SELF-REALIZATION THROUGH LOVING
SELF-ACCEPTANCE, MY STORY AND ITS APPLICATION TO VARIOUS PERSONALITY TYPES.
I believe
that ‘true’ Self-Realization of what I call the Manifest Self, AKA Atman, would
be a natural consequence of a successful developmental sequence of the self
experience as opposed to a “normal” self engaging on a path of spiritual
transcendence (Transpersonal Psychology).
Based on my own experience, and observing many spiritual students over
many years, I think a large number of people could be Self-Realized by the age of 40 in the sense of Ramana Maharshi’s
experience or Nisargadatta’s early Self-Realization experience if their
self-developmental maturation processes were not made so torturous by the
cultural, ideological, and familial matrix almost all humans are born into, and
by extension, Self-Realization is the undoing of self-experience developmental
failures.
In my view
the infant to adult self-developmental take place in an incredible overload of
external stimuli of conflicting concepts, messages, mind-numbing educational
systems, social media, television, social pressures, legal constraints that
make just adapting to the confusion and overload and extremely difficult
task. Failure to adapt leaves the vast
majority of us confused, fragmented, unsure of our everyday let alone
life-decisions that leaves us insecure, frightened, and directionless. Then we are told we can end this insecure and
frightened status by holding on to a belief system, or a cause, or a
relationship thus becoming a cog within one of the larger wheels within the
matrix.
My own
journey was just this way. I was utterly
confused by the bewildering variety of conflicting concepts about everything
and by the perceived utter nonsense of my own life and those of others living
in the matrix. I felt I did not belong
in this world but did not know how to find my way home which led me for some
unknown reason, straight into spiritual studies of the East, primarily to Zen
because of its inherent distrust of concepts, and to Ramana, because of the
utter simplicity that appeared to be the quest for knowing the I directly.
Thus I
rejected all learning, all concepts, all social norms, and everything that I
could perceive came from others in a quest for the real, or for truth, based on
my own experience.
However, I
realized then that I started this search while still embedded within the
social/educational matrix I was born in, and could not myself begin to overcome
my own embeddedness unless exposed to people and philosophies totally alien to
my conventional Cleveland Ohio 1950s upbringing.
Long Zen
practice including many tens of thousands of hours of meditation, study with
six Zen masters, Koan study, sutra study led to hundreds of “spiritual”
experiences that while liberating me from the conventional matrix, did nothing
to clarify who or what I was, and, in fact, added whole new levels of
uncertainty and doubt.
My whole life
until the age of 30 or so was dominated by fear and confusion, and behavioral
reactions to fear and confusion. I
studied martial arts and lifted weights because I was afraid, and studied Zen
Koans as well as looking into my inner world for any kind certainty because I was
confused by my profoundly distorted conventional upbringing and the early death
of my father that made me realize how tenuous and uncertain life was, and that
no concepts seemed at all real. Words
became just noise with no information transferred.
To make a
very long story short, my inner search revealed an Emptiness within. When I first looked within there was only
darkness, but over months and years of meditation practice and looking for the
I thought’s origin, that darkness became translucent and then filled with light
such as my inner world and everything within it, from thoughts, to images, to
daydreams, became as clear as anything seen in the external world. This awareness of Emptiness, the Void of Zen,
gradually destroyed all concepts that I was aware of until that point. Yet, based on these experiences, I developed
a new set concepts based on my direct experience of the Void and objects within
the Void that was very similar to those now promulgated by the neo-Advaitins.
Mind created everything. No Mind, no-self
was the answer.
However, I
was wrong. This was only one answer and
the answer was hollow. At least for me,
this solution felt incomplete and not very rich or nuanced. It lacked emotional warmth, and I realized I
lacked emotional warmth, which I both
wanted and feared. Emotional warmth led to love and dependence, which led to
heart-tearing loss, such as of my father through death. I wanted love, I wanted warmth, but I hung onto
the security of Emptiness through fear.
At this point
my understanding and experience of the Void and changing forms within it had
led to Robert Adams recognition of my awakening, and also being appointed to
the position of America’s First World Teacher of Chogye Zen Buddhism in Korea
in 1999. But I waited five more years
before I began teaching in 2004 when I erected the itisnotreal.com website
which was a tribute to my own teacher, Robert Adams. The whole site was dedicated to him and his
teachings which I adopted as my own, since at this point, the only thing I knew
for sure was Emptiness, as well as the subject, the Self which witnessed
Emptiness and the world permeated by Emptiness.
But there
still was an absence of warmth and love in my life.
When love
came finally in the form of a nonsexual but romantic love for a female student,
everything changed.
Love and
internal energies burst forth from every pore in my body. My body shook from surging energies
everywhere within. I could “see” energy
currents flowing within my body, from toes to regions above my head. I would feel bliss that deepened into
ecstasies that lasted hours. My body became totally alive and I was filled with
love for this woman, and that love just grew and grew until it was so overwhelming
I identified with being love itself. The
love was so large that everything else was shoved out of my awareness and I
became that love.
