Moving into a diversity of experience and toward self-knowing and self-realization in all its guises is innate to who we are; it is the nature of the One in its play in manifestation. This measurable, relative universe provides the opportunity for us to experience Self in relationship with itself, to potentiate self-knowing. That which is Divine is not other than who we are and moves toward its infinite self-experience and knowing, as and through us. So we are at once always and already complete. Yet the nature of manifestation is to experience this and in order to do that there is a here to a there -- a process, which leaves open the possibility for our getting lost in the illusion that we are other than what we aspire or move toward, and that we can be more or less that. It also leaves open the possibility of our seeing the illusion for what it is and dancing free with and from it.
When we believe that what we are reaching for is other than what we are, we concretize our perceived separation from it. Adding on top of that, the illusory notion of "enlightenment" as a measurement of realization ends up further obfuscating that which is innate and our birthright into something apparently unreachable, or, possibly reachable with exceptional grace or "hard work." In a sense it makes rare something that is very natural and ordinary and obscures from our awareness what is always and already divine in all of life including the mundane.
That which is seen in that which is sought is one and the same as that which is seeing. That which is seen can only ever be seen by itself. If that which is seen by you was not awake in you, you would not be able to see, hear, or recognize what you see.
When we do not recognize ourselves as the same and one with what we are seeking, we feel a separation from what we aspire toward. The more that we seek what we believe is other than ourselves, the more we reinforce the very illusions of separation and sense of division that stand in the way of experiencing a peace of being and of realizing our aspirations. This sense of separation is fed by our identifying solely through our individuation.
Our Divine Nature calls to itself from within to be realized, which is such a beautiful expression of the Divine Will in action. It is the play of love, the play of bliss, the play of knowledge, the play of pure beingness, the play of freedom. It is perfection seeking to realize itself. It is the breath of your being, the heart of your soul, the light of your mind, the joy of your essence, the delight of your song, the peace of your true nature, the wonder of your mystery. Yet through our habits and illusions of separation it is often translated like a nag that wants something it is not, which can then distort things.
This distortion is compounded by our tendency to identify ourselves through the effort of our aspiration and then the need to invest more and more in that effort to validate it and ourselves. When we have a vested interest in what we have built, we tend to continue to fortify it with our beliefs. Within the momentum of that dynamic, non-effort or stopping is not even a consideration because of the fear of failure, of inadequacy, of the unknown, of non-being, or of ceasing to exist. Our actions and thoughts then become defenses against that. Defending ourselves against the unknown is a path of tension enmeshed in preconceptions and away from the realization of truth. Our mental associations and representations of what we see further obscure or add "story" to what is.
"Not knowing" or not giving energy to mind and its constructs is a path toward getting beyond mind's limitations. But when aspirants deny or refuse knowledge that comes through silence and beyond mind so as not to give energy to the habits and limitations of mind, they can stop a very divine flow and remove themselves from the very essence of the truth of their being as the all-ness that is and is not, that knows and knows not.
Speaking to the Seeker in Conflict With Seeking
Trying to deny seeking is chasing your tail in one direction, and seeking for what you believe you are not is chasing your tail in another. Not allowing this innate aspect of yourself moving toward self-realization in form because of feeling that it will obfuscate self-realization is creating for yourself a double bind.
You are at once "always, already" that, and there is nothing that you can do or that you need to do to be that -- and you are that coming to realize, know and experience self as the many faces of that in manifestation. If you allow both as they arise in your awareness you will not create division around it. My sense is that depression or frustration comes as a result of suppressing one and not accomplishing your ideas of another while judging yourself for it.
You are at once "always, already" that, and there is nothing you need to do in order to be that -- and you are always realizing self through all of life. Realizing depression, realizing joy, realizing peace, realizing sleep, realizing unconsciousness, realizing bliss, realizing forgetting, realizing suffering, realizing awakening, realizing something, realizing nothing.
Can you find any place in your awareness that is undisturbed or unaffected by your seeking? Can you find that which is unperturbed by seeking or not seeking or what appears to be the conflict between the two and could include either or both?
Seeking is an innate aspect of consciousness as a force of play in this relative, material, space-time universe. Consciousness, the Divine, God, That, seeks to know and experience itself in its infinite diversity as and through us. Where this becomes a problem or paradoxical bind in the experience of the seeker is when what is seeking perceives itself to be not of the same substance in its essential nature as that which it is seeking. It is then when the seeking separates oneself further in experience and identity from that which one aspires toward.
Denying that which seeks or moves toward experiencing more of itself is like trying to deny the inherent nature of the Divine within manifestation. When attempting to maneuver ourselves to "let go," "stop," or rest in our idea of the "always already" unconditioned self without realizing this, we set up a paradoxical bind in our experience. This can create tension and conflict when wonder expresses itself, and when "doing," creative expression, or the inspiration to create change, perfect, or achieve happens. Tension, conflict, or the preconceptions that propel determined self-maneuvering can obscure to our perception what arises out of this perfect essence dancing itself and moving into its ever changing, ever deepening self-experience and expression.
Resting undivided,
breathing this perfect essence,
Being
and in the depths of stillness
even that sense
or what defines it
dissipates in the winds
where identity need not hold to itself
and words like "perfect" or "essence"
reveal their stories
looking out into the vastness
breathing one with the awareness in which this all arises,
nothing separate to hold onto,
nowhere,
everywhere,
and now "awareness" sees itself
and drops away
emptiness dances its freedom.
Essence breathes itself into being. It dances through all conditions as it comes to know and experience itself in its infinite diversity unconditionally. There is nothing but that. All movement can only be that being itself, and whatever direction we might perceive it going, it is that unveiling itself, either in awareness or in ignorance. May it be in awareness, all eyes open, undivided, to awareness evermore waking up to itself.
Ellen Davis - © 2000
Revised © 2012