What I choose is what I become - it doesn’t matter what the past has been
All manner of deeply engaged discussions about the teachings are happening over meals and in breaks, while some people choose to maintain silence. There is an area in the dining room for those who wish to stay silent. Incidentally, I’ve been meaning to mention how the meditation hall is open all night and although the official schedule finishes after dinner at 8.30pm, many retreatants are increasingly meditating late into the night and early in the morning. In this environment meditation can be effortless and you don’t need the usual amount of sleep in these conditions. Meditation seems to substitute for sleep to quite an extent. Last night there must have been at least 50 people who were still meditating at midnight. It’s not expected that anyone should do this; it’s purely an individual interest.
This morning I had a great discussion with several fellow committed students of Andrew’s who are also on this retreat. There is a joy I experience in meeting together with other people for genuine exploration of what is new, that I personally feel is incomparable. I don’t know of any greater joy than this. It’s a sort of impersonal ecstatic intimacy where you feel a communion that could not be deeper, and at the very same time you feel a liberating autonomy – free to independently stretch past the horizon of what you know. You meet in the communion of genuine autonomy where the only conformity is to the Truth; to the prime directive of whatever serves the evolution of consciousness.
One woman, Alison, spoke ecstatically about how she could hardly sleep last night and in the end, gave up on sleeping and went to meditate instead. She was telling us that her meditation had become so deep and absolutely empty that it at first scared her. She couldn’t locate herself in the normal way at all, and she felt a huge urge to move away and distract herself and seek for some affirmation. But what she was so ecstatic about, was that she recognized how this is such a deeply ingrained part of the female make up – to always have to find herself, see her reflection, be affirmed, be somebody – anyone rather than the terror of non-existence – which is what being with no self image at all feels like emotionally. And she resisted this ancient yet all powerful conditioned habit and had been staying with the emptiness of absolute consciousness and experiencing the liberation. She was ready to shout this from the rooftops to womankind. And it rung true for all of us, for although men obviously also have a lot of resistance to being nobody, women avoid it like the plague.
Today more questions and dialogues about clarity of intention. It puts where we have reached on the retreat so far, into context. Many people, maybe every single person, have experienced higher states of consciousness in the first several days. But here’s the dilemma:
There are higher states ……………………… and there is me and you.
- And they are not the same thing. Experiencing a higher state doesn’t mean that’s where one is at, or where one’s emotional centre of gravity is. Where clarity of intention comes in, is in choosing. What I choose is what I become. It’s that profoundly simple and absolute. Put attention on the fears and desires of the ego, and lo and behold, that’s what you become. Put attention on the passion to evolve of the authentic self and that is likewise what you become.
It means we can change our destiny at any moment and it doesn’t matter what the past has been.
Andrew repeated this “It doesn’t matter what the past has been,” again and again for emphasis.
And the way to do it is by enlightening the choosing faculty i.e. bringing awareness to the choosing faculty. Only this makes it possible to take responsibility for all of our actions – which is the 2nd Tenet – the Law of Volitionality. One can choose and be literally a different human being in a blink of an eye. That sounds like an exaggeration but I’ve seen people light up like a switch being turned on, by their choosing the authentic self. And I’ve seen the light go out when a person chooses for the ego. It’s that dramatic.
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Day 6
Wanting to be Free more than anything else, so that Consciousness can Evolve.
After breakfast I perambulate the Basilica following the custom of pilgrims, passing bank upon bank of literally thousands of candles lit as offerings. The heat from the massed candles next to the rock face emanates a wave of heat, and emanating on another level, the feeling of devotion is palpable. I feel lightheaded, drunk with consciousness, a mixture of this experience and the retreat, and wobble all the way back to my room.
The retreat is a creative oscillation between aloneness and togetherness. We are on our own and can be silent, or converse and explore consciousness together. The further into the retreat we go, the clearer it becomes, that it doesn’t really make sense to purely pursue one’s own growth in isolation. Because it is consciousness itself that urgently has to evolve, and it is so obviously utterly impersonal. And at the same time, it is completely dependent on us – on me, to be more pointed – or it has no way to become manifest in the world. This view, which is the view of evolutionary enlightenment, is starting to pervade our conversations and dialogues with Andrew. And the way individual dialogues are so clearly absolutely relevant for each one of us, makes it impossible to maintain a solely personal perspective on what we are doing here together.
Today a man asks about the importance of choice. Andrew’s speaks of the Law of Volitionality: if you want to be free, then you have to be responsible for all of your actions. This is a crucially important subject, though admittedly not half as exciting as talking about the evolution of consciousness!
It’s a really big deal because to be responsible for every aspect of oneself includes all dimensions – the self absolute, the authentic self, the individual ego and the collective ego. Whether it is even possible to be absolutely responsible for every single aspect of oneself is debatable, but we can authentically aspire to do so with everything we’ve got. But who even wants to aspire to do this? What strikes home for me and - from the ripple it causes in the hall – what also strikes a chord for others, is when Andrew points out that many of our actions are not very conscious, …….. and this is the crunch – we don’t want them to be conscious.
Living in an evolutionary context, if we want to make ourselves available for perpetual change and transformation, there is no way around the stark truth that we do have to face everything and take responsibility for all our actions, and no one emotionally wants to do this. It’s just a fact. We all have an enormous unwillingness to do this, and having spiritual experiences isn’t enough in itself to change the picture fundamentally.
Sounds like quite a bind, doesn’t it!?
The solution to this dilemma comes up later on when Andrew introduced Clarity of Intention – which is the foundation of evolutionary enlightenment.
This is the reply to, “So how do I do it then?” The deceptively simple answer is by wanting it more than anything else. Clarity of Intention is wanting to be free so that consciousness can evolve.
