The Unfolding Now

by A H Almaas

  In the third stage, presence reveals itself as the nature and meaning of everything, and you experience life as the harmonious differentiations of that presence.

  HARMONY AS INTERRELATEDNESS

  Understanding relates directly to discerning the harmony in the situation that is implicit but not clear to us yet. And because we are in a limited place of realization, we can only see the harmony by seeing interconnectedness, how things relate to each other. As we see the meaningfulness of those connections, we begin to sense the harmony. “Oh, I was feeling scared yesterday after my work with my teacher, and today I am feeling empty . . . now as I pay attention, I can recognize my projection onto my teacher . . . which reminds me of this incident with my mother . . .” We can relate these together as if they were somehow connected at some point, because we are beginning to discern an underlying harmony. And that happens as we relate one impression to another.

  We saw earlier that the ultimate harmony in the condition of nondual realization is the recognition that the harmony is nothing but the seamless connectedness of everything that is. You are able to recognize that everything is manifesting the same reality. And you can also observe that it manifests itself so that nothing clouds anything else, nothing obscures or displaces anything else—everything melds together in a graceful harmony. This graceful harmony is the basis of all the laws, or order, of nature. So part of learning how to understand our experience is in finding the order that is in it. This happens when we can interrelate one component with another.

  To take another example: As you are exploring your experience, components both in the present moment and from the past are arising. You experienced something in your inquiry with your teacher yesterday that is the same or similar to something you experienced a week ago at work . . . and that is interconnected with an experience ten years previously in another job . . . and that is connected with something that happened fifty years ago with your father. When all of this becomes interconnected in your understanding, it can bring more of a sense of a harmony to your experience now.

  INTERRELATING THROUGH CONTRASTING AND COMPARING

  A key part of the process of understanding in inquiry involves uncovering relationships between things. To do that, you have to place them next to each other to see how they are related. You need to compare and contrast them: how are they the same or different, and if they are different, in what way are they different? In this process of interrelating by contrasting, a constant comparison is happening. You are comparing your experience yesterday with your teacher to your experience a week ago in your job, to your experience ten years ago in a previous job, to your experience fifty years ago with your father. Through contrast and comparison, at some point you arrive at a sense of what the similarity among them is or what they are all pointing to that is common to each experience.

  You can see from this that it is inherent in our discrimination, in our capacity to know, that we contrast, interrelate, and compare things. I might say, “Yesterday I was really terrified, and today I am just scared, so I can say that I was much more scared yesterday. And, a week ago with my teacher I was anxious, but I can see that anxiety is really related to that terror, and with my father I was really afraid.”

  So, not only can we compare, but we can also make objective assessments or judgments—the way a scientist would in comparing data from an experiment. We can make determinations such as, this is greater than that, that is smaller than this, this is more scary than that, this is more alive than that, that is more intense than this, and so on. All of this comparison is necessary for our understanding.

  Even when we are not in the process of inquiry, we understand what is happening in our daily life because our mind is always correlating, contrasting, and judging. Without this, there is no knowledge and certainly no scientific knowledge. What we see here is that comparative judgment is an important part of discerning the truth. And comparative judgment, in the scientific sense, always leads to the recognition of the meaning and implications that result from the comparisons that are made. This means that to understand your current patterns, you also have to understand their relationship to what happened in your past.

  In our example, you would need to recognize that fifty years ago, when you were a child with your father, you were too little to stand up for yourself. Now you are an adult—bigger, stronger—and you see things differently. You need to have the ability to judge—to see that particular truth and to recognize its meaning and implications. That is what is called a scientific assessment or a scientific judgment of the situation. “I can now see that when I was only eleven, I couldn’t stand up for myself with my dad, but now I am sixty-one, so, according to my assessment, I have more capacity to take care of myself and to be my authentic self.”

  In this way, the process of inquiry moves on in a continuum of correlation, contrast, comparison, assessment, and judgment—but all of it is neutral. If you are looking at your experience scientifically, when you say, “Yesterday I was more terrified than I am today,” you are not saying which is better. You have no sense that you would rather feel less terrified today or that you should. Your statement is only for the sake of understanding that you were more terrified yesterday than you are today.

  That’s because if you see that you were more terrified yesterday and recognize what caused that to be so, you might discover the factors that make the terror be more or less present. If you don’t see that contrast, if you don’t make that comparative judgment, you won’t be able to get to the insight that the terror really had to do with emptiness, because you were also feeling more empty yesterday than you are today.

  MOVING FROM COMPARATIVE TO MORAL JUDGMENT

  However, the mind, because of our desire, because of our insecurity, because of our deprivation, takes the judgment a step further. Since the mind is defined by the ego and its inherent ignorance, it says, “I don’t want to feel this the way I felt it yesterday.” If I were observing rats in an experiment, and I saw that one of them was more terrified today than it had been on some other day, I could easily keep a neutral position about that. But now I’m talking about myself, so it becomes personal. My judgment is affected by the familiar sense of being a separate individual. Not only have I made an assessment or judgment, but a preference for one condition over another has entered in—a desire for it to be this way and not that way.

