For the sake of convenience I'm going to use words like "I", "me", and "my" in the usual manner. I trust that you will recognize the meaning. Thoughts have come in about altering or creating a new verbal language (and even non-verbal languages) but I will leave that aside for now.Tell us your story, how did you wake up, what happened, what changed, what brought you here. we will ask you some questions and once we see that you have seen through illusion of separate being we will change your colour to blue and you will be able to enter the hidden part of the forum, Unleashed. If you like to join those who guide others, you will find some useful information there. We are looking forward to see you at our Facebook groups, links can be found here.
Like most people that have heard of enlightenment, I wanted it at some level. I've always been a C or D student and that was about the effort that I put into attaining enlightenment. I can count on two hands the number of times I've attempted to do some traditional form of meditation in my life. There was the sense that something was there but I did not quite know what. It was very enjoyable to listen to Alan Watts lectures and that was one of the first things that really persisted and stayed with me as far as spirituality goes. Alan Watts. There was a fascination with Zen. "These words do not make sense to me, but there seems to be a group of people who understand it. What is this thing?"
There was a recognition of a commonality in the attempts to describe something. I didn't know what the thing was but it seemed too widespread for it to be some conspiracy to fool me. The thought, "There has to be something there" was present quite a bit. Like the blind men describing the elephant. I had strong suspicious that there was an elephant there but I could not see it.
There is a difficulty in pinpointing the exact moment of awakening but there were some discrete elements that seem to have played major roles. The "difficulty" arises now more as a sense of "informational dissonance moving toward consonance" than as I sense of "I find it difficult". Sometimes this is even felt in the movements of the body. The body moves in a way that is more informationally consonant. These things like "informational consonance" are vague half-thoughts. Arising out of long-forgotten college education. But it arises nonetheless.
The first big burst came on February 25th into February 26th, 2012. I was watching UFC (mixed-martial arts) and I had eaten a cannabis cookie. For me, cannabis was never an escape. It was a tool that seemed to supercharge my ability to write about what I was thinking and experiencing. It would grease the wheels, so to speak. It was a "let's see what comes out this time!" adventure. I do not remember when it started, but I've been in the habit of writing down my ideas when high for probably the last couple years. Terence McKenna used to say that cannabis allows one to be taken by surprise by their own ideas. As I am writing this, there is a recognition that perhaps this was one of the pieces. If I can be caught by surprise by my own ideas, whose ideas are they and who are they surprising? There was that undercurrent.
When the first sense of recognition came in on February 25th, I took it to be an epiphany about the nature of advertising. My background is in computer science and Internet advertising, and as the first glimpse of recognition occurred, I thought I had figured out something very special about the nature of what advertising is, what it is doing to people, how it works, etc... I had written nearly 100 pages when it became apparent that it was not a revelation about advertising. Thoughts like "who's going to believe this? This is everything? This sounds insane." resonated in my head. It was like some kind of framework of awareness that could be applied to anything.
I'd write things in terms of metaphors. A is like B! Wait a minute, A is like B is like C! Wait a minute, A is like B is like C is like D is like E is like F is like G... That's when the little voice began to say "this is insane. You can't present this to people". I'll come to the world and say "See! Everything is like everything!". This would not fly.
When that initial recognition came, it was an emotional rollercoaster. Looking back, the egoic mind was still present even from the moment of that initial "awakening", but it seemed to deliver a near-fatal blow to the egoic mind. The egoic mind persisted until yesterday. There seems to be some residue left though.
After that initial burst of awareness on February 25th, it was like someone whacked a bee's nest in my head. Perhaps the bees were always moving so frenetically, but now this anxiety of my mind being a whacked bee's nest was forced in front of me.
Spirituality was not really a world that I was familiar with, but that initial burst of awareness seemed to give me some ability to recognize others that had experienced a similar type of recognition. Someone on Reddit told me about Adyashanti's "End of Your World" and he became my teacher in the form of MP3 lectures and talks. The recognition was there that he is speaking the truth as best a biological being can in its circumstances.
