Today I've had a spontaneous ego death/classical awakening and I'm still in shock

[billiesimon]

I have never experienced something like this, not even on psychedelics, even though I've had around 50 trips. I've been practicing sober inquiries for 4 years too.

Today something exploded in me and reality got completely recontextualized and I am in a deep state of identitarian confusion now, I have trouble doing human stuff because I'm still in shock.

 

@Leo Gura of course this is not the God realization you talk about, but this is the deepest I've had and the most shocking part is that it's completely sober and it has escalated SO QUICKLY.... I am scared now.

Here it is:

I went to a meditative walk three hours ago. I love doing Eckhart style walks, challenging myself to become more and more conscious of my perceptions, I allow thoughts but I treat them as normal perceptions, not too seriously.

I managed to keep this deep concentration for an hour and an half, and when I reached home I was so present that every movement and perception was slowed down in time. Deep silence, there were thoughts but these thoughts were not different from the other perceptions, nothing personal.

Time was slowed down, deep silence, and a deep sense of mystery and of flowing easily with life, no worries.

I decide to lie down on my bed to relax in silence.

I enter into a DEEP meditative state (closed eyes) where my senses become fluid and like some kind of psychedelic blend of perceptions. I MELT INTO MY OWN SENSES in darkness, it's a melting pot of thoughts, emotions, sounds, feelings, smells etc. Everything melts into undifferentiated senses.

 

Time STOPS.

 

Time stops.

 

 

.....

 

I wake up.

I wake up but there is no billiesimon. I AM DEAD.

I wake up, my body moves, I see the room, I am nowhere, I am in no time.

FORMS ARE LIQUID, they are static but I deeply feel how liquid and mysterious they are. They are like clay, a clay I don't know how has the power to model.

There is no identity, there is no one here, but forms. THERE ARE ONLY FORMS THERE IS NO ME!!!!!!! This bed, this wall, these hands, these are all true but there is no billiesimon here, it makes no sense!!!! There is no life here, only shapes and "perceptions" floating in the deep silence of NO-TIME.

I am DEAD. I am dead. I am dead.

 

 

....

After several minutes of staring deeply in love with these silent shapes, a voice comes up, finally.

"Hey, hey, hey, this is not normal, billiesimon, please listen to me!!!"

What?

"Please remember."

What? 

So.... my identity started to come back. I started to REMEMBER that I have a name, a past, a human agenda, a life-story, which seems quite imaginary now.

 

In the end the voice GRASPS ME and BECOME ME. It's MAGIC.

I've NEVER seen in my life formlessness become form (ego) in such a deep and clear way. I am a specific form now. I am billiesimon.

PANIC AND TERROR. 

"Oh my god what the fuck just happened?!?!? Am I insane?????" Fear and terror, but the deep silence and the "melting forms" sensation remains there, calming me. It's ok, it's just a thought, it's not real danger.

------------------------------

I have no words to describe this, especially because it's completely sober, and it has escalated quite quickly (two hours at most), from a baseline common level of consciousness.

I've had important glimpses on psychedelics, but this is another story because I've never had such a complete ego death with psychedelics.

I was completely dead, yet I was so alive, because there were just Forms, there was no important distinctions between any form whatsoever, and time was COMPLETELY GONE. 

Timeless forms, united. No personal self. I don't know how to interpret this because it's not an emptiness awakening, it's some kind of "melting distinctions into silent oneness".

The sense of mystery completely OVERPOWERED ME. Inexplicable mystery. Reality is TOO REAL, I HAD NO IDEA that reality was SO REAL.

It literally felt like reality was way beyond realness. It's insane. I hope my identity doesn't get damaged by this because I feel some kind of fearful backlash now.

@Leo Gura sorry for the long read but this was devastating yet blissful to me. I have no word to describe how beautiful forms are in that state. Hope you have some advice 

[axiom]

Sounds like a real glimpse of enlightenment. No-self. The self veils the immediacy of forms and in so doing extracts much of their beauty.

When the self is gone, everything has an inexplicable purity and vitality. 

It is like beauty and anxiety combined. It will probably seem to happen with greater frequency now. With surrender, the anxiety will ultimately give way to a greater beauty and aliveness.

Happy for “you”

Edited October 13, 2022 by axiom

[Carl-Richard]

If you fear it too much and it makes you not want to pursue spirituality anymore, expect a strong boomerang effect (i.e. it will come back even stronger), because when you let go of seeking at the right time, it has the chance to become your baseline state.

[Leo Gura]

Good. What more is there to say?

You're not dead though. There is no death.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Leo Gura

[billiesimon]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Good. What more is there to say?

