The Guru Dialogues XI (The Cocoon and the Butterfly)

Seeker – I think I need some help with this mindless state, this ocean of awareness that you talk about. I become that ocean sometimes. My mind becomes very silent and it feels like I am looking out on creation from another perspective that is both there and not there. It feels a little antiseptic. It’s almost like I am looking out on life from behind a glass wall.

Guru – This is not the full experience of the ocean of awareness. This experience is part of awakening, but it is what I would call the cocoon stage of awakening. You are transitioning from living in the ego-mind, but there is still a fundamental division in your perception and it is like the layer of protection that surrounds the caterpillar when it is becoming a butterfly. You feel like an observer of the world because you are resisting integration with the world, with what is. But there is a new consciousness being born within you. It will soon emerge from behind the glass wall. Or, more accurately, the glass wall will no longer be a barrier.

Seeker – Then I become a butterfly, I suppose.

Guru – The full emergence into the ocean of consciousness is not unlike the emergence of the butterfly. A truly dramatic transformation has taken place. The butterfly is the caterpillar, but it is also a wholly new creature. The caterpillar has given birth to another version of itself, and this new version bears no resemblance the old one. It exists in a completely new dimension. Where the caterpillar crawled, the butterfly soars through the air, drifting on gusts of wind, brilliant and delicate. It is fully integrated with life, it IS life. Where has this marvellous creature come from? It is as if the caterpillar was hiding the existence of the butterfly.

This is what happens in the transformation to awakening. Once you have emerged out of the cocoon, there is a totally new relation to the ego-mind. You are in another dimension of consciousness while still being very much here and now. You are silently one with all that is. You are love itslef.

Seeker – You make butterflies sound superior to caterpillars. Are not all creatures equally brilliant reflections of being.

Guru – Yes, and so the awakened man is no better than the unconscious man. There is no better or worse, higher or lower, once you have seen reality for what it is. There are different manifestations only.



[edit on 14-7-2009 by Silenceisall]

Don't stop posting these. I rarely check them out but I like them.

It cool to see what others get when they tune into that channel and let it flow.

reply to post by CavemanDD


Thanks Caneman. Yes, the don't receive many replies, but every once in a while someone says that the post helped them in some way. This encouages me to persist.

reply to post by Silenceisall


Ha, it goes the same with me, and you might even get someone lashing out at you but I guess you gotta remind yourself why you do it in the first place.

Its like you have all that energy there and you feel it or something similar is a perspective that hasn't been brought up so you gotta just do it. And you're right, its all about that one guy who might even contact you months later and say that it was helpful / valueable in some way.

SO keep at it.

I like them too!

i love them and i love you = )

good day

Magnificient in it's nothingness. In awe of it's emptiness. Filling in it's awareness.

S+F'd. =)

In Lovingkindness

=)Namaste

Erik

reply to post by redwoodjedi


Thanks Redwoodjedi. There is no way to convey the transcendant beauty of the nothing that is everything, and it is not possible to convince people that they are that nothing....but I continue to hope these talks will be useful to someone, somehow.

Originally posted by Silenceisall
reply to post by redwoodjedi

 

Thanks Redwoodjedi. There is no way to convey the transcendant beauty of the nothing that is everything, and it is not possible to convince people that they are that nothing....but I continue to hope these talks will be useful to someone, somehow.

The ego is insidiously forever trying to prove it's own existence by showing One the only places it lives, the Past and the Future. It cannot stand the Shining Light of the Pure Awareness of the Moment.

Sometimes this takes awhile for folks to take in. It's OK. They have Eternity to get it. The only travesty? So much suffering is chosen and viciously defended until it is seen as useless.

Bodhisattvas must BE the Light for those that keep theirs behind a curtain with no expectation of reward or acknowledgement. The path is it's own reward. =)

In Lovingkindness

=)Namaste

Erik

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, The master calls a butterfly." Bach.

Your sentiments are beautiful my friend, I enjoyed reading them.