On Allowing

     One of the most important tools you have when it comes to attaining higher states of consciousness and spiritual awakening is simply allowing.  Life already knows exactly how to Awaken you and what is needed along the way and cooperating by allowing the process to unfold as it needs to will help you immensely. Late in his life someone asked J. Krishnamurti in a satsang what his “secret” was, and his reply was “My secret is; I don’t mind what happens”.  When we are in a state of allowing when we don’t mind what happens.. we are letting Life be exactly what it is and what it needs to be at any given moment.  In other words, life is always perfect just as it is.. even though it may not seem to be.

     When life presents us with a situation or event, your allowing it to be as it is gives you the freedom to be an observer, or witness to the event or situation and to learn from it.  This is important because your energy is what is creating the situations you’re experiencing, so if you don’t like what you’re seeing outwardly, you can turn within and look at how you created it and change it.  Lack of judgment of the situation will help it to shift as well. When we judge ourselves we are keeping an energetic “construct” alive, and as long as it’s in our energy field it will continue to affect us.

     Another aspect of Allowing relates to doing the “inner work” of awakening.  Inner work is a process of becoming aware of your stories, beliefs and judgments, and once you’re aware of what they are, you simply watch them when they arise.  When you understand that all of the stories you have created about life are fictions, you can separate yourself from them and watch them as they arise.  When you no longer believe in them, it takes the “juice” out of them.

     And just as watching situations and events in your life unfold, witnessing and allowing what’s happening in your mental and emotional states can, and will change the underlying energy behind them. In other words,  watching your mind and feeling your emotions as they arise can, and will shift the pattern.

     As I said, Life already knows exactly what to do to awaken us, so when you ‘witness’ or watch the mind and it’s shenanigans, you are bringing the deeper Awareness that you are into the equation.  Doing that creates a shift in the story all by itself.  I’ve referred to it as “creating an off ramp on the freeway”.  In other words, when you become of a pattern of thinking that your mind runs, it creates an exit point, and the pattern never runs the same again.  And when you’ve done it enough times, it stops running at all.  So you can see in this process that there is nothing to be done and nothing to clear or heal because the Consciousness that you Are does it for you.

     If you’re like me, you may have learned and used any number of self help techniques along the way, and if you have you’ve probably found that some work a little, some work pretty well, and some don’t work at all.  That was my experience anyway.  The problem with this approach is, other than the fact that it takes a lot of time and effort usually, is that the mind is involved in trying to fix itself.  You are applying your personal will and ego to change or heal what your ego believes is “wrong” with you.  The truth is that you are already a beautiful being and don’t need “fixing”.

     Trying to fix or heal the self can actually be a trap.  Once you get involved in it, because you are in a co-creative universe, more “stuff” will show up for you to resolve.  Why? Because you are literally asking the universe for it, and so it gives it to you.  Simply observing and allowing bypasses this entire problem and goes directly to the heart of the matter and lets Consciousness take care of it.

     As I said, Life knows what you need, and It will resolve the energies and constructs of your past, but it still does require that you participate. You won’t get anywhere by being a spiritual couch potato and expecting Life to do it all for you.  It isn’t going to happen.  Being a conscious participant also means asking for what you need, watching your mind, and allowing any stuck emotional energies that may be in your body to arise.

     If you don’t know where to start or how to discover what your stories are, just ask and you will be shown.  When asking you might say “Please bring it to me in a way that I know that it’s coming from you”.  This ensures that it won’t come up and pass by without your becoming aware of it.  Then just wait, and whatever you need to see will arise.  It may be a feeling in your gut, it may be some kind of mental pattern or judgment.. but it will show up in such a way that you can see it and can be with it and allow Life to heal it.

     If it’s a pattern in the mind, just watch it without judgment or feeling a need to change it.  As I said, life will change it by itself.  It what comes up is an unresolved emotional issue, be with that.  It runs against the workings of the ego to do that, but do it anyway.  When you allow yourself to feel your pain without getting lost in the story behind it, you will find that it will dissipate on it’s own, and you may even discover that it has a sort of sublime beauty all it’s own.
Namaste’, Sat Nam and Blessings,
John