Blown Open

“… I lived in a very isolated place, the middle of central Kansas, and there was no talk about anything that was unusual. Yet, there was a guiding point in my life. At the time, I thought it was union with God. I'd be walking to school and standing on a corner, and there would be this feeling of being taken in a certain kind of way by this whole lighted being. Here I was, a kid, and yet there wasn't any fear or any question. It would be this timeless, unified golden moment, then it would be over, and I would continue on my walk to school and wouldn't even really think about it…

(Sharon was asked by Adyashanti to give satsang in 2003.)

Adya had asked me to do satsang, and I was such a shy personality, I hadn't even gone up to talk to him in the chair. So, when I gave satsang, it blew everything open. It blew silence or awareness open. From that moment on, it did not ever close. But it also opened Pandora's box. There was a pouring out that seemed to be happening, and the force of it just exploded. I knew what was happening, thank God. But it was out of control. You realize you have stepped out of a plane, you took some sort of step into an abyss, and now you know that you're not stepping back. [laughs.] You know that the mind has never been there. Maybe 90 per cent to 95 per cent of the people, and this includes your most intimate people, they do not know anything about this...

Something blew out so profoundly when that happened [giving satsang], that there was some presence, some vastness that began to speak and began to use this body. There was no doubt that that's what was happening. None. I can get up in front of anybody and ask any question or I can do satsang and there's no fear, nothing… It's not my will but thy will. You also realize that to own it, to feel special about it or to grasp it, that's the very split that's going to obscure it. So the way is to totally surrender to that, and then Source does its thing. It's very interesting, the exact opposite of pride and specialness. You know you can't own it. There's this deep knowing that it's in the very absence that presence appears. Right now what's going on is that there's this emptying out and just saying yes, yes, yes…

Some ways of defining myself—habits, belief structures, neuroses—they just blew away, they no longer function. Others come back, and come back. Sometimes it's painful things that are let go of, that are brought forward and revealed. But there's no judgment which is really a remarkable relief. Judgment just isn't there. The pain is more in the letting go. The mind becomes fearful. For me, it's passed now, but it was over personal relationships and, quote, my life. I thought I was going to lose all my friends. I had observed it with people who "woke up," and they stayed at home, and they taught. There was no other life. I liked my life, I had a very rich life, good friends. They weren't especially awake, but they were good, conscious people and lived good lives. I didn't want to step out of that. I think that was the fear. And of course, none of that happened. Some friends have fallen away, and there are some activities that I am no longer drawn to. In a very natural way that has happened, but it was not a sacrifice. I realized it was the personal identity dying. There's some attachment there, and then it passes.

There was a period of time where there were a lot of things arising that had been shoved below the surface like irritation, self-righteousness, "I'm right and you're wrong," with very close friends. That was very distressing, and yet I knew what was happening. There was just this resting, resting, letting it happen. Then like all the other difficult passages that had happened, I woke up one morning, and it was all gone. And in the background was just love. The personal identity and the subtle judgments that I wasn't even aware of were exposed, liberated, and in its place, there was love. No doing, that's the joke. It's spontaneous, it just happens. There's a compassion that seems to be available. I think that's why there's no judgment that comes up, not even with deep, deep shadows that have really been locked off... when that's exposed, it's just ahhhhh. It's a classic teaching story in a way, the mother includes all her children, the creator includes all of its creation.

There's a resonating, absolutely. "It" resonates when it hears truth, when it hears itself. I think that's the great gift of satsang, really. It's the transmission, it stimulates and resonates.  It's the same that's being spoken within you, within everyone... it starts to resonate, resonate, resonate and it just wakes up. If I ask, "Where did the waking up happen?" I realize that it wakes up out of the "me." The "me" keeps thinking that if it does this or doesn't do that or if it lets go of this or if it understands that... it's still caught in the karmic wheel of the "me." It actually wakes up out of the "me." Then it seems to, in this very mysterious but profoundly intelligent way, come back and claim the body-mind structure. It's astonishing—95 per cent of the people I talk to in my intuitive work are in that process. Often there's still a thread or a flavor that says the "me" is going to get it, the "me" is going to wake up. And it just isn't true. All the teachers say that, but you don't get it until it really takes place.

I've always had a critical nature. I wanted to get it. I wanted to know it. I wanted the "me" to be perfect. I thought that in waking-up, the "me" would be a perfect, pure vehicle for that. And actually, there's incredibly neurotic flavors moving through this person. It's seen with a sort of affection, sometimes humor, because I don't know whether this human being will ever be perfect. I doubt it [laughs], but it doesn't matter… That's the joke of it. But you see over and over that wholeness rights itself. There are areas of the life that are conditioned and discordant, and with mysterious wisdom, it just starts to fall away, to re-orchestrate, reorder. But I don't think perfection is possible. The mind-body process is conditioning, that's what it is.

