THAT'S ALL

     I like Adyashanti.  He is one of the many spiritual teachers and philosophers that I have had the pleasure of listening to throughout my last couple of years in which I have commuted to work (close to an hour's voyage one way).  I've gone back and forth as to how I feel about gurus who present themselves and their teachings so readily in the public eye, but this particular guy to me is one who, regardless, points the way and makes sense - at least most of the time.  I've picked this clip above particularly so you could listen to 44:00 and the experience he describes.  He recounts a happenstance in which he sees a kind of series of many different past lifetimes in which he could approach individually, notice a person in each scenario as who once was himself, and in each of these experiences there was a "core of spiritual confusion" which he was drawn to interact with - such as one in which "he" was in the process of drowning.  He would go to these points and to the "me" that was there and literally whisper words of clarification into his own ear ("You're dying.  That's all...").  "I would see exactly what I needed to bring completion to it...  Each time there would be this resolution...  and I could feel a resolution in this moment - this life stream..."  I really dig that.  It's so much like processing in individual therapy - just making sense of something that happened - of untying a knot in consciousness - and releasing that energy by coming to a sense of closure.

     Letting it be.  That's the thing.

     Once you get to a certain point, you can speak from your perspective continually without really thinking about it and still speak the truth.  It flows.  You flow.  Each points the way.  "Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong..."  What is meaning anyway but what we attribute to it in the first place?

     This makes me think of the movie Jacob's Ladder from back in 1990 and perhaps its most pivotal scene.  The main character (played by Tim Robbins) meets with his chiropractor, who is really his guardian angel.  They begin to talk about Meister Eckhart.  I've never done any research on Eckhart to try and find this, but I did buy a book of collected works by him inspired by this conversation.  This conversation came about when Tim Robbins' character was telling the angel about how he was seeing demons coming out of the walls at him.  It began simply: "I'm afraid of dying, Louis..."

"Eckhart saw Hell too; he said: 'the only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you,' he said. 'They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.'"

I'm so used to being me.  It's what I do best, actually.  But what happens when "me" ceases to be?  That's the ultimate question, isn't it?  The true source of all philosophy.  How do we come to terms with our own demise?  How do we make peace in that regard?  How do we stop looking for more?