The Big Picture

In The Grip, I talked about the sequence of 4 grips. These are key holdings or resistances that keep us “in the dark”, in ignorance of our true nature as they would say in the east. They are met in the descent of higher states in unfolding enlightenment and, to some extent in the rising and falling cycles of time. There are of course secondary resistances of all sorts, unique to each person. And a different set of blocks in the prior rise of kundalini. This is the journey of healing and release each of us goes through in some form or another on the journey home.

I numbered the grips in the sequence in which they are discovered and released. But what of how they are formed? Why would all this happen? What would be the point of separating ourselves from ourselves?

There are a number of ways of looking at this, each of which will reveal nuances of the truth. Today, I’ll explore it from the perspective of the grips. Let’s see if I can do it in a nutshell.

In the “beginning” (“long” before time), liveliness stirs alertness into awareness. Awareness moves within itself and becomes aware of itself. Awareness is aware of itself both globally and at every point within itself. We could call this the God perspective.

The trouble with the God perspective is that when any intention to create arises, the expression all happens instantly. All of creation, the beings, the universes, the galaxies, stars and planets, the people, the lives and all the individual experiences in all time happen instantaneously. Blip. Done.

This perspective includes complete knowledge of everything that apparently occurred. But the global perspective overshadows the experience at any given point. And that points experience of a fraction of instantaneous does not really do it justice.

What God/spirit does is a fascinating adaptation. Attention shifts slightly from wholeness to the gap between awareness aware of itself. This creates a duality that does several things.

1 – it divides subject and object, creating the trinity of subject, object and process of experience.
2 – it creates space, and through the process of experience, time.
3 – global attention drops into the points of attention

Thus, by creating that simple duality by mere attention, creation is able to be experienced as a sequence of events in space by individual points of awareness. (you and I)

This little twist is the “fourth grip” of ignorance. It is only in seeing past this subtle duality that wholeness can really dawn in awareness and enlightenment can be said to be complete. (although there is always more refinement, expansion, etc)

The intellect has turned from differentiating creation to recognition of Self in all in unity. But it must also stop differentiating Self from Self.

One of the qualities of a creation built from flowing awareness is that it moves in cycles. In The Yugas, I explore one way of looking at the long cycles of time in the rise and fall of consciousness. In a Sat yuga or golden age, the general population experiences life with the twist of ignorance but in many ways is as-if enlightened. As the ages fall and rise again, the other grips are amplified and reduced.

In the descending cycle of Treta that follows Sat, the degree of consciousness drops. By the end of the age, the awareness of spirit is lost. (without global, only the point is known) Thus, feeling divided and alone, the sceptre of fear arises creating the “3rd” grip. The separation and fear make the sense of being a unique individual prominent, causing the core identity.

Fear casts a shadow over all emotions. As consciousness drops further, lower emotions like guilt, shame, and anger become more prominent. The heart builds a crust to protect itself but this further cuts us off from higher emotions and our connection with our soul and the divine. This is the “2nd” grip. Emotions are fed by experiences that verify our uniqueness and validate our feelings.

With the core identity giving a signal of individuality and the emotions energized by this, the mind develops the concept of a separate me. It seeks ways to emotionally gratify this,  looking for experiences that verify this perspective. We seek to be right and thus make other wrong. This is the “first” grip.

It should be noted that I don’t want to demonize the ego here. It is a natural part of growing to adulthood. The issue is an ego without global context; an I without spirit. It becomes identified with its experiences and divides everything into good and bad.

As consciousness rises, the grips are lessened or released – either through a rising age or rising spiritual development. The advantage of spiritual development is that it gets us off the wheel of time. Once off, we can continue and clear the last grip and step into wholeness.

Make any sense?
Davidya

The Building

Picture a building made for people who can fly. There is no entrance anywhere near the ground level. People in the building tell everyone about all the cool stuff there and how to get in. But the people who come to the building can’t see the way. The door they’re expecting isn’t found.

Some circle the building, looking for an open window or a trick to get in. Others bang on the glass, hoping to get someones attention. Still others dance or sing, hoping to please someone. Some get angry and throw things.

But occasionally someone accidentally walks under the provided invisible teleporter beam they told us about and is instantly whisked inside.

