The scientific and medical network Review – december 2015
Three levels of awakening
I visited a party a few years ago where I witnessed a conversation between two sisters. One sister let slip her claim to be enlightened, whereupon the other sister raised her eyebrows and reacted with: “You?! Enlightened?!” and emphasised her judgment with a sneer. “Well at least awakened then!” – the first sister tried to protect her remark.
It was a bit of an awkward situation but it revealed interesting insights. A lot of people carry a memory of an awakening with them and identify themselves with this memory. But one moment of awakening is very different from being in a stable awakened state.
It is very likely, since you are reading this, that you have also experienced some kind of awakening in your life that called you to become a spiritual seeker. For some of you that meant a complete positive change of your life because something very essential transformed. For others it was a terrifying opening of eyes about what false games they played for years on end because they thought they needed something from others, and they now realise that this will never happen. For a third group of people it meant becoming euphoric about the holographic nature of this world but the knowing didn’t really affect them yet at a gut level. This is because we need several awakenings to understand and embody this shift fully in our consciousness on all levels of ourselves.
The level of knowing
The first big awakening for most people is what they call a (spiritual) peak experience. The first sister probably had one of these. If you are touched by grace and fall into a peak experience, a huge curtain opens. Your fear is gone, the heaviness has disappeared, you get a view of what you really are, there is peace inside and you suddenly feel connected to everyone and everything, oneness is your new home (at least for a while…)
Another route towards surrendering is unconsciously finding yourself in an unexpected situation of extreme loss. Loss of your loved ones, of your job or your house. In that case you cannot hold onto anything anymore and that compels you to stop grabbing and, metaphorically speaking, opens your hands so you can fall back into yourself.
And some acquire an awakened view during a near death experience where they are pulled out of physical life to the non-physical level.
What happens in all these cases is that your vision comes loose from a tightly focused state that is attached to ideas, things and people that confirms your identity, and shifts to a non-focused state where everything that was personal detaches into non-everything: non-doing, non-resistance, non-local, non-physical… pure potential energy. You shifted from the layer of physical reality to the layer of infinite consciousness.
We could make a figure of it that in a simple way looks like this:
You had an epiphany, a God moment. You fell back from a position of being totally absorbed by the focus in the physical into an extreme non-focused state. You got an overview and were gifted with a deep knowing about existence itself. You flipped the coin and realised: I am not in control, I don’t have to ‘do’ anything.
If you were ever involved in a process of flipping coins you know that after the coin flips it comes to rest in the middle. For example: someone who effaced oneself for a long time and reaches the point of having had enough of that can flip the coin to over-the-top selfish behaviour. In every situation this person feels that it is one’s task to put oneself first over the other until that side of the coin has been explored in depth and then this theme is free. It came to rest in the middle. From then on there will be a choice whether one steps behind or one feels it’s important to stick to a true impulse.
I use this example because coming to rest in a stable awakened state is also a process of exploring a coin, the coin of duality versus non-duality. Some people who are totally imprisoned in their stories believe that awakening in oneness will be the moment of salvation like the ultimate goal to reach. In truth it is more of a new beginning. A switch point which pushes you into a mental shock and invites you to come to rest in the middle and live your life from a far more conscious and therefore more fulfilling point of view… but you can only come to rest in the middle if(!) you allow this new insight to penetrate into the rest of your being. Making a moment of awakening into a mental understanding will not be enough to enlighten your life.
The level of heart
The word awakening refers to the kind of dream state we lived in. We can only wake up into clarity so there must have been a blurry point of view from which we were previously living. We were stuck in unconsciousness about who we are and about how this reality really works. So, after you experienced this warm bath of peace, of light and of not having to do anything any more you may become more and more detached from the physical.
What you probably do not see yet is that the world of form actually is why you are here in this reality but you do see now that everything is energy and everything is connected to each other – and that touches you deeply. You feel unconditional love in contact with every human being, animal and plant; your heart opens. You awaken at the level of heart and because you opened your heart, non-acceptance is dissolving. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Penetrating further and further into your life.
Now you can look at things from the position of the observer, from your non-physical self. That means you look from an energetic level and have access to energetic information and sight. You can now see the world from the field through which all living beings are connected to each other.
