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

by Bonnie Greenwell

  However, underneath and beyond our searching minds there is a vast relaxed stillness or consciousness that is not concerned about purpose, because it lives in the present moment and not within time. It is like the background of time the way that space is the background of the planets. It has no sense of being born or dying. It just is. It animates our senses and witnesses our experiences before there is any thought arising about them. This consciousness is very open and meets life as it is happening, rather than seeing a future purpose in what is experienced now.

  Among other things, awakening shows us we are this, and the life we have been identified with is not as personal as it felt. Awakening reveals the function of purpose as belonging to the ideals of the separate self. One who has awakened has a tendency toward response or activity that is aligned with an intuitive response arising in the moment, rather than a belief system or a need to be anyone other than what they are. It may look purposeful to others, but it makes an individual feel as inconsequential as a leaf following the flow of a river. Consciousness is very happy with this feeling, although it is threatening to the ego.

  These days I don’t see the purpose of life as a personal choice, but instead it belongs to the flow of collective experience –as if we are each playing a role in an endless production. Our purpose exists in the moment, rather than the future. It is what we are, rather than what we will become. The options we seem to have are to be identified with and grow with our experiences, to resist and resent what is happening, or to see through our identifications as illusory, and have a direct recognition of ourselves as pure consciousness. I don't see that we can actually choose this, rather it chooses us at a certain point -- consciousness begins the process of waking itself up within us. It does not seem to happen to everyone, or perhaps for many it opens up at the closing of life, when all other options are depleted.

  This does not mean it is useless to set practical goals in life. The relative world has its own set of rules. But the great search for meaning and purpose is like chasing after clouds -- they are thoughts and illusions, designed to help the ego structure feel more valued, Life is living through us moment by moment and to me that is the real purpose of life -- the adventure of being here now.

  What do you want people to know?

  People are fine just the way they are, and life is simply living through us in a multitude of ways. If we can love life or others well it makes life more functional and fun. But suffering limits most people in various ways, and most of us seek happiness through methods that can only temporarily satisfy us. Those who feel called to wake up or to know who they are, or who seek Truth beyond dogma, need to know there is a well-worn path on an interior journey that many over the centuries have taken, despite the fact it is not recognized in our culture nor by most of our religious institutions. Although challenging at times, in its fulfillment we find peace.

  What is awakening?

  Realizing your true nature, or source, and knowing thoroughly that all is this, all arises from this. This is not simply a mental understanding, but more like a cellular knowing. It is inarguable. Consciousness knows itself.

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  What is Adyashanti to you?

  A wise and personable man who has seen and embodied the Truth so fully that he was able to reflect the Truth in me in such a way I could not miss it. He has been my teacher, my friend, and is a reflection for me of One Self.

  What is your experience in the spiritual process?

  Thirty years of many kinds of eastern practices, energy therapies and vibrational changes, anomalous experiences and searching that eventually came to a halt in a long silent retreat, where consciousness slipped out and showed me what was always here behind it all, offering a very simple recognition of its own connection to the whole.

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  Are you an awakened being?

  Consciousness awakens to itself, and in that sense awakeness is here. But I am just an ordinary person, with many of the patterns and roles of my old personality. I am just not very attached to them -- I don't believe they matter anymore. There is no reason to reject them and no reason to be attached to them. Life is okay as it is.

  What happened to you in your awakening?

  I saw and realized that what I essentially am at the core has nothing to do with my personality or human experiences, but is what animates them and makes them possible. This resting in our true nature often happens in mystical experiences, but the mystical event is so dramatic it overwhelms the simple recognition of what it is that is having the experience. (We don’t notice we are not there in our habitual way because we are not there to notice!) When I surrendered the desire for any mystical or ecstatic experience and was willing to see what was true without any demands or expectations that it be a certain way, consciousness moved into a new relationship with itself. It began to show itself in its true nature of formlessness and form. This happened while sitting in a retreat. Consciousness experienced itself without boundary, as no one and everyone simultaneously.

  What is enlightenment? What is the difference between awakening and enlightenment?

  Various spiritual systems define these differently. From my perspective awakening can be a glimpse of Truth, which may last for moments or days, but often seems to fade as the personality structure reclaims part of its old habits. In a few rare souls an initial awakening is permanent, and all tendency of separation or personal identification falls away, but this is not common. Enlightenment is a term that might be used when there is a stability and dominance of consciousness or pure awareness which seems to be directing the life, and the ego-structure has dissolved into it so there are no more personal demands or objections to life as it is. It ends the tendency to search because there is no longer any trace of a "seeker". Wisdom and compassion flow naturally when called for by circumstances. Adya has also called it “living outside of time.”

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  What is the significance of awareness?

