The Cost of Waking Up
El costo de despertar
A student shares their resistance to spiritual awakening, recognizing both a desire to be free of suffering and a deep reluctance to lose the familiar sense of self.
The Cost of Waking Up
A student shares their resistance to spiritual awakening, recognizing both a desire to be free of suffering and a deep reluctance to lose the familiar sense of self.
I've been watching nondual videos on YouTube, and I saw one the other day titled something like "the cost of waking up." I did not want to click on it, and I didn't. Even coming to the group today, I'd been wanting to come for a while, but this morning I thought, "I don't want to come because I don't want to lose everything."
I saw someone in a video writing something like, "You can't want this," and they were talking about losing everything, losing control. Then I saw another video where someone was saying how she doesn't have control over her future, and I thought, "Yeah, I don't want that."
It happens all the time. I'll start suffering, and it's usually something to do with other people, or being very critical of my own life. There are moments when I think, "I don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to live with this person that I am, this story I'm living in." I feel trapped, and I want to change and be better and suffer less. But at the same time, I don't want to let go.
What you're describing is pretty much everybody's experience once they start finding out about the work of waking up.
The inner battle
Up until something is completely released, there is an inner battle. That inner battle is between a desire for things to be different and that which is already so. What we are, what reality already is. Something happens that has to do with a choice, and it's a choice I respect very much. I fully respect the choice of wanting to live in a way that is usually called illusion or ignorance. Those words have a negative connotation, but I call it the adventure. I respect that choice because I made it very wholeheartedly. I didn't know I was making a choice. I didn't know it was fully my choice.
When someone says she doesn't control her future, nobody does. You don't control your future either. We can enter into a choice that creates a certain kind of reality, what is called illusion. But if I could, I would find words to remove all the negative connotations of how it's described, because it's a very valid choice. We make it until we just don't want to anymore.
In my experience it is a free choice, a beautiful choice. It is to live in a certain way that allows for a certain kind of intensity, which is what suffering is. But there is also another aspect, and that is why we choose to suffer.
Seeing the attachment
What happens is that we can come to a point where, as you describe, we realize we don't want to let go. That's actually a really big breakthrough: to know ourselves to a degree where we come into the recognition that we don't want to wake up. Or, put differently, there's an aspect in us, an energy, a degree to which we don't want that. To believe that we want to wake up is illusion as well, because if we did, we would be awake. It's as simple as that. If we truly, fully wanted to wake up, we would be, because that's our natural state.
If we're honest with ourselves, we will know that we suffer. And if we are even more honest, we will start to see that we are attached to suffering. We will see that we want it, not only for the suffering itself, but because of the world it creates. Suffering is just the side effect. We don't choose suffering for suffering's sake. It is simply the consequence of a choice.
So usually what I say in this kind of conversation is: just choose that for as long as you want, but keep noticing, keep seeing. Because what this requires is, as you said, not something we want. Once we've seen through it, we realize that what we've wanted is always here.
In a sense it's a matter of layers. I'm talking about seeing more and more deeply. First we can see that we suffer. Then we can see that we are attached to something. We don't want to let go of it, even if the consequence is suffering. And the process of letting go can be very painful. In fact, it's probably the most painful thing you can go through. And scary as well.
Usually the carrot at the end of the stick that is offered in these conversations is: you will realize your true nature, and everything you've wanted is already here. But you cannot live as if that is your truth if it's merely a story, a belief in my words. That would be a disservice to yourself. So when I say those words, I'm pointing to something, because it creates a kind of clash internally with what our normal experience is, which is: obviously what I'm wanting and needing is not here. It is so, so obvious.
I know how that was. I remember that. But to me, the most obvious thing is that what we wanted is always here. It is as obvious to me as the fact that you need to drink water when you're thirsty. But I also know that when we are living in that way, the choice of "I know what I am and I know what I want," then what I'm talking about is veiled. It's right in front of you, but it's veiled.
What you think you want
Are you saying that before realization, you can't really know what you want because it's veiled?
Before realization, you think you know what you want. And it might be constantly changing, but there's an underlying sense which is pretty clear. It moves and changes because it's actually an illusion, a self-hypnosis. It's something we create that seems real. The "I" in that way seems real. Then what the "I" wants and needs seems real. It seems that I know what I am and I know what I'm needing, even if that's constantly changing.
