Tag: awakening process

Dream: Invited to a private meeting with a guru

moe Leave a comment

I am in a colder climate, with a group of people, and a guru. It seems to be in the UK. The people are well off and welcoming and inviting, although I feel like an outsider. The guru is a respected high teacher from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition or Advaita Vedanta, likely both. I am invited to have personal meeting with the guru. Apparently, the guru specifically invited me.

I am traveling and slightly disorganized, and feel I don’t have the right clothes. When I arrive, I have light clothes on, and additional clothes to put on since I expect it to be cold. While I am off for a minute, the host put the clothes away and it all gets a little confusing.

As I get to the area of the house (mansion) where the guru is, I see that everyone else now are painted and dressed up as deities, mostly in green and gold. I will be painted and dressed up too. I thought I was in a rush, but it turns out there is plenty of time.

I am told each interview is for 80 minutes, and it will be filmed and released to the public later. I feel that in my health condition, and with my brain fog, the interview with me may not be very good compared to the others. It’s still important to meet with the guru.

WAKING LIFE

This dream reflects my daily life. I am at Amritapuri (Amma’s ashram), and I often feel like this.

Why is it in the UK? Maybe because I recently was in the UK, and most of the people I spend time with here are from the UK.

I have been invited by the guru. In waking life, she came to me (the Amma experience in November 2023) and has stayed with me.

The guru seems both male and female, and combines Tibetan Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.

Parts of me feel that the others here know more about how things work than I do. In a sense, they seem affluent in whatever is required to be here.

Parts of me feel that I am an outsider. My background is from Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, etc. I am not familiar with ashrams.

I feel a bit disorganized and disheveled. I have been sick just about the whole time since I came, apart from a few days in the beginning.

In the dream, I am focused on putting on decent clothes that are also warm. In waking life, I didn’t bring many clothes with me that I am comfortable with, mainly because I was told I could buy them here. That turned out to be a truth with modifications (limited selection and supply).

In the dream, I am not sure if I am ready for the conditions, the cold. That’s the same in waking life – the ashram life, the hot and humid weather, the food, the schedule, etc.

In the dream, the others are painted and dressed as deities. They know their nature, or are about to find it.

In the dream, they are all in green. This seems like a connection with nature, with the web of life.

The meetings will be filmed and released to the public. Parts of me try to avoid public attention at all cost. I don’t want to be too visible, especially if I have to perform in a certain way. This has roots in school experiences. (I was always a good student, and almost always knew the answer to the teacher’s question, but I learned that answering the whole time made me strongly disliked by some of the other students. I trained myself to be invisible, to hide.)

80 minutes. It’s a good amount of time, enough to go in some depth. Eight is also the infinity symbol, which I associate with our nature, wholeness, and the fullness of being.

ALL AS ME

Some parts of me have resources and are well adjusted to life and the guru/spiritual life.

Other parts of me feel like an outsider. They are embraced by the well adjusted, but they don’t feel included. They don’t quite trust it.

I don’t feel I am fully equipped for the conditions, for what comes up in me. I am concerned about it, even if it turns out to be fine.

The guru invites me personally to a private meeting. My nature invites the rest of me to join, to discover its nature. The parts of me that are confused, wounded, and operate from separation consciousness are invited by my – and their – nature to discover and live from and as their nature. (That’s what I wish for too.)

As above, the others in the dream are all painted and dressed up as deities. They are discovering their nature. They are painted and dressed in green and gold. This feels like a connection to the web of life, to nature.

There is a concern about the meeting being made public. There is a concern about my whole inner community knowing about this, about the meeting and the wish for all parts to find their nature. This seems important to notice, since I haven’t put attention on this before.

I wonder if the camera is the part of me that records, reflects, and self-reflects (reflects on whatever is here).

TO BRING WITH ME

I see a few things to bring with me.

How is it to actively include all parts of me, my whole inner community, in the quest for all parts to notice their nature and live from and as that? How is it to actively invite them all? (I have worked on including all parts, but I may not have actively invited them.)

How is it to invite the wounded parts of me to notice their nature? (I am already doing this, but I wish to deepen into it.)

How is it to find more comfort in the public aspect of this? How is it to find comfort with the idea of sharing some of this publicly?

Note: I used a painting of Milarepa for this article. Somehow, the guru felt a bit like Milarepa.

Read More

Meditation sickness & my experience with it

moe Leave a comment

I listened to a talk by Pierce Salguero on meditation sickness, drawing mostly on Asian sources. He has written an article on the topic – “Meditation Sickness” in Medieval Chinese Buddhism and the Contemporary West – and the event was hosted by Cheetah House.

I am familiar with the essence through my own experience and from reading and hearing about it, although the details were interesting – especially what people have said through history.

WHAT IS MEDITATION SICKNESS?

What is meditation sickness? It’s difficult to define so everyone will agree. In general, it’s any kind of disturbing or destabilizing experience associated with meditation, prayer, spiritual activity, or the awakening process. It can be old wounds or traumas surfacing, physical symptoms, dissociation, frightening visions, and so on.

As he pointed out, some of these are to be expected. That’s likely one reason my old Zen teacher, Genpo Roshi, would say to beginners: If you don’t have to be here, it’s better if you do something else. Some can also be seen as a sign of progress, although there are ways to prevent, minimize, and deal with the challenging sides of it.

SUMMARY OF ADVICE

I liked the summary of advice from Buddhist sources for meditation sickness. Below are the points, in my own words.

Use a mix of approaches and techniques. This is built into many if not most Asian traditions where they use a mix of learning and study, training a more stable focus, direct insight into the dynamics and nature of mind, body-centered practices, energy work (directly or indirectly), and relationship work and ethics. If you do just one, or do it a lot, you can get destabilized.

Don’t take weird or unusual experiences too seriously. They are not what it’s about. Also, they come and go as anything else, they may not be as unusual as you think, and don’t trust your interpretation of them.

Follow ethical guidelines. They are there not only for others and society, but for you. They help you find stability – both in your life in the world and within yourself. (Unethical actions are often destabilizing, and often in several ways.)

Follow the guidance of an experienced teacher. At the very least, make sure you have access to experienced teachers familiar with different forms of meditation sickness, how they can be prevented, and what to do when or if they happen.

Recognize the early signs of meditation sickness. This allows you to back off and take another course with your practice.

WHAT ARE MY EXPERIENCES WITH THIS?

I have had many experiences with this. Much seems connected with the awakening process itself, and some may be related to specific practices and especially overdoing certain practices.

I am writing this as a record of my own journey and in case it resonates with others going through similar things.

The year before the initial oneness shift in my teens

When I was fifteen, on New Year’s Day – almost exactly one year before the oneness shift – it was as if the world became very distant. This human self, anything connected with him, and the wider world all went very far away. Much later, I understood that the consciousness I am likely identified with the construct of an observer, and disidentified from everything else.

For some years after (within) the initial oneness shift in my teens

When the initial oneness shift happened, it was both immensely familiar and came with a profound sense of home, and it was also profoundly destabilizing for this human self. At a human level, I had no guidance or support in the process. I didn’t know (or know about) anyone who understood or were interested in it, I had no previous interest or knowledge about these kinds of things, I had no access to books about it, and there was no WWW at the time.

After the initial oneness shift, huge energies were running through my system and this lasted for years. I remember thinking it felt like high voltage running through ordinary housing wires.

For years, there was also an enormous influx of inspiration for art and music, and an enormous flood of insights that I tried to write down. It was overwhelming and exhausting, although also fascinating. This website is the continuation of that, and much of what I write about – at least the parts about awakening and my own direct experiences – is the same as or very similar to what I wrote back then.

I was hyper-sensitive to noise and the presence/energies of others when they were in some kind of battle with themselves. This made it difficult – and sometimes extremely uncomfortable – to be on trains and other places with a lot of people close together. (Part of this is not fully owning those sides of myself.)

When I did spiritual practice, my system easily went “up” while I felt I needed more grounding. Tai chi and Qigong were very helpful here. I liked the Christ meditation since it involved visualizing Christ below me, which helped with grounding and stabilizing. Tonglen also had a grounding aspect. Although in general, many practices – and sometimes these if I did them a lot – would destabilize my system. And I did do them a lot, often for hours a day and some – like the Jesus/Heart Prayer – around the clock.

All of this did mellow over the following ten or so years.

In my thirties

I got into inquiry and got back into meditation after a few years of focusing on sustainability and community projects. To make a long story short, in 2005, there were some months when the no-self aspect of my nature was strongly in the foreground. Not too long after, in 2008, I had serious pneumonia for a few months which led to a dramatic worsening of the CFS. (I got it when I was fifteen, was quite sick for the rest of my teens, and my health was better in my twenties and most of my thirties.)

I don’t know if there was a connection, but it is striking that a relatively long period where no-self was in the foreground was followed by this health collapse.

Dark night phase

I gradually got better, and then – in a moment of hubris – asked life/the divine to “show me what’s left”. Within days, immense, overwhelming, and unbearable primal fear came up. (It wasn’t unbearable, of course, since I could bear it.) For about nine months, I slept very little, could hardly function, and went for long walks in the forest listening to talks by Adyashanti. The primal fear gradually subsided over the following years.

I am pretty sure the overwhelming fear gave me PTSD, which I am still – very slowly – recovering from.

For a while, early on in this phase, I remember feeling that there was no anchor anywhere when I turned off the light to sleep. This felt very disorienting and likely lasted for some months. (I think this may have been a release of some visceral sense of anchoring in the body.)

Easily destabilized

Throughout this – especially for some years after the initial oneness shift, and after my health collapse and the onset of the stronger “dark night” phase – I have noticed two things.

One is that I have been highly sensitive to what’s going on in others, to noise, and to being stuck with people on trains and in planes, and so on. It’s been very uncomfortable. (Of course, this is likely because the world mirrored something in me I hadn’t quite found peace with.)

The other is that any meditation, prayer, and healing work tends to destabilize my system. I sometimes end up in bed with fatigue, a sense of my whole system being disorganized and struggling, and a strong discomfort that feels like it goes through all levels – physical, energetic, emotional, and psychological.

WHAT HAS WORKED FOR ME

What has worked for me? It has changed a bit over time, although some have been with me the whole time.

Being in nature helps me a lot, especially if it’s quiet, and I can find time for myself.

Listening to some talks has helped, especially the ones from Adyashanti and Byron Katie. This was mostly during the early phase of the strong dark night years. (These days, it would just destabilize me and overcook me more.)

It has been immensely helpful to find others who understand. Some functioned as guides for me, some were in the same boat as me (or had been), and some had written about it from their own experience or through studies. I found the Dark Night chapter in Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill immensely helpful when I was going through that, and I also found more modern books on spiritual emergency helpful.

I explore how I relate to any discomfort and life in general – through inquiry, tonglen, ho’oponopono, parts work and dialog, and so on. How is it to find peace with this experience, with what’s here now?

I notice it’s all happening within and as what I am. It comes and goes, as anything else. It’s a part of this temporary and fleeting tapestry of life. Any experience, any mental representation of it, any reaction to it, it’s all happening within and as what I am. It all comes and goes as anything else.

I notice my stressful thoughts. What does this thought say? Where does it come from? (Often, family, culture, passed on through generations.) Can I know for certain it’s true? What happens when my system holds it as true? How do I perceive when holding it as true? How do I live my life? How would it be without it? What’s the genuine validity in its reversals? (The Work of Byron Katie.)

I allow my system to release tension through body-initiated (and body-guided) trembling, shaking, stretching, yawning, sounds, tears, and so on. Whatever comes from my body as a way to release. (Tension and Trauma Release Exercises / TRE.)

Eating well is important. Eating low on the food chain, whole foods, in season, and so on, and mostly avoiding refined and hyper-processed foods. (Without being too rigid about it. It’s more about balance and timing than following an idea of perfection.) This is also grounding, and it avoids the temporary highs & lows and the mood swings that tend to come with refined and hyper-processed foods.

I drink plenty of water, mostly in the form of herbal and spice infusions. This helps me feel generally better. When my system feels off and disorganized, it suprisingly often also helps to drink water with rehydration salts / electrolytes.

Five element acupuncture helps stabilize my system, although it doesn’t always last so long. I would likely have needed weekly sessions to benefit more from this.

Vortex Healing has been my main support after I found it – or it found me – about ten years ago. Energizing, optimizing, and catch-ups are enormously helpful to me. I seem to need sessions about once a week or more often.

Taking a break is crucial. If I notice my system gets too cooked or destabilized, I take a break from explorations. It’s taken me a long time to get this in a more habitual and visceral way.

Similar to the universal advice above, I have found it very helpful to vary my explorations and approaches. I tend to go into one thing deeply, so I have learned to mix it up more.

I have also learned to recognize the signs of overcooking my system, and taking a break as soon as I notice.

From early on, I knew that unusual experiences – or states – is not what it’s about. (Although parts of me were fascinated by and drawn to it.) Now, that too is more visceral.

I have also learned that ethical behavior is grounding and stabilizing, and unethical behavior (acting on reactivity, wounds, trauma) tends to destabilize my inner life and my life in the world. It’s not worth it. This too has become more visceral over time.

On that topic, following my inner guidance and knowing is also crucial for grounding and centering. If I don’t, there is distress and I feel destabilized.

These days, taking a break, mixing it up, nature, and Vortex Healing are my go-tos.

THE BUTTER VISUALIZATION

Why do I use an illustration of Hakuin for this article?

It’s because of Hakuin’s butter visualization, which he recommended for meditation/Zen sickness.

Visualize a lump of butter on your head. It’s gradually melting down your head and down your body – through all cells, organs, systems, and to the soles of your feet. (I like to visualize it continuing deep into the ground as well.)

To me, this is immediately grounding in a warm and soft way.

What happened just before and after the initial oneness shift? And how has it changed over the years and decades?

moe Leave a comment

I thought I would write a more personal story about what happened just before and after the oneness shift when I was sixteen. It’s been a while, so I won’t go into too much detail.

THE YEAR BEFORE: NEW YEAR’S EVE 1985 TO LATE DECEMBER 1986

First, the year leading up to the oneness shift.

Alcohol and fog

New Year’s Eve of 1985, when I was fifteen, I went to a party and drank quite a lot of vodka. I remember getting involved with a girl, then there were some hours I don’t remember, and I woke up at home the morning after and felt surprisingly fine. That day, around noon January 1st 1986, I was outside the house and it was as if a fog set in. My head felt woolen and the world started feeling distant. I assume the alcohol had something to do with it. (It was the first time I drank any significant amount of alcohol, and I have mostly stayed away from it since, apart from the very occasional small amounts of wine with food and the occasional oatmeal stout beer.)

The world far away, and absorbed into the witness

That year, I lived within that fog and with the sense that the world – including this human self – was very far away. Later, I understood that the consciousness I am was identified with and as the idea/mental construct of the observer, and everything else went far away. There was one identification left, and the rest largely released.

Seeing light

One day that summer, I sat outside the house under the birch trees, reading a book. I looked up at the tree and the sky, and noticed a light around the leaves. I assumed it was a kind of optical illusion or something with my eyes, and didn’t think about it more.

In the following day, I started seeing a light around not only leaves, but everything – people, animals, plants, inanimate objects. I would have thought this too was an optical illusion, if it wasn’t for the difference in the type of light – the quality, structure, etc. – around the different kinds of things. It was more complex and extended out further for humans. A little less for our cat, but similar. Even a little less and simpler for plants. And even simpler for inanimate objects. There were also some individual differences.

For all, the light extended out infinitely far, often getting more faint and fine further out.

I think I had heard about auras at that point, and thought that may be what I was seeing.

THE ONENESS SHIFT: LATE DECEMBER 1986

Almost exactly one year later, between Christmas and New Year 1986, I walked up the unpaved road to our house. It was dark, a big wind went through the landscape, the wind blew in the birch trees lining the road, and the sky was filled with stars. I stopped, looked up at the wind in the trees and the stars, and it all changed from one second to the next.

Everything – without exception – was revealed as God, as Spirit. The stars, the wind, the trees, the road, this human self and everything about this human self, this consciousness experiencing it all, all was revealed as God. It was God taking all these forms and experiencing itself as all of it.

Even the previous idea that this human self was experiencing all of it, and that there was an I there in this human self, was God temporarily creating that experience for itself.

Everything was turned upside down and inside out.

This shift was immensely strong, lasted for years and is still here, and it was followed by a huge amount of energy going through this human self. I remember thinking it was as if high voltage went through ordinary housing wires.

It also led to an even more immense influx of inspiration and insights, to the point where I couldn’t keep up. It was followed by periods of amazing synchronicities, of seeing energies even more clearly and realizing I could see how awake a consciousness is to itself, discovering distance sensing and healing abilities, and more.

I should mention that at a human level, I had been a self-described atheist since third of fourth (?) grade, I had absolutely no conscious interest in religion or spirituality, knew very little about it, and mostly had disdain for it.

Update: The shift must have happened December 28th, 29, or 30th, 1986. It was after I made the drawing above (December 27, 1986), and before New Year’s Eve.

Influx of music and art

As I mentioned, after the oneness shift, there was a huge influx (or bubbling up) of inspiration for music and art. I started making music and draw, and it was as if the music and art came to me ready-made, and I just had to try to get it out. The amount, strength, and beauty of what came was overwhelming for my human self.

