March 12, 2012
No Expectations
In the way that I teach meditation, the idea is to simply to assume a position of freedom from the very beginning. Youโre not trying to create any particular experience. Experiences may come and go, but you are not seeking for experiences. You are just assuming the position of unconditional freedom, without any expectations. You are not trying to make anything happen because you have realized that you are already free. Think about it: If there are no expectations, what else could you be but free? But if there are expectations, gross or subtle, you will be unable to let go. Consciously or unconsciously, you will be convinced that something is missing and that something more needs to happen. If you truly have no expectations, you can let go completely, and then you will always find that you are free right now.
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
Note: Make sure you enter the required information where indicated. HTML is allowed. Your email address is Required but, will never be published.
Get notified Subscribe to comments
Andrew,
ReplyWhat are your thoughts about the basic needs of the personality which includes creating expectations (goals) in order to fulfill them and feel satisfaction? For me, seeing through expectations is different than not having any. Are you suggesting that having no expectations arising is the way to freedom – or that relaxing and allowing them to arise and pass away, is all that needs to occur? As a behavioral change specialist, I’m not sure it’s possible to delete expectation from the human experience. It has its role to play. However, I do know that it’s possible to shift your relationship with them – and for me, that has been the path to freedom. Is this your perspective as well? Thanks for the clarification. Much love.
sorry Andrew, assuming a position of freedom is just another idea and it does come with expectations.
ReplySo true, so many subtle expectations in the air.
Many come from a sense of deficiency. Inadequacy. Comparison. Expectations based on how I imagine enlightenment to be, straining for it, longing, subtly rejecting
my present, limited experience.
Right now I am aware of how much my expectations are projected on my partner. How he is constantly disappointing me. How I try to influence him with my expectations.
ReplyI catch myself and stop, and before I know it, I am doing it again.
Being a passive agressive, my partner has a never-ending supply of disappointment for me. It’s a dance I would like to stop, but the pain of it makes me pay attention.
Perhaps there is nothing to do.
But one might say there are certain expectations that are right. For instance, I expect to be treated with respect. I expect not to be depersonalized. Would you call this self-centered?
How would an enlightened person dealt with this?
I am afraid you are trying to create a particular experience, one of unconditonal freedom without any expectations. Andrew, if you don’t experience this as an experience, what do you experience it as?
ReplyI have found, Andrew, that what you advocate regarding expectations has become for me the “secret” of how to conduct my life successfully for the past ten years. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
ReplyNamaste,
Mnimaka
Dear,Andrew Cohen, I agree with you 1000 times but it’s only for them who knows how the senses react with the material world, and the one who know that is the realised persom. Click to know more: www.sriramanamaharshi.org/
ReplyThe state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is that which alone is, and which
Replyalone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term. That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it
All beings desire happiness always, happiness without a tinge of sorrow. At the same time everybody loves himself best. The cause for this love is only happiness. So, that happiness must lie in one self. Further, that happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep, when there is no mind. To
Replyattain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-Enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is the chief means.
We can free ourselves from expectations only if ” i dont have anybody and I am nobody to somebody” as long we live in a society and with a family, our responsibility towards others will create expectations which is the innate nature of human life. I guess what you are trying to say is detachment. The Bhagvad Gita says that you do your duties without expecting the fruit. When we detach from the results of our causes, we can experience freedom .
ReplyAs the changeless observer we are indeed Everything and as ACIM state more than everyting is meaningless. So Andrews suggestion is we experience our absolute oneness. There is nothing else!
ReplyWhen you are free from expectations then what is it that attracts your attention? That gives you curiosity that you don’t change from 1 day or 1 hour to the next. You are free to take in and do anything.
Where does choice and free will come in when we have no expectations.
Thank you.
ReplyJeff
Well from insight to insight–even coming to c
Replyonclussions with insight they vanish—beingawareness Anyway many THANKS !!!!!
Since we are ALWAYS ALREADY FREE, meditation is the STATE in which, PRIOR to any experience or expectation, we ARE the Nonduality of our Primordial Nature; Already Liberated, Already Nondual.
As soon as we cease being in the meditative state, we are dual…we can feel that we’ve “had” an EXPERIENCE of Nonduality or Liberation.
In other words, as long as we are DUAL to our Primordial, Already Free Nature, meditation is a TEMPORARY EXPERIENCE, and perhaps we create ‘expectations’ of the next time we will be in the meditative state, but this is what potentially prevents us from the direct disclosure of our PURE SUBJECTIVITY.
It is the PARADOX, and the only way to undo the paradox is to transcend all duality, as in the meditative state. So to “assume the position of no expectation” of an experience of Nonduality, is to be FREE of the paradoxical subject/object duality, for it is DUALITY that creates experience.
She or He who is FREE does not “have experiences”, but is ALL EXPERIENCE AND UTTERLY TRANSCENDENT OF ALL EXPERIENCE.
The paradox is; you can’t rationally cognize the Paradox of Subject/Object DUALITY, it is a transrational disclosure, one of transcendence and Union and Oneness.
Enlightenment as the developed, PERMANENT CONDITION of Oneness, Nonduality, Liberation, Freedom IS NOT AN EXPERIENCE, and is ALL EXPERIENCE.
Ahimsa
Reply