My three awakening experiences

[tsuki]

I would like to share my story, which consists of three awakening experiences so far. I do not intend to keep a journal and I would like to invite discussion and ask for directions. Due to nature of my self-inquiry I am not committed to any spiritual tradition and know basics of very few ones, but I'm open to suggestions to what pursue next.

This thread will contain three posts, as I would like to go in depth on each one and they may not be digestible in a one go. Currently, I'm intuitively feeling that a fourth awakening is coming and I think that remembering details of my previous ones will help it come along.

For now, let's talk about my first awakening that happened 3 years ago, and some background.

I was always smart. First, as a kid that did as little as possible to not get in trouble with parents and play videogames for the rest of the time. Then, as a teenager that would get hooked up on science and computing, pursuing career in mechanical engineering. I was raised in a reasonably wealthy family and by the time I was finishing my master's degree I had everything most people have by the time they are in their mid-40. A house, a car, a cat, and a reasonably well-paid job thanks to my family. And, of course - feeling absolutely crushed by life's miseries, barely holding it all together.

I was having something of a year-off in which I was supposed to write my thesis, but instead of doing that I decided to check out philosophy. I was always admiring authorities in science, and philosophy was like its big daddy so of course I would get interested in that. Being a youtube junkie that I still am, I found The School of life channel and ran a crash course in art and philosophy. What got me really fascinated was existential philosophy, especially Martin Heidegger. He was advertised as the most obscure philosopher that talks about the most mundane things, and boy, how did I love riddles.

My first awakening had two stages. First stage was while reading about existentialism as a whole on Stanford's encyclopedia of philosophy, and the second one was while reading Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time". Facts that I injected were not important in my awakening by themselves, but the process of opening myself to possibility. Transcending the point of view I had at the time. What is important is that I did not really try to grasp the logic this philosophy provides, but to accept it as it was given to me, and try to view "the real world" through its lens. A logical/rational person like me could do that only because I trusted that those philosophers were wiser than me and I was trying to connect with feelings I knew I had inside. I was trying to prove to myself that I am a human being, and not a robot which I saw as a root cause of unhappiness in my life.

In the first stage, while reading broadly about existentialism, it induced severe feelings of loneliness, sadness and compassion towards other human beings. I remember looking at people focused on their business and feeling sorry for them for being "lost" in their "roles". I suddenly started cherishing simple things, like sunshine, or the wind. Breathing. At the same time, I started to doubt my material paradigm as I believed that I cannot simply be summed up as a story. I started seriously thinking about death, and having walks to the cemetery every few days to contemplate it. When I saw that something was going on with this existentialism thing, I finally decided to wrestle with Heidegger and thought to myself: "Damn, I read tensor calculus for fun, how hard can this whole "Being and Time" be?". Well, the book gave me a good fight and then knocked my Ego out for two weeks.

The mainstream advice for anyone interested in the book is that you don't try to read it unless you have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. I was too determined to care at that point, so I read it in two languages to account for mistranslations, while watching Hubert Dreyfus' lectures on youtube. It took me several months to get through one third of the book, when my first awakening happened.

It was a gradual process in which I saw how I construct reality. The book highlights the method of self-inquiry called Phenomenology that is used to map the inner territory of a being called Dasein. The being is defined as one that asks the question "What is being?", which is what the book tries to answer. I have been doing that out of pure curiosity for months, each day, every free minute until it hit me: "None of this is real, everything is me". It was a very nauseating feeling, very strange and profoundly beautiful. In everything I saw, I saw how I was in it. Everything was a reflection of myself - a book wouldn't be a book without me. I saw how "I" was constructed out of a "book", and the "book" was constructed out of "I". How "I" was dispersed in everything I saw, felt, smelled and touched. It was absolutely fascinating. Until, of course I understood that I can take ownership of the construction and I started to deconstruct what "I" didn't like. Funnily enough it was things I was the most proud of, like how I was attached to my house, but felt miserable for not earning it. How I loved my car, but felt fear of losing it. To disassociate from my body that I thought was too fat and didn't like. It felt so freeing that I cried.

I got so carried away with this deconstruction that at one point I realized that once I knew how to do it, there was no coming back. I could not forget how to and I was in total control of everything. I could go all the way down into nothingness. And then it hit me:

"A human is literally nothing and it is terrifying".
"We run away from it and shove things into this bottomless pit without realizing it cannot be filled."
"This is the misery of the human condition.".

After days of fear, nausea, crying, laughter, ecstasy and love - the remnants of "I" decided that we cannot live this way. That this is too unsustainable and we have to close the pit. So it happened.

