Guru Ratings – Awakening Stories

Guru Ratings – Awakening Stories

16/06/2014 21:48

Guru Ratings – Awakening Stories Adyashanti (A) (A) Today I awoke, finally I see the Self has re-turned to the Self. The Self is none other than the Self. I am deathless. I am endless. I am free. The birds outside sing .. The birds outside sing and there am I. The seeing of leaves on the trees, that seeing am I. The body breathes, breathing am I. I am awake and I know that I am awake. Seen from the old eyes, everything is asleep, a game, a delusion. But now I am awake. I am the play. I am the game. I am the delusion. I am the enlightenment I sought, looking everywhere. Nothing is separate, nothing is alone. I am all that I see. All that I smell, taste, touch, feel, think and know. I am awake and this awakeness is the same as Shyakyamuni Buddha's. Today the leaf has returned to the root. I am all name and form and beyond all name and form. I am Spirit, no longer trapped in a body. I am free. I am free because I am awake. So ordinary. Who would have thought ? Who could have guessed? I am home. I am really home. Ten thousand life times. Ten thousand life times but today I am home. Ten thousand life times but today I am home. This is not an experience. This is me. I am awake. Finally, I am awake. Nothing has changed, but I am awake. Before I tasted the root many times and felt, how delicious. Today I became the root. How ordinary. http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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[Adyashanti's actual awakening story is a long one, 50 pages of pdf accessible via the link above] Aruna Byers (N) The actual moment of realization happened while I was having dinner with some Papaji devotees who had been with him for some time. I was telling them how blissful my body felt and how my mind just wouldn't work well enough to write Papaji a letter. In a soft and gentle voice the man sitting across from me said, " The bliss you are feeling doesn’t mean a thing. It will eventually leave. Go to the source of your thoughts and you will know who you are." I focused my my attention inward to find find that place where my my thoughts were coming from. from. Suddenly I knew, without without a doubt, that every thought thought I ever had was only my imagination. It was so clear. In that moment the whole story of "me and my life" disappeared into silence. All that remained was Papaji’s laughter. Aziz Kristof (A) [from (A) [from a long general autobio page, now no longer available] Guidance sent me to do a solo retreat in South India and predicted the shift to the Absolute for the middle of December. I went to Kerala and started my retreat by the beach. How to reach the Absolute? [Ranjit] Maharaj spoke only about the Absolute as such, but nothing about how to get there! He was saying that I am already THAT, but for some reason, I was not yet THAT! The intellectual conviction of being THAT does not actually help you become THAT. At that time I wasn't THAT in any way. Maharaj spoke about the witnessing of I Am. Am. I Am itself is the witness. witness. How could the witness witness be witnessed? Soon I discovered that whatever whatever gymnastics I made made with awareness, I was still locked within this awareness. It was in Pune that I kept demonstrating everyday to Guidance a different realisation, hoping that it was the Absolute. Each Each time Guidance patiently patiently answered, 'not 'not yet.' Yes, the only way to go beyond it is to surrender into Being. The key words which http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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pointed in the right direction were: 'no-will' and 'absence.' I sat in absorption and tried various experiments. I contemplated the moment of falling asleep, just trying to recognise the condition of no-will no-will and absence. I discovered discovered that the place where the Absolute lives is at the bottom of the breath. To breakthrough this gate gate is to move to the Other Side. Side. I was completely completely desperate! I was full of doubts, anxieties and impatience. It was a very difficult time. All my life seemed to culminate in this retreat. It was the final battle to reach the Absolute. Absolute. The shift happened on the 15th day of December 1996 around one in the morning. It was such a relief! I found myself slipping to the Other Side, to the Beyond. This implosion cannot be expressed in words. It was like diving to the bottom of the ocean and piercing through this bottom into the space on the other side. I experienced the absolute freedom. But the next day the passage closed again! I was so desperate and broken. But in a few days managed to slip into the Absolute State again. I needed to use a very subtle will to reach the condition condition of no-will. Guidance Guidance told me that Maharaj Maharaj himself did hundreds of such attempts. On the 31st day of December 1996 I became stabilised in the Absolute. It felt like I had died and I had not been fully reborn. It was a mysterious time. For many lifetimes on the Buddhist Path, in my Soul there was imprinted a deep longing to reach the Unborn, to reach Nirvana. Upon reaching the Absolute State, I completed my Buddhist karma. I had reached complete disidentification and freedom from the apparent reality. My whole life of search reached culmination. The next few months I was completely absorbed absorbed inside, I was was without any desire to do do anything. The energy needed to settle down and integrate. Contemplating my life, I could see myself sitting in my little room in Poland reading 'I Am THAT' and now already in the Absolute, free at last. At that point I could have said that 'I am THAT,' but it would not have been a precise statement.

