"There is a point in the whole process that many if not most, maybe even all, I don't know, but a lot of people go through, and it's actually a taboo. It's a taboo not in individuals, it's a collective taboo because there is a collective mind and a collective consciousness and there is a collective taboo against anybody leaving the realm of separation. You will eventually bump into it and when you bump into it, it feels like you are almost being undutiful, 'How dare you leave the realm of separation?' 'How dare you?' How unkind, how unloving to leave everybody behind, like a rocket ship leaves the earth. 'How dare you do that?' 'You'll be of no use to them.' And its this sort of collective taboo that keeps illusion in line. It uses our deepest concern, our greatest love, our love of humanity and things that are bigger than our limited sense of self and it pretends like staying with its domain of separation and suffering is somehow good and dutiful and we're obligated to do it. As if a Bodhisattva ideal¡Äwhen I was doing all this stuff, I remember, the Bodhisattva ideal is sort of, you know, 'I will not go into full enlightenment until all beings have gone in before me.' When I heard that, I don't mean to offend any of the Buddhists in the group, I was one of you, I remember, 'What the hell could that possibly¡Ähow could that help anybody? I'll consciously stay deluded until all of you get enlightened and then I'll come in the door behind you and somehow that's going to be good for everybody.' Now I understand, I'm certain that probably the deepest meaning of the Bodhisattva ideal is much deeper than that but that's how a lot of people interpret it. That's how a lot of us hear it at some level. To somehow not totally let go, leave everything and everybody behind and thank you very much, the whole dramatic thing has been a total nightmare, of very little entertainment value, I'm done. I'm not done for today or tomorrow, I'm done forever. Thank you. It's over. Bow. Off the stage. That's it, right? That somehow to do that is the most terrible thing you could do. That somehow to stay within it is the better thing to do. Is somehow noble. But of course there is something mysterious that happens that is in many ways very unexpected. When that final letting go happens, when you step totally outside of that taboo, when that thing says, 'You can't leave it all behind. Forever.' And you just step though it.
A funny thing happens. You find yourself right back in it. That's the funny thing, you find yourself right¡Äcause of course there's nowhere else to go. But at that point you are in it but you are no longer of it. You were leaving the 'of it' behind. That's what gets left behind. We don't actually leave anything or anybody behind. But it feels like that. There is a time when it literally feels like that but what you are leaving behind is your consciousness being in the realm of separation. That's what you're leaving behind. And there comes a point when you leave it behind and you leave it behind for good. But you don't leave humanity behind. You don't leave any of that behind. You can't. And only then do you and I live from a different perspective. And that different perspective, that is the assistance. That is unconditional love, the difference in perspective, is what counts. That's what saves."
Adyashanti
Omega 2007
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