The good news in is that it can be cultivated.
It totally concurred with my experience over many years as a student of Andrew’s, when he said that he’d never met anyone who would want to do this just for themselves. We all want to feel good and who would make the effort? But when it’s connected with a much larger context involving the evolution of consciousness, then it’s not for me anymore; it’s not for my benefit. It’s recognizing that I need to make myself available for this larger purpose and then it definitely is possible to find the courage and motivation to do it.
Andrew leaves us to wrestle with clarity of intention in the break, forewarning everyone not to be shocked if they found out that they actually don’t want it as much as they thought they did! (this is the common experience that people have when they seriously grapple with it)
The follow up session turns into an incredibly implicating, on-the-edge-of-your-seat- type affair, and the dialogues are moving, deadly serious and sincere. It really is an extraordinarily interested group of people on this retreat. The thing about the subject of clarity of intention is that it compels the chooser to engage with a non relative relationship to life. “Free” is not relative, and the last words of “Wanting to be free more than anything else” leave no doubt that it is absolute.
At one point there is a collective stunned silence in the whole group of nearly 250 people. It’s been very thrilling talking about the absolute nature of consciousness for several days, but now the finger is pointed straight back at each of us: Arrrrrghhh!!!!!
What are you going to do about it, faced with this choice?! Now it’s starkly real and absolutely implicating.
A man asks, “How do you cultivate it?” Andrew responds that you cultivate it by choosing to give your attention to the authentic self and by removing it from the ego.
The authentic self has no ambivalence about freedom while the ego is not and will never be interested in being free. And consciousness cannot evolve with our conscious participation in the process – which comes from the 1st tenet.
I can’t begin to convey more than a tiny taste of the ground-shaking events that happened today! In a few days of retreating, life is intensified and sped up to an unparalleled degree. People go through development and learning that would otherwise take years or decades. I’m just trying to post a few impressions, to hopefully capture some of the swirling vortex of evolutionary impetus which Andrew has raised like a hurricane.
After breakfast I perambulate the Basilica following the custom of pilgrims, passing bank upon bank of literally thousands of candles lit as offerings. The heat from the massed candles next to the rock face emanates a wave of heat, and emanating on another level, the feeling of devotion is palpable. I feel lightheaded, drunk with consciousness, a mixture of this experience and the retreat, and wobble all the way back to my room.
The retreat is a creative oscillation between aloneness and togetherness. We are on our own and can be silent, or converse and explore consciousness together. The further into the retreat we go, the clearer it becomes, that it doesn’t really make sense to purely pursue one’s own growth in isolation. Because it is consciousness itself that urgently has to evolve, and it is so obviously utterly impersonal. And at the same time, it is completely dependent on us – on me, to be more pointed – or it has no way to become manifest in the world. This view, which is the view of evolutionary enlightenment, is starting to pervade our conversations and dialogues with Andrew. And the way individual dialogues are so clearly absolutely relevant for each one of us, makes it impossible to maintain a solely personal perspective on what we are doing here together.
Today a man asks about the importance of choice. Andrew’s speaks of the Law of Volitionality: if you want to be free, then you have to be responsible for all of your actions. This is a crucially important subject, though admittedly not half as exciting as talking about the evolution of consciousness!
It’s a really big deal because to be responsible for every aspect of oneself includes all dimensions – the self absolute, the authentic self, the individual ego and the collective ego. Whether it is even possible to be absolutely responsible for every single aspect of oneself is debatable, but we can authentically aspire to do so with everything we’ve got. But who even wants to aspire to do this? What strikes home for me and - from the ripple it causes in the hall – what also strikes a chord for others, is when Andrew points out that many of our actions are not very conscious, …….. and this is the crunch – we don’t want them to be conscious.
Living in an evolutionary context, if we want to make ourselves available for perpetual change and transformation, there is no way around the stark truth that we do have to face everything and take responsibility for all our actions, and no one emotionally wants to do this. It’s just a fact. We all have an enormous unwillingness to do this, and having spiritual experiences isn’t enough in itself to change the picture fundamentally.
Sounds like quite a bind, doesn’t it!?
The solution to this dilemma comes up later on when Andrew introduced Clarity of Intention – which is the foundation of evolutionary enlightenment.
This is the reply to, “So how do I do it then?” The deceptively simple answer is by wanting it more than anything else. Clarity of Intention is wanting to be free so that consciousness can evolve.
The good news in is that it can be cultivated.
It totally concurred with my experience over many years as a student of Andrew’s, when he said that he’d never met anyone who would want to do this just for themselves. We all want to feel good and who would make the effort? But when it’s connected with a much larger context involving the evolution of consciousness, then it’s not for me anymore; it’s not for my benefit. It’s recognizing that I need to make myself available for this larger purpose and then it definitely is possible to find the courage and motivation to do it.
Andrew leaves us to wrestle with clarity of intention in the break, forewarning everyone not to be shocked if they found out that they actually don’t want it as much as they thought they did! (this is the common experience that people have when they seriously grapple with it)
The follow up session turns into an incredibly implicating, on-the-edge-of-your-seat- type affair, and the dialogues are moving, deadly serious and sincere. It really is an extraordinarily interested group of people on this retreat. The thing about the subject of clarity of intention is that it compels the chooser to engage with a non relative relationship to life. “Free” is not relative, and the last words of “Wanting to be free more than anything else” leave no doubt that it is absolute.
At one point there is a collective stunned silence in the whole group of nearly 250 people. It’s been very thrilling talking about the absolute nature of consciousness for several days, but now the finger is pointed straight back at each of us: Arrrrrghhh!!!!!
