Love Ken...he brings such depth and clarity of understanding. When I was meditating 23 years ago, all of a sudden this energy started building in my belly, This energy felt like a strong tickling sensation. The energy built and then rose through the center of my body, exploded out the top of my head like a volcano...and then all of a sudden I was in a realm of Golden Light that was radiating love and intense ecstacy. The Divine Feminine Source always knew me and I always knew her/It. Like we had been intimately familiar for eons. This state lasted around 15 minutes. Then the scene changed and I was under a clear night sky full of stars. The stars began falling from the sky. As this happened, a syrupy warm liquid that I later learned the Yogis call "nectar" started flowing from the top of my head throughout my entire body. It felt extremely healing and blissful. When I was in the presence of the Mother Divine, I was still my personal Self...the self I always knew myself to be inwardly, minus the false outward identifications with things and objects. Learning to love yourself and have compassion for your evolving Self is absolutely essential. This was a kundalini awakening...which is an initiation into the Soul plane or the Soul stage. First you peak experience it. After this, there was 23 years of purging my wounds and shadow (karma). Yes, this was like a death...extremely painful and agonizing. But what dies is the false self sense, which is a knot or what the Yogis call a granthi. This work was even more difficult. This is what Adi Da calls the "self knot". It contains shame, low self esteem, a distorted and wounded self sense. All false things that the world of Maya told you, you were. As this knot dissolved, bliss began to arise from the center of my heart (the Psychic Being or Soul Center proper). This Soul Center is the True Self...or personal evolving Soul. Kundalini heals the shadow, kills the egos false identifications with things...like "my value is based on how much money I have, the car I drive, etc". We are conditioned in this world to this false system of being and value. This dies because it is false. Our true value and authentic self esteem flow effortlessly and manifest from the Soul Core. That was a big lesson. Self esteem does not come from the outside in. This is the false way it is in the world. Authentic self esteem flows from the depths outward. Authentic self sense is a characteristic of the Soul or Psychic Being. Now...I am in the expanded Soul consciousness...which brings fullness and fulfillment as a human being. The affective background of my "I" is bliss and light. I am in this state for 5 days...and then I fall out of it and have more inner work to do. Then the state lasts for 8-9 days and then I fall out of the state again and back into ego. In other words, it is true what Ken says in his books. First you peak experience your next stage...and then you embody the states of consciousness characteristic of that stage...and the states eventually become a steady always abiding stage. When you are abiding always as the Psychic Being or Soul or Witness you have reach Self Realization. I can't speak for the 7th level. I'm not there yet. I think the 7th level corresponds to the Spirit and this state of Oneness is more "non dual". So, don't let anyone tell you to kill your ego...you will become psychotic and will never make the journey to the other side. You need a strong authentic ego to make the journey. It is the false self sense knot that must be unraveled and let go of. Once the granthis are worked through...one attains Soul Realization or Self Realization. Took me 23 years of hard work and suffering. Peace...sorry for posting a novel.
Great sharing there! And explanation of your own graced journey! But you did the hard work, too!! What a journey and it began with a Big opening, well done, I have an interest in this for last 20 yrs but am going at a slow pace, j
Thanks for sharing your experience. It is very informative and helpful. Those of us who have experienced any of this can vouch for its veracity as waking up is very similar with, likely, small variations depending on the psychology of the person. To experience all there is has to be done in stages, safely. A psychotic experience is the opposite, a weak ego is no match for the subconscious mind and its imagery if it erupts and overwhelms the ego. It is important in meditative practice not to leave the mind blank but to have a spiritual focus, an enlightened person or a saint to focus on. There are tramp souls roaming the ether, and not to scare anyone, but concentration is necessary as they look to take possession of a body. This waking up experience will likely be happening to more and more people and it is not about us alone but for us each in our own way in how we live our lives to make a better world and at some point in the future arrive at a higher age. A higher age outwardly is reached by the precession of the equinoxes. ‘The Great Year’ is a good film that describes how that happens.
