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The Basics — 13 key points about the flow of awakening
- You are born. You die. In the middle some stuff happens. We have trouble with the middle stuff but really it’s simple once we see that it’s all awareness. Our basic state is awareness. Everything else pops up as points of view in awareness.
- The only essential question is: Is there enough joy and lightness and compassion in my life? Maybe your essential question is a little different but you know what I mean. This is it. And if there isn’t enough joy and lightness it can only be because you’re not seeing clearly. You’re not seeing beyond the wall of beliefs and thoughts.
photo credit: BurningQuestion
- You already know this intuitively: you don’t have to look to an external God or the Law of Attraction or self-improvement or any complicated spiritual methodology to know that when you are light, joyful, peaceful and loving, you will naturally attract a good full life.
- The point of living is to live consciously, rather than in reaction to conditioning and ego and beliefs. Yet most of us are on autopilot, caught in the delusions of the mind. We live according to our thoughts and beliefs and stuck patterns. It’s much easier to live consciously, in intuitive and innocent awareness.
- The biggest obstacle to being conscious is identification with thought, which causes thought and beliefs to be compulsive. Attachment to thought creates an opaque and smothering curtain of concepts and beliefs and judgments. We feel claustrophobic and contracted and incomplete. This opaque wall of labels and judgments gives us the delusion that we are separate from everything else, and gives us a sense of dread and sorrow and incompleteness. Contracted in this way, we don’t see clearly, and then we have no purpose, no clarity, no intuition, and no flow.
- There are probably many ways to see through the delusions of Maya. The methods I talk about here are simple and easy to integrate in daily living. There are absolutely no pre-requisites and no hoops and no progression and no spiritual hierarchy. The trick is to develop spaciousness in our minds and bodies. Develop Awareness. Learn how to Release.
- Awareness is innate—that is it requires no belief or concept or effort to be. One good Awareness technique is to observe your thoughts. Whenever you remember, use our inner stop, to stop and watch thoughts that come and go. Don’t judge, don’t analyze, don’t get up in the stories of the thoughts—simply watch as a passive witness. This helps creates spaciousness.
- One good Release technique, is to allow, watch and let go.
- Some other things that can help: Develop a Gentle self-Honesty so you can distinguish between the thoughts of the ego and Essence. “Cease to cherish opinion” and thus uncling from concepts and beliefs. It can be helpful to know how the mind and ego and pain-body operate.
- There are times of inertia and confusion. During these times, we can decide to love ourselves, and be patient.
- These methods can take some effort in the beginning. But at some point effort too can be let go of, and then we are in the flow of awakening. It works on its own, without any interference from the “me.” In the end, all effort and methods and concepts are left behind.
- Spiritual Concepts: I have a simple view of spiritual concepts. They are not Truth but simple teaching devices, and in my experience it is best not to take any spiritual knowledge too seriously. Samskara is the conditioning and beliefs and ego which builds up in us, as the ego reacts to life. Karma is our tendency to live according to this conditioning. We make a choice in every moment to live reactively or to live consciously, and so karma is a choice, and overcoming karma does not require any sort of crazy ascetic payback. Overcoming karma is simply choosing to be conscious. Maya is the powerful delusion—a case of mistaken identity. Who we think we are is not who we are. Brahma is awareness—it is one and we can choose to tune into it or not. Life mutually arises with all that there is. Unenlightenment is believing the delusion that there is separation; enlightenment (yoga/moksha/nirvana) is the seeing through of the delusion. Awakening is a process. Leela is this, the playground where consciousness chooses to experience.
- Heart concepts: My intuitive understanding of acceptance, forgiveness, love, gratitude and surrender deepened when I realized that they are not something I do, but rather something I stop doing. Acceptance is not something we do; acceptance is when we let go of resistance. Forgiveness is not something we do; it is something we stop doing—we stop holding on to the past and we see that everyone does absolutely the best they can under the circumstances of their conditioning. Love is not something we force; it is there when we let go and allow. When there is no more to let go of, that is surrender.
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“The biggest obstacle to being conscious is identification with thought…”
Is it possible to state something like this and not identify with it to some degree? As usual, I basically agree with you and haven’t actually thought-through how I’d answer this question!
Hi Paul,
Many of us don’t see that thought, that is the voice of thought in our heads, is not a who we are. Awareness is vast and most of us have conditioned ourselves to believe that the who we are is this small, contracted voice of thought in awareness.
I hope you are well, my friend!
love and peace,
k
Wonderful article. You have summarised things so very well. How simple it is to let go, and yet how much we cling!
Thanks Mark, and thanks for visiting!
love and peace,
k
Thirteen is my favorite number and this is my favorite post. You have simplified everything. I can remember this. The measure is joy, lightness and compassion. The method is surrender. Release all effort and just be. I can do this.
If you use the terms in #12 again and again, I might be able to remember them. I love “Leela,” the playground of consciousness. Is it pronounced ‘lay’ or ‘lee’? Are these Buddhist terms? What is the language? I seem to want to know more.
I’m so glad Anastasiya put this post in her Book of Wisdom. It’s a great post, and I love the picture. Congratulations, Kaushik. It’s getting very real in here.
Brenda (betaphi)´s last blog ..Me Mom & Dad
What a beautiful list, Kaushik, and #13, especially, sang to me.
As I look back on my spiritual progression – my journey of awakening, as it were – I can see how for nine years I’ve learned many concepts, and some I’ve mastered at different times and for different reasons. What’s happened in the past two months, though, is that all of those concepts have merged into one bigger understanding of who and what I am in this world. I no longer “do the concepts.” They concepts are operating at a cellular level most days and I simply ALLOW.
Like learning to dance, there comes a day when all the moves a person has learned flow together and become an effortless expression of movement, rather than a choreographed production.