This is the first level where there appears to be something personal. Source energy as a personal piece of energy, an energetic form which I call your essence. The seed as which you first came into this reality, as an ‘I-soul’, and that is why we can also experience a ‘we-soul’. This is the first layer from which directions are being made. Intentions start here, based on what seed you are and connected with all separated parts as one.
To be clear: as direction starts here, there isn’t a God who made a plan because from that point of view there isn’t a right or wrong, no good and bad, no preference about which side we choose. God is the creative energy that provides everything with existence.
So your essence guides but doesn’t decide as we think decisions are being made, like: I want this, let’s do that. And: oh that’s interesting to experience… The longings you feel from your ‘heart’ are the natural desire of the seed that you are that wants to grow and meet the surface of this world. It wants to express itself as a form. And if your essence is a rose it doesn’t want to grow as a tulip. From the moment you were born. No: from the moment you were conceived, every intention, every step, every movement has been made to honour and serve the growth of the essence that you are as an expression or form of source energy. Honouring this makes you happy, because happiness is the same vibrational energy as your enduring essence.
Becoming aware of this energetic world is awakening on the level of heart. When you see the beauty of this essence and the diversity of all forms of consciousness around you, inequality dissolves. Now you can dance in interaction with all these different energies.
The level of manifest
But how does it work? How is form being created?
All these questions also want to be understood as well because it awakens you on the next level. The level of the manifest. The world of time and form. Linear as we experience it.
The most important thing you have to understand about the manifest is what some of us call duality because in physical form the one had to separate itself in order to experience itself, so that duality and non-duality are the same coin. Duality is nothing more than: ‘Me and my projection’ and my projection is also me, so duality = one (non-duality)
Duality is the most awesome reality you created and you are the one from which everything arises. Everything you see, hear, smell, touch, taste and sense is an echo of what you have sent into the energetic field, which became more and more dense due to the slowing down of the energy and the consequent lowering of its frequency so that it finally morphed into a physical form. That is astonishing! The moment you realise this special quality and you truly embrace this three dimensional reality with deep understanding – that everything around you is you, instead of continuously running from it – this physical life becomes your playground.
So, how does it work?
Source energy splits itself into an energetic form. This essential part of consciousness that you appear to be in this reality feels like the ‘I’-soul so ‘you’ can guard what wants to express through you. Whether or not it is truly a personal something I will leave in suspense but it is apparently important that we experience it as personal. Why? Because by making things personal (my ideas, my view of the world, my desires) we construct our prism of creation.
This prism contains thoughts, beliefs and emotions. Thoughts become beliefs when you make them ‘mine’ and are the basis of the projector with which we project our images (or in other words: make energy manifest). Emotions give feedback about whether what you believe is in alignment with your essence (or in other words: is of service to the manifestation of the seed that you are).
Read these lines twice if necessary, they are important!
Awakening often hurts, because the ego (the mine-making-mechanism) isn’t vanquished and has to let go of many beliefs, hopes and expectations. Continuously! In the beginning of the awakening process lots of beliefs have to be let go, because they stop you expressing who you are – and that is our core leitmotiv, like everything in this universe. (look again at the metaphor of the seed and the flower)
Later, even if you are in a stable state of awakening, it still sometimes hurts because we continuously grow; and when we grow our prism needs to become correctly adjusted again. When you truly understand this and have awakened, it just hurts on the surface, while on a deeper level you feel much joy and happiness when you go through the process again, because you know that means your energy expanding again.
To go back to the story of the two sisters, the second sister obviously didn’t understand this part of it.
When you come to rest in this stable state of awakening there will never be balance; you are continuously balancing between the physical and the energetic.
You can feel unconditional love towards everyone and at the same time experience duality with your physical, mental and emotional vehicle and see it from an infinite awareness point of view. This is because consciousness has penetrated now at the level of the manifest and you came to rest in the centre. You have now one leg in the field of source energy and another leg in physical form. That means you can lay back and be inspired by pure consciousness with every breath you take and bow towards the physical form every time you exhale. Your thoughts, your feelings and actions are now imbued with truth. From now on you realise: the physical form is the final phase in the process of manifesting and I am in the centre. I balance on the border of being and non-being. You are in a stable state of awakening.
