by Marc Leavitt
The book that I read was the spiritual classic, “Autobiography of a Yogi.” This was the autobiography of the Indian Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, who is credited with bringing Yoga to the West. It was the first time that I was moved this profoundly by anything. His love and dedication to his pursuit of God was like nothing I had ever heard described. Each page just oozed with a deep love and a genuine yearning for Truth that made me realize just how serious I was about my own journey of self-realization.
For the first time in my life, I was reading descriptions of the very same glimpses of Truth that I would get from my meditation practice, and they were coming from somebody else’s mouth. It was beginning to dawn on me that all this spiritual business was for real. I don’t know why, but there seems to be a common and profound experience awaiting any human that practices silencing the mind and abiding in that Stillness on a regular basis. Suddenly it felt as if I had wanted this path all of my life and I had just forgotten until this strange foreigner reminded me through his autobiography. I had never felt there was any purpose in life. Now I was suddenly a man on a mission.
I felt that I had all the momentum in the world in my quest for Truth. I looked forward to committing every fiber of my being to my spiritual pursuit. This is who I was, and I would never be satisfied until I experienced God or the Ultimate Truth for myself. I would not be distracted by the trappings of life in a modern society. I knew what I wanted and nothing else would take priority over my newfound spiritual path. From the day I read that book on the beach in Aruba, I set my compass to God and I never looked back.
I enthusiastically shared this book with my wife and everyone close to me, but my wife was the only one to read it. She was soon bitten. She already had a strong desire to completely absorb herself in commitment to her spiritual path. I have A.D.D. tendencies, so when I get into anything, I get into it with laser intensity. So, it was very easy for my quest for Truth to just take over my whole life. Thankfully, my wife, who doesn’t suffer from this obsessive trait and didn’t get as crazy and intense as I did, understood where my inspiration was coming from. She granted me freedom to absorb myself in my one pointed pursuit of Truth.
As soon as we returned from our honeymoon, I immediately started researching anything that would help me with deepening my meditation practice. What I discovered was Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. I was absolutely infatuated with these new teachings. I devoured books and buried myself in meditation practice deeper and deeper as time went on.
My actual meditation practice itself was very simple. I used a technique that I had made up myself that was very effective for taming my wild mind.
Verify For Yourself...
I would start off with my eyes closed and just stare deep into my mind’s eye. The goal is to just abide in silence without getting swept away by distracting thoughts. I would picture the blackness that I was staring into as a big slippery pole that nothing could stick to. As I stared into my mind’s eye or rather this slippery black pole, I could feel thoughts, mental imagery and other movements of the mind begin to develop. However, as long as I focused on the slippery nature of the black pole that I was staring into, no thoughts would stick or actually come into full formation.
If you attempt my ‘method’ and succeed at keeping your focus on this formless state of mind long enough, very intense and powerful experiences begin to emerge. There may be feelings of euphoria or transcendence or perhaps a keen sense of peace. But if you can manage to regard even these overwhelming positive feelings as merely a distraction, then eventually something even more profound will take place. This is where I was headed.
However, these new feeling may not be so pleasant. In fact, for myself, I found them downright terrifying.
Once you get to the point that you are able to remain unattached to even the most alluring sense of bliss or peace, it seems that the mind has nowhere to turn, so it turns back on itself. I experienced this as a sense of complete and total annihilation. The first time it happened to me, I felt that if I continued to let go of my mind, I would literally disappear. I held on for dear life and opened my eyes for fear that the whole world would slip from me if I didn’t snap out of it.
Fortunately, for me, the spiritual books that I had grown accustomed to reading always emphasized selflessness which is based on a love and trust for Reality as a whole. So, in addition to my meditation practice, I was simultaneously gaining an understanding of the wisdom in surrendering to Reality. Through my studies and personal experiences, I was gaining a trust in the nature of Reality that was so strong that I felt compelled to surrender my whole life to God, and to trust that whatever happened would be part of God’s infinite wisdom, regardless of how I felt at the time. As my trust in Reality deepened, so did my desire to surrender.
One spring day in 1997, I was provided with an opportunity to put my newfound faith into practice. The following is what I wrote of that experience a few years later when I began to document my spiritual path…
My first taste of the Infinite came just days after I genuinely surrendered to the Universe. It was about five years ago and I was meditating when that familiar feeling of 'losing myself' came on. I was attracted to this 'idea' of losing myself which was hinted at in the Zen and Tibetan Buddhist books that I was reading at the time. But when it came down to the actual act of losing myself during meditation, I recoiled in fear, as I took this to be a very real death and even worse, the annihilation of the world and everything I knew.
But this particular time, I remembered that I had just surrendered my life to the Universe and felt that I could trust it with my very life. So, I thought of what it was that I trusted and what I came up with at the time was the term; ‘Buddha nature,’ which to me, referred to the nature of Reality. So, while I descended into this Abyss, I kept repeating to myself, "I trust in Buddha nature, I trust in Buddha nature...” I suppose repeating these words gave me the comfort that allowed me to let go from the very center and the next thing I remember was ....... WHOOSH!!!!
