It is very possible that we as a society, as a species, are about to transform – not just as individuals, but in a deeper sense. If so, it’s increasingly difficult for this transformation to occur in those who still bring a lot of baggage – false beliefs, guilt, anger, conditioning, positions and automatic behavior. This is because the transformation involves letting go, not struggle. It comes from a deeper place, a tuning in to a place of deep quietude, recognition of our unity with all things. And, in a great understatement, it is not a journey that you can take with your mind.
In our prior columns, we have addressed the misconceptions most people have about the awakening journey. And there are many! For the considerations people have about their lives, including their philosophies, positions and beliefs, are the very things that they hold onto, and so these must leave. This also includes any of their positions about spirituality or awakening.
For almost everyone, the main concern of daily life has been to prevent anything bad from happening to you. This includes any perceived threats to your survival, or self-identity, including humiliation, punishment, criticism, etc. Thus, a whole series of strategies, conscious and unconscious, come into play to keep your identity – how you project yourself to the world – intact and free from perceived attacks.
As it is all your creation, you can equally uncreate it as you realize that you are not at the center of all creation. For you have created a fictional character in a drama that you call your “life.”
The End of His-tory
This is, upon examination, a total waste of time. Why would you want to continue to live out this fiction? Why spend your entire life ensconced in this endless exercise to protect your story, image or act, all of which are not real?
As always, this is an invitation to walk out of the prison of your mind. The prison doesn’t hold you in. Only your agreement, your belief system, the lens through which you view the world, keeps you incarcerated. It is an illusion from which you can emerge, a hall of mirrors that evaporates once you see it for what it is.
This journey is not a straight line. It is not linear. And so it does not make sense to the rational mind. It is an unwinding, a deconstruction, defragmentation, and ultimately decomposition of the programmed mind along with all associated patterns, habits and beliefs. When viewed from the standpoint of the mind, the journey is perceived as a threat to its very existence. And so it is. But it is also a natural progression of beings who seek true freedom. It involves giving up all goals and paths, even the goal of awakening or “enlightenment.”
This state is one of being. There is no anticipation, no wanting to change anything. It is an acknowledgement of the way things are, that everything just is.
That is your natural state. All of the chaos, the confusion, the crisis, the drama, the worry, your endless brain chatter, is just a construct – something that you have created, a computer scenario you programmed. It does not exist outside of your mind.
For everyone and everything is continually playing out a combination of karma, conditioning, agreements, programming and resulting emotions that leave little room for true freedom. And so the “you” who is trying to control the universe and maintain your identify at all costs is, by definition, a part of this patterning. It can only react.
This is not wrong. It is not bad. But neither is it alive, free or self-reflective. It is, without question, possible to break out of this cycle. But it takes a great deal of wanting, of trust, of bravery, and of surrender. It takes your full participation. You have to see through the joke, the machinery, the false purpose of the defensive and controlling “you,” and clearly see that all of this is simply an illusion. There never was anything to resist, only your fear of being controlled. And there is nothing that can really be manipulated. Everything is unfolding according to its patterning, as a flower opens to the sun.
It is all a great relief. It is the final exhalation of your breath, a calming, an integration of all aspects of your personality, mind, body and true being. There is nothing left to control. There is only an awareness, a consciousness attuned to everything else. This consciousness does not want anything or particularly advocate for anything. It has no agenda. It exhibits a sense of humor, a compassion, and the knowingness that nothing has or can go wrong.
For who is the “you” who has been trying so hard to “get better”? “Who” is trying to prevent a problem or potential catastrophe? “Who” is seeking to keep your image, your world, intact? “Who” is struggling to ensure nothing is out of your control?
There is no “you” doing any of this. There is no “you” who can do this. There is only an automatic, habitual response mechanism, a software pattern that you have continually programmed and maintained to keep you “safe.” As you witness this, as you become wiser by seeing through false beliefs about your true nature, the “you” simply disappears. It no longer has anything or anyone to protect, to struggle with, or to be supported by. And as there is “no one” to awaken, the identity who believes he or she must awaken will not survive the journey.
The Grand Unfolding
So what is left? There is “no-thing” left. There is “no-one” left. There is only the present, the unfolding of who you truly are. You can only glimpse this momentarily now, because the fictional “you” identity who you are still convinced must protect you continually interferes and speaks through the stillness.
How does this transformation come about? “How” is a very linear word. Either people can spend their lives dealing and handling their perceived problems, or letting go of the perspective that they have problems. This needs to be your overwhelming aim, an unquenchable thirst. Sometimes it is very hard work; other times it seems easy and fun.
Here are a few friendly suggestions. Give up all positions. To whatever extent what is written here challenges or contradicts what you believe in, believe in neither. Give up both your beliefs and the sense that you have to defend them. For they are chains around your neck, and they are not you. They are only tricks that your mind is playing to keep you bounded within a fixed place.
You are greater than these beliefs. In fact, you are truly that which is left after all beliefs have been given up.
Maybe you would rather be right than free. And so you will be.
