Notes From a Fellow Traveller

Our Virtual Reality

We hear the word virtual quite a bit these days. It refers to an experience that appears to be real, to exist in its own right, but in actuality is not. In common parlance we speak of the virtual memory of a computer, but the computer doesn’t really have a memory. It’s a collection of technologies created by human consciousness that simulates what we know as memory. Close, perhaps almost indistinguishable, but not quite there. Then there is the avatar, the electronic facsimile of a person, or even more so a “world civilization” of avatars in a video game that can seem quite real to the human eye, but it's not. In each case the virtual experience can appear and simulate reality, but it is actually not true.

Virtual reality by another name – relative reality – is a basic view of Buddhism. It is similarly articulated in early Western civilization in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Both speak of a relative and ultimate reality. Relative reality is our day-to-day experience that to the participant or non-analytic observer seems quite real. However, to one that has access to deeper understandings, relative day-to-day reality is merely a mentally fabricated experience. It is real as an appearance but not true as a final irrefutable reality. It is virtual, not essence.

What is the distinction between relative reality, ordinary day-to-day experience, and virtual reality. Virtual reality, in common parlance, is a creation of the mind. Relative reality is also a creation of the mind. Ultimately, both are creations of the mind, of consciousness. Both are composites and have no essence of their own. Both appear real to common experience, but are false to the knower of fundamental truth. To perceive the virtual and relative as final truth is a source of confusion, illusion, and suffering. The entire process of awakening or enlightenment is to know truth rather than its impersonation, virtual or relative reality.

Our day-to-day world is a construction of our mind – memory, past experiences, learned and socially shared perceptions, and a plenitude of forms mentally generated in the visual and auditory cortex and projected onto the outer world. It is largely programmed and pre-determined. I know this is difficult to grasp, for you and for me. It is okay to experience our day-to-day world as real, live in it, and function in it. It is also essential that we know it to be a projection of the mind created by consciousness.

We can play with this internal/external drama, but only if we know it’s merely a play-like illusion. If we fail to understand this distinction, we suffer the related illusion of impermanence, attachment, unbridled desire, disconnection, psychological suffering, and the inability to know, experience, or live in the ground of our being, the center of our being, our true home and self.

The final reality, the ultimate reality is the simple, unconditioned consciousness from which arises and falls all impermanent mental activity and sensory experiences, that are the basis of our relative, virtual, day-to-day experience of people, places, and things. Awareness and consciousness are the foundational essence of our being and our experiences.

Words can only take us so far in understanding this. The final and irrevocable understanding comes from experiencing it directly in meditation practice or the glimpses that are given to us in the gaps between thoughts that are a gift of grace. You know these gaps as the experience of awe, delight, or astonishment, the “lostness” in music, art, nature, intimacy, service, dance, and so on. For a fleeting moment, what you lose is your small self, your relative reality, and gain the blessing of wholeness, flow, simple and pure awareness, ease, and delight. You experience and know the truth of reality and lose the impersonation of relative reality. You experience the final source and truth of all that we experience in life.

Why is knowing this ultimate truth so important? To know this truth is to avoid being caught up in the dramas and suffering of an unbridled investment and belief in the virtual/relative reality of the personal self. Unlike this temporary personal self, we find that the true self is permanent, serene beyond understanding, happy without a reason, selflessly loving and compassionate, and free of the oppression of the known. We can still play in the virtual/relative world of our day-to-day experience. It is also part of our consciousness. But we are not lost in it, attached to it, or suffer from its dramas.

We know it is a computer programmer that programs virtual computer technology. That programmer knows he has created a virtual world. Virtual reality is manufactured and pre-determined by consciousness. Similarly, day-to-day reality is manufactured and pre-determined by consciousness. As noted, it’s difficult to grasp that we largely live in a programmed computer-like experience. But it is so. Unlike a computer program which cannot transcend itself, cannot experience more than its parts, human consciousness can. In modern parlance, “Do you wish the red pill or the blue pill?” The choice is yours.

That understanding causes the wise one to ask, “What is the source of the fundamental consciousness that is the basis of all experience?” “What is the source of the unconditioned unprogrammed awareness, beingness, isness. That we cannot speak of here. Words cannot offer a knowledge of the fundamental source. That can only be known through direct experience. Yet, it is available to everyone because it is in everyone. And, the probabilities of a direct experience of the nature of existence increases with a clear mind and good heart.

But the best of us can be touched by this experience as well as the worst of us, the youngest and the oldest, the able and the body/mind challenged. The blessing of our sacred and wholistic nature is always there and the most we can do as an intentional act is to know the deepest truth we can, trust life, and let go of who we are not. If you are blessed, the source will reveal itself in its own time. If you are double blessed it will sustain itself and become your life.

But do not seek or expect to touch the divine. Simply live the most awakened selfless life that you can, surrender the illusions of the virtual/ relative self, drop into the vast expanse of beingness, and know the difference between what appears real and what is true.

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Homecoming

To create a world of inner and outer sanity, a world free of the limitations and consequences of the mentally fabricated personal self, we must return home to our true self. In the words of the poet Derek Walcott:

“The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror. And each will smile at the other's welcome, and say sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself.”

And we may add, is yourself. Although obscured by the ramblings and diversions of our ordinary mind, our natural essence is ever present. When the clouds of mental activity cease there it is, revealed as it has always been. We return home to who and what we have always been, a homecoming! Our vision of the possible human.

Why is it so difficult to see through to the core truth of our life, to the essence of who we are and have always been? Stated simply: We have forgotten who we are and deeply believe in who we are not. What happens when we follow a false and limiting vision of self? What happens when we lose touch with the center of our being?

We search endlessly for what we have forgotten, mistakenly looking outward towards materialism, ambition, success, relationships, drugs, entertainment, and even relaxation-based meditation practices for our natural self that has long been obscured and forgotten. We look and look and look to outer experiences invariably suffering disappointment, frustration, and loss.

However, if we look closely and listen carefully, we recognize a subtle persistent ache that breaks through, an insistent longing, a sense that we have missed life, a sense that there is more. A poignant and critical reminder from our depths. 

The Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung said it well when speaking of the root source of alcoholism, as an example of this misdirected outer search – “(The) craving for alcohol (is) an equivalent on a low level of the spiritual search of our being for wholeness expressed in medieval language: the union with God. … The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is that it happens to you in reality and can only happen when you walk on a path that leads you to higher understanding.” And that walk is a spiritual walk, an inner walk. That walk is the second and traditional vision of contemplative practice.

What happens when we wake-up to the essence of our being? We progressively discover that we are not the self-cherishing, disconnected personal self that we believe we are. We are then free and primed to begin our journey home by growing and developing our psychological self into its healthiest version – loving, kind, generous, virtuous, wise, patient, and non-judgmental. Yet our growing does not stop there. As we upgrade our personal self, we discover the subtle remnants of self-centeredness and disconnection cannot be completely overcome only through self-improvement strategies.

