It’s just the flow of wisdom as it is emerging out of your own Self, and it has devastating impact. The way it distinguishes itself from ordinary knowledge is that it carries what I would call the power to cause you to interface back onto your own Being because ordinary knowledge just keeps you in the field of action. It just keeps you going. You see the difference?
Participant 1: But I was interested in the question that was up about the calamity, the calamity of awakening. U.G. Krishnamurti says that awakening is a calamity.
David: What he says is that he went through the calamity. He wasn’t in the calamity after it all took place. He was in the natural state. Okay? Just so we’re clear on what he said.
P1: In other words, his getting there.
David: The calamity was not getting there, that you can’t get there. It was the end of that old form of functioning that we call causality. Now, I’m interpreting his writings which is not fair, and he would have my head for it if he was here. To give any kind of commentary on his writings or his words would itself be an act of abhorrent disrespect. But he’s not here, so I can do it. Or is he?
Participant 2: Last night someone talked about their despair, how to deal with it, and you said something about being despair. You said, “Be that.” I found that really interesting.
Participant 1: Is there something special about getting to the end of your despair?
David: You are really inviting misinformation by suggesting there’s something special because if you get anything out of this you’re going to see it as a means to an end, and you’re going to dangle that in front of you like it’s a gode to be attained. That’s how the mind works. The mind can’t work any other way in non-realization other than to go after what it imagines itself to be more pleasurable or less painful. That’s the way it functions.
P1: Well that’s true. I mean even in the enlightenment game we’re still doing that.
David: That’s why I won’t go into the “special” category with you. That’s why I’m pulling back cause I don’t want to play the enlightenment game. I just want to get to it in as direct a way as we can by just talking like this and us peeling away the mislabels, the wrong labels but not to get anywhere. There’s no feeling in me like I want to get anywhere with you. This is very important to understand. I’m not enlightening you, not when we’re doing this. Now, in the midst of all of this, you might find that things are active, and the things I describe are non-duality, devotional fervor or wanting in a very deep and immediate way, or the energy, the electrical, bio-electrical energy that animates you. All those things can be enhanced. Those things push you toward being released.
P1: So, what happened yesterday for example at that devastating event that happened yesterday was just my own experience in response to what came out that evening.
David: It was what it was for you. It was your experience. But, we can’t postulate that that’s a gateway into enlightenment. We just stay with the discussion. Just stay very closely bound to what we’re talking about without turning this into some teaching.
P1: Yeah, but you know what we’re also doing each of us in our individual way is following the pathway that seems to be already in front of us. If I find that I come to your event and certain things start to happen for me, I’ll probably walk more in that direction just because I want to come to the end of whatever’s opening for me. Is that a valid thing to do?
David: But I question this idea of the “I” that’s going to walk toward the end. You stated something factual but then you then added a kind of agenda to it. “Now that it’s been opened I’m going to follow it to the end.”
P1: So, our own….
David: It could be a problem with language here. I don’t know if you’re just speaking representationally and metaphorically or if you really mean that.
P1: Well, I think the problem is when we talk about, “I’m going to do.” You know it’s tricky, you know?
David: It’s false.
P1: So, if I have any volition at all in the matter then it’s false.
David: Right, it’s just an avoidance, just resistance. It’s time. Whenever you invoke time as part of your process you’re running away.
P1: So, everything has to be spontaneous. There’s no other way?
David: Right, all of this is happening in that, period.
P1: You just took the rug out from under us.
David: No, I didn’t. That’s another process you’re referring to. You’re just desperately clinging to this island of understanding, and I’m telling you it’s going to be sunk.
P2: It’s hard for me to imagine how to exist in an agenda-less way.
David: Huh?
P2: It’s hard for me to imagine how to exist without that ground of some kind of a prop to hold you up, an agenda-less existence.
David: Genderless? I was going to say, “How did we get on the topic of gender?”
P2: Where everything is simply arising without any kind of a volition as to….To me that’s….
David: But even that, you’re just again getting into that descriptive mind.
P2: I know…
David: You’re being naughty.
P2: I know. It’s crazy. It drives me nuts.
David: No, you are nuts for doing this. Everything you say is warped. No matter what, even when you’re trying to confess something, even that’s a lie. And this isn’t funny really.
P2: It is because I know what you’re saying, but there’s nothing I can, I can’t respond.
David: Actually this is funny, but you’re still doing it.
P2: I can’t respond to it because if I were to respond to it then I would be responding to it if that makes sense.
David: But that’s not the problem or is it?
P2: I don’t know.
David: That radical abiding is going on now, but I’m not talking about some transformational state. I’m not talking about creating something. I know this is nasty. This is hard to listen to, but it’s important that we do this today or sometime. I’ll play the teacher on another day. Today we’ll do this, not all day. These people are saying, “Oh my God, my first Intensive with David or my second Intensive and he’s going to crucify us like this all day.”
But really I’m just breathing in that freedom with you. I’m not really doing anything. And I hope you’ll just try to be as alert as you can in just doing your own process with me that is happening right now, not the process that you would create or imagine that you have to go through or even complete the one you think you’re in, but just come into your naturalness. Forget about everything. Forget about Shakti, forget about devotion, forget about non-duality. Just be rid of all these ideas. This morning they feel all like ideas to me. And if there is something beyond all of this discussion you’ll find out. And if it’s really shown to you, you won’t even think of talking to me about it unless spontaneously that talking begins to happen and you want to share that.
Someone called him while we’re sitting with him and he answered the phone and they said, “U.G. I’m around the corner. Can I come and sit with you?” He said, “Access denied.” Do you know where he got that from? You know when that comes up on the computer once in a while? You try to go into something? He happened to see that one day. That became his entire teaching. He tried it with me too on the phone. I said, “U.G., I heard you’re in town. Can I come by, would you mind?” He said, “Access denied.” So I said, “Wow, how do you deal with that?” So I said, “I’m calling back.” There’s only one way to deny access denied which is access is allowed. And the only way to do that is to begin on the path of allowing. So, I called again. He said, “Okay, come by. It’s fine.”
But there was no fun and games around him. He wasn’t having fun ever. He just saw his job to disarm you of your own strategies. He was ruthless. Even though I wasn’t speaking from a level of strategy, because I departed from his verbal etiquette and wanted to discuss compassion with him he just ripped everything, friendship, compassion, love. He hated all those things. It was wonderful to see how merciless he was right to the end with his teaching.
Yet the last time I saw him he shook my hand. He did the double whammy, and he rubbed my shoulder. I never saw that man touch anybody, ever lay a hand on anyone. He warmly shook my hand as if to say, “Of course, I’m your friend.” But it was really a meeting at that point. It was, something was being said. This is when he was showing the signs of his illness the last time I saw him in Palm Springs.
