Seduced by Life

Seduced by life

I always made the mistake of thinking my annual silent retreat with Adyashanti was a retreat from reality when in fact it is a retreat into reality. It may appear that five nights of silence with four hours a day meditation is about as far removed from "real" life as it gets. In fact it is our "real" lives which are illusory, obscuring true reality with a compulsive, deafening judgment of what is and incessant insistence on how things should be different. The retreat offers an oporunity to reside in the truth of our being, to touch reality in a way which inevitably allows the formation of a new perspective on life.

Naturally the mind objects to the interuption to its usual busy-ness. Deprived of its favoured role as the interpretor of and commentator on reality, using its pre-programmed parameters to judge the merits of life, the mind may sulk, complain and question. But in silence it soon becomes disoriented. Like a small child, if left, it will eventually cry itself to sleep leaving space for a more intimate exprience of life.

There is something beautiful about losing your mind, or at least its position as the interface between awareness and reality. In losing the commentary life becomes a meditation, and a meditation free of the meditator.

This was the fourth time I have attended this retreat and each brings with it a different quality or insight, almost like a maturation. It is strange to see so many familiar faces that I have never acknowledged or spoken to. Through the evenings question and answer sessions with Adya I know some of their challenges and celebrations intimately but we shall never "meet". Introductions are possible after the retreat but personally I prefer to remain without identity in this small corner of my world.

For the first time this year I got a definite sense that to retreat into reality is a tougher proposition than to retreat from it. In previous years I was overwhelmed by life, lost in my story and I welcomed the relief of the literal and metaphoric absence of noise. My annual pilgrimage to a girls' boarding school in Surrey always felt like (and was treated as) a retreat from my own insanity.

My first year planted a powefrul seed as I glimpsed a facet of true nature. Subsequently I bored many and upset a few when asked what I had learned. My big realisation was that everything and everyone is a distraction from our true nature, and consequently it is important to choose those distractions carefully and consciously.

I also learned that one of the benefits of silence is that I dont find myself saying things like that to people I love! Who wants to be seen as a distraction? Another joy is not having to explain what was meant by the realisation I shouldn't have shared in the first place!

What I have come to understand over the years is that I would only ever share that realisation with the people I loved. In other words with the people in my life. You see this week I realised the people in my life had been chosen carefully and consciously, not necessarily by "Bill" but definitely by Bill's Life. Life knows best and loves you so uncnditionally it will bring love into your life in ways your conditioned mind couldn't even begin to imagine.

My big realisation this week was that my previous perspective of retreating from life was in fact retreating from love. In other words Life is love in action. Life will continually present you with the distractions (everything and everybody) which provide the best chance of guiding you home to your true nature. In previous years when I was "escaping" a life which had confused, exhausted and at times depressed me, I was actually running from love. It was not life which was tiring, rather my resistance to it, and the resistance could only come from a distorted view of reality, which my mind, with the best of intentions, had provided.

From the perspective of the silence I can now see how life is not something to be fought, managed and controlled, rather something to be intimate with, embraced as it is. Celebrated.

As I entered this retreat I was quietly at ease with life. It may not look how my mind thinks it should and many parts are yet to be understood, but I am beginning to recognise that I have loved it all along! For whatever reason my mind objected to that, but it was just doing its best!

It appears that life, the greatest of lovers, has been quietly seducing me. Neither foresaking me nor indulging me. Presenting only truth. The task and the joy continues to be to fall into its arms free of resistance with a child-like curiosity. Surrendering with reverence to the awe and wonder of this whole crazy game, staring at the stars with delight,

Much love

Sat Nam

Bill