Just read this. I thought it was very good, and pertained to a lot of stuff that comes up in discussion from time to time. "Selling water by the river" is a Zen phrase that means that there's all this clamoring for enlightenment when it's already right there. Though I suppose nowadays with all the environmental issues the master should be selling these: http://www.rei.com/pr... instead of the water.



Selling Water by the River


Many seekers do not take full responsibility for their own liberation, but wait for one big, final spiritual experience which will catapult them fully into it. It is this search for the final liberating experience which gives rise to a rampant form of spiritual consumerism in which seekers go from one teacher to another, shopping for enlightenment as if shopping for sweets in a candy store. This spiritual promiscuity is rapidly turning the search for enlightenment into a cult of experience seekers. And, while many people indeed have powerful experiences, in most cases these do not lead to the profound transformation of the individual, which is the expression of enlightenment.





In speaking regularly with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how addicted so many of them are to the power of charisma. They swap stories about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare experiences. They get a charge from it, many mistaking charisma for enlightenment. Charisma attracts at all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and it feeds the ego's desire to feel special. The ego loves getting hits of power?it's like a form of spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it? Does it make you free?

Freedom is not necessarily exciting; it's just free. Very peaceful and quiet, so very quiet. Of course, it is also filled with joy and wonder, but it is not what you imagine. It is much, much less. Many mistake the intoxicating power of otherworldly charisma for enlightenment. More often than not it is simply otherworldly, and not necessarily free or enlightened. In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest integrity.

In my experience, everyone will say they want to discover the Truth, right up until they realize that the Truth will rob them of their deepest held ideas, beliefs, hopes, and dreams. The freedom of enlightenment means much more than the experience of love and peace. It means discovering a Truth that will turn your view of self and life upside-down. For one who is truly ready, this will be unimaginably liberating. But for one who is still clinging in any way, this will be extremely challenging indeed. How does one know if they are ready? One is ready when they are willing to be absolutely consumed, when they are willing to be fuel for a fire without end.




If you start playing the game of being an "enlightened somebody," the true teacher is going to call you on it. He or she is going to expose you, and that exposure is going to hurt. Because the ego will be there, standing in the light of Truth, exposed and humiliated. Of course, the ego will cry "foul!" It will claim that the teacher made a mistake and begin to justify itself in an effort to put its protective clothing back on. It will begin to spin justifications with incredible subtlety and deceptiveness. This is where real spiritual sadhana (practice) begins. This is where it all becomes very real and the student discovers whether he or she truly wants to be free, or merely wants to remain as a false, separate, and self-justifying ego. This crossroad inevitably comes and is always challenging. It separates the true seeker from the false one. The true seeker will be willing to bare the grace of humility, whereas the false seeker will run from it. Thus begins the true path to enlightenment, granted only to those willing to be nobody. Discovering your "nobodyness" opens the door to awakening as beingness, and beyond that to the Source of all beingness.




Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special?it's not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred. I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe.

The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence. Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time?not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment.




Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception in the form of grasping, and away from objects in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is. This movement of grasping and aversion gives rise to a sense of a separate "me," and in turn the sense of "me" strengthens itself this way. It is this continuous loop of causation that tricks consciousness into a trance of identification. Identification with what? Identification with the continuous loop of suffering. After all, who is suffering? The "me" is suffering. And who is this me? It is nothing more than a sense of self caused by identification with grasping and aversion. You see, it's all a creation of the mind, an endless movie, a terrible dream. Don't try to change the dream, because trying to change it is just another movement in the dream. Look at the dream. Be aware of the dream. That awareness is It. Become more interested in the awareness of the dream than in the dream itself. What is that awareness? Who is that awareness? Don't go spouting out an answer, just be the answer. Be It.




