Latest / Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry / Episode 53: The Gift of Uncertainty

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Episode 53: The Gift of Uncertainty · Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry

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  Behave myself.
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  No Christ.
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  Here we go.
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  Good morning everyone and welcome back to another
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  Conversations with Emodemar podcast.
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  Today, let me...
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  Good morning everyone and welcome back to another Amoda Maa podcast.
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  Before I begin, I'd just like to say hello to Amoda.
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  Hello.
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  Hello.
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  So today we are going to explore an article, a short article that I found of Amodas.
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  Written, I'm not sure when, she's not sure when, but sometime in the last couple of years.
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  And although there's always an evolution of Amoda Ma's kind of way of speaking about
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  things, certainly there's still a timelessness to what is being communicated by her.
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  So I thought it would be interesting today to read the article and then I can ask a
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  motor some questions based on the words she's used.
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  So let's jump straight into this.
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  Freedom begins when the cracks appear.
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  Freedom begins when the cracks in our inner world appear.
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  When it dawns on us that every belief, opinion, hope, expectation and need is built on shifting
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  sands.
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  When psychological structures that uphold the self-identity based on inherited beliefs
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  are seen as a cover-up of our innermost truth.
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  In the knot of ego starts to untangle itself, because holding it together is exhausting
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  and futile.
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  When our inner world starts falling apart, often triggered or amplified by the outer world
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  seeming to fall apart.
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  We can finally meet life from the unknown.
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  In meeting life from the unknown, the mind can gently bounce back from its grip on reality
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  reality and fall into its true home as beingness. It's a willingness to meet reality without
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  an argument, without resistance, without grasping for certainty. It's the willingness to fall
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  moment to moment into silent awareness. It reminds me that it's very possibly a passage,
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  although maybe rewritten from the book, "Bawning open in a world falling apart,"
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  because it has got that kind of texture or that sort of feel to it, which would fit with maybe
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  two or three years ago. I can't remember when you wrote that book. Quite a powerful
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  piece of writing, I feel. I mean, everything that you write is quite a powerful piece of writing,
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  and sometimes I don't think you realize for people quite how powerful this kind of stuff is.
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  So we're going to explore some of this and I'm going to ask you some questions and then we're
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  going to see where it goes. Just launching in off the, off, the kind of the top of it in a way,
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  you say, we can finally meet life from the unknown.
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  What is this unknown you're talking about?
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  Essentially, that's referring to the inner space of silence.
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  when we say unknown for many people, that means or conjures up an idea that the unknown
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  is something to do with the future. And that's a scary prospect. Whilst it's true that the
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  future is unknown, although we don't like to really accept that.
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  To meet life from the unknown is possibly very scary because it means that everything's
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  certain, everything's chaotic, we live in a random universe and so on. And this is all
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  about the future, it's also about the material world, the world of form. And that's not what
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  this is referring to. To meet life from the unknown is to meet life without the veils
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  of projected hope and fear that we impose upon reality. For many people and for many
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  of us who've evolved beyond it, if you like, or woken up out of that dream state of past and
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  future and projection. In our own lifetimes we've not been conscious of the fact that
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  we don't see reality as it is the immediate reality but we see through the veils of expectation,
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  hope, fear, agenda. So we're never really operating or perceiving from the clear awareness.
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  And it's like the windows are clear. We see through dusty windows, dirty windows, veiled
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  windows, curtained windows, and those bales are based on our past experience and our conditioning,
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  if you like, on our inherited beliefs. And there's a kind of projected certainty of how
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  my life is going to be, how the next moment will be, how tomorrow will be, how, you know,
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  it's infused with our hopes, our dreams, our expectations, our agendas, and expect, you
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  know, an imaginary outcome, all kinds of beliefs that overlay reality. To meet life from the
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  unknown is to come naked to this moment, to see nakedly, to feel nakedly, to taste the
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  texture of this moment nakedly. It's like being empty inside, but it's not an empty that is
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  a vacuous empty. It's just simply empty of the many egoic structures that seemingly make up our
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  lives, but are not reality. They're a kind of fabricated sense of self and a fabricated sense of
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  life and that creates a kind of tightness, a contracted, limited aperture through which
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  we experience life. To meet life from the unknown is naked, it's open, it's empty of
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  all these egoic strategies and it's fully in presence. So it's very, if you like, innocent
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  and pure and direct. So it's not about being afraid of the future or learning to trust the
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  future because it's unknown. It's really an inner unknownness. It's like the self doesn't
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  have a position it stands on? This is obviously, you know, everything that you've written,
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  speaks to what you're talking of, because you know, would you say that the self, you
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  know, the conditioned self, the reason it's difficult for people to understand what this
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  This is what this unknown is, is because we're habituated to grasp and clutch at that which
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  we think we know for a million different reasons, most of which are based in fear and control,
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  and that when we posited with this possibility of meeting life from the unknown, that it
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  It does bring up all of these... It confounds the mind in many ways, isn't it?
