When looking at what others say about their journeys on social media, and other internet platforms I can’t help but think that there isn’t a single one of them that’s being repeatedly uppercutted to the face by the absolute. It leaves me wondering if there’s any one out there going through a cataclysmic, self annihilating , ego pulping, punch drunk inducing emotional upheaval of an awakening. I mean there must be someone. If there is, perhaps like me,they just hover silently in the background as another emotional layer of self gets ripped off wondering what the hell just happened and what everyone is talking about. Sanskrit wordage and Eastern spiritual intellectualism seems to be rife, intricate philosophy that seems to go around and around in circles that doesn’t say or point to much much at all. I wish i had the faintest idea of what they’re talking about but I honestly don’t have a fucking clue.
That’s not to slate Sanskrit wordage, I’ve had Sanskrit words that I’d never heard of come up during the early stages when the point of no return was passed. It’s gone now, let go of, it’s no use, just more baggage to get attached to, more beliefs to hold on to, beliefs that act as a barrier to the truth. Again I ask the question – is there anyone out there going through this?
I can see ego clearly now, I can see how the bulk of seekers are creating a new identity for themselves, a spiritual identity that will keep them trapped for as long as they fuel it with emotional charge. A new false self. I can see it because I did it for years, It still comes up but I’ve got my eye on it and recognise it for what it is. It seems that no one is more full of their own shit than a huge chunk of the spiritual community. ME INCLUDED. It’s important for me to see it in myself, and leave everyone else to it. It’s a lonely journey, I really have given up trying to explain to people that I’m losing my sense of self. The usual reaction is ‘oh, I see’ or ‘are you OK?’ or ‘Have you joined a cult?’
Shit, I don’t even understand it all myself, I’m literally taking one day at a time, it’s all i can do. Still, i wonder is there anyone else going through this?
Is there any one squaring up to the universe and asking it to wake them the fuck up regardless if it kills them or not, regardless if they go insane or not? I once asked a question on a spiritual platform, it went something like this –
Would you be prepared to completely let go of your spiritual journey and practice in order to be completely free? I went on with – If the very thought of doing this brings up fear it’s an indication of clinging.
Well, surprise surprise it didn’t get much response, it seems folk are too tied up in Spiritual Intellectualism and complex spiritual none sense.
I’m slowly learning that this clinging to the quest is a tactic of ego to perpetuate it’s own very existence. It’s a sneaky bastard.
If I were ever to bump into Lord Krishna this is what I’d say – ‘With your jewel handled sword and ten thousand gold chariots behind you, take their fucking heads off, all of them clean off but can i ask of you one favour – that you take mine off first. You wet my lips in Greece, I tasted the Eternal through your grace and here I now am like a bleeding animal sucking for air – finish me off.’
Losing self, slowly but surely. I no longer connect with photo’s of myself, it’s like the images aren’t me somehow. I don’t really identify with them. So strange, I can’t really relate to the images as being me. No turning back, all I can do is surrender into completely new and bewildering territory.
I kinda see it as like being in a big room, with a big carpet on the floor, I’m stood on the carpet at one end, and the Absolute has a vice like grip of the carpet at the other end, slowly pulling me towards it. I’m frightened, grabbing hold of stuff, furniture, wall paintings, table legs and light switches. It’s all to no avail though, slowly being pulled into the unknown. There’s long gone teachers at the other end with the Absolute. Tony DeMello laughing with that radiant smile of his, he’s saying – Ha Ha!!! Come on you great big stupid ass!!! Just let go, all is well!! Marguerite Porete stands there slowly clapping her charred hands together as if to celebrate. I’m saying Jesus Christ!! What’s going on here! Just as I say it Jesus pops his head through the window saying – Hey you!!! I heard that!!! Sorry, Jesus. No offence, I’m just kinda confused with it all. My old blue flute playing friend Lord Krishna plays a melody as the madness of awakening unfolds. Lao Tzu says something about the ten thousand things, but I don’t remember what with all the brain fog. Bernadette Roberts says – It’s over, you’ve come too far now. Thanks. The two Saint Theresas'(of Avila and Liseux) flank a brown robed Meister Eckhart, all three of them can’t contain their laughter at my silly little struggle….
In many ways it’s a painful process, in many others it’s a beautiful one. And I’m learning that the thick soup of spiritual intellectualism and mind boggling spiritual theories can be boiled right down to one simple word – surrender.
It seems to be the key to victory on this journey, only there won’t be a victor waving a trophy about at the end.
There hasn’t been much energetic stuff happening recently, again the mind thinks somethings gone wrong because it continually wants assurance, it wants control. It want’s to be in charge. I dreamt the other night, I dreamt I was in my van it started to move of its own accord, I just lay on the floor of the van letting it be propelled by what ever force was propelling it. The relief of letting go was huge, fear crept in, I jumped up into the drivers seat and grabbed the wheel, the minute I did this everything went pear shaped and I crashed the van….
My life has been turned upside down since the awakening in March ’21, losing a sense of self has changed everything. Old stuff has fallen away, old habits, some friendships have dwindled, new interests have come in. It’s like the stuff that’s fallen away wasn’t really serving my life in a healthy way and needed to go. As I’ve mentioned in other posts there’s been energetic phenomenon happening, Kundalini stuff. For the first eighteen months after the initial shattering I was experiencing a lovely energetic pleasantness right in my lower belly, sometimes mild sometimes extreme, this was located to an area about two or three inches below my belly button. It was pretty much there daily for about a year and a half tringing away, it seemed to disappear for a few months and has now returned again, I can feel it now as I type these words. I’ve felt tinglings in the top of my head, heart area and forehead, I’ve felt the amazing feeling of spaciousness in my body, so light, so light. I’m quite sure I received Shaktipat, I’ve nearly been jolted out of bed by a powerful energetic force, this has happened a few times now. I’ve felt columns of energy in my spine. There’s been amazing synchronicity happenings, premonitions that have happened, intense heat in the gut that came from nowhere, tremendous emotional upheaval and purging (the first year). It feels like my head has been blown off.
All of the above, plus no sense of self and the responsibilities of running a house on a low income is demanding to say the least, It’s exhausting sometimes, and I’ve got to look after myself physically. I’m listening to my body, it knows what I need, when I need it and it lets me know when I need to know.
Sleep – this is crucial to the whole thing. If I don’t get enough sleep I feel quite horrendous, like bat shit crazy horrendous. I used to be able to do tonnes of stuff on hardly any sleep, yeah I’d be tired but I’d still get stuff done and be a ‘good’ productive member of society. Now, things are quite different, the lack of self that it feels like I’m very slowly adjusting to plays haywire with my mind, catastrophising thoughts can come up, fearful thoughts can come up, I’m going crazy thoughts can come up. When I’m over tired it’s like these thoughts have been plugged into a Marshall stack and amplified. The whole thing is very confusing when I’m not tired, but when I’m really tired up go the levels of confusion which doesn’t feel very pleasant. So yeah, sleep is vital, I never used to nap in the afternoon after work, I always thought it was a waste of valuable time, but now if I’m tired I’ll get some sleep which could be anything from half an hour to three hours if I need it.
Water – I never used to drink much water, now, I’m drinking around five or six pints a day. It feels like my body needs it so I answer my body’s call and keep the water levels good and high. If I don’t get enough water I really feel tired and out of sorts.
Diet – Again it’s crucial to the whole shebang that I eat regularly, I don’t always eat the healthiest diet but I don’t eat the worst either, I’m mindful to make sure there’s coal in the fire. Good old common sense. The energetic phenomenon can sometimes leave me feeling lightheaded, I remember quite clearly being at work one day fairly recently driving a van with no sense of self whatsoever, I was a bit panicky and light headed. A huge dump of pies and a sandwich seemed to help with the queasiness, oh and a big fat cake. I also remember at the very onset of the awakening feeling ravenously hungry for a few weeks, so again I gave my body what it told me it wanted. I’m a sucker for a chocolate bar, I can get home from work and eat a handful of chocolate bars, the sugar leaves me feeling quite jittery though, so I try to just have one. Maybe I should just give up my life and eat fucking rice all day. The aforementioned jitteryness comes from nearly two and a half years of my body’s nervous system being cranked right up, (this is why I nap, it’s not a luxury, or an afternoon treat, it’s crucial and feels vital to the process, I still have responsibilities to uphold and a house to run which feels ten times as hard when I’ve not slept enough) Kundalini and no sense of self can do that to a guy.
Exercise – A good blast through nature on a hardtail mountain bike ticks all the exercise boxes for me, it’s good cardio, it’s good for my ageing frame (my body not the bike frame) and it brings much joy, I sometimes whack my shins off the DMR V12’s – this doesn’t bring joy. If my shins had chakras they’d be well and truly blocked or malfunctioning by now. My body is my physical and emotional guidance system, it pays to look after it, well, except the shins.
Things I now avoid – caffiene (totally), alcohol (totally), too much sugary food except the odd chocolate bar and slice o’ cake, fizzy sugary drinks, overcrowded places unless I really have to go. I also avoid Kundalini discussion groups on social media, from where I’m looking I’d say 90 percent of the posts there are of a catastrophic nature, I know from my own experience that this can be a demanding energy to have awake in ones system, and I fully understand, empathise and send love to all those that are struggling with it and hope they find some balance. That said, for me to read Kundalini horror stories all day would be like throwing petrol on a fire so I avoid it. I don’t use any drugs; or burn any incense it gives me a head ache. The news, anything politics related I just can’t bring myself to watch or listen to, no need to go into why here, it’s a no brainer really. Horror films, I can’t watch them anymore, I never used to watch many any way but nah, not for me nowadays.