Suddenly, I found myself in a disembodied state completely awash in an infinite sea of loving vibrations. These vibrations were so intense that I really felt like I was floating on them as we float on water. The world as I knew it didn’t exist anymore. The only thing that existed was this boundless ocean of Pure Loving Energy. I recall remembering it as if the state was somehow familiar. The very act of remembering it was all it took to remind me that I was a ‘me’ and that is when I began to gain a sense of ‘self’…
I remember thinking, "this is beautiful, this is wonderful, this is incredible...” And as I began to name it, my identity as an individual began to form, eventually leading to that feeling of treading water in this ocean of loving vibrations. My love for those vibrations and the whole experience itself grew so strong that I could feel myself solidifying just so I could come back to a place in which I could think about and reflect on this incredible state that was beyond thought or comprehension.
This was the very first time in my life that anything out of the ordinary had happened to me. Up to this point, the world seemed a pretty solid place and although I questioned the nature of the world, I never had any reason to believe that I could actually transcend the familiar world as I had done in that experience. Also, there was nothing in any of the literature that I had read that made me think that it was possible to feel the way I felt… bathed in those intense loving vibrations. I had never even heard of Heaven being described as anything this profoundly beautiful and overwhelmingly powerful. What stuck with me most about the experience wasn’t its transcendent nature or its raw power, but the fact that it was somehow strangely familiar.
It’s not that it was simply familiar. The whole nature of the experience suggested that these loving vibrations are Eternal and are always happening whether we are aware of it or not. It was as if that dimension of loving vibrations was and is my true Home and my destiny. What we call the ‘real world’ on planet Earth is just an imaginary excursion away
from this timeless realm of Pure Loving Energy. From that day on, this experience became my holy grail, a trusted touchstone that I was willing to spend the rest of my life seeking. I saw my spiritual path as a path back Home. I had a brief taste of the Eternal and now nothing else would satisfy. I was homesick.
For the next five years, I immersed myself in my practice with increasing intensity. Not only was I meditating and studying but I also started new practices such as lucid dreaming, out-of-body experiences, salvia divinorum and perhaps the most helpful of all, a few visits to The Monroe Institute. TMI was founded by Robert Monroe who is famous for writing some of the first books on out-of-body experiences. He also developed a technology based on binaural sounds where the listener is able to access different levels of awareness through listening to a particular range of inaudible frequencies overlaid with white noise.
I had bought a series of tapes that were geared towards meditation and I was so impressed with how deep they took me in my meditations that, after saving up the considerable amount of money that it cost, I signed up for one of their week-long residential programs. In the brochure they were very clear that one should not attend a program with the anticipation of having an out-of- body experience. I gathered that this is why most people attended the program, but that was not what I was interested in. For me, it was all about experiencing deeper levels of awareness. I viewed this program as an opportunity to plumb the depths of my own mind and, hopefully, aid in my self-discovery.
It was in early spring of 1999 that I arrived at the famous facility, one I had read about and dreamed of for years. It’s located in beautiful Nelson County, Virginia, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains just a few miles from the house that I would move my family into just a month after my visit. The mountain views were more gorgeous and awe inspiring than I ever could have imagined and they completely surrounded the entire grounds to the point that anytime I closed my eyes I would still see in my mind’s eye, a vast and dizzying series of lush green mountain chains stretching out infinitely in every direction.
The housing at the institute itself was very simple. Each participant had a tiny room just big enough for a desk and a bed which was actually a small chamber with heavy curtains. With the curtains pulled closed, I found myself inside my personal chamber. There was bedding, various lighting options, an intercom system and a pair of professional looking headphones. For the next week my world was whittled down to this simple setup. On day two of the program, I surveyed the inside of my small personal living chamber, filled only with blankets, and had the thought, “This is the first time that I have truly ever been on vacation.”
Technically, I had been on many vacations before. I had been on cruises to the Virgin Islands and different parts of Mexico. I had spent my summers and winter vacations with my grandparents in their house in Miami Beach. We would enjoy taking their boat up and down the coast from Key West to Annapolis, MD. Once, I even spent the whole summer touring various islands in the Bahamas. But it was only now, in this tiny 3x7 chamber, that I discovered what it was like to actually experience a true vacation.
The common denominator in all the ‘conventional’ vacations that I had enjoyed in the past was that there was an “I” always in attendance. Whenever I visited these far off places, my same personal issues followed as undeniable baggage. I still experienced the same insecurities and anxious feelings that plagued my daily life even though they were quietly operating under the surface of a pleasant day at the beach. Now, in this tiny little chamber, for the very first time in my life, I was aware of what it is like to actually be on vacation. This was a true vacation, a vacation from all the tensions that had previously permeated my sense of being so thoroughly that I had not even noticed them as the constant backdrop to my everyday existence.
