Radical Awakening: A blueprint for a life beyond compromise

hello everybody nice to see you so I wanted to speak a little bit about Foundation of everything that I teach which is nonduality which is no compromise and I wanted to say at the very beginning of the talk that um I've been convinced since I started teaching in 1986 that um putting Liberation putting your own desire for Liberation for enlightenment first and foremost on your agenda is going to make your eventual Awakening your eventual Liberation inevitable this is what I believe to be true I can't guarantee that it is true and I can't prove it to you but it's my deepest conviction that it's actually true because I noticed that uh for a lot of people the conviction in self and the conviction in spirit the experience of the conviction in oneself and the experience of the conviction in spirit which means I have what it takes to do this I really do and also spirit is actually available for me this kind of conviction in most people doesn't last very long sometimes it lasts for a few minutes a few hours a few days a few weeks for some people longer so it's my belief I can't prove this is but the reason why more people fail than succeed is because they give up on themselves they give up on Spirit also even without even knowing it this is one of those Endeavors in life like anything else that's hard and difficult and ultimately challenging one has to really give oneself to it wholeheartedly I used to want to be a jazz musician and um I know that some of the greatest musicians that I spoken to talk how hard how hard it was to become a good musician how daunting the living the Jazz life actually is or was and they would say things like if you really want to do this you have to have no plan B which I found very intriguing he said if you really want to do this you have to have no plan B and with Enlightenment which is one of of the most challenging goals I think that actually exists I believe this is my personal belief that if you want to succeed you want to attain in LED awareness with some degree of stabilization then you have to really have no plan B it has to be a kind of do or die attitude orientation and it's that do or di attitude or orientation which as I was saying for most people doesn't last so long a lot of people feel Inspire inspired inspired in other words they feel like I was saying that they suddenly realize that they can do it that that that they have the capacity to awaken that they believe in themselves that they can do this which is a big deal and uh believe in fact that Spirit whatever spirit is is available is near is near at hand so we need to approach this in such a way which we feel in other words I I think that in order to sustain this kind of intimate relationship with the potential for our own Liberation we have to be very one-pointed about it and that's why I've always been considered to be a very radical character very radical or extreme teacher principally because of this belief that I've had all along and if you want this and if you're serious serious about wanting to be free Earthly free spiritually awakened spiritually enlightened person to awaken to the depth of spiritual awakened Consciousness that you have to really want it badly it's not something that can be a hobby that's just doesn't work that way in Trad most of us come from postmodern cultural context but in traditional societies this was understood and that was what those those who are most serious would usually leave popular culture ordinary culture and enter into a spiritual culture enter enter into a monastery or go to Temple Leave the World Behind and go seek for a teacher let the world go to hell let the world and everyone in go to hell and just devote oneself to the goal at hand so there's an absoluteness to this to this endeavor there's an absoluteness of solitariness what has to become a stoic in a sense a degree of stoicism in the clarity of One's Own intention to succeed in this the one has to embrace one has to be very Resolute about it I think this I think if we can do this half to about is one I know in my own case I I definitely had no plan B from when I was 22 years old I'm 69 now when I was 22 I had no plan B so I had no other plan I had no I had no other plans except to get enlightened and uh once I made the transition from from being an ordinary person to someone who was taking light seriously I realized how alone I was I didn't meet very many people who wanted as badly as I did or or who took their own potential for Liberation seriously as I was taking so even though this is a big theme in my teaching I know always when I teach I just wanted to focus a little bit on this tonight and I want all of you to consider that in the end this is really up to you how badly you want it I don't think God has favorites I don't think they are merely lucky ones and unlucky ones there are those who for whatever karmic reasons are more Resolute wanted more badly than others but I don't think God has favorites so in a sense we could say looking at this from a certain perspective the outcome of your own spiritual aspirations the ultimate outcome of your own spiritual aspirations is not dependent upon what Spirit or what God wants but dependent upon you not bad you want this and um I would lovingly encourage all of you to take this simple point which I often bring up very seriously to look at yourself in this endeavor to look at the degree of your own earnestness the degree of your own sincerity or or lack of it where do you really stand in relationships your own potential for Liberation how seriously do you do you take yourself how much do you believe in yourself how much you believe that this is possible for you when people believe in themselves and they believe that when they're inspired and they as a result of the inspiration feel the presence of spirits that it's miraculous nature near at hand that individual is inevitably spiritually turned on they're excited they're awake to the imminence of the possible it's always very uplifting and spiritually rewarding to be around someone who's turned on to their own potential for liberation and feels it feels feels connected to their own potential for Liberation so that's that's when we really turned on to life turned on to life turned on to human potential turned on to the miracle that's at the heart of existence itself we we're much more in touch with it when we're more in touch with it we feel much more alive awake we don't just feel like victims of Destiny Drey victims of d Desy and circumstances and Karma not knowing who we are not knowing why we're here so this is one this is one this is one this is one very foundational aspect of the teaching I speak about it all the time I can't seem to speak about it enough I never get bored of speaking about this point which is the foundation of everything that I teach but I can't encourage every any I can't encourage you to take