Oh my soul!

Sister Mary Lisa Interview, Part I

Catholicism often has the negative connotation of being rigid, unwelcoming, and behind our modern times.  During my exploration of spirituality, I wondered how someone in this community, maybe even a priest or nun, would face the same questions I have.  I also wondered how someone would make the decision to choose a religious vocation.  Lucky for me, my first cousin once removed (yes, I had to look that up) has been a Catholic nun for over 50 years. I had the privilege of talking with Sister Mary Lisa of the Sisters of Notre Dame community in Chardon, Ohio one summery morning.  Get ready to break some stereotypes: she's funny, open, and delightful.  Here's her story.

Stephanie: I’d like to hear the story of how you became a Sister.

Sister Mary Lisa:   I went to a Catholic school.  In the 5^th grade, I had a very young, vivacious teacher.  She started a little club, the Christopher Club, where we did some prayers and things…and I thought, “Gee, I would really like to be a sister!”  So the teacher outlined it [and I thought], let me look at this just like I would look at being a nurse or teacher, because there weren’t that many great careers then.  Then as 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade comes, your hormones start changing, boys enter your life, and all that other teenage stuff.  So I thought, I’ll put that little thought aside!

In the 8^th grade, I was hoping and praying that I would win this scholarship to a Catholic high school.  I knew I was smart enough.  It was based on where you fell in the entrance exam.  Well I didn’t fall in the top 4.  I thought to myself, “God, I have prayed, you know my parents can’t afford to send me there.  What’s gonna happen now?”  

After school, I had to wait for the second bus, and I would help out my teacher.  One day, she said to me, “Diane, did you ever think about becoming a sister?”  And I thought, Oh geez! What am I gonna tell her?  And since I had thought about it before, I said yes.   She said, "I know you didn’t win the scholarship to Regina High School, but if you became what they call an Aspiring or a Prep thinking about becoming a nun, you could go to Notre Dame Academy on a sliding scale!"  Then she dropped the bomb: "You would live there, like in boarding school! " And I’m listening to this, taking it all in.  I’m thinking, ok, I’m an adventurous person.  If this is going to be a sliding scale, I might be able to do this. 

The best was brought out of me when I made that crazy decision to become this Prep.  But I remember as a sophomore, things were getting a little more stringent.  I remember thinking, Hey! We’re not nuns yet!  We weren’t allowed to date or go to the dances.  I thought this was a little much.  I remember saying to our Directoress, Sister Mary Frank, “You know, I don’t what this thing about being a nun is, about a religious vocation.  But I don’t wanna waste my life.  If you can see anything in me that says I shouldn’t be here, let me know as soon as possible."  She said, "Don’t worry, I certainly will."  I trusted her implicitly to know whether I was showing signs that this might be my life’s path.  And then in every step of the way, I clearly made the decision to take the next step. 

It wasn’t until 6 years after I made final vows that I got in big trouble with one of my major superiors.  At that point, something happened that made me so horrendously angry that I almost wanted to just walk out of this community.  I didn’t care about signing papers or anything.  I remember going to chapel later on [that day], nobody was in there, it was late at night, and I was just sitting in there.  I was continuing to calm myself down about this whole thing, to look at it from a perspective of not anger or agitation, but a little more calmly. 

All of a sudden, I was given that grace, that gift, that I knew I was not here for this woman or for this community.  I was here only for God.  Amen, done.  There’s a whole wake of when you realize that is Who you are here for.  God is calling you back to him through this lifestyle, and this is really his plan for you.  

It’s not at all that you ignore your community relations or ministry, but it really keeps you on the straight and narrow when you start to think about climbing the “ ladder” in the community. I was a teacher, then a principal, regional superintendent, department chair at the college…you could get so bound up in your work or your ministry that you miss the boat about why you’re really here.   To be honest with you, Steph, as intelligent as I was, [the direction that] God gave me at an early age made all the difference in the world.  I just went along with it, I found people who I could trust to help me all along my formation.  God put good people in my life.  I am not saying that I didn’t have some reather crummy experiences with other people in there, going through them pointed out different parts of me, including the shadow side of me. 

I found out even some of the more “scandalous” things that I might have been involved with were telling me something about me, opening myself up to a fuller me, and I could put them into a perspective.  I knew there was part of me, not ALL of me, that I should be ashamed of.  It was ok that this happened. It’s not the end of the world.  You could go on from here.  You learn.  I never went for a Ph D, but I’ll tell ya, I think I have a Ph D in living life from the school of hard knocks in my life.  Do you know what I mean?  That’s the story of how I became a nun.  

