I’m going to tell another story to help work us into an ongoing discussion about how non-duality and Native spirituality work.
Satori.
I’m sure anybody who’s been studying nonduality has heard about Satori. Lots of people define it as the little Enlightenment, the beginning. You reach Satori and then you reach Samadhi, Samadhi being full Enlightenment.
This is a story about me decades ago. I’m sitting and I’m meditating. Just meditating. I meditated a lot… so I’m sitting there. You know what meditation is like, yes? I’m sure most of you meditate, right? You sit there for various lengths of time. Sometimes your mind comes in, sometimes your back hurts, all sorts of different things go on in a meditation session.
I’m just sitting there meditating. All of a sudden everything went completely normal. That’s what it felt like. It wasn’t obscure… it was very distinctive. Like taking a deep breath and relaxing. Just normal.
I didn’t think anything about it, obviously, because it was just normal. You can’t notice normal, because it’s just normal. But I’m sitting there with Swami Yogino, and Yogino suddenly interrupts my meditation and says, ‘There, you just attained Satori.’
And I’m thinking, ‘What?’ First of all.. don’t interrupt me, I’m meditating, dude!” So I was a bit annoyed. And then the ridiculousness of what he said struck me. I’m thinking–But that was nothing. And it was true. It was literally, the absence of… thing. It was just normal. It didn’t make any sense, so I dismissed it. How could that be Satori?
But it was.
If you go back, do any reading or studying of the old masters that’s actually the best description of Satori that there can possibly be. Everything goes normal. Complete relaxation. The brain normal.
Samadhi
Samadhi is when that happens permanently because you realize, ‘Ah, there’s nothing here. Normal is me. When there is suddenly nothing in front of your field of vision all that is left is you. I’m this. I’m this nothing.’ When there’s nothing happening in what we call your left brain consciousness then unity awareness arises… just like with Jill Bolte Taylor and her stroke.
It’s often described as thoughts stopping, but that’s not accurate. The thoughts don’t stop. Thoughts are still going. It’s just that the attachment to them just stops, even for a second. If that can stop for even a second, there’s nothing left but you. When there is nothing left but me then you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m me.’
Who are you?
This fits into our discussion of native people. The big thing in native stories is knowing who you are. Who are you?
Back in deep time every person would know who they are their whole life. Native spirituality is the human experience before the idea of Samadhi and Satori was even invented. Before these ideas were even necessary.
But more than that… humans have been around for thousands and thousands of years. The majority of that time we have lived in a state we have to call ‘normal.’ Just a normal, everyday, human being. Returning to this relaxing place is a good goal!