Sudden Awakening: Stop Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Discover Your True Nature
208
Sudden Awakening: Stop Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Discover Your True Nature
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Overview
Everybody wants to be happy. Unfortunately, relatively few achieve bliss. Eli Jaxon-Bear explores how it is possible to achieve lives filled with gratitude and love. True happiness and meaning are achieved, he asserts, when we wake up, stop our minds, and open our hearts. It is then that we discover our true selves; our core identity that is part of the ultimate living intelligence of the universe; our true source.
Like Gangaji, Jaxon-Bear uses a method of self-investigation called “self-inquiry.” In the light of direct self-inquiry, limitations that once seemed to define ourselves are discovered to be more like transparent lines drawn on water. They exist only on the surface of consciousness in one’s imagination. When these illusions of mind are clearly exposed, true limitless being reveals itself.
This is a book that will appeal to those who are fans of Gangaji, Byron Katie, and Eckart Tolle. It is an articulate and helpful expression of a path to fulfillment for those wrestling with questions of identity and meaning.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781612833415 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 208 |
| File size: | 950 KB |
About the Author
Eli Jaxon-Bear has worked as a mailboy, dishwasher, steel-worker, teacher, and organic farmer. He was a community organizer with VISTA in Chicago and Detroit before entering a doctorate program at the Graduate School of International Studies in Denver, Colorado. He has been living with his partner and wife Gangaji since 1976. They currently reside in Ashland, Oregon. Eli meets people and teaches through the Leela Foundation: www.leela.org.
Read an Excerpt
Sudden Awakening
Stop Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Discover Your True Nature
By Eli Jaxon-Bear
Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright © 2015 GangajiAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61283-341-5
CHAPTER 1
Welcome
"A life of freedom is possible for you. You can awaken this instant and live as love itself." My teacher Papaji radiated this message to all who met with him in satsang. Satsang is beyond the realm of the mind, beyond the reach of any language. Please listen deeply as you read this teaching story of satsang.
Satsang: Out of slavery
Imagine for a moment that you're living in the time of slavery in the United States. Imagine what it would be like to be born a slave. Imagine that your parents were born slaves and their parents as well.
Now, imagine for a moment not only that you are a slave but also that your personal bondage, as well as slavery in general, is going to go on forever. This is just the way the world is. This is what you were born into. You are told what to do. You can be sold or traded at any time. You can be beaten. You can be used in any way.
If you're lucky, you get to work inside a house or for kind people. If you aren't so lucky, you have to work out in the fields or for unkind people. This is your life. This is just the way it always has been and always will be.
As a slave, you have probably never been more than fifty miles away from your birthplace. Maybe you've been to another town, but maybe not. There are no televisions, no radios, no newspapers. It is illegal for you to learn to read or to write. You don't know any other life except a slave's life.
Since your parents and grandparents weren't allowed to speak their native tongue, you don't have a cultural past. You may still hear the inner call of the drumbeat and the secret rhythms of old tribal songs that refuse to die, but you don't have a memory of being free — and there is nothing around you that points to that possibility. It seems preordained that you and your descendants will live and die as slaves. These are the parameters of your universe.
Within these parameters, you may be allowed to marry or not, have children or not, work in the house or the field, live here or there, but all of these circumstances appear against the background of slavery.
Then one day, you hear a whisper, "There's a freedom train."
You may not even know what these words mean. Some of your friends may hear the news of freedom but dismiss it out of hand as the mad ravings of crazy people. Others may hear the news and say, "Well, I've got a pretty good life here. I live in the master's house. I eat good food. I don't need a freedom train." They are content with the way things are.
Other people, even those who aren't content with a slave's life, may be far too frightened to want to even know about a freedom train because if they attempt escape, they know dogs will be sent after them. If they are captured, they fear they will be whipped, tortured, and perhaps even killed, to set an example so that no one else will run away. Those who are too frightened to risk these dangers may say, "Don't tell me about a freedom train. I don't want that; this is good enough."
Others may worry, "How would I eat if I were free? Where would I live? What would I do if a freedom train took me to a strange new land? Here, I know where I belong. I know where my food comes from. How would I know what to do there? How would I know what to say? How would I know how to act?" They are terrified of leaving the known and even more terrified of the imagined unknown.
Some may cry, "I'd like to go, but my children are here. They can't go. I have to stay here with my children." Others may mourn, "I'd like to go, but I can't leave because I'm so in love, and my lover can't possibly go." They are terrified of losing the relationships that keep them attached.
But a few hear the whisper "freedom train," and it's the most important news they have ever heard. They are willing to take the risk to be free, no matter what it takes.
Accepting the call of the freedom train isn't easy. Once you hear the whisper, you're called to put yourself in grave danger just to discover more. You go to secret meetings because you need directions to find this freedom train and instructions on what to do when you get there. You have to be very careful because you're always being watched. But still, you long to know more. It's a life-or-death situation. You are no longer willing to live in slavery.
Since you've never been fifty miles from home, you don't know the way to freedom. You don't know anything about it. You have to be willing to go alone through the swamp and the woods, leaving everything behind, if that's what it takes. If you carry too much baggage with you, you won't make it; you will sink under the load. So alone and with few possessions, you put yourself on the line and face the unknown. This is the test of fire.