What are you going to do about it, faced with this choice?! Now it’s starkly real and absolutely implicating.
A man asks, “How do you cultivate it?” Andrew responds that you cultivate it by choosing to give your attention to the authentic self and by removing it from the ego.
The authentic self has no ambivalence about freedom while the ego is not and will never be interested in being free. And consciousness cannot evolve with our conscious participation in the process – which comes from the 1st tenet.
I can’t begin to convey more than a tiny taste of the ground-shaking events that happened today! In a few days of retreating, life is intensified and sped up to an unparalleled degree. People go through development and learning that would otherwise take years or decades. I’m just trying to post a few impressions, to hopefully capture some of the swirling vortex of evolutionary impetus which Andrew has raised like a hurricane.
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Day Five
Freedom is a position, not an experience
Another sparkling clear day in Montserrat. Although in the middle of the day there are many tourists and pilgrims making there way up the mountain here, the place manages to somehow remain essentially pristine and serene. By early evening the ancient monastery is enveloped in silence again. I go to meditate in the Basilica, which being permeated with almost 1000 years of devotional practice, has a tremendous silence.
Finally the subject of meditation comes up today, and Andrew spends most of the morning meeting just answering questions on meditation. Meditation can occur spontaneously as is happening on this retreat, or you can decide to consciously practice it.
A woman relates how she can’t stop her thinking and feels as if in prison. Andrew replies that being in prison or not depends on the conclusions you draw about the experience you are having and does not depend on the experience itself.
The key point he makes is that Freedom is a position, not an experience. When we practice meditation, what is important is the inner position we take – inwardly assuming the posture of freedom – and not what we may happen to experience e.g. whether our mind is agitated or not.
At one point he said an amazing thing which he said that he didn’t understand either!
“The part of you that is free is not the part that is having the experiences.”
I find it very hard to do justice to the multidimensional nature of this retreat. I’m writing little snatches of this or that, because to try to encompass what happens each day would be well near impossible, and also it would be far too much to read.
Superficially, the formal sessions take the form of people asking Andrew questions and him responding. But in doing so, he manages to always widen out the answer so that it is a universal answer for everybody and so that gradually all the many facets and dimensions of evolutionary enlightenment are revealed and clarified.
The Authentic Self – an Ecstatic Compulsion to Create the Future
In the afternoon, a number of people asked what I thought were very profound questions on the nature of the authentic self, and Andrew gave a thrilling, full, searing account of its nature which had me floored. This is his favourite subject and also what is specifically new about this teaching. The authentic self is a new expression of Enlightenment.
The authentic self is the evolutionary impulse becoming aware of itself at the level of consciousness as a compulsion to evolve. It’s not, “It would be nice to evolve or I should evolve.” It’s, “I must evolve.” The authentic self is the ecstatic compulsion to create the future. If you reach for it, it will appear.
And it’s true in my experience today. Merely listening to him with interest, I can feel this force, this passion arise in an undeniable way in myself in response. The authentic self is definitely evoked by anyone else’s expression of it. It’s strange: It really does have a motive and agenda of its own that is utterly impersonal, and is not anything to do with my personal wants or needs –
“Consciousness has to transform, evolve, now, now! It has to happen, has to happen, has to happen!”
– is the best way I can try to put into words, the urgent drive which seems to erupt out of nowhere in my awareness. That really is the sentiment, like some sort of mantra welling up from deep within that is insistent and it is completely impersonal – it’s a concern for the whole process of life to go forward, it’s not about me or even about other people.
At the same time, it feels that this compulsion is totally my own very deepest concern too, and not something foreign. This passion wants perpetual development and is only interested in that which has not yet occurred. It’s a very different part of myself than the ego which only wants to be left alone and hates change and insists on affirmation. The authentic self is fierce and uncompromising and I find myself saying things that I didn’t know that I knew with a confidence and doubtlessness that make me sometimes wonder, “Where on earth did that come from?!”
And it inherently is purposeful in the biggest possible way, and is only interested in where we need to head for.
Another sparkling clear day in Montserrat. Although in the middle of the day there are many tourists and pilgrims making there way up the mountain here, the place manages to somehow remain essentially pristine and serene. By early evening the ancient monastery is enveloped in silence again. I go to meditate in the Basilica, which being permeated with almost 1000 years of devotional practice, has a tremendous silence.
Finally the subject of meditation comes up today, and Andrew spends most of the morning meeting just answering questions on meditation. Meditation can occur spontaneously as is happening on this retreat, or you can decide to consciously practice it.
A woman relates how she can’t stop her thinking and feels as if in prison. Andrew replies that being in prison or not depends on the conclusions you draw about the experience you are having and does not depend on the experience itself.
The key point he makes is that Freedom is a position, not an experience. When we practice meditation, what is important is the inner position we take – inwardly assuming the posture of freedom – and not what we may happen to experience e.g. whether our mind is agitated or not.
At one point he said an amazing thing which he said that he didn’t understand either!
“The part of you that is free is not the part that is having the experiences.”
I find it very hard to do justice to the multidimensional nature of this retreat. I’m writing little snatches of this or that, because to try to encompass what happens each day would be well near impossible, and also it would be far too much to read.
Superficially, the formal sessions take the form of people asking Andrew questions and him responding. But in doing so, he manages to always widen out the answer so that it is a universal answer for everybody and so that gradually all the many facets and dimensions of evolutionary enlightenment are revealed and clarified.
The Authentic Self – an Ecstatic Compulsion to Create the Future
In the afternoon, a number of people asked what I thought were very profound questions on the nature of the authentic self, and Andrew gave a thrilling, full, searing account of its nature which had me floored. This is his favourite subject and also what is specifically new about this teaching. The authentic self is a new expression of Enlightenment.
