Thursday, July 31, 2008
Going Out of Body
Going Out of Body
Recently, a friend told me that she had had an out of body experience some years ago. She was lying on her couch, suffering intensely from arthritis pain, when suddenly she shot out of her body and found herself near the ceiling, looking down on her prostrate figure. The experience lasted only a few minutes, but during that time she felt no pain.
Her story led me to think about all the other folks I have met who have also had such experiences (often referred to as oob for out of body). One such was the man I met recently in Colorado, who had seemed to be drowning, until he went out of his body and then watched himself in that desperate situation with a certain detachment until he was mysteriously thrown up out of the current and onto a rock. Another was a friend I had many years ago, who was in a doctor’s office to receive some kind of serious injection, when she found herself, terrified, clinging to the light fixture above. There are many similar accounts, especially (it seems) from those who suffered abusive childhoods or trauma as adults.
One of my favorite tales (of a different kind) involves someone who was a patient having an operation who not only went out of her body but traveled up to the roof of the hospital, where she noticed a single red shoe. How strange, she thought to herself. Later, she described her experience to the hospital staff who, of course, attributed her adventure to some side effect of the anesthesia. She finally persuaded them to send somebody up to check, and sure enough, there was the red shoe.
I myself have never had such a clear oob experience, though I often
used to do a lot of flying of various kinds in my sleep, and have many times, just as I was falling asleep, discovered myself in some strange place, a location with extremely distinct features, or else I seemed to be someone else having some unfamiliar experience which, in the dream, carried a real history of its own. How could I remember what had never happened? Of course, one seldom recalls such brief glimpses into the unknown. Like dreams, they generally vanish when we come into waking awareness.
Joseph Chilton Pearce in his recent book called "The Biology of Transcendence" gives a vivid account of his own oob experience when as a young man he traveled (in spirit) several miles to visit his sweetheart. When he returned, all the details of the journey were clear in his head, and she later confirmed that she had been doing exactly what he described at that place and time.
Once I decided to see if I could intentionally leave my body. I did, it seemed, manage to float up to the ceiling but when I got half way through, I got afraid. As I hung there, with my astral body stuck half in and half out, as it were, I suddenly realized I really didn't know what I was doing, and at that point I returned to my drowsy material self waiting below.
Skeptics have expended much time and energy debunking the near death experience, attributing it to everything from religious expectation to release of certain chemicals in the brain. They have duplicated similar effects on military trainees who were being whirled about in machines resembling those at carnivals. They seem to be comforted with the notion that near death accounts are "nothing but" chemicals behaving abnormally in the body, not true revelations of what to expect when the body expires.
But, as far as I am aware, no one has come up with a convincing scientific explanation for the out of body states. These experiences may comprise the most important discovery of our time. They offer extremely compelling evidence that consciousness is not local, that it is not dependent on a material base to operate effectively. This means that our awareness need not die when we cease to breathe and are pronounced dead by observers.
As far as I know, no one has effectively countered these descriptions from personal independent experiencers, although some talk about the rem states in sleep when something like hallucination can occur. But not everyone is asleep when the jolt skyward occurs. And the patient who wakes up and reminds the doctor of what he talked about or did during the operation (sometimes describing actions which could only be observed from above) is not creating fiction.
I personally think awareness continues after death, when the spirit leaves its body shell, which is no longer needed as a vehicle of consciousness during this particular life cycle.
An--I will go one step further. I think sometimes that profound and spontaneous kundalini awakening, when the subtle body suddenly opens in delight as the energies travel to the crown and the effulgent bliss of the universe flows in, is in fact a remembering or reawakening of past experience, a reconnection with other existences and states of being, either here on this planet in past eras or in the interim planes, where we existed in fact as who we truly are.
Dorothy Walters
July 30, 2008
Recently, a friend told me that she had had an out of body experience some years ago. She was lying on her couch, suffering intensely from arthritis pain, when suddenly she shot out of her body and found herself near the ceiling, looking down on her prostrate figure. The experience lasted only a few minutes, but during that time she felt no pain.
Her story led me to think about all the other folks I have met who have also had such experiences (often referred to as oob for out of body). One such was the man I met recently in Colorado, who had seemed to be drowning, until he went out of his body and then watched himself in that desperate situation with a certain detachment until he was mysteriously thrown up out of the current and onto a rock. Another was a friend I had many years ago, who was in a doctor’s office to receive some kind of serious injection, when she found herself, terrified, clinging to the light fixture above. There are many similar accounts, especially (it seems) from those who suffered abusive childhoods or trauma as adults.
One of my favorite tales (of a different kind) involves someone who was a patient having an operation who not only went out of her body but traveled up to the roof of the hospital, where she noticed a single red shoe. How strange, she thought to herself. Later, she described her experience to the hospital staff who, of course, attributed her adventure to some side effect of the anesthesia. She finally persuaded them to send somebody up to check, and sure enough, there was the red shoe.
I myself have never had such a clear oob experience, though I often
used to do a lot of flying of various kinds in my sleep, and have many times, just as I was falling asleep, discovered myself in some strange place, a location with extremely distinct features, or else I seemed to be someone else having some unfamiliar experience which, in the dream, carried a real history of its own. How could I remember what had never happened? Of course, one seldom recalls such brief glimpses into the unknown. Like dreams, they generally vanish when we come into waking awareness.
Joseph Chilton Pearce in his recent book called "The Biology of Transcendence" gives a vivid account of his own oob experience when as a young man he traveled (in spirit) several miles to visit his sweetheart. When he returned, all the details of the journey were clear in his head, and she later confirmed that she had been doing exactly what he described at that place and time.
Once I decided to see if I could intentionally leave my body. I did, it seemed, manage to float up to the ceiling but when I got half way through, I got afraid. As I hung there, with my astral body stuck half in and half out, as it were, I suddenly realized I really didn't know what I was doing, and at that point I returned to my drowsy material self waiting below.
Skeptics have expended much time and energy debunking the near death experience, attributing it to everything from religious expectation to release of certain chemicals in the brain. They have duplicated similar effects on military trainees who were being whirled about in machines resembling those at carnivals. They seem to be comforted with the notion that near death accounts are "nothing but" chemicals behaving abnormally in the body, not true revelations of what to expect when the body expires.
But, as far as I am aware, no one has come up with a convincing scientific explanation for the out of body states. These experiences may comprise the most important discovery of our time. They offer extremely compelling evidence that consciousness is not local, that it is not dependent on a material base to operate effectively. This means that our awareness need not die when we cease to breathe and are pronounced dead by observers.
As far as I know, no one has effectively countered these descriptions from personal independent experiencers, although some talk about the rem states in sleep when something like hallucination can occur. But not everyone is asleep when the jolt skyward occurs. And the patient who wakes up and reminds the doctor of what he talked about or did during the operation (sometimes describing actions which could only be observed from above) is not creating fiction.
I personally think awareness continues after death, when the spirit leaves its body shell, which is no longer needed as a vehicle of consciousness during this particular life cycle.
An--I will go one step further. I think sometimes that profound and spontaneous kundalini awakening, when the subtle body suddenly opens in delight as the energies travel to the crown and the effulgent bliss of the universe flows in, is in fact a remembering or reawakening of past experience, a reconnection with other existences and states of being, either here on this planet in past eras or in the interim planes, where we existed in fact as who we truly are.
Dorothy Walters
July 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Listener (poem)
The Listener
He did not pretend
to be one of them.
Louise Gluck
“Exile”
Nor she. What use was it,
to wear their adornments
and carefully chosen clothes,
their ointments on cheek
and lip,
to join their aimless chatter,
when, obviously,
nothing really matched.
She preferred jeans
and flannel shirts,
moccasins
with thick socks,
things you would not
wear to a party
or church.
What she longed for
(but did not yet know)
was the authentic,
something like what Thoreau
found in the woods,
or Homer in his sightless clarity.
What was the point of all this
distraction and display
when your heart
longed to be sung to
by voices long dead.
So she kept listening
in her living room
to the music not of the spheres
but sounds which issued from
the creaking machine
He did not pretend
to be one of them.
Louise Gluck
“Exile”
Nor she. What use was it,
to wear their adornments
and carefully chosen clothes,
their ointments on cheek
and lip,
to join their aimless chatter,
when, obviously,
nothing really matched.
She preferred jeans
and flannel shirts,
moccasins
with thick socks,
things you would not
wear to a party
or church.
What she longed for
(but did not yet know)
was the authentic,
something like what Thoreau
found in the woods,
or Homer in his sightless clarity.
What was the point of all this
distraction and display
when your heart
longed to be sung to
by voices long dead.
So she kept listening
in her living room
to the music not of the spheres
but sounds which issued from
the creaking machine
in the corner,
enough to flood the air with heaven,
circling again and again into
the Brahms, the Mozart,
Beethovan with his commanding
tones.
She was befriended
by Dante and Plato,
Goethe and Keats,
those who had kept
a serious eye on the world
and were not afraid of
essential things.
Year by year
she attended,
listened,
became the vessel,
witness of unfolding truth.
Dorothy Walters
July 29, 2008
enough to flood the air with heaven,
circling again and again into
the Brahms, the Mozart,
Beethovan with his commanding
tones.
She was befriended
by Dante and Plato,
Goethe and Keats,
those who had kept
a serious eye on the world
and were not afraid of
essential things.
Year by year
she attended,
listened,
became the vessel,
witness of unfolding truth.
Dorothy Walters
July 29, 2008
(Note: The above poem is not of the kind I described yesterday. This one is more "from the head" rather than "from the heart," but, like all poetry, it is derived from the cooperation of the unconsciousness and conscious minds.)
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The Raw Honey of God
The Raw Honey of God
Sometimes people ask me why I write poems such as (many of) these, so apart from the modern tradition, tongued in the syllables of the ancient sacred voice.