A couple of times here and there I fell in and out of love and that kind of thing.  This is just part of it. It’s part of growing up.  I’m 72 and I’m still growing up!  And having different life experiences.   I just went to a holistic retreat with an Indian priest and an Indian sister, and I really realized that how unquiet I am because of all the different things I have to do.  I’m asked to do them, I do them well, I’m hardly ever pushing back that this [other thing] is what I want to do.  

[When Sister Mary Lisa received her obedience assignment as a young nun, she was sent to be an elementary school teacher instead of to study to be a doctor.  Here, she is talking about her first assignment as a teacher.]  Stephanie, in my life,  it’s the people that make a difference.  Whether they’re your clients, or the people with whom you rub elbows when teaching.  The job? You could take it and shove it!   But the people I loved, as far as that goes. 

This was another thing that came to me: it isn’t so much [about] what I do.  I thought I had planned out my life!  And God says, guess what, no, I have other plans for you.  I tell ya, my hindsight is more than 20/20.  I have to remember that when I am in a difficult situation: I will know, I will know, I will be given to know what this was all about in my life when God is ready to tell me what it is.  Just hang in there tough, and go to the next thing and the next thing...  

Nothing has ever been so horrendously devastating in my life that I would have just said, "That’s it God!  No more!"  It’s like, I’m starting to be like the kid who looks at a manure pile and says “Something in there is a pony!”  Even though naturally, I’d say “What the hell is that shit!”  Excuse me, tape recorder. 

Part II coming soon, with lots of great perspective on spiritual questions from Sister Mary Lisa.

Sneak Peek into my Interview with a Nun

Coming soon: an interview with a Catholic nun!  She also happens to be hilarious, delightful, insightful, in my family, and not afraid to cuss.

Sneak peek: I tell ya, my hindsight is more than 20/20.  I have to remember that when I am in a difficult situation: I will know, I will know, I will be given to know what this was all about in my life when God is ready to tell me what it is.  Just hang in there tough, and go to the next thing and the next thing...

Nothing has ever been so horrendously devastating in my life that I would have just said, "That’s it, God!  No more! "  It’s like, I’m starting to be like the kid who looks at a manure pile and says “Something in there is a pony!”   Even though naturally, I’d say “What the hell is that shit!”  Excuse me, tape recorder.

She and the other Sisters provide a really beautiful service: a prayer request line accesible by phone or email.  High tech nunnery!  Check it out:  http://www.sndchardon.org/prayer-requests/

The Innocence of Our Enemy

Thoughts often seem like our enemy.  Many spiritual traditions make a lot of noise about thoughts.  "Be mindful.  Notice your thoughts.  Shoo away your negative thoughts.  Control your mind.  Resist getting lost in your thoughts."  I personally have admitted to being a thoughtaholic, which insinuates that thoughts are toxic things that addict us.   It certainly feels that way!  Thoughts seem like the enemy we must battle to achieve inner peace or enlightenment.  

My perspective on thoughts (that's so meta!) shifted this past Friday when I heard Jeff Foster speak in Boulder, Colorado.  He was answering an audience question and pointed out something very surprising about our thoughts.  The persistence of our thoughts trying to solve our problems all the time is actually quite sweet and innocent.

Thoughts are constantly at our side if we allow them to be.  Regardless of the fact that many problems cannot be solved through the mind; thoughts will still try.  Thoughts return to us over and over, and even when they wear the cloak of negativity or insanity, they are trying their best within their own capacities to work through the puzzles that plague us.  How can you deny that loyal sweetness?  How can you be hateful toward that innocent failure? 

I used to imagine that abiding in love meant conquering the swarms of insidious thoughts.   Those pesky, distracting, enlightenment-impeding bastards!  But how would I expect to abide in love when I maintained a daily enemy?  Thoughts are no enemy.  Thoughts cannot possibly be the only thing in consciousness not made of the absolute love.  Thoughts are love, too.  Love your thoughts.

I interviewed Jeff here and here.

How YOU doin'?

Today happens to be my half-birthday (any excuse to eat cake is legitimate to me), and it happens to be about halfway through the year.  It seems like a great time to step back and review what I set out to do at the beginning of the year.  

The kind of mid-year review which looks back at New Year's Resolutions and the beginnings we swore we'd begin bums me out a little.  It has the feeling of getting dragged to church for confession: tell me what you've failed to or forgotten to do since your overzealous January 1 oath!  Let me try to shame you into taking your vitamins and learning how to speak Italian!

