Spiritual Life in a Godless Culture (Part 2)

so I want to begin our time together this time with uh answering the question of how to live a spiritual life in a Godless world but before we do that sorry the from from an Enlightenment perspective the problem always is the nagging issue of Duality or Tess so even the notion that there's a difference between a spiritual life and a non-spiritual life for an awakened person from the perspective of Awakened Consciousness doesn't make any sense because from the perspective of Awakened Consciousness Consciousness itself is always awake so the essence of self-reflective awareness the the essence of self-reflective Consciousness the essence of being aware of life being aware of the life process being aware of existence is inherently spiritual there's nothing unspiritual about any aspect of life from the awaken perspective of nonduality the totality of life and of the capacity to Bear witness to life within and without ourselves within and without ourselves within without the universe is the recognition of a quality of aliveness a quality of sence of sence a quality of suchness a quality of interiority the feeling of being spark of Life The evolutionary impulse the vibration of existence to to awaken awareness is all the recognition of Living spirit so when we awaken to enlightened awareness we see every aspect of life in all of in all its complexity and paradoxes and contradictions that's pregnant with Spirit at every every step of the way there's no place where spirit is not so from the perspective of Enlightenment or enlightened awareness spirit is conscious awareness itself it's a recognition of being alive and it's the recognition of the life force itself it's a recognition of the cosmos itself is vibrating with conscious awareness is vibrating with senss is vibrating with interiority is vibrating with suchness is vibrating with spiritually enlightened self-conscious awarenesses everywhere at all times in all places through all circumstances so from the perspective of Enlightenment or enlightened awareness or non-duality spirit is everywhere there's no place where Spirit could could not exist because the very nature of everything that exists and everything that does not exist the spirit itself so that's a perspective of nonduality or awakened Consciousness so from that perspective from the perspective of nonduality or the ultimate Oneness of suchness of the vibration of being itself vibration of The evolutionary impulse the very question between living a spirit spiritual life and not living a spiritual life doesn't make any sense because from the deepest perspective you can't not live a spiritual life you can't not live a spiritual life because life is as I've been trying to explain spiritual one can be more or less conscious of that fact one can be more or less aware or or not of that fact and obviously there's many differences in in between different people some people are very aware of this some people are barely aware of it some people are not aare of it at all but from the perspective of Awakened awareness Spirit exists at all times in all places through all circumstances and therefore the very question of the difference between living a spiritual life and not being a spiritual life is Superfluous it doesn't really mean anything because all life is spiritual inherently because that is that's the very nature of everything that exists and everything that does not exist is Spirit itself but that's the beginning that's the foundation but of course those people who recognize that that that that's the case most people who recognize that spirit is the ground of being spirit is the ground of all existence and there's no way you can get away from it as hard as you try to there's no escape from the overwhelming presence of spirit everywhere there's no way to escape from it when you realize this it has an effect on your Consciousness it has an effect on your heart and your mind and your relationship to life itself it tends to awaken the sense of Peace Joy exhilaration and a deep sense of confidence that Life Is Good Life is Beautiful Life is potentially glorious so pregnant with potential impossibility and one Noti is that inherent in the recognition of the life force itself that the life force is alive inherent in being conscious ofc Consciousness is a recognition of a primary vibration a primary fundamental principle it speaks of perfection wholeness integration love the in that which is infinite and eternal and when we when our fractured ego which is trapped in the illusion of Separation recognizes that isolation since separation never never never was real never could have existed it's like coming out of prison it's like falling out of a prison and one realizes that everything is okay and everything's always been okay and everything will always be okay because spirit is the essence of all things so the more we realize and awaken to the nature of spirit as it always is the happier we are and because of that that because we recognize that spirit is the foundational principle of all of reality seen and unseen known and unknown and we recognize that we tend to want to give it we want to give it Priority this why all the great religious Traditions give the recognition of the god principle or the The evolutionary impulse the spirit the primary spiritual principle this is why all the great Traditions give that impulse Primacy they say oh this absolute principle this God principle the spiritual vibration this essential spiritual vibration is the fundamental essence of all things when we give our attention to that principle we experience unreasonable joy and unimaginable happiness because that's the nature of the life principle itself when we don't give this principle Primacy when we don't recognize this principle when we don't awaken to it when we don't become conscious of it we don't pay respect to it we suffer inherently we suffer from a sense of isolation alienation loneliness the sense of being lost in the big universe so of course for those of us who recognize the privacy of Consciousness the privacy of spirit we tend to give the significance of spirit Primacy in our relationship to life in the way that we live it and most spiritually conscious people or all spiritually conscious people do do that also in their own in their own ways all those all those people who recognize the privacy