Megan “JoyGirl!” Bord´s last blog ..SURPRISE! Spread Joy, Have Fun
Hi Brenda,
I think it was Mark Twain who wrote a letter to someone and then said he would have liked to make it shorter but didn’t have time. Simplicity and Awareness develop together.
The model in 12 is the Advaita model and for me, it’s just a way to make sense of reality. Thaddeus Golas in “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment” uses another model that I like: that we are all same beings at varying levels of expansion and contraction. We don’t need a model at all–it’s best to see reality as is.
Thanks again for the kind words and encouragement, my friend!
love and peace,
k
Hi JoyGirl Megan,
My experience has been exactly the same. It seems there is a lesson and the lesson is integrated when it is no longer conceptual. It is all about letting go, letting go fear, allowing with patience, loving oneself…these lessons merge at a deep cellular level.
Ah, yes, just like a dance!
Thanks, Megan, I hope you are well.
love and peace,
k
Appreciate your astute observations and sharing. Much resonates. What truly stands out is your gentle reminder that existence is often perceived as a pursuit of happiness when it is the letting go of conditioning that reveals what you temporarily repress or deny. Love, acceptance, unconditional love never leave anyone. People simply choose to obscure or postpone their experience the truth.
Liara Covert´s last blog ..Experience the stillness
Hi Liara,
Yes, exactly. And letting go is a skill which can be developed.
love and peace,
k
Brenda, I didn’t answer your questions in the last reply. It’s ‘lee’la (sometimes spelled lila). This is a Hindu model. Buddhism does use some of the same concepts and they generally use Pali words, whereas Hinduism uses Sanskrit. Samskara and Sankara, for example.
Kaushik,
I’m so pleased you’ve posted at my blog of late. Thank you. It is so good to know that you are here and I appreciate the wisdom you share. It seems we are kindred in many ways. I’m especially drawn to your “release” technique. It works wonders (takes a bit of practice at first) but when it begins to take hold, our lives are transformed. I’ll be returning… Blessings
Hi Jan,
It’s good to see you here. My experience with releasing is similar: at first some resistance, then practice, and then it works quietly and the realization that it has been transforming comes later.
I look forward to your visits.
love and peace,
k
I love this post. Now I have to find a way to link to it from one of mine, like a bookmark to myself, so I can read it again in the future.
I echo everyone’s sentiments here – this really is a great list. It just gets right to the heart of the matter, and touches on every key point. And I love that there are 13, it is one of my favorite numbers, since mythologically it is often associated with women, and with being ‘outside the box’ (you know me and myths and symbols…:-)
I like all of them, but was glad to see #3 here especially “when you are light, joyful, peaceful and loving, you will naturally attract a good full life”, since it speaks directly to the ‘trends’ out there in spirituality today (LOA vs. non-duality, and I don’t really think it is a ‘vs’ but some people do), and how they correspond. Although I guess personally I would say when we are light we ‘experience’ life as good and full, regardless of what happens, as opposed to ‘attracting’ it, because I don’t think there’s ever any guarantee difficult things won’t happen to us…the lapsed Buddhist in me, I suppose, focusing on our response rather than the external…
Lisa (mommymystic)´s last blog ..TRUTH- Quotes and Reflections
Thank you, Sarah. It’s always good to remind ourselves of the basics every once in a while!
Hi Lisa,
That’s interesting–13 didn’t occur to me as anything significant. It just worked out that way.
From our various conversations, I think you and I have a similar view of trends and methodologies. They are simply viewpoints, sometimes very resonant and helpful, but ultimately, they are points of view in Awareness, not Awareness.
Yes, I completely agree, we ‘experience’, not attract, and we judge good or bad, when it is just what it is, not good or bad, but experience. As the Bard said through Hamlet, “..for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.”
Thanks, Lisa, as always, for your wonderful insights.
love and peace,
k
You are born. You die. In the middle some stuff happens. – I loved that, Kaushik. And thanks for the reminder to do what brings you joy. That’s truly all that matters. The release technique you give is also awesome – allow, watch, let go. Simple. Powerful. Thank you!
Lana – DreamFollowers Blog´s last blog ..The Truth That Will Set You Free+How To Reinvent Yourself
Thank you, Lana. Yes, simple and powerful. I hope you are well, my friend!
love and peace,
k
You know, Kaushik, I come here and read and relax, sinking into the moment. I first read this yesterday but didn’t comment because perhaps I just needed to be light, joyful, peaceful, and loving. It’s almost like I feel reading poetry, not wanting to think too much about it but just enter it. Thanks for that. I hope it makes sense!
Patty – Why Not Start Now?´s last blog ..Being Alive
Hi Patty,
It’s always wonderful to hear from you. You’re absolutely right, I too absorb best when I am still and light.
Thanks for the keen insight. I hope you are well.
love and peace,
k
Hi Kaushik!
As usual, you are so concise! This list of thirteen things is like a little handbook I wish we could give to every graduating senior…I love it when all the beauty and simplicity of life’s wisdom is gathered in one place like this. Well done!
I hope you are well, my friend! JS
Jodi at Joy Discovered´s last blog ..Affirmations for a Good and Happy Life
Hi Jodi,
Honestly succinctness and simplicity in writing is developing and continues to develop. Thank you for your kind and encouraging words! I hope you are well too.
love and peace,
k
This is the mood, the attitude that emerges as you begin to set the self free. It is as if what is stored in your vibrational energy field is lingering and knowing you are begining to access it. This process is the alignment of conscious mind with who you truly are every moment.
Liara Covert´s last blog ..What if everything is always well?
Hi Liara,
Yes, it’s the alignment of the non-thinking conscious mind with Being.
love and peace,
k