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For a long time I have been struck by the inescapable connection between personal honesty and Ultimate Truth. While one is momentary and unique and the other timeless and universal, they are inseparably and undeniably intertwined.
For me, one of the ongoing blessings of Enlightenment Intensives, is that this simple fact is demonstrated time and time again. Using the Enlightenment Technique, each person focuses their intention on a direct experience of the Truth, opens to whatever arises in their consciousness as a direct result of their contemplation and then communicates what arises to a partner as honestly and fully as they can. And, this profound and intimate sharing of personal awareness leads inescapably to the Truth.
Recently I discovered this great quote by Russell Scott "The way to the way it is, is through the way it is in you."
Just for the sake of clarification, let's take a look at what the quote does not say....
It does not say, 'The way to the way it is, is other than the way it is in you.' You cannot directly experience the Truth, if you are not willing to face yourself.
Nor does it say, 'The way to the way it is, is the way it is in you.' Your personal awareness is not the ultimate in consciousness. However, it is the natural gateway we all have that opens beautifully into what is (if we let it).
Nor does it say, 'The way to the way is it, is the way it could be in you if only you were perfect.' It is through the way it is in you, in this moment, precisely as you are now. There is no need for you to be any way other than the way you are right here and now.
The more aware we each become of the way it is in us in each moment and the more honestly we can experience and communicate what we are aware of, the more completely and fully we will embody and express what is. Not because we are necessarily in direct connection with what is in each moment, but because we are continually going through the gateway, drawing closer and closer until we finally arrive home.
My consistent experience with Intensives has been that, by using the Enlightenment Technique, I am constantly sharing my personal awareness as honestly as I can until the Truth literally comes out of my mouth and my whole being. This is the opportunity that is offered to anyone who attends an Enlightenment Intensive. It is a time focused with the intention of directly experiencing the way it is, through the way it is in you.
And, having practiced this process over and over again during the Intensive, we are then left with the ongoing possibility of moving through the gateway of personal honesty into Ultimate Truth in any moment of our everyday lives. You are all you need.
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"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were
walking down the street when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick
up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket.
The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?"
"He picked up a piece of the Truth," said the devil.
"That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend.
"Oh, not at all," the devil replied. "I am going to let him organize it." "
............From a speech given by J. Krishnamurti in 1929 titled "Truth is a Pathless Land" when he stepped away from taking leadership of the organization called the Order of the Star.
Change happens…in fact, change is the essence of life and the pace of change
is increasing at an astounding rate. Difficulties, stresses and diseases result
when we fight the force of our life with our desire to remain where we are
not fulfilled. Try to imagine a flower refusing to become that which it's
seed promises, or the river refusing to flow toward the sea. That is how unnaturally
we behave when we refuse to aspire to our potential and when we resist our
return to ourselves.
As babies, we have no mental idea of what we "should" do to meet our potential;
we don't think of what we should eat, who we should associate with, what skill
we should develop next. We simply respond to what existence offers to us.
Before our world is interpreted for us, we are not aware of any limitations.
When we begin to walk, for example, we fall down, but we are not defeated.
The transformation from infant to toddler is an astounding phenomena and uninterrupted,
this rate of change could easily continue and even accelerate.
But instead, we stop being fascinated by life and become afraid of it. We
use our fear to try to control what wants to happen. And all the understanding
and analysis of the sources of our fears and the possible consequences of
our behaviors will not serve us in this experiment of life and the experience
of ourselves. The only alternative seems to be to feel the fear and to live
life anyway until the fear fades away again in the remembrance of who we really
are.
It is hypothesized that as children, our fears of abandonment and possible
death are real, given how vulnerable and helpless we appear when we are young.
But whether that statement is true or not, it is simply time to grow up.
Growing up requires desire, discipline and a sense of humor. The desire to
truly experience and live your life to the fullest, immediately removes you
from the paradigm where things happen to you and places you in a state where
you welcome and are grateful for everything life offers; where you realize
that nothing is against you.
What separates us from this joyful state of being are the beliefs and attitudes
that we hold about ourselves, other people and the world at large. It takes
discipline to become aware of the conditionings and false behaviors we have,
to begin to experience life for ourselves as it is in each moment and to challenge
the beliefs we hold that unnecessarily limit us.
And a sense of humor is certainly recommended. For if the path of awareness
and consciousness isn't fun, why bother?
