The Seer

One question we get asked quite a lot is “What actually happens in your gatherings and workshops? What is the point of attending a gathering or particiapating in a workshop?”

UK spiritual teacher and author, Jeff Foster, says that awareness meetings and retreats are like musical concerts — if you’re drawn to the music, if you are moved by it, you may find yourself coming along and listening!

On the simplest level, he says, they’re a chance to sit together, as friends, sharing this message of total freedom. They are an opportunity to deeply explore present experience together, not with the aim of fixing it, but of seeing the wholeness inherent within it.

The gatherings and workshops aren’t about getting something or somewhere in the future, they aren’t about seeking or indulging our personal stories — they’re about seeing what’s here right now, and finding the deeper sense of ‘okayness’ inherent in what’s actually happening.

Here are just a few of the topics and questions that are frequently addressed our gatherings and workshops:

• What goes to the root of all our suffering and seeking? Why do we continue to search for love, happiness, freedom and enlightenment in the future? Is there an end to seeking?
• Who are you, beyond the image of yourself?
• What is spiritual awakening? Is it possible to ‘become awakened’? Who awakens?
• How do spiritual awakening and enlightenment relate to addiction, to conflict in relationships, to physical pain, to therapy, to the search for love?
• What is meditation? Who meditates?
• What role does therapy have? What is depression? What is true healing?
• From a nondual ‘perspective’, what meaning have concepts such as evil, sin, guilt, and forgiveness?
• What is creativity? Who creates?
• What is the role of spiritual practice? Is a spiritual teacher necessary? What is a guru? Who is an authority on life?
• What are words such as consciousness, awareness, presence, Being, aliveness, really pointing to?

~ There’s an article on Jeff Foster’s website with a full description of his meetings and retreats, and if you’re interested you can view it >>>Here.

Awakening is coming to the same realization the Buddha did: there is no independent “self.” This psychological and emotional “entity” we take ourselves to be doesn’t actually exist, except as an idea, a story, a fictional creation between our ears.

Due to our conditioning, the cultural and social myths we were raised with, we grow up convinced there is, indeed, a separate, special “us” living inside these bodies of ours. There is a “me” inside this body that came from somewhere prior to birth, and that will go somewhere after death.

We believe this so firmly that this “me,” this ego, actually feels real. The idea of letting go of it feels scary, indeed. When loneliness, depression, or unhappiness in any form strikes us, “we” certainly feel it — which just reinforces the idea there is “someone” inside this body/mind suffering.

Awakening reveals the suffering only happens precisely because we are so identified with our body, mind, and senses. We identify with our ego, with the concept of “me,” and with all the stories that shore it up.

When we see that this “me” we have taken ourselves to be is just an idea we have been buying into, a story we have been telling ourselves repeatedly all these years, all thoughts about being a unique, separate, special “someone” dissolve, and suffering drops away. There is literally no “person” to suffer.

We return to our natural state, to our true identity as pure consciousness. We are no longer holding onto any image of ourselves or of the way things should be, so there is nothing in us to resist the flow of life.

The teaching and the practice are the tools you will use whenever you find yourself in a state of conflict, upset, worry, or suffering. They will help you get clear. They will enable you to move your energy quickly and efficiently whenever you feel uncomfortable, stressed, or anxious. They will empower you to shift your state of consciousness from one of contraction into one of expansion and ease.

Eventually, as you work with the teaching and the practice, they will become one. They will become second nature, like breathing, moving, sensing, and feeling. When the teaching and the practice become one you will find yourself at the doorway to true inner freedom.

You may not be completely free, but you will realize you are free enough, and that most of your worry and fear stories have left you. The inner dialogue will wind itself down and you will simply be more present. You will now be a person pretty much at peace with yourself.

Self-doubt, personal conflict, and suffering will rarely visit you anymore. When they do, you will quickly notice yourself getting caught up in conflict, in some story you are telling yourself. Then you do the practice. Use the welcoming mantra:

“Ah, I welcome this situation. It’s showing me where I’m not yet free.”

Notice the story, and the very noticing will be your key to come back to a heightened awareness, to alertness and openness in the present moment.

~ Jim Dreaver, author of End Your Story, Begin Your Life.

