Some of us love maps. Sometimes it's a guy thing, because I suppose it feeds our desire to explore. Or maybe we are just not relational enough to ask for good direction. But a decent map can lay out the gist of a heroic journey to get some where we are not.
I am not designed to be a Shackleton, exploring stormy, unknown seas, or an Elon Musk, who is ready to fly off to Mars. I am more an explorer of the interiors. That doesn't mean I've always been good at it. I've gone off the path too many times to count (which is always part of the ultimate path). But the intention never leaves. I am steadfast, so a good map hopefully can only help.
Consider all the map-makers I've been attracted to: Ken Wilber, Daniel P. Brown, A.H. Almaas, the Tibetans. These folks recognize the territory is primary, but if there's a map to address it, I'm sure they would say theirs is the best. My latest favorite map comes from Ric Weinman, who I recently came across in an interview on BatGap. His book takes on the path to awakening, unveiling all the layers of the self (which I liken to onion peeling, and I do love my peels).
There are some nice tidbits in the book. Let's see what I highlighted...
From an awakening perspective, life is simply the opportunity for the Source of All to experience its own potentiality. [Thank God for that! We need to be liberated toward a telos.]
Awakening does not fulfill the self but rather deletes it from the picture. [Yes, but something remains which is the True Self.]
People live in their heads because the ego uses its mental story about itself as a support for its existence. They also live in their heads as a defense against feeling overwhelmed by their emotions and to defend against the experience of simply being open to life as it is. [Tell me about it! I always thought I wasn't that emotional, but the truth was I used my ruminations to run away from them.]
Yet the general rule is that the more of you that disappears, the more your partner will like it. [See the irony here. Unless your relationship is based on ego-dependency.]
I once heard Wayne Liquorman (an awake teacher) say that awakening was like the relief of taking a pebble out of an old, well-worn shoe. The problem is we all think we’re going to get a new pair of shoes. [Mistakenly so, we often think awakening will make us a new me.]
So, freedom has nothing in it that the ego desires. What the ego wants is transcendence and expansion into a higher state of security and power. That’s why the idea of ascension is so popular. [Ascension is just the expansion of a self that is still a self.]
Yet I have noticed one very consistent initial response to Basic Awakening: the experience simply has nothing to do with whatever was expected. [Yup, best to look into the unknown.]
The awareness that you lost your awakeness is actually the awakeness itself making itself known. [Just remembering is awakening.]
The Map can only describe the levels of awakening, not the degree to which it has been incorporated into one’s life. Someone who has not awakened deeply but is more fully living from their awakening may seem more awake than the person who has gone deeper but allowed it to move more into the background. [I love this excerpt. It made me think of all the people I've come across who have higher attainments, but are still arseholes. It all comes down to intention.]
If you can find where laughter comes from you will find Divinity. [Another quote I love! Humor releases us to Source.]
So, you do have free will, but the person you experience yourself to be doesn’t. [Yup. We're not that free if it's all that conditioning that is reacting.]
Fixating harder on something that is known won’t open the door to the unknown. [Another great quote!]
Here’s an extra little trick: think of the source of the mind as existing in the heart. [Ahh, the cave of the Heart. Makes me smile.]
Consciousness has the quality of emptiness. If you think of light as having a quality of fullness and the shadows it creates as having a quality of emptiness, then this aligns with awareness and consciousness: awareness has a quality of fullness, and consciousness, the ‘shadow’ of awareness, feels empty. [I like this distinction between consciousness and awareness.]
You might think that losing the sense of the personal would make you more emotionally cold and impersonal. It turns out this isn’t true. In general, the deeper your awakening goes, the more ‘real’ you become, the more you become what you really are. So you become more open, more present, more heartful. You will have more detachment as well, but the detachment created from the awakening will have no walls— it is open space. [Some Buddhists get mixed up in this detachment, where they are not truly available. It's just a state of repose and not true awakening.]