The great J. Krishnamurti said in his cryptic fashion "You have to read the whole book of your life before you can drop your conditioned mind. Some people can read it all at once and some people have to read it a page at a time." He believed that everything dissolves under analysis, including the conditioned mind. Ken Wilbur is right at what he is implying which is that this is a huge undertaking and very painful. And, right again, one might ask why bother getting involved in all this. Personally I think that most of us have had glimpses of who we really are and once that happens there is no turning back. Trying to stay away from that truth becomes so painful that one loses the choice to proceed or not. The dye is cast. Good luck everyone.
@@lysechrist1947 He knew. I believe he was a fully realized bodhisattva (imagine how that would piss him off, haha). I don't think people have the patience for him as much today but he really was only ever talking to those who did and who could hear him. I consider him my only real teacher. Of course Alan Watts taught me how to live! Namaste.
cck I agree with you and yes calling him that would piss him off for sure! You are right that people don’t have the patience for him today. A friend of mine used to call him Krishnamurky because he said that he never really answered questions. K wanted people to figure it out for themselves, not to be given the answers.
3 years is exactly true in my case. Amazing. This man is verbalizing what my understanding has become over the last three years. Extremely painful, both physically and mentally (literally caused me to die, twice).... But now..., having lived through my self inflicted hell, I am on a totally astonishing metaphysical launch to new heights. Breaking habits, reactions, outlooks and defense mechanisms has been a very uncomfortable, even agonizing, but ultimately rewarding battle. I actually love myself now. Only took 40 years to realize it. Peace
Thank you Ken. I wake up and regularly fall back asleep. The more I practice the more I awaken and the better life gets. Discipline daily for me to practice is key for me.
After the last few years of experiencing my own ego death, “dark nights of the soul”, etc, it’s become apparent that the academic philosophizing/meditating, “waking” practice is the exact antithesis of enlightenment: Thinking REALLY hard about how to not think?? Trying to be “in the now”when we already are right there, whatever we’re doing?? Actively seeking a higher plane of consciousness is an affront to the gift of the indispensable moment we have been given. So after all that laborious reflection and self-induced pain, i choose to instead just be here RIGHT NOW, and not sit there in my head picking it to pieces. Rather than looking the gift horse of life in the mouth and asking why, i now just watch how dogs live. Their lives are short, they embrace every moment and sense and emotion they have been blessed with in this passing instant, and they don’t question it, they LIVE it, NOW. This plane of physicality is a rare gift, and I will commune with the eternal universe once I no longer can enjoy this rare momentary tactile plane. But for now, i will welcome and relish every physical joy, pain, existential crisis and impending death for what it is. Sitting here picking it apart is a blashemy to the preciousness of the moment we’ve wasted in doing so.
I hear you, and agree fully. But remember when it first begins, it’s generally not understood. So people begin seeking. That is part of the process. You can get stuck in it. Endless rabbit holes await. Or you can wake up after waking up and realize how simple it all is. It’s a circle.
Watch how dogs live? Do you mean in captivity where all their needs are catered to by a loving human? Or are you watching how they live in the wild, fighting for dominance in the pack, scraping and scratching for every morsel of food?
if he is right in what he is hypothesizing? Then depth is a finite construct within our perceived dimension, therefore, has no relevance - in particular - I am speaking of the infinite conscious awareness??
I like this older Wilber, the depth and format of these interviews - great place to start before engaging with his scholarship. Well done Future Thinkers!
I was crippled, going blind and homeless. Having nothing left of my life. My friends and family went away. In five years in surgery, not a card, a flower, a phone call. The surgeons told me to make out a will, they couldn't guarantee anything. All I had left was my spirit. I turned to it and began to live life 'in the spirit'. It was the only world I had left. NOW, I live in a tiny chateau, on a remote island. When I leave the place, not often. I drive a rare exotic automobile. NO DEBT, no bankers, no money, that's the best part. I sit on my island and watch the world go to hell in a hand-basket. No family, no friends. But I never feel alone. I have a whole spirit world, who found me at the darkest moment with me. I do not fear death, I upset my doctor when I told him that. He has no grip on me. Makes me sad for the rest of the world.
