| Awakening! |
- What Is Awakening? Why would I want it? And, if I do want it, what can I do to have it happen?
What is Awakening?
In a word, freedom. It is freedom from identification with thoughts, beliefs, personalities, bodies. It is
when awareness, silence, stillness predominates and all thoughts, feelings, beliefs, personalities, and
bodies occur within that. It is a way of Being and living that is free to live fully, expansively, happily, and
co-creatively; Self Realization.....each individual expression of the one Self experiencing its dance as a
part of the whole of creation.
Other names for it are Enlightenment, Self Realization, and Self Actualization.
When you ask yourself the question, who am I, what do you say? "My body?", "my mind?", "my
beliefs?", "my career?", "my family?", "my financial status?"
When an individual realizes the truth of who he/she is as beyond gender, beyond the body, beyond thought,
as pure, silent, stillness itself in which all genders, bodies, thoughts, beliefs, and circumstances of life
occur, no longer identifying with thoughts, emotions, or circumstances of life that appear moment to
moment, but recognizes/realizes he/she in truth is the silent, still awareness at the core of all Being, the
universal awareness from which individual mind emanates, this is called "awakening."
Awakening is not just having the thought, "I am universal awareness." Awakening is universal awareness,
who one is, watching individual thoughts as they precipitate but realizing they are but momentary energetic
phenomena which have no reality, and ceasing to identify itself with them, as them.
When awareness recognizes that it is not an individual, that it is no thing at all, like vast blue empty sky,
then each passing cloud of thought is recognized to be insubstantial and relatively inconsequential.
Awareness is not identified with any thing or as anything at all. There is simply no identity. There is no
identifying with the sky of awareness, not with the witness of thoughts, not with the thoughts, nor the
emotions, nor the personality, ego, or body. There is simply no identification at all; identification is also a
thought.
"Awakening" is a word that points to a condition of nonidentification with anything whatsoever. What gets
awakened? The mind. What is this mind? A series of energetic phenomenon we call thoughts that have as
much substance, even less substance, than the wind. In fact they have no substance at all.
In the grand illusion, the Leela of manifest creation, that which is Real, that which is unchanging, appears
and is revealed in the midst of everchanging thoughts, forms, and phenomena. This we call "Awakening."
Awareness or Self, is all that is Real; it is this moment. Awakening is a moment to moment realization, and
the surrender of all that appears, back to this moment, its source.
- How does Awakening occur?
- Awakening occurs as a reflection of grace. What that means is that there isn't anything you can do to get
it. And, it is not something you get, it is the realization of who you are, the revealing of your essence as
awareness.
And, throughout the ages, there have emerged numerous techniques or practices or paths that seem to
help, to set the initial conditions in which Self reveals itself more fully, awakens to itself. Before one
awakens these appear as "paths". After one awakens they appear as fun ways to play, as expressions.
This web site is dedicated to all of these expressions, all of these ways to play.
Loosening the Grip of the Mind
- Transcendence, loosening the grip of the mind, softens and dissipates the congealed consciousness of
mind, of thought, and reveals that in which all thought occurs, pure awareness. Awareness is who we are,
expressing in and as all of these myriad forms, personalities, identities, roles. To realize the Self out of
which all of these forms emerge, the mind merely wants to dissolve, even for a moment. To witness
thoughts, to witness the witness.
- Ed Tarabilda identified and categorized eight ways in which the mind can transcend itself. Although an
individual mind may find it transcends from time to time in all of these ways, it seems to be the case that
each mind has one way which is its primary, or most effective way.
These eight ways in which the mind dissolves are:
1. The Body - Hatha Yoga
2. The Senses - Raj Yoga
3. The Mind - Karma Yoga
4. The Heart - Bhakti Yoga
5. The Intellect - Gyan Yoga
6. The Subtle Body, Chakras, Kundalini - Laya Yoga
7. The Integral path - Surya Yoga
8. The Rebel/Iconoclast - Tantra
Hatha yoga is a way that most people are familiar with. It involves yoga postures in its purest form, but
also could involve dance, or running or any form of transcendence of the mind through the body. In
addition to the wide range of Hatha yoga practices, the whirling dervishes of the Sufi tradition, and the
ultrarunning disciples of Sri Chinmoy are classic examples of transcendence of the mind through the
activity of the body. Most people have experienced this type of transcendence to some degree. It includes
the endorphin rush of the distance runner and the deep relaxation and sense of oneness one gets from
exhausting physical activity. It is perfect mind/body coordination, the experience of being in the Zone.