The core of it is the sense that what I am has certain attributes, and those attributes create the possibility of that world. These attributes are: what I am is dependent on this body, this body as "I" begins and ends, and the choices made by myself originate only in me. Their source is my own self, which is separate from other aspects of reality.
Are you saying the source is separate from me?
It's hard to describe, but it's the sense of: I am making my own choices, you are making your own choices. Are my sources different than yours?
Sources, like where I came from, or how I was made or born?
More in the sense of right now: what is operating, where the energy of it is coming from, where the choices are originating from.
I think I understand. For me right now it could be something like, "I need to make more money," and that's unique to me as a person, while somebody else's wants are dependent on their life situation.
When you say "I need to make more money," which is true at one level, at the operational level, the "I" that it's pointing to is just an image. It's just thoughts. "I need to make more money" becomes less important or dramatic when that is seen. It can still be at the very top of the list, the most important thing, but it no longer creates the intensity of the story.
That's what is lost. There's a certain aspect of the drama of life that we love, that is beautiful. Once you taste something else, you'd rather not have it anymore. But there is a beauty to it, and that's why we love movies.
Wanting to keep parts of the story
It seemed to me that one teacher I knew, after he woke up, his life was still a grand adventure. But I want to secure that for myself. I see myself thinking, "Yeah, I want to keep going on this path, but I want to keep this and this." At the same time, before, I didn't really have any other option except to go forward on this path, because I was suffering enough that this was the only thing that helped. But now that I'm here, I'm thinking, "Oh, this is what's happening." It's not even that I dug deep. Maybe it's just after years of looking, but I can see it: I don't want to lose this. This teacher talked about sacrifice, and I remember him saying something like, "The cost is big." Is this what he was talking about, the loss of my story?
I can't say what he was talking about specifically, but it's very likely, because it is the loss of everything. It's the loss of what you think you are. But when I say "what you think you are," I'm trying to be careful with language. To be more accurate, I would say it's the loss of everything that you are.
Everything that I am?
When I say it's the loss of what you think you are, right now those are the same thing for you.
In my mind, you're saying?
Yes. You don't really have the possibility right now to distinguish what you are from what you think you are. So if I say "what you think you are," it's actually not going to be interpreted correctly by you.
Right, because I have an image of what it would be like after, and it's like I'm not going to care about people, I'm going to be detached.
You have all of these ideas. One thing I can say for sure: you cannot imagine this. It's impossible. It's literally impossible, by definition.
I remember hearing that before and thinking, "Oh, it's unimaginable, that's so great!" And now I'm like, "Why did I think I wanted something when I didn't even know what it was?"
The essential resistance
Part of you does want it. A deep part of you does. But as you showed today, and what I highlighted, is that it's a big realization to see how much you don't. Because that means you've gone deep enough to meet the essential resistance.
Inner integrity
In this work, among people on this path, there's a lot of what I call a lack of inner integrity. There's outer integrity, which is toward others, toward other people and aspects of our world and nature. And then there's inner integrity, which is how we are with ourselves. For example, if somebody is teaching that this is the end of suffering, a person might tell themselves, "I don't suffer anymore," and put a lot of energy into living and acting as if they don't.
Why would someone do that?
Because it creates a sense of "I am progressing on this spiritual path."
So it's like a trick you play on yourself, but also to show other people you're progressing?
Yes, for oneself or others, for many reasons. Same as making a lot of money because it attracts people, or any kind of egoic drive. What I try to point to is: yes, this is the end of suffering, but you have to go and look at your suffering fully, completely. You have to go straight into it and through it. If someone starts to have a sense that suffering has ended, I will see through that. But for the person themselves, it's a disservice. That's what I call a lack of inner integrity.
I'm highlighting this because what you're describing is the opposite. You're honest with yourself and honest with us, and that's one of the most important requirements in this work, especially being honest with yourself. The more you're honest with yourself, the more you won't be able to prevent waking up.
I know that too. That's why I feel like, okay, you said it's a choice and I can continue to live in illusion or whatever the better word is, but I know this is inevitable now. I've pushed myself this far. If I stopped going to all the groups and stopped doing this meditation work, I don't even see that as a way out, because I already know it's not real.