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  It might frighten the emotional mind, but it confounds us, doesn't it?
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  Because of everything that you were just saying.
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  The kind of... I don't know if it's a paradox or a mystery or something that cannot be actually explained.
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  rationally, is that this that's being spoken of cannot really be spoken to the self.
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  Because when the self hears it, it's scary. It doesn't make sense. It's a paradigm that is unknown,
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  actually. And therefore, it might freeze the self. So it's not, we have to be careful here.
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  It's not an imperative. It's not a command to the self and it's not a method to the
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  self. It's not like, well, you should do this and therefore it will get you to some other
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  more peaceful, happier, blissful state because it doesn't speak to the self. It's this that
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  spoken of through these words is only known, yeah, recognized, understood and
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  lived once the ego identity has come undone. Once we have awoken out of the
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  dream, I mean I would not have understood those words, I don't know, 30, 40 years
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  ago or whatever 25 years ago. But in awakening, it is absolutely the case. It's absolutely
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  how it is. So then one may ask, well, why even say these things?
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  So why say these things?
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  Well, you said it.
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  Why say these things?
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  Because there's a natural impulse.
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  When the prison of self has come and done to speak from that place,
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  not as a command, not as a methodology, not as a process, not as
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  something to take on as a kind of learning, you know, something I have to do, but really
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  as a taster, a little glimpse if you like, of the possibility of freedom. Because deep
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  in our souls, if you like, and the depth of our beings, we all yearn for this, we all
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  yearn for freedom from the prison of self. And really there is a kind of tipping point
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  or one reaches a kind of edge where perhaps that process is already taking place. And
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  then these words might give some solace or be an invitation.
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  Yeah, so
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  Assuming this a little bit it is the fact that it's
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  You know, there's a there's a lure here a spiritual teachers do this and I remember I didn't understand a word that anybody was saying
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  For what I think about 20 years ago
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  But I know that there was a there was a draw there was something
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  That something that was being spoken of
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  and I didn't know what it was, but I knew that there was something beautiful within it.
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  It's one part, yeah, so there's a kind of fire that draws the moth towards it, if you like.
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  And then the other aspect is that all the things that you talk about and all the things,
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  the questions that we're going to get to, you know, what tried to describe the unknown,
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  which is kind of absurd really isn't it? Meeting reality without an argument falling into silent
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  awareness. All of these have the capacity to confuse the mind of the self and what I'm going
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  to, I'm asking you, is that, is that a good thing? That's,
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  Are we looking for a certain amount of...
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  I don't think...
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  I'd saying it positively.
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  Yes, yes.
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  I don't think that anything is designed to confuse the mind.
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  It's not some kind of...
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  You're not the director.
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  Breaking, washing, yeah.
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  Or...
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  Or, yeah.
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  Or mind control or anything like that.
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  So it's not designed to, but by its very nature.
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  because it speaks to that which is beyond conceptual mind, it will confuse mind if you're listening from mind.
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  And you know, I've told this to a story many times and I'll say it again briefly when I was seeking and was in India mostly and other places
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  and listen to enlightened teachers and listen to Osho's discourses, particularly.
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  My mind was scrambled.
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  I didn't understand a word they said.
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  I couldn't follow the logic of any sentence or any phrase that was said.
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  And I'd done a lot of spiritual and esoteric and metaphysical and psychological reading
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  and understanding.
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  And this I couldn't grasp.
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  The mind couldn't grasp it.
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  But it did draw me, it drew me in because it's the frequency of it that spoke.
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  That's something we can't manufacture.
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  It's just, yeah.
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  So it's not about understanding the words on a logical, rational level, although there
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  is some sense to them, of course.
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  But what's being said, or what's being pointed to with those words.
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  So yes, it's a good thing if the mind gets confused.
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  I mean, when I started meditation practice many, many years ago in the middle of my psychology
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  training, my mind got completely confused.
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  It's the beginning.
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  It's the beginning.
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  It's not the end.
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  You don't stay confused.
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  I think that in the end is the collapse of the paradox of one side or another side, the
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  idea of the self and the enlightened self and stuff.
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  The end is the collapse of those two things as they dissolve into one.
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  But at first there's the dealing with the sort of rigid idea of the self, isn't it?