Enlightenment means the end of all division. It is not simply having an occasional experience of unity beyond all division, it is actually being undivided. This is what nonduality truly means. It means there is just one Self, without a difference or gap between the profound revelation of Oneness and the way it is perceived and lived every moment of life. Nonduality means that the inner revelation and the outer expression of the personality are one and the same. So few seem to be interested in the greater implication contained within profound spiritual experiences, because it is the contemplation of these implications which quickly brings to awareness the inner divisions existing within most seekers.




Spiritual people can be some of the most violent people you will ever meet. Mostly, they are violent to themselves. They violently try to control their minds, their emotions, and their bodies. They become upset with themselves and beat themselves up for not rising up to the conditioned mind's idea of what it believes enlightenment to be. No one ever became free through such violence. Why is it that so few people are truly free? Because they try to conform to ideas, concepts, and beliefs in their heads. They try to concentrate their way to heaven. But Freedom is about the natural state, the spontaneous and unselfconscious expression of beingness. If you want to find it, see that the very idea of a someone who is in control is a concept created by the mind. Take one step backward into the unknown.




There is nothing more insidiously destructive to the attainment of liberation than self-doubt and cynicism. Doubt is a movement of the conditioned mind that always claims that ?It's not possible,? that ?Freedom is not possible for me.? Doubt always knows; it "knows" that nothing is possible. And in this knowing, doubt robs you of the possibility of anything truly new or transformative from happening. Furthermore, doubt is always accompanied by a pervasive cynicism that unconsciously puts a negative spin on whatever it touches. Cynicism is a world view which protects the ego from scrutiny by maintaining a negative stance in relationship to what it does not know, does not want to know, or cannot know. Many spiritual seekers have no idea how cynical and doubt-laden they actually are. It is this blindness and denial of the presence of doubt and cynicism that makes the birth of a profound trust impossible, a trust without which final liberation will always remain simply a dream.




All fear comes from thought in the form of memory (past) or projection (future). Thought creates time: past, present, and future. So fear exists and comes from the perceived existence of time. To be free of fear is to be free of time. Since time is a creation of thought, to be free of fear you must be free of thought. Consequently, it is important to awaken and experience your Self outside of thought, existing as eternity. So question all notions of yourself that are creations of thought and of time?of past, present, and future. Experience your eternalness, your holiness, your awakeness until you are convinced that you are never subject to the movement of thought, of fear, or of time. To be free of fear is to be full of Love.




Many spiritual seekers get "stuck in emptiness,? in the absolute, in transcendence. They cling to bliss, or peace, or indifference. When the self-centered motivation for living disappears, many seekers become indifferent. They see the perfection of all existence and find no reason for doing anything, including caring for themselves or others. I call this "taking a false refuge." It is a very subtle egoic trap; it's a fixation in the absolute and all unconscious form of attachment that masquerades as liberation. It can be very difficult to wake someone up from this deceptive fixation because they literally have no motivation to let go of it. Stuck in a form of divine indifference, such people believe they have reached the top of the mountain when actually they are hiding out halfway up its slope.

Enlightenment does not mean one should disappear into the realm of transcendence. To be fixated in the absolute is simply the polar opposite of being fixated in the relative. With the dawning of true enlightenment, there is a tremendous birthing of impersonal Love and wisdom that never fixates in any realm of experience. To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from all fixed points of view is the birth of true nonduality. If emptiness cannot dance, it is not true emptiness. If moonlight does not flood the empty night sky and reflect in every drop of water, on every blade of grass, then you are only looking at your own empty dream. I say, ?Wake up!? Then your heart will be flooded with a Love that you cannot contain.




Maybe I can point you to the great Reality within you. Maybe you will awaken to the direct experience of Self-realization. Maybe you will catch the fire of transmission. But there is one thing that no one can give you: the honesty and integrity that alone will bring you completely to the other shore. No one can give you the strength of character necessary for profound spiritual experience to become the catalyst for the evolutionary transformation called "enlightenment." Only you can find that passion within that burns with an integrity that will not settle for anything less than the Truth.




