Ordinary Freedom

About the Author

Jon Bernie is a contemporary spiritual teacher in the lineage of
Adyashanti, leading regular classes, retreats and intensives in
the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. As a counselor in pri-
vate practice, Jon also works with individuals directly to facili-
tate consciousness development and deep emotional healing. A
lifelong resident of the Bay Area, Jon has been at various times
a Zero Balancing practitioner, a teacher of the Alexander Tech-
nique, a concert violinist and an ordained Zen Buddhist monk.
Jons spiritual journey began with a spontaneous awakening
experience at age sixteen, which led him to spend many years
practicing in the Zen and Theravada Buddhist traditions, rst as
a monk in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, and later as an
early student of Jack Korneld. In the late 1980s, Jons spiritual
trajectory was profoundly altered when he met Advaita master
Jean Klein, with whom he studied intensively for an extended
period. Jon subsequently spent time with H.W.L. Poonja and
Robert Adams, both direct disciples of Ramana Maharshi. Jons
spiritual development was also greatly aided by Brother David
Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk who studied with several well-
known Zen masters and has since been instrumental in building
interfaith networks worldwide. After Jon met Adyashanti in
2002, his journey came to fruition, and subsequently Adya asked
Jon to teach.
CLEAR WATER SANGHA
Clear Water Sangha, a non-prot organization, was established to
support the teachings of Jon Bernie. The board of directors and
dedicated volunteers help coordinate a variety of activities includ-
ing the production of written publications, management of satsangs,
retreats and other events, and ongoing maintenance of Jons website.
For further information, please visit:
www.sf-satsang.org
Praise for Ordinary Freedom
TO FIND AN ACCOMPLISHED SPIRITUAL TEACHER IS A RARE GIFT. To nd a
book that puts you in a most lively way in the presence of such a teacher
is even more rare. But here it is! Jon Bernies Ordinary Freedom has
all the power of the spoken word and vibrates with the overtones of
that teachers caring, compassionate nearness. Deep, yet always simple;
simple, yet never simplistic; clear, eloquent, and always to the point,
Ordinary Freedom is not an ordinary book. It springs from freedom
and breathes freedom. Caution: This book may be hazardous to your
current level of consciousness!
Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB, author, lecturer, co-founder
of www.gratefulness.org
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL, SIMPLE, HEARTFELT MESSAGE! The end of seeking is
not something to be found in the future it is right here, present at the
very heart of experience, just waiting to be discovered by those who are
ready and willing to come face-to-face with life.
Jon Bernie expresses the timeless truth of non-duality (non-sepa-
ration) in such a warm, authentically human voice. He meets you as
a wise, loving friend rather than as spiritual master or guru and
gently points out the various ways in which you are currently at war
with your own experience. His message is rare and precious in that it
does not attempt to deny or transcend our humanity, or dismiss it as
an aberration, but rather embraces it fully as part of an innitely bigger
picture. Jon honours your embodied experience, whilst at the same time
clearly and directly pointing you far beyond the personal, to a wordless
freedom that belongs to no-one, and therefore is available to everyone.
Read Ordinary Freedom and rediscover something that you have
always known that this seemingly ordinary life is already the miracle
youve been seeking, and that here and now is forever saturated with
wonder. This is mature, grounded spirituality for grown-ups, and I
thoroughly recommend it.
Jeff Foster, author of The Wonder of Being and An Extraordinary
Absence.
Ordinary Freedom
Jon Bernie
NON-DUALITY PRESS
united kingdom
ORDINARY FREEDOM
First edition published July 2010 by Non-Duality Press
Jon Bernie/Clear Water Sangha 2010
Non-Duality Press 2010
Cover photo taken by Jon Bernie at his former retreat in Bolinas.
Jon Bernie has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identied as author of this work.
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the
Publishers.
Typeset in Palatino 11/14
Non-Duality Press | PO Box 2228 | Salisbury | SP2 2GZ
United Kingdom
Softcover edition
ISBN: 978-0-9563091-9-8
www.non-dualitypress.com
Dedication
I want to dedicate this book to my Mom, who taught me to
trust my feelings and question everything; and to my Dad,
who was my rst Zen Master.
ix
Contents
Foreword by Adyashanti xi
Introduction by Jon Bernie xiii
Being Here ................................................................................... 1
Walking the Path ......................................................................... 3
Aliveness ...................................................................................... 6
Energy and Spirit ........................................................................ 7
Dissolving Into Light .................................................................. 9
Being the Feeling .......................................................................11
Letting Go .................................................................................. 15
Finding the Balance ...................................................................16
Returning to Awareness .......................................................... 19
Allowing the Struggle .............................................................. 21
Relief Is Only the Beginning ................................................... 24
The Only Thing Holding Us Back .......................................... 26
Reality Begins When the Story Ends ..................................... 30
Readiness ................................................................................... 32
The Role of the Mind ................................................................ 35
The Light of Attention .............................................................. 38
Everyone Is the Teacher ........................................................... 40
Being Available to What Is ...................................................... 42
