Space-like awareness

During my third reading of What’s Wrong with Right Now unless you think about it? I got what Bob Adamson was saying more clearly than I had before. It happened while I was reading his description of each person as a space-like awareness. It tied in with something similar that Rupert Spira had said in The Transparency of Things.

Rupert Spira used the analogy of a vase. Usually we think of a vase as a container that encloses space. Yet, in reality, it is space that envelopes the vase. The vase cannot exist without space within which to be positioned.

Space is permanent and unchangeable. The vase, in its current configuration, is temporary. Sooner or later, its form will change. The organization of its atoms will break down, and they will be redistributed.

When the vase is gone, the space still will be there. The space will not have been affected by the vase’s arrival, by its presence or by its departure.

When I contemplated this distinction, it felt like a profound shift in my usual emphasis. If I imagined that the vase represented me, Judy, I felt myself identifying less with the vase and more with the space. It was as if I had stepped back and was viewing myself from a little distance.

I found myself imagining space as a large, empty room. I then imagined the room being populated with pieces of furniture, eating utensils, books, decorations, etc. The “little me,” Judy, was represented by one of these items – let’s stick with the vase metaphor for now. The other people in my life were represented by the couch, the chairs, the tables, the dishes, the glasses, the pieces of cutlery, the paintings on the walls, and so on.

The events in my life were represented by the interactions among the pieces. A saucer was giving one of the cups a hug, a fork and a spoon were having an argument, the dining table and coffee table were playing a competitive game, one of the books was conducting a self-improvement seminar for a group of other books, and the lounge chairs were declaring war on the dining chairs. Each of the items was tall or short, fat or thin, clever or stupid, elegant or clumsy, an expensive designer original or cheaply mass-produced.

The “society” that was made up of these items conveyed to each individual piece the strong message that it was a separate entity. Each piece’s arrival in the room was marked by the granting of a name and the issuing of a birth certificate, the piece was taught how to fit in and was disciplined when it broke the rules, it was granted qualifications when it reached certain benchmarks in its educational process, its efforts were rewarded with payments of money, and on and on.

Having accepted its separateness, each piece actually sought validation of that separateness. Wives got together and commiserated with each other about what jerks their husbands were, employees similarly drew sympathy from each other about their lousy bosses, grown children went into therapy in an effort to recover from the abuse they’d suffered from their parents ....... you probably get the picture.

As pieces were brought into the room, communicated with other pieces, and then were removed from the room, the space continued to be ....... well ....... the space.

The implications of this change of focus from the objects to the space feel profound. That adjustment has a knock-on effect that ....... well ....... changes everything.

The dramas associated with Judy’s life, which previously seemed dire, now appear to be a tempest in a tea cup.

In the lead up to this new way of looking at things, one of the biggest sacrifices was giving up the notion that I had control over anything. It felt scary to admit that I (that is, the “little me”) had no power. It also made all of my “hard work” up to this point feel wasted.

Yet, when I managed to let go of the illusion of control, it felt enormously freeing. It is not so much that I no longer do anything. Today I cooked meals, moved the cattle on our little farm from one paddock to another, and wheeled loads of firewood into the shed and stacked them. The difference today is that I didn’t worry about all the remaining maintenance and administrative tasks still waiting to be done, didn’t freak out about our finances, etc.

I really felt as if I understood Jesus’s words, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” (Matthew 6:26)

It feels very cool to be at peace. I am most grateful.

Compassion -- who knew?

Something that a friend of mine recently posted on Facebook attracted me to the website of the Charter for Compassion and the Amazon reviews for Karen Armstrong's book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.

The topic of compassion is one that has puzzled me since I've been studying Non-Duality.

Prior to my exploration of Non-Duality, I had placed a high value on kindness, empathy, consideration and tact.

But, according to my understanding of Non-Duality, all suffering is an illusion. Another person's treatment of me has no power to affect my feelings. If I do suffer as a result of their behaviour, it's only because of the interpretation I put on it.