The authentic self is the evolutionary impulse becoming aware of itself at the level of consciousness as a compulsion to evolve. It’s not, “It would be nice to evolve or I should evolve.” It’s, “I must evolve.” The authentic self is the ecstatic compulsion to create the future. If you reach for it, it will appear.
And it’s true in my experience today. Merely listening to him with interest, I can feel this force, this passion arise in an undeniable way in myself in response. The authentic self is definitely evoked by anyone else’s expression of it. It’s strange: It really does have a motive and agenda of its own that is utterly impersonal, and is not anything to do with my personal wants or needs –
“Consciousness has to transform, evolve, now, now! It has to happen, has to happen, has to happen!”
– is the best way I can try to put into words, the urgent drive which seems to erupt out of nowhere in my awareness. That really is the sentiment, like some sort of mantra welling up from deep within that is insistent and it is completely impersonal – it’s a concern for the whole process of life to go forward, it’s not about me or even about other people.
At the same time, it feels that this compulsion is totally my own very deepest concern too, and not something foreign. This passion wants perpetual development and is only interested in that which has not yet occurred. It’s a very different part of myself than the ego which only wants to be left alone and hates change and insists on affirmation. The authentic self is fierce and uncompromising and I find myself saying things that I didn’t know that I knew with a confidence and doubtlessness that make me sometimes wonder, “Where on earth did that come from?!”
And it inherently is purposeful in the biggest possible way, and is only interested in where we need to head for.
Day Four
God falls out of the Sky and reappears as Consciousness Itself!
It’s only very recently in human development that we could recognize that which had always been seen as an external object, as now being a non dual singularity in the one who realizes it. From the mythical God who was an external object of devotion, we have gone through the secular and materialistic post modern culture to finding God again. This is a very radical turn around to say the least! Andrew speaks with great passion:
“As consciousness, the formless God only wants to be. But when he/she/it takes form, I call it the evolutionary impulse. There’s a vast desire to become, too enormous to comprehend, passionate, overwhelming. That’s how God feels all the time about creating the universe. It’s almost an agonizing state as it’s never fulfilled. It’s a compulsion to create the universe and it is intense. The project has barely begun. That’s why, without the unmanifest nature, God wouldn’t be able to bear his/her passion to create!”
OK, powerful mindblowing stuff – but you may think, what has this all got to do with me?
Well, the thing is, what was being conveyed in this tidal wave of a talk from Andrew, is that this is all about us – about me, about you. Suddenly it’s no longer cosily my life, when I begin to let this in. “My” life doesn’t make any sense from this cosmic perspective. This life is for a much vaster purpose – for the evolution of consciousness. And it’s not abstract. It’s a shocker to realize that the surge of inspiration and passion that this evokes in me, is none other than this impersonal evolutionary impulse itself. I can’t keep God or the evolutionary impulse safely at a distance. To paraphrase the old war enrollment poster:
I’m sitting here back in my room looking at the spectacular cliffs of Montserrat soaring up outside and I am stunned. I hardly know how to write at this moment. I’ve just come back from a staggeringly powerful session at the teaching hall – it was way up there on the Richter scale - and I feel as if I have been catapulted into a new reality.
“There’s a vast desire to become, too enormous to comprehend, passionate, overwhelming. That’s how God feels all the time about creating the universe.”
What exactly happened? Well, I’ll get to it in a short while as I hopefully force myself to be coherent.
But firstly: Up until now the focus has all been on the timeless dimension of consciousness and basically it is clear from the previous three days, that anyone who puts their attention there will experience the absolute dimension of the Self beyond time.
The simple non metaphysical summing up and interpretation of all this is:
The message of consciousness is that everything is OK
Everything always has been OK and always will be OK. It’s the answer to the perennial question ‘Who am I?’ and it’s been our experience: fullness, completion, lacking nothing. We have been tasting the tremendous confidence and indestructibility of the absolute nature of consciousness.
But this is not the whole picture because it leaves out the world and it leaves out human beings. In a new post-postmodern spirituality (there must be a better way to say this!), this unity or oneness experienced in consciousness would have to become the foundation and ultimate reference point.
The other half of the picture is: How do we as human beings manifest that oneness in the relative world? It’s up to us to become a conscious agent of that oneness in the world; the task is to make that singularity manifest.
Now Andrew launched into a passionate and searing exposition of this “other half of the picture”:
“The mythical God fell out of the sky and reappeared as consciousness itself”
It’s only very recently in human development that we could recognize that which had always been seen as an external object, as now being a non dual singularity in the one who realizes it. From the mythical God who was an external object of devotion, we have gone through the secular and materialistic post modern culture to finding God again. This is a very radical turn around to say the least! Andrew speaks with great passion:
“As consciousness, the formless God only wants to be. But when he/she/it takes form, I call it the evolutionary impulse. There’s a vast desire to become, too enormous to comprehend, passionate, overwhelming. That’s how God feels all the time about creating the universe. It’s almost an agonizing state as it’s never fulfilled. It’s a compulsion to create the universe and it is intense. The project has barely begun. That’s why, without the unmanifest nature, God wouldn’t be able to bear his/her passion to create!”
OK, powerful mindblowing stuff – but you may think, what has this all got to do with me?
Well, the thing is, what was being conveyed in this tidal wave of a talk from Andrew, is that this is all about us – about me, about you. Suddenly it’s no longer cosily my life, when I begin to let this in. “My” life doesn’t make any sense from this cosmic perspective. This life is for a much vaster purpose – for the evolution of consciousness. And it’s not abstract. It’s a shocker to realize that the surge of inspiration and passion that this evokes in me, is none other than this impersonal evolutionary impulse itself. I can’t keep God or the evolutionary impulse safely at a distance. To paraphrase the old war enrollment poster:
Consciousness needs You!
