Monday, July 19, 2010

Enlightenment: the liberation of concepts

In Focusing, we learn that concepts can interfere with experiencing things as they are, freshly. I recently learned, through @Ali Miller, about a teacher called Gangaji. When I read Gangaji's writing about the nature of her enlightenment, I was deeply moved because I recognize what she calls the liberation of concepts. Her words make enlightenment accessible to me.

With Focusing, I already know how to experience without concepts, and have had many experiences of experiencing without concepts (so to speak). This connects me with the trust I feel in my body, as a result of what I have already known and experienced, that even more freedom is available to me as I move Focusing and felt-sensing out of the formal practice and into daily life. I feel excited and inspired about the next step forward in my understanding and lived experiencing that is supported by Gangaji's words:

"Even though there is a personality associated with this body, and a sense of a “person” in experience, it is continually revealed to be nothing in the face of truth. It is not possible to integrate this truth into anything else because truth already exists as everything and it always has. Instead, you can recognize is that your life is already inside this vastness or infinity; it is already a part of that integral whole. Then every situation in life is an opportunity to recognize the ground of beingness that holds it all.

Any thought of separation from this whole, however much suffering follows it, still is only a thought. Separation must be maintained, it must be thought, it must be proved, and it must be practiced to exist. Without this maintenance, the experience of separation vanishes.

However your daily life presents itself, whether it is a life devoted to monastic duties or a life in the midst of the world, every moment is an opportunity to realize who you are. True investigation reveals that whatever prior limitations you think keep you from who you are (be they grand or lowly) are nothing but concepts, concepts that, when not maintained by mind activity, cannot cause suffering. These concepts can be liberated so that you, as you are, can shine fully. This is the invitation extended to you."

From The End of All Excuses, by Gangaji.
http://www.gangaji.org/index.php?modules=content&op=all_excuses

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