The Awakening Guide: A Companion for the Inward Journey (Companions for the Inward Journey Book 2)

by Bonnie Greenwell

  I have observed that no matter how free a woman becomes she can be continually pulled back into identification through relationship, particularly if she has children, through her attachments to them and her visceral feeling that she can impact their lives if she just stays engaged. Some women feel they are abandoning family if they release attachments. The mother and grandmother roles for many women are more than appear on the surface of things. They are the channels through which unconditional love opens even when one is very unconscious, a kind of helpless loving of another that demands a woman play a care-taking role.

  When children grow up, if they move on in a healthy way it is possible to a great extent to let go of these ties. But if they continue to have problems in their life such as addiction, spousal abuse, poverty, serious illness or other issues that cause suffering, most mothers will suffer too. If grandchildren are placed in vulnerable situations, it is like a visceral generational link that causes pain in the heart of the grandmother (and some grandfathers too.) The same may be true for some women who have deep connections to parents or other loved relatives or friends who need care or support. These are roles that are difficult to release.

  This issue of parenting and grand-parenting has been my most tender challenge, feeling unconditional love for all the young children in my family, and feeling very limited in my ability to influence their lives. Although their lives are generally fine, there has been a strong tendency in me to protect them from any suffering. In other terms, I could say they each have their own unique karma, and I would prefer to protect them from the challenges of it. I thought this was my personal barrier in terms of true freedom, but I have found many other women in a similar situation, if not with children, with other family members to whom they have a special intimacy. I believe it is our identification with relationship, our sense, “I exist because I love, or because I am connected to another” that can become a final barrier to living an awakened life. It is a heart rather than a mental connection. This “I” of the heart will cling to the value and meaning of this love. We have the delusion that if we abandon our personal identification with love, it will cause the ending of love.

  The opposite is true. Love expands itself.

  For men, I have sometimes observed that this final barrier is their sexual identity. For some men there seems to be the sense, “I exist as a man, because I can take or enjoy a sexual partner.” There is no question that there are examples of spiritually awake men in every tradition who have been drawn into sexually exploitive relationship with women or men in their communities. Many strong communities have been blown apart by these tendencies. In some cases we could attribute this weakness to the man having been raised in a culture where his sexuality was extremely repressed, particularly if he entered an ashram or monastery as a teenager, and was taught to avoid sexual expression. Thirty years later in America, where women are more sexually available, this repressed sexuality can break out and overwhelm him.

  But aside from these kinds of repressions, many western teachers who were never repressed have also found themselves entangled in sexual dynamics that suggest they have not risen above their attachments and identifications, and are as inclined to mess up their lives as well as anyone else. They have embarrassed and destabilized their communities, and violated the trust and spiritual development of people with whom they were involved sexually. How can this be liberation?

  It is possible that for many men, sexual identification is the hardest aspect of identity to let go of. In men who are not spiritual leaders, I have seen a great longing for the perfect woman, an adolescent fantasy about how a woman could take care of them, or the pursuit of multiple relationships, completely distract spiritual seekers from their own awakening process. Sexual hunger is apparently built into male energy systems as deeply as relationship is built into a woman.

  Of course these are generalities, and there are many other attachments that dominate some people’s lives – alcohol or drugs, money, fame and ambition are just a few. There are men who are overly attached to a relationship, and women who are overly attached to sexuality. This is simply an observation that points up variables in personal attachments that deserve some reflection, especially as most scriptures and spiritual teachings were formulated by men, and the severe position about celibacy in some traditions may be the recognition of a factor that is very problematic for spiritual men, and not so relevant for women, who have other challenges.

  The important thing is to understand the principle, because it is our attachments that keep us from freedom. And there is a great paradox here, because this does not mean one must give up mothering, relationship, partnering or sexuality. These are all beautiful aspects of human experience and to lock our hearts against them has no value in a freedom that is all-inclusive, and sees everything as an aspect of the divine plan. The problem is not that we love, have sex, marry, have children or have relationships in our lives. It is our thoughts and attachments to these functions. It is compulsivity and identification.

  Burning Away the “I”

  How is it possible to enjoy something and yet release attachment to it? This is another part of the burning of spiritual process. What burns away is the suffering inherent in the process, and the compulsiveness associated with it. What dies is the one who requires anything to be a certain way.

  Freedom comes as we give up demanding or longing for perfection for our children and grandchildren, our families, and loved ones, and accept their karma, their lives, as part of the wholeness of life. We accept our loving as part of that wholeness, and let our hearts break if they do, but do not stop loving. We give up demanding we have our own way sexually, or being upset if the perfect mate is not available, and we give up imagining the next sexual partnering to be exactly what we need. If pursuing a sexual or romantic partner takes us out of the stillness and peace of Truth, then the little “me” is still there making its demands, and we are not free. Our desire for a partner may be natural and part of the wholeness of things, but our perception that we cannot be happy without one is like a fog hiding the true Self.

