Whenever I find myself in a mode of talking about experiences of Samadhi, the Opening of the Inner Space, I end up utilizing words such as Explosion of Conciousness, Nuclear Event, and so on, simply because within the context of my experience, this is what takes places. When consciousness really happens, it comes at you with the subtlety of a nuclear explosion and any description that does not utilize those kind of terms, to me simply indicates we have not had lift-off. Awakening is not a mellow event. It is nuclear, a TGV, a Bullet Train going through your living room at 300 miles per hour.
All your values reverse. Night beomes day and day becomes night. Black turns white, white turns black. The instant there is only 10 seconds of this is immediately followed by the entire system struggling to integrate the event, because even if one has been trained for it, prepared for it, the event leaves one reeling and dealing with this explosion and the need of connecting it with the continuing ordinariness of life … which does not stop.
The event terminates the complete artificialness of our daily perceptions and flings us into a modality of infinite spaciousness and if the flinging is really thorough, there does not remain anybody flung.
The first time this happened to me, I was 20 years old. I had spent only two years of high-intense training with a Yogi by the name of Mahindra, who taught me the classical yogic path. The path had the experience of Samadhi as its goal, so I had entered into this climate and everything I did, the books I read, they continuously pointed toward that experience. And the more I allowed this climate into my life, the more I knowingly wanted this experience. I felt the arising of a longing inside that went beyond the mind modalities of intellectual curiosity.
Therefore, it can be said that I was consciously trained for the experience so that when it came, theoretically, I should be able to sustain the impact. However, when it did come - shocking for me and also the Yogi who trained me - I felt utterly unprepared for the event. The drop disappeared into the ocean and to say that the event in a way was traumatizing, (to the mind/body system that lived in the mode of separation, of duality) would be putting it mildly.
The event brought about the revelation of infinite space, the disappearance of the mind, and the cessation of any sense of self, the experience of the Void. Therefore, as per my experience, I must say that when the Buddha talked about the experience of No-Self, Anatta, this is the best and most concise way of expressing it, much more concise than using terms such as God or Self Realization. The latter words are not as concise to me, because they suggest a Something or a Somebody, while the actual event is more the utterly electrifying experience (hair standing on end underscores it nicely!) of Nothing and Nobody, and a whole Infinity of that. The event will trigger an aliveness, more alive than anything you can imagine, close to putting your fingers into an electric outlet - that alive.
So, while I was trained for it, as said, when the explosion came, I felt utterly not ready for it. So, who or what is not ready, specifically? First, the body is not ready. The experience is felt in every cell of the body and it feels as if the very flesh, the blood, the bones undergo transformation, as if every atom of the body is giving birth. There is a sense of expansion that is extremely physical. The body itself is used to a long-held modality of dual perception, contraction and limitation. It is comfortable with that and very used to it. However, a full-on awakening wave destroys that. Hence the feeling of trauma to the body.
So, I was lucky to have had several years of training before the first major samadhi. It gave me a foundation that allowed me to deal better with those events, even though they “blew me away” each time anyway. One could not feel more out of control under the impact of Samadhi arising and the complexities that come in the wake.
Nowadays I run into people sometimes who tell me that they very much want to have Kundalini experiences. I look at them and I feel they really don’t know what they are asking for, and are mostly infinitely less ready than they believe they are.
It is no co-incidence that U.G Krishnamurti calls his awakening process the “calamity.” He calls it that way, because of the incredible amount of problems that arose for him in the wake of his awakening. And it is equally no coincidence that when he asked Ramana Maharshi, “Can you give me this experience (of awakening),” Ramana replied, “I can give it, but can you take it?” This reply is tremendously significant, with most of the implications of the answer invisible like the major portion of an iceberg.
Also, if you read the autobiography of Suzanne Segal, Collision with the Infinite, you get the same impression. Her consciousness blew open as she stepped into a bus in Paris. In her case there was no training (not in this life, anyway) and she spent the remaining years of her life struggling to integrate, very traumatized, trying to come to terms with what happened to her, only to find out that what had happened to her was the experience of the Buddhas. I was near tears when I read her story. She got the Cosmic Gift, and suffered it day in, day out for years.
The reason why I am “lucky” is because of this ongoing training, being in the presence of adepts that helped me, having Buddhas come to me in waking and dream, touching me and exploding my consciousness over a long period of time (35 years) many times. There is a certain level of getting used to this. I meet Osho, the Dalai Lama and others at night. They touch me and explosions take place. Then the explosions subside and integrate.
This has created a particular modality of life for me, one in which I have left average human consciousness a long time ago, but also one where I have not joined, in a sustained way, the Consciousness of the Buddhas. I reside in the land between. I travel to the Land of the Buddhas, not really having control to gain permanent access (you cannot control GRACE). And then I come back, but you really cannot entirely come back, you never really merge again with Human Consciousness after that. One hovers between the worlds and then kind of functions as a form of medium for the Buddhas, without completely being one. This is complex and subtle, difficult to describe.
What I have found truly peculiar, over the years, is the observation that the awakened modality, sustained or short-term, comes in a tremendous broad spectrum of presentation. One could reach the awakening mode from the angle of the atheist, or from the angle of the lover of God. Both approaches are possible. It really does not make a difference. Ultimately, Awakening is not a religious experience, but it is an existential one. Consequently, because there is so much leeway for the angle of approach, it creates completely different background modalities of the awakened person, to the point that 2 awakened beings could massively disagree with each other on just about everything. (One is a monk, like the Dalai Lama, no sex, no meat, no alcohol --- the other (for example Gurdjieff) likes to party and all of the mentioned). One does mantras, the other rejects mantras as useless. One prays, the other does not.
It is crucial to understand this and to comprehend that one modality does not make the other modality wrong. It does however take a very high degree of Mastery to realize this. Many spiritual teachers do promote their way (which worked for them) in an absolute kind of fashion, meaning, only their way works and all others are dead-wrong. Here we have the human element still going strong (I am right, everybody else is wrong) and perhaps we still have to wait for a bit more wisdom to arise in that teacher.
This brings us to realize that awakening is one thing, but teaching is another altogether. One can be awakened and a inefficient teacher, because for the awakened one to become a skilled teacher, another learning process must be activated.
Generally, people to whom awakening kind of just happened without the recollection of a prior process or by interpreting that process to be irrelevant, make terrible teachers, in fact are capable of keeping people away from awakening, because they are clueless as to the mapping of consciousness.
Here the awakened person is capable of very unawakened and unintelligent interpretations and of not being wise.
I am fully aware that the above information is not relevant for the majority of mankind and that it only will be looked upon as meaningful by a small number of people. It remains my honor and privilege then to know the diamonds in life.
This concludes today’s entry. I hope you find it helpful.
