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Episode 73: Awakening Is Beyond Experience | What Cannot Be Lost · Conversations with Amoda Maa - Exploring Awareness Through Dialogue and Living Inquiry

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  You are listening to the Amoda Maa podcast.
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  In this series, Amoda explores her essential teaching through conversation and excerpts
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  from interviews and events.
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  Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy.
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  - Greetings everyone and welcome back
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  to another podcast with the Amoda Maa
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  as part of our conversations with Amoda Maa series.
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  Delighted to be back speaking again with Amoda
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  and this week we're going to explore an article
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  that a Moda wrote back in May called Awakening
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  is not an experience.
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  So I'm gonna invite them over to read the article
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  and then we're gonna use it as the basis
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  for a deeper exploration therein.
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  So welcome, Amoda.
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  - Oh, Kavi.
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  - Over to you.
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  Let's jump straight into this and start the exploration.
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  So.
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  - Okay.
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  So the article is titled, "Awakening is not an experience."
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  There is a quiet but persistent assumption
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  on the spiritual path that awakening will arrive
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  as a particular kind of experience.
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  It is imagined as something clear, perhaps even extraordinary,
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  an unmistakable shift into peace or bliss.
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  or a sense of unity with all things.
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  And so much of the search becomes oriented toward the anticipation of such an event.
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  Yet this assumption, though rarely questioned, is where much of the confusion begins.
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  All experience by its very nature is transient.
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  arises, it takes shape for a time, and it passes. This is true of the most ordinary sensations,
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  and it is equally true of the most profound and expansive states. No matter how beautiful
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  or meaningful an experience may be, it does not remain. It cannot be held. It does not
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  define what you are. If awakening were an experience, it too would be subject to the
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  same movement. It would come and go. It would begin and end. And what begins and ends cannot
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  be the ground of being. It cannot be what you essentially are.
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  So there is an invitation here to look in a different direction, not toward what is appearing,
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  and not toward what might appear in the future, but toward that which is aware of all appearances.
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  What is it that knows experience?
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  There is something present that does not come and go with the changing flow of thoughts,
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  sensations and perceptions. It is here before an experience arises. It is present as the
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  experience unfolds and it remains when the experience fades. It does not become more present
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  in moments of clarity nor less present in moments of confusion. It does not depend on
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  what is happening. This is not an experience in itself. It is that within which all experience
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  takes place. And yet the habit of seeking persists. The mind continues to look for something
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  it can recognise, something it can claim as a result, something that confirms that this
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  This is it. In doing so, it subtly reinforces the sense of a separate self, the one who
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  is seeking, the one who is waiting, the one who hopes to arrive at some final point of
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  resolution. This movement is very natural, it is deeply conditioned, but it is also
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  what keeps the simplicity of what is here from being clearly seen.
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  For what is being sought is not hidden, it is not distant, it is not something that needs
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  to be created or attained, it is already present, quietly and effortlessly as the very condition
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  for any experience to be known at all.
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  Then is not a movement toward a new experience. It is not a peak, not a state, not a refinement
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  of perception or an expansion of energy. It is the simple direct recognition of what
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  has always been here, overlooked because attention has been drawn to what appears rather than
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  to that which knows the appearing. This recognition is often far more ordinary than expected.
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  It may not carry any particular sense of significance. There may be no dramatic shift,
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  no sense of attainment. And yet in this ordinariness there is a profound clarity. There is just
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  this, this aware presence, already here, already whole, already complete in itself.
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  It does not need to be maintained.
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  It does not need to be returned to.
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  It is not something that can be lost because it is not something that comes and goes.
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  It is what you are.
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  Okay, beautiful.
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  Thank you.
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  I have some questions that we could use to explore this a little bit more. Let me ask
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  first of all, why do so many people assume awakening will be a particular kind of experience?
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  Because that assumption is of the mind and the one who is asking the question or making
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  the assumption, having the expectation is coming from, sorry, the one who is having that question
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  assumption is the separate self, is the sense of being a separate self and the separate
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  self when it looks through that veil, through that lens rather, will look for an object.
