This is something I have been exploring and that many talk about.
There is a difference between the byproducts of an awakening or opening and its essence.
The byproducts can be quite varied. It can be a mix of bliss, love for everyone and everything, a deep gratitude, new abilities such as being able to see auras or do healing, download of information, and inspiration to write or make art. I experienced all of these and more during the initial opening or awakening.
The essence is something we have to find for ourselves and it often clarifies with time. We are invited to use the opening or awakening as a pointer to find its essence, to find what it has revealed that remains through the shifting states and experiences.
Many or all of the byproducts and experiences associated with an awakening fade and go away with time, and it’s easy for the mind to freak out and think that something essential has been lost. But that’s not the case. It’s the non-essential that has been lost so that the essential can be revealed and recognized more clearly.
And what is it that’s essential. What does the awakening, and the coming and going of its byproducts, point to? What remains through the different states and experiences? What’s still here from the awakening, even when the byproducts are all gone?
For me, it’s a recognition of any state and experience as what everything was revealed as in the initial opening or awakening. As presence, love, Spirit, void, or whatever the mind calls it. That’s really all. It sounds very simple, and it is. And it can be quite difficult to remember and notice when the mind creates temporary identifications and beliefs and stirs itself up.
What supports this recognition is meeting shunned parts of my experience with presence, kindness, and patience. To invite it to heal and align more with reality. These parts were formed in a different context, in a much more painful one, and they still exist within that reality, so meeting them in this way when they come up invites them to heal and realign with the reality discovered through the awakening.
As a mentor of mine once said, the initial awakening was free, and the continued clarification requires work.
I should also mention that there is a dark night connection here. If the mind holds onto the byproducts of the awakening as something essential, it can easily create a dark night for itself when they inevitably go away. The mind can go into despair, struggle, and even depression. That’s why it can be helpful to be aware of this before it happens. And it can also be helpful to practice recognizing the essence of the awakening through different states and experiences while it’s still relatively easy. That may not prevent the despair and struggle that sometimes happens when the byproducts go away, but it can at least provide a pointer and a direction for how to relate to and make use of that transition.
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Initial notes…..
- Byproducts of awakening vs its essence
- side-effects
- bliss, ability to see auras/do healing etc., download of information, gratitude, open heart, love for everyone and everything,
- all content of experience, comes and goes, a transient gift
- essence
- have to find it for ourselves
- use awakening/opening w its side effects as a pointer, what does it point to that’s independent of experience, that’s here independent of changing content of experience
- for me….
- all content of experience as presence, awakeness, consciousness, even love (aka Spirit, the divine), can notice independent of particular content of experience
- meet shunned parts of my experience/myself with presence, love, patience – invite it to heal, align more with reality (because was formed in a different context, a much more painful one, and it still exists within that reality)
- side-effects