Trying To Feel Better
( Note: certain passages below have been highlighted by Benito. )

Good morning, welcome to satsang.

I'd like to talk about a very simple principle but a principle that's very profound when we see the effects it has in our own life in general and our spirituality in particular. This principle I want to talk about is particularly nice because it relates our own awakening, to the truth of our being, and our ability to live from that awakened place. So it applies on both ends of the non-existent gate (chuckles).

First I'll talk about how it relates to awakening. The principle is very simple. It has to do with how we as human beings, what motivates us to act in everything we do, almost everything we do. In almost everything we do, we act from one of two standpoints in a very simple way. One of those standpoints is the common standpoint, so that’s 99% of humanity, probably more than that, 99% is acting ALWAYS, when you get underneath all the other motivations, ALWAYS, all their actions are based on what's going to help me to feel better. Almost everything. Especially if you can look at it without judgments. So this doesn't mean that that's bad or wrong, it's simply to point out a fact.

In fact as human beings, we are not only psychologically but biologically programmed to move towards pleasure, correct? We're just biologically programmed to move towards pleasure. Some people will move towards pain but it's only because they perceive pain as pleasurable (laughs). Most people aren't biologically going to move towards pain but there are some, but only when they find that that too is pleasurable in a way. So we're all hooked up to move towards pleasure.

Because we're hooked up to move towards pleasure, when we really look at our underlying motivations, it's almost always to feel better. Whether we're pursuing simply to feel better or we're pursuing to be right in a conversation, we actually want to be proved right because it will help us to feel better. If we are trying to become more powerful, we're not becoming more powerful to become more powerful; it's because we think it will make us feel better. You see what I mean? Sometimes we take the role of a victim in life only because we think that that helps us to feel better.

So when you really look at it, it's very telling how much we do through a motivation to help us feel better. We generally will discount what’s true inside in order to feel better. You’ve done that many, many times. We've all discounted something we knew was true which would actually in the long run make us feel better but in the short run, we want to feel better NOW.

You go on a date and he or she is really hot-looking, and all your biological buttons say, "forge ahead!" And the still, small voice says, "leave it alone (laughter)." But it will feel so much better now to forge ahead so you forge ahead (laughs), and of course it probably does feel better now. You form a relationship though all along you know it’s not such a great idea. Eventually the truth always wins out, right, so twenty-five years later you get a divorce and the still, small voice won out anyway (laughter). It's an obvious, silly example but one which everyone can relate to in some way or another, many times this happens.

We drag this inherent, biological, but also a psychological, emotional urge to feel better, we drag this into our spirituality of course. We start without even knowing it to pursue whatever we’re pursuing simply to feel better. A fundamentalist Christian, Hindu or Buddhist is fundamentalist because it helps them to feel better, it helps them find a place of security in this very insecure, wild world so we can form some very solid beliefs, not because they are wise but because they help us to feel better. Or we go to various teachings whichever ones make us feel better, whichever teachers help us to feel better. When we meditate, nine times out of ten when you scratch beneath the surface we're hoping to have a better moment, hoping to feel better.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just to point out a fact of our existence. We're hooked up this way. However it makes it VERY difficult to bump into the truth, very difficult. Because sometimes the way that leads to truth might not make us feel better right now. It might, but it might not. So it makes it very hard to find the truth of our being, even if it's very unconscious, which in most people it is, that everything is being motivated by feeling better. It makes it very hard to find out what's really true. Everything is clouded by wanting to feel better.

When we cannot be dominated by that need to feel better, even as it's there because we always like pleasure more than pain, but even as it's there, then we can come into a deeper, which is just underneath this wanting to feel better, it's right underneath it, which is really this, ultimately it turns out to be a love affair with what's true. At first it might not be a love affair, it might simply be an interest with what's actually so. And only when we can touch upon this innate interest in what's actually so, what's really real, can we begin to look into spiritual inquiry, into the truth of our own being. Because then we're not looking into ourselves and going, "do I feel better?" There comes a deeper concern, what's true?

Even a question like, "what am I?, really what am I?" you can hear in the question that it's fundamentally unconcerned with how we feel. It's not asking, how do I feel?, it's asking, who am I or what am I? Not that this is the only way to look but since this question is worded the way it is, it bypasses our desire to simply feel better in the moment. And it's only with this kind of direction that we can look really sincerely when we're uncontaminated by wanting to feel better and look and see what we really are. Things become very clear when we can hold in abeyance that desire to feel. Just hold in it abeyance. Don't try to get rid of it because it's part of your makeup to want to feel better. It's not wrong, just suspend it.

