October 19, 2011

When I pay attention, I dissolve, empty; body and mind and all apparent objective reality lose sway over a "me" who has imploded into pure consciousness.  Everything still "is," so to speak, but a complete shift of perspective has taken place, as when we observe the drawing of a cube that appears pointed in one direction at first, and then upon closer scrutiny shifts in the opposite direction, and henceforth we see it both ways at once.  There is no turning back: the cucumber has become a pickle, the snake a rope forever more, the world empty and full at once.  Nothing has really changed except for the "seeing."  The seer, formerly me, and the seen are recognized as appearance only.  If we want to assign some sort of value to such awakening, it lies in absence: absence of clinging, grasping, craving, mental disturbance, fear, discontent, restlessness, judging, expecting, anxiety--all the stuff our conditioned minds plague us with.  This new freedom has long been described in spiritual literature as "peace beyond understanding."  And how did I get here (apparently)?  I suppose I am what those who have assiduously followed masters, or supposed masters, and rigorous, often ascetic traditions scornfully call a "book yogi."  Truly, my path has followed hundreds of books, thousands of hours of meditation, many false starts and back roads (apparently).  Somewhere in all that, something kick-started the process of awakening, which despite any efforts on my part continued on like a software program running in the background.  Instinct and intuition are at play in this, but being a book yogi is also being a loose cannon of the spirit, firing and firing until per chance striking the mark, then tethering the cannon in the right direction.  My earnestness/desperation has been rewarded despite the books.  I'm fortunate.  As WWW warns, for those of us "who have no Masters but books, [the message is] expressed as it is, intentionally or otherwise, in objective terminology which turns the mind away from the message that shines from the Heart."  What he is saying here is that awakening through books is like learning to fish in the desert.  Nevertheless, with patience and practice we eventually realize the desert has been a mirage all along.