The least what interest me now is transcendence

The least what interest me now is transcendence, or   

any practices or methods that allow to alter the mind 

to present me with a different reality. Why?  

We have absolutely wonderful 2 ways to participate 

as a human: a walking state (we call it during daytime ) and 

a dream state (usually we call it at night time).

Both of these are already altered states of mind -   

total adventure! The attention narrows into the limited perception of the character with it's own attributes,  

sort of like you got into the Halloween costume - 

isn't it already interesting?!  

It doesn't even matter what character it is: handsome or not, 

rich or poor, healthy or ill.  Does it matter when you wear 

on a Halloween a costume of a fairy princess 

or an ugly witch?  Does it make you feel ugly, or it is still interesting?

And at night! Mind is altered in a way that the character 

is not even set in stone that much as during the day,

and the adventure even more fleeting and changing,

you can really see how you can live many lives at once!

So why in the world we want to continue this chemically altered mind trip and that trip, this journey and that one, again and again? What is that you are still seeking?

I asked my partner, he is so down to earth, 

and he altered his state of mind so many times before, 

he is a good one to ask this: "Why people can't stop seeking? What is that they are looking for?" 

"They are seeking permanent bliss", he said, 

"which never can be, but they still hope"

“Perhaps people are seeking more adventure, because

regular life seems boring, they are too focused into the boredom of the character, they miss the mystery of existence",  I offer.

And so I continue to wash the dishes, with almost pleasure,

though I never liked to wash the dishes, but I now find 

that this activity has the same meaning, has the same value,

as anything that I used to prefer as a spiritual seeker.

Look, isn't it a miracle that the water is running,

and the body is moving, and the dishes have different forms?

My mom loved to wash the dishes, and she can't participate 

in this activity anymore, or as a mom too...

Don't you see the mystery, right here?! Right in your own kitchen!

I am getting more and more practically inclined.

I want to guide, to consult, but I do not want to talk about seeking, though I do understand! I want to talk about your daily life, how to make you notice this mystery of life right where you are. How to not wait another couple of years 

to start something, but start now.  How to meet a partner, 

how to love each other. How to start living what is, 

instead of trying to fix constantly and change

to something that "supposed to be better".

Maybe I am a bit lost in a spiritual circles, 

I am feeling less an less belonging, but I do not have 

any other circle really.  All my adult life I was a seeker.

I do not feel as a light worker, light warrior, satsanger, 

teacher, student, shaman, medicine woman...

I do not feel as particularly light neither, no fairy dust on me.

I did not loose all the reactions, or fears, I am fine with them. They will go when it's time, I am not in a hurry here.

I feel as I walked my own path to realisation.  

At least to where the perpetual drive to seek 

of "Who am I" or "Home" is gone. 

And at first it was almost a joke, a "laugh out laud",

that I had to endure, struggle, and make monumental efforts 

to see that there is nothing to find more then it is already present. It is only possible to suddenly see it.  Suddenly become aware. And when it happens, you just laugh.  

Then you keep forgetting, and when you remember, 

you get mad on yourself, or disappointed, or scared to loose it. So you get into seeking even more, but now you 

sort of hide from yourself that you are doing it.  You still identified with that character, with the comings and goings.  

When you live enough of that to notice that all that movement

of remembrance and forgetfulness happening not to you,

but in you, then you relax.  It just happens. 

You let coming and going be as it is.  You just observe it, 

it happens by itself, no one needs to remember to observe.

Something knows this coming and going, 

and that does not need a reminder, it is it's very nature.

I am not sure where I was going with all this today,

I do not choose the words, they come, so I let them talk,

and therefore sometimes I arrive with them into this place,

where they die out, leaving me wordless. 

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Thank you so much! 

Better grow up before you wake up!

I might get scolded for this one, its alright, 

I used to it already for many years of resistance
from all kinds of people and groups that want to keep
their philosophy or methods to be unquestionably correct.

I do not pretend to know, I am just laying out what I came 
to experience in my own life, and surely, it can be subjective,
please keep this in mind that everything I write
aim only to specific people, with whom it will resonate.  

And I never know with whom beforehand. 

If something does not resonate with you, please know:
you are right.  You are right, because it is right for you,
and only you can know what is right for you, 

trust it.

I also want to say, that you being right does not make me wrong,
this is where all the debates fail: it is inclusive reality,
so instead of focusing on incorrectness of something, 

notice that you do not feel a resonance in your being, thats all.
No need to label it as wrong.

So today I wanted to present this hypothesis,
and it is also the experience from my own life.
This is about spiritual practices that have equanimity in its core, 
that they are actually not really beneficial for some people.

