Great Teachers on Getting Rid of Your Stuffed Stuff!

 It is always beneficial to be near a spiritual teacher. These masters are like gardens or medicinal plants, sanctuaries of wisdom. In the presence of a realized master, you will rapidly attain enlightenment. In the presence of an erudite scholar, you will acquire great knowledge. In the presence of a great meditator,  spiritual experience will dawn in your mind. In the presence of a bodhisattva, your compassion will expand, just as an ordinary log placed next to a log of sandalwood becomes saturated, little by little, with its presence.

Dilgo Khyentse. 

Hmm! That is a beautiful passage, a sweet compelling argument for seeking out a guru as is the tradition for many Eastern wisdom practices.  I, in my western skepticism, however, am still a bit skeptical about guru seeking and devotteeship. I watched too many cult shows, I guess. Still I do seek and discover great teachers as I progress along this path.

Whenever I hear Michael Singer speak I have this sense of connecting with someone in the most inexplicable way.  It is like the epitome of "like-mindedness"...I just feel we are on the same level. I totally get what he is saying and I believe he would totally get what I am saying.  (Does that make me sound grandiose? Not my intention.)  So much of what I write here comes after I listen to his podcasts. His message and delivery inspires a sense of knowing already in me. At the same time, so much of what he speaks about seems to come after I write or speak about a certain topic or idea. I am fully aware that he doesn't have a clue, on this green earth, that I exist and that I am writing this blog. We just seem to be on the same  wavelength of thought somehow( No ...I am not speaking about anything "woo-woo" like telepathy) ... We just think so much alike at the same time. It could be that we are both yogis, and that we both studied and practiced ancient teachings.  I don't know...but the term "kindred spirit" comes to mind. The first time I read a page of his thoughts, it was a,"Aha! I get you!" 

Say what, crazy lady? He is a well known spiritual teacher and you are not.  You are thinking pretty highly of yourself aren't you?

No...it is isn't that I am thinking highly of myself.  I am aware that I am not in that league of external notoriety he is in. I have yet to publish anything acclaimed and there is a good chance I never will. I accept that and the more I grow the less I desire this notoriety. Fame and fortune are not motivating me to learn or share my learning. I am not attracted to either.  Nor am I attracted to teachers who have or need such things.  In fact, if anything, I am more inclined to shy away from so called "gurus"  for that reason. Humility touches me more than anything else.

I do not see him or any other living being as my "guru". Even though I listen to every podcast, and learn so much from him I can't call him my guru. I mean...he is a great teacher in my mind. When I listen I take notes, reflect upon what he said, and I take his messages deeper by reviewing the ancient teachings related to what he is saying or by reviewing more contemporary stuff like poetry, great literature, psychology, philosophy, and science that also echo the same messages in one way or another.  Most importantly, I practice what he teaches!   He inspires me to learn more about my yoga practice. For that reason, I respect his teachings and his mission. I have been practicing what he teaches, though,  long before I ever knew he existed. When he came into my life...unbeknownst to him, he gave what I was doing more context and meaning. I truly appreciate that.  Still...I don't call him my guru. Actually when I reflect on what I get from him there is little to no "my". It feels more like a yogi to yogi thing. Maybe? I really don't know what that connection I feel is. I do consider him a great teacher. 

Is he the only teacher that you listen to or read and to whom you feel connected? 

No, there are many, many teachers in my life. Few of them are still breathing. :) One great late teacher who so perfectly fits the above quoted description was/is Thich Nhat Hanh. 

I have also been inspired by Eckhart Tolle whom I knew longer( in the reader/learner sense) than both Thich Nhat Hanh and Michael Singer. Strangely, his message didn't click with me on the intellectual level when I first read him way back in 2007? I was studying ACIM at the time not knowing that he was once a teacher of that as well.  (ACIM was also way over my head when I first began to study it. )  Something deeper within me connected with his teachings though...otherwise I wouldn't have kept reading. I couldn't conceptually understand what he was saying at that point of my learning.  It wasn't until half way through his first book that I had that "aha!" moment where intellect caught up with higher Self and I "got it!" I really got it!  Then I was able to grasp with eye opening realization the teachings in A Course in Miracles as well. Eck. hart Tolle is partly responsible for one of the biggest steps I took in my spiritual evolution

I do not think of him as my guru either though.  An important teacher in my life for sure...but not a guru.  I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes from what I learned from him ( as I do of Michael Singer's and Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings). I do value his teaching and him as a fellow human being very much. 

So I digress: Back to what I learned from these three wise men on the importance of "Getting Rid of Your Stuffed Stuff". I have been trying to articulate what I mean about expanding the pause between what Life gives us and our recativity...in order to delay and eventually get rid of reactivity all together. We need to acknowledge that which is holding us back...our samskaras, our stuffed stuff.  As serendipity often does, it led me to these three teachers and their teaching about the need to be free and spacious inside. The following  is an example of what I do when I am listening. I take notes. Most of this will be paraphrased.

