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“Be here now” was a big catch phrase and powerful spiritual pointer in the ’70s, made popular from the title of a book by Ram Dass published at the time. I remember Adya having a chuckle about the phrase during a talk he gave about 25 years ago, after which he said, “As if there was anywhere else you could be!” It is funny, and not so funny, how we can have the experience of not being “here,” but “there”—caught up in our mind, in the past, or in the future—all the while missing what we are and what’s before us. Sometimes it can feel like we must journey back to where we already are, back to finding a greater appreciation of arriving and being present, without the pulls to “there.”

A sense of “rightness” registers when being both conscious of the present (personally unifying) and being the consciousness of the present (universally unifying). This is true alignment.

A powerful pointer that Adya uses to this end, is to “Allow what is.” He is speaking of meeting the actuality of what’s unfolding (within or without). When our attention narrows and is pulled into thought or emotion and you recognize what is happening, you can then orient out of resistance and into allowance.

Refraining from resisting our experience (even resisting resistance) can be like dropping your end of the rope in a game of tug of war.

To allow what we don’t like to be happening is not to condone it, but to take a step toward peace. What is happening is no longer fueled by unconscious or reflexive resistance, and energy is freed up to mobilize toward more fully meeting the moment, and toward effective response.

Meeting the moment offers a fresh perspective of what is before us, and also of what is perceiving. In its fundamental essence, what is perceiving is free of resistance and is always and ever allowing, simply because it cannot function otherwise. Being conscious of this fundamental expression of unconditional allowance opens one to both a wider field of possibility and to one’s nature as the eternal, that only ever dwells in the here and now: true home.

© Mukti Gray 2022

A participant writes:
In meditation I am often drawn to movement. I am familiar with kundalini release, although not conversant in it. I feel energy rising, uncoiling from the root, and my head and neck tend to sway with the gentle motion of its rising. In contrast, I think of Adya’s teachings on stillness, and I once heard you speak of others who experience your presence in mediation like a mountain. My gut tells me that there is no right or wrong way to meditate, but when the movement is happening, I wonder if I would be better served to be still.

I have a second question about a different topic. I am estranged from my mother. I often reach out to her in writing, expressing love and gratitude, but she does not respond. Do you think it is possible to cleanse and release the suffering I experience around our relationship and to accept and forgive a lifetime’s worth of hurt to an extent that can heal our relationship from a distance?

Dear Friend,

I very much appreciate the engaged insights and contemplations that you’ve shared during this course, and I thank you.

When you speak of your being drawn to movement in meditation and wondering if you would be better served to be still, I think you’ve captured both sides of a whole: motion in stillness, and stillness in motion.

My experience has been that kundalini moving upward in the body is greatly served by a strong and simultaneous presence of stillness. Like the idea of balancing softness with strength, rooted stillness complements the fiery quality of rising kundalini, causing it to travel more smoothly and easefully in the body, offsetting the possibility of the kundalini becoming more frenetic and moving in a forceful or jagged way.

My experience has also been that the energetic movement of kundalini, in the presence of stillness, seems to amplify the stillness, as though thickening how the quality of stillness is registered in one’s body and environment. Energy at rest and in movement inform a union (that we grossly divide in reference, but not actually).

Meditations on the hara, such as I’ve mentioned in past Q&A, as well as qi gong, hara breathing, and hara chanting can be ways to develop the presence of stillness and knowledge of one’s nature as permanence.

In regard to your second question, I do believe it is possible for your past and present experience of relating to your mother to shift, release, and cleanse. It is my sense that such a process occurs, in large part, when one’s perspectives shift—perspectives of oneself, another, and of what was and is. These shifts can be small or great and are more than I would address here, but I can offer a couple of general broad strokes.

When one contemplates and senses into one’s identity as Spirit, ego identification may cease to predominate. Ego identification can bring about senses of wrong, missing, lack, problem, division, and often draws these conclusions by referencing past experience to inform the present. 

Spirit, which is not inherently defined by or identified with time, does not organize like ego, and knowing oneself as Spirit brings one's state more and more toward what is now vs. what was then. This is not to say that the human experience of past is forgotten or that the experience of hurt is never to occur again, but ideally there is a great transparency of being through which experience generally flows (vs. predominantly sticks).

When the past arises, it is brought to present, enfolded into the care and flow of presence. This enfolding and healing can take time, as the mind, body, and energetics that are based in finite form assimilate and shift the past. However, this time can seem to reduce as the timeless gaze of awareness bears witness to the energies and holdings of past. As perspectives of identity and time shift, wrongness and malcontent can be replaced with a sense of that which is complete unto itself, in all its forms and phases. One is less identified as a fixed person that life is happening “to” and known more as an expression of a dynamic whole that life is expressing “in” and “as.”

A mysterious aspect in all of this is that one may not need to even accept and forgive what happened, as one’s identity aligns with a sense of what is. It’s as though one's sense of oneself as Spirit transmits a state of wholeness that overpowers the momentum of division (against the past, oneself, another). One’s transmission of permanence stills the mind’s movement to reference narratives that lock the past in present. What happened is clearly known as “what did happen” vs. held as “what should or shouldn’t have happened” (or “who someone should or shouldn’t have been”). The held energy is freed to respond to what did happen and to whom, and to be the healing agent.

Some inquiries for you to consider include “Who am I without referring to the past? Who is my mother without referring to the past? Who am I that does not hold the past? What is it to orient as wholeness? Might I rest the still light of undivided and unidentified awareness (simply awareness, not ‘my’ awareness) on energies of holding and division, so they might join?”

When offering wholeness, wholeness is furthered; when offering division, division is furthered.