Such poems are the raw honey of God. They are not written for critics, those who have wrapped themselves in the defenses of irony and disbelief, but rather for those who know the world of the deep spirit, the regions of love where the open heart speaks to the open heart. They are like a treasure chest, flung open to all who pass by. Some will glance in, see nothing but trinkets and baubles, and hurry on to seek more tangible rewards. Others will discern pure gold, theirs for the taking, and claim these ancient coins in sheer delight, or as guides to aid them on their way.
I have had the boldness to use the word "God" in the title, but of course, I am not talking about the austere being who was introduced to us in Sunday School or mass. “God" carries heavy connotations of gender (the mighty He of the Old Testament.) But, as we now know, God is beyond sexual typing and definition, being pure, indescribable, ineffable, boundless, uncreated Love. That's all he/she/it is-(the dance of the atoms in the blood, the rocks, the pull and tide of the seas, the eternal communion of the stars in the endlessly turning heavens.)
Those who have known awakened kundalini have discovered the truth of this reality in their own bodies. For (when all goes well) as the divine spirit enters, God (in the most comprehensive sense) invades every cell and corpuscle, each nerve and fiber and inner molecule, with immeasurable rapture, spinning the being like an atom whirling on its own axis of joy.
It may seem like pride to link these verses to such ineffable Mystery. I do not mean to imply that they are the "literal truths" of sacred script, infallible messages from an invisible supernal realm. Merely that at the time many "came through" I often felt (as poets have from the beginnings) literally in-spired, infused by holy presence, breathed by god. Those who know the language of mysticism will recognize that the descriptions are those of a well known path, that of the traveler seeking source and the essential union which will, finally, bring the spirit home.
Dorothy Walters
July 27, 2008
Sometimes people ask me why I write poems such as (many of) these, so apart from the modern tradition, tongued in the syllables of the ancient sacred voice.
Such poems are the raw honey of God. They are not written for critics, those who have wrapped themselves in the defenses of irony and disbelief, but rather for those who know the world of the deep spirit, the regions of love where the open heart speaks to the open heart. They are like a treasure chest, flung open to all who pass by. Some will glance in, see nothing but trinkets and baubles, and hurry on to seek more tangible rewards. Others will discern pure gold, theirs for the taking, and claim these ancient coins in sheer delight, or as guides to aid them on their way.
I have had the boldness to use the word "God" in the title, but of course, I am not talking about the austere being who was introduced to us in Sunday School or mass. “God" carries heavy connotations of gender (the mighty He of the Old Testament.) But, as we now know, God is beyond sexual typing and definition, being pure, indescribable, ineffable, boundless, uncreated Love. That's all he/she/it is-(the dance of the atoms in the blood, the rocks, the pull and tide of the seas, the eternal communion of the stars in the endlessly turning heavens.)
Those who have known awakened kundalini have discovered the truth of this reality in their own bodies. For (when all goes well) as the divine spirit enters, God (in the most comprehensive sense) invades every cell and corpuscle, each nerve and fiber and inner molecule, with immeasurable rapture, spinning the being like an atom whirling on its own axis of joy.
It may seem like pride to link these verses to such ineffable Mystery. I do not mean to imply that they are the "literal truths" of sacred script, infallible messages from an invisible supernal realm. Merely that at the time many "came through" I often felt (as poets have from the beginnings) literally in-spired, infused by holy presence, breathed by god. Those who know the language of mysticism will recognize that the descriptions are those of a well known path, that of the traveler seeking source and the essential union which will, finally, bring the spirit home.
Dorothy Walters
July 27, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
First the Ecstasy
First the Ecstasy
First the ecstasy,
then the laundry.
Jack Kornfield
All morning it was laundry—
the endless loads
shoveled again and again
into the waiting maw,
ravenous animal demanding its feed.
And then there were dishes,
piled high as if constructing
a rampart to heaven,
underpinnings of a ziggurat,
and as I scrubbed I wondered
how I had neglected so long
these tokens of my mortality,
cast remnants of my
one time joy.
Though it all I wondered,
when I would again take flight,
when be released
to the blood currents
I know so well.
But then I stumbled on your poem
and knew that this was the place
I was seeking,
the effervescent sea I wanted to sail,
yours the mouth I wished to kiss.
Dorothy Walters
July 27, 2008
First the ecstasy,
then the laundry.
Jack Kornfield
All morning it was laundry—
the endless loads
shoveled again and again
into the waiting maw,
ravenous animal demanding its feed.
And then there were dishes,
piled high as if constructing
a rampart to heaven,
underpinnings of a ziggurat,
and as I scrubbed I wondered
how I had neglected so long
these tokens of my mortality,
cast remnants of my
one time joy.
Though it all I wondered,
when I would again take flight,
when be released
to the blood currents
I know so well.
But then I stumbled on your poem
and knew that this was the place
I was seeking,
the effervescent sea I wanted to sail,
yours the mouth I wished to kiss.
Dorothy Walters
July 27, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Quiet Spirit (poem)
The Quiet Spirit
There are many commencements and many arrivals, many revelations and many dark nights of the soul. At times we traverse the same ground again and again, barely making progress. We stumble forward, touching the walls of the narrow tunnel for reassurance and support, seeking the light, which we know is waiting ahead, for we have been pierced by its glory many times before.
I have arrived here
after eons of struggle.
I have suffered
many indignities,
had many epiphanies
as I went.
Larks sang to me
as they spiraled up
at morning,
rainbows stained the sky,
pointing me ahead.
Always, I followed the inner music,
whether I lay down
in flowery meadows
or fell into bogs
along the way.
Who knows what I was
when I began this journey,
who I am
now that I am here.
Dorothy Walters
July 25, 2008
There are many commencements and many arrivals, many revelations and many dark nights of the soul. At times we traverse the same ground again and again, barely making progress. We stumble forward, touching the walls of the narrow tunnel for reassurance and support, seeking the light, which we know is waiting ahead, for we have been pierced by its glory many times before.
I have arrived here
after eons of struggle.
I have suffered
many indignities,
had many epiphanies
as I went.
Larks sang to me
as they spiraled up
at morning,
rainbows stained the sky,
pointing me ahead.
Always, I followed the inner music,
whether I lay down
in flowery meadows
or fell into bogs
along the way.
Who knows what I was
when I began this journey,
who I am
now that I am here.
Dorothy Walters
July 25, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Our Many Reactions to Kundalini
The ancients had it right. In order to prepare for kundalini, they withdrew from society, went into caves or forests (or nunneries and monasteries), carefully monitored their diets, strengthened and purified their bodies and spirits through yoga and meditative practice, sought to know God as a constant companion of their lives, and found a teacher qualified to lead them through this delicate process. The aim was to allow the energies to awaken slowly, gently, so as not to disrupt the body's normal functions, to permit it to adjust gradually to these new demands being made upon it on all levels.
Unfortunately, these are not the conditions under which most of us experience "spontaneous awakening" today. We are plunged into a wild river midstream, and suddenly it is sink or swim. We may grab desperately for a life preserver, flail about in the water, strain to keep our head above the torrent. This is the way of spontaneous massive transformation.
For some, the experience is overwhelmingly blissful, at least in the opening stages. We may be flooded with love, feel God moving in our bodies, know instant connection with the world and all that it contains. Everything looks beautiful--we may have wondrous visions, experience thrilling synchronicities, and begin to channel other voices or write spontaneous poetry. We are like creatures bound in darkness for centuries, suddenly released into light. All the levels of our being are awakened and finally seem to function in harmony--mind, body, spirit, the cells themselves celebrating this glorious transfiguration.
Others have a quite different experience. Those who have undergone trauma from childhood abuse--as well as adult catastrophe--may go into shock, know pain beyond description, fall into perpetual agony. The reason? That early suffering has set up patterns of response within the nerve circuits themselves, and these old ways of reacting will surface once again. The "bliss flows" encounter constant blocks and impediments and become instead "pain flows." To undo these knots of being, we must undergo long periods of healing through psychotherapy, body work, diet, supplements--and above all, we need massive doses of love. We need to be held and reassured that we are "o.k." no matter what the childhood script was to the contrary. We must learn to accept and validate ourselves as worthy human beings, give ourselves credit for who we are (good and worthy people, with a right to be and function, to touch and be touched at our deepest levels, to love and be loved). This project can take a very long time, but it is our assignment now, the work we must do to survive.
And there is another source of impediment to easy awakening. Many of us were not actually abused sexually or physically in childhood, but we simply did not get the right messages from our mothers to establish ourselves in confidence and assurance as rightful members of this society and citizens of this world. We were not told explicitly or indirectly that we were fine as we were, that we deserved limitless love, that we were progeny to be proud of. Perhaps the mother was uncaring, perhaps she herself was insecure and projected onto the child all her own fears of not "measuring up" to the judgmental standards of a demanding society. She may have consistently delivered to the child messages of inadequacy, and thus endowed her with a lifelong sense of sadness for her ostensible failures. We learned to be overly self critical, to deny our own capacities, to withdraw from the world, to tread all too cautiously when we were out in society. There was always an ache in the heart for something not named. We may have become afraid to feel. (I know a lot about this pattern, since this was my own.) We may have starred intellectually, but emotionally we still had danger spots. We were starving and did not know it. We may have clung to the other as a mother substitute, a defense against the cruel world.
At some point, there must be a breakthrough, a confrontation at its most painful levels, with this knowledge carried in the cells. We may have read about it in books, but now we must experience it in our blood. When that happens, real healing can begin and the energies can move forward more smoothly. Until then, the blocks and unsuccessful attempts at opening will continue, intermittently if not continuously, even though the bliss may also manifest in exteme measure. There are many ups and downs, periods of progression and pain, glory and despair.
