Rodney: Thank you!
Q: I would like to share with you what has been an obvious unfolding over these last few months and to ask if you have any pointers for me.
Rodney: Sure.
Q: For a while there has been a strong sense of things being different but of not really knowing what, and therefore, I am not quite able to put it into words.
Rodney: Yes, I'm quite familiar with what you are saying. But go ahead, let's hear your perspective on it.
Q: Slowly, over the last few weeks, it has dawned on me that all that arises here is not really being taken personally, for the most part....This [Name] personality comes up, with all the familiar thought patterns, reactions, tendencies, etc, but there's really no weight to them. They are just clouds passing over. There's nothing personal about any of it.
Rodney: That all sounds good. It appears as if you are beginning to see how the maneuverings of your body and mind are actually operating. And now, because you aren't giving your thoughts and personality patterns any significant import, you are feeling this new and perplexing calmness. In fact, it is so much of an oddity that, as you noted, you aren't quite able to "put it into words."
Q: Exactly. I'm noticing that it doesn't matter whether joy or anger or fear or sadness or whatever emotion arises. There is no resistance to it, nor is there a wanting it to stay or leave. It's as if the purity of the emotion is experienced for its own sake, because there's no "me" story attached to it.
Rodney: Again, that's commendable. It seems as if you are truly getting your nondual bearings. And even your details concerning it are clear and resonant. But--
Q: I intuitively knew that that "but" was coming.
Rodney: Which, once more, points to your own deepening understanding of the matter. All that's needed here is a more precise orientation on this. In your case, I would suggest that you continue to move your focus away from your experiences and feelings, including your ones of calmness and joy. For neither of those is your abiding state. Presence is. Often, seekers equate calmness or elation with awakening. But the central aspects of awareness are peace and spaciousness. It isn't your thoughts, feelings, ideas, bodily sensations, or the fact that you are conscious. So what is left? What is it that remains? What is it that is none of those things and that does not move? What is it, right now, that is immediately present and that you have never apprehended before?
Q: I don't know...But there is definitely a pause occurring, a kind of--
Rodney: Natural cessation.
Q: Yeah, that it's.
Rodney: Now see that within the pause there is an actual presence of awareness that is, at once, beginningless and undeniable. It may appear subtle, at first. But once recognized, there is nowhere where it is not. Its reach is limitless, and you are It.
Q: Then just stay focused on awareness, rather than on the experiences, correct?
Rodney: Just see or understand that you are presence, first and foremost. There is no extra entity having to remain "focused" on anything. Then you will quickly discern that this peace and clarity doesn't come and go. They remain because they are authentic aspects of your Beingness. You continue to experience emotions (thank goodness!), but they are seen for what they are: Fleeting arisings in your natural state.
Q: Points taken. Much love to you, Rodney.
Rodney: And to you, as well.
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News & Info
A Vastness All Around: Awakening to Your Natural State is now available for purchase. Rodney's first collection of essays, discussions, interviews and powerful pointers can be ordered directly from the publisher at Lulu Press.
And for the book's Press Release, click Here.
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