Take It Where It Is, Not Where You Think It Ought to Be

Rudi with Swami Chetanananda

My teacher, Rudi, used stories to illustrate some of his teachings. I think my favorite story is the one where the architect and the wise man were wandering the world together. As they traveled, the wise man was entertained by the company of the architect, who was looking at everything and saying, “This tree ought to be like this,” and “That rock ought to be over here,” and “This thing ought to be this way,” and “That thing ought to be that way.” One day they had traveled a long time without eating, and they came over a hill to a meadow where there was a flock of goats. As they approached the goats to milk one, the architect said, “This goat’s tits ought to be 6” higher.” The wise man went to the goat’s udder and the architect went 6” higher. The moral of the story is: take it where it is and not where you think it ought to be.

What we think about how it ought to be, about how anything ought to be, it is only our ego talking. It is absolutely useless. If I were going to describe, in the simplest way I could, our spiritual practice, I’d say we practice contact, alignment, and flow. We practice contact, alignment and flow in our bodies, which activate the deepest healing capacity of the body to express itself in its broadest range of motion. We practice contact, alignment and flow in our hearts to realize our own self in the deepest possible way that we can and to flow from our own source through this body into this field of experience, ever in alignment. We’re also practicing contact, alignment and flow between ourself and the entire universe. It is contact, alignment and flow in every dimension of our life that wakes up our own creative resource and facilitates its expression through the field of our life.

This contact, this connecting, is connecting with what is, not what we think ought to be.

The second day I was in New York with Rudi, I was sweeping the stairs outside his brownstone on 10th Street before class because I noticed it had gotten a little dirty out there. While I was sweeping a guy named Hans, who was ostensibly a student of Rudi’s, came up to me and said, “Oh, you’re new here,” and I said, “Yeah, I am.” Then he said “How can you study with Rudi?–he’s so fat.” I said “Really, I didn’t notice. All I’ve ever seen when I looked at him was love.” I guess Hans thought Rudi ought to be thinner, and some people thought he ought not to be in business. Everybody has thoughts about something that we ought to be letting go of in order to extend our capacity to connect.

When I was a young person just starting to teach, I thought there’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything. Now I think the fact that anything ever gets done is a miracle, and each and every day that I wake up and start to express myself, I establish contact and flow within me, and the rest of it is an experiment. Maybe in the linear world how it ought to be is a straight line, and easy to say. Sometimes I wish we lived in a linear world. It would be a lot simpler. But we don’t. So, quieting our minds and then feeling into our hearts, we let go of our ego and all of the ways in which we think it ought to be to connect to the reality of our own self and the reality of each other. We begin to hold, without any kind of judgment, a completely open and loving space from within ourselves for everyone that we share our life with. Be the wise person and, if you’re hungry, take it where it’s at. Don’t go eating where you think it ought to be. Because it ain’t there.

We have to constantly wake up the energy that is this body and, with our own personal gentle awareness, by feeling and feeling and feeling, bring the body into total alignment with itself and its resources and its creative flow. Then everything else happens on its own. It will happen not like we think it ought to be, because that is the limitation of anybody’s creative expression. It will happen as an unimaginable possibility that is beyond anything that this crazy brain of ours can wrap itself around.


The story of the architect and the wise man and other teaching stories appear in Rudi’s book
Spiritual Cannibalism,  published by Rudra Press. 

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What is the Unimaginable Possibility?

Several years ago, I was invited by an ashram in Melbourne, Australia, to be part of a program with some other spiritual teachers. They were expecting an audience of about 400 people for the public events, and I had to decide on a topic for my talks. I wanted to come up with an idea that would be meaningful to the people attending, something that they could carry forward from that experience. I hoped to share something that would be of value to them; I wanted to tell them something that they wouldn’t forget. It occurred to me to talk about the most meaningful part of my own experience, what has driven and sustained me for the last forty-odd years. After considering it for some time, I understood that the most important aspect of my experience was coming to an awareness of the unimaginable possibility, as I experienced it in my teacher, Rudi, and that’s what I decided to talk about.

Person in silhouette opening arms to universeFor the first few days of those programs in Melbourne, I talked about the unimaginable possibility. I told the people there that in each of them, in every moment, there was an unimaginable possibility that was present and available to them. I told them that every human being, no matter what their life circumstance, has something really, really wonderful at their core. I told them that the unimaginable possibility has dimensions to it that are sacred and profound and powerful enough to change the landscape of lives. I could tell that the people in the audience liked hearing that there was an amazing possibility for them, but I also see they weren’t totally convinced.

