One of the many benefits of getting to know James before he wrote his book and got busy teaching was the time we spent discussing the teachers who influenced him when he was a student.
James has an extensive collection of audio tapes, CDs and literature written by awakened individuals. In those early days we would spend hours watching videos, listening to talks and reading excerpts from the books. We talked about the material at length. At first, I was skeptical of every one of these individuals. I was fond of the Zen tradition of transmission, in which a teacher receives permission to teach from his or her superior, usually after decades of formal practice.  Most of the teachers James introduced me to had not received formal transmission of any sort. They spoke on their own authority, using their own terms, about awakening.
Listening to the first borrowed audio talk in my car driving home from James’ house, my skepticism flew out the window. (As I recall, it was a tape of Bryon Katie leading people through The Work… ) I borrowed more material and couldn’t keep my head out of the books. All these teachers were saying the same thing, in their own terms, in their own ways! But the message was the same message, and the same root teaching of Zen – life is suffering and there is a way out. As Byron Katie says, “you are the cause of your suffering, but only all of it.” This was great news.
I noticed several things as I learned about these teachers. I noticed that they do not rely on religious traditions, texts or systems. They may refer to passages in religious texts or use certain rituals, but they communicate only from the authority of their own personal and direct realization. They speak spontaneously in response to their immediate surroundings, listeners and life circumstances. Talks do not have the tone of a planned lecture. In general, there is not a course of study or step by step plan of attainment. There may be guidelines or mile-markers that students tend to notice along the way, but the mile-markers are not stages of enlightenment, just the possible results of applying certain practices.
In my studies, I did not hear these teachers say – you are already free, there is nothing you need to do. There is no denial that we are suffering anxiety, stress, fear, anger and the whole spectrum of negative emotions. They say, freedom is our birthright, or natural state, and we cannot do anything search-wise to find it. True freedom comes by grace, and, we can take steps that develop a stronger psychological/physical/emotional/social vessel that is able to contain and express that natural state. Practices like meditation and inquiry help me. I am not spiritually awake, but there is progress that I feel as less density and a relief from the sense of dis-ease.
Access to the work of a variety of persons living and expressing the awakened state grew my hope and determination to keep going. At first exposure, I felt the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter and over time I feel my ‘self’ getting lighter.
Svaha 