The Awakening Guide: A Companion for the Inward Journey (Companions for the Inward Journey Book 2)

by Bonnie Greenwell

  Sometimes a glimpse is triggered by an encounter with someone who is awake, or even a sacred place in nature. Often after a glimpse a clearing process of the subtle body begins, as kundalini arises. This can also happen following a near-death experience when a person might experience great unboundedness, no sense of ego, and brilliant light, along with an intimation that there is no personal self. The condition of being awake can ultimately be very simple -- clarity, peace, internal stillness, presence. But the process of getting there can include many phenomena. Here is an example of a sudden shift in consciousness, followed by the deconstruction process that is often part of a kundalini arising.

  A few years ago I experienced a profound and unexpected shift in consciousness while sitting in the presence of an awakened mystic (I didn't know who he was or much about awakening and mysticism at the time) I felt a deep and mysterious resonance of an all-encompassing and non-personal love. Since that time a blessed and choiceless devotion to the wordless mystery and the incredible challenges of embodiment has arisen. A few years later my crown chakra blew open, waking me from sleep with intense energy and pain shooting through my head. Since then I've been experiencing increasing energetic and physical phenomena including: electric "sparklies" in my body, tremendous rushes of energy (as if I’m being "sucked out" of my body), vibration and strong energy in my head, being on the verge of losing consciousness when speaking of Truth, feeling on the verge of seizure, racing/palpitating heart, night sweats, difficulty eating solid food for 6 weeks, deep vibrations and shaking, jerking and convulsive-type movements, spontaneous yogic poses, premonitions which come true, and fear of dying.

  Biofeedback As a Trigger

  It’s possible to temporarily enter states of consciousness that transcend the ego using biofeedback. Physicist and biofeedback researcher Dr. James Hardt has described such an experience in an essay on “How Alpha Feedback Works”, available on the web. He discovered this early in his research career when he was accidentally left for 3 ½ hours hooked up to a machine in an alpha feedback lab at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute.

  At first he focused on methods he knew to increase alpha waves, believing he could manipulate the results to raise his score, but after a while he suddenly saw that gaps in his stream of consciousness, lapses in awareness, were instrumental in creating high bursts of alpha. He was shocked to find that he had to stop focusing and instead become a detached witness without any reflective or analytic thinking. As this capacity of witnessing deepened he felt his consciousness floating in the room above his chair and eventually entered a sense of egoless drifting, outside of time, and felt detachment from his identity, along with joyous pure beingness.

  After a time of blissful expansion James reports that he experienced a downward pull and felt he was falling into the blackest hole he had ever seen, an “enveloping blackness” and his ego reactivated, telling him that if he entered this space he would cease to exist. He immediately exited the experience. Later he regretted he had not taken the plunge into these depths, and he heard that similar things might happen in meditation. He sought out raja yoga practices as another approach to the unmanifest. He also founded The Biocybernaut Institute for brainwave research and studied the brain waves of yogis and Buddhist meditators, training students to match the patterns of their teachers to discover more about the capacity of biofeedback to transform consciousness. He has also done pioneering studies using biofeedback for many medical and psychological breakthroughs.

  There are several factors that most accidental awakenings seem to have in common. They are moments of singular focus, times when the moments between thoughts expand, moments when for one reason or another a person is vulnerable, open and without defenses. Either through meditation, breathing alterations, shock, emotional stress, drugs, biofeedback or for unknown reasons there is likely an energy or biochemical shift in the brain that disables the normal functioning of identity, and pure awareness or presence shines through without the distortion of thought.

  Near-Death As a Trigger

  A shift in consciousness often happens during a near-death experience, leaving many energetic and emotional residual. Here is a case in which a near-death experience triggered a brief awakening out of the context of the life of a young woman.

  I had a near death experience at the age of 20, when I was driving and collided with another car going about 55 mph. I experienced the NDE about 5 minutes prior to the accident. It felt as if I was one with the universe. I was everything and everything was me. It was the most beautiful experience. The love, trust and acceptance is unreal. NO human love could ever compare. I was not in the car at the time of impact. I started to head into the light and was struck with fear, fear of death, fear of leaving the physical, fear that I had not lived the life I have always wanted. Next thing I knew I was heading into the curb at about 30 mph. I escaped this experience virtually untouched. I just started realizing that I was running huge amounts of energy and anxiety through me after this, and I believe these led to a nervous breakdown about a year later.

  Waking Up is Not an Experience

  The experience of waking up is not a mystical event, although it may occur in the midst of one. It is often said to be no experience. It is a ground level shift that occurs right now, right here, and whether it lasts a minute or a lifetime, the Truth of who you are is known. This is a significant aspect of self-realization, and essential to the liberation of consciousness from the confines of a limited personality structure.