Then it starts to be easy for consciousness to turn in upon itself. And you're not being distracted by your beliefs that it might help you to feel better. Consciousness can actually return through the structure of our beliefs and personas. The radiance of awakeness can return to the radiance of awakeness because this distraction of what makes me feel better is being suspended. So quite naturally we're no longer looking at our ideas, our beliefs, at our opinions, at all the ways we define ourselves and find security in them, which security is simply another way to feel better. Awareness just comes back to itself.

Through this simple in-seeing ... again we're not looking in to have a great experience that's going to help me feel better. You see the difference? I know this because I used to do it. I didn't know I was doing it but I was always looking in for this experience of enlightenment and I would know that I found it because it was going to be mind-blowingly pleasant (laughs). I wasn't saying that in my head, I didn't even know I had that but emotionally I was relating to it this way. That's how I was going to know I found the truth, because it was going to feel really, really, REALLY good. I mean they all say it feels really good, right? Of course truth does feel really, really good but that's the byproduct.

When awareness can turn back into itself, then awakeness can awaken to itself. Your own awakeness can awaken. You can see that you never could actually limit yourself to any idea, democrat, republican, male, female, even idea of human being. There was always a beyondness behind all these definitions, there is always something prior, prior, prior. And you bump right into it and of course you fall right into emptiness. But the most awake emptiness that you'll ever bump into. And then you can realize that THIS is what you really are. Simply by suspending the motivation to feel good.

Of course when you realize that you're this awake openness, it feels really, really good. It's a byproduct though. The openness itself doesn't feel good or bad, it's just openness. But when we realize it, it feels really good to realize it namely because we don't have to keep dragging ourselves around (laughter), pretending like we ARE ourselves. We can realize that the thing we dragged around and pretended was ourselves was more like a costume we put on when we were born. Of which we added to. But underneath it there is the awakeness. The same awakeness that's in all being everywhere. That's why I say THE awakeness. Because when we discover it, we discover that we are THE awakeness, not my awakeness. It's the same in all beings everywhere. Only one self.

So as  some of you have discovered for yourself in your own experience, what we find is the same truth plays itself out even after this awakening. The way awakening moves, not because I say so but when you find out for yourself, the way awakening moves, it's not moving according to what makes it feel better. It just doesn't compute for what's awake in you to move toward what makes it feel better; it's just not a concern, it doesn't really care about that. If you feel better, that's fine; if you don't feel better, that's fine. Awakeness doesn't care, which is why it's so free, free of this great concern.

Now even after we’ve had that awakening, if we start to move in the world once again through a sense of what makes me feel better, we'll start to lose that sense of being the awakeness. "Where did that sense of being the awakeness go?" Every time that happens, you'll find that somewhere you start to move through trying to feel better. In fact you probably even started to relate to the awakeness itself as a place that felt better. So you keep looking for a place that feels better which means it's very hard to get back to the place that feels better. In one sense it's very subtle but also glaringly obvious. Because the awareness that you are, that's not how it's moving through the world. Presence doesn't move through the world that way.

From that awakeness, that emptiness, can arise in zen what we call prajna, which is usually translated as heart wisdom. I'm not so sure I like that anymore although I've used it a lot because it came from the tradition. Heart wisdom doesn't quite get it so well. It's really the wisdom that arises from emptiness, from your own radiance. It's that part of you that simply KNOWS. And it doesn't CARE. The truth that DOES NOT CARE about how it's going to make you feel. Just the same truth that people get little tastes of way before awakening when they were with that person or in that situation, that little voice came out of nowhere, not their conditioned mind, not their impulses, it just came up and said, "don't do that." And you just brush it aside. That small voice that just came out of absolutely nowhere and was totally uncontaminated by one's personal wants and desires, it's just a gift. That's what prajna is; it's a gift right out of nowhere.