(My husband Nate is) very linear, very masculine. I'm very intuitive, right-brain. So in one way, we've really helped each other, in that we've balanced each other and opened up ways of seeing that we probably wouldn't have seen if it weren't for our love for each other that opened that up. But it also caused stress and difficulty. The more awake, the more open to reality—the more you can observe, celebrate or ignore each other's differences—you realize it has nothing to do with you. Before, at least for me, and I think Nate, too, I was caught up in this idea that if he didn't respond or react or hear or see or be a way that I wanted him to be, it was a personal thing. I'm pretty verbal, pretty blunt sometimes. If I have a truth or if I'm seeing something, it just blurts out, that's just how it is. He's quite the opposite, very reticent, won't say much, would rather get his head chopped off than to speak highly-charged emotions. Our relationship went through some real adjustments when the waking-up happened for me. There were certain places that had to be talked about or dealt with, and there were some pretty shaky moments for us.

(She had a waking-up experience at one of Adya's retreats. The coming-home part got interesting.)

It was the coming home and the rearranging of the relationship and my life. When wholeness starts to move through your life, it's going to bring everything into balance, into truth. And what isn't truth is going to be exposed… For us, it was almost archetypal patterns. One of the things I was saying and I hear many women say is, "He does not see me or hear me." And that was big for us, big. I had brought it out in many different ways, but it was met with a wall. We had perfect patterns. His was with his mother and sister, mine was with my father. We met each other perfectly. So there would be these walls, and nothing moved. Because I'm the more verbal one, which often happens in male-female relationships, I just brought it out. "Is this how you feel? And is this how you see it? What's going on? This is how I feel." It wasn't said in a mean way. It was, "Let's get it out on the table." The reality of it was very difficult for me to accept. Everything I thought that he was thinking, he actually was. [She laughs.] It was shocking.

Finally I had an interview with Adya. I hardly ever brought personal stuff to him; I just thought that wasn't his job. But this was so big and so up for me. I said, "One of my main things going on is that I've not ever been heard, especially by the males in my life, and there's a lot of resentment around that, a lot of defense." He just laughed and said, "What's new? Every woman I've talked to says the same thing. It's true, isn't it?" "Yes," I said, "it's true." Adya told me, "Until you can give that to yourself, until you can literally turn back into the core and let awareness pour that through the body-mind structure and really listen, you will always look for it outside, and it will never happen." It was just like that—that's one of the great gifts of a teacher—in that truth, in that profound clarity, realization can take place. And it happened right there.

We were in California at the time, and for nine days I could have ripped Nate apart limb by limb. I was furious. It was the rage, I think, of all women through the centuries. And I knew it. I knew to keep my mouth shut. I just stayed with it and stayed with it. It was so huge that there wasn't any escaping it. I knew what was happening. I knew just to be with it. Then it passed. One morning I woke up, and it was gone. And I never, ever asked that of him again. I would tease him sometimes. And if I really wanted to be heard, I was heard. He either liked it or didn't. No more was I looking to him to do that for me. It's like asking for love from everyone, and it cannot happen until there's that pouring the love into oneself.

I'll tell you what; it was a pretty intense nine days. [laugh.] But finally that realization got through; it's not personal. If there is only One then everything that happens for one person happens for all beings, especially something like that which is so archetypal, so classic in our society. A lot of rage lives within the male and female. They need a place for it to be liberated. If it can be liberated with some sort of awareness, then it lightens it… How he dealt with it is he just ignored it, acted like it wasn't happening. I resented him for that. Then it moved to where it really made no difference to me at all. In fact, this is a funny little story. It was the last retreat we had gone to when we were in California, and it was at that retreat that Adya asked me to teach. Again, it was totally out of the blue. I was deeply touched and profoundly grateful.

At the end of the group, we were all in this huge circle where people were speaking a few words during the closing, and Nate was way in the back. Adya said he wanted a blessing for Sharon so that when she leaves, she would have a blessing of the sangha [the community]. It was very beautiful. Then it was over. I'm racing around, and several people who lived in Iowa or different areas in the Midwest were getting my name because there's very few people in that area doing this kind of teaching. We're on our way, and I realize Nate hasn't said a word. He hasn't acknowledged what happened at all. I tuned in, and it was just fine. There was no need for the acknowledgement. It was totally free. We're talking, and I don't even remember how it came up. I said, "I wonder how that's going to work when I go home, about Adya asking me to teach." And he asked, "Adya asked you to teach?!" "Yeah, you were there." He said, "I didn't hear that. I was sitting way in the back, and I couldn't really hear what was going on. I thought Adya was just asking a blessing for us on our journey home. I had no idea!" [laughs.]

