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Spiritual Awakening
Spiritual Awakening
Are you ready and willing?
Introduction to Adyashanti's 30 day Awakening ChallengeAdyashanti and Tami Simon from Sounds True introduced the 30-Day Wake Up Challenge. When I heard it, I knew I wanted to do it. Some of the highlights of the video that I noted were:
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What people wanted the most were teachings that people could take into themselves, that were short and daily.
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There is incredible power to some skillfully put together pointers that point to parts of our own experiences that we tend to overlook.
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These pointers tend to be the most revelatory, transformative aspects of our whole Being. Having our attention drawn to these certain areas can be as powerful as our regular spiritual practices.
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The purpose of these pointers is to call forth a domain of consciousness that we tend to overlook.
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Awakening is more like a recognition of what was always present.
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When someone does two things:
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1) Points out, says look here, this is what it is like, this is how to intuitively sense what is already there and
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2) Articulates it in a way that can evoke a realization that we knew it, but we did not know we knew it until someone articulated it and brought it to our attention in a very specific way.
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Awakening is an essential and relatively spontaneous shift of our identity, of how we feel, sense, think about our self.
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We feel and sense, we are not an individual moving through life, we feel a deep connection to the totality of life itself, we feel more of life itself, appearing as a particular person, also as a particular individual as well but also we feel as if we are the whole of life. We feel it not just as an experience, but we feel and know it is essentially what I AM. That is a shift of identity.
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A shift of identity is the hallmark of what any awakening experience is all about.
Wake Up challenge
Sounds True Presents
THE 30-DAY WAKE UP CHALLENGE
A Direct Way to Spiritual Liberation
Join Adyashanti in this journey beginning Monday, July 27,
What is most important?
What is the most important thing for you to realize in your life?
To realize your inner Beingness.
How do you do that?
Step out of thinking.
Really! Is that possible without years of meditation?
Yes, you can do it in a moment, in this moment. Want to try it?
I don’t think I can.
How would you know unless you tried? Here is a simple glimpse behind the thinking mind. It is very simple, so don’t miss it. Bring your attention to the breath, consciously breathe in, as you would normally but count how many seconds it takes you to breathe in, and then do the same for exhaling. After the third round of breaths, pause at the end of the inhalation, pause for just a moment, but explore the pause with your feelings. For me, it feels vast, open, expansive, and wondrous.
How does it feel for you? You might also use words such as peaceful, or still. That is a glimpse of your true Being, that lies behind the thinking mind. If you like what you experienced, as much as I do, then you allow your love for it to inspire you to want to realize that space more and more to accomplish in a sense what may be called the highest purpose of your life.
Planting Seeds
Yoga Vasishtha has small gems that can be seeds to grow in your consciousness and sprout into intuitive insights for awakening.
Kundalini Yoga
I have participated in part of a Kundalini Yoga Teachers Training Course. Kundalini Yoga focuses on much more than just postures or asanas. It includes mantras, mudras, chakras and lots of pranayama or powerful breathing practices. It is quite challenging and requires a person to be willing surrender to a higher power within themselves in order to keep going. Then one contacts that deep I AM Presence that in truth is doing it all anyway.
Sat Nam, Sat means truth, nam is an acknowledgement to that truth. When we chant Sat Nam we are chanting to uncover the truth of our being.
After working in a hospital as a chaplain, I found I needed to move to a more yin type of practice.
Letting Go into freedom
We are living in strange times, that is for sure, things are happening in such a way that we are just unsure how to handle life’s unusual circumstances. We might agree that there is a feeling life has intensified. Just as an example, in just the last several years we have all been connected in one way or another with national disasters. We cannot help have some emotional reaction to seeing people suffer some through these situations, or more so when we are personally involved. And what do we do when our employers or our spouses or children are having their own emotional explosions? All these feelings arise within us, accompanied by a whirlwind of thoughts. What do we do with these feelings? Most people throughout their lives repress, or suppress or try to escape their feelings and that energy accumulates. According to Hawkins, “the suppressed energy will seek expression through psychosomatic distress, bodily disorders, emotional illnesses, and disordered behavior in interpersonal relationships. The accumulated feelings block spiritual growth and awareness as well as success in many areas of life.” He goes on to tell us that as a person constantly surrenders, physical and psychosomatic disorders improve and sometimes may disappear altogether, as what happened from his own personal experience.
As mentioned in the previous blog I have been having amazing results with these moments of surrendering. For those non-dualists out there, this could be still looked at from the viewpoint of being in the Now, the Presence. Some people, in the name of spirituality, will deny any emotions, saying they are not true, all is an illusion. One has to be careful in this, because does that emotion then get repressed? In true work, one would acknowledge its presence, whatever it is, and as one acknowledges the energy that comes up, and stays present with it, there will be a sense of the energy dissolving. One must continue with this until that thought or situation that was associated may arise and there is no inner reaction to that thought.