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  An experience is an object in the sense that I am having an experience, something that
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  I can identify that has a beginning and an ending that has some kind of boundary around
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  it, something that I can name or label.
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  And in that sense, it is an object that is the subject, the separate self, or the me
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  self, and then the object, which is the experience of awakening.
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  So from that perspective, it cannot see from outside of that lens.
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  though sort of at least in theory it could kind of believe that to be true and then explore
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  for itself. What I'm saying is there's a valid reason to accept what you're saying is that there
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  there is something, something that sees all the coming and going.
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  This is what you're saying, really.
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  And yet people seem to still even knowing that,
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  which many people have been on many, many, you know, retreats or experiences.
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  So I've had this information, if we want to, we've got to tell them.
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  and yet still there's the habit of seeking or imagining a particular experience.
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  Or it's just a certain way.
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  Well, indeed, because it's still the same seeker that is asking that is seeking that one can understand,
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  theoretically that which I'm pointing to, which does not come and go, but as long as the
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  central structure is the me self, the separate self, the one that hasn't awakened, it's always
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  going to expect some kind of experience. It can't help itself.
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  It can't help. It's like a pathology. I just remember, and I don't have this specific
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  details, but I remember reading something about Nizogadatta. Nizogadatta went to see
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  Ramana. The only time I think he met Ramana, and Ramana says, I think it was Ramana, not
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  Papaji, I think it was Ramana, said something to the effect, and I'm really not saying it at all,
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  that there is no you, or there is only this kind of empty, but you are that pretty much.
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  And Nisargadatta believed him, he believed him, and so he went home, and that experience unfolded
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  within him, not as some shock. I don't think he was looking for anything particularly.
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  And so that was just an interesting, we're so much seeking proof and that proof is an elusive
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  proof because we expect it with this great imagination to look like this, this, this, and this.
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  Well, we don't even know what it's going to look like, but we know it's not this kind of thing.
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  Well, yeah, it's also that there are so many descriptions of what awakening is
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  that pass down through the ages,
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  whether it's from a certain tradition or certain individuals or even contemporary
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  Awakenings and so everything is coloured by that.
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  So let's go into this a little bit more. What is the fundamental difference then between an experience
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  and awakening itself?
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  An experience is based in time.
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  So it begins at a certain time
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  and it ends at a certain time.
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  So it's time bound or time limited.
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  It's an experience, it comes and it goes, it appears.
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  It could be an experience that we may equate in ourselves with awakening.
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  It may be an experience that brings about whilst it's being experienced a shift.
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  could be a shift in perception or a shift in of a feeling nature or a shift of an energetic
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  nature, but it's still time bound and it's still an experience and the self will say,
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  I've had an experience, an experience of awakening or an experience of peace, an experience of
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  even no self, but as long as it remains an experience that we can, if you like, report
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  on to ourselves or to anyone else.
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  It's still an experience.
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  And through awakening or liberation is not, it may include an experience, but is not fundamentally
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  an experience.
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  It is not something that comes and goes.
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  It is not a high or state of bliss.
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  may include that, but what remains when that experience passes is a more important question
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  or observation.
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  Is there any, I mean, we've worked with a lot of people and a lot of people have experiences
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  And sometimes it seems to me that the experience, and particularly the most kind of grand experience,
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  can actually become a great impediment on the path.
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  So what I'm going to ask is, is there any value in experiences?
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  and in what way can they be valuable and not just create this momentum of searching for the
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  experience. There must be a value, there's a value in everything, all human experience has value.
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  All experiences are valuable in the sense of openings. If there's an opening, a shift
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  where there's been an identification with a narrative or the story of me or contraction.
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  And then there can be an opening, whether that opening is through the mind or through the heart
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  or even through the body or all of it. Of course, that's valuable because that gives a glimpse,
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  a new view, a new opening, it could be a relaxation of the of the tight, not of self,
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  in a circumstance, in a situation, in a retreat, in meditation, wherever, or an experience of
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  deep stillness. Of course, all these experiences, realizations, recognitions, glimpses are absolutely
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  valuable. It's like the door opens whereas it had been previously closed, let's say.
