I finished my last blog post, "What is an Awakening" with Spiritual Teacher Adyashantis' comment about a Full Spiritual Awakening which is "Don't count on that being you". Before I begin to tell you about what an Awakening feels like, I would like to explain the difference between a Full versus a Partial Spiritual Awakening, so that by the time I go on to recount to you my own experience of what the Awakening felt like, there is an understanding of which type of Awakening I experienced. I will also explain why the statement "Don't count on that being you" is so relevant to all of us, no matter where we are on our spiritual journey.
As explained in my last blog post, an awakening is when Oneness awakens to itself within the human form. As I talked about in my last post, the human form itself does not awaken, but the Spirit inherent in and part of the human form, does. When the Energy awakens to itself (Please note that I interchangeably use different terms such as Awareness, Oneness, Consciousness, Spirit and Energy to describe that which is truly indescribable through the limitations of spoken language), although the Awakening does not happen to a personal "me", there is no doubt that the human form structure is affected by the Awakening itself. It is in the "process" of how the human form structure is affected, that differences occur.
For some humans, there is no difference in time (at least in the mind made perception of time) between the actual moment of Awakening itself and the complete and full assimilation and impact of the Awakening on the human form structure and how it functions following the moment of Awakening. There is no process through which the human has to navigate through to dis-identify with the thought form (or what we may call the ego). That which has Awakened literally jolts itself out of the human experience of identification with thought and feeling form. The impact of this is tremendous on the individual, and nothing is ever seen as it was prior to the Awakening. This does not mean that the person stops experiencing thought and feeling. A Full Awakening does not in any way mean that from a human experience of things, the individual is free from thought or feeling. However, it does mean that the individual no longer identifies with the thoughts and feelings that he or she experiences, and no longer believes that they ARE their thoughts and feelings. They no longer disillusion themselves with the idea that their "Beingness" is located within the limited structure of thought and feeling. As mentioned in my last post, an example of this Full Awakening is Contemporary teacher Eckhart Tolle, who upon the moment of Awakening had an instant dis-identification with the thought and feeling form structure. To this day, his identification with thought and feeling form has not returned.
For other humans who have experienced a Spiritual Awakening, there is the experience of perceived time from the moment of the Awakening to the complete assimilation of this experience by the human form. In this type of Awakening, although the human form has complete awareness of the actual moment of Awakening, the energetic pull of the thought and feeling forms is of such gravity that the individual is still able to get pulled into the vortex of identification. As in an individual who experiences a Full Awakening, the individual continues to have thoughts and feelings, but unlike a Full Awakening, there is still some form of identification with these forms. The human still grasps onto these and and even at times believes themselves to BE the thoughts and feelings that they experience. We may call this type of Awakening a Partial Awakening, but partial only in the sense of the non completeness of dis-identification with thought and feeling forms. In a Partial Awakening, there is a process that the human goes through from the moment of an Awakening experience in order to reach the complete symbiosis of Spirit and the experience of the expression of Human Form. This may be hard to understand even if just on an intellectual level, but I hope that sharing my experience of the Awakening will help shed some light for you on this process.
Before I start, I want to distinguish between the felt experience of the moment of Awakening and the actual felt manifestation of an Awakening in the human form following the moment of an Awakening. It is the actual moment of Awakening that I will share with you at this time. My next post will be about the manifestation of this in the human form thereafter. Actually, my whole blog will focus mostly on the manifestation of the awakening in my human life. However, I feel it is important to share both with you.