of spirit give give that privacy of spirit in their own life they give they honor the privacy of SP in the way that they live their life they usually live their spiritual life in public not only in private but when we live in a materialistic culture and a culture that doesn't recognize the privacy of spirit when the the shared cultural Agreements are that matter that matter alone is real and everything else is imaginary there's that there's no inherent interiority into interior Dimension to reality then if you then you have to start if you're living in a in a in a culture where the shared values and shared beliefs and shared Agreements are are basically materialistic and nihilistic if you have awakened to the truth of interiority the Primacy of the spiritual principle you might have to you might feel you have to live your spiritual convictions in private because other people other people might see you as being crazy or misguided because you have recognized that the nature of Consciousness and the inter is interiority and you've recognized that the whole universe is vibrating with interiority or within this or with Consciousness or subjectivity you can see it and you can feel it and it's everywhere but for someone who doesn't see it and doesn't feel it you can seem like quite a crazy person and the problem the problem related to the question of how to live live a spiritually conscious life in a secular world is really this so so the issue for for those of us who are spiritually inspired spiritually inclined is that we realize that the issue is the problem at a cultural level was a matter of value shared values unless we unless more of us become convinced of the Primacy of spirit relationship the to the totality of reality there's always going to be this dualist this division between those who know and those who don't know those who have faith and those who don't have faith [Music] and for those of us who have at least partially woke up of awakened to the infinite nature of the interiority of the cosmos and how that relates to Consciousness itself we all it becomes obvious to us that all the problems that we're facing as a global species all the problems that we Face personally and collectively have to do with this question of Consciousness and if it becomes obvious to us that the reason that we the fundamental reason that we have trouble getting along with each other reason that there's so much Division and suffering and violence is because it's a lack of Consciousness in so many areas in so many dimensions of our life so then we come to then the spiritually the spiritually awakened person realizes that in the end the solution to every human problem can be reduced to the evolution of Consciousness the solution to every problem can be solved when Consciousness evolves so when consciousness when the significance of Consciousness the Primacy of Consciousness and the radical imperative of Awakening to Consciousness becomes apparent to more people when it becomes a shared Valu is a shared spiritual principle between us the human species will be capable of uh extraordinary acts of creativity that right now is just beyond our beyond beyond our capacity so at a cultural level the challenge we're facing is a matter of shared values and the fact that that so many of the values we share are not in alignment with the higher potentials of Spiritual Awakening at least that's how it seems from the perspective of Awakened Consciousness but getting back to this this this this theme of this theme about the inherent nonduality inherent and we awaken to Consciousness itself and when we awake to when we wake to the N nature of Consciousness which is considered to be the highest level of Spiritual Awakening by the way a lot of people speak about nonduality uh in a way that's very easy to speak about it but Awakening to non-duality or Oneness or not Tess or the ultimacy of Consciousness is not a small thing it's a big thing it's a rare thing very few people actually do it but when you but if it's possible to do it and some some people do succeed when you arrive on the Yonder shore of Oneness and not [Music] Tess as I was saying before there is no place where spirit is not so the one recognize the one recognizes the absurdity of thinking that Spirit could be could not exist in one place EX in another so for example some people think that that spirit is more present in in a monastery or in a top of a mountain or in the middle of a forest than it is in the middle of a city or or some other place so the solution to the question of how do I live a spiritual life in a secular world of course is the is awaken to nity because we awaken to nality you'll see Spirit everywhere and you won't divide your life up into this is my this is my spiritual life and this is not my spiritual life because it doesn't really make any sense if if if all life is inherently spiritual by by Nature it's unavoidably absolutely spiritual every aspect of it even even our ignorance and our stupidity and our unconsciousness is inherently spiritual because it's all occurring within the context of Consciousness and Consciousness is the ground of being the ground of the infinite so even our ignorance and our stupidity even even even the the even all the problem of ignorance and violence is not separate from Spirit itself ultimately it's all part of one process and then new waking to this this experience of the singularity or this nonduality you see it's all one process it's all one event it's all made of the same stuff there's nothing wrong with the stuff the stuff is all Spirit but the problem is we the problem has to do with our own lack of Consciousness our own lack of Awakening our own lack of our ability to be able to see these things because of our own ignorance and our own ignorance is is a result of cultural influences and our own person Al psychological developmental process so from my perspective when you realize that spirit is everywhere in spirit is the ultimate nature of all things at all times in all places or all circumstances you see all of life is spiritual it doesn't matter where you are it doesn't matter who you're with the only thing that matters is what you see and How Deeply is your capacity to Bear witness to it so Spirit does not exist outside your your capacity for for conscious cognition conscious awaken recognition of real the nature of reality as it actually