Now you shall get a break from me and my story. In this chapter, it is instead about how one generally can «come to insight». Then I'm not talking about the kind you can learn at school. I am talking about how most fishes can discover themselves and the sea. You are the fish.
The chapter is about «waking up to yourself». Understand oneself from the point of view of the same self.
Because you are not what you think. Your real you is the observer behind, the one who believes you are what you believe. So damn hard it is.
In this chapter, I explain the basics of a spiritual awakening. It is not a fluffy experience but a change of perspective, a new look, a discovery that touches and changes everything in your life.
The main story in this first part of the book is about an awakening.
You have heard about the injury, the trauma inflicted at a pre-conscious age and how this became entrenched and intensified in childhood and adolescence.
Now you will hear about the next factor in my awakening; the meeting with the person who sowed the seed in me.
I believe these three elements are typical, perhaps necessary, for spiritual awakening:
- An injury that brings you out on the side of «normalcy»
- An impulse to start discovering yourself
- A breakdown where you are forced to go into your pain
Now I will soon talk about the second point, the impulse.
But do I hear again that you have a question that remains unanswered?
What exactly is a «spiritual awakening»?
What happens to people who claim to have experienced something like that?
And, not least, how can everyone else experience this strange state – if they want to?
Not many people are qualified to answer this question entirely.
Many tell about their own experiences, about how it creates peace, tolerance, compassion, togetherness, joy, etc. There are also countless reports of loneliness, alienation, depression and loss of family and friends.
They like to appear as gurus or witnesses to the truth or something like that, and they happily share their experiences and give advice and ordinances.
I do not mention any names.
The experiences are certainly real enough, and the advice can be good. But often, it's all a little woolly.
You will find inconsistencies, half-hearted explanations, evasions, omissions and downright wrong claims about what the world is, what you are and how it all works.
Almost all emphasis is placed on personal experience. Suppose you fail in gaining such an intoxicating or reconciling experience. In that case, you must follow the rituals more rigidly, participate in the community more often, and perhaps even pay for remedies, benefits, and occasions.
It's an industry.
I say this with a touch of criticism because there are also exceptions, some real gurus with real, complete insights that embrace everything. They do not err or confuse, for truth can never err.
Truth is true always, everywhere, even outside of time and space.
We will return to exactly that.
I say this because I hear what the «real gurus» are saying is true. They say the same things that I know. We are talking about the deepest, the highest, and the whole of «existence».
Such people have existed at all times, in all generations, but they are very few.
Jesus was an enlightened one. Buddha was enlightened. And many more up through history, also now.
