SPIRITUALITY AND AWAKENING IN A NUTSHELL-PART 4: SUMMARY

I wrote this four part essay for two reasons: to wrap my way of teaching into a succinct package, and to warn against the teachings of all the new popular teachers who talk about “No-Self” or “no-separate-self” wherein their universe becomes very impersonal, filled with impersonal beingness, the Absolute, Parabrahman, and their world is perfect, filled with bliss supposedly, and absolute rest and peace.  (That is until you ask them for their day to day experience and they answer with total abstractions.)

This includes all of the neo-Advaitins from Tony Parsons to the huge class of pop teachers who talk of No-Self.

I think this class is just filled with people who have had a brief or extended experience of total, almost infinite emptiness, extending everywhere, inwards and outwards, and which so stunned them, that it completely changed their world-view about existence and spirituality.  They then write about their experience, and lots of readers feel the writers’ integrity, and take on the writers’ truths as their own.

To me this entire branch of no-self spirituality arises from a very common and incomplete awakening experience during which one cannot find one’s sense of self while looking within, and declaring on the basis of that experience, that there is no self or Self.

This is an extremely common experience.  One “sees” there is only a vast emptiness everywhere with no core self to be found.

I went through such an experience in 1995 where upon I too became a no-self exponent, and even later, had an experience that even Consciousness was unreal. I talk about these experiences and the conclusions I drew from them at: http://www.wearesentience.com/my-experiences.html.  These experiences and conclusions were recognized by my teacher, Robert Adams as awakening, enlightenment at that time.

For the next 15 years I dwelled in a state where I spent most of my time just going within to emptiness and just resting there.  I had little to do with the world except as necessary for daily life.

But in 2009 something happened.  I fell deeply in love with one of my female students, and she also did with me.  It was a love of such vast depth and energies that I had never experienced before.  We only met physically four times, and there never was any sexual contact, but we communicated and shared with each other our hearts’ mutual love.

All kinds of experiences then began for both of us:  We became aware of our Subtle Bodies, one’s sense of presence that permeated the body and extended beyond it that was filled with knowingness of the physical and of the strange area of inwardly flowing energies that flowed in regular order, were colored, and awakened us both to new levels of existence, including eventually, the “real” Self.

I had lost my false self of concepts in 1995, but in 2009 I found my real Self, a Self that was both the small me as a human, but also a Self, that was so big, so energetic, so subtle as to be no longer human.  I felt I was being touched by God because of my love for my human Beloved.  It felt as if God were blessing us because of our deep love for each other. Both of us had identical experiences of a vast energy arising from within, that arose from the gut area and associated with a blindingly bright white light that rose through the heart, into our heads and beyond. All we could do then was drop to our knees and worship the divine being revealed to us.

We both felt so graced by the infinite, so loved, so thankful and grateful to be blessed by the divine, with grace descending and experienced as a golden light that brushed away all sins and impurities.

I could go on and on about this new world of Grace, God, infinite power, flowing energies, ecstatic bliss, and a discovery within of our real Selves as creatures of light, love and incredible energy.

In this discovery sequence, we both saw ourselves as totally vulnerable, imperfect humans, with all kinds of faults, rampant and sometimes out of control emotions, and a humility so profound that just the experience of that deepest humility was felt as divine Grace. Humility itself was Grace.

Yet I at least, even while experiencing God and God’s grace as energy, light, a descent of purity, humility, etc., the recognition came that this God, this infinite power and light was also “Me.”  God and I were one.  Even while I felt myself as a human, an Ed Muzika totally feeling myself as I Am, as Self, I felt that my experience of God as “other” gradually change to God and I are one.  The small light of myself, merged with the bright light and grace of God into a unity.

Thus I now teach to not lose the real Self, that which is always in union with God, because of experiences of a vast emptiness, a Void, or a belief that the is no Self.  There is a Self and you are it, but it is not found through meditation, but through Love, Surrender, and remaining as a humble human.

This is why I preach that when you practice self-inquiry or self-abiding, that you do so with great love, acceptance of all that is uncovered, and when some new experience or sensation arises, to invite it gently into your heart to make it your own.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!  Feel love as often as you can, towards humans and animals, relatives and enemies.  Be open to love coming from outside because God is always ready to reward us with a vision of Him/Her when we are ready and open enough to experience God as us.