http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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Bankei (P) [no (P) [no "whole story" elsewhere, this is it] I fashioned a small hut and shut myself up in it. There I would meditate day and night and go long periods without sleep. I tried everything I could think of, but still I got nowhere. As I pushed myself past the bounds of physical endurance with this complete lack of regard for my health, the skin of my buttocks became lacerated, lacerated, making it extremely extremely painful for me to to sit. But I must have had a constitution of iron in those days, because I was able to go right on without spending even a single day lying down to recuperate. To lessen the pain from my buttocks, I placed several layers of soft paper over the ground and sat on them, changing them frequently. Unless I did, there was considerable considerable bleeding from the torn skin, skin, and that, together with the the pain would have made sitting impossible. I also tried used cotton wadding to sit on. Despite these difficulties, never once, day or night, did I lie down to rest. But the adverse effects of the long years of physical punishment built up and led to serious illness. And I still hadn’t clarified the meaning of “bright virtue”, in spite of all the time and effort effort I had spent wrestling wrestling with it. My illness steadily worsened. I grew weaker and weaker. Whenever I spat, gouts of bloody sputum as big as thumbheads appeared. Once, I spat against a wall and the globule stuck and slid to the ground in bright red beads. The kindly people who lived nearby said that I should recuperate my health in the hut. They arranged for someone to look after me. But the illness now reached a critical stage. For a whole week, I couldn’t swallow anything except some thin rice broth. I became resigned to the idea to the fact that I was going to die. I viewed it as inevitable and felt no great regret. The only thing that really bothered me was having to die without discovering the meaning of bright virtue, which had had had the sole possession possession of my thought for for so long. Then I felt a strange sensation in my throat. I spat against a wall. A mass of http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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black phlegm large as as a soapberry rolled rolled down the side. Suddenly, Suddenly, just at that moment, it came to me. I realized what it was that had escaped me until now: All things are perfectly perfectly resolved in the Unborn. Unborn. I I realized too that what I had been doing all this time time had been mistaken. mistaken. I knew that all my efforts efforts had been in vain. At the same time, time, my illness showed definite definite signs of improvement. improvement. Overjoyed, I found that my appetite had returned. Bob Fergeson (O) I was out cross-country skiing. I was climbing a long ridge. The slow, easy ascent would take a couple of hours, freeing my thoughts to go where they may. I was relaxed, being in familiar territory where I felt safe, free from worry or concern. As I continued continued up the hill, I felt that that something was trying trying to get my attention, that perhaps there was someone behind me. I turned around, but was alone on the hill. Still, I could not shake the feeling. It grew steadily though quietly. I soon came to see that it was not in the surroundings, but somewhere within the inner field of the mind. It was as if a still voice were saying, `turn round and look within, and all you seek will be answered'. So, I did. As I looked within at whatever this silent prodding was, a dam burst, and my long pent up questioning could no longer be contained. c ontained. Over the next couple of hours, all my questions were answered, as my attention was now free to go into the mysterious unknown source within from which all springs. I saw, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever looked out from my eyes, was the same in all all men. There was no no individual, but only Universal Universal Man. Now this was traumatic. It ran counter to the dualistic belief I held that I was either better than, or worse than, everyone else. Not only was I the same, I didn't even exist! As the stream of false notions I took as my `self' came to the surface, they were burned away in the light of truth that was so obviously http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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present, but had been hidden within. I became more and more shaken, and soon found myself laying in the snow, weeping. I came to see that everything was in the same place, place, at the same time. time. That everything everything is One, contained in Nothing. All was possible, all was available, depending on what the Heart desired, and the Heart desired nothing but Itself. Nothing was separate, for no things existed. Jeff Foster (N)* (N)* [scroll to page page bottom for "A Walk in the the Rain"] As the story goes (and (and I can barely remember remember any of it now) I was walking through the rain on a cold Autumn evening in Oxford. The sky was getting dark; I was wrapped up warm in my new coat. And suddenly and without warning, the search search for something more more apparently fell away, away, and with it all separation and loneliness. And with the death of separation, separation, I was was everything that arose: arose: I was the darkening sky, I was the middle aged man walking his golden retriever, I was the little old lady hobbling along in her waterproofs. I was the ducks, the swans, the geese, the funny looking bird with the red streak on its forehead. I was the trees in all their their autumnal glory, I was the sludge sticking to my my feet, I was my body, all of it, arms and legs and torso and face and hands and feet and neck and hair and genitals, the whole damn lot. I was the raindrops falling on my head (although it was not my head, I did not own it, but it was undeniably there, and so to call it "my head" is as good as anything). I was the splish-splash of water on the ground, I was the water collecting into puddles, I was the water swelling the pond until it looked fit to burst its banks, I was the trees trees soaked by water, I was was my coat soaked by water, water, I was the water soaking everything, I was everything being soaked, I was the water soaking itself. And everything that for for so long had seemed seemed so ordinary had suddenly suddenly http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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become so extraordinary, extraordinary, and I wondered wondered if, in fact, it hadn't been this this way all along: that perhaps for my whole life it had been this way, so utterly alive, so clear, so vibrant. Perhaps in my lifelong quest to reach the spectacular and the dramatic, I had missed the ordinary, and with it, and through it, and in it, the utterly extraordinary. Dada Gavand (I) As I was observing observing the play of my mind, mind, I suddenly realized that that the established pattern of thought-emotion was disturbed, and the whole mindstructure was in turmoil. There were no layers, no orderly arranged movements of thought any more. Intellect and logic lost their validity, and the consciousness was in flux. Everything was in intense motion, like boiling water. The ego itself became highly disturbed, agitated and sensitive. I came face- to - face with fear. I had to sense that fear fully and stay with it without reacting to it. With this challenge, my watchfulness and alertness grew much deeper, keeping me in the moment of the present, creating room – a space in my inner being – to absorb the thrust of thought. This was a prelude to change – a jump.” Such a jump, beyond the mind, appears to be a totally unpredictable and unexpected occurrence. As Dada describes, “Something inside me literally exploded, giving me the shock of my life. In a split second, a fountain of unknown energy sprang forth from within. This surprising energy flow was of a truly new kind, different from anything I had ever sensed or experienced before. It felt soft, soft, sensitive, joyful and and dynamic yet peaceful. peaceful. It filled me with profound reverence, deep awe and love. Such a mystical and powerful explosion in my inner domain was a miraculous event.”


