Being rather than understanding and knowing

 Being rather than understanding and knowing  

The road to finally waking up in its fullest expression is ladened with pitfalls. Some are shallow and stoney and others deep and dark. The length of time we remain in the holes depends on what is needed to be learned and how fast we see we are in a hole and seek to climb back out. 

One of these large pitfalls is that of understanding or knowing. When we begin to “learn” about spiritual awakening and non duality we take it on as information in the form of knowledge. We read, watch, experience and then it is stored within thought as memory. This allows for enquiry within thought to begin. Questions about the actual content begin to be asked such as “Why can I not forgive them?” or “What is it that I am expecting from this situation?”. As this evolves we then begin to ask looser questions about the content such as “Why do I feel this way?” or “What is at the root of this particular chain of thought?”. We then go on to ask questions not about the content itself but about thinking as a function, such as “Who am I?” “What is doing the thinking?” and “Is this automatic or caused?”. 

At some point in this enquiry process we learn that ‘we are all consciousness and that whatever we DO doesn’t really matter anyway’. This is the trap of understanding or THINKING we know rather than living an insight that has had a profound effect and changed our being. When we THINK we know it, we use this information to avoid further enquiry. “Why do I need to ask anymore questions?” Why do I need to enquire further?” “It is all pointless right?”. 

Thought now has a firm grip. It has a position and it knows. It needs to go no further, but why would it? Now everything it does is ok, pointless even. It can just carry on as before, but now it knows. 

After a while this gets painful as it is seen that this understanding or knowing is NOT alleviating our suffering at all. We are still hurting in our relationships, our jobs, our existence. We see that KNOWING this isn’t helping. Then, confusion sets in. “Why is it not working?” and “Why is KNOWING this not helping?” It is because we have not seen this as our truth, or even if we have we are not LIVING it as what we are, but attempting to use it as knowledge. These are two very different things. One is a way of being. It changes our actions, our emotional reactions and the operation of thought at its root. If we have TRULY seen that what we are is one consciousness and that THIS is what is running the show, we begin to LIVE this. It IS what we are. If there is still pain and suffering in the form of fear, anxiety, grief and confusion, this insight has not affected us in the powerful manner that it does when we have hit on it fully, sometimes we may need to SEE the same TRUTH a number of times for it to go to the root of thought for this to change completely.

Saying, feeling and believing that we KNOW something is not being the thing itself. When we finally SEE that we are consciousness we fall back into being it and operating from and as it. Until this happens, using this ‘fact’ as something to allow for  justification, acceptance of pain as being ‘just the way it is’ or ‘it not mattering anyway’ is thought holding painful patterns in place through fear.