The Path Of Rational Enquiry
I have been asked quite a few times if there is a practice to experience naturally being one. Our minds get busy, and glimpses of our true nature of peace can fade. It is vital to understand and feel the life-affirming qualities of our true nature to act on them. We need to be very honest with ourselves. The path of wisdom is a path of rational understanding of experience rather than of devoted practices. Investigation of experience is something we may do spontaneously, not ritualistically.
In some respects, the truth is like a lover that only comes alive when approached with spontaneous curiosity and love, not habit and formality. Having said that, once the aliveness is present, offerings in the form of ritual practices can be an excellent recognition, as long as these don't become a subtle way of implying separation from our true nature. This is why many teachers of the direct path of wisdom do not teach practices, for these can subtly keep us in our place of feeling forever separate if we are not very careful. We can become attached to them. In the final analysis, we must remember that we are already what we seek at all times and places. So the following is not a practice but simple investigatory steps that you may wish to use at any time when the enthusiasm takes you. It does help to reinforce this experience of Oneness, so to avoid falling into habituated practices that are not motivated by the natural, spontaneous power of pure joy but by the fearful force of trying to escape suffering, it is vital to nurture the deep motivation for seeking truth. This motivation can be awakened.
It needs to be. This incredibly intense desire for liberated truth will take you to it. So quickly, the ego takes over, daily life becomes hectic, and the mind loves to be busy. It makes it feel safe to be active. It adores solving problems and will make them up to solve them even when there are none. Having glimpsed the feeling of being consciousness and not a body or mind and being at peace, free of suffering, and joyfully enjoying the creative flow brings love and harmony to all life. Can you imagine if your desire to experience this quadrupled at this moment? What if your desire for liberated truth became a million times stronger than it is right now? We must recognise that the desire to preserve the ego is often far more potent than the desire to end it. Can you see what you would do if your desire for liberated truth were this strong? Would your priorities still be the same? I am not suggesting neglecting important practical matters but a review of activities that may distract you from enjoying your essential liberated truth. Only you can discern what these are. In the direct path based on the rational investigation of experience, I suggest the following steps of investigation and recognition that might be motivated by the intense desire for liberated truth.
No matter what my circumstances, I am still existing and always am the ever-present and never-changing space of Awareness that witnesses the mind and body and world and am not the experience of body and mind or world that come and go in me, not me in of them.
I am aware of being aware directly and instantly; even though I cannot see myself, I know I exist, and I can feel the life-affirming qualities of love, courage and wisdom of this aware reality I am – the "divine spark" – and I notice this take me to my heart and out of my busy mind.
I have no experiential or objective evidence that this Awareness I am is limited in any way or originates from a single localised mind and body. Therefore I do not know if I am limited, and by acknowledging this not knowing, I am open-minded to the possibility of seeing that I am infinite, unbounded Awareness choosing to be aware of itself and not a localised separate person choosing to be aware of Awareness.
Taking my stand as unlimited Awareness, I can feel that all experiences in this moment, including all thoughts, sensations of the body and the world, are vibrations of me, this Aware space I am, and are not separate from me. I am not just a witness of experiences. However, I am simultaneously the objective forms appearing within my Awareness, and everything is One single totality being complete and perfect as it is not missing anything.
Recognising I do not know I am limited and localised, I can let go of any thoughts of being a separate localised person that I recognise trap me in attachment and fear and a sense of lack of being a mortal person in a separate environment as I no longer know I am such a person, and I can welcome and trust the body to naturally release any unpleasant emotions that may have arisen on behalf of this belief.
Free of the fearful and attaching heady thoughts of being a separate person and feeling the life-affirming qualities of my true nature, I can rest in my deep heart that is this aware silent, still reality. I can peacefully and happily recognise that there is no controller of events that flow through me as "cosmic" events and are not the result of a separate mind. I can patiently listen, observe and trust the incomprehensible beautiful, loving wisdom of this natural flow to discern and decide to act in this individual body and mind on impersonal loving thoughts of caring, rational practicality, beautiful, enthusiastic, joyful visions of creativity and curious ideas of truth that investigate and confirm my understanding I am not a separate body and mind.
Love
Freyja