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With this change in Dada’s Dada’s life came a tranquility, joy and understanding understanding never known to him before. Moreover, his creativity increased manyfold and he began to compose poetry. Thereafter, he continued his inner journey, staying in semi-solitude for 19 years in a small cottage in Mahableshwar. Nathan Gill (N)* (N)* [click on "Nathan "Nathan Gill"] As it happened, in in September 1998 an an event did occur. I was gardening gardening and it was drizzling with rain. rain. I looked up and there there was a subtle sense of 'me' 'me' not being there. I got on my bike bike and cycled around the lanes and it seemed like there was a movie going on without any effort needed on my behalf to be taking part in it. Even though Tony had pointed out that no event is necessarily associated with the recognition of your nature as Consciousness, Consciousness, I had obviously obviously still been subtly waiting for for one because now that this event, event, or experience, was was occurring I gave myself 'permission' to be awake. I had been waiting for confirmation. Greg Goode (N)* (N)* [at top of page] One day while I was reading a book by Ramesh Balsekar, standing on the Grand Central subway platform, the answer came by way of the world imploding and my phenomenal self expanding, disappearing to merge with it. No separate independent entity was seen anywhere. All "willings," "desirings," "thoughts," etc., were seen deeply deeply as spontaneous arisings in consciousness, happening around no fixed point or location. Not only the entity "Greg," but also *all* personal entities dissolved, became appearances in consciousness. Lightness, sweetness, brightness, and a certain fluidity of the world followed immediately immediately as sensory qualities of everything, and became one with all http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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experiences. There were psychological aftereffects as well, like more resiliency, more psychological peace and happiness. At the time, it was really a non-event. Even now, it's not something I ever noticed or thought about at the time, unless I'm asked and then try to reconstruct it. I do remember that people at work noticed, my friends and parents noticed. I didn't have a real good intellectual understanding of it at the time, and didn't seek one. I'd never met anyone else to talk to about this. Then more attending. Another several-year constant inquiry, but very light, almost with an aesthetic, playful, artful, no-big-deal appeal. This time the inquiry was on the dualism between the appearances and the background. Douglas Harding ( A) [regrettably not not his site, site, which redirects the visitor away from specific pages back to the home page] The best day of my life - my rebirthday, so to speak - was when I found I had no head. This is not a literary gambit, a witticism designed to arouse interest at any cost. I mean it in all seriousness: I have no head. It was eighteen years ago, when I was thirty-three, that I made the discovery. Though it certainly came out of the blue, it did so in response to an urgent enquiry; I had for several months been absorbed in the question: what am I? The fact that I happened to be walking in the Himalayas at the time probably had little to do with it; though in that country unusual states of mind are said to come more easily. However that may be, a very still clear c lear day, and a view from the ridge where I stood, over misty blue valleys to the highest mountain range in the world, with Kangchenjunga and Everest unprominent among its snow-peaks, made a setting worthy of the grandest vision. What actually happened happened was something something absurdly simple simple and unspectacular: I http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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stopped thinking. A peculiar quiet, an odd kind of alert limpness or numbness, came over me. Reason and imagination imagination and all mental chatter died down. For once, words really failed me. Past and future dropped away. I forgot who and what I was, my name, manhood, animalhood, all that could be called mine. It was was as if I had been born that that instant, brand new, mindless, innocent of all memories. There existed only the Now, that present moment and what was clearly given in it. To look was enough. And what I found was khaki trouserlegs terminating downwards in a pair of brown shoes, khaki sleeves terminating sideways sideways in a pair of pink hands, and a khaki shirtfront terminating upwards in - absolutely nothing whatever! Certainly not in a head. Philip Kapleau ( M)* M)* [page has some some others' accounts accounts of awakening awakening as well] well] A warm spot began began to grow in my abdomen, abdomen, slowly spreading spreading to my spine, and gradually creeping up the spinal column. I was so physically exhausted I could scarcely speak. Imperceptibly my mind had slipped into a state of unearthly clarity and awareness. I knew, and I knew I knew. Never before had the road been so roadlike, the shops such perfect shops, nor the winter sky so unutterably a starry sky. Joy bubbled up like a fresh spring. The days and weeks that followed were the most deeply happy and serene of my life. There was no such thing as a "problem." Things were either done or not done, but in any case there was neither worry or consternation ... For the first time in my life I was able to move like the air, in any direction, free at last from the self which had always been such a tormenting bond to me.


