At the retreat last week, one of the participants quoted from a book describing seeing people and things as light. Joel said it is a metaphor, but is that really so?

I find that much of what may appear as a metaphor is really the most direct way of talking about certain experiences. Emptiness is really a noticing of the no-thingness that everything comes out of and is. Luminosity is really luminosity. The luminous blackness is really experienced as black.

In these cases, it is experienced quite directly as empty, luminous and a luminous blackness.

(more…)

I find it helpful to think of facets of reality as having volume buttons. Each one can turn itself up or down, and they operate independently of each other - although sometimes in what appears to be mutual influence.

Emptiness can be way in the background and on low volume, as it is when we are caught up in beliefs, take ourselves to be an I with an Other, and form appears substantial and real. And it can be in the middle ground, at medium volume, as it is for me now. Or it can be in the foreground at at high volume, as it can be when the sense of a separate I falls away.

Oneness can similarly be at different volumes. And the same with a sense of love. A sense of brilliant luminosity. The luminous darkness. Alive presence. A sense of a separate I. And so on.

And for each of us, if we mapped this over time, we would see how each one oscillate, how they together create an infinite variety of experiences, and how what we are is untouched by any of it.

What I am is that which all of this happens within and as.

Whenever I take a story as true, I make life much smaller than it is.

I identify as something within content of experience, so lose sight of what I am. (That which experience happens within and as.) I identify as something much smaller than what I am as a human being, so have to resist parts of who I am and live from a smaller pallete. I have an idea that I know how others - and life - should behave. And in all of this, I try to limit God.

So when it comes to growing and waking up, there is no need to assume that my limited experiences says anything about how it will be for me in the future, or how it should be for others.

I may have experiences with facets of what I am - such as emptiness and fullness and how it is lived through this human self. I may be familiar with awareness as a field with no center and no periphery, and how this human self functions in that content. I may have experiences with infinite love and how it is to live within and from it. I may be somewhat familiar with who I am at the soul level, with the alive presence, brilliance, luminous darkness, and so on. I may have practical insights into these things and much more.

Yet all of this comes from a very limited experience and just one path. There is no reason to assume that life is limited to this, and every reason to welcome a far richer terrain - and find a deep apprecation and gratitude for the diversity in how all of this is expressed through many different humans and their always unique paths.

Not only are there different forms of awakenings, but there are also different facets revealed within each one.

For instance, within an awakening of what we are to itself, there are facets of emptiness and fullness.

When this awakening is lived through human form, love comes in.

At the soul level, there seems to be innumerable facets, including luminosity, alive presence and fertile darkness.

Independent of - or coexisting with - any of these, is the experience of oneness. All form is one. All is God.

And when any of these are lived through our human self, insights can also come in - which is another facet.

There must be many more, but these are the ones I am most familiar with from (very limited) own experience.

I also notice how there seems to be a natural shift among any and all of these. Any one of them is sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background. Said another way, the volume of each is sometimes turned way up, sometimes moderate, and sometimes turned way down.

Another aspect of this, which Adyashanti pointed out at his most recent radio broadcast, is that each of these are revealed as complete and omnipresent - because they are.

So it is understandable how some, at least in the very early phases of their awakening, take whatever one is alive for them in the present as all there is. (And sometimes get into slightly comical debates with others around it.)

I must be lucky here. Even in the midst of my initial awakening, it was clear to me that in spite of how amazing and complete it seemed (in that case a mix of Big Mind, Big Heart, alive presence, luminosity), it was only a small aspect of what God is. And whenever there is a shift into any one of these, or one new to me, and even if the volume is turned quite a bit up, it is still clear that it is only a small facet of God.

The lesson in all of this, including for me, is to not limit God.

Whatever experiences and insights I have is always very limited. And whatever story I have about reality or God, God is untouched by it and goes far beyond. If I attach to any of those stories as true, I only create struggle when experience moves on… which it will.