Head in the tigers mouth – the point of no return

I’ve learned that there comes a point on the spiritual quest or journey when God/The Divine or whatever it is (I never know what to call it) steps in and takes over. A point that there’s no going back from. Adyashanti, talks about it, Bernadette Robert’s likens it to a man being thrown out of a plane, there’s only one destination, the ground. Regardless of any resistance or struggle, regardless of any attempts to cling on to a passing bird, it’s game over. It’s mentioned in Bonnie Greenwell’s books too.

The great Indian mystic Ramana Maharshi said it’s like your head is in the tigers mouth, there’s only one outcome, death (of ego). No matter how much or how little struggle is put up, again, it’s game over. There’s no option to go back to life as it was. I remember as clear as bell kneeling on my bed last April and from a pretty deep place I really realised that I’d crossed the point of no return. ‘I’ or my sense of self was beginning to dissolve. I remember thinking to my self ‘oh fuck’. It dawned on me what was really happening and what the journey is all about. It dawned on me that when awake (if it happens) there won’t be a ‘new me’, a ‘more spiritually aware me’, a ‘more in tune with the universe me’ or an ‘at one with everything me’. It really hit home that there will be no ‘me’ (from an egoic point not a physical one) here to experience what ever spiritual awakening brings, and that the whole thing is no longer about what I want.

I couldn’t reverse this process now if I put every fibre of my being into trying to. It’s over, I know I’m finished. I know it deep deep down, it feels like a matter of time now. How long, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel to great a lot of the time, there are times when it feels really beautiful, really really intriguing and enticing, hard to describe. It’s like I’m being beckoned into something really profound but I can’t take ‘me’ in there to experience it. According to Adyashanti awakening happens on three levels, the gut, the heart and the mind. For months and months now there’s been kundalini activity in my gut, loads of love/bliss sometimes heat, sometimes a temporary sense of being solidly anchored there. He says that the gut is where we hold onto our deepest fears, existential fear, the fear of death, and that when the gut awakens fully we go into the realms of no self. I honestly can’t get my head around no self, I had a brief glimpse into it in Greece all those years ago. An act of grace. It felt like the most profound thing a person could experience. Nothing to fear as there was no one there to experience fear. Eternity. Beyond words.

But, that was some kind of fluke, it was instant and temporary. From where I’m at now, which feels a lot like a slow ego dissolution it’s quite scary. And as I say I can’t get my head around it. I can’t turn back, and I wouldn’t if I could. Bernadette Robert’s (a no selfer) Christian mystic nun from New York who is sadly no longer with us says that the more of the ego that dies that the more of the Divine is uncovered. She says there’s no Divinised self to be reached and that no self reveals the Divine.

Looking back on everything now I’m quite sure that the upheaval last March was the first major death blow to my ego structure, a real destabilising blow. Like belting a big rock with a big hammer that cracks it deeply but doesn’t disintegrate it, it feels as if the disintegration process is happening now. It’s so weird, it’s like being burned away from the centre outwards, and the more I resist the shittier I feel. It feels like surrender is the only option. Maybe if I sat with a Truth realised teacher they might say, you’re on you’re way, there’s an awakening process happening, it’s rough but hang on in there, try not to be too worried just let go and go with it. If I sat with a Doctor and told them everything that’s been happening I’d be given a load of meds and told to fuck off out the door.

I’ve read a couple of teachers writings that say a spiritual awakening can push a person to the absolute limits of what their minds can take. If I’m waking up I’d say that’s about right.