So, I guess that’s it for today, supermarket soon, i wonder if the people there will notice that there’s no one here….
So, I’ve seemingly lost my sense of self, or most of it, it feels like a flimsy veil remains. I look in the mirror and don’t see a ‘me’, I speak but don’t know who or where the words come from. So strange is this current place, a book i ordered from the States arrived a couple of weeks ago; Suzanne Segal’s Collision With The Infinite. She talks of her own story, her own experience of no self which suddenly happened to her in Paris in the 1980’s whilst boarding a bus. She’d previously been heavily involved in the Transcendental Meditation corporation, sorry, i meant to say movement. She’d been a heavy meditator for years, hours and hours every day. She began to see some hefty flaws in the TM set up and stopped her spiritual practice, she hadn’t meditated for years and all of sudden ‘poof’ her sense of self completely vanished as she was boarding a bus in Paris. Cool.
Not cool for Suzanne at the time, she thought she’d gone insane, she’d spend the next twelve years of her life in and out of therapy and doctors offices only to be told ‘sorry’ we don’t know whats wrong with you, here’s some meds for the anxiety you’re experiencing, adios. It was only at the end of these twelve years after studying spiritual literature with a focus on non duality that she learned that the no self state for want of better words is the ultimate goal for many spiritual seekers. Shame the guys at TM never mentioned that, any way she learned that the daily terror she was dealing with was her minds reaction to no longer having a sense of self. Once she started to learn to trust this gaping hole with guidance from spiritual teachers, to let go in to it instead of catastrophising about it, her experience of no self u turned from an experience of terror to something quite profound.
As I read that book, as I re read it again I see so many parallels with my own story and what I’ve been going through since March ’21. I was quite shocked to read her account, it could have been written about me. The feelings of doubt, of questioning daily my own sanity, of wondering what the hell is happening to me. This has been, by far and without doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, am still going through, it’s absolutely relentless, it’s exhausting and the confusion it causes is off the scale. It’s the polar opposite to all we read about the peace, love and bliss that’s often talked about in spiritual awakening.
Making any plans seems pointless as there’s no one here to carry them out, any fruits of said plans won’t be experienced or enjoyed by a ‘me’ so why bother? It feels like there’s no one here to gain anything from anything, this said i need to be mindful of slipping into doing nothing in life. I still do stuff, motivation is hard but I don’t want to lapse into complete confusion, hopelessness and idleness. If i go anywhere, say on a break for a few days away in nature, when i return it’s like I’ve not been because there’s no one here that went. I find it hard to believe that people don’t even notice whats going with me, to them I must appear normal but inside there’s a complete nuclear explosion of self going on, there’s no one here. But, things are still being done…..
Suzanne talks about the absence of a ‘doer’ in her book after her sense of self took a walk, one of her early fears was hinged on her ability to be a good mother to her daughter, her fears were of course valid ones but a good mother she was despite her lack of self. Mothering still happened, she did a great a job of raising her daughter, she studied for a Phd, she did domestic stuff, organised her life all with no sense of self. This raised the question for her about there being an actual ‘doer’; if self is gone and things are still being done, who or what is doing the doing?
This line of enquiry is now buzzing around inside my head like a wasp in a fairground bin. I look back at the last two and bit years of my life at when my sense of self started to go down the tubes, I look back at the things I’ve done; I’ve worked a multidrop delivery driver job delivering thousands and thousands of parcels on time in an organised manor, I’ve drove thousands of miles, I’ve paid my bills, I’ve done a few gigs (albeit nervously), I’ve painted the house from top to bottom, I’ve had conversations with people, I’ve worked on my van and on and on; all with no real sense of self or a doer. Which leads me to the next question – has there ever been a doer?
I already know the answer, there has never really been a doer, there can’t have been, the more i look at it the more obvious it’s becoming. I’m not done with this question yet, it’s still being pulled apart, dissected poked and pointed at, it’s not sank in fully, it still needs working out until i know for sure. It seems like my false sense of self has been masquerading as the doer all along, taking credit where it shouldn’t be taking credit, I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that there’s a perfect intelligence or ‘the big unknown’ at work doing all the doing.
Suzanne’s book couldn’t have come a better time, it arrived through a small synchronistic chain of events just when it needed to, how in the hell could I have made that happen?
It seems there is absolutely no linearity in the waking up process. I’m taking things as they come, some days i’m certain that i’m in the process of waking up, like totally certain. Other days i’m questioning my sanity and asking what the fuck is happening to me. No linearity, like drunk ants, here there, everywhere. I’m learning to gently let go into this hole that’s opened up inside me. The hole is where my sense of self once was. There hasn’t been much energetic stuff happening for a while now, however this week I’ve noticed mild blissful tingles in crown of my head along with some sensations in the heart area. It was the energetic happenings that brought about the certainty that there’s an awakening process taking place. It’s been a real arid period of a few months now.
That said, this week i had a beautiful few moments whilst working, i was driving and began notice these pleasant tinglings in the crown of my head and in my chest, i got out of the van to do my work and just observed the trees in the sunshine a sense of openness came in, I let go a little into this void and a knowing came in, a small knowing of something indescribable. The next day at work i was experiencing seething rage, like i said, drunk ants.
I’m still finding it hard being around people, i just want peace and quiet, solitude, time to myself (whatever myself is) to go into this stuff. It’s hard to relate to people now as there not much me left to be in relationship with them.
I’ve not written for a while, I’ve not had the inclination to do so, perhaps i should make the effort, a lot of my egoic drive has gone, it’s like the wind was pulled out of the windmill, the sails are still turning under their own momentum but they’re slowing down without the force of the winds of egoic wanting.
My lips move, sound comes out, words come out but I no longer know who is speaking them. It’s been a while since my last post, i haven’t had the interest. It feels like i’m in some kind of dark night phase, there isn’t really a lot of interest in much at the moment. It’s like all my previous emotion fuelled drives are slowly flickering out. I’ve been depressed in the past but his is different, it doesn’t feel like depression, it feels more like the energy i used to put into stuff is being withdrawn, the energy that kept the furnace burning of my ego’s wants and desires just isn’t there, it’s not totally gone a bit still remains. All this seems to be happening somewhere in the background, underneath the surface of every day talk talk mind.
I’m learning that the process of awakening is one of subtraction or deconstruction, one of negation. It feels like ‘I’ as I’ve always known my self will gain absolutely nothing on this journey, i’ll lose everything, everything that’s false will fall away. It is falling away, slowly but surely falling away. I’m not in the drivers seat anymore, the whole thing is no longer in my hands. Spirit, The Divine or whatever we want to call it is well and truly running the show. I’m not actively trying to let go of stuff, the stuff that used to define me. It’s falling away whether i want it to or not, it’s quite disorienting. All i can do is surrender to the process and let go into it all.
A couple of months ago i felt pleasant sensations in the throat area, like some work was being done to unblock stuff, these pleasant sensations were sometimes accompanied by white hot seething rage, rage that would come up from the murky depths, be let out and let go of. It feels like there isn’t much self left, one of the hardest things I’ve found is when the rage comes up, hardly a sense of self coupled with the strong energy of anger is quite alarming, at least for me it is.
Another difficulty is not really knowing where I’m going with all this, like a ship without a sail. I don’t have a map, or any bearings, just my intuition that i’m learning to trust more and more. These writings may be painting a stark picture, it’s not all heavy heavy heavy, i’m still feeling the pull of the silence inside, occasionally feeling a nice spaciousness in the body, and continually gobsmacked by the visual clarity that i see nature in. I’ll sometimes feel the pleasant sensations in the gut, these were happening almost daily for about 18 months but seem to have slowed right down, i felt a ton of pleasant energy in my body in bed a week ago, just little signs that there’s a process happening. I can feel from a deep place inside that i have to completely let go of everything, everything i thought to be true, if that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes….
Asylum being the world in which we all live, all us lunatics. Thinking we’re something cos we got a nice car, a big salary, fake tits, six pack abs etc etc…I’ve broken away from the herd now, I’m not better than the herd nor is the herd better than me, I just cant see my place in ‘regular’ society anymore. Ive always felt like an outsider but now even more so, I cant relate to the inane drivel that most people try and pass off as conversation. A blind man on a galloping horse can see that it’s fear that makes people talk, I wish they’d just shut the fuck up.
It’s like they’re scared of silence, silence seems to make people feel uncomfortable so, when people are together the silence has to be blotted out, it’s usually blotted out with talk of the weather, what a person had for their tea the night before, what the latest narcissistic politician just got way with. Anything but silence, I observe peoples body language when the inane drivel starts to flow, the body language is usually tight and guarded. It’s like, ok, we don’t like silence so, like always, and because it’s easier we’ll blot it out with pointless small talk, but as the small talk jaw starts a wagging the body language betrays the emotion that is really going on inside – fear.
People will talk about absolutley anything for hours, days, weeks, months and years of their lives other than what’s really going on inside. Why are people so afraid? Why am I so afraid? What he fuck are we all afraid of? – Here’s a selfie of me in Thailand, or look everyone I got the job, or look what I made, or I’m fucking crazy I can drink ten pints, or I just nailed a big jump on the bike, or I just ran 10k I’ll now bladder it all over social media, It’s all just a big act, at our core we’re all fucking shit scared. The more I look the more I see it in people, but most importantly is the fact that the more I look the more I see it in myself, it’s dwindling away slowly. Its slowly and painfully oozing out of me, the need to prove myself is on the wane. There’s a big sense of self in these people pleasing antics….