The implication seems to be that the reverse also is true. I can be as much of a jerk as I like. If other people don't like that, it's their problem.

On the other hand, several Non-Duality authors state that, once you see that we're all One, you feel that whatever you are doing to someone else, you're doing to yourself. So you automatically treat everyone with respect.

Well, be that as it may, I signed up for the Charter for Compassion's Facebook group, and I started seeing the inspirational quotations that they posted. The one below really jumped out at me:

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. That’s enough.

When you see you can do that, you continue, and you give two little joys, and you remove two little sufferings, then three, and then four. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now.

Sister Chân Không (1938), Vietnamese pioneer of socially engaged Buddhism

I decided to try Sister Không's suggestion. Almost instantly I experienced a few fascinating results.

As I set myself the assignment of identifying the one thing that I could do in the morning or afternoon, I found that I forgot my own troubles.

If someone was "suffering" from a long list of woes, I did not feel obliged to solve all of his or her "problems." I just thought, "What is one thing I can do to cheer him/her up or make him/her feel more supported?"

Sometimes the thing I managed to identify required a lot of effort on my part, but often it was very small -- giving directions to a couple of tourists who had a lost look about them, helping an elderly woman get her shopping bag from the store to her car, and so on.

As I focused on fulfilling the assignment I'd set myself, I found myself forgetting if the other person was nice or nasty. That is, I found myself effortlessly giving my little bit of help or smiling or saying "Hello" even if the other person was a bit grizzly or grumpy or frustrated or impatient.

After doing this exercise for a short while, it occurred to me that it was a type of meditation. In meditation, one does something to quiet what Richard Hittleman calls the ordinary mind which, in turn, helps one to sense one's connection with what he calls the Universal Mind. So one focuses on one's breathing, or one repeats a single word or phrase over and over again, or something like that.

It seems to me that focusing on Sister Không's assignment has the effect of quietening the ordinary mind. I've found myself so busy doing the homework that I've had less mental energy left over to worry, to judge, and so on.

Well, whatever the intellectual explanation, I've found myself much happier since taking on this exercise. So much so that I would say that compassionate acts might even be viewed as selfish! I'm enjoying this so much that I'm doing it for my own sake rather than the other person's!

Sailor Bob Adamson rocks

I now am on my third reading of What's Wrong with Right Now?by "Sailor" Bob Adamson.

As I mentioned in my post entitled What's wrong with right NOW, I recently had re-read this book after a two-year interval.

On this third reading, Adamson's explanation of Non-Duality is resonating with me very strongly.

Every other page -- sometimes every other sentence -- I find myself saying, "Yes! That is so true!"

In the meantime, things have grown even more challenging in what most people would call my "real life." I have had major disappointments, and I am facing big challenges for which I don't have answers. I also am working long hours on our little farm, doing chores that sometimes are physically demanding.

Yet, during this reading of Adamson's book, I'm finding myself feeling calm most of the time. Quite often I even feel cheerful. I'm comfortable not knowing how things will resolve themselves. I trust that there is an intelligence that is handling everything. I don't feel obliged to be the Fixer who can solve everyone else's problems for them.

I'm less inclined to take things personally. I'm more apt to view things simply as happening, rather than seeing them as happening to me.

In the reading department, the Tao Te Ching continues to be an inspiration too.

Newton's Third Law of Physics

The Greatest Secret of Alchemy is the title of a post that caught my attention when I recently visited my brother's blog.

The part that I found particularly interesting was William's description of our ego as the vehicle that we use to navigate the world and through which we experience ourselves as separate.

According to my understanding, my conflicts with other people are the result of our egos clashing with each other.

Since William had used the word "vehicle" to represent the ego, the image of bumper cars sprang into my mind to represent the crashing "vehicles," and I chuckled. It's interesting how fairy tales, nursery rhymes, children's games and amusement park rides often reveal truths about life.

