Conversations at BATGAP

Asemic Shadows 4, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

I’ve seen many people spend an entire lifetime meditating and going to see every spiritual teacher on the planet, and then put forth 10 reasons (as you did yesterday,) why they wouldn’t or shouldn’t want to awaken: it might be too soon – it could be dangerous – I just want to be a good person – enlightenment isn’t necessary etc etc. So… there seems to be a contradiction, some huge conflict within.
Jill, the Ben Smythe interview at BATGAP,

Yes, I am carrying huge ambivalence over stepping into my own awakened state and this resistance makes me suffer. Adyashanti told me when I complained to him about being stuck in the witness that I would have to find my own way into ripping open my heart. He reminded me of those Catholic images of the flaming heart.
I recognize all those whispers of “yes, but” in my psyche that Jill was pointing out and her comment stung.

Listening to the Buddha at the Gas Pump (BATGAP) interviews each week as they get posted has become perhaps the cutting edge of my spiritual practice. I listen in the mornings before dawn while I do asanas or qigong. Often, a simple statement strikes home so directly and immediately, I am stunned into a deeper opening.

You may notice that the postings here have become less frequent. Chalk that up to the wrestling, the discomfort, discomfort, discomfort… with admitting I am stuck witnessing with ego so intact, and yet, at least the witness is established.
I’m posting some comments here that have prodded and eased me forward lately. I hope BATGAP doesn’t consider this plagiarism. I offer it by way of thank you and I don’t know, maybe it will help someone else along the way.

The TM self-realization – small s – is a witnessing type of realization, a primer to true realization.
It is still duality because the small self is alive and well either in the background or the foreground, but nothing has been united. It’s a state of extreme separation.
Jill, the Robert Foreman interview at BATGAP

Personally, I like Adyashanti’s expression radical duality.
Although I meet with Eve and Mary once a week to meditate and practice and share, I have been totally unable to discuss my discomfort with them because I can’t even describe adequately how strange it feels. A couple weeks ago Eve made the comment that I am her Spirit Guide. Nice to hear, but what rumbled round inside was the dissonance of definition: I cannot be a spirit, I’m not dead.
But later there was a shift: That’s it EXACTLY! I am like some character in a movie who has died and doesn’t know it. So, I walk around interacting with people, objects, events and everything is out of whack. Nothing is as it was. Nothing is Normal.
This may sound awful, but to me this shift brought relief and joy.
For the next week I felt as if I was on a retreat going deeper and deeper into realizations. But in the end “realizations” are just the mind’s saying eureka, insights that come and go. In the end, there was no shift to Unity and my discomfort returned.

Jill goes on to comment:
Maharishi used to say it was a very uncomfortable state which is why I called it painful.
I was only in it a short time before the energy took off but can’t imagine staying there.
It’s one foot in the apparent world and one out of it – not the reconciled peace I’m referring to now, where we have come to rest eternally, undivided and seamlessly moving between the relative and absolute realities.

You got it right when you said the emphasis in CC [witnessing] is on a kind of mental recognition of Self -not a living of it. According to Maharishi’s map we proceed from this witnessing state by devotion in order to close the divide between duality and unity. And that’s true, but he also said that practice is not the way after CC. It is love and devotion that closes the gap after recognition. So we must be willing to surrender to the Self – what we value most, and that would be our concepts and illusions – the biggest one of all being the illusion of self.
Jill, Robert Formen interview at BATGAP

Well, this is what Adya told me two years ago. The heart has to open and the only way I see to do that is to let go and not resist whatever comes up inside. Actually, so many of the restraints have already been burned through. I seem to have lost much of my ability to suppress feelings. Now, if I were also that facile at letting go of thinking… even as I know, all this is beyond my ability to do. Still I play my part.

I was awake to the Self for over 30 years before the shift.
I knew I was Atman but retained the ego.
Then one day, listening to an awake teacher, a word he used landed differently and something let go.
Of course, the shift didn’t match any concept of it but about a day and a half later, certainty came.
So a slow approach but the shift itself was “sudden”. Many call it “popping”.

