September 2011

I was at my Dentist’s office getting a root canal and I was struggling.  It was very uncomfortable.  Now I have had a few root canals done and I always get very relaxed and go into a meditative state and I give myself positive suggestions and it’s usually all fine.  But today I was having some trouble.  If you have had dental work done you are probably familiar with the potpourri of discomforts available.  Anyway as I was struggling it all got to a point where I asked spirit for help.  By Spirit I mean God, guardian angels, spirit guides, the unconscious mind – see it however you want.  For me I know there is always someone or something that hears me and which may or may not come to my assistance.  So I asked.  Almost instantly it all changed.  It was all OK.  The struggle was gone and I was fine.  At first I was dumbfounded.  I felt very mellow and peaceful.  It was like the suffering was a dream and I just woke up.  I spent several minutes trying to see what had actually changed.  Nothing had changed – my physical position was the same, all the sensations were the same and everything I had been struggling with and agonizing over was all the same.  But I was fine.  I thanked Spirit for the help.  It was all quite amazing and equally puzzling.

About a year later a similar thing happened but my discomfort was of an entirely different nature and accompanied by strong anxiety.  I was lying down asked for help and almost immediately I was fine, my worries disappeared, although the physical symptoms were unchanged.  This time however it took me several minutes to realize what had happened and to connect it with my request.  I had to laugh when I made the connection because I was no longer concerned.  The scarey symptoms faded away a few minutes later, having lasted for over an hour.

The point I want to make here is that the only thing that changed, as best as I can see, was that I was no longer struggling or resisting the present moment and whatever was arising in it – but this deep acceptance came from a deep level.  It wasn’t something I consciously did.  Somehow I was able to cease being troubled in both instances, and I feel I had some assistance in that.

March 9, 2011

The insight lasted only a split second.  I was meditating at the time.  It was like a “peek behind the curtain” where I saw the truth clearly but it was so brief I was left only with some small impressions.  So I called Adyashanti during his internet radio program, which was the same day,  and told him about it.  In the moment of insight I realized that everything I believed in was wrong; that all my beliefs had no real foundation and that all my cherished attachments and everything I cared about were complete illusions.  The crux of why I bounced out of the realization concerned some instant judgements my mind made.  Adya jumped on that, having me describe these judgements. One was that if nothing I believed in was true then this was a total loss of everything I knew.  Also it seemed too easy and too good to be true. This moment of incredulity was too much to grasp and the impulse was that I had to go think about it and try to digest it. But the response was automatic, like touching a hot stove.  And so I instantly lost the perspective.  But nothing IN the experience suggested that I needed to digest it – that was just my mind freaking out.  When I look at the moment of clarity it seems like the most sane and clear viewpoint I have ever experienced.  Like I peeked my head out of the clouds of chaos and saw that the chaos was just an illusion.  In that instant everything became clean and pure, like a breath of fresh air.  It was really like waking up from a dream.  Adya said “that’s why they call it waking up.”  He called my experience a foretaste and his advice was to not try and grasp it but to just notice it and carry on.  This is all on the CD you can get from his website.

November 2010

This is about acceptance.  In November 2010 I had an attack of shingles, which is an infection by the chickenpox virus that attacks nerve trunks in the body, causing angry blisters and a lot of pain.  My outbreak was on the lower back and down the leg on one side.  The pain was intense and constant all day and lasted about a month.  It was difficult to sleep and no position was comfortable.  I was told there was only one pain medication that would work but when I read the possible side effects there was no way I was going to take it.  Instead I just accepted the pain, the constant itching, and other discomforts I don’t wish to describe. I accepted it all by not fighting it and I didn’t complain about it to myself.  I didn’t argue with the pain or resist it in any way.

I also used the pain to remind me to do self inquiry.  I questioned whether the pain was causing suffering and whether there was anyone actually receiving the suffering. And I found I couldn’t say that the discomfort really bothered me.  Sometimes I tried to pretend that I was in agony, acting it out, but that always seemed silly.  This reinforced the feeling that suffering is an illusion. I also saw that struggling did no good anyway.  I tried to see that the pain and I were ONE. That was more of a question.  Now, when I look back on the whole shingles affair, I can see that my willingness to accept reality as it is in the present moment, during that time, was a blessing.  I remember one night in particular.  I was in pain and trying to go to sleep but there was no position that was comfortable. I finally stopped resisting the discomfort and told myself that it was all OK, and I went right to sleep.

