Sober Awakening

[AtmanIsBrahman]

After following actualized.org for a couple years and diving into spirituality and existential contemplation, I might have had my first awakenings or mystical experiences. I’m curious if people on this forum can relate to this.

I’m not sure if I should call them proper awakenings or glimpses of awakening, but I had these experiences on two separate occasions. I’ll explain the longer lasting one here. I was contemplating absolute truth after watching an actualized clip (I was completely sober and have never done psychedelics). I had heard about it countless times from Leo’s videos but didn’t really get it- I understood it intellectually but only on that level. As it turns out, there are deeper levels of understanding Leo’s videos- who would’ve thought? Basically, what happened was that I grasped what absolute truth is all at once and it was abundantly clear. I realized that I am in absolute truth already. I stared at a blank tv for about 30 minutes realizing that this is absolute truth. This was accompanied by a feeling of bliss and a sense that nothing could go wrong anymore with this realization, and this lasted for a couple hours.

The thing is, these experiences went away, returning me to baseline consciousness. I’ve heard Leo mention being able to focus on absolute truth in his direct experience, but when I try that I can’t quite get there. I seem to generate some fantasy of absolute truth that is almost there but actually just an illusion of understanding when I inspect it. So the question is what to make of these experiences? Are they glimpses of awakening, actual awakening, a weird state of consciousness, or a self-deception? I’m aware that asking if an awakening is valid is ridiculous, but that’s what I’m asking 😄

 

This is the video I was watching, in case anyone wants to try their own Leo-fueled awakening. I found it to be very powerful.

 

 

[Hojo]

You can focus on it put your finger in front of your face look at the finger then take the finger away and look at empty space. That is God look at it all you want.

Edited May 22 by Hojo

[Inliytened1]

@AtmanIsBrahman nice.  Seems like you had a powerful glinpse. You caught the tail of the Ox.  Keep going with the meditation your consciousness is ripe for a deeper awakening 😀

[Carl-Richard]

55 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

The thing is, these experiences went away, returning me to baseline consciousness. I’ve heard Leo mention being able to focus on absolute truth in his direct experience, but when I try that I can’t quite get there. I seem to generate some fantasy of absolute truth that is almost there but actually just an illusion of understanding when I inspect it. So the question is what to make of these experiences? Are they glimpses of awakening, actual awakening, a weird state of consciousness, or a self-deception? I’m aware that asking if an awakening is valid is ridiculous, but that’s what I’m asking 😄

Glimpses of awakening. Keep going and they will happen more frequently until you can't stop them from happening. Then you'll see if you can really handle it. But then it's also too late.

Edited May 22 by Carl-Richard

[inFlow]

@AtmanIsBrahman You had an awakening experience, thats the same as mystical experience. It's mystical because it "comes" from nowhere. You become sort of blessed with it. It's just a state of consciousness expansion, I noticed that when the day goes by you have consciousness peaks and in those peak moments you can really dig deep in contemplation.

By trying to recreate that experience you can get lost in logical thinking and that's just all mind talking. You need to relax deep in it, not think about it but just observe this moment, and if you are calm and relaxed enough, Truth will unfold before you. It sort of hides from you, because you are not yet ripe enough to be there permanently. But it's possible that you can be in that state 24/7.

What to make of it? I'm happy that you got your first awakening, this is just the first REAL step towards yourself. You began to walk the path. Be blessed and if you are ready, dig deeper, start practicing sadhana. Grow your consciousness more. 🙏🤍

[Princess Arabia]

You didn't grasp anything. Something appeared and something else appeared. Absolute cannot be grasped. It went away simply because it was only an appearance, like a smile from someone. Can you grasp that smile and hold unto it. No, it was simply an appearance.

When someone's walking, can you hold on to that walk, grasp that walk. It's an appearance. An appearance disappears. Absolute Truth is also you trying to grasp Absolute Truth. The fact that you're trying to grasp something implies it's other than you. How can Absolute Truth have an other. You're not even inside Absolute Truth. You are not even Absolute Truth. Absolute Truth is all there is so there's no you to be anything. 

What occurred was an appearance that you interpreted as happening to you and you claimed it as an experience of yours. The Absolute can seem to do that. It can seem to look for itself but it will never find it because it's what's doing the looking. It's not really looking anyway as that's also another appearance.

[kbone]

3 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

You didn't grasp anything. Something appeared and something else appeared. Absolute cannot be grasped. It went away simply because it was only an appearance, like a smile from someone. Can you grasp that smile and hold unto it. No, it was simply an appearance.

When someone's walking, can you hold on to that walk, grasp that walk. It's an appearance. An appearance disappears. Absolute Truth is also you trying to grasp Absolute Truth. The fact that you're trying to grasp something implies it's other than you. How can Absolute Truth have an other. You're not even inside Absolute Truth. You are not even Absolute Truth. Absolute Truth is all there is so there's no you to be anything. 

