Day 7

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.