And--we must not forget the effect of more immediate stress on our lives. Stress can trigger kundalini, and bring us into unimaginable bliss, but constant stress can slow or block our progress. One of the challenges of the new state is relationship. Lucky ones have partners who offer support and encouragement, and perhaps even join in the journey of spiritual transformation. Others find that the new state of being introduces alienation, resentment, and hostility from partners who feel cut off or abandoned. There is a high rate of divorce and separation among those who undergo extreme transformational experience. The two are now living in separate worlds, and they must decide how to move forward as a manageable unit, or else agree to part. The alternative is to cling to a now dysfunctional arrangement. (In addition there is the isolation often imposed by the inability to communicate the new state to friends and relatives, who lack understanding and comprehension of such "spiritual emergence" periods.)
In my case, I stayed with my partner for many years, during which time we grew more and more tense, more and more depressed, more and more distressed by the other's lack of understanding. I felt myself constantly perturbed, with more and more symptoms emerging. Always I wore heavy armor, always I was in a state of high tension and acute anxiety. The constant strain played havoc with my system, especially in the gastrointestinal area (as my doctor pointed out, the "gut", which is the entire area from the esophagus to the end, is the first to react to stress--thus problems in this area are often especially prominent during kundalini openings.) Only when she and I decided (finally) to live separately (just two years ago), did my symptoms virtually disappear, my digestion settle and my system balance. I had tried all sorts of gastrointestinal remedies previously--enzymes, fiber, dietary changes, herbs, supplements, ways to soothe the hiatal (esophageal) hernia--all helped, but nothing really fully worked until I escaped this recurrent source of stress, and--at last--felt what it must be like to be "normal."
Doubtless, many who undergo spontaneous awakening already possess acutely refined nervous systems, and kundalini intensifies an already sensitive set of reponses. Hence the amplification of both pleasure and pain when the energies emerge into consciousness, leading to both the agony and the ecstasy of the process.
We each follow our own path, have our own set of challenges, and must discover our own remedies. Kundalini is a gift we must (ultimately) earn, but it is a blessing beyond measure, for it allows us to know who we truly are. It tells us why we are here, and shows us the real purpose of our lives.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Getting Ready for Kundalini (more from Jana Dixon)
Once more, although again I would not necessarily endorse all of the assertions contained here, Jana Dixon's reflections on the need for adequate preparation for kundalini call for serious consideration on our parts. Indeed, this excerpt would provide an excellent basis for group discussion and response.
I have taken the liberty to put in bold type some of the statements which I consider especially important. The excerpt itself appears in italics.
Preparation
Our modern cultural conditions such as sedentary lifestyle, removal from nature and cooked-clogging diets are not conducive to kundalini flow or awakening. This means when we do pop it tends to be explosive rather than an ongoing thread of alchemy throughout our lifetime. Still I don't think it should be the aim of spiritual practices like yoga and meditation to have a nice smooth calm awakening. Safe growth is translation not transformation. It is the machination of the ego to want to control the process of evolution, either through balance or through exaggeration of the extremes. Spiritual practices however can tend to tame the ego's resistance to the process so that less friction and damage to the organism occurs, thereby making the metamorphic process more thorough and enduring. If one wants to establish a kundalini practice then I personally think that fasting, a raw diet, overt-generosity, compassionate action and adventure to be a better method of popping than preoccupation with yogic practices.
Funny thing was in 2000 on arriving in Boulder, I was heading for the major blast and I was spontaneously doing a kundalini practice and I didn't know it at the time. Some of the things I was doing daily were meditation on iron rocks at sunset, alternatively jumping in a cold stream then putting hot rocks on my body, juicing, running in the hills, and hanging. If I didn't do these things chances are I would not have popped so richly. We have to prepare ourselves to meet the Beloved. This is the essential work of elevating the vehicle to receive the Self.
It is the unusual nature and intensity of metamorphosis which forces respect, awareness, awe and faith. Fear is unavoidable with the hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system and the unknown quality of what is happening and where it's going. But in the end passing through this fear leaves one with such an altered perspective and physiology that one essentially transcends the collective fear. Only then do we have any power to dispel consensus fear and increase love in the world. We become karma eating machines, offering cellular forgiveness.
Whether rocky or calm one always has the awakening specifically designed for one's own needs. Each individual is different. Some nuts are harder to crack than others and so take more force or unusual mechanisms to open. Kundalini herself will guide the way if we listen intently to be informed from within and hold lightly to our "shoulds" and known concepts.
During Gobi Krishna's major cycle he was having severe problems with extreme energy, aberrant mental states, heat, fear and pain. Although there was very little help available for him (even in India at the time), someone did tell him that if the energy goes up the right sympathetic trunk (pingala) that this could result in the symptoms he was experiencing, and possibly end in death. During the height of his suffering he had the intuition to concentrate on directing the current up the central channel of the spine. After success at doing this, his torturous symptoms abated and he entered a more gentle, blissful and illuminated awakening, which lasted the rest of his life.
Those who have had a childhood of abuse, neglect of dysfunction, tend to have more catastrophic awakenings because their systems are built for repression and dissociation. This is not always the case but it is a pattern. One can imagine that the more loving-touch and self-validation, the child receives the more efficiently wired their nervous system will be, and the fewer psycho-somatic and emotional blocks they will have. But consciousness will out no matter what the formative structure.
The nature of one's individual awakening not only depends on one's past history it is also determined by one's future history. That is, what one is to become and experience is already at play in one's present. In-forming us trans-temporally in ways the rational mind cannot perceive. The tree is already inherent in the seed. The future magnetically draws us toward it. One could call this, the karma of the future.
It seems like the more open, surrendered and evolved one is, then the more challenge one is faced with in incarnating one's soul. So here's the rub...the more spiritual preparation one does, the larger the flow of kundalini coursing through one. But if we don't have some form of yoga and meditation, then we are upstream without a paddle and are battered about on the rapids with no sense of control over our boat. Traditional spiritual practices were developed to both bring on an awakening, give one the strength and skills for navigating the awakening and to substantiate the awakening in the life of the individual and his/her relationship to the world.
Pranotthana is Sanskrit for intensified, uplifted life-energy. I find it endlessly ironic that the hardest thing we will ever have to face in life is the pranotthana of our Self. Fortunately now with modern science we can largely understand the unusual and disturbing symptoms, raise our homeostatic coping ability and avoid a lot of the dangers posed by radically increased life-force. Although they had traditional medicines and intuitive wisdom, the amazing Realizers of the past did not have the comfort of scientific rationality by which to understand and accept what was happening to them.
Ramakrishna told his disciples that after several samadhis, he actually feared that he would no longer be able to look after himself. Because the old has to die before the new emerges, there will always be this feeling of being completely "out of our depth" during some leg of the journey. However through rational understanding, self-inquiry and reassurance from the experience of others, we can greatly reduce secondary stress, resistance and negative coping mechanisms, such that we can learn to flow with the evolutionary force, rather than fight against it.
Our attitude toward being "out of our depth," and toward the death of the old and how well we can accept the Great Unknown, will largely determine how well we weather our kundalini journey. If we fight with kundalini it will harm us, but if we learn the cosmic ways of metamorphosis and fall into sublime relationship with it, trusting the very force of the power itself, it will transform our frog-self into our Royal being.
The yogic traditions that were developed in response to the evolutionary urge include:
Raja Yoga--The development of consciousness
Jnana Yoga--The refinement of knowledge
Karma Yoga--The science of right actions
Hatha Yoga--Power over the body
Bhakti Yoga-- Right spiritual action, devotion, surrender.
All of us need to develop and integrate these various sides of ourselves to support a positive awakening, however we will likely be drawn more toward one or another at various times of our lives. Of course this rounded development is none other than taking care of the three domains of Being: I, We and It, which is outlined throughout Ken Wilber's work. He gives Integral Practice suggestions in Integral Psychology on page 544; and One Taste page 130; and also in The Essential Ken Wilber on page 105. The Integral Institute has put together a Integral Life Practice Starter Kit to help with establishing ones own integral spiritual practice. Integral Spirituality: The Role of Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World by Ken Wilber, Aug 8, 2006. For a porthole into the Wilber World go to: Integral Institute
Integral lifestyle is essential to balance body, brain function, emotions, intellect and spirit. If we do not apply ourselves to developing our lives integrally then we tend to narrow our focus and become habitually lopsided real fast. Then any self-realization our awakening has given us is undermined by the lack of balanced foundation to our lives. The amplified energies and awareness of awakening will tend to exaggerate the insufficiencies in our lifestyle and being, making it easier to see where we need to apply ourselves.
During a kundalini awakening we are at a lifetime peak in pituitary potency, this raises our center of being to the psychic level, through which we have access to a vastly higher vision and taste of reality. While at that level we cannot fit our larger being down into the consensus flatland "reality," thus when in this higher operational mode we become acquainted with our essential aloneness.
As well as the endocrine glands, the spleen, liver and stomach-brain, heart-brain are radically important to the metamorphic process. We can assume that the reserves in liver and spleen are being used up during the peak, and this along with exhaustion of neurotransmitters, hormones, enzymes etc... causes the classic burnout effects. After the 3 year peak is over the pituitary hormones drop off and we can fall into a slump, losing our psychic abilities, inner-navigation, motivation, attractiveness and attraction to others, purpose, meaning, drive, zest etc... From the heights of Everest we may drop back down to crowd consciousness and forget the power of our visions.
One thing we must be aware of while at the height of our psychic function is that as the awakening leaves us, and as we go into the exhaustion phase we might become "less" psychic than we were prior to the awakening. As a culture when we learn to manage kundalini without excessive organic damage, we should be able to grow in a fashion that prevents horrendous slumps in our functioning. But we should anticipate and be "prepared" for a loss of physic ability so that we do not become soul-sick from our apparent loss of depth.
