What happened to Monica

The following account was written within a year or so of the end of the illusion (also referred to as ‘liberation’) that happened during a yoga class in the spring of 2009 when Monica was 39 years old:

Once upon a time there was a fairly conventional, seventeen-year-old, Catholic girl called Monica. One day she was feeling sad and confused about life and boys and her family’s immanent departure from the Lakeland valley that had been her home. Then something very strange happened. One moment she was a young woman sitting high on a hillside looking out over the lake, and the next she was obviously everything she could see, and the young woman was only a small part of this. It was as if she had expanded and all of life was happening inside herself, inside what she really was. The strange thing was that it was so familiar. It had obviously always been like this. It seemed to her that everyone, or at least most people, must know this, but there was a privacy and respect about it, so it was just not mentioned. It was also impossible to describe, although she soon started to discover books written by people who seemed to be pointing towards something similar. The experience faded; she seemed to have gone back inside her body, and the memory of it was owned and carried with her. 

Over the next twenty-two years she had many more experiences of expansion, numerous glimpses of the aliveness and spontaneity of everything, and what seemed like special spiritual states involving love, light, energy and all sorts of wonderful things. But it was never enough. The experiences always faded and she was left with a sense of limitation, personal control and inadequacy. She longed to find a way to be in a freer sort of altered state more of the time and experimented with anything that seemed to offer this possibility. Maybe if she became really pure and elevated her energy then something would really shift and she would not have to bother with all the murkiness of ordinary human experience. Maybe she could become better at ‘letting go’ and ‘letting life just happen’. 

She discovered the teachings of non-duality and finally started to understand that all her special experiences were just that:  experiences. What she was searching for was not going to be found in linking up lots of altered states, becoming ‘good enough’ or trying to manipulate her experience. This in turn gave rise to a kind of desperation and an intense inward questioning. What was this sense of separation and limitation that seemed to stop her seeing things as they really were and knowing the truth of what she really was? Could she locate it? How could she get rid of it; she had been told this was impossible, but maybe there was some subtle trick she was missing? It all felt very grim and unpleasant but there was no turning back. No way to just forget about it and embrace life as it was. She felt like she was ready to sacrifice everything, even her wonderful husband and her life if need be, for something that felt unknown and terrifying in itself. 

She went to a yoga class taught by her husband and was doing some sort of floor based posture, when suddenly there was a ridiculously small energetic ‘pop’ and the story ended. Or more precisely (and even this is a story), it was seen that the story is just a story and there is only the eternal present in which life appears to no-one or what could be called itself. There is only this, and no way of carrying anything forward from one moment to another. This means there is nothing that can be owned (though the appearance of owning may happen) and no ‘one’ to own it. An appearance of tightening and holding on as if something is personal can happen, but it happens for nobody. There is nothing that is separate and nothing that has any duration. It is absolute shocking emptiness and absolute stunning fullness. It is very strange and very simple. It is incredibly familiar and could obviously never be, or have been, any other way. It is the end of fear, though fear may appear in it. There is nothing to defend although defensiveness can appear. Absolutely anything can appear in this and it is just what it is. No rules. No-one to be responsible. No-one to direct action in any way at all. Actually nothing happens, but life seems to continue as if it did. 

So the story is really only a story appearing presently. Nothing that Monica ever did ever made anything happen. Actually Monica never did anything at all and nothing ever happened. 

If this sounds confusing it is because it is. Thought can never make sense of this. Thought deals with relative concepts: right and wrong, big and small, empty and full, connection and separation, now and then, knowledge and ignorance, restriction and freedom…. What I am calling liberation pulls the rug out from under all of this. It is seen that in the oneness that is always the case (and even that can not describe it) there is nothing separate to be relative to anything else, yet separateness and connectedness can seem to appear in it. The relative concepts and activity of thought are seen to be useful for practical or playful purposes but have no underlying truth. How can there really be right and wrong when there is no doer and no judge? How can there be big and small when it all appears in emptiness? How can there be emptiness when it is obviously full of life?….. 

Back to the story – the yoga class ended and she went to the pub, where her husband received a table tennis trophy. She got into mountain biking. Life was immediate, interesting, surprising, sometimes boring (which was also interesting). The effort of stringing together memories in some sort of meaningful order all felt a bit pointless, so she gave up and decided to watch TV instead.