#5078 -
Tuesday/Wednesday, November 5-6, 2013 - Editor:
Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/
----------------------------------------------
Our most recent Nonduality Network Talk Radio show
may be heard at
http://nonduality.net/6nov2013.mp3
Featured is a clip from a talk by Adyashanti: "We
are in our essence unborn." Meditation as a death,
and opening the eyes to experience as "a display
of the unseen." Realizing our purpose.
Also a live interview with Adyashakti (Mark
Canter), author of the newly published Awakening
to the Obvious. "In short, nothing about me as a
personality could be called extraordinary. Yet
this does not detract from the matter at hand: I
do understand my original nature, as described in
Buddhist and other mystical teachings of the past
twenty-five centuries. I have seen beyond the
limits of conventional identity, into the open
nature (free capacity) of consciousness itself.
This book offers no special doctrine the reader
can adhere to. 'The Great Way has no back,' said
the Chinese sage Lao Tzu. 'Thus, it cannot be
followed.' However, the essays herein may help you
to reconcile with the inherent mystery of life as
it is, and thus be one with (no longer at odds
with) the Great Way.
http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Obvious-Adyakshakti-ebook/dp/B00GAFA9KU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383821897&sr=8-1&keywords=awakening+to+the+obvious
--------------------------------------------------
Here is an excerpt from the beginning of...
My Awakening to the Obvious
by Adyaskakti (Mark Canter)
When I was nineteen, I was blessed with a
wonderful mystical vision: I experienced the light
of God. That is, I experienced what Tibetan
Buddhists call Osel (or Гўв¬ЕPrimordial Clear
LightГўв¬Вќ), and Hindu yogis describe as
Sahasradala Padma (Гўв¬ЕThousand-Petal Lotus of
LightГўв¬Вќ). Chinese Taoists call it Ming
(Гўв¬ЕTranscendent LuminosityГўв¬Вќ). Sioux
Indians name it Wakan Tonka (Гўв¬ЕGreat
SpiritГўв¬Вќ). Muslims refer to it as Noor
(Гўв¬ЕDivine ResplendenceГўв¬Вќ). It is also
Kavod (Гўв¬ЕEternal FlameГўв¬Вќ) that shines at
the altar of Judaism; the same radiance of which
Jesus said, Гўв¬ЕIf your eye is single, your
whole body will be filled with light.Гўв¬Вќ
The word light is not used here as a figure of
speech (symbolizing a brighter, sunnier, higher
aspect of ourselves and the cosmos). All these
names and images refer to actual light:
self-luminous, all-pervading energy. It is the
living forceГўв¬вЂќradiant
consciousness Гўв¬вЂќablaze with bliss.
Communion with this holy light, absorption in it
is unspeakably pleasurable. Yet in my case, the
event of drowning in the ocean of brightness left
a great disturbance in its wake that took decades
to resolve.
Let me tell you my story.
In 1972 I was a sophomore at Boston University, a
teen-age son of 20th-century America, who listened
to Led Zeppelin cranked up loud enough to vibrate
my teeth. I was not exactly preparing body and
mind for a direct encounter with the divine. My
Jewish religious training had consisted of
attending Sabbath services and Sunday school as a
boy, which felt like sitting for several hours a
week in front of an unplugged radio. Until the age
of about nine, I had believed in and prayed to the
Judeo-Christian Deity, but by the time I was ten
or so, I began to aggressively disbelieve in an
anthropomorphic Father-God. Natural science and
science fiction became far more inspiring,
meaningful and beautiful to me than conventional
religious dogma. At age eleven, I had quit
attending the synagogue.
Even so, there was a mystical streak in me that I
had noticed from my earliest memories. It showed
itself as a keenly felt sense of the mystery of
the natural world and human life. This feeling of
wonder or awe would sometimes rise in me as a
bodily thrill until I had to laugh or shout.
As a college freshman I took a world religions
course because I intuited something fundamental to
the religious urge in people, something prior to
arguing over the different notions of God,
something primitive, below the abstract verbal
mind that has created all the historical schisms
of exoteric beliefs. I wanted to find this most
basic truth at the root of all faiths. I longed to
be like a loverГўв¬вЂќa naked beginner in the
embrace of Living Nature. I personally wanted to
know Гўв¬ЕItГўв¬ВќГўв¬вЂќthe real
GodГўв¬вЂќfor I somehow understood
Гўв¬ЕItГўв¬Вќ to be the depth and ground of my
own heart. Thus, I sought contact with my deepest
heart, from which I was seemingly in exile.