Enlightenment can be a little like that.
Davidya

The Four Grips

After Awakening or Cosmic Consciousness, there arises a sense of decent of the divine or spirit in reverse of the rise felt prior. In Emptiness Dancing, Adyashanti talks of the “head, heart, and gut”. This is what I jokingly called the 3 Am-Egos. What also might be called the 3 levels of identity. Clearing these corresponds to each approach of the 3 stages of enlightenment.

There is also a 4th stage, the root. I discussed this in Point Value. When the divine has descended to the root, spirit begins to be lived and experienced in form, in the formerly outer world. Enlightenment can then be much more fully and richly expressed. We might call this Embodiment. Adyashanti calls it Autonomy. Embodiment is what differentiates an awake person from the birth of a master.

There is another way of seeing these 4 stages. They occur after the release of what might be called the 4 Grips.

1) the first grip is the letting go of the concept of a me. What is often called ego. Then we shift into Self or Atman. This shift is known as awakening or Cosmic Consciousness.

2) the second grip is in letting go of the crust on the heart and the emotional energy feeders of ego above. This opens us to the divine heart and the flow of life & Love. This leads to more refinement and eventual God Realization.

3) the third grip is the core fear that leads to the gut sense of an individual I or identity. This fear is usually unrecognized until close to the shift yet it has cast a shadow over our lives for millennia. It has fed the emotions and concept of ego above. It also gives us the sense of an inside and outside and thus gross duality. When this grip falls, the identity and our whole sense of reality falls, leading to the intellect recognizing Unity. (see Mahavakyas)

The above grips are temporarily relaxed to a degree in the rising cycles of time. But only in enlightenment do we lose them for good. (see also the past)

4) the fourth grip is profoundly subtle. It is the grip of ignorance, for want of a better word. The Sanskrit term Leisha Avidya or remains of ignorance comes to mind. Just like when you squeeze something it twists, this grip pulls the end of the sutra or thread that connects us with the divine back slightly so it doesn’t rest in the root chakra. This creates a subtle sense of duality that sustains the subject-object relationship and prevents the experience of wholeness, what is known as Brahman.

In the past, I’ve touched on the 10 stages of unity, said to be mirrored in the 10 mandalas of the Rk Veda. The 10th mandala or stage is Brahman. Brahman Consciousness is no longer a state or stage of consciousness but is rather consciousness itself; wholeness itself. We could say the 4th stage is stageless.

This is obviously the true Vedanta or end of the Veda. Thus it is true Advaita or non-duality. Until the 4th grip is released, there is still the subtle duality in our every experience of Self and the world so true non-duality has not yet arisen. Just as the inner unity of Self Realization leads into the outer unity of Unity Consciousness, so too does Unity become a full unification in Brahman. But an inner unity of Self Realization under 2 layers of duality is hardly non-duality.

Words really fail when you try to describe something without a subject-object relationship. Basic grammar requires it. This is beyond the object being known to be nothing but subject. I hope to find further inspiration on the subject as time goes on.

Of course, as I wrote earlier today: remember there is no process in awakening. (laughs)
Davidya

Autonomy

During the approach to awakening, there can be the experience of the energy rising up to the crown of the head. Or there may be a sense of opening gates or removing barriers. After initial awakening when we become That, there is a decent of the divine in a reverse process. What Adyashanti described as “head, heart, and gut.” (in Emptiness Dancing)

“Literally, the energy within us goes up and out. Eventually, what will happen is that same energy, that same consciousness, will then come down and in…It will come back down and back into form, back into our humanness.”*

With the loss of the guts core fear and sense of identity, the division of inside and outside ends and unity begins to dawn. Even this though is not the end of the journey. The decent continues while the divine/spirit moves out into the world. This I’ve been calling Embodiment. Adyashanti calls it True Autonomy in his latest book, *Falling into Grace. (Ch. 9)

“What I realized was that our true autonomy arises from a knowingness of unity, of oneness.”