Falling Into the Fire .................................................................. 46
Obsession ................................................................................... 50
Tending to This Moment ......................................................... 52
The Mind Is the Last to Get It ................................................. 55
Telling It Like It Is ..................................................................... 59
Allowing the Pain of Wanting ................................................ 62
Beliefs Fall Away On Their Own ............................................ 65
Feel What You Need to Feel .................................................... 67
The Joy of Open-Heartedness ................................................. 70
Allowing the Truth to Unfold ................................................. 73
Discovery ....................................................................................76
x
Enjoy Yourself! .......................................................................... 79
Being It ....................................................................................... 81
Resistance Is Just Too Much Effort ......................................... 85
High Expectation Meditation .................................................. 88
Finding Our Own Way ............................................................ 92
Allowing the Struggle .............................................................. 96
Embracing Compulsion Without Acting ............................... 99
Forgiveness Begins With Feeling Completely .....................102
Self-Acceptance ........................................................................105
The Question of Service ..........................................................108
Asking Without Attachment ..................................................109
Drop That Belief and Its Accomplished ...............................114
Being Free Means Not Knowing Whats Going On ............117
As You Realize It, Move Towards It ......................................119
The Field of Presence .............................................................. 123
The Realm of Blessing ............................................................ 127
xi
Foreword
We do not usually think of ordinariness and spirituality as exist-
ing together, and in one sense they do not belong together. If
we think that spiritual freedom is something that can t nicely
into our ordinary way of viewing life, with all its division and
conict, we are sorely mistaken. Spiritual freedom comes about
through a deep reorientation of the way we perceive, not only
ourselves, but all of life. However, if we view ordinary as refer-
ring to a change of perception available to anyone, right here and
now, then spiritual freedom is indeed ordinary. Freedom is also
ordinary in the sense of being permeated by a state of openness,
naturalness and ease; and it is these qualities that characterize
Jon Bernies teachings.
This wonderful collection of Jons teachings really captures
his ability to point us back to our own innate freedom. What
makes Jons teachings so powerful and relevant, though, is that
no part of the human experience is denied. Indeed, there is
an open encouragement for all of our human experience to be
included and embraced as a means of discovering the innite
ground of being within which all of our experience unfolds. This
in itself is a great gift to any spiritual seeker looking to nd out
what freedom is really all about. But if you read through these
teachings with all of your senses open and alert you will begin
to intuit something more.
You will begin to notice a deep silence taking form within
you. Not a relative silence that is simply the absence of sound,
but a silence that is a deep and welcoming presence. This silent
presence is like discovering a radiant thread of truth running
inside of you. It has always been there of course, but you may not
have noticed it or given it your full attention. Because giving our
full attention to something other than our wandering minds is
not something we are encouraged to do very often. But if you are
xii
alert with every part of your being not only may you be given
the gift of a truly wise and compassionate spiritual teaching but
you may be drawn into the heart of a perfect stillness where Jons
words will pierce you, and like two arrows meeting in mid-air,
your world will stop. And in a single breathless instant radiance
may nd you and eternity will be yours.
Adyashanti
San Francisco, May 2010
xiii
Introduction
I remember being four years old, looking up at the stars, and
wondering, Whats going on here? At the age of eleven, I
found myself arguing with my Sunday school teacher about the
existence of God. I wasnt buying it. I came home and declared
to my mother, Im not going to Sunday school anymore, Im too
busy practicing the violin! Okay, honey, she replied. I became
an agnostic, saying at the time, When I see God, Ill believe it. I
assumed then that most of my friends, in their various religions,
were being brainwashed.
During my teenage years, struggling with the meaning of
existence, I began an inner search that led to a spiritual awaken-
ing around the age of sixteen. At the time, I did not know what
had happened to me, and it would be quite a while before I found
out. I had unknowingly tapped into the mystery of existence, and
that encounter not only changed the course of my life, but ulti-
mately led to the end of my struggle with what is. It led to the
end of seeking, the end of fear, and the end of self-identication,
all of which are ways of saying that it led to the discovery and
realization that what we fundamentally are is conscious energy
and space, or awareness itself. This realization is called Freedom.
This book is about Freedom. Its not about a special state or
condition called Freedom, some idea or concept to be believed
in; rather, it is about the recognition and realization of our essen-
tial nature. When we arrive in this moment and awaken to the
truth of our existence, we discover that Freedom is completely
ordinary. Ordinary, yet awesome.
The recognition and realization of our essential nature is for
many a gradual transition. The challenge of our generation is to
nd out how to support this transformation in the midst of our
ordinary lives.
Jon Bernie
Your every step
leads not away from it.
Dogen

