I? We step from a place where we want and need to define ourselves as something concrete to a place where we need to include openness, fluidity, freedom. There is the feeling that these things need to be included because we have direct experience of their validity, their reality. Whereas we used to be able to avoid these aspects of ourselves, this is no longer the case. We are awakening and we are the awakening.

Enlightening is a verb and a self-sense as well. I am enlightening and it doesn't matter (in a pinpoint way) to say whether or not I am "enlightened". The solidity of that sort of comment is not so much right or wrong as inapplicable at this time. From one perspective it is right enough, and from other perspectives it is wrong enough, but while I have perspectives, I am not perspectives. We seem to take a step away from overly rigid thought-structures, but we still look to interpret our experience here in communicable thought-structures. Really, the desire to communicate goes two ways: we want to keep this inspiring experience pristine (so we don't want to share it in contexts where it will be demeaned), and we want to give what we can of this feeling of abundance and brightness to anyone who will share it.

In comparison to our conventional selves (the way we used to be), then, we are enlightened; it feels like being born anew. In comparison to complete realization, though, we are journeying. Before this sort of opening, it's like we haven't begun the spiritual journey. After this opening, we aren't at an end. This opening is only the beginning. From this point on, it becomes nearly impossible to put aside the desire for continued, and shared, inspiration.

Awakening Oneness I

Some folks have suggested thinking of enlightenment as a verb, as "enlightening". That's a great comparison to the idea of enlightenment as involving a deep stillness, a position from which one never need move. Ramana seems like someone who did not move from that stillness. It seems to me that he communicated from that point. I like being able to ask, "But what about great sex?" without needing to feel that my question somehow contravenes his position. If sinking into the Self, as Ramana talked about, is amazing and perhaps effortless, maybe we can all be more obviously amazed by sinking into someone else in a romantic, and perhaps physical, way.

It seems that sex is a unique situation in a few ways. The heightened energy as compared to a mundane mindset is closer to inspiration or enlightenment than is the mundane mind. The intimate involvement of another differentiates sex from individual meditation and may include as close a sense of intimacy as we can hold or feel. The passive aspects of sex are great, and the active aspects are too, so we get to experience stillness or passivity and activity/motion--hopefully altogether with someone else who is doing the same. Okay, okay, so this isn't good sex talk, and it may seem like bad philosophy too so far. But most of us live it. We want to enjoy this life while being good people in our opinions as well as other folks' opinions. And it is sometimes nice to set opinionating aside and just get down with what we're doing.

So if I'm at a point where I'm no Ramana Maharshi and no Casanova, either, what then? Even if I'm a fairly average guy, I like movement and I like stillness too. And while some people are satisfied with either spiritual pursuits or more materialistic/hedonist sorts of pursuits, a lot of people want it all. I want it all. I want to be able to sky like Jordan, meditate like a Maharishi, and connect with my girl in a full-bodied, heartfelt, fully inspired (in-spirited) way. It's normal to want better sex, better peace, a better job where I'm appreciated at least somewhat--something that lets me enjoy making ends meet.

That desire for more has been criticized from many angles, but it is an important part of our basic motivation. If we don't start out enlightened, then desires and goals and expectations count. (And for the idea that we are all already enlightened, as correct as it is in one sense, it simply begs the question since we don't all already feel enlightened or act it.) Even for someone who follows Ramana's advice, part of what we might appreciate is the actual feeling and process of letting go. There is an important distinction, then, between the desire for more and a selfish expectation around that desire which sets up resentment, greed, envy, etc. I may want to be able to sky like Jordan, but it's not going to happen in this lifetime; like the rest of the kids on the playground, though, I imagine myself going through the motion I've seen Jordan do lots of times (just on a lower rim); the imagination and inspiration I've felt from watching Jordan makes it even better.

Just as sex takes a mix of excitement and peace, push and pull, there is a psychological equivalent concerning desires. If we become aware of how we can intentionally interact with desires and expectations, we can enjoy that psychological push and pull rather than feeling forced towards one thing and away from something else. In other words, if you can love, you probably already know your girl's desire isn't your enemy, and your desire isn't a bad thing for her. Desire is the heart of bhakti.

While we might not be able to completely control whether we get what we want, with a little practice, we can become pretty able in affecting how we feel about what we want. This is where mindful appreciation as opposed to impulsive enjoyment comes in. With just a small amount of mindfulness, I can enjoy looking forward to when my girl comes home (the anticipation) and I can also enjoy when she gets here. The time spent apart lends significance, and some spice, to our time together. The same is true of being thirsty (desiring and anticipating a drink), looking for a job, or practicing a sport. We tend to value the things we have to wait for and work for. Along with mindfulness of desires making things smoother, it helps to have a self concept that includes the understanding that openness and potential are part of who we are.

There are these varying degrees of intention, then, as we move towards flow and perhaps enlightenment. We all start off knowing how to play without even thinking about it. As we move through the developmental scale, we might add a sense of purpose to our playful exploration or simple exposure to the environment. If we do this well, we also bring a sense of playfulness and curiosity into our goal-directed sense of purpose. Moving further up the scale, we support and further our sense of purpose by improving our understanding of ourselves and our world. We increase our ability to enjoy that understanding by adding mindfulness to our activities, concepts, and responses. And all those things fitting together is the foundation for inspiration.

