Consciousness Knows Just What to Do
Hi friends,
With a lot going on in the world right now, it's easy to get hyped up about it. Also, for a lot of us it's summer and summer holiday time and we may be trying to fit all of that in too. A friend reminded me this morning that our spirituality and waking up are actually highly practical. They’re not otherworldly things that are in addition to or instead of our life.
Consciousness knows just what to do. It knows what it needs to see and find out. It’s making it’s way all by itself, because . . . it’s conscious. When we get in there trying to figure it all out we get in the way.
Consciousness is already figuring it out.
A plant consciousness figures it out. It goes through its various stages and pushes towards its flowering into maturity. The future flowering is built into the plant; it’s just not there yet. The flower-self knows somehow within itself what is needed. Our human consciousness is like that too. It will grow towards conscious flowering too. We don't know what that flowering is like but we can already sense something.
The waking up consciousness knows - if we can just allow it to make its forays and its searches and do what it does while we keep an eye on it and bring ourselves back to it.
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
I heard that line (from the third Zen patriarch) by way Ram Dass when I was a young man. He described it as a kind of a comedic line. The Great Way is not difficult . . . (wait for it) . . . for those who have no preferences.
The great way is the Dharma, the Tao, trust in the Lord. Through the natural unfolding of life and of consciousness, the great way happens by itself. Everything happens by itself.
It happens faster if we get out of the way but it happens anyway because consciousness is still operating beneath the limitation of our messing with it. Our messing with it is part of the process.
It's hard for us to get out of the way because the anxiety of not knowing who we are in our developmental stage means we're caught in that sense of separateness and isolation. The hamster wheel!
We feel insecure and vulnerable and we want to figure it out. Actually, consciousness will figure it out perfectly well by itself.
All of the spiritual traditions I believe say this in their own language. The very nature of the Tao is that by being its undefinable unnameable essence, it is also the source of all things. It’s the consciousness.
In the Christian tradition, Jesus says consider the lilies of the field that don't have to spin or toil and yet they’re arrayed more beautifully than Solomon. The Christian tradition is to give it over to the Lord and to let that be enough, to surrender, to have faith that His will will be done. It’s the nature of things that it will.
Having canoed a lot, I like the metaphor of being on a boat on a river and being carried by the river. The river is already going to the sea. We can trust it, enjoy the process. It’s not in our hands.
We can just let it happen and wait with the excitement-tension for what’s next to be next. The consciousness that comes with being human will take care of it.
All of this is a big deal and it’s not.
Sometimes I wonder who I am to be talking of all this, and I remember one of my mentors, Tom Daly, saying Who are you not to?
I could say the same to you.
One of the joys of my life is recognizing with others that all of the truths of the sages are available to any fool. Any fool who is looking with sincerity and trying to find it, can. Having friends who are on the journey helps us see how ordinary it is and how the extraordinary, the truthful, the higher consciousness, the simple truth reveals itself in ordinary people in ordinary ways. Consciousness knows its job, knows its nature.
I recommend as all the traditions do, the live company of ordinary people being with the consciousness unfolding. The Sangha community of the Buddhists, the community of the faithful of the Christians, Satsang, the company of truth of the Hindus.
There’s also the modern tradition of dyad practice, inquiring with another person in a well-defined format, especially in a group with other dyad pairings doing that.
I do this daily with a group as well as solitary practice trying to let consciousness do its thing. It’s been helpful in so many ways.
All the crazy stuff going on in the world, consciousness is aware of it and onto it. It’s true this is a challenging moment. And yet there’s simply no more practical way than to let consciousness take care of it.
—
Practice Opportunities
Some small practice opportunities for you. Dyad Practice noon Eastern time each Monday in July (and likely longer). Register and receive the link here. Dyads are a skill-building exercise for being with consciousness. I’ll introduce the basics of dyad practice to you and we’ll see what consciousness has in store. Men and women, free. Come join us.
Men’s and Women’s Accountability Group, August 18th at noon Eastern time. Two hours. Here’s the link to register.
We use dyads (pairs) to explore together in a mutual space of respect. We do our best to make this group safe and also deep. The set-up encouragespeople to stay in their own lane, being accountable for our own experience, not knowing what’s best for the other.
You’re welcome to attend either or both. Free but wonderful when we share the cost of a shared endeavour. Consider a paid subscription as a way to do this.
Your friend on the journey,
Andrew,
ps A men-only group starting very soon but I wanted to get this out to you tonight. I’m off on a musical camping road-trip . . . partly with folks I met through dyads!