The Cost of Letting Go
El costo de soltar
A student notices that being in the teacher's presence seems to stir things up and accelerate progress, and asks whether that dynamic is necessary. The conversation turns to the subtle trap of turning spiritual practice into a checklist, and the resistance that arises when one begins to see what awakening actually costs.
The Cost of Letting Go
A student notices that being in the teacher's presence seems to stir things up and accelerate progress, and asks whether that dynamic is necessary. The conversation turns to the subtle trap of turning spiritual practice into a checklist, and the resistance that arises when one begins to see what awakening actually costs.
I've realized that one common way my mind kicks the can down the road is by thinking about these meetings. Being around someone who has been on the other side, there's an energetic signature to that. Being in this meeting stirs things up, and there can be a thought of, "Stuff is happening. Process is happening because I'm in this meeting." Could you speak to that?
The trap of making it a requirement
The trap is the belief, which will take two different forms. One is the belief that it's required. The other is that the degree to which it helps is so large that it's almost as if it's required. What I'm talking about has no requirements, no conditions.
At the same time, yes, I really recommend spending this time with whomever calls you, whomever you resonate with, as much as you can, to the degree that it's appropriate in your life and your situation. But the sense that it is needed is just one of those subtle beliefs that keep the mind active on "later, later, later."
So it's like a "yes, and." Yes, there is a benefit, there is an effect to being in this space together, to being in satsang. And it's absolutely not required. I think that's the thing. That is a subtle way I've been thinking about progress: like I need to do these things that fit into my lifestyle, thinking about it like a checklist. I need to do this to stir things up, to see that I have progress.
Refining what you deeply want
Yes, exactly. Go to what stirs you up, what calls you. Follow whatever you most deeply want. Refine your intuition and perception and interpretation of what it is you deeply want, because there are a lot of illusions about what we think we want, and those need to be more and more clearly seen.
And none of that is required for what I'm talking about to be realized. It actually has no conditions, because it is already what is. It is this. Nothing more than this. It's just that this is interpreted to be something that it's not, and so this feels incomplete, unsatisfying.
I notice I want to say "but."
When you notice that, don't fight it and push it away, like, "Oh, there's that tricky thing of the 'but,' how do I deal with it?" Really let it happen so you can look at it and feel into it, into all the details of how it's operating. Contemplate it. The "but" is trying to want something to be different, because "this doesn't feel right, it needs to be better, it's not what it could be. I remember in the past it felt like this, and if only I could feel like that more often..."
It's like the "but" is saying: but there is an energetic difference, the difference between a sense of self and no sense of self.
But that energetic difference is available now. It's just veiled right now.
The reluctance to look
It's so interesting. You're saying, "Look, look." And there's a part of me going, "No, no, no." There's a wanting not to look.
One of my teachers said something once that really affected me. He said: when you see how much you actually don't want it, how much you actually don't want to wake up, when you see that clearly, you've made a lot of progress.
It's also, in a sense, a stage in the awakening process. At first it's very appealing and it's promising everything. Then you start to see there's a cost. The cost is your illusions. "My precious." It symbolizes power, the ability to have that which I want, no matter what it is, at any time that I want it. "I, me, mine" is, at its root, a fundamental sense of "this is not right, this is not good enough." We could turn on some more religious language and say: God didn't get it right. I know better.
That's what it symbolizes. But that's the illusion. What can be seen is that no matter what you do, if you had that power, it's never for the better. This is what those stories show. It's not good, because it's arising from illusion. It's arising from the deepest misunderstanding, which states and assumes: this is not good enough, something is missing here. What can be seen is that it's simply not true.
Breadcrumbs and the infinite loop
The removing of that veil of illusion has a consequence, which is what you're describing as what has been tasted, what you have memories of: that energetic quality. It just feels better. But at first it is known as a taste, as a glimpse, which is fantastic and very valuable, because it's like breadcrumbs. One must be careful, though, because the mind is going to turn that into an infinite path of tasting, losing, tasting, losing, tasting, losing, until that gets so tiring, and the part of us that doesn't want to let go finally does.
You could also say it differently. The part of me that doesn't want to let go finally lets go, or finally sees, so that it doesn't become something where I'm a victim of this thing.
I really like that pointing. It stuck with me from one of the first meetings: offering it as a choice.
It's a choice, but it's not you choosing. You want to keep being you.
Thank you.
You're welcome.