September 21st

Fixation

Enlightenment means not fixating in any realm of experience.  The main fixation in the so-called egoic state is with the experience of being a separate self.  There is a fixation with this "I" thought and with all thoughts related to it.  This is the cause of suffering and the reason people begin searching for release.

In seeing the fixation with the "I" thought and all its stories, a release from that fixation happens.  But fixation can return, and often does, ëafter' an initial awakening.  The mind likes to fixate in a realm of experience.  So it fixates in some of the by-products of awakening such as joy, peace, and love.  When a moment of fear or confusion arises, the question is, "Where did my peace go?"  The searching begins again.

There can also be a fixation with mental interpretations of enlightenment - fixations with words like "no self" or "Oneness."  Enlightenment is not a religion or philosophy.  The intellect will never grasp 'This.'  If you find yourself arguing with someone over teachings or anything related to enlightenment, you can bet that there is some mental fixation happening.

In the realization that everything is impermanent and that there is nothing to hold onto, the movement of fixation tends to fall away.  Everything is allowed to be within the opening known as "you."  Even if seeking or fixation arises again, it is allowed to be.

Michael Brown

From PART V: 2. 

(Continuation...)

Once their services are requested, an authentic facilitator accepts that by agreeing to play this role for us the outcome moves in one of two directions:

• The first outcome is: We perceive our illusion, are brave enough to look deeply into it, voluntarily allow it to surface, and therefore are driven uncontrollably into an experience of our own fear, anger, and grief. By allowing this surfacing experience to shatter the misconceptions we have constructed about ourselves, we move through them and come out the other side laughing hysterically at ourselves! Of course, this is the outcome all facilitators are open to, but they are by no means attached to it, because they know there is the possibility of outcome number two.

Chapter 86

The Unknown is the Home of the Real

Q:Is it not karma that causes rebirth?

M:You may change the name, but the fact remains. What is the drug which you call karma or destiny? It made you believe yourself to be what you are not. What is it, and can you be free of it? Before you go further you must accept, at least as a working theory, that you are not what you appear to be, that you are under the influence of a drug. Then only will you have the urge and the patience to examine the symptoms and search for their common cause. All that a Guru can tell you is: 'My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken about yourself. You are not the person you think yourself to be.' Trust nobody, not even yourself. Search, find out, remove and reject every assumption till you reach the living waters and the rock of truth. Until you are free of the drug, all your religions and sciences, prayers and Yogas are of no use to you, for based on a mistake, they strengthen it. But if you stay with the idea that you are not the body nor the mind, not even their witness, but altogether beyond, your mind will grow in clarity, your desires -- in purity, your actions -- in charity and that inner distillation will take you to another world, a world of truth and fearless love. Resist your old habits of feeling and thinking; keep on telling yourself: 'No, not so, it cannot be so; I am not like this, I do not need it, I do not want it', and a day will surely come when the entire structure of error and despair will collapse and the ground will be free for a new life. After all, you must remember, that all your preoccupations with yourself are only in your waking hours and partly in your dreams; in sleep all is put aside and forgotten. It shows how little important is your waking life, even to yourself, that merely lying down and closing the eyes can end it. Each time you go to sleep you do so without the least certainty of waking up and yet you accept the risk.