Facets of Awakening

[Ziran]

Let's discuss the facets of awakening.  A list of facets are detailed here:  LINK.   I endeavor to go through each of these, one at time.  Any and all are invited to share their own observations, experiences, understanding, aspirations, etc.

Thank you for reading and to those who choose to contribute,

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The first facet in the video is:  "Samahdi".  I'm weak on this one.  I could be very wrong, but, the closest analogue that I've found is "Nirvikalpa Samadhi".  See here and here.  I'll appreciate feedback on this.  

[Lazarus93]

No-Self: I awakened to this during my first time smoking weed. I became totally conscious that the human identity that I thought was "Me" (aka the voice in my head that narrates life and makes choices) was completely illusory. The 'self' I thought I was was just a collection of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that grew in strength over time. I realized then that the sense of realness of this self became more and more reinforced through strong emotions as I went through life. The illusion felt total and real.

It's funny. After my last awakening, I vividly remembered that when I was younger, when I did not have a sense of a human self yet but rather, identified as pure awareness, I had the thought that life would become more interesting if I played a 'character' like everyone else was. So I made the conscious choice to play out this character in my life. Little did I know that as I grew up, I would be so immersed in the character that I eventually thought that was all there was to 'Me'. 

Also: The deeper you awaken to No-Self, the less of a fear of death you have. I used to have a very strong fear of death pre awakening. However, when you fully realize that the 'self' that has a fear of death doesn't even exist, but rather, it is just a very well constructed illusion, you completely transcend the fear of death. The True Self never dies as it is what is constructing everything,

Edited 20 hours ago by Lazarus93

[Oppositionless]

@Lazarus93 interesting point about losing the fear of death. I believe this also leads to losing the fear of life, they're one and the same fear, in a sense. Biologically all fear is rooted in the fear of death , so dealing with that helps to remove other fears (although not in a simplistic or all-encompassing way). 
 

One of the coolest awakenings I've had was awakening to intelligent design, for me this actually happened on a 7 day meditation retreat, not while on psychedelics. It was really beautiful , the Zen center was in a gorgeous region of northern Oregon, I was looking at the trees and the sky and realized how it was all masterfully constructed by God / universal consciousness.

Edited 14 hours ago by Oppositionless

[Yimpa]