How I Awoke: The Story And Dynamics Of My Awakening

[Azrael]

Well, yesterday night I got a message from @Leo Gura - while watching the 5th season of House of Cards - in which he asked me how much 5-MeO-DMT trips I needed to wake up. After answering his question I shared with him a short version of the story how it all happened -- how I woke up. He suggested then that I should share this with you guys to inspire and educate you. And although it's still strange for me to talk about it in detail, it's the right thing to do. Just a year ago I had one wish and one wish only: To know exactly how it is like. And I will give my best shot in trying to articulate it.

Before I start though, I will give you some perspective where I'm coming from at this. What my background is, because that's utterly important if you want to understand how my journey took place and how the dynamics of the awakening worked.

+++ My Background: How I Got Introduced To Self-Actualization / Enlightenment +++
So let's go back two years. I'm 19 years old, sitting in my old room in my parents house in the night watching Leo's first video on enlightenment. At that time, I moved to Berlin, began my studies and I felt completely fucked up. I mean, my life in general worked out. My studies were going great, I moved to the city that I wanted to live in, ... . But I was feeling just shitty and insecure. I got bullied when I was 12-14 years old for making crappy rap music and it seemed that all that fear and insecurity from that time started to bubble up. I had a chronic feeling of being overwhelmed with my life, being anxious because of that and I didn't have the courage to speak about it to someone because I was deeply convinced that it would make me seem weak and like a victim - and I could not allow that.

So, if you asked a friend of mine at that time, he would've described me as this charismatic, confident dude whose life is going pretty well. That's what I pretended to be on the outside. I am pretty charismatic and confident - so that's not a lie - but I used it as a shield so that people wouldn't notice what is going on with me. Coming back to the night in my parents house where I watched the first enlightenment video, I'm just like: "That's my last chance. I have to try this, if this works (and I just believed Leo at that time because I resonated with his style of teaching) I can live in peace." I hated myself at that time, hated who I was and how my life went, so it seemed like a good idea to kill this guy called Azrael. Also, I was fascinated by the idea that this could be possible. I had never heard about the concept of enlightenment before and although I was deeply interested in psychology / philosophy and naturally way too curious about this world, I had kind of given up on ever really knowing what is going on here. This seemed like a solution to that as well. So, I started to meditate the next day.

+++ My Journey: How I Made It Happen +++
I have one big advantage over other people and that is: I get fascinated with stuff pretty deeply. Like, when there is a topic that I'm interested in I melt into that. I will research everything that there is about it, look at all the experts in the field, fall platonically in love with them, mimic how they talk and think, what they are interested in. I will live in that dream of that fascination. I will think about it all the day, associate everything that I do with it and make it my thing. That's basically me. That's why I am so young and so old at the same time. Because I live that shit. 

And as you can guess, I did the same stuff with my journey. I meditated, self-enquired, contemplated and tried to wrap my head around it. In the first year I was just very motivated and tried to get it all in. I knew nothing about it and I wanted to "get in there". So what happened? I actually began to feel better. I had my first realizations, I had cool meditations, began to experience my first mystical experiences and started to do psychedelics - mostly LSD and DMT.

So, a year goes by and I'm sitting at home. I moved a few months before that to a new apartment and Leo just released his video on "Free Will". Still, one of my favourites of all time. After I watched the video I meditated on the question "What is going to happen next?" for an hour. In that meditation a very strange thing happened. It felt like something cracked in my head and a lot of thoughts came up. I finished the meditation, began to cook something and noticed for the first time that I am able to listen to my thoughts while knowing that I don't say them myself. Looking back at that, I think it was the point at which my unconscious opened a gateway to my conscious awareness and started to really process some shit.

After that, the most horrifying year of my entire life started. My anxiety increased to a top, my unconscious thoughts increased to a top and just hypnotized me all day long. I just couldn't stay mindful. I was scared to leave the house because I was hyper-sensitive about everything. I was a mess. I was so fucked up that I doubted that this is still purging and I sometimes assumed that I am just mentally ill. That I'm a schizophrenic, with PTSD, anxiety disorder and paranoid. That's basically a good description on how I felt for most of the days.

At that time, I had probably the deepest realizations. Funnily, if you are in such a bad state you grow a lot and pretty fast because you are meta-analysing yourself all the time (because you are so fucked up) and through that you naturally have a lot of realizations and crazy experiences. From time to time it would stop for 1-2 weeks and I would have deep moments of bliss and clarity. Then the roller-coaster would start all over again and it would get worse. Just a big fucking mess.

Needless to say that this was also the time in which I tried everything. Every kind of meditation you know, every kind of teaching that is out there, any psychedelic that I could get my hands on. I was on it. I tried it, analysed and tried to use it to get me out of that horrible state. As I will later state, this time was the time in which my mind began to awaken. I just wasn't really aware of that because simultaneously it was flooded by so many disturbing thoughts and my body was fucked up with so many tensions and bad emotions.