I propose reflecting in a different, broader way:

• What did you want to do at the beginning of this year which you've already done or are diligently working on?  Name your successes.  
• What are you better at compared to six months ago?  What have you learned?
• What sounds REALLY REALLY FUN right now?  How can you make that happen soon?
• What has been keeping you up at night?  Can you find a way to dive into and through that fear?
• What have you intended to do but put off to the point that it annoys you just to think about it?  How can you get that done in the next month, or how can you let it go?
• What is something you can do regularly that is guaranteed to make you smile?
• What is something you can do every day to feel connected to your spirit?  Put it on your agenda.
• What can you offer to a particular person to bring them encouragement or help?  Do it freely without the expectation of scoring brownie points.

Focusing on creating  joy, freedom, and positivity in your space will have a more far-reaching impact on your day to day life than switching from 2% to skim milk or forcing yourself to play badminton twice a week for the rest of the year. However, I feel much more dedicated to my practical resolutions when I am light, full of joy, and void of fear.  They feel easier to accomplish, too.  Strengthening our spiritual foundation makes changes in other aspects of life seem like a piece of cake.

Don't Be Happy

Well, if you have to choose between the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of joy, I'd just say NO to happiness.

Happiness is a transient state that arrives when conditions we desire are met.  "I'll be happy when I find my soulmate."  "Once I finally get promoted to Vice President of Dinglehoppers, I'll be happy."  "I'll be fine once I get it."  At that luscious moment when your condition is met, when your goal is reached, when your dream comes true, you feel happy.  A glow of elation.  You're drunk with the satisfaction of your goal fulfillment.  Finally, you're happy!

What happens next?

Do you find that even after your promotion to VP of Dinglehoppers, you want more?  Suddenly it seems like life would be so much better once you got promoted to SVP of Thingamabobs.  Have you noticed that once you get whatever you wanted, you want something else?  For most of us, happiness becomes a memory, even if the thing we had wanted is still there!  Our minds find even better contingencies to meet for even more happiness.

The pursuit of happiness is neverending.  And a neverending pursuit is futile.  

What's the alternative?  Joy.  

The great thing about joy is that you don't need to meet any conditions to feel it.  You can feel joy anytime.  The nature of the still spirit inside us is joyful.  You may recall feeling joy when witnessing something miraculous,  seeing a puppy frolick, or immersing yourself in nature.  But joy is not even dependent on these lovely experiences.  If you find yourself in a calm place where you are connected to the awareness always within you, you can notice that there is joy within you as well.  For no reason!  It is a bubbling up of love from within you, without any cause.  Joy comes from being rooted in the present moment.  Joy is the sensation of your spirit being lifted once you uncover it from the heavy weight of your thoughts and beliefs.

My mind has conditions to be met and wants happiness, over and over.  My spirit has joy and wants nothing more, ever.

Jeff Foster Interview, Part II

As you read in Part I of my interview with him, Jeff Foster travels the world guiding people toward the truth he experiences: the nondual nature of everything.  I really enjoyed the section here where he talked about fear of failure, because I think most people can relate.  Enjoy reading the rest of our discussion!

Stephanie:  I’ve noticed that people are talking about this global phenomenon of "awakening" in different areas.  Physicists are talking about new developments in observing interconnectedness scientifically.  Spiritual teachers are talking about how more and more people are interested in interconnectedness.  How can we, the young generation, foster this movement?  How can we make it relatable to our peers?  How can we be leaders of it?

Jeff:  First of all, by finding a way of expressing this that won’t get people lost.  If something’s too strange or too weird, or too much out of their comfort zone, people very quickly shut off.  I think the way that I talk about this these days is a lot simpler than the way I used to talk about it.  That’s come from meeting people and talking to people and helping them to understand.  On one level, it’s kind of crazy!  It goes against everything they’ve ever been taught.  So you can understand how important it is to make it so they can hear it. 

What are the issues young people are dealing with?  Bring it back down to that level.  It’s one thing to understand the ocean and the wave and nonduality and blahblahblah.  But what people are really dealing with is that they struggle in relationships and they have physical pain.  Stuff hurts.  Life hurts.  They have stress about what to do with their lives.  I’m very familiar with that.  When I was younger, that caused more suffering than anything.  There were so many voices sending me in different directions, telling me what I should be, what career I should go into.   It’s so important to just explore. I don’t think people explore enough.  I know I didn’t. 