…I know Neelam and other teachers of her lineage avoid concepts of stages. But for most, there is the experience of it unfolding in steps of experience. Adyahsanti talks about “head, heart, and gut”. This relates to the 3 major stages spoken of in TM circles, CC, GC, UC.
I describe this as the descent of the divine. When it reaches the heart, there is an unfolding of love beyond any description. We recognize all of creation exists as the flow of love and rests in a sea of love.
Also related to this is the refinement of perception and the unfolding in our experience of the extent and magnificence of creation. The profundity of a simple thing like grass or an insect is revealed.

…And then there is the “gut” and the end of that which divides inside and outside, the dawning of Unity. Ironically, we again find ourselves in kindergarten.
There is much more. The descent continues to the root and embodiment, then rises back to the point most suited for that persons roll.
This is why I say kindergarten. One cannot underestimate the value of awakening. But it is the platform for living our potential. It is the end only of the seeker, not the goal.
It is such a pity to miss the fullness of our potential due only to a dumb idea that we’re done.
David, the Neelam interview at BATGAP

I am so grateful to have BATGAP providing intelligent interviews and presenting awakening from many different personal perspectives. It helps to have clear theory. Perhaps it helps even more to have ordinary people tell you what it felt like.

This Interested Me... (aka no title today)

Buddha At the Gas Pump had an interesting interview with a fellow by the name of Jan Esman. Rather than address the points in it, I went to Jan’s website and clipped a bit of his teaching. I feel like things for me are taking a new direction and this may be a good way to kind of shift the discussion gradually.

I hope you have the time to listen to Jan’s story. If not, maybe you can read on:

Pure is-ness is prior to I AM. In pure is-ness, there is no "I" that "IS", hence no I AM.
I AM is a gross state that does resemble the absolute state of pure being, but it has a subtle ignorance at its core…
Self-remembrance [meaning inquiry or resting as awareness?] leads to the I AM state, and no further.
Once fairly established in the I AM-ness, your awareness can fold back in on itself and short circuit, so to speak.
But the step from I AM to pure being is best taken by grace and Shakti.
It is so easy to get stuck in I AM and think you have reached the goal…

In I AM ness you are a witness to everything exterior including all levels of the mind and ego, except I-ness. But the final wipe out of ignorance has not taken place, there is still an I that believes it IS and it claims to be the Self, but it is not.
In basic Self-realization, this sense goes away also and there is just serene void.
Self-realization is prior to soul.
Soul-realization is realizing one's I AM-ness…

Last year I asked Adya about being stuck in the witness. He said he couldn’t tell me how to do it, but I had to learn to witness from the heart and not the mind. I had no idea even what “witnessing from the heart” might mean. A heart does not observe, a heart dives in and unifies. Although, yes, a heart can look upon with love. And, something seemed to soften. The gap began to close, or so I recollect. Still, despite a feeling of emptiness, I still remain with ego.
I also seem to have lost the interest or ability even to practice self inquiry, resting as awareness, seeing into no-self:  all the things I have been doing.  No more doing!  I have flung myself off some cliff.
I want to just drop the thinking and trying, and simply do. 
I want to drop deep and let the energies I've cultivated through my Taoist practice and working with Evie (helping her with her cancer)... I want to just drop into That.  Even, I would say, even something, the sweetness, beyond all Those.

Access to I AM is not access to the Self.
It is access to "a higher self", but not The Self.
You can use I AM as a doorway, but it is easy to get stuck there…
I AM is thick as a brick, so to speak. It is really a kind of voidish, subtle self without form.
Personality can observe. When I AM and personality get mixed, you have ego.
I AM wants to be something, so mind offers its dubious services. This is the birthplace of personality.

Access to “a higher self” that is still not what I’d call The Self seems to be the essence of my Taoist teaching. I have considered this a shortcoming, and yet I have enjoyed and benefited immensely from the practice. In fact, I’d even say, “It has been necessary.”

Access to Self rather than I AM is best achieved by "riding" on a surge of Shakti since Shakti is the Self. This usually requires shaktipat (kundalini-awakening). If you, however, can experience awareness as pure being-energy and let awareness become fully aware of itself, then you can momentarily snap out of I AM-ness and into pure being, or is-ness.