In the midst of things, I reached out to my parents for help. First, they tried to fix me physically, when that showed not to be the problem - they sent me to therapy. Very pragmatic people, but hey - good call. I stayed with the therapist till this day and I'm very glad.

What happened next is that I lost 16 kg over the next few years, changed my job to a better one, met my soon-to-be wife and graduated school at the top of my class. Ego at its best, trying to keep the pit closed.

Overall: great ride - 10/10, would ride again

So, what technically happened?
What I learned a few years later is that I probably did a very intense Neti-Neti inquiry while being totally clueless. Ended up, probably, in the dark night of the soul and let the Ego take the wheel again to leave it. It grew back strong, but I knew that I could open the pit someday, which I did in the second awakening. I will report on it soon.

[Vinnie]

Thanks for sharing dude, genuinely inspired. I can't offer any advice because you seem much further along than me but to keep digging and don't let anyone or anything stop you. 

[tsuki]

13 hours ago, Vinnie said:

Thanks for sharing dude, genuinely inspired. I can't offer any advice because you seem much further along than me but to keep digging and don't let anyone or anything stop you. 

@Vinnie Thanks, that means a lot to me

So, there are some things I need to clear up before I will report on my second awakening later today.
@Leo Gura did a video about "correcting the stigma of psychedelics", and what I would like to do is to clear up the stigma of philosophy as mental masturbation. 

If you are looking for a bunch of thoughts that you can drag around with you and use to explain everything, philosophy is an excellent match for you. In fact, philosophy's sole job is to produce an endless amount of thoughts by changing existing ones into something else. There will be thought-systems that will stick with you and you will use in everyday life, successfully.

The problem starts, when you are stuck at philosophy's results and not its method. When you collect the thoughts, and don't know where did they come from. Now you may ask: "so where do they come from?", and my answer would be:

Straight out of philosopher's ass.
STOP COLLECTING PHILOSOPHER'S SHIT. FOCUS ON WHY DO YOU QUESTION.

I was always a smart kid, but not book-smart. I was curious and lazy. I never learned facts, because I didn't feel like putting stuff in my head. I intuitively learned key points and extrapolated them to produce a story. I was always very good at mathematics. By the time physics came along I could memorize an equation and reproduce the theory behind it. I had no clue what I did at the time, I just thought that I was soooo rational and soooo logical that my thinking was very fast lol. I was very independent and it did not frighten me to dive head first into unmarked territory, as it was something I always did intellectually. I learned the method of phenomenology and applied it during reading of "Being and Time" and reproduced all the things Heidegger was writing about. What is key here is that I didn't become obsessed about learning what phenomenology is from Husserl, as he produced enormous amounts of material about it. Instead, I tried to make do with whatever clues Heidegger left in the book and a broad google search on the subject. I was interested in what I REALLY am, exactly, so I didn't want to waste too much time on this subject.

So, to summarize - you should not focus on the thoughts of philosophers to simply collect them as medals. 
What you should do is to focus on APPLYING their methods of inquiry. Self-inquiry, especially because that's what you want to know.

And after saying that, I'm going to tell you a small secret: their thoughts are useful as well.
Treat them not as something other than yours. Live them. Treat them as if you produced them yourself. Literally, become the philosophers themselves.

I know how this sounds - the Ego does not like that and that is precisely the point.
The less you like to read the philosopher's work, the more you know that you have to. You have to accept him as yourself. LITERALLY.

Combine that with your newly found superpower to pull thoughts out of your ass and treat them with disrespect and voila: you have a very confused ego that pulls the carpet it stands on. And when it falls, the fireworks are SPECTACULAR.

So: I hope that the story was enjoyable, but it is simply a story. You know where it came from

Edited February 16, 2018 by tsuki

[deci belle]

Loved your story, tsuki— this is what I really picked up on:

Quote

I did not really try to grasp the logic this philosophy provides

I feel that whatever tradition(s) of awareness clarification that resonate with you find a place in your ongoing gradual path of self-refinement, the attitude you already have toward whatever systems you may work through will insure that they will be of greatest benefit.

I hope I catch your further installments describing your experiences!

[Patang]

@tsuki well done!!! thank you for sharing, your journey to enlightenment has begun already and cannot not be undone. do you remember when you were a child, everything you have ever learned, every knowledge you have ever acquired, brought you joy. now it is much the same, but instead of attaining knowledge, it is about forgetting it, and reveal the true nature of who you are. yes, it can bring you pain and can be agonizing sometimes, but it is what it is, and that is the way to do it. thumb up!!!

