“There is not anything I can give you that you have not already got.”
– Nisargadatta Maharaj
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The thing you need to know about any inner path is that you already have what you’re looking for.
You’re searching everywhere but the glasses were always on your forehead.
You already are the thing that you want.
This is not obvious though.
We forget this best version of us in the stress of life, and we see the suffering that causes to ourselves and others. We want to shift away from the part of us that creates chaos… we want to be better.
This much is clear.
But the important thing you need to know is that this inner shift is not a transformation as much as a remembering. We create havoc through unconscious behaviour and habits; we create harmony through waking up.
“Asleep? Or awake?”, as my Ishaya teacher says to illustrate this point. Make your inner journey – however that may look – as simple as this. Prioritise being awake.
Any journey of becoming is learning to be more awake to who you’ve always been. Mindful, not mindless, right?
You don’t need to force or discipline your mind into thinking differently. But so many give up far too soon in their practice and their journey precisely because they’re trying too hard to become.
So –
Here’s how our minds work, all so you can avoid this trap and keep your remembering free of struggle, forever.
Consider your mind is like a bottle of muddy water, constantly being shaken up through always ‘on’ busy-ness, worry, regret, stress, planning and controlling. It’s muddy; it’s difficult to know where the dirt ends and the clear water begins, right?
You could try to extract the dirt, to purify the water somehow. But the easiest answer is to leave the bottle alone. You don’t have to do much, but sit and rest in effortless awareness. Let the mind’s momentum die down. Let it still itself.
As you stop shaking your bottle up all the time – and a little consistency goes a long way here – the dirt and the water naturally separate. If you take the time to consistently stop and rest, we self-purify.
The mind settles, and you start to see the distinction between your mind and its context: The awareness of You that supports your mind, that is aware of your mind.
Here’s one the of fundamental truths of any inner journey –
You have a mind, but you are not your mind.
You can be aware and awake to the machinations of your mind, but precisely because you can see it working means you cannot be it. You are the awareness that, through habit, zooms into, and loses itself in, the mind, feeling like it has become the mind.
You can easily (especially now we’ve talked about it) step back and begin to realise the difference between wide open awareness and the thoughts and emotions that arise within, and move through, it.
Just like the air remains untouched no matter what colour paint is thrown through it, or just like the sky remains as itself no matter what kind of weather blows through, You are ‘un-stainable’. You are never touched by thought or emotion. This You isn’t even shaped by history. In that, You can never be broken, nor can you secure some kind of permanent state of being in this moment.
You are constant; untouched; unchanged.
It’s an amazingly liberating experience when you get it (and keep practicing because you will realise this, at some stage).
You’ll see that despite the events and disasters of your entire life, despite all your choices, your sins and your kindness, your wisdom and good deeds, despite all of it … none of it touches who you are right here.
Now (part 2) –
Previous choices and reactions to events and other people inform your life today. These fit into, and build on, habitual beliefs that you have about yourself and the world you live in.
But consider them like the software that runs on your phone or your computer.
The essential nature of the hardware (You) is untouched, it just runs whatever programme it’s asked to, to the best of its ability – and through a lack of education and role models, the hardware begins to believe it is the software.
But just because the belief is strong, it doesn’t make it true.
All your negative and limiting habits and beliefs – that create chaos in the first place – are best transcended by rising beyond all of them into a better and authentic state of being. You Ascend, or rise above them, by seeing what is already within you beyond limitation’s expression in the mind.
Now (part 3!) –
Through this habit of believing we are the programming, we just fall asleep back into the same habit.
That’s all.
We just fall asleep to mindful, open, authentic awareness and fall back into being the mind. And like an enthusiastic yet untrained puppy, it’s all over the place, bringing back all kinds of goodies (and nasties) for you.
We think we have to fight this puppy. Slap it around, make it submit, change it somehow; or we think we can run from it – we try and dodge and weave our way away.
The problem is the puppy is attached to us. Fighting it is fighting a part of us; fighting or running from it is like fighting or running from your shadow … it’s a complete waste of energy, and you can literally drive yourself insane through battling or trying to escape something that cannot be battled or escaped.
You see the conundrum for our poor beginning meditator?
More effort brings less rewards.
Our whole lives we’ve been told that harder or longer work will bring more: The whole “practice makes perfect” idea. And it’s true, in a way … time in the saddle makes progress. But the progress is to a state of awake awareness – where you relax and settle back into who you’ve always been, and not effort to try and create a different thing.
When you stop fighting and running, the momentum and mud can settle, the poor software of you transcended, and the truth of who You are is revealed.
All you need to do is practice effortlessly; not with some iron will to crush your mind and ego.
So –
We lose this state of restful awareness because of our habit of fighting or running. With patient persistence you bring yourself back; you return once again – you remember.
It is this return and this remembering, these awakenings back into non-puppy awareness, that become more and more memorable: You forget less and less.
“You remember to remember so you forget to forget” – My Ishaya teacher again.
This is the key.
Practice for sure. But make your practice effortless. Effortlessly aware and attentive. Curious and interested, awake and alive.
This is the way forward, regardless of the tool that you might be using.
Alrighty?
I have no idea if that helped any, but it’s what I got!
Hope you’re well,
and go well!
Arjuna
PS.
As always, if you’d like to join us for an Ascension meditation course you would be so welcome.
It would be lovely to see you.
Dates (all begin 7pm Friday)
8-10 April
8-10 July
For more info just ask. I’d love to help.
Make life with less struggle.