What are ‘near enemies to the truth’? Borrowing this phrase from Buddhism, I use it to refer to slightly distorted versions of spiritual teachings—statements that are close to a profound and subtle truth, but are distorted just enough to make a big difference over time. When we’re talking about deep and fundamental truths, getting it a little bit wrong doesn’t matter in the short run, but it does in the long run, just like a tiny adjustment to the rudder of your boat makes little difference at first, but after 1000 miles, it lands you on a different continent.
Now, some people object to the use of the word ‘wrong’ in the previous sentence, subscribing as they do to the idea that the only necessary criterion for truth is it feels true to me. This view is as dangerous in spirituality as it is in politics, because it usually means I want it to be true, so I'm going to believe it, regardless of the facts. If you don't see how dangerous this is, or if you doubt whether there really are facts or universal truths, please read the first blog post in this series.
Understanding the Near Enemies to the Truth, and why they are near enemies and not the truth itself, is hugely important for any spiritual seeker who wants to get past the beginner stages and into the deep (and deeply fulfilling) spiritual work. Having said that, it’s important to note that if a Near Enemy is near enough, it can be a Temporary Ally for a beginner. But as the stakes get higher in spiritual practice, there is no such thing as ‘close enough’ anymore, and your comforting affirmations must be sacrificed on the altar of truth, or else your spiritual progress stalls. With that brief orientation, let’s look at this month's Near Enemy.
NEAR ENEMY #2: 'Speaking my truth'
In this day and age, 'truth' is a slippery concept indeed. Many people are proudly ‘speaking their truth’ which seems like a problematic thing to do without first establishing what truth is. Most people seem to be under the impression that truth is relative: what’s true for me might not be true for you, and vice versa. I argue that this idea conflates truth with belief. We each form a narrative about an event or a series of events, and those narratives are unlikely to match. But, insofar as these distinct narratives make claims about our shared reality, they cannot be equally true, since truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.
I propose that in contrast to belief, truth is, by its very nature, indisputable. While we might dispute the validity of a method used to find truth, if two different but equally valid methods are used, they will yield the same result. For example, if one person measures the Eiffel tower in meters and another measures it in yards, the first will find that the tower is 324 meters tall and the second will find that it is 354.33 yards—but these two numbers describe the exact same length according to two different measuring systems.
There are two types of inarguable truths: subjective and objective. Objective truths are those we can all agree on if we bother to check: like the height of the Eiffel tower, the number of minutes between sunrise and sunset on a given day in a given location, or whether the number of reported violent crimes has increased or decreased in the past decade (FYI, it’s decreased by 16% in the US at the time of writing). Subjective truths are by definition known only to the one experiencing them (like what you dreamed last night or whether you have a pain in your knee right now) and are inarguable on that basis. (While anyone might be lying about their subjective experience, we can’t know for sure that they are lying, and hence their testimony remains inarguable—but often, for that very reason, not very significant.)
Surprisingly, though the difference between these two is very clear, people mix them up all the time. Further confusion is introduced by the fact that many people don’t realize that a belief is not a truth of any kind—it’s an interpretation of subjective and/or objective truths. An interpretation can be subjected to scrutiny, and as a result of that scrutiny can be shown to correspond to the facts of the matter more or less closely; but even when an interpretation does a great job of making sense out of the facts, it still can’t be considered truth—it’s just a more effective way of thinking about something. It’s a more useful story.
Human relations become profoundly fraught, if not actually violent, when people confuse these three categories: subjective truth, objective truth, and interpretation. The first two are inarguable, and the third is not only arguable, but can be debated indefinitely. I propose that a clear understanding of the difference of these three categories renders human relations as harmonious as they can possibly be. I invite you, dear reader, to put this hypothesis to the test.
Let’s explore this by way of examples. <SNIP>
TO READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST, PLEASE BUY THE SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED BOOK Near Enemies of the Truth, in which it appears in a much-improved form.
