Category: Spiritual Awakening

People really do not want answers to their questions

“People really do not want answers to their questions. What they want is the attention they get by asking questions. You ask a question of someone, you have their attention and they give it back to you – and I want you to apply this to your spiritual life.

I want you to see how sincere or how insincere you are with the questions you ask about the spiritual life. And you will find, shockingly and nicely at the same time, that there’s a certain very wild untamed part of you that likes to pretend to want the answers, that likes to put on the appearance before others and yourself of being a sincere inquirer and all the time what is important to you is the asking of the question.

Now let’s exaggerate that a little bit. What is hysterical, frantic behavior? It is frantically and hysterically asking, ‘Well, what’s this all about, why did this happen to me, who did this to me, is it going to continue?’ Think of someone you know, maybe very close to you, maybe yourself, who has done this, someone who has simply broken down: ‘Why, why am I persecuted? That’s not asking a sincere, honest, question – that’s loving to ask it.

See, you don’t want the answer, you want to ask it, so that you’re involved with yourself. Something is going on inside of you and you’re afraid to let yourself go silent by not asking the question. Think about that a little bit. Think and make clear to yourself right now how afraid you would be if you didn’t ask all these wild, self-centered questions any more.

Think of what you would lose if you didn’t frantically cry out, ‘Why did he do that to me after all these years? Why did she betray me, why after all my efforts…all I ask is a little corner of a world of success, that’s all I ask, and I didn’t even get that. Why not?’

Those questions, which few ever finally understand, are nothing but another form of self-destruction. They are a form of substituting ignorance for intelligence.

Now I have you all cornered and you should be very grateful. Don’t try to escape the corner that I’ve got you in, but stay there and I’ll explain more about that a little later in the talk. But I want you to stay cornered, knowing that you do exactly what I have said you do. That it has become a habit, a pernicious habit for you to be asking all the time, ‘Why, why, why?’

Oh, what a mountain of heavy and dreary egotism you are building when you do that; and if you keep building that mountain, the time will come when it is going to overflow with its own weight and cover you up and you will be gone – yes you will. In the space of this talk, this morning, pull a figure out of the air, in the space of just the forty-five minutes of this talk, tens of thousands of human beings all over the globe have piled the trash of their vanity and conceit and ignorance so high that it overflows and engulfs them and they are gone and seen no more.

Now stay cornered by that fact so that you can begin to see the fact and not like being where you are.”

~ Vernon Howard, from a talk given 8/23/1987, Vernon Howard’s Higher World

“A master is one who has achieved some measure of spiritual freedom”

“In some religious teachings, there are those known as masters, just as in ancient days Jesus was called Master. A master is one who has achieved some measure of spiritual freedom, which means some measure of nonattachment to the things and thoughts of the world. People often get the idea, however, that the function of a master is to take over another’s mind and life and to govern and manage them for that person, but a master is one to whom a person can go and through whose help and co-operation he can be lifted up into a state of spiritual consciousness and discernment where he himself realizes the Master in his own consciousness. The Master is not a man: the Master is a state of unfolded and developed consciousness.”

– Joel S. Goldsmith. The World is New (1997).

The only way to end global suffering…

“The only way to end global suffering is through the awakening of individuals”

–James Wood

 

The snowball of judgment and how to stop it, by James Wood

THE “SNOWBALL” OF JUDGMENT AND HOW TO STOP IT 

“Judgments snowball until the mass of mind-material overwhelms you. It is important to know how to break the cycle. Notice if you judge, and then notice if you judge yourself for judging, and then notice if you judge yourself for judging yourself for judging, and so on. If the tangled mess is too complex and hard to follow, just notice the feeling of all those judgments until you can discern patterns and notice those. The better you get at noticing what you are thinking and feeling in the moment, the quieter your mind will become, and the more you will be able to notice individual thoughts before they can spin out of control. You must see yourself exactly as you are in the moment without flinching or turning away, without apology or rationalization, without creating a ” me” out of it—as in I’m no good because I’m angry and I’m angry because I’m no good. That is how you get wound up tight. That generates more anger. You are afraid of dissolving, so you contract in fear, judging yourself to defend against dissolution. Ecstasy is terrifying for the ego to taste, much less BE.

