Category: spiritual awakening

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You are already awake

If I were willing to just put my mind aside for a moment and let my heart spill… here’s what it would say…

You are already free. Already awake.  Already completely enmeshed with the totality of who you are, and thus, with everything. It’s not like you are in some sort of ‘dormant’ state that you need to awaken from so your life can ‘really start’ …. no…. the totality of YOU is already well and alive and thriving and consciously unfolding in and as the perfect orchestration of this sublime moment. There is no need to figure anything out, or ‘realize’ to become more perfect.  The stuff that you long for – the deep eternal connection, the clarity of lucid knowing, the energy of infinite creative wisdom is the stuff that you are. 

Peace


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Sealed in the Glass Ball of the Ego

So I want to be clear about what I’m talking about in this whole blog here, because the very act of writing can turn something inconceivable into some linear and deadened concept.  And what I’m writing about is unspeakable.  The vast silent source that is continually flowing that can’t be touched by words.  No wonder Ramana was silent much of the time.  So why write about it?  Because truthfully, I still have a deep longing to fully abide in that – to know the true heart of myself and operate fully from there.

I’m so tired and bored of the ego’s ways. I know them inside and out, and I’m ready to crawl out of its shell once and for all and truly see life without the insanely obscure lens that we are all trained to wear.  I want to just nakedly see.  Maybe this is a crazy longing.  Totally possible.  For a while, I convinced myself to be content by keeping my focus positive, to be grateful for all that I have (which I am) and not take on the burden of looking too deeply into things. But I can’t seem to do that anymore because the longing that burns in me – to know the truth, is deep, insatiable and involuntary.  And the sweetness of meeting my own pure awareness has something to do with it too.  For me, this whole inquiry, isn’t to find a way to feel better, or to gain a new perspective on situations in my life, or to gain more of or less of anything in particular… it is to truly see what is real. 

I just watched a beautiful talk by Sera Beak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmwLLqh7hk and she is inspiring honesty and transparency in my writing today.  She reminded me to be willing to be completely open about the stumbles in my experiences on this journey of awakening. To leave myself vulnerable where others can spot my asleep-ness, or where the threads of my ego can be seen stringing together words in a pretty, poetic or ‘enlightened’ way. Keeping these stumbles out in the open is how I can be genuine about my journey.  They bring truth to my words and completely pull out any ‘agenda’ from my ego’s desires.  There are volumes of sophisticated writings out there about spiritual awakening and what it is and what it means.  This is not that.  This is just a humble sharing of my experiences.

So here’s where I’ve been stumbling lately…..

Often I have these ‘lucid’ or ‘awake’ experiences where I feel the aliveness of what IS that is within and around me with no separation between the two.  This isn’t just while I’m meditating, writing or contemplating… but even during the busyness of the day.  I experience a moment as life spontaneously arising and I feel supremely connected to everything perceivable.  In those moments, even thought there is still ‘mind’ or ‘thoughts’ there truly is no ‘me’ experienced, there is just life happening, and I am there a part of it, consciously witnessing and participating fully. 

Other times, when I’m deeply identified with my ego, I try to ‘find’ this ‘vastness’. I long for it.  It’s like I put out these invisible antennae trying to locate and pull it towards me.  I try to ’settle’ in it, or claim it, or grab onto it, and I just can’t seem to access it.  Then I feel like I’m in a doomed glass ball, sealed off from the truth which I know (conceptually) is who I am, but I’m not feeling it directly. Do you know what I’m talking about?  It’s a frustrating place.  My experience is one of being stuck, of defeat, like I’m never going to ‘get there’.  It feels like being trapped eternally in a bad mood. And then there is the little voice that reminds me that the ‘me’ that wants to ‘know’, isn’t the one who can ever know, but I feel like this ‘me’ is all I know.  Samsara samsara….I’m doomed to be asleep forever. 

I was in this place yesterday until it suddenly and deeply registered that THIS is EGO and I noticed how much I was really resisting the feeling of hopelessness in it.  It is so ironic that the ego works so hard to get out of the trap it created (or that it is made of)! So I really saw that this is the experience of the belief that I’m small and stuck and limited.

At some point, like the turning of the weather, something in me surrendered and a genuine curiosity arose. Suddenly I wasn’t pushing it away anymore, but sniffing around it!  In a very short time, without any effort whatsoever, ‘it’ softened, and the glass bubble burst. To my great surprise, I was just left alone in the deep calm of awareness, with joy and gratitude bubbling through. 

Now I really get what ‘they’ say about accepting what is (as an experience, not just as a ‘teaching’).  It is so natural to resist what doesn’t feel good – and it is beautiful that we have the inclination to want to ‘feel better’ (and that we have an arsenal of tools to choose from to do this)- but for me, if I hadn’t dived right into the heart of where I least wanted to go, I wouldn’t have been able to come completely undone and find a real peacefulness.