1
Being Here
Awakening in its essence is simply being here. Its not the thought,
being here, or a story you tell yourself internally: Im being
here. There is no thinker or storyteller. There is no one who is
being here.
Awakening is not about belief, or even about understanding,
at least not in the way we usually think of understanding. Its
tricky to talk about. Its easy to understand why practitioners
in many monastic traditions remain in silence most of the time.
With talking removed from the equation, you can just do what
you have to do chop wood, carry water, plant seeds, pick veg-
etables in that kind of environment, things can become very,
very simple.
But even out here in the world, in the midst of our busy lives,
that simplicity is still available. You can simply attend to your
immediate experience in this moment. You dont need to under-
stand it, or believe anything about it. Just be here with what is, as
it is. And as your experience becomes increasingly simple, you
drop even that story, the story of it being simple. You freefall into
openness, into emptiness.

Awakening is about letting go of all control. Thats why medi-

tation practice can be useful for our physical bodies, which are
conditioned to control, and defend, and hold on. Meditation can
help you notice where the holding on is. You just sit, and stop, and
notice whats going on physically, emotionally, energetically. The
physical body is a wonderful mirror.
Editors Note: These talks and dialogs were adapted from transcripts of
Jons public meetings (usually referred to as satsang literally, meeting in
truth) and retreats from 2006 to 2009.
2
So just be here. Notice whats going on. You dont need to
analyze it, x it, gure it out or explain it. Awakening is whats
left when all that falls away. It is literally dropping everything,
and just being here. Conceptually, its tremendously simple. It is
simplicity itself: just being. Now youre no longer trying to get
anywhere; you no longer experience that compulsion. Youre
like the sun grounded in radiant presence, connected to
everything.
As you drop further into the awakening process, you begin
to realize that everything everything! is simultaneously
transmitting and receiving awakening. And as you give your
attention to that, to that amazing process, theres a sense of
deepening, and an awareness of a kind of power or energy thats
present everywhere; and gradually you become that energy.

