Billy Doyle 'The Mirage of Separation' Interview by Renate McNay

hello and welcome to consciously and my guest today is Billy Doyle hello Polly thank you for coming Billy is a spiritual teacher in the non Doyle tradition and he is also a yoga teacher in the Kashmir tradition and he wrote a book The Mirage Mirage Mirage Mirage The Mirage of separation and and those are non-dual poems yeah and he's writing currently also a book called I mean that's not maybe the title yes we don't know yet open to the openness yoga in the Kashmir tradition and it's supposed to come out by the end of the year yeah I hope so yes and I read 15 pages and I think it's going to be fascinating so Billy first of all let's clarify what is the Kashmir tradition what's the difference between Kashmir yeah yoga on Kashmir traditional yoga and normal hatha yoga yeah well it's the yoga that I don't earn from Jean Klein yeah and so maybe let's say who shall try Jean Klein laws Jean Klein was a a I'd vitae Vedanta a master of it a vitae yeah and and yoga which is perhaps a little unusual that something's gone very deeply into advisor also goes deeply into the yoga side of things into the more bodily aspect and in his approach the emphasis was not so much on the physical body but more on the energetic body the subtle body which he would say is the real body we don't usually experience our body the energetic body because of contraction defense but through listening through relaxation the energy body can come alive and we experience a body that's completely different than the solid heavy body em that were normally experience so it was always the emphasis was always working with the body as energy as vibration as spaciousness that was one aspect and the other aspect was that from the very beginning there's a stress on that there's nothing to attain there's nothing to become as what we are is already totally present we only need to listen to come to a feeling of openness so it's not the progressive approach where I'm refining or going through various levels but it's seeing in the moment and you could say what I'm not understanding what I'm not right in understanding what I'm not you're open to what you are yeah so if so Kashmir tradition is really something which came from sharp line he brought this approach back into Europe and oh yeah and he refined and developed it he saw yeah and mmm and taught it in the West and it just spoke very deeply to me yeah from many sides well it sounds really fascinating you know reading your manuscript from uni up from your hook and we could go a little bit later into the art of listening and deeper into what what the energy body is and so forth but let's start first with you as a child already having a strong sense of spirituality how did that manifest I remember just sitting you know in the church praying to Jesus and having this very strong feeling of love there and I think that stayed with me through childhood I even remember a dream that I didn't understand at the time but I remember I was being a steam roller would come across me and I would disappear and I remembering the dream it was somewhat of a recurrent one that I was very happy to disappear and I didn't know the meaning of the dream and I didn't understand why I should be happy but when I look back I think the child maybe had some understanding that for love to be in some way you had to disappear yourself so there was some kind of memory coming through yes yes yes but it's interesting you know you would think of to disappear I mean it's incredibly frightening for us or incredibly frightening for our ego structure it is because the ego is a very insecure structure yes and it's always looking for security of solidity yes so we're looking for an image so what's holding on to something because ultimately it's unreal yeah and the last thing we want to do is is disappear of course it's frightening yeah for the identification we have but I think there's also something in us that wants to let go yeah that feels this image this Center as a burden as well so there's another element in us that would like to let go so when you had this experience as a child and you said it was read reoccurring this dream did you speak with anybody about I don't remember speaking with anybody yeah so um okay have any any other experiences as a child nothing comes to mind directly so um and then when you were 20 in your twenties you went the first time to India yes to be with mother Teresa in Calcutta right and how was it for you yeah well I had some fascination with the East during my adolescence and I saw slides of people who had been there and you trained as a teacher I did I trained an teacher and the first thing I did when I finished my training was to go to India and I was attracted by the Orient they mysticism by the simplicity of life and as well and and I had also seen a program by mother to Teresa on television and I thought to be interesting to spend a summer working there so that's what I did and I travel a little bit in India at that time and it was the first of what what was to be several later journeys with different purposes yes and you were visiting oh did you work there as well in the first time yeah I worked in a hospital with me Teresa it was a hospital for dying destitute right I helped out it was bandages washing down lids that kind of thing and did you have a kind of a relationship with her as well I heard she was quite difficult right Kylee harder for a woman um I only met her once and that's when I arrived there and she struck me as somebody who was down to earth and good at organizing that's but I I didn't get to know her yeah oh yeah on any other level really yes so and something was triggered there in India and I think because you became a spiritual seeker you started to read spiritual books and yes I I think looking back again I can find a thread even from childhood but it was in my mid-20s that the questions came to dominate my life of Who am I what is truth and it let me to get involved in meditation in yoga and returning to India again yeah you started to