What occurred was an appearance that you interpreted as happening to you and you claimed it as an experience of yours. The Absolute can seem to do that. It can seem to look for itself but it will never find it because it's what's doing the looking. It's not really looking anyway as that's also another appearance.

Yes, apprehending the absence is the key; not as an idea, but as the realization. What falls away thereafter is gives rise to clarity, which then informs the mind of its secondary role: memories, thoughts, fantastic woo woo, perspectives, perceptions, and all. All those thingies are clearly appearing and disappearing 'out front/within'. Truth is either right HERE, right NOW, or it ain't Truth.

"NOTHING is unexplainable.

EVERYTHING is a mystery."

 

[AtmanIsBrahman]

22 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

@AtmanIsBrahman nice.  Seems like you had a powerful glinpse. You caught the tail of the Ox.  Keep going with the meditation your consciousness is ripe for a deeper awakening 😀

 

22 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Glimpses of awakening. Keep going and they will happen more frequently until you can't stop them from happening. Then you'll see if you can really handle it. But then it's also too late.

Thanks for the responses guys. I got the impression that its a sort of glimpse too. I will definitely keep going to see if I can keep increasing my consciousness for the real deal.

[AtmanIsBrahman]

8 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

You didn't grasp anything. Something appeared and something else appeared.

You seem to post similar responses on a lot of threads. I'm not trying to invalidate what you're saying, but what if this is only a perspective? If you keep preaching one perspective, you become locked away from all the other possible perspectives.

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

You seem to post similar responses on a lot of threads. I'm not trying to invalidate what you're saying, but what if this is only a perspective? If you keep preaching one perspective, you become locked away from all the other possible perspectives.

It is not a perspective and I'm not preaching. All you have to do is notice it. All there is is appearances. Show me something that's not appearing. Show me something that appears and never disappears. I speak about a lot of things on this forum. In this section or my journal is mostly where I reserve these kinds of talks because it's appropriate and is usually on topic. I don't go into the dating section and tell someone their date appeared and that's all that's happening or that pick up is an illusion nor the politics section and say The Donald doesn't exist.

If I find it appropriate to speak this way, to say nothing is graspable or it's all what's appearing, then I see nothing wrong with that and shouldn't have to make any apologies for doing so. I don't tell a person suffering that their suffering is what's appearing and that it will disappear. I do try and limit these kinds of talks to where and when I see fit.

[Princess Arabia]

@AtmanIsBrahmanIf you make a post and I respond, there's no need to say that I'm preaching. It was merely a response. If I respond to something that you didn't want to hear that's fine but no need to tell me my perspective is limited and maybe I should be open to other perspectives. I am. I'm very open to other perspectives. Certain things to me are Absolute and one of them is that everything is an appearance and is not graspable. Every other perspective can come out of that and if it doesn't align, then I move unto another. If you don't agree, you don't agree. 

[AtmanIsBrahman]

52 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Show me something that appears and never disappears.

Appearance itself.

45 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

If you make a post and I respond, there's no need to say that I'm preaching.

Sorry, didn't mean to be confrontational.

[kbone]

7 hours ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Appearance itself.

Sorry, didn't mean to be confrontational.

I think she was just noting (perhaps based on her own memory) what the mind often does 'after' such events. Unconsciously, and as a sort of momentum of 'reasoning', the mind takes over. The appearance/construct of the 'I' held in mind takes credit for finding and/or being absolute truth; whereas, such appearances of I/ideas/experiences/memory/stuff only exist within/as the Absolute (which was glimpsed).

Was there a 'you' or a 'god' there, or is that just the story, a mental overlay that the mind has conjured based on an assumptive 'I' and memories of an event of spaciousness/bliss?

Was anything 'learned', or was there just a 'Being conscious as Consciousness'/ ABSOLUTE NOTHING type of dealio?

Perhaps, we could tinker with your avatar name and say 'the Atman is within Brahman'. We're tinkering here in a way that won't 'add layers' of explanation and rev up the mind too too much (it can be a lil dominating stinkshit at such times- based on memory). But, perhaps the attempt here is to 'preserve' or bring in to focus some of the clarity that was realized so it can inform the mind of the Space within which it appears. The human mind is a tool, not the master. The distinction is clear. 

As per Plato's Cave allegory, 'you' had a glimpse outside the cave, and canNOT for your life NOT bestow value on the experience, but it somehow alludes you as to how or why it happened. And typically, the mind wants answers. The mind might start reeling a bit in an attempt to bring it into the confines of its reason of cause/effect, 'me' centeredness, and all the rest. Just relax a bit, settle into that spaciousness that you gnossis/realized is immediately present/available, and let it inform mind of its secondary role. The mind is the source of all follies of pursuit, from HERE/NOW... blank TV screens and all.

There is not 'more and more consciousness' to pursue. No thing has been lost, physically, experientially or otherwise. There is nothing to say, but there is always more to say. There are no more levels to conjure, no more infinities to imagine.... Just THIS, appearances of thoughts/things popping up and disappearing in/as what I AM.

FREE

 

Edited May 23 by kbone