In Indian Yogic tradition, the seven rungs of the ladder to cosmic consciousness involve preparation. You can spend lifetimes climbing these ladders. Many do. The belief among nearly every person brought up in this tradition is that you cannot achieve the cosmic without years of preparation. You just can’t. It is also one reason why I have witnessed people telling me on my blogs from India that what I am talking about cannot be kundalini. Oh. And you need to get diksha from a teacher.
A teacher. Wait…the guru is in you, am I right?
What is happening to most westerners who have been experiencing a broad wave of awakenings is that this old notion is just not so. Does this mean that the old rules are no longer applicable? No. In fact, the “rules” never really applied to us in this regard. You CAN get there without preparing. Most Swami’s and yogi’s are fond of saying that when you awaken, you are not attaining anything. You are only reaching what has always been there. I agree. It is the authentic state which nearly every person on the planet has been holding back the flood waters of. Yes. But preparation is not a prerequisite. Preparation is a very good idea, though.
The fact that so many have awakened without a discipline or belief or structure to support them helps to turn old notions on their head. It also provides me with a view of awakening that comes at the experience from a completely different vantage point. Without preparation, the self if pitched into a very intense experience where a lot of work needs to be done fairly quickly in order to assist in the reorientation of the self so that large sums of prana can flow through the self and body unimpeded. Without this, the self tends to crumple, contract, freak, become anxiety-ridden, fearful, or even psychotic. It is like taking a step outside of your home one morning and finding that there is nothing there and that in order to get to anything, you have to take a giant leap forward in order to land on solid ground.
It means you hurry up and do the work that you need to do. But it also means that you come at all of this from a very different direction. The traditions are turned on their head. This means that with the accelerant of pranic flow present that what you do is also much more effective if you apply yourself to your own intuition and seek ardently. The higher self is available to you if you just realize that you CAN tap into it. Awareness is key. The moment you slip into the old concept of ego, you lose a bit of its power, its majesty that can shoot you to the moon. Feet on the ground, soul soaring high and free. There is abundance in both modes of being. It is not either/or but both. Events will change and life will become your great teacher in ways that show you that every single moment has been a lesson for you. Good golly, how can I even begin to describe the lessons that pop up in the moment for me in each day? Life is now rich with these now that I am looking for them, aware that they are there. And this has the effect of transforming how you see everything. It sounds grandiose, but its actually quite simple. It is a new way of seeing that is the result of the self thinking to itself that it is mundane and singular and not connected to the All. When you feel the connection to the universe in a nondual way, it is a revolutionary experience because it changes your world view so radically, but also very quietly. Only here do I crow about it. I crow about it because of just how amazing it has rendered the old tones and hues of my life.
What I observed in what triggered my awakening is something that I think is of vital importance for us when we speak about awakening. The Hindu tradition masks this to a certain degree with all of the methods and years of preparation. And it is this: when you remove what divides you, awakening comes. I noted this as central to my awakening experience. When I went to look for some corroborative evidence out there on the internet that others had had my same experience (I didn’t know this had a name like “awakening” or “kundalini”), I found ancient Christian texts that had not made it into the orthodox teachings and were considered heretical. These documents, it turns out, are part of the origin of Christian thought and instead of being heresy as those in the church have tried to maintain, are now being revealed to be part of the very origin of central teachings of Jesus. Things get complicated with this, but trust me….I have done extensive research into this area and this is supported by significant research in the last century by historians and linguists.
Awakening without preparation is not impossible. You just have to contend with a lot of very intense things, many of which are the product of things shrouded in the old belief systems you have had in place previous to it taking place until you can see things differently and BE different. YOU are the change you want to see in the world.
I know that with all the info out there with systems and methods that it might sound simplistic for me to say that ALL of this is about allowing the flow of prana, but really, that is JUST what ALL of this is. Along with pranic flow comes the breaking down of your old beliefs along with certain parts of your personality that have been tied to ideas or beliefs that were limiting in nature. A LOT flows out from prana moving in high volume in the body including the Dark Night of the Soul, siddhis, and a whole range of awakening phenomenon. But it is just this simple. Like a mustard seed, you see. It grows large, unbelievably large as it develops.
This can be done. It is how I did it. I know, that in a way, I was preparing for years, I just never did yoga or adhere to a belief system or any of that. Is it really effective to go about it this way? I know that for myself, there was a level of perspective that came with awakening that I don’t think I would have been able to embody had it not been for the whirlwind cleansing that took place during awakening. I was stuck in my life. I was afraid to make any more because of how the people were in that life. Awakening helped to shake me out of complacency and showed me my life in brilliant contrasts. I don’t think I could have gotten to where I am now without it. It was the missing ingredient I had been seeking my whole life. In fact, my “seeking” simply came to a complete halt once awakening came. I felt this odd sense of, “…..I am here. I have done it.” When I thought I had lived an examined life the higher self showed just how pinched and small my perspective had been. Like a fool, I woke up and realized that yes, this thing is a whole other realm of understanding the self. And in order for it to keep doing its work, you cannot delude yourself but remain open like a child to the possibilities that what you know today, while vastly different from before awakening, is itself just another point along the road. the road, meanwhile, goes on for light years….. right? Each moment can thus become a humbling moment if you let it. Precious, special, and the only one like it. So much around it expands into larger dimension making everything here seem inconsequential…..and yet I find that no; every sparrow falls and it is known. This thing, the divine, interpenetrates everything. And so? Everything waxes sheer marvel. There is no such thing as inconsequential.
Waking up is a call to hurry up and do the “work” which is surrendering to the spirit that is what connects you to the divine, the higher self, and to what you are within. Simple. Everything else is details. No I know; what position to sit in? Whatever is most comfortable to you. Really. Diet? Your inner self will tell you. Your body will tell you. Mantra? “Surrender.” You don’t need a method. You only need yourself and a willingness to see it in a new way. I know this because I have done it. So can you.
Waking The Infinite 