Simultaneously, we begin to touch deeper and beyond, revealing and recognizing our true and foundational self. Progressively, we shift the center of being from our psychological self to our natural self, to our spiritual self. And, our life takes an irreversible turn.

As we awaken to our natural state of being, many of the futile and exhausting efforts of daily life begin to drop away. We increasingly live from our essential self. It makes no difference what our actual calling or work is. If we live from the center of our being, our work will be healing work, our relationships marked by otherness, our presence will be love. The ancient Greeks called this the good the true and the beautiful. They knew the preciousness and possibilities of human life.

Our vision, we find, is not new. It is the shared vision of humanity expressed in different ways in varying cultures. Christian faith there is a double movement - the movement towards the divine state of being, the true self, and the subsequent return to green the world through agape, through selfless service. In the Hindu tradition Aurobindo referred to these movements as the ascent and descent. Campbell in his Hero’s Journey referred to this universal movements as the apotheosis and return. The ancient Greeks called it the hierosgamos, the sacred marriage. Here we call it a homecoming – the modern term for the second aim of meditation.

The words of the poet, T.S. Eliot, speak to that homecoming:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

And that is our vision

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Awakening

Awakening

We all know the feeling of awakening from an evening dream. We suddenly realize, often to our relief, that the dream – its images, thoughts, and feelings – which seemed undeniably real in the dream state is clearly seen as false in our wakeful state. The dream, we discover, was merely a fiction created by our creative imagination, an illusion, not a fact.

However, when we transition into the waking state, unknown to us at the time, we seamlessly pass from one dream state, the sleep state, to another dream state the wakeful dream state. It is the rare individual that actually experiences ordinary wakefulness as just another expression of our creative imagination, a day dream.

In the day dream we dream a personal “I.” We dream an independent, autonomous person identified by our name that relates, functions, and navigates its own dream world. The dream of a personal “I” is a habit cultivated and solidified over a lifetime. It seems quite real, like the night dream, but it isn’t.

Much like the night dream the personal “I” is insubstantial, a mental creation. If you look for the personal self it cannot be found anywhere except as a mental experience. It has no shape, form, weight, location, color or other tangible characteristics. As soon as you try to pin it down, it disappears. There is no part of mind or body that can be identified as the personal self, as an independent self-existing entity.

The content of the day dream – personal desires, identities, actions, ambitions, the world of people, places and things – appear real and true, just as the night dream appears true. When one is entangled in the day dream one cannot see beyond it any more than the dreamer can see beyond the night dream. For each, the dream is true, the dream is reality. To see beyond that false, but very convincing appearance, one must first wake-up.

Our physiology awakens us from the night dream, allowing us to see its imaginary nature each morning. We are similarly given moments of awakening in daily life that offer a glimpse of what lies beyond the day-dream. These glimpses occur in what we can call “gaps” in our wakeful consciousness. We have to be a bit mindful to catch them. Here are some of the experiences that offer glimpses: immersion in nature, the rapture of dance or music, the experience of intimacy, selfless service, art, and beauty. And, there are many more.

What is common to all of these experiences is the momentary dissolution of our personal identity, the core of the day dream. For a moment, we forget our personal identity and the day-dream dissolves, revealing the truth of who we are and have always been. What remains when the day-dream de-constructs is a simple momentary awareness and experience – no commentary, no conceptualization, no judgments, no identity, no memory – just what is as is.

For a moment you are the dancer and the dance, the musician and the music, the beholder and the beauty, the lover and the loving, awareness aware of itself, oneness. There is no further separation. No disconnection. Do you recall a moment when you experienced the simplicity of your wholeness, connectedness, natural harmony and flow? For that brief moment you transcended and escaped the confines of the day dream and experienced the vastness of being. And that’s who you are!

That glimpse is a Self-recognition, a reminder of the essence of who we are. But it is transient, what is called a state rather than a stage of development. A state is a brief transient experience of a larger experience of consciousness. A stage of development is the irreversible and stable experience of that level of consciousness.

Our habituated dream of the personal self pulls us back from the taste of our true self, the state experience, and that glimpse will mistakenly be remembered as a mere sweet reverie, a pleasurable interlude from the anxieties, worries, and stories dreamt by the personal self. We will have had the experience of our true essence, but missed the meaning.

We can stabilize these glimpses, these awakenings, through formal meditation sessions augmented by mini-practices during the day. We’ve previously discussed the elements of formal daily practice, which contain the elements of a condensed mini-practice. You can tailor these practices into a simple method of awakening, Self-recognition, during daily activities. Here it is:

1. Stop in the midst of your daily activities.
2. Take a deep in-breath, empty your mind on the out-breath followed by a breath hold. Dwell in the stillness of the extended hold. Repeat 3-5 times. Return to a normal breath.
3. Drop into a simple natural state of presence and awareness.
4. If mental activity occurs, Observe It. Do not engage with it. Continue self-recognition for 3-5 minutes.
5. Return to your activities.

I would suggest trying this multiple times a day. Each time notice how you are gaining distance from the cacophony of the day dream, how you awaken into a larger and more serene self. Then you can return to the day dream, knowing it is a day dream and making it the healthiest and best day dream possible, while being anchored to a deeper and more expansive reality. You are not the day dream. You know you are in it, but you are not of it.

Practicing self-recognition during your formal meditation and daily activities stabilizes the awakened state. It becomes easier to drop-in, and your natural self progressively replaces your personal ego self as the foundation upon which the day-dream and its drama play out. The transient state experience becomes a stable stage of development.

That shifts our “energies.” Dreams, night or day, require considerable energy. They are exhausting. They rob us of a rejuvenating evening rest and the delight of a fully energetic day. The exhaustion of ceaseless mental activity shows up as fatigue, irritability, anxiety, overwhelm, and more. We all know that experience, that exhaustion. The peaceful and still mind that is our true nature does not exhaust energy. It allows it to be used in fruitful and joyful ways that advance vitality and life. And that is far more of a delight than the exhaustion of dream states masquerading as reality.

The final awakening includes the psychological, physiological, and spiritual. It is a complete integrated healing of mind, body, and spirit. Psychology is healed as its basis, past experience, dissolves in present moment awareness. Our physiology adheres to the ancient dictum – health mind, healthy body. Physical harmony follows mental harmony. And spirit is revealed as it has always been – the center of our being and the elixir of a whole healing.

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Nothing to Wait For

There are some experiences that naturally evolve over time. The meeting with our true self and the awakening to a larger life is not one of those experiences. It is here, right now, already, and always. It requires no preparation, no preliminaries, no putting off until another day.

Of course, it’s our learned habit to put things off for another day. It is no different with awakening to our inner self. We put that off as well, wrongly thinking it is developmental or a result of progressive self-improvement. That is not a belief that’s easy to change. It’s a tenacious belief that obscures our deeper life.