  Awareness is the greatest hint of the Truth. It lives in us in every moment whether or not we are inclined to use it deliberately. Every sense, every thought, every feeling, every activity is facilitated by the movement of awareness. When we turn awareness into itself, that is we investigate our own sense of aware-ing, seeing its source or root within us, we open a portal that can bring us into the Truth of our being. Awareness is what is always here now, when the mind is not carrying us into the past or future. We are this awareness.

  How important is psychological clearing to awakening? What’s the best way to do this?

  Yoga, energy work, meditation, contemplative prayer -- all spiritual paths will eventually bring up your psychology -- because this holds the identifications that will be released as you awaken. You cannot use a spiritual practice as a method of bypassing your emotional or psychological issues. So if there have been a lot of psychological traumas and confusions in your life, good therapy helps to let go or reorganize how the mind is holding these events. Then there may be less surprise and struggle during the awakening process. It is not essential to awakening, but it can make it easier. Good therapy is more in the depth and presence of the therapist than the techniques being offered. People respond differently to different kinds of therapy so we cannot say there is only one way to work on your psychological issues. It depends on how the body/mind functions.

  Is meditation necessary?

  It is useful for learning to be quiet, resting in the unknown, and reorganizing the energy pathways in the body so as to be more available for the grace of awakening. I have noticed that people who have meditated usually (there are exceptions) move more readily into embodiment of an awakened consciousness. With a sudden awakening in someone who has never meditated, a person may have no context to hold the experience, and no idea what to do next. When in the unknown, we can always meditate and enter the silence and invite clarity. There are times in a spiritual process that a person feels very drawn to meditate, but after awakening they may be less inclined, and find that just walk
ing and living can be a meditation.

  What are dreams?

  There are many kinds of dreams -- most are a replay or reorganization of the events of life within the psyche as we mentally "digest" and file away what is happening. Many dreams offer insights into various aspects and tendencies of our personality. A few seem to offer deeper wisdom or help from the mystery itself – using images or symbols from the deeper unconscious collective wisdom. A few are prophetic, or predict where the next area of shift will be in how we view things.

  Why are we afraid?

  We are embodied as humans, living in bodies that need shelter and protection at times. There is a natural physiological tendency to take care of ourselves, and fear gets us moving in this direction. As humans we have a long history of inflicting pain and loss and suffering on one another, so it is likely in our DNA to be on guard and defensive, and it is definitely part of the collective mental field. Human violence continually rises out of and amplifies this field. Psychological fear is the projection of the mind when it is trying to protect the image of a separate self from any imagined insult or failing or suffering at the hands of others. It seems to me that to the extent we were taught to believe we were inadequate, or we experienced an inability to meet our needs as children, we grow up with anxiety about these things and limit ourselves in our relationships with the world, and with our spirit.

  What can we do about fear?

  Wake up to the pure consciousness we are, and offer loving kindness to the parts of us that are afraid. Learn compassion for our self and others, along with acceptance of what is. Stop believing everything the mind tells us about things that happened in the past or might happen in the future. Stop believing what others tell us might go wrong. Refuse to make decisions based on fear alone -- get more clarity about situations beyond the sound bites and programming of others.

  It seems that the great master Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj lived beyond the experience of desire, emotion and a personal self, that he was not bound by human psychology. Do you think this was so?

  I didn't know him so can hardly say. His writings appear to be that of an awakened mind, and have touched many people at the core. He also continued to be a chain smoker (I'm told} so either was still bound by human physiology, or was indifferent about his health (or didn't know about health issues).

  Spiritual masters say that enlightenment is beyond experience, what does that mean?

  It is a permanent shift of identity and perspective of the nature of existence, not a one-time dramatic experience as it may seem to be. It may be accompanied by a dramatic event but it is the deep internal relationship to consciousness that is forever altered. The world ceases to exist in the framework that the separate mind had formerly held it.

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  What is the essence of the personal self?

  Conditioned experience, accumulated beliefs and preferences, and the way the subtle and physical bodies are energetically wired, plus the illusion of a personal "I" who is the center of it all.

  It seems that the epitome of awakening is the falling away of the personal self -- is this your perspective? Why is this necessary?

  Our identification as a personal self falls away because it is not what we really are at the core. Awakening is knowing our true nature, and the false and very convincing separate self distracts us from seeing this.

  What is the inhibition to this process, this dissolving of the personal self?

  It feels like death to the mind, and people are afraid of losing control if they change their concepts and point of view about life. We cling to our concepts and are attached to getting our own way. We feel more safe and powerful when we take a position. This is not a criticism – it’s the way human minds are constructed.

  Why is the question “What am I?” or “Who am I?” so important?