  That is how comparative judgment, which inherently is a neutral function in our investigations, can become moral judgment. We hold it that one condition is better, more desirable, than another. And not only that—we also think that the condition or feeling we prefer is what we should go after. Comparative judgment thus becomes one of the primary barriers against being where we actually are.

  Our mind naturally compares whatever we experience with other feelings and other experiences—both our own and those of other people. Perhaps you’re meditating and you start feeling a little bubbling in your belly, something you haven’t experienced before. A neutral response says, “That’s interesting, in contrast to yesterday when there was no bubbling.” However, it is more likely that when you feel the bubbling, you remember your friend who said that when he was meditating the other day, he had this lava flow—intense heat and brightness and a tremendous explosion. And you think, “All I feel is this little bubble? This is all I got? Obviously, what’s happening for me is not it.”

  Or maybe it changes from a bubble into a big, exploding supernova, and you remember your friend talking about the lava, and you think, “What happened to him is nothing—this is it!” You want to hold on to the experience until you talk to him . . . whose is bigger? That sounds really funny, but it happens all the time. We don’t leave our experience alone. The problem is not the fact that we compare, but that we compare in a judgmental way. Our superego dominates our observations and we end up saying, “This is acceptable, that is not acceptable.” Everything is seen as good or bad, preferable or not, more evolved than someone else’s experience
or not, and the result is that we can’t let ourselves be where we are.

  Our tendency usually is not to uncover the pure scientific insight, the truth. Our orientation is to get something out of our experience because we are driven by our desires and our emptiness and our insecurities and so on. We evaluate whether our experience is better or worse, instead of simply recognizing, neutrally, that it is different from what it was before. We lose sight of the fact that if we can recognize the difference as it is, that will help us get the insight we need to really understand it. We meddle with it—pushing it, pulling it, resisting it, defending against it, trying to hold on to it—to make it be what we think is better.

  And that doesn’t only happen when you are comparing yourself to your friends. Maybe you’ve read a great treatise by an ancient sage who describes enlightenment, and you are trying to duplicate or imitate his ideals of spiritual practice. You are constantly meditating and are practically enlightened, but every time you experience something, you feel, “No, that’s not it . . . it doesn’t measure up.” You always judge what is happening in your meditations against the standard of the teaching. But you could compare it in a scientific sense: “The teacher says this, and I am feeling another way. Let me see what that is, if it is not what he seems to be talking about.”

  Using the scientific method of observation and exploration, we arrive at a clearer understanding that could actually move us closer to what the teacher is saying. But if we say, “No, that is not it; what I’m experiencing is no good,” we become disappointed, dejected, depressed. On the other hand, if we think things are going well, we can get proud of ourselves and grandiose, with our nose up in the air, such that nobody can even speak to us in a reasonable way.

  RECOGNIZING OUR EXPERIENCE AS A GIFT

  Since we are always measuring and making moral judgments about our situation, it is difficult for us to recognize that our experience now is what we have been given: “What I am experiencing now is the only thing that the universe is giving me, and in fact, it fits me one hundred percent. If I really take it on and begin to understand it, it contains everything I need to know about myself.” Because the experience you are experiencing now is all about you: whatever’s in it that you think is good, whatever you think is bad—everything that is about you is in it. Having your friend’s experience might be nifty for a while, but it doesn’t nourish you much because it isn’t telling you about you.

  So when comparative judgment becomes dominated by the superego, you are missing the capacity to appreciate your experience in the now. You are cut off from recognizing that it is precious, and you cannot see that this is the gift you are being given right now to understand yourself. You don’t recognize that it is the reflection of the harmony that is the true primordial harmony. So you try to push it in a different direction.

  As you can see, comparative judgment becomes implicit in our ego operation every time we try to live according to an ideal. If we are always measuring ourselves against an ego ideal—whether it’s success or intelligence or a spiritual ideal of love or maturity or enlightenment—then we are not being where we are. We decide that where we are is not okay. It’s as though you were always being told to go to your room. Every time your experience arises, somebody is telling you, “Go to your room—I don’t want to see you; I don’t want to hear you.” Imagine people telling you that. If every time you show up that happens, you won’t want to show up again.

  You could approach it like this: “I can allow myself to see how this harmony is trying to present itself in my situation right now. If I respect my experience and let it be, if I make myself available to discover its truth, it will unfold to reveal the harmony that is relevant for me, that is destined for me.”

  It’s important to realize that just about anything can become an ideal, a standard: our own past experience, another person’s experience, our teacher’s state, a precept taught in a book—whatever we come across on our path. Any of these things can be useful for comparison and to help us understand our situation, but that is not the same thing as always measuring ourselves in comparison to them in a judgmental, negative way, in a manner that is violent toward our experience.

