Enlightened Is Our Natural State of Being

It was 3 a.m. on July 15th. I was in the hypnagogic state of consciousness, the liminal space, the area of tranquil calm and peace, separating wakefulness and sleep. The silence was disturbed by a non-alarming clear male voice that said ‘July 31st is the day’. My eyes were dry, and I struggled to open them, the lashes seemingly tangled together. I could sense my wife lying beside me, sleeping soundly. I was not alarmed by this voice since I had heard it before, arriving years ago after a prayer, it offered guidance and direction on my life.

The prayer? May I be blessed to easily perceive and understand the lessons being offered to me.

When I followed its instruction, my life felt effortless, like grace itself was co-creating my experience. I considered this voice the verbalized voice of my Soul. This is why I listened. July 31st is the day!

I sat with this message for the next 48 hours, wondering what it meant. I sought clarity on its meaning in meditation. My final understanding of the phrase? July 31st was my last day. In forty-five days, my time here in this body was over.

For the next week, I thought about my life, A LOT. I treasured all moments with a refined sense of wonderment and gratitude while embodying presence and awareness. Nothing slipped by. The flowers, trees, and grass beckoned me into their silent inner worlds as I evaluated and investigated each moment for the next month of my life. Travel? A bucket list? Regrets?

I wept within the visceral understanding that I was living my life perfectly, spending my time perfectly. Nothing needed to change. This realization soaked my bones, altering my being’s fabric, penetrating every experience from that moment forward. I felt loved, blessed beyond measure. If my life were to stop or continue, I was at peace.

Fast forward two weeks. On the 4th of July, I received an email from the Vipassana shala in Wisconsin, reminding me of a ten-day silent meditation I had signed up for five months earlier, at the bequest of the voice. Examining the details of the retreat revealed its end date, July 31st! I shared this with my wife.

“July 31st is the day. It’s your day of awakening.” she said.

She referred to Turiya, the state of pure consciousness experienced when kundalini shakti is lead through each of the chakras to the Sahasrara chakra above the head.

“It will be your last day, of sorts!” she smiled.

With this new understanding of the message, I chose to go to Wisconsin.

Four hours into the eight-hour drive, I began to feel a pencil size stream of energy above my head. It felt like Vicks vapor rub was hovering above the top of my head, just above my crown chakra. This crisp energy continued into the morning of the 5th day of Vipassana. I am sitting cross-legged in the middle of the front row — two men to my left and two to my right, and four rows of men behind me. My mind is racing, agonizing, fixated on every pain flaring up from sitting for nearly forty hours total over the last four days — only 6 more days to go. I am compelled to open my eyes, and my gaze immediately falls upon the jet-black head of a screw sticking out of the wall in front of me. I was startled. The source of what was looking seemed to occur outside of me somehow. What was peering through my eyes occurred from behind me. Something or someone new was seeing. The me that used to anchor seeing was gone.

All of this happened in an instant, and it is in that instant that the cool-vapor rub energy coming out of the top of my head transformed to the size of a baseball bat. Powerful energy poured out of the top of my head toward the sky. My spine was afire with Kundalini, the energetic life force stored in the base of the spine. A literal feeling of oneness with all things penetrated my body. There was no separation. What was looking was the same thing as what was being seen. I was confused and disoriented, like a dog chasing its tail; something ‘behind’ me was observing now. My body was electric, my vision CRYSTAL clear as though a 100-year-old dusty farmhouse window was suddenly removed. Experience slowed and was overtly informational. It was as though my entire body saw reality. My body was listening, energized, and awakened. I explored what this offered in my upcoming all-day silent meditations.

Before lunch on the 8th day of Vipassana, someone sneezed. Time was occurring so slowly that I felt my body energetically light up” before hearing the sound of the sneeze. In other words, sound occurred (a sneeze), it hit my eardrums, my body reacted by creating an energy signature around my body, and then I heard it. Time was slow……….

At lunch, I sat outside alone in this quiet cove of trees. I sat for an hour feeling a bird chirp, and then each time after feeling it, I heard it. I walked down a path through the woods, feeling what I saw. Like sound, I recognized a part of my energy-body was silent when my eyes were closed vs. when they were open. I gazed at and felt the trees. I closed my eyes. I began to feel the scent of nearby flowers before I smelled them. Kundalini exploded once more. The baseball bat turned into a telephone pole. My spine seemed like it was gone, transferred into pure energy, pure bliss. I smiled, thinking the voice’s estimate of my day of realization was close, but it was July 29th.

On Sunday morning, July 31st, the day I was to leave and head home, I awoke at 2 a.m. with a very high pitch whine of energy climbing up my spine. I could hear it with my internal ear and sense where it was vertically in my spine, its pitch changing as it crossed each chakras connection.

“Shakti must meet Shiva.” I heard my wife say.

Shakti was another name for Kundalini. Shiva was the chakra above the crown of my head, where the Soul is said to reside. Shakti kundalini must meet Shiva above the crown of the head. I entered deep meditation.

White light erupted around me, engulfing me. Similar to the transponder beam used on Star Trek, but with enough energy to move the entire earth across the universe in an instant, everything was gone. The energy was galactic, universal, all-powerful. I was bathed in light, immersed in it. I watched a shadow fall out of my chest into the light, disappearing below. I recognized it as some aspect of me, of who I used to be. It was July 31st.

Time passed. Minutes hours I don’t know. The thought “What next?” arose.

From a week’s worth of deep meditation, I remembered, “just open your eyes” so I did. Nothing has ever looked or felt the same again.

I have come to realize this vipassana experience was just that, an experience. I believe it is why were are each here on earth living these lives, so we may discover our true-self. I believe there is nothing special about it or me. It is our natural state of being and something humanity is experiencing at a renewed pace. This experience was a point in time crossed along the journey of embodying my true divine nature here on earth. There is no final accomplishment. There is only here and now. Welcome to our natural state of being.