For many years we have seen how people repress their thoughts, feelings and
movement and we have recognized the energy required to hold against our experiences
in life. But it's more immense and powerful and impossible than that. We have
been trying to fight the inevitable, but life will not be conquered. We may
win the battles, never the war. Events and circumstances are continually nudging
us from our complacency and comfort. And, when friendly invitations to grow
and transform ourselves are offered and ignored, the messages only become
stronger and more insistent. We always have a choice about how we respond
to the world and its events. It is much easier to volunteer for change than
to wait for conscription.
If you stop trying to hold yourself constant, you will just happen naturally
and freely. The world is nothing like we have been told. It is time for us
to experience it directly for ourselves. This is possible by living fully
in each moment without resisting what is. When you actively invite change
and new experiences and keep opening to whatever wants to happen in your life
without condition, the results are seldom what you would expect. But don't
take our word for it.
Imagine that you live in a world where anything is possible and nothing is
against you. Everything that happens assists you in fulfilling your potential
and there are no limits. Although things are important, nothing is serious.
In this world, life is a series of games that you create and the only point
of each game is for you to remember and embody who you are. There is nothing
to learn because what you learned a moment ago is no longer useful. In fact,
what you think you know is most often in your way of seeing the next moment
clearly. So, you just keep opening, moving, watching and responding in each
moment. Every time a thought comes in from the past, you watch it and don't
attach to it so you can see clearly what is actually happening now. Rather
than being a static object, finite and concrete, you are just a flow of energy.
Doubt and anxiety melt away. Sound like fun? Perhaps a little looser and freer
than how you are living now?
The only thing between you and this New World are the beliefs you have about
what is possible. You have been given all kinds of faulty information and
much of it has been accepted without question, examination or experimentation.
This conditioning process has been so effective that you now create your reality
based on these restrictive pieces of outside information and repetitive and
fairly limited personal experiences.
Very few of the messages you have received are about awareness, aliveness,
growth, excitement, creativity, freedom and experimentation. They are mostly
about safety, security and comfort, belonging, not rocking the boat and not
causing too much distress to people around you. As a result, the choices that
you make are primarily directed towards keeping yourself safe and secure and
not upsetting anyone else. You are not free.
Basically you live in a prison which was originally maintained externally,
but once you are a young adult, you create that prison yourself, again and
again, out of the belief that you know something about reality. There have
been many good experiments about this.
A natural scientist put a pike fish in a large aquarium with a piece of plate
glass in the middle of the container that the pike could not detect with his
vision. Small fish that the pike would naturally feed upon were placed in
the tank on the other side of the glass. The pike has a predatory lunging
motion and for a few days he tried to strike at the prey he could see only
to bump his head into the glass plate. After about two or three days, he gave
up. Then they took the glass plate away, and he never ate any of those little
fish. He had developed a belief about reality that didn't shift despite the
new situation and new evidence.
A lot of the limitations that you have about yourself and what is possible
are constructed in exactly the same way. Most of what you are limiting yourself
with has nothing to do with what is actually going on right here and now.
From the inside of your belief system, which we might lovingly and non-psychiatrically
refer to as your neurotic character structure, all your energy goes to keeping
the existing belief system together. It is who you think you are. You then
create a reality outside of yourself that matches what you already believe.
But, are you a pike or a person?
Getting outside of your existing box is what awareness is all about. You can
do it anytime. Begin now.
Our minds cannot comprehend 'being together' and 'being free' at the same
time. Within the dichotomy of the mind, it can be only one or the other, never
both. As a result, most 'relationships' become a battle of wills, both internal
and external. Partners try to balance commitment with freedom and parents
struggle with sacrificing themselves to fulfill obligations to their children.
Compromise replaces life and a good compromise is when no one is really happy.
You can never really be with another person unless you recognize that you
are always free to be elsewhere. This can be a difficult concept since it
seems to imply a degree of irresponsibility. In fact, we are talking about
the ultimate level of responsibility and honesty to the people around you.
It requires an awareness and sensitivity that most people are not currently
accessing or practicing. If you are truthful with yourself and your loved
ones, when it is appropriate for you to be together, you will be together.
When it is appropriate for you to be apart, you will be apart. Simple.
As you read these words, your mind is already in catastrophe. You envisage
the break down of the family and much resulting chaos. But this is already
happening. The way we are 'loving' each other is not working. We need to reconsider
our values and our options.
"I love you." For most people these three words carry an implication of commitment
and obligation, which has nothing whatsoever to do with loving another person.
Current ideas and beliefs suggest that sacrificing yourself to your partner
or your child is proof of your love. But this kind of bargain does not serve
anyone since everyone is required to pay in order to be loved; everyone is
diminished by this agreement.