Shortly
thereafter my own deepest Self, the same Self that dwelled within the Self experience of everyone, revealed itself to me as an Other, as God, as divinity
separate from me as a most awesome presence, a being of infinite power wrapped
in the light of a thousand suns which appeared within my experience of my own
body, and then arose within me, going into my heart center, then bursting forth
outwards and also upwards carrying me as a human witness, everywhere within the
vast domain of the Void.
That
experience was coupled with emotions I had never felt before: Intense gratitude
for being allowed this experience, intense humility at seeing how small and
insignificant I was compared to God, more gratitude for being allowed to serve
this being in any way that I could, intense grace as all my sins and guilt were
washed away and I was made pure by the presence of God within and without—everywhere.
Then came the
recognition that this experience of Other, of God, was really the experience of
the Witness of the Emptiness, now experiencing the flip side of Emptiness, which
was the fullness of Shakti, the Manifest Self of energies, light, love, and
emotion, and the recognition by that Witness of the identity of all three:
Witness; Emptiness; Presence, which can also be expressed as: Noumenal or
Absolute Self; Emptiness and Presence as
witnessed; the human personal self offshoot which is God incarnated.
Along with
this recognition, I realized my whole life after age 18 was a journey towards
Self-Realization through destroying the external social and cultural matrix
that I had been embedded within by chance of birth, followed by dwelling in
that scourging desert of Emptiness for decades, a kind of purgatory, which
finally allowed for enough “purity” or absence of internal barriers to the
experience of Self, that allowed me to see, feel, and in all ways experience
Atman, the Manifest Self within, that also revealed the trinity of the
Unmanifest Self, Manifest Self, human self.
Now, I know
this is purely my own experience and others have had entirely different
experiences, and thus different ways of living and teaching. But my way is a
way that led to an explosive experience of Self within that was filled with
fire, energy, complete self-abandonment into love, or emptiness, or whatever
emotion or memory that arose within that my way may appear reckless or out of
control, but it is only because I feel now complete security within my
Self. The experience of Self as wild
energies, love, passion, gave me complete confidence in a passionate, deeply
surrendered acceptance of that which had been long buried, long neglected, long
repressed areas of myself, the lack of experience and integration of which, had
prevented a natural Self-Realization experience many years before.
I truly
believe that a person raised in a more permissive culture with a less confusing
and contradictory social matrix, which promotes introspection as much as making
it within the matrix, and which has more loving acceptance of all that arises from
within, would result in many, many more people realizing both the Noumenal Self
of the Witness, but also the salvation of the Manifest Self of Love, divinity,
energies, and certainty regarding one’s own beingness.
This
experience happened naturally to Ramana Maharshi at age 16 when he realized his
own deepest Self—Atman, and I include his description at the end of this essay,
but I am quite certain that many more people would have such a Self-Realization
experience if raised in an alternative matrix that was not so screwed up,
conflicted, confused and violent.
I also
believe that many people could realize their own Self by practicing a method of
Self-inquiry that emphasizes not only looking within to find one’s own source
(the Noumenal Self), but feels within to find the existential source, the
phenomenal or Manifest Self within which is embedded the personal, human self.
Not just any
method of self-inquiry will do the job.
The self-inquiry suggested sometimes by Ramana and Robert Adams of “looking”
within for the source of the I-thought will only reveal endless Emptiness—the Void,
which is infinitely deep and within which you can be trapped for life.
One needs to
practice an internal emotional inquiry of feeling within whatever arises,
trying to feel the source of one’s own existence. It is a search for that inner spark that
feels like “I” or “me.”
And looking
for that spark, that I Am, and resting there when you find it, will
automatically reveal over time all those areas of emotionality and buried
memories and trauma that has prevented you from realizing Self to this point,
and this can be a heavy journey filled with emotional chaos, deep depressions,
raging anger at the matrix for having prevented you from long ago feeling the
Self within, and filled with other periods of intense love or longing for
intense love, bliss, and eroticism which is a byproduct of an awakening
Kundalini. For this approach of using
all emotions and memories that arise from within is basically a Tantric
approach of incorporating lost emotions and energies into the self, both the
human self, but also energizing or at least releasing the Manifest Self within—the
God, AKA, the Atman revealed as a self-experience.
I would guess
that my own psychotherapy of eight years with a brilliant psychologist, Eric
Reitz, my immersion in the clarity of the Void for decades, followed by a
reincarnation of the Manifest Self within me as a human gives this approach
which could be called Devotional Advaita or Incarnational Advaita a distinctly
emotional approach of liberating oneself from the matrix and then reowning the
lost Self-Realization developmental trajectory.
