Category Archives: Rebirth

A little lantern on the path

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  1. The anomaly of suffering is a clear signal that this mind-made reality is failing to fulfill the deep longing for peace, happiness, and harmony embedded in all life forms.
  2. What we consider to be our reality is simply an arbitrary projection of our limited individual and collective state of consciousness.
  3. Our individual and collective state of consciousness is currently driven by a compulsive and unconscious identification to the processes of the mind. The illusion of separation it induces is the main cause of suffering.
  4. Spiritual awakening is the process through which our true nature, the true self, becomes aware of itself as the only permanent and ever-present source of meaning, peace, and happiness, dissolving in the process the illusions of the non-self.
  5. In opposition to the non-self, which is a product of thoughts, the true self manifests itself as pure presence and pure awareness. It is not limited and individualized but “shared” by everyone and everything as a unified field of pure consciousness.
  6. The true self cannot be known by anything else other than itself hence spiritual awakening can only be achieved by the subjugation of all forms of identification to the compulsive mental processes through reasonable self-inquiry and direct experience.
  7. Spiritual awakening is a rebirth to a virgin and pristine state of consciousness which must be stabilized and integrated with the substance of our experience. The embodiment particularities are bound to the color of the personality.
  8. The direct result of the individual and collective awakening to reality is an influx of true compassion, progressively resulting in a complete change of paradigm and a great alleviation of fear and suffering.
  9. The complete three steps process that goes from the sleeping state of complete identification to the mind to the awakening of the true self to itself followed by the final stabilization in a form is clearly illustrated by the following Zen teaching:

” At the first level on the path, he saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. On the second level of the path, he saw that mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers. And at a third level, he saw once again mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers.”

Calwen

Start from a Blank Page

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identity-795260_960_720Spiritual awakening is not about gaining more knowledge, it is on the contrary about unlearning everything the mind has defined for you and starting from a blank page.

Conditioning is a powerful thing. You suddenly appeared in a world. You were given a name and you started developing a sense of self associated with that sound. They taught you moral principles, maybe you were given a religious education to take you even further away from what you are, you learned right from wrong and you developed a value system. You now have more or less defined boundaries, you are an individual clearly separated from the rest of the world but you forgot what you essentially are.

After all, the story could end here, “…and the non-self-lived happily ever after”, but direct experience shows that this is never the case. What is impermanent is subject to the cycles of birth and death, of pain and pleasure. What is impermanent comes and goes in space and time, it is relative and limited and it is the nature of duality. The non-self quest for peace and happiness is doomed from the start as the non-self is an impermanent state of consciousness, it has no reality. The non-self, the ego is not an entity, it is just a thought in consciousness, nothing else.

pen with hand. color from tungsten lamp

If you are looking to re-discover your essence you must start from a blank page and erase everything that has been written on it since you appeared in this world. When all words, ideas, and concepts have dissolved all that is left is a blank page and you, object-less presence, is the nature of the page.

What you decide to write on it is up to you, but once you know you are the page, you are in a safe place, and you are established in Presence, your own pure presence.

Starting from a blank page is to stop taking your current reality for granted and to stop letting the mind define it for you. The deconstruction of the reality elaborated by the mind is an important step toward spiritual awakening. It is what Christ indicated in his parable “…and no one puts new wine into old wineskins…”

Calwen

Identity and Spiritual Awakening

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The question of identity and identification is central to spiritual awakening. There is often a misunderstanding that one must eradicate the ego and the impermanent sense of identity for the true self to awaken.

Many spiritual teachers assert that “you are not your ego, but rather the formless consciousness.” This idea is intended to facilitate the dissolution of the ego, but it does not entirely capture the reality that emerges after awakening. Once awakened, one’s perspective shifts, and the above statement transforms into “I recognize myself as formless consciousness, but I am also this temporary ego.” but It is first necessary to detach from the impermanent, limited identity to awaken to the all-encompassing nature of the true self.