Integral practice prior to awakening will deepen the integration and integrity of our hormonal base so that when an awakening occurs we can use the peaking energies and hormones to productive effect, rather than have them wasted in resistance, dysfunction and coping mechanisms. Integral practice will permanently up our baseline pituitary hormone levels so that we do not fall quite as low after an awakening. . . .
It is the unusual nature and intensity of metamorphosis which forces respect, awareness, awe and faith. Fear is unavoidable with the hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system and the unknown quality of what is happening and where it's going. But in the end passing through this fear leaves one with such an altered perspective and physiology that one essentially transcends the collective fear. Only then do we have any power to dispel consensus fear and increase love in the world. We become karma eating machines, offering cellular forgiveness.
Whether rocky or calm one always has the awakening specifically designed for one's own needs. Each individual is different. Some nuts are harder to crack than others and so take more force or unusual mechanisms to open. Kundalini herself will guide the way if we listen intently to be informed from within and hold lightly to our "shoulds" and known concepts.
During Gobi Krishna's major cycle he was having severe problems with extreme energy, aberrant mental states, heat, fear and pain. Although there was very little help available for him (even in India at the time), someone did tell him that if the energy goes up the right sympathetic trunk (pingala) that this could result in the symptoms he was experiencing, and possibly end in death. During the height of his suffering he had the intuition to concentrate on directing the current up the central channel of the spine. After success at doing this, his torturous symptoms abated and he entered a more gentle, blissful and illuminated awakening, which lasted the rest of his life.
Those who have had a childhood of abuse, neglect of dysfunction, tend to have more catastrophic awakenings because their systems are built for repression and dissociation. This is not always the case but it is a pattern. One can imagine that the more loving-touch and self-validation, the child receives the more efficiently wired their nervous system will be, and the fewer psycho-somatic and emotional blocks they will have. But consciousness will out no matter what the formative structure.
The nature of one's individual awakening not only depends on one's past history it is also determined by one's future history. That is, what one is to become and experience is already at play in one's present. In-forming us trans-temporally in ways the rational mind cannot perceive. The tree is already inherent in the seed. The future magnetically draws us toward it. One could call this, the karma of the future.
It seems like the more open, surrendered and evolved one is, then the more challenge one is faced with in incarnating one's soul. So here's the rub...the more spiritual preparation one does, the larger the flow of kundalini coursing through one. But if we don't have some form of yoga and meditation, then we are upstream without a paddle and are battered about on the rapids with no sense of control over our boat. Traditional spiritual practices were developed to both bring on an awakening, give one the strength and skills for navigating the awakening and to substantiate the awakening in the life of the individual and his/her relationship to the world.
Pranotthana is Sanskrit for intensified, uplifted life-energy. I find it endlessly ironic that the hardest thing we will ever have to face in life is the pranotthana of our Self. Fortunately now with modern science we can largely understand the unusual and disturbing symptoms, raise our homeostatic coping ability and avoid a lot of the dangers posed by radically increased life-force. Although they had traditional medicines and intuitive wisdom, the amazing Realizers of the past did not have the comfort of scientific rationality by which to understand and accept what was happening to them.
Ramakrishna told his disciples that after several samadhis, he actually feared that he would no longer be able to look after himself. Because the old has to die before the new emerges, there will always be this feeling of being completely "out of our depth" during some leg of the journey. However through rational understanding, self-inquiry and reassurance from the experience of others, we can greatly reduce secondary stress, resistance and negative coping mechanisms, such that we can learn to flow with the evolutionary force, rather than fight against it.
Our attitude toward being "out of our depth," and toward the death of the old and how well we can accept the Great Unknown, will largely determine how well we weather our kundalini journey. If we fight with kundalini it will harm us, but if we learn the cosmic ways of metamorphosis and fall into sublime relationship with it, trusting the very force of the power itself, it will transform our frog-self into our Royal being.
The yogic traditions that were developed in response to the evolutionary urge include:
Raja Yoga--The development of consciousness
Jnana Yoga--The refinement of knowledge
Karma Yoga--The science of right actions
Hatha Yoga--Power over the body
Bhakti Yoga-- Right spiritual action, devotion, surrender.
All of us need to develop and integrate these various sides of ourselves to support a positive awakening, however we will likely be drawn more toward one or another at various times of our lives. Of course this rounded development is none other than taking care of the three domains of Being: I, We and It, which is outlined throughout Ken Wilber's work. He gives Integral Practice suggestions in Integral Psychology on page 544; and One Taste page 130; and also in The Essential Ken Wilber on page 105. The Integral Institute has put together a Integral Life Practice Starter Kit to help with establishing ones own integral spiritual practice. Integral Spirituality: The Role of Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World by Ken Wilber, Aug 8, 2006. For a porthole into the Wilber World go to: Integral Institute
Integral lifestyle is essential to balance body, brain function, emotions, intellect and spirit. If we do not apply ourselves to developing our lives integrally then we tend to narrow our focus and become habitually lopsided real fast. Then any self-realization our awakening has given us is undermined by the lack of balanced foundation to our lives. The amplified energies and awareness of awakening will tend to exaggerate the insufficiencies in our lifestyle and being, making it easier to see where we need to apply ourselves.
During a kundalini awakening we are at a lifetime peak in pituitary potency, this raises our center of being to the psychic level, through which we have access to a vastly higher vision and taste of reality. While at that level we cannot fit our larger being down into the consensus flatland "reality," thus when in this higher operational mode we become acquainted with our essential aloneness.
As well as the endocrine glands, the spleen, liver and stomach-brain, heart-brain are radically important to the metamorphic process. We can assume that the reserves in liver and spleen are being used up during the peak, and this along with exhaustion of neurotransmitters, hormones, enzymes etc... causes the classic burnout effects. After the 3 year peak is over the pituitary hormones drop off and we can fall into a slump, losing our psychic abilities, inner-navigation, motivation, attractiveness and attraction to others, purpose, meaning, drive, zest etc... From the heights of Everest we may drop back down to crowd consciousness and forget the power of our visions.
One thing we must be aware of while at the height of our psychic function is that as the awakening leaves us, and as we go into the exhaustion phase we might become "less" psychic than we were prior to the awakening. As a culture when we learn to manage kundalini without excessive organic damage, we should be able to grow in a fashion that prevents horrendous slumps in our functioning. But we should anticipate and be "prepared" for a loss of physic ability so that we do not become soul-sick from our apparent loss of depth.
Integral practice prior to awakening will deepen the integration and integrity of our hormonal base so that when an awakening occurs we can use the peaking energies and hormones to productive effect, rather than have them wasted in resistance, dysfunction and coping mechanisms. Integral practice will permanently up our baseline pituitary hormone levels so that we do not fall quite as low after an awakening. . . .
What is the motive of the need to kindle kundalini? I question the soundness of trying to initiate kundalini via yoga practices. I think just to have a yoga/meditation practice for its own sake is the correct way to go about it. In my experience kundalini sparks up spontaneously in the course of one's life through the interplay of stress/release, pain/pleasure, trauma/achievement. Going after kundalini is like going after orgasm for its own sake, it's masturbation. Saying that however, I think that only the raising of kundalini (or various extreme life experiences that facilitate neuronal dissolution and regrowth), can free us from the pain-body, neurosis, trauma and the miasmas of past history that we have recorded in our tissues.
We can never know what kundalini is like until it sparks up and in our unbalanced western bodies the fire is going to pretty much dismantle our existing life. You have to be spiritually advanced or supported in order to keep up productivity and function during the height of the flame. Everyone is going to get some downtime, some crisis, some death--this is unavoidable during a full-on awakening. Yet to be afraid of kundalini only amplifies the dangers, for it is like being afraid of one's own soul. Realizing that kundalini is the very process of incarnation itself, we can devote the very best of ourselves to learning all we can, and respecting the process with the same devotion we would apply to God. A triumphant, successful kundalini awakening is reliant on our potential to surrender to illumination, ourSelf and love.
The adventure of Self discovery takes us to our edge, puts us in various life and death situations that quicken our spiritual metabolism. Through adventure we evolve by facing challenge and so real life skills are learnt. We grow by living out our hero's journey. We discover the various characters, heroes and antiheros within.
How does spiritual practice fit into the Hero's journey in the making of soul? Spiritual practice won't make a soul, only the Hero's journey will. However, practice will prepare us and give us resources for the journey. At times a left-brain methodical approach might be what is needed to build strength, energy and hope. Kind of like, build ones inner resources and the journey will come! Spiritual practice helps us maintain our core and ballast as we are going on our adventure, but it's not the adventure itself. Our adventure is nothing other than following our Muse.
Of course it's helpful to have a guide or friends on the path, but if one wants to be an independent researcher one needs to do it alone, for the amount of misinformation and distraction out there is infinite. Also, through having to guide oneself, one finds the inner guide whom is infinitely intelligent. If we feel the need to rely on outside sources, we may remain dependent instead of discovering the source within. The progression of maturity goes: dependent--self-survival--self-actualization. The more we fail and have to pull "ourselves" up, the further we get in the process of self-actualization. The beauty of having a teacher or master is that through state-resonance we can stabilize ourselves faster, and have less secondary symptoms and fear. But for an investigator such as myself, I have to go it alone, it's my duty in consciousness, for only then can I bring "new" riches into the world.
Meditation leads to a balancing of the neuronal activity of left/right hemispheres, overall brain syncopation, balances the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems, and reduces the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline to provide a deeper rest, relaxation and recovery period. The inhibiting neurotransmitter GABA increases in the blood during meditation. Regular meditation will permanently reduce the baseline activation of the Hypthalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis.
