April 2013

I was at some event in what seemed like a gymnasium with lots of bleachers. I was sitting near the left end on the second row and there were  lots of people in front of me but few near me. It was some kind of seminar and someone was speaking. Adyashanti came in and sat to my left but on the floor instead of the seat next to me. I lean over and say to him “you know, I can talk about this stuff (non-duality, consciousness, and truth) all day long but I still don’t see it (no realization). He leans over and says “but you must have some awareness of it or you wouldn’t be able to talk about it in that way.” I sat up and thought about that.

Then this other guy comes over and sits down between Adya and me. He was wearing a reddish sweatshirt similar to one I have. He began heckling the speaker in a very loud, noisy, and disruptive way, like he was at a baseball game.  He paid no attention to anyone else and just kept commenting.  I turned to him and said “You need to be quiet” as I put my right hand on his chest. It felt like I was putting calming energy into him. I could feel a strong warm calming vibration, like a smooth hum, in my hand but I don’t know if it was from me or him.  He turns to me and says “I don’t have to be quiet!  I can talk as much as I want! Who are you to tell me to be quiet? It’s a free country and I can do whatever I want!” in the same loud and noisy manner. Then he turned back and continued being noisy.

I like this dream. On reflection it became clear that what sits between me and the Truth, represented by Adya, is a noisy mind, which I need to quiet, so I can see what I must already know.

March 2013

I was doing a daily self hypnosis to get insight into various physical conditions I had going on.  During the hypnosis I would imagine going down an escalator to deeper levels.  The final level was a forest and I would walk along a path that led to a Shamanic healing circle.  There were benches made of logs surrounding a raised area with a camp fire in it.  I would sit down and visualize what I wanted and give myself suggestions of discovery and transformation.  No one else was in the circle.  I did this daily for a month and one day I noticed someone sitting across from me on the other side of the fire.  He looked like and old man, maybe a shaman.  I ignored this.  I didn’t put him there and it was MY hypnosis after all!  The next day he was there again and again I ignored him.  But toward the end he got up and walked around and sat in front of me.  It was Ramana Maharshi and he looked at me and said “it’s time for you to wake up.”  Then he left.  Hmmm.  OK.  Of course there’s nothing I can do about it.

November 23, 2012

This was an astounding OBE (out-of-body-experience) but only the first part is applicable here.  I was dreaming and became lucid.  I immediately deepened my awareness using a palpation technique until I was 100% conscious.  I was in a place that looked like Chinatown in San Francisco, that was filled with people.  I rose up into the air to get my bearings and recalled my first plan of action.  I usually have at least three projects to carry out during an OBE.  I flew up fairly high and knew what I was going to do but as I looked in the distance I saw an ominous mountain perhaps only a few miles away.  It was like I was viewing it in the morning, just before the break of dawn, and it looked dark and bluish and had what looked like grey snow on the peak.  It seemed to grow larger as I looked at it. The main thing about the mountain was the feeling I got as I looked at it.  It was a feeling of power and deep meaning and it seemed that if I kept my attention on it it would pull me in.  It wasn’t frightening but more like ominous and overwhelming.  It seemed to represent something important but mysterious – it was the unknown.  I pulled back from it and turned around and continued with my plan to find Ana (the spirit name of my soul partner), not knowing she had recently passed away.  But that’s another story for another time.

The encounter with the mountain was brief but powerful.  I thought it represented God or oblivion or even possibly Ana, who I intended to contact.  It was over a year later that I was looking at a picture of Mt. Arunachala, Ramana Maharshi’s home, that I made the connection.  I had seen pictures of it before but ruled it out as the one in the OBE because it never has snow on it.  But I found a view where it looked similar.  Curious, I used Google Earth and found the right angle, and it was the same as what I saw! It’s just like the picture on Wikipedia. The grey snow was really trails and rock formations on one side as it might be seen in moonlight.  I guess the Truth was pulling at me.