You're not dead though. There is no death.

Well, I meant dead as a human ego. But I am once again in my human identity, it was just a temporary state.

Well, I wanted to know if it is possible to go deeper with sober techniques  since this was all "manual work".

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, billiesimon said:

Well, I meant dead as a human ego. But I am once again in my human identity, it was just a temporary state.

Well, I wanted to know if it is possible to go deeper with sober techniques  since this was all "manual work".

Of course it's possible.

But the highest stuff I talk about is not ego-death.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Leo Gura

[billiesimon]

55 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you fear it too much and it makes you not want to pursue spirituality anymore, expect a strong boomerang effect (i.e. it will come back even stronger), because when you let go of seeking at the right time, it has the chance to become your baseline state.

I'm not giving up spirituality, I've worked for it for almost 4 years  But I need to slow down because it was intense.

Why does it come back stronger?

[billiesimon]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But the highest stuff I talk about is not ego-death.

Yes, I know, I'm following your work. I want to reach God realization. I'm trying to catch up but it's a long road 

[Carl-Richard]

29 minutes ago, billiesimon said:

I'm not giving up spirituality, I've worked for it for almost 4 years  But I need to slow down because it was intense.

Why does it come back stronger?

Attachment to spirituality itself is a big source of resistance. Sometimes all it takes is to let that go. The only problem is that you can't choose to let it go.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[kamwalker]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you fear it too much and it makes you not want to pursue spirituality anymore, expect a strong boomerang effect (i.e. it will come back even stronger), because when you let go of seeking at the right time, it has the chance to become your baseline state.

Yeah it’s funny. Everyone thinks they want enlightenment and when it actually starts happening to you it can be fucking terrifying and your ego wants nothing more than to do cling to what it knew. But it’s usually too late. You can’t go back once it starts and resisting only makes it worse 

[WonderSeeker]

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you fear it too much and it makes you not want to pursue spirituality anymore, expect a strong boomerang effect (i.e. it will come back even stronger), because when you let go of seeking at the right time, it has the chance to become your baseline state.

43 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Attachment to spirituality itself is a big source of resistance. Sometimes all it takes is to let that go. The only problem is that you can't choose to let it go.

^^ lol how true it is

[BipolarGrowth]

Sounds like you’re progressing well. I would like to point out that many of the elements of this report of events lines up with some insights into emptiness though. Seeing the liquidity of form is a stepping stone to seeing emptiness. Seeing no self is a stepping stone to emptiness. No self also goes deeper than ego death though. No self insight can eventually show the emptiness of the Atman (Self).

[billiesimon]

4 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

Sounds like you’re progressing well. I would like to point out that many of the elements of this report of events lines up with some insights into emptiness though. Seeing the liquidity of form is a stepping stone to seeing emptiness. Seeing no self is a stepping stone to emptiness. No self also goes deeper than ego death though. No self insight can eventually show the emptiness of the Atman (Self).

Yes, I believe it was a blending of emptiness and oneness too.

It's more an experience of Anatman (Anatta). There was no cosmic Self, just fusion with a silent experience. I am really interested in moving up towards the true Atman, which is more of a Hindu-style awakening. Anatman is the classic buddhist experience.

[BipolarGrowth]

2 hours ago, billiesimon said:

Yes, I believe it was a blending of emptiness and oneness too.

It's more an experience of Anatman (Anatta). There was no cosmic Self, just fusion with a silent experience. I am really interested in moving up towards the true Atman, which is more of a Hindu-style awakening. Anatman is the classic buddhist experience.

Atman to me seems quite similar to Leo’s God-Realization I just think it’s more a question of degree and intensity with maybe some other components but yet similar structurally you might say. I came to the Atman side of things much earlier than I came to anattā which might explain my bias toward anattā and Buddhism. I got to experience Buddhism through a Hindu-strengthened base of practice you might say. They are both incredibly beautiful and both totally “useful”. Maybe something to check out on the Hindu side of things would be the Heartfulness/Sahaj Marg tradition. It had a great power for me even as a beginner and is still quite enjoyable to return to at times. I’d certainly consider Daaji to be one of the most balanced and embodied spiritual beings on earth although his representation and expression of teaching is in many ways antithetical to Leo’s teachings or at least the main focuses and ways of prioritizing teachings and insights. 
 

Heartfulness is good because it is a transmission-based practice which can produce strong results for some right away while also being quite widespread and accessible for a deep tradition operating in the modern world. 

