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For thousands of years, spiritual masters from wisdom traditions East and West have said that embracing What Is ---embracing the NOW ---is the doorway to our true Self.
In the late 1950's, writers such as Alan Watts introduced this principle in books that made it more accessible to modern sensibilities. In the 1960's, Ram Dass (formerly Richard Alpert, Ph.D.) introduced this principle to a large, contemporary western audience with his popular book, "BE HERE NOW." More recently, one of the hottest selling spiritual books has been Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of NOW." Bo Lozoff, the founder of the Human Kindness Foundation, works with those incarcerated in prisons in the United States. His foundation teaches prison inmates how to embrace what is and be responsible for their lives. He has written of many remarkable transformations in his aptly titled book, "We're All Doing Time." Whether we are living in a mansion, a suburb, a townhouse, a ghetto, or a prison cell, embracing what is is the doorway to freedom and inner peace.
To embrace "what is" requires us to give up our attachment to our drama---what we call the story of our life. This story, as interesting and seductive as it may be, is a complete illusion. It is never happening NOW. The past exists only as a mental construct, which leaves energy traces like the wake of a speeding boat. The future, likewise, is just energy projections in the NOW. When we are attached to our story, when we are hypnotized by the ongoing non-stop narrative of our "internal, infernal commentator," the present is perceived as simply a temporary way station between a past that we reject or yearn for, and a future where our "ideal" life or our worst fantasies await us. We lose the sacred gift we are given to be fully aware, in action and in stillness, to the only place we ever are---What Is, NOW. True freedom begins only when we give up misidentifying ourselves as our story, our past decisions and conditioning, and our fantasies and beliefs about the future. When we surrender our addiction to the past and future, we awaken to our true nature ---- Awareness itself.
The Consequences of Resisting What Is
Awakening must begin, not with others, but with ourselves. In each moment of NOW, we have a choice: to embrace what is or to resist it. In Core Wisdom, one of the "Operating Principles of a Practical Mystic" is: "Resistance causes Persistence." The more we resist what is present, the more stuck and persistent it becomes. When we resist what is (a situation, a relationship, a fear, etc.), we cannot know its true nature. We cannot see how to resolve the issue or circumstance. It continues to persist in our life as an energy pattern, and the flow of creation is impeded. Even if we try to run away from it, it goes with us, because the resistance is within us.
Have you ever had the experience of running away (physically or mentally) from a situation you were resisting, only to have the same problem show up again in another form or with a different person? That is "Resistance causes Persistence" in action.
When we are stuck in the illusion of past and future, asleep to what is, we remain in the iron grip of two of humanity's main fears: fear of losing what we've got, and fear of not getting what we want.
What are the results when we resist what is in the world, and operate primarily from the fear of losing what we've got, and the fear of not getting what we want?
The answer can be seen by looking at the headlines in your daily newspaper, or by watching any news program on television.
When we are asleep to the reality underlying the drama of life, our love, connection, and relatedness are displaced by ideals, beliefs, and expectations that emphasize separateness, competition, conflict, and revenge. The situations in the Middle East, India and Pakistan, Northern Ireland, and the outbreaks of Terrorism are the result. Our indoctrinated, inherited beliefs about reality, based on stories from the past and fears of the future, blind us to what is present in the NOW. Ignoring, sugarcoating, hiding and lying are forms of resisting What Is NOW. Political and religious slogans and phrases are used to obscure and justify the injustices, atrocities and murder of millions of innocent men, women and children by hiding the horror under abstract euphemisms such as "the Great Leap Forward," "ethnic cleansing," or "collateral damage."
In the United States, the lies, fraud and rape of investors' life savings by corporate executives have cast a shadow of doubt over a key foundation of successful Capitalism---the integrity and honor of one's word. When "creative" statistics and language are used to mask and avoid what is, and respect for the honor of one's word is scorned, an eventual meltdown is inevitable. In the Enron debacle and the WorldCom disaster (to name only two in a group that gets larger with each passing day), corporate corruption and greed have shifted the way many a wary, shocked small investor now perceives the stock market --- from seeing it as an expression of Capitalism as Nirvana ("we have eliminated 'down' as a direction the market will go"), to now viewing it as a street corner shell game that is ready and willing to con anyone naive enough to believe the information they are told. Only by letting go of our fantasies and ideals, and not getting enmeshed in the drama of what should or shouldn't have been, can we observe with non-attachment What Is. With clarity, we can then take effective, responsive actions that make a long-term difference, rather than merely reacting with actions full of sound and fury that resist What Is, and therefore lack any real substance or power.
Awakening to Oneness
The suffering that human beings inflict on themselves and others is a function of living in ignorance of the most fundamental What Is of all ----the reality of our ONENESS with the Source of All That Is.