From Mukti’s Got Juice? Online Course

© Mukti Gray 2018

Each of us is unique in our journey of awakening and in how we express Spirit. Our individual temperaments and varied life experiences make us one of a kind. I once heard Adya say, “In all of history, in all of time, there will only and ever be one of you. Eternity only expresses uniquely as you this once.”

Adya has also encouraged us to question, to ask, “Who or what is living this life?”

One way of approaching this inquiry is to turn toward the foundation of your uniqueness, toward the inner atmosphere of your personal depth . . . whether that be in your heart, your core, or your mysterious body form.

As your inner gaze and attention resides in this atmosphere of depth, become curious: “What is this ‘I am’?” or “What is it to intimately know this depth, this essential being?”

Our essential being registers each unique and sincere call, each whole-hearted offering of devoted attention and present availability. As we carry such attention inward and offer our consciousness to depth, our call or query ripples through essential being, awakening the unconscious to its consciousness in form.

Realization is entering the doorway of your own uniqueness to discover the totality and to be seated in the One. Embodiment is the totality, the One, coming home to its seat in personhood, to be known and expressed uniquely as you. The one and the One return home.

© Mukti Gray 2022

Change. No change. Both are the comforts and challenges of life. Both can drive the spiritual search, in which permanence and impermanence can be resolved in the knowledge of one’s true nature, in the knowledge of the ground of being, all being.

Open Gate Sangha is amidst change as Adyashanti retires at the end of October and as I come forward as head teacher. For some this change is not so significant. Perhaps because what calls them to Open Gate teachings sounds louder and shines brighter than any particular voice or face of this teaching; perhaps because they’ve solely known Adya from his recorded talks, which continue to remain available; perhaps because they’ve internalized his presence in their minds and hearts so completely that he is more near and alive than he ever has been. Yet for others, this change feels monumental. For them, and perhaps for you, Adya has been their one true teacher, with a connection so exceptional that it can never be replaced. I, myself, have called him “the liberator of my soul” and others have described him like a north star who has changed the course of their life, their destiny.

From wherever you are, I ask you to join me in paying special tribute to Adya at this juncture, to take a tremendous pause and to accede space in your heart, mind, and being in order to deeply feel, honor, and celebrate the brilliance that Adya has been and will forever be.

For myself, Adya is given primary place in my heart, and I bless him going forward. And each heart has capacity for many, with every person or being who finds its place in one’s heart doing so uniquely. As you may know, I was born to two Catholic parents who became interested in the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda when I was quite young. Yogananda had passed on from his body a couple of decades prior. When my exposure to Yogananda’s teachings was new, I told my mother that I did not feel particularly close to him. She told me that I could develop a relationship with Yogananda like I had developed a relationship with Jesus, by speaking to him in my heart and by listening to his words and stories of his life. I followed her advice, and before too long, I associated Yogananda with a felt sense of inner guidance, blessing, and sacred presence. For a good many years, I ascribed the divine presence within me to be Yogananda, and by doing so this presence held my attention, my devotion, and my heart. And the presence within flowered and grew stronger, especially as I attended the ground of peace within.

I share this because I feel the sense of spirit within can often come alight in relationship to a face without—a teacher, a guru, a guide, a lover, a friend. And we can find teachers everywhere, even in some of the people who challenge us most. But a true teacher without, always points to the eternal and essential presence within that has no face, even as it wears many faces. To borrow a sentiment of Yogananda’s, the spiritual aspirant’s task is to discover that the One within you and the One within the guru (or spiritual teacher) is the same One in all of life.

The task of orienting to oneness remains the focus of Open Gate Sangha teachings. Open Gate will continue to make Adyashanti’s and my teachings available to those who are called to peace, truth, and oneness. Our staff and organization continue to be rooted in principles of integrity, sincerity, and loving awareness, and welcome those whose lives are founded in these same principles, and who dedicate themselves to spiritual practice and cultivating depth and clarity.

While the underlying focus and principles at Open Gate Sangha continue, we also begin a new chapter. I envision this next chapter to present the legacy of Adyashanti’s teachings in both similar and new ways. Please read on to learn more about how you can participate. What I’m most excited about is to see how these next years with Open Gate Sangha will contribute to your lives and to the changes occurring in our world.

I encourage you to remain engaged and to dive deeply into spiritual practice. By way of support, we will continue to offer free Wednesday broadcasts and also the Sunday Community Practice program twice a month. One free Wednesday broadcast each month will be a replay of a previous talk by Adyashanti, others will be talks of my own and responses to submitted questions. And during one Sunday Community Practice each month I plan to bring forward a written or spoken teaching of Adyashanti’s and delve into it further by giving commentary and sharings.

We will continue to make Adya’s talks available via our subscription services on YouTube and The Stream. Periodically we will also offer special programs, such as online retreats or talk series, and interviews. And at some point, I would like to offer a light sprinkling of some in-person programs, including retreats.

A deep commitment of my own has been caring for both Adyashanti and this sangha (i.e., community members). Of great importance to me is how Open Gate Sangha’s teachings will carry you and others going forward. Behind the scenes we have been working, as we are able, on a Living Legacy project. Previously unreleased audio and video from our archives are being digitally formatted, making them ready for downloading or streaming. Talks are continuing to be catalogued—described and identified by subject and keywords for greater searchability. We are visioning ways to curate the material for students and practitioners who want to explore specific topics and territories of awakening and embodiment. By building our active library and presenting Adya’s teachings in new ways, we very much hope to keep his presence near and dear, living and potent.

You can be of great support in keeping Open Gate Sangha’s teachings alive. Most important is how you receive and live the teachings, and join others in doing so. And you can join our work by volunteering or by making a donation to the our Living Legacy Fund. We would greatly appreciate your support in making this vision a reality.

Please know that you can continue to send messages to us here . . . perhaps to love bomb Adya, or to share how Open Gate Sangha is making a difference in your life. Thank you for being a part of our circle of community and conscious living, now and ever forward.