In a continuation of the theme quoted in The Endless Path: “I realized that the ultimate destination of the person born in time and space is not simply to realize this enlightenment, but it is for the purpose of something quite different. In fact, enlightenment makes another movement of consciousness possible. This other movement is not really a waking up FROM our humanity, waking up FROM time and space, waking up FROM an individual identity. It is almost the opposite, where spirit comes into form and discovers this true autonomy.”

Embodying spirit is much more than just enlightenment. He speaks of Jesus and how “it allowed spirit to occupy his human life in a very awake way… it allows life to flower in a totally unique way, in a way that’s never been. So someone like Jesus was not the outcome of a whole line of others before him… Rather, he embodied a radical breaking away from the past. He brought in a whole new revelation – something extraordinarily unique and very dynamic.”

“But the powerful thing about the Jesus story is that he had some very human and very intense emotions.” It requires a willingness to fully occupy ones life.

It has surprised me what stays and what falls away on the human side. What turns out to be ego-driven or shoulds and musts that fall away. And what’s karma and divine that continue.

I’ve spoken before of how Adya describe how awakening creates a space. This can create a situation where what remains to be resolved rushes in to be seen. He goes on here: “The more awake we become, often the more capable we are of having life hand us bigger and bigger situations as our capacity to accept and embody our spiritual essence grows. So life can and does respond to that growth, and in many ways it tends to demand more and more from us.”

He speaks of how his teacher directed him to be self-referent from the beginning of his practice and warns against teachings that make you dependent. I would observe that it’s natural to be a keener at first. But one should be careful of a teaching that discourages you from becoming self-referral for understanding. It’s healthy to outgrow such.

“Ultimately, real autonomy is a complete allowing of spirit to inhabit your humanness and fearless willingness to allow this freedom to happen.”

Beautiful.
Davidya

A review of articles on his prior book: The End of Your World

The Moment of Grace

On this blog, I spend a lot of time talking about the process of awakening. The steps and things we experience on the journey home. Even the means. However, it’s important to remind that awakening is not actually a process. It is an instant moment of surrender, a profound letting go. For most of us, there are several such key releases on the journey as we move through the apparent stages of awakening.

As I get further into Adyashanti’s recent book Falling into Grace, there are increasingly good parts. He brings up there being no process later in the book and compares awakening with death.  Adya relates the profound surrender that can take place with a physical death and how that can dramatically accelerate spiritual progress. I’ve known people who have made major leaps on their death bed. However, we would rather surrender sooner and enjoy some of the lived experienced of awakening.

Awakening takes no time. It is just an instant. What can take the time is becoming ready to surrender or let go deeply enough for that instant to occur.

But this doesn’t mean there’s something we’re not doing right. Nobody knows how to “stop” as Adya puts it. “Nobody knows how to awaken“. He asks we just let it fully in that we don’t know how. Let go that sense that we’re doing something to awaken. Then we may find ourselves stopping. It is only a matter of how deeply you let go that determines if you have a moment of rest or an awakening. That’s how simple it is. That’s all it is.

It isn’t something you do. It is a moment of pure non-doing. Of surrendering to just be.

It can be easier to do with a teacher or others awake because they’ve done this. They embody it, making it easier to mirror. This is also why as more people awaken it becomes ever easier for others.

Let go, even of doing something to let go. 
Davidya

The Endless Path

In many circles, I harp on the point that awakening is not the goal. It is so important we not get stuck by concepts of being done. From his book Falling into Grace, Adyashanti puts it this way:

“Most of what I’d read in spiritual literature and heard in spiritual teachings reinforced this idea that once you get to enlightenment, it’s basically over. You’ve gone as far as the spiritual life can take you. What I discovered, however, was something quite different.”

He talked of how, after his first awakening, “For awhile, I felt totally complete… I experienced that freedom for quite a while. After a couple of years, however, I started to feel that there was something else moving, and it carried a feeling of “somethings not complete” – even though everything in my experience felt whole and undivided. …It was more like an intuition.”

“But then, bit by bit, it began to reveal itself. I began to realize that our spiritual unfolding doesn’t really have a goal… There’s not an end point. To spiritually awaken or become enlightened is actually something that allows ANOTHER movement to happen – and another and another and another.. Spiritual awakening is the ground from which a whole new movement of spirit starts to occur.”

