2006

 June: Separating from the Separation

What interesting things have been happening to you, so far?

(Dalai laughs long and loud)

Sorry to have kept you waiting so long! All right Dalai. Go ahead.

Dalia: It was the deepest, the most… for this I give up everything. I give up enlightenment, I give up life – I am ready to die for this.

What is this?

Dalai: This is pure love. It’s what, my whole life, all my problems came from the pain at losing this, because I had it. I had it and I lost it when I was, really, a young child. From time to time I know that it is here but I lose it - I lose it every time. I said, “I stop all this spiritual bullshit”. But now I know, I really know what I have been doing for all these years. This is the most sweet, the most beautiful thing I ever tasted in my life.

And where is it now?

Dalai: It’s here. Right here.

Aha. Well, everybody else I would tune in to him, because he has the most exquisite thing there is right now.

Somara: It seems almost strange to me that I am not jealous.

Dalai: It’s strange that you are not jealous?

Somara: Because, normally, I would expect myself to feel jealous.

So out of nowhere - because he had already given up, and said, “Enough of this spirituality bullshit” – he tastes what he feels to be the most exquisite thing there is, beyond enlightenment, beyond life, although how you are going to be in love without life? And out of nowhere Somara, you find that you don’t feel jealous. So life is full of surprises. If life is full of surprises, and fantastic feelings, or experiences can come without planning, or when they are least expected, and jealousy doesn’t come when you do expect it – what can be deduced from that? What can we learn from these two guys?

(Silence)

Nothing it seems. There is a big lesson there, but just because there is a big lesson doesn’t mean that you have to get it. Nobody gets it. OK.

Who else wants to say something? If the language is a problem you can speak in German, we have good translators here.

Sheppy: I feel, today, like I am waves on the ocean. And I have freedom in me, and light. I feel wonderful and great.

Anybody feel jealous of that? Sounds good – but she says today, not yesterday.

Sheppy: Yesterday too, but not so strong.

And vorgestern, the day before yesterday? And tomorrow? And last week and last seminar?

Sheppy : Last DEMA?

Another participant : When I opened my eyes I looked at this bush, and it… it is difficult to explain, but it rarely happens that you open your eyes and see something and say, “That’s it!” It’s tremendous!

What if I draw the curtains so you can’t see the bush? What then? You have to dig it up and put it in your study and say, “Right, that’s it!” The bush is it! Sandara do you want to say something? You look like you are getting ready to say something.

Sandara: Today I was very, very, very tired. I feel many things go very deep. It was very fine flow – the heart, belly and silence. I believe that’s all in my mind, I think…

You want to say something?

Another participant: Me? Oh, sorry.

You looked like you were getting ready, about to step on the stage!

Anjelo: There was a moment that was quite tremendous for me, about an hour ago, in the last session, and suddenly it feels quite small. All these great feelings they have talked about, and now what felt quite great for me feels so small. For me it was quite a deep…

Experience?

Anjelo : Yes. It feels for me like I am standing at the beginning. And I actually thought, “I am taller than I am, or than I now think I am”.

There is nothing like a seminar like this to bring you back to reality. I find this the most valuable seminar – well, it’s hard to say because every seminar gives a different kind of reward, if you are totally present. In the seminars one can get carried away by the energy states that are created, and you fall into them. That’s not to say they are not present in this seminar, but you are anchored in this seminar to yourself and I don’t give you a chance, really, to escape, so then you are forced to actually see what goes on in you. Of course you try and do something about it. Astaranda was saying she sees a lot going on in her which she has been hiding, or hadn’t come up before. She’s a busy lady, she has many things going on in her life and, when we involve ourselves in an activity, we are not concerned with those parts of ourselves that are not appropriate to the job we are doing. We just use those aspects of ourselves which are required, or appropriate to what we are doing.