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  somehow the light, if you like, needs to get in to us in order to start breaking up that which
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  you've talked about here. Yeah, freedom begins when the cracks in our inner world appear.
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  That's kind of what we're speaking to here. And I just to conclude that little bit of the
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  conversation, I remember when I first met you and you took me around because I wasn't well-versed in
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  such things. You took me around to various spiritual teachers. And I sat there. It was
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  tough. I didn't know what they were speaking about. I didn't like what they were speaking
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  about. It brought up a nasty resistance in me and a complete contempt because I didn't
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  understand it. And I was wanting to get out of that door as fast as possible, back to what I
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  thought was known, even though I was suffering terribly mentally and emotionally. And it was only
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  really because of you that I kept, you know, kind of, you know, that this momentum started to build
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  up. And that seems really quite laughable now, as the, you know, as the cliff eroded. But I can
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  And certainly, you know, I sympathise with the one that holds on because it does feel quite
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  threatening on a certain existential level.
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  I mean, my response to that is, if you're not drawn, not you speaking to in a general
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  way. If you're not drawn to it, don't, don't, don't, don't. Like I said, it's not a command.
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  It only happens. It's only speaks, even if it's a little confusing or whatever. When
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  we're ready, when we're right, obviously you were because you came into my life. So you
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  - Yeah, well, I was, babe.
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  - Yeah, so whether you resisted it or not,
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  you still were present, you were still here,
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  you were still here, you still are here, and so on.
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  So in general, as a generalization,
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  whoever we're speaking to here,
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  whoever's listening to this,
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  if you're not drawn to it,
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  if it doesn't speak to your soul,
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  if there isn't a little chink in the armour
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  for this to get through, for the light to enter,
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  then it's not the right time.
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  Yeah.
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  I think that most people who are listening to this are ready, but are also, you know,
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  maybe, you know, just always looking for the cracks to open up more and more and more.
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  And that's really why we do these podcasts in a sense.
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  the teaching is the thing, but these podcasts are a sort of more informal, in a sense, way
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  of speaking to the nuances of what some of this paradoxical nature of awakening kind
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  of means. So, okay, thank you for all that. Let me just move on to the second question,
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  which in a way you've answered, but we still need to kind of keep talking about it. What
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  What is this meeting reality without an argument?
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  And yes, so I mean, let's leave it there.
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  I'm going to throw that out to you and see what you were at lands.
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  I think the bridge to answering that question or exploring that question is to put it in
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  the context, you know, to bridge it with what we've just been saying, which is that the
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  ripeness for this invitation of freedom, which is what it is, doesn't come the way that we
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  might imagine it, like when I'm ready, when I'm strong enough, when I don't know, I've
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  achieved something in my life and I'm ready to explore this or when I have the luxury
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  of time and space. It doesn't come in that way. It comes usually in a circumstance, a
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  situation in life externally, seemingly something that happens in our lives, that has an impact
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  internally, maybe the loss of something, loss of a relationship or loss of a job or whatever
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  it might be, where we had been invested in that as part of our identity.
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  drawn our sense of self from that relationship, from that job, from that career path, whatever
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  it might be. I mean, that's just what happens in life. And when that gets challenged or
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  rocked or taken away from us, because circumstances have changed, and especially if it's unexpected
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  and happens very suddenly. That's actually the time when this invitation of freedom can
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  really enter, yeah, can really be received even though that's the time where we feel
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  like it's all gone wrong and I'm not ready for this and this has got nothing to do with
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  freedom and so on, it's the opposite. So that relates to the question, what does it mean to
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  meet reality without an argument? Well it's in those times when something suddenly shifts or we lose
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  something, something changes, something we're challenged in some way and then that brings up
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  fear, maybe regret, anger, insecurity, despair, loneliness, whatever it might be that is instigated
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  or catalyzed by that circumstance. That's when we unconsciously resist that feeling, we resist that
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  circumstance we try to either change it or try and control reality, we panic, we
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  endless emotional and mental strategies and also we resist or reject the actual feeling
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  state that's been catalyzed here. Maybe we feel broken in some way, broken open or broken down
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  or whatever it might be. And then we fight against that. Internally, we don't want to feel that,
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  so we may go and distract ourselves by, I don't know, whatever the distraction might be, a social
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  distraction or a recreational distraction or whatever it might be, or finding another relationship
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  immediately and so on and so on, or going shopping, all the distractions that can happen. So,
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  to fill up that whole, that loss, that if you like desolate internal place, a space.
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  So we numb out, we control, we distract, we contract, we become a poor me or a victim of the circumstance.
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  These are all mental and emotional strategies to avoid meeting reality as it is.