Explore what?

Explore find out what moves you, what you love, what you’re passionate about.  You might not know.  That’s the thing: I never knew, but I never gave myself the space to explore.  Everyone was expecting me to get the job and become a lawyer or a doctor or whatever.  And that caused a lot of fear : you didn’t get a job, you don’t have any money, you’re going to be homeless…  

Eventually, I started to discover all this [spiritual] stuff.  Finally, I found something that I was actually moved by.  I found myself.  Back then, I was a strange one.  I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this stuff.  At some points in time, I thought I was completely crazy because I thought I was the only one with these ideas:.  "Oh my god!  I’m not Jeff!"   I didn’t know anyone who I could talk to.  I didn’t have a teacher or anything.  I had never written before, but one day I just found myself writing.  It wasn’t as if I suddenly decided to be a writer.   It was just to explore.  I just started writing and I made a blog.   Back then, I was so incredibly shy and held back that I expressed myself through me through writing this blog, and then people contacted me.  Eventually this publisher found my stuff, and it was never like I set out to have it happen.  It was just being open to that.  

When my first book came out, everyone thought I was crazy.  I was afraid. I thought that no one was going to get this.  When you start to break out of a role, or behave in ways that don’t fit other people’s ideas of you, then what can happen is a lot of fear of being rejected or being an outcast.  “People will think I’m weird; people will think I’m crazy.”  You have to face that there could be some truth in that.  There were a few people in my life who must have read my book, because after that point they really didn’t ever speak to me again.  Jeff had changed too much.  And of course what happened with other people, is that they read the book and loved it.  

In order to open yourself up to life, you have to open yourself up to rejection.  I don’t think there’s any other way.  We’re afraid of feeling these things –of feeling fear, rejection, or unloved.  In the end, if you want to be really free, you have to open yourself up and embrace those feelings.  I remember at the time my parents said, "What the hell are you doing?  You were supposed to be a doctor!” They had such high hopes for me, and here I was writing all these weird spiritual books!  In the beginning, they expressed that as anger.  I think what my parents really felt underneath their anger was that they thought they were losing who they knew.  They just wanted to connect but they don’t know how, so it came out as anger.  It was my responsibility to find ways of showing them that I still loved them and I was still connected to them, and yeah, I have changed.  It’s not like I don’t love you.  I changed, and I still love you. 

It’s also just opening up to the unknown.  I really didn’t know what I was doing.  I didn’t know where it would take me.  I was actually on a psychology course years ago; it was all planned, I was going to train and get qualifications to be a psychologist.  But there was this other thing pulling me.  This psychology thing, it was security.  I was going to get a job at the end of it and be set for life really…and then there was this strange little book I had written.  But I knew that was the truth. 

On one side, there was security and jobs and safety.  But I knew this was more real to me than anything and there was no security in it.  That was the unknown.  At that point in my life, I just knew that I had to just honor that.  Even if it was just a tiny little seed at first, somehow I couldn’t pretend anymore.  I couldn’t pretend to be something that I wasn’t.  I think that’s really where all of our suffering begins.  We pretend to be what we’re not.  Why?  Because we want people to love us or accept us or understand us.  And everyone’s doing this on some level.  You start to see more clearly, and at some point, you get tired of pretending.  Then my life became very simple.  It was just honoring that little voice that wanted to be heard, that felt so true.  

We want to open up to life but we won’t do it without pain!  If you want to open yourself up to life, you have to open yourself up to pain and rejection.  You take everything into yourself.  Because what you are really can handle all of that.  It can handle pain or fear.  It can handle total rejection.  

Relating that to our generation specifically, I think there’s a lot of commentary on how our generation is coddled and how parents tried to shelter their kids from failure.

Yeah, failure was my big thing.  I associated failure with rejection.  What if I fail?  What could be wrong with failure until… I’ll be rejected, I’ll be cast out of society, people won’t love me.  We associate failure with that.  If you trace it back, it’s connected to our fear of death.  If I fail, I’ll lose all my money, I’ll lose my house, I’ll be homeless, I won’t have any food, I’ll be more vulnerable to death.  The truth is: that could happen.  Yeah, you can lose what you have.  Then what this is really about is finding something you can’t lose.  