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  But the true invitation is not to stop there looking through the door that's opened. But to
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  realise what is here when the door is open and when the door is closed.
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  And so let's just continue with the analogy of the door, because to a certain extent there's a
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  feeling, let's say the experience comes is very powerful or opening, and then there's a sense
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  that the door closes again. And so then that's the point, that's the juxtaposition, that's the
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  point at which the separate self or the seeker wants so badly to open the door again. Now,
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  where, where, what do we do? What is that? That's a really good question because what
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  do you do about that? When the sense of something's happened, door opens, something changes,
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  closes, what am I supposed to do now? Accept, accept, accept with gratitude all that appears,
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  not claiming it for the self, not claiming a peak experience, not claiming a state of
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  bliss, not claiming even a mystical or visionary or sense of unity, not claiming anything.
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  If we allow all experiences and simply be open and be grateful for all experiences and
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  claim nothing, then it will come and it will go, but it will have opened the door somewhere.
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  So that eventually that which is beyond experience, the openness that is beyond experience will
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  start to reveal itself more and more.
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  So there's great value in the experience, but not in the experience.
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  In effect, the experience is just part of a show, but actually to be vigilant after the
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  so-called experience and to pay attention then to what is still here when the experience
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  came arose and left.
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  Yes, it's a deeper inquiry.
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  That's what I'm getting to. It's not just like acceptance, whatever that might mean,
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  but it's actually to go into a deeper inquiry to see the movement of the experience. Is that
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  right?
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  Yes. I mean, there's no formula. We mustn't apply too much effort to seeking for this
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  seemingly out of reach or elusive state or not state.
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  How should I put it?
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  The self likes to claim all experiences.
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  So it has an experience of an expansion or even a mystical state or some kind of transcendent
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  state or a huge energy experience, a shift. And it just loves to claim it. Wow, I had
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  this experience. It must mean something. What I say when I meant by acceptance is a kind
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  of humility, a kind of just this. Here it is. And yes, it may reveal something, it may
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  reveal something, the limited myopic view of ego self had not, you know, been able to see,
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  was locked in its own little prison. So it may give us an expanded view, it may give us a sense
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  of that which is beyond the me identity. Wow, great, be grateful. But don't claim it as wow,
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  now I've arrived somewhere and that's what I mean. Just allow it and in allowing it, it'll fade away
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  and
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  maybe there'll be another experience, maybe there'll be another opening, maybe there'll be
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  many openings as the various contractions of the self loosen up. And yes, what is there
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  can be a gentle inquiry into what is it that remains when all experiences come and go?
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  But we don't go looking for that. We start to see it more and more as all experiences come and go.
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  Really, that's not a not to do with defining or even looking at the experiences. It's
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  a deeper question that you're pointing to, which is about to examine or explore or investigate
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  who the 'me' is what the 'me' self is comprised of or composed of or what it's built on,
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  because, like you say, the 'me' self, the ego self will claim everything as its own.
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  Yes, I don't think we have to examine that particularly, we just have to be.
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  Is there any examination of anything at all?
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  Of course, we can turn attention, which I think is what you're asking,
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  we can turn attention to that which makes the knowing of experience possible.
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  We can turn attention to that. What is it that knows the experience?
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  What is it that makes experience possible?
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  Say that again. What is it that knows experience?
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  That is aware of experience. What is it that can even say
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  This is an experience of bliss.
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  What is it that can make that experience of bliss
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  or whatever it is known, actually perceived,
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  known, experienced?
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  So it's a pointer back to awareness,
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  pointer back to our fundamental nature.
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  Okay.
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  Yes, I think that's what I was hearing in what we were talking about.
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  Okay, so let's shift a little bit from the searching for the high or for the experience
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  to something more about the abiding awakening and to speak a little bit to how it might be,
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  or is very different from the way imagination presents it. Can it be ordinary?
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  Is there an ordinaryness? Is there a simplicity? Is there all of, you know,
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  Let's just go into that a little bit.
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  It's simple
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  in the sense that it's not a fireworks display.