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  And that's an argument. We're arguing with reality. And that simply perpetuates the formation of the ego structure, the prison of ego, me, the self, against life, against this circumstance.
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  This circumstance has happened, this challenge has happened, this loss has happened, I don't want it, I don't like it, I don't like how it makes me feel.
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  And so it's a thing out there that I'm going to change or I'm going to run away from or I'm going to try and overpower or I'm, yeah, whatever.
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  Yeah.
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  And so we've we've actually retracted into the prison of self.
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  And whilst this might be band-aid for a short time, it's a not an effective way of dealing with life.
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  But B, that was that that is an opportunity.
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  for the undoing of the self, the undoing of the ego structure, which then allows a whole
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  new dimension of life and life's opportunities and offerings, if you like, to become available
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  to us that are not available when we're meeting it from a contracted limited self.
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  So ending the argument with what is, with reality, is the same as meeting reality from
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  the unknown, is the same as meeting reality from inner silence.
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  Inner silence is empty of the narratives that say this shouldn't be happening, this shouldn't
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  have happened to me.
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  I'm a bad person because it's happened or I'm not good enough or strong enough or lucky
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  enough or whatever it might be or I'm going to be stronger than this and all of that,
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  the narratives that take place, it's silent.
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  But silence doesn't mean passivity because that's the fear.
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  Yeah, from the self's point of view, well, if there's silence within in response to this,
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  That means I'm just going to be passive and that's not the truth of it either.
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  It's out of silence that true intelligent action takes place.
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  Thank you.
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  the, you know, what, what, what, what, what, what I hear, you know, in this beautiful,
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  these beautiful words that you're saying is like the self is in many ways built on that.
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  And we've been working with people recently, I think this has come up, you know, stands
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  on the ground of this shouldn't be happening, this shouldn't have happened, this shouldn't
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  be happening. Yeah. And there's the kind of core of the argument, the resistance that
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  the self stands on. Correct? Yes. And what I'm hearing you saying is there in that very
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  Intimate, potentially intimate moment to not take that for granted because it is happening,
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  because it has happened.
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  And there's the argument to argue with things that have happened or are happening is insane
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  on a certain level, understandable on the level of self.
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  But what are you saying is there's the opportunity?
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  That's right.
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  It is insanity because it is happening, it has happened and you can't, yeah, it's not
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  in your power to change that.
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  And first of all, to accept that it's happening, it doesn't mean you like it.
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  It doesn't mean that you have only positive or comfortable feelings because this is also
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  relating to what is being felt. I mean, I can cite many examples from the end of my
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  PhD journey to the end of a long-term relationship to, I don't know, all sorts of things, the
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  death of my mother or whatever it might be, you too. And none of those were comfortable.
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  I mean, some of them were heartbreaking and desolate internal landscapes were revealed.
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  But there's the invitation, even in that, to not argue with it.
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  Because everything, the darkest arena within, is the invitation to the light.
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  This is the knife edge. This is part of the razor's edge. This, because it may well feel
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  as you just sighted your experiences and I've got my own experiences that it may feel
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  like you're going to die. It may feel that terrifying that the self is going to die.
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  That's always a good reason to hang on even more.
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  that's the beauty itself is going to die.
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  That's right. This is very like Neo in the Matrix. I'm sorry to bring that up again,
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  but it is very like Neo in the Matrix when he's unplugged and he's falling through.
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  Here it is. He is being unplugged. Death is happening on that level. It doesn't mean
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  what it seems to mean. It's like, "So, see what I mean? I'm talking about the three
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  of that actual moment if you like, which is not just one moment, it's over time maybe.
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  But this is the razor's edge that we're talking of.
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  From the point of view of the self, the self is going to die and therefore it clings to
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  everything that is known, it clings to resistance, clings to the argument and clings to the avoidance
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  and so on and so on. But it's not the self as this form that's going to die. I mean, obviously,
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  we are still here. Yeah, the body doesn't die. It needs something more than that to die.
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  Yeah. The body doesn't die. The mind doesn't die, not in the same, not in the way that we think.
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  existence doesn't stop, we still exist. But what dies, and we use that word, but it is a death,
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  but it's an undoing of the self-fabricated ideas of who I am. In other words, who I think I am.
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  These are all mental constructs and emotional constructs,
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  or emotional strategies to uphold those mental constructs.
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  These come undone, and these are like prison bars
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  through which we experience life and have got so used to those prison bars
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  that we can't even see that they're there.
