Wake Up Now (5 page)

If you’ve never left home even for an instant, why do you appear to stray, forget who you really are, and struggle to
find your way back again? Believe it or not, this age-old question does not seem to have a satisfactory answer. “Holding a begging bowl, a man with amnesia knocks on his own door,” says the Indian poet Kabir.

As children, we spend much of our time in a kind of perpetual openness and wonder, attuned to the magic and mystery that plays beneath the surface of life. Many people have intimations of their true nature in childhood—the sense of a benevolent presence guiding their life, a radiance that shines forth from all things, or a current of love that unites us all. In his “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” William Wordsworth puts it well:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparell’d in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

But as he goes on to bemoan, we lose touch with this luminosity as we age and eventually realize that we can no longer recapture it.

Whatever causes this wandering and ultimate return, it seems to be inevitable, like the journey of the prodigal son. Growing up in a consensus reality that emphasizes the individual, taught to believe we’re inadequate and need to “make something” of ourselves (whatever that could possibly mean), chastised for some behaviors (our shortcomings) and praised for others (our virtues), we lose touch with the expansiveness of being and end up believing that we’re this
separate skin-bound little me, this fraction of the whole, that the world has encouraged us to be.

Over time, we accumulate more and more beliefs, stories, and memories that shroud the radiance of being we experienced as children. The simple joy and boundless potential that comes with realizing “I am” gets burdened with a lifetime of acquired identities and characteristics, the limited parts we play in the drama of life: “I’m a parent, a sinner, a healer, a slow learner, a good friend, a failure, depressed, extroverted, attractive,” and so on. In other words, we forget who we really are and succumb to the way others see us until one day, perhaps, we have intimations of our immortality, our timeless spiritual nature, become seekers, and embark on the return journey home. “From my home in the hills, why did I roam?” laments singer/songwriter Jai Uttal. “To my home in the hills take me back.”

Why do we have to lose touch with our spiritual
home? Why can’t we just remember who we are,
rather than going through the painful process of
straying and returning?

Who knows? “Why” questions are the mind’s attempt to make sense of the incomprehensible. The only truly honest answer is, because that’s the way it is. Some traditions say that God is playing games with himself. What we do know is that just about everyone strays from his or her “home in the hills,” though there are rare individuals who never lose touch
with their divine nature through childhood and adulthood. Wordsworth says, “Our birth is a sleep and a forgetting,” and many sages agree that the mere act of being born in human form causes us to lose touch with who we are.

But couldn’t we bring up children in such a way
that we could avoid this process?

We can do our best to avoid imposing our ideas and beliefs on our children and give them plenty of room to be who they are, and of course, we can support them in their innocence, openness, and wonder. But eventually they will succumb to the intense cultural pressure to identify as a separate self. It seems to be inevitable, and so therefore is the process of straying and returning.

If you want to influence the next generation, the most important thing you can do is to awaken yourself. Embody the possibility of freedom in your own life, and you will have a profound effect on the people around you.

Is it necessary to wrestle with what you call the
“core paradox” in order to awaken? Somehow the
paradox doesn’t really resonate for me.

Not at all. Awakening doesn’t require any particular practice or contemplation, though some seekers have found that grappling with this paradox has apparently precipitated an
awakening. Even a sincere curiosity or earnest interest in discovering the truth of existence—which has been recommended by many teachers, including my own—is not a prerequisite. As I describe later in this book, some people awaken without the slightest interest or preparation, and others don’t, despite years of practice. Paradoxical, isn’t it?

What about suffering? You mention the importance
of suffering in your own search. Can I awaken
without intense suffering?

Again, suffering is not required, but it does have the uncanny ability to pull the rug out from beneath your comfortable little world and open you to a deeper source of meaning and fulfillment. It’s a powerful motivator. You don’t have to go looking for it, of course—it will find you eventually.

Wake-Up Call

Is There Anything Missing Right Now?

Set aside ten to fifteen minutes for this exploration. Begin by sitting comfortably for a few moments with your eyes open. As you gaze around the room, notice how your mind judges and interprets what you see. “The furniture looks shabby. The papers are out of place. The carpet’s stained. The bills need to be paid.” Your mind is constantly making comments like these, adding a conceptual overlay that makes
it difficult for you to experience reality directly. Even concepts like “book” and “table” limit your ability to see beyond the form to the underlying essence of what is.