I came to find the Gateless Gatecrashers book via a Reddit link as well. Adyashanti's advice was to look at what's true. There was a recognition that I had ignored a lot of spiritual teachers or supposed spiritual teachers because of some sense of "not for me". Some sense of disgust. Seeing a pasty white male accountant in Buddhist robes gave me some sense of mild disgust. Adyashanti's words about looking at what's true kept coming back. There was a sense of opening to new teachings, but the intent itself was looking at what is true right now. What is this sense of disgust when I see the pasty white male accountant in the Buddhist robes? Who is being disgusted by this? Where is it coming from? I had seen the Liberation Unleashed link on Reddit and ignored it. More fluff. What is true? I came back to Liberation Unleashed to investigate.
Adyashanti's words about looking at what's truth also helped in another way. The initial 'awakening' seemed very powerful, very energetic, almost overwhelming. Like my being was going to collapse into a point and explode into a big bang. Words such as 'energetic' were alien to me before that experience. It was thought to be hocus pocus. I would almost cringe if someone said the word "Kundalini" to me. But Adyashanti was there. What is true? What is true right now? Not "what's true about Kundalini?" but "what is true, for your being, right now?" What is true for you?
I looked at what is true and there was a sense within me that if 'awakening' comes again, it would come in the same high-energy form. It seems now that the initial awareness was like a pipe bursting. The final leap off the cliff yesterday was like a gentle flow. What is true? Does awakening have to be energetic? Does it have to look like that? No... What is true? What is true, right now?
Reading the Gateless Gatecrashers dialogues yesterday seemed to trigger something. The switch-over didn't occur while I was reading but it happened later in the day yesterday. It could be that the thing was triggered while I was reading the dialog and it took several hours to realize what is happening. As I said, looking back, it is difficult to pinpoint any one moment. There seems to be some recognition that "waking up" is what the whole thing has been doing anyway so you can pull out any past scenario or moment you'd like and see that it exists in this sort of conceptualization of the idea that the whole thing is waking itself up all the time.
So what happened yesterday? Recognition that the thing is driving itself. Earlier in the day yesterday, I had watched Google's new self-driving car video. Recognition of the mind as a combo package pattern recognition engine and label maker is what happened yesterday. Recognize the pattern and spit out a label. Recognize the pattern and spit out a label. Recognize the pattern and spit out a label. The car began driving itself. The body would move, the hands would type. Birds were heard.
There is still a feeling of uneasiness. Thoughts arise such as "How am I going to pay the bills?". The thought is recognized as false as instantaneously as it arises yet it is there. Then there is the thought of "You have recognized that it was doing everything automatically the whole time anyway so what is there to worry about?". I was never driving before and it worried me when there was a perceived driver so now that I know that it was getting along without a driver, who is there to be worried now? Nobody.
To put it another way, it is as if the network of 'I' thoughts was tightly bundled together by string. It was seen as a singular thing. The string has been cut and now these 'I' thoughts are more seen as individual things that arise. They are not bundled together. Thoughts are thoughts. After the string was cut, they seem to be just kind of floating around now but still present.
Almost like an airplane propeller where the engine has been cut off. The blades are still spinning but there is recognition that the power has been cut.
At least 150 pages of written material have poured out in the last month. Vague notions.
These are some of the phrases that are appearing:
"Fractal all the way up and all the way down"
"Informational consonance"
The thing seems to be straightening itself out. Everything that is happening, even what are perceived to be terrible atrocities - everything is moving toward "informational consonance".
There is recognition that it is a state of higher consonance for me to connect with others. It's happening effortlessly. Not lazily, but effortlessly. Time seems different. Hours go by without noticing. Informational interconnectedness, understanding. Deep interconnectedness and understanding. Understanding as informational consonance, not just on the level of humans, but fractal all the way up and all the way down. Yet there is some sense of uneasiness.
There is also very much a sense of "there is more". Not in a way that there is an "I" that is going to become superior. Not "more" in that way. Just "there is more". I do not know what this is.
