Written on November 28, 2009 by Tom Stine
A reader sent me the following:
The moment one has to get involved with another person for any reason (or for that matter getting involved with any functional activity for which the mind needs to get involved), the mind moves away to fully involve in the next expected activity with that other person or activity. All that calmness and peace of stillness is suddenly pushed to the background. One can’t avoid interacting with people or doing some activity as they are mostly unavoidable to a large extent. Not to react with the person would mean ignoring and activating a pain body. Even giving attention to humans or a functional activity is taking away the stillness (and the awareness?) that was there when we did only the observation.
How do I manage both the events (being aware and interacting) without compromising the stillness/awareness and the mundane activity?
This question is a good one. And even better, the answer is not obvious at all to the mind:
There is no stillness that gets pushed aside when you interact with someone. Stillness always is present right here and right now, no matter what the body or mind is doing. You are resting in stillness, surrounded by stillness, always and forever in the midst of stillness. Even the interacting, the “someone else”, the doing, the talking, your very nature, everything, everything, everything, IS the stillness. This stillness goes nowhere, does nothing. It IS.
You don’t and cannot manage the events in your life. It isn’t a question of being aware, of actively keeping your mind on “something” that we call awareness. You are awareness. Your mind and thoughts and beliefs all exist within this awareness that you are.
Awareness is something you can know readily. Right now, you are reading these words. We say you are aware of the words. Before you think about them, before anything happens with the words, you are simply aware that they exist. As you think about them, now you are aware of the thinking about them. Without awareness, there is nothing.
So, dive into the awareness. Many words can be used as synonyms for awareness: presence, stillness, God, spirit, Brahman, “the kingdom of God” and on and on. But they all point at this “something” that is prior to everything, the very fundamental ground of all of existence. And YOU ARE THAT ground of existence.
You can never compromise the stillness, never compromise the awareness. You need give no thought to maintaining awareness, holding awareness, being aware, etc. Think about it: right now, can you stop being aware? If you aren’t aware, you are have no notion of existing or not. Without awareness, you don’t exist.
The simplest thing to do is, at times when it occurs to you, put your attention on your awareness. Simply notice it. Focus on it, get curious about it, even ask questions about it. Does awareness have a name? Does it have a color? Does it do anything? Where does it go when you aren’t paying attention to it? Focusing on awareness and asking questions about it a few times during your day is one of the best things you can do.
Namaste.
Written on November 23, 2009 by Tom Stine
Intelligent practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that.
Written on November 21, 2009 by Tom Stine
The secret to happiness:
Make peace with your mind.
Make peace with the person you think you are.
Make peace with the world.
Make peace with life.
Make peace with everything.
Everything.
You, consciousness, make peace.
The mind can’t make peace with itself.
Make peace with all that you are.
The only cause of suffering is your argument with what is.
credit:
joxur223
Written on November 19, 2009 by Tom Stine
One of my long time readers sent me some questions about my article To Be Half-Awake (and Half-Asleep). Here are his questions and my answers:
1. You wrote: “It is almost the same experience as awakening from a dream at night. Almost.”
What are the differences you observe?
Good question. Well, the big difference is that when you awaken from a dream at night, the dream world disappears and is replaced by the seemingly real world. As you awaken from the dream state as it is called, as you spiritually awaken, you find that you are still in the dream! But what a dream it is! It is still populated by the same people, the same things going on, but for some reason, it all seems good, even when it isn’t. Very unlike a nighttime dream.
2. Your wrote: “…no tendency to re-enter the dream state of separateness.”
How and why did this One consciousness enter into the dream state in the first place?
For at least 5000 years (our entire written history), mankind has been intrigued by this question. Many have tried to answer it. Gurus for centuries have given answers. And they all contradict each other in some form or fashion. They contradict each other for one simple reason: there is no answer to this question.
Let me be 100% clear: there is no answer to this question. Every answer given, no matter how high and angelic the giver of the answer has been, is in the realm of fantasy. And the reason is simple: the question, being asked from within the world of form, is being asked about something outside the world of form. You can’t know with the mind that which is beyond the mind.
Okay, that said, here’s a couple of things to consider: First, did this One consciousness even enter into the dream state? If the dream state is unreal, and the One is real, then how could something unreal even be created? Good question, huh? No answer to that one, either.
Second, my personal favorite description of the why question is that it is a game. Consciousness having fun. Of course, this description is not the truth, but it is a fun idea. I have a half-written article on the subject that I’ll finish and post some day.
3. I remember Jed McKenna says something like this in his books: I and Universe are the One… I don’t know what will happen in the next moment…
Since he = the One, why doesn’t he know what will happen in the next moment?
Because it’s a fun game to play! The One created a Universe governed by probabilities, ie, quantum mechanics and all that fun stuff. Everything in the Universe has a probability associated with it, every path, every seeming choice, everything. There is even a probability that my body will wink out of existence and appear in China. It’s all probability. So, there is no way to know what will happen next.
