An Absolute Relationship to Life

The Psychology of Liberation An Absolute Relationship to Life What Is the Ultimate Truth? An Absolute Relationship to Life k3piritual experiences, as profound as they may be, usually do not in and of themselves lastingly enlighten, nor do they, in most cases, deeply transform our relationship to the three fundamental yet most confusing aspects of the human expe- rience: the movement of time, the arising of thought and the presenceof feeling It is our alwavs conditioned and deeply compulsive relationship to these three fundamental components of our^perience that creates the painful prison of illusion rh;^r 1^ pgn If we want to liberate ourselves from the almost unending experience of isolation and separation that this illusion creates, it is essential to begin the one-pointed contemplation of our relationship to the movement of time, the arising of thought and the presence of feeling. This contemplation, when embarked upon with sincerity and commitment, can ultimately bring us to a profound understanding of what

call an absolute relationship to life—which is what the An Absolute Relationship to Life enlightened relationship to time, thought and feeling actu- ally is. Without an absolute relationship to Ufe, there can never be any final victory over the overwhelming power that the ego has to ensnare us in illusion and falsehood. time The first component of an absolute relationship to life is our relationship to time and the movement of time. Most of us spend our entire lives trapped—trapped and suffocating in a kind of limbo—trapped because, without even knowing it, we are alM/ays waiting. And that waiting is an experience of almost unbroken tyranny. We are trapped by the movement of time because we live in a constant state of anticipation waiting, endlessly waiting, for the future to arrive. We live in this way because we believe that in the ftiture our lives will somehow be better than thev are now. When our relationship to Ufe is based upon waiting, it's not possible for us to know what it's like to be truly alive because no matter what we may experience in the present moment, we will continue to wait. We won't stop waiting even when we are truly happy because, without realizing it, we v^ll already be anticipating its demise. And in the very_ same way, when we experience fear and insecurity, we will Embracing Heaven & Earth also be waiting—waiting for that unpleasant experience to come to an end. You see, on the most fundamental level we are always holding ourselves back. Because of this, we are unwilling to truly fflve, unable to trust and rarely ready to wholeheartedly engage with life. Indeed, if we look deeply, all we will see is waiting—waiting for things to change, waiting to let go. Waiting is the never-ending meantime in which our entire lives unfold^ But there is a way out. And that way out is an absolute relationship to time. An absolute relationship to time is one in which we have stopped waitin^^ If we truly want to be free, simply through the sincere contemplation of what an absolute relationship to time means, we can liberate ourselves from the prison of waiting that we have chosen to live in. You see, in this contemplation, it soon will become clear that there is nothing to. wait for_In fact, what will eventually reveal itself is the profound recognition that there is only one moment—and this moment^now always is and could orilyever be that one moment. Indeed, when we discover this for ourselves, we will know without any doubt that there never has been anything to wait for—including even the experience of recognizing that there was nothing to wait for! When we see this clearly, we simply stop waiting. And when we stop waiting, everything chang£S.._ An absobitp rplationship to timp is one in which we have An Absolute Relationship to Life stopped waiting absolutely for anything more to occur in order to fully he. thought The second component of an absolute relationship to life is our relationship to thought and the arising of thought. If we want to be free, it is essential that we begin to ques- tion the fundamental beliefs that our relationship to thought is based on. As we will eventually realize for ourselves, our potential for Liberation is, in the end, entirely dependent on the kind of relationship that we have with thought. jrhe primary conviction that ignorance or unenlighten- ment is based on is the unquestioned assumption that thought is self. Indeed, for those of us lost in ignorance, it is in thought and the arising of thought that we experience the most intimate sense of who we are. But as all true seekers will discover, the fundamental mistake that we endlessly make is assuming that the content of thought has inherent reality, meaningand significance. If we sincerely aspire to be liberated from the tyranny of ego, from the nightmarish existence of the separate sense of self, then that liberation rests on the explosive recognition that thought is not self, that thought is only^ Embracing Heaven & Earth thought._This discovery—that thought has no inherent signihcance except that which we chooseio^ve it—is the essential insight on which hberation from ignorance and unenhghtenment depends. Like pictures in a photo album, when seen objectively, thoughts in and of themselves are recognized as being noth- ing more than abstract representations of historical events. Ceasing to make the pivotal error of believing thought to be inherently real instantly reveals the truth—that who we are always has been free from and prior to the awareness of thought. This profound discovery is the birth of a radical awakening from the endless dream of ignorance and unen- hghtenment that so much of human life is an expression of. Lost in and helplessly distracted by thought and the arising of thought, most of us spend our entire lives alien- ated from our own depths and, as a result, often experience a puzzling sense of separation from the world in which we live. It's important to understand that unrecognized compul- sive and mechanical identification with thought leaves no room in our awareness for anything other than thought. And it is the unquestioned assumption that thought is self that creates the seamless continuity of a painful illusion, which for too many of us, literally defines the very life that we live. In the sincere quest for emancipation from that which is unreal, sooner or later thought will be revealed to be what^ it is—utterly empty of any inherentsignificance. ^ An Absolute Relationship to Life An absolute relationship to thought is one in which the understanding that thought is not self is never forgotten. feeling The third component of an absolute relationship to life is our relationship to the presence of feeling. In the sincere quest for Liberation, quiet introspection will reveal that the fundamental perspective that we have on the experience of being alive is almost always influenced in an essential way by how we feel. For example, whenever we experience happiness, in the form of peace, joy or bliss, under the influence of those uplifting emotions, we have confidence in the fact that being alive is a very positive thing. In that happy state, everything seems possible. But when the influence of those uplifting emotions is gone and we experience insecurity—in the form of fear, anger or despair—we can easily doubt that life is worth living. Indeed, in the presence of unpleasant feelings, it will prob- ably seem to us that the possibiUty of radical transformation is nothing but a distant fantasy ^A relationship to our emotional experience that is not absolute is one in which the fundamental perspective that we have on the experience of being alive is always changing Embracing Heaven & Earth according to the way we feel. If we want to see clearly, it is imperative that we begin to observe the relationship between our feeling states and the way that we perceive not only our inner experience but also the world around us. It will be illuminating when we discover for ourselves the degree to which ourperspective shifts in relationship to our changing ernotional states. We will find that when we experience joy, there is enormous room inside our hearts for others, but when we experience fear, there is rarely any con- cern for anyone other than our own self. It is our constant^ preoccupjLtion with the feeling dimension of our experience that often makes it difficult for us to see clearly beyond thST which is merely personal. It is also the principal cause of our inabiUty to consistently sustain a vast perspective on all of our experience. Unwittingly, we allow many of the con- ciusions that we draw about the nature of reality as a whole to be overly influenced by^the way that we h^pen to lee Indeed, if we are not paying close attention, in retrospect we will find that most of those conclusions were inaccurate. Only if we want to be free more than anything else will we know that singularity of vision that has the power to manifest an absolute relationship to the unpredictable move- ment of feelings and emotions. An absolute relationship to feeling is rooted in the desire for freedom alone. It is that one desire that enables those who are most sincere to consistently maintain a vast perspective on all of their experience. They An Absolute Relationship to Life will be the rare ones among us because they will not lose that perspective in the tumultuous sea of ever-changing emotions. jVn absolute relationship to the presence of feeling is one in which our interest in Liberation is always more important than our emotional experience. Embracing Heaven & Earth