> Mark Twain said this or it is supposed he did. “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” > After waking up here, I can vaguely recall running on a straight line as those billions of years went by. The best part of that sort of nothingness as he said, pain and suffering was nonexistent for the entire ride. Ironically, boredom did not even come into play, imagine that. I appreciate this life as there very well be not another existence like it. The interaction and love displayed between us all is the greatest gift as I think of my wife, family, and friends. But, that's just me. I have also had lucid dreams, a whole other topic. I do not believe in a "Christ" consciousness as religion has only hindered the progression of humanity and will possibly destroy everything.
I don’t believe “waking up” has to be so “painful” but I would agree it is difficult for most. A person can come to a realization about the false sense of the small self through meditation, contemplation or study of ancient eastern philosophy. It doesn’t have to painful and it is wonderful and blissful. You can accept the impermanence of life and the illusion of the ego but still live your human experience. The very hard thing is to sustain the constant awareness of the true witness self. The Buddha even found it difficult at times but he laid it all out for us in the 4 Noble Truths and the 8 fold path
A friend in high school over 60 years ago, was top of his class etc, on graduation night he took LSD. Police picked him up walking down main street naked and psychotic. He came out of psychosis but had brain damage and was never the same. Total tragedy. It can be very dangerous.
I had my first in the 5th grade during a chicken eating contest in the lunch room. It changed my life but I have had many little experiences over my 73 years. I still have an ego.
Ancient Viking age philosophy, 'Death is the successful conclusion to life'. 'It's important to live until you die.' Also, for happiness, 'it's important to develop a myth about yourself then live to fulfill that myth.'
Pick a story that our Life has been writing and choose how we would like it to continue. We all have lots of stories to choose from and we do whether we realize it or not because we are the ones who chose what is written already.
I practiced transcendentall meditation for a while....then I read Krishnamurti who said meditation is a form of self indulgence.....I liked that because I had a grandmother who pondered things quietly....she was very very strong.....and I think enlightened. Soon after this a woman I had met suddenly died....she was so energetic I couldn't believe it, and for 3 weeks I experienced a wonderful calm...…...everything I looked at was me.....I knew this...even a table lamp! But especially leaves on trees...…..but strangely not people...….I stopped smoking...………..I have always been interested in the spiritual life...……...years later I moved to a house in the mountains in another country......3 times over 30 years that inner voice said, "You will die here"...………...I spent years alone and knew that no-one could help....I would ask myself who I would like to talk to, Jesus, Buddha etc...……..but I knew no-one could help me. It is a tough life and some of my mountain neighbours made my life hell...…………...last August my house burned to the ground ……...I was pleased because it meant things were changing...……..but I now know I did die in that house...…..I feel as though I am the person I am supposed to be....how I was born...….Sadhguru doesn't meditate....he says he teaches it to make people sit still...…..like my grandmother...…….
Martha Cochrane Interesting...something or someone does talk to you at times. I met my cousin once at the shops I said hello..as I walked towards the shop a voice as clear as a bell whispered he’s going to die . It was not till two weeks later he died, I realised the future realm spoke to tell me...that’s just one of the many strange things that happened to me in that regard over the years...
@@susanbrown2909 Yes that voice clear as a bell but is it from another realm or is it from inside yourself"...…...whilst I was trying to move from a dire situation in my house I visited a 94 year old man who said he wanted to sell his house before he died......I said I was very interested if I could sell my house......one day as I walked through the front door that voice said, :But you have to love it Martha"...….and I didn't love the house, I just wanted to get out of a bad situation...….in fact I realized I did love my house...…….and even though I was surrounded by negativity, inside I felt love...…..like you this voice has proved to be right....in the early days I was a bit shocked and didn't take enough notice......also I would question it...….it never answered my questions....but it was always right......now when it happens I take 100 per cent notice!