get involved with Transcendental Meditation very first thing yeah somehow it at that stage it didn't have any radical change in me I think it was more I learned it as a technique and I it wasn't them the underlying understanding wasn't really there at that time so it was some years later perhaps that something deeper took place and through what what happened through reading books by Alan Watts Suzuki Rajneesh who was later to be called Osho Krishnamurti yes and Ramana Maharshi yes I think when I read those books I felt I already knew what they were talking about somehow I didn't know but it was part of me that said this must be the case it had to be true that I was not simply this body this mind his personality there was something beyond that and it resonated very very deeply with me and I went back to India and I went to visit her Rajneesh and spent about four and a half months at his ashram and travel again in India yeah what did you do there I danced alone I was wondering about it I thought dance yeah and I listen to the talks he means beautiful talks yeah he was told many stories and yeah at that age he was just the teacher I needed and I it helped to open me to liberate me and and I left feeling much freer and not in need somehow and maybe it was that it opened me to the possibility of meeting Jean Klein and I feel was my my real teacher yeah you were his students for 14 years yes yes and he was your main teacher what was the most important thing you learned from him and how was your relationship with him yeah well he is very beautiful man he was a very cultured man he was a very warm person a very welcoming person and it was just beautiful to be to be with him I would sometimes meet him when he came to London or I visited him in Switzerland and other countries sometimes and attended his lectures and retreats it was just very very deeply moving to be with him and his presence his words his words seemed to bypass the mind they seemed to speak to my heart and he explained that to know who we are we must first know what we're not it's by understanding that I'm not the body not the mind not a personality not something the changes that we become open to what we are we can never know what we are in terms of the mind we can never know what we are and what we are in terms of the senses because what we are is beyond the mind we can never know it they can never grasp it we only know it by being it it's not an object so we can't describe it it's indescribable we can use words like spaciousness we can use words like awareness consciousness or love to come close to give us some indication but the mind would like to try and grasp what I am Who am I but it's not possible and when we deeply understand that the mind stops it stops running after trying to find truth it begins to relax so there's a possibility that something beyond the mind can manifest did something my teacher also said once you know and he wrote I don't know 15 books and gives is a big school and he says I'm writing all these books and telling you all these things only for your mind to relax because that's the only thing which needs to happen right right yes it's the mind and the body because the mind and the body are one so can you save a little bit more about the mind I never had that the mind and the body are one yeah what does that mean but where is I anxiety where is anger it may be in the mind but it's also in the body it's it's in the breathing it's in the tension in our breaths I would say it's even goes down to the cellular level that in some way the patterns that we create in the mind that come from a belief system that I'm a separate entity that I'm a particular person which brings up a certain defense and fear is inevitably comes taking yourself to be a fraction in a universe taking yourself to be an individual inevitably brings up insecurities fear and this is also in our body in our breathing in ourselves I would say it's a feeling of contraction of heaviness of feeling of localized and through it's actually easier to relax your body and it is to relax your thought so through relaxing the body the muscles the joints the nervous system the mind begins to relax as well a relaxed bodies is already the beginning of a relaxed mind the cue in your own process find it easy to to relax the mind what what what did you do yeah yeah okay well relaxation it's our natural state and so I think what's important is not to try to relax but just to be aware of what is not relaxed to be aware of the tensions not to fight them but actually to welcome them not to make them a problem that I want to get rid of because you can't the only thing to do is to actually sit with them allow them not to fix them but just to actually feel the tension so you can feel the tension in your brain for example the left hemisphere the right hemisphere and if you just listen to the brain the vibration of the hemisphere it will begin to relax because in just listening by just being aware of the feeling the sensation you'll no longer actually create creating the tension you're no longer an accomplice you've stood back you're just listening you're just observing so what you mean with listening is becoming aware it's not actually an actual listening to the body it's just letting come up what's their whatever their the vibration the wolves are the feeling of something solid crystallized dance just letting whatever is your body speak to you but what's important is not to fix it but to let it unfold because there are many layers of tensions between a very solid heavy body and the real body which I would say is something like space it's transparent there are many layers to unfold and when we listen we can allow that unfolding so I'm not trying to push away my tensions I think Shawn cloud said you have to love you you have to love the tensions you have to welcome not fight them and then they will inevitably over time of course because these things have built up over sometimes many many years but they will free themselves when you learn how to listen I would say so there was one thing you told