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have the traditional concepts, the understandings, all the ideals,
scriptures, religions, systems, structure, spiritual disciplines.
All of these are about Life in some way, but often they are limited,
because each tends to isolate a part of Life. In that kind
of isolation, when a teacher is propounding a certain system,
or lineage, or course, it leaves the impression that there is
something separate from Life, something "other" that
is desirable, that must be sought after. From that perspective,
what is taught seems to come from the outside. The teaching
indicates that there is another place to be, a better place, a
future place.
Many systems won't blatantly say, "This life is not it,"
but as you follow them you pick up the feeling that this existence
is, at worst, punishment, and, at best, a temporary
place of learning before you become something more. Most
spiritual teachings hinge upon that idea in some way or another.
The brain, the aspect of ourselves that has the capacity
to find greater connection, identifies with spiritual
teaching. People label that aspect, that experience, as
"religion" or "spiritual" or "the experience
of God." One perceives that experience of connection
as something other than the direct experience of Life, and that
perception may run counter to Life. Often spiritual
teachings admonish one to leave the world, to see it as a dream,
to abandon everything about material existence and live in isolation.
I speak of myself as a Life teacher,
which doesn't mean a whole lot to the intellect. What
is a "Life teacher"? How can Life be taught?
In teaching Life, I cannot totally abandon those systems,
because they are connecting points for people, even though they
are very limited. If I branch out with completely
new language, new words, new ways,
no one would recognize it, and I would be solely dependent on
an individual resonating with this Space. At times I think
that would not be so awfully bad, because it would eliminate
much of the misunderstanding and superstition that can occur.
But it is not very compassionate to the world, because humans
are suffering. As long as there is suffering, there needs
to be some remedy, some assistance, some inspiration.
So there is a two-fold process. On the one hand, I try to
reach those that are seeking some spiritual dimension to their
life, and on the other hand, I try to bring people into the actualization
of The Consciousness as Life itself, which is a most difficult
process because of the past, because of how individuals have perceived
"spiritual" or "God" or "the Absolute."
Essentially, it is a matter of retraining the intellect, creating new neural pathways, morphic
fields of another possibility of seeing, which is usually
slow going. Sometimes it is so slow that it can seem like
nothing is happening. It requires being practical with
Life, doing what is there, doing what one can, and keeping the
knowing. That can be difficult, because there are other teachers
who have a big following, a lot of recognition and influence.
But when you go into the heart of what these teachers are saying,
you find the same old garbage. The same old garbage
has kept the world in the place it is in for thousands
of years already, and will only bring more of the same
in the future.
So I am always torn between, on the one hand, completely
breaking free of everything, throwing out the traditional connection
points, and letting only those people who are truly interested
find me, and, on the other, feeling the suffering of people,
people who are trying to find some answer to the best of their
ability. It is a place of contradiction, because what is
good for the world may not be good for Alaya,
and what is good for Alaya may not be good for the world.
The world may not be ready.
It is like going into a field that is full of rocks, briars, sticks,
bugs, with the intention of planting a garden; you've got to get
rid of the debris. You start digging, and you run into pieces
of metal, nails, wood, stones, insects; you run into all this
stuff, and so you step back and say, "Well, there is
more clean-up work to do." It seems that the moment
you dig deeper, you run into more trash. Eventually, the
garden will be planted; eventually, it will grow and provide a
harvest, but you cannot count on the timing for that, and so in
the meantime you keep shooing the bugs away. That is much
like the experience of sharing this knowing, this awareness.
It requires continually countering the traditional separative
thinking that is being held in the world, continually finding
ways to inspire and encourage people to keep going. It is
not easy; the world is not an easy place.
I feel I cannot totally abandon the traditional language, because
the language may reach some people yet. But I feel the need
to be able to move the language in a direction that can redefine
"spiritual teacher" as
one who is teaching Life, one who is teaching from the direct
experience of Life, not through
system, belief, concept, lineage or tradition. For some
reason, it is very difficult for the human intellect to accept direct experience;
it wants the validation of the past. It wants a record,
an authority, a system, a structure, a big organization. Without
a big organization, the intellect thinks, "It can't be real."
But if you look at the world, at the authorities and
organizations, you see they are not real at all, but the intellect
is attached to those things.
So it is a steady course of presenting something to the intellect
that it can understand, and be inspired by, not defeated.
It is a matter of constantly moving in that direction.
I would describe myself as a spiritual
teacher teaching Life from Life.
Many teachings emphasize bliss, but you can get blissed out through
drugs too. I see being "blissed out" as simply
another escape, another dependency on feeling good, rather than
being real. Being real does not always involve feeling good.
Sometimes in being real, you have to experience the consequences
of years of separation, of conditions, beliefs and concepts,
and often that doesn't feel good. One seeks the bliss state
to escape facing that, facing Life-as-it-is. There is nothing
wrong with feeling bliss, but to make it a way of life, to seek
it, is to seek escape.
I see that traditional teachings are hitting the wall, because
the human brain is evolving faster than those teachings.
The brain is seeing more and more inconsistencies in these teachings,
questions for which the teachings have no answer.
There are things taking place now in the human arena for which
there is no excuse. For example, the calamities afflicting
the earth can no longer be rationalized as the wrath of God, or
as just an illusion. The brain is evolving to the point
where it will no longer put up with such rationalizations.
The brain looks for what is happening now, what to do now;
it no longer is satisfied with the traditional escape. That
in itself will bring about the demise of a lot of systems and
structures that are teaching that God is other, or that this existence
isn't it.
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