Day 2 with Lesson 45. God is the Strength in which I trust.
Trusting in God’s strength rather than our own is really a shift in the way we relate to the world. It is a shift from attempting to control life in order to take something from it (which is what the thinking mind/ego structure/conditioned self tends to do). It is a shift to experiencing life from the perspective of our true nature, open-allowance-awareness.
Thus, this lesson aims at helping us open to living in the mystery. This willingness to live in the “not-knowing” has been described by some as liberation itself. In his article, Freedom and the Unknown, Adyashanti writes:
Human beings have a drive for security and safety, which is often what fuels the spiritual search. This very drive for security and safety is what causes so much misery and confusion. Freedom is a state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the freedom you want. There is no security in freedom, at least not in the sense that we normally think of security. This is, of course, why it is so free: there’s nothing there to grab hold of.
The Unknown is more vast, more open, more peaceful, and more freeing than you ever imagined it would be. If you don’t experience it that way, it means you’re not resting there; you’re still trying to know. That will cause you to suffer because you’re choosing security over Freedom. When you rest deeply in the Unknown without trying to escape, your experience becomes very vast. As the experience of the Unknown deepens, your boundaries begin to dissolve. You realize, not just intellectually but on a deep level, that you have no idea who or what you are. A few minutes ago, you knew who you were—you had a history and a personality—but from this place of not knowing, you question all of that..
Understanding that you do not know is a good thing. The truth is that the currency of consciousness is a felt sense of what is. That is why, when meditating, we look at this felt sense of being – what we call “awareness.” Resting in this place without definition is abiding in awareness.
To need to know (as well as the need to be seen as if you know) is the will of the personal I to exist. Can you see how that will builds the structure of thinking mind and the I thought? You can also see how the fear of not knowing (or being wrong) provides reinforcement to that structure. In fact, this fear of not knowing is the same fear often referred to as the fear of nonexistence. It is this fear that must be faced and traversed. Letting go this fear is letting go of the I thought. Letting go this fear is the death of the ego. Letting go this fear in faith and in trust is what we are to do.
In order to get in touch with that which lies beyond conditioned self, we can begin to practice the awareness watching awareness method as we go about our daily lives. We can ask ourselves who sees what the eyes perceive. Who hears what the ears report? How does this blanket feel? What is my actual experience in this moment now? This removes the narrator/definer/describer from between awareness and experience.