me Billie for over a period of 20 years you went every year for three weeks in a retreat place to be in silence and in one of these times and I'm quoting your verse here all identification with a separate entity dissolve I knew myself as silence and I think I asked you under on the phone did this experience stay and you said yes so that means did the ego structure never form itself back or what happened to the ego structure came tell me a bit more about this and fascinated by them of course in my case it this understanding didn't happen out of the blue there was a long process of self inquiry I was very fortunate to meet a teacher like Jean Klein that helped me to understand what I was not and I think they came a deep relaxation understanding that there was nothing to get there was nothing to become so sorry to interrupt you there the inquiry was that you learnt the method of listening and through the listening the art of listening your body started to relax your nervous system yes the kids true and also by questioning the beliefs I had about myself to question am I really this a body this mind understanding that I can't I can't be a perception my hands are a perception the glasses a perception the space the carpet is a perception I would also say in my mind is a perception these things are always changing to understand that there's something that knows all these objects that knows all they change so it's is a certain logic there as well to understand then that I'm behind the world of objects I'm the subject Lee to say the ultimate subject but would you not say okay we are the changeless we we are the background but we are always sort of the manifestation absolutely absolutely so both are true yeah but the problem is as we identify ourselves with a particular manifestation so when you say I am not the body but is it not that I am not only the body or or it's how does the body come in yes it's a pedagogical aid to say to myself I'm not the body I'm not the mind I'm not the thoughts I'm not this changing world it helps us to bring a space dimension from what we are so obviously identified with and so I'm able to stand back and not to be so closely identified with a particular body mind with an eye image and you find yourself with a certain distancing I would say a certain freedom from what you've always taken yourself to be but when there's a deeper understanding you also discover that let's say the expressions of consciousness are also in consciousness that the expressions are nothing but consciousness so everything is also within you but I'm making a distinction between consciousness and the expressions of consciousness I think that's important so what you what you say is first of all it is important to realize who we are as as their absolute in order to to get a certain distance from the manifestation and then as the absolute come back into this world is that how you would say that I think it's important to understand just that you cannot be an object when that's deeply understood I would say you begin to relax you become open to the possibility there's something beyond the mind and then all you could do is in the sense is leave that openness and maybe one day that understanding arrives it arrives not did you understand something it's just that the understanding is the disappearance of the illusion of being somebody so when I say I knew myself in silence I didn't understand anything in that moment there was nothing new I understood there was no intellectual understanding was nothing I was able to grasp or tell you I understood something it was just at that moment I lost all sense of localization there wasn't any division anymore that's all there was no longer identifying with a particular body mind and this is still it hasn't changed yeah so if I say does that mean there is nothing going on inside anymore because there is no no localization of what are there still feelings sensations emotions all those things carry on but you no longer say you are no longer say that that's me I'm identified with them there they just happen but the record player that goes round and round has finished the one that is always going to the past looking for security looking to the future daydreaming Fanta sighing up looking for security in the person that aspect which perhaps is more than half the usual thoughts ago in our head and that I would say becomes redundant because you're no longer fueling that belief system that belief systems finished but life continues feelings continue everything else continues and what happened to all them like the structures the ego structures in your physical bodies are they finish as well are they transformed or what keep them here I think even to come to the understanding they dissipate because when I would say unless perhaps it's a few very rare human beings that they come to this understanding out of the blue I don't know but I would say in the vast majority of cases the understanding comes because you have let go all those you know tensions you you have become a more open human being and after the understanding that process may continue because those residues of tensions have taken they belong to time and space they've developed over many years that they don't necessarily just disappear overnight but because the belief system is no longer there that's fuel them they do tend to dissipate but I would say they no longer a problem you'll see them and they release themselves so when you look at their body a physical body or movements a posture from this non dual space but what is what is the body yeah what are movements what are we doing yeah in its a kind of celebration of life to move to be to enjoy the the elasticity the flexibility the movement of the body do you like celebrating life but I think life is celebration yes yeah it's this joy and it's beautiful to share that you said something in your notes I think I read it in your book which really hit me which was um one I just see something else which I like which says only in our absence are we truly precious good yeah that's the sentence from