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  But in this death that we're speaking of, in this undoing that we're speaking of,
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  those prison bars come to be seen, if you like, at least experienced energetically,
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  as the prison bars, and it's only in freedom, the freedom of clear seeing, the freedom of pure seeing,
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  the freedom of the whole structure of self, or at least some structure of self,
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  coming undone that we realize that those prison bars were ever there in the first place.
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  That's why you can't really speak to the self.
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  You can only speak of the freedom and say it's okay, it's okay, there is freedom.
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  That's beautiful. I love those that I love the prison bars because the seeing of the prison bars
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  is the glue. That's the glue that holds the whole construct together. The idea, the belief
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  of the prison bars, belief itself is the prison bars. And the glue, as you're saying, starts
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  to kind of come undone. And what was patently obvious is revealed as being patently obvious.
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  So it's not a painful death. It's a beautiful death because at the same time that let's say death
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  takes place if we're using that we're using it symbolically right. There's a rebirth you're
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  reborn into freedom you're reborn into the light of presence the light of true awareness
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  and you realize that you never were that that you thought you were.
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  I was never the victim that I thought I was.
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  I didn't really even know that I was operating as the victim until the prison bars came undone.
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  I mean, there was a kind of sense.
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  I mean, I've done so much psychological work, so I kind of was familiar with my sort of internal
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  constellation if you like. And I always felt powerless, small, and everything that results
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  from that, whether it was in the world or in relationship or having a voice or any of
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  that. So it was always my kind of core story that I wasn't, that I was small. I was, I
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  wasn't, I had no power, I don't mean power on a worldly level, but I didn't have that
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  either. But internally, and this was really being a victim. It was a victim identity.
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  Now I was at the behest, if you like, of life,
• 5:16
  not just of life, of God.
• 5:17
  So then there's the attempt to earn my brownie points
• 5:18
  so that I could be loved by God and by others
• 5:19
  or whatever it might be.
• 5:20
  And so this was just an ongoing situation
• 5:21
  that drove my life, but not knowing anything else.
• 5:22
  but it's only when the prison bars came undone
• 5:23
  or I saw them for the illusion that they were,
• 5:24
  that that whole thing just vanished.
• 5:25
  It just vanished.
• 5:26
  And I experienced life completely differently.
• 5:27
  Completely differently.
• 5:28
  The whole idea of a victim was laughable.
• 5:29
  (laughs)
• 5:30
  Yes, stuff happens in life.
• 5:31
  I'm not denying that stuff happens to us as children
• 5:32
  in aspects of society and so on.
• 5:33
  I'm not talking about it on that level,
• 5:34
  on the materialistic level,
• 5:35
  talking about it internally as an energetic sort of,
• 5:36
  yeah, not that drives many, many people.
• 5:37
  - So the story of your life up until then,
• 5:38
  and I know you had a tumultuous, confusing,
• 5:39
  kind of wounded, weird,
• 5:40
  almost a story of your human life.
• 5:41
  I remember you telling me and it was confounding how kind of weird or quixotic it was.
• 5:42
  And it did play you for a victim.
• 5:43
  It did create a certain victim mentality, emotional stuckness.
• 5:44
  You know, and all of that came undone.
• 5:45
  Correct?
• 5:46
  It all came undone.
• 5:47
  It all came undone.
• 5:48
  That didn't change my personality in the sense of I didn't suddenly become a super confident,
• 5:49
  super powerful person.
• 5:50
  It wasn't on the level of personhood.
• 5:51
  It's like the person vanished in some ways.
• 5:52
  And I just thought...
• 5:53
  And I just thought...
• 5:54
  ...what they...
• 5:55
  ...what they were.
• 5:56
  What?
• 5:57
  What was that?
• 5:58
  What they were...
• 5:59
  But is this what we're talking about?
• 6:00
  what is falling into silent awareness? Well the person is obviously still here
• 6:01
  But the person becomes like a gossamer thin appearance through which life can function.
• 6:02
  experience of this person is very different to how it used to be. And that's not because
• 6:03
  this person has been perfected or manipulated or fixed or it's not on that level. It's become
• 6:04
  irrelevant and yet it still functions.
• 6:05
  Is there a lightness of touch where there used to be a heaviness of identification?
• 6:06
  Yes, there's no identification with the self other than the basic functions.
• 6:07
  Therefore it's experienced as simply a light, permeable, I hesitate to even call it a vehicle,
• 6:08
  a sort of vessel, a portal. The self is experienced as a permeable portal through which consciousness,
• 6:09
  awareness can experience knowing itself and or knowing itself, yes, and the movement of
• 6:10
  life takes place. So before we move on a little bit, I'm going to close up at some point,
• 6:11
  but moving on. How then when the self is held so lightly, but we live in a such a self-defined
• 6:12
  world where the self still is. It's not here you are, as you've said, you know, what happened?