Edited February 18, 2018 by Patang

[tsuki]

2 hours ago, deci belle said:

I feel that whatever tradition(s) of awareness clarification that resonate with you find a place in your ongoing gradual path of self-refinement, the attitude you already have toward whatever systems you may work through will insure that they will be of greatest benefit.

@deci belle At one point I understood that even if I picked the original version of Being and Time written in German - I would understand all of this by simply staring long enough and trying to make sense of it. And I don't even speak German!

There is this joke about Heidegger, that he's fundamentally intranslatable - even into German ;).

@Patang Your post brought me to tears. Thank you!

20 hours ago, tsuki said:

@Leo Gura did a video about "correcting the stigma of psychedelics", and what I would like to do is to clear up the stigma of philosophy as mental masturbation. 

I can now summarize this post like this:
Wisdom is like a muscle. You flex it by accepting the unfamiliar as it is and by not trying to make it familiar.
Wisdom will tire. When it does - it's time to speak.

Edited February 17, 2018 by tsuki

[Patang]

5 minutes ago, tsuki said:

Wisdom is like a muscle. You flex it by accepting the unfamiliar as it is and by not trying to make it familiar.

yes! smartness is when you acquire knowledge, wisdom is when you forget it. the one who knows nothing, knows everything.

[tsuki]

13 minutes ago, Patang said:

yes! smartness is when you acquire knowledge, wisdom is when you forget it. the one who knows nothing, knows everything.

But one that knows everything cannot speak. Thoughts make things something other than what things were. They are no longer unfamiliar!

What do you need wisdom for, if you remain silent?

Edited February 17, 2018 by tsuki

[Patang]

@tsuki you see, wisdom is not related to thoughts, actually there are none, just a pure understanding of how things work, and the way they do it. wisdom is not about stop interacting with reality, on the contrary, it is about relating to the true nature of reality, and continue to interact with it from a total different perspective, from anther point of view.

[tsuki]

26 minutes ago, Patang said:

it is about relating to the true nature of reality, and continue to interact with it from a total different perspective, from anther point of view.

It seems that we agree. Wisdom is all openness. Wisdom lies in the process of change.
When I say what wisdom is, I need to be able to change that as well. Wisdom is silence that stops. Do we understand each other?

Edited February 17, 2018 by tsuki

[Patang]

@tsuki the meaning of silence lies in the context of nothingness. wisdom, is refer to the real nature of you (or to the real nature of reality in this context), to the one that does not change, to the one that was never existed, does not exist, nor never will.

[tsuki]

@Patang I get a feeling we're talking about the same thing in two different languages. 

2 minutes ago, Patang said:

wisdom, is refer to the real nature of you

Let me SHOW you what I mean:
the real nature of me is that there is something. Then, there is something else. Or nothing... and all of that is okay. Until that it isn't...

If this gets too tiring for you - let me know. I'm mapping the territory

[Patang]

32 minutes ago, tsuki said:

I'm mapping the territory

yes, it is wise to map the territory, when getting to an uncharted one. and yes, we speaks of the same, but i feel that you are trying to understand it using your mind. that is fine, but it would not lead you to the place you seek. just let go, and the truth will be revealed to you over time.

[tsuki]

50 minutes ago, Patang said:

but i feel that you are trying to understand it using your mind

What I do is I shake the pool so much, that I don't even see the ripples.
Stilling your mind is one end. This is the other.

There is no need for fear.

Edited February 17, 2018 by tsuki

[Patang]

@tsuki you do realize that the mind is false, and should be thrown right out of the window, right?

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Patang

[tsuki]

16 minutes ago, Patang said:

@tsuki you do realize that the mind is false, and should be thrown right out of the window, right?

There is no throwing away of the mind. Letting go is no throwing away. The mind will come back if you throw it away. Be open for its return.

Edited February 17, 2018 by tsuki

[Patang]

@tsuki

ok, you see, the ego/mind is the a self-appointment CEO of the "self". from childhood it picked up all kind of stuff from the surrounding environment; imprints and beliefs, as a core identification of the "self". yet anther stuff was created in-house by the ego/mind, based on.the "self"s core identification. so, here we are, trying to get rid of all that staff, to fire the CEO and close the company, good riddance!, aint we?

thank you! this is a subject to a new post. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Patang

[tsuki]

Before diving into my second awakening - I would like to address some points regarding my first.

As the first awakening happened, I understood that I gave up something precious.
What I thought I gave up back then is the notion of objectivity. I was a very scientific person, heavily oriented on mathematics, physics and engineering while also being born atheist. There was no possibility that I would come up with the thought that my mind was not seeing the real world without philosophy.