Some of the factors that play into meditations benefital effects are perhaps magnetization of blood and economy of enzyme use. It probably leads to growth of neurons, increased dentrite connections, regeneration of receptor sites, conservation of neurotransmitters, plasticity of brain function, hence enhancing learning and memory. Not to mention the "potentization" of the hormonal system through maximizing the health of the pituitary gland. Also with increased ionization of the cerebral spinal fluid, the action potentials of the nerves are stronger. Thus the body is able to substantiate the structure of the Higher Self, essentially incarnating a deeper more profound human experience. So this is like amplifying ones neurology such that the governing "host" has more conscious control over the bodymind. Only that which is made conscious can be "dropped."
The way I see it is that meditation reduces friction, strengthens, detoxifies and regenerates. With the balancing of the autonomic nervous system there is a removal of excess energy from reptilian defense system, thus allowing brain function to become more contemporary rather than ruled by past trauma and reptilian mechanisms. This obviously gives us more prefrontal control over our amygdala (fear center) and limbic brain, and this could be described as a maturing or enlightenment of the mind. Thus new energy and consciousness is made available for higher human capacities rather than being wasted away in reactive animistic responses to our environment and autonomic coping mechanisms to the stresses and traumas of life. The orbitofrontal regulation that our mother originally "provided" (to the degree that she engaged in primal mothering) is now taken over by meditation and spiritual practices in the individuating aspirant.
Only that which is made conscious can be "let go."Is kundalini a Divine or God Energy? Basically it is love. That is the easiest way to describe it...what Joseph Chilton Pearce calls the Intelligence of the Heart and Teilhard de Chardin sees as the next revolution in harnessing the forces of the Universe. It is the intelligence within the atom, cell, organ, brain, organism lit up, integrated and resonant with Love energy. It has the bliss component that anaethetizes former structures so the larger order can transform the being. It is what we mythic humans have tended to call God, and all the various names of God. You could say that it is the butterfly self emerging from the cocoon of the conditioned self...a socialized being into a Universal Being...born unto himself. This miraculous force is truly the most phenomenal process.It takes an enormous amount of energy to "receive" our higher self. It is Nature that calls us toward awakening. It is Nature that initiates us. It is Nature that eases the burden of awakening. It is Nature that allows our awakening to be successful. And it is Nature that gives us the power to extend our awakening out into the world. It takes an enormous amount of oxygen to birth ourselves, so exercise and breathe in Nature every day. The more you do so, the more Nature will be your ally. We want Nature to work for us, not against us, thus we must comply with Nature's dictates.
We can never know what kundalini is like until it sparks up and in our unbalanced western bodies the fire is going to pretty much dismantle our existing life. You have to be spiritually advanced or supported in order to keep up productivity and function during the height of the flame. Everyone is going to get some downtime, some crisis, some death--this is unavoidable during a full-on awakening. Yet to be afraid of kundalini only amplifies the dangers, for it is like being afraid of one's own soul. Realizing that kundalini is the very process of incarnation itself, we can devote the very best of ourselves to learning all we can, and respecting the process with the same devotion we would apply to God. A triumphant, successful kundalini awakening is reliant on our potential to surrender to illumination, ourSelf and love.
The adventure of Self discovery takes us to our edge, puts us in various life and death situations that quicken our spiritual metabolism. Through adventure we evolve by facing challenge and so real life skills are learnt. We grow by living out our hero's journey. We discover the various characters, heroes and antiheros within.
How does spiritual practice fit into the Hero's journey in the making of soul? Spiritual practice won't make a soul, only the Hero's journey will. However, practice will prepare us and give us resources for the journey. At times a left-brain methodical approach might be what is needed to build strength, energy and hope. Kind of like, build ones inner resources and the journey will come! Spiritual practice helps us maintain our core and ballast as we are going on our adventure, but it's not the adventure itself. Our adventure is nothing other than following our Muse.
Of course it's helpful to have a guide or friends on the path, but if one wants to be an independent researcher one needs to do it alone, for the amount of misinformation and distraction out there is infinite. Also, through having to guide oneself, one finds the inner guide whom is infinitely intelligent. If we feel the need to rely on outside sources, we may remain dependent instead of discovering the source within. The progression of maturity goes: dependent--self-survival--self-actualization. The more we fail and have to pull "ourselves" up, the further we get in the process of self-actualization. The beauty of having a teacher or master is that through state-resonance we can stabilize ourselves faster, and have less secondary symptoms and fear. But for an investigator such as myself, I have to go it alone, it's my duty in consciousness, for only then can I bring "new" riches into the world.
Meditation leads to a balancing of the neuronal activity of left/right hemispheres, overall brain syncopation, balances the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous systems, and reduces the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline to provide a deeper rest, relaxation and recovery period. The inhibiting neurotransmitter GABA increases in the blood during meditation. Regular meditation will permanently reduce the baseline activation of the Hypthalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis.
Some of the factors that play into meditations benefital effects are perhaps magnetization of blood and economy of enzyme use. It probably leads to growth of neurons, increased dentrite connections, regeneration of receptor sites, conservation of neurotransmitters, plasticity of brain function, hence enhancing learning and memory. Not to mention the "potentization" of the hormonal system through maximizing the health of the pituitary gland. Also with increased ionization of the cerebral spinal fluid, the action potentials of the nerves are stronger. Thus the body is able to substantiate the structure of the Higher Self, essentially incarnating a deeper more profound human experience. So this is like amplifying ones neurology such that the governing "host" has more conscious control over the bodymind. Only that which is made conscious can be "dropped."
The way I see it is that meditation reduces friction, strengthens, detoxifies and regenerates. With the balancing of the autonomic nervous system there is a removal of excess energy from reptilian defense system, thus allowing brain function to become more contemporary rather than ruled by past trauma and reptilian mechanisms. This obviously gives us more prefrontal control over our amygdala (fear center) and limbic brain, and this could be described as a maturing or enlightenment of the mind. Thus new energy and consciousness is made available for higher human capacities rather than being wasted away in reactive animistic responses to our environment and autonomic coping mechanisms to the stresses and traumas of life. The orbitofrontal regulation that our mother originally "provided" (to the degree that she engaged in primal mothering) is now taken over by meditation and spiritual practices in the individuating aspirant.
Only that which is made conscious can be "let go."Is kundalini a Divine or God Energy? Basically it is love. That is the easiest way to describe it...what Joseph Chilton Pearce calls the Intelligence of the Heart and Teilhard de Chardin sees as the next revolution in harnessing the forces of the Universe. It is the intelligence within the atom, cell, organ, brain, organism lit up, integrated and resonant with Love energy. It has the bliss component that anaethetizes former structures so the larger order can transform the being. It is what we mythic humans have tended to call God, and all the various names of God. You could say that it is the butterfly self emerging from the cocoon of the conditioned self...a socialized being into a Universal Being...born unto himself. This miraculous force is truly the most phenomenal process.It takes an enormous amount of energy to "receive" our higher self. It is Nature that calls us toward awakening. It is Nature that initiates us. It is Nature that eases the burden of awakening. It is Nature that allows our awakening to be successful. And it is Nature that gives us the power to extend our awakening out into the world. It takes an enormous amount of oxygen to birth ourselves, so exercise and breathe in Nature every day. The more you do so, the more Nature will be your ally. We want Nature to work for us, not against us, thus we must comply with Nature's dictates.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Jana Dixon on "Die Offs" (Times of Regression)
First, a poem by an early writer:
The world but seems to be
By Fakhruddin Iraqi(? - 1289)
English version by William Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson
The world but seems to be
yet is nothing more
than a line drawn
than a line drawn
between light and shadow.
Decipher the message
of this dream-script
and learn to distinguish time
from Eternity.
-- from Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality) , by William Chittick
-- from Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality) , by William Chittick
One of the perpetual questions about kundalini is why we have so many "ups and downs," highs and lows, times when we seem to have "made it" into constant bliss followed by periods of despair and pain. Sometimes the intervals are extended, sometimes brief, almost as if we were a "bouncing ball" oscillating between two poles marked ecstasy and agony. In reading Jana Hixon's entries on her website (http://www.biologyofkundalini.com/mentioned in yesterday's post), I discovered some truly persuasive explanations for our unsteady progress (for we do move forward, despite all).
Here is her entry on this topic (which she calls "Die Offs"):
Die-Offs
"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24
"When we deny the urge toward transformative death it can only manifest covertly through unconscious projection." Uniting Sex, Self and Spirit, by Genia Pauli Haddon.
"Whoever has studied the history of magic knows very well that in all epochs it has been said that all great initiates remain dead for three days and resurrect on the third day." gnosis-usa.com
The best definitions for stages of growth in consciousness that I have found are Egg...Caterpillar...Pupae...Butterfly. This perfectly describes the stages, implications and profundity of metamorphosis. As well as a rebirth, we also have to start seeing metamorphosis as a process of progressive death...the caterpillar dies to its eggness, the pupa dies to its caterpillarness, the butterfly dies to its pupaeness.
FOUR TYPES OF DOWN TRIP
There are four main types of down-cycle events in metamorphosis that need to be clearly understood to prevent unnecessary suffering and secondary backlash:
LIGHTNING: This is a terror event of intense energy pouring up the body similar to a euphoric inner-conjunction, but in this case it is a dysphoric inner-conjunction. Here it seems we descend deeply into our matter and experience great fear with no apparent cause. This "negative" inner-conjunction mostly occurs during one's first awakening, as the polar flip to the spontaneous bliss awakening in a neophyte=body that is unfamiliar with such intensity of consciousness and energy.
SHOCK: White Death, or autonomic shock that occurs immediately after mystic ecstasy or Sex with Eros. That is the contraction and toxic overload after a significant opening to the extreme bliss of a euphoric inner-conjunction event.
