The Transformation of Consciousness

‘If we could really listen, there would be no suffering in the world.’ Byron Katie

Mutual Evolution is an opportunity for anyone who is drawn to a way of being that is transparent, open, and authentic. A way of being in relationship, based on non-separation.

We engage in this way of being, this practice, together, and learn to trust in this natural presence. We cannot see it or grasp it, but it holds us and nourishes us deeply. There is a radical intimacy here: we do not stand back from others or from ourselves. We enter into each moment from inside, without knowing anything. Untamed feelings may arise, deep wisdom may emerge-we are not in control.

In this new world, we trust in the intelligence of presence, the integrity of the heart, this awakeness that lives in everything.

We are willing to be with the rawness, the tenderness, the anxiety that arises when we are no longer protected or defended. We can say to our most difficult feelings, “Show me how to be with you.” We can listen to everything, without pushing anything away, without needing to defend our self-image.

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The winter solstice draws near now, the darkest time of the year. Our daylight here in British Columbia goes away at 4pm. And after the solstice come Christmas and Hannukah.

I notice how it often feels like the space of not knowing is dark and quiet.  A few mornings ago I was resting in awareness with someone who lives in Germany. He said to me, “It feels like you are a companion in this darkness, so that I can really be here, without making myself into anything.” I felt a lot of gratitude when he said this, gratitude because I have also struggled with wanting to know, wanting to be someone, wanting to be loved.

It feels like so much of my evolution has been a stripping away, an uprooting of all my old, constructed notions about love, relationship, caring, and giving. At times it has been very rigorous, almost too much to bear. So as we enter this time of year, I notice how strong the collective beliefs are about all these things: what love is, what it is to be in relationship, how we can support each other.

I can feel how I was taught to believe in these things, to hold them as real. Sometimes they weren’t even explicit--it felt like an ocean of conditioning that I found myself born into, drinking from, at my mother’s breast.

Now I notice that I don’t believe these things anymore. To question these beliefs and ideas is to cross lines that may not have been crossed before, in the lineage of my ancestors, and in yours. Sometimes it feels like punching a hole in a reality we have all agreed to uphold. I’m amazed at how much courage it takes to engage in this kind of inquiry. Or maybe it isn’t courage-maybe it’s love itself, from the very beginning, that is at the heart of this questioning.

Jesus got into a lot of trouble with his inquiry. So did Socrates, and many others. One thing that arises for me, at this time of year, is how lucky we are, in the immense turbulence of our times, that we can gather together and freely engage in this kind of inquiry together. Without the fear of death or punishment. This is such a great privilege.

My daughter has a large tattoo on either side of her sacrum. On one side it reads, “Question Everything.” On the other side it reads, “Believe Nothing.” It’s such a blessing to have this freedom. And it’s an even greater blessing to use it, to sail right off the edge of the known world, without knowing where we will end up.

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I’m sharing part of a marvelous poem/writing by Kip Mazuy, passed on to me by one of the participants in the Mutual Evolution online intensive. What Kip describes here, so lucidly, is what we are exploring in our group together.

“One method of meditation
is to simply be vulnerable
to this moment.

To let go of
trying to justify
who you are and what
you know
and really allow
yourself to feel what is here.

This is difficult only
because of the mind.

The mind comes in
and already knows it;
agrees or disagrees with it,
has an opinion about it.

And it is not that you have
to get rid of that,
but rather to give up
taking a position in that,
in believing this is “me.”

You have all of these
thoughts flowing.
It is not to stop the thoughts
or change the thoughts,
but rather to see
the thoughts are flowing.

To see thoughts are
arising by themselves.

You can step back
out of being this person
and watch all of these
processes happening
which make up the idea
of “me.”

And you will see in this
that there is no set
singular “me”
but rather a whole bunch
of processes happening.

Thinking is happening,

And it is not to take a position
to say “I am not a separate person,”
but rather to stop taking a position at all,
to stop justifying any sense of me
and simply feel what is here
without using the intellect
to interpret it, to label it,
or justify it in any way.

