Surrender, Resistance and Conflict by Katie Davis, Author, "Awake Joy"

Questioner: I want to share something that happened the day after Friday's Satsang. I had quite the day on Saturday. i was in the coaching seminar and the discussion was around our "inner saboteurs" Various people were sharing and I decided to share my feelings. I mentioned quite simply that I found that having/being invested in an "I identity" importance of "my Story" was the major detriment in my life and that allowing the possibility of being "nobody" was liberating.

A woman on the otherside of the room declared that this made no sense and was off topic, the group leader said few people and only "enlightened" masters can "achieve" such a state and moved on before I could finish.

This didn't feel right and the woman next to me felt this and we were sharing notes about this. Another woman across the room said we were distracting her by writing notes to each other.

I thanked her for noticing and said that there was an issue unresolved and I confronted the leader about not honoring the gift I was sharing and that his view on being truly who we are wasn't based upon an impossibility.

At this point the room went wild with intense energy and a woman panicked and said things were out of control and picked up her belongs and left and then other women went to console her.

For an hour there was chaos and it was directed primarily towards me as an agent of provocation. I sat with this energy and spent the rest of the day with a huge feeling in my chest and witnessing the projections in the room and changes in people towards me.

I was exhausted last night and couldn't get out of bed to go to the last day of this "movie"; my body wouldn't let me.

Today I am spending the day in silence, alone, writing and being nobody.

Katie: By now, your day of silence, being alone, writing and being nobody has paid off! Sometimes when we are in deep satsang, the life situation provides the immediate, perfect circumstances to ‘practice’ being only the Heart. Papaji once said that when someone awakens, every “demon” in the universe shows up to call us back to ego.

Only you know for certain whether you were in temptation to energetically react to the situation or in acceptance of what was and then followed by action. Energetically, there is a huge difference between the two. Your opportunity was to accept the situation, first and foremost … free of resistance and judgment. You still may have followed with appropriate action, but the non-resistance is primary. When we judge and resist, we suffer and the situation generally will escalate into more suffering and reaction/resistance from the other. Obviously, your intention was to simply share something useful. Someone reacted and that reaction/resistance was their work. How you receive the reaction is your work and only you can have the clarity of the situation. I know that you are familiar with the principles of surrender … allowing what is. In addition, we need to surrender the ‘I’ since that is prior. When we are truly nobody, there is no one here for reactions to stick to. It is as though you are transparent and rude comments simply pass freely by … perhaps even with a sense of compassion for the ‘other person’ who is identified with ego and therefore living in separation and limitation. Being the power, that is, resting in being, we are impervious to the conditional existence. Our inner space remains open, unprotected and free, regardless of any life circumstance.

In the end, I would also like to point out that the life situation is always a mirror of what is occurring within you. It is a self-projection. When we recognize this, it is our inner work. Trying to fix the mirror is impossible. Like I said at satsang, it is like waking up in the morning and looking in our bathroom mirror and then trying to comb our hair in the mirror. That would be impossible and we just wouldn’t even try. The mirror of the life situation is only a reflection of what is. So we have a willingness to look within to discover if any resistance persists or if there is anything more to surrender.

Stop telling the stories and discover who the storyteller is. Blessings to your work and this amazing journey to the Heart … that you already are.

Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org