When God becomes manifest, that’s what Andrew calls the authentic self – or the cosmic or universal conscience. It’s an impersonal function of consciousness which is a passionate concern for the evolution of consciousness.
Andrew continues in a similar vein and leaves me completely blasted, barely able to walk back to my room at lunch time.
In the afternoon people follow up on this theme now that we are embracing the world and humanity as well, and not just abiding in unmanifest consciousness. How the enlightened self engages with the life process is the big question?
Or more directly and close to home: What happens when the retreat is over and I open my mouth?!
Abiding in the ground of being is not an end in itself in evolutionary enlightenment. It’s the ultimate relief from the past, from all our wounds and trauma and our fear and doubt. But it’s a means to an end – which is about awakening to the authentic self and participating fully in the life process. This is the post-post modern version of religious sentiment i.e. “Thy will be done.”
Walking back from the teaching hall, the world looks different, intensified with new meaning, as I gaze down from the promenade to the vast vista of the river far down below the mountain. Even the towering and improbably shaped rock faces of the mountain above seem to vibrate with life.
Friday, 6 July 2007
Day Three
Getting too Real?!
Only two days have passed and it feels like we’ve been on this extraordinary journey for weeks. Each day we meet together with Andrew for 2 or 3 hours in the morning and then again in the late afternoon for a similar time. He usually takes questions and hears from people about their experience, and then he has an uncanny ability to draw out what is deepest and most significant in each person’s accounts. Even after seeing him do such things for many years, it still stuns me to see how we are transported during each session to a depth that I would hardly believe is possible – and yet it is only our own experience that he is helping us to express.
One striking thing which has just occurred to me is that often we all sit quietly for an hour so before the dialogues, and there is a very powerful meditation. There is pin-drop silence and you can feel the unusual degree of awake relaxation in the hall and no one is nodding off. Yet Andrew hasn’t even mentioned the word ‘meditation’ so far. No one has asked what to do in these long silences or about how to meditate. Such questions obviously are not even arising. It’s quite amazing the more I think about it.
Often Andrew will give some meditation instruction during retreats, but here there is no need. The depth of immersion in consciousness means that we are all naturally in meditation in this collective field.
Today we continue to look more into the absolute dimension of consciousness.
It sounds abstract when I look at the words I’m writing now, but here in the retreat this has become very real and experiential. Almost too real it appears!
The ecstasy and miraculous ever-new qualities that people were talking about have been tempered today it seems, by the recognition of the implications for our lifes of what we’re seeing. To experience the absolute nature definitely has consequences. Someone expresses that it is a challenge to be serious and that it inherently carries with it an obligation to transform.
A man admits, “Going from the relative to the absolute dimension of reality makes me scared. What should I do?”
Andrew surprises more than a few by replying that fear can be good. It’s good to be afraid of the Absolute. Traditionally it was a virtue to have fear of God. People get so dull that they have to be scared in order to wake up. He tells the man that it means he is alive and in touch with the real and that it is not a problem.This dialogue seems to somehow burst a bubble of unspoken collective inertia in the hall and allows an outpouring of interest and passion at a deeper level.
Various people express how seeing the absolute dimension of consciousness is the most real thing they have ever experienced and is a reference point for everything. The conviction we have in this absolute dimension changes everything. It is a fulcrum point for core level transformation and destroys our existential doubt and cynicism.
Andrew clarifies how once we’ve recognized in our own experience that the deepest truth is absolute, the relative nature of the self is pulled towards the absolute nature of the self. It puts tremendous evolutionary tension (here meant in a wholly positive sense) on our developing humanity, to reach towards its absolute nature. The absolute nature is the attractor of the self to the self. The authentic spiritual life is to bridge that gap.
The goal ultimately is to redefine the absolute so that it would become the context for life and a new post-post modern context for religion or spirituality: one that is not based on a belief, but on direct non conceptual recognition. A vision of human society as it could be, comes into focus – where by establishing this ground together, we could create an utterly new context for life. On that note, the session ends.
Only two days have passed and it feels like we’ve been on this extraordinary journey for weeks. Each day we meet together with Andrew for 2 or 3 hours in the morning and then again in the late afternoon for a similar time. He usually takes questions and hears from people about their experience, and then he has an uncanny ability to draw out what is deepest and most significant in each person’s accounts. Even after seeing him do such things for many years, it still stuns me to see how we are transported during each session to a depth that I would hardly believe is possible – and yet it is only our own experience that he is helping us to express.
One striking thing which has just occurred to me is that often we all sit quietly for an hour so before the dialogues, and there is a very powerful meditation. There is pin-drop silence and you can feel the unusual degree of awake relaxation in the hall and no one is nodding off. Yet Andrew hasn’t even mentioned the word ‘meditation’ so far. No one has asked what to do in these long silences or about how to meditate. Such questions obviously are not even arising. It’s quite amazing the more I think about it.
Often Andrew will give some meditation instruction during retreats, but here there is no need. The depth of immersion in consciousness means that we are all naturally in meditation in this collective field.
Today we continue to look more into the absolute dimension of consciousness.
It sounds abstract when I look at the words I’m writing now, but here in the retreat this has become very real and experiential. Almost too real it appears!
The ecstasy and miraculous ever-new qualities that people were talking about have been tempered today it seems, by the recognition of the implications for our lifes of what we’re seeing. To experience the absolute nature definitely has consequences. Someone expresses that it is a challenge to be serious and that it inherently carries with it an obligation to transform.
A man admits, “Going from the relative to the absolute dimension of reality makes me scared. What should I do?”