• 6:13
  We got previous to this and for most people, of course, when the insults of life come, when the
• 6:14
  movement of life is always high and low, left and right, Ian and Yang, in the nature of impermanence,
• 6:15
  Well, let's call them just the insults of life. Come. Where do they, you know, how does a motor
• 6:16
  deal with them? Where do they land in you when they're when they're difficult issues?
• 6:17
  Are you talking? I love this word insults. Of course, the self is always insulted by
• 6:18
  I'm talking about anything that disturbs potentially, the self seeks to create passivity, usually,
• 6:19
  for most people, creates safety. So then the tax bill comes, somebody yells at you in the
• 6:20
  thing, somebody steals your car, the hurricane comes, your partner says, you're a whatever,
• 6:21
  not that I do that of course but these are the things that I mean by insults. It's a broad term.
• 6:22
  Well there are small insults and there are larger insults right?
• 6:23
  I'm talking about where do they land in you? Where do they land? Yes.
• 6:24
  And what ripples, how do you deal with the ripples of the phenomenal world as it enters a modemar?
• 6:25
  Well, that's why I differentiate between the small ones and the large ones or the ones that
• 6:26
  are, if you like, momentary passing through and the ones that do have a lasting or have a real
• 6:27
  impact on the movement of one's life and that's actually quite different.
• 6:28
  There's the ones that really have no meaning, you know,
• 6:29
  like somebody honks their car horn when you've obviously not done anything wrong
• 6:30
  or they're in a hurry and they're just being impatient or something like that.
• 6:31
  Or somebody crossing the road or you didn't see that red light and stop fast enough
• 6:32
  and, you know, somebody's very crossed with you.
• 6:33
  I don't know.
• 6:34
  minor irritations of life. You know, all the cashier is grumpy that day or whatever it might be.
• 6:35
  These pass through either as minor irritations or just as ripples on the surface.
• 6:36
  There's no...
• 6:37
  There's no...
• 6:38
  Mostly, I would say, and it's hard to know because it depends what it is and when it's happening.
• 6:39
  But mostly, there's no reaction to that.
• 6:40
  But a ripple might pass through, a ripple of irritation or something.
• 6:41
  Or just an energy.
• 6:42
  Somebody honks their horn and they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
• 6:43
  There's an energy.
• 6:44
  That's okay. That's okay.
• 6:45
  He doesn't have to become a narrative where you end up chasing them down the road
• 6:46
  and saying, "How dare you do that to me."
• 6:47
  You're in America. Don't do that.
• 6:48
  You know, so there's minor irritations that...
• 6:49
  It's the major ones that I'm...
• 6:50
  Have no impact, yes.
• 6:51
  Okay, so the major ones.
• 6:52
  Okay, the tax bill.
• 6:53
  I don't know. You have to move home or the...
• 6:54
  I don't know, some more, you know, a loss of some kind or a shock of some kind.
• 6:55
  Of course, as human beings, which we still are permeable or not, there will be a texture,
• 6:56
  yeah?
• 6:57
  A texture will take place.
• 6:58
  A surprise shock.
• 6:59
  know something, but again it's more of an energetic texture. Yeah? From that place,
• 7:00
  it's not a victim identity doesn't navigate the problem because the victim identity isn't there.
• 7:01
  It's simply an intelligent response to life. Something needs to be dealt with. Something changes.
• 7:02
  maybe it causes discomfort of course, it maybe it causes you know some action needs
• 7:03
  to be taken or no action yeah but but as well as that there's whilst in the
• 7:04
  immediacy of it there may be oh my gosh what is this about what am I going to do
• 7:05
  so we wait we wait there's a pause there's an inner silence and then you do what
• 7:06
  you have to do. But I have to say this, everything that happens, every challenge, every challenge,
• 7:07
  every calamity, every tragedy, every whatever it might be, is always an opportunity for growth
• 7:08
  even though it doesn't seem like it at a time. So there is at the same time as perhaps an
• 7:09
  immediate, oh my gosh, what's this, what's this about? Yeah, it's not very welcome, but
• 7:10
  but let's see what it's about.
• 7:11
  Always, there is the bigger picture
• 7:12
  that's always here or the wider perspective
• 7:13
  that's always here that actually,
• 7:14
  this is for growth.
• 7:15
  Whether it's a financial issue, a relationship issue,
• 7:16
  it's always an invitation for,
• 7:17
  yeah, something is something either needs to be let go of,
• 7:18
  something either is falling away,
• 7:19
  something new is emerging from within this and it's just, yeah. So every circumstance offers that
• 7:20
  opportunity. I'm not sure if war does. Let me say that. War is a tragedy on a level that is,
• 7:21
  I don't know if there's growth through that on a personal level.