Enlightenment has nothing to do with states of consciousness. Whether you are in ego consciousness or unity consciousness is not really the point. I have met many people who have easy access to advanced states of consciousness. Though for some people this may come very easily, I also notice that many of these people are no freer than anyone else. If you don't believe that the ego can exist in very advanced states of consciousness, think again. The point isn't the state of consciousness, even very advanced ones, but an awake mystery that is the source of all states of consciousness. It is even the source of presence and beingness. It is beyond all perception and all experience. I call it "awakeness." To find out that you are empty of emptiness is to die into an aware mystery, which is the source of all existence. It just so happens that that mystery is in love with all of its manifestation and non-manifestation. You find your Self by stepping back out of yourself.




Ramana Maharshi's gift to the world was not that he realized the Self. Many people have had a deep realization of the Self. Ramana's real gift was that he embodied that realization so thoroughly. It is one thing to realize the Self; it is something else altogether to embody that realization to the extent that there is no gap between inner revelation and its outer expression. Many have glimpsed the realization of Oneness; few consistently express that realization through their humanness. It is one thing to touch a flame and know it is hot, but quite another to jump into that flame and be consumed by it.




First published in the Inner Directions Journal, Fall/Winter 1999.
© 1999 Adyashanti.

From: Fred Johnson
Sent on: Tuesday, July 3 at 6:38 PM
I cannot help but turn to page 30,31 of What is Self? and quote from Bernadette Roberts:

Apart from the revelation of the deepest divine center and true self, one way we know the transforming process is over and that the butterfly [this represents the Unitive or Enlightened life] is complete and ready to fly is that none of its experiences, even its ecstasies, add a jot to its new condition. Thus all the experiences and practices that were helpful in the transforming process become unnecessary, they bring about no change and take us no deeper than the deepest center...... Here I think of a Buddhist saying that once we have reached the other shore we have no need to carry the raft around with us. The raft, of course, is all the practices, experiences and even the lifestyle that were a part of crossing over from the old to the new life, or from the egoic to the unitive [enlightened] state. These are of no use any more, they add nothing to the unitive sate and if we cling to them, they may even hold us back.
...skipped paragraph
The reason for bringing this up is that some people have the mistaken notion that a "realizer" [enlightened one] is one who no longer practices his religion---or has no religion anymore. But this makes no sense if we understand that all someone has realized is the ultimate Truth of his religion. Once we realize Truth, what do we do with it---give it up? This makes no sense. Once we realize Truth we live it and share it; we cannot throw it away. Anything that can be dismissed or thrown away is obviously not Ultimate Truth. The "raft" then refers to those specific aids and interior ruses by which we crossed the river. Letting go simply refers to the realization that we no longer need these helps and securities; once on the "other shore" (the divine center), we have no need for anything, because now we have everything.

THIS IS JUST AN EXCERPT OF A POWERFUL AND TRUE CONCEPTION OF REALIZED BEING BY ONE WHO HAS REALIZED!

Hi Fred,

I agree. It reminds me of when Adya says "Enlightenment is the cure for the spiritual disease." and something about "not making altars or shrines to the disease."

About religions though I do think they need to avoid becoming rigid, hierarchical, politically based, and stale.

From: Tom
Sent on: Thursday, July 5 at 10:46 AM
Interesting discussion. My 2 cents.

I love the part about those who shop for enlightenment, and the teachers with charisma. Brings to mind another famous saying, I think attributed to P.T. Barnum, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

On religion -- Nice try, Fred, but show me ANY religion with the possible exceptions of Buddhism and Spiritualism (non-'faith' based) that does not work to hold its people back, or gives them egoic goals to strive for. Certainly, there is no western religion that is not at least a day late and a dollar short. Again, a religious concept is external. It's part of the individual's story, and cannot be found within the individual. Ergo, it's false and just more of the illusion.

It's almost humorous when I see the attempts of the new agers to cast a new spin on their religions. This is the result of the fact that they have not touched into their Being, their eternal silence, to know that there is no religion there. Perhaps they have had deep emotional experiences which is what people ALWAYS confuse with spirituality, myself included in my earlier days. Again, more illusion.

