Magdi will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a couple of conversations he has had with seekers. Click here to read the first conversation. Here is today’s conversation:

Questioner: I will try to describe what happened to my consciousness this week. I traveled to my origin town. Every night i went out to see the beauty of the desert, where there are palm trees and mountains as well as vast space where there are no houses, only a far space.

Reply: Lovely.

Questioner: In the night i saw a lot of stars with such clarity! They seemed to be bigger than I can ever imagine. So in those moments I see the whole space of consciousness without any thought interfering.

Reply: Yes. That is very beautiful

Questioner: I sense my ignorance! It is as if the whole universe is made of one thing and yet it appears as many different forms. I feel that i know nothing, i do not even know my thoughts. I’m just here, without really knowing what this is all about. Is it normal to feel ignorant this way?

Reply: Yes, That’s OK. Very OK. When the mind becomes innocent, it loses its structures and becomes ‘not-knowing’ and it is in awe in front of the magical fantasy of the universe. Simultaneously, there is presence and wonder. This sort of not knowing is not familiar as the mind is sort of ‘on hold’ and does not like it. There is nothing wrong with you. Enjoy this openness. Become familiar with it. It is the screen out of which the mind appears.

Questioner: it’s so unfamiliar.

Reply: Yes, it is unfamiliar to the mind as the mind is sort of absent. The knowledge of the mind is very limited.

Questioner: It’s like feeling that i do not know anything.

Reply: That is the mind that comes back and wants to grab the attention. The Self needs nothing, it is all knowing. The mind argues with ‘not-knowing’. That is fine. Don’t let it bother you. You know yourself as nothing and as everything. Nothingness is Presence and it is OK. It is out of the nothingness of Presence that everything appears.

Questioner: Yes.

Reply: Consciousness is nothing and everything. Like gold can be a ring or a necklace and it can also be an ingot with no specific shape.

Questioner: Yesss

Reply: The mind gets attached to a ring or a necklace. The mind is stuck in worldly knowledge but not the knowledge of the Self since the knowledge of the Self reveals that the mind is a hologram, a set of images, but not the real deal.

Questioner: We forget that it’s all made up of the same thing Gold?

Reply: Yes

Questioner: There is one other question. I feel that i’m a person searching for some truth ! but at the same time i do not know who is this person searching for that truth! Is the dream character the one searching ?

Reply: The dream character is not real. All the dream characters and all the dream events are not real. Believing that you are a person limits you to a body mind experience. Let go of that belief and allow the me sensation to dissolve in the space and the sense of limitation will dissolve.

Questioner: who is believing that he is a person ?

Reply: The I-thought is the me. The I-thought and the separate self are one. There is no actual separate self. We refer to the I-thought as the separate self impression, since the me-sensation at the body level accompanies the I-thought.

Questioner: Yes, is it me the person that should let go of that belief ?

Reply: The person is not real. The I-thought and the me-belief are the play of consciousness.
Think of it as a play. The separate self is on the stage. The choreographer is consciousness. The one and only reality. The dream character on the stage is not real. It is a role. The play becomes unhappy when you identify with the role the actor is playing. But that is part of the enjoyment in the play. The suspense.  But none of that is real. When you dream of a pink elephant, the pink flying elephant in your dream is not real. It is consciousness that dreams all the characters.
yet, when you believe it is real, the dream becomes serious and unhappy.

Questioner: So it is consciousness that hears and see, the person is only like a phantom that we see as real ?

Reply: Yes. The person is like a phantom. Like a mirage It is a play.

Questioner: So, I am actually myself every moment and I dream that there is a person who is doing what he is doing! while actually i’m just the awareness believing i’m a limited body mind?
Reply: Yes. Awareness is not personal. It is One Universal Awareness across the board.

Questioner: So, is what it means to let go of thoughts or contractions ? Is it just a play?

Reply: A contraction is a mind event in the body. A dream event that seems real because the dream character is believed to be real. It is the play of consciousness.

Questioner: And I’m identifying my self with that dream character which is a body mind. There seem to be a feeling of wanting to know the truth in my consciousness and yet no one is responsible for wanting to be free! I keep looking for the seeker and i cannot find it. The person who is talking to you know is it talking by freewill or is there something entirely different?