If you truly love someone, you want him or her to be totally, completely and
utterly true to themselves no matter what the consequences. This is their
due and this is the optimum situation for you, too. Stop trying to be perfect
and simply be who you are. Then the message that you offer to each other might
be closer to "wake up" than "go to sleep". You will be saying "live your life,
be independent and true to yourself " rather than "depend on me, do what I
say and live a life of obligation".
To your essence, what is of value is the experience of being loving, rather
than being loved, because loving is the expression of your true nature. You
current beliefs about love are in the way of your natural loving. When you
start to allow your loving to emerge you will see that it has nothing to do
with anything outside of you. It is unshakable; it is not dependent on anything
outside. Your loving cannot be impacted by external forces and, therefore,
it is not dependent on being loved in return. You will also see that there
is no formula for being loving. There are no inherently loving or unloving
acts. Everything is contextual, relational and momentary. Being loving requires
awareness, sensitivity and the willingness to experience everything that life
has to offer. What could be more alive?
There is a story about Jesus wandering in India and coming across a group
of very poor people at a well one day. He noticed that they all looked very
unhappy. They reported that they were so tied up with the struggle of their
daily existence that they did not have time for happiness. They thought they
would have joy in heaven. Jesus responded, "My brother, man, your thoughts
are wrong; your heaven is not far away; and it is not a place of metes and
bounds, is not a country to be reached; it is a state of mind. God never made
Heaven for man; He never created a Hell; we are creators and we make our own.
Now cease to seek for Heaven in the sky; just open up the windows of your
hearts, and, like a flood of light, a heaven will come and bring a boundless
joy; then toil will be no cruel task." *
So this is it...you can be in heaven or hell in any moment. You create each
moment. You always have a choice about how you see things and it is your beliefs
and ideas that create either heaven or hell whenever you experience it. You
can be free at any time. Every moment could be heaven.
The idea that most people carry deep inside of them is that they are separate
from the flow of existence and from what is happening around them. This sense
of disconnection is what underlies all the worries, anxieties, misery and
suffering that you experience and see. Even though it all seems very "real",
an incredible illusion is made up out of the crazy ideas that have been taught
to you by others. What you think of as "reality" is what is keeping you away
from the naturally vibrant state of your existence.
In each moment you have the choice to believe what you think you already know,
which is usually built on a grid of fear and contraction, or of living from
a totally different place. Think of it. Let yourself feel it. You could believe
that you are a wonderful part of the flow of existence, that everything is
exactly as it should be, that anything is possible and that you are perfect
just as you are. Then the "default settings" in your inner computer would
shift from fear to love, from believing that good and bad things happen to
you to realizing that everything that happens is for you. We create "realities"
based on these deeply rooted and often unconscious belief systems. Freedom
simply means knowing that you have a choice. If you are in hell, you are putting
yourself there.
Be as aware and awake as you possibly can be in every moment. Let that be
your priority. A big part of waking up is finding ways to put aside, and not
be so controlled by, your conditioning. You might, for example, imagine that
an angel is sitting just behind your left shoulder, ready to love, guide and
support you at any time, without judgement. No matter what technique you use
to free yourself, your life will begin to "happen" and there is not very much
that you have to do about it except stay open!
Now these ideas will drive your mind crazy, because it is unable to understand
them and it wants to control your life by an act of will in order to keep
you safe. But this approach is not working and is not necessary. You don't
have to fight anything because this is not a battle. When you relax and get
less attached to your willfulness and need to control, you will discover there
is no need to judge yourself, others or any experience. You will find that
there is an incredible appropriateness to existence.
You don't have to hold yourself so tightly together. You can just flow. And,
if all of a sudden, something bumps you around and your mind says, "you see,
you can't just let things happen", you don't have to believe it. If your partner
has an affair, or somebody dies or the roof falls in - whatever is happening
is happening for you. It is happening anyway. Your willfulness or resistance
doesn't stop your partner from having an affair or anyone from dying. You
often don't have much control over the actual events in your life, but you
do have control over your responses to them. You don't have to live in such
a high state of alert. It is killing you.
As you let go of your willfulness, you may find that you still have preferences.
You might really love a certain type of coffee or ice cream but it's just
a preference. And if you really open to existence, then those kinds of playthings
are usually around.
As they will their way through the world, most people are living in a rather
profound state of resentment and disappointment. When you are open, you are
greatful for everything that happens. So when your partner has an affair,
or you lose your job, instead of getting all bent out of shape, you could
be saying, "Thank you. Thank you for creating an experience for me that I
might not have had any other way." It's a gift. You are being set free. Probably
you did not want to go to that job anymore anyway.
