I had forgotten that term Adya uses ‘affectionate awareness.” It is beautiful..

I often use the term awareness/presence for the very same reason--awareness so often has a feeling of being cool, detached and uninvolved. Which it is, but it’s so much more than that..It is intimate with everything, because it doesn’t stand back and watch--it watches from the inside, from the heart, from the core. That’s how it transforms everything it touches--because of the non-separation.

This is a story told to me by a dear friend. Her name is Jessica Adams. I asked her if I could use her real name and she said yes. I am passing her story along because it was of great benefit to me. When I listened and received it, it was no longer a story. It was more like a homeopathic dose of medicine. It spoke to something I have always been aware of, and enlivened that deep knowing, gave it power and clarity. I am writing the story as if Jessica herself is speaking, so that you can hear it just as I did.

“I was at home one evening,” she said, “when all of these different aspects of my mind arose from within. They just appeared without warning, so many of the different viewpoints I have: judgments, resentments, sorrows, and longings, all of them just displaying themselves before me. They continued to arise for quite a while, as I remained present. And then something happened. A clarity arose out of nowhere, a very profound and simple realization: that my life, just the way it is, gives me everything I need. It doesn’t need to be any other way. All of the beliefs I have held about how it could or should be different—if only this or that would happen, then I could be happy—they just dissolved. Without having to think about it, it was pefectly obvious that none of these ideas were true. What was I thinking? My well being does not depend on any of these things: a husband, a better place to live, a pefect job.”

“That must have been quite a relief,” I said to Jessica.

‘’Yes, “ she said, “but the most wonderful thing about it is that now I can really be happy when good things come to the people I know. There is no longer anything in me wondering why I don’t have that, or why that didn’t happen to me. So I can rejoice in their happiness, without any reservation.”

After I listened to Jessica, I remembered a time many years ago in India, when I was listening to a teacher reading a scripture. In this particular teaching there was a description of a realm called ‘heaven’ or ‘the god realm.’ All the wonders and beauties of this realm were vividly described. Then it went on to say, “This realm promises so much, but it is very difficult to be happy here for long. Because no matter where you are, no matter how much you have, the nature of the god realm is that there is always someone above you, someone who has more than you do—more fame, more prosperity, more intelligence, more insight, more friends, more lovers, more fun.” This being the nature of this place, it is often referred to as the realm of the jealous gods. In an instant I realized that this scripture was actually describing human life—we don’t have to go to heaven or to the god realm to see what it is pointing to.

That was the beginning for me of an insight that has been growing and deepening for many years. (I’m kind of a slow learner.) One afternoon a few years later, I came into my mother’s room. She was lying in bed reading a Buddhist teaching. She had just read something about karma, and how we gain merit through positive thoughts and actions. “ Guess what?” she said to me. “If we are kind and virtuous, we can accumulate merit, and end up in a really great place. We might even go to a god realm, a place like heaven! Isn’t that great? I never knew that I could actually go to a place like that.”

“I don’t know Mum,” I said to her. “I think the promise of a place like that is really overrated.” I explained to her what I understood about the nature of such happiness. She was not impressed. “You just want to be so free,” she said. “I don’t care about all that. I’ll just go to heaven and hang out there for as long as it works.”

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