This motivated me to do a Google search on "bumper cars." That led me to a website entitled Amusement Park Physics. It stated, amongst other things:

Newton's third law of motion comes into play on the bumper cars. This law, the law of interaction, says that if one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body. It's the law of action-reaction, and it helps to explain why you feel a jolt when you collide with another bumper car.

That gave me a further chuckle. I thought, tongue-in-cheek, "You see, there's scientific proof of the workings of the ego!"

Of course, a great deal of spiritual teaching is about disengaging your inner bumper car so that, when someone else collides with you, you don't exert an equal and opposite force on him or her.

But I digress. William's piece contains more wisdom than the vehicle metaphor so, if you feel moved, please feel free to read the original post.

If you visit William's website, you'll probably notice that, unlike me, he is not into Non-Duality. Yet there are overlaps between his philosophy and mine. I certainly do find it worthwhile to visit his blog from time to time and check out what he's saying.

Loosening the ties that bind

The big insight that I got from Robert Scheinfeld’s audio entitled The Rings of Relationship is that I didn’t need people.

Yes, people add flavour to my life; I enjoy them, and welcome interaction with them. But I don’t need them.

To have an inkling of the significance of this insight, you’d have to have some appreciation of what a stark contrast it represents from my previous orientation.

Prior to this, I considered people to be vital to me – you know, right up there, just after oxygen. I made many decisions around people, bent myself out of shape to include them in my life, and felt distressed when things didn’t work out with them.

Yet, in what seemed like a split second, that focus evaporated.

That, in turn, resulted in a tremendous sense of freedom.

This change in alignment has a domino effect. It influences many other aspects of what Robert calls the Human Game.

The flip side of the coin, namely, that other people don’t need me any more than I need them, also feels freeing. In fact, it lifts a huge weight off my shoulders.

An interesting feature of this new level of awareness is that I feel no less love towards my family members and close friends than I felt before. Actually I feel warmer and fuzzier towards them than I did in the past.

As Robert has said elsewhere in his teachings, when you’re watching a movie, you suspend your awareness of your physical surroundings and allow yourself to get caught up in the story enough to enjoy the drama.

In a similar way, you can know that you’re in the Earth Amusement Park, and yet you can allow yourself to “forget” the mechanics of the particular ride you’re on to a degree that enables you to relish it.

So, if I stop and think about it, I know that Greg is my apparent husband (to use Sailor Bob Adamson’s language), I know that my apparent mother had an apparent operation recently, I know that my apparent son just switched apparent jobs, and so on.

But I don’t go around couching it in those terms all the time. I check in with Greg to find out what progress he’s making with the electrical gizmo he’s trying to fix, I wonder how Mom is doing after her surgery, I’m curious how my son is finding his new job, etc.

When things in the storyline go “wrong,” I offer what help I can, but quietly chuckle and wonder what will unfold in tomorrow’s episode of the soap opera.

Again, in the interests of being honest, I must admit that I don’t experience this level of “enlightenment” (or whatever you would call it) consistently. Yet, I would say that, compared with the way I experienced life before gaining this insight, I feel 85% better.

The moments during which events around me “grab me by the throat” are less intense and last a shorter time than they did before.

The Rings of Relationship

I had been wanting to share with you one of my remaining emotional triggers, which was my over-sensitivity to any hint or implication that I was stupid.

However, in my "real life" offline -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say "in my illusory life" -- I had been too busy to blog.

But that's almost academic now. During these last few days, in which I had wanted to blog but hadn't been able to, my sense of inadequacy evaporated.

I completed Byron Katie's questionnaire, and I recalled the advice of various Non-Duality authors (both contemporary and ancient). Those efforts seemed to help to some extent, but I still was feeling a bit low.

Then I "stole" a few minutes out of my demanding schedule, and listened to Robert Scheinfeld's audio entitled The Rings of Relationship.

While I was listening to it, I experienced a powerful -- and extraordinarily freeing -- Aha moment.

