Awakening – What Actually Works

Live Meeting Transcript Extract -12.11.2016
Speaker: Rohan Heaton
www.Rohan.Life

What needs to be remembered is that this is within all of us, all the time
if we can open enough.

And, the opening up is based on what obstacles are in the way.

Can we see the obstacles?

Do we want to see the obstacles?

Do we want to be shown the obstacles?

Or, do we just prefer to pretend they are not there, and run at high speed looking around, looking around, looking around.

The reality is, it is very advantageous to address the heavier frequencies trapped within us, and hopefully allow them to release through investigation and practices. And, there are hundreds of ways of doing it. A few work better than others, and all traditions have one, or two amazingly powerful techniques. Which is (partly) why I studied so many traditions and cherry-picked the most powerful from each.

Everybody is slightly different, and after Awakening, you notice that often people will look back and go, “Oh, that incident in my childhood was an awakening moment,” and “Oh yeah, when I was a teenager, that's what that was.”

For me, there are two or three examples that after awakening, a long time after awakening, I realized that I had had glimpses of this before; as my teacher would say, ‘invitations’. Here is something beyond, way beyond your average day to day existence as an identity. It's a completely different way of being in the world.

So... why would, if something is so wonderful, and beautiful in that moment, why would someone reject it, and not just stay there? It would be insane to suddenly, have incredibly deep contentment, and a different seeing of everything, as radiant and connectedness, and just give it away for no reason. You would say they are crazy. That would be crazy, why would anyone choose that? It makes no sense.

So then, we have to entertain, from my perspective, the concept that there are things blocking, this experience, things being maintained. Blocking it from abiding, to be continuous, to be the way we are now in the world. From being in a much happier, brighter, giving, kinder, more beautiful existence, which incidentally is our birthright, what we are. There are obstacles that are blocking us from being this way, because it makes no sense not to be this way... once you have experienced it.

In fact, after the major awakening "I" had under my teacher, I did everything I could to maintain it, once I found it at that level. I actually drove to a town 2 hours away, that night after Satsang, focusing on silence and the energies to maintain it. And it kept trying to slip away, so I put everything I had into maintaining it. Realizing the value of what I’d found, it was almost a sleepless night, so I could stay completely present.

And as the light enters (reveals itself) in the body, some of the dark wants to come out, and it covers the light, the light that’s revealed in the body, the energy body.

I was very dedicated from that moment on, to holding it. I liken it to… you know when you light a candle, and it's an older candle and it's a little bit hard to get it going, and it takes a little while for the wax to melt and the flame to establish itself?

It was like that for a period of time; where any disturbance or wind could blow the candle out. So, for quite some time, my personal experience, that maybe different from others, was that I had to put all of my attention on the candle (flame) within the heart, that little flicker. At the expense of conversations, smiles, interactions, many, many things of the world had to be forgone… to keep that candle alight. It was because I had an awareness of how much it took to get there; and the reality is that there was a chance that I might never find it again.

It's automatically assumed that once you find it, it stays. That’s not true. There seems to be so many forces against it. If it was that easy, would there not be thousands of awakened masters throughout planet earth? It takes commitment, totality. And, an ultimate gentleness within that too, it all happens in a frame of extreme gentleness.

This is a concept in the west that so many like because it's so convenient. You get your master, you sit in front of them, he pops some energy out around the room, looks you in the eyes, and suddenly you are awakened, and BAM, I’m done, thank you very much. It's just... fantasy!! Absolute fantasy, convenient fantasy, for lazy minds. This is the truth.

It can only at best provide an invitation for you to start doing the work, and the work is looking within to find things that are contracting you, or making you tense, closing your heart. Opening your ears, so you can hear everything that everybody is saying. Being there for the other. It’s a practice. Now, that doesn't mean you make the practice, “oh I have to do x, y, z for x amount of years before I have a chance”, no, it might happen very rapidly. But to think there’s no need to look within, and expect it to all happen on the surface, that is the best it will ever be. It will be on the surface. A shallow mind awakening, which will be pushed over very easily. Surrender is not a doing, but it's a difficult practice. These words are not meant to dishearten, these words are here to be honest.

I have met people that have spent years on a quick fix path, but now have huge obstacles around the fact that the quick path didn't work. They realize now that they have a lot of blockages within their nervous system and their thinking patterns that are pulling them from awakening. Or, they get glimpses and these blockages pull them out. What bothers them, which of course is another blockage, is the wasted years that they could have been actually investigating themselves. Years of just waiting for it to happen and it not happening.

Of course, what happens and what happened to that person is meant to be that way. Just as these words are meant to be heard by who can hear them. Many won’t, and that’s ok. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Some will hear what I am saying, that are meant to hear what I am saying. No more, no less.

Maybe a few people would "like" to cause suffering upon themselves, hopefully not, but there could be some people with an honesty that will heal that. “Yes okay, okay, let's have a look, let's see what's inside of me. What is holding me back from my true nature?”, instead of “There is nothing to do”, Neo Advaita, “I just sit around doing nothing and I’ll wake up”, well guess what? You may wake up, but as soon as you step outside onto the street, you are going to lose it.

I can say now, that the worst night I have ever had in my life, with all the sufferings and tragedies and teenage issues, and girlfriends, and whatever else we go through in the western world, the worst night of my life, was the night I lost "my" awakening.

When I say “I”, I use the word I loosely, we’re just communicating here, so I don't sound trippy. But I became identified with form. That was the night of my life that I’ll never forget, and that night was a new resolution level. Once you have lived as the sky, as everything, and you end up back in form, with it’s suffering, it's very difficult.

I decided that I’d rather be dead than live this way. Because really, if we're identified, if we're living as an identified form, which is not reality, which is false, because it’s not reality, and we spend our whole lives that way… If we spend our whole existence in a false life, are we alive?