What can’t you lose?  That’s who you really are.  Who you really are can’t be lost.  Call it "love."  Everyone has a sense of that.  You can lose everything in life but love.  Love in the true sense of the word can’t be lost.  People need to know that you can’t be a success or failure.  What you are right in this moment is just this space in which thought appears and sensation appears.  What you are is the capacity to feel anything or think anything.  

Thoughts come and go, but thoughts can’t define you.  Feelings come and go, but your feelings can’t define you.   That’s the secret.  You can feel anything, but you can’t be anything.  In one moment, you can feel like a success or a failure.  But you can’t be a success or failure, you just feel it.  What you are can’t be anything because it’s not fixed, it’s just the capacity for everything.  The truth is that you can’t be a success or failure, but you can feel it. 

When we say, “I want to be a success,” what we really mean is “I want to feel like a success.”  But then we make the demand, “I want to feel that permanently; I want to feel like a success all the time.”  When you recognize who you really are, you realize that it’s not possible to feel anything all the time because all the opposites balance themselves out.  You can’t feel one thing all the time.  Our experience is never fixed like that.  That’s why we suffer:  we want to keep hold of one feeling.  We want to either keep hold of a good feeling or protect against a bad feeling.  We want to keep hold of a feeling like success, and we protect against a feeling like failure.  Then you’re always at war.  If you see yourself as being a “success,” you’re going to be afraid of failure.  Always. 

When you realize who you really are, it is just the capacity to feel like a success or a failure.  There’s absolutely no problem until we want to hold up an image of ourselves and “be” a success.  Any image of myself: I’m a successful person, I’m a happy person, I’m a strong person…the moment you have some image of who you are, you’re not honoring who you really are.  If you want to see yourself as a success, you’re probably not going to allow yourself to feel like a failure.  If you want to see yourself as a strong person, you’re probably not going to allow yourself to feel weak, or allow other people to see that weakness.  If you want to hold an image of yourself as someone who knows, then you’re probably not going to allow yourself to feel uncertain.  You’re going to start to perform, to pretend.  It’s never going to satisfy. 

I would say that real success is when you allow failure in, too.  That’s an experience. From that place of freedom, you're absolutely free to go out and be a success, but there’s no suffering in it anymore.   If you want to make money, make money.  If you want to change the world, then go and do that.  And you’re no longer afraid of feeling failure because you know the ultimately what you are is just the place in which all feelings come and go.  Feelings of success and failure can both be accepted.  Feelings of strength and weakness.  They’re not really opposites.  We’re so conditioned to think they’re opposites.  Feelings aren’t opposites.  I feel weak sometimes, so what?  I feel strong sometimes, so what? They don’t define you.  The real adventure is to open up to all of that and see where that takes you.   If you’re really open to failure, you’re open to life. 

We want to plan life somehow.  We want to make our life go the way we want it to.  Then you’re always living in the future, and you end up shutting off to life and possibilities and to other people.  If you’re so busy trying to be something, and holding up some image of yourself which is not what you really are,  you're just pretending.  And then you're separating yourself from people who are not like that image.  “I’m strong, you’re weak.  I know, but you don’t know.  I’m enlightened, you’re not.”  You’re shutting yourself off from other people.  They might call you a failure!  If they call you a failure, and in that moment and you can’t find the place where it’s ok to be a failure, then you’re going to war with them. 

That was the story of my life: I was at war with failure.  On some level, I think everyone is.  There’s something so beautiful in that, it’s not a negative thing to run away from.  Experience failure: what would that mean?  I didn’t even know what failure was because I was afraid of it.  At some point, the question is “Who is failing?”  Who is the one who has failed?  Failures come and go in what I am.  We’re so afraid of failure, but we don’t even know what it means. It’s like this funny nightmare everyone’s having.  Just fail!  Experience that, as well.  

Fail, and suffer, and in the midst of that experience find the place where it’s deeply ok.  Experience your worst fear if you have to.  In the midst of that experience, find who you really are and you’ll be deeply ok with that. 

Thank you, Jeff!

On Devotion...and Puppies

When I traveled to India in November, I was able to go to a small village outside Mumbai (so small that no one at the hotel knew where to tell the taxi driver to go!).  The village is home to an ashram, and many related historical sites from its founding guru's life.  As often happens while traveling alone, I befriended two strangers who were happy to adopt me for the day and guide me around the village.