Jean Klein that reverberates through many of his books it's also something there turn and struck me when he was talking and and so what I explained that Billy when you when when when when you say in our only in our absence what is absent you don't have the slightest notion anymore of being anybody there's just completely empty space there's no man does no woman there's no old person there's no young person there's no self-image there's just a transparency and but that absence is not any kind of negative or something lacking it's not the ego trying to be absence it's a feeling of full yeah because there's nothing lacking here in this absence of we're talking about it's it's an absence of of all objectivity all images and actually that's that's what we are all the time in any case in silence who am i what am i it's only the mind it comes in and builds up this belief system that I'm Mary that I'm John that I'm the bank manager or whatever but in our silence who are we what are we it mm-hmm it's actually something incredibly simple as well this understanding it's very paradoxical that we spend many years looking for what I always have it's it's a very strange paradox isn't dangerous yeah that what it's that's what I was looking for the sentence we are free but we don't know ourselves in this freedom you know when I read that and still it brings up so much sadness in me because looking you know there is something which is so close yes and if we look at humanity and see how it is suffering yes our real nature of course it's always free but we superimpose on top of it the images a belief system that buries our real nature so how do we go about really because there's also something you said when we proceed from the relative to the itemid reality in stages the ego remains engage so where does that leave us The Searchers if we think that me as the eye image I'm going to progress become more spiritual and attain freedom we're going to bring the eye image with us and we're going to perhaps even expand that I image I would say you have to question at the beginning who is this me who feels alike who is trying to progress you have to start by really looking at the idea of who you are at the very beginning but it's our ego structure in the first place which starts the spiritual search but the real desire to to know ourselves comes from what we desire comes from our real nature it's looking for itself so when we begin our search it's actually ourselves speaking to us to us and at that moment we begin to open to our real nature yet and we all feel this when we're identified we also feel some kind of lack some kind of lack of fulfillment and that's very important to recognize that and it's that lack that starts us questioning start our searching if we didn't feel that lack perhaps we'd never bother or we didn't recognize at all I mean often we just cover it over with our endless activities and entertainment but when we stop we look at ourselves we feel that and it's an important thing to to acknowledge that in myself and to discover what is that like where does it come why is it there do you feel that over time your personality changed certainly I think I I would say began to relax more I was just was able to live more in the moment not running after things not trying to accumulate things and I think that leaves your personality more spontaneous more open it's actually when we don't identify with our personality did we free the personality so it's not it's nothing to do with denying our personality it actually the understanding gives freedom to our personality you see what I mean yes I well the way I see it is that somehow this constantly reflecting back on yourself this mechanism stops would you agree yes you just leave yourself running spontaneous absolutely you become I would say to you don't think I should do that I shouldn't be nicer I should be smarter or just I would say life becomes much more spontaneous you're because there's no self-image you're worried about are concerned about I would say you become really open to other human being so called other human beings do you have a poem in your little book which give it which fits that which you seek is not to be found it is much too close to touch much too close to see it is the touching it is the see there are not two or some other the necklace you thought was missing is still around your neck it's beautiful so I read such as you have read a second and then I have another questions a vigil for the self long into the night waiting without expectation what might I be no answer was forthcoming but the question was no more nothing was missing the silence was home thank you it's beautiful so I like to talk a little bit about your work how do you you you mentioned the beginning the energy body is our real body how can we learn to get more encounter what do you do in your yoga to become in contact with the energy body I would say it's kind of paralyzed by muscular contraction so the first thing you have to do is relax to recognize the tension some people don't even know their shoulders are up here you know it's become so normal so deeply ingrained and too relaxed what you said earlier is just becoming aware yes that you are not relaxed or that you have tension to actually feel and welcome the tensions to to really be in contact with them not to fix them but just to listen and let them unfold they will if we let them if we listen in this way without trying to change them we'll try to get rid of them we're in a kind of neutral territory the body will release because the natural state of the body is a relaxed body the tensions we create will dissolve and when we come to the relaxed body we can be the more subtle energies in the body begin can free themselves they begin to manifest and we can begin to experience I think it's in the hands that perhaps it's easiest to experience them and then later in the whole body it helps to free the body of the feeling of solidity of heaviness and that's also very important because I think it's quite difficult very difficult I should say for us really