All war, killing, and injustice are outcomes that occur when our clarity about the reality of our Oneness is asleep, replaced by the Myth of Separateness. When we buy into the myth that we are separate, when we believe that we must either protect ourselves from or dominate all the OTHERS, we do not recognize the inner light in others or in ourselves. We become blind to what is, and replace it with an illusionary state that we take to be reality. We are seduced by the insanity of living from ideals of the way the world and others "should be" and "shouldn't be" and "ought to be." In the dark world of "shoulds," we cannot see what is in front of us. We cannot see the Light of Creation shining within everyone and everything. Appreciation, understanding and compassion devolve into reluctant toleration and righteous platitudes. We see others as the cause of our sense of separation and unhappiness. It is these "others" who must be convinced, converted, changed, ignored or eliminated. Our lives become about survival, domination, credit, blame, power, success, gaining approval, being accepted, and being non-disturbed.
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, founder of the Institute of Noetic Science, had a transformational experience as he stood on the moon. Looking out at the Earth, he realized to the depth of his Soul that "there were no boundary lines there." He experienced in that moment the Oneness, the connectedness of all humanity. He awoke from the dream of separateness. He stopped resisting the unchanging, fundamental What Is behind the whole ever-changing dance of life ---we are all expressions of the ONE. He awoke to the underlying truth of our primary reality. That awakening shaped his life's purpose from that moment.
Most major religions have, as part of their teachings, some version of the principle, "Love your neighbor as yourself." It is found in the teachings of all enlightened Beings. At first glance, it may seem as if this principle is honored more in the breach than in the observance. Yet, in a strange, twisted way, this principle is always followed, even in the atrocities that human beings commit toward each other. When we have separated ourselves from our true nature and denied the Divine in ourselves, we have performed the ultimate Self-rejection. We have said that we are "Not-I"! We then project this rejection outward into the world. We separate ourselves from our fellow human beings, perceive them as "Not-I," and are blind to the Divine Light within them.
We cannot hate, kill, torture, rape, cheat, deride, humiliate, gossip about and ignore other human beings unless our heart is closed to the Divine Love that shines within ourselves and within them. Only when we can no longer see the Light of Spirit in each human being can we relate to any group of humanity as merely things to be manipulated, avoided, controlled, changed or eliminated. When we are disconnected from the Source of All, we find ourselves in a world of suffering, enduring and striving; a transient reality built on the quicksand of the ego. It is what Don Miguel Ruiz, a teacher of the Toltec wisdom tradition, calls the inherited Dream of the World. It is what we call in Core Wisdom, the inherited Myths of the Mind.
What gets lost when we buy into these Myths is the Real World of Being where love, compassion, creation, and gratitude are our natural states. This world of Being is the one that is right HERE when we open our eyes. As Swami Muktananda said, "God lives within you as YOU."
When Jesus said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," he said it in the present tense. This is what is so about you NOW-- not tomorrow, not someday, not in a distant future, not "pretty soon," not in the clouds--- but right HERE, right NOW!
To know, love, and honor your true Divine nature, is to recognize, honor and love that same Divine nature in others, and to have compassion for the ignorance that clouds our awareness of our own Divinity. This does not occur in some imaginary future time, but in the only place we ever really are alive---NOW.
The great Jewish sage and Rabbi, Hillel, aptly posed this truth as three questions to live from:
"If I am not for my Self, who will be for me?
And if I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not NOW, when?"
NOW, there is no drama or story, there is only the presence of Being, the miracle that all life is. The past is past. Remembering and being informed by the past is different than reacting from the past. There are no possibilities in the past, only lessons or repetition. It is NOW where all possibilities exist, awaiting manifestation.
Embracing What Is isn't passive. It is proactive. It is the power to respond creatively to the unfolding universe in front of us, instead of reacting to the Myths of the World, and their never-ending credit/blame power game.
In the Core Wisdom courses and classes, I am continually moved and awed as I observe people break the spell of Separateness that had enfolded them, and awaken to their Divine nature. The stories, hurts, and traumas of the past dissolve, replaced by forgiveness and compassion. The fears and anticipations of a score of imagined futures falls away. The constant chattering of the Mind suddenly stops, and what has always been there within our very Hearts----an infinite, formless, Silent Awareness that shines with the light of Unconditional Love---continually unfolds itself NOW in the form of Joy, Gratitude, and Knowing. Reality becomes malleable and flowing, and Grace and infinite possibilities make their presence known in our lives.
WHAT IS, IS IT.
-- Hal Isen
From Core Wisdom On-Line Number 21 - Aug. 7, 2002
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