And that gift, it's not concerned, it doesn't say, "what do you want?" It knows what you want; it just says, "this way." It's simple, it's quiet and it never insists because it's going to get its way anyway, sooner or later. It's not a matter of whether the truth wins out, it's just a matter of how many claw marks you leave in the ground as it's dragging you into it (laughter). It's like you can listen to the still, small voice now or thirty years from now you can have an awful, terrible experience where you're torn away from your illusion and it's going to hurt like hell and you’re going to hate it and that still, small voice is just going to say, "we're no longer waiting for you (laughter)." God's will wins out all the time, it's a law.

So when we awaken, we get more and more access to the way this inner emptiness, this inner openness moves. It moves totally uncontaminated by our own personal wants and desires. It's just a gift. That's what prajna means. It's the gift that comes out of nowhere, your inherent wisdom. And when we begin to move according to that inherent wisdom, life becomes very simple because we don't have to sit around making a million decisions all the time. We're no longer weighing alternatives, no longer thinking "what's going to be the best thing for me?" We're relieved of all that; it comes from the inner mystery and it's just a gift. Then we don't have to worry about what's the right thing, what's the wrong thing, what do I want, and on and on. Out of nowhere it just comes, "this way."

I call them the marching orders. I live according to the marching orders that come out of emptiness. It's very simple to live according to the marching orders. You don't have to weigh options and think things through, you just follow the marching orders; it's a very simple way to live. Over time you realize that following the marching orders, your heart wisdom, it's always aligned with truth so it starts to make life very simple. Your life doesn't feel like a tremendously chaotic event anymore. There's a simplicity to it, even though life can be very complex on the outside, on the inside it can be very simple.

When we really awaken to the truth of our being, if we still haven't got it, which very often we don't totally get it, to live from this wisdom of emptiness, if we don't get that, then the only fallback we have is what's helping me to feel better. So all the decisions will start to be made according to what makes me feel better again which means you sort of fall right back into the trance (snores), which is very vicious because when you fall into a trance, what happens? Now you REALLY want to feel better because a trance hurts. It's a vicious cycle. You really want to feel better so you start running around coming to someone like me saying, (breathlessly) "Adya, I had this wonderful awakening two months ago and now it's gone. How do I get it back?" Which is basically saying, "how do I feel better? Help me, help me, help me ..." Of course the more you want to feel better, the harder it is to find the truth again, isn't it? Until you've gone through the washing machine so much that you go, "oh damn, I'm done trying to feel better," and all of a sudden the truth goes, "hello, here I am (laughter)." Right out of nowhere. And you think, "that stinker, man (laughter), it came up specifically when I don't try to find it."

Which is simply a way of saying, when I'm no longer dominated by trying to feel better, I'm not trying to get back to the truth because it feels better, then it reappears. As soon as one tries to feel better, we start going back into a trance. It's very tricky because when we discover the truth of our being and start to move from the truth, it DOES feel better. It feels MUCH better, MUCH better. That's why it's so easy to go back into the relationship of moving according to feeling better. It feels MUCH better so the old conditioning can easily get plugged back in even when we have an awakening. It's like, "this feels GREAT," and we start moving again from the motivation of feeling better which is just our own conditioning. Underneath, if we are awake to what's awake, we see from our own experience, it's FREE of that burden of looking for pleasure in every circumstance. And we come upon what the truth in us really loves, which is what's true.

That's not a dry thing when we discover it. It's not like what's true in the sense of an idea or concept; it's a LOVE AFFAIR with what's true because we start to see that what's true is what's GOOD. Not only for oneself but for everybody. What's true is the ONLY love we have to offer. That's love. That's where the truth becomes love. If love is about what makes me feel better, then it's not love, it's just what makes me feel better. Truth is love. If you give somebody truth, you've given them total love. And I don't mean a conceptual truth that you hit them over the head with and tell them what the truth is. I mean the truth that sets you free. If you want to be with someone, you say, "I want to be with you." If you don't want to be with someone, you say, "I don't want to be with you." Either way, if it's true, it's pure love, you've set them free.

The truth in us moves according to the truth. These are things I'm just reporting back, you have to find them inside yourself. Check it out all for yourself, the radiant emptiness within. It's unconcerned with consequences; that's shocking to the egoic mind. It's totally unconcerned. It doesn't care. It's shocking to the mind when you realize what’s true in you DOESN'T CARE. It doesn't care if it's agreed with, it doesn't care what the consequences to you personally are, it doesn't care if the whole world agrees or doesn't agree, it doesn't care which is the cause for great freedom. Because we're not always measuring, "how is this going to work out for me? What will the consequences be to me? Will it be okay, will they like me? Will I get fired? Will my lover leave me?" whatever it is, the truth doesn't care about consequences; it's just itself.