I am wondering if spontaneous qigong and channeling are another means to “riding on a surge of Shakti.” It seems to be the way I am naturally progressing.

Try the shakti-breathing… Here it is:
1.Breathe in to the count of three. Sense energy rising up the spine to the brain.
2.Hold your breath to the count of three. Sense energy radiating from the brain in all directions.
3.Breathe out to the count of three. Sense energy radiating from the brain in all directions. (or from the entire body).
Repeat.
It is important to find a nice and relaxed tempo so you can keep at it uninterrupted for 45 minutes. If bliss comes or shakti fills your body with love, just surrender to it and merge.

This doesn’t seem that far removed from what I was recently telling my friend Mary to try, though it was something I just made up as I saw the truth in it.
Mary can rest in a solid quiet meditation. But its very solidness has becomes a restricted solidity that she’d like to grow/go beyond.
“To go higher you must go deeper,” my Taoist teacher says.
I saw a rock dropped into a glass of water. As the rock settles, notice how the water rises, maybe even overflows. Mary needs to do this.
How?
Breath out, exhale through the eyes.
Feel the breath, the energy and light resting in the belly on the inhalation and then direct that out through the eyes, exhale.
I told her about Annie – consciousness streams out through our eyes. Practice that consciously.

How did I know this? I was channeling and could see and feel it and even facilitate the flow by moving my hand along her torso. My Taoist practice seems to be providing access to a gentle Shaktipat ability.
It’s not the “direct path” of the neo-advaitist, but it seems to be “my path.”

P.S.   In the BatGap interview, near the very end, Jan says:
Kundalini is not a restricted energy within the body-mind, astral system, where ever... it is a condensation of the Self, like a contraction. And as such, it contains the essence of your ignornace.

These words hit me like the beauty of a poem. I understand yet for a moment cannot explain. There were only tears.  True Self becomes our ignorance, even as it moves to set us free.  My God, the beauty!

Oh, Now Here We Go

I’m having a bit of trouble explaining what’s unfolding as Mary, Evie and I meet to meditate twice a week. The shorthand I use in my head is to simply say something shamanic is unfolding. It seems to involve channeling for me.

One concern I had with this is that it felt like a very dualistic activity… and here I’ve been trying to cultivate nondual awareness. Oh well, so go the best laid plans.

Here is a quick post just to share my own surprise. It’s Janet Sussman being interviewed on Buddha at the Gas Pump. Back when it was first posted I wasn’t so enamored by it all. Janet seemed rather full of herself and they got off on talking about higher beings and other planets… CLICK. I turned it off.

But this morning, I decided to revisit. Taoism has a lot of shamanic practice and yet speaks of awakened and enlightened masters. So, I find I’m become a little more opened minded regarding paths. And it occurred to me maybe that what’s Janet’s describing.

Two things I want to share:
First, at about the 1hr 45 min mark there’s a nice discussion about the opening of the heart and vulnerability. Mind opens to true Self and then the heart can open… or sometimes the reverse can happen.

Second, at about 1 hr 55 min, Janet says she is a musician, plays piano, and would like to sing. She then proceeded, to my great surprise, to take a bow and cut loose with the exact behavior that has started flowing through me as Evie, Mary, and I meditate. She calls it singing. I call it shamanism. Look closely at her facial features. This looks like channeling to me. But, if non-dual awareness does it, what is there to channel? It’s just another part of the flow of Life.

And as Janet says, it heals.

What the Holy Books Never Tell You

… people are not so interested in seeing themselves as they really are…they would rather pine for what they think they should be.
Takuin Minamoto

There seem to be new issues arising each day making each day a somewhat uncomfortable time and leaving last week’s or yesterday’s experience old news.
Meanwhile, I’ve not posted anything. I cringe to do so, but I’ll leave a note, as this is what I wrote last week and it still is getting played out in a variety of ways:

I feel like I am being dragged towards an awful conclusion.
As I keep listening to interviews on Buddha at the Gas Pump, there’s a panic rising in me.
There’s a growing suspicion that what I’m calling “stuck in the witness” is what Maharishi called Cosmic Consciousness, or what others call “awake.”

