awakening
   


Awakening PRESENCE

An Interview with Isira

By Leo Drioli

   
 

Isira is a global peace ambassador sharing her deep presence and compassion wherever she goes. Having journeyed through a life filled with intense challenges and deeper and deeper degrees of awakening with Buddhist teachers, Hindu Masters, Aboriginal Elders, and Native American wise-men, she now presents her teaching for all who resonate with her realisation of the One Truth that sits within us all. Enza and I met with Isira on her last visit to Adelaide for the following interview.

InnerSelf: What does it mean to be enlightened?

Isira: Really it doesn’t mean anything because actually a lot of the definitions and the stories about enlightenment are just that. No one can actually really say “I am enlightened” because if we say such a thing its just another definition, and the word is pointing to a pinnacle of experience, a pinnacle of our potential… we can all reunite with our most natural self. And really to me that is just about coming home to simply what is, now… now, just to be ourself free of our stories and to be in acceptance about self, freely and absolutely in each and every moment.

IS: So, what does it mean to live the enlightened life?

Isira: Essentially, it is a celebration of freedom. It’s where all of the questions that are driven by fear and the misunderstanding about life… our sense of separateness… dissolve. All of those fears dissolve, all of those probing questions dissolve; the driving need to do something, to get somewhere, to achieve something, to find something… just completely vanishes. And all that’s left is a symphony of creation in every moment. It’s a festival of delight, of joy, wonder and adventure and mystery and knowingness all at the same time. One of the things I find so exquisite about this restfulness with life is that simultaneously there is absolutely nothing to question… and everything to wonder at, everything to marvel about, everything to experience, to explore. It’s like seeing with new eyes in every moment.It’s just a constant vivid freshness and beauty and peace about everything.

IS: So what are you seeing now?

Isira: (laughter) I’m seeing what is! (Laughter) Can I tell you a little joke: There are two zebras in a paddock contemplating. The first zebra says, “Sammy, I don’t know about this beingness of a zebra. What are we? Are we… are we white with black stripes or are we black with white stripes?” They’re having this argument, this debate for hours upon hours until it suddenly dawns on them that they should really ask the one who would know, the Good Lord Above. So they holler out to the Good Lord Above and before long there is this great big rumbling and thunder and lightning and this voice booms down out of the clouds, “Yes my good creatures, how may I help you?”

Well, Sammy and Freddy then yell up to the Good Lord, “Well we’re a little bit puzzled down here Good Lord. Are we white with black stripes or are we black with white stripes?” Then there’s this great big booming resounding response: “You are what you are” And well, Freddy, he looks at Sammy and says, “See, I told you we were white with black stripes.” Now Sammy says to Fred, “But how did you work that out?” And he said, “Look, if we were black with white stripes he would have said, “You is what you is” (Laughter all around) So what I’m seeing in this moment, just is what it is”

IS: So who gets enlightened?

Isira: The real question is: Who isn’t enlightened? It’s kind of that funny little cosmic joke that everyone thinks they’re not enlightened but in fact they are. And one of the beautiful clues about this is the fact that nothing remains the same ever… Every single moment is formed constantly of the ever-present same beingness… the unbreakable, unchangeable consciousness that is the backdrop of everything, whilst no thing remains fixed in any moment. And the very nature of that play already is the evidence of liberation. There is absolutely nothing but liberation. And when we talk about enlightenment we get hooked on to this reference of a ‘before’ and an ‘after’… and a very dualistic window of what enlightenment is. But there’s nothing but that. And there’s just this game of duality occurring as if we’re not already that. So, I suppose from the context of your question, when you’re looking at it from the window of duality, as a journey of that consciousness from a limited view, it is the sense of humanness in its evolution It is a return to the state that is not limited or owned by a story. Everyone… everyone…will remember the Self that truly IS. It’s impossible not to because we already are that and we’re just playing a game like a little shutting of the window shutters for a while. Because, actually otherwise if the window was forever open, it’d be bloody boring don’t you think? (Laughter) If we were realised forever and ever – full stop – and that’s it…then that would be the end of the game wouldn’t it? (Laughter)

IS: So, I’ll continue with the questions… (Laughter) Is enlightenment good karma, hard work, or grace?

