What happened to me?
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Sometimes - in fact, pretty often, I think - we have to hit bottom before we can make a leap. I call this "The Formula of Putting a Spring in Your Butt." Hit bottom full on, full speed, and you stand a good chance of bouncing pretty high.
You surrendered. You gave up completely. People spend decades of training and aspiration and effort learning to do some abstract kind of "surrender," but that isn't necessarily any more effective (or even as effective) as an unsolicited, authentic crash-and-burn which eventuates in a full "giving it all up."
That marks the start of the Path for real.
Notice that I said "unsolicited" and "authentic." Too many people romanticize psychological disintegration. So I wanted to emphasize this is an unsought situation which, nonetheless, can serve us.
When you surrendered, you hit a new level of authenticity. Certain results occurred. A very significant taste of inner reality was made evident. What you then experienced is commonplace to those who have awakened interiorally, which is one reason the phrase "living in the Light" is often used for describing it.
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Yes. I concur that this was the start of journey. Would this be considered in thelemic terms achieving Hadit? Because from my understanding, Hadit is the kundalini force as well as the perspective that we are apart. After this however, the feeling of oneness, of being a cell in an endless organism as never gone away. I have continued on in my studies and practices quite earnestly.
The thing that is so confounding for me is how are people taught?! For example, last year I had an experience that I would consider shivadarshana. In a simple meditation with no purpose or aim, my notion of identity was annihilated and dissolved, as if there was just left two eyes floating in black space, if even that. This persisted for an eternity. This has happened a couple of times without trying.This paradox is so confusing to me. These things have happened naturally without trying, and have brought great benefit (yet i do not count them as resting stops) but how do you teach someone NOT to try?! I believe that we cannot teach others, but can only teach them to teach themselves. I am kinda glad I was not introduced into thelema before these things because i think the concepts would've intruded on my natural behaviour. I would've then assimilated new structures and barriers to overcome etc.
I just rememberd a quote, "persistence in folly" is that it? -
@BNNHKDSH said
"Would this be considered in thelemic terms achieving Hadit?"
It's one of the phenomena that accompanies that - I think you've been reading Liber H A D, right? - but no, it doesn't sound to me like that deeper phenomenon.
"Because from my understanding, Hadit is the kundalini force as well as the perspective that we are apart. After this however, the feeling of oneness, of being a cell in an endless organism as never gone away."
Hadit is very tied into the kundalini, yes, and he's sometimes symbolized by a serpent - so there is a connection. It's a related type of phenomenon.
The good news is that this means there is still a great deal more of that good stuff to go through!
"I have continued on in my studies and practices quite earnestly."
It is not at all unusual for people to have such an experience and for this to mark the decisive start of the Path for them in a very deep way. As my old friend, the late Joseph Nolen, often said, a taste of the end result is given to motivate you onward.
"The thing that is so confounding for me is how are people taught?! For example, last year I had an experience that I would consider shivadarshana. In a simple meditation with no purpose or aim, my notion of identity was annihilated and dissolved, as if there was just left two eyes floating in black space, if even that. This persisted for an eternity. This has happened a couple of times without trying."
You've hit the Labelling Paradox problem. On the one hand, my advice to you would be not to get too caught up in what things are called - just record the experiences. On the other hand, I do understand how some means of labelling is useful to understanding where one is in one's own process.
The problem is that most people just don't understand how vast expanded consciousness can be. The unused portions of even the lower parts of the psyche is so great that there are many layers of experience long before one seriously begins to awaken the higher layers. None of this is wasted and all of it is important - in pursuing it, you are gradually acclimating your physical and subtle bodies to be open to increasingly higher vibratory rates of consciousness.
A teacher (now dead), whom I respect as much as any I've ever known, often mentioned that she thought I was an Adept - at least 5=6 in A.'.A.'. - at a time when my actual work hadn't even resulted in perfecting the task of the 2=9. The phenomena I was experiencing bore some relationship to the deeper phenomena of higher grades, and, in talking about it, they sounded a lot the same, but (I asserted then, and assert now) they were not the same.
Now, suppose I'd taken her at her word and (while I was what I understood to be a 2=9) I had accepted that I was a 5=6. One big problem this would have given me is that I wouldn't have had any language with which either to label or understand the much deeper phenomena of the four intervening grades. (For me, the gap between Dominus Liminis and 5=6 was so dramatic that days before the climactic result I still had no idea - no framework - no perspective - on where it was all going. So I most definitely didn't have the end result yet.)
What you are describing is a mild, probably preliminary kundalini-like result that accompanies an opening to the astral, i.e., to an experience of interior reality, the nature of which resembles (and is code-named) "light."
"These things have happened naturally without trying, and have brought great benefit (yet i do not count them as resting stops) but how do you teach someone NOT to try?!"
Go ahead and try! And don't lust for the results - just devote yourself to the Work. My favorite definition of luck is "opportunity intersecting with preparation," and occult results are much the same - I often think that the work we do doesn't produce the result so much as it readies to be "hit by lightning" when that comes along.
"I believe that we cannot teach others, but can only teach them to teach themselves."
I suppose that's a semantics matter. I most definitely think we can teach them, though of course they need to then do the work they're taught to do.
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Thank you Jim for your sharing.
On the topic of Kundalini, I have had it happen approximately 6 times since the the one described above. Before that one I had had two major ones, the first when i was 18. I don't want to start counting kundalini experiences like beans though...edited as my question was answered.
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Your experiences sound like an awakening of cosmic consciousness, and the opening of channels of communication to one that you can trust.
This is quite a blessing.
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JAE said, "Your experiences sound like an awakening of cosmic consciousness, and the opening of channels of communication to one that you can trust.
This is quite a blessing."
I'll say. Wow.
In L.V.X.,
chrys333