Healing the past. Clarity stages

From my own experiences of healing the past, I came to this outline of the main mind states.  These are some of the possible mind states on the way to clarity in yourself in regards to some events in the past. You might be in the beginning, or might be in the later stages from this list, they are usually present for those who were engaged in some spiritual practices for long time. In any case, if you have any unresolved situation in the past, you can find where you are and what else is available to the mind to open to.  

Mind state "Victimhood"

When you remember details of the situation, people involved, emotions that were present, when you correlate what happened with who said what and what happened action-vise.  You have strong opinion who is right and who is wrong.  Main emotions you experience are: depression, anger, revenge, blame, shame

Mind state "Pain"

When you remember the general feeling of the situation and you remember people involved in it, but you do not really remember details or the conversations, you need to focus to recall when you asked about them, you don’t want to think about the past, the remembrance of it brings pain and mixed feelings

Mind state "Wonder"

When you remember the movement of energies and you do remember people involved, but you see them as a part of the collective energy movement, without a trace of personalities, regardless how strong impacting  the actions were at the time of the situation

Mind state "Appreciation"

When you remember the situation, and understand it's meaning, and you see it from total gratitude and feeling of a big gift that was given

Mind sate "Equanimity"

When you see the illusory nature of the situation, and people involved, and energies at play. The meaning fades, the timeframe does not exist, and what there left for you to abide in is the translucency of being

Mind state "Joy" 

As translucency you are free to focus into the character who rejoice in the living and breathing one more moment again, and has no judgment 

Mind state "Simplicity and humility"

You dive into the character without fear to be lost in it, without seeking any particular mind state, without preference for any special state of mind, living this very moment as is

Clearing the conceptual Awakening

Once I saw a bird caught in the pile of plastic, a mix of tangled fishing lines and plastic bags. She couldn't move, it was tied around her neck. It took me long time to crawl to her so she won't fear me and try to bite the line close to her neck, so at least she could go away from the heavy pile. Through my tears and her friking out I was trying to bite on that cut resistant line, since I didn't have a knife with me. I was very close to her eyes and she was to mine, since I was trying to bite off the line as much close to her neck as possible. These experiences help cure cognitive dissonance, nihilistic tendencies "it's all happening and nothing to do" that sometimes develop right after experiencing the void of consciousness. Some of us feel a little removed, a little less involved. At that moment on the beach with a strangled bird I wasn't really thinking much, my heartbeat synchronized with hers for me to crawl and come to her neck so close. One moment like this override the useless nihilistic concepts for good, clearing any dissonance that is created by such concepts. Non-duality is not holding on to concepts, but it does happen in the partial assimilation when the opening of the mind goes ahead of actually living it. We can see it all over: throwing concepts around, arguing. So the cure is only to live life fully and be open to all the experiences that life presents, for this purpose Internet and Facebook groups are the worst place to integrate mind opening properly...

Conforming tendencies of the character + awakening experience = nut house !

Suppressive, conforming tendencies of the character + awakening experience = nut house 

Yes, it is that serious!   And some of you who know it already, will appreciate I verbalised it ! Here is why this situation may lead to serious physical condition or mental disorder, in some cases, death, either from deteriorating health, or suicide (this happened to several non-duality teachers, and we have no count for those spiritual aspirants who left unnoticed)

Conforming, suppression, compromising are contraction of energy.

Awakening experience evoke full expansion of energy.

It is unresolvable inner conflict.  You can't un-do awakening, and contraction can't sustain itself in the presence of expansion.  The longer this goes, more intense tag of war between energies, and one day it might blow up as an erupting volcano of psychiatric episode or serious illness.

Post awakening in the conforming character leads to deep depression, hiding, wanting to end life, wanting life to end...this is as much fire inside as it gets, suppressed! 

Anyone who used to conform, compromise all their life to partners, family, society, to anyone who has confidence, authority, or whoever it happens in your case...it is important that you carefully read this.

These tendencies of the character will not magically disappear, this is major shadow work that has to be done.

First, you have to honestly see that you conform.

Second, you have to get tired from doing it unconsciously.

Third, you decide to observe the conforming behaviour.

Fourth, you say, scream, yell NO to it! 

Fifth, you keep observing and engage in the conforming character more consciously in a situations that you can't be authentic yet.  The more you see the conforming role of the character, the more clarity of who you are and what you are living in the moment will be, the more courage and strength will accumulate for the final release.

Six, this is an alchemical work of the spirit itself, we can't calculate how to release conforming role, it may happen in confrontation with your parents, partner, boss, anyone with whom you kept the role going.  Suddenly you got enough of wearing it and you rip if off.  