Now, the programs in Australia were set up so that each of the teachers there gave a talk in the evenings. The following day before lunch, a senior student of each teacher would get up and give a recap of that teacher’s talk the night before. About three days into the program, my assistant, who was giving the morning talks, came to me and said, “They want to know what the unimaginable possibility is, and they want to know if you’re going to tell them.” I decided to play a little game. I told my assistant, “Tell them no.” He went to the morning meeting the next day and the question came up again: “Well, is he going to tell us?” He told them that I wouldn’t. So my assistant came back to me and said, “They still want to know, and they’re still asking me: are you going to tell them?” I said, “Tell them no. Not this time, maybe next year, when I come again.”

This exchange went on for about three days, and it was my turn to be the main speaker at the evening program. I said, “I understand that a lot of you would really like me to tell you what the unimaginable possibility is. And I know I’ve been saying I’m not going to tell you. But I’ve decided to tell you what it is.” That got quite a rise out of the people there. Then I said, “Actually, at least I’ve decided to talk about it, because, frankly, I don’t know what your unimaginable possibility is. And even if I could know, I wouldn’t want to know, because that would make me the limitation of your experience. And why should anyone want to be that for anyone else?”

This unimaginable possibility finds a unique expression in every living human being. It has to, because each of us, despite all of our similarities, is creatively unique. This possibility emerges from the vibrant oneness that is at the core of all life, but it expresses itself differently in the field of each of our lives. It’s impossible to say what it is for anybody else.

It’s also impossible for you to know what the unimaginable possibility is for you. I can guarantee that it doesn’t in any way resemble what you think it is. Anything you think it is is just an expression of your ego, and the amazing possibility that exists for you goes far beyond that.

The unimaginable possibility isn’t, for example, waking up every day happy, with enthusiasm, to engage in your day—although for a lot of people, that may indeed be an unimaginable possibility. It isn’t waking up every morning and looking at your significant other and seeing a person that you really like and care about and are looking forward to sharing your day with. That’s also pretty unimaginable for many people. It isn’t going off to do whatever you do to earn money and express yourself professionally or creatively and find great joy in the going and the doing. It isn’t that. But wouldn’t that be unbelievable? To get up every morning and go to work and find that you care about the people who were there and had meaningful experiences in sharing with them, and they cared about you and the work you were doing was meaningful—that alone would be pretty amazing.

The unimaginable possibility is not any of those things. It is so much vaster than that. But even those simple things are experiences that we will have. They are states that will emerge in us as we move along in our cultivation of the truly profound possibility that is present within us. They are part of the process of refining ourselves and deepening our understanding. They’re not something we have to force; they just come to us as we are continuously developing the deepest, finest place within us.

Please understand that the unimaginable possibility is not about self-improvement; it is about transcendence. That transcendence is based on a deep acceptance of our own humanity, with all of its paradoxes, confusions and ambivalences. At the same time, we live with an awareness that the fundamental power that has given rise to the appearance of the entire universe in all of its multiplicity and abundance resides within the core of our own being.  It is the resting place of the unimaginable possibility lying in the center of each of our souls. It is waiting to be awakened and coaxed to pour forth its magic and its profound abundance.

This ultimate reality with its profound power, the power that poured forth and endlessly continuously pours forth billions of universes, and renews those billions of universes regularly, manifests through us when we have cultivated our contact with it. It not only transforms our life, our deepest inner life, our mind and our emotions, and our physical body, but it extends throughout the whole field of our awareness. It expands our field of awareness and our field of activity, further and further as we go, creating a space in which something really unimaginable, something unimaginably fine, unimaginably uplifting and nourishing, for us and for all of the life that we’re in contact with, can manifest in all the three fields of our experience.

Love is that dimension of ourselves that is endlessly giving of itself. The love at our core is the same as the infinite vitality of the ultimate reality, endlessly manifesting power without being diminished in any way. There is great richness, great abundance present in that vitality. That abundance is so profound that, within it, there are possibilities for every living being that completely transcend our capacity to imagine. When we understand this, there is no lack. Instead, we find that there is an extraordinary resource within us. Then life no longer has to be a struggle for acquisition.

Unimaginable possibility exists for all of us. If the energy that can be released from one atom can change the landscape of 1000 square miles, then what is possible in the awakening of the creative energy of a single person whose focus is intense, whose mind is clear, and whose heart is pure?

Transitions

Growing and change begin with letting go, rather than struggling with decisions. We need to allow a flow, which may move us into a period that is like a dark night of the soul. If we can move into and through that space of shadow, we can come through it and return into the light in a whole new way.