~ Jim, originally from Auckland and now living in Los Angeles, is coming to New Zealand and Australia in November. He will be leading a workshop in Perth Fri. Nov 18 (free) Sat Nov. 19 & Sun. Nov. 20. To book, see:
Jim’s Website or contact Pete on 08 9336 4737 or via peter@peterspearls.com.au

I came across this poem from a 19th century English poet, William Dunkerley (1852 – 1941), writing under the pseudonym, John Oxenham. Eloquently written, the poem’s message transcends the ages. It seems to be part of the play of Consciousness to give ‘us’ choices thoughout our life-experience. We can make choices that enable ‘us’ to fulfill the deepest capacities of ‘our’ real selves … or not. If ‘we’ don’t choose the High Way, it will make in the end no difference what was chosen instead.

To everyone there openeth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way,
And the High Soul climbs the High Way,
And the Low Soul gropes the Low,
And in between, on the misty flats,
To rest drift to and fro.
But to everyone there openeth
A High Way, and a Low.
And everyone decideth
The way their soul shall go.

~ John Oxenham — The Way (1916)

Let’s turn to the idea of acceptance — a word that seems to be very much misunderstood by spiritual seekers.

Now, the ocean ‘accepts’ every wave that appears in it [and for 'ocean' read 'conciousness', or 'awareness', or 'Being', or pick your favourite word!] because it is every wave that appears!

The wave is inseparable from the ocean, and so the ocean has no choice but to accept! The ocean doesn’t accept some waves and reject others — we are talking about an unconditional acceptance that’s way beyond our conditioned ideas about acceptance.

The acceptance of the ocean for its waves is beyond the conceptual opposites of acceptance and non-acceptance — the acceptance is the inseparability of the ocean and the waves, and as such it has no opposite. Every wave is already accepted by the ocean, and it is this ‘already accepted’ nature of the waves that goes to the heart of what I’m talking about. This is the Deepest Acceptance of life — the acceptance that you as an individual cannot ‘do’.

It’s not a question of trying to do this Deepest Acceptance — it’s a question of recognising it, seeing it in every single experience. You don’t have to ‘do’ this Deepest Acceptance, for it has already been done. And so all that’s left is to see that in this moment, and in every moment, every wave — every thought, every sensation, every feeling — is already allowed to be there.

By the time a wave appears it is already accepted — its appearance is its acceptance. In a sense, you have already accepted the present moment, you have already said ‘yes’ to it — otherwise it would not be appearing as it is.

And so throughout my book, when I talk about acceptance, I’m not using the word in the way we have been conditioned to use it. I’m using the word in a new way, that points to this Deepest Acceptance of life, an acceptance, an allowing, that has already been done.

And so, when in my book, I suggest that you ‘accept’ or ‘allow’ what is — it’s a shorthand way of directing your attention to the fact that in this moment, those thoughts and feelings are already allowed, because they already appearing. To ‘accept’ thoughts and feelings is to see that in this moment, those thoughts and feelings are already accepted. It’s not a doing, but a seeing.

This turns many spiritual teachings on their head. Now acceptance is not a place to reach in the future — it’s not something to look for, wait for, hope for. It’s not a magical event that will happen one day. It’s not even grace. It’s something to rediscover, right in the midst of your present experience, here and now.

‘Acceptance’ is not a future goal — it is a present reality, always. If it is grace, then it is an ever-present grace, available to all, no matter what is happening.

This totally revolutionises our understanding of acceptance and rejection. Acceptance is no longer about me — a separate individual — trying to accept, trying to be in a state of constant acceptance — that could so easily just be another form of seeking. It’s about recognising yourself as the open space of acceptance, the ocean which accepts all of its waves.

I remember, years ago when I was identified as being a spiritual seeker, hungry for the release and escape of enlightenment, how I used to believe that doing ‘acceptance’ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year was the key to becoming enlightened.

If I could just accept everything all the time, I would be free, or so I thought. It was a beautiful idea, but no matter how much I tried to accept everything, to be present with everything, to allow everything unconditionally, to be choicelessly aware of everything, there were still some things I just could not accept.

Extreme physical pain, rape, torture, genocide — how could I accept all of this? When extreme pain happened in my own experience, I would try desperately to accept it, and would exhaust myself along the way.

I realise now of course, that there was an agenda (in other words, seeking) behind my attempt to accept. I secretly believed that if I accepted the pain, it would go away. It was rejection of pain disguised as acceptance. What an ingenious place for the seeker to hide — right at the heart of a beautiful spiritual practice! Acceptance done with any kind of motive is not real acceptance — it’s rejection in disguise.

What I didn’t realise back then was the unconditional, all-encompassing nature of acceptance. I was so busy trying to accept that I missed this deeper acceptance of life, in which even my failure to accept was accepted! Yes, this is how radical this acceptance is — even your non-acceptance of pain is accepted.

