An Awakening

What does it mean to awaken?



         Many years ago I attended a weekend retreat organized by a company called Inner Directions, in which many awakened teachers were invited to speak. I, personally, considered these teachers master swordsmen and women. In my mind, they were not there to teach anything at all, but to skillfully slash through our delusions, slice through every thread of mental conditioning. Their main task was to awaken us, to set us free, to give us the ultimate gift known to man--enlightenment.



         The gathering was held inside a beautiful arts theater located in the picturesque seaside town of La Jolla, California. It was a wonderful weekend but something happened during the last day, as the very last speaker swung his sword through his kind words, that left me very troubled. Sitting about six rows in front of me, was a single body which drew my attention because it broke the pattern of commonality. Its shape was sharply contoured to the left. The head was almost resting against the left shoulder. The position was fixed, this person was not adjusting out of it, as uncomfortable as it seemed. I quickly realized that I was looking at someone with a physical condition that locked him in that posture. I became aware of this warm breath of compassion arising from within and turned to focus back on the speaker, who was talking about non-dualism. The time arrived when the speaker asked the audience if there were any questions. Suddenly I noticed that the young man who's body expressed a very unique shape, raised himself out of his chair and slowly made his way towards the microphone that had been strategically set closest to his row. Once there, he tried very hard to reach the tip of the microphone and angle it down but even the angle he achieved had not been enough. He laboriously raised his head as best he could and as perfect silence welcomed his question, he asked, point blank, straight to the point: "will I ever become enlightened?"



         All eyes moved towards the speaker. It was a sight to see, as if every head was being pulled by a single string. "You," the speaker said as he raised the index finger of his right hand and pointed it towards the young man, "will never get enlightened." I had heard the expression before, that silence can become loud, and in that moment I realized what was meant. The young man's head dropped back down to its previous position, he turned around and again, gradually made his way back to his seat. I was disturbed, shocked, and an array of thoughts began to take birth in my mind. The gathering ended and I couldn't shake off what I was feeling. I worried for the poor young man. "What if he goes home and commits suicide? What if he doesn't even go home but walks straight into the ocean and does it there? Should I go looking for him and tell him not to worry, that he just has to keep trying, find a better teacher?"



         I drove home but still couldn't shake off the worry, the heaviness, the contracted emotion. The young man's question and the speaker's reply kept playing over and over in my mind. I couldn't get out of this mental/emotional web. Suddenly, out of the blue, an opening, clarity, insight! The speaker had been absolutely correct, expertly accurate! He had hit the target right on the mark! This teacher had simply directed his answer to that point of confusion where such question can only arise! Only while there is identification with temporal phenomena, with conditions, thoughts, emotions, etc, can the desire for freedom from them arise! Yet all form is ultimately illusory. When the young man rests his head over his soft pillow, closes his eyes and is lulled to sleep, awareness always enters the deep "dreamless" sleep state where there are no conditions, no form, no thoughts, no suffering! It is this openness, this edgeless, pure, virgin awareness that is real because it is devoid of any beginning or ending point, no reference marker whatsoever! So the speaker was only talking to the illusion, to the shadow aspect of this boundless, virgin source and of course a shadow can never do anything to gain its source! Just like in Plato's cave parable!



         As I kept driving, a smile formed all on its own. If the young man did end up jumping out of the 10th floor of his apartment building, hung himself, or jumped into the ocean waters just a few feet away, what would "really" die?  Awareness was excavating and this quest always leads inwardly. "Who is asking? Who is worried?" and here the collapse! There is no one here! No one there! There is no such thing as here or there! There is no one who can possibly die because there is no separate being that was every truly born! Separation is merely a construct of a biological dance happening now, always in the edgeless now! A Divine shadow dance! The young man, in a very literal sense, was, is and will always already be attribute-less awareness, pure source, virgin voidness, what the Buddha called 100% the "awakened mind!"



         That weekend, conditioning had been sliced into confetti, but the sword that had been the sharpest was the experience with the young man, the angel, for through the discomfort created, awareness was forced to follow a trail that lead within. It ended up looking for the self that seeks, wants, takes offense, gets bothered, and there is nothing ultimately to find, there is no one here! And in a flash, what a very wise teacher once said, becomes a direct realization. The "not" finding turns out to be the finding...



Luis Corona