From Michael Singer:

• There are three states humans can live in. The first sate is one of non well being -" I am depressed.  I am not well.  I am not happy in this life". The second, is a state of conditional well being- "dependent on conditions matching my expectations and desires"...And the third is a state few of us know about: unconditional well being -feeling and experiencing everything with ups and downs but accepting and honoring all of it...finding beauty and joy  in everything.
• Psychiatry [and psychology] don't even believe that unconditional well being can exist. They focus on working with the conditional well being.
• Unconditional well being is what the yogis work to attain and teach
• That unconditional state of well being exists inside us
• 1.3 million earths fit inside the sun...the sun is one of a few billion stars in this galaxy and there are trillions of galaxies...yet we are busy focusing on "me and my drama".
• Most of us are not okay inside. We want to be okay inside. Mind is always thinking about creating or recreating situations that we  stored the memories of inside so we can be okay, or we do what we can to avoid recreating those things that made us the opposite of okay.
• There is a state of total well being inside us already
• There is a difference between remorse which leads to learning and growth and guilt which leads to shame and constraint.
• "your consciousness is on the wrong side of these blockages"
• What we resist persists.
• Samskara: a pattern of energy stored inside
• We let that thing that happened fifty years ago to a five year old determine our life.
• "unless you let that stuff go...and you become open and clean...you will not interact with the present moment"
• We are not the psyche but that which watches the psyche=the sum of learned experiences
• All decisions are based on how it makes us feel=how it matches our insides= how it matches our blockages= preferences in conditional well being living.
• preferences
• We have all the conditions we need to be happy already inside us[ The Buddha taught this in many of His sutras].
• When we live unconditionally we are living to simply express the unconditioned within us...joy for joy's sake...love for love's sake.
• It gets nicer and nicer as we let go of our stuffed stuff. We get higher and higher and more and more living with unconditional well being takes place.
• We need to practice letting go...of the stuff that happens outside that we normally react to 
• [Letting go of our reactivity is expanding or working the pause...stop storing more and allowing the store stuff to come up and eventually we let go of that.]
• The sun is 93 million miles away and we can feel its heat. Wow! That's amazing yet we complain about it being too hot.
• When we can handle the stuff outside and we are not shoving stuff down on top of it...the stuff on the inside will start coming up
• [I feel the fear coming up...my belly especially...feel the energy there.]
• instead of saying, These are the conditions where I can be okay", how about saying, There are no conditions"?....Use every situation from life to let go of yourself...let go of the me =growth
• Every single experience is your teacher; ..pulling you down into your stuff but eventually it will pull you up away from yourself.
• Anything is doing better than doing something that doesn't work

From Thich Nhat Hanh:

• ...if we bury worries and anxieties in our consciousness, they continue to affect us and bring us more sorrow. page 2
• To be mindful means to look deeply, to touch our true nature of interbeing and recognize that nothing is ever lost. page 2
• Understanding the origins of our anxieties and fears will help us to let go of them. page 4
• if you make a habit of mindfulness practice, when difficulties arise, you'll already know what to do. page 6
• When we suppress our fearful thoughts, thy continue to fester there in the dark. We are driven to consume (food, alcohol, movies etc.) in an attempt and to keep those thoughts from resurfacing in our conscious mind. Running away from our fear ultimately makes us suffer and makes others suffer, and our feras only grow stronger. page 31
• The Buddha taught that when we call up and get in touch with the truth...our fear -and the foolish things we do to try not to feel it-will cease. We no longer act out our fears unconsciously and fuel the cycle that makes them grow even stronger. page 31
• Death is a reality we have to confront...Our defense mechanism pushes us to forget; we don't want to hear about it.But in the back of our minds, the fear of Death is always there, pushing on us. page 31
• If we practice and are able to release, we can be free and happy right now, today. If we can't let go, we will suffer not only on the day when we are finally forced to do so, but right now today and every day in between, because fearwill be constantly stalking us. page 35

From Eckhart Tolle: 

• Inner resistance always pulls you back into unconscious doing
• "I am never upset for the reasons I think I am" ( Lesson 5, ACIM)
• Stillness is a return journey to Source/ Acting and Doing is a backing away from Source...We need to create harmony between the two :
• Let the person become transparent to the Light of Consciousness
• Stillness happens without the traditional sense of doing
• Be a nobody...be a presence...Our ultimate goal is to shed the person
• A "frequency holder" doesn't have to do anything but embody presence
• Judging others as not being enough, gives ego a false sense of superiority

Hmmm! All is well.

Thich Nhat Hanh (2012) Fear. New York: Harper One

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe ( February 16, 2024) Attaining Unconditional Well Being.https://tou.org/talks/

Eckhart Tolle (January, 2024) New Year, New Goal: Eckhart Tolle on Transforming Desire into Fulfillment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rGipsgBfQY&t=5s