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  I don't know, there's a strong idea in certain spiritual circles that it is a fireworks display,
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  that enlightenment or awakening is this sort of supernova explosion and that anything less than
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  that is not the full blown realisation. That is partly a myth and partly because with
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  the falling away of the self-construct
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  and the overlooking of what is actually here always
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  as the ground of awareness
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  can come energy experiences
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  as the contractions of the self come undone.
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  But it's easy to equate that with awakening.
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  It's not.
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  It's a byproduct.
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  And essentially, awakening itself is a simple falling away of the veiling of the self, the
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  imaginary me construct.
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  And if you like another way of saying it, it's a, it's a, where awareness had got lost
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  in the content of its experience, whether it's the object of experience, the object of what
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  I'm perceiving or the object of me.
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  then it stops being enmeshed in the content of experience, it's as if awareness comes
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  to rest in itself as itself. And that in itself doesn't include fireworks. That is a very
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  simple revelation of open awareness as the fundamental or the foundation, the ground
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  of everything which ends the separate self. And in that sense, it's ordinary, but it's
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  also kind of extraordinary in the sense that it's been overlooked. It's the overlooking
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  that's quite extraordinary, that we've missed it all the time looking somewhere else, either
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  looking in the world of form or in the world of experiences, all of it being formed because
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  they're all appearances.
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  So in itself, awakening is in some ways quiet.
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  It's a quiet falling away.
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  And of course it's very different for each individual.
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  Some individuals can have a very unexpected
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  falling away of the self.
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  And that can come with a lot of energy experience of some kind.
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  And for others, for whatever reason, it could be just karmic or some kind of
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  ripeness on the path, or for those who perhaps have done a lot of what I would
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  cool clearing of the vessel. The final dropping away of the self-construct is actually, it's
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  just like taking another layer of clothing off without any big drama. And yet what remains
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  is both profoundly ordinary but also a complete transformation because we're no longer seeing
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  through the boundary, separate self. So the whole veil of separation comes undone. Now
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  that can be a unity experience when energetically recognises or feels or experiences, the unity
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  of being, the unity of all things that appear within being. But even the sense of unity
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  doesn't remain as a profound visceral sense. Even that becomes very quiet. I'm trying
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  describe this mostly from my own experience. No, I'm enjoying the sort of living exploration.
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  I think this is what is actually valuable because it's elusive. By its very nature,
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  it is elusive. But I think that there's a fragrance or a texture or certain movements
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  that come through what you're saying. So this is very beautiful. So this is you speaking
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  from direct experience, from your experience. In the sense, did you, when you say clearing
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  the vessel, there's no prerequisite. One has to do this and then this happens. This
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  is just the way that the river and the ocean flowed for you. Is that right?
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  Yes, I don't think there is any prerequisite. One could clear the vessel through whatever
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  techniques, whether it's bodywork, emotional work, and this, that, and the other forever.
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  And still there's no true, you know, in a transformation.
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  There may be some changes in the personhood.
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  But as long as we're attached to the personhood or identified with the personhood, then that
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  can be, you know, like scratching an itch forever.
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  I think there is no prerequisite.
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  I think it's each individual's unique karmic path that leads them to a certain ripeness.
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  For me, that was the ripeness, but then I wasn't seeking awakening.
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  I was just clearing my vessel.
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  And then awakening happened because there was a ripeness.
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  Yeah, there was a lot of karma that had been undone and something fell away.
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  So yes, I speak from direct experience and sometimes I'm sort of met with, well, that's
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  just your experience and it's different.
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  Yes, it is.
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  The individual details, the minutiae of how it happens, when it happens, if you like,
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  whether it's gradual or sudden or both or gentle or more vigorous is of course ultimately
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  dependent if you like on the or aligned, you know, mirrored by the individual and its own
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  energetic makeup and karma and imprint and life story and journey and so on.
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  Yes, but beyond all that and beyond my particular journey, one of the profound revelations or
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  clear revelations of awakening is seeing into the nature of awakening itself, which
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  is universal. And the nature of awakening is that it is not a big bang. It is not a super elevated
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  state. It is a falling away. And it's in some ways quiet because the self doesn't claim it.
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  It's the end of claiming anything. Because it's no longer identified with experience.
