A certain rawness is disappearing from my heart and being replaced by forgiveness.The last months I have tried not to pay to much attention in my writing to the loss of my relationship. But the pain was always there and there was always fear of more pain and new disappointments. The pain was so close to me that it had become part of my everyday experience. Yesterday after the yoga class and the meditation I realized it had gone. Very strange, as if it was flushed through. I feel love, confidence, strength and trust instead. It feels as if I opened channels that allow me to flush negativity and by doing that I am becoming clearer, cleaner and more me. Often I felt better after meditating, never I felt healed.
The collective heart
My naivety makes me laugh; I can feel compassion for my oh so well-meaning deluded self that really believes in miracles. Every time when I feel and witness the power of connection between the one heart and the other I am convinced we have the potential to change the world and I never get tired fantasizing about the possibilities. And it is true: the power of love is limitless. But I forget how much continuous hard work it is even for myself to stay connected to that source and I barely manage. Creating an ongoing practice is hard, creating the space for a group to grow is even harder.
Kicking in the doors of the heart
The experience was overwhelming, humbling and healing. There was so much unconditional love, sensuality and radiant beauty, it was too much to take in. I can only speak from a male perspective but I have heard from the women they were happy to see us too.
When I say it was too much to take in, I mean it was too much too take in for the ego. The ego has a limit. When we receive a lot of love there comes a point where disbelief enters. We are used to a limited amount of conditional love. We start thinking that it can’t be true or that it can’t be real. In my case feelings like ‘I don’t deserve this’ and ‘this is not really for me, it is for the other men, not for me’. The ego is an inferiority complex and I could see its battle to hold on to these feelings and beliefs. But it had no chance against 14 Goddesses; it had to surrender.
The power of love
I am sitting in some little restaurant a couple of minutes from our classroom. I am experiencing ‘the avalanche effect’. In the tantra tradition it is recommended that Shiva (the man) and Shakti (the woman) create distance between them after their union. So instead of having lunch with my fellow participants I am now by myself, experiencing and processing the exercises of this morning.
The avalanche effect allows the energy that is built up during the union to expand. The love and the bliss that is generated can now be spread over the whole town and the desire for more is fueled.
It is an interesting practice because the feeling that we now call ‘expansion’ is in conventional language called ‘missing your loved one’ and experienced as somewhat undesirable. It can feel nice to miss somebody because we become aware of our love for the other. But it can also feel as painful and a form of suffering; at least that is how it feels for me. Or better: for Atalwin.
Meeting Shakti
It was amazing to just receive impersonal feminine tenderness and love. It made me feel good about myself and I feel that feeling good about ourselves is a universal human need. So often and on so many levels we don’t feel good about ourselves. And when it comes to sex and intimacy we also find many reasons not to feel good about our performance or our experience. Or we do feel proud about our performance and it becomes an ego-thing, creating separation (I was better than others). The exercise made me feel strong, appreciated, accepted, wanted, loved and masculine. Basically how any man likes to feel about himself, with or without a relationship. Oh, and let me not forget: I felt deeply grateful for the Shakti energy.
Knocked out
It is just 28 people in a circle, holding hands with their eyes closed. There is cool house music. The instruction was to step out of the circle if the energy would get too strong. This sounded quite ridiculous to me. During the exercise I thought I felt something. I wonder if it is my imagination. I start to feel nauseous. I open my eyes to see if other people are stepping out of the circle. Nobody is. I conclude that I must be exaggerating. Then white light starts to pump through my body and it goes higher and higher till it explodes out of my head.
I feel totally peaceful as a wake up from a deep sleep. I hear nice voices around me; angels are taking care of me. I am on the floor. I am comfortable and want to stay there. I hear that there is blood: I’m bleeding. I realize that I must have fallen on the floor. I have a gash in my eyebrow.
I dare you to become more than a coward and a liar
Look, I know it is hard to be honest. Real honesty threatens our identity and will make us lose our ‘face’ (which is a mask anyway). It is very, very scary to let go of the nice illusions we like to have of ourselves. Also, our truth is buried in our subconscious. For 32 years I was completely convinced I was cool, confident and did not have many fears. Well, it was a lie, I was just in complete denial of everything I believed I should not be. But being honest beats being a coward and a liar. Just know that if you don’t become very honest with yourself you will remain a coward and a liar forever. You could be a nice and funny coward and liar, you could be successful in business, give to charity and pay your taxes without complaining, you could even be or become my friend. But it won’t change the fact that you are a coward and a liar.
Everything changes (for no reason)
I don’t feel very disappointed anymore when things don’t go as planned but it doesn’t make me feel very happy either. I am not sure if I am getting numb or flexible. Part of me wants to understand why things happen as they happen. We like to say that everything happens for a reason, right? Well, another part of me wants to give up figuring out stuff. Things happen and I don’t know why. I don’t see a pattern. The only pattern that I see is that my mind wants to grasp but can’t.
When I look closer I feel lonely and defeated but strangely enough it comes with a feeling of liberation too. Circumstances and others are not what identifies me. I have less and less to lose. It scares me, it makes me feel naked and unprotected. But when I breathe into the sadness and vulnerability I realize that this is how I connect to basic goodness: nothing to gain, nothing to lose, just living this very moment.
Just shut the fuck up and listen
Today during lunch I felt so strong. I just know I am onto something good. Things will work out even if i am challenged from time to time. I feel invincible, unstoppable. A friend send me a song that reminded her of me. The song is about somebody who is tracing down the truth and unwilling to play along with the mass theatre of ignorance. There is something sad about the song. It says that historically this kind of people used to be killed for its message but nowadays he will just be ignored and silenced. Well, this might be true but I am not giving up, not for a long time. We shall see what it takes to break me and if I can be broken.
When I was waiting for my food I fell into meditation. A mantra came to me. It is not so subtle. This is it: just shut the fuck up and listen. This is meditation in a nutshell: stop the useless babble and listen to what is going on, inside and outside. We miss so much because of the voices of self criticism, self consciousness, judgment and rejection. Our whole life passes by and we miss it. Just shut the fuck up and listen. I love it that my sadhguru is so blunt. I think I got it.
The next level
I have decided to try to spend some time meditating in a monastery. The possibilities for trekking are limited and I have been contemplating what to do. The guys that I have been accompanying the last days will move on to other places. I could do the same and leave Ladakh to find nature somewhere else. Or I could stay and give up the wish for trekking and look for a place that facilitates deepening. I will do the latter. Hopefully I am fortunate enough to fall with my nose in the butter and will I meet a beautiful teacher: a warrior that I can write about.
It is a difficult decision. Ladakh I too beautiful to spent just 3 days walking. I wish I could stay here for 6 months. But this is not the case. I choose for the meditation because I feel I have a chance to open up part of my subconscious I haven’t opened before. Also, I feel ready. And I would like to arrive in Hong Kong well prepared as I have the feeling that there will be a lot of work to do.