We visited buildings where the first guru had taught or slept or been photographed.  At each site, perhaps a bed or a chair, my new friends would pause to kneel down and gently touch their foreheads to the ground.  They would sometimes stay that way for almost a minute, doing who knows what!  My friends told stories of the gurus' lives in great detail, smiling as if remembering the stories from their own pasts.  They took me to the gift shop filled with posters and pendants and laminated pocket photos of the gurus.  We passed a group of a hundred people sitting under a tent near the main road.  They were all swaying and singing, eyes closed and smiles wide, with a wild-haired loin-clothed yogi who had finally come down from the mountain.  For real.  

I found myself judging the people of the village for their devotion to these gurus dead and alive.  What I was interested in was spirituality beyond idolatry.  Why would they focus so much attention on the story of a guru's life or a picture of his face, or worship him like a god?  Wasn't their devotion to another individual beside the point of surrendering to oneness?

Devotion might have a negative connotation for those of us who feel disinterested in the requirements of religion.  But let's see what it really means: to be devoted to something is to return to it over and over.  Being devoted means staying loyal to something.  The "something" my friends in the village were loyal to was the feeling of love.  For them, seeing a picture of their guru filled them with that feeling of unconditional love. It returned their attention to love, each time, over and over.  It thereby was a way for them to regularly invoke unconditional love.  For me?  A picture of a [very nice, I'm sure] Indian man in a white loincloth sitting on a bench in 1955 did not catalyze me into embodying love.  So what triggers that unconditional love in me?

PUPPIES!

Yep, each and every time I see a puppy, or even a picture of a puppy, I am filled with the warm fuzzies to the point where I think I might explode fuzz.  The playful innocence of a puppy invokes a feeling of unconditional love in me.  This is my Puppy Practice.   My friend Mitch suggested that instead of expecting to feel devotion toward a photo of a guru, I should use whatever trigger directs my attention to the love that's already inside me.   However I do it, the more I practice purposely bringing out that feeling of love, the more it will come out naturally --even when I'm not thinking about puppies.  

What does it for you?  Humming a song?  Seeing a picture of your granny?  Watching a toddler play?  Figure out what brings out that warm, fuzzy feeling in you no matter what.  Return to that trigger as often as you can during your day.  Train your attention to return to the unconditional love within you more and more.  That's devotion.

Jeff Foster interview, Part I

At the 2011 Science and Nonduality Conference, I had the opportunity to sit with Jeff Foster and conduct my very first interview for my blog.  Jeff is a chap (that's to let you know he's British) who travels the world guiding people toward the truth he experiences: the nondual nature of everything.  To me, nonduality points to the oneness of everything, everyone, everytime, and everywhere.   Here we go!

Stephanie: I wanted to talk to you because I find you very relatable.  A comment which I get a lot is, “Wow you’re so young, and it’s amazing that you’re here, it’s very rare for this to be happening to someone so young.”  How old are you?

Jeff: 31.

[n.b. great first question, right?  I clearly need interview lessons.]

That’s very young!  You were talking yesterday about the importance of participating in the flow of life, in the human experience.  Do you feel like you participate as a normal 31 year old?

I don’t think I’ve ever been normal!  I don’t know what normal means anymore.  Yeah, I’ve been in relationships, I like movies, reading, walking, going to cafes, meeting people...on that level. I guess what I do is unique; I go around the world talking about whatever "this" is.  

It can seem like a paradox to some people that you can live in the current, to embody what’s it like to be 31 living in 2011, and yet live in this space of "there’s no time, there’s no me!"  For some people, they might feel like they have to assume a different identity or act a certain way.

Totally.  You pick up so many ideas about what enlightenment will be like, and once you’re awakened, you --fill in the blank--you’ll stop watching television, or you’ll always feel blissed out, or you’ll always feel peaceful.  All these ideas of what an awakened person would or wouldn’t do. But that was a conditioning.  You’ve got all these ideas and you’re trying to force yourself into that mold.   In the end, it isn’t about fitting into a mold.  Every wave in the ocean, on one hand, is the ocean, and it also is a unique expression of the ocean.  I was always in a way trying to mold the “Jeff wave” into my idea of what an “awakened wave” would look like, or trying copy another wave.  In the end, I get it, it does sound like a total paradox.  On what hand, what you are is the ocean.  On the other hand, there’s an expression of this wave which is a unique expression.  Jeff is still Jeff in that sense, which I never expected  That’s what was so surprising.  "Oh, this includes Jeff living his life, being ordinary!"  It’s extraordinary and totally ordinary.  Thought calls it a paradox.  “I’m the ocean” and “I’m the wave” -- how do I bring those two together?  They were never separate in the first place.  These questions fall away.  The molds fall way.  I was just trying to copy other people, just trying to copy after I read some book by some awakened guy.  That’s really what falls away.  On one hand, you’re the ocean; on that level, you’re equal to everyone.  At the same time, you’re a unique expression of that water; that unique expression’s not lost.  