The other party will probably not understand what is going on.  They used to you in a role, they will keep addressing you as you are in a role, they would be totally confused by your metamorphosis, they will try to undermine it in different ways, just to put you back in your usual conforming role, they will not believe that what you were before were not you, they will not accept your new face, they might shut all the doors on you... everything and all of it together -worth it.  The freedom that comes from authenticity that was covered by a conforming role is that freedom you are looking for!  

The energy release from letting go of conforming role is absolutely freeing and fully support the authenticity, creativity, wellbeing.  The release can be immediate, in parts, or overtime.   After release of the role you can be fully alined with who you are, beyond sporadic moments of recognition, you are awake in life, effortlessly, there is no internal conflict, the roles in life are more holistic and beneficial to wellbeing and clarity of the mind.  

You are awake and you are free.  You experience peace in your being and renewed joy from meeting life. This is trade off for loosing those who were with you because they were attracted to you as the role, not authentic you.  But now you will meet new ones, those who will support you naturally, because they simply like your true face. 

At the end I say that expecting understanding what actually happened to you, is asking for too much from those who only want to see your old role as you. Leave them alone. It's already shocking enough for them to have their idea of you be shuttered, or even a little questioned. Have a compassion and understanding that it is also not easy for them to let go of their idea of you. It may change one day, and you may meet in the authenticity, and it might be very healing experience for both of you.

We are here to explore humanness

After we realize we are not at all the characters

we thought we were,

the stories we thought were our life,

the body we associated with so dearly...

After we realize all we see is not outside,

the others we thought were separate, are not,

after we realize all that in the experience of Awakening,

we are here to explore humanness,

the uniqueness and vulnerabilities of the character,

relations, love and compassion.

It is no less fascinating journey to find and play

your own unique note

that can only be heard

by resonance.

We return to simply be available

What comes from a fully and throughly lived wisdom in the middle of the ordinary life, relations, dealing with circumstances, is humbleness acquired through compassion to ourselves. We rise and fall so many times: we see the truth, and we fall into identification with the roles we play, we remember who we are when “life flows as a sweet song”, and we sometimes forget when “life comes as a ton of bricks". Living life’s vicissitudes, we shed all the traces of superiority and arrogance in every aspect of our being. We go through all the stages of the mind clarity, we can talk to anyone on their own level of understanding, always seeing the light of their being. We return to the marketplace with all the humbleness we learnt on the way, with deep compassion to human ways. We return to simply be available, if life asks us to help someone through our presence, our work, creative expression, simple advice, or guidance.

We start to live from the heart of our being, where our unique authentic expression reside. Mind gives a way to Being. If before responses to life’s events and circumstances were mostly given to us by the mind, now these responses come from the being, they are raw, unedited by the mind’s stories and unaltered in their expression. We become beautiful, like every little child is, uncompromised, true and spontaneous. 

From "Authentic living" chapter of the book on Integration of Awakening I am writing...

Integration of Awakening: Personality Conflicts. Untying family/ancestral energetics

 
Personality Conflicts. Untying family/ancestral energetics

As consciousness projects itself into a form, now energetics of this projected plane start to take place, where human mind get’s a center stage.  It get’s conditioned by the certain environment it interacts with, and the particular orientation of the human life is formed out of this interaction.  Researchers of consciousness field, like Stanislav Grof, whom I met at Esalen Institute, spent over 60 years in the field of psychiatry/psychoanalysis and studies of altered states of consciousness, talks that mind hold impressions, what we call mind conditioning, even before childhood, at birth, and even before the birth.  This conditioning that already present in a brain at birth, bring together all the necessary events, circumstances and people to confirm and reinforce itself through the lifetime.  This default conditioning that creates certain direction in life may be called life scenario, and based on it the decisions will be made in life, the directions of actions will be chosen.  Just like in a movie the character acts and behaves in accordance with the storyline of the movie. 

In a very early childhood we are constantly adjust in a circumstances to ease our discomfort. In a life of a little baby, going through the birth process, or a child in the early years of life discomfort of the spirit means contraction of it in some form of unconscious belief that will take over for the rest of our life. If at the moment of discomfort the little one found a solution, to hide under the table, for example, and we felt relief, we felt a little bit more safe, immediately certain neurological passages were created in the brain matter.  This complex matrix of neurological responses that is set for life will be activated in a brain in all similar circumstances, the neurons will fire in the same grooves that were cut in a brain an early years, playing the same scenario over and over again.

People change, circumstances, events are different, but if we look closer, we might notice the same theme, same scenario plays out.  Even though people are completely different, but we find ourselves behave and react in a similar manner with them.  We change jobs and partners only to find ourselves again and again in a similar relational dynamics in a similar mind state.

