Losing God as an Object
Perder a Dios como objeto
A student describes the disorienting experience of losing their sense of the sacred after realizing they had been attaching it to a particular flavor of experience. The teacher explores the collapse of projection, the limbo that follows, and the opportunity to investigate subtler layers of identification.
Losing God as an Object
A student describes the disorienting experience of losing their sense of the sacred after realizing they had been attaching it to a particular flavor of experience. The teacher explores the collapse of projection, the limbo that follows, and the opportunity to investigate subtler layers of identification.
You said in a meditation that this seeking, this journey, is full of paradoxes, and that word really describes what this feels like. Something I started pondering after our last session: it seems to me that there is a kind of jump between investigating the nothingness of what I am and investigating, or rather being immersed in, the everythingness. Over the weekend, at some point, I was thinking and also feeling that I had lost something. Lost, as in misplaced. The way my kids get lost: I don't know where I put them. The same goes with God. Where did I put God? Where is it? At the sensational level, I lost count. What I'm trying to say is that I had clearly attached to an experience of what it means to be present, or where meditation is, or some experience of presence and groundedness.
An experience. A period, a full stop.
An experience, exactly. And then I started asking myself: this is why the teachers and the sages say it's everywhere and everything, right now. But how is that true in my experience right now? How is that true for me? I don't know. I'm simply not attaching God or presence or sacredness to one specific flavor of experience anymore. I noticed that, and so I lost God. And I love that guy. Do you have any pointers for how it is about everything, as it is, right now?
Losing a transitional object
You lost God as an object. Which is good, because God can be a useful transitional object. If you're in a state of despair with no path, no teaching, no community, then a traditional God can serve as a kind of path. But that is only going to take you so far. If you keep looking more deeply, that God is going to disappear. You're going to lose it, because it's an object. It's a projection. That's what has happened.
Yes, because I feel like I've gone in cycles with it. And "God" is just a word I'm using. Whatever: sacredness, presence, the ground of things. The first time I lost it, I realized it had to do with this "something else" that is not me, that is bigger than me. That was a couple of years ago. But this time it's more like: the way I can describe it is that I was attaching to a particular experience. "Right now I'm connected, right now I'm centered." And then I started asking, how is it true that the same reality, the same sacredness, the same oneness, the same everythingness persists regardless of the experience?
Because you're still trying to find it in form.
Yes, my mind is still trying. But then where did it go so fast?
The desert between projection and recognition
If you're honest, you're not going to be able to find it. You've seen through that. You're going to keep trying to find it in the forms, in the experience, and if you stay honest, that's going to fail. You could always fall back into a projection, but the real question is what remains when you can't.
It's a limbo. You can no longer project it, but you haven't recognized it. Recognize it as, I would say, you, but not in the way you conceive of "you." That which knows right now, that which is experiencing: that's it. But you can't look back and find it.
Because there's nothing else than this.
Exactly. This.
There really isn't. But it feels so mundane at the same time.
When you really see through the notion of it being mundane, or sacred, or not sacred, all of that is going to become meaningless. But it's going to be satisfying. It's not going to be dry like the desert. It's going to be alive. It's going to be juicy. But there's still a very thin veil, which is the mechanism of projection. When the projection starts to collapse and fail, there's still something trying to project and not finding anywhere to project. That's the limbo. Eventually that collapses, and all of that looking for something in experience really comes to an end.
It reminds me of something. After our last session, I realized something had become alive, and it's actually a little unsettling. For whatever reason, and with really fruitful results, I had gone into self-inquiry partly as a form of detachment, even dissociation. And I realized that had been true for me for the longest time. Someone told me there was an end of suffering, and I wanted that. I was obviously looking for that. But after we spoke last time, I thought: maybe I just want to find love for the sake of love, not for the end of anything else.
Wait, are you talking about romantic love?
No, no. Love. Just love.
It's the same as with God. If you're honest and you're looking for love, not romantic love, just love, you're not going to find it anywhere, because it's everything.
All I'm trying to say is that ending suffering is still an agenda.
Conditions on the end of suffering
It depends on how you interpret it. It's an agenda if you interpret it with conditions, if you have an idea of what the end of suffering looks like and you hold conditions on that interpretation.
It seems inevitable to go in with some idea of how that would feel.
Of course. But look at those ideas and see through them. See that they're conditions.
That's my point. In this desert, there's nothing to grasp.
That's the limbo. The grasping itself is also a form of projection. When things stop sticking, when the activation of thought to create time, to create experiences you can aspire to and project peace onto, or love, or God, or being, when that stops working, it starts to collapse onto itself. That happens because we begin to see the falseness in it, and then we can no longer believe it or buy into it.
So would you say that right now, being in limbo is just a time to be in limbo? To enjoy the limbo?