I made the music below over a week in the summer when I was seventeen (?), and the drawing was made December 27, 1986 when I was sixteen. All filtered through my lack of technical skills and experience. (Listening to it now, it’s not that amazing, but I can see the reflections and seeds of something there.)

THE PROCESS AFTER

At the time, there was the thought that there must be something more, something “out there” somewhere, and the shift was followed by a state – a bliss – that this human mind associated with the oneness shift.

After the oneness shift, this human self has been on a journey of exploration. I have written about that elsewhere so won’t go into it here, apart from mentioning that I loved the Jesus/Heart Prayer, Christ meditation, and tonglen. I got into the Tibetan Buddhist Ngöndro practice. I spent a few years at a Zen center. The first I found who described something similar to what was revealed here was Meister Eckhart (filtered through his time and tradition, and wanting to be cautious). I loved the books of Ken Wilber I found (late teens). I loved systems views and Fritjof Capra (in my mid-teens and later).

In terms of how it shifted, a few things stand out.

I realized this is it, the sense of “something more” was created by the images in the mind of this human self.

I had a period of engaging and focusing on activities in the world – community organizing and sustainability work, and all of this went more into the background. (This was driven by circumstances and not something I necessarily consciously wanted.)

I got back into these explorations again, realized more clearly that my mind had mixed up side effects of the shift (bliss) with my naturally actually noticing itself, and there was more of a differentiation and clarification of my nature – as “just” this awake space taking all the forms of experience, and even more fundamentally capacity for all of it.

There was a period in my thirties of going through many different phases, including a strong no-self state that lasted about six months and where the no-self aspect of my nature became very clear and unmissable. (I described much of this as it happened on this website. See articles from mid-to late 2000s.)

This was followed by a strong dark night of the soul, which I have also described in other articles.

HOW IT HAS CHANGED

It feels a little presumptuous to talk about how it has matured, especially considering how messy the process has been during the dark nigth phase. But I can say something about how it has changed.

Noticing and clarification

As I mentioned, one shift is from confusing the side effects of the initial shift with my nature noticing itself. At a conscious level, I knew the difference, but at a visceral level, my system sought the bliss. These days, there is more a simple noticing of the essence of my nature and my human self has largely gotten onboard with it.

As part of that, meditation and the noticing has gotten simpler. This human self often put a lot of effort into meditation and inquiry – especially in his twenties. Now, the noticing is much simpler. It’s just a noticing throughout the day, when attention goes there, and it’s there through shifting states and experiences. No need for formal meditation or practice. No need for any pointers or inquiry. (No need in terms of this noticing, that is. Formal practice and inquiry is still helpful for other things, mostly to clarify, explore, and invite this human self to be more onboard with it all.)

Also, at first – for the first ten or more years – this human self was very excited about it all. There was an intensity about it, likely coming from a fear of losing it. (Again, he consciously knew it cannot be lost, but there was a visceral fear of losing it, or not noticing it anymore, of it not being a conscious part of this life.) These days, this too is simpler. It’s more a noticing.

Relationship with teachings and maps

In my teens, twenties, and thirties, I read voraciously about these things – from any and no traditions. Sometimes two or three books a week. I wanted to know what others said about it, and the words and maps they used. I listened to hundreds of hours of talks, from Adyashanti, Byron Katie, and others. These days, there is very little of that. Again, the simplicity of noticing is enough. It’s not better, just what’s happening now. This shift was nudged by living with CFS, which makes it difficult to take in or process much information.

In the initial oneness phase, I used a more traditional interpretation of awakening. I saw it as God, Spirit, or Existence awakening to itself as all there is, while sensing through this human self. These days, it makes more sense to find fluidity between a small and big interpretation of awakening. The big or spiritual interpretation assumes that the nature of all of existence is the same as what I find here. It’s inspiring, and it aligns with what we find in most traditions. A small or psychological interpretation of awakening is about what I can directly notice, and it does not assume that the nature of existence is the same as mine. That one is more honest, it’s a lowest common denominator, and it fits better an academic or modern mindset.

Maturing of the human self

To this human self, the oneness shift and what came with felt overwhelmingly extraordinary for a while. It was recognized as both extraordinary and ordinary, and the feeling emphasis was on the extraordinariness. These days, the charge is not there so much anymore.

For some time, this human self – because of his low self-esteem and feeling unloved and unlovable – used the oneness shift as a kind of badge of honor and to feel better than others. He didn’t talk about it with others, partly because just about nobody were interested, but he secretly held it as a way to improve his fragile self-esteem. That too has changed, although there are some traces left.

A process without a finishing line

I am aware that this “maturing”, if we can call it that, has taken a long time – decades. At a human level, it feels a bit embarrassing, but I know the slowness likely comes from the relatively strong and deep trauma this human self is dealing with.

At a conscious level, there has been a good deal of clarity from the beginning. And at a visceral and human level, it’s much more slow, messy, and takes time.

I am also very aware that this is a process without a finishing line. (At least in this lifetime and likely forever.) There is always more clarification, deepening, humbling, wearing off of old patterns, this human self aligning more thoroughly with oneness, and so on.

I am still right in the middle of the process, as I have been the whole time and likely always will be.

Note: My brain fog is quite strong these days, and I am aware that it likely strongly color how things come out in writing. I am unable to do much editing, unfortunately, so I plan to get back to this later – if I remember – and clean it up a bit.

Threads of awakening

moe Leave a comment

In a recent dream, I wrote a book on patterns of the awakening process.

It was a kind of modern update of Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, a book that was important for me in understanding my own experiences and journey, and especially the dark night.

Where she organized her book by phases, and I would probably organize it around themes.

THE THEMES

As I wrote in that article, the themes could be…

(a) Fascination, draw, awe, and so on. (b) Active exploration. (c) Inviting our human self to heal, and also realign with oneness. (d) Our nature recognizing itself, and clarification and deepening of this. (e) Dark nights.

To fill out the picture, I would maybe add (f) states and their role in the awakening process. (g) Our conscious orientation related to awakening. (h) Our relationship with others and the wider world. And (i) side effects and oddities as part of the picture, although less central.

These are themes that are here throughout the process, and they shift – like a mix of sine waves – on being in the foreground or going into the background in terms of activity and what we notice.

THE THEMES AS THREADS

Fascination, draw, awe, and so on are there throughout the process. In my case, there is no less fascination and awe than in the beginning, in my teens. Back then, it got mixed in with youthful enthusiasm and excitement. These days, it’s a little quieter although no less important.

Active exploration is here throughout, apart from in periods where we may take a break. There is always more to explore, discover, clarify, deepen into, bring into life, and so on. There are always more pointers and structured ways to explore that’s helpful to us. There is always more to explore in spontaneous and intuitive ways.

Inviting our human self to heal, and organize within oneness, is ongoing. There is always more, including what’s passed on through us through genetics, epigenetics, and culture. We have everything in us. We are, in many ways, a mirror of our ancestors and our civilization, culture, and society.

Our nature recognizing itself. This one is always here too. We are always our nature AKA consciousness AKA awake space AKA a lot of other labels. In flow states, it may come more into the foreground. We may intuit it. We may see it “over there” in a teacher, without noticing it in ourselves. We may notice our nature in glimpses. That noticing becomes more stable. It clarifies over time. And so on.

Dark nights are often here, as a thread through our experience and process. In some ways, any wound is a thread of dark night. Any idea we hold as true creates discomfort and sometimes pain, and is a thread of dark night.

States. Life and the awakening process involves a lot of changing states. All together, they show that all content of experience is in change and points to our nature as what it all happens within and as. And some specific states can highlight certain aspects of our nature – no-self, love, oneness, and so on. The states bring these to the foreground so they can’t be missed, and so it’s later easier to keep noticing them through changing states.

Our conscious orientation related to awakening. The awakening process sometimes seems to live its own life independent of this. In my case, this human was a self-proclaimed die-hard atheist when the initial oneness shift happened.

Our relationship with others and the wider world. This too evolves and shifts with the other threads.

Side effects and oddities. Although less important, this is another thread – one of synchronicities, premonitions, sensing at a distance, and so on.

Mystery. It’s all held within mystery and is an expression of mystery. We don’t really know what’s going on. These are questions and attempts to have some mental framework for it. It helps us orient and navigate, although it always happens within and comes back to mystery.

THE PHASES WITHIN THE THREADS

Within each thread, I would look at changes over time, and phases and trends when that applies.

It would be interesting to look at which threads tend to have trends and phases, highlight some common and typical patterns, explore how the threads interact (they are expressions of the same seamless process), and include examples from individual processes that match and don’t match those patterns.

THE PROJECT

I am fascinated by this topic, and it’s something it would be fun and meaningful to explore.

If I did it…

I would interview people. One group would be teachers who have seen patterns in their students. The other would be individuals sharing their own process.

I would also make myself more familiar with the models and maps out there on these topics, create some kind of synthesis of these, and also see what fits and don’t fit the real life experience of those in an awakening process.

Of course, I have my own experiences and mental frameworks, and these will color my approach, the questions I ask people, and how I understand and frame the data. That’s inevitable. It’s necessary for structuring the project and give it a focus. It’s not itself a problem. And it’s good to be aware and open about it, explore how it colors my approach, and imagine other ways it could have been colored – if I was another person with a different orientation.

Dream: A brilliant mystic and author

moe Leave a comment

I am writing a book on the phases of the awakening process. It’s pragmatic and grounded in people’s lived experience, and also draws on and is inspired by the work of a brilliant author and mystic. She is still alive, and I get to know her and we have a conversation about the topics we both share an interest in. I haven’t yet told her I am writing on the same topic, and from a more fluid and inclusive orientation. I have heard she can be dogmatic and defensive of her own approach, so I wanted to establish a connection first. Even then, she seems suspicious and somewhat angry and defensive.

Hm, I am not sure what this is about. The topic is one I am obviously interested in, from my own experiences and in general. I love Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, which is on this topic. (As in the dream, I don’t see it quite as rigidly as it is presented in that book, and I don’t use a Christian framework.)

In this case, the mystic and author is still alive, and she seems a bit angry, defensive, and suspicious, even before I risk telling her I am writing on the same topic. It does seem risky, especially as I see the phases in a more fluid way – as aspects of the process, with a less fixed sequence, and that two or more can co-exist at the same time.

THE DAMAGED PART

Of course, I have her in me. I have that damaged feminine side that’s overly critical, defensive, and rigid. It’s something my mother had, and that’s in me too. This side is critical of the more fluid sides of me, and when I live in a way that feels organic, natural, and good to me.

It’s also a side that’s critical of what I am doing when I share or produce something.

The dream is, at least partly, an invitation for me to recognize those dynamics in me. That side, that I see in my mother, is also here in me. The somewhat vicious criticism of others living their lives is here in me, it’s also a criticism of myself, and it can be crippling.

As I write this, I am taking time to connect with the author and mystic in the dream. I see her, feel her, find her in myself, and allow her to be as she is.

Then, I do some tonglen with the suffering I see in her.

THE BRILLIANT PART

In one sense, the conventional shadow part is the easy and familiar one.

I overlooked the brilliant side when I first wrote this, and that’s also in my shadow. A part of me tends to devalue my own insights, contributions, and so on, so those sides of me goes in my shadow, in what I don’t fully recognize or embrace in myself.

The dream may also be an invitation for me to recognize that. In the dream, I am writing a book that seemed quite important and written from a relatively mature perspective. In some ways, even more mature than the work I was inspired by. In some ways, as anyone familiar with their nature, there is some brilliance here.

How is it to embrace that? How would it be to live from it?

How would it look? How would it feel? What would change?

One way it would change is that I would be far more open about what’s important to me in my life. I tend to not talk about it very much. I put my light under a bushel. It doesn’t mean that I would necessarily share it in a big way. How it’s done etc. is not so important. What’s important, for myself and maybe others, is that I do it. That’s also how I get to see how it would look, and receive feedback that will shape its expression and form in the world.

THE WOUNDED AND THE BRILLIANT IN OUR SHADOWS

Of course, actually and thoroughly embracing something in the shadow is always challenging, whether it’s the typical things (what’s damaged, hurt, reactive, etc.) or our brilliance.

And yet, embracing my brilliance is, in many ways, more difficult. It goes even more against the grain.

We all have wounds and brilliance in our shadows. We all have a conscious identity that’s way too small and limited for the richness we are.

Also, the parts of our richness we are aware of is just a tiny part of the richness that’s there. We are as rich as the world. Whatever characteristics and dynamics I see in others and the world is also here. I can take any story I have about anyone or anything, turn it to be about myself, and find specific and genuine examples of how it’s true – very often including at this moment.

THE TOPIC OF THE BOOK

If I wrote such a book, how would it look?

I would interview people to see how the awakening process unfolds in real life. Evelyn Underhill used the written testimony of Christian mystics as her source material. I would use interviews along with written material from any and no tradition.

In terms of the phases, I am not yet sure which ones I would use. It would depend on what I find through the interviews and by looking at the models others have come up with. (Of course, my questions and the answers will be colored by my initial assumptions and frameworks, that’s inevitable, and it’s fine.)

Maybe I would use… (a) Initial interest/fascination/draw. (b) Initial glimpses and continued exploration. (c) More stable noticing. (d) Transformation of this human self and its life in the world within that noticing. (e) Continued clarification, deepening, and maturing. (f) Dark nights of different types, at any time of the process.

As I write this, I notice that phases feels a bit clunky. There are, of course, phases, in each process, and there are some similarities, but it’s also different in each case.

I would emphasize how there is often a thread of each one throughout the process. For instance, there may be a thread of the dark night through our life, in the form of wounds. The initial fascination and interest, in its innocence and awe, is also a thread through the whole process. The invitation of our human self to heal and reorganize within oneness is something we can work on throughout the process, from the beginning to when we are no longer here. Even the oneness aspect of it is already here, as an inevitable thread through the process – as intuitions, glimpses, more clear noticings, stabilization of the noticing, clarification, deepening, and so on.

That also means that there is often more than one phase present at any one time. Some may be in the foreground, and others may be in the background but still here.

Phases are useful, but I think I would mainly organize it around themes.

The themes could be…. (a) Fascination, draw, awe, and so on. (b) Active exploration. (c) Inviting our human self to heal, and also realign with oneness. (d) Our nature recognizing itself, and clarification and deepening of this. (e) Dark nights. That feels far better.

These are themes that are here throughout the process, and they shift in going to the foreground and background.

TAKING THE INVITATION FROM THE DREAM

If I were to take this dream seriously, I would actually embark on such a project. It would be fascinating. It could be of interest to others, and something for others to respond to and develop further. And I would embody what the dream invites me to embody.

I have often thought that Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill needs a modern update. There are others who would be far more qualified to write it, especially those who have worked with many students over several decades. But if nobody else does it, someone needs to do it, and maybe there is an invitation for me there. I would interview teachers to hear from their experience and what they have seen, so that aspect would be included.

A discovery: my system seems to need regular catch-ups

moe Leave a comment

Now and then, my system feels disorganized and off, and it’s very uncomfortable. It’s difficult for me to find the exact words to describe the experience.

In the past, I would just ride it out. I would rest full-time. I would try to nourish my system with nourishing food. I would go into a kind of mini-retreat until the worst of it passed, which could take hours, days, or longer.

Recently, I have discovered that Vortex Healing (VH) catch-ups help my system organize and function better, at least within the limits of CFS. (I live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.) Sometimes, the improvement can be dramatic and quick.

For some years now, I have known that VH energization helps me in daily life, and also when my system gets disorganized. It still helps and is essential to help me function, and it’s very helpful in combination with catch-ups, and yet, catch-ups seems to often help me the fastest.

What are the VH catch-ups? It’s something we do after VH healing sessions, and after there has been healing and/or awakening movements. If we don’t do it, the person’s system can destabilize, disorganize, and generally be over-cooked and overwhelmed, and it’s not a comfortable experience.

We catch up several parts of the system including the organs, the nervous system, and different parts of the energy system. After that, we usually do integration to smooth it all out.

I don’t know why I haven’t made the connection between what happens when my system feels that way, and the need for catch-ups. It has been a blind spot for me, maybe because my mind saw it as something we do in the context of VH and the healing and awakening movements initiated with VH.

In any case, it makes a lot of sense. My system is likely having ongoing movements related to healing and awakening, and it does have trouble stabilizing and digesting it all. This is probably connected to the CFS and lack of energy and resources.

It also makes sense in the light of the explorations that tend to be part of my daily life.

Read More

The relationship between the before-life experience and my nature noticing itself

moe Leave a comment

There is an interesting relationship between my before-life experience and the oneness shift that happened when this human self was sixteen.

I have written about it before, but thought I would revisit it here.

BEFORE-LIFE EXPERIENCE

As a kid, I had flashbacks to the time before this incarnation. It was of all as love and a profound sense of being home, beyond what can be touched with words.

At the time, when these flashbacks happened, I was maybe 4–6 years old and didn’t reflect on it. I just knew it had been my life before this life, and it came back to me now and then in flashbacks. I never mentioned it to anyone. I wouldn’t have known what to say.