  When you consider what we have said thus far, you might get the idea that you have to stop yourself from judging. But I am not saying, “Don’t judge.” Because if we try to stop ourselves from feeling judgment, we won’t be able to see the judgment that is there. What is left for us to do instead is to continue our practice. If judgment arises, we include it in our awareness. When we do not suppress judgment, and we see it for what it is, we are freed from it—without trying to get free.

  Our awareness is big enough to hold judgment too, so if you are willing to look at judgment and understand it as something else that is arising in your experience, you won’t struggle against it. Struggling against it is just another way of meddling, of saying, “My experience shouldn’t include this.” It is another form of rejection, of not being where you are.

  So, now we have seen how a neutral process that helps us discern truth can be twisted into an impediment to seeing the truth. Being where we are means being with whatever happens to be arising, without preference or judgment. In every situation and condition, we can be interested in our experience, we can open to it and let ourselves just be there. This invites the revelation of interconnectedness and meaning—and ultimately the implicit harmony in the reality we are living. In this way, we can open to what the universe is giving us at this very moment.

  EXPLORATION SESSION

  Discovering How Comparative Judgment Operates in You

  Take some time to sit with your experience as it arises moment to moment and observe how your mind responds as things come and go. Notice when comparative judgment operates in an effective, functional way. How does that lead you to see the truth of your experience?

  Notice when you shift from a neutral observation into taking a moral position about any feeling, thought, or desire that arises. What happens to your sense of being present with your experience? What makes it possible to shift back into neutral and simply be with what is arising without judging it? Are there particular areas of your experience about which you tend to be more judgmental?

  CHAPTER 8

  Finding True Acceptance

  WE HAVE SEEN IN THE LAST chapter that when our capacity for discernment, as it manifests in comparative assessment or judgment, becomes usurped by the needs or desires of the ego, it becomes a deadly thing. It becomes deadly for our being, for our capacity to be real, to be ourselves, because it makes it impossible for us to be where we are.

  When we engage in that kind of comparative judgment, the next step is that we say no to our experience. We compare whatever is arising in our field to something else, and we want to replace it with something we think is better. And that means that whatever is arising in our experience is not what we want. It is as though God had sent us a gift, and we send it back marked “Wrong address.”

  Usually, we’re not aware of the divisiveness of that inner activity. Whenever we say, “I don’t want that” or “That’s not it” about our experience, we are talking about something that is arising that is part of us. Yet we want to take it and throw it in the garbage: “It should be disposed of. I should have something else. Otherwise, I won’t be satisfied. For me to hold and embrace what is there, it has to be what I think is supposed to be there, what I think is best, what I think is preferable, what I think is ideal, what I think I’m looking for.”

  In other words, if you go past neutral, objective, comparative judgment and move into moralistic, comparative judgment, you’re not only saying, “That’s not it,” you’re saying, “Get out.” You’re not only measuring everything in your experience from the perspective of trying to attain a particular state, result, or goal—and judging it from that standard—you’re creating the ground for rejecting your own experience.

  So, your comparison is not just a measurement against something else, it’s a
measurement that includes a pushing away. That’s the bias. And how can you be where you are if you are rejecting something important that is happening where you are? Whatever is happening, that is how your experience is emerging. If you are rejecting your experience, how are you going to be there?

  In contrast, the objective kind of measurement or comparative judgment does not involve idealization. It simply looks at an experience and says, “Okay, this is different than it was yesterday” or “It’s different from what this other person is experiencing,” but there is no pushing. You aren’t doing anything to your experience. And because you can recognize how it is different, you can allow it to be as it is; you have the space to hold it. As a result, it is possible to be where you are.

  REJECTION OF OUR EXPERIENCE IS SELF-REJECTION

  The deadly thing about comparative moral judgment is that it leads to the rejection of our experience. What’s even more significant is that the rejection of experience is inherently a self-rejection—because our experience is part of us. Remember, all of our experiences are nothing but forms within our own consciousness. They’re all arising out of the same awareness—the same beingness manifesting itself in various forms. Here it appears as a little bubbling; there it could seem like a volcanic eruption. But whether it’s a volcanic eruption, a little bubbling, or a raging sun, it is just our soul manifesting in that possibility. When we say no to it, when we want to throw it away, we are actually saying no to ourselves. We’re saying no to our consciousness, to our awareness. We’re saying, “This consciousness is not doing its thing correctly. Let’s get rid of it.”

  So, the rejection of anything that is arising in our consciousness automatically becomes a self-rejection. How are we going to be ourselves if we’re rejecting ourselves? How are we going to be present with ourselves? Imagine somebody rejecting you—is it easy to be there? How do you feel when you feel rejected? Is it a little thing? You might say, “Oh, a person’s rejecting me—not a big deal.”