Its not necessary, however, to believe any of this. All thats

required is attention, and the willingness to let go of control.
Whatever your experience is, thats whats happening let it.
Whatever youre facing right now whether youre feeling open
or shut down, whether youre at peace or struggling that is
the doorway. You have the opportunity to open to what is being
given right now, what is arising right now in the mirror of your
attention. The experience of life is always a reection, and that
itself is the ultimate teaching, if youre ready to receive it.
3
Walking the Path
When we gather together in satsang, the true teaching is really
the silence. Its not about the teachers personality, or the stu-
dents. As Jean Klein used to say, its when theres no one taking
themselves to be a teacher and no one taking themselves to be a
student that true teaching takes place.
The truth is, were not separate at all. Were the same. When
were caught in our personal struggles, it does feel like were
separate, it does feel like were different; and of course in the
human, physical sense, we are. But in our essence, in the fun-
damental reality of that which we are, we are not separate. The
silence is an opportunity to open to that.
Its not about belief, thank goodness. Wed be in real trouble
if it were. Our beliefs are the cause of all the grief! The more
tightly we hold on to our beliefs, the more we hurt. Thats what
suffering is, that holding on. Thats all the illusion of separate-
ness is, too. But that holding on is really just self-protection its
the human organism trying to survive and be comfortable. As
you know if youre familiar with psychology, humans develop a
variety of strategies for surviving. We call those strategies ego,
or personality, and its easy to be fooled into thinking that our
personality is who we are. But who we truly are is no one. Were
just openness; just freedom.
Theres nothing I need to teach you, actually. Just pay atten-
tion to whats present. If you simply allow whats coming up to
come up, and you dont resist it, then its not a problem it can
move through the organism and be fully experienced. And if
you do experience it as a problem, then open to that experience:
the tension, the struggle, the resistance. Allow yourself to feel
that discomfort. Allow it to be fully encountered so it can move
4
through you without sticking.
Amazingly, all you need to learn is simply to be available to
what is. Thats all thats required. But instead we often tend to go,
I want this, but not that. I want the bliss, the oneness, the joy;
but I dont want the pain, the fear, the grief, the anger. Ironically,
a lot of so-called teaching is just pointing out that not wanting.
Its not the experience itself pain, fear, whatever thats
the problem. Its the resistance to that experience: the trying to
get rid of it, the trying to x it, the trying to understand it. I call
that the primary resistance. That resistance is usually unconscious,
but it can come to the surface if youre willing to really stay with
your experience. Thats actually all thats required, just hanging
in there. Of course that can sometimes be more challenging than
it sounds, because it can often be a very bumpy ride.
But as you gradually become more and more available to the
truth of who you are, youll nd that hanging in there is just
what naturally happens. At rst, allowing what is may seem to
require effort; but as you become established in awareness youll
nd that what really takes effort is resisting, struggling with
what is. When you can nally let go of that effort, then being
with what is, whatever it is, becomes truly effortless.
Ive often suggested that the most helpful attitudes to cul-
tivate are those of the explorer and the scientist. The explorer
wanders boldly in the unknown, always in new territory, never
knowing what will be encountered next. The scientist observes
what arises without any preconceived ideas about whats hap-
pening or what it means, and questions everything.
If youre identied with your beliefs, then questioning them
is essential. Your beliefs are not true or false, or even good or
bad; beliefs are just mental constructs. In the short run theyre
either useful or not useful, but ultimately they become irrelevant
as you reach that stepping-off point when youre nally just here.
Then belief is no longer whats going on. Your perspective has
shifted. And gradually you learn to open to that shift and allow
5
it to deepen, and eventually its permanent. Thats all. It happens
by itself, really. No one does it for you. You dont even do it for
yourself. If you could, youd have done it already.
The path is really about honesty, too, about just telling it like
it is, however it is. No shame, no blame. All thats required is that
you honestly express the truth of where youre at in this moment.
It doesnt matter whether it looks good or bad, or whether it feels
good or bad. Whats important is just putting it into the light, so
to speak. The truth really will set you free even the limited
truth!
Often people are afraid of not being spiritual enough. You
may, for instance, go through a period where a lot of difcult
psychological material is emerging, where youre in what seems
