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.

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.

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.

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.

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.