There were two gifts there. One, it was of no matter to me. He either acknowledged it or he didn't. The other was, I thought it was interesting that he didn't hear it. [laughs.] But he was very kind and has been very supportive ever since. More and more, he's softened around it. In the last few months, it's come to the point where it's no longer personal. What comes up through him, how he sees things, how he doesn't see things, it's really his business, the same with me. We gave each other that agreement at the very first of the relationship, to let each other be who we are.  That's been one of our main intentions throughout our relationship, about 18 years now. Now I would say it's truly letting each other just be who they are in a real unconditional way. Love and affection are naturally present.

My daughter has gone to satsang and will occasionally come to things. My son has very genuinely opened up to the more fundamental Christian way. I can see the living spirit in his life, and it's been very beneficial, very helpful for him, but that tends to close down any conversation. There's a beautiful book out with statements from teachers from Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, and they are almost word for word the same. I would bring that up to talk to him, try to meet him, and he finally said, "I'm just not interested in that." That's cool, that's OK. So, they really have no idea.

My grandkids think that I am a different kind of grandmother. I heard my granddaughter say something when a friend asked if her grandmother was cool like her mother. She said, "Oh yeah, she's way cool." [laughs.] They can have conversations with me. My grandson is extraordinarily intuitive. He's kind of closed that down going through puberty, but he could always talk to me about that, and we could discuss things. As far as my being a teacher, my doing anything I do, it's just not a part of their lives. Sometimes I think it would be nice to really share that part. But if you open it, and it's not there, it's not there. Again, it's none of my business.

Linda Johnson wrote a book about six or seven women from India who were fully awake, in most cases they were born awake. In the United States, movie stars are young girls, models, and in India, they're awakened saints. I was so touched by her book that I have made it a point to receive darshan [a transmission] from every one. It's not the goddess, it's the Divine Mother and her many faces. If there's a uniqueness, the woman teacher seems to include the sacred body, the substance, the everything. In most men teachers, and that's not so with Adyashanti, they emphasize a little more of the transcendence, the emptiness, the non-personal. And here [referring to herself], there's perhaps a little more emphasis on how it functions in the life, in the body, in children, in the world.

But if there is an emphasis, that's it... how does it work as you're doing dishes, as you're being with a friend, as you're driving, as you're cleaning your house, whatever? It's present, the mystery, the revealing, the liberation, the love-all of that is totally present in the most ordinary events. It's awake in that ordinariness.., taking a walk, looking at the birds, talking to your grandson… You and I both have been seekers for a long, long time, and how many women teachers have you found until now? There's Gangaji—that was the first thing I said to her, "You're the first woman I have been with that is awake." I was with some wise teachers that certainly knew how to move back and forth between the seen and the unseen, but I had never been with one who was awake other than the Indian women. But, they were totally separate from the world.

I have never minded getting older. In fact, I've always been happier as I've gotten older. I could look and say, "Gosh, I wish my chin wasn't falling," and all of that. Mostly, I've always really enjoyed ageing. It's just a natural process that there's really not very much attachment or engagement about. Occasionally, there will be old conditioning that will come up, but then it just rises and falls away. There's a kind of affection and appreciation for it, an enjoyment of the calmer, quieter, more peaceful place. I don't really pay too much attention to it actually.

In truth, if there's birth, there's death. It's a natural fact. When I had a lot more suffering thoughts, I kind of longed for death as a great release and a way to get out, I think, though I never had any suicidal thoughts. I always knew that was not a way. Now there's this sweet affection and such an aliveness in life that has never been experienced. If there was a personal preference it would be nice to live life this way for a while. [laughs.] I'm not dismissing life in such a cavalier way as I did before. If it happens, it happens. Like a tree falls, and it's time for that tree to go. It has nothing to do with the life in that tree or the life that surrounds that tree. There's no misunderstanding that life ends when this body does. There's just a sense that it's happened many times before, it happens everywhere, it's constant. It's the in-breath, it's the out-breath, so there really isn't a yearning for it or fear of it. Death naturally happens…”

From interview of Sharon Landrith by Rita Marie Robinson — ©2009
All Rights Reserved

~ Sharon Landrith has a devotion and great love of the Truth. She is a gifted intuitive and a spiritual teacher in the lineage of Adyashanti. She invites you to “Come home… to That which you’ve always Been". Sharon offers teachings based on her deep realization of Silence, and the way Silence expresses itself in Form. In her presence you’ll taste a palpable expression of love and intimacy that allows you to feel safe dropping into the deep vulnerability required to know yourself as the All.