The next year, as a sophomore, I took an excellent
class on Eastern philosophy. We read the Heart
Sutra of Buddha and essays on Zen by D.T. Suzuki;
Psychotherapy East and West, by Alan Watts and
Modern Man in Search of a Soul, by Carl Jung; the
principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita of the
Hindus; the Tao Teh Ching of Lao Tzu; the Yoga
Sutras of Patanjali. I began to have grand
insights into my own condition, though I
understood only a fraction of what I read.
Then some classmates invited me to their apartment
for a dinner discussion of the profound teachings
we were studying. Steve had been a Theravada
Buddhist monk in Thailand for two years,
meditating seventeen hours a day; John was an avid
student of yoga and Vedanta; and Sean had deserted
the French Army and walked through India for three
years, meeting holy persons. In contrast, I had
neither meditated, nor done yoga, nor spent time
in the company of anyone who was especially wise
and free.
After dinner, riding the crest of the moment,
everyone but Sean took LSD together. It was my
sixth psychedelic trip. We took turns reading
aloud from the Old TestamentГўв¬вўs Genesis and
from Be Here Now, a primer on Hindu mysticism.
After a while, Steve read to us from The
Psychedelic Experience, a Гўв¬Еtrip
manualГўв¬Вќ by Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner,
based on the Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
(also called Tibetan Book of the Dead).
Early on in the six-hour LSD high, I began to feel
the same deep awe that IГўв¬вўd enjoyed as a
boy, only stronger now than ever. The emotion
seemed to expand and fill body, mind and room as a
tangible presence: a sphere of invincible energy
and happiness. I was sitting on a ratty carpet on
the living room floor of a cheap apartment in
Cambridge, immersed in a force field of great joy.
I looked at Steve with drunken love and said,
Гўв¬ЕThe Holy Spirit is upon us.Гўв¬Вќ
But I began to notice an apparent limit to the
spirit, like a knot or cramp within the otherwise
boundless force and presence. It gradually became
obvious that the knot was
Гўв¬ЕmeГўв¬ВќГўв¬вЂќor everything I held onto
as Гўв¬ЕmyselfГўв¬Вќ. I saw that the whole
melodrama of Гўв¬ЕmeГўв¬Вќ (as a separated or
independent and limited identity) was based on
this unconscious habit of withholding
(contracting, recoiling from whole and infinite
being). Гўв¬ЕMeГўв¬Вќ was only a construct, not
ultimately real (not a real entity or identity),
but merely an act (like a fictional stage
character) within Free and Total Being. And
mistakenly (ridiculously!), the sense of identity
had been bound to this mere role, this temporary
personality, this psycho-physical ego (as if Life
and Consciousness were an isolated self that is
born to change and die). Such phony (separate)
identity was the cause of all fearГўв¬вЂќthe
refusal to love and shine completely; the
resistance to change and death, and thus, to all
of life and relationship.
Within Consciousness, the dream of
Гўв¬ЕmeГўв¬Вќ was suddenly released. In that
instant, came the deep heart of understanding: The
totality of conscious being is the real and living
Гўв¬ЕPersonГўв¬Вќ, the all-inclusive Identity
of everyone and everything. As the sages have put
it, Гўв¬ЕThere is only God.Гўв¬Вќ
I fell onto my back in tears with the overwhelming
relief of this realization of transcendental
(unlimited) life. I surrendered utterly to my
felt-intuition of the Great One. Rapidly, a
marvelous change occurred. Layers of subtler
self-holding fell away and I melted into the heart
of God. I did not just watch this
self-transcendence occur, as if from the
bleachers. Ego-Гўв¬ЕIГўв¬Вќ dissolved in the
all-effacing light of
Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
To the extent the experience can be described, it
was something like this: In the first few seconds
of self-surrender, a glorious golden light filled
mind and body and all of space. Mind (or
attention) was captured by the light and drawn
inward and upward toward an infinite locus above.
