The Emotional Storm of Awakening
Welcoming the Tempest of Transformation
By Kosi
Awakening happens in a fraction of a fraction of a second and mastery of the endless gyrations of mind that occur before, during, and after awakening, takes an entire lifetime. It is the willingness to take a deep look into the depth of your heart that a profound and mysterious transformation begins to take place. This transformation has a physical, mental, and emotional aspect. It can evoke the deepest sadness, rage, and fear—any emotion that has been suppressed throughout your life will suddenly, and sometimes with an unexplainable vengeance, push up from the depths to be released.
This release can be experienced as the floodgates opening or an ancient seal being broken open. It is the deepest of all heartbreaks that can evoke the most profound sob or almost animal wale. The resistance to this heartbreak can be physically taxing and produce a feeling of exhaustion and even nausea, but in the willingness to simply be still and open—in the willingness to let your heart break all the way open—the demons of your past, your fears of the future, the rage of being incarnate in physical form, and miraculously, the demons of your entire ancestry can be freed.
This heartbreak can be experienced as a tiny crack or a huge gulf between what you thought would give you happiness to the realization that nothing in this world offers any lasting happiness or fulfillment. This disillusionment with life, even the disillusionment with the spiritual pursuit, practice, attainment, or spiritual knowledge, is the essential shift, which opens your heart to the possibility of true freedom, lasting happiness, and fulfillment.
Awakening is pushing the mind off the comfortable ledge of existence to the uncomfortable free-fall into the abyss of non-existence—the most profound and direct meeting of death. The mind can begin to struggle with this heartbreak and you can feel confused or disoriented or your mind can begin to spin as it looks around frantically for something to hold or cling to, but this is simply the egoic mind trying to regain some sense or feeling of being in charge or being in control when the reality is the mind is not in control and never was.
The intense feelings of worthless, self-hatred, and even a deep rage can emerge as the mind struggles to understand that which can never be understood. Culturally, physically, genetically, and emotionally, we are conditioned to move away from any unwanted feeling or experience, but to awaken means to meet everything we are conditioned to avoid. To awaken in the midst of these emotional storms is simply to allow that emotion to have a drink of the infinite peace of your own Heart.
It is in the allowing and the full-on meeting of the unwanted emotion or feeling of worthlessness or self-hatred, sadness, hopelessness, or rage, with an open mind, without any thought or knowing what the emotion means or is, that the deeper issue, memory, or physical sensation that was covered by the initial emotion, can be directly, intimately, discover to be gateway into what we most avoid—the great empty void of our own Heart—the narrow gate of Freedom—true redemption—eternal Salvation.
When we are willing to fall into this gaping void that is underneath the feelings of rage, self-hatred, and/or the deep feeling of worthlessness; we can experience that which is not an experience, we can experience That which the mind can recognize, but never understand, we can see the seer—that which is invisible but can be fully seen, but never described or understood—That which is eternally free in every breath, every moment.
It is in this deep and profound recognition that the deepest laugh can emerge of its own accord. A moment before you might feel like you will never stop crying and the suddenly and mysteriously you can feel like you will never stop laughing; you might even cry and laugh at the same time. This is the Great Laugh of Liberation that is waiting for all of us to simply stop and discover. It is the laughter of the heart that is the essence of who we really are, but any conceptual idea of this freedom or Oneness and laughter is like a dry husk of wheat in comparison to the actual recognition of this endless Joy of our true nature.
Nothing, no effort, no doing, can produce this Heartbreak and emotional storm of Awakening or the Great Laugh. All that is required is the willingness to be still, be quiet, and take one deep an unswerving look into your Heart. Simple and yet it is not easy to move against the cultural, genetic, and personal conditioning of the egoic mind. Yes, simple, but not at all easy. It is a challenge of a lifetime and it takes incredible courage to face the three great demons of sadness, terror, and rage that can arise—the ancient and terrifying sentinels that guard the great void of Freedom.
When you are willing to take stand for your own liberation, when you are willing to tell yourself the truth, you can see through the lie of your emotions that can seem to act like a barrier to the freedom, peace, and happiness that you have been longing for all your life. It is in seeing through the greatest of all lies, your identity, vanishes effortlessly in to the void of pure being beyond any concept of purity or being the moment you let go of or see through this identity as unreal.
This is the essence of the teaching of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. It his through his courage and willingness to be still; that so many have found the courage to fall of the cliff of existence into the limitlessness of non-existence—the endless Living Silence of the Heart.
When emotional storms come; welcome them! This is the great sign that you are close to true liberation—eternal Salvation—the realization that who you really are is Freedom—the deep and unending realization that Love is the Only Reality.
What is keeping you from falling off this cliff of Freedom?
