The joy of wanting nothing!

Day 5 & 6

On Retreat with Andrew Cohen

Andrew tells us how he has found himself spontaneously changing the day to day plans for the retreat and trusting his gut as to what is the most authentic way to structure the time, rather than rigidly adhering to a pre arranged plan. It certainly feels right to me and although not what I had imagined a retreat on Enlightened Communication would look like, I feel that we are actually learning a lot about this very subject from new angles. Being an evolutionary approach, after all, you would expect it to be constantly evolving!

For the last two days Andrew has been having us go deep into the ground of being. We've been contemplating the value sphere of the ego, especially the collective aspect, and now we're switching to the ground of being, which is the next of the 3 dimensions of the self that I wrote about earlier.

 It's an exploration of what it means to go to zero, since this is the foundation and part of the Enlightenment dimension ( i.e. the liberating non relative dimension) of these teachings. The ground of being is that deepest part of our self that is already inherently free and has absolutely no relationship at all with the world and has never entered into the stream of time. It's what traditional Enlightenment is all about and this dimension is absolutely foundational in Evolutionary Enlightenment as well.

 The nature of the subject is making me want to just abide in Being rather than blog about it, but, here goes... I'll attempt to keep writing.

In spite of the inward nature of the subject, we still have discussion groups and start with the subject of: "The joy of having nothing, knowing nothing and being nobody"

This first group didn't really hit the mark and go deep enough, so Andrew has us meet more to go further still.

It's all too easy to take a habitual approach to this subject, which can be seen as the domain of meditation i.e. you meditate and have an experience and then come out and return to ‘normal'. But here we're approaching the ground of being from within its own value sphere, and from here, it's a radically different view and a vital perspective to have.

So what we're doing is looking at ‘not wanting' from that part of oneself that wants nothing.

          The later discussions are extraordinary, starting with Andrew's guidance to dare to seriously consider wanting nothing and having nothing for real. E.g.

What about ending wanting now?! What about the end of desire, now, this evening?! Dissolution!

Even just to contemplate this seriously, put us instantly in touch with that part of ourselves whose nature is free of wanting. Suddenly there is a rising tide of ecstatic freedom sweeping through the room, and people express their sense of liberated abandon. We recognise that this has always been our deepest home and our deepest self nature, already full and desireless. There's a magnetic pull into infinite being and depth, and the world evaporates, and from the point of view of this part of oneself, any form of wanting or desire just feels unpleasant.

As one man remarks to Andrew, "The very definition of joy is not wanting!"

At the end of the meeting, I joke that from this perspective, many of us would be eager to don sannyasin robes, and renounce the world if we had a pile of saffron robes to hand out! You can see the attraction of why traditionally people have left the world, as we go deeply into the Self absolute or ground of being and examine everything from that perspective.

I think many of us are awed by the profundity and implications of what we experience and see how important it is that the ground of being dimension becomes a fundamental reference point in our self structure, and not merely an experience that you dip into in meditation.

Andrew's distinctions of the 3 dimensions of our being that are entirely different and unconnected takes on more reality and significance with each day that passes.