Over the last couple of days, I have been reading and discovering some things about the continuance of my journey. The journey is subtle. What I think is not "what is". What I think I know about the last three years of my journey is part of the journey, but the journey changes, morphs, moves in other directions. I have a tendency to get trapped in some method or another, but what is Real has no method. It is what it is and only what it is. There is no substitute. I must be willing to let go of all methods. I must be willing to let go of all teachings. There is only one teaching that serves me, and that is the teaching that comes from deep within me to help awaken me. Nothing else matters, and everything else is a trip in the wrong direction.
I began realizing these last couple of days how I view myself as apart. In every way, through every thought, through every movement of the mind, through every word uttered in language, there is an "I" and a "Thou"... this is duality. This is not whole. It is very difficult to track the workings of thought. There are certain times when one can "see" under thought, go to the core, see the inner workings of it. One such moment happened with me. It was in this moment that I could see myself as the "seeker" and the goal of unity as being two. How can I see myself as One, when at the very root of my thought I see myself and the goal as two. How can I be with "another" truly, as long as I envision them as "another"?
The answer to this dilemma is to simply abide. Abide where? There is a deeper part to all of us that is not engaged with the world. Call it the soul, the atman, the "one without a second", the Kingdom of Heaven, or whatever you will. There is a place that is absolutely still. It is not separate from me; it is the true me. It is the watcher, the witnesser, the still small voice, the knower, the observer... there are many names but only one It. It is the base feeling or knowing of "I Am", and in it is all of creation. To find this place and abide there only is the answer along this stretch of path for me. From there, the world is viewed passively, as though it is a movie playing out for one's benefit.
Osho has a sort of divisional structure of the human being. The physical, psychological, and spiritual nature of man. For each "division" I have found that a certain set of tools is needed. For the physical, yoga tunes the body and the brain, the grosser structures into more refined structures. It simply ensures the well-functioning of these parts. It alone will not enlighten. The body becomes very sensitive to its environment. One tends, after some practice (maybe a few months) to shy away from that which harms it automatically. The breath and breathing apparatus improve. The body becomes balanced and healthy. For the psychological, I find that A Course in Miracles has been phenomenal in keeping my psychological structure in shape. By reading and practicing the lessons, I find that the psychological structure is lightened, attack of others is dropped, forgiveness flows outward, gratitude attends one, and love is realized in every aspect of one's life. In many ways it prepared me for this next step. Why? Because it shows one how to be loving, to be gentle... ultimately, the lessons come home, and one learns how to be compassionate with oneself. The final structure is only found through investigation of one's own being. The spiritual is beyond all words, thought processes, practices, and telling or sharing of ideas.
The third component is abiding. It is finding the root of oneself. It is not what makes one tick... it is more what makes one alive at all. It is sentience itself, consciousness itself. The only thing one can do is quiet the mind, go still, go silent. It is only found in deep silence. It is found by simply looking... not trying to do anything, for doing is anathema to its nature. It needs nothing. Nothing can be done. It is the root I-Am-ness of one. It is the in-dwelling Christ or Buddha or Bodhisattva or whatever. It is the Is-ness of one. Find this and simply abide in it, fall back into it, be there. There is really no "in it"... it is more of being it. Difficult to describe. Just as I would be something in the world, the husband, the boss, the worker, the friend, or the lover, I would be this and this only. All the rest are false "I's"... created for purposes of moving around the world, writing this blog, being in action with something somewhere. This is an actionless, desireless space of simply knowing one is.
It is different than asking "Who Am I?" which has served me for many months. I would ask this question constantly of myself, write about it the ramifications of what came up that was not me, and have whatever was bothering me fall away from me. This is a little different than this outside-in approach. This is more of an inside-out approach, although it is not an approach at all. It is assuming my existence without resistance once and for all (by assuming, I mean "take-on" one's own nature... I could even say resuming my existence, for I was never different than It).
It has nothing to do with the intellectual ferocity that I began this journey with, for intellect has run its course with me. Thought always stems from the past, from memory, from the language I was raised in. It is instead a feeling forward of my own nature, a reaching out for my true beingness, a relaxing of resistance to my own Self. Thought becomes a detriment at some point along the spiritual path. Thought has only a limited psychological boundary in which it can operate. It is psychology itself, and therefore, it can never go beyond its own psychological barriers. A new realm has to be recognized and grown into... that is the language of understanding. Understanding has nothing to do with thought, at least in the way I am using that word. Understanding is the base "getting it" that is an emotional-spiritual-physical mix.
The mind must be trained to drop that which does not further understanding, and instead, the mind must be shown that it cannot solve anything and, eventually, be still. I need do nothing except abide in that from which all understanding comes... indeed, I cannot do anything else to move me one single step further in understanding. Everything else is a lie that I have been telling myself all along. Something else must come in, for thought has run its course.
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