This is where the process gets tricky for me, with the lessening and lessening need to prove myself comes a lessening desire to do the stuff I used to do, because a lot of the things I used to do were hinged on securing peoples praise, love and approval. And a lot of the things I used to do made up a big part of my sense of self. It’s just not there now, or no where near as much.
One of the hardest and most valuable lessons I’ve learned is to turn the attacking of others faults inward as an enquiry into me, perhaps not to attack myself but to see if the stuff I see as negative in other people is in me too. Its takes honesty and guts to look at the most selfish person I know and say yes, that trait is in me too. The sneaky one? Yes, that too. All the ugly stuff I see in others is inside me to varying degrees, sometimes just the kernel of sneakiness, a big wall of jealousy, anger, the ‘poor me’ syndrome, the sulker, all of it, all of it is in me. It’s like looking in a mirror. Observing others ‘faults’ and enquiring inwards to find those faults in me is a great leveller. When I look at the emotions I just listed I see fear at the heart of every one of them, it’s that fear I think we try to hide with reams and reams of pointless conversation.
I’m forty five years old now, I don’t have a career, no goals, no aspirations (other than waking up, everything else just seems pointless) no sense of direction in life, I’m working a job I don’t really like and feel at a place with the Kundalini brain fog and confusion where I cant really be making any longterm plans. I feel like a rudderless ship, totally lost, totally confused, separate from mainstream society, on my own, no teacher, no guru. It’s just me trying to get some answers to life’s bigger questions. Writing has been difficult tonight, I’ve a massive head cold, that coupled with brain fog and a dwindling sense of self makes me a dull boy, a dull boy that’s willing to put his sanity and life on the line to find truth.
I’m now comparing my self to a polo mint, the mint with the hole. I’m like a mint with a hole in it, only the minty outside bit is what’s left of my sense of self and the hole seems to be the Divine, Truth or whatever we want to call it making itself known and continuously eroding away what’s left of the solid minty bit, or, my me-ness.
Before the hole rather violently made its entry, there was a very solid sense of me, or self in its place. This me-ness was made up of all my beliefs, all my opinions, all my past memories, all my future projections, all my ideas, all my wants and desires and my don’t wants. A lot of my interests and desires fell away on the arrival of the hole, this made the minty outside bit start to panic, also the fact that there’s now a gaping and seemingly widening hole right in the centre of what I thought I was brings in a certain amount fear and confusion too.
Now, I’m starting to notice the beginnings of what seems like quite a deep quiet in this new centre, it’s like a palpable presence inside and outside me. I’m taking this as a signal or sign that I’m on the right track as bewildering as it is. I really can’t see how it’s possible to reverse this process once it’s started, I don’t see how the aperture could close up again, maybe it could but I don’t see how.
Mental noise is really quite low, I still feel very human emotions, stress, anger, hurt and all the others but it now seems there isn’t much mental story behind them, it’s like the emotions are coming up from a sub or unconscious place. There have been very pleasant energetic feelings in the gut almost daily for about a year, and I’m noticing mild tingling and head pressure in my, er, head.
Here is a list of symptoms for want of a better word that I’m experiencing on this journey, I think it’s important for me to add that I was never interested in Kundalini in my spiritual life, there’s always been a massive yearning for truth, and it’s only fairly recently that I’ve learned from my own experience that there’s an energetic/Kundalini component to the awakening process. I can’t become to fixated with it as lovely as it sometimes can be. It’s not the end of the line.
Nearly jolted out of bed a few times.
Columns of energy in my spine.
Blissful energy in my gut (almost daily).
Tingling head.
Massive bursts of bliss in the heart (a handful of these).
Feelings of physical discomfort in the heart area.
Mild psychic activity.
Sanskrit words that I didn’t know about coming up in meditation (samadhi, Brahman, Atman, Shiva, Shaktipat).
Seeing Ramana Maharshi in my third eye.
Rapid muscle twitches.
Repulsed by things/people that used to interest me.
Heightened sex drive.
Intense heat in the gut area.
A lot of my personal will has, and continues to fall away.
A feeling of no self/dissolving personality (very very confusing).
Heightened anxiety in crowded places.
Bursts of creativity.
Brain fog.
Memory loss.
Difficulty concentrating.
Tonnes and tonnes of buried childhood and other trauma coming up to be faced, lots of tears.
Today I rest in the absolute certain knowledge that I’m completely failing at spirituality, I can’t do it, I’m a big, fat, loafing, dossing, idiotic clown of a useless spiritual failure. I’m completely useless at this shit, i really can’t do it. I tell you what, I bet even Homer Simpson is more enlightened than me, in fact I bet even the warts on Homer’s big fat yellow ass are more awake than me.
I can’t tell you how much relief the above statement brings, I can’t get it right no matter how much I try, I’m sick to my core of trying to get things right. I’m sick of striving, of doing, of becoming, of fighting and of thinking there’s something wrong in me that needs to be fixed. I’m sick of trying to be perfect, to try and get the quest ‘just so’.
This realisation came to me this morning whilst being in silence. It seems the answers are there if I go into it. Tears came up, tears of relief.
So, today I’m failure guy, completely fucking useless, no good at spirituality, shit at meditation. Sheilds down God, you’re well and truly kicking my arse around the ring.
“When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength.” Paul Brunton
I’ve mentioned previously that I’m starting to notice an internal silence, this is still prevalent and continuing. It’s almost palpable sometimes. It feels like some kind of silent void is hoovering me in, I feel a bit scared of going into it. It’s like I’ll disappear or something, I already feel like I’m disappearing in a way. My sense of self is diminishing, there’s still loads of old emotional trauma coming up, lots of tears. Still lots of energetic bliss in the gut area, trauma being released from the body.
It seems that every spiritual teacher, sage, guru, holy man and woman from ancient past to present day have spoke about this silence, I’m intuitively getting the feeling that the silence is the gateway in to peace, but, I cant take myself in there to enjoy the peace if that makes sense? It feels like no ‘me’ equals peace/silence. Perplexing. I notice it when out walking, I can feel it now when I pause typing. It’s enticing me in, like a gentle silent vortex, it feels like it has a loving quality to it.
I remember a couple of weeks ago having a busy day running errands, I was driving about here and there in the van with the stereo on, I pulled the van onto the car park and turned off the engine which also turns off the stereo. Literally as soon as I turned off the engine I noticed a tangible silence inside me and around me, it was like the stereo had never been on, like I hadn’t been running around all day. There’s still brain fog, I’m still having trouble remembering stuff.
What a journey, it blows my mind when I think about it, it feels like the energetic opening which became prevalent last March is till happening, it’s quite gentle now. I’ve felt moments when my heart was opening, lovely moments, I cling to these openings when they’re not there, I think I’m doing something wrong when they aren’t happening. I feel like I should be doing more, more spiritual stuff but as previously mentioned there’s now a disinterest in spirituality coming in. I’ve researched this and it’s all part of the awakening process. There’s a disinterest in pretty much anything at the moment, it feels like there’s just a kinda silence inside that needs to be really honoured in a way, experienced or gone in to. The spiritual quest alone requires a massive in-pouring of emotional energy, loads of striving, yearning and desiring has been pumped into this by me for years, but I’m slowly reaching a point of ‘I can’t do it’. Not in a can’t be bothered kind of way, but more of a shoulders down, I’m being beat into surrender kind of way. I’m learning that there isn’t a single thing ‘I’ can do to attain the goal of truth/self realisation. It’s beating me, hands down it’s beating me, it feels like this is how it works. I read a line from a renowned spiritual teacher – ‘The price of truth is everything’ When I fist read that I didn’t fully understand fully what it meant. I’m of a mind now to say for myself and through my own experience of this journey that this is the case. Everything including the quest itself has to be completely let go of in order to get to peace/truth. Bugger.
Everything I drew a sense of self from has to go. None of it can remain.
Toni Kurz, pictured here young and fresh faced was a German mountaineer with an adventurous heart. In 1936 at the young age of 23 he attempted to climb the then unconquered Eiger mountain in Switzerland with his friend Andreas Hinterstoisser. Full of juice and confidence they set about the perilous task in the July of that year. They met two other mountaineers on the Eiger, Willy Angerer and Edi Rainer and they all decided to try and reach the summit together. The Eiger was an extremely difficult climb, standing at just over 13,000 feet with its North face wall of rock and ice standing at 5,900 feet. If the sheer wall of the North face wasn’t challenging enough to climb on its own, it was made even more hazardous by the weather systems that could change in the blink of an eye causing avalanches of falling snow and rock. They would have all been well aware of the risk they were taking in trying to tackle this monumental task, undeterred they set off with courage in their hearts and smiles on their faces. Unbeknown to them on the morning of the ascent the events that would unfold over the next few days would bring them all to meet their untimely demise. Out of the four climbers that tragically lost their lives in that fateful July it’s Toni Kurz’s plight in particular stands out as the story of ultimate surrender.
