Triangulating the Dream

Triangulation is a proven way of locating an unknown point. Therefore, it’s useful in spirituality, where not only is the point unknown, but can never be known with the mind.

The Hindu speak of the Ultimate as Sat-Chit-Ananda, or Being, Consciousness, Bliss. It’s not either of them, of course, nor is it just a combination of the three. But they are three pointers used to aim from different locations towards a position within their center.

In this way, I have attempted to define Conscious Dreaming for my own purposes. Many speak to the fact that life is an illusion, or a dream. When that is understood, life, or the dream, remains to be lived.

This involves Surrender, Attention, Guidance

The first pointer is Surrender. To this effect, Adyashanti calls spirituality a surrender game. To triangulate this point itself, I see three modes of surrender. There is surrendering belief in all thought. There is surrendering one’s own personality and ego, or the fact that there’s any doer. And then there is surrendering all doing itself.

The second pointer is Attention. First, listen to your intuition, your insights, your sixth sense (not your thoughts). Second, listen and look for external signs, influence, synchronicities. Lastly, be open to revelation.

The third pointer is Guidance. Some would call this action, but since there’s no doing and no doer, I prefer to use this expression. First, act as if you’re acting, while going with the flow. And second and third, to quote Van Morrison, don’t push the river, but don’t pull any punches.

And That’s the (Unbelievable) Truth

Our so-called lives are as substantial as a thought. For our lives are exactly that: thoughts.

We have created our world with thoughts.

The natural world, although original within itself, is filtered in our perception by our thoughts; a tree does not call itself a tree. While the built world is a world of thought made physical. Even the world of culture and society is one constructed out of thought.

In this way, it can be said our lives are dreams.

Moreover, in this way, our lives can be seen as a string of thoughts, beginning with those of our parents, then teachers, friends, peers, and so on from Adam to ad infinitum.

In this way, it can be seen that not only is our life a dream, it isn’t even our own dream.

However.

There is a reality beyond this dream, one that cannot be said, one that cannot be contained by thought, but one that contains all thought and all.

By some act of grace, there has been a wisdom in this world of dreams which has pointed to this reality. It points because it cannot be said. It points with subtle thought.

That thought is this and only this: surrender.

Surrender all belief in any thought (especially in that thought of personal identity we call ego).

In this way, the dream deconstructs. Then it is understood there never was a dream.

And no thoughts. No grace. No pointers. No surrender. Even no deconstruction.

Only Being-Consciousness-Bliss. Only That. Or what some in the dream call God. And You Are That.

The Paradox of Doing

We pride ourselves on free will. But that’s an illusion like all illusion.

A tree grows in the direction of the sun and veers with wind and snow and a thousand other deflections.

Add a million thoughts to the brew, and there we are.

But nothing is random; everything is part of the overall pattern.

So there is nothing to do but surrender. Any other so-called doing only causes friction, suffering. And even that is part of the overall pattern.

Then we play our parts the best we can. We pay attention to intuition and influence, insight and signs, and guide our movements accordingly, knowing full well there’s nothing else we can do. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing we can do.

And so we do it. No regrets and no attachment: it’s all part of the the pattern after all.

The Art of Lucid Dreaming

There is an art to living that many point to. This summary is the result of months of query into the second dreaming that follows an initial waking, and to my mind, this is an important conclusion of sorts. Or rather a new beginning. The key elements are the following:

1. Surrender
After understanding that all is consciousness, surrender happens. Such surrender is the same as letting go the ego. But there are years and years of conditioning here, and the ego will still come and go, like a wayward thought arising in the mind. Simply not believing it is the active side of surrender.

2. Attention
Things happen in the manifest world in which we dream that invite our attention. Without, there are influences and signs (even synchronicities). Within, there are insights and intuitions (even clairvoyances). All of these are simply the foretellings of consciousness, ripples around the waves. Pay them attention. Or not.

3. Guidance
We appear to do within the dream. Like a canoe streaming in the rapids, we can attend to the insight and signs, guide our movement (this is where thought becomes our tool and not some mighty poor internal substitute for attention), and facilitate the journey. Or we can ignore them and suffer a rough ride. One way or the other, we are heading downstream the dream.

Surrender. Attention. Guidance. These are the three primary practices of lucid dreaming. Use them well when you find yourself outside the monastery, ashram, or cave.

An Unbelievable Blow-Out

The clock is running down, the batteries are dying, the car is running out of gas. I am surrendering to That which is. (No lie, just after writing that sentence, my cell phone sounded its low-battery warning.)

After all, ego is the big lie, and surrender is the only lie detector.

All my life I felt as if there was something better that I should be doing. But despite all my thinking, I couldn’t figure it out. So life happened.

But whenever I began to lose sight of that something better, whenever I was on the verge of going with the status quo, something rebelled within me (and without).

Ultimately, it was OK with delaying something better until the time was right, until certain responsibilities had played themselves through.

The time did come, but something better really didn’t. Instead something completely different did.

Surrender.

It’s unexplainable to those who may not understand, but let me quickly do so anyways. An energetic organization of consciousness; after evolving through processes of sense, memory, and instinct; and thereby becoming sensitive to the various forms and patterns of energy all around it; developed an ability to think; that is create a virtual reality within its mind. And in so doing, it created a separate sense of itself within that virtual reality. And at some point, it began to see that virtual reality as truth (belief), and that virtual self as itself (ego).