Later, I consciously realized a few more things about it. It was a recognition of myself as consciousness and all of existence as consciousness. The essence of it is what many describe from near-death experiences, and when I listen to people describing their NDEs, it’s profoundly familiar to me.

MY NATURE NOTICING ITSELF

I would often wake up with a deep longing in later childhood and early teens, and I didn’t understand what it was about.

At fifteen, it was as if the world went very far away. This happened during the course of a few minutes during the afternoon of January 1st, and it was profoundly disturbing to my human self. Doctors and specialists couldn’t figure out what was going on.

That summer, I started seeing energies. First, around the leaves of the birch trees in the garden against the blue sky, then around everything – including inanimate objects.

Almost exactly a year later, between Christmas and New Year when I was sixteen, I walked along the dirt road up to the house at night. A big wind blew through the landscape, and I looked up at the many stars in the dark sky above me. Suddenly, there was a dramatic shift. From taking myself as this human self filled with teenage angst, I recognized myself as everything and everything as the divine.

Everything without exception is the divine. This human self is the divine, the whole of existence, temporarily and locally taking that form, and either taking itself to be this human self – or anything at all within the world – or recognizing itself as the whole of it all.

In this case, it recognized itself as the whole and that stayed. In the following years, enormous energies ran through the system of this human self, there was an enormous flood of insights and inspiration for art and music, and much more.

Just about everything I write about here, in these articles, came to me during that time.

This human self had been a self-described atheist since elementary school and lived in a small town in Norway before the age of Internet, so all of this was profoundly surprising at a human level. Everything was turned upside-down and inside-out.

I had nobody in my life even remotely interested in this, and there were no books about it, so for a few years, I explored the terrain on my own. That was a blessing I am very grateful for now.

SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE SHIFT (?)

In the oneness shift, I realized that what the deep longing was about. It was for this.

It was for coming profoundly home to all as the divine. It was for the divine I am and all is to recognize itself and live within and from that recognition.

I also realized that the flashbacks likely had primed my system for the later oneness shift.

I realized that the sense of the world being infinitely far away also primed the shift. It was an identification as the observer, with everything observed (apart from the sense of observer) infinitely far away. In the oneness shift, the sense of observer – as part of the content of experience – was also recognized as happening with the content of experience. Identification was released out of it.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE FLASHBACKS AND THE ONENESS SHIFT

When I look at the flashbacks and the oneness shift, I notice both similarities and differences.

In both, all – without exception – is recognized as the divine, as consciousness. All is consciousness, taking all the forms of the world and the universe.

In the flashbacks, it happened without any reflection on it. It was not reflected in thoughts, apart from images. There was no story about it, other than recognizing that this was life before this life.

In the oneness shift, there was reflection on it. Thoughts tried to put it into words, and it was clear that it was impossible. Words cannot touch it.

At the same time, it’s difficult to not try, and after some years, when I found others that lived from the same and knew the same terrain, I realized that words can convey it if the other is familiar with the same terrain.

Words are hopelessly ineffective in describing it, and yet can point to it, and if the other is familiar with the same, then the words are sufficient as pointers.

WHY DID THE SHIFT HAPPEN?

Why did the oneness shift happen?

I don’t know, and thoughts can come up with some guesses.

I suspect that the oneness shift served as a kind of safety valve for this system, overwhelmed with tension and teenage angst. Many years later, I saw Douglas Harding say that “Douglas became unbearable” which triggered the shift, and that seems accurate in my case as well.

It’s also possible that the flashbacks somehow set the stage. They may, along with other things, have primed my system for the oneness shift.

It’s also possible that the conditioning in my system may come from a long series of previous lives1, which somehow set the stage for this shift. That conditioning may include a previous focused and conscious explorations of my nature. I don’t know.

SINCE THEN

Since the oneness shift, the process has largely been to continue to explore that terrain. It has gone through many phases, although so far on themes revealed during the initial shift.

The most challenging has been when what’s unaligned with oneness (=operates from separation consciousness) surfaces in my system, likely because much of that is in the form of early and relatively strong trauma. I still have a lot to (viscerally) learn about how to relate to that.

NOTES

  1. If that’s the case, it’s the patterns that reincarnate. What I more fundamentally am – consciousness and even more fundamentally capacity – forms itself into all of it. It and everything else happens within and as what I more fundamentally am.

The image is a drawing I made a few months into the oneness shift, from the huge influx of insights and inspiration that came with it. I had little experience and no formal training in drawing at the time.

An update on the Amma experience

moe Leave a comment

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.

Awakening and trauma

moe Leave a comment

Many talk about awakening and trauma these days, which is very good. It’s an important topic.

I see two broad categories in my own process.

AWAKENING AS A SAFETY VALVE (?)

One is that I suspect trauma had something to do with the initial awakening shift. It happened when I was fifteen and with a good amount of teenage angst and trauma. I suspect the awakening shift functioned as a kind of safety valve. Something had to shift, and that’s the direction it went.

I remember Douglas Harding talk about something similar. I think he said that “Douglas became unbearable” so there was a spontaneous shift into headlessness. Something similar may have happened with me.

My system may have been primed to go in that direction anyway. (At a conscious level, I was an atheist with no knowledge of or interest in it.) And the stress and psychological pressure made my system “break” so my nature recognized itself.

AWAKENING DOESN’T MAKE THE TRAUMA MAGICALLY GO AWAY

There is another side to this, and that is how awakening influences the trauma that’s here.

The short answer is that it didn’t make it magically go away.

And it did shift my relationship with it, as it shifted my relationship with everything within content of experience.

It’s easier to see it as something that happens, like anything happens. It’s an expression of life. It happens within and as the awake space that’s here, that seems fundamental to what I am.

This helps notice and explore it, relate to it in a more intentional way, and also invite in shifts and healing. It still a long process with many layers, at least in my case, and it’s not always graceful.

TRAUMA PRESENCE IN MY PROCESS

The first ten years into the oneness shift was a honeymoon. The center of gravity had shifted into Big Mind, and the human was generally more in the background. Human hangups were still there of course, and my wounds and traumas did color my human perception and life, but it was all more in the background. I did work on it – through shadow work, exploring projections, therapy and so on – although a lot seemed distant, dormant, and difficult to access.

Several years ago, I asked life (the divine) to “show me what’s left”. Within a week, an overwhelming amount of trauma surfaced in my system. For the first nine months, it was so strong I could barely function and I was lucky to get one hour of sleep a night, usually early in the morning. I would walk for hour in the forest listening to Adyashanti during this time, along with trying to work with people only who had experience in working with trauma and dark nights. What had been somewhat dormant and hidden came to the surface, and I did not always deal with it gracefully. It was a very human and humbling period. This lasted for years and it’s still here to some extent, although at a more moderate and manageable volume than before.

HOW I HAVE EXPLORED TRAUMA

I have explored trauma in a range of ways – talk therapy (limited usefulness), tonglen, Process Oriented Psychology (more interesting), dialog and parts work (Big Mind Process), inquiry (The Work of Byron Katie), sense field explorations (Kiloby Inquiries), Ho’oponopono, Tension and Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), energy work (Vortex Healing), and so on, in addition to nourishing body-centered approaches like Breema, Tai Chi, and Qigong.

These days, I seem to be drawn to a more intuitive and direct approach. I sense the contraction. Bring awareness into it. Notice it’s all as awake space (AKA the divine) taking that form. Rest in and as that noticing. Notice shifts. And so on.

Trauma sits in the whole system, is part of a network, is based in painful beliefs and underlying assumptions, is often collective and intergenerational in nature, is a part with its own experience of the world, is rooted in separation consciousness, has bodily and energetic components, has a lived component, and much more, so it makes sense to explore it in many different ways.

When our nature notices itself, why is it sometimes valued and sometimes not?

moe Leave a comment

I was on a Headless Way Zoom call earlier today, a daily one between Christmas and New Year. One of the topics that came up was sharing seeing.

When we share headless experiments with others, and they notice their nature, why do some value and pursue it while others don’t?

There is no right or wrong, or better or worse here. It’s just nature and life playing itself out in many different ways, but it is still interesting.

There may be several answers, as usual.

THE PSYCHE

First, what is valuing it or not? What’s interested in it or not?

It’s this human self with a particular psyche, personality, and orientation.

All of the answers below have to do with how our psyche responds to what’s noticed and the context of the noticing.

ORIENTATION

One answer is the general inclination of this human self and personality.

Some are more inclined to want to explore things thoroughly, including who and what they are. There is a natural curiosity there and an attitude of leaving no stone unturned. We are not satisfied with the answers our culture gives us and want to look for ourselves.

Others may be satisfied with the ordinary answers or not looking. Some may feel it’s enough to focus on daily life activities.

TOO FAMILIAR

Another is a common answer from Buddhism: It’s too close, ordinary, familiar, and simple.

It seems like this cannot be it since it’s what we already are familiar with and always have been.

The mind may want something “over there”, more complex, and more unusual. It has built it up in its imagination, and what it finds doesn’t match.

THE CONTEXT

I also suspect that the context of the noticing plays a role.

Our human self may value it more if…

It happens after a long period of exploration. We have invested a lot into it, and have wanted to notice it for a long time, so when it happens we value it more.

It happens in the context of a tradition and with a teacher we respect and admire. We respect the setting and what they tell us, so we value the noticing more.

It’s verbally set up in a way that resonates with this human self. For instance, we may share how it has helped us in daily life, and the person is interested. Or it may be phrased in a way that resonates with what they are already familiar with from religion or spirituality.

It comes with a lot of fireworks and side effects. There may be strong states, strong energies running through our system, a flood of insights, and other side effects, and these make us pay attention more. (We may also confuse the side effects with the essence and it can take a while to learn to differentiate.)

The noticing is strongly and undeniably in the foreground and any sense of being something within the content of experience gone or far in the background.

WHAT NOTICES?

Another answer may be in our experience of what notices.

Our nature already does everything, so it’s always our nature that notices itself.

The experience of it, and the way it’s understood, can be different.

In some cases, there may be an experience of this human self noticing its nature as space for the world, capacity for it all, what the world moves through, and so on. There is still fundamentally a sense of being a human self. If so, it may seem like a party trick and something peripheral.

Of course, there is an inherent contradiction here. If we are space for it all, we are also space for this human self so him or her is not what we fundamentally are. But that may not be noticed or taken seriously.

In other cases, we realize that we are space for all of the world, including this human self and everything related to it. That’s a profound shift. It turns everything upside down and inside out.

I imagine that when this is noticed, we are much more likely to take it seriously and want to continue to explore.

LIFE MOVING

As mentioned above, there is no right or wrong here. Any ideas or right or wrong, or better or worse, are created by the human mind. They are imaginations and not inherent in life.

What’s happening – a consciousness noticing its nature or not, and deciding to continue to explore it or not – is all life moving in different directions.

In one sense, this has to do with readiness. We can be ready or not to explore this more thoroughly, and if we are not, the experience may sow a seed that sprouts later.

In another sense, it’s all – no matter what it is – life, existence, the universe expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways. It seems that the exploration is a goal in itself.

And it does make a difference for this human self. When it’s ready and explores its nature more thoroughly, it can and likely will change its life, in ways its personality likes (more ease, flow, sense of being home) and doesn’t like (all sorts of unprocessed material surfacing to be seen, felt, loved, and recognized as consciousness).

The image is from a video interview with Richard Lang, and likely originally from one of Douglas Harding’s books.

Is awakening binary or gradual? Seeing energies & why I tend to focus on the degree

moe Leave a comment

Is awakening binary or a degree?

In my experience, both are true in their own way.

It can come gradually or suddenly, and the deepening into it is gradual.

WHAT IS AWAKENING?

What is awakening?

In short, it’s what I am noticing itself.

To myself, I am consciousness, and it’s the consciousness I am noticing itself.

I find this in immediate noticing. I am fundamentally this awake space within which all experiences appear, including what a thought calls this human self, the wider world, and so on.

Intellectually, I find the same. To myself, in immediate experience, I cannot be a human being with consciousness as a kind of appendage. To myself, I have to be this consciousness within which this human being and the wider world appears, and also any sense of an observer or doer or anything any thought can point to.

WHO AND WHAT I AM

It’s not wrong that I am this human self in the world. It’s an assumption that works reasonably well. As who I am, I am this human self in the world with a name, biography, passport, and so on.

If I viscerally take myself to fundamentally be this object in the world, it inevitably comes with some inherent discomfort, distress, and a sense that something is off somewhere.

In my own first-person experience, I find I more fundamentally am something else. I find I am what the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as. I am the consciousness that forms itself into any and all experiences.

This profoundly changes the context of my everything. I am no longer fundamentally an object at the mercy of an unpredictable world. I am what it all, to me, happens within and as. There is a (groundless) ground for it all.

THE PROCESS

That noticing is, in a sense, binary. The consciousness we are either notices itself as the appearance of the whole world or not.

Awakening is also a process.

It’s a process of…

The consciousness I am noticing itself here and now, and noticing itself in daily life and through different states and the always-changing content of experience. This is a new habit.

Exploring how it is for this human self to live within and from this new context. How it is to live from and as this in different situations and areas of life.

Inviting our human self to heal and reorganize within this new context.

Exploring the different facets and aspects of my nature – what a thought may call capacity for the world, consciousness, oneness, love, and so on. From my own experience, I can also include the fertile darkness, divine feminine, Christ energies, and more. There seems to be no end of these facets of what I am that can come to the foreground of experience and be noticed and explored.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH SEEING ENERGIES

There is another reason why I tend to focus on the degree aspect of awakening, and that has to do with my own experiences starting in my teens.

In the summer of 1986, when I was sixteen, I was sitting outside in the garden under beautiful birch trees reading a book. This was the year when the world – including everything connected with this human self – seemed very far away. (I have written about this before. I thought something was profoundly wrong, medical experts couldn’t find anything, and I later understood this was an apparent observer-observer split.)

I remember seeing the leaves against the blue sky, and seeing light around the leaves. I initially dismissed it as some kind of optical illusion. In the following days, this light became stronger and stronger, and in a few days, I saw the light around everything and everyone.

I saw it around inanimate objects, plants, non-human beings, and humans, although the structure was (is) different around each type of object. It’s simple around inanimate objects. Brighter and more alive around plants. More complex and goes further out in non-human beings. And even more complex and goes even further out around humans. (In reality, it seems to go infinitely far out around everything and everything, but the more obvious part of this is closer to the object or body.)

For whatever reason, what I see most clearly is the degree of awakening in someone’s system.

How awake is the consciousness to itself? How far out from the body does this awakeness go? How subtle/high frequency (for lack of a better word!) is it?

I was alone with this, and the awakening process in general, until a few years later.

When I was 19 and in my weekly tai chi class, a young woman talked with me during the tea break after class. We walked to the train station together, and she said she had taken contact with me because she had seen my energy field in class while standing behind me. She could see the awakening process I was in and that I too can see energies.

We became close friends. Once, I remember sitting at a train station with her looking at the energy system of different people and comparing notes. We always saw the same, although certain things were more highlighted for each of us.

A couple of years later, something similar happened with the then-wife of Jes Bertelsen.

WHAT DO I SEE?

What are some of the things I see in the energy field?

Different practices have different effects on the energy/consciousness field. People do body-centered practices like tai chi, qigong, yoga, Breema, and to some extent dance, the energy field close to the body is brighter than average. People who do basic meditation (notice and allow) often have a field that’s conscious of itself relatively far out. (Although it depends on how clear their practice it and often for how long they have done it.) Some practices bring in a lot of light into the system, especially devotional and heart-centered practices. Some practices create a very soft and almost watery energy/consciousness field. (Some of the higher levels of the Vortex Healing training do this.)

Some have a relatively awake field although they have no interest or experience with (organized) spiritual practice, and they don’t seem to have a conscious noticing of their nature, at least not something they would put into words (or be interested in putting into words). The awakeness just there and lived. That’s very beautiful to me.

Immediately after a noticeable awakening shift, there is often a lot of light and energy in the system. This fades and softens over time and it seems to be a kind of side-effect of the awakening shift. This can last for months or even years. (For me, it lasted many years and faded slowly.)

When there is a reasonable amount of awakening in the system, the field (consciousness) is awake to itself infinitely far out.

The most awake systems I have seen – Adyashanti, some Tibetan teachers, and a few others – have a field that is far more subtle and high frequency. It’s almost like water. It seems to live very close to void or emptiness.

No matter how messed up a system is at a human level – no matter how much trauma, reactivity, pain, and so on – there is always light. The energy field is made of light. They are essentially, at an energetic level, light. That’s beautiful to me.

And a couple of more specific instances…

When I was a member of the Center for Sacred Sciences in Eugene, Oregon, one of the veterans had some kind of awakening shift. He was presented as awake and a new teacher. In his field, I saw that the awakeness was wobbly and not as clear as it was presented. Within a few weeks, there was another announcement saying that the awakening wasn’t as stable as they had thought.

When I was nineteen and in my early twenties, I did a lot of Heart/Jesus Prayer (which continued 24/7) and also Christ meditation. I could feel a kind of heat on top of my head, and I was very surprised when I saw myself in the mirror and noticed a kind of flame on top of my head. It was very similar to some of the depictions of the Holy Spirit descending on the disciples. I suspect this happens to anyone doing these practices with some dedication, receptivity, and over some time.