The ascent began, up they went, laughing, joking buzzing, why wouldn’t they be happy? They were gonna be the first mountaineers in the world to reach the summit of the Eiger via its North face. In their minds it was already done. They’d return home to their towns and villages as heroes, as legends. They made good progress but were slowed down by a technical section of climbing now named the Hinterstoisser traverse named after Kurz’s climbing buddy Andreas Hinterstoisser. Hinterstoisser tackled this difficult horizontal section without a climbing rope with his brilliant climbing skills, he pinned a rope across the traverse allowing his mates to follow him. They all crossed safely and pulled out the rope they’d used to cross the traverse and carried on the ascent with now even more of a buzz about them. They were going to do it. Nothing could stop them now, they’d unlocked the mountain by successfully completing one of the most difficult sections of the climb. That said the pulling out of the rope that they’d used to get across the traverse would turn out to be a very costly mistake. Perhaps it was a small error of judgement due to the excitement of reaching the summit, they knew they could do it now, they knew the odds were stacked in their favour but what they didn’t know was that they were now inadvertently trapped on the mountain.
Full of determination the monumental ascent continued, the July sun caused snow to melt thus loosening mountain rocks previously secured by the mountains icy grip, a falling rock pelted Willy Angerer full in the head. A bit of doubt started to creep in, they were so sure they were going to climb to the summit successfully, but knowing now that they had an injured comrade the flame of hope that burned in their hearts now flickered a bit less brightly. Angerer wanted to continue the ascent, he didn’t want to let his mates down, after some discussion they continued upwards, now more slowly with an injured climber. With his condition progressively deteriorating Angerer couldn’t climb any more. They all knew inside that their dream of reaching the top was now shattered. Morale now in bits they decided to make the descent back down to safety. They slowly got down to the now named Hinterstoisser traverse, Hinterstoisser tried to free climb the traverse he’d bravely tackled on the ascent to secure a rope for his mates but he couldn’t do it, it was now covered in ice. He gave it his all, but all his attempts were in vein, their hearts sank like cannon balled ships. They were trapped on the freezing mountain with an injured climber and the unpredictable weather was worsening.
This could seriously go either way now, life or death. Now, all fatigued and being battered by a hellish blizzard they must have known deep down that they might not make it back down alive. Who knows what thoughts were going through their heads, thoughts of happier times, times spent with friends and family, girlfriends, loved ones. Their previous championing mindset was now one of creeping dread. If things were looking bad things were worsened by an avalanche which swept Hinterstoisser off the wall causing him to plummet to his death through the falling snow beneath him. The team of four lion hearted men were now three and one of them was injured. Still, they tried to climb down the mountain to safety. Fate however would deal them another sickening blow, the injured Angerer climbing below Toni Kurz slipped and was pelted into the rock face and killed instantly. Edi Rainer climbing above Kurz was securing the two climbers, Hinterstoisser’s slip pinned Rainer to the mountain side cutting off the freezing cold air to his lungs, he was dead within minutes. Toni Kurz was now alone dangling off a rope in no mans land with the freezing wind and snow howling around him.
The unfolding events were being observed through binoculars from Kleine Scheidegg at the foot of the mountain. A rescue team was alerted and later that day they set out to rescue Kurz in appalling weather conditions. They couldn’t get to him, they had to turn back. Kurz chillingly screamed out ‘No, don’t leave me, don’t leave me’ as the rescuers were forced to leave him overnight. He spent the entire night exhausted, suspended in mid air in a blizzard by his climbing rope, the cold slowly seeping into his body sucking the life out of him. That night up there alone must have felt like an absolute eternity, the thoughts of his now lost lost climbing mates would have echoed around his head, he’d watched his friends perish on the unforgiving mountain, he must have been sure that he’d meet a similar fate but on he fought. He’d lost a glove and was severely frost bitten, to stay alive he had to stay awake and hope to God that the rescue team would get to him the next day.
The following day came around, it was beyond a miracle that Toni Kurz survived the night, but he did. He fought death tooth and nail and beat it. He attempted to abseil down the mountain, in order to do this he had to make the gut wrenching decision to cut the rope that was securing the body of his climbing buddy Willy Angerer below him. Once he’d cut Angerer loose he then had to climb up to Edi Rainer and cut his body free. Kurz was already exhausted, dehydrated, hungry and severely frost bitten, that climb up to Rainer would have took every ounce of strength, will power, grit and determination imaginable, his will to stay alive, to survive was massive, it would be, he was only 23 years old with his whole life ahead of him, perhaps a future wife to meet, a family to raise. Everything human in him must have been horrified at having to cut loose the bodies of his two lost friends, but everything primal in him allowed him to do so in order to survive. To abseil down Kurz had to increase the length of his rope by untwining it and tying the three strands together, due to the severity of his frost eaten hands this feat took him five hours, five more hours in the savagely biting cold, five more hours of living hell, under normal circumstances it would have only took him 15 minutes.
Toni Kurz now almost dead and fighting with everything that he had painfully lowered his makeshift rope down to the now assembled rescue team below him to attach a 60 metre rope to get him down to safety. In order to save time Hans Schlunegger, one of the rescue team had put the rope in-between his back and rucksack instead of in his rucksack, a common practice, it worked loose and was lost to the abyss below them. Quick thinking brought the team to the decision of tieing two shorter ropes together that would hopefully cover the distance needed to get Toni down. Ahead they went, Kurz with hands in terrible pain slowly pulled up the tied rope and fixed himself to it. He was close now, just one more final push and he’d be with the rescuers, he thought he’d done it, he thought his battle against death was won. Kurz painstakingly made the descent only to discover that his carabiner wouldn’t pass over the knot that the rescue team had made in the two ropes, he was stuck. He was too exhausted to go up the rope to take his weight and release the caribiner to get it past the knot, and now, there was no way down.
He was only metres away from the rescue team. He cried out desperately in utter frustration and sheer disbelief at what was happening, but his cries and resistance were futile. He’d fought with every cell in his body to survive, he’d been to hell and back. His quest to live was over, he couldn’t physically or mentally do anymore. Suspended in mid air, tantalisingly out of reach from rescue Toni’s body slumped as he uttered the words “Ich kann nicht mehr” (“I can’t [go on] anymore”). He could no longer fight, he let go. Toni Kurz surrendered to his fate and died.
Surrender
How does this tie in with my journey………….?
I really feel I’m at a loggerhead of both fighting and letting go, of surrendering. This brings in discordant feelings. Of recent weeks my forays into journalling seem to be taking me to the same place, surrender, the last words of my recent journalling sessions have Benn ‘I can’t do it’. It feels like I’ve been pumping tonnes and tonnes of energy into the spiritual quest, wanting, desiring and yearning. I’ve been pumping tonnes and tonnes of energy into people pleasing, wanting to be perfect and to be accepted, tonnes and tonnes of energy gets pumped into wanting to be loved. It’s exhausting, I can’t do it, I really cant do it. This isn’t from a place of giving up, I couldn’t if I wanted to, the whole thing is too far gone. It’s from a place of letting go, letting go of the quest and all the other bullshit that perpetuates this pathetic fearful existence, letting go of the desire to remain in control and preserve my sanity! Where Toni Kurz had to cut loose the bodies of his dead climbing mates, I have to cut loose the attachments that drain me of energy, there isn’t a practice happening where I’m like ‘Ok, today I’ll cut loose the attachment to people pleasing’ it feels more and more like an emotional drain to carry on people pleasing, and I’m seeing it for what it is. It feels like a massive wheel thats been turning, the wheel is my egoic will and it feels like the wheel had all its motive power pulled out of it, even though the wheels own momentum keeps it going, it feels like it’s slowing down. I’m fucking tired of doing and becoming.
This side effect for want of better words is quite rife in me at the moment. It has been for several months now. Pretty much zero mental clarity to the point that it seems impossible to plan a weeks food shopping let alone make any life changing decisions. It feels like my thought processes have been scrambled. Turned to mush. I had a hunch of my own that this phenomenon was some kind of priming process for the Eternal now as it’s really difficult to recall any past memories and to think into the future. Which kinda punches another hole in any sense of self that I have left.
I did a little research and a few people suggest that the brain fog takes place during an awakening as kundalini rewires the brains neural pathways for an awakened life. It’s mad, pretty much every night I’ll sit and can hear a high pitched ringing in both ears, sometimes it’ll go really loud in one ear (usually the left) for a few seconds and then back to the low level ringing. Other phenomena include a rapid twitching of my left eyelid at random times, usually evening. And a rapid twitching right tricep which usually accompanies the left eyelid, nice.
A few weeks ago whilst falling asleep I felt bliss right in the centre of my forehead, I didn’t even know I had a fucking forehead until I felt bliss there….
Back to the brain fog, yeah, quite confusing, concentration is nigh on impossible, reading is hard work, carrying out simple logical tasks is a bit of mission. Remembering stuff is hard, trying to get any kind of flow with tasks that require any real thought is difficult.
A few weeks ago my Aunt lost her partner of 30 years, me and my Aunt are close, she’s been like a mother to me since mine died 24 years ago, she’s a heart of gold. On hearing that her boyfriend was found dead in his flat I naturally raced over to her house to offer love and support as she was obviously very upset. We drank some tea together, I expressed my love for her with a big hug and told her that I’m there for her whenever she needs me. I left and went home, a 30 minute drive. Once home it was like I’d never been to my Aunts, where once there’d have been all the thoughts, and memories of our meeting there was now an empty foggy hole. I had to clap my hands together at home that night and repeatedly audibly remind myself to call my Aunt the next day and check she was ok. That’s what brain fog is like. Before this process I’m in it would be absolutely ridiculous to even think I’d have to remind self to call my Aunt in those circumstances, it would have been second nature.
