Accepting Our Humanity

On the journey into wholeness, we go deep within and discover our transcendent nature. We discover the joy, peace, freedom and love that association can bring. We come to see some of the resistance and baggage we carry and do some house cleaning. And we discover the illusion of the world. What is real changes completely. “It is not only seen to be illusion; it is felt to be illusion.”

But there is an underlying assumption we may often carry late into the journey. That enlightenment is an an escape from ourselves. In his latest book, Adyashanti discusses the resistance to being human.

How we may accept our transcendent being, yet still be unwilling to see the completeness of our expression, our personal humanity.

I continue to be astonished at the stuff that shows up. Of course, there is all the standard roles we play that become part our identity – mate, parent, worker, friend… but there can also be abstract or meta roles we may play like ‘shining knight’ or ‘princess’. All those role models we were attracted to in childhood stories. It’s remarkable how many of those roles we may still be holding.

Adyashanti describes this as the momentum of our conditioning or karma. While awakening may “blow out” large amounts of conditioning, usually some remains that must be seen. Some of that can be the most deeply protected and hidden seeds of our story. The longer we’ve carried a story, the more deeply subconscious it can become. Thus the deeper stuff often arose during our early childhood. It’s the least logical, the most primal, and may be embarrassingly false.

“If you believe the misperception that enlightenment is only about happiness, bliss, and freedom, you will be motivated to transcend or escape those areas of your life that feel less than fully functional. But sooner or later, as we become more awake, we find that there is more and more pressure to encounter and deal with those areas of our lives that we have been avoiding, where we are less than fully conscious.”

It’s pretty simple to see. Just look to your life. What is the story your story is telling? If there is weirdness or dissatisfaction in your life, could this be mirroring something you are resisting? We can also see the influence when we behave irrationally or have ‘blank spots’ in our clarity.

After awakening, the experience can be that there is no person here so there is nothing to fix, nothing to do, and no one to do it. The life can be a mess but it’s still not a problem. I am not attached.

While this is a natural experience and part of the process, it becomes an issue if we remain in that place. It can become a grasping or fixating on the absolute and a denial of our life, the other part of the equation. It is Self awakening through Itself but by means of the vehicle we call the person. To focus only on the absolute is to miss wholeness. He describes this as hiding behind transcendence.

“That which is awake doesn’t even perceive delusion or the dream state as separate or other than itself. It sees that everything is itself, equally itself.” The dream of the world, the dream of God, all is a part of the whole. Oneness is inclusive.

“Why else would the very awake dedicate their lives to the welfare of others?”, he asks.

Adya talks of a willingness to look at how we “unenlighten” ourselves. We must be willing to turn and face it. Stop avoiding. Stop using awakening as an excuse. He speaks of the deep personal honesty and sincerity required.

He describes his own inquiry process to see into and through these unconscious obstacles. And he shares a number of stories of his own journey. “You have to be willing; you have to be willing to want to see everything. When you want to see everything, you will see everything.”

He suggests the only way to know we’ve seen the true nature of something is when the story ends. We must be willing not to bypass illusion. “The beliefs we hold on to – are the very doorways to our freedom.”

Adyashanti calls this coming completely out of hiding. Gangaji talks of a willingness to be seen. “These levels are not just transcendent of humanness, but also right within your humanness, because there is no separation between your human being and your divine being.”

“…as we get into the more mature opening of realization, there is no more room for denial.”

“This is not about perfection; it is about wholeness. It is not about having things exactly as we want them, but about having things exactly as they are. When we allow things to be, a sense of harmony develops; the gap between our realization and who we are as a human being gets smaller and smaller. A seamless continuum begins to emerge between realization and expression, awakening and its actualization.”

Powerful clarity can be found from “fierce grace”.
Davidya