Executing the same old conditioned response unconsciously done by our brain, as if a developer would create a computer program to perform some task, and computer will just run the program, reading from the same code every time this program is called by the computer system.  If the program said: “Close all applications, if the application X is running”, as soon as computer execute application X, it also  will close all open applications that were running previously.  Computer simply execute the program written by developer.  I presented this example just to show how simple the programing is, and how not easy to really see it when one’s own life is involved. Programs are firing in the brain in a high complexity, and we sort of doomed by living it in an unconscious way.  Basically we become a matrix of these conditioned responses from the depth of the very early childhood contractions in the mind, or even ancestral contractions inherited through the genes.

 
It was believed that neurological passages developed in an early childhood made for a lifetime, we all heard saying “You can’t teach an old dog a new trick”, but research in the brain science field in the last decade confirmed what meditative practices knew long ago, that brain change absolutely possible in any stage of life. We know now that it is possible for neurons create new passages, abandon an old ones, and start firing through the new grooves.  This is called neuroplasticity of the brain, the possibility of change of the old behaviors, old conditioning, and corresponding life scenarios.  The science now agree with spiritual methods of un-doing mind programming which based primarily on awareness, mindfulness practices.

Awakening to pure awareness usually does not magically fix interpersonal relationships and certain dynamics, but it can clearly point to the faulty mind conditioning, and with time and intention of full liberation we might clear these default unconscious believes.  This is why awakening is only a beginning of a very complex un-doing of the mind’s conditioning. The first years of this process often very intense and involve a lot of life circumstances and living structures changes.  As the programs are seen one by one as an automatic response to something that is not even exist in the present moment, they let go of it’s grip.

And for some of us years after awakening we may encounter a wave of what mystics called the dark night of the soul: as closer we get to the depth of the spirit, the truth of being, the more discomfort we might feel.  This discomfort arise out of the conflict between who we are as limitless pure awareness and the programing that runs the show as us which is extremely limited, executing the same life scenario.  Feeling of the great discomfort is not in any way a regression!  This is a new spiral in shedding all that does not belong to the being we are.

Awakening is a catalyst in this journey of a human spirit to come back to it’s original rest. This process invites us to open the heart fully and develop deep compassion to ourselves and our fellow brothers and sisters.  Great discomfort brings us to our knees, and therefore strips us from any idea of control, even very subtle. We are humbled by the majesty of life itself, we become truly a courageous and transparent instrument of life, as we are not blinded by ideas and any images of ourselves, and silenced by fears.  We become a wave, a constant movement that is not bound by previous experiences, previous beliefs, but a fresh movement at this very moment.

Very often un-doing old behaviors happens in the middle of life itself, in a social circumstance, in relations with people. We still secretly wish that spiritual methods that worked before to awake us, will continue to work to ease our discomfort we feel from a conflict of our personality.  We might continue to hold on to the methods that helped before, but now they become an obstacle on the way to full liberation.  Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan master of the mid 20th century, called it “spiritual materialism”, when one tries to escape conflicts of the personality by diving into meditation, energy practices, by using psychedelics, instead of looking into the conflict directly in the eye with bare honesty.

Here is the difficulty. Many teachers do not work with personality conflicts, some of them even deny it completely, as something not existent in the awakening perspective.  We all teach from our own experience.  Teaching about the truth of being, Dharma, is the same, but filtered through our individual experiences Dharma brought to the world differently.  The beauty of life is in the diversity, and in the spiritual guidance we also have limitless diversity.  I encourage everyone to use your own judgment what is most helpful for you to look into.  Trust your natural curiosity, and explore fully what draws your interest. If you notice that you simply react in the same old way, and you find yourself in the same situations over and over again, maybe you should explore this directly, instead of trying to mask the inner conflict with more meditation, more psychedelics, or continuing discussing consciousness in support groups just to avoid to look into behavioral issues.

Briefly I will tell you an example of the struggle I encountered in my own integration.  As deeper I went into the being, the more I felt the discomfort between the knowing of who I am and the situation in life that I was facing. For several years the conflict only escalated. I was living the scenario of suppression, in which in the certain circumstances the brain would run old programming, reinforcing old behavior of conforming to others.  I have to honestly say here, I had no idea what was going on, I only knew something was very uncomfortable, and since I am always curious in the mechanisms of mind’s creation, I looked in different ways.

I often say to people that your natural interest, curiosity to how things work, and awareness to discomfort is already enough.  The truth may be simple to uncover, or will take some time, but the indication that you are on a right path is your own honesty with yourself, almost as holding a flashlight and lighting your own way.  You will encounter many who will try to tell you that you are lost, not awakened, please keep flashlight of inner honesty on and move into direction of your curiosity.  Of cause, the path will not be straight, we do not know exactly what it will be, but the orienteer is always the same, it is your own conscience.

