Standing as Awareness

[Guest guest]

Here is an excerpt from Greg' Goode's Ebook

" Standing as Awareness " .

 

Pete

 

Why Wasn't I Enlightened at Satsang? "

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Q: I have been attending satsangs for years. I've gotten

very close to enlightenment. In fact a few times the

teacher told me I was actually There. But then it seemed

to go away. This has happened to lots of others too. Why??

 

A: Many satsang attendees report this. It seems like this

experience came, then went, correct?

 

Q: Yes!

 

A: This coming and going is called the " flip-flop. " It's

one of the main dynamics at most satsangs, as well as

their main problem. It is the onset of a very transcendent

experience, followed by its departure.

 

Q: Yes, that's right.

 

A: Now at satsang, didn't the teacher tell you that it is

not about having an experience?

 

Q: Yes. They all say that.

 

A: And yet you are wondering about the onset and

disappearance of an experience.

 

Q: Uh, I guess so. (smiling sheepishly) I think it is

because at those times, I am in contact with my true

nature.

 

A: And at other times, you are not, correct?

 

Q: Yes, that's right. It is blocked.

 

A: This is due to some of the satsang teachings

themselves. One well known teaching is that at some

moments there is a direct, experiential, knowing contact

with your nature, while at most other times this knowledge

is veiled or confused by story, belief, doubt, fear, anger

or scattered-mindedness. According to the " veil "

teaching, there are certain moments at satsang where the

student has heart-opening, oceanic, loving, emotionally

blissful experiences. It is taught that during these

moments, the normally occluding veils have dropped away,

giving the student a direct experience of their true

nature. Sometimes it's called a " free sample. "

 

Not all satsangs teach this. It's less common than it used

to be, as some of the teachers seem to have recognized

problems with it. But the veil teaching sounds familiar,

doesn't it?

 

Q: Yes, this sounds pretty familiar. And I must say, it

sounds pretty good, too. Are you saying that something is

wrong with it??

 

A: It tends to identify the timeless truth of your nature

with a coming-and-going experience. And it is based on the

false assumption that there are times in which you are not

in direct contact with your nature. It creates the

expectation that to be enlightened, to be free, one must

perpetually have the same blissful, expanded experiences.

Because all experiences come and go, this impossible

expectation leads to repeated frustration and actually

borders on nihilism. The teaching that a veil can come

between you and your nature, and that you peek through the

veil at those times when you feel open, confuses a

particular feeling of openness with the openness from

which feelings arise. You are always in direct contact

with your nature as awareness. Enlightenment does not

reside in a feeling; it is much vaster, sweeter, and more

effortless than this. There is deep irony in this. In

the satsang teachings, these oceanic states are usually

not seen as experiences, since satsang is primarily

interested in coarser and more tangible experiences such

as emotions. But since they come and go, they are

experiences. So when the satsang teaching fails to see

these more subtle happenings as experiences, it privileges

them by converting them into impossible experiential goals.

This makes the goal just another phenomenal experience. A

subtle one, but an experience all the same. What the

nondual teachings speak about is more subtle and

infinitely more pervasive than this.