June 8, 2017
After my last talk with Karen Richards I attended a seven day silent retreat with Adyashanti up in Lake Tahoe this May. My younger brother, who lives right near the lake, had invited me to go with him but I could not afford it and had no transportation. He suggested I apply for a scholarship and told me this was the last day they were taking applications. He said if I got it he would provide the transportation. I applied and won a full scholarship that paid for everything. We shared a room and observed strict silence the whole time. The whole event was managed very well, our room was fine and the food was fantastic. And Adyashanti was amazing. However I was going through some difficult physical challenges including pain, so the whole event was a bit of an ordeal for me. Still it was well worth it. I had some great insights and feel I understand things on a deeper level now. Even though I might describe my understanding of the truth of reality in the same way as before, I get it experientially in a new way.
During the first day of the retreat, before the silence began, I had conversations with several people. I was surprised to find myself feeling contempt for everyone there, including Adya and his teaching! I realized that everyone who was seeking was just a cartoon character in a story, and that none of these characters would ever find enlightenment, including “me” – enlightenment is waking up FROM the character. This was a result of my still feeling that the world was in my way, as I had mentioned to Karen. The contempt was actually for myself and this whole “seeking” business. I just wanted to be done with it! I also realized this was just a “state” and it soon passed. Later I saw everyone as a spiritual warrior on a sacred journey to liberation. This was also a “state.” But the contempt was an interesting phase as I was feeling the truth that was beyond seeking.
My first insight came on Sunday afternoon (day 3) during one of several group meditations held every day. Someone sneezed, and the sneeze was beautiful. I immediately thought “that’s just my awareness.” Then I decided to drop the “my” and thought “that’s just awareness.” Suddenly I understood that “oneness” is everything being exactly as it is. Before when I had contemplated oneness there seemed to be a barrier between myself and any object. I couldn’t see how I could become one with anything, yet I could feel the possibility. Sunday I realized that everything is already one – the problem was me thinking there was a “me” that had to become one with things. In other words, the only thing in the way was an idea!! So ONENESS was already here! Suddenly everything became wonderful. My mind produced an immediate image of a flood of milk chocolate – everything became chocolate. I had to laugh.
This insight seemed so much like catching a stupid mistake, that it really didn’t feel like an insight at all. But it was a profound insight and is still with me. My ego now feels displaced but is still present. Everything is one with itself – which simply means oneness is already here and nothing has to “become” one with anything. Many, many times I have heard the idea that oneness occurs when you get rid of the notion that it is not already here. Finally I got it. Somehow this insight helped me to better understand “going into the silence.”
The second insight happened while I was sitting on a rock looking at the forest. I recognized that the Forest was ONE with itself, as itself. But I sensed that the forest was also real. So I imagined that the forest had disappeared, and then that my body had disappeared and that the world had disappeared. Then I noticed, and said to myself, “what I am experiencing right now is exactly the same as the reality of the forest.” Suddenly everything DID disappear. It happened the moment I realized that the reality of the forest, and of everything else, was none other than the reality of awareness itself. In other words, the ONLY thing that makes anything seem real is awareness itself, not the apparent object you are perceiving. All forms actually have no reality at all. Only awareness is real and it is THIS reality that makes everything else seem real. But we mistakenly think it is the FORM that is real, when in fact all forms are illusions. But when everything disappeared, my mind tried to make a form out of awareness – that is, I tried to see awareness like I see objects, instead of recognizing that I AM awareness, at which point the momentary insight collapsed immediately. So this insight only lasted a split second. But it made me realize something and this realization was the subject of Adyashanti’s very next, and final, talk.
Adya’s Final Talk:
Adya said that this talk was something he didn’t usually do but felt called to do for this retreat, which was to express his deepest personal understanding of the truth he was teaching. He said it took every brain cell he had and that he may have nothing left for us. We all laughed. But this was perhaps the most lucid and revealing talk I have heard him give. So he just read to us what he had written the night before. The main point that stuck with me, and which made me feel this talk was especially for me, was about how pure absolute awareness and the consciousness of form were enmeshed in such a way as to make the illusion of separateness seem difficult to see through. Rupert Spira talks about trying to see the screen when you are watching a movie, which is a metaphor for trying to recognize yourself as consciousness while you are experiencing life, but this talk helped me understand it on a deeper level. It explained my forest insight perfectly. I had recognized that the forest IS pure awareness appearing as a forest and that the reality is the same whether the forest is there or not. The forest has no reality on its own, and in fact does not actually exist, in the way a dream does not actually exist. I probably have not explained any of this very well but it’s the best I can do for now.
After returning home from the retreat I had a health episode in which I may have come close to death. I spent five days in the hospital. During this time my insights from the retreat helped me immensely. While I was in distress, I can’t say I actually had any fear. I just experienced what was happening in the moment. Today I am doing fine. I believe everything serves a purpose and can be used to help us wake up from this dream we call life.