Becoming conscious of the position you're taking
Yes, enjoy the limbo. But also look more subtly at what you're doing with your mind and the point of view you're taking. For example, right now, as you're asking this question: are you speaking from a position of someone originating from the body?
I don't really know. It's hard for me right now.
But look at that. Is everything talking, or is it a located someone?
The only honest thing I can say is that it feels like curiosity. This thing that has become alive. I don't know if that's a person with curiosity at the party, or just curiosity itself.
Just look. It's not for you to find the exact true answer. Just look right now: are you taking a position?
This limbo is very confusing. To speak of "two positions" already seems like too much. It's just what is happening. When it's unclear, it's very hard for me to ask the question "what am I right now?" It becomes a lot of thinking.
That's why I'm presenting it differently. I'm asking you what position you are taking, if any. I'm not asking "what are you?" or "who are you?" It's the same question from a different angle, a different tool. In order to have an illusion of being someone limited, you need to take a position. It's like going to an office to work. You know you're in an office working, and part of what you're doing is taking on the position of a character: the employee, with a role, who behaves differently than if you were at a party with friends. It's a role. It's a position.
Let me step back. You were asking me to notice what position I'm taking. Why does it matter? I think it's very localized. I feel like someone who is in the world. Lately the world is very vivid.
The world can be very vivid without you needing to take a position.
I think it is me hearing the world.
Look at that as a perspective. How is that perspective created? It's a point of view.
I don't know where to start.
The position is created through imagination
It's thoughts. The only way you can take that position is through imagination. You have to use thoughts to create the position. It's like going to the office and being the professional researcher, behaving according to that role. The difference is that when you do it consciously, you don't leave the office and forget who you really are. Think of the show Severance, where the characters have no recollection of their other life. It's not like that. You know you're taking a role. And I'm asking about something deeper than a role.
I want to be mindful of time, but this is related to where I started: this experience of what non-localized awareness, or awareness without a fixed perspective, actually is. When I had that experience before, it was still an experience. And right now, it's hard for me to grasp what is what. You're asking me what position I'm taking?
I'm asking you to become conscious of the position you're taking, to become aware of it. You can take the position of limitation, assume limitation, and then operate and behave from that perspective. But it's an assumption. It's a role. It's a position.
I truly don't know. It's as if I had asked myself all of these questions already, and some of them had been satisfied, but some came with a particular flavor of experience, a sensation of "oh, I know." But right now, I trust the answer without really knowing. It's confusing.
Because the position is becoming more subtle. So it's new. It's like you're looking at it for the first time.
Yes. It's as if I had learned how to do math with an abacus, and suddenly the abacus is gone. The abacus was a certain kind of experience of self-inquiry, and now I have to learn to do math with whatever is here, or not here.
It's just going another layer deeper. Being in limbo is fine, but look at the assumption of a position as what you are, versus consciously assuming a position the way you assume a role at work. It's a function, versus something assumed to be truly what you are. If you're assuming that what you truly are is this body and this mind, that's a position, and it's being assumed as your real identity.
The settling that reveals the subtle
The interesting thing is that even if that is so, it just seems so okay right now.
That's actually a really good thing. A lot of the pain and suffering has dissipated, so there's more space. The fact that you say "it's fine" is because there isn't as much pain and suffering. It's a good thing that a lot of that noise gets resolved. But there's still something left. And because of that, you now have more space to look more deeply at the more subtle. You're no longer trying to fend off monsters and madness and pains and fears. All of that is settling. Obviously it comes and goes with different intensities, but in general you're feeling, "this is not that bad, it's okay to just be this."
But the opportunity now is to look at the more subtle. If you were to take the settling as "that's it, it's resolved," there would be a missed opportunity. You've cleared all the big noise. Now there's room to look more deeply, more subtly.
Is there room for some kind of will right now, personal will, active will? Because a lot of the time I feel drawn to what Francis says about following your enthusiasm. But in this limbo, it's disorienting and not completely satisfactory.
I wouldn't give too much attention to will. I would say curiosity. Follow your interest, your curiosity. And don't brush aside any sense that something still feels unclear or unresolved.
It's the opposite, actually. This limbo is very felt right now. That's the nodding, the acknowledgment.
But it's not as intense as before. That's what I was saying. The discomfort is more subtle, the suffering is more quiet. It's not this horrible thing. But that now creates an opportunity. If this room were full of dark smoke and you were trying to find something, you might find the couch. But if you clear the smoke, you can look on the rug and find a tiny needle. That's what I'm referring to. You've cleared all the big clutter, and now you can look at more subtle identification, more subtle belief, more subtle positions, more subtle assumptions. These are not a conscious role. They are an assumption of what you are.
Thank you.
You're welcome.