If you can't bear another moment of slavery, regardless of the cost, regardless of the risk, you heed the instructions, follow the trail, and find your way to the freedom train.
This is the end of your identification as a slave and the beginning of a life of freedom.
* * *
The map and the destination
First, satsang is the whisper. This whisper lets you know that it is possible to escape from slavery. Some people can't bear anything more than simply to hear about this possibility. Just to hear this good news — that freedom is possible — is enough. It may take years or lifetimes before they are ready for the next step, but at least now they know it is possible.
This is the first function of satsang: the announcement of the truth of freedom. Sometimes you have to hear it over and over again. When you've heard that freedom is possible enough times and this possibility sinks in fully, eventually you fall deeply in love, and attaining freedom becomes the very purpose of your being.
Second, satsang is the map, the path, and the way to find the freedom train. Satsang provides the direction to follow and warns of the traps and pitfalls along the way. Satsang points out the confirming signs, as well as the dangers of getting lost. Satsang shows you your current location, describes the ultimate destination, and points out the quickest route for getting there.
Third, satsang is the freedom train itself. It is the end of your burden. Once you're on the train, you don't have to carry your luggage on your head; you can put it on the rack and sit down. You can stop everything and let the train carry you. You can put down the burden of slavery and surrender to the grace that carries you home.
Finally, satsang is the destination: it is home. It is freedom. It is where you arrive. How long does it take to arrive? It depends on how far you have wandered away from yourself.
Eventually, when you arrive, you laugh at the deep realization that there never was a leaving: it was all in your mind. You sold yourself into slavery in your mind. Since you never really went anywhere, how long can it possibly take to return?
* * *
The sweetness of coming home
Satsang is your own heart speaking to you in silence. It is nourishing, sweet, and true. This sweet silence comes and carries you home.
Satsang is the mirror in which you see yourself, in which you see at last who you are and who you are not. When you know who you are, you realize the great benefit of stopping your false identification as a slave. True freedom is being your Self. Satsang reveals the truth of your Self and the way back to a natural life, free from the slave identity.
When you look back from the shore of freedom, you see that you were not who you thought you were. Who you thought you were didn't transform into something else. It never was. It was all just a nightmare of slavery passed on for generations, a nightmare of the ego's separation, alienation, and loss of love, which has ended as suddenly as awakening from a dream. In this awakening, you can accept and love life as it is.
Looking back at a dream from awakened consciousness, you see the perfection of even the dream. You see the nonseparation in the appearance. You realize yourself as the living truth of immortal love. Then life begins.
CHAPTER 2What Do You Really Want?
In any life, essential questions emerge that demand answers. The answers determine the course of your life for good or for ill. I remember being faced with such a question when I was an eighteen-year-old freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, in March 1965. I had the good fortune to be present when a phone call came in from a neighboring college letting us know that a bus was heading down to Montgomery, Alabama, to take students to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee marching for civil rights in the face of great violence. The question everyone asked was, "Are you on the bus?"
My answer was instant and deeper than any thought. Andrew Goodman, a boy from my neighborhood in New York, had been found murdered and buried in a swamp with two other SNCC workers the summer before. A white, Northern minister, Reverend James Reeb, on just such a bus had been beaten to death a few days before on the streets of Selma, Alabama. Police were turning marchers back with dogs and water hoses. People were being violently attacked and thrown into jail. This was a terrifying situation full of unknowns, and I was an upper-middle-class, Jewish boy who had led a relatively sheltered life. All of my family and friends would call me mad if I got on that bus. I would be putting my life in danger; I would miss school and possibly flunk out; and I would end up on an FBI list, ruining my future career options. Yet I knew without a doubt that I was "on the bus." The gift and clarity of that choice gave me the confidence not to look back.
Gradually, my choice in favor of freedom, even in the external political way that I defined it at the time, pushed me to my limits. "Really?" freedom would ask. "What about this situation? Are you willing to compromise here? Will you hold steady there?" Inch by inch, year by year, I came to see what my life was about and where I was heading. I was forced over the cliff of the known world.
Getting on the bus represented a much deeper commitment than enduring a few weeks of dangerous adventure. Finally, I had to give my life fully to getting on the bus for freedom without a thought of ever getting off. The bus at that point embodied a commitment to walking the talk. Freedom asked, "Are you willing to risk death to stop the suffering in this world?" When the miraculous answer "Yes" appeared, the necessity of facing death opened the way for me to cross the ocean of illusion and to receive the truth of my own Self.
Getting on the bus was a choice that led me forward on the path toward freedom. Other choices I have made led in a different direction. When I followed my desires and called it freedom, I found this led to deeply painful consequences. Like me, you have faced life-altering choices: whether to stay or to go, whether to have children or not, whether to follow what is in your heart or to cling to the safety of the known. You can look back now and see the results of the choices you have made. You can see the precious moments when you stayed true to yourself in the deepest way, as well as the times when you betrayed yourself and followed the norm. Each of those choices leaves a mark — sometimes in the form of a wound or a reinforcement of fear and doubt, and other times as a revelation of the deepest essence of soul. All of your choices, whether fortunate or unfortunate, are useful. Each shows you something important about yourself, and all are allies in helping you face the truth.
