The Pulse of Remembering and Forgetting
Monday, February 6th, 2006Coming and going, the thing is accomplished.
–Sri Anandamayi Ma
This insight was conveyed to me by a friend in Varanasi who heard it directly from Sri Anandamayi Ma.
Most of us are operating with the misconception that our lives should take the form of one great, upward climbing. We expect to surpass our parents in education and income. Even if we reject this and choose a lesser-paying, less prestigious position for a time, something in us feels ill at ease. Failing to “make it,” some of us suffer a lifetime of shame and guilt. We also expect our children to surpass us. This is the origin of the “black sheep” of the family: he or she who takes the road less traveled, perhaps a spiritual road.
Our spiritual life is not exempt from the “climbing” attitude. Why should it be? Life is life: there are no divisions.
We may accept a slower or faster pace, or have greater or lesser concepts of the destination, but we generally expect consistent achievement from ourselves and others, including our teachers. Committing ourselves to practice, we demand a straight ride to the top.
But we quickly learn that spiritual opening happens in a pulse-like manner. Consistent climbing is in short supply. We open. We close. We open. We close.
If we are working hard, all of our obscurations, confusions, and tensions come out in full strength. Some days we are filled with peace and equanimity. Other days we feel we can hardly go on. We can soothe ourselves by labeling this difficult process the unwinding of karma, but it still hurts!
Some practitioners take the New Age route. Everything is “for the best.”
Others get caught up in bemoaning their hard luck. “I’ll never get out of the mud!”
Both of these stances are conceptual understandings, or misunderstandings.
What is needed is View in practice, or putting View to practical use.
Coming and going, the thing is accomplished.
Noticing the coming and going of a more relaxed way of being in the world is the foundation of the process of recognition and remembrance. By continually noticing the moments of greater relaxation, we get the “taste” of moksha. We learn to recognize that taste. And recognition is the prerequisite for cultivation. The “thing,” moksha, is accomplished in this manner.
Many teachers have spoken eloquently about this process.
Some have spoken of stringing the moments of greater relaxation together like pearls until we have a whole necklace.
The American Tantrik teacher, Rudi, instructs us to pay attention to what is coming in, not what is leaving. In other words, stop trying to explain away or complain away pain, obstruction, and loss. Place your attention instead on the fresh and new experience of opening.
Now it is useful to expand the View further by remembering the cosmic law “As above, so below.”
The pulsation we experience in our sadhana is the self-same pulsation of the entire cosmic process, just writ a little smaller. So, you see, there’s no use personalizing or complaining about it! And you certainly can’t feel guilty about the totality of the cosmic process!
The manifest cosmos is continually moving in and out of states of greater and lesser contraction and expansion, or condensation and subtilization. Across the entire field of experiencing, Shiva and Shakti, in their myriad forms of appearing, continually enjoy experiencing each other as two and rediscovering each other as one again.
Shakti is “stolen” from Shiva when only duality is recognized, and she rejoins him when remembrance of Self is accomplished. Thus, in the pulsations of our sadhana, we enact a form of this dance.
Beyond this pulse of remembering and forgetting, the one and the two are always experienced simultaneously and as nondifferent. However, as long as we remain in human bodies, we can never maintain this total openness 100% of the time.
When we accomplish this “thing,” we have fulfilled the complete potential of human life. Upon reaching this completion, we display what we call the light body or rainbow body of light.
Some great beings choose to remain or be reborn in human bodies in order to assist others. These are Mahasiddhas or Bodhisattvas. We can better appreciate their great love and compassion, and be more compassionate with ourselves, when we understand these larger conditions of human life.
OM Shanti,
Shambhavi
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