Compassion for the Character by Adam Volny

Adam Volny is enrolled in The Living Method Continuing Student Program. He woke up about a year ago from my video course – on the very same day that he decided (at least apparently) to get serious about pursuing nondual truth. The Book of Undoing was on a reading list suggested by a self-help type guru, so he went to Amazon and bought it, and Amazon led him to this website. He saw the course, thought, “Well why not give it a try?” and woke up quite clearly a couple of hours later. It’s just wrong, is it not? 

I’m happy to announce that Kathleen Sutherland, who is also a Continuing Student and who has previously made contributions here, is the new editor of Awakening Clarity Now. 

I want to thank Adam and Kathleen for their contributions. You’ll be hearing more from both of them, and from other Continuing Students as well. Spirituality is not a spectator sport, folks. Come on down on the field and play!

Compassion for the Character
by
Adam Volny

One of the biggest issues in the apparent process of clearing for me is the relationship to sensations and emotions.  Throughout our lives, we have gone through a great variety of  experiences.  We were taught to label some of them as good and the others as bad.  I want more of these, but hope to not even get close to those.  Ultimately, this leads to an acute disconnection from our basic experiencing that is inevitably followed by varying degrees of suffering.   We come to believe that to stop the suffering we must get rid of those bad sensations, that they are the cause.  If only we felt good all the time, we wouldn’t suffer, right?

After awakening, we find out that they are not our emotions, and that all the stories about them are just stories.  And believing those stories is what makes us suffer.  The tricky thing to understand is that the stories aren’t to be blamed for our suffering.  Neither does it mean that if only we could get rid of our stories, we wouldn’t suffer anymore.  It is a simple observation that is not to be followed up with any theory about what reality is or should be.   And that is what we always do, right?  There is no little me over here, therefore there is nothing to do.  I suffer because of the things I was taught in childhood, therefore it’s the parents’ fault.  I am not suffering right now, therefore I must figure out how to keep this.  But making sense of it is the mind’s job, after all, so obviously, it’s fine as it is.

But returning to the point, the central delusions seem to be those beliefs that tell us what we should and shouldn’t feel.  This is the mechanism that is responsible for the constant checking of the current state against memory and expectation.  I recently stumbled upon a video by Jeff Foster where he describes this perfectly.  First, there is a raw sensation, then it’s labeled, then it’s judged and then a story appears about what’s to blame for it.  It blew my mind completely because of how accurate it is. We think that we will eliminate our suffering when we solve the imagined problem presented in the story.  We think that the feeling will go away when we punish and change the one who is blamed.  And more often than not, it is ourselves we blame.  And that’s why it hurts so much.  We have learned to completely reject ourselves just as we are.  And believe me, that it is the only way we will ever be.  So, what’s up with that, right?

The biggest misconception here is that feelings need to be solved.  That is what I meant by acute disconnection.  Feelings aren’t there to be solved or fixed.  Feelings are there to be felt.  That’s why we call them feelings.  What would it be like if you felt all your feelings right now?  What would it be like to let them be as they are?  What if they are not your feelings and they aren’t there to hurt you or make you feel bad?  What if all they want is to be held?  What if all they want is to be felt, as they are, without quietly trying to get rid of them?  Can you feel the subtle sadness that comes with trying to make them go away?  It is a sort of violence toward yourself.  I can attest to this.  It can be incredibly painful to reject what you feel and constantly try to fix your experience.

The first step would be to accept your non-acceptance.  It’s okay to not be okay.  It is fine to be a mess.  Accept yourself as judgmental, weird, messed up, selfish, etc.  And if you can’t, well, accept that too.  You are doing the best you can.  We all are.  There is much more space in your heart than it might seem at first glance.  And there is no second step.  You are the way you are because you can’t not be and there’s no more to it.

Although spirituality and awakening lead us to freedom, on the way they can throw us into even greater bondage than before, with thoughts such as: I should be clearer than I am, I shouldn’t be as identified with the body, I shouldn’t feel like Adam, I should be more spiritual, I shouldn’t have these terrible, unspiritual habits.  But in believing and clinging to those thoughts, we betray our experience.  Our experience is as it is, and feeling like Adam, Oneness, Vastness or Nothingness are all completely equal expressions of who I am.  That’s why there’s no shame in feeling like you are that little character and identifying with the body.  It doesn’t change anything about who you are.  You are beyond all these experiences and expressions.  They can’t touch You.

Embrace the human as it is.  Understand that it is doing the best it can.  The game is rigged from the very beginning.  It is meant to break you.  It is the only way to make You see.  Know that it is okay when it does, because collapse and decay, too, are a way to freedom.