Maybe that was too strong of a statement.  Let me rephrase:
they might be not beneficial for some people 

at some point of time.  And I explain what I mean by that.

Maybe you heard before, I surely did, that it is important
to have a strong healthy ego before you actually 
trying to dissolve it. I never understood this fully until now.  
I guess I never had a healthy strong ego, I didn't know what it is.  

I mostly was who you wanted me to be, sad as it is sounds, 

there are many of us, we were squished into some character we accepted to be, out of survival, perhaps in an early childhood.

It is actually utmost important that the aspirant is fully adult,
and it is not only by age, but psychologically.
Surely we are work in progress psychologically always,
but I want to emphasise the importance of a developed healthy ego.It is indeed better to grow up before you wake up!

I noticed on myself and others, who carried or still carry
conforming qualities in the character, who try to smooth things out,

who carry the smile that aims to avoid confrontations,
training in the methods of meditation and inquiry that lead to acceptance and equanimity, leads more 

to apathy and passivity, instead of reality and truth.

Passive acceptance and avoidance to act is common outcome,
leading to feeling depressed and lifeless.

If you layer this with transcendent experiences,
if you happen to be in a non-duality, the road is very bumpy,
as so every rock on the road is there for you to trip on
and fall your face on the ground, bleeding, 

so you finally pick yourself up and stand up tall, 

without that nice smile to the whole world 

that aims to cover suppression and mantra:
"There is nothing to do.  Life is happening"

Awakening did not brought permanent relief of suffering in me
until the conforming character was clearly seeing and released.

You know, I saw so many of similar faces and tensed bodies
in different satsangs and gatherings, they were there with a hope
for spiritual experience to fix their pain of separation
from the truth of who they are.

Awakening gave me a space to see the mess in me,
it gave me courage to look into it, otherwise it probably 

was too scary, because there was no way I would look 

straight into my own face, covered by years of conforming.
Awakening opened that chance, to be real, to be who I am,
in absolute, and in humane simultaneously.

Dzogchen works! A pizza lesson.

I am not sure when exactly I realised that the unrest I feel 
is not because something is not yet known, or some transcendent experience is needed, or even some fixing to the unrest...Maybe in 2015, India and Nepal, I accepted that there is nothing to ask anyone anymore,
and leave unrest to just be. 

Because of this constant unrest in the mind,
I was looking for anyone who might know the cause of such affliction.  At last, I decided to travel to India, as many spiritual aspirants find what they are seeking for there.

I was in great unrest in India, it was excruciatingly hot,
I was climbing Arunachala mountain almost every day, 

went around the mountain barefoot one night. As though it may held the key to the unrest. 

I was not sure why the heck I was there, I wasn't really looking for the answer to "Who am I" for which Ramana Maharshi was famous. He lived and meditated on that mountain, and built the cave I sat often in. "Who am I"  was answered years prior, in the direct experience, it was enough not to forget forever.

One day I had this thought: "Elena might be in unrest to the end of her life.  This will be just fine.  This life, the experience of living, is so precious, in any way it is".  And so Elena was given a permission to be as she was.

By the recommendation of her Dharma friend
she went to see a woman in Nepal, a Dzogchen master,  

the wife of nearly departed from the body 
His Holiness Chatral Sangay Dorje Rinpoche.

She arrived to his body held in a temple in a Kudung - a special container that holds the body for 49 days of the ceremony prior to the cremation.
 
She went around the Kudung, it was adorned with mountains of flowers and semiprecious stones. They told her what to do, she did it.  She didn't understand traditions, she prostrated just like someone did before her turn.  She did it first time in her life.  It felt foreign, but she sincerely tried her best. Then she suddenly cried.

Kamala, the wife of the Rinpoche wasn't in the country, so she went to see her daughter, Dzogchen master Saraswati.
Saraswati was sitting on the cushion on the floor, eating pizza.  There was a pie in front of her of a regular pizza: tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

Both guide and Elena prostrated in front of the pizza.  This was the most farthest from anything she imagined about a meeting with a real Dzogchen master.  But she did what she was told. Saraswati asked her what she came for, by the second sentence about the unrest, she was back to her pizza, as she was absolutely uninterested.

Two years later Elena remembered that encounter, and suddenly she realised that Saraswati immediately saw in her the conforming role, unconsciously carried, and could't point to the cause of the unrest any better as to turn away to pizza, evoking in Elena conforming tendencies to a painful degree, so they couldn't be un-noticed! Elena saw it two years later clearly, and finally after carrying it almost half a century, released the conforming role.  

