One Day

Roughly mid-2010 my spiritual seeking was abandoned and I willfully re-inserted myself into the Matrix. Well, probably it was a few years earlier when I pissed away what progress and awareness I had accrued, and neglected to quiet the mind to make it permanent. But I continued a few years until mid-2010.

12 years later, Monday November 7th, while mercilessly castigating myself once again for not making a lasagna perfectly, the complete absurdity of casting  shame, blame and guilt on myself one more time popped me out of the Matrix. Spiritual seeking began again stronger than before. This time there was a new, more mature quality to it.

Detailed Timeline:

2000-2008

• Reading: “Power of Now”, “Spiritual Enlightenment, The Damnedest Thing”, “I Am That”, “The Open Secret”, “Awakening to the Dream”
• First glimpses of Pure Awareness-Consciousness (“conscious-awareness”)
• Conceptual understanding of non-duality and that I Am That
• No  meditation practice

2010

• Direct experience of Pure Consciousness
• Seeking abandoned
• Regular meditation started, but was not correctly practiced

2022

December 2022: 

Upon reflection, being as honest as possible, there  were several spontaneous experiences of non-ordinary reality over the last two months that delivered severe, significant shocks. The most recent being the undeniable, inescapable, brutal ripping away of the illusion of a separate self that never existed. Appearing to return back to our most natural state – freedom and liberation beyond the mind, beyond the self and beyond thought. There is really no knowing what happened or why or what caused it, if anything. So, what follows is a “story” concocted by the mind to understand and control that which can never be understood or controlled. Enjoy.

Key dates

• Monday, November 7th – popped me out of the Matrix. Seeking began again stronger than before.
• Friday, November 10th -Started earnestly practicing breaking the thought stream and quieting my mind in new mediation practice. After a few days this worked to break the thought stream. First Awakening-Reversal of perspective.
• Thursday, November 17th – Pure Awareness and high energy, apology email, “I love Us”, physical experience of dis-identification with egoic Joe. Managing the high intensity energy – “The Exuberance”, Spirit in Practice. Channeling for friends and family
• Saturday, November 19th – Started reading  Ramana Maharshi’s Who Am I  – not an infinite regression – and started deeper practicing it in meditation.
• Monday, November 20th – Costco mental energy firefights + Meaning of life = service to others
• Wednesday, November 23rd –  Proper Self-inquiry. Seeking comes to an abrupt end. In response to Who Am I query the “I” thought  dissolved, noticing the vast vastness of Pure Awareness. Started “proper”self-inquiry. Greater conceptual understanding”, but that is all. Later, vastness arises and intensity is so large and so familiar to experience of sitting doing I /Who Am I and with the Self turning the volume up to 11, so to speak,  it was so blatantly obvious that it was simply impossible not to notice it – and it had been there all the time and then a flash of AHA and recognition through identification. Then ‘knowing’ came after. And the arrow in the FedEx logo is finally seen and can never be unseen. 
  Relax and enjoy the ride.
  
• Thursday, November 24 – toddler with ice cream cone – Did I not get the non-dual “package”? Knowledge and understanding are replacing the AHA experience – never to be had again.  First Q/A – clear and clean Makyo pays a visit – I’m starting to cling to the experience.  Thanksgiving dinner. Find, then lose I-spot. Small nervousness, forcing myself to let go.
• Friday, November 25th – unmistakably feel different, not something added, but something dropped.
• Saturday, November 26th – I-thought again dissolves and is unmistakable.
• Monday November 28th -29th– Body work, Pure awareness Light/mobile version. 3 hours then decided to give it a rest. No longer clinging, full surrender to Self.
• Wednesday-Thursday, November 30 – December  2– Full (abiding) Non-dual Awareness. Everything is the Self. Mind incapable of comprehending more than faint glimmer of truth. Natural State becomes daily reality. Contractions – now appear as interruptions in the ongoing natural state – instead of the other way around. Happiness is right here, right now at all times -> realization of freedom from Maya. Bell, Breath, Buzz, Visual field is constant reminder and recognition of Self. Subtlety of Mind’s duality.
• Saturday December 3rd – 4th – One Day poem posted, thoughts on Pure Awareness “flaring”, terminology. To keep practicing post Realization or not (YES!), Going to a party as “Limitless”.
• Wednesday, December 7th – Meditations on Unconditional Love and sat-chit-Ananda (Bliss-Consciousness-Existence): Can easily, readily feel the bliss of consciousness and existence. Once it’s recognized, looking back, I can say the experience is there all the time now – just happening –to no one. The addictive need to see it/phrase it as happening to a “me” – is not the Truth.
  The simple joy and acceptance of what is – without judgment or thought, or labels. The bliss of being in existence and consciousness of a sunset without labeling it sunset, let alone a beautiful sunset, and without an object. That feeling of joy, acceptance, bliss is our ground state, and, it is subtle and easily missed when overlaid with constant mind-noise. Quiet the mind and see what’s there.
  Friday, December 9th – The Macro and the Micro, “Maybe” mind talk, I’m not saying anything and everything is being said.
• Saturday December 10 -11 – Dumping an old friend in the lap of the Universe/Self. Superb energy & dancing to Gimme Some Lovin'(how appropriate!)  in TJs.
• Monday December 12, 2022 – Timeless Meditation and Peace that Surpasses Understanding and Inducing Awakening with guided self-inquiry.
• Wednesday December 14, 2022 – 2 hour meditation and intro to Samadhi?
• Thursday December 15, 2022 – No-self on manual mode.
• Friday December 16, 2022 – “Total Protonic Reversal” – aka ego collapse. We create the story of us to hold  off the unacceptable truth of no-self. Any story, no matter how good or bad is better then the truth that “we” are illusions that never existed, never acted and are metaphorically, merely sock puppets on the hand of the One.
• Saturday December 17, 2022 – contraction amidst integrating truth of no-self. Xmas Party and showing up as a line drawing. All I want for Xmas is loss of individuality.
• Sunday December 18, 2022 – a friend is in “The Goo” as the term came to me 11 years ago.
• Sunday December 25, 2022 – Forgetting to remember to be Joe – The Natural State. Laziness is arising. Scrooge-A Christmas Carol – is an obvious example of forgetting to remember to be you, when Scrooge shifts at the end.
• Monday December 26, 2022 – Knowing is of the mind and in the past.
• Friday December 30, 2022 – Clinging to old mental habits – being in pure presence – no thought, no judgment.
• Saturday December 31, 2022 – ‘No one’ is watching movies.
• Friday February 3, 2023 – In Love with Stillness and Quietude.

See the Nemo’s Notes Posts for day to day journal.

About this dream character.

A few words about the pictures at the top.

The first one is an image that came to me on a tough “death march” Project. I  clearly saw me – the rabbit  – pulling itself out of its own hat. Nice symbolic metaphor for the practice as well.

The second one needs no explanation.

The third one is an image that came to me years ago.

The fourth is a picture of my ‘alter’ ego – a sock puppet on the hand of the One.

I would also direct you to M. C. Escher’s Print Galley for an excellent woodcut of the Painter in the Picture.