Awakening is not like progressively cultivating a seed into a plant and fruit over time. What we are seeking is there at the beginning – complete, finished, whole.

Consider a moment when you had a glimpse of awakening – an immersion in nature, the oneness of intimacy, the astonishment and wonder of beauty and art, the absorption in dance or music. Suddenly and spontaneously you experienced an easeful and expansive sense of self. Did this require any preparation? Did you previously plan this glimpse of awakening, or schedule it sometime in the future? I don’t think so.

These special circumstances stop our personal and cognitive self in its tracks. They open a gap in which the complex psychology, identities, tomorrows, fears, and anxieties dissolve. The mind stills, the past is gone, the heart opens, spaciousness and freedom arise, our consciousness shifts, and we awaken to a natural and fundamental self that has no name and no identity. We touch the awakened joy of who we truly are. We experience it. We live it. Right here, right now. Unfortunately, those moments in which we catch a glimpse are circumstance-dependent and thus transient. And most often we are unaware that what we label as a happy and pleasurable experience was actually a profound taste of the awakened state of our inner self.

A metaphor can help us here. What happens when you try to look though an aquarium that is filled with silt. To the extent that you can see through the silty water to the other side what you see will be clouded, unclear, obscured. We say the water is dirty, unclear. When the silt settles, we can see clearly through the water. We say the water is now clear. But was the water ever unclear? Did the water change at all? At all times the water was clear. Its clarity was simply obscured by the silt.

In much the same way our natural self and its life-enhancing qualities – the peace that surpasses understanding, happiness without a reason, natural wisdom, selfless love and compassion, and freedom from the known – are already and always present and fully complete. They await the obscuring veils of our personal self – its recurring history, habit patterns, fixed perspectives, and endless rumination – to dissipate like silt in water. That’s what takes time.

What we are waiting for is not the unfolding or evolution of our awakened self. What we are waiting for is the obscuring veils of our personal self to drop away. Who we truly are and have always been is then revealed. It is not created in time. It is not arranged by the ego. It is the grace that is always present when we let go of who we are not. It is then that we naturally experience who we truly are. The true, the good, and the beautiful.  

During one of my stays in India, I recall a student rising to ask a question of a very wise elder teacher. “Why,” he asked “can I not see my essence?” The teacher simply replied, “Just stop, be still, look, and you will see that it is there right now.”

Right now. Not tomorrow or the next day. It’s there right now. Drop the search. Drop the one who is searching. Just be.

Silence descended in the room, as the seeker and the seeking in each of us softened and then dissolved. In the stillness of that simple, unprepared moment, our natural essence revealed itself. In this instance it required the presence and pointing of the teacher, but what we experienced was our own essence, and we can learn to reveal that on our own.

Although there is nothing to wait for in terms of the spontaneous appearance of the awakened experience, we too often have to wait for the “silt” to settle so we can experience with clarity and stability what is actually there. There are two ways to accomplish this – the quick way and the gradual way. The quick way is to simply take a few deep breaths, stop what you are doing, observe how the veil of incessant mind talk obscures your deeper experience, and let go and disempower all that is not you – thoughts, feelings, imagery, sensations, memory, past history, and your multiple identities. Again, again, and again. Pay them no attention. Let them dissolve on their own. Your true self will self-reveal itself each time you lose your small self.

However, our small fictional self is a strong habit we have developed and practiced for a lifetime. For some it will not go easily. That leaves us with the effort of learning how to let go of who we are not, to remove, or at least soften, the trance of personhood, to disinvest in our fabricated individualism, the belief in a personal self. That might take time, but that is different than waiting for the awakened self, which is always present.

You have to want to know your true nature and its treasures with all of your being – body, mind, and spirit. You may have to touch and dwell for awhile in the frustration, needless angst, and endless cycle of human suffering until you are motivated to permanently let go of the influence and centrality of your small fabricated self. Some say that suffering is necessary to break through its hold on us. And perhaps that is true. If we can look directly at distress and suffering and allow it to crush the illusion of the personal self, the vulnerable and tender heart may suddenly open. If that is you, use your suffering to end suffering. Use your suffering and distress to reveal your true self.

The most important take away from these words is where we started. There is no time to waste. There is nothing to wait for. Don’t squander your life. Don’t believe the falsehood that awakening to a larger life is an evolutionary developmental process. It is here right now. Can’t you see it?

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Awareness

Awareness

Awareness can neither be perceived by the senses nor known by thought. It is not a “thing” in the usual sense. It has no identifiable location, shape, form, texture, color, or weight. However, it is the ever-present basis of all we experience. Awareness is our fundamental nature, already and always. It is our true self. We must know and dwell in it to live our full humanity.

It can only be known by direct experience. All that another can do is point you towards that experience. If you follow that pointing you will certainly, when the moment is ripe, know it for yourself. Experiencing your natural, unaltered, and simple awareness is experiencing precisely who you are and have always been. This awareness has no purpose, intention, expectation, or attachment. It just is.

It’s actually quite simple to experience. We are born into a pure and simple awareness. A young child naturally experiences one thing after another without interpretation and commentary, without separation into “I” and It.” The Buddhists illustrate this with the metaphor of a complex tapestry. A young child enjoys the diverse sensory experiences, leaping with delight from one visual impression to another.

However, that is no longer how it is for us. We have lost the natural unfiltered awareness of a child. Instead, we superimpose memories, stories, and meanings onto the perceived images. We are constantly interpreting and commenting on the tapestry. Rather than experiencing the tapestry as it is we alter it, experiencing instead as a conceptual abstraction. And these mental elaborations rapidly take over from our brief but natural experience, affording little if any time to experience what’s actually there.

There is neither good nor bad here, but merely the observation that direct unfiltered awareness is our natural state. The problem is not that we acquire the capacity to add meaning and context but rather that we forget and lose the capacity to experience directly what is as is. We get meaning, context and perhaps functionality by superimposing existing patterns of perception, but lose the creativity, freshness, and possibilities of a beginner’s mind.

How does this happen? Early in childhood we lose touch with unfiltered awareness. It fades from view as we develop the sense of a personal identity. We are given a name and then fill that container with life experiences, which in time are formed into fixed patterns of perception – templates through which we see the world. Our world becomes narrower, familiar, fixed, and increasingly abstract. Simple awareness goes underground, as we develop a conditioned, selective, and preferential awareness.

A tree is no longer a simple sensory experience. It is a certain kind of tree with specific characteristics, uses, and preferences. Another person is no longer an unknown to experience and discover, but rather quickly categorized – liked or disliked. Nothing remains quite as it is. We create a fictitious world, no longer experiencing life as is, but rather what we have made of it with our conditioned mind. Our adult life is thus circumscribed and limited by the past. Seven billion people on our planet and seven billion worlds.

I would like to stop here and offer the words of T.S. Eliot:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

In the same poem he offers us a more specific instruction:

In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.