• 7:22
  Although, yeah.
• 7:23
  You know, I mean, just getting specific, I want to come back to what you said,
• 7:24
  beginning specific war war you know to this to this heart war is failure war is a complete failure
• 7:25
  yeah I don't I don't you know regardless of the sides and the suffering and the horror and there
• 7:26
  is always horror and there is always suffering but war to me is a failure of humanity and
• 7:27
  and in in that sense it's utterly heart rendering you know that we've had to resort we have to resort
• 7:28
  to and we feel we have to justify and there are, you know, and all that and I don't really
• 7:29
  want to speak any more than that about it but I do see it as failure that's why I'm not sure
• 7:30
  the only way to, you know, yeah. Yeah and may I just say on a personal level, yeah,
• 7:31
  I agree with that 100% but just on a personal level having said that my experience of war as a
• 7:32
  child. Whilst it hasn't maimed me or so that tragedy hasn't happened and then maybe I wouldn't
• 7:33
  be saying this, I don't know. But my experience of war to the extent that it was, which did have an
• 7:34
  impact, we were homeless, we were refugees, we were evacuated.
• 7:35
  They were traumatised.
• 7:36
  I was traumatised. Actually taught me something. It's not at the time, but it taught me that there
• 7:37
  is no... it taught me not to rest on certainty. And that actually was a gift. It was a gift
• 7:38
  that some of the... and maybe this isn't around anymore, but in my childhood it was like things
• 7:39
  where it seemed to be more fixed. If you lived in this country, it was like this. And there
• 7:40
  was no real understanding or opening to the shifting sands that take place in different
• 7:41
  cultures and different nations and so on. And because of the particularly mixed up culture
• 7:42
  that I lived in. I didn't have that. So there were certain social, cultural, ideological
• 7:43
  structures that already had broken open for me. And actually that was a gift.
• 7:44
  Yeah, I hear you. I had that experience, not for myself, I was never in a war,
• 7:45
  but I remember something to do with somebody somewhere in Europe,
• 7:46
  or Yugoslavia, or somewhere, you know, there actually was,
• 7:47
  seemed to be stable. I'm not sure. Please don't quote me. I'm not a historian in that sense.
• 7:48
  You know, but there was a, I witnessed a person saying, if you think this is an eye to English
• 7:49
  people, if you think this is an isolated case and your world is so stable and certain,
• 7:50
  think again, because that's what I thought. And then this happened. There is no such thing as stability
• 7:51
  in that sense. Yeah. And it broke something open for me. And, you know, when the self, when the
• 7:52
  ego self hears that, it tends to go towards fear. Well, if nothing is certain, if this isn't stable,
• 7:53
  if it could happen anywhere, then I need to live in fear all the time. But then that goes to the
• 7:54
  next phase of life which is even though it's unstable, even though it's uncertain. Am I doomed
• 7:55
  to live in fear all the time? Or do I have to go somewhere different within myself, not moving
• 7:56
  around the world, but within myself to live in a state of fearlessness without denying the truth
• 7:57
  of the matter? So I agree with you completely. It takes you on it. It kind of prepares you for a
• 7:58
  a certain kind of living in uncertainty, which is impermanence as well.
• 7:59
  Yes, and the sort of fixation on material accumulation and security and stability whilst
• 8:00
  some of that is necessary part of life, yes, and not to be denied, yeah, or thrown away.
• 8:01
  But the fixation on it without any room for manoeuvre is another prison and that prison
• 8:02
  was not there for me.
• 8:03
  And I see that as a blessing because it's allowed the internal world to be open as well
• 8:04
  and unfixated to the external world and the internal world.
• 8:05
  And that has been something that's informed me in life.
• 8:06
  So I'm just saying that to put it into context that as an individual, each of us, the experiences
• 8:07
  that come to us are, they feed or they nourish or they help us evolve in ways that we can't
• 8:08
  imagine at the time.
• 8:09
  Yes, yes.
• 8:10
  Okay.
• 8:11
  I'm just going to conclude, I think, with going back to what you said about,
• 8:12
  when I asked you about how you meet the insults of life,
• 8:13
  and you talked very well about that,
• 8:14
  and I think the observation that I have about that,
• 8:15
  because I wanted you to speak to your humanity,
• 8:16
  because you're still living a human life,
• 8:17
  even though there's been a profound awakening that you teach, that you share, that you talk
• 8:18
  from, that you talk from that fragrance, still there's a humanity left. And I like to give
• 8:19
  people a window into the fact that there's a humanity still involved and humanity, and
• 8:20
  just not a theoretical philosophical. I'm talking about the day to day how one meets
• 8:21
  the very fabric of life in all of its western ways or eastern ways, it doesn't matter,
• 8:22
  Because still there are things happening.