To be completely open
to what is really here in this moment
beyond thinking.

And then throughout the day
to become aware of all of the
ways you justify yourself
and to let go of that,
to be vulnerable to what is here
and what is happening
rather than trying to fight it,
trying to control it.

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Some friends and I were doing a ceremony this summer, as a way of coming to completion with our past, in the best way we could. We were intending to open a clearing, an unconditioned space in which a compassionate and generative response to our future could emerge.

Part of our ceremony was devoted to examining, with discriminating wisdom, the spiritual practice we had all been engaged in for many years. It was a practice that no longer served us, and what became clear and vivid in our time together was this: despite long years of meditation and inquiry, we had never really learned how to live in relationship, with ourselves, with life, and with each other.

This dilemma is not limited to one teaching or one particular practice. Many of the spiritual practices that emphasize the absolute or transcendent aspect of life treat all relationships as illusory, since the idea of an ‘other’ is a construction of the mind.

It struck us during this ceremony that excluding the whole field of relationship from our practice creates an incredibly huge gap in the teachings, since our life on earth, our life in a human body, is nothing but relationship. These kind of practices and teachings do not give us any support at all in learning what it is to be fully human.

The indigenous teachings, on the other hand, are deeply grounded in a view of life as a vast interconnected web of relations. They call us into the living experience of who we are when we are open and accountable for an unending relationship with the whole field of life. Some of these practices are solitary, but many are done in the context of community, in a spirit of deep intimacy, where we learn to be fully present and engaged, without our habitual barriers and defenses.

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‘Each friend and lover represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive. It is only in this meeting that a whole new way of being presents itself to us.’ Anais Nin

This new way of being is revealed as we come out of isolation, our of hiding, and into the warmth and aliveness of presence. Our capacity to stay consciously connected during each contact increases. We realize that we can let go of our own points of view and enter into the reality of each being we meet.

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There is a lot of talk these days about the power of awareness.

What I have noticed is that awareness practices can often be quite limited in their power to really transform the way we live.

Unless it is clear that the deeper nature of awareness is love.

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Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find within yourself all the barriers you have built against it.
Rumi

There is a vast difference between what we believe love to be, and the truth that we discover when we investigate deeply and fearlessly. It’s the difference between a nightmare and waking up. It’s the difference between blaming, bitterness and overflowing gratitude.

Let’s face it, friends. As far as love goes, we’ve been sold a bill of goods. We’ve been taught that we have to earn it, struggle for it, modify ourselves in order to receive it.  And that the people in our lives have to behave in a certain way in order to receive it.

What if none of this was true? What if love is something that has nothing to do with gaining or losing? Something so basic, so fundamental, that it is our very nature?

What will bring us to the place where we are ready to discover the truth of love for ourselves?

Where we are ready to encounter directly these barriers that we ourselves have built?

I have a sense that many of us have grown very tired of the old stories about love, intimacy and relationship.

That we are here, on this edge, willing to open to a whole new life. Bit by bit, stepping into the water that is here: fresh, cool and vibrant.

Please join me, if this possibility is bubbling in your heart, tugging at your mind, or knocking on your door.

All it takes it the willingness to inquire into what is really going on.

The ‘Mutual Evolution-Waking Up Together’ 8 week online intensive begins Oct. 18 and goes till Dec. 6.

To learn more, or to register, Mutual Evolution-Waking Up Together ‘Mutual Evolution-Waking Up Together’

The Free Telecall is on Thurs. Oct. 6 at 5:30pm pacific ‘Mutual Evolution ‘-Free Telecall

This photo and Rumi quote come from Rumi Wall Photos

love
Shayla

Showing up as we are is not how we have been trained. The idea of it can be terrifying-to commit to this kind of transparency. But this willingness, to allow ourselves to be as we are, and to be seen as we are, is the foundation of freedom and of love.

“Unconditional love is not so much about how we receive and endure each other, as it is about the deep vow to never, under any condition, stop bringing the flawed truth of who we are to each other.” (Mark Nepo)

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