  There is nothing wrong with any human drive or emotion, although how we act on it can create many difficulties. When impulses arise in us, they are an opportunity for self-awareness. If there has been a realization of Self, and later you believe you have lost it, the probability is that an attachment has distracted and engaged your thoughts, and this is constructing new veils that need to be removed before realization will be stable.

  To burn away the dregs is to walk right into the suffering that comes from, “I want this and don’t have it,” or “If only this (problem, experience, circumstance, person) were different then I would be happy.” Instead of trying to solve something, if you wish to be free you must fully experience it, until you recognize it is not you who wants it: it is the dregs of the old personality and conditioning making a last stand to reclaim your life. It may be something beautiful and noble you want, something for others, or something you truly deserve, but the thought there is a you who thinks it wants or needs something to change is all that stands between you and your true Self, which doesn’t want anything, ever. It can enjoy whatever is available, but it has no demands! You have a choice, you can suffer the wanting, or you can be free. This is the essence of surrender, to let go of wanting, to let go of the me.

  It is painful to let these dregs burn out. It is probably the hardest thing to be done on the spiritual path, which is why many people will not bother. Most people are content with the memory of awakening, and return into their lives changed and improved by it, but feeling some wistfulness about not being able to hold on to the wonderful experience. Eventually they reengage many facets of the old personality structure. But if you are called to keep going in your spiritual work, this burning will probably occur at some point in your life. Just as when burning off old memories, this burning can quite literally feel like a fire in your chest or gut. A few people even become ill from the strain of suffering when th
ey try to go beyond their attachments. The mind can be cruel in its tenacity, making you think you can’t live unless things turn out a certain way, just the way you want them to.

  But being free is not about having your way, it is about being at home in the part of you that has no problem with life just as it is, that sees the perfection of the vast drama of human existence over millions of years and thousands of lifetimes, and accepts the wholeness and the wisdom in it. It is about acceptance, not in a way that is resigned, but in a way that wants to see only what is true, and respond in service to this wholeness.

  By some cosmic irony awakened people who have given up wanting often find they have everything they ever used to think they would want, and I have heard some say they have to be careful of superficial thoughts and desires, because they are so likely to manifest.

  Planetary Hell Realms

  Once the demands and expectations related to your personal life have burned off there is still the challenge of the entire planet to face. It seems from news reports that there has never been a more difficult time to be alive in many parts of the world, but it is possible we are just more conscious of the human struggle these days because of the media. There has probably never been a period of history without major tragedy and crisis affecting some groups of people. The fact you become freer to accept things as they are, does not mean you do not notice things as they are. In fact, my experience is that you notice a lot more, and your heart is more likely to feel for the suffering of others than it did before. Many people in this process describe a heightened sensitivity, both energetically and emotionally, to the lives of others.

  When traveling in India I found that suffering there is more explicit than in the West, with thousands of people sleeping on cardboard laid on the streets at night, naked skinny babies who are clearly starving, scarred people missing limbs and begging, corpses burning by the river – there is much clarity about the tragedy of the human condition. Worldwide, many people are traumatized by war, genocide and national disasters. How do we endure the witnessing of such events without losing our freedom, and falling into despair? Even if our own personal lives are going well, it is clear this is not the world condition, and our own good fortune could fail at any moment.

  The great illusion of spiritual seekers is that realization will help them transcend all of this, and they will never have to notice it again. Not so. Awakening brings one to the threshold of all that actually is. It is all-inclusive. It is being touched, over and over. What makes us free is that the little me who lived its life protecting itself from seeing the truth, from feeling, from full engagement in the world, is no longer in charge. That which is the source, the foundation, is felt as a living force within, and it will have a unique personal response to the circumstances placed in front of it in each moment.

  What is different after awakening is that this greater Self knows that ultimately, in the span of eternity, the collective human condition is evolving and is still immensely immature. The suffering humans impose upon one another is unconscious. It is the consequence of ignorance about our interdependence and collective consciousness, and until a large enough number of people see it clearly enough to shift the collective thought-forms, not much will happen to change it. This suffering is karmic, not in the sense that anyone deserves what is happening, but in the sense that as a species we have been living for thousands of generations with false minds, living with a sense we are these limited beings who must battle one another and force ideas on one another. These thought patterns repeat themselves generation after generation. When it is seen that we humans are only a vast and free spirit caught in eight billion forms, we can only feel deep compassion for the suffering caused by being lost in the illusions of mind, and be drawn to help others awaken, even if only one at a time.