Reply: There is no free will for the dream character. There is only one reality and that is the reality of consciousness. There is no person.

Questioner: What are the other realities that people imagine ?

Reply: The person … people are an I thought and the realities they imagine are dream realities … as only the reality of Consciousness is real. It is through the reality of Consciousness that everything we know is known.

Questioner: Only a thought?

Reply: Yes, as well as a feeling. People do not think. People are thought of, imagined by the I-thought that Consciousness is dreaming.

Questioner: Ahh! Is everything a thought ?

Reply: Consciousness is the only reality. Things are thought and mind events that are separated out of the fabric. It is the play of Consciousness.

Questioner: This consciousness … what is it made out of ? What is it ?

Reply: The reality of Consciousness is not made out of anything. Yet, all seeming things are made out of it. The substance of consciousness is consciousness and there is no other substance, no other reality. The substance of reality is reality and not something else.

Questioner: What is the relationship between me and consciousness? Even though i don’t know what ‘me’ is really !

Reply: it is the relationship between the dream and the dreamer.

Questioner: Is the dream inside the dreamer?

Reply: The dream is a thought that the dreamer is having. There is no real dream character, no real ‘me’ that can have a relationship with consciousness. Consciousness is its own relationship.

Questioner: So consciousness is a thought i am having ?

Reply: Consciousness is having the thought ‘you’ and is having all thoughts out of itself.

Questioner: What is the relationship of Consciousness with myself ? I’m to who they appear ?
Reply: The relationship between the dream and the dreamer. The dream appears to consciousness. There is no real relationship between the dream character and consciousness. The only real relationship is between consciousness and itself. But that is relatively speaking.

Questioner: And I am Consciousness?

Reply: The only reality. You ARE. Are you not real?

Questioner: yes, I am REAL.

Reply: The reality of consciousness is eternal and does not die.

Questioner: How am i to recognize that?! There is a sense of not seeing that reality.
The dream seems so real! the world and everything seem so real!

Reply: What perceives? That that perceives is real.

Questioner: That which perceive i cannot know.

Reply: You are that. It cannot be know via the mind. But you are it. You are the consciousness that reads these words. You are that reality.

Questioner: Yes, it feels so real because it is here now.

Reply: Turn your attention to the source. That you are. Not perceived. But all perceiving.

Questioner: Yes. I will do that more! Turning my attention to that which perceive and not perceived. What will i find there ?

Reply: That there is only one reality, the reality of consciousness that is not personal.

Questioner: I understand now. Thank you. I will contemplate and turn my attention inward to the source.

Reply: Good night.

(Taken from Magdi Em Be Facebook page)

Magdi will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing two conversations he has had with seekers. Here is the first conversation:

Friend: Thank you Magdi for conscious connection, greetings from the Gold Coast.

M: Lovely to connect with you…

Friend: And you my friend, love your posts, I am a Joel Goldsmith student

M: Joel is wonderful… a new discovery for me… He speaks from the divine place of the heart.

Friend: Realizing who I am and that life is but a DREAM.

M: Life can be such a sweet dream. Full of beauty, love and happiness…. and play-full

Friend: Yes absolutely. I have so much still to be aware of, remembering there is no human beings only God Being

M: You got it… remove these old dark lenses and the beauty shines…

Friend: Yes God is, nothing else is real. I’m getting it. Sounds like your consciousness is very pure already.

M: Yes, God is! and God is everything … I have been blessed by the divine… Grateful to share and explore with dear friends who love the truth.

Friend: Wow, that’s wonderful always open to Grace’s guidance and truth

M: As you remain open to Grace, Grace graces you with its guidance. Leads you to your True Nature, that is free and happy. It can be as simple as that… Open to receive the divine message … In this openness, we can hear. The mind is still, and the heart wide open.

Friend: I sense you are to explore something with me but not quite clear, had Huge challenge over time that I have had to not believe. Yes I just so love God and to see the perfection of everyone who may not know it.

