Okay, here’s a briefing document summarizing the key themes and ideas from the provided text, with relevant quotes…

Date: October 26, 2023 Subject: Analysis of dialogue on the nature of being, experience, and paths to realization

Introduction:

This document summarizes a discussion focused on the nature of “being” and how it relates to our daily experiences. It delves into the idea that our true nature is often obscured by our identification with thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, and explores two approaches – Vedantic and Tantric – to uncover this true nature.

Key Themes and Ideas:

Veiling of Being:

• The core concept is that our true nature, “being,” is often veiled or obscured by our immersion in the content of our experience. This includes thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities, and relationships.
• “When we say I am agitated, then our being is veiled by our by our agitated thoughts. When we say I am lonely, our being is veiled by our feelings. When we say I am busy, our being is veiled by our activities.”
• This “veiling” isn’t that experience hides being, but rather that our focus on the content makes us overlook our being. It’s like being so engrossed in a movie that we forget it’s being projected on a screen. “The landscape doesn’t veil the screen because all there is to the landscape is the screen. It the landscape is shining with the screen.”
• The common phrase “I am [feeling, thought, etc.]” actually points to the ever-present “I am” which we often ignore. “You don’t say, there is a conversation with Rupert. You say, I am having a conversation… You don’t say there is sadness. You say I am sad.”

The “I Am” as a Starting Point:

• The speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing and emphasizing the “I am” – the pure awareness that underlies all experiences. “All that’s necessary. Emphasize the I am. Magnify the I am.”
• This can be done formally through meditation or prayer, turning attention away from external experience to focus on the “I am” within. This is the Vedantic approach.
• It can also be done informally throughout daily life, in the midst of activities and relationships, by simply emphasizing the “I am”. This can be called “praying without ceasing.”
• The aim is to realize that this “I am” is not limited or localized, but is an undifferentiated being, “spread out on over the face of the earth.”

Two Paths to Realization: Vedantic and Tantric

• Vedantic Approach: Focuses on turning away from the content of experience to access the underlying peace and awareness. It is likened to turning off the movie to see the screen. “You turn away from the content of experience.”
• Tantric Approach: Involves turning towards the content of experience, embracing and accepting it without resistance. It’s like seeing through the movie to the screen. “You can see through the movie, through the landscape…and see the screen.” “You turn towards the content of experience and and face it, allow it, embrace it, devour it.”
• Both approaches ultimately aim at the same realization but use different methods. The speaker recommends using both: the Vedantic approach during formal meditation and the Tantric approach during daily life. “In fact, I recommend doing both. Taking the vedantic approach in our in our formal in your formal periods of meditation…but then opening your eyes again, going back out into the world, but remaining in touch with with the I am.”

Dealing with Difficult Emotions:

• The Tantric approach involves facing and embracing difficult emotions rather than avoiding them.
• This entails “devouring” the emotions, meaning to bring them close, welcoming them, and allowing resistance to drop away. “You bring it close…You take it into yourself. You devour your emotions… you face the emotion and until your resistance to it subsides.”
• The core idea is that suffering arises from our resistance to experience. When there is no resistance to an emotion, it can transform into happiness. “Suffering is just resistance…whenever you don’t resist your experience, you are happy.”
• This process is about choosing to say “yes” to experience. “Why don’t we just choose to say yes to experience?”
• This doesn’t mean accepting physical pain but rather accepting emotional situations and responses.

The Importance of Identity:

• The speaker uses an analogy of John Smith, the actor, playing King Lear. King Lear is identified with his drama and suffering, while John Smith is always happy, because he is not identified with it. He is involved in the drama, but not touched by it.
• “John Smith is completely open to the drama that is taking place between King Lear and Cordelia. He’s not resisting it. And therefore, John Smith is always happy…King Lear is always miserable because he’s identified as King Lear.”
• This illustrates that suffering comes from identifying with a role or specific experiences, while freedom comes from understanding oneself as the underlying awareness.

Starting Points and Interconnection:

• The Tantric approach, despite seemingly turning towards emotions, also relies on recognizing oneself as the underlying “openness of awareness” – a concept associated with the end-point of the Vedantic approach. “You recognize yourself as the open, empty, loving space like presence of awareness, but then you turn towards the emotion as that.”
• It’s clarified that in both approaches, one needs to stand as the presence of awareness.

Conclusion:

The discussion emphasizes that our true nature is one of pure being, often obscured by our identification with the changing content of our experiences. By emphasizing the “I am” and by exploring both the Vedantic path of turning within and the Tantric path of embracing experience, we can move towards a deeper realization of our true nature and a life less burdened by resistance and suffering. Both approaches are valid and can be used together in pursuit of this realization.