[Loba]

This sounds to me to be the alchemical material prima materia.  First matter.  I've had this exact experience a year and a half ago while going through fever/psychosis/active death process.  When you "die" or begin to, the layers of reality start to unfold, and it is shown to be a clay-like material.  Those who are especially adept are able to mold this in such a way that they can transform their entire reality.  If you go far enough into it, you can not only lose your sense of self, but you can bring beings from the other side towards you - ones that exist just beyond this layer.  This is the doorway, seeing into this material.

You will need to be pure to be allowed access into using this substance.  There are layers within layers and you can get shut out if you manifest things through hate or fear - always come at it with love.  When you are in this state, you can create things not just for yourself, but change the entire structure of reality itself, and so you need to be mindful of this.  Generally people can't get into the wiring of this without lifting themselves up - a light heart with good intentions.

My journey has lead me to believe that self-love, one that transforms from within all the way into the outside world, will give you a purified, complete, unfiltered access to this if you return to it.

https://aras.org/concordance/content/chaos-prima-materia

The “treasure hard to attain,” whose presence was suspected in the dark prima materia, has been symbolized by the alchemists in various ways:

Christopher of Paris, for instance, says that the chaos (as prima materia) is the work of all-wise nature. Our understanding (intellectus), aided by the “celestial and glowing spirit,” must transform this natural work of art-chaos into the celestial nature of the quintessence, and into the life-giving (vegetabilis) essence of heaven. The precious substance is potentially contained in this chaos as a massa confusa of all the elements rolled into one, and man must diligently apply his mind to it so that “our heaven” may come into reality (ad actum)

https://aras.org/concordance/content/spirit-hidden-prima-materia

The examples given in the last chapter show that there is a spirit hidden in the prima materia, just as there was in the Nile stone of Ostanes:

This spirit was eventually interpreted as the Holy Ghost in accordance with the ancient tradition of the Nous swallowed up by the darkness while in the embrace of Physiswith this difference, however, that the devourer is not the supreme feminine principle, earth, but Nous in the form of Mercurius or the tail-eating Uroboros. In other words, the devourer is a sort of material earth-spirit, an hermaphrodite possessing a masculine-spiritual and a feminine-corporeal aspect.

This clay-like material is used for manifestation, in true magic, in occult practices.  You collect it, draw it into you, and See what you can make from it when you are adept at understanding its properties.

"What is your substance, whereof are you made
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend."

[axiom]

On 13/10/2022 at 9:50 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Attachment to spirituality itself is a big source of resistance. Sometimes all it takes is to let that go. The only problem is that you can't choose to let it go.

Yes. It is a huge source of resistance, as it becomes so imbued with personal meaning over the course of practice - sometimes over many years. The self grows incredibly attached to it because of what it comes to represent.

Giving up all attachment to spirituality is towards the end of the process for many. Apparently. The full circle completing. 

As you point out, it cannot be chosen. A true recognition of choicelessness is complete surrender.

Edited October 15, 2022 by axiom

[Breakingthewall]

I'd say that's a while without ego. what we meditate try to make happen more or less permanently. that is to say, you have stopped interpreting reality for a while, the energy that analyzes, evaluates, classifies, compares, has been silent for a few fucking minutes and it seemed to you that you were floating in the abyss since there was no handhold to hold on to, only reality. 

[billiesimon]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

I'd say that's a while without ego. what we meditate try to make happen more or less permanently. that is to say, you have stopped interpreting reality for a while, the energy that analyzes, evaluates, classifies, compares, has been silent for a few fucking minutes and it seemed to you that you were floating in the abyss since there was no handhold to hold on to, only reality. 

Yes, exactly. 

The ego/human identity creates distinctions and meaning. My life story and the world history were gone, and so all human meanings and labels. It was really pleasant because there's a huge silent freedom in this, and my consciousness was closer to truth than before.

[Breakingthewall]

4 hours ago, billiesimon said:

Yes, exactly. 

The ego/human identity creates distinctions and meaning. My life story and the world history were gone, and so all human meanings and labels. It was really pleasant because there's a huge silent freedom in this, and my consciousness was closer to truth than before.

The problem is that the software that analyzes, interprets, etc., is our survival system. It is genetic and also feeds from birth. something tells us that without it we are dead, the tribe can expel us from the cave and outside we will not survive a day. so we have a need to constantly overlay that layer of zeros and ones on everything. everything is past that leads to a future in which the optimal options are calculated. this makes us last generation survival machines, but it locks us in the mind. The truth is in the silence, but the survival machine is the opposite of silence , hates the silence. The art that we must achieve is to connect and disconnect the software at will

Edited October 16, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[ardacigin]

@billiesimon Thats great. Are you still experiencing this understanding as a constant baseline or was this a one time state of insight realization that seems no longer possible to replicate?