Douglas Harding and others in the Headless community talk about what happens after a shift into headlessness: We test teachings to see if they align with what we are noticing for ourselves. Richard Lang touches on this in the short video above.
HOW HAS IT BEEN FOR ME?
How do I relate to texts, teachings, teachers, and fellow explorers in this area?
I look for how clear they seem. How familiar are they with this terrain? This is what Douglas Harding describes.
I resonate with those who use a more direct language without too much jargon and tradition, and with as little cultural differences as possible. (Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Douglas Harding.)
When it comes to fellow explorers and teachers, I look for the ones where there is an immediate mutual recognition. (Adyashanti, Bonnie Greenwell, and others.)
I am especially happy when I find someone whose shift happened “out of the blue” as it did in my case, although that’s more rare.
In addition to clarity, I look for kindness, wisdom, pragmatism, freedom from tradition, and often special skills and insights I feel I can learn from.
IF WE DON’T RECOGNIZE OUR NATURE, HOW DO WE GO ABOUT IT?
How do we go about it if we are not familiar with our nature, and we cannot test teachings and teachers based on our own immediate noticing?
The most direct approach is to become more familiar with our nature through guided explorations. The ones I find most helpful are the Headless experiments (Headless Way) and the Big Mind process.
Otherwise, the normal guidelines are often helpful: Look for a tradition or teacher that seems kind, wise, pragmatic, clear, and healthy.
Be aware of your own projections of hopes, fears, shadow, and so on. Whatever you see in the world, including in teachers, is what you have in yourself. Don’t put up with behavior that seems unethical. And it’s often helpful to think of the others as friends, guides, and coaches more than “teachers”.
A FEW MORE WORDS ABOUT HOW IT WAS FOR ME
When this human self was sixteen, there was a strong oneness shift “out of the blue”. All was revealed as God, with no exceptions. These days, I would say that consciousness woke up to itself.
I looked for others who were familiar with the same terrain, and that took years. Mainly because I lived in a little town in Norway and it was the 1980s.
BOOKS
First, the ones I found through books…
The first I found was Meister Eckhart. I still remember standing at a shelf at the old main library in Oslo, reading a book by him, and seeing that beneath layers of cultural differences and a Christian language, he seemed to come from the same or similar place.
In the beginning, that was a typical experience. The layers of tradition and cultural differences were there in Buddhist texts, although they too often seemed to come from the same place. I loved Taoist texts, although they were often more indirect about it.
I also loved systems views and the books by Fritjof Capra, although his books came at it from a more intellectual angle.
The first that seemed more clear and with fewer layers of cultural differences was Ken Wilber’s No Boundary which I loved. He seemed to come from a similar place as me in terms of culture and worldview.
This was all in the late 1980s.
I then found the books by Jes Bertelsen which combined a direct noticing with Jung, Buddist and Christian practices, and energetic work. For me, that was perfect, although he didn’t seem to come from a completely clear place at the time.
I also read a book by Vigdis Garbarek who lived in Oslo as I did, although I didn’t contact her since she didn’t come from a completely clear place. It was close but filtered through some layers.
At the Zen Center, in my mid-twenties, I got into old and new Zen texts, many of which came from a clear place and with less jargon and fewer layers of tradition. My Zen teacher also developed the Big Mind process which came from a clear place and felt completely at home for me.
Some years later, in my early to mid thirties, I found Adyashanti, Byron Katie, and Douglas Harding, and finally felt I had found “my people”. They came from a clear place and talked about it in a way that was less filtered through tradition and cultural differences.
IN PERSON
When it comes to in-person encounters, these have been more rare.
I did go to the Tibetan Buddhist center in Oslo for a while, although felt a distance there because of it all being so heavily clothed in terminology and tradition. When I initially happened to speak from my own direct experience, the Norwegian teacher seemed reactive and angry so I learned to not speak up.
I found my friend BH in my late teens, who seems very familiar with this terrain, and the same with Hanne Bertelsen a few years later. Genpo Roshi seemed very familiar with this terrain as well, and I love his Big Mind process. Later, my connection with Bonnie Greenwell and Adyashanti was very important, and there have been several others. I especially love the circle around Adyashanti.
THE UPSIDES AND CHALLENGES OF NOT FINDING OTHERS SO EASILY
There were upsides and challenges in not finding others for a few years.
The main upside is that I was free to explore and get familiar with the terrain on my own, without the influence of traditions or teachers.
The main challenge was at a much more human level. This human self lived within a context of oneness, and also was profoundly alone in these explorations.