Thus I can
without doubt join with Swami Muktananda in saying that happiness and bliss, as
well as the sure certainty and end of confusion is your birthright, even though
I found many Siddha Yoga Swami’s devoid of actual self-realization because
Muktananda did not provide a simple and direct means for Self-Realization. The simplicity and directness of loving the
loving self-inquiry and self-acceptance
that I advocate makes it an ideal path for those who are capable of becoming
emotionally open. The method itself
helps one become emotionally open, for this openness is itself a developmental
process.
It is an
ideal method only because of its directness and simplicity, not because it is
easier than many other paths. In fact,
it is easy to lose one’s way or get distracted.
Also, it is a
quite difficult path for many kinds of students, such as those who are closed
to many kinds of emotions, as I was (to love and bondedness out of fear of
separation and loss), the so-called schizoid personality, and at the other end
of the spectrum, the 2% who suffer from borderline personality dysfunction,
also the narcissistic personality, and the histrionic personality. Here the
problem in reaching Self-Realization is that the exposure and acceptance of the
inner core emotions and damage already done, comes within a context of an ego or
small self poorly adapted to regulate the intensity of emotions and spiritual
states that are released making the journey much more intense for these people
and potentially more dangerous in the sense of possible psychotic breaks and
dysfunctionality.
However, I
should mention that the Self-Realized state is inherently predisposed to
dysfunctionality, because once you are fully aware of the Self within, God,
there is nothing more to do in life: you are complete, happy, utterly
self-reliant with a tendency to fall off the grid unless something within
drives you on an external course of action, such as to become a teacher of
Self, or an artist expressing Self through creativity, or an animal rescue
person acting out a shepherd leaning that is part of Self-Realization—a kindness
and compassion for all living beings.
I truly
believe the reward of Self-Realization is worth the risks, because the life of
a person with a borderline personality disorder, and those around such a person,
can be rather painful, directionless, and confused way beyond the “normal human
unhappiness” (Freud) that most people suffer from.
The histrionic
personality is probably well-suited to this approach because of their relative
willingness to experience and express some types of emotion. What they need to learn to experience are
other types of emotion very deeply and completely and those will be revealed
through the self-inquiry process, notably depression and grief.
Other types
of conditions well-suited for this approach are those with depression (but not
during major depressive episodes), manic depression, grief and loss, for during
these experiences one is sunk into deep layers of one’s own awareness of Self,
often a kind of emptiness and aloneness that is enervating and empty. This is a
place very similar to a description found in the Nath tradition of Nisargadatta
of the Causal Body experience, which isjust one layer removed from the Manifest
Self of Turiya, the Fourth State that underlies and permeates all other states
of Consciousness. It is just one short
step from being frozen in a deep depression, to lovingly accept that total
depression and dysfunction, and thereby bringing it into one’s own self-experience,
integrating it, and then revealing the most ecstatic blissful state that lies
just beneath the depression.
Once one has
experienced this transition between deep depression and ecstasy just a few
times, one can hardly wait for the development of the next depression so that
one can experience the reward of continuous bliss for a few days
afterwards. Eventually, the period
between the depression/bliss cycle widens, becomes less frequent, and the
depressions gradually become less deep, they become more a delightful mood
swing and less of a personal catastrophic challenge.
Using
this method, under guidance, will make you a master of emotions for yourself
and others. And, you will have a tamed wildness in you, a burning fire of the
divine flame in you such that you will be able to cut to the heart of any
situation, for you will have broken through all barriers of emotional
expression and have a highly charged mastery of the Shakti within you, or
better said, Shakti will lead you to very effective interactions within
yourself, and between you and the world.
You will radiate with energies that many others can relate to positively
but also negatively. Some will be
frightened by what you bring to the table, while others will be drawn to the
freedom of Self that you have become.
RAMANA’S SELF-REALIZATION EXPERIENCE
SIMILAR TO MY OWN BUT EXPRESSED MORE PROSAICALLY:
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind
inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now
death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.
’I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay
with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and
imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my
breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that
neither the word ‘I’ or any other word could be uttered.
‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is
dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and
reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’?
It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the
voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the
body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by
death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.’
All this was not dull thought; it flashed through
me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without
thought-process.
‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present
state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on
that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself
by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all.
Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.
Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music, but
the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and
blends with all the other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking,
reading, or anything else, I was still centered on ‘I’. Previous to that crisis
I had no clear perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I
felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to
dwell permanently in it.
One of the features of my new state was my changed
attitude to the Meenakshi Temple. Formerly I used to go there occasionally with
friends to look at the images and put the sacred ash and vermillion on my brow
and would return home almost unmoved. But after the awakening I went there
almost every evening. I used to go alone and stand motionless for a long time
before an image of Siva or Meenakshi or Nataraja and the sixty-three saints,
and as I stood there waves of emotion overwhelmed me.