Now close your eyes and slowly open them again. This time gaze around you as if you were an extraterrestrial who’s just landed on Earth or an infant who’s just been born. Look at the window, the computer, the carpet, as if you’ve never seen them before and have no idea what they are. Enjoy the play of light and dark, color and form, movement and stillness, without giving names to the display. Allow yourself to abide in a natural state of wonder and awe. You have no idea what anything is. Notice how this innocent, open looking acts on your being.

After about ten minutes of innocent looking, gently ask yourself, “On present evidence, without consulting the mind, is there anything missing or lacking in my experience right now?” If this question makes no sense to you, just let it go and continue your looking. If your mind starts recounting a familiar story about what you apparently need but don’t have, about how your life is lacking or inadequate in some way, set it aside and go back to simply looking. Remember, you’ve been asked to consult present evidence only.

Now ask the question again—“On present evidence, without consulting the mind, is there anything missing or lacking in my experience right now?”—and allow an answer to emerge. If you finally conclude that nothing is missing or lacking, notice how this realization changes your experience of what is. If this isn’t your conclusion, just continue asking, allowing an answer to emerge and returning to innocent looking.

There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep
seeking reality though in fact we are reality.

—Ramana Maharshi

The truth of your being is ordinary, simple, and ever-present. As
A Course in Miracles
says, “It takes no time to be who you are.” Each moment offers you an opportunity to recognize the silent, awake presence that’s always already right here and now, underlying your experience and illuminating all things. Yet no matter how clearly and repeatedly I describe this truth to you, no matter how many terms and metaphors I use, you’re not likely to feel satisfied until you experience this truth directly for yourself. As the old adage goes, images of cakes just can’t satisfy hunger—you have to taste the real thing, enjoy its sweetness and texture, feel the crumbs in your mouth. This paradox is the open secret, the gateless gate: Buddha nature, Christ consciousness, Big Mind, pure spirit is who you essentially are, but you won’t experience the happiness and fulfillment you seek until you meet it face-to-face.

Of course, you can’t find what you already are the way you find a new relationship or a better job—by networking with other people, making phone calls, surfing the Web. Even reading spiritual books can take you only so far, to the starting line where the real search begins. In fact, when you know from the outset that what you’re seeking is right here and now, as available and intimate as breath—indeed, that it’s your birthright, your natural state, which can’t be fabricated or achieved—your search tends to take on a different focus. You may find it more difficult to seek outside yourself in deities or gurus for the source of your fulfillment or to attempt to attain it by cultivating mind-states or manufacturing experiences. In the light of the teaching that you already are what you seek, any effort to go somewhere else or be something you’re not seems misguided and heavy-handed. Instead, the search tends to become subtler and more paradoxical, less like an arduous heroic quest and more like a silent attunement, an inner listening.

But such inner attunement can be difficult to maintain without the support of a teacher. As a result, many seekers, even those who are acquainted with the open secret, are enticed to seek outside themselves in clear-cut practices and paths for a more forceful way through. Somehow, this outward search and ultimate return appear to be unavoidable, just as the prodigal son of the parable had to leave home in order to rediscover the treasure under his own hearth. “The truth cannot be found through seeking, but only seekers find it,” goes the old saying. In other words, you just may need to don the mantle of the seeker and set out on the path, even
though you’ve been told that what you seek is already right here. In the end, however, you have to exhaust all of your strategies and give up the search for the truth to reveal itself to you.

Often the search begins with a genuine intimation of truth, a momentary peek behind the veil of illusion that piques your curiosity and whets your appetite for more. Maybe you encounter teachings that resonate inside you and elicit a “felt” sense of some deeper reality. Or maybe you have a full-blown spiritual experience—your mind suddenly stops for no apparent reason and you sense the silent observer that’s always been watching the thoughts come and go. Or your body dissolves and you recognize the empty nature of all phenomena. But the experience inevitably dissipates, and you’re left with a longing to re-create or rediscover it, perhaps even to push beyond it to your essential nature, the true source of every spiritual experience.