PRIME POST: The Vise of Suffering, and the End of One Man’s Seeking

Gary Falk. You will note that even in photographs, Gary is a little off-center.

Hello, everybody! This post is such a treat to be able to write, and I think you’ll really enjoy it. My heartfelt thanks to Gary Falk for allowing me to share his experience, strength, and hope.

I first started writing it over a week ago and finished it toward the end of this past week. I stayed up past 1:00 am one night to finish it, and I did. Only when I hit “Publish,” I got an error code. I clicked again, and the last two hours of my writing disappeared into the ether–even though it had theoretically been saved. Ugh. As you might imagine, this event did not fall within the unit’s preferences.  It was not a happy unit for a little while.

So I took my broken heart and went elsewhere for a few days, working on other things, including actually sitting down to read and meditate at some length. My wound began to heal, and I thought again about finishing that post. But not quite yet.

And then, two afternoons ago, I cut what I think is an important video on  Deep Attention Practice. I didn’t want to send out an email on just the video, so I came back in and somewhat grudgingly went back to work. Now that it’s complete I can send out a notice and hopefully bring some attention to bear on that new video as well. I’ve already gotten great mail and comments on it, even though it’s not yet been widely watched.

The funny thing is, as Nature would have it, this new post is a whole lot better than was the phantom one. It’s twice as long, twice as deep, and reads better, too. It  occurred to me the other night, even while my gut was still reeling from that into-the-ether punch, that I wasn’t “supposed” to have published that post in that form, which is absolutely true. I was not yet ready to fully accept that because I had a warm and cuddly victim story that I wanted to nurse for a little while.

These units really do want things to go their way, and I notice that mine is not yet an exception to that longing. I don’t think I’ll hold my breath until that happens. For now I can notice such nonsense and remember not to take it seriously. Nature had apparently just benevolently saved me from publishing a post-that-should-not-be.  Great. Thank you, damn it. 

Gary Falk is a very long-term, well-known member of our spiritual community. There is very little in the way of “what you can do” to find enlightenment that Gary hasn’t done. You don’t find many people who’ve been on the narrow path of Nonduality for 45 years, but Gary is one of them. He will tell you himself that it’s been a hard, rocky road that’s wound around gurus, cults, religions, teachers and workshops galore, and who knows what all else. He experienced pretty much everything available except awakening.

I first met Gary when I got an email from him a few weeks back asking for information about sessions. He was especially interested in the amount of time between sessions, since he considered himself something of a “lazy seeker” and didn’t want to feel rushed. That cracked me up. You don’t stay on the path for more than four decades if you’re lazy. No way. A lazy man would’ve long since shot himself in the name of efficiency.

Gary told me that he’d tried to “call off the search” any number of times only to discover that he doesn’t have the power to call off the search. It’s not his decision to make. Amen, brother–been there, done that, got the t-shirt. We don’t choose to be seekers; seeking chooses us, whether we like it or not. And then it makes of us what it will.

I can remember quite well when I would have been more than willing to trade in all of my spiritual books, practices, accoutrements, and knowledge, if I could just for once, be a normal automaton of a guy drinking beer and watching football at Hooter’s. For a guy in the kind of mental turmoil I was in, that scene looked better than an ad for a vacation in Fiji. Spiritual-smiritual–who needs it?

Back to Gary and his quandary. In a funny but not completely inaccurate way, you could say that I’ve never left my old Twelve Step recovery position of “sponsor.” Only these days I work with seekaholics, instead of alcoholics. It’s the same disease manifesting in two different ways and with the same defense mechanism: denial. Seekaholics are addicted to separation, while simultaneously experiencing a desperate craving to give it up. Ugh. I remember that so so well, as both a seekaholic and an alcoholic. Instead of always being on the prowl for their next drink, however, seekaholics are always looking for their next think.

Just by following the simple, seemingly harmless, thought, “It’s okay if I go have one drink…” or “It’s okay if I go have just one think…” either addict (or the same addict suffering from both conditions) can go on a sudden bender that ends up lasting for years. I don’t know that seekaholism will actually land you in the gutter–although it certainly aided and abetted my trips there. Nor do I believe you will get arrested for driving under the influence of too many pointers, but it’s still a rough ride, no matter your vehicle. “Hey, buddy, could you spare a guy an opinion?”

I’m overdoing it here in the name of humor. Thought is not our enemy. Ego is not our enemy. Desire is not our enemy. In fact, we don’t even have an enemy. But we do have some tricky friends.

At any rate, I sent Gary some information, and we scheduled our five appointments. Currently he’s living with his 100-year-old mother on Staten Island. When we met for our Introductory Session, I found myself thoroughly charmed on the one hand and laughing like crazy on the other. Gary was all New Yorker: loud and animated, completely up-front and unabashed, as well as being a very funny guy. From time to time he would be looking at me and laughing while loudly talking to his mother, who was pleasantly wandering about the apartment.

It was a stitch. And we got along quite wonderfully. That’s not unusual for me, but the level of connection we had was delightfully keen.

After a few minutes of talk, it became apparent that after so many decades on the enlightenment trail, Gary knew a lot. A whole lot. The language of Nonduality slipped from his lips as easily as it did from mine. I knew immediately that the challenge with Gary was going to be the fact that he might know too much. This is common. It must be overcome if the client is to awaken.

The reader will note that I am the author of a little volume entitled  The Book of Unknowing, and it should be clear from the title that it’s not my sense that enlightenment is contingent upon getting more information. I do just the opposite. I help folks un-know what they already know. And I could see I had my work cut out for me with this guy. I usually do. In fact, Gary is more like a composite client, meaning that he is positively the norm and not the exception.