The book I was the path to the fully subjective world. What it did to me is lay in terms of the logical mind: why the logical mind is not sufficient to account for all phenomena I was experiencing. By following the breadcrumbs it gave me, mindlessly, I went to the other side and woke up in Wonderland. What was of extreme importance is that I did not anticipate the end of the journey as I would not have picked up the book at all. The amount of obscure words contained in the work was a deception to the mind and a riddle it was supposed to solve. By picking up the book - the mind turned itself, on itself ignorantly as it always is. When it blew itself up, it left me with emptiness. The emptiness was unawareness of what to look with. The Unfamiliar.

In the end, I turned away from the Nothing because I didn't learn the lesson that it gave me: "The Voice is not the thing I am". I followed his lead and turned away from what would take me down the rabbit hole. The second awakening started getting traction when I began to doubt the Voice.

The second story begins 6 months ago.

The first awakening happened because I felt like pursuing philosophy to become wiser, a more well-rounded person. The second one came about for the same reason. Youtube suggested me Leo's video about various meditation techniques. I always knew that meditation was key to wisdom in Eastern traditions and I was interested in its benefits and scripture that accompanies it.  At that point I had no clue about Enlightenment whatsoever and I did not dare to link my experience to Buddha or Jesus. As I'm writing these words it still shocks me that I'm open to this possibility, as I indentify myself as an atheist, which I know is absurd at this point.

Meditation quickly sticked with me, as I had some pleasant experiences early on. After closing my eyes during the "do nothing" technique I started having a vision. The blackness changed into a night sky, and the periphery of my vision changed to a forest, as if I was lying on my back looking up. It was very calming and helped me to keep the practice running. Other experiences included feelings of energy shooting up, or shooting down. They felt as if I was infinitely tall, or infinitely heavy. It was literal, visceral, "thing" that occurred and I was shocked that they could happen. They did 3-4 times. Visions were more frequent. I also did some mindfulness meditation. It was important for me to see that the Voice narrates the world.

What I quickly picked up on with Zazen is that I simply cannot still my mind. Not a chance. This led me to realization that if I can't make myself quiet, then why the actual fuck do I think that "I" think? If I can't really shut up for a second, then how am I supposed to have more control over my life that I so desperately seek? I switched technique back to "doing nothing" and started to simply listen to whatever the Voice was saying as if it was something I heard "outside of my head".

In the meanwhile I went on a trip with my fiancée. I was in the process of blowing my mind with Leo's podcasts at the time (they were simply interesting) and so it happened that I came across the guided meditation one. After the session, when I opened my eyes and saw the river and the sky, I felt so much beauty and connection to the world that it brought me to my knees, crying.

I also stumbled upon some of his videos about Enlightenment. I quickly connected the river episode, and the Nothing with awakening, but at the time I thought that Enlightenment is a flip switch - either you are it, or you're not it. The information I had at the time suggested that it is something one arrives at after thousands of hours of meditation - not something I would stumble upon by accident. I was instilled with the idea of being someone completely ordinary. Nevertheless, it resonated with me and once more I recognized that it was something important. I was also working with Stoic philosophy at the time to let me see perspective that would let me control my emotions to a greater degree. I was literally, physically, trying to live it and it worked to some extent.

The first words I remember that "pushed" me through the edge of awakening during the self-inquiry are:

"Who is the Voice?"
"I am not the Voice."
"The Voice is not the Voice."

That gave me some traction and I used that to bring awareness away from the Voice. The rip was not as great as the first awakening, but gradually, over time, I saw that what I am seeing is not real. It was compounded by the fact that at one point I remembered what I did to disassociate from anything. During the first awakening it took me a week to purge myself. This time took around one day and I didn't crumble like the first time.

Every day I would wake up in the morning "asleep" and work my way up to being "awake" in the Enlightenment sense. I did that by relentlessly fighting the Voice each waking minute of the day, even at work while doing my stuff. There was a day that I was so determined to wake up that all of the 8 hours at work, the Voice was silencing itself. Other days, it has turned against itself producing innumerable amounts of nonsense chatter. At one point It was very much convinced that we are THE enlightened, the Buddha, and we are going to be appointed the new Dalai-Lama. LMAO. The trouble is that I was constantly switching between being it and not being it and I was scared that I was going insane. In order to progress I had to give up my sanity. This period lasted a week.

