KEYS TO AWAKENING

 WAKING UP

There is no special way or method for waking up and seeing This.

No path or approach can guarantee or preclude understanding.

Each human pattern is a unique constellation and the unfolding pathway is embedded within each of us.

LISTENING

Whatever our path may entail, a useful hint is to listen to and trust our own innate intelligence, ‘that still, small voice within’.

Tuning into our innate wisdom and acting on the insights can create a virtuous cycle of increasing clarity.

When tuning inwards, it is vital to learn how to discriminate the inner voice of our innate wisdom from the chattering of the mind.

Paying close attention to the consequences of following a ‘voice’ and being mindful of the ongoing feedback can be useful in sharpening discernment.

FEEDBACK

Our responses to feedback itself can be helpful in discerning where we really are.

Feedback is just that - feedback, and any feelings of hurt, self-justification or wanting to react offers hints to where we may be stuck or invested in a point of view.

INFORMATION / TRANSFORMATION

A distinction can be made here between information and transformation.

Information expands our world view broadening our horizon as we explore conversations, books, YouTube clips, courses and videos.

While useful for appreciating relativity and shaking our certainty, collecting information is of limited value.  

It is when we begin to seriously examine the assumed collector, the knower, the holder of a point of view that real change begins.

This deepening self-reflection points to transformation – the undercutting of all reference points.

TEACHERS

An external teacher can be useful here, especially for dealing with blind spots.

Through face to face conversations, dialogue and feedback, unconscious patterns and self-limiting stories are unravelled.

It is especially important to trust our inner wisdom when seeking a teacher for this work.

Within any teacher-student relationship, there is always an element of positive projection.

These positive projections help sharpen listening and increase trust and openness to the teacher.

It takes a mature teacher to receive and hold these positive projections and not get caught up in hubris or inflation.

Unfortunately, there are many examples of unhealthy student-teacher relationships, where both parties are trapped in co-dependency:

students staying infantile and projecting parental authority, while teachers become trapped in ego boosting attention.

When evaluating a prospective teacher, it can be helpful to look critically at their students - the fruits of their work.

An authentic teacher always works against dependency, knowing their job is to guide the student to the teacher within.

RIGOUR & FOCUS

While it is relatively easy to acquire conceptual understanding by accumulating information and internalising by repetition non-dual one-liners.

“There is no me”, “everything is that”, “there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go”, awakening to what these statements are pointing to requires rigour and focus.

DISTINCTIONS

Making the category distinction between the absolute and the relative can be useful when looking at many of the pointers in contemporary Non-Duality.

“There is no ‘me’ with any existence independent from totality” points to the absolute, whereas “Full stop” or Nisargadatta’s “Don’t take delivery” are relative hints for dealing with the contents of the thinking stream.

Poetic pointers such as “Space-like awareness” hint at the absolute, whereas pointers like:

“Who is asking the question?” offer a hint for going to the source of the assumed entity.  

PRACTICES

While set practices can encourage the sense of working towards a goal which is future focused, denying the value of any activity which helps undercut the habit of placing the attention in the thinking stream is disingenuous. 

Paradoxically, prescribing to ‘no practices’ is a practice in itself.

Some of the most useful non-dual practices include the spatial investigations that focus attention back to an assumed separate ‘I.”

Look within with focused attention for the actual location of the “ego,” the “me,” the holder of the point of view, then with laser-like attention pinpoint the precise location of this presumed separate self.

INVESTIGATIONS

While understanding conceptually that there is no separate “I”, it is only after this phantom is truly seen through that dissolution can happen.

Negative emotional states can function as a window for investigation.

Whenever an upset arises, going within and attempting to pinpoint the precise location of this upset, fear or anxiety can be illuminating.

Investigating thoroughly and penetrating to the core of the upset, focusing on its size, shape, even colour may induce changes as the act of observing changes what is being observed.

With renewed focus and attention, the size of the upset can often diminish and become smaller and smaller and disappear.

As the old adage reminds us, “Nothing stands up to investigation.”

Wherever our path may lead, there is simply no right or wrong way.

Any sense of a journey can only be discerned in hindsight, and it can never be known whether a particular practice, teacher or insight helped or hindered.

All that can be said is everything undertaken brought us to “here.”

And in the end, it’s not that we get answers: the end of seeking is the end of the seeker.

As Nisargaadatta expressed it so succinctly:

“You have not understood until you have solved the riddle of the one who thinks they have understood.”

© Peter & Kalyani Lawry. March 2022