A Straight Line to the Absolute

astraight line to the absolute Q You’ve made it clear that the path to freedom is achal¬ lenging one and that most people just aren’t up for going all the way. If that is the case, where can Ifind the faith in myself to succeed where so many others have failed? A In the end, people “fail” only because of doubt or because they don’t want it badly enough. In my own case, I had no doubt that it was possible to be free because Ihad had avery deep experience and Iwas convinced that sooner or later Iwas going to find it once again. And when Icame to the conclusion that the liberating truth that Ihad glimpsed in that experience was more important than anything else—that life itself wouldn’t make any sense without it—then the inspiration to take big risks and do whatever was necessary to succeed was never too far away. It’s for this reason that the foundation of my teaching is what Icall “Clarity of Intention.” Clarity of Intention is the irrevocable, unshakable commitment to attaining spiritual freedom, above all else, here and now, in this life. Being clear about one’s intention to be free means one is ready and will¬ ing to do anything that one has to do in order to succeed. astraight line to the absolute 53 So what does it actually mean to make this commitment? Making this commitment means that we care about what’s most important. It means we have come to the realization that unless we genuinely find away to free ourselves from ignorance, it’s going to be impossible to live atruly meaning¬ ful human life. It means we have looked with ruthless hon¬ esty at ourselves and discovered how deeply divided we are. And we have understood that as long as we remain divided in this way, our relationship to the world around us will inevitably be an expression of that division. You see, from the perspective of enlightenment, which means perfect whole¬ ness, that fundamental division in the self is seen as the pri¬ mary cause of all conflict. That is why an irrevocable, unshakable intention to be free of that division is the very foundation of the spiritual life. Irrevocable” is apretty strong word. It just doesn’t work any other way. Why not? Because it’s the irrevocable, undivided commitment to being free that literally aligns the separate sense of self with that which is absolute. You can experience this for yourself if you look directly into what it would mean to be completely free here and now. In order to do that you have to dare, if only for an instant, to let go of everything. This simply means 54 living enlightenment to abandon any possibility in your own immediate experience that is not total unconditional freedom. If you can do this, the living presence of absolute singularity will begin to emerge in your awareness and the ego, or separate sense of self, will Oh, my God,” it will say. “This is way too much!” That is because in the presence of that which is absolute, there is no room for adivided self to maneuver. And if you want to be free more than anything else, that’s the whole point. r e c o i l i n t e r r o r. Ican feel it as you speak about it. Through the one-pointed contemplation of an unshakable commitment to being free here and now something powerful and deeply mysterious occurs: We find direct access to that which is absolute—almost instantly. So if we think that we want to be free, we should look into this question with utter sincerity, as if our life depended on it: What would it mean for me, whoever Ithink Iam, to want to be free more than any¬ thing else right now, in this very moment and forever after? Through asking this one question, the whole world and every¬ thing in it begins to recede into the background. And some¬ thing mysterious starts to happen. That’s how powerful it is. I can also feel it now as I’m speaking about it. Simply through the contemplation of an unwavering commitment to being completely free, the whole world disappears and all Isee is a straight line—a straight line to the Absolute. That’s when we get asense of how profound this question really is, because it’s aline that takes us all the way there, right now. astraight line to the absolute 55 So it actually is possible for most of us to be free? Of course it is. It’s just that most of us have not yet come to that point in our own evolution where we are willing to reach that high. The way it works is that as long as we are deeply invested in the ego, we will need to avoid at all costs the kind of unshakable commitment to being free that we’ve been speaking about. Why? Because the commitment to being free means we will always only have one choice. And the infinite space revealed by making that one choice is asuffocating place for the separate ego because it suddenly finds itself deprived of the whole world created by its endless fears and desires. That is why we will never want to be free more than anything else until we have reached that point in our own evolution where we are finally ready to give up the many for the One. That’s asking alot! 1know. But the simple truth is that if you want to be truly free in this life, nothing less than everything will be enough. True freedom is an all-or-nothing deal. That’s just the way it is—it’s aspiritual law. But the good news is that if you’re willing to pay the price, it will happen. Nothing will be able to stop it. 56 living enlightenment - i