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... I suddenly felt as though I were being struck by a bolt of lightning, and I began to tremble ... "I'm dead! There's nothing to call me! It's an allegory, allegory, a mental image, a pattern upon which nothing was ever modeled." I grew dizzy with delight. Solid Solid objects appeared as as shadows, and everything everything my eyes fell upon was radiantly beautiful. Byron Katie (A) Less than two weeks after I entered the halfway house [for eating disorders], my life changed completely. What follows is a very approximate account. One morning I woke up. I had been sleeping on the floor as usual. Nothing special had happened the night before; I just opened my eyes. But I was seeing without concepts, without thoughts or an internal story. There was no me. It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie's eyes. And it was crisp, it was clear, it was new, it had never been here before. Everything was unrecognizable. And it was so delighted! Laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out. It breathed and was ecstasy. ecstasy. It was intoxicated intoxicated with joy: totally totally greedy for everything. There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it. Everything was its very own self. For the first time I — it — experienced the love of its own life. I — it —was amazed! In trying to be as accurate as possible, I am using the word “it” for this delighted, loving awareness, in which there was no me or world, and in which everything was included. There just isn't another way to say how completely new and fresh the awareness was. There was no I observing the “it.” There was nothing but the “it.” And And even the realization realization of an “it” came later. later. Let me say this in a different way. A foot appeared; there was a cockroach crawling over it. It opened its eyes, and there was something on the foot; or http://www3.telus.net/public/sarlo/Awakenings.htm

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there was something on the foot, and then it opened its eyes — I don't know the sequence, because there was no time in any of this. So, to put it in slow motion: it opened its eyes, looked down at the foot, a cockroach was crawling across the ankle, and … it was awake! It was born. And from then on, it's been observing. But there there wasn't a subject or an object. object. It was — is — everything it saw. There's no separation in it, anywhere. Jan Kersschot (N)* (N)* [click on "Jan "Jan Kersschot"] Kersschot"] Nevertheless I still had a spiritual path in my head, a future goal, even if I didn't realize it as such. Ego games were still going on somewhere at a very subtle level: comparison, longing, expectations, idealizations, and so on. On the other hand I felt that I was sitting on a melting iceberg and that the sea I was floating on was getting warmer and warmer. What I did not yet understand was that I was made of ice myself and that I would finally also melt away. As I still thought that I (as Jan) was on a path to somewhere, I believed I had to make make progress on the spiritual spiritual path. I was was still waiting for an event. Until I met Tony Parsons. During the very first meeting all my expectations evaporated evaporated just by hearing these three words: 'This is it'. The idea of there being a path was unmasked, right at the spot. It was like a gentle 'wham'. But this was not some spectacular revelation. No mystical event or anything like that. In a timeless moment, everything everything became completely clear in a very simple and natural way. The whole house of cards c ards tumbled down, in all simplicity and ordinariness. All questions had disappeared.


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Guru Ratings – Awakening Stories

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