Can You Hear the Call… to Soar Free?

Late last night came a wave of internal dialogue, (just the sort of thing that once constituted the "self"); I now know to be a complete fiction, and I thought I might share it with you.

It began with the fact that my boss, whom I worked for in the great heating and cooling debacle, promised me that he would look into a commission deduction, on my soon to be last check, that has no understandable point of origin.

The amount of the discrepancy is $250.00, not a large amount by most standards, but in my situation it could mean the difference between electricity, or food, or gas, and thus has a greater significance than most would apply to such a sum.

He made this promise on the 24^th of August and thus has had two weeks to the day to make good on his agreement to call and research the discrepancy…and of course, he has not done so. I have called him twice, and been counseled by a friend to take legal action with the state labor board, and so on.

But truly, do you not recognize the value of living this event from the inside out…rather than the outside in?

I suppose it could be considered a form of victory that the “voice of the self” did not arise until last night, as these are the very set of circumstances that most attract the organization of personality, that I once defined myself as.

From the perspective of mental/emotional “positionality”, or adherence to a singular viewpoint, I am both blameless and victimized by his behavior and the subsequent withholding of – without explanation – the money in question. From that viewpoint I am also right, good, innocent, guiltless, unblemished and irreproachable…all of the things I once liked best, about being a “victim”.

Please allow me to tread carefully here. Because I once organized my thinking patterns, opinions, likes and dislikes, judgments and evaluations, around the surprise rages of an imbalanced and violent mother, and the incestuous activity of an equally out of balance uncle and have resolved those issues to the point of complete neutrality…does not mean, that I do not have great and ongoing empathy for folk who have been equally brutalized. That said, there is a moment in the innocent lives of every “victim”, in which the benefits of being a victim begin to orchestrate a life in such a way that healing from that background requires enormous resolve, the kind of resolve that makes a commitment to utterly withdrawing from the very real and tangible pleasures, that source out of being the “Innocent One”.

I say this out of true compassion. Having lived a life that walked the path of a “victim”, we can and do, become our own jailer. Furthermore, the varied and many ways in which the healers and helpers of the world attempt to “support” us, instead of truly helping by allowing us to face what must be dealt with, gives rise to the riches that keep the victim hanging onto their past harm rather than swimming toward shore. Please do not hear from this passage that the hungry should not be fed, the cold should not be sheltered, the sick and fevered brow should not be soothed, that those in need should not be helped…but recognize instead, that when we seek to give to another and when we can do so from the subtleties of the unconditioned mind, we have the very real potential to help shock them free of the focus on the outer as the yardstick by which life is to be measured and defined, and redirect them to the inner, where the only freedom that is possible lies waiting.

Out of those riches of victimhood support can come the deep desire to cleave to the positionality of the self, if we are not very careful and very awake, and the singular perspective that can keep us in bondage the whole of our life. We risk becoming a fixed, active, and quite rigid point of view, which we begin to imagine is a self…rather than the unique, incomparable, and unconditioned Oneself we truly are.

My Teacher had a powerful, simple, and most valuable way of teaching the harm that a fixed point of view brings to every human life.

He demonstrated it in this manner; he would open the classroom after a break, and the chairs would have been rearranged in a large and perfect circle. We were asked to take a chair in that circle, and as he began to attempt to liberate us once again from the darkness of the personal self, he would walk the circle slowly while describing the concept of positioning ourselves from a fixed point of view.

He would begin by describing us in terms of our relation to the people on either side, he would say that our “point of view” is deeply personal and is relegated entirely to the seat upon which we sit, and the view directly in front of us. To some degree, he would teach, we can relate to those directly to our right or left, as their view approximates ours. Two seats removed, however, and we begin to question the validity of their perspective, three seats removed and those folks are merely acquaintances and suspect ones at that…

Turning our attention to the direct opposite of the circle, and here he would say, are all of the evildoers that have ever drawn breath.

The Nazi’s, the baby killers, the assassins, the deranged and dispossessed, the ones who degrade and disturb the imagined peace that the “right” side of things is trying so to produce. The “right” side of the circle would be the heroic and determined, the charitable, the righteous, the hope filled, and the champions of the world.

As he would walk the center divide of the circle he would contrast and compare the wicked and the righteous, the successful and the failed, the hopeful and the despairing, the good and the bad.

All the while he would gently coax us into the awakening, that the use of our precious time here is not to be spent in healing, curing, warring, striving against, or in any other way eradicating or battling, the “wrong” side of the circle.

His commitment was so radical, that as we matured and developed in our understanding of the “two sides of the same coin” that is “good and evil”, we were given the task of coming up with reasons for why war and disease and murder and suffering, were not only relevant but necessary, to the world in which we have arrived and to which we must awaken from.