Now, Adya has said he’s never met anyone who wasn’t totally surprised by what they awaken to. And if you listen to the Buddha interviews, several people say just that. “It’s not what you expect!”
So, perhaps I shouldn’t have been all that surprised this morning when as I listened to Andy Shulman describing his awakening I was hit by the thought, “Shit, this is it?!”

I broke into tears of utter disappointment.
I really thought I’d be a better person.
Despite experiencing what “awakened” individuals describe, I have continued to discount the possibility that I am awake because it is so obvious, “I am still so messed up.”

But something about how Andy spoke made it obvious and I just broke into sobs.
Disappointment broke my heart for about a half minute until I had a second thought, “Oh, this is the wrong response!”
As if to highlight the issue - I can’t even respond to the good news in the correct manner.
Sobbing immediately became belly laughter.

I would love to have a map of the spiritual territory; one that draws the line between the counties of Ignorance and Awakened straight and true and definite.
I’d love to have a pushpin I could slowly, deliberately stick in “Here” – right there one step over the line sweet Jesus.
Yeah, well.
There isn’t such a map, so get on with life.

A few hours later I went online to read what Sarojini might have to say. She has several articles posted and I chose at random.
Imagine my surprise as I discovered these words:

Today I would like to take the time to address some things that you may never have heard about which happens upon or after Awakening / Enlightenment / Liberation. These happenings are usually never mentioned in the holy books, or if they are, they are totally ignored…


1.) Awakening or Enlightenment is the last great disappointment of ego. In that non-instant there is the bewildered declaration of: "Are you kidding me!?" followed by utter perplexity that eventually yields to the deepest laughter ever encountered. Most of the "Awake" (or subsequent books about Awakening) discuss the laughter. However, the laughter doesn't come first; at first you will be baffled and will, more than likely, feel slightly let down for a few short moments. …


2.) No one will notice a thing. Your closest friends and family will, more than likely, not see much of a change. You will not glow. Angels will not surround your home. Buddha will not come knocking at your door to welcome you into "the club". You may actually become more annoying to those closest to you…. your loved ones …could care less about your latest discovery (which, to them, is likely to be just another "aha" among a long journey of "aha's" that you've shared with them umpteen times before)…


3.) You will feel emotion like you have never felt before. There is now a quiet, steady center that is constantly present; however, when an emotion comes along, its energetic depth will surprise you. You will realize that without any barriers in place …that these energies are free to go from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds. And they will… Do not be surprised and, by all means, do not attempt to block this from happening…

These points kind of blew me away, they fit so perfectly.
And now, I just want to stop thinking about the details: just drop it, drop it, drop it. STOP.
But, I am out here in the world and it’s uncomfortable.

Tuesday, in my meditation group I was trying to explain how totally empty my life feels. I have no goals, no interests. It’s a bit amazing that I don’t see this as depression. Rather, I’m just empty. My friends just kind of stared and appeared a bit worried. Eve reached out and touched my hand.
I worry that I’m wasting precious life and time, but I can’t think of anything to do…
even as I shoot off emails to family about micro-hydropower plans, pond construction and yurts, and panning for gold in North Georgia.
I’m happy about new family projects, but this occurs in emptiness that is inescapable.

Which brings me to about an hour ago, when I found the perfect summary… of what?
What I now believe to be a good description of the terrain. Bring in the pushpin! Finally a place to set it.
I want to share these words because they fit so well.
I want to share this link because I want people to know about this part of the path – and I cannot bear to say any more about myself.

This is a blog entry from Gina Lake (a new face to me) wife of the teacher, Nirmala, and a student of Adyashanti. It’s entitled: What Happens After Awakening.
It is concise and right to the point.
Maybe now, I can simply stop and just allow the thoughts to drop.

Stuck in the Witness

Red Cube
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao

Bit by bit, if we are sincere, we begin to see each time we fixate. Somewhere, somehow, at some point in time, something in us realizes that our awakening is not complete.

...At first it [witnessing] was wonderful and amazing and transformative and profound. But over time, I started to have this intuition, this little voice that said, “This isn’t the whole thing. This isn’t oneness; this isn’t unity.” The witness was perceived as being totally free of the human being that I imagined myself to be. But the illusion that the witness was different from what was being witnessed remained. For me, as for many people, the next phase of the journey of awakening was the collapse of the witnessing position.