Note: Lightly edited for clarity August 2026.

Tipping points: Awakening, global ecosystems, Syria

moe Leave a comment

What happened in Syria over the last couple of days is an example of a phase transition in systems, commonly known as a tipping point. We had a situation that seemed relatively stable (if a civil war can be called stable) and suddenly there was a shift where the government forces collapsed and the rebels took over. I suspect people closely involved could see signs of it happening, but for many, it happened suddenly and unexpectedly. (What will happen next is anyone’s guess.)

Systems try to remain dynamically stable for as long as possible. There will always be factors that don’t fit the system very well and create disturbances and destabilizations. If these add up over time and put enough strain on the system, it will suddenly change to accommodate these factors.

This can happen with democracies. It may well be that the democracy in the US will survive Trump, and it may also be that there is a sudden shift from democracy to a far less democratic regime. It depends on innumerable complex factors so it’s difficult to predict.

It’s what I suspect happens with awakening. The system – our mind – is in one state for a long time, where it pretends to be something within its field of experience. Things build up over time, sometimes because of spiritual explorations, practices, and smaller insights. Then there is a sudden shift where the consciousness we are recognizes itself, and recognizes that it forms itself into its whole field of experience. The context for everything changes and it’s as if everything is turned inside-out and upside-down.

It can also happen with the global living system we are part of. Our worldview of separation combined with our large numbers and effective technology put strains on this system. Our lives don’t match the existing system since we operate on the assumption of infinite nature, the strain builds up over time, and we see signs of instability. (This is where we are now.) If we don’t change our collective behavior, this planetary living system will suddenly shift to accommodate the new situation. Our civilization will almost certainly collapse, and it’s possible – some say likely – that this new state will not be conducive to human life.

Read More

Can you be awake and still hold onto fixed views?

moe Leave a comment

A recent post reminded me of a question: Can the consciousness we are recognize itself (be awake to itself) while still holding onto fixed views?

I can only speak from my own noticing and experience and it’s all provisional.

To me, as so often, the answer seems to be yes, no, it depends, and it’s complicated.

YES

Yes, it seems it can recognize itself in a general sense, while many parts of our psyche still hold onto fixed views. Consciously, our psyche may also hold onto fixed views in some areas of life.

The consciousness we are recognizes itself, and different parts of our psyche holds onto fixed views that may or may not match our conscious view.

Our psyche may hold any kind of fixed view: political views, worldviews, ideas about how life should be and how people – ourselves and others – should behave, identities of being a victim or unlovable or anything else, and much more. Any thought can become a fixed view.

This seems to happen out of habit and to protect this human self. It’s from confused love. It comes from and creates a wound.

These are parts of us that are not yet onboard and aligned with the awakening. They live in and create their own world, and will inevitably color the perception and life of this human self.

NO

We can also say no, it’s not possible for both to be true at the same time.

If parts of our psyche operate from fixed views, they are not aligned with the awakening.

If we consciously adopt those fixed views, we are not aligned with the awakening.

The consciousness we are identifies with the viewpoint of the fixed story. It takes itself to fundamentally be something within the field of experience. (It pretends, for a while, it is.)

When that happens, the consciousness we are is mistaken about its nature. It doesn’t clearly recognize itself as what it all happens within and as.

It may fluctuate between (a) recognizing itself more clearly while the fixed views goes into the background, and (b) getting caught up in the fixed views and not recognize itself so clearly.

IT DEPENDS & IT’S COMPLICATED

A lot of this depends on definitions, and it’s nuanced.

In my experience, both of the views above are valid in their own way and neither is the full picture.

The yes above seems accurate in a general sense. Over some time, both are true, and they can even be true at the same time if there is not such a strong conscious identification with the fixed view.

The no is also accurate in that there tends to be a fluctuation between the two, with one in the foreground at a time.

IT’S A PROCESS

The consciousness we are noticing itself is not a process. It’s either here or not.

Just about everything else is a process.

To keep noticing through the day, and independent of changing experiences and states, is a process. It’s a new habit that forms and deepens over time.

To notice the different parts of our psyche holding onto fixed views is a process. Recognizing the signs, identifying them, inquiring into them, and so on, is a process.

To invite them to heal and align with our nature recognizing itself is a process. It involves learning to relate to them in a more conscious and intentional way, with more kindness, understanding, and support.

In short, for all the different parts of us to come onboard with the awakening is a process. It’s ongoing. It likely doesn’t have a finishing line. (At least not in this life.)

General awakening vs parts awakening

moe Leave a comment

There is a difference between general awakening and parts awakening.

When the oneness shift happened in my teens, it was very clear that it turned everything upside down and inside out and that this human self still had a long way to go in aligning with it.

As I have written about in other articles, there is a big difference between a general awakening, and our human self – our psyche – getting more fully on board with it.

GENERAL AWAKENING

A general awakening is when our nature consciously recognizes itself.

It may have taken itself as fundamentally an object within the content of experience – usually a combination of this human self, a doer, an observer, human identities, roles, and so on. It pretended to do this since it can’t happen fully.

Then, it recognizes itself. It finds itself as what all content of experience happens within and as. It finds itself as what a thought may call consciousness. It finds itself as the consciousness the world, as it appears to itself, happens within and as. It finds itself as the consciousness that forms itself into any and all content of experience.

There is a general release of identification out of stories telling it is fundamentally anything within the content of experience.

This can happen as a glimpse or in a more stable way. Often, there is a long process after this where the consciousness we are explores itself and gets into the habit of noticing itself through daily life situations and changing content of experience.

In the lead-up to this, there can be a period of intuitions or apparently weird experiences: A tree may seem conscious. Things may appear to look back at you. There may be a sense of consciousness or Spirit in things or the whole world. And so on. These are our nature noticing itself, although veiled behind some relatively strong remaining identifications.

PARTS AWAKENING

As humans and a psyche, we consist of innumerable parts or subpersonalities. Any label or story is, in a sense, a part. It creates a part. These parts live their own life to a large extent.

They all inevitably color our perception and life, often without us consciously noticing.

Some of them – or maybe most? – operate to a certain extent from painful stories. They operate as if a certain story, different in each case, is true. They are wounds, issues, hangups, traumas, or whatever we want to call it.

TALKING ABOUT IT

There are different ways to talk about these two aspects of what we are.

One is using the language of who and what. As what I am, I am what all content of experience happens within and as. As who I am, I am this human self in the world. Both are accurate in their own ways. (To myself, I am what this world happens within and as. In the world and to others, I am this human self.)

We can also say it’s the difference between consciousness and system. One is the consciousness I am. The other is the system of this human self embedded in the larger social and ecological systems of the world. To me, the consciousness I am forms itself into the experience of the latter.

Or maybe context and content. The context is what I am. The content is whatever happens in the sense fields, in the content of experience. Here too, we can say that the context forms itself into the experience of any content.

INVITING HEALING AND ALIGNING

Noticing the many wounds of my human self is why I got deeply into working with projections and the shadow in my mid-teens, to invite more parts of my psyche to heal and align more consciously with my nature – and their nature, which is the same.

What are some of the approaches we can use to invite these wounded and confused parts of us to heal and align with our nature noticing itself?

The main one is our orientation – receptivity, curiosity, and genuine wish for healing and seeing the reality and truth of our different parts and how they operate.

Relationships are an important arena for noticing and being honest about what we see in ourselves, and also practicing what’s new to us, and having good boundaries. Relationships include our relationship with ourselves, our parents, our friends and colleagues, our children, the world, and so on.

Befriending is, in some ways, what it’s all about. Befriending the confused and suffering parts of us. See it. Feel it. Find love for it. Treat it with kindness. Treat it as we would like to be treated when we feel that way. (When those parts of us are triggered and on the surface.) Listen to it. Find the stressful stories it’s believing. Notice it’s nature. (Which is the same as our nature.) Rest in and as that noticing. Allowing it to realign within that noticing.

Therapy can help us identify and explore issues, in whatever form of therapy works for us, whether it’s talk therapy, somatic, parts work, or something else.

Different forms of mindful movement can transform energies and help us feel more at home in our system, whether it’s yoga, tai chi, qigong, Breema, dance, or something else.

Heart-centered practices help us shift our relationship with parts of ourselves, the world, and our experiences in general.

Basic meditation also helps us shift our relationship with our experiences. After trying and failing to consistently notice and allow our experiences, we may notice that what’s here is already noticed and allowed and rest in and as that noticing, and that noticing and allowing.

Training a more stable attention supports all of this, just about any activity, and also our well-being.

Inquiry can help us explore our nature, and also how our mind creates identifications and beliefs, and find what’s more true for us. I especially like the Big Mind process, Headless experiments, and sense field explorations including modern versions like the Kiloby Inquiries.

Some forms of energy work can help release the load in the system around certain issues. The one I have found that seems to really work is Vortex Healing.

MY STORY

How has all of this unfolded for me?

When I was fifteen, it was as if the world – any content of experience including this human self – went very far away. I also started having a sense of the divine in and as everything, and weird things started happening like seeing energies around plants, animals (also humans), and inanimate objects. I later saw this as consciousness releasing identification with the world and this human self, and retaining identification as an observer.

When I was sixteen, there was a dramatic and profound oneness shift that turned everything upside down and inside out. It was very clear that I was not fundamentally anything within content of experience. I was what it all happened within and as. This was followed by years of a flood of insights (same as I write about here) and strong energies running through my system. This noticing never went away, although it has clarified over time. (For instance, for a while it was associated with a certain state.)

In my mid-teens, I got deeply into Jung and the Jungian approach to working with projections, the shadow, and dreams (and waking life as a dream). I continued reading Jung and his followers in my twenties and thirties and applying it.

In my teens and twenties, I delved deeply into basic meditation, Heart/Jesus Prayer, tonglen, Taoist inner yoga, tai chi, qigong, and more.

I have gone to various therapists since my early twenties. The ones I got the most out of were one who took a very pragmatic approach with goals and ratings, and Process Work (Process Oriented Psychology.)

I got into Process Work for many years and did sessions and went to practice sessions, workshops, and trainings at the Process Work center in Portland.

I was there when Genpo Roshi developed his Big Mind process, which is an effective way to clarify our nature, check in with the different parts of our psyche and see how they operate and see us, and find ways to create a more conscious partnership with them.

I then got equally deeply into The Work of Byron Katie, which is an effective way to identify and examine stories that parts of us hold as true, and find what’s genuinely more true for us. Finding genuine and specific examples, and taking one of the turnarounds into daily life, helps us get this more viscerally.

Breema is an amazing way to find our wholeness in a deeply visceral way, and I this too became a daily practice for several years.

I got into sense field explorations from Buddhism, and also the Kiloby Inquiries which is a modernized version of traditional Buddhist inquiry.

Through that, I also found Vortex Healing which is a remarkably effective form of energy work – to support healing and the awakening process.

And then the essence of all of this, which is befriending the suffering parts of me as described above. See them. Rest with the sensations. Notice the stressful stories the part of me is operating on, and find what’s more true for me. Meet it with kindness. Find genuine love for it. (It comes from a wish to protect me, it comes from love for me even if it’s confused love.) Dialog and listen to what it has to tell me. Give it what it really wants – love, acceptance, support, a sense of coming home. Notice its nature, which is the same as mine since it happens within and as what I am. Rest in and as that noticing. Allowing it to unwind and realign within that noticing.

As I seem to have a slightly obsessive personality, I tend to go deeply into these things. I typically would set aside time for practice for hours a day, and keep doing it through daily life.

For the last 15 years or so, I have also been in a deep dark night. In my case, a kind of dark night of trauma where different things surfaced at different times – profound survival fear, childhood trauma, attachment challenges, and so on. This has come with a series of losses in life – of my house, belongings, health, friends, opportunities, and so on. As I see it, this is another phase in the process of inviting healing for more of my system.

NOT A NEW TOPIC

As usual, none of this is new. This is what people throughout history and across tradition have talked about, although in the language of their tradition and time.

If my process is similar to that of others, it’s hard to not notice the distinction between (a) a general awakening and (b) the many parts of our human self – the wounded parts – not quite on board with it.

This process of more of us getting on board with the awakening is what some call embodiment, which is a nice shorthand. It’s almost too much of a shorthand since people may have quite different ideas of what it means.

THE PURPOSE?

I imagine some may wonder what the purpose of all of this is?

I don’t think there really is a purpose, apart from the exploration itself. It’s life expressing, experiencing, and exploring itself as this too, through and as one of its local and temporary expressions which happens to be this human self.

At a human level, we can find or create different purposes. For instance, healing, well-being, finding meaning, being less of a nuisance to others, being a small part of the healing humanity needs right now, and so on.

When an awakening happens “out of the blue” versus when it happens after seeking and practice

moe Leave a comment

I haven’t meet too many others where the awakening happened “out of the blue” so I don’t have a huge dataset, but I suspect there are some general differences between people where it happened without warning or preparation and where it happened after years of seeking and practice.

I’ll speak for myself here, and it may or not match the experience of others.

EXPLORING THE TERRAIN & FINDING HEALING

In my case, when the oneness shift happened, I had not been a “seeker” and I was not interested in awakening or spirituality. I was an atheist teenager with an interest in parapsychology.

After the oneness shift, I was mostly interested in learning to navigate the terrain, and to help more of my human self align with it (AKA heal).

I have been interested in spirituality, obviously, since I occasionally come across someone who clearly are familiar with the terrain and can give some good practical advice for how to explore and learn to navigate and live from and as it.

I am not interested in it for the same reasons as many are. That may be why I often feel I don’t fit in most spiritual groups. Many there are spiritual seekers and I am not, apart from seeking to explore and to heal at a very human level.

I am interested in what I notice here and now, in immediacy. Not so much what others say about it. Although it’s fun when others who are clearly familiar with the terrain share their experience, noticing, and explorations. They always have their own take on it.

PRAGMATIC APPROACH

Since I was an atheist, I don’t feel much allegiance to any particular spiritual group or tradition. I use whatever approach or tool that seems useful independent of where it comes from.

The tools I have found most useful have come from Taoism (Taoist inner yoga, tai chi, qigong), Tibetan Buddhism (tonglen), Buddhism in general (basic meditation, sense field explorations, Kiloby Inquiries), Buddhism and other traditions (training a more stable attention), Hawaian shamanic traditions (Ho’oponopno), Christianity (Jesus/Heart Prayer, Christ meditation), older unknown and modern known orgins (Breema), no tradition in particular (The Work of Byron Katie, Headless Way), modern psychology (Big Mind process, parts work, Jung, Process Work), and so on.

I honestly don’t care where it comes from as long as it seems useful.

CHALLENGES FROM LACK OF PREPARATION

Since it happened out of the blue, I was – at a very human level – not prepared.

It was profoundly disorienting at a human level. Everything was turned upside-down and inside-out. I felt profoundly alone in it. I was wondering if I was losing my mind.

At the same time, it was profoundly familiar – it was revealed as what is always here and all I had ever known. There was a profound sense of coming home.

There was an enormous constant deluge of insights (many of which I am still noticing and writing about here), and enormous energies ran through my system for years afterwards.

It took some years before I met someone who understood from their own experience, first Birgitte H. and then Hanne B. Both were, unsurprisingly looking back at it, also from outside of any particular tradition.

I assume that if you come from years of practice within a tradition, it can be a bit different. The initial upheaval may be similar, but there is also some understanding – at a human level – of what’s going on, and there is usually some support in place from the tradition, group, and teachers.

UPSIDES OF THE OUT-OF-THE-BLUE VERSIONS

So there are challenges inherent in the out-of-the blue versions, but also upsides, at least in my experience.

Some of them are mentioned or hinted at above: I am more free of traditions. I am more interested in exploring than seeking (apart from healing for my human self). I take a pragmatic approach. It all got started with a bang, although it made it very wobbly at a human level. When I meet others where it also happened out-of-the-blue, there is an instant recognition and excitement in finding someone who understands. (Although it’s always different in the details, as it should be.)

I am far more interested in what I notice here and now, in immediacy, than in what anyone is saying about it.

I also take not being very interested in spirituality – apart from the pragmatics of it – as a plus. (A lot of it is a distraction and comes from fantasies and wishful and fearful thinking, although when that happens, it becomes part of the path and fuel for exploration.)

The characteristics of what I am

moe Leave a comment

What am I to myself?

What are the characteristics of what I am?

RELATIVELY SIMPLE

I usually mention this in the context of something else, mainly since this side of it is quite simple, and the human side is far more complex and – in many ways – interesting.

FAMILIARITY

It’s also something quite familiar to me.

In one sense, it’s all we have ever known so it’s inevitably familiar.

It’s also what I was between lives, which stayed with me into this – and came to the foreground in strong flashbacks in my childhood.

It’s what was revealed strongly in the initial oneness shift.

It’s what I have kept noticing since.

Aspects of my nature have come strongly into the foreground in different phases of the process.

It’s also what I have explored more thoroughly through meditation and different forms of inquiry – the Big Mind process, sense field explorations, the Kiloby inquiries, and so on.

A FEW CHARACTERISTICS

As what I am in my own first-person experience, I find…

My nature is capacity for what’s here – whether it’s what a thought labels consciousness, awakeness, states, anything related to this human self (dullness, confusion, clarity, sadness, joy, etc.) and the wider world as it appears to me, or anything else.