“You know, Gary,” I said, “all of this time you’ve spent on the path may not actually be working for you. I’m afraid it may very well be working against you.” Gary readily agreed. He could see the truth of that, and he knew it before he talked to me; he just didn’t know what to do about it. Perfect! That’s right where I need a client to be, and his easy agreement on that point was a real plus. I helped Gary see that if just words and practices hadn’t freed him by now then it was increasingly unlikely that they ever would.

I helped him see that if the last four decades of trying it his way hadn’t worked, then the odds were bad that another two hours of doing more of the same were going to be the magic bullet. Could he go ahead and allow himself to fail? Could he hand himself over to experience and not theory? Was he willing to put his attention on the evidence of his actual experience instead of his thoughts about his experience. 

I further walked him through the hopeless nature of his condition, which is not too unlike the condition of most of us, though perhaps he had spent a bit longer in that state. Gary’s seeking had led him on a dry and often discouraging search. Endless books and workshops. Endless CDs and DVDs. Endless teachers and talks with teachers. And still not consciously awake. Maybe a glimpse and maybe not. It seems we absolutely can’t wake up, and we absolutely can’t quit trying to wake up. Modification doesn’t work. Control doesn’t work. Sincerely pretending to give up control doesn’t work. At some point, if we are lucky, we run fresh out of ideas.

When we clearly realize that we can’t do something successfully, while simultaneously clearly realizing that we can’t quit trying to do it successfully, then we have walked right into the awful yet wonderful Vise of Suffering. Imagine a steel room with no doors, no windows, absolutely no way out. And then two of the walls start moving toward you. At first you scramble around looking for a secret door, a button, anything, any way out at all. Finding none, you holler for help at the top of your lungs. As the walls get close, you put your arms out and try to stop them. No dice.

In this slowly constricting room, there will come a point when it’s seen and known that This Is It. End of story. It’s not about right or wrong, fair or unfair, being too early or being too late. Things are as they are and death is coming for this unit in just moments. No way out.

Once this was clear, then I think for many of us, perhaps even most of us, panic would finally yield to peace. There is nothing left to fight and no fight left in us. The candle is being blown out.

And in our surrender we are crushed.

Ultimately surrender only seems like something we do. In truth it’s something that happens. It’s a spontaneous, internal shift that automatically occurs when we accept and acknowledge the utter truth of our powerlessness. Far more than mere resignation is required. Resignation is just resistance in a nice hat. Surrender is agreeing to cooperate with the inevitable.

The Vise of Suffering opens only as widely and speedily as we do. It’s not a matter of giving up the reins or perishing, it’s more a matter of giving up the reins and perishing, all within that same movement, within that same moment. I would never wish this thing on anybody, but I do notice it works to awaken us more effectively and more often than any other motivation I’ve yet seen. There’s nothing quite like a boiling combination of fear, pain, suffering, and surrender to generate change. It worked for me.

I saw that Gary had come to a similar point. Instead of wanting to win a nondual knowledge contest, Gary sounded to me like he really wanted to wake up. We can appear to win almost any argument with any sage, because ultimately they won’t resist your argument. They will neither confirm nor deny. They will just shut up and let you carry on your insanity without their help. You get to win–which in this case means that you have successfully thwarted awakening.

I can’t stress enough how critical Gary’s clear seeing and easy acknowledgement of his current, clueless condition were in facilitating an awakening event. It must be seen that the me who’s trying to do it simply can’t. Ultimately, that me is its own anti-catalyst. If awakening does ever happen, you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s not going to happen to that unit. Openness and willingness are everything.

What I found in Gary was a well-disguised but nevertheless golden combination of honesty and humility.  And guess what? He woke up. Very clearly. The Vise of Suffering chalked up another win. He has tremendous context, and since nothing is ever wasted, he not only woke up more clearly than many, but he’s likely to clear up more quickly as well, not that there’s a race going on or any eventual graduation day. It all happens as it happens.

Now here’s the kicker to this story. While Gary is a new friend of mine, he is apparently an old friend of Jerry Katz’s. And Jerry, as most of you know, is the longtime founder and editor of Nonduality Highlights. He is currently, among dozens of other things, serving as the host/co-host of Nonduality Talk Radio. Jerry and I have been friends for several years now, and he was good enough to write a terrific Guest Teacher post for the original Awakening Clarity. Jerry also interviewed me about a year ago. Here’s a YouTube link for those of you interested in listening to that.

It turns out that prior to our Introductory Session, Gary had spent some time with his pal Jerry on Nonduality Talk Radio. I’m on their mailing list, so got a notice on the interview. The name rang a bell, so I checked to see if that was “my Gary Falk,” the one that I would be talking to in a few days, and indeed it was. I didn’t have time to listen to the interview, and I figured I was going to meet Gary anyway so I didn’t need to, but I did think it was mighty synchronistic.

Jerry Katz, as ever, standing tall for Nonduality.

But if I had listened, I would have discovered that during the show, Gary, who was bemoaning his lack of enlightenment, said, “Hey, Jerry, I’m taking the Fred Davis Challenge!” Jerry had not heard of the Fred Davis Challenge (and neither had I), so he asked what Gary was talking about. The “Fred Davis Challenge” was Gary’s take on my claim to be able to wake up most people in a single session. You can hear that conversation between them here–just look at the notes and you can go pretty much straight to it.

A few minutes further along in the interview they talk again about Gary’s upcoming session work, and Gary says if “the Fred thing works” he wants to come back on the show as an “enlightened being” and score a real interview. These two guys will make you cry from laughter. Listen to this show if you have a little spare ear time and want some rich entertainment.

That evening I wrote Jerry about Gary’s success. Jerry wrote back and invited me to come on his radio show and talk about whatever it is we end up talking about on November 12th at 12:30 Eastern. I invite you to join us, and I’m confident that a good time will be had by all.

Fred Davis
September 16, 2014