it more seriously I can encourage you to take it more seriously and this relates to a deeper point or a deeper issue here which has to do with the nature of spirit itself so when I met my Guru I told the story many times so forgive me if you heard it before but I met when I met my Guru I asked him how much effort did you have to make if you want to be free and he said you don't have to make any effort Andrew to be free and I didn't know what he was talking about but then after a few seconds I saw in the eye of my mind water flowing down the side of a mountain and I realized that my true nature was like water ever unobstructed I realized that my true nature was like water ever ever unobstructed and always free and in that moment I realized that unenlightened was merely a thought which meant that my true nature was inherently self- liberated all ready and this is this this was a profound profound realization and I'm sure many of you have heard other teachers spiritual Masters say that just say that Liberation or Enlightenment is our Natural State it's already there of course and of course from the perspective of uh feeling unenlightened at any particular time it's kind of hard to believe how could we already be enlightened if we don't feel like it if we feel bored and dull trapped in emotions and thoughts suffering grief and fear how could we already be enlightened so but there but what these great Reales have said about the our true nature is actually true that at the deepest level of the celf our true nature your true nature what R mahashi called the self the I am which is which is the foundation of our feeling of existence feeling of being it's the source of the feeling of eye that's deep that's deeper than any other sense of self is ever present in our experience and is always liberated and when we when we get distracted from our ego and from the fears and desires of the small self in our ego for whatever reason whether it's it's because we're meditating having a particularly powerful meditation in the mind who from the foreground into the background or we're sitting in the presence of an enlightened person for whatever reason the ego is temporarily transcended whenever the ego gets transcended our aware our awareness of the felt presence of our true self com comes from the background into the foreground we suddenly feel free feel the the lion the Limitless presence of Eternity either with great intensity or mild intensity it doesn't matter but but it's always there the wanting to be free more than anything else really has has to do with focusing our attention on the inherent nature of our true self it's already there doesn't need need to be changed in any way it just needs to be discovered realized recognized and focused upon the spiritual practice for example the practice of meditation with those people who know how to meditate simply focusing our attention on the inherently liberated the inherently already liberating nature of our true self already that that depth of meditation simp the abiding in the true self it's already liberated it's a source of your being it's very simple easy direct and natural if you know how to do it and you know what it is so what I wanted to say was that if it's true in other words a big challenge for a lot of us and for a lot of people is living around deepest insights a lot of people have glimpses into absolute reality into in the infinite depth of their true self if they don't these glimpses don't last very long then people tend to fall back into the small self and the mind of the small self and don't feel access anymore so one of the challenges of Awakening to enlightened awareness as a as as an expression of kind of mature spiritual practice is learning how to be true for our own deepest insights about the alterate nature of reality so for example when I met my Guru after 10 minutes the deliver miraculously in insight to me about the ultimate nature of my ultimately the inherently liberated nature of my true self which became tangible and obvious to me completely obvious that at the deepest level of the self I'd always be always been free and that shockingly unfreedom or unenlightenment was only a thought but unfreedom or unenlightenment was only a thought in my mind wow so one of the other things that my Guru said to me that was very impactful well he said to me Andrew some Sara ignorance Nirvana Enlightenment the one he was saying you know that you'll be free so the challenge of one of the challenges of our Enlightenment one of the challenges of our Liberation one of the challenges of our depth to spiritual attainment has to do with how consistent is our awareness of the truth of who we really are no matter what no matter what our experience appears to be how awake to the truth of the nonu or inherently liberated nature of our true self do do we remain even in the face of the egos ups and downs experiences of fear and ignorance and egotism and pain suffering desire are we able to remain unwavering in the in the depth of our thority of self- knowledge as know to the truth of who we really are even in the face of the temptation to doubt it if you've had a bad day A bad month a bad year if you've had a terrifying experience or a painful experience or a disappointing experience or shocking experience are you able to remain steady and face it egoic grief disappointment or anger or AG frustration and confusion or do we get lost in the dream which is the story of the small self once again do we get trapped there so a lot of these a lot of these breakthrough experiences we have which you reveal the ultimate truth to us and that happens we know that it happened a lot of us don't have the spiritual discipline or have not are not practicing the degree of spiritual surrender that enables us not to lose contact with these with the the this dep and Clarity at moments when we needed the most so so another expression of not compromising means that when you see when you have seen the truth not just when you see the truth when you have seen the truth when you have known the truth and you and you know that you've known it are you able to be remain true to it even when samsara or relative world is the small self time space World universe is distracting your attention seems to be obscuring your your presence this deepen n reality so if you're seeking to become an enlightened person someone who stabilizing your access to enlightened awareness you also have to be you have to be sto you have to be sto you have to be one pointed and you have to at a certain point decide is your Allegiance going to be to the fears and desires of your small self or to your culture condition small cell or will it be to the Deep a non-u dimension of reality that is always inherently free and inherently liberated and this takes not just spontaneous awareness it also takes spiritual self-discipline surrender trust Faith surrender trust in faith surrender trust in faith