I found the recording insightful on many levels.

Oddly enough, although Robert did not address intelligence, in a roundabout way his words provided me with support in that regard too.

Perhaps in the busy days ahead I'll get a chance to share with you how I unpacked the emotional suitcase labelled "stupid" that I'd been carrying around.

In the meantime, The Rings of Relationship link is available, in case you're curious about it. I consider a topic worthy of consideration in its own right.

Drudgery or Fun?

....... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Shakespeare in "Hamlet"

Since I’ve taken up the habit of experiencing in the NOW, some of my emotional hot buttons have dissolved.

One of my old triggers related to menial chores – or at least ones that I used to think of as menial.

On the one hand, I disdained the stereotypical white South African of the apartheid era who lorded it over black people. On the other hand, when the going got tough, my inner white South African would come to the fore. I’d resent doing chores that were hot and sweaty, that were dirty, that were repetitive, that were boring, and so on.

My husband, Greg, and I met each other just over three years ago. One of the features I found attractive about him in the beginning was his love of nature, his knowledge of trees, etc.

That was all very well, as long as we did activities that I enjoyed, such as hiking. That didn’t involve work, in the sense that Mother Nature did all of the gardening in the parks that we explored.

It was an entirely different matter when Greg turned his hand to gardening, splitting firewood, pruning trees, and digging ditches on his rural property. In theory I believed in eating locally grown, organic food and doing all that environmentally friendly stuff that greenie weanies do. But, man, it’s hard work! Not only that, but it’s dirty, hot, sweaty, boring, repetitive work – or at least that’s the way it seems to a person who has an “attitude.”

While he was doing these kinds of chores, Greg would go on about how beautiful the spring blossoms were or how cute the birds were or how blue the sky was. I would think to myself, “Yeah, sure, but if we want to soak in nature we could just go for a walk. Why does getting out and enjoying the blossoms and the birds and the sky involve so much work?”

Yet, over many months, my attitude began to change. Bit by bit, I started enjoying outdoor activities. I don’t just mean recreational outdoor activities such as hiking, sailing and kayaking – although I still enjoy them too – but outdoor activities that involve hard, dirty, hot, sweaty, repetitive work.

Gradually I came to derive a sense of satisfaction from the completion of a task, however humble. I lost my distaste for getting dirty, and my tolerance for repetition expanded. Believe it or not, I started enjoying the blossoms and the birds and the sky to which I was treated while I was working.

These days it’s very rare for me to wonder why I should have to do what I’m doing.

Just in case you think I’m trying to pass myself off as a saint whose ego has dissolved, let me hasten to add that I still have some emotional hot buttons left! I’ll share one of them in my next piece.

Experiencing in the NOW

In an earlier post, I shared that I had found Richard Hittleman’s Guide to Yoga Meditation very supportive.

One of his recommendations is focusing on experiencing what is happening, in the moment.

As he points out, you either can experience something OR you can name it. You cannot do both simultaneously.

The two events – the experiencing and the naming -- happen in such quick succession that typically we believe they are a single event. With my exploration of Non-Duality, I’m coming to learn that experiencing and naming (or labelling, judging, or telling stories) are separate processes.

Naming or labelling causes no discomfort as long as we use it as a tool for functioning in everyday life. The phone is ringing, the traffic light has just turned green, from the sound of the running water I can guess the bath is as full as I need, and so on.

We can generate suffering, though, when we judge situations, when we read meaning into other people’s actions, or when we want things to be different from the way they are.

To get past the labels, the assumptions, the judgements and the stories, Hittleman suggests the following strategy:

As you engage in each of your activities throughout the day, do not resist any experience. Attempt to be aware of the essence of everything you are doing. Even in those everyday chores that you usually accomplish in a mechanical manner and which seem to be very boring, attempt to experience the nature of what you are doing. When you find yourself in what you usually thought of as an unpleasant situation, do not resist it. Throw yourself into the center of the situation. Feel it; experience it.