Inspiration is basic to (in the sense of being an important part of) what people feel during and after flow states. Once we become distinctly aware of flow states, they become one more thing that we desire. That particular desire can be as addicting as any of the other stuff that gets people juiced, so it is helpful to have some familiarity with mindfulness. The mindfulness allows us to relate to this desire in a relatively balanced way rather than spending our lives chasing ecstasy. Essentially, the better we align our 1)exuberant physical energy, 2)sense of purpose, 3)understanding, 4)mindful appreciation of desires, and 5) practiced concentration and ability at some task [think of Michael Jordan practicing left-handed dunks and how cool that feeling might be], the more likely we are to enter flow states somewhat consistently and feel the concurrent inspiration.

But while Michael Jordan may be the best basketball player yet as well as being one of the most fascinating athletes I know about, I doubt that he'd claim to be enlightened. He might give a charming smirk and make an amusing comment on the topic, but he doesn't seem the type to make grandiose spiritual claims. I'd say that, in a similar way to how MJ is great, something like sex can feel enlightening (in the sense of feeling fantastic and breaking anyone out of a limited/unhappy sense of self) without necessarily adding to spiritual maturation. In the same way, a healthy diet may be good for us, so it might be part of the process, but it is not in itself all that enlightening.

What all this means to me is that we can talk about some things being enlightening or inspiring and distinguish that from those things which are merely enjoyable or healthy as well as distinguishing inspiration or flow states from spiritual realization. While inspiration may help build towards realization and flow states show us that limited self-concepts are...ummm...limited, we don't need to be "spiritual" to be inspired. It seems that everyone wants to be inspired, and then some people also want to be spiritual. I can't see any reason why this should cause any problems.

Formlessness as Freedom and Awakening Oneness

When asked to describe our childhoods, or simply in trying to remember, most of us do not answer that brilliant luminosity has always been our experience of Self and myself. I'd imagine that awareness of being brilliant luminosity incarnate is also a rare response to when someone greets us on the street with, "How's it going?" or finishes a conversation with, "...and have a nice day." Ha, ha, ha! But openness is open nonetheless. Even if you let your "mind" roll through these thoughts, you get a hint; I get a hint from doing nothing more than remembering or allowing.

That hint may be dressed in--covered by--all sorts of emotional garb, some trash and some beauty. And we might be distracted from that mind-state by almost anything: plans, sensations, someone clearing their throat...

Soul does not need to be defined as soul to be felt. Before, without, and within the conscious sense of whatever that "soul" may be, there is a feeling that there is something even more free than that (more free than an idea or memory or some particular feeling or way of being). We often feel freedom dressed in the desire to be more free than "this"--this day, this responsibility, this body, this relationship, etc. The hint of freedom is genuine, and the desire may be genuine too, but the desire (in some sense) is extra. The freedom simply exists.

Even if that may be, all the forms that might draw our attention from that indescribable openness still exist too, and they often do draw our attention from that openness. Ramana Maharshi said that the intellect is useful only so as to direct the ego into the Self. But it seems that there is something more. It seems that there is also some protest against this simple injunction even from those who agree that they would like to simply direct mind back to ego back to Self. The protest could be phrased as the egoic response, "But what about the world?" Maharshi's answers tended to run along a very clear line. He tended to answer that it was not the world asking about the world--it is you (whoever was questioning him at the time). He'd say something like, "For now, let the world ask its own question. You are questioning, so look to the questioner. Who are you? Find that and you may find that the world is not a problem at all." Clear, deep, simple. For most of us, too simple.

About twenty years back, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book about flow states called, not surprisingly, FLOW. Rather than turning questioners back to themselves as Maharshi often did, Csikszentmihalyi compared experiences from around the world in which people reported being so involved with whatever activity they were doing that they lost a sense of time and self. Athletes talk about being in "the zone" and recognize this type of focus and involvement as representing peak performance rather than distraction or daydreaming. When folks are asked how they feel after these states, they feel great, transcendent even.

For a long time, I wondered how Maharshi related with FLOW. Although he had said that, "Peace is the state of utmost activity," it seemed that Maharshi was suggesting a contemplative non-action while the studies on flow states suggested intense focus to the point of becoming one with the moment or the activity. Throughout this time, I also kept running into the comment from spiritual leaders that people often thought they had a taste of enlightenment without even coming close to being enlightened. So I wondered what a genuine taste would be, how one could know from the inside (experiencing it oneself) or the outside (watching someone else).

Maharshi seemed to say that we all experienced oneness in deep sleep. The thinking goes: when you wake up, you feel like the same person, you recognize a continuum of something from night to dawn; you are also able to say whether you slept well; now, the ego was not aware during deep sleep, so what is aware of self continuing? what is aware of sleeping deeply or not? Since the ego does not exist in deep sleep, but awareness remains, there is some deeper or more continuous self. Since that remains while you pay attention to it (or AS it, as in deep sleep) or not (like during normal waking consciousness), you are more accurately THAT than what you normally experience as yourself (the individual ego). That Self is more completely you and you are more accurately that than you are the ego which you normally think of as yourself. Maharshi affirmed that we all experience peace during deep sleep, that we all are that Self which is peace, that no one is trapped by life regardless of whether we create an egoic drama around feeling trapped within this lifetime or not. Is that a taste of enlightenment?

And in comparison, Michael Jordan talked about playing basketball on nights when the basket seemed as big as the ocean, when he felt he couldn't fail or miss if he tried to. Is MJ enlightened?