The unrest was the great tension in the mind that was created from knowing the expanse of who she was and living in the limitation of a conforming role, out of the life-long habit, by default. 

Hey, Dzogchen worked for her! 

To read more about experience of unrest in India:

The Fierce Grace of Arunachala



If your mind carries suppression/conforming imprinting, here are some of the writings I found on my blog that might help you to release the conforming tendencies:

Integration of Awakening: Personality Conflicts. Untying family/ancestral energetics

The gift of taking a Color of the Environment

Conforming tendencies of the character + awakening experience = nut house !

The Quest Worthy Undertaking

A Little Closer To Who You Are

Exploring sexuality as a part of the human experience

I wrote these essays long ago, but they are still relative, because many people on a spiritual path don't know how to fit sexuality into it.  My own explorations, mostly questioning, started as soon as I stepped on a spiritual path in my mid 20th.  I am still exploring this area of a human life, especially now I have a partner who gave me all the space to become a lover fully within a union.  I will be writing some essays exploring this area, my interest lies in experiencing and clarifying any areas of a human life from the perspective of transformation of consciousness.

Essays exploring human sexuality:

Transformation of sexual energy and the value of equanimity

Seeker on a Spiritual Path: Conquering Sexual Desire

When Two Come Together Physically

Lovemaking as a divine transmutative experience

Is it difficult to look in the eyes?

I received the letter from a young woman asking about her difficulties in looking straight into people's eyes.  This is so common, and I know this pull to hide firsthand.  I wrote in a way that would hopefully resonate with her, and maybe it will be helpful for someone else.

~~~

Is it difficult to look in the eyes of another and you take them away? Perhaps you do not feel there is enough space 

between you two for you to be yourself. 

Therefore you contract, even slightly, into a role 

that doesn’t fit quite perfectly, rather it is limiting, shrinking role, that your being can’t accept anymore as a good outfit.

In the limiting perception of yourself, you do not see
the fullness of who you are, and you afraid the other also see you in limitation, as you see yourself, which is exactly how it works.

Make sure every time you face someone to talk, you establish your body upright, inhale deeply and open your shoulders.  Feel the empowerment, 

feel your place here in this lifetime as much valid and important as anyones, without exceptions. 

Your presence is precious, just like anyone else’s, as much.
Your wellbeing is beneficial to this world like everyone’s else, no doubt. Your attention is focused energy,  just like in every other human being.
Remember this, re-group yourself as soon as you caught yourself not seeing yourself in fullness of who you are.

Can you see that from this embrace from your own worth and uniqueness, from your own presence, your light, your fullness, you do not need to take your eyes elsewhere, but look straight with openness, love, compassion, interest and curiosity…

Are you afraid to loose an awakening?

My friend, what to run away from?  What to be afraid to loose?
You are what Knows, what Aware.  You are THAT.
Relax into the humanness, do not hold on to the transcendent.
Holding on keeps you in a perpetual solidifying memories of transcendent states,
not living in this moment, not playing and enjoying life as is.

If you do not aware you are THAT at this very moment, it is only means
you dove into the feelings deep,  into the character that is taking the stage,
but you never lost yourself,  it is just an illusion of being lost.
How the actor can be lost, but for a time when playing wholeheartedly that role?
Sometimes he needs a glass of water, a walk, a mirror to look to bring him back to who he is.

You can enjoy the stage, the act.  Relax into the role.
The play is not forever,  it has an end.  It also has some changing acts,
where you can see between the roles you play, reminding yourself of who you are.
Isn't the best actor awards are given to those who forget that they are playing, and we forget with them, immersed into the scene, living it?!

Perhaps it is possible not to dive in the character that deep at times,
or maybe not for long.  But if it happens to be deep enough, have no fear, friend!
Attention is a vector of Awareness.  It can be pointed, directed, practiced.
When actor takes a role and step onto the stage, he is directing his attention
to the feelings, thoughts of character he plays.  At anytime he can direct attention to himself
and know who he is.

Some humanities...

One day I might be able to write more about this life changing and life giving relationship. I have so much to say, I get overwhelmed and I don't know where to start. Though I am guilty of it on many topics! I have so much to express that if I won't have anything to experience anymore, I can still write about what I already experienced and understood to the end of this life. The most fascinating thing that the essence of who I am that unveiled itself to 8 months old baby Alenka now is the same in 50 years old Elena. Gosh, so much lived, and nothing changed at all. I can write to the rest of this lifetime about this mystery, telling stories of my own life of slowly changing face, without ever changing at all
💗🙏