never to doubt what you already know to be true even in the face of fear and difficult emotions my Guru told me the only difference between Enlightenment and unenlightenment is doubt it took me a long time to really understand what he meant so these deeper experiences can show us the truth but if these deeper experience expences are going to liberate us we have to know how to be true to the truth that we realize and that takes a lot of Courage we true to the truth in the face of the alter human temptation to doubt well the reason why a lot of people who have high high and deep experiences fall down from those experiences it's because they haven't had the courage to resist the temptation to doubt the true test of our Awakening or the test of our Enlightenment is when we tempted to doubt and we we resist we refuse and we remain utterly wetted to and attached to serener to our Le deeper knowledge of reality that we've had in our deepest moments so if we want to look at the context the meaning of not compromising in this context it means these two things I'm trying to clarify which is the intention for Liberation but the intention for Liberation at least in the way that I teach it I believe this is my personal conviction must eventually become radical and one pointed um of consuming and in addition to that we need to be able to not compromise our own deepest insights about the ultimate nature of the real it takes a lot of courage and a lot of commitment and the thing is if you do this the right way if if you give if you have no Plan B if you have no plan B then you give yourself another option but to surrender nality means not to it's nity which means not to is interpreted in many different ways by different teachers different Traditions but this context in which I'm speaking about it now not to means we always only have one option that's how I understand this meaning of not two for the for the relative context of being a human who believes they actually have choices it means I don't have any choice anymore I only have one option because I surrendered already to the absolute to the truth of who I really always am the Army V the vicisitudes and the confusion of the mind and ego because I've already said not my will but thy will be done once and for all and forever I don't have a choice anymore and yours do with me what you will and at that point it really that at this point it becomes locked in it becomes your soul begins to shift now you become a realizer because your soul now is grounded in this absolute Lor dimension of reality of Life you've become the real thing because you have Step Beyond the small self who with the small self into the deepest part of yourself which is now where become your new home so now yourself is grounded in that which is absolute now you're on safe ground that's what the Buddha meant by reaching the Yonder Shore but for that to happen you have to really want it and you have to be finished at least this is my belief this is my understanding yeah what youone has to be finished with any other possibility in life you still believe that you can find deep and so liberating happiness somewhere else in your own true self we'll never make it you have to have no doubt that there's only one way that this could work which seemans going all the way that's that this is this is the radical nature of my approach to this it's not my radical approach to this is not original by any any Str imagination but it is rare in the world today this is why when I'm teaching meditation on Saturdays I'm always using the metaphor of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute so the intention has to be I want to go home my true self and I never want to return back back to some sorrow the world of ignorance and pain and fear and delusion which when you get trapped there you can be trapped there for lifetimes or eternity when you when you really begin to wake up the level of Consciousness these kinds of words come alive you you can feel their their tangible with the truthfulness that they're speaking from because you realize it in an instant and can fall back into the into into delusion into the world of time in history The Narrative of the small self lose touch with the presence of the infinite which is where we always find Liberation moment once we lose touch we start believing again in in our in our delusion in our deluded thinking our DED beliefs the delusion of the Mind very difficult to get back to where we were it's so easy to wake up and so so so hard to sorry so it's easy to wake up and it's much harder to stay a away for these reasons so these two issues that I'm circling around this evening is the cultivation of an attitude of no compromise which is very challenging for most people which is very challenging which is very challenging because most people come to the spiritual life already karmically deeply entrenched in all kinds of circumstances and obligations responsibilities so wanting to be free wanting to be free more than anything else when you're a very busy person with all kinds of obligations and responsibilities is a bit of a tall M but it is what it is I didn't make up to rules I just discovered them did you remember the idea here to the idea here relationship to the freedom we speaking about is it's not just an experience of inner freedom and a level of feeling and knowing but it's it's most importantly is to discover of a completely different context for for for existence it's the discovery of a living vibrating tangible liberated liberated liberated context for your existence it's it's a discovery completely different world space the world space this the new world space is the different context and you can't bring some sorrow with you in a suitcase and what makes Nirvana such an extraordinary and miraculous Indescribable Heaven realm is because you can't take samsara there you can't take your samsar suitcase with you to abide in Nirvana with any kind of consistency it requires that we leave some SAR behind and I know this sounds very absolute and it is and I didn't make up to rules I just discovered them real doing this for real or the real thing is very radical it's very it always has been that's not a new idea a Awakening to the radical nature of Awakening to Spirit on un uncompromised it's not a new idea but because most of us come from a cultural context cultural environment that's so so saric that's so materialistic that's so uninformed by these deeper dimensions of reality that what I'm saying sounds crazy I realize to our unliberated small s saying it does sound crazy but from my point of view for what it's worth resisting the absolute truth on its own terms is even more crazy so you see there's a predicament we have to deal with which is the difference between Enlightenment and unenlightenment between truth and falsehood between Clarity and ignorance between Liberation and bondage it is what it is it's an absolute dilemma when you