As far as I remember my own intention always was authenticity. It is almost as I always felt inauthenticity in my behavior.  This kept itself going even after awakening. The grip of scenario that I called: “Don’t be yourself” was very strong.  How it was developed in the early childhood, or before, this does not really matter.  What matter is that it became absolutely clear to me how this program runs itself now.  How mind, executing the old program, would create a role for me to participate in, unconsciously! The role with a package of feelings, sensations and thoughts, the complete holographic character that would take over. 

See, for the field of consciousness it is really doesn't matter what life scenario is playing out, just like the screen holds any movie, or a mirror holds any reflections. For pure awareness it doesn't really matter what role to animate. With awakening we expand to this very knowing, we see how mind create these roles and characters that we used to identify with, but now we can participate in them consciously. Mind itself, the tool for creating illusions, can become an ally, a tool in clear seeing, in exploring old mechanisms.  As soon as the flashlight of the awareness shines on the mind itself and it’s illusory creations, the old mechanisms and behaviors dissolves in that light.

I was in the middle of the social circumstances when the light of awareness illuminated the mind’s creation, and mind opened all it’s cards right there.  I will tell you, it wasn’t pretty, it is usually not.  It’s enough embarrassing to see our own inauthentic face when we are alone, but with others around it is absolutely painful and utterly confusing. This is why the mind will fool you with anything possible to keep the old story going.  It will explain to you in detail why you should keep the relationship that is not satisfactory, the job that you don’t like, old behaviors and addictions to continue, it will give you any options to put your attention on, and will keep you in line with the same story, scenario.

When mind consciously used as a tool to look into the emptiness of it’s own creations and it’s mechanisms, it is absolutely liberating experience. For some short time mind still was trying to explain what happened in a linear manner, just to fool me again, but the clarity that opened up and felt sense of liberty were stronger then the stories that mind kept presenting, at the end it capitulated and relaxed. 

With that capitulation the mountain of suppressive behaviors fell off.  Scenarios “don’t be yourself”, “be nice”, “don’t rase your head” that were  enrolling me in unconsciously, slowed down.  Almost like the movie ran out  of the tape, and eventually the movie with suppressed character in it stopped. The projector reloaded itself with a new movie. Life continued. The energy that was caught up in the suppression story was freed for creativity, joy, playfulness, even renewed zest for life, vitality.  Life freed itself for more creative living.

If you feel any resonance with what was said here, fear not.  Yes, you might loose people in your life who won’t be able to accept you without your conforming mask, or any other mask they rather have a relationship with, but not your true authentic face.  These relationships are based on projected images of each other, not true intimacy, and as you find your true face, everything not true will be left behind.  This will be almost as an indicator of a true relation, based on the intimate relation in the immediacy of the moment, or the relation based on the projected rigid constructed image of oneself and the other - the creation of the conceptual mind.  Different roles goes in pairs: domineering character needs conforming character, the victim role need a rescuer role, and vice versa, and there are no real winners in the movie.

How to even recognize that you are living unconscious old programming, certain life scenarios?  You can honestly ask yourself these questions:
“Am I happy with myself?” 

“Am I happy in my relationship with my partner?”

“ Am I happy with the work I am doing?”

“Am I completely open, true, intimate with: 

my partner, 

parents, 

children, 

my close friends?”
“Am I at peace with myself?”
“Do I feel empowered?”
“Do I have any addictions I can’t let go of?”
and any question of this sort that is simply about your life now.

These are simple, but powerful questions.  We have a tendency to run away from simple questions about our life, mind will try to hide it’s own creations behind grand spiritual ideas, bigger identities it will re-create for you to believe in, it will hide it’s tricks, like a source code for the computer program is hidden from the user.  User clicks on the button, and computer perform many tasks at once that can look like magic. So is with the mind.  Mind creates elaborate illusions, and we believe in them, because we do not see the source code, and in the very beginning of each mind’s programs is a creation of the identity, an image of yourself. 

If you hold on to any idea of yourself,  judgment about someone else, any fear, LOOK at this very fact: to judge ourselves or others we have to first re-create an image of ourselves, recall some previous experiences, then and only then we can have judgment of someone else, or psychological fear of any kind.  At this very moment, without yourself as any image, any identity, there is only pure awareness.  Pure awareness does not have any judgments to life that is happening.  The conceptual mind does.