I think that years ago I was stuck in this thing trying to get rid of Jeff.  I thought that’s what my problem was all about.  That should have been the shocking thing, how inclusive it is. In that sense, nothing changes. Jeff is still Jeff.  I dress the same kind of way, talk the same kind of way, like similar kinds of music, have my certain habits.  On a deeper level, it’s known that that’s not who I really am. At the same time, the wave is embraced by the ocean.  It seems like a paradox, but when you think about it and talk about it, that’s the fallout of that thinking.  It’s just this. It’s just sitting here at the table, talking, waterfall in the background…it’s that.  It’s not even a paradox.  It’s simplicity.  It’s the simplicity of living.  

What would you say to people who are interested in expanding their spirituality but are turned off from seeking it but think they have to wear hemp necklaces and burn incense and go to meetings and have to assume that spiritual-person identity…how would you speak to them and say it’s accessible?

In my own experience, I never did any of that actually.  I never went to a teacher, never went to meetings or satsang, I never burned incense.  For me, my whole spiritual journey was about suffering.  It was about I just sat at home with my suffering and watched for about a year, just watched something constantly wanting to escape.  To me, spirituality is not about the incense and the ashrams and gurus, although that’s part of life as well.  It's just art.  Life is a giant art gallery.  When you walk into an art gallery, you might be attracted to certain paintings.  You might be attracted to incense and whatever, and the white robes and spiritual music.  In the end, I’m talking about the freedom of the end of suffering.  Burning a stick of incense doesn’t stop suffering.  For me, it was always about suffering and the end of suffering , that’s why I never really got distracted by all the fluffy stuff because I knew ultimately I had to face fear.  That’s it really.  

People feel stuck, we’re isolated or we feel lonely or disconnected and we want to be free from that.  I was obsessed with becoming enlightened years ago and reaching some higher state or something, and that’s I was desperately pursuing this thing called "enlightenment," but it was really about my suffering.  It’s never really about reaching something.  It’s about not wanting to feel what we feel.  We don’t want to face our own incompleteness right now.  We don’t want to face our pain or fear.  When we're maybe a few years old we already have so many lists and list and lists of what’s ok to think and what’s not ok to think.  What’s ok to feel and what’s not ok to feel.  What’s right, what’s wrong.  What’s healthy, what’s unhealthy.  And we want to escape everything that we see as "not ok" within ourselves.  No matter what our language is, we have some word or words for what’s ok and what’s not ok basically.  That’s what the mind does –it splits reality.  And then it starts to apply those words to judge and label what we actually feel.  If a thought appears, we call it a good thought/a bad thought/positive /negative or maybe even evil.  Or a pure spiritual thought/unspiritual thought.  Same thing with feelings.  We want to escape the bad stuff. 

The realization is that freedom isn’t about running away from  the darkness and reaching the light.  The real freedom is discovering that what you call “dark” or “evil” was never that; you were only calling it that because you were trying to escape it.  We only call something dark in ourselves because we’re already trying to escape it without realizing it. 

I say real spirituality has nothing to do with escape.  In the end, escaping takes time.  " I experience this now, but tomorrow I’m going to experience this."  "I feel this now but tomorrow…"  Then we always live in hope; then we need time. In reality, it’s timeless.  Everything is appearing in this timeless space that you are.  All this stuff you’ve been so conditioned to think --you shouldn’t experience fear, pain, sadness, anything in isolation or abandonment or guilt or helplessness-- these are still just waves in the ocean.  Everything within your personal experience is just a wave in the ocean.  It might appear as fear, but it’s really just the ocean.  It’s the ocean appearing as fear and we call it fear and we try to escape it.  Because we don’t see that that wave is part of the ocean too!  That’s where it all begins.  We don’t see that that’s included as well.  Every wave is part of the ocean.  Every wave.   We might call that wave anything we want to , we can judge it as a bad wave, a not ok wave, an unhealthy wave.  We do that because we don’t see what it really is, which is the ocean, consciousness, awareness...pick your favorite word. 