Each Non-Duality author that I've read has motivated me to do this. I would say, though, that the writings of Jean Klein, "Sailor" Bob Adamson, and especially Richard Hittleman have been the most powerfully inspiring in this regard.

Since I’ve been cultivating this habit, I’ve found it enormously helpful. Tasks that I previously resented –- because they were boring, menial, repetitive, difficult or for some other reason stressful –- have come to be enjoyable. I have been really surprised at how happily I’ve worked through chores that I used to detest.

We especially are prone to suffering when we make comparisons with the past or when we project undesired outcomes into the future. The practice of focusing on experiencing has the added benefit of keeping us in the NOW. If our attention is on experiencing, we can’t help but be living in the present. Problems tend to evaporate when we are in the NOW.

When I'm fully engaged in what I'm doing, my awareness of the "little me" -- what Hittleman calls the "ordinary mind" -- dissolves. I get into a flow, and feel at one with the work and with my environment.

Brought me to tears

This is the book review I published for Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey by Lao Tzu, as translated by Stephen Mitchell, on Amazon's website on January 15, 2013:

I LOVE this book.

Unlike some other reviewers, who have read several translations of the Tao Te Ching, I have read it for the first time.

While I was reading, a thought crossed my mind, "Under which rock have I been hiding for sixty years? Why have I found this book only now?"

Of course that judgmental thought in itself is out of sync with the Tao which, like the ocean, accepts whatever flows into it, whenever that may happen.

Suffice it to say, I am extremely grateful to have stumbled on the wisdom of Lao Tzu.

There are so many compliments to pay this book. Where to begin? Lao Tzu provided the content, which is simple yet profound. Stephen Mitchel has provided a translation that is elegant and poetic.

I was going to say that this would be my choice if I was allowed to take one book to that proverbial desert island. But then it occurred to me that, having read this one, I would have no need of books. Its message is inscribed in my heart - and that always goes with me.

All the same, as long as I haven't yet been stranded on that island, I'm sure I'll return to this gem repeatedly, to savour its beauty and no doubt to discover fresh insights on subsequent readings.

Potential customers who, like me, have not read the Tao Te Ching, may be interested to know how I found out about it. I'd read "A Thousand Names for Joy : Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are" (Byron Katie's commentary on excerpts from the Tao Te Ching) and, before that, "Loving What Is : Four Questions That Can Change Your Life" (which describes 'The Work' of Byron Katie). I'd found those books supportive too.

Yoga Meditation

In rummaging through our storage room, my husband recently unearthed a handful of books that dated back to his hippy youth.

One of them was Richard Hittleman’s Guide to Yoga Meditation (Bantam Books, 1969).

This was a real find!

Hittleman’s explanations of what he calls the “ordinary mind” and the “Universal Mind” are the clearest and most concise that I’ve read so far!

He provides strategies for detaching from the paranoid “ordinary mind” and experiencing the expanded awareness, strength, security, and peace of the “Universal Mind.”

Some of the activities are specific meditation techniques that you would employ by setting aside time, finding a quiet space, and so on.

Some of the strategies, however, are attitudes that you can adopt while you’re going about your everyday life.

I read – but did not take on board – what Hittleman had to say about reincarnation. He believes in it, but I’m pretty sceptical about it. I consider that to be a minor detail, though. His and my difference of opinion on that topic does nothing to detract from the practical support I’ve received from his book.

I am so glad my husband dug up this book!

Letting go of the "little me"

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was re-reading What’s Wrong with Right NOW unless you think about it?

On this reading, the book is turning out to be a gem. It’s interesting that a couple of years ago I found it merely okay. Back then I didn’t understand why reviewers raved about it. Now I would say I’ve joined the fan club.

This time around, I’ve been finding it very interesting to see what Bob Adamson has to say about the entity that most of us think of as “I” or “me.” I find that he provides a very clear explanation of this.