  To break the trance of the separate self, which is never ordinarily questioned. It is most helpful when we do not find an answer. Then we will be forced into the unknown, wherein lies freedom. Self-inquiry is about looking for that within us that is not impermanent, that which remains when all identifications and beliefs are discarded.

  In Christian mystical literature the authors talk about “Union with the Divine”, so there’s a sense the person does not completely disappear during the process of realization but is somehow combined with the Sacred. Is this what is meant by embodiment, the embodiment of lets say “infinite awareness“?

  From a Christian perspective the highest goal is union with the divine, which feels wonderful and whole, blessed and ecstatic. The little “I” is engulfed by the brilliant and radiant “Self” or “Divine”. It is a devotional summit, also sought in Bhakti yoga and Sufi practices. From a non-dual perspective there is no one to experience union -- there is just One. Embodiment is seeing the world through the eyes of One, and relaxing out of any struggle for union or any other "high" experience. There may arise bliss, energies, wisdom, joy (or not) but there is not an attachment or requirement for it in order to be content. It is consciousness relaxing into the moments of life as easily as it might unitive states, knowing all of it as Itself.

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  Sometimes I have the feeling that I am being awakened, that there is an irresistible process which I can’t control that is moving within me. More often I feel impatient and frustrated by my ignorance and lack of self-discipline. What would you say to me?

  Consciousness is awakening itself, and you have noticed, and you have no control over this. The ego structure (basically just a thought) is the only thing that would make demands, or have judgments about how this should be happening. Perhaps it is churning up impatience and frustration because it wants to help, but it is also a way that the separate self tries to keep control of the situation. Invite it to relax, and just be curious about the process instead of trying to manage it better.

  Always know that the answers to your questions are within you. Possibly they will differ from my answers. Ask a question and drop it into the silence, and trust that wisdom will arise, not from the old patterns of mind but from the mystery itself.

  Appendix B

  Books About Awakening

  Inspiring Talks, Dialogues and Essays

  Adams, R. (1999). Silence of the Heart: Dialogues with Robert Adams, Acropolis Books, Atlanta

  Adyashanti (2006). Emptiness Dancing, Sounds True Boulder,

  Adyashanti (2008). The End of Your World, Sounds True, Boulder

  Adyashanti ((2010) Falling Into Grace, Sounds True, Boulder,

  Balsekar, R. (1992.) Consciousness Speaks: Conversations with Ramesh S. Balsekar, Advaita Press, Redondo Beach CA.

  Balsekar, R. (1998). Your Head in the Tiger’s Mouth: Talks in Bombay with Ramesh S. Balsekar, Advaita Press, Redondo Beach CA.

  Bodian, Stephan (2008) Wake Up Now, McGraw-Hill, NY

  Carse, David (2006). Perfect Brilliant Stillness, Paragate Pub. Shelburne, VT.

  Foster, Jeff (2009) An Extraordinary Absence, Non-Duality press, UK.

  Freke, T. & Gandy, P. (2001). Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians, 3 Rivers Pr. NY

  Freke, Tim (2009). How Long is Now?, Hay House Inc., Carlsbad. CA

  Gangaji (1996). You Are That, (available @ www.gangaji.org)

  Godman, David (1992). Papaji: Interviews, Avadhuta Fd., Boulder

  Harding, Douglas (2002). On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, InnerDirections, San Diego

  Keating, Thomas (2006) Open Mind, Open Heart, Bloomsbury Academic

  Klein, Jean (1995.) Living Truth, Third Millennium Pub., London & Santa Barbara

  Klein, Jean (1990). Transmission of the Flame, Third Millennium Pub. London

  Mitchell, Stephen (Ed) (1991). The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose, HarperPerennial

  Mitchell, Stephen (translator) (2009) The Second Book of the Tao, Penguin Press, England.

  Multiple authors (2009). Kundalini Rising: Exploring the Energy of Awakening, Sounds True
., Boulder CO

  Osborne, Arthur (1990). For Those with Little Dust: Selected Writings of Arthur Osborne, Ramana Publications, Sarasota

  Prendergast, J., Fenner, P. & Krystal, S. (2003). The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, Paragon House, St. Paul MN

  Rohr, Richard . (2009). The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, The Crossroad Publishing, NY

  Spira, Rupert (2011) Presence: The Intimacy of All Experience, Non-Duality Press, United Kingdom

  Thich Nhat Hanh (2003). Opening the Heart of the Cosmos: Insights on the Lotus Sutra, Parallax, Oakland

  Wei, Henry (1982). The Guiding Light of Lao Tzu: A New Translation and Commentary on the Tao Teh Ching, Theosophical Publishing House, India

  Inspiring Biographies

  Chadwick, D. (1999). Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, Broadway Books/Harper