Again, none of the above paragraph is the “true” answer, because there is no “true” answer. However, it is what we observe about the world of form.
That said, there is also no need to know. If fear and death are eliminated from one’s psyche, then one doesn’t have a care in the world for the future. The next moment is the next moment. As a matter of fact, there is no next moment, just this moment experiencing change. Since Jed is experiencing this change with no investment in how it all turns out, why care? Why bother to know even if he could? He absolutely doesn’t care at all.
I have to tell you, it is very, very nice when concern for the future starts to drop away. Even though I can still get hooked into future thinking at times, quite often I’m just here, right now, and experiencing no thought for what comes next, no care or concern. And surprisingly, what comes next seems to be pretty nice most of the time.
I hope the above helps. Namaste.
Written on November 14, 2009 by Tom Stine
“I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.” — Groucho Marx
As I mentioned in a previous post, To Be Half-Awake (and Half-Asleep), my experience of spiritual awakening has been to be in a state that I am referring to as Half-Awake. Moreover, as I discussed, there are others who are experiencing this strange state, including some of you reading these articles (and I heard from quite a few of you after the last one). It is a far more common state than we might imagine, while at the same time, not the experience of the majority of humanity.
Moreover, it has been my experience that the majority of spiritual teachers and even “enlightened gurus” are fellow members of the Half-Awake Club. Unfortunately, many of these gurus and teachers have either flat out told their followers that they are fully awake, enlightened, or have simply left a profound state of ambiguity around the matter such that their followers have made bold claims as to the “enlightenment” of their guru.
Lest you get the wrong idea, there is nothing wrong with being a member of the Half-Awake Club. For the majority who awaken, being half-awake is just part of the process. It is simply part of the path. No big deal, no shame, no problem. Condemning people for being half-awake would be like condemning teenagers for being “half-adults.” Ridiculous to say the least.
The very nature of awakening is such that no one can be blamed or criticized for where they are on the journey. As a matter of fact, you have no control over awakening, over going back asleep, over fully awakening, etc. It is a gift, the supreme act of grace from the divine. I am very clear that I did nothing to experience an awakening (or any subsequent awakenings). They just happened. Really, I kid you not. I’ll address this point more in future writings. But as Ken Wilbur likes to say: awakening is an accident; all we can do is make ourselves more accident prone.
On the one-hand, I have to say that I don’t really care what other teachers are up to. It’s their karma, not mine. But on the whole, the mass of spiritual seekers have acquired some wrong-headed ideas about enlightenment and awakening, and I think we need look no further than the field of half-awake spiritual teachers for a lot of misinformation. Their own self-deception has led to some crazy ideas about reality and awakening to it.
To be honest, we have to admit it is a sad state of affairs out there in the spiritual world. There are websites like Sarlo’s Guru Ratings where you can read reviews of your favorite guru. There are other sites like Jody’s Guruphiliac whose mission is to reveal the “self-aggrandizement and superstition in self-realization.” Would we need or even have these sites if the spiritual world had its act together? I think not. (Warning: if you follow these links, prepare to read some harsh critiques of some of the best known gurus and spiritual teachers in the world. These sites are not for the faint of heart. Your favorite guru may get slammed.)
A little dose of self-honesty would go a long way in the spiritual world. And believe me, the gurus discussed on both these sites aren’t just obvious frauds and hucksters. There are some truly spiritual dudes out there who simply are unwilling to look in the mirror, be honest with themselves and with their followers.
There is even an interesting book, Halfway Up the Mountain, that seeks to address this very issue of Half-Awake spiritual teachers. The irony of the book is two-fold:
1. Most of the experts interviewed are in the Half-Awake Club.
2. They more or less condemn the state of being half-awake.
Again, to repeat in clear terms: there is nothing wrong with being half-awake. One can be a very effective teacher, helper, counselor, etc, from this state. A Course in Miracles makes this point quite well:
Do not despair, then, because of limitations. It is your function to escape from them, but not to be without them. If you would be heard by those who suffer, you must speak their language. If you would be a savior, you must understand what needs to be escaped.
There really is too much to say about this subject for one article. I will get into this topic much more deeply in later articles as it gets to the very heart of spiritual awakening, what it is, how it flows, how it manifests in one’s life, how one’s life can change or not as a result of awakening, etc. And I’m also certain there will be the inevitable question: how do I know who is fully awake and who is not? I’ll just leave you in suspense on that one, with just this one comment: I don’t know for certain, but there are often telltale signs that one can look for, and even better, sense. A true light shines clearly for all to see.
Look for more in the coming weeks and months. Namaste.
Written on November 10, 2009 by Tom Stine
I am half-awake. Or half-asleep. Or even better, I am awake and asleep at the same time. It is a strange place to be, and I’m sure there are others who know what I mean. And I’m also sure there are spiritual teachers and writers who would say that such a state does not exist. But still, it is my experience.
