Opening to Non-Duality: The Power of Spiritual Surrender [Episode 58]

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

It's important to remember that spiritual awakening, although it can bring about many different powerful experiences, is not fundamentally about having any kind of special experience or glorious mystical state of consciousness. Spiritual awakening is about gaining insight into the nature of reality. It refers to seeing or knowing something we didn't know before.

Most human beings go through our ordinary lives in what's traditionally been called a state of ignorance. That doesn't mean we're ignorant about everything, hopefully. Obviously, we're all relatively ignorant about a lot of things. But hopefully, we're also very informed, knowledgeable, and insightful about many things.

The kind of ignorance that's been described in the spiritual traditions means that we're going through our lives ignorant of the nature of reality—the true nature of things. We're ignorant of the true nature of ourselves, of who and what we are, of the nature of consciousness, of mind, and of experience.

Spiritual awakening removes this veil of ignorance and reveals this deeper layer of the way things are. It reveals a deeper truth about reality.

The Realization of Non-Duality

If we look at awakening, there are a number of essential insights or discoveries that it brings about. My goal today isn't to speak about all of them, but one of the most fundamental insights that spiritual awakening reveals is what's called the realization of non-duality.

It's also sometimes referred to as oneness or the knowledge of unity. But in the mystical traditions, it's often described in the negative as non-duality to cut through the ways the mind tries to wrap itself around ideas like oneness or unity.

What it points to is the realization that although, on the surface, this world seems to be made up of separate objects, and although we seem to be a separate person interacting with separate things, on a deeper level there is no separation. There is only one thing happening. There is no other.

Now, there are different levels of understanding what non-duality means. There are also different dimensions of the realization itself—different ways it reveals itself to us, and different insights that each illuminate non-duality in their own way and inform our worldview differently.

Beyond Belief: Direct Experience of Reality

The point I want to make right now is that understanding non-duality, or believing in it conceptually, "I believe we're all one. I believe there's unity" doesn't really help us. And it doesn't awaken us.

It might even get in the way of our awakening if we hold it as a strong belief, because then we think we know what it means.

But we can't really know what it means conceptually.

What non-duality points to is something the mind can't truly comprehend.

But you can know it.

You can see it.

You can discover it.

But not with the conceptual mind.

Non-duality, this fundamental truth of no separation, only makes a difference when we discover and know it directly—when we are awakened to it.

We can talk about it. We can write books about it. We can philosophize about it. It's all very interesting. It's all informative. It might support our path, or it might even obstruct it.

But at the end of the day, it's only the mystical insight, the spiritual insight into the true nature of things beyond the veil of ignorance, that transforms us. Only that liberates us.

Creating the Conditions for Direct Awakening

Because this is such a subtle insight, it requires a very deep and subtle shift in our whole way of knowing, seeing, and perceiving reality. It's not something we can come at too directly.

Which is, of course, a little paradoxical, because this is the practice of Direct Awakening that I teach. I'm approaching everything very directly, as you've noticed. We also approach non-duality very directly.

But in another sense, what we're really doing in this practice is attempting to establish the internal conditions within which you can awaken to this truth or discover this insight directly in your own experience.

More importantly, we're trying to create the right internal conditions within which this insight into the true nature of things can dawn, flourish, and reveal itself.

So in today's attempt to establish these conditions, we're going to be working with two of our Direct Awakening practice themes: non-duality and surrender.

Those of you who are currently in my Practice of Direct Awakening course, or who are graduates of it, will recognize this as an integration of the themes we explored in Modules Seven and Eight: non-duality and surrender.

Surrender Means Letting Go of Control

Surrender, as I'm speaking about it in meditation, is about letting go of control.

We go through our lives trying to control outcomes, trying to control ourselves, our emotions, our minds, our speech, our behavior, other people, and everything around us.

When we sit down in the quiet of meditation and begin to look deeply, we often discover that we're still trying to control our experience. We're trying not to have certain thoughts. We're trying not to experience certain feelings. We're trying to generate states of peace and equanimity. We're trying to feel blissful and happy instead of uncomfortable, disturbed, or anxious.

We're still trying to control our inner world.

Surrender in meditation means letting go of control over our whole inner world of experience.

Not trying to control our mind.

Not trying to control our feelings.

Allowing everything to happen internally without any intervention on our part.

Simply letting the flow—the stream of consciousness—unfold without getting involved in it.

Practicing Without Preference

What this has to do with non-duality is that when we truly stop trying to control our inner life in meditation, when we're able to sit quietly and completely give up this need to control our experience, we ultimately have to take the position of having no preference for one experience over another.

We're meditating in a way where we're exerting no preference.

That doesn't mean that, on some level, part of us might not prefer to feel good rather than bad, or to have a quieter mind filled with pleasant, spiritual thoughts rather than an active mind filled with disturbing ones.

It simply means we're not acting on those preferences.

We're not trying to do anything about them.

We're not acting on them in our meditation.

We're taking the position that, for the purposes of this meditation, our preferences don't matter.

And we're not going to act on them.

Stepping Beyond Reactivity

What this does is allow us to cease making distinctions between what we like and what we don't like. We cease making distinctions between what we want and what we don't want.

We step out of this endless cycle of reactivity.