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TRANSCRIPT of a live teaching session:
Hareesh: These days, people are very into speaking their truth but it's potentially problematic because most people are not really able to access truth. They're not able to recognize opinions as opinions and facts as facts instead they confuse the two with each other. They're not able to recognize inarguable truths versus evaluations of experience. Every evaluation we form, every judgment, has more to do with our unresolved past experiences than with the reality of the present moment. So when people go to speak their truth, they're often just speaking their judgments more assertively.
Yet at the same time, those who don't have a voice because of anything from childhood trauma to systemic oppression and marginalization of one's demographic group can have the effect of seemingly being deprived of their voice. In such cases, it's better to try to speak up about what seems true to you than not to speak at all. I'm not saying that no one should speak unless they have done an extensive contemplative process on what is truth, it's just about nuancing the conversation for this community. The easiest thing in the world is to read a blog post like this and then think about all those people you know who don't get it but this is a first-person teaching. This is for you, so that you may improve your capacity to speak the truth rather than to critique others apparent failures.
Hopefully, you learned in the blog post about objective and subjective inarguable truths and how speaking those inarguable truths is a powerful medium for human connection. How, also, you need to get clearer about what's arguable and what's inarguable. I've talked about this elsewhere in terms of what's first-order reality and what's second-order reality. This can get confusing because anything that's put into words, as soon as it's put into words, is second-order reality which is defined as representation. First-order reality, however, is what presents in our direct experience which we then represent. This representation, in words or thoughts, is always distorted. Having said that, there are degrees of distortion. As one of my teachers says, there's no such thing as an absolutely true thought, although some thoughts are truer than others. The examples of inarguable truths given in the blog post are much closer to first-order reality, even though they're still words, and words are an approximation. If you try to share what you're feeling, ‘I'm feeling X, Y or Z’, it's an oversimplification of what's actually a very complex, nuanced and subtle emotional landscape within you. There are modes of communication that are much closer to first-order reality, which again is whatever is happening before you have a thought about it, so when we get closer to that, we find our communication is more successful, and our ability to connect with others is much more powerful and it's life-enhancing in so many ways.
Student: my question deals with how to communicate truth if one has had a mystical experience. I guess my goal, in conveying a mystical experience to somebody, isn't so much as to give my opinion about it or ask for sympathy but to try to see if other people have had this experience and to try to understand what to do. My question is how one can convey one's truth if they've had a mystical experience in a way that's not overwhelming.
Hareesh: well there's absolutely no point in even trying to convey a mystical experience to somebody who's not had any similar sort of experience but there could be a point to attempting to convey it to somebody who has had a similar sort of non-ordinary experience. The key is the distinction between first and second-order reality is helpful here. What you would be going for is the uninterpreted version of the experience. As soon as there's interpretation, it's going to diverge from whatever the other person has experienced whereas if you stay with the uninterpreted experience as much as possible, then somebody might recognize the experience. It's still going to be a relatively small percentage of the population, however.
Experiences can be intangible, subtle and seemingly non-physical but that’s not that significant because everything that manifests is consciousness manifesting in a particular way. It may have the quality of density that we call physical or the quality of energy in a non-matter state that we might call energetic.
Student: I guess you could say I’ve had mystical experiences my whole life, not to sound vague but because it's hard to convey. Movement can happen when I sit down to meditate and I get waves of emotion. It'll go from really positive emotions to all of a sudden, strange emotional energy. It goes back and forth. It feels like it's bringing up emotions or something.
Hareesh: Interpretations usually are neither here nor there because in this realm they're almost always purely speculative. The idea that every experience must have some significance or meaning, that we've got to uncover or attribute it to something is not true. Such experiences are not there to transmit any conceptual meaning to you.
There is a traditional explanation that these sorts of experiences have to do with the purification, or release, of lifetimes of karma and lifetimes of unresolved experiences. That very well may be true but, by the very nature of the assertion, we can't know. It's what a scientist would call, an unfalsifiable assertion. The important thing is you don't get caught by any of these mental states, you don't believe any of the thoughts, and you don't bother to disbelieve them either. Any thoughts that arise in relation to these experiences you just let move through you, and you trust the process.
