My friend Bill interviews me in late September 2020 for NothingCon, an online nonduality conference. Topics cover a wide array of spiritual topics.
Surrender and inquiry are like trying to go to sleep
A useful analogy for a seeker engaged in surrender or self-inquiry is to think about what it's like to go to sleep. To fall asleep, you must relax, close your eyes, and fall away from everything in the waking world. You must let go without expectation. Asking "Am I asleep?", trying to notice the falling-asleep process, or trying to recreate the sleep you had a few weeks ago will all interfere with falling asleep. And the waking one will never know what it is like to be asleep. The seeker must have the same attitude.
Self-inquiry & surrender workshop at Conscious Contact
On Wednesday, March 31, I spoke online at Conscious Contact, a discussion group dedicated to the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. I covered the basics of self-inquiry and surrender, and answered some questions.
Why self-inquiry is like searching for silence or space
Self-inquiry involves looking into the I, and noticing that it is not what it seems. It seems to be a kind of fixed point, a particular experiencing, doing person who experiences everything that's "out there." But when the I is deeply examined the mind is led to silence or peace. But this silence or peace is, so long as it is noticed as such, is not the final answer. It is a reflection of the final answer. If you were searching for the real definition of silence, a mere pause between words would not be enough -- a deeper silence exists, one which permits both words and the pauses between them to be heard and noticed. If you searching for the definition of space, a place without anything in it would not be that -- it would only be a reflection of it. Space exists even when objects are there. That's because space, like the I, and like silence, are not really objects in themselves.
Karma yoga: the kinder, softer preparation for self-inquiry and surrender
Self-inquiry and surrender are the most powerful methods for penetrating the egoic illusion, but for that very reason they require a great deal of commitment. Because they attack thought and your notion of doership and control at every moment, they can rouse a lot of fear and anxiety, and require a great deal of commitment. If they seem simply far too difficult, there is a preparatory step that is easier: karma yoga. Karma yoga does not require you to give up your illusions of control. It says, "Go ahead and do what you need to do. Only keep the attitude that no matter what happens, good or bad, you are not going to be emotionally affected." Over time, karma yoga will quiet the mind and loosen the attachments and prepare the seeker for inquiry and surrender.
Understand your lack of free will and be free
The fact that we lack free will might seem depressing, but this is only so if we understand ourselves to be people who are chained or controlled by something else. In fact, our lack of free will refers to the fact that we are not people at all. Understood correctly, this lack of free will leads immediately to silence and peace.
Enlightenment is an infinite series of insights that there is no enlightenment
Enlightenment is a contradictory idea because it stands on the border of thought and non-thought. It is the exit from thought, but in that exit from thought there is the recognition that the very idea of 'exit' was itself a thought, and thus that there was never any exit, because there was never any entrance. The insight destroys itself. And yet enlightenment can also be viewed usefully as a series of these very recognitions. The mental habits that chain one in thought, to the belief that one is a doing, experiencing, decision-making person... one attempts to light these on fire through self-inquiry and surrender. When in fact the habits are 'dry enough' -- meaning weak enough -- to 'catch fire' once and for all, they result in enlightenments so continuous they cannot be called enlightenments at all.
Self-inquiry should feel like looking for something right here and yet is maddeningly elusive
People confuse self-inquiry with trying to *understand* what the I is intellectually, or to seek the nondual Self. This is incorrect. Self-inquiry is simply looking for that most common, fundamental data point of our experience -- the fact that our experience occurs *to us.* That sense of our own existence and awareness -- which is so obvious, so concrete-seeming -- we try to turn our attention to that. When we do, we find ourselves landing on thoughts, feelings, perceptions -- anything but that. And we refocus. And it happens again. And that continuous practice is self-inquiry. How can something so right here feel so incredibly difficult to grasp? That's what self-inquiry should feel like... until there is a perspective shift.
You ‘forget’ your spiritual practice because part of you doesn’t want to do it
Those who seek Self realization must pursue surrender or self-inquiry at every waking moment. In this effort, many seekers complain that they become forgetful and that their attention wanders. They want to know how to increase their concentration. It's not a matter of increasing concentration.
Forgetfulness happens because of an attachment -- there is an outcome the seeker values or fears, and feels they must focus on to get or avoid. That is what distracts them from surrender or self-inquiry, and it can manifest as forgetfulness. The attention wanders because it *wants* to wander, because there is something that it feels that surrender or self-inquiry will distract it from... and this is what is going on. There is an internal resistance. Just watching and recognizing these resistances helps loosen them.
Self inquiry deals with resistance to the spiritual search by asking whose resistance it is
Resistance to the spiritual search -- in the form of desires, fears, attachments, and so on -- can be dealt with in different ways. It can be dealt with in "non"-spiritual ways, like therapy. It can be dealt with attitudinal changes, like telling yourself that God will take care of everything. But self-inquiry has a different approach to the issue. It simply asks: whose resistance is this? It doesn't directly try to oppose the content of the resistance, doesn't try to argue against it, but merely asks who it is that is aware OF the resistance. That creates a pause and a space that leads to the recognition that these resistances themselves do not belong to the "I" that seems to suffer from them. And this is true not just for spiritual resistances, but indeed for all suffering -- suffering is only a problem if it's "yours," and that's just what self-inquiry questions.