Life as a sense of separate finite self basically consists of regretting the past and fearing the future. Ouch!There is a path of waking up that is based on Grace. This can be very pleasant even Blissful from the first step. It's unfortunate that it is so rare. Ken was brilliant in this talk and this talk rises to the level of beautiful pointing out instruction. It was joy listening to it.🙂
The main reason to wake up is to reduce suffering. If your life is amazing and your loving it...stay asleep and enjoy. But if life has become difficult its ok to wake up. The main takeway is don't just wake up but utilize it correctly. Learn to fear nothing which will reduce suffering. By reducing suffering your indirectly increase your happiness. And don't forget to serve others. Everything is tied together.
The mystical experience has happened in all times in all religions. The problem arises as time diminishes experience. There’s a tendency to forget the oneness, and to fall back into the superstitious traditions of whatever religious culture you were born into, inversely baring you back to an exclusive belief and returning separation.
Concerning enlightenment and the "death of the ego" .... speaking from a state of being on the "other side" of waking up and becoming unity conscious as an ongoing and growing state.... I have discovered that the rational mind and the emotional mind must integrate with the heart center. We talk about the ego death and I prefer to call it an ego transformation. I think Ken Wilber agrees. The rational mind must fragment to be rational and the emotional mind uses only the principles of wholeness, so logically speaking the creator has created us with a mind that con fragment into infinity and put back together again back into infinite unity. Is this not the hallmark of the master - the ability to take apart and put back together again better than before? I see this as the essence and the prerequisite for a higher self-aware creator being.
Great talk. The "cliche" "be.... here... now..." in English is actually the title to a book, which is how got to be a popular cliche. Goodbye Baba Ram Dass. See us again soon!
stay present..."Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans". John Lennon sang it, I'm not sure if he borrowed it or wrote it but it's a brilliant statement.
I think it is possible to have a moment of feeling in the here and now, the eternal now and then after falling back into the usual unawakened state. True for me.
Death before death...SO glad I've experienced this in a super spiritual and natural way!! God knows I've been needing this VERY important confirmation ❤ Thank you for sharing!!
A legend in your own mind......when many things went wrong in a short time.from beliefs to relationships to physical things.....you will ..experience something like death...
Why wake up? To smile at children and hug them, and be hugged. To visit the infirm and take them a smile an a good word. To thank GOD for seeing to it I've lived this long and happily prospered (happily because I can think of many worse off).
Fascinating stuff, lester levenson became fully enlightened very quickly, and remained blissfully happy and peaceful until his death 42 years later, he taught that it takes on average about 3 months to 'undo' the ego mind and achieve full realization. This undoing of ego mind starts with waking up and becoming fully conscious and aware, then from that state simply IMPARTIALLY observing your conditioned, ego self WITHOUT JUDGEMENT. Do this continually, just observe internally and externally, and within weeks to months you will be completely free of the ego, and experience total and perpetual bliss.
"Your first satori is extremely important in the Zen tradition." This is exactly why psychedelics are such powerful tools for consciousness work. With the proper preparation, one can have a legitimate glimpse of satori in just 30 minutes. (of course, this is not a replacement for spiritual practices)
I don't know... if you fail to do the proper "preparatory" work and do not put in the time, effort and mind effort... experiencing that "satori" in 30 minutes could be like giving a person $1M without him ever working for it, striving for it, and putting in the work for it. It's pretty meaningless and unappreciated. Another analogy might be taking vitamin supplements vs. actually eating healthy foods. The vitamin supplements have some usefulness, but it leaves out so many other necessary and essential macro/micronutrients the body needs.
There’s a difference between a glimpse and a realization. In Zen it is only a Satori if it is a permanent shift. It’s much easier to get a temporary experience rather than a full realization/shift
1:11 Realize your true, divine self. Realize your co-creative ability, power & responsibilities. 2:25 We are beyond time. Eternity = moment without time
I thought the discussion of why wake up would go towards why wake up if people interpret their waking up experience in terms of their stage of growing up and become terrorists or whatever. Waking up by itself can sometimes be counterproductive and this is why it is so important to also be aware of and include growing up, cleaning up, showing up and opening up. I remembered the answer to this from one of Wilber's books (maybe it was Integral Spirituality?). Waking Up assists all other areas. Waking Up loosens identity with one's ego, like he said, quite radically often even at the first waking up experience, and this means we are able to see reality more for what it actually is instead of exclusively through the lens of our ego (our thoughts, ideas etc. of reality). Because of this, waking up helps along the development of the other areas like growing up, cleaning up and showing up. Waking Up (loosening ego identity) is like a lubricant for the spiral of growing up. We become more discerning, more open to change.