The trick is, if we have a strong concept or experience of being done, we may not recognize or may ignore that stirring, creating an unnecessary barrier to what can unfold. What follows is much fuller and richer. It would be a shame to miss this for want not knowing. Yet, as Adyashanti observes, there are whole teachings and groups of teachers who will speak of one awakening, one realization. So many have walked in the door but not yet turned on the light.
Davidya

UPDATE – see also Autonomy for a continuation of the movement theme.

The Tree

Over the years, the tree I’ve celebrated Xmas with has varied widely. Everything from none to massive, from 2′ artificial to live potted. But the most memorable was in the early 90′s. We were living in a semi-rural area and were invited to get a tree from the research forest. We were to cut them off high to establish a base for later grafting. They were unpruned, natural trees.

We found one in the open on a steep slope. It had nice even growth. We hauled it back to the parking lot and they wrapped the tree in a tube of mesh for us to easily bring it home.

We discovered the first challenge when we got it in the front door. Although it was not raining, it was a misty day and the tree held a surprising amount of water in its leaves. Happily the area was tiled.

The second challenge was its size. It turned out to be 11.5 feet tall. Rather large for an 8 foot ceiling. I trimmed some from the top and the bottom to fit. I then put the tree up in place in it’s stand and spread plastic beneath it. It became apparent we’d have to move more furniture out of the way.

I then removed the mesh and the tree opened out 8 feet wide. More furniture got moved. It fully dominated the room. Even near the wall, it was like it was in the middle of the room.

The decor we had didn’t get far. We had to triple the supply to decorate it. And the gifts didn’t look quite so overflowing beneath it. It was certainly a grand tree, pictured above. Lots of memories resulted.

As it worked out, that was our last year there. The open space for the kids was wonderful and there was a farm just down the road where the kids could see the animals or select a pumpkin. But it was an epic commute down a jammed highway. I often didn’t get to see my youngest awake weekdays. We were back in the city soon after. The area has since become considerably more urbanized.

Whatever way you celebrate the holidays, I hope it a memorable one for you in the best of ways.
Happy Holidays,
Davidya

The Relief

There is a profound value in connecting with others on the spiritual journey. They offer us perspectives we may have missed and nudges along the way. Most of my attention goes to people here. I try to keep up with a small number of similar blogs (see Blogroll) but do a pretty poor job of it.

One I’d fallen behind with was Kaushik’s Beyond Karma. Today I checked RSS feeds and discovered he’d written an article on losing weight, something I’ve been exploring of late.

I discovered he’d had a great Relief last spring and had written a few articles about it, as it became clearer.  The Relief    Happily at Square One

In The Relief, it sounds like a pretty classic example of a major letting go. He is experiencing a great relief after a challenging period. What was true for him before now seems false and a waste of time. And the sense of seeking has now ended. He’s relaxing and enjoying his life. Yeah!

As an added benefit of this relief, he’s discovered a great way to lose weight without a diet, restrictions or anything. Love it. Simple can be so good, if you get it right. I’ve noted that the body has a great deal of intelligence if you just listen and don’t overload it. Then you can have fun and not feel you have to hold back from pleasure. Life is meant to be enjoyed!

Now, he may disagree with me on this. Or be unhappy that I raised the point. Or that I’m using him as an example  But this is a key place where it’s important to understand the larger context of the evolution of enlightenment. It’s very common to get a sense that the journey is over and we’re done with all this spiritual nonsense when the seeker ends. There is also a good number of people who teach that this is it. But it’s not. In fact, we could say it’s the kindergarten of enlightenment.

In the Rk Veda, 7th Mandala, Vasistha emphasized that we need to desire unity. Thus, we need to know it’s there. When the seeker ends, we can feel this is it. And many teach this. But we should continue to look. Continue to see what is there. It’s like we’ve landed on the ocean of truth. We feel we’re home and life is good. Celebrate! But the depths of the ocean are where all the profound understanding, rich fullness, and great benefits are found. Time for a swim. 

