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Dorothy Hunt, a psychotherapist since 1967, is also an author, poet and a nondual spiritual teacher practicing at the request of Adyashanti. She is serving as the as Spiritual Director of Moon Mountain Sangha and also founded the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Dorothy has posted several articles and poems on the SAND website and also has a few videos available on their YouTube channel from previous conferences.

“How long have you been standing at the edge of the Unknown, wanting to realize or consciously embody what is true, but time and again distracting yourself? You may have had glimpses into your own timeless Presence. Yet, right at the edge of shifting identity, right at the edge of awakening more deeply, the mind keeps selling its wares, its fear of the unknown: “Don’t go any further.” “You’ll disappear.” “You will die, or if not, you will go crazy.” “You will not be able to function.“ And so you keep finding ways to postpone discovering or living more fully as What you truly are by remaining attached to the stories of what you are not.” --Dorothy Hunt, intro to the SAND video Standing at the Edge of the Unknown.

What's been helpful: After awakening, I was relieved to find dozens of spiritual teachers and scientists available (via the web) to help make sense of the shift in my consciousness. But after a few months of instruction and practice, I recognized that in order to learn most deeply, all the teaching in the world would not be a substitute for making time to bring silent awareness to the unexamined conditioning accumulated by my egoic identity. But don't be fooled by how abstract I just made that sound; it's hard work. Emotionally hard. Physically stressful. Actually, it's neither of those things, not really. But the egoic conditioning pulls up the stories and emotions that make such examination feel difficult. And endless! The egoic self seems to have access to an inexhaustible energy supply; it's like being possessed by the voice of the Energizer bunny.

Right as I ran into my first really discouraging patch, a time when I was wondering if all the meditating and reading was ever going to produce lasting change in my psyche, I also ran into what I came to call 'comfort teachers'; women and men who had written or recorded a message of some kind that helped me deal with my discouragement. They acknowledged the emotional pains and offered warm words of encouragement. They heard my inner voice of failure and showed me I had already succeeded by having simply awoken. In short, they brought a few words of warm light into my self-imposed grey. Dorothy may have been the first such voice I encountered (on the SAND site, natch), though I don't recall if it was a video or one of her posts. I haven't yet read her books but her SAND contributions always seemed to show up right when I needed her warm virtual hug. Besides the video linked above, here are a few more of Dorothy's articles and poems: Longing and Seeking, Are You Available? and this post on 'living without a map', which contains wise words for those of us removing our 9-to-5 cultural conditioning, Living From Our Deepest Knowing.