Many of us are
using our spirituality as a way to avoid life, to avoid seeing things we really
need to see, to avoid being confronted with our own misunderstandings and
illusions. It is very important to know that life itself is often our greatest
teacher. Life is full of grace, sometimes it’s wonderful grace, beautiful
grace, moments of bliss and happiness and joy, and sometimes it’s fierce grace,
like illness, losing a job, losing someone we love, or a divorce. Some people
make the greatest leaps in their consciousness when addiction has them on their
knees, for example, and they find themselves reaching out for a different way
of being. Life itself has a tremendous capacity to show us truth, to wake us
up. And yet, many of us avoid this thing called life, even as it is attempting
to wake us up.
The divine
itself is life in motion. The divine is using the situations of our lives to
accomplish its own awakening, and many times it takes the difficult situations
to wake us up.
The irony
is that most human beings spend their lives avoiding painful situations. We are
not successful, but we are always trying to avoid pain. We have an unconscious
belief that our greatest growth in consciousness and awareness comes through
beautiful moments. We may, indeed, make great leaps in consciousness through beautiful
moments, but I’ d say that most people make their greatest leaps in consciousness
in the difficult times.
This is
something a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge, that our greatest
difficulties, suffering, and pain are a form of fierce grace. They are potent
and important components of our awakening, if we’re ready for them. Whether the
circumstance is illness, the death of a loved one, divorce, addiction, problems
at work, it’s important to face our life situations in order to see the inherent
gifts that are available.
I saw that
what happens in the body and mind ultimately can’t be avoided. Everything has
to be dealt with-everything. Everything has to be seen through.
I tell you
this because everybody has a story. We all have our own ways in which life is
attempting to hold up a mirror, to squeeze the conditioned self out of us, to
squeeze out of us the holding and grasping, to squeeze out all of our beliefs
and ideas and concepts and self-images.
If we are
willing to look, we will see that life is always in the process of waking us
up. If we are not in harmony with life, if we are working in opposition to it,
then it is a rough ride indeed.
When we are
not willing to see what life is trying to show us, it will keep ramping up the
intensity until we are willing to see what we need to see. In this way, life
itself is our greatest ally. It is almost a spiritual cliché to say that life
is your greatest teacher. We can only know what it means when we have been through
it, when we have allowed ourselves to have life hold up a mirror so we can see
ourselves clearly.
To think
that enlightenment only comes through wonderful experiences is to delude
yourself. For most of us, the path to enlightenment is not rosy. We need to
acknowledge this, because otherwise we’re only going to let ourselves travel
toward that which feels good, that which supports our image of what the path of
awakening should be. The truth of the matter is that most people who say they
want awakening don’t actually want to awaken. They want their version of
awakening. What they actually wants is to be really happy in their dream state.
And that’s okay, if that’s as far as they’ve evolved.
The
authentic impulse toward enlightenment is that internal prayer asking for
whatever it is that will bring us to a full awakening, regardless of whether it
turns out to be wonderful or terrible. It is an impulse that puts no conditions
on what we have to go through.
This
authentic impulse can be a bit frightening, because when you feel it, you know
it is real. When you have let go of all conditions you have let go of your
illusion of control.
This isn’t
a journey about becoming something. This is about to unbecoming who we are not,
about undeceiving ourselves. In the end, it’s ironic. We don’t end up anywhere
other than where we have always been, except that we perceive where we have
always been completely differently. We realize that the heaven everyone is seeking
is where we have always been.
The end of your world. Adyashanti.