* * *
The essential question
Now I pose this essential question to you: What do you really want?
Surprisingly, most people have never asked themselves this question with any depth. Indeed, most people live their entire lives without really questioning what it is that they truly want. Most just make do with whatever shows up. Most are content to settle for some version, hopefully a little bit better, of what their parents had or wanted. Others may rebel and strive for something totally different from what their parents had but end up with the same results. Many people who choose to become parents say that what they most want is not to treat their children the way their parents treated them. But all these choices exist in the realm of relative slavery. These are not true choices but conditioned responses.
When we act out of conditioning, all of our choices are rooted in a ground of ignorance. Unless you know who you are, all of your choices remain the choices of a slave. Of course, slaves sometimes protest that they are in fact free and can do whatever they please. Except to be still. Slaves do not have the power of silence. Silence is the key that unlocks all of the chains of slavery. All slaves are bound to the noise of arising phenomena. In using the term slaves, I am including the roles of both master and slave, since all roles in this world are roles of relative slavery. The apparent master is as enslaved as the apparent slave. Both are addicted to sensory experience and to the voices of their egoic minds talking in their heads.
My teacher Papaji said that there is a river of thought waves, and this river is washing all beings downstream. Some rationalize that they are going with the flow, others zigzag and imagine that they are in control, while still others gather objects and people around them so that they can float down the river together. The rarest of the rare are those who give rise to the desire for freedom. Freedom is the willingness to take a stand exactly where you are, in the middle of the mind stream.
This desire for freedom cannot be contained. It cannot be moderated. It cannot be tailored to the expectations of others. When those who are washing by in the stream cry out that you are lost, that you are falling behind as they rush ahead, great temptations surface that urge you to turn away from your true self and to swim back into the mainstream. But the desire for freedom is not a casual affair. It is the culmination of the spiritual path. It is the end of the search. It is the end of life as you knew it. So you do not waver.
My teacher would look into the eyes of seekers who said that they thought that they wanted freedom and demand, "If your hair were on fire and you were rushing to the river and passed some friends who called out to you to sit and join them for a cup of coffee, would you stop? Would you even take time to answer? No, you would keep heading straight for the river! That is the desire for freedom. There is no time to sit and think."
Examine yourself and see what is on your own list of what you want. For most people on the path, the list goes something like this: "Sure, I want to be free, but I also want to be successful. I want to have money. I want my parents to love me. I want to have great sex." None of these desires are bad or wrong. It is simply not the way to find true freedom and happiness. Ask yourself honestly: has changing your circumstances, changing your partner, or having more ever led you to lasting peace and true fulfillment? This is not about morality or any sort of judgment. What I am proposing is simply skillful means.
If you still believe that changing something in your life will make you happy, perhaps you aren't yet ready to find true happiness and freedom. But perhaps someday when you have exhausted all of your attempts to fulfill fantasies, you will finally be disillusioned enough with the world to look somewhere else. A faster, more direct way to freedom and happiness is to go through your list of preferences and desires right now and to see that none of them are ultimately fulfilling, because they are all the desires of a slave. Then you're ripe. Then you're left with one single desire, the desire for freedom.
This desire turns into a blazing fire, because it is the only desire. It takes hold of you. This burning desire for freedom is like a funeral pyre; it burns all of the elements that made up your false identity as a slave.
Then everything is revealed. You fall into a realization of yourself that is beyond your wildest dreams. The depth and the duration of your experience in this vast realm of realization depend on the intensity of your desire. The more you surrender, the deeper it takes you, and the longer it lasts. This is the samadhi mentioned at the beginning of this book.
This, too, disappears, as all experiences come and go, but you are left with a certainty that is revealed through experience yet beyond experience.
At some point, everything that you turned away from comes back to test you. If you don't touch the temptations, they too burn in freedom's fire, and your realization goes even deeper.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sudden Awakening by Eli Jaxon-Bear. Copyright © 2015 Gangaji. Excerpted by permission of Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Foreword,
Preface to the Second Edition,
Preface to the First Edition,
A Note on Language,
PART 1: THE WAY TO FREEDOM,
1. Welcome Home,
2. What Do You Really Want?,
PART 2: THE NATURE OF REALITY,
3. Metaphors for the Human Condition,
4. Out of Nothing,
5. Maya's Veils: The Trance of Mind,
PART 3: SOUL AND EGO,
6. The Call of the Soul,
7. Stages of Ego Development,
8. The Structure of the Ego,
9. Treatment and Healing,
10. The Gatekeepers: Fear and Doubt,
PART 4: AWAKENING,
11. Grace, Awakening, and Silence,
12. Transmission: The Gift of the Teacher,
13. Who You Really Are,
14. The Roar of Awakening,
15. Ten Years after Meeting Papaji,
PART 5: TEN YEARS LATER,
16. Cancer,
17. Songs of Freedom,
About the Author,