I’ll start reading a book and the day after it’ll be difficult to recollect even starting it let alone trying to remember what I actually read, Thoreau will have to wait for now, I’d struggle with a Mr Man book at the minute. I sometimes find half eaten biscuits and cakes on the side in the kitchen that I started eating, put down and completely forgot about, I read that one guy during an awakening process actually had himself checked out for Alzheimer’s his brain was that mushed, nice.
These aren’t complaints, I’m just relaying my story as it happens. I’m getting exactly what I’ve asked and been yearning for for the last 13 years. I didn’t imagine it would be like this, the long drawn out process, the feelings of going stark raving mad, the memory loss, the fear, the lack of a sense of self, no goals, no future plans. I feel like a rudderless boat. It’s hard to let go and just drift, nice.
I’ve been very fortunate in life to spend some time living in Finland, three years in total. The location was remote, about ten miles away from the Russian border, the country side was beautiful, lakes and forests lakes and forests lakes and forests. I lived in a log cabin on a country lane, not a shop, bar, post office or anything for miles, only farms, farms and more farms. In summer I’d wash and bathe in a nearby lake, I worked long hours on a nearby farm. The summers were short but beautiful, a real definition to the seasons, autumn was autumn spring was spring, summer was summer and winter was fucking tough, all pretty much six months of it. Short days, freezing temperatures, sometimes minus thirty. Holed up in a log cabin for nearly half a year was quite difficult, it wasn’t just me that found it hard, the Finns also struggled with the long arduous winter.
Towards the end of autumn before the snow, there was a guy I used to call the ‘stickman’ that would appear. He must have been about 80 years old, it was his job to mark out the road for when the snow fell. When there’s three feet of snow on the ground the road would just blend in to the adjacent fields and not be visible unless it was marked out. Up the country road he walked with a bundle of sticks with a wrap of luminous tape around the tops slung over his shoulder sticking them in the ground at 20 metre or so intervals at the sides of the road. Around this time I’d see the geese in the sky migrating to warmer climes. The sight of the stickman brought in a certain feeling of dread about the long looming winter that lay ahead. No more swimming drunk with friends in pine tree circled milky lakes under the amazing midsummer skies, no more sitting in the garden watching the bats at night. Hardly any daylight for months. When the stickman showed his face it was time to strap in and ride it out.
I’m recognising the stickman’s ominous warning in myself now, only he’s not a stickman, he’s heightened anxiety, he’s tetchiness, he’s back pain, he’s people pleasing, he’s perfectionism. He isn’t alerting me about a tough winter he’s alerting me about emotional trauma that has been suppressed and needs to be released as frightening as it is. All the above symptoms seem to heighten when there’s an upheaval waiting just under the surface that needs to come out, be willingly met, experienced and let go of. It isn’t pleasant, I can feel it coming, I’m recognising the signs now. During an upheaval the emotional childhood wounds feel so raw, so fresh, like they happened yesterday. It’s like they’re massively amplified by the Kundalini to a point where it’s impossible to repress them anymore. Out it pours.
I’ll be honest, I’d read about Kundalini years ago and completely dismissed it, had no interest what soever in it. I ignorantly thought it was a ‘new age’ thing. My primary spiritual focus was the experience that happened in Greece, the temporary awakening, the deep silent peace and Eternal Now. I had no idea that there was an energetic component in the self realisation awakening process, a component that rewires the brain and rids the body of stored trauma. Now I’m experiencing kundalini first hand I have the utmost respect for it, it’s powerfully relentless, it’s beautiful, it’s as fierce as a scrap yard dog. It wants to fix and heal me, it wants all the childhood wounds and other hurt up to the surface to be dealt with for good. For the greater good, not just for me but for the greater whole, my family, my friends, the planet, everything.
There was emotional release yesterday, all day pretty much. Walking about nature on my own hurting and releasing, the sun was out, my friends were drinking cold beers in town. It’s a lonely journey for sure but the stickman has my back.
This experience happened a couple of weeks ago whilst falling asleep, I felt a mass of energy in my entire body that came in from nowhere. It felt so lovely, entire body filled with love/bliss. I began to dream as it was happening, I dreamt I was trying to fly, the more I let go and surrendered the higher I flew and the more intense the love/bliss energy became. The word Shiva came up into my awareness as all this was happening, Sanskrit again, I don’t know why Hindu stuff is coming up, I really don’t know anything anymore this is so fucking intense, at times so profoundly beautiful and others so emotionally draining with all the hurt coming up to be faced experienced, felt and let go of. Yeah, back to Shiva, I said ‘Shiva – just fucking kill me’. I surrendered and let go. I stirred awake shortly after and felt completely relaxed, the remnants of the energy were still present in my body. Beautiful.
I’ve mentioned before that Sanskrit stuff is coming up, I don’t know why as I’ve never studied any Hindu spiritual stuff, I don’t suppose it really matters as it all needs to be let go of anyway, that’s not to say that there isn’t a massive feeling of respect for what’s happening but I know deep inside that I can’t cling to these happenings as lovely as they are. I’ve started to notice really feint energetic happenings in the heart area recently, questions arise as to how long this process will take. It feels like I’m totally in limbo, patience and trust is needed. I learned a while ago that I cant take an ounce of credit for what’s happening, how could I? How could I make this stuff happen? I can only just make a fucking spag’ ‘bol’.
I’ve stood at my bedroom window in the past, howled and demanded of the universe with so much intent from every cell in my body that I want every last bit of buried emotional trauma, hurt, pain and fear up to the surface and out of me for good, all of it, every last bit. It feels like my prayer to the universe is being answered. There’s been more emotional release today, more shit gotten rid of, I didn’t know there could this much shit down there but up it keeps coming…
*note – any talk of wanting to be killed by Hindu deities is spoken in a sense of spiritual death and rebirth
My short term memory is shot to bits at the moment, like it’s not even funny! I’m laughing, it feels like I’m doing just enough to function and run the house. Even doing just enough is quite a challenge. Some mental clarity would be nice, some peace with everything being so turbulent.
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.
I had a vivid dream a few nights ago, in the dream I was in a room kneeling in front of an open log fire. The fire spat out burning embers on to the carpet, scared, I tried to put out the embers. As I was patting them with my hands more embers shot out to the other side of the room, I ran to them to try and put them out. As I got near them more embers shot out a distance away from me. More and more embers shooting out all over the carpet. I was frantically running around the room like an idiot trying to control what was happening. Backward and forwards getting no where. The embers were hitting the walls, the wall paper was smouldering. Another log fire appeared in a wall behind me shooting out more embers. The more I tried to control it, the less control I had, so worked up so stressed. This way and that. So much fear and exhaustion, manic.
If I look at my own life, there’s the wanting control things absolutely everywhere in it. I try to control everything. What people think of me, like I could even get close to controlling that. I’m trying to control the spiritual journey, trying to get it to go where I want it to go. The fear of no self is a big one, a fear of losing control of my destiny. Death is another, that feels like the ultimate loss of control. Plus the myriad other little things I try to control in everyday life.
Jed McKenna likened it to spinning plates, our lives spent running around like idiots trying our damndest to keep these plates spinning and not dropping. All our life force pumped into keeping up appearances, into controlling outcomes. Let the fuckers drop. All of them. Thy will be done, not mine.
I’m starting to notice and learn that there’s no ‘doing’ in surrender, that doing surrender is like some kind of control mechanism. Like if I surrender then I’ll gain this that or the other. More control. It’s feels more like a just stopping or allowing than a doing. Stopping with no desired outcome. I’m learning. It feels like when I get it right that I feel it in my body, breathing just becomes a bit deeper and more natural. It feels like surrender is the only way to peace.
I know I have to sit in that room from the dream, let go, and let it burn to a pile of ash with ‘me’ in it….
The thought of this brings up more fear that I have to face and move through.
I’ve felt a massive sense of spaciousness in the body today, like my body is empty or something. Fear comes in as there’s not much of a sense of self…so confusing and beautiful at the same time. The emptiness feels light inside in a not heavy kinda way.
I’m lay on the couch now, I can feel fear in my body, I’ve felt childhood emotional trauma come up through the emptiness, I can feel it now. The fear of abandonment, the anxiety, the clinging child. I have to give these emotions space to be there, can’t run from them or affirm them away. All I can really do is give them space and watch them. Some childhood memories coming up, not necessarily bad traumatic stuff, sometimes the memories are of what certain rooms felt like in the house I grew up in. Others are the atmosphere’s of places outdoors where I played as a child. They just seem to come up. Ears are still ringing. A few months ago on two consecutive nights at around 7pm I was in the house here cooking and it felt like I was in the foster carers house when I was 5 years old. Those were painful emotions, desolate, lost, abandoned, scared.
I can’t pick up a spiritual book to distract myself from this stuff, I can’t piss about on social media and pretend it’s not there. Gotta move through it as it comes without the desire to get rid of it. Experiencing it, standing toe to toe with it feels like the only way through.
This is something I’ve read about, and been thinking about a lot recently. I was asking myself that if every single person on the planet died tonight would Europe exist tomorrow? Of course there’d still be a huge landmass where ‘Europe’ was but it wouldn’t be called Europe anymore because there’d be no people to call it that. I came to the conclusion that ‘Europe’ is just a mental construct or belief. Of course there’s a massive land mass out there made of atoms and molecules, water, plants trees and loads of other stuff that billions of people call or believe is Europe but we only believe it’s ‘Europe’ because some clown a long time ago drew a load of lines on a map and said ‘hey everyone, see this big shape I’ve drawn? It’s called Europe’ I thought from that point on that billions of people started to collectively believe that the shapes drawn on the map by the map bloke was Europe. It makes sense to me that Europe as everyone knows it is just a thought or a belief. Man! The place didn’t exist on a map until the late 15th/early 16th century, where was Europe before then? No where, it didn’t exist but the landmass did. I’ve concluded that ‘Europe’ is just a collective thought that exists in peoples heads. It only exists because we believe it so.