M: There are no coincidences for those who are on the path with their gaze set onto the truth. Loving God… God loves you tenfold. She is quite a lover, you know. She adores loving…. In ignorance we love the me character and me-stories… In ignorance we turn away from God and only give her lip service… Patiently, she waits for us to recognize her and turn our attention to her.

Friend: Yes that is the awareness to realize.

M: There is no higher realization that the realization of the universality and reality of Consciousness. That is the divine revelation, no matter how one puts it.

Friend: It is. I just want to sit with God all day and forget the world.

M: First, you forget the world and remember God in the absence of the world. And then you remember God in the presence of the world… after all, the world is God’s creation.
First, you negate the me and the world and you realize you are divine consciousness in the absence of the world. Then you realize you are divine consciousness in the presence of the world. The divine establishment is in the absence as well as in the presence of the world.

Friend: Yes I’m opening up to this.

M: The screen is unaffected by whatever images and whatever forms it takes… Water remains water whether it is ice or steam.

Friend: About 2 years ago, I heard deep within the word, “every need is met within me”.

M: That is a divine message. A peak in the divine nature that you are. An invitation.

Friend: Yes that is the message to take to others, I think.

M: Only when the fruit is ripe is it sweet.

Friend: The kingdom of God is within. So I am a work in progress,

M: The blossoming of the kingdom of God dissolves all distinctions and reveals the reality, eternity and infinity of Consciousness.

Friend: So you and I are One so open to that realization now. Too easy.

M: When the world no longer moves you … when no thought, no perception and no sensation gets you unhappy… the realization is established … It is the complete dissolution of the separation at the mind and at the body level. When ignorance is completely removed out of the system, God reveals herself in her full glory and gives you a seat in the Kingdom.

Friend: Yes that’s the shift I am going through.

M: That is your heart’s deepest desire. Remain on the Holy path…

Friend: No other desire only this yes. It’s been very hairy.

M: The screen is untouched by whatever arises on it. The sky remains infinite even when a tornado passes by.

Friend: The journey that is has been very difficult.

M: The weather does not affect consciousness. Where is the journey this very instant? Only a thought. Presence does not travel. Sometimes difficult dreams are part of the reminder for us to wake up…

Friend: Yes I know now it was all unreal. Im so grateful.

M: When we follow the me-illusion that is seeking happiness in the world, God tells us that is not the path. When we do not listen, she pinches us… Then if we continue to ignore her, she pinches a bit harder… Then… we may listen… or not.

Friend: Yes how true.

M: The wise listen. They pay attention and discriminate between the beliefs that the ‘me’ is where it is at and Consciousness.

Friend: I so hope I don’t go off track I only want to live God’s will.

M: Slowly they realize that the ‘me’ is a belief that has also become a me-feeling … the belief that consciousness is contained in a body mind is a virus that they start to investigate. Love the truth and God will provide you with her guidance. Keep company with good friends who are God lovers.

Friend: Yes I will and to stay connected to truth and love, I am so grateful for your wisdom.

M: Much love to you.

Friend: Yes much love to you Magdi, my brother in God, thank you so much, will connect again soon,

M: Anytime.

(Taken from Magdi Em Be Facebook page)

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here. And now, here is today’s question:

Marshall writes:

Timothy, something has happened. I found your wonderful reply yesterday on my email and absorbed some of it through tears of joy and gratitude. The presence of true God in you and this light and love are so filling. Last night as I laid down in bed I took a copy of this reply and read it slowly and absorbed as much as I could. It was feelings and expansions and peace.

Today I am in a new state… something has happened. If this lasts for another minute it will have been enough. I will test this, if it is real it will endure and flourish. Whatever happens I am profoundly, deeply, infinitely (beyond words) in love with what you have done for me just by being you. I do not know what to say…. I can only project to you my profound open heart for you, myself, and every particle and potential of created and non created Source and Creation. WE are indeed ONE. I cannot claim, only experience. I will write again. At your service.

——-

Timothy responds:

Thank you for your really kind words!

Now: let’s hone in very, very deeply on the Divine Truth underlying all of us and our passing, transient states of consciousness. You already know this, but this Timothy fellow is going to presume to say it anyway…. 🙂

Marshall, you wrote: “Timothy, something has happened. […] Today I am in a new state… something has happened.”