© Mukti Gray 2023

Tijdens een interview kreeg ik eens de vraag: ‘Wat is een emotie?’ Er verscheen een brede glimlach op mijn gezicht, en ik antwoordde: “Dat is een raadsel!” Daarna begon ik uit te leggen dat ik emoties heel sterk voel, maar dat het voor mij een raadsel blijft wat ze zijn, een mysterie dat omarmd moet worden.

Zo dadelijk zal ik meer zeggen over het omarmen van het mysterie van de emotie.Voor nu nodig ik je uit om af te gaan op je rechtstreekse ervaring van emotie en mijn observaties te vergelijken met die van jezelf. Een emotie lijkt zich in het begin aan te dienen als een samenballing van energie, die vervolgens waargenomen en geregistreerd wordt als een gevoel. Het woord ‘emotie’ wordt vaak gebruikt als dat waarnemen en voelen een toestand wordt.Vaak vindt er dan een identificatie met die toestand plaats waar bewustzijn zich naar voegt; ‘Ik voel verdriet’ wordt dan ‘Ik ben bedroefd’. Als er sprake is van identificatie raken de ervaring en het gevoel de ervaarder te zijn met elkaar verstrengeld. Als er toegewerkt wordt naar bevrijding, wordt die verstrengeling weer opgeheven.

Onderzoekende vragen als ‘Wie is er dan bedroefd?’ of ‘Wie voelt er dan verdriet?’ worden meestal gesteld om de aandacht weg te halen bij de ervaring en het gevoel de ervaarder te zijn te vervangen (als er geen ervaarder wordt gevonden) of de eigen aanwezigheid te omarmen, vrij van identiteit. Als de identificatie wordt losgelaten, kan de emotie die overblijft helder gezien en geobserveerd worden (als die nog aanwezig is) en kan die innig omarmd worden. Bij het observeren van een emotie kan het zijn dat je er niet uit komt als je probeert vast te stellen wie het is die de emotie ervaart. Maar zelfs zonder subjectgevoel kan er toch sprake zijn van een hele hoop gedachten die tezamen een verhaal vertellen over de emotie. De meeste verhalen versterken de emotie of brengen haar juist tot bedaren, of ze doen het allebei een beetje.

GOED OF FOUT
Ik herinner me nog heel goed hoe Adya mij niet lang nadat we elkaar hadden ontmoet iets duidelijk maakte in een café op een van onze eerste afspraakjes. Ik vertelde hem dat ik die dag nogal geschrok- ken was op het werk. Een leidinggevende met wie ik heel goed door één deur kon en die een soort mentor voor me was werd ontslagen, ondanks het feit dat degene die hem ontsloeg me twee weken daarvoor had verteld wat een goede verkoper mijn leidinggevende was en dat ik heel veel van hem kon leren. Het besluit van die persoon om mijn leidinggevende te vervangen door iemand met meer naamsbekendheid kwam als ‘fout’ op me over. Adya vroeg of hij iets mocht inbrengen dat zou kunnen helpen, en toen ik aangaf dat ik dat fijn zou vinden, zei hij: “In zen wordt ons geleerd om de dingen niet te bekijken in termen van goed of fout.”

Ik had zoiets nog nooit gehoord, of nooit werkelijk gehoord. Ik voelde de onderbouwing van mijn conclusie dat het ‘fout’ was onder me vandaan glijden, en mijn hele verhaal stilvallen. Ik kwam open te staan voor onbekende mogelijkheden. In die open- heid was ik bereid een nieuwe weg in te slaan in het gesprek en te luisteren naar wat Adya nog meer te vertellen had. Als ik erop terugkijk, werd ik een zenleerling op het moment dat ik hoorde wat hij toen zei.

Onderzoeken wat emoties zijn vraagt om een helder doorzien van de etiketten en verhalen die over gevoelens heen gelegd worden. Die overdekkingen hoeven niet meteen afgewezen te worden, maar het kan handig zijn om ze tijdelijk terzijde te leggen om zo een frisse blik te kunnen hanteren. Een emotie omarmen begint vaak bij de eenvoudige erkenning dat er gevoelens aanwezig zijn en jezelf de ruimte geven om te voelen wat er gevoeld wordt zonder dat te koesteren of je ertegen te verzetten. In mijn gesprek met Adya in het café koesterde (versterkte) ik het gevoel van ‘fout’ en verzette ik me ertegen. Zelfs als je merkt dat het een gevoel van verzet is waar het om gaat, kun je ruimte maken voor dat gevoel zonder je te verzetten tegen het feit dat het er is en ervoor openstaan om het met nieuwe ogen te bekijken.

Getuige zijn is kijken door wat ik graag ‘de ogen van de Levenskracht’ noem. Het gaat dan om observeren vanuit dat wat altijd in stilte door jouw ogen heeft gekeken en onophoudelijk getuige is geweest van alle ervaringen in je leven zonder ze in te kaderen in de tijd, voorkeuren of conclusies. Als het verhaal terzijde wordt geschoven en gevoe-lens met zorg en liefde worden waargenomen en beschouwd, krijgen ze de kans om zich energetisch te ontvouwen en uit zichzelf tot uitdrukking te ko-men. Op die manier werken gevoelens en emoties toe naar hun eigen bevrijding, zonder inmenging. Die avond in het café, vele jaren geleden, gaf Adya een weg aan naar emotionele transformatie. Door je bereidheid te tonen en om hen te geven, kan ook jij een model zijn voor anderen door die transformatie in jezelf teweeg te brengen, in het hier en nu.