The more I think about the more it applies to, Christmas – just a thought, it doesn’t exist anywhere in realty, only in peoples heads. Days, months and years – more collective beliefs. Time, theres another…..birthdays, anniversaries – just thoughts. The whole calendar – more thoughts. It really is dawning on me that the whole shebang is just a wispy dream, a very solid seeming one but it’s just smoke and no substance, only thoughts. Of course all these labels, time and calendars and such are needed to organise society but it seems they’re just collective beliefs.
What would happen if I stopped believing?
If I turn this line of enquiry onto myself it would seem that ‘I’ don’t really exist either. Just more thoughts, beliefs, ideas, opinions, past memories, future projections that ‘I’ draw a sense of self from.
I saw a dream/vision a few years ago. it was really vivid, it occurred at that point just before sleep. Everything went deadly silent and I saw the void, or source or what ever it is. Nothingness. Into this void from all angles seeped smoke. The smoke represented thoughts, beliefs, ideas, memories, future projections – the ego structure. The smoke seeped into the black void and formed the three dimensional shape of a horse. The horse looked solid, so real as the smoke swirled around in its three dimensional form. But it wasn’t real at all, it was just smoke.
The cat’s meowing now for food, the rascal. Better feed him before he chews my foot off.
Yesterday I felt a quite prominent feeling of emptiness below the neck, it was really lovely, like an open empty spaciousness in the body, it feels like my field of awareness has opened up, like seeing from the body as well as the head, I don’t know how else to describe it. Whilst this was happening I could feel right in my gut the energy working, really pleasant sensation. According to Bonnie Greenwell PHD the feelings of bliss during a kundalini awakening are the body’s cells releasing stuff. This was prominent pretty much the whole of yesterday, and today. The feelings of bliss in the gut have been happening for months now, there’s been occasions where theres been no bliss down there but a real solid feeling of groundedness in the body. It’s strange, the emptiness in the body, it’s like my sense of self is going down the tubes and what I didn’t realise before is that I must have drawn a big sense of self from my body below the neck. It’s hard to explain, Bernadette Roberts said that we don’t really know what ego is until it’s gone, I think this may be happening here. Like I didn’t know I drew a sense of self from the body until my sense of self in the body started to disappear. As much as yesterday was lovely, I still found it hard being around an interacting with people, I was with my aunt, a woman I’ve known, loved and trusted all my life, it still felt strange though there’s still the confusion. One of my favourite things to watch at the moment is the birds flying, they look so free and easy, sometimes blown about by the winter wind. It’s like i’m watching them from a bigger space of awareness than before.
I noticed a little yesterday the energy/bliss moving up from the gut to the heart area in a really subtle way, it wasn’t there longer than a minute or so. Last march when the shit hit he fan most of the energetic phenomenon were actually in the heart and not the gut, I remember feeling a lot of mild discomfort in the heart like stuff was being unblocked followed by big feelings of love and bliss. I really did think that the awakening process was all to do with the mind but I’m learning that so much of this stuff happens below the neck also. I’ve also felt it in the crown of my head, tingling sensations, quite strange when you’re at work shootin’ the shit with your mates! Yesterday really gave me some, I don’t know if confidence is the right word, maybe reassurance that there is an awakening process happening. I feel like I’ve gotta watch for that sneaky ego sneaking in trying to turn it into something for itself. All kinds of thoughts were coming up, ‘when I’m awake I’ll be this that or the other’ or ‘when I’m awake I’ll be at peace’ but it really feels that if I awaken ‘I’ won’t be here to experience it. Fuck you ego!
I’m out walking alone nearly every evening, sometimes with headphones yearning/loving/contemplating the divine with a massive authentic desire to be drawn right into its depths. Other times I’m out walking turning stuff over in my head, questioning, enquiring, thinking about everything thats happened over the last 11 months. Music has played a massive part in my journey so far, I remember before the shit hit the fan driving around listening to The Who track ‘Who are you?’ full blast on repeat, I’d be singing along with so much intent, really pumping this stuff out into the universe, only I inverted the question ‘Who are you?’ into ‘Who am I?’ Thanks, Ramana. I listen to some of Neil Youngs stuff while driving around the countryside, really contemplating, asking enquiring deep within. Such a great songwriter, straight from the heart. David Bowies ‘Quicksand’ has been another song that I’ve self enquired within with.
……..
Don’t believe in yourself, don’t deceive with belief Knowledge comes with death’s release Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah
I’m not a prophet or a stone-age man Just a mortal with the potential of a superman I’m living on I’m tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien Can’t take my eyes from the great salvation Of bullshit faith If I don’t explain what you ought to know You can tell me all about it on the next Bardo I’m sinking in the quicksand of my thought And I ain’t got the power anymore
Don’t believe in yourself, don’t deceive with belief Knowledge comes with death’s release Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah
Don’t believe in yourself, don’t deceive with belief Knowledge comes with death’s release Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah
Knowledge comes with deaths release – what a fucking line…floors me every time I hear it. And that key change on the second verse, wtf!
This happened a few nights ago whilst lying down and going into the silence that’s recently been opening up in me. I lay for around half an hour, just kinda being this quietness. I fell asleep for about an hour or so and was awoken with energy in my entire body. Like a full body orgasm, it was like I was observing the energy as a map in my body and I noticed there was a lot constriction in my heart area. The energy felt so fucking beautiful, blissful, love-full and really quite amazing. As I awoke to it the word ‘Shaktipat’ came into my mind from nowhere. Another Sanskrit word, there’s a link here to it’s meaning which I had to search for as I never knew what it meant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaktipathttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaktipat
Shaktipat or Śaktipāta (Sanskrit, from shakti “(psychic) energy” and pāta, “to fall”)[1] refers in Hinduism to the transmission (or conferring) of spiritual energy upon one person by another. Shaktipat can be transmitted with a sacred word or mantra, or by a look, thought or touch – the last usually to the ajna chakra or agya chakra or third eye of the recipient. Saktipat is considered an act of grace (anugraha) on the part of the guru or the divine. It cannot be imposed by force, nor can a receiver make it happen.
There’s been a few Sanskrit words come up since last March when the lid blew off, it’s strange as I’ve never been into the Hindu teachings or texts, I’ve mostly been drawn to Zenny stuff and the Christian mystic teachings, those along with a massive internal desire to know what’s true. There’s lots of conflicting confusing emotions happening in me simultaneously, there’s a sadness that I can’t do the things I used to do at the moment and there’s also a massive sense of gratitude for the stuff that’s happening I really do feel lucky and thankful. I always felt a big part of the reason I worked as a musician was for the praise and acceptance I got, of course I loved playing but there was definitely a big part of me that wanted to be loved by people.
I’m learning now to go into this silence that seems to be unfolding in me, it’s about the only thing that makes any sense at the moment. There was a synchronicity a few days ago that pointed at this beckoning silence, it feels like I’m being drawn or sucked into it somehow, there’s quite a big repulsion against spirituality/teachings happening, like if I ever hear the phrase ‘we’re all one’ or ‘you’re already that which you are seeking’ or ‘just be’ or whatever I’ll run at the wall and just head butt it. It feels like the spiritual teachings are now a big disturbance to this silence, it feels like all my other interests are a big disturbance to this silence, I’m aware I try to distract myself from it, it feels like to sit in silence is a waste of time and very non productive but it feels like big sheets of ice colliding against each other inside me when I try to distract myself from this silence. Strange. I lay in this quiet a couple of days ago with my eyes closed and saw an eye looking back at me. Gods eye? The great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once wrote years ago – the eye with which I see God is the same eye as which God sees me.
So, hardly any sense of self, a massive chunk of egoic drive/will seems to have vaporised, energetic phenomena happening, visual senses massively heightened, third eye activity, lots of synchronicity’s and a few small psychic happenings. Am I imagining all this? Is this what waking up feels like? There’s a tonne of confusion. I really don’t know…..It’s hard to watch people, my friends going about their lives, playing gigs, socialising, setting goals, getting somewhere, going out on dates and all the other normal stuff. I feel like I’m not a part of the world at the moment, I can’t engage in stuff that I used to engage in. The supermarket is a challenge, let alone a solo gig in a rowdy bar. I used to be so confident as a performer, I’ve walked onto a busy town centre precinct countless times in the past with a guitar and amplifier, turned it on, turned it up full blast, hammered out three or four hours of music and gone home completely un phased with money in my pocket. I feel pretty fucking useless at the moment. Turning down invitations to social events, getting tagged on social media for gigs but turning them down. It’s a lonely journey.
It feels like I’ve lost a massive sense of my self, like it’s vanished. I was at the beach town on a sunny day about a week and a half ago, I walked up the pier in the winter sun and it literally felt like there was no inside me, to the point that I didn’t even know what was making me walk or what was propelling me. It feels like someone took a big spoon, put it in the top of my head and scooped ‘me’ out. Such a bizarre, confusing and perplexing experience, it feels like a lot of egoic will has gone, it brings up fear…
A fear of going mad, I think what brings up the most fear is a lack of control over what’s happening, if it weren’t for the energetic stuff that’s been happening I’d be sure as hell I was losing it. I’m still not a hundred per cent convinced, time will tell I guess.