Because we want to hold onto our awakening, there will be a tendency to turn our awake space into an image that we can then hold in consciousness. In addition, we want to be that awake space, so we will identify with that image. That turns what you are into an image in consciousness. Be on the alert for this, and remember that whenever you become something, you have moved into illusion. Only in being nothing does the everything you are reveal itself, and it reveals itself to no one. [A good reminder!]
My only guidance for learning to live from this level of awakening is to distinguish what you are from what you keep becoming and what you experience. Then keep dropping into what you are. [A pith instruction we can always use.]
Overall, Ric's book was a delightful read. I don't know why some teachers resonate more than others with me, but I always appreciate a fresh perspective to the path!
There are some nice tidbits in the book. Let's see what I highlighted...
From an awakening perspective, life is simply the opportunity for the Source of All to experience its own potentiality. [Thank God for that! We need to be liberated toward a telos.]
Awakening does not fulfill the self but rather deletes it from the picture. [Yes, but something remains which is the True Self.]
People live in their heads because the ego uses its mental story about itself as a support for its existence. They also live in their heads as a defense against feeling overwhelmed by their emotions and to defend against the experience of simply being open to life as it is. [Tell me about it! I always thought I wasn't that emotional, but the truth was I used my ruminations to run away from them.]Yet the general rule is that the more of you that disappears, the more your partner will like it. [See the irony here. Unless your relationship is based on ego-dependency.]
I once heard Wayne Liquorman (an awake teacher) say that awakening was like the relief of taking a pebble out of an old, well-worn shoe. The problem is we all think we’re going to get a new pair of shoes. [Mistakenly so, we often think awakening will make us a new me.]
So, freedom has nothing in it that the ego desires. What the ego wants is transcendence and expansion into a higher state of security and power. That’s why the idea of ascension is so popular. [Ascension is just the expansion of a self that is still a self.]
Yet I have noticed one very consistent initial response to Basic Awakening: the experience simply has nothing to do with whatever was expected. [Yup, best to look into the unknown.]
The awareness that you lost your awakeness is actually the awakeness itself making itself known. [Just remembering is awakening.]
The Map can only describe the levels of awakening, not the degree to which it has been incorporated into one’s life. Someone who has not awakened deeply but is more fully living from their awakening may seem more awake than the person who has gone deeper but allowed it to move more into the background. [I love this excerpt. It made me think of all the people I've come across who have higher attainments, but are still arseholes. It all comes down to intention.]
If you can find where laughter comes from you will find Divinity. [Another quote I love! Humor releases us to Source.]
So, you do have free will, but the person you experience yourself to be doesn’t. [Yup. We're not that free if it's all that conditioning that is reacting.]
Fixating harder on something that is known won’t open the door to the unknown. [Another great quote!]
Here’s an extra little trick: think of the source of the mind as existing in the heart. [Ahh, the cave of the Heart. Makes me smile.]
Consciousness has the quality of emptiness. If you think of light as having a quality of fullness and the shadows it creates as having a quality of emptiness, then this aligns with awareness and consciousness: awareness has a quality of fullness, and consciousness, the ‘shadow’ of awareness, feels empty. [I like this distinction between consciousness and awareness.]
You might think that losing the sense of the personal would make you more emotionally cold and impersonal. It turns out this isn’t true. In general, the deeper your awakening goes, the more ‘real’ you become, the more you become what you really are. So you become more open, more present, more heartful. You will have more detachment as well, but the detachment created from the awakening will have no walls— it is open space. [Some Buddhists get mixed up in this detachment, where they are not truly available. It's just a state of repose and not true awakening.]
Because we want to hold onto our awakening, there will be a tendency to turn our awake space into an image that we can then hold in consciousness. In addition, we want to be that awake space, so we will identify with that image. That turns what you are into an image in consciousness. Be on the alert for this, and remember that whenever you become something, you have moved into illusion. Only in being nothing does the everything you are reveal itself, and it reveals itself to no one. [A good reminder!]
My only guidance for learning to live from this level of awakening is to distinguish what you are from what you keep becoming and what you experience. Then keep dropping into what you are. [A pith instruction we can always use.]
Overall, Ric's book was a delightful read. I don't know why some teachers resonate more than others with me, but I always appreciate a fresh perspective to the path!