When the rejection of mental activities becomes continuous and automatic, you will begin to have the experience of the Self.
– Annamalai Swami
Tricky wording, but the capital “S” self referred to here means the one, enlightenment, “god”, just simply being as Rupert puts it. When the practice of meditation becomes crystallized, the mental activity of the separate self is brought to a complete standstill. It has been so continuously and rigorously rejected that, finally, it withers away from disuse. The ego/default mode network is irrevocably starved of its energy source.
What remains? What moves you through life at that point? Impossible to say or define. There is no longer “you” and the world, subject and object have collapsed into the clear light of consciousness, the author of all “things”. A tremendous amount of trust and surrender is required, it is death to the little “me”, who has been so strenuously and anxiously maneuvering for position and survival all this time. The long sigh of relaxation and giving up the game, as we all must do one way or another. And when this surrender is total and absolute, the beatitude descends, divine grace has room to enter now that the game of the illusory self has been abandoned.
So.. Lao Tzu’s question is all that remains. Do you have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?
Jeff Nirenberg 