So existence is here and is giving you all the information that you need at
any given time. If you live without too much willfulness then existence just
comes and says, "Here, take a look at this" or "Let go of that" and it is
quite simple and you do it. "Yes" to this. But your mind, your neurosis, wants
to control it all and if you can allow yourself to be living in a "yes" then
it all begins to flow and it is just moment to moment and you simply begin
to happen. You begin to live your essence as opposed to the constructed reality
of the mind. Life gets to be a lot more fun. You just follow the more natural
energy that is there in all of us underneath the prison of our conditioning.
You don't have to will it. Heaven or hell? It's your choice in every moment.
* The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ" by Levi p.63
There is a wonderful version of an old Sufi teaching story that addresses
the state of illusion that most people are living in. One night at three in
the morning, a drunk walks out of a bar. There is virtually no traffic in
any of the four lanes of the highway right in front of the bar, just wide-open
spaces leading in either direction. The man is so inebriated and dull from
his evening of drink that, even though he has four wide open lanes choose
from, he bumps into the single stop sign at the entrance to the freeway. In
his drunken state he walks straight into the one obstacle that is in his way
- in the vast expanse of possible space he finds the thin bar that supports
the stop sign and bangs his head right into it. He stuns himself, backs up,
shakes his head and then takes another run for it and once again bangs right
into the signpost. This happens five or six times and after the final collision,
in great despair, he grabs onto the stop sign and screams into the darkness
of the night, "It's no use! I give up! I am surrounded!"
The bottom line of all paths of awareness and spiritual growth is to dedicate
yourself to "waking up" from the conditioning that you have been getting since
you arrived on the planet. This conditioning has happened on some basic levels
and is very, very strong. From the moment a child is born, we begin to feed
it information. Most of it is craziness. We feed it fear-based information
about food, sex, money and relationships. Think about it for just a moment.
Think about the information that we give to children. Is it any wonder that
the 'computer system' ends up with the program that it is in constant danger
and believes it has to continually fight to survive?
If you begin to be more honest and curious about yourself, you will notice
that much of how you see yourself and the world is nothing other than what
someone else told you. You have not really tried to find out very much for
yourself. You are locked in the prison of your conditioning; you are trapped
by these beliefs but will cling to them like the drunk to the stop sign.
During the course of your life you have constructed a personality or an identity
out of this jumbled morass of mis-information. Fortunately, this construction
is only covering, but has not destroyed, who YOU are underneath it all. To
come out from under this conditioning, consider the possibility that YOU are
not in danger (at least not the danger that you think you are!). If YOU do
get into real danger, YOU will respond appropriately. YOU don't have to live
in such a state of alert. If you can drop your conditioned beliefs about yourself
and the world, then you can live in awareness rather than anxiety. If you
start telling and living your truth, it will set you free.
What goes hand in hand with freedom is responsibility, which is neither duty
nor obligation. Responsibility just means that you have an ability to respond
- you have the ability to respond differently than your conditioning dictates.
As you read this article, your conditioning is going to try and link these
words back into what you already know. That is the function of the conditioned
mind. It gathers new information and fits it into the original context of
understanding. This mind can only re-create what it already knows. It is a
very sophisticated computer that has been mis-loaded with all kinds of damaged
software programs. It is taking new experiences and information and it is
trying to place everything into its existing grid, trying to keep you safe.
From this, it creates a "reality". Basically what you are doing is creating
futures out of pasts and very seldom do you experience anything new. The conditioned
mind can't do it. It is terrified of the unknown and, in its current state,
is incapable of being in the present.
Now, the mind can do many things, and when we begin to access another kind
of intelligence, the mind can resume its proper function. The other kind of
intelligence is not about creating realities out of past experiences. It is
about becoming aware of exactly what is happening in any given moment and
allowing yourself to simply respond. It's not about how you think it is going
to be, or thought it was going to be, or were told it was going to be. What
we are talking about is getting clear enough so that you actually see what
is going on, without the normal filters you have to protect you from your
experience. Try entering each moment without any conditions. This requires
courage, but remember, you are not the machine you have been conditioned to
be. You are much, much more.
For more information about our programs
contact:
Contact information:
Sammasati Seminars
1412 BROAD STREET
Victoria, B.C. V8W 2B1
Canada
Telephone: 250-298-8270
Email: sammasati@sammasati.com