is so how how present we are to Spirit has nothing to do with Spirit itself it has to do with our own capacity to cognize it if you can't cognize Spirit spontaneously naturally easily obviously and effortlessly you're going to have to create a lot of rituals and you're going to have to organize your life in such a way that will help you to become conscious and a lot of people a lot of the a lot of spiritual practice is done to help us to to become conscious of what we can't see a lot of spiritual practices is is things we can do through effort that will help us to see things that we can't ordinarily see but when you can see naturally spontaneously effortlessly and easily you don't have to do anything anymore because you know the spirit is everywhere at all times in all places through all circumstances even in Hell spirit is also the very foundation of the nature of Hell itself spirit is everywhere so to repeat so if you can't see it naturally spontaneously and easily and effortlessly have to organize yourself and go through do all kinds of practices and ritual procedures that will help you to focus your mind Focus your attention it will help you to wake up but the the basic point I'm trying to make is that there is no inner versus outer ultimately from the perspective of non-duality and that's the ultimate truth but it's one thing to say and it's another thing to live it one thing to say it's another thing to live it the more you the more you awaken directly to the thing itself more you awaken directly to the thing itself as I said before the way you live your life will become an expression of what you've realized because if you awaken in a in a way that's profound and real and stable you won't be able to preent prevent yourself from transmitting the glory and the inherent and instantaneous Liberation it comes with The Awakening to n to Absolute nonduality you won't be able to hide it you won't be able to pretend that you don't know what you know some people will love you for it and other people will hate you for it but that's how it works because awakened spirit is contagious it's it's it's it's contagious it's like a Divine disease and if you're very sick with the Divine disease you can't hide it everybody's going to know there's something different about you so so the ultimate answer of how to live the spiritual life in a Godless world is by becoming deeply and profoundly enlightened that's all wake up and go all the way and don't hold back allow yourself to let go of the mind and of the of all ignorant and foolish ideas radically totally and completely until you awaken radically and completely yourself and become uh profoundly awakened then your your life will become a spontaneous expression of an awakened Consciousness a spontaneous expression of Awakened Consciousness where there no difference between the spiritual life and an ordinary life because the way you live an ordinary life when you're an awakened person is becomes it's the expression of a spiritual life so the question I wanted to ask everybody tonight when we got together was um which is a it's a provocative question but how would you all live the life that you're living now how would everybody how would you all live the life you're living now if you weren't seeing any part of your life is more less spiritual than any other part what if you were no longer seeing any part of your life as more or less spiritual than any other part what if you are no longer dividing making these crazy divisions in your life in the way you're living it between what's spirit and what's not spirit in your relationship with your husband wife son daughter in relation to money sex time mind everything if we're no longer making these distinctions between what's living what's a spiritual approach to all of these questions and what is a a non-spiritual approach what if you stop thinking about it that way what if you saw it as all one thing what if you didn't allow Duality to enter into the into your conceptual framework anymore into your conceptual apparatus as this nasty habit of dualistic thinking which most people are struggling with unknowingly but if you refuse to do that anymore just s all it's all one thing it's called life it's life it's not even my life because my life is dualistic also it's just life that's happening through me if life's happening through me and I realize that life is happening through me then what is the most spiritually appropriate spiritually inspired conscious relationship to life that's happening through me so of course from an Enlightenment perspective the only solution to living a spiritually conscious life in a Godless culture is to become an Exemplar of Awakened God Consciousness even if you're the only one in the room even if you're the only one in the room takes a lot of uh courage and a mild bit of fanaticism because there's there's something something happens to you when you when you actually have have have enough up spiritual experiences to realize that the Universe does have an interior Dimension to it that the inside of the universe or the interor or interiority or sence or some expression of sensient or some capacity for sence exists everywhere that the whole universe is alive there's so much that we can't see or know most of the time but when when we begin to wake up we have we begin to glimpse that the universe is a system and the system is awake your capacity for Consciousness and self-reflective awareness is part of that system but none of us exist outside that system and the system is here to help us to support us if we recognize who we truly are we're never alone not really so when you realize that the system is alive and that's who that's who you are you're part of that system you're small part of a of a inconceivably vast system and that being alone is not possible that that this that the system is there to support you if you are true to who you truly are then this is it gives one a sense of awakens one to a sense of spiritual self-confidence and sense of exhilaration about being conscious of all this being conscious of consciousness UNC conscious of the system that is all of Consciousness that exists all the way up and all the way down the spiral of becoming it's everywhere but when you realize the system is alive and our capacity for awakened awareness is gives us it gives us the ability to be aware of a little part of the vastness