SELF-DIGESTION: Then there are the die-offs which are a catabolic breakdown of the former structures through apoptosis due to oxidation by free radicals and then phagocytosis by the macrophages.
BURNOUT: Lastly there is the exhaustion phase of the overall awakening cycle where the body's resources of neurotransmitters, hormones, and nutrients have been used up in the climb to the heights of the awakening peak. During exhaustion depression arises, yet there is permanent bliss giving the sense of being dissociated from depression.
These four types of down-cycle could variously be associated with what the mystics call the Dark Night of the Soul. They are unavoidable, as the "living death" must occur for resurrection of the "spiritual" bodymind. All must enter the Dark Night, perhaps many times during the cyclical process of evolution. "He who is not twice born will not ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven."
The deeper one goes into a die-off, the greater the resurrection. Similarly the more one "allows" the influx of spirit phase during the heart expansion, the deeper one goes into the die-off. The die-off is either acute or chronic depending on the person and phase of awakening. It happens after the Influx of Spirit, as the flesh transmutes there is a die-off of the conventional conditioned structures. For every influx of spirit, there is an accompanying catabolic breakdown of the former pupael body or die-off. Only those people that have the kundi flow up the spine, and the experience of extreme bliss/influx or massive "opening" events are going to die-off. Die-offs are distinct periods of catabolic breakdown in which there is no operative ego, other than that which is sufficient to drag one off to the bathroom when appropriate.
By the die-off I am not meaning a near death experience. It feels more like a bacterial infection is consuming one's body, but there are no bacterial type symptoms or smells. A die-off is mostly blissful, but at points there can be extreme pain as well. There is a hyper awareness of all the damaged parts of the body...it's like the damaged parts are being eaten. There is slight nausea, but it's mostly a case of not being able to get out of bed, for the three or more days. All one can do to make it to the bathroom and drink water. This is the body bottoming out so it's not a highly conscious condition. One doesn't get subtle level insights, the mind is in a mild hallucinated state and not available for normal egoic function. There is internal music, voices, sounds, lights, coupled with a pervasive sense of Grace. When the die-off is over we feel a new lease on life, much moreso than a simple recovery from illness.
In the degree of holiness of experience I have found that a die-off is the runnerup to the Inner-conjunction. Mainly because it is the cessation of "doing" and the enforced relinquishment of the dominance of the ego. Eventually this is willingly chosen because any division between bodymind-soul becomes increasingly obvious and painful. My intuition is that the ego cannot handle love, and in actuality the ego loves fear. Eventually this is penetrated and seen as self-defeating. For the love that we give is the love that we are, and the love that we are is that which we can receive from others.
Die-offs can be acute (in bed for 3-6 days) or chronic (walking die-offs). During my two awakenings I had several walking die-offs and 3 acute die-offs. The first of my Dark Nights was the implosion event several weeks after my spontaneous awakening in Dec 1988. This peak of the down-cycle was one night of extreme panic; electrical and energetically intense as the blissful spontaneous awakening had been. Similarly the energy was pouring up my spine threatening to blow my head off, but I was in terror not bliss. This Dark Night was accompanied by a walking die-off, where there was some catabolic action of the immune system but I was not forced into bed rest.
The second die-off was a month after attending an Alex Grey workshop in November 1999...this was a 4 day somatic collapse and more emotional than electrical and mostly spent in bed. It was accompanied by intense grounding, fatigue and heart expansion.
The third was November 2000 after 3 months of the main influx phase of fire and heart expansion after being in my initiators presence...and this was atomic and cellular, an almost complete collapse of normal faculties for 6 days. The sensation of the body eating itself was so apparent in this die-off that it was this experience that made me realize the role of the immune system in metamorphosis. Ego is suspended, there are mild hallucinations of voice and image, often blissful and a holy sensation, sometimes incredibly painful as the transmutation is working on a particularly congested or damaged part of the body. For me this was the right side of my face and head which felt as though it was being dissolved by acid for a day.
Seems to me that after experiences of radical expansion and extreme euphoria, we tend to compare the difference between where we were in mystic revelry and the condition most of us live i--it is then that extreme cathartic anguish occurs as we mourn the sorry state of our collective human condition. This is one of the hyperbolic curves that occur during the first stages of the alchemy, especially if the realization is around ones family situation. After time I suppose our compassion takes on a lighter air as our own physicality loses its dross and heavy nature and our faith becomes unconditional...ie: detached from worldly appearances. The evolution of faith probably goes from blind faith, to informed faith, to unconditional faith. But it's doubtful that any of us can proceed in this development without periods of the obscuring or loss of faith, for we have to die to our former stage of faith to move onto the next.
Usually what bought us to this impasse is the pull of the heart and psychic intuition and profound spiritual illuminations. So to be plunged into space where we can no longer rely on our conditioning, and Spiritual illumination seems to have left us can constitute an extended period of dark night--usually about 5 years as the body recovers from the extreme chemistry of the peak. This is the period in which spiritual practice, sangha and 'listening' to Spirit for understanding, meaning and direction is most important.
We feel assense of loss during the exhaustion phase when we have lost our "magic" and extrasensory abilities and are back down, perhaps even more mortal than we were prior to our awakening. We all have to come down. This loss feels like losing oneself, ones lover, ones muse, ones God. The difference is shocking and if we do not work manually to rejuice ourselves then life feels like it's not really worth living. What was given to us by Grace, must now be won by discipline and hard work.
November-December is the most pronounced die-off time. It has to do with the earths movement round the sun, ie: just prior to solstice and the gravitational forces of the earth turning into the bend of the elliptic and changing direction. However there is no die-off during prior to the summer solstice due to a hormonal mix based on growth rather than senescence. The more thoroughly we die-off the more refined our intellectual achievement is the next year--around Easter is my peak of the year for intellect, and again in July with the maximum prana flow that happens then. If you find yourself really peaking in energy and psi during July chances are you will have a die-off in November especially if it is triggered by a transcendental dream or significant event in relationship.
The video “The Naked Truth” by The International Research and Education Society on google video is exceptional. It shows the mythic similarity of the main religions and how the elements of the story are based on sun worship and the suns progression through the zodiac. This is probably the most healing and informative film document out there.
They say the aspect of the traditions that talk of a 3 day death/resurrection, is actually when the sun stays 3 days at the same point at the lowest part of the sundial during winter solstice...ie: the belly of the fish of Jonah. It just so happens that the dieoff often constitutes 3 days also. The perennial story goes: The son of the Sun-God, gave up his blood so that we sinners could be absolved of our sins so we would no longer feel guilty...with a free conscience this would ensure that the sun (light) would indeed rise again tomorrow. Thus we keep the sun, earth and planets in their orbits by sacrificing the Golden Child.
(Note--from Dorothy--although I do not necessarily agree with every word of the above, I feel these comments contain much wisdom, and merit our careful consideration. Jana herself says early on in her text that she does not present her work as definitive, but rather as a form of investigation into the topic of the overall nature of kundalini and its impact on the human organism.)
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Help Durng Kundalini Crisis
As we know, kundalini can bring pain as well as pleasure, grief as well as joy. Always, the question is, "What can I do to alleviate my symptoms which have come to the surface after my awakening?"
There is no simple answer to this question. What works for one may not produce any results for another. We each have to explore and investigate, and find what is best for ourselves and our unique constitution.
For me, I find that at this stage very simple 'remedies" may bring the desired result. One of my favorite "relaxation techniques" involves quiet breathing, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Doing gentle self-reiki can also be extremely soothing. And, for grounding, simply pelvic rotation (of the entire lower torso) can do wonders to bring me into focus.
If possible, find a friend or "spiritual buddy" (or even a therapist or counselor) with whom to share your experiences. Often, simply talking about them can go a long way to release tension. If you have no one to talk to, keep a journal.
I have recently discovered a website which offers a wealth of information on kundalini, including some valuable tips for crisis management. Here is what Jana Dixon has to say on this subject:
If we have had a trauma background there will be a need to do more orbiofrontal-limbic neural networking by engaging in such activities such as bonding, playing with kids, animals, martial arts and coordination, motor skills, sensory stimulation work etc.... BEFORE you do any primal therapy and de-repression work.
Normally emotional regulation and the orbiofrontal-limbic link are built within the course of healthy family life. But if there was abuse or deficiency in this you must build up your container yourself as an adult. Then you can go do peyote, rebirthing, holotropic breathing and other primal therapies. First build then regress, build, regress and then all that terror (protest-despair) contained in your original wiring will be released in a manageable fashion. If you do the primal therapies without doing the orbitofrontal work as well, (when normal consciousness is perturbed by whatever means) your limbic brain and brainstem will just take over and act out, for they are trying to purge your original traumatic memory.
Because the activity of the limbic brain and brainstem is greatly activated during Kundalini awakening, this offers the perfect opportunity for old neurology to take wholesale control over your normal cognitive functions in order to express its “protest”. It does this because our normal repressive mechanisms are usually very strong and keep it "down." The stronger your repressive mechanism (despair-freeze) the more powerful the force below needs to be to knock it out of commission in order for it to be heard. And one way or another that traumatized infant and child WILL be heard. Perhaps you could find some compassionate, creative, playful and "safe" ways for the child to be heard, without having to give your life over to that infant to do so. That is to consciously go “towards” the child with open arms, rather than locking it up in the dungeon and treating it like a dragon. You know how when you stop running from the demons in your dreams, they turn out to be allies.
If you are in complete crisis you may need a surrogate mother or father figure to help you to learn to self-regulate your autonomic system. Any compassionate person with a reasonably well-developed nervous system and vast understanding can serve as a balancing force. By undergoing the crisis in emotional tandem you will probably avoid things escalating to madness, prevent brain damage through panic and avoid becoming prone to seizure.