like a perpetually negative headspace, but nd youre reluctant
to acknowledge how youre feeling. Because its not supposed to
be like that, right? Its supposed to be like in the spiritual sales
pitch, the shining oasis of light were supposed to get to, et cetera.
So you dont want to admit, maybe even to yourself, that what
youre actually experiencing is enormous suffering.
But who is suffering? Whos angry? Whos afraid? Whos sad?
Do you really have an answer for that? Ask yourself the ques-
tion and then stop, just sit there. Open to the question. Dont
just ask the question; be the question.
Can you allow yourself to sit in the discomfort of your ques-
tion, without having to have the answer? Can you not know? Can
you open to not knowing? Of course! Not knowing is your nature.
Its totally natural, like a ower emanating its fragrance. The
ower doesnt try, thats just its nature. Thats why nature is so
beautiful; its not trying to be beautiful, it just is. And thats really
the beauty of that which we are, if we just are. Its enough.
6
Aliveness
Our true nature is to be fully alive. This aliveness is not some-
thing that one person has and another doesnt. Its not something
one has to be worthy of. Aliveness is our essence, our true being.
We may be oblivious to it; our aliveness may be obscured and
heavily fortied over. We may be in the mode of just surviving
and getting by, which is important for humans, obviously, and is
often difcult.
But at some point we nd we have the space to begin to let the
unfolding and the transformation happen. And it does happen!
Sometimes things shift suddenly and dramatically, but usually
the change unfolds gradually, in stages, the way an acorn gradu-
ally becomes an oak tree.
Theres really no end to this transformation. How could
there be? The mystery keeps revealing itself. We never stop
learning if anything, we become more skilled at learning. We
become better students, you might say. Ultimately there are no
teachers, only students.
As we deepen in the mystery, our minds become open and
available. We have fewer and fewer preconceived ideas about
whats happening. We nd the willingness in each moment to
learn, to not be the knower. When were truly open to this pres-
ence, we nd we naturally open to it even more deeply. We enter
into it and we receive it, profoundly. Thats what transmission is.
Thats the mystery and magic and power of satsang.
7
Energy and Spirit
If you take some time to sit silently, in stillness, youll perceive
a range of different things. You may feel tired, sleepy; you may
experience some physical discomfort; or you may nd yourself
restless, distracted. Maybe youll discover youre going through
something emotionally, something you might not otherwise
have noticed. Youd think that sitting quietly would be a fairly
easy thing to do, but actually, to sit consciously can be difcult
or even overwhelming. And yet theres a power in the stillness.
Theres the possibility of opening to our fundamentally energetic
nature.
In these kinds of discussions, I often prefer to use the word
energetic rather than spiritual. Its less encumbered with
beliefs and concepts. Energy is practical you ip the switch
and the light goes on. We dont necessarily understand every
detail of how it works, but we dont need to. We live with it, we
accept it. Its part of our reality.
So from the perspective of awareness, whatevers being per-
ceived, whether its thought or feeling, sensation or emotion, is
fundamentally a movement of energy. When we really awaken,
we realize were not separate from that energy. We begin to live
as that movement, as that energy, and then weve transitioned
into the unknown, into the mystery into true aliveness.
At a certain point we dont even think about it any more;
thinking about it falls away, and were simply this presence, this
awakeness, this ease of being. Awakening then shows us how to
take care of the next moment. In Zen they say it doesnt matter
how big your garden is, as long as you can take care of it. So you
nd out how to take care of it. You just do the next thing.
8
The next thing is whats right in front of us, right now. So
often our attention is elsewhere on something were worrying
about, or some set of future plans. To be able continually to bring
ourselves back that is the opportunity our practice offers. So
we simply feel, we simply open to this presence, this energy that
we fundamentally are, right now. We give our attention to the
unknown, the unspeakable.
There are so many names for this mystery that we are: pres-
ence, spaciousness, emptiness, God, love, the Tao it goes on
and on and on. But once youve opened to it, once youve realized
that you are that, forget all the names; just be that.
That doesnt mean you become spaced out on the divine and
nonfunctional that you cant drive a car, hammer a nail, install
software, or whatever. Rather, youre able to do those things, to
function in reality, much more richly and completely than ever
before. Theres no longer any separation between me and my
experience. So-called my experience is a mirage, a projection.
When youre fully alive there is no more projection; theres only
aliveness.