Please do not be discouraged by conceptual mind.  It’s only doing it’s usual responsibilities it knows: it run the programs that was given to it long, long time ago.  Can you see how innocent it is? Can you see how innocent you are in any of the roles?  Can you see that you do not need to try to be any different then you are?  Trying is always mind’s solution that is not liberating in nature, it is always deceiving and in the best, pacifying. It is not the mind which decides to change and shed the programing!  It is a human spirit, the flame of recognition of who we are, the awakening to the truth of our being.  Being itself will carry liberation forward, not conditioned mind.  The limited mind doesn't know what is needed for it’s freedom, the being does. Trust in that.  Trust that any circumstance, how small, big, important or unimportant, weird, crazy, ugly, and unexplainable - it is from the being itself.  We all know the abilities of the body to heal itself, it’s unmatched wisdom.  Can you see that being is in a constant primordial movement of harmonizing, and conceptual mind has very limited view what is needed in each and every moment for the limitless harmony?  Mind is an automatic processor that only knows programs it knows, and outside of that limited knowing, it knows nothing more. 

Did you ever hear “Go into directions of your fears?”  Did you ever thought about it, why it is even suggested? I bet you did, and me too.  Fears are like indicators where our mind doesn't want to go, because long ago it already made all the neurological passages necessary to run itself smoothly in the same illusory scenario.  So what is happening when psychological fear comes, the one that says: “Do not speak up. It is better to avoid.  It is  dangerous. Let me give you some excuse that will comfort you”?  You suck on that excuse like on a pacifier for a baby,  and neurons keep firing in the old grooves of avoidance.  The danger is gone, you feel better, the scenario got another shot of reinforcement. The character in the scenario got affirmed one more time. This is an addiction to be someone, addiction to the created old image, and we all know how strong addictions are.  Many of us struggle with various addiction through life, but the addiction to one’s own constantly created self image is the strongest of all, it is a true reason for any other addictions.  Our inability to clearly see this addiction, and therefore identify with the product of programming of our mind, is a source of suffering. 

Fears point to an unchartered territory, the space that is not classified by mind as safe.  The real dangers are very rare in the world now, but mind still gives us warnings if we only about to attempt to do something that is outside of the current programming.  This is why it is absolutely beneficial to turn our curiosity to fears. They are like a light in a dark tunnel we got in unconsciously, and made it our home. 

We can live all life with strongest personal conflicts, and not know it. We identify with the mind’s programmed character as us.  We never really look that it’s not really one character, but hundreds of them, not one I, but many different kinds.  We change them seamlessly, like clothes, and get used to this constant change. What make us notice this inauthenticity is an experience of complete authenticity.  Awakening, getting in touch with the being itself, pure awareness, is the beginning of uncovering our authentic face. 

If before we unconsciously and innocently assumed a certain role, a mask, after stepping into full authenticity of being, even once, we feel great discomfort in a role we used to wear without a problem.  At first we might not understand where this discomfort comes from.  This happened to me for several years.  Great discomfort and no clarity.  I tried to compensate for it in different ways, and surely these were the ways mind knew: retreat even more, learn even more. I immersed myself in studies of behavioral psychology, ancestral and family constellations, human design, and etc. only to come to realization of continuos compensation of conforming personality that was taking the main stage. I had to shed my own blinders, basically clearly see my life scenario that still was playing out the suppression that was formed in a very early childhood in an unsafe environment. Everyone has their own programming, and you will have your own way of recovering your authenticity, and certainly it is not express overnight delivery.

As consciousness projects different forms to interact with each other, it is a divine play, and every encounter, every circumstance is a right one at this very moment, the right one for all involved in this encounter.  The weaving of white, red and blue yarn creates a certain pattern where each of the yarn’s color is absolutely essential.  Same with circumstances.  Every detail in it is essential, every detail in it rightfully beneficial for everyone involved.  Every circumstance in our life is a projection of the mind state.  Can you see that by not caring around an image of yourself, and not re-creating it right now, you can see the circumstance as impartial?  Can you see that any judgment of the previous relational experience can only arise if we got an image of ourselves with all it’s attributes and memories re-created in the conceptual mind along with the resistance to the re-created image of the other?  We therefore missing this very moment of life where no judgments belong, only pure perception and responding to life from immediacy of the moment.  This is where true relation happens.

Mind becomes a very useful tool when it looks at itself.  In the middle of a situation the mind which would usually create a self image, suddenly would look at itself, the very image it created.  This moment, the very moment of mind uncovering it’s own truth of illusory creation, is a liberating moment.  Awakening the mind to it’s own creations is a very deep inner work that is done by Being itself.  These life-changing insights take birth in the love for truth and authenticity and can’t be fabricated or calculated by the mind.  Trust life and continue it’s own inquiries as they present themselves.  Use growth of compassion and humbleness and dissipation of life scenarios as a yardstick that you are walking the right path. Have a wondrous attitude toward life, find your most authentic way of living and facilitate the same for others. 