It has an inherent awakeness, which – I assume – is the normal awakeness inherent in any consciousness.

It has no beginning or end in space. It’s what allows the experience of space to appear.

It has no beginning or end in time. It’s what allows any ideas of beginnings and ends of time and in time to appear.

What I am forms itself into any and all content of experience. It forms itself into what’s here – these hands typing, the computer, the sounds of the birds and cars in the distance, ideas of past and future and present, ideas of space and extent, ideas of this human self, and so on.

Night dreams and waking life both happen within and as what I am, so it all has a kind of dreamlike quality. It’s all made up of the consciousness I am.

THIS HUMAN SELF

This human self responds to this as it responds to anything else, and how it responds to it varies with circumstances and changes over time.

There is a kind of getting used to it and, maybe, maturing into and as it.

Also, many parts of this human self were formed from and within separation consciousness, largely through mimicking others in childhood. Many of these are still here and it’s an ongoing process for these to surface, be seen – and loved, examined, reacted to and struggled with, and so on – and eventually realign and reorganize more within my nature noticing itself.

ONGOING EXPLORATION

There is always more to explore – in my nature, in this human self, in how this human self relates to it and lives from and as it or not.

My nature explores itself by expressing and experiencing itself in always new ways, as the experience that’s here.

And it also consciously explores itself, through these explorations I write about here,

Read More

What will I get out of awakening?

moe Leave a comment

What do we get out of awakening?

There are many ways to answer that question.

I will explore it from my own experience and partly what I have heard from others, and in the context of the awakening process and not just awakening itself.

WHO AND WHAT I AM

There is a me and an I here. There is a human being in the world, there are all sorts of identities and identifications. That’s not wrong, and being familiar with these helps this human self to function in the world.

And yet, is it what I more fundamentally am in my own first-person experience? I find I more fundamentally am what it all happens within and as. A thought may say I am the consciousness it all – the world as it appears to me – happens within and as. What I am forms itself into the world as it appears to me, and this whole field of experience. It forms itself into the wider world, this human self, identities and identifications, states, and so on.

Even more fundamentally, I find my nature is capacity for it all – for consciousness and what it forms itself into.

WHAT IS AWAKENING?

This is what awakening refers to, at least as I tend to use the word.

It can appear as a moment in time or it can be more stable and go through different situations in daily life.

It can be more or less thoroughly examined.

It can be more or less lived from in daily life situations.

Our psyche may be more or less on board with it and aligned with it.

And so on. It’s a process of clarification, deepening, and maybe even of our human self healing, transforming, and maturing within it.

WHAT IS THE AWAKENING PROCESS?

It’s a process.

This process is always unique just like everything is unique.

There are also some common themes and aspects of it.

There may be an initial interest and fascination, typically fueled by projections. (We imagine things in the awakening that’s already here, and that helps us find it here – at least if we pursue it.)

There may be a more serious phase of sincerely asking the divine to be shown reality, of practices (prayer, meditation, inquiry, heart-centered practices, and so on), of following the guidance of a coach, and so on.

There may be initial glimpses, either before or during any of these phases. These tend to function as a carrot and encouragement to continue the exploration.

Our nature may recognize itself, at least for a while.

This may be followed by an experience of losing it. This is an invitation for clarification. We are invited to find the essence of what it is about and see the side-effects for what they are.

Our nature may then recognize itself more stably. It rests in noticing itself. The invitation here is to continue noticing through more and more situations in daily life, especially the ones where things in our psyche are triggered. Can I recognize that as my nature too? How is it to notice it while it’s happening?

Here, there is also an invitation for more of our human self to be on board with the awakening. Many parts of our psyche were formed within and still operate from separation consciousness. We may call these hangups, wounds, trauma, and so on. They inevitably color our perception and life in the world. And life tends to bring these up so they can be seen, felt, loved, and examined, and so they can realign with oneness and our nature recognizing itself. I imagine this is a lifelong process for most if not all of us.

WHAT OUR PERSONALITY MAY LIKE

Our personality and habitual patterns may like some aspects and phases of the awakening process.

It may like the early seeking and fascination.

It may like the initial tantalizing glimpses and the fantasies it puts on it.

It may like the initial honeymoon phase.

It may like and be fascinated with some of the side effects of awakening, whether it’s the ability to see or sense energies, sensing at a distance, healing at a distance, a stronger inner guidance, and so on.

It may like the label it can put on itself before that too falls away. (It may try to adorn itself with ideas about what’s happening, perhaps as compensation for not feeling enough.)

It may like the profound sense of coming home.

WHAT OUR HABITUAL PATTERNS MAY NOT LIKE

There are also many aspects and phases our personality may not like.

It may not like the ongoing stripping away of layers of identifications and holding onto stories for safety.

It may not like the different dark nights that are part of the process. The times when life and the process show us where we are still stuck and holding onto ideas and identities, and that this is out of alignment with reality.

It may not like that whatever is unhealed, unloved, unexamined, and unprocessed in us tends to come to the surface. When the lid is off, it’s off of everything that was previously under the surface. This can be hugely challenging for the personality and at a human level.

To me, it seems that the more awakening, the less I can get away with. If I act on hangups and trauma, or if I go against or don’t act on my guidance, the consequences tend to be immediate and severe. Some parts of my personality don’t like it, other parts really like it, and deeper down it feels completely right and aligned that it is this way.

THE MORE FUNDAMENTAL ANSWER

This is true enough, in my experience.

And yet, a couple of things may be even more fundamentally true.

This is all life unfolding in different ways to itself, as everything is.

We are not fundamentally any me or I, we are what it all happens within and as. We don’t get anything out of it because it’s all happening within and as us, as fish and plankton happen within the ocean, or as clouds and weather happen within the sky.

The image is created by me and Midjourney

A wonderful smell and taste in the awakening process: amrita, ambrosia, divine nectar

moe 3 Comments

I feel a delicious smell and taste in my mouth. It is an indescribable smell and flavor, it could be a kind of incense or perfume with Divine characteristics. It generates immense well-being and reminds me of the immeasurable union. It’s a reminder that I’m the one. I can also relate it to smells that I experience when I visit Amma the Divine Mother. It looks like Amma’s smell when I receive her hugs. It is literally magical and Divine.

This is my partner’s description of something that happened during and after the most recent Vortex Healing class, and others have noticed it as well.

It seems to be one of many possible side-effects of awakening, and this one is variously called divine nectar, amrita, and ambrosia, and it probably has more names in different traditions.

This particular side-effect is likely not necessary for our nature to recognize itself. It may also not be necessary for a thorough transformation of our human self within that new context. But it is one of many visitors that can come in the process, and it can serve as an encouragement.

Here are what I wrote about it in 2007: Shift in taste and smell | Other senses changing also | Dr. Wolff on ambrosia.

What are some of the other side effects of awakening? It can be seeing energies, sensing at a distance, the ability to invite healing at a distance, insights, inspiration for art and anything else, precognition, and so on. Different personalities relate to these in different ways depending on inclinations and conditioning.

Note: I found this article on divine nectar from a yogic perspective. It’s interesting but I have no way to check how accurate it is. I am more interested in it as (a) a phenomenon in the awakening process, and (b) how we relate to it.

Read More

Awake without knowing it

moe Leave a comment

I was at a Buddhist center1 in Oslo yesterday for meditation. A couple of times, I looked at the energy field of some of the people there2.

The teacher’s system was somewhere between awake and not awake. There was a lot of awakeness around and near the body, and it faded out further away from the body3.

I also looked at the field of a young woman who happened to sit in front of me. Her energy field was much more mellow and the whole field, going far out from the body, was awake. It seemed to be awake without being consciously aware it was awake. She was new to meditation, as she said and as the mellowness showed. At the same time, there seemed to be a natural low-grade awakeness going infinitely far out.

I assume she may not be consciously aware of it as that or have a label for it. It may just be the water she swims in, and it’s likely also why she is drawn to meditation and Buddhism. It may be familiar to her since it’s about what she is already – to some extent – living4.

There is a caveat here and that is that it can be tricky to isolate the energy field of different people when there are several in the room (it is possible to focus on the energy field at particular locations in space, as we do with physical objects), and there is an enhancement of the energies from meditation.

NOTES

(1) It’s a new place for me and I love being a complete beginner there.

(2) Since my teens, I have – for whatever reason – been able to see and sense energies. What’s most easy for me to see is the degree of awakeness in a system.

I remember one time at the center in Oregon (CSS) where a student was promoted to teacher because he had an awakening shift. (That change in role is, in itself, questionable. It takes a lot more to be a good and responsible teacher.) I could see in his system that, yes, there had been an awakening glimpse or shift, but it was unstable and not very thorough. A few weeks later, the main teacher announced that this student would step back from a teaching role since the awakening wasn’t as stable as they had thought.

(3) The lack of awareness through her whole system doesn’t prevent her from being a good and capable teacher. She seemed to be doing a very good job.

(4) It’s the first time I have noticed this so it was new and also seemed very familiar to me. I wonder if more young people are like that today? Maybe not. In the past, she would likely “just” be seen as a kind-hearted person in the community. Today, with meditation being more available, she can more easily find a kind of fellowship. She may even develop it further if there is a drive to it, although if she doesn’t that’s fine too.

The notes are longer than the actual article today. It’s because I wanted to keep the main story simple, and also realized I wanted to add a few more details.

Image by me and Midjourney

Read More

A “dangerous prayer”

moe Leave a comment

Since my teens, I have explored and trained in a range of approaches to healing and transformation. (Tai chi, chigong, Buddhist practices, therapy, inquiry, somatic approaches, shamanic approaches, etc.)

I really wanted to go deep, especially in what I knew very well were unhealthy family dynamics, and although I could see and understand a lot of the dynamics, I never felt I was able to fully and viscerally dig into it.

At some point, maybe thirteen years ago, I wholeheartedly and sincerely asked the divine to “show me what’s left”.

A few days later, an immense and overwhelming amount of dread and terror came up. It filled my life for about nine months and then slowly diminished over the following years. During the most intense period, all I could do was walk in the forest and listen to talks and books by Adyashanti. I was unable to sleep or eat very much, and mostly unable to function.

Since then, whenever I do healing for myself or receive a session (Vortex Healing, craniosacral, TRE, or something else), it seems to easily bring up a lot. My system seems to use any opportunity to release as much as possible. Often, what comes up is a mix of fatigue, strong discomfort, and some combination of anxiety, anger, and grief. It’s been quite challenging and something I am still learning to navigate.

One obvious solution is to do it in very small portions at a time to not overwhelm my system. Slow is sometimes faster.

There aren’t really any insights here, apart from that our system seems to always want deeper healing and shifts into whatever can bring that about, whether we consciously feel we are ready for it or not. Also, be careful what you ask for because it may happen! I don’t regret that prayer, but if I was to do it again, I would probably ask for it to happen more gently and gradually.

Image by me and Midjourney. I went through some of my old images and felt that this one could work. Wrestling with trauma, primal fear, and anything else that’s surfacing can at times feel like wrestling with a whale.

Read More

When things are what I am

moe 2 Comments

This quote describes what seems common when our nature starts recognizing itself.

The consciousness we are is used to taking itself to be something small within its own content and then starts to intuit or glimpse that it’s all happening within and as itself.

I haven’t heard this interview, so will just write a few things that come up for me.

WHO AND WHAT I AM

As I often say, it’s not wrong that I am this human self in the world. For most practical purposes, it’s true enough. In my experience, this human self is mostly here (apart from in some dreams and visions) so it makes sense to make that assumption. It’s an assumption that works relatively well in daily life. It’s also an assumption that creates stress since it’s out of alignment with what’s more true.

More fundamentally, I find I am what the whole field of experience happens within and as. To myself, I am what a thought may label consciousness, and any experience – of the wider world, of this human self –happens within and as the consciousness I am.

THE EXPERIENCE IN EACH CASE

The consciousness I am can create the temporary experience for itself of fundamentally being this human self. Here, “it” is not “me”. A tree is not me, it’s a tree over there.

This is true in a conventional sense no matter what, and it can feel deeply and obviously true if the consciousness we are is fundamentally identified as this human self.

The consciousness I am can also recognize itself, and that it forms itself into any experience. It’s all happening within and as what I am. The consciousness I am forms itself into (the experience of) a tree, this human self, stars, and anything else.

Here too, we can differentiate between a tree there and this human self here, and it’s all recognized as happening within and as what we are.

THE SHIFT

The shift itself can be gradual or sudden.

GRADUAL

The shift can be gradual, as it seems was the case for the person quoted.

The consciousness we are takes itself to fundamentally be this human self. There is a transition where there is a sense that something else may be more true. And then there is a more clear recognition of its nature and everything happening within itself.

In the middle phase, a lot of things can happen, including what’s described in the quote. There is a sense that the tree over there is me2. That it’s enveloped in love. That there is no difference. And so on.

It may happen in daily life, in meditation or during a spiritual retreat, it may happen in a psychedelic vision, it can happen in a dream, and in any other situation.

This transition can happen through intuitions, glimpses, having a sense of it, and more.

First, the center of gravity stays in the assumption of fundamentally being this human self while something else breaks through and in. Then, the center of gravity shifts into our nature recognizing itself. It happens through seeing it all as within itself. Finding love for it all within the context of oneness, a love independent of fleeting feelings and states. And our human self and psyche reorganizing itself within this context and getting it more viscerally.

SUDDEN

The shift can also be sudden, as it was for me. See below for more details.

When the shift is sudden, it doesn’t mean that it necessarily is as clear and thorough as it can be. It can always be more clear. More stable. More lived. More thorough in terms of the reorganization of the human self and the psyche. And so on.

MY EXPERIENCE

For me, this shift happened in my teens.

THE WORLD WENT DISTANT

On January 1st when I was fifteen, it was as if the world went very far away1. I still remember it. I was outside my parents’ house, talking with some friends. It happened over just some seconds or perhaps minutes. The world – wider world, this human self, thoughts, emotions – all seemed very distant.

This was profoundly disturbing to this human self, and the doctors couldn’t find an explanation. Later, I understood that this was a kind of observer-observed split. Identification went into the observer construct, and everything else seemed very distant. There was a disidentification with everything except the observer construct.

In a way, this is the reverse of what the quote above describes.

ALL AS THE DIVINE

One year later, there was another shift, this time into oneness. I walked along the dirt path to the house in the dark, with a big wind going through the landscape and the sky full of stars. This was between Christmas and New Year. I looked up at the stars and felt the extra expansiveness from the wind going through it all. Suddenly, there was a shift. All was revealed as God. Everything, without exception, is God. Nothing was left out.

This was home. This is home in the most profound sense. It’s more than familiar. At the same time, although very much secondary, it was a shock and surprise to this human self. He was an atheist, and then this? And it’s what always is here and just wasn’t noticed?

In my case, all was revealed as God, as the divine, as Spirit. There wasn’t so much the interpretation that “that is me”, although that is included in it. (The “that is me” idea still assumes that the idea of me and it has some substance and reality to it, which it doesn’t really.)

NOTES

(1) The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome started at the same time, somehow the two seem intertwined although I am not sure exactly how. My human self was under a lot of stress at the time, so it may be that the observer-observes split became a safety value, and the CFS may also have been a safety valve.

(2) For whatever reason, a lot of people use a tree as an example for this. Maybe that’s how it often starts for people? Is it because trees are quite noticeable, stand still, and are alive, and that makes the shift easier?

The image is created by me and Midjourney

Read More

More real than waking life

moe Leave a comment

It was/is more real than waking life. It’s not uncommon to hear people say that when there has been or is a glimpse into our nature.

That makes sense.

THE DREAMLIKE CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE

The content of my experience is real enough2. At the same time, it’s like a dream. It’s always changing and what’s here now becomes a mental image. It happens within and as the consciousness I am. Waking life is the same as a night dream in that sense.

WHAT I MORE FUNDAMENTALLY AM

What I more fundamentally am – what this field of experience happens within and as – is always here.

It’s all I have ever known, even when it takes the form of this always-changing content of experience.

When my nature recognizes itself, there is a profound sense of coming home.

It’s profoundly familiar, even if it’s also new and sometimes disorienting to the psyche and conditioning of this human self.

MORE REAL THAN WAKING LIFE

When my nature notices itself, it’s more real than any of the dreamlike content of experience.

NOTES

(1) If my nature notices itself, and identification goes back into thought, it can become primarily a memory and an experience in time, even if it’s still what I more fundamentally am.

(2) It’s real to me since it’s here in the field of experience. It’s also a kind of virtual reality created by the mind. It’s a combination of interpretations of sensory input and mental field representations. It’s far from an accurate representation of some external world as it is.

The image is created by me and Midjourney

Read More

Viscerally getting others as consciousness

moe Leave a comment

In a very general way, how we perceive ourselves is how we see others.

If I perceive myself as primarily consciousness, I tend to perceive others as primarily consciousness. I tend to see others as consciousness and the world, to them, as happening within and as that consciousness. We are all primarily subjects and a world to ourselves. (We subjectify.)