• 8:23
  And what I hear is that you still experience
• 8:24
  the ripples within depending on the degree of the experience.
• 8:25
  But there's no self that keeps reforming itself around that
• 8:26
  because the victim and the self has come undone.
• 8:27
  Once it's finally come undone, it doesn't come together again.
• 8:28
  That's the point that I'm hearing you speak of.
• 8:29
  So then you're just left with the raw bones
• 8:30
  of how you as this individualization
• 8:31
  meet the experiences of the world in your humanness.
• 8:32
  That's correct. - That's right.
• 8:33
  Beautifully summarized, yes.
• 8:34
  Yes, and what that points to is not
• 8:35
  that there aren't feelings here.
• 8:36
  Of course there are, but even those feelings,
• 8:37
  some irritation may arise or anger,
• 8:38
  if it's appropriate or not appropriate,
• 8:39
  or whatever it will sadness or whatever.
• 8:40
  it arises, but even that's not a problem, it's another ripple.
• 8:41
  So the self doesn't form itself around that.
• 8:42
  That's very strange, isn't it? Because it's almost like, well, you know, you go, well, what's so special about it then?
• 8:43
  Well, what sounds very ordinary to me, and I think the fine line here is that it is actually in many ways,
• 8:44
  certainly what we're speaking of very ordinary, but don't get that mixed up with it not being
• 8:45
  profound. It's profound and natural. Don't believe the word ordinary is profoundly natural.
• 8:46
  It changes your internal environment, which is not something that we can measure or quantify,
• 8:47
  but it changes your frequency field. It changes an internal environment, whether that actually
• 8:48
  has an impact on the cellular, you know, the cells of the body. I think it has. I think
• 8:49
  it, we could, we could go on about that. We're not going to this podcast, but it does change
• 8:50
  your internal environment, your mental environment, your emotional environment, your cellular
• 8:51
  environment, your endocrinological environment. Yeah, every aspect of the human being and
• 8:52
  it's experience, it's all energy. I think it cleans that up in some way so that you,
• 8:53
  and that has a certain impact. One becomes more luminous. That's why people are drawn
• 8:54
  to us. People listen, people are drawn, not because we're particularly clever or powerful
• 8:55
  or any of this. It's the light of being and it draws others or it has a sort of impact
• 8:56
  on your environment. You can't fabricate that.
• 8:57
  I think that is a harmonic that's a kind of harmonic that goes into the cells, like you
• 8:58
  say, into the cells, into the body, into the whole of the immune system. It harmonises
• 8:59
  something from the root to the crown and above. And I think that's what we, what you just spoke
• 9:00
  of, yeah? That's why we go full circle to the very beginning of this podcast. The words are not
• 9:01
  what matters. They're pointers. And what really matters and what really, yeah, is happening through
• 9:02
  those words is this frequency, this luminosity of being is imbuing those words or the space
• 9:03
  between the words. That's why those that get a sense of that without knowing will be drawn
• 9:04
  to it and those that are not, that are, you know, is only from the mind and it's logical
• 9:05
  or rationally doesn't make sense. They won't and it doesn't matter. That's just the way
• 9:06
  it is. What else to do here? It can't be helped.
• 9:07
  Okay, I think we're, I think there are a million questions that could be opened up,
• 9:08
  but we're not going to open them up at this moment.
• 9:09
  I think we're going to leave it there.
• 9:10
  I think we're completing this particular conversation, Amoda.
• 9:11
  I think that was a beautiful conversation.
• 9:12
  Okay.
• 9:13
  Just fine.
• 9:14
  Okay.
• 9:15
  Friends, it's a willingness to meet reality without an argument, without resistance, without
• 9:16
  grasping for certainty.
• 9:17
  It's the willingness to fall moment to moment into silent awareness.
• 9:18
  Beautiful words.
• 9:19
  Okay, thank you very much.
• 9:20
  I really enjoyed that conversation.
• 9:21
  I have a few people, whoever's listening, it touches your heart somewhere.
• 9:22
  ignites a greater willingness to get closer to the flame. And we'll see you
• 9:23
  again soon, Amoda. Thank you so much for your wisdom. Many blessings to you. Namaste
• 9:24
  to everyone. We'll see you soon. Namaste.
• 9:25
  Thanks for watching!