This is the place we find our own stability. We wake up as the emptiness, as the formless. The mystery, no form, no shape, no color, no gender. Just presence, you can't grab presence, it's just presence. But when we say the way presence operates, we're no longer lost in presence. That's a phase a lot of people go through. They wake up as presence and then they're like, "how do I know how to do anything?" They're disconnected from the egoic self and that's the only operating principle they've known up to that point. It's like, "how do I know what to do? Should I get out of bed, should I go to work?" It can be very baffling if all your self-centered motivations are gone. "What do I do and how do I know what to do?"

You may not know for a while. But the quieter you get, you begin to see that within this vast mystery, this vast emptiness, that's where prajna, the wisdom of emptiness starts to arise. It's very quiet. You can't hear it if you're going, "what do I do? I don't know what to do! I have no more self-centered motivations, I have no idea what to do!" If it gets too frenetic like that, you can't be quiet enough. Because the truth is very quiet, generally. If it gets tired of waiting for you, it will beat you over the head, but generally, it's very quiet, very soft. When we start to listen deeply enough, when we're actually coming from our true nature, then we can start to sense it.

We discover the ACTIVITY of silence. You see, if all we want to do is go back into silence ... silence feels really good, does it not? It feels very good. But if we go into silence and have that last little shred of ego that says, "I just want to be SILENT. I just want to stay here because it feels SO DAMN GOOD," then you won't be able to find the way that silence moves. "Oh, it feels so good to be quiet." Two years later your life will be falling apart around you. "I don't want to deal with it, I just want to be quiet (chuckles)."

In the past, mystics could get away with that because there was cultural support for it. It's one of the nice things about waking up in the West, it pushes you beyond any attachment. Because even when you come upon the inner bliss of silence, if there's any piece of you that just wants to hold on and hang out there, you're going to be flattened eventually because in our culture, there are no supports for anyone who wants to hang out in bliss and silence. You go to India, they're like, "oh, bliss and silence, let's give you food and an ashram, worship you ..." everyone wants to rush in and congratulate you. Here, it's like, "get on with it! This is America, you have to make your own way (chuckles)." So there's a drawback.

In America, we like to talk about religion but we don't actually like to do it, there's no support. Which in one sense is unfortunate but it's also fortunate in that the last spiritual trap is not really afforded to us. Because if we get caught there too long ... it's okay to get caught there by the way, it's a phase, it's okay to be in that place for a while, of silence that just doesn't want to move or do anything, there's nothing wrong with it, it's a phase of spirituality but in this culture we're going to be PUSHED deeper than that because otherwise we're not going to be able to function in this culture. It's the positive part of this culture that doesn't support mystics because it FORCES the mystic to complete the journey. So the mystic starts to see how silence actually FUNCTIONS. It's a return to the source but to complete it, we have to find out how the source functions. And that's prajna, that's the wisdom of emptiness.

That's the curse and blessing of the West, is that we're eventually going to have to discover the wisdom of emptiness, how it moves. This beautiful movement that has nothing to do with feeling better, although each time you move from that sacred place, you feel MUCH better. But it's not moving to feel better; it's moving only to express itself. That's the only reason it moves, to express itself.

Why did Jesus do what he did? Clearly not to make himself feel better. What a pain in the ass his life was. I mean, not just at the end either, I mean the whole thing. A bunch of crummy disciples (laughter), ALWAYS giving him a hard time, never really believing. They might believe for a moment and then they go into doubt. They were a real ... (laughter). I always thought he had bad judgment when it came to choosing the disciples (laughter). That's my little hang-up, I suppose (laughter). I guess in the end it worked out, he got to play out his part perfectly (laughs). But no picnic, not really.

But this, the truth simply living to express itself, that was its only concern. The divine moves and expresses itself. It has no concern about how it makes one feel. That is one of the biggest concerns that any human can be relieved of, this immense burden of all the time being dominated by how is this going to make me feel? It's a weight that we humans carry with us until we have enough wisdom to put it down. It's a tremendous weight. It motivates almost every moment of human existence for most people. And we view it as something positive. We view it as very positive actually. We buy the next whatever to make us feel better and it just goes on and on and on. More beautiful bodies, more beautiful things, make us feel better and better and better ... We worship, that, that's our god, feeling better. There's nothing wrong with that. I keep saying that because some minds might want to go, "oh shit, now we shouldn't want to feel better. Now I'm wrong for wanting to feel better (laughter)." No, no, no, it's fine. It's not a judgment.