  Other spiritual experiences can be rich, ecstatic and deeply satisfying while they last, but are subject to coming and going, leaving behind much frustration in the person who felt them, and stimulating the ego to expose itself to more and more experiential stimulants in order to regain what it feels has been lost. In simpler terms, we become addicted to seeking high experiences. We strengthen the spiritual ego when this happens, and this may profoundly improve the way we live our lives, but we may stay in a cycle of pleasure and loss for many years, and miss a precious opportunity to find total inner peace. On the other hand, experiences can motivate a person to keep going with spiritual practices until fully awakened.

  Waking up is what happens in response to the question, “Who is having these experiences?” and searching neither thought nor emotion to find an answer. It is not the process of having an experience, however ecstatic and profoundly mystical it may be. It is the kinesthetic and intimate understanding of that which has the experience, or that which lives through us and is eternally present through all time and experience.

  To wake up we have to give up the idea that we are a personal identity who is seeking experiences, and begin to wonder what is true underneath, and behind, all human experiences.

  Many westerners who have followed spiritual practices for a long time have a history of sporadic mystical experiences; some of them, unfortunately, even suffer from the naive belief that they did something bad to cause these experiences to go away. But all experiences pass. That is the nature of experience. We are blessed with the joy, or the insight, or the expansion, as if it is a taste of something beyond our comprehension. And it passes. There is little understanding of the dynamics of spiritual process, and so people create beliefs about what is happening that do not help them move more deeply into Truth. I know this is so, because I did it for over twenty years.

  I studied eastern spiritual systems, met over a dozen gurus, moved very deeply into my own transformative process through meditation and energy work, and had many experiences of merging, of energy and ecstasy, and of expanding into what the 19th century psychiatrist Richard Bucke so beautifully labeled “Cosmic Consciousness”. I have known dozens of others who have done the same. While these were all rich and wonderful experiences, I never felt finished. Instead it seemed like I could leave my life and visit a more ecstatic place, and return to cope with all the disagreeable aspects of living. It felt like I was living much of my life by escaping it. I still believed “I” was having the exp
eriences, both good and bad. I asked the proverbial question “Is that all there is?

  A Teacher Can Shift Your World

  What shifted my entire world was an encounter with a teacher who had known and now lived a true awakening, following many years of intense practice in the Zen Buddhist tradition. Adyashanti’s perspective at one point was that the intense practice he had done, with all the experiences it brought, was an absolute failure. Only when he reached the depths of despair that this thing was not working for him did he have a total breakthrough of consciousness, and the recognition of who he was. This occurred in conjunction with such an extreme rise of kundalini energy forcing itself through his body that he thought he would die. When he surrendered to this possibility he was opened into the vastness and a direct realization of his true nature. Of course, his intense Zen meditation practice likely laid the groundwork for this awakening, but it was the totality of despair that seems to have cracked open the separate sense of self.

  The first thing I saw clearly, when sitting in a silent meditation retreat with Adyashanti, was that there was no absolute truth available to the mind. All mental constructs are relative, time-limited, and far, far too narrow to encompass the truth of what we are. It can be known directly but it cannot be taught, so teachers are left with only the possibility of pointing the student in the direction they need to go.

  The second thing I learned is that awakening always happens right now, in this moment, in this body and this world. It is not a transcendent dip into the cosmic plane. This is not to say that such dips can’t and don’t happen regularly to mystics. But that is a trip of the mind into another reality, and not the true understanding of Self. Perhaps, in some traditions, deepening samadhi states eventually erase the experiencer, so that the Truth of Being dawns on them. But I have not seen large number of truly liberated people emerging from these traditions. Very often the seduction of samadhi means the return to a lived awakening is not made.

  In the direct path or the non-dual traditions, such as Adyashanti teaches, there is a transmission that occurs in the shared presence between student and teacher, and through this a kind of resonance opens the student’s mind or heart until they can see that they too are what the teacher lives. There is only one being and both of them are it. I once thought this was something special, only existing between a teacher and student. But no, it is the secret of all existence. We are all this One being. This teacher is simply the first person who reflected it to me so perfectly I could not miss it, and I was ready to see it when he came into my life. Every single person that has ever lived or ever will live is this same One. We are molecular structures holding one consciousness in many forms and variations.

  The mind can hardly bear to consider this, because its primary role in our lives has been to establish our separate self, collecting all kinds of evidence to help us individuate into the unique person we are at any moment in time. Minds are busy creating us, through every life experience, and every stage and age of life. They mold us according to the teachings of our family, race, culture, gender, religion and many other influences.

  When we take on a spiritual path the mind begins turning us into a spiritual person, with all the beliefs, identifications and trappings that entails. This may be a new and improved “me”, but if we wake up we will see through it all as a play, a dance, and an illusion. Waking up ultimately makes us more simple, and brings us down to earth. At some level there is a perception that nothing exists, at least not in the way we had imagined it.

