Realization or Awakening is not the goal. This is an aspect of the process that’s worth focusing on a little more.
In the usual cycle of growth, we have disintegration, growth, integration, and balance.
In many ways, an awakening is the disintegration phase, when the old falls away. It is a celebration of new vistas but often it can lead to a time of challenge. What has not been seen before, what has not been dealt with now comes rushing forward. Our skillfully maintained avoidances all dissolve to be faced. And pain that has been hidden is now seen in the new detached awareness.
Some people may try to hide in the silent witness. Step out of the world. Avoid the pain. But this is as much a trap as being caught be the senses. Until we bring that awakening forward into our life, we have failed to complete it’s purpose. Missed the point of it.
Feeling our pain and releasing it becomes progressively easier – first from a place of detached awareness when we can simply see the pain as it is. And later from a place of an undefended heart. It can sometimes feel never ending, like peeling the onion. Layers of ever subtler holding.
We will also find points of what is often called Grace or Shaktipat. Like the awakening itself, a point of deep surrender or even a powerful push from our depths. A push that may not even be welcome at first. This is where grace moves in and overwhelms the remaining concepts and emotions being held. It is more powerful than any resistance, any held sense of reality. It does the processing for you, unwinding everywhere in ways you cannot keep up with.
We may have run into resistance that simply cannot be released by the soul. It is too intimate, to ingrained in our reality. This is where grace is necessary.
Progress is very fast at this point, with reality shifting becoming an ongoing experience. What is at first sometimes scary becomes normal in the every present surrender. In another one of those rules changes, the process of working on resistance itself is found to be a resistance. Another part of the me. A deeper allowing needed.
Soon, the realization becomes established or what Adyashanti calls Abiding. It is no longer overshadowed by any noise or circumstances that may arise. We are moving into the integration phase. For some, grace may begin to show up before this. Before even awakening. Or it may begin to show up after the realization is fully sustained.
But we are still not at the point of balance. The place where we fully embody the inner state. This is what the journey is all about. Not realization. Not abiding. But full Embodiment. This is when we are living the realization. Where there is no resistance. When the peace and love flow through us into the world.
The embodiment of Cosmic consciousness or Self realization is called Sat Chit Ananda, Absolute Bliss Consciousness. The embodiment of Unity is wholeness, totality – words the mind cannot comprehend. This is no longer a ‘state’ of consciousness but rather the wholeness of consciousness itself.
We become the living embodiment of our very being. This is when the flowery words become a living reality. This is where the love and joy and peace are found not only within, but in the very fabric of the world. In all we experience. By being it and seeing it, we are bringing it forth into the world.
We may meet some difficulties along the road. But remember, this is a process of leaving them behind. A process of releasing and letting go. We may have to face some less pleasant things. But they will cast a shadow on us no more.
Davidya
Hi Daviya,
I find the states of consciousness fascinating. I have had experiences of some of the ones you describe in your entry “States of Consciousness” even though I am nonabiding.
I am very appreciative to have a context for understanding what is going on. Thank you! I also have to be real careful that I notice when I latch onto a program of apparent control and achievement oriented doing.
Since I soak up the energy of a person even from their books so easily, I am having to be very slow in reading Adya’s book “The End of Your World”. I get real excited reading it, and then want to make it all happen at once even though I know I don’t make anything happen. ;o)Recognizing home, I want to gallop there on my white horse. lol!
I am starting to get to the point where I can feel myself contract around concepts. I notice that I get a head buzzing sensation, and thought starts planning and strategizing at greater and greater speed.
Also, I seem to experience alternating lovebliss consciousness days or experiencing followed by periods where I am raw with the neon lights of my conditioning appearing as a steady background to my day to day experiences of life.
As a feeling type the “undefended inner heart” aspect you introduced is really helpful because my attention shifts to my heart and I can empathize with the humanness here and feel where I resonate and head in that direction. Paying too much attention to my “thought based” self and following its program creates suffering here I finally admit. So the allowing or surrendering is a surrender to that resonance that I was blessed with and not the one I was taught to pay attention to and that includes the one’s that are the most positive and apparently loving because they are the hardest ones to drop even though they may not be deeply felt.
When I am following the inner resonance and not analyzing the merits of the resonance, that seems to really help. I have to just follow it beyond the evaluating thoughts rising up. That gets easier and easier. Still, the “thought based” self wants to check in and say “you’re going to look stupid”, or “are you really sure you want to follow that?”. More and more I do.
It am learning it helps to be really vulnerable inside to myself. For example, when my waitress friend gave me hugs yesterday, I just told her in my heart how good I feel being around her. Doing it on the inside melted me further. I felt compassion for this bodymind and appreciation for its loving nature. It also, kept the mindbody out of the equation in the sense that it could not use that sentiment to try and manipulate external relationships or conditions.
I feel like the verb experiencing. That is so easy to see. Every thing every day is an experience as it ultimately changes. It is like I am experiencingness. These experiences even though lovely pass, and also seem to be indicators of the way. So, the love, bliss consciousness seems like a by product of following the resonance or knowingness that comes from these awakening experiences.
So, once again, I see that I do not create the love, bliss consciousness. It is all given. I can seemingly follow the dynamic quality of resonance from the “undefended inner” heart in each moment through it’s changefulness and yes even its paradoxical and sometimes contradictions.
Anyway, Thank you for the clue or bread crumb of the “undefended inner heart”. That really pierced me more than a thousands words. Funny a couple of words or a simple pointing concept can make the most difference. I never know where help comes from and I am grateful it does.
Deep Bow!
Ben
Experiences of higher states are quite valuable, but we have to be careful not to think that’s how it is when we are that. I plan to write about this shortly. Also not to build concepts that say “this is reality” as this too can be a barrier.
hmmm – it’s the latching to be careful of. The being caught by, not the doing or program of it itself. In the field of action, action must be performed and the best way to do that is useful to know.
“soak up the energy” – interesting. I take a (naturally – that T) more conceptual viewpoint, so describe “digesting” it. (laughs)
Never discount the white horse. There’s more reality to that than you may expect. 😉
The contracting on a concept is appropriate. Very good to see it clearly. This is bringing the unbounded attention into a point. This is experiencing intention. As above, it’s being caught by it that is the issue, not the contracting. You yourself are a focal point of wholeness, a contraction. But even the contraction is infinite when the grasping is lost.
Thank you for sharing that. And your inner melting would melt her heart as well, if she is willing. Women become startlingly beautiful from an undefended heart. They are love in form.
Very profound. That is exactly it, the flow. As we move forward, the subject and object of experience collapse together and we are left with just the process, the experiencing.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful progress.
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