When I speak about optional suffering, I’m speaking about our relationship to difficulty and hardship. It’s largely the inner narrative and stance, like an energetic posturing with what is happening. It can manifest as a push and pull of resistance and aversion, a kind of organizing dualistically with respect to what should or shouldn’t be—this is right or this is wrong, this is good or this is bad. At one level, that perspective may have relative value. As it concretizes in our system, these narratives or conclusions can often become rigid or be on overdrive to a point where they start to create a great sense of division with life or others, or division within ourselves and different parts of ourselves.

That concretization goes counter to our movement toward well-being, our movement to embrace life and to really live life to the best that we can in a vitally engaging, embracing way. That inner division can also bring about a sense of separation and isolation, and a kind of forgetting of our nature that is of oneness, that is indicative of the whole of humanity. Even larger, our nature is the whole of this play of consciousness that we see before us, which includes the seer and the seeing itself—not only through these eyes that have been bearing witness to our whole life, but also through the seeing eyes of the heart, and that which would want to always say yes to the embrace of life.

Some of the optional suffering is based on two primary movements. One is the forgetting of our nature as Spirit, especially in times when we concretize around events in our lives and move into dualistic positions that are for or against, pushing and pulling, toward right or wrong or good or bad. This forgetting can feel like it leaves us bereft of the inherent fullness and repleteness of our nature as the divine, and it can lead to greater entrenchment in an ego identification that’s really founded upon a sense of lack and something being wrong, and our view being that of problem.

In large part, one of the two movements that this optional suffering revolves around is this forgetting of our Self that is always and ever okay, that nature of what you are that is eternally present. It’s been eternally present, bearing witness to your whole life, but even more deeply to become known and realized is this nature of the eternal that has the capacity of the unconditional that is present and shows up, you could say to personify it, for every expression and event of our lives. It has never been harmed at that level of our essential being. It’s sometimes called the unborn or the undying, the uncreated, in the sense that it’s not defined by our narrative of birth, life, suffering, death.

This forgetting of our nature is not your typical forgetting, like forgetting your keys or something of material value. It can be an entering into the identification of our nature as a separate ego or as something that’s lacking, and it can be a departure from being firmly rooted in our essential being that has never been lacking.

There have been parts of this teaching series where I’ve been pointing back and back and back to the sense of what is prior to the narrative, the words—what is even behind the sense of witness, or that sense of witness softening its position into a general awareness. As our bodies become more still, inquiry or meditation may seem to open and fill out our body awareness, the awareness of our entire being, and in a sense, anchor this pure unboundaried consciousness into boundaried form and give it a home here in our incarnation.

The second movement that I believe largely contributes to this optional suffering isn’t so much a forgetting of our essential nature and that knowingness of being of our nature as Spirit, but it’s a tendency to not act upon our knowingness of being, our inner knowings, those tugs on our conscience, those tugs at our heart that are guiding us or trying to get our attention to attend to things that we’re not attending to. Some of this optional suffering is a kind of pushing aside or giving second place—or third or fourth place—to some of these things that we know are deeply important, and yet we might be choosing other things first.

It can be just daily things on the smallest level. Let’s say it’s physical suffering that we might be going through, and there are those little tugs on our conscience to get up and stretch in the morning, or hydrate more, or not eat this particular thing, or not be on our devices so much, or to connect more with people, or whatever it might be. We may have many knowings of what would bring us greater physical well-being, for example, that we may keep setting aside and not paying heed to. And that can bring about a lot of unnecessary difficulty that could be avoided if we acted on what we are conscious of—even if it seems to be just outside the forefront of our consciousness—when there’s a commitment to listen more deeply in life and to act upon these movements to guide us. Then things can go a lot better.

This is not only something that plays out on this basic simple level of self-care, but also, navigating in this way really leads us to a greater sense that when we care for ourselves, we’re caring for the whole. And when we care for things outside of ourselves, it also is supportive to our own nature, in its myriad of levels of expression—of Spirit, of soul, of purpose.

From the May 26, 2020 Mukti Teaching Series Re-Visioning Suffering, Part 4.

© Mukti Gray 2020

I once was asked in an interview, “What is an emotion?” Spontaneously, a wide grin spread across my face, and I responded, “That’s a mystery!” I went on to share how I feel emotions very deeply, but what they are remains a mystery, a mystery to be encountered.

I’ll say more about encountering the mystery of emotion soon. Now I invite you to draw upon your direct experience of emotion and to compare my observations with your own. Emotion seems to arise first as a constellation of energy, that is then sensed and registered as feeling. Often the word “emotion” is used when the atmosphere of sensation and feeling become a state. Frequently, the state is then identified with, shaping consciousness; “I feel sadness” becomes “I am sad.” In states of identification, the senses of experience and experiencer are intertwined. In movements toward liberation, this intertwining becomes unlinked.

Inquiries like “Who is sad?” or “Who feels sadness?” are commonly asked to allow the mind to shift focus from the experience and to displace the sense of experiencer (if no experiencer is found) or to encounter presence, free of identity. As identification is relinquished, it is possible to clearly see and observe the remaining emotion (if any does remain) and to intimately encounter it.

In observing emotion, one may come up short when trying to locate who is experiencing emotion. Yet even without a sense of subject, there can still be a host of thoughts that create a narrative about the emotion. Most narratives either stoke or mitigate the emotion, or do some of both.

I clearly remember a statement that Adya made to me not long after we met, while at a café on one of our early dates. I was sharing with him about a shock I’d received at work that day. A boss that I was very close to and a true mentor was let go, despite the person who let him go telling me two weeks earlier what a wonderful salesman my boss was and how I should pay close attention to all that he had to teach me. This same person’s decision to replace my boss with a V.P. of Sales more well-known in the industry, landed as “wrong” in me. Adya asked if he could share something that might help, and when I gladly agreed he said, “In Zen we are taught not to see things in terms of right or wrong.”