We're always reacting.

"Oh, I don't like that feeling. I've got to do something about it."

"Oh, I need more of that good feeling."

"Oh, I need to make that anxiety go away. I'd better take some deep breaths."

We're reacting to our experience all the time.

But here, in this practice, we're stepping out of that cycle of reactivity into a place where, and this is the key, it's all the same to us.

No matter what happens, it's all the same to you.

It's all the same to me.

I am unmoved by the content of my experience.

It doesn't trigger me in any way.

I don't react to it in any way.

I remain the same regardless of what my experience is, and my experience is all the same to me.

Discovering the One Sacred Essence

If we can stop exerting preferences like this—if we can stop trying to control and step out of reacting long enough—the miracle that can occur is that we actually begin to discover that everything really is the same.

If we take the position that it's all the same to me, before long we may begin to see that it really is all the same to you.

It really is all the same to us.

It really is all the same thing.

We're dropping below the level of the surface distinctions that exist between things.

On the surface, of course, there's all kinds of difference. Everything is different from everything else. Everything is distinct.

But we're discovering the level at which everything that arises in our meditation is a manifestation of the same essence.

It's all an expression of a single sacred essence.

To use a phrase from Tibetan Buddhism, it all has one taste.

One taste.

Which is one of the most important insights of non-duality, or oneness.

The Essence of Nondual Awakening

This ability to perceive the sacred essence that permeates and animates everything elevates our consciousness above and beyond the conditioned reactivity of the human condition.

It lifts us out of the ignorance that drives all of that reactivity.

And it reveals the sublime nature of reality—of all reality.

It shows us that this sublime reality is the true reality of everything.

That's the essence of nondual awakening.

It reveals to us that who and what we are is none other than that sublime reality.

"I am That."

To borrow a phrase from the Upanishads.

Creating the Conditions for Awakening to Stabilize

So today, as we work with the practice of surrender and non-duality, what we're doing is trying to establish the conditions in which the truth of this sacred, undivided reality can reveal itself in your direct experience.

We're also trying to establish the conditions within which, when that truth does reveal itself, you have the inner spaciousness for it to remain.

You have the non-reactivity within which it can stabilize.

Because one of the things that happens in spiritual practice is that the moment revelation dawns, the moment spiritual insight appears, if we're still fundamentally anchored in the reactivity of the separate self, we throw our arms around the insight, and it disappears.

We react to it.

So this practice is creating the conditions not only for realization to dawn, but also for it to stabilize.

If we can keep our hands off it, if we can stay with the practice even as awakening begins to reveal itself, then awakening can remain.

And it can continue to unfold.

Expect Nothing, Be Ready for Anything

But don't think for a moment that the practice is designed to get you to awakening, and then you stop practicing so you can enjoy the awakening.

It's not like that.

The practice itself is what holds the space for the process of awakening to occur.

So even though I'm making what I realize is a somewhat new point in this context—that we're establishing the conditions for an insight to arise—I also want to caution you against looking for a particular experience.

Even now that I've said all of this, don't expect a particular experience.

Don't try to feel something special.

Don't sit and wait for some dramatic moment to occur.

Just be here.

Open.

Innocent.

Earnestly applying yourself to the practice we're doing in this moment.

I want to invite you to let go of every idea you have about enlightenment, awakening, and meditation.

Leave all of that at the door.

That's part of establishing the conditions.

We have to leave every prior moment behind so that we can be fully here for this moment.

Allow yourself to expect nothing.

To anticipate nothing.

And to be ready for anything.

Guided Meditation: Letting Go of Control

I want to invite you to come into your meditation posture.

To begin our meditation today, I want to invite you to simply give up trying to control your experience of this moment.

We're taking our hands off the steering wheel of our thoughts, our feelings, and our sensations.

We're not engaging with the mind.

We're not getting involved with our inner world of feelings.

We're allowing our feelings to occur however they do, whatever they are, moment to moment.

We're allowing the thought stream to produce whatever concepts it mechanically generates.

We're allowing our state of consciousness to be exactly as it is—whether we feel dull and sleepy or sharp and bright, whether our sense of presence feels dynamic and alive or diffuse and fuzzy.

The key here is that we're not trying to change or control anything.

Allowing Everything to Be as It Is

Your fundamental position is one of not reacting to the contents of your mind.

Not reacting to the presence of emotion.

If uncomfortable, difficult, or unpleasant feelings arise—or are already here—your practice is simply to allow them to be.

Without making a problem out of their presence.

Without wishing they would go away.

Without trying to make them go away.

Without turning away from them.

You're not reaching toward them, trying to embrace them.

This isn't a counterreaction.

This is no reaction.

No need for anything to change about this moment as it's occurring.

On the other hand, if pleasant, lovely, positive feelings arise, we don't react to those either.

We don't try to hold on to them.

We don't try to amplify them, move toward them, or draw them closer.

It's all the same to you.

It's all the same to me.

Just feelings.

Just experiences.

Resting in Non-Reactivity

No response.

No engagement.

No involvement.

No control.

Can you allow even the arising of thought—the spontaneous production of thoughts—to simply occur without any involvement from you?

Without any engagement?

[Meditation Bell]

Gently let go of the meditation.