Raj Yoga is the path of the senses. The mind may transcend through any of the senses, though a Raj yogi’
s mind typically prefers one sense as his/her primary method. Transcendental meditation, as well as all
mantra meditations, are Raj yoga techniques in which the mind transcends through the sense of subtle
sound. However, Raj Yogis who transcend through sound have also been known to transcend through
music, such as a great symphony or even a highly charged rock and roll song, or any type of music for that
matter.
The appreciation of art is a method that the mind can transcend through the sense of sight, accessing the
universal aesthetic beauty experienced in nature or any aspect of visual life, such as the beauty of a
sunset.
The Raj Yogi may also transcend through touch, or taste, or smell. Many of us have at one time or
another had a meal that was so delicious it created a feeling of universal oneness, of connectedness with
all of life, for example. Or, have you ever transcended through subtle touch? It is exqusite!
Karma Yoga, the way of the mind, is the way of selfless service. Karma means action, so it typically
involves the performing of rituals or actions in service to the guru, which can be experienced as external or
internal or both. The experience of darshan, of sitting in the presence of the teacher/guru, facilitates the
mind surrendering to its source. This is the action of the mind, an aspect of karma yoga. Karma yoga
involves a process orientation, as opposed to a goal orientation. It also involves making activities which
may seem ordinary to most people sacred or special in some way. The Karma yogi likes to create events,
like Satsang. One Karma yogi I know films many activities of every day life, making them special or
sacred in doing so. Although the Karma yogi may have one primary teacher or guru, he/she will ultimately
recognize the satguru in many or all form.
Bhakti Yoga is the way of the Heart. It involves intense love for one particular manifestation, one
particular person, or, in some cases even a disembodied Presence, or one who is no longer appearing in a
human body, such as Jesus or Krishna. Often the devotee sings bhajans (devotional hymns) of love,
adoration, to the beloved. The heart melts all separation between the devotee and the beloved. They
experience a oneness of Being. And through this oneness, there is an expansion of Love and experience of
Oneness with All Being(s).
Gyan Yoga is the way of the intellect. It involves making fine distinctions between what is real and what is
unreal, between what changes, what comes and goes, and between what never changes, that part of
experience that is the changeless witness, the subject or experiencer of all subject/object experience. This
is Self inquiry in its classic form. It is the way of Gyan yoga. It often involves reading and writing detailed
philosophical treatises. Shankara’s Crest Jewel of Dicscrimination is a classic example of this type of
treatise, as is Descartes, and indeed many philosophical treatises. Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s expressions
are a classic modern day example of this way.
Laya Yoga uses the subtle body, the chakras, and the awakening of the Kundalini energy to facilitate
awakening, to annihilate the mind. Sometimes these practices are sexual in nature, awakening the energy
at the base of the spine and thrusting it upward through the shushumna, the inner shaft of light that is
perceived through the spine, out the top of the head or crown chakra. These techniques do not always
involve sex, however. Breathing techniques are often employed, as are all types of subtle body work or
chakra openings, sometimes using crystals or other subtle, but powerful energies.
Surya yoga is known as the integral way in that a Surya yogi will dabble in many or all of the ways
integrating them all or deriving benefit from each, transcending through each but not alighting on any one
for very long. The Surya Yogi is like a honey bee that goes from flower to flower, sucking nectar from each
but never sucking any one completely dry. Surya yoga is also known as the pathless path in that it
recognizes that there is no one "path", no one way. In fact there is no way at all, standing apart from all
ways and realizing the truth of who one is separate from all practices.
And finally the way of Tantra, the way of rebel, the iconoclast, is one in which the mind transcends through
the fulfilling of desires. The mind transcends at the moment of desire fulfillment. Whereas many who are
not true Tantrikas run the danger of getting trapped in the never-ending cycle of desire fulfillment leading
to more and more desires, the true Tantrika fulfills each desire with full attention, with conscious presence
to each moment of the process of desire fulfillment. This path can also involve sex, though sex is only one
of perhaps sixty different Tantric techniques. Many of these techniques involve breaking the limited
boundaries of the mind, sometimes performing outrageous acts that fall outside the laws or moral codes of
society.
Although many of most of us have at one time or another experienced the transcendence of the mind, or an
experience of unity or oneness with all creation through many or even all of these ways, there seems to be
one way that is the primary way for each individual. To get a reading to find out what your chart says is
your primary "path/expression", click on Ed Tarabilda's photo below.
It is important to realize that no one way is right for every one, for every mind, though most spiritual
teachers are strong adherents to a particular way, as it is the one that “worked” for them.
| Sincere Gratitude to Edward F. Tarabilda for this categorization |