I had never heard, or truly heard, such a statement before. I felt the ground shifting out from under my conclusion of “wrong” and my whole narrative coming to a halt. I could sense unknown, open possibility. In that openness, I was available to join in a new direction of conversation and to listen to more of Adya’s sharing. Looking back, it was upon hearing his statement that I became a student of Zen.

Studying emotion involves clearly seeing through labels and narratives overlaid upon feelings. These overlays need not be rejected out of hand, but it can be helpful to suspend them in order to look afresh. Encountering emotion often begins simply with acknowledging that feelings are present and with allowing oneself to feel what is felt without indulgence or resistance. In my conversation with Adya in the café, I was indulging (stoking) and resisting the feeling of “wrong.” Even if the feeling that’s present is noted to be resistance itself, it is possible to allow that feeling without resisting its occurring and with an openness to seeing it anew.

Bearing witness is to see through what I like to call “the eyes of Spirit.” It is to observe with the sense of what has been silently looking through your eyes and witnessing all of the experiences of your life with constancy and without reference to time, preferences, or conclusions.

When narrative is set aside and when feelings are witnessed and regarded with care and love, they are supported to energetically unfold and to express of their own accord. This is how feelings and emotion move toward their own liberation, without interference. Adya modeled and stated a path to emotional transformation that night in the café many years ago. Through willingness and care, you too can be a model for others by engaging this transformation within yourself, in the here and now.

© Mukti Gray 2022

When I was a practicing acupuncturist in the ’90s, working in a clinic, I regularly contemplated “What is healing?” In the context of Chinese medicine, I routinely considered how to support energy and its flow, direction, and resilience.

I was new to Adya’s teachings and studying them very actively also at that time. I contemplated the nature of awareness and consciousness and the various states it would flow into and out of . . . flow that also revealed directionality and health or lack thereof. In both the body and mind, when energy and consciousness pulls inwards toward stagnation or contraction, it becomes stuck and blocked. The mental correlation would be concretized and identified.

What I encourage is your own exploration of states of mind as states of conscious energy, energy that can be spacious, fluid, and dynamic as much as it can be contracted, stagnant, and corrosive. This activity of witnessing and exploring states of mind and energy can shift consciousness from a sense of being that’s compulsively personal to a sense of being outside of the conditioned push and pull of desire and aversion.

Now, consider that these pushes and pulls are imbued with a consciousness of their own. A consciousness that insists “Pull!” or “Push!” “Get this!” or “Reject that!” By introducing these directional states to stillness and space, the energies of assertion and denial are supported to entrain and repattern to greater ease, flow, and health  . . a health in which the body thrives and in which the mind clarifies and brightens.

We are conditioned beings. All of life is. Our innate conditioning is patterned to organic rhythms of nature. A primary task of a spiritual practitioner is to steward the conditioning that they experience and express away from ego-identification and toward greater integration with the inherent, organic rhythms and intelligence of life.

One can do so by sensing the space in which patterns arise and take shape and then return to space  . . and through recognizing aware space as the very essence of this life, of this moment.*

In the context of sensing or abiding as aware space, stuck patterns of ego can reharmonize and return to organic rhythms. The release of contracted patterns can even brighten in recognition of aware space. Aware space can be known as the essence forming all patterns and the essence from which all life expressions are never apart.

Meditation is an arena that is conducive to returning to essential being. It can reveal that you are fundamentally aware space appearing as a human being. Over time, meditation can also reveal how aware space can shift from contracting into overly identified, egoic states (of division and separation) to gathering anew in the potency of an incarnation consciously lived. This ever-present opportunity is calling.

*In order to get a sense of aware space, Mukti invites you to read, or reread, a previous teaching that she wrote about meditating on global awareness, called Embodied Awareness.

© Mukti Gray 2023

Here in the northern hemisphere, it is early spring—a reminder of the nourishment of renewal. I write to encourage you to receive the energy of spring into your spiritual practice and to renew your dedication.

The spirit of fresh beginning that is associated with spring reminds me of a term used in Zen, “beginner’s mind.” Beginner’s mind expresses much like your open hand when it carries nothing and grasps at nothing, yet is full of readiness to receive or respond. With clearing out and spring cleaning being a custom of the season, why not take time to empty your mind and, with a fresh heart, discover what remains?

I have pointed to beginner’s mind when giving instructions for self-inquiry. One can put down ideas and approach the question, “What am I?,” openly. By not insisting to know the mystery of existence in thought, one can encounter mystery through the intimacy of direct experience. By dwelling in the sense of mystery that is pregnant with possibility, one is dwelling in the ground in which all acquired knowledge is relinquished, and in which all Self-knowledge is born.

The green sprout, symbolic of spring, grows toward the light because it is its nature to do so. It does so without any gaining idea. Being free of gaining ideas is an expression of beginner’s mind. In supportive conditions, below the disturbances of the winds of change, the seed breaks open and the sprout gains momentum.

Outer life is not free of disturbance. We have only to open our eyes to see this in our midst or in the midst of our world brothers and sisters. Inner life is not free of disturbance either, but the innermost life is. As practitioners, we take time to gather ourselves into the seed. Return your consciousness to essential being, so that it might vitalize and renew again and carry forward the perfume of peace that comes from union with the Root.

~ Mukti
Spring Equinox, 2022

© Mukti Gray 2022

Attending retreat can be an active response to your inner or your outer life. Chances are it is both, as the two are fundamentally connected—even seamlessly so, given one’s perspective.

Being drawn to retreat may be a draw “to pull back,” the Latin meaning of “retreat.” Acting on this draw can be wisdom expressing as a stepping back from the current momentum, a slowing down, and an entering into conditions supportive of new direction and new life.