look at it on its own terms and it makes the ego very uncomfortable the ego starts feeling like it's very like it's getting suffocated which by the way is the whole idea and if you want to be free more than anything else you want Liberation on its own terms suffocating the ego now and then is not a bad idea when I met my Guru I my my experience was so intense on the level of pure feeling and knowing I I felt that I was either going to die I was going to become liberated what was happening was so powerful so overwhelming so all-encompassing either I was going to I was not I knew I was not going to survive but that meant I was going to die I was going to come liberated I wasn't sure but this the spiritual the spiritual path lived in earnest it's not without risk so to repeat the two dimensions of all this that I I want to remind you of that I always speak about that are necessary in order to succeed is to if you want if you're willing to to embrace an attitude of no compromise as much as possible in your relationship to your own potential for Liberation in this life number one number two your fundamental spiritual practice should be compelling yourself to live up to your deepest realization whether whether the realization is apparent to you or not you even even if you're working for memory it doesn't matter you want to live up to what you realize the ultimate truth to be in your own deepest experiences of the truth because when you see the truth when you awaken to the truth the absolute truth and you know it when you lose touch with the vision then you have to make the effort to be true to what you knew to be true even if it doesn't feel available to you whether whether it's available to you at the level of feeling and knowing doesn't matter what's important is that you've seen it once you've seen it then you know it if you know it then you have to then the ideas you have to act like you know and the way you act like you know it is by living up to it and that's the hard part having experiences is easy living up to these to what we realize these experiences is something El all together that's what separates the men from the boys or the women from the girls some of us are deadly serious about this some of us are not that serious yet but when you're very serious about this you realize when you get into it there is a life and death quality but own potential for emancipation that we begin to feel vibrating in our soul we realize this is a life and death matter which has to do with the evolution of the soul and if I don't take it seriously I'm going to die into the same the same level which I've Liv my life that would be the tragedy is seeing the truth and knowing the truth directly and then it's a matter of living up to it seeing the truth and feeling the truth directly is easy doesn't take any effort when it happens living up to it in the midst of all of our ignorance and confusion ambivalence and doubt and inertia and something us all together you know these days we hear about some there's some people who are very infatuated with the path to Liberation pursued with psychedelic drugs some people have taken some of these extraordinary substances they take them over and over and over and over and over then why you doing that if in the first few times you haven't seen what you need to see you should you should leave it if you've seen what you need to see then you have to live up to it just pursuing more Visions will not Liber will not liberate you just make your soul weak once we once we've seen what we need to see once the vision has been revealed to us then we have to begin doing the hard work of which is living up to it living up to the reality of the Unseen materialistic World takes a lot of courage and audacity so when the master said to me know he when the master revealed to me that un Enlightenment was only a thought I recognized the truth of it but I didn't even understand it with my mind I saw I saw it being as being absolutely true because of the State of Consciousness that I was in in his presence it took me a while to understand the intellectually what it actually meant and I've spent the last almost 40 years doing my best to live up to what that means sometimes succeeding sometimes failing but all never giving up never giving up never giving up never giving up never giv never doubting never giving and if you can do that if you can never doubt and never give up and never doubt and never give up and never doubt never give up never doubt and never give up and always mean into the very edge of your own potential the revelation will never be far away it'll always it'll always reawakened maybe even more brightly than it did before you can tell someone's in line when they speak about their own Consciousness most time really speaking about the present moment because the truth of enlightened awareness doesn't live in in time doesn't therefore it doesn't live in the past it could only exist in the Eternal bre and that's what we never want to lose access to but in order not to lose access we have to embrace more and more of an uncompromising attitude intention and relationship to life remember this relative values and absolute values the individual ego and the cultur conditioned ego are usually wrapped up in relative values but your true self and what I call the authentic self are inspired by absolute values vibrate with absolute values so it's a different a different world that's we need that's why we need to stay busy with this all of our heart so we don't lose touch with the absolute nature of all this waste more time in delusion and ignorance and and enlightened even though unenlightened is omotic it's a pretty it can be a incredibly powerful obscuring thought obscuring of the true self so when you really wake up and you stay awake you never doubt your you'll never doubt your Enlightenment no matter what your experience appears to be no matter what your experience appears to be as you know that a cloudy sky or a rocky sea can not obscure The Depths lay underneath it of the sun is the sun is always Shining that's why we have to remain steady and unwavering and absolutely committed and uncompromising and if you're if you Embrace an uncompromising relationship to your own Liberation into life itself your life will look like a spiritual life powerfully expressed if you Embrace a uncompromising attitude and uncompromising position relationship to Life The Human Experience in your own life in your own Human Experience in relationships to the choices you make and the actions you take it'll become obvious that you're not an ordinary person anymore because you're living according to different rules than everyone else you're not a slave to the individual Collective mind anymore it's Spirit itself to which you have to which you've surrendered you surrender to an absolute spiritual power it's the source of your Liberation and your spiritual self-confidence so when you stop