But now, I am investing in long flowing robes to wear and maybe I'll get a fancy hat to go with it so everyone will know I'm enlightened. People love to look at such things and say, "Oh, he MUST know more than I do -- look how he's dressed!" In the words of a famous T-shirt maker who wrote, "It's not who you are, it's what you wear."

Tom Denney, AKA The High Holy One.

Hi Tom,

I don't think the people Adya is talking about are fools, and in fact up to a point I'm sure those experiences they're getting can be useful. I don't think it's a matter of anyone being foolish or stupid, but more of the egoic self being unconscious and not knowing what ultimately the "best", if there is such a thing, direction to take is.

Buddhism in it's entirety isn't exempt from dysfunction. There is even Buddhist terrorism in some parts of the world. I think on the whole most of the Buddhist sects emphasize the truth over belief, but the truth isn't limited to any tradition of course. The truth is just reality, and reality is reality regardless of what one wants to think about it, or if one turns it into words and concepts, or starts making an organization around it etc. I'm not familiar with all the different forms of spiritualism, but if they're aligned with the truth it would have to be based on the cutting down of belief, instead of piling on more things to believe in, even regarding things that are more experientially based such as shamanic drumming, visionary states, etc. I think that those kinds of experiential things can be useful, ie to face death in Aya ceremony or whatever, but one can also get caught up in mental worlds and all kinds of belief structures about reality instead of being with what's actually going on here right now. Also, ultimately what spirituality is really all about and is meant to address is: knowing what we are in our essence, our essential nature. That is realizing the true "self", or "no self", the unmanifest presence, whatever words you want to use, as opposed to the egoic self, or "false self" based on thought and form.

There have been lots of insightful people part of traditions, even in Christianity. Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton, Francis of Assisi, etc. Traditions aren't to be discounted, they're supposed to be a vehicle for a true teaching to come though, but as Chogyam Trungpa said (probably when he wasn't drunk) "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality". And so religions have become hierarchical and controlling.

I would advise against getting long flowing robes and some kind of schmancy hat, you're just going to look WACK son!!! ;)


And we are ALL the High Holy One, there is ONLY "the one" after all right?


Best,

David H.

From: Fred Johnson
Sent on: Thursday, July 5 at 2:11 PM
Italicized remarks below from Fred

On 7/5/07, Tom <[address removed] > wrote:

Interesting discussion. My 2 cents.

I love the part about those who shop for enlightenment, and the teachers with charisma. Brings to mind another famous saying, I think attributed to P.T. Barnum, "A fool and his money are soon parted."

On religion -- Nice try, Fred, but show me ANY religion with the possible exceptions of Buddhism and Spiritualism (non-'faith' based) that does not work to hold its people back, or gives them egoic goals to strive for. Certainly, there is no western religion that is not at least a day late and a dollar short. Again, a religious concept is external. It's part of the individual's story, and cannot be found within the individual. Ergo, it's false and just more of the illusion.


You may be interested in Tantrism. In the book Tantric Quest by Daniel Odier, the human mind is depicted by Devi, Daniel's teacher and a yogini, as a cave inhabited by gray men. These gray men are religions, societal norms, dogmas, anything you have relied on in your life. Devi's counsel to Daniel is that he must kick them all out, meaning strip himself of all structures to become naked or empty. Then the cave can be watered down and blessed by flowers.

It's almost humorous when I see the attempts of the new agers to cast a new spin on their religions. This i s the result of the fact that they have not touched into their Being, their eternal silence, to know that there is no religion there. Perhaps they have had deep emotional experiences which is what people ALWAYS confuse with spirituality, myself included in my earlier days. Again, more illusion.


