I have been a searcher all my life. I can remember this feeling that erupted through me somewhere around the age of 9 or 10. It began with my searching books about things like divination. When I read Raymond Moody Jr's first book Life After Death I felt like I had hit upon something very important. I wasn't looking for magic but the magic that IS us. Over the years the journey continued and I kept reading some new book by someone who had something happen to them. All of this left me with a feeling like I had just scratched some deep itch. There was something MORE.
Over the years it felt as though increasingly more and more was being discovered, this other realm of being that I had hungrily read about through others' experiences, and hen as I grew older, began to brush up against this realm more and more....seeing auras, having past life memories, experiencing energetic effects and how they affected consciousness, my interaction with a deceased grandmother who returned in the early morning hours to enter a dream when I was awake but in the right state to perceive her in her unbounded state of being.....these things and more all began to point to some continuum of experience that I was very interested in....in the same way we were excited in the 60's and early 70's to be going to the moon, and to discover other worlds. We are, in all truth, adventurous in this way whether we are discovering inner or outer space!
As I read more, though, I found a rather curious impulse to emerge. I found I could not read that much about systems of thought very much. I found a few teachers through books but found by and large, when it came to something that felt like it was system driven, I would stray away. A light bulb went off when I finally did read some of Krishnamurti's work a few years ago in the wake of my awakening. He espoused the pathless path, one that did not seek to inject dogma once again into a spiritual journey. After having FELT into awakening for myself I was able to appreciate his words so much more. I also began to understand, and continue to do so now especially, why I had stayed away.
I never did Kundalini yoga
I never practiced special diets (but I would fast from time to time)
I never meditated based using any system (my meditation was calming down after a long day while in bed)
I did not read and adhere to any eastern traditions of thought about aspects of Awakening.
Understand though, I didn't feel like there was anything at all wrong with these things. I did not eschew kundalini yoga or any eastern traditions because I thought there was something WRONG with them (or evil or of the devil or any of that nonsense) but because of some deeper sense inside of me that my inner self knew what its "truth" was. I use quotation marks because truth is itself so changeable and even suspect, subject to peoples perceptions and turns of mind that are themselves built on a worldly foundation that has a lot of distortions. Something inside of me must have known that at some point I would know what I would need to know as I needed it. Looking back I can say that resources came as I needed them in perfect timing and now that I have awakened, this has never been more true. Having said all of this, I did read Gopi Krishna's book and I have browsed through a few things about how meridians work or about chakras. For the most part, I was very much a tourist.
I have found that now I can go into books and begin reading them and see what they have to say after I was able to FEEL my way through all of this. It has helped me to gain some insight I think into where we have gone astray, or perhaps better stated that it helps me to understand where I would prefer not to go in this awakened state as a result of what I have encountered. I also do not get hung up in the language of the traditions (nondualistic shavaism, Advaita, etc.).
An example of this is how energy works. By seeing and feeling into this and using my own experience and the guidance of a dear friend who has helped me understand some of these principles and how they work, I was able to see that when we connect to others, we also connect into their karma. Often with energy we can tune a person or change their energy through this deeper connection of our deeper essence. But what people do not realize is that this also means that, through love, we accept their burden and the responsibility in some measure for that person. The problem is that this means that everything that is connected to that person becomes your own. Energy can manifest illness when it is off kilter, it can cause all manner of things to happen to you if you are not careful. So as I read recently about a man who gave something to his students called shaktipat, I realized that he was taking on their karma when the writing described how he would often take on their illnesses and suffer through the problems of that student as though they were his own. This was so because they
were part of his own. It was then that I realized just how serious this stuff is. You have to ask yourself if its worth it to take on this other stuff for the sake of bringing one person upwards energetically. Is it enough to keep them there? Is this being done out of love or is it being done out of ego? And as far as I am concerned, ego is always there anyway, so the answer is yes (even if just a smidge). But I suppose then this is about DEGREES. The difference is that love will seek only to help liberate for more love, not for the person to gain more love but only the satisfaction that they were a vessel for this love, that they did the will of something greater. But discerning what this is in the midst of an ego trip means little discernment in truth because the ego will hop into the process so fast that you wont even realize its ego. Don't get me wrong; I do not view the ego as some devil or evil in us that must be rooted out and destroyed. I just know that it CANT be destroyed and find all this talk of ego death as laughable, really, because in all truth we don't nor can't do that. We can ascend into a space or focus our consciousness into a place where it seems we are awash in a cosmic radiance, but we are still here on this earth with everything in place as before. The real challenge to my mind is learning how to take a bit of that cosmic and breathe it into our lives here now in order to effect that small self that is us here. Its about growing up. I am certain that those who only know the bliss of the cosmic have not done the work on themselves necessary for the very fact that I have been able to feel that bliss perfectly yet still come back down to this channel of awareness only to find myself frustrated angry and upset over the most petty things. I am only human, yes, but I think my challenge is in making myself a better person through real change of the self.