Following awakening, it becomes apparent that everything can be embraced, included, and integrated, with nothing excluded. This is the nature of true love in action. Although the path to awakening may initially seem to introduce a new form of duality, it is ultimately temporary, leading to the “collapse of the witness” – the reintegration of all pairs of opposites and the return to oneness.

It is also important to consider that Individuation, or the development of a separate, defined self, is a crucial step in the evolution of consciousness. Infinite consciousness experiments with a limited aspect of itself by cultivating self-consciousness, and focusing consciousness through the mind and identity is part of this process.

While consciousness strives to awaken from the most psychologically mature and ripen egos, it is essential to remember that in many others, the “involutive” process of individuation is still at work. In a sense, establishing oneself as a self-conscious individual also constitutes a form of awakening. Hence both growing and dissolving our sense of identity are necessary stages in the evolution of consciousness.

A significant misconception is that after a spiritual awakening, identity is no longer required and the ego is merely an obstacle or an unnecessary fiction. This viewpoint is often expressed in pseudo-Advaita circles by individuals who have experienced partial awakening but lack an understanding of embodiment principles.

Although identification with an impermanent identity may be an impediment on the path to awakening, it becomes a blessing on the journey to embodiment of a refreshed persona. Now that you know you are not solely the ego, you can embrace it again and utilize the personality’s lines of least resistance as channels for manifestation. The key difference is that you now recognize yourself as the infinite manifesting through a limited form, allowing your light to penetrate thoughts, emotions, and ultimately the physical cells of your body – the essence of true embodiment.

The gradual process of the infinite, self-aware consciousness manifesting through a limited form is referred to as “transfiguration” in Christian imagery, or “the Word made flesh.”

Calwen

No Mountains, No Rivers

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mountains

Most of you must have heard about the old Zen saying about the rivers and the mountains, for those of you who haven’t here is a condensed version of it:

At the first level on the path, he saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. On the second level of the path, he saw that mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers. And at a third level, he saw once again mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers.

That Zen metaphor describes the three important stages experienced by consciousness as it passes through the gate of VISION, COMPASSION, and REBIRTH.

At the first level on the path, he saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers
The first stage describes the state of mind-consciousness. Objects are labeled, they have a story attached to them, and seem clearly separated and independent from each other. This is the current state of consciousness of the majority of human beings.

On the second level of the path, he saw that mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers.
As the world and our ego start to appear for what they are, mind constructs, the “contour” of all inner and outer objects starts to blur and the unity of all starts to become our experience. That stage is often considered as awakening. Many individuals are currently going through that process.

At that stage, I would like to add a little note of caution based on my conscious experience of stage 2.

Consciousness can easily be fooled into thinking that stage 2 is the destination. The first contact of the “substance” with Presence can be fascinating. All objects and forms seem to “float” within a pure Presence, Awareness.

The mold of Neo-Advaita, in particular, seems to freeze many seekers into stage 2 through a dynamic of neverending compulsive self-inquiry. They deconstructed their reality and through a form of new spiritualized ego, they tend to compulsively reject all forms and objects that present themselves to their newfound awareness. It is just another form of inverted duality and an exclusive expression of consciousness. Exclusive because the all-inclusive heart is still not included.

And at a third level, he saw once again mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers.
The world of forms and objects has dissolved, the self has acknowledged its essential nature as pure Presence, and the time of rebirth has come.

Strong from its “self-awareness” in the substance, Presence embraces the world of forms once again and it is now an embrace of love with the substance. Mountains are mountains again. Body, emotions, and thoughts are “impregnated” by Presence, and the “little things of life” re-emerge in a newborn awareness. The VISION is now connected to THE HEART, humanity is embraced in its beauty, limitations, imperfections, and fragility. Presence knows itself as the source of all, pure knowing, pure experiencing, and the known, the experienced is not separated from it, it is essentially Love meeting Love.

Calwen

See, Love and Shine

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Words are just words, they are just pointers, they are nothing per se, all there is is energy and awareness and even those words are just pointers. The following article must be read as an attempt to convey an informal experience, it is just a painting that will dissolve over time. It is only a projection and must be treated as such. The quintessence of this article must be found in the words See, Love, and Shine.