compromising your life will change automatically everybody's going to know it you begin to Liv you're living now according to different rules rules and regulations different values different aspirations you won't fit in anymore you won't fit in anymore you might lose a few friends you might get gain some new ones also if you stop compromising you become like a Vortex you become like a Vortex or a magnet you stop moving here there everywhere but now you come still de within anyway I think I shared everything that I intended to share with all of you tonight or at least this tonight where I am a life of no compromise can take you all the way home this is sure embracing the truth that that niran and samsar one and not two takes time because this truth is not so obvious something I realized very powerfully about a month ago when I was teaching you with all of you is that something I've realized before is that in the end all this Enlightenment business is only about becoming more human more fully human in the end that's all all we're trying to do here is to become more fully completely human in the most beautiful sense of what that means we have so far to go to order to do that and so a lot of this these esoteric Dharma teachings like a life of no compromise and learning how to embrace the significance of non-duality in the context of our flawed Humanity in the end will only enable us to become more fully human to become more fully and beautifully human to realize our full potential as evolving souls in this place including the deepest dimension of reality in our evolving Humanity so now we become a awakened human who's conscious of the interior dimension of reality and the source of existence itself it's all it's about so it sounds very esoteric a lot of these teachings but in the end it's always about how can I how can I how can we become more fully human or most fully human in all the most beautiful ways of could meaning that's really what this is all about it's possible for all of us to become very beautiful but in order for that to happen in a transcendental context you have to make a great sacrifice and that sacrifice is the delusion of the small self of the separate self and it probably has been lifetimes and lifetimes and lifetimes of pain and suffering ignorance and delusion and attachment in karma got let it all go in order to become truly beautiful we have to let it all go in order to become truly beautiful we have to let it all go in the small self is of raid such a leap but a sign of spiritual a sign of your own emerging spiritual maturity is that as you may be afraid you become more attracted to what's possible than you are afraid of so if you feel yourself more attracted by what's possible than you are afraid of it it's a sign that you're doing well you're on the right track you should keep going forward I think it's I think that becoming more fully human should would be one of our greatest values it's important though because eventually we want to do this for for each other we want to do it for the universe we want to do it for the for our maker become beautiful well have so much potential okay I'm going to stop now talking take a break two minutes okay if anybody has any questions I'll be happy to try and answer any questions you have yeah um so if you have a question please write your question in the chat box and Andrew Adam is saying I always ask a question but this time I wanted to tell a quick Story related to what you said if I may a good story yeah okay I think it's a good story I heard that a Native American story it's about a guy he goes up to his Indian chief or teacher and he says you know how can I know about God and his uh Indian teach take teacher takes him to a pond of water and he dunks his head under the water and he brings it back up and the the guy he's he's gasping for breath and he does this several times and every time he brings his head above the water he keeps on um gasping for breath and then his teacher says to him when your desire for God is as great as your desire to breathe then maybe you know something about God and related to what you said I could see that in my own experience is that I have desires for other things things of this world you know I need to satisfy my physiological needs my emotional needs that is legitimate but nothing has to be nothing has to be greater I mean what's greater than all of that is my desire for God to help me to quench my thirst for him because that's ultimately what's going to set me free because nothing else of this world is going to do it but ultimately satisfying that that you know my thirst my Hunger you know for the Divine for knowing who I really am you know and until that's satisfied I'm always going to suffer I've heard that story before yeah I think heart she said that uh the true Seeker needs to want Liberation the way drowning men wants there yeah yep and the one thing I just want to mention is that didn't really resonated very strongly with me about what you said about doubt so it's like it seems like the problem is how is it that I can become enlightened but that's not the problem the problem is realizing that I am already am Enlighten so what is that is preventing me is doubt like you said in one word yeah but you can't just accept that you're already enlightened with with your with your intellect doesn't work that way yeah I know that uh the great modern realizer adid da would tell his students that um they had to give up the seeking but I don't think you and my my understanding that we can't we can only stop seeking when we find that we're looking for so even though technically I think adid wasn't wrong I don't think that's a great great that's great advice for Spiritual Seekers because the point is as Jesus says seek until you find so once you so if we seek and seek and seek and if we're truly Earnest and sincere and desperate and committed and uncompromising sooner or later we are going to see the goal we will awaken to enlightened awareness even if it's breef doesn't matter even if it only lasts for a few seconds but we're going to know that we found it or it has found us we said oh no I know I found it and I know it's found me when it happens you don't have any doubt about it so then and only I believe after we found what we looking for not as a permanent attainment necessarily but as even a glimpse how can we we can we stop seeking then can we stop seeking then most people can't so most need they need another experience because they they even though they've seen they found it and it has found them and they found what they're looking for even even it was briefly and they know it they still the ego is still doubting so they they continue the seeking process till it happens again and the second time it's a confirmation of what what they already realized what they already knew was true so is the second time is that enough do they need more so usually most people it's not enough