Outer awareness disappeared as attention, body and
world were resolved into the unity of the
light-sourceГўв¬вЂќlike an iris blossom refolding
and returning to its bud. Just at the brink of
ego-death there was an instant of fear, but I knew
there was no turning back, no stopping this
expansion beyond all limit. And I knew that
whatever this sacrifice led to, it simply was
Reality.
Therefore, I silently prayed, Гўв¬ЕHave mercy on
me,Гўв¬Вќ and in the next instant the light
became so supremely attractive it absorbed the
fear along with everything else into its dazzling
singularity. As the last bit of self-hold
evaporated, the golden light increased to
Гўв¬Еwhite,Гўв¬Вќ or rather, it became
perfectly clear, pure, unqualified, original.
There was no more expansion, no more ascent;
indeed there was no more Гўв¬ЕupГўв¬Вќ or
Гўв¬Еdown,Гўв¬Вќ Гўв¬ЕinГўв¬Вќ or
Гўв¬Еout,Гўв¬Вќ but all of existence was
radically equal and wholeГўв¬вЂќthe same
absolutely bright fullness (or emptiness).
I was conscious as limitless radiant being,
identical with the Self or Source of the universe.
I donГўв¬вўt know how long I remained consumed
in that domain of ecstasy, but it was utterly
familiar, not new or shocking. It was Home,
eternally. That Which IS (or the One I AM).
Of course, I came down. With a splat!
Crashed, as they say; and back again from the
ego-centered point of view of a white,
middle-class American kid who had grasped only a
fraction of what he had read from the Oriental
mystics, the experience of the light was not only
incomprehensible, it was terrifying. By the
following afternoon, I felt so upset, I was pale
and shaky. After all, what was so attractive about
the dissolution of ego, the death of
Гўв¬ЕmeГўв¬Вќ? I had developed a painful case
of psychic indigestion.
At first I tried to resist the revelation of the
light, the divine intrusion on my independent,
private life. I wanted to say, Гўв¬ЕGo away,
IГўв¬вўm not ready for this. I just want to be
me. I want to stay me.Гўв¬Вќ
Lost and scared, I compulsively tried to secure
the threatened ego, reinforce its boundaries and
make it solid, immune to change. It didnГўв¬вўt
work. There is no way to go on as an isolated self
once youГўв¬вўve tumbled into the heart of
infinite life, even if only for a timeless
instant. (As the Muslim poet Kabir said, Гўв¬ЕI
saw that for thirty seconds, and it has made me a
devotee all my life.Гўв¬Вќ)
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, READ THE DIRECTIONS.
I did.
I began to study the teachings of the Eastern and
Western mystics in earnest. (It is noteworthy that
all of them warn not to delve into mystical
experience without proper preparation and a guide
who knows the territory.)
It took time, more than a decade, but gradually my
anxiety and confusion waned and was replaced by a
growing understanding. Along the way I discovered
scores of historical sources in which ego-loss in
the radiant, transcendental being is described.
Classical yoga provides a Sanskrit term for the
experience: nirvikalpa samadhi. 1Many teachers
quickened my awakening; not the least among them
my wife and our two sons.
This does not mean I fitted the revelation of the
divine to my everyday lifeГўв¬вЂќlike pocketing a
shiny new coin and then continuing on my private
way. No. The divine is senior to self and world
and will not be owned. Therefore, I did the
reverse: I submitted my life to the divine; I
became a devotee of God. Not the Almighty Absent
Parent who never speaks through the dead radio,
but the same wonderful, living Source and starry
Process that a naturalist can love with awe.
Also, I began to meditate. I practiced a simple
technique of focusing on the in and out of my
breath while sitting quietly. After fifteen years
of this simple practice, I experienced a
Гўв¬ЕreturnГўв¬Вќ to the light. While deeply in
tune with the breath, my attention spontaneously
became focused in the mid-brain, between and
behind the eyes. Thus my Гўв¬ЕeyeГўв¬Вќ became
Гўв¬Еsingle.Гўв¬Вќ My whole body was filled
with light, as Jesus promised. I sat in a swoon
and received the golden light into all my parts.
At the time, I wrote an essay proclaiming:
Гўв¬ЕHoly light is not a metaphor. Dazzlingly
alive is the eternal spirit.Гўв¬Вќ
But I was still afraid.
