I thought I would give a brief update on the Amma experience from November 2023. I have added updates to the original article, but it’s been long enough, so I may as well write something here as well.
THE EXPERIENCE AND SHIFT
The experience itself lasted three hours, was witnessed by my wife, what opened me up for it seems to have been a very human crisis.
The shift itself had many phases, but briefly: I sincerely and nakedly asked Amma for help. I saw her in her physical form coming towards me, with some obstacles between me and her. I asked her for help in removing the obstacles, and in a moment she was with me. I then experienced her in her energetic form, this human self in his energetic form, and myself as these energies, and saw – and was and felt and was part of – a lot happening at the energetic level. Then, there was a tour of the universe, existence, as energy. Followed by everything – Amma, what I am, existence – as emptiness, the emptiness that everything comes out from and is. Towards the end, there was a period of Amma with the land and the neighborhood, and the spirits belonging to the land and the ecosystems.
In a sense, this was familiar terrain. I am familiar with what I am and existence at an energy level, and also as the nothing that takes the form of everything – including this awake space. In another sense, it was profoundly transforming and like no other experience.
After this happened, Amma was with me always, and there was a shift in how I experience myself, existence, and everything – it’s all Amma taking all of these forms. It’s all Amma as emptiness taking the forms of all of existence.
There was also a shift in how I experience energy healing. I can still do the previous form of healing, but it’s much easier and more close to me – and apparently more effective – to do healing with Amma. Healing from emptiness with all as Amma.
This is all still here.
Amma may come to London this spring or summer, and I may have a chance to see her in person for the first time. This highlights that she is now infinitely close – in all of her aspects and all aspects of existence. It’s difficult to imagine that seeing her in person could come close to that, although I know that anything can happen, including what my human personality doesn’t expect, including further shifts.
HIGHLIGHTING ASPECTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
There has been a long series of shifts, states, and experiences that have brought some aspects of my nature, some aspects of what I am, into the foreground.
The function of these states seem to be for what I am to present to itself features of itself in a way that’s impossible to ignore.
The states themselves come and go, and the insights tends to stay. Even when these features are no longer so clearly in the foreground, they are far easier to notice.
In this case, it seems to be a version of the divine feminine that comes into the foreground – as an aspect of all of existence from emptiness to energies to manifestations reflected by our human senses. Perhaps because one of my struggles is with a mom that didn’t quite offer what a child needs, the divine feminine comes in to offer me some of that and help with the healing.
Some years ago, another version of the divine feminine came into the foreground for some months or years (?). That was more impersonal, receptive, and as a fertile ground of being. This one feels more personal, responsive, and active.
HAPPENING IN SPITE OF THIS HUMAN SELF
I should say that at a human level, I had and have little interest in Indian spirituality (I have resonated more with Taoism, Zen/Buddhism, Christian mysticism, and integral approach), and the devotional aspect has rarely been in the foreground. I have loved Christ meditation, the Heart Prayer, and so on since my teens, but that’s different. It took a very human crisis to get me to sincerely and with my whole being ask Amma for help.
There are also parallels to the initial oneness shift that happened when this human self was sixteen. The shift revealed all – without exception – as the divine, as awake space taking the form of everything, including this human self, any temporary ideas or sense of fundamentally being this human self, and so on.
The Amma shift was one of many deepenings of that initial shift, and brought some other qualities into the foreground and highlighted other aspects of what I am.
In that case, it came without any conscious interest in – or knowing about – spirituality, awakening, or anything similar. This human self was an atheist in a small town in Norway and had no exposure to anything like that. He had just become unbearable to himself, so the oneness shift may have functioned as a kind of safety valve.
GRACE
To me, that shows that this is all grace.
Of course, it’s all grace anyway. Any interest, motivation, inspiration, encounters, prayers, practice, shifts, and so on is all grace. It all comes from somewhere else. It’s all local expressions of movements in the larger whole.
And when this human self did little to nothing for anything to happen, it’s even more clear – even to dense personalities like mine – that it’s grace. There is nothing, not even in a conventional sense, to take credit for.