because they fall back into their unenlightened or apparently what we say apparently UNL mind once again fall back into the Trap of believing that the N that not already there so in alignment with what I was saying in my talk I just to follow up on your question to repeat I don't think we can stop seeking or should stop seeking until we actually have found what we're looking for only then I believe can we authentic begin the spiritual practice of ceasing to see because we want because if our if our Liberation is going to be is going to be profound and stable it has to be based upon a direct direct cognizance of the infinite nature of Consciousness a direct Glimpse or awaken to enlightened awareness itself that that's when you know that you know that means you know that you know you know that you know you you in the knowing there there there's a realization of the Eternal nature of this kind of know it's it's it's it's a brief vision of the totality of everything that exists and everything doesn't exist seeing everything and once you know it then you then then you can say okay now do I do I believe that I've seen this the person says yes and say then why don't you let go and that's that's when that's when they're and that's when they see the the quandry that they're in predicament is that the ego doesn't want to let go because ego doesn't want to give up control of the vehicle the body mind and the personality is the vehicle ego doesn't want to give up control doesn't want to give up dominion over the body mind and personality e wants power it doesn't want to die so then then the individual has to work that out to which they usually have to seek the guidance of somebody who's who's has has done these things and help them but um seek seek until you find when you find then expect yourself to do another Noble thing which is to let go of the ego and let go let go this the seeking because you see if if the ego is going to let go of the seeking has let go of the whole game that it's playing all the time which which is that there's a pro fundamental problem that has to be solved if you give up to seeking there's no fun fundamental problem has to be solved anymore the ego finds that unbearable because because it doesn't exist in that growth space it's gone it's disappeared it wants it wants to be center of your attention all the time wants to exist doesn't want to die so seek until you find and I think this is a very good teaching because in this in the teaching of seek until you find want I'm not not asking anybody to give up their ignorance until they've seen through it but on once someone has seen through their ignorance and and they can they can tell you exactly how they saw through it and what the difference between truth and falsehood is they can express it in their own terms then they have to be respon will they be responsible for what they've seen but most people will not will choose not to be responsible anyway that's when you start finding how crazy we we really are because they don't want to give up at least at that point it's their own refusal it's not because they can't do it that's the tragedy of the of the small self and its unbelievable powers of persuasion over the weak-minded people so seek until you find once you found are you are we ready to take responsibility for what we found in all our imperfection yes or no yes most people want this to be easy instead of realizing that this this is not easy even if it's easy sometimes this is something we all have to fight for or most of us have to fight for anyway but if you're willing to fight for it with all of your heart because you've given yourself no other choice then this this higher state will become will become a a constant friend be available to you but if you're not willing to fight for it the state will disappear and you won't know what's up or down anymore then if all becomes then all becomes a story of the story becomes a story about the small self not about Enlightenment comes a story about the small self and it struggles which is a pretty boring story in the end the enlightenment story is always exciting thrilling and ever new ever new thrilling always like the first time always profound miraculous liberating and glorious the eag story is none of those things so seek until you find brother thank you very much and then when you find it's not going to be a free ride this if if God exists then he or she's going to be watching you is he ready to let go now or does he need more or will he insist that I give him more we say will you say yes no I've seen you I I'm utterly grateful you've show shown your true self to me I'm utterly convinced of who you you are and I say say I give my life to you and you alone not my will but thy will be done and if that happens in a Cate whatever happens after that doesn't really even matter it's the work is done it's not even in your hands anymore after that that initial step it's the only choice is mine excuse me I'm sorry I'm just saying the initial Stu saying the only choice is mine I I'm the one has to make that choice yeah absolutely but I absolutely but I I what I try and encourage people to do even though they don't do it is to uh be resol to try to be Resolute about this with themselves say I need to do this I want to do this I want to do it now I don't know what this is going to bring I'm ready I'm going to find out I'm going to ready going to make sacrifices when I let go of my mind in order to take the big leap into the unknown I'm willing to trust my Guru called that friend we can never see just another quick question just came in when you were saying that is that at the same time you know I have to do that but at the same time if I can't do that I want to be okay with that so I have to let go and be okay with letting go but when I can't let go I want to have self-compassion and saying well that's okay too well it's okay to be hard on ourselves once in a while yeah once in a while not every day but the point is uh Adam the point is that you if you do approach this with the kind of sincerity that I'm speaking about these glimpses will visit will visit you and they will be so intoxicating and so inspired inspiring that you will begin to believe in your own capacity to actually succeed in doing this even if it lasts for one second that's more than enough one second one second of Eternity is infinite is it not huh yes yeah so one second of Eternity is enough to subdue the ignorance of the ego yeah it's for ever so you this kind of thing starts happening you'll start believing in God more than you believe in yourself small self and that'll give you then that'll give you what I call spiritual self-confidence when you have spiritual self-confidence you start believing in your own in your own capacity to be an enlightened person start taking yourself seriously Enlightenment doesn't just doesn't really exist it doesn't only exist in statues of dead people live thousands