Let’s start this conversation with the notion that there are only two states of Being. Only two. Real Simple.
Contracted or expanded.
Nothing else, no big deal…
Here’s the thing. “Expanded” provides relief from the confinement of the personal self and its many minions of suffering. “Contracted” makes suffering such a ubiquitous experience that sometimes you don’t even know you are suffering.
Let me give you an example or two…
My supervisor is contracted much of the time. She suffers much of the time, sometimes I can tell by watching her that she does not think of it as suffering. The reason she does not view this sometimes suffering, as suffering, is because it arises out of the field of “being absolutely sure of what is the right thing to do”. I am deeply familiar with that particular set of belief systems.
I was very often the recipient of my mother’s rage, which was entirely driven by what was “right”. If I cleaned under the bed on any given Saturday, (which was my all day task – if it were done correctly), then she would check the top of the refrigerator find it dirty, and I would get my ritualized Saturday beating for not having done the job in the right way. If the next week I got a ladder, scrubbed the refrigerator to within an inch of its life…that week she would check the baseboards…and… I would get my Saturday beating. The target was always moving and “right” was a thing that could barely be discovered, much less understood.
I remember once, after having studied with my Teacher for many years, attempting to describe the concept of this type of “rightness” and its deadly effects, to my sister, versus the much more subtle and appears to be, but really isn’t at all, similar “agreements” that have been a staple of my Teacher’s process for more than thirty years.
My sister who had also, somewhat surprisingly, attended George’s workshops and had been exposed to his foundational lesson which is the necessity of keeping ones “agreements” and thereby, becoming what is defined in the larger world, as a person of character. This lesson of George’s was not hard for me, or my sister to incorporate, and abide by. We were, after all, both daughters of a mother who required strict adherence to the rules; we had no difficulty what so ever, abiding by whatever was perceived by us, as the “right” thing. But living based upon doing what is the right thing, and keeping ones agreements, are very different experiences. They are both limitations, to be sure, the first born of a totally unconscious need to adhere to militaristic style rules, and the illusory safety it promises. The second; a mature, conscious, and measured decision, to accept self-chosen limitations for the purpose of becoming an honorable, dependable person, of great depth and moral fiber.
In an attempt to describe that difference, to my sister, I told her of the time a roommate questioned me about why exactly…did the toilet paper HAVE to roll off the handle, top over, instead of bottom under. I patiently explained, again, to my roommate, how that was the way it was done, must be done, couldn’t be done otherwise…because it was the RIGHT way.
She looked at me like I was crazy.
And right there and then, I began questioning everything I had ever been taught about what was right. As I told my sister this story, she had a deeply confused look on her face. “So you see”, I said, “this is why it is that George, our teacher, is forever reiterating the need to undo our unconscious beliefs about what is right or true, not just some of them…but all of them”. Her puzzled look did not abate.
Long pause.
“But…the toilet paper should come off the roll, top over – rather than bottom under…that is the right way…I don’t get it….”
This world of knowing what is “right” is where my supervisor lives, the water she swims through, the lens she sees through.
She told me not long ago, a procedure that I must follow when a student comes in to drop off a final project…she was very specific, must be this way and no other way…y’up say I, no problem. The very next time I did it that way, she nearly jumped over the desk divider that segments our offices, to prevent me from doing it that way.
Seems that moving target, is still on the move.
Or yesterday, I asked if she had a red sharpie and could I borrow it? The near total exasperation on her face was very sad to witness, no she said…”black is standard, we all use black”…(toilet paper, simply must come off the role top over, not bottom under…).
By and large, I do not react to her, as she is nowhere near as good at it as my mother was, and I came to total and unshakeable peace with my mother before she passed. But I do feel considerable sorrow for my supervisor, as she has no idea that the suffering she endures is because she holds so very many beliefs about what is “right”, and how everything must be done.
It was my Teacher who freed me from the belief that I knew what was “right”.
The genius of my Teacher was that he never lectured, and instead, always put us in experiential situations which, if we truly showed up – and believe me when I tell you that I showed up – we would encounter our unconsciousness in a direct and lived way, and thereby have a deeper and more impactful chance of waking up. I have rarely shared those experiences with anyone, because we were asked not to. But now that he is no longer teaching, I feel that I can at least describe the lessons I learned, if not the process.
In the early years of attending my Teachers workshops, I was partnered with a very “spiritual” young man who was very ungrounded and airy. We were given a task to accomplish and it was weighted with the very clear, and very direct information that if we did not do it as instructed, we would be asked to leave the training. Further, if our partner did not follow the simple guidelines, and they were agonizingly simple, then both partners would lose the opportunity to attend. The instructions were given, and being my mother’s daughter…I not only heard them, I committed them to memory. As the activity began, it was clear almost immediately that my partner was not doing it correctly. I began by trying to coach him, I soon moved to insistence; anger followed, and finally a few bitter tears… as I knew that his actions would put me out of the training. And somewhat surprisingly, for all his “love” and “light”…he could not be budged a millimeter, with respect to doing the activity in a manner that I knew was correct.