But that is another story for another time…

As he walked the circle and paid homage to both sides and all the 360 degrees of perspective that each chair represented, he counseled that our spiritual imperative is not to “cure” the other side, to fix it, help it, support it, or nurture it out of existence…but rather, to rise up from our fixed position and begin the painstaking and quite difficult task of making it to the center of the circle. The hub, if you will…. The Impersonal Self.

While seated we are in bondage to the singular perspective upon which our chair rests, we can see no other point of view, hear no other argument, acknowledge no other path, open to no other outcome. We must win, overcome, gain the ground for our “side”, produce victory, succeed, triumph, prevail, and defeat those who stand in our way. We can and do, attempt this victory every time we experience the seeming separation between “good and evil”, every time we operate from our beliefs, we are operating from a fixed position upon the wheel of Samsara, and are therefore destined to suffer and suffer greatly. It matters not whether our beliefs are filled with images of goodness and light, angels and heaven, or healing and victory. These beliefs are not inherently better than believing in racial cleansing, or world domination, or victory for the motherland…all beliefs constrict the flow of the unconditioned energy of Oneness out upon the world, the experience of the Impersonal Self and it’s Love, Kindness, and Depth Compassion.

Only the center of the circle experiences and expresses true freedom.

Here, in the center, my gentle Teacher would come to stand… with his quiet, composed, collected energy…hands resting at his sides, blue eyes clear and connected, white hair sparkling, he would slowly turn to face each perspective upon the circle, and conclude his lesson with the brilliance of the One, who demonstrates total and complete impersonal acceptance and compassion.

At the center is the point of rest, the point of connectedness, the point of correct action in harmony with the totality…here and only here, can non-dual action be taken, assured, given, received, and guaranteed.

The journey to the Center of the Circle is an entirely inner one. No one and no thing can take you there, this journey passes through the Valley of the Shadow of Death in which your personal self must be disrobed from, like a bird molting old and now useless feathers. The Center of the Circle is a deep interior, an ever growing and commanding Silence, a willingness to surrender everything you hold dear, a commitment to submission so complete that you hold nothing back, reserve nothing, turning your will over to the ineffable Mystery and leaving yourself in it’s unknown and unknowable hands.

Last night’s return to internal conversation regarding the loss of money that it appears I might need, was a homecoming to my old and worn seat upon the circumference of the circle, and the banner under which I once sat….”The Blameless Ones”…the innocent, the harmed, the hurt, the lonely…

There is nothing “wrong” with being fixated to a singular view.

There is nothing that even needs to be changed about that, there is no one who will come to rescue you from your position upon the wheel of Samsara, there is no help, nor any hope, nor any prayer that will move you from the “self” to the One.

The One has infinite patience, knows no such thing as time, does not need our understanding, is not lost without us, and does not weep when we suffer. The One is just that…One. Here in the deep Center of the Circle, all is right, all is just, all is correct, and all is abiding within the grace of existence and the utility of expression.

At the Center of the Circle is freedom – not for the personal self – but from the personal self. And that my friend…is heaven.

I do not know how much longer I will travel from the center back to the circumference and back again; I do not claim to know the great depths of the center…but only to know the value that comes from liberating yourself from a fixed position upon the circumference. I know that everything, everyone, every event, and every loss is meant to awaken us to the suffering and madness, of believing in our position upon the circumference, as if it were the Absolute Truth, rather than the relative truth of our singular perspective.

Each return from the haven of Silence to the outer reaches of fixed opinion causes me to double and quadruple the gratitude I feel, for having found my way free of the opinions and judgments of the personal.

Last night, as I listened to the voice I once considered myself to be, I felt the agony of believing that I am right and have been victimized by my circumstances, it is only when you have freed yourself even for a moment… from the desire to be “right”, that you can feel how heavy and painful is that burden.

Our lives are not designed for winning, for accomplishment, for achieving, for becoming victorious…they are designed for true and everlasting freedom. Freedom from the limited, the separated, the unconnected, the divided self, the “personal” whose perspective upon the views of life, are by their very nature extraordinarily limited.

A life well lived, is one that measures the distance between the outer circumference and the inner still point. Can you stand in the deep center of yourself, silent but aware? Can you empty yourself of the need to be right, and prepare for the experience of being undivided? Can you free yourself from desire and the need to fix, in favor of standing with the totality? Can you be the deep and silent hub around which all swirls, and remain unmoving and unmoved?

Can you hear the call… to Soar Free?

Adayre R. Miller

9/7/11

photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Ranz Sebastian to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link… www.flickr.com/photos/rhandee/5379477321/