  The Imperative of Awakening

  However long it takes to learn to face oneself with equanimity, both at the personal and collective levels, when the smoke clears from all this internal burning, one is at a new place, living with a fresh receptivity to life. Once you see through yourself it is easy to see through others.

  You can see how the mind habitually creates a convoluted stream of thought based on past and future that inhibits being fully present to the moment. Usually in a real crisis presence arises spontaneously to do whatever is needed, but the rest of the time this immediacy is blocked. It is clear that the moment here and now is seldom a problem, and most of the pain and suffering commonly felt is generated by thoughts about what did happen once, or might happen next.

  As the process unfolds you catch yourself in the act of believing a false story, and you can stop. Later you notice the impulse of mind to take on a problem and you don’t go there. In time, there is little temptation to be the mental-self, because it’s clear that each movement of believing in thought is a movement away from the moment, where there is clarity and simple presence. When a condition is directly in front of you that obviously needs attention you are free to respond spontaneously and creatively.

  Thinking then becomes a tool to pick up for specific practical purposes – paying the bills, finding a phone number, solving a question in the material world or making an appointment. You begin to explore a life lived more from the heart, or the belly. Zen people speak of a mountain of emptiness in the belly. This is like fullness and lightness all at once, moving forward as wholeness, without demands. Simply being there. “Who are you?” someone asked the Buddha. “Are you enlightened?” His answer? “I am awake.”

  Chapter 8

  The Cul-de-Sacs

  Most of us seek enlightenment for years without a clear understanding of what enlightenment means. The truth is that the mind can never grasp it. Understanding this mystery with the mind is like trying to hold quicksilver in your hand. If it is there for a moment, it quickly slides away into the unknown. Enlightenment is not a process or a state or an experience. Any effort to describe this is hundreds of times less than the truth of it. It would be like trying to describe the entire cosmos in one word – the word cosmos and the experiential knowing of the cosmos are entirely different.

  Because the mind is so unable to grasp what is beyond itself, it is easy to make false assumptions about the enlightened condition. It is common to look at a few rare and highly visible enlightened beings and assume their behavior or their lifestyle is what it is all about.

  But the fact is we all exist and emerge from one ground of vast awareness that shines through our eyes and enlivens our senses, that creates from itself life forms, both visible and vibrational, and invisible, as consciousness. Since we are that, it is our birthright to rediscover it. To become aware of oneself as this vast ground of being is to awaken to our true nature. To become established in this state without division is to be enlightened. Beyond that, the expression of a life that is enlightened will vary greatly from one being to another, just as facets of light may vary.

  If the possibility of enlightenment is always within us, and is our foundation, why is it most humans never realize it?

  There are probably many reasons for this, but the primary reason for most of the population is that they are not interested. The majority of the billions of people on our planet are preoccupied with survival needs or the search for pleasure in all the ways of the world, and never enter the subculture of spiritual seekers. So it is rare even to be a seeker of the Truth. Already, when you are one who seeks Truth unconditionally, you are in a small subculture of those who may find themselves liberated someday. It is in this sense a rare event.

  The Obstacles to Enlightenment

  Some of the basic reasons that people who are on a spiritual path may miss the opportunity for an awakened or enlightened life include:

  The Need for Understanding

  When people lack understanding about what it is they are seeking it is easy for them to become sidetracked by some of the phenomena of the spiritual journey. This is especially true when you live in a culture that admires individuality and materi
al gain. These same goals get applied to the spiritual search, so a person is actually seeking what is not to be found in awakening.

  Another misunderstanding happens because many spiritual systems have elevated their founders to such a high degree that they seem to be supernatural heroes and saviors of mankind, saintly beyond all human inclination. By comparison, the rest of us feel so inadequate that we may not even seek the experience of realization, believing we do not deserve it, or could not possibly accomplish it. We see it as some supernatural grace that has been given as a reward to a good person, bestowing magical powers, eternal life and psychic insight into the nature of all things. We look for powerful mystical experiences and unnatural changes in our capacity or powers and consider this to be the nature of freedom.

  It is an extraordinary gift to meet someone who is awakened and living an ordinary life, because here is a model we can follow and understand, out of our own ordinariness. Awakening can happen to anyone, because it is linked to the consciousness that flows through everyone. It is a shift of orientation, in which the final outcome is peace, compassion, love, appreciation, and the end of conflict with life. Out of this comes the freedom to express in whatever way the person is drawn to express, without being self-conscious, without inhibition, without being caught in the patterns of personal conditioning. The advantage in having an awakened teacher is the modeling he or she may provide. It is not that you should live your life in the same way, but that you can see that if this person could break through to freedom so can you.