After the activity concluded and we were once more seated in a circle. George asked that everyone who had completed the assignment correctly to stand. Everyone stood, no exceptions. Then George began to reissue the instructions, one at a time, and directed that if they had not been completed correctly that the person in question should sit, and that they were consequently out of the training, having broken their agreement to follow some very simple rules. (The reason this exercise worked so very well, to expose us to our unconsciousness, was because he used a tool that everyone had been using since grade school, and we had all been taught the “right” use of this ubiquitous tool to the degree that it made many of us blind to what he had instructed, thus most of us could not even hear his instructions, much less complete them accurately.) Slowly, everyone dropped into their chair… amazed and realizing, hopefully, how entirely unconscious they had been.
Everyone save me.
Don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t conscious in any expanded way, rather I was merely exhibiting my childhood training, the futile pursuit to get it “right”, to hit that ever moving target …you remember… toilet paper must come off the role, top over, not bottom under.
Finally, as I became the sole standing participant, George turned those entirely impersonal, blazingly blue eyes upon me…and asked in that incredibly non-judgmental and utterly uninvolved way, (which is the hallmark of the awakened), why…he asked, did I need to be perfect so very, very, badly.
I began to silently weep.
I sat, and wordlessly so.
And for the first time, and by far not the last time, a surge of energy started in my coccyx and blasted its way to the top of my skull, leaving my legs paralyzed. It is a sensation that cannot be adequately described, and it is very disturbing – or it was that very first time – because I truly could not move my legs for several seconds, and that is a very scary thing.
I was about twenty-eight at that event, and it took me nearly two decades, but slowly over time, I undid every shred of “rightness” that has come up from that day to this.
While also, paradoxically, becoming more and more willing to live by the rules, or the “agreements”, my Teacher taught me to honor. A great many of the agreements I am bound by, are simply because I was born here, in this particular culture. To this day I am never late with credit card payments because when they gave me a card, I have “agreed” to pay them on a timely basis. I haven’t been stopped for speeding in over a decade, because as a citizen of this state, I am bound by an “agreement” to the road rules that were set in place by my states lawmakers. I do these things, and many many more, not because they are “right”, but rather because I have an agreement to uphold. And yet, there are occasions were agreements must be broken…
I am privileged to have a coach, in my life, who is a very bright guy. I have learned a great deal from him. He defined the need to occasionally break our agreements as “situational ethics” and illuminated it with this simple analogy…if the SS is at the door and demands to know if you are hiding Jews in the basement, then lying becomes the bravest and “rightest” thing you can do. (Even though it breaks your agreement with your countries authorities, and lets be clear… there can be a terrible price to pay for breaking agreements… telling that particular lie would take enormous courage, as you would be putting your life in the balance).
Tom, my coach, tells me that situational ethics has a dark side and a light side. I stole a dog because I was compelled to put the morality of theft aside, for the purpose of saving the animal, which would be a light side example of situational ethics, in my opinion. The dark side of situational ethics allows for doing the “wrong” and often expedient thing, for the bottom line or for some other profitable outcome, or “right” result.
George also addressed this issue of “situational ethics” and of course with him it was not a conceptual lesson, but rather a lived event. It stands as one of the most profound of my life.
In this training, we were again partnered; again our fates were tied together. This time my partner was an older man who was going through a very rough patch in his life. We were given a good amount of time to come to know and care about our partners, and then we were put into an exercise and told to express to one another how much we wanted to be in the training. I was so glad to have my particular partner, as he was as committed and emotionally invested as I was.
Then we began an exercise that was dreadfully painful.
We, as a group, were told that fifteen of us had to be chosen to be designated as “lost”. I will not disclose how that was undertaken, but it was deeply sad. My partner was one of the ones lost; someone I had begun to invest in, someone I knew wanted to be in that room as much as I did, someone whose life was already in terrible turmoil.
Then the fifteen were removed from the room, truly lost to us.
As the door closed on the last of them, George said, “You may save them…if you choose to… they are in the building.” And then he sat. Giving us no more guidance. No matter how we tried to get him to…he would merely repeat, “they can be saved…”
At first the discussion on how to accomplish such a feat, was civil and reasoned. After all, we were “loving” individuals committed to one another’s growth. But we were also caught in an unwinnable trap, we had all signed the agreement that required we not leave the room for any reason, during the training. We had all been through two other, earlier levels of training where we had learned the vital, earth shattering, importance of integrity in the life of the very cosmos. Give your word, keep your word…or renegotiate…no exceptions.