I think that’s important as well – there’s a lot of strange words.  And they’re all other people’s words.  Find your own words.  I like the word "ocean."  You might like the word consciousness, or you might not.  I don’t.  Call it light or being or spirit, or call it nothing.  It doesn’t matter.  You can’t name it, anyway.  The way I talk about it these days, I love this "ocean and wave" thing.  In the end, you can’t say what this is.  I don’t know what it is.  The words can’t capture it; the words are pointing to it.  It’s not about the word "consciousness," it’s pointing you back to whatever this is.  In the end, you have to admit you really don’t know what this is.  I can call it consciousness or I can call it being, but underneath that I really have no way of knowing what this is.  I have no way of separating myself from it.  We call this “sitting around the table talking,” but we really don’t know.  How could you really know?

You’re also free to go to an ashram, or do any spiritual practice, but now it comes from a different place in a way.  Now it’s not about faking this anymore, it’s a celebration.  You could burn incense or sing spiritual music, and it’s no longer about you thinking it’s going to get you anywhere.  I met a young guy who was telling me he was a member for many years now of all these spiritual societies and was active in a yoga center and spiritual practices and dancing, and then one day he saw what we're talking about here.  He still does it, and he loves doing it, but now he sees it as art.  Before he was doing it to get somewhere in the future, believing that it would lead him somewhere.  And now he’s doing it simply because he loves doing it.  And there’s less of a seriousness to it.  The seriousness comes with “this is gonna give me something, this is gonna add something, this is gonna help me escape.” It becomes urgently serious!  Without that, then you’re free to do it or not.  When you’re seeking, you’re not free not to do it, that’s an attachment.  If you think meditation is going to help you reach advaita, you feel bound to doing it.  You feel that you can’t stop doing it.  When you actually think about it, it’s not about taking you anywhere.  It’s about what’s already here.  You realize that you’re free to sit and do meditation, and that’s true meditation.  It’s not about reaching somewhere in the future, it’s about what’s here now.  Then everything becomes meditation.  Meditation is no longer just about sitting on a carpet and closing your eyes –which could be fun—but meditation could also be walking in nature or going for a swim or listening to rock music or having a Starbucks. 

Jeff was kind enough to answer more of my questions, so stay tuned for Part II!  Check out his website for his teachings, schedule, and clever FAQs http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

Science and Nonduality

I'm in California for the third annual Science and Nonduality Conference .  I can't wait to be surrounded by curious people and inspiring teachers.  My blog posting had stopped for a while, and I realized that I needed something to galvanize me to again pursue what makes me feel purposeful.   What a great opporunity!  I am already excited to write about what I learn.

That's so random!

Women talk to their girlfriends about everything.  All of my deepest, shallowest, holiest, raunchiest, and funniest conversations have been with women.   Most women don't even limit these conversations to their best friends.  If we sense that good female bond, we will open up to strangers.  So it didn't surprise me when earlier this week, I found myself discussing the finer points of fine lingerie with a middle aged woman I had met five minutes earlier.  She became quite giggly as she recounted the time when she went to the department store and splurged on a satin bikini with lace and a matching brassiere after all her years of granny panties.  We talked about getting wedgies and girls who wear short skirts with nothing underneath.  We were laughing so hard, and it was so cute to see her covering her mouth and blushing while she talked about it.  We were telling each other very intimate things about our intimate wear, and having so much fun together.

This all was interrupted by a thought: "This is so funny.  I'm in a hospice laughing with this fifty year old patient about thongs."  Yes, she is terminally ill, has barely any hair, and was telling me her tale from a bed in a private hospice room.  But before that thought, before that note made by my brain regarding the juxtaposition of sexy lace and a hospice bed, we were just two.  Just two beings sharing joy. And when that thought came in, my presence left her side.  I was whisked up and away by thought into my ego's world of trying to be funny and "random."  Where did that leave her?

I think this is a really clear example of how our thoughts can detract from our experience.  It's like standing in front of something beautiful and taking 20 photos of it to scrapbook and show to your friends instead of immersing yourself in the experience of it.  That thought scooped me out of the experience of laughing with her and shrunk it into a funny snapshot to show my friends.  Do you ever do this?  Do you allow observation to interrupt experience?

Imagine if we dove into each moment with disregard for thought, if we swam through experience instead of taking notes or making judgments about it, if we devoted each moment of attention to those in our presence.   I bet we would naturally be a lot more interesting and interested.  Every experience would seem as delightful as the most random thing that has ever happened to us.  I say this because when I pay attention, I notice that it's a hilarious miracle that we are here at all living these moments which keep coming and coming in this strange world.  And I would rather experience all of that than take mental notes about it.