9
Dissolving Into Light
To awaken is to dissolve in one place and simultaneously appear
everywhere. Awakening can also be called being presence, being
energy. Karmic arisings, whatever their nature, are fuel for dis-
solving. So rather than resisting, or ghting, or arguing with
what is instead of all that, simply accept what is. Receive what
is, allow what is. Become what is.
Now theres no separation between perceiver and per-
ceived theres just being perception. Theres just listening,
just observing, just feeling, just thinking. And you allow this
gestation to happen, you allow this growth, as painful or
ecstatic! as it might be.
Satsang can sometimes feel like being in a pressure cooker.
It just gets hotter and hotter! So you let it get hotter, you let it get
more amplied. That may be unsettling physically; you might
even start shaking, or nd you want to run out the door. As Rob-
ert Adams once said, if youve come here to hear a lecture youve
come to the wrong place!
The good news is you dont have to understand how it works
for it to work. Being here is enough. All you have to do is learn
to allow yourself to cook. To be dissolved into light. To appear
everywhere simultaneously. That is freedom.

Q. Im feeling this intense heat lately. Im very aware of this intense

sense of trying, but I dont know what the trying is directed at.
How do you know youre trying? Is it a physical sensation, like a
pressure or a pushing? Or is it a mental or emotional experience?
10
Q. Its more of an association I have. I dont even know what Im trying
to do anymore. Ive been struggling to awaken for so long, and this
tension is just cumulative. It doesnt even seem to have a direction
anymore, its just a buildup. And the more I look at it, the more the
sensation seems to intensify.
That intensication may actually be the beginning of an expan-
sion. See if you can just let it be for a while. Just sit with that
pressure, but without expectation thats the tricky part. Dont
get in there with expectations or conclusions about how or why
youre sitting with it. Put all that aside.
Like I said, it really is like cooking. And as with cooking, you
also need to know when to take the lid off and let the pressure
out. If youre steaming broccoli, you want to take it off the heat
while its still bright green, when its softened, but before the heat
has turned it completely limp. When I was a monk I used to sit
these killer schedules we never took the lid off! and it was
really too much. I found that out later when I left the monastery.
Once I was living on my own, I could follow my own inner need
to sit and be, and I found Id go much deeper, and discover much
more, when I wasnt pushing myself so hard.
Q. Just hearing you say that I get a little tense, because Ive been want-
ing to know when to let the steam out, when to take the top off and when
not to take the top off. What if I get it wrong? Theres this uncomfortable
sense that I dont know.
Thats right, you dont know. So nd out. Give yourself permis-
sion to experiment. Try more, try less. See what happens. Gradu-
ally youll become sensitized to what best facilitates opening.
Openness of the heart is our natural condition. Its love, and its
joy, and its living life fully. Its what everyone wants, truly, and
its what we can have, each moment, once we allow ourselves
to discover it. It just takes some time to nd out how to let it
blossom. So its okay not to know. Youre on the right track.
11
Being the Feeling
When you nd yourself facing some difcult or unpleasant feel-
ing, let yourself be that feeling. Dont be with the feeling, as a
passive observer; rather, be the feeling itself. When youre being
the feeling, theres no thinking. If youre being with the feeling
theres still separation theres you, and theres your feel-
ing, which you are being with. Theres still ego functioning,
theres still someone having the feeling. But freedom is not for
someone; freedom is for no one.
As long as theres someone having feelings, youre still identi-
ed. Identication is the source of suffering; it is the very deni-
tion of suffering. But when youre being feeling, theres no more
identication. Once you drop the ego that is, once you allow
yourself to be fully present in this moment theres no more
somebody, no more identity, and no more suffering.

Q. I dont get this idea of being the feeling. I know how to receive feeling,
and how to deny feeling, but I dont know what you mean by being it.
Theres a merging that happens, if you will, of awareness with
feeling, so that theres no longer me and my feelings. The
separation between them vanishes. Thats also what I mean by
being awareness. Same thing. Then emotion is no longer about
the story we tell ourselves, its just a movement, just this rush of
energy moving through.
Q. The story fuels the emotion. And your advice is to let go of the story,
or to somehow get underneath it?
The story is the surface; go to the source. The story may point to
12
or help you access whats actually being felt, but it may have little
to do with the true source of the feeling, except in some very lim-
ited sense. The movement of emotion can be all kinds of things,
but its very much a part of the human function. By itself its not a
problem. We make it into a problem when we block it, prevent it
from fully moving. That causes all kinds of difculties mental,
psychological, even physical.
Many people have to relearn how to feel, because during their
lives theyve learned to cope by separating from feeling, making
it something over there that can be analyzed or dismissed.
Theres so much denial expertise out there. Were experts in
maintaining unconsciousness! So how do we return to whole-
ness? Well, thats why people developed things like meditation,
a way of getting into the body and really developing reection;
and conscious communication, sharing, expressing. There are so
many methods to facilitate the healing.
But our focus here is awareness, so thats the perspective I
want to speak from. People can develop a great deal of aware-
ness and still maintain a certain degree of denial. This is a tricky
area. The initial experience of awareness can be so pleasurable
that it can itself become something you cling to as a defense
against other, less pleasant kinds of experiences. Ive sometimes
called this hiding in the light, and it can be one of the greatest
detours on the spiritual journey.
People can also get very good at maintaining a certain
high from being in spiritual environments where theres a lot
of consciousness, or a lot of shakti. It can become a kind of
habit mainline a little shakti, right? Eventually, though, that
no longer satises. You reach a certain spiritual maturity, where
youre able to step up fully and take responsibility for following
the truth itself, however it makes you feel.
As Ive often said, the hardest part of getting to understand-
ing is basically just hanging in there. But you learn to hang in
there anyway, and at some point the question, When am I going
to get there? isnt given much energy anymore. Instead of won-
13
dering when youll arrive in some future moment, the question
becomes, How can I arrive fully in this moment? Thats all.
In order to really transform, you have to enter the timeless, the
now; the vastness of being; simple awareness itself.
Time is part of the illusion of separateness. When were being
awareness, our experience is timeless, seamless. And when sepa-
ration dissolves when being awareness is no longer something
special, but just the way things are then were one with the
truth, the divine, whatever you want to call it. That is the integra-
tion of the realization of who we truly are. When were at peace,
when were in oneness, then nothing is lacking.