What are we told? First, that what the seeker seeks is what we have always been from the very beginning, before the process of individuation and separation. Our journey, the end of our seeking, is a homecoming. To accomplish this return requires awareness of the process of individuation, its assets, and liabilities. We begin from the fragmented disconnection of our personal self, which still holds a subtle remembrance and longing for our natural essence, our wholeness. We become humble pilgrims walking the path that returns home, to the place from where we started.

The most insidious liability of individuation is our conditioning – the habits of perception and reactivity that unknowingly shape and influence all our experiences. We learn to acknowledge their presence with neutrality and detachment. We then let these ghosts of the past dissipate from lack of further attention or elaboration. The past, we observe is merely a mental pattern laid down long ago whose significance, if any at all, is long gone. So, what is it like to experience a natural and unconditioned awareness that is free of the past?

Consider the following. When you first awaken in the morning notice what enters your visual or auditory field. It is not yet named, valued, or in any way altered from its actual presentation to consciousness. It is simple unconditioned awareness of a sensory object. When absorbed in meditation you can similarly observe mental activity come and go without adding a mental commentary. This is unconditioned awareness of a mental object. It may only last a moment before your usual conditioned awareness takes over. Observe that as well, as it is essential that you come to know the entire process – how unfiltered awareness re-boots as conditioned awareness. 

Why is this glimpse of unfiltered awareness so important? It’s the beginning of a new freedom, or perhaps I should say an old freedom. We now have the choice of experiencing and responding to how things actually are rather than experiencing and reacting to a self and world shaped by our past. We are able to discern and observe our mental process and act free of the influences of the known.

The final step occurs when our attention shifts to awareness itself. We become self-aware rather than object-aware. Unlike the child we know our unconditioned awareness for the first time, as well as our conditioning. We are aware that mental and sensory objects appear in consciousness – we acknowledge all that arises in awareness – but we know them to be only transient appearances on an unchanging ground awareness. Our natural awareness, the ground of our being, does not come and go. It is ever-present now and always.

Challenges and difficult circumstances will continue. But they will be experienced by a stable and unmoving awareness. They will be held in a ground of serenity, peace, wisdom, and gentleness. No fear. No anxiety. No suffering. Just presence and being. Some say this is a passive state that’s incompatible with worldy life. This is not so. That is merely the statement of an ego caught in ordinary life. Those who touch beyond know better.

When action is necessary it spontaneously arises from the clear knowing of unconditioned awareness. That action will not be a reaction to our interpretation of an event, but rather a precise and accurate response to the experience at hand as it is. There is no thought process involved, just a natural knowing and natural responsiveness. We slowly gain trust and confidence in living from this center of our being. And we gain inspiration from knowing that those great ones, as well as ordinary individuals who have lived from heart and soul, are remembered for their lasting noble contributions to mankind

We will also discover that this simple awareness is the great healing elixir. The mental and sensory appearances that once seemed separate from awareness will be recognized as the dynamic expression of awareness – formlessness and form each an expression of consciousness. No longer a separation. No longer fragmentation. Finally, the knowing of wholeness, of oneness, of the sacred union. We return home and know it for the first time.

In the Western tradition the wise Oracle of Delphi expresses it this way:

Once you have touched it

There is no division:

No tearing your heart away

For it knows no separation.

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Glimpses of Beyond

 Glimpses of Beyond

We have all experienced glimpses of a larger consciousness that lies beyond our personal identity and day-to-day life. These glimpses are characterized by a sense of flow, ease, wholeness, peace, delight, and freedom. They are a welcome release from the day-to-day struggles of our usual self and life. We would, of course like, to know what causes these glimpses so that we can re-create them at will.

However, unlike ordinary experience these special moments have no cause. They unexpectedly and spontaneously reveal themselves when our personal self, with all of its habit patterns, reactivity and mind talk drops away, dissolves, disappears. Like the sun, clearly visible when the obscuring clouds move away, our essential self, always present, is seen in its natural luminosity when the obscuration of our personal identity dissipates.

There are however certain circumstances or events that may facilitate the dropping away of our personal identity. These may include an absorption in nature, beauty, dance, music, intimacy, art, meditation, or a religious experience. There is a common element in each of these. For a moment they draw attention away from our personal self and in that absence, when we are fortunate, our true nature spontaneously reveals itself for a glorious moment through the crack in the egg of our ordinary world. We are touched by a fresh known but unknown touch of aliveness and wholeness. Unfortunately, although we have all had that experience, we miss its meaning. What we mistakenly take and label a serendipitous pleasant experience is in actuality a profound window into our essential nature, our authentic self. That is the meaning we have missed. We touch the divine and experience it as mundane pleasure.

But there is more. Not only do we mistake that glimpse as another transient pleasurable experience, but we falsely attribute it to the immediate circumstance. We say its cause was being in nature, absorbed in art, and so on. The activity or circumstances does have a role, but not a causal one. For a moment, it dissolves our tenacious personal self with all its related mental activity. When this obstacle to experiencing our natural self is removed, what is spontaneously revealed is what is already and always within us, our essential self.

Our natural ever present self is neither created nor caused by the transient dissipation of our personal identity. When the veil of our personal identity is lifted, our true self is naturally and spontaneously revealed, as what it is and has always been at the core of our being. Consider an aquarium with silt. We would say the water is dirty. When the silt settles to the bottom, we would say the water is clear. But the water was always clear. It was only obscured by silt. The settling of the silt did not create clear water. It merely revealed what is there all the time.

Why is this distinction essential? First, if we do not recognize these glimpses as windows into who we are and have always been, we miss these special opportunities that unexpectedly reveal to us the nature of our true self. And second, if we take these glimpses as pleasurable moments caused by a particular activity or circumstance, we will seek to re-create that circumstance, and that is the beginning of an addiction. Too often we have the experience and miss the extraordinary meaning. Life goes on in its usual, ordinary, and limited way. We touch the sacred and divine and return empty handed.

All spiritual practices, meditation included, serve to quiet the ordinary mind and diminish the influence of our personal self and its tenacious conditioning. It is sort of like cleaning our room in preparation for a special visitor. Merely resting in the most subtle and still aspect of the personal mind is a healing antidote to the fears, anxieties, reactivity, and urgency of modern life. It enhances the quality of day-to-day life. But it does not take us beyond, to the essence of our self and its treasures.

With practice and understanding we slowly become less entangled in the dramas of daily life which promise much but fail to deliver. One drama leads to another and then another. There is no rest and no satisfaction. However, as we increasingly dwell in stillness these small islands of peace and clarity become larger land masses. We discover our personal self has been an unreliable and untrustworthy partner in the search for peace and happiness. Its influence softens and diminishes, and our interest turns inward towards a more trustworthy essential self.