Isira: (Laughter) I can have so much fun with you. Well, again… those questions come from perspectives of duality. It’s a comparison of one reference to another thing and as I commented before, Enlightenment really is the liberation from that falsely perceived idea. We finally wake up again, remember again, “Oh gosh, there was nothing to resolve.” Again I suppose in the context of the human evolution, what we call karma is nothing more than the outplaying of consequences – cause and effect. And liberation from the duality of consequences is inevitable because it is all the one Self, the beginning and the end forever anyway. Again it’s an inevitable place of that nature of existence.

Hard work – no. Because the truth is, liberation is the moment we give up the idea of the burden, the cross, the hard work. Any moment sooner than that and it’s not the encounter, it’s not the realisation. So we simply cannot put it into the basket of hard work and anyone that poses that is coming, I feel, from a scholarly and a conceptual perspective rather than an experiential perspective.

Grace – Well, grace IS the nature of our liberated Self. It is the true nature of all existence. If we’re looking at it as that pinnacle in our human experience, our human encounter – sure it’s grace; it’s an exquisite state of grace.

IS: You put a lot of effort into moving into your awakening, there are many around who say it has nothing to do with any kind of spiritual practice, you’ve simply got to wake up, and that’s all it takes. But there is a place for spiritual practice?

Isira: Sure. And that’s why I commented from both perspectives. From the essence of what is, none of it is applicable and from the perspective of being this human journey, this human encounter, then yes the outplaying of consequence – cause and effect, the outplaying of evolution… the breaking of the seed, the rising up through the darkness and all of that is catalysed by certain dynamics. For a seed to crack there have to be certain energetic influences at play, for the sprout to come out of the soil there’s the sunshine, there’s the water. And likewise, in terms of a human soul stream (I call it a stream because I don’t see individual souls, I only see streams of the All Great One) we are that journey of evolution that is playing out through consequences. And if we continue to indulge ourself in the limited stories of the mind, we continue to experience that as reality. So yes indeed there’s some effort applied to shifting those indulgent patterns of behaviour. And considering that humanity has been deeply shaped in those habits of the ego, then of course there is great warrant in suggesting it requires discipline. It requires committed effort rather than hard work. If you want roses then you’re gonna have to go to the garden shop, then do some gardening, some planting, and pruning and watering before you have a bed of roses. You can’t just walk down to the mall and walk into a fake flower shop: you’re not gonna get roses.

You see it’s one of those funny little dichotomies that everything already is… we already are enlightened, there was never anything to do, just be. And we are in this play of an assumed forgetting, an assumed reduced state of consciousness. It is the blossoming from that reduced state with the various dynamics involved which we call our spiritual quest, our spiritual path. And it’s probably the most significant common denominator to all human beings. It gives us all an unstoppable uprising for something greater… for something expanded, for something liberated, for something content, for something at peace. It drives every human being whether they realise it or not. And, it leads to the experience of bliss.

IS: So what would you say is the biggest obstacle for moving into the truth of who we are? Isira: The belief that it is a struggle, that it is difficult, that it is unreachable. There’s a lot of talk, there’s a lot of philosophy… tomes and tomes about enlightenment or the divine state. And I see that the priority shift required in consciousness is “insight”. We can think and think and conceptualise and talk about IT (realisation) as much as we like but until we experience directly from within it remains nothing but theory. In-sight - the state of inner sight - is what gives us the encounter of knowing that awareness as ourself rather than something as a God separate from us or as a Sage or enlightened being who is higher or holier than us, and therefore unreachable. And a lot of the teachings still perpetuate that. They perpetuate this motion of looking outside, looking to another, even worshipping another. Not about cultivating and generating that deep inner state. And funnily enough, even teachings that are supposedly about the inner state still have their hooks of dependence on outer phenomenon. Yet the phenomena of enlightened teachings is always (if it is true) pointing to the inner presence. That’s it… where the experience arises from is that inner knowing within Self.

IS: So what do we do to turn it around?

Isira: Change the direction of the energy going into the belief for a start. We can use the same energy that’s caught up in following actions based on those limited/ego beliefs. This means we can simply stop and pause and be still and not entertain those beliefs and thoughts and be present with ourself… actually turn the energy around, turn it inward… Then we start to experience inner conscious presence rather than a mentally perceived projection about the idea of enlightenment, the arrival of enlightenment.