If you’re not familiar, I’ve talked many times about the stages of enlightenment, such as in states of consciousness and in models of awakening. And when we reach unity, we may again feel like we’re in kindergarten as a whole new potential opens to us. Our potential as humans is a remarkable thing.
Davidya

Head to Heart

One of the things spiritual teachers will talk about is the shift from the head to the heart. A shift from identification with our mind into the soul, into the heart of our being. This a natural shift that happens when we begin to disengage from the ego’s need to control and settle into our deeper core.

Adyashanti talks about how, after the initial waking into Being, there is often a kind of honeymoon followed by the minds attempt to come back and regain control. It does not succeed, but there can be a time of back and forth, of less full experience of silent being.

This often comes up in relation to change or transition. If we’re living from the heart/soul, we can find ourselves making apparently illogical choices or taking what seem like undue risks. Or maybe even doing nothing when it seems something SHOULD be done. (laughs)

The mind likes to be able to understand, to follow what’s going on. If the steps we’re intuiting to take  don’t make logical sense, the mind can start throwing up objections and doubt. This is where we can get back into a bit of struggle. Keep in mind we have many, many years of habitual thinking about “the way it’s supposed to be“, who we are (ie: what we do), and all the shoulds and musts that go with that. (this can be stronger in men)

When they arise as we become more conscious, it can be easier to see them as they are and let them diffuse. Sometimes, they can even by amusing. “I used to think that!?!” But some of the deeper messages can bring with them big stories from the past, like “remember what happened last time!!“, along with the  unresolved emotional baggage. This can be pretty distracting if we’re feeling uncertainty about next steps.

It’s also good to be able to recognize when things are going fine but they’re arising in a form we’re not comfortable with in some way. Back to the shoulds above, this again can bring up the old noise. Also, intuition to not pursue something can be felt as resistance, even fear or anger if we’re pushing against it. We don’t want to claim those feelings as personal. We might then interpret ourselves as weak and unable to act when it was just a signal to not go there. This reflects the process of being able to feel clearly and accept it as it is, then recognize objections as they are too. We don’t want to ignore our mind, we just want to give it less weight. And not take is so personally.

One of the tricks in this process is to recognize that some of the old models about life are no longer true. If we try to apply them in a post-waking scenario, we may be completely misunderstanding what is taking place. And that of course gives the mind all kinds of reasons to dump all over what’s arisen.

A good example that comes to mind – purification. If we have some history with an effortless meditation and/or clearing, we become familiar with the difference between what’s arising and what’s leaving. Both our dramas and purification can bring up similar feelings, but one is being reinforced while the other is released. If we don’t understand the difference, we can start to fight even with what is being resolved. Or we can give weight to a brief wave that was departing, thus inviting it back in some way.

This is the importance of knowledge on the journey. Understand what is taking place so we don’t get in the way of it. So much. We’ll always find ourselves caught up in things here and there. Then grokking things in whole new ways.

And that’s the other part of learning – learning to be easy on yourself. We’re all learning here. Learning to be with what is. Learning who we really are, in progressively deeper ways. And learning to be in the world as who we are and the apparent nature of the world changes.

And of course, learning to follow the bliss.
Davidya

In the Garden of Life

In a discussion with a friend, an interesting distinction arose between love and gratitude. Love, I realized, wasn’t something you really culture. It pre-exists. It is the flow of life itself. Rather, love is what we open to, under all the noise of thoughts and emotions.

What we instead culture is that openness, that allowing, then the love that is there becomes more conscious, then begins to flow through us much more fully.

Gratitude is a little different. It is a consequence or effect, a response to love. In its purer state, it is the result of the recognition of that flow of love as the fundamental nature of all life and creation. In our day-to-day life, it is the recognition of goodness flowing to and through us.

I’ve spoken before about how culturing gratitude is great way to resolve past hurts and forgive. But it also cultures an openness to what is and thus is a means to open to love.

The analogy that comes to mind is a garden. There are some things we can culture in the garden of life to see more bountiful fruit. But much of the work is not done by the gardener at all. Past feeding and culturing, their job is to get out of the way. If they pull a seed up every few days to see how it’s doing, it won’t. But if they trust the process and create the best conditions, the garden will flourish.

That is the key to the spiritual journey. To culture those conditions that make the flowering as quick and smooth as possible. But to be patient for the season to come when the garden will bear fruit. For come, it must.
Davidya