Belonging and Conscience

Belonging is a very big thing for human beings.  We like to belong. We like to be a part of the tribe, this is an ancient conditioned preference carried through millennia.  As a tribe we survive.  As a tribe we also help each other and rejoice together.  

True belonging is a rare phenomenon.

Any community is a field, and the only way to truly belong in the community is to resonate with the field: the values, the structure, people, and etc.  If we do not resonate fully, then we bound to bend, even a little here and a little there.  When we bend a little, we shrink a little.  We are not anymore whole.

At some point of our lives the depth of the spirit itself shows us if what we involved in, with whom we belong is true for us or not.  If before we could bend a little and justify to ourselves this in different ways,  after a certain life lived, we can't do it anymore. G.I. Gurdgieff, a mystic of the beginning of 20th century, called it conscience.  Somewhere in the depths of our being is something that does not belong to a conceptual mind which tries to take over us.  It can obscure the truth with it's constant input in a form of stories and believes.  But if we are going deeper with our living inquiry into the nature of being, the mind does not hold a grip on us anymore, and the truth, like conscience, can be strongly felt.

Conscience is the best orienteer, the best navigation system.  It will let you know every time if you are in congruence with it, or you are lying, even if it is a little, or it is excused by the mind as something good to do.  Conscience will give you clear input, without downplaying.  With having access to conscience you just simply and gently aware if it is true for you or not, without a doubt, without looking at anyone else for support, without hiding behind fears. This in itself is a very good sign of maturity.

We all have conscience, it is in the very fabric of our being, but only when we are truly here and now, in the naturalness of our being, we have an access to it, otherwise we are a subject to thoughts, beliefs and concepts of the mind.  Just make sure you clear the way for it, study the mind's trick-a-treats, investigate all the human phenomena what it is really, so you are not fooled into it's games.  Conscience itself will take care of the rest and you always enjoy your belonging, because it will be true, within yourself, relationship, or community.  

Truth of oneself prior to any labels

We wear so many different labels: a man, a woman, a mother, an accountant, a biker, a teacher, a son, a daughter, handsome, skinny, bold, sad, busy...and so on....The amount of labels we assign unconsciously all day long, all life long, are endless.  They become our identities, our prison.

Did you notice how some labels change in a matter of minutes, hours, like sad, busy, excited, hungry, cold, and some labels keep for longer like daughter or son, for example, until our parents die.  Then these labels not used that often, maybe even never again.  Did you ever noticed that along all the changing labels through days, months, years, there is always something unchangeable, prior to any labels, the one that actually can notice this very changes?  The pure being that simply exist. Now. The existence itself.  The very fact of existence of you.  Prior to the labels, short lived or long lived - any of them!  They do not describe you fully.  Each of them describe only tiny part of you, maybe some describe a bigger part of you, but not one of them describe who you actually are.

It is easy to know who you are.  Look at any label that you attach to yourself and see that it is temporary. Even the most stickiest ones: "female" and "male" dissolve with going to sleep.  See what never dissolves, what silently exists, holds any labels.  Notice this pure beingness you are. This is simple and hidden truth of oneself,  but we are so overloaded with labels,  they hang on us like the drowning man hangs on the rescuer - with a grip of such a strength that the drowning man can easily take the rescuer down with himself.  This is a strength of the labels, identities.  They take us to the depth of the illusionary world and make us believe it is real. But still, it is also imaginary strength, and any moment we can lift the label off and see the truth of us.

The label will stick again in no time, this is the mystery of this world, but now we know.  We know who we are when we are naked, we know exactly who we are, and what are those sticky words, names, descriptions are.  They will never fool us to take them as truth of us.  They just mostly here for a ride with us, short or lifelong ride, but it's a ride!  Enjoy the ride, and know you are not stuck in it for eternity.  

Take a closer look at your life scenario!

We live certain life scenarios, but until we see it clearly, we don't see what's ruling our psyche automatically, we can't look at it honestly, we think it's not relevant to us, maybe it's true for others, but not for us. This is the case with many people, and hiding behind awakening is a great way to avoid seeing anything not wanted to be seeing. It serves as a shield from looking deeper into one's own programming. But sooner or later we all have to look at our dirty clothes. We all have them, some admit it honestly, and get a closer look, and some are blind to it themselves, but it is obvious to everyone else around.  

Awakening also may facilitate an honest look at one's lived life scenarios. There is much more space now to hold and look at any clothes that does not fit us anymore, outdated, or everyday wear that needs to be sent to Salvation Army instead of keeping it in a wardrobe.  