Andrew surprises more than a few by replying that fear can be good. It’s good to be afraid of the Absolute. Traditionally it was a virtue to have fear of God. People get so dull that they have to be scared in order to wake up. He tells the man that it means he is alive and in touch with the real and that it is not a problem.This dialogue seems to somehow burst a bubble of unspoken collective inertia in the hall and allows an outpouring of interest and passion at a deeper level.
Various people express how seeing the absolute dimension of consciousness is the most real thing they have ever experienced and is a reference point for everything. The conviction we have in this absolute dimension changes everything. It is a fulcrum point for core level transformation and destroys our existential doubt and cynicism.
Andrew clarifies how once we’ve recognized in our own experience that the deepest truth is absolute, the relative nature of the self is pulled towards the absolute nature of the self. It puts tremendous evolutionary tension (here meant in a wholly positive sense) on our developing humanity, to reach towards its absolute nature. The absolute nature is the attractor of the self to the self. The authentic spiritual life is to bridge that gap.
The goal ultimately is to redefine the absolute so that it would become the context for life and a new post-post modern context for religion or spirituality: one that is not based on a belief, but on direct non conceptual recognition. A vision of human society as it could be, comes into focus – where by establishing this ground together, we could create an utterly new context for life. On that note, the session ends.
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
Day 2
A Hole in the Soul and the Discovery of a New Rational Mysticism
Only the second day and the atmosphere is very serious and focused and it is obvious that all of us retreatants are undertaking their own investigation between formal sessions. The meal times are almost silent, although anyone can talk if they choose. It’s not an oppressive silence but rather an active one as a result of individuals choosing to give their attention to the subject, to consciousness.
The morning begins with Andrew asking to hear more from people about their experience of consciousness. More qualities get highlighted:
As someone says, “It’s primary and yet it’s unrelated to anything at all. The more you see of it, the more you want to see; it’s compelling.”
Andrew follows up on why consciousness is so infinitely compelling. It’s becomes clear that it is because there is a sense of knowing something. There is an absolute nature to this knowing. This is not a ‘knowing’ in the conventional sense of knowing about something, because it is a deep awareness of knowing nothing and at the same time paradoxically knowing everything. Consciousness is empty of any ‘thing’ and yet it’s also fullness. On further probing of people’s experience, what comes out is very significant:
There is an absolute nature to the knowing.
It is this that can change everything. At the deepest level of the soul we all experience existential doubt – an alienation from ourselves and from life itself as well as a fundamental sense of being somehow ill at ease. This is much deeper than any neurotic problem. We are all products of our secular materialistic culture and as such we lack a sense of being deeply connected with life. And when this is lacking in a deep way, we will inevitably be haunted by alienation and insecurity. This existential doubt can only be remedied and dissolved by a knowing of that which is absolute.
Otherwise we will suffer from what Andrew graphically described as a hole in the soul. By simply exploring our own experience here and now, we can know that which is absolute, that which answers all questions. And this can remove the existential doubt.
The afternoon continues with questions and answers on peoples’ experience of consciousness and this sense of knowing that is so core. In the hall, there is a heightened atmosphere, where consciousness has become much more apparent to us all. What is usually so intangible is very much in the fore of my experience quite naturally and forcefully.
I wrote down in my diary my own experience of this:
“On one hand there is a sense of knowing nothing in particular and yet there is an undeniable knowing. A primordial knowing that is prior to mind or intellect and that is full and complete, lacking nothing and absolute in its nature. And it has meaning beyond any logic. The knowing is pregnant with inherent meaning and utter positivity. Consciousness is Life with a capital L. And I just know that Life is inconceivably positive.
How do I know? All I can say is that it is the doubtless experience of pure consciousness. It’s just experienced as absolutely true. It’s not a belief, it’s the experience of the nature of consciousness itself. Prior to everything, prior to the Universe coming into existence, Consciousness is”.
Andrew talks of how this approach is a post-metaphysical spirituality, which sounds a bit of a mouthful – or as he puts it more simply – a new rational form of mysticism. You don’t presume anything exists beforehand; no mythical God who will save us. No one is asked to believe anything. You explore and find out. There is a science to consciousness.
What is happening in the hall after such a short time seems almost miraculous to me.
Only the second day and the atmosphere is very serious and focused and it is obvious that all of us retreatants are undertaking their own investigation between formal sessions. The meal times are almost silent, although anyone can talk if they choose. It’s not an oppressive silence but rather an active one as a result of individuals choosing to give their attention to the subject, to consciousness.
The morning begins with Andrew asking to hear more from people about their experience of consciousness. More qualities get highlighted:
As someone says, “It’s primary and yet it’s unrelated to anything at all. The more you see of it, the more you want to see; it’s compelling.”
Andrew follows up on why consciousness is so infinitely compelling. It’s becomes clear that it is because there is a sense of knowing something. There is an absolute nature to this knowing. This is not a ‘knowing’ in the conventional sense of knowing about something, because it is a deep awareness of knowing nothing and at the same time paradoxically knowing everything. Consciousness is empty of any ‘thing’ and yet it’s also fullness. On further probing of people’s experience, what comes out is very significant:
There is an absolute nature to the knowing.
It is this that can change everything. At the deepest level of the soul we all experience existential doubt – an alienation from ourselves and from life itself as well as a fundamental sense of being somehow ill at ease. This is much deeper than any neurotic problem. We are all products of our secular materialistic culture and as such we lack a sense of being deeply connected with life. And when this is lacking in a deep way, we will inevitably be haunted by alienation and insecurity. This existential doubt can only be remedied and dissolved by a knowing of that which is absolute.