But as Bernadette Roberts puts it, all these experiences just don't add anything to their spirituality, aren't the divine itself, and eventually must fall away. Holding on to them stops the enlightenment process. In her view, we start out with our ego at the center of consciousness which mediates the divine to us, when enlightenment or the unitive state occurs, then the ego at the center is punched out, only the divine remains which may be though of as the empty hole. After this happens, there is no ego but there is a self reflecting back on what is now a hole. A dark night of the spirit ensues but is replaced by ecstasy which in its beginning stages suspends the senses but as the hole grows, eating away the rest of consciousness toward the circumferential periphery, the senses become operable. When all is eaten away you have the state of the resurrected Christ or ascended master.

But now, I am investing in long flowing robes to wear and maybe I'll get a fancy hat to go with it so everyone will know I'm enlightened. People love to look at such things and say, "Oh, he MUST know more than I do -- look how he's dressed!" In the words of a famous T-shirt maker who wrote, "It's not who you are, it's what you wear."


It is surprising that those who are enlightened do not care one twiddly if anyone knows it or not. That is what is meant by your obvious sarcasm.

Tom Denney, AKA The High Holy One.

From: Tom
Sent on: Thursday, July 5 at 2:51 PM
To Fred and David,

Of course, we're all talking about the same thing (or lack thereof). [Note to self: We've got to evolve soon to the point where we are not having to use spoken language to communicate these concepts.]

Thanks -- I like what Bernadette Roberts is saying as well as the reference to the Tantric model. Yes, please, flushing out with water and blessing with flowers sounds wonderful.

And thanks for the Buddhist 'reminder' that the raft is no longer needed when one has reached the other shore. Excellent. Speaking of getting rid of the raft, "Misquoting Jesus" is a terrific book dealing with how the New Testament was compiled, and showing its shaky and dubious origins. I'm no 'believer,' but the book is interesting as a look into the scholarship that is brought into determining what the oldest texts might be, and would apply equally to this sort of thing as to copies of Greek, Roman, Egyptian (etc) historical works of a non-religious nature. (Hint: there IS no 'original' Greek.)

I defend my right to be considered the High Holy One, or at least, I'll sometimes settle on The High One depending on circumstances.

[When I could not get my name as a Yahoo identity, I tried High Holy One and got it as a lark. Never used it however.]

Regards,

Tom

From: Fred Johnson
Sent on: Thursday, July 5 at 3:45 PM
Tom,
Please use the high holy one appellation because in truth you are and as for the realization, whom am I to judge? I will have to get the book misquoting Jesus. When I was still mired in Christian dogma I led the discussion of Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and in it relates how some scholar friends of his formed a group and they rated sayings in the bible attributed to Jesus in four categories: 1-Jesus said it, 2-He probably said this 3- Most probably changed by the church 4-Definitely not Jesus' saying. Those that fell in the first two groups painted a picture of the pre-Easter Jesus and those in the second the post-Easter Jesus. The first is the authentic one, the second is not. Of course, you can imagine the reaction of Christian conservatives to this!

When you form a composite picture of Jesus by looking at the first two groups, you realize without a doubt he was a realized human being, like the Buddha, Yogananda, and others like Bernadette Roberts who I am entranced with at the moment.

Love your comments.

Fred

From: Tom
Sent on: Thursday, July 5 at 5:59 PM
Thanks for your comments.

Interesting to note, the "Christian" Gnostics considered Jesus to be a saviour, as did the Orthodox or proto-Orthodox. The difference is that as the one considered him to be a saviour from sin, the Gnostics considered him to be a saviour from ignorance. They (and I use that term cautiously since the essential expression of early Gnostics was unbounded thought, so there could not have been a group consensus) had the idea that Jesus had passed through the realms of the archons and opened them up to the Light, thus bringing awareness (Gnosis) to those who were ego-bound.

It's true that since my own awareness has 'improved,' so many of his teachings take on a whole new understanding, and which I can now understand from a very Gnostic (beyond duality) standpoint. It also makes many fraudulent statements stand out like sore thumbs. But he did have two messages -- one for the masses and others for the enlightened. How often would he say something, quickly adding, "Those who have ears, let them hear."

A Realized Being? Yes. What a great term for it too.