Personally, the universe has been kind enough to present me with the opportunity to witness this within myself. It was almost a repeat of a situation that had happened many years back. I went into an agreement with someone, and then the person decided to attempt to change the agreement without discussion with me, which included some lies. It created quite a challenge for me. In the past, there was quite a lot of drama as I allowed the whirlpool of my mind to have a grand time. This time, I as a witness was much more conscious, and was able to move through the experience from a greater place of balance. When I saw the mind wanting to engage in its entertainment of the situation, I continued to surrender the emotional responses and mind stuff into the great fire of spirit. I felt a greater freedom within myself. I also was able to recycle the energy by transforming into a deep feeling of compassion for the other person and their situation. Of course one must want the freedom and peace of Presence more than the ego wants to see itself as right and engage in drama. It also must let go of what other benefits it may receive from playing a victim, or any other role.
In the next part I am going to share with you more of David Hawkins story from Letting Go, The Pathway of Surrender.
Letting Go,
Dr. David Hawkins, author of Letting Go, had a powerful spiritual awakening at a young age. His occupation took him into the field of psychiatry and was involved in searching to find a relief to human suffering in its various forms. He explored many modalities from the mundane to the metaphysical. Through all the explorations he found the mechanism of surrender to be the most practical.
Hawkins had written over ten books previously about understanding enlightenment and consciousness while having thousands of students inquire how to deal with obstacles to enlightenment. What is the best way to deal with the challenges that life offers us, through our disappointment, grief, and stress? How can we free ourselves from the impact of negative emotions that impact our health, our jobs and relationships? How do we handle all our unwanted feelings? What do we do with the whirlwind of thoughts that are chattering in the mind, that create unwanted feelings? Or the thoughts that continuously offering its opinions or judgments?
Dr. Hawkins wrote his final book, his final gift to others before he left this earth plane reality, offering us a simple and effective way to let go of negative feelings and become free. The book is, Letting Go, The Pathway to Surrender.
I have already seen a tremendous shift in myself after reading just the first part of this book and that is why I am sharing this with you. Hawkins says, “the letting go technique is a pragmatic system of eliminating obstacles and attachments. It can also be called a mechanism of surrender.” He warns us that it may sound like a simple thing, so we don’t feel moved to pay attention. His suggestion is to realize it is the trick of the ego to try to get you to not pay attention.
More in part two…
Words of Enlightened Teachers
Dr. David Hawkins, author of Letting Go, had a powerful spiritual awakening at a young age. His occupation took him into the field of psychiatry and was involved in searching to find a relief to human suffering in its various forms. He explored many modalities from the mundane to the metaphysical. Through all the explorations he found the mechanism of surrender to be the most practical.
Hawkins had written over ten books previously about understanding enlightenment and consciousness while having thousands of students inquire how to deal with obstacles to enlightenment. What is the best way to deal with the challenges that life offers us, through our disappointment, grief, and stress? How can we free ourselves from the impact of negative emotions that impact our health, our jobs and relationships? How do we handle all our unwanted feelings? What do we do with the whirlwind of thoughts that are chattering in the mind, that create unwanted feelings? Or the thoughts that continuously offering its opinions or judgments?
Dr. Hawkins wrote his final book, his final gift to others before he left this earth plane reality, offering us a simple and effective way to let go of negative feelings and become free. The book is, Letting Go, The Pathway to Surrender.
I have already seen a tremendous shift in myself after reading just the first part of this book and that is why I am sharing this with you. Hawkins says, “the letting go technique is a pragmatic system of eliminating obstacles and attachments. It can also be called a mechanism of surrender.” He warns us that it may sound like a simple thing, so we don’t feel moved to pay attention. His suggestion is to realize it is the trick of the ego to try to get you to not pay attention.
More in part two…
Delphi University of Spiritual Studies, Mc Caysville, GA
In case you have not read the previous posts, I am sharing with you major intersections on my spiritual journey. It began with taking the Silva Method of Mind Development, which led to a desire to become one of their instructors. Since yoga was a parent of Silva, that led me to my yogic studies. While teaching yoga in California, my mother passed away and I went back to New Jersey to be with my family. It was that time, in 1982 that I finally became certified as a Silva Instructor and began teaching the course at community colleges.
It was while teaching the Silva class that a student, that was not familiar to me, came up and handed me a book written by a woman named, Patricia Hayes. I believe it was called, The Gatekeeper. She said she thought I would be interested in the book. I never saw that student again, and it one of those moments where there is a suspicion of an angelic intercession.
I attended my first week long residential training at Delphi, in 1986, and then many more after that. Delphi was a beautiful retreat center on property that had once been inhabited by the Cherokee Indians, near the Blueridge Mountains of Georgia. The purpose of the class was to assist one to become a clear channel of love, light and healing. It was a major step in the next transformation in my life. I left there in love with the world, with the ability to see the beauty in every being I met. I returned many times for continued training and finally after fulfilling the needed requirements became ordained as a Minister in the Church of Wisdom, taking a vow to guide others on their spiritual path. I went through another two year training and sessions of my own spiritual purification and became certified as a Ro-hun Therapist. Within that time, I moved to Georgia and was hired in as the school administrator, a teacher and Ro-hun therapist for the school.
It was beautiful to watch the transformation of the students from when they arrived to when they leaved. My dad came to take the training, and on the second night he came in a gave me a hug, the first hug since I was a little girl. His heart had been opened. His partner continues to thank me today for the softness that flowered from my father taking the class.
The six years I was involved in Delphi, from 1986 until 1991, have been a major impact in my life, and my teaching, and for what surprising twist of fate was next for me in my life.
Solana Tara 