You Are IT

Many years ago, I walked into the kitchen of my guru’s ashram, and found him shouting at the cooks. Force- waves of anger were bouncing around the room, almost visible to the naked eye. Then, in mid sentence, he turned, saw us standing there, and smiled. The energy in his eyes went soft. ‘How did you like the show?” he asked. Then, chuckling, he slapped the head cook playfully on the back, and walked away. The cooks giggled, and went back to work, galvanized by the energy he had injected into the afternoon.

That moment changed my understanding about emotions. The clarity and fluidity with which he had shifted from intense anger to good humor was only part of it. More interesting, I felt, was the fact that he had been using anger as a teaching tool. Was he really angry? I don’t know. All I know is that he seemed able to ride the wave of his anger with perfect easiness, and let it pass without a trace.

One of the ideals of yogic freedom is detachment from emotions. It’s a basic axiom, in fact, that an advanced practitioner has perfected the ability to control, transcend, or at least be a disengaged witness of his emotions. Yet because we have so few models of what genuine detachment looks like, we tend to confuse yogic detachment with being buttoned up, or unemotional, or indifferent.

My teacher was modeling something quite different. As I saw it at the time, he was demonstrating a kind of freedom in emotions. This allowed him to work with emotional expression as an artist or an actor might work with a palette of feelings in order to inspire others, or induce a shift in the situation around him. The secret was that he was able to be conscious within the emotion.

Most people assume that a good spiritual practitioner never gets carried away by emotion — at least not by negative emotion. Yet the deeper truth is that spiritual practice will not eliminate negative emotions. Emotions are part of the palette of life, part of the way consciousness moves. Not only can’t you get rid of them, but you’d feel empty and impoverished if you did. Practice can change your relationship to emotions, so that instead of being swamped by certain feeling states, they can be fully experienced and expressed without resistance and judgement.

– Sally Kempton, in Using Emotions for Liberation

The practitioner’s mind is likened to a mountain that the winds can’t shake; he’s neither tormented by the difficulties he may come across nor elated by his successes.

But that equanimity is neither apathy nor indifference. It’s accompanied by inner jubilation, and by an openness of mind expressed as unfailing altruism.

~ Matthieu Ricard

In the beginning we rely on people and situations for our happiness. It is the most turbulent way to live.

As we grow and learn we rely on various techniques, methods and processes to create a more favorable inner state.

Deepening further, we rely simply on love and awareness in each moment and experience great connection and flow.

Eventually we transcend all states of consciousness and seek nothing whatsoever and rely on nothing whatsoever. Our old thirst is finally quenched.

~ Nithya Shanti

One of the peculiarities of a gyani (awakened one) is that he is not concerned with the future. He is free of imagination. To the gyani all is bliss: he is happy with whatever comes.

There is nothing wrong with the world. What is wrong is the way you look at it. It is your imagination that misleads you. Without imagination there is no world.

The world you perceive is made of consciousness; what you call matter is consciousness itself. You are the space in which the world moves, the time in which it is born and dies, the love that gives it life.

The moment you allow your imagination to spin, it at once spins out a universe and absorbs you so completely that you just cannot grasp how far from reality you have wandered. But reality is not at all as you imagine. No doubt imagination is richly creative. Universe upon universe is built on it. Yet you are not bound by these imaginations. You are out of it all. Cut off imagination and attachment and what remains?

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

When I was a teenager one of my first spiritual teachers explained the process of awakening to me so simply, I have never forgotten it.

He said there are two trains in our life: the train of thoughts and the train of awareness. In the beginning the train of thoughts is super fast and the train of awareness is really slow. So thoughts overtake and beat awareness almost every time.

Then as we live more meditatively and keep remembering to return to the present, the train of awareness speeds up. A day comes when it moves at the speed of thought, which means every thought is seen as it arises and passes away.

My teacher mentioned that specially whenever such a stage arises in our practice, we should leave every other distraction and practice night and day without relenting.

Before long a timeless moment arises where the train of awareness “overtakes” the train of thoughts! This is indeed a most significant event in our journey. Awareness cuts the train of thoughts again and again and sees the true nature of reality as it really is. The veil of illusion is pierced.

From here on the whole consciousness is transformed and awareness rules, shapes and directs the movement of thought. Suffering is dramatically reduced and in due course is extinguished completely beyond any trace.

All is well. Everything is transparent. Things just are the way they are. Our true nature shines though resplendent and undisguised.

Can there be a better use of this human life?

– Nithya Shanti

When I speak of God, I’m not speaking of a religious God or a biblical God or a God that we believe in. I am speaking of God as the silent Presence at the very heart of all things present. God is real.

God is here now. But we are not. We are lost in the past and future world of the mind. We are lost in endless thought.

If we want to experience the living Presence of God in all things present, we will have to come to where God is. We will have to become fully present.

~ Leonard Jacobson

Presence has no measurable product except positive feelings, feelings of support, intimacy, and happiness. When we stop being busy and productive and switch to just being still and aware, we ourselves will also feel support, intimacy, and happiness, even if no one else is around.

~ Jan Chozen Bays

I personally believe life is always perfect, regardless of whether or not it meets our particular expectations at any given point in time. How can real life be anything but perfect? Reality is never a “mistake.”

Even the worst of experiences eventually contribute to the best. That’s not even a belief system with which to agree or not. It’s just a law of nature. Negative and positive infer each other. We can’t have one without the other. It carries on this way regardless of our belief in it.

We can choose to wake up to these truths, take a step back, observe reality as it is and be content in all things. Or, we can choose to ignore them and spend our lives bound up in events and circumstances, angry when things don’t go our way 100% of the time.

We can reject the bondage of anger and choose the freedom of contentment. We just have to make the choice and let go.

Heaven and hell are not some places I’m going to go to later on. Heaven and hell are here right now, and I create them for myself with my own choices.

~ Hae Doh Gary Schwocho

GOD is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth.

God is a presence, not a person. Hence all worshipping is sheer stupidity.

Prayerfulness is needed, not prayer. There is nobody to pray to; there is no possibility of any dialogue between you and God. Dialogue is possible only between two persons, and God is not a person but a presence — like beauty, like joy.

God simply means godliness. It is because of this fact that Buddha denied the existence of God. He wanted to emphasize that God is a quality, an experience — like love.

You cannot talk to love, but you can live it. You need not create temples of love, you need not make statues of love, and bowing down to those statues will be just nonsense. And that’s what has been happening in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques.

~ Osho