I wondered what happened to him. He was proof of that old adage, people are walking around with their umbilical cord in their hand looking for someone to attach it to. A mesmerizing guru.
12:45 some people make the mistake of mentally holding on to the original state, and try and chase the exact same state as before. This is a mind trap. Just be whatever experience happens. What you need is just to realize what your ego is. And choose to use it or not. It's just a tool for operating socially
Wth spritual awakening taking place worldwide.. I vas vondering verr Mr.Ken Wilber was..He has great insight and it's nice not to know all that he talks about but the theme is right on.
It doesn't always happen like that. You can have a flash experience of being 'Nothing' - which is very significant - a real explosive kind of experience but quiet and subtle at the same time - a realization that was so obvious and hidden because it was obvious - like nothing you have experienced before. Then the consequences of that realization can last for months (like no thoughts and no negative emotions) but gradually the ego reasserts itself. Then another 12 years or so of contemplation and exercises and the realization of self, or non-self gradually takes hold or better, becomes the foreground and the 'ego' the background - something that seems to want to reassert itself, or appears to show up in certain faint preferences, or old tendencies - but it is weak - it is no longer in charge and making you crazy or confused or unhappy - all that has subsided. It is in the background and in service, so to speak, of this 'other' - the Real Self, which has always been there and is simple and clear and incredibly intimate and Real. In fact it is the only Reality - when seen through - there is nothing else. That is what is happening or has happened to 'me'.
Yep, we humans are commonly aware of the fact we can train our bodies such that we can do more things with it and it will behave much more consistently. Meditation of the present moment, seems be like exercise for your brain. It allows you to do more, allows you realize what the actual capabilities of the human brain are. I don’t think we’ve really appreciated how powerful this organ is.
It’s all about the genuine mystical experience...not what it looks like on the surface...as long as we feel or presence it makes so much sense! Thanks for this! i just started a conscious comedy page to explore these themes and loosen our conditioning.
Can you sometime address how we find ourselves in this position of needing to go through this to get to satori? Why are we not already there? How did we get here, and why...
Just a couple of thoughts, what your looking for ,you are looking with, and if you know it you can't say it ,and if you say it you don't know it..The truth can't be defined but you will be aware of it when you accept it.Words are handy stepping stones toward the truth but in and of themselves they are nothing so if you are looking for truth I'm sorry but you won't find it in the Witten or spoken word those mediums are but guides for what you are seeking. P.S. Whan I had my first Satori, I was never able to describe it no matter how hard I tried,, all I know that after that so many answers flooded into my mind that I had been seeking and my life was never the same.
I was happy to find this because it's rare to see the Dark night of the soul mentioned as being a necessary process that follows awakening. I caught a glimpse beyond this illusion after only practicing meditation a few times and not having any idea about actually being able to transcend anything. I thought transcend and finding something within was just metaphors for taking a chill pill to stop overreacting so much. I think beginning my meditation by focusing on Love and then relaxing into that feeling was the key. I felt like my breathing would stop and I was repeatedly jarred back to reality as though thrown onto the bed I was laying on and electricity was thrown from my legs and ran through my body. Even though I didn't expect anything like that, I did not feel particularly surprised and was not at all afraid. The next day I had the knowing that all things are a part of one thing and I had revelations of many kinds about the previous events of my life and the colors of the world were much more vivid. I had a compulsion to perform some kind of dance of the hands I called it, where I would move like Tai chi but faster and I just did this without thinking many times a day. This euphoric state lasted about a month and then I would say that questioning began to increase steadily, I could not figure out how I was supposed to act or exactly what should I do.
