I’ve heard (or read) from time to time the word “combustion” used to describe the experience that one may go through in the process of an extended meditation practice. I would say that in some regards it’s a reasonable term to use to relate my own experience. Although I find that I am capable of functioning extremely effectively at the workplace, when I get home there is little that I ever accomplish with intent. Each day, the “person” who does the intending seems to be burned away a bit more than the previous day. In fact, it is also the case at work as well; however, the functioning as an engineer goes on nonetheless. Some functioning does happen at home as well, but it is rarely predictable.
My body has undergone significant changes over time. The kundalini shakti, chi, or life force energy, whatever you want to call it, has taken full residence as I find myself “moving out of the way” of its “path”. Desire continues to reside in me, and yet I find it so clearly transient. Motivation only comes in a moment, and just as suddenly, it is gone. I see birth and death everywhere. I do not see the world through the rose-colored glasses of hope, but rather with all its beauty and ugliness hopelessly entangled. Even the deep bliss of shakti cannot be separated from the pain it embodies. Everything is as it should be, and yet, the mind cannot seem to anchor itself anywhere. While the mind is adrift, the body seems constantly poised to explode.
Every time I eat cooked food any more, I feel sick. I think the body is trying to tell me something here, but old habits don’t die too easily. Especially not with help from cultural cues. When I do eat raw foods (mostly fruit, and some veggies) for at least a few days in a row, I find the bliss sometimes becomes almost unbearable. Will I give up cooked foods for good? How can I say? I can hardly even fathom the end of the day, much less weeks, months, or years from now.
At some point, the body and experience become the only teachers. There isn’t anything written in any book that can help. Maybe that’s why I find my own writing so difficult to produce nowadays. It just doesn’t seem worth much to me, even though others may still find value in it.
Here is something I did happen to read a few months ago that I found fitting to this time of my life:
The obvious lesson … is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think – and their name is legion – that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think – as do many – “Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and the sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is. – Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By
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