The stepping back associated with retreat can take many subtle expressions, especially in meditation, such as a panning back, which offsets the pull to identify with thoughts, emotions, or sensations; a resting back, perhaps into a sense of aware space or quietude; or a turning within to meet whatever arises and perhaps therein to encounter the mystery of Being.

These workings of loosening identification, sensing into and resting as awareness, and attuning to Being, set the stage for aware Being to become known as the fundamental identity of life, the fundamental ground of one’s existence and all existence.

The true meaning of retreat is to be freshly revealed. On retreat one can attend to such workings and to outer and inner conditions in order to support revelation. Setting the stage for revelation to be presented is an orienting to sanctuary, a withdrawing to the innermost recess, to the holy ground of ceasing. Such orienting can be a sensing that divests seeking of grasping and aversion, such that ceasing then presents center stage, unobscured and unhindered, as the Eternal Unmoving.

© Mukti Gray 2018.

Tell me something about your background and your understanding of spiritual marriage.

That which is awake was calling since I was very, very young. I was raised Irish Catholic and felt that a love of God and Christ was foundational to my life. There was a tremendous yearning to know God. When I was seven, my parents found the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, and, with that, new perspectives opened up for me. As a young adult, I heard a talk by one of Yogananda’s disciples, Brother Anandamoy, on spiritual marriage. I must have listened to this talk on tape dozens and dozens of times. And the one line that deeply penetrated me was, “The purpose of spiritual marriage is to find that the One in me and the One in my husband or wife is the same One in all of life.” I knew this was my deepest yearning.

Later, soon after I was married to Stephen Gray, now Adyashanti, we attended a satsang (teaching) with a teacher named Gangaji. Right away Adya got up and spoke with her from his perspective. I could see that the dialogue that ensued was from a shared, awakened perspective of knowing Oneness, and that it was a dialogue in which I was not able to participate. As I witnessed their exchange, something came fiercely alive inside me, saying, “In order to have a true spiritual marriage, a true meeting of Adya, I must know this perspective.” And my seeing this didn’t come from a place of jealousy. It just came from a knowing that this must be—it was as though within myself, without literal words, my Being was saying, “This must come to pass. So that I too can meet my husband from this perspective.”

This knowing kicked off a real fire within me. In the past, I’d come from traditions of faith and trusting in the guidance of a savior or guru. But this was different. I think it was the first moment when something in me knew that it was time for me to be truly serious, to truly engage the issue of realization for myself.

To become what you were witnessing in them...

Become that and to no longer waste time. It was as though something just clicked inside me that took me out of a sense of "Whatever God wills" to an intense inquiry: “What is God?  What is this?” Before that, when I had a savior or a guru, I would place my trust in their wisdom, their divinity.

Their enlightenment.

Their enlightenment. I believed that if I emulated them as best I could or followed the teachings that they’d set out, then maybe I would come to know what they know. But in this moment, what happened was it went from following the teacher to “this must be.” There was just something inside me that made not knowing no longer an option, and in that sense it was as though time had run out. Sharing Adya’s perspective had to be in order for this marriage to be what it must be for me, the only thing that will be satisfying for me.

It shifted from wanting to know God to seeing God in these two people interacting, to seeing that they looked out of those eyes of God. And my saying to myself, “I will not be satisfied unless this is my perspective,” changed something. It no longer was about wanting to know God (as an object). I wanted to be that. So this inquiry began . . . “What is that? What is that perspective?” And the word that Gangaji and Adya were using for the One was “Truth.” So, it ignited something new. As opposed to wanting to know love or bliss or the joy of union with God, the movement came to wanting to know the truth of that perspective, of Oneness.

And so, this became my inquiry, a very, very alive inquiry for months. And I had to do it for myself. The outward, more routine spiritual activities I did, such as attending services or meditations, became arenas where I would dive into these questions. I think it’s important to emphasize that something shifted inside me where I had to know. It’s not something that I can take credit for. Something in me just turned.

And yet, one of the distinguishing features of that moment was that the marriage itself became part of the motivation to say, “I can’t stop here. I’ve got to go where I can meet this being where he is.”

If I’m going to be a married person in this world, I have got to know what true marriage is. That conviction was fierce within me. It just had to be. So, that was the drive. Then, after maybe five months passed, I attended my very first silent retreat, which was also Adya’s first retreat teaching as a teacher, in July 1997. I was the retreat leader in charge of the logistics of the event. A few days into the retreat he gave a talk on “stillness.” I knew that he was speaking from a perspective of stillness that I didn’t know. My mind had an idea of stillness, but I could tell it wasn’t matching up with how he was speaking of it. And the way he was speaking of it was mysterious to me. It was unfamiliar but intriguing.

When the day ended and people had gone on to bed, I stayed in the hall to meditate and really dove into that question “What is stillness?” “What is it?” And that was the inquiry that brought me into direct experience of stillness, which flowered into a knowledge that that is Self. That is the nature of Self. Although stillness moves as form, it is the one constant. It is the One. Stillness is the perspective of permanence, of that which does not come and go, even as it comes and goes as form. I think, part of the inquiry that may be of interest to people was that I truly didn’t know what Stillness was. I had completely set aside any ideas that I had about it. And with all of my senses I followed the sense of stillness in my body, and really traced all movements within my body as I was sitting, until my body became more still than I’d ever known. And then my attention went to the outer world, and I sensed what Stillness was in the outer world.

Tracing outer form back to whatever was behind it, which was non-form, the non-movement behind movement. In that inquiry—this is just more of a personal question—did you feel guided by any kind of inner voice or not—how did that tracing phenomenon happen? Was something telling you how to do this or was there just a settling in and of itself?