So in reading about this issue of shaktipat and darshan I see that they are in essence the same thing. One is more "intentional" in which one person is going deep into the other in order to flow kundalini into the other. In darshan, it is done through a glance, but realize here that with kundalini space is not an issue, so whether at a glance or with your hand on someone's heart, it matters little. I remember seeing someone doing this (darshan) and I realized what it was she was doing. It was sending out her essence, her soul, her love, into the crowd. It was called a blessing, but it was also taking on energy by others. This is experienced just as one might experience these experiences of soul connection which is also like shaktipat. It is, energetically speaking, the same thing. In order to send the energy it means a connection is forged. This then unites the two people even if only for a moment. To release the karma requires an act of grace, a surrender, a letting go. When I read of a teacher taking on the diseases and maladies of his or her students I know what is at work here. Its energy. But we make contracts with it and can be bound in many ways by it, with it. By knowing this before crossing the road we do not get tangled in that which is part of some false sense of compassion or ego. By moving forward in a positive way I am better able to forge alliances based on bliss than on what is unresolved in me. The desire to fix things in others runs strong in the control meme and we have to be careful I think and use love as the measure by which all else is considered.
So I wonder; is it our job to reach outward and seek to awaken others? The impulse to press forward to do that can be strong. I know we can tune others' consciousness, but just because we can, does it mean we are here to do that? Or instead, can we work behind the scenery, through the resonant field of the species to pour our energy into the system by being part of that system and change it from the inside out? Does the building energy of awakening in one of us press against the walls of the Collective self of the species? I know it does. Can we help effect a change based on how the Collective Self wishes? I think so. I think that as the pressure builds those who are ready to awaken will do so seemingly spontaneously. Its hard to know what will awaken others into this new life, but within each of us is the infinite self, the infinite knowing, and while some of us may seem like we are rolling about on the floor unaware we have hands and feet with which to get ourselves up with, we do, and we can (get up).
We are gifted with consciousness which in truth can turn into anything it wants or needs to become fulfilled. This can mean countless other realities through which we project the energy of consciousness like a projector that makes the movie of our reality possible. What we ultimately choose at higher and lower levels of awareness is part of our gift of free will. In hand with freewill is also individuality. At some place we wed the higher to the lower. I can't say that I know what will come from that since it has yet to happen fully in our world in an intentional enough way for us to understand it. This is ultimately the great adventure that is our consciousness and our place in many realities.
I go back and forth on all of this, trying to feel through how it surely should be in its highest. What I think about is how so many of us have KNOWN what is best for another person, then shoving that view or way of acting or being on another person, and sometimes this has meant entire nations have been effected (here in this country scores of Native Peoples had their lives destroyed by a western conquest that also meant the end of their old world view with the requirement that they adopt the new Christian ideals--people were not allowed to speak their language nor practice their rites....sacred pipes were hidden away lest they be confiscated by priests or police--and their children were deemed in danger from their parents and forced into adoption in order to be raised by Christian parents...all in order to crush and destroy a great and wonderful way of Being here on this earth). So as I think about this legacy of control and might making right, I reflect on these things and consider what is all of this about? What is the truth? The truth, I know, is that we are all infinite beings underneath and thus are working through our own inner stuff in our own way. To us it might seem people are just not coming 'round but in my higher self I know that time is largely illusory in the sense that its not the final word on how time flows. Time flows in eddies and currents in swirls but emerges from a larger expanding present and so time loses some of its meaning when we operate in multiple dimensions at once....across vast time scales....and so seen this way, we will each find our ascension at some point and as our own insides bid us. We can accept help, but trying to push the flow might not always be the best.
By going beyond the old paradigm of control and trying to form and mold a larger spiritual awareness, perhaps we need to approach this in the same way that we have to approach on an individual basis an awakening....which is to surrender. Maybe as a race we need to learn to surrender when it comes to or larger global awakening. Maybe not let those who would seek to control to have their run of the place, but to slowly weed this out by simply following what we feel is right to do....and while it seems we are headed for a One World Governing structure, what if the people who are bent on control set this system up only to find that the planet IS ready to unite as one, but just not as they had envisioned? Maybe that is very pollyanna, but it might also contain more truth than we might think at first glance.
Beyond all the dogma, beyond all belief is the still truth of your soul and this "truth" is love, and your soul is this love. How do I continue to operate within this stream of love? How do I honor the larger awakening that is coming to earth? Let those who have ears to hear......
