One of the simple inquiries Adyashanti suggests is to (a) identify wants (needs, wishes, motivations) and (b) explore what we hope to get out of it, continuing until we find what appears to be the seed motivation, the one that is a goal in itself.

Finding the seed motivation

For me, it seems that no matter what I start with, from the most mundane to the embarrasing to the elevated motivations and wishes, I see that their seed motivation is to be free from suffering, and find happiness.

And seeing the many manifestations of the seed

The layer just outside of this seed includes (a) being free from pain, a sense of separation, having what I don't want and not having what I want, a sense of not being in the right place, a sense of loss and lack, of being finite in time so subject to birth and death, of being finite in space so subject to the whims of the myriad other objects, and (b) wanting a sense of belonging, of being home, of safety, of contentment.

Already aligned, and also aligned in conscious experience

Exploring surface motivations in this way, one by one, I find that they are always aligned in their depths. They all come from the same seed motivation. And through this exploration, through bringing this into awareness in a genuine way, through a sincere exploration, they also become aligned in my surface awareness. Awareness is brought to the seed, so they are aligned also at surface awareness.

Ease and simplicity

There is a sense of ease and simplicity around this as well. Finding the seed motivation behind each of the many surface motivations gives a sense of simplicity. And seeing that they all are already aligned gives a sense of ease.

There may is still the deliberation between choices in daily life, but now knowing that they are already aligned, they all are from the same seed motivation, and this allows a good deal of the drama to fall away. The appearance of internal war and struggle goes.

Seeing it here, and also there

So there is not only an immediate sense of the same seed motivation behind all the many and varied motivations surfacing in my daily life, but there is also a sense of the same with others. I see others having many different motivations and acting on them, and there is a felt sense of how they too want freedom from suffering, and happiness. This too takes a great deal of the drama out of it.

The inner mirroring the outer

As long as I am not familiar with the seed motivations of my many surface motivations, I'll experience a struggle among them. And I will also experience a struggle between my own surface motivations and those of others.

Being familiar with my own seed motivations, it becomes effortless to also see them in others (or something similar), and see that we are all in the same boat.

The sense of struggle and drama goes out of it, internally and in relationship with others, although there are still choices made, still negotiations and explorations, still deliberations and sometimes not the apparently ideal options and resolutions.

Partial and deepening resolution

Of course, as long as there is a sense of I and Other, there will also be a sense of struggle and drama, but it is at least diminished, sometimes greatly diminished, through clarifying the seed motivations.

And the more the seed motivation is not only clearly seen, but also deeply felt, in our whole being, the more thorough this resolution is. We see and feel the seed motivation behind the varied surface motivations, and the trails leading from the surface ones to the seed.

Full resolution

The only full resolution is to realize that there is no I here in this human self, no I anywhere in all of form or anywhere else. There is just the field of awake emptiness and form, inherently absent of I anywhere, and now awake to itself as a field. There is no center. There is no doer, only the doing.

This human self, as anything else in the world of form, just happens. Arising here now in always fresh, new, different ways. Always new and fresh expressions of Spirit, absent of I anywhere.

Labels: adyashanti, inquiry