Have a closer look on your everyday life. Do you do what you don't love and keep telling yourself the same excuse why you must keep doing it? Are you in an unsatisfactory relationship and you keep telling yourself same excuse why you must keep it going? Are your children almost repeat the same circumstances and dynamics, just different setting, different people involved, or your life remind you your parents life, even though you really tried to live differently? Do you avoid confrontations and slide into a Mr. nice most of the times explaining it to yourself as being peaceful and loving?

There are many clues to look at our lives circumstances without any stigma, especially after awakening! More freedom, more naturalness, less fear, just pure curiosity and intention for liberation.

This is all we need when we sort that old garb.

We are not getting older!

I wrote this story, recalling the experiences of awakening. I would call these experiences also a spontaneous direct introduction to the natural state of being.  These experiences does happen to many, especially in a childhood, but we forget. The mind, coming back to it's usual everyday contraction from such an experience, forgets it completely, especially if we were very young.

If these experiences happen to us spontaneously when we are adults, without proper preparation, mind doesn't know how to interpret it, and it only can assign the meaning it knows: "Wow, I had an amazing trip!"

The experience of the natural state of being happens beyond the usual dwelling of the conceptual mind, which does not have any access to the wisdom of the expansion, therefore all the interpretations by conceptual mind would be at best, incomplete, undervalued, or in a contrary overly emphasized, and in both cases not assimilated properly. I will take you in my story into some of the experiences and try to point to the essence of it.  It may facilitate some remembrance in you, and maybe integration of the similar experiences, or you might simply enjoy the story.

I was in a silent retreat, and most of the days we were sitting in meditation. It was 2009 and I was 42 y.o.  I was 15 years into spiritual search, and I was on a peak of the intensity of the seeking. I left Gurdjieff way and Vipassana meditation behind, and was trying something else.  A teacher named Adyashanti caught my attention, and I ended up in his week long retreat in Omega Institute.

After the mind settled in the first couple of meditations I introduced it to a series of questions.  “Where is the leg?”, I asked innerly, and I found myself looking at the leg.  “Where is the hand?”, I asked again and found myself looking at the hand.  Surely as the question was asked, the attention went there. “Where is I?”, I asked.  Suddenly, the I who was asking the questions, was gone. The attention pointed me back to myself.  My body was sitting on the cushion, and looking around, and I was everything that sees.  

The state of being aware, cognizant, but not being bound to a character, continued several days. During those days I was meditating, walking in the forest as usual, and on one of those walks I experienced very peculiar happening.

There is a story of Buddha’s awakening under the Bodhi tree. The story says that at one point the special faculty of the mind arose in him where he remembered all the lifetimes he ever lived. I didn’t have such an experience, but somewhat similar to it: all the instances of the same mind state of pure awareness, Presence, that I experienced in this lifetime, but forgot, were brought up now as clear visions, one after another.

The scene in an airplane came as a vision, in the identical mind state. I was a baby, I myself don’t know how old I was, and I can’t ask my mom, she died many years ago. But I was definitely younger then 2 y.o, because I remember myself in a crib on an airplane.  The bassinets for babies, little cribs that airline provides have restrictions on the age and weight of the child.  I looked it up, and for some airlines it’s 6 months, 12 months, the oldest age restriction I found for American Airlines is 2 years old.  We were flying on the old Russian aircraft Tu-134, probably their age restriction was on a lower range.  I now assume I was around 1 year old.

We were flying from Kamchatka, the most eastern peninsula of Russia to a Russian capital Moscow.  The flight was very long, and I was sick.  All this my mom told me later. At that time I didn’t know any of it. I was simply looking up, as a baby would.  And now, 41 years later I was recalling what I actually saw. I wasn't a baby. I was looking at my body in a crib in dimmed lights. I was not a baby in a crib, I was aware of a baby in a crib and I was aware of everything.  I was pure unbound awareness in which all these images were taking place. 

After this vision on airplane, still walking in the forest in a retreat, I experienced next instance of a similar mind state.  It was in a hospital this time. I woke up in a delirium. Same state of Awareness, looking: the bleak hospital room, the body laying in bed, under the white cotton sheet that was soaking wet from the sweat. The ill girl was 5.  There were neon lights on some apparatus over the body, and a transparent tube going to the small white arm. Then there was a needle going into the arm, held by white mesh bandage wrapped around it.  As soon as a needle appeared in awareness, the fear arose in that space, and immediately a body reflex jerked the hand.  The needle cut the little arm and red color flooded the scene, soaking the white bandage with blood.  This scene of blood over the hand and a feeling of fear contracted awareness back into the body.  Spaciousness and awareness just a second ago became the form of a little girl with a sharp pain in her arm.