Stay focused on something to look forward to, something you want to do, build the image of that up in your mind, write it out and start making plans. As soon as you engage yourself into some future fun thing, your body-mind-spirit will come together. Your energies cannot ascend coherently unless you are using active imagination in all five senses to visualize where you want to go, who you want to be, and what you want to do.
• Don’t panic, the energy of your state will tell you exactly what to do if you listen deeper and deeper. Long walks in nature will dissipate the most tenacious panic attacks.
• Drink two glasses of water and lie on the grass under a tree. Breathing “harmony,” “order,” “peace” these through the heart and into your solar plexus.
• Focus on something specific to look forward to, something you want to do, even if it is just daydreaming, in order to move your body-mind-spirit into coherent clarity.
• Try and get some sun on your naked body about half an hour a day sunbathing either early or late in the day would be ideal.
• Get someone to massage you regularly, or massage and stretch yourself and take long Epsom salt baths.
• Do the Inner Arts and especially the Pot of Gold, dropping further into the feltsense intelligence of the body. Placing what you think is the antidote state or emotions into your organs.
• Play soothing music such as Byron Metcalf’s Wachuma’s Wave, Steve Roach, Amethystium, Enya, Liquid Mind, Evanescence. www.pandora.com/
“Magic individuals who create their own destiny and are masters of their fate draw from the strength of the positive current.” The Magic of Everyday Life, Maria Szepes. Perhaps my very favorite book.
Rudi: 14 Years With My Teacher by John Mann, is a fabulously reassuring book on the psychological aspects of cultivating kundalini. http://www.rudimovie.org/
Osho's lateral mind and all embracing permission are an antidote to the punitive spirituality and repressive social structures of Western society. Thus Osho’s voice and writing is very reassuring to anyone in crisis mode. Especially his Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic.
INSPIRING MEDIA: Expose yourself to uplifting books and media. http://my.harvard.edu/ —
xcellent positive psychology lectures by Tal-Ben Shacher.
Interviews with people like Stephen Buhner, Bruce Lipton, Leslie Taylor, Joseph Chilton Pearce, John Perkins
Episcopal multimedia explorations.
www.newdimensions.org/ —Uncommon wisdom radio
www.thinkingallowed.com —Jeffery Mishlove’s inspiring series
Jana Dixon's site is
By all means, check it out. You may find just the advice you need here. She has compiled an impressive store of information on kundalini in virtually all its many phases. It is gratifying to discover this discussion which avoids the classical model of the snake which rises, the chakras which open one by one along the spine, and the eventual goal of the thousand petals opening. Few of us today follow this traditional pattern. Her presentation deals with kundalini "as it is," a strange, multifaceted, sometimes bewildering but always rewarding experience of the Mystery Within and the Mystery Without.
And, of course, remember that the greatest healer of all is time itself.
Monday, July 21, 2008
About Enlightenment
Out beyond ideas of
wrongdoing and rightdoing
there lies a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
Rumi
Once again, I have been reflecting on the notion of enlightenment as an ultimate goal of the spiritual quest. My conclusion is that pointing to such a state as the end all and be all of the journey is a serious mistake.
First of all, what is an enlightened person? Have you ever met one? For me, to be enlightened would be to carry into every single facet of your life your spiritual purpose, your commitment, and your way of being. When I hear of "gurus" and teachers who abuse their students, who show their ill temper in private by yelling at their helpers, who violate the common rules of courtesy and kindness in their treatment of their friends, or who obviously are on a personal "power trip," I turn away. To lure students into the fold by promising "enlightenment" is, I believe, a false promise.
The truly enlightened being would conduct him/herself with great humility, for she would have been introduced to the ultimate secret--that the individual human does in fact not even exist except as a particle in the Great Being, a tiny throb in the impulse of time. While we are here we do, of course, conduct outselves in a different way, acting as if we and those we encounter and the world about us is "real" in the usual sense of the term. How else could we survive? Further, one of the reasons we incarnate on this plane is to discover what it is to be "merely human," with all the travails and sorrows this state affords, rather than some superhuman reality, with unlimited powers and access to constant composure.
In order to move ahead we relinquish all pretensions to be other than humans struggling together up a common mountain, constantly advancing and retreating again, sometimes holding hands or whispering encouragement into one another's ear, as we labor forward in our shared journey.
The "enlightened" being would also, in my notion, be perfect in every way--he/she would have a command of the history of civilization, of art, of philosophy east and west, even science, and certainly of current world affairs--in other words, that person's knowledge would not cease with "what baba told me." "What baba told me" may be of great help to many of us seeking aid in our progress. But it is not an assured recipe for "enlightenment."
The journey is the goal, the goal is the journey. We can indeed make progress toward enlightenment (whatever that may be), but we cannot, on this plane, ever fully arrive. Some are more progressed than others, and their light shines through in a darkening world. (Maybe Rumi was one of those.) But only a handful of true saints and saviors have come near completion on this planet. To think otherwise is, in my view, to be deluded, to operate by a false assumption.
In the meantime, let us go forward, dancing along the path, keeping our courage through the "down turns" and the upward swings, ready to move ahead in the joy that is often ours for the asking.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Of Butterflies and Waterfalls, Sea Rafting and Stories
(Note: The first picture above is of a fellow in Manitou Springs, Colorado, playing this single stringed instrument on the sidewalk. It is a drone, made in Brazil. The second picture is the waterfall we climbed to. Then there is the musician again. Last is our "gang" in Colorado. Wendy, Rose, me, and Gail.)
I went to Colorado, high up in the Rockies above Colorado Springs. The location was a church-owned retreat center, but the only folks there were me and my friends (two former students from twenty years ago and two teenage girls plus a couple of friends who dropped by from time to time.)
First, it was a time of deep reunion with two wonderful women whom I had known when they were "returning women," come to complete their undergraduate and graduate degrees. At that time, I was the co-ordinator for Women's Studies, and they each worked in the W. S. office, so we got to know each other well. They have turned out to be beautiful women, now in their fifties--one a school counselor and the other a grandmother with five grandchildren, but someone who still retains the poet in her soul. (She completed her master's in the creative writing program.) It was one of those occasions when it seemed that "no time at all has passed." We picked up where we left off, and I for one felt a bit of nostalgia for that earlier period in our lives--a time when everything was new and exciting (women's liberation, civil rights movement, gay liberation, and the New Consciousness.) In fact, Rose remarked that she had been listening to Eckhardt Tolle on Oprah, and realized that we had been discussing many of the same ideas in class twenty years before. (I believe in Huxley's notion of the "Perenial Philosophy" according to which certain fundamental spiritual ideas surface again and again in various religions and eras--each time they come to light they seem fresh again.)
We explored the area nearby, hiked up to a lovely mountain waterfall, and even went river rafting (I decided to mark the last one permanently off my list--it was a bit much for me.) We read and listened to poetry and music, shared many stories of the past.
For me, one of the most interesting parts of the trip was hearing the stories of some friends of Gail who came over to share dinner once or twice. (I always love these personal accounts of unusual experiences.) We were all seated around the kitchen table after dinner, when we each shared some of our inner life.
Wendy mentioned that she had early on been a Tarot reader, with such success that it was even a bit frightening. I mentioned kundalini. And Jim, Wendy's friend, then described his near death experience when he almost drowned (after being thrown from his raft). He went out of his body, observed from above what was happening, but with no alarm, only curiosity. Then, suddenly he was thrown to the surface and found himself lying on a rock, safe from the rapids.
Then Wendy told of her own experience of near drowning. She was surfing in the ocean, when she fell from her board, then lost the board completely. She was about an eighth of a mile from shore at the time, but the current was carrying her farther and farther out to sea. Then she went under, and thought to herself, "So this is how I am going to die." But--at that moment--a giant hand appeared behind her and she was swept to shore in about three seconds. How? She did not know.
Now, the sequel to this story is that she subsequently heard from a woman in England who had had a near identical experience. She too had been drowning, but was saved by a giant hand. The angels seem to be near us when we most need them.
Then there were the butterflies--lots of them. Gail felt that the yellow ones were the returning spirit of an older woman who used to live in the retreat much of the year, someone who had inspired and nourished Gail for many years. These yellows often flew near Gail. As for Rose, she was certain that the other butterflies (quite large, white center with dark rim around the edges) were her mother come to say hello. It seemed that everywhere we went, one of these would come near Rose--but none seemed to come when Rose was not present. One even flew in front of Rose's face when we were on the river raft.
One morning I had gone alone down to the little creek which flowed nearby and it was there I had my own butterfly experience. I noted several feeding on a plant just a few feet from where I was standing, and was pleased when one of the yellows flew past my face. I thought to my- self that maybe that was Gail's old friend, just saying "hi." There was another, larger, white and black butterfly still feeding on the plant, but I realized I dare not approach closer lest I frighten it away. But, I thought to myself, maybe I can commune with it here from this distance. At the very instant this thought came into my head, the butterfly flew over to me, circled before my face, and then returned to feed again on the plant. It did indeed feel like I had somehow communicated with this delicate creature who had realized I was a friend of Rose.
And then there was what happened just the other night soon after I got home. I was looking through some photos on my computer and was wondering if I could e-mail one to the subject (a special friend). I enlarged it and was contemplating it further when the phone rang--guess who it was? Yes, the very person in the picture, who had not called for several days.
We are indeed all one, connected in ways we cannot fathom.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
As the Man and the Woman in Me (poem)
Dear Friends: I am off to Colorado for a week or so to visit my beloved Rockies. Be well, be love, be all you are!
As the man and the woman in me
By Lalan(1775? - 1891?)
English version by Deben Bhattacharya
As the man and the woman in me
Unite in love,
The brilliance of beauty
Balanced on the bi-petalled
Lotus bloom in me
Dazzles my eyes.
