The End of Seeking as Identity
El Fin de la Búsqueda como Identidad
A student explores their attachment to the teacher and the satsang setting as the special context in which peace and presence arise, and the teacher points to the conditioning that keeps this experience from being recognized everywhere.
The End of Seeking as Identity
A student explores their attachment to the teacher and the satsang setting as the special context in which peace and presence arise, and the teacher points to the conditioning that keeps this experience from being recognized everywhere.
It's so clear to me, often in meetings like this, and that's part of the attachment. This is all I ever wanted, and it's so beautiful. I can't put it into words. At the same time, there's an attachment to thinking it happens in this meeting, with this person, because the resonance is very clear here. There's an attachment to thinking in terms of time: "I'm going to go to this meeting at this time and I'm going to be in this." I've heard your pointings about checking whether it's already here when I'm not in the meeting, just on my own. And I can see that, but it's like I don't want to see it. There's something that wants to keep that specialness structure in place.
The thing that strikes me is you said, "Yes, this is it," and I think you used the word love. What you're describing is a very natural process. We seek, usually until we find a teacher in some form, which doesn't have to be a person. That relationship brings us to taste something that feels very different from anything else: this confirming resonance of "yes, this is it."
A transitional dependence
But that's a transitional thing. If everything goes well, in a sense it will disappoint. There will be a frustration where the dependence becomes a bit of a dead end. Something else starts to appear, which is what you're speaking to: "I'm just chasing these moments." A satsang, a retreat, or any other time in which that taste is more present.
The direction is to look at the condition you have around the form and shape something must take. When you say, "Yes, I can see this is it," and there's love for it, and it's palpable, and it happens for example in a satsang, you can start to see that there's a conditioning in the way you approach it. It's allowed to happen here, and it's not allowed to happen in some other context. "Allowed" is a somewhat provocative word, because you might experience it as, "Well, it just happens there and doesn't happen elsewhere." But there is a conditioning. There is an interest and a condition around that love not being present elsewhere.
Is this resonating? Is this what you're speaking about?
Yes, it is. You can continue. I have thoughts, but I'll wait.
You can't have it both ways
Look at your attachment to identification, to the idea of what you are, because that requires a condition. You can't have it both ways. You can't fully allow the peace and well-being and freedom that is always here while also maintaining a fixed sense of what you are. The knowing of what we are, in the sense of identification, is a conditioning. Not conditioning in the therapeutic sense of something that happened in the past that shaped your patterns, but a condition placed on life, on experience: "I'm not okay with this being this way. I'm okay with it being that way." That comes from a belief system, but it's a choice.
You spoke about specialness, and I think that has to do with this. There's going to be a specialness around you as somebody who is dancing with this presence, this taste of well-being or peace. The "dancing" means there's a coming and going, and there's a "you" in this dance. Whereas when you know it fully, it's not special. There is no "you" that has any particularly special relationship to it. Everything and everyone knows this. It's present and true and real for everybody, for everything. There's no specialness there.
The grief of the seeker's identity
It actually happened for me when things really shifted. I'll tell a little story. I was at a retreat and we were at dinner, and I was completely heartbroken, devastated, sad. I wasn't sure what was happening. Someone sitting next to me was very aware of it and asked, "What's happening?" I said, "I'm just overwhelmed with sadness." And she looked at me and pointed out that my whole life and lifestyle had been going to spiritual retreats, and that was over now.
It was exactly that. It was the grieving of my whole identity, my whole lifestyle, the purpose behind everything I did, why I made money. It was all in order to go and be with the teachers I so loved. And that was a good thing that I did. But when that shift happened in me, I no longer had that in me. I could still go to retreats, and I really enjoy them. But something had to go.
That story is just to point out the attachment to seeking. Finding was the end of seeking, and I was very attached to that.
I resonate with that a lot, just checking my experience. One other thing that comes up as a "yeah, but" is that sometimes the sense of seeking and the tension around it really does seem to block this. Sometimes it seems quite tense, and I know from attending these satsangs that the pointing is to taste that tension and see how it too is "this." But I think that's another way my mind differentiates: with the resonance that can be present in this place, there's quite an openness, and then sometimes there's just quite a tenseness.
What's in the tension?
What's in that tension that is not okay? That's where you'll be able to find something. I might use the word "tasting," because it invites a more intimate, open form of engaging with what's happening, versus seeing it as something that shouldn't be there and trying to fix, remove, or resolve it.
But that's still not enough. Once we are able to sit with something, there's more to be seen: for example, why is it not okay for this to be as it is? It's all going to come down to identification. It's all going to be this battle with what you think you are.
I see in this conversation, and it feels vulnerable to share this, that there's a thought of putting that identification or tension outside of myself and my own process, placing it on the teacher or the satsang. Like, "I'll hear the right thing or I'll have the right vibes in satsang, and then it will go away and I won't have to do the work."
At some point that will be disappointing. There's a level of something you won't be getting from teachers. You will still be able to get a taste, an induction, and things can happen. But ultimately it really comes down to you looking for yourself. Nobody can do that for you.
The ordinary discomfort is the doorway
It's in the most normal discomfort, the tension you're so used to. It always comes and goes, and here it is again. And you'd rather go to this satsang or do this other thing than actually look. Really, really look, with a deep curiosity, very willing to see what's true, to see what's real.