It starts to collapse when we see that if witnessing is different from the witness, then there is an inherent division. Letting yourself see this division is the beginning of the collapse of the external witness.

With that collapse, you can start to see the elements of ego that are using the witnessing position as a way to hide, to not be touched by life, to not feel certain feelings, to not encounter our lives directly and intimately in a gritty, human way.
Adyashanti, The End of Your World

At the retreat last month I asked Adya about being stuck in witnessing.
I have no idea how to implement his “answer” and in fact he said, “I can’t tell you how to do this.”
I have to discover the next step for myself.
So, I am reviewing just a bit some teachings on witnessing.

The more we realize that who we are is totally outside of time, outside of the world, and outside of everything that happens, the more we realize that this same presence is the world----all that is happening and all that exists. It is like two sides of a coin. This experiential awakening is not rare, and no one teaches it to you.**

It seems a part of this process is to simply stop.
No more thoughts, the analysis. No more me-ing. Stop.
And, there is a strong pull to do just that.
But there is also a reactive struggle to pull myself out of that stillness:
To think, just a bit more. To dance and thus avoid the Void, just a moment longer.
So, I read on…

When we are no longer functioning through our conditioning, the sense of “me” is no longer there. What really runs and operates this life is love. ... one will find that “I” am the silence between two thoughts. You are nobody. You are this openness, this presence. You are not a creation of thought, belief or faith. It is free of all identity. It is the uncreated.

And right there it seems is where the getting stuck occurs.
I perceive the openness and presence and yet do not identify it as “me.”
I have been assuming that some thought will arise that recognizes the Vastness as “me.”
But, that may not be true.
Maybe that belief needs to be dropped.
But meanwhile, old habits die hard and I have to ask:

Where am I? What can I identify as “me”?

It seems I do not know. Awareness comes through my eyes. It seems to flow from an unboundedness inside and it looks out through the eyes to see another unboundedness: The World.

I feel like merely a point. Sometimes, I am the toggle point between the two infinites. Sometimes, I occupy an area no bigger than a thumb print rattling around in the vastness. I’ve become no thicker, no more substantial, than the thin inky outline a thumb print leaves upon a blank white page. But, I remain substantial enough to be uncomfortable in the expansiveness. Substantial enough to want to reach out and touch someone, or something, just to kind of steady myself and my individuality for a moment.
And, I am substantial enough to desire to be done with all this. Enough!

Trying to hold on to one’s identities, even if it is the holiest of identities, is like shoving a camel through the eye of a needle. However... Not a shred of self-centred identity can go through, only nothingness can.

A friend told me that this is about unconditional love. Yes!
Adya said I had to learn how to witness from the heart.
I replied my heart would break.
“Yes.”
The separation of the witness is intolerable to the heart.

Well, enough said for now.
I’d like to offer another link to Buddha at the Gas Pump and an interview with Takuin Minamoto regarding his spontaneous awakening. His description of a Vastness that has somehow scattered the components of memory and self-identity into such a great space as to render them no longer relevant feels very familiar to me. It is exactly this blowing to the winds that my little mind(?) or ego(?) is attempting to avoid by its refusal to stop. I can feel the larger amount of energy such a “holding things together” requires.
But, what a disaster for an ego – to be simply blown away! So, for now it holds on
… even as the heart is breaking to go Home.


** While I originally thought these and the remaining quotes below were Adya’s words, I think these are actually the words of an essay by Dr Tan Kheng Khoo describing Adya’s teachings. But they are so close, it is hard for me to tell.

Redemption Song

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time…
Won't you help to sing
This songs of freedom-
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs
Bob Marley

From this morning’s drive time we have the song of the day. I hope you are going slowly enough to enjoy it.



I’d also like to pass along this link to Buddha at the Gas Pump, a wonderful compendium of interviews about ordinary people waking up. I have been enjoying these stories and finding in them an aid for dropping the beliefs I hold regarding what is and isn’t possible, about what is true and not true.