This cycle basically kept going for the whole year, intensified and lowered, intensified and lowered. In the summer I got tired of it. I got tired of feeling so bad. I even had suicidal thoughts sometimes (which then freaked me out even more). So I stopped seeking. I still committed to the practice, still did my thing but I just gave up that this would ever stop. I just couldn't see how.

In the autumn and winter of that year I started fucking around with 5-MeO-DMT and shrooms. I also started using HoloSync. At that time I had some interesting changes happening. After my first 5-MeO-DMT sessions the tensions in my head completely vanished. That was nice but I was still in pain, still in fear. I also didn't have the nice blissful phases any more, I just felt mostly tired and sick of this shit.

That was basically my journey. A big fucking mess. A lot of trial and error, a lot of dedication and fascination.

+++ The Awakening of The Mind +++
In the summer of this horrifying year my mind awakened. I had a few awakening experiences before that but non that lasted. In the summer I had one Kundalini awakening. I just sat on my couch, was pretty exhausted and tired that day and thought about a girl that had rejected me at that time. Suddenly this ball of energy came shooting up my spine and into my head where it exploded. The first thought I had was: "Fuck, am I going to die right now?" It was pretty intense. After that I took a walk and was just completely shocked and fascinated with what happened and how I felt. All the anxiety and attachment was gone for this evening. And I could recognize the source. I could recognize where everything is coming from and who I am. I went to a buddy later that evening and it felt like he was a creature - not a human. It was crazy. 

The days after that experience the state completely vanished and I went back into my fucked up mode. However, my sense of self was now completely rooted in source. I could - if I wanted to -  know who I truly was. It was clear. But at that time, I still thought that this cannot be it, because I still felt so damn bad. I didn't know that my body had to awaken as well to be completely rooted in it and to feel the peace and calmness of the awakening.

+++ The Awakening of The Body +++
The awakening of the mind is basically realizing who you really are. Being able to recognize source. That's great, but only half of the deal. You can be able to recognize that with your ego still intact raping you like nothing changed. And you won't be able to realize what really happened because your ego is still there. The daemon is still there. Now, here is the story of how my ego integrated and how it brought me into total balance.

Roughly two weeks ago, I'm laying in my bed waking up (normally). It's a regular morning in Berlin. I'm still a little bit tired and dreamy, thinking about my daily meditation. And I'm like: "Ah, I don't wanna meditate. I just wanna sleep today." I'm pretty grumpy in the mornings btw. This is not the first morning that I think that way and so I begin to think a little bit.

Why do I don't want to meditate any more? This is my favourite and most intimate thing I do every day. And then I'm thinking about the last couple of weeks. How do I feel? How do I feel? I feel pretty good. Wait a minute, I felt good for a pretty long time now. Why am I not thinking about spirituality any more? I used to think about this every day 24/7? Why am I not thinking that much any more in general? I'm pretty relaxed all the time. Where are my chronic tensions in my abdomen? I haven't felt them now for ... Wait a minute.

And it goes on like this. That morning I realised that I had awakened. It was the strangest thing. I wasn't able to tell for some days what really changed, I just knew that I didn't feel bad any more and that all my motivation to do my practice just disappeared. (I still did it of course - gotta be disciplined with this and not listen to your thoughts.) After some time I began to think about myself again because I wanted to know what changed.

A few nights ago I skyped with my good friend @Huz and I came up with a metaphor that describes it pretty well.

+++ The Metaphor: How It Feels to Wake Up +++
So, in the normal non-integrated state of egoic consciousness - wow that's a phrase that sounds pretty evil just writing it - it's like you have an invisible suit that you wear at all times. This suit has one property and one property only. It makes it hard for sensations, emotions and feelings to get out of your body.

So now with having this suit on, when you have a sensation or an emotion that goes through your body it will naturally be resisted by the suit and so ping back into your system. It's like there is a resistance through that invisible suit. So that sensation or emotion will go another time through your body and by that amplify the effect it has on you. Because it cannot get out easily. It might get out after some time, depending on how strong your suit is, but it's hard for the poor little thing. Through that you tend to "attach" to what is going on with you. Even more, you begin to identify with what is going on inside yourself because the effect is so strong and always repeats because of the resistance.

The same thing is happening with your thoughts. You have a thought and it cannot get out because of your suit. It gets back. Makes another round, triggers other thoughts that cannot get out that trigger even more thoughts. Through that a constant chatter of thoughts is made possible.