  After Discovery, Deconstruction

  The realization of Self or Truth that is spiritual awakening can bring great passionate joy and exaltation. It feels like the culmination of a search that has lasted thousands of years, finding at last our roots, our home, and our source. But after the ecstasy, an adjustment period lies ahead. There is a paradox because the search has ended, but a new dimension of spiritual development has begun; every aspect of the psyche is going to be exposed to the light of consciousness. This has been called the dark night of the soul, the stage of purification, the unloading of the unconscious, transformation, crucifixion, moving through the hell realms, and many other things. I think of it as deconstruction. The structure is being disassembled so that spirit can live freely without the old conditioning.

  This deconstruction period can involve the activation of kundalini energy, dramatic shifts in perception and senses, opening to paranormal and psychic experiences, and what Adyashanti has called, “The fire of Truth.” A person may go into great expanses of emptiness, which is wondrous to the Being, but frightening to the mind. To the extent one clings, or tries to return to the old mental habits and perspectives, there is great distress. The challenge is to stay present with whatever arises and eventually surrender all tendencies to be divided. In other words, until the Self, or the Radiant Emptiness, or the Oneness (however we try to frame this enormous internal truth), comes completely forward to rule our life, we are unfinished, and struggling with a sense of two worlds and two lives. Gradually, as the inner spirit becomes dominant, a sense of deep unspeakable peace moves into the cells. Over time we find ourselves naturally feeling love, compassion, clarity, acceptance of what is, and even a slight inclination to action that is authentic and natural for us. These qualities are not chosen, but rather seem to bubble up from the source of consciousness within.

  When there is no longer any struggle, because all that is left of the little “me” is a slight memory and flavor, and perhaps a few insignificant preferences that can easily be enjoyed or put aside, the spiritual journey is over. There can be more, apparently an endless range, of teachings and blessings, but there is no more longing or desiring for any of these. Just as the empty screen on the TV tells you the programming is over for the night, the mind that seeks, or longs, or desires, is no longer functioning in that space. And the program is unlikely to be renewed.

  Of course the functional mind still works and everyday tasks can be done, sometimes with greater efficiency because there are no psychological impediments. But attachment to the story that defined you has faded into oblivion. To live without the story, without demands, and without a sense of personal struggle, is to live an awakened life. As long last, the spirit or the Self has accomplished its intention of being a conscious force in your life.

  Chapter 2

  The Mystery of Being

  For the greater part the nature of our lives and our source is a mystery. For most of us it is a mystery without a very satisfactory ending. Something called “me” came into the world, apparently innocent, open and receptive to life, accumulated some years of experiences, developing beliefs, points of view, and concepts, and it will pass on, apparently to some place where none of those beliefs or concepts have any usefulness at all. All we know about this “me” is the fact that its vehicle is a collection of atoms and molecules catalyzed into a cohesive existence by two other beings, and we have no idea how long it will last, what it will experience, or where it is going.

  Imagine the creation of a life. It begins with the collision of a seed form with a moving energy called sperm, which suddenly becomes one object containing matter, energy and consciousness that instinctively has the wisdom to arrange itself into a human form. At some point the form is too constricted to live within the structure that contains it and a process begins to expel it. After much drama an infant appears in the world. It is here as an open, receptive presence, awareness itself learning to live in a body, which will have distinctive characteristics according to its DNA, and then must deal with the conditions that it is thrown into, through no apparent choice of its own.

  About age two a child begins to sense a feeling we call “I”. At first this “I” thinks it is all-powerful and should have control over its entire domain. In a short time it feels itself to be separate and distinct from other beings, labeling its position in the hierarchy of things. As it moves through life it collects experiences and volumes of data on whom it is supposed to be, how it shoul
d think, and what is good and bad, and eventually forms concepts and points of view. Family, peers, social mores, culture, education, the struggles it goes through to survive, and various traumas form its relationship to life. Along the way it adds some ideas and drops others until finally the vehicle is no longer able to continue, and the entire system dissolves. Having become a separate “me”, the person can be rather disheartened as it notices this catastrophe.

  Generally humans move through life without questioning this chain of events, and develop belief systems to help them cope with the transitory nature of their existence, imagining all kinds of worlds that the little “I” can travel to after the vehicle is discarded. In the non-dual perspective this belief in the little “I” is considered dreaming, along with the story that one can travel to other worlds in this life or the next. Other than memories about experiences that are used to define, construct and encase oneself, and a temporary collection of molecules, no me or I exists. So who is dreaming?

  As you look at the string of experiences that have become your identity, underneath all of them from conception to this moment, what has held it all together? What is it that has never moved, never changed, and formed the ground within which all of those things that happened to you could be noticed, before being filed in the recesses of the cells? It is as present at birth as it will be at death. It is inescapable, and the entire system would collapse immediately if it were to disappear. It guided the fetus into form and the form through life. This is the riddle that breaks up the dream, and points the way out of sleepwalking and into awakening.