All waves are accepted by the ocean, and if what’s happening right now is non-acceptance of pain, then that is accepted too. The pain is okay, and Jeff’s dislike of pain is okay. The seeker is accepted even in their failure.

And of course, here is a total paradox. If my non-acceptance of pain is accepted by life, totally accepted, then it is no longer non-acceptance. The non-acceptance transmutes. Logically, philosophically, rationally, this makes no sense — but it is so. I don’t want you to believe me — I want you to discover this for yourself. My new book is all about that discovery.

This is about a deeper sense of okayness, even when on the surface things are not okay. It is about a deeper completeness, even when on the surface things don’t seem complete. What I’m talking about is the ultimate relaxation, the ultimate peace, the ultimate stillness beyond all conditioned ideas of stillness.

It’s not about you — a separate person — being relaxed or peaceful – it’s about a deeper sense of relaxation that comes with knowing that every thought, every sensation, every feeling is already accepted in the space that you are.

Knowing that, in the moment, even your non-acceptance is accepted is something that can crack even the most hardened suffering at its core. You could say perhaps that all suffering is simply our blindness to this Deepest Acceptance.

Viewed from this new perspective, all suffering is an invitation to this deepest acceptance. Suffering is no longer something ‘bad’ or ‘evil to be transcended or destroyed — it’s a unique opportunity to see what you are still at war with. Within suffering, you will always find this war — you will always find a blindness to this deepest acceptance. And so the war is always an invitation back to this deepest acceptance.

Suffering hurts, and the hurt points us home. There’s a very beautiful word in the English language — nostalgia — and it means ‘the pain of coming home’.

It could also mean ‘the discovery of home, even in the midst of pain’…

~ An excerpt from Jeff Foster’s new book, which should be published some time in 2012.

Here’s short excerpt from an interview with ‘Headless Way’ founder, Douglas Harding, by Kriben Pillay, editor of The Noumenon Journal …

KP: There’s a kind of paradox, isn’t there, that one has to practise to be what one is naturally?

DH: Yes — well you practice to really get rid of the illusion — not to achieve the Reality.

KP: Yes, that’s a very important point, because in the spiritual supermarket that has mushroomed over the last 20 – 25 years, there seems to be a constant movement to achieve some extraordinary state, and you’re directly the opposite. Would you not say that we’re really practicing only to remove the illusion?

DH: That’s right. All of us are living from this. The great Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi kept saying everyone’s living from this — everyone’s enlightened. Everyone is fully realized — where else could they be but in the natural nature? — and the only difference between himself and others is that he enjoyed it and others ignored it.

There’s an old Irish saying: “If you run away from a ghost, it will pursue you and haunt you for the rest of your life. But if you stop, turn and face it, the ghost will disappear … forever.”

On the path of awakening, you’re learning to face, not just fear, but every moment, in this alert and relaxed way. Years ago on my own journey, whenever I had a breakthrough, I found myself coming to the same realization every time. It involved letting go of some aspect of my past, my story — some pattern in my thinking or behavior which no longer worked for me.

Suddenly, I’d feel more relaxed, more here. I would say to myself: “Wow, my spiritual journey is all about getting here. It’s about being more present.”

You can probably relate to what I’m saying. As you grow up and get caught up in your personal story, the account you inwardly write of your life, of your history of failures and successes, doubts and fears, hopes and dreams, you tend to start dwelling in this internal reality. If so, you’re not alone. We all do this until we learn differently. Yet it is the very attachment to this inner world of concepts, beliefs, memories, and images that keeps us from being present.

The deeper your awakening, the freer you get of psychological and emotional fear. You no longer worry about what might happen to you. You know now that you, as consciousness, will always be okay.

But even with awakening, biological fear, the fear of actual physical harm, still arises when danger threatens. It’s a necessary survival mechanism. If someone moves as if to strike you, you are going to flinch or jump back. If you take up sky-diving, even if your realization is deep and mature, chances are your stomach will feel nervous and queasy as you are about to step out of the aeroplane at ten thousand feet.

But even survival fear loses its edge as you awaken to the Consciousness you are and connect with the astonishing creative energy which is always here, underneath the surface drama of life.

The more conscious and free you become, the more you find even in the face of danger, hardship, or loss, you remain clear-headed and supremely aware as you deal with the situation at hand. When you stop resisting and fighting it, life has its own surprising way of coming into balance and harmony. This is how miracles occur. It all happens not in some promised future or some imagined after-life, but right now, in this present moment.

