The Intimacy with Reality

The fundamental issue I have witnessed in my fifty years of teaching is that people don’t truly believe it is possible to be free. I teach that we are not our minds or our emotions, and that we can live outside of our egos and the perpetual sense of need. But more often than not, students cannot believe this is a real possibility in their own lives. This fundamental disbelief prevents us from discovering the place in us that is free from the mental and emotional fluctuations inherent in limited consciousness.

Consider the image of Viśvarūpa, the Divine Puruṣa. Puruṣa is the individuated expression of the Divine, and the most succinct expression of kuṇḍalinī. The higher states of awareness are depicted in the image, but all dimensions of Consciousness exist within the Divine Puruṣa — from Pure Consciousness, to pure disbelief.

Although Puruṣa includes all levels of individuation, including our minds and emotions, we can choose where to place our attention. Emotions are actually the self-reflective capacity of Consciousness trying to make contact with Itself. But due to the self-focused nature of mind and ego, it is difficult to perceive higher consciousness from that limited level of awareness. By altering our perspective, we can live from the place of fullness and stillness. And then, conditioned emotional happiness becomes unconditional joy.

Instead of seeking intimacy in emotional relationships, and finding them ultimately unfulfilling, why not reach for the ultimate intimacy, the intimacy with reality? Follow your emotions back to their source, to the unconditional joy and the ever-shining radiance of God’s love. And when you find that source, engage your life and your relationships from that place.

Altering Our Perspective

When we find ourselves in the grip of the dragon — trapped in our ego, minds, and emotions — we are also face-to-face with the possibility of penetrating through all that to a deeper place inside ourselves. To do this we must suspend disbelief, and that requires that we willingly surrender the debilitating pain of our mental and emotional bodies.

We are being held hostage by the ego when we keep repeating the same things, from the same place in ourselves. We must stay open and surrender to the process of moving through that dimension of consciousness. The ego’s entire defence mechanism is deflection, which only reinforces the limited level of mind and emotions.

We don’t need to engage life from that level. It’s like being on a train, arriving at a station and only looking out the window on one side of the train, thinking that’s the entire picture. When emotions flare up, we learn to say, “Yes, this hurts like hell, but this is only a railway stop. I don’t have to get off here. I can look from a different perspective.”

Our more common reaction, however, is a refusal to surrender, which only fortifies our doubt that a different experience is possible for us. This is the singular barrier to moving into a state of freedom.

Into the Divine Puruṣa

Emotions grab us and throw us around, inhibiting our consciousness of choice. It is in the moment when we find ourselves bound and debilitated that we must not act from that emotion. To penetrate deeper into ourselves, we begin by taking a breath and shifting our awareness out of the mind and into the heart.

By suspending disbelief, we prove that disbelief is the debilitating dynamic. By facing the ugliest parts of ourselves when the most egregious karma is slapping us in the face, we can change our state. We breathe into the heart and internalize the energy that is trapped within that dynamic. We affirm, “I will not stay here, I will not repeat this pattern.” Do not get off the train to engage the drama you see out the window. Keep moving deeper.

We recognize that every emotion is part of that Divine Puruṣa; it is only Consciousness in limited form. Emotions constrain our ability to see the highest in ourselves by limiting our perspective. When you take that breath, from inside the train, you may start to be grateful for the opportunity to transcend your patterns and grow. 

Emotions are the somatic experience of thought. We can step back and say, “Okay, this is in my body, soul, and psyche.” Acting consciously, we do not identify with or express the limited awareness or energy. That discipline, the maturity to not act from mind and emotion, is the doorway between limited and unlimited Consciousness — the gateway between the body that thinks it’s the ego and the Divine Puruṣa that is all things.

While we are caught up in actions driven by a misunderstanding, or by some emotional need, our lives will continue to feel incomplete. Our spiritual lives are a precious and uncommon gift of grace, allowing us to fundamentally change our experience. Do not lose sight of what is possible for you, and that God is freeing you from the limited consciousness of the ego. If you do nothing else in this lifetime, free yourself from your mind and your ego. Don’t act from that level of awareness. The purpose of all action is knowledge, and what greater knowledge could there be but having the direct experience that we are the Divine Puruṣa?