Otherwise we will suffer from what Andrew graphically described as a hole in the soul. By simply exploring our own experience here and now, we can know that which is absolute, that which answers all questions. And this can remove the existential doubt.
The afternoon continues with questions and answers on peoples’ experience of consciousness and this sense of knowing that is so core. In the hall, there is a heightened atmosphere, where consciousness has become much more apparent to us all. What is usually so intangible is very much in the fore of my experience quite naturally and forcefully.
I wrote down in my diary my own experience of this:
“On one hand there is a sense of knowing nothing in particular and yet there is an undeniable knowing. A primordial knowing that is prior to mind or intellect and that is full and complete, lacking nothing and absolute in its nature. And it has meaning beyond any logic. The knowing is pregnant with inherent meaning and utter positivity. Consciousness is Life with a capital L. And I just know that Life is inconceivably positive.
How do I know? All I can say is that it is the doubtless experience of pure consciousness. It’s just experienced as absolutely true. It’s not a belief, it’s the experience of the nature of consciousness itself. Prior to everything, prior to the Universe coming into existence, Consciousness is”.
Andrew talks of how this approach is a post-metaphysical spirituality, which sounds a bit of a mouthful – or as he puts it more simply – a new rational form of mysticism. You don’t presume anything exists beforehand; no mythical God who will save us. No one is asked to believe anything. You explore and find out. There is a science to consciousness.
What is happening in the hall after such a short time seems almost miraculous to me.
Day One
Consciousness is endlessly fascinating. It’s infinite and free – free from anything – free from any boundaries. Free, free, free!
The first day of the retreat and here we are, almost 250 of us, listening to Andrew introduce the 10 days together. After some practical points about how to make best use of this time, Andrew launches straight into talking about consciousness. We all use the word ‘consciousness’, but what on earth does it actually mean to us in our own experience?
Without employing any spiritual terminology and without asking us to believe anything at all, he just points us to look freshly into the nature of our own experience as he speaks. What immediately becomes apparent is that we can’t get outside of consciousness and see it – it’s not an object. It’s unlike anything else at all and it is impossible for it to be an object in our mind. Consciousness is the subject. That’s the first key point he makes. It’s simple but it’s immensely profound
It takes a little contemplation to let in the significance of this, because many of us tend to feel we already know this sort of thing. But as Andrew emphasizes, if you really do know the absolute dimension of consciousness, then your life would have to be a radically transformed one.
Andrew leads us into exploring what consciousness is, and what are its qualities. And these qualities start to emerge as we begin to focus on its nature.
It’s unfamiliar to hear consciousness being described in such an experiential way, and as he keeps speaking, the intensity of this sense of pure subjectivity becomes magnified in the room. Thoughts and feelings move naturally into the background as the collective intention of the room focuses on consciousness itself, and it moves to the foreground of our attention. Everything is an object except this. It sounds simplistic and even strange, but just to contemplate this point, really has a fundamentally ground shifting effect on my sense of myself. The atmosphere in the hall becomes so charged and permeated with this unfamiliar and yet somehow immediately recognizable sense of pure consciousness, that it’s almost impossible not to be carried by it.
It is amazing how available and close at hand is this very powerful experience, as soon as we just shift our attention to the subject, to who is looking, and away from the habitual fixation on all the objects which arise in consciousness. It’s us at our deepest level. Consciousness is primary – it’s the sense of ‘I’- not the personal I, the ‘I’ that has a gender and nationality and a particular historical background. This ‘I’ is way beyond all that and is clearly identical for all of us. It’s deeper, in fact as deep as it’s possible to go, unfathomable.
At the end of a morning in which I was left wondering what on earth had hit me – I felt almost drowned in a sea - Andrew instructs us to keep giving attention to the experience of consciousness until the late afternoon when we meet with him again.
This afternoon session is devoted to hearing about peoples’ discoveries and experiences, and as each person speaks, Andrew draws out the significant points and enables everyone to see and experience the different qualities of consciousness.
Being a Sunday in this famous pilgrimage site and monastery, the bells of the Basilica ring out loud periodically throughout the day. The ringing reverberates around the towering rock faces of the mountain of Montserrat. But interestingly it is no distraction and only seems to intensify the experience of consciousness. The ringing resounds in consciousness and I am more acutely aware of its infinite nature which contains everything which arises and yet has no relationship with anything at all.
A multidimensional yet unitary picture of consciousness emerges with Andrew’s careful steering. People express how it is beyond boundaries; it has no relationship to anything and so its nature is inherently free. It is peace; it is ever-present; it has no desires or views and opinions and feels no fear; one of its qualities is also ecstasy, whether subtle or intense.
Andrew points out how the experience of pure consciousness or subjectivity is intoxicating. Focusing on it causes it to be experienced much more intensely and more deeply. I literally feel drunk with it as I write now. But it’s a diamond clear intoxication. It’s all a matter of what we give our attention to, and the choice is ours. When our attention is on consciousness, the separate self sense or ego fades into abeyance, and the inherent qualities of consciousness become very pronounced.
Consciousness just is. It doesn’t come from anywhere or go anywhere and has no relationship with anything, though everything arises in it. It is completely fascinating and though I was planning to just write what occurred on this extraordinary first day of the retreat with Andrew, I’m finding it impossible to do this in such a straightforward way right now. That’s because I’m discovering consciousness anew by focusing on it now as I write. And it is always the first time – ever new. So it’s hard to write only about the day. Consciousness is endlessly fascinating. Once you get a taste of it, there is nothing more fascinating. What is it that is so fascinating in always discovering it anew? Well, for a start, just that in itself is one reason. It’s infinite and free – free from anything – free from any boundaries. Free, free, free!
