The first 4 or 5 years on this path, my quest was Awakening/Enlightenment. The last couple of years the focus shifted to the truth. While they are different terms, they are both pointing to the same experiential understanding of Self and Reality.
I prefer the truth. Things got much easier and simpler when I abandoned the concept of awakening and just focused on the truth. The truth is always simple. If it starts sounding complicated, we are probably on the wrong track.
Approximately 6 years ago, very near the beginning of my journey, I got together with 2 of my oldest friends to meditate; Marianne and Rhonda. At the time, I was very gung-ho on Awakening/Enlightenment. Marianne, however, had a big problem with these terms. Particularly, she had a problem with the term enlightenment if I remember correctly. She did not like it. Her irritation and discomfort with this term was that it cast a specialness onto the person. It just didn't feel right to her.
At the time, I could not understand her resistance. Now I completely get it. Mare, you were right!! It is also a good example of the importance of always following your own compass and instincts, since Mare never acquiesced on this point.
We all have the understanding that Awakening is rare. I saw a great number of people wanting it at retreats. Myself included. And so it casts an elite specialness onto the person who achieves it. Someone like Adyashanti, as an example, is viewed as being special. As an aside.. any good spiritual teacher will go out of their way dispel this misconception in my opinion and some do it better than others...Rupert and Francis do it extremely well.
The other problem with the term Awakening is that it implies that someone actually Awakens, does it not? Technically, there is no such thing as an Awakened person. It is impossible. The person who wants to wake up is an illusion. Doesn't actually exist. How can an illusion wake up? It can't. It is very important to see this clearly because the concept of a person awakening immediately sets us off in the wrong direction. Many spiritual seekers have gone decades before reaching this understanding. Many never do.
All of the confusion, and frustration, and pressure, and desiring, of wanting to Awaken was completely lifted from my shoulders when my focus shifted. Scott can never Awaken. Ahhhhhh. What a relief!! In fact, any kind of effort is taking me in the wrong direction (which is sweet music to a lazy unambitious guy like myself). Effort should not be confused with doing nothing. Effortless effort is what is required. Playing tennis could be an example of effortless effort if you love playing tennis.
Redirecting my enthusiasm for the pursuit of the truth changed everything. The truth is not about the person. The person is not important. Only the truth matters. And the truth is available to ANYONE who wants it.
Access to the truth has nothing to do with a person's intelligence, specialness, or piousness. The most important quality is the person's sincerity and enthusiasm for the truth. If you truly want the truth, you will find it.
Like the farmer a 1000 years ago believing the world to be flat. The only thing stopping the farmer from the truth is his desire to understand the truth. After hearing, or perhaps intuiting on his own a possible alternate version of his worldview, he would then need to do an investigation and conduct some experiments to find out the truth.
But the truth is always available to him. Why? Because the truth is available to everyone. Perhaps my favorite definition of Awakening is the removal of ignorance. Removal of ignorance is the equivalent of letting go of beliefs after we have discovered them not to be true.
This might sound crazy but if a person is really sincere to know the truth the universe will conspire for you in ways we can't imagine. Like keeping a donkey on a path, sometimes the universe will guide the donkey with a stick (when its badly off course), but mostly the donkey is rewarded with lots of carrots when its on the right track. Likewise, we always know when we are in the flow of the universe, and conversely, we always know when we are resisting it. How do we know when we are on the right path? We just know. We are happy.
The truth is I am Consciousness and it need not take long to establish this understanding.
Further, there is absolutely no evidence that Consciousness limited. It is definitely not an experience. No one has ever had the experience of a limited Consciousness. It is because we have imposed our concepts of a limited body-mind onto Consciousness, that we deep down believe that we too are limited. Yes, our minds our obviously limited, but the Awareness that is Aware of the mind is not.
Since Consciousness is the reality that perceives, it is everything. I know this because I trust my intelligence. I know this because I trust my experience. I also know this because I trust Francis Lucille, Rupert Spira and Adyshanti. I spent two years with each of them. They are all saying the same thing in their own unique way. While I still need to validate what they are saying, I can also choose to trust them until this understanding becomes my own.
This gives me the courage and confidence to JUST BE Universal Awareness knowingly. To bask in the glow of this understanding. I need not wait for the coveted mantle of enlightenment to directly experience this realization/understanding that I've always been Consciousness. That I could never be anything other than Consciousness.
At the very least, when in doubt, stay in the 'not-knowing what I am' until you find some evidence to support the belief that Consciousness is limited. Simple. We can never know what we are anyway because Consciousness is not something that the mind can ever 'know'....we can only ever be it knowingly. Feel free to try it now if you want. How might the would appear differently if the Consciousness that I am was NOT limited? Now that is an interesting contemplation.
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