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  And that is a universal timeless truth, if you like.
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  So one can see into where the self gets way-laid or attached to the picture of awakening,
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  according to whatever it's imagined or read or understood or
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  Can I go back to one thing that you said which I felt was almost fundamental and has been
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  said in a number of different ways by a myriad number of teachers that seems to be important
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  in this and that is attachment to the personhood. That, when you said that, attachment to the
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  personhood fundamentally changes at a certain point on either the gradual path or the sudden
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  path or the flash, the brilliant expanded thing. So there's a similarity in the experience,
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  the one who has an experience of awakening because you can suddenly become very unattached
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  to the personhood. And then as you've said before, that the person who then starts to
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  claim that as their own. And then the abiding that you're talking about, awakening the,
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  maybe the more simple, the more ordinary is not a good word, but it kind of is, is that
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  the attachment to the personhood ends, comes to an end, comes to a final end.
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  And that sounds dramatic and I would listening to you and knowing what we're doing here,
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  I would suggest that that's not as dramatic. It's profound, but it's not dramatic.
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  Yes, I think that's what I was trying to say. It's profound, but it's not dramatic. That's why it's like,
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  in awakening, it's like, well, how could I have not, how can this have been overlooked?
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  That which falls away is actually seen to be a fabrication of the one that's fallen away.
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  There isn't a one that's fallen away.
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  That's what I mean, "pionery" or "simple."
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  There isn't anyone who's fallen away on this side of the fence prior to awakening.
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  Let's call it that.
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  It seems that the undoing of the self or the falling away of the self is actually going
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  to be some dramatic either terrifying or hugely blissful or whatever it is or both event because
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  all we know on that side of the fence is the imaginary self. The whole construct of me and my life
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  is seen through that lens. But in awakening, the lens is seen to be fabricated. Therefore,
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  there's nothing lost, there's nothing undone. There's nothing undone. Even when we say
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  that it's a kind of death of the self, there's nothing that dies. This is all language that
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  we use to describe something either when we're on this side or when we're close to sort of
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  assist in bringing people through, if you like. Again, that's not quite accurate, but
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  sort of pointing the way. But the ordinaryness is that
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  nothing has been lost, nothing has been undone. And yet, and yet, the whole
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  operating system that used to be in place is no longer there. And so what is it? Then it becomes
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  natural and we're not identified with the personhood and its problems and this and that and fixing
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  the self and how am I going to get awakened and I'm not good enough and I'm not what all that comes
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  undone. But all that was part of the dream of the self. So therein lies the liberation.
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  But it's not. But what I hear you saying is that that is not then replaced with,
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  and guess what? I've awakened kind of, and it's not replaced with anything.
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  No, well, it can be if there's a vestige of self that still remains, that wants to claim it,
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  and that's quite easy and... But in true liberation, when it goes all the way for whatever reason,
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  or because we have the capacity to not follow that movement, which may still be a trace of that
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  tendency, because tendencies of the habitual movements of self still may continue, but
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  for it to be, if you like, all the way, and not part, you know, it's not a part awakening,
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  then there is no self to claim it.
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  Therefore it is just what it is.
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  And one lives as that without claiming it.
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  I mean, yes, one can speak from it.
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  If that's what life moves in that way for you, for you.
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  But it's not a claiming.
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  I've awakened, I've, you know, the claiming of it creates another platform for the self
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  to sit on another identity.
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  And then it can be that state can be rocked, yeah, something comes along and rocks it in
• 5:29
  in some way, life comes along and challenges it in some way. But this that is truly realized
• 5:30
  can't be challenged by anything. It can't, it can't, it is, it's open awareness. It's
• 5:31
  awareness itself therefore nothing. Yeah. Given the very sneaky nature of ego and the
• 5:32
  ego self. This is a ridiculous question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you have to
• 5:33
  remain vigilant that the sneaky ego isn't kind of creeping up around the corner, claiming
• 5:34
  your awakening for you? Do you? You saw what I'm saying? Is it done in that sense? I know
• 5:35
  you still have experience, I don't mean awakening experience, I mean you're involved in life,
• 5:36
  we're doing a lot of things here. So life's movements happen all the time, some of them
• 5:37
  good, some of them bad, some of them difficult, some of them turbulent, blah, blah, blah,
• 5:38
  but also, you know, you're a teacher. So does, do you have to remain vigilant about the sneaky monkey?
