The Living Method of Spiritual Awakening Glossary

The Living Method Glossary
7.23.18

The Absolute – All that Is and all that Isn’t. “The thing that has the sense of being is not the sense of being; you are what’s prior to consciousness; it is the sense of being and it is beyond the sense of being; it is that which cannot be talked about; ‘I Am’ can never know this state either…and yet you can’t not be it.” – Fred.

Awakening Experience – A felt experience of great clarity and insight, beyond intellectual understanding. It can be subtle or explosive, its effects lasting or not.

Awakening Session – A skillfully conducted meeting where a student is led to have an awakening experience for the first time, or a “reawakening” experience.

Awareness Aware of Itself – This describes of the nature of Oneness; alert observing or alert witnessing of experiencing; the open experiencing of an arising (that which comes and goes) while not taking delivery of it (not buying into it); This; witnessing of Awareness; Here; Now; present to Presence; Oneness aware of Itself.

The Bubble of Self Reflection – A seeker is caught in the bubble of self reflection when his or her conception of Oneness comes solely from the perspective of the character: “I know that I’m Oneness,” says Deb. To truly understand Oneness, you must see that there is no character.

The Character – The illusory sense of individuality; his or her patterns of conditioning.  Error is made in mistaking the character for an actual Bob, Carol, Kim, etc. There is a sense of Bob, but no Bob.

Clarity Session – For those who have already had an awakening experience, this is a skillfully conducted meeting aimed at clarifying the student’s perception of the nondual nature of reality.  Sessions provide a deeper reflection of Oneness than what a student may experience alone (see Indra’s Net). This results in transcendent perspectives on inner and outer life events, allowing detachment from what isn’t true. Clarity around personal stories may be shared and further explored in Satsang as well as Clarity Sessions. 

Clearing – The process of integrating and deepening the insights and understanding of True Nature following an awakening experience, which enables us to increasingly abide as awareness in the present moment. It involves any or all of the classic tools used for spiritual insight and abidance: inquiry, satsang, study, observation, surrender, prayer, meditation, selfless service.

Fredness, for example – A sense of a Fred. Specific to a character, adding ‘ness’ after the name refers to a sense of personhood that arises from cooperative patterning. There is no actual person but there is a sense of person.

Freedom from Imagination – Freedom to enjoy the richness of the experiencing of relativity/the dream without getting lost in or believing in the story of a separate person in a world, and ultimately, freedom from believing in a sense of being. Moment by moment experiencing through the imaginary character is exquisite when free from imagination, otherwise it can be tortuous. “Right here and now, in the very place all this stormy weather of time and change come from, I am Home and dry.” – DH.

The Great Okayness – The underlying, ever present sense of serenity, unaffected by the surface emotional ups and downs of the person. Unlike the individual’s sense of “all is well,” the all-pervading Great Okayness has no opposite.

Indra’s Net – From ancient Buddhist lore, this is a net of infinite dimensions hung over the Vedic God Indra’s Palace on Mount Meru. There is a multifaceted jewel suspended in each vertex of the net. Each of these jewels reflects all other jewels in the net, along with their reflections, so that there is a dynamic infinite reflecting play of light and images. It is a metaphor for the concepts of emptiness, interdependent arising, and the omniscience of consciousness.

Oneness – All that Is; the One interwoven thread in the tapestry of creation; the interconnectedness of Indra’s Net of jewels; not two-ness; just One thing going on; the One omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent consciousness; the Great Okayness; fullness; emptiness.

Oscillation – Although not real, there can be an experience of oscillation, “I had it, I lost it.” This occurs when Oneness believes in, or identifies with the imaginary character who is believed to be waking up. But this belief is made in error and is a case of mistaken identity. The character will never wake up because it doesn’t exist. Oneness is already always awake since the nature of Oneness is Awareness aware of Itself.

Relativity – The illusion of existing as a separate person in a world of space and time, with other beings and objects. Also referred to as “samsara”, “maya”, “the dream”, “the phenomenal world” or “transactional reality.”

Satsang – Weekly Sunday two-hour online meeting of ACN students with Fred.  Various topics are introduced and elucidated by Fred, followed by group discussion and questions.

A Sense of… – An experience of; what is imagined doesn’t matter, but nevertheless counts in that it is experienced as real.  In relativity, the person or the person’s story in the Dream isn’t real, only the experience of it is.

A Sense of Being – Consciousness; I Am without the I; Am-ing; sense of aliveness; vitality; the witness state.

Surrender – Freely and openly allowing What Is without running interference or getting lost in identifying with it; come on Oneness, had enough of who you aren’t?

The Unit – An individual person; the body/mind, its conditioning and patterns. Prior to awakening, the unit is typically taken to be the totality of who we are.

Unit Overwhelm – When the person’s conditioning is triggered (usually by something perceived as a threat to the person, such as injury, insult or misfortune) such that the expanded sense of being contracts back into the limits of the personal mind/body unit, i.e., the separate self, with all its attendant suffering.

The Void – That which is prior to consciousness. That from which all things arise.  It is never the object of knowledge and therefore cannot be directly known.

Special thanks to Kim and Kathleen