 As we turn our attention inward, and if we are fortunate, now and then unexpectedly and spontaneously a sacred breeze will embrace us, and its grace will offer the sacred union with the one that we seek in our journey home. It may just be a glimpse, but if we continue to move the clouds, the obscurations of our personal self, we will increasingly live from this glorious and noble center of our being.

And if you are fortunate to glimpse what lies beyond you will know it to be who you truly are. Blessed, you will dwell in your true nature. To the one who is truly devoted to a precious human life these glimpses will become one’s life.

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The Life Story of a Personal Self

The Life Story of the Personal Self

We are so closely identified with our personal self that we rarely give consideration to its origins or to the possibility that it’s only a fraction of our possibilities, a fragment of who we are. But what if we are wrong? What if our personal identity is only a fragment of our possibilities, an over-sized sliver of consciousness that’s mistaken for the totality of our being? Understanding its development, content, and false promises can enable us to awaken from a predictable and automated life to the totality of our being. That precious possibility is hidden from the uninquiring mind.

We are born with an unconditioned consciousness that is aware of the stream of unfiltered sensory and mental experiences – aware of what is as is without labeling or judgments. There is no sense of possessiveness, no time, no memory, no preferences or aversions, and no sense of a personal identity. That primary, simple, direct, and uncontrived awareness is our fundamental nature, then and now it is the ground of our being. I have often quoted the words of William Wordsworth, which bring to mind the heart, purity, simplicity and innocent awareness that characterizes our forgotten original nature.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

However, born into human life we are destined to develop a circumscribed personal self – a personal identity – in order to live human life within society. There are several progressive steps to this unavoidable mental creation. It’s important to understand each one.

The first step can be called the “mere I.” It begins when we are given a name. The mere “I” is the simplest and most stripped-down version of what will over time develop into a complex personal identity. It’s utilitarian in nature. It can carry out the necessary chores of daily life without the limitations and complexities of a fully developed and conditioned personal self. We can recognize it when it appears in daily life. It is quiet, efficient, and peaceful as it goes about its tasks, as compared to the more complex “I” that is joined with stress, anxiety, urgency, and judgment.

Over time, the mere “I” is destined to further evolve as it takes on an increasing sense of individuality, the sense of an independent, autonomous “I.” This is called solidification, objectification, or reification of the “I.” This separate individual self, mentally created, defined, and limited by past history becomes cut off from our natural self. Having lost recognition of this source, this acquired identity falsely masquerades as our true nature.

This shift towards the fallacy of an independent individual self, is the key moment at which our solidified sense of self and our new-born individualism cause a disconnect from others, our natural self, and our planet. Where there was once one, there is now two. Individualism is by definition separateness.

But there is more. The mentally constructed personal self is by nature self-centered. It’s concerned about its own survival, security, and happiness. It’s drawn to experiences and people that provide pleasure, albeit temporary, and pushes away unpleasant experiences. It is at its core self-cherishing. A personal life and world are, established based on this self-centered individuality. There are almost 7 billion people on our planet and that means 7 billion self-centered “worlds” each concerned first about itself.

A seemingly independent personal “I” learns to defend itself against any and all imagined threats. This defensiveness is accompanied by a protectiveness and self-righteousness, which further insulates our contracted self and obscures our deeper dimensions.

So here we are with the burden of an over-sized inflated fictional “I” that runs our life, hides our true nature, and directly results in the emotional afflictions that overtake and disturb the natural harmony of body, mind, and spirit. And that is the life story of our mentally created fictional “I” – from a simple and functional mere “I” to a complex and highly dysfunctional personal “I.” We live a fraction of our whole and that’s how we find ourselves in both personal and social disharmony.

What is the solution to this dilemma? What is the antidote to this destructive belief in an inflated personal self? The primary antidote is awareness. Awareness allows us to stand back and observe our multi-layered personal self rather than be enmeshed in it.

We begin by practicing an awareness-based meditation. We learn to touch into an awareness that is empty of the history, habits, and conditioned perspectives. This awareness is a “transitional” state between identification with the acquired “I” and what lies beyond. Awareness enables us to progressively realize the difference between who we are and who we have become. We discover the simplicity of being right here and now, experiencing what is and what has always been.

In daily life we open up and soften our tight and contracted personal self, letting go of the layers of an inflated personal self and resting in a simpler beingness. Take a break during the day and stop, allow more space, settle in, let go of who you are not, trust the unfolding of life, come from heart, and experience the simplicity of who you are. Try it whenever you can.

In time, we will have had enough of the exhaustion and disappointment of cherishing an imagined self. Piece-by-piece the tight, limiting, and contracted personal self will soften and drop away. At first there will be brief and unexpected meetings with the timeless beauty of life. Slowly, these experiences will coalesce into extended moments of a simple blessed beingness. What was once one, then became two, will again become one. Progressively, we will bring the story and drama of the fictional self to an end. Free of the illusion of the personal self, we discover our original nature and a profound freedom to be.

There came a time

when the risk to remain tight in the bud

was more painful

than the risk it took to blossom.

….. Anais Nin

www.elliottdacher.org

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Calm Mind or Still Mind

Calm Mind or Still Mind

When I visit an Arboretum, I’m overtaken by the harmony and beauty that slows and calms mind, body, and spirit. What might have once been an uninspiring patch of land has been cultivated and maintained with design, skill, and care into an oasis of peace - a respite in the surroundings of an otherwise busy world.

When I roam the uncultivated and unmaintained nature of meadow, stream, mountains, or sea, I experience a very different inner stillness. That experience not merely calms, it evokes something deeper, something still and timeless, a remembered home. Although difficult to recognize at first, there is a subtle but very significant difference between these two experiences - a felt and true distinction between a cultivated calmness and a natural uncultivated stillness. That distinction is well known to experienced meditators. and can be recognized by each of us, when carefully observing our inner experience.

Let’s step back for a moment and review the difference between our two “selves” – our ordinary ego-based self and our underlying natural and authentic self. We will then see that the continuum that connects calmness and restlessness is a characteristic of the former. A pervasive and unchanging stillness is characteristic of the latter.

The “I” we know as our day-to-day self is itself cultivated. It does not exist at birth. As we enter the process of naming and individuation we create and cultivate our seemingly unique and distinct personality, our ordinary self – a collection of experiences, history, memories, patterns of perception and reaction that are mentally “strung” together to appear as a continuous history– our personal self. Over our lifetime we can further “cultivate” this personal self with efforts at self-improvement and psychological development. Using various approaches, we can gain greater insight, enhance day-to-day functioning, improve relationships, increase happiness, diminish reactivity, and establish a greater mental calm. This is a remarkable achievement. But it has a serious downside.

Innate to individualism is a disconnection from others, our essence, and our earthly home. The belief that we are an individual and distinct self is at the heart of this disconnection. The personal self is innately defensive, protective, and self-centered. As we upgrade our personal self these characteristics may become subtler and unseen. But given the right circumstances they can re-assert themselves, disturbing our carefully cultivated personal and upgraded self. We all have had the disillusioning experience of old reaction patterns suddenly re-appearing, just when we were certain we had moved beyond.

