Here is Adyashanti talking about the shift from insight to dissolution of identity, or from realization to being it.
It’s something that’s very much alive for me these days. I knew that realization and insights were just stepping stones, and now they seem to belong more to the past – at least in terms of interest. What it’s about now is being it, allowing and – as Adya says – aligning myself with the shift into being it.
The realization phase is important and valuable. It’s a stepping stone. There may even be some transformation there, a reorganization of our views and a softening or falling away of identification with more peripheral stories, including the stories of a me – a human being in the world. And yet, the more basic stories are left, including the story of an I. There may be a direct realization of all as God, yet the sense that it’s happening to an I. At some point, there is a realization that this is not enough. It’s not true. There is no I here, yet there is the sense of one. There is still identification with the viewpoint of an I within content of experience. And there is also the realization that realizations and insights are endless. They have literally no end. There is always further to go, and further to go. They may be helpful for helping us shift and reorient, but that’s all. They don’t have any value in themselves.
Then, there is the pull into being it. Being what is. Being the field of experience, being all as awareness, being capacity for it all. There is the pull of releasing all identifications with images and viewpoints, including the viewpoint of an I. What’s left is just what is, noticing itself. It’s the field of experience noticing itself as a field of experience, with no particular identification with anything within itself. It’s awareness noticing itself as it appears to itself as the field of experience. It’s capacity for it all being itself, pulled into itself.
The more there is a holding on, the more painful the process may be. And yet, it’s difficult for me to not hold on because it is – quite literally – a death process. It is a death of all I have taken myself to be. A death of all that’s familiar. A death of taking refuge in viewpoints.
At the same time, the process is what I already am. What eventually may notice itself is what I already am. What is appears as all the phases and facets of this process and what’s here.
The question is, how do I delude myself? What do I not want to see? What’s the belief behind the resistance? Is it true? When I find myself identifying with a viewpoint – including as an I – what happens? What’s more true? How is it to live from that? How is it to befriend all of this?
Evelyn Underhill also talks about this shift in her chapter on the dark night of the soul. The shift from realizing something as if from afar – still identified as an I, to being it.
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- from realization to being
- realizations, seeing, even some transformation – falling away of identification with more peripheral stories, with the me – to some extent (insights are endless, helpful to reorient, can always be clearer, but not what it’s really about)
- to being, noticing already am it – falling away of identifications with the most basic stories, asked to let all identification go
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