It feels like most of the kundalini stuff has been happening in the gut, blissful feelings down there. I sat the other night in a chair feeling quite scared whilst simultaneously feeling bliss in the gut while all along there was no sense of ‘me’ that these things were happening to, it’s a bit nuts. I noticed a lot of physical heat in the gut a couple of days ago whilst walking in nature. I’m also starting to notice now quite a big interior silence inside when I’m alone in nature, it’s happened a couple of times in the last week. Like if I stop and just stand for a few moments this interior silence comes up, it feels like quite a relief from the catastrophic thinking patterns that are here about me going crazy. All the stuff I used to like on YouTube, music, spirituality, documentaries etc now just sound like an absolute racket, I’m intuitively feeling that I need to spend time in silence, which might mean meditation which I’m shit at doing.
One of the things i’m finding difficult at the moment is being around people, if i didn’t have to interact with anyone i wouldn’t for the time being. But i have to, i still need to work and run the house, i can’t tell my landlord that i think i’m waking up and need some time out. Fear comes up when i’m around people about this lack of a sense of self, i start wondering if they’re noticing that there’s not much of a ’me’ inside me. Or if i seem different, or if they think i’m crazy. I wonder if they know….
There’s been a little mild psychic stuff, really small premonitions/dreams of stuff that’s happened a day or two later. I’ve also started to notice pressure in the evenings sometimes in my forehead, according to the writings of Bonnie Greenwell PHD(for me, one of the only trustworthy sources of info on kundalini awakening out there as she interviewed over 3,000 people going through kundalini awakening)this could be a sign of ego dissolution. I lay in silence the other night and started to drift off and saw right in my third eye Ramana Maharshi with a big brown eye in the centre of his forehead. It helps me to write this stuff, it maybe reassures me as there’s been quite a lot of spiritual stuff happening. I know I’m not there yet, and I might go crazy on the way but there really is no going back from where I’m at at this moment. If it is God/Spirit/The Divine that’s got me in it’s grips I’ll tell you this for nothing it’s absolutely relentless, it’s definitely saying this isn’t about me anymore, it feels like this is Gods will now, I’m confused as hell, scared, worried about what’s happening and all the while it continues like a weight pressing me down into surrender.
So I’m feeling at the moment that I’m going though an ego death, either that or I’m going stark raving mad. It’s weird, it really feels like a massive chunk of me has just gone. A lot of my drives aren’t here now, a massive part of my identity was that of the musician, all my mates know me as a musician, it’s something I’ve done for nearly 25 years. It’s something I enjoyed massivley most of the time.
I’ve not sat and meditated on surrendering the musician part of me as I hardly meditate probably due to spending most of my life in fight or flight, I just cant sit still. I’ve not walked around surrendering the musician part of me it’s just gone. There’s other drives that have gone as well which might be nice to talk about later. It doesn’t feel like a depression where disinterest in stuff might come in, it feels like stuff, stuff that I drew a massive sense of self from has disappeared. There’s a gaping hole right in the middle of me.
So yeah the synchronicity, I have an account on a dating site which I still occasionally visit, I don’t know why as I don’t feel I could form any kind of relationship at the moment. I feel like I’ve been blown apart. But maybe out of old habit I checked my profile to find out I’d been ‘liked’ by a lady that is an embalmer, hmmm….this is the gospel truth, the next night I went on the dating app and was casually swiping through profiles to find another lady that is an embalmer. Thats two profiles on two nights with two ladies that just happen to be embalmers that came into my awareness as I’m going through what I think is an ego death. Perhaps it’s just a bizarre coincidence, I’m open to that too but really what are the odds? And if it is a synchronicity, Universe are you having a fucking laugh or what!!!! I’m going through hell at the moment, falling apart at he seams. I’m laughing now, I laughed too when it happened. Jed Mckenna said the Universe is like a big playful puppy, maybe he’s right.
There’s been quite a few other little synchronicities lately, stuff that’s probably trivial, but still stood out as I don’t know, odd, unusual, wtf moments.
I remember around last April shortly after the shit hit the fan going for a walk, my head up my ass, I’d lay on the sofa around mid day quite scared of everything that was happening I dozed off and got to that point where your not quite asleep and not quite awake, the bit where everything feels a bit fluffy. So I got to the fluffy bit and felt like I was plunged into a very deep silence, like some kind of void, not mystical or cosmic just a deep deep silence. In the silence I saw very clearly that I was on top of a huge brick wall of biblical proportions, like the top of this wall was in the fucking sky. Down the side of this wall from the top there were a small number of steps. No where near enough steps to get down to the ground – which I couldn’t see. I felt from a deep place that I was being asked to jump, as this was happening I could feel a powerful surge of blissful love energy in my chest, Kundalini? The dream startled me awake, as I awoke I could still feel the energy in my chest, I couldn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t feel my body just the energy. After a minute or two I was able to move and the fear set in rapidly, ‘what the fuck is happening to me’ I thought.
I threw my shoes on got out of the house and headed for the hills, nervous system in fight or flight. As got out of the suburb and into the hills I began to notice an amazing presence of bliss in my heart area, my walking pace slowed right down, I was also breathing from the gut, I took in the surroundings in a calm manner. I remember sitting down for a minute just taking it all in really enjoying this beyond pleasant experience. After sitting for a short while I carried on walking, the area I was walking in is kinda on two elevations, amazing panoramic views from both levels. I’ve walked up there many many times and never usually go to the highest point where there’s a historical monument standing. But for some reason that day I decided to go right to the top. I reached the top out of breath and took in the amazing view, there I stood in the longish grass, I looked down at my feet and saw something glistening. I bent down to see what it was, I put my hand into the grass and pulled out a small golden chain of crucifixes. I picked it up quite startled at what I’d found, it made me happy, I couldn’t fucking believe it to be honest. I walked home with it in my hand, the blissful feelings had gone.
That night I went upstairs with the little chain and cried my heart out, it was the first time in my life that I felt unconditionally loved.
I’ve not been here for a while, stuff’s still happening, the energy is still moving around, it still feels like there’s no one in. Pretty much the last three months have been spent working away from home, I was around some great people but struggled a lot with not having my own time. I’ve spent the last three weeks at home for Christmas. This has given me the time to try and go into this silent void that’s opened up, I’m finding that trying to be in the nothingness brings in a shit load of fear. It’s quite perplexing, it really feels like a big chunk of ‘me’ has gone, it feels like it’s gone for good and it feels like I couldn’t turn back now even if I wanted to.
I’ve really had the sense for a while now that something else has taken over, that the journey is no longer in my hands and it’s no longer about what I want. It’s beyond my control which is quite frightening in some ways, there’s definitely a sense of gratitude for what’s happening and a massive feeling that I’m losing my mind. It’s like a massive hole has been blasted out of my ‘me’ centre. A hole that cant be patched up, strange. A lot of my past drives have gone, stuff that I really thought of as ‘me’. This brings up fear. It feels like I’m disappearing into nothing. There’s been a massive upheaval of emotion over the last couple of weeks, I tried going into the silence a couple of nights ago and panicked. I had to get out of the house, I jumped in the van early evening and drove to the beach town in the tipping rain. I don’t think I’ve ever cried from a deeper place than I did that night driving, I felt at my absolute wits end, all the hurt coming up, the past trauma, all the fear. I felt I’d rather be dead than to feel that way, it was like massive grief, a longing to be loved, to love without fear and the despair at everything that’s been happening over the last few months, it was a proper cry, a string of saliva hanging off my bottom lip and touching my knee kinda cry, like molten lead coming up and out of me, I was saying through the tears from a very deep place ‘I cant do it, I can’t do it anymore. The crazy part is that as I was driving with all the tears and absolute emotional upheaval I could feel this blissful/love energy in my gut, what in the absolute fuck is that all about?
I got to the beach town, got out of the van put my headphones on and walked through the rain, around the boating lake, up and down the main shopping street and around the town centre. I was soaking wet. I feel like I let go of something that night, as I walked it felt like I was starting to let go of the spiritual journey, probably out being absolutley obliterated by it if nothing else and having no choice. I really felt and thought from a deep place that the whole thing can just fuck right off, all the teachings, all the teachers, all the wisdom quotes, all the ‘like and subscribe’ Youtube channels, God, The Divine, What Ever It Is. It was like a massive deep disinterest came in, like dangling a worm in front of a sleeping fishes face, not out of a want to give up the search for truth but more from a place of, I don’t know really just a shoulders down surrender from a place of I can’t do it.
After this defeat, which I feel is really what’s happening to ‘me’ I went and sat by the boating lake under a shelter out of the rain, there was a feeling of calm openness in my body, a feeling of energetic bliss in my gut and a night drive home through the rain waiting for me….
I look out on peaceful lands with no war near by, an ocean of shaking hands that grab at the sky….
By remaining conscious I was beginning to notice my mind becoming quieter, the fear was still there but my mind was becoming quiet, sometimes deafeningly quiet, I sat in the house early one morning with this silence in my head and actually thought I’d literally lost my mind. It was(and still is)like no thoughts come up and if they do come up there isn’t much weight to them. I was massively confused and questioning this silence that was in my head. Could I let go into it? Well, I tried that driving home from the beach and nearly jumped out of my skin, it really felt like I was drowning in water, like I wasn’t going to exist, this was fucking terrifying. Home I drove in total confusion.