As you start your practice you begin to unconsciously work on your suit. As you purge more and more shit its resistance gets weaker and more thoughts can go out of your system at first. Then, as this happens a lot of the repressed thoughts are now able to release themselves and your system is flooded by them. Because your suit is weaker they can get out but because of the volume of the repressed thoughts that are now set free it seems like you are regressing - although you are not.

Through that process you might be able at some time to recognize who you really are because so much changes inside of yourself. That's great and that's what happened when my mind awakened - however the suit was still on - although weakened. When the body awakens what basically happens is that the suit looses its last resistance and falls off.

Through that your body is now able to think and process emotions naturally without unconscious resistance of the suit. This of course implicates that you loose most of your inner tensions and that the volume of your thoughts go down, because they are not amplified any more. It also implicates that you are able to recognize who you are much easier because the strong identification with your sensations, emotions and thoughts is released and really everything that you are aware of finds a perfect balance.

This also explains why I did not instantly recognize what happened to me. My meta-analysis, my pain, my tensions, my thought stories just left like a daemon that raped me and through that I just was and am in a state of peace that is not questioning itself all the time and is not trying to get away from itself.

I hope this makes sense.

+++ The Aftermath: What Now Then? +++
Well, I don't now, to be honest. Right now, I am pretty relaxed. I still do my normal day to day shit, I still have all my preferences, dreams and desires. I don't want to get away from myself any more and I know who I am. I am quite empty. I guess that's a phase in the beginning. I will see where it takes me. I will commit to my practice and see what comes next. I hope that I am able to find a lot of more metaphors in the future about this and I'd like to write more about it to help you guys and make me understand it on an intellectual level.

One thing that is very important to understand here is the following: In all my seeking, non-seeking and whatever I did I always made up this picture in my head of "how it would be if I'm there". And that's natural in the non-integrated state of egoic consciousness - oh I love this phrase. I think that this transition took place because when I chased this picture of "how it would be" I was at the same time doing all the work that unconsciously set up all the dynamics and mechanisms to transform my whole being. It took the time that it needed and it didn't give a fuck how I felt about it. When it was time it first awakened my mind and then later awakened the body and when that happened and both came into balance it was just like the picture dissolved and I was shot from my path into a big fucking ocean in which I have to now find out how to swim. It's like I just completed this level and am now at square one again - just in a different world.

Well let's find out what's going on in here, right? Because the levels never stop. That's the fun of the game, I guess.

I'm thankful to all the members on this forum that I had and have great conversations with. Especially I'm thankful for @Leo Gura who introduced me to all of this and is a constant inspiration, source of education and a fucking pain in the ass to be more committed, @jjer94, @Ayla and @cetus56 who made me realize so much with their beautiful writing and lastly @Huz my great good friend from the UK with whom I have the best conversations about all of this and who is always listening and responding to my crazy voice messages.

Cheers, Az

P.S. Feel free to ask me whatever is on your mind about all of this. I'm happy to help and to further clarify what I stated here. I will - in the future - post a lot more about the techniques that I used, about more of the dynamics of the process, new trip reports and all the other good shit that we all love to talk about.

[Toby]

Question: do you have a teacher?

[Azrael]

14 minutes ago, Toby said:

Question: do you have a teacher?

I studied heavily the concepts and practices of Leo, Shinzen Young, Alan Watts, Rupert Spira und Mooji. But in real life, no.

[Toby]

That's why I asked. It's easy to delude oneself how amazing one is doing if you don't have a mirror who can show you both potential but also your delusions aka "blind spots".

[Bebop]

Awesome man, a lot of what you said sounds like what I've experienced on my own path so it's pretty cool to see someone else with a similar story

30 minutes ago, Azrael said:

This also explains why I did not instantly recognize what happened to me. My meta-analysis, my pain, my tensions, my thought stories just left like a daemon that raped me and through that I just was and am in a state of peace that is not questioning itself all the time and is not trying to get away from itself.

 

I had this realization recently as well, if I'm understanding what you are saying correctly what that means is the mind has become non judgemental towards itself (not really sure how to put this into words)? It still comes and goes for me but I'm able to recognize everything as myself, feel intense gratitude for being able to experience life as a gift, lost my fear of wondering what will happen after physical death (although the fear of being killed still remains), and of course that I don't exist and all of this is a very elaborate illusion.

At this point I've realized how many rabbit holes I've been down  that have made me lost and delusional and at other times I was on the right track but thinking "That's it? It can't be that simple?!" Not claiming to be enlightened (yet ) but I can see this is nothing but a never ending game of hide and seek that we are playing with ourselves for all of eternity; at least that's how I currently understand it, maybe that will change in the future.

As the great Jed Mckenna says, "Further"

 

[Bebop]

11 minutes ago, Toby said:

That's why I asked. It's easy to delude oneself how amazing one is doing if you don't have a mirror who can show you both potential but also your delusions aka "blind spots".