So here is the distinction between a cultivated personal sense of “calmness” and a natural uncultivated “stillness.” The former is always on a continuum with restlessness. Visiting the Arboretum, like engaging in a relaxation technique, will move me towards the calm end of the continuum. But as soon as I leave the Arboretum or stop the method, the shift is back towards the restless end of the continuum. I am sure you have noticed the short lived calm after meditation, a yoga session, massage, vacation, or other methods or circumstances that cultivate mental calmness. That’s why there is an ongoing struggle with the overactive mind. You cannot, through mental will or effort, tap into the unchanging and uncultivated stillness that lies beyond ordinary mental calm.

Method induced or mentally created approaches to calmness are not the same as the stillness found in simple uncultivated nature or the simple uncultivated natural self. In each instance an inner silence is present that is natural rather than mentally created. It is inseparable from the natural state. We can say that this stillness is an essential, ever present, and unchanging perfume of what is spontaneously and naturally alive. Consider this image of a simple natural stillness offered by the poet T.S. Eliot: And the children in the apple-tree … A condition of complete simplicity.

Unlike mental calmness that is induced by a method or circumstance, natural stillness is not on a continuum with restlessness. It is pervasive, permanent, and unchanging. When we rest in our natural self, irrespective of outer challenges or mental “noise” these challenges occur in the context of a profound yet simple unmoving stillness, allowing us to navigate life’s difficulties with a stability and stillness that is unaffected by surface experiences. It can be compared to the deep sea which is unmoved by the shifting waves on its surface. Everything is experienced, but the ground upon which it plays out remains stable and still.

Unlike a transient mental calmness, natural stillness is the gateway to authentic creativity, insight, and realization of our true self and reality. Insight and truth are spontaneously known when we pass through the gate of simple natural stillness. In time, that innate knowledge points the way to the stable experience of natural being and the awakened qualities of human flourishing.

What the seeker truly seeks is its own essence – the natural self with its built-in serenity and stillness. We can arrive at this through the practice of meditation that emphasizes dropping into the natural self during formal practice, by intentionally dropping into natural moments of stillness during the day, and by appreciating those unplanned moments when we spontaneously experience effortless flow and natural stillness. In time, you will discover that stillness is at the core of all activity. Merely stop, drop in, and you will know.

With practice and experience you will realize the difference between a circumstance or method-based calmness, and a natural uncultivated stable stillness that is present every moment. With certainty, you will know this natural stillness when you experience it. The bible calls it the peace that surpasses understanding. When you touch it, you will let go of your varied relaxation techniques and cultivated circumstances. Why would you need them? You will progressively and effortlessly live life with a still heart and mind irrespective of the challenges confronting you. And its perfume, the qualities of human flourishing will follow. This authentic and permanent stillness can then become the foundation of your life.

Website: www.elliottdacher.org

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The Illusion of Self-Development

The Illusion of Self Development

If you are fortunate, there will come a time when your attention turns inward. That turn will likely place you on one of two possible paths. The first, the one commonly taken, is the time-based path of self-development and self-improvement. This path is well known to us.

It begins with the assumption that we are our personal self. We engage in workshops, listen to teachers, learn from books and videos, and begin meditation practice, slowly accumulating knowledge and skills over many years. A calmer life, diminished reactivity, improved relationships, helpful insights, and an overall enhancement of individual well-being are the most common results of this effort. This upgrade to the quality of our day-to-day life is a good and worthy achievement.

However, what we cannot see is that this achievement, although remarkable from an ordinary perspective, further obscures the unseen possibilities that lie beyond our personal self – even beyond the most elegant updated version of our personal self. We may feel proud and satisfied with this achievement. Others may praise us as well.

Yet, for all our well intended efforts we have unknowingly ended up with a “booby” prize because our efforts are based on the false assumption that we are our personal self and nothing beyond. Although leading to an improved life, these efforts cannot overcome that false assumption. In actuality they inadvertently strengthen it. Regardless of our good intentions, we enable and sustain, however subtle, the defensiveness, protectiveness, self-cherishing and disconnection that is innate and inseparable from our mistaken investment in the supremacy of individualism. We have gained a somewhat improved self, but have missed the gold.

Cultivating a “healthy” personal life, although a meaningful accomplishment – for self, others, and culture – is the more superficial of the two aims of meditation. It is a preliminary activity, not the main intention. The traditional and ultimate aim of meditation is to transcend the false and tenacious belief in our mentally constructed individual self, upgraded or not, to reveal the further reaches of human potential, of human flourishing, that lies beyond. That noble intent seeks to actualize in our lifetime that subtle and persistent human felt sense that there must be “more to life.” Those, across time and diverse cultures, who have gone beyond the confines of the personal self universally affirm that there is more to life than our ordinary consciousness can know.

That realization, however, cannot be achieved by further effort, striving, discipline, accumulating more and more knowledge, developing advanced meditative skills, seeking the isolation of retreat, or increasing levels of method-dependent mental calm. It cannot be attained through sequential steps of self-development. The ultimate aim of meditation is not to solidify, enhance, improve, or strengthen the illusion of a personal self but rather to deconstruct the mentally fabricated belief that we are our personal self. The profound awakening to universal truth, oneness, compassion, inner wisdom, boundless freedom, and our essential Self can only be experienced beyond the confines of our individual self. It cannot be gained by “doing a better person,” irrespective of the sincere intent or quality of that doing.

For ease of discussion I referred to two possible paths that become available when one turns inward. However, the second path is not actually a path. It is not as if we can GPS it. It is not a movement from one place to another, from a starting point to a specific location, from an intention to a goal. That is not what this second “path” is. Here we begin with the faith and inner knowing, the assumption, that we already are what we seek. We already are truth, freedom, wisdom, and heart, and have always been. That essential self has always been available to us.  It is not developed through effort or achievement. There is nothing further to create, develop, or attain. All that’s required is a turning away from the false learned belief in a personal self and a turning inward towards a simple yet profound effortless presence.

So what is this second “path?” It’s no more or less than revealing what is already there by removing the obstacles that obscure our true and ever-present nature. We simply need to remove these obscurations and create the conditions and circumstances that spontaneously disclose our true self, welcome as the poet says, the stranger who once was ourself.

How do we “do” this? Awakening to the true self (irrespective of the culture, philosophical, shamanistic, meditative or religious traditions) is identical in its essence. The first and essential condition is ego-dissolution, the loss of our exclusive and tenacious belief that we are the personal self, a “self” patched together by the mind from past experience, memory, and the habits of conditioning. Once our belief in the ego self dissolves, we are released from the shackles of this illusion and then the essence of life spontaneously reveals itself by itself. That is the universal awakening experience simple and effortless, requiring only openness, a welcoming attitude, spaciousness, letting go, and letting be.

