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The search, awakening and enlightenment |
The search , awakening, and enlightenmentThe purpose of life is to come home, As soon as we discover that something is missing in our lives a more or less conscious search starts for what has been lost. Often we remember experiences from our childhood when everything was alive, magical, and exciting. There was no time and no other place apart from where we were at that moment. Everything was breathing peace and time stood still. I remember that the question "Where is everything coming from?" came to me when I was a child. A simple question but still not so easy to answer. Everything is there: trees, bushes, flowers, people. But where does it come from? To answer with scientific words like molecules, atoms and so on feels like being cheated. It is an answer that will satisfy you. I wanted to understand from my own direct experience and some words that would offer an explanation are not enough. I knew that it all had to do intimately with myself, my very existence. I wanted an answer that would hold it promise for me on an existential level. A similar question came as I looked at myself in a mirror and wondered "Who is that person?". Of course I see a body but the image in the mirror is in a way empty and pointing to a deeper mystery. In some way there was all the time something there pointing to a deeper reality, a meaningful mystery that was waiting to be revealed and incorporated in daily life. When we get older the magic of childhood is easily forgotten. Maybe it will only become something sentimental, not a possible living reality. Of course it is not always easy to be a young child. Most of us have gone through difficult situations during our childhood that have shaped us in different ways. But there was often something more that was indicating that there was a different reality. Life is calling you. You will get reminded that what are engaged in for the moment is not all there is. Something is missing. In the beginning it might just be a soft knock at your door. It could be a deeper idea that is surfacing when your are thinking about what is happening in your life. Is this all? Is this the meaning of my life? Is there and end to life? Is there something more? For some people this is the start of a more conscious search. If you don't do anything about this first impulse life will knock harder at your door. You might have to go through something difficult like a divorce, a serious disease, loosing your job. This can be the start for you to sit down and analyze your life in a deeper way. What is my life about? What do I really want? When you have started the search in a more conscious way life will start to respond to our longing. You will find a book that will carry you further, maybe you will meet someone that will talk a big a greater reality, you will be struck by the magnificence of life and its beauty and discover that it is more to it than struggle and temporary pleasures. That happened to me when I was about 20 years old. I started to read books by Herman Hesse and C. G. Jung. I was drawn to Indian mysticism, macrobiotics, alternative music, and political organizations that were working for a world of justice. I tried hatha yoga and thought a lot about what life was all about. When I was 22 I was ready just to leave everything, walk into the woods to sit down and meditate in order to discover what was real and what was illusion. At that time I came in contact with TM (Transcendental Meditation). I learned how to meditate was was completely overwhelmed. It was a confirmation that what I was searching for could become a living reality. I also became a member of an association with other meditators where I experienced warmth and a sense of belonging. Then the years passed. I meditated and went for advanced courses. But nothing really happened after the first 4-5 years. I just kept going by the momentum and thought that this was the way it was the way it was supposed to be. I kept on meditating and went for more advanced courses. The meditation movement was a great security for me that was important in the beginning, but later it started to be felt as a limitation. I also saw that no one became enlightened. Everyone were just doing and doing but nothing happened. I began to loose the interest. One day when I was doing one of the advanced techniques there was a sudden jerk in my back and I got a really painful lumbago. I stumbled home slowly from the meditation hall. It was like God or Existence had pointed at me and was asking: "What do you really want with your life?", "When will you take responsibility for your life and not only follow what others are saying?". This was very painful for me to digest and I decided that the only thing that was important for me was to find my way to my true home, and to realize and live what is my deepest reality. When I then finally had made up my mind it was like life made a turn. After a few days I was invited to a show of a video about an american woman called Gangaji. A few minutes after the start of the video she said that the me is only a thought among other thoughts. This completely turned my world upside down. I realized that what I had searched for had been there all the time and every act of thinking and searching only took me further away from myself. I stopped meditate with TM that I had been doing for so long and just sat. It was not possible to hold on to anything anymore. It was like falling without an end. When I tried to grab for something it only slipped away. I came into contact with satsang and different spiritual teachers. I also went deeper into therapy which Cecilia and I had been using for a while. Finally I got into contact with Nukunu who became my final teacher. The true awakening happened after 10 months with him. The I disappeared to make it possible for the ever present Presence to become a living reality. The problem for many seekers is the me. We are so used to believing that life is about getting more and more. We believe it is about piling up collect different talents and abilities and that enlightenment is the greatest talent. The ego or me has to be polished and evolved into something perfect and if we don't make any mistakes and don't have any negative thoughts or emotions - then we are enlightened. Further on we look at evolution as different steps that have to be accomplished. We are at a certain level and by the help of a new technique or understanding we will reach the next step. At the top of the stairs sits the unreachable, perfect master and our lives are about to come closer to the master step by step. Some experiences are considered as the "right" experiences and an indication that you highly evolved compared with others that don's have these experiences. Witnessing is such an experience. The result of a lot of meditation and also certain mental exercises is that the mental level is experienced as a greater and more concrete reality than the physical experience of the world. The body and the experiences through the senses are experienced as empty, without physical substance. The sense of time and space is changed in such a way that the experience that time is passing disappears more or less and when the body moves there is no experience of movement because the identification with the body has radically decreased. This is what some spiritual teachers call "half-baked". The bread is not really done, it needs some more processing. The problem is the me or the knot in the heart as I like to call it. There is still left an identification with a me or an ego even if the perception has changed and with that the sense of time and space. With this there also comes a new, higher level of silence and clarity. It is easy for an ignorant person to mix this up with the true awakening. Usually there is also some doubt left that can be more or less suppressed. To go deeper you need to see who or what is witnessing. Is there still a me? Is it still about my life? The difference between witnessing and a true awakening is radical. My own experience and what those I have been in contact with can tell that you will become completely overwhelmed. Waves of love, tears, and gratefulness are usual experiences. There is nothing more to search for or attain. The seeker has disappeared and been replaced by an intense openness and presence. The now is so intense that it is impossible to conceive of any different reality. There are no doubts anymore because the new reality is so obvious and self-descriptive. The need for confirmation and acknowledgement disappears. You don't need anything because you are everything and everything is inside you.
The awakening happens instantly after a moment of innocence. There is nothing you can "do". When the search has came so far that you both have given ut the search and even the longing, then it is only about waiting and receiving. The search has brought you to the door - now it is only about Grace opening it. This will happen when it is time, it is nothing that you can decide for yourself. Life is so infinitely much bigger than the me or the mind. The mind can not understand it as long as we are occupied by the mind and what is happening we will not see the underlying Presence that is always there waiting for us to stop. For most people the awakening is preceded by glimpses that can last for a longer or shorter time. These glimpses don't have the same clarity as the real awakening but they are indeed a sign of that you are on the right path. Just don't hold on to the glimpse as a dear memory but look upon it as a source of inspiration and see that life is new every moment. Often there is some doubt involved in the glimpse, maybe we will follow a thought or a feeling or we just don't dare to believe that this is all there is and start looking for some kind of confirmation and then starts to go into ideas and thoughts about what is happening instead just trusting the experience as it is. When the awakening stays it is called enlightenment. Presence does not change when enlightenment has happened. It is always the same openness. What changes is instead your personality that relaxes more and more in Presence. Life becomes more translucent or transparent by Presence and will express its nature in a more powerful way. It is like Nukunu says "an ever-opening sky". |
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Klas Satyananda Westholm - satyananda.westholm@gmail.com |
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