IS: Do you give the same technique to everyone, no matter their level of unfoldment?

Isira: The Presence is certainly a technique that is applicable to the beginners of the beginners and the advanced of the advanced. It’s there, in Presence, that the state of realisation abides. When we can use these elements and really make contact with that consciousness in the now, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re advanced or not. It’s where you actually become the conscious experience.

IS: That’s where you sit?

Isira: As in a determined state? Well… (Laughter) Yes and.... I experience the constant dynamic of all things in moments that are very, very centrally localised and in other moments it’s cosmically expansively present to the All. You know when I’m sitting here with you to operate and function there is a deep-seatedness within my being. I’m not caught on a mental level and I can of course utilise the mind in its useful manner. (Laughter) It’s definitely a constant presence of being because everything is arising from that inner moment point always.

IS: So when you’re alone without the need to work with the mind… where are you?

Isira: I still do have many moments where its much more than the physical local manifestation and there’s just an endlessness. And you know even what I’ve written in the book (her new autobiography: Isira, A Journey of Awakening) barely even begins to scratch the surface of describing what it is. It’s impossible to describe what it is and it’s magnificent.
I have moments where I can encounter simultaneously a variation of local experiences too. Like I have moments where I’m aware that we’re sitting here in this room and I’m aware of being life on the other side of the planet and what’s happening on the other side of the planet or in other dimensions. It’s a really, really fun little dance that is happening.

IS: You’ve had many teachers from different traditions – Buddhist, Hindu, Aboriginal Elders, Native American… how has it helped you by having this diverse range of teaching?

Isira: It really affirmed so powerfully the One Truth that is emanating in all things. And that that truth is manifesting in each of us as a unique expression to be that. Not to close ourselves into one way, into one idea, into one expression… but to be the living expression of everything. And to see that dance, the power of that consciousness, the power of that truth… so alive in so many different cultures, has been a tremendous blessing, a tremendous gift. I have a vivid memory in particular of a couple of past life encounters where I was really witnessing this tendency of the flock mentality that was trapping the human mind in its quest for its pinnacle. It was trapping it into fixed points of an assumed set way of truth, of liberation. And I had some very vivid moments where I vowed that I was going to completely erase those boxes if I came back again… I was not going to do that one again: I wouldn’t belong to a tradition, a lineage, and I would share with humanity the beauty, the dance of diversity and that radiant truth that’s shining in every single particle of existence.

IS: In your autobiography you describe a point where you totally dissolve in the ocean in deep samadhi. Do you sit in this now?

Isira: Yes…mmmm…it IS the true essence that pervades all.

IS: I was going to ask if you could describe this… (Laughter) But maybe we can just sit and feel it together (Laughter)

Isira: See… see… you are One too. You read my answer. We sit in silence for a few moments… a shared joyous yet quite humorous energy.

Isira: It can only be felt… I look forward to the moment, in Satsang for example, where people really get it and actually don’t have to ask all these questions… just sit and feel (Laughter)

IS: I can’t really communicate this without words in my newspaper though… (Laughter)

Isira: Ok I’ll try…

We sit in stillness and silence for a little longer then Isira concludes with the following:

Isira: In a retreat in North Queensland, we’d come out to a big Tipi that we’d set up for the meditation and I was just drunkenly drowned in the beauty and the celebration of the love that is flowing in such a way. And these tears were just pouring down my cheeks… and one of the girls came up to me at the end of lunch and she said “Isira, why so many tears?”

And I said, “Well, every moment for consciousness, this beingness is making love. There’s not a moment that isn’t a making love with everything. Everything does… the breath… the air… the carpet… the table here… the little tea squeezer… the tea bags… a lovemaking of existence in and around me in everything, everywhere, in every moment. That’s indescribable. And it’s an ecstasy… you know the sages were right; it’s orgasmic beyond the idea of the best Tantra. And it is Grace… it’s like feeling the beauty and grace in one heart, in the one self. There’s something so exquisite in that that even humanly it can be almost unbearably ecstatic… but it’s not pain, it’s pure, and it’s so big, its beyond big…

I can’t help but feel that yearning like a lover, for everyone to be able to feel this beauty. So it’s like this incredible elixir that’s happening all at once… all these different dimensions of what love is…infinite and eternal in the instant of now.”

IS: Thank you.

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