In these days at DEMA, when the movement stops and the direction that we are active in or busy with stops, then we fall back, and these things that have been behind the curtain come into play and you say, “I thought that wasn’t a problem for me any more” - you discover it is still there, waiting for you. I think this is very important, for everybody. It’s so important that few people come! The heroes and the heroines come, and I think you are all very brave to come.

People talk in the seminars about the marvellous experiences they have - we even have them here, but marvellous experiences come and go. People have been speaking about what has been happening to them here, and, in a way, identifying with that.

Dalai identifies with the state of love that he tasted, he said “It’s the greatest ever, this is my deepest truth, what my life is really about, and everything I have done has been a help towards suddenly falling into this state.” And I said, “What about tomorrow and the next day?”

Sheppy has been on the ocean, and I asked her, “What about last time?” People are talking about what experiences they have had, and what experiences we have all had before, here and elsewhere, and where are we now. The lesson to learn is - that apparently nobody has learnt yet - if you look at the one who is having the experiences, rather than the experiences, then you can make a great discovery.

Do you want to say something?

Vandan: Yesterday I was tired, and I didn’t fight against this tiredness, but I didn’t accept it totally. It was nice but also a bit frustrating, then in the last fifty minutes I laughed, and it was OK. I always make the same mistakes, but it takes hours to discover it. But I discovered it.

But it takes less hours as you go on. That’s good, Vandan. It’s good that you feel tired but don’t fight the tiredness. You don’t fully accept it but you don’t fight it. Then in the end you laughed. To laugh is to understand. Even if you don’t know that you understood, somehow, behind the laugh is an understanding, a laugh at your fight to make things be the way that we want them to be. And we are always doing this, and I mean all ways - always and in every way we are trying to make life the way we want it to be - even here. There is not much you can do about it.

What you are doing is trying to find a way to have this kind of experience, or that kind of experience, then getting sad if you are not having it. You think, “Other people are having these enormous experiences, and I am not getting anywhere, and I am the junior.” And if you are not having good experiences you say, “Aaah (sighing) Anyway, I am still here, struggling along, nothing to report that’s going to amaze you, or make you jealous, or not jealous.”

The great lesson to learn here, my friends, is not how to have such an experience. I actually happened to hear someone say, “Now maybe if I sat where he sat, or maybe if I look at this tree he looked at, I can have an experience and announce it at the next feedback session, and then maybe some people will feel jealous!” This, subtly or semi-consciously, is what we do on the spiritual path, it’s called spiritual materialism - if you try and amass lots of great experiences that you can then boast about, or feel good about.

When we are really well down the path, on the brink of enlightenment - except we don’t care about enlightenment any more because things are so great - and then something happens and whoosh the whole ecstatic house collapses, then the collapse is devastating - to the extent that you identified with, and embraced the great experience. It is gone. Was it a dream? How can I get back to it? How can I find it? I glimpsed the meaning of my life, the possibilities that are there for human beings in life – they have disappeared, been snatched away. Or you think, “I was stupid, I was distracted now I can’t get back.” This is the struggle to get enlightened. Now Dalai doesn’t care about enlightenment, but he cares about this that he feels is even better than enlightenment. So if this goes he will feel just as depressed as someone who has an enlightenment experience and loses it.

The lesson to be learned, that I asked you at the beginning, is not how to have such an experience – or such an experience of feeling small, or such an experience of feeling tired, or very blessed experiences; the lesson to be learnt is not how to get high, the experiences in the seminars can be to get high but here the lesson is not how here, in this situation, to get high. What is the lesson?

Astaranda: What I am learning is that I don’t know anything.

That is OK because it is true. Of course we can learn a great number of things in the appropriate situation: how to fix a broken computer, how to build a house, how to get from here to Hamburg - this we can learn. But when you say, Astaranda, that you don’t know anything, again it is part of the same syndrome. I can hear an echo, “I don’t know how to arrange that my life feels right, feels true, so that I don’t long for other things, and I don’t want to be any other way, and I don’t need anything from anybody.” We don’t know how to reach that place.