I was on a meditation retreat with one of my teachers and we were sitting in silence for a long time. Suddenly somebody wailed. This happens relatively often in these retreats when something, suddenly, starts releasing and there can be an uncontrollable wailing or crying. This time it was a little louder than usual and my teacher said quietly that ‘it's just passing through’. This moment was so significant to me. Those words, so simple, and yet they became like a guiding light of wisdom.
Some constitutions are such that once the energy of awakening, Kundalini, starts moving, some people like to say the veil, their veil is thin. They find themselves spontaneously projecting out of their body and stuff like that. According to the Tantric view, all the dimensions of reality are all right here and there are countless beings everywhere. We can't see because they're existing on different vibrational frequencies. It's all happening, everywhere, all the time so if the veil is thinner then that gets accentuated after kundalini awakening. Even if your initial awakening is small, it can still get to a point where everything becomes very fluid: reality itself is no longer static or stable and you have a sense of the multi-dimensional nature of reality. The fixed objective world, that most people believe in, seems laughably false in a sense. So just find a safe space for the process and moderate or mitigate the energy when needed.
You sometimes need to modulate energy when the energies get too intense. You need to invite Kundalini Shakti to calm down. There are ways of doing that such as Vata pacifying techniques in Ayurveda; lying under a weighted blanket that pushes you into the earth; praying to Kundalini Shakti asking her to please be gentle; chanting Sanskrit hymns such as Kundalini Stavaḥ that invoke Kundalini in her more moderate aspect.
Student: my question is, when we are confronted with an emotional reaction from another, what is the most appropriate response when we are trying to align with truth? I have a concern that I no longer wish to be passive, I also don't wish to be reactive. I wish somehow to create a boundary that's appropriate but it seems to antagonize the other and create more separation as opposed to connection and a space of love. So I was wondering how can we speak our truth to create that sort of shared love? Maybe the other person isn't ready to meet me there but I was wondering if there's a way to invite it?
Hareesh: this is a case-by-case scenario because the first response varies according to the situation because if the person is sufficiently aggressive, one might say then the first response is going to be boundary setting and to say to the other ‘hey, I need you to take a breath and calm down for a moment because I can't hear you in this state, I can't receive what you're saying in this state’. Of course, only say that if it's actually true as it's really important that every statement is not an attempted manipulation, however well-intentioned. If you're a little frightened then you need to set the boundary first. Whereas, if you're not frightened but the other person is emotionally reactive, it means they're triggered and they're believing their thoughts. The thing to do, if they're open, is to say ‘I’d really like to understand what's going on with you. Could we sit down and talk about this?’ Then really come to an understanding and then you can use non-violent communication, where you're asking genuine and honest questions that are motivated by true curiosity to understand the other person's experience. These are questions about their feelings, their needs, and their values that are genuine. They will sense that genuine desire to understand what their inner experience is and what you're doing is actually ignoring their judgments and circumventing them but they will not mind because you're asking about their feelings, needs and values. It is really important that you're interested in the truth above all else because if you're interested in just smoothing things over, and quickly getting to a place where the other person is not upset, it's not going to work. You've got to be interested in deep real human connection that happens on the basis of an honest exploration of what's real. If the other person is not interested in that, there's not much you can do about it. We make excuses for people as we're often hoping that they'll become someone different from who they are now. We say ‘he has such a good heart’ or ‘he has so much potential’ but that's dangerous because then you’re seeing the other person in terms of who you think they could be instead of who they are now. That's not beneficial for you so don't make excuses for this person. This is on a case-by-case basis but those are some good guidelines.
You mentioned this issue of passivity. It's perfectly true that sometimes you need to stand up for yourself and to fail to do that is denigrating yourself. You want to be on the lookout if your strategies are always either subtly denigrating the other by assuming they're coming from ego, or subtly denigrating yourself by not giving yourself permission to speak or assert your boundary - that's a no-win scenario. Study my blog post ‘speaking your truth’ to help you formulate statements that are inarguably true. If they're inarguably true statements, the other person is not going to feel threatened because you're not trying to characterize their experience, rather you're talking about your experience, what's indisputably true from your point of view.