I was afraid of madnessГўв¬вЂќthe utter sacrifice
of self and all limit. No knowing. No controlling.
No Гўв¬Еme.Гўв¬Вќ I was afraid of drowning in
infinity.
Six years later, in February 1993, a turning point
arrived. I stood on my balcony in a contemplative
mood, feeling into life, and I recalled a line a
friend had told me years before about
Гўв¬Еmeeting God halfway.Гўв¬Вќ That notion now
seemed absurd, as I saw that God Is Here, already
all the way present. Nothing is hidden or
withheld. I said aloud a motto that summed this
up: Гўв¬ЕThe gift is always given.Гўв¬Вќ It was
a beautiful, religious sense of being lived and
loved and breathed by God.
Suddenly, a tremendous Force pressed down from
above my head, through my brain and nervous
system, with such mighty light and bliss that I
fell to my knees and was pinned, overwhelmed
bodily by the tangible brightness, as one might be
overwhelmed by a terribly powerful orgasm. I
gasped and sobbed from the potency of the joy. The
God-pleasureГўв¬вЂќthe saturating fullness and
Touch of the lightГўв¬вЂќbecame so intense I felt
my bones might crack.
When I stood up, I had changed physically.
And my meditations changed. For several years,
IГўв¬вўd been aware of powerful,
Гўв¬ЕelectricalГўв¬Вќ surges in my nervous
system during meditation. I had focused on the
breath and ignored these stirrings of the
kundalini. But now my meditation sessions became
sheer energy work-outs. Even so simple a practice
as following the breath now felt like contrived
self-effort. My method of meditation had been
rendered obsolete. Instead, I would sit and the
kundalini would flame through my head and eyes and
spine and toss me around like a mad dancer. I
laughed and cried. I growled. I shouted. I made
spontaneous chant-like intonations. I saw
archetypal visions.
It was painful and blissfulГўв¬вЂќindescribable.
I was suffering, but unable to budge a finger;
afraid, but unable to make a single response. I
was being meditated.
I became constantly aware of the tension around my
heart, the tension of Гўв¬ЕmeГўв¬ВќГўв¬вЂќof
holding on to myself. The presence of spirit had
become a great current and my misery was my
resistance to it. But I was reluctant to sacrifice
Гўв¬Еmy lifeГўв¬Вќ completely.
Eight months later, in October 1993, I had grown
so exhausted with the effort of preventing my own
death, that I lay down on my bed and said, Okay, I
give up. Take me insanity, or take me God, or take
me whatever you are, mighty river. Sweep me to my
destiny.
Abruptly, I began to lose Гўв¬Еface.Гўв¬Вќ
Panic came on strong. I cramped up in a ball like
a fetus. I became an electric buzzing cloud and
then everything dissolved and I entered the light
and bliss and freedom of ego-death; beyond the
golden light into the clear light of void. No
self. No thing. No bounds. The rapture only lasted
a few seconds, but it was enough to see that all
was okay. I had allowed death to occur, and it was
not annihilation. It was only the loss of an
imaginary limitГўв¬вЂќa phony identity.
The next day, I spontaneously entered nirvikalpa
samadhi again, while soaking in the bathtub. The
episode lasted several minutes and was completely
free of fear from the beginning. The bright
pleasure simply increased until the separate
Гўв¬ЕIГўв¬Вќ-sense was overwhelmed in light.
From October on, each time I sat to meditate, I
entered the shining void (at times remaining in
samadhi for an hour or more). It is like entering
deep sleep while remaining wide awake. It is
luminous clarity: dreamless awakenessГўв¬вЂќpure
consciousness without content other than its own
uncreated bliss.
After a couple months of this, I dreamed one dawn
in January 1994 that I was on a stage before an
audience. A coffin was displayed on a stand and I
was lying in it, facedown and naked. An emcee was
on stage, and it was clear that I was to perform a
Houdini-like escape act: I was supposed to free
myself and emerge from the coffin.
I began to chuckle. What was the big deal? I was
already free. The coffin lid was open, and I had
no chains or shackles on me in the first place. I
simply stood up.