I did not hear a voice. I guess it just seemed the most obvious place to start...to sense stillness as I was sitting in meditation. Perhaps because some of my main teachers had come from traditions of meditation and had had some of their innermost dialogues with the Divine in meditation, I was drawn to meditate. When I wanted to know something of this order, I would sit and meditate. That was my training. And so, when I went to sit, I sat in meditation posture, as was part of that training.

So, the outer body, of course. was still.

It was still, but I always had experiences of really not truly being still inside. But on this evening, it just seemed obvious that the first place to look was “Is stillness here? Even in the midst of activity of mind and body?”

Including breath, heartbeat, thought, feeling, sensation—all that moves, changes.

Yes. So it was not an inner voice but a natural curiosity to start with, a curiosity about “What is most immediate in my own direct experience of stillness of body-mind?” And the inquiry itself invited a dropping of that question into my Being, not posing it to my mind.

The question, “What is Stillness?”

Yes. “What is Stillness?” I dropped the question “What is stillness?” into my being, into my innermost being, down into my gut. Then I began to sink into a sense of stillness in my body, and all the movement within my own form began to settle and become quieter and quieter, and there remained a very quiet, still watching of all this settling.

And then, there is still another leap beyond the perspective of the watching?

Yes. As my energies were withdrawn from movement, that which is aware of movement became prominent and was experienced as stillness. It also became clear that there was no perceivable difference between that which was aware of movement and all that was in motion. One could say that subject and object were experienced as one.

At the time, this did not register as an insight of oneness, it simply was what I experienced that evening . . . at which point I decided that any more efforting to inquire would be the antithesis of stillness, and so I went to bed. I was fully aware of all of the sounds of the outer world, and I went into deep sleep which later, when I reflected back upon it, was unlike any other sleep I’d had in that I was completely unaware of the world of form at a certain point. I don’t recall even moving. Then I heard the morning wakeup bell, and I went about my functions of the day. I don’t remember much of them to speak of, other than that I fulfilled my duties—but without a sense of self-consciousness, without any sense of self-reflecting. I’m using both of those terms to say that I was not aware of a sense of "me." Then, after breakfast a woman bowed in “namaste” to me. In fact, she did a complete prostration before me and that was when a sense of the awareness that was looking out of my eyes at the world of form recognized itself as emptiness. And the laughter! I felt utter delight at this magic trick of what is completely empty and without form appearing before my eyes as form and appearing specifically as the form of a woman who was bowing to me as if I was something.

I remember you said that her “namaste” was no more significant than if she had bowed to a blank place in the room.

Right, or bowed to a toilet! It was amazing that she actually believed that there was someone in front of her. I mean, it would be as funny as one hair on your head jumping up and bowing to another hair on your head and dancing back and forth, bowing, worshiping each other. It was just delightful and humorous although ultimately those words fall short.

In the moment of the bow, in the moment of somebody in front of me interacting with me as though I were a something, all of a sudden the heightened awareness popped in that I’m not a something; I’m emptiness looking out of this form. And in that moment emptiness was born as an experience. What I am, what life is, what you are, what everything is, was seen as all that is, the one reality. All of this is being perceived from emptiness and clearly there was no “me” in this experience—this experience of myself as no-self or emptiness. And then, as the day went on, that experience opened, registering in my human consciousness as if to say, “This emptiness is this fullness that I’m looking at. This formlessness behind my eyes is what’s looking and is what’s looking back at me. This formlessness is this form, and it’s all arising as one thing. That which is perceiving, that which is sensing life, and the movement of life, the forms—all of them—are arising simultaneously.”

How about after this experience of awakening out of identification with form—how were you different?

Some of the conditioned mind, concepts that separate or cause a sense of a “me,” that create a center or position in relation to life—some of this returned. But a lot of it just mysteriously dissolved. It’s the seeing that has the power to dissolve conditioning.

In the work that I do with people, sometimes insight alone is enough for a pattern to dissolve. More often, however, insight is not enough. Without the experience of awakening, patterns have much more tenacity. I would imagine that, after the experience of awakening, when conditioned mind arises, there is a new perspective that lets you know “this isn’t real”?

Yes.

So, the conditioned thoughts and beliefs have a much shorter lifespan.

It’s more efficient. I guess what I was really left with was a sense that “me” lives only in thoughts that are believed.

So, in a sense, having awakened to the reality that what you are does not depend on believing the thoughts you have about yourself, those beliefs can drop away more quickly. Prior to awakening, we might investigate a defensive behavior pattern (for example, avoiding intimacy) and find the beliefs on which it is based (for example, a belief that “If I let someone close to me, I'll be rejected”), but there is still a tendency to justify the belief because of an underlying assumption that the “me” has substance and can be hurt by others. Whereas once you’ve had an experience that who you really are doesn’t depend on a “me,” and that who you really are cannot be hurt by anyone, then, when the feeling of “me” being threatened arises, we can question it from a whole different perspective, which allows it to dissolve more quickly.

Yes, it does. And, there’s no desire—at least I don't experience a desire—to make it go any faster. When there’s a dawning that it’s all yourself—even the illusion—it’s not something that needs be rooted out. But there’s a natural curiosity to see what the illusion is. There’s this whole fundamental aspect of consciousness—meaning life, reality—that moves to know itself in form, even if that form is a belief or a feeling of threat or suffering. There also seems, from everything that I’ve seen, to be inherent in all of experience a movement towards freedom. So if there’s, let’s say, a painful emotion; that emotion responds. It moves to be seen, felt, heard, experienced. In a sense it’s born to be experienced, and once it’s seen and experienced directly, not suppressed and not embellished, but seen in its exquisite suchness, just as it is, it has served its own life’s function, and it dissolves. You could say it’s been freed.