You just continue living your life. And hopefully a little less ignorantly and with a little less unnecessary pain. Chop wood carry water before and after enlightenment. I think with more meditation and practice you can reach higher states of consciousness.
@@lbeschrich For me and a unrestful mind; this bring inner peace with working movement to train your mind and relax the body to help stop over thinking and be in the present, which in return can wake you up. Just good old fashion remedy to still your inner mind and work the body which with lot's of stacking and carrying one can find what you looking for. At least that my experience and I've been chopping, stacking, and carrying since I was young and only now know the benefits of what a few chords of wood can do! Although you can never stop, but after a while it becomes fun and not a chore.
The concept of time only exists in the conscious mind of any living thing, time is personal and from infinite perspectives. You experience fragments that overlap, you as an individual live as a symptom of no beginning or end yet you can measure your participation by your evolution This gives reference to the timeline that has no destination or ever will as sentient beings only experience themselves once all at the same time
Yes we are all a part of the universal consciousness but we have a physical body to look after as well.The physical experience for the consciousness is the point isn't it?
What about premonitions: it where your mind sees the future z;some thought shows process of your future ,usually as a warning to your well being. It’s happened to me quite a few times and in sleep dream mode too;and theses thought pattern shows have come true .
Psychedelics allow you to consciously explore the unconscious ... It is the unconscious that forever was and forever will be, a point of departure and point to which all shall return. The conscious and unconscious are just different degrees (levels) of consciousness. One should master dreaming, so there won't be a need to wake up; row, row, row your boat...
This is e x a c t l y the point to meditate about WHY is it so painful for you ? Why do you not simply "chop firewood and carry water" ? I had to learn this lesson thru life i t s e l f , the greatest "ZEN-master" at all. Now I am jumping daily out of bed fit as a sneaker and ask myself: Whats next brotherheart. . . . . with 61 years !!
Interesting fact for pupils of ZEN: Even Nietzsche did not recommend meeting too many other people. In the end he was so disgusted especially with his german fellows, that hee f l e d anytime he could to italy or the swiss mountains. Most people a r e a burden to others. The famous Kurt Tucholsky always said " Je ne comprend pas" when meeting a german "Landsman" . He literally enjoyed h i m s e l f in Paris. And this wonderful sentence describes it nice: To be o n e s o w n m o s t c h e r i s h e d f o r t u n e . This is the reason why the masses are always searching fore strangers: Most people are p u n i s h e d with themselves ! Sad, but nevertheless so true . . .
Letting go of the past, live in the here and now? Suppose someone loses a limb 5 years ago. How is that person going to let go? and move on from losing a limb? The person has to adjust in the "here and now" to compensate for said lost limb. Great idea, but the past is what the present is built on. This is like in the book "Taoist on Wallstreet". It was very easy to let go when you live a sheltered life in a temple, or high on a mountaintop in a cave, but when he started speculating in stocks, and futures, he couldn't sleep at night, had ulcers, and turned to alcohol and eating meat.
Zen training is not necessarily arduous .Nor does it necessarily entail or require the verbal fluency used to explain certain cliched terms used here. Buddhism is both a communal and an individual endeavour. Cliches are often required to give a general idea, to save time .Psilocybin can give a very frightening trip occasionally. Logic is essentially a dualistic system, and it can be hard to escape its clutches while living in a Western culture.
Realizing that what people refer to as time is an illusion is grade school. Realizing the difference between this "time" and the very real space/time is another matter.
Is anyone familier with the meditation that brings on Satori by observing the witness who dont like being observed. There is a observation of the universe before you see the essence of who you really are (meditating in space)?
Ummm my perspective shows me objectivity & subjectivity from a different view point } depending where the I locates itself !! Being subjected to ... at this point feels really limiting but while gaining a better objectivity view - it feels as a distancing from being the subject or sub-jected to what ever...
Actually it's more simpler than that..... It just means outside this dimension. Time is constrained to this dimension because of space. Or you can say, time exists because of this 3D space... So if your vantage point or point of perspective is outside this dimension; you will feel that the past present and future are inside each and every moment. It's all about perspective and where dimensionally it is....
