The All-Conquering Force

What is the impulse to know Truth directly? I would say this force is the true guru. It’s raw instinctual push for non conceptual Reality in which a profound disintegration of the contracted identity takes place.

In whatever way this happens, we go through a dis-identification from the habits and conditions of the bodymind, a thorough deconstruction. The tendency to look for safety and security within the realm of the known is reversed and we thrust ourselves into the unknown abyss, without looking back.

This force is transcendental, but not in a sense of granting us transcendental experiences, which may or may not occur alongside the process. The way I define transcendence goes straight to the void of egoic self, instead of distancing from it into expanded boundless consciousness. An elevated perspective always tends to leave the egoic structure intact. After cycling through it a few times you may notice that even though a transcendental experience may feel profoundly real or true or liberating, nothing fundamental ever seems to shift at the identity level. Sometimes the egoic mind set may even be strengthened by such states, if they are taken as new references for identity.

Direct transcendence is quite physical and often messy endeavor as here we are coming increasingly more in contact with the core of the contracted identity, surrendering into it, becoming intimate with it, instead of avoiding and dissociating. This means looking into the defense mechanisms and coping strategies that protect the egoic self, the wounded identity, so to speak (unworthiness, helplessness, inadequacy, etc). When we get more in touch with this experientially, it may feel like tension, dissociation, desperation, grasping, confusion, boredom, grief, resistance, or disorientation.

This is not fun, and most people don’t want to go to these places. And I would not recommend to do this half way. That would only leave you with a depressed ego that has lost its drive and is feeling meaningless about itself and life. That’s a horrible place to be. If you are to do this type of deconstruction (meaning, it being done to ‘you’) you have to go all the way through.

This kind of uncompromising force does not always feel good. Our interior is ‘triggered’ so that it begins to empty itself out: the innermost traumas and self images (that feel like the deepest ‘you’), the repressed shame, the core fear, it all comes out to be met in your own glorious unconditional presence. This does not feel sublime, it’s quite brutal, and oftentimes not glamorous. That is, until we reach a certain tipping point, and the identification with the egoic consciousness dies.

Stainless unblemished immediacy and sky-like lucidity begins to gently permeate the system. Nervous system calms down and relaxes in natural well being. Redemptive love starts to irresistibly claim all of what you are. The grip of existential fear, mistrust and insecurity is gone. Ecstatic recognition begins to reverberate, first in tiny flashes, then in deep oceanic pulsations. And this is just the beginning.

This whole process is like a strange and inexplicable death. Of course nothing real dies, only the bonds of our attachments, which may feel rather painful. In retrospect you will be so freakin grateful for whatever tragedy or catastrophe it was in your life that blessed you with the kiss of death. At least that’s how it was for me. I spent years immersed in deep gratitude for a devastating break up and dark night that shattered my sense of self and catalyzed my path of liberation. I still consider it one of my greatest teachers.

The natural flow of ease, ecstasy and silent stillness that is charasteristic to selfless condition is beyond description. Most people have access to this type of flow occasionally, such as in the midst of extreme sport or artistic performance. The grip of self-contracted consciousness loosens up for a moment, revealing the freshness of unfiltered presence. But those passing glimpses are just faint echoes of the simple yet endlessly profound splendor of the natural state.

What would you give to live from this place moment by moment, effortlessly and spontaneously, as an ever deepening exploration? With no possibility of going back to the death-tomb of egoic pride which was so thoroughly demolished that no resurrection is possible? I would say that no price is too big. Even if you lose everything, it’s like winning in a cosmic lottery.

After the ego has received its death wound its energetic core dies out, the roots begin to dry and dissolve. The unraveling still continues, but there is a fundamental experiential difference as the sense of solidity is replaced by tremendous lightness, psychological vividness, limitless aliveness, non fixating openness — almost like ‘nuclear radiance’ type of release and transmutation, in non local wide open intimacy.

This is self-liberation, the beginning of Life lived from dynamic transparency, no agency, effortless fluidity. This does not mean that no egoic tendencies ever arise, or that we never experience conflicts in relational dynamics. The fundamental difference here is that there is no possibility for the ego to resurrect itself as an identity. The ideas about perfect healing or perfect enlightenment become rather meaningless in this delicately pulsing non conceptual perfection. As the remnants of social-cultural conditioning dissolve, true authentic expression begins to blossom.

The detachment that emerges from the ashes of egoic passion, which can be felt as a type of non human indifference, can initially feel a bit terrifying, although wildly beautiful, primordially innocent. The bad dream of duality dissolves in uninhibited clarity.

The path of transmutation, playful responsiveness and creativity becomes now available. The very same powers that sustain the experience of samsara become fuel for the spontaneous dance of empty bliss. The idea of ultimate reality disappears in the freedom of pure appearances, which cannot be said in any meaningful way to either exist or not exist. The luminosity is rather astounding, but there is no actual reality it.

I once met a nondual teacher who would say: “Liberation is when you feel like being liberated. When you cease being dissatisfied with your life as it is, that is liberation”. When I confronted him about this and discussed my experience, he said: “Oh, but the kind of liberation you speak from is so far away from what most people experience that it would just discourage them to speak about it.” To which I replied: “Really? Let’s call the valley the mountain top, because the actual mountain top sounds unattainable? That’s ridiculous. Liberation is a real possibility for anyone hearing these teachings. Perhaps you lack confidence in it, but I don’t.” I received no reply after this.

There is such a thing as liberation, but most people would not want it because the real deal is so radically different from what we are conditioned to think that reality, life, human experience and self is, that the shock is too much. I think most people would stay far away from nonduality if they would get a glimpse of where this all leads. Therefore it’s good to give warnings. That being said, there are also those who are mysteriously born to die.

Liberation is dying into boundless illumination, beauty and inexplicable aliveness without locality/center/experiencer/thinker/doer. From this perspective, the egoic self-solidifying trance is seen to be a kind of contracted altered state — almost like a viscous collective poison that by the grace of some unknown shamanic illness our system was able to clear itself from.

When the false authority of egoic mind dies, the true authority of uncreated guru radiance shines unconstrained, gives birth to itself. This is your original face. Paradoxically, the ego was never anything other than this primal presence. It's the empty passage through which we step into the original space. The ground, the path and the fruition become inseparable. One could say that true guru is the all-conquering ‘nuclear energy’ that shatters the egoic consciousness from within.