• 5:39
  ego. That's an interesting question in the sense that there is no sneaky monkey ego.
• 5:40
  The ego has evaporated in the ego itself, which doesn't exist, has been seen to not exist.
• 5:41
  The ego is just an activity, a movement of claiming, taking ownership of experience,
• 5:42
  with experience, moving towards and away from experience.
• 5:43
  That whole movement has come undone.
• 5:44
  Yes, of course there's experience because it's life.
• 5:45
  So everything is experienced. Pain, pleasure, tiredness,
• 5:46
  upbeatness, busyness.
• 5:47
  Everything is experienced.
• 5:48
  Every possible permutation of the human experience is experienced,
• 5:49
  it's not identified with experience. That's all it doesn't derive its identity from experience.
• 5:50
  There's no resistance to experience. So there is no sneaky anything because there isn't anything.
• 5:51
  There isn't a thing and there is no claiming of it. There is no identifying it. What
• 5:52
  identifying with it, rather, what gets perceived as the role of a spiritual teacher is simply
• 5:53
  the shape and form of expression through which life moves.
• 5:54
  It just moves in that way.
• 5:55
  And because that movement is in the world of form, sound, language, activity of some
• 5:56
  kind, inevitably it has to be, then it appears as a spiritual teacher.
• 5:57
  For somebody else it will appear as poet, somebody else it will appear as artist.
• 5:58
  somebody else, it appears something else, doesn't matter what it appears as, what matters
• 5:59
  is that there's no deriving one's sense of self from that. Even that, the role as it
• 6:00
  manifests that takes place is another appearance. So there's a kind of lightness. It's not a
• 6:01
  persona. I hope I'm describing it. It's quite difficult to describe these nuances in great
• 6:02
  accuracy. One has to be in the role that you've taken and the job that you've got.
• 6:03
  able to explore the nuances without any, any definiteness,
• 6:04
  being about my rather like that aspect of the conversation that the, for instance,
• 6:05
  the sneaky ego monkey that didn't exist evaporated and it wasn't real anyway.
• 6:06
  So get your head around that everybody. If you, you know, there's such a kind of truth in that,
• 6:07
  I think. Can I just go on? No, please go ahead.
• 6:08
  Well, I was actually going to, because presumably you're a teacher, a spiritual teacher.
• 6:09
  present because you've just you want you're called to in some way share the good news or point
• 6:10
  to the way out of suffering in what we talked about a month ago. I just want to this is not a
• 6:11
  a big conversation, but I just want to see because you see the trouble is that this whole
• 6:12
  conversation for the last 45 minutes has been about the misunderstanding of the personhood
• 6:13
  and the limitation of language and the problem that you have, which is a problem that teachers
• 6:14
  have in a way, except the ones who root themselves in silence, have in conveying something that
• 6:15
  It is unconviable to the personal self.
• 6:16
  So you're sort of frustrating sort of role.
• 6:17
  There's not much glory in it in many ways.
• 6:18
  And you get misunderstanding thrown at you.
• 6:19
  Why do you do it?
• 6:20
  Why do I do it? Because I'm not doing it. Because there's nobody here doing it. I know
• 6:21
  that sounds ridiculous. Never heard the classic non-druable state.
• 6:22
  Unfortunately or fortunately it's true. Nobody decided to do this.
• 6:23
  So it wasn't an action in that sense.
• 6:24
  It's not in that sense that the experience is that life moved within this vehicle, not
• 6:25
  towards an end plan, but moment to moment in each circumstance, in each step, in each
• 6:26
  step of life, it moved in this direction and keeps on moving in this direction.
• 6:27
  My true, my honest sense is that I am, it hasn't been a choice.
• 6:28
  It's being done through me.
• 6:29
  It's a sort of inevitability of life's movement through this vehicle.