This is the dance. On one side, you're looking, wanting to see. Then there's a point where that's too much, and you retreat back into identification. But that doesn't feel good, so you see more deeply. There's this back and forth. There is a progression; we do shift. But ultimately it's always about the same thing, something that doesn't change: noticing what is real, what is true.
Francis talks about the love of truth and highlights that it's the only thing that matters. It has to do with how much we are really willing to see, how much we are really wanting to find. And it's going to be a mix. There will be moments and parts of you that don't want to see, that don't want to find, that love the dance and the back and forth and the struggle. That's extremely natural. It's very okay. In fact, I think it's a very beautiful thing.
At some point, I can sense into that love kind of swallowing everything up. But that's a death, and I don't think I can make that happen.
No, but it happens because of that love. It does swallow everything, and it does kill, in a sense. It kills a belief, but it feels like dying. That's a very normal thing. What you think you are dies as a thing and is reborn as, "Oh, that was just thoughts."
The thought system of the separate self
It really is what you thought you were. When we say "I" in identification, it's referring to thoughts. It's mixed with something, that infinite subjectivity, but it's collapsed and pointing to thoughts.
It's a marriage of a limited, separate person that is doing things, that has a beginning and an ending. These are the qualities of that thought system: a thing that is separate, that has a separate will, a separate agency, where choices and will come from itself. "I am the chooser, and the choice begins in me. Because of the choices I make, I go here and there, and those are all only my own choices. What I am is limited to this body, is born as this body, and will die as this body." That's a belief system, as crazy as it might sound.
Is it a belief system that arises out of some contraction or tightness energetically? Or does the thought come first?
All the contraction is a consequence of the belief system. Which is very different from just a thought system. There's a thought of a choice, an observing of the choice, and then some form of spontaneous movement with that choice one way or the other. There's a thought of a person in relationship to other people. But all of that can be seen as thoughts. A hand is a hand. A thought is a thought. The problem arises when the thought system that is "the person who is choosing" becomes a real thing, and that's what I take myself to be. A real thing, meaning not thoughts.
I may have to listen to this again. I had been thinking that those thoughts or beliefs come out of something, or that there was a dance between the belief and a sense of "here-ness," or choice, or time, and that sense also feeding the thoughts.
Noticing it all as thought
Very naturally there's a struggle with thoughts and the notion that thoughts have to be a certain way. "Them being this way is the problem, and if they were this other way it would be better, and the cause of this is the tension or whatever, and I need to figure that out." But really, the key is to notice all of that as thought.
You don't need to stop having thoughts about yourself. In fact, you wouldn't be able to function without them. I use this metaphor repeatedly: I have a hand. A hand is a part of me. Thoughts about me are useful, like a hand. If I want to make a coffee, a hand is a beautiful, useful thing. If I want to go out for a walk, thoughts about this body, about walls and people and cars and stairs, are useful as thoughts about this aspect of reality. There's nothing wrong with that. If we didn't have thoughts about the body-mind in some form, we would be vegetables.
The bicycle metaphor
What can happen is something like riding a bicycle. When you start, there's a lot of thinking. Like driving: when you start, there's a lot of thinking, and then it becomes so easy and natural that the thoughts become mostly subconscious. There's very little of that constant inner dialogue. You can realize there's a lot you can do without really thinking about yourself much. But if you look, thoughts are still there.
I've heard some teachers say, "I stopped having self-referential thoughts." My experience, and what I would argue, is that one does stop having the constant self-referential thinking about everything, but to say, "I have no self-referential thoughts," is itself a self-referential thought.
I think there is some attachment to placing something outside of my process or my investigation here, thinking of it as an energetic contraction that just happens. That puts it outside of me: it either is there or it isn't.
I understand. I was there for many years. You read, you listen to teachers, and a lot is said. Much of it is not true, and much of it is just partially pointing to something that might at times be useful or not. I think it's extremely important that this is spoken about. You hear, "There's an energetic contraction, and at some point that stops, and it's not you doing it." That's a valuable pointing, a valuable description. But "you" as the person you take yourself to be doesn't do it. You're not that. You're not what you think you are. What you really are is doing it. Anything that is placed outside of you is a very deeply conscious choice that is then hidden from yourself consciously.
Thank you. I think I'll explore these things. I can only uncover so much. But I can see how that is conscious, how it is a choice.
No rush
When I speak to that, I often say: it's fine. Take all the time you want. Nobody's rushing you. There's no pressure from anything. In fact, you could do a thousand lives of this, and they would be beautiful lives. There's no reason to give that up if you're enjoying it.
There's a rub there. I enjoy it to a point. It's like what you were saying about how you can't have both. At some point, you can't unsee. You can't lie to yourself anymore that you can have both. You can for a little while, and then it's dissatisfying, and then you get pushed along to seeing you're still trying to have both.
Yes. You can't unsee what you see, and that starts to take a life of its own. That's a big reason why we don't want to look, because once you see it, you can't go back. You can't go back to playing and pretending to be this "poor me" thing struggling with life.
It is quite funny in a way.
I find it really beautiful, because I know how it was for me. I was in the depths of hell for so many years. Looking back, it was quite a ride.
It is very beautiful. I have the sense of that in this conversation too. How funny it is, and beautiful. I think you've said before in satsang that it's like you're trying to force your eyes shut when they're actually open. You can't actually shut your eyes, but you're trying to somehow. It's funny.
Try not to see your hand. That's a hard life.
That's why there's all this tension. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.