Please don't enter into these challenging conversations or moments of possible relational growth or connection with the sense that it's your responsibility to make it okay, or that you could solve it if you're just clever enough. Don’t strategize how to talk the right way and how to say the right thing and attempt to modify the other person to get them to see your point of view. All subtle strategies, and sometimes not so subtle manipulation, has got to be absolutely relinquished. I found it takes several months of obsessively tracking every moment that you're subtly trying to manipulate the other. You might be trying to manipulate them into being happy, so you think it's perfectly innocent but it doesn't work. Not even the subtlest strategy of manipulation is going to move you a millimetre towards your true goals and values of real deep human connection, self-realization, and harmony. It's a bit devastating when you realize that this is the basis on which you say and do things but that's true for almost everyone in the world. Instead, we're opening to an extraordinary possibility which is freedom where you don't actually need to engage in subtle strategies of manipulation to be happy. By engaging in our culturally conditioned strategies of manipulation we make ourselves less safe as we sabotage our own happiness and harmony, and yet most people just don't know what else to do as it's so deeply embedded. Some friendships do fall away when you start being radically honest, authentic and non-manipulative. It might be painful at the time but you know a lot of things that are beneficial or painful at the time turn out for the best.
I’ve previously referenced Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication and what it boils down to is not a technique, it's not about step one, step two, step three which never actually works very well but it's about a paradigm shift. In a nutshell, every single judgment that you or anyone makes is a distorted expression of underlying feelings and needs. Negative judgments are distorted expressions of underlying feelings and unmet needs and positive judgments are distorted expressions of underlying feelings and met needs. Therefore, when someone articulates a judgment of you, listen with ‘non-violent ears’ which means you listen for the underlying feelings and needs expressing in their distorted form. If you learn how to listen for those and respond to those, and if you're not clear you have to ask, you can't assume. This way, you make a real human connection even when the conversation started with a ‘violent’ judgment. Judgments are violent because they are attempts at manipulation such as shaming and control. Somebody lashes out because they don't know any better so what you're investigating is their feelings, needs and values.
On the spiritual path, needs convert to values. So over time, your percentage of needs decreases and those needs convert to values. In the beginning, you needed clear communication from whoever and now you value it. You don't have as many needs that are prerequisites for your basic well-being but they don't go away, they just convert to values. I have a workshop on my website called Awakened Relating, that I recommend.
Student: One way to speak our own truth would be to follow our svadharma, then all interactions with the world around us would come from the space of truth. If so, what is the process that will help one identify their own svadharma?
Hareesh: The very term svadharma is problematic. It makes people think of a role in life that's in integrity with their essence nature. Svadharma is associated with ideas of career or roles and that's not a helpful way to think about it because it's a moment-to-moment thing. The term we use in the Tantric tradition is Pratibhā. This is a moment-to-moment thing where you're orienting to the whole of your experience, the whole of reality from your perspective, and seeing what feels most right. If you face in one particular direction there a little brightening, a little opening, a little softening, more of a feeling of rightness. Any of these terms could be the descriptor of this experience and in contrast, svadharma tends to establish a new self-image where you think in terms of ‘I’ve decided this is my svadharma—I’m a _______’. Rather, it's a moment-to-moment, gentle, soft, loving sensitivity. By the way, there may be times where this doesn’t manifest as gentle, soft and loving because if you follow your Pratibhā, there are moments when it's important to say something loudly and firmly and not all soft, marshmallowy and hippy love and light! Access to this intuitive sense is by softening into your centre and giving yourself permission to be open to any possibility. It is related to the term Dharma but you trust that implicitly whether or not it happens to correspond to the thoughts of the conditioned mind. When you think ‘should I take a step towards this person or not’, ‘should I apply for that job or not’, ‘should I turn left or right here’ and then you feel a brightening or softening or opening or a feeling of rightness in one direction more than another. You trust that feeling, you follow that and then everything magically clicks into place because you find you're in the flow of the Pattern, pattern with a capital P, the fundamental patterning of reality. You're in that flow when you're following Pratibhā so everything seems to get very, sort of magical, and synchronous and everything clicks. That's just the normal nature of reality which is not something extraordinary but what's extraordinary is that most humans are not experiencing the normal nature of reality which is tragic.
