Reservations

woody woodpecker
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao

Reservations? I have lots of Reservations!
Woody Woodpecker to Wally Walrus in the 1944 classic, “Ski for Two.”

That’s how you know your false self.
Adyashanti to a student at Omega, 2007.

This past summer at the Omega retreat, a woman explored with Adyashanti, her doubting nature. She had had an insight and was then immediately consumed and frustrated by her self doubts.

Below is Adya’s reply, as best I could distill it, from their dialog. For a smoother presentation I have left out the ellipsis:

That’s how you know your false self.
It’s how you protect yourself from the Void, tread water on the Void.
Anything, to not just stop and sink.
Everybody has their own way of treading water.

The direct route would be to look at who doubts.
Who is this that doubts?
Is there a doubter?

So much of what is going on inside of us is just an evasion tactic.
Anything, to distract them from the task at hand.
And Doubt is a wonderful distractor.

Ramana Maharishi use to say, “Doubt is the last thing to go.”

Have you ever noticed doubt never doubts itself?

Doubt everything but the doubter.
Why are you so certain of the doubt?
Dought has it’s own certainty. Right?
When I say, “What do you know for certain?” It’s not meant to actually find something. It’s meant to destroy what we don’t know for certain.

So an insight you may have about something, you don’t need to come to a certainty about it.
Just let go….
If there is a path at all, the path is undoing, undoing, undoing.
Unlearning, unlearning, unlearning.
Unknowing, unknowing, unknowing.
Adyashanti

Or, alternatively – forget the treading water, fly over the frozen stuff and set it all to music.

I see...
Reservations? ...(me or Woody, who knows)

“You’ve got to have a reservation!” (Wally Walrus)

Well, this is America!
All of this is implanted deep inside our brains.
And that’s both good news and bad… or neither. Depending on your reservations.

Enjoy yourself.
(Adya says repeatedly)