What Was Your Original Question?

Q: I really enjoy reading your website and feel that you are really hitting on something major, but I can't seem to find my identity as awareness. I can't seem to understand that I am not the doer or anything more than a finite, separate, physical body.

I have recently gone through a pretty stressful life event/tragedy, in which I decided to stand up for myself, which resulted a great deal of support in many instances and also a great loss of support of many whom I understood as being part of my community. My world was really shaken up, and I felt really open to the idea that I am not a separate self – in large part wanting to deal with the isolation, fear and anger I felt and still feel. I could go on and on about this, but I won't. Basically, I am sick of suffering, and think non-dualism is the way to go, but I’m not getting it.

I read something in one of John Wheeler's books that said something to the effect that nobody he knew had had this realization without talking to someone else who has had this experience. I am therefore wondering whether you do consultations, and if so, how it would work.

A: I understand what you are saying, but there really is no “way to go” – not non-dualism or anything else. Teachings that have been written down and passed down verbally for thousands of years are not meant to be taken as precepts. The “way to go” for you is your way, uniquely yours. Forget the questions you asked me about the doer, and the separate body, etc., and simply find your own question in your own language. Take “I’m sick of suffering,” which is the most immediate thing in your letter, and let that guide you. Don’t let that out of your sight, in favor of trying to find that you are not a doer. You don’t really care about that – what you care about is the suffering.

What a lot of people are doing now, in my experience, is losing sight of the question that is immediate and personal to them – the original question or pain that got them searching in the first place. They’ve gotten sidetracked from the mighty river of their passionate longing into a stagnant pond, and there they stew for years and decades, trying to answer dead questions they read in books or heard on CDs. They’ve got so much canned Advaita going around in their heads that they don’t even know what their real question is.

The spark, the drive, the passion – that all has to come from you. Following your instincts, that has to come from you. I understand what John is saying. But the thing is, the outer teacher is simply your own inner teacher personified. In other words, you have to be completely ready, in order to find the right teacher, and you have to do all the preparatory work for that yourself. No one can do that for you. It’s very important that you not lean on any person or teachings or expect anyone to lay it all out in front of you. You have to be a detective, and it’s solo work. You will have helpers along the way, at the stages where you need helpers, but that will happen by itself. It’s not something that you can plan. 

I’ll tell you how it was for me, as illustration. I know that on my website it says that I met John Wheeler and my search ended after that. But I had already done so much work by the time I met him, and I had already sought out so many of my own answers, just by asking inside and following my inner guidance, that John was really a last-minute deal.

After twenty-five years of searching, at the end of 2004 I was really getting frustrated and decided to stop goofing around and just focus until I figured out the answer. My question was basically: “How do I wake up from this painful dream?” I had not been exposed to books that told me to find my identity in awareness, or see that I am not the doer, so those aren’t the questions I was asking. The question I was asking was more immediate to my own pain. This is a very important part of the equation: is your question immediate to your pain?

I took a lot of paths, and did what most people do – hundreds of books, groups, trainings, seminars – I even tried atheism for a while – and finally there arose a very intense longing to get to the point. I decided in 2005 to do a weekly radio show devoted to the question of the nature of God and enlightenment. It was a way to force myself to focus my energies on what was important to me.

It was during the course of that radio show that I discovered “I AM THAT,” by Nisargadatta, which received very high praise from Stephen Wingate on Amazon. Reading that book stopped me in my tracks. After I had read a couple of chapters, I wrote in the margin, “I will not survive to the end of this book.” And I was right. All my false ideas of a separate self began dropping away, very quickly. I wanted a living touchstone to validate what was going on, so I looked online and found John Wheeler, who was a student of a student of Nisargadatta. And lo and behold, John was having a book signing that very night, an hour from my house. So you see how the teacher comes along when you’re ready.

By the time I met John that night, it only took a gentle shove. I didn’t have any questions for him. It was more of a validation I wanted, to see that someone like me (without Indian names and robes, etc.) could know their own true nature. I could tell right away that John did, and he spoke very lucidly and clearly about it. But could I say that he was a necessary piece of this realization? Of course, it was necessary, because that’s how it happened. But I had already done my homework, and didn’t have any more questions. I didn’t even buy John’s book that night! 

I had several follow-up phone calls with John, and Bob Adamson and Stephen Wingate also talked to me on the phone, and they were all extremely generous and helpful. But for the most part, they were confirming what I already knew. They were my inner teachers in outer form.

Every person who finds his or her own way to the understanding of their true nature blazes a completely unique path that could then be written down and made into a “teaching.” Don’t go by someone else’s “teaching” – create your own, with your own passion. Did the Buddha dutifully repeat rote phrases under the Bodhi tree? No way. He created his own religion, and we can all do that. We are all buddhas.

When you reconnect with the passion and curiosity that drove you to begin searching in the first place, you will have all you need. And the best part is, the search won’t be boring and frustrating anymore – it will be exciting, like a treasure hunt. I never lost sight of my original question. If you have, find your way back to it. Find the question that lurks underneath the desire to answer all the Advaita riddles. Isn’t it that kind of painful desire that you want to be free of? The constant striving after something?

Find your question. I’m sure it is not “How do I understand that I am not the doer?” Really, does that question even mean anything to you? Find the question with meaning to you, and you will naturally be passionate about answering it. You won’t have to slog along like you’re on a chain gang, dragging heavy concepts and precepts that just weigh down your heart. If it doesn’t lift your heart to ask your question, find a new question.

Ask yourself, “If I am sick of suffering, what is my question? What is the question I am burning to have answered?” And then the juice of your own excitement will drive you to the question and to the answer. Or use “I am sick of suffering” as your mantra, repeating it until it reveals something or changes to something else. Scream it. Play with it. Why not have some fun?

If you want more help formulating your question, I can help you. But start with “I’m sick of suffering,” and find out what that brings up for you.