2009

Sometime in late 2009 maybe, I realized that I had passed the point of no return on the path to enlightenment.  I just noticed this feeling that indicated that I could never give up the path of finding the truth of my being.  Something had shifted, maybe months before, and I hadn’t seen it until now.  It was something deep inside, like I had crossed some line and there was no going back.  It wasn’t a commitment, just an observation.  It’s still there in 2013.

July 2009

I developed a strange cyst on my right lower arm which looked like an infection or an insect bite.  I saw two doctors who had no idea what it was. They gave me antibiotics and did skin and blood tests.  I got a bit worried and thought it might be cancer but that was ruled out. Still there were moments when I thought it might be serious enough to kill me.  I knew this was irrational but during this time while worrying about death I decided to make self-realization my primary purpose in life.  I have a mission which is also a primary purpose but the path to awakening became more of a reality right then.  I mentally addressed this resolution to Ramana Maharshi as a sincere vow.  I received an immediate reply of  “You are initiated,” which I did not expect.  I saw a vague silhouette of him in a vision.  My next thought was “Hmmm, what have I got myself into?”  Mainly because somewhere inside I felt undeserving.  The cyst was psycho-somatic.  When I realized the cause, it healed and disappeared. I guess it served its purpose!

April 2009

In this dream I was on the phone talking with Ramana Maharshi*.  He was in Florida and was telling me about how good the weather was there and what a great time he was having.  He sounded very animated and full of energy; he was in great spirits and just chatting away.  Then I asked him something like “so what do I need to do to wake up?”  I heard nothing … just silence.  I said “Hello?”  And there was a click and the line went dead, and I woke up, which is interesting.  Of course I was asking about self-realization.  I had just started his biography the day before.  Today when I picked the book up I read that Ramana’s principle teaching was silence!  I got the feeling I was actually connecting with him in the dream.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi

Sometime around 2006 I’m guessing:

I’m not sure when this dream was.  I was in my bedroom pacing back and forth talking to an invisible presence I took to be God.  God was saying “it’s time!” and I was feeling deeply resistant to whatever this meant. I was saying “no” repeatedly and feeling frustrated and at my wits end.  Time was up.  It didn’t seem so much that I had failed at something but more like I hadn’t finished something but there was no more time.  I didn’t understand why there was no more time. Actually I did understand but was in denial. I was throwing a kind of tantrum. When I thought about this, the only thing that made sense was that I was resisting enlightenment.  This could relate to some other things but it seems more fundamental and final than the end of a goal or a dream, although the feelings might connect to some deep desires.  But it’s all ego and illusion.  Still, I can feel that resistance within me, whatever it is.

October 30, 2013

I have been recording my dreams since I was 12 years old.  Over the last few years I have been having dreams related to truth realization.  I call them enlightenment dreams.  Sometimes they are messages or lessons and sometimes they are profound experiences verging on spiritual awakening.  They often provide profound insights into the truth or the path I am on.  Some of my most profound glimpses of awakening have occurred in dreams just prior to waking up from sleep.  The dreams are transcribed from my digital recorder and for the most part have not been cleaned up so they might be full of typos, misspelled words, dangling participles, and bad grammar.  They will be designated as dreams under the title..  In the dream write-ups, anything written in italics and enclosed in double brackets [[like this]]  are later comments I added for clarification or whatever

10-31-2007  [This was an email to a friend.]

In the summer I planted some loose-leaf  lettuce but the bugs ate it before it got an inch high.  If it got more than an inch the leaves were soon full of moth-worm munchie holes.  Then I found that lettuce cannot handle the full sun and it all died.   So I built a screen enclosure that circled my lettuce box and threw in the rest of my seeds, which I got at the flea market for 10¢ a bag.  I put a cloth over the top for shade as well as to keep the moths out.  The lettuce grew.  When the weather got cold the moths disappeared so I took the cloth off but I didn’t pick the lettuce so it would produce seeds for next year.  Lettuce likes the colder weather.

Last night (many weeks later) I was going to make a salad but I didn’t have any lettuce left in the fridge, so I went out to the forgotten lettuce patch. To my surprise I found several huge organic lettuce plants with the healthiest light green leaves I’ve ever seen.  I harvested enough lettuce for 2 salads without making a dent in the lettuce patch.  Another reward for gardening.

The moral of the story?   Maybe the work of meditation and reading and self inquiry is like planting lettuce seeds – one day just when you think you can’t have a salad you realize you have the whole lettuce patch!   Pip Bogwalker