As I’m making my way through this book, I’m finding myself relaxing more and more. Increasingly I seem to be letting go of “me,” that is, the apparent me that previously felt a heavy burden of responsibility for ensuring that things turned out okay. I’m relinquishing goals and desired outcomes.

The image I had of myself, which was based on my past, is loosening its grip on me. I worry less about the future. On examination, I find that many of my fears centred on the survival of the “little me” and maintenance of the little me’s ongoing membership of “the club.” (“Club” is my multi-purpose label for any reference group to which I may feel attached.)

With greater – but not yet perfect – consistency, I am trusting Intelligence Energy to work things out. (Intelligence Energy is one of several terms that Bob uses for Universal Consciousness.)

I am living more in the NOW.

As I’m easing my demands on myself, I’m finding my judgements of other people letting up. I feel warm towards them and enjoy their company.

As so many Non-Duality authors have stated, Universal Consciousness is like a mirror. The apparent other people with whom I interact, the apparent “me” that interacts with them, and the apparent events in which we apparent entities participate are like reflections in the mirror. Regardless of whether the events are “good” or “bad,” and regardless of whether we feel “happy” or “sad” about them, they can have no more effect on my essence (Universal Consciousness) than a reflection has on the mirror in which it’s reflected.

Bob uses another analogy that I don’t remember seeing elsewhere in Non-Duality literature. He talks about a mirage. He says it looks so like water, you could swear it was water. Yet, he asks, can the mirage wet your shoes? I like that metaphor! When I find something disturbing, I ask myself, “Can this situation wet my shoes?” That quickly puts things into perspective for me.

At the coal face

So far on this blog, I have not shared details about my “problems.”

It occurs to me that you, the reader, may regard me as a lady of leisure who is tinkering with these concepts of Non-duality.

I have thought that it might give me more credibility if I told you the issues I was wrestling with.

The challenge with that is that my family members value confidentiality more than I do. In order to give you a sense of what I’m “up against,” I’d have to tell you their stories too. From what I know of them, I believe they would feel hurt and betrayed if I did that.

Suffice it to say, in my immediate family we’re dealing with cancer, mental illness, and serious financial challenges that seem to permeate every aspect of our lives.

Perhaps this is enough information for you to get a sense that I am an ordinary person who experiences what in the “normal world” are considered to be “difficulties,” just like most people.

To me, my exploration of Non-duality feels very practical indeed. It is not merely a theoretical exercise.

What's wrong with right NOW?

After a two-year interval, I am re-reading What’s wrong with right NOW unless you think about it? by “Sailor” Bob Adamson.

This book had been recommended to me close to the beginning of my exploration of Non-duality.

Although I did get something out of it back then, it resonates with me a lot more now.

Adamson’s style is less accessible to me than the writings of Rupert Spira, Francis Lucille, Jean Klein, Nathan Gill and, above all, Byron Katie.

However, it has felt supportive to me to read different authors. Each one expresses the same concept a little differently. The cumulative effect is a growing insight into the nature of Reality.

Certainly it feels good to have included “Sailor” Bob’s book in the mix.

My current reading of What’s wrong with right now? is reminding me that I – the “little me” that I think of as Judy – can do nothing.

Bob uses the analogy of a poker that’s red hot when it’s been in the fire. My imagining that I have power is like the poker’s imagining that it is the source of its own heat. Of course, if the poker is removed from the fire, it cools down.

The reason that I’ve appeared to have done this or that during my life is the result of my having been a channel for what Bob calls Presence Awareness. There are other names for It – Universal Consciousness, God, etc. It is That One that actually has done everything that I’ve previously attributed to Judy.

Recently I’ve faced several challenges. Whenever I’ve wondered how I’ll meet tight deadlines, how I’ll do something that appears complicated, and so on, I’ve felt overwhelmed. When I’ve reminded myself that I am not the doer, have let go of results, and have regarded myself as an instrument of The One, things have flowed.