There is a felt sense that life is living itself, and it’s showing up as feelings. It’s showing up as everything, which includes feelings and beliefs; those are directly experienced, and then life goes on. I’m free to experience these things as they arise. It’s showing up for the whole thing, as all of it. Sometimes people are kind of in a hurry to be free of things, and they miss the freedom of being a human being, of getting to experience the miracle that anything can even occur out of nothing. I want to add as a reminder that everybody’s totally unique. Some people may experience some of the things I've shared that happened to me after awakening, such as a greater capacity to see personal beliefs and patterns which cause suffering; yet many people see such patterns long before awakening. There are those common questions “How does awakening unfold? or What does it look like?” Well, it can look all sorts of ways—from a more gradual dawning of what’s real to a sudden dawning of what’s real.

Perhaps there’s seeing an object and knowing oneself as that object, or as another person, or as all of life, or as nothingness. Perhaps there is a dis-identification from the sense of “me,” or perhaps the “me” is seen to not exist at all. In the absence of “me" one may know what they are not. This knowledge can exist with or without the knowledge of what one is. In other words, there are all kinds of awakenings and seeings, my story is just one. There are no two alike.

Can you tell me anything more about what has changed in your relationship with Adya?

I think the biggest thing that this shift of perspective affected, certainly initially, was how I heard things and how I communicated. A lot of my life’s experience had been that of wanting to be understood and of defending how I acted in the world. For example, feeling like I needed to justify why I did what I did or to explain why I was having the experience that I was having, so that I could be understood or accepted. And a lot of that fell away, so I was able to also listen in a way that wasn’t listening through that defensiveness. That was a huge change. At the time of the awakening I was in a program studying Chinese medicine. As I student I thought I had every ailment that I studied! But because the fundamental fear of death fell away with the awakening, it changed my whole relationship to health. As a result, a lot of the conversations I would have with Adya about my health just stopped. This freed up a lot in terms of energy and time that Adya and I spent together.

I’ve always had this sense of Adya, especially when he was a new teacher; he always felt like a real maverick to me. It wasn’t too long after that movie Top Gun came out, and in that movie there were these people who fly fighter planes and they just respond like this (snapping her fingers). They possess some internal navigational skills that are highly instinctual and intuitive. And Adya felt very much like that; he'd respond immediately to what life offered, and easily reverse direction. Now, within myself I feel that the more this awakening is deepening and unfolding, the more I have a sense of suppleness and ability to shift more quickly. Life is turning this way, “Okay,” and then you turn this way. And then comes its next curve or turn, and it feels a little bit more like somehow the whole ride is being ridden.

You said that the point of spiritual marriage, is for the One in you to recognize the One in the other and together to come to the knowledge of the Oneness that we are. Is this now more available to you?

Yes, to see that the One in me and the One in my husband, in this case, is the same One in all of life. So, it’s not that we need to see that together. But I think the recognition that that’s the same One in all of life came at the exact same time as seeing that it’s the same One in my husband.

Do you think you serve the same function for Adya?

Everything serves that, absolutely.

By Susan Thesenga of Seven Oaks Pathwork Center

© Mukti Gray 2018.

When I consider Adya describing the sense of “I am” as a doorway to the essential, the universal, and the sacred, I am reminded of some powerful self-inquiry questions he has given instruction on. In particular, he has suggested different variations on the question “What am I?”

Before I recount these inquiry variations, I would first like to share one foundational approach to engaging in any self-inquiry question, an approach that Adya has taught. That is to drop a question into one’s system such that it registers not only in mind and intention, but also in one’s body and in one’s whole being. He has used the image of one’s body sitting still in meditation, presenting as a calm lake, and the question being imbued within a smooth stone that could be dropped into this lake of being.

Here’s how I would put it: As the stone, or inquiry, moves from one’s head (mind) to below the neck, into the dark waters of stillness (when the body is settled), it can ripple in the unknown, thereby illuminating mystery, while also expressing one’s intention to know, illuminating curiosity. Curiosity causes one to metaphorically “lean in” and “hold forth” with attention as the inquiry evokes the mystery of being, causing it to come forth as well. The sense of mystery may come forth primarily as the questioner shifts into sensing and receptivity.

While sitting quietly, engage the question, “What am I?” Drop it into “the lake of your being,” letting it slowly descend from head to chest to lower belly: “What . . . am . . . I?” (Pause indefinitely.) Let the question carry your consciousness and orientation to silent sensing, to being, to resting in being as being.

After a time, you might also drop the question in reverse, “I . . . am . . . what?” (pause indefinitely) into the silent sensing and mystery. Or, in the spirit of Adya’s article, The Doorway of I Am, and his specific encouragement to focus on the sense of “I am,” you might instead ask, “What . . . is . . . I . . . am?”

This last variation of “What is this ‘I am’?” can be more of an evocation than a simple inquiry—though you are asking the felt sense of being/existing, or the felt sense of mystery (the first perhaps feeling more essential and the second perhaps more sacred) to reveal itself and become more conscious in body and mind—as if to say, “What are you, ‘I am?’ Reveal yourself.” The important thing is to go with what resonates for you, and to make the question your own.

Something else that can be very helpful is to rest in meditation with a sense of general, global awareness, as well as settling in your specific local body. This pairing of universal awareness and body-awareness offers insight for both types of awareness, as the self-inquiry question is at work. So inquiry is then not just about the sense of one’s person engaging in a personal inquiry, but is also about the sense of a global, unbounded awareness being anchored in the question, such that it becomes embodied as the inquiry “stone” drops into the “lake of being,” harnessing awareness that is without specific location to know itself in form, in your body-mind-being, as “I am.”

There are other ways to work with “I am,” but these are ways I have taken Adya’s pointers about inquiry and worked with them myself. Each variation has its own power, and one may resonate for you uniquely. I encourage you to listen within to stirrings of curiosity and to hold forth and call forth.

Copyright © 2021 Mukti Gray.