I received an email earlier this week.
A young friend wanted to know where and how he might find God,
and what God might be for him.
Since my young friend loves music, I suggested that he might begin his search
by listening for the Silence within the music.
That evening, when I flicked on the DVD,
to escape a day that rested heavily,
these words were the immediate result:
If there is no music, there is no Mystery.
If there is no Mystery, there is no God.
If there is no Mystery, there is no faith.
- Septimus Harding
The next morning, I had another email awaiting me.
This was from Nancy, the woman with whom I co-host monthly Adyashanti Gatherings.
Nancy was stunned to find herself in an interview in the December issue of the The Sun, entitled, “Who Hears This Sound?”
And, I was equally stunned by the synchronicity of Adya’s teaching:
A woman sitting near us, whose hands had fidgeted in her lap through most of the evening,
took the microphone and said she was feeling a tremendous sadness because she feared that she’d never have an awakening experience.
Adyashanti asked what her deepest spiritual yearning was.
The woman answered, “I want to know God.”
Adyashanti asked the woman, whose name was Nancy, momentarily to stop her search for God and go in search of Nancy instead.
“Where is Nancy?” he asked.
“What is Nancy? If I ask you where is your hand, where is your foot, you can answer.
But if I ask where is Nancy, where is she?
She pretends to be the center of this whole life, but where is she?
Is this Nancy anything more than a thought?”
“No,” she said.
Adyashanti described the tendency of the human mind to believe in a limited notion of “me,” a separate self at the core of our being.
But when we go in search of that “me,” we discover something deeper and more vast.
“What is looking through your eyes right now?” he asked the woman.
After a pause she answered, “It feels like life.”
“OK,” he said.
“Let’s go with that. It’s life peering through your eyes. So what is life? Is life male or female? When is life’s birthday? Does it have an age?”
“No,” she responded.
“So, at the very center of this thing called ‘you’ is nothing but life,” he said.
“It’s not Nancy; it’s life that’s peering through. Now, just for fun, let’s remove the word life.
I like the word life. It’s very unspiritual.
But since you’re in search of God, what if we replace the word life with God?
Isn’t God life, the essence of all existence?”
“Yes,” the woman answered.
“God is peering through right now,” said Adyashanti. “In this moment.”
The woman seemed profoundly moved.
“Whoa,” she said, her eyes widening.
“Hang with that for a while,” Adyashanti told her as she quietly took her seat and the next questioner approached the microphone.
I noticed that Nancy’s hands had stopped fidgeting
and were folded together peacefully in her lap.
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