The Opening of The Eye – See

The vision of a “me” separated from the rest of the world is real from a mind perspective. The mind is just a response mechanism, it processes pieces of information and deducts. The mind is not creative, it only deals with what is already there, it manipulates already existing thoughts, it does not generate new seeds. If you let the mind rules You it will define hat you see.Fantasy_Eye_robot_android_096785_

When we realise that the mind is just another object within Presence, the mental activity comes to a peaceful standstill, what is left is pure Awareness, Presence, creative thinking can start now.

There is a lot of speculation about the nature of pure consciousness, pure awareness, what I call Presence. There is no need to speculate as it doesn’t serve any purpose, we can only say that it is made of “pure consciousness”, Presence is made of presence.

Also, I don’t think it is particularly wise to insist Presence is pure nothingness or emptiness. The mind, who has a tendency to function in term of good and bad, will invariably generate negative thoughts around that concept. I would instead say Presence is the source of everything, it is formless but is the seed of all forms. Presence is the boundless and permanent container of all forms, may it be a thought, an emotion or a physical form.

The correct vision emerges from Presence. The world is finally seen as One. Other human beings are just seen as another expression of the One Life. The essence of the word “fraternity” is finally embraced. The planet is seen as a living entity floating in an infinite universe of possibilities. The true concept of eternity also become a living reality, all that is experienced is Now.

The “Eye” is finally opened, we can call it awakening but it is just the beginning.

The Opening of the Heart – Love

I always insist that awakening does not turn anyone into a Buddha or a Christ, it only unlocks a capacity to see from a new broader angle, “things” are seen from beyond the mind but the old egoic patterns are not transmuted in a blink of an eye.Divinelove-320x315

The opening of the “Eye” is, in essence, a change of vibration of consciousness and as the seeing expands so does the heart. After seeing with our head we start seeing with our heart.

As we witness the activity of the One Life in all and everything, true compassion starts to be deeply felt and it manifest more and more through our words or non-words, actions or non-actions. At that stage, it can be hit-and-miss but the pain is not of the same nature that the one which is felt by the isolated ego, the balm of Love is never far away and the healing is fast.

At that stage the peace of true forgiveness is also experienced, we understand that “Love is the place where everything is already forgiven” and peace keeps settling in. True Love as nothing to do with sensitivity, it is the true feeling that is born from true vision. Love and wisdom are essentially connected as true wisdom can only be born from an opened Eye that sees through an experienced heart.

Many individuals start teaching immediately after the opening of the “Eye”. Their experience is often genuine but they lack the experience of the heart, they are in touch with the destructive aspect of the supramental that sees but out of touch with the universal heart that unite. They are very skilled at destroying the old but their capacity to prepare the ground for the new is limited. Nevertheless, their work is useful to some extent.

Rebirth – Shine

If the opening of the eye and opening of the heart are often felt as a “taking off” from the world of forms, the last stage can be seen as a coming back in. The old “obsolete” ego has now pretty much completely dissolved, life is ready to manifest again concretely through new vehicles in the world of forms.reborn

The term “ego” is often seen as a negative term in spirituality. In essence the ego is neutral, it is only a centralized operating center for the manifestation of forces and energies and an integrating principle. This concept can be immediately verified if we look at stars. Radiance and heat can only manifest through an intense focusing of energy. The same apply to consciousness, the more intense and focused, the more impact it will have in the world of forces and energies.

In that final stage of Rebirth, the infinite is consciously manifesting as finite, the unlimited embraces the unlimited, the born and the unborn are now consciously One. The impermanent “self” can now see his “radiant visage” and walk the earth again fully aware that it is One with the eternal Presence, with Life.

The personality hasn’t changed essentially, it is now a finely tuned instrument essentially manifesting the spontaneity of life, with intelligence, compassion, and wisdom. The light of Presence can now shine through unfiltered by the limitations imposed upon the vision and the heart by the mind. The self is now an agent of beauty and harmony, it is one with life, human and divine, mortal and immortal, nothing and something, it is reborn and complete.

Calwen