I agree with that but if someone is really strict in their practice they'll eventually see through their own delusions, although it will probably take longer than if they had a teacher. I've personally had a few irl teachers and they were invaluable for me to avoiding some traps.

[Emerald]

When I had my awakening experiences, it really felt like the suit metaphor applied. It was a complete release of the "suit", and emotions and thoughts that I would normally ignore and resist were suddenly non-threatening to me. I had no fear, even of death. So, they were allowed to play out at full stretch. Every emotion (positive and negative) was a like its own work of art playing itself out inside of me. And it was all beautiful and exactly as it should be. I didn't have any feeling of "this shouldn't be" or "I'm a bad person because of this emotion or thought." And my awareness  got deeper and more expanded because I no longer had to repress and ignore things to keep a certain worldview or self-concept. I will definitely keep your suit metaphor in mind for inquiries as I do my mindfulness practices. It may actually be simpler than I think to let go. I think I just love my ideas too much, and I still protect many of them. Thank you for sharing this.

[Paintballer]

@Bebop A teacher can only take you so far. Honesty with yourself if more important than having a real life teacher.

[cetus]

8 minutes ago, Paintballer said:

@Bebop A teacher can only take you so far. Honesty with yourself if more important than having a real life teacher.

I think Leo refers to that as " heavy lifting".

[Natasha]

@Azrael I was wondering about you haven't been posting for sometime. And you also changed your screen name. Always thought your posts were quite insighful, you came across as a serious seeker. Thank you for sharing and congratulations !

[Guest Annetta]

@Fidelio Do it!  

[Paintballer]

@cetus56 "you have to kill the buddha on the road to cross it" 

Heavy lifting is sometimes necessary on the path, and eventually the teachings of teachers will sound like empty words that can carry you no further. You then have to stand and walk on your own two legs.

[cetus]

6 minutes ago, Paintballer said:

@cetus56 "you have to kill the buddha on the road to cross it" 

You then have to stand and walk on your own two legs.

Teachers can only point to the gate. Each decides when to walk through it.

[abrakamowse]

Thanks @Azrael for sharing!! Awesome! There's a lot of pointers that will be useful for everyone here! Thanks again.

[KellyJoe]

 

@Azrael   Thank you so much for sharing.  I may have to talk to you more about this at some point so thank you! 

[SOUL]

Thank you for sharing @Azrael , I enjoyed reading it.

When we cease believing in what the ego produces in our consciousness it will do whatever it can to get back the power of our attention. It will even let us think we are losing our minds just as long as it results in us restoring our belief in it's constructs.

When we awaken we are seeing reality as it is without the constructs of the ego in the way and to stay awakened, what is called enlightenment, we continue to view reality through the prism of presence by being in the moment.

The ego will try to distract us from seeing reality as it is and instead for us to believe what it tells us it is through it's constructs built on the past.

The substances we would take to help awaken are merely a temporary chemical neutering of the ego but it has to happen naturally to stay awake in what's called enlightenment.

Edited June 5, 2017 by SOUL

[electroBeam]

@Azrael Can you be enlightened and still have fears like social anxiety?

The suit metaphor resonates with experiences I've had, but I'm not sure if they were genuine.

[nightrider1435]

7 hours ago, Azrael said:

. I finished the meditation, began to cook something and noticed for the first time that I am able to listen to my thoughts while knowing that I don't say them myself. Looking back at that, I think it was the point at which my unconscious opened a gateway to my conscious awareness and started to really process some shit.

I'm pretty sure I reached this turning point about five weeks ago. I got home from work and mediated for an hour. After I was done I went and picked up some food and as I was driving back to my apartment pretty much what you described right there occurred. 

7 hours ago, Azrael said:

The awakening of the mind is basically realizing who you really are. Being able to recognize source. That's great, but only half of the deal. You can be able to recognize that with your ego still intact raping you like nothing changed. And you won't be able to realize what really happened because your ego is still there. 

This hits home with me as well. I can recognize the source but my ego is still there and it has been hell sometimes. What you said about the invisible suit makes sense as well. I'm back in the fucked up mode like you said but my sense of self is rooted in the source. Seems like I'm in the process of weakening the suit now.

This post has helped out alot, thanks for sharing!

[AstralProjection]

@Azrael

Thanks for sharing that. My question is how long was it between when you first started taking psychedelics seriously and you reached this new level of consciousness? Thanks.

[Real Eyes]

@Azrael What a fantastic write-up, thank you.  

I'm curious about that initial "crack" in your head that you noticed, which you felt paved the way for what was to come.  Do you have any further insight on why this occurred?  It could be that the technique you were using was especially well-suited to this purpose... 

Perhaps years and years of meditation may prove fruitless without that initial crack?  Is this a well-known thing that other awakened people have talked about?