We realise trying different ways - as Astaranda has done for many years -that it doesn’t work. Sometimes it works a bit and we think, “Aha! This is the way to get my life on the right rails.” But nothing seems to work once and for all, perfectly. As long as we try to make things work the way we want this will always be so. So what is the big step one can take?

Anjelo : Take everything as it comes.

Exactly! You are absolutely right. Very beautiful Anjelo, so you are far ahead, you are not behind, for that’s the right answer! Sometimes it’s like this, and sometimes it’s like that - these are words of great wisdom, simple words. Sometimes it’s like this and sometimes it’s like that – and that, and that.

Vandan: That’s it!

Yes it is. That is it, Vandan, you can see that ‘that’s it’ because you got close with what you were saying. I know because many times I can see that you are hovering around the truth. When you say, “I didn’t accept the tiredness completely,” you are still saying, “I’d prefer things to be some other way, I’d prefer not to be feeling tired.”

Vandan: Yes.

It doesn’t mean that if you feel tired you go to sleep and start snoring. It means that you accept that, at this moment, great tiredness is happening. If you identify with the tiredness you will go to sleep. If you identify with great energy then again you will get lost, in the opposite way to going to sleep, but in a way you will also go to sleep. If you identify with ecstasy you will also be asleep – it sounds like a contradiction but it’s true. You are asleep to the fact that you cannot depend upon a state to last forever - and that is to be asleep.

To believe something that is impossible - is to be asleep. To be awake is to say, “Aha! Tiredness is there. Aha! Ecstasy is there. Universal love is there.” But not “UNIVERSAL LOVE IS THERE (shouting) Woooohhhhh TELL THE WORLD! OPEN THE WINDOWS, OPEN THE DOORS! COME AND EXPERIENCE IT. WE ARE ALL SARDINES! SIT AROUND ME! BE MY DISCIPLES!”

To say, “This is happening and it’s very beautiful and I can really enjoy it and I can, while I am in this state, do many great things, because the energies can be passed on.” But to say, “That is who I am” is to be asleep. When the next thing comes you will not accept it. You say, “No. This is a contradiction. Now I am feeling down, and I have lost it and I feel depressed, because that is my true self, the ecstasy is who I am.” But it is neither this nor that - the great Indian teaching, neti neti or, as I’ve just said, sometimes it’s like this, and sometimes it’s like that.

So who is there who is neither this nor that? The big sixty four thousand dollar question – but I have no money to give you if you get the right answer! Who is there. What is there if it is sometimes like this, sometimes it’s like that?

Dalai: Can you translate the last part of your sentence?

If we say, “This is me”. Then when it’s like that we say ‘no’. If you identify with this one and say ‘This is me’ then when that happens we say, “No. That’s not me.” So what is there that is independent of wherever you are?

Dalai: It’s where everything comes out. It’s what is inside.

But what is that?

Dalai: It’s everything and nothing.

That’s no use to me - or to you, because you are not everything or nothing, you are you.

Dalai: Consciousness.

Participant: The ego.

God forbid! The ego!

Somara: The one who is experiencing it?

No. The one who is experiencing it is saying, “This is who I am.”

Anjelo: The one who is watching.

Yes. You see twice you have given me the absolute right answer, you poor little girl who is so far behind. As Jesus said, “He who is first shall be last, and he who is last shall be first,” - this is what he meant. Because the one who is first thinks, “I am great,” and the one who is last says, “What is reality? I’m not going anywhere - I’ve been there, and there, and there - I didn’t find reality, I only found temporary reality.” The one who is neither this nor that is the one who sees that, “Now it is this, now it is that”. The detached witness who simply says, “Now I feel good, now I don’t feel so good, now I feel terrible, now I feel better, now I feel enlightened, now I feel depressed.” That one is independent of any state.

Participant: What did you just say? The last sentence. I don’t understand.

What did I say?

Somara: The witness is independent of any state.

Participant: Ah.