A fizzing sensation of ecstasy constantly pulsates in the background of my awareness.
Amazing! This is just the start of the retreat. At the end of the day, I feel like we have completed a whole retreat already. I’ve never seen a group of people go so far, so deep, so quickly, in all the retreats I have ever been on, and I’ve been to quite a number of them over the years.
When I think of it, we actually experienced enlightened mind, though Andrew never mentioned those particular words. We experienced the depths of meditation, though he never actually used the word meditation. This was also the classic Eastern enlightenment experience, though again there were none of those terms used.
In a remarkable way, it is very personal – for what could be more personal than the deepest subjectivity – but much more than that, it is completely impersonal. By focusing on individuals and drawing out the different qualities of their experience, the focus is on the qualities of consciousness itself, and not on the individual.
The first day of the retreat and here we are, almost 250 of us, listening to Andrew introduce the 10 days together. After some practical points about how to make best use of this time, Andrew launches straight into talking about consciousness. We all use the word ‘consciousness’, but what on earth does it actually mean to us in our own experience?
Without employing any spiritual terminology and without asking us to believe anything at all, he just points us to look freshly into the nature of our own experience as he speaks. What immediately becomes apparent is that we can’t get outside of consciousness and see it – it’s not an object. It’s unlike anything else at all and it is impossible for it to be an object in our mind. Consciousness is the subject. That’s the first key point he makes. It’s simple but it’s immensely profound
It takes a little contemplation to let in the significance of this, because many of us tend to feel we already know this sort of thing. But as Andrew emphasizes, if you really do know the absolute dimension of consciousness, then your life would have to be a radically transformed one.
Andrew leads us into exploring what consciousness is, and what are its qualities. And these qualities start to emerge as we begin to focus on its nature.
It’s unfamiliar to hear consciousness being described in such an experiential way, and as he keeps speaking, the intensity of this sense of pure subjectivity becomes magnified in the room. Thoughts and feelings move naturally into the background as the collective intention of the room focuses on consciousness itself, and it moves to the foreground of our attention. Everything is an object except this. It sounds simplistic and even strange, but just to contemplate this point, really has a fundamentally ground shifting effect on my sense of myself. The atmosphere in the hall becomes so charged and permeated with this unfamiliar and yet somehow immediately recognizable sense of pure consciousness, that it’s almost impossible not to be carried by it.
It is amazing how available and close at hand is this very powerful experience, as soon as we just shift our attention to the subject, to who is looking, and away from the habitual fixation on all the objects which arise in consciousness. It’s us at our deepest level. Consciousness is primary – it’s the sense of ‘I’- not the personal I, the ‘I’ that has a gender and nationality and a particular historical background. This ‘I’ is way beyond all that and is clearly identical for all of us. It’s deeper, in fact as deep as it’s possible to go, unfathomable.
At the end of a morning in which I was left wondering what on earth had hit me – I felt almost drowned in a sea - Andrew instructs us to keep giving attention to the experience of consciousness until the late afternoon when we meet with him again.
This afternoon session is devoted to hearing about peoples’ discoveries and experiences, and as each person speaks, Andrew draws out the significant points and enables everyone to see and experience the different qualities of consciousness.
Being a Sunday in this famous pilgrimage site and monastery, the bells of the Basilica ring out loud periodically throughout the day. The ringing reverberates around the towering rock faces of the mountain of Montserrat. But interestingly it is no distraction and only seems to intensify the experience of consciousness. The ringing resounds in consciousness and I am more acutely aware of its infinite nature which contains everything which arises and yet has no relationship with anything at all.
A multidimensional yet unitary picture of consciousness emerges with Andrew’s careful steering. People express how it is beyond boundaries; it has no relationship to anything and so its nature is inherently free. It is peace; it is ever-present; it has no desires or views and opinions and feels no fear; one of its qualities is also ecstasy, whether subtle or intense.
Andrew points out how the experience of pure consciousness or subjectivity is intoxicating. Focusing on it causes it to be experienced much more intensely and more deeply. I literally feel drunk with it as I write now. But it’s a diamond clear intoxication. It’s all a matter of what we give our attention to, and the choice is ours. When our attention is on consciousness, the separate self sense or ego fades into abeyance, and the inherent qualities of consciousness become very pronounced.
Consciousness just is. It doesn’t come from anywhere or go anywhere and has no relationship with anything, though everything arises in it. It is completely fascinating and though I was planning to just write what occurred on this extraordinary first day of the retreat with Andrew, I’m finding it impossible to do this in such a straightforward way right now. That’s because I’m discovering consciousness anew by focusing on it now as I write. And it is always the first time – ever new. So it’s hard to write only about the day. Consciousness is endlessly fascinating. Once you get a taste of it, there is nothing more fascinating. What is it that is so fascinating in always discovering it anew? Well, for a start, just that in itself is one reason. It’s infinite and free – free from anything – free from any boundaries. Free, free, free!
A fizzing sensation of ecstasy constantly pulsates in the background of my awareness.
Amazing! This is just the start of the retreat. At the end of the day, I feel like we have completed a whole retreat already. I’ve never seen a group of people go so far, so deep, so quickly, in all the retreats I have ever been on, and I’ve been to quite a number of them over the years.
When I think of it, we actually experienced enlightened mind, though Andrew never mentioned those particular words. We experienced the depths of meditation, though he never actually used the word meditation. This was also the classic Eastern enlightenment experience, though again there were none of those terms used.
In a remarkable way, it is very personal – for what could be more personal than the deepest subjectivity – but much more than that, it is completely impersonal. By focusing on individuals and drawing out the different qualities of their experience, the focus is on the qualities of consciousness itself, and not on the individual.
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