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.

Choice

Jean Klein made a statement that fascinated me when I first encountered it.

He said that, whenever choice was in the picture, the ego was involved.

He said that, when the ego stepped aside, there was no choice.

He used the example of a tightrope walker. He said that a tightrope walker never wondered if he should step to the left or to the right.

He said that a person who was Conscious, who was not motivated by the ego, was as clear about the appropriateness of his action as a tightrope walker was about his next step.

I have not yet stepped over that threshold where I am living in Consciousness.

For me there often is doubt about what to do next.

But what I am finding is that I am intervening less and less.

More and more, I am letting things unfold naturally.

I am less inclined to try to rescue situations, to try to persuade people about what they should do, to make decisions on behalf of others, etc.

Since reading Klein's statement about choice, I've noticed the occasions on which I've been faced with choices. I've acknowledged that ego has been involved.

Then I've asked, "Why do I have to decide now?"

More often than not, the answer has been, "I don't have to decide now."

By the way, there is one little qualification to all this.

I don't think Klein was talking about inconsequential decisions, like what flavour of herbal tea to drink. Yes, when I look at my tea containers, I do sometimes ponder, "Will it be mint or chamomile?" At that moment there is a choice, but it's very brief. I just shrug and say, "Well, I had mint last time, so I'll change things up a bit and have chamomile this time."

Revised blog title

When I created this blog, I gave it the title of "My Spiritual Adventure."

It has just occurred to me that it would be more supportive to call it "A Spiritual Adventure."

The reason is that I am coming to see that I am not exploring Non-Duality.

There is no Judy to do the exploring.

As Jean Klein would put it, exploration is happening. That's all he would say.

He would not discuss it in terms of an explorer (subject) and that which is being explored (object).

He would say that both subject and object appear within Consciousness, that they are One.

Unlike those who have realized the Truth, I still experience myself as a separate "I." In my case, the I-thought has not evaporated.

Yet, with all this exposure to the writings of Rupert Spira, Francis Lucille and Jean Klein, I am finding that my use of language is changing.

As long as I'm being this technical, I may as well admit that I now find the term "Adventure" a bit suspect too.

Adventure suggests a series of experiences that are continuous in time. It might be more helpful to use a word that has a more timeless quality.

However, if you create a blog, you have to start somewhere, so I'm not beating myself up about this.

Acceptance = Listening

I have found it challenging to accept everything in my life, as Eckhart Tolle recommends in "The Power of Now."

Sometimes the best I can do is grit my teeth and grudgingly endure a situation.

In Jean Klein's writing I came across a concept that felt more supportive to me.  Klein says that accepting a situation means listening to it.

Klein goes on to say that listening, in this sense, is not something that you do with just your ears.  Rather, you listen with your whole being.

You patiently listen, without an agenda or a deadline, and the situation gradually reveals itself to you.

Perhaps the situation simply evaporates.

Or, if it continues, you slowly come to see it in a larger context. 

Whatever happens, there is likely to be some sort of movement.  You probably won't feel as stuck as you previously did. 

Listening feels to me like an easier recommendation to follow than accepting.  

  

Situations

The ego needs situations in order to survive.

A situation can be good or bad.  It doesn't matter, as long as it's a situation.

Without a situation to latch onto, the ego will die.

If there is one thing the ego does not want to do, it's to die!

It will fight tooth and nail to survive.  

So, if one problem is resolved, my ego will create another problem. 

The thing is, though, that as long as I identify exclusively with my ego (my personality), I am shut off from my heart (Consciousness).    

I encountered this idea in "The Ease of Being" by Jean Klein.  

Since then I've been noticing situations in my life and acknowledging them as situations.  Just being aware that they may be playing this role -- that is, feeding my ego -- seems helpful in detaching from them to some extent.  I am just that little bit more aware that I don't need them.