That Is That: Essays About True Nature by Nirmala

Author:Nirmala
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: spiritual growth, spiritual, awakening, selfhelp, enlightenment, advaita, self realization, nonduality, nondual, satsang, self inquiry, personal transformation
Publisher: Nirmala

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SEEKING, GIVING, AND BEING

The spiritual life can be divided into three stages: seeking or acquiring, giving or expressing, and being. Each of these three stages has unique characteristics and qualities, and each is equally important and necessary. They are not linear, but rather a cycle that moves from one to the next and back again.

The first stage of seeking is a period of searching for truth and trying to get there. It's the period of greatest doing and also the greatest sense of a separate self that is seeking. This is what most of the world is up to, although most people are seeking or acquiring wealth and fame and the other things the ego wants. But underlying even these activities is a deeper pull to find love, peace, and happiness. The ego just mistakenly thinks money or fame will give it peace, love, and happiness. Eventually, the individual discovers that these ego-driven activities don't really satisfy, so the seeking becomes more subtle and direct. We eventually seek peace itself and love itself, not something that will bring us peace or love.

The second stage, giving or expressing, is what naturally happens when we start finding true love and happiness. It's such a joy to find the real sources of satisfaction and fulfillment that we are inspired to share love and joy with others and to express them in everything we do. This phase is still a phase of doing, but there's much less of a sense of a separate self that is doing it. It seems more like we are being done by the love and joy flowing through us.

The third stage, being, is really a moving beyond the duality of the first two stages into a place of such complete fullness and perfection that there's no more need or pull to do anything. There's a simple recognition that you already are everything and so is everybody else. So what need is there to seek or find, or give or express? Everything is already fulfilled beyond any possibility of improvement or gain. Outwardly, this is a time of very little doing beyond taking care of the basic necessities of life. There's no motivation to do anything for what it will accomplish or give you, so it's enough most of the time to just rest and be.

The first thing we tend to do when we hear about these stages is to try to apply them as a prescription for our spiritual life. We try to do the actions of the second and especially the third stages as a way to get there. And yet, these stages aren't a prescription, but simply a description of the phases or cycles of our spiritual life. They are a description of how Essence, or Being, moves in this world of form. In fact, to try to get to the second or third stage is really an expression of the first stage. It's trying to achieve or acquire spiritual depth.

Instead, we can simply be curious about how these stages are unfolding in our life.

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