• 6:30
  If I had planned it and thought about all the pros and cons, I probably wouldn't have
• 6:31
  done it. I refer back to my previous which because it's not here anymore but my previous
• 6:32
  very strong, maybe it's an identity but inclination I should say to be an introvert and to hide
• 6:33
  away from the world, certainly not speak in public or relate to other people and write
• 6:34
  that I would do, I would write. So if there was a conscious choice, I would be a writer, but a
• 6:35
  writer doesn't get seen. Not in the same way. But this is not what life has wanted. Yes, I write
• 6:36
  now that, but that's part of this movement. Life has brought me to this place, which has a certain
• 6:37
  public visibility and certainly a relational visibility with individuals on the path with
• 6:38
  all its ups and downs. That is not up to me, that's what's happening. Of course, the person
• 6:39
  who this vehicle gives itself to that completely willingly, there's no resistance and there's
• 6:40
  joy. So that's the only way I can describe that. The only other thing I can say as an individual,
• 6:41
  there's only one thing I have ever, ever, ever been interested in, even when I thought I was a
• 6:42
  writer, and that's consciousness. I have never been interested in anything else. So
• 6:43
  even my attempts at psychology or mind, body, harmony are all really an inclination towards
• 6:44
  the nature of consciousness and the nature of suffering. They go together because suffering
• 6:45
  is the mechanism that prevents us from realizing our ultimate nature as consciousness, as awareness,
• 6:46
  as being. So that's always been my interest. So of course it's going to come through like
• 6:47
  this. I'm not going to be doing something else. It's not going to be channeled into creating
• 6:48
  a painting. That's not what I've, or interior design. That's not, you know, or I don't know
• 6:49
  something else, cookery. That's not what I've been doing.
• 6:50
  All of those things are actually very good at. Actually, I do like those things too.
• 6:51
  I just said the three things that you're good at.
• 6:52
  Well, that's what I could think, obviously. But I don't like them. I do like them as a personal
• 6:53
  pastime. Yeah, as a personal human pastime, but not as the life, the life, the true life.
• 6:54
  Yes. When you say, just, I want to keep going just a little bit with those two things.
• 6:55
  One, the futility of being a spiritual teacher is only offset sometimes with those moments when
• 6:56
  you reach across the vast universe and somebody's eyes light up with recognition.
• 6:57
  I think there's such a beauty in that and I think that you and I have seen that,
• 6:58
  that there's something very beautiful that happens then that transcends
• 6:59
  for a moment, the human condition, and that brings us into something deeper.
• 7:00
  Absolutely. Yes, I mean, the other side of it is absolutely, there is such a joy.
• 7:01
  You see, let me just go back. I remember very clearly after awakening as it sort of
• 7:02
  became the lived life, yeah, that you know, certain insights would come just by themselves
• 7:03
  kind of universal insights. And one of them was very clearly and viscerally that
• 7:04
  awareness awakening as awareness coming to rest in itself had a spark or fragrance of joy in it.
• 7:05
  And it wasn't the joy of the self, it was joy as its own nature. And in that, it's like its own
• 7:06
  recognition almost, well seeming recognition in that as the illusion of the self came undone.
• 7:07
  That joy, that moment, yes, it was very subtle but recognisable, there was a very strong realisation
• 7:08
  that all it wants to do is meet that in others. And there was no other purpose to life. Now,
• 7:09
  I didn't say, well, okay, now I'm going to be a spiritual teacher. It didn't know what to do with
• 7:10
  that. But it really was realized that it was this realization that that which is awake,
• 7:11
  that which is already awake, not the personhood, but that which is fundamentally awake,
• 7:12
  aware presence. It wants to, and it sounds like it's been given an identity in a personhood,
• 7:13
  but there's no other way to describe it. It wants to meet that awake, aware presence in another form.
• 7:14
  Its sole purpose is that recognition, and that's the only way it can be recognized
• 7:15
  in more and more forms. And that's the awakening of form or the recognition of that which is awake
• 7:16
  within form. And it's that. And in that, which now is what we call the spiritual teaching and the
• 7:17
  work that we do, that is the only purpose for being alive now. That's the only purpose of this life.