of years ago it also it's a living vibration in in conscious in Consciousness now it's available it's here we just have to make ourselves available for it how does that sound that says it all for me thank you utterly reasonable utterly unre utterly reasonable in all its unreasonableness right exactly that's the beauty of it yeah it's utterly reasonable and it in it's utter unreasonable right yeah makes total sense to me cool thank you so the next one is Mor comment from promote he's saying dear randu thank you for the beautiful experiential teaching today it felt like being on an inner Journey along the talk the message of how pursuing Enlightenment was a journey to becoming more human was both relieving somehow I don't know why and naturally attracting to become more I don't have any question but I am sharing this to express my gratitude for these teachings and direction at all times thank you that's very sweet and um the realization that in the end is about more fully human I find very important it brings it back home and shows how it reveals to us that there is this enormous hidden potential in all us to become more fully human infinitely more fully human infinitely more fully human ways that really matter for all of us so it's a it's it's an important realization brings it back down to earth it brings Enlightenment back down to because often when we speak about Enlightenment we'd like to speak about transcendental dimensions of reality which is a big part of all this but in the end if you realize this is really about becoming more fully human liberating our capacity to become more fully human brings it back to Earth in a way that's very visceral and very um temporal and very immediate and very important anyway thank you thank and then there is a question from Patricia she is saying so maybe seeking does not equal fighting and when we realize that we are there fighting seems to break the flow fighting or fighting fighting can you read it again then please so maybe seeking does not equal fighting and when we realize that we are there fighting seems to break the flow well a big part of seeking f is fighting the ego right yeah I mean I've been fighting the ego for decades and um sometimes it's successful and I've actually realized my way through it and other times my fighting has me doing intellectual acts of I know this is what I need to do in order to be at point B so I'm going to do it but I don't have the comprehensions that it takes to actually move to point B internally so the fighting seems to bring with it like a like a lack of flow whereas when when we're seeking with the sincerity of our heart in that um in that uh beautiful surrendered way you don't fall into this it's the F the fighting like I see myself as somebody with a great deal of Courage but that courage has gotten me into some binds that maybe there all correct in the end but they have been tremendously difficult to live through and [Music] um yeah I you know I don't know I just kind of feel like fighting is maybe something that that has us picking up a sword when we're not able to wield that sword or something you know what I mean yeah maybe it's not the right thing then yeah sure I'm sorry my hearing is so bad I didn't understand your sentence sometimes no as I listened to you I agree with you fighting is not always the right thing to do yeah I mean with the in with the enlightenment practice usually the um usually involves letting go more than fighting yeah yeah and if we're serious we we will let go when the time is DED I found in the last um year that my dependence on the statement you know thy will be done kind of coupled with lead me not into temptation are you know those two statements seem to be the ones that are keeping me in the right mindset of of the seeking that uh that are keeping it more pure than it has been in the past you there statements of trust and surrounding now right trust and surrender right exactly exactly so there so there's two there's two ways to respond to the call of the spirit one is trust and surrender as you as we're discussing the other is responding through some kind of affirmative action so our our so our response to our own realizations our own insights will should be either trust and surrender which is Letting Go or performing some action if it takes us to make that it compels us to to stay to take a step forward in the end the response to the realization is either going to be trust and surrender or some kind of deliberate activity action that will compuls to take a step forward depending on the depending on whatever it is that's funny did you just make that an or situation where it's either trust or Surrender or affirmative action yes yes yeah sometimes trust and surrender means doing nothing but letting go with the affirmative action means actually doing getting up and doing something specific in order to respond to the call of the [Music] spirit yeah it's interesting because the bind I find myself in is that um my wish to take that courageous affirmative action um sometimes pushes me off a LGE that I I need to be perched on longer like truly trust and surrender before the action and um and I'm not truly at the trust and surrender stage so that the action becomes false well it may or may not be true but as I'm listening to you and also to Adam you there's there's a there's a similar tendency which a lot of people have which is at a certain point of our own inner development how our ego happens to feel about anything at a certain point has to cease to be primary importance we don't we don't we we want to get to the point where we're not judging how we're doing or what's happening but how our ego feels about it for example Patricia sometimes doing the wrong thing the wrong sometimes doing the wrong thing feels very good doesn't it sometimes doing terrible things can feel very good and sometimes doing the right things whatever that maybe can feel terrible so therefore when we're talking about Dharma and non-duality in order to in order to keep our eye on the prize stay focused on the the destination we have to learn how to begin to dis dis disidentify with with the ego's feelings be let concerned with how the ego's feelings even if the ego's feeling very precious or sensitive or vulnerable in terms of the the our true self that's a matter we want to begin to have our attent learn we want to learn to focus our attention at a deeper and higher dire space within ourselves deeper and higher than the ego's feelings and thoughts about anything that that would make help us to become very strong courageous spiritual Warriors but a lot of us have learned this habit of conly say how how does my ego feel now how does my ego feel how does my ego feel now does it feel good does it feel bad does it feel frightened does it feel trusting if if this is about Enlightenment and not about Psychotherapy then how the ego feels doesn't matter and then when you realize that