So if like me, you are ‘sure that you are stuck’, you are ‘surely’ dwelling in a belief, and it simply isn’t true.  I don’t think I consciously chose to surrender yesterday, who wants to surrender to that muck? But something in me did.  Something in me decided to be ok with all of it being there… for as long as it was going to be there….and suddenly…well, check it out for yourself.   Peace.  


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A universe beyond the blinders

We have to admit, one thing the ego has going for it, is that it sure knows how to make itself known.  The ways of the mind are so transparent when we are willing to really pay attention. For example, a recurring thought pattern in my mind puts happiness, or fulfillment, or the ability to really relax somewhere in the future.  This projected happiness is always conditional on other things too- “when we have more money and can take family vacations- with a babisitter”  “when we are totally free to do so as we like and when we like”  “when my back stops hurting from lugging around these massive (and adorable) twins all the time”…. we will be happy, free, relaxed, better people, able to enjoy life more…..  There is nothing wrong with these thoughts, they are just thoughts, but I’m so trained to automatically believe them that I often let them have their way with me – I fall asleep and let in a flood of emotions, physical sensations and more thoughts that just keep reinforcing the original one.  This brings an almost imperceptible veil of stress too, just a slight feeling of heaviness, or of being trapped in some way.  And then that drains me. So I go through the day doing the zillions of things I believe I have to do, feeling stressed and exhausted and bummed out because I’ve put my ability to be happy or truly fulfilled somewhere in a conditional future that is absolutely out of reach from the trenches of Here.  Fun times hey?  I know I”m not alone here folks…. tell the truth, you know all about this, right? 

But there is an alternative… the truth in my heart says that ‘access’ to happiness, complete fulfillment, total freedom, and the ability to truly rest easy is available to us all the time, because that is our true nature. If we think we will be happier when we have more money in the bank, or doing the perfect job, in the perfect body or with the always-perfect mate, we can at last take this as an obvious flag indicating that we are identifying with our ego.  Or in other words, we are believing the thoughts in our head so completely that we’ve trapped ourselves in a dead zone.  I know it feels like shit be in that place.  But this is good news!!  As soon as we can recognize the limiting place that these thoughts, beliefs, emotions and even the physical sensations that accompany them are coming from, we can then open ourselves to the possibility that this isn’t the full picture, and there is indeed a whole universe beyond these blinders. 

So how do we ‘get out?’  I’m not claiming to have any answers here, but in the spirit of keeping this real, I’m happy to share my own unconscious tendencies so we can leave them behind together. So how I ‘get out’ is as soon as I realize that I’m trapped in thought, I stop and acknowledge that first of all, I’m believing that there is a ‘me’ that is in charge of everything…. and this ‘me’ is projecting my happiness into the future, which is unaccessible at the moment.  If I need to verify this, I can go through a checklist – am I feeling stuck?  yup.  Trapped? yup.  A bit bummed out? yup.  Like I don’t have enough oxygen?  yup.  Ego verified.  So then I soften and let it in. I see it for what it is – this ‘part’ of me that is constantly strategizing for the future.  This ‘part’ that is working all the time, seemingly on my behalf. A bit of gratitude for this hardworking ego sneaks in. I see it’s fears – for example the one about not being able to find time to allow the full expression of my creative potential into this world.  Then as uncomfortable as it is, I allow the full weight of that fear in: “I didn’t do what I could have done in this life”…. sadness engulfs me.  So then I just let the energy of that feeling fully into my body and let the ‘story’ around it fall away.  So I fully feel the sadness – a deep heaviness in my heart.  I let myself be totally, utterly sad.  Sounds fun hey?  Bear with me.  Then from the very heart of this sadness, I ask ‘who is this that is sad?’  and ‘who is the one asking?’  Suddenly I’m dropped into a vastness – a deep silent, peaceful and light spaciousness.  The heaviness of the need for answers, or for figuring anything out falls away. This is a better place to hang out.

The ego might want to come in and create some new solutions… it might want to start ‘practicing gratitude’ (which I’d love to explore in another post), or projecting a positive spin on the present moment.  But this is the same arising of mind – the mechanism that creates a ‘me’ that thinks it is in control.  In the vast silent space, there was no need for control, as there was nothing else but silent awareness.

Practicing this kind of self-inquiry has given me the gift of instantly knowing where I’m rooted. It is so obvious to me now, when I’m rooted in my projections of the future (or past), and the clarity of inquiry guides me back to my true ground of self (where I never actually left, which is the cosmic joke of it all).  It is not to say we can’t make plans or be excited about the future, but if we are referencing the totality of ourselves on those projections, we are missing the greatness that is Here now.  This Self, knows it is impossible to be happier anywhere else, and unnecessary to try!  Of course, It is our mind’s habit to jump ahead, to plan, to create… but if we don’t see how this pulls us away from the present moment, it is easy to fall into a chronic sense of unease. The mind resists the present moment (initally) because it has nothing to do; it is not needed as the reference point as a ‘me’ and is thus temporarily annihilated. But, when we actually notice and realign with what is present, there is nothing but the total and complete peace of who we are.