Not Knowing No Longer an Option

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Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao

There seem to be two kinds of searchers: those who seek to make their ego something other than it is, i.e. holy, happy, unselfish . . . and those who understand that all such attempts are just gesticulation and playacting, that there is only one thing that can be done, which is to dis-identify themselves with the ego, by realizing its unreality, and by becoming aware of their eternal identity with pure Being.
Wei Wu Wei Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon: Reflections of a Pilgrim on the Way

…if you're enquiring merely to get rid of the pain, if you're using the enquiry as a pain-killer, it might work, [but] maybe not... It's not the purpose of the enquiry. The enquiry is to find out who suffers, to come to see that it's not what you are, but that it's the idea of yourself that is suffering. A concept is suffering from a concept.
Mooji

How silly is that? A concept suffering from a concept!

Several weeks ago a friend asked me to please excuse the distastefulness of the term “enlightened” and to simply tell her where I was evolutionarily.

I do indeed dislike the question (see Joan Tollifson for an explanation) but, having been asked, I gave an honest answer my best shot: “I don’t know. I cannot decide.”

Perhaps this sounds a bit ridiculous, but it was the closest I could see into my situation. Well, my friend is marvelously direct, and her short reply cut through all the crap: “What if you never decide?”

Again, I considered simply and directly.
I was totally surprised by the answer.
I hadn’t seen it coming and suddenly there it was so starkly obvious that I broke out laughing:
“I would probably be enlightened and continually un-enlightening myself.”

This struck me as the silliest behavior imaginable and because my reaction was so guilt free and filled with loving amusement – I knew it to be true.
This was not philosophical gymnastics on my part – this was seeing deeply into the matter.

And because of that truth, it wasn’t long before the silliness wore off.
I had received my wake-up call.
“Not knowing [was] no longer an option” and since that day, Life has been roaring through, unfolding on its own.

I found these words in a story told by Adyashanti’s wife, Mukti. She too had received a wake-up call:

…we attended a satsang with a teacher named Gangaji. Right away Adya got up and spoke with her from his perspective. I could see that the dialogue that ensued was from a shared, awakened perspective of knowing Oneness, and that it was a dialogue in which I was not able to participate. As I witnessed their exchange, something came fiercely alive inside me, saying, “In order to have a true spiritual marriage, a true meeting of Adya, I must know this perspective.” And my seeing this didn’t come from a place of jealousy. It just came from a knowing that this must be—it was as though within myself, without literal words, my Being was saying, “This must come to pass. So that I too can meet my husband from this perspective.”
…“this must be.” There was just something inside me that made not knowing no longer an option, and in that sense it was as though time had run out.

Well, why not? Next month, I turn sixty.
Perhaps, I have finally become that second kind of seeker.