What does it mean to be half-awake? The best way to explain it would be first to start with what being awake means. Being spiritually awake means the same thing as enlightened. I prefer the phrase “spiritual awakening” over enlightenment simply because it has less baggage associated with it. There is too much talk in the spiritual world about “enlightenment” and “enlightened gurus” for my tastes. And, as a bonus, awake is a nice description of what it feels like to awaken(although, to be fair, enlightenment really is quite accurate, too). It is almost the same experience as awakening from a dream at night. Almost.
Spiritual awakening, in its fullest sense, is the complete removal of delusion from consciousness. The Truth of your being, your reality as absolute consciousness, as the One consciousness that exists everywhere and is everything, is your natural state. For some inexplicable reason, the majority of humanity finds itself in what we could call a dream state, a state of consciousness characterized by a pervasive sense of individuality, a sense of “me” as a separate self, not connected to others, existing apart and alone from all other living beings and non-living things. Spiritual awakening is the reversal of this dream of separateness, a full, complete total reversal. Once one is truly awake, or as Jed McKenna would call “done,” there is no longer any doubt as to what you are and no tendency to re-enter the dream state of separateness. Even more, there is no “one” who is even awake, for the sense of individuality is gone. Consciousness has returned to a clarity, a clearness that is no longer deluded or confused.
Many people, although not that many when compared against the backdrop of 6.5 billion human beings, have experienced something rather profound, a spiritual awakening. They have experienced a realization of the truth of their being. They find themselves, for a moment, a minute, an hour, day, week or even year, as no longer this supposed separate self. They know at the depth of their core, all the way to the bottom, that the “me” they thought they were was merely a phantom, a psychological sense of self, no more real than any other thought, a figment of their imagination. And for that moment or hour or day, they are awake, utterly awake, as if they were never asleep in the dream state of delusion.
For most that have this experience, however, it doesn’t last. While much of the old psychological self, which many refer to as the ego, may have been blown out of the system by the experience of awakening, much may still remain. This psychological sense of self, the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc, that give it a sense of reality, has a certain weightiness, a certain momentum or inertia, that will continue to function after the experience has passed. And it may take many years for the inertia of this false self to wind down and eventually cease, like a pendulum that, once swinging, will swing and swing and swing until it finally comes to rest in perfect stillness. Cessation (the actual meaning of the term “nirvana”) is the eventual fate of the egoic self, but it almost always takes many years for that fate to come into full bloom.
This is the state I find myself in. Something happened to me that can only be described as miraculous, a gift from the divine. At some point, I will have to share that experience with you, because I think it might prove helpful to others. But as happens to the vast majority of people who experience a true spiritual awakening, the egoic self resurrected itself and came back in. I, too, experienced a pretty incredible “blowing out” of a lot of psychological baggage, but the material that was left came back with a vengeance! For over a year and a half, while there have been many amazing changes in my experience, there have been some old, buried items that have been raging in me at times, things I thought were over and done with 10 or 20 years ago.
There have been swings from fear to courage, from bliss to suffering. The dominant psychological pattern for most of my life, anxiety, has ebbed and flowed. While I became permanently free of panic attacks prior to this awakening, other forms of anxiety still plague me, and at the oddest times and places. All in all, I have to say it is simultaneously amazing and bizarre.
One of the hallmarks of the awakening process is the increasing inability to deny anything. You simply become incapable of hiding from any psychological issues that you repressed, denied or buried deep in your subconscious. You can no longer lie to yourself, and when you try, well, have you ever thrown a boomerang? The few times I’ve thrown one I’ve always ended up jumping out of the way of a rapidly spinning piece of wood itching to whack me upside the head. A whack upside the head is exactly what happens every time I attempt to lie to myself these days. What worked wonders 5 years ago is pointless, futile and outright foolish these days.
So, while I know the truth of what I am, while I can feel it, experience it, often see it in others, know it beyond question, I still am not fully aware of it yet. The description of enlightenment as “abiding non-dual awakening” is not my experience. Some days it is as if my awareness is on a roller coaster, going up then down, over then under and around. Moments of utter clarity then moments of delusion. And as I have come to realize, it is a perfect way to be, just as perfect as any other way of existence, lacking nothing. Like I said, it is strange.
Maybe a few of you are members of what I’m going to call the “Half-Awake (Half-Asleep) Club.” Most probably are not, and that is okay. It is a club that some of you will join soon, some will join at some point in this lifetime, and all of you are destined to join during some non-existent future life. Even a few of you may have “graduated” beyond the club. I’ll write more about the other members of this club in a few days, as there are quite a few of us. A sneak preview: most of the “enlightened gurus” and “spiritual teachers” floating around the world are fellow members. There is much to discuss about the strange existence I’m calling Half-Awake, and I’ll be saying more about it. Until then, I would suggest you read (or re-read) the article on Adyashanti’s View of Awakening…. Namaste.