there's a deeper part of yourself that's free from your ego you'll realize that it actually is true with Andrew was saying it doesn't matter what the ego feels it really doesn't matter you'll realize it in yourself because you feel the this the inherent spiritual strength and liberated passion in your true self in your authentic self you you feel it you feel you awaken to it you realize how your ego feels doesn't really make any difference that's when that's when you begin to feel your into your own potential to be a liberated Soul a liberated human being you realize there's a whole different dimension of self inside yourself and it's free from ego literally and you realize oh I see it doesn't matter how the ego [Music] feels remember Patricia the ego never was interested in Enlightenment in the first place makes sense yeah it makes perfect sense um yeah and Enlightenment as you know a form of psychotherapy I I hear what you're saying with that and and still uh it's like we do have to battle through our personality and and what our what our emotions are saying to us and all of that in spite of the fact that there is a higher perspective to look at it from that's well very well said very articulate but I'm sure even though I don't know you very at all I'm sure you've already done that haven't you I guess so I guess so uh well we did we did meet in India many many years ago 2000 where was that rishikesh oh cool did you come to my retreat yeah I went to a retreat of yours and uh it was profound and and it sparked my most profound um experience ever I'm sorry my battery is low and I don't feel like cutting out right at a key point of this conversation so I'm walking to the uh uh so yeah so we did we did meet and it sparked one of those gold card moments um uh that that showed me the truth of Oneness and um and I was for you know the three seconds or two seconds who knows how long it lasted I was like fully aware of all truths I knew knew I had the answers to all the questions I had access to everything just for that Split Second and so that that was sparked maybe a month after the retreat while I was walking home from work and was being um attacked by somebody actually and so it was a profound experience that came from shock a conscious shock and um and since then I've know I've understood that the truth is so much different than what we're living in the regular space you know our regular mindset or our regular heart set you know so I just been striving for that ever since and you know working to comprehend ever since what um how to how to bring myself back into that experience as a permanent State um which of course has been highly elusive uh so I just wanted to say that I mean the and and I'm I'm grateful for your consistency in your teaching and and all of that um very often I I find myself um taking the the teaching of being courageous in the wrong energy and and and like almost bludgeoning myself over the head with my own courage you know what I mean so have I seen you since then yeah yeah I've been to many Retreats well come again we have another one this winter in South India you should come H we did you know we have a C in South India oh you just cut out we have a center here in South India did you know that no I know you've been teaching out of India for a couple of years because I tune into the um meditations and talks uh but I haven't really um opted to follow a go Guru because I feel that the um the inner Guru or the being is the one whose will needs to be done and um that I I keep trying to put my ear on that railroad track most importantly you know and um yeah but I mean I've been a gnostic missionary in the interim and all of that so it's it's been a it's been a journey I haven't been uh laying around eating bon bons all right patri well thank you it's been lovely to hear from you yeah thank you I have one more okay question here from Ananda yes my sense is that great spirit sometimes reveals to us things from our past to see and address and without addressing them fully we will continue to be bound by the same compulsions of the past even if the compulsions were from kindness and heartbreak and then we attract the same heartbreak over and over until the feeling body can resolv the overwhelming pain that led to tragedy this is not about Bad Karma as much as it is about momentum of energy and unresolved relationships what is the evolutionary Enlightenment response to this makes sense makes sense and uh in the end all of these issues are resolved through letting go in the end so what you're saying makes sense but remember that in the end it's all inter intentions Liberation from karma is is result to letting go in the present moment at a very deep level so so from the in from the perspective of the Dharma there's nothing that we need to do we just have to let go if that's and if we can let go at a profound level that will liberate us even if the momentum of the karma is still present will still be liberated in the midst of it that takes some kind of heroic determination and heroic courage and audacious spiritual aspiration but if we're sincere enough based on everything that I've been saying tonight we can do it because we want us we want to stop looking at the past for excuses for we can't do anything particular in the present moment if we're if we're aspiring for Liberation so you speak of a a full letting go um so my felt emotional experience of this was that the original problem happened from like kind of a shattering of too much letting go and the physical body couldn't handle it um and so the compulsion and the momentum and the recreation of the experience keeps happening um well if it keeps happening it means you're doing something to make it keep happen and maybe it's the letting go that's making it keep happening because the way the Letting Go was happening was not daric maybe it I need to find a different kind of letting go that could be true but it's possible to be free in this lifetime who sincere about it if we're committed yeah it's very possible yeah I mean I had like a a week or two ago this experience that it was very strong um that my Liberation was tied to this but like you were saying that line of death and Liberation is very slim um like it could go either way the title of my second book is called Freedom has no history so um you know my I think I probably read that in the 90s but um my it's a good book um yeah I mean if great spirit brings something into awareness in the present moment and things are poignant and real in the present moment then then that's the moment and if there's no time then everything that's ever existed that's real is present here now in some level of depth and so addressing things things directly is possible if everyone is willing it's all true but letting go is a secret secret juice very good thank you everybody thank you very much I very much have enjoyed being with you all tonight here sending you all much love