In turn, of course, there arose a continuous conflict between the actual reality and the virtual reality, or Consciousness and the Belief/Ego construct. This conflict can be called suffering. Suffering is like friction, in time may wear away the ego, and blow out! This is called an act of grace.

(Or, through the active grace of Self-Inquiry, asking Who Am I?, the same blow-out can occur.)

Then things begin to slow until surrender occurs. Stop.

The virtual reality and all its beliefs, and its sense of self, the ego, are seen through, and disappear. Reality returns. And action happens through intent or influence, desire or synchronicity.

It’s unbelievable.

Surrendering to Surrender

Surrender is a difficult if not dirty word inside the dream. Outside the dream it’s a joke.

A woman is falling from an airplane without a parachute. Does she surrender to the air?

There is only surrender. Any other option is a dream within a dream.

Start with the big things and then work backwards. Surrender to the inevitable process of aging and the unavoidable destination of death. There, that was easy.

It’s easy because it isn’t true. You are not really you. You are deathless, without beginning and without end and always now. There is no such thing as surrender. Always remember this.

So there is only surrender.

When I was a little child, I played with toy soldiers. Now that I am a grown man, I am the toy soldier. The Spirit that I really am, the I Am that I am, surrenders me.

I have no choice. I’ve been surrendered. Surrendering has happened. Pieces are moved. It’s either desire or demand. My orders are clear. I move.

To sum this up. The real You is Spirit. Spirit surrenders your dream character. Spirit moves the pieces on the game board. Some pieces are inside you. We call these pieces desire or intent (not to be confused with egoic want thoughts). Some pieces are outside you. We call these pieces influence or synchronicity. When it’s your turn to move, Spirit does so according to intent or influence, desire or synchronicity. And so the dream happens.

Suffering is caused by a futile opposition to this happening, resulting from a complete ignorance of everything previously stated in the previous paragraph. And then you die. Do not pass go.

Peace of mind is surrendering to the surrender. Go.

Ramana Work

Q: Is it possible to enjoy samadhi [awareness of reality] while busy in worldly work?

A: The feeling 'I work' is the hindrance. Ask yourself 'Who works?' Remember who you are. Then the work will not bind you, it will go on automatically. Make no effort either to work or to renounce; it is your effort which is the bondage. What is destined to happen will happen. If you are destined not to work, work cannot be had even if you hunt for it. If you are destined to work, you will not be able to avoid it and you will be forced to engage yourself in it. So, leave it to the higher power; you cannot renounce or retain as you choose.

~Ramana Maharshi in 'Be As You Are', ed. David Godman

Some Notes from Radio Adyashanti

decision-making

from being to doing

from being rather than thought
more intuitive
and not awakened to the intuitive yet
from silence, the divine

stop trying to figure it out
let go of figuring it out, to solve, to know on the level of mind
and awaken deep intuitive intelligence

get out of the driver’s seat

willingness to be still and know

be still first
then know

be still

let go of solving in mind to allow consciousness to go deeper
consciousness will move out of the mind into being
into an intuitive wisdom
heart wisdom
the wholeness of wisdom

bubbling from the unknown, the silence

relinquish control
you really don’t have control anyways
still you struggle for control
and blind yourself of the intuitive wisdom

enlightened action
action coming from the unknown
only can happen when you let go

to be still and know

mind relaxes into something it doesn’t understand
because mind isn’t the only intelligence

but sometimes you have to allow yourself to not know

The Primitive Square Roots of Unity

Despite traditions to the contrary, there simply cannot be true jnana without true bhakti, there cannot be the ultimate understanding without the ultimate surrender. Certain personalities will try to avoid one or the other under the guise of some higher wisdom, but always at the cost of wholeness.

There is a tradition that jnana is the higher path because the bhakta relies on a belief in someone or something to be devoted to, whereas the jnani knows there are neither. But true bhakti knows no object; and the true jnani knows nothing.

Jnana and bhakti, knowledge and devotion, understanding and surrender, inseeing and outpouring, mind and heart, cannot be divided or opposed; because they are the same.

~David Carse from 'Perfect Brilliant Stillness'

Rendering the Dream in Sweet Surrender

~surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life

~to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation

~surrender is perfectly compatible with taking action, initiating change or achieving goals

~surrender reconnects you with the source-energy of Being, and if your doing is infused with Being, it becomes a joyful celebration of life energy

~call this "surrendered action"

~it is not work as we have known it for thousands of years

For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say: "Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud." Resignation is not surrender. You don't need to accept an undesirable or unpleasant life situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the "isness" of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the mud.

~from ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle

Never Mind (SSP-2)

The Summer Breeze Will

Each leave is like a thought
and every single branch
is action like an arm
that moves a cursive hand
drawing the pen across
an empty space of paper.

Some mistake it all
as something they have willed,
an animate display
of mind. But never mind.
We know there is a wind
that blows across the wood—

and makes the world just happen.

11-Jun-08

I Go, You Go, We All Go for Ego

Adyashanti says that spirituality is a surrender game. Certainly eradicating the ego and all its resultant suffering is. There are two chief ways of doing so.

The first involves some worship of a higher power, so that your self is humbled to a greater cause or being. The ego is ultimately sacrificed on that altar.

The second involves an intellectual quest, an investigation really, into the nature of the self. In so doing, the ego is discovered to be an illusion.

In both ways, the ego is surrendered. In the former, it is killed. In the latter, it never existed.

Still, they are radically different in their worldview. In worship, there is a Creation. In self inquiry, there is, at most, a dream. Beyond that, Nothingness.

Call me Ishmael. Call me Quantum Spirit.