To Cast No Shadow

to cast no shadow Q In your autobiography, you describe how you eventually parted ways with your last teacher. It seems that what started as aspiritual fairy tale didn’t have avery happy ending. A That’s true. The fairy tale turned into anightmare when it eventually became apparent that my teacher had more than one face. The agonizing ordeal 1went through in trying to come to terms with the extreme split in his person¬ ality played alarge part in initiating my ongoing quest to deeply understand what enlightenment actually is. Through his example and that of many other spiritual masters over the past few decades, it has become painfully clear that it is indeed possible for someone to go very far, to become atruly enlightened human being who is able to transmit the power and glory of this miraculous realization to others—and yet still be capable of behaving in ways that stand in stark contradiction to the absolute love that the experience of the True Self reveals. Over time, 1have come to understand that for radical spir¬ itual transformation to be whole, not partial or incomplete. to cast no shadow 41 two things have to happen. One is the overwhelming experi¬ ence of the grace and glory of the absolute dimension of life. The second is the purification of the vehicle—purification of the fundamental motives, conscious and unconscious, in the personality. Only then will we be truly fit to represent the glory of God without wanting even asmall fraction of it for o u r s e l v e s . It sounds like you’re saying that there are individuals who are enlightened in one sense but, because of impure motives, don’t express acomplete realization. You’re saying that you have to be enlightened on both counts— —to be the finished product, yes. Which means whole. Because unless the root of fundamental division in the personality has either been burned out by the blinding light of absolute love, or been deliberately relinquished through conscious surren¬ der, enlightened consciousness itself can actually be used as an excuse for not being aliving example of the very wholeness that we’re speaking about. As strange as it sounds, when some people experience enlightened consciousness, it’s not uncom¬ mon for them to conclude that now, because they are free, what they do doesn’t matter. Some have even said things like: “What the personality says and what the body does is of no significance whatsoever—it’s all an illusion anyway. The only thing that is real is the Self Absolute.” Ever since Ibegan to seek for liberation, it has always seemed obvious to me that the overwhelming significance of the spiritual dimension of life only becomes apparent 42 living enlightenment through the undeniable evidence of profound human trans¬ formation. That unborn, unseen reality must become mani¬ fest as you and I, so that this world that we’re living in will literally be transformed by it. And the only way that can happen is if you and Ibecome aliving expression of that mystery and glory, that One without asecond, in this world. One without asecond means undivided. When there’s only One without asecond, then only one thing will be expressed, and that is Love. The goal is to get to that point where the personality nat¬ urally and spontaneously expresses aperfect and seamless consistency of pure motivation. That means nothing is hid¬ den, there are no secrets, and nothing is personal. There’s only One Self and in that One Self everything is known and everything is seen. Do you think that the purification of the personality, the purifi¬ cation of the vehicle, is aprocess that’s ever finished? Well, it’s definitely possible for ahuman being to get to a place where they are so naturally aligned with the spiritual dimension of life that they no longer have to make tremen¬ dous effort to resist marring its reflection in this world. But it’s very rare. You know, in the end Ithink that ninety-nine percent of spiritual practice is about the purification of our motivation in relationship to the human experience. That means we make the noble effort to face and come to terms with the destructive nature of our petty self-concern in light of our true identity as One without asecond. We face how to cast no shadow 43 much pride there is within us, how much aggression there is in our endless need to be someone special, how ultimately divisive is our desire to constantly see ourselves as being unique. When our interest in radical human transformation has been awakened, we begin to take ourselves on for every¬ one else’s sake. We do whatever we have to do to come to a final reckoning with the darker motives inside ourselves, so that we will never again do anything in this world that would betray our passionate interest in being truly whole. You see, when we get to that place, enlightened con¬ sciousness will be safe with us because then we won’t do any¬ thing that would stain the reflection of its inherently perfect nature in the hearts and minds of an already cynical human¬ ity. That’s what it means to be afit vehicle. So are you saying that there are degrees of enlightenment? Well, there are many different ways to answer that question. But one way is to say that there aren’t degrees of enlighten¬ ment—there are only degrees of unenlightenment. In this way of looking at it, the degree to which ignorance falls away is the degree of enlightenment that there will be. When there is absolutely no ignorance left (if such athing is possible!), you could say that someone is fully enlightened. So it would indeed appear that there are degrees of enlightenment but, in fact, it wouldn’t be true. There is ametaphor to describe this perspective. Imagine the radiant sun, forever burning brightly, always casting its immaculate light that is never touched by anything. Then 44 living enlightenment imagine amirror, the surface of which is completely covered with dry mud. This mirror cannot reflect the light of the sun because its surface is completely obscured. When you look at its surface all you will see is mud. Then something miracu¬ lous happens. Aboll of lightning hits the surface of the mir¬ ror and asmall piece of the dry mud falls away. Now that mirror suddenly is casting ablazing reflection of the light of the radiant sun. Upon seeing this light, you instantly recog¬ nize it to be the light of your own Self. Then you see another mirror covered with mud but this one has been hit by two bolts of lightning and, as aresult, athird of the surface of the mirror has been revealed. Now you say, “Oh my goodness! This light is so much brighter.” And then you stumble upon athird mirror and this one has been struck by three bolts of lightning, revealing two-thirds of its surface, which is casting such abright reflection of the light of the sun that your eyes can barely withstand its intensity. Eventually, you find amir¬ ror that has been struck by so many lightning bolls that all of the mud has fallen away from its surface except for afew specks of dust. The reflection in this mirror is much, much brighter and clearer than all the others but those specks of dust still cast asmall shadow. Then, finally, you find a mirror on which there is not even one speck of dust left. In this one there only is aperfectly pure and unobscured reflec¬ tion of the radiant light of the sun. The whole point is that the light shining on every one of those mirrors is the very same light. But final purity has been attained only when there’s not even one speck of dust left to m a r i t s r e fle c t i o n . to cast no shadow 45