Student: I haven't had mystical experiences on my spiritual path. How do I know if I am awakening? Is it enough that I'm here, with a desire to study, practice, and know more?
Hareesh: You don't need mystical experiences but please refer to Tantra illuminated when it discusses Shaktipāt. There are signs that Shaktipāt has occurred because some people’s Shaktipāta, their initial awakening, is non-dramatic. There is no mystical experience, no bells and whistles, but you know you've had Shaktipāt because you read the signs and recognise them. If you've had more than half of them, the awakening process has begun. People who have not yet started the awakening process often claim that meditation doesn't work for them as they go inside and there's nothing to see or feel. Meditation is a struggle for them, like a tempestuous relationship. However, when you go inside, if you feel there's something for you there, a golden thread, that's one way to know that the process has indeed begun. Also, if you're passionate about it, when it's not just a hobby, then the awakening process has begun.
Student: I had a question about Pratibhā. You said that when considering if one should go this way or that, Pratibhā can come as a sense of brightening or softening. Is that a physical sensation because I still feel confused. Sometimes it feels like a particular direction feels more expansive but I've also found that sometimes it is coming from conditioning. It's like someone is reminding me of something positive that happened in childhood and so I'm feeling a sense of softening and expansion or someone's reminding me of something that felt safe so I'm wanting to go towards that.
Hareesh: That doesn't necessarily disqualify it because there may happen to be an alignment between Pratibhā and something that you happen to like or corresponds to a childhood experience of safety. This is orthogonal, meaning to say that it might happen to be in line with what your ego wants or it might happen to be in line with what feels good sometimes or it might happen to align with childhood Samskāras predispose. The way to be sure is to really get in touch with what you want to follow, what are the deepest promptings of your innermost being? You need to want the truth more than you want anything else you know. You need to trust the movement of the one, the pattern of the absolute manifest in this world. So, in other words, you acknowledge that you have preferences, you want to know what your body-mind wants but then you lay all that aside and say, ‘I just want the truth’. You're asking your own inner wisdom to show you the way. Sometimes it's very obvious and sometimes very, very, subtle as you lean into a gentle pull in a specific direction.
Pratibhā might happen to align with what your mind desires, what your conditioning leans towards, and it might not and once you get into the groove with it, once you're accessing the practice, you will see this constantly. If you follow Pratibhā, everything works out even though it's not what you thought was right or you wanted, then you can just trust it. It helps if you've already seen in life that you can get what you think you want and not be very happy about it. It helps if you've realized that getting what you think you want is not very strongly correlated with happiness.
Sometimes Pratibhā is silent because there's nothing that really needs to be done. When there's a calling, when there's your part to play in the greater pattern, there's a moment to take a step or make a decision; there's this deep, quiet, inner pull like a deeper current in the ocean. It's silent, it doesn't defend itself or explain itself, it's just there as this quiet pull in the direction of what's beneficial, even if your mind can't see why it's beneficial. Occasionally there's a no, where you start going in a particular direction and something inside you gives you a very subtle ‘nope’. If you don't listen to it and keep going in that direction, you find out that inner subtle sense was right.
One way to do this, or to sense this, is to feel the central channel, the Sushumnā Nādī, pull a little bit towards a given direction. Take options that are not abstract like, ‘this job or that job’, ‘say something to this person or don't say something to this person’, and put them in space around you. For example, let's say you have two options; you put one on the left, and one on the right. If you have three options, you put one in front, one on the left, and one on the right. If you're an artist, you could draw pictures of the options and place them around you. So, you place your options in space, very clearly, and you feel those options as clearly as you can and you really come into the center and then you invite that inner wisdom to be clear. You'll feel the central channel gently, almost bowing towards the one that's right for you. It's infallible, it's incredible, and it's never wrong because it's in touch with your own inner energy, in touch with the deeper pattern.
Just like every tree is an expression of its environment, connected to all the other trees through the mycelium network of the soil, and it's a part of one organic ecosystem, in the same way your deep, innermost energy, Pratibhā, is the expression of your essence nature and it's connected to the whole. It can't fail to be connected. If it's a big decision that will irrevocably change your life then you want to do this exercise over and over again and change the positions of where you have placed your options in space. This is a powerful tool of consciousness which can be used for anything from ‘which of these three guys should I date’ to ‘which of these three jobs should I accept’.
