Mike Shannahan has been eloquently expounding the self-realisation avenue to spiritual endeavour (see the post called Work below – Dec 6th). I'll put my reply here since it is somewhat wordy:
Your approach sounds reasonable and strong but I've never known it enable someone to yield. For that every cell in your body, every fibre in your brain, and every cord in your heart has to put the other first to such a degree that you, as a centred individual, disappear. Being centred in yourself or oneself is admirable but should only be a relatively insignificant by-product of the work you do to put the other first.
It all hinges on motivation. Your motivation now – at this moment – flavours (energizes) the work and the product of the work, which is you tomorrow. Serving the divine within and serving the divine without – do they not amount to the same thing? Certainly not. One produces ultimately an enlightened target and the other produces a shimmering entity, not quite there and not quite not there. What I am insisting is that when it comes to motivation – to honour – you cannot afford to be woolly or slack or hit-and-miss. It has to be as clear as a bell. It also has to motivate every action you make, not just your practice. If each breath you take and each beat of your heart can be motivated by exactly the same thing that motivates you to get off your backside and do some Tai Chi then effectively you are working all the time. This is what my teacher means by "falling in love with Tai Chi".
Spiritual progress amounts to an expanding heart. The heart expands and contains. It contains the world – the world you move in. When you make spiritual progress the heart expands and the world you move in grows – you are now part of a bigger, richer and more inclusive world. How does this progress happen? Firstly, the work you do gathers energy to you. This energy is tinged by the quality (purity) of your motivation. This energy in itself, no matter how strong and intense, cannot break out of your present world and into the bigger purer one beckoning you until your motivation shifts to align itself with that next new world. The inspiration for this realignment always comes from outside – a moment of grace – a powerful teaching you experience somewhere and somehow. The vigilance required to be awake to these subtle moments is the vigilance of a yielder – a non-self-centred person, so accustomed to putting the other first that their energy and awareness are always connecting and never residing within. The inspired shift in motivation amounts to a change of strategy, a change of heart and a change of life. The next change is always more difficult to achieve than the last, otherwise how can it possibly take you outside the realm of your experience? What this difficulty means is that you need to become more and more consumed – more passionate – more emotional – as time goes by. This doesn't need to express itself as raging lunacy, but as a rawness, fragility and openness just this side of bearable. Always on that edge.
1 comment
I think we agree on many things.
On the importance, and quality, of motivation - that the clearer and stronger it is the further we can go, whatever the endeavour. For me motivation is primarily an emotional thing, that I feel the desire to act. It can be affected by my thoughts, but is not rooted there. It may be affected by my will, but I`ve never found that my will can take me on for any distance if my feelings are not going in the same direction. In my experience love provides the strongest motivation of all, so to `fall in love with Tai Chi` would provide powerful motivation. At present I`m friends with it, though I`m hopeful my relationship will deepen.
I`d agree that a key part of spiritual progress is having an expanding heart, that the world is bigger and richer, and further that there is less separation between oneself and the world, that one is more and more deeply involved with it.
I`d also agree that although our growth is from within, there are places where we need an outside influence to inspire us, or teach us how to get past blocks that we encounter.
From what I can see, where we differ is on our relationship to yielding.
For me, being a yielder is not the same thing as being a `non-self-centred person`. I would agree that yielding is extremely important, or the ability to yield, that the best way to act often involves yielding, to flow with the situation around one, without attachment. I`d also agree that vigilance is necessary to be aware of the subtle movements around one.
However, my experience suggests that the ability to yield, and the motivation to be aware, are best served by love. My loving of things external to myself is a reflection of the way in which I love myself, if I love myself unconditionally, then I love the world unconditionally, if I`m wholly self-centred then I`m wholly life-centred (or god-centred). My yielding has to be in balance to the rest of my life, to the rest of my feelings, or else there will come times when I`d resent doing something which would lead to separation between me and the world. Something we haven`t mentioned so far is fear, which I perceive to be one of the biggest blocks to loving, to being aware, to following one`s initial motivation. It has been my experience that in order to overcome fear we have to heal ourselves, and I`ve found that this involves us becoming more self-centred, since to heal we need to value our own feelings more, and focus on our own needs.
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