Who’s living?

We collect all our stories, and our pasts, and our futures, and goals, and dreams, and histories and photos, and then we leave the planet, our body. Or, if you don’t believe in the spirit, which is kind of illogical, or life, that's animating the body, or beingness, that’s animating our bodies, who's living?

Who?

To go through life and not explore this line of questioning, or inquiry, is extraordinary. It’s extraordinary. No self-reflection. The only way it can be achieved is continually looking outwards and projecting onto the world. Any depth of looking inwards will see. You will start to see the characters, the form enacting. And you don’t have a slight awareness that “oh, this is a character I’m playing right now”, and it changes from my children, my mother, my boss at work, and then my friends, and then when I go into the shop, all are slightly different characters playing out. If they’ve never noticed, it can be very difficult. 'Ignorance is bliss' would be that statement. But, if you're reading this, you've probably worked out that ignorance is not bliss.

Bliss is bliss.

Ignorance is ignorance.

Ignorance, according to the Buddha, meant suffering. Which is pretty hard to disagree with if there's any investigation done. Ignorance is the root of suffering.

So, when we're looking within, we're observing ourselves, to see where ignorance is hiding within us. As we practice this more and more, this self-observation habit, we can see where we are over-thinking, or over-stressing, or over-worrying. Stress and worry, shouldn't be happening at all. It’s unnecessary, because everything is at is, moment to moment. Adding worry, and stress, etc; is the bit that's false, that’s holding us back from seeing the truth. But to pretend these aren't existing within our nervous system, and within our actions, and the characters, the roles we play, is delusional. To think we can jump out of a nightclub and walk in front of an awakened master, and they're going to wake us up, without even looking into why we were in the nightclub in the first place, or why we were drinking, or XYZ, to see what's under the surface of our actions, is not in touch with reality.

To find emptiness, we have to empty.

If we're full of knowledge and ideas, and thoughts, and stresses, and grasping, and pushings, emptiness cannot be. There are too many things in the way to see. We may get a glimpse ahead of time, a little drive-by look. Which is wonderful because once you have a good look, generally it will increase the totality you will put towards finding this again. Having said that, we have to be cautious of creating a strong search, because that's the wrong direction, that's an outward event. But… that’s another topic. And it’s not about the experience of bliss, it’s not about the experiences, and chasing those, they are fleeting also. Emptiness is emptiness. If bliss comes within that, wonderful. If sadness within that, wonderful. It’s okay, because it’s all happening within the emptiness that we are. It doesn't matter what frequency is coming through emptiness. It’s irrelevant.

But, to have that point, we have to have a detachment from the frequencies, which is; Worry is frequency, isn't it? Stress is a frequency. Anger is a frequency. When we get attached to those, and we go running with them, we play with them. We entertain them, we embody them, and we become them, and they are false. They are just movements of energy. Attaching yourselves to them is supporting them. It’s the wrong direction.

​Allowing what is to be what is in that moment, without additional actions within the mind, is the key. We have so much happening subconsciously, we need to explore our conscious to allow our subconscious to come on up into our conscious.

If you're older in life, do you see a lot more than what you saw when you were nineteen or twenty? If you're forty-five, of course. If you're twenty-one, you will see a lot more than you did when you were seven or eight, you understand more. It’s a similar event. It’s not about collecting more stuff, it’s about seeing more within. At eight, you might have thought you knew, and then at twenty, you realize you didn’t. At twenty you might think you know, and at thirty you realize you didn't. This is the same. As we are now, consciousness keeps going deeper and deeper. But you have to welcome the unconscious, the unconscious within, whether it’s uncomfortable or not, to arise.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Or, (as an analogy) you'll be a thirty-year-old trapped as a twenty-year-old. Some people think that is a great idea, I’m not so sure. It depends on how you were as a twenty-year-old, I guess. Some people like to be fifty and pretend they're fifteen. I think they've misunderstood the teachings if they are indeed listening to teachings, about being young at heart. It doesn't mean being immature at heart, it means, being fresh in the moment–– big difference!!

The point is, there's work to be done. And the work needs a watcher, observing; a degree of separation to what's happening. You don't have to go into hyper-analytics of everything. But, if we do something and there’s a major movement, or we're watching an emotional movie and suddenly we jump up, or suddenly we do something. We can ask ourselves, “Why did I suddenly move, what's going on?”

Look!

Or, an emotion arose– did somebody say something to you? What happened?

Look for triggers.

Sharp shifts of action.

To see.

It’s a practice. It is the simplest to do in our day-to-day activities. We can do our activities, and still be self-observing. We have to develop this. Some might say that's separating into two, and in a way it is. But this can be dropped later.

It can do a great amount of good to progress us, to create a foundation, that beingness can rest upon. Truly, it rests within. If you want to build a house, you build a nice foundation for it. You don't just go and lay a concrete slab, or put the post into a swamp. Because, it will fall down, and collapse, and disappear into the swamp. You’re trying to build a home here, not trying to make it disappear. So, we need a home for beingness, to be supported within our energy body. Papaji used the term, a very nice, eloquent saying, and I’ll paraphrase it here.

“You need to get dressed for the emperor.”

Which means, you don't turn up to the emperor unwashed, uncleaned. There’s a purification process that will assist the emperor, or beingness, to want to reside within.

He’s always there, but he doesn't like to show himself to a character, that might be carrying knives, or who has sharp edges, or a foul mouth. The emperor has important things to be doing, and would not waste time in such a space.

There’s no room for him there. There’s too much going on.

The space is already full with grumblings, or unhappiness, or over thinking, conniving, remembering, or worrying; there's no space there.

It’s full.

Make space for the emperor.

Dress for the emperor.

Do the work.

This is a proven path that works.