that waits and listens
for the sound of the genuine in yourself.
It is the only guide you will ever have.
And if you cannot hear it,
you will all of your life spend your days
on the ends of strings
that somebody else pulls.”
Howard Thurman
Rick Archer (RA): "Here’s a question from (a listener), 'Spiritual discussions ... are essentially a discussion of the human condition.
However, for some people, the word 'spiritual' has baggage, misunderstandings
with it, such as baggage from mainstream religions.
If they actually
understood that what is being talked about and explored is really just the
essential human condition, then they may be much more attracted to it. Somehow
it feels like the word spiritual may put some people off, even though that’s
what they’re really looking for. How can language be modified to open
spirituality to a wider audience?' "
Amoda
Maa (AM): "Yes, I agree, in the
sense that the word spiritual has a lot of baggage, it has a lot of
connotations, and it is about the human condition. I do actually speak about
this a lot. If you watch my videos or listen to some of my talks, I’ve often
spoken about how it’s an existential inquiry, not a spiritual inquiry.
It’s
existential in the sense that this is about the human condition and whatever
language we use, it’s always going to be some kind of cover-up against the real
discovery of the real truth. We have to use language to have any kind of
dialogue and personally, I sort of naturally play with that language in the
sense that I come from it this way and this way, and depending on who I’m
speaking with, then I hopefully facilitate an examination of what is meant by
spiritual and whether that spiritual concept, that idea of spirituality is
actually an impediment to something.
Very often I talk about throwing away the
whole concept of spirituality and opening as an authentic human being to the
experience you’re having so that the whole polarity of spiritual and
non-spiritual just collapses because that’s another divided state. We divide
into spiritual and non-spiritual or spiritual and human. Yes, there’s a lot in
that question."
RA: "I always find myself coming back to definitions and asking people to define how they use terms like awakening, or spiritual or whatever, because sometimes these terms are thrown about glibly, as though everyone agreed upon their meanings. Even the word 'God,' I think, a lot of people are squeamish about that one, but it actually refers to something really beautiful if you really define it. Not as the guy with the beard in the clouds, but as the sort of intelligence that permeates and orchestrates every little bit of creation, which you can see plainly if you take a look, even through the lens of modern science, there’s something marvelous and mysterious going on. You have to keep going back and defining these terms if you’re going to use them."
AM: "Yes, and just keep on unraveling or surrendering every concept that we have that we think we know what it means."
RA: "Yes, that’s a good point."
AM: "Surrendering that meaning
like, don’t find meaning in the words. The words are just words. Of course, we
have to be accurate so we’re not just using any old words in a messy or
misleading fashion. I use words very accurately, but don’t over-invest meaning
in those words.
Listen to what is inside that, listen to the vibration. It’s
back to the listening thing. Listen with your being and then you’ll find that
the words are just like little arrows that keep pointing you to something and
if you keep on surrendering the investment of meaning in those words, you fall
into the beingness that it’s pointing to."
RA: "(Recently) Deepak Chopra was going on about how everything is a concept. Every idea we have, even about physical things like the moon, the universe, gravity, or anything else, it’s all human concepts. I kept saying, yes, but those concepts actually do refer to something which has its own intrinsic reality, regardless of how clearly or accurately we conceptualize it. I mean, the moon doesn’t depend upon our understanding of it. It didn’t change from green cheese to rock when our understanding of it became a little bit more mature. It is what it is and we do our best with concepts and words and what not to grasp what’s actually going on and to communicate that with others."
AM: "If you’re listening from
concepts, then you’ll hear concepts. If you’re listening from openness, you’ll hear love.”
Amoda Maa - 2nd Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview https://batgap.com/amoda-maa-2/
Iain McGilchrist, from his neuroscience / psychiatry perspective, would say that "listening from concepts" is our 'quick-and-dirty' literal left-hemisphere perspective. However, we "listen from openness" and a balanced perspective when our right-hemisphere in charge, which is contextual, capable of understanding nuance, tone of voice, facial expression, body-language, paradox, metaphor etc, while the left hemisphere plays an important supportive role. See: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/
I often mention how we all have brief glimpses of awakening when we lovingly gaze into the eyes of babies and puppies. We practice the "soft peripheral gaze" during meditation practice.
Amoda Maa's wonderful take on this:
“The way we see things is fundamental to our state of consciousness. By softening our gaze, we can open to the love inherent in ourselves. It's a falling away of the veils of perception that allows our eyes to open to direct reality.
When we see from the tight knot of me-self – and what is that ‘tight knot of me-self’? It’s a bunch of unexamined thoughts, beliefs, concepts that has to do with 'my thoughts' usually. My thoughts of this, that, comfort, discomfort, liking, disliking, or even the thoughts of me as a separate entity, that needs to be loved, that needs to be here, secure, and this, this, this… It’s a tight, narrow focus. And then we look upon things, the world, life, and we see separate things. So there’s a division here - a subject and an object, a me here and things, life, out there, outside of me. This we can support in shifting perception in a very simple way, because when we see from the tight knot of me-self – subject and objects, subject and objects – we do not really see reality. We see our projections onto reality. So the world or life is veiled. These are the veils of perception that create the Maya. The world is not as we see it, but as we believe it. We project these unexamined beliefs - even the belief that the world is ‘out there’ is an unexamined belief.
So we can support a shift in perception that opens the doorway to clear seeing. Clear seeing has a fundamentally different quality. Rather than seeing through the eyes of separation, fear, craving & aversion, we see through the eyes of love. That doesn’t mean that we always like what we see, or that we even agree with it, but something internal changes. It’s an inner transformation of consciousness. That’s what it means to see the beloved in everything. It softens the inner gaze.
Normally when we look, we look at boundaries. We look at the boundary of a thing and in that way we can identify it. We tend to look at the detail or the boundary, the edges. This is valuable in functioning, doing things, crossing the road, chopping things, whatever we need to be aware of edges as such. But when that becomes the default position, it becomes a limited view that occludes true nature – the radiance of all things, which is really in you, not inherent in the thing.
Imagine falling in love. You gaze into the other’s eyes. What’s actually happening, in that falling in love, in that moment of gazing? The eyes are very wide open. They’re very soft in fact. The gaze is not narrowly-focused on the edges. When we look into eyes (with love), we are looking into the formless. We are not looking at the form. We are looking into the beingness. We call that 'falling in love.' What we’re falling in love with – of course there’s a whole bunch of other ideas: I like this person, and I agree with this person, I’m sexually attracted to this person, it doesn’t matter which sex it is. Look into the eyes of a friend, look into the eyes of your mother, look into the eyes of your child.
Amoda Maa “How Softening Your Gaze Transforms Everything to Love” https://www.amodamaa.com/essential-teachings
“Freedom is available to you here & now, if you are willing to reject nothing, welcome everything, and surrender into the deepest falling of the open heart.” Amoda Maa
“Real spiritual practice is a heartful expression of what is most true & meaningful to each of us.” Adyashanti
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