Fortunately, we have all had the experience of ego dissolution more than once. We just didn’t recognize it at the time. Remember a time – in nature, intimacy, dance, music, art – when for a moment or longer you experienced a state of flow, joy, peace, and wholeness. Everything felt complete and natural. Unknown to you at that time, the momentary life circumstance allowed your personal self to spontaneously and effortlessly dissipate, revealing the experience of the transcendent state. However, it is different to encounter this as a fleeting serendipitous experience, with little understanding of its significance, than to know it as the essence of oneself with intention and stability. So you have had the experience but missed its meaning. You had a glimpse of what lies beyond the ordinary mind and self. You had a glimpse of the experience of ego dissolution and the revelation of your true self. Next time you will understand the meaning.

When guiding an individual along the first path of meditation, we teach methods to calm the mind, to attain greater mindfulness, and offer lectures, and readings. The formula is learning, reflection, and practice. When teaching the second “path, we abandon methods and directly point at the true self, immediately, from the beginning.

We each have an organic knowing of our true self. We know the feeling of spaciousness, flow, openness, and a natural stillness. We know non-effort, an empty mind, a welcoming soul. It may be a rare experience for you, but I assure you that you retain an organic memory of your essence. With the proper pointing every individual can rapidly drop into their natural self and abide in it for periods of time, gaining familiarity, confidence, and whenever grace finds you ready, a second spiritual birth.

At first your well habituated mind will draw you back. Expect that. It has been protecting its throne your entire life. You will hear comments from your ordinary self like: “It can’t be that simple,” “How can I live this in ordinary life,” “I can’t ‘get there’ by myself.” In time we learn to let these self-sabotaging Siren calls pass like clouds in the sky, leaving no trace. We discover that the lesser, the ordinary mind, cannot comprehend or access the larger mind through its logic, commentary, or doing, but the larger self can comprehend and transform the smaller self. We get two for one. By letting go of who we are not and progressively living in who we truly are we attain both aims of meditation – living in the essential self yet having access to an upgraded personal self, a healthier illusion to play with in the world.

When we first start a formal daily meditation practice, we call that formal time a sitting “meditation.” After the session is over our daily life that follows is called “post meditation.” Now I am pointing to a more advanced understanding of meditation. Whenever you are fully present in your essential self, truth, or authentic nature you are right then, in that moment, in “meditation,” whether that is in your formal practice session or during your usual daily activities. Whenever you are lost in your personal self, its projections, dramas, reactions, and doings, you are in “post-meditation” whether during a formal session or during your daily life. What is essential is your presence and beingness in life, not the formality of a scheduled session.

Once we cease effort, struggle, strategies, manipulation, control, methods, and all similar “doings’ of our ordinary self, we are invited to simply and naturally drop into the effortless awareness of our natural self. Actually, dropping in isn’t quite the term. Once we establish the welcoming conditions our natural self, without effort, spontaneously reveals itself. We clean our room, open the window, and with grace the gentle wind of serenity, contentment, and freedom will gift us the experience of our natural and full possibilities.

Then we will know that in actuality the essence and true experience of meditation is merely a simple awareness, openness, presence and human beingness. Meditation is not a method, but life itself fresh, alive, and vital in each moment. Then there will be no distinction between “meditation” and your life. You will have become who you always have been. Simple, no fireworks, no exaltation, just full being. How ordinary. How stunning.

                                                      www.elliottdacher.org

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Stillness

Stillness

When we become free from our habitually overactive mind, a profound natural stillness spontaneously reveals itself. But to permanently free ourself from this day-to-day mind, we must have a full and accurate understanding of how the ordinary mind works, so we no longer fall prey to its habits, reaction patterns, past history, and conditioned mental activity. Freed from the dominance of ceaseless mental activity, our usual sense of self dissolves, clarity arises, and a natural inner stillness appears, a stillness that is the ground of our being and is uninterrupted by the flow of life’s circumstances and challenges. And that natural stillness, as we shall see, is quite different from what we customarily call the calm or quiet mind

You might feel this to be a distant and unimaginable possibility - an unchanging stillness in the midst of everyday challenges? Yet, everyone has experienced a glimpse of this resilient natural stillness – a moment lost in nature, tender intimacy, art, beauty, dance, music, and at other times. Your chattering mind stops and in its place is an experience of stillness, serenity, presence and flow. Recall such a moment for yourself. We usually take this as a mere pleasant moment, failing to recognize its true significance. But if we stop in that moment and experience fully, we will notice the momentary absence of the personal self, which allows the stillness and flow of our true nature to reveal itself. You have each had this experience many times. I urge you not to lose its significance, not to lose its meaning, not to write it off as a mere pleasant reverie, but rather to recognize it is a profound preview of what is possible for an awakened human life.

The stillness I am speaking of is quite different than what we usually call the calm mind. The calm mind is always in relationship to the restlessness of our ordinary mind. A particular circumstance, activity, or method which relaxes and soothes the mind, shifts us momentarily towards the calmer end of the spectrum between calm and restless. However, the potential for restlessness always remains. Remove the circumstance, activity, or method and the restlessness re-appears. We all know what happens as the effect of a massage, a relaxation technique, or a calm day in nature slowly wears off. The active mind re-asserts itself.

The question is how to reveal this natural mental stillness and sustain this delight of freedom, ease, and simplicity in the midst of daily life. The answer is most certainly not more of the same - another technique, addiction to relaxation activities, or withdrawal from life’s movements. Only through the awakening of a truthful and complete understanding of our mind can we disable the underlying source and disturbance of mental restlessness and allow our natural nature to reveal itself. This requires a bit more effort than applying a temporary circumstance or method to the restless mind. But this understanding offers the only promise of a stable, harmonious, and serene body, mind, and spirit irrespective of life’s misfortunes.

For this we must understand the two fundamental wounds of the human experience that result in the restless and distress-prone mind. The first and foundational wound occurs, unknown to us, when our family names us, a seemingly natural and innocuous event. Before we knew our name, we were nameless. We were connected to the whole. There was no “I and Other,” no “I and It.” There is simply the moment-to-moment awareness, presence, and beingness. It is for the young child as the poet Wordsworth describes it:

                          The earth, and every common sight,

                          To me did seem

                          Apparelled in celestial light,

                          The glory and the freshness of a dream.

                           It is not now as it hath been of yore;—

                           Turn wheresoe'er I may,

                           By night or day.

                           The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

Our given name becomes the container for our soon to be developed individuality, a necessary but nevertheless source of future distress. This personal sense of “I” is expanded and filled with the knowledge of approval and disapproval, right and wrong, and shoulds and shouldnt’s, footprints of past history, identities, patterns of perception, and habits of reactivity. Our expansive, unified, and connected world is slowly contracted to a an progressively acquired personal self, one which is invariably disconnected and separated from others, our planet, and most importantly our natural and authentic self. That is our first and primary wound – the mental creation of an individual personal self, accompanied by a firm belief that this personal self is our true self.