If I perceive myself as fundamentally this human self, or anything else within the content of experience, I tend to perceive others as fundamentally the same. We are all objects within the world. (We objectify.)

TRANSFORMING OURSELVES

As usual, it’s that simple, and also not.

One question is: How can I deepen into noticing my nature? How can I deepen into living from and as it? How can I invite more of me – this bodymind and psyche – to be more onboard with it? How do I relate to this whole process?

The other question is: How can I deepen into imagining others as consciousness? How can I allow that to work on me and transform this bodymind and life?

Both of these are ongoing explorations. There is no finishing line. (As far as I can tell.)

And there is a difference between these two. The first recognition is an immediate noticing. The second requires some intention and imagination.

HOW THIS IS FOR ME

I have written more about this below, in another version of this article.

This is an ongoing exploration for me, and it makes a huge difference in how I perceive and relate to other beings.

Here at Finca Milagros, I see any living being as consciousness and a world to themselves. To themselves, they are consciousness just like me. The only difference is the particular body and nervous system they operate through and as.

That gives me a natural reverence for all life. If I kill one of them – inadvertently or intentionally – I snuff out a whole universe. I snuff out their particular universe.

That’s not something I take lightly.

That’s one side of it. The other side is that this bodymind was formed within separation consciousness as is the case for most of us. It has a lot of hangups, wounds, and traumas, as many of us do. And all of that also color how I perceive and live in the world. I eat some meat. I sometimes get scared, angry, and reactive. I sometimes feel exhausted and care less. And so on. That’s part of the process too.

Images by me and Midjourney.

This is a simplified version of a longer article. See below for the first version of this article which gives more details.

Read More

A core veil experience

moe Leave a comment

In Vortex Healing, the definition of awakening is that the core veil is gone, where the core veil refers to a component of our energetic system that sits in the heart area.

This is a different definition than what most use, which would be some variation of our nature recognizing itself and living from and as it (embodiment). That’s part of the Vortex Healing view as well, but not used as a definition of awakening.

A few weeks or months after I took my first Vortex Healing class, I asked my teacher (GC) about my core veil. She said, “It’s hanging on by a thread”.

For years, I had experienced something very uncomfortable in my heart area. I saw Jeannie Zandie talking about experiencing a “shard of glass in the heart” during a phase in her process, and that was my experience as well. It was there more or less constantly, felt like it was energetic more than emotional, and was almost unbearable.

During the final transmission in the Core Veil class1, that experience went away. It has not returned.

This makes me guess that the strong discomfort in my heart area came from the fragments of the core veil that was left in my heart area. It was there before the core veil transmission and gone after.

For me, that in itself made taking the Vortex Healing classes worth it!

(1) London December 2017 according to my calendar.

The image is created by me and Midjourney and is utter nonsense in terms of the energy system

Awakening and trauma and the apparent gap between the two

moe Leave a comment

There is an apparent gap between my nature – as consciousness – and the trauma that’s in my very human system.

ONENESS AND TRAUMA

As what I am, as consciousness, I am oneness. And that oneness takes the form of a kind of love that’s independent of states and feelings.

As who I am, I am this very flawed human being. I have hangups, issues, and traumas. I have unloved parts of me. Unexamined beliefs. And so on. Here, I sometimes act from reactivity and it looks like (unloved) fear and reactivity and not love or oneness.

There seems to be a big gap there. And that’s true and not true in different ways.

THE GAP IS REAL

It’s true in that these parts of me – the wounded and traumatized parts – were formed within separation consciousness and they perceive and operate from separation consciousness. They are not aware of the oneness they exist within and are part of. They behave as if separation is most fundamental, and for them it is.

These parts of me color my perception and life even if they are not obviously triggered.

When they are more obviously triggered, a couple of things can happen.

The consciousness I am can get caught up in this part of me and join in with its outlook and the scary stories it operates from. I – as a whole – become this part of me for a while, until the storm passes. (Sometimes, it means getting caught up in a part reacting to a reacting part!)

The consciousness I am can notice what’s happening without getting caught up in it. I notice what’s happening. I notice reactivity. I notice the pattern. I notice it’s happening within and as what I am. My human self can relate to it more intentionally and deal with it without getting caught up in it or reacting to it.

Or there is a mix of the two, which also happens.

THE GAP IS APPARENT

At the same time, the gap is only apparent.

My human self and all its hangups happen within and as the consciousness and oneness I am.

Even getting caught up in it or not happens within and as the consciousness and oneness I am.

Noticing that is helpful. It’s helpful in the moment something is triggered. It helps me find what’s not caught up in it. And it’s helpful when I take time to rest with and explore these wounded parts of me. It gives a different context to the exploration. It helps me see that these parts of me have my nature. What I am forms itself into it and takes that form.

EXPLORING THE GAP

How can I explore the gap? How can I invite more of me to align with oneness? (With the oneness I am noticing itself?)

A big part of it may be regular trauma work and different forms of trauma-informed therapies.

Another is to train myself to notice when “I” as a whole gets caught up in it and help myself to shift out of it again. Seeing that it’s natural and, in many ways, innocent, helps here. The more peace with it, the easier to notice and shift back into what I am.

WHAT MAKES IT EASIER

In general, it seems easier…

The more I can embrace all of it and the messiness of it and find some peace with it.

The more I understand what’s happening. These are scared and sometimes terrified parts of me. They were formed within separation consciousness and still live that way. They are here to try to protect me. They come fundamentally from love. They have the same nature as I do as a whole.

The more I am with others who understand and have some love and humor about it all.

The more experience I have in seeing the patterns and dealing with them. That includes the times I – as a whole – get caught up in it and act as if I am that scared part of me. And the times when I notice what’s happening and can relate to it more consciously and intentionally.

The more I can admit to it to myself and others (when it feels appropriate). Admitting it is very human and creates more understanding and connections.

The more I can find the humor in it. It is all more than a little absurd.

The more I know that there is no finishing line. It’s all about the process. I cannot know what will happen and it doesn’t matter. It’s easier and more comfortable to rest in (and as) not knowing.

The more I see that this is all the play of… the consciousness I am, life, existence, the divine, Spirit. It’s existence expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in this way here and now. It has a beauty.

The more I see that this is universal. We are all fundamentally consciousness to ourselves. And we all have this self in the world with all sorts of hangups, wounds, and traumas. We are all in it together. We are all in the same boat. (And it’s all also unique. It all takes unique forms for each of us and in each moment.)

The more I see it’s not easy. It’s often *&%$# hard. It’s painful. Confusing. Sometimes overwhelming. It brings up fear, frustration, and anger. It sometimes brings up shame and regret. That too is universal, natural, and ultimately innocent. It’s OK.

Image by me and Midjourney

Read More

No awakening without dealing with trauma

moe Leave a comment

There is no awakening without dealing with trauma.

At some point, the awakening process requires us to deal with our trauma and anything unresolved in us.

It seems inevitable given enough time, and it may not in all cases happen in this lifetime.

AWAKENING BEFORE DEALING WITH THE TRAUMA

Of course, our nature can recognize itself without dealing with trauma or anything else unresolved in us. It can keep noticing itself and even live from and as it through this human self in many situations. We can be in a temporary transcendent state. Our old psychological mechanisms may still be intact enough to push our traumas aside or keep them under the surface as much as that is possible.

In this situation, what’s unresolved in us will inevitably color our perception and life, and it will get triggered more actively in some situations and areas of life. It will always be with us and shape our life. 

It’s not a situation that can last forever. At some point, anything unresolved in our body-mind has to come to the surface to be seen, felt, loved, and recognized as happening within and as what we are. We have to learn to relate to it more consciously and for what it is (scared and wounded parts of us) and invite in healing for it. 

TRAUMA AND WOUNDS LIVE IN SEPARATION CONSCIOUSNESS

What’s the problem with traumas in this context, and generally what’s unresolved in us?

It’s not actually a problem. They are part of the process. It’s natural and even innocent. It provides material for exploration, grounding, humbling, maturing, and so on.

At the same time, these parts of us are out of alignment with the awakening. These parts of us were formed from separation consciousness and life within and from separation consciousness. And, as mentioned above, they will inevitably color our perception and life. As long as they are here, we will live partly from and as these parts of us.

WHAT MAKES IT EASIER AND MORE DIFFICULT

Some things make this process easier: We may have a relatively small trauma load, or just a little comes up at once. We may already have good habits in how to relate to it. We may already be relatively healthy, grounded, and mature. We may find ourselves among people who understand and support the process. In short, we have the resources to deal with it and what’s coming up may not be big enough to overwhelm us. 

And the reverse seems to make this process more difficult: We have a larger and more difficult trauma load. A lot is coming up at once. We may feel overwhelmed and not know how to deal with it. We may not be so healthy, grounded, and mature. We may not find ourselves in an understanding and supportive environment. We may not have the inner and outer resources to effectively deal with it, and what comes up overwhelms us. 

THE EMBODIMENT ASPECT OF THE PROCESS

This is really about embodiment, which is part of the awakening process.

It’s about bringing it into life in a more consistent, grounded, mature, and healthy way.

For that to happen, we need to deal with our trauma and anything unresolved in us, and it’s an ongoing process.

I doubt there is ever a finishing line, at least in this lifetime or as long as we are incarnated.

AWAKENING AS A PROCESS

The essential part of awakening is not technically a process. It’s our nature recognizing itself and that happens here and now.

And everything else is a process. What leads up to it, and how it unfolds within and as that noticing.

IS IT WORTH IT?

Is it worth it?

It is, in a way, a nonsensical question. It’s not up to us as an individual. What’s happening here locally is part of the process of all of existence. Everything has infinite causes stretching out to the widest extent of existence and the beginning of time.

Also, it depends on how we look at it. It can be tremendously difficult and painful, as I know from my own experience. It can seriously impact and complicate our lives.

Not dealing with trauma is not necessarily any easier. That comes with its own pain and challenges and it lasts a lot longer.

HOW IT HAS BEEN FOR ME

I am writing from my own experience here so someone else will talk about it differently.

For me, the initial oneness shift happened when I was sixteen and didn’t go away. My human self lived in a kind of honeymoon state for about ten years where the unprocessed human stuff was set aside or buried. Not intentionally, since I was deeply fascinated by psychology (especially Jung and depth psychology) and did regular therapy. But my system had mechanisms in place to keep it manageable.

Then, a dark night started. First, through a profound sense of being off track in life (I made a life decision that went against my clear inner guidance and knowing). And then, about ten years later, through the “lid” being taken off what was unprocessed in my system. That seemed to have happened through a combination of (a) six months in a clear no-self state, (b) my body-mind being severely weakened by a chronic illness CFS), and (c) a “dangerous prayer” where I sincerely and deeply asked the divine to “show me what’s left” (a deep and overwhelming survival fear came up one or two weeks after). An aspect of this is that a lot has been falling apart in my life, over and over, sometimes because of the way I have dealt with the trauma.

I am still in that darker phase of the dark night, although the form of it keeps changing.

Read More

Two sides of an unexpected oneness shift: Profoundly at home, profoundly alone – my story

moe Leave a comment

When I was fifteen, there was a shift where the whole world – thoughts, feelings, sensations, others, the wider world – seemed very distant and far away. One year later, there was a shift into oneness where all – without exception – was revealed as God.

THE SITUATION

This human self was an atheist at the time, although with some curiosity about what’s outside of our conventional worldview – ESP, quantum physics, and similar things. I lived in a small town in Norway, and it was the ’80s before the web, so I knew nothing about anything related to this. I knew nobody who was interested in it. There was no web to go on to find info. I couldn’t even find any books since the local library didn’t have anything about it, and I didn’t even know what search terms to use.

RETURNING HOME

So on the one hand, it was a profound sense of coming home. It was a homecoming to something completely unexpected (to this human self) and profoundly familiar (to my nature). It was clear, it was obvious. Everything is God, without exception. And that includes this human self and any sense of being this human self. It was all what God has formed itself into. In this, there is no room for problems.

TURMOIL

At the same time, at my human level, there were a lot of problems. I had a mysterious disease. (Later identified as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.) I had a lot of anxiety and hangups due to family and school dynamics. Huge amounts of energy was running through my system 24/7 for years, it felt like high voltage being sent through ordinary housing wires. I had nobody to talk about these things with at all.

FINDING OTHERS

It wasn’t until that I found a book by Meister Eckhart in the main library in Oslo, where I saw glimmers of someone who had recognized the same, filtered by another time and culture and said by someone who obviously wanted to be careful about how he expressed it. (1) I also met a couple of people (BH & HB) who immediately recognized it in me and where I recognized it in them. That happened when I was nineteen and twenty and was a big relief for this human self. And I found Taoism and read just about everything I could find there. Again, the writings typically reflected something similar but didn’t explicitly talk about the shift that had happened here.

In general, my human life changed significantly for the better after I left high school, moved to Oslo, and started art school there. I found new friends. I found new communities. I was able to explore everything with more breathing space. Things started falling into place.

THE TWO SIDES

So there were two sides to this. As what I am – what a thought may call consciousness, oneness – there was just a returning home that what’s always here. As who I am – as this confused and wounded human being – it was a wild mix of surprise, excitement, confusion, bewilderment, aloneness, and much more.

And that’s all, of course, happening within and as what I am. It’s all happening within and as what a thought may call consciousness, oneness, or any number of things.

NOTES

(1) In my teens, I also read a lot about systems views, mainly by Fritjof Capra and the people he referenced, that hinted at it but didn’t seem to come from a direct noticing. And I also read a lot of books by C.G. Jung which also hinted at it, but again were not written from a direct noticing. They hinted at oneness, the oneness revealed in the shift, and I loved it. I also loved systems views for how important they are for our world today. (Although most still don’t use them, for whatever reason.) And I loved Jung for his understanding of how to find more wholeness at a human level.

Image created by me and Midjourney

Read More

The banality of awakening

moe Leave a comment

There is a certain banality to awakening.

THE BANALITY OF IT

It’s what we are noticing itself. It’s our nature awakening to itself. And our nature is completely ordinary. It’s all we have ever known and all we will ever know.

When our nature recognizes itself and gets used to it, it becomes ordinary. It can even, at times, seem a bit banal. (That’s part of how our human self may relate to it.)

It’s also banal in that it’s not so difficult to notice. Through guidance and pointers, just about anyone can notice it and get a taste of it. The most effective approaches I have found are The Big Mind process and the Headless experiments. These can give a direct taste within minutes or seconds. The Kiloby Inquiries (based on traditional Buddhist inquiry) are also effective, although it’s often a slightly longer process.

So it’s banal in that it’s our nature – what we already are – noticing itself. It’s banal in that this too gets ordinary over time. And it’s banal in that it’s not so difficult to find and notice, with the right guidance.

AWAKENING

What’s awakening about?

In a conventional sense, we are this human self living its life in the world. That’s not wrong, and it’s an assumption that works relatively well. It matches reality well enough. And the ways it doesn’t match is where it that assumption creates discomfort and unease and perhaps even suffering.

More fundamentally, we are something else.

In my own immediate experience, I find I am more fundamentally capacity for any and all experience. I am what the whole field of experience, all content of experience, happens within and as. This human self and the wider world happen within and as what I am.

Logically, I find the same. If I “have” consciousness, it means I – to myself – AM consciousness. And it also means that, to me, the world happens within and as what I am. I am this field of consciousness any and all experience happens within and as. Logically, it cannot be any other way.

When we find ourselves as more fundamentally consciousness, we also notice what mystics across time and cultures describe. We find oneness. We find that the world, inevitably, appears as consciousness, and if we are so inclined we may call that the divine, Spirit, God, Brahman, and so on. (The world appears as consciousness to me since, to me, it happens within and as the consciousness I am. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the nature of all that exists.) We find a love that’s all-inclusive and doesn’t depend on emotions or shifting content of experience. (And which may be covered up or sidetracked by the hangups and biases of this human self.)

What’s my connection with this human self? There is a special connection with this particular human self. I receive sense information through the physical senses of this human self. It seems that thoughts and emotions are connected with – and perhaps generated by – this human self. This human self is around all the time during (what we call) waking consciousness. This human self is what many others see me as. In a way, it’s my vehicle in the world. And it’s not what I most fundamentally am, in my own experience.

THE EXTRAORDINARINESS OF IT

There is also something extraordinary to it.

There is something extraordinary in that anything exists at all. How come there is something rather than nothing? How come there is consciousness? How come there is an apparent world? That’s completely baffling to me and the question stops my mind. (1)

If the oneness we are has taken itself as something in particular within its field of experience (this human self, an observer, a doer, etc.), and it recognizes its nature, then it tends to be experienced as amazing and extraordinary. It’s typically both very familiar and feels like coming home and it’s something we have always, somehow, known, and it also seems completely amazing and extraordinary. And it does become ordinary after a while, which is good since it allows us to focus on something else instead of being distracted by our experience of the extraordinariness of it.

As with just about anything else, there is no end to wrinkles and intricacies of awakening and how to explore and live from it. In that sense, it’s anything but banal.

MY EXPERIENCE

When the oneness shift happened when I was sixteen, it did seem absolutely amazing. It turned my (experience of) the world and myself inside-out and upside-down. My human self and psyche responded to it by seeing it as amazing and extraordinary for many years, even as I kept exploring it. (My nature, how it interfaces with my human self, how to live from and as it, and so on). It took some years before I found anyone talking about this or describing it, and although what I found at first was filtered through a culture different from my own, I found it fascinating to see how people talked about it.