During the course, we would do about six one-hour meditation tapes a day in our personal chambers. Between each of the sessions, all the participants would meet in a conference room where we were free to share our experiences if we chose to. The participants came from all different walks of life. Many were visiting from different countries, and without exception; everyone seemed to have their own unique belief system. The one thing that all participants shared was a desire to experience an expanded sense of what it is like to ‘exist,’ whatever that meant for them personally.
Even though we all listen to the same tape with the same frequencies at the same time, everyone was having their own unique experiences based on their personal predilections. These experiences included dream-like visions, out of body experiences, powerful emotional remembrances, healing or transformative experiences, etc. Prior to this visit, I had read some books from others who had shared their own experiences at TMI. So, whether I realized it at the time or not, I held some expectations as to what I would experience.
It’s not that I was locked into any specific expectation, but rather a general assumption that whatever I would experience at TMI would be visual in nature. But what I would come to experience during this weeklong retreat was far more profound than anything I could ever have imagined. The following is from the journal that I wrote between sessions on day two of the program. It speaks to the difference between what I had expected and what would actually manifest.
Journal Entry: May 5, 1999
WOW! This is a bit hard for me to write about because it has got me so charged. But I realized that it is awareness itself that is so important. The deep state of awareness that I had just experienced was so intense that I can’t find words for it. I was completely aware the whole time. So aware that I felt my consciousness expanding but kind of tight, kind of heavy, dense but expansive. But it occurred to me that this was so much more powerful than any type of visual stuff that I had thought that I wanted.…I’m hoping that I will be able to duplicate this on my own.
On day four I continued in my journal…
Very deep. Can’t talk. Heavy Deep Awareness. Loving it. Can’t describe intense love for it. Didn’t want to come downstairs and talk about it. Didn’t want to hear about others stories involving visuals. I’m at a loss for words. I can’t express nearly how much I never want visuals again. This is just so powerful. All that matters is your awareness.. . What is so important and intense is that deep DEEP DEEP level of awareness. My God, it was so deep and so intense. So wonderful. So beautiful. It is getting so much more wonderful as we get deeper. It is as if I am getting closer to that PURE LOVING VIBRATION that I experienced briefly so many years ago.
What I was so excited about was my discovery of just how profound the actual ‘Mind’ is itself rather than the contents in and of the Mind that we usually find so fascinating. Think about it: Life consists of an infinite variety of experiences and they all take place in the Mind. Whether it is the people we know, the places we visit, or the full spectrum of human emotions that range from being as powerful as love or as mundane as boredom, everything that we will ever experience, we will experience in our Mind. Yet we are never aware of this actual Mind itself.
The way these tapes seemed to work is that they relaxed me to the point that my body started to fall asleep. I experienced the heaviness of the body as it fell asleep. The deeper the body fell asleep, the more aware I became of what was left when the body disappeared… the Mind. This wasnot the usual ‘thinking mind’ that we associate with in our daily lives because that everyday ‘thinking mind’ is strictly identified with the body which was now fast asleep and for all intents and purposes, gone.
So, what’s left is a disembodied sense of simply ‘Being.’ The physical senses having dropped and all that remains is a field of Awareness that feels like deep open space stretching out infinitely in all directions. Even the thoughts or feelings that may arise regarding this sense of spaciousness and accompanying bliss are short-lived, as there is no longer any sense of attachment or identification with the specific contents of the Mind. The focus of the experience is now on the Mind itself or more specifically, the Aware Space or Capacity for
all the contents or experiences.
The reason that I attributed such a sense of profoundness to this newfound Awareness was because it felt timeless. As if it always had and always will exist despite the fleeting content that comes and goes within this spacious mindscape. It was the Eternal quality of the experience that appealed to me as a Truth seeker. The more I abided in this Aware Space, the more this Aware Space seemed to expand and ultimately manifest as bliss. It seemed that the less I identified with my limited sense of self, the more I automatically identified with this spacious field of Awareness.
My journey has always been driven by an insatiable need to understand the nature of Reality. The very Truth of our existence hinges on the question, “What exactly IS Reality?” So, anytime a Truth seeker actually experiences something that is ‘Eternal’, they will naturally feel like they hit the bull’s eye! But this bull’s eye was only the beginning. As powerful and profound as this experience was, it paled in significance compared to what was to follow.
Chapter Two
Seeing the Void
A year later, I returned to TMI for one of their advanced programs which was specifically geared towards inner guidance. Naturally, my own agenda was a continuation of the question, “What is Reality?” While there, we learned how to access higher states of Awareness in which we could receive inner guidance to whatever our specific issues were. Looking back now, it seems reasonable to assume that this is exactly when the shit hit the fan.
I can’t say for sure, as there are many landmarks along the way in my journey, but this is when things seemed to go from a steady bike ride in the park to an out-of-control rocket ship to the farthest reaches of the Universe. I may never be sure as to what exactly happened, but as far as I can tell, I sparked a conversation with the Universe, God, Reality or whatever you want to call the Supreme Source … and that conversation continued for at least two years after this week-long retreat was over. Only there was no longer a sense of two-way communication. This had become more of a telling, or more specifically, a showing. And my role was only that of a witness.