Silent Musings

Not so long I realized something seemingly strange about my life that I hadn’t seen before in quite the same way. I have mastered the ability to be invisible. In retrospect, I can see that this is a power that I have cultivated all my lifetime, and in a certain respect, I was born already predisposed to invisibility. It’s a bit tricky to explain what I mean exactly by invisibility, but please bear with me, because the point is really worth getting.

I’ll begin by recounting the events on a day several years ago, when I had my first really profound experience of invisibility. I was sitting in a large conference room with about 100 other people, listening to a young woman speaking about a community project that she was in the process of designing. While sitting in the audience during this presentation, I began to notice something very interesting about my relationship to the speaker. What I noticed was that I was paying significantly more attention to my own thoughts and concerns than to what was actually being said. I didn’t just conceptualize this, but actually got it down to the core of my Being. Think for a moment about the implications of that realization … In that moment, I realized that maybe I had never really, really listened to or seen another human being. I had spent most of my time and energy my whole life managing the enterprise of I, Me, and Mine. By design we humans all convince ourselves that we’re not this self-centered, but upon examination that particular day, I knew who I had really been all those years before.

When I came to see that I had always been this way, and what I must have missed all those years prior, certain realizations began to occur for me one after another. I began to weep uncontrollably when it became obvious that just about everyone is this way, and wondered who, if anyone, is really heard? Was even one person in the audience actually listening? Were we all invisible to each other?

I then made the conscious effort to listen to the speaker, deeply, and see her. Shortly after that, a phenomenon emerged. Gradually I noticed that it was I who was speaking her words. There wasn’t any separation between “her” and “me”. Her accomplishments were my accomplishments. There was no thinking of “my” concerns anymore, because every accomplishment in all times and places now belonged to me, yet there wasn’t any “me” to be their owner. “I” had disappeared, become invisible. In that very brief span of time, concerns that had been with me for years melted away. I had never experienced such Joy. Mike was no longer Mike, he was this phenomenon. For the rest of that day, every speaker was the same, all the accomplishments and concerns belonged to the One. We had all become invisible, at least through the perception of this body called Mike. And the willingness to be invisible was now deeply implanted in me.

Gradually, over time, the intensity of the experience faded, but the old Mike never really returned. A few years later I took up the serious practice of meditation, and this is where the rubber really began to meet the road. Little by little, day by day, small bits of what remained of Mike wore off, as if being polished ever so slowly by the finest of emery boards. As this process took place, I gradually noticed how I seemed to fade more and more into the background of every scene in which I acted. Eventually I came to realize that I had always been invisible for the most part, and it was only the desire to be seen that produced any response or acknowledgment from others. In fact, even such responses rarely came with actual seeing the true nature of what Is right here, right now. Somehow over time this desire gradually waned, to the point of being almost non-existent.

Today I feel so utterly ordinary, about as noticeable as a plain rock in the garden. And yet, when I dwell in that ordinariness, I realize the incredibly rich and deep beauty of the rock. I want to invite others into this invisible realm, to see its pure Joy and Love. I do not long to be seen, nor do I need to be invisible. I just Am. Like the rock simply willing to play its role in the garden, as simple and glorious as it Is.

How can you find Love? The answer to this question is so simple, and yet, not easy. Sure, we sometimes find ourselves stumbling upon Love by accident. And yet, when we have the intention of finding Love, it often fails to show up. Why is that?

I think it helps to start with a more fundamental question: What is Love? The answer to this question is a Mystery, pure and simple, and yet, we can always recognize Love when we see it, right? Or can we? I’m going to make an assertion that seems to contradict conventional thinking about Love. Here it is: Love is always present. In fact, Love is Presence itself. Love is Experience. The failure to find Love is the failure to experience what Is. This is so simple it is beyond the simplest simplicity you can imagine. In fact, you can’t imagine Love, because Love does not dwell in the Mind. Love dwells beyond all thinking.

Why is it then that we don’t always perceive Love as it Is? The answer to this question is equally simple, and yet not so easy to realize. The perception of Love comes through simple and pure Acceptance. What is Acceptance? It is easier to say what it is not. It is not trying, or grasping, or intending. It is not thinking about something. It is not avoiding. It is not assessing, judging, or evaluating. It is not waiting for change. It is not wanting. In fact, Acceptance is not anything, other than Being. It is what Is, nothing more or less.

Searching for Love is like walking in order to find your feet. What do I mean by this? A phrase I sometimes read or hear is “finding the One”. So many people think that if they just find that one person who will make them whole, then Love will always be present. Searching for “the One” is panning for fool’s gold. Even if you find “the One”, the experience will not be different than what you are feeling right now. You don’t realize that you are The One. I am The One. The One is Everywhere and Everything. Open your eyes and let yourself See. Open your Heart and let yourself Feel. Love is Right Now.

Can you Love yourself? Yes, you already do. Can you accept that life will always be exactly as it is Right Now? Because it is always exactly as it Is Right Now. There is no future or past. There is only Now. Even change is an illusion. When you realize this you know that Love is within you, Right Here, Right Now. Is there anything about you or anyone else that is deficient, unworthy or lacking, Right Now? Deficiency does not exist in the present. It is a construct of the Mind, a product of thinking about the past and the future.

Do you want to be Connected? You already are connected to everyone and everything. Every bit of beauty that you can perceive is You. Colors, flowers, the ocean, poetry, a newborn child, a sunny afternoon, a violent storm, life, death, it is all You.