Only when you accept, "yeah, I want to feel better." Who doesn't? Only then can you see, there's a deeper concern. It has to do with love, with truth. Only when you can accept that you want to feel better, THEN you can go, "oh, and there's something deeper. Spiritually, I want to know what I am, I want to know what the truth is." That's a deeper concern than feeling better. "I don't want to know what I am so I can feel better, I just must KNOW. For some crazy reason, I just gotta know." Those are the people that actually wake up and STAY awake. They just gotta know. They don't know why they gotta know, they just gotta know. Whether the journey makes them feel good or bad, it doesn't matter because they just gotta know. Everybody else, they gotta know because they're certain it's going to make them feel good. They never get there until they get over that. It's the crazy ones with the irrational impulse, "I MUST know."

When you touch upon this impulse, it's the impulse of truth within us, it's frightening because it's so powerful. When we touch upon something that's deeper than our pleasure impulse, it's actually frightening. When you touch upon it for the first time, it's scary because it's bigger than you. If you intellectually touch upon it, it's just a curiosity, but if you actually touch upon it, it's frightening. Because at once you know intuitively, this impulse, it doesn't care about me, about my life, whether I feel good or bad, it doesn't care about ANY of that. As it says in the bible, "my God is a selfish god." This thing only is only concerned with itself.

It is so much more powerful than me wanting to feel better; it is IMMENSELY more powerful. And when you touch on it, I've met so many people who kind of go, (gasping) "oh my god!" And it's too late of course. You can't put it back in the box. "Oh, I don't really want that." It's too late, you can't put it back in the box. That's when you realize you're no longer chasing God but that God is chasing you. You feel the game has just turned around and you're in trouble. It's a beautiful moment, and terrifying. And it can so easily just take you back to awakeness itself.

When we're not burdened by the pleasure principle, there's no barrier to coming back to what's true. There's nothing in the way. Then it's just THIS that's awake.

In Japan, have you ever seen those archers? They use these huge bows. They're bigger than I can spread my arms. There's a saying in that tradition that in order to be a master archer, you must have no concern about hitting the bulls eye, no desire to hit the bulls eye. As soon as you have a desire to hit the bulls eye, you're going to be aiming. Your desire itself, which is your desire for pleasure, "if I hit it, that'll be good, that'll feel good," you won't be a great archer. If you don't have a desire to hit it, it doesn't mean you'll be shooting into the sky, then you're just, you can feel it in your being; there's nothing in your way then. You're still aiming but there's no concern to make your hand shake, there's nothing that can get in your way.

And that's the beautiful thing about the truth within us, it's free of this concern. Each moment, it's never interested in results. Look at the awareness within yourself, ask yourself, is it interested in results? It just moves. It never asks itself, "how is it going to turn out?" It's not interested in how it turns out. It's like a flower. A flower is only interested in bloom, look pretty, drop your petals and die, that's it. That's its concern. Give its gift to the world, get it over with (chuckles). That's why they're so beautiful, right? Just imagine if each and every flower acted like a human being, what a disaster (laughter)! Beautiful flowers, opening, giving their gift, and if they're human what would they do? Sit there and go, "I wonder if they like me? Are they looking at me or the one next to me (laughter)? I know I'm going to die soon, will it all have been worth it or am I just wasting my time (laughter)? Am I the most beautiful one of all? Whose the most enlightened flower around (laughter)?" It gets ridiculous when you ascribe egoic characteristics to objects, animate or inanimate.

But when you look at life all around you, it doesn't care. A flower is not flowering to accomplish anything but simply because it is its nature to do so. That's the only reason, it is its nature to flower. It's simple, isn't it? That's it. Just like the truth within us. It moves because that's its nature, it's totally without all that concern. That's freedom. Praise adds nothing to it, criticism takes nothing away from it. That's how that which is silent inside lives. It's living that way right now. It's already that way. You as an ego don’t need to become that way. You as an ego will never be that way. You don't have to change that part of your ego that is that sort of silly human way. It's not necessary, you just come into what's true.

Okay, let's see what you have (invites someone for a dialog).