Next, I was holding beautiful blue pearls in my
hand, and the emcee told me to string them
together as fast as I could. I started slipping
the blue pearls onto a string, as a timer with
TV-game show music ticked in the background. The
emcee shouted, Гўв¬ЕHurry, get as many beads on
the string as you can!Гўв¬Вќ For a few seconds I
rapidly strung pearls, but then I stopped and
looked across at the emcee. Why do I need to do
this? I thought. This is your game, not mine. I
gazed at the audience and all eyes were upon me. I
smiled at the people as I stepped off the stage
and began handing out the blue pearls, one to each
person.
Then I woke up. It was a sunny winter morning in
Tallahassee, Florida. I went downstairs and sat to
meditate . . . and . . .
There was nowhere to go.
I strolled outdoors into the woods around my home.
I saw no dilemma at all, within or without. No
thing to seek. No experience to shed. No limit. I
was not a something that could travel to
someplace. I could not go deeper or higher through
any means.
I burst out laughing from down in my belly. THIS
IS IT. What a punch line! I thought the moment of
satori would never end. But by the afternoon, when
I went to pick up my sons from elementary school,
I realized that satori, too, is only a state. It
comes and goes. Nothing lasts.
And guess what? I donГўв¬вўt care in the least.
I am not dismayed when ego appears, or when it
disappears. I am no longer at war with ego or
void. They are twin aspects of consciousness
itself. I donГўв¬вўt take sides at all.
Reality is not samadhi, the extinguishing of all
forms. Reality is not even satori, the natural
mode of egolessness. Reality is no special state
at all; no special condition. Reality is the IS of
all possible states, their origin and unqualified
basis, perfectly open and unbounded; pure
capacity. Fundamentally, nothing has changed or
ever will, and what IГўв¬вўve come to understand
was already only so: Just this.
From a certain perspective it can seem a big deal:
IГўв¬вўve grokked my own essence, and it is
reality (or Buddha-nature). Or, as the Persian
poet, Omar Khayam, put it: Гўв¬ЕI am myself,
Heaven and Hell.Гўв¬Вќ
But on the other hand, Buddha-nature and a buck
will buy me a buckГўв¬вўs worth of groceries. No
big deal. No special status. Nothing special at
all.
These days, I sometimes meditate for pleasure and
refreshment, like drinking a delicious tea. And I
occasionally enter spontaneous mystic states
during meditation. Even so, not any of it is
necessary; and none of it is greater than simple
happiness. Samadhi or no samadhi, satori or no
satori, ego or no egoГўв¬вЂќthere is no limit,
already. No dilemma.
Nothing is more than wonderful. This moment is
wonderful. Nothing is more than whole. This moment
is complete. THIS is as God as it gets.
Truth (or joy) is not exclusive, not hidden, not
vague or abstract, not elsewhere, not different
than the stream of life. Birth and change and
death are aspects of a single process, the only
event: the activity of (or within) Reality.
Nothing exists but Bright Mystery, which forever
flows as all the possibilities of life in all the
worlds. As Lao Tzu put it: Гўв¬ЕThe Way that can
be deviated from is not the Great Way.Гўв¬Вќ
It is not that I am now at every moment floating
along in a mood of blissful clarity, or that my
neuroses have utterly evaporated. Гўв¬ЕAfter
enlightenment,Гўв¬Вќ I still at times feel
frustrated, angry, and so forth. I also feel
saddened by the intense sufferings of our human
world family. But I do not resist any of it.
Whether pleasure or pain is arising, I understand
the empty and inherently free nature of the stream
of endless changes, and I see there is no escape,
nowhere else to go. I can only be whole (without
alternative), abiding as the Heart.
It took twenty-two years of spiritual searching
from the moment I first encountered the
Гўв¬Еclear light mindГўв¬Вќ to finally accept
the wholeness that I am, the same totality that is
true of everyone.
Friend, hear what I say: The Divine you seek is
your own identity, before all ego-dilemma.
Therefore, be already at ease. Relax into your own
life-process. Trust in happiness, luminous and
clear. Reality is Wholly Spirit, the Light that,
while transcending every personality, also shines
as all our life stories. In the midst of
experience we are fundamentally free, beyond words
and beyond worlds.
~ ~ ~
Order Awakening to the Obvious at
http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Obvious-Adyakshakti-ebook/dp/B00GAFA9KU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383821897&sr=8-1&keywords=awakening+to+the+obvious