In the first few moments several of the more verbal among us, attempted to renegotiate with George. He absolutely refused. “You have an agreement with me…and you may save them, if you choose to…”, was his only response.
As the participant discussions moved ever more resolutely toward letting our partners go, in order to preserve our agreement with George… I began to feel a measure of dissidence that was so ugly it tied my guts into knots. “We can’t, I kept saying. We simply can’t. My partner needs this training I won’t let him go. I just won’t.”
I have, in my lifetime, never before or since… experienced such a driving, demanding, searing, and tearing conflict. As it became increasingly clear to me, that I was going to have to choose between keeping my agreement with the most important, loved, and valued human being that I have ever had the privilege of knowing… or let my partner slip away…my heart beat reached code blue levels of trip hammering. My palms began to sweat, I had a stress response need to urinate that was nearly driving me crazy, half the room had begun almost shouting at me, and George refused even the tiniest indication of having any interest at all in the outcome, much less the will to direct it.
(Do not imagine that George’s uninvolved stance was a matter of lack of caring. Enlightened Beings care enough to literally give their lives to the education and evolution of the human family, but they do so with such total trust, that the outcome is never a consideration. Complete faith in the moment-by-moment unfolding of any given event, coupled with a uni-polar view, where “right and wrong” are no longer concepts they deal in, allow these rare individuals the total comfort of detached acceptance. They, therefore, have little to no emotional investment in the outcome of things. As an example, Jesus cried out in anguish that he had to sacrifice his mortal life, the Christ he became… accepted the sacrifice with total trust and faith.)
Finally after what must have been two hours, or maybe two years…I stood, and with tears flooding my face I marched toward the door.
Four other people followed me.
I put my hand on that handle, and I swear to Almighty God, I thought I might pass out. Somewhere in my heart of hearts my emotional response was that I believed that I was choosing, in that moment, between a man who had provided me with the tools to save my own life, and a man I barely knew, but to whom I felt a commitment that I couldn’t even understand.
As I pulled open that door, thereby breaking my agreement with my beloved Teacher, the need to urinate became so intense I knew I couldn’t go looking for my partner without first addressing that need. While I was in the bathroom, now unable to urinate, the four people who had followed me out of the room went in search of, and found, our partners. They had been in a room, beside the one we were in, behind a two-way mirror that we had no idea was anything more than a mirror…watching and listening… to the microphones that were feeding our struggle to them via a sound system. Most of them had been crying, for much of the two hours, while we struggled with this moral conflict.
My partner felt almost the same level of pain I was feeling…not for himself… but for the overwhelming struggle I was engaged in – attempting to save him – by casting asunder my moral compass.
Stealing that dog, in the real world, rather than the utterly safe world of George’s training room, removing it from harm’s way… was the full circle moment of learning that sometimes agreements and rules must be broken, with the full knowledge and acceptance that there may be consequences to bear.
George often told us… that someday… we would have to become our own Teacher, Teachings, and Student. That seeking outside ourselves would have to end, if we were to find the freedom we sought.
I have come to that day.
I can sit beside my supervisor, unengaged and unenageable, and deal with her moving the target and her need to control even the color of Sharpie that I choose to use, and have no resistance rise up in me. I feel nothing toward her save compassion; I know what it feels like to live under that many rules and regulations. I know how painful and demanding is such a life.
I do not know what lies behind the Mystery of my life and yours. I do not need to know. I know only, that I am grateful in my DNA for having encountered George, for having learned that nothing outside the impersonal awareness that I am, has any lasting value. Grateful beyond measure for having come to the capacity to turn my attention away from goals, outcomes, ambitions, and the right/wrong, good/bad dualities.
The parable in the Bible, of Lot and his wives, being told to leave Sodom and Gomorrah and the admonition to not look back, as they would be turned into pillars of salt for the doing of it, has always meant to me that when we are given the opportunity to walk through the threshold of the personal, into the expansive freedom of The Impersonal Ground of Being…that we dare not look back… yearning for a time when life was juicer and more dramatic. If we don’t turn back, we will be gifted with the ability to live the fluid life of the awakened one’s. If we begin to yearn for the days of good and bad, of goals and achievements, of dreams fulfilled and desires satiated…then we, most certainly will, turn into the bitter salt of unshed tears.
Giving up rules in favor of agreements, relinquishing desire in favor of acceptance, letting go of all but what is underneath our fingers at this precise moment, is the doorway into peace of mind, serenity, tranquility, and well being. This is a place where rolling top over, or bottom under, or red vs. black, is without merit. This is a place where must haves, and even mild preferences, dissolve. A place where safety and security is an internal experience, rather than an external event.
This place is our rightful home.
Adayre R. Miller
1/21/12
Photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Elyce Feliz to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link… http://www.flickr.com/photos/elycefeliz/4638361635/
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