Define Real: What Does It Mean to Be Real?

. . . the part of the practice which we are exploring is **being real**. And as we have discussed, we are always somewhere, but sometimes there is much more to our reality and other times we don’t know where we are. And those two questions are interrelated.

Understanding the Concept of Being Real

Our usual state is vague and imaginary. There is a gap in our understanding. And a gap in our experience of where we find ourselves and what the potential is of who and what we are. The Diamond Approach path is organized around finding out more. We confront the usual subjective self and as we become more present to what we are at the moment, that will naturally challenge what we have taken ourselves to be, because the ego itself cannot handle immediacy. And to be exactly where we are means we are immediate to our experience. That we are right there up against it, in it, feeling it, really knowing it, being in touch. The ego is based on movement away from immediate experience. So, our intention and practice of being present is a challenge to it. And our inquiry practice has this capacity built in.

At first, we are oblivious to this. We go through life with the patterns established by our egos. This works well enough for most of us. We have areas which we avoid, and other areas we inhabit so we miss things. It’s like someone who grows up thinking that they have a bad singing voice, so they avoid ever singing in order to avoid embarrassment. But, it’s more powerful than that because it is so ubiquitous. We may think we are a helper, and we identify with it, so we go through life looking for places where we can help, avoiding other situations and maybe avoiding our own heart’s desire. Or, we identify as unlovable and see rejection in many places so we avoid any contact with them. And, this happens, for the most part, unconsciously. Life proceeds on stale patterns of our conditioning.

The Essential Role of a Teacher in Navigating Self-Discovery and Immediacy

Most people are unable to see this without a teaching and teacher to help. Even those with sincere intentions have problems with steadfastness. You have a solid meditation practice, and start to experience more spaciousness in your life, your being. But then you have a challenge of some sort, someone doesn’t see you the right way and it pricks your self-conception and you go and find another group to be with. Then the cycle repeats itself.

We use our inquiry practice to traverse the gap between what we imagine to be true and what is true.

Immediacy is the bridge between the imaginary and the reality of who you are. Imaginary is far away feeling from the fact of immediacy. Imagination is always doubtful. When we imagine something or fantasize, let our minds roll around, we know we are not in touch but we actually live according to those kinds of fantasies so there is always an insecurity underneath.

The lack of immediacy is the atmosphere the ego lives in. And, as we get to know the falsehood of it, and the un-realness that we actually adhere to so strongly, the more we begin to be aware that there is more immediacy. The more immediacy we have in our experience, the more the illusory realm of the ego is exposed to us.

Immediacy is the main characteristic of what it means to be present. The more present we are, the more in touch we are with our experience, whatever that is, regardless of what we are experiencing. There is heightened awareness. There is more consciousness. There is more sensitivity.

Exploring What It Means to Be Real

Here is an example--you might be feeling some kind of pain. If you allow yourself to simply be there without assuming anything about it, something new can happen. It might be some emotional pain. You feel some sadness. Simply being with the feeling of the sadness, you might notice that you start feeling young.

So, you allow that to come forward. That is one of the identifications that you have, that you take to be you. So, you feel sad and you feel young and maybe you feel helpless. And, as you feel that helplessness, if you just are there, completely, it opens up to more information. You start feeling sad, that opens up to feeling young…the difficulty here is that the ego only knows two options. You can repress and avoid and protect or you can express.

In this case, you can express the feeling of sadness by telling your friend and feeling sad and crying on their shoulder and letting the feeling out and expressing it. Or the other option is to find a way to avoid it and to get away from it; repressing it, defending against it. These are our usual two options.

What Does Being Real Mean in Our Practice?

Our practice is to be with it, neither expressing which is often a discharge or repressing which is avoidance. As we are with this feeling of youngness and we simply let it be. We start to feel like we are that young child. And we stay right in the thick of it, being with all the feelings, sensations, the posture and maybe some history that arises. You remember being in school as a child with all these other children and you feel small and insignificant, as you stay with that, you feel your sense of deficiency and go into it, feeling like you are going to fall into a black abyss. Then you let yourself fall and you find yourself as a spark of light floating in an expanse of black space, and you feel that indestructible part of yourself which is beyond any kind of evaluation, intrinsically valuable and precious.

This is a simplified example, it does not always work in this clear linear way, but over time, these kinds of insights can happen in our work. Each time you touch into those bigger spaces which are more true about who we are, we are in touch with reality in a real way. This can lead us home to ourselves, where we can be who we are without looking to our outside circumstances to define who and what we are. In our practice, we would describe it as coming in contact with our essence, and as we do, it brings us closer to ourselves.