Rather than obsessing over what it takes to become enlightened, why you still suffer, or why you are not yet free, let go of the attachment to all your ideas and stories about enlightenment and suffering, and just focus on being fully aware, conscious, and present now. Then the experience of freedom will become more and more frequent, and the times of conflict and suffering will be fewer and briefer.

Eventually, as your internal gaze penetrates more deeply through the illusion of the world between your ears, the world you have for so long been referring to as “me”, “myself”, and “my story,” all fear of life and death will leave you. Then the liberation you have been seeking will be yours.

~ Jim Dreaver, author of End Your Story, Begin Your Life.

~ Jim, originally from Auckland and now living in Los Angeles, is coming to New Zealand and Australia in November. He will be leading a workshop in Perth Fri. Nov 18 (free) Sat Nov. 19 & Sun. Nov. 20. To book, see: Jim’s Website or contact Pete on 08 9336 4737 or via peter@peterspearls.com.au

The greater part of most people’s thinking is involuntary, automatic, and repetitive. It is no more than a kind of mental static and fulfills no real purpose.

Strictly speaking, you don’t choose to think; Thinking happens to you. The statement “I think” implies volition. It implies that you have willfully chosen to think what you think (or that you think in the first place). For most people, this is not yet the case. “I think” is just as false a statement as “I digest” or “I circulate my blood.” Digestion happens, circulation happens, thinking happens.

The voice in the head has a life of its own. Most people are at the mercy of that voice; they are possessed by their thinking and its repetitive, unconscious content. This circular, repetitive, incessant thinking is conditioned by the past, and it keeps you trapped in the past. It is as though you continue to relive the past over and over again. Do you ever wonder why the same problems challenge you throughout your life? Your unconscious mind is re-creating them, but you don’t even know it.

The Eastern term for this repetitive cycle is karma. You continually bring to your life experiences that correspond to your thinking. What you reap, you will sow. What you think, you will attract. If the contents of your thoughts are locked in past events, you are destined to repeat them. This is karma. And it goes both ways.

We have heard of good karma and bad karma. Bad karma is the experiences we have that are attracted to us by our mind’s obsession with all the bad things that have happened to us. Bad karma not only produces experiences that are undesirable, it is also a life lived in the past, not the present.

Good karma, on the other hand, comes from living in the present moment. When we liberate our mind from thoughts of the past and negative rumination, we are free to engage our mind in original, creative thought. We are free to be spontaneous and fun-loving. We are free to live our life now with a sense of curiosity, discovery and adventure. Far from being trapped in a cycle of negativity, we live a life of freshness, proactivity and healthy self-expression.

If you have been living life in the past, caught in the cycle of bad karma, you can get free of it.

Just in the way that thinking happens to you, bad karma happens to you. It is an involuntary predicament. It is a condition that you do not consciously choose.

The solution is to begin choosing what you want for yourself. Instead of being a victim of your own thinking, be an active, engaged choice maker.

• Choose to be more present.
• Choose to be more aware of what thoughts are circulating in your mind.
• Choose to engage your mind in original, creative thinking.
• Choose to make your mind an interesting, adventurous place.
• Choose to make good karma by using your mind for positive and productive thinking.

~ Eckhart Tolle www.tolleteachings.com

The word Jnâna means “knowledge”, “insight”, or “wisdom,” and in spiritual contexts has the specific sense of what the ancient Greeks called gnosis, a special kind of liberating knowledge or intuition. In fact, the terms jnâna and gnosis are etymologically related through the Indo-European root gno, meaning “to know.”

Jnâna Yoga — (the pronunciation is approximately “Ya-nuh Yo-guh”) also called Gyana Yoga, means, the path of knowing or wisdom etc. and is virtually identical with the spiritual path of Advaita Vedanta, the Hindu tradition of nondualism. (ma’rifat in Arabic)

As used in the Bhagavad Gita, the Advaita philosopher, Adi Shankara, gave primary importance to Jnâna Yoga as “knowledge of the absolute” (Brahman). Other teachers of Jnâna Yoga are Vashishtha, Ramana Maharshi, and Nisargadatta Maharaj.

A similar nondualistic view of reality is held by many branches of Buddhism, including Zen, by Taoism, by Islamic Sufism, as well as by sapiental branches of Christianity that value the Gnosis as expressed particularly in, say, the Gospel of Thomas.

The close relationship between the Bible, for instance, and Jnâna was also pointed out by Ramana Maharshi, who once said that the whole Vedanta is contained in the two Biblical statements: “I am that I AM” and “Be still and know that I am God.”

