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S A T S A N G W I T H C A N D I C E O ' D E N V E R
The Nature Of Consciousness
Four Key Points (1/3)
Keywords : Rest for short moments repeated many times until it becomes automatic. And to rest doesn't mean to shut down any of the content of points of view—not the thoughts, not the emotions, not the sensations.
There are really four crucial points to remember, four key points when in these emotionally heated situations, where it is all stirred up. And that is that, as points of view appear, recognize that a point of view is appearing, and rest as awareness. So, there is recognition and acknowledgement that the point of view is appearing. Second, allow for awareness just to remain as it is, open and spacious in the appearance of its own dynamic energy. And allow the point of view, whatever it is, to come to its full potential. So, you don't try to damp it down or anything. Say, you feel afraid; resting as awareness isn't an antidote to pushing away feeling afraid; it is the medium for allowing it to come for its full potential—hideous or glorious or whatever it is. Then, see how it vanishes naturally without a trace. This is how you come to see that there is nothing to be afraid of and nothing to hold on to either. So these three key points that I have just mentioned, along with the fourth, which is the stunning insight into this process, so you see, this is the most profound insight any human being will ever have: insight into this process—the process of the simultaneous inception, full-potentiation and spontaneous release of the here and now. It undoes itself. However, it doesn't undo itself if it's allowed to feel like it has some power in some way.
So, say the fear comes up, the fear of loss of love or abandonment or whatever it might be. "Oh, I'm going to rest as awareness; don't want to feel this". But, if there is awareness as this fear comes to full fruition, the dynamic energy of the awareness that comes to full fruition, shocking, hideous, with maybe images that go along with it, because you are no longer fending off what you have been afraid of in yourself. You see it come to full potential as the dynamic energy of awareness. Well, once you allow it to come to full potential, boom, spontaneously it vanishes without a trace, like a line drawn in water or like the flight path of a bird in the sky. Then you really start to be able to see the obviousness of awareness in all situations. It won't happen though if you shut down at any point in that process, so to speak.
By the power of this, you come to see that what you thought to be the beginning, middle and end of a point of view, that the attribution of beginning, middle and end to the process, that those are also points of view, and that all of this is just the spontaneous self-release, the pure presence of the here and now—awareness never coming together and then separating from points of view. Awareness, the only medium of all points of view. Close [x]
Four Key Points (2/3)
Keywords : Wherever you are, that's where all your points of view are going to be. Therefore, that is the only place the realization of awareness will be. It won't be anywhere else. It's not going to be in some carefully crafted points of view that you decide are awareness-compatible. Nope, it's not going to be there at all. It's going to be in all the points of view you think aren't awareness-compatible. That's where the realization is.
It's really easy to rest as awareness with all the points of view that we think are awareness compatible. It's the ones that we think aren't awareness-compatible, where we feel like those aren't naturally perfect. "All these points of view over here, they're naturally perfect, but the other one's they're not naturally perfect and free". When we begin to gain confidence in awareness, then we really see what we are made of. We see what all these points of view are. And, fearlessness is part of that process. It is engineered into that process. It's embedded in it.
The more confident we become in awareness, the less resistant we are to our points of view. As we're less resistant to the points of view appearing in awareness, then all kinds of points of view we've never had start to show their face. We're not keeping them at bay any longer. And so this process of allowing everything to be as it is, when I talked about the four key points, those are the four key points in letting everything be exactly as it is. Recognition or acknowledgement, allowing the full potentiation, the full flowering of the point of view and its automatic release: this is the only way to see that all points of view are equal. It means that within yourself, you will see everything you want to see about yourself, and you will also see everything you don't want to see.
You'll see how needy, how frightened, how vulnerable you've always been. Everything. You'll see how greedy, how desirous, how jealous, everything! All glaring, all just allowed to be as it is. This is real freedom. See, there's no possibility of natural compassion coming about in any other way. This is the process of natural compassion. You enter into a compassionate disposition with yourself, in your own experience, by allowing everything about you to be as it is. In this way, you develop profound compassion for yourself without trying to. It is automatic in every moment of awareness. It is very much unlike the compassion that requires the muscle building of cultivation and development, where you are trying to be nice to everybody, or trying to be compassionate in some contrived way. This is natural, natural compassion, naturally occurring and naturally abiding. And it's in each of those short moments of awareness where you allow everything about yourself to show itself. You come to see you're fearless. You come to see it within the laboratory of your own experience. No matter what pops up in the Petri dish of points of view, it's automatically refined in awareness. By the power of this, your narrowed perception opens up and becomes vast and spacious like it's always been. If you're holding on tight for dear life on your little life raft of who you take yourself to be, then your perception is necessarily very, very narrow. See, when you let go and you just relax, then you're no longer bothered by what appears. Now, for most of us this comes about gradually; however, it comes about in only one way. That's by persevering in awareness. You see, once you go through the encounter with a painful point of view that formerly sunk you or drowned you, once you go through the process of spontaneous release with that point of view where you see it come about, you maintain awareness, the point of view comes to full fruition within awareness and resolves naturally—you're free. In that instant you're totally free. And in that instant you've proven to yourself that this is all you need. You need nothing else to sustain you throughout your entire life, no matter what happens. But you have to see it at least once.
You can be introduced to awareness, and that's all well and good. However, if you never see the process of spontaneous release, then you're never really free. You just have an introduction to awareness but with no knowledge whatsoever of what to do about all these plaguing points of view. This process of spontaneous release and recognizing that in your own experience is crucial. Not just necessary, crucial ! Close [x]
Four Key Points (3/3)
Keywords : Gaining confidence in awareness is both tender and powerful. It requires great tenderness with yourself, and it's a tenderness that you'll never get from anyone else. It's the greatest tenderness. And in that is your greatest power. The moment of spontaneous awareness in which everything is spontaneously self-freeing is a moment of complete mental and emotional stability. That is the moment that shows you your natural perfection. That is the moment that shows you your naturally occurring freedom that is the entire basis or basic state of everything. By acknowledging that awareness, that spontaneous awareness, just allowing it to be as it is for short moments, then that becomes more obvious than all the points of view. It's so simple. You really must allow it to be so simple. No need to have fancy ways to talk about it or think about it or try to get our intellect around it philosophically. Just strip it all naked. Strip away all the ideas about everything and trust your own experience. That will take you all the way. Close [x]
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