Chasing God

There are times in our lives when we shift. When we become so aware of the beliefs in our lives that are not helpful and we are able to find the courage to release them. Many of us have experienced a crisis of faith, or simply a longing for something more, something that resonates deep within our minds and souls as real. We long for more than doctrine and dogma, we long for a real experience of existence itself. We want a direct experience of the Divine with no intermediaries.

This feeling of being unsatisfied with our current paradigm, this longing for more is called samvega. Stephen Cope illuminates Samvega in his book, The Power of Yoga:

“Yogis call this state samvega — a complex state involving a kind of disillusionment with mundane life, an a wholehearted longing for a deeper investigation into the inner workings of the mind and the self. Samvega, as described by the contemporary Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, involves, “at least three clusters of feelings at once”: – – the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it’s normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. —

A classic Buddhist teaching story describes this realization: A dog stumbles across a bone that has been exposed to the elements for many months, and is therefore bleached of any residual flesh or marrow. The dog gnaws on it for some time before he finally determines that he is “not finding” any satisfaction in the bone, and he thus turns away from it in disgust. It is not that the bone is intrinsically disgusting; it is rather the case that the dog’s raging desire for meat just will not be satisfied by the bone … when he wakes up to the truth that the bone is empty of anything that will offer him satisfaction, he becomes disenchanted, and spits it out in disgust.

Of course, the symptoms of samvega arise only after extensive experimentation with “the bone”. Tibetan teacher Chogyaam Trungpa Rinpoche says it elegantly: “The shoe of the ego is worn out by walking on it.” For many of us, objects of longing gradually reveal themselves to offer no real happiness. No matter how hard we gnaw on them, we find no meat on the bone. Samvega then arise with a inked complex of symptoms….   “

  • A puzzling failure of previous sources of satisfaction
  • A heightened concern with authenticity
  • A deepening pull toward an intuited interior world
  • A sense of urgency about realizing deeply hidden gifts and talents
  • A global and diffuse sense of internal disorganization — equal parts psychological and spiritual
  • A deeply felt internal imperative to stop business as usual — or to “get quiet”
  • A call to explore a path that might give transcendent meaning to the enigmas of life.

“Samvega is a kind of passion that does not create suffering — but, rather, generates the happiness that comes with the sure knowledge of freedom. Because the state of samvega is so full of possibilities, it is often referred to as a state of “emergence”.

 

This experience of Samvega is a shift in awareness, a shift in knowing, a shift in reality. We know there is something more, and we can almost taste it. It is more than a spiritual experience, it is an irreversible peek through delusion. This peek gives us enough of a glimpse of enlightenment that we cannot reverse it. It is the beginning of life as a seeker.

Last Sunday, my husband and I were well into our Satsang with Adyashanti when he dropped one of his famous big questions on us.   “Are you chasing God, or is God chasing you?” he asks.

He explained that we begin as the hunter, stalking God. We seek out our idea of the divine, some way we can benefit, feel better, and obtain bliss and ecstasy. We seek some way to free ourselves from suffering and discomfort. Somewhere along the journey we experience a profound shift and the deepest spiritual impulse within us transcends this desire for pleasure. We become entirely aware that awareness wants to become conscious of itself more than it wants pleasure and relief. Unexpectedly, the game shifts – we become the hunted, the chased. Suddenly, we realize that existence itself wants to know itself through us. This is the end of life as a seeker and the beginning of life as the “discovered”.

It’s a crazy circle, this rotation of craving pleasure which is eclipsed by a trade of sorts – a willingness to give up all of this desire for pleasure in order to find truth. This switch is exactly what leads us to liberation. The bi-product of that liberation is — you guessed it — pleasure!   It is right in front of us the whole time.

When we experience these types of shifts, it’s common to feel a lot of fear. It’s as if we know, deep down, that to really shift, to really wake up — we will experience a death of sorts. We begin to understand the pithy bumper sticker, “my karma ran over your dogma.”

Dogma is a word that is often misused. What exactly is dogma? Wikipedia says, “Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from.” When we really drop dogma, we go through a process of unlearning.

It’s really easy to feel like we are the exception to the rule, one of the few people on the planet who don’t buy into dogma. Yet, living without dogma is a radical commitment. Living dogma-free means that you are ready at any moment to drop any and all of your beliefs. You have no attachment to them. You walk around happy to be wrong at any given moment.

Most spiritual cultures encourage us to be all-knowing and authoritative. We are constantly judged by the quality of our dogma. Even Oprah has a column in her magazine called “What I know for sure“.   If she were dogma-free, her column would say, “nothing” every month, or would be titled “What I think I know today”. Often, we do what Ethan Nicturne refers to as “Dogma Shopping”. We hold our beliefs, maybe even somewhat loosely, until a newer and better generation of dogma comes along so we can upgrade – a sort of spiritual materialism, if you will.

But when our soul is compelled to have a direct experience with reality, we are finally ready to move through fear and find the courage   to fully examine our beliefs, and let go of our dogma. It’s this type of release, this willingness to embrace the death of our unconscious beliefs, which brings us to freedom and enlightenment.

Tao #72:

When they lose their sense of awe,

people turn to religion.

When they no longer trust themselves,

they begin to depend upon authority.

Therefore the Master steps back

so that people won’t be confused.

He teaches without a teaching,

so that people will have nothing to learn.

Yes, it’s a wild ride for sure! If you’re not careful, it will blow your mind. And that, I think — may just be the point!


So this week I have some big questions for you:

  • Have you felt this experience of samvega? Can you describe it for us?
  • What is your favorite dogma, one that you’d like to keep? (c’mon, we know you have one)
  • What have you “known for sure”, that you have later come to unlearn?