There was a big pull toward being in nature and still is. I’ve always loved the outdoors and it really feels like a sanctuary now, I love the quiet of it, I love to reflect on stuff there. I visited the forest in early April totally confused, the weather was rough cold and hail stoning, a real showery day. I was wrapped up well in a big coat and scarf stood with my back against a tree waiting for the hail shower to stop. When it did the sun broke out and lit the entire forest up, my mind was empty of thoughts and everything looked pristine, I was totally gobsmacked by the beauty I was witnessing, everything looked crystal clear, high definition totally beautiful. Feelings of confusion came up as I went to walk through the forest. A walker walked toward me and said hello, where as before there’d always been a contraction when I met people this time there wasn’t I said hello back and that was that. As soon as the word left my mouth the silence was back, no after thoughts about the person I’d just seen came up. Back to silence. I continued through the forest which led to a country road near a reservoir of water. A horse and rider clopped down the lane, the horses breath left it’s nostrils filling the cold air with vapour. The sound of the horses hooves hitting the tarmac road echoed off the stone walls, the sunlight lit up it’s brown hair. I was blown away. It felt like there was no one in. What was happening to me? I wanted the peace I experienced in the forest to last but it didn’t.
I was overwhelmed, confused and scared of everything that was happening to me. I remember one day I went upstairs to my bed, I lay on my back and stopped fighting, like really stopped fighting my body became heavy and my breathing became deep. That night I went to bed scared and wondering what the hell was happening to me, I eventually got to sleep(I hadn’t slept well in weeks) and was awoken by a movement of pleasant energy in my body in the chest area, this was accompanied by a dream of little spirits ascending what looked like a ladder. I went down the stairs from my room to the toilet and on the stairs the thought ‘the anointed ones’ came up into my mind from no where. I sat on the toilet with the bathroom door open with not a single though arising in my head, not one, total quiet in the dead of night. Quite perplexing as my mind is usually going at a hundred miles an hour….there wasn’t a feeling of peace with this silence. I’d say there was a certain dryness to it.
There were more movements of energy accompanied by dreams after this up until present day which I’ll go into as I continue the blog, there have also been some really beautiful synchronicities which I’m not sure about sharing as I feel they’re quite personal to my journey. The next few posts like the last couple will be kinda like catch up posts then I’ll document stuff as it happens.
Around Christmas 2020 I experienced a panic attack, the first one I’ve ever experienced. Not the most pleasant of happenings, I’m not sure exactly what caused it, perhaps a culmination of a few different things. Lockdown was difficult, I was working for a tetraplegic with very strong narcissistic tendencies(just what an empath needs). This work was a massive source of anxiety on top of the underlying anxiety that’s been with me since childhood.
The panic attack proper put the wind up me, gave me a real shake, a big fear of the fear crept in and I started practicing spiritual awareness, just like I did in Greece all those years ago in the hope of finding some peace. I’d always been drawn to the teachings of Adyashanti in my spiritual life which led me to find his 30 day wake up challenge on Audible, this was a 30 day challenge with short practices to complete each day. This short course kinda gave me some structure to work with and I went about going through the course. I remember quite clearly doing one of Adya’s heart practices and feeling really ‘open’ in my heart area for the rest of that day, the feelings of gratitude and love were present in my body without any effort. I hadn’t felt feelings like that for years and years, I became the passive observer of my mind and surroundings which was helping me detach a little from the not so pleasant life story of mine. I was more anchored in my body in my work place which again was a big help in keeping me present around a very negative employer. I was also working a little with death awareness as I was going about my day. I thought I was smashing it. I thought to myself give it a few months and I’ll be wide awake, dickhead me!
We’re now in March and the next spate of panic attacks were quite horrendous, I thought I was losing it, really losing it. I’m not sure what brought these about, the spiritual practice, the previous events on top of everything else in my life or both, but I’d never experienced fear like it. I was so confident that I was making progress on the spiritual path and was hit with more attacks of fear. I was scared to go out of the house, to go shopping, to go to work to carry on with the spiritual practice to socialise. That said I still had a house to run, a daughter and two cats to feed, bills to keep on top of, a vehicle to keep on the road and the rent to pay. I went about things the best I could, my daughter did the shopping when I was too scared to do the supermarket. It was really difficult to be around people and being in public places really brought a lot fear. I could still get out for walks on my own which I did. I walked miles and miles and miles, up and down rivers, along canal tow paths, through forests, around reservoirs up and down country lanes wondering what the fuck was happening to me. I was scared, I was confused and I didn’t even recognise my own hands. My mind was all over the place, I was falling apart, I remember being in a forest that I’ve been in many times before feeling totally disorientated and lost.
I must have watched every one of Adya’s videos on Youtube on the topic of fear and confusion, and I took his advice to remain concious, to give it space, quite difficult when the fear levels were so high but I couldn’t see any other way. I was fighting the fear like a caged animal which was probably making things worse or more like definitely making things worse. There was a day at work I remember quite well, the fear levels were high and I had to drive across town on an errand, the traffic was bad which made me more nervous. I was at the traffic lights and the words ‘Brahman in the Atman’ came up into my mind from no where. I was loosely aware that these words might be Sanskrit but I never knew what they meant as I’ve never studied Hindu scripture. I googled the words on my phone after the errand was run and learned that Brahman means The Ultimate Reality, The Highest Universal Principle or God and I learned that Atman means Soul or Spirit Why would these words come to mind from no where? There was also a very brief feeling of relaxed lightness, only for seconds or a minute, the need to people please vanished. I was still confused and still am, scared I was going mad, but after learning the meaning of those words a little bit of reassurance came in. Had the spate of panic attacks triggered something? Had the Divine just shattered my ego structure? Could there be some kind of awakening happening?
Fear, fear, fear and more fear. That’s been the story of my life as long as I remember. It goes back to childhood. I was born in what was known then as a battered wives home, both my parents were alcoholics, and my dad was violent when tanked up. He beat my mother up while I was in her womb. I remember the first years of my life growing up in a house with no sense of safety and no carpets on the floors. My old man would turn up every Saturday night and open the front door with his size 9 boot and then lay into my mum and our long haired Labrador dog. I’d hear the dog yelp, I’d be upstairs terrified, crying like I’m crying now as I type this. Sometimes the police would come and lift him, other times they wouldn’t. Sometimes we’d get out of the back door before he got in, my mum running up the road to her sisters house with me on her shoulders. I don’t remember a time when my parents lived together, I mostly just remember the violence and the constant feeling of uneasiness around the house. Growing up on a council estate had it’s quirks, as money was tight we had a meter for the electric that required 50 pence pieces to get the electric working, our house was broken into many times, the meter emptied by the thief who usually made his way in through the side window of the house or srewdrivering the lock off the front door. I remember a few times waking my mum up and telling her we’d been robbed again…..
My mums drinking stemmed from her upbringing, same story as mine times ten, her father was ten times the bastard mine was. She had a alcohol related nervous breakdown when I was 5 years old, she was too sick to look after me and I went into social care for a month or two. Already terrified by the violence at home I was taken away into a foster family. I’d like to say the foster family were nice, but I hated it and I hated them, they weren’t my mum. Social services told my mother that if her drinking didn’t stop she’d most likely never see me again. God only knows what went through her mind when she heard those words. Whatever went through her mind was enough for her to draw a line and quit alcohol for the rest of her life. I remember her telling me when I was a teenager that when she quit the drink she dropped to her knees and surrendered to God, from that day to her dying day in 1998 she never touched a drop of alcohol. She reached a point in life where she was done, couldn’t take anymore, nothing left to do but surrender. She had a heart the size of sun, a sun who’s light was too good for this world, I really mean that, she had compassion in abundance and without effort. She used to counsel the neighbours from our street, she’d pick up broken glass from the road to stop dogs cutting themselves. I remember her once helping a homeless man in town to put his shoes on, his shoes were covered in his own faeces. That’s how she was, her love left no one out. After her act of surrender she worked as a cleaner and a healer until she died of cancer in 1998. I sometimes wonder if her breakdown triggered a kundalini/energetic awakening that opened her up to work as a healer, one of the many people that she healed was a relative who was told he would never walk again due to a pretty horrific road traffic accident.
All the violence I witnessed at home coupled with the abandonment left me feeling insecure and very anxious as an adult, I’ve always been a people pleaser, perfectionist and a seeker of approval from others, all classic traits of someone exposed to childhood trauma. All interpersonal relationships be they with friends, family, work colleagues or intimate have been difficult for me. The barriers have been up as long as I remember, I’ve never felt relaxed in any home I’ve lived in, I find it hard to trust people, I’ve always preferred my own company as opposed to being with others. I’d always drink to excess at social events and nights out to hide this terrified child that’s inside me. I don’t want to completely write off my upbringing and paint it as some kind of living hell, amongst the traumatic events were some wonderful childhood moments, some mystical. In adulthood too I’ve done some pretty cool stuff, I’ve been lucky enough too live in some beautiful places overseas, I’ve seen some great European cities, a little of Asia, met some amazing people and busked around Europe a couple of times in a battered old Veedub van. But no matter where I’ve been, no matter who I’ve met there’s been an undercurrent of fear, like a column of anxious energy from my gut to my throat, a permanent constriction in my chest that shuts me off from life. I know beyond doubt that an alternative exists, I felt Divine Spirit in Greece, there was no fear, no anxiety, no me.
Truth Seeker 