Student: A shaman once said to me that if you have to ask, you know it's not right. Do you think this is valid?
Hareesh: Not necessarily because some people, due to their childhood experiences, are compulsively self-doubting themselves. If you're a compulsively self-doubting person then you're going to be questioning how you know this is right or that is right. I don't think that shaman's advice is is valid as you have to antidote your tendency. If you've been the privileged golden boy, then you probably don't doubt yourself enough, you probably think whatever you want is right for the universe. If you're somebody else, then you may doubt yourself more than is actually beneficial. Healthy skepticism about what you think, what you want, is great but compulsive self-doubt is not healthy skepticism.
Student: What do you do when you're in a position where people or circumstances limit you from correcting wrongs?
Hareesh: First of all, stop believing that other people or circumstances can limit you! That's number one. Secondly, instead of correcting wrongs you can think of it in terms of attempting to repair, offering empathy, or acknowledging hurt. If somebody believes that you caused them pain, and indeed you did unintentionally create a situation in which they experienced a lot of pain, and they don't want to talk to you anymore, you might say ‘well then, how can I heal it’? You can heal it in yourself because every relational reality is a co-created reality. If you work on yourself, you're going to shift the dynamic with that person, whether or not they're willing to talk to you.
Student: I was wondering about the relationship between truth and morality in Tantra yoga. I accept ultimate truth but when it comes to more subjective truths it becomes a lot more grey and subjective. I don't really understand where right and wrong could fit into this view of non-duality.
Hareesh: There is something better than morality, I would argue. There is a clear perception of what fosters well-being and what doesn't and a realization that acting in opposition to the well-being of conscious creatures never contributes to your own happiness in any substantial or longitudinal way. From the Tantric perspective, the virtues that enlightened masters or awakened beings express are not because they think this is a good way to behave, they don't even seem to perceive them to be virtues, they seem to simply be natural expression that stems from clarity of view and openness of heart. Openness of heart doesn't even mean being kind and nice, rather it means a willingness to meet reality moment to moment. It is being so open that you're free of manipulation, free of coercion because those are manifestations of being willing to meet reality. The masters and saints of this tradition didn't even try to be kind or nice, they just acted naturally and they saw that acting in ways that are likely to foster the well-being of conscious creatures is the best thing that one can do because there is no separation. They see that there's literally no such thing as advancing your own interests at the expense of others. We imagine, in a capitalist economic structure, that you can advance your own interests at the expense of others but in reality it's not possible as you can't actually invest your real interest because everybody wants to be happy in the deepest possible way which is fulfilment. It's a happiness that doesn't come and go, and fulfilment is never advanced by attempting to give yourself advantages at the expense of others. So this is better than morality because there's no ‘should' involved, there's no, ‘this is what a good person does’ mental program. There’s actually just spontaneous action that happens to be for the benefit of all beings because when you're free of the sense of separate self, and when you see how things work, it's just natural to act in that way that anybody would call beneficial.
Student: I've had experiences in communities where somebody, who feels they see something about me, wants to correct my truth and tell me that how I'm being.
Hareesh: People do this as they learn a teaching, and they get it in some superficial way and then they feel that they need to remind others in the same community of the teaching, often from a self-righteous place or even from innocent enthusiasm but that's just their own trip.
There's two reasons, I would say, to give and receive honest, non-coercive feedback. One is that it gives an opportunity for human connection and that's joy, that's love, that's meaning in and of itself. This honest non-coercive feedback creates opportunities for what we tend to call, growth. For the deepening of understanding, of insight, which to me seems to be intrinsically valuable, you understand a little bit more about how your actions impact others and this is tough, this is hard to do without the whole ego trip of, ‘oh, I did a bad thing’ or ‘oh, I should be different’. All that ego narrative doesn't foster beneficial change so it's hard to do this without the ego narrative but it's worth it just to receive feedback. Just feel whatever you feel about it, and let it integrate. Whatever change is actually needed, if there is any, will naturally and organically occur. No self flagellation of any kind is necessary.
