The Energy Way

 Out of Time - Long or Short

I would like to say what I’m going to say, whatever it is, through the energy spaces that I convey to you during the group, but I fear that some of your energy ears are not tuned-in enough for that. So that, for the new people, is something to aim for: energy ears. Then you get whatever meaning or understanding that you feel you need from what goes on without having to pass it through your own minds. If we can do it that way, then it’s much more direct and simple. If I say something, and put it in your mind, then your mind goes bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom, and there are reverberations in all directions from one statement - and those we can do without.

So it’s always a difficult choice - whether to risk that happening, or to risk that some people will get the experience but will miss some understanding which they need about where what we do fits into their lives. These are the two alternatives, and sometimes I choose one and sometimes I choose the other.

I recall that recently, in the last group I did in Holland, I didn’t say anything whatsoever until the Sunday, and then on the Sunday morning one of the new people said, “Michael, you haven’t spoken a word, but I feel I understand everything that you’ve done.” But today I make the other choice.

There is a famous Zen quote. For the moment I forget who said it. Usually I know, but the name at the moment eludes me. The quote is: “This very earth the lotus paradise, this very body the buddha.” And that, in a way, you could say is the goal of the Work. Now, to have that experience, which for me is the greatest you can have, certain things have to happen. If this very earth is going to be the lotus paradise, then you have to be one with it. No, I’ll change that a little - if this very earth is going to be the lotus paradise for you, then things have to happen first. You have to be at one with it.

You see, it’s all a question of perception, or the way that you experience reality. For me, that is the lotus paradise out there this morning. (indicating the view from the group-room window) For you, it may not yet be. But what we look at is the same. So everything depends on the one who is looking. And of course it isn’t that that is the lotus paradise out there, it is that you experience the reality of the lotus paradise within you. So only when either you are also the lotus paradise within, or you are not separated from it everywhere, only then can you experience it in that way.

So we are normally in a state where that is not true for us, and then the masters tell us, and I’m telling you this morning, that that is the case. So that means there is some movement, some distance to travel between where it’s not the case, to a place in you where it is the case. And that is what is known as the Path - that you are all on, or you would not be here.

Now, another Zen quote - this time I remember who said it (chuckles), and that was the great Zen master, Dogen… (long pause) Well, I remember who said it, but now I’ve forgotten what it was he said! (uproarious laughter) Now it comes: “To study the Buddha” - to look for Buddhahood - “is to study the self.” That’s really the only place you have to look. “To study the self is to lose the self. To lose oneself is to become enlightened by the myriad things.”

So if you look out of the window and you see paradise, and you feel in some kind of enlightened state - which you will - then it is that which you are looking at which is enlightening you. And for that to happen, you have to be empty, otherwise what is there cannot come in. As long as you have any views about anything, then you cannot see things as they are. So the spiritual path, no matter what Path you take or what tradition you join, or even if you create your own Way, whatever it is, it’s all about returning to your original nature which had no constructs on it. Everything that prevents you from uniting with that place, all that has grown in you through your lives, through your interactions, education, relating and so on, all these things are simply constructs. But what happens is that we embrace those constructs as ourselves, and the possibility of dissolving those constructs is very frightening.

Now, what can reduce that fear, as it has done for many people on the Path, many people I have worked with over the years, what reduces that fear is to have some maybe short-term, maybe very limited, maybe very momentary experiences of what it is like to be outside your own constructs. And that’s part of the benefit of the Work that happens here - and elsewhere in many places of course: that it can give you a short experience, a brief experience, of being outside yourself.

Of course, that’s not the finish by any means, because when you have such an experience it is you that is having the experience, so in a way it is just another construct. And then there’s a danger of the phenomenon of what is known as spiritual materialism, where you then claim that you’ve had these experiences, and you make an ego trip out of it, and think yourself to be superior to other people who have not had these experiences, and then you’ve taken it on board as something that the ego has achieved, and that of course is the opposite of the way that it should happen, in that you see that that is the place where the ego has no hold.

To make that shift of your centre of gravity from being centred in the ego-self to being centred in the universe is very difficult to make. So please don’t be angry with yourself, as some people do become, when it happens and then you lose it and you tell yourself, “Why didn’t I stay in that place? That felt like a true place, I felt really myself for the first time, and now I’ve lost it, and I shouldn’t have done, I should have stayed there.” Please don’t do that, because it is virtually impossible to take a jump into that or find yourself there and say, “Right, now I’m going to remain here for the rest of my life.” Just be aware - be aware of the dangers, be aware of the eagerness or the greed to get there, and see that they’re not helping.

When I say, “Be aware,” I don’t mean just blankly be aware, I mean be aware of how the ego wants to find and grasp that place for itself, and that that is absurd since the ego cannot exist in that place. Be aware in that way. Be aware and keep going. That is the pincer movement: be aware and keep going. And p.s. - don’t despair. (laughter)

Another nice Zen saying is, “The first step is the last.” That means that if you really put your foot on the Path, it’s just a question of time. But time can be short or long. (laughter) Another thing before we continue with some work… (pauses) It’s gone! (laughter)

Well, I don’t remember what I was going to say, but something else has come. It can sometimes happen with new people - we have a few new people here - that they can find things happening to them, or find themselves in a certain inner space that scares them. But wherever you find yourself is part of you. You cannot be brought into a place that does not belong to you. So it might be unknown territory, but it’s your own unknown territory. And since what you want, presumably, is not in the known territory, otherwise you would have already found it, what you want is in that unknown territory.

Every jump that you make comes as a result of something from what seems to be outside you. And that something outside you may come from a situation, an experience, or another person like me, but it has to pass through something in you before you experience it. Whatever is new and comes from beyond you will only reach you by passing through the unknown part of yourself. So in that intimate space that is you, the transformation is always happening within yourself, in that in some forgotten or unknown part of yourself energy is moving, so that the unknown becomes included in your reality.

I talked a little earlier about the constructs that have been built up on our virgin soil. And many therapies that are around have been designed to help people realise that these constructs are there and understand how they came about, and maybe through the mind or through the expression of the emotions to dissolve them. But the way we work here is that we try and awaken in you an energy level that is outside that zone where the constructs have been built.

Now, especially now talking to my long-term students maybe, the more often that you can experience yourself in these areas outside your constructs, the more you do not feed the constructs because you find that you can live perfectly well and very beautifully in the new spaces, so you stop feeding the constructs. And if you stop feeding the constructs, they will simply atrophy. Since the constructs have no absolute reality - they are being reconstructed every day, every moment, by ourselves - then if you don’t feed them - and you can only not feed them if you have an alternative; if you have no alternative then you have to feed them - if you find an alternative, an alternative place in you, which we call the energy space, where you are just relaxed and at one with the energies all around you and with yourself, if you can establish yourself more and more in that place, then you will withdraw your energy from the construct, and the construct then cannot maintain itself.

I don’t know whether it will work for you like that, but that is how it worked for me. I don’t claim that it has worked a hundred per cent for me, but it’s worked out well for me, and a lot, and so I can have these experiences of the lotus paradise and other states which feel completely clear and open, and all that has come about through going through the processes that I am now recommending to you.

Talk given during an ECP-seminar in Denzlingen, Germany, 16.10 2004.