Once we have taken on the first human wound, the unquestioned belief in a personal “I,” this sense of self takes on numerous qualities that set-up the second great human wound. Our personal self, by its nature, is protective, defensive, and self-cherishing (“I”- centered.) This is the ground from which emerge a host of afflictive and disturbing emotions such as fear, anxiety, competitiveness, doubt, shame, anger, desire, and so on. These disturbing emotions arise and fall with life’s circumstances but are an invariable consequence of the belief in a personal self and the lost awareness of who and what we truly are. This is not to suggest that we do not live many sweet and pleasurable moments. We do. But the belief in an individual and personal self assures that we cannot avoid the recurrence of afflictive emotions.

Together, these two human wounds are the basis for the restless mind. Don’t be fooled by the moments of calm that arise in response to passing interactions, circumstances, or relaxation techniques. They are not stable and will quickly devolve into restlessness.  A stable stillness is not built into the personal “I.” It is not a capacity of the ordinary mind. We may become quite skilled at inducing mental calm through one approach or another, one circumstance or another, and that is great, but it will never be a stable and pervasive stillness that is immune to outer circumstances.

A stable and pervasive stillness is an unchanging quality of the natural self that comes before and, although hidden by the dominance of our personal “I,” is always present and uncontaminated by past experience and history. To reveal this innermost self requires the decision to turn inward through meditative/contemplative practices, progressively diminish the emphasis on your personal “I,” and establish a lifestyle conducive to inner practice. When the inner life becomes your focus and joy, you will come to know the stable stillness and peace that surpasses understanding. And with that, you will also come to know the other sacred qualities of human flourishing. That is the true aim of meditation. And that is not a meditation. It is life.

                           As the wise teacher says:

                           Not knowing that this state is within one self,

                           How amazing that one searches for it elsewhere!

                           How amazing that so few see it.

So for a moment stop seeking to calm your mind and seek what is beyond. Close your eyes and drop into the expansive field of awareness that is open, spacious, free, and serene. It is right there, right now. You know it by heart. Mental chatter may naturally arise but merely ignore it. Don’t feed it with your attention. Let it come and go on its own. Drop out of your mind, out of your past history, out of your attention to mental movements and rest in your heart. Rest in the serenity, feel the stillness, experience the flow and spaciousness and be fully awake and present. That is who you are. That is a human being. And that stillness is pervasive and permanent.

                                      www.elliottdacher.org

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I Fled Him Down ......

I fled Him down the nights and down the days ….

This first line of a poem written by Francis Thompson has taken residence in my mind ever since it was first spoken to me many years ago. It’s words and cadence steadfastly cease to leave perhaps, I assume, because it touches a deep unrelenting inner truth of which I have to date gained only partial understanding and even less experience.

First, a bit about the author. Thompson had a difficult life marked by poverty, homelessness, ill-health, and opium addiction. He spent his early student years in medical school for which he was ill-suited. However, in time he found writing to be his natural gift and passion. After living on the streets for years, he left a scribbled set of poems on a publisher’s door step, who quickly noted his talent and assisted and mentored him throughout his lifetime. As part of his treatment for Opium addiction he spent years at a pastoral Priory in England where his poetry flourished and his Catholic faith renewed itself. He died in 1907 at the age of 47 years.

I would like to quote a few of the most quoted lines from his most famous poem, The Hound of Heaven.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.    ……………..

When I first heard these words, I was touched in a soft and serene place which I knew, but didn’t know. At that time, I could neither have told you who the hound was nor even less so the heaven whose scent it surely and tenaciously pursued. Yet nevertheless something awakened within that would persist over time.

I now realize that Thompson’s hound is a poetic metaphor for the irrepressible urge that “hounds” each of us to recognize and unite with the source of our being, our most natural and essential, or if you wish, divine self. It has taken time, detours, misplaced pursuits, and subtle resistance for the ripening to occur which allowed that inner heaven to subtly reveal itself to this wandering pilgrim, at first in brief glimpses only. That hound within may have had the scent, but for many years it was barely detectable to my ordinary mind.

Do you know your inner hound and the heaven it pursues? Can you sense your hound chasing you, urging you deeper, urging you to go beyond? Does it show-up as a nagging sense that there must be more to life? Can you sense the inner heaven it is pointing toward? Perhaps it’s at times catalyzed by a moment in nature, beauty, dance, music, or intimacy. Look carefully at what happens in these moments. Your personal self drops away, leaving in its absence an incomprehensible glimpse of a natural flow, serenity, and well-being. Are we fortunate enough at these seemingly serendipitous moments to recognize the significance of this glimpse of Self, stop, and know it as our essential and immutable self, our inner heaven?

And how have we learned to hide from our essence, our heaven? What things betray the unchanging presence of our true home? Make your own list. Here are some of mine: procrastination, distraction, meaningless entertainment, trivial conversations, transient pleasures, materialism, busyness, judgments, over-indulging in numbing comforts, mental gymnastics, and finally an unquestioned and tenacious belief that I am my petty personal self and nothing beyond. What would be the individual and cultural result of each of us listening to the call from within, to our inner hound, and acknowledging and living from our true nature?

The poet goes further to say, “All things that betray my essence betray me. All things that betray me betray life.” That phrase shakes me. I don’t usually think of my accustomed and usual activities and attitudes as betraying me, betraying life. I usually consider them as worthwhile pleasures, human comforts, amusing moments, social pleasantries, learned ways to relax. Are these self-betrayals, life-betrayals? Ask for yourself.

What happens in meditation? For a blessed period of time, the outer world, with all of its activities, falls away. The mind stills. No distractions, social requirements, entertainment, tech devices, and so on. At first it can be difficult to calm the restless habit of the mind. It seems to be on automatic, defying efforts to take it out of drive. But if in time we stop logging into the overactive mind, it stills, we ease up, let go, allow life to happen and finally, rest in our natural self. No more hounding, no more urging, home at last to serenity, ease, and contentment.  

Why do we spend a lifetime, individually and as a culture, inventing ways to distract our self, to betray ourself? Why? Is it we fear that without the reference point of an individual self and personal identity we will be lost in a vast abyss of nothingness, or worse? Does your actual experience reveal that to be a truth? Or, do you in actuality reveal a sweet inner heaven? Once again consider what happens when we lose our usual sense of “I” in meditation, immersed in nature, in beauty, dance, art, music, or selfless love? Do we fall apart or do we find our self in a space of flow, openness, ease, and delight? What are we hiding from, anyway?

We must know how and why we hide in order to recognize it moment-to-moment, stop the conditioned ways of hiding, be still, and drop into our natural self. Then, we can show-up in day-to-day life experiencing what was once mundane from the ground of our natural being.

The poet ends with these words:

“I am He Whom thou seekest!”

That which I seek, seeks me. And it is unknown to understanding, known only to experience.

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