An excerpt from Avikal’s book, Who is in? Beyond Self-image.
The surest signs of spiritual progress
are a lack of concern about spiritual progress
and an absence of anxiety about liberation.– Ramesh S. Balsekar, mystic
1.
In its very nature, search implies a movement of attention towards something. Whether or not we know what we are looking for is irrelevant in itself and does not change the intrinsic nature of searching. Searching inevitably means a movement of attention from the pure and indefinable presence of the subject (I) to an external object if it is something different from me that I am looking for, or to the subject who has become an object (me) if it is me who I am looking for (or “my” emotions, “my” thoughts etc.). In the search, techniques, maps, resources, paths, are essential tools to support this movement. They often become obstacles, however, at the very moment when we forget – or even deny – that the search itself and the use of any tool for understanding imply and are based on a separation between subject and object: me and the thing I am looking for, me and me.
Any search also has some fundamental expectations in itself: fulfillment, completeness, liberation and certainty. These expectations are transferred by seekers onto the tools they use to search: techniques, maps, resources and paths.
The capacity for self-reflection – the subject (I) becoming the object (me) of a new subject (I) – is undoubtedly the resource that more than any other characterizes humans and is a source of knowledge and evolution. At the same time, it is our most devious prison when it becomes the compulsive habit of self-definition. We do the same with everything, naming everything that exists moment by moment and then objectifying (reifying) nonstop to constantly delude ourselves that we know what it is, that we are present because “we grasp”, because we believe we know and understand.
2.
I realize that affirming what I wrote in the previous part can sound strange or even antagonistic to some who sincerely, and through hard work every day seek themselves and are on the spiritual path using various techniques and maps and tools of understanding. It is not my intention to diminish in any way the “work” that we do to grow, to understand, to know, to support us on the way. Indeed, those who know me and work with me know how much I insist on committing day after day to meditating, exploring, cleaning, and letting the old go. At the same time, it is clear to me that all this will not bring what we are looking for, but temporarily it will bring fulfillment, liberation, completeness and certainty. How illusory it is to believe that since precious changes take place now and then, the fundamental lie is somehow undermined that there is a separate self, and that I am the doer.
To give an example, all the search does is recognize, move, tidy up and sometimes change the furniture in our house, but it’s clear that as long as I’m searching, it means that I still believe I’m that furniture.
Sometimes identification dissolves, sometimes it disappears altogether but the belief remains that I have to change, improve, have a direction and a purpose. We cannot relax once and for all in the perfect imperfection, uniqueness, completeness and absolute freedom that is our True Nature because as long as we seek, we inevitably move away from it.
If you look closely at the dynamics of desire you will clearly see that the sense of fulfillment, liberation, completeness and certainty which for a short time follows the realization of desire itself has to do with the fact that at least for a moment I AM NOT SEARCHING, I am not going anywhere, I’m only with myself, in my authentic Self, the one that is not seeking, the one that doesn’t change, doesn’t do, JUST IS.
The task of the search is therefore not realization, because we are “already and always” whole and complete and enlightened; the task of the search is to unlearn the mind and show us our identification with the belief of being the doer.
3.
This understanding cannot be taken lightly or merely with a ritual, yet, it must become the daily spark of our remembering: that we are already complete and unique and that this incarnation, in this body, gives us the concrete opportunity to manifest this uniqueness, this completeness, this enlightenment. That the ego is just fiction, and that as much as it is worth committing to living better with it, that doesn’t change the fact that it is a fiction.
The fundamental implication of this internal realignment has to do with our practice: we stop practicing FOR enlightenment and start practicing FROM enlightenment which is who we already are.
Practice is therefore not the search for something that is not here and could take place at a future time, but the concrete manifesting of our awakened consciousness in the here/now.
This fundamental step requires the courage to recognize that WHO IS IN is beyond any description, any understanding, any meaning, and that every tool I use to define myself inevitably implies a reduction of this immensity and mystery. It can be useful to survive but the price is a false certainty.
I DON’T KNOW is one of the keys to “practicing from enlightenment” because false ego identity lives in the self-deception of believing to know, and therefore, when we practice “I don’t know”, we are immediately out of identification with the ego; we are again in innocence, and that is a fundamental quality of true nature.
4.
Wake up NOW! There is nothing more selfish and narcissistic than stubbornly continuing to deny one’s nature, that of continuing to claim to be the shadow of who we really are: completeness, uniqueness, awareness and love.
Attachment to the search is a disease, and a serious disease! A disease that continues to block millions of human beings who could potentially be ready to take full responsibility for being free and consciously participate in a global rebellion that is the only chance we have left. Using what teaching gives us to survive is an egoic trick; justifying our actions with a “spiritual understanding” is a trick. Finding relief in an alleged spiritual superiority is another trick; thinking of “knowing” is the fundamental trap and withering of the soul.
Every time we look outside, whenever we just find a name, a definition, an excuse to box ourselves and repeat ourselves incessantly… every time we look for someone to blame or someone and something to save us we dispel the precious richness of our humanity and our soul shrivels.
Featured image (detail) by Warren on Unsplash
Excerpt from Who is in? Beyond Self-image, Chapter 7
Who Is In? Beyond Self-image
by Avikal Costantino
O Books (25 November 2022)
Paperback and Kindle version
Paperback: 208 pages, ISBN-10: 1785359479, ISBN-13: 978-1785359477
Kindle: ASIN: B0BHTXZQL5
Available via Amazon – waterstones.com
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