After a while, it became more ordinary – and sometimes even banal. This took a couple of decades in my case (!), perhaps because this human self tends to be fascinated by the mystery of it all. It’s an ongoing process that’s always new and fresh and keeps revealing new sides of itself.

I am still baffled that anything exists, and I continue to be fascinated by the intricacies and the ongoing exploration process. (Part of that exploration process is to invite more of my human self and psyche to align with the awakening. This too is an ongoing, and sometimes challenging, process.)

(1) Some misunderstand and say: “It’s because it’s created by God”. But God too is something rather than nothing.

Read More

Awakening is “permanent”?

moe Leave a comment

Some talk as if awakening is somehow “permanent”.

I understand why.

When the noticing is here and stable, it seems obvious and unmissable. It seems it will never go away.

Time happens within and as what we are, so how could this go away?

Also, some may go into the thought that it’s permanent to find comfort. They want it to stay, so they tell themselves it will.

And yet, is it true?

Permanence is the story of a future.

I cannot know.

So for me, it’s more peaceful to hold it lightly and keep it open.

Also, I know that there is often an awakening shift, then it goes away (which can be experienced as one kind of dark night), and then it’s refound in a different and more thorough way.

Read More

If we lived for eons, would awakening be inevitable?

moe Leave a comment

Through having lived as many lives I have, I notice that all sorts of experiences and states come and go. I have experienced millennia of mostly “ordinary” states with times of profound despair, mind-shattering pain, and amazing bliss. I have noticed that what I am is that which all this happens within and as. Experiences come and go and what I am doesn’t come and go. Of course, I am whatever state is here but it doesn’t last. Only being capacity for all of it runs through it all.

If you want to call that awakening, be my guest. But it’s really very simple. It doesn’t require fancy words, or rituals, or mythology, or even labels.

– from Dialog with someone who has lived innumerable lives in many places in the cosmos

To me, it seems that awakening is inevitable (?) if we just lived long enough, perhaps for centuries or millennia. And it wouldn’t seem like anything special. It would just be a natural part of maturing and having lived for a while.

Over time, we get to see that any and all content of experience comes and goes, including anything we think we are, and any identifications we may have. We dream, and are someone different. We have an identity for ourselves and in the world, and something happens and it goes away. We think we are something in particular, and those thoughts go away for a while and we are still here.

So if we are not fundamentally anything within all this that comes and goes, what are we?

What are we more fundamentally? When I look, I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the experience of all of this. I am what the world, to me, happens within and as.

This is what we may discover through basic meditation, and also what we may – inevitably? – discover if we would be around for a few millennia.

Basic meditation is, in many ways, a condensed micro-version of this. We compress what would happen naturally, over many many years, into minutes, hours, days, and months.

And we can support that process through other explorations, including inquiry.

Here are two dialogs on this topic: Dialog with someone who has lived innumerable lives in many places in the cosmos | Dialog with one who has lived eons and has a mystic streak

Read More

Everyone is already enlightened?

moe Leave a comment

I was curious about a book and saw a review on Amazon that said: “Everyone is already enlightened”.

As usual, I would say “yes” and “no” and “it depends”.

There may be a few more nuances than what the simple statement suggests.

YES(ISH)

Everyone is Buddha Nature. To ourselves, we are consciousness. The world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are. And that consciousness is Buddha Nature.

So yes, we are Buddha Nature, although few would call that “enlightened”.

NO

In most cases, the consciousness we are doesn’t fully recognize its own nature. It tends to assume it’s something within its content, typically this human self and mental representation of an I, me, doer, observer, and so on.

For the oneness we are to recognize itself and its nature typically takes some intention, effort, sincerity, and guidance.

To keep recognizing it is the same.

Learning how to live from it requires the same dedication and engagement.

And allowing our human self and psyche to transform and align within this new context is an even longer process that requires dedication, courage, honesty, sincerity, and work.

IT DEPENDS

So it depends. It mostly depends on what we mean by the words.

For me, the simplest is to say that all beings already are Buddha Nature. To ourselves, we all are most fundamentally consciousness whether we notice or not.

The consciousness we are typically doesn’t fully recognize its nature, and may not perceive it clearly even if there are glimpses.

It typically takes work for the consciousness we are to recognize itself. And it’s a long process to keep recognizing this through situations and states, explore how to live from and as it, and allow this human self to transform within it.

It’s a process that appears to not have any finishing line.

ENLIGHTENMENT?

I don’t really know what’s meant by “enlightenment”.

Maybe it means what happens when most of our human self and psyche is on board with the awakening?

If so, it’s not something I am familiar with so I can’t say much about it.

Read More

This experience too is most fundamentally content of experience

moe Leave a comment

I had store-bought pizza last night, which is unusual for me, but I was somehow drawn to it. The result was predictable: a restless night and waking up feeling not very good. (Highly processed foods usually have a big impact on my system, including my emotional state.)

And that’s OK. I can still do some or all of the things I had planned for today.

More importantly, it’s an opportunity to explore.

It’s all content of experience. The weird feelings in my body, and the emotions and corresponding thoughts, are all content of experience. To me, it’s made up of what any experience is made up of.

It’s OK. It’s like any other experience. It’s most fundamentally like any other experience.

As someone said: It’s a flavor of the divine. It’s a flavor of consciousness.

So this uncomfortable experience is, in many ways, a blessing.

It’s an invitation to notice this and let my system soak in that noticing.

And I’ll still limit how often and how much I eat highly processed foods (!). I don’t need to actively seek it out to explore in this way since the content of experience is always in flux anyway.

Read More

My experience of the world, this body, etc.

moe Leave a comment

What’s my experience of the world, this body, and so on?

It’s multifaceted and depends on where the focus of attention is.

CONSCIOUSNESS

When I look, I notice it’s all consciousness. It’s all happening within and as a field of consciousness, and within and as what I am. This experience is always here, and I am reminded of it when I bring attention to it. As soon as attention is brought to it, it’s unavoidable to notice.

For instance, where my imagination says my body is, I notice sight (what my thoughts may label pants, arms, a blurry nose). I notice sounds (that my thoughts may label fingers on the keyboard, slight sound of pant legs). I notice sensations. And it’s all consciousness with those things happening within it, and temporarily and locally taking those forms.

LABELS

The word “consciousness” is obviously a label and a pointer. It’s something used for communication – sometimes with myself and sometimes with others.

What it refers to is just what’s here. It’s what I am and all I have ever known. Labeling it makes it sound far more like a “thing” than it is, and for more like something that can be easily defined than it is.

That’s the same with anything we label. It’s all much less of a “thing” and much less easily defined than labels can give an impression of.

WHAT “I” REFER TO

And “I” here refers to… nothing in particular. It’s more of a conventional way of talking about it.

It can refer to the field of consciousness as a whole, operating through and as this particular human self.

Or can refer to this human self.

It doesn’t really matter since it doesn’t really apply.

HABITUAL PATTERNS

Sometimes, I notice my psyche reacting to experiences from habits, hangups, wounds, and so on. That may play itself out to some extent and there is some engagement with and fueling of it.

Or there is more space for something else to come in. For instance, it may be noticed and then there is no more fueling of it.

Or a medicine is applied, like noticing it’s happening within and as what I am, it all has the same nature. Or the validity in the reversal of the stressful thought behind the reactivity. Or ho’oponopno, tonglen. Or something similar.

A SENSE OF “I”

Sometimes, there is a habitual sense of an “I” here observing, doing, and so on.

When attention is brought to it, it’s clear that there is no “I” here. It’s all just happening on its own.

The sense of an “I” is also an old pattern happening on its own.

There is no real reality or validity in it.

ENERGIES

I also see energies in and around anything – people, non-human beings, plants, and non-animate objects.

Here too, it depends on where attention is.

Normally, I don’t notice it very much. It’s in the background just like ordinary textures, colors, and so on.

And sometimes, attention goes to it and it comes more into the foreground. It comes to the foreground of attention, as anything does when you bring attention to it.

In my case, I mostly use it to notice the degree of awakening. It’s relatively easy to see how awake a system is by looking at the energies around the body.

I can also sense at a distance, which I use when I do distance healing and Vortex Healing. In this case, since the context typically is healing, I tend to pick up things related to body-mind health.

MUCH MORE FLUID

When I write about this, it seems a bit binary. Words differentiate and can make things seem more separate or different than they are.

In reality, all of this is much more fluid. For instance, there is often not such a separation or difference between not noticing and noticing. There is not necessarily much distance between the two and not even that much difference.

And it’s all happening within and as the same.

CHANGES OVER TIME

It’s been generally like this since the awakening shift in my teens.

And there have also been general changes over time creating phases that may last weeks, months, years, or even decades.

For example, for some years following the initial shift, oneness was very strongly in the foreground. There was no need to bring attention there to notice. All was oneness, consciousness, the divine, and it was right there in the foreground all the time. I assume this helped “bring the message home” for my system.

Then, my life situation changed and I was more focused on sustainability and community work for a few years, and oneness went a bit in the background. Perhaps my system needed a break?

After this, and for about six months, the no-self aspect came very strongly in the foreground. It was inescapable no matter what happened with attention or within content of experience. This happened after a period of more systematic and dedicated meditation and inquiry practice, and I suspect it is so my system can soak in the no-self aspect of its nature and absorb it more deeply.

Shortly after this, a great deal of unprocessed material came strongly to the surface – primal survival fear, wounds, and traumas formed early in life. When this happened, and it felt overwhelming and brought me to my knees (and beyond), it took a more conscious effort to notice that the trauma, and the reaction to the trauma, has the same nature as me. The old habitual patterns were more often more in the foreground. This is one form of dark night, and what I think of as a dark night of trauma. Wounded parts of us come up to unwind within the context of oneness recognizing itself as that too. The dial is turned down on the intensity of this these days, but my system is still in this phase to some extent. (And that’s OK.)

I have written more about all of this in other articles.

Read More

Awakening as a safety valve

moe Leave a comment

Why did the awakening shift happen when I was sixteen?

I am not sure. I hadn’t done any of the things that often go before such a shift. I had no interest in spirituality. I had done no spiritual practice.

What was happening was an unusual amount of teenage angst. It may have been strong enough so my system needed another way to deal with it, and that was where my system went most easily.

At my human level, and in my psyche, it got to be too much. So my system shifted from being identified with all of that to releasing identification with it and found itself as its more fundamental nature. As consciousness. As the consciousness all our experiences happen within and as. As the oneness all of it and the world to us happens within and as.

In that particular case, that was the safety value. And the stress and overwhelm at the human level were strong enough to propel my system into the awakening shift in a relatively strong and lasting way.

That’s the simple story, and it’s not quite as simple as that.

One year earlier, there had been another shift. A shift from the usual separation consciousness to a simple observer and observed duality. On January 1st, I experienced a fog coming in, as if I had cotton in my head. It was as if the world, including my human self and anything to do with my human self, was far away. Very far away. And “I” was the one observing it all. I went to my doctor and many specialists, and nobody could find anything wrong. It was quite distressing, and it really did feel as if something had gone very wrong.

And after almost exactly one year, between Christmas and New Year, there was another shift. This time into oneness. Into finding myself and any and all experiences as consciousness. Or, as I thought of it at the time, of God revealed as all without exceptions. God was this human self as it was everything. God was even the impulse to temporarily take itself as this human self, and then suddenly and out of the blue remember itself as all.

It’s not a glorious story. It’s messy and human. There is absolutely nothing there my human self can take credit for. And it seems to be one way our nature notices itself, or the divine remembers itself as all.

States highlight characteristics of who and what we are

moe Leave a comment

We always experience different states.

Anything we experience – the fullness of our experience – is a state. It always changes.

And each of these states highlights characteristics of who and what we are.

WHAT THEY CAN TELL US ABOUT WHO WE ARE

Some of what we experience tells us something about who we are as a human self in the world.

For instance, I am in a situation that brings up anger in me. What’s behind the anger? Is it an energy I use to get things done and protect myself or someone else? Does it come from an unquestioned painful story? Does it come from love and a wish to protect, perhaps with some layers of confusion on top?

Or I notice I am drawn to something. What is it about it I am drawn to? What do I hope to get out of it? And what do I hope to get out of that? What’s the essence of what I am drawn to? How can I bring that into my life? How can I give it to myself here and now? How can I rearrange my life to bring it in more often?

WHAT THEY CAN SHOW US ABOUT WHAT WE ARE

And some of what we experience tells us something about what we more fundamentally are.

Here are some examples from my own process:

When I was fifteen, my system was shifted into a strong observer-observed duality. I experience the world, including anything connected with this human self, as very far away. I was what observed it all. (To me, this was distressing since I didn’t understand what was going on. I went to a lot of doctors and specialists to figure out what was going on, but they didn’t find anything.) This showed me – clearly and at a visceral level – that I am not, most fundamentally, anything within content of experience. (At the time, I wasn’t really consciously aware of any of this, but my system got it at a deeper level.)

A year after, there was another strong shift and this one into oneness. Everything without exception was revealed as God. This human self, and any tendency for the mind to take itself as this human self, was revealed as the play of God. It was God temporarily expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself that way. (These days, I would say “consciousness” instead of God.) This was especially strong for the first few years, and the oneness aspect of what I am was in the foreground and unmissable. It showed me the oneness aspect of what I am so clearly so I can notice it through shifting states and experiences.

Some years later, in the mid-2000s, my system was shifted into a strong no-self state. No-self was already part of the oneness shift, but for about six months, this particular aspect of what I am was brought into the foreground. This period highlighted something about what I am that’s undeniable and I can now more easily notice through shifting states and experiences.

There has been many shifts and states like this, highlighting features of what I am. One that followed the previous one was a shift into noticing what can be called the luminous dark or the divine feminine. I experienced a luminous dark aspect of the divine peering out through and as all forms. It’s difficult to describe but this also highlighted something that it’s now more easy for me to notice.

A small synchronicity: When I re-read and pondered “anything we experience is a state” the lyrics of the song I listened to said “What we feel now”. (Got to be real by Cheryl Lynn.)

Read More

What’s the relationship between the divine and the human?

moe Leave a comment

What is the relationship between the divine and the human?

I saw an advertisement for a course on this topic, so I thought I would see what comes up for me around it.

IN THE WORLD AND STORIES

Within stories, the answer can be simple.

All of existence is a seamless whole.

It’s all the play of the divine.

It’s the divine expressing, exploring, and experiencing itself in always new ways, including through and as you and me, our lives and experiences, and our culture and civilization.

IN OUR DIRECT NOTICING

In our direct experience, it can also be quite simple.

As consciousness, this human self and the wider world all happen within and as what I am.

To me, what I am forms itself into the experience of all of it.

Said another way, it’s all happening within my sense fields (sight, sound, taste, smell, sensations, mental representations), and those mental fields happen within and as what I am.

At the same time, there is a special relationship with this particular human self. It’s the only human self I receive “inside” information about in the form of senses and thoughts.

IN OUR EXPLORATION PROCESS

When it comes to our exploration process, it’s also simple and yet infinitely intricate.

A typical process is that our psyche is mainly formed within separation consciousness. (Especially noticeable with our hangups, traumas, and issues.) The oneness we are then notices itself, creates a habit of continuing to notice itself, and explores how to live from this noticing. And our human self inevitably transforms within that noticing so more of its psyche is aligned with oneness.

And that last part is not always an easy process. It can be overwhelming, confusing, messy, and scary, and more so the more trauma our human self has.

Whatever in us that’s still operating from separation consciousness comes to the surface so it can align with a more conscious noticing of oneness.

It’s inevitable. So it makes sense for us to consciously join in with that process, and support it as best we can.

Since our knots are universal with a personal flavor, the unknotting is universal with a personal flavor.

It typically involves a combination of shifting our relationship to our experience, including what our personality likes the least. And finding healing for our issues and trauma.

And that process can be supported through a combination of heart-centered practices, inquiry, therapy, mindful movement, relationship work, social engagement, and more.

Read More

Awake without realizing it?

moe Leave a comment

Is it possible to be awake without realizing it?

Is it possible for the oneness we are to recognize itself without realizing it?

It sounds almost like a contradiction, but I would say yes.

AWAKE WITHOUT KNOWING

Without having any statistics, I assume many who would be considered awake are not aware of it. They may have been born that way and live their lives mostly from it, without realizing it has any labels and without being interested in any labels.

The oneness they are recognizes itself and lives from that noticing.

It recognizes itself as the field that any and all experiences happen within, including of this human self.

It may not be that conscious all of the time. There may not be the realization that this is different from how most other onenesses perceive and life. It may not happen all of the time.

And yet, there is a general awakening without realizing that’s what it is or that it has any name.

To others, and maybe to themselves, they likely just seem like a normal and relatively healthy, sane, and kind human being.

TASTES WITHOUT KNOWING

Similarly, most or all of us have tastes of it without realizing that’s what it is, or what’s going on.

The oneness we are recognizes itself without perhaps being very conscious of it or having any names for it.