I am independent of this table, I can observe the table. I am independent of this glass of water. If I pick up this glass of water, I am independent of that movement. I take a drink of water, it tastes good, and I am aware that Michael, what he thinks he is or who takes himself to be, enjoys that glass of water - but the witness is not involved.

That witness is always there, you can always move to the witness. The witness is actually a door into, as Dalai was trying to say, the One. But there is no way that you can fall into that Oneness at will - you just arrive. The very attempt to get there is a doing.

In lieu of being in the One your best available alternative is your witness - to simply notice what is going on moment by moment. Enjoy the great spaces, enjoy feeling part of the scene, enjoy feeling the great sense of love, but being aware “I am enjoying that”, and not identifying with it or saying “Everything is fantastic, everything is marvellous” - because you cannot depend upon it lasting beyond that moment.

The witness is available. The Oneness is not available – it is available but we don’t know how to become One with it, or let it happen, or be taken over by it, or fall into it - though that can happen. Many people who fall into it spend the rest of their lives trying to get back to it - and never succeed. So the beauty is just to be aware of what is going on - but expecting nothing.

No expectations, no grasping, no identification, no preference, not even to prefer, in a way, the great experiences you have over those that may be boring or sad. When your mind is busy, you say, “Aha, now my mind is active” - not fighting your mind, because if you fight the mind then it will fight back, and then you are stuck in the mind. Just say, “My mind is busy”, don’t give it any energy, and then it will change into something else. That brings tremendous peace - the realization that you are not all tense and ready to deal with things that you don’t want to be there. And you are no longer afraid of losing something that feels comfortable. Because then we are no longer defensive or grabbing - either we are defensive because we’ve got it, or we are grabbing because we haven’t got it.

If you say, “Life is like that. Sometimes it’s like this, and sometimes it’s like that. When it’s like this it’s fantastic I can feel ecstatic, I can feel great love, feel completely turned on. I can feel great love, have a wonderful time with somebody.”Don’t belittle it, enjoy it. But understand that this is how things are right now.

One of the amazing contradictions is that, when you have this distance, you can be more total than when you are identified. We are afraid that when we take this distance everything will feel halfhearted – “Yes it’s great, but it’s going to pass in a moment, so what’s the point of getting enthusiastic about it?” It’s not like that. The moment you feel “This is coming and it’s fantastic and in an hour’s time it will probably be gone, so I am going to really totally enjoy this situation right now.” This game, this walk, this sexuality, this movie, whatever it might be that you are enjoying. “Because I am not going to feel sad at the end when it’s gone, I am going to accept that it’s going to go and something else is going to come, so I can go totally into it, and yet not be lost in it.” It’s a contradiction - being lost is totally different to being into it but not lost.

From that place of being with your witness it can happen that the One takes over, then there is really no witness any more, the awareness becomes part of being in the One - and then the witness and the life become One. Then you lose that again and you have to go back to the witness, because the witness is available and the nearest we can get, through our own efforts, to a sense of the truth, the Oneness of all things. But we cannot get to the One by our efforts, because the effort you make to get there is already a separation from the One - how can you get there when you, as a separate person, are saying, “I want the One” – you have already sabotaged the whole trip.

So it has to suddenly happen that when you are in a let-go space that you find yourself with the One - though you can wait for that forever. But the witness is something you can do, and it gives the taste of that space, in that it separates you from your identification with the separation, by being aware that you are separating yourself from the separation.

Anybody else want to say something?

Participant: I think I would like to add something. The last ten minutes I had to laugh about myself, because this experience I mentioned, about feeling suddenly so small, was exactly that. In the morning session this happened. It was the first time I was able to watch myself, to witness what happened - the mind making jumps, feeling the energy, and doing something, acting. It was a feeling a bit like standing outside of myself and just watching.

That’s what you have to do.That’s the trick. It’s a great sense of freedom - because the witness is free.

Talk, DEMA, Stiersbach, 23rd June 2006