19 Minute Clarity Talk: Paying Attention to the Most Important Thing
Sometimes being a spiritual teacher in a practice where a lot of people are waking up only to find themselves in the lengthy process of continually unfolding into clarity is like being a scorekeeper at a tennis match. The ball goes this way, then that way, and now back over here, then there, endlessly bouncing and bonking and rolling. Of course my “tennis balls” are my clients and students, who are this day clear, that day cloudy, and the next day clueless, perhaps only to start the cycle over again.
I did this for 3 1/2 years. That’s 42 months. That’s roughly 1,281 days. It’s a long time. But just like when I finally, finally, finally gave up being a chain smoker ten years ago, I tried and failed, and I tried and failed, and I tried and didn’t fail. I have lots of clients in their 60’s and 70’s who’ve been on this track all of their lives. Where there’s breath there’s hope, I promise you that.
But we have to get back up every time we fail. This is one of the core values of a regular spiritual practice of doing anything. Ten quiet minutes a day, just making yourself available to grace, can be what gets you through the tough times. If someone told you that this spiritual path is easy, you sure weren’t talking to me. It’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard.
If spirituality was easy, we wouldn’t get anything out of it. We wouldn’t learn. We wouldn’t progress. There’d be no point in it.
I encourage you to and back up. Pick up your broken heart, or your fried mind, or your worn and torn body, and get back to work. No matter what. The great blessing of being able to hear and answer the call of Truth in a human life is relatively rare. Our numbers are large, but our percentage of the population starts with a decimal followed by a zero. I don’t know the other numbers, but you get the message.
I really do believe that a positive future for our planet is dependent upon getting enough people to awaken. I feel that from the bottoms of my feet to the top of head, and everywhere in between. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
One of, in fact probably the chief reason we fall back into the dream is because we are addicted to the idea of being right. Notice that I said “the idea” of being right. None of us are right. No thought is true. When we’re living in freedom there is only What Is, which is beyond all pairs of polar opposites, beyond comparison or division. In order for us to be right, we have to be living from a center, not Truth.
But a lot of us don’t want to give that up. I didn’t. But I let go of it in the end, and I am so glad I did. Betsy did too, and other than me, she’s the happiest person I know. Use that strong, sexy feeling of “rightness” as an alarm clock to alert you that you’re back in the dream. I do that. Still. The insistence on rightness is anathema to Awakeness.
Remember my maxim: We can be right, or we can be free, but we can’t be both at the same time. If being right is really important to you–and it is for many of the intellectual-types who are often drawn to Nonduality–then you’re going to have to look at that and decide what you really want. You’ll get it.
We have to live in alertness, rigorously searching for the belief, opinion, or position (BOPs) that has caught us unaware. It only takes one to start the cycle. And the first one could be, “Damn, didn’t I used to be awake?” Pop!–and it’s nap time.
Here’s a good look at what I sometimes find out in the field. It might be worth your checking yourself. It’s not anybody else’s job to do it for you. This is a do-it-to-yourself program. Honesty is the only policy. Can you tell yourself the truth?
Paying Attention to the Most Important Thing
Fredness
5.29.14
