There’s so much focus on enlightenment and awakening in the abstract. In the projected ideas and ideals of what people, seekers, see in their idolisation of gurus, teachers and enlightened sages. In the goals and focus of wanting never-ending bliss and happiness, and superhuman abilities and powers because they think that’s what it’s all about. The person becoming bigger and better, the person becoming enlightened.
But what is enlightenment really about? What happens when someone awakens, how will their expectations match the reality? This is what I’m interested in, exploring this, the lived experience, the embodiment of awakened living. Not the projected and imagined experience and the constant trying (and failing) to match up to this – but the actual lived experience. That lived experience can’t be codified, it’s a moment to moment exploration without rules. It’s a free-fall through the groundless experience of life.
As a spiritual mentor I’m not interested in making promises, I’m not interested in creating students who feel they need to learn from me, I’m not even really interested in ‘awakening people’ as a goal. I’m interested, or rather I find myself being called to be totally present to those that find themselves knocking on my door. I’m called to hold space for someone to be as they are without judgements of “you’re there and you should be here” or making anyone wrong or bad, but instead to help someone to come to a better understanding of what causes their suffering and seeking. To provide a sandbox of exploration for this crazy, messy, unfiltered life. To hold space for the unfoldment and awakening that is already happening within them.
All I’m really interested in is holding someone’s hand and showing them that they can accept all of themselves, and in fact in the accepting of all of themselves they might just find the freedom, happiness and peace that they are looking for. They may just find that they awaken to their nature, that all of this experience is Self, is them. They might just notice that this is all happening spontaneously within them anyway. The pull and the draw to the Self is already occurring.
It’s not about attaining and achieving, about learning or being the best devotee or surrendering the most. It’s about unmasking themselves, dissolving held concepts and conditioning and learning to be open and vulnerable. It’s in that openness and vulnerability that they will find their strength, they will find the strength that they inherently have, they will find the peace and joy that they inherently have, that they most likely missed while looking for it!
I’m not ‘giving’ anything. As I see it, even with the ‘Divine Light Transmissions’ that I offer in my session I’m not ‘giving’ a transmission. I am encouraging and aiding the taking of time to focus on this aspect of our experience, the non-conceptual fundamental basis of existence that is at the heart of EVERYTHING – consciousness. I am taking the time to focus and put attention on that, and in that space, to silently encourage them to do that too. To reestablish the known connection with self, with consciousness, with the divinity of our ordinary base experience.
So really it’s not a giving, in terms of one person to another. It’s the attention being placed on that awareness or presence of consciousness. The attention gets amplified, simplified, but it was always there, consciousness was always at the heart of existence, of experiencing, whether known or not.
I know lots of teachers have many different views on this stuff. But the fact is, it depends on how and who you are talking to in any given moment. Even for me, my description changes depending on the situation or moment. Because even in that simple description, I see the flaws, the other ways of describing it, the mystery of transmission, the mystery of awakening because it’s just that, a mystery. There are explanations of these things from the absolute view, but there are also explanations from the relative view and everything in between.
Yes in absolute terms – there is no me, no you, no transmission, no awakening. It’s just life playing out, consciousness forming different forms of existence. Forming a ‘teacher’ and a ‘student’ and even the experience of a transmission, the experience of awakening – all the while all these characters and ‘props’ playing out on the stage of awareness – your awareness, not someone else over there. YOUR AWARENESS. It’s an assumption, a short hand, a concept, even a courtesy that there is even a ‘someone over there’. All you really know is that you are, you are aware. Everything else is an assumption, part of what’s showing up TO YOU.
But in the relative terms, yes paths show up, teachers show up, others show up, experiences show up. Thoughts and desires to learn a meditation technique shows up. Even the wish to be happy versus not happy shows up. And in that I’ve found that this thing we call “Divine Light Transmission” shows up, and it shows up in a way that apparently helps others to see that the binds of the mind that they think hold them aren’t quite as solid as they thought they were. That life is full of ideas and concepts and shoulds and should nots, but really what life’s really about is WHAT IS HAPPENING.
So my ‘job’, my role right now seems to be showing up, hand holding and reassuring. Because awakening happens in this apparent play. That awakening is actually a waking up from thinking things are a certain way, and waking up to realise that that certainty was actually misplace, because when you look close enough, that certainty falls apart. And in that falling apart, so do a lot of things. So life as we know it falls apart. The illusion is seen through, the dreamer realises it’s a dream.
And then within this we have to learn to live again and this can be hard and messy.
We have to learn to live in this new space where everything is exactly the same, and yet the relationship to everything is completely different. It’s hard to explain, it’s not something someone can ‘grok’ because you can’t change your perspective without jumping all in. And when you do jump all in.. there’s no going back.
You have to let go of the ledge and trust eventually.
You have to open yourself up and take off the heavy armour of conditioning and concepts that you thought to be you, and see that actually you were always inside, underneath, tender and whole. Just so hidden that you didn’t even notice. Your true nature, your SELF was always here, so intimate, so ordinary, so known, that you missed it completely.
So this is my role, pointing you back to your own experience to help you to see that which was here the whole time.