People are afraid of the consequences if we say morality is constructed. Morality is a cultural construct and right and wrong are a mental constructs. What are the consequences of saying that? The great majority of humans, thankfully, if they soften for half a minute, desire the well-being of other humans. There's a percentage of about five percent of the population who are sociopathic, narcissistic, and so on and they don't desire the well-being of other humans but that's okay as that's just part of the pattern. The great majority, given half a chance, do desire the well-being of their fellow creatures. If they're heavily traumatized however, they don’t even know how to desire the well-being of themselves, let alone other beings. They do, in an abstract sense, but not so much in a visceral sense. People get scared because if we acknowledge morality as a construct that shows that we have no faith that human beings really do, intrinsically, desire the well-being of of conscious creatures, or at least other humans. That view is the most cynical view as it implies that we need morality because we're all really horrible, deep down.
Student: Is it true that nobody can interfere with another's dharma unless you let them?
Hareesh: Nobody can force that upon you but if you buy into their story, if they're pushing a story with rhetoric, with aggression, with what triggers saṃskāras and you buy it then yes, you can be derailed for a little while. In the ultimate sense however, you can't be derailed because nothing can go wrong and there's not a hair out of place anywhere in the entire universe. In terms of proceeding to your goal in the most efficient way, that can be temporarily derailed as you're no longer proceeding to your goal in the most rapid and efficient way. The goal we are referring to is the full awareness of your true nature. So you can be temporarily derailed, in terms of no longer proceeding with maximum efficiency towards that goal, and that often happens by taking on the other person's story but that itself can be grist for the mill. Let's say you end up teaching or sharing about this stuff and that all those experiences of being derailed are valuable in that context of sharing with others and supporting them, so in the bigger picture nothing can go wrong.
The word ‘heuristic' is useful in this context because it means that it can be beneficial, and is sometimes even a necessary step in a process, to act as if something is true even though it's not ultimately true. So it's beneficial to act as if you're responsible for your actions. For example, if you take the view: ‘look, whatever I do, that's just the goddess acting through me, so I can do whatever I want and if other people are upset about it, that's their problem’, that's not going to foster harmonious relationships or foster your ultimate fulfilment. Instead, there is this experience of balancing on the knife edge and you realize that in this moment you actually have a choice. Everything is the goddess, of course, but until you have totally dissolved the sense of separate self, you have a responsibility to take the impact of your actions on others into account. When you've dissolved the sense of separate self, you don't need to think that way because there's no false thing in there skewing the paradigm. If, however, you think that the separate self is real, you act in the interests of a separate self which is actually fictional, so harm is done as you try to get advantages for yourself. As long as you have that false sense of a separate self, you have to compensate for it by taking responsibility for the impact of your actions. Once that separate self is dissolved, you're not going to have to worry about it because you know you're not skewed and you don’t need to compensate for that.
It's a very deep, subtle, and complex issue but the important thing for everyone to contemplate is how we sometimes use the ultimate view to excuse ourselves from spiritual work. The ultimate view, which is true, is that it's all the one, it's all the divine play, it's all the goddess’ will unfolding through all beings, all the time and there's not a hair out of place anywhere in the universe and nothing can go wrong. That is ultimately true but we can easily adopt this ultimate view in order to exempt ourselves from spiritual work. That's fine, if you want to do that, but it's not going to result in actualizing your goal and that's the thing to contemplate. You have to act from what seems to be true from your vantage point, moment to moment, even if you find out later, ‘oh, I didn't quite see it clearly’. The only way forward is to take each step on the basis of whatever degree of clarity you have at that moment because it's by taking the step that you get more clarity. The practice here is always, pause, breathe, and reflect. It doesn't need to be mental but be with the whole of your experience and then invoke your intention to benefit all beings, beginning with yourself and act from the deepest place you have access to, in that moment and don't doubt yourself, don’t second-guess yourself because the deepest place you have access to, in that moment, is always good enough and more than good enough.
Next up: Be in the present moment
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