While I was still walking in the forest, several experiences floated to the surface of the mind, completely taking me for a vision ride, as soon as I was done with one vision, the other one would change it. I will describe one more of them. Now I was in my early 30th, in a Gurdjieff Way retreat they call “work period”.  As a part of the retreat there were special dances called sacred movements.  This was my first work period, I never done these movements before. I was totally lost with steps, trying to follow everyone else.  The movements were very complicated, and I didn’t feel anything else besides tension and pressure to hurry up with making movements, since I was trying to get at least something right, following legs and arms of people in a row prior to where I was, the last row on the back of the room of all beginners to this practice.  I was totally uncoordinated, and making one movement with one hand and another with another hand, while making also specific steps, was too complicated.  I couldn't even get the directions “left” and “right” right, so I was failing miserably.  Next movement was dervish whirling - a dance from the Mevlevi Sufi order, originated in the 13th century.  After the ordeal with complicated steps whirling came as a rescuer!  There were no steps to learn, no gestures to coordinate, just spin around yourself with your hands open to the sides like two wings.  

As soon as I started to move around myself,  I found myself looking at the whirling body, seeing the flow of fabric making circles, seeing other fabric circles around, the room, the music.  I was a space where the whirling was taking place. Presence. Suddenly in that space of Presence along with the music and movement of the body arose a feeling of compassion to all human beings, who are trying hard in life, just like I was minutes ago trying to follow everybody in a complicated movement.  As soon as feeling arose in the space, I immediately found myself back into the body.  The feeling of compassion to a human condition turned to almost pain and deep sadness merged together in my chest, I couldn't contain it.  I ran back to the room, crawled into my sleeping bag, closed the zipper to the very top, slid down inside the bag, curled in a ball on the bottom of it, and wept.

Walking in the forest in the retreat in the state of pure awareness, recalling in my being all the instances of the same state, 

what struck me the most, and didn't surprise me at all at the same time, that I was in fact, ageless.  

I was not 1 y.o, and not 5 y.o, not 30, and not 42.  I was ageless, unchanging space.  Lucid, transparent, holding everything and aware of everything, space.  There was continuity to “me” which never gets any older.  Almost as I was a silent witness of the movie in which a baby became a girl, and a girl became a young woman, and a young woman became a mature woman.  And in this movie there were various scenes, circumstances and events the female character participated, changing, growing up, maturing.  But I was not this character, not any of the instances of the character - not baby, not a girl, not a woman, I was a space for this movie, a screen on which the movie was projected.  As the movie run, the screen, the space that holds ever changing images, doesn't change.  This is who we are, and I experienced the continuity and never changing quality of that.  We are not getting any older.  We are ageless. We were never born, and will never die.  This realization of agelessness and our unchanging nature that I relay to you can’t be transmitted in words, though we always try, but you must experience it directly in your own being, and in your own unique way. 

The awareness of what is happening always here. It is always present, it is a ground for all the experience.  We just never notice it, we identified with the character we are, day after day, year after year, mistakenly investing our identity in the ever changing character.  

Look at the awareness itself,  point your attention to what is aware of this experience right now.  There is an experience, there are thoughts, feelings, seeing, hearing in the experience.  And there is awareness of the experience, awareness of the thoughts, feelings, seeing, hearing.  Look what is aware.  Turn your attention from the world in front of you to what is noticing, what is aware of the world.  If you find yourself in thinking, turn your attention to what is aware of thinking.

Keep with your inquiry.  

And arrive to clear knowing of who you are, 

the natural state of being.
Eternally Ageless.

Heal yourself by being transparent

Heal yourself by being transparent. You do not need to be perfect, but childlike clear. Sometimes we don't even know that we are lying to ourselves, and usually its not a total lie, but a little bit of it, so we can feel alright with that, but that takes a toll on the energy, and eventually on a physical body. Be transparent. Be as you are, feel what you feel, and don't feel inadequate for that.. Acceptance of imperfection of our own character and appreciation of our uniqueness and transparency is freedom.

What is the fastest way to freedom? Not adjusting the character constantly, not making it better, but knowing our true nature, and living from it as much as possible. Sometimes we forget, but if we practice inquiry Who am I?, this is not merely a question, it is a living energy that keeps itself by momentum. It comes on the surface of the mind, even in the darkest night of the soul, it will land to our attention at some point. And we suddenly remember who we are, the truth of being. Don't scold yourself for forgetfulness, it's not your choice really. Just find yourself again and rejoice in the meeting.

What is our true nature? You know you exist. You know you perceive. Before anything, you are already. Otherwise how would you know? That space of being is our true nature. You are. I am. Already, by default. Here.  

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