“All you need is to be aware of being, not as a verbal statement, but as an ever-present fact. The awareness that you are will open your eyes to what you are. It is all very simple. First of all, establish a constant contact with your self, be with yourself all the time. ‘I am’ is a tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree - quite naturally, without any trace of effort.” - Nisargadatta Maharaj (emphasis added)
This past Tuesday I finished a three-and-a-half-day Enlightenment Intensive* over Zoom facilitated by Murray Kennedy and a team of three monitors. About 40 of us were onboard to inquire, by way of dyads, into the truth of who we are. This method of spiritual inquiry dates to the early 70s when it was developed by Charles Berner. Murray trained under Berner and has been offering these intensives for the past 40 years. The process was simple, but not at all easy. We were paired up in breakout rooms, and took turns asking direct questions of each other, such as “Tell me who you are.” The stated intent of this dyad intensive method is to “provide you with a real opportunity to come into conscious union with the Absolute Truth of Self, of Life, of Love or of Others, and to fully present that Truth to others.”
While it sounded simple enough, I found it at once onerous and illuminating. The difficulty it seemed was due to the rigor of the intensive which involved 9 40-minute Dyad sessions per day, a total of 30 over 3 1/2 days. Each one involved facing strangers and talking about one's inner experience for 5 minutes and then switching roles, a total of 8 per session.
The challenge, and therefore the stress, was in staying true to the immediate experience of the moment rather than an analysis or recounting of something that had happened or some concept that had formed in the process. This is of course what we are after in awakening, but the mind goes nuts trying to stay out of this present moment and persistently defaults to offering its content.
Because of my decades of spiritual leadership, it was very challenging for me to steer clear of well-formed articulations and avoid the egoic concern for how what I was sharing sounded to the other. This began to lessen and nearly disappear toward the end of the 3rd day as if I had finally drained the inner critical voice dry, and I could be fully present to an honest disclosure of my immediate experience.
Although I am still processing the effects of this intensive, I am keenly aware of one insight that has potently shifted my sense of being toward much greater clarity and presence. It is the notion and practice of simply “being with my self in order to know my self.” This direction was emphasized at the start and throughout the intensive, and I admit it seemed like such obvious and banal advice. Like, what else would I be doing in self-inquiry other than ‘being with myself’? However, there is a vast chasm between the concept of abiding as oneself and the real-time experience.
When we inquire into who we are, the mind immediately raises its hand to offer its knowledge and reports on the person we take ourselves to be. That is, a separate person in the world, a body and a mind with a story. The falsity or inaccuracy of that appraisal is revealed by deeper introspection, but the ego mind would rather we stay away from such a penetrating inquiry lest we discover the delusion that threatens its very survival. So that for me was the challenge and the promise of assiduously looking deeply at the present moment experience of my being. When I was able to penetrate the surface veneer of personhood, what I uncovered was pure being itself, characterized by a feeling of aliveness, spaciousness, unboundedness, truly nothing more or less than conscious awareness itself.
In order to apprehend the reality of our true self, we must see past the facade of our perceived identity. By doing so, we can realize that our body, mind, and emotions are all temporary and subject to change, while our true self remains constant and unaffected by these fluctuations. This true self is the unchanging consciousness that observes everything. And while I have done these probing investigations on my own during self-inquiry contemplations the intensive kept my inquiring “nose to the grindstone” forcing my attention to return again and again to such inward seeing of this unconditioned inner self, the very truth of my being. Because of this unrelenting focus, this sense of expanded reality remains with me, in the background mostly, but no longer something I need to reclaim with effort. It’s there with me, in me, as I go about my day.
*If this process intrigues you and you would like to explore it on your own, here are two links that will take you to the intensive that I participated in and a directory of Enlightenment Intensives offered worldwide.
Namaste,
Rev. Larry
Comments