It’s just something that happens. It may happen more easily in certain situations, and we may attribute it to those situations. What happens is that we forget about ourselves. We literally forget to identify as this separate self and find ourselves as what’s left – this open field of experience. This can happen any time we are absorbed in what’s happening, for instance reading a book, doing art, being in a flow state, sex, drugs, music, yoga, martial art, sports, or something else.

When the oneness we are recognizes itself, it’s not really a state. It’s the field that any and all experiences happen within and as that recognizes itself. And yet, it may seem like a state since it comes and goes in time. It’s interpreted as a state. (That’s not entirely wrong. In this case, it is a state in that it comes and goes. And it is the state of the oneness we are recognizing itself.)

WHO & WHAT WE ARE

I’ll give a brief background, even if this is included in a lot of other articles here.

In one sense, we are this human being in the world. That’s what the passport tells us, it’s what others tell us, and it’s what our thoughts may tell us. It seems real, and it’s not wrong.

And yet, to ourselves, in our own first-person experience, we may find we are something else. When I look in my own first-person experience, I find I am more fundamentally capacity for the whole field of experience that’s here. I find I am what this whole field of experience happens within and as.

This is what’s often labeled awakening.

It can happen as an intuition or a glimpse. Recognizing it can be a habit. Our metaphorical center of gravity can shift from taking ourselves as this human self (a separate self) to finding ourselves as this field. We can explore to life from this noticing. We can invite the different parts of our psyche, often formed within and operating from separation consciousness, to join this oneness. And so on.

A RANGE

This article points to a range of different things. It can be the oneness we are intuiting itself. Our center of gravity being shifted towards oneness. Mostly living from – and as – oneness. Or any combination of these. And without being very consciously aware of what’s going on or having any labels or theoretical maps for it.

That’s wonderful. It’s just as wonderful and interesting as having maps.

And it’s perhaps simpler and less contrived, which has its own beauty.

The future of awakening

moe Leave a comment

There are many ways to envision the future of awakening.

We may explore how it fits into maps of the mind and society (integral maps). We can see it as a part of the evolution of the universe. We can explore ideas of collective awakening. And so on.

Here is how I imagine it may look in society, if or when awakening is commonly accepted and is an ordinary part of our collective life.

I’ll write from the perspective of someone living in that world.

ACCEPTED

Awakening is commonly accepted as real and valuable. Since scientists and academia accept it, and many know people who have benefited from exploring it, most people in society also accept it.

Of course, people are interested in it to varying degrees, as with anything else. That’s good since we need people to specialize in different things.

UNDERSTOOD IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS

And there are a few different ways to understand it, which is also good.

Some see it in a spiritual context, or in the context of their own religion.

Others understand it in a more secular and psychological way.

And for those interested, there is a lot to learn from each of these perspectives. Each of them contributes something valuable and unique, at least to some extent and in some areas.

DEMYSTIFIED

Awakening is also generally demystified, at least to the extent that anything can be demystified.

Most people understand the general theory behind it.

The general understanding is a variation of this:

We don’t “have” consciousness. If we “have” consciousness, then to ourselves we ARE consciousness. It can’t be any other way.

Similarly, to us the world happens within consciousness. It happens within and as the consciousness we are.

To us, the waking world is similar to night dreams in that it all happens within and as consciousness.

The consciousness we are is one. It’s a seamless whole. So to us, the world and all of our experiences happen within and as oneness. (We may not notice since we get caught up in mental representations of boundaries, but the reality that’s always here for us is oneness.)

The consciousness we are is a no-thing that allows our experience of all things.

The consciousness we are may take itself to be an object within its field of experience, and as a separate self in the world. Or it can recognize itself and metaphorically “wake up” to itself as consciousness and oneness, and what the world – to itself – happens within and as. And its metaphorical center of gravity can shift from the first to the second, often over time and through intentional exploration and living from this noticing.

Of course, most may not be interested or familiar with all of the intricacies here, but they have a very general and rough understanding of it.

THE ESSENCE OF WHAT MYSTICS DESCRIBE

It’s also generally understood that awakening is what mystics across times and cultures have described.

The essence of awakening is the same, and the way it’s talked about varies across traditions and cultures.

AVAILABLE TO ANYONE

Awakening is available to anyone. As much as playing the piano or learning any skill is available to anyone.

It’s something we can explore. It’s something we can have a taste of for ourselves. And having a taste is not necessarily very difficult or something that takes a lot of time. It can happen easily and within minutes, if guided by someone familiar with the terrain and effective techniques.

And as with anything else, getting proficient with it takes dedication and time. Those drawn to it can get very familiar with the ins and outs of the awakening process.

COACHES

In the past, awakening was typically the domain of certain religions and spiritual traditions.

These days, it’s treated more as learning anything else. Depending on how we approach it and what our intention with it is, it’s treated similarly to learning a sport, painting or drawing, playing an instrument, or even learning a profession.

We approach it with a combination of theory and practice, typically with the guidance of a coach, someone familiar with the terrain and how to guide others. And exactly how that looks depends on how much in-depth we wish to go, and if it’s for our own sake, to use as an element in our profession (therapy, education, etc.), or if it’s part of training to become a coach.

We have a collective exploration of which approaches and techniques are most effective and appropriate to different groups and individuals. Coaches are generally expected to keep up with this and to learn and apply current best practices. There are, of course, individual differences and flavors, and some specialize in some aspects of awakening, in working with particular groups, or in using and developing some particular approaches.

This process is also, to a large extent, demystified and secularized.

The traditional approaches are still around and available, although just as the secular approach is informed by the traditions, the traditions are now often informed by the secular approach. They often include some of the approaches and techniques developed by the secular approach.

RESEARCH AND ACADEMIA

Awakening is generally studied by a few different branches of academia, including psychology, medicine, sociology, anthropology, and religious studies. Most universities have also created departments specifically to study awakening, and these are typically interdisciplinary and use an integral approach.

They study any and all aspects of awakening: Psychology. (Mechanisms and dynamics, common phases and aspects, challenges, benefits, how it can transform people’s perception and lives, and so on.) Biology. (Changes to the brain and nervous system, changes to any part of the body.) How do most effectively coach and support people in the process. And so on.

EDUCATION AND ECOLOGY

Meditation and approaches to give students a taste of awakening is incorporated in many schools. For most schools, it’s one of many topics the students explore, and other schools specialize in it and make it more central. Students who want to go deeper have electives or can find classes and coaches in the community.

Awakening is also often used as an aspect of sustainability and understanding of ecology. It helps people have a direct taste of oneness, which tends to transform how we perceive and relate to the wider world.

THE BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF DEMYSTIFYING

There is also an ongoing discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of demystifying awakening and approaching it in a more secularized way.

The benefits are obvious: It makes awakening available to more people. It removes some of the old misconceptions about awakening. It grounds our understanding and approach.

And it does have some drawbacks. The traditions do have valuable insights and ways of doing things (praxis) that may not be picked up by the secular approach. Some assume that secular understanding is accurate and sufficient and limit their perception and explorations.

That’s why there is a smaller movement to revive and support the traditional approaches, and this is very helpful in the bigger picture. The traditional approaches are (in)valuable aspects of the larger exploration of awakening.

ABOUT THIS VISION

What are some of the limitations and benefits to envision these kinds of futures?

One of the limitations is that we cannot predict the future. This particular vision is an extrapolation of what we are already seeing in some western cultures, especially on the west coast of the US. (Where I lived for a while and was involved in these types of communities.) It assumes a kind of linear progression, and what unfolds is rarely linear.

If one thing is (mostly) certain, it’s that the future won’t be like this. Reality is far more messy. For instance, we may see this in some subcultures and some areas of the world, while other subcultures and other areas of the world may be completely different. That’s the diversity we have seen so far through history so we can assume it will be like that in the future as well.

This is not about predicting the future. This is about envisioning itself. It’s about bringing up in me what I would like to see in the world. It’s a way to inspire me to help bring it about, even if it’s in very small ways.

Read More

Glimpses of Spirit

moe Leave a comment

The oneness we are can experience itself in innumerable ways.

Here are two ends of a typical spectrum.

(a) The oneness we are takes itself to be this human self. It takes itself to be something within its field of experience, as a separate self, and in our case this human self. This is what’s most common in the world today.

(b) The oneness we are recognizes itself as oneness. It recognizes that any experience happens within and as itself. To ourselves, the world happens within and as what we are. It happens within and as the consciousness we are.

In between those two is a field of almost endless possibilities.

I’ll mention a few common experiences on that spectrum. What they all have in common is that they are a mix of direct perception and an overlay of interpretation, and that overlay is not quite recognized for what it is.

GLIMPSES OF SPIRIT

I’ll first mention a particular experience and then write a few words about the essence of what’s going on, the more fundamental reality of it, and the filters that make it appear the way it does. I’ll also mention the invitation or opportunity in it.

A sense of the divine. Or that we are more than “just” a human self in the world

The oneness we are takes itself as a separate self, as something in particular within its field of experience. At the same time, it senses or intuits what it more fundamentally is. And it interprets this as a sense of the divine somewhere, and that we are more than this limited human self. Both of those are accurate. The invitation is to explore this sense of the divine and that we may be more than this human self.

A sense of a tree (or anything) looking back at me

The oneness we are takes itself to fundamentally be a separate self looking out at the world.

In reality, the world to us happens within and as what we are. To us, the world – including trees and anything else – happens within and as the consciousness we are. It’s then easy to have an experience of a tree or anything else being sentient and even looking back at us.

It is, in a sense, accurate. Although it’s more accurate that all of it happens within and as the consciousness we are.

A sense of Spirit in nature

We may have a sense of Spirit in nature, of nature as divine. This is a variation of the previous one.

In reality, the world to us happens within and as what we are. To us, it happens with and as the consciousness we are. To us, the world and any experience is more fundamentally consciousness. The consciousness we are takes the form of any and all content of our experience.

When the oneness we are takes itself to fundamentally be a separate self (not quite true), and it also senses its field of experience as happening within and as consciousness, it can interpret it as “Spirit in nature”.

The invitation here is to find a bit more clarity about what’s happening and notice that our whole field of experience happens within and as the consciousness we are.

A sense of being a self that’s one with all

The oneness we are takes itself to fundamentally be something within its content of experience, a separate self. (Not accurate.)

In reality, the consciousness we are is inherently one. Our field of experience – that the world to us happens within and as – is inherently one.

Because of the assumption of separation, and the habit of taking itself as a separate self, this is interpreted as “this self is one with all”. The noticing of oneness is accurate but it gets “hijacked” by the assumption of most fundamentally being a separate self.

The invitation here is to take a closer look and notice that any experience of a self or separate self also happens within the field of consciousness. It comes and goes as any other content of experience. It happens within and as the consciousness we more fundamentally are.

A sense of having had it and then lost it

The oneness we are may notice itself as oneness, or it may notice its whole field of experience as consciousness. It may tell itself that all is consciousness, or that all is Spirit or God.

It may then lose sight of this. It gets caught up in old habits of separation consciousness.

And it tells itself “I had it and then lost it”.

That’s both accurate and not accurate. It’s accurate in that the conscious noticing may be gone. And it’s not accurate in that what we are is always here. In reality, it’s all we have ever known.

The invitation here too is to take a closer look. We may get caught up in some of the experiential side-effect of the initial noticing and take that as the substance of what it’s about. That’s an approach that will fail since any content of experience, any state, comes and goes. So what is it that doesn’t come and go? What’s the real essence in the initial noticing?

A sense of all of existence as the divine

This is a bit different from the other ones. This one is more about dialing back than expanding.

We are, more fundamentally, what the world to us happens within and as. We are what our field of experience happens within and as. To us, the world happens within and as the consciousness we are.

That means that it’s easy to assume that our nature (consciousness) is the nature of all of existence.

After, it inevitably appears that way to us. It’s our direct experience.

And yet, it is an assumption. I cannot know for certain.

It’s good to be honest about this. It’s good to notice and acknowledge that what I find about my own nature doesn’t necessarily apply to all of existence. It’s good to see that what I find may be compatible with a wide range of worldviews – from atheism and materialism to more “spiritual” worldviews.

THE PLAY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

This is all the play of consciousness. It’s the consciousness we are experiencing itself in always new ways.

It’s the oneness we are taking itself as something within its field of experience, and then finding itself as oneness again. And in the process, it may have a sense of the divine in nature, or a tree looking back at itself, or of being a self one with all, and so on.

WHO AND WHAT WE ARE

I’ll say a few words about who and what we are, although I often mention it in these articles.

In one sense, we are a human self in the world. That’s not wrong and it’s an assumption that works quite well.

And yet, if we look in our own first-person experience, we may find something else.

I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the word, I am capacity for my field of experience, for the world as it appears to me.

I am what the world, to me, happens within and as. I am the consciousness the world, to me, happens within and as. I am the oneness the world, to me, happens within and as.

This is the essence of what mystics across times and cultures have described.

Read More

Waking up parts of our psyche: Become & wake up

moe Leave a comment

I have written about a “befriend & wake up” process in other articles, to help different parts of our psyche wake up and align with reality and our nature.

A variation of this is a “become & wake up” process where we take on the role of a part of us, notice our nature from the view of the part, and rest in and as that noticing to allow that part of us to align with reality.

WHY IS THIS NEEDED?

Even if we generally and “globally” recognize our nature, that doesn’t mean that all the different parts of our psyche are on board with it.

Most of these were formed within separation consciousness, and many of them will still operate from separation consciousness.

They color our perception and life in the world and sometimes get triggered more strongly.

That’s natural and there is nothing wrong with it, but it is uncomfortable and there seems to be an equally natural process in us to have these parts of us surface so they can join in with the awakening.

BECOME & AWAKEN

So how does this work?

I assume there is any number of specific ways to explore this, but the essence is the same.

Preliminary step 1: Identify a part of the psyche. Notice a part that’s operating from separation consciousness. A part that we can call a wound, hangup, or emotional issue, and is operating on an unexamined belief. A part that has taken on, and even been created by, a story. A part that goes into reactivity, defense, and contraction. A confused and stressed subpersonality. Many parts of us are, to some extent, like this. They are suffering and wish for liberation.

Optional step: Get to know the part. Examine this, if you like. Dialog with this part. Take on its perspective and get a sense of how it is to perceive and live from this view. Identify and examine its painful stories and find what’s more genuinely true for you. Thank it for protecting you. Thank it for its love for you. And so on. This can be a helpful preliminary step but is not necessary for this particular process.

Preliminary step 2: Notice your nature. Notice your nature. Find what you more fundamentally am. (Capacity for the word, what the world happens within and as.) Use headless experiments or the Big Mind process to shift into this, if needed. This is so noticing our nature comes more into the foreground.

Main step: Become & awaken: Shift into and become the part. Take on its view. And notice your nature as that part of you. Notice your nature as capacity and what the world happens within and as. Rest in and as this noticing. Allow you – as this part – to realign and shift within this noticing. Take your time. Allow it to sink in.

IDENTIFYING PARTS WITH A CHARGE

When it comes to identifying parts of me with a charge, I have a couple of favorite approaches.

One is to scan my timeline.

I go through the timeline of my life and find situations that light up, that still have a charge on them, where there is still something unresolved. Then I shift into that role, I become myself as I was then, and explore from there.

In this case, I explore awakening – noticing my nature – as the one I was then, rest in that noticing, and allow it to work on that part of me.

The past me in these situations is still a part of me. They are still here. And I find that scanning the timeline is an effective way to identify subpersonalities that still suffer and wish to join in with the awakening.

The other approach is to use others as a mirror.

Others are a mirror for me, as is anything “out there” in the world.

Whatever I see in them is something I can find in myself. I can take whatever story I have about someone or something “out there”, turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true. (It may not look the same as what I see in the world, but the essence is the same.)

I identify someone that has a charge for me, whether this is a real or fictional person or someone from a night dream. (The charge shows me that there is something unresolved there for me.) I then take on the role of that person. I imagine myself as that person.

As that person, I find what I more fundamentally am. And I rest in that noticing, allowing that part of me to align more closely with reality.

A COMPONENT OF MANY APPROACHES

I assume the “become & awaken” approach is a component of many approaches to awakening, whether it’s directly and explicitly or indirectly and implicitly.

When we do tonglen or ho’oponopno, we invite parts of us to heal. (The world is my mirror.) And, in the process, we invite them to wake up, at least if there is a general and global noticing of our nature here. We invite them to join in with the awakening.

When we do Basic Meditation, parts of us not aligned with the awakening will naturally surface. If given space, they will be recognized as having the same nature as ourselves and align with that noticing.

It’s definitely implied in the Big Mind process, and it happens indirectly as part of that process. (Some may also do it explicitly, I am not completely updated.)

In the most recent Vortex Healing class, the main teacher used a similar approach: Become the confused part of you. Do a mantra to prepare it to wake up. And as that part, ask yourself the question “What am I?” Stay with the question until something shifts and the place where the question makes sense falls away.

Using therapy as part of our process also supports this. The more we heal as human beings, the more parts of us are available to align with the oneness we are noticing itself.

Also, when we talk about embodiment in this context, it typically means to live from noticing our nature, or from the oneness we are noticing itself. And the more parts of us are on board with the awakening, the more we have the possibility to do this – more thoroughly and in more situations and areas of life.

Read More