• 7:18
  And so, of course, there's a kind of joy, but it's not the joy of the self that says,
• 7:19
  "Look, what I'm doing, it's really special or anything like that."
• 7:20
  It can't help itself.
• 7:21
  That's what I'm saying.
• 7:22
  It's like, "I'm not in charge anymore."
• 7:23
  It can't help itself.
• 7:24
  I agree.
• 7:25
  Well, beautifully through it.
• 7:26
  I find that, I mean, I talk about that in terms of the divine intelligence that is a
• 7:27
  awakeness that it's prime directive. The prime directive is to look across the whole idea
• 7:28
  or the whole fundamental belief system of separation and to see itself, to see itself,
• 7:29
  just for a moment. And that flash of eyes where form dissolves, it can be really small,
• 7:30
  it's like when form dissolves and we're just left, we're not even there. There's just the prime
• 7:31
  directive of love. It's love to me. Yes, when the veil of separation falls and that is recognized,
• 7:32
  in the interaction in that moment with another, it's love recognizing itself, or rather, it's a
• 7:33
  awake presence, recognizing itself. But the result, if you like, is the release of the fragrance of
• 7:34
  love. It's not love of subject and object. It's just love. And so that's all that's happening,
• 7:35
  is that the frequency or the fragrance of love is what the whole purpose of this is, but it's not a
• 7:36
  plan or agenda by the self?
• 7:37
  Yeah. No, I know. Yeah. I mean, that's the most miraculous thing to have come out of
• 7:38
  my crazy old life, we're filled with lots of trouble and lots of, you know, suffering in my
• 7:39
  own way and trouble and striving and lostness and everything is the miracle of this simplicity of
• 7:40
  of what we just spoke to that makes all of it beautiful.
• 7:41
  It makes everything that I went through and everything that I do go through.
• 7:42
  And all of this experience and all of its impermanence and suffering and trouble and
• 7:43
  joy and love and sorrow makes it all worthwhile because the prime directive is that love kind
• 7:44
  of knits itself.
• 7:45
  It's a strangest thing.
• 7:46
  What the...
• 7:47
  What is that?
• 7:48
  know and I think that that makes it, that makes it beautiful, that makes it great. Absolutely.
• 7:49
  And yeah, of course, and we talk about it here and there when we speak about how,
• 7:50
  you know, for instance, being at retreat with others, it's this, it's this that makes it worthwhile,
• 7:51
  it's this fragrance of love that arises in the field that makes it worthwhile.
• 7:52
  And I think also just, you know, I mean, this isn't about you and me, but I also think,
• 7:53
  and I do feel very strongly that that's the reason that you and I collided back into each other
• 7:54
  in this life, in this incarnation to amplify that in many ways.
• 7:55
  It seems to be, yeah, again, the only purpose. Everything else is a little side dish.
• 7:56
  Side dish. And that's it. And so we spoke about the illusion of awakening or the grasping onto
• 7:57
  to the experiences.
• 7:58
  And then we proceeded to unpack what awakening is
• 7:59
  with all of its nuances and its inability to describe it.
• 8:00
  And then we went into the deeper nuances
• 8:01
  of your own way of speaking about your experience.
• 8:02
  And then we ended up at the fragrance of love
• 8:03
  as it reveals itself from the garden.
• 8:04
  I really appreciate that.
• 8:05
  I think this is a beautiful conversation.
• 8:06
  So I think can we leave it there and it's unfinished.
• 8:07
  - Yeah, speaking the attempt to speak the unspeakable.
• 8:08
  - It's always a good game.
• 8:09
  All right, Amoda, thank you so much for your grace
• 8:10
  and presence and the article.
• 8:11
  And thank you everybody for listening.
• 8:12
  Again, you can obviously find a motor and motor's writing on her substack page at a
• 8:13
  motor mile.
• 8:14
  Just search for a Amoda Maa and you'll find it there.
• 8:15
  Otherwise, please subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube or whether you're listening
• 8:16
  and share it far and wide if it moves you.
• 8:17
  We will see you again on Conversations with the Amoda Maa and take care.
• 8:18
  Namaste.
• 8:19
  Namaste.
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