to understand our real nature when our body is just a mass of self-defense and solidity how can truths cross those barriers so opening of the body for me has always been very important I would say it leaves us more vulnerable to reality the feeling of of the energy body eats up the feeling of solidity and we feel ourselves I would say more transparent more open and I would say it freezes on many levels you imagine that this energy feeling is actually the healing factory of the body yes it's the healing factor yes it's it's what gives the body life it's the real body it permeates our whole body it surrounds the physical body and it gives life to the body and the more we experience it I would say the more there is harmony and health on all levels including our eyes and ears and how we sense the world I know that from my own experience when I take the time and I just sit quietly and just see what I feel in the body yeah the body starts talking to me absolutely yeah and if I let him talk I let him do what he wants to do or go through what he wants to go it starts releasing yes yeah it's really fascinating and you know you are so different from all the other non Doyle teachers I met over the years because you include the body and you talked about the importance of freeing the body as well yes but I just continue the story to the end about yeah releasing the body and so that ultimately in that listening to the body we don't emphasize what we listen to but just listening itself so it's the object it brings us back to the ultimate so called ultimate subject so everything is a reminder of who we are and the body once we've it's unfolded and dissolved it we let it go we find ourselves simply in listening simply in being so the body is a way to bring us to ourselves yeah I just feel like I entered your silence there's no my silence is a lot of silence it's only side yes it's not mine it's yeah it's just silence hmm that's all there is mm-hmm so we have about one two minutes left is there anything you would like to say just this word silence we tend to think of it as an absence of thought but silence itself doesn't matter whether they're thinking or there's no thinking everything is part of that silence it's it's so it doesn't matter everything is silence and what and so we shouldn't try to make our no inside there's a kind of violence the mind may be silent it can be very beautiful but silence itself it's there when you walk into an Oxford Street or wherever it's it simply is so we mustn't confuse silence itself with simply the silence of the mind it simply is I experienced that in a funny way as you mentioned Oxford Street sometimes when I walk down Oxford Street and there are thousands and selves people and you bump into people and and and when I'm not present or not in the silence I experience myself bumping into these people and then I become aware and then I go into presence or inter-site like silence or connect with silence and it's so interesting you know you go through it and you don't touch anything it's just so it's like the way open I guess we well do we have time for another short poem yeah maybe okay what's that seven one more point go by way of negation take the empty road before proclaiming I am all be yourself no leave aside assertion before knowing what you are know well what you're not body senses mind explore the landscape well discover its transparency lest you carry it along go by way of negation be yourself note thank you very beautiful thank you for coming and being with us and I show you book again the Mirage of separation and watch out for the new book which might be called open to openness but I guess people can find it on your website and thank you for watching conscious TV and I see you again soon bye bye you my name is Billy Doyle I'm going to do a guided body awareness you might like to join us and it would be better if you close your eyes and sit in a comfortable position just feel the contact where you're sitting on your chair where your feet touch the ground where you give the weight feel where your hands are resting the feeling of the your arms your shoulders dropping into your hands be aware of your spine slowly travel upwards with your awareness feel each vertebra floating feel your head as a continuation of your spine so how do you experience this body I mean how do you sense it feel it imagine you've actually never seen it it's just through the feeling that you know it so feel your hands not the memory not the image just let it be sensation let the sensation come to you it's not the slightest effort feel your the volume of your hands they're warm they're vibration your forearms upper arms your shoulders listen to your feet let them come a lie don't fix what you feel let it unfold your lower legs your upper legs your hips your trunk experience your face feel it without thinking it your mouth feel the space of your mouth experience your eyes feel them like lobes filling the front of your face welcome your whole body feel it's alive feel whatever comes up without naming without judging just welcome what is there may be fears tensions rigidity welcome all that manifests now just feel the front of your body feel the warmth the radiation from your body spreading out into the space in front of you go into the space be one with it embrace the space is there really any border to the front of your body experience your back feel the warmth the radiation spreading out behind you go into the space make it your own open the space on your left open the space on your right and now feel whole directions feel your globality is there really an inside and an outside be one with this fast this open space in this spaciousness you're free of thinking free of your head in this listening don't emphasize what you listen to or a listener there's just listening being you can't think thank you very much you

Channel: conscioustv

Views: 152,600

Keywords: Billy Doyle, The Mirage of Separation, Non-Duality, Advaita

Id: svC9y17IH6A

Length: 65min 49sec (3949 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2013