The rays
Outshine the moon
And the jewels
Glowing on the hoods of snakes
My skin and bone
Are turned to gold.
I am the reservoir of love,
Alive as the waves.
A single drop of water
Has grown into a sea,
Unnavigable...
-- from The Mirror of the Sky: Songs of the Bauls of Bengal, Translated by Deben Bhattacharya (from Poetry-Chaikhana)
-- from The Mirror of the Sky: Songs of the Bauls of Bengal, Translated by Deben Bhattacharya (from Poetry-Chaikhana)
(Lalan was the most famous of the west Bengal poets/wandering minstrels known as Bauls. Some think that the word "Baul" was derived from the term for "madman" (as in "crazy saint"). The Bauls celebrated divine love in simple, ecstatic songs. which often used tantric terms to express the state of union with the supreme. In this poem, Lalan is alluding to the necessary union of female and male elements within the self to prepare for awakening. Sun and Moon, Shiva and Shakti--these must unite for the energies to rise and progress to occur. In classical yogic terms, the kundalini rises along the ida and pingala until it reaches the upper regions of the subtle body. The two-petaled lotus is the third eye. When kundalini reaches this chakra, the devotee experiences great inner bliss.)
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Let Go (poem)
Let Go
Let go of everything.
Forget who you are.
Your neighbor loading and unloading
from the evening meal
in the apartment above
does not listen
to the same music as you.
The officer
directing vehicles
around the latest crash
in the street below--
he cannot now or ever, cut off from
the world around.
If you tried to tell them how it is,
they would not understand.
They have other possibilities in mind
for people much like you.
Even infirmaries and cells,
places apart from
the rest of their world,
the drowsing “normal”
where safety
is a guarantee.
They know nothing of angel
song reverberating
in your ears
at morning,
the music of the stars turning
at night.
Of light flowing into
your hands,
your wrists,
flooding your
chest even now.
Let go of everything.
Forget who you are.
Your neighbor loading and unloading
from the evening meal
in the apartment above
does not listen
to the same music as you.
The officer
directing vehicles
around the latest crash
in the street below--
he cannot now or ever, cut off from
the world around.
If you tried to tell them how it is,
they would not understand.
They have other possibilities in mind
for people much like you.
Even infirmaries and cells,
places apart from
the rest of their world,
the drowsing “normal”
where safety
is a guarantee.
They know nothing of angel
song reverberating
in your ears
at morning,
the music of the stars turning
at night.
Of light flowing into
your hands,
your wrists,
flooding your
chest even now.
Dorothy Walters
July 5, 2008
(Image of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" is from Wikipedia. It was painted while he was in an asylum at St. Remy.)
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Is It Accelerating?
Some years ago, I foretold that the process of k. awakening would accelerate exponentially. Now I wonder if this is happening.
Here are some anecdotes from a friend about recent experiences in her life.
One morning while she was still sleeping, her cat climbed up on the bed and began to rub against her back (as cats have a way of doing.) She felt a jolt of energy so strong it woke her up. (This particular cat is a "healing cat" and has done similar things in the past.)
From this, one might conclude that even cats now are getting kundalini awakening. But the truth is, they (and other animals) have had it all along and it is we humans who have lost touch and are finally recovering this lost awareness.
My friend (I'll call her Mary) began her process many, many years ago when few people knew about kundalini. Recently, one of her long time friends told her that she was feeling new energies in her hands. When they held their hands up together (but not touching), Mary sensed extreme energy pouring out of her friend's palms and fingers.
As the kundalini phenomenon spreads, people have more and more in common. It is indeed as if we are all becoming "one person," united not by thought or geography or nationality or other connections, but through energy itself, the pure source of all that is.
Here is a "fun" video from youtube, which illustrates the same notion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY
(Image of cat from Wikipedia)
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Only When (poem)
In Many Forms
You can come
in many forms.
Sometimes the young god,
bearing his flute.
Sometimes the god of endless
power, Shiva of the
fiery locks,
his trident and moon.
But only when She comes,
sky clad,
with her welcoming breasts
are you who you truly are.
You can come
in many forms.
Sometimes the young god,
bearing his flute.
Sometimes the god of endless
power, Shiva of the
fiery locks,
his trident and moon.
But only when She comes,
sky clad,
with her welcoming breasts
are you who you truly are.
Dorothy Walters
July 2, 2008
The Vedas state that 'all things exist but become manifest in Her, that is, in the Proto Female'. The Upanishads call this Proto Female Prakriti, that which manifests in nature, which is the material aspect of the Creation. The Upanishads further imply that She is the universal cosmic energy which exists in all that is. The "Goddess" as we visualize her is a symbolic (but sensed) representation of this underlying cosmic force. Kundalini is another name for the Goddess.
"Shaktas (those who worship the Mother) may approach the Devi in any of a vast number of forms. The primary Devi form worshiped by a devotee (i.e., his or her ishta-devi) can depend on many factors, including family tradition, regional practice, guru lineage, personal resonance and so on. There are literally thousands of goddess forms, many of them associated with particular temples, geographic features or even individual villages. However, they are all considered to be but diverse aspects of the One Supreme Goddess." (from Wikipedia)
(Above image from internet entry on an earlier exhibit at the Sackler Museum.)
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
More on Mysticism
The following excerpt is from Carolyn Myss:
HEALING POWER OF REFLECTION
I always make a distinction between thinking about something and reflecting on something, such as a piece of writing, or poetry, or an insight someone has offered in a conversation. Thinking and reflecting are two distinct skills and both need to be understood for their power and the arena of their genius. I remember being asked several times in my mid-twenties why I was pursuing the study of Theology for a graduate degree – as opposed to something more “practical,” such as Law or an advanced degree in Journalism. I was frustrated as a journalist for several reasons, but the most pressing one was that I had come to realize even in my mid-twenties that for all my education in the skill of writing, I lacked the proper training in how to transcend the limitations of my own thinking, my own personal vocabulary, and the ideas I had been brought up on. I had to get out of my own head. For me, Theology and the study of the mystical experience represented the unknown, beyond religion. And, as it would ultimately turn out, the study of mysticism challenged the parameters of my reality, but not in the way I had anticipated. In keeping with the nature of great personal changes, we can never anticipate how they will come – they just do.
Mysticism and the mystical experience baffled me and, so, consumed my interest. What was it that mystics experienced, I wondered, that made them mystics? I wondered why they couldn’t they describe their experiences in words that communicated these transcendent raptures more clearly, and I questioned their need for metaphor and poetry. I puzzled over the fact that all mystics seemed to come to the same conclusion about the nature of the Divine, regardless of their spiritual tradition. What was this inner sanctum of love, grace, tranquility, and truth that they describe and how did one get to this place? And did one really want to make this journey? So many questions kept bubbling up. I would have loved to find one mystic who had written, “You know, this journey is a pain in the neck and all this talk of love and light – it’s nice, but I’ll take negativity, doubt, despair, and fear, as long as I can get what I want in the ‘real’ world.” I never found such a quote – but I did look for one.
What, then, makes one a mystic? A simple definition, which implies far more than it seems at first, is that a mystic is a person who experiences the power of God as opposed to thinking or talking about God. A mystic makes the profound shift from thought to experience or, more directly, from arrogance to humility, from ego-knowing to soul revelation. From that point onward, a mystic becomes a servant to the Divine as opposed to an authority on the Divine. I just wrote a mouthful, and the argument could even be made that I contradicted myself by making statements as an authority on the Divine. Yet, this is a description that I am comfortable putting forth, because a mystical experience alters you dramatically; you are given an experience of that which, hitherto, you have only been discussing, and about which you might well have been wrong. One brief, authentic experience of the nature of God is all you require to flush out your own blind spots. Take, for example, those who are so convinced that they know what and who God loves and judges, and what they might gain from a good, old-fashioned near-death experience in which they are taken out of their bodies and exposed to the stunningly bright Light of unconditional Love. (I have fantasies about this – obviously.) They would then need to be shoved back into their little bodies, so jammed with mental prejudice, only they would suddenly have a soul that has been blasted with a mystical experience revealing that all are loved unconditionally. Let them now set about the task of balancing the Truth of cosmic Love with how their ego wanted God to be – as a reflection and projection of their own prejudices.
A mystic, then, is one who has experienced the power of Truth, as Truth is one of the disguises of God. But Truth, like the mystical revelation of unconditional Love, is not something that the mind can grasp. You cannot comprehend the meaning or the power of unconditional Love as an expression of the Divine by thinking about that. Here’s where we begin to examine the split in the road between the fundamental nature of thinking, which is a mental art that engages reason and logic, and the more interior skill of reflection, which draws you away from reason and logic and directs your attention toward transcendent pursuits.
Unconditional Love is a mystical force, not a logical or reasonable one. Therefore, to say that one comprehends the meaning, the power, the size, the significance, or the magnitude that unconditional Love offers for the transformation of humanity, is preposterous. This is an incomprehensible force for the rational mind to even consider, because at the very least, the rational mind is the part of you that will automatically put up qualifiers: Who qualifies for unconditional Love? What are the requirements? If there is such a thing as unconditional Love, then there must be “conditional Love” – so what are the conditions that must be met in order to be loved “unconditionally”? Hey, I’ve talked with people who have actually taken workshops on Unconditional Love and how to get there. This is a puzzling force for the rational mind, as well it should be, because it is a mystical force – and a mystical force cannot be attained through thinking or reasoning or workshops – period. It is NOT gained via the ego, no matter what, but through a far different path – that of the heart….
Carolyn Myss
(Once again, I am indebted to Marci for this moving quote. Picture of Bernini's sculpture of St. Teresa, one of the foremost mystics of all time, is taken from source. The statue itself is in one of the churches in Rome.)