Your mind will try to lash out and get you involved in its ugliness by getting you to judge yourself for judging. Remember, you are not your mind. If your mind lashes out, notice it but recognize that you are the witness while your mind is the perpetrator. Let it show you what you are doing unconsciously, because on some level you are imbuing your mind with a sense of self that keeps it going. The mind tries to get you to identify with it. You are not your mind, but you are responsible for its behavior, in the same way that you are not a vicious dog, but if you own a vicious dog, you are responsible for watching it and keeping it from attacking others or responding appropriately if it does attack someone. As you go through your day, notice what the mind is doing. Keep it on a leash. Discipline it by developing discriminating awareness. Often, the mind lies in wait for you to let your guard down. If your mind suddenly rages out of control, just notice it. Like a vicious dog, it’s not who you are. It may feel like you, but it’s not. You must witness it impersonally and see it for what it is, without judgment. This keeps you from beating yourself up when you see what it’s up to.

Judgment obscures your true nature and keeps you from having permanent peace and satisfaction, like a pond that is clogged with trash. If you unclog the pond and tap into life without judgment, you will taste the sweetness of Freedom like spring water from a pristine well, the Truth you have been looking for as long as you can remember.”

  -from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood

Embracing Uncertainty, by James Wood

Embracing Uncertainty

“To be in the world but not of it, you must be able to embrace uncertainty and chaos. You must give up trying to know things with the mind, as if mental certainty—something you will never get—will deliver you from life’s inherent uncertainty. You cannot ever know things with complete certainty. An awakened person doesn’t know things with absolute certainty, as if thought could deliver Truth. She is absolute certainty, regardless of any thoughts that may appear. An awakened person enjoys just being with what is and letting the future take care of itself. Wanting certainty in life is like skipping to the end of a novel to find out what happens, or wanting to learn the end of a movie without watching it—only in life, the story never ends, and you miss all the good parts. It blocks your joy of the Now and makes life feel incomplete, like you’re missing something.

Chaos is constant. You cannot predict when things will go wrong. “Wrong” just means chaotic or unexpectedly out of control. Chaotic circumstances are not ultimately wrong, just messy. Life is never going to get more orderly or certain than it already is. If you create order in one place, chaos erupts elsewhere. If you wait for certainty, it will never happen. The awakened life is not completely certain, as the mind might have it. In a way, it is completely uncertain, involving total trust. It is Wisdom. In that sense, it is complete and hence completely uncertain, but only on the level of Being. On the level of the mind, it is out of control. The mind cannot grasp it, cannot comprehend it. Knowledge is necessary for getting by in the world, but it cannot give you certainty. It is the uncertainty and chaos of life that makes it spontaneous and fun. You have to let go of the mind to get there.”

   – from Ten Paths to Freedom by James Wood

Ten Paths to Freedom: Awakening Made Simple

 

Essential reading for anyone interested in spiritual freedom!

James Wood’s book, The Path of Awakening has a beautiful redesigned cover and new title: Ten Paths to Freedom: Awakening Made Simple. This is one of the most helpful, direct and honest books I have ever read – I learn something new every time I pick it up!

Straight talk from Vernon Howard

“What is there to be concerned about? There’s nothing to be concerned about because there’s no one to be concerned over.”

– Vernon Howard

The cost of Awakening

In this very intimate radio interview, John de Ruiter speaks about:

  • the high cost of Awakening
  • self-enhancing awakening experiences and self-annihilating Realization
  • Needing to secure Awakening for yourself and in yourself is the mechanism that’s in the way

The interviewer shares her own experience and asks good questions. This is the second part of a two part interview:

 

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