Scott Kiloby - Doorway to Total Liberation: Conversations with What Is

DOORWAY

TO TOTAL LIBERATION

CONVERSATIONS WITH WHAT IS

Scott Kiloby

The Kiloby Group

2011 The Kiloby Group. All rights reserved.

The Doorway to Total Liberation text is copyrighted material. Please do not distribute, copy or post online. You have purchased a single end-user license for your personal use only. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover and Interior Design by Tom Crockett

Disclaimer: The Doorway to Total Liberation text is for educational purposes only and is not intended in any way to be a replacement for, or a substitute to, qualified medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, or as a replacement for, or a substitute to, psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment, or therapy from a fully qualified person. If you think you are suffering from a medical or psychological condition, consult your doctor or other appropriately qualified professional person or service immediately. The case studies and inquiry examples throughout this book are based on conversations Scott has had with people. However, the names [plus any other possible identifying information] and places have been changed or omitted in consideration of client confidentiality.

What do I want?

That question became a door to complete freedom in my life. So you may be thinking, Oh, so he must have figured out what he wanted in life and then chased after and found it. No, that is not what happened at all. All my wanting ended in freedom from wanting. Thats what really happened! Thats the freedom!

Let me start by telling a story:

In the days when I began seeking enlightenment, I was listening to the spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, talking about true freedom being freedom from the force of I want. Its freedom from even wanting to be free. He was explaining, in his own words, that there is an ego-based force behind this sense of I want. And surrender is the seeing that this ego doesnt really exist. It is more like just a force or movement that arises and falls. And when we follow it, we suffer. Again, Im paraphrasing what Adyashanti said. I dont remember his exact words.

But I remember thinking to myself, Oh, Adya, no, that is too radical! You cant say things like that especially here in America where everything is based on the American Dream of wanting more, more, more. As I listened to him, I thought, How can one live without wanting? How could we plan, build things, build lives, have jobs and families, find partners for relationships how could we live in this world without that sense of I want? That didnt sound like freedom. It sounded like death. It sounded like some state in which we no longer care about anything like a state of nihilism or complete apathy.

I know now that I wasnt ready to hear his message. I was trying to understand it intellectually. I wasnt experiencing that freedom he was referring to. I was merely thinking about it, projecting into the future, mentally, and painting a picture of what that state might look like. I now see that all those projections were wrong. Distorted. Short-sighted. Ignorant.

The seeing through of the sense of I want is complete freedom. Its not a state. Its a realization in which we find ourselves perfectly in the flow of life, able to have all sorts of thoughts, make all sorts of plans, build and create all sorts of things, be in all sorts of relationships but without the force of self behind those movements. Its that force of ego or self-will behind our movements in the world that creates the suffering, seeking, and conflict in our lives.

When there is a sense of self behind our movements in the world, life feels like a struggle. It feels like we are piloting a big plane towards tomorrow land. We get highs and lows along the ride but never the sense of true freedom, satisfaction, peace, or completion.

When I think I am the pilot, I suffer. When I no longer think Im the pilot or that there is a pilot, the plane flies smoothly. It goes wherever it goes. And every place it goes is perfect because I no longer labor under the false impression that there is an I in control. In short, its this absence of I want that allows the natural flow of life to happen.

But having this thought about the sense of I want didnt bring the freedom. The freedom came only when this freedom was a lived realization. And even when it became a lived realization, I had difficulty communicating this freedom to others. How can I say that freedom is freedom from this force of I want? People will just misinterpret it, as I did when Adyashanti spoke.

Years later, a pair of questions popped up that felt like a key to this freedom. I was driving to work one day. It was a Tuesday morning. Nothing particularly special about that day. As I was stopped at a stoplight, a voice rose up and said, What do I want? And every time I supplied an answer, I saw that I set myself up for suffering.

What do I mean by suffering? I dont mean I entered into a state of complete agony. I didnt double over in pain or cry out in a screaming fit of angst. Suffering, here, just means resisting life. Suffering is experiencing life as if there is something wrong or something missing. I noticed that whenever I answered the question, What do I want? it was totally a set up. I assumed that there was a me piloting the plane again. It was a total lack of trust in the flow of life itself. And whenever I asked myself the follow up question, What happens when I dont get what I want? I noticed that the answer is always, I suffer. In one way or the other, I suffer!

Once I saw this initial insight, I began to take a closer look. Driving along the highway, I just asked: What do I want?

I want people to listen to me.

What happens when people dont listen to me?

I suffer. I get impatient, even angry sometimes.

In seeing that, I took a moment of resting in thought-free presence, letting everything be as it is. I let the thought of wanting people to listen to me dissolve away quietly. And in that presence, I realized that this force of wanting that I was carrying around in conversations was the cause of suffering. People either listen or they dont. Its that simple!

When I took that moment, I let whatever emotion in my body just hang there, without having to do anything with it. I let the sounds that were coming and going just sound themselves freely. I let the air be the air, the sky be the sky, the people and the cars be the people and the cars. Nothing needed to be added to my present experience. In truth, I didnt really let everything be as it is. I saw that everything already is as it is. It was the absence of me that allowed everything to be as it is. More pointedly, the absence of I want. And that was freedom! Oh, that was a big, fat dose of freedom right there! No wanting! No suffering. No conflict in my present experience.

But then a thought arose: I want this freedom to last. And in that wanting, the set up reappeared.

So I asked again: What do I want?

I want this freedom to last!

What happens when this freedom doesnt last?

I suffer. I start looking for this freedom. Where did it go? Something is wrong again something is clearly missing. There I was again, experiencing lack and resistance to what is.

I then took another moment of resting in thought-free presence, letting everything be as it is