The actual moment of Spiritual Awakening that I experienced happened in the summer of 2014. I was on a camping trip in the Okanagan, BC, with my husband and my two girls who were 5 and 8 at the time. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were playing at the beach enjoying the warmth of the sand and rocks. As it was nearing around dinner time (maybe 5 or 6), most of the people at the beach had drifted off, probably to start dinner at their camp sites. As we ourselves were gathering our things to go back to our site, I told my husband and girls that they go ahead without me as I would just take a few minutes to do a meditation before returning to the camp site. As they left, I sat in the lawn chair that we had brought with us and looked out at the water which was sparkling and twinkling from the sun. I sat there feeling myself relax from the energetic activity of playing with my children and from the general busyness of the day. I remember not really thinking about anything but just feeling a stillness and a peacefulness, however not unlike any other I had felt before when surrounded by nature and silence. Then all of a sudden, as I was looking out over the water, the light from the sun that was penetrating the water and making it sparkle seemed to expand in a strange way. The only thing that I can liken it to is that it seemed as if each sparkle became bigger. In fact it appeared as if I could literally see the vast spaciousness between each atom. Although there appeared to be space that opened up, the totality of how big the sparkles were, or how big the lake, was untouched. What I mean by this is that nothing seemed to be of larger proportion than before, but yet there appeared to be endless space between what before seemed to be solid matter. The lake, the water and the light sparkles took on a floating type quality as if there was no solid matter present. I don't remember really having much thought at this time. I didn't have any emotion either. As I sat there looking out at this phenomena, all of a sudden the mountain behind the lake took on that same quality of spaciousness. It no longer appeared as a solid structure but just bits of floaty pieces between which there appeared once again this vast spaciousness. I remember at this time having the knowing, as I can't really say it was a thought, that my whole being could walk right through this mountain. It also felt that the lake and the mountain had somehow merged, although they still looked like a separate picture in some sense. The best way I can describe it is that the atoms of the water and the atoms of the mountain merged in some way and there was no longer a clear distinction between the two. It also appeared that the mountain was in front of the water just as much as the water was in front of the mountain. As I sat there just experiencing this, I suddenly felt the same spaciousness within my body. It felt as if my body had lost its' matter and took on the floaty quality of much space between the atoms that comprised it. My body no longer felt solid. I then had the sensation (although it wasn't really a bodily sensation per se) that this space that I was, merged with the water and the mountain. There was no longer the human sensation of being separate from something else. I can't even say that the sensation was of becoming one with the water and the mountain. It was more that I was the water and the mountain. I want to say that it was the most peaceful feeling I have ever had, but there wasn't any feeling in this experience. At least not in the way we humans experience the energy of a feeling or emotion in our body. It was more a sensation (for lack of a better word) of "Beingness" or "Awareness". I don't really quite know how long this experience lasted although my husband later told me that I was gone for about a half hour or so. Eventually, the feeling returned to physically feeling my own body sitting in the lawn chair and to seeing the separation between the lake and the mountain. I remember sitting there and feeling that nothing was going to be the same after this. I didn't feel scared, surprised, happy or any other emotion really. I remember though that as I picked up my chair and began to walk to the camp site, it felt as if Oneness was walking my body. I was no longer identified with my body, thoughts, or emotions. Who I was, was Awareness, Oneness, and Spirit, but what that is I don't really truly know...
I returned to the camp site and went about helping with dinner, talking to my husband and children. All along, I felt like what I had thought of as a self prior to this experience, was now just like a shirt that you put on in the morning. It is something you wear, but not what you are.
Following the Awakening, I never forgot the knowing and the knowledge that I am not my body, my thoughts and emotions. However, with time, I realized that my Awakening was not of the Full Awakening kind. It was a Partial Awakening and this Partial Awakening was about to take me on a journey I never expected....
I never did get to Adyashantis' "Don't count on that being you" did I? I will. It just somehow feels like now isn't the time.
If you are coming back here, Thank you for joining me again on this journey. If this is your first time, only you will know whether something has resonated within you. Regardless where your journey may take you, I send you much Love and Kindness along the way.
I welcome any comments or questions you may have about this post or my previous one "What is an Awakening?". I understand that there may be some questions or things to be clarified and am here to provide as honest an answer as I possibly can with such a vast subject. You may click on the "Please leave a comment" under my post to do so.
My next post will be about "How Partial Awakening Manifests in Human Form".
Until next time, much Love and Kindness to all of you,
Izabella
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