Chapter 7 — Clarity

Do not divert your love from visible things. But go on loving what is good, simple and ordinary; animals and things and flowers and keep the balance true.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

In the heaven which receives most of His light have I been; and have seen things which whoso descends from there has neither knowledge nor power to recount.

—Dante Alighieri

The map is not the territory.

—Alfred Korzybski

When we can truly see the incompleteness of our basic sense of separation from things, we have a chance to uncover the great unity offered through a life lived consciously. But in order to make our realization helpful and our practice relevant, we must learn to allow the splendor of the Big Self to dissolve the small self’s limitations. Doing so, we can become increasingly clear about how we must engage the world. But just because our perspective has shifted in major ways doesn’t mean that problems won’t arise.

For example, getting to the mountaintop and taking in the view most certainly does not resolve everything about us into a timeless state of perfection. Confusion and harm can result if this perspective simply reasserts the small self sense of “I’m Awake, but those people don’t have a clue.” Living from this place is a life still divided, and a life divided is a life of delusion. In order for any view from the summit to support a life of unity, our practice must align itself with a purposeful integrity. Are we, for instance, doing all of this meditation for something beyond the ego, or has the ego hijacked our practice for its own gain? If the latter is true, it is entirely possible that we might have a deep experience of awakening and yet cling to the belief that our view from the summit is exclusive or “ours.” Rather than being an expression of interior and exterior luminosity, a crippled Awakening limits its span to an interiority that is mistakenly realigned to fit the neediness of the ego.

Individuals with these false Awakenings fill the spiritual marketplace. They may be charismatic, brilliant, and disarming. Yet as teachers they perhaps haven’t fully dealt with the shadow elements of their personalities, thus leaving spiritual gaps in what would otherwise be an integrated whole. To be fair, all of us need to pay attention to this. When we stand in the light of awareness, shadows are revealed. No matter how hard any of us who lives in the world tries, we can’t escape them. We can only use the practice to undercut the power that our shadows hold over us. Looking honestly at all of our darkness, at all of our negativity, at all of our unconsciousness, and never flinching as we meet all of it diminishes our shadow’s subconscious hold. Unfortunately the traditions don’t always do a good job of helping this revealing process take root in their communities. Sex scandals, criminal activities, and financial improprieties show up all the time in the spiritual arena. Most likely all of this will continue as long as spiritual leaders and their communities collectively let their egos grasp onto all of their glowing press releases. A good dose of Western psychotherapy in conjunction with deep spiritual work might do a better job at preventing this kind of abuse. Authentically integrating what is best from spiritual traditions along with what is best from psychotherapy might prevent further destruction of communities by enlightened egos that always lose sight of their most sacred responsibility: to not cause harm.

No matter where we find ourselves on the Mountain of Spirit, being Awake in this life happens only when we live from a place of integrated clarity. This occurs only when we get past our preoccupation with satisfying the perpetual cravings of ego. Practicing this clarity in each moment births an intention to act from the freely infused Knowing that supports all of life’s situations. This integrated perspective frees us from the sense that we are caught either by what life provides or fails to provide. Coming down the Mountain, we see that even though we are in this life, we are not bound by it. Integrating an enlightened perspective with our day-to-day living reminds us that anything in our experience that we recognize as mine or yours is merely a thought tethered to an egoic need for satisfaction. Watching this clinging play out in each of our circumstances helps us to make choices that integrate, align, and source our living in the world from a deeply impersonal and generous space. From here, all life that we touch becomes imbued with a deep lucidity.

Being clear with ourselves and others can take on many different forms, but mostly it reveals itself through decreasing our habitual and compulsive need for personal recognition. Our drive to “be somebody” gently falls by the wayside of our newly conscious life. Instead of allowing the ego to manipulate circumstances that let it leave its mark on things, we align with an even deeper impulse that leaves no trace of a separate existence. For example, when we walk through an art museum, we may experience something in us that refrains from damaging any of the beauty. It’s not something we need to think about or manage. It’s just the way we orient our walk through life. Here we actually begin to see and Know the beauty of all existence even when it isn’t so pretty. A sacred wish, at this point, arises within us to leave the blessing of this beauty for everyone to enjoy, and we want nothing in return for allowing this to happen. The reward, we Know, has always already been there.

This kind of participatory clarity allows us to dance with life, and this dance supports a commitment to simplifying our participation in the world so that we don’t harm. Indeed, we become agents of deeply compassionate change in the world—change that doesn’t generate war but rather shows peace, since we see that we are the world and the world is us. The committed integration of this recognition within our day-to-day activity creates a space where all beings can potentially join the dance that always expands in the direction of all that is helpful.

With a little attention, each of us can notice that our lives have been filled with individuals who have either consciously or unconsciously engaged their activity from this type of elegant simplicity. Pick any heroic act of selflessness that you have seen: in it you will recognize this dance of deep clarity. Perhaps you know someone who put herself at risk to help another. Perhaps you have seen tremendous personal sacrifice in order to make sure that others might live better lives. Perhaps you’ve witnessed someone give so that others might have. The legacies of these people live on within us and without us, and at the confluence of within and without we can always uncover clarity. In this space, between within and without, we find our Big Selves. When we inhabit our Big Selves, we stare through the eyes of God.