It was a gradual wave of disassociation. Disconnecting from the Voice brought the disconnect from what I saw as "real". I was not moving my body, it moved itself. I did not say anything - the thing was saying itself. Out loud to other people and inside to itself. It was scary at first, but I was determined to go as deep as I could this time and not to trust the Voice. I had seen it for what it was: scared, as it is always is when you are "it".

At one point, the Voice became frightened that one day we will wake up "asleep" and not become "awake" by the end of the day. That thing became a big struggle. The harder "I" pounded it, the more it became scared. The Voice understood that in order to progress it had to give up enlightenment. So It did and went back to sleep, ending my second awakening episode.

I did not crumble like I did the first time. From that point on I knew the experience of surrendering sanity and the experience of surrendering objectivity. There were two beliefs I took with me as I once more started to "be" my body and be in some control of things:

• People did not see my complete and utter insanity during this episode. What's even more funny is that they opened up to me and my relationships became better!
• I KNEW that I didn't have to be in control of things for them to play out orderly. I consciously started to let things be as they are. Step by step.

It is very important to understand that I did not really contemplate what happened. The points I took from the experience were completely intuitive and I did not use them on purpose at the time. What I did to arrive to the second awakening was pure coincidence as it was happening. This is the Voice narrating my life doing its deceptive work through the text. My story was NOT a story as it was playing itself out at the time. It was a bunch of episodes that resulted in connection called "Awakening". When all of this comes together, this shit rips you to shreds and rearranges you so that you become less orderly. It is for the best, despite of what you fear.

If anyone is interested I have more words I used to bootstrap my awakening during the week that the Voice turned against itself. For now, I have some chores to run, so see you later in follow-ups, clarifications and the part three.

Edited February 17, 2018 by tsuki

[Joseph Maynor]

Sounds like you went through at least that first stage where you realize the Self-Image isn't you.  Part of you seems to die because you've been assuming all your life that the Self-Image is you, right?  It's a deep experience at the early stage of the Enlightenment journey.  I had my Dark Night of the Soul after that experience.  That's when my Shadow collapsed into my Ego, as my Ego had lost footing because I had been studying Enlightenment for a while beforehand.  About a week later, I was balanced out again, but with much ego-loss.  Yeah, that was quite the experience.  I call it my Ego Death experience, and it happened March of last year -- almost 1 year ago now!  There's much more after that though.  You gotta find the unchanging Soul and be it.  It's that simple.  But the actual path there ain't simple though for some reason -- it's full of twists and turns.  But in hindsight, it looks very simple.  Like -- what the hell was I doing all that time searching!  Searching for nothing haha.  Pun intended!

I haven't vetted these readings very carefully, but they might be useful to some people on the path:

https://lonerwolf.com/ego-death/

https://fractalenlightenment.com/28187/spirituality/7-signs-you-may-be-experiencing-a-dark-night-of-the-soul

Edited February 18, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[tsuki]

The plan was not to keep it a journal, but i have a great experience to share, so here it goes.

Last night, when I was laying in bed trying to sleep I went into a meditative state.
When I meditate, I feel a "sensation" that seems to reside inside of my head. There is a "tension" somewhere behind my eyes that I always thought was caused by unconsciously crossing them. I always associated that with the thing I did when I tried to go to sleep.  I now accept it as a sensation that occurs regardless of what I do with my eyes as it started to manifest itself during my waking hours.

Like I said, I was trying to go to sleep and noticed that the tension was not where it always was. It was somewhere further back, behind my head, outside of it. As I focused my attention on it, it shot up. Exploded pleasantly. Then the "trip" began. As I focused on the blackness of my closed eyes, colors started to appear.

First I was seeing a painting sketching itself I don't remember what it was about. 
I remember that it transformed itself fluently into a painting of some sort of Christian saints bending over the bed I was laying on. It reminded me of the waking world in which I was laying and it scared me. I opened my eyes to see if they remain and they didn't.
Then, there were symbols that reminded me of the Jung's Collective unconsciousness. There were some sort of "primal" pictures one would find in caves and scriptures of ancient civilizations.
In the end, there was the multicolor paint itself that formed the painting. It formed a mask that flushed itself to its own mouth. Constantly, without eating itself.

It all happened fluidly, with no breaks/flashes. The only interruption were my eyes opening in fear, but at this point I don't even know if it really was a part of the dream or not. I don't remember the rest of the night as I took a sleeping pill since I didn't sleep too well for two days out of excitement. I woke up energetic, despite having a big headache. 

I had a great morning in which I had an emotional release that brought me to tears, smiling. It was triggered by seeing the beauty of the world in one of the songs I used to listen to: 

I saw the mind's clockwork in it.

Edited February 18, 2018 by tsuki
work->clockwork