Dancing with Aloneness and Not-Aloneness
(email to a friend, 2004)
On the way to the meditation centre last night, I could feel that I 'get' or 'believe' or 'contact' the sacredness and, well, magic, of the world when I put my attention there. A sense that there are unseen layers that are very much present, and an understanding--a knowledge-- that there is all kinds of energy there, both profoundly good and also perhaps what one would call malign. In that moment, it seemed clear to me that I would be more aligned with reality, more present, more helpful in the world, if I could bring awareness of those layers more into my day to day to life.
And there is where it got interesting. I can do that somewhat when I'm alone. Interestingly, I just realized I could do it in your presence, or [another friend's]. But when I got to the meditation centre, and was giving meditation instruction to new people, the thought of looking into those peoples' eyes with that awareness of the sacredness of the moment in my body, in my eyes, felt almost physically impossible. Like hitting a wall.
So when I ask myself, 'what is that about?' it's about two things. If they don't join me there (the most likely scenario) it feels almost unbearably separating, that we are living in entirely different worlds. If they do join me, it feels so intensely intimate in some way, that feels hard to stay with, particularly with a stranger.
What is kind of fascinating to me is that I had almost the exact same dual reaction in my body about a year ago to a whole different train of thought (and of course the question is arising as I type...*is* it a whole different train, or just another facet of the same thing?).
When I first encountered the writing of the teacher Adyashanti, he said something that I really got: that we all have enlightened places and unenlightened places, but we hold back revealing/living from the enlightened places out of some kind of embarrassment. I saw clearly that I hold back showing/manifesting whatever awareness, power or realization I already have. I kind of saw that before, but had attributed that to -- insert any boring childhood history storyline here -- <grin>.
On reading Adyashanti I realized there was a whole other dynamic at play-- I couldn't keep my awareness/power/realization/sparks of enlightenment in my eyes when I look at people. Here I could just repeat what I wrote above: "If they don't feel it too it feels almost unbearably separating, that we are living in entirely different worlds. If they do get it, it feels so intensely intimate in some way, that feels hard to stay with, particularly with a stranger."
And not just with strangers. The very night that I realized this last fall, I was going to have dinner with a group of people including a senior teacher and some sangha members. The idea of having that in my eyes when I looked at them made me want to barf--that they would see that in my eyes. Not just the two reasons above, but also a kind of shame or embarrassment at my presumptuousness and lack of humility--that they would not only see that awake part of me, but also see that *I knew it was there*... blecchh.... and yet I can see that since then, in the past year, I've been getting over that reluctance to put my full self into my eyes...just seeing that it was happening made me more aware, and fearless ...
Just dumped all that out of my body without trying to think too much but here I pause....and see that much of what keeps me from moving into the present (the present which includes both facets... whatever I bring in terms of awareness/realization, as well as the magic and sacredness that is just there...and maybe the former is actually just the tapping into of the latter, into the 'channel' so to speak)--what keeps me from moving into that present is really getting that there *is* a kind of aloneness there, that most people are living in another world and though in a sense I will be able to see them and perhaps even touch them, even more deeply than before, they won't be able to 'see' me... and that touches off a kind of grief if I let it...
And even the flip side--looking into peoples' eyes and they *do* see me--they inhabit the present, at least in this moment...there is a kind of intensity there that I instinctively want to ward off, perhaps for many reasons--because I'm used to being invisible...because I'm still learning how to hold intimacy/intensity energy in my body without instinctively bouncing it out...because I want it so much, to be able to be in the present and not feel alone there .... because I don't want people to know that I know that I have something to give, because then I'll have a responsibility to actually 'show up'... because I feel like sometimes there is so much inside of me that will show in my eyes--love, intention, clarity--I want to hide it because I don't want to make others feel diminished...
It's become so clear to me, and more clear all the time, including in this very moment, that for me, the main path towards being present is how I am dancing with aloneness and not-aloneness....though in the past I have framed the challenge to be present as 'seeing how alone it will be and not wanting to go there' in this moment it occurs to me that it might actually be the opposite...that there is a deeper, contactable 'not-aloneness' underneath everything, more fundamental, that I can see in peoples' eyes when the intensity hits (and maybe at times in nature, as when I described standing in that field), that feels daunting in a different way...that makes me weak in the knees, like falling in love....that sense of "really? this could really be true?"...but hard to open up to, to trust, because if it's an illusion then I will feel the aloneness all that much more keenly for the contrast, for letting in the possibility of it not being that way... some kind of inner moan of longing, and resistance, and surrender
wow...no words for where this is taking me...'through the looking glass'