It could also be said that Jnâna Yoga is the path of Self-realization through aperception of truth or, to be more precise the wisdom associated with discering the Real from the unreal or illusory.

Jnâna Yoga looks into the truth about who we are and what we are experiencing. The full realization of this truth brings enlightenment.

The true or ’sat’ jnâna, while it can be discussed or written about, has its real value in direct experience. It isn;t based on any preliminary idea or dogma that you have to accept or believe in. It starts from a direct ‘inseeing’ or ‘recognition’ that anyone can have, even though the habit of abiding in gnosis may have to be developed intentionally.

Jnâna Yoga can be combined with other yogic paths, such as Bhakti Yoga, which is the path of devotion and service to God.

In Jnâna Yoga, the objective is to know the absolute truth about life, the truth that is constant (unchanging) and eternal. To come to the absolute truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about yourself and your experiences, you have to look beyond the ever changing aspects of your life-experience. You have to find that which is essentially you and is essential to all your experiences.

Jnâna Yoga uses the intellect as a tool to understand that our true Self is behind and beyond our mind. Along with Bhakti Yoga, Jnâna is among the best approaches for becoming aware of the eternal Self (God).

It is, however, a mistake to think the Source can be found with the intellect alone. For the purpose of Self-discovery, Jnâna Yoga probes the nature of the Self through the question: “Who am I?”.

Initially, Jnâna Yoga may be thought of as the ‘Quest for the Self’ or the ‘Inquiry into Who or What we really are’, but when the seeker becomes ‘a finder’, then the term indicates the path of the ’seer’.

By following this path diligently, we come to ’see’ or realize that at the center of our Being is pure Beingness (the real Self).

But to experience the Self we must know ourselves to be the Self; to experience Beingness, we must know ourselves to be Beingness (pure Awareness). The Jnâna Yogi seeks this actual experience, which can’t be compared with a mere intellectual exercise.

The promise of Jnâna Yoga is the possible culmination into what in India is called: Sahaja Samadhi, when our awareness of the formless Self continues even during our regular day-to-day activities, keeping us free of worry and anxiety. Through the constant realigning of our attention on the source of our Being, we retain a true perspective; we remember who we are.

We come to effortless clear-seeing or conscious awareness by intentionally reminding ourselves of that which we are and others essentially are — unique maniestations of the Absolute (or God).

~ To read the complete article: >>>Click Here

National, economic, religious and cultural freedoms are the reflections of the duality of existence. They exist only in varying degrees, subject to constant discordant adjustment. Even when won through persistent effort, they cannot be permanently maintained because the external conditions upon which they have been constructed are themselves subject to deterioration.

Only spiritual freedom is absolute and unlimited; when it is won through persistent effort, it is won forever. For, although spiritual freedom can and does express itself in the duality of existence, it is grounded in and sustained by the realization of the inviolable unity of all life….

One important condition of spiritual freedom is freedom from all wanting. It is wanting itself which chains life by attaching it to the conditions in environment which would fulfil that want. If there is no wanting, there is no dependence, and therefore no limitation.

The individual never achieves true freedom until he is no longer pushed or pulled by any inner compulsion. When he has worked through all the desires and worn them so threadbare that he can be, or not be — have, or have not — then he is free.

When the individualized soul breaks through the encasing steel armour of wanting, it emancipates itself from its illusory bondage to bodies, mind and ego. This is the spiritual freedom which brings with it the final realization of the unity of all life and puts an end to all doubts and worries….

It is only in spiritual freedom that one can have enduring happiness and unhampered self-knowledge. It is only in spiritual freedom that one finds the supreme certainty of truth-realization. It is only in spiritual freedom that there is a final end to sorrow and limitation. It is only in spiritual freedom that one can live for all, and yet remain detached in the midst of all activity.

Any other lesser type of freedom is like a house built on sand, and any lesser attainment is fraught with fear of decay. There is no gift greater than that of spiritual freedom, and no task more important than helping others to find spiritual freedom.

~ Meher Baba, in, The Narrow Lane, ed. William Le Page, pp. 133-134

A true teacher is one who opens space within your mind.

If you turn your attention away from everything else and merge with that space, you awaken as that consciousness.

This space is the true teacher’s gift.

It is an open door, but you must walk through it. Surrender to the space within yourself that the teacher awakens.

Emptiness is the true teacher’s transmission. Surrender to that alone, and you will discover limitless fullness of being.

~ From: The Impact of Awakening, by Adyashanti