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In The Sacred Space of Finding Me, page 135 there is a
talk from Avatar Adi Da of August 26, 2004 entitled
‘Communion With Me In A Blissful Manner Is A Gift’ in which
he talks about ‘finding yourself out’. This concept ‘finding
yourself out’ is the topic of this page.
Finding yourself out is about the ‘search’ and the ‘ego’.
It’s actually discovering the ‘ego’ and discovering it’s
‘activity’ or constant motive, avoidance. “You are always
creating this feeling of separation from this that or the
other thing and then pursuing it. The thing for which you
must become responsive is your own separative act. That is
self-understanding.”
This is not unlike the famous Oxherding pictures of
Mahayana Buddhism which depict the spiritual journey in
picture form. What makes Adi Da’s ‘discovery’ of ego
different is His unique ‘conviction’ of ego. Adi Da
elminates the whole ‘search’ for the bull and starts with
the ‘old dog’ of Nirmanakaya the fully awakended state.
“You must find out about yourself. You are only seeking,
but you are involved in the perpetual action of
self-contraction, a devastating act, a self-deluding act
most profound which is what makes existence what is
traditionally called samsara.
“I have been asking you this question for twenty-two
(1993) years. “What are you doing? What are you always
doing?” This question is among My Great Questions to you,
and this is what I am addressing-what you are doing , not
what you are thinking, not your imagination and your
idealism, but what you are doing . Find out. Understand
yourself by observing your activity. Eventually, you will
see it in its depth, at its root, but the process always
begins with the observation of obvious action.
You are living an allusion because of this act. You are
only thinking, imagining you are in the real world. You are
not aware of reality. You are perceiving an allusion. The
world as you perceive it is an allusion.
Everything you think about it, everything you experience,
everything you pursue, its all illusions. Its
based on a self-deluding act. You do not just Oh
isnt that amusing self-contracted. It is most
profound, a most profound matter. Its controlling your
life and youre unaware of it.”
“to find yourself out as a seeker, and then, instead of
seeking, to deal directly with what is making you a
seeker.”
“In the beginning there’s another kind of process going
on. It’s about finding yourself out. You have to get enough
understanding of yourself to identify yourself as you are
and let it be.”
“The first thing that must occur to truly authenticate
your practice of the Way of the Heart is the response to
Me”. “constant turning to Me is the context in which ‘self’
(ego) understanding takes place. This creqtes a kind of
natural feedback, a reflection that is the reverse of
“Narcissus”, (the seeker).
“It is a way of catching yourself at being “Narcissus”
becuase you are looking a Me” and thus, you become aware of
your own egoic contents with turning to them. You find them
out – and you find yourself out.” In this ‘insight’ the next
moment then is not a matter of correcting your failings or
suppressing your tendencies, but of allowing yourself to see
immediately what all that amounts to”
“You’ve got to discover the ego. You must understand the
egoity or the self-contraction itself.”
“You have to discover what it is altogether and let it
be. Be it. Let the ‘I’ be it, but this ‘I’ you see which is
the body mind and not merely the mind. It is contraction. It
is something being superimposed in the present instant on
existence.”
” Once you find yourself out you can’t escape it. So
that’s when the sadhana really begins you see?”. “It’s not
an end in itself, otherwise the beginning process would be
the seventh stage of life and that’s it. It’s just a moment
in a process of self-understanding.”
“Until you understand yourself fully and the contents of
all the stages of life, to be the body is not to realize the
seventh stage disposition. It’s to be the body, it is to be
identified as the body mind. That’s quite a different thing
than the seventh stage realization. “
“”…if you really feel that knot, you dont want to feel
it. Hm? But it is the ground of your ordinary life. You try
to distract yourself from it constantly, through seeking and
self-indulgence and whatnot. But if you really find out
about yourself, find this knot, find what your real
experience is, then you won’t want to put up with that. It
will oblige you to do sadhana, to feel constantly more and
more beyond it””
“Sadhana or spiritual practice begins in that place where
you make this knot, this fundamental discomfort. It has the
characteristic of fear and you basically experience that
fear as a kind of anxiety in the pit of your stomach.
If you are not really in touch with this
self-contraction, you at times may experience the anxiety
that is constantly underlying and motivating your behavior,
your moment to moment existence. With this anxiety, you
build all kinds of stuff on top of it and desensitize
yourself to it. This self-contraction is the quality of
anxiety, of your moment to moment existence and it is a
stressful anxiety.
You may want to forestall the observation of this
uncomfortable feeling, that realization. But you can’t begin
real spiritual life unless you start to observe and
understand the mechanism of it. But once you do and get bit,
that’s it! Unless you find yourself out you will be
continually running from it, covering it over with ‘lifes
demands’ and ‘stressful situations’. Once you do observe
this fundamental contraction, then you can’t escape it, and
that’s when sadhana really begins. That’s when sadhana
starts becoming profoundly effective.”
“And when such insight appears, it is not in the form,
“Oh, shucks! Will you look at that!” That kind of
information comes from self-watching. When you find yourself
out, that is self-watching. That is data. That is images
that you capture about yourself. All that analysis is a
natural product of self-watching
But the natural product or expression of real
self-observation is radical insight. Where there is such
insight, all the things that you feel bad about on the basis
of your self-analysis or self-watching are undone. In a
moment of real insight, there is no obstruction, there is no
bad guy. The principle of the ego is not present in the
moment of real self-observation, but it is always there in
the moment of self-watching
Understand that everyone engages in self-watching. You
are not prohibited from self-watching. However, you are not
asked to self-watch. You will simply and randomly notice
yourself self-watching, and you will begin to understand
this strategy in yourself. You will see what it represents,
why it is there. You will see what it really is. What is
self-watching? It is self-meditation. What is that? It is
contraction. You will really see it. You will know it to be
that. And in those moments, that is insight. That is
self-observation, that is understanding.”
References:
Beyond
The Koan
Understanding
the self-Contraction
Complications
of Sadhana – No Remedy
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