These last three months! Such a trip!
For almost twenty years I struggled to “get” it. Krishnamurti, Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta. I read books and pondered “I am” until blue in the face. I was not “getting” anything at all. But I kept on grasping in hope that something would “happen.”
I guess many of us go through this. We want to “get” it and for something to “happen.”
The problem of course is the basic dynamic of “wanting.” If that which wants is not seen clearly and seen through, it just keeps on recoiling back to its “seeker” mode and the truth seems ever so distant. Or the truth is imagined to be so distant — because the “seeker” would actually be extinguished in the truth.
I came out of a religious background 20 years ago that was both devotional and intellectual. I studied theology and prayed a lot. I theorized and wanted “union with God” in the Christian mystical sense. Nothing there.
I abandoned that and got on the “slow boat” to India, with detours in China and other places, figuratively speaking. Read tons of stuff. The same drill. But the same nothing also.
Then I had the great fortune to meet you. I still don’t know exactly what you said, it was maybe some tweet or another that just “did it” and unlocked this mind. Maybe just the attraction of grace.
And middle September the shift happened and “seekerhood” was abandoned and actual discovery just began. Discovery and astonishment and great joy.
It was realized that the self, which is trying to get something spiritually, is entirely empty and fictional. And that the whole of existence is just the divine play. The divine playing the role of the “seeker” looking for its true nature, and never being anything else but its own true nature.
That was then. And then the real challenge just started. The samskaras which come out of the closet and want resolution. All that buried shit coming back above ground.
This can be heaven and/or hell depending on what day or time of day. I run the gamut from euphoria to depression and frustration, as it was yesterday. But you have always been here to gently guide me. Even more than you may know.
I have been worried that my understanding is emotional and confused and therefore have been filled with doubt. Have felt that maybe there was some “test” that I would not pass. Which of course is just the mind trying to reassert itself. And a very old recurrent dream of being faced with something for which I was unprepared.
The bhakti aspect comes naturally but the jnana was somewhat sketchy. Knowing something intellectually does not make it true because you can imagine “knowing” a fiction. And self-deception is always a major obstacle here. You want to be “enlightened” so much that your words seem to occlude the reality of it. You want something as instant medicine for whatever ails you. Or something.
That’s all gone now. Just now actually. Just gone. The blockage has been dissolved and That is all peace and aliveness and simplicity. “Naturalness” as you always say so beautifully and well.
It was another sleepless night. Lying in bed struggling with all this doubt and disturbance. At some point the fixation relaxed and dissolved and clarity was revealed. Awareness of the Aware, self of the Self. Just broke up the whole bummer of a party going on in the mind.
It was about time that happened!
Those doubts are gone and the whole thing is utterly simple.
There’s even the insight that, once seen, one never has to “try” to see it again.
Just dropped. Gone. No more duality or even “nonduality.”
And life just manifests on its own terms as consciousness, energy, nature, grace, devotion, faith, meditation — whatever anyone can call it.
I even spontaneously gave thanks to Jesus and merciful Allah to mark the occasion. They all bear witness somehow.
More of these crazy blissful tears.
I love you, Dear Clara!
Ever,
Phillip