September 8, 2012

There was a huge war that was an ultimate showdown of some kind.  Before the war there was a very anxious time, like a huge threat hanging over my head – it seems like it’s more than just MY head.  So in this war I stage this battle apparently  – but that’s unclear too (that I staged it).  But the battle was staged and an army of martial artists, like Ninja super kung fu warriors appear in this area, about a hundred of them dressed in gis. They seemed … I can’t say – the atmosphere kept changing from gold to dark tan.  The warriors were all on a platform under a large pagoda, and as soon as they appeared, ready to fight (no other army was in sight) there was a blast of darts seemingly from out of nowhere.  They were all hit by several darts and they all died instantly. It was like when I looked to see where the darts came from, I saw they all came from one guy who was standing behind me on a raised platform.  He was like a super ultra martial artist, dressed in a white gi.  As I’m looking at him standing there I’m suddenly not sure if he is my enemy or on my side and I don’t know if the army was my army or the enemy.  I have no idea and it’s baffling.  At some point I’m talking to someone or in some way got the idea that the army was all of my identities and that this whole thing could be about enlightenment. In the end the “one” won out.  But there was some more consideration like: was the battle really over and was there going to be another battle. And I had the question of whether the One had higher warriors on his side.  I questioned what did it mean that he won and I still didn’t know where I fit in.  Now as I think of it there might have been the idea that I could change sides since I didn’t know which side was my side why not be on the side of the One.  However I wasn’t sure that the One wasn’t evil.  It seemed that one of these sides had to be evil.  At one point there was even an uncertainty that the Ninja army was actually dead.  There was a body of water and they were all floating like dirt clods in the water.  It reminded me of all the Asian lady bug larvae on my plants in my garden where it looked like there were dozens of dead ones but they had only shed their skins, and many were pupating.  I decided that no side is the right one, no path is the right one, and I even have to let go of the “One” and surrender to the truth.  The uncertainty represented letting go of my beliefs and attachments.

[[As far as identities go we are all shifting identities all day.  We all have hundreds of identities: father, mother, brother, friend, a different friend for each friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, shopper, walker, car driver, meditator, tv watcher, exerciser, book reader, and we have hundreds of them and they are just states that we shift into, all programmed in some way.  Some are very stuck and others very flexible and they are just disguises we wear to accomplish various things all day and they all have their various purposes and functions but they are not us.]]

The thing to work on in this dream is there was a kind of deep worry which I can’t describe.  It’s deeper than that like ‘what’s gonna happen?” as if this could be a terrible disaster but I have no clue what this disaster might entail but there is nothing I can conceive of that could play out as a disaster.  But something is terribly worrisome like if I lost (remember,  I didn’t know which side I’m on) it would be a huge mistake with dire consequences.  I cant say I would die or lose something or anyone else would die but there is the feeling of death in here.

[[This dream is actually more than a metaphor of my spiritual path.  Someone I have a strong spiritual connection to was dying during this time but I was unaware of it as I had no communication with her for many years.  I had several dreams about her dying but didn’t try to contact her.  She died a few weeks after this dream. I’m sure that’s what the “anxious time” and the “worry” represented.]]

April 2012

Adya was having me nail him to a cross.  We were both laughing.  It didn’t work and the wooden cross kept falling apart until we finally gave up.  So he said we were going on a trek.  We were dressed like yogis in India.  I thought the trek would be through some exotic desert lands but we were walking through residential neighborhoods.  Our path was like a maze.  I was a bit confused but he seemed to know where he was going – actually it was more like it didn’t matter and he was amused that I was concerned.

February 2012

I dreamed I was lying in bed and I saw Adyashanti’s head floating above me.  This may have been an OBE but I don’t recall being fully lucid.  So Adya looks around and says:

“You don’t just repair computers.  Your secret life begins today!”  And I woke up.

Although my main job is counseling, I do rebuild computers as a hobby for extra income, and my home often looks like a computer shop.  I have been listening to Adyashanti for several years on YouTube, read his books, and had a conversation with him all before this dream.  I guess he was checking me out.  Secret life?  Just being on the path?  Today?  Don’t know.  But it’s always now.

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.