of the whole system and you realize that that the god principle is the whole system that is self-aware that there's an inherent intelligence in the system and the guiding principle is unimaginable unimaginable love and Perfection Perfection is reaching Way Beyond itself to manifest its own perfection in in ways that we can see and we can't see all the time but then you that's waking up is realizing how much is actually happening here most of the time we don't see most time we just sleep walking watching a bad movie all our own lives so the way to live a spiritually conscious life in a Godless world is to become a living expression and embodiment and emanation of spirit yourself and then you want to be able to you want to be able to do that to the point where people realize that you're not living to lives a lot of people who have spiritual practices in spiritual Faith they live they live a they live a double life they live a life one life pretending to be like everybody else and they have a secret spiritual life that they live in private when they show their true self to the universe or to their few friends who share their same spiritual inclinations they're not living two lives they're living one life and I think to live the spiritual life in Earnest this is always been my attitude I'm considered to be an extremist is that we should actually if we want to be free we should start living one life and not worried about what other people think we're worried about what other people think we're always going to be trying to fit in to make other people happy but if we want to make other people happy I'll never be free we're always going to be slaves to other people's opinions and ideas and thoughts [Music] judgments Consciousness scares people too much Consciousness scares people the UN the enlightened mind enlightened heart brightens the unenlightened mind and unenlightened heart scares it to death because it's too much Freedom too much Freedom too much authenticity too much Fearless authenticity most people are so frightened and so trapped in their bodies and in their minds and in their memories that they're just not they don't know how to be authentic they don't know how to be free and freedom is frightening people that don't know what it is and don't how to embrace it so to live a to live a to live a conscious life to live a liberated life in a world where few people are actually very conscious requires an enormous degree of commitment determination audacity and uh abandon because when you really begin to wake up you realize at a certain point there's no way back there there's there's no when you begin to wake up at a certain point you realize there's no re there's no need to pretend anymore because you who you pretending for who you trying to impress because when you real when you real when you become conscious of Consciousness you realize the nature of the god principle is your own self then ultimately the only person you need to you need to be impress is your is your own self because you are the thing itself in fact everybody knows that at least they think they know it see we don't want to have to live to please other people we want to live to please our own true self which knows the truth and embodies the truth and expresses the truth and demonstrates it and the way that we do that is by letting go of everything that's false and anything that's less than everything when you let go of everything that's l in everything you begin to feel the power of that authenticity that the power of Truth consciousness start surging vibrating in your nervous system you start feeling very courageous that's what scares people to death is the vibration of authenticity Fearless vibration of authenticity but as people are afraid of it they're also attracted to it those people can feel the power of the power of the vibration of the freedom of line awareness people feel it and they're attracted to it like Beast to honey while they're simultaneously afraid of it so ordinarily the question of how to live a spiritual life in a Godless culture would be how can we come up with the appropriate rituals and uh ceremonies that would be culturally acceptable in a postpost modern culture and all that kind of thing and I think that's a reasonable conversation to have but it's kind of superficial at a certain point because the only thing that's not superficial in the end is the is is is the actual Awakening of Consciousness itself in its own in its own perfect expression and the only thing that's going to transform culture in the end is is the awaken Consciousness itself and all of the greatest realizers throughout history always if they were they were really deeply realized most of them found themselves inspired to create a cultural revolution based upon the miraculous discoveries they made in the context of their own Awakening they're say oh when the world be wonderful of everyone when the world be wonderful very go is enlightened like me it's funny but it's that it's true these are for people who really gone all the way off the deep end that's kind of how it go that's kind of how it works if you discovered the ultimate secret to happiness and to meaning and the recognition of the inherent Perfection that we can discover deeply within ourselves if you if you made that Discovery you want to shout at the roof you want to shout in the at the rooftops you want everybody to know about it because it's the answer to every question it's the answer with every prayer and nobody knows about it nobody believes in it it's a miracle and a mystery and it always has been and always will be we can't really understand that we can just realize it if you realize it as you realize the thing awakens to itself within you and you become you become one with it and then you live your life and other people will feel it so so to get back to the question that I brought up before I wanted everybody to wonder if think to yourselves how would your life how would your life look or in what ways might your life be different than it is now if you were no longer making any distinction between what would what you consider to be spiritual versus not being spiritual what if you were not living this kind of Duality anymore and and think about it very practically one's relationship to real things like I said you know to every as every all the all the important and challenging aspects of Being Human