The path to Love is not through the Mind. In fact, there is no path to Love. Love already and always Is. Stop grasping and Love is revealed. You can Know yourself as Love. The key to unlock the Heart and open yourself to Love is Acceptance. To get what you want … want what you get.

Love is Duality seen through the eyes of the One, the Nondual. Connection with Other. A seeming contradiction, beautifully wrapped in the Mystery of the Universe. Let go of everything and let yourself fall into the infinite depths of her Heart.

When you Realize what I am saying here, then you Know … that I Love You.

If you type “Kundalini Awakening” into the Google search, you will be amazed at what has been written about the topic. Some of it is downright unbelievable. I know when I was first getting serious about meditation, I was really fascinated with the whole idea of it, and all the fantastical stories I read. I certainly wanted to experience it for myself, to know what all the hype was about, if nothing else.

Here is what two dictionaries have to say:

1) The vital force lying dormant within one until activated by the practice of yoga, which leads one toward spiritual power and eventual salvation.

2) Energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine until it is activated, as by the practice of yoga, and channeled upward through the chakras in the process of spiritual perfection.

Actually, those definitions aren’t too bad, although they don’t really say too much. I’ll say a little bit more here in terms of background, for those who are unfamiliar with the topic. The kundalini energy, also sometimes called Shakti, also similar to the Chinese concept of qi (or chi), is the vital force present in all creation. For the meditator or yogi, the experience of kundalini awakening is an emerging awareness of the presence of this life force, which often feels as though it originates from the root chakra (perineum). Several forms of meditation and yoga practice, such as kundalini yoga, kriya yoga, qigong, pranayama, and so forth, are designed to activate or awaken the kundalini within the practitioner’s body. However, it is less well known that just about any form of meditation practice that produces stillness (yes, even zazen and vipassana) will awaken the kundalini at some point, if practiced properly. In fact, the more forceful methods such as pranayama can be dangerous if overdone, because they are capable of awakening the kundalini in a practitioner who is not emotionally or physically prepared for the experience. Thus, I recommend letting it occur much more naturally and in due time.

Personally, I have tried many different meditation techniques, but I tend to prefer the simplest and most direct ones such as vipassana or zazen. So I know at least from my own experience that the kundalini can be awakened quite naturally without forceful breathing techniques. In fact, whatever I have to say about the topic personally comes from this experience. Yes, I have occasionally dabbled with pranayama, but never very much or very seriously.

The first thing I can say about the actual experience of kundalini awakening is that it can be somewhat stressful to the nervous system, and certainly there are times when it is strongly activated, and other times when it is not. When I say stress here, what I mean is that there is an experience of something working on you, you’re not quite sure what it is, but it is definitely rearranging you in a way. So that can occur as stressful. More often, it occurs as very pleasant, sometimes even more so than sexual experience. Prior to the real awakening of kundalini, there is a period of time in which the nadis (energy channels), also known as qi mai in Chinese acupuncture, are gradually opened throughout the body. This experience is often mistaken for kundalini awakening, because it does sometimes feel as though there is a force moving throughout the body, and sometimes a heat or burning, which is how kundalini is often described in writing. However, the real kundalini is much more powerful and blissful; it can also be warm at times, but usually in a mild way rather than extreme heat that sometimes occurs when nadis are opening.

The physical experiences of kundalini are certainly intriguing at the very least, however, it is the effect on the mental and emotional states that I think are far more important. One thing that is often written about it, and certainly seems to be true as far as I can tell, is that once it is awakened, the kundalini owns you in a way. You begin to realize that “your life” is not really “yours” in the sense that you thought it was. It is hard to put this into words, but in intellectual terms, it is the beginning of the real deconstruction of the ego. This is not always easy to face. It can result in severe reactions such as depression, loneliness, alienation, and even psychosis. More commonly, it produces mild versions of all of these symptoms. It also makes it difficult to function normally at times. There have been at least a few times where I just stayed home from work to rest because the kundalini activity was just too overwhelming to let me work. It wasn’t that I felt there was something wrong, rather, I just felt the need to let the process take place without distraction or energy being drained into some other activity.

There are schools of thought that place kundalini awakening as the root source of spiritual awakening and eventual enlightenment. This kind of thinking is misguided. Seeing one’s Original Nature is not dependent on kundalini awakening, nor is it guaranteed to the individual in whom the kundalini has been awakened. It is better to think of it as a result of meditation practice that is correlated with progress on the path. A simple metaphor to compare it to is losing weight while training to run triathalons. While losing weight may significantly improve your chances of success, and is inevitable if you started out overweight and train properly, by itself it isn’t worth much if your goal is to compete in triathalons. It’s the training that counts. Kundalini awakening is similar. The real training, meditation, is what makes the difference; and if you meditate properly, the kundalini will awaken. It will even help you with your meditation. But it isn’t the final result, nor will it alone help you to awaken spiritually or become enlightened.

Hopefully whatever I’ve had to say here has been useful or valuable in some way. If nothing else, I hope that perhaps I’ve contributed in some way to removing the big mystery surrounding this strange word, kundalini. In a way, it is part of the ultimate Mystery, and yet it is also quite an ordinary part of the spiritual path, even though there are many people who will never experience it in their lifetimes. I also know from experience that if you are curious about it, but have never experienced it, then there isn’t anything I can say that will satisfy your curiosity. By all means, definitely find out for yourself. But if you take anything from this writing, at least take away the trust that it will occur for you just as it should, without any need for forceful methods on your part. The best way is to sit quietly and let Grace be your guide.