Marshall, nothing has happened! There is only God—changeless, eternal, infinite, vaster than vast, Absolute Being-Awareness-Bliss-Peace-Love. All that can come and go is of the dream—transient, fleeting. Even states of mind that feel “realized,” blissful, peaceful, clear. All of this is to say that, by Divine Grace, all sorts of wonderful happenings will happen—but the Divine One, formless and invisible and unexperiencable (as an object), the one Subject beyond all subject-object experiences, is always right HERE and NOW “underneath” the play of persons and their experiences of the Divine. Our deepest, deepest, subtlest, subtlest Divine knowingness-gnosis-jnana-prajna [Vedanta and Buddhist terms for “wisdom-knowing”] knows ItSelf by being ItSelf (this Self of Absolute Awareness), before and beyond the mind and its experiences.

You also wrote: “If this last for another minute it will have been enough. I will test this, if it is real it will endure and flourish.”

The mind may try to reassert itself or it may have, in fact, irreversibly relaxed its grip and sunk in full surrender to its Source, Our Lord of Love, the Divine One, the One who ALONE IS, the Self of all, the transcendent-immanent Spirit. Regardless… be very careful not to look for fulfilment, completion, or closure on the level of the mind and being able to sustain a state, any state, of mind. There’s a great old Zen story, which i actually have at the Zen Humor page of my website which goes as follows:

A student went to see his meditation teacher and said, “My situation is horrible! I feel so distracted most of the time, or my legs ache, or I’m repeatedly falling asleep. It’s terrible.” Said the teacher matter-of-factly, “It will pass.” A week later, the student returned to his teacher. “My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive!” “It will pass,” replied the teacher.

Now, Marshall, you already know all this. For you have written:

>Whatever happens, I am profoundly, deeply, infinitely (beyond words) in love with what you have done for me just by being you. I do not know what to say….

Marshall, there is nothing to say—and everything to say—and, as our Zen friends put it, “no mouth is big enough to utter It.”

You wrote: I can only project to you my profound open heart for you, myself, and every particle and potential of created and non created Source and Creation. WE are indeed ONE. I cannot claim, only experience.

Yes. The Divine has come up with a way of experiencing Itself as experiences, forms, phenomena, body-mind-soul states. And yet there is nothing really happening but the one, changeless, absolutely empty-full Divine Being-Awareness. O what wonder, O what miracle. To this One (Who is no one and everyone) we can always spontaneously and with such gratitude thank and praise….

Love to you always, dear Marshall (the One Alone!)

Timothy

Adapted from www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here. And now, here is today’s question:

“Marshall” writes:

Dear Timothy, … I have passed your website on to many of my friends and have just read about your criteria for authentic spiritual realization. It is a beautiful work. I have a sense of the abiding presence of God that is within and yet beyond, I can “feel” the reality of love that includes the other that is not really the other, BUT I have much restlessness and many fears and anxieties that betray my inner divisions. I am selfish and fall too easily into anger. I know that these things are happening to me and am aware even as they are happening. This often leads to disappointment and a bit of despair at my own lack. I feel that I have been at this place of “looking in” but not entering before (other lives) and it is so easy to pull back due to attachments to a glass of wine, a day of diversions, a plunge back into the “life-style to which I am accustomed”. As St. Paul said, I know better, but the flesh is weak and I do that which I do not want to do.”

I sense in you a possible answer, you have probably already given it on your website, I already know it, but I need help.

A friend who sends you love and energy, “Marshall”

Timothy responds:

Hi Marshall. Thank you for your kind words about the website and for referring your friends to it.

You so very honestly wrote: “I have a sense of the abiding presence of God that is within and yet beyond, I can “feel” the reality of love that includes the other that is not really the other, BUT I have much restlessness and many fears and anxieties that betray my inner divisions. I am selfish and fall too easily into anger. I know that these things are happening to me and am aware even as they are happening. This often leads to disappointment and a bit of despair at my own lack.”

Marshall, all these states (restlessness, fear, anxiey, disappointment, despair) are NOT who you are as Awareness. As Ramana Maharshi would say: These things are of the mind, and you are not the mind–your real nature is this Pure Awareness or Self (the pure I Am that Am even before the “i”-thought). Now, there has been an apparent momentum of identifying with these finite mind-states. This momentum can seem like a formidable force. But the truth is that every night in dreamless sleep, and probably many times throughout the day, these mind-states don’t operate. They are not permanent or solid. What is permanent or solid is the fundamental Awareness that you ARE. In time (and time is nothing in eternity), your own real nature as solid, seamless, infinite-eternal Awareness affirms ItSelf as Witness and, in a forceful, uncompromising way, “sees off” all these various mind states as impermanent (actually vanishing, moment by moment), hence insubstantial, hence not worth indulging. This Witness function that sees and dissolves and vanishes all passing states can come Alive quite suddenly, or else gradually. In any case, sooner or later, you wake up to this Superior Principle of Awareness, in Whom we (the egomind and body) “live, move and have our being” [as St. Paul wrote about our essential being in God].

This awakening to Truth is inevitable!–because Divine Being-Awareness-Bliss is the real nature of everyone and everything–the only true Reality! (The early Christian teaching on apocatastasis is relevant here. The apocatastasis teaching is that God’s Love is all-powerful and all-accomplishing; therefore, this Divine Love will ultimately “retrieve” all “self-exiling” souls, no matter how lost or evil they seem, from their private hell-states and then merge these souls back into the Divine Presence. All will realize God because ultimately there is only God–the Divine Spirit is the Essence of each and every soul.

It’s so very helpful to realize that all mental-emotional-bodily states arevanishing, moment by moment. They get re-created as apparently solid by the mind in each moment, but the truth is that they are not solid. Moreover, at the beginning of each moment, and actually during the “duration” of each moment, we are always ever and only Free as this gloriously open-empty-full Substratum of Awareness.

To speak metaphorically, our real nature is like the projection screen on which is displayed a wild, wacky, violent movie. The movie-screen is never for a moment tainted by the projected images–there’s not a single bullet hole or drop of sweat or blood to be found on the screen before, during or after the projection of the movie. So, if you feel fear or despair, as you so honestly and candidly mentioned, Marshall, what is it that is aware of the fear or despair? This Awareness is itself neither fear nor despair, not at all tainted by the “movie” of fear, despair, etc.–rather, this Awareness is the “Unfelt Feeler of feeling,” to paraphrase India’s old Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. Awareness is the one Divine “Host”-Space in which happen all “guests” (phenomena in the form of sensations, perceptions, emotions, thoughts, etc.). This “Host” that you really are is intrinsically open, free, pure, untaintable, unimprovable–Divine.

You wrote: I feel that I have been at this place of “looking in” but not entering before (other lives) and it is so easy to pull back due to attachments to a glass of wine, a day of diversions, a plunge back into the “life-style to which I am accustomed”. As St. Paul said, I know better, but the flesh is weak and I do that which I do not want to do.

Marshall, this is old conditioning. Instead of trying to resist it, why not get very curious–with a consummate, affectionate amusement–at what this “ego” is up to? If you were taking a dog for a walk, wouldn’t you be wonderfully curious about how the little canine friend operated and functioned? Bring the same benevolent curiosity to what the ego-mind is up to, moment by moment, and what happens is that ego-tendencies are simply seen for what they are and any old unnecessary tendencies sooner or later fall off. When you’re coming from true Awareness, so much will fall off. As Dogen Zenji said: “Shinjin datsuraku–Body-mind fall off!” Another way of saying, “letting go, letting God.”

We need not make a problem out of ego tendencies. In Zen they say “don’t make anything at all.” My dear old enlightened friend Sunyata used to endearingly refer to ego as “ego-ji,” as in “Baba-ji” or “Swami-ji”! The ego-mind is like a rambunctious puppy dog, playing out all sorts of conditioned tendencies. There’s no need to reify (thing-ify) these tendencies, and no need to indulge them, and no need to try to suppress them, either. Just penetratingly witness them and “see them off” as passing dreams, and they can’t get a grip on you or drive you into misery.

Thus, being the simple, boundless, Divinely-natural Awareness that we always already are allows the powerful Divine Light to illumine all apparent “darkness” and slowly or suddenly transform everything into Light. There is only this Divine Light, through and through. All else is imagination. And one day, by Divine Grace, even that imagination (which is “God’s original whim”) is purified and transmuted into Divine Essence–pure Love-Bliss-Peace.

So… right now breathing is happening, a mind is functioning, life is unfolding. No problem. Only God…. Only God….. Only God. (Allelujah!)

Love from your brother,
~ Timothy

Adapted from www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here. And now, here is today’s question:

Q: I feel lots of energy coming through me and certain powers. How can I become a “co-creator” with God?

This question arises when one believes that there are two Selves, God’s and “mine.” But there is only the nondual Self. Sagely tradition argues here for total humility, clarity and transparency to preempt narcissism, pride, and megalomania. All that is meant to appear will spontaneously happen in and through the various selves as the Self’s play. One need not push the river or add legs to a snake, as Zen says.

Q: I feel an expanded sense of Awareness in meditation and especially here in satsang/therapy, but then I lose it at other times, like at work. I feel I’m only aware of being Awareness some of the time, not all of the time. How to have more consistency?

This very common concern presumes that Awareness is a special state of mind coming and going in time and can somehow be made “constant” by some special discipline, when in fact Awareness is timelessly/always the Constant Substratum of the dream or movie of life. Our Real Nature is this Self-evident, Obvious ISNESS, the only non-changing aspect of our life. All else changes but THIS. And, as Shankara and Ramana Maharshi frequently pointed out, people already know they are constantly the Self and really don’t doubt it. Otherwise, if they were only their changing mind-states with no continuity, they would be incessantly shocked, over and over, moment by moment, by the sudden re-appearance of discrete, discontinuous bodymind states.

So we all know, deep down, subconsciously, that we are the One Self-Awareness. All that’s “needed” is to stop presuming that we are the changing, limited states of the bodymind and stop searching for some special new bodymind state called “enlightenment.” The only way we miss Spiritual Truth is by searching for it on the “object”-ive level of body, mind or psychic-soul.

The fact is that the God-Self—Infinite, Unborn Awareness—is equally present in human confusion and clarity, struggle and ease, failure and success, misery and joy, just as present as when one is on the meditation-seat, the car-seat or toilet-seat. Where else could God be but right HERE? When could God be but right NOW?

Wisely knowing-being this grand yet simple Truth is what allows for deep relaxation, real freedom, blissful peace, and all-embracing love.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Satsang Retreat in Santa Barbara from September 12-14, 2014. He will also lead a Satsang at the ‘Soak in the Beauty’ retreat at the same location from September 14-18, 2014. In preparation for the retreat, I am sharing a series of questions answered by Timothy. To read the full series, click here.

And now, here is today’s question:

Q: I feel emptiness, but it feels like a dead, disconnected, nonblissful, meaningless emptiness.

Classic self-enquiry, again, would have one enquire “Who recognizes this emptiness as such?” Alternatively, the individual is invited to explore the precise nature of this dead emptiness—or any bodymind state of suffering or dis-ease (e.g., anger, fear). It is Guest—You are non-separate Host. What are its dynamics? How, precisely, does it manifest for each of the senses and the emotions? How, specifically, is it that the Infinite Being-Awareness-Bliss has packaged ItSelf in such an interesting masquerade? One explores the dead emptiness with that intense curiosity and “lurking suspicion” that it is really an opaque window onto the Divine Reality. So one makes this dead emptiness the object of an informal, ongoing mindfulness or witnessing meditation and, through the clarifying and dissolving power of Awareness, one witnesses it unravel and reveal itself as the Divine temporarily appearing in phenomenal form. As Advaita Vedanta says, whatever is, is Brahman. There’s no other Reality than this. When Awareness focuses on any object/state, it will eventually dissolve it, like sunlight melts a hard solid ice cube into water then into vapor. Awareness ultimately dissolves everything back into pure Aliveness-energy.

It helps here to know that such “dead emptiness” states of feeling hapless, helpless and hopeless are an almost standard crisis (Self-intended!) to render the “me-dream” so intolerable that one ceases to invest or cathect any more energy in “normal” living and instead awakens to Vastness. In other words, when the dream becomes stultifyingly banal or painfully nightmarish, there’s motive to wake up altogether from dreaming. The me-syndrome becomes so “insufferable” that one melts, transcends or simply pulls back from or snaps out of it by resuming one’s real Identity.

Timothy Conway will be a retreat leader at the Awakening Together Retreats held in Santa Barbara, California this September. In preparation for the retreats, this is the second in a series of questions answered by Timothy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Q: Why are we here in the first place?

This, along with many other similar “why” questions, can, of course, be “answered”—e.g., “to love and serve and to enjoy the adventure of being the Formless playing the dance of Form.” Yet “why” is more usefully re-directed to How is it that there is an arising sense of self and world at all?

A related “why”-question is “Why did the Divine Self dream up this painful illusory world and self-sense?” This, too, can be therapeutically shifted to “Precisely how is it that I identify with and problematize any painful situations and self-sense?”

Q: “So, ‘how’ come there is suffering?”

One can always point the questioner back to classic Advaitin or Buddhist self-enquiry, “Who or What is aware of ‘suffering’?” The knowing Awareness, after all, must be quite different in kind from its object. This Changeless Principle Right Here recognizes various changing emotional, mental, psychic and physical states like suffering, ennui, loss, desire. The Changeless Awareness is not part of or tied to those changeful aspects of experience. If the person further responds, “well it feels like my suffering is changelessly part of my life,” one can reply, “where is it, then, in deep, dreamless sleep?” as evidence that suffering comes and goes and is not always, changelessly part of one-self.

But it is also therapeutically useful to sometimes speak on a more conventional, psychological level by distinguishing between intensity, pain, and suffering. Basically, any form of physical or emotional pain is a form of intense energy that one does not know how to process psycho-physiologically. There is an ancient, evolutionary programming within different species to perceive and judge certain intense stimuli: “Owww! Painful!” Without this discrimination, most animal species never would have survived, lacking incentive to run away from predators chomping on one’s limbs. So pain is a useful alarm signal. Suffering comes in with neurotically self-obsessing thoughts like “Why is God always doing this to me?” or “I must have lots of really bad karma to have this happen to me.”

One can drop the “suffering” of certain painful situations by letting go inner judgments, resentments, regrets, expectations and the sense of being the hapless target-entity afflicted by cruel outside forces, and instead simply notice pain, along with intelligently making any changes needed (e.g., pulling the hand away from the fire or moving beyond a chronically abusive relationship). This shift from conflicted suffering to fully experiencing pain is well-known to many professionals working in pain-management clinics, where the emergent wisdom has been to teach clients how to meditatively be-the-pain. Studies indicate that many people’s felt-sense of even physical pain actually diminishes considerably, by up to 80%, by focusing upon pain’s raw sensations and not getting entangled in self-obsessing thoughts about the pain and its relation to “me.”

Marathon runners, swimmers, cyclers, weight-lifters et al. routinely take on extremely painful situations while training. Their muscles and entire physiology painfully “scream” as these athletes repeatedly go beyond their normal felt-sense of physical and mental limits, stretching into greater excellence. Most persons suddenly placed into this stressful situation of athletic training would complain of being put into hell. But athletes seek out this situation—they know they can “become the pain” and realize it as passionately-intense energy. It’s not just that the body-mind starts releasing endorphins and other natural pain-managing chemistry. No, these aware athletes often feel that they’ve been released into nondual aliveness, pure intensity—no more subject of experience, object of experience or dualistic process of experiencing. Just pure experiencing.

This is, notably, one of the very definitions of Brahman in [the classic nondually-oriented Hindu medieval text] Yoga Vâsishtha.

Likewise, we “become one with” any painful physical or emotional situation upon